Bakestar wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

Bakestar wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:a number of people at a party last night were blaming the economy on obama, it was awesome

My liberal Democrat (pro-Hillary) cousin was blaming Obama the other night, too. But I attribute it to sour grapes.

I'm having a great deal of trouble imagining the story line - ESPECIALLY when two separate people are coming up with it.

Could either of you elaborate?

Referring to Obama's comments that the economy will get worse before it gets better. She said it was instilling fear in the populace which was leading to decreased consumer spending.

I dunno. I guess it may be a problem but it's akin to aggressively treating a gunshot victim's eczema in an attempt to save his life.

This is way more rational than I was expecting. Not that I think it makes that much of a difference, but it's not completely retarded.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Bakestar wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

Bakestar wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:a number of people at a party last night were blaming the economy on obama, it was awesome

My liberal Democrat (pro-Hillary) cousin was blaming Obama the other night, too. But I attribute it to sour grapes.

I'm having a great deal of trouble imagining the story line - ESPECIALLY when two separate people are coming up with it.

Could either of you elaborate?

Referring to Obama's comments that the economy will get worse before it gets better. She said it was instilling fear in the populace which was leading to decreased consumer spending.

I dunno. I guess it may be a problem but it's akin to aggressively treating a gunshot victim's eczema in an attempt to save his life.

This is way more rational than I was expecting. Not that I think it makes that much of a difference, but it's not completely retarded.

Not having money leads to decreased consumer spending. Americans will spend what they have.

The Dude wrote:Bush just had two shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi journalist. Showed good reflexes and avoided both

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWt3-kPBQ4A&e[/youtube]

Throwing shoes at someone, or sitting so that the bottom of a shoe faces another person, is considered an insult among Muslims.

As opposed to the white man's culture where it is among the highest honors to have shoes thrown at you.

Who throws a shoe? Honestly!

Remember when Sonny Corleone beat that guy with a shoe

I remember Richardson said the first time he went to the middle east he accidentally sat so the leader saw the bottom of his shoes. The leader, I forget who, got up and left in a tizzy, but later returned after an explanation that Richardson didn't know the custom.


As for Bush's shoe dodge, it was pretty good. Maybe he's part ninja or something. In any case, it's too bad his mind isn't half as nimble.

Interesting report about bush pushing through an unusually high number of midnight regulations:

The White House denies it is sabotaging the new administration. It says many of the moves have been openly flagged for months. The spate of rules is going to be hard for Obama to quickly overcome. By issuing them early in the 'lame duck' period of office, the Bush administration has mostly dodged 30- or 60-day time limits that would have made undoing them relatively straightforward.

Obama's team will have to go through a more lengthy process of reversing them, as it is forced to open them to a period of public consulting. That means that undoing the damage could take months or even years, especially if corporations go to the courts to prevent changes.

My question to the likes of jersey, pacino and dajafi - did you guys see this on the horizon? The report makes it out to be a big pain in the head for the incoming administration, but I wondered whether that was hyperbole on the writer's behalf.

Wizlah wrote:Interesting report about bush pushing through an unusually high number of midnight regulations:

The White House denies it is sabotaging the new administration. It says many of the moves have been openly flagged for months. The spate of rules is going to be hard for Obama to quickly overcome. By issuing them early in the 'lame duck' period of office, the Bush administration has mostly dodged 30- or 60-day time limits that would have made undoing them relatively straightforward.

Obama's team will have to go through a more lengthy process of reversing them, as it is forced to open them to a period of public consulting. That means that undoing the damage could take months or even years, especially if corporations go to the courts to prevent changes.

My question to the likes of jersey, pacino and dajafi - did you guys see this on the horizon? The report makes it out to be a big pain in the head for the incoming administration, but I wondered whether that was hyperbole on the writer's behalf.

I don't think it's unprecedented, but I'm really no expert on the Presidency. I do think, in Bush's defense, he's mostly handled the transition well, and all things being equal, Obama probably really has no serious reason to complain, as he's being included on all kinds of major policy stuff.

TenuredVulture wrote:

Wizlah wrote:Interesting report about bush pushing through an unusually high number of midnight regulations:

The White House denies it is sabotaging the new administration. It says many of the moves have been openly flagged for months. The spate of rules is going to be hard for Obama to quickly overcome. By issuing them early in the 'lame duck' period of office, the Bush administration has mostly dodged 30- or 60-day time limits that would have made undoing them relatively straightforward.

Obama's team will have to go through a more lengthy process of reversing them, as it is forced to open them to a period of public consulting. That means that undoing the damage could take months or even years, especially if corporations go to the courts to prevent changes.

My question to the likes of jersey, pacino and dajafi - did you guys see this on the horizon? The report makes it out to be a big pain in the head for the incoming administration, but I wondered whether that was hyperbole on the writer's behalf.

I don't think it's unprecedented, but I'm really no expert on the Presidency. I do think, in Bush's defense, he's mostly handled the transition well, and all things being equal, Obama probably really has no serious reason to complain, as he's being included on all kinds of major policy stuff.

not only is it not unprecedented, it was pretty heavily done by the last adminstration to leave office. i believe that's when the Marc Rich pardon was handled.

Bush's kind of sick grin after the first shoe whizzed by reminded me of Tony Soprano's mom laughing at him after the failed pillow assasination

What I've read (here, for one) is that while, yes, all administrations push hard on "midnight regulations," the Bushies are taking it to an unprecedented extent. Just like with signing statements and pretty much any other notional prerogative of presidential power. (Pardons are a different story, though they all do that too--see Bush I with his blanket forgiveness of all the Iran-Contra lawbreakers.)

Oh, and there's this:

The Washington Post reports that "at the last minute, the Bush administration insisted on a one-sentence change" to a provision in the bank bailout bill which has now "effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives."

Given that Bush's whole miserable life has been an exercise in tasting the fruits of success despite egregious failure, I guess he gets a point for consistency here. Or maybe he just wants other rich guys barely smart enough to feed and dress themselves to visit him in retirement.

This is maybe good in a way: every time I see stories like Blagojevich and Rangel and start thinking the Democrats are every bit as bad as the Republicans, the Rs one-up them with acts of such brazen greed and irresponsibility, and I go back to seeing the Ds as clearly the lesser evil.

Wizlah wrote:Interesting report about bush pushing through an unusually high number of midnight regulations:

The White House denies it is sabotaging the new administration. It says many of the moves have been openly flagged for months. The spate of rules is going to be hard for Obama to quickly overcome. By issuing them early in the 'lame duck' period of office, the Bush administration has mostly dodged 30- or 60-day time limits that would have made undoing them relatively straightforward.

Obama's team will have to go through a more lengthy process of reversing them, as it is forced to open them to a period of public consulting. That means that undoing the damage could take months or even years, especially if corporations go to the courts to prevent changes.

My question to the likes of jersey, pacino and dajafi - did you guys see this on the horizon? The report makes it out to be a big pain in the head for the incoming administration, but I wondered whether that was hyperbole on the writer's behalf.

Pretty standard. I actually think Bush has been fairly straightforward with setting up a transition team. From the Bush-apologists at the conservative NYTimes:

That guardian article was funny. It outlined all these regulations that the Bush administration was putting in place to "mess up" Obama and would take a while to "undo." Well, most of the "regulations" that they were willing to list at the bottom were the removal of rules. Outside of the inflammatory rhetoric, it seems like the administration is passing laws removing restrictions on labor, environmental usage, etc. While people may disagree about the particular change, they're legal, acceptable, and something that could have been done at any time within the last 8 years.

There is a long list of other new regulations that have gone onto the books. One lengthens the number of hours that truck drivers can drive without rest. Another surrenders government control of rerouting the rail transport of hazardous materials around densely populated areas and gives it to the rail companies.

One more chips away at the protection of endangered species. Gun control is also weakened by allowing loaded and concealed guns to be carried in national parks. Abortion rights are hit by allowing healthcare workers to cite religious or moral grounds for opting out of carrying out certain medical procedures.

A common theme is shifting regulation of industry from government to the industries themselves, essentially promoting self-regulation. One rule transfers assessment of the impact of ocean-fishing away from federal inspectors to advisory groups linked to the fishing industry. Another allows factory farms to self-regulate disposal of pollutant run-off.

To top it off, they criticize the Bush administration for doing it EARLIER than last minute! This hardly makes sense, since everyone knew that Bush would be out of office in Jan 2009 since he was elected in 2004, and it was apparent that Obama would win much before November.

The White House denies it is sabotaging the new administration. It says many of the moves have been openly flagged for months. The spate of rules is going to be hard for Obama to quickly overcome. By issuing them early in the 'lame duck' period of office, the Bush administration has mostly dodged 30- or 60-day time limits that would have made undoing them relatively straightforward.

To summarize the evil regulations:

Bush's midnight regulations will:

• Make it easier for coal companies to dump waste from strip-mining into valleys and streams.

• Ease the building of coal-fired power stations nearer to national parks.

• Allow people to carry loaded and concealed weapons in national parks.

• Open up millions of acres to mining for oil shale.

• Allow healthcare workers to opt out of giving treatment for religious or moral reasons, thus weakening abortion rights.

• Hurt road safety by allowing truck drivers to stay at the wheel for 11 consecutive hours.

Most of these changes are removing or loosening regulations, not preventing Obama from doing things. We'll see if the Bush staffers treat the White House better than Clinton's did.

Meh, that post was too long. To summarize: search for Clinton transition, and you'll see how his staffers made it difficult for the Bush team to hit the ground running. Obama's team has had security clearance, and I believe they've already been working on policy transitions with Bush people. From the guardian, 2 and a half weeks earlier: unprecedented quick transition to Obama.

Werthless wrote:To summarize the evil regulations:

Bush's midnight regulations will:

• Make it easier for coal companies to dump waste from strip-mining into valleys and streams.

• Ease the building of coal-fired power stations nearer to national parks.

• Allow people to carry loaded and concealed weapons in national parks.

• Open up millions of acres to mining for oil shale.

• Allow healthcare workers to opt out of giving treatment for religious or moral reasons, thus weakening abortion rights.

• Hurt road safety by allowing truck drivers to stay at the wheel for 11 consecutive hours.

None of which is as consequential as Clinton's people being big meanies to Bush's people.

Werthless wrote:Most of these changes are removing or loosening regulations, not preventing Obama from doing things. We'll see if the Bush staffers treat the White House better than Clinton's did.

I thought that the "White House vandalism" scandal was pretty much proven to be almost completely false. Of course I may be wrong...

i have a personal problem with Presidential transitions.

i attended one inauguaration: 2001. if you remember, Clinton refused to leave the white house on time because of all the new regulations and standard he wanted to sign off on, thereby delaying the parade while i stood in the rain like a dumbass for 3 hours. clinton gets to the airport in NY or wherever then gives that speech where he says "i'm still here. i haven't gone anywhere." the next day, i had the flu and ended up cancelling a trip and burning a week of personal leave to stay home a get better. true story.

the ultimate irony was that i voted for clinton - twice. and he still screwed me.

Yeah, I was covering the protests of the 2001 Inauguration, and my now-wife was attending one of the Inaugural Balls. Says quite a bit about the early years of our relationship.

Bakestar wrote:

Werthless wrote:Most of these changes are removing or loosening regulations, not preventing Obama from doing things. We'll see if the Bush staffers treat the White House better than Clinton's did.

I thought that the "White House vandalism" scandal was pretty much proven to be almost completely false. Of course I may be wrong...

pretty sure it was, that's what i remember hearing, too. i think they pillaged a little and left behind stuff like signs that said "office of strategery". basic high school-level foolishness, not big time vandalism or anything like that.

they took all the W's off the keyboards, ROFL