Obama - The beginning
 

Lets see what is happening under the new leadership. Since there is so much hope and anticipation. . .

Day One:
Obama tackles recession, war and ethics
That's one heck of a start.

I was listening to the news this morning and heard his bit about transparency in government in connection with not allowing gifting by lobyists etc.

While I think this is a great step, I wondered how long it might be before the first scandal comes out about a dem accepting some kind of gift.

Obama has an enormous number and variety of problems to deal with, but if he's as good at actually being president as he is at looking presidential, he might just pull it off.
And hey, why am I still getting spelling error messages for Obama? Time for an upgrade patch!

Compare what we know about Clinton with what we have already seen from Obama.

Clinton was superb at grasping a current problem and acting on it. Generals loves how he would ask the right questions and give them the leadership they needed. As a result, Clinton turned potential disasters such as Haiti, the Mississippi floods, and the Balkans into simple and immediately resolved issues.

But Clinton was not so good at getting ahead of issues. For example, he was slow at getting together an administration. He was slow at defining an ultimate and long term solution to the Middle East once extremists had successfully undermined the Oslo Accords by (for example) killing Rabin. Having realized he had no solution, Clinton desperately tried another 'Hail Mary' solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict only in his last year.

So far, we know Obama has long term plans. For example, he has no short term plan for our economic calamity. Obama has already confirmed a belief in what economists predict – an example of addressing a problem rather than waiting to react to its symptoms. Obama expects years of recession and to be paying for this economic disaster even a decade from now.

He has already made bluntly clear some milestones such as out of "Mission Accomplished", into the only war we have any business being in, restoration of international relations all over the world, talking to our 'enemies', a long term economic agenda, ethics in government, and closing the American concentration camp in Guantanamo. Clinton never had such clear objectives when he took power.

It will be most interesting to see how well Obama achieves his long term objectives AND continues to define new ones. Whereas Clinton could respond decisively to Saddam (having almost drive Saddam from power), hopefully, Obama will also avert other problems before those problems fester.

Top of my list? The spread of nuclear weapons which has been all but encouraged by America this past decade by not talking to others, by viewing the world in black and white (ie axis of evil), and by subverting another international treaty - the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty. One problem that cannot be solved by a responsible response. An example of a problem that must be solved long before it happens. Clinton was not very good at this. First impressions suggest Obama is looking farther ahead.

I've worked a number of jobs and I've mentored a number of newbees in my career. Most people take weeks to be any kind of useful. There's just always stuff to ramp up for. Give the guy a couple of days. :rolleyes:

On the news they were talking to an analyst who said he has heard murmurings that it might now become politically savvy to actually work together and try to solve a few things. He went on to say it sounds good, until the arguments start. :)

Still, I like how he's hit the ground running. I doubt he'll rest in 4 years.

This will be fun.

The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises

PolitiFact has compiled about 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on our Obameter. We rate their status as No Action, In the Works or Stalled. Once we find action is completed, we rate them Promise Kept, Compromise or Promise Broken.



http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

And a great start for the kids.

Sasha and Malia, we were seven when our beloved grandfather was sworn in as the 41st President of the United States. We stood proudly on the platform, our tiny hands icicles, as we lived history. We listened intently to the words spoken on Inauguration Day service, duty, honor. But being seven, we didn't quite understand the gravity of the position our Grandfather was committing to. We watched as the bands marched by -- the red, white, and blue streamers welcoming us to a new role: the family members of a President.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123239885943895155.html

Great article Bruce. I'm glad to hear that he is committed to advancing the military, instead of totally abusing it or abandoning it.

I have to appalude his actions on former administration officials who leave office and become lobbyists. That was pretty bold. To bad the Dems in Congress couldn't do that.

He's promised honest, transparent, leadership. I'll be happy with that.
Whether his goals come to fruition depends largely on congress and bureaucrats, and we should pressure them to do what we want.

I am a lot more worried about Pelosi than I am Obama. He seems extremely competent so far. She was on Larry King last night and will be again tonight. She is still on another planet. I watched a bunch of "those cable news shows" last night, mostly CNN... They are all asking how long the honeymoon will last??? WTH? The guy just sat down.

I'm sure we'll be getting "the first 100 days" comparisons.

Why shouldn't we?

Not saying we shouldn't, just seems to be a standard thing with the media, therefore I expect it.
I don't know how they come up with 100 days as a benchmark, though? Maybe that's how long they figure the post election/inauguration momentum lasts that he can take advantage of?

plus that's when everyone is focused on tax season, and they are not too keen on the government then

Well only an idiot would abandon the military. Military generals have vast influence and I doubt we want our military engineers working for China, Russia, or anyone else.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu gave a great all-hands speech to the National labs. Rob Roser at Fermilab (who attended the speech) took the following notes. Red highlights are my emphasis.

I find this truly remarkable. I certainly hope to be one of the "young scientists shifting careers to deal with energy"!

I was really pleased when I learned that Chu was taking over DOE. There was a PBS program on the other night all about US energy policy and the future and Chu was featured extensively. He's a very smart man, and we are very lucky to have him in this position. I'm so glad Bush is gone and we are getting real scientists back into government. We are actually pointed in the right direction again.

The program sort of came to the conclusion that we need to buy some time to get alternative energy (mainly wind and solar) working for us, and to buy the time, the best choice is to build a couple nuke plants in each state.

PA has our share, about time you fuckers caught up. :haha:

Obama gets his opening grade

Are 1500 people enough to really gauge anything?

"Dewey Defeats Truman."

No, and even if it did he's got a very long row to hoe. Polls, like the stock market or a college education, will have ups and downs but we won't know the true results in less than a year.

Interesting take:

ROOTING FOR OBAMA
THE NATION NEEDS THE HOPE

Republicans should admit, occasionally, when there's real progress for the country, abroad or at home. And never, ever root for national defeat, just to boost their own prospects.

From what I've seen here in the Cellar, this will never happen, not for folks like ahem, and ahem...

Gosh, Those Wacky Iowans!
 

The Obamessiah?

I still maintain that he is the Biblical Anti-Christ.

You think I'm wacky now, but just you wait until the Great Tribulation ...

8 years of Bush? Been there, done that.

Praise da Lord!!!!

PELOSI SAYS BIRTH CONTROL WILL HELP ECONOMY
Sun Jan 25 2009 22:13:43 ET

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic "stimulus" package, claiming "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."

Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.

The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC's THIS WEEK.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

I think her intent was correct, her verbage not so much.

How's about welfare not paying for extra babies? Depot Provera implants should be mandatory for women on welfare (if there were a viable injectable/implantable male contraceptive, I'd support that also). And drug testing.

Can't agree more.

She readily admits that it is NOT a stimulus at all. It is hopefully a reduction in costs or a savings. Nowhere did she say that it was a stimulus. There are a lot of things similar to that in this package. They may be good and have benefits, but they are not stimulating any economic recovery.

Caterpillar--cutting 20,000 jobs
Sprint/Nextel--cutting 8000 jobs
Home Depot--cutting 7000 jobs


35,000 jobs lost


I must say that Obama better get on the stick. Did anyone see the number of large companies that anounced job layoffs today? He keeps talking about how this economic plan being cooked up by the Dems in Congress and his administration are going to create all these jobs. So far I am not sure that anyone can say that a single job has been created and there are none to be created in the immediate future. Right now a lot of talk about what we need and what they are going to do, but no plan on how to make it happen.

I'm trying to be patient. :bites tongue:

Yeah, I'm pretty pissed at myself for voting for him. It's been 6 motherfucking days, and no results that I can see. Sheesh. He sucks. :headshake

Don't bite to hard. And certainly don't hold your breath. Steady drum beat but no plan of attack.

I think there is definitely a plan. Its effectiveness is unknown, but it can't be any worse than the last one...can it?

Well one the one hand you have the US gov't giving bonuses to bank executives. And on the other they are talking about building roads and bridges and shit. I'd agree. Can't be any worse.

Well it won't mean squat if something actionable is not started immediately. I fear that this job creation fantasy is just that, a fantasy, not a plan. I think they believe that if they throw money at a system it will just start up like the turn of a key and jobs will be created. That would be highly unlikely.

Let's take that one example, and I think about it because they keep repeating it. Now say they free up a bunch of money for roads and bridges specifically. Who would be first in line for that money? Most likely it would go to the individual states for their highway, roads, and bridges, or even if is a national plan, who would be first in line for that money? Well that would be those companies that are best suited to immediately fill equipment with gas and put shovels in hands and begin work right? Well no, the law requires a bidding process for public works projects by private companies. That takes time. I guess they could figure out a way to fast track that process if they even think about it. Ok, so now we have the companies that are best suited to begin work, which companies? The ones that already have all the equipment and a ready force of workers to do the job, even if they call back recently laid off workers, we are not talking about a lot of people here. And of all those who have just been laid off, how many are willing to leave a desk job and jump right on a shovel? I doubt that many. The problem is huge and not simple.

Reminds me of all the critical views on Haliburton at the start of the various wars, they were the only ones pre-positioned to do the job.

Not sure what's going to happen with that pesky infrastructure stuff, since none of the work is allowed to be done by white male construction workers, or anyone else with experience.

I have a little insight into that Merc. The worst part is that they are looking to REPAIR bridges and need the ones which can be completed in the shortest amount of time with the least disruption to traffic. This means that the ones which need reparations the most are not going to be worked on. That gets things moving quickly, but still leaves the bridges in the worst shape - just that, in the worst shape. Addressing them is apparently not on the "short list."

Yea, I forgot about that whole minority owned company hire thing, but isn't that really limited only to some percentage of the bids awarded?

Have you even seen a list? I have not. But I hear a lot of rhetoric about trillions of dollars and jobs being created.

With an infrastructure based spending spree, at least you end up with the infrastructure, regardless of how effective the program was at stimulating the economy. We have major highway bridges falling down. We need the infrastructure to be rebuilt. It's an investment in our future, and it will also stimulate the economy to some extent as we do it. That's how infrastructure spending is different from the fool's war in Iraq where we ended up with what we started with.

But that is not how it is being sold to us. It is being sold as a jobs creation program. And the only companies that will actually benifit will be those that are pre-positioned to do the work.

But at least those pre-positioned companies won't be forced to have those layoffs they were contemplating in the near future, right?

Actually most have already layed off and are without contract jobs because the states have run out of money and only the most pressing jobs are being completed. If that were not the case there would be no discussion about how abismal our roads and bridges are. Most of the small trucking companies are but a shell of what they were or have closed all together. Hopefully Obama's plan will work and all these people use to working in air conditioned factories and behind desks in cushy offices are going to hit the fresh air and with freezing temps in the winter and blazing heat in the summer to get work.

That may be true, but again this is being touted as a job creation/stimulus. What it appears to be is something different. Hell, I'm not involved, but it sure is beginning to seem like something other than what we were originally told.
At least its going to do some good other than redecorating an office for 1 mil+ or going to bonuses.

35,000 jobs lost is not all that many. 2,590,000 jobs were lost in 2008.

I wondered about that, UT.

It reminds me of another article which was posted somewhere, outlining the horrors of proposed tax plans which would give "rebates" (quotation marks theirs) to people on taxes they never paid out in the first place.

And, that's different than now, how? That's pretty typical now.

sar/Perhaps those are liberal's jobs and thats why they are important.
Got the elections in 2 years/casm

This was pretty accurate:

Obama faced an early test last week, when, in the midst of the debate over economic stimulus, Democrats worked to shut Republicans out of the policy process, then behaved boorishly when Republicans complained.

Democratic leaders responded with the political equivalent of a sack dance in football. “If it’s passed with 63 votes or 73 votes, history won’t remember it,” said Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois.

Yes We Did

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi added to the mood by saying, “Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election.”

There is still time for Obama to object to such behavior. If he wants to fulfill the promise of his rhetoric, he should take Pelosi to the woodshed and insist that she include Republicans, collegially, in the process. He should stand up to his party and threaten to veto a bill if it fails to make reasonable concessions to his friends across the aisle. He should advise his own staff to begin returning the phone calls of senior Republican aides.

If he fails to do that, there can be little doubt that government will fail to change and will continue to fail us. When times are good, one might be able to survive with a pitiful government. Today, we might not be so lucky. We are living in a fleeting moment where real change is possible. Aristotle is watching.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aaX0MEqeCGjA

deja vue? Didn't I just read this in another thread?

Obama has been doing a good job so far of reversing the horrible and destructive executive orders of the Bush administration and he's working to make workings of the Executive branch more transparent and accountable. He's going to reverse the military commissions act. He's ordered the withdrawal of troops from our illegal war in Iraq. He's done something great for the environment by demanding higher mileage standards and allowing California to set our own standards.

I don't really like that he's trying to put together another bail out to restart the economy. This money must come from somewhere, and that will either be from printing more money (inflation) or raising taxes. Either way this harms the economy and doesn't help it.

I expect this from Democrats though. They think government should be all things to all people. Republicans on the other hand think government should enforce Christian morality onto people despite the fact that America is not a Christian nation.

Overall I'm pleased so far with Obama's performance. I give him an B+/A-

Of course Bush was such a disgrace to America he not only got an F-

May have, did I post it? If so I don't think it was intended.

But it's wrong. The republicans DID get a chance to add amendments. And after they did, and the democrats voted with them on the amendments just to appease them and appease a bipartisan solution... the republicans STILL vote against it.

We shouldn't play ball if they won't. We have enough votes, shut 'em out if they wont play along.