Politics in the Zeros. The politics of progress; cleantech, the economy. anti-war

Posts Tagged ‘Obama’

Michael Moore gives up on Democrats. “Wusses.. I’m sick of them”

“These Democrats are a bunch of wusses,” Moore told Raw Story in a hard-edged interview Wednesday. “They don’t have the courage of their convictions. They won’t stand and fight.”
It’s more than that. For the most part Congressional Dems are complicit, because they basically agree with the Republicans on most issues but have to pretend otherwise. [...]

I can’t believe they used to think Obama was a socialist

Obama calls for compromise on health care

Right. Because he needs to compromise more and hasn’t done it enough yet.
Obama’s middle-class meltdown

The rapid decline in public support for Democrats and President Obama represents one of the most breathtaking political collapses in modern times.
Well, he’s made the banksters quite happy, hasn’t he? Anything they want, they get. [...]

Screw health care for those irresponsible poor people, says Obama

From SocialismOrBarbarism on the Left Business Observer listserv
Obama at his “health care forum”–live, right now
“Those people who go to emergency rooms aren’t getting ‘free care.’ They are being paid for by people with insurance. Their ‘free care’ makes other people’s care go up, uh, $1000. So we are paying for those [poor, sick people] who [...]

Reviving nuclear power

President Obama this week announced a revival of the nuclear power industry with the first new planned new nuke plant in more than 30 years.  Obama promised loan guarantees of more than $8 billion.
Why can’t a nuclear power plant get built without the taxpayers promising to foot the bill?  Three Mile Island Unit #2 cost [...]

Obama accomplishments in cleantech and the environment

I squawk about Obama being way too cosy with the bankster, and he is. But – credit where credit is due – he’s been excellent on green issues.
Treehugger details 11 reasons why, among them

Rollback of Bush rules
The stimulus bill invests in clean energy
Moves EPA to regulate greenhouse gases
Sets a national auto emission standard

These are major [...]

Wake up call in Massachusetts

HuffPo
How could the health care issue have turned from a reform that was going to make Barack Obama ten feet tall into a poison pill for Democratic senators?
Whether or not Martha Coakley squeaks through in Massachusetts on Tuesday [today], the health bill has already done incalculable political damage and will likely do more. Either way, [...]

Obama to banking industry: “We want our money back and we’re going to get it”. Really?

Has he forgotten that possession is nine-tenths of the law?
And that the federal government gave them the money in the first place?
While Uncle Sam is normally able to defeat such long odds, all bets are off with our “Speak moderately and carry no stick” President.
Makes you long for LBJ, Bill Clinton, or even Bush. At [...]

On Obama’s plans to raise $120 billion from banking fees

Even Bloomberg says it’s fluff.

Tax experts, who discussed the possibilities before the president’s plan was disclosed, say all of the administration’s structural options, which include an income surtax, an excise tax, or a fee pegged on the value of assets or some other measure, are likely to be so porous that financial institutions would be [...]

Scariest jobs chart. As banksters get huge bonuses and White House snoozes

That’s what Business Insider calls this chart from Calculated Risk the scariest job chart ever We are in uncharted territory.
Meanwhile The Fed continues, as always, doing as little as possible to regulate while siphoning money to a few from the rest of us.
The Fed’s failures were legion, but five are worthy of particular note.
1. [...]

Obama’s elite power base

Both right- and left-wing critics fail to consider the fundamental nature of the Obama regime. This presidency represents not a traditional ideology but a new politics that mirrors the rise of a new, and potentially hegemonic class, one for which Obama is a near-perfect representative.
His support comes from financial interests, software, and alt energy, with [...]

On Obama. Apologists vs. Young Turks

Here are the two main positions among progressives now about Obama’s lack of action, as put forward by bloggers. I call it the apologists vs the young Turks and both of them appear to be loyal Democrats.
Cenk Uygur at Firedoglake takes the apologist position that Obama is just somehow misguided and progressives need to prod [...]

Criticizing the president on health care is “Naderite” and “hurts the progressive agenda,” Say, what?

Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake rightfully slams The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel apologia for Obama’s inaction.
The Obama White House has been working furiously to pass an enormous transfer of wealth to the insurance companies from the start. I don’t see how reporting this constitutes “attacking the administration,” or why it “hurts” the “progressive agenda” to do [...]

Obama as corporatist

Credit Writedowns ponders whether Obama is a “sellout, bamboozler, or ingénue,” and decides Obama is a corporatist. Not that it makes much difference because the outcome is the same.
The evidence, therefore, tends to demonstrate that we have witnessed an orchestrated campaign by the Bush and Obama Administrations to recapitalize too big to fail institutions by [...]

Climate Encounter: After Copenhagen

Copenhagen failed, but that doesn’t mean we’re powerless in the face of climate change. This video, the first of a series, briefly examines the Copenhagen debacle and what we can do about it.

HuffPo on the collapsing political power of the Obama presidency

What’s costing the president and courting danger for Democrats in 2010 isn’t a question of left or right, because the president has accomplished the remarkable feat of both demoralizing the base and completely turning off voters in the center. If this were an ideological issue, that would not be the case. He would be holding [...]