U.S. Politics

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prasen9
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Re: Politics

Post by prasen9 »

I am fully with you on this. If you make it a socio-economic criterion then it may serve its purpose better.
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Re: Politics

Post by suresh »

prasen9 wrote:I am fully with you on this. If you make it a socio-economic criterion then it may serve its purpose better.
There is only one criterion that is used in practice: politics, politics and politics.
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Re: Politics

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Re: Politics

Post by prasen9 »

France raises retirement age to 62. In Britain and Italy, the retirement age is 65 and in Germany 67. Per: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... id=topnews Spot on! Whether this solves the basic problem or merely defers it, I do not know. But, that is the right thing to do, imho. To see how nutty the French left is, read this:
... agreed Jean-Luc Melanchon, who heads the Left Party. "The end of retirement at 60 is the end of a world."
(and really, I promise, this is not a quote from The Onion). With the increase in life expectancy, modern medicine, and general fitness standards, there is no reason why people who are 60 should be funded by the rest of the country.

In the U.S., you can choose to retire at 62 through 67. If you retire before 67, you get less per month from social security. Obama should also solve the social security funding shortage, etc., by increasing the age when people start getting full benefits (currently 67). But, of course, the first cuts should be to useless Pentagon programs, which are getting raises to their budgets when the rest of the country is hurting and cutting. Whether he has the guts to do any of these or he will solely be dictated by politics is what we will see.
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Re: Politics

Post by prasen9 »

Nikki Haley won the Republican nomination in South Carolina. She will become the second Indian-origin politician to be the head of a (U.S.) state (most probably) after Bobby Jindal.
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Re: Politics

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A very nice job by President Obama in demoralizing his base will result in increased losses. His party may lose the house and the senate. Admittedly, the 40 republicans in the Senate shut down everything. However, Obama is also to blame because he did not show them up using his bully pulpit. If they want to filibuster tax cuts to small businesses, let them physically filibuster. Create some political theater. Either they wilt like in the financial reform bill or they keep making speeches to block tax cuts to small businesses on TV and the American people find out about the real face of the current Republican party. That would energize the Democrats a significant number of whom seem to be saying that they will stay at home this elections and hand over the gavel to the Republicans. Trying to be bipartisan does not work when the other party is hell-bent on closing everything down. All you do is demoralize the voters who voted you in. Put up the Immigration bill and let the Senate filibuster it and let the Republicans lose all the Latino vote. These guys never learn. Bush passes caustic things with 50 Republicans in the senate and Obama cannot pass things with 59 or 60! Sad! Embracing the Bush human rights abuses was politically wrong, not putting up Don't Ask Don't Tell for repeal was politically wrong. Not even bringing up Climate Change or Immigration Reform in the senate were politically wrong. These will cost Obama about 7-10% of the Democratic base. That should be enough to give the House and most possibly the Senate to the Republicans who are already talking of shutting down government and starving off his signature health-care plan. Nice going! There are still two months left. The economy is tough, so you will lose a lot of seats. That is known, but, the losses could be less if he can get his constituency to the voting booth. Up until now, he has not done much for them except the healthcare bill, maybe the financial reforms, and the Lily Ledbetter fair-pay act (which I doubt people know much about). And Sonia Sotomayor. The left has doubts about Elena Kagan with respect to human rights issues. Let us see if the commander in chief will be asleep at the wheels or manage to keep some form of his governing majority. Republicans and similar-minded independents are never going to vote for him. Pandering to them and trying to look moderate does not help at all. You don't get any right-wing votes and you lose a bunch of left-wing ones. The guy has not been even able to recommend a full slate of judges for the federal bench. Sigh!

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com ... m-gap.html
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Re: Politics

Post by jayakris »

Hey, he may actually be a moderate and just isn't the liberal democrat that the democratic base thought he would be and wants him to be! He may not even be pandering to the right; may be this is what he is and actually wants to be. Then what do we do? The irony is that the republicans have still managed to paint him as a dreaded socialist and all that (and he has nothing to show for it!) .. Sad indeed.

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Re: Politics

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Then he was lying as a senator and lying when getting elected. He did not end no-bid contracts. He failed to reduce earmarks to 1994 levels as he said he would do. These are not liberal or conservative issues, these are good governance issues. Furthermore, he broke his promise to allow prescription drug reimportation. He failed to have a public option for the health care bill as he had campaigned for. He failed to introduce an immigration reform package within his first year as he campaigned for. I understand that he could not get the first two, but, he did not even fight hard for them and he simply did not even introduce the immigration reform package. If he tried and failed, that would be another story. For much of his time, he is okay with delegating to Congress and watching what evolves. Imho, that is a mistake. He should have been more hands-on, used his bully pulpit better. He did that for a while when healthcare was about to go down but after that it has been quiet. They say something about fooling me once and so on. I guess the liberals will not be fooled again. So, he will have no power when the next session begins because he does not represent the liberals and the republicans will never vote for him. The Republicans will always lie about him being a socialist and so on. The politically expedient thing to do was to cobble up a ruling majority (or hold onto a ruling majority). Obama cannot get relected or have ruling majorities by pandering to the republicans --- whether that is due to his own conscience or misjudged political calculations.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... en/?page=1
may be this is what he is and actually wants to be
He can, of course, be what he wants to be, but, he has also to live with the fact that with what he is he will not have a ruling coalition. This means that he is saying that he does not care for eliminating earmarks, about making healthcare and prescription drugs affordable, he wants no-bid contracts to continue, and, does not care for solving the immigration problems. I have less respect for him now, but, still believe that basically he is a good and upright man with principles. I doubt that he does not care for eliminating earmarks or making drugs afforable. Maybe none of these would have passed the current Senate and he did not try. My problem is that he is looking at the Senate as a body to pass laws and not as a component of political theatre. He needs the senate to look obstructionist for the liberals and independents to come out in support of him again. He did not try that yet, there are two months left. The art of politics is that of creating majorities and/or passing things by creating temporary majorities on a case by case basis. Bush was bad at creating and maintaining majorities, but, he was very good at getting things passed with slim majorities. Let us see what Obama does.
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Re: Politics

Post by jayakris »

I am beginning to think that he is not really "pandering to Reublicans" .. This is probably what he is. Prety much the middle of the grounds. Has some libeal thoughts but he is not one to fight for anything, unless he finds he has no choice. Probably does have the ability to fight (as he probabl showed i the healthcare matter, though Pelosi worked hard too) - but he is, for lack of a better word, lazy, to do that. He seems to have basically resigned this year to losing seats in the Congres/Senate this time anyway.. I feel, probably like you do, that he had it in him to get more done, but we are not getting that. Will that change later? I don't know. If it does not change, or unless the economy makes some rapid strides in the next two years, he will be a one-term presdent. But probably a president that did not screw the country up with really foolish mistakes like some previous ones.

Despite my liberal views/leanings, I am not worried about all these other issues anyway, and basically am content with NOTHING changing - as long as I see people will start finding jobs. Nothing else really matters for a lot of people. If Obama (or plain luck) changes the job-situation in the next two years, he will get re-elected.

Losing the congress/senate majority does not really change anything in this country, as we have often seen. Many presidents have got things done wih no majority, and many have done precious little with majority.

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Re: Politics

Post by prasen9 »

I am also resigned to the Democrats losing seats but the difference of 1-2 seats in the Senate will make a big difference in who runs the agenda. And a 2-3 seats less or more would mean the House would be controlled by the Republicans or not. The losses are bound to happen but whether there will be a government shutdown or not next year depends upon how hard the president campaigns and gets his base on board. Whether he associates or likes the Democrats or not, the republicans do not want any of him. So, even if he is middle of the road, the pragmatic thing would be to work for a Democratic majority. I do not largely care about who controls the Senate and the House, but, I think there is a realistic chance of the healthcare bill being repealed if the Republicans gain the House. And, I care about the healthcare bill and I think it will make a big difference in people's lives. Not as big as the economy, but, pretty big. Once the bill has been implemented and the people see that the Republicans are just fear mongering and lying, the healthcare bill will not be repealed. So, it is pretty important for Obama to have the House and/or at least the Senate for two more years. And, if the healthcare bill is repealed for lack of funding or the government shutdown because of a stalemate, that will be harmful for the country.
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Re: Politics

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Our friends cannot believe it that we have only one war to wage and only one opportunity for them to profiteer. So, they want strikes on Iran. Here is an article as to why US should just keep away from Iran: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/opini ... wanted=all I hope Obama will stay away. If Obama is indeed a one-time president, the profiteers will be all smiles.
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Re: Politics

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The glass --- half full: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-k ... _pipe.html Klein notes down some of the significant achievements. At the end, this administration may have done quite a lot. However, we will always ask for more.
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Re: Politics

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jayakris wrote:... Just watch - after 18 months he will start pulling out of there and stop spending on that war also in 2.5 years max. That is all I want.
...
Jay
We are around halfway there. Jay, still sticking to this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 0092700236 Woodward sheds some light into how this decision was made. Basically, he should just fire Gates. Obama holds him in high esteem. In keeping Gates and his republican gang in the Pentagon, Obama is making sure that he sees no better alternatives than to just feed the war monster and keep doing that for 10 years or more. Obama is also reinforcing the popular meme that the Democrats are weak on defense and national security. He needs a republican to run things for him. He is the commander-in-chief. He makes the high level plans and the generals have to go and implement that. If they cannot do that, then they should resign. Obama should not be afraid to get competent people who can get things done in charge instead of the same old war-mongerers who are captives of the defense industrial complex and want the war to go on to keep their looting in tact while the rest of the country suffers. If Obama does not stop the war, it will be much easier for the next Republican president to gleefully pour ghee onto the fire and stoke it. If he stops the war, then it will be much tougher for the next president, if republican, to start another new war with the economy in the doldrums. There is one simple way to fix this. If Obama does not have a spine, he will develop one very soon if you do the following. Get Howard Dean or someone with some calibre to challenge Obama in a Democratic primary from the left with an anti-war populist campaign. You will see him stop taking the anti-war left for granted in a few months.
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Re: Politics

Post by jayakris »

Actually, prasen, I was surprised that what Woodward says was exactly what I had sensed (based pretty much solely on OBama's speech on the surge and nothing else, then).. Here is my whole quote from dec 3rd.
None of what you said gave me a solution to Afghan problem AT ALL. I would rather just pull all troupes and let that country just turn to Tailiban and go to hell. USA is out of money to do all this crap for ever. I am not sure you if you parsed carefully what Obama was saying. He is simply pulling out of Afghanistan, and that is IT. To make sure that he can confuse and at least keep the stupid republicans at bay, he is adding some troupes like the generals asked. Just watch - after 18 months he will start pulling out of there and stop spending on that war also in 2.5 years max. That is all I want.
Is there reason to believe now, that Obama has anything else in mind. I see all these reports this week about how Obama should ahve just asked for Mullen and Gates to resign right then etc. I am not sure if that would have been the right startegy. May be it was, but he seems to have stood up pretty well to the much higher troop level requests from the warmongers in Pentagon and given them the absolute minimum surge they asked for. Will we start pulling out from next summer? Who knows. I hope so, but there doesn't seem to be much reason to think that Obama wants anything else.

Like you say, Obama needs to let these conniving guys go. To dupe the president with cooked up war game simulations is the kind of thing that should not be tolerated from the Joint Chiefs Chairman. It is amazing that people don't have the guts to call for his head immediately, rather than saying the President was soft - as he could not have known right then that he was being duped even if he suspected that based on info from Rahm. Of course, Gates should go too. Hopefully Woodward has given Obama enough rope to hang some of these guys. Also, hopefully Obama hasn't delayed the inevitable conforntation with these guys too much.

Whatever happens in Afghan, he should just get the hell out. I think he has no choice either. Spending a trillion till 2016 is not an option, as he well seem to have put his foot down on. I am still hoping to see US out of there before summer 2012, which is what I had expected last year - and economics is the main reason why I expect that to be the case, in addition to now getting more evidence that Obama was clearly thinking right about the situation.

Jay
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Re: Politics

Post by prasen9 »

Activist judges like Scalia and Thomas have ruled that corporations have free speech rights. While the narrow ruling may be correct, these jokers seem to believe in corporate person-hood, i.e., everything that applies to people like free speech, should apply to corporations. On the other hand, the originalist Scalia seems to have said that women are not included where the constitution talks about rights of people because the original constitution writers did not think of women to be included when they said all persons. What a joke. Anyway, that is not the point. Taking Scalia and Thomas and the rest of the right-wing fundamentalist judges lead, a company is running for a seat in the U.S. House. You see if corporations have personhood, a corollary is that they should be able to run for Congress. If you are mildly amused, you may want to check them out: http://murrayhillincforcongress.com/
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