The President Obama Thread: 'Super Bears!' Edition

[Prison Mike]

But, ultimately...we are judged by our actions and not our character. What we do, not who we are.

It's not who I am underneath, but what I *do* that defines me. [/Batman]

 

[Majic Walrus]

Yeah, that's true I suppose.

I just would have thought that 9/11 would have been seen as a failure on Bush's part and then perception leading to disapproval. I just thought, logically speaking, that would have been the cause and effect.

But, national pride was ****ing strong all right.

There's your issue the MOBocracy doesn't think with logic or reason but with irrationality and emotion.

 

[Paradyme]

Obama says US economy saved from 'catastrophe'

President Barack Obama said Friday his administration had saved the US economy from catastrophe and the worst of the recession may be over, after a surprise drop in the unemployment rate.
"This morning we received additional signs that the worst may be behind us," said Obama in remarks in the White House Rose Garden after new figures showed the jobless rate slipped to a better than expected 9.4 percent in July.

"This morning, we received additional signs that the worst may be behind us," Obama said.

"We are losing jobs at less than half the rate we were when I took office. We have pulled the financial system back from the brink.

"While we have rescued our economy from catastrophe, we have also begun to build a new foundation for growth," Obama said, but he also warned that tough times lay ahead before the economy would be restored to full prosperity.

"We have a steep mountain to climb and we started in a very deep valley."

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.769c5f4707b42ff03724c7a6cba8639a.351&show_article=1

This seems a bit premature to me.

 

[Marx]

I wouldn't be so sure that it's a premature statement Para, alot of economists are now saying the same thing.

 

[StorminNorman]

There's your issue the MOBocracy doesn't think with logic or reason but with irrationality and emotion.

“Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.” - Alexander Hamilton

This seems a bit premature to me.

Very.

 

[Paradyme]

I guess we'll have to wait and see. I think its to early for him to be making such a bold statement. Just an opinion.

 

[Bob ROARman!]

I will never forget Bush standing on top of the rubble with the rescue workers at ground zero. I can remember watching that live and it made me tear up a little. Bush's response to 9/11 was everything this country needed him to be. He was amazingly strong, yet very human. It's just a shame that he destroyed all of that support and all of those emotions by his actions later on in his presidency.

I really don't mean to single you out on this, but this kind of mind set is just baffling to me. 9/11 and the immediate time afte was probably, in a lot of our life times, the single greatest display of mass fear being instilled into a society at their weakest point and then kicking them when they're down. There was no strength being shown, just a total collapse. Cashing in on fear and anger.

It stuns me that most Americans still fail to realize, after all this time, was Bush being at Ground Zero, being there with the rescue workers (who a lot of are now all slowly and painfully dying), it was a sham. Like the greatest Billy Mays paid advertisement of all time, the entire thing, we were all at our phones ready to order.

You're exactly right, he was everything we needed. It was him saying and showing exactly what we wanted and needed to see and hear and in the process we let the Constitution burn. But hey, at least no one could be accused of being unpatriotic right? We didn't dare question the government on that day. They knew best.

Oh but wait, we did get SOOO mad at him later, that's what made that up. That's what evened things up. His "approval rating" went down. Yeah, I'm sure that really kept him up at night. Yay we did it, we hate George Bush! It only took losing the Bill of Rights and bombing civilians! Oh. Well here's endless hours of guys like Larry King, Bill O'Reilly and Wolf Blitzer to tide us over until the next fake election and the three ring circus rolls back into town. Oh and hey what's that Saddam Hussein fellow up to these days? Still doesn't want to take on impossible loans again? Well that's too bad because in this game it's two strikes, not three, and you're out.

Everyone likes talking about "Oh the founding fathers wouldn't have done this, oh they wouldn't have done that to us". First of all, if you believe so highly of these founding fathers and what they wouldn't have done, what do you think their reaction would be to U.S citizens today that not only allowed, we essentially demanded the government to trample over what they fought so hard for and for what people say they believe so much in? That's the thing to talk about today, that's a hot topic, everyone likes to complain about them. My rights, your rights, her rights, gay rights, what's constitutional, what's not, it's all a joke.

When rights can taken away or denied to certain people for no reason, they were never rights in the first place. They were only privileges, something they allowed us to have for the time being and that can be waived at any time. We have no rights.

Well at least we got that great iconic picture of Bush at Ground Zero. And Bush in New Orlea...oh wait. Yeah there was nothing to cash in on that little incident.

 

[StorminNorman]

Everyone likes talking about "Oh the founding fathers wouldn't have done this, oh they wouldn't have done that to us". First of all, if you believe so highly of these founding fathers and what they wouldn't have done, what do you think their reaction would be to U.S citizens today that not only allowed, we essentially demanded the government to trample over what they fought so hard for and for what people say they believe so much in? That's the thing to talk about today, that's a hot topic, everyone likes to complain about them. My rights, your rights, her rights, gay rights, what's constitutional, what's not, it's all a joke.

I really don't think Alexander Hamilton would have had a big problem with a lot of what Bush did. In relation to 9/11 that is. He would have been a big opponent to Bush's fiscal policy, of course.

 

[Marlboro Man]

Clinton was woefully unpopular because of the sex scandals; W's approval was so high because of the national pride after 9/11.

Obviously approval ratings have very little to do with actual skills and abilities at the job.

Clinton's approval ratings were near 60% during the Monica Lewinski scandal though.

 

[Paradoxium]

I wouldn't be so sure that it's a premature statement Para, alot of economists are now saying the same thing.

These same economist also said the economy was fine and couldn't see the crisis coming.

You have to keep in mind the unemployment number you see does not include two very important things:

1. people that gave up looking for jobs (does not count as unemployed)

Persons Not in the Labor Force

About 2.3 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in July, 709,000 more than a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals, who were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the
survey.

Among the marginally attached, there were 796,000 discouraged workers in July, up by 335,000 over the past 12 months. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The other 1.5 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in July had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

2. gigantic scale backs in benefits and retirement money in the private sector

Be sure to checkout U6

The only jobs with high numbers are all government, health and education jobs. All the jobs that addresses the trade deficit and actual productive goods has but shrunk continuously.

The participation rate fell 0.2%, and guess how much unemployment fell from June to July? 0.1%. 0.2% on U6.

The BLS simply stopped counting.

It's the same old ******** Bush parroted. Obama delivers ******** better than Bush.

 

[Kelly]

I really don't mean to single you out on this, but this kind of mind set is just baffling to me. 9/11 and the immediate time afte was probably, in a lot of our life times, the single greatest display of mass fear being instilled into a society at their weakest point and then kicking them when they're down. There was no strength being shown, just a total collapse. Cashing in on fear and anger.

It stuns me that most Americans still fail to realize, after all this time, was Bush being at Ground Zero, being there with the rescue workers (who a lot of are now all slowly and painfully dying), it was a sham. Like the greatest Billy Mays paid advertisement of all time, the entire thing, we were all at our phones ready to order.

You're exactly right, he was everything we needed. It was him saying and showing exactly what we wanted and needed to see and hear and in the process we let the Constitution burn. But hey, at least no one could be accused of being unpatriotic right? We didn't dare question the government on that day. They knew best.

Oh but wait, we did get SOOO mad at him later, that's what made that up. That's what evened things up. His "approval rating" went down. Yeah, I'm sure that really kept him up at night. Yay we did it, we hate George Bush! It only took losing the Bill of Rights and bombing civilians! Oh. Well here's endless hours of guys like Larry King, Bill O'Reilly and Wolf Blitzer to tide us over until the next fake election and the three ring circus rolls back into town. Oh and hey what's that Saddam Hussein fellow up to these days? Still doesn't want to take on impossible loans again? Well that's too bad because in this game it's two strikes, not three, and you're out.

Everyone likes talking about "Oh the founding fathers wouldn't have done this, oh they wouldn't have done that to us". First of all, if you believe so highly of these founding fathers and what they wouldn't have done, what do you think their reaction would be to U.S citizens today that not only allowed, we essentially demanded the government to trample over what they fought so hard for and for what people say they believe so much in? That's the thing to talk about today, that's a hot topic, everyone likes to complain about them. My rights, your rights, her rights, gay rights, what's constitutional, what's not, it's all a joke.

When rights can taken away or denied to certain people for no reason, they were never rights in the first place. They were only privileges, something they allowed us to have for the time being and that can be waived at any time. We have no rights.

Well at least we got that great iconic picture of Bush at Ground Zero. And Bush in New Orlea...oh wait. Yeah there was nothing to cash in on that little incident.

Then you have a different opinion from most Americans...entitled to it for sure....

 

[Paradoxium]

Just to cover my bases, Rosenberg on Payrolls:

https://ems.gluskinsheff.net/Articles/Lunch_with_Dave_080709.pdf

Today’s employment report is being treated as a ‘green shoot’ of major proportions. While it was by far the best jobs performance of the year, much of the better-than-expected tally in nonfarm payrolls reflected the bounce in auto production as well as the distortion from the federal census workers. Combined, these two influences effectively “added” 100,000 to the headline number, so net-net, the consensus view of -325,000 was not as far off the mark as the market believed at first glance.

The auto sector added 28,200 to the industry payroll in July, which was the highest tally in 11 years. To show you just how big that really is, it is a 69% annualized surge. Normally, the industry, which is in secular decline, posts job losses of between 20,000 and 30,000 consistently, so this alone represented roughly a 50,000 swing. We estimate that there was about a 30,000 swing in the rest of the manufacturing sector due to the spillover from the current inventory adjustment in the motor vehicle industry. The 0.3% MoM increase in the workweek was also skewed by the 4.1% MoM jump in the auto sector.

As we mentioned, there have been large fluctuations in the federal government payroll too. After hiring a slew of Census workers in the spring, there were 57,000 layoffs in May-June and then we saw in today’s report that 12,000 federal workers were “hired” in July. Again, mathematically, this contributed about 20,000 to today’s headline number. In other words, and we have no intent on raining on anyone’s parade, there was about 100,000 non-recurring payrolls in that top-line figure. It may be dangerous to extrapolate today’s report into a view that we are about to fully turn the corner on the job market front.

Yes, the income number was also firm; average weekly earnings popped 0.5%, but again, this reflected the bounce in the auto sector as well as the 10.7% increase in the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour. Again, this is a non-recurring item and does not at all reflect an improvement in underlying income fundamentals in the personal sector. We had a similar bounce in the summer of 2008 when the minimum wage was last boosted.

To be sure, the drop in the unemployment rate was a surprise, but it was all due to the slide in the labour force — the employment-to-population ratio gives a more accurate picture of the slack in the labour market and the hidden secret in today’s report was that this metric slid to a 25-year low of 59.4% from 59.5% in June and 61.0% at the turn of the year. Of those unemployed, 33.8% of them have been unemployed now for over 27 weeks — a record amount (was at 29.0% in June and was at 17.5% at the start of this recession)

 

[chaseter]

I think this country was beautifully united after 9/11 and hadn't been seen in this country since WWII imo.

Sure Bush used it as an excuse to start an unecessary war but the campaign in Afghanistan was the right thing to do and the campaign in Iraq, although unecessary, was positive overall. Sadam was removed from power and he needed to be removed and no one was willing to get their hands dirty. No one is angry that Sadam was removed but a lot of people are mad that we did it...you can't have both. Sure the campaign was too long and innocent lives were lost but in the end, it had a positive effect. I think history will be kinder to Bush's presidency that we are right now.

As for scare tactics; sure he used them to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq but what President hasn't used scare tactics? Obama in his first couple of months used them to pass the Stimulus Bill that was an epic failure and now he is doing it again with Healthcare except with Obama, he is trying to silence his opponents and his lackies are even making this turn into a pseudo Red Scare. I guess Republicans are now going to arrested while they are out at dinner for forwarding an e-mail about healthcare!?

 

[redfirebird2008]

I think this country was beautifully united after 9/11 and hadn't been seen in this country since WWII imo.

Sure Bush used it as an excuse to start an unecessary war but the campaign in Afghanistan was the right thing to do and the campaign in Iraq, although unecessary, was positive overall. Sadam was removed from power and he needed to be removed and no one was willing to get their hands dirty. No one is angry that Sadam was removed but a lot of people are mad that we did it...you can't have both. Sure the campaign was too long and innocent lives were lost but in the end, it had a positive effect. I think history will be kinder to Bush's presidency that we are right now.

As for scare tactics; sure he used them to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq but what President hasn't used scare tactics? Obama in his first couple of months used them to pass the Stimulus Bill that was an epic failure and now he is doing it again with Healthcare except with Obama, he is trying to silence his opponents and his lackies are even making this turn into a pseudo Red Scare. I guess Republicans are now going to arrested while they are out at dinner for forwarding an e-mail about healthcare!?

Ignorance is bliss. The game is rigged. Bush and Obama were/are on the exact same team. And the whole "red scare" crap you're talking about with Obama, need I remind you of Bush's own words, "You're either with me or you're with the terrorists." That was his response to people questioning his policies. Like I said before, they are playing for the same team, a team that doesn't give a damn about the people of this country and sees us all as lab rats that can be manipulated. It's worked pretty well for them. Massive distraction, whether it's from the media or entertainment. It's all owned by the same people and the goal is the same all the way around: distract, distract, and distract some more until what do ya know, the Bill of Rights is destroyed and we are all being marched into gas chambers. 80% worldwide population reduction under a one world government is their goal.

 

[Paradoxium]

Holy crap man, you've been hanging at abovetopsecret.com or something

 

[Marlboro Man]

I think this country was beautifully united after 9/11 and hadn't been seen in this country since WWII imo.

Sure Bush used it as an excuse to start an unecessary war but the campaign in Afghanistan was the right thing to do and the campaign in Iraq, although unecessary, was positive overall. Sadam was removed from power and he needed to be removed and no one was willing to get their hands dirty. No one is angry that Sadam was removed but a lot of people are mad that we did it...you can't have both. Sure the campaign was too long and innocent lives were lost but in the end, it had a positive effect. I think history will be kinder to Bush's presidency that we are right now.

As for scare tactics; sure he used them to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq but what President hasn't used scare tactics? Obama in his first couple of months used them to pass the Stimulus Bill that was an epic failure and now he is doing it again with Healthcare except with Obama, he is trying to silence his opponents and his lackies are even making this turn into a pseudo Red Scare. I guess Republicans are now going to arrested while they are out at dinner for forwarding an e-mail about healthcare!?

How can you declare the stimulus bill a failure when most of the projects in that bill have yet to go into full force?

 

[Paradoxium]

Can't even get his own god damn projections right.

 

[chaseter]

Ignorance is bliss. The game is rigged. Bush and Obama were/are on the exact same team. And the whole "red scare" crap you're talking about with Obama, need I remind you of Bush's own words, "You're either with me or you're with the terrorists." That was his response to people questioning his policies. Like I said before, they are playing for the same team, a team that doesn't give a damn about the people of this country and sees us all as lab rats that can be manipulated. It's worked pretty well for them. Massive distraction, whether it's from the media or entertainment. It's all owned by the same people and the goal is the same all the way around: distract, distract, and distract some more until what do ya know, the Bill of Rights is destroyed and we are all being marched into gas chambers. 80% worldwide population reduction under a one world government is their goal.

Did I not just say that every president uses scare tactics Bush had the do the right thing, call in suspected terrorist crap but I see that as a little more important than call in suspected healthcare haters. Obama won election by saying CHANGE! Well, we didn't get it and the change we do get is change from the radical right to the radical left. Which, only helps the radical left.

I agree that Obama is more of the same.

 

[Paradoxium]

Well at least Obama is going to keep his promise about Change. And by Change I mean what will be left in your pocket.

 

[redfirebird2008]

Bush had the do the right thing, call in suspected terrorist crap but I see that as a little more important than call in suspected healthcare haters.

Trampling on the rights of the people of this country is wrong and unconstitutional, unless of course you just re-write the Constitution which is exactly what Bush did and Obama is continuing to do. I don't give a damn what reason they give for it, it's wrong. And the more "reasons" they come up with for trampling on our rights, the more convinced I become that certain events are inside jobs. The highest form of patriotism is dissent. Never forget that. Those who would give up their liberty for security deserve neither.

 

[Varient]

After this was pointed out to me,... i had to bring this here and ask:

Back when this happened,.... Why was nothing made on it in the mainstream media and who TRIED SO HARD to kill our economy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xKPcyvlfnc

 

[chaseter]

Trampling on the rights of the people of this country is wrong and unconstitutional, unless of course you just re-write the Constitution which is exactly what Bush did and Obama is continuing to do. I don't give a damn what reason they give for it, it's wrong. And the more "reasons" they come up with for trampling on our rights, the more convinced I become that certain events are inside jobs. The highest form of patriotism is dissent. Never forget that. Those who would give up their liberty for security deserve neither.

I am not justifying either of them I think you just want to argue We seem to agree with each other on this point so I don't see the need for debate here.

 

[redfirebird2008]

I am not justifying either of them I think you just want to argue We seem to agree with each other on this point so I don't see the need for debate here.

You did try to justify Bush's stifling of dissent in the name of "fighting terror." To me his fear mongering on terrorism and subsequent assault on the individual liberties of the people of this country is no different than the fear mongering on global warming from Democrats and their proposals for carbon taxes, "smart monitors" in people's homes, and other violations of privacy/liberty. Or the proposal from Democrats to have Obama shut down the Internet in the name of national security, also known as shutting down dissent and making the mainstream, corporate-controlled media the only news sources available to the people. Media serve the same corporate interests that Obama serves -- the international banking cartel, which have been manipulating world events for hundreds of years. They funded us and Hitler during WWII and made a boatload of money on it. Same with Vietnam. Same with the recent Iraq War.

 

[chaseter]

I didn't justify it? I called it specifically crap. I said that Bush's call in terror suspects was a bit more important than call in healthcare reform haters. Which, it is. Both are scare tactics to get biased agendas done but I would rather someone call in a guy with a ticking suit case before I would want a guy forwarding a joke healthcare e-mail to the White House. One is way more radical than the other.

 

[redfirebird2008]

I didn't justify it? I called it specifically crap. I said that Bush's call in terror suspects was a bit more important than call in healthcare reform haters. Which, it is. Both are scare tactics to get biased agendas done but I would rather someone call in a guy with a ticking suit case before I would want a guy forwarding a joke healthcare e-mail to the White House. One is way more radical than the other.

To you it might be, but to me I look at who gained from 9/11 and all I see is fascist bankers gaining a ton both financially and politically. Spying on people at the effing library? Seriously?!!!