Retrospective solutions rarely do.

danivon wrote:I speak for Obama now? I already made my position clear on campaign promises.

Doctor Fate wrote:For example, did President Obama introduced a comprehensive immigration bill in his first year?

Did President Obama introduce a single budget that would cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term?

Those are just two. They're not "complex." He just lied.

Well, these are really simple examples. Nothing and no one could stop him from at least trying to keep his promises. Did he?

You are narrowly correct that Obama failed to make a real attempt in his first year...
However, In 2010, despite nearly unanimous opposition from Republicans, the DREAM Act passed the House. The bill died in the Senate, even though three years earlier, a dozen Republican senators had supported it. ABC News wrote at the time: "By a vote of 55 to 41, the bill -- the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM Act -- failed to win the 60 votes needed to break a GOP filibuster, even though the measure passed the House last week."

Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast further explained:


Obama signaled in April 2009 that he wanted comprehensive immigration reform to be a first-year issue. So the White House started holding meetings on the issue, but it came clear that he'd have no GOP support at all. Remember that at that time, Al Franken wasn't yet sworn in, so Obama had only 59 votes in the Senate, not the needed 60.

Plus, Obama ran into some opposition in his own party, in both houses. The idea that Obama "was free to pursue any policy he pleased" assumes that when the president says jump, the legislators of his party say how high. That was true of the Bush-era GOP, because they march in a Politburo kind of lockstep for the sake of political power, but it certainly isn't true of Democrats.

So anyway, Obama didn't have the votes, and he announced in May 2009 that he'd shelve comprehensive reform and start with border enforcement. The border enforcement, as is now well known, has been more aggressive and led to more deportations than any previous administration since immigration became a crisis, but since the idea that Obama could be aggressively enforcing the law just doesn't sound right for someone who's a Kenyan socialist America destroyer, the Republicans have simply dismissed this fact. In other words, he did the only thing he could do to try to win GOP support, and he did it well, and they don't support him anyway.

But the false claim that Obama "didn't do anything" on immigration has become an entrenched right-wing talking point. Less than an hour after Melber and Dyson refuted the claim, Republican strategist Nicolle Wallace, a former senior adviser to the McCain-Palin campaign, repeated it on MSNBC:

rickyp wrote:Plus, Obama ran into some opposition in his own party, in both houses.

Why? Why did this happen?

Because the DREAM act was all about legalizing immigrants and not about border security. Well, if I recall correctly, that was sort of tacked on.

It's a bit like the "cuts in spending" vs. new taxes argument.

Liberals want new taxes and to be trusted on future cuts in spending. We made that mistake before--the taxes were enacted but the cuts never came.

Similarly, we've been down this road on immigration: legalize first, secure later. Yet, the border never gets secured.

But the false claim that Obama "didn't do anything" on immigration has become an entrenched right-wing talking point. Less than an hour after Melber and Dyson refuted the claim, Republican strategist Nicolle Wallace, a former senior adviser to the McCain-Palin campaign, repeated it on MSNBC:

It's not false. If he had moderated, he could have easily recruited moderate Republicans like McCain and Graham (who is mockingly called "Gramnesty" on some talk radio outlets).

Even so, thanks for trying to help Danivon.

Now, about the budget thing?

I'm not sure of the timing of the budget promises, but I guess that they were made around 2008/2009.

Imagine that I say to my wife, "Darling, this is the year that we start saving for that country home you've always wanted." But then she loses her job and three months later, I lose my job, and we end up with negative savings. Did I lie? BBauska would say I'm a liar, but I wouldn't: the intent clear but the conditions changed.

I would argue that the country/world's economic situation changed and, if you believe in the theory that the Gov't's got to spend when no one else is, then cutting the deficit is not something your going to do because you believe the negative consequences of doing so outweigh the benefit of your deficit goal.

I do think its fair to question if he ever intended to cut the deficit or if that was a political lie, but it's not unreasonable abandon the deficit goal in the face of a serious economic situation.

I think you understand my position.

geojanes wrote:I'm not sure of the timing of the budget promises, but I guess that they were made around 2008/2009.

Would it surprise you to know it was not a campaign promise? (NB: I'm not saying you said it was a campaign promise, only pointing out the economic meltdown was in the rear-view mirror. It was also AFTER the Stimulus had passed).

Our research revealed that Obama did in fact promise to cut the deficit in half. He made the promise not on the campaign trail, but soon after taking office, at a meeting organized by the White House and dubbed the "Fiscal Responsiblity Summit." (The Republican Party of Florida pointed us to this event when we asked them for evidence for Curry’s statement.)

Here’s what Obama said at the meeting on Feb. 23, 2009:

"Today I'm pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office," Obama said. "Now, this will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we've long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay, and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control."

The next day, Obama repeated the pledge, this time in an address to a joint session of Congress. "Yesterday I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office," he said.

I like how the President said, "It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we've long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay, and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control." He did not make any "difficult decisions." In fact, he could not get Democrats to vote for his ludicrous budgets.

maybe you missed this part Fate

So anyway, Obama didn't have the votes, and he announced in May 2009 that he'd shelve comprehensive reform and start with border enforcement. The border enforcement, as is now well known, has been more aggressive and led to more deportations than any previous administration since immigration became a crisis, but since the idea that Obama could be aggressively enforcing the law just doesn't sound right for someone who's a Kenyan socialist America destroyer, the Republicans have simply dismissed this fact. In other words, he did the only thing he could do to try to win GOP support, and he did it well, and they don't support him anyway.

If you mean by Securing the border that there has to be a double line of electrified fence along the whole Mexican border .... then that will never happen.
The history of the small sections that have been built, both their cost and ineffectiveness is evidence that it is a fools errand.
I agree with you on effective immigration enforcement however. The most effective way is to enforce it with employers ... But, as reported in the Wall Street Journal

Conservative, tea-party and libertarian groups have joined liberals in fighting a signature Republican bill in Congress that would crack down on illegal-immigrant workers. The legislation, they argue, would hurt businesses and employees while expanding government regulation

Mandating and enforcing E verify wouldn't be perfect. Neither would a fence. But e-verify would be immediatley actionable. A fence? How many years and how much added to the deficit for something that would require maintenance every year? And which wouldn't do anything about illegals already in the country. With e-verify those in country would have to come forward.
Since rounding them all up would hamstring certain industries, e-verify should come hand in hand with a way for employers to sponsor long time employees that have been workign illegally ... That way both employers and the illegals would have a reason to cooperate.

Your fence solution is just dumb.

rickyp wrote:maybe you missed this part Fate

So anyway, Obama didn't have the votes, and he announced in May 2009 that he'd shelve comprehensive reform and start with border enforcement. The border enforcement, as is now well known, has been more aggressive and led to more deportations than any previous administration since immigration became a crisis, but since the idea that Obama could be aggressively enforcing the law just doesn't sound right for someone who's a Kenyan socialist America destroyer, the Republicans have simply dismissed this fact. In other words, he did the only thing he could do to try to win GOP support, and he did it well, and they don't support him anyway.

Hey, happy 4th to you! I hope you're having a great day at work.

I hang on every word you write, no matter how insipid.

Did Obama reach out? No. It was "take the DREAM act or be obstructionists." That's why some Democrats didn't support it either.

Maybe it's you who can't read?

And, why do you insist the President was born in Kenya?

If you mean by Securing the border that there has to be a double line of electrified fence along the whole Mexican border .... then that will never happen.

Nope. And, since you're being such a bonehead, I'm not going to go into what I have said repeatedly. I will note that I know a LOT more about security than you do.

Now, go build a straw man of Uncle Sam and burn him, won't you? There's a good lad.

Your fence solution is just dumb.

Well, you are the expert on one subject in that sentence--and it's not fences.

How about Obama opening new foreign prisons, far worse than Guantanamo?

One wonders, then, what Koh would make of Eli Lake’s blockbuster Daily Beast story last week. Reporting from Somalia, Lake found a secret prison holding alleged terrorists captured by, or with the assistance of, the United States.
“Overcrowded, underfunded, and reeking of urine, the Bosaso Central Prison could make even the most dedicated insurgent regret ever getting into the terrorism business,” Lake wrote. The prison’s warden told Lake that nearly 400 men are being held in a facility designed for 300. There today exist an untold number of such prisons where terrorism suspects, dispensed with by the United States, live in substandard, dehumanizing conditions.
The proliferation of such hellish prisons — which make Guantanamo Bay look like Trump Tower — is a function of two, seemingly contradictory impulses of the Obama administration: a near-religious conviction in its own moral immaculateness and the imperative to wage an aggressive fight against Al Qaeda.

Is that what you voted for, Geojanes?

Absolutely not. Obama's completely blundered the handling over what to do with the people captured in this war, and what's worse, it doesn't even seem to be perceived as a problem. When you join that "policy" with the increase in the use of drones it seems that if you don't have a good solution if you capture them, it's better to kill them. It's shocking. Has a person who won the Nobel Peace Prize ever been accused of war crimes?

geojanes wrote:Has a person who won the Nobel Peace Prize ever been accused of war crimes?

Arafat committed his worst crimes before getting the prize. Some would say the same of Rabin and Peres, but I'd call Arafat by far more criminal. Begin and Sadat? F. W. de Klerk became "enlightened" only late in his career. Gorbachev was not always a reformer in the USSR. Kissinger and Le Duc Tho?

geojanes wrote:Absolutely not. Obama's completely blundered the handling over what to do with the people captured in this war, and what's worse, it doesn't even seem to be perceived as a problem.

Perceived by whom?

That's the funny thing. For me, I have no problem with this at all. Then again, I had no problem when Bush and Clinton did similar things.

What's unique is the Left's near silence on the matter. Why isn't Code Pink camping outside his house in Illinois or going to his vacation spots (sidenote: Martha's Vineyard is out this year--optics and all that)?

When you join that "policy" with the increase in the use of drones it seems that if you don't have a good solution if you capture them, it's better to kill them. It's shocking. Has a person who won the Nobel Peace Prize ever been accused of war crimes?

I'm less a fan of the drone campaign. Yes, when there are no other options, I like the drones. However, I think this option has become the primary choice, not the last resort.

I am a supporter of the "All of the above" options for terror countermeasure.
Drones
Seal Team assaults
Financial freezings
Cyber attacks
etc...

bbauska wrote:I am a supporter of the "All of the above" options for terror countermeasure.
Drones
Seal Team assaults
Financial freezings
Cyber attacks
etc...

Me too.

What I am saying is that using drones as the weapon of choice means that good sources of intel are killed. If they could have been dealt with no other way, fine. However, were I President, I would prefer they be captured, interrogated, and detained until hostilities are over.

Yeah, I know, some will say, "How will you know when it's over?"

Because Al Qaida and its ilk will cease to have any operational capacity. We will have, in large measure, snuffed out the idea that terror attacks on the US can work.