Somethings You Can’t Make Up

Given the choice between posting my final grades and my morning coffee or perusing some of the latest presidential antics and my morning coffee, I chose the latter.  The latest front pager at the Confluence, Steven Mather started a great conversation on Obots and willful blindness.  Since I was following a tweetathon last night between Glenn Greenwald and Jack Tapper on the latest about face, it seems appropriate to start there.  This just comes under the heading of reality taking on dimensions of science fiction.

Every one is trying to figure out how Military Tribunals under Bush will be different the Military Tribunals continued by Obama.  Given I’ve been following the financial bailouts under Bush and the virtual continuation of the same policy under Obama, I’m thinking the progressive blogosphere should be blowing a few gaskets now.  After all, they were just told to lay off the torture photos and  any hope of prosecution of what can only be labeled the Cheney Torture Policy. What we appear to have is straight forward continuation of nearly all the major Bush policies with major re-framing.  It’s not going to be the old Nixon War on Drugs, it’s going to be the Obama “complete public-health model for dealing with addiction”.  Somebody seems to think just morphing the lexicon makes it seem less Republican.  Some one needs to tell Axelrod it’s the policies, not the labels.

So Greenwald is calling it  Obama’s kinder, gentler military commissions .

It now appears definitive that the Obama administration will attempt to preserve a “modified” version of George Bush’s military commissions, rather than try suspected terrorists in our long-standing civilian court system or a court-martial proceeding under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  Obama officials have been dispatched to insist to journalists (anonymously, of course) that Obama’s embrace of “new and improved” military commissions is neither inconsistent with the criticisms that were voiced about Bush’s military commission system nor with Obama’s prior statements on this issue.  It is plainly not the case that these “modifications” address the core criticisms directed to what Bush did, nor is it the case that Obama’s campaign position on this issue can be reconciled with what he is now doing.  Just read the facts below and decide for yourself if that is even a plausible claim.

Oh, do go read the facts listed in the article. Don’t forget those koolaide goggles, because willful blindness is about the only way you’re going to see much difference.

Meanwhile over on Bloomberg, I read up on the latest Obama-would-rather-not-be-held hostage- by-the-oval-office town hall meeting where Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt Load ‘Unsustainable’. I have to join Seth and Amy in a “Oh, really?” moment here.  I think you all will remember the graph on the left from earlier pieces that  I’ve done on the Obama stimulus package and budget.   Let’s just use the Bloomberg piece as a refresher.

President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

Earlier this week, the Obama administration revised its own budget estimates and raised the projected deficit for this year to a record $1.84 trillion, up 5 percent from the February estimate. The revision for the 2010 fiscal year estimated the deficit at $1.26 trillion, up 7.4 percent from the February figure. The White House Office of Management and Budget also projected next year’s budget will end up at $3.59 trillion, compared with the $3.55 trillion it estimated previously.

Two weeks ago, the president proposed $17 billion in budget cuts, with plans to eliminate or reduce 121 federal programs. Republicans ridiculed the amount, saying that it represented one-half of 1 percent of the entire budget. They noted that Obama is seeking an $81 billion increase in other spending.

Meanwhile, we’ve seen protests erupt as the Senate started discussing health care reform while leaving single payer solutions off-the-table.  No single payer is another Obama missive and another Republican-like policy.  On May 5th,  those most radical of all elements in this country, doctors and nurses, staged a protest at a senate hearing insisting single payer should be on the table.

I still can’t believe the Republicans are calling Obama a socialist.  The only thing we’ve socialized so far are those incredible losses coming out of the finance sector.  Everything else is Republican-lite.

All I gotta say is ya got played folks!   Maddoff is a small fry scammer by comparison.

Please Digg!!! and Share!!!