Presidential Failure! Obama Starts Off Second Term on Wrong Foot

So who heard about what Obama signed just recently? Do you have any ideas? Was it a world peace treaty? Did he sign a bill that made the Federal Reverse illegal, thus eliminating the national debt? No, none of that. What he did was something sinister in my eyes, something that the people who voted him in did not want to see happen.

Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2013, thus continuing to allow indefinite detention of American citizens and the continued operation of Guantanamo Bay. This comes after the President said that he would veto the NDAA bill, leaving some to believe that Obama gave into GOP pressures, especially after the tense fiscal cliff debate which was never solved on time due to some major conflicting politics.

FROM THE ARTICLE:

"President Obama has utterly failed the first test of his second term, even before inauguration day,” American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a statement. “His signature means indefinite detention without charge or trial, as well as the illegal military commissions, will be extended.”

Can you imagine how pissed off I am right now? Maybe you can’t, because maybe to you this doesn’t matter and you think our President can do no wrong because you’re a Democrat and everything he does is golden. But this isn’t the first time the President has said he was against something or for something than gone completely back on his previous word.

Remember in 2009 when the health care debate was a hot button issue? One of the major talks was about a Public Option for health care which Obama supported during his run for office for the 2008 ticket. While the debate was happening Obama came out and said no to a public option, saying that he never campaigned on that issue and was never one of his causes.

Luckily for us Rachel Maddow from MSNBC remembered exactly what Obama said, she even replayed some of the Obama campaign videos in which he clearly states that he is in favor of a public option. Maddow played this clip repeatedly, but did it make anyone change their minds about the President. No, of course it didn’t. Many people probably don’t even remember it.

The problem with this President is that he gives in too easy, and on top of that he’s just a politician like all of the rest. At the beginning of 2012 Obama was completely against gay marriage, and boom just a few months before the election he says he is in favor of it. If you were ever looking for a quicker way to get the majority of intelligent homosexuals to vote for you that’s the way to do it, and boy did it work out well for him.

But now we have this President who we voted for because we wanted less war, less power to government authorities who can drag us out of our house and lock us up for no reason without a trial, and the closure of the Guantanamo detention center. Did he do any of this? No, instead he signed the bill allowing the government to lock us up indefinitely, and will keep Guantanamo open for an undisclosed amount of time.

Doesn’t this just kind of go to show us something here? First the President wants to take our guns away and now he is backing the NDAA bill, which he wanted us to think he would veto. Hmm, disarm the public then make it legal to detain them for ANY REASON you want.

 Think that the war on drugs is bullshit and are talking shit on it? Pull that asshole out of his house and throw him in a cell.

Think the Administration of this or future White Houses is corrupt? Break that terrorists door down, gag him, and make him disappear.

Don’t agree with the newest law that was passed limiting you’re free speech? Label that douche an anti-patriot socialist and let society shun him.

This is what I’m talking about here, the government’s resistance to its own people. And to think we voted for Obama because we thought he was enlightened and would steer us away from this, but alas we were dead wrong.

The scary thing is that many people who voted for Obama who were against NDAA and indefinite detention and Guantanamo and pretty much all of those things in the PATRIOT ACT which the NDAA will be extending will still be in support of Obama. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we truly believed that Obama would repair the mistakes that were made by the Bush Administration, but instead he is going to extend those mistakes and just act like he never did it.

Obama even said that he has “reservations” about the NDAA bill, and also said that no one from his administration would ever invoke the indefinite detention part of the bill. But that is just his opinion on the law, not the law. He leaves the door wide open for another administration to interpret the law a different way. What if the next administration will invoke the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial? Does that mean that Obama’s administration is clean of any wrong doing? Oh my god, hell no! You still signed the damn thing into law! You may not use the law you just signed in but who says other people after you won’t? What would you say then, Mr. Obama? “Uh, oh well.”

This is what Obama does into his second term? Is he really going to spit in the faces of those who got him elected by doing exactly what they DIDN’T want him to do?

Still, I think Obama was a better choice than Romney for obvious reasons, but why the hell would we want to vote him in for a second term is he is going to be “Romney Lite”? We didn’t vote for a Republican, we voted for a Democrat, a Democrat who made promises to not be like his opponent but then gets voted in and becomes a carbon copy of what we didn’t want. Hey at least he pretended to be on our side, right?

The reason we are mad about this is mainly because of some of the wording we see here in bills like the NDAA. It basically states that shall the President believe that anything he signs into law is unconstitutional then he can treat it as non-binding. So it basically means that the President can choose what he wants to do whenever he feels it is necessary.

 “I know I said I was against using this law, but I have decided it would be a good idea to use it against this list of people right here. Still, this does not affect the majority of law abiding citizens in America so everyone needs to calm down because this isn’t some indiscriminate search and detain mission…or is it?”

I am pissed. The man I trusted with my country, twice now, has gone across the line this time. All we wanted was for him to do what the people want, and he can’t even do that. This is a democracy, isn’t it? Then why do I not have control over my government? Why is it that I vote in a guy who says he is on my side and then breaks his promises to me? Why did you have to be all sneaky about it and sign it into law when everyone was still rearing over the Sandy Hook events and the fiscal cliff debate? It was almost like one was used for the cover of another, and if this was a plan then it was executed without nearly any hiccups. This is not the man I voted into office, this is some Republican “Body Snatcher” who has hijacked Obama. Damn, if that were only the case.

So what do we do as the American people? I mean, we don’t want this law, do we? If we don’t then why don’t we do something about it, like send letters to him and our representatives? We need to do something. We need to let Obama know that he is OUR President and he does what WE want him to. We did not vote him in to make decisions for us, and this is the message that we need to send to this administration. 

SOURCES:

Huff Post News Article

 The New Turks Video

President Obama's Broken Promises Video

14 Myths/Misconceptions/LIES About Health Care Reform

The article I have been hoping to see for quite a while now! I have been talking about Limbaugh's lies about health care for a while now, and I'm sick and tired of it. How people can believe the stuff he says is beyond me.

Let me being by saying this: the right is trying to get you to believe that Obama's health care plan is going to mandate abortions, demand euthanasia, allow illegal immigrants access to care for free, take away your existing health care, and of course lets not forget the establishment of the infamous 'death panels'.

All of these statements above are completely fiction.

The truth is that Obama's health care bill isn't even in it's completion. Yup, you read correctly. The bill isn't finished, nor has it ever been presented to Congress for a vote. I mean, how can you vote on a bill that isn't even finished, that hasn't even been presently in it's full entirety? So yes, the above falsities are in fact...false.

I'm so glad this article came out because I can spread the truth and extinguish the lies. These are all directly from the article by the way.


Read the full article from Media Matters for America here:

Myth # 1

There is no health care crisis

CLAIM: The health care system currently works fine, and only a purportedly small number of uninsured people would benefit from reform.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: "There really isn't a crisis in health care in this country. The crisis in health care that -- if you wanna say, that does exist -- is the fear that a major illness or catastrophe could wipe you out, which isn't gonna change. In fact, the odds of you being wiped out by a catastrophe or accident once the government gets started running this stuff is greater than if the private sector -- but day-to-day, there's no health care crisis in this country. You can get it.

ME: No I can't get it Rush. I cannot afford health care, as well as many other in America. Don't you know the unemployment is still going up? People are losing not just their jobs, but their benefits as well.

STEVE DOOCY: "Currently, 90 percent of all Americans have got some sort of health care coverage, which means they are effectively blowing up the system for 5 percent.

OK, now here's the facts:

REALITY: Roughly 25 million Americans were underinsured in 2007. According to Cathy Schoen, senior vice president of The Commonwealth Fund, "From 2003 to 2007, the number of adults who were insured all year but were underinsured increased by 60 percent. Based on those who incur high out-of-pocket costs relative to their income not counting premiums despite having coverage all year, an estimated 25 million adults under age 65 were underinsured in 2007." [Testimony from Schoen before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, 2/24/09]

The underinsured do not receive adequate care and face financial hardship.
[Schoen testimony, 2/24/09]

Insurance companies currently rescind policies when their insured customers need treatment.

Currently, insurance companies deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.


Myth # 2

Health care reform will impose rationing

CLAIM: Progressive health care reform proposals will introduce a system of "rationing" into American medicine.

SEAN HANNITY: "We're gonna have a government rationing body that tells women with breast cancer, 'You're dead.' It's a death sentence." [Fox News' Hannity, 6/19/09]

MICHELLE MALKIN: "Big Nanny Democrats want to ration health care for everyone in America -- except those who break our immigration laws." [Malkin column, 7/22/09]


REALITY: Insurance companies already ration care. Insurance companies acknowledge that they ration care, restricting coverage of procedures and tests like MRIs and CAT scans and denying coverage for pre-existing medical conditions.

Insurance companies ration care by rescinding coverage. As former senior executive at CIGNA health insurance company Wendell Potter explained in June 24 Senate testimony, insurance companies restrict or deny coverage by rescinding health insurance policies on the grounds that people had undisclosed pre-existing conditions. President Obama recently cited one such example, noting that "[a] woman from Texas was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, was scheduled for a double mastectomy. Three days before surgery ... the insurance company canceled the policy, in part because she forgot to declare a case of acne. ... By the time she had her insurance reinstated, the cancer had more than doubled in size."

Myth # 3

Health Care Reform provides for Euthanasia, 'death panels'

CLAIM: House health care reform bill mandates end-of-life counseling that will pressure seniors to end their lives.

BETSY McCAUGHEY: "And one of the most shocking things I found in this bill, and there were many, is on Page 425, where the Congress would make it mandatory -- absolutely require -- that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go in to hospice care. And by the way, the bill expressly says that if you get sick somewhere in that five-year period -- if you get a cancer diagnosis, for example -- you have to go through that session again. All to do what's in society's best interest or your family's best interest and cut your life short. These are such sacred issues of life and death. Government should have nothing to do with this." [FredThompsonShow.com, interview archives, 7/16/09]

HANNITY: "Now, she [McCaughey] actually uncovered in this bill a particularly outrageous provision -- and by the way, there will be more to come in the Obamacare plan. According to McCaughey, she's saying under the House provision and the House version, perfectly healthy senior citizens are going to be forced to undergo, quote, 'end of life counseling,' apparently to encourage them to check out before their time is up." [ABC Radio Networks and Premiere Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show, 7/17/09]

REALITY: Advance care planning is not mandatory in the House health care bill. Section 1233 of America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 -- which includes "Page 425" -- amends the Social Security Act to ensure that advance care planning will be covered if a patient requests it from a qualified care provider [America's Affordable Health Choices Act, Sec. 1233]. According to an analysis of the bill produced by the three relevant House committees, the section "[p]rovides coverage for consultation between enrollees and practitioners to discuss orders for life-sustaining treatment. Instructs CMS to modify 'Medicare & You' handbook to incorporate information on end-of-life planning resources and to incorporate measures on advance care planning into the physician's quality reporting initiative." [waysandmeans.house.gov, accessed 7/29/09]

PolitiFact: McCaughey's claim that seniors would be encouraged to end their lives "is an outright distortion." "McCaughey incorrectly states that the bill would require Medicare patients to have these counseling sessions and she is suggesting that the government is somehow trying to interfere with a very personal decision. And her claim that the sessions would 'tell [seniors] how to end their life sooner' is an outright distortion. Rather, the sessions are an option for elderly patients who want to learn more about living wills, health care proxies and other forms of end-of-life planning. McCaughey isn't just wrong, she's spreading a ridiculous falsehood." [PolitiFact.com, 7/23/09]

CLAIM: Health care reform would establish a "death panel."

GLENN BECK: "So, why is there no more discussion than there is on Sarah Palin and what she said over the weekend that there would be ... [a] death panel for her son Trig? That's quite a statement. I believe it to be true, but that's quite a statement." [Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program, 8/10/09]

REALITY: "Death panel" claims have been conclusively discredited. In one of more than 40 media reports debunking claims of euthanasia and "death panels," PolitiFact wrote: "We've looked at the inflammatory claims that the health care bill encourages euthanasia. It doesn't. There's certainly no 'death board' that determines the worthiness of individuals to receive care. ... [Palin] said that the Democratic plan will ration care and 'my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care.' Palin's statement sounds more like a science fiction movie (Soylent Green, anyone?) than part of an actual bill before Congress. We rate her statement Pants on Fire!" [PolitiFact.com, 8/10/09]

Myth # 4

Health care reform legislation will cover undocumented immigrants

CLAIM: Under health care reform, you will be denied care, and it will be given to undocumented immigrants instead.

DICK MORRIS: "The point about these death panels is that if you restrict the amount -- the lifesaving surgeries, and you tell someone, no, you can't have that bypass surgery -- but I'm going to die if I don't have it. Well, here's the grief counselor. That will happen. And whether they fund the grief counselor or the end-of-life counselor or not, the rationing will take place when they tell you, no, you can't have the surgery because we have to give it to a 40-year-old illegal immigrant instead." [Hannity, 8/17/09]

REALITY: House bill stipulates that those "not lawfully present" may not receive subsidies to purchase insurance. Under the "Individual Affordability Credits" section of the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009:

SEC. 242. AFFORDABLE CREDIT ELIGIBLE INDIVIDUAL.

(a) DEFINITION. --

(1) IN GENERAL. -- For purposes of this division, the term ''affordable credit eligible individual'' means, subject to subsection (b), an individual who is lawfully present in a State in the United States (other than as a nonimmigrant described in a subparagraph (excluding subparagraphs (K), (T), (U), and (V)) of section 101(a)(15) of the Immigration and Nationality Act) --

[...]

SEC. 246. NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS.

Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.

Senate HELP bill excludes those "not lawfully present" from federal funding. Under the "Making Coverage Affordable" section of the Affordable Health Choices Act:

(h) NO FEDERAL FUNDING. -- Nothing in this Act shall allow Federal payments for individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.

OK...these are only FOUR of the health care myths that the right wing is trying to spread. Another myth was that Obama never read his own health care reform bill. That's also a total lie. Obama was talking about the myths stated above, and how he never read them in the bill...because they don't exist!

You have to remember where these myths came from. They were invented by people who pretty much put together a cut and paste document calling it a "line by line analysis" of health care reform, which basically saves people from actually reading the real proposed health care bill. The document seems to be created by the Liberty Council, which is an offshoot of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virgina which he is Chancellor of.

There is fact, and then there is opinion...and then there are some crazy lies that get spread and take the place of facts for some people. Someone I was debating with this past week liked to say, "listen to the information, and then put the pieces together." Well yes, that's exactly what people should do, but make sure you're getting your facts correct before you try to put together pieces that are twisted and don't fit.

Barney Frank Says It Like It Is!

Yesterday at Dartmouth in Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank hosted a Health Care Town Hall Meeting in which at least 300 people showed up for. Of course the event had many Democrats who were in favor of a public health care system, and of course the opposition was there as well.

The people who opposed the health care plan were all right of center, and had pictures of President Obama which were defaced to make the President look like Hitler. But as usual, none of these folks had any real facts concerning health care, they just showed up because they don't like Obama...at least it seems that way.

One woman stood up to talk to Congressman Frank, only to ask him why he supports a "Nazi policy". The woman obviously had no real facts to back up her statements, and Congressman Frank wasn't going to answer. Rather he answered by asking another question. He asked her, "what planet do you spend most of your time on?"

What a great response! Don't even give her the benefit of trying to explain what she doesn't want to accept in the first place. There are no death panels, illegal immigrants aren't getting free health care, abortions are not mandatory, and euthanasia is CERTAINLY not demanded.

Why is it that people want to shoot the President down for an idea that hasn't even made full circle in the house yet? Oh wait I know! Jerry Falwell's little cut and paste document he spread to Republicans! Which by the way, was never an official health care reform plan.

What makes people think that the USA would seriously adopt such a health care system? And to compare Obama to a man who killed so many people...this is where the spin begins.

In an effort to bash the left, Obama, and public options for health care the right winged pundits have been spreading these lies about Obama's plan. The spin they are using is rather simple. Use Jerry Falwell's cut and paste document and act like it's absolutely true. Then call Obama a Nazi, because of his false 'death panels', and his plan to demand euthanasia. Thus you paint a picture of a man that is trying to implement Nazi policies.

That's where all of this spin gets funny. How can someone equate an effort to increase health care coverage to the Nazis? How is that even possible?

OK let's be frank while talking about Frank shall we? Barney did pretty much insult her, especially when he said, "trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dinning room table".

But come on people. You can't have a debate if the other person really doesn't know what they are talking about. Get your facts straight, and don't just assume that because some right winged pundit says its true that it must be factual.

Keep saying it how it is Barney. There is no point in debating with someone who doesn't have their facts straight.

Glenn Beck Loses Sponserships

Media Matters for America is reporting today that Glenn Beck has had more than twenty ads pulled from his show in the last two weeks. Companies like Wal-Mart, Ally Bank, Best Buy, CVS, and others have pulled their ads from the controversial show which is aired on the Fox News Network.

All of this hit the fan for Beck when he said on the show Fox & Friends, that Obama was actually a racist who has a deep seeded hated for white people. Beck is losing more and more of his sponsors because of this radical (yes I yes 'radical'), hate mongering rhetoric.

Other companies that are giving Beck the boot are, "ConAgra, GEICO, Lawyers.com, Men’s Wearhouse, Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance, RadioShack, Roche, SC Johnson, Sanofi-Aventis, Sargento, and State Farm Insurance."

I've been following this for a while, but I've been too caught up Rush "Limbo" to write anything about it.

FROM THE PRESS RELEASE:

“We are heartened to see so many corporate citizens step up in support of our campaign against Glenn Beck,” said James Rucker, executive director of ColorOfChange.org. “Their action sends a clear a message to Glenn Beck: Broadcasters shouldn’t abuse the privilege they enjoy by spewing dangerous and racially charged hate language over the air. No matter their political affiliation, hate language doesn’t belong in our national dialogue.”

This is perfect. It's nonpartisan, and it shows the right wingers that the lefty libs can play the same game. Back when Bush was in office and people called him a warmonger and etc, many pundits like Sean Hannity stepped up and said, "how dare you say those things about our President? That is anti-American!"

Well guys, saying things about Obama like, "he's a racist" is the same thing...but worse. White men in America know NOTHING about racism, except how to proliferate it. And when you come out and just start hatefully smearing someone like that with no proof you should accept the consequences and keep your mouths shut.

Ya know, this has been going on for a while. A lot of people called Bush a racist after Katrina. Kayne West said something to the affect of, "Bush doesn't give a fuck about black people." Then guess what happened at the end of '08? A black man was elected president. Now it's the same game, only slightly reversed. The old white man from Texas isn't the racist. It's the almost old black man for Chicago that's the racist.

Except here's the problem. When Bush was in office you heard a very few people talk about Bush being a racist. Many of the right winged news outlets shot that rhetoric down, and many liberal news outlets wouldn't touch it unless they were super brazen. The truth is, the whole thought that Bush was racist was shot down because no one wants to view their president as some racist who doesn't have the public's interest at mind.

Look everyone, it's called spin. I have been talking about spin for a long time now (even on my older blogs) and all I can say is BEWARE. Know your politicians, know your issues, and know your SPIN. But just keep this in mind; when the left was spinning Bush they never lost a whole bunch of their sponsors. Take into account spin on both sides and you see a kind of middle ground (if you are like me that is). Look at Glenn Becks spin and it takes spin to a whole new level (kind of like Bill O'Reilly, but he is way more articulate then Beck), especially when he hatefully bashes our President and calls him a racist who hates white people. He never gave any kind of scale (lol), so as far as I know Beck is saying, "Obama is one of the biggest racists in the world. He hates every white man with a passion and he wants them all to fall into poverty."

Mr. Beck, with all due respect your hateful rants about the president are wrong and libelous. You shouldn't just lose your sponsors, you should lose your show.