I understand not being able to get legislation passed due to a stubborn and partisan congress, but a lot of the things I listed above are very illiberal/authoritarian actions that Obama has made the decision to pursue, policies who’s fate is controlled entirely within the executive. My beef with Obama has more to do with what he has done than what he hasn’t done…
Who were you expecting to be prosecuted for the economic crisis?
I forget where I read something like this:
“Republicans are angry at Obama because he’s a socialist reformer who has moved the country to the far left, brought in public healthcare and apologized to the world. Democrats are angry at Obama because he’s done none of these things.”
Top Goldman execs for all the fraud detailed in Levin and Coburn’s report on the financial crisis. Despite a mountain of evidence, Holder decided not to pursue charges. And I would not expect him to, given the revolving door between Goldman and the treasury. Better to go after small cases of insider trading …
Do Progressives not believe in removing the Attorney General from political pressure from the White House as much as feasible?
Judge Parker? (You’ve been promoted.) That last sentence? No bong before posting, we talked about this. Its OK for me, I don’t have any dignity.
All the more reason why he should have prosecuted, given the evidence.
Sustained.
I’ll rephrase.
I think that AUSA’s on the ground should make prosecution decisions, with oversight by a relatively independent AG. Do Progressives think the much-more-political White House should intervene in those decisions? And if not, then why should Obama get blame for prosecution decisions?
I’m with Jon Chait. And I just want to add: I have not had health insurance for well over a decade. Thanks to Obamacare, even without a “public option”, I will be able to afford to have it beginning January 1, 2014, and am eagerly awaiting that date. Also, earlier this year, when my wife and I were still both unemployed (she has since found full time employment as a special ed teacher, and I am doing the stay at home dad routine), the food stamp expansion he signed, along with WIC benefits, kept us able–just barely–to feed ourselves and our four kids.
So for any “progressive” who attacks Obama from the left, here’s what I want to know: Do you depend, or have you recently depended, on any of these government benefits? Will you depend on the preservation of Obamacare to be able to have health coverage for you and your kids? If the answer to both of these is “no”, then you need to STFU and check your privilege!
Read the comments there. Made Yahoo! and YouTube comments seem like lucid gems of reason in comparison. At least there’s still The Free Republic for some serious Derp…
In theory the AG is supposed to be independent but is not in practice. Given who Obama has appointed to advise him, I’d argue that his administration has had influence on what kinds of cases were pursued. We definitely know that he influenced the multi state mortgage settlement. However, lack of prosecutions is just one facet of his disappointing performance on the economy… Given how captured Washington is by Wall Street, one could argue that Obama could only do so much on that front. But it’s hard to argue against what he’s done in the area of civil liberties.
Is he progressive enough? No. Is he the best I’m gonna get any time soon? Yes.
I’d be curious to see the evidence for concluding that there were strong criminal cases against particular executives. I strongly suspect that this feeling that there should have been prosecutions of senior executives at Goldman rests on general theorizing about what happened rather than the brass tacks of what any particular investigation actually showed.
Even accepting all three premises of the argument (that the White House influences the AUSAs, that Wall Street has capture the White House, and that the facts supported criminal prosecutions), I don’t see why general influence from Wall Street would protect any particular individuals from legitimate prosecution. It certainly didn’t protect people like Rajat Gupta. And it isn’t designed to. Lobbyists are good at watering down legislation, not interfering with prosecutions.
And there are good arguments about the civil liberties issues. Glenn Greenwald may pose as the sole torchbearer for the Constitution, but there are a lot of us ACLU types who disagree with him on particular issues.
The ACLU totally pisses me off! Time and again, I grind my teeth with rage as I write them a check! Fucking liberals!
There are three branches of government. Two of them are elected by the people, the third is selected by the president with the advice and consent of congress.
There are likely to be 2 maybe 3 SCOTUS nominations this term. There is a pretty big gap between the sort of people Obama would nominate and the sort of people Romney would nominate.
You’re right. I am privileged in that respect. Although people in my family have received government benefits (of the really obvious kind), I personally have not had to rely on them (with the exception of unemployment), and yet I know how precarious and lucky my position is. I have health insurance through my job (though it gets skimpier every year) and yet I am fully aware how fortunate I am that I’m relatively healthy and have not had to test how good that insurance really is…
Being able to have some coverage is better than no coverage. Although the jury is still out on how decent it will be (After all it is still the insurance companies that we’re still dealing with here.)
The medicaid expansion is great. Hopefully, we can keep it…
Extensions of UI and food stamps are just exactly should happen during recessions.
I never said Obama never did anything good. I’m just not sure that the above is enough to override the not so good things that he has done. For some people it is. It’s a question I have wrestled with. Like Glenn Greenwald has said, the intellectually honest thing to say, for those who are willing to overlook the bad stuff is:
“Yes, I’m willing to continue to have Muslim children slaughtered by covert drones and cluster bombs, and America’s minorities imprisoned by the hundreds of thousands for no good reason, and the CIA able to run rampant with no checks or transparency, and privacy eroded further by the unchecked Surveillance State, and American citizens targeted by the President for assassination with no due process, and whistleblowers threatened with life imprisonment for “espionage,” and the Fed able to dole out trillions to bankers in secret, and a substantially higher risk of war with Iran (fought by the U.S. or by Israel with U.S. support) in exchange for less severe cuts to Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs, the preservation of the Education and Energy Departments, more stringent environmental regulations, broader health care coverage, defense of reproductive rights for women, stronger enforcement of civil rights for America’s minorities, a President with no associations with racist views in a newsletter, and a more progressive Supreme Court.”
It’s not “in exchange” if the choices are “A but not B” or “A and B.”
I might be mildly curious to see what the OP thinks is the Progressive Case Against Romney.
You left out "in exchange for things not being EVEN FUCKING WORSE.
If you don’t live in a swing state, by all means vote your conscience. If you DO live in a swing state, shame on you for potentially making things EVEN FUCKING WORSE. Seriously, this isn’t hard to figure out.
If the OP was interested in any of the many cases against Romney, she’d presumably have posted one or two or three (dozen) of them.