Obama

Updates I and II below and poll added

This has been going on for awhile and doesn’t seem to be going away. A plan to build a community center and mosque a few blocks (600 ft.) from Ground Zero has been dubbed the Ground Zero Mosque. It has, as you can imagine, sparked a ton of controversy. The mosque recently was approved by NYC’s Landmark Preservation Commission.

Of course this isn’t the end of it. President Obama recently discussed the issue, asserting his commitment to religious freedom, which is no small feat considering 70% of Americans oppose it. (Obama did clarify that he believes it is their constitutional right, but that doesn’t mean he supports their decision.)  Mayor Bloomberg supported their right to build the mosque with a stirring speech. One of the stronger parts:

The attack was an act of war, and our first responders defended not only our city, but our country and our Constitution. We do not honor their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights and the freedoms that the terrorists attacked … Political controversies come and go, but our values and our traditions endure, and there is no neighborhood in this city that is off-limits to God’s love and mercy.

He received a lot of praise and hate for his speech. In my opinion, he nailed it. We can’t call ourselves “The Land of the Free” if we stop a completely legitimate group from practicing their religion based on where it stands.

People like Newt Gingrich have been throwing (more…)

Congressman Bob Inglis, a long-time conservative from South Carolina, recently got beat in his primary by a margin of 71-29. He had previously won six elections. Why did he get beat down in his primary?
at least partly because he refused to bow to the Tea Party. Apparently his 93 lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union isn’t conservative enough.

Inglas gained notoriety for telling some crazy town hall people to turn off Glenn Beck. (I made this statement: But the fact remains that the fear-mongering might end up hurting politicians like Bob. How true that has been.) He also called for Joe Wilson to apologize for yelling “You lie” at a State of the Union Address. This clearly is not good enough for the Tea Party.

Bob also got grief for refusing to call Obama a socialist. Why wouldn’t he? Because he doesn’t want to lie. I recommend reading the whole article, but here are a few quotes:

His description of a meeting with a dozen Tea Party activists:

I sat down, and they said on the back of your (more…)

Check out this warning from Boehlert. It compiles a lot of the things we have seen wrong with the opposition to the Obama administration and discusses what it could lead to. Here’s a key quote:

Note that the radical right’s media rhetoric is no longer even political in a partisan sense. Instead, it’s purely revolutionary. It isn’t, “We think taxes should be lower” or “Obama should be more hawkish overseas.” It’s, “There’s an insidious and deadly plot afoot by Democrats and progressives to strip Americans of their freedom and this country of its greatness.” Obama is now the incarnation of evil (the Antichrist?), and his driving hatred for America, as well as for democracy, runs so deep that he ran for president in order to destroy the United States from inside the Oval Office.

Those with the biggest audiences (especially Beck), frame what’s happening as an evil plot to destroy America. It’s no wonder that guys like Byron Williams get drunk, load their truck with guns, and take off to shoot up liberal non-profits.

Rhetoric framing our political leaders as the enemies of America hell-bent on its destruction are irresponsible.

Enjoy TO ruining the Bengals’ chances.

Adam Feser

Wikileaks just released 90,000 pages of classified documents from the Afghanistan War that chronicle six years (for more information on Wikileaks and this specific leak, click here. The documents were sent to The New York Times, the British newspaper The Guardian and the German magazine Der Spiegel, likely for maximum exposure. The documents show that we have been mislead (click this link for loads of information and pieces of the leaks) about the progress being made, which is no surprise. From the New York Times:

The documents — some 92,000 reports spanning parts of two administrations from January 2004 through December 2009 — illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001.

As the new American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, tries to reverse the lagging war effort, the documents sketch a war hamstrung by an Afghan government, police force and army of questionable loyalty and competence, and by a Pakistani military that appears at best uncooperative and at worst to work from the shadows as an unspoken ally of the very insurgent forces the American-led coalition is trying to defeat.

The fact that Pakistan is suspected (more…)

Politics Daily has another list. This one details the largest change of hearts Republicans have had based on the changing political atmosphere. Basically it shows how many Republicans could care less about actual policy and are only concerned with the politics behind it. Here is the list and some highlights:

1. Financial disclosure: Republicans (including Mitch McConnell) once supported transparency as a means of stopping corruption. Now that idea would, according to McConnell, “Shred the Constitution.”

2. Cap-and-trade: It was the idea of free-market conservatives to allow people to buy the right to pollute. The first Bush administration used “emission trading” (cap-and-trade) to curb sulfur dioxide emissions. Now that it is unpopular, all Republicans who have supported it (McCain, Graham, etc.) oppose it.

3. Immigration: W. and Ted Kennedy had a plan. Eleven Republicans supported it and are still in office. Again McCain leads the charge in completely changing his mind. What a maverick.

4. Deficit Spending: Deficit spending was okay to support W.’s agenda, but not for the suffering unemployed.

5. Bipartisan deficit-reduction commission: Six Republicans who proposed the bill to create the commission voted against it. Purportedly because it might recommend raising taxes. Because we don’t need to raise funds if we want to reduce the deficit. Obama formed it anyway.

6. Individual insurance mandate: I’ve written before how this was a Republican idea. It was originally conceived of by free-market conservatives as a way to protect the private sector. Imagine that! The huge socialist plot to destroy our country was thought of by conservatives as a way to protect private industry. (I wonder if Dr will read this or just revert to socialist fear mongering.)

7. Medicare spending curbs: This is a fun one. The same Republicans that spread fear to the elderly (about this and death panels) wanted to do the same thing. McCain’s actually had a plan to cut $1.3 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid as a part of his 2008 campaign. But they saw the opportunity to scare old people (who vote) and jumped at it. What’s especially funny is that many conservatives originally opposed the entire notion of Medicare because, you know, it’s socialized medicine. But as soon as it became a good way to score points they had to defend it as though it were their only child. “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!”

This is an interesting list because many of this issues are still salient. As long as they think it is politically beneficial to vote no, they will continue to do so, regardless of what they believe the effect of a policy will actually be.

Enjoy Papi winning the Home Run Derby.

Adam Feser

As I have said before, Obama has continued several of Bush’s policies regarding the War on Terror. He has continued ignoring human rights in his policies, which is the opposite of what he promised. This has been the area in which I am most disappointed in Obama. Jon is less than amused as well.

Enjoy people calling him soft on terror.

Adam Feser

Canadian and Syrian citizen Maher Arar was in the U.S. on his way home from a vacation in 2003. The U.S. was acting on bad intelligence given to them by Canada. Arar was treated harshly while in U.S. custody, lied to about what would happen to him, his attorney was lied to, and he was eventually transferred to Syria, which he pleaded against because he believed he would be tortured.

Turns out he was right. For ten months he suffered (read bottom of link for details, many of the links from Glenn Greenwald’s article) in horrible conditions and was tortured.

After ten months, the Syrians finally figured out he had no connection to terrorism and returned him to Canada. Canada had a government commission review the case and found both the Canadian and American governments were clearly in the wrong. Canada’s Prime Minister personally and publicly apologized and Arar received about $9 million for what he endured. Though a few lawmakers have apologized, America’s government has not.

I bring this up because Arar’s suit against the U.S. government has died. The Supreme Court has refused to hear his appeal of a lower court’s decision that he has no grounds to sue. Extraordinary rendition, woo, I guess.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations have argued they cannot be held accountable for our actions because of state secrets, or some such garbage. It is no secret that this innocent man was detained, sent to Syria, and tortured.

So the message here is that the United States government can just snag whoever they want, have them tortured for months, and there are no consequences for their actions and no remedy for the victims. When you make a decision to do horrible things like this, the least you could do is commit to at least trying to make things right when you f up so bad.

Imagine you are not at all involved in terrorism, are detained, lied to, sent to Syria, tortured for months, probably think you’re going to die, nearly do from being malnourished and mistreated, finally return home, have public knowledge that you have done no wrong, then the government that did this to you accepts no responsibility and takes no action, doesn’t even apologize. Actually imagine that. Absolutely ridiculous.

So many people talk about accountability for actions in this country. It’s often used as a way to justify cutting social programs. But when it comes to torturing an innocent dude, all that accountability talk goes out the window.

What’s ever going to stop things like this from happening if there are never consequences?

Enjoy you rights, which only apply when it’s convenient.

Adam Feser

Stephen Colbert’s response to the British…..

President Obama joined the man he was honoring with a Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, Sir Paul McCartney, along with Jack White, Jerry Seinfeld, Stevie Wonder, Dave Grohl, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, and many others onstage to sing the final parts of “Hey Jude.” I don’t care who you are, this is pretty awesome.

Apparently PBS will air the show on July 28. The show sounds pretty cool. Jack White even performed. Here’s the video of Obama’s speech:

Enjoy the awesomeness.

Adam Feser

and Obama is not listening….

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