Obama

[Adam]

So have you guys noticed that the US has got a new president?  I did.  Kinda thought someone would make a topic like this after the inauguration, but that hasn't happened yet, and I figure this is probably a relatively important and interesting issue to discuss.

So after about 72 hours in office, Obama's already halted military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay, called for offshores CIA detention centers to close, issued executive orders for increased government ethics and transparency, eased restrictions/increasing funding for stem cell research, and he's looking for bipartisan support of his economic stimulus plan before sending it through Congress.

So whaddya think?  Good thing?  Bad thing?  Is Obama actually going to make good on his campaign promises, or is this just an enthusiastic honeymoon period?  How long do you think the honeymoon period will last?  If you're a fan of Obama the previously mentioned changes, do you think you'll be feeling the same way by the end of his term?  Or will he become just another stale, disappointing Washington politician?

[darkscar888]

I truly feel well just have to wait and see. It hasnt realy been long enough for us to see his true side.

[Fleamo]

I'm a big fan of the Executive Orders so far, but they were sort of designed to be pretty much everything he can do as president unilaterally.  There is probably not much more of this coming.  Now it's politics. 

[Art1st4786]

I don't agree with everything he's doing (i.e., shutting down Guantanamo), while I agree with others (i.e., government ethics and stem cell research).  I didn't vote for him in the election, but I have high respect for him as our president, and he has made smart decisions so far.  I hope he turns out to be a great president.

[hero of mist]

obama is awsome, nuf said.

[Big Tater]

I hope he doesn't turn out to be a stereotypical politician.  I haven't heard of one politician you can actually trust.  I didn't vote for him either, but I too respect him just because he's our president.  I'm just hoping he will be able to turn our economy around, and the health insurance thing. 

[K-64]

I don't think he will be able to completely turn the economy around, that will take years (about 30) to return to normal. But I think he will do a lot for it though

[Hyruleansoldier]

He's gonna do a lot of good, that's for sure.  But there will always be something the people will be complaining about.  It's the toughest job in the world, for crying out loud.  Newsreport shows he's been going gray just over the course of the past few months.  He'll be completely gray before the end of his term at this rate

Even without Bush the economy was destined to get messed up.  The way things have been going wasn't meant to go on forever.  People need to learn to settle for a little less and be happy for all the things they can still do and buy.  The economy will bounce back if some changes are made in the upper echelons, but also in the people's mentality.  Golden Years aren't meant to last forever.  Gas prices are not likely to drop, and things WILL get more expensive.  But if people take these changes into account, they will be able to deal with things better and see that it's really not as bad as it looks.  Other things (like social security) should get better, so there will be some sort of balance.  Just don't expect all changes to immediately affect you for the better.  You are just one of many, and for many to benefit, you must stand behind your people as a group, not as an individual who just wants every possible penny that might be coming to him.  If the people as a whole get better from the future economy and social situation, then you will too.  It's a little give and take which will allow society and economy to bounce back.

[NinJa]

Personally I approve of his stem cell research decision.

I didn't want him to win, but, he seems to be doing alright so far, I'd wait a year and see what happens. Didn't take long for Bush for us to know what was up. 

[darkscar888]

Im glad to know they dont need fetises anymore to do stem cell research. Bush stopped studies right when the figured that out. Doesn't make much sense.

[Fleamo]

I don't agree with everything he's doing (i.e., shutting down Guantanamo)

You don't agree with that?  Do go on.

obama is awsome, nuf said.

Care to elaborate?

I hope he doesn't turn out to be a stereotypical politician.  I haven't heard of one politician you can actually trust.  I didn't vote for him either, but I too respect him just because he's our president.  I'm just hoping he will be able to turn our economy around, and the health insurance thing.

Saying you can't trust a single politician is a bit of a blanket statement.  It's pretty much saying you can't trust a single other person, unless you think there is something about working for the public which makes someone untrustworthy.

I don't think he will be able to completely turn the economy around, that will take years (about 30) to return to normal. But I think he will do a lot for it though

30 years?  That is a long time.  There was a recession in 2001 that we recovered from.  Hell, even during the Great Depression GDP went like this:

Which puts it back on track in the late 1930s.  That puts the Great Depression at about a decade for recovery.  Do you really think the current recession is 3x worse than the Great Depression? 

[K-64]

Well, considering that some big companies that did survive the Great Depression have collapsed in this one, I'd say that it is worse. Plus the Bank of Scotland caved in, and that had been going for 300 years-ish and was renowned for being reliable. It's definitely not looking good from where I'm looking.

[nobleknightdaniel]

he might be the best president yet. at least he isn't like bush jr.

[tush222]

Barack Hussein Obama II (pronounced /bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama was the junior United States Senator from Illinois from January 2005 until November 2008, when he resigned after his election to the presidency.

Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.

Obama served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for United States Senate in 2004. His victory, from a crowded field, in the March 2004 Democratic primary raised his visibility. His prime-time televised keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004 made him a rising star nationally in the Democratic Party. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2004 by the largest margin in Illinois history.

He began his run for the presidency in February 2007. After a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination, becoming the first major party African American candidate for president. In the 2008 general election, he defeated Republican candidate John McCain and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009.

[Jacques Strappe]

Well, he's done some minor good things.  There are couple of insanely bad things he's done:

1) Signed into law the "Stimulus Bill". A 1000+ page, $1,500,000,000,000 - $1,700,000,000,000 that is supposed to "Stimulate the economy" by:
    1) Taking money out of the economy
    2) Taxing it
    3) Giving a cut to bureaucracies
    4) Putting it back into the economy as spending on things like:
        A) Swamp mouse habitat restoration in California
        B) ATV trails in public parks
        C) School lunch programs for all the kids whose parents can't feed them, but can give them $100 Nikes
        D) Electronic interactive whiteboards(fancy,expensive chalkboards) for schools
        E) All sorts of sweet deals for contractors who are friends with legislators
  Oh, BTW, there is little to no monitoring of how the money is spent, the head of the Treasury can't tell you how it's being spent or how it's helping the economy, and because of it, each of your as yet unborn grandkids is another $33,000 dolllars in debt.
Just so you can get an idea of what the new era of Hopey Change is building, here is a video by Reason magazine that makes it easy for us visual types to understand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yREOUxo6Qdc

2)  Had all charges dropped against Khalid Sheik Muhammed, the mastermind behind the bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 US soldiers, and who is also a major Al-Qaeda operative. Why? He's detained at Club Gitmo, where the prisoners have to endure such hardships as meals being served too warm and under-inflated basketballs.

3) Taken control of GM, forcing its CEO to step down among other things. For example, his team has decided to close over 1,200 dealerships.  Now, most of those dealerships are either profitable or breaking even.  So why are they closing them "Well, Toyota has a smaller number of dealerships, and they are successful, so we're going to mimic their business model" . That's the official reply.  However, if you look deeper, it has been found that a significant of those dealerships are owned by people who make  political contributions.  When you look at the numbers, over 90% of them contribute to the Republican Party. "A new era of politics" indeed. In fact, there is a dealership in Florida that does TWICE the business of the average GM dealership. That one is the first on the list to be closed. Why? It's owned by a Republican senator.   

4) Tim Geithner.  A tax cheat, to the tune of hundreds of thousands, overseeing the IRS. 'Nuff said.

5) Sonia Sotomayor.  Obama's Supreme Court Nominee likes to judge according to her feelings for members of her race in addition to the law, believes the judicial branch sets policy in addition to the legislative branch, and is a memeber of brown supremacist group The National Council for La Raza(The Race)

[Twilight Wolf]

5) Sonia Sotomayor.  Obama's Supreme Court Nominee likes to judge according to her feelings for members of her race in addition to the law, believes the judicial branch sets policy in addition to the legislative branch, and is a memeber of brown supremacist group The National Council for La Raza(The Race)

The Judicial branch does set policy.  Everytime they make a ruling, it goes into historical precedent.  See famous cases, like Brown v. Board of Education, or perhaps Roe v. Wade, which allowed for a woman's right to choose. 

[Geneaux486]

Don't forget that his administration is now trying to compile a list of people who spread "misinformation" regarding the health care reform.  Kind of like what Nixon did.

[Twilight Wolf]

Don't forget that his administration is now trying to compile a list of people who spread "misinformation" regarding the health care reform.  Kind of like what Nixon did.

Can you link to this?

2)  Had all charges dropped against Khalid Sheik Muhammed, the mastermind behind the bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 US soldiers, and who is also a major Al-Qaeda operative. Why? He's detained at Club Gitmo, where the prisoners have to endure such hardships as meals being served too warm and under-inflated basketballs.

Amnesty International has refferred to GITMO as being a human rights scandal, an NGO which wants to end abuses of human rights.  So I think there's a little more going on than your sarcastic attitude implies.

4) Tim Geithner.  A tax cheat, to the tune of hundreds of thousands, overseeing the IRS. 'Nuff said.

So he's using his own experience as to how he cheated taxes to make sure no one else does. 

3) Taken control of GM, forcing its CEO to step down among other things. For example, his team has decided to close over 1,200 dealerships.  Now, most of those dealerships are either profitable or breaking even.  So why are they closing them "Well, Toyota has a smaller number of dealerships, and they are successful, so we're going to mimic their business model" . That's the official reply.  However, if you look deeper, it has been found that a significant of those dealerships are owned by people who make  political contributions.  When you look at the numbers, over 90% of them contribute to the Republican Party. "A new era of politics" indeed. In fact, there is a dealership in Florida that does TWICE the business of the average GM dealership. That one is the first on the list to be closed. Why? It's owned by a Republican senator.

Please, can you even cite any sources on this matter?

Lastly, you criticize the stimulus bill, yet because of the stimulus bill, successful programs such as Cash for Clunkers have been made possible.  You are so quick to attack Obama for the stimulus bill, yet without it, businesses would have had to close, and the economy would have been even more in the crapper.  It was a damned if we do, damned if we don't situation.  Not only that, but let's break down your attack piece by piece.

4) Putting it back into the economy as spending on things like:
        A) Swamp mouse habitat restoration in California - We're saving a species habitat, what's wrong with that?
        B) ATV trails in public parks - Improve recreational activities. 
        C) School lunch programs for all the kids whose parents can't feed them, but can give them $100 Nikes - Racist.  Seriously, you conclude that all poor people can afford to buy expensive shoes.  Not only that, but I am sure that there are things you spend money on that aren't necessary.
        D) Electronic interactive whiteboards(fancy,expensive chalkboards) for schools - Those things help public schools and help the educational experience.  I've used some, they are fantastic.  What do you have against helping education? 
        E) All sorts of sweet deals for contractors who are friends with legislators - That's called lobbyists.  Look at Bush's midnight regulations.  He did the same thing. 

[Big Tater]

Cash for clunkers needs to take a back seat (pun intended); that $2 billion that's going into that should go to more important things...such as helping students pay for college.

[Assault on Mind]

Cash for Clunkers have been made possible.

Oh yeah that program where you I get to pay for people to buy cars.

I don't know about Sonya Sotomayor, as I haven't really looked into her that much. I did look somewhat into the Health Care Reform and listened to some people talk about it in those town-hall meetings. Apparently you lose some freedoms like to chose what goes into your health care plan, high deductible coverage, and even your own doctor. Some senior citizens were also talking about a part of the reform of where the could get cut off from the coverage because of their age, its been awhile so don't take into that one too seriously.

He has spent an incredible amount of money, thats for sure. I've heard of talk of taxing benefits because of the Health Care Reform. The long and short is that I've heard many things about Obama from claiming him to not being born in the U.S. to a very disturbing faith in him. I don't like him but I hope he can't help the country and not damn it. But the reason I know so little is because of a very annoying thing when people stand up and protest they are called racist and such, and I don't want to spend time on such idiotic statements.

So I hope he can do good, even if I don't like him. If he does a good job then I like him.

Of course I saw a really good thing pertaining to the Cash for Clunkers. Why incentivize spending money now on cars after we spent all that money bailing out the companies in the first place?