Disgusted With Obama Administration.

• Cleveland Buck

  

  Hymns to the Violence: The NYT’s Love Letter to Obama's Murder Racket
  
  Written by Chris Floyd
  Tuesday, 29 May 2012 14:21
  
  http://chris-floyd.com/component/con...er-racket.html
  
  I must, at last, admit defeat. I simply have no words, no rhetorical ammunition, no conceptual frameworks that could adequately address the total moral nullity exposed in Monday's New York Times article on the death squad that Barack Obama is personally directing from the White House. (“Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will.&#8221
  
  It is not so much a newspaper story as a love letter -- a love letter to death, to the awe-inspiring and fear-inducing power of death, as personified by Barack Obama in his temporary role as the manager of a ruthless, lawless imperial state. In the cringing obsequiousness of the multitude of insiders and sycophants who march in goose-step through the story, we can see the awe and fear -- indeed, the worship -- of death-dealing power. This enthrallment permeates the story, both in the words of the cringers and in the giddy thrill the writers display in gaining such delicious access to the inner sanctum.
  
  In any other age -- including the last administration -- this story would have been presented as a scandalous exposé. The genuinely creepy scenes of the "nominating process" alone would have been seen as horrific revelations. Imagine the revulsion at the sight of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld sifting through PowerPoint slides on "suspected terrorists" all over the world, and giving their Neronic thumbs up or down as each swarthy face pops up on a screen in front of them. Imagine the tidal wave of moral outrage from the "Netroots Nation" and other progressive champions directed at Bush not only for operating a death squad (which he did), but then trotting out Condi and Colin and Bob Gates to brag about it openly, and to paint Bush as some kind of moral avatar for the careful consideration and philosophical rigor he applied to blowing human beings to bits in sneak attacks on faraway villages.
  
  But the NYT piece is billed as just another "process story" about an interesting aspect of Obama's presidency, part of an election-year series assessing his record. It is based entirely on the viewpoints of Beltway insiders. The very few dollops of mild criticism of the murder program are voiced by figures from deep within the imperial machine. And even these caveats are mostly tactical in nature, based on one question: "Does the program work, is it effective?" There is not a single line that ever suggests, even slightly, that the program might be morally wrong. There is not a single line in the story suggesting that such a program should up for debate or even examination by Congress. Nor is there even a perfunctory quote from mainstream organizations such as the ACLU or Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch -- or from anyone in Pakistan or Yemen or the other main targets of Obama's proudly proclaimed and personally approved death squad.
  
  In other words, this portrait of an American president signing off -- week after week after week after week -- on the extrajudicial murder of people all over the world is presented as something completely uncontroversial. Indeed, the main thrust of the story is not the fact that human beings -- including many women, children and men who have no connection whatsoever to "terrorism," alleged or otherwise -- are being regularly killed by the United States government; no, the main focus is how this program illustrates Barack Obama's "evolving" style of leadership during the course of his presidency. That's what's really important. The murders -- the eviscerated bodies, the children with their skulls bashed in, the pregnant women burned alive in their own homes -- are just background. Unimportant. Non-controversial.
  
  II.
  Here's how it works:
  
  “Every week or so, more than 100 members of the government’s sprawling national security apparatus gather, by secure video teleconference, to pore over terrorist suspects’ biographies and recommend to the president who should be the next to die.
  
  “This secret “nominations” process is an invention of the Obama administration, a grim debating society that vets the PowerPoint slides bearing the names, aliases and life stories of suspected members of Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen or its allies in Somalia’s Shabab militia. … A parallel, more cloistered selection process at the C.I.A. focuses largely on Pakistan, where that agency conducts strikes.
  
  “The nominations go to the White House, where by his own insistence and guided by Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama must approve any name. He signs off on every strike in Yemen and Somalia and also on the more complex and risky strikes in Pakistan — about a third of the total.
  
  “Aides say Mr. Obama has several reasons for becoming so immersed in lethal counterterrorism operations. A student of writings on war by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, he believes that he should take moral responsibility for such actions.
  
  “He realizes this isn’t science, this is judgments made off of, most of the time, human intelligence,” said Mr. Daley, the former chief of staff. “The president accepts as a fact that a certain amount of screw-ups are going to happen, and to him, that calls for a more judicious process.”
  
  Again, words fail. Aides pumping reporters with stories about the wise, judicious philosopher-king consulting Aquinas and Augustine before sending a drone missile on a "signature strike" on a group of picnickers in Yemen or farmers in Pakistan. The philosopher-king himself nobly taking on the "moral responsibility" for mass murder. And the cavalier assertion that "a certain amount of screw-ups are going to happen" -- a bland, blithe acceptance that you are in fact going to slaughter innocent human beings on a regular basis -- precisely as if you walked up to an innocent man on the street, put a gun to his head and blew his brains out all over the sidewalk …. then walked away, absolved, unconcerned, and free to kill again. And again. And again. This psychopathic serial killing is, evidently, what Augustine meant by "moral responsibility." Who knew?
  
  Obama's deep concern for "moral responsibility" is also reflected in his decision to kill according to "signature strikes" -- that is, to kill people you don't know, who haven't even popped up on your PowerPoint slides, if you think they might possibly look or act like alleged potential "terrorists." (Or if you receive some "human intelligence" from an agent or an informer or someone with a grudge or someone seeking payment that a group of people doing something somewhere might be terrorists.) This "moral responsibility" is also seen in Obama's decision to count "all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants … unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent."
  
  Guilty until proven posthumously innocent! How's that for "moral responsibility"? Here Obama has surpassed Augustine and Aquinas -- yea, even great Aristotle himself -- in this bold extension of the parameters of moral responsibility.
  
  It is, I confess, beyond all my imagining that a national leader so deeply immersed in murdering people would trumpet his atrocity so openly, so gleefully -- and so deliberately, sending his top aides out to collude in a major story in the nation's leading newspaper, to ensure maximum exposure of his killing spree. Although many leaders have wielded such powers, they almost always seek to hide or obscure the reality of the operation. Even the Nazis took enormous pains to hide the true nature of their murder programs from the public. And one can scarcely conceive of Stalin inviting reporters from Pravda into the Politburo meetings where he and Molotov and Beria debated the lists of counterrevolutionary "terrorists" given to them by the KGB and ticked off those who would live and those who would die. Of course, those lists too were based on "intelligence reports," often gathered through "strenuous interrogation techniques" or the reports of informers. No doubt these reports were every bit as credible as the PowerPoint presentations reviewed each week by Obama and his team.
  
  And no doubt Stalin and his team were just as sincerely concerned about "national security" as the Aquinas acolyte in the White House today -- and just as determined to do "whatever it takes" to preserve that security. As Stalin liked to say of the innocent people caught up in his national security efforts: "When wood is chopped, chips fly."
  
  Of course, he was an evil man without any sense of moral responsibility at all. In our much more enlightened times, under the guidance of a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate in the White House, we are so much wiser, so much better. We say: "A certain amount of screw-ups are going to happen." Isn't that much more nuanced? Isn't that much more moral?
  
  There is more, much more of this nullity -- and rotting hypocrisy and vapid sycophancy -- in the story. But I don't have the strength or the stomach to wade any further through this swamp. It stinks of death. It taints and stains us all.
• IggyPride00

  

  This graph should shake anyone to the core who is on the fence this election about how they are going to vote and what they want the country to look like.
  
  
• Manhattan Buckeye

  gut;1184141 wrote:Yeah, many states with higher sales taxes have little to no state income tax. That is, unless you're one of the big liberal experiments like CA, IL or MA, then you get it coming and going.

  Or New York, one of the highest income tax states (especially with local income taxes on top of state) and an above average sales tax.
  
  But hey, Bloomberg doesn't want anyone buying a soda above 16 oz.! Crazy what the U.S. has become.
• believer

  

  Manhattan Buckeye;1186416 wrote:But hey, Bloomberg doesn't want anyone buying a soda above 16 oz.! Crazy what the U.S. has become.

  Yeah...Bat shit crazy across the board. It's embarrassing.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  I made the joke he's the 70-year old virgin. What type of out-of-touch idiot doesn't know the purpose behind the "two bags of popcorn with one large coke (obviously above 16 oz.)" deal at theaters? Its how you get to touch the chick on a date reaching for the coke, and sharing a straw to boot.
  
  Nanny Bloomberg has been on his high horse recently, but I think this time he's going to lose. Although you wouldn't know it by the NYTimes comments - I've never seen a group of people so happy to be told by the government what they can and cannot do.
• gut

  Team Obama must be scrambling to marginalize Clinton after he supported Romney's qualifications and track record in PE.
• QuakerOats

  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/5/cbo-federal-debt-double-15-years/
  
  
  “In the past few years, the federal government has been recording the largest budget deficits since 1945, both in dollar terms and as a share of the economy. Consequently, the amount of federal debt held by the public has surged,” CBO said in a long-term budget outlook that paints a shockingly dark picture of government finances.
  
  
  obama: The King of Debt
  
  
  Change we can believe in ....
• believer

  

  QuakerOats;1189013 wrote:obama: The King of Debt.

  While it is true that Obama has taken it to new heights, it's fair to say there's plenty of debt blame to go around.
  
  The Dems have always been about spending but let's not forget the fact that when the Repubs took control of Congress in the early 90's, we were all excited that FINALLY, things in DC were going to change. Unfortunately Newt & Co.'s Contract with America turned out to be largely BS while the Repubs quickly turned into big spenders themselves.
  
  Then came "W"....then came Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. And the beat goes on.
• gut

  Yep, the "grand bargain" in Washington for 10+ years has been Dems get to give their handouts and Repubs get to cut taxes. Deficits be damned. The vast majority of people in Washington are amassing small fortunes so as to be insulated from the fallout when the shit hits the fan.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  believer;1189526 wrote:While it is true that Obama has taken it to new heights, it's fair to say there's plenty of debt blame to go around.
  
  The Dems have always been about spending but let's not forget the fact that when the Repubs took control of Congress in the early 90's, we were all excited that FINALLY, things in DC were going to change. Unfortunately Newt & Co.'s Contract with America turned out to be largely BS while the Repubs quickly turned into big spenders themselves.
  
  Then came "W"....then came Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. And the beat goes on.

  gut;1189534 wrote:Yep, the "grand bargain" in Washington for 10+ years has been Dems get to give their handouts and Repubs get to cut taxes. Deficits be damned. The vast majority of people in Washington are amassing small fortunes so as to be insulated from the fallout when the **** hits the fan.

  Yup. Blame goes to Obama, Boehner, Pelosi, Reid, Mcconnel, McCain, Turner, the Tea Party, the Progressives, the political system, and the RNC and DNC.
  No one goes without blame. Why, because no one has any solution that gets to the heart of the matter.
  
  How do you lower the debt while getting R's and D's to both agree to give up painful things?
• believer

  

  ptown_trojans_1;1189544 wrote:How do you lower the debt while getting R's and D's to both agree to give up painful things?

  Maybe we can get the Europeans, Russians, and Japanese to give us some pointers?
• gut

  believer;1189555 wrote:Maybe we can get the Europeans, Russians, and Japanese to give us some pointers?

  Much closer to home, actually. Canada.
• gut

  ptown_trojans_1;1189544 wrote: How do you lower the debt while getting R's and D's to both agree to give up painful things?

  Well, with tax cuts expiring, there's really not much for the R's to give up, is there? Dems aren't budging and want to raise taxes more. When Harry Reid won't even allow a budget to come to the floor for vote there are some that are more responsible than others.
  
  I'll bet you my vCash if Repubs take control of the Senate and Romney is POTUS we'll have a budget in 2013.
• believer

  

  gut;1189608 wrote:I'll bet you my vCash if Repubs take control of the Senate and Romney is POTUS we'll have a budget in 2013.

  agreed
• believer

  

  gut;1189602 wrote:Much closer to home, actually. Canada.

  Thanks to Uncle Sam's lavish neighborhood watch program.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  gut;1189608 wrote:Well, with tax cuts expiring, there's really not much for the R's to give up, is there? Dems aren't budging and want to raise taxes more. When Harry Reid won't even allow a budget to come to the floor for vote there are some that are more responsible than others.
  
  I'll bet you my vCash if Repubs take control of the Senate and Romney is POTUS we'll have a budget in 2013.

  The R's can give up on no conceivable tax increases, and defense budget cuts.
  D's can give up on keeping SS and Medicare in its current form.
  
  That is the only way to really solve the debt.
  
  
  Harry is allowing pieces of a budget to the floor. They cut it in pieces. DHS one day, Defense the next. Last year, they passed the first intelligence budget in nearly 5 years.
  So, some sort of budget will get passed. Will the budget come up for one bug vote, hell no. That hasn't happened in years.
• jhay78

  

  When someone like Paul Ryan tries to cut one dime from Medicare (in order to save it from insolvency), or someone tries to deal with SS, the howls and cries from the left drown out any attempt at reason or logic. As long as that's the case, and as long as those two are the biggest drivers of our debt, then no, nothing will change and the deficits will continue.
  
  Maybe if there's a filibuster-proof majority of adults someday in the Senate, that can be dealt with. And Americans will have to be engaged and realize that not all the promises made to them by the federal government can be kept. I don't know if either of those will happen before it's too late.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  jhay78;1189832 wrote:When someone like Paul Ryan tries to cut one dime from Medicare (in order to save it from insolvency), or someone tries to deal with SS, the howls and cries from the left drown out any attempt at reason or logic. As long as that's the case, and as long as those two are the biggest drivers of our debt, then no, nothing will change and the deficits will continue.
  
  Maybe if there's a filibuster-proof majority of adults someday in the Senate, that can be dealt with. And Americans will have to be engaged and realize that not all the promises made to them by the federal government can be kept. I don't know if either of those will happen before it's too late.

  I agree, and the funny thing is, the Ryan plan would not have made a dent in the debt. It would have lowered it only a few billion. Still, movement, but nothing grad like what is being called for by some.
  
  I agree also it will take America to wake up and realize that there is no more Medicare left, or that health costs have risen so high as to destroy the budget.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  "When someone like Paul Ryan tries to cut one dime from Medicare (in order to save it from insolvency), or someone tries to deal with SS, the howls and cries from the left drown out any attempt at reason or logic"
  
  That's because entitlements are the foundation of the modern Democrat party. It started with FDR with the New Deal - the idea that the collective can pay enough to support our lifestyles. In his defense that strategy might have worked in the 30's when people lived until 65. Now when people are living until 85 it is mathematically impossible.
  
  Yet still, with the DEMS' deification of FDR we can't get rid of entitlements, we can't reduce them, we can't adjust to inflation, we can't even talk about the deficits they are causing without being accused of being "rich", "immoral", "Republican", or God forbid, "responsible."
  
  The DEMS are going long on public entitlements (read, socialism) and the rentseekers that are dependent on the public dime which is getting bigger and bigger every year. Western Europe has shown that this isn't sustainable, I'd like to think us Americans are smart enough to learn from their mistakes.
• gut

  ptown_trojans_1;1189711 wrote:
  Harry is allowing pieces of a budget to the floor. They cut it in pieces. DHS one day, Defense the next. Last year, they passed the first intelligence budget in nearly 5 years.
  So, some sort of budget will get passed. Will the budget come up for one bug vote, hell no. That hasn't happened in years.

  The first two years they had nearly 60 Dems and STILL couldn't pass a budget.
  
  Like I said, there are already significant tax hikes in the pipeline with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. It's the Dems that aren't giving any ground. The budget has increased over 30% from just 2007 - they're spending MORE without even passing a budget. Spending cuts? LMAO they've ACCELERATED spending. It all comes down to a failure of leadership - Reid and Obama.
• believer

  

  I can see cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, stiffer rules on Food Stamp qualifications, and a repeal of ObamaKare.
  
  Labeling Social Security an "entitlement", however, is a bit of a stretch.
  
  It is, indeed, an entitlement in the sense that millions of Americans have paid into the system by Federal law for decades and are now entitled to expect the Feds to make good on their part of the "bargain." Again, this is the result of the grand experiment inflicted upon the American people by the grandfather of modern American socialism - FDR and his liberal allies in Congress.
  
  Here's how I (and millions of other "greedy Boomers") now see it:
  

  • My federally mandated Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were tucked away in a reasonably safe and relatively solvent account for decades until DC political idiots on both sides of the aisle raided the account to give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers (oops class warfare - my bad) in exchange for their votes thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud.
    
  • Just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, the DC political idiots on both sides of the aisle pulled the football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67 (I'm in that category). Now the DC idiots are considering to moving the goalposts AGAIN. If the private financial industry attempted to pull this bullshit on its customers, the Feds would have them before Senate & House committees on C-Span to rip them all new sets of assholes.
    
  • The incompetent DC idiots spent our money so profusely that they just kept on spending our money even after they ran out of money. Now they come to the American taxpayers and say we need tax increases to pay off their own IDIOCY. To add insult to injury they have the unmitigated gall of labeling the taxpayer as "greedy" for calling them out for being criminally incompetent. That's beyond absurd.
    

  And spare me the boo hooing about how the poor, poor Gen X,Y and Z-ers are now paying the bill. The Boomers paid the bill for the Greatest Generation. That's the dangers of socialism folks.
  
  All we're asking for now is that the Grand Socialist Contract with America we've been forced by federal mandate to participate in for decades be fulfilled.
• believer

  

  I can see cuts in Medicaid, stiffer rules on Food Stamp qualifications, and a repeal of ObamaKare.
  
  Labeling Social Security and Medicare (to a lesser degree) "entitlements", however, is a bit of a stretch.
  
  It is, indeed, an entitlement in the sense that millions of Americans have paid into the system by Federal law for decades and are now entitled to expect the Feds to make good on their part of the "bargain." Again, the end result of the grand experiment inflicted upon the American people by the grandfather of modern American socialism - FDR - and his liberal allies in Congress.
  
  Here's how I (and millions of other "greedy Boomers") now see it:
  

  • My federally mandated Social Security (and Medicare) payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were tucked away in a reasonably safe and relatively solvent account for decades until DC political idiots on both sides of the aisle raided the account to give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers (oops class warfare - my bad) in exchange for their votes thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud.
    
  • Just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, the DC political idiots on both sides of the aisle pulled the football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67 (I'm in that category). Now the DC idiots are considering moving the goalposts AGAIN. Rest assured that if the eeeevil for-profit private financial industry attempted to pull this bullshit on its customers, the Feds would have their CEO's before Senate & House committees on C-Span gleefully ripping them all new sets of assholes.
    
  • The incompetent DC idiots spent our money so profusely that they kept on spending our money even after they ran out of money. Now they come to the American taxpayers and say we need tax increases to pay off their IDIOCY. To add insult to injury they have the unmitigated gall of labeling the taxpayer as "greedy" for calling them out for being criminally incompetent. That's beyond insane.
    

  Oh and spare me the boo hooing about how the poor, poor Gen X,Y and Z-ers are now paying the bill. The Boomers paid the bill for the Greatest Generation...and still are. Hence the the dangers of socialism folks.
  
  All we're asking for now is that the Grand Socialist Contract with America we've been forced by federal mandate to participate in for decades be fulfilled by the incompetent DC idiots.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  "Now the DC idiots are considering moving the goalposts AGAIN."
  
  Indeed. And that is how it will be for anyone under the age of 45 (as much as you rightfully hate it, it won't stop and will just get worse), a constant moving of goalposts. Either we fix it now or admit it is a ponzi scheme and just put it under the taxation revenue process.
• HitsRus

  

  Really, it is completely unfair and erroneous to lay SSI problems on the 'baby boomers', as the rules for present day SSI were set by the 'Greatest generation' to pay for ther GG's retirement. The baby boomers have moved the goalposts to try to pay for their retirement, having paid for the generation before.
  A good part of the problem is in the perception of the program which really is a 'pay as you go' system...and needs to be treated as such. We have not been paying for our own retirement...we pay pay for the generation that came before...and that is the way is has been. Hence, SSI cannot/shouldn't be scrapped, but merely revenue adjusted to meet the need of the contract. Nobody likes taxes, but it is what it is. I have long advocated a small tax on gasoline to supplement the system, as we now are approaching a situation of a small generation having to pay for a larger generation.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  "I have long advocated a small tax on gasoline to supplement the system, as we now are approaching a situation of a small generation having to pay for a larger generation."
  
  Do you hate your children? Why should they be taxed to pay for your generation's choices?
  
  I really, really don't get this, and I'm one of the more libertarian leaning people here - if the system is broke, why are you pushing this down to your kids, I say this as someone that doesn't have any biological children. Do you hate them?