Obama's War on Pot | Politics News | Rolling Stone:
"In a shocking about-face, the administration has launched a government-wide crackdown on medical marijuana."
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
President Obama nominates Bush DEA’s Michele Leonhart to head DEA | The NORML Stash Blog
President Obama nominates Bush DEA’s Michele Leonhart to head DEA | The NORML Stash Blog:
"That does it. I’m burning the Obama cap I got at the Democratic Convention. The man has lost his mind."
"That does it. I’m burning the Obama cap I got at the Democratic Convention. The man has lost his mind."
DEA head: A thousand dead children means we're winning war on drugs - Drugs - Salon.com
DEA head: A thousand dead children means we're winning war on drugs - Drugs - Salon.com:
"Leonhart, a DEA lifer, is actually a Bush appointee, reappointed by President Obama. She is, obviously, an inflexible zealot when it comes to drug prohibition. This is easily the worst and most offensive thing she’s said that I’ve read, but she does have a history of asinine remarks. This is the sort of quote — dead children are a sign that we’re winning! — that should lead to a resignation. But it probably won’t."
"Leonhart, a DEA lifer, is actually a Bush appointee, reappointed by President Obama. She is, obviously, an inflexible zealot when it comes to drug prohibition. This is easily the worst and most offensive thing she’s said that I’ve read, but she does have a history of asinine remarks. This is the sort of quote — dead children are a sign that we’re winning! — that should lead to a resignation. But it probably won’t."
Michael Bennet - United States Senator for Colorado : Newsroom - Press Releases
Michael Bennet - United States Senator for Colorado : Newsroom - Press Releases:
February 16, 2010
Denver, CO - In his continued effort to pass health care reform that lowers costs and leads to higher quality care, Michael Bennet, U.S. Senator for Colorado, is leading the effort in the Senate to pass health insurance reform that includes a public health insurance option under budget reconciliation rules.
Bennet has written a letter to Senate Majority Leader Reid and is circulating it for additional signatures. In the letter, Bennet highlights findings from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that said a public option could yield cost savings of at least $25 billion. Bennet also pointed to the fact that a public option would provide Americans with a low-cost alternative to private insurance and improve market competitiveness.
In addition, the letter noted that there is substantial Senate precedent for using reconciliation to enact important health care policies, including the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), COBRA, and Medicare Advantage.
February 16, 2010
Denver, CO - In his continued effort to pass health care reform that lowers costs and leads to higher quality care, Michael Bennet, U.S. Senator for Colorado, is leading the effort in the Senate to pass health insurance reform that includes a public health insurance option under budget reconciliation rules.
Bennet has written a letter to Senate Majority Leader Reid and is circulating it for additional signatures. In the letter, Bennet highlights findings from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that said a public option could yield cost savings of at least $25 billion. Bennet also pointed to the fact that a public option would provide Americans with a low-cost alternative to private insurance and improve market competitiveness.
In addition, the letter noted that there is substantial Senate precedent for using reconciliation to enact important health care policies, including the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), COBRA, and Medicare Advantage.
Wade Norris: The Bennet Letter: Change We Can Believe In?
Wade Norris: The Bennet Letter: Change We Can Believe In?: Otherwise, why on Earth would the President announce ,less than a week after the Bennet letter was created, today's health care bill, which has no public option?
The only answer that makes sense is that the President never intended to let the public option through, and this Bennet letter was merely the White House's way to provide a way for some Democratic Senators to bolster their credentials with base voters, while not actually having accomplished anything.
The only answer that makes sense is that the President never intended to let the public option through, and this Bennet letter was merely the White House's way to provide a way for some Democratic Senators to bolster their credentials with base voters, while not actually having accomplished anything.
Obama Health Care Plan Drops Public Option
Obama Health Care Plan Drops Public Option:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he would work with his colleagues to find the votes needed for it; Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the third ranking Democrat, pushed for it to be included; and Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, joined in the call as well.
But neither that nor the public option's consistently strong appeal in public-opinion polls was enough to persuade Obama to get behind it.
Indeed, after months of watching Obama say generally that he supports the public option while doing little to see it implemented into law, backers of the idea were unsurprised it was left out of his final offer.
Barack Obama VS Those Craaaazy Republicans: Is He the Lesser Evil, or the More Effective Evil? | Black Agenda Report
Barack Obama VS Those Craaaazy Republicans: Is He the Lesser Evil, or the More Effective Evil? | Black Agenda Report:
"Between bigoted, bumbling tea party Republicans, and level-headed, competent corporate Democrats, which is the greater evil? And which is the more effective evil?"
"Between bigoted, bumbling tea party Republicans, and level-headed, competent corporate Democrats, which is the greater evil? And which is the more effective evil?"
Obama & the Fake Debt Ceiling Crisis: This President Is Really Just Smarter Than You Are | Black Agenda Report
Obama & the Fake Debt Ceiling Crisis: This President Is Really Just Smarter Than You Are | Black Agenda Report:
So if you’re an Obama supporter, and you’re disappointed that your president won’t fight for you — if you’re an Obama supporter and you wonder why the president won’t stand up for Medicaid, Medicare and social security — here’s the answer. The president really, really is smarter than you. He knows what side he’s on and you don’t. He knows that the two-party system is a veal pen, where as long as “he can play good cop to the Republicans’ ever worsening bad cop, the game is fixed, and not in your favor.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
The Authoritarian Mind - Salon.com
The Authoritarian Mind - Salon.com:
Glenn Greenwald's discussion of Guggenheim's propaganda film and the "two-minute interview of Guggenheim by CNN’s Piers Morgan in which Guggenheim explains that nothing critical can or should be said of our President other than the fact that he is so Great that his Greatness cannot be sufficiently conveyed in a single film (via VastLeft); other than noting the obvious — how creepy his Leader worship is and how perfect of a guest-host he’d be for several MSNBC shows — all I can say is that this is the pure face of the Authoritarian Mind, but it is as common as it is repellent."
Glenn Greenwald's discussion of Guggenheim's propaganda film and the "two-minute interview of Guggenheim by CNN’s Piers Morgan in which Guggenheim explains that nothing critical can or should be said of our President other than the fact that he is so Great that his Greatness cannot be sufficiently conveyed in a single film (via VastLeft); other than noting the obvious — how creepy his Leader worship is and how perfect of a guest-host he’d be for several MSNBC shows — all I can say is that this is the pure face of the Authoritarian Mind, but it is as common as it is repellent."
Sarah Palin: Barack Obama's 'enemy of the week' | Paul Harris | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
This is a great piece on the sad spectacle of the Democrats digging up Sarah Palin to remind us of how scary the right is. But the author gets bogged down in this "let's focus on the ridiculous enemy at home so we can forget about how many kids we're killing overseas" trap:
"In an era when vast swathes of the Republican electorate believes Obama is a Muslim (by the way, he isn't), then this claptrap from an icon of the GOP should be no surprise, either."
"[B]y the way, he isn't"? How insulting is this to his readers? And I'm getting tired of being reminded of all the nonsense that the Republican electorate believes. Who cares if they believe that he is a Muslim? Who cares? The greater problem that we should be looking at is why that even matters. I don't give a crap if he's a Muslim or not, and I definitely don't care that some-odd percentage of Republicans believe it.
Sarah Palin: Barack Obama's 'enemy of the week' | Paul Harris | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
"In an era when vast swathes of the Republican electorate believes Obama is a Muslim (by the way, he isn't), then this claptrap from an icon of the GOP should be no surprise, either."
"[B]y the way, he isn't"? How insulting is this to his readers? And I'm getting tired of being reminded of all the nonsense that the Republican electorate believes. Who cares if they believe that he is a Muslim? Who cares? The greater problem that we should be looking at is why that even matters. I don't give a crap if he's a Muslim or not, and I definitely don't care that some-odd percentage of Republicans believe it.
Sarah Palin: Barack Obama's 'enemy of the week' | Paul Harris | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
So, Eric Holder, we should just trust that the president won't assassinate us? | Jonathan Turley | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
So, Eric Holder, we should just trust that the president won't assassinate us? | Jonathan Turley | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk:
The choice of a law school was a curious place for discussion of authoritarian powers. Obama has replaced the constitutional protections afforded to citizens with a "trust me" pledge that Holder repeated Monday at Northwestern.
The good news is that Holder promised not to hunt citizens for sport.
Our immoral drone war - Salon.com
Our immoral drone war - Salon.com:
The United States publicly denied the drone campaign until January, when President Obama decided to use that most dignified of media venues — a Google Hangout — to tell his Pakistani allies in war that his country had, in fact, been bombing them for years. They should not worry, he said, because America was being careful about whom it killed.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Chris Hedges Suing Barack Obama
"The supine and gutless Democratic Party,
which would have feigned outrage if George W. Bush had put this into
law, appears willing, once again, to grant Obama a pass. But I won’t.
What he has done is unforgivable, unconstitutional and exceedingly
dangerous."
"The oddest part of this legislation is that
the FBI, the CIA, the director of national intelligence, the Pentagon
and the attorney general didn’t support it. FBI Director Robert Mueller
said he feared the bill would actually impede the bureau’s ability to
investigate terrorism because it would be harder to win cooperation from
suspects held by the military. “The possibility looms that we will lose
opportunities to obtain cooperation from the persons in the past that
we’ve been fairly successful in gaining,” he told Congress.
"But it passed anyway. And I suspect it
passed because the corporations, seeing the unrest in the streets,
knowing that things are about to get much worse, worrying that the
Occupy movement will expand, do not trust the police to protect them.
They want to be able to call in the Army. And now they can."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_im_suing_barack_obama_20120116/
Friday, December 23, 2011
Grappling With Ron Paul's Racist Newsletters - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic
Grappling With Ron Paul's Racist Newsletters - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic:
"How can you vote for someone who wages an undeclared drone war that kills scores of Pakistani children? Or someone who righteously insisted that indefinite detention is an illegitimate transgression against our civilizational values, and proceeded to support that very practice once he was elected?"
"The racist newsletters should in fact be part of the calculus.
So should the uncomfortable fact that bygone complicity in racist newsletters doesn't necessarily make Paul the candidate most complicit in human depravity (sad as that is)...."
"How can you vote for someone who wages an undeclared drone war that kills scores of Pakistani children? Or someone who righteously insisted that indefinite detention is an illegitimate transgression against our civilizational values, and proceeded to support that very practice once he was elected?"
"The racist newsletters should in fact be part of the calculus.
So should the uncomfortable fact that bygone complicity in racist newsletters doesn't necessarily make Paul the candidate most complicit in human depravity (sad as that is)...."
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
The Zenith of Civil Libertarian Anger at President Obama - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic
Good article with lots of links of the death of civil liberties under Obama.
The Zenith of Civil Libertarian Anger at President Obama - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic
The Zenith of Civil Libertarian Anger at President Obama - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
President’s Detention Plan Tests American Legal Tradition - NYTimes.com
President’s Detention Plan Tests American Legal Tradition - NYTimes.com
Civil liberties lawyers ... say Mr. Obama has not made the case persuasively that there is a worrisome category of detainees who are too dangerous to release but who cannot be convicted. The reason to have a criminal justice system at all, they say, is to trust it to decide who is guilty and who is not.
“If they cannot be convicted, then you release them,” said Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union. “That’s what it means to have a justice system.”
Civil liberties lawyers ... say Mr. Obama has not made the case persuasively that there is a worrisome category of detainees who are too dangerous to release but who cannot be convicted. The reason to have a criminal justice system at all, they say, is to trust it to decide who is guilty and who is not.
“If they cannot be convicted, then you release them,” said Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union. “That’s what it means to have a justice system.”
Obama's new executive order on Guantanamo - Guantanamo - Salon.com
Obama's new executive order on Guantanamo - Guantanamo - Salon.com
The most harmful aspect of the Obama legacy is that he has converted what were once controversial right-wing Bush policies into unchallenged bipartisan consensus, to endure indefinitely and without any opposition from either party.
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