President Obama News Thread

[RPETER65]

you seem to feel you are the most enlightened one on teakdoor

Hang on a minute, Peter, you said that was me, forever, you heartbreaker...

its BS about mobile phones

No such thing. Everything about mobile phones is interesting and informative.



This thread is getting rather polarized. Obama seems to be a fella who has given up in the face of a totally corrupt system controlled by bankers, oil men and pharma companies (amongst others). Sad to see, but a fair indication that American people need to get the power back - not sure how that's gonna happen; the cronyism and revolving doors of capitalism has become a social failure... The Obamba v Bush argument is kinda mute when neither of them are pulling the strings...

OK, sorry Betty I meant to state second but I've got to tell you it is close.

[Boon Mee]

Obama has begun swimming vigorously toward Indonesia so he can singlehandedly save airplane passengers.

[Boon Mee]

Looks like Bath House Barry's own party is turning on him now:

"The list of Democrats who oppose Obama’s nomination of Antonio Weiss to be Under Secretary of Treasury for Domestic Finance is growing."

Why are these partisan racists and hostage takers standing in the way of Obama's appointments?

?Hostage takers?? List of Dem senators opposing Obama nomination for Under Secretary of Treasury grows | Twitchy

[slackula]

^ Nice try but there is no f*cking way I am clicking on a Michelle Malkin link!

[Cujo]

USA Russia: Obama suggests Putin 'not so smart'
NPR's Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep interviews President Barack Obama in the Oval Office on Thursday, December 17, 2014.

President Barack Obama has said Vladimir Putin made a "strategic mistake" when he annexed Crimea, in a move that was "not so smart".

Those thinking his Russian counterpart was a "genius" had been proven wrong by Russia's economic crisis, he said.

International sanctions had made Russia's economy particularly vulnerable to changes in oil price, Mr Obama said.

He also refused to rule out opening a US embassy in Iran soon.

"I never say never but I think these things have to go in steps" he told NPR's Steve Inskeep in the Oval Office.

'Reliant on oil'
Mr Obama was giving a wide-ranging interview with NPR shortly before leaving for Hawaii for his annual holiday.

He criticised his political opponents who claimed he had been outdone by Russia's president.

"You'll recall that three or four months ago, everybody in Washington was convinced that President Putin was a genius and he had outmanoeuvred all of us and he had bullied and strategised his way into expanding Russian power," he said.

"Today, I'd sense that at least outside of Russia, maybe some people are thinking what Putin did wasn't so smart."

Mr Obama argued that sanctions had made the Russian economy vulnerable to "inevitable" disruptions in oil price which, when they came, led to "enormous difficulties".

"The big advantage we have with Russia is we've got a dynamic, vital economy, and they don't," he said. "They rely on oil. We rely on oil and iPads and movies and you name it."

Vladimir Putin
Russia's President Putin has come under pressure following the collapse of the rouble
Following a disputed referendum in Crimea, Russia unilaterally annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in March. It did so weeks after a revolution ousted Ukraine's pro-Russian President, Viktor Yanukovych.

The US, EU and other countries then implemented a series of economic sanctions against Russia.

The Russian currency has since lost half its value against the dollar and the economy has begun to contract.

Mr Obama also said that sending US troops to fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria would be counter-productive.

"If we do for others what they need to do for themselves - if we come in and send the Marines in to fight ISIL [IS], and the Iraqis have no skin in the game, then it's not going to last," he said

.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-30629200

[Boon Mee]

Idiot Obama opens press conf with: "There's so many good things happening!" & starts cracking asinine jokes. Sure he loves terror attacks!

What a joke this empty suit is...

[sabang]

US jobless rate falls to 5.6% in best year since 1999

Together with upward revisions of the previous two months -- 50,000 more jobs than previously reported -- December rounded out the best year for job generation in 15 years, with almost three million net new jobs added.
That helped push the unemployment rate down 0.2 percentage point from November. The jobless rate was 6.7 percent a year ago, and hade peaked at 10.0 percent in October 2009.
US jobless rate falls to 5.6% in best year since 1999


^ Sure, booner.

[Boon Mee]

^
And how many folks out of the labor force?

Sure sabang...

Bath House Barry can attempt to spin the 'good news' any way he wants but the simple truth is under his watch, the American labor force has been decimated.

[sabang]

Best year since 1999- I wonder who was President then? Why, Bill Clinton. Looks like those Republican 'job creators' joined the Democrats.

[pseudolus]

The real unemployement in the USA.



The "headline" unemployment in the USA.



The manipulation of the stats

Of course this is not just an obomba manipulation, it is a government manipulation to make people believe things are ok, when in reality they are taking the "unemployed" label away from millions of people who want a job but can not get one.


Let me google that for you

Read all about it and never trust a word uttered by any western government - ever.

[Boon Mee]

^
Looks like you've been drinking the Obama Kool Aide again, sabang.

Check out the facts:

Let’s talk about labor-force participation.

For decades, this number slumbered quietly in the depths of the monthly jobs report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Nobody paid it much attention. But of late—and particularly in the run-up to today’s Congressional election—it has become a key talking point for critics of president Barack Obama’s economic policies.
The chart does indeed look pretty ugly, with a decline since the late 1990s that becomes especially striking in the late 2000s.





Read the whole thing to get a better perspective on the spin Obama is attempting, eh?

The chart Obama-haters love most?and the truth behind it ? Quartz

[sabang]

The real problem is that most of the jobs created sice the GFC are of the crap variety. Real incomes are undfer pressure in the US- eg contained in the article I linked to, it mentioned that average hourly incomes for the year had grown a measly 1.7%. Meanwhile, corporate profitability is near an all time high, as is the Dow, as is wealth inequality in the US. That doesn't sound very 'liberal' to me- more like Obama has been the perfect republican President.

For that reason, I am quite critical of the Obama admin's labor & employment policy actually- but how would that have differed under a Republican admin? They would have pursued a more restrictive monetary & fiscal policy post GFC, leading to lower economic & employment growth- at least if their hue and cry in Opposition is to be believed.

[RPETER65]

^ Nice try but there is no f*cking way I am clicking on a Michelle Malkin link!

Afraid of the truth are you?

[panama hat]

^ Nice try but there is no f*cking way I am clicking on a Michelle Malkin link!

Afraid of the truth are you?

If it were only the truth.

Extremes on both sides are not necessarily to be given too much attention - the unfortunate issue, of course, is that the US is quite far to the right as is

[RPETER65]

^ Nice try but there is no f*cking way I am clicking on a Michelle Malkin link!

Afraid of the truth are you?

If it were only the truth.

Extremes on both sides are not necessarily to be given too much attention - the unfortunate issue, of course, is that the US is quite far to the right as is

You can only know if it is or is not the truth if check out the content and have a fairly good ability to reason.

[harrybarracuda]

^
Looks like you've been drinking the Obama Kool Aide again, sabang.

Poor Booners, only back a little while and he's already hanging his arse out of the window for us to take a kick at.

Senat majority leader Mitch McConnell seems to think the economy is doing well and jobs are up, so you're singing the wrong song.

Of course he's trying to take credit for Obama's work, the plank.

Mitch McConnell says economic uptick coincides with expectation of GOP Senate takeover | PolitiFact

[harrybarracuda]

The real problem is that most of the jobs created sice the GFC are of the crap variety. Real incomes are undfer pressure in the US- eg contained in the article I linked to, it mentioned that average hourly incomes for the year had grown a measly 1.7%. Meanwhile, corporate profitability is near an all time high, as is the Dow, as is wealth inequality in the US. That doesn't sound very 'liberal' to me- more like Obama has been the perfect republican President.

For that reason, I am quite critical of the Obama admin's labor & employment policy actually- but how would that have differed under a Republican admin? They would have pursued a more restrictive monetary & fiscal policy post GFC, leading to lower economic & employment growth- at least if their hue and cry in Opposition is to be believed.

It's not rocket science, the US economy depends on consumption, and the simple way to increase consumption is to increase the minimum wage. Of course the Republicans bitterly oppose this.

They want more money for themselves, and the great unwashed to borrow and stash more money in the banks pockets until they default again and we repeat the cycle of funding the banks from taxpayers pockets - not the rich ones of course, they need more tax cuts.

Republicans - the party of Boom and Bust who never have to experience Bust themselves.

[pseudolus]

economy is doing well

Yeah. Really well. Keep printing the fake money to trick the lemmings into believing that things will ever get better. The only people who are doing well from this is the owners of the Federal Reserve who are pocketing 6% of the debt.

[Norton]

This thread is getting rather polarized

Getting? Started from post one 6 years ago. TD reflection of the polarized GOP/Dem politicancer eating up body America.

The house just passed the Keystone pipline project. Obama will veto when it hits his desk.

Should add a few hundred posts to the thread.

[koman]

With or without a Presidential veto, it's likely that the XL pipeline will die a natural death over the coming year or two.

From Politico:
Western Canadian crude-oil producers have found alternatives to Keystone XL. They are getting their product from landlocked Alberta and Saskatchewan to the U.S. and other markets using rail transport and pipelines that have either been expanded or built from scratch during the interminable wait for Keystone XL.

Canadian oil exports to the U.S. have never been higher than they are today. And Calgary oilpatch analysts expect a further doubling in Canadian heavy oil crude shipments destined for U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, to more than 400,000 barrels a day in 2015 from just over 200,000 barrels last year.

U.S. oil producers that once planned to use Keystone XL — notably shale-oil giants like Oklahoma-based Continental Resources Inc. — have shifted to other pipeline networks. “We’re supporting other pipelines out there, we’re not waiting on Keystone, nobody is,” Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental, recently told the U.S. political insider journal Politico.

Closer to home, the CEO of Calgary-based Suncor Inc., the largest Canadian oil producer, said last fall that “an individual project like Keystone XL is not critical to our plans to get our products to market.”

Basically Obama can veto the thing and take credit for it not being built, but the changing market and other infrastructure develop will more than likely kill it anyway.

[Boon Mee]

^
And not to forget Warren Buffett - a huge donor to Obama's campaigns owns Burlington Northern Railroad which transports the crude from Canada.

[harrybarracuda]

^
And not to forget Warren Buffett - a huge donor to Obama's campaigns owns Burlington Northern Railroad which transports the crude from Canada.

Let's not forget the Koch Brothers own swathes of Alberta leases and oil interests - as well as most Republican politicians involved.

[harrybarracuda]

economy is doing well

Yeah. Really well. Keep printing the fake money to trick the lemmings into believing that things will ever get better. The only people who are doing well from this is the owners of the Federal Reserve who are pocketing 6% of the debt.

All very pretty but it does not reflect the fact that the Deficit has been steadily falling under Obama and I'll guarantee that the Republicans will have it going back up again at the earliest opportunity, true to form.

[slackula]

And Calgary oilpatch analysts expect a further doubling in Canadian heavy oil crude shipments destined for U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, to more than 400,000 barrels a day in 2015 from just over 200,000 barrels last year.

This is the bit that the GOP seems to ignore. Any oil going through Keystone will not make a difference to the US price of fuel because it gets refined in Tx and then shipped abroad.

The only real beneficiaries would be the Canucks because they can get their low grade oil refined without having to go through all the expense of building big, dirty refineries and the Chinese who will be buying it.

Keystone would provide quite a few jobs during construction but after that not many at all. It seems an odd thing to have such a huge political row over since it has very minimal benefits for the US in the end and considerable risks given the path of the pipeline.

[panama hat]

It seems an odd thing to have such a huge political row over since it has very minimal benefits for the US in the end and considerable risks given the path of the pipeline.

Politics seldom has anything to do with reality. (Sounds rather Jeff-like)

The political right portrays this as being the panacea to oil independence from the Middle East . . . which is ludicrous, of course.