Apparently you're not aware of the extra 5 trillion in debt, the way Obamacare was passed (cornhusker kickback, Louisiana Purchase etc), the mandate requiring us to purchase products, the attack on Catholic charities, the failed stimulus that largely went to cronies, the failed investment of our tax dollars in Solyndra (his bundler didn't lose a dime unlike the tax payer). You must not have heard him say how Republicans want dirty air and dirty water and for children to suffer, You didn't notice that he didn't get authority from Congress (but did from the UN) to start his war in Libya. Deficits are now 1.3 Trillion a year, no budget has passed in 3 years, GDP growth is an anemic 1.7%, 8.1% unemployment which would be over 11% if so many people hadn't left the job market altogether. You haven't noticed the decline in middle class income, his opposition to the Keystone pipeline, his war on Coal. Yeah, its hard to think of a reason to be angry at this president.

He's closer to what you want than to what I want.

I think this is 100% deliberate on the part of the true powers-that-be: the world bankers who own the Federal Reserve. They have to move in steps. The meltdown of 2008 was a big step, and so a few years were devoted to destroying any response to it, and refocusing the anger.

It is amazing to me how many people are convinced that our main problem is President Obama and if we just get rid of him, that will fix this. Of course, they've been built up to such a level of anger, that if Obama loses, they really will be satisfied on an emotional level. For a while anyway. That part of the pageant is real.
Then it will be time for the next tightening of the snake around America.

Incidentally, U.S. banks just reported a 35.5 billion dollar profit for the first quarter, 11 straight quarters that were better than the year before. The casino is open and all the same players are at the tables with your chips. Meanwhile the problem? A president who's not good enough to bankers.

I loved it when the economic pundits came forward to say Facebook's IPO was all perfectly legal. Here's what they left out: If it had been illegal, Wall Street would have ordered Congress to make it legal so this criminal activity could never happen again. That's the chain of command here, and the people in the Federal Government and the Prez are mere servants of the banking elite.

Incidentally, if I had read that 10 years ago, I'd say, "Wow, what a fringe opinion." In fact, I did say it when I heard this stuff. But I believe it now. The same people with those warnings have proven right on lots of things. Mitt and Barack are just the stars of this year's pageant about the power of the voters in deciding the future of the country. It's a manipulation and a sham. It's as genuine as a reality show.

The saddest part about all the anger is that if it were directed towards the problem, maybe we could still fix America.

Ok so conservatives and progressives each have their anger issues.
Bush Derangement Syndrome, Ombama Derangement Syndrome.

But how does that really pan out when one gets there way?

To say conservatives got their way under Bush and now still are is simply more derangement.

Runaway spending, prescription drug coverage, NCLB and other Bush era
not so conservative foibles are now far worse with Obama.

If conservatives actually got their way Maher would be more than just clever.

Look locally to what conservatives would do. Pretty much everything our Host would do and without any of the ginned up horribles
used to make conservatives scary. The background noise from conservative social issues is always amplified by the Democrats in order to forecast societal demise if these anti-government religious fanatics were ever "in charge".

Well IMO if the oil and water Bogdanski and Kremer fiscal conservatives were running things around here there would be major improvement with the nearly all of the left and right noise left behind at BlueOregon and wherever the far right lingers.

There is so much room for progress around here before reaching any
real obstacles that it's a shame the stale divide of stereotyping ideology prevents it.

Really we should be kicking TriMet, Metro and PDCs butts.

Bill,

Substituting a few words in your comment works equally well for the last election:

It is amazing to me how many people are convinced that our main problem is President Bush and if we just get rid of him, that will fix this. Of course, they've been built up to such a level of anger, ... they really will be satisfied on an emotional level. For a while anyway. That part of the pageant is real.

Well, he's black, for starters. They just sort of make up the rest as they go.

Let's see. What could it possibly be about Obama that gets under these people's skin? They seem to complain as soon as they look at him.

By the way, I liked it better when Bill was funny rather than deadly accurate.

"Your Friend" is right:
"Really we should be kicking TriMet, Metro and PDCs butts." and Homer, Dike and Mark Edlen

Here is what I don't get. How does the national debt increase from 10 Trillion to 15 Trillion under Obama, while he simultaneously has the lowest spending record of any President since LBJ? Serious question. I don't understand.

Mike (one of many)
Here was my take back in real time: I felt America needed to self-correct badly after the Bush years. I distinctly remember thinking that if America didn't find a great leader who could use the will of the American People to recapture what made America great in the first place, then we were screwed.
There was great hope that President Obama would be such a man, but he wasn't and we are screwed.

I also learned a lot about the way the power really works watching the economic meltdown. Our position has changed. We are further along in the erosion of American freedoms and the descent into a police state. Soon we will have armed drones flying over us keeping everyone in line - just like in Yemen.

I sense there's a desire by the right to rewrite the history of the Bush years, and exonerate his supporters because Obama has done much of the same. If that helps you, go for it.

What I know is 100% BS is when the right suddenly embraces the Constitution again after sitting on Cheney's lap watching him and Bush crumble it up and toss it into the fire.

The only way we could have self-corrected is if there had been some sort of accountability for the criminal behavior of the last group. When that didn't happen I sensed it could be over for America.

Now, if you want an admission that I was wrong about something I'll give you one. I figured the Constitution would mean more to Barack Obama and I based that on the fact that he used to teach it as a professor. Usually professors are drawn to history, etc...because they love it. I really don't understand what happened between Barack and the Constitution.

One place where I was 100% right and this is on videotape from my old cable access show in Bush's term: I said basically, "You Bush supporters are going to regret sitting around with your teenage puppy love of this president, as he trashes the Constitution, because when it's not your guy, you are really going to hate it. Imagine if Hillary (I always used Hillary as an example since Obama was not on the radar yet) is in charge and she's the one wielding these authoritarian powers. Hillary's the one declaring illegal wars based on lies and cherry picked intel, and sending your sons and daughters to die somewhere - not based on the Constitution - but on her personals whims. You are going to hate that."

It would have been terrific if the right had demanded some accountability from "their Winston Churchill" as they used to call him.

In many ways, Barack Obama is your penance for letting down the country.

Unfortunately Bill, I agree with everything you say.
I also think that the last sham election was upsetting to many folks because the black man "won".
I am continually amazed at the raw prejudice that still exists in the United States. I guess I shouldn't be but I am. And when I quiz these people they are even more opposed to a person of color being the spouse of the POTUS. A black woman as 1st Lady is particularly upsetting for these people.
I have the distance feeling that if 'Mittens' is elected 'we the people' will be the preverbal "dog on the roof of the car" getting hosed at the unscheduled rest stops.

Dave J:

"Well, he's black, for starters. They just sort of make up the rest as they go. "

If you can't win an argument about Obama's failed presidency, just call everyone you disagree with a racist.

oops...should read "distinct".
And we are getting hosed with the current POTUS too.

If criticism of Obama is because of racism then the same can be said of the criticism of Clarence Thomas by the left.

I personally do not care if Clarence Thomas is purple. It is his opinions with which I disagree.

Native: By the reasoning from the leftists on this blog you disagree with Clarence Thomas because he just happens to be the only black on the Supreme Court. They say you're a racist.

Justin,
I don't have the numbers you are looking at in front of me, but I suspect there is some apples to oranges confusion going on.
1. The increase in the percentage of government spending is the lowest under Obama since LBJ--but I am certain that absolute $$$ increases ia not as low as LBJ's, or Nixon, Ford, probably Reagan, Bush 1 and maybe even Clinton (Think Inflation).
2. A good 3 or 4 trillion of the 15 Trillion number you mention will be Social Security purchases of US Debt. This is an accounting trick, it means nothing. (like much of accounting for that matter, see for example "Mark to Market" standards after 2008--but I digress). FWIW Wiki says public debt is only 11 trillion or so, which would be an increase of a trillion plus or so under Obama
3. The Fed is not the US government and it's where the real action is.
4. I don't have actually have 4, other then to add that the GOP lies through its teeth about numbers to confuse and gets away with it because most people/journalists aren't very confident in their maths. When in doubt always remember that.
5 Absolute numbers of debt don't mean anything, its percentage of gdp that matters--and actually that hasn't even been tested for developed countries yet (see Japan). Possibly its just percentage of gdp owed externally, but who knows we've been in uncharted monetary territory since 1971 when Nixon abandoned Bretton Woods and any semblance of the Gold standard. (google barry Eichengreen and reserve currency). Its anybody's guess how debt plays out.
6. Bill Maher is right.
Sorry to digress,

Hearing the "racism" cries from the left applied to nearly every argument involving Obama kind of reminds me of the Dana Carvey SNL "Church Lady" skit where she goes "Satan!?" all the time.

I consider myself conservative, but haven't identified with republicans in my entire adult life. I don't care for their single-issue politics. I rarely agree with today's democrats, but I could have found something to like about Obama if he were the populist idealist he ran as.

Unfortunately he's a corporate stooge and a socialist for the highest bidder. He's like the worst parts of Bush with none of the good parts of the platform of the democrat party. And now he's pandering to the left again with single issue politics which distract from things he could be doing to positively impact the lives of average Americans.

@Bill: Regarding the "fringe opinions" having become your own, I am totally with you on that. In 2003, I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Well, if they have WMD, I guess we need to go take him out."

Since then, I've read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," "America's Secret War" (by Stratfor's George Friedman - an incredibly objective look at the CIA and Muslim extremism), and begun reading Zerohedge.com daily. Zerohedge is exclusively financial, not political, but is a must read if you want to understand how Jon Corzine and Dick Fuld are not in jail, but why they should be.

I've even come to wonder about other things our benevolent overlords tell us, but which don't ring true.

I believe, in time, we will learn that much of what we know ain't so.

Obama is black ?

To answer Justin's question from way up there: Throughout his term in office, Bush never included the Middle East wars in his budget proposals. Thus, the wars were paid for out of "supplemental budgets" and not calculated into the defict.

Obama has included the costs of both Iraq and Afghanistan for the past two years.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/161/end-the-abuse-of-supplemental-budgets-for-war/

Well, unsurprisingly, I have fundamental disagreements with just about everything said here, because none of it matters.

Elect Barry, or Dick Cheney, or Bill Maher. It doesn't matter. The President doesn't run the country.

Elect Jefferson Smith to Congress, along with Charlie Hales and I Lean Brady. It doesn't matter. Congress doesn't run the country, either.

The founders of the nation never envisioned career politicians like Barry and the rest, who spend all of their time running for reelection. They didn't imagine a nation run by unelected, life-long bureaucrats.

But that's what we have. Yammer about Wall Street all you want; they aren't the main problem. Unelected bureaucrats are. This year alone, they've added some 4,000 new regulations, roughly 860 of which directly impact small business - the actual lifeblood of the American economy.

These rules have the force of law, yet are never passed by our "representatives".

You want actual change for the better in this country? Wipe every federal bureaucrat off the payroll. Eliminate every agency. Task Congress with determining what - if any - agencies are actually needed, and then rebuild them from the ground up.

Good Lord, John, get a grip.
1. $$ trillion extra debt? Do you think maybe the Bush tax cuts had something to do with that? Or his two wars? Or the recession that started in 2007?
2. Cornhusker kickback? Never happened.
3. Universal health coverage through a penalty for non-purchase? That was the Republican plan in the first place.
4. Failed stimulus? By what measure?
5. Solyndra failure: Too small to matter.
For the rest, the President has essentially had to do end runs around a Congress that is determined to block whatever he tries to do. The Keystone pipeline may be an exception, but I would be enchanted if you could explain to me how our economy is helped by providing a conduit to transport Canadian gas to the Gulf for export. And if you're for coal, you can't expect people to overlook your implied interest in dirty air and water.

If you can't win an argument about Obama's failed presidency, just call everyone you disagree with a racist.

When the arguments advanced by Obama's critics are nonsensical, false and unsupported by facts, as yours are, people naturally look for an unstated motivation. Racism is the obvious one. If it isn't that, then what is it?

It doesn't matter.

I suppose it doesn't matter to you that the people who "elected" George W. Bush were appointed to the Supreme Court by Republican presidents. Or that the people who gave us Citizens United in 2010 were appointed to that institution by the president that their Republican-appointed colleagues "elected".

There can be no real discourse on this sort of thing until all of the misinformation is cleared up. Unfortunately there is just a whole lot of 'believing' and not a whole lot of 'thinking' going on. But that's democracy for you.

Left/Right, Blue/Red, Lib/Con, Dem/Rep doesn't matter. They are all elected under the same corrupted system. If you think electing someone else is really going to change any of the foundational problems then you are deluded.

As for why Libs keep seeing racism in many of the attacks on Obama, that's an easy answer. Many of the attacks lack a factual basis. So Libs cannot figure out where all the negativity is coming from, so they figure it must be racism.

In reality it's probably more complicated. People need to blame, need a focus for their negativity. They'll respond to any emotional ploy that makes them feel good. Examples:

Angy Them: "Obama is a radical"
Fearful Me: "Yeah! Get rid of him!"

It's raw bleeding emotion being directed at our #1 leader. People should be angry, but some of the things they are angry about are constructed to enrage them. The angry/fearful are easy fodder for the demagogues propagandists. Been that way since the beginning of recorded history.

Add to the mix the complexity and overall HUGENESS of the problems, and you see people falling into the easier to process emotional judgements.

The real rub though, at the base of everything, is that we somehow think, as a nation, that we can get any real change out of a system where our leaders are largely picked based on the choices of the big campaign contributors.

Well over 90% of the winners of Senate/House races spent more money than their opponents. I may be mistaking cause/effect here, but I don't think so.

I suppose it doesn't matter to you that the people who "elected" George W. Bush were appointed to the Supreme Court by Republican presidents.

Still bitter over the fake "hanging chads", are ya?

Don't worry - there's no problem with voter fraud - Eric Holder says so. Oh, say what?

Florida's Secretary of State has gone through the databases, located, and purged some 53,000 dead people from the voter rolls.

In other news, Democrats in Chicago are outraged by the recent approval of an expansion at O'Hare airport. The new runway will pass through a nearby cemetery, disenfranchising hundreds of voters.

Why is Obama compared to Bush? Shouldn't it be to Romney since that's our choice?

Alan: read the first post, You may disagree with the reasons that lots of people think Obama is a failure in office, but there are plenty of facts to back up that belief.

(Even if Gore had won in the Gore v. Bush Bush would have won Florida and therefore the election)

"...the people who "elected" George W. Bush were appointed to the Supreme Court by Republicans."

Amazing the level of ignorance of Alan. At least he did not confuse the popular vote with the real election. The Sore/Loserman ticket did win by more than 3M popular votes nationwide. So what.

What Bush did win, were the electors to the Electoral College appointed by the state of Florida. That is because Bush won more votes in Florida than the other candidates. In every count, recount, and subsequent recount, Sore/Loserman came up short. They tried to extend the timeframe of the election process to have more time to find more votes. All the Supreme Court did was say "Times up. Whatever vote count is the last wins. Submit the electors from Florida to the EC by the previousluy agreed to timefram. No more delays." If Sore/Loserman was ahead, they would have won Florida, and then the EC.

I think Allan is really just mad that Ralph Nader took away votes from Sore/Loserman, swinging the election to Bush. Exactly what Perot did to Bush, giving the plurality to Clinton.

Move on.

Wait -- we're arguing Bush vs. Gore now? What an effed-up country. I feel bad for the young people.

Bill, I'm somewhat surprised that you thought Obama, being a Constitutional professor (for a very short period), would bring Change in the context of the Constitution.

If more review of Obama's own history of parenting, schooling, his book on his father who he only met once and his fathers written beliefs and his mother's dissertations, his changeable positions, and his associations, then it becomes a little clearer why his basis is not the Constitution.

He's smart of enough to know that he has to play with the Constitution to bring about the Changes that deep down is in his soul and those around him, and the rest of us have a hard time to decipher. He has to do so to bring about a silent revolution to avoid blood. But he doesn't earnestly believe in the Constitution and the underlying history of what the Founders conveyed through the Constitution.

The hysteria, hype and Hope from the media, who he plays so well, missed for the masses a true vetting of his beliefs. It doesn't include the Constitution.

It's the Bush Tax Cuts,
A waged war without specific funding for it,
Earned Social Security (insurance) fund we and our employers paid into embezzled by Congress,
is bringing the 99% to our knees.
Any other justification propaganda is just that propaganda, meaningless inflammatory words.

Here is what I don't get. How does the national debt increase from 10 Trillion to 15 Trillion under Obama, while he simultaneously has the lowest spending record of any President since LBJ? Serious question. I don't understand.

There was a recession thing. Tax revenue is low. And we're counting the wars instead of making pretend.

Here's more reason to be mad at Obama (guess what? Bush has been gone for three years. If Obama can't fix what you think Bush caused, let's get someone who can - Romney BTW Obama was in the Senate two years before the 2008 melt down - where were is proposals to avoid it?):

Obama's Green Energy Agenda (Its a failure):

“We can invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy … to create 5 million new jobs, new energy jobs, all across [the] country, jobs that pay well, jobs that can’t be outsourced,” Obama, the candidate, told an Ohio crowd.

But the president has fallen far short of his own mark.

The wind industry has actually lost about 10,000 jobs since 2009, even though it doubled its domestic production, the American Wind Energy Association reports. And Republicans were quick to point out that as Obama blocks the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas, the oil and gas industry has added 75,000 jobs since the start of his term.

Obama spent $90 billion of his stimulus package on green energy projects, including weatherization of buildings and development of electric vehicles. Yet, by the end of last year, just 16,100 people landed new jobs in the so-called green industry, Labor Department statistics show, far short of the 200,000 jobs the White House projected it would help create each year.

PS this failure has nothing to do with Obama's race, just his incompetence.

Here are the federal budget deficits for the fiscal years 2005 through 2012 (2012 is estimated):

2005: 318,000,000,000
2006: 248,000,000,000
2007: 161,000,000,000

The Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007, one-third of the way through FY 2007.

2008: 459,000,000,000

Now we get to the Obama administration.

2009: 1,413,000,000,000
2010: 1,293,000,000,000
2011: 1,300,000,000,000
2012: 1,327,000,000,000

So Obama has presided over the four largest federal budget deficits in history, by an extremely wide margin. This is how he “cleaned up” the “wild debts” of his Republican predecessor. Of course, federal spending is not entirely, or even primarily, about the president: only Congress has the power to spend money. So this is one more fact that should not be forgotten: since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007, federal spending has risen by more than $1 trillion, or 39%.

Obama’s first year, 2009, was the year when federal spending exploded, in part, but by no means entirely, because of the “stimulus” bill. Federal spending in FY 2009 leaped by $535 billion–more than a half trillion dollars–compared to FY 2008. Since then, Obama and the Democrats have maintained that extraordinarily high level, but increased it only modestly.

Bush never saw a FY 2009 budget. The Democratic Congress waited until Obama had been sworn in to pass a budget, and he signed the FY 2009 budget on March 12 of that year. Altogether, Congress spent more than $400 billion more in FY 2009 than Bush had asked to be appropriated in his budget proposal, which the Democrats ignored.

And since then, we have never seen a new budget, as our Senate can't seem to find the time to pass one. All votes to date have died with nearly unanimous bipartisan support. No pol up for reelection in the Senate wants to tarnish their record with a spending cut or tax increase.

Since the Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007, federal spending has increased 39%, by more than $1 trillion.

Source:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200

As others have noted, Mike, we're now counting the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in total federal expenditures, which was not the case under Bush. There is also far less revenue now available due to the Great Recession and the lingering Bush tax cuts (which Obama, shamefully, has allowed to continue), meaning that higher deficits are required to maintain the same level of spending. Therefore, deficit comparisons with the previous decade are highly misleading, no matter how shocking they may look on paper.

The point many people here are trying to make about Obama, simply stated, is that up to now, he hasn't significantly increased spending on a single major domestic government program. Not one.

(And to answer two counterarguments that I know are coming: (a) The 2009 stimulus package, against the advice of most mainstream economists, was largely made up of tax cuts - supported by Republicans. (b) Yes, there's Obamacare, but it has not yet taken effect and contains cost-cutting and revenue-enhancing measures intended to limit or even negate its overall economic impact. Maybe they won't, but that remains to be seen.)

semi-cynic,

It seems that both Presidents are to blame for leading the country into a large federal deficit. The cumulative cost of the military contributed greatly to handing Obama a $460 billion deficit instead of a forecast $850 billion surplus (yes, thank the recession). Unfortunately, instead of cutting spending, Obama has spent more money than the government has ever spent in a single year and contributed to the substantial federal budget deficit increase. We are now at the highest deficit levels compared to GDP, second only to World War II. Obama may take note of that, but in 2010 he continued passing legislation that increases expenses through the next decade.

It does seem accurate to ascertain that he has contributed to the federal debt and deficit at levels never see before in a single year.

As for those Bush tax cuts...letting them expire will help, but at a cost of every taxpayer paying more. And if the compromise is to tax only those with income above $1M or 250K, there will be little help on the deficit if current spending levels continue.

Recall President Obama's campaign promises...

Indeed. Recall President Obama's campaign promises.

There are so many broken ones, their splinters add up to a very, very heavy cross on the backs of all of us who hoped for something so much better. And yes, I'm mad, mad enough that practically anybody but Sarah Palin looks better, much, much better. I am thirsting for that Romney bumper sticker, just so that all the people at New Seasons will give me shocke, shocked I tell you, looks.

As I recall, there was something about a "more perfect union". Something about a dawn of new American leadership, something about common ground.

In an effort to set the tone, he invited that plump anti-gay marriage guy to his inauguration, just so that we would all see how much he was reaching out to everyone. (I praised this, mind you, before the whole illusion fell apart). Then he appointed a transvestite to the top post for gay outreach. Then he did exactly NOTHING to advance civil unions, which he supposedly supported, before he had his recent, transparently laughable "evolution."

Common ground. Even while he spent his youth blurring his brain and blowing off his studies at his fancy expensive prep-school reserved for non-whites, he has allowed his administration to take an anti-pot stance and start going after growers. If there was ever a more egregious failure, here it is. We have an aggressive police state and a huge prosecutorial wing of court and jailers quite eager to lock people up in ways other advanced democracies would never consider? And we're going after growers. It's enough to bust a major blood vessel.

Fiscal and regulatory restraint, the war on terror, race relations, these are all areas in which he has been a miserable to catastrophic failure. He has grovelled to public employee unions, passed 2000 pages of regulation on healthcare, made not a single reform in the tax code, increased federal worker's pay, promoted hijabs and showed love to the mullahs and the Saudis, and been UTTERLY tribal in the arena of race and partisan politics. We have this simmering race war going on whose name no one dares utter, and when the disaster happens in Sanford, Florida, can this freaking idiot not just stand up and say, please, people, let's wait to get the facts? No, we get to hear about how he looks like the victim. Jesus.

Now we find out that his university colleagues at the law school where he was a junior ***instructor*****, couldn't stand him because they thought he was lazy and under qualified.

All this, and people imply we are racists because the truth is now apparent to us and we have freaked out. Well, guess what, we're getting to be very pissed off at one racial group that has really been instrumental in this disaster: liberal whites.

Obama was never a "constitutional professor"
He was a visiting lecturer on constitutional law.
Not that he shows a great understanding of the subject.

Today on the seaside promenade off the wharf in Seattle I saw an "impeach Obama" stand. I promised husband and son that I would spen less than one minute and would catch up to them.

So I go up to the guy and say: "My family really wants me back in less than one minute so, please just just give me your two most important talking points."

He reaches slowly for a flyer, and says, "uh, well, the most important talking point is that this memorial day weekend will be the end of the world as we know it..." and I didn't hear any more because I was sprinting hard to catch up to the guys and tell them this slightly hilarious anecdote.

As they say, with friends like these....

Semi-cynic, so in evaluating if Obama "hasn't increased spending on a single domestic government program", we're not suppose to evaluate Obamacare? Ask the employers who are already paying increased costs. Ask the Social Security recipients paying more and increasing each year. And you're asking us to forget about all the other Obamacare cost increases in the near future and several years out?

It still boils down to a decade plus of Bush Tax Cuts and Two Unfunded Wars embezzled out of the general budget, taking us from a surplus to this and sliding.

Why do we keep letting the media spoon feed propaganda and creative meaningless excuses by the 1% to us?

Visit a foreign country and look at life for the 99% SURVIVING BY THEIR WITS, with the 1% hoarding 99% of the money. It is billions the world over living in servitude to the 1%.

Why in the world are so many 99%ers arguing with such passion to complete the handover to the 1% dooming their own personal future?
I'll be reminded of where we are headed tomorrow when I go to Mexico on business, as I was last week while there on business.
Given free reign, the powers don't trickle down anything.
"They will start expecting it" is the same excuse the 1% utters the world.

It started with the Bush Tax Cuts!

Well, actually it started with the Reagan tax cuts, but I digress. The subject at hand is the right's wholly disproportionate rage at Obama and I'm not one of those who ascribe it solely or even mainly to racism. I suspect most of his far-right critics would be quite content with a Black president who shared their worldview, such as Rep. Allan West of Florida (or perhaps Condoleeza Rice, to whom Romney would be smart to offer the VP slot).

But if race (and its attendant cultural "otherness") isn't the main fuel for this particular fire, it certainly is an aggravating factor. The hard proof of this is the "birther" movement that simply will not die - now Romney has even joined in with his very public embrace of Donald Trump and the refusal to remove or even publicly reprimand his Arizona campaign chair. No white president or candidate, not even those more liberal than Obama, has ever been subjected to this kind of humiliation. There's simply nothing else to ascribe it to but race and what race still signifies, 50 years after the Civil Rights Act, to a substantial number of conservative whites.

"No white president or candidate, not even those more liberal than Obama, has ever been subjected to this kind of humiliation."

That's utter nonsense and simple to demonstrate with a google search for "Bush Sucks".

Out of curiosity I have watched and listened to left wing radio and TV the whole time and they were vial and cruel to the chipmunk from the beginning of Bush/Gore.

Since you brought it up, if you think the birther thing is hard proof of unprecedented cruelty or racism than you haven't been curious enough to even read and know what it actually is. Or that it is pretty apparent that Obama could far more easily remedy it himself than anyone could prove there were no missiles or demolitions on 911.
As conspiracy theories and mud slinging go the birther episode is barely dirty.
It's closer to a clerical attack with wishful thinking amping it up.

It's useless to debate it anywhere but the recent chapter didn't help squash the birther claims. Obama’s literary agency two decades ago published a catalogue of clients that included the information that he had been born in Kenya.
A woman named Miriam Goderich has since come forward and said the error was hers.
That's good enough for Obama supporters but birthers find her lacking credibility so the "attack" continues.

But their continued challenges are no where near the unequaled besmirching humiliation you claim he is the target of because of racism.
Your psychoanalyzing and conclusions are no more than the same as the other divisive accusations that conservatives everywhere are busy plotting their social extremism.
It will fall on deaf ears but I can tell honestly and confidently that your imagination has replaced reality. I have been plotting with many conservatives at nearly every level for many years and not once has any of it produced any conversations regarding gay rights/marriage, abortion, racism, corporatist objectives, following orders from mysterious puppet masters, promoting war for the sake of enjoying killing, poisoning the universe or pilfering the poor for profit.

So unless everyone else was speaking in code (and I didn't understand) there is nothing real about BlueOregon's or Keith Olberman's caricature of conservatives.

That's not to say there are no fringe elements seeking social objectives but they are just that, fringe and as irrelevant as anarchists on May Day are to the Democrat party.

In reality the conservative "plotting" resembles much of the critique found here by our host with the pursuit of rational and manageable government policies that apply to every day municipal life. Of course nearly all of it involves some restraining of government so it's easy for the left to then cast it all as the social attacks on all things good, helpless, minority and middle (union) class.

They are doing it locally to the critics of Metro, TriMet and the Creep.

Your case than the birther thing is racism is as weak as those blaming mentions of MAX crime on racism.

That tendency of the local left is the biggest impediment to sweeping progress.

It was on full display during the Adams recall effort. As soon as Victoria Taft and other conservatives stepped up to help
loyal left wingers used it to taint and undermine the recall effort.

The rest is Creepy.

Is there some racism out there contributing something to the anti-Obama
environment? I have to assume there must be some. Human ugly nature is alive and well.
But what is anyone supposed to do with that?
Shut up and stop criticizing the president or you'll be called a racist?

Nobody in charge worries about deficits or the national debt. Remember Cheney? "Deficits don't matter." And guess what? They're right. In the current environment, if the level of debt were an issue, the US government would have to pay more to borrow. But interest rates on US obligations, in real terms, are negative. So politicians feign concern about the deficit for political advantage.

If deficits really are a problem, the solution is simple: Let the Bush tax cuts expire, and let the Affordable Care Act remain in place. Under CBO projections, the deficits disappear in a few years.

Allan L., since CBO admits that expired Bush tax cuts would only gain around 1% to 2% and Obamacare will actually increase the national debt, how can the $16 Trillion dollar debt disappear in a few years?

If deficits really are a problem, the solution is simple: Let the Bush tax cuts expire, and let the Affordable Care Act remain in place. Under CBO projections, the deficits disappear in a few years.

Although I oppose Obamacare and increases to federal tax rates, I'd consider taking your gamble on them working out in exchange for a constitutional balanced budget amendment (phased in over 8 years if necessary). That way if/when those CBO projections pan out like Oregon revenue projections (or TriMet's budget or METRO's population models) then the cuts would have to go into effect immediately to balance the budget.

It might take a decade or so of abrupt electoral shifts to figure out a workable balance between tax policies and the size of government.

I suspect that voters will have much less appetite for big government solutions than the so-called 99%'ers contend. I also doubt we would end up in Libertopia, but we would at least avoid fiscal calamity until we found an equilibrium.

I would happily trade 12 (more) years of turbulence if we could finally put an end to the major parties gaining/holding power with campaign promises that must be financed/maintained with debt.

But what is anyone supposed to do with that?
Shut up and stop criticizing the president or you'll be called a racist?

A clever aspect of bringing us Obama as "the choice" last time. In my opinion, he was marketed to the people, good looking movie star quality, well speaking actor, and hope and change for better times!!

Take a look at Hugh's list on Bush and on Obama, plenty of negatives on both.

I am especially upset with Congress. Years ago I called Senator Smith's office and was told by the person there that there was not much Congress could do. I asked where he got his education, did he not know that there are to be three equal branches of power? Anyway, Congress had purse strings to stop mad war spending, wall street bailouts, and who knows what else they have failed on. They are the ones who are supposed to take care of overseeing and matters, and instead we have an elite club of sell outs going along with the downward spiral of our country!

lw, your numbers are bad. Look it up.

Pancho, I hope you are not using the "pan out like Oregon's revenue projections" made for Measure 66 and 67 which missed by over 30%. Not a good way to run a country or state.

Allan L., the numbers are good. Look it up. And not on Blue Oregon.

Now that the circus act that is the U.S. presidential primary season — complete with issue sideshows and freak-tent candidates — is over, voters have a chance to educate themselves about where the United States is headed and the consequences of choosing one set of politicians over another. They ought to do themselves a favor and read "The Reckoning: Debt, Democracy and the Future of American Power," Michael Moran's compact and accessible summary of pretty much every challenge the nation faces.

semi-cynic,
Yes, your are right, It did start with Reagan's tax cuts, along with other steps, with the goal of the 1% gaining total control.
Big picture, long range thinkers do remember that!

Your Friend: I agree with you about the racism issue. I grew up in the Bible belt and none of my friends or family members dislike Obama because of his race. They dislike him because of his stances on abortion, homosexuality, role of government, the death penalty, etc.

I think most conservatives would have voted for Herman Cain if his illustrious past hadn't caught up with him. They would have done it to say "We support black people just fine - when they share the same worldview."

I wonder if Maher is still trying to convince people he is a libertarian because he favors the legalization of pot?

Nah. Maher is still trying ... to ... people. Very trying.

But now this -- this has political punch not blackening eyes of libs
but squarely nails the cons full face force:

Attachment Journalism, May 31, 2012, by Rob Tornoe, Media Matters .org

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201205310011