Intro: "The US Republican race is dominated by ignorance, lies and scandals. The current crop of candidates have shown such a basic lack of knowledge that they make George W. Bush look like Einstein. The Grand Old Party is ruining the entire country's reputation. Africa is a country. In Libya, the Taliban reigns. Muslims are terrorists; most immigrants are criminal; all Occupy protesters are dirty. And women who feel sexually harassed - well, they shouldn't make such a big deal about it."
The 2012 Republican presidential candidates. (photo: Reuters)
A Club of Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses
02 December 11
frica is a country. In Libya, the Taliban reigns. Muslims are terrorists; most immigrants are criminal; all Occupy protesters are dirty. And women who feel sexually harassed - well, they shouldn't make such a big deal about it.
Welcome to the wonderful world of the US Republicans. Or rather, to the twisted world of what they call their presidential campaigns. For months now, they've been traipsing around the country with their traveling circus, from one debate to the next, one scandal to another, putting themselves forward for what's still the most powerful job in the world.
As it turns out, there are no limits to how far they will stoop.
It's true that on the road to the White House all sorts of things can happen, and usually do. No campaign can avoid its share of slip-ups, blunders and embarrassments. Yet this time around, it's just not that funny anymore. In fact, it's utterly horrifying.
It's horrifying because these eight so-called, would-be candidates are eagerly ruining not only their own reputations and that of their party, the party of Lincoln lore. Worse: They're ruining the reputation of the United States.
'Freakshow'
They lie. They cheat. They exaggerate. They bluster. They say one idiotic, ignorant, outrageous thing after another. They've shown such stark lack of knowledge - political, economic, geographic, historical - that they make George W. Bush look like Einstein and even cause their fellow Republicans to cringe.
"When did the GOP lose touch with reality?" wonders Bush's former speechwriter David Frum in New York Magazine. In the New York Times, Kenneth Duberstein, Ronald Reagan's former chief-of-staff, called this campaign season a "reality show," while Wall Street Journal columnist and former Reagan confidante Peggy Noonan even spoke of a "freakshow."
That may be the most appropriate description.
Tough times demand tough and smart minds. But all these dopes have to offer are ramblings that insult the intelligence of all Americans - no matter if they are Democrats, Republicans or neither of the above. Yet just like any freakshow, this one would be unthinkable without a stage (in this case, the media, strangling itself with all its misunderstood "political correctness" and "objectivity") and an audience (the party base, which this year seems to have suffered a political lobotomy).
Factually Challenged
And so the farce continues. The more mind-boggling its incarnations, the happier the US media are to cheer first one clown and then the next, elevating and then eliminating "frontrunners" in reliable news cycles of about 45 days.
Take Herman Cain, "businessman." He sat out the first wave of sexual harassment claims against him by offering a peculiar argument: Most ladies he had encountered in his life, he said, had not complained.
In the most recent twist, a woman accused Cain of having carried on a 13-year affair with her. That, too, he tried to casually wave off, but now, under pressure, he says he wants to "reassess" his campaign.
If Cain indeed drops out, the campaign would lose its biggest caricature: He has been the most factually challenged of all these jesters.
As CEO of the "Godfather's" pizza chain, Cain killed jobs - but now poses as the job-creator-in-chief. Meanwhile, he seems to lack basic economic know-how, let alone a rudimentary grasp of politics or geography. Libya confounds him. He does not believe that China is a nuclear power. And all other, slightly more complicated questions get a stock answer: "Nine-nine-nine!" Remember? That's Cain's tax reduction plan that would actually raise taxes for 84 percent of Americans.
Has any of that disrupted Cain's popularity in the media or with his fan base? Far from it. Since Oct. 1, he has collected more than $9 million in campaign donations. Enough to plow through another onslaught of denouements.
No Shortage of Chutzpah
Then there's Newt Gingrich, the current favorite. He's a political dinosaur, dishonored and discredited. Or so we thought. Yet just because he studied history and speaks in more complex sentences than his rivals, the US media now reflexively hails him as a "Man of Ideas" (The Washington Post) - even though most of these ideas are lousy if not downright offensive, such as firing unionized school janitors, so poor children could do their jobs.
Pompous and blustering, Gingrich gets away with this humdinger as well as with selling himself as a Washington outsider - despite having made millions of dollars as a lobbyist in Washington. At least the man's got chutzpah.
The hypocrisy doesn't end here. Gingrich claims moral authority on issues such as the "sanctity of marriage," yet he's been divorced twice. He sprang the divorce on his first wife while she was sick with cancer. (His supporters' excuse: It's been 31 years, and she's still alive.) He cheated on his second wife just as he was pressing ahead with Bill Clinton's impeachment during the Monica Lewinsky affair, unaware of the irony. The woman he cheated with, by the way, was one of his House aides and 23 years his junior - and is now his perpetually smiling third wife.
Americans have a short memory. They forget, too, that Gingrich was driven out of Congress in disgrace, the first speaker of the house to be disciplined for ethical wrongdoing. Or that he consistently flirts with racism when he speaks of Barack Obama. Or that he enjoyed a $500,000 credit line at Tiffany's just as his campaign was financially in the toilet and he ranted about the national debt. Chutzpah, indeed.
Yet the US media rewards him with a daily kowtow. And the Republicans reward him too, by having put him on top in the latest polls. Mr. Hypocrisy, the bearer of his party's hope.
"I think he's doing well just because he's thinking," former President Clinton told the conservative online magazine NewsMax. "People are hungry for ideas that make some sense." Sense? Apparently it's not just the Republicans who have lost their minds here.
The Eternal Runner-Up
And what about the other candidates? Rick Perry's blunders are legendary. His "oops" moment in suburban Detroit. His frequently slurred speech, as if he was drunk. His TV commercials putting words in Obama's mouth that he didn't say (such as, "Americans are 'lazy'"). His preposterous claim that as governor of Texas he created 1 million jobs, when the total was really just about 100,000. But what's one digit? Elsewhere, Perry would have long ago been disqualified. But not here in the US.
Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann has fallen off the wagon, although she's still tolerated as if she's a serious contender. Ron Paul's fan club gets the more excited, the more puzzling his comments get. Jon Huntsman, the only one who occasionally makes some sort of sense, has been relegated to the poll doldrums ever since he showed sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators.
Which leaves Mitt Romney, the eternal flip-flopper and runner-up, who by now is almost guaranteed to clinch the nomination, even though no one in his party seems to like or want him. He stiffly delivers his talking points, which may or may not contradict his previous positions. After all, he's been practicing this since 2008, when he failed to snag the nomination from John McCain. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
As an investor, Romney once raked in millions and, like Cain, killed jobs along the way. So now he says he's the economy's savior. To prove that, he has presented an economic plan that the usually quite conservative business magazine Forbes has labeled "dangerous," asking incredulously, "About Mitt Romney, the Republicans can't be serious." Apparently they're not, but he is, running TV spots against Obama already, teeming with falsehoods.
Good for Ratings
What a nice club that is. A club of liars, cheaters, adulterers, exaggerators, hypocrites and ignoramuses. "A starting point for a chronicle of American decline," was how David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, described the current Republican race.
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Comments
I don't think this "Club of Repub" losers is "a starting point for a chonicle of American decline." I can't blame them because they are the symptom not the cause.
"American decline" is due to the corporate takeover of the independent media. After that, control of Congress, the Fed, the Supremes was straightforward .
And yes, total control over what was once called the mass media and now is the mess media, was well thought out and accomplished - karlroving at its best. The amazingly overwhelming amount of coverage given to so obviously MSD (manipulation, spin, distraction) based not at all good journalistic coverage of the G.O.P. Kochsucking puppet whores is proof certain of the aforestated - keep the sheeple distracted with caca, and avoid American Rebolution II.
Time we recognize the MSD caca and ignore it, rather than fall into the karlroving, advertising 101 trap of 'say it often enough, and the dUmbed down Americans, naive and brainwashed as hell, will believe it.
Lots and lots to do to...UNDO THE COUP!!!
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.
The conundrum with the GOP is that they have been given their orders. And you can't make Kool-Aid out of snake oil... Don't miss Mike Lofgren's essay, "Good bye to all that: Reflections of a GOP operative who left the cult". Chrystalizes the whole agenda.
There are many connections for sure. The Grand Goal (destroy govt, promote corporatism) results from the strategy (control the popular message) and its various tactics (FAUX News, consolidation of corporate radio/TV/print, strict adherence to talking points, turn labor against labor, denegrate the well educated, etc.).
Our(mainstream) media has become largely useless. I also think James38 makes a great point: "The decline of the US Educational system is actually closer to a cause, and it causes itself by producing a populace that elects functional illiterates to office, who then further strip the funding for education, having little of it themselves, and thus little respect for it."
Opinionaire, it is horrifying that there are so many voters who will cast a ballot in favor of one of these "liars, cheaters, adulterers, exaggerators, hypocrites and ignoramuses."
Given the number of comments, it looks like Marc Pitzke has found the right audience for his critique.
If the majority show up to vote, we can get America back, at least some of it.
The democratic process was struck a fatal blow when Al Gore retreated, in 2000, and the American people did not take to the streets and hound Bush and Cheney back to the cesspool where they belong. Because of the travesty of the voting process, we will never know how many voters were ripped off and how many were truly fools enough to vote for that pair of puking vultures. Whatever, we lost it then, and with such choices as are put forth for 2012 -- Obama included -- we will not recover.
What is alarming is that the entire field of Republican candidates is made up of these malicious dodos and religious crackpots. There isn't a completely sane or humanly decent one among them, save Jon Huntsman...maybe.
Our sitting president, Mr. Obama, seems to be a decent and reasonable fellow; but he has proven to be as much a captive of imperial establishment values and policies as any other hired hand of the New World Order permanenet gov't. The OWS movement, an authentic grass roots revolt against thw NWO, has been attacked in various venues by an apparent coordination of police forces
with the collaboration of the US AGs office and the Office of Homeland Security. Obama has to know about this.
American decline indeed. As the old wisdom says, this too shall pass. It will probably take a complete collapse of law and order for some new and hopefully wiser and just social arrangement to come into being. Let's hope it doesn't cost too much blood and teasure.
Well, wish in one hand & shit in the other. The vacuum caused by the collapse of law and order will suck Homeland Security into power. That is why OWS must be peacefully successful.
I will never pay homage to the Nazism of "W" and Cheney. I have no plans or intents to goosestep my way to the repeating of history by these criminals.
I have three direct ancestors with my last name that fought for my rights in 1776 and I will not piss on their graves for any Texan.
But, why did it take a German to say what is so apparent to any one with a reasonable level of sanity.?
Why do we spend our time blasting others who are trying to do something for the people, because it is not enough and it did't happen all at once.
Our impatience should be directed at those who are determined to keep us in this ditch and are digging a bigger and deeper trench if they get elected to offices adross this country.
http://worldwar2database.com/html/nazis.htm
Paradigm or new reality, it was so in 1933.
that Hitler first and foremost focused on and this is why England and the US gave Israel to the Jewish people.
The very fact that such a stooge gallery is even advanced to the public as a potential set of "candidates" is full evidence of the totality of corporate control.
Could it be made any *more* obvious to us that it no longer really matters who, (or WHAT) holds the office of POTUS ?
Could there be better proof, short of full disclosure and a National announcement, that the Corporations now run the entire game, and thus the position of "Leader of the Free World" can now safely be entrusted to any slow-witted, three-fingered monkey ?
(My apologies to our simian cousins for insulting them in the comparison to the present Republican "Slate".)
There isn't a "humanoid" on that Republican panel to whom we can sanely entrust the Nation's nuclear codes - just to mention *one* lil' responsibility associated with the job of U.S.Commander-In-Chief.
RE: My comment about Obama seeming--I did say seeming--to be a decent and reasonable fellow. Obama is a man under constraint,as all presidents have been since the end of WW II. In 1947, the national security state came into being with the creation of the CIA. (Harry Truman came to regret signing the law that created the CIA.) In 1948, George Frost Kennan put forth what became the operative foreign policy of the USA (see PPS 23). It hasn't changed. The US has been involved in resource wars ever since. That won't change.
Mr. Obama is not the first man elected to the office of president who has been made aware of his actual governance parameters. Whether knave or nice guy, every US president has known what he can do and what he can't do. If he tries to go beyond his parameters, he will be stopped, by whatever means necessary.
I am not engaging in a conspiracy theory; one needs only to read the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Forbes or Foreign Affairs to see what real policy looks like and who sets it. There is no mystery about it.
By the way, if one truly hates our materialist/consumerist society, be patient. In the not too distant future, it will pass away. It is impossible to have limitless growth with finite natural resources.
I agree with you AndreM5 but the corporations didn't take over American media, they were handed it by a nation that prefered to be lulled, coddled, coo'd to and, finaly, became dependant on the glass teat of the tube. Yes, the dream-merchants learned how to manipulate us and turn a passel of customers into a herd of "Consumers."
And, yes, you're right. Once news became entertainment and wars became computer games separated from the people who must fight them, it was just a slight nudge to make politics and the cornerstones of our democracy into just another reality show.
I see this electoral freakshow partly as the ripened fruit of the primary system, which favors hard-liners and extremists in general. It infected the Democrats from the 1960s through the 1980s, and now it has infected the GOP. We get only the loopiest candidates. Moderates are shunned.
We never imagined pining for the days when candidates were nominated behind closed doors in smoke-filled rooms. Like it or not, we got better candidates that way.
To call the pre-election primary, debate, caucus cacophony a system is a stretch if not worse.
It is not even 2012 yet and it is too late for a candidate to enter the race? How is that even logical? Our elections have been drained of all substance by a media anxious to name a winner. Especially because the media is convinced that Americans cannot comprehend anything more than a two person race.
How about a real Primary season. The rules are simple. First Primary or caucus is the first Tuesday after the start of Spring. Only 1 state gets that opening date. That state is the one that had the highest turnout percentage in the last Presidential election. Three weeks later, two states have a Primary. Then 3 Weeks after that 4 more states. Continue every 3 weeks by adding more states for the next 4 - 5 months. States to be added are added in reverse order of their turnout.
To be in a debate, you must be on the ballot in every state voting in the next round.
The most important part is to eliminate the states jockeying for position, eliminating Super Tuesday and improving access to the voters of all candidates.
This January voting is insane.
In order to be on the debates which are not allowed until 1 month before the first Primary
It looks like you ran afoul of the "symbols left" grinch. I think we should campaign for a larger limit. I have had to curtail my comments several times, or post sequential comments. I see no reason for RSN to have the size of the comments so limited. Maybe if the number of positive votes on your posts divided by the number of posts you have made is above 1.5, you get to make longer posts?
I like your concept of dealing with late entries.
I have on occasion run into the symbol limit grinch, which caused me to then go back and edit it down.
This is my opinion, other wise would they tolerate such idiocy and buffoonery?
GOP stands for Greedy One Percent!
NEVER EVER VOTE REPUBLICAN!!
I'm with you, Pernsey:
NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN !!
We deserve so much better.
In another time in a higher age, these 8 would just be occupying a bar every day to spout all this BS cr*p out of their mouths into each other's ears and no one decent would even think of having anything to do with them much less give them a microphone.
I mean, the really frightening part might be picturing the scenario of a "President" Gingrich, Cain, Bachmann, Perry, Romney and so on, dealingor even conversing with the rest of the world's leaders, who are mostly, even if you don't care for them, at least well-educated and knowledgeable about global socio-political realities and historical truth, what?!
I'm reminded of Bush the twit greeting Sylvio Berlusconi with "Hola Amigo"!
And that's wisdom compared to what any of this lot might come up with.
But the worst part is the threat of "Redneck diplomacy" (We have the monstrously powerful military after all -and in such hand----? I don't even care to think about tha!), which I wouldn't put it past any of this shower.
Any one of them would isolate the US as never before, even under Bush/Cheney and grease the downward pointing chute into the abyss of "Idiotocracy" -a kinda silly movie with a kernel of ever-likely possibility to it.
The strategy of the Republican Party was to host non-stop, week-by-week debates in order to steal the attention of the public away from President Obama. Well, they have certainly done that but at a great cost. Not one of these clowns will be able to beat Obama. They have all said insane things that will simply be played back on an endless loop of negative commercials. The worst was call for murdering Iranian scientists. It is OK for all nations to murder the scientists of nations they don’t like.
Gingrich is the biggest lunatic of all. A friend from Georgia says that while there he learned to talk in the way really stupid and uneducated people think an educated person should talk. He’s constantly got some big idiotic idea or another. Or some fabrication of history. When the time is right people will bring out the article from Vanity Fair which quotes Newt bragging about getting blow jobs from campaign workers while he talked on the phone sucking millions of dollars out of corporate campaign financiers. Newt's double header!!!
Red and blue are worlds apart. In the end, how many will be willing to be governed?
You ultra-intelligent people who are so adamant about withholding your support from Obama are sh***ing in your own nests! Any vote withheld from Obama is clearly half-a-vote FOR the election of whichever of these despicable mental midgets ends up with the GOP nomination!
Whoever that is - if he wins the election - WILL appoint (at least) one more Scalia-Thomas clone to the Supreme Court.
Is that what you want, annt?
There is nothing particularly "Ivory Tower" about my position. There is, however, in your allusions to "pure thinkers," perching "delicately," something that smells suspiciously like that good old fashioned right wing redneck contempt for anyone who sees things differently, and the cowardly tendency to point the finger at that person and cry, "queer," or "commie." If you want to challenge my posted opinion, how about you leave the schoolyard behind, because that is some seriously silly sh*t.
As far as your objection to my description of your stance, you still seem to fail to understand the danger of voting for an unelectable third party candidate when the real choices, annoying as you may find them and the process that presents them to you, have real consequences that are potentially devastating. Under these circumstances, your third party vote is not an effective protest, it is a capitulation - made, as I said, out of an excessive dedication to purity and hyper-correctness. I am reminded of a bit of doggerel my mother quoted to me as I began to learn how to drive, "He was right all right as he sped along, but he is just as dead as if he'd been wrong."
1. Devolve to chaos & anarchy;
2. Grasp the straw of strong authoritarian government; and
3. All of the above, in that order.
Our only hopes for forestalling political tragedy in the USA are;
1. Reverse Citizens United;
2. Purge & ban ALL private money from all national elections; and
3. Impose draconian punishments for (LOL) conviction under the yet-to-be-enacted-&-defined-felony: "Breach of the Public Trust by a Public Official for Personal Gain or Profit".
When the Washington regime collapses, governmental functions will devolve to the states which will become independent nations. The model is the USSR. Some new nation-states will be pretty bad, but others will be very good. The world as a whole, esp. the developing world, will be much better.
The problem in the world right now is the USG working as the military and legal front for psychopathic corporations. Let it go! Smash it. There is nothing good to save. When it gets out of the way, we can rebuild on a more local level.
The USG will go into a draconian and authoritarian phase before it collapses. It is there already on paper (in law). It is already acting that way to immigrants and overseas. The last step will be to seize by violence any assets the middle class have left in order to finance its imperialism.
The USG cannot be reformed. No fascist government ever has.
Both the Dems & the GOP hate third parties UNLESS they are hurting their opponents . . . in which case the benefitted party loves 'em and finds ways to fund them. Wise up, Mr Gill. Don't let yourself be used as a shill for the GOP. Do you really want another Scalia or Thomas on the Supreme Court? An unwinnable war with Iran? Syria? Pakistan?
NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN !!
All of you MENSA candidates out there who are who are so adamant about withholding your support from OBAMA are sh***ing squarely in your nests. One vote withheld from Obama is half-a-vote FOR the despicable mental midget that will eventually wind up as the GOP candidate.
He, in turn, will appoint (at least) one more Scalia/Thomas clone to the U S Supreme Court. Is that REALLY what you want?
To that add all the adultery and what kind of candidate would he be? (a typical Repugnican sleazeball?)
Insulting the intelligence of Americans is no trick. They've been dumbed down by their education system since Nixon.
These buffoons insult the intelligence of the rest of the world, which is astonished and dismayed that these goofs are supposed to be the best that America has to offer.
It this is so, America should be pitied.
The GOP candidates and their representatives in Congress are the best campaign support the Democrats could get. They have demonstrated one goal- to unseat the president at all costs, even if it means destroying the economy and the nation! Add in their fierce determination to protect big money and you have to conclude one thing. They really need to disband!
I won't be voting for any of these candidates for various reasons but I won't be voting for Obama either (and he has uttered some alarmingly ill-informed phrases too like claiming that the US had 57 states). Not because of bizarre or irrelevant smears and thinkos and memory lapses. They (and we) all have experienced similar bits of dopiness.
We would all do better to focus on substance instead of this kind of drivel.
Lee Nason
New Bedford, Massachusetts
With 5 mega corporations owning and ruling the news and other media, consider that DISNEY may be the source of the 'facts' you are using to argue with. These are cartoon characters. Disney no longer brings images of innocence to the screen.
The 'election' has been scripted for a Pavlovian response. The OWS movement has refused to give it to them. It is amazing how deftly these politicians can completely sidestep every real issue and concern of the people. Our country and our planet cannot withstand much more of them.
Rick Perry opened his mouth.
This collection of halfwits and crazy people is the gift that keeps giving and giving - and giving and giving and giving and....
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Pray tell what reputation would that be? Perhaps you should acquaint yourself with what the international media has to say about the U.S. We Americans have not been an exemplar of justice, freedom, truth and democracy for a very long time. We are perceived to be all of those adjectives you so aptly reserved to describe the current slate of GOP of candidates.
Perhaps you should acquaint yourself with the author of this very article and his employer. Both are German. Europeans don't have to search as deeply as do we to discover what the "international media" has to say about the reputation of the U.S.
Romney + Bachmann/Perry - like Bush sr + his idiot lackey Quayle to capture the teabagger vote
Romney + someone the ilk of cheney / hitler?? to capture the paranoid "hawk" vote
It's as if the GOP actually wants obama to get re-elected (and maybe they do)... hopefully enough voters will see through Minitruth's latest charade as well...
Decapitalism. It's hard to find the right description for what we have wrought. There are enough of us to start a new country.
Your comment about Gingrich (At least the man's got chutzpah) actually is an exact description of W's favorite tactic - repeating his lies so often that he finally managed to get them accepted, sticking to his agenda in spite of all criticism or facts to the contrary, etc.
The horrid fatuous smug expression that Bush habitually wears is also reminiscent of Gingrich. I read it to mean that he simply doesn't care how many of us realize he is a liar and a con-man, since he is getting away with it all right under our noses. It is a blatant expression of contempt.
Finally, on a different note, I want to mention Bill Clinton's comment about Gingrich, "I think he's doing well just because he's thinking,". Somehow I keep hoping that Bill will pop out of his bubble, but this makes me shudder. Gingrich does not "think". He schemes, he tries to figure out more angles to con the public, he looks for ways to sensationalize himself - in short he connives. That is not what i call thinking, which is a more selfless and honest process.
acceptable to orchestrate the assassination of Moammar Gadhafi. Demagogues always lead nations to the precipice, the next cycle then push our nation over the cliff.
WoW ! I am in full agreement with your assessment of the comment by James38, and with your own astute analysis as well.
I would just like to take a moment to thank you and James38 for so significantly raising the caliber of discussion !
slimslider, you own entry is so beautifully written that we need to submit it to an essay contest somewhere. Lovely to see solid evidence that such well-thought-out and elegantly articulated material is still produced in this country.
***PARTIAL LIST***
ECONOMIC
Recovery Act
• Largest infrastructure investment since President Eisenhower
• Largest education investment since Lyndon Johnson
• Largest clean-energy bill ever
• Created or saved 3.7 million jobs
Ended taxpayer-funded corporate bailouts
Reduced taxes for 95% of working families
Extended unemployment benefits for 99 weeks
Credit Card Reform
• Requires CC companies to explain terms in plain English
• Bans excessive rate hikes and arbitrary fees on credit cards
• Requires statements to show interest saved for faster pay off
New car fuel efficiency standards
• 35.5 mpg by year 2016
• 54.5 mpg by year 2025
Tax credits for purchasing hybrid and electric automobiles
Rebuilding the American auto industry
• Invested in the Auto Industry
• Prevented loss of hundreds of thousands jobs,
• Started new advanced auto battery manufacturing plants
• Auto industry paid back the loans ahead of time!
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the biggest financial reform law since the Great Depression
***PARTIAL LIST***
NATIONAL SECURITY
Ended combat operations in Iraq
All troops out of Iraq and home by end of 2011
Finishing the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan
Nuclear Weapons
• Reached agreement with Russia on a new START treaty
• Developed plan to secure nuclear material from terrorists
Ended stop loss so soldiers kept no longer than enlistment
Reinstated no torture policy to comply with Geneva Convention
Increased U.S. Navy patrols to combat pirates off Horn of Africa
Negotiated with Swiss banks for access to records of tax evaders and criminals
Improved conditions at Walter Reed and other VA hospitals
Established new cyber-security office
Ended no-bid defense contracts
Helped topple Khaddafi without invading Libya and without the loss of a single American life
Attacked and killed most of al Qaeda leaders
Killed Osama Bin Laden
HEALTH REFORM
Affordable Care Act
• Eliminates lifetime and annual cap on benefits
• Outlaws denial of coverage because of previous conditions
• Requires no co-pays or deductibles for preventive care
• Allows children to stay on parents’ health insurance until age 26
• Extends health care to 50 million uninsured Americans
• Closes the prescription drug donut-hole for seniors on Medicare
• Helps businesses provide health insurance for their employees
Children's Health Insurance expanded by 4 million children
Removed restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research
Expanded vaccination programs
EDUCATION
Reformed student lending to eliminate middleman banks,
saving taxpayers $68 billion over the next 10 years
New GI Bill making college more affordable
Funds for school construction
Funded high-speed, broadband Internet access for K-12 schools
$26 billion state aid package saved 160,000 teacher jobs
AND HE BUILT A SWING SET FOR THE GIRLS OUTSIDE THE OVAL OFFICE
I certainly feel let down by Obama, but he is the best I can hope for at this time.
Some truth/facts would be a very welcome change, but I don't see that happening. Why has this country run off the road into the tall weeds so badly???
Your comment: "I have often thought that the major cause for the decline is actually the little recognized tripling of the US (and Global) population since the mid 1950's. (We are now well on the way to quadrupling). The generational transmission of "social wisdom", such as it is, has been diluted, and since our attention span is short, being poorly educated in history, the change has been unnoticed by most."
We are living in a world of finite resources, trying to do so with an economic model predicated on endless growth, which requires both the use of more and more resources, and an ever-increasing number of consumers. This was always just a "future problem" when human population was far from what it is today; now we are faced with lots of evidence, of many kinds, that there are just too many people. Unfortunately (for us and the other living things on our planet) Capitalism is in the driver's seat (for now) and it is, and must always be opposed to any effort to limit the growth of its consumer base. Hence, the western capitalist democracies have never officially sanctioned any efforts to limit population growth. That, and our economic system, will both have to change.
So what are the 57 states again?
It was not true that Japan initiated war against the US because it was only a kinetic action - they did not have any boots on the ground.
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