The Official Obama Scorecard Thread

[JoeyJoJo 18]

"As for their choice of beers, the summit does not yet appear to have produced a meeting of the minds. Obama will drink Bud Light. Crowley will sip Blue Moon. And Gates is said to prefer Red Stripe."-1 for Obama

[El Guapo 8]

"As for their choice of beers, the summit does not yet appear to have produced a meeting of the minds. Obama will drink Bud Light. Crowley will sip Blue Moon. And Gates is said to prefer Red Stripe."-1 for Obama

Didn't Gates claim racism during his arrest, then he goes and drinks a Red Stripe??

[Sal Paradise 57]

Didn't Gates claim racism during his arrest, then he goes and drinks a Red Stripe??

god if he had only picked a colt 45. talk about a missed opportunity.

[CaneBrain 95]

"As for their choice of beers, the summit does not yet appear to have produced a meeting of the minds. Obama will drink Bud Light. Crowley will sip Blue Moon. And Gates is said to prefer Red Stripe."-1 for Obama

My wife really likes Blue moon. Feel like drinking bud light is cooler than wheat beer. I mean when you are supposed to put fruit in your beer it should be designated a girl beer.

[dapokerbum 0]

Seems like someone should've manned up and got an IPA.

[FCP Bob 1,312]

god if he had only picked a colt 45. talk about a missed opportunity.

[timwakefield 68]

I feel like a big part of why Gates got so upset about it is because he was offended that his own neighbor and then the police officers didn't recognize him as the well-known scholar that he is. I don't mean that as a defense for him, just a possible motivation. When the story first happened my reaction was, 'Oh yeah, that guy.' He's pretty well known around Boston and especially in Cambridge.

[Sal Paradise 57]

Tens of thousands of unsafe or decaying bridges carrying 100 million drivers a day must wait for repairs because states are spending stimulus money on spans that are already in good shape or on easier projects like repaving roads, an Associated Press analysis shows.

NO FUCKING WAY

[akoff 0]

Hope and change baby...change is what it is all about.

[hblask 1]

NO ****ING WAY

Wow, I was kidding (I thought) about this yesterday.... a 3 mile stretch of road near my house has been closed for a couple weeks while they repave it. It was already in the best shape of any road around, and it's runs past nothing but farms. I told my family it must be that Obama stimulus money at work -- pave the good roads, leave the crappy ones.I didn't really think it was literally true, it was just a bit of cynicism. I guess it's impossible to out-cynic the Obama administration.

[vbnautilus 48]

Wow, I was kidding (I thought) about this yesterday.... a 3 mile stretch of road near my house has been closed for a couple weeks while they repave it. It was already in the best shape of any road around, and it's runs past nothing but farms. I told my family it must be that Obama stimulus money at work -- pave the good roads, leave the crappy ones.I didn't really think it was literally true, it was just a bit of cynicism. I guess it's impossible to out-cynic the Obama administration.

Your state decides which project to spend the money on.

[CaneBrain 95]

Your state decides which project to spend the money on.

STILL OBAMA'S FAULT. EVERYTHING IS HIS FAULT. SUBMIT!

[vbnautilus 48]

STILL OBAMA'S FAULT. EVERYTHING IS HIS FAULT. SUBMIT!

I assume he'll want to be leaving some things to blame on Al Franken.

[hblask 1]

Your state decides which project to spend the money on.

It is exactly the result that anyone with a brain would predict with a ridiculous program such as the one Obama shoved down our throats. If you tell someone "Here's a million dollars with the only catch being that you must spend it quickly", then when you get horrible results, it's the fault of the person who created the ridiculous program, not the people who were essentially blackmailed into wasting money.We saw what happened to the guy who tried to turn it down -- he was forced to have an affair with an Argentinian woman.

[Sal Paradise 57]

We saw what happened to the guy who tried to turn it down -- he was forced to have an affair with an Argentinian woman.

DAMN YOU OBA... wait a second... is there still time to turn down federal money?

[Avaron 0]

did i miss the part where obama said: "oh, and by the way: don't bother thinking about how to spend the money!"?

[hblask 1]

The cash-for-clunkers program is possibly the perfect metaphor for the Obama administration:1. Pretends to be good for the environment, but that is only true if you ignore the impact of building a new car. In other words, it's feel-good do-nothing.2. Rewards the rich. The people who most benefit from the program are those who could afford to buy a low-mileage SUV a few years ago. Poor people don't drive inefficient cars, they drive small, cheap cars that are inexpensive to operate and tend to have good mileage.3. Harms the poor: Now, these bigger, safer cars that are reaching the end of their original (rich) owner's interest in them, instead of going to the used car market where the price point finally makes them affordable to the poor, are pulled from the used vehicle market. Economics 101 quiz: what happens when supply is decreased while demand stays constant? Yes, that's correct, prices go up. So now we have a program that gives cash to the rich and costs the poor extra.4. Cost estimates off by a zillion percent: the money for the entire program is used up in the first few days. How out of touch with economic reality do you have to be to create a program designed to last indefinitley run out of money in the first few days?What's sad is that this same analysis could apply to pretty much everything Obama has done. This just happens to be his clearest, simplest example yet of how out of touch he is with reality and how far his rhetoric is from reality.This is who we want in charge of healthcare? It'd be funny if it weren't real.

[akoff 0]

The cash-for-clunkers program is possibly the perfect metaphor for the Obama administration:1. Pretends to be good for the environment, but that is only true if you ignore the impact of building a new car. In other words, it's feel-good do-nothing.2. Rewards the rich. The people who most benefit from the program are those who could afford to buy a low-mileage SUV a few years ago. Poor people don't drive inefficient cars, they drive small, cheap cars that are inexpensive to operate and tend to have good mileage.3. Harms the poor: Now, these bigger, safer cars that are reaching the end of their original (rich) owner's interest in them, instead of going to the used car market where the price point finally makes them affordable to the poor, are pulled from the used vehicle market. Economics 101 quiz: what happens when supply is decreased while demand stays constant? Yes, that's correct, prices go up. So now we have a program that gives cash to the rich and costs the poor extra.4. Cost estimates off by a zillion percent: the money for the entire program is used up in the first few days. How out of touch with economic reality do you have to be to create a program designed to last indefinitley run out of money in the first few days?What's sad is that this same analysis could apply to pretty much everything Obama has done. This just happens to be his clearest, simplest example yet of how out of touch he is with reality and how far his rhetoric is from reality.This is who we want in charge of healthcare? It'd be funny if it weren't real.

Whoooa there fella. Do not let the facts get in the way of a good story!! Barak is going to change things and it is going to be better. I heard him say it many time...don't come on here and let a little thing like buring 1 billion and asking for 2 billion more to waste cahnge anything. Plus we didn't even start the stimulus spending yet...think about it. We are going to start spending $1 to make .30....that will fix everything.if I didn't know better I would have thought I had read some thing along the lines of the poor get hurt he most before...

[El Guapo 8]

The short term vision by this administration is frightening. They are not even able to play a few months out, let alone the 10-20 years they tout on Health Care and Cap n Trade.I am not one to spout about marching on Washington, but something needs to be done. We are going to devalue our currency to where we may consider acquiring Mexico for their Peso.

[strategy 4]

4. Cost estimates off by a zillion percent: the money for the entire program is used up in the first few days. How out of touch with economic reality do you have to be to create a program designed to last indefinitley run out of money in the first few days?

from what I've read, the above is wrong. the program wasn't meant to last indefinitely, it had an endpoint in november.but you're right, they were completely off on how many people would take them up on it. and it's a ridiculously terrible idea to begin with.I'm just thankful that the total addition to the nat'l debt is only $3 billion so far.

[Jeepster80125 0]

minus 600 for obama, which is the percentage increase in human rights violations in mexico since 2006.How's that drug war going fellas? It seems that the State Department is glossing over the human rights violations with regards to the US-led mexican war on drugs, getting ready to issue a report that clears more funds for the drug war.Leahy Blocks Positive Report on Mexico's Rights RecordSkepticism About Conclusions Delays U.S. Anti-Drug AidMEXICO CITY, Aug. 4 -- A key senator rejected a State Department plan to issue a report this week affirming that Mexico is respecting human rights in its war against drug traffickers, delaying the release of millions of dollars in U.S. anti-narcotics assistance, according to U.S. officials and congressional sources.The State Department intended to send the favorable report on Mexico's human rights record to Congress in advance of President Obama's visit to Guadalajara for a summit of North American leaders this weekend, U.S. officials familiar with the report said.That plan was scrapped after aides to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, told State Department officials that the findings contradicted reports of human rights violations in Mexico, including torture and forced disappearances, in connection with the drug war.At stake is more than $100 million in U.S. aid under the Merida Initiative, a three-year, $1.4 billion counternarcotics package begun by President George W. Bush in 2007. The law requires Congress to withhold 15 percent of most of the funds until the secretary of state reports that Mexico has made progress on human rights."Those requirements have not been met, so it is premature to send the report to Congress," Leahy said in a statement. "We had good faith discussions with Mexican and U.S. officials in reaching these requirements in the law, and I hope we can continue in that spirit."Soaring ViolenceThe State Department's failure to push through the report is a setback for the U.S. and Mexican governments at a time when drug violence in Mexico continues to soar and President Felipe Calderón has come under growing pressure to revise his U.S.-backed anti-narcotics strategy, which relies heavily on the military to fight the cartels.State Department officials said they are considering whether to rewrite the report before submitting it to Congress, probably after it reconvenes Sept. 7.Mexico is likely to lose some of the money if it is not released by Sept. 30, U.S. officials said. U.S. aid under the Merida Initiative is used to buy helicopters and surveillance aircraft, train police, and improve intelligence-gathering in the fight against the drug cartels.But congressional aides and human rights experts expressed doubt that the State Department would be able to make a compelling case that Mexico has made sufficient progress."In the area of prosecuting human rights abuses and ending the impunity, I don't believe we have seen any real progress," said Maureen Meyer, who oversees Mexico for the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group that opposes release of the funds. "There is no sign that people are being held accountable. Every major human rights group has opposed releasing the money."Push for TransparencyMexican officials acknowledge that human rights violations have occurred in the fight against traffickers but say the cases are isolated.The Mexican government is sensitive to U.S. criticism about rights violations because the military is a respected institution -- and many Mexican leaders say the U.S. government has not done enough to reduce consumption of illegal drugs in the United States or stem the flow of weapons and cash heading south.In recent weeks, frustrated U.S. officials have pressed the Mexican government, including Defense Secretary Guillermo Galván Galván, to provide additional information, according to three officials involved in the campaign.Late last week, after the report was completed, Mexican officials disclosed details of a number of cases in which they said soldiers had been tried on charges of human rights violations, according to a U.S. official. He said the State Department is trying to verify whether the soldiers were prosecuted and has not decided whether to include the new information."We are looking for the Mexicans to be as transparent as possible," said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions. "We are pushing them to be more transparent than they think they can be. What happens when complaints are lodged? What do they do with them? What processes do they go through? What happens to individuals accused of abuses?"A spokesman for the Mexican military said it would be unable to comment. Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to Washington, said Tuesday: "Mexico is unequivocally committed to ensuring the protection of human rights in the fight against drug-trafficking organizations." He added, "We are confident that this will be recognized by Congress."140 Complaints a MonthSince Calderón launched his war against the cartels after taking office in December 2006, human rights complaints against the military have soared 600 percent, rising to 140 a month this year, according to government statistics. The National Human Rights Commission has issued reports on 26 cases involving the military since the beginning of Calderón's term, and it found evidence of torture in 17 of the cases.In April, Human Rights Watch issued a report highlighting 17 cases, including several from 2007 and 2008, involving what it said were military abuses of more than 70 victims. The alleged abuses include killings, torture, rapes and arbitrary detentions. According to that report, "not one of the military investigations into these crimes has led to a conviction for even a single soldier on human rights violations."On July 9, The Washington Post reported that the Mexican army had carried out numerous acts of torture, forced disappearances and illegal raids in pursuit of traffickers, according to court documents, political leaders and human rights monitors in Mexico's most conflicted regions.With the State Department report imminent, many prominent human rights organizations in the United States and Mexico released advance statements saying that Mexico had failed to meet the Merida Initiative requirements and urging the U.S. government to withhold the money."Why is this so important? Because Mexico cannot win this fight against drug cartels without human rights protections. Human rights provisions are not a headache. They are absolutely critical to the success of the whole initiative," said José Miguel Vivanco, director of the Americas program at Human Rights Watch.Carlos Cepeda, of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, said: "Mexico is not fulfilling the human rights requirements of the initiative and the government does not seem close to fulfilling them, and so of course it is a bad idea to release the funds. It would be a green light for further human rights abuses and for continued impunity for the military."A Case Not Yet MadeUnder Merida, the State Department is required to report to Congress on Mexico's progress in four areas: improving transparency and accountability; establishing regular consultations with civil institutions; ensuring that civilian and judicial authorities are prosecuting police and military officers credibly accused of violations; and prohibiting the use of testimony obtained through torture.The most controversial of the provisions is determining whether the Mexican government is prosecuting human rights offenders. To date, the military has handled all allegations of crimes under its own justice system. U.S. officials and Mexican and international human rights groups say the Mexican military is secretive and hostile to scrutiny by outsiders.Last month, amid growing allegations of abuses, Gen. Jaime Antonio López Portillo, head of the military's human rights office, held a news conference and announced that the military had prosecuted seven human rights cases dating to 1996, in which 12 members of the armed forces were found guilty of crimes, including homicide and kidnapping.Only one of the completed cases appeared to date from the Calderón term. An additional 14 cases involving 53 troops were working their way through the military's judicial process, according to López Portillo.The State Department had still intended to argue for the release of the Merida funds this week, U.S. officials said. But officials with the department's bureau of Western Hemisphere affairs got a chilly reception from Leahy's foreign policy expert, Tim Rieser, at a meeting last week. According to people familiar with the meeting, Rieser told officials that they had not made the case on any of the four areas required under Merida.After receiving the additional information from Mexico, State Department officials went back to Rieser over the weekend to find out whether Leahy would support the report. He said he would not.Next week Mexico's Supreme Court will address whether it is unconstitutional to try cases of human rights violations in military courts. The legal challenge, brought by the Miguel Agustín center, involves four civilians who were shot dead in Sinaloa state last year, allegedly by Mexican soldiers. Mexico's attorney general declined to take the case, and the military investigated the deaths instead.

[CaneBrain 95]

minus 600 for obama, which is the percentage increase in human rights violations in mexico since 2006.How's that drug war going fellas? It seems that the State Department is glossing over the human rights violations with regards to the US-led mexican war on drugs, getting ready to issue a report that clears more funds for the drug war.Leahy Blocks Positive Report on Mexico's Rights RecordSkepticism About Conclusions Delays U.S. Anti-Drug AidMEXICO CITY, Aug. 4 -- A key senator rejected a State Department plan to issue a report this week affirming that Mexico is respecting human rights in its war against drug traffickers, delaying the release of millions of dollars in U.S. anti-narcotics assistance, according to U.S. officials and congressional sources.The State Department intended to send the favorable report on Mexico's human rights record to Congress in advance of President Obama's visit to Guadalajara for a summit of North American leaders this weekend, U.S. officials familiar with the report said.That plan was scrapped after aides to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, told State Department officials that the findings contradicted reports of human rights violations in Mexico, including torture and forced disappearances, in connection with the drug war.At stake is more than $100 million in U.S. aid under the Merida Initiative, a three-year, $1.4 billion counternarcotics package begun by President George W. Bush in 2007. The law requires Congress to withhold 15 percent of most of the funds until the secretary of state reports that Mexico has made progress on human rights.

Obama is just continuing the insane policies of every other president because this country's right wing has zero common sense in regards to narcotics. I am disappointed in Barack's lack of spine on this issue but the majority of the fault for our continued idiotic drug war falls at the feet of the Sarah Palin crowd.

[hblask 1]

Obama is just continuing the insane policies of every other president because this country's right wing has zero common sense in regards to narcotics. I am disappointed in Barack's lack of spine on this issue but the majority of the fault for our continued idiotic drug war falls at the feet of the Sarah Palin crowd.

QFT.This is the intersection of two insane policies -- first, telling people that the government owns their body, and second, giving aid to prop up the failed policies of other countries.When the two collide, this is the kind of stupidity you get.This is a bigger problem than Obama, and I actually believe if he wasn't such a politician he would support the notion of individual free will.He's probably also support Welfare for Bad Politicians (also known as foreign aid), though.

[CaneBrain 95]

QFT.This is the intersection of two insane policies -- first, telling people that the government owns their body, and second, giving aid to prop up the failed policies of other countries.When the two collide, this is the kind of stupidity you get.This is a bigger problem than Obama, and I actually believe if he wasn't such a politician he would support the notion of individual free will.He's probably also support Welfare for Bad Politicians (also known as foreign aid), though.

oh, he definitely is pro-foreign aid. That is something both parties seem to love.It's a bit tragic, really, the drug war under Obama. Inject him with truth serum and I bet he would tell you all about how the drug war is dumb and he wants to decriminalize soft drugs. Most law professors know the stats on prison overcrowding and what not. But, I am sure he feels that he cannot get his healthcare plan done if he has to fight the right on drugs and fend off accusations that he is soft on crime. Sadly, he should be putting the healthcare stuff on the back burner and going after drug policy which would be true change. It is pretty much a given that ending the drug war would have positive effects (save money on law enforcement, court costs, jail costs, end the fighting in Mexico, tax revenue, and on and on and on).....whereas the healthcare nonsense seems destined to stall (perhaps for the best---thanks abortion!) and would be just trading one kind of suck for another if it passed.

[Jeepster80125 0]

Obama is just continuing the insane policies of every other president because this country's right wing has zero common sense in regards to narcotics. I am disappointed in Barack's lack of spine on this issue but the majority of the fault for our continued idiotic drug war falls at the feet of the Sarah Palin crowd.

QFT.This is the intersection of two insane policies -- first, telling people that the government owns their body, and second, giving aid to prop up the failed policies of other countries.When the two collide, this is the kind of stupidity you get.This is a bigger problem than Obama, and I actually believe if he wasn't such a politician he would support the notion of individual free will.He's probably also support Welfare for Bad Politicians (also known as foreign aid), though.

I absolutely agree on this one. The right has such a redneck, hillbilly view on this and it's frustrating to continue to see so much time, effort, and lives wasted on such a futile 'war' on free will.