commentopia

 

JANUARY 25, 2010 -- JANUARY 31, 2010

"SOME ARE FRUSTRATED; SOME ARE ANGRY" -- RATING THE PRESIDENT'S SPEECH

 

The man has been President for only a year. He did inherit the biggest economic mess since the great depression, not to mention a two theater war. What exactly where your expectations? Do you really believe he was going to be able to turn this thing around in a year? It took over a decade (and a World War) to get us turned around from the depression. I am not even a huge Obama supporter, but give me a break with your hate and discontent.

Read the article BOSTON GLOBE/Obama turns to economy; urges Congress to unite

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"The worst of the storm has passed." This is why there is such a huge disconnect between the President and most of the nation. While on paper the economy may be starting to turn around, for millions of Americans the worst of the storm is turning into a hurricane. The unemployed still cannot find jobs because there are no jobs to find. They are still losing their homes and trying to figure out how they're going to be able to feed their families, especially as unemployment benefits run out for millions. Wal-Mart just announced 10,000 layoffs; Verizon another 13,000. Where are all of these people going to find jobs? I didn't hear any concrete ideas in that speech for putting people to work immediately. We need action, not more speeches about how jobs are his number one priority.

Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/Obama to party: "Don't Run for the Hills."

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Excellent speech from a basically decent man who actually has the character to want to work with people who demonstrably have repeatedly shown that they most want him to fail. If the members of both parties, and especially the Republicans, cannot begin to function as mature adults with real concern and commitment to act on the multitude of serious problmes facing this nation and indeed the entire world, they should be dismissed from office by the voters in November. I would suggest that the Republican leaders of the House and Senate wipe those perpetual cynical snears off their faces and get down to work if, as the President so charitably said, they really love this country and want what is best for it.

Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/Obama to party: "Don't Run for the Hills."

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Right now, this President is skating towards being a single termer. That would be a tragedy for the country. Instead of clearly outlining where we need to go and how we're going to get there, he appears intimidated enough to need to validate the Republicans. Throwing bones their way does nothing but lay bare his own weakness.

We who elected him wanted this President to go in a dramatically different direction. And do it quickly. Instead we have witnessed an incessant pecking away on the margins by someone who seems to value consensus more than doing the right thing. His bully pulpit, the platform that he used to get elected in the first place, appears to have been completely lost during the transition.

Obama's first year in office has been marked by a consistent vacuum that allows the other side to define and tear down whatever it is that he's trying to get done. That he suddenly appears on TV to tell us what we ought to be thinking about it. Lectures we don't need.

Action is what we want, and we want it now.

Read the article WASHINGTON POST/The State of the Union, editorial

 

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It seems that the people who complain the most are often the people who do not want to take the responsibility themselves and expect others to do it for them, then they can blame someone else when it doesn't go their way. What a cop out...It's no wonder Americans get discouraged, we have to listen to such negativity all the time.

I felt hope again after Obama's speech, and glad to hear him speak personally instead of listening to the media and their constant reports of "failure" and the ongoing battle of congressional bickering and rivalry.
Obama is not god, he cannot fix all of this on his own. He is a public servant, a good honest man with integrity. He inherited a tsunami of problems. Do you honestly believe it will turn around in a year? Any human being who has faced their own hardships know, that it takes time people. Support him. You voted him in. Stay behind him.

Congress should be ashamed that they are so small minded. It is up to them to work these issues out. Personally, I am tired of all the whining, complaining and negative remarks and that includes the media's 2 cents, always telling us what we feel, always over analyzing and creating controversy where there is none. Don't assume that everyone is against Obama now. Because it is simply not true.

Read the article CNN/Social media on Obama speech mirrors Americans' frustration

A MAN AND HIS TRUCK: MR. BROWN GOES TO WASHINGTON

 

I hope this shakes up everyone in DC, not just the White House or Democrats. Politics as usual is what was rejected.

We are sick of buying votes with OUR money,
We are sick of corruption,
We are sick of juvenile, negative campaigns,
We are sick of behavior in office more suited to a dorm room than the halls of Congress.

Get your acts together and remember on whose behalf you were elected. If a seat held by Senator Kennedy for 47 years can flip like this, no one is immune from this outrage.

Read the article BOSTON GLOBE/ Big win for Brown

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Massachusetts' voters expressed their anger with the status quo the only way they knew how - they voted for the opposition.

Now, Obama and the Dems can listen to the "conventional wisdom" of the cable news and corporate media pundits and try moving further to the right. Or, they can instigate some real change by no longer letting politics trump policy.

The fact that Obama's been so politically tone deaf is what's really astounding. He needs to rid himself of the Clintonista's and start from scratch on everything from healthcare to financial reform.

If the Dems can't keep their Caucus together on the big issues, they can't govern. And, if they can't govern people are simply going to stop voting for them.

Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/A year later, voters send a different message

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A paradigm shift is occurring in the American electorate, as Coakley acknowledged by referencing "voter anger".

The absolute lowest approval of Congress on record...and EVERYONE who votes knows that it is a Leftist Democrat Congress right now, a congress without even a hint of Republican ability to counteract any liberal despotic bill.

Blaming Republicans has been literally beaten to death. That ain't working any more. The fact is Americans are truly p*ssed off and truly fed up with liberal nonsense...those so-called elements of change who have been parked in DC now for decades while hypocritically claiming "if only we had more power."

A steaming mad electorate is demanding change. Democrat Coakley is more of the same. And it just may finally be that what's been good for the goose, will be for the gander as well, and about time too.

Read the article WALL STREET JOURNAL/Obama stumps in Massachusetts to make last minute appeal

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We're hard-wired to vote Democrat here in Massachusetts, but we still want to think the party cares about our vote. And if this seat is so important, then the Democrats should have realized they'd need to step up the pace in Massachusetts after it was clear that nothing would be passed on health care reform before the winter break.

A Scott Brown victory doesn't mean Massachusetts is going Republican. Whatever the GOP says in public, privately they consider Brown to be to the left of Scozzafava, who was considered too left for them to support in New York. Also, we have a habit of occasionally voting for a moderate Republican (mostly as governors) - we find that more work gets done when there isn't a monopoly.

Read the article DAILY BEAST/Final poll shows Brown ahead

This should be a wake up call to Dems. Choose your candidates very carefully. It may not be a country turning more conservative, as much as it is candidates who are poor campaigners who were often totally off message and tone deaf.

Much was made of the Republican victory here in Virginia, but, I live here. I am a life long Dem. I can tell you for a fact the Dem candidate for governor, Creigh Deeds, ran one of the most clumsy campaigns I have ever seen. One of the very worst. He even dissed the President and ignored the black community. That is why he lost.

Read the article DAILY BEAST/Final poll shows Brown ahead

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Governor Dean would not have been so complacent about any Democratic race. Candidate Coakley has no record of national Democratic achievement to run on and the current Democratic strategy of corporate appeasement is failing to gain much momentum from the much reviled progressives who were a key to President Obama's victory last year.

Should this election be lost, or even really, really close, it should be a wake up call to the President's people that we need less of Harold Ford, and more of Dr. Dean, if President Obama wants to be more than a one-term historical footnote who squandered his political capital by bowing to his political opponents as he forgot the people that believed in his message.

Read the article DAILY KOS/Ten days of Scott Brown

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I am as happy as anyone that MA has remembered it's heritage, Breeds Hill, and rejected the out of control power grab going on in Washington. Yes, i believe healthcare played a significant part but this should not be about healthcare only.

It is time for renewal in America. We have strayed far from the system that made this country unique in world history. Our citizens have become selfish and isolated from their government.

The reason for our past success was government BY the people. That's you and me involved. If not in office at least closely involved with those that are.

This can only happen at a local level. They should tell their state what they want done, if it has to be done at a state level. The states ARE the Federal Governments managers. They should make sure that it is as small as possible while providing for the common defense etc. States are responsible for their own citizens.

It doesn't matter if you are liberal or conservative. When you are sitting side by side with your neighbors deciding how your children will be educated, how the poor will be taken care of etc. there will be al lot less ideology and a lot more consensus.

Large central governments don't work. Go back to the model that did!

Read the article WALL STREET JOURNAL/Brown wins Massachusetts senate seat, possibly upending Obama agenda

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Is Scott Brown the perfect candidate? No. Is Scott Brown the answer? No. But I'll tell you what, he got my vote because he's not the problem.

Voters like me (independent voter, in my 30's, raising kids, struggling to get even close to the same quality of life I had 10 years ago, tired of the partisan games run by the politcal machine, etc.) were mad enough to give him a chance. Gas up the truck, Scott and Democrats everywhere should get it off cruise control or look into renting moving trucks. Deval Patrick is next. Then John $$ Kerry.

This is a clear message to Washington that we no longer want to hear that this is "George Bush's fault", we want to hear and see what you are going to do to reverse the course of this country. Big government and high taxes will run us into back into the colonial age. Enough is enough. Action, not rhetoric and smiles.

Read the article BOSTON GLOBE/ISwept off our feet

 

 

JANUARY 18, 2010 -- JANUARY 24, 2010

"WAS HARRY REID RIGHT?" ASKS THE ROOT

 

An old white woman says: "Negro" was the preferred polite identification in my segregated youth, versus "colored" or worse; and Harry Reid is even older than I am, so give the old fool a break. Yes, it reflects a racial stereotype of a thick South Carolina-Georgia- Alabama accent, but I think white people with that accent are looked down upon too. The light skin is a prejudice that African-Americans shared, isn't it?

So old Harry is reflecting the attitudes of his time. I voted for Obama and I will again. Our First Lady is a dazzling woman we can all be proud to see on the world stage. This mess is one more Republican attempt to slow the President's forward momentum and destroy a lawfully elected head of state. Don't let them "take back their country" while the rest of us bicker about nomenclature.

Read the article THE ROOT/Was Harry Reid Right?

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Please stop with the hypocrisy. Everyone in here knows that for some of the voting public--and I am talking about some Democrats, too--factors such as Obama's lightness and his articulateness are what make them comfortable enough with him to vote him into office. That was what was being discussed when this remark was made, his electability, right? And of course black people switch up how they talk depending on the setting and who is present, that "dialect", as Harry called it, turns on and off almost without thought, we have done this all our lives until it is a part of who most of us are.

Obviously his choice of words seem somewhat out of touch, but I think that in all of white America, you will find only a few people who are able to speak about stuff like this using words that black people would not either laugh or shake their heads at. Point is, he was voicing his SUPPORT for why Obama should be the candidate. Sorry if some people still cannot stomach how the game of politics is played. Fact is, you play on EVERY aspect of what makes a candidate electable. If that is distasteful to you, you are probably going to lose. Wish it was not this way, but it is.

Read the article THE ROOT/Was Harry Reid Right?

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This isn't a racial moment, this is a "DUH!" moment.

Barack Obama ran not as a black/Negro/African American candidate but as a "post racial candidate;" had he run any other way he would have lost.

As many have noted, Harry Reid is an 'old guy,' and clearly his use of Negro wasn't intended to be derogatory. And given that he was urging Obama to run - and given Reid's own history regarding equal opportunity - it's obvious that he was simply stating the obvious and pointing to two factors that would make it possible for Obama to fly beneath at least some of the racist radar.

For anyone to equate Reid's comments with those of Trent Lott, who said flat-out that America would be a better place had the Dixiecrat racist candidate Strom Thurmond beaten Harry Truman - is sheer idiocy.

Read the article THE ROOT/Was Harry Reid Right?

 

JANUARY 11, 2010 -- JANUARY 17, 2010

SENIOR MOMENTUM: 150,000 ANGRY MEMBERS RETIRE FROM THE AARP

 

As one of the 150,000 who discontinued our membership and are returning to sender everything we receive from AARP, I want to say that it is clear that AARP arrogantly believes that 2,000,000 other members stayed or joined due to the position the organization took on health care.

I personally believe the other members haven't researched health care reform and are, like most of the citizens of the USA, complacent and believe there is nothing they (citizens) can do.

I do not agree and plan to end the complacency' beginning in my house, branching out to my neighborhood, my city, my county uniting with like minded citizens who believe this country is indeed of, for and by the people, not the fat-cat governmental representatives and, most certainly, not AARP!

Read the article CNN/150,000 seniors in revolt.

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I laugh every time that I read a story about AARP and people being shocked that it earns more money brokering insurance than memberships. Anyone who looks at its roots understands that AARP was started to sell insurance by an insurance company. For the first years of it existence it didn't even own its own membership list.

Read the article CNN/150,000 seniors in revolt.

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As an AARP member, I am pleased that AARP is backing the health reform efforts of the President and Congress. Perhaps my health care will cost me a little more, but as a decent, industrialized society, we must insure that all our citizens have adequate access to health care.

This is only a first step. We have more to do, including rationalizing our health care system, perhaps stopping unnecessary suits against hospitals and doctors (provided their professional institutions actually do monitor and rid the system of unqualified or otherwise dangerous medical practitioners or institutions – which they don't at this time in my view.) We need to work together to insure that no one is left out or left behind. Let's finish the health care work and then:

Next step – more government help for those in need for education through college and free remedial and job training courses for those that need them.

Read the article CNN/150,000 seniors in revolt.

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What ever happened to " I am my brother's keeper?" I was taught that blood is thicker than water; but it did not stop there. I had to figure out who my brother was; America, and all of you rich & poor. I have defended you with my life and I refuse to stand back and watch you die.

To deny someone health care in 2010 is criminal. I have worked all of my life serving this country and my fellow man. I will never receive the benefits which I have paid into. However, there is hope that someone, anyone, will not lose a mother, father, sister, or brother, because they could not afford medical care.

Everyone needs to get over themselves and their own selfish agendas and give back to this great country.

Read the article CNN/150,000 seniors in revolt.

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What people generally tend to forget about the AARP is that they are a LOBBYING organization the same way that AAA and the NAACP are. Their point is to represent like-minded seniors and advocate on their behalf.

Just because the AARP takes a particular stance on an issue does not mean that they are just in it for the money. We may not truly understand why they took the position they did (and I agree with some of the comments on here that the AARP has been too conservative in the past), but they believe they did it in the best interest of their members, and losing 150,000 to gain over 2 million is certainly a risk I would be willing to take.

Read the article CNN/150,000 seniors in revolt.

 

JANUARY 4, 2010 -- JANUARY 10, 2010

"THEY STILL CAN'T" -- CONNECTING THE DOTS OF TERRORISM

THEY STILL CAN'T -- ANALYSIS

Seems very sad how accurate this is. All the news I hear is, over and over, on adding more scanners, and what can be done differently, and whose fault it was. Over and over, I hear about how the father went to the embassy in Nigeria to say “Maybe you should keep an eye on my son.” Not something normally done by a father hoping to keep his kid out of trouble.

You would think at some point someone would go, hey, maybe we should look into this. But when you have 10 different agencies doing the same job, bit of a problem sorting it out. You need 1 spot, not 10. Every acronym agency does not really need the same warehouse of data. Read the article AUTOPSIS/They still can't

 

THE NAKED RESPONSE TO FULL BODY SCANS

Americans and their right to privacy-- do they not know that privacy means little to nothing when their entire world is wrapped in terror and the risk of death. The TSA can look at my naked body any day of the week... rather that than me requiring my right to privacy so that others can slip through and strip me of my right to life. I'd rather be happy than dead, and to demand the right to privacy may be right, but it brings no life. Read the article SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ Do airport imagers invade privacy?

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The Islamic terrorists have achieved their aims. We have allowed ourselves to become terrorised and we have severely restricted our own liberties as a response to that. Game and set to the terrorists.

I fly regularly and I am sick to my guts of the utterly nonsensical "security" procedures that are now in place. I feel shame every time I am forced to subject myself to them, because they represent rank cowardice. Our cowardice as people and as a society. If I were a terrorist I would be laughing at us. At our horrible, gutless cowardice.

The decent, brave, gutsy response to terrorism is to refuse to be cowed and refuse to significantly change your ways We have to man up and accept that being blown up in the air, or on trains, or in the streets, is just another risk we have to live with today along with getting knocked over by a bus, being stabbed by a feral hoodie or getting cancer. It is still a very, very low risk. We need to face up to it like decent, grown-up people.

I'm not saying ditch basic security measures completely; of course I'm not. I'm saying keep them reasonable - you know, only do things that actually make some sense and do NOT sacrifice a tolerable travel experience for millions of people every day for the sake of perhaps, maybe, fingers crossed, saving a couple of hundred people once every couple of years or so.

We have lost the ability (if, indeed, we ever had it) to assess risk and to respond proportionately to risk. The risk of terrorist atrocity on an aeroplane is still low, low, low, and the absurd response to it is so laughably disproportionate it isn't even funny. Shame on us.

Read the article U.K. GUARDIAN/The war on terror has been about scaring people, not preotecting them

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To all of you "stripped of my life people." Your odds of getting killed in an airplane due to terrorist activity is about 1 in 10 mil. Your odds of getting hit by lightening? 1 in 500,000. There is not a realistic risk here. We have a constitution for reason: to protect us from the tendency of some to overreact. We cannot be expected to toss our rights away every time a extremely remote danger presents itself.

Read the article SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ Do airport imagers invade privacy?

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I'm shocked by the pushback to this. It's one thing to be strip-searched and cavity-searched. It's another thing to have a stranger view the outlined, holographic image of your body for 3 seconds at best....and someone you will likely never see again and who will never see you.

Get real people! It's a small price to pay in order to not be blown out of the sky. It's unfortunate that it's coming to this, but as this most recent event has shown, Do Not Fly lists are far from fool-proof -- our best defense is impeccable screening systems at the gate. And not only that, how in any way is this a loss of "freedom"?

A loss of freedom would be not being able to fly at all because terrorism has made the sky unsafe. Get a grip and get some perspective!!!!

I am more socially liberal than conservative, considering myself rational and NOT ideological.

Read the article FOX NEWS/TSA looks to expland use of full-body scanners at U.S. airports

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There is NO sanity to arguing we NOT allow imaging or body searching passengers on shared transportation -- especially during an era where radical idiots who kill abound.

Be realistic: These religious fanatics are crazy and really do want to kill you, me and the other passengers.

Why would we NOT use the best technology and techniques that we can devise to preserve American lives and to support our economy?

I understand the principles at risk, but they are trumped under the specific circumstances (you are using a shared mode of transportation, which means you give up something) and the absolute risk (the threat is growing, not declining).

Further, tthere are other actions the US must take that have nothing directly to do with the safety of air transport. And, we as a nation must decide if our survival warrants the termination of active threats to our citizens.
Read the article SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ Do airport imagers invade privacy?

 

DECEMBER 28, 2009 -- JANUARY 3, 2009

THE FAILED BOMBING AND THE CYCLE OF FEAR

 

The terrorists win again, and they didn't even have to successfully pull anything of to do it... that's how pathetic we've become as people. Just look at commenter #15's comment, "No plane trips for me until we have a grown up in charge again." ...makes sense, because this commenter is clearly a child who needs a parent to make him feel safe from the bogey-man.

Let's be honest, this was a pathetic attempt at a terrible crime attempted by a person no smarter than you or I, and we all respond with irrational panic and fear... it's exactly the response that makes stupid stunts like these attractive to terrorist orgs... low cost, disposable people, repeatable, high effect. Nothing about this actually threatens the "security" of the US, but we all act as if it did.

Perhaps we could all be adults, and just look at these things as crimes, and refuse to let it change our day-to-day lives, these sorts of things will stop happening. I'm not saying we should drop security, but we should drop the fear. We could all fly naked with no carry-on, and this could still happen.

Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/Qaeda-linked group claims it was behind bomb attempt

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Man, half of you people are sad, sick, and ignorant. You don't even for a second think that maybe what Al-Qaeda really wanted all along was to take away what made us American, to let the effects of terror destroy the fabric of our Nation, that what makes the US great.

If some of the people here just spitting venom at their own President at a time like this, at their neighbors who don't buy the talking points, saying things our enemies only wish they could get us to say to each other; if those people who are obsessed with Fox News propaganda educated themselves beyond whatever the TV tells them is the way to think than they might know that Bin Laden used to complain that he couldn't provoke us to behave the way we did during the Bush administration because then he knew that it would be easy for him to turn the world against us and recruit an army of terrorists.

Far more important though is that he wins, all our enemies win, when we become divided (and thus can be conquered), when we say worse things about each other than our enemies even say about us, when we believe the worst voices who aren't "America the Brave" anymore but just voices of "America the Scared."

The real question is: knowing that even if we give up all our freedoms and rights (that what makes us American) and lock up every Muslim and Arab in our country we still will be attacked eventually, can we make a decision to stand together united and committed to not letting the terrorists win by destroying who we are and turning us into a war obsessed hyper-paranoid scared creatures too busy being miserable and tearing at each other to be able to effectively face our fears and challenges by relying on each other...

By remembering our history and how have won when we stick together, remembering that we are better than those thugs, those barbarians, and being the America that can get the world to join with us to fight when they see that we are not what our enemies claim we are? Think hard on it, please.

Read the article ABC NEWS/Abdulmutallub: More Like Me in Yemen

 

As soon as we stoop to their level, we are no better then they are. It is our higher moral standard that separates us from them. It is our freedom, that they despise. As soon as we abandon that, they have won. We will become our own worst enemy. I would rather die in a terrorist attack, than sacrifice one bit of my freedom or liberty. It was Patrick Henry that said, "give me liberty, or give me death". I take those words to heart.

You sir, are a terrorist in an indirect way. You ask for sacrifice from all of us, when all you want is your own personal safety, and foolish national pride. You perpetuate the cycle of fear in which terrorism exists.

We can be prudent in protecting ourselves, but we should not be oppressive to our own people, nor should we be oppressive to others, regardless of the intent of a few individuals. Oppression has a way of spreading into the everyday lives of normally law abiding citizens no matter who we perpetrate it on.

Read the article DAILY BEAST/Al Qaeda: We did it

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Banning bathroom breaks is not going to prevent attacks. Banning carry-ons is not going to prevent attacks. Nor is banning blankets, iPods, hairpieces, jewelry, eyeglasses or clothes. Someone can still stick an IED up their butt, then they'll have to ban having PASSENGERS on planes.

No normal person wants to die on a plane or anywhere else, and no one wants to be seen as having dropped the ball when it comes to implementing security measures. But we are going to have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that if we are truly at war, then we'll have to (as a populace) behave that way. Fly at your own risk, drive at your own risk, and get on with it.

You're still far more likely to be killed in a regular plane crash (not to mention car, bus, or any other form of transportation) than in a terrorist bombing. If that should change, we'll all have to make some more difficult decisions.

I'm not saying we should be laissez-faire about air travel security. If they want to implement emergency measures while they figure out better screening practices, that's fine, but emergency measures have a way of becoming permanent when it becomes clear that they're easier than fixing the problems that caused them to be imposed. We need to find a balance that keeps us safe without causing unnecessarily anxiety and reduction in travel. U.K.TIMES/I'm the first of many, warns airline "bomber

 

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