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I believe the GP was misremembering a claim about debt which is mostly true. I think the second time frame at that link is more relevant, as it includes spending which was specially approved after Obama such as stimulus packages, but they all involve projections about the future, which may not be accurate.

I don't think it's remotely possible that total spending by Obama to date to exceed everything spent under Bush's term. But his annual deficits are vastly larger than anything during bush's term. The stimulus package tripled the deficit in 09, so it's fair to ascribe 2/3 of that spike to Obama. The following years are all his.

OTOH, the president may have influence, but congress should be the primary consideration. Ascribing the deficit to the president is like taking a program you dislike, putting it at the top of spending, and comparing it to revenue by year to prove that if we just didn't have that particular program we would great! It's fundamentally misleading.

For what it is worth, I think this is the "overhead projector" that John McCain cited in a presidential debate as a $3 million example of government earmark abuse by Obama. Gosh, it's amazing what ordinary office equipment is capable of these days! It's nice to know the government has absolutely no interest in inspiring and educating children, advancing technology, and attracting tourism.

(By the way, that earmark, and the bill it was attached to, never became law)

Fact checkers (with economists to back them up) say no

In this case Obama is seeking to distract the US from the fact he's renaged on all of his campaign promises, Gitmo is still open for business, the PATRIOT act was renewed (dishonestly snuck through Congress by a Democrat) and the US will be defaulting on it's debts any time now (whilst members of congress invest in funds that will make money when the US goes bust).

All of his promises, eh? Here's the breakdown from politifact.com:

* Promise Kept 137
* Compromise 40
* Promise Broken 43
* Stalled 69
* In the Works 217
* Not yet rated 2

"Renaged [sic] on all of his campaign promises", indeed.

Also, as someone else pointed out above, the guy's not a dictator. Like it or not, he has to work with others to get things done.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/jun/22/jon-stewarts-politifact-segment-annotated-edition/

Jon Stewart merely listed them - politifact actually did the fact checking.

Who the hell is Joe Herring and why should I trust anything he writes? Did Slashdot review his scholarship here and give it a stamp of approval, or was it just put up on the website, leaving it to the readers to decide whether it's B.S. or not?

No qualifications or expertise are claimed for Joe Herring on the website. In fact no information on his background is given except that he is "from Omaha, NE." This is highly unusual for a publication that hopes to be taken seriously. We don't even know if that is his real name.

We are left to judge the value of this Joe Herring essay by his previous contributions and by the reliability and reputation of the website that publishes his work.

Joe Herring is, in short, a right-wing nut.

He claims all leftists -- all! -- want to overthrow the Constitution: "The continuum on the left that ranges from the 'wouldn't it be nice if we all just smiled' types to the hardcore authoritarian communists may disagree about methods, but sadly, all agree on one thing: if their utopia is to come about, the Constitution -- and the form of government derived from it -- must be replaced with...something."

He says the Nazis were left-wingers: "The Left will not willingly lay claim to the true legacy of socialism, so we will have to hang it around their necks."

He believes that the true goal of health care reform, renewable-energy subsidies, and regulations on Wall Street is for "the left" to seize power and exterminate half of the human race. Really: "As the federal government asserts control over health care, energy production, and the financial markets, the trinity of power is within the left's grasp. Unless driven back from their goals -- and quickly -- the likelihood grows daily that more than four billion of our 'species' will be joining the table scraps and yard clippings on the compost pile."

He thinks the problem with Politifact's 2009 Lie of the Year, "death panels," is that the right wasn't lying hard enough: "To describe this board as a 'death panel,' as Rush Limbaugh has, is to underestimate its power and misconstrue its purpose."

And five minutes with Google reveals that American Thinker is a source that, shall we say, lends no additional credibility to Joe Herring's contributions. Take global warming as a typical example. They printed essays claiming to have found a "smoking gun" that disproves global warming (wrong). Then they found another single argument that by itself disproves global warming (still wrong). They argue that global warming is a Nazi lie.

This "intentional flooding" piece looks like yet another right-wing hit job on leftism. I would be happy to entertain the idea that misguided environmentalism is partially to blame for one disaster or another, but I would like to hear a reasoned argument from someone who's not a nut.

How's that Hope & Change working out for y'all?

Pretty good.

We got half the health care changes we needed -- access down, cost-containment still needed. Let's see... remind me which party says that we shouldn't figure out which treatments are effective, in the "evidenced based medicine" sense, and has stalled any progress on this front?

Implemented "Race to the Top" which allowed the states to decide how they were going to implement education reform.

DADT -- goner.

Here's a name for ya -- Osama bin Laden.

US Auto-makers not bankrupted out of existence with all the jobs sent to other countries.

Extend unemployment benefits in the face of the worst job loss rate since the great depression while the GOP was complaining about all the slackers who couldn't somehow find a job when nobody was hiring.

Put oversight back on the financial industry. (Not a campaign promise but sorely needed in hindsight after so much fun with mortgage-backed securities.)

So yeah. Not too bad. Gory detail if you want them.

minmized the recession (GAO andother non partisan economic bodies have said as much)

Sure, some economic bodies might have said so, but the people don't feel it. The problem is that Obama has extended the perceived recession by threatening tax increases on the so called wealthy (which include small businesses at >$250k). Therefore, all businesses are hedging against this and not investing and hiring. They're sitting on their money and this leaves Obama and Democrats confused and angry.

made the call on the Bin Laden raid. Killed a couple more high end AQ since then.

Whoever was the sitting president would have made that call. I don't see how crediting Obama for more than that is helpful.

Has improved foreign relations with our allies and our adversaries.

While utterly destroying our relations with our friends. European nations (especially Eastern Bloc countries), Egypt and other North African countries (besides the ones we are actively attacking), and Israel all eye us suspiciously. All the while our enemies laugh at us. I've yet to see any real evidence of your statement here. The worldwide apology tour was a dismal embarrassment.

Tried (and failed) to get the Bush era tax cuts eliminated.

This is actually a good thing. Had he let the tax cuts expire, we would have had an actual tax increase. Then the businesses who are now just sitting on their cash, waiting for the tax increase, would actually have no cash and no way to hire or invest in the economy.

I will agree that his extension of the Bush Era security and privacy policies have upset me. I had hoped those would go away. But in reality those were going to stay regardless of the president. Government doesnt give up power easily.

You can't have it both ways - either Bush Era security is upsetting and UBL is caught, or Bush Era security is abandoned and UBL continues to live his demented life in Pakistan. I do agree with the privacy issue - that is upsetting. What happened to this mythical transparent government? (It was a little white lie - a deception - like "hope and change".)

The healthcare thing was a bad idea.

You are absolutely right about this one. The only way Obama/Pelosi/Reid-Care would have worked is if the economy is healthy, businesses pay for their employees health insurance, and taxes are raised. The economy is sick, it is reported that 3 out of 10 companies will drop employee health benefits and pay the fine (not to mention all of the waivers that will be or have been issued), and taxes won't be raised any time soon.

As for the economy being worse than 2.5 years ago...are you nuts?!?

Nope not nuts. 2.5 years ago, unemployment was at 8.0% when Obama took office. Obama signed the stimulus bill which he promised would keep unemployment under 8.5%. It has not been below 9% since April 2009. (The BLS will state that we dropped below 9% in March of 2011, but that hasn't been seasonally adjusted - which means they include phantom employees in seasonal positions which may or may not be there. Which is also why the 54k jobs created last month when it should have been over 200k is even worse news than that.)

Yeah, because Obama never gets anything done...

Sure, 42 promises broken is bad. It's too much - far too much. But on the other hand, 135 promises kept, 219 promises in the works and 40 compromises are quite good.

All in all, 394 vs. 42 is a good score.

Maybe you just didn't pay attention to what he was actually saying and got swept up in the mass hysteria of what many of us wish he actually said or wanted to hear.

See here for more information.

Go to 3:49 in the video, and you see they request permission to engage the moment they see an armed group in the militarized zone. And they are given permission precisely because people shouldn't be walking around armed there. That right there is basically the end of the argument. Anyone who carries a rifle into a militarized zone better prepare to get shot at.

At 4:08 in the video, you see the RPG set on the ground and then picked up. It is vastly longer than any camera lens I've ever seen in my life. And people don't throw expensive camera lens bags on the ground like that. Nice lenses are fucking expensive and fragile. Third-party reports also mention the RPG.

Want even more proof? ASSANGE HIMSELF ADMITS THERE WAS AN RPG.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/apr/14/julian-assange/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-tells-colbert-per/

Not a single news article I've even seen on the subject confirms children were in the van, or that any children were killed. And if they were, then the kids were killed by irresponsible adults putting them in the line of fire.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/jul/12/reuters.pressandpublishing

Do you see any mention of kids? That's because there weren't any kids. I just did Google News searches for the past few minutes. Not ONE SINGLE MENTION OF DEAD KIDS IN ANY OF THE NEWS REPORTS.

Anytime kids or medical staff were killed in incidents like this, it was reported on. Either every single news outlet who covered the incident all lied in this one exception, or WikiLeaks lied in their editorializing of the video.

But let's say for the sake of argument the unmarked van was medical staff, and they randomly keep kids in their vans (which makes zero sense), the moment they go into an active combat zone and pick up people being shot at, they're endangering everyone in that van.

Again, not a soul has filed war crimes charges, because nothing wrong was done.

There weren't children in the helicopter. There were trained soldiers. Their job during wartime is to kill their enemy. Their life, and the lives of people around them depend on their ability to kill their enemy before the enemy kills them. It may seem wrong and jarring for people to hear them celebrate the fact that they shot people, or ask permission to open fire again, but I suspect you haven't received military training. I suspect you don't know what it is like to serve your country and risk your life for others.

That's occurred to me, yes, but that doesn't explain any of Obama's actions. Keeping the wars going in the mid-east isn't helping anyone but the corporations, and it's only creating more enemies for us there.

Only if you ignore the likely outcomes of an immediate rapid pull-out of our forces there. Winding them down is the best option, and that's what's being done.

We've propped up corrupt dictators before countless times, and it's never resulted in a strong, democratic nation to be friends with. How many times are we going to keep doing the same thing, thinking it'll be different this time?

We tend to always go for the easy solution to keeping the resources flowing. Then we just act shocked when those dictators abuse their people. It's the American Way(TM)!

Keeping people imprisoned for a decade without trial is against the Constitution, and AFAIC is an impeachable offense. It's even worse when it was one of your campaign promises.

Yes, well he tried to get them brought into the country to be tried in our courts. Unfortunately he found out that we're not actually the home of the brave. We're scared shitless to have dangerous people in our prisons. Those were apparently built to house harmless drug offenders that are the bread and butter of the prison industry.

Keeping the Drug War going hasn't helped anyone, except again the corporations (such as the prison-industrial complex), and of course the violent cartels in Mexico who "are just businessmen" according to his buddies in the Mexican government.

According to whose buddies? Who is saying that they "are just businessmen". I think this calls for a [citation needed].

Zealously prosecuting things like the DOMA

Wait, what? Zealously? Are you serious?

and NSA whistleblowers (something Bush never did, though he made some threats) is icing on the cake. Obama is a total fraud. He's just a corporatist sociopath like the rest of them, and his promises of "change" were all lies. Now we just have to wait a year and a half to see if the Democratic voters are smart enough to realize this and vote for someone else, or if they buy all his lame excuses.

First of all, Obama doesn't make the laws. Yes, he has to sign or veto them, but given the way the laws are put together, that's often a no-win situation for him. He's broken quite a few campaign promises, but he's delivered on a lot more.

I'd like to find better candidates to vote for, but Congress and the Supreme Court seem to be very determined to make sure that nobody worth voting for can make it onto the ballot in the general election. They're doing an excellent job of that, too. If only they could do so well in areas that might actually help us.

Hopefully, the voters of today will be like the voters of 1968, and send Obama packing next year. However, I seriously doubt it. Today's Democrat voters seem to mostly be a bunch of morons who'll make any excuse they can for Obama so they don't have to face the fact that they were duped and made a terrible choice. (Don't get me started on how moronic Republican voters are...)

The only duping of Democratic voters was that Obama ended up being much farther to the right than they expected. You'd think that that would make him more palatable to Republicans, but they are so irrational that they can't come up with real arguments against the guy, so they just make shit up out of whole cloth. Yeah, the guy hasn't done everything he promised, but what president ever has? Certainly no recent ones that I can think of.

This is one of those things the free market already provides, with the help of numerous news organizations. One of the more useful is Politifact, but there are plenty of others.

Those who don't trust government sources of information won't trust this government agency any more than they trust the various government reports. And they shouldn't: The government source matters, but it should be corroborated by other sources.

if we have snopes.com?

I think Snopes has been caught out on some hot political issues. They are great for debunking urban legends. But there is FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and to a lesser extent The Washington Post.

Uh... yes.

The Bailout started under Bush, you might recall. But regardless off whose idea it was, it hasn't been the massive waste of money that you present it as. As of June last year, 75% of the money had been repaid. And the government was actually turning a profit on what it was getting back.

Opposing the Bailout is one thing; personally, I think that it sets a bad precedent to loan out that much money with no consequences. But to present it as the sole cause of the deficit and to blame it exclusively on Democrats is simply incorrect. If you want the true cause of the deficit, the fact is that the recession is to blame. But massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans (which cost more than the new healthcare law) and two foreign wars, none of which were paid for certainly didn't help.

You might have had me if it wasn't that gasoline engined cars cause around 1.2M deaths a year from accidents. I mean, in Toronto alone, they blame around 400 deaths a year on automobile emissions.

I mean, take your 740k cases of 'premature aging' - balance that against China's 750k premature deaths due to air pollution. While it's noted that most aren't due to air pollution from cars, it seems that a Chernobyl level event is along the order of 'once every 25 years' - leading to an annualized cost of ~30k/year. Assuming that the article from a anti-nuclear organization is true and not an over-exaggerated scenario(which, given that the numbers exceed that of most other oganizations, is probably the case). I don't really count most of the abortions because they were done in panic, more from the fear of mutation than the actual risk.

Gasoline engines, on the whole, are nasty, and sadly enough, it's fairly easy for me to come up with numbers comparable to the biggest disaster in nuclear history, on an annual basis.

What is sad is the GOP on the candidate and national level is still so inept and scared of being called racist they don't look good to beat the most blatantly corrupt president of post-WW2 America.

Barak Obama got more than half his 2008 campaign money from small donors, and, probably as a result, has kept more than three times the number of campaign promises as he's broken (and could have kept many more if, for example, Congress hadn't gone out of its way to defund the closing of Guantanimo.) Compare to .

No, it's clear that, when it comes to Democrats and Republicans, the Republicans are far more corrupt, and are more apt to sell out to corporate influence; at least Democrats take money from--and listen to--worker groups, environmentalists and scientists on occasion. Of course, that's sort of like saying that a black hole is denser than a neutron star; sure, it's technically an accurate statement, but I sure wouldn't want to try to live on either one.

Both parties are to blame for this mess; the Democrats just put a better spin on their corruption. You'll notice fuck-all was done about Wall Street during the two years the Democrats had control of the White House _and_ both houses of Congress.

The financial regulatory bill exists, and was in fact passed into law. Like the health care bill, however, it was fillabustered into near-ineffectiveness; most of the big reforms were bargained out of the bill in order to get a single Republican to agree to not fillabuster.

The essential problem in American politics is that most of the money comes from large donors, eg. corporations and the very wealthy. Small donations from individuals are so rare that it's actually historically relevant that Barak Obama received fully half his 2008 campaign money from small donors, making him one of the first presidents in recent memory actually bought and paid for, at least halfway, by the people. This explains why he has to date kept more than three times the number of campaign promises than he's broken (though he would have been able to keep more of them if Congress didn't, for example, block funding for the closing of Guantanimo) which for an American politician is shockingly true to his word.

And in a country where just 400 people control over 50% of the wealth

The article you link doesn't say anything close to that. In fact, the claim Moore makes doesn't come close to saying that. He's saying that the richest 400 control more wealth than the poorest 50%. The poorest 50% don't control 50% of the wealth - that would be impossible unless wealth were evenly distributed.

In fact, the article says that in 2009, the richest 400 controled 1.27 trillion, out of 53.1 trillion total wealth, or 2.4%. That's not close to 50%.

Now, your conclusion that "we have a major oligarchy problem as it stands" may be correct even based on 400 people holding 2.4% of total household net worth. More relevant might be that 60% of the people only hold about 2.4% of the wealth. But claims like "400 people control 50% of the wealth" are false. It boggles the mind that someone would make such a claim and link as evidence an article that actually refutes it.

Irregardless

People without the brainpower to realize that this is not a word, annoy me.

I think the "system" is designed to swallow all money you throw at it and beg for more, regardless of quantities. It's a bottomless pit. Saying you will fill it with more people doesn't stop it from being bottomless.

You've been hanging around the Tea Party/Ree Tardy crowd too much. "The System" works more-or-less as it is intended to work: to try to balance the schizophrenic, contradictory desires of the population.

Seriously, look at the aggregate set of various polls. Here's a good article that helps sum it up.
The problem is not "too much government." The problem is that everyone wants certain things but can't agree how to pay for it.

And in a country where just 400 people control over 50% of the wealth, we have a major oligarchy problem as it stands.

Of course, sometimes people who are portrayed in the media as irrational lunatics are just that. As I understand, Obama's campaign released a scanned copy of his birth certificate in June 2008. Bush's eligibility should have been more questionable since there was documented evidence that he should have been dishonorably discharged for dereliction of duty. Hell, even McCain wasn't born in the United States (but he's a natural-born citizen because both his parents were).

Snopes
Politifact

You might be forgiven for asking those questions in 2008, but now, you're just a desperate lunatic clinging to your own delusions.

- you didn't pay attention to the data, did you? US dollar has been losing value steadily, and since the Fed was created in 1913 it lost 98% of it (more than that now.) Pay attention to the data, otherwise you'll look foolish.

You're not actually replying to what I said. Currency is measured by purchasing power, not by backing. You're so obsessed with the gold standard like some puppy with a bone that your response to everything, no matter how unrelated, is "look at this article explaining why the gold standard is good!" Yes, there's been inflation, although your stupid gold-standard-based calculation overestimates it.

Now, does the inflation matter? Put another way, do we have less to spend? No, we don't, salaries have gone up at a greater rate than inflation, and that's before you consider interest rates. Is the rate of inflation systemic? No, it's concentrated in the years around the Oil Crisis. In short, the USA is not Zimbabwe.

US dollars that are passed around by the Fed have such exact features. Every new dollar printed is worth less than any dollar in existence, so every new dollar is NOT like any previous dollar. It is not genuine.

The worth of a dollar is ultimately determined by how many dollars people are prepared to accept for goods and services. The moment you understand that this is how currency works, you'll feel a lot more connected with reality. And everyone knows that the dollar is not matched with a certain weight of gold, so suggesting that counterfeiting is going on because "Things aren't going my way!" shows your basis to be in religious fervour rather than reason.

There are many reasons [npr.org] why gold is real money and why in most languages the world for money is actually 'gold' or some form of it. You can't change the facts, you see.

Oh, do grow up.

t. For example Chinese currency is 'backed' by their reserves of US dollars/debt. Their problem is that US dollars/debt is backed by nothing, so they chose a wrong backing, but their money is not counterfeit in itself.

OK, US dollars are backed by grains of sand. The problem is that grains of sand are backed by nothing. Does this make you feel better now?

- deflation is a good thing for an economy, as people gain purchasing power.

Which they sit on. Great for large holders of currency, troubling for the brighteyed young chap who actually wants to establish himself and, you know, needs money.

I have a bar of chocolate in front of me. Let's use this bar of chocolate to back all the dollars in the world. Would that make you happy? Can nothing go wrong?

Or is USSR, Argentina, Zimbabwe, Rome not good enough? What evidence do you have to the contrary?

The fall of the USSR was primarily a mismanagement of central economy, not a problem with inflation caused by lack of gold standard. Rome's fall was a combination of military, political, social and financial factors. Zimbabwe is a pathological extreme and shows that the ability to print money can be abused - in this case by a vicious, racist tyrant who has already ruined his country by expelling the talent. I acknowledge and agree that government can abuse its power - you insist that it must and will.

If we list every country currently on this earth, we see that most of them have reasonably stable unbacked currencies.

- gold value was the exact value of money, since people used it for trade and didn't have the federal reserve notes.

Heheh, glad you admitted to your source for that silly 98% inflation statistic. Oh, the price of gold has gone up, this means the value of the dollar must have gone down! Hey, the price of my Amstrad CPC 464 has gone down, this m

The Preamble doesn't actually give any power. There's a reason it's called a "Preamble":

Preamble:
1. an introductory statement; preface; introduction.
2. the introductory part of a statute, deed, or the like, stating the reasons and intent of what follows.

Until you get to the actual body of the document, nothing in it has any legal force.

Of course, this sort of attack on science and education is stock-in-trade for a group of idiots I've had to take to calling "Retardicans", because they - despite having gained far too much power in the Republican Party over recent times - make actual, reasonable Republicans who are closer to the center look like idiots by association.

In a previous thread we were discussing "Senator Dan Patrick" - Teabagger/idiot extraordaire from the Texas 7th State Senate district. What's his claim to fame? Screaming a lot about how every government service should be less expensive, how there should be no taxes anywhere, and lying a lot. He was caught on his radio show declaring that anything but engineering and medical research is "research nobody cares about" when he was discussing Texas's insane education cuts recently.

He's also been constantly sucking up to, and having his other radio hosts "interview", a major Texas liar by the name of Michael Quinn Sullivan, who loves to trot out the statistic (see also: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics) that there is "waste" in Texas Education because there is a "1 to 1 ratio" between teachers and "non-teachers" (his definition).

Unfortunately for him, first he's stretching his definitions, then he's outright lying about them.

Sure, Texas has a "1 to 1 ratio" of teachers to nonteachers. How do you get there?

Step 1: count the teachers who have a "homeroom."
Step 2: discount anyone else who teaches or aids students - librarians, substitute teachers, speech therapists, deaf sign language interpreters, English as Second Language teachers, Special Ed teachers - as a "nonteacher."
Step 3: Tutors and study hall monitors: Again, "not teachers."
Step 3: count the lunchlady and school nurse.
Step 4: count the janitors.
Step 6: count the school security personnel (esp. the ones in inner city schools).
Step 6: count the BUS DRIVERS.

When Michael Quinn Sullivan screams about "waste" and says anyone who wants to find "waste" in government should "Just walk down to your nearest administrative complex" - yet "administrative" personnel are less than 4% of the Texas education force. And yet these pathetic retardicans (yes, I have to call them that) will accept his "1 to 1 ratio" screed with zero analysis and then scream about how we need to "cut education funding."

Pathetic. I can't look a real Republican straight in the face any more without wondering how it is they possibly fail to stand up to the Retardicans that have taken over their party.

the Tea Party has shown Americans know where things are headed

Pardon? The Tea Party has been wrong at every turn. They talk about federal taxes being high, when in fact they are at a 60 year low. They got fired up over "death panels" and "a government takeover of healthcare", both of which are lies.

The Tea Party shows nothing but that Americans are easily led by astroturf campaigns set up by billionaires.

the Tea Party has shown Americans know where things are headed

Pardon? The Tea Party has been wrong at every turn. They talk about federal taxes being high, when in fact they are at a 60 year low. They got fired up over "death panels" and "a government takeover of healthcare", both of which are lies.

The Tea Party shows nothing but that Americans are easily led by astroturf campaigns set up by billionaires.

I want to know why Obama hasn't closed the damn place yet. One of the major reasons I voted democratic in the last presidential election was to put an end to this sort of thing.

According to politifact

resident Barack Obama's campaign promise to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center has switched from In the Works to Stalled and back again (and again). All that movement reflects a simple dynamic: Obama really wants to close the center. But Congress really doesn't.

The latest turn of events was the law authorizing defense spending for 2011. In addition to funding the military for the year, members of Congress attached several stipulations about Guantanamo. The law says no funds canbe used to transfer Guantanamo detainees to the United States, and no funds can be used to transfer detainees to the custody of foreign countries, unless specific conditions are met about how the prisoners will be held.

Obama didn't like those provisions and issued a statement deploring them. He said the limitation on transferring prisoners to the U.S. is "a dangerous and unprecedented challenge to critical executive branch authority ... ." Of the new requirements on transferring prisoners to foreign governments, Obama said it could "hinder the conduct of delicate negotiations with foreign countries and therefore the effort to conclude detainee transfers in accord with our national security."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/177/close-the-guantanamo-bay-detention-center/

Just to shed some facts on the rhetoric: PolitiFact tracks all of the promises Obama made during the campaign and categorizes them. At present, the results are:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/

Promise Kept: 134
Compromise: 34
Promise Broken: 34
Stalled: 71
In The Works: 220
Not Yet Rated: 2

"Promise Kept" means he promised it, and has already delivered it largely in-tact (example: Lily Ledbetter Fairl Pay Act). "Compromise" means that he promised it, and managed to get it through congress, but had to compromise or water it down to get it passed (example: a lot of the stuff related to Healthcare). "Promise Broken" means that he promised it, but didn't even try or gave up (example: having a public review period for all bills before signing them). "Stalled" means he's still supporting it, but hasn't been making much progress (difficulties in implementation, congressional obstruction, etc) (example: closing Guantanamo). "In The Works" means that he's pushing it, but it hasn't yet made it to through congress (example: eliminating oil and gas tax loopholes).

Consider that net result as positively or negatively about him as you prefer.

Can you be specific about which ideals he's gone back on?

Here's a pretty good list: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-broken/

The ones I especially care about are:

No. 234: A five-day reading period for proposed legislation.

No. 491: Provide an annual report on "state of our energy future"

No. 517: Negotiate health care reform in public sessions televised on C-SPAN

No. 518: Create a public option health plan for a new National Health Insurance Exchange.

No. 525: Introduce a comprehensive immigration bill in the first year

Also, from this list: http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=91286

Probably the most important to me is #10: greater government transparency.

And from John Stewart: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/01/08/jon-stewart-bashes-obamas-broken-campaign-promises : Closing Gitmo within a year of his campaign promise being made.

It's also interesting to note the things which I felt he'd promised, but which PolitiFact (which I generally trust) has no record of:

• An end to warrantless wiretapping by the NSA.
• Prosecution of CIA torturers.

It would seem that I confused the general image he projected with actual promises on some important issues.

Wrong. He said he would double down in Afghanistan, but continue with Bush's plan to get out of Iraq. Which is exactly what he's done:

"Barack Obama will work with military commanders on the ground in Iraq and in consultation with the Iraqi government to end the war safely and responsibly within 16 months."

Promise Kept. The date has slipped by a few months, but the spirit of the promise has been kept.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/126/begin-removing-combat-brigades-from-iraq/

"As Obama removes our combat brigades from Iraq, he will send at least two additional brigades to Afghanistan, where the Taliban is resurgent. He will also provide our armed forces with the reset capability that they need. He will replace essential equipment, and he will ensure that our men and women in uniform get the care and support they have earned."

Promise kept. He actually sent more brigades than he promised. I was a strong supporter of Obama before the election, and I distinctly remember these two promises. I agreed with the Iraq plan, I disagreed with the Afghanistan plan. But I'm now hearing all the time from other lefties, that they think Obama broke a promise about ramping up Afghanistan. No, it was pretty clear if you listened to what he said during the 2008 campaign, that he supported staying in Afghanistan. I think a lot of his supporters just maybe heard what they wanted to hear during the election. There's plenty to criticize Obama about since he got elected, but he did exactly what he said he'd do with Afghanistan. I think we should get out of there, sooner rather than later, but don't accuse Obama of lying about this.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/134/send-two-additional-brigades-to-afghanistan/

Wrong. He said he would double down in Afghanistan, but continue with Bush's plan to get out of Iraq. Which is exactly what he's done:

"Barack Obama will work with military commanders on the ground in Iraq and in consultation with the Iraqi government to end the war safely and responsibly within 16 months."

Promise Kept. The date has slipped by a few months, but the spirit of the promise has been kept.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/126/begin-removing-combat-brigades-from-iraq/

"As Obama removes our combat brigades from Iraq, he will send at least two additional brigades to Afghanistan, where the Taliban is resurgent. He will also provide our armed forces with the reset capability that they need. He will replace essential equipment, and he will ensure that our men and women in uniform get the care and support they have earned."

Promise kept. He actually sent more brigades than he promised. I was a strong supporter of Obama before the election, and I distinctly remember these two promises. I agreed with the Iraq plan, I disagreed with the Afghanistan plan. But I'm now hearing all the time from other lefties, that they think Obama broke a promise about ramping up Afghanistan. No, it was pretty clear if you listened to what he said during the 2008 campaign, that he supported staying in Afghanistan. I think a lot of his supporters just maybe heard what they wanted to hear during the election. There's plenty to criticize Obama about since he got elected, but he did exactly what he said he'd do with Afghanistan. I think we should get out of there, sooner rather than later, but don't accuse Obama of lying about this.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/134/send-two-additional-brigades-to-afghanistan/

High-speed rail projects in multiple states. Infrastructure projects in same for repairing bridges and roads, as well as Federal funding for state jobs and services. This came out to about $499 billion of $787 billion according to politifact. And in fact a major criticism of the stimulus program was not enough of this form of stimulus, and instead contained nearly 1/3 tax cuts.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/feb/10/jon-stewart/stewart-claims-stimulus-bill-one-third-tax-cuts/

Your turn. What are you referring to in the 1970's, which had or resembled large-infrastructure projects or WPA-style programs?

-- IHS/Global Insight: 1.25 million jobs -- Macroeconomic Advisers: 1.06 million jobs -- Moody's economy.com: 1.59 million jobs

Why does no one actually ever calm down when you tell them to calm down ;-)

Example 1
Example 2

Michael Moore spins highly sensationalized versions of the truth and uses them to imply massive corruption. This is exactly Glenn Beck's Modus Operandi. I would not be surprised in the slightest if Glenn Beck told more outright falsehoods than Michael Moore, but it's clear he tells his share as well. Hence my interest in a comparison.

Also, your post (intentionally?) is a perfect example of making a point badly. You're attempting to point out I provided no evidence previously, which is true. But the way you do it is by using what most would consider a personal attack that makes it sounds as if you view Michael Moore as an idol and Glenn Beck as a demon drawing the focus away from any fault of mine and onto yours.

You are either one of the most partisan-blinded people I have ever responded to, or an elaborate and subtle troll that was somehow modded insightful.

Clinton was impeached, but not removed from office.

Obama ran for President on a platform that included letting the Bush tax cuts expire. This week, he gave a speech wherein he explained that allowing them to be renewed would be stimulating to the economy, and therefore he's reached a "compromise".

See this site: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

True, he said that, but he obviously doesn't believe that it's an efficient or sensible way to spend that money, as we can get much more economic stimulus from using it in more efficient ways, like he did with the other tax cuts he got as part of the deal or the unemployment benefits extension. While it was one of his campaign promises, he's not the only one that gets a say in it, and Congress certainly wasn't willing to let it happen. I think he made the right decision, even though I'm not sure he really got the best deal he could have gotten. I don't have much faith in his negotiation skills, and the Democrats in general suck at getting their message across.

Clinton was impeached, but not removed from office.

Obama ran for President on a platform that included letting the Bush tax cuts expire. This week, he gave a speech wherein he explained that allowing them to be renewed would be stimulating to the economy, and therefore he's reached a "compromise".

See this site: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

How about the work the army is doing on the streets with police inside the US? WTF?!? How about a battalion stationed here in the US, official listed duty is "for civil unrest". WTF!?!

Citation needed. The militarization of policing is a concerning trend, but it's been going on since the end of WWII, and picked up stream with the step-up in the "War On Drugs" under Bush I. But I'm not aware of an Army battalion being deployed at home tin preparation for "civil unrest": please provide a reliable citation for this.

Communications Director Linda Douglass says, "we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov." What we attack people who don't agree with what you say or think differently? Wow, what are we becoming? Citizens reporting on each other for what they think? Sounds like old Soviet Russia.

You undermine your argument when you compare political rumor control -- and let's be frank. there was (and still is) a hell of a lot of untrue rumor-mongering about health insurance reform -- to Stalinist "turn in your neighbors" tactics.

Democrats have been blasting people who don't agree with them calling them unhinged, crazy, racist, bigoted and other terms. The Tea Party and conservative Republicans don't agree with them, so now they are evil and threat to America? They completely forget how hard and heavy they blasted Bush/Republicans, and no one called them that.

Both your memory and your grasp of current events is faulty.

Those of us who opposed Bush were in fact called unpatriotic, "on the side of the terrorists," and a threat to America.

Within the "Tea Party" you've got people you showed up to demonstrations brandishing guns and talking about "the blood of tyrants": that's unhinged and crazy. And there have in fact been many racist and bigoted comments made about Obama.

Is every conservative unhinged or racist? Of course not.

Let's not even get started talking about how much the government has grown and how Obama and the current government has spent more in 2 years than any other presidency, not including the bailouts.

Not true. Total 2009 + 2010 spending -- including bailouts -- was less than that last three years of Bush II's final term.

Uhhhhh, you do understand how LOANS works, don't you?

First off, only a fraction of the tens of billions sent GM's way was in the form of loans. The rest was exchanged for stock. GM then touted that they paid back these loans, but they didn't tout that it was through the non-loan bailout money, not through profits:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/apr/27/ed-whitacre/ceo-says-gm-has-repaid-government-loans-full/

Second, a loan is a risk. If GM fails, then that money is gone. Third, the government is finding new ways to hide losses:

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/view.bg?articleid=1294504

Hi, Rick Perry.

http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2010/nov/14/rick-perry/rick-perry-says-social-security-ponzi-scheme/

SS is not a ponzi scheme. You'll say, "but that's just a technicality. . ." but you will still be wrong. Words have meanings. You can say it's like a Ponzi scheme in these areas and give examples. You didn't and you won't.

What's it matter, though? You're just another low-info voter who doesn't care about anything except your personal "truth."

NONE of the promises the current administration given to get votes, have been fulfilled

Actually, about one out of three have been kept.

These ones.

Please enlighten me as to the meaning of this:

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/177/close-the-guantanamo-bay-detention-center/

I know, those evil Republican websites and their LIES.

How about this?

President Obama - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32ePb4X6JNQ

Candidate Obama - http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7h12a_obama-promises-to-close-guantanamo_news

So please explain how I am a "Total Idiot". There is President Obama AND Candidate Obama promising to close GITMO.

It's still open.

So answer the question, how do you know that anything has changed at GITMO?

The President says the Republicans are blocking everything.

The President says a lot.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/feb/02/dont-ask-dont-tell-promise-now-rated-works/
Don't ask don't tell is being repealed, its happening. Just slower than you;d have liked.

http://www.peoplesworld.org/obama-administration-ends-bush-abstinence-only-sex-education-policy/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-05-11-abstinence-only_N.htm
Obama ended abstinence only sex education.

The huge corporate gain was caused through the supreme court anyways. Nothing really has changed in the IP field at all...

Republicans/Mccain would have been worse.

But the upcoming election isn't dems vs mccain style republicans. It is dems versus the TEA PARTY. I don't think people realize how scary that really is. And how important it is to vote. A bunch of religious nutjobs that believe fox news is the place to learn about the world and that sarah palin is an overwhelmingly good candidate.

You may not like Obama and the dems. But not voting gives power to people as stupid as Sarah Palin. As childish as Glenn Beck and as terrifying as Ann Coulter or Michael Savage. With ideas as foolish as Rand Paul's (the guy wants to abolish the dept of education and the NSF).

You might think its bad now but it could be much much worse.

Obama on the other hand is doing pretty much exactly what he promised not to do regarding liberties, transparency, and many other areas that made people want to vote for him.

Really? The Truth-O-Meter site that tracks his campaign promises currently lists 122 "promise kept" vs. 22 "promise broken", with 39 "compromise". There's also 82 "stalled" and 238 "in the works"; he's still got quite a bit of work to do, but his track record for the ones he did finish so far isn't so bad.

I don't care if he's from the left or right of the political spectrum, just elect someone who is smart and has a track record for fairness and following through on his/her campaign promises.

Obama has lived up to most of his campaign promises: http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

Beside, Obama is damned smart, even if you do not agree with his administration on this policy proposal. And for a man with "no experience", Obama has achieved a lot in two years, even though you clearly do not approve of what he has achieved.

Funny how it seems like most of the Obama basher in this post are people who voted for Bush and now are happy that "Obama is just as bad" by making a proposal to make legal what the Bush administration did illegally with no regard for law or constitution. The proposal is not even submitted yet, use the political process to stop it before it becomes law. (Hint: voting republican wont make anything better).

Hum. Could you point me to something that states that the Republican party actually wants no regulation of the banking industry whatsoever?

"Something" would be something more than, say, a wacko who affiliates with the party... since, after all, people CAN differ.

As far as I am aware, especially in light of current legislation discussions, Republicans are in favor of some banking regulation. Democrats happen to be in favor of much more regulation.

By the way ... Mae/Mac were regulated quite a bit. Government oversight, or intervention, in that case, did not help a lot. Perhaps "regulation" isn't the answer. Perhaps proper regulation has something to do with it.

And when some Republicans, anyways, talk about no-government-intervention, they are talking about things like incentives for banks to loan to risky homebuyers, not telling banks that they need to have so much in assets in order to be FDIC insured or whatever. I can't answer for all Republicans, of course, but I know no one, personally, that actually wants no regulation of the financial industry whatsoever. As much as Democrats like to say that, I don't think that is true.

Shocking, I know... people saying things that aren't true. In both parties. Yikes. One of my favorite sites for "things so-and-so said."

Why would we eliminate the DoE? That is just one of many possibilities, we need to reduce size but that does not mean we have to get rid of everything. What a weird thing to bring up out of the blue.

It's not out of the blue, it's one of Sharron Angle's talking points.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/sep/01/harry-reid/harry-reid-says-sharron-angle-wants-eliminate-educ/

If you check the Obameter, you'll find he's not doing too shabby on most of the promises he made. I think he just realized that government transparency just isn't that simple, or some very powerful people shut down that 'openness' initiative, or both.

Excluding single-payer advocates has the effect of pushing the set of options considered "mainstream" to the right. If I was advocating for single-payer, I wouldn't exclude advocates of (British style) nationalized health care, since they would help serve to make my views appear more moderate. As for the Obama plan, it's based on the reforms implemented in Massachusetts under Mitt Romney, and (at the time) promoted by the Heritage Foundation, which to me qualifies as at least moderately conservative.

As for Alan Simpson, he isn't just a token conservative; he's one of the co-chairs. And the earlier quote indicates that he has total disdain for Social Security. He has also repeated the old zombie lie, "It's a bunch of IOUs".

If Obama was centrist, he would have balanced the commission by appointing an ardent defender of entitlement programs as the other co-chair; someone who is in favor of taxing the rich. Let's look at what the Democrat co-chair has said:

We’re going to mess with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security because if you take those off the table, you can’t get there. If we don’t make those choices, America is going to be a second-rate power, and I don’t mean in fifty years. I mean in my lifetime.