[NaClH2O]

55 Percent of Likely Voters Find ‘Socialist’ an Accurate Label of Obama?

Link



I know the Libs will whine about the source but the authors of the study are well know Libs.

So what?

[Ratmagiclady]

No need to start a new thread..... just though it was a funny juxtaposition.
Rand Paul: Obama's BP Jabs Could Harm Cleanup - CBS News

BP Cuts Payments to 40,000, La. Official Says - CBS News

*Gasp!* A multinational corporation with GOP apologism *not living up to its advertising?* *Denying people needed help cause of technicalities on *forms?* Impossible! We'll just have to vote them out in the next... Oh.

They didn't just promise to 'make right,' they promised to *make whole,* which is a whole other level of responsibility entirely.

They ain't hurting for money.

[Nesster]

Jeff, yeah. That Obama mainly uses the bully pulpit here - and not strongly enough many think - comes from the fact that he is opposed to socialism. He's in a bind, where he's under fire from all sides.

Unlike Katrina which was NOT a man-made disaster, though government involvement is implicated with the levee maintenance, the BP oil spill is a man-made, private enterprise disaster. So with katrina the correct Government action was to be involved and take responsibility. With BP, taking over clean up and so on is tantamount to nationalizing a private enterprise disaster, i.e. socialism. Government must do exactly what it is: providing oversight and coordination, ensuring BP is doing the right thing, but it must do so lawfully and respecting the private enterprise principles involved.

Jeff, yeah. That Obama mainly uses the bully pulpit here - and not strongly enough many think - comes from the fact that he is opposed to socialism. He's in a bind, where he's under fire from all sides.

Unlike Katrina which was NOT a man-made disaster, though government involvement is implicated with the levee maintenance, the BP oil spill is a man-made, private enterprise disaster. So with katrina the correct Government action was to be involved and take responsibility. With BP, taking over clean up and so on is tantamount to nationalizing a private enterprise disaster, i.e. socialism. Government must do exactly what it is: providing oversight and coordination, ensuring BP is doing the right thing, but it must do so lawfully and respecting the private enterprise principles involved.

What? BP leases the land they drill on. Government SHOULD be there. Has nothing to do with socialism and all to getting it stopped and cleaned up. Our BEST people should be on this not just BP's. The Jones act should have been waived long long ago. Like on day 1. Katrina was a natural occurrence is true. But the idiot they had for a mayor made the situation even worse. The White HOuse called them up and asked if they saw what was coming at them. And they did nothing. No Brain Nagin was waiting for the luxury Greyhound buses while he let all those school buses flood out.

Since when is Nobama not a socialist? Everything he wants to do is socialist in nature.

[wildman]

It may be informative/educational to hear your description of what a socialist is and what animal it is, that you are describing, when you use this word. That way we will not be "confused" in the future

What he means by a "socialist" is very clear and unambiguous:

Anyone who thinks that, in addition to narrow private individual interests, there are also broad public collective interests.

That these public interests may from time to time come in conflict with private interests and that when such a conflict arises the people as a whole have the right to decide which interests will prevail.

What I don't understand about his viewpoint is how he can see such people as so extreme, so dangerous, so destructive, so beneath contempt that they cannot have any place in his free market capitalist nirvana. To him such people must be purged.

[larryinlc]

The Jones act should have been waived long long ago. Like on day 1.

The Jones Act has nothing to do with the oil clean-up.

"Totally not true," said Mark Ruge, counsel to the Maritime Cabotage Task Force, a coalition of U.S. shipbuilders, operators and labor unions. "It is simply an urban myth that the Jones Act is the problem."

In a news briefing last week, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said he'd received "no requests for Jones Act waivers" from foreign vessels or countries. "If the vessels are operating outside state waters, which is three miles and beyond, they don't require a waiver," he said.

On Tuesday the State Department announced that new offers of aid would be accepted from 12 foreign countries and international organizations, but spokesman P.J. Crowley noted that booms donated by Mexico, Norway and Brazil had been in use since May 11,and that 24 foreign vessels from nine foreign countries already have been helping with the cleanup.

FactCheck.org, a nonprofit website operated by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, analyzed claims that failure to waive the Jones Act is blocking foreign-flagged vessels from assisting in the Gulf. It concluded last week that "In reality, the Jones Act has yet to be an issue in the response efforts."

The Deepwater Horizon response team reported in a news release June 15 that 15 foreign-flagged ships were participating in the oil spill cleanup, FactCheck.org said. "None of them needed a waiver because the Jones Act does not apply," it said.

That hasn't stopped conservatives from making the act a talking point to criticize Obama. James Carafano, a foreign policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy-research center, suggested on Fox News that labor unions are pressuring the Obama administration not to waive the act.

"They hate it when the Jones Act gets waived, and they pound politicians when they do that," Carafano said. "So is this a question of we're giving in to unions and not doing everything we can or is there some kind of impediment we don't know about?"

Michael Sacco, the president of the 80,000-member Seafarers International Union, called claims of organized-labor interference in the cleanup efforts "ridiculous."

"It is offensive for anyone to suggest that American maritime labor would hinder cleanup operations in the Gulf, in any way, shape or form," Sacco said in a statement on the union's website. "Speaking with one voice, U.S maritime labor and management have said that we wouldn't try to stand in the way of using foreign-flag assistance if no qualified, viable American-flag tonnage was available."


Read more: GOP's false talking point: Jones Act blocks Gulf help | McClatchy

'Anemic' response criticized

But federal response officials have been pressed for more than a week to streamline U.S. maritime restrictions that would allow more foreign skimming vessels to be put to work on the spill. And the Coast Guard and BP have been taken to task for not bringing more available U.S. skimmers to the Gulf spill.

According to the latest numbers from BP, 433 vessels are collecting oil in the Gulf, but less than a third of those are specialized boats designed specifically for oil skimming.

On the Senate floor last week, Sen. George LeMieux, R-Fla., pointed to a Coast Guard map detailing more than 850 skimmers available in the southeastern United States -- and more than 1,600 available in the continental United States.

"We are literally talking about more than a thousand skimmers that are available, but we only have 400 - if this number is correct -- at work," LeMieux said. "It is hard to believe that the response is this anemic; it is hard to believe that there is this lack of urgency or sense of purpose in getting this done."

The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 requires regions to have minimum levels of equipment such as boom and skimmers, making it difficult for every oil-fighting resource to be directed to the Gulf of Mexico.

Allen acknowledged the hurdle last week, saying that there are "discussions we're having across the entire country where we have equipment that's out there as a requirement -- legal requirement to cover spill response of those areas -- and how we might free those up. That's a work in progress inside the administration right now."

Why isn't this act waived for now?

Just weeks after the oil spill crisis began to unfold in the Gulf of Mexico, the French foreign minister volunteered a fleet of oil skimming boats from a French company, Ecoceane. A month later, in early June, Ecoceane Chief Executive Eric Vial met with BP and Coast Guard officials to present the idea.

But after that meeting, weeks went by with little contact as oil continued gushing into the Gulf. A frustrated Vial was able to get around the bureacracy last week only when his company sold nine of the oil collection boats to a private contractor in Florida, who could then put the boats to work.
Oil giant Shell was in negotiations to let BP use the Nanuq, a 300-foot oil recovery boat sitting idle in Seward, Alaska. But in recent weeks, BP declined to bring it to the Gulf.

"Nothing would prevent it from working right now in the Gulf of Mexico," said Curtis Smith, a spokesman for Shell Alaska. "It remains available in the event that BP reconsiders.

"

Why don't the Feds overrule BP?

Laws affect use of foreign equipment

Regarding international skimming vessels, Allen said earlier this month that the government would work to quickly process waivers of the Jones Act, a 1920 maritime law that promotes U.S. shipping interests. But he has downplayed the importance of the law in prohibiting foreign boats seeking to aid in the Gulf spill response.

The law prevents foreign crews and foreign ships from transporting goods between U.S. ports; in the Deepwater Horizon case, the "port" would be where the oil is collected offshore. Allen has said that many of the foreign-flagged boats are working the spill more than three miles offshore, meaning they would not be carrying oil to a separate port on shore.

"While we have not seen any need to waive the Jones Act as part of this historic response, we continue to prepare for all possible scenarios," Allen said. "Should any waivers be needed, we are prepared to process them as quickly as possible to allow vital spill response activities being undertaken by foreign-flagged vessels to continue without delay."

But Vial of Ecoceane, the French oil spill response company, said the Jones Act and other difficulties getting through to BP prevented his company from putting boats to work sooner. He has boats that could work offshore, but also smaller models that would be best suited in shallower inland waters within the three-mile limit.

"We could have sent boats earlier, but we wanted to make sure that if we sent our boats, they could be used in the U.S., because of the Jones Act," Vial said in an interview translated from French.

[deadwolfbones]

[GingeM]

""the common defense and general welfare of the United States" - that's state ownership of defense and the Welfare state, my friend.

You are joking... Right??? I'm not sure I can believe you said that publicly.

A quick lesson:-

1. The "common defense" allows for the federal government to run a unified military against an enemy.

2. "Welfare" does not mean a welfare state it means "the good of".

[jeffkrol]

So what?

And to continue this train of thought...........
BTW: Seems Carvelle has a beef w/ Obama big time.. NOT pertinent (I assume) to his "polls"
Good thing these people don't post here.. All the threads would be closed
Letters: Why the Obama-is-a-socialist poll isn't surprising - Salon
Oh I do find this interesting..

The poll was conducted June 19-22. It surveyed 1,001 adults who voted in 2008, including 867 adults likely to vote in 2010 and 134 "drop-off" voters, defined as 2008 voters less likely to vote in 2010. Its margin of error is ±3.0.

Poll: 55% Of Likely Voters Think Obama's A Socialist | TPMDC
HEY look, more stonewalling............
Senate's Summer Session Gets Shorter: GOP Plans To Delay Kagan Vote | TPMDC

Here we go. Despite the precious little time left for Congress to get anything done, Republicans tomorrow will ask for the committee vote on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan to be delayed for an additional week.

[GingeM]

Here we go. Despite the precious little time left for Congress to get anything done, Republicans tomorrow will ask for the committee vote on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan to be delayed for an additional week

Why shouldn't they? It's the Dems who have taken the rule of the USA to the courts "legislating from the bench"... So preventing them from "stacking" said bench is a fair move.

[Oldschool]

Why shouldn't they? It's the Dems who have taken the rule of the USA to the courts "legislating from the bench"... So preventing them from "stacking" said bench is a fair move.

You obviously haven't read any of the recent decisions from the Roberts court. They are as activist as any court in recent history.

[Ratmagiclady]

You're obviously new to this country, Ginge, so perhaps you're unaware that when the GOP is in power they 'vett' Supreme court justices for ideology, and when the Democrats are in, ... the GOP 'vetts' them for ideology.

[jeffkrol]

Why shouldn't they? It's the Dems who have taken the rule of the USA to the courts "legislating from the bench"... So preventing them from "stacking" said bench is a fair move.

More than likely she'll get in anyway. There just stalling for "points".

And so Elena Kagan's confirmation march to the Supreme Court plods on. The Judiciary Committee hearings are over but not the Senate babble nor the partisan maneuvering that will come, first in the committee vote, and then later in America's hot air heaven, the Senate floor.

This latest nomination has now confirmed what everyone already knows. Presidents make their political choices for the Court, and the partisanship in the Senate lines up accordingly--either to mount rhetorical volleys, or to harden into party-line votes, depending on the political expediencies of the day.

Assuming professional credentials are met--and they almost always are--the nominee typically can count on confirmation (especially if he or she is sufficiently prepped to avoid saying anything that could possibly be meaningful).

The truth is that the Republican carping which has been aimed at Elena Kagan--activism, lack of judicial experience, liberal sympathies--would have evaporated into high praise if she had been nominated by a Republican president, and if her political sentiments (whatever they are) had been as much to the right as they are perceived to be to the left.

Since the flaming crash of the Robert Bork nomination in1987, the Senate confirmation process has devolved into a partisan shoot-out. The hearings and debates have become for the most part a replay of the last presidential election (typically conducted by the losing party) or a prelude to the next one (typically plotted by both parties).

Long gone are the days when Presidents would on occasion nominate candidates of the other party, and Senate confirmation could be largely free of ideological trench warfare.

Does anyone remember Republican President William Howard Taft's nomination of three Democrats for Supreme Court seats? Or Republican Herbert Hoover's choice of Democrat Benjamin Cardozo, or Democrat Franklin Roosevelt's elevation of Republican Harlan Fiske Stone to Chief Justice, or Republicans Dwight Eisenhower's and Richard Nixon's picks of Democrats William Brennan and Lewis Powell respectively?

Life tenure for Supreme Court Justices was meant to tame politics and encourage impartiality on the nation's highest bench. The idea was to insulate Justices, at least once in office, from the shifting winds of political majorities. But life tenure has not succeeded in removing politics from the initial selection process. Judicial permanency in office has offered a strong incentive to appoint Justices whose age and ideological vigor are capable of extending life interminably to the particular political majority responsible for their appointment.

As a result, Supreme Court confirmations have become partisan battlegrounds. Modern Presidents and their political majorities have seized the opportunity of life tenure to pack the Court as best they can and for as long as they can, while opposition Senators have predictably sought to sabotage these efforts also as best they can and for as long as they can.

Retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, 90, whom Kagan is poised to replace, was appointed nearly 35 years ago by Gerald Ford, at a time when liberal Republicanism was a force. Arch-conservative Antonin Scalia was appointed by Ronald Reagan 24 years ago when that Republican brand ruled. At age 74, he remains on the high bench in the prime of his professional life. Even the deans of the Court's liberal wing, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, were appointed a decade-and-a-half ago by Democrat Bill Clinton.

Alain L. Sanders: Kagan's Nomination Shows Life Tenure is a Recipe for Partisanship
Alain L. Sanders

Professor of American politics and constitutional law
Of course Brits know better......

[Nesster]

You are joking... Right??? I'm not sure I can believe you said that publicly.

A quick lesson:-

1. The "common defense" allows for the federal government to run a unified military against an enemy.

2. "Welfare" does not mean a welfare state it means "the good of".

Sorry, it says general welfare of the United States and that means it is in the constitution. These are socialist principles. Argue what you will, you can't change what it says.

Now, were you to drop that silly Obama is a Socialist crap, I might also retreat from a strict literalist interpretation of the Constitution.

Nothing you can do will remove the fact that our central government is charged with the general welfare of the United States.

Nothing you can say will remove the fact that any good and conscientious President - and Congress - will act in ways to safeguard the welfare of these United States.

And nothing you can say or do will change the fact that the Constitution contains within it socialistic - i.e. government run, rather than private enterprise - provisions. See, the Founding Fathers didn't watch Fox.