Do you think Obama is going to get re-elected?

[PigDogg]

(Jake_Sully @ Aug. 20 2010,19:17) I personally wouldn't mind a little bit higher interest rates. They're rock bottom right now.

My savings account gives an interest rate of 0.12%. That's pathetic.

I have had an online account with ING for about five years now and there interest rate is high compared to brick and mortar banks.

Right now it is 1.1%. FDIC insured.

Jake, I can send you link where we both get bonuses if u open an account. I think your bonus is 25 bucks.

[Jake_Sully]

Sure, I'd appreciate it and any banks that give good interest on CoD's as well if you know of any (FDIC insured ofcourse).

Thanks PD.

[balibeachboy2122]

Even though Obama made some political mistakes in regards to giving priority to certain pieces of legislation (mainly healthcare reform),putting to much faith in Congress to both create the proper bills and negate the negative aspects of it and generally lacked certain boldness in economic reform while all the while still being perceived at to anti business (he needs to put some CEO or people with genuine executive experiance in cabinet and he needs to do more then just hear them.....he needs to really listen and be influenced when proposals are proper),one might hope so for the sake of America.

The republican party in genuinely disorganised.It sort of shambolic that a movent like the ''tea party'' could get such traction with a supposed honorable party.Policywise the Republican are severly lacking as well.And even though big parts of the Democratic party are disorganised and unfit to legislate or lead in general als well it is mainly the idiotic policy of the Republican party to veto everything (try to),good or bad,that the president proposes.

Really,i think America is still the best stabilizer of geopolitical order,one of the most admiral countries in many aspects and that she garanties a status quo that i quit favourable compared to anything that a more multi polar world will bring.

America needs to adapt though and even though Obama has a lot of faults he is suprisingly centric in his style and ideas,he is both capable and levelheaded and most importantly,he does confirm and adapts a lot better to the new reality in the world then most americans (and certainly the better part of the Republican party).

Though his faults lie with a shortness of creatively building bridges to the business community and generally putting not enough emphasis on jobs and reforms that may safe the US again future economic turmoil (why the hell do Fanny and Freddy still exsist in there current form and why is there no sensible campagne to stop the ''owning your own house'' fetish that exsist in the States) he both deserves and should get another term.

As for the Republican party,why cant the sensible characters in the party stop the idiots (Palin,come on people i would hit it but she is quit uncapable to govern anything and lacks serieusly in both the selfreflecting department as the intelligence one),the christian extremist, and general demagogues (i know Limbaugh and Beck are not running for office but there influence is rather silly and american must understand that citizens of the world could hardly take Americans who support these breed of rather silly characters serieusly.I understand the need to be different but that shouldnt undermine your general reputation)?And please,you dont have to agree with presidental policy all the time but either give alternatives that are sensible or indulge and pick your battles.

[DexterH]

Although I think you make a good point about the Obama's relationship to business, the problem again is the legacy from the Bush Presidency. Businesses everywhere dislike regulation, but when you have the 'regulation-lite' approach to business that Bush had you end up with a banking/debt crisis as well as accidents such as Macondo where it seems Federal regulations on offshore drilling were not, shall we say, 'properly observed' -the result is that public reaction suggests more regulation of industry is needed -hard to get the big guns on your side when they are outside the tent. On the other hand it was Nixon who introduced the Environmental Protection Act (1970) one of the most radical pieces of legislation in the US since JFK -but one that 'became' radical because various lobbyists (like the Sierra Club) actually used the Act to take companies to court (if you can't afford to take action the law can sometimes be sterile). Nevertheless an important point.

[Jake_Sully]

You forget this is America. People can be as stupid as they want to be.  

The Liberals can put a man on the moon but the Conservatives call it economic waste.

The Conservatives can bankrupt the country and the Liberals can do nothing to stop it until they run into Sarah Palin.

[geezer]

I very much doubt you could call Werner Von Braun a Liberal, in fact he was about as far from being a liberal as you can get. And you should really read up on Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae, who and why they were created before you start drawing conclusions on who bankrupted the United States.

[Jake_Sully]

I was referring to Kennedy and Deregulation.

[alan1chef]

Legally, building a mosque a couple of blocks from Ground Zero is not a problem. Although I don't agree with it's approval, they have the right to locate there. I think it does show a measure of insensitivity on the part of the mosque builders, who must have known well in advance that their move would be a bitter pill for many to swallow.

As for Palin...the Republican Party is much too smart to let her get anywhere close to any nomination...lol.

[Torurot]

>As for Palin...

I wouldn't bet $$$ on that!

[geezer]

(Jake_Sully @ Aug. 22 2010,06:22) I was referring to Kennedy and Deregulation.

My bad, I was refering to the Father of the American Space progam. who is probably more responsible for putting a man on the moon than a politician.

But seriously it's quite hard to blame any one party for the current financial situation, believe me there is more than enough blame for it to go around to both parties.

[DexterH]

Apparently Pamela Geller who has been a driving force behind the anti-Mosque campaign is a supporter of the 'English Defence League' -yes, she is Jewish and proud of it, but evidently that doesn't mean she can read. The EDL 'leader' was on UK Tv on Friday night explaining, of course, that he is not 'racist', 'some of my best friends are Muslims' etc etc...but then lots of broads look good in bikinis...I was born in the UK but have never been able to define 'English'. Toast and Marmalade sounds ever-so-English except Marmalade wasn't invented here, neither was tea. And so it goes on.

[Jake_Sully]

Interesting opinion this morning on ABC's This Week by George Will - someone I respect greatly.

He said, "A religion is what its practitioners and followers say and do in any particular era. There have been era's when Christianity featured a lot of hideous behavior, often by Christians against other Christians. And many Americans understanding of Islam is the fact that while not all adherents of the faith are terrorists, all the terrorists trying to kill us are Islamic. And that I think is what you are seeing."

Continuing later he said, "I think a month from now people are going to say, what was that all about? This is an August story, that is its a slow news time and you can always tell a fundamentally weak story because it turns on sensitivity. Is so and so being sensitive to someone else. Sensitivity is OVERRATED frankly!" chopping his hand on the desk to make a point.

Robert Reich with a smirk: "May I quote you on that?"

George Will: "You may. Its the nature of a free society."

Christiane Amanpour: "There's quite a push back from the 9/11 families."

George Will: "Well that's too bad! The fact is when you have an entitlement to have everyone be sensitive to everyone else, that's how you get speech codes on campuses so we will not have speech, it could offend somebody. There is no right to go through life without your feelings being heard."

[balibeachboy2122]

Perhaps there is enough blame to go around in regard to the whole financial mess.

Fact of the matter is though,even in you take into acount conjuncture (etc etc) that Clinton went from a deficit to a big surplus and the Republicans under Bush are responsible for one of the biggest meltdowns ever.Now do i think the reason for this are also partly Democratic (especially in regards to Fannie and Freddy...and please explain why there situation isnt one of the prime examples of why long term economic policy in the usa was/is disasterous) but since the Republicans where the party in power we all this happend you would atleast expect both
a)some modest and self criticism aka realism
b)some sort of decency and forsight to try to repair as much a possible the current situation even is this means working with the ''enemy''

Though you could probably can label me a liberal (i am from Europe so even though my political preferences are a little right of the middle over there i am probably a little left of the middle in regards to policy in the States...if you can make such a generalization) but the lack of a serieus alternative is more then slightly vexing for me (even Gingrich,who atleast had some stable ideas before is making no sense at all nowadays).

Now as for the whole mosque issue.I could understand that this might be,in some way,offensive for families of deceased but from the point of the goverment,it would be kind of silly to forbid any kind of place where islamics can worship.....meaning the goverment can control what kind of people and what kind of mosque would be allowed to be build there (must be modern,with a liberal interpretation of Islam and a prowestern stance in the sense that there is no specific condemnation of american values or ideals ).

That a lot of Republicans use this issue as a rabble rousing tactic only confirms my current low opinion of the party and those that are in it.Couldn't the Republicans ask Robert Gates (last i check he was still officially a Republican) to lead the party into a more sensible periode......

[Torurot]

From:
How Fox Betrayed Petraeus
By FRANK RICH Published: August 21, 2010
NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/opinion/22rich.html

The article is FULL of links so if you want to see them click above

At the Islamophobia command center, Murdoch€™s News Corporation, the hypocrisy is, if anything, thicker.

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial darkly cited unspecified €œreports€ that Park51 has €œmoney coming from Saudi charities or Gulf princes that also fund Wahabi madrassas.€ As Jon Stewart observed, this brand of innuendo could also be applied to News Corp., whose second largest shareholder after the Murdoch family is a member of the Saudi royal family. Perhaps last week€™s revelation that News Corp. has poured $1 million into G.O.P. campaign coffers was a fiendishly clever smokescreen to deflect anyone from following the far greater sum of Saudi money (a $3 billion stake) that has flowed into Murdoch enterprises, or the News Corp. money (at least $70 million) recently invested in a Saudi media company.


August 21, 2010
How Fox Betrayed Petraeus
By FRANK RICH

THE €œground zero mosque,€ as you may well know by now, is not at ground zero. It€™s not a mosque but an Islamic cultural center containing a prayer room. It€™s not going to determine President Obama€™s political future or the elections of 2010 or 2012. Still, the battle that has broken out over this project in Lower Manhattan €” on the €œhallowed ground€ of a shuttered Burlington Coat Factory store one block from the New York Dolls Gentlemen€™s Club €” will prove eventful all the same. And the consequences will be far more profound than any midterm election results or any of the grand debates now raging 24/7 over the parameters of tolerance, religious freedom, and the real estate gospel of location, location, location.

Here€™s what€™s been lost in all the screaming. The prime movers in the campaign against the €œground zero mosque€ just happen to be among the last cheerleaders for America€™s nine-year war in Afghanistan. The wrecking ball they€™re wielding is not merely pounding Park51, as the project is known, but is demolishing America€™s already frail support for that war, which is dedicated to nation-building in a nation whose most conspicuous asset besides opium is actual mosques.

So virulent is the Islamophobic hysteria of the neocon and Fox News right €” abetted by the useful idiocy of the Anti-Defamation League, Harry Reid and other cowed Democrats €” that it has also rendered Gen. David Petraeus€™s last-ditch counterinsurgency strategy for fighting the war inoperative. How do you win Muslim hearts and minds in Kandahar when you are calling Muslims every filthy name in the book in New York?

You€™d think that American hawks invested in the Afghanistan €œsurge€ would not act against their own professed interests. But they couldn€™t stop themselves from placing cynical domestic politics over country. The ginned-up rage over the €œground zero mosque€ was not motivated by a serious desire to protect America from the real threat of terrorists lurking at home and abroad €” a threat this furor has in all likelihood exacerbated €” but by the potential short-term rewards of winning votes by pandering to fear during an election season.

We owe thanks to Justin Elliott of Salon for the single most revealing account of this controversy€™s evolution. He reports that there was zero reaction to the €œground zero mosque€ from the front-line right or anyone else except marginal bloggers when The Times first reported on the Park51 plans in a lengthy front-page article on Dec. 9, 2009. The sole exception came some two weeks later at Fox News, where Laura Ingraham, filling in on €œThe O€™Reilly Factor,€ interviewed Daisy Khan, the wife of the project€™s organizer, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Ingraham gave the plans her blessing. €œI can€™t find many people who really have a problem with it,€ she said. €œI like what you€™re trying to do.€

As well Ingraham might. Rauf is no terrorist. He has been repeatedly sent on speaking tours by the Bush and Obama State Departments alike to promote tolerance in Arab and Muslim nations. As Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic reported last week, Rauf gave a moving eulogy at a memorial service for Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan, at the Manhattan synagogue B€™nai Jeshurun. Pearl€™s father was in attendance. The Park51 board is chock-full of Christians and Jews. Perhaps the most threatening thing about this fledgling multi-use community center, an unabashed imitator of the venerable (and Jewish) 92nd Street Y uptown, is its potential to spawn yet another coveted, impossible-to-get-into Manhattan private preschool.

In the five months after The Times€™s initial account there were no newspaper articles on the project at all. It was only in May of this year that the Rupert Murdoch axis of demagoguery revved up, jettisoning Ingraham€™s benign take for a New York Post jihad. The paper€™s inspiration was a rabidly anti-Islam blogger best known for claiming that Obama was Malcolm X€™s illegitimate son. Soon the rest of the Murdoch empire and its political allies piled on, promoting the incendiary libel that the €œradical Islamists€ behind the €œground zero mosque€ were tantamount either to neo-Nazis in Skokie (according to a Wall Street Journal columnist) or actual Nazis (per Newt Gingrich).

These patriots have never attacked the routine Muslim worship services at another site of the 9/11 attacks, the Pentagon. Their sudden concern for ground zero is suspect to those of us who actually live in New York. All but 12 Republicans in the House voted against health benefits for 9/11 responders just last month. Though many of these ground-zero watchdogs partied at the 2004 G.O.P. convention in New York exploiting 9/11, none of them protested that a fellow Republican, the former New York governor George Pataki, so bollixed up the management of the World Trade Center site that nine years on it still lacks any finished buildings, let alone a permanent memorial.

The Fox patron saint Sarah Palin calls Park51 a €œstab in the heart€ of Americans who €œstill have that lingering pain from 9/11.€ But her only previous engagement with the 9/11 site was when she used it as a political backdrop for taking her first questions from reporters nearly a month after being named to the G.O.P. ticket. (She was so eager to grab her ground zero photo op that she defied John McCain€™s just-announced €œsuspension€ of their campaign.) Her disingenuous piety has been topped only by Bernie Kerik, who smuggled a Twitter message out of prison to register his rage at the ground zero desecration. As my colleague Clyde Haberman reminded us, such was Kerik€™s previous reverence for the burial ground of 9/11 that he appropriated an apartment overlooking the site (and designated for recovery workers) for an extramarital affair.

At the Islamophobia command center, Murdoch€™s News Corporation, the hypocrisy is, if anything, thicker. A recent Wall Street Journal editorial darkly cited unspecified €œreports€ that Park51 has €œmoney coming from Saudi charities or Gulf princes that also fund Wahabi madrassas.€ As Jon Stewart observed, this brand of innuendo could also be applied to News Corp., whose second largest shareholder after the Murdoch family is a member of the Saudi royal family. Perhaps last week€™s revelation that News Corp. has poured $1 million into G.O.P. campaign coffers was a fiendishly clever smokescreen to deflect anyone from following the far greater sum of Saudi money (a $3 billion stake) that has flowed into Murdoch enterprises, or the News Corp. money (at least $70 million) recently invested in a Saudi media company.

Were McCain in the White House, Fox and friends would have kept ignoring Park51. But it€™s an irresistible target in our current election year because it revives the most insidious anti-Obama narrative of the many Fox promoted in the previous election year: Obama the closet Muslim and secret madrassa alumnus. In the much discussed latest Pew poll, a record number of Americans (nearing 20 percent) said that our Christian president practices Islam. And they do not see that as a good thing. Existing or proposed American mosques hundreds and even thousands of miles from ground zero, from Tennessee to Wisconsin to California, are now under siege.

After 9/11, President Bush praised Islam as a religion of peace and asked for tolerance for Muslims not necessarily because he was a humanitarian or knew much about Islam but because national security demanded it. An America at war with Islam plays right into Al Qaeda€™s recruitment spiel. This month€™s incessant and indiscriminate orgy of Muslim-bashing is a national security disaster for that reason €” Osama bin Laden€™s €œnext video script has just written itself,€ as the former F.B.I. terrorist interrogator Ali Soufan put it €” but not just for that reason. America€™s Muslim partners, those our troops are fighting and dying for, are collateral damage. If the cleric behind Park51 €” a man who has participated in events with Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes, for heaven€™s sake €” is labeled a closet terrorist sympathizer and a Nazi by some of the loudest and most powerful conservative voices in America, which Muslims are not?

In the latest CNN poll, American opposition is at an all-time high to both the ostensibly concluded war in Iraq (69 percent) and the endless one in Afghanistan (62 percent). Now, when the very same politicians and pundits who urge infinite patience for Afghanistan slime Muslims as Nazis, they will have to explain that they are not talking about Hamid Karzai or his corrupt narco-thug government or the questionably loyal Afghan armed forces our own forces are asked to entrust with their lives. The hawks will have to make the case that American troops should make the ultimate sacrifice to build a Nazi €” Afghan, I mean €” nation and that economically depressed taxpayers should keep paying for it. Good luck with that.

Poor General Petraeus. Over the last week he has been ubiquitous in the major newspapers and on television as he pursues a publicity tour to pitch the war he€™s inherited. But have you heard any buzz about what he had to say? Any debate? Any anything? No one was listening and no one cared. Everyone was too busy yelling about the mosque.

It€™s poignant, really. Even as America€™s most venerable soldier returned from the front to valiantly assume the role of Willy Loman, the product he was selling was being discredited and discontinued by his own self-proclaimed allies at home.

[Jake_Sully]

Nice article but you forget "The people who vote for republicans" are sheep. I will not use a term such as middle america or conservatives since that's too much of an alienation term.

These are the people who convenient forgot their president had a memo named "Bin Laden determined to attack the United States" sitting on his desk. Their President lied to the American People to start another war which was not needed. Their President said mission accomplished when it was anything but. They don't accept Obama as their President or question his birthplace.

Quite honestly they don't even care about the economy.. they don't have 401k's or money in stock markets. Wall street doesn't affect them. It affects their favorite news channel anchors. Who can blame them for being tranced? No real exposure to the outside world except the Fox News Anchors and Rush Limbaugh. Did I mention Julie Banderas is hot?

They are just told they must vote for the republicans because anything else would mean they would be under siege. http://www.youtube.com/user/LiberalV.../1/Ol6D9A3-W2Q I talked with some people in 2004 a few days before the election and they said they'd never vote for a democrat as long as they lived because CNN is communist news network spreading lies. Only fox news give truthful news.

You may forget but last year in what the Department of Education was touting as a speech on education, President Obama was to be talking directly to students across the U.S., live on the White House website. But some parents and conservatives were blasting the president, calling the speech an excuse to brainwash American children.

They still can't make up their mind that is Obama a terrorist, a socialist, a communist, a liberal or a nazi. What they all agree is they don't want this guy around.

With so much hate towards 1 person, do you really think they'd care about secondary issues?

I'd go so far as to say they're screaming stop spending, but have no intention of doing so or balancing the budget, as soon as a republican is elected president. In fact it'll all be conveniently forgotten.