Obama, what say you?

President Obama speaks about health insurance reform and economic stimulus:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32420743#32420743

PETA, PETA, PETA…

PETA is not doing anything to further its cause by criticizing people swatting disease-carrying bugs like flies.  Your goal to distance yourself from the average American, make your group seem like a bunch of lunatics we can’t identify with, make us wonder if you are in touch with reality – it’s working.  Criticizing the President for swatting a fly.  PETA is on the way to becoming the Al Sharpton of animal causes.  Stop over-reacting to every minor imperfection that you don’t like. 

As for Obama going for a fly on TV: Yup, that’s a brave move.  Missing two or three times would have been a catastrophe.  Smushin’ it on the first try – nice work!  Getting up an getting a bug catcher like a 6-year old.  Right…..  That’s as realistic and functional as Palin’s ‘abstinence only’ programs. 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090618/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_dead_fly

Shock-Jock Wright

Wright, the former pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, said he hasn’t spoken to Obama since he became president. “Them Jews ain’t going to let him talk to me.”

“They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. … I said from the beginning: He’s a politician; I’m a pastor. He’s got to do what politicians do.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31246353 

Jeremiah Wright is  a loud-mouth, attention-grabbing, spotlight-loving, shock-jock – and he’s got to do what media-whores do. 

Obama told him last year he was done with him.  Does this guy not understand what “cutting ties” means?  He’s a dinosaur, he’s the past.  America doesn’t need him. 

I’m glad Obama has not spoken to him and I hope it continues.  And I hope everyone around Wright does the same. 

So Wright and Brunn don’t like Jews.  So those two racists agree on something.  There’s a whole generation of racists who are in their 70’s and 80’s who are about to make this world a better place….by leaving it.

Backpedaling on Health Care Reform

  Look, this kind of tax reduction causes businesses to cut benefits and/or force employees to choose less functional plans.  It’s a back-track on at least 3 campaign promises on a topic that is a ’top 3′ issue to many voters.  For most, health care and taxes are at the top of the concerns – even above the war in Iraq, homeland security, and evironment.  By my count: (1) There were promises not to raise income taxes.  Now, with other cuts this proposed increase might be offset – but then what’s the point anyway?  (2) There were promises not to tax health insurance costs.  (3) There were promises to improve health care coverage and affordability.   

I know I’m jumping the gun.  I know this is only a proposal.  But to even say that taxing an extremely over-priced & still-sky-rocketing product like health insurance is extremely disappointing.  I don’t really care if this was Reagan’s idea and in fact it may be further evidence that’s is a bad idea. 

Health insurance ‘haves’ to pay for ‘have-nots’?

The idea of limiting the tax break for employer-provided insurance gained momentum last week, when Obama told senators that he’d consider it as one ingredient of the health insurance reform bill he wants Congress to pass by early August, when the Senate starts a one-month recess. While details of such an approach are still sketchy, it would likely involve employees paying tax on a percentage of their employer-provided health benefits. 

Scolding McCain in their debate on Oct. 15, Obama said, “This is your plan, John. For the first time in history, you will be taxing people’s health-care benefits.”

The tax exemption on employer-provided health insurance, which dates to 1943, has already survived one attempt to limit it. An echo of Ronald Reagan In 1984, President Ronald Reagan floated the idea of requiring workers to pay taxes on employer contributions to their health insurance exceeding $2,100 a year. A Washington Post editorial the following year called the proposal “surprisingly lucrative yet eminently fair,” and speculated that “(it) might have helped hold down health care costs in the bargain.” But opposition, especially from labor unions, scuttled the proposal.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31106408

USA: CyberSecurity Arrives

Nice work Obama!

Obama’s Cybersecurity Initiative Wins Praise

Grant Gross, IDG News Service

May 29, 2009 4:00 pm

U.S. President Barack Obama’s announcement Friday of a new cybersecurity push by the U.S. government won widespread praise from the technology industry, with many people saying his attention to the issue is a major step toward better securing the nation’s computer networks.

Obama’s announcement and an accompanying cybersecurity report largely contained ideas long called for by various cybersecurity experts, but the largest benefit of Friday’s announcement was that Obama lent his name to the fight against cybercrime, said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, a trade group focused on cybersecurity.

“A lot of the things that were discussed this morning have been said before, but it is a very big deal when the president says them,” Clinton said. “The fact that this is elevated to the presidential level … that is a big deal.”

Obama announced that he will appoint a national cybersecurity coordinator, who will report directly to the president, and the U.S. government will collaborate with private groups to create a comprehensive national cybersecurity policy.

More:  http://www.pcworld.com/article/165773/obamas_cybersecurity_initiative_wins_praise.html?tk=nl_wbx_t_crawl1

Credit Agencies Screwing Americans

Good article by By Liz Pulliam Weston on MSN Money:
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/YourCreditRating/demand-to-see-your-credit-score.aspx 

After years of inaction and neglect, Washington is finally getting serious about protecting people from abusive credit card practices. Consider:

• President Barack Obama last week summoned credit card executives to the White House and signaled that credit card reform is on his agenda.

 

• Meanwhile, the “Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights” is heading for another vote in the House of Representatives.

 

• Regulators already have imposed significant new restrictions on card issuers, although those won’t go into effect until mid-2010.

 

In February, I wrote about how Experian suddenly had decided not to sell FICO scores to consumers anymore, although it continues to sell the scores to lenders. That decision, which has yet to be challenged by regulators or lawmakers, conceals from consumers a vital piece of their credit information.

Obama Reverses Anti-Enviromental Policy

“Obama has swiftly delivered on his campaign promise to reverse Bush’s anti-endangered species regulations,” Kieran Suckling, director of the Center for Biological Diversity, told msnbc.com. “He has restored independent, scientific oversight to the heart of the Endangered Species Act.”

Sources said that today Barack Obama would eliminate one of Bush’s science-hating, typical Republican laws that reduced the protection for threatened and endangered species.

In December of 2008, as one of the Republican party’s last parting shots at the environment, the Bush administration decided to allow local agencies to determine on their own if their construction projects might harm animals and plants listed under the Endangered Species Act.

“The Bush-era rule reduces the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have performed for 35 years. It also prohibits federal agencies from assessing a project’s contribution to global warming when they evaluate its effect on species.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29490531

Prohibiting the government from attempting to minimize or reduce global warming…Thank Republicans!  No one else but you would make it illegal to try to care for our own home. 

No Longer a Handout

Obama rejected arguments by the Republican party to reward executives for failure.  Who would argue for allowing corporations who are essentially on welfare to keep giving billions in tax dollars to executives?  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the voice of the Senate Repubicans.

In the light of the billions given away in bonuses under the Bush Administration’s handouts, the Obama administration is making some changes and starting today, the bailout is no longer a handout.  Under the new plan, beneficiaries of corporate welfare will have limits on executive compensation.  If the company doesn’t want to cut its executive pay it doesn’t have to – it just won’t get assistance.  We’ll help those who first help themselves, right?  That goes for you Wall Street executives, too. 

 Stop taking our tax-dollars and you’ll be free to do as you choose.  The tax dollars should go to help Americans who need help, to improve our infrastructure, to keep our country secure.  To provide beach-front vacation homes for wealthy executives….not the purpose of tax dollars. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29003620

Previous: http://goearth.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/gimme-gimme/

Sarah Palin – what a mistake

Successful campaigns are what one team did right, combined with what the other side did wrong.  As I mentioned, I think the Palin choice was the biggest mistake.  Here’s what Julian Zelizer has to say:

Team McCain ran a campaign that ranks on the bottom of this list. This was an aimless and chaotic operation made worse by poor choices at key moments.

Their first mistake was picking Gov. Sarah Palin. Though in the first week following her selection, Palin energized the conservative base of the GOP, she became a serious drag on the ticket.

This turned into one of the worst picks since McGovern selected Thomas Eagleton, a Missouri senator who withdrew after revealing that he had gone through electroshock therapy and suffered from “nervous exhaustion.” By picking Palin, McCain simultaneously eliminated his own best argument against Senator Obama—the limited experience of his opponent—while compounding his own most negative image, that of someone who was erratic and out of control. The pick also fueled the feeling that grew throughout September and October that the Republican candidate was willing to take any step necessary to win the campaign. The Palin pick made every decision that followed seem purely political.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/167561

4 Days that Killed the McCain Campaign

Daniel Gross of Slate writes about 3 days that he says killed McCain’s campaign in an excellent and to-the-point essay last night.  I think he’s exactly right – but I think he left out one very important date that crippled the campaign: August 29th.

On August 29th, John McCain announced his first “presidential” decision – the choice of a running mate.  While the shiny new wrapper was impressive for a couple of weeks, it did not last.  As Gross says of September 15th, this date was also a twin killer.  First, the thought of the uninformed, power-abusing, bible-thumping, ultra-right-winger as the President of the USA hurt the campaign.  Because this decision was John’s, and John’s alone, it also reflects very poorly on his judgement and decision makig process. 

His other 3 dates were also disasterous: Proclaiming the economy is still strong, halting his campaign but accomplishing nothing, and using the 3rd debate to regail voters with the economic insight of Joe Wurzelbacher. 

September 24, 2008
The Day John McCain Lost the Election
http://www.slate.com/id/2203763/?GT1=38001