Obama's Failures

In the meantime, Obama's in dire need of a good foreign policy advisor.
I don't know if it's just plain ignorance or is he intentionaly moving us towards a nuklear war with his recent stance on Syria, Iran and China.

PolitiFact just rated "If you like your heath plan, you can keep it" as it's Lie of the Year. On one hand, this feels like vindication. But on the other, it's outrageous, because they rated it "Half True" before.

Good grief.

He's an editorial predicting the promise was nonsense over three years ago:

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/0...-of-all-fears/

It's been right about absolutely everything so far, which sounds impressive until you realize that a rudimentary grasp of economics suggested as much. Note well the things it's predicted that haven't happened yet, like doctor shortages, because that's what's next. We're already seeing evidence of it.

A new poll is out that says a majority of the uninsured oppose Obamacare:

http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/13/ob...-the-uninsured

Let that sink in.

The vast majority of Amerians period (70%) oppose Obama care but He keeps trying to shove it down our throats.

It was just announced that people who lost their insurance will have the option of buying catastrophic coverage. No explanation as to how the insurance companies are supposed to keep up with these ad-hoc, by-the-seat-of-your-pants tweaks to the law that just keep coming.

So if you're keeping track at home, the President has simply declared that the employer mandate will be delayed (which isn't in the text of the law), that other deadlines for enforcement will be delayed (also not in the law, basically being force-fit under "selective enforcement" discretion), and now people will be allowed to buy the same kinds of plans Obama and his supporters were calling "junk" insurance when this uproar began.

Someone please explain to me how this is possible. The law says you can't have these plans. How can the President simply declare it okay again? What's the point of having laws if he can just make this crap up as he goes?

If we don't get a court challenge to this insanity, it'll be ridiculous.

All my issues with Obama aside, I think he actually cops too much flack in regards to the NSA scandal. The American government was collecting data on its citizens since the Reagan administration in the 1980s. The surveillance project was not implemented under Obama's administration -- he merely approved and continued to support it. The extent of knowledge he had is a completely different story, as well. The US government seems to spawn a very hierarchical and orderly structure, and it is obvious at this stage that Obama is not on top of the chain. Considering how the US government is fundamentally controlled and influenced by various special interest groups and corporations, I doubt Obama actually possesses the political power to discard and discontinue a program that commenced over 25 years ago and is at the core of various intelligence groups within the United States.

I doubt this as well, but the fact is he supports it, and unlike you I don't think his knowledge of it was limited. He always likes to say "WELL THIS IS NEWS TO ME" but come on.

I never said he had limited knowledge, per-se, but the extent remains ambiguous, and probably always will. Did Obama know the NSA was conducting in mass surveillance on its own people? Yes, most likely, but I am sure there were other details addressed in Snowden's leaks that Obama, personally, was not aware of. Maybe. Maybe not. Like a lot of people, I see the US government as an oligarchic with a small, selective group of people ultimately running the country and having a mostly imperative role in dictating both its foreign and domestic policy. This isn't a particularly uncommon belief. I think most people who follow the news would understand this by now. This is not strictly confined to the United States, though.

Then again, this is all observational. But Obama supporting it is definitely a huge negative.

It's one thing to allow a program to continue. It's another to expand and defend it.

And yeah, I too am amazed at how often he expects us to believe he's just hearing about whatever scandal has broken.

I'd just enjoy hearing an explanation from Bush-bashing Obama supporters how this tool is so different from that tool. C'mon, I could use a chuckle...

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#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

I once heard somebody say Obama is merely a more articulate and presentable version of George W. Bush. At the time, I dismissed such a statement as trollish and incorrect as Obama's first term more or less commenced.

Fast forward to 2014, and I might have to agree to some extent.

Yeah, I really think that's it: candidates aren't what they do, they're how they identify themselves.

This is how an increasingly narcissistic electorate votes: on projected image, not actions or policies. They/we want to be accepted as whatever we claim to be, so we allow the same from our leaders. People increasingly vote for candidates based on what they think their vote says about them. "I'm not one of those [fill in the blank]s."

Humiliation of Indian diplomat shows that India is no longer on Obama's radar---





The bitterness in India-US ties over the Devyani Khobragade case is likely to linger as India squares up to the Obama administration's indifference to a rusting "strategic partnership", glaringly exposed by the diplomat's humiliation.

Khobragade's on street arrest, the indignities she was subjected to in custody and her return amid heightened acrimony strongly point to the much-hailed partnership's decline with US not caring to mask its disinterest.

The vehemence of India's response possibly surprised US, but India could hardly have done otherwise as the deliberation with which the US diplomatic security service acted almost suggests she was being made an example of.

Claims that authorities merely followed the book seem unconvincing as the view grows that US increasingly sees ties with India in transactional terms, with a crib list over market access and stalled reforms obscuring a larger confluence of interests.

US prosecutor Preet Bharara's suggestion that a "legal process was started in India against the victim, attempting to silence her, and attempts were made to compel her to return to India" revealed a view of the Indian system otherwise hailed as a democratic marvel. His wonderment at why outrage in India ignored the "victim" in the case only made matters worse.

The disdain, bordering on insolence, with which US not only shunned subtler ways of dealing with the case filed by Khobragade's former maid but spirited away her family - all Indian citizens - point to a high degree of premeditation.

Despite the quibbling over the scope of consular immunity as against diplomatic immunity, US manuals themselves make it quite plain that handcuffing, leave alone a strip search, is usually precluded in such cases.

The drift in ties has seen the very American business interests like Westinghouse and General Electric that rooted for India bemoaning restricted access and ensuring their woes figure on the agenda of US leaders meeting Indian counterparts.

A deadening of sensitivities has meant that mid-level officers dealing with a case like Khobragade did not think that a higher call is needed as the events could impact relations with an important partner in south Asia.

The all too visible downgrade in priority accorded to India can only expose New Delhi to ridicule in Islamabad and Beijing, given the top billing accorded to the perceived synergy between the two large democracies.

Despite the congealing ties, the nonchalance with which US treated the fallout of the case has not been fully explained, though some quarters see it as a reflection of just how far off India has fallen off the map for the Obama White House.

The audacious disregard of India's legal system and extraction of the maid's family in order to preempt anticipated reprisals against Khobragade's impending arrest points to a return to an older, and what was till recently was felt to be an obsolete, formulation of estranged democracies.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/28694690.cms

Obama is no more culpable then any other American president appointed after the end of Word War II -- he is merely seated on a false and convenient throne -- convenient for America's real rulers.

This is an absolutely brutal chart. The unemployment rate is still too high, but even so it's way worse than it looks, because virtually all of the drop we've seen since its peak is due to people dropping out of the labor force:



It makes you wonder if the goal is less about fixing the problem than it is about superficially moving the numbers.

I would say its always about the superficial numbers. That being said I have a legitimate question about this statistic that maybe you can answer. Is this a new phenomenon that people that are not in the workforce are not counted towards the unemployment rate? Or has it always been the case? I cant imagine an unemployment rate around 5% was ever legitimate if we were counting everybody.

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Letterboxd

That's what they do amongst schools, the charts are essentially the same (except in the other direction)

No, it's not a new practice, though it hasn't been too bad in the past because most of the time the people dropped out of the labor force do so for reasons like voluntary retirement. When the Labor Force Participation Rate is steady the unemployment rate makes for a pretty decent number. Unfortunately, things are so bad that we have lots of people dropping out in the sense of giving up, which makes the number a lot less meaningful.

There are, however, lots of different unemployment numbers put out each month and we can look at all of them. It's just custom that has people focusing so much on this one specific metric. Maybe that'll start to change now. We're already seeing a lot more news articles talking about labor force participation, which is a step in the right direction compared to just lazily looking at the topline numbers.

Thanks for the clarification, that is what I assumed, but assumption is never a good practice. I dont doubt that a lot of what your saying about the workforce is true. My issue is that the right leaning media is framing this in the context of it being a new practice. This is disingenuous at best. That's the kind of thing that shoots my frustration level through the roof. I have a hard time aligning myself as a republican or democrat because everyone is lying to my face. You can do your own research, which I do a fair amount of on the subjects that matter. The problem is I feel like I am always piecing together half truths to get a whole picture. Sorry for the rant. Just wanted to get that out.