US elections 2012.

[Happy Face 29]

I sensed the tension in this issue from you, it must be difficult to reconcile the Petraeus narrative with the one where Obama personally sets off drone attacks, shoots insurgents and locks up terrorists.

 

Hows that again?

 

The Obama role in drone strikes has been very clearly laid out.

[Gemmill 44900]

Does any fucker know what these two are on about btw?

 

I'm assuming it's foreplay.

 

Chez gets home, locks the door behind him and turns round and there's HF at the other end of the corridor in a silk kimono...

 

"You handsome Keynesian sonofabitch!"

 

"You beautiful Lefty bastard!" replies Chez, dropping his briefcase as the two stride purposefully towards one another, violently locking lips and pawing at one another's clothing.

 

Disgusting really.

Edited November 15, 2012 by Gemmill

[Happy Face 29]

Chez wishes he knew how to quit me tbh.

[ChezGiven 0]

Hows that again?

 

Because in the previous post you indicate that there are factions at work in the US government over which Obama has little control. Which sort of highlights that he isnt the omnipotent figure that the hard left portrays him to be in their desire to throw all aspects of under-achievement (againt their own expectations) at him. Which sort of suggests that there are limits to the power of the most powerful man on earth (true story), which further demonstrates the crucial role of bi-partisan politics in a fragmented power structure. You know, the grown up way of looking at the world.

[Happy Face 29]

Because in the previous post you indicate that there are factions at work in the US government over which Obama has little control. Which sort of highlights that he isnt the omnipotent figure that the hard left portrays him to be in their desire to throw all aspects of under-achievement (againt their own expectations) at him. Which sort of suggests that there are limits to the power of the most powerful man on earth (true story), which further demonstrates the crucial role of bi-partisan politics in a fragmented power structure. You know, the grown up way of looking at the world.

 

Have I suggested Obama was omnipotent? I apologise if I have, but I don't recall doing so.

 

On drone strikes he does insist on personally holding the position of judge and jury (not executioner) though.

 

Mr. Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret “nominations” process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical.

 

Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.

 

“He is determined that he will make these decisions about how far and wide these operations will go,” said Thomas E. Donilon, his national security adviser. “His view is that he’s responsible for the position of the United States in the world.” He added, “He’s determined to keep the tether pretty short.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=all

 

That report is kind to Obama. It suggests the families are collateral damage when a terror suspect is being taken out. We now know that the truth is Obama orders separate strikes, weeks later, to take out the children (suspected of no wrongdoing) of earlier victims.

[Park Life 71]

Obama personally pushed for more droning of Pakistan iirc. But the wider game is that Pakistan is being destabalised for god knows what...

[Renton 21627]

Can anyone hear a buzzing sound coming from above HF's head?

 

[Kid Dynamite 7030]

Romney, not bitter at all about losing, accredits Obamas win to the blacks and mexicans who he had on his side

[sniffer 0]

Considering obama got 93% of the black vote and 71% of the hispanic vote I'd say Romney is right.

[Dr Gloom 21924]

how much of the white vote did romney lose though?

[Dr Gloom 21924]

[Kid Dynamite 7030]

Considering obama got 93% of the black vote and 71% of the hispanic vote I'd say Romney is right.

 

He shouldnt narrow his appeal to the rednecks of middle america then

[The Fish 10857]

I would prefer this guy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20243493

[sniffer 0]

He shouldnt narrow his appeal to the rednecks of middle america then

 

I think you mean white not redneck.

 

Unless of course you also refer to the blacks and hispanics as niggers and wetbacks.

[Kid Dynamite 7030]

No, I mean rednecks

[ChezGiven 0]

Have I suggested Obama was omnipotent? I apologise if I have, but I don't recall doing so.

 

http://www.nytimes.c...?pagewanted=all

 

In every discussion about Obama there is the implicit criticism that he can do more to wield his power, you presented his preference for bi-partisan governance as his usual excuse for not getting things done just a few days ago.

 

That article is basically saying he insists on approving the actions of others. Again this highlights a naivety about how the world works and the extent of executive oversight. What i take away from the article is that under normal governance, kill-lists are drawn up by senior military officials and implemented under their executive control. A US president does not have oversight of decisions like this. Obama has decided that the military perhaps are not the ones that should be making these decisions. As the article states, "Just days after taking office, the president got word that the first strike under his administration had killed a number of innocent Pakistanis. “The president was very sharp on the thing, and said, ‘I want to know how this happened,’ “ a top White House adviser recounted". The US army continues to make executive decisions which kill innocent people during a President's inauguration. They continue to draw up kill lists under their own executive power. Obama's oversight it not necessarily a bad thing if the bad thing is going to happen anyway. You could argue he should stop the killing of terrorists but if he acted like that, we'd be discussing Romney right now, as well you know.

[ChezGiven 0]

“He realizes this isn’t science, this is judgments made off of, most of the time, human intelligence,” said Mr. Daley, the former chief of staff. “The president accepts as a fact that a certain amount of screw-ups are going to happen, and to him, that calls for a more judicious process.”

 

The process was already happening, by installing himself in it, the decision to kill a military target is now not solely down to a military individual who is not a representative of the US people.

[Happy Face 29]

In every discussion about Obama there is the implicit criticism that he can do more to wield his power, you presented his preference for bi-partisan governance as his usual excuse for not getting things done just a few days ago.

 

I think Obama does just fine wieldiong his power. He gets exactly what he wants most of the time, which is to satisfy his corporate sponsors.

 

My criticism of Obama is that on Liberal issues he starts from a right wing position and moves further to the right during negotiation. There ae many examples. He took a public option off the table before starting negotiations on healthcare for example. He has stated he will cut social security and medicare, raising the age of qualification, before the debate has even started. He didn't want to close Gitmo, just move it.

 

That article is basically saying he insists on approving the actions of others. Again this highlights a naivety about how the world works and the extent of executive oversight. What i take away from the article is that under normal governance, kill-lists are drawn up by senior military officials and implemented under their executive control. A US president does not have oversight of decisions like this. Obama has decided that the military perhaps are not the ones that should be making these decisions. As the article states, "Just days after taking office, the president got word that the first strike under his administration had killed a number of innocent Pakistanis. “The president was very sharp on the thing, and said, ‘I want to know how this happened,’ “ a top White House adviser recounted". The US army continues to make executive decisions which kill innocent people during a President's inauguration. They continue to draw up kill lists under their own executive power. Obama's oversight it not necessarily a bad thing if the bad thing is going to happen anyway. You could argue he should stop the killing of terrorists but if he acted like that, we'd be discussing Romney right now, as well you know.

 

As i said, that article is very kind to him.

 

It is not "naive" to say that killing children (it is fact that Obama has targeted specifically an American child accused of no crime) is wrong. It's not "grown up" to embrace such murder as good policy that will win elections and forgive it as such.

 

There are (were) systems and checks in the US that keep military activity within international law. If the military go too far at any point it is in the power of the president as commander and chief to discipline those responsible, to replace them. Extrajudicial assassination is against international law but Obama has not only immunized the previous war criminals that held office in the US from prosecution, nor just embraced it for his military and for himself, the worst damage is that he has empowered all future presidents with impunity when they use it, even on US citizens.

 

It's not even as if Obama's oversight does a thing to ensure less drones (there's been an exponential growth) or more accuracy, his only order to reduce civilian casualties was a semantic one to expand the definition of a "militant" to include any male old enough to take up arms. Which is something that could have been concocted at the ministry of truth.

[Happy Face 29]

“He realizes this isn’t science, this is judgments made off of, most of the time, human intelligence,” said Mr. Daley, the former chief of staff. “The president accepts as a fact that a certain amount of screw-ups are going to happen, and to him, that calls for a more judicious process.”

 

The process was already happening, by installing himself in it, the decision to kill a military target is now not solely down to a military individual who is not a representative of the US people.

 

See my previous post. There is no oversight whatsoever. Wheras there was a military answerable to a president sworn in to protect the consitution there is now a president tearing up the constitution and ordering killings of people he doesn't even know the name of.

[Park Life 71]

Romney was probably lucky not to get droned innit.

[ChezGiven 0]

See my previous post. There is no oversight whatsoever. Wheras there was a military answerable to a president sworn in to protect the consitution there is now a president tearing up the constitution and ordering killings of people he doesn't even know the name of.

I'm going to assume there is strong evidence which makes them a threat to the security of his country. This is the reality of the war, they couldb win it through normal combat so they have to take people out who pose a real threat. If the threat is real, the actions are justified and the system is better served with a legally trained President with a conscious doing it than General Cheeseburger.

 

As for the drones issue, as soon as the Taliban knew the US were preparing to reduce numbers and presence, they crawl out of their little holes all over the region to start taking back power. All this killing and stuff is going to happen anyway, its a question of how you want it to happen. It appears you would leave the moral judgements and the discretion to kill to army generals, which i find bizarre.

 

The bottom line is this. He wont invade Iran, Romney would have.

[Park Life 71]

He won't even Ok it. Netandickhead as already tried and failed to convince him. I'd like to see Obama a bit more robust regarding Israel and Palestine however.

[Happy Face 29]

I'm going to assume there is strong evidence which makes them a threat to the security of his country. This is the reality of the war, they couldb win it through normal combat so they have to take people out who pose a real threat. If the threat is real, the actions are justified and the system is better served with a legally trained President with a conscious doing it than General Cheeseburger.

 

As for the drones issue, as soon as the Taliban knew the US were preparing to reduce numbers and presence, they crawl out of their little holes all over the region to start taking back power. All this killing and stuff is going to happen anyway, its a question of how you want it to happen. It appears you would leave the moral judgements and the discretion to kill to army generals, which i find bizarre.

 

The bottom line is this. He wont invade Iran, Romney would have.

 

There is no war. There isn't an opponent that can surrender to end it. There is a permanent state of illegal violence imposed on the rest of the world. You can congratulate yourself that Obama took it this time, but there WILL be a Republican president in the future, whether it's 4 years, 8 or 12, and because of the assassination powers Obama has gifted himself, and by extension all those future presidents, they'll be more dangerous, thanks to him.

 

It's a prevailing wisdom that we have to be killing somebody. To kill nobody, to aim for peace, to withdraw our invading armies from their land (an approach which would do more to end suicide attacks in one fell swoop than the last 10 years of whack-a-mole-ing terrorists) is only a fringe view. It's a sick society that normalises that thought process and doesn't look for a politician with ANY sort of exit strategy whatsoever.

 

Obama may not invade Iran, but if he doesn't he'll continue crippling sanctions that are killing thousands, sanctions which will go on until some president goes in, or gives Israel the ok to do so.

[Happy Face 29]

He won't even Ok it. Netandickhead as already tried and failed to convince him. I'd like to see Obama a bit more robust regarding Israel and Palestine however.

 

US election over and Israel ratchet up the bombing on Palestine within days. Blatantly agreed well in advance to take it easy while the elections in full swing, but fill their boots after.

[Happy Face 29]

My criticism of Obama is that on Liberal issues he starts from a right wing position and moves further to the right during negotiation. There ae many examples. He took a public option off the table before starting negotiations on healthcare for example. He has stated he will cut social security and medicare, raising the age of qualification, before the debate has even started. He didn't want to close Gitmo, just move it.

 

As predicted, the claim that Obama will move more to the left now he has secured a second term is looking dodgier and dodgier.....

 

Ezra Klein says that the shape of a fiscal cliff deal is clear: only a 37 percent rate on top incomes, and a rise in the Medicare eligibility age.

 

I’m going to cross my fingers and hope that this is just a case of creeping Broderism, that it’s a VSP fantasy about how we’re going to resolve this in a bipartisan way. Because if Obama really does make this deal, there will be hell to pay.

 

First, raising the Medicare age is terrible policy. It would be terrible policy even if the Affordable Care Act were going to be there in full force for 65 and 66 year olds, because it would cost the public $2 for every dollar in federal funds saved. And in case you haven’t noticed, Republican governors are still fighting the ACA tooth and nail; if they block the Medicaid expansion, as some will, lower-income seniors will just be pitched into the abyss.

 

Second, why on earth would Obama be selling Medicare away to raise top tax rates when he gets a big rate rise on January 1 just by doing nothing? And no, vague promises about closing loopholes won’t do it: a rate rise is the real deal, no questions, and should not be traded away for who knows what.

 

So this looks crazy to me; it looks like a deal that makes no sense either substantively or in terms of the actual bargaining strength of the parties. And if it does happen, the disillusionment on the Democratic side would be huge. All that effort to reelect Obama, and the first thing he does is give away two years of Medicare? How’s that going to play in future attempts to get out the vote?

 

If anyone in the White House is seriously thinking along these lines, please stop it right now.

 

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/i-hope-this-isnt-true/