Bankrupting of the Country Continues

Big War Spending Continues Under Obama

President Barack Obama on Monday proposed another two years of hefty spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, seeking Congress' approval for about $160 billion this year and again in fiscal 2011 to pay war costs.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6103FV20100202

Obama sees record deficit; gloom in Europe, Asia

The deficit would represent 12.3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product -- the largest share since World War II.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKIndia-38230620090226

Minneapolis Fed President Kocherlakota Warns Massive Debt Load Can Only Be Paid By Tax Collections Or Debt Monetization

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/minneapolis-fed-president-kocherlakota-warns-massive-debt-load-can-only-be-paid-tax-collecti

Obama, McCain, Biden all vote on bailout bill

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/30/campaign.wrap/index.html

U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7 Trillion, Barofsky Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aY0tX8UysIaM

Barack Obama: we must spend our way out of recession

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5478754.ece

OK I'm done. That's not exhaustive but I'm certainly exhausted :)

I admire your reddit post formatting skills.

He could have made all the points links to the sources themselves. i.e.:

Barack Obama: we must spend our way out of recession

and cut down the list size in 1/2 .... But.. I don't mean to be a dick.. nice list. Well researched. Thanks.

If we had more posts like this on reddit, the world would be a much better place...plus there would be a lot more tl;dr

Well done. Obama's decline from saviour to just another cog in the machine began with his staff appointments and secretarial positions. You've hit on several points that that I either missed or disregarded at the time. Thanks for the reminders.

You should put this on the front page/submit it to reddit.com. Excellent read in and of itself. Amazing links, citing your work. Bravo.

Golf Clap

This Thread did not go over so well in the /Politics...

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/brp2o/some_people_have_asked_me_why_i_think_the_obama/

Things like this usually don't go too well in /r/politics. Usually, if you want something to float to the top there, it has to be about either the same old media sock-puppets / scape-goats (Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, etc), labeling the tea-party "racists"/ignorant/etc yet again, or praising Obama for saying something nice. That pretty much sums up /r/politics.

/r/politics reminds me of the game lemmings.

Perhaps we need more people from /r/conspiracy to help upvote it in that /r/. Nobody has posted a negative comment there yet, so there is still hope.

A /r/conspiracy conspiracy!

This is one of the best run downs on Obama I've seen. I would also add to this massive list Obama's reassignment of Ben Bernanke to the Federal Reserve after he over watched the collapse of 08.

The one thing we always have to be cautious about is our tendency to use the noun "Obama" too frequently. Most of us know he's a puppet PR guy, so sometimes it's good to imply that he is simply doing what he's told to do when it comes to his policies.

Obama's approval rating index is -12 right now.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

I expect this to continue to decline, since The Obama Administration received a slight bump recently because of the passing of the health care bill. One of the primary goals of the Obama Administration is to postpone the financial collapse to his second term, and hope the continuous decline is pushed back so the Obama Administration can be reelected.

Great work.

The one thing we always have to be cautious about is our tendency to use the noun "Obama" too frequently.

Very true. It's a difficult balancing act because while we don't want to scape-goat the puppet and hence help misdirect ourselves into focusing on the wrong problems, at the same time we have to keep in mind that many people really are already focusing their love on the puppet. I think that has to be broken through first before you slip in the whole "two heads of one party" idea and going further down the rabbit hole with notions of TPTB and whatnot. Otherwise, you'll be dismissed as a "conspiracy theorist", unfortunately.

The one thing we always have to be cautious about is our tendency to use the noun "Obama" too frequently.

What's interesting to me is how rampant this attitude was during the Bush years. Bush was and is the great political sin-eater. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, Dem lapdogs are rehashing all the same whiny, blind faith defenses for their fearless leader that Bush followers used -- particularly when you point out any of Obama's similarities to his predecessor. "Give him time, he knows what he's doing," "Stop 'bashing,'" etc. I had one even tell me that if I didn't like Obama, I should leave the country. Love it or leave it, baby!

I agree. Dems were quite quick to assume that Bush was not the "commander guy" as he had called himself, and they were correct. With Obama, there's just as little agency.

It's also considered racist by many to criticize Obama. That's how far gone our politics are in this country.

He's not at -12, he's about even. Rasmussen has him at -5, but Rasmussen has his disapproval number consistently higher than almost all other pollsters. Source.

So full of BS, I doubt even you believe yourself.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

That's TODAY'S poll numbers, and he's at -17.

I predict Obama's numbers to stay poorly or continue to drop.

Obama isn't popular, sorry. But, assuming you're an Obama supporter, you'll have to make up a new imaginary world where Obama didn't play you like the dumb bitch you are.

Moron.

can you please copy/paste this onto a blog ( i would but i cant get the formatting to copy/paste) and put it on a blog without the word "conspiracy" in it so my mom will actually read it? thanks.

One would have to be pretty deeply conditioned to believe that conspiracies don't happen or aren't worth investigating.

Good observation. My mom is one of the most conditioned & brainwashed people on the planet.

She lives right outside Washington DC and she is a public high school teacher. Shes been doing this for about 25 years. She doesnt even believe that CNN or MSNBC "lies" at all and anytime someone tries to challenge the notion that what she teaches in school is not 100% correct, she flips out and shuns you, literally.

That's a great idea. I have a blog at http://www.thinkerofthoughts.com that I haven't touched in a while. I could add this post and keep it updated as I get new material. It'd probably be good to have a central, organized repository for this sort of material.

yeah, great idea. I bookmarked it.

Obama lost a lot of the under 30 crowd when he dissed cannabis decriminalization and legalization, and the positive effects that would have on the economy. A lot of people my age regret voting for him.

I'm glad I made the only choice that election, by not voting.

Should have voted RP in the Republican primaries - that was the only real choice in that election.

I did, on my campus when I was in college. There were 77 RP votes. :(

Obama's continuation of torture and renditions and his covering up of war crimes is analogous to Frodo's claiming of the ring at Sammath Naur.

I'm glad I made the only choice that election, by not voting.

Choosing not to participate in the charade is a powerful choice. I'm with you on that one.

Yeah, they're trembling before you now.

Lovely.

There is a lot of crap in /r/conspiracy, posts like this are the reason I stay subscribed.

Was just about to unsubscribe when I saw this post. Leaving it on, for now.

So, basically, you're trying to back up your opinion with... a bunch of opinion articles?

If you mean very well argued opinion articles by a constitutional lawyer named Glenn Greenwald, then yes, I'm guilty.

Any claim of pure "objectivity" is just a pretense. Everything from selection of material (even whether or not it is discussed at all) to the interpretation all involves subjectivity.

And besides, if we want to light a fire under the ass of this country, we better start turning up the heat by going for what gets people fired up (and rightfully so).

So...in summary...yes, GUILTY AS CHARGED, and it's not bad thing.

And it's Salon. Not exactly a bastion of conservatism.

saved.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Great post. Wish I had more than 1 upvote.

He's just a different hood ornament on the same car.

Hey, it's great you want to account for Obama's sinister underbelly; I'm all for speaking out against the blindness of our public, or of our Reddit.

There are some problems with your post. One is tooting your own horn "This will be rather epic" -- don't turn people off to your ideas before you even get a chance to lay it out. "and probably a wasted effort" -- omg, do you really need a safety net to say what you're going to say? Do you really need to establish that you're better than everyone else before spending a couple hours putting links together?

Another is absolute equivalence. No matter how many things you find similar about the two administrations, Bush was Bush-league in the incompetence game. There are differences, and even if Bush and Obama administrations are right next to each other in the bigger political spectrum, those small differences can't be taken lightly if you want people to listen to you.

You need to say, "Sure Bush made XYZ mistakes, but Obama is making VYZ mistakes" -- you need to highlight the smallness of the differences, then, if you want to make a point about how similar they are. Acknowledge the difference and then show the overlap. The overlap isn't total, so stop using such a wide brush!

And, I'm sorry, but the small differences at this scale make for huge differences in consequences. How much more impacting it would be if there were more substantial differences, but to call them the same is to look from a prioritized perspective, not an objective one. You compare using sweeping categorical statements. And certainly those categories are damning to the Obama administration from a peace & justice perspective. All I'm imploring you to do is bridge the gap. "Sure the Bush policy was a little bit worse in this way, but Obama's policy is so much worse in this other way…"

So, sure, go ahead and make your point, but you could make it so much better! All you've done is list a bunch of stuff. Hopefully the blind among us will read your list and reconsider their allegiances. Meanwhile, this isn't a post that truly compares the two; this is a post that attacks the one.

One is tooting your own horn "This will be rather epic"

All I meant by that was the epic length.

"and probably a wasted effort" -- omg, do you really need a safety net to say what you're going to say?

I copied and pasted from another comment. It wasn't directed at the readers, and I should have probably removed it.

Another is absolute equivalence.

But I used the terminology "awfully similar".

those small differences can't be taken lightly if you want people to listen to you.

I just can't fight all the battles here. As you can see, the post was rather long already. If you want to modify and redistribute, go ahead, by all means.

The overlap isn't total, so stop using such a wide brush!

It's enough overlap for me. Subjective? Sure.

All I'm imploring you to do is bridge the gap. "Sure the Bush policy was a little bit worse in this way, but Obama's policy is so much worse in this other way…"

I'm a full time computer programmer who typically works 60-80 hour weeks. Not a journalist. It sounds like you're asking me to do Glenn Greenwald type of work. I'll gladly point to it, which is what I have done.

So, sure, go ahead and make your point, but you could make it so much better! All you've done is list a bunch of stuff.

Yes- and people can do the intellectual legwork for themselves and dig further. I'm just pointing out what I've found.

Meanwhile, this isn't a post that truly compares the two; this is a post that attacks the one.

I see what you're saying, but there is an implicit assumption in the post that those who'd care are already quite familiar with the abuses of the Bush administration. Again, I can only do so much on my own, in a Reddit post that's already very very lengthy.

Everything is well addressed. Kudos, then.

As is often the case, we each are responding to the impression of an entire movement. My mistakes in responding to you are where I took you as representative of others who truly minimize the differences. Here I see you are focusing where you should focus, on current happenings.

Thanks for taking the time to put this together (and in advance if you continue to update). And for you consideration.

A president has to do what he or she can thru the congress of the time, which is a quid pro quo circle jerk of ridiculous proportions. Change happens over decades. Anti-choice voters waited from Reagan to Bush 2 just to get late term abortion outlawed. True progressives won't see much policy they even halfway agree with until 5 of 7 election cycles have gone blue. Of course, the US could go the way of Britain's Labor and Tory parties, which seems likely given the batshit crazy Palin Beck Limbaugh RNC of today; it will take great effort, organizing, public consciousness raising, public lobbying to drag the lefty party back left

And that's just the stuff we know about.

I think Obama is a captive of anti American forces such as Israel and that the same insane mind was in control of both presidents . Hopefully the former president was a more willing slave.

Edit syntax.

I am looking forward to reading this.