President Obama at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner. (x)
(via stalebreadandabigpond)
September 2nd, 2011 807,492 notes #barack obama #fox news #i can't believe i haven't gif-ed this yet #i laughed so hard i cried #obama #obama stan 4 life #the lion king #white house correspondents dinner
Brown-skinned anti-war socialist? You’re thinking of Jesus.
(via stalebreadandabigpond)
Reblogged from browneyedamazon October 2nd, 2011 19 notes #Obama #justice #socialism #jesus #christian
Last Friday President Obama signed an executive order entitled Improving American Indian and Alaska Native Educational Opportunities and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities. The signing took place as part of the third White House Tribal Nations Conference and comes after a long campaign by tribal organizations and other advocacy groups, including theLinguistic Society of American Committee on Endangered Languages and their Preservation. The Order makes several explicit references to Native languages. I have highlighted some of these references below.
- “The Initiative shall help expand educational opportunities and improve educational outcomes for all American Indian / Alaska Native students, including opportunities to learn theirNative languages, cultures, and histories.”
- “the Initiative shall promote, encourage, and undertake efforts, consistent with applicable law, to … increasing the number and percentage of AI/AN children who enter kindergarten ready for success through improved access to high quality early learning programs and services, including Native language immersion programs…”
- “Each [federal] agency plan shall include: … the preservation and revitalization of tribal languages and cultural traditions.”
- “…encourage the private sector to … providing funds to support the preservation and revitalization of Native languages and cultures…”
The signing of this Executive Order has been well received with many positive reactions over the weekend. For example, Alaska Senator Mark Begich noted that the Order will have repercussions for new legislation:“Any new law must respect and embrace Alaska Native cultures and languages, as well as give educators the tools needed to prepare students for careers in science, technology, engineering and math fields. I am pleased to see a focus on improving educational outcomes and career opportunities.”
For the complete text of the Executive Order see the press release.
YES!!!
(via karnythia)
December 11th, 2011 234 notes #langauge #native #american #indigenous #president #obama #support #history #linguistics
Matt Romney says his dad Mitt will release his tax returns “as soon as” President Obama releases his birth certificate. Guess he hasn’t seen our mugs?
want
I love it when the Obama campaign trolls. LOL
Wow. What are we 12? Still, this is hilarious!
(via thempress)
Reblogged from barackobama December 30th, 2011 3,347 notes #obama #romney #troll
Real
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/12/31/396018/breaking-obama-signs-defense-authorization-bill/
TL;DR The President’s opponents played the electorate like a fiddle and will get away with it because people don’t seem to realize they’ve been tricked into being angry at the wrong person.
He signed it because if he didn’t, defense spending including benefits to veterans and their families would not have been authorized. The sections of NDAA that many people here seem to have a problem with are sections that were added into the document by primarily Republican legislators and which the President adamantly opposes but was powerless to stop. I’ll repeat that: the parts of this bill that many people here hate were included against the President’s wishes and in a way that he is powerless to stop. The only way he could have stopped these sections from being included would have been to try to veto the bill in its entirety, a move that would have been both political suicide as well as being futile, as Congress would simply have overridden him. He is explicit in his opposition to exactly the parts of the bill everyone here hates, going so far as to detail exactly which sections he opposes and why.
You’ll notice that the bill also restricts his ability to close Guantanamo Bay; this isn’t coincidence. These sections are openly hostile to the President’s stated mandate - they are effectively a giant ‘fuck you’ to the President, as well as a nasty way of eroding the President’s support with his own base. Observe:
Draft legislation that is almost guaranteed to piss of the President but more importantly piss of his base.
Attach said legislation to another piece of larger, more important legislation like, say, the Defense Spending budget for the entire year so that any attempt to dislodge the offensive legislation will result in a political shitstorm, as well as place the larger legislation in jeopardy.
Once attached, begin a PR campaign that highlights the offending legislation and brings it to the attention of as many media outlets as possible - not just the traditional media, but alternative media outlets as well (Fox news, MSNBC, Media Matters, Huff-Po, Infowars, etc.)
Here’s where it gets tricky: Simultaneously, speak to both your party’s base and the opposition’s. To your base, argue that the legislation is necessary to ‘Keep America safe’ and that the President, by opposing it, is clearly soft of terrorism and endangering the military by trying to strip the legislation out. At the same time, sit back and watch your opponent’s liberal supporters tear into the offending legislation as being dangerous, anti-democratic, and a threat to civil liberties. You know they will; that’s what they care about most. You’ve designed legislation that will make them froth at the mouth. You don’t even have to keep flogging the message; one look at the legislation will be enough to convince most people that it is anathema to everything they hold dear. Because it is.
Pass the ‘parent’ legislation. Doing so forces the President to sign it or attempt to veto it. Since the legislation in question just so happens to be the military’s operating budget, a veto is out of the question. The President must sign the bill, you get the legislation you wanted, but you also practically guarantee that your opponent’s base will be furious at him for passing a bill they see as evil. Even if he tries to explain in detail why he had to sign it and what he hates about it, it won’t matter; ignorance of the American political process, coupled with an almost militant indifference to subtle explanations will almost ensure that most people will only remember that the President passed a bill they hate.
Profit. you get the legislation you want, while the President has to contend with a furious base that feels he betrayed them - even though he agrees with their position but simply lacked the legislative tools to stop this from happening. It’s a classic piece of misdirection that needs only two things to work: A lack of principles (or a partisan ideology that is willing to say anything - do anything - to win), and an electorate that is easy to fool.
This is pretty basic political maneuvering and the biggest problem is that it almost always works because most people either don’t know or don’t care how their political system actually functions. The President was saddled with a lose-lose situation where he either seriously harmed American defense policy (political suicide), or passed offensive legislation knowing that it would cost him political capital. To all of you here lamenting that you ever voted for this ‘corporate shill’, congratulations: you are the result the Republicans were hoping for. They get the law they want, they get the weakened Presidential candidate they want. And many of you just don’t seem to see that. You don’t have to like your country’s two-party system, but it pays to be able to understand it so that you can recognize when it’s being used like this.
EDIT: thanks to Reddit user Mauve_Cubedweller for this post
Agreed, that’s the thing with this whole bill, it’s way more complicated than what the alarmists are making it out to be. The NDAA is not a singular “indefinite detainment” bill, that single article is a huge thing that the Republicans got in to put the President’s back against the wall and ensure that he could never close Guantanamo (which is its own fuck off lose-lose situation).
It’s just one of those shitty things where you ask yourself what you would do? No answer you give is free from fucking over lots and lots of people.
-Joe
People are forgetting a Presidential campaign is around the corner. The GOP is going to do and use every little trick they can.
(via karnythia)
Reblogged from jay-dot-universe January 3rd, 2012 9,922 notes #congress #games #gop #legislation #news #perspective #politics #president #obama #republicans #democrats #systemThere’s this girl who is always on my bus with a pin on her backpack that says “Don’t blame me - I voted for the American”.
And every time I have to sit behind her and stare at that pin I just seethe the whole time thinking about the fact that there are people as ignorant as her in the world.
Seriously, though, what the hell?
Put a stickie on her backpack that says, “Your arrogance is astounding. Stop watching FOX News.”
(via stfuapologists)
Reblogged from totallyspocked April 16th, 2012 9 notes #birther #obama #locals #xenophobia #ignorance“ taking Obama to the White House
Lesley Arfin, writer of the HBO show Girls, in her blog, has a metaphor for “pooping”. This ties to what Mark (of Mark Reads) mentioned here about working with her. She apparently compared Obama to poop regularly because he is brown. (via redlightpolitics)
She needs to go.
(via thempress)
Reblogged from redlightpolitics April 18th, 2012 410 notes #girls #hbo #writer #lesley arfin #PRESIDENT #Obama
Is Obamacare’s Individual Mandate Really The Largest Tax Hike In The History Of The World?
When you compare the projected revenue effect of the individual mandate to the actual revenue effects of other, actually large tax increases, the claim becomes laughable.
More at the link.
(via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity-deacti)
Reblogged from abaldwin360 July 2nd, 2012 57 notes #tax increase #gdp #obamacare #affordable healthcare act #reagan #bush #clinton #obama #cbo #individual mandate #tax hike #romneyWASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that the Obama administration could be slicing the deficit too fast for the weak US economy as it pared its growth forecast.
“Downside risks have intensified,” IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said at a news conference, citing external pressures from the eurozone debt crisis and its potential deterioration, and domestic issues linked to the debt ceiling and the fiscal cliff.
In an annual report on the world’s largest economy, the IMF trimmed growth forecasts to 2.0 percent in 2012 and 2.3 percent in 2013, down a tenth point from April’s estimates.
The slower growth outlook mainly was due to sluggish consumer spending, the key driver of gross domestic product activity.
“It is critical to remove the uncertainty created by the ‘fiscal cliff’ as well as promptly raise the debt ceiling, pursuing a pace of deficit reduction that does not sap the economic recovery,” the fund report said.
The country’s “tepid” recovery three years after exiting the Great Recession was under threat from the pre-programmed “fiscal cliff” combination of sharp spending cuts and tax increases at the year-end, and the need to raise the debt ceiling in the coming months.
The fiscal cliff is the result of Congress’s failure to agree on a deficit reduction plan, resulting in mandated tax increases and spending cuts to take effect by January 1, 2013.
Congress remains deadlocked over how to avoid the mandated measures, and the political impasse was not expected to end before the November 6 presidential election.
The IMF warned that leaving the measures to take effect could force a US contraction early next year, slamming an already fragile world economy.
Lagarde highlighted that the US fiscal and debt issues have eroded confidence in the country.
“The domestic effect would be severe, with negative spillovers to the rest of the world,” Lagarde said.
According to the Media, the deficit is high and according to GOP media, it’s higher than it’s ever been in US history. Funny, this.
(via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity-deacti)
Reblogged from sinidentidades July 7th, 2012 15 notes #news #government #politics #economy #economics #GOP #Fox News #Romney #ObamaReblogged from cognitivedissonance July 11th, 2012 101 notes #Firefighters #health care #politics #U.S. Forest Service #wildland firefighters #health insurance #Barack Obama #Obama #Obama administrationPresident Barack Obama has directed federal officials to offer seasonal firefighters the option of purchasing federal health insurance coverage, White House officials told The Denver Post Tuesday.
The temporary seasonal workers who descend into fire zones are usually young people who work sundry outdoor jobs, depending on the season. Some pick up contract work removing trees in the fall or they work at ski areas in the winter. Many are college students.
But because they are not full-time U.S. Forest Service employees, they previously did not have the option of purchasing federal health insurance.
Under a directive that will be made in the “near future” from the Office of Personnel Management, this group will get that option by the end of this month, White House officials said.
I had no idea they were not eligible. Thank you to the Obama Administration for taking care of our first responders in this regard. Now, let’s work to make it more affordable.
I just want to show that this exists and that she should be continuously called out for this:
This is how history is relevant. This phrase has power behind it. A phrase that has been in use for over 100 years, though is has been in documented recorded since at least the early 1900s), created by americanized Africans to describe how enslaved Africans and later freed Africans (cuz we weren’t really American until 1964) would use intentionally deceiving words and actions in front of the dominant class (racist Euro Americans) as a form of survival and resistance. You pretend to be humble and subservient in front of massa so that they wouldn’t kill you and your family and your whole community, but you have no intention of actually obeying.
So not only is Sarah engaging in casual racism, but her accusation evokes a specific coded-language that says that the President is (1) lower in status if not a slave, (2) deceitful and resisting his ‘masters/the ruling class (3) not acting subservient like he’s supposed to.
She can miss me with that.
(via deliciouskaek)
Reblogged from nealzonwheelz October 24th, 2012 789 notes #sarah palin #obama #shuckin' and jivin' #language #coded-language #racism #history #HISTORY IS RELEVANT #news #politics #election 2012Oh my God. I think I’m having an emotional breakdown.
“ The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.
- Mitch McConnell
And this is exactly how the entire Republican party acted. Did they think we’d forget?
(via bostongrits)
Couldn’t even do that right!
(via howto-kissdistinctly-american)
(via how-tokissdistinctly-american)
Reblogged from bostongrits November 8th, 2012 20 notes #politics #Obama #republicans #gop #election 2012 #President Obama #government #lol
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