Mitt Romney just announced Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, and the satirical campaign posters have already started proliferating across the Internet. Here’s a few that caught our fancy.
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Under the Ryan budget Romney will basically pay zero taxes.
Cue the Log Cabiners coming in here trying to deflect attention by screaming about Obama’s 3rd cousin not eating dolphin safe tuna or something like that.
I’m not a huge Obama fan, but he has done more for gay rights than any other president in history. Voting solely on that record I would vote for Obama. However, Ryan has a history of being bi-partisan and pushing for a lot of stuff that makes sense. He has been open to consensus. He has championed much needed reforms to Medicare and Social Security. He also voted for TARP and the Auto Bail Out.
If the election was between Romney of 2004 with Ryan and Obama it would be an easy election. In the end, sure I want to get married and have my rights protected, but those two things seem rather pointless if I live in a third world country that has people out of work simply because its easier to collect government money than get a job.
Also, I do agree that the rich should pay the same taxes as everyone else. Lets lower the taxes on middle class to 15% and raise the taxes on the lower class to 15%. There is no reason that a flat tax should not be implemented. We can pay for the income differences by cutting government entitlement programs. Programs that any economist, psychologist and sociologist will tell you, are designed to keep people on the programs for the rest of their life while paying more to the administrators of the programs then they pay in actual benefits.
In closing, consider this, The average SSI pay out for a disabled person is $10,000 a year. The average starting salary of a person that considers a disability case is $35,000 a year to start with a chance to increase to $70,000 a year in 5 years. This is all thanks to Social Security being a government agency. Do you honestly believe this would still happen if if it was a private NFP?
Do we really want to vote our futures away just because we care more about gay rights than any other issue?
See what I mean when I talk about Agent Provocateur’s posting as LGBT friendly people, you can add Daez to the list, though I’m sure he’ll have another 4 or 5 identities defend him.
I like how you claim to not dislike Obama then go on and on about how Republican think tanks feel about the economy, quoting studies with no sources by people who are being aid to say exactly that.
Given the facts that Ryan is Anti abortion, Anti gay marriage and Pro guns for everyone, I fail to see how hes,”crossing the aisle” to anything that the democratic platform represents. I am fiscally conservative, and Lord knows I hate paying taxes. But there is still a level of social responsibility that is needed in society. I used to think I was in the middle on social issues, but have become more liberal as the Right as become more extreme.
I may be stoopid but . . . your first clue that the Left is running scared? Their insistence on trashing Paul Ryan. If they truly believed Ryan would doom Romney’s campaign, they’d be cheering the choice. Instead, they’re nervous about it; the Obama campaign is pulling out all the stops in their Ryan-bashing. As someone who thinks fiscal responsibility is more important than gay marriage, I’m looking forward to a change of the guard come next January.
@Neo: I have been posting here for 4+ years. So, if I suddenly became a Romney shill then I salute you for point that out.
I simply stated my opinion. Obama has not done very much to improve the economy, but he even ran on the concept of “sharing the wealth.” It was an exact quote from 2008. He seems to have kept this one campaign promise.
Romney of 2012 is scum. However, he was not that bad 8 years ago. That Romney is gone however. Seriously, when it comes to the economy I do not like either pick. Although, I feel that when people work hard they should get ahead and they should not then be penalized for getting ahead. People also seem to overlook that the reason that the rich pay 15% taxes is because they are capital gain taxes. ANYONE with investments pays capital gain taxes. So, if you raise the capital gain tax rate to 35% you are also raising the taxes of anyone that has worked hard enough to earn money that they can actually invest.
@hf2hvit: This is such an over exaggeration. Unless you can show me direct links to comments that Ryan and Romney have made saying they advocate the death penalty for homosexuality then you need to get over your victimization complex.
Even the big daddy of the biggest cult in the world, AKA Pope Benedict, has never gone on record advocating the death penalty for homosexuality.
@hf2hvit: Oh, you mean because my ideas differ from yours I must not be a part of your gay pride club? Seriously!?! You need to get over yourself. There are many different ways to view an issue and yours is not the right one just because its yours.
Maybe you should be concentrating on finding counter issues instead of insults. Its a very simple concept…
Gay Rights = OBAMA OVER ROMNEY
Economy = ROMNEY OVER OBAMA (unless you think supporting social programs that are designed to keep multiple generations poor is a good thing).
@hf2hvit: Yup, yup, I’m-a stoopid all right. But at least I don’t “have to have it” like you do (or, judging by your spelling, is it “half to have it”?). Nor am I dumb enough to vote for an affirmative-action-elected president, which is all Obama is and ever was. So nya.
Lets examine the social programs that Obama supports for a minute…
Unemployment: You can now collect unemployment for up to three years (based on how long you were employed). This means that you can sit on your ass and do nothing for three years and get a pay check. Who would not want this? Also, because these checks are based on artificially inflated wages, they are often higher than the available salaries. That means, if you get a job instead of taking unemployment checks you are taking a pay cut.
Social Security (Disability): The program is actually set up to keep you earning less than $1000 a month. The moment you earn over $1000 a month you are docked your entire benefit check for that month. That means, if you are smart you game the system and earn $1000 a month exactly. You can do that on minimum wage working 35 hours a week. Where is the incentive to ever better yourself and get off the program.
Medicare/Medicaid: This is where the real problem comes in. If you are on Social Security for more than two years you get Medicare. If you do not work at all you get Medicare for free. If you earn actual money you end up paying your own premium for Medicare. That means, if you chose to work then you devote your first $200 some dollars to paying for Medicare. However, if you make more than $1000 a month you lose your Social Security and your Medicare. That caps your earnings before taxes at $800 a month unless you want to give up your medical coverage.
On the other hand, Medicaid is only paid if you have no real income and has a resource limit of $1500. If you have more than $1500 you are ineligible for Medicaid. How do you manage to save money to do simple things like get a car or go to school when you are losing your health insurance the moment you have $1501 in the bank?
Student Loans/Financial Aid: The beauty of these programs is that AFTER all of your student expenses are paid you get a check for the balance of the provided money. That check is tax free and is not considered income for the basis of all the other programs. That makes it in your best interest to stay in school as long as you possibly can (its capped at 6 years or so) and to take as much money as you possibly can. Since you do not need to repay any of this money if you are taking benefits, you can easily use this money (depending on the school: $3000 to $6000 a year) to spend on whatever you want. I know people that have went to school for a year just to get the money to buy a car and then dropped out and never repaid a dime. I know people that have used this money for consumer goods. Its no wonder why they estimate such a high balance of American student loan debt.
Now, looking at how all of these programs work… It is quite easy to realize that if you want to game the system legally and still have a decent quality life you do not bother to better yourself, get a job or get an actual education. These programs are all in desperate need of reform so that they reward the people that try to get out there and better themselves and penalize the people that do not.
@Daez: Bravo, friend, bravo. You summed it up beautifully. So how come seemingly every other gay man out there wants to destroy the country in the name of gay marriage—marriage that will likely end in divorce? I just don’t get it. I mean, civil rights were great for blacks, but welfare systematically destroyed black families, since women no longer needed husbands to afford multiple children—the government took over the role of husband. People need to consider the consequences of their (selfish) actions.
If you are not married you do not have to report your partner’s income as part of your income when applying for these programs or receiving benefits from them. That means, if your partner earns $250,000 a year you can still have free health coverage and a monthly check from the government as long as you meet the requirements of the program based on your OWN personal income. You have to be honest and tell them what part of the expenses of the household you actually pay for, but that in no way effects your monthly check (it just effects your allotted food stamps).
My mom lived with a guy earning $40,000 a year. They were never married so my mom was able to never claim his income. She worked a part time job, collected full Social Security (because she was disabled), got full medical care paid for by the government (because her earnings qualified her for free Medicare) and even received full food stamps because she said that she did not eat meals with her partner and she paid the electric and sewer bills with her own money.
It really is not a big surprise that many straight people are not getting married now, is it?
I’m still waiting for the Obama campaign to explain how they intend to pay for all these social “safety net” programs and public-sector-jobs-as-stimulus so dear to the Democrats when the Government is already running huge deficits. Where’s the money coming from?
The current Obama Deficits are as untenable as the Ryan Budget; neither serves the long-term public needs of the Middle-class. And out-right confiscatory taxes on the “rich” can’t raise enough cash on the long-run.
@Daez: In all due respect, your mom sounds like a typical welfare-grabbing, WIC-collecting piece of shit, like all the other welfare frauds across the land. You & Obama must be so proud of her.
@Barry Battle: Wow, you sound homophobic and racist all in the same post. I can guarantee you that I have no intention of ever divorcing my partner (of two years) if I am ever allowed to get legally married.
Also, if only black people take welfare assistance then please explain to me why there are some pretty damn long welfare lines in places where the minority percentage is less than 5%.
@Barry Battle: I disagree with you. If I was allowed to get married to my partner (of two years) I would not be getting divorced. Also, if only blacks take welfare assistance then please explain the need for social assistance programs in areas where the black population is less than 5%.
@Ted B. (Charging Rhino): That’s easy: They’ll pay for it by siphoning more and more of your and my earnings. It’s the Democrats’ way: Redistribute wealth to guarantee the votes of the poor. Funny how they’re not so keen on “redistribution” when it comes to their own money.
@Daez: Unemployment: Have you ever actually BEEN on unemployment? You don’t just get to “sit on your ass.” In most (or all) states you must show proof every week that you’ve been applying for work, going to interviews, all that stuff. That kind of “work” is annoying enough that most people do break down and accept one of the dumbass nothing jobs that comes along.
Student Loans: “I know people that have went to school for a year just to get the money to buy a car and then dropped out and never repaid a dime.” HOW have they evaded the bill collectors if they did that?
SSDI (disability): Before 1995 you weren’t allowed to work AT ALL if you were on SSDI. The current set-up, the one you are complaining about, was a reform put in place by Speaker Newt Gingrich (!) and agreed to by President Clinton. So how exactly would you reform it now? Raise the $1000 limit? Lower it? What exactly?
Your mom: Uh, what exactly do you propose – do you want the government to FORCE your mom to get married? Talk about a “shotgun marriage”! That’s fun to think about, but doesn’t sound practical.
@Ted B. (Charging Rhino): I’m still waiting for the RMoney campaign to explain how they’re going to balance the budget by 2020 as they’ve promised, while STARTING A WAR WITH IRAN as they’ve also promised.
@Pittsburgh Patriot: I totally and utterly agree with you. However, this was COMPLETELY legal and COMPLETELY in the realms of the system. She was able to do this. It should have never happened. She should have never done it, but the system should not be set up to benefit people like her (and the many others that do it) in the first place.
@Daez: Errrr, I never said only blacks receive welfare—I said welfare has single-handedly destroyed black families. Does it destroy other families of other races? Sure. But it’s in the black community that the damage is most obvious. To think otherwise is just caving to political correctness.
@Daez: Agreed. Most politicians scoff at the idea of welfare fraud, claiming that welfare recipients are all in genuine need, and that incidents of fraud are few and far between. Yeah, right. Agreed, indeed.
@the other Greg: Unemployment: Nope, I’ve been unemployed for long periods of time. I just never got paid for it. In that period of time, I put in lots of applications and took every interview I could get. I would not exactly call it work, and the jobs did not come all that easily. Eventually, I went back to school (for four weeks) and got a State Tested Nursing Assistant certification. Now, I work midnights in a psychiatric nursing home where we have patients that attack other residents, attack staff and destroy property. Still, it was better than sitting around doing nothing. However, I was not getting paid for doing nothing.
Student Loans: For starters, you can defer the crap out of your student loans. When you run out of deferments you go to forbearance. You can do this for years. When you are done with that you can default, and if you were one of the lovely people that actually did this you are most likely not the type that would bother to make any real money. The bill collectors can not collect if you do not make any money to collect in the first place.
SSDI: Lets start by removing the penalty for those that work and replacing it with a penalty for those that probably could work part time but refuse to. Match the earnings a person makes up to $1000 a month and cut the benefits for those that could work part time and choose not to. Simple solution.
My mom: This is really where you need to provide opposite incentive as well. The real reason my mom was doing this is because she had some major issues that were pre-existing (this was before The Affordable Healthcare Act) and could not get on her partners insurance if they had gotten married. Also, her partner liked to spend more than he liked to make which put her in a really bad situation. However, if the government would have handled her healthcare and provided incentive for working more hours and making more money she would have gladly done so. That is why there is a huge problem with resource caps and earning limits in a situation where healthcare is badly needed.
Seriously, I can not blame the people that take advantage of the system. They are doing what they need to do to survive in many cases. I do not like that they take advantage, but I blame the system instead of the people taking advantage.
@Pittsburgh Patriot: I’m not talking about welfare fraud. Welfare fraud is when you knowingly and intentionally defraud the welfare system. Every instance I mentioned was not welfare fraud. Everything I mentioned comes down to working inside the system and following every single one of the rules and regulations that are part of the program requirements. This is all 100% legal to do. This is not fraud. You do not want to get me started on fraud.
@Daez: Yes, but people can work the system 100% legally and still be guilty of fraud. For instance, the woman who recently was busted for collecting food stamps . . . after she’d won a $1 million lottery. It might not have been illegal, but that doesn’t make it okay. Likewise anyone who receives “disability” for reasons as ridiculous as “stress,” “exhaustion,” or any of the other bogus ailments listed on the ADA. It might be legal, but in my mind, working the system in a dishonest means is as criminal as outright defrauding the system.
@Daez: Unemployment: That’s very virtuous, or something, but I assume you were a renter with several months of savings. A lot of unemployed people with children in that situation would become homeless.
SSDI: “Lets start by removing the penalty for those that work and replacing it with a penalty for those that probably could work part time but refuse to.” (Sigh.) Well that SOUNDS virtuous, or something, but why exactly is it a good thing if they work? Why do you want them to take a job away from an able-bodied person? Easier said than done, anyway, since there is so much job discrimination by employers against anyone with a disability, or anyone over 40 for that matter, no matter WHAT the job is. … Also, just to be clear for those who don’t know (maybe you know this already), the current system has a 9-month (non-consecutive) window at the beginning where the $1000 limit doesn’t apply yet and they can earn as much as possible. So some of what you suggest is already in place.
Student Loans: I’m closest to you on this one. It’s a strange racket that has snowballed out of control. On the other hand, it’s notorious that this is the ONLY kind of debt that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Most students who take on way too much debt (and a useless major) are naive and just don’t know what they’re getting into. If it were up to me, the government would discourage people from going to college!
Your mom: Well that’s a relief, you see the necessity for national health care.
@Pittsburgh Patriot: I agree with you completely. That is why the system needs changed. The woman that won $1,000,000 dollars reported her income to the welfare system that then decided to continue her benefits. She is hardly at fault here. The system was the problem in this case. The system is the problem in a lot of cases.
You can not receive disability without a medical diagnosis. It has nothing to do with the ADA as they do not define what a medical diagnosis is. Stress and exhaustion are mere symptoms of more serious mental disorders. There are people with serious mental disorders that should be considered disabled. I would much rather have these people getting the medical help that they need (that is made possible by SSI DI) then the alternative where they go insane and blow up buildings or hose people down in the streets with a semi-automatic weapon.
@Pittsburgh Patriot: Social Security rejects 60% of applicants for SSDI, and this has probably gone up in recent years with the recession.
My sense is that a lot of people get on SSDI legitimately, but essentially recover after a few years. But SS doesn’t have the resources to EVER check up on anyone a second time. It’s a theoretical possibility, and the standard SS cover letter never fails to mention the fact that their case might be “reviewed” someday. But it never, ever happens.
A friend reminds me to use Social Security’s own terminology and refer to “SSA” (Soc. Sec. Administration) instead of SS, which is too reminiscent of, um, something historical that was a lot worse than Social Security! (though some Teabaggers may think of it that way).
@the other Greg: Cases are reviewed every three years. However, it is much easier for someone on Social Security to keep it then it is for the average person to get it in most cases.
Still, this gets away from my original statement that the system is flawed when it actually penalizes someone for going out and getting a job. The small pittance that Social Security pays is a joke. No one that is going out and getting a job is really worried about losing $690 a month. However, since you can lose your healthcare if you are not getting benefits it becomes a lot more serious.
I feel that a great deal of people would chose to work part time and bring in $1100-$1500 a month and to make a living off of that payment if it was not for the fact that they then could not afford to pay their medical bills which are covered for free under Social Security.
I kind of feel like the true solution to this mess is to finally fix the health insurance crisis in this country.
@Daez: I’m glad we agree on health care, but you’ll never get the Republicans to agree. Whenever they’re in charge they do absolutely nothing about health care.
I have become very disenchanted with President Barack Obama even though I voted for him in 2008. Obama has failed us progressives.
1. He did not even propose the public option healthcare system: he had campaigned on that system, promising to propose it. (Wikipedia: ”President Barack Obama promoted the idea of the public option while running for election.[3] After becoming President, Obama downplayed the need for a public health insurance option including calling it a “sliver” of health care reform,[4] but had not given up pursuing the idea before the health care reform was passed.[5] The preceding statement is disputed by evidence that the Obama administration had agreed to drop the public option from the final plan in the summer of 2009[6] in a back room deal with representatives of the for-profit hospital lobby[7]“)
2. He has appointed countless Wall Streeters to his top economic team, failing to appoint labor voices like Robert Reich.
3. He has bailed out Wall Street instead of Main Street: remember TARP? And then the banks dispensed $6 billion in bonuses in that year to its executives.
4. He failed to attack the mortgage crisis, leaving an elephant still in our “room”, with one-third of home mortgages now underwater.
5. He failed to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, doing away with habeous corpus, allowing the government to arrest and detain indefinitely without a trial or hearing.
6. He agreed to an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and on top of that, he agreed to an egregious reduction of the estate taxes on the rich, exempting as much as $10 million from any estate taxes and lowering the estate tax rate down to a ridiculous rate of 35%, when our country has a $15 trillion debt. That alone saved the Walton heirs $17 billion in taxes.
7. He has failed to indict and imprison any of those banksters involved in all of that fraud on Wall Street from the subprime mortgage, including robo-signing, and selling shit-backed mortgage securities known to be worthless.
8. He appointed Jeffrey Immelt to head his Jobs Council when GE has been saying “China, China, China,” and shipping all jobs overseas while closing plants here in the US.
9. President Obama is now considering and proposing to lower the corporate tax rate to 26%, when corporations are not only at a low-time rate of paying taxes but getting billions in tax subsidies from our government and opening up offices on the 19th floor of one building on the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes altogether.
10. President Obama spoke in favor of PIPA and SOPA, when the internet is the last vestige of free speech and the availability of free information to the general public.
11. There were no indictments by President Obama of all the contractor fraud reported on by Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul in a Congressional Report released over a year ago. Whenever the rich and big corporations are caught in fraud, Eric Holder adopts a policy of “looking forward”, instead of holding them accountable.
12. President Obama agreed to the “grand bargain” (thank, God, Boehner did not accept it) to cut over $2 trillion in spending, including social security, medicare, medicaid, and other social safety-net programs merely in return for hypothetical “revenue increases” of $800 billion relying on “dynamic scoring”.
13. President Obama has done nothing to level the trade treaties, where corporations are shipping labor to Cambodia (22.5 cents per hour), China, Philippines, etc., where labor is paid 25 cents per hour. This is exporting slavery to other countries. Where is the level playing field for Americans?
14. President Obama in 2009 only proposed $140 billion in infrastructure spending when Paul Krugman and other economists predicted that $1.5 trillion was needed for our economy to recover. And last year only proposed a paltry $108 billion in infrastructure spending.
15. President Obama praised the recent JOBS Act, which allows corporations to go public and raise capital without audited financial information in their public presentations for the first five years, allowing them to present fictitious numbers and defraud investors?
16. President Obama has failed to propose the return of Glass-Steagall, separating commercial and investment banking, which will soon plunge us back into another mega-bailout of Wall Street.
17. President Obama has failed to propose the break up of the big banks and corporations. What ever happened to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act?
18. President Obama touted a $25 billion robo-signing settlement when a trillion dollars of our pension and retirement funds were stolen.
19. While campaigning, President Obama promised to put on his walking shoes for labor, but failed to even show up in Wisconsin and walk the picket line against Governor Walker.
20. President Obama has not declared war on the Supreme Court, as President Roosevelt did, to oppose the corporate/rich posture of Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts. Why not take them on?
21. President Obama has arrested and raided more marijuana users in less than four years than George Bush did in eight years. Why is President Obama proposing cuts to social security, medicare, and medicaid while spending more on marijuana arrests and raids, especially when a majority of Americans are for legalization of pot and for the open sale of marijuana for medical use?
Time and time again President Obama did not fight the good fight for working Americans, who are losing their jobs, health insurance, homes, dignity, etc.
I am tired of the lame excuse of how we must vote for Obama because of the Supreme Court. How can anyone believe that Obama would not disappoint progressives on that issue after he failed to undertake a recess appointment of Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a position to which she was more entitled to direct than any other American?
1. Reneged on pledge to filibuster FISA Amendments Act (July 2008)
2. Lobbied for $700 billion Paulson TARP bank bailout
3. Pushed for no sanctions against Lieberman despite his support for John McCain
4. Nominated healthcare company lobbyist Tom Daschle as Secretary of HHS
5. Had neoliberal Robert Rubin as his chief economics adviser
6. Then had the equally neoliberal Larry Summers assume this role
7. Chose the failing upwards Timothy Geithner to head Treasury
8. AIG bonuses and money to Goldman under Obama
9. Doubling down in Afghanistan
10. Delay and reduction of withdrawal from Iraq
11. Moving Guantanamo activities to Bagram
12. Military commissions for some detainees
13. Support for indefinite detention
14. Refusal to release torture photos under FOIA
15. Refusal to investigate and prosecute Bush era criminality
16. Geithner’s DOA economic rescue programs: the PPIP and TALF
17. Minimal help for homeowners and no cramdowns
18. Treatment of Chrysler and GM with bankrupcy compared to bank no fail “stress tests”
19. Kabuki of TARP repayment by banks while still dependent on government credit lines
20. Extra-Constitutional use of the Fed by the Executive for fiscal policy
21. Credit Card bill without usury caps and with 9 month delay for other reforms
22. Business friendly Mary Schapiro named to head SEC
23. Gary Gensler who helped deregulate derivatives named to head CFTC
24. $787 billion stimulus: too little, too late, poorly structured
25. Use of financial crisis to attack Social Security and Medicare
26. The great healthcare non-debate
27. Continued use of state secrets argument in ongoing Bush era cases
28. Use of signing statements, including one to punish whistleblowers
29. Vetting process problems, especially tax related ones
30. Leaving Dawn Johnsen’s nomination to head OLC twisting in the wind
31. Eric Holder, failure to reform DOJ, not removing worst of Bush USAs
32. Failure to move against new oil bubble
33. Retention of Bush Defense team: Gates, Patraeus, and Odierno
34. Continued missile strikes inside Pakistan
35. Keeping Bush’s domestic spying programs and adding a new one, cybersecurity
36. Choice of Elena Kagan who favors expansive Presidential powers as Sollicitor General, her subsequent nomination to the Supreme Court
37. Leaving EFCA (to help counter anti-union companies) to wither in Congress
38. Welcoming Arlen Specter who brings nothing to the Democrats into the party
39. Weak ineffective proposals for financial reform
40. Obama wanted John Brennan at CIA but settled for making him his counter- terrorism adviser
41. Chas Freeman with broader Mideast perspective done in by AIPAC
42. Dennis Blair made DNI; failed to act to stop atrocities in East Timor
43. Choice of McChrystal involved in torture in Iraq to head Afghanistan command
44. Obama threat to suspend intelligence cooperation with UK over Binyam Mohamed case
45. Efforts to keep Bush and Obama White House logs secret
46. Playing games with “Don’t ask, don’t tell”
47. Filing a brief to overturn Jackson (access to lawyer) in the Montejo case
48. Not withdrawing Bush brief in Osborne DNA case
49. Egregious brief in challenge to Defense of Marriage Act
50. The Supplemental which made Iraq and Afghanistan Democratic wars
51. Choice of Rahm Emanuel as the President’s Chief of Staff
52. Choice of Dennis Ross as Iran envoy and then his move to the White House
53. Politically embarrassing processes to fill Obama and Clinton’s Senate seats
54. Choice of Bill Richardson, then Judd Gregg to head Commerce Department
55. Reneging on pledge to re-negotiate NAFTA
56. Obama’s throwing his pastor Jeremiah Wright to the curb, then reaching out to religious conservative Rick Warren
57. Continued challenges to habeas corpus petitions over indefinite detention, the Janko case
58. The Obama White House website
59. Continuing an ineffective program that Iran can exploit politically
60. Going slow on climate change when there is no time to
61. Not withdrawing a Bush-era amicus brief in the Ricci v. DeStefano reverse discrimination case and supporting a rollback of Title VII
62. Appointment of a CIA General Counsel who doesn’t know if waterboarding is torture
63. Appointment of a DNI General Counsel who doesn’t know if waterboarding is torture
64. CIA delay in a FOIA request concerning torture
65. The influence of Goldman Sachs in the Obama Administration
66. Attempt to keep secret the Cheney interview on the Plame affair
67. Mountaintop removal under Obama
68. Attempt to restrict Congressional notification on intelligence matters
69. Opposition to a second stimulus
70. Another egregious attempt to fight a habeas corpus petition in the Jawad case
71. Continuing charter schools and standardized tests
72. Holder’s decision to support a weak, narrow review of torture
73. Re-appointment of Ben Bernanke as Fed Chairman
74. Continuing renditions
75. Politically dubious company was used to vet reporters in Afghanistan
76. Judge vetoes a too weak SEC plea bargain with Bank of America
77. Justice’s argument for making Bagram a new Guantanamo, the al Maqaleh case
78. Defense to turn over databases to poorly controlled fusion centers
79. Obama changes but keeps Bush’s Star Wars program
80. Failure to win an Israeli freeze on settlements
81. White House refuses to back its own staffer environmentalist Van Jones
82. Politicized US Attorney in the Siegelman case cleared by Office of Special Counsel
83. Criticism of Iranian nuclear program; support of Israeli nuclear weapons
84. Support for a weakened reporter’s shield law
85. Use of the Zazi case to retain broad Patriot Act surveillance provisions
86. Wilner v. NSA, continuing the coverup of warrantless surveillance of communications between attorneys and detainees
87. Attempt to spike the Goldstone report on Israeli-Hamas war crimes in Gaza
88. Slowness in filling federal judgeships
89. Inadequate aid to overwhelmed state budgets
90. Attempting to dodge the Supreme Court deciding whether innocent Guantanamo detainees can be resettled in the US
91. Allowing drilling in the waters off the north coast of Alaska
92. Keeping detainee accounts of CIA torture secret
93. Current FBI manual allows for widespread domestic spying
94. Securitization invalidates most foreclosures
95. Geithner wanting unlimited powers to save large banks
96. Another state secrets defense to conceal domestic spying
97. Circuit Court dismissal of Maher Arar suit
98. Weakening Sarbanes-Oxley and calling it financial reform
99. Unemployment
100. Inspector General for Fannie and Freddie ousted for investigating fraud
101. Gaming courts to convict Guantanamo detainees
102. White House counsel removed for his principled stands on torture and Guantanamo
103. US seizes mosques claiming Iranian connection
104. Howard Dean removed as head of the DNC
105. Scientist with close ties to Monsanto put in charge of all governmental agricultural research
106. Pesticide lobbyist nominated as Chief Agricultural Negotiator for trade
107. Effort to let some government contractors avoid paying taxes
108. A bad US Attorney nomination for Northern Iowa
109. Hunger in America
110. The breast cancer recommendations fiasco
111. Ongoing confusion and disorganization in the military commissions process
112. Phillip Carter another official in closing Guantanamo resigns
113. Refusal to sign anti-land mine treaty
114. The Ghizzawi case and the legal limbo of “cleared for release”
115. Black prisons at Balad and Bagram
116. Delay in declassifying historic documents
117. Max Baucus’ conflicts of interest in healthcare and with his girlfriend
118. Major security breach at a White House party and a ridiculous assertion of “executive privilege”
119. Dana “Pig Missile” Perino nominated to the Broadcasting Board of Governors
120. Cass Sunstein, an anti-regulator in a regulatory position
121. Warrantless for profit electronic surveillance by telecoms and search engines
122. The government sides with torture lawyer John Yoo and attacks Bevins actions again
123. The TSA publishes its security manual online
124. Toxic legal arguments in al Zahrani v. Rumsfeld, yet another Bevins action
125. The Nobel Peace Prize and a neocon acceptance speech
126. Blackwater’s involvement in military and CIA assassination and drone programs
127. Congressional Research Service censorship in the firing of Morris Davis
128. AIG writes off $25 billion in debt and sticks taxpayers with the bill
129. The Administration plays hardball to kill an amendment that would lower drug costs
130. A poorly considered blank check to Fannie and Freddie
131. Continuing a Bush botch in the Nisoor Square massacre case
132. Jonathan Gruber, a major defender of Obamacare was also a paid consultant for it
133. A Geithner related cover up of the AIG at par payments on swaps
134. Adoption of stealth signing statements
135. al Bihani, more bad legal reasoning in another Guantanamo habeas case
136. Cutting Medicare and Social Security by deficit commission proposed
137. A 3 year non-freeze budget freeze proposed
138. NASA flights privatized
139. OPR report on Yoo and Bybee watered down and its relation to the Padilla case
140. Government targeting of US citizens for assassination
141. Abuse of informants by ICE agents
142. Obama leaves Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board empty
143. Obama backs firing of teachers in Rhode Island
144. Irish human rights advocate Edward Horgan has US visa pulled
145. Threatened veto of 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act over Congressional notifications
146. Obama Administration intimidation of whistleblowing site: wikileaks
147. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to ignore science on endangered species
148. Senate vacation more important than jobless benefits
149. Government seeks to compel turnover of emails without a warrant
150. Obama goes after an NSA whistleblower: the Thomas Drake case
151. Obama goes after a CIA whistleblower: the James Risen case
152. Weakening Miranda rights in national security cases
153. Advocating the privatizing of public housing
154. Another step in making Bagram the new Guantanamo, the al Maqaleh case, the appeals court edition
155. Massey mining disaster, 29 die because of corporate greed and poor regulation
156. Obama proposal for a line item veto
157. A military commander allowed to use military forces for intelligence operations without Presidential approval
158. Political pandering in sending 1200 National Guardsmen to the Southwest border
159. A sad record on resisting Guantanamo habeas petitions
160. Israel attacks an aid convoy for Gaza; Obama punts
161. A further erosion of Miranda: Berghius v. Thompkins
162. Naming James Clapper, a Bush appointee, to be the next DNI
163. DOJ seeks to protect Vatican in sex abuse scandal
164. Yahya Wehelie, an American exiled without charge
165. Failure to replace National Labor Relations Board members means hundreds of decisions must be reviewed
166. SCOTUS opts for overly broad definition of material support to terrorist groups
167. Speaker Pelosi backstabs Social Security
168. Complaints by government scientists of political interference at Bush era levels
169. Flip flop on free trade agreement with Colombia
170. SEC declares major victory but lets Goldman off easy
171. Private contracting of intelligence continues under Obama
172. Two Guantanamo prisoners to be deported back to Algeria against their will
173. The Shirley Sherrod affair: trumped up charges of racism and a bungled response 174. Whitewash report on Bush era US Attorney firings
175. Despite its record, Blackwater still gets big US government contracts
176. Wikileaks releases government files showing Pakistan involvement with Taliban and admission that things are going poorly in Afghanistan
177. Obama seeks to get access to everyone’s web histories without a court order
178. Teacher funding sacrificed to keep Education Secretary Arne Duncan happy
179. State’s top Iran hand resigns over Obama’s Iran policy
180. Citizens United: validation of unlimited corporate political funding
181. Push to expand US arms sales around the world
182. Project Vigilant, Infragard and “volunteer” corporate spying for the government
183. Obama’s approval hits Bush levels in Arab world
184. Effort to pre-empt state environmental lawsuits involving green house gases
185. Justice’s Anti-trust division asleep at the wheel
186. Kagan’s recusals render her even more ineffective on the Supreme Court
187. Poverty level highest since 1994
188. Courts run interference for corporate violators of international law
189. Warren named to set up but not to run Consumer Financial Protection Board
190. Chief economic adviser Larry Summers leaves; Obama looks for someone even more pro-business to replace him
191. DOJ IG report goes soft on Bush era surveillance against peace groups and other activists; meanwhile the Obama Administration conducts raids against similar groups
192. Move to put backdoors in the internet to facilitate spying and more requirements on banks on international money transfers of any size
193. HHS Secretary Sebelius delays for at least two years required insurance coverage for contraception
194. Americans on Medicaid increased to 48.5 million in 2009
195. Big home lenders suspend foreclosures as their documentation gets challenged in court
196. HR 3808, a bill passed by Congress, to facilitate the acceptance of false documentation by banks in foreclosure proceedings
197. ICE raids and deportations increase under Obama
198. Social Security COLA frozen for second straight year; no action taken
199. Waivers for military aid to countries with child soldiers
200. Big and deserved losses in the 2010 elections
201. 42 million Americans on food stamps at the end of FY 2010
202. No indictments for those involved in the CIA destruction of the torture tapes
203. The Bowles-Simpson Cat Food Commission proposals
204. $3 billion in aid for Israel for a 90 day settlement freeze
205. No change in Democratic Congressional leadership after 2010 election disaster
206. Forced proselytizing still prevalent at US Air Force Academy
207. TSA harassment and violation of the 4th Amendment
208. More TSA idiocy: full body scans and invasive pat downs
209. The response to the 2009 coup in Honduras
210. Use of diplomatic personnel to spy at the UN
211. Fed proposes rule change to Truth in Lending Act to protect bank fraud
212. FCC head Genachowski takes an axe to net neutrality
213. Lieberman and Amazon.com seek to censor wikileaks
214. Pressuring the Spanish government into dropping torture prosecutions against 6 high level Bush officials
215. Neoliberal free trade deal with South Korea at a time of high unemployment
216. Hamfisted banning access to wikileaks by government departments
217. Massive screwup in printing $100 bills
218. Extending tax cuts for the rich in a poor compromise on jobless benefits
219. Dancing boys of Afghanistan paid for by US contractor Dyncorp
220. EPA backtracks on smog standards
221. Former OMB director Peter Orszag goes to Citigroup
222. Obama breaks the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to supply Israel with nuclear fuel
223. DREAM Act for children of illegal immigrants done in by Senate Democrats
224. DOJ drops investigations of corrupt members of Congress
225. The FBI’s Guardian database, another useless, intrusive surveillance program
226. Pentagon weakens rules on contractor conflicts of interest
227. Investigation by state Attorney Generals into foreclosuregate: no criminal charges
228. Obama names Mr. NAFTA Bill Daley as his new Chief of Staff
229. Obama names neoliberal free trader Gene Sperling to replace Larry Summers
230. Executive Order to make regulations more business-friendly
231. Gulet Mohamed: Detention and torture of US citizens by proxy
232. Nelson v. NASA: government can demand intrusive, unnecessary information about its employees
233. Choice of GE’s outsourcing CEO Jeffrey Immelt as Obama’s Jobs Czar
234. Failure to weaken or eliminate the filibuster
235. Corporate targeting of Wikileaks and liberal organizations
236. Reaction to the popular revolution in Egypt
237. HHS Secretary Sebelius helps states cut Medicaid rolls and funding
238. Petraeus accuses parents not US attacks for burns to children in Afghanistan
239. US general in Afghanistan sets up illegal propaganda program targeting Americans
240. Obama plans to devastate small block grants program for the poor
241. Silence on the Wisconsin labor protests
242. Former Senator Christopher Dodd quickly becomes lobbyist after promising not to
243. Obama reinstitutes sham review tribunals at Guantanamo
244. DOJ colludes with Bush era official Scott Bloch to keep him out of jail
245. The treatment of Bradley Manning
246. State Department spokesman PJ Crowley forced to resign over Manning comments
247. Massive conflicts of interest in David Stevens at HUD and soon to be head of main lobbying group for the mortgage industry
248. Mild reaction to bloody anti-democratic repression in Bahrain and Yemen
249. Torture psychologist appointed to White House task force
250. FBI program which allows them to investigate anyone doesn’t work (surprise)
251. In his Libya war, Obama has completed the unconstitutional process of Presidents’ usurpation of Congress’ power to make war
252. Obama accepts award for transparency in secret
253. Democrats create PACs to receive unlimited contributions from anonymous donors 254. 2011 government shutdown threat as Shock Doctrine
254. The 2011 “great” biprtisan budget deal
255. The OCC deal to cover for banks in foreclosuregate
256. Reshuffling neocons at DOD and the CIA
257. Leak of Detainee Assessments shines light on the weakness of cases against many Guantanamo inmates
258. Geithner shields foreign exchange derivatives from Dodd-Frank regulation
259. Crazy new application for some US passports
260. DOJ wants SCOTUS to allow for GPS tracking without a warrant
261. An industry stacked panel to study fracking
262. SCOTUS attacks small claim class actions
263. SCOTUS okays fraud in financial presentations
264. SCOTUS attacks large class actions and Title VII
265. DOJ’s non-investigation of torture produces few results
266. Department of State threatens participants of Gaza flotilla with terrorism charges
267. Detainees now held on ships to avoid judicial scrutiny
268. CIA operating a black site prison in Somalia
269. SCOTUS and DC Appeals Court torpedoing detainee habeas petitions
270. SCOTUS greatly expands warrantless searches; Obama DOJ approves
271. Tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve after the 2011 spike in gasoline prices
272. Christine Varney, head of DOJ Anti-Trust Division, goes to law firm that had case before her
273. Senseless 2011 debt ceiling crisis, budget cutting, and attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid
274. TSA closes US airspace to Mexican human rights activist
275. DHS guts its unit monitoring right wing terrorism in US
276. “Recovery” benefited corporations, not workers
277. Harassment of a government scientist Charles Monett because his work clashes with drilling in the Arctic
278. African Americans and Hispanic wealth took hardest hit from financial crises
279. Cass Sunstein sitting on labor rules to protect child workers
280. Oil leasing in Gulf resumes
281. Administration pressures NY AG Schneiderman to go along with bogus mortgage settlement
282. DOJ dumps responsibility for its bungled gun running sting on handy US Attorney
283. US ranks 41st in the world in infant mortality
284. White House engages in selective prosecution of Dan Choi over DADT protest
285. COBRA extension ditched
286. Obama spikes EPA ozone limits
287. 2011 Obama fictional jobs plan
288. Contractors cost twice as much as unionized federal workers doing the same work
289. New EPA greenhouse gas limits also being drawn out
290. CFTC proposes ineffectual limits on commodity speculation
291. State Department targets career officer Peter Van Buren for writing critical book
292. Secret Law and the OLC legal justification for killing a US citizen abroad
293. US incomes fall more after recession than during it
294. Another Afghanistan fail: torture rampant in Afghan prisons
295. Bank of America dumps derivative exposure on to the FDIC with Fed approval
296. New rule to legitimize government lying in response to FOIA requests
297. Cronyism and the Keystone XL pipeline
298. Despite pledge, Obama still taking money from lobbyists
299. Secure Communities and deportation as a business
300. The Occupy movement and the attacks upon it
301. DOJ prosecuting financial fraud at the lowest rate in 20 years
302. US stops funding of UNESCO
303. 42% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck
304. The Post Office facing cuts because of unnecessary prefunding mandates
305. Arab Spring and allowing Fundamentalist Islam to take over Egypt making it the next Afghanistan.
As a US citizen, a small business owner, (DMS), I have seen my own partners, and my familys fortunes fall dramtically under this admnistration. President Obama held out such hope during his candidacy. I listened to him, and after a few speeches, believed him.
I looked foreward to a uniter, not a divider, a man who could assist with the black-white divide, and perhap make us all purple states instead of blue and red states. Transparancy in governmnt, bills posted online and on Cspan to review and understand,meeting face to face with long time enemies of the US, and working to solve the issue of our porus borders and first and formost, address the issues of JOBS!
To say I am dissapointted in this president is to belabor the obvious. My income has remained flat for the past 4 years, but my expenses have risen exponentially. On a gross income the last year of Bush, I grossed 275,000.00, on that, I took home about 90K. This last year, 2011, I managed to take home 39K. The new costs of a small business man. My personal insurance has gone up about 2,900. per year alone. I have seen no uniting, but rather horrible divisions between the fed and christian religions, between gays and str8s, blacks and white, immigrants and illegals. Transparency? Lol, by this president? We are unable to even see his grade school records, or his high scool records, let along have him explain why he uses a Conneticutt Social security number. C-Span, not a chance, ACA was done primarily by big pharmacutical companies, with a lick and a spit by the house democratic caucus, not a single republican was ever allowed to even see the bill, and now it is law. Our national debt? Up 4 billion dollars in 3 years. Federal assistance? Up 48% over all in 3 years. We are still engaged in the same wars, Guantanemo is still opened. Our borders, not only open, but this President has given amnesty to over 20 million illegals, straining our social safety net to the extreme. On gay issues, DADT, gone, and I thank him. As a vet, it was long past time. Supporting Gay equal rights regarding marriage, good for the man! Cheers. But my relationship will be the same long after Obama is out of office. I now wonder if the USA will be a country I even recognize if he is re-elected. I may be gay, socialy liberal, but I still need to pay my mortage, pay my health insurance, and save for my old age. I am ‘married to a loving older man who now depends on me to care for him, and I do so willingly. However, under Obama, this has gotten harder and harder. I am going to vote for a fiscal conservative. I’d much rather know we are prepared to meet the future, then worry about buying a cake in Denver, or having a committment ceremony in Vermont. Gay men must have priorities too, mine is my family, not a ceremony I have lived with out my entire life. I will still speak out for equal rights, support those cadidates who favor my positions, but not at the cost of our lives.
@Daez: We hear a lot about how people can abuse government programs, and unemployment is usually the first example people like to pull. But before we all jump on that bandwagon, let me invite you to read a series on umemployment that Gawker is currently running where current or recently unemployed people have penned their own experiences about what it’s like to be unemployed in this economy: http://gawker.com/5927342/. There are 5 installments now. I hope you have time to read some of them.
Also, I haven’t got any stats for you to look at, but I do have some experience with the disability programs. My older sister developed schitzophrenia when she was about 25 years old. At the time she was working full time and had health insurance, but it wasn’t long before the effects of the disease caused her to lose her job, which of course means she also lost her health insurance. I cannot overstate how devastating that was for our family. Her medications ran over $1,000/month and every hospital visit (and there were many) ran into the tens of thousands of dollars. Add to that the lost income my parents, me, and my brother endured because someone had to always be home to watch her or you could guarantee she’d do something that would end with her at the police station. We finally managed to get her onto a county healthcare program, which eventually led to SSI disability and medicare. I wont go into the difficultys involved with getting any of that, I will only say that it restored sanity to our entire family. Now, she lives in a half-way house where she’s around other people with similar problems, has a staff that makes sure she takes her medications, and has regular doctor visits to make sure she’s on a regimine that works. She uses her disability to pay rent at the facility and medication co-pays (we still have to help with the “doughnut hole,” though!). I know it comes at a cost to the taxpayers, but it has been a godsend for our family because it saved my parents from financial ruin from her medical bills and it allowed my brother and I to go back to work full time.
And then there’s my boyfriend. We’ve been living together since 2000, and he’s been HIV since at least 1994. In 2008 he was unemployed and diagnosed with full blown AIDS. By 2009, his T-cell count was 38. I didn’t expect him to last another year. He couldn’t get disability or food stamps (which would have been a great help because even though I was working, I was going broke trying to rebuild our home after it was destroyed in a hurricane.) but he did manage to qualify for medical care through the county and thanks to their doctors and medications today he’s got an undetectable viral load and a t-cell count of 170. Oh, and next month he’s taking out a student loan so he can get his teaching certificate and hopefully be back in a job and on real insurance by this time next year.
I don’t know if any of this looks like “abuse of the system” to you, but in my opinion the bigger problem is how difficult it can be to access the help. Without it my boyfriend would probably be dead, my sister would probably be in prison, and my mother would probably be broke.
@marc: You seem like an intelligent guy, Marc, so I feel compelled to ask: How is it you fell for Obama’s smoke-and-mirrors message four years ago? The man had no political experience whatsoever—except running for office, twice. He’d been a law professor, and that’s it. I didn’t understand then (and still don’t understand now) how anyone who owns a business could have voted for him, especially after he informed “Joe the plumber” that he intended to take Joe’s earnings and spread them around. For anyone not on the dole from the government, Obama was a bad choice from the beginning.
@Daez: The poor already pay a disproportionate amount of their incomes in the form of regressive flat taxes on the goods and services they need to survive. The flat tax is just a way for the rich to screw over the poor. Civilization is based on protecting human rights–if you want to vote with a party that attracts and relies on the most hateful bigoted people in America, why don’t you ask yourself what you have in common with those folks? Obama is an economic moderate, you’ve fallen victim to the nutty kool aide of the far right.
@jeff4justice: Last week Queerty ran a story about the Peace & Freedom party (Rosanne Barr). And if only because of the marriage angle, they’ll mention Gary Johnson the Libertarian again, and the perennial Kumbaya favorite Dr. Jill Stein of the Greens.
So if you want to tell us how great Jill Stein is, just say so. I assume that’s what you want to do? You might as well do so because it’s looking more and more like Barefoot Accountant is NOT the Green he claims to be; his list has too many right-wing talking points and inaccuracies and he just reposts it again without responding to complaints about its veracity. If you still believe he’s what he claims to be, you’re probably the only one.
So since you are the only ACTUAL Green here, why not just tell us what you want us to know instead of b*tching about the media over & over.
Anyway, aren’t the many, many links you give us all from the gay media? Seems like odd “proof” that the gay media are ignoring alternatives if you post links from gay media about that very thing.
@jj: Poor people may pay flat-rate taxes disproportionate to their income, but make no mistake: the poor are poor for a reason; rich people are rich for a reason. It’s not fate or circumstance, it’s the personal values of the individual and what they expect of themselves, and how driven they are. Many poor children end up rich, and rich children end up poor, so stop with the class warfare already.
@stoopid louie:The left HAS been cheering the Ryan nomination, or have you not been reading, watching or listening to any news lately?. Laughing a lot too. But many of us are surprised that Romney would give up so quickly and hand Obama the election on a silver platter. I think Romney himself decided he really does not want to be president and is trying to sabotage his candidacy. At the very least, he is ashamed of Ryan being on the ticket with him…I mean, why else make an announcement on an insignificant Saturday. Every PR person knows that the best day to release bad news is Saturday.
@Daez: Oh, I think I love you now. I swoon when there is an educated and non-bitchy gay guy on this site. Your adversaries look like prepubescent girls.
Classic. I guess I live in the Bizarro world because in the realm I reside in Obama added over 1,000,000 jobs in the past year compared to the 5,000,000 lost in Bush’s last year, the stock market has doubled, we had the fastest 6 month drop in unemployment that we’ve had in 30 years, over 20 straight months of job growth, etc, etc. Sorry, my dimension travel box must have skewed up again….
@Scott: I may be stoopid but . . . what the fuck are you talking about? Romney is “ashamed” of Ryan? He’s “handed the election” to Obama? And you learned this from . . . NPR or MSNBC? I see by your opinion of this and your support of Roseanne for president that you’re probably certifiably insane—or if not, then certainly far too anti-social and immature to have a reasonable opinion. Sigh. Another reason only people who pay taxes should be allowed to vote.
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hassia
That last poster in just creepy. http://youtu.be/CTayljq4jw0
MikeE
I rather like the “Rmoney and Aynr” reference, which will maybe slip past a lot of people. I think I’ll refer to them that way from now on.
Cam
Under the Ryan budget Romney will basically pay zero taxes.
Cue the Log Cabiners coming in here trying to deflect attention by screaming about Obama’s 3rd cousin not eating dolphin safe tuna or something like that.
Daez
I’m not a huge Obama fan, but he has done more for gay rights than any other president in history. Voting solely on that record I would vote for Obama. However, Ryan has a history of being bi-partisan and pushing for a lot of stuff that makes sense. He has been open to consensus. He has championed much needed reforms to Medicare and Social Security. He also voted for TARP and the Auto Bail Out.
If the election was between Romney of 2004 with Ryan and Obama it would be an easy election. In the end, sure I want to get married and have my rights protected, but those two things seem rather pointless if I live in a third world country that has people out of work simply because its easier to collect government money than get a job.
Also, I do agree that the rich should pay the same taxes as everyone else. Lets lower the taxes on middle class to 15% and raise the taxes on the lower class to 15%. There is no reason that a flat tax should not be implemented. We can pay for the income differences by cutting government entitlement programs. Programs that any economist, psychologist and sociologist will tell you, are designed to keep people on the programs for the rest of their life while paying more to the administrators of the programs then they pay in actual benefits.
In closing, consider this, The average SSI pay out for a disabled person is $10,000 a year. The average starting salary of a person that considers a disability case is $35,000 a year to start with a chance to increase to $70,000 a year in 5 years. This is all thanks to Social Security being a government agency. Do you honestly believe this would still happen if if it was a private NFP?
Do we really want to vote our futures away just because we care more about gay rights than any other issue?
Neo
See what I mean when I talk about Agent Provocateur’s posting as LGBT friendly people, you can add Daez to the list, though I’m sure he’ll have another 4 or 5 identities defend him.
I like how you claim to not dislike Obama then go on and on about how Republican think tanks feel about the economy, quoting studies with no sources by people who are being aid to say exactly that.
Yeah, no.
Dave
Given the facts that Ryan is Anti abortion, Anti gay marriage and Pro guns for everyone, I fail to see how hes,”crossing the aisle” to anything that the democratic platform represents. I am fiscally conservative, and Lord knows I hate paying taxes. But there is still a level of social responsibility that is needed in society. I used to think I was in the middle on social issues, but have become more liberal as the Right as become more extreme.
stoopid louie
I may be stoopid but . . . your first clue that the Left is running scared? Their insistence on trashing Paul Ryan. If they truly believed Ryan would doom Romney’s campaign, they’d be cheering the choice. Instead, they’re nervous about it; the Obama campaign is pulling out all the stops in their Ryan-bashing. As someone who thinks fiscal responsibility is more important than gay marriage, I’m looking forward to a change of the guard come next January.
hf2hvit
@Daez: When those people want you DEAD, I’d say it’s the MOST important issue
hf2hvit
@stoopid louie: Yep…your name fits you.
hf2hvit
@Daez: FOX must pay you to infiltrate “The Gay”
Daez
@Neo: I have been posting here for 4+ years. So, if I suddenly became a Romney shill then I salute you for point that out.
I simply stated my opinion. Obama has not done very much to improve the economy, but he even ran on the concept of “sharing the wealth.” It was an exact quote from 2008. He seems to have kept this one campaign promise.
Romney of 2012 is scum. However, he was not that bad 8 years ago. That Romney is gone however. Seriously, when it comes to the economy I do not like either pick. Although, I feel that when people work hard they should get ahead and they should not then be penalized for getting ahead. People also seem to overlook that the reason that the rich pay 15% taxes is because they are capital gain taxes. ANYONE with investments pays capital gain taxes. So, if you raise the capital gain tax rate to 35% you are also raising the taxes of anyone that has worked hard enough to earn money that they can actually invest.
Daez
@hf2hvit: This is such an over exaggeration. Unless you can show me direct links to comments that Ryan and Romney have made saying they advocate the death penalty for homosexuality then you need to get over your victimization complex.
Even the big daddy of the biggest cult in the world, AKA Pope Benedict, has never gone on record advocating the death penalty for homosexuality.
Daez
@hf2hvit: Oh, you mean because my ideas differ from yours I must not be a part of your gay pride club? Seriously!?! You need to get over yourself. There are many different ways to view an issue and yours is not the right one just because its yours.
Maybe you should be concentrating on finding counter issues instead of insults. Its a very simple concept…
Gay Rights = OBAMA OVER ROMNEY
Economy = ROMNEY OVER OBAMA (unless you think supporting social programs that are designed to keep multiple generations poor is a good thing).
stoopid louie
@hf2hvit: Yup, yup, I’m-a stoopid all right. But at least I don’t “have to have it” like you do (or, judging by your spelling, is it “half to have it”?). Nor am I dumb enough to vote for an affirmative-action-elected president, which is all Obama is and ever was. So nya.
Daez
Lets examine the social programs that Obama supports for a minute…
Unemployment: You can now collect unemployment for up to three years (based on how long you were employed). This means that you can sit on your ass and do nothing for three years and get a pay check. Who would not want this? Also, because these checks are based on artificially inflated wages, they are often higher than the available salaries. That means, if you get a job instead of taking unemployment checks you are taking a pay cut.
Social Security (Disability): The program is actually set up to keep you earning less than $1000 a month. The moment you earn over $1000 a month you are docked your entire benefit check for that month. That means, if you are smart you game the system and earn $1000 a month exactly. You can do that on minimum wage working 35 hours a week. Where is the incentive to ever better yourself and get off the program.
Medicare/Medicaid: This is where the real problem comes in. If you are on Social Security for more than two years you get Medicare. If you do not work at all you get Medicare for free. If you earn actual money you end up paying your own premium for Medicare. That means, if you chose to work then you devote your first $200 some dollars to paying for Medicare. However, if you make more than $1000 a month you lose your Social Security and your Medicare. That caps your earnings before taxes at $800 a month unless you want to give up your medical coverage.
On the other hand, Medicaid is only paid if you have no real income and has a resource limit of $1500. If you have more than $1500 you are ineligible for Medicaid. How do you manage to save money to do simple things like get a car or go to school when you are losing your health insurance the moment you have $1501 in the bank?
Student Loans/Financial Aid: The beauty of these programs is that AFTER all of your student expenses are paid you get a check for the balance of the provided money. That check is tax free and is not considered income for the basis of all the other programs. That makes it in your best interest to stay in school as long as you possibly can (its capped at 6 years or so) and to take as much money as you possibly can. Since you do not need to repay any of this money if you are taking benefits, you can easily use this money (depending on the school: $3000 to $6000 a year) to spend on whatever you want. I know people that have went to school for a year just to get the money to buy a car and then dropped out and never repaid a dime. I know people that have used this money for consumer goods. Its no wonder why they estimate such a high balance of American student loan debt.
Now, looking at how all of these programs work… It is quite easy to realize that if you want to game the system legally and still have a decent quality life you do not bother to better yourself, get a job or get an actual education. These programs are all in desperate need of reform so that they reward the people that try to get out there and better themselves and penalize the people that do not.
Barry Battle
@Daez: Bravo, friend, bravo. You summed it up beautifully. So how come seemingly every other gay man out there wants to destroy the country in the name of gay marriage—marriage that will likely end in divorce? I just don’t get it. I mean, civil rights were great for blacks, but welfare systematically destroyed black families, since women no longer needed husbands to afford multiple children—the government took over the role of husband. People need to consider the consequences of their (selfish) actions.
Daez
@Daez: Wait, it gets even better…
If you are not married you do not have to report your partner’s income as part of your income when applying for these programs or receiving benefits from them. That means, if your partner earns $250,000 a year you can still have free health coverage and a monthly check from the government as long as you meet the requirements of the program based on your OWN personal income. You have to be honest and tell them what part of the expenses of the household you actually pay for, but that in no way effects your monthly check (it just effects your allotted food stamps).
My mom lived with a guy earning $40,000 a year. They were never married so my mom was able to never claim his income. She worked a part time job, collected full Social Security (because she was disabled), got full medical care paid for by the government (because her earnings qualified her for free Medicare) and even received full food stamps because she said that she did not eat meals with her partner and she paid the electric and sewer bills with her own money.
It really is not a big surprise that many straight people are not getting married now, is it?
Clockwork
@Daez:
>Lets examine the social programs that Obama supports for a minute…
DAMN GOOD POST DUDE!!!!
I love a man who knows the issues!
Ted B. (Charging Rhino)
I’m still waiting for the Obama campaign to explain how they intend to pay for all these social “safety net” programs and public-sector-jobs-as-stimulus so dear to the Democrats when the Government is already running huge deficits. Where’s the money coming from?
The current Obama Deficits are as untenable as the Ryan Budget; neither serves the long-term public needs of the Middle-class. And out-right confiscatory taxes on the “rich” can’t raise enough cash on the long-run.
Pittsburgh Patriot
@Daez: In all due respect, your mom sounds like a typical welfare-grabbing, WIC-collecting piece of shit, like all the other welfare frauds across the land. You & Obama must be so proud of her.
Daez
@Barry Battle: Wow, you sound homophobic and racist all in the same post. I can guarantee you that I have no intention of ever divorcing my partner (of two years) if I am ever allowed to get legally married.
Also, if only black people take welfare assistance then please explain to me why there are some pretty damn long welfare lines in places where the minority percentage is less than 5%.
Daez
@Barry Battle: I disagree with you. If I was allowed to get married to my partner (of two years) I would not be getting divorced. Also, if only blacks take welfare assistance then please explain the need for social assistance programs in areas where the black population is less than 5%.
Pittsburgh Patriot
@Ted B. (Charging Rhino): That’s easy: They’ll pay for it by siphoning more and more of your and my earnings. It’s the Democrats’ way: Redistribute wealth to guarantee the votes of the poor. Funny how they’re not so keen on “redistribution” when it comes to their own money.
the other Greg
@Daez: Unemployment: Have you ever actually BEEN on unemployment? You don’t just get to “sit on your ass.” In most (or all) states you must show proof every week that you’ve been applying for work, going to interviews, all that stuff. That kind of “work” is annoying enough that most people do break down and accept one of the dumbass nothing jobs that comes along.
Student Loans: “I know people that have went to school for a year just to get the money to buy a car and then dropped out and never repaid a dime.” HOW have they evaded the bill collectors if they did that?
SSDI (disability): Before 1995 you weren’t allowed to work AT ALL if you were on SSDI. The current set-up, the one you are complaining about, was a reform put in place by Speaker Newt Gingrich (!) and agreed to by President Clinton. So how exactly would you reform it now? Raise the $1000 limit? Lower it? What exactly?
Your mom: Uh, what exactly do you propose – do you want the government to FORCE your mom to get married? Talk about a “shotgun marriage”! That’s fun to think about, but doesn’t sound practical.
the other Greg
@Ted B. (Charging Rhino): I’m still waiting for the RMoney campaign to explain how they’re going to balance the budget by 2020 as they’ve promised, while STARTING A WAR WITH IRAN as they’ve also promised.
Daez
@Pittsburgh Patriot: I totally and utterly agree with you. However, this was COMPLETELY legal and COMPLETELY in the realms of the system. She was able to do this. It should have never happened. She should have never done it, but the system should not be set up to benefit people like her (and the many others that do it) in the first place.
Barry Battle
@Daez: Errrr, I never said only blacks receive welfare—I said welfare has single-handedly destroyed black families. Does it destroy other families of other races? Sure. But it’s in the black community that the damage is most obvious. To think otherwise is just caving to political correctness.
Pittsburgh Patriot
@Daez: Agreed. Most politicians scoff at the idea of welfare fraud, claiming that welfare recipients are all in genuine need, and that incidents of fraud are few and far between. Yeah, right. Agreed, indeed.
Daez
@the other Greg: Unemployment: Nope, I’ve been unemployed for long periods of time. I just never got paid for it. In that period of time, I put in lots of applications and took every interview I could get. I would not exactly call it work, and the jobs did not come all that easily. Eventually, I went back to school (for four weeks) and got a State Tested Nursing Assistant certification. Now, I work midnights in a psychiatric nursing home where we have patients that attack other residents, attack staff and destroy property. Still, it was better than sitting around doing nothing. However, I was not getting paid for doing nothing.
Student Loans: For starters, you can defer the crap out of your student loans. When you run out of deferments you go to forbearance. You can do this for years. When you are done with that you can default, and if you were one of the lovely people that actually did this you are most likely not the type that would bother to make any real money. The bill collectors can not collect if you do not make any money to collect in the first place.
SSDI: Lets start by removing the penalty for those that work and replacing it with a penalty for those that probably could work part time but refuse to. Match the earnings a person makes up to $1000 a month and cut the benefits for those that could work part time and choose not to. Simple solution.
My mom: This is really where you need to provide opposite incentive as well. The real reason my mom was doing this is because she had some major issues that were pre-existing (this was before The Affordable Healthcare Act) and could not get on her partners insurance if they had gotten married. Also, her partner liked to spend more than he liked to make which put her in a really bad situation. However, if the government would have handled her healthcare and provided incentive for working more hours and making more money she would have gladly done so. That is why there is a huge problem with resource caps and earning limits in a situation where healthcare is badly needed.
Seriously, I can not blame the people that take advantage of the system. They are doing what they need to do to survive in many cases. I do not like that they take advantage, but I blame the system instead of the people taking advantage.
Daez
@Pittsburgh Patriot: I’m not talking about welfare fraud. Welfare fraud is when you knowingly and intentionally defraud the welfare system. Every instance I mentioned was not welfare fraud. Everything I mentioned comes down to working inside the system and following every single one of the rules and regulations that are part of the program requirements. This is all 100% legal to do. This is not fraud. You do not want to get me started on fraud.
Pittsburgh Patriot
@Daez: Yes, but people can work the system 100% legally and still be guilty of fraud. For instance, the woman who recently was busted for collecting food stamps . . . after she’d won a $1 million lottery. It might not have been illegal, but that doesn’t make it okay. Likewise anyone who receives “disability” for reasons as ridiculous as “stress,” “exhaustion,” or any of the other bogus ailments listed on the ADA. It might be legal, but in my mind, working the system in a dishonest means is as criminal as outright defrauding the system.
the other Greg
@Daez: Unemployment: That’s very virtuous, or something, but I assume you were a renter with several months of savings. A lot of unemployed people with children in that situation would become homeless.
SSDI: “Lets start by removing the penalty for those that work and replacing it with a penalty for those that probably could work part time but refuse to.” (Sigh.) Well that SOUNDS virtuous, or something, but why exactly is it a good thing if they work? Why do you want them to take a job away from an able-bodied person? Easier said than done, anyway, since there is so much job discrimination by employers against anyone with a disability, or anyone over 40 for that matter, no matter WHAT the job is. … Also, just to be clear for those who don’t know (maybe you know this already), the current system has a 9-month (non-consecutive) window at the beginning where the $1000 limit doesn’t apply yet and they can earn as much as possible. So some of what you suggest is already in place.
Student Loans: I’m closest to you on this one. It’s a strange racket that has snowballed out of control. On the other hand, it’s notorious that this is the ONLY kind of debt that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Most students who take on way too much debt (and a useless major) are naive and just don’t know what they’re getting into. If it were up to me, the government would discourage people from going to college!
Your mom: Well that’s a relief, you see the necessity for national health care.
Daez
@Pittsburgh Patriot: I agree with you completely. That is why the system needs changed. The woman that won $1,000,000 dollars reported her income to the welfare system that then decided to continue her benefits. She is hardly at fault here. The system was the problem in this case. The system is the problem in a lot of cases.
You can not receive disability without a medical diagnosis. It has nothing to do with the ADA as they do not define what a medical diagnosis is. Stress and exhaustion are mere symptoms of more serious mental disorders. There are people with serious mental disorders that should be considered disabled. I would much rather have these people getting the medical help that they need (that is made possible by SSI DI) then the alternative where they go insane and blow up buildings or hose people down in the streets with a semi-automatic weapon.
the other Greg
@Pittsburgh Patriot: Social Security rejects 60% of applicants for SSDI, and this has probably gone up in recent years with the recession.
My sense is that a lot of people get on SSDI legitimately, but essentially recover after a few years. But SS doesn’t have the resources to EVER check up on anyone a second time. It’s a theoretical possibility, and the standard SS cover letter never fails to mention the fact that their case might be “reviewed” someday. But it never, ever happens.
the other Greg
A friend reminds me to use Social Security’s own terminology and refer to “SSA” (Soc. Sec. Administration) instead of SS, which is too reminiscent of, um, something historical that was a lot worse than Social Security! (though some Teabaggers may think of it that way).
Daez
@the other Greg: Cases are reviewed every three years. However, it is much easier for someone on Social Security to keep it then it is for the average person to get it in most cases.
Still, this gets away from my original statement that the system is flawed when it actually penalizes someone for going out and getting a job. The small pittance that Social Security pays is a joke. No one that is going out and getting a job is really worried about losing $690 a month. However, since you can lose your healthcare if you are not getting benefits it becomes a lot more serious.
I feel that a great deal of people would chose to work part time and bring in $1100-$1500 a month and to make a living off of that payment if it was not for the fact that they then could not afford to pay their medical bills which are covered for free under Social Security.
I kind of feel like the true solution to this mess is to finally fix the health insurance crisis in this country.
the other Greg
@Daez: I’m glad we agree on health care, but you’ll never get the Republicans to agree. Whenever they’re in charge they do absolutely nothing about health care.
jeff4justice
Why Is Gay Media Ignoring Alternative Political Parties?
http://queerlandia.com/2012/08/12/guest-commentary-why-is-gay-media-ignoring-alternative-political-parties/#comment-4914
Why Is LGBTI Media Ignoring Alternative Political Parties?
http://outwordmagazine.com/index.php/inside-outword/glbt-news/927-why-is-lgbti-media-ignoring-alternative-political-parties
the other Greg
@jeff4justice: Why Is Gay Media Ignoring the Loch Ness Monster, the Jersey Devil, Bigfoot and Chupacabra?
Barry Battle
@the other Greg: Touche.
Barefoot Accountant
I have become very disenchanted with President Barack Obama even though I voted for him in 2008. Obama has failed us progressives.
1. He did not even propose the public option healthcare system: he had campaigned on that system, promising to propose it. (Wikipedia: ”President Barack Obama promoted the idea of the public option while running for election.[3] After becoming President, Obama downplayed the need for a public health insurance option including calling it a “sliver” of health care reform,[4] but had not given up pursuing the idea before the health care reform was passed.[5] The preceding statement is disputed by evidence that the Obama administration had agreed to drop the public option from the final plan in the summer of 2009[6] in a back room deal with representatives of the for-profit hospital lobby[7]“)
2. He has appointed countless Wall Streeters to his top economic team, failing to appoint labor voices like Robert Reich.
3. He has bailed out Wall Street instead of Main Street: remember TARP? And then the banks dispensed $6 billion in bonuses in that year to its executives.
4. He failed to attack the mortgage crisis, leaving an elephant still in our “room”, with one-third of home mortgages now underwater.
5. He failed to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, doing away with habeous corpus, allowing the government to arrest and detain indefinitely without a trial or hearing.
6. He agreed to an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and on top of that, he agreed to an egregious reduction of the estate taxes on the rich, exempting as much as $10 million from any estate taxes and lowering the estate tax rate down to a ridiculous rate of 35%, when our country has a $15 trillion debt. That alone saved the Walton heirs $17 billion in taxes.
7. He has failed to indict and imprison any of those banksters involved in all of that fraud on Wall Street from the subprime mortgage, including robo-signing, and selling shit-backed mortgage securities known to be worthless.
8. He appointed Jeffrey Immelt to head his Jobs Council when GE has been saying “China, China, China,” and shipping all jobs overseas while closing plants here in the US.
9. President Obama is now considering and proposing to lower the corporate tax rate to 26%, when corporations are not only at a low-time rate of paying taxes but getting billions in tax subsidies from our government and opening up offices on the 19th floor of one building on the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes altogether.
10. President Obama spoke in favor of PIPA and SOPA, when the internet is the last vestige of free speech and the availability of free information to the general public.
11. There were no indictments by President Obama of all the contractor fraud reported on by Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul in a Congressional Report released over a year ago. Whenever the rich and big corporations are caught in fraud, Eric Holder adopts a policy of “looking forward”, instead of holding them accountable.
12. President Obama agreed to the “grand bargain” (thank, God, Boehner did not accept it) to cut over $2 trillion in spending, including social security, medicare, medicaid, and other social safety-net programs merely in return for hypothetical “revenue increases” of $800 billion relying on “dynamic scoring”.
13. President Obama has done nothing to level the trade treaties, where corporations are shipping labor to Cambodia (22.5 cents per hour), China, Philippines, etc., where labor is paid 25 cents per hour. This is exporting slavery to other countries. Where is the level playing field for Americans?
14. President Obama in 2009 only proposed $140 billion in infrastructure spending when Paul Krugman and other economists predicted that $1.5 trillion was needed for our economy to recover. And last year only proposed a paltry $108 billion in infrastructure spending.
15. President Obama praised the recent JOBS Act, which allows corporations to go public and raise capital without audited financial information in their public presentations for the first five years, allowing them to present fictitious numbers and defraud investors?
16. President Obama has failed to propose the return of Glass-Steagall, separating commercial and investment banking, which will soon plunge us back into another mega-bailout of Wall Street.
17. President Obama has failed to propose the break up of the big banks and corporations. What ever happened to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act?
18. President Obama touted a $25 billion robo-signing settlement when a trillion dollars of our pension and retirement funds were stolen.
19. While campaigning, President Obama promised to put on his walking shoes for labor, but failed to even show up in Wisconsin and walk the picket line against Governor Walker.
20. President Obama has not declared war on the Supreme Court, as President Roosevelt did, to oppose the corporate/rich posture of Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts. Why not take them on?
21. President Obama has arrested and raided more marijuana users in less than four years than George Bush did in eight years. Why is President Obama proposing cuts to social security, medicare, and medicaid while spending more on marijuana arrests and raids, especially when a majority of Americans are for legalization of pot and for the open sale of marijuana for medical use?
Time and time again President Obama did not fight the good fight for working Americans, who are losing their jobs, health insurance, homes, dignity, etc.
I am tired of the lame excuse of how we must vote for Obama because of the Supreme Court. How can anyone believe that Obama would not disappoint progressives on that issue after he failed to undertake a recess appointment of Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a position to which she was more entitled to direct than any other American?
I am done with President Obama.
Barefoot Accountant
For a more complete list, see Hugh’s list at http://obamascandalslist.blogspot.com/2009/10/table-of-contents.html:
1. Reneged on pledge to filibuster FISA Amendments Act (July 2008)
2. Lobbied for $700 billion Paulson TARP bank bailout
3. Pushed for no sanctions against Lieberman despite his support for John McCain
4. Nominated healthcare company lobbyist Tom Daschle as Secretary of HHS
5. Had neoliberal Robert Rubin as his chief economics adviser
6. Then had the equally neoliberal Larry Summers assume this role
7. Chose the failing upwards Timothy Geithner to head Treasury
8. AIG bonuses and money to Goldman under Obama
9. Doubling down in Afghanistan
10. Delay and reduction of withdrawal from Iraq
11. Moving Guantanamo activities to Bagram
12. Military commissions for some detainees
13. Support for indefinite detention
14. Refusal to release torture photos under FOIA
15. Refusal to investigate and prosecute Bush era criminality
16. Geithner’s DOA economic rescue programs: the PPIP and TALF
17. Minimal help for homeowners and no cramdowns
18. Treatment of Chrysler and GM with bankrupcy compared to bank no fail “stress tests”
19. Kabuki of TARP repayment by banks while still dependent on government credit lines
20. Extra-Constitutional use of the Fed by the Executive for fiscal policy
21. Credit Card bill without usury caps and with 9 month delay for other reforms
22. Business friendly Mary Schapiro named to head SEC
23. Gary Gensler who helped deregulate derivatives named to head CFTC
24. $787 billion stimulus: too little, too late, poorly structured
25. Use of financial crisis to attack Social Security and Medicare
26. The great healthcare non-debate
27. Continued use of state secrets argument in ongoing Bush era cases
28. Use of signing statements, including one to punish whistleblowers
29. Vetting process problems, especially tax related ones
30. Leaving Dawn Johnsen’s nomination to head OLC twisting in the wind
31. Eric Holder, failure to reform DOJ, not removing worst of Bush USAs
32. Failure to move against new oil bubble
33. Retention of Bush Defense team: Gates, Patraeus, and Odierno
34. Continued missile strikes inside Pakistan
35. Keeping Bush’s domestic spying programs and adding a new one, cybersecurity
36. Choice of Elena Kagan who favors expansive Presidential powers as Sollicitor General, her subsequent nomination to the Supreme Court
37. Leaving EFCA (to help counter anti-union companies) to wither in Congress
38. Welcoming Arlen Specter who brings nothing to the Democrats into the party
39. Weak ineffective proposals for financial reform
40. Obama wanted John Brennan at CIA but settled for making him his counter- terrorism adviser
41. Chas Freeman with broader Mideast perspective done in by AIPAC
42. Dennis Blair made DNI; failed to act to stop atrocities in East Timor
43. Choice of McChrystal involved in torture in Iraq to head Afghanistan command
44. Obama threat to suspend intelligence cooperation with UK over Binyam Mohamed case
45. Efforts to keep Bush and Obama White House logs secret
46. Playing games with “Don’t ask, don’t tell”
47. Filing a brief to overturn Jackson (access to lawyer) in the Montejo case
48. Not withdrawing Bush brief in Osborne DNA case
49. Egregious brief in challenge to Defense of Marriage Act
50. The Supplemental which made Iraq and Afghanistan Democratic wars
51. Choice of Rahm Emanuel as the President’s Chief of Staff
52. Choice of Dennis Ross as Iran envoy and then his move to the White House
53. Politically embarrassing processes to fill Obama and Clinton’s Senate seats
54. Choice of Bill Richardson, then Judd Gregg to head Commerce Department
55. Reneging on pledge to re-negotiate NAFTA
56. Obama’s throwing his pastor Jeremiah Wright to the curb, then reaching out to religious conservative Rick Warren
57. Continued challenges to habeas corpus petitions over indefinite detention, the Janko case
58. The Obama White House website
59. Continuing an ineffective program that Iran can exploit politically
60. Going slow on climate change when there is no time to
61. Not withdrawing a Bush-era amicus brief in the Ricci v. DeStefano reverse discrimination case and supporting a rollback of Title VII
62. Appointment of a CIA General Counsel who doesn’t know if waterboarding is torture
63. Appointment of a DNI General Counsel who doesn’t know if waterboarding is torture
64. CIA delay in a FOIA request concerning torture
65. The influence of Goldman Sachs in the Obama Administration
66. Attempt to keep secret the Cheney interview on the Plame affair
67. Mountaintop removal under Obama
68. Attempt to restrict Congressional notification on intelligence matters
69. Opposition to a second stimulus
70. Another egregious attempt to fight a habeas corpus petition in the Jawad case
71. Continuing charter schools and standardized tests
72. Holder’s decision to support a weak, narrow review of torture
73. Re-appointment of Ben Bernanke as Fed Chairman
74. Continuing renditions
75. Politically dubious company was used to vet reporters in Afghanistan
76. Judge vetoes a too weak SEC plea bargain with Bank of America
77. Justice’s argument for making Bagram a new Guantanamo, the al Maqaleh case
78. Defense to turn over databases to poorly controlled fusion centers
79. Obama changes but keeps Bush’s Star Wars program
80. Failure to win an Israeli freeze on settlements
81. White House refuses to back its own staffer environmentalist Van Jones
82. Politicized US Attorney in the Siegelman case cleared by Office of Special Counsel
83. Criticism of Iranian nuclear program; support of Israeli nuclear weapons
84. Support for a weakened reporter’s shield law
85. Use of the Zazi case to retain broad Patriot Act surveillance provisions
86. Wilner v. NSA, continuing the coverup of warrantless surveillance of communications between attorneys and detainees
87. Attempt to spike the Goldstone report on Israeli-Hamas war crimes in Gaza
88. Slowness in filling federal judgeships
89. Inadequate aid to overwhelmed state budgets
90. Attempting to dodge the Supreme Court deciding whether innocent Guantanamo detainees can be resettled in the US
91. Allowing drilling in the waters off the north coast of Alaska
92. Keeping detainee accounts of CIA torture secret
93. Current FBI manual allows for widespread domestic spying
94. Securitization invalidates most foreclosures
95. Geithner wanting unlimited powers to save large banks
96. Another state secrets defense to conceal domestic spying
97. Circuit Court dismissal of Maher Arar suit
98. Weakening Sarbanes-Oxley and calling it financial reform
99. Unemployment
100. Inspector General for Fannie and Freddie ousted for investigating fraud
101. Gaming courts to convict Guantanamo detainees
102. White House counsel removed for his principled stands on torture and Guantanamo
103. US seizes mosques claiming Iranian connection
104. Howard Dean removed as head of the DNC
105. Scientist with close ties to Monsanto put in charge of all governmental agricultural research
106. Pesticide lobbyist nominated as Chief Agricultural Negotiator for trade
107. Effort to let some government contractors avoid paying taxes
108. A bad US Attorney nomination for Northern Iowa
109. Hunger in America
110. The breast cancer recommendations fiasco
111. Ongoing confusion and disorganization in the military commissions process
112. Phillip Carter another official in closing Guantanamo resigns
113. Refusal to sign anti-land mine treaty
114. The Ghizzawi case and the legal limbo of “cleared for release”
115. Black prisons at Balad and Bagram
116. Delay in declassifying historic documents
117. Max Baucus’ conflicts of interest in healthcare and with his girlfriend
118. Major security breach at a White House party and a ridiculous assertion of “executive privilege”
119. Dana “Pig Missile” Perino nominated to the Broadcasting Board of Governors
120. Cass Sunstein, an anti-regulator in a regulatory position
121. Warrantless for profit electronic surveillance by telecoms and search engines
122. The government sides with torture lawyer John Yoo and attacks Bevins actions again
123. The TSA publishes its security manual online
124. Toxic legal arguments in al Zahrani v. Rumsfeld, yet another Bevins action
125. The Nobel Peace Prize and a neocon acceptance speech
126. Blackwater’s involvement in military and CIA assassination and drone programs
127. Congressional Research Service censorship in the firing of Morris Davis
128. AIG writes off $25 billion in debt and sticks taxpayers with the bill
129. The Administration plays hardball to kill an amendment that would lower drug costs
130. A poorly considered blank check to Fannie and Freddie
131. Continuing a Bush botch in the Nisoor Square massacre case
132. Jonathan Gruber, a major defender of Obamacare was also a paid consultant for it
133. A Geithner related cover up of the AIG at par payments on swaps
134. Adoption of stealth signing statements
135. al Bihani, more bad legal reasoning in another Guantanamo habeas case
136. Cutting Medicare and Social Security by deficit commission proposed
137. A 3 year non-freeze budget freeze proposed
138. NASA flights privatized
139. OPR report on Yoo and Bybee watered down and its relation to the Padilla case
140. Government targeting of US citizens for assassination
141. Abuse of informants by ICE agents
142. Obama leaves Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board empty
143. Obama backs firing of teachers in Rhode Island
144. Irish human rights advocate Edward Horgan has US visa pulled
145. Threatened veto of 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act over Congressional notifications
146. Obama Administration intimidation of whistleblowing site: wikileaks
147. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to ignore science on endangered species
148. Senate vacation more important than jobless benefits
149. Government seeks to compel turnover of emails without a warrant
150. Obama goes after an NSA whistleblower: the Thomas Drake case
151. Obama goes after a CIA whistleblower: the James Risen case
152. Weakening Miranda rights in national security cases
153. Advocating the privatizing of public housing
154. Another step in making Bagram the new Guantanamo, the al Maqaleh case, the appeals court edition
155. Massey mining disaster, 29 die because of corporate greed and poor regulation
156. Obama proposal for a line item veto
157. A military commander allowed to use military forces for intelligence operations without Presidential approval
158. Political pandering in sending 1200 National Guardsmen to the Southwest border
159. A sad record on resisting Guantanamo habeas petitions
160. Israel attacks an aid convoy for Gaza; Obama punts
161. A further erosion of Miranda: Berghius v. Thompkins
162. Naming James Clapper, a Bush appointee, to be the next DNI
163. DOJ seeks to protect Vatican in sex abuse scandal
164. Yahya Wehelie, an American exiled without charge
165. Failure to replace National Labor Relations Board members means hundreds of decisions must be reviewed
166. SCOTUS opts for overly broad definition of material support to terrorist groups
167. Speaker Pelosi backstabs Social Security
168. Complaints by government scientists of political interference at Bush era levels
169. Flip flop on free trade agreement with Colombia
170. SEC declares major victory but lets Goldman off easy
171. Private contracting of intelligence continues under Obama
172. Two Guantanamo prisoners to be deported back to Algeria against their will
173. The Shirley Sherrod affair: trumped up charges of racism and a bungled response 174. Whitewash report on Bush era US Attorney firings
175. Despite its record, Blackwater still gets big US government contracts
176. Wikileaks releases government files showing Pakistan involvement with Taliban and admission that things are going poorly in Afghanistan
177. Obama seeks to get access to everyone’s web histories without a court order
178. Teacher funding sacrificed to keep Education Secretary Arne Duncan happy
179. State’s top Iran hand resigns over Obama’s Iran policy
180. Citizens United: validation of unlimited corporate political funding
181. Push to expand US arms sales around the world
182. Project Vigilant, Infragard and “volunteer” corporate spying for the government
183. Obama’s approval hits Bush levels in Arab world
184. Effort to pre-empt state environmental lawsuits involving green house gases
185. Justice’s Anti-trust division asleep at the wheel
186. Kagan’s recusals render her even more ineffective on the Supreme Court
187. Poverty level highest since 1994
188. Courts run interference for corporate violators of international law
189. Warren named to set up but not to run Consumer Financial Protection Board
190. Chief economic adviser Larry Summers leaves; Obama looks for someone even more pro-business to replace him
191. DOJ IG report goes soft on Bush era surveillance against peace groups and other activists; meanwhile the Obama Administration conducts raids against similar groups
192. Move to put backdoors in the internet to facilitate spying and more requirements on banks on international money transfers of any size
193. HHS Secretary Sebelius delays for at least two years required insurance coverage for contraception
194. Americans on Medicaid increased to 48.5 million in 2009
195. Big home lenders suspend foreclosures as their documentation gets challenged in court
196. HR 3808, a bill passed by Congress, to facilitate the acceptance of false documentation by banks in foreclosure proceedings
197. ICE raids and deportations increase under Obama
198. Social Security COLA frozen for second straight year; no action taken
199. Waivers for military aid to countries with child soldiers
200. Big and deserved losses in the 2010 elections
201. 42 million Americans on food stamps at the end of FY 2010
202. No indictments for those involved in the CIA destruction of the torture tapes
203. The Bowles-Simpson Cat Food Commission proposals
204. $3 billion in aid for Israel for a 90 day settlement freeze
205. No change in Democratic Congressional leadership after 2010 election disaster
206. Forced proselytizing still prevalent at US Air Force Academy
207. TSA harassment and violation of the 4th Amendment
208. More TSA idiocy: full body scans and invasive pat downs
209. The response to the 2009 coup in Honduras
210. Use of diplomatic personnel to spy at the UN
211. Fed proposes rule change to Truth in Lending Act to protect bank fraud
212. FCC head Genachowski takes an axe to net neutrality
213. Lieberman and Amazon.com seek to censor wikileaks
214. Pressuring the Spanish government into dropping torture prosecutions against 6 high level Bush officials
215. Neoliberal free trade deal with South Korea at a time of high unemployment
216. Hamfisted banning access to wikileaks by government departments
217. Massive screwup in printing $100 bills
218. Extending tax cuts for the rich in a poor compromise on jobless benefits
219. Dancing boys of Afghanistan paid for by US contractor Dyncorp
220. EPA backtracks on smog standards
221. Former OMB director Peter Orszag goes to Citigroup
222. Obama breaks the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to supply Israel with nuclear fuel
223. DREAM Act for children of illegal immigrants done in by Senate Democrats
224. DOJ drops investigations of corrupt members of Congress
225. The FBI’s Guardian database, another useless, intrusive surveillance program
226. Pentagon weakens rules on contractor conflicts of interest
227. Investigation by state Attorney Generals into foreclosuregate: no criminal charges
228. Obama names Mr. NAFTA Bill Daley as his new Chief of Staff
229. Obama names neoliberal free trader Gene Sperling to replace Larry Summers
230. Executive Order to make regulations more business-friendly
231. Gulet Mohamed: Detention and torture of US citizens by proxy
232. Nelson v. NASA: government can demand intrusive, unnecessary information about its employees
233. Choice of GE’s outsourcing CEO Jeffrey Immelt as Obama’s Jobs Czar
234. Failure to weaken or eliminate the filibuster
235. Corporate targeting of Wikileaks and liberal organizations
236. Reaction to the popular revolution in Egypt
237. HHS Secretary Sebelius helps states cut Medicaid rolls and funding
238. Petraeus accuses parents not US attacks for burns to children in Afghanistan
239. US general in Afghanistan sets up illegal propaganda program targeting Americans
240. Obama plans to devastate small block grants program for the poor
241. Silence on the Wisconsin labor protests
242. Former Senator Christopher Dodd quickly becomes lobbyist after promising not to
243. Obama reinstitutes sham review tribunals at Guantanamo
244. DOJ colludes with Bush era official Scott Bloch to keep him out of jail
245. The treatment of Bradley Manning
246. State Department spokesman PJ Crowley forced to resign over Manning comments
247. Massive conflicts of interest in David Stevens at HUD and soon to be head of main lobbying group for the mortgage industry
248. Mild reaction to bloody anti-democratic repression in Bahrain and Yemen
249. Torture psychologist appointed to White House task force
250. FBI program which allows them to investigate anyone doesn’t work (surprise)
251. In his Libya war, Obama has completed the unconstitutional process of Presidents’ usurpation of Congress’ power to make war
252. Obama accepts award for transparency in secret
253. Democrats create PACs to receive unlimited contributions from anonymous donors 254. 2011 government shutdown threat as Shock Doctrine
254. The 2011 “great” biprtisan budget deal
255. The OCC deal to cover for banks in foreclosuregate
256. Reshuffling neocons at DOD and the CIA
257. Leak of Detainee Assessments shines light on the weakness of cases against many Guantanamo inmates
258. Geithner shields foreign exchange derivatives from Dodd-Frank regulation
259. Crazy new application for some US passports
260. DOJ wants SCOTUS to allow for GPS tracking without a warrant
261. An industry stacked panel to study fracking
262. SCOTUS attacks small claim class actions
263. SCOTUS okays fraud in financial presentations
264. SCOTUS attacks large class actions and Title VII
265. DOJ’s non-investigation of torture produces few results
266. Department of State threatens participants of Gaza flotilla with terrorism charges
267. Detainees now held on ships to avoid judicial scrutiny
268. CIA operating a black site prison in Somalia
269. SCOTUS and DC Appeals Court torpedoing detainee habeas petitions
270. SCOTUS greatly expands warrantless searches; Obama DOJ approves
271. Tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve after the 2011 spike in gasoline prices
272. Christine Varney, head of DOJ Anti-Trust Division, goes to law firm that had case before her
273. Senseless 2011 debt ceiling crisis, budget cutting, and attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid
274. TSA closes US airspace to Mexican human rights activist
275. DHS guts its unit monitoring right wing terrorism in US
276. “Recovery” benefited corporations, not workers
277. Harassment of a government scientist Charles Monett because his work clashes with drilling in the Arctic
278. African Americans and Hispanic wealth took hardest hit from financial crises
279. Cass Sunstein sitting on labor rules to protect child workers
280. Oil leasing in Gulf resumes
281. Administration pressures NY AG Schneiderman to go along with bogus mortgage settlement
282. DOJ dumps responsibility for its bungled gun running sting on handy US Attorney
283. US ranks 41st in the world in infant mortality
284. White House engages in selective prosecution of Dan Choi over DADT protest
285. COBRA extension ditched
286. Obama spikes EPA ozone limits
287. 2011 Obama fictional jobs plan
288. Contractors cost twice as much as unionized federal workers doing the same work
289. New EPA greenhouse gas limits also being drawn out
290. CFTC proposes ineffectual limits on commodity speculation
291. State Department targets career officer Peter Van Buren for writing critical book
292. Secret Law and the OLC legal justification for killing a US citizen abroad
293. US incomes fall more after recession than during it
294. Another Afghanistan fail: torture rampant in Afghan prisons
295. Bank of America dumps derivative exposure on to the FDIC with Fed approval
296. New rule to legitimize government lying in response to FOIA requests
297. Cronyism and the Keystone XL pipeline
298. Despite pledge, Obama still taking money from lobbyists
299. Secure Communities and deportation as a business
300. The Occupy movement and the attacks upon it
301. DOJ prosecuting financial fraud at the lowest rate in 20 years
302. US stops funding of UNESCO
303. 42% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck
304. The Post Office facing cuts because of unnecessary prefunding mandates
305. Arab Spring and allowing Fundamentalist Islam to take over Egypt making it the next Afghanistan.
the other Greg
306. Because of Obama, Barefoot Accountant can’t afford shoes!
marc
As a US citizen, a small business owner, (DMS), I have seen my own partners, and my familys fortunes fall dramtically under this admnistration. President Obama held out such hope during his candidacy. I listened to him, and after a few speeches, believed him.
I looked foreward to a uniter, not a divider, a man who could assist with the black-white divide, and perhap make us all purple states instead of blue and red states. Transparancy in governmnt, bills posted online and on Cspan to review and understand,meeting face to face with long time enemies of the US, and working to solve the issue of our porus borders and first and formost, address the issues of JOBS!
To say I am dissapointted in this president is to belabor the obvious. My income has remained flat for the past 4 years, but my expenses have risen exponentially. On a gross income the last year of Bush, I grossed 275,000.00, on that, I took home about 90K. This last year, 2011, I managed to take home 39K. The new costs of a small business man. My personal insurance has gone up about 2,900. per year alone. I have seen no uniting, but rather horrible divisions between the fed and christian religions, between gays and str8s, blacks and white, immigrants and illegals. Transparency? Lol, by this president? We are unable to even see his grade school records, or his high scool records, let along have him explain why he uses a Conneticutt Social security number. C-Span, not a chance, ACA was done primarily by big pharmacutical companies, with a lick and a spit by the house democratic caucus, not a single republican was ever allowed to even see the bill, and now it is law. Our national debt? Up 4 billion dollars in 3 years. Federal assistance? Up 48% over all in 3 years. We are still engaged in the same wars, Guantanemo is still opened. Our borders, not only open, but this President has given amnesty to over 20 million illegals, straining our social safety net to the extreme. On gay issues, DADT, gone, and I thank him. As a vet, it was long past time. Supporting Gay equal rights regarding marriage, good for the man! Cheers. But my relationship will be the same long after Obama is out of office. I now wonder if the USA will be a country I even recognize if he is re-elected. I may be gay, socialy liberal, but I still need to pay my mortage, pay my health insurance, and save for my old age. I am ‘married to a loving older man who now depends on me to care for him, and I do so willingly. However, under Obama, this has gotten harder and harder. I am going to vote for a fiscal conservative. I’d much rather know we are prepared to meet the future, then worry about buying a cake in Denver, or having a committment ceremony in Vermont. Gay men must have priorities too, mine is my family, not a ceremony I have lived with out my entire life. I will still speak out for equal rights, support those cadidates who favor my positions, but not at the cost of our lives.
Larkin
oh, the republicunts are out in force today!
jeff4justice
@the other Greg: No coherent reply – just dumb bullshit from a typical 2party system zombie. Got it.
When you cannot refute with logic, just say something stupid. Sarah Palin would be proud of you.
Jerry
@Daez: We hear a lot about how people can abuse government programs, and unemployment is usually the first example people like to pull. But before we all jump on that bandwagon, let me invite you to read a series on umemployment that Gawker is currently running where current or recently unemployed people have penned their own experiences about what it’s like to be unemployed in this economy: http://gawker.com/5927342/. There are 5 installments now. I hope you have time to read some of them.
Also, I haven’t got any stats for you to look at, but I do have some experience with the disability programs. My older sister developed schitzophrenia when she was about 25 years old. At the time she was working full time and had health insurance, but it wasn’t long before the effects of the disease caused her to lose her job, which of course means she also lost her health insurance. I cannot overstate how devastating that was for our family. Her medications ran over $1,000/month and every hospital visit (and there were many) ran into the tens of thousands of dollars. Add to that the lost income my parents, me, and my brother endured because someone had to always be home to watch her or you could guarantee she’d do something that would end with her at the police station. We finally managed to get her onto a county healthcare program, which eventually led to SSI disability and medicare. I wont go into the difficultys involved with getting any of that, I will only say that it restored sanity to our entire family. Now, she lives in a half-way house where she’s around other people with similar problems, has a staff that makes sure she takes her medications, and has regular doctor visits to make sure she’s on a regimine that works. She uses her disability to pay rent at the facility and medication co-pays (we still have to help with the “doughnut hole,” though!). I know it comes at a cost to the taxpayers, but it has been a godsend for our family because it saved my parents from financial ruin from her medical bills and it allowed my brother and I to go back to work full time.
And then there’s my boyfriend. We’ve been living together since 2000, and he’s been HIV since at least 1994. In 2008 he was unemployed and diagnosed with full blown AIDS. By 2009, his T-cell count was 38. I didn’t expect him to last another year. He couldn’t get disability or food stamps (which would have been a great help because even though I was working, I was going broke trying to rebuild our home after it was destroyed in a hurricane.) but he did manage to qualify for medical care through the county and thanks to their doctors and medications today he’s got an undetectable viral load and a t-cell count of 170. Oh, and next month he’s taking out a student loan so he can get his teaching certificate and hopefully be back in a job and on real insurance by this time next year.
I don’t know if any of this looks like “abuse of the system” to you, but in my opinion the bigger problem is how difficult it can be to access the help. Without it my boyfriend would probably be dead, my sister would probably be in prison, and my mother would probably be broke.
Barry Battle
@marc: You seem like an intelligent guy, Marc, so I feel compelled to ask: How is it you fell for Obama’s smoke-and-mirrors message four years ago? The man had no political experience whatsoever—except running for office, twice. He’d been a law professor, and that’s it. I didn’t understand then (and still don’t understand now) how anyone who owns a business could have voted for him, especially after he informed “Joe the plumber” that he intended to take Joe’s earnings and spread them around. For anyone not on the dole from the government, Obama was a bad choice from the beginning.
jj
@Daez: The poor already pay a disproportionate amount of their incomes in the form of regressive flat taxes on the goods and services they need to survive. The flat tax is just a way for the rich to screw over the poor. Civilization is based on protecting human rights–if you want to vote with a party that attracts and relies on the most hateful bigoted people in America, why don’t you ask yourself what you have in common with those folks? Obama is an economic moderate, you’ve fallen victim to the nutty kool aide of the far right.
the other Greg
@jeff4justice: Last week Queerty ran a story about the Peace & Freedom party (Rosanne Barr). And if only because of the marriage angle, they’ll mention Gary Johnson the Libertarian again, and the perennial Kumbaya favorite Dr. Jill Stein of the Greens.
So if you want to tell us how great Jill Stein is, just say so. I assume that’s what you want to do? You might as well do so because it’s looking more and more like Barefoot Accountant is NOT the Green he claims to be; his list has too many right-wing talking points and inaccuracies and he just reposts it again without responding to complaints about its veracity. If you still believe he’s what he claims to be, you’re probably the only one.
So since you are the only ACTUAL Green here, why not just tell us what you want us to know instead of b*tching about the media over & over.
Anyway, aren’t the many, many links you give us all from the gay media? Seems like odd “proof” that the gay media are ignoring alternatives if you post links from gay media about that very thing.
gaaary
@jj: Poor people may pay flat-rate taxes disproportionate to their income, but make no mistake: the poor are poor for a reason; rich people are rich for a reason. It’s not fate or circumstance, it’s the personal values of the individual and what they expect of themselves, and how driven they are. Many poor children end up rich, and rich children end up poor, so stop with the class warfare already.
Scott
@stoopid louie:The left HAS been cheering the Ryan nomination, or have you not been reading, watching or listening to any news lately?. Laughing a lot too. But many of us are surprised that Romney would give up so quickly and hand Obama the election on a silver platter. I think Romney himself decided he really does not want to be president and is trying to sabotage his candidacy. At the very least, he is ashamed of Ryan being on the ticket with him…I mean, why else make an announcement on an insignificant Saturday. Every PR person knows that the best day to release bad news is Saturday.
Scott
@marc: Vote ROSEANNE 2012! 🙂
Triple S
@Daez: Oh, I think I love you now. I swoon when there is an educated and non-bitchy gay guy on this site. Your adversaries look like prepubescent girls.
michael
Classic. I guess I live in the Bizarro world because in the realm I reside in Obama added over 1,000,000 jobs in the past year compared to the 5,000,000 lost in Bush’s last year, the stock market has doubled, we had the fastest 6 month drop in unemployment that we’ve had in 30 years, over 20 straight months of job growth, etc, etc. Sorry, my dimension travel box must have skewed up again….
stoopid louie
@Scott: I may be stoopid but . . . what the fuck are you talking about? Romney is “ashamed” of Ryan? He’s “handed the election” to Obama? And you learned this from . . . NPR or MSNBC? I see by your opinion of this and your support of Roseanne for president that you’re probably certifiably insane—or if not, then certainly far too anti-social and immature to have a reasonable opinion. Sigh. Another reason only people who pay taxes should be allowed to vote.
jeff m
@stoopid louie: fitting name…….
jeff m
They may take wisconsin, but they lost florida with this pick. big mistake on romneys part.
jeff m
@Barefoot Accountant: don’t pretend that you voted for obama. you’re a republican plant.Its pretty obvious….