Countdown - Dr. Howard Dean, livid, on the Health Care bill

It's that Universal Jurisdiction War Crime Thingy so Inconvenient to the Ruling Class.

awww!

Warrant strains Israel-UK ties - 16 Dec 09

kinda poorly in the areas that count the most.

Well, he is definitely out of the running for Most Dependable or Most Likely to Succeed. However, he is still in the running for Mr. Congeniality.

Overall, he Needs Improvement and may need take on extra credit projects if he wants to pass.

c-

C Minus.

As expected, for being part of the establishment and for not moving more strongly in prosecuting the murderers and war criminals that was the Bush administraton.

C-

Obviously bright, but clearly not trying.

I must give him an F. I nearly gave him an F- but in all fairness, that would be reserved for a situation where he had gotten us into a nuclear war.

Please bear in mind that I not only voted for Obama, I still defend Jimmy Carter as one of our better Presidents. However, Obama's performance shows:

No leadership skills
No initiative in developing leadership skills
Very little compassion toward the marginalized & those suffering the effects of our ruined economy
No apparent concern for members of the military who are fighting endless wars
Little interest in and no comprehension of how to get America's citizens back on their feet
No respect for the Constitution
I started to say "no courage in standing-up for principles" but he has plenty of guts when he's giving a helping hand to the banksters and Wall Street criminals, he just doesn't care about what happens to the average person.

In summary, I think he's on track to displace W as the worst president in U.S. history. Why? Because W was a cretin who was too dumb to realize how destructive he was. Obama is smart enough to know better but apparently doesn't care. B.O. will be remembered as the man who reinvigorated the Republican with his wishy-washy-ways and then handed the country over to that pack of nuts.

Anti-commercialist Christians ask, "What would Jesus not buy?" Congress is less popular than the average car dealer. About 140 soldier suicides in '09. Black soot is melting the Himalayas. The poor get turned away from free cancer screenings. Gore says our ice-caps might be gone even sooner than expected. But the "liberal media" tries to discredit him, anyway. The Catholic Church threatens to screw the poor, in retalion for D.C. legalizing gay marriage. Meanwhile, the Delaware division thinks pedo priests should get benefits. College grads can't find work. Oh, there go those "missing" Bush e-mails! The Copenhagen thing ironically accelerates global warming. Insert Bruno joke here. Joe might as well invoke 9/11 as his excuse for screwing us out of buy-in Medicare. One Dem thinks he should be recalled.

If we have seen anything in the last few months, it is that the President has very little real power. The Lobbyist control the country and the direction it takes.

Obama wasted his time taking on health care. If he wanted to make real change for America he would have cleaned out the lobbyists and taken away the idea that corporations can be seen as citizens.

As long as you have hedonists like Lieberman, who can sell you out while smiling at you, America is not truly free.

Obama was a nice thought and he had nice dreams, but the reality is......

It's good to see Penn Jillette on a show besides Glenn Beck. It's hard to tolerate someone who holds themselves up as a rational thinking skeptic, and then watch the guy piss all credibility he has down the toilet by chumming it up with a dolt like Beck.

so my expectations were not irrationally high. He's not what he said he was (which of them ever are?) but I still think he's a pretty good president.

My only question is - what did he mean by healthcare for every American? I haven't seen anything in the current legislation that would provide me with healthcare unless my mom suddenly kicked it and left me all her money.

Home team chooses to receive. George at quarterback fumbles the ball after every play. Dick the coach changes the offensive line with George still at quarterback. George still fumbles the ball after every play. The offense never gets a chance to score because George can’t keep his hands on the ball. The team loses every game.

Seasons over.

Next season, Barry takes over at quarterback. He takes the first snap at the 20 yard line and completes a screen pass. Barry doesn’t drop the ball…

Celebration! The band takes the field. Vince Lombardi is on the line waiting to give away a trophy. Speeches are scheduled. There’s a parade for the home team next week.

Wait a minute!

We haven’t scored yet, let alone won any game. It’s going to be a long season.

Next play…

personally, i don't believe many understand there's much/many more involved in lawmaking then the president. it's much more difficult now then ever to get consensus on issues. the minority has too much power and incentive to stop/block legislation. the powerful global elite/lobbyists/special interests have too much influence to only allow/write legislation/reform they approve of. i can't/don't underestimate the entanglements handed to the obama administration from the BUSH legacy. i give obama credit/praise for
trying to repair foreign relationships and start the legislative process regarding health care cost reform.

He may have gone to Harvard
And he may be real smart
But he flunks as a wise leader of men
He is just another bought and paid for emissary
for those who bought him
Look at what is happening
Have you ever seen such a flagrant display
Of greed in your born days
And don't tell me he is trying real hard to curb this disaster
If he was you would see all that money go into helping those with less not with more.
If he wanted to kick ass he would have already started
His campaign rhetoric was just that, rhetoric, he aint all that is he.

After reading all the comments, I wanted to mention a few things. We all know about Bush's mess so there's no need to mention what an effed up pile of crap he left, yet again. :)

AmericaInc. is addicted to war and the MIC/Pentagon is very powerful; too powerful (maybe even hit squad powerful). And how about the spineless Reid and Pelosi not doing their jobs. We all know the oligrachs and lobbyists have way too much power and influence. Both parties are centre of right. It's not like the President is an emperor. He's got thousands of greedy (many dishonest) whack-jobs to deal with, and (quite franky) an apathetic public, some downright stoooopid.

Not a pretty picture. Did I mention the MSM?

(and I'm Canadian and can't vote for anyone, so... )

moved here

The president gets an A in my book, but American Democracy gets a C.

The US is not a parliamentarian system, I wish some folks would stop pretending like it was; Congress makes laws, not the President, and he can't just will himself the votes he needs.

If the US system was working like it was intended it wouldn't be so bad. But it's not, and it's obviously a grave deficiency that when we've got about 25% Republicans, 45% Democrats and the remainder Independents among the population, that the Senate has a homogeneous group of 40 solid obstructionist Republicans and a heterogeneous group of 58 Democrats.

In an actual parliamentarian system, or just in most democracies in general, there wouldn't be a damn health-care debate. There's a popular majority for it. There was an election and we campaigned on this, and we won both the presidency and a congressional majority. In almost any other democracy it'd practically be a given that this would be enacted.

The fact that we can't seem to pass this thing, despite all that, is simply a big (small-d) democratic deficiency. The fact that 25% of the population can block what 60% of the people want is a deficiency.

The fact that our media lives in this Beltway echo-chamber, playing along with the game and without ever looking around and questioning the rules - that's a democratic deficiency.

Does she even realize that the election is in 3 years? the economy, jobs, and Afghanistan will be completely different by then.

by the way, as a progressive, i would give him a C+, at the very highest. he has come up short on a lot of his promises, granted he has a lot on his plate.

after the climate confence.... way below c level

I would give these people in the msm an F-.
What else gould you give after the last 9 years?

Ending Torture: F
Holding Bush Accountable: D-
Making the Rich Richer: A
Making the Poor Poorer: A
Giving Inspiring Speeches: A
Herding the Democratic Cats of Congress: D
Loving America: A
Having a Spine: F
Healthcare: A, B,C,D and now F in chronological order since the election.
Kissing GOP ass: A
Understanding that the GOP only wants power, not any form of co-operation with its political adversaries: F
Fixing DOJ: D
Annoying me: A
Playing President: A (better than M. Sheen!)
Including the progressive agenda: D-
Standing up to the Military Industrial Complex: F
Firing Military Contractors: F
Giving Main Street a break even once: F
Licking Wall Street scrotal tissue: A

that about does it for now!

Backdoor bailout for Citigroup of $38 billion. May the happy rabbits put that in their Xmas stockings.

U.S. gave up billions in tax money in deal for Citigroup's bailout repayment

DEAL MADE TO RECOVER BAILOUT

Firms exempted from rule when U.S. sells its stake

Citigroup says it has built up $38 billion in losses. With the tax exemption, it will be able to shelter up to $38 billion in future profits. (Richard Drew/associated Press)

Binyamin Appelbaum WaPo here

Bush gets an F, so it's an improvement, but his utter gutlessness has already derailed his presidency.

Where's habeus corpus? Hmmmmm???? That's a full letter grade down right there.

As every fool knows, Afghanistan is where Empires go to die. Getting MORE involved there is a big mistake. half a grade there.

His gutlessness on health care - another grade down.

bingo - C-.

You've captured the essence of Washington's current political condition. The Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for next year's inevitable election losses. They have squandered the best opportunity they've had in years to put this Nation back on solid progressive footing. And the irony is that they had the backing of the majority of the people. The problem is that the Democrats have failed to live up to their campaign promises, and in so doing will not be able to mobilize their constituents to go to the polls. And the Party of "Do it wrong or don't do it at all" will resume driving the bus towards the cliff.

Iraq/Afghanistan: D ... nothing here but a redress of the Bush strategy ('stall until we can claim victory and bail').

Economy: D ... and that's just for gifting us with shifty-eyes Timmy Geithner. He's fucking sandbagging you at every turn, and you're too dumb to see it.

Healthcare: D ... Lead, don't concede.

Security/Privacy: F ... if you're buying the GOP line, you're an idiot. Our national security needs to be more than retreads of the policies of failed fascist states.

FOR WHAT?

Since then I have found that the President is NOT the commander & Chief, rather it is some MILITARY ENTITY that runs this nation and tells the president what we are going to to apparently. This nation's military infrastructure is TOO BIG TO FAIL (i.e., too big to scale back). We are by & large a military operation with a civilian beard. It is a shame that we lost our nation decades ago to the military complex.

A for Effort
C for Execution
A- Supreme Court appointment
F Gay Rights
F Bush & Cheney indictments (Justice)
C Gitmo
B+ Afghanistan (DoD)
B+ Iraq (DoD)
F Healthcare (DHS/Congress)
C Federal Reserve (Treasury)
C Bank Bailout (Treasury/Commerce)
A- International Diplomacy (State)
F Bipartisanship, which he should ignore entirely.

Overall a fat C- heading into D territory.

Still better than that failure/dip**** we had from 01-09

If he doesn't hold Bush and Cheney accountable he'll never get better than a C in my book.

I hate magic, but I've always liked Penn & Teller. But then I saw Penn on TV as another talking head, and my respect for him diminished significantly. Which isn't to say that he shouldn't have opinions on political issues, but seriously, I'm disappointed that he's chosen to add "Libertarian Talking Head" to his résumé. Has he jumped the shark?

Obama came in with the wide-eyed notion of bipartisanship and set up all his chess pieces accordingly, without any backup plan. But the Reptilian party have NEVER played well with others and thus all the power shifts to a tiny portion of the radical center--the conservadems. This has been the Democratic party pattern for decades and they still never learn. And with the huge majority they won, this could have been an opportunity to turn all that around. Tell the consevaDINOs to either fall in line or be replaced by more progressive candidates. As the healthcare debacle so clearly illustrates, the Democrats biggest foe isn't Republicans, its Democrats!

He gets a C- but probably deserves a D... for disappointment. I wish I had never spent the 3 years working for him and the money I gave.

Wow, it’s a bit depressing. He may still turnout OK, but so far... a bust.

Note to Obama: Barry, nice guys finish LAST! Stop trying to win a popularity contest and do what is right for the average American. If you don't you will give the Republithugs all the momentum needed... and they will sweep back in. Is that what you want?

i live in nebraska. ben nelson is a liberal around these parts. as bad as he is, i shudder to think of what will come after him. i think, after i've finished (or paused, more likely) crying about our political stuation, maybe i'll move to canada. then i wouldn't have to worry about the fact that i lost my health insurance 3 months ago and will likely be twice that before i gain it back. hope i live through our "reform."

As reliable a gauze condom.

A C-minus and falling fast.

What please me the most is that mothefucking Bush is gone, and Obama is doing the best he can to clean the mess. He is a man. Not a mesiah. Maybe that's your problem guys. Think of how many Liebermans are in this country. Whatever Obama proposes, they say no. For me, the man has balls. And he'll get re-elected. After all, even Bush got re elected.