Who is Obama

[wkmac]

Originally Posted by av8torntn

Is this the same Liebman the Clintons rolled out when they tried to take more power from us with their social security plan? If so then by privatization you mean if you maintain redistribution, and if you give the people only limited choices of index funds for investments, and if you pass on the fees for the low income accounts to people who have higher income. Ok I see what you mean if that were privatization this guy would be for it.

The very same one!

And as I said in the post:

From my POV, is his idea the perfect scenario? Of course not

This means AV, I don't consider it true privatization but then neither would the republican plan be. They would in effect still IMO control redistribution as they would still by law collect the money at the employer just as it's done now and they would still determine where and where not that money can be invested. Even 401k's and IRA's although limited are governed in this area. You can't go out and buy a lottery ticket even though it meets the definition of an investment (A very stupid one I might add) so again, there is gov't intervention in the market place and with individual liberty. Who sez the democrats are Pro-Choice?

There would be investment limitations and maybe not in your opinion as drastic as some democrats would have it but it still gov't controlled and like we learned with CS, they can change the rules any sweet time they so choose to do. But the more important point is that by-law you would be forced to take part just as I can't take my money out of CS or future money from UPS and take care of myself (which I would love to do and would in a heart attack if given the choice) and so too with these so called privatization accounts.

A true "private" plan IMO means you go out and all on your own you choose to invest or not invest and then you decide by what means to do so and all decisions on the who, what, where and how are decided by you and any professional you might decide to do bidness with.

The other roadblock that sits out there which everyone seems to ignore are the SCOTUS cases from the 1930's where the idea of SS (Social Retirement Insurance) was first attempted with Railroad workers and was shot down as outside Constitutional delegation of powers and then before the ink was dry on the decision, congress came back with what became the SS Act which was an income/excise tax. When this too went to SCOTUS, the gov't wised up and argued that this was an income tax on employee and excise tax on employer (which it is, read the code in Title 26) for the purpose of raising general revenue and that collected tax would go into the general revenue fund which it does. The funding for SS is not from a trust but rather from a line item in the budget itself which allows Congress to in effect commit the fraud so that the American public doesn't realize they are double taxed on the income level. One progressive and one flat if you will.

Making SS privatized with funds linked directly to an individual account linked again to you would become the very issue (social retirement insurance) the court ruled against as UnConstitutional when the idea was first broached. The gov't in effect is caught between a rock (the public demanding the obvious, direct accounts to each person) and a hard place (SCOTUS who has ruled this type of gov't exercise is Un Constitutional in case law).

I'd like to see the whole system abolished completely so maybe I'm not as impressed with the parlor tricks of the republicans and democrats.

[av8torntn]

I just thought it was funny that you brought this guy up as a champion of private social security accounts when the dems in congress used this same professor (in a very smart way) to block the Bush plan for social security.

I think and it has been quite some time since my school days but this guy says that the higher payroll taxes are the less productive workers become even if you increase their income level to the point where it would offset the losses to the payroll taxes. Ok it could have been one of his students so hold your fire if this isn't completely accurate. But my question is how do you think this gels with the Obama plan to double payroll taxes for social security?

I think this guy is just another party line guy making a fortune off the taxpayers.

[wkmac]

Originally Posted by av8torntn

I think this guy is just another party line guy making a fortune off the taxpayers.

Ya Think?


As I said:

I'm not as impressed with the parlor tricks of the republicans and democrats.

[av8torntn]

Ok well more about supporters of Obama.

YouTube - Obama campaign rep STUMPED on...

[Jones]

[tieguy]

back to Obama - here is how he spent his fathers day.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080615/ap_on_el_pr/obama

I wonder how it would have sold if McCain had been in a black church with the same exact message.

I also see another day here where Barrack is speaking in a black church about black issues. I can't deny his race but I'm starting to wonder if he is running to be president or if he is running to be a black president.

[tieguy]

And McCain who got a special fathers day gift:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25140190/

[tonyexpress]

As we ponder who Obama is...

There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.
- PJ O'Rourke

hope and change too!

[Jones]

Originally Posted by tieguy

I also see another day here where Barrack is speaking in a black church about black issues. I can't deny his race but I'm starting to wonder if he is running to be president or if he is running to be a black president.

At least one republican vendor has heard your question, Tie:


Just in case anyone was still wondering what this election is really going to be about, the above pin was actually being sold at the Republican state convention in Dallas. nice.

[tieguy]

Originally Posted by Jones

At least one republican vendor has heard your question, Tie:


Just in case anyone was still wondering what this election is really going to be about, the above pin was actually being sold at the Republican state convention in Dallas. nice.

pretty tacky. I wonder if he sold many.

[toonertoo]

Wow, for the first few minutes, I was captivated. What he said actually made sense, but as true to form Obama, the cash register of the taxpayer started going cha ching. On minute 4:55. Its all true, and he made the racist statements, but I fail to see how family care, extends to the government. Dont have a family if you dont want one, condoms are cheap, so is family planning. It is not the governments job. In the beginning it all makes sense, but the answer is ridiculous. It is the great society programs that got familes of all colors to this point. And I know that everyone wants to say, they cant find work. Well no if you quit school and have no skills, you most likely cant find work. Once again, personal responsibility.
but their for a moment I agreed with Obama. Till he came up with the solution which charges me with the care of something I have no control over. No Obama in 08 or EVER.

YouTube - BARACK OBAMA: FATHER'S DAY OBITER...

[big_arrow_up]

Originally Posted by toonertoo

Wow, for the first few minutes, I was captivated. What he said actually made sense, but as true to form Obama, the cash register of the taxpayer started going cha ching. On minute 4:55. Its all true, and he made the racist statements, but I fail to see how family care, extends to the government. Dont have a family if you dont want one, condoms are cheap, so is family planning. It is not the governments job. In the beginning it all makes sense, but the answer is ridiculous. It is the great society programs that got familes of all colors to this point. And I know that everyone wants to say, they cant find work. Well no if you quit school and have no skills, you most likely cant find work. Once again, personal responsibility.
but their for a moment I agreed with Obama. Till he came up with the solution which charges me with the care of something I have no control over. No Obama in 08 or EVER.

YouTube - BARACK OBAMA: FATHER'S DAY OBITER DICTUM - (CNN)

Can't find work? LOL! It's funny how 12 million illegal aliens and millions of legal aliens can find jobs but Americans can't. LOL! Good job Tooner too. You did what many people are incapable of doing when listening to Obama speak and that is to pay closer attention instead of going into a blissful trance when they here is catch phrases. Some people go numb with excitement when they hear the word "Change." Some of us open our ears and use our brains.

[Jones]

Obama's support for the FISA "compromise"

There are many important lessons from yesterday's announcement that he now supports a warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty bill
Glenn Greenwald
Jun. 21, 2008 | In the past 24 hours, specifically beginning with the moment Barack Obama announced that he now supports the Cheney/Rockefeller/Hoyer House bill, there have magically arisen -- in places where one would never have expected to find them -- all sorts of claims about why this FISA "compromise" isn't really so bad after all. People who spent the week railing against Steny Hoyer as an evil, craven enabler of the Bush administration -- or who spent the last several months identically railing against Jay Rockefeller -- suddenly changed their minds completely when Barack Obama announced that he would do the same thing as they did. What had been a vicious assault on our Constitution, and corrupt complicity to conceal Bush lawbreaking, magically and instantaneously transformed into a perfectly understandable position, even a shrewd and commendable decision, that we should not only accept, but be grateful for as undertaken by Obama for our Own Good.
Accompanying those claims are a whole array of factually false statements about the bill, deployed in service of defending Obama's indefensible -- and deeply unprincipled -- support for this "compromise." Numerous individuals stepped forward to assure us that there was only one small bad part of this bill -- the part which immunizes lawbreaking telecoms -- and since Obama says that he opposes that part, there is no basis for criticizing him for what he did. Besides, even if Obama decided to support an imperfect bill, it's our duty to refrain from voicing any criticism of him, because the Only Thing That Matters is that Barack Obama be put in the Oval Office, and we must do anything and everything -- including remain silent when he embraces a full-scale assault on the Fourth Amendment and the rule of law -- because every goal is now subordinate to electing Barack Obama our new Leader.
It is absolutely false that the only unconstitutional and destructive provision of this "compromise" bill is the telecom amnesty part. It's true that most people working to defeat the Cheney/Rockefeller bill viewed opposition to telecom amnesty as the most politically potent way to defeat the bill, but the bill's expansion of warrantless eavesdropping powers vested in the President, and its evisceration of safeguards against abuses of those powers, is at least as long-lasting and destructive as the telecom amnesty provisions. The bill legalizes many of the warrantless eavesdropping activities George Bush secretly and illegally ordered in 2001. Those warrantless eavesdropping powers violate core Fourth Amendment protections. And Barack Obama now supports all of it, and will vote it into law. Those are just facts.
The ACLU specifically identifies the ways in which this bill destroys meaningful limits on the President's power to spy on our international calls and emails. Sen. Russ Feingold condemned the bill on the ground that it "fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home" because "the government can still sweep up and keep the international communications of innocent Americans in the U.S. with no connection to suspected terrorists, with very few safeguards to protect against abuse of this power." Rep. Rush Holt -- who was disgustingly denied time to speak by bill-supporter Silvestre Reyes only to be given time by bill-opponent John Conyers -- condemned the bill because it vests the power to decide who are the "bad guys" in the very people who do the spying.
This bill doesn't legalize every part of Bush's illegal warrantless eavesdropping program but it takes a large step beyond FISA towards what Bush did. There was absolutely no reason to destroy the FISA framework, which is already an extraordinarily pro-Executive instrument that vests vast eavesdropping powers in the President, in order to empower the President to spy on large parts of our international communications with no warrants at all. This was all done by invoking the scary spectre of Terrorism -- "you must give up your privacy and constitutional rights to us if you want us to keep you safe" -- and it is Obama's willingness to embrace that rancid framework, the defining mindset of the Bush years, that is most deserving of intense criticism here.
* * * * *
Last night, Greg Sargent wrote that the most infuriating aspect of what Obama did here "is that since the outset of the campaign he's seemed absolutely dead serious about changing the way foreign policy is discussed and argued about in this country"; that Obama's "candidacy has long seemed to embody a conviction that Democrats can win arguments with Republicans about national security -- that if Dems stick to a set of core principles, and forcefully argue for them without blinking, they can and will persuade people that, simply put, they are right and Republicans are wrong"; and that "this time, he abandoned that premise," even though:

if there were ever anything that would have tested his operating premise throughout this campaign -- that you can win arguments with Republicans about national security -- it was this legislation. If ever there were anything that deserved to test this premise, it was this legislation.

This superb piece from The Technology Liberation Front makes the same argument:

We are, in other words, right back to the narrative where being "strong" on national security means trashing the constitution. . . . . This is doubly disappointing because until now Obama has been a master at re-framing national security debates to get out of this box. Unlike John Kerry, he has refused to shy away from a confrontational posture on foreign policy issues. He's shown a willingness to say he has a better foreign policy vision, rather than simply insisting he can be just as tough on the terrorists as the Republicans are. He could and should have done the same with FISA, taking the opportunity to explain why warrantless surveillance isn't necessary to protect us from the terrorists. But it seems he, along with Steny Hoyer and Harry Reid, chickened out. So it's back to Republicans being tough on national security and Democrats defensively insisting that they, too, hate terrorists more than they love the constitution.

It's either that he "chickened out" or -- as Jack Balkin asserts and Digby wonders -- Obama believes he will be President and wants these extreme powers for himself, no doubt, he believes, because he'll exercise them magnanimously, for our Own Good. Whatever the motives -- and I don't know (or much care) what they are -- Obama has embraced a bill that is not only redolent of many of the excesses of Bush's executive power theories and surveillance state expansions, but worse, has done so by embracing the underlying rationale of "Be-scared-and-give-up-your-rights." Note that the very first line of Obama's statement warns us that we face what he calls "grave threats," and that therefore, we must accept that our Leader needs more unlimited power, and the best we can do is trust that he will use it for our Good. Making matters worse still, what Obama did yesterday is in clear tension with an emphatic promise that he made just months ago. As the extremely pro-Obama MoveOn.org notes today, Obama's spokesman, Bill Burton, back in in September, vowed to "support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies". MoveOn believes Obama should be held to his word and is thus conducting a campaign urging Obama to do what he promised -- support a filibuster to stop the enactment of telecom amnesty. You can email Burton here to demand that Obama comply with his commitment not just to vote against, but to filibuster, telecom amnesty:

bburton@barackobama.com

Incidentally, Chris Dodd made an identical promise when he was running for President, prompting the support of hundreds of thousands of new contributors, and he ought to be held to his promise as well.

[Jones]

The excuse that Obama's support for this bill is politically shrewd is -- even if accurate -- neither a defense of what he did nor a reason to refrain from loudly criticizing him for it. Actually, it's the opposite. It's precisely because Obama is calculating that he can -- without real consequence -- trample upon the political values of those who believe in the Constitution and the rule of law that it's necessary to do what one can to change that calculus. Telling Obama that you'll cheer for him no matter what he does, that you'll vest in him Blind Faith that anything he does is done with the purest of motives, ensures that he will continue to ignore you and your political interests.
Beyond that, this attitude that we should uncritically support Obama in everything he does and refrain from criticizing him is unhealthy in the extreme. No political leader merits uncritical devotion -- neither when they are running for office nor when they occupy it -- and there are few things more dangerous than announcing that you so deeply believe in the Core Goodness of a political leader, or that we face such extreme political crises that you trust and support whatever your Leader does, even when you don't understand it or think that it's wrong. That's precisely the warped authoritarian mindset that defined the Bush Movement and led to the insanity of the post-9/11 Era, and that uncritical reverence is no more attractive or healthy when it's shifted to a new Leader.
What Barack Obama did here was wrong and destructive. He's supporting a bill that is a full-scale assault on our Constitution and an endorsement of the premise that our laws can be broken by the political and corporate elite whenever the specter of Terrorists can be invoked to justify it. What's more, as a Constitutional Law Professor, he knows full well what a radical perversion of our Constitution this bill is, and yet he's supporting it anyway. Anyone who sugarcoats or justifies that is doing a real disservice to their claimed political values and to the truth.
The excuse that we must sit by quietly and allow him to do these things with no opposition so that he can win is itself a corrupted and self-destructive mentality. That mindset has no end. Once elected, it will transform into: "It's vital that Obama keeps his majority in Congress so you have to keep quiet until after the 2010 midterms," after which it will be: "It's vital that Obama is re-elected so you have to keep quiet until after 2012," at which point the process will repeat itself from the first step. Quite plainly, those are excuses to justify mindless devotion, not genuine political strategies.
Having said all of that, the other extreme -- declaring that Obama is now Evil Incarnate, no better than John McCain, etc. etc. -- is no better. Obama is a politician running for political office, driven by all the standard, pedestrian impulses of most other people who seek and crave political power. It's nothing more or less than that, and it is just as imperative today as it was yesterday that the sickly right-wing faction be permanently removed from power and that there is never any such thing as the John McCain Administration (as one commenter ironically noted yesterday, at the very least, Obama is far more likely to appoint Supreme Court Judges who will rule that the bill Obama supports is patently unconstitutional). The commenter sysprog described perfectly the irrational excesses of both extremes the other day:

Argh Why are so many four-year-olds and fourteen-year-olds making comments on blogs?
Four-year-olds see their preferred politicians as god-like fathers (or mothers) whose virtuous character will guarantee good judgment. If a judgment looks questionable to you, then it's because you don't know all the facts that mommy and daddy know, or it's because you aren't as wise as them.
Fourteen-year-olds have had their illusions shattered about those devilish politicians so now they perceive the TRUTH - - that mommy and daddy make bad judgments because mommy and daddy are utterly corrupt.

Personally, I can empathize with the impulses behind the latter far more than the former, even while recognizing that they both must be diligently avoided. It's understandable that there is a substantial sense of anger and betrayal towards Obama as a result of what he did yesterday, particularly among those who previously viewed him as something transcendent and "different." Quoting Shakespeare is always slightly pompous (at least) but -- with apologies in advance -- his observation in Sonnet 94 is too apropos here to refrain:

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

If there is one good thing that can come from this week's horrific embrace by Obama and our bipartisan political establishment of warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty, perhaps it will be that the illusions of "lily-ness" about Barack Obama can finally fade away and be replaced by a more realistic perception of what he is, what his limits are, and the reasons why he merits real scrutiny, criticism and checks -- like everyone else pursuing political power does. Recall that the very first thing that he did upon securing the nomination was run to AIPAC to prostrate himself before them and swear undying fealty to their militant pieties. There will be plenty more of these sorts of to come. Whether you think he is engaging in them out of justifiable political calculation or some barren quest for power doesn't much matter. Either way, no good comes from lending uncritical support to a political leader, or cheering them on when they do bad and destructive things, or using twisted rationalizations to justify their full-scale assault on your core political values. The core lesson of the last seven years is that political figures, more than they need anything else, need checks and limits. That is just as important to keep in mind -- probably more so -- when you love or revere a political leader than it is when you detest one.

[av8torntn]

YouTube - Dr. No

[wkmac]

http://www.counterpunch.org/maass06282008.html