He could suspend DADT right now as we wait for an outcome
DADT - utter failure.
He could actually enforce it, within the letter of the law, without it having any practical effect."He could suspend DADT right now as we wait for an outcome"He's said on several occasions that Congress needs to repeal the law. That's how it's supposed to work. Congress makes and changes the laws and the Executive Branch enforces them.
It's interesting that Truman desegregated the military by executive order, but Obama can't do the same for DADT.Was there a law regarding racial segregation in the military? If not, if it was just the DoD's operating procedure, it's not the same situation.
If you can't say a single thing that Obama has actually failed to do or a single call he made that you can persuasively argue he should have made differently you really have nothing whatsoever to contribute to this conversation.With that "call he made" to you really think I was talking about "legislative achievements" rather than the political process that would lead to those achievements? Really? If so, I'm sorry you're such a poor reader.
Well yes, they did, in fact. Together with the Executive Branch itself, who signed it into law.Was there a law regarding racial segregation in the military? If not, if it was just the DoD's operating procedure, it's not the same situation.The Legislative branch can take powers away from the Executive branch now?
FDR wanted the US to do more for Jewish refugees from Germany in WWII
A reporter asked if he felt there was any place in the world that would be able to take a mass emigration of the Jews from Germany.On June 4, 1939, Roosevelt refused to let ~900 Jewish refugees aboard the MS St. Louis land in the US. The ship returned to Europe and an estimated 227 of the passengers died in the Holocaust.
"I have given a great deal of thought to it," said the president.
"Can you tell us of any place particularly desirable?" the reporter asked.
"No," the president answered, "the time is not ripe for that."
Another reporter asked the president if he would recommend a relaxation of the immigration restrictions so that Jewish refugees could come to the United States.
"That is not in contemplation," said Roosevelt. "We have the quota system."
The Lesson of 1993: While the Democrats and Obama have long been planning on pushing through health care, what is going on now is pure political blood sport. This is a zero sum game. This is a Democratic attempt to prove that they can accomplish something that is popular and helps the middle class and which they have been trying for sixty years with only moderate success to enact. This is the Republican attempt to protect the status quo and to slingshot their way back to power as they did in 1994.and on what those long-term policy prescriptions should address...
Bill Kristol has said that this is the week to stop health care reform..: "This is no time to pull punches. Go for the kill."
...Senator Jim DeMint rather infamously declared in a secret call to anti-reform advocates: "If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."
Newt Gingrich echoed this point: "This could be the bill that drags his whole presidency down and they look back on it and suddenly the whole thing is unraveled."
And the Democrats seem to agree ¨C as the former Organizing for America sent out DeMint's statements to rally supporters ¨C and Mark Kleiman, a Democratic blogger said, "This bill is make or break for the Democratic Party."
...make no mistake as you see the charges thrown about by both sides in these next few weeks. This battle is no longer about policy for either the White House or the Republican Party... it is about whether or not the Obama administration will be broken by obstructionist elements. The short-term success of the administration will be determined by whether or not they succeed in the next few weeks to pass something substantial; their long-term success will depend on the policies they are able to include.
The Medical Loss Ratio: Obama¡¯s attempt to reform health care is partly about reforming the way we provide care (with electronic records, comparative effectiveness studies, etc.) ¨C but it is mainly the way in which we provide health care insurance. In this fight, there is one statistic we have not heard enough about but which critics of the current system should bring up whenever they can: the medical loss ratio. This statistic describes the percentage of dollars that a health insurance company takes in from its premiums that it uses to actually pay for medical services. For example, back in the 1990s ¨C when the health care insurance industry was quite profitable ¨C the figure was generally in the mid-90s. In other words, about 95% of all dollars collected in premiums were used to pay for medical services. Since then, structural changes in the health insurance industry have led it to focus more on profits ¨C as a Wall Street mentality took hold. Since the 1990s, the medical loss ratio has dropped significantly. Today it is in the mid 70s to low 80s ¨C meaning $20 to $30 of every $100 paid in insurance premiums is not used to provide the services paid for. These profits ¨C and the quest to increase such profits ¨C has led to the health insurance industry becoming more like a Wall Street financial firm ¨C with massive bonuses to its top executives and large dividends to shareholders as they skim greater profits from a rising bubble in the field in which it operates in. Our health insurance system is run by Wall Street tycoons. How does this affect the quality of the service that health insurance companies provide?again, i think so much as a national health care system (or lack thereof) reflects cultural expression -- like from a rawlsian perspective of judging society by its weakest, least advantaged and most vulnerable members, or the proportion of its population attaining the pinnacle of maslow's pyramid -- the failure or success of reform has the potential to be fairly momentous in the fight over the soul of the country, not to exaggerate :P
[...]
Our system of health insurance has created a Wall Street-run health care business. For all the worry Republicans are trying to gin up about government bureaucrats reporting to Congress or the White House being in between you and your doctor ¨C what we have now is a system where faceless corporate bureaucrats are making medical decisions reporting to Wall Street tycoons. Like the Wall Street firms, health insurance companies have driven up prices exponentially, creating a bubble; the CEOs take enormous salaries; they are accepting money for insurance from anyone, but will look for any way out of any of their commitments if they can get away with it. In normal businesses, profits are the primary side-effect of providing a product or service; in a Wall Street style corporation, profits are the sole and only goal ¨C with the product or service they are selling merely a means to this end. This is what our health insurance industry has become. This is the royally fucked system we have today.
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posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:23 AM on July 22, 2009 [2 favorites]