Random Politics & Religion #00

Because it's always the Republican's fault. That's their mantra, it's always somebody else's fault.

Can you just imagine if walmart or some other hated corporation had sold millions of people a policy like this that simply wasn't true and fell short of promises and expectations left and right? You'd have liberals calling for the CEO to be publicly hung.

The double standards are just sickening.

I'd say, most of the time on either side, it's not a lie at the moment they said it, but more like they make promises they can't keep. It's technically a lie, but I'm sure if they could make it work then they would.

I can get behind this post.

The only thing you have to take into account for though is that some people were like this even during the bush administration. Every liberal is not out to defend obama til the last unconditionally just like every conservative was't out to defend bush til the last unconditionally...

WASHINGTON — President Obama emerged from last week’s midterm election rejected by voters, hobbled politically and doomed to a final two years in office suffering from early lame-duck syndrome. That, at least, was the consensus in both parties. No one seems to have told Mr. Obama.

In the 10 days since “we got beat,” as he put it, by Republicans who captured the Senate and bolstered control over the House, Mr. Obama has flexed his muscles on immigration, climate change and the Internet, demonstrating that he still aspires to enact sweeping policies that could help define his legacy.

The timing of the three different decisions was to some extent a function of separate policy clocks, not simply a White House political strategy. Mr. Obama, for example, had been scheduled to travel to China for a summit meeting in mid-November, and American officials have been trying for most of the year to negotiate a climate agreement for him to announce while in Beijing.

Still, even if by happenstance, the back-to-back moves have reinforced Mr. Obama’s desire to assert himself in a period when his poll numbers and political capital are at their lowest ebbs. While losing Congress was a grievous blow that will further challenge his capacity to govern, advisers said that he feels liberated. He can now pursue his long-term agenda, they said, without being tethered to the short-term electoral concerns of his party’s leadership in Congress.

In the process, though, Mr. Obama has angered Republicans who accuse him of essentially defying the message sent by the electorate. All of the talk by the White House in recent days of working together with the new Congress seems belied by a president who has wasted little time advancing some of the same policies that were renounced just a week ago, Republicans said.

“The president is completely ignoring the will of the American voters, who turned out on Election Day and overwhelmingly elected people who wanted to change the direction of the country,” Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, said in an interview. “Even today, the new polls show Americans would rather have Republicans make the agenda changes than the president.”

But aides said Mr. Obama has concluded that he cannot let opposition from the other party stop him from advancing his priorities, and in his postelection comments, Mr. Obama predicted he would take actions that Republicans would not like. While White House advisers interpreted the election results as a mandate to work across the aisle, they said that cannot simply be a prescription for more gridlock where the president does nothing without Republican approval.

“Our bottom line is we think people want results,” said Jennifer Palmieri, the White House communications director. “They want things to improve. They want you to take action. They’re more focused on outcomes than process.”

Although they do not present it this way, in some ways Mr. Obama and his aides are taking a page from President George W. Bush’s playbook after his own “thumping” in his final midterm elections. Instead of pulling out of the deteriorating war in Iraq, as Democrats interpreted Mr. Bush’s election mandate, he sent more troops. Democrats like Mr. Obama, then a senator, accused the president of defying the voters. In the end, the reinforcements and a strategy change helped turn around the war.

Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama will continue to have a relatively free hand on foreign policy, although he has asked Congress to fashion a new authorization for his own air war in Iraq and next-door Syria against the Islamic State militant group. But it remains less clear how far he can go toward other goals without Congress.

His agreement with China to reduce carbon emissions over the next decade is not binding and ultimately will depend on his successor enacting policies to achieve those goals. Likewise, his planned immigration executive order providing work permits to millions of people in the country illegally will remain in force only as long as he is in office.

Still, aides said Mr. Obama seems energized by the postelection actions. As early as the day after the voting, senior officials described him as impatient to reclaim the presidential megaphone and argue for policy initiatives after a year of hanging back in deference to Democratic operatives worried about the backlash for vulnerable candidates.

It is a change in tone that has been apparent to liberal activists who have often criticized Mr. Obama for being too timid and willing to compromise. Public interest groups and technology start-up executives said they saw the new dynamic at work on Monday, when they got a heads-up to watch the White House website for an announcement that would please them.

Mr. Obama’s videotaped call for a free and open Internet “completely upended the debate, and it was the kind of clear, bold statement we had been waiting for, reconnecting to that language you heard in 2008, where he came out in very stark terms in a pro-public interest way,” said Craig Aaron, the president of Free Press, an advocacy group.

While there is still considerable concern among some White House allies that Mr. Obama will allow Republicans to set the terms of debate over trade, taxes and infrastructure spending, many argue that the devastating scale of the election losses may have raised pressure on the president to go big in other areas, if only to prove his relevance and agenda-setting authority.

“The president has seen what happens when he doesn’t step forward and Democrats don’t inspire the public or their base — we win on the issues, but lose at the polls — so we can’t do worse,” said Anna Galland, the executive director of MoveOn.org, the progressive advocacy group. “Let’s try being bold.”

Republicans did not see it as bold so much as defiant and said it may cost Mr. Obama the opportunity to make more progress collaboratively.

“I’ve been very disturbed about the way the president has proceeded in the wake of the election,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the incoming Republican majority leader.

“I had maybe naïvely hoped the president would look at the results of the election and decide to come to the political center and do some business with us,” he added. “I still hope he does at some point but the early signs are not good.”

Fair enough. It's the "protect my party" mentality that is destroying the nation. We should be reaming our own politicians, not protecting them. I would rather be led by a Democrat that was forced to be transparent than a Republican that was forced to be opaque.

It wasn't republican's who lied about the ACA in order to sell it. Bohener and Mcconnel weren't out telling people if they like their plan, they can keep their plan.

I think you are the only person ever mentionning that.

I think it comes from not realizing that there's a political spectrum and that Obama's policies are typically on the right, not that left, except when it comes to social and economic issues, and even those are pretty much right down the middle, I love how they try to paint him as an evil socialist *** when he's really far from it.

Some things never change.

Er, what social issue is Obama " right down the middle" on?

Er, what social issue is Obama " right down the middle" on?

let's see here

sex education, death penalty, etc. Aside from that most of the things he says he wants to do are really moderate, it's nothing insane, but certain people keep trying to paint it as such.

You forgot wealth distribution.

It is, but I guess that's a matter of disagreement, so whatevs.

Oh good. So if a politician supports gay marriage only in the most extreme cases but supports states that want to abolish it, can I call him/her "right down the middle" on the subject too?

did you just seriously compare gay marriage to the death penalty?

Obama only supports the death penalty in the most extreme of cases such as mass murder and heinous crimes against children. Whether or not his position is correct is up for debate, but it's not "right down the middle", especially given his record of supporting states that have abolished it.

Obama only supports the death penalty in the most extreme of cases such as mass murder and heinous crimes against children. Whether or not his position is correct is up for debate, but it's not "right down the middle", especially given his record of supporting states that have abolished it.

Truth be told everyone's in favor of wealth distribution, they just want it distributed more in their direction.

No. I just threw a random hot-button topic in there. You can replace "gay marriage" with anything. It's just a round about way of saying your logic makes no sense for determining what "right down the middle" means in terms of the death penalty.

The UK has to be prepared to “stand up from the table and walk away” if negotiations over the country’s relationship with the European Union are unsuccessful, Philip Hammond has said.

The foreign secretary said he thought agreement was possible, including “stretching” freedom of movement rules to curb the number of migrants from within the EU coming to the UK.

But he acknowledged that the UK would not be able to regain full control of its borders while it remains in the 28-member union.

He told the Daily Telegraph it was possible to get “substantial, meaningful reform” to immigration rules without a treaty change, potentially removing one of the obstacles to David Cameron’s hopes of renegotiating the UK’s relationship with Brussels before an in/out referendum by the end of 2017.

But Hammond said: “If your ambition is that we have total, unfettered control of our own borders to do what we like, that isn’t compatible with membership of the European Union, it’s as simple as that.

“And people who advocate that know jolly well it is not compatible with membership of the European Union. So if that’s what you want, you’re essentially talking about leaving the European Union.”

However, he added: “If what you want is the ability to avoid the kind of destabilising movements that we’ve seen over the last decade or so – large waves of migrants settling in concentrations that puts pressure on public services … if that’s what we want to deal with, I think there are ways we can agree to deal with these things with our partners in Europe.

“We’re in the beginning stages of a negotiation and first of all, never, never go into any negotiation unless you’re prepared to stand up from the table and walk away. We have to be prepared to.”

Hammond said he was already in behind-the-scenes talks with European politicians to establish what their “red lines” were ahead of Britain’s renegotiation.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has made clear she regards the principle of free movement of labour within the EU as non-negotiable and is reported to have warned the prime minister that his drive is pushing Britain towards “a point of no return” on the road to exit from Europe.

Similar concerns were aired by northern European leaders at a summit earlier this month, where Cameron acknowledged there were “different perspectives” but insisted there was common ground on the need to reform.

Hammond conceded there would be “problems in getting a freedom of movement solution” but added that warnings Germany would not allow changes were not “strictly true”.

“[The Germans] are aware of the fact that we have to deal with what is perceived to be a real issue in the UK if we’re going to win a referendum and keep the UK in the European Union”, he said.