He wouldn’t want to be seen as anti-business.

How much of a tip will Big Oil leave in the Presidential G string for ’12?

But I’m not pissed off……

Stop Sulking ! Get In Gear, Man !

He and Axelrod and crew want Repubs to win in this election. It is simple as that.

Here’s a link to the NYT article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17obama-t.html?_r=1&hp

Does anyone else get the feeling that he’s just another puppet?
Check out whose names are on the Statement of Principals of the Project for the New American Century. They spell out exactly what they want, and a lot of what’s going on that we complain about here is their doing. No, I’m not a conspiracy theorist either. They spell it out. It’s not even a secret.

Republicans? He can’t even get a so-called Democrat, Mary Landrieu to release her hold on one of his nominees. Barack Obama: Weakest. President. Ever.

It’s all part of the Upgebuckenem.

PNAC and war-mongering BHO are rapidly becoming irrelevant. The big event in this election cycle is Prop 19 in Cali. Should it pass, life in the U.S. won’t be what it used to be. Passage will be the beginning of the end of U.S. militarism, for this reason…

And there is another extremely important property of Cannabis that the prohibitionists would love to keep secret: Cannabis use suppresses violent urges and behaviors.

Just proves your not everyone.

You’re way ahead of a lot of people. Writing off the major proponents of PNAC’s agenda would be huge mistake. PNAC’s agenda is what’s being followed in the Village.

Back to work.

Namaste

I’m not a conspiracy theorist

Is that like saying, “I’m not prejudiced, I just don’t like #&%*@s.”

Mr. President… “Actions, are louder than words!”

Believe SD in #11 was responding to #9. PNAC can’t start and maintain warz if the cannabis-using young folk refuse to voluteer to be cannon fodder.

Fuckin’A, Dude. Have a good afternoon.

Bloomberg poll shows people think Republicans if elected would be more pro business:

Beese, you win the reality prize!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-13/americans-see-children-s-future-dim-in-poll-as-50-pessimistic.html

The Way Of The Ford/Harvard Warrior

O’Blowme is outa the WH after one term and off to be the first sorta black preznit of Harvard or the first such CEO at the Ford foundation. Big advance fer his autobiog, lotsa speaking fees. Screw us.

Agreed, Obama and his admin (his admin picks were all corporate neolib centrists, if not outright neocons).

Obama has done more to further PNAC in his two short years than Bush did in his first 4.

Sad. Its all about corporate fascism . . . they own our elected offals and every facet of our lives but don’t have ‘we the people’s’ interests in their hearts.

I don’t know.

Um, that seems pretty far fetched . . . . a nice pipe dream though.

I have a strong feeling that the only reason Obama’s sig is NOT on that document is because he was an unimportant State Senator from Illinois at the time. Also, black.

To the letter. Absolutely.

It’s a bible in the form of a corporate charter.

;-)

Thanks Isis:

In his electedness’s own words:

“And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.”

Can’t wait for Snowbilly Grifterella to update her FaceBook status all adoring of President Obama for finally seeing the light on this, and her thousands of FB fans suddenly deciding that’s he a legitimate American president who deserves their loyalty and support.

Not.

That is an amazing negative article if one reads past the polite puffery.

“I’d rather be a good one term president than a mediocre two term president”

Sorry O. You won’t be a good one term president, and you probably won’t be a two term president.

¿Oh, I’m so happy? So, I guess the BP representative in the MMS drew up a one-page MOU for efficient mitigation strategies that the Obama White House could get behind. But what would Daily Kos do?

thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com

President Obama said that he expected Republicans to offer him more cooperation after November’s elections, no matter the outcome.

Mr. Obama predicted that his political rivals would either be chastened by falling short of their electoral goals or burdened with the new responsibility that comes from achieving them.

Mr. Obama reflects on his presidency, admitting that he let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend Democrat,” realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” and perhaps should have “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” in the stimulus.

He also predicted that in the next two years, his administration would focus less on trying to pass new legislation and more on implementing and consolidating what passed in the first two years.

So, he is already positioning himself for all the bi-partisan love he is going to get from Republicans, starting by giving them a nicely-wrapped present of resuming drill-baby-drill and asking for nothing in return.
And really, he screwed up by not offering up more tax cuts.
Even if he retains control, he isn’t planning on accomplishing anything.
The “change” he had in mind during the election was avoiding all confrontation with the conservatives, thus opening the doors to a golden age of brotherly love.
If we just let the Republicans win, they’ll be nice and cooperate.

I think Obama’s problem is that he is fundamentally a nice guy, a normal, if ambitious, non-sociopath. Thus he projects normality onto those around him. He doesn’t realize that everyone he deals with, in Congress (D&R), in the military, heads of foreign nations, CEOs, are all sociopaths. When they don’t respond to his friendly overtures, he is confused, and just redoubles his efforts.

We’re so effing doomed…

Not a pipe dream. It was the pot-smoking hippies that brought an end to the Vietnam misadventure. Nixon detested the hippies because they threatened his war-mongering. In revenge, Nixon block the legalization of cannabis even though his drug advisers recommended that it be legalized.

I guess if you already OWN the bp disaster, why not go for the big bucks again? We judge this guy by the content of his character (fail) and the teabaggers judge him by the color of his skin (epic fail). Talk about a lesser of two evils. Day-um.

Perfect decoy.

True enough, and yet we come here to keep learning and sharing.
For your listening pleasure: Robert Cray …I Guess I Showed Her. Sorry I couldn’t link it, something funcky going on. But, I do believe that the song touches some of what’s going on today. Leastways, that’s how I’m hearing it.

i know i am going to get some flack on this, but i do not understand the opposition to offshore drilling:

Tomorrow morning, I will drive to work in my Volvo, using pretty much the same amount of gas as I did yesterday and the day before. That oil must come from somewhere. Would i rather have it come from the US, where we do have real concerns about the environment, or would it be better if it comes from Nigeria, where they do not appear to care a whit about polluting the oceans, or Saudi Arabia, where they recruit folks to fly planes into our buildings.

Until there is a real alternative, not a $40k Volt that drives 50 miles before it needs to spend overnight in the garage getting recharged, we will need oil.

Let’s plan for the future, but lets not cripple ourselves before we have real alternatives.

Obama knows that there are many in the (D) captured political milieu who will simply, religiously pull the lever for the Blue Donkey Party, no matter what, and will even voluntarily try to guilt trip others into doing so.

This default position is eroding way more rapidly than either (D) politicos or their grassroots loyalist enforcers can comprehend, but it is still pretty mainstream.

That is why Obama can take actions like this – because he wants to, because he can, because (D) apologists in the blogosphere and elsewhere are still trying to enforce the taboo against defection, as if the peasants were the property of the Lords.

That group must be getting a big kick out of the irony, right about now.

Erm, not all of the oil harvested offshore will end up in the American market. It’s a cartel, for one. So, distribution of petroleum products is irrational and could end up anywhere in the world, particularly, China.

From thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com

“Mr. Obama reflects on his presidency, admitting that he let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend Democrat,” realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” and perhaps should have “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” in the stimulus.”

Sigh – stimulus via tax cuts for the rich – the 3rd Bush term

Hillary is as much a hawk on war as Obama, but I sure wish we had her to the left of Obama domestic policy as a center-left Democrat that is ready to take on corporations as she did in 93. Indeed her backbone would mean she was not as weak as Obama in getting judges approved.

Since I haven’t done the research, I’m not sure how much oil from our off-shore drilling ends up fueling our cars. I thought that most of our oil for fuel was from Canada.

Anyway, being a resident of Texas and a lover of Gulf shrimp and the funky town of Port Aransas, as well as many other Gulf destinations all the way through to Florida, it is just sickening to realize the damage off shore drilling has done – and by a British firm. Sickening and tragic and incredibly infuriating.

LS

Of course you’re not. You welcome the idea of John Boehner, the guy who openly passed out tobacco lobby checks on the House floor, as the next Speaker.

What’s grimly hilarious about this is that he did it in part to get Landrieu to release her hold — and she didn’t.

Looks like Oilbummer is going hard right after the election defeat in Nov. Can this get any worse, folks? Wonder how John King Cole and Digby will spin it?

…and being 3rd in line for the presidency too.

LS

There is an even greater probability that it will be consumed by the U.S. DOD.

That’s a reasonable point. I think what galls at least some of us is that Obama does not explain his decisions except via talking points. He’s better than that. Not explaining leaves open the possibility that he is once again being threatened by Big Business to go along or get tossed off the train. I think those threats are real, but it would be nice to be reassured that they aren’t.

Theh U.S. consumes 6 billion barrels of crude oil per year. The Gulf of Mexico has about 29 billion barrels of crude. That gives us 5 years of oil from the Gulf of Mexico. How lovely for us. LOL. And the oil taken from ANWR in Alaska won’t come to the USA. It would be exported to Asia. It’s all about making big bucks for oil companies, not promoting an energy future for Americans.

Interestingly enough, the traditional broadcast and print media are largely supportive of his decision, framing it as a good thing that will bring much-needed jobs back to Louisiana and other areas.

The $40 thousand Volt is only $27000 after all the tax rebates – and after 40 miles you do indeed only get 50 mpg – but you got over 300 mpg in those first 40 miles – and if your commute is 20 miles or less you always get over 300 mpg.

As to deep water ban – I tend to agree. Crap happens every year in the wells drilled in under 500 feet of water – we have no regulation – indeed the change in regulation from the BP disaster is a new piece of paper that is robo signed affidavit to indicate that you really, really promise your well cap device works – even has real batteries this time, and that you have plans to dig a close off by intersecting the well 2nd well should anything go wrong – not like Norway where you drill that second well at the same time you drill the first. Obama adds no real regulation – I’ve given up on him.

Just the oil jobs though, right? What are they doing for the fishers and their supporting industries?

What is destruction of the Gulf and its coastline and sea life worth? Same for the Pacific, Atlantic, etc.

Jobs on oil rigs? How many jobs? Way more jobs than were lost from the fishing industry? Nah. It is not about jobs.

It is only about oil and making oil companies richer. End of story.

The idea that just a few months after the end of the worst oil spill in American history we green light offshore drilling again is just completely insane.

What are they doing for the fishers and their supporting industries?

Doncha know, they are mostly small businesses that produce real things. Obama can’t be bothered with any at the less than mega corporate level.

I think Obama’s problem is that he is fundamentally a nice guy, a normal, if ambitious, non-sociopath.

Who claims the power to order the CIA to murder US citizens.

I hope you don’t consider this “flack,” but a reality check. Obama, for what it’s worth (not much, frankly), campaigned (yeah: that sad sick thing) on the notion of stopping our nation’s reliance on BigOil and starting to develop and grow “green technologies.” Given the oil volcano disaster which has ruined the Gulf of Mexico for untold years, if not decades, Obama also had the perfect storm moment to push for developing and building alternative transportation systems – both urban and rural – which would lead to LESS reliance on BigOil as the driving engine of our economy.

Sure, I have to rely on my gas guzzling (even if I drive a “clean” car, there’s some amount of gas guzzled) auto to get around. But why should I HAVE to rely on that????? Europe, China, Japan, even Australia: they’ve all developed some pretty good to outright fantastic urban and rural transportion systems. Sure some of those style rely on fossil fuels, but at least they’re transporting more than one person at a time. Many of those trans. systems don’t rely on fossil fuels anymore.

IF all those other nations can do THIS, why can’t the USA??? WHY? WHY should I have to rely on more off-shore drilling which is CLEARLY dangerous to human life on so many levels? And furthermore, like or not, fossil fuels are finite resources.

WHY are we relying on this to our national detriment, including a detriment to our national security.

This decision is short-sighted on so many levels, and it’s not even an issue of right v. left, Ds v. Rs, dfhs v. T-party. It’s NOT sound policy.

And then finally, as others have pointed out (and what the vast majority of conservatives simply don’t get), this national resource (which, in theory *should belong to* all US citizens but emphatically does NOT) is probably NOT going to enure to the benefit of US citizens AT ALL. In fact, it’s more likely to enure to the benefit of foreign billionaires.

Gee, does that sound like a good idea? I guess some conservatives are simply delighted to give away USA resources to foreign billionaires as is evidenced by posts today. I frankly don’t “get that,” but hey: I’m just a concerned citizen unhappy that MY nation’s natural resources are being ripped off by rich foreigners. Silly me: tsk tsk for telling the truth. Can’t have that.

Perhaps I’m blind, but where have the articles about the BP spill gone? How is the fishing industry handling things? I am obviously not an idiot and will not be eating Gulf fish anytime soon, but just curious how that’s playing out. Any health effects on the workers yet?

Thank you. Barack Hussein Obama is NOT a “nice guy.” Stop with that madness. No, NOT nice, not nice at all. I’ll stop there before the moderators are forced to “do their job.”

Yeah: funny about that. WHERE oh where is the dreaded LIEbrul media reporting on that? Oh, doncha know: that story is “done” with. Nothing to see here in the Gulf of Mexico… move along now, and keep eating that Gulf of Mexico fish, ya hear? Perfectly safe… move along now.

Until there is a real alternative, not a $40k Volt that drives 50 miles before it needs to spend overnight in the garage getting recharged, we will need oil.

Fact: your ancestors lived for tens of thousands of years without a magic alternative to oil.

In a very short span of time (very short as compared to all history), we’ve adapted to an oil-based life-style. It is time to re-adapt to a non-oil based lifestyle.

The answer is to move closer to work, or work closer to where you live. Then, ride a bicycle, or use your feet.

And finally: I’ve given up ANY hope or expectation that Obama will behave any differently from how he is behaving.

If anyone has any notion that Obama is anything other than an extremely rightwing corporatist hack taking the Bush Presidency to even further extremes… well, I don’t want to know.

Reality check: Obama is not “neoliberal.” Obama is a NeoCon, and Karl Rove, et al, are rubbing their piggy little trotters with glee. Cha-ching!

BP workers claim to have been sprayed:

http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/bp-workers-sprayed-dispersant-night-plane-lights-skin-lesions-fluid-lings-medical-video

Let’s plan for the future, but lets not cripple ourselves before we have real alternatives.

OK, here’s a plan for the future: walk.

US oil production peaked in the early 70′s (72, IIRC), and only bumped up briefly when the Alaska oil pipeline came on line. It’s been in decline for 25 or more years, and nothing is going to change that. We’ve been a net oil importer since the early 50s.

Our current production basically supplies our non-transportation needs – everything we use for transportation is imported. The cure for that is to use no oil for transportation. That can be done by finding non-oil means for transportation, or by having no transportation, which do you think is more likely for an empire in the early stages of collapse?

There are something like 10,000 off-shore wells that have been drilled in American waters in the last 50 years. A few of them have problems. Zero is a hard number to reach. When there is a problem with a deep-water well, the results are catastrophic. The rewards in terms of keeping the system running are near zero. The financial rewards for big oil are significant (to them), but nothing compared to the costs. The actual costs of the Macondo disaster exceed the value of BP assets. That’s just one blowout.

It’s not a matter of hunkering down until a technical miracle saves us, it’s about facing the facts. Ten years from now, civilians won’t be able to buy fuel. Deep-water drilling can buy you another couple of months. Whatever solution you’re going to have then, just do it two months sooner and quit punching holes in the Earth’s crust that you don’t have the ability to plug.

I think Obama’s problem is that he is fundamentally a nice guy, a normal, if ambitious, non-sociopath. Thus he projects normality onto those around him.

Exactly: he is a nice normal guy who likes to target US citizens for assassination.

David Dayen has a fresh cross-post already in progress: As Bank-Imposed Foreclosure Suspensions Continue, Criminal Investigations Offer Leverage for Loan Mod Deal

BP (Barack the Prexy’s) Crudibility GULF widens!

Oh yes, even my 9 year old was shaking her head in disgust at this on the news last night. Is this rocket science? Has Obama figured out that maybe even if he was a lover of oil spills that at the very very least it’s too damn soon? Maybe even wait for after the election and then stick the shiv in like he did with everything else.

Lord, and we thought this guy was a master politician. Or maybe having losing Democrats is HIS best option.

He can claim the Republican congress is the reason he can’t lead and has no vision.

he is a nice normal guy who likes to target US citizens for assassination.

The banality of evil.

Any “coincidence” theorists here, or does everyone understand you don’t choose to do this two weeks before the election unless you are intentionally trying to drive down the turnout of the Dem base.

Go back to the good old days so we can all be knee deep ih house sh!t.

About time he put the country before the party.

Go back to the good old days so we can all be knee deep ih house sh!t.

Or maybe, if we just keep saying “we can’t live with out oil” long enough somebody will come and give us an unlimited supply.

I agree –this administration has silenced so many, who if this was a GOP administration, would be out in force.

Or the corporations before the country.

I hope I don’t sound like the pouting baby, but where the hell’s my third party?

:)

Great article.

Can we finally get some change up in here? DUH. Hell no.

This is what the President “learned” from the past 18 months. Un-fucking-believable. Especially love how he learned that “he has to play by Washington’s rules”. Yeah. His whole “buck the system”, Maverick approach to everything really backfired. /s

During our hour together, Obama told me he had no regrets about the broad direction of his presidency. But he did identify what he called “tactical lessons.” He let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.” He realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” when it comes to public works. Perhaps he should not have proposed tax breaks as part of his stimulus and instead “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” so it could be seen as a bipartisan compromise. Most of all, he has learned that, for all his anti-Washington rhetoric, he has to play by Washington rules if he wants to win in Washington.

He wouldn’t want to be seen as anti-business.

Or a Democrat.

Any “coincidence” theorists here, or does everyone understand you don’t choose to do this two weeks before the election unless you are intentionally trying to drive down the turnout of the Dem base.

You just don’t understand the eleventy-dimensional chess of the situation. By removing the moratorium, all those Republicans will vote for Democrats! Then they don’t need DFHs!

I’d rather be a good one term president than a mediocre two term president

Has anyone explained to Obama that there have been NO good one-term Presidents that didn’t involve death in office?

You’ve hit the nail on the head–that’s the most insulting part of his comments.

Maybe if I had given in to the Republicans even more, than I would be popular…
Ugh….let’s ditch this loser.

He is a Democrat, he epitomizes the Democratic Party of today, which might be why BP has donated more to him than to anyone else:

During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.

this willfull self-delusion as to what the Democratic Party actual is reminds me of Bush followers who thought their guy was some big patriotic war hero, despite all evidence to the contrary.

To a degree however the gov’t likes large corporations and does not like small ones, at least that is what their actions say. They are the ones who pass the legislation which makes it impossible to establish a new oil or gas company and force those already operating to agree to be bought out or merge with other oil and gas companies.

…and he reinforces conservative frames when talking about his own party (“tax and spend liberal Democrat”).

Is Obama the first president to openly mock his supporters? I’m never invited to those chi-chi soirees at tens of thousands a head, so I have no up close and personal experience, but based on reports, he’s remarkably contemptuous, in ways even Bush wasn’t. And the WH spokespeople are constantly denigrating. I’m amazed, really, at the displays of complete contempt. What is with this guy? The hubris pegs the meter, and that’s saying something for a national politician. Off the charts. I’d like to see him lose just to take him down a few notches, altho that wouldn’t be anywhere near as low as he deserves. Who knew Obama would lower the bar after Bush?

To begin with, he has to take the difficult step of actually mentioning that to her.

Produced real things that have sustained families and communities for generations and which had the potential, with a less polluted natural environment, to continue in that fashion.

To a degree however the gov’t likes large corporations and does not like small ones, at least that is what their actions say.

The actions of the politicians say that they like $$$$, it is just that large corporations have more money than small ones.

Of course, that focus on $$$$ is why we are not seeing real action on issues like Global Warming, and are instead continuing business as usual.

He’s an arrogant asshole. An elitist.

From the same article, putting the best possible spin on it:

Obama comes across as an introvert, someone who finds extended contact with groups of people outside his immediate circle to be draining…smaller group settings can be harder for him. Unlike Clinton, who never met a rope line he did not want to work, Obama does not relish glad-handing. He is not much for chitchat.

And use your fuel consumption, as much as possible, to get you and me there. This morning drove my small pickup for a load, and by towing a trailer, a trailer load of that good old horse stuff to convert to local and healthy food from my garden and some for two neighbor seniors.

I just don’t get which moral principles PNAC is making a commitment to.

Probably just my problem, a DFH.

From the article:
“[W]e were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.” And, “But I keep a checklist of what we committed to doing, and we’ve probably accomplished 70 percent of the things that we talked about during the campaign.”

So Obama was so busy being a do-good, progressive pragmatist that he forgot about PR? And 70%? And, “enact climate change policy” from the guy who wouldn’t put Carter’s solar panels on the WH? Maybe, but this doesn’t seem to pass the sniff test.

I sell real estate. Should I carry new home buyers on my back?

Environmental ethics discussion about this very topic, now.

For those of you not familiar with this program check it out and call in to join the discussion.

Check out Here on Earth, Radio Without Borders.

Should I carry new home buyers on my back?

Don’t worry, your customers will vanish before your ability to drive them does. See? Problem solved!

I sell real estate. Should I carry new home buyers on my back?

That is an interesting solution, but I might go in a different direction.

What I can tell you is that we are not going to get an unlimited supply of oil because people think that they “have to drive.” And Global Warming is not going away because people think they “have to drive.”

If people drive less and less, they may stop living all over the place and go for something more centralized, meaning that you will not have to cover that much distance to show your clients what they need to see (so, if you are carrying them on your back, you wont have to carry them so far).

He has to be sure to peel away enough Dems so the Cat Food comission reccomendations on cutting + gutting Social Security and Medicare will sail on through.

President Obama embraces “Drill Baby Drill” in exchange for nothing at all? Just like he embraced every other Republican policy, from detainees to the individual mandate. This goes BEYOND frustrating.

This is the first and only thing that he (BO) has been correct on.
Perhaps there is hope!!

One alternative: The Loremo

http://www.loremo.com/englisch/02der02_varianten.htm

I don’t know. Obama doesn’t have a TV character to hide his contempt behind like W did with the old Reagan-era, Mr. Smith-Goes-to-Washington, cowboy schtick.

A close paraphrase: “If you were to give sodium pentothol to the Bush family and then ask them what they thought about the common people, you would hear such a stream of profanity as you’ve never heard before.” –Gore Vidal

He wouldn’t want to be seen as anti business….He’s a step away from writing a law giving big business ceos the right of prima nocti and he still buys into the “im not corporatist enough” crap.

not a believer in the religion of global warming/climate change/global climate disruption or what ever they decide to call it tomorrow when the weather doesn’t cooperate with their theories, but they had buy in from the corporations. They killed that duck themselves.

oh and more corporations means more competition for political favor which means more money for politicians. I think they just don’t like the headache of dealing with all those lobbyist that they decided to write regulations that can only be met by the largest of corporations. Take the mandate in obamacare which requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of premiums on patient care. The smaller insurers are no longer able to compete so they exit the market and the large insurers like aetna will continue to grow.

not a believer in the religion of global warming/climate change/global climate disruption or what ever they decide to call it tomorrow

So what’s your specific problem with it?

You don’t believe that we’re pumping large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere?

Or is it that you don’t believe that CO2 absorbs and traps wave lengths of infrared radiation? (meaning that CO2 helps retain heat from a radiation source like the sun, meaning that having extra CO2 would help retain more of the Sun’s heat, thus making the planet warmer)

Those things are pretty basic and verifiable. And in fact the concept that human industrial CO2 emissions would alter the Earth’s temperature was suggested more than a century ago by Svante Arrhenius (all the way back in 1896).