There’s been an enormous amount of discussion, arguments, and chatter about ‘torture’. What it is, what is isn’t, and who is doing it.
Guantanamo, the U.S. military detention camp, has been loudly criticized for ‘water-boarding’ (simulated drowning) of 3 terrorists. No doubt this technique is psychnologically terrible, but whether any permanent damage is inflicted is unclear. Top level U.S. military personnel themselves are subjected to water-boarding so they’re aware of what they might be subjected to by enemies, so if one believes water-boarding is torture, then the U.S. tortures its own military. A soldier told me of a fast 25 mile walk he had to endure with 50lbs of gear on, and his bleeding feet. Is that torture? Heck, I’ve been in business meetings I’d describe as torture. Sorry, must not make light of this!
But somehow lost in the argument is what other countries do. 60 Minutes did a piece on an Iranian student’s story. He had been part of a student protest in Iran and was eventually arrested and then held and tortured for years before being released.
I think everyone should see this. It’s just 12 minutes.
Well he’s off to a really bad start. Here’s just a few ‘highlights’:
He’s fighting to restructure healthcare in the country while the economy collapses.
He’s had a string of tax cheating nominees and appointments to his cabinet.
He’s reneged on his commitment to get out of Iraq, taking longer to end ‘combat’ than he promised, and he’ll leave 50,000 troops there after.
He campaigned to veto all earmarks and yet is ok with a budget containing thousands.
His trillion dollar ‘stimulus’ program does not seem to have impressed anyone, except politicians bringing useless pork-barrel projects to their districts.
After just 5 weeks, he plans to balloon the deficit to exceed the total of all deficits during the 8 years of the Bush (II) administration.
He is planning to end tax breaks for sizable charitable donations by the wealthy which will really hurt charities AND small businesses.
His vice-president has made gaffe after gaffe after gaffe.
His vice-president met, just today, in a SECRET meeting with AFL-CIO at their swanky conference in Miami. The Obama administration plans to end privacy for union votes.
Instead of trying to inspire a nation, his speeches have been consistently negative, talking of crisis and catastrophe. He pathetically said this week maybe it’s time for people to put money in the stock market. The market plunged right after.
He keeps the White House heated like an oven, is doing massive and expensive renovations, yet wants everyone else to conserve.
He’s talking about ‘green jobs’, but there’s no energy policy.
He still hasn’t filled his cabinet.
He has waged a PR war with a radio blow hard (Rush Limbaugh) which is completely irrelevant, and just a distraction.
His treasury secretary (Geithner) has no lieutenants and so the senate banking committee got no treasury representative to attend their inquiry into AIG bailout because Geithner was being grilled in the House on another matter.
One day the President declared Geithner would speak with details the next day on the banking and other plans, and the next day Geithner gave no details, and weeks later, still has no details or plan.
Perhaps this is Obama’s actual plan – to drive the economy into the dirt, so he can then establish some ‘emergency powers’ or something, and turn the U.S. into the socialist economy he wants.
I do believe he LOATHES small business because everything so far has been aimed AGAINST that. Why? Because small businesses are hard to control. Europe began a war on small business decades ago and killed most of them. European governments prefer big companies with back room ‘deals’ because they can keep an eye on them and control them better.
I think it’s fair to say he’s off to a horrible start. Wall St. has ZERO confidence in what they’ve done and what they haven’t done.
I believe we are witnessing the END of America and any American dream as we have understood it. Thanks a lot Obama.
If you voted for him, shame on you. Fooled you good.
T. Boone Pickens has made a fortune in oil. But he’s an American first and at 80, he’s still passionate and dedicated to helping the U.S. reduce its dependence on foreign oil. The U.S. gets 70% of its oil from foreign sources today, which is a MAJOR NATIONAL SECURITY RISK.
I watched all of your final press conference, your interview with Brit Hume, your interview with Sean Hannity, and while I didn’t agree with everything you did while President, particularly letting government spending spiral out of control and not vetoing any spending during your first term, overall I’m still glad you were our President during this time. I shudder to think what Al Gore or John Kerry would have done.
I’ve watched some of Vice President Dick Cheney’s interviews too, and I am completely convinced he was critical to this country’s effective (although not perfect) response to 9/11.
Despite critics, as you said, the Patriot Act, the military actions, and many other things done, despite huge opposition, meant the U.S. was not attacked again in the past 7 1/2 yrs.
The economic collapse will be a black eye, although there’s an enormous number of people who can legitimately be blamed not for just not avoiding it, but for actively causing a crisis to become a MAJOR disaster. Banks were told to write lousy loans, and they did, then banks and Wall St. bundled up all the lousy loans and sold them to suckers worldwide, with the government’s blessing, or ignorance.
The final Press Conference today was good, but it’s a shame most people won’t see all of it. You were forceful, direct, articulate, and in control, and handled the media’s ‘obvious’ questions well.
You handled the worst disaster since Pearl Harbor effectively, brought a fledgling democracy to Iraq, made this country safer, got the terrorists on defense and on the run, and the economy did ‘ok’ for the most part, despite man made and natural disasters, until the ticking economic time bomb went off.
You leave office unpopular, but as you have said, no one knows what will happen from here or how history will ultimately judge events and actions of the past 8 years.
I voted. And I’ve deliberately kept the TV off any channel likely to be analyzing the election or announing results. It’s not been easy (I watched other, pre-recorded stuff, or did some work). I will catch the result in the morning!
I recently saw Bjorn Lomborg interviewed about ‘global warming’ and his views on what we should do seemed about the most practical and effective imaginable. Instead of the shrill, slick, non-scientific, and dishonest ‘marketing’ by people like Al Gore, Lomborg looks at the effectiveness of solutions proposed by others. For example, he says if all the goals of the Kyoto treaty were met (no chance, but ok), the world would still only delay the predicted effects of ‘global warming’ by a year or so! So Al Gore and cohorts want to cripple the global economy to delay global warming by a year? Ok Bjorn, now you’ve got my attention.
He goes on to say that efforts to save arctic ice will likely save 1 polar bear a year, a popular cause among environmentalists. He said humans SHOOT 400 polar bears a year, so maybe stopping that would be more effective!
Despite all the great minds involved in the campaign such as James Carville, Terry McAuliffe, Harold Ickes, and both Clintons (see the rest here), their Achilles heel did them in. And what was that? Arrogance!
Their original plan appears to have been:
Raise a bunch of money from a few rich donors
Make speeches carefully worded to pander to voters without saying anything substantive that might be used against her
Put an organization in place to go after the big primaries, and ignore those annoying little caucus states for the most part
Be so far ahead after ‘Super Tuesday’ (Feb 5, 2008, a day that will live in infamy) that money will continue to roll in for the general election and coast to the nomination and crowning!
So what went wrong? Well everything really! Obama won the first ‘event’, a caucus, in Iowa. I’m sure the Clinton team thought “pfft, it’s a caucus, big deal, and we only just lost (well, ok, third), and we’ll be ahead shortly, stay the course”. She wins New Hampshire and they must feel like they’re back on track (remember ‘comeback kid’ in 1991?). February 5 comes along, and she doesn’t get the big lead. Money is POURING into the Obama campaign and the organizations are getting put together in EVERY state. Maybe they realized team Clinton had ignored the caucuses and went after those. Edwards doesn’t drop out which probably hurt Clinton further.
After a string of losses in caucuses and small state primaries, despite winning some HUGE STATES (CA, NY, PA, TX sorta, etc.), she still found herself behind, but the strategy had STILL NOT CHANGED except perhaps by highlighting her ‘experience’ over Obama’s message of ‘change’. ‘Experience’ came across as “more of the same” and “old”. Meanwhile Obama got a GIGANTIC push from Oprah Winfrey. “He is the one” she said, over and over. The crowd went nuts. Even I got goosebumps.
After it was already too late, her stump speeches began to get more specific, less boring, and less condescending and self-congratulatory. After agreeing that the results in Florida and Michigan, two HUGE and IMPORTANT states, wouldn’t count because they moved their primaries before Super Tuesday, team Clinton THEN decides they want to fight for them. Everyone saw through this as typical Clinton old school spin. But it was too late. Despite Obama scandals and distractions, he would not be denied. CNN, NBC, MSNBC, most bloggers, and idealistic twenty somethings had already fallen madly in love with him.
And then there’s Bill. The ex-President who is loved by so many as the creator of peace and prosperity in the 90′s. Well he quickly reminded people he has a temper and a mean streak too, and, like Hillary, is astoundingly arrogant. He did his wife NO FAVORS in this campaign, and without question cost her a ton of votes.
Other nails in the coffin were Hillary and Bill’s ‘flubs’, probably the most notable was her claiming to have landed in Bosnia under sniper fire when video showed she was greeted casually by smiling children with flowers! Unfairly or not, I think in people’s minds this might have subconsciously become linked to Bill’s “I did not have sex with that woman…” finger wagging bold faced lie. So she faced a credibility gap too.
And so today she finally conceded. Ms. “Inevitable” barely smiled. She wanted the speech to be historic, but it was still painful for her to deliver. She now clearly wants the VP spot, and I currently think it WOULD help Obama win the Presidency, BUT once he’d won it, then he’d have to put up with Hillary AND Bill for 4 or 8 years, a prospect he is no doubt thinking about.
It’s incredible that she and her oh so talented team blew this perfect opportunity. It just shows… you never know.
I have conflicted feelings about this. On the one hand I am glad she lost as I don’t like the calculating, cynical, manipulative, poll-driven way the Clintons operate. On the other hand, I’m sure this loss is very painful for Hillary Clinton and I feel bad for her. I do believe she was treated VERY poorly by the media.
With all this talk of oil and energy, I decided to look at the Department of Energy web site to see what it claims to be doing.
Loads of good sounding info, but I decided to go to the budget, as that’s where things usually reveal themselves (follow the money…).
I had no idea how much money the DoE spends, but for ’09 they’ve requested $25 BILLION. Now I’m sure govt lovers and Bush haters will come right out and say “that’s cheaper than Iraq in a week” or whatever, but ignoring that bogus comparison, how much is $25 BILLION?
Well if there’s 300 million men, women, and children in this country, that equates to about $83 EACH, a year.
So, are you happy, that you, your relatives, friends, children, everyone, is paying $83 a year for this fine organization?
It says they need that money to “address the growing demand for affordable, clean and reliable energy; preserve our national security; and enable scientific breakthroughs that could have significant impacts on our quality of life and the health of the American people.” Yeah, right. But what do they actually DO?
This is their mission/strategy page: http://www.doe.gov/about/index.htm
By implementing DOE’s Strategic Plan, we are enhancing America’s energy security and sustaining our economic vitality.
EPIC FAIL! Oil is what, $139 today????
So I looked under achievements and awards to see what we might all be getting for $83 a year.
What’s this? Part of their funding went to the human genome project. What has that got to do with energy?
So then I find that their ‘researchers’ helped with research on Climate Change that lead to the IPCC winning the ’07 Nobel Peace Prize. And this is about energy and not weather HOW? This research was done at Oak Ridge National Labs in Tennessee which has 4200 people and is entirely funded by DoE. Facts about ORNL.
Sooner or later I guess this topic was going to get mentioned here.
U.S. gas prices have doubled and more in the past couple of years. It must be hurting millions of people directly (getting to and from work or school for example), and hurting many businesses too, which must deliver things and have things delivered to them and so they must raise prices on everything in turn to make up for it. It seems the U.S. government has totally distorted how it reports inflation because gasoline and food prices alone are skyrocketing. Maybe the drop in house prices is counteracting that some!
The politicians are arguing over causes and remedies, but while they do NOTHING, quietly, millions of people are driving a little less, maybe trading in the old clunker or big SUV for something much more efficient, sales of hybrids have skyrocketed, and the American people are being very sensible about all this.
We’ve all heard it’s ‘greedy oil companies’ that are the cause but that really isn’t the case – they process crude oil and refine it, etc., and pass along the costs they must pay. Now global demand for oil and gasoline has been climbing and is projected to climb a great deal more as prosperity increases in China and India in particular, as they hold almost half the world’s population! U.S. gasoline consumption has not increased significantly in decades. Increasing overall demand puts upward pressure on prices if supply is not increased. Read the rest of this entry »
I no longer care whether Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or John McCain wins the November election. I don’t think any of them is really inspiring or going to make much of a difference in this global economy. And if more significant terrorism occurs, all the campaign promises will go out of the window anyway.
I’m still wading through “Dreams of my father” by Barack Obama, a dreary, depressing book so far.
Maybe it will get more interesting when the Obama/Clinton battle is officially over and the McCain vs. Dem. debates occur.
Rolling Stone Magazine has published a great article endorsing Barack Obama for President. While I don’t agree with everything the article’s author, Jann Wenner, has written, or everything Barack Obama says for that matter, Barack Obama is very compelling, seems to be the real deal, and this article lays it out very nicely.
The article also lays out nicely why Hillary Clinton‘s “skills” and her campaign are so lacking. Despite her, her husband, and surrounding team having just about all the credentials and contacts anyone could dream of, they have almost succeeded in snatching defeat from a certain victory.
The Rolling Stone piece also mentions Barack Obama’s semi-autobiographical book, Dreams from My Father, which I just ordered from Amazon.com.
Regardless of the resulting delegate counts, team Clinton will spin the results that Hillary is back, in charge, and ‘inevitable’.
It was a great day for her, and with a very strong win in Ohio, it seems likely she will win the next big prize, Pennsylvania, especially since governor Rendell has endorsed here.
The Texas and Ohio primaries are on Tuesday and if Hillary doesn’t win both, she’s in big trouble and even if she does win both, she needs to win by reasonable margins or the overall delegate race won’t change much. Hard to believe any polls at this time since they’ve been wrong so often and besides, who wants to talk to a pollster at this point? And if I see one more Frank Luntz ‘group’ evaluation on FoxNews I’ll puke since they’ve all been meaningless fluff.
I consider it unlikely Obama will win both states, especially since the governor of Ohio has endorsed Clinton, but if he does, and considering that Bill Clinton has already basically said his wife must win both states, will she gracefully bow out QUICKLY? Read the rest of this entry »
Having just re-started my blog I didn’t get to ramble about the fun to date, but now we’re down to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on the Democrat side, and John McCain on the Republican side. Oh yes, and now Ralph Nader as an independent.
Hillary Clinton (and Bill) are certainly not about to go down without a fight, but she’s looking increasingly like a flailing wrestler pinned to the floor. She’s being outspent, outperformed, and outclassed. You’ve got to hand it to Barack Obama and his team – they’ve done an amazing job. It’s not over yet, but if Hillary Clinton doesn’t win the Democrat nomination, I think it’s safe to say she blew it in many ways. Let’s go through some. Read the rest of this entry »
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