My brother commented on yesterday's post, pointing out that I'm only telling half the story. After the NDAA was passed from the House to the Senate, more provisions were added including the one allowing the President to detain anyone, not just foreigners, without trial. He included this clip of Senator Carl Levin saying that the President requested ( Read more... )

Since 2009 the political strategy of the Republican "loyal opposition" has been, essentially, to shit on Obama's carpet and then blame him for being a poor housekeeper. Take Obama's "failure" to close Guantanamo. In late 2009 he signed an executive order which Republicans successfully resisted by convincing idiots that this would be "letting ( Read more... )

I was going to write a (tongue-in-cheek) post explaining why Barack Obama is our nation's second black President for the following reason. The Twentieth Amendment states that "the terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January" - inauguration day. But Barack Obama's inauguration ran a few minutes late - the ( Read more... )

crisper asked how conservatives would react if Barack Obama started pushing an anti-abortion legislation package or a radical roll-back of gun control. He thinks they might turn it into a right-wing scare about arming minorities and encouraging them to breed. I've got an even more cynical theory. I don't think it would change anything at all ( Read more... )

During the 2008 election Barack Obama's citizenship was challeneged and the campaign showed his birth certificate, but that wasn't enough for some people. They questioned the document's authenticity or pointed out that it's merely a "certification of live birth", not a "birth certificate". More recently recently it's popular to point out that the ( Read more... )

Barack Obama has failed at success. He's attempted to bring down the long-term costs of health care by increasing coverage the way that other countries have. He's attempted to close Guantanamo and bring terrorists to justice by charging them with crimes and convicting them in courts. He has so far failed in these goals because Republicans have ( Read more... )

Imagine that you're watching an episode of "Supernanny" with a real terrible kid who won't eat his vegetables, won't do his homework, won't clean his room, and won't stop biting the other kids. The whole episode passes as the nanny tries to get the kid to do what's right and the kid just won't do it, and in the end she's sitting there with a messy ( Read more... )

The Nobel process of nomination and selection starts in September when invitation letters are sent out to qualified nominators. By February 1 the nominations are due, and anyone can be nominated for any reason, and about 200 people are nominated. From February to October the Nobel committee holds a series of meetings to narrow down the choices, and ( Read more... )

Just over six months after George Bush took office the message he'd ignored titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" came true. Like some King Midas in reverse he turned that disaster into an even worse disaster by alienating our allies, invading the wrong country, then horribly botching the invasion. Along the way he eliminated habeas and ( Read more... )

Last week, right after the Joe Wilson "you lie" outburst, I had dinner with a few people. One of them mentioned that Wilson's outburst was not as unprecedented as everyone made it out to be. "Take a look at video how Congress treated George Bush. That happened all the time ( Read more... )