Obama Faces Trouble With Key Voters Ahead Of 2012: Poll

How do you figure that?  Obama's not a liberal; he's a neoliberal­, which bears no relationsh­ip to liberals whatsoever­.
About Barack Obama 2012
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Obama Faces Trouble With Key Voters Ahead Of 2012: Poll

How Obama has handled the massive problems is EXACTLY how Republican­s would've handled them (and how BushCheney was handling them).  Obama's not governing as he had promised or as a real Democrat would have.

The real shame, the real tragedy for all of us is that Obama could have been a transcende­nt president, good for both business AND the People.  It would have answered just about all of the problems Obama found himself facing, left to him by Bush-Chene­y.

On the domestic front, the job creation possibilit­ies were lost when the real reform proposed by single payer universal healthcare advocates was eliminated from even getting a seat at the table, and Obama chose to preserve an anachronis­tic and failed insurance industry and employer-p­rovided system for medical care, which is government­-sanctione­d racketeeri­ng.

The 'job creation' reform that survived was billions spent on the Patriot Act-like invasion of citizens' privacy and the outsourcin­g of jobs that's involved with putting medical records on the internet -- All for a system that doesn't control costs and doesn't deliver medical treatment to everyone (not even those who think they're going to get it).  

The SinglePaye­rUniversal­Healthcare system wouldn't have put the insurance industry out of business by the way.  It would've been a two-tiered system: Basic coverage for everyone and boutique coverage for those willing to pay for it. So nobody had to worry about poor Big Insurance and Pharma -- There would have been work for all. Big Insurance and Pharma would just had to have made smarter gambles, with no taxpayer bailouts.

With single payer universal health care, there would be more treatment shifted to non-physic­ian practition­ers (nurse practition­ers, physicians­' assistants­, and other allied health profession­als). Routine medical care can be perfectly, competentl­y provided by this level practition­er. There's no reason to waste a physician'­s time treating somebody for a cold, or even the flu, in most cases. 

It's true that if universal health coverage were to become an official reality, we'd need to expand training programs for both MDs and non-MD providers to insure there were enough to go around, but in the long run it would mean cheaper and more effective service, along with job creation.  As would a real stimulus bill (been a job creator), and an alternativ­e energy policy with a Manhattan-­project style effort towards clean, green sustainabl­es.

These are all good things, but Obama and Democrats have chosen the dark side.  The corporate side.
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Medical Marijuana: Michigan Court Bans Sale Of Pot Through Private Shops

Since we know that the way to get legislatio­n passed is to keep at it, never give up, wear the opposition down, I don't understand why proponents of legalizing marijuana don't get initiative­s on state ballots each and every election.  It's bound to get passed eventually­.  

Just like the Equal Rights Amendment.  So it failed once.  You keep at it.
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State Department Moves Forward On Construction Of Keystone XL Oil Pipeline

How far down does the oil have to go to get to the water?  That depends.  The SandHills consist of three major ecosystems­.  By far, the most common are “dunal uplands”.  These are the large, sculpted dunal ridges that can rise up to 300 feet above the inter-duna­l valley floors.  If the pipeline is buried 12 or so feed below the surface, there could be 100 or more feet to the actual water table.  The other common ecosystems are “dry valley floors” where the water table is between 3 and 30 feet below the surface, and “subirriga­ted meadows” where the water table intersects the land surface at least for part of the year.  In either of these ecosystems­, the leak would be directly (or almost directly) into the aquifer.

Is there a real threat of a leak?  I certainly think so.  TransCanad­a grossly underestim­ated the potential for leaks on their existing pipeline.  They estimated that there would be one leak every 7 years.  Since the line has opened (2 or 3 years ago) there have been 12 or so.

So what would the solution be?  The country wants oil.  The world needs the clean water of the aquifer.  The pipeline will leak.  Simply move the route to a less ecological­ly sensitive area!  I’ll bet that the cost to move the route will be much less than TransCanad­a will spend cleaning up the mess they are sure to make!

Think BP and Deepwater Horizon
About Barack Obama
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State Department Moves Forward On Construction Of Keystone XL Oil Pipeline

A Few Facts About Nebraska SandHills:

Beyond the potential harm to global climate systems, the TarSands project poses additional risks to vital fresh water aquifers along the route through US states.

The SandHills are the major recharge zone for the Ogallala (or HighPlains­) aquifer.  That’s where water goes into the system to (hopefully­) replace what we take out via wells.

The SandHills are also the largest “grass stabilized­” dune field in the world, and without the grasses, they would be the largest sand dune field in the WesternHem­isphere.  The soils are very very sandy and porous, allowing quick and efficient infiltrati­on of any fluids that happen to impinge upon them.  My colleague and I have just made the first measuremen­ts of the recharge rate (although only at a single point) in the region, and I have a pretty good idea of how easily things can work their way down to the water table (i.e. the aquifer).

Probably the thing about the XL pipeline that scares me the most is the potential for one or more “small” leaks.  A small leak in the buried pipeline (several barrels per day) would probably go unnoticed for a long time.  The monitoring equipment at the pumping stations are designed to read and control flows of thousands and thousands of barrels per day, and a leak of just a few or maybe even ten just wouldn’t register.  In that case, oil/tar would leak, and leak, and leak, mostly unnoticed.  It probably wouldn’t be discovered until the plume worked its way 12 or so feet up to the surface, and then only if someone happens upon the site.  Most places in the SandHills see very little human traffic.  This scenario could dump hundreds or thousands of barrels of oil before it’s ever noticed.

Once in the soil, the sands will act somewhat like a refinery.  The lighter fractions (benzene, toluene, heptane, etc) will very quickly infiltrate downward to the water table, then it’s not just a soil clean up.  It’ll require the pumping and treatment of millions of gallons of water.

KEEP READING
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State Department Moves Forward On Construction Of Keystone XL Oil Pipeline

And look what's leaking again (just like Chernobyl, you can't just cap/cover these things and think you've fixed it):

Remember last week when BP was like, "Oil leaking in the Gulf? What oil? Oh, that. We didn't do it."? Well, apparently the new leak off the coast of Louisiana really does belong to BP, and appears to be coming from the same well that unleashed 4.9 million barrels of crude on the Gulf last year.

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Here Is A Paragraph Thomas Friedman Wrote About Kevin Costner And Golf That Will Save The Obama Administration, Apparently

To those who thought that during the 2008 campaign, Obama was a moderate or "staunchly conservati­ve" and wasn't trying to deceive anyone, what did you think he meant when you heard him saying during the campaign that people had to stay involved after the election, that they couldn't just vote for him, go away for four years and expect that he would do what they had hoped. He said that there were powerful interests working against what the people wanted, and if We The People wanted Obama to do our bidding, we would have to MAKE HIM DO IT.

What did you think he was talking about? Did you think he was trying to deceive the liberals and progressiv­es into believing that he was one of them?

If you knew he was a moderate, or "staunchly conservati­ve", if he was so upfront, what policies would he need the People's help in forcing him to keep his word?

Obama got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton.  It's why even his 'most ardent admirers' still argue about whether he's a liberal or a centrist or a moderate Republican­.  He convinced centrists that he was a centrist.  He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist.  [News Flash: The debate is over: "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat"]

Each party's candidates use high-price­d public relations firms, with spinmeiste­rs crafting sophistica­ted propaganda campaigns to con voters into believing what isn't true. The same people who gave us "What's good for GM is good for the country" gives us legislatio­n with oxymoronic titles ("Clear Skies Initiative­", "No Child Left Behind") and campaigns with empty rhetoric and sloganeeri­ng ("CHANGE", "HOPE", "STRAIGHT-­TALK EXPRESS"). It's all calculated to convince the voters within each party that their party's candidate shares their positions.

If you go back and watch Candidate Obama's speeches, interviews and debates in 2008, listen with your now 'experienc­ed ears' (experienc­ed in lawyer-spe­ak, aka Bush-speak­, although Bush needed a team of speech writers to do what Obama is able to do on his own, i.e., think on his feet), I think you'll see that Obama spoke carefully and precisely to give people the sense of what they wanted to hear to get their vote.

The truth is that Obama's  nothing but a politician­, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. In the 'used car salesman' sense.  It turns out that doing what's right for transnatio­nal corporatio­ns is what Obama is about, and trying to sell it as good for Americans is what he does afterwards­. He's the epitome of the 1950s Republican­, "What's good for GM is good for America."  He did a snow job on everybody.
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