It sounds like this congressman is begging for another leak.
I smell blood. And a republican president in 2016. It looks like this is going to be Obama's big theme for his second term. Like LBJ, he inherited a shitty situation and made it much worse, and thus lost out for credit on all of his domestic work.
We'll see, but I don't see any easy out for Obama. Ironically the only thing saving him is that the conservatives really love these policies, and the liberals, who should be at his throat for this, really can't because he's part of their club. Lucky duck.
> I smell blood. And a republican president in 2016.
The Republicans haven't shown any sign of fixing the structural problems in their party that prevented them from offering an electable candidate in 2012. If they don't do that first, they won't do any better in 2016.
As John Huntsman noted in one of the early GOP debates: "Listen, when you make comments that fly in the face of what 98 out of 100 climate scientists have said, when you call into question the science of evolution, all I'm saying is that, in order for the Republican Party to win, we can't run from science". Unfortunately for the GOP, their nomination process almost guarantees that people like Huntsman, who believe that running from science is the wrong approach, are out early.
The Republicans need to get the Tea Party to split off and form a third party, and then run moderate Republicans. They would then be able to run candidates who don't want to fuck the environment, massively cut science budgets, ignore climate change, put all our energy eggs in the oil basket, cut aid to the poor, and so on. This would give them candidates that align better with the majority (and more important with the directions the majority is trending). They could more than make up for the loss of the Tea Party people, I think, by getting independents and picking up some moderate Democrats.
I really hope this issue sticks around long enough to be the theme of Obama's second term -- not because I want it to ruin his legacy, but because it's a big enough issue that it needs to not go away.
Same here. This needs to be the issue of the next elections. Just like they discussed the economy/jobs 50% of the time in debates, I want this to replace that in the next elections.
Now, good luck with the TV networks actually pushing for that. Knowing them, they'd rather discuss irrelevant things that that.
>>The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates...because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.
>According to the LWV, they pulled out because "the campaigns presented the League with their debate agreement on September 28, two weeks before the scheduled debate. The campaigns' agreement was negotiated 'behind closed doors' ... [with] 16 pages of conditions not subject to negotiation. Most objectionable to the League...were conditions in the agreement that gave the campaigns unprecedented control over the proceedings.... [including] control the selection of questioners, the composition of the audience, hall access for the press and other issues."
Yeah, I think if it were going to go away it would have done so over the weekend. The fact that it didn't - that in fact major news media still had significant stories and editorials about it - means it's here to stay.
Which is good. It's about damn time we decided to admit this to ourselves - I can't believe it's taken this long, honestly.
This has got to be mostly because of which party is in the white house right now. I think the numbers would be more than flipped if we had a Republican president.
Agreed. Looking at a 2006 Gallup poll regarding warrantless wiretapping, it was 80%/16% Republicans, 42%/53% Independents, and 27%/69% Democrats (approve/disapprove).
Yeah, because if the foreign Muslim, communist, probably Martian, Obama says it, it has to be evil, and against god and nature.
Obama could introduce a right to cash, oxygen and water bill and the nut job Republicans would oppose it. Frankly, I'm surprised that Rep. approval is 32%.
I think that LBJ is a great comparison. Remember that LBJ won by painting Goldwater as an unhinged warmonger. similarly, the Obama of 2006 talked again and again about protecting civil liberties and limiting executive power.
And he's trying to do just that. He's tried to push through a great many domestic programs, he's asking congress to close up the post 9/11 authorizations he uses to justify the drone strikes, he's tried to get out of afghanistan and iraq...
But then he doubles down on Bush's immigration policy, surveillance, tightens up on whistleblowers... And it's blowing up in his face and I don't know that history will be any kinder to Obama than it was to Nixon or LBJ, with the way this story is playing out.
I smell blood. And a republican president in 2016. It looks like this is going to be Obama's big theme for his second term. Like LBJ, he inherited a shitty situation and made it much worse, and thus lost out for credit on all of his domestic work.
We'll see, but I don't see any easy out for Obama. Ironically the only thing saving him is that the conservatives really love these policies, and the liberals, who should be at his throat for this, really can't because he's part of their club. Lucky duck.