Grade Obama's first 100 days

[JMohegan]

I could not have made this up, though it's the kind of thing I thought I was dreaming maybe one morning till I googled it to make sure I hadn't been. I saw this interview on TV and couldn't stop WTF'ing.

She was doing the talk show circuit heavily, and Bush basically made her the head of a whole gang-violence initiative. She kept up with "gosh golly, I wouldn't call it a czar" and all that but it's true. The message these people sent was clear:

Laura Bush is what we're going to deploy on the issue of thousands of young men of color (mostly) dying and killing one another. That's how important it is to us.

Now I understand the value of the First Lady as an attention-getting figure, but gang violence? Insane much?

Okay, that's more than bizarre. Highly objectionable, for a host of reasons one would think should be obvious.

 

[WriterDom]

Laura Bush gets a heaping dose of fail for even considering let alone accepting a position as "gang czar" I am not shitting you, based on her prodigious qualification as a kindergarten teacher. Asshole.

And we had issues with Caroline Kennedy.

I think the first hundred are about as well exectuted as can be. It's the rest I'm worried about and it's time to get cracking on things like - unfucking the utter fucking to personal privacy and extension of executive power of the last 4. There had better be some kind of reconciliation with the idea that we're not a country that rapes kills and maims its detainees, or spies on its populace, and furthermore that doing these things from a position of power in this country, elected or unelected, has some fucking consequence.

Does anyone think East Germany took a day to get like that? Or that the things that led there sounded insane and stupid rather than seductive and appealing to the average person?

We'll just have to exist with some consciousness of our risk like other countries, on the high ground and not in the sewer we're in. Or we might as well give up the whole project.

Perhaps you'd feel different if you were the one getting threat briefings everyday. We're probably going to get attacked at some point anyway. The last thing Obama wants to do is dismantle stuff for him to get any blame. Hence, the 30,000 more boots in the ground in Afghanistan. The 17,000 was just a down payment.

 

[JMohegan]

Perhaps you'd feel different if you were the one getting threat briefings everyday. We're probably going to get attacked at some point anyway. The last thing Obama wants to do is dismantle stuff for him to get any blame. Hence, the 30,000 more boots in the ground in Afghanistan. The 17,000 was just a down payment.

"All we have to fe-yah..... "

This is a country of laws. Checks and balances, a court system.

Even if Obama is tempted to give in to fear, as his predecessor did, that fear does not get to trump the Constitution. Not in the long run.

 

[BentSecrets]

No one had a peep about this with the airlines. Or the farms. Or the myriad other instances of corporate welfare, and I say a shit minimum wage where social services have to pick up the slack when people can't make it at the taxpayer expense is a form of subsidy for big box and industry - no one had a squeak. The banks got theirs and went on as usual with bonuses and parties.

But holy shit, Union Ed makes seventy bucks an hour and whoaaaaa!

I'll say it: The government should NEVER bailout ANY business of ANY kind for ANY reason, EVER.

Nor should there even be SUCH A THING as a minimum wage. People know what they can and can't live on, they can damn well negotiate for themselves. Employment should be a 100% VOLUNTARY choice between the employer and the employee. If the deal doesn't make either one happy, they walk. End of story.

 

[00Syd]

I'll say it: The government should NEVER bailout ANY business of ANY kind for ANY reason, EVER.

Nor should there even be SUCH A THING as a minimum wage. People know what they can and can't live on, they can damn well negotiate for themselves. Employment should be a 100% VOLUNTARY choice between the employer and the employee. If the deal doesn't make either one happy, they walk. End of story.

Wow, I would love to see how that works out.

 

[WriterDom]

"All we have to fe-yah..... "

This is a country of laws. Checks and balances, a court system.

Even if Obama is tempted to give in to fear, as his predecessor did, that fear does not get to trump the Constitution. Not in the long run.

Not if you are captured on the battlefield. I don't care what a judge says. Those guys should have been held at Gitmo until the threat/war is over. You know about 55 of them who left Gitmo were recaptured later doing the same shit. And the last place we need to put them is in federal prisons where they can recruit others.

 

[JMohegan]

Not if you are captured on the battlefield. I don't care what a judge says. Those guys should have been held at Gitmo until the threat/war is over. You know about 55 of them who left Gitmo were recaptured later doing the same shit. And the last place we need to put them is in federal prisons where they can recruit others.

Held without trial, and routinely abused, until the threat of terrorism ends?

 

[Netzach]

We're probably going to get attacked at some point anyway.

Yes.

Life goes on. I still travel, drink, drive in a car. I prefer to take my walking down the street risks without Big Brother peeking in my undies. I'm more likely to die from a stray gangland bullet than a terrorist. Frankly, so are you.

I also think it's amusing that everyone's forgotten McVeigh. The next attack that takes place will likely be pissed off Jesus nuts. There are more of them here.

 

[Netzach]

Not if you are captured on the battlefield. I don't care what a judge says.

The majority were not. No one bothered to separate the sheep or anything, they just went medieval on them all.

My ethical objections, high as they are, are secondary to my efficacy and endangering the troops objections, frankly.

 

[Netzach]

I'll say it: The government should NEVER bailout ANY business of ANY kind for ANY reason, EVER.

Nor should there even be SUCH A THING as a minimum wage. People know what they can and can't live on, they can damn well negotiate for themselves. Employment should be a 100% VOLUNTARY choice between the employer and the employee. If the deal doesn't make either one happy, they walk. End of story.

I like this idea. It works very well with Chinese quality control employees.

 

[WriterDom]

Held without trial, and routinely abused, until the threat of terrorism ends?

It's not a crime. It's an act of war. Now we can't even say war OR terror but there are boys and girls locking and loading.

For only the second time in 5 years the Rasmussen poll has generic republicans over democrats. By three points even. Change is coming.

 

[MisterSir]

Nor should there even be SUCH A THING as a minimum wage. People know what they can and can't live on, they can damn well negotiate for themselves.

Do you actually know why the idea of a minimum wage was first brought up? It was intended as a reply to the use of sweatshops in the manufacturing industries at the turn of the 20th century, who'd employ a lot of young workers with no other real options and pay them significantly substandard wages. You know why they got away with doing that? Because the manufacturers had all the bargaining power, and that's still the case today.

You take away the minimum wage and people are going to find themselves without a leg to stand on because the individual unskilled worker - I'm generalising here, let's assume that everybody in a position where they're making the minimum wage is unskilled - doesn't have any power, and even in a union they don't have much at all. If an unskilled worker goes it alone and tells the prospective employer that they can't support themselves on whatever wage is being offered (let's say £5/hour, just below the minimum over here), the employer will just hire somebody who can and will accept the £5/hour offer.

Even if a large group of similarly-unskilled workers demand more than £5/hour, the employer might well be in a position to ignore their demands and hire...say, immigrants. I don't like going to the immigrant argument because it's so, so overused, but it's elementary finance - if you can replace a group of workers with another, cheaper group of workers and not experience any drop-off, then there's no non-financial reason not to do it.

As it stands, while the minimum wage doesn't give the unskilled worker any more power than they'd have without it, it prevents them being exploited. You can argue about the level of the minimum wage all you like, whether it's too low or too high - I say too low, although that's mostly because people think that sitting on their arses and taking benefits beats earning minimum wages, a problem which could easily be fixed in other ways - but the goals and the theory behind the minimum wage itself isn't up for debate.

To return to the original topic: No grade. It'd be like me declaring JaMarcus Russell a bust - he's had one season, and even that was with the Raiders. It's just not long enough to make a decision.

 

[JMohegan]

It's not a crime. It's an act of war. Now we can't even say war OR terror but there are boys and girls locking and loading.

For only the second time in 5 years the Rasmussen poll has generic republicans over democrats. By three points even. Change is coming.

Rasmussen, your old friend! I actually think of you, WD, every time I look at their numbers.

Do you know how Rasmussen words the generic Congressional question? Fox's version, found here and copied below, shows the Democrats 13 points up.


"In the next congressional election in 2010, are you more likely to:
SCALE: 1. Vote for the Democrat to help Barack Obama pass his policies and
programs 2. Vote for the Republican to provide a check on Obama's power 3. (Too soon to say) 4. (Don't know/Refused)"

 

[JMohegan]

Wow, I would love to see how that works out.

You could always read The Jungle.

 

[00Syd]

You could always read The Jungle.

Yes, that's a good one! I do seem to recall quite a bit of suffering and other unpleasantness.

Another good book that might provide a clue to the pitifully uninformed as to how life without minimum wage might be: How The Other Half Lives