Posts Tagged ‘Obama’
December 8, 2010
The White House calls it the Tax Agreement on Economic Expansion and Job Growth. Keith Olbermann likens it to the sell out to the Nazis at Munich. Bill O‘Reilly says “Good for President Obama.” What’s going on?
Just this: many Republicans have such an intense lust for tax breaks for billionaires that to get them they gave Obama all he could dream of asking for in the way of tax breaks for the poor and the middle class, and for government stimulus for the economy.
Meanwhile many Democrats have such rage over the tax breaks for billionaires that it spills over to Obama, who agreed to it, even though he picked the Republicans’ pockets and increases his and his fellow Dems chances for 2012.
Here’s what Obama gave to the Republicans:
· extension of the Bush tax cuts for everybody. He wanted to extend the breaks for only those earning under $250,000 per year; the Republicans wanted it for all.
· A smaller estate tax increase than they were demanding
Here’s what he got for his agenda:
· The middle class tax cuts that were the centerpiece of his tax policy
· An extension of unemployment benefits for 13 months, averting the loss of benefits to 2 million workers in December alone, and protecting benefits for up to an additional 7 million workers over the next year.
· A reduction of up to $2100 in payroll (Social Security) taxes (more…)
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Tags:Bill O‘Reilly, Bush tax cuts, CNN, estate tax increase, ethics, investment tax cut, Keith Olbermann, middle class tax cuts, Munich, Obama, payrolltaxes, stimulus, Tax Agreement on Economic Expansion and Job Growth, tax breaks for billionaires, tax compromise. unemployment benefits, tax credits, tax policy
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | 4 Comments »
December 2, 2010
Barack Obama ran for President on a platform of hope and change. While he’s delivered a lot of big things—saving the economy, delivering near-universal health care, beginning to restore America’s reputation abroad, and beginning an end to two wars—he hasn’t begun to change the ways of Washington. His latest attempt lasted only a few hours, before the Republican leadership announced its determination to stop everything unless it got what it demanded in the form of a $700 billion tax break for the rich and super rich.
So what’s an ethical President to do when his attempts at compromise and progress are blocked by House minority leader John Boehner and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who announced on the eve of the 2010 election, ‘The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term President.”
More important than the managing the budget crisis, more important than ratifying the START Treaty with Russia, more important than reducing the obscenely high unemployment rate, even more important than tax relief for billionaires!
The answer for the President is staring right at him: give McConnell what he wants most of all, in return for the change Obama promised. Here’s how this grand compromise might work: Obama promises not to run for re-election. In exchange McConnell and Boehner promise to work with the Democratic leadership to achieve:
- Long-term deficit reduction equivalent to that in the report of the bipartisan deficit commission
- An economic package, including extension of the Bush tax cuts for (more…)
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Tags:budget crisis, Bush tax cuts, carbon dioxide emissions, comprehensive immigration reform, compromise, deficit commission, deficit reduction, ethics, gays in the military, Guantanamo, health care, hope and change, infrastructure, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Obama, Obama re-election, one-term President, Republican leadership, START Treaty, tax break for the rich, unemployment, unemployment compensation, ways of Washington
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Health care, International, military, Politics | Leave a Comment »
November 9, 2010
Tonight’s Rachel Maddow show ran a clip from Matt Lauer’s interview with George W. Bush, telecast tonight to coincide with the roll-out of Bush’s book. Maddow had an early “teaser” to hook viewers into staying around until the Bush interview ran, near the end of the show. The teaser urged viewers to stay to see Bush’s “whopper.”
Sure enough, here came a whopper. Lauer asked, “Did you ever ask yourself, ‘What more could I have done to prevent this [9/11] from happening?’ “ Bush responded, “We just didn’t have any solid intelligence that gave us some warning on this.”
Maddow followed this clip with video of Condoleezza Rice admitting to the 9/11 Commission that the President’s Daily Briefing for August 6, 2001, was entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.” Maddow punctuated the segment this way: “George W. Bush is trying to sell the same kind of spin he tried to sell when he was President.” That is, in her words, “a whopper.” For extra emphasis she repeated the clip of Bush saying no intelligence and Rice reading the title of the PDB.
But the whopper was Maddow’s, not Bush’s. For she had carefully truncated Bush’s answer. Here’s his full, undoctored answer to Lauer’s question: (more…)
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Tags:9/11, 9/11 Commission, Bin Laden, Condoleezza Rice, Fox News, George W Bush, intelligence, Keith Olbermann suspension, Matt Lauer, MSNBC, Obama, President’s Daily Briefing, Rachel Maddow, whopper
Posted in Entertainment, Ethics-general, Government, Media, Politics | 3 Comments »
August 23, 2010
Racial and religious prejudice and defamation will always be with us, although they are growing less acceptable socially. Call someone a nigger or dago or spic or kike and you’re out of the game. Write about how Jews control the banks and the media, or how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has destroyed our schools and nice people will come down hard on you. But these same nice people have no such compunctions about spreading hateful misinformation about Muslims.
I got such an email just this morning, from a very nice person. It’s subject line was “Life is a Journey, Not a guided tour,” and it forwarded something called “Jihad watch, Islam Explained in Layman’s terms.”
I’m uncomfortable repeating the vile race-hatred but people need to see what’s circulating virally on the internet and through our society. So here are some of the “explanations,” quotes truncated but—I promise—all in context:
- “Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life. Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components…
- “Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges…
- “As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority…
- “At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and (more…)
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Tags:Civil Rights Act of 1964, Dearborn, ethics, Homeland Security . Fort Hood, Indonesia, Islamization, Jews, Jihad watch, Life is a Journey, Muslims, Obama, Racial and religious prejudice, Turkey
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
August 13, 2010
President Obama defended the right of New York Muslims to build a house of worship in lower Manhattan, 2-1/2 blocks from Ground Zero. Hosting a White House Iftar–a sunset ceremonial dinner marking the breaking of a Ramadan fast. he gave an inspiring 9-minute speech about freedom of religion, and about the historic place of Islam in America.
Made me proud.
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Tags:ethics, freedom of religion, Ground Zero, Islam in America., mosque, Obama, Ramadan, White House Iftar
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics, Tolerance | 1 Comment »
July 19, 2010
The Tea Party is a loosely organized group of people who favor generally conservative causes—lower taxes, smaller government, gun rights, and more immigration enforcement. But the party has attracted people to its rallies carrying signs comparing Obama to Hitler and telling him to “Go back to Kenya.” And members have spat epithets of faggot and nigger at congressmen Barney Frank (D-MA) and Jim Clyburn (D-SC).
As a result the NAACP passed a resolution last week calling on Tea Party leaders “to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches.” (Several of those signs are shown here.) Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams, asked to tell racists “you’re not welcome” in the tea party, replied, “Racists have their own movement. It’s called the NAACP.”
Not satisfied to let things stand, Williams posted on his web site a letter supposedly written to Lincoln by “colored people” protesting emancipation and praising slavery.
While Williams defended his letter as satire, he has used ugly racial language regularly, especially in opposition to the proposed mosque near Ground Zero. He derided Mohammed as “the terrorist monkey god,” and called Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who backs building the mosque, a “Jewish Uncle Tom who would have turned rat on Anne Frank.” President Obama was an “Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug.” (more…)
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Tags:Anne Frank, Barney Frank, Candy Crowley, CNN, colored people, conservative causes, David Webb, emancipation, ethics, faggot, Ground Zero, Hitler, Jim Clyburn, Kenya, Lincoln, Mark Williams, Mitch McConnell, Mohammed, monkey god, mosque, NAACP, Nigger, Obama, racism, Scott Stringer, slavery, Tea Party, Tea Party Express, Tea Party Federation
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | 5 Comments »
June 24, 2010
General David Petraeus had it made. For the past twenty months he has led United States Central Command, with responsibility for actual and potential military operations from Egypt to Pakistan. He has lived the luxurious life of a four-star general at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa—one of the most prestigious, glamorous, and comfortable assignments the U.S. military has to offer. After spending most of the last ten years separated from his family on assignments on Bosnia and Iraq—the last two as commander of the multi-national force there—he was on the verge of retirement, praised as America’s greatest general, perhaps the greatest since the glory days of MacArthur, Patton, and Eisenhower.
Then General Stanley McChrystal invited a reporter from Rolling Stone magazine to live with his command in Afghanistan for weeks, where the reporter chronicled for the world the contempt that McChrystal and his senior staff had for the President and his national security team. Obama fired McChrystal and asked Petraeus to take a demotion, going from McChrystal’s boss to his replacement. And going from palatial four-star housing with his wife in Tampa to battlefield accommodations in Afghanistan.
Petraeus said yes sir, once again answering his country’s call. His coming service as commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan may enhance or may diminish his reputation as a great general. There’s no doubt, however, that it will remind America of the meaning of the West Point ethic: Duty, Honor, Country.
Read The Ethics Challenge: Strengthening Your Integrity in a Greedy World
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Tags:Afghanistan, Bosnia, Central Command, coalition forces, demotion, Duty Honor Country., Eisenhower, ethics, General David Petraeus, General Stanley McChrystal, Iraq, MacArthur, MacDill Air Force Base, multi-national force, Obama, Pakistan, Patton, Rolling Stone, West Point
Posted in Ethics-general, military, Politics | Leave a Comment »
March 7, 2010
George W. Bush said
a year ago, in his first speech after leaving the Presidency, “I’m not going to spend my time criticizing him [President Obama]. There are plenty of critics in the arena. He deserves my silence…I love my country a lot more than I love politics. I think it is essential that he be helped in office.”
For this major contribution to civility in our public discourse, President Bush earns a (mythical) Reinhold Niebuhr award.*
With all the criticism—much of it unfair and quite ugly–of Bush and his administration coming from the left, and with all the criticism—much of it unfair and quite ugly–of Obama and his administration coming from the right, Bush could have made things quite worse. And he would have been forgiven, even justified, because he was only defending his record. But in spite of the provocation, Bush stuck to his conviction and gave President Obama the great gift of his silence. All Americans owe George W. Bush a debt of gratitude.
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*Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, ‘The temper of and integrity with which the political fight is waged is more important for the health of our society than the outcome of any issue or campaign.”
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Tags:civility, ethics, George W Bush, Niebuhr, Obama, silence
Posted in Politics | 4 Comments »
February 15, 2010
FoxNews.com headline: Liz Cheney: Biden, Obama Administration Ignoring Al Qaeda Pursuit of WMD.
Fox reports that Cheney “accused Vice President Biden of downplaying the threat from Al Qaeda and suggested the Obama administration isn’t doing everything in its power to stop terror.” Their report quotes Cheney: “Al Qaeda is working very hard to try to obtain weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda armed with any nuclear or biological weapon is clearly one of the gravest threats we face…The notion that this White House and this administration is minimizing that possibility makes you very concerned, I think has to make us very concerned about whether or not they are doing everything in their power to prevent it.”
Huh? Where’s she been for the last few years?
Obama has long stated that the number one threat to our security is the possibility of nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists. As recently as his speech on Afghanistan on December 1, 2009 he stated that, “we know that al-Qaeda and other extremists seek nuclear weapons, and we have every reason to believe that they would use them.”
She’s not a recluse or a dummy: it’s hard to conclude that she’s anything but a pants-on-fire liar. Worse, she’s strengthening Al Qaeda’s efforts to sow terror in the Western world.
Tags:Afghanistan, AlQaeda, Biden, ethics, Liz Cheney, nuclear weapons, Obama, terrorists, weapons of mass destruction, WMD
Posted in Politics | 3 Comments »
February 14, 2010
Sarah Palin gave a rousing speech at the Tea Party convention, raking and mocking President Obama with zingers like “How’s that hope-y, change-y stuff workin’ out for ya?” The crowd enthused, having paid $350 to hear the speech live, and the left’s commentators tut-tutted over Palin’s writing notes on her hand to help her remember her key points. All in good fun.
But there was a truly ugly side of the convention. Tea Partiers can no longer pass off the birthers as a tiny group of nuts that aren’t representative of true Tea Partiers. Not after the crowd’s wild enthusiasm for Tom Tancredo’s keynote speech. Ex-congressman Tancredo (R-CO) explained that “Barack Hussein Obama” was only elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote.” [Wild cheers]
“People who could not even spell the word ‘vote’ or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House.” [More wild cheers]
I’m not sure who he was referring to. Perhaps it was Latinos and African-Americans who couldn’t have voted had there been a literacy test—like in the good old days when blacks were turned away from polls all over the South, no matter how literate they were, because the point of the tests was to turn them away.
I’m pretty sure, however, what the crowd was cheering. It was that Obama voters were others, a different species, not even entitled to be part of the American system. The crowd responded to hate speech with cheers.
Tags:African Americans, Barack Hussein Obama, ethics, hate, Latinos, literacy test, Obama, others, Palin, Tancredo, Tea Party
Posted in Politics | 1 Comment »
The White House calls it the Tax Agreement on Economic Expansion and Job Growth. Keith Olbermann likens it to the sell out to the Nazis at Munich. Bill O‘Reilly says “Good for President Obama.” What’s going on? 
Ethics Bob 