Obama appeases all the "drill baby drill" Goopers - Page 2

Cuchulain, give us a break. One of the largest, most profound changes to the Federal Government in 60 years passes = no change?

As for this drilling thing, I think it's Obama saying to the Oil Lobby that they can work with him, and not put all their money into the GOP. It also gives him yet another valid talking point to use against the GOP in the Fall:" look the GOP was all about "Drill baby Drill". Now we're willing to allow some drilling, and they say No!" . It's called undermining your opposition.

Cuch, lets see where the game sits in the fourth quarter, not the first.

The problem is, Obama had a year with majorities in Congress and the Senate and he didn't really attempt to push any seriously progressive legislation through. Now he actually has less chance of doing so. I didn't expect the guy to wave a magic wand and fix everything, but he's shown no initiative whatsoever from a progressive point of view. Even in its current form, HCR was almost dead until grassroots action got things stirred up again.

The main thing about Obama, I think, is that he's making an honest attempt to do what he thinks "the people" want him to do. He essentially said this in a number of his speeches, including his inauguration if I recall correctly. Basically, "you have to keep on me to do stuff." For the last year, the loudest voices have been from the crazy right, while progressives have gotten into a lazy cycle of defending the guy against Teh Stupid while assuming he has some kind of ultra-secret plan to turn America into a progressive Utopia. Obama's not going to solve your problems on his own, but I believe he'll listen if you guys hit the fucking streets already. Maybe this latest will shake progressives out of their complacency.

...and look how much blind hate-filled obstruction he got from across the aisle anyway even with an essentially centrist agenda, he was a godless socialist antichrist as it was. Just imagine what reception he would have gotten from both his republican opponents and the mainstream media if he'd tried to go full progressive.

Seriously, I understand progressives getting a little frustrated, but sometimes I get the feeling around here that some would rather see Obama sacrifice his presidency on failed progressive policies than actually make compromised achievements. If he'd tried to change the world from day one, do you really think he'd have any possibility at a second term?

And then what? President Romney or President Palin???

Prankster you say you understand Obama couldn't wave a magic wand, but isn't that essentially what you're kinda wishing he could have done by voicing this much frustration at the guy after only a year trying to navigate an essentially broken, blindly partisan political system?

No. I'm saying that I understand the "blind hate-filled obstruction" had an impact on his approach, but that was literally the only thing stopping him. if the Democrats had wanted a public option, they could have passed it. They had veto-proof majorities. Period. The Republican obstructionism came in the form of words--they were helpless from a legislative perspective. Obama coming out strongly and fighting for a public option *might* not have made it happen, but there was a pretty good chance it would have. The fact that he didn't shows me that he's listening to the very loud voices that opposed it. Which means that if some equally loud progressive voices started fighting for progressive causes, that would probably have an influence on his decisions as well.

"Republican obstructionism" may be real, but it's not necessarily much of a factor when it comes down to actually getting things done. Increasingly, it's starting to feel like an excuse, for Obama and for the people who expect him to do all the heavy lifting.

Again, he would lose majorities and become a premature lame duck, not to mention the chance for a second term.

It is obvious to me that his pragmatism is why he won the election, and why all the people complaining about his lack of purity will never reach the office he has earned.

Wake up man. It's not just "obstructionism" that's the problem, but public resistance to change. The public doesn't want a public option, by and large, not yet anyway. The public, by and large, was wary of these relatively modest, but important, reforms. Assuming for a moment that Democrats were a hive-mind, and Obama could simply cajole all of them for voting for something that not all of them agree with, and that would amount to political suicide, what then? The cries of socialism somehow ring truer, undermining his other agendas and his ability to woo the public to them. And, more significantly, pressure on Congressional democrats reaches a fever pitch and they get crushed in November (which may happen anyway!!).

Then what?

Again, I think people like you simply don't understand the way the world works. America is a giant vagina that is nervous about being fucked by Obama's "agenda". He can't just ram his "agenda cock" into the American pussy without frightening them and turning them off... that vagina has to want him, or it's going to close up on him. He's got to ease it in there, wait for them to realize they kinda like it, and with patience, he can go deep. Or at least loosen things up for the next guy.

Funny Cap, I was going to write what you said almost verbatim til that metaphor hit me and I just had to run with it.

I feel that this paragraph could be the start of a great political book.

Wow, man.

That was umm...was umm...amazing?

But seriously, I'm not thrilled about this latest news, but the pragmatist in me totally gets what the fuck he's doing. It could be a lot worse, I mean, it wasn't like we weren't ALREADY drilling offshore. Besides, if this is the tradeoff (not one-for-one, but in the bigger picture of his presidency) for any form of Universal Health Care and a kickoff to substantive Energy and Environmental debate/legislation, I'll take it in a heartbeat.

As for why he hasn't bulldozed progressive legislation through Congress...

1) he's not Congress, he can't do it even if he wanted
2) he committed to bipartisanship, which was essential to his election. Abandoning it immediately would have damaged his reelection chances because Independents would immediately label the guy a liar and a traitor
3) Blue Dog/Centrist Democrats, especially those elected from Republican-leaning areas would never have allowed this
4) he was dealing with (and still is) numerous shitty situations, not of his making, which required some measure of caution and loads of attention

You assume that the Democrats are as Monolithic (or is it Stalinist?) as the Republicans. In fact the Democratic party has always included Progressives, Moderates, Conservatives and Lunatics. Only now the Moderates are in the majority.

I don't quite like the fact that Obama stood back and let Congress try to create a Healthcare Bill, then rode in at the last minute to propose his own. I'd have preferred he roll out his own proposal from Day One. But I understand his strategy. And the bill passed.

I think the most valid point made so far has been that this is something of a covert jobs action. Considering there are elections soon I think it makes the most sense to view this as an attempt to win votes. Progressives are going to vote for him, it's a given. In a better world it wouldn't be, but it is. Swaying the others means improving the economy and fighting the ridiculous notion that he is in any way a radical.

Opening these areas to development is likely to cause at least a brief flurry of rosy economic projections, it feeds those starving for crumbs that appear to lessen American dependence on other nations, and it gives an aura of bipartisanship/moderation by implementing an idea that is commonly associated with the GOP. This thing is seemingly aimed directly at potential voter complaints.

I also think it's notable if not necessarily intentional that the states most likely to economically benefit from this are southern, and full of white people who are incredibly hostile to the Democrats. This would do nothing to bend those states as a whole, but it probably would placate some of the more middle of the road voters who could otherwise ensure GOP domination of state and local offices. In those cases it might not buy votes, but it could very well buy apathy against voting at all.

Sure on paper that's true, but in practice, I think you're completely underestimating the corporate media wing of the republican party commonly known as 'the mainstream media' (and that's not just Fox, that's all the major news outlets that follow their talking point cues down the yellow brick propoganda road) for starters there personally.

Obama wants to be re-elected for a second term. If the mainstream media completely turns on him that simply isn't going to happen. There are a lot more forces arrayed against him and true progressive change in the US than just a do-nothing republican party.

I'm curious how many campaign promises has he broken now? Does anyone have a list?

This isn't a broken campaign promise. Read the thread.

Have you actually followed polling? The public option enjoys--and always has enjoyed--a dramatically higher approval rating than the current bill. Most people in America want a public option. What the stories on the news that say "most people in America oppose HCR" bury in the lede is that most people oppose it because it doesn't go far enough. The public will for change is there, it's just that the Party and its current leaders have absolutely no interest in pissing off the people holding power of the purse.

You're buying into the administration's framing. The bill they just passed is exactly the same bill that the lobbyists have been proposing for decades. It isn't reform. It's more like this: "Hey, this is the least possible amount of 'reform' you can enact in order to make sure our greed doesn't completely ruin our own business model ... would you mind if I balanced it on your head and finished the last paragraph, as you greedily suck my cock, and then pass it? Good boy *smacks ass* now go get me a sandwich and beer, bitch."

Anybody who thinks the bill, as written, changes the status quo, sets up any kind of challenge to the status quo in the future, or did anything but reaffirm and augment the way Washington has worked for decades is just not paying attention.

Ah, more purity tests.

Health Care Reform blows because it doesn't have a public option, based solely on the fact that Cuchulain, and many on the left, wanted a public option and didn't get it. It's a fun argument, really, especially given the fact that, in reality, the public option was never strong enough to bring about the "challenge" Cuchulain implies it would have had.

The CBO never said the public option would dramatically impact the cost curve (at best, the estimates I saw were between 1-3%), health care economists never said it would dramatically impact the cost curve, but why let a silly thing like reason get in the way of your fetish.

The banning of recision, discrimination based on preexisting conditions, and the creation of subsidies so that lower income Americans can finally both afford and have access to health insurance is, to quote Joe Biden, a big fucking deal, and could not be done without the herculean efforts of those within the administration and in Congress. Was it enough? No, but let's not act like significantly changing our health care system was ever on the table, or that any single concept that was negotiated away could have shifted it from abject failure to a success.

No, it blows because it does absolutely nothing to actually control costs or, you know, REFORM anything about the industry and how it operates. If a strong public option, a Medicare-for-All buy-in, or even just the anti-trust exemption had gone im, it would have still sucked, but at least you could argue that it opened the door for something better down the line. This bill doesn't.

For the moment, I'm going to ignore that you're arguing against a strawman of my argument here (I never said that it would bend the cost curve dramatically, I just said it would address that issue, which the current bill doesn't). I'll be charitable. It's just the last time I checked something had infinitely more value than nothing, which seems like a pretty fucking dramatic difference.

One, almost none of those things happen for years and the industry is already trying to wriggle out from under the dozen or so things that actually kick in in the immediate future.

Second, all of those things help the insurance industry a great deal, but I'm not seeing how they really help most people who need insurance. The insurance companies get 30 million more customers who are legally obligated to be customers and the customers get absolutely no protection from the insurance companies, outside of not being able to give them money.

At the very least, some kind of public option would have given people the peace of mind that they weren't lining the pockets of the persons economically raping them. Well, that and actually addressed the cost of health insurance.

I'm not as opposed to the bill as Cuchulain (and I don't have a stake in this anyway) but it's kind of bizarre how you reduced the value of the public option to "cost control" and ignored the rather important aspect of "providing health care for everyone", Grima. It's not some crazy abstract idea we're talking about here. Especially if the bill is going to force people to have health care but not provide a means for them to do so.

Obama Betrays the Left Again
by Eric Alterman.

The left is raging about the president’s new plan to jump-start offshore drilling. Eric Alterman on why liberals just don’t get who they’re dealing with.

If the question is providing the means to pay for healthcare for the uninsured, a public options is fundamentally no better than subsidies, so when I hear people complain about the lack of a public option, I have to assume it’s due to cost control concerns.

Again, it helps most people by providing subsidies.

The thing is, because many who criticize this bill from the left view this whole thing as a zero sum game, the enormous amount of money set aside to pay for said subsidies is completely ignored as nothing more than a blow job to the insurance industry.

Quite frankly, whether or not the insurance industry makes out like bandits has very little to do with the effectiveness of the bill.

Discriminating against those with pre-existing conditions is very real. I've had to deal with it and so do others with disabilities they were born with.

You know there won't be any real drilling right? The EPA willl nip this in the ass with law suit after law suit after law suit.

]So if the Sierra Club is unhappy, that’s OK with Obama. So too the environmental group Oceana. (“We’re appalled that the president is unleashing a wholesale assault on the ocean”)

This ^ is why the Environmental movement is not taken seriously in this country


or Environment America (“It makes no sense to threaten our beaches, wildlife, and tourism industry with spills and other drilling disasters when we’re about to unleash the real solutions to oil dependence—cleaner cars and cleaner fuels.").

^THIS is the correct, rational argument to make.

Is there a reason we can't work on more efficient and clean cars and fuels, all the while tapping our resources carefully?

How many decades of improvement in technology and experience has it been since the last oil spill came from drilling? Not damaged ships like the Exxon Valdez, but drilling?

Will anything ever be considered safe enough for all the environmental groups to sign off on it?

I'm sure we'll develop cold fusion, only to have someone protest it because it isn't radioactive enough.

Dude, you're talking to a guy who lost 25% of his skull to cancer, including much of his lower mandible, has had literally hundreds of major surgeries, has a genetic disorder that causes his body to develop cancer naturally, and has been uninsured and uninsurable since he left college. I know that discrimination against people who are already ill is very really. I live with it. I'm pissed because the system that does that to people is being rewarded, rather than challenged--as Obama promised to do and claims, erroneously, he did with this bill--and we're nowhere closer to a better system than we were before this passed.

Also, it's going to be years before either of us are fully protected. A "high-risk pool" opens up in three months, but the parameters for entry are ridiculously narrow and the ban against discriminating against people like us itself isn't effective in the other programs for several years.

I devoted a significant portion of my life to this guy's campaign becuase of what the Party promised and the Party and this President just did not even attempt to fight for the things they ran on. Instead, they grabbed the industry's own bill, passed it, jerked around the people who were stupid enough to believe what the Democratic Party tells them for a year, and then asked us to believe this bill actually resembles what they ran on for two straight fucking cycles. It's insult to injury.

Actually, oil spills are a lot better off now than when the Valdez happened. There was this story on 60 minutes about a year or so latter of a barber who came up with the idea of using hair to absorb the oil and now, thanks to that oil spills are a lot easier to clean up. Still bad, just not AS bad.

That being said. I don't know why we're even entertaining the notion of drilling off shore. I've always been of the belief, that our resources are the last to be touched to ensure that our military and our society can have those resources after the rest of the world has dried up, or as a nuclear option if someone tried to extort us for resources. I'm cool with exploration but not cool with tapping them.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...FTTopHeadlines


THIS is why I'm not keen on even more drilling out here.

Joey, I find it hard to believe it took this long for someone to even mention this in this thread.

Of course, just a few days ago they were proclaiming "It's being properly contained."

Please, it's the Wall Street Journal, like it can be trusted.

/s

ETA.

Did you read the comments? 1000 barrels, 30 days a month and it's expected to take months... 90,000 barrels!

It's next to impossible to clean up something like this until it starts to head to the shorline... stock up on your shrimp cocktails!

But hell, let's just get MORE of these operations going out there. Beach tourism doesn't count for shit around here. Neither does seafood. Oh wait...



I mean, really, wouldn't this just look a lot more attractive slathered in oil?

It's kind of ironic in the timing of this leak, since the off-shore drilling thing was approved or approved to be looked into, or whatever. I'm not crying conspiracy or anything, but I thought the timing of the leak was awfully coincidental.

Yeah, it will be even more pristine when no one can get there after the Peak Oil Catastrophe drives everyone back to the Dark Ages and we're eating babies for breakfast.

Oh wait....

But hey, everyone loves Mad Max movies....so the world will be like an adventure theme park...

Well, it IS all about priorities after all, isn't it? asshole


Although, you'll NEVER get that land back the way it was. But you CAN find new ways of traveling the (hopefully not wasted beyond repair) landscape of the country. Like oh, I don't know, electric fucking cars?

Can they be ready for everyone this week? No.

Next year? No.

Five years from now? Not unless they solve the expense and difficulties of making the efficient batteries on the scale of replacing every gas burning car on the planet.

In the meantime, what are we to do, JP? We cut our usage down, the Chinese and Indians gobble the gains right back up again.

I can tell you what we don't do...



Also... what of the massive region of the country that will be pretty massively fucked if shit like this becomes a regular event?

So apparently the spill 5x worse than originally thought and exceeds BP's own internal worst case scenario. I hope this either kills offshore drilling or places stronger environmental regulations on it. I think it's pretty clear the petroleum companies have no idea how to fix things when shit goes way wrong, and I believe that has to be a prerequisite before drilling licenses get sold.

The oil companies know it's in their best interest NOT to have this become a regular event. Between fines and costs, this will be enormously expensive.

But until we can make wind powered semis to carry our food around the country, we're going to need oil.

Get mad at me all you want, but it's true.

Yes, it's true.

It's also true that you can't un-fuck the earth. I simply believe that there's a point where the land/earth/environment trumps our need for oil, and MORE of these fucking hazardous operations out in the Gulf crosses it.

There's rigs out there already, and this shit happens. And they're still producing. Find another way, be it another better way to get oil or another energy source. Or, let the downfall begin. I'd rather the shitstorm go down with a pleasant/sustainable earth under my feet.

Fucking hell... I hadn't even thought of this until today.

From a local newspaper article on the impending oil arrival:

That would be incredibly crippling and devastating. They're bad enough without it being polluted oil-water ripping through everything.

Fixed. And this is an el niño year. In 2007 the first tropical storm deserving of a name, Andrea, came on May 7th.

I'm sickened by all this. Maybe I watch too many movies, but shouldn't there be an ad-hoc collection of big brains down there palavering over some ingenious way to stop the leak?

Fire a nuke at it!


It's 5000 ft below sea level. No manned sub can go that deep, the Russians are close* but no cigar and good luck piloting a robot through black sludge!

All sorts of fucked on stopping the thing... but who knows, maybe the well only had a half million barrels of oil and the thing will stop all on it's own!


* well, as far as I know, keep in mind that shit is uber classified.

The Titanic is 12,460 feet below sea level, soooo..we'll have no trouble getting down to it. Maybe we can send James Cameron.sure he can make a film about it.

unless you mean 50,000 ft or 5,000 metres..



Greed will always trump the good will of anything. It's always left to the "future generations" to clean up the mess.

5000 FEET

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704608104575218274064234934.html?m od=rss_Today's_Most_Popular



It was a robotic submarine, not a manned sub. Thus the comment about good luck piloting a robot through sludge...

I'm not sure if I'm confusing what you mean, but we had submersibles in the Challenger Deep in the 1960's. 5000 feet is significant, but we've certainly had manned vehicles far, far deeper than that.

That's what she said.

Yeah, but they raised the Titanic. I know. I saw it in a movie.


Yt's point is pretty important though. A great deal of people just expect that there is a Harry All-Go No-Quit Big Nuts Stamper for all situations. It's how people wearing hip waders can stand in their living rooms, scratch their heads and wonder what the government is going to do about the weather.