Slashdot Mirror
@Whitehouse Hosting Twitter Town Hall On Wednesday
CWmike writes "In another milestone, the White House will hold its first Twitter town hall forum on Wednesday. President Barack Obama, known for using technology and Web 2.0 tools since his presidential campaign, will answer Twitter users' questions (submit them here) in a live webcast about the U.S. economy and jobs at 2 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. Twitter co-founder and Executive Chairman Jack Dorsey will moderate a conversation between Obama and Twitterers across the country. Twitter users can submit questions using the hashtag #AskObama. Some questions will be taken up in advance and others will be grabbed real-time during the event, Twitter said. In a blog post, Twitter executives said a conversation about the U.S. economy will fit right in with regular Twitter activity."
If Will Smith were president, he'd get shit done. Just sayin'.
Really?
The budget deficit is through the roof, economy is declining, jobs are being lost and the presidents main concern should be legalizing drugs?
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
Really? The budget deficit is through the roof, economy is declining, jobs are being lost and the presidents main concern should be legalizing drugs?
Think of all the money that could be saved by stopping the war on drugs (law enforcement, prisons). Think of the potential productivity of all those people in jail convicted of victimless "crimes". Think of all the tax income from the legal sale of drugs.
All in all, legalization is a simple step that helps address the problems you bring up.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Unfortunately, when the entire opposition party has made their one and only goal your destruction, you can't really do anything about it. They're willing to push the country into default for the first time in history, destroying the lives of millions. You can't negotiate with that sort of hatred.
Obama's not a dictator. He can't "get some real fucking work done" all on his own. The only way this country can get on track is for the Republicans to come to their senses, or for every last one of them to be given the boot. If Obama get's re-elected, maybe the Republicans can finally set aside their hate and work with the guy.
Because the first black president wants to be known as the guy who legalized pot?
If he wants any real respect, then yes. Politicians worthy of real respect can admit when something has failed and are willing to stop doing that failed thing and start doing something else.
I don't really see what his race has to do with it. It doesn't change the fact that marijuana prohibition was a bad idea.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I will give him props if the opening tweet is "The tweets of my death were greatly exaggerated".
That would be pretty funny.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A leader who cannot face the questions of his constituents and provide them with answers that they accept is an authoritarian, not a democrat.
And yes, I realize that the questions are filtered so that this will end up being more of a public relations exercise. But that is still a heck of a lot better than the leaders of some nations who refuses to be questioned at all. Here's to you Mr. Harper (Prime Minister of Canada, for ye foreigners.)
The BBC uses Twitter during its Question Time programme that gets a few million viewers. There are usually several tweets per second, far too fast for anyone to read or respond to. People resort to re-tweeting the same thing over and over again just to be heard.
In a room full of journalists they have to pick one to ask questions and have everyone else shut up. Try doing that on Twitter.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
They knew this trick back in the time of the Roman Empire.
Bread and Circuses: bribe the population with free bread and distract them with circuses whilst the ruling classes do whatever they want.
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).
But never mind all of that: Obama is a Twit now!
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
The Republicans, on their own, are pushing the country into a default? And failure of the Democrats to agree to cuts has nothing to do with it?
Bull, the President and the Democratic Party held the Executive Branch and both houses of the Legislative Branch for two years and pushed only two things, more debt and the worst, most convoluted, ill conceived health care proposal ever attempted.
In the 2010 mid-term the Democrats hemmed and hawed without getting a budget passed which made the House and Senate leadership look like idiots, that all in turn gave the Republicans the House and nearly gave them the Senate.
Don't blame the Republicans for the Democratic Party's incompetence. The real problem in Washington isn't the Teabaggers or the base GOP, it's Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi failing for four years straight.
Unfortunately, when the entire opposition party has made their one and only goal your destruction, you can't really do anything about it. They're willing to push the country into default for the first time in history, destroying the lives of millions.
The only people who are saying "default for the first time in history" are Democrats who are fear mongering to scare little girls like you; and it has happened before. The reality is that the United States would not default; the government would use the money it brings in to service the debt and there would be a partial government shutdown.
Nobody ever held the Senate, the Senate is completely dysfunctional. They've decided they need a 60-vote supermajority to pass anything that isn't the budget, so almost nothing gets passed, because neither party has held 60 seats in decades. (If you're about to post that the Democrats did for like six months between when Franken finally got seated and when Ted Kennedy died, you're wrong, because you're counting Joe Lieberman. He isn't a Democrat, he's an independent and he campaigned for John McCain in 2008.)
This is aside from the point that it isn't proportionally representative, so a citizen in Bumfuck, Montana gets a thousand times more representation, proportionally, than one from California or Texas or New York. (State legislatures are not even legally allowed to do this, so why the fuck is our federal government still working this way?)
The House version of the health care bill was simple and effective and went to a vote after a couple months of debate. By the time it got through the Senate it took fourteen months and was two thousand pages long, and almost all of the good parts were taken out, leaving little more than some half-assed bullshit and a bailout to the health care middlemen (sorry, I mean "insurance providers").
I'm not a Republican, I'm not even an American.
In Europe our main stream political parties are all more left-leaning than either of the US parties. In essence the US has two right-wing parties who are, in all the important ways, indistinguishable to anyone outside of the US.
As far as I can tell the only difference between the Democrats and Republicans is that the latter includes witches. ;)
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Actually, I think you're proving the point you are trying to disagree with, even though Obama has continued many Republican policies, the Republican right still hates him. What this has shown is that every time the Democrats move a little to the right, the Republicans also move further to the right. Obama implements a Republican health care act, and suddenly it's the worst thing ever. Obama continues Bush's policies on the war on terror and suddenly that's "weak on defence". It goes on and on, as soon as Obama or the Democrats publicly like something, the Republicans publicly hate it.
The Republican should love Obama, but they don't because it's more important to score political points than to do something good for the country. That, right there, is what is wrong with America.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Drastic cuts to medicare and social security? There are many people that depend on those programs who will be hurt badly. How about cuts to farmers that get paid for growing nothing. Or to prop up producing fuel from corn that only ends up increasing food prices without reducing the carbon footprint due to the energy (from oil!) required to produce it. Fact is there isn't enough we CAN cut to turn the debt cycle around we need to enhance revenue, which means higher taxes aimed at those that can afford to pay them. The GOP needs to face up to the fact that it's a two way street and that "W"'s war against Iraq to find imaginary WOMD plus his tax cuts got us into this hole (from a SURPLUS under Clinton). If the GOP puts this country into default the resulting kaos will be worse than the great depression of 80 years ago. The result will be a putting a bull'seye target on the back of every member of the GOP, literally! I can't guess who will be shot first.
Really? The budget deficit is through the roof, economy is declining, jobs are being lost and the presidents main concern should be legalizing drugs?
This seems to be a popular rationalization/argument among Obama defenders: he really wants to legalize marijuana, it's just that all those more serious issues keep getting in the way. But there is no reason why he can't try to legalize marijuana at the same time as he works on all those other issues. Most progressives would be perfectly happy just to hear him say that he is in favor of legalization, he doesn't even need to put any effort into it. But if he really wanted to work at it (i.e. write a bill and push it through congress), then it could have positive effects on the "very serious issues". We could reduce the budget deficit by cutting spending on the war on drugs and creating a new tax on marijuana. Create jobs and improve the economy by spending some of the marijuana tax on job creating infrastructure projects. And there would be new local business opportunities forr things like marijuana bars/depots in various cities.
In addition, Obama has stated more than once that he is against legalization. I've never heard him even make the argument that he's for legalization but it's not possible due to other priorities.