Having been a community organizer is apparently good qualification for the job of President of the U.S.A. Could you imagine Bush doing this? In the Onion perhaps. | AFP - US President Barack Obama broke a “logjam” inside tense G20 negotiations between France and China on Thursday over the crucial issue of tax havens, a senior US official said. |
According to the US version of events, Obama took French President Nicolas Sarkozy aside to suggest a formulation for compromise language on tax havens in the final communique. |
Obama then took the Chinese delegation, led by President Hu Jintao into a corner of the plenary session room and received agreement on the language, before bringing the two sides together to seal the deal, the official said. |
“He called over Mr Sarkozy with translators and sherpas in tow and reached agreement, there was a shaking of hands. The resolution was that the G20 would take note that the OECD had published today a list,” the official said. Read more at www.france24.com |
These are interesting times to be living in… That the government has taken such a large role in the internal affairs of our nation’s largest corporations is a little disturbing. But it would be far more disturbing if it were doing so ab nusquam. Turns out that these companies have taken on billions and billions in federal aid and are looking for billions more.
Is it the role of the government to run these large companies, no. But it is the role of the government to safeguard its investment in them, just as any large stakeholder would. If GM did not wish to be subjected to the scrutiny and consequences of federal government influence then it should not have taken federal government money.
It is a rare thing these days to read studied and thoughtful commentary from the Right of the political spectrum. Here is an except to the recent rule. The Obama I’d been reading about was at sixes and sevens, gaffe prone even though married to this teleprompter, and perhaps on the verge of melting down. Even the New York Times seemed to be having second thoughts about him. |
| The Obama I saw delivered an assured performance. He provided detailed answers to a range of questions without a teleprompter and without gaffes. |
| In politics, it’s difficult for a president to look good while presiding over a bad economy, even if it’s an economy he inherited. For example, the fact that a Treasury Secretary took a while to gain his bearings would be little remarked upon in a normal economy. |
As the economy continues to “lose 10-0,” Obama will find it difficult to maintain his popularity. However, the communication skills he has displayed at his press conferences will help keep him afloat, whatever the New York Times thinks. |
More signs of the return of competent leadership to Washington. | An Iranian diplomat has held informal talks with Nato officials for the first time in 30 years. |
I sware that the Rush Limbaugh-right that has taken over many levers in the Republican Party truely hates this country and its institutions. Here is an example of a Limbaugh-right-winger, a member of congress, inciting violence all built up against a strawman cartoon of a charicature that they have painted in their own minds of our President. | We are at the point, Sean, of revolution. And by that, what I mean, an orderly revolution — where the people of this country wake up get up and make a decision that this is not going to happen on their watch. |
| “Economics works equally in any country. Where freedom is tried, the people rejoice. But where tyranny is enforced upon the people, as Barack Obama is doing, the people suffer and mourn.” |
| Right now I’m a member of Congress. And I believe that my job here is to be a foreign correspondent, reporting from enemy lines. |
| This is our very freedom, and we have 230 years, a continuous link of freedom that every generation has ceded to the next generation. This may be the time when that link breaks. And I’m going to do everything I can, I know you are, to make sure that we keep that link secure. |
| That’s why it’s up to us now. The founders gave everything they had to give us this freedom. Now it’s up to us to give everything we can to make sure that our kids are free, too.Read more at tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com |
A prediction from Doug Henwood of The Left Business Observer of the future direction of the Obama administration.
Must be time for the Revolution before “we” lose “our” country. | the administration has concluded that it needs the private sector |
President Obama stands firm in the face of Washington’s political blizzards. Let’s hope he has enough flexibility to take the hardest blows. So far the Limbaugh-right thinks they have him on the ropes. President Obama says energy independence is not subject to wheeling and dealing. He has tied his first budget proposal as president to a renewable energy program to help the US move toward energy independence.
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| Obama’s budget proposal invests billions in research designed to reduce climate change and guarantees loans for companies that develop clean energy technologies. |
“I realize there are those who say these plans are too ambitious to enact,” Obama says in his weekly video and Internet message. “To that I say that the challenges we face are too large to ignore. I didn’t come here to pass on our problems to the next president or the next generation. I came here to solve them.” Read more at en.cop15.dk |
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