0
POPSObama Abandons Public Option
Many progressives had hoped for a single-payer, universal health care system, the kind that many industrialized countries have and which have a demonstrable history of working well. But it was clear that when Obama ran for president that possibility would never materialize during his administration. The "public option" was the best one could hope for. Now Obama is ready to abandon that idea in favor of co-ops, a sort of Fanny-Med approach to public health care. Because these co-ops will be required to maintain the same financial reserves as private insurerers, the competitive adavantage they will provide to private insurers will probably little better than marginal. The upshot will be the continuation of millions of Americans without health insurance of any kind. Continued bankruptcies, the continuation of people dying from the lack of health care, etc. A slight improvement perhaps, but everything remaining much the same. The political need for Obama to declare victo
1
POPSMore Red-Baiting of Obama: The "Socialist" Joker Here we have yet another demonstration of lablelling substituting itself for critical thought. Obama gets red-baited once more. It's a pity that Tyler Nixon at Delaware Libertarian isn't an artist because if he were he could do an image of Obama as a fascist, something he labeled the President in a recent post: http://tinyurl.com/nq7bjn Thoughtful criticism must be difficult for these people.
0
POPSIs the GOP Rank & File Daft? Basically, 58% of the GOP either think that President Obama was not born in the USA or are unsure about his place of birth. That is nuttiness on a massive scale.
8
POPSObama to Let the Torturing Thugs Off It's as disgusting as something gets: let the criminals go Scott free. Obama intends to let off those CIA officials who tortured others during the George Bush regime. The reason? Because these thugs were told their acts were legal by the Bush administration. It's Nuremberg defense all over again. Apparently, as long as you believe you are following a lawful order, you have no obligation to check the law for yourself, much less employ your conscience or have one. There has never been a tyrant and his henchmen in the history of humanity that hasn't employed the same rationalization for their brutalities.
0
POPSThe Way Federal Government Contratcs are Awarded to Change Those who tell you that nothing substantial has changed from the Bush to the Obama administration will be hard put to explain how nothing substantial results from saving hundreds of billions of dollars by changing the rules for awarding contracts. But who knows? Perhaps their frenetic zeal to conflate Obama with Bush will compel them to make light of your hundreds of billions of tax dollars. This is a welcome and responsible change. Ignore the naysayers who will belittle it.
5
POPSMedical Marijuana Laws is Now Up to the States For those who claim that nothing substantial has changed from the Bush administration to the Obama administration, this significant development will come as a challenge for their sophistry. This is great news, which could potentially help millions of Americans suffering from terminal and debilitating illnesses. Good for Obama.
5
POPSObama Sides with Bush in Missing E-mail Case The missing e-mails of the Bush administration could be the smoking gun of the run-up and conduct of the Iraq war. They might, for example, tell us once and for all if the White House really took its claim that Iraq had WMD seriously. But the Obama administration, which is avowedly inclined not to look backwards at what happened during the Bush administration, is providing cover for the Bush administration by continuing to oppose the lawsuit that asks for the restoration of all the missing e-mails. Is this the transparency in government that Obama promised?
1
POPSBut I Thought that the Obama Job-Creating Stimulus Plan Wouldn't Work In spite of the assurances of Republicans, conservatives, and those who despise the idea that their tax dollars might create a job for someone who needs one, that the Obama stimulus plan wouldn't put anybody to work, it appears that one manufacturer of heavy equipment has already said he will rehire laid-off employees if the stimulus package is approved. Of course it will result in people being hired. All that infrastructure development and we cannot expect that all of the allied industries awash in orders won't need more employees to increase production and deliver the products? Only dunderheads believe that--you know, true believers, ideologues, deliberative idiots.
4
POPSObama Reverses Bush Stance on Pollution Case While many argue incessantly that Obama is not significantly differing from the policies of the Bush administration, here is an example they will have difficulty explaining away. Unless, that is, they consider reducing brain damage in babies isn't significant.
0
POPSNancy Killefer Takes a Hit for Tom Daschle She was nominated to be Barak Obama's chief performance officer, but it turns out that she had a $900.00 plus tax problem. So why is Killefer going and not Daschle? I suspect that if she didn't go, it could be argued that Daschle should not be confirmed because the number of Obama's nominees with tax problems are starting to pile up and Congress should draw the line somewhere. I believe she is taking the fall to remove a reason for rejecting Daschle, even though her $900 plus tax problem is minuscule compared to Daschle's $140,000 tax problem. Besides, it's commonplace to hold women to higher standards than men. It's a convenient excuse for keeping the glass ceiling intact.
0
POPSObama to Cut Defgense Budget by 10% Obama has ordered the Defense Department to cut the defense budget by 10%. That's hardly enough given its already inflated size and how the size of the budget is a source of temptation for military interventionism abroad. But it's a start.
3
POPSObama Calls It Irresponsible; I Call It Naked Self Interest That there are still still those who think the Lords of Wall Street should be left to their own devices and unregulated is incomprehensible to anyone whose economic ideology is based on what they can see and not visa versa. To such people the news that some of these Lords lavished themselves with billions of dollars of bonuses even as they had their hand out to Uncle Sam for help is not the least bit surprising. President Obama calls it irresponsible. Wise people call it by its real name: the predictable outcome of unregulated self interest. The only shocking thing is that Obama and others expected the Lords to act otherwise.
3
POPSObama: An Open-Minded Pragmatist My favorite politicians are those who think like idealists but govern as pragmatists, especially those who don't have their egos on the line about their own proposals and ideas. By saying that he welcomes ideas from any quarter, as long as he can be shown that the ideas will work, Obama is taking the attitude that whatever works best is the best solution. That should give us some confidence in his approach to the economy.
0
POPSObama Plans to Take the Stimulus Package to the People According to the article below, the Congressional GOP feels that Obama's plan to bring his stimulus plan to the people of the US is a way of leaving them out of the discussion: "By mounting an aggressive public relations campaign, Obama may be seen as bypassing the GOP en route to a major legislative victory. For a new president who promised bipartisanship, Obama's methods could leave Republicans feeling isolated and marginalized." Of course one shudders at the thought of the Congressional GOP feeling "isolated and marginalized" after they did it to the Democrats during the height of the Bush years. But more interesting is their sense that by taking the stimulus plan on the road to the American people, the GOP feels left out. Isn't that what every administration SHOULD do for every major legislative initiative--take it to the people? Why is that so threatening?
4
POPSObama & The Wired Presidency Armed with an e-mail database of 10 million supporters, Barack Obama is poised to instantiate the first "wired presidency." Obama used his e-mail database to great effect during the election. He could use it to great effect to marshal support for his policies as President as well.
4
POPSAmericans Overwhelmingly Want GOP to Work w/ Obama Not only do Americans want the GOP to work with Obama as President, but they want the GOP to embrace his progressive views. The poll indicates Americans voted for him because they thought his views were the right ones. The cooperation the Americans want will not happen, of course. Already GOP names are being floated to run against him and right-wing media personalities have begun to attack him.
5
POPSThis Must Have Disappointed the Obama Haters Remember all the fear mongering from Obama haters about how Obama was anxious to get chummy with Iranian President Ahmadinejad? This cautionary approach must have come as a rude awakening to them:
3
POPS"That One" What? At a minimum McCain's reference to Obama as "that one" was dehumanizing if not racist. One of McCain's nastier traits is his capacity to objectify people. It's a characteristic of people with pathological anger problems.
10
POPSMcCain Blames Obama for Wall Street Crisis Is he senile or just dumb? McCain, who has been in Washington DC for 3 decades and has lobbyists as advisers out the yin-yang, says Obama is the Washington insider who brought the crisis about? That's how I spell desperation.
0
POPSRepublicans Play the Sexism Card "It's that damn liberal press" was the first excuse that the McCain campaign gave for the discoveries that the press and bloggers easily made after the campaign was caught failing to vet Sarah Palin. Now the new excuse targets the Obama campaign. Criticism of Palin makes one sexist. Specific criticisms don't have to be answered. They can all be dismissed by playing the sexism card. The translation: make all the criticisms go away because we can't answer them.
6
POPSObama is Correct about the Palin Pregnancy Story Barack Obama is correct. Sarah Palin's daughter's pregnancy is no one's business. It should be totally off limits in assessing Gov. Palin's ability to be a Vice President. Her young daughter isn't the first teenager to get pregnant outside of wedlock and she won't be the last. In itself the event says nothing about anyone. Barack Obama has shown himself to be a man of real integrity in this matter. He didn't resort to the no comment response that some politicians use when they hope that the scandal will hurt the opponent. Instead of viewing this as a political opportunity, he told the press clearly that they were stepping over a line that should be sacrosanct. Good for him.
6
POPSFrom the Mouth of a Conservative: The Palin Pick "To the extent the experience, qualifications, and national-security arguments are taken off the table, Obama wins." No kidding. That's why the Palin pick appears superficial, a desperate grab to pick up disaffected Hillary voters, and to help us forget that John McCain has been in Washington DC a long time. And while the pick temporarily distracts the US from one of the greatest speeches delivered in history of the US (Obama's last night), within 2 weeks Palin will be seen as a liability, another deer caught in the headlights like Dan Quayle. The allegation that she had a trooper fired for divorcing her sister won't help, especially since the firer said he was pressured from her to fire the trooper. That no doubt credentials her with Rove and his Rovian minions within the GOP.
7
POPSSarah Palin Likes Obama's Energy Plan Poor John McCain. Not only does he select as a Vice Presidential someone who less foreign policy experience than Obama (making her one old codger's heartbeat away from the Presidency), but she recently praised aspects of Obama's energy plan. Besides, her glasses look weird on her, and I'm well versed on wearing weird glasses.
1
POPSIt's Joe! Barack Obama chose Sen. Joe Biden from Delaware as his running mate from Delaware. I'm from Delaware and I couldn't be more proud. Biden is an excellent choice and one that arguably suggests that Obama looked to the quality of the candidate instead of any electoral college advantage by choosing someone from the 2nd smallest state in the nation. Besides his long and distinguished expertise in foreign affairs, Biden adds rhetorical abilities to the ticket that are only matched by Obama himself. By choosing Biden, Obama has shown extreme confidence in himself. Not even someone with the rhetorical and political skills of Joe Biden can upstage Obama. Moreover, this ticket is probably one the smartest in US history, a welcome relief to the reign of idiocracy of 8 years of the George Bush administration.
0
POPSMcCain Lies About Obama's P:osition on Taxes Obama wants to give most low and middle income families and wage earners a tax cut up to $1,000. I wonder why McCain's ad failed to mention it? It's a lie by omission. Clearly, John McCain is a man with few scruples.
2
POPSMcCain's Latest Attack Ad: Obama Thinks He My Be "The One" McCain has reached a new low. Now he is suggesting that Obama believes he is a divine and messianic figure. Notice how he takes clips out of context and even skews Obama's statement "WE may by the oneS" as Obama claiming that he is "The One." McCain has achieved a new level of lying in a campaign. He has gone beyond the usual patriotism and red-baiting smears. Now he is suggesting that his opponent is committing sacrilege. What's next? Will he suggest that Obama is the anti-Christ? At this point, I wouldn't put it past him.
1
POPSMcCain Lied about the "Evidence" of Obama Not Visiting Wounded Troops McCain claimed that Obama didn't visit the troops because he couldn't take reporters & cameras with him. That wasn't true. In fact, it was never true. He had no plans to take reporters with him. The McCain campaign claimed that press reports indicated that Obama planned on taking reporters with him, but their "proof" didn't substantiate their claim: "It is safe to say that, according to press reports, Barack Obama avoided, skipped, canceled the visit because of those reasons," he said. "We're not making a leap here." Asked repeatedly for the "reports," Bounds provided three examples, none of which alleged that Obama had wanted to take members of the media to the hospital. McCain's campaign lied, plain and simple.
0
POPS McCain Running Against the Press The press is saying good things about Obama. That can't be tolerated. It must mean the press is biased because good things are only supposed to be said about John McCain, a darling of the press for years. So McCain has decided to attack the press. In his desperation, he is taking a page from the paranoid days of Richard Nixon.
1
POPSIraqi Prime Minister Backs Obama's Withdraw Plan For such a neophyte according to McCain, Obama certainly seems to be making the right foreign policy calls. Emphasize Afghanistan instead of Iraq. Set up a diplomatic relationship and negotiation with Iran. Use a specific timetable to withdraw from Iraq. The Bush administration is signing onto to each of these but in different terms. John McCain is beginning to look like a stuck-in-the-mud in contrast.
1
POPSBush & McCain Move Toward Obama's Position on Iraq Troop Withdraw Within a week's time, Bush comes out in favor of a quasi-diplomatic recognition of the Iranian government and now a "time horizon" for withdrawing troops from Iraq. In both cases, John McCain signs onto the ideas and in both cases they play in the same ballpark of Barack Obama's positions. Clearly, Obama and his views are winning the argument.
1
POPSObama Campaign is wrong about New Yorker Caricature There's too much sensitivity from the Obama campaign over the New Yorker caricature. The illustration clearly satirizes the absurd notion that the Obamas are covert Islamic terrorists hellbent on destroying the US. It mocks the ridiculous idea visually.
1
POPSChuck Hagel to Join Obama on Trip to Europe & Middle East Sen. Chuck Hagel (R) will join Obama on his trip. Some have advocated for an Obama Hagel ticket in November, arguing that such an historic ticket would be the ultimate sign that Obama intends to be the coalition building President he has promised. One thing is certain: By placing a Republican on the ticket, Obama could shave off many Republican votes, especially those already disgruntled with McCain, and and almost certainly defeat McCain in November in a rout.
Newest Clips
see Newest Clips
1
Latest Pops
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Tags
Print
Save
Turn on live update