Obama has been scrambling to clean up a struggling U.S. economy, save the auto industry and banking industry, and provide better health care across the board for all United States Citizens. He faces uphill battles in several of these areas with opposition from republicans, radio talk show hosts, and opponents to health care reform. But one thing now is undeniable, during Obama’s leadership, the world’s angst for the United States is seeming to fade, and popularity of the country is rising.
According to Reuters, “[Barack Obama] has made the United States the place most people want to visit and do business with.” And is ranked first in the fifth annual index. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091106/lf_nm_life/us_countries_rankings)
There is little question that the image of the United States has suffered in recent years, with an unpopular war, poor international relations, and a reputation for pollution and waste, Obama seems to be trying to turn that around, and now there’s evidence that it’s working.
A good image or reputation can make a difference when it comes to our economy at home. People often buy more from those they feel good about, and cleaning up our image may be just what the doctor ordered when it comes to business around the world.
The Jury is still out on whether Obama will succeed in saving our health care, banks, or the wealth of other problems facing his administration, but we seem to be headed in a good direction.
Popularity: 1%
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It WAS all he had to say about it!
:@:)
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Obama has runied this economy, and thrown us farther into debt than we’ll ever be able to crawl out of without completely destroying the value of the dollar. This country may not survive what he’s doing to this nation.
Anonymous…thanks for the joke you posted.
Just out of curiosity, do you remember where the economy was two years before Obama was elected? One year before?
Do you recall that when The Shrub took office we had a surplus and less than 8 months after he took the oath, we had a 500 billion dollar deficit?
I don’t know that your joke would play in Vegas, but I enjoyed it.
Thanks again…
PS: Maybe next time you have a good joke, try putting it in a thread that the joke is about. This thread was about the international image Obama is trying to repair after 8 years of idioracy, not about the economy the Bush administration brought to it’s knees.
DJ,
Get a clue! Less than a year after Pres. Bush was elected, terrorists attacked our country flying jets into the WTC starting a war that goes on today. Fighting a global war on terror isn’t cheap but its worth our freedom and safety which Bush was able to preverve.
Guest…
Here, I’ll give you a clue…or three.
1. The Iraq war had NOTHING to do with the bombings of the WTC, just as Iraq had no link whatsoever to al-Queda.
2. It was NOT the war that weakened our economy or ballooned our deficit. You see, as any child with a passing grade in 3rd grade math can tell you, if you’re going to start a war, especially one where you’ll be giving milti-billion, no-bid contracts to a company that is still paying your vice-President, you don’t pick that time to give the top 3% on the wage scale in your country a series of tax breaks that wipes out the surplus you inherited when yo utook office and dries up the coffers with which you are going to pay for that war.
3. Had Bush not decided before he was innaugurated that he would find a way to get back into Iraq and finish the job his daddy didn’t, the US military could have gone into Afghanistan with the full number of forces necessary to kill or capture al-Queda in less than 90 days, saving untold BILLIONS of dollars, not to mention more than 4,000 AMERICAN LIVES.
It also would have gone a very long way toward stemming the financial ruin your beloved President nearly brought us to.
WOW DJ, nice liberal talking points. Do you have any original thoughts. I like the third grader put down, nice touch.
Hey guest…show me proof that ONE of those “liberal talking points” is incorrect.
Because I can show you fact they are accurate.
Looking forward to hearing your denial-laden response with ZERO fact anywhere within…and loving every second of how much this is killing you that Obama is president and there’s not a thing you can do about it.
That in and of itself gives me the kind of smile none of us in this country have had for the last 8 years.
Laughing my way to bed…nite all…
DJ,I sure can feel all that Obama uniter love!! You need to get over the hate and move on. By the way, go ahead and “PROVE” any of your liberal talking yak! Sleep tight.
How many WMD’s have we found in Iraq?
WMD’s were the flimsy excuse for invading Iraq but the real reason was that Bush was desperate. The economy was already tanking, he hadn’t found Bin Laden, and the prospects of a 2nd term were beginning to look very slim. Bush needed something to distract the public from how badly he was running the country and what better than wagging the dog with a war. Better yet against a villain everyone knows and against whom you can finish your daddies business.
Guest…
As I fear (predicted), you did (could) not disprove a thing I said. Here you go, as promised (Oh, and we’re su used to you coming back and blaming my content on the “liberal media”, I will pull my information ONLY from “Faux” News and The Heritage Foundation websites, the Congressional Investigative Committee into 9/11 (run by Republicans, who were the majority at the time) or from books written about (and not contended against by) President Bush.
1. Fact, 18 of the 19 hijackers on the hijacked planes were from Saudi Arabia, the 19th from Libya.
Fact, regardless of what and how many times Vice-President Cheney stated that there were “meetings between Iraqis and members of the al-Queda operations leadership”, both the CIA and NSA have stated, for the record, reports of these meetings were fabricated and were known to be innacurate almost from their inception.
Fact, Fact, regardless of what and how many times Vice-President Cheney stated that there were “Confirmed and guaranteed knowledge of, by multiple sources, that not only was Iraq in possession of tens of thousands of WMD, they were attempting to purchase “yellow cake” (uranium) from Niger” to reconstitute their nuclear program”, that turned out to be total fabrication by the White House, to the point that when an ambassador was sent to Niger to verify and came back stating it was not true, they outed his wife, a CIA operative.
Fact, In the book “Bush at War” by Bob Woodward (which was done through granted interviews for more than 60 hours with President Bush and was NEVER refuted, on the day of his first innauguration, when Bush met with Clinton (as outgoing and incoming Presidents always do), Clinton warned Bush about information they had been receiving about bin Laden and a planned attack on the US, and Bush’s response to Clinton was “Aww, we’re not really worried about bin Laden…we’re going into Iraq and getting Hussein out of there”. Look it up, Jack. That information came FROM BUSH to Woodward for the book.
2. First, let me give you a little math and history lesson:
Fact, the NATIONAL DEBT (different than the budget defecit or surplus) is the accumulative debt of ALL previous administrations. It is the amount we “owe” after having borrowed more capital for operation than we have taken in revenues. Since the end of the FDR’s last term, only one administration has had ANY years in which the National Debt did not increase. These were the last two years of the Clinton Administration. Because we had a BUDGET SURPLUS, Clinton used some of those funds to pay down the NATIONAL DEBT, which was actually reduced, for the first time ever.
Fact, when Bush 41 left office, President Clinton inherited a 98.6 BILLION dollar budget defecit. On the day President clinton left office, he handed President Bush (43) a 103.7 BILLION dollar SURPLUS, in addition to having paid down the NATIONAL DEBT by more than 430 BILLION dollars.
Fact, when President Bush (43) took office, the NATIONAL DEBT was 5.1 TRILLION dollars. On the day he LEFT office, it was 11.6 TRILLION dollars.
Now perhaps you understand why President Obama is finding it necessary to deal with the federal finances as he is, because of what was left (or not) when he took office. Here are some other interesting tidbits that are coming from “CONSERVATIVE SOURCES” you might be interested in…
Fact, the BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of dollars in tax relief for the upper economic classes Bush gave to those (corporate and private) who got him elected in the first six months he was in office, were meant to spur the economy, give US businesses millions of new jobs and send us on the road to a new prosperity.
What it DID was give more capital to the wealthy to invest in stocks and tomove their manufacturing operations overseas, relieving them of US payrol taxes and high wages, causing more and more Americans to have a NEED to jump on the welfare rolls, costing the US even MORE money while reducing the government’s income with which to pay for it. This made it impossible for us homeowners to pay their mortgages, which turned those loans, which had been sold all over the world as “assets”, into debts and “bad paper”, which caused a run on the creditors by the nations abroad who had purchased the “derivatives” (bad assets) and thus we are where we are today. Unfortunately, most of you who bad mouth Obama get your information from Rush and Sean and the other right-wing yahoo’s who are taking you for the ride of your life, laughing their backsides off at you as you believe their garbage and they go home every weekend and cash their multi-million dollar paychecks as they are leading you around by the nose.
3 Fact, EVERY single, solitary Chairman of the Joint Chiefs not only argued against invading Iraq, but stated that the cost in lives and treasury to complete the mission of responding to the attacks of 9-11 AND eliminating the al-Queda enemy structure would have been a fraction of what the United States will/is/has spent in Iraq, with that effort offering absolutely NO relief from the actual attacking force that invaded US soil in 2001.
Fact, less than two weeks after Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech before the U.N., making the U.S. case for invading Iraq, he was informed that much of the text was inaccurate and that factual data had been changed NOT by the CIA or NSA, but by the White House, in an effort to bring more nations on board…with FALSE AND/OR MISLEADING INFORMATOIN. He resigned soon after.
Fact, in a meeting between the Joint Chiefs and the President, Vice-President, Sec Def, NSA and CIA on February 9, exactly one month prior to the beginning of the Iraq War, a plan was submitted to President Bush that stated exactly the numbers and expected outcome of an full force attack on al-Queda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld and Cheney dismissed it out of hand, and handed each of the Charimen a copy of “their” war plan in Iraq, complete with a four-page PR statement about “Shock and Awe” and a proposed budget and services contract for Haliburton. (You can find this imformation in the book, all supplied by Bush through direct interviews…and was NEVER disputed…by anyone. Why wasn’t it disputed? Because they know that Woodward has it all on tape and if challenged, would allow everyone in the world to hear it, and where would their credability, such as it is, be there?) all you have to do is know how to read!
Now, these are the last comments I will make on this thread. Facts are facts, you can choose to hear them or not. Not because there is nothing left to discuss, but because, after reading your “original thoughts” in posts # 1, 3, 5 & 7, it is obvious you don’t have any of your own. No facts, no intelligent discussion, just angry bile you scooped up off the bottom of Limbaugh’s shoes. Thuis I will finish with words you all have spewed forth so easily over the past eight years…words which are no coming back to haunt you…
“Elections have consequences. Get over it.”
Laughing hysterically,
DJ
In case it wasn’t noticed, the recession hit in 2008, long before Obama was elected. Everything- the auto industry, the big banks, and the economic crisis- were all far along when Obama took office. Everything in 2009 has amounted to clearing the wreckage from the disasters of 2008.
As anyone who has ever been in financial trouble knows, digging the hole is a lot easier than trying to climb back out of it. We are all still reaping the results of the 8 years of Bush mis-management.
Si convenient for you cool-aid drinkers to forget that the Democrats were the majority in congress and only they can spend the money. Bush is just your scape goat.
I know…I said I would not be posting again on this thread. But stupidity makes me do crazy things…like answer this last post.
Uh…guest…in case it slipped by you (as I am certain many things have), both the House AND the Senate were under Republican control for the first six years of the Bush insanity.
And by that time, all the damage had been done.
Loving life, because it is people JUST like you who are going to guarantee another four years of an Obama administration.
With sincere thanks,
DJ
DJ,
Obama’s approval ratings are tumbling. America does not want his brand of “change”. He is a socialist. His agenda will energize the country to vote against the extreme liberals in 2012 and he will lose his majority in congress. Then he will be defeated two years later. Fact! Honestly I hope he is sucessful in making our country stronger, safer and more free, but I doubt his policies will lead us there.
By the way, chill out dude before you have a stroke. Obama care isn’t there yet to kill you.
1.Obama’s approval ratings may be slipping but they are 30 points above where Bush was on 9-10.
2. If America doesn’t want his brand of change, then why did 10 MILLIOM MORE Americans vote for him?
3. Go back to school, becuase if you don’t even know what a socialist is? (You really need to stop getting your information from Glenn and Rush and Sean and the rest of the Hitler Youth.
4. You may be right in that some of the far south seats in both houses may go back to the Republicans in 2010, but you won’t get control. I have no problem with that. Clinton was able to pull us back from the economic brink Bush 41 left us with a MAJORITY of ‘Pubs in both houses, so it can be done with not a large majority as we have now.
5. The mid-terms are in 2010, the next Presidential election is IN 2012, not two years later. Does it feel bad showing he people who read this that you are so completely uninformed? THAT is what happens when you get your thoughts directly from Faux News and you don’t think for yourself.
6. You may be right, but one thing is for sure…the policies of the last eight years sure won’t. They are what got us here in the first place.
Now, on that note, rather than complaining about what is happening, how about you suggest some alternative ideas OF YOUR OWN. Note: don’t bother going to the RNC, Rush, Hannity, Beck or the Faux News websites, as they don’t have any either. You’re on your own…but it’ll be interesting tohear anything you might have to add that you feel would actually work better.
Listening,
DJ
I would urge folks from either the typical IF neo-con republican variety or the ever increasing democrat variety to really check into a few things.
First, the 9-11 issue– Look into this further folks please. Charlie Sheen’s “20 Minutes with the president” is a great and short into to the facts -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyKR2-A0KPU
Second, Please if you are a supporter of Obama see the film “The Obama Deception”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw or http://www.theobamadeception.net You need to look further then just what the media let loose. You need to hold his feet to the fire just as you did with Bush. Michael Moore and others refuse to do this. If you were critical of Bush by all means use those same standards to judge Obama by. Don’t let him off the hook because he isn’t a complete moron like the last Bush was. Hold him accountable to what he said he would do in the campaigns. When you do you will see it isn’t adding up. Again, watch THE OBAMA DECEPTION and visit the site.
Next, if you consider yourself a “conservative” or “liberal” regardless you need to watch “Fall of the Republic” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU and likewise get it out to friends. Obama is no more the answer to the economic problems then Bush was. They are owned by the same people so it makes no difference.
Thats ok DJ, everybody here knew you’d be back. Everyone gets frustrated and posts a comment about leaving and never coming back, but sooner or later they all return. You just happened to come back about 3 months before everyone else. haha!
Love your liberal rants though. Here, let me pour you some more kool aid. Wouldn’t want you to actually think for yourself for once.
Guest!
Thanks man. You keep making posts with absolutely ZERO information, no rational point of view and less than any intelligent alternatives, and you may help repeal the 16th Amendment and get Obama re-elected…TWICE!
Seriously, don’t you have ANYTHING to rbing to the table? I am not as entrenched as you seem to think I am and I am most certainly NOT a liberal (embarassingly, I honestly admit to voting for The Shrub the first time around), so why don’t you tell us what you would do INSTEAD of what Obama is doing and how you think it will work. If it works…I’m in!!!
Yep, Bush was sure was negligent when he created the community reinvestment act in 1978 and when he created the variable interest rate in 1983 and when he urged Fanny Mae too change their rules and start buying up the crap mortgages ACORN sued the banks into making to people that couldn’t afford them in the 90’s and when he repealed the Glass-Steagall Act.
Our democrats are too brilliant to do anything as stupid as all of that. Obama’s benevolent socialism/fascism will deliver us from the evils of capitalism that keeps me from having the success of those that work harder and smarter than I.
What was that evil Thomas Jefferson thinking when he and his greedy colleagues created such a system that represses us so badly? The Bastards!
P.S. why is everyone so shamed that they don’t sign their name to their posts?
Daryl…
News flash Bubba…the reversal of Glass-Steagall is what caused the worldwide mess we’re in right now.
DJ,
That was my point of my sarcastic post, Glass-Steagall was reversed in 1999 by Clinton/RobertRubin/Phill Grahm, most of the other dominoes were put into place under Carter and Clinton. The variable interest rate in 1983 was the Reagan administration however I don’t know if that was Reagans baby or Tip Oniel’s.
Bush’s first treasury secretary John Snow tried in 2001, 2003 and 2005 urged congress to stop Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac from its reckless ways but Chriss Dodd and Barney Frank roadblocked reform of these idiotic practices.
Obama represented ACORN to sue Citybank and others in 1996 to lend to those that didn’t have the money to pay the loan. In the summer of 2005, a bill emerged from the Senate Banking Committee that considerably tightened regulations on Fannie and Freddie, including controls over their capital and their ability to hold portfolios of mortgages or mortgage-backed securities. All the Republicans voted for the bill in committee; all the Democrats voted against it. To get the bill to a vote in the Senate, a few Democratic votes were necessary to limit debate. This was a time for the leadership Sen. Obama says he can offer, but neither he nor any other Democrat stepped forward.
Instead, by his own account, Obama wrote a letter to the Treasury Secretary, allegedly putting himself on record that subprime loans were dangerous and had to be dealt with. This is revealing; if true, it indicates Sen. Obama knew there was a problem with subprime lending — but was unwilling to confront his own party by pressing for legislation to control it. As a demonstration of character and leadership capacity, it bears a strong resemblance to something else in Sen. Obama’s past: voting present.
Blame Bush if you want but if you don’t blame the right people you can’t fix the problem.
Obama won’t fix the problem.
Blame the illegal non-governmental agency whose chairman says that it is above the laws of the US, answers to no one (except perhaps the Bilderberg group and other non governmental groups). Sounds a bit like the Mafia doesn’t it? They answer to no one, their is no congressional oversight, there is never any audits of them, they don’t have to answer to any gi-normous amounts of money disapearing, they don’t have to say what other national banks they work with and everytime they do anything with their paper currencies that they give us – it reduces the buying power of our buck. Alan Grenspam admits even that they answer to no one and are beyond any oversight by congress or even the President.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol3mEe8TH7w&NR=1
The blame for this collapse lies at their feet and has long been planned and admitted.
As well you can blame all the lying neo-cons and demorats that support such and refuse to End The Fed or even audit them. Then we can blame anyone that ever voted for a lying neocon or a demorat.
End the Fed and the careers of all those that voted for the banker bailout. Expect more from the crooks that you are putting into power folks.
Time will tell. All you Obama lovers will see in the very near future. He’s not interested in our traditional American values and ideals. He is a raving Socialist at best, and at worst? I shutter to think. You will see. They will THROW him out at the end of his first term. The writing is already on the wall.
Daryl, Its not shame. Its safety. Too many wack-jobs out there. A name and one Zaba search and a person anywhere in the world can learn way to much about a person — where they live, family, etc. Its just about safety in a very dangerous world full of nutt cases. Great post though! Right on!