Tag Archives: Barack Obama

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Another thought about 'polls'

Having just weighed in on a CNN poll touting the success of the Affordable Care Act, I cannot resist a brief comment on another so-called “poll” conducted by my local newspaper, the Amarillo Globe-News

http://amarillo.com/opinion

It asks readers on line to rate the “worst president” since 1981, the year Ronald Reagan took office. The presidents following the Gipper are George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

I’ll give you just a single guess on which president is faring the worst in this “poll.”

Yep, it’s Barack Obama. Can you imagine my fake surprise?

This isn’t a “poll,” even though the newspaper calls it such.

The reader pool comprises area residents who voted overwhelmingly against Obama in two presidential elections. He captured only about 20 percent of the vote throughout the entire Texas Panhandle in both the 2008 and 2012 elections. So, of course, if follows that he would be rated so dismally.

Besides, the “poll” is being taken while crises are erupting all over the world — Israel/Gaza, Ukraine, Nigeria, Central America. Have I missed any? Probably, but you get the idea.

What the heck. As I noted in my earlier post: If you agree with the result, you embrace it; if you disagree, you dismiss it.

I’ll dismiss this “poll” with extreme prejudice.

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Obamacare is working, poll says

You can say many things about polls. Let’s try this: If you agree with a poll’s findings, you take those findings to heart; if you disagree with them, you dismiss the numbers as being cooked up, fabricated.

I’ll go with the former on the latest CNN poll on the Affordable Care Act.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/poll-obamacare-working-cnn-109272.html?hp=r10

A new poll suggests that most Americans believe the ACA is working, if not for them personally, then for someone else.

Does that end the dispute over President Obama’s signature piece of domestic legislation? Hardly. It’s still going strong because critics want to keep the pot boiling.

House Speaker John Boehner says he’s going to sue the president over changes Obama made in the law that delayed the employer mandate provision in the ACA — which Boehner and other critics actually favor. Still, the speaker is mad because the president acted under his own executive authority.

Whatever.

The new poll, though, does bring to mind another political quandary for opponents of Obamacare. Do they really want to roll back a law that has provided health insurance for an estimated 9 million Americans that previously didn’t have it? Do they really and truly want to take back something the federal government has provided?

This is perhaps the stickiest issue facing ACA critics as they campaign for public office across the land.

We still keep hearing talk of attempting to repeal the act — with nothing to replace it. Congress has voted a bazillion times to repeal the ACA; it keeps coming up short. When will it end?

I’ll stick with my mantra that the Affordable Care Act is working. Yes, the rollout was tough, but it got fixed.

I also will suggest that the latest poll exposes Speaker Boehner’s lawsuit for being the frivolous legal action it is.

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Putin is bathed in blood

Vladimir Putin did not order the missile launch that struck down a commercial jetliner and killed nearly 300 passengers and crew.

However, the Russian president must be held accountable for this unspeakable act of terror done by rebels fighting in his name.

http://seattletimes.com/html/editorials/2024128738_ukraineedit22xml.html

The Seattle Times editorial lays it out in stark terms.

Putin has been emboldened by a lack of worldwide resolve in Ukraine’s fight with Russia. Now this fight has been expanded far beyond the region that has been at war with itself. The downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 has made this a truly international conflict.

I will include President Obama in this litany of lameness. The president has been curiously reticent in his remarks about the shootdown of the airliner. He needs to lay the responsibility squarely at the feet of the macho man, Putin.

As word is trickling out, it appears that the rebels fighting the Ukrainian government thought they were firing at a Ukrainian transport plane. Only when they got to the wreckage and discovered it belonged to a commercial Boeing 777 did they realize their mistake.

That excuses nothing.

The Russians have been arming the rebels who are fighting to separate from Ukraine and attach part of that country to Russia. As the Seattle Times noted: “Russia inspired and armed the rebel soldiers in Eastern Ukraine who have sustained a separatist movement that has only grown more desperate. Suddenly, this presumably ragtag collection had the military might to bring down a civilian airliner from 33,000 feet.”

As the Times noted, Europe has to step up: “Europe can do better than be intimidated by the possible loss of Russia’s gas supplies. Look what the revenues are paying for, and look at the leader they sustain.”

It’s also time for the United States to step up as well.

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DREAM Act not related to current crisis

Let’s try to end this nonsensical discussion about whether the DREAM Act has played a role in the crisis on our southern border.

It hasn’t a thing to do with it.

The DREAM Act — which stands for Development, Relief, Education for Alien Minors — is intended to give a break those who were brought here illegally by their parents when they were children. It’s meant to clear a path toward citizenship if these individuals meet certain requirements.

The principle — supported by none other than Texas Gov. Rick Perry, among others — is to give those who have known only life in the United States to become citizens. It’s akin to Perry’s support of providing in-state public university tuition to these young Texans.

Some critics of President Obama have sought to suggest that the DREAM Act is a code for “amnesty” for the children who are flocking to this country from Central America. The actual attraction comes from a 2008 law signed by President Bush after it was approved unanimously by Congress. The law is intended to strike back against child pornographers and other human traffickers by making it more difficult to deport those who are here illegally.

With the border being choked with young refugees from Latin America, some now want to tweak that 2008 law to speed up the deportation process.

The hysterical criticism that gets tossed around, however, needs to be reeled in.

The border crisis really isn’t a function of a “porous border.” It’s a lengthy border along our southern flank, to be sure. However, to suggest that the U.S. Border Patrol isn’t doing its job requires one to examine all the children who have been taken into custody.

They are being held in detention centers. The system has been choked by the sheer volume of refugees who have fled here. It needs serious repair.

How about we deal with the real problem and stop casting blame in search of scapegoats?

The DREAM Act isn’t the problem.

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Take ownership, not possession

Every now and then a politician and/or a pundit with whom I disagree offers a nugget of perspective that I find, well, agreeable.

Such was the case recently in a commentary written for CNN by a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives who raked President Obama over the coals for what he called the president’s constant trip to “fantasyland.”

I refer to Newt Gingrich, one of the smarter conservatives around – but also one of the more bombastic.

I’ll stipulate up front that I disagree with Gingrich’s wholesale analysis that Obama is a failed president.

But then he offered this tidbit of “truth” as he sees it, and frankly, so do I.

He referred to a recent speech in which the president used the first-person pronoun – “I,” “my” and “me” – 207 times. That was 207 times in a single speech, according to Newtie.

Bingo, Mr. Speaker. The president’s use of that personal pronoun annoys the daylights out of me as well.

I’ve noticed almost from the day the president took office in January 2009.

At the very beginning, it was an impressive display of ownership that the young president had demonstrated as he took office to tackle the horrible economic crisis that threatened to swallow up the nation’s financial infrastructure.

Nearly six years into his presidency, and after a stunning re-election victory in 2012, I am finding the use of the first-person pronoun a bit of a distraction.

Listen to the president’s speeches or off-the-cuff public comments. He refers to “my administration,” “my vice president,” “my attorney general,” “my national security team,” “my economic advisers,” etc., etc., etc.

Let’s not draw any inaccurate conclusions here. I continue to believe that Barack Obama has done a good job in fixing the economic crisis he inherited. I also believe he is correct in relying more heavily on diplomacy than military action whenever crises erupt.

However, I do not believe taking ownership of the responsibilities of a high public office means that you can take possession of the office itself.

The government belongs to us, citizens who take the time to vote on those who seek to operate the government on our behalf. Yes, I mean those who actually vote, although I certainly recognize that non-voters’ tax money is just as important to funding the government as those who have cast ballots.

Therefore, it would seem more appropriate for the president to perhaps use the second-person pronoun – “your” attorney general, “your” vice president and so on – when referring to the tough issues that face those who run “your” government.

All these folks work for us – you and me – not the guy who sits in that big Oval Office.

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U.S.-Russia dispute gets even more tense

If you thought the U.S.-Russia tensions couldn’t worsen short of an actual shooting war between the nations, well, you thought wrong.

They just did on the basis of what appears to be the deliberate downing of a commercial airline carrying more than 300 passengers and crew, including one American.

http://news.msn.com/world/obama-condemns-russia-after-airliner-downed-in-ukraine

A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 has been shot down in eastern Ukraine, allegedly by separatists allied with Russia, which seems to want to re-annex the former Soviet republic.

President Obama has condemned the Russians for supporting the separatists and it is now believed he is considering even more sanctions against Russia.

Of course, critics will contend the president should have prevented the shoot-down. For now, I’ll settle for encouraging the administration — and I would implore Congress to back Obama on this one — to tighten the screws even more against Russia.

The Russians are playing a dangerous game with their support of these separatists — who now have demonstrated that they will go to any lengths to make some political point.

Someone will have to explain to me, though, what on Earth was to be gained by shooting down a commercial jetliner with innocent and unsuspecting civilians aboard.

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Border not secure? Tell the detainees

It’s difficult to imagine the terror that young people face when they’re shipped from their homes and they find themselves essentially trapped in a country that cannot accept them.

Then they learn that many people in this strange country have turned on them, believing that they are somehow responsible for the plight in which they find themselves.

Welcome to the United States of America, young Central American refugees.

I’ve become disheartened by this story as it has unfolded. The young people, thousands of them children barely past toddlerhood, have been allowed passage through Mexico and into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Reports are that they’re fleeing repression, virtual enslavement and corruption in their home countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

They come here unaccompanied, sent here by parents or transported by those notorious “coyotes,” who deal in human trafficking.

The president of the United States is asking Congress for some extra emergency money to help repatriate these young people – humanely, of course. He’s asking for money to help pay for more border security. Some in Congress don’t want to spend the money – even though they demand the president does something, anything, to help stem the flood of refugees.

Of all the arguments I’ve heard from Barack Obama’s critics, however, perhaps the most maddening in this notion that our borders are “porous,” that federal agents aren’t enforcing immigration laws, that the country has become a “magnet” for those who think it’s OK just to enter the United States and they’ll be given a safe place to live with no strings attached.

What on Earth are these critics thinking?

The borders cannot be sealed off. Still, we continue to capture illegal immigrants every single day. We’re deporting them in record numbers. The tens of thousands of young people being held by federal immigration authorities were captured, for crying out loud, by officers actually enforcing U.S. immigration laws.

I want this crisis to end as much as the next guy. I also want us to stop demonizing the children who are being used as pawns in this nasty struggle – and I want the critics to stop tossing out that demagogic canard that the United States is not enforcing its immigration laws.

Those helpless children would beg to differ.

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Divide over border crisis? Shocking!

Imagine my fake surprise at news that Republicans and Democrats are divided over how to solve the immigration/refugee crisis on our nation’s southern border.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/immigration-reform-congress-closed-door-briefing-109027.html?hp=l1

Republicans who control the House of Representatives are trying to slash President Obama’s $3.7 billion emergency spending request to deal with the flood of young people fleeing Central America.

Democrats who control the Senate are trying to preserve most of what Obama has asked.

My take? If Republicans think the immigration crisis has reached some sort of critical mass, why are they scaling back so much of what the president is asking?

They want more border security? They want speedier repatriation of the immigrants? They want to hold the families and governments sending these young people to the United States accountable for their actions?

I believe the request does all of that. What in the world am I missing?

Yes, this crisis of serious national concern. There once was a time when leaders of the two major parties would lock arms and hammer out solutions — together. Those days appear to have vanished in the dust bin of recrimination that has become a way of life on Capitol Hill.

This is a disgraceful example of representative democracy failing to do what the people it represents want it to do.

Fix the problem.

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You go, ex-VP Cheney

Say what you will about Dick Cheney — and I’ve said more than my share in recent months — he’s a serious politician with serious ideas.

OK, so I cannot stand the former vice president’s constant carping about the administration that succeeded the one in which he was a key player. I cannot stomach that he cannot keep his trap shut about foreign policy issues, as he is undermining President Obama and Vice President Biden.

But this serious man said a serious thing about impeaching the president.

He calls such talk a “distraction.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/dick-cheney-sarah-palin-impeachment-distraction-108944.html?hp=r4

Cheney was referring specifically to an unserious politician’s talk about impeachment. That would be the former half-term Republican Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who’s weighed in with some notion that the president needs to be impeached. She hasn’t specified the high crimes and misdemeanors of which he is supposedly guilty.

It doesn’t matter, frankly. There aren’t any misdeeds that rise to anything close to an impeachable offense.

Still, Cheney is right to call down his GOP colleague — if only gently. He said he likes the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee. Cheney says she has a right to her opinion, which of course is quite correct. It’s just that she’s wrong on almost everything that flies out of her mouth.

For that matter, so is Cheney.

On this issue, though, he is right … to the extent he has spoken out at all about impeaching Barack Obama.

Cheney told CNN: “I’m not prepared, at this point, to call for the impeachment of the president. I think he is the worst president of my lifetime. I fundamentally disagree with him. I think he’s doing a lot of things wrong. I’m glad to see House Republicans are challenging him, at least legally, at this point, but I think that gets to be a bit of a distraction just like the impeachment of Bill Clinton did.”

He’s not going to give President Obama any kind of a break, to be sure. That’s expected.

Still, he’s trying to quell the nut-case talk among those on the right wing of his once-great political party. I’ll give him a modicum of credit for that.

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Surprise! Most GOPers favor impeachment

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A part of me is glad the talk of impeaching President Obama keeps percolating.

It serves to remind much of the country that today’s Republican Party is being dominated by nutty zealots who would impeach the president for passing gas in a public elevator if they thought they could get away with it.

Poll: 35 percent say impeachment justified

A new poll shows that 68 percent of Americans who call themselves Republicans believe Obama has done something merit impeachment by the House of Representatives. The poll, sponsored by YouGov and the Huffington Post, reports that 8 percent of Democrats think it’s a bad idea.

Wow. I’m shocked, shocked!

Reasonable Republicans — and there remain some of them in high public office — think otherwise about impeachment. House Speaker John Boehner says it won’t happen. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia says the president hasn’t committed the type of crime that merits impeachment.

That hasn’t stopped the likes of former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah “Barracuda” Palin from weighing in with impeachment talk.

I rather like Attorney General Eric Holder’s response to Palin’s recent demand for an impeachment. He quipped that the former Alaska governor “wasn’t a particularly good vice presidential candidate.” Holder said Palin was “an even worse judge of who ought to be impeached and why.”

I figure that as long as the media keep reporting this impeachment nonsense, the better it is for those who oppose the idea of proceeding with such idiocy. It exposes the modern GOP as a party dominated by fruitcakes who, absent any constructive agenda for governing, are left to talk openly about an issue intended solely to stoke its fire-breathing base.