^^ Demonstrates pretty convincingly that the Obama hate is much greater than the Bush hate, despite your claims that they are equal.

1/27/2010 10:24:31 AM

^ it's a combination of the bad-ish economy, and modern day politics I think.

[Edited on January 27, 2010 at 11:37 AM. Reason : ]

1/27/2010 11:37:17 AM

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/6903052/

Quote :

"WASHINGTON — North Carolina is slated to get $520 million in federal stimulus funds to improve the rail corridor between Charlotte and Raleigh. The money will go toward upgrading tracks, increasing top train speeds to 90 miles per hour and doubling the number of round trips, according to information the White House provided to North Carolina lawmakers before a formal announcement. It also will help purchase and rehabilitate train equipment and improve security. "

I can support this kind of stimulus spending

1/28/2010 11:16:17 AM

why are trains getting so much attention.
when was the last time anyone rode a train?

1/28/2010 11:45:08 AM

I'm mostly just jealous of train systems in other parts of the world.

1/28/2010 11:53:17 AM

keeping up with the chongses will pull us out of the recession

1/28/2010 12:04:26 PM

no but stimulus spending might (or atleast thats the goal)

and spending that money on transportation infrastructure is probably better than what a lot of it has been spent on.

[Edited on January 28, 2010 at 12:34 PM. Reason : most importantly its money coming to NC!]

1/28/2010 12:33:22 PM

If there's going to be any kind of stimulus, and there shouldn't be, it has to be spent in some way that is going to increase productivity. Roads that are going to make it substantially easier for suppliers to get goods to retailers, for instance, would be better than some useless public park pork project.

1/28/2010 12:36:59 PM

^I don't necessarily disagree with you, stimulus money is meant for stimulating the economy, but some of our nations greatest parks were built using new deal money back in the 30s

1/28/2010 12:44:41 PM

^^shipping goods via the rail is about 1000 times more efficient from an energy point of view than using a truck on the interstate. An expansion of our current rail system is definitely needed.

1/28/2010 1:11:08 PM

That's probably true, I was just giving an example of something that I would consider "productive." We don't want to be giving out stimulus money for consumption.

1/28/2010 1:21:53 PM

Commercial shipping by rail is a viable market, but passenger rail doesn't work in 99% of America.

Our city planning has created far too much sprawl. Passenger rail only works when everything is in walking distance of a station. Unless the stations are already there, cities will develop without consideration for "walking-distance".

Also, car-travel is extremely cheap and reliable here.

1/28/2010 1:45:14 PM

^Do you think rail travel between cities (ie. Charlotte to Raleigh to DC) is viable?

1/28/2010 2:02:19 PM

Depends on a lot of things, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be financially self-sustaining. Consider the following conditions in Switzerland, a country where rail-travel works well:

-Highways are more often two-lane, and roads are narrower so often you will have to pull over to let someone pass.
-Traffic congestion is a lot more severe due to less lanes, less parking spaces.
-Cars cost about 25% more to purchase and 150% more to operate (adjusted for exchange)
-Drivers license standards are much higher. You need expensive training, and permit limitations are harsher.
-There are a lot more sidewalks. There are also a lot of bike, scooter, and/or pedestrian-only roads. There are also a lot more pedestrians. Lots of bike storage also.
-Citiy growth has incorporated the rail system: businesses are built near stations, or near rail-bus stops (a lot of cities have rail-trolley networks within the city).
-Rail passes come in many forms. Most people have year-long passes purchased from the government, heavily subsidized so they're cheap. These passes often incorporate bus travel as well.
-There are some very fast inter-metro trains, travelling from 100-160mph
-Rail travel is much more rigidly managed and scheduled, so it's more reliable

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 9:32 AM. Reason : .]

1/29/2010 9:30:02 AM

Quote :

"Wall Street Journal: Today’s report that GDP grew at a 5.7% annual rate is good news, but it’s far too early to break out the champagne and declare ‘recovery accomplished.’ Even if this growth rate were to be sustained for 3 years we would still not create enough jobs to climb out of the hole caused by this recession. Worse, this growth will not be sustained. This quarter’s growth was driven largely by a restocking of business inventories that will not be repeated in coming quarters. –Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute"

Jeez... that sure put a damper on things. Things are improving..but not really. ??

1/29/2010 11:08:00 AM

i heard obama was oil wrestling a crowd of republicans today and did pretty well

1/29/2010 4:16:09 PM

Quote :

"It's no secret that President Obama's approval ratings have plummeted since his election . Can he recover? Of course. Just look at what happened with Ronald Reagan. According to Pew Research, presidential approval ratings frequently track changes in unemployment very closely, and for Obama, presidential disapproval has risen in lockstep with rising unemployment. You can see this in the top chart, below. In a similar fashion, Ronald Reagan's disapproval rating soared in the early stage of his presidency, as unemployment rose sharply. (Bottom chart, below) He had inherited a pretty bad economy, just as Obama has. Yet once the economy recovered, and the unemployment rate began falling, Ronald Reagan recovered from his early disapproval almost completely. Which means the message should be pretty clear for Obama -- Focus on getting the unemployment rate to fall, by any means, and you'll do just fine."

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-presidential-approval-ratings-vs-unemployment-rate-2010-1

1/29/2010 5:39:36 PM

I know myself and several other people, before the election, discussed how a system like England where the PM has to face frank questioning from the parliament might help us out. It looks like Obama, perhaps because he had little choice, was forced into this type of dialog:

Quote :

"The encounter at a Baltimore hotel was unlike any of Mr. Obama’s presidency, or very many other presidencies, for that matter. Such a sustained and public dialogue with a hostile audience is rare for a president. Instead, Friday’s back and forth resembled the British tradition where the prime minister submits to questions on the floor of the House of Commons — something Senator John McCain had promised to do if elected president"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/us/politics/30obama.html

1/29/2010 10:03:06 PM

I just read something about that a couple of hours ago, good on him for doing that. It is precisely the sort of congressional interaction that he was lacking in his first year and which will make him more successful in the future if he keeps it up.

Personally, I prefer a deadlocked congress but from a pure politics perspective, this is what he needs to keep up.

1/29/2010 10:43:30 PM

I kind of wonder though if the Republicans are playing him though… by pretending to go along with his conciliatory actions, only to throw it back in his face later on.

It’s something I would expect either side to do in this situation, but maybe change is afoot?

1/29/2010 10:47:20 PM

It's not. It's politics. barring a massive alien invasion it will never change and doubtful it will change then. If you don't want to get into arguments, if you don't want to have disagreements, if you don't want to play politics, don't run for office.


If a politician of President Obama's caliber is worth his salt, he's playing the GOP just as much as they're playing him.

1/30/2010 9:21:02 AM

Goldman Sachs was Obama's 2nd biggest donor in 2008 $994,000. Goldman got paid off first in the bail-out. Progressives losing faith in Obama?

Video Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaIzrZg5cV8

[Edited on January 30, 2010 at 9:31 AM. Reason : .]

1/30/2010 9:31:07 AM

the bank bailout was Bush....

1/30/2010 10:17:51 AM

...but the oversight of the bailout was Obama.

and...

Quote :

"... lawmakers from both sides of the aisle seemed to reserve their stiffest criticism for Geithner, who was the first to testify at the hearing today.The rescue of AIG began in 2008, when Geithner led the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which orchestrated the bailout. "We have this bailout of AIG and you don't know anything about it," Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., told Paulson. "Mr. Geithner had nothing to do with it. It just really boggles the mind that some of the biggest people involved in this whole thing from beginning to end had nothing to do with it. They didn't know. It makes you want to think that some clerk someplace was making these decisions. I don't think anybody's going to buy that." "

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/geithner-paulson-head-hill-defend-aig-bailout/story?id=9669321

1/30/2010 10:30:03 AM

^ look no further than Rahm Emanuel. He’s Obama’s Dick Cheney.

1/30/2010 10:56:47 AM

At the time of the bailouts republicans and democrats were tied for control of the Senate and the Democrats had a sizable majority in the house. Tarp and other congressional actions could not have taken place without wide support from Democrats, including Obama (a senator at the time). As such, I see no problem with blaming Obama for the bailouts, he voted for them, and they would not have passed had he not done so.

1/30/2010 11:06:19 AM

blaming him to support who? Few people really opposed the bailouts, and neither of the mainstream political ideologies were obviously against the bailout.

1/30/2010 12:04:15 PM

Quote :

"Few people really opposed the bailouts"

Really? I think you'll find that quite a few people here did, and while this place is by no means a microcosm of the American public I think it's safe to say that a lot of the public at large were against the bailouts and quite a few more were very iffy about them.

1/30/2010 12:28:46 PM

by people, I meant politicians

1/30/2010 12:35:07 PM

OH! I think you can see why I would be confused.

1/30/2010 12:40:12 PM

Obama casually chatting with the commentators during this Duke-Georgetown game is pretty cool, I must admit

nothing to do with his credibility but I didn't feel like it deserved its own thread

1/30/2010 2:26:04 PM

Quote :

"by people, I meant politicians"

Then you would be absolutely wrong. The bailouts were defeated in congress the first time, and only passed later with substantially payoffs for votes, even then getting only just over 50% of the vote. As such, yes, at about 40% of politicians in Congress opposed the bailouts. As such, yes, it is reasonable to differentiate politicians based upon their votes on the bailouts, and every one of them should be throw out of office in 2010. Which, thanks to recent SCOTUS rulings, might even be possible.

1/30/2010 4:33:56 PM

Yes - Clearly, now that the supreme court has lifted campaign contribution limits from corporations, those corporations will now oust the very politicians that bailed them out.

This is truth is definitely self-evident and requires no additional explanation to make one whit of sense.

1/30/2010 4:58:38 PM

Quote :

" As Treasury secretary, Paulson helped oversee the government's intervention, and his memoir is the first lengthy account of the crisis from a key decision maker. The book, which is set to hit bookstores Monday, offers a look at Paulson's thinking during those scary days, as well as his sometimes unvarnished opinions of other Washington characters, many of whom had central roles in managing the government's response. Paulson writes that then-Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, called him routinely, starting with the weekend that the government seized mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Paulson was impressed with Obama as well as his vice presidential candidate, Sen. Joseph Biden, but less so by their Republican counterparts. "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/30/AR2010013001478_pf.html

1/30/2010 7:21:14 PM

Quote :

"Obama casually chatting with the commentators during this Duke-Georgetown game is pretty cool, I must admit nothing to do with his credibility but I didn't feel like it deserved its own thread"

yeah, this week has been good for getting that "New President" feeling back.
1) chastising the Supreme Court on national TV for being partisan hacks
2) pwning Republicans on healthcare in a debate they asked for and, presumably, thought they had him cornered
3) watching basketball and laughing to the announcer “After retirement, I’m coming after your job, Clark, just letting you know. So you only have three more years or seven, I’m not sure which.”

1/30/2010 7:25:30 PM

Quote :

"Yes - Clearly, now that the supreme court has lifted campaign contribution limits from corporations, those corporations will now oust the very politicians that bailed them out. "

contrary to recent trends, there are more industries and corporations in this country than banking and cars....

but to your point, the bailed-out industries have absolutely no respect or reverence for who bailed them out in the past, no matter which party it was. The only thing they care about now is who will give the best deals in the future.

1/30/2010 7:29:36 PM

I don't want to imply that they would vote for those politicians. I was pointing out that without some kind of rationale, there's no ASSUMING they WOULDN'T.

1/30/2010 7:44:11 PM

Quote :

"The Pentagon will no longer shape the U.S. military to fight two major conventional wars at once, but rather prepare for numerous conflicts and not all in the same style, according to a draft of a new strategic outlook the Pentagon is announcing on Monday."

- http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/01/us.pentagon.review/

2/1/2010 12:21:47 AM

^ It is a little funny, and very sad, to watch the Pentagon try to guess what idiotic politicians will ask them to do in the future, then try to plan for it... Silly rabbit, trix are for megalomaniacs.

2/1/2010 9:15:17 AM

Quote :

"NASHUA, N.H. – President Barack Obama branded Republicans on Tuesday as electoral opportunists more concerned about their own interests than the people's, taking a political risk by escalating criticism of the very lawmakers he's urging to work with him."

That's a great way to get the GOP to work with you..attack them.

"electoral opportunists"? Pot meet Kettle.

2/2/2010 9:01:53 PM

"We need to stand up to the special interests, bring Republicans and Democrats together, and pass the farm bill immediately," Barack Obama
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2010/02/quote_of_the_decade.php

2/3/2010 6:38:27 PM

^ you realize that quote was from 2007, it seems like?

2/3/2010 10:34:51 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100205/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_overhaul

Quite a change in tone, now that he realizes his plan is going to fail.

2/5/2010 2:13:32 PM

2/6/2010 10:12:00 AM

^

Quote :

"The chart was put together by the House Democratic leadership. "

But that's fine.
Where's the chart showing how many people have giving up looking for work under the Obama regime?

2/6/2010 10:38:59 AM

I assume it's the same chart that shows all the people who gave up looking for a job under Bush, too.

It's a nebulous number. Seriously-- if you're going to bring it up to support your case, cite it.

2/6/2010 10:22:41 PM

And come to think of it, you didn't read the fine print.

This is jobs lost, not unemployment. People giving up their search would only impact the latter.

2/7/2010 10:47:12 AM

^
The problem for the democrats is convincing voters in November that any progress in the economy was due to their actions...or did the economy improve in spite of the policies of Obama and his congress.

2/7/2010 10:57:38 AM

I think that'll be easy to do. He passed the stimulus, the economy improved. It's post hoc, but w/e.

You all talk about the stimulus as if it were a given that it was a failure. 1) just because it didn't keep unemployment at 8%, doesn't mean it didn't help. 2) The majority of stimulus spending is completely non-controversial. Imagine where we'd be today if the states hadn't been bailed-out, and I don't think anyone's complaining about the billions in tax cuts. The only controversial parts are the infrastructure-type spending, and the only non-extreme-libertarian critique to that is that infrastructure-spending is a slower form of stimulus than many would've liked.



[Edited on February 7, 2010 at 11:16 AM. Reason : ]

2/7/2010 11:12:41 AM

Quote :

"just because it didn't keep unemployment at 8%, doesn't mean it didn't help."

Tell that to all the upset, un-employed voters in November.

The stimulus has helped grow gov't employment, while the private sector hasn't seen a monthly gain in the last 24 months.

2/7/2010 10:28:26 PM