I am just as proud of my vote this year as I was 4 years ago. Thank you Maine, Maryland and Minnesota for affirming the rights of those who should have always had them. Thank you Wisconsin for showing the way. Thank you Missouri and Indiana for standing up against ignorance. Thank you to everyone who voted. It is an imperfect system, but it's the best one in the world. And thank you Mr. President for giving us 4 more years of your life. I may not always agree with what you do, but I know that without a doubt, you are the best person for the job.
8 comments:
very well said, I agree 100%!!
I predicted a landslide win, Barack Obama won big...I now predict a second term full of promise and progress! God how I love us....
Here's to us and those like us!
I'll drink to that! :)
Well, my own vote, which is a cry in the wind in this state that generally goes Democratic on the presidential elections was a thank you for the following:
He passed Health Care Reform: 5 presidents failed to create universal insurance.
He signed the Affordable Care Act of 2010 to cover 32 million uninsured Americans starting in 2014. Is it the whole bag? Does it come close to solving the problem? NO. But for once, certainly the first time in my life rescission is outlawed, and the Healthcare industry and it’s paid-for lobbyists-in-Congress disguised as elected officials are on the defensive. It a big start and an even bigger fucking deal than Joe Biden realizes for working people such as myself who have been literally forced to pay for worthless medical coverage all of their lives -until 2010. Oh, and he expanded Health coverage for children too, the 2009 Children’s Health Insurance Act, covers healthcare for 4 million more children. So you know, tell people who say Healthcare Reform was a joke to go fuck themselves, or to just do a little reading, the newspapers and cable news really don’t cover this shit in detail like they should.
Now, while I would rather he and Holder had worked toward getting prosecutions -at least he passed Wall Street Reform, weak as it was, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act mandates that large banks provide “living wills” to avoid destructive bankruptcies. There are now limits on trade with people’s money for the banks’ own profit wherein the consumers bear all the risk –this was a big fucking deal also, I only heard about it in a talk between economists on C-SPAN, when asked why these new regulations didn’t get any coverage, an economist opined that maybe the banks didn’t want to the public to focus on what they’d already had been doing to consumers for 100 years.
President Obama ended the war in Iraq on December 18, 2011, and has begun drawdown of war in Afghanistan.
The Obama Administration eliminated Osama Bin Laden. Now while my mayor, Michael Bloomberg said any president would’ve gotten rid of Bin Laden, the point is, any president didn’t. Everybody forgets President George W. Bush shut down the special intelligence departments charged with finding Al Qaeda’s leader. President Obama reopened these operations, so the direct results are ultimately his to claim, yet I didn’t see one single commercial or political message from Democrats trying to glom glory from what the SEALs accomplished, -as it should be, but the credit is ultimately theirs.
Mohammar Gaddafi ‘s reign ended: A tricky one for me as this kind of thing always smacks of CIA gerrymandering in the Middle East, but I’m of a generation that still remembers the Lockerbie crash as the start of the post-cold war era in geopolitics, and not 9/11, where you can die for someone else belief’s no matter where in the world you happen to be standing, but maybe I’m just kidding myself, as the Atomic bomb ushered in that world decades ago. Gaddafi sent guns to terrorists around the world, and had much more blood on his hands for fomenting sectarian and religious violence than Bin Laden.
If Republicans (and I have to admit myself,) want to accuse Obama of and the previous administration for giving the Auto industry welfare? Then we have t6o give them credit for turning the Auto Industry around. Since bottoming out in 2009, the auto industry has added more than 100,000 jobs. -JOBS people. By 2011, the Big 3 Detroit automakers all gained market share for the first time in over twenty years. The Bush administration (I know, it’s hard for me to say) and the Obama administration deserve credit for this turn around. I specifically opposed these measures and I was dead wrong. The US had actually made money off of the Auto Bailout of 2009 (The money off of the interest,) and I didn’t even see that as a possibility.
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He was one of the supporters of the bank stress tests, a huge sweeping and great innovation. Again, I’d rather see some arrests made, but barring that, good financial medicine is good financial medicine.
On the environment, Obama boosted fuel efficiency standards fuel economy for cars and trucks will have to nearly double by 2025 (this was part of the auto bail out as well) and passed EPA restrictions on mercury and toxic pollution in December 2011 which will help in closing of about 100 of the nation’s oldest,most inefficient and dirtiest coal power plants.
He passed the Stimulus while working against the most monolithically unified opposition in the Congress, in the Senate since the Civil War. In 2010 the private sector started creating more jobs than it was losing and has continued to so ever since.
Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
Reversed Bush Torture Policies 2 days after taking office automatically rolling back Bush-era rulings that had allowed detainees in U.S. custody to undergo certain “enhanced” interrogation techniques considered inhumane under the Geneva Conventions. He also released the secret Bush legal rulings supporting the use of these techniques. (BUT he extended the Patriot Act… something I can rationalize any Republican would have done, but it remains point on which I against the administration and the President)
Obama pulled the big banks away from the Federal Student Loan Program, and expanded Pell Grants spending as part of the 2010 health care reform bill. The US Treasury will save $67 billion over ten years, $36 billion of which will go to expanding Pell Grants to lower-income students.
Increased Support for Veterans.
And finally the most critical piece of this administration’s work, so far, from my perspective: Obama protected 2 Liberal seats on the Supreme Court. He obtained confirmation for Judge Sotomayor, the first Hispanic to serve and for Elena Kagan, the 4th woman. The future of the Court will see a retreating Scalia, one of the most fucked up people I’ve ever seen swing a gavel.
In short that’s why I voted for Barack Obama’s reelection.
I’m sorry but people who say there’s no difference between an Obama and a Romney administration need to read beyond their own laundry list of wants.
I’d like a world with no war, and with corporations out of the political process, -so yeah from that perspective there’s no difference? –Sure. You know what, neither of them can cure cancer either, that doesn’t make them the fucking same.
-SJ
Well said as always. People who say there is no difference have very short memories indeed. And while they wait for their progressive superman or superwoman to save the day, they are missing what has been a truly historic effort. I dont have the energy to fight about it but let me just say that in the real world, this president has done truly heroic things.
MyCue,
this is just the crap I can remember. And you know I can't remember shit anymore. He has a better record than this. When/if he repeals the patriot act, I'll pretty much nominate him for whatever prize it is that's left for him to win.
-SJ
Mycue34,
GREAT hearing from you and SJ again after so many months! There was definitely a difference this year, and the voters did indeed make the best possible choice!Stubborn purists may disagree, but in the end, the Obama/Biden ticket was the only real option. I think, now that the election is over, many of us will be delighted to see Obama shift his gears to the more progressive stances he originally had in 2008. Compromise must definitely be part of the picture to avoid throwing the baby out with the bath water, and we on the left, just like those diehards on the right, must agree with and start practicing that pragmatic principle.
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