Open thread

What did YOUR fave prez do in his first year? (4.00 / 2)

Quotes

Equal pay regardless of their gender, race, or age(S.181); American Recovery and Reinvestment Act;

expanded National and Community Service H.R. 1388;

improved enforcement of securities and commodities fraud and financial institution fraud S.386;

reduce no-bid defense contracts and improved the organization and procedures of the Department of Defense for the acquisition of major weapon systems S.454; Credit CARD Act of 2009 H.R.627;

Cash for Clunkers;

Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act of 2009;

repealed previous Executive Orders in removing Barriers to Responsible Scientific Research Involving Human Stem Cells, disallowing unrelated add-ons in government procurement,

is revoking Executive Orders concerning detention or the interrogation that undermined the laws of the United States and the Geneva Conventions;

instituted a policy (by Executive Order) whereby every appointee in every Executive branch agency has to sign an Ethics contract banning Lobbyist gifts and barring them from coming from, leaving to, and contracting with Lobbies for 2 years;

has begun dismantling the detention center at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base;

has begun posting all White House visitor records on line;

his international diplomacy has mended strained relationships with our allies, cornered our enemies, has heads of state around the world talking about a new era of multilateralism, which has resulted in the exposure of a secret Iranian nuclear facility and a Nobel Prize;

all while improving his golf, bowling, and basketball games, and opening the White House itself to American families and children at an unprecedented pace.

From someone named Lowell over at Bartcop.com.

It sure would be great if Obama's Green Jobs program started kicking in. I blame rightwingers for taking out Van Jones, and Joe Manchin for not assigning more stimulus package money towards remediation of coal waste toxic dumps strewn all across the southern coal fields.

Manchin's doing it up in the northern part of our state, but apparently prefers to pretty much keep quiet about it. I wonder why that might be?

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by: One Citizen @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 17:06:44 PM UTC

Repost: Coal Baron blames Dems for lay offs (4.00 / 2)

Coal baron Bob Murray of Murray Energy Corp. laid off 91 workers this week at the Brilliant, Ohio mine. He blamed Democrats for the layoffs:

"I feel very badly for these 91 people who we hired with the intention of employing them for many years and retiring them, but who are now laid off due to circumstances beyond their control and that of our company and me," Murray said. "They are good people who only want to work in honor and dignity. Yet our President and Democrat congressmen and senators are denying them this American right to have a job."

Yes, I'm sure his complicity in the deaths of 6 miners and 3 rescue workers at the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah had NOTHING to do with it. I'm sure the resulting wrongful death lawsuits had nothing to do with it. It's all Obama's fault.

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by: WV26003 @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 22:19:17 PM UTC

Bob Murray and WVU (4.00 / 1)

That's the same Bob Murray that now has a mining professorship named after him at WVU, isn't it?

Maybe someone over there can issue a study proving or disproving the accuracy of his statement.

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by: Clem Guttata @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 22:52:14 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

running out of oil... (4.00 / 1)

We're running out of oil... for a primer what running out of oil means and the economic limits of production... Oil Production is Reaching its Limit: The Basics of What This Means.

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by: Clem Guttata @ Mon Nov 16, 2009 at 23:55:06 PM UTC

A comment from James Kunstler's recent article (4.00 / 2)

A real progressive President would have forsaken the dictatorial powers claimed by his predecessor, prosecuted the boneheads who created the financial crisis, restructured the banking system, started pulling out of the wars, begun investigations of the Bush-Cheney crimes, and so on. We might conceivably be headed out of the catastrophe which is now so ineluctably closing in.

If Jim is right, all these efforts would change nothing. But I think Obama is the big catasatrophe here. We were one progressive President away from salvation.

In my satiric universe, Obama is definitely--and hopefully-
a OneTermer.

These aren't my views necessarily but I do believe in the premise, if only he had done.......

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by: JBdem4usa @ Tue Nov 17, 2009 at 12:52:53 PM UTC

dan at pruningshears.us & marcy at emptywheel.firedoglake.com (4.00 / 1)

have not given up just because we like that one at 1600 Penn Ave

That is the trouble with executive power grabs--once they roll it up the hill to the White House, gravity stops working and it is hard to get it down the hill again.

This is some of why Congress Matters. After the Congress must have been first for a reason.

NFTT: Support My Team or I Will Dance

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by: CA Berkeley WV @ Tue Nov 17, 2009 at 18:03:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]