Eight years of suffering under President Obama....

 "Trump supporters say, 'We suffered 8 years under Barack Obama.'

Fair enough. Let’s take a look.

The day Obama took office, the Dow closed at 7,949 points. Eight years later, the Dow had almost tripled.

General Motors and Chrysler were on the brink of bankruptcy, with Ford not far behind, and their failure, along with their supply chains, would have meant the loss of millions of jobs. Obama pushed through a controversial, $80 billion bailout to save the car industry. The U.S. car industry survived, started making money again, and the entire $80 billion was paid back, with interest.

While we remain vulnerable to lone-wolf attacks, no foreign terrorist organization has successfully executed a mass attack here since 9/11.

Obama ordered the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.

He drew down the number of troops from 180,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan to just 15,000, and increased funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

He launched a program called Opening Doors which, since 2010, has led to a 47 percent decline in the number of homeless veterans. He set a record 73 straight months of private-sector job growth.

Due to Obama’s regulatory policies, greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 12%, production of renewable energy more than doubled, and our dependence on foreign oil was cut in half.

He signed The Lilly Ledbetter Act, making it easier for women to sue employers for unequal pay.

His Omnibus Public Lands Management Act designated more than 2 million acres as wilderness, creating thousands of miles of trails and protecting over 1,000 miles of rivers.

He reduced the federal deficit from 9.8 percent of GDP in 2009 to 3.2 percent in 2016.

For all the inadequacies of the Affordable Care Act, we seem to have forgotten that, before the ACA, you could be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition and kids could not stay on their parents’ policies up to age 26.

Obama approved a $14.5 billion system to rebuild the levees in New Orleans.

All this, even as our own Mitch McConnell famously asserted that his singular mission would be to block anything President Obama tried to do.

While Obama failed on his campaign pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, that prison’s population decreased from 242 to around 50.

He expanded funding for embryonic stem cell research, supporting ground breaking advancement in areas like spinal injury treatment and cancer.

Credit card companies can no longer charge hidden fees or raise interest rates without advance notice.

Most years, Obama threw a 4th of July party for military families. He held babies, played games with children, served barbecue, and led the singing of “Happy Birthday” to his daughter Malia, who was born on July 4.

Welfare spending is down: for every 100 poor families, just 24 receive cash assistance, compared with 64 in 1996.

Obama comforted families and communities following more than a dozen mass shootings. After Sandy Hook, he said, “The majority of those who died today were children, beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old.”

Yet,

he never took away

anyone’s guns........

He sang Amazing Grace, spontaneously, at the altar.

He was the first president since Eisenhower to serve two terms without personal or political scandal.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

President Obama was not perfect, as no man and no president is, and you can certainly disagree with his political ideologies. But to say we suffered?

If that’s the argument, if this is how we suffered for 8 years under Barack Obama, I have one wish:

may we be so fortunate as to suffer 8 more."

by Teri Carter, Lexington Herald-Leader

Whiplash...

Yes!:

Obama lets states opt out of No Child Left Behind

WTF??

Police pen up and mace female ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protesters

ROTFLMAO

NRA claims ‘massive Obama conspiracy’ not to ban guns

Oh boy....

Let the games begin....

Obama Warned Israel May Bomb Iran

We really are in the Era of Stupid, aren't we?

Started about 2000 and is building up steam ...

24 percent of Americans believe Obama was born outside the U.S.

Josh Marshall on the Supreme Court ruling:

....Thursday's Supreme Court decision that could have a big effect on future public corruption cases and will quite likely end up letting a good number of convicted public officials out of prison

Starbucksgate: CREW Calls for Investigation of White House

The allegations suggest that the Obama administration may be flouting the same recordkeeping laws that the Bush administration did: the federal and presidential records acts (FRA and PRA). Both laws require that White House staff retain records—including emails—related to their daily work. By using private email accounts to schedule coffee shop meetings with lobbyists (an apparent attempt to prevent these sessions from appearing in White House visitor logs), Obama officials can bypass normal email archiving procedures and "avoid the creation of any record that would memorialize those meetings." Since emails scheduling meetings with lobbyists would almost certainly be the type of emails that the FRA and PRA require White House officials to preserve, the Obama team is "in violation" of the FRA and the PRA, CREW writes.

Krugman:

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.

The G20 as Naomi Klein sees it:

As thousands protested in the streets of Toronto, inside the G20 summit world leaders agreed to a controversial goal of cutting government deficits in half by 2013. We speak with journalist Naomi Klein. "What actually happened at the summit is that the global elites just stuck the bill for their drunken binge with the world’s poor, with the people that are most vulnerable," Klein says.

Endless war, a recipe for four-star arrogance

Trying to forget who caused the deficit.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Fossil Fueled

The Onion: 8-Year-Old Accidentally Exercises Second Amendment Rights

All this doesn't matter though. We're all doomed anyway.

And it's about time!

Stand with the President for a clean-energy future

The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century. The American people are ready for clean energy.
Add your name as a strong supporter of comprehensive energy and climate reform:
I stand with President Obama to pave the way for a clean-energy future that:
• Combats climate change;
• Creates a new economy powered by green jobs; and
• Ends our dependence on foreign oil.

Steve Benen clarifies it all

The reason why incoherence is a deliberate strategy to deal with Obama:

I've been trying to think of a way to explain this in a way Mitch McConnell would understand. As 2009 got underway, Republicans had left two huge messes related to the economy: 1) a nearly-catastrophic recession and unemployment crisis; 2) a budget mess, including a $1.3 trillion deficit and $10 trillion debt. Both problems were simply left for the Obama administration to clean up.

The economic question of 2009 was which problem would be addressed first, but there was a catch that went largely unstated. Whichever mess policymakers chose to clean up first would necessarily make the other mess worse. It was simply unavoidable -- investing in a recovery would increase the deficit; lowering the deficit would take money out of the economy and exacerbate the recession.

Questions of sincerity notwithstanding, it was the main difference between the Democratic and Republican approaches to the economy -- Dems wanted to focus on one of the messes Republicans created (growth and jobs); the GOP wanted to focus on the other (deficit and debt).

That is, it would be the difference if lawmakers like McConnell approached governing with even the slightest bit of seriousness. Notice in his response that there's nothing even approach coherence -- he wants Obama to spend less, and more. He wants the administration to take on a larger role, and smaller. He wants the White House to care more about debt reduction, and less. He wants the president to prioritize investing in job creation, and to stop prioritizing investing in job creation.

Why anyone could take such policy gibberish seriously is a mystery to me.

They do it because it works. We are now celebrating the Era of Stupid and the stupids vote.

Obama is a islamofascistcommie socialistic nazi!

He CAN'T have given us a tax cut! And if he did, something is really nazifiedly suspicious about it!!11! From TPM:

Incoherence, thy name is teabaggery.... or the other way around.

Update: Huffington Post on The Other 95%:

"Obama passed 25 separate tax cuts," Sheryl Stein, founding member of "The Other 95%" said in a statement announcing the group's plans, "including $300 billion in middle class tax cuts -- one of the largest in history - as part of the stimulus package. Unlike President Bush's 2001 tax cuts, which went to the wealthiest 2.2%, President Obama's tax cuts overwhelmingly benefit working and middle class families -- in fact, 95% of all Americans."

Headlines

The Republicans Are Like Frat Boys in 'Animal House'. Quote:

However, they soon fall in line after the fraternity's leader, the far more respectable, presentable, all-round-cad, Otter (Tim Matheson), backs Bluto's call to arms against the university authorities. "Bluto's right," he says. "Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards … I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part."

The Republican party, in particular, and American conservatism in general, have taken to operating in a similar manner to the Delta fraternity – increasingly reckless, anarchic and strident. Faced with defeat they respond with desperation. Only where the Deltas were motivated by ribaldry, conservatives are driven by rage.

Budget deficit shrink. Quote:

You know that staggeringly huge budget deficit bequeathed to the Obama administration by George W. Bush's and the rotten Bush recession? Don't look now, but that deficit is getting smaller.

The Ghost of Bobby Lee. Quote:

What undergirds all of this alleged honoring of the Confederacy, is a kind of ancestor-worship that isn't. The Lost Cause is necromancy--it summons the dead and enslaves them to the need of their vainglorious, self-styled descendants. Its greatest crime is how it denies, even in death, the humanity of the very people it claims to venerate. This isn't about "honoring" the past--it's about an inability to cope with the present.

Report: Palin Has Earned An Estimated $12M Since July. Quote:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's speaking engagements may have earned her $12 million since she resigned in July, ABC News estimates.

Palin has been making the media rounds for the past few months, and is raking it in from her estimated six- to seven-figure appearance fees, according to a "conservative estimate" by ABC News.

Aside from becoming a Fox News contributor, Palin also toured the country to promote her book, "Going Rogue: An American Life."

The cash flow won't stop there, either: She will reportedly make $1 million for each episode of her Alaska travel show.

ZAZI PLOT DETAILS EMERGE. Quote:

I realize conservatives don't want to talk about this story, which is probably why major media outlets aren't paying much attention to it.

But that's a shame because when it comes to counter-terrorism, this is a big f'in deal. Here we had a serious terrorist threat -- arguably the most important since 9/11 -- and an al Qaeda recruit who was poised to kill a lot of people. Obama administration officials thwarted Zazi's plan, took him into custody, read him his rights, and gave him a lawyer.

And the results couldn't have been better for the United States. Zazi will spend the rest of his life behind bars, but only after cooperating with federal officials and becoming a valuable source of intelligence.

If Republicans really want to debate the efficacy of Obama's counter-terrorism policies, we can start right here.

DNA On Envelopes Identifies World War II Sailor. Quote:

Gerald Lehman is going home to Michigan, 68 years after he was killed at Pearl Harbor. The young sailor's remains were thought to be among the hundreds trapped under the water when the USS Oklahoma was torpedoed. But his remains were recovered and buried with the remains of four other "unknowns." Lehman's remains were finally identified by using DNA collected from the letters he sent home — Lehman had licked the envelopes to seal them.

Michelle Obama Visits Haiti: First Lady Makes Unannounced Trip. Quote:

Obama and Biden's visit is intended to underscore U.S. commitment to the Haitian reconstruction effort and to thank American officials who have worked in the country for the past three months, the administration said in a statement.

It is Obama's first solo trip as first lady, and she will visit Mexico next, spokeswoman Katherine McCormick-Lelyveld said. Haiti was included when the trip was planned a month ago but not announced for security reasons.

Is the U.S. Army Losing Its War on Suicide? Quote:

From the invasion of Afghanistan until last summer, the U.S. military had lost 761 soldiers in combat there. But a higher number in the service — 817 — had taken their own lives over the same period. The surge in suicides, which have risen five years in a row, has become a vexing problem for which the Army's highest levels of command have yet to find a solution despite deploying hundreds of mental-health experts and investing millions of dollars. And the elephant in the room in much of the formal discussion of the problem is the burden of repeated tours of combat duty on a soldier's battered psyche.

RRS James Cook Voyage 44. Quote:

Join our team of scientists and engineers exploring the Cayman Trough, a three-mile deep rift in the seafloor of the Caribbean, in search of the world's deepest volcanic vents and new species of deep-sea creatures.

The White House Blog "An Opportunity -- Not Simply to Talk, But to Act". Quote:

Today the President and delegations from 46 other nations are working to address the most dire threat of our time: nuclear terrorism. It is the second day of the Nuclear Security Summit, following a first day during which several nations made significant commitments which will strengthen the global effort to maintain nuclear security and nonproliferation. For instance:

* Chile has shipped its highly enriched uranium to the United States; Ukraine has agreed to ship its highly enriched uranium out of the country within two years; and Canada has agreed to ship its used highly enriched uranium to the United States.
* The United States and Russia have reached an agreement on plutonium disposal, a deal that has been stalled since 2000, and which commits both countries to eliminate enough total plutonium for approximately 17,000 nuclear weapons.
* Recognizing the importance of this summit, and that its goals require a long-term commitment, South Korea has agreed to host the next Nuclear Security Summit in 2012.

How to talk back to hate

Last year, one of Fox News host Glenn Beck’s top targets was Van Jones, former Obama administration special adviser for green jobs. Beck went on a vicious character assassination campaign against Jones, calling him “a communist-anarchist radical.” Despite all the attacks he endured, last night at the NAACP Image Awards, Jones refused to drop down to Beck’s level. At the end of his speech accepting the President’s Award for his work promoting a green economy, Jones instead had kind words for the Fox News host:

Last thing I want to say is this: To my fellow countryman, Mr. Glenn Beck. I see you, and I love you, brother. I love you, and you cannot do anything about it. I love you, and you cannot do anything about it. Let’s be one country! Let’s be one country! Let’s get the job done!

No shit, Sherlock!!

What gave you your first clue?

Obama: Bipartisan health deal may not be possible

How the Republicans expect Obama to act...

Say one thing but do another....

Why should the Republicans be wary?

Isn't this what they want? A president who listens?

Obama calls health care summit with Republicans

Steve Benen explains:

So what's there to talk about on Feb. 25? If the summit is really about striking a new compromise, this would seemingly be pointless. But if the summit is about delving into these plans, exploring what is and isn't in the proposal, and making it clear for all to see that Republican ideas have been considered -- and in several instances, embraced -- the gathering has the potential to change public attitudes and score a key public-relations victory.

Indeed, I can imagine a scenario in which the president spells all of this out explicitly -- writing out which provisions are included that make Dems happy, which provisions are included (and excluded) that make Republicans happy, and declaring the whole package a triumph of bipartisan compromise. The GOP will still almost certainly balk, but the result will give Democrats cover and put Republican intransigence on full display.

Oh look... GOP cool to Obama call for two-party health talks

Gee... Don't the Republicans WANT to be bipartisan?

One way out of Bush's war

POLITICS: Behind Cautious Signal, a Decision for Afghan Peace Talks
By Gareth Porter*

KABUL, Jan 26, 2010 (IPS) - Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's very cautiously-worded support for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban leadership in an interview published Monday is only the first public signal of a policy decision by the Barack Obama administration to support a political settlement between the Hamid Karzai regime and the Taliban, an official of McChrystal's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) command has revealed in an interview with IPS.

Speaking to the Financial Times, McChrystal couched his position on negotiations in terms of an abstract support for negotiated settlements of wars, saying, "I believe that a political solution to all conflicts is the inevitable outcome." The ISAF commander avoided a direct answer to the question of whether the Taliban could play a role in a future Afghan government.

When pressed by the interviewer on the issue, McChrystal would only say that "any Afghan can play a role if they focus on the future and not the past."

The ISAF official, who spoke with IPS on condition that he would not be named, was much more candid about the centrality of peace negotiations with the Taliban leadership in the Obama administration's strategy in Afghanistan and about the understanding of the ISAF command that the Taliban leadership is independent of al Qaeda and is already positioning itself for a political settlement.

Work to be done

Bob Herbert of the New York Times:

While the nation was suffering through the worst economy since the Depression, the Democrats wasted a year squabbling like unruly toddlers over health insurance legislation. No one in his or her right mind could have believed that a workable, efficient, cost-effective system could come out of the monstrously ugly plan that finally emerged from the Senate after long months of shady alliances, disgraceful back-room deals, outlandish payoffs and abject capitulation to the insurance companies and giant pharmaceutical outfits.

The public interest? Forget about it.

With the power elite consumed with its incessant, discordant fiddling over health care, the economic plight of ordinary Americans, from the middle class to the very poor, got pathetically short shrift. And there is no evidence, even now, that leaders of either party fully grasp the depth of the crisis, which began long before the official start of the Great Recession in December 2007.

Joseph Stiglitz: Why we have to change capitalism:

Even now, many deny the magnitude of the problems facing our market economy. Once we are over our current travails – and every recession does come to an end – they look forward to a resumption of robust growth. But a closer look at the US economy suggests that there are some deeper problems: a society where even those in the middle have seen incomes stagnate for a decade, a society marked by increasing inequality; a country where, though there are dramatic exceptions, the statistical chances of a poor American making it to the top are lower than in "Old Europe".

It is said that a near-death experience forces one to re-evaluate priorities and values. The global economy has just had a near-death experience. The crisis exposed not only flaws in the prevailing economic model but also flaws in our society. Too many people had taken advantage of others. Almost every day has brought stories of bad behaviour by those in the financial sector – Ponzi schemes, insider trading, predatory lending, and a host of credit card schemes to extract as much from the hapless user as possible.

Dennis Kucinich:

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) on Wednesday said the Massachusetts election was a "wake up call" for Democrats and that his party had better change course or it could suffer devastating losses come November.

"People elected Democrats in 2008 to change the country's direction," he told Raw Story in a nearly hour-long interview.

"And the same entrenched interests that George Bush could not shake, this current White House is having great difficulty in shaking. One could suggest they might be more entrenched than ever."

Kucinich staunchly defended liberalism but alleged that Democrats are not behaving like liberals.

[snip]

Kucinich lamented Democrats' growing camaraderie with big moneyed interests, claiming it's hurting the party.

"You ask the banks to reform banking?" he said. "Put the insurance companies to reform insurance. Call in nuclear to reform energy policies? Are you kidding me?"

"These problems, lest we forget, did not start with Barack Obama," Kucinich said. "It was George Bush drove the economy over the cliff with a trillion dollar tax cut and a war based on lies, and an expanding trade deficit."

"And we can't do that by playing patty-cake with Wall Street, by caving into the demands of big banks, by playing footsie with insurance companies and by jumping in bed with the pharmaceutical industry.

"Americans are really skittish about the economy, and they have every right to be," he said. "This isn't a left-right argument; this isn't a liberal-conservative argument. This is about down or up."

"We have a really deep recession, and the only way to bring it back up is to have a massive jobs program," he said. "I don't see any evidence" that Obama's economic team is standing behind that.

Can we do it?

Update: Steven Colbert has the final word: Colbert on filibuster rules: ‘Democrats are pussies’

Wouldn't that be cool?

If Elizabeth Warren took a more active governmental position?:

ON THE day after Tuesday’s electoral loss, the Obama administration brought an unfamiliar face to the White House - Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law professor noted for her staunch advocacy on behalf the middle class and fierce criticism of the bank bailouts. Perhaps the administration will take a more aggressive approach to Wall Street, along the lines of what Warren wants. But for Democrats to truly take ownership of the economic crisis, Warren will need to play a more prominent role. Not just her ideas, but the force of her personality is needed.

[snip]

As chairwoman of the TARP Oversight Committee, she’s been responsible for examining the bank bailouts and the regulatory response. Warren has vocalized the concerns of many Americans - but not many politicians - who are outraged by the rampant greed that led to the crisis, and the refusal of Wall Street to take responsibility. “I think the problem has been all the way throughout this crisis, that the banks have been treated gently and everyone else has been treated really pretty tough,’’ said an exasperated Warren last fall, echoing what so many others - in both parties - have come to believe.

These people need someone of Warren’s stature. The timing is perfect: her term at TARP Oversight will come to an end in the spring of 2011, just as a Senate candidate would have to be ramping up. She’d have a base of support on the Internet as soon as she announces. Sure, a Warren campaign would provoke guffaws from the right: What does a Harvard professor really know about an economic crisis? Yet underneath the polished pedigree is a teenage bride from Oklahoma. She’s as much an everyday person as Scott Brown; she just happens to be a brilliant scholar as well. When she’s championing the middle class, she’s not doing so because it’s politically expedient, but because she feels connected to it in a way few politicians are. And she has the intellectual chops to convert that connection into dramatic policy change. Sadly, few politicians can say that, either.

John Stewart thinks so:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Elizabeth Warren
www.thedailyshow.com
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Keep fighting for real health reform

A Credo Petition:

On Christmas Eve, the Senate capitulated to the likes of Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson and passed a deeply problematic health care bill. Now, as the House and Senate bills are being merged, it's up to the progressive members of the House to keep fighting for real health care reform.

Negotiations about the final, merged bill have already begun behind closed doors. There is a lot of pressure for members of the House to accept the Senate bill with all of its flaws. But rank-and-file members of Congress need to speak out now and keep fighting to make the bill better.

Can you tell members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to keep fighting to: 1) hold insurance companies accountable, 2) make sure insurance is affordable and 3) protect reproductive choice?

Whatever final bill that goes to President Obama's desk should:

• Hold insurance companies accountable. We need to revoke their anti-trust exemption and force them to compete with a real public option.


• Make sure insurance is affordable. We cannot wait until 2013 to start insurance market reforms and subsidies and we must ensure nobody will be forced to buy insurance with premiums, co-pays or deductibles they can't afford.


• Protect reproductive choice.
We must not impose new restrictions on whether or how insurance companies can cover reproductive services.

There is clearly a multitude of views among progressives about the best strategy to pursue, but it's clear that we won't get a better bill unless we fight for a better bill. You can bet that the insurance industry, Big Pharma, and other corporate stakeholders in the health care fight are not sitting on their hands. We shouldn't either.

So tell House progressives: Keep fighting. Any health care bill that goes to President Obama's desk should 1) hold insurance companies accountable, 2) make sure insurance is affordable and 3) protect reproductive choice.

Sign the Petition!

Hoekstra's feeble attempt to blame Obama

Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly explains:

Let's be clear. First, the Obama administration's record on counter-terrorism is very impressive. Second, Pete Hoekstra's record on national security issues is so ridiculous, it's hard not to point and laugh. And third, Hoekstra's attempts to exploit an attack that failed is almost certainly motivated by an effort to impress right-wing primary voters in advance of his gubernatorial campaign, making his attacks against the president cheap and disgusting.

What an embarrassment.

Things we can be grateful for

That Obama's administration has actually done.

Sarah Palin rides in to the rescue!

Obama is daring to think the detainees in Guantanamo are actually human beings. Palin shoots off her six shooters:

If we are stuck with this terrible Obama Administration decision, I, like most Americans, hope that Mohammed and his co-conspirators are convicted. Hang ‘em high.

God, this sounds so familiar....

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush pledged anew Friday that Osama bin Laden will be taken "dead or alive," no matter how long it takes, amid indications that the suspected terrorist may be bottled up in a rugged Afghan canyon. The president, in an Oval Office meeting with Thailand's prime minister, would not predict the timing of bin Laden's capture but said he doesn't care how the suspect is brought to justice. "I don't care, dead or alive — either way," Bush said. "It doesn't matter to me."

Or this:

"Bring 'em on," President Bush declared, when asked about guerrilla attacks on US troops in Iraq.

Because acting tough is always better than actually being tough and making tough decisions.

*edited for clarity and because if I didn't correct it, the grammar police would kick down my door.

Why are the Republicans all plugging their ears

And singing 'La la la I can't hear you la la la'?

WASHINGTON -- Government efforts to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars into the U.S. economy appear to be helping the U.S. climb out of the worst recession in decades.

Ah. Never mind.

Update: .... but then again...Atrios reminds us