10 Comments
Our new Governor
Give me Four Loko, or give me death! Or at least don’t ban it. (Spec)
In case you haven’t heard yet, we have a Five Guys coming! Their burgers taste good. (DNAinfo)
Peek into the lives of Jake and Marty La Salle CC ’07 under the big-top, on a new PBS series. (NYT)
Democracy happened yesterday, and Cuomo beat Paladino. (NYT)
CB12 doesn’t have a decision on Columbia’s Inwood developments. (Manhattan Times)
Image via Wikimedia
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10 Comments
@elections so… question. What is the current state of all you uber-libs love affair with Obama? I’m actually not trying to be snide or polemic (had to get at least one little jab in… last election was brutal for us right-leaners…) but seriously. I remember the celebrations in the street when the savior got elected…
What is the current state of the left’s opinion of Obama? What does the overwhelming rep victory in the House mean for Obama? The senate is close to 50-50 now, and the gubernatorial race was a rep. landslide. What say dem’s this morning?
I’m not interested in a political debate about who’s party/stances are better. I’d just rather get some educated opinions from a rational peer than hear it from some news outlet.
@uEber-lib Frustrated. Props to Obama for actually achieving many of his legislative goals (whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar dot com). But many of those bills were heavily compromised for bipartisanship, so they alienated both sides. Instead of an effective stimulus, we have a bill that was 30% tax cuts–and repubs still think we RAISED taxes! We didn’t get any fundamental changes to the health care system, and people still call it a socialist experiment. Race for the Top was a pretty good policy, but we’ll have to wait for results.
It will be nice to have a house majority leader called Boner, and the biggest Tea partiers didn’t make it, but it’s disappointing that we’ll have two years of legislative gridlock.
@elections No comment on the fact citing, but I appreciate the discourse. kudos to level-headed debates.
Agree: Gridlock sucks, but would a one-sided congress telling us to “pass the bill so we can read what’s in it” be better?
Disagree: Bipartisanship. Many conservatives feel that Pres.Bama’s apparent “bipartisan concessions” were minimal given the congressional majorities. Hence this whole Rep. influx…
Honestly, despite being a conservative, I’m much happier with the current political balance than if we had Palin (or other rep.) with her own pet senate and house. Dissenting opinions = good….
@another person I might be an idealistic fool, but my opinion is this. What would be better than a one-sided congress telling us to “pass the bill so we can read what’s in it” and a gridlocked congress would be a congress that works together and puts their political differences aside to try and fix America’s problems. Or at least stopped obsessing over party names and looked at the issues that really divided the parties to try for compromises. Of course, this is coming from an independent, so it’s probably biased.
Also, kudos as well to level-headed debates/discourse. That’s always nice to see.
@my opinion The Left, like the Right, is not even close to monolithic. Obama appealed to a broad constituency of young progressives, life-long Democrats, and independents concerned about the direction of the country under Bush and McCain. Once Obama got into office, he faced an intense and sustained campaign of opposition from conservatives, both establishment Republicans and various facets of the new Tea Party movement. Instead of ramming his agenda through Congress, he tacked to the center and tried to be above partisan bickering. It didn’t work, and his message was drowned out. Although he’s actually accomplished a lot in the last two years (http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/), he lost the enthusiasm that he had when he was first elected. Those on the far-left saw that he was not an idealistic savior, just a very pragmatic politician, while moderates saw that the economy didn’t immediately get better and blamed Obama. While the Right is screaming that Obama’s turning the country socialist, the Left believes he wasted his mandate and settled for a continuation of Bush-era policies and evolutionary, but not revolutionary, change. So the Left didn’t care enough to vote last night, while the Right voted as if their lives depended on it.
@.... The situation is quite ironic. A lot of Obama’s popularity was superficial then, and a lot of his unpopularity is superficial now. Similarly, a lot of the popularity of the opposition last night was superficial as well– and despite the appearance of commonality, there is tremendous disunity and confusion in the Republican ranks. The Republicans increased their representation in government at the expense of ignoring, and in many ways deepening, the internal contradictions in basic elements of their platform and the internal divisions in their electorate, and it may well come back to hurt them. As such, I’m not quite certain that they’ve built any kind of framework for a stable governing coalition. And as usual– and as seems to be increasingly the case nowadays– this seems to be going largely unnoticed. Few people seem to be contemplating the actual reality. In the end, if the economy improves, Obama will get the credit– whether or not he deserves it. And if it doesn’t, he will get the blame– whether or not it is his doing. Neither party has really established any message that transcends this type of superficiality, or that can adapt to alternative possibilities.
@Oh Crap Five Guys? There goes my waist…
@Pot for Loko He’s a proposal for something with the power to do it.
Negotiate a drug policy that allows us to smoke pot without risking trouble, and offer them a Four Loko ban in exchange.
@Anonymous Loko link is broken
@Eliza Fixed, thanks!