If you have any pressing comments, I'd be happy to tweet them. 135 characters or less

theIMEU (http://twitter.com/#%21/theIMEU) The IMEU
Obama 2 hold Twitter town hall at 2pm ET. Ask questions using #AskObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskObama) (bit.ly/nct94T (http://t.co/f2pV0WQ)) #Palestine (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23Palestine) #BDS (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23BDS) #flotilla2 (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23flotilla2) #Airflotilla (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23Airflotilla) #Gaza (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23Gaza)
11 minutes ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/theIMEU/status/88655206925078529)

A few questions so far but they're rolling in faster than I can read em


brendlewhat (http://twitter.com/#%21/brendlewhat) brendle what
does it bug you that the tea party hates you, when youve upheld or magnified all the policies of the bush administration? #askobama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23askobama)
5 minutes ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/brendlewhat/status/88656972014030848)




Tessarotm (http://twitter.com/#%21/Tessarotm) Teresa Martin
When are you going to stop signing "executive orders" to bypass Congress? #AskObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskObama)
3 minutes ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/Tessarotm/status/88657743350743040)




RickL2the3 (http://twitter.com/#%21/RickL2the3) Rick Lussier
Why is a government by the people for the people now owned by the banks for the corporations? Can you pledge no more debt?#askobama
53 seconds ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/RickL2the3/status/88659177316163584)



scotters (http://twitter.com/#%21/scotters) Scott Kuhn
If Bush was so wrong about so many things, why are you continuing those things? #AskObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskObama)


RaptorH (http://twitter.com/#%21/RaptorH) Heather M
When will you tour some mountaintop removal #coal (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23coal) mining sites in Appalachia? #AskObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskObama)



Fake_Rockstar (http://twitter.com/#%21/Fake_Rockstar) Corey Pandolph
I want my money back. And don't forget my black T-shirt. Sir. #AskObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskObama)
15 seconds ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/Fake_Rockstar/status/88659668100055040)

Those are some good questions, you're not cherry-picking, are you?

Geez, tough one, how to avoid the scatalogical?................................................................................................................................................................................................I give up.

Lol BP. Nope, not cherry-picked though I did ignore the ridiculous questions coming from Washington Post or any O-bots.


laurajraymond (http://twitter.com/#%21/laurajraymond) laura raymond
#AskObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskObama) Will you apologize to Maher Arar for US rendition of him to a year of torture in Syria? He's still waiting. @theCCR (http://twitter.com/theCCR) @amnesty (http://twitter.com/amnesty)
1 minute ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/laurajraymond/status/88671463430828032)



Layofflist (http://twitter.com/#%21/Layofflist) Mike Thornton
#AskObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskObama) The rewards of the recovery have been focused on the wealthy. How are you going to address America's record income inequality?
4 minutes ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/Layofflist/status/88672261128720385)



He's not picking the good questions; has no intention of course. Questions are rolling in faster than I can read them.


erier2003 (http://twitter.com/#%21/erier2003) Eric Geller
Obama starts answering questions. Talks about mistakes made and things he'd do differently.
http://twitpic.com/5m5atx
1 minute ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/erier2003/status/88671398691733506)


CBSNewsHotSheet (http://twitter.com/#%21/CBSNewsHotSheet) CBS News Hotsheet
What would he do differently re #budget (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23budget)? Obama says would explain to ppl it was going to take a while to get out of this #AskObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskObama)
3 minutes ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/CBSNewsHotSheet/status/88671283709100032)

Here you go. Livestream. If you can stomach it.


http://mashable.com/2011/07/06/obama-twitter-townhall-video/


mamaswati (http://twitter.com/#%21/mamaswati) sarah
hey @Townhall (http://twitter.com/Townhall), this is a total sham. we've all been watching the questions being sent to #askobama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23askobama). you are picking the softballs. #fail (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23fail)
18 seconds ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/mamaswati/status/88674461368328192)


No shit.

Not cherry picking these. These are coming straight off the First Twitter Townhall page http://askobama.twitter.com/ where they've filtered out all the *disruptors*. Looks like there are more *disruptors* than they can quickly weed out.

This is a better link than the previous one. You can listen to the lies and read the tweets at the same time, well as many as you can keep up with.


MathewSHarrison (http://twitter.com/MathewSHarrison) Matt Harrison
#askobama (http://twitter.com/search?q=%23askobama) how can you talk about investing a dime when we have nothing but debt?
Reply (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=88677510350520321) Retweet (https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=88677510350520321) Favorite (https://twitter.com/intent/favorite?tweet_id=88677510350520321)
just now (http://twitter.com/MathewSHarrison/status/88677510350520321)



sseham (http://twitter.com/#%21/sseham) free palestine
When you gave that speech last month and ignored the daily terrorism that Palestinians endure did you sleep well that night? #AskObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskObama)
4 minutes ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/sseham/status/88677389151903744)




SuePalmers (http://twitter.com/SuePalmers) Sue Palmer
#AskObama (http://twitter.com/search?q=%23AskObama): Do you believe in the ENTIRE Bill of Rights equally?
Reply (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=88677138655477760) Retweet (https://twitter.com/intent/retweet?tweet_id=88677138655477760) Favorite (https://twitter.com/intent/favorite?tweet_id=88677138655477760)
3 minutes ago (http://twitter.com/SuePalmers/status/88677138655477760)


blogdiva (http://twitter.com/#%21/blogdiva) Liza Sabater
why are you against the peaceful protest mission of the #Flotilla2 (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23Flotilla2) #AskObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskObama)
1 minute ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/blogdiva/status/88677862353281024)



I can't read, cut and paste these. It's moving too quickly. #1 comment is what a sham this is. Obama's just giving one long infomercial about what a great job he's doing. The underlying message is that if we just tighten your belts a little more, it won't hurt so much and we'll appreciate how dazzling the bullshit is.

I can't read, cut and paste these. It's moving too quickly. #1 comment is what a sham this is. Obama's just giving one long infomercial about what a great job he's doing. The underlying message is that if we just tighten your belts a little more, it won't hurt so much and we'll appreciate how dazzling the bullshit is.

And that's good enough a fig leaf for the believers. Listening to him explain this country's foreign aid is nauseating and now he's on NPR too and jesus this guy is such a tool.

And that's good enough a fig leaf for the believers. Listening to him explain this country's foreign aid is nauseating and now he's on NPR too and jesus this guy is such a tool.

You listened? What courage you have. I couldn't. Just hearing the sound of his voice ruins my day. The tweets were a lot more informative and honest than anything he had to say.


JeremySapienza (http://twitter.com/#%21/JeremySapienza) Jeremy Sapienza
Now that you're the top brown man, do you plan to just kill all the rest? #Afghanistan (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23Afghanistan) #Iraq (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23Iraq) #Libya (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23Libya) #Somalia (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23Somalia) #Yemen (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23Yemen) #AskObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskObama)
2 hours ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/JeremySapienza/status/88650360708800512)


thebrinos (http://twitter.com/#%21/thebrinos) Brian by Antiwarcom
#AskObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskObama) You originally campaigned as an "anti-war candidate" for the senate. How does it feel to be bombing more places than GW Bush?
1 hour ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/thebrinos/status/88677758984663040)

Some teacher groups I belong to were asking us to provide questions for this. There were some frustratingly earnest attempts in hope to "get him to listen". I have to temper my impatience with them, since his intentions always seem like they are written in letters of fire 7 feet tall. Is there something you'd like him to do that would be good for people? Well plan on the opposite to happen, like clockwork.

What is it? Remnants of *hope* still lingering? If anyone even mentions his name in my presence, I run.

I retweeted a few questions but none of them were chosen, of course. If 2012 weren't coming up, I don't think I'd even read his name anymore. Maybe it's not even worth reading his name because it doesn't matter which lackey's in the White House.

All those pols should be forced to spend a month every year, living in some slum with nothing but food stamps to get them by. For vacation, send them to a war zone where they can scurry from US bombs and drones. Please, someone put me in charge for a year.

Over yonder they are blaming the Twitter dude for question selection. If it were Bush talking.....selective stupidity.

What is it? Remnants of *hope* still lingering? If anyone even mentions his name in my presence, I run.

I retweeted a few questions but none of them were chosen, of course. If 2012 weren't coming up, I don't think I'd even read his name anymore. Maybe it's not even worth reading his name because it doesn't matter which lackey's in the White House.

All those pols should be forced to spend a month every year, living in some slum with nothing but food stamps to get them by. For vacation, send them to a war zone where they can scurry from US bombs and drones. Please, someone put me in charge for a year.

Failing to grapple with the structural sources of this rot, I think. If you aren't going to attack capitalism, then you are left with tinkering around on the margins. Or giving in, like the NEA just did (simultaneously endorsing Obama for 2012 and also accepting student test scores as part of their professional evaluation. Totally ruinous). That was so demoralizing to dissenters that there is some clinging to the lifeboats right now, praying for a primary challenger or hoping to get a counter-message out to the media. It's kind of sad. Teachers' unions are not very militant in this country. The fatalism is astounding. In other countries, teachers are practically the first on the barricades.

Failing to grapple with the structural sources of this rot, I think. If you aren't going to attack capitalism, then you are left with tinkering around on the margins. Or giving in, like the NEA just did (simultaneously endorsing Obama for 2012 and also accepting student test scores as part of their professional evaluation. Totally ruinous). That was so demoralizing to dissenters that there is some clinging to the lifeboats right now, praying for a primary challenger or hoping to get a counter-message out to the media. It's kind of sad. Teachers' unions are not very militant in this country. The fatalism is astounding. In other countries, teachers are practically the first on the barricades.

What timing. I was just reading this


Sandy_English (http://twitter.com/#%21/Sandy_English) Sandy English
World Socialist Web Site: US teachers’ union endorses Obama for 2012 election http://dld.bz/afFxZ #edchat (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23edchat) #edreform (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23edreform)
8 minutes ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/Sandy_English/status/88700031296741376)

US teachers’ union endorses Obama for 2012 election

By Alexander Fangmann and Jerry White
6 July 2011

The National Education Association—whose 3.2 million members have been a major target of the Obama administration’s attack on public school teachers—became the first major union to endorse the Democratic president’s reelection bid in 2012.

On Monday, 72 percent of the 8,000 delegates attending the union’s national convention in Chicago endorsed the president for a second term. “President Barack Obama shares our vision for a stronger America,” Dennis Van Roekel, president of NEA, declared. “He has never wavered from talking about the importance of education or his dedication to a vibrant middle class.”

Indeed, the president never stops talking about the importance of education while his administration wages an unrelenting war against public education on behalf of the financial and corporate interests that are setting out to destroy it.

As for the president’s dedication to a “vibrant middle class” Van Roekel must be referring to the upper-middle-class managers who run the American trade unions. The NEA president made $397,721 in total compensation last year, nearly six times the salary of an average public school teacher.

As for rank-and-file teachers, the president has only shown a dedication to destroying their jobs and living standards and to vilify them for poor student performance that is largely the result of poverty and decades of school cuts.

Hardly a day goes by without a report of some new attack on teachers and public education. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, since August of 2008 over 200,000 positions in local school districts have been eliminated. Another 227,000 teachers and staff face the axe in 2011-12, according to the American Association of School Administrators.

In school districts like Detroit—“Ground Zero” in the president’s campaign for school “reform”—dozens of schools have been closed or turned over to privately operated charter schools. Throughout the country teachers have been victimized, forced to take pay cuts, work longer hours without additional compensation, and suffer layoffs as a result of budget cuts.

President Obama applauded the decision of school authorities in Rhode Island to fire all of the teachers and staff at Central Falls High School when they rejected a “turnaround” plan that would have involved major concessions, saying the school board was “showing courage and doing the right thing for kids.”
Arne Duncan, Obama’s Secretary of Education and the author of that turnaround plan, has been charged with implementing this model all over the country after overseeing its expansion in Chicago when he was the Chicago Public Schools CEO.

Many states have now implemented education “reform” bills, designed to win money from Obama’s Race to the Top program, by implementing teacher evaluations based on student test scores, eliminating teacher tenure, lowering the standards for teacher education, expanding the use of charter schools, and carrying out mass firings at so-called poorly performing schools. The result has been a disaster, with masses of students displaced and tens of thousands of teachers out of work.

In this attack, the NEA and the other major teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), have been full partners. Far from opposing the destruction of public education, the NEA and AFT executives fully agree that the working class must pay for the economic crisis and the systematic transfer of wealth into the hands of the financial elite carried out by Republicans and Democrats alike.

In private, NEA officials told teachers Obama is the “lesser evil” compared to the Republicans. But the Obama administration has gone further in attacking the rights and living standards of teachers than any Republican administration. The NEA endorsement of Obama is motivated solely by the narrow institutional concerns of the labor apparatus.

Unlike the Republicans—who have sought to destroy or circumvent the unions—the Democratic Party has utilized the services of the NEA and AFT to implement its attacks. By continuing to lavish tens of millions in campaign contributions on this big business party, the labor bureaucracy hopes to preserve its legal and financial interests, especially its ability to deduct dues from teachers’ dwindling paychecks. While imposing pay cuts on its members, the NEA voted at the convention to raise the level of union dues.

The NEA delegates also voted to support “teacher evaluation” methods based on student achievement, which have been used to facilitate the firing of educators across the country. In doing so, the NEA said it wanted to play a greater role in determining which teachers would be terminated.

The NEA and AFT are thoroughly hostile to the interests of teachers. When teachers spearheaded a fight against Republican Governor Scott Walker’s anti-worker bill in Wisconsin, the NEA-affiliated Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) worked with the Democrats to sabotage the struggle. It then rushed to sign contract extensions that gave up everything—freezing wages, requiring higher pension contributions and introducing health insurance payments—in return for the continued collection of union dues.

In Illinois, the NEA and AFT collaborated with the Democratic-controlled state government in crafting the “reform” legislation known as Senate Bill 7, which imposes longer school workdays and years without compensation, facilitates the firing of teachers and all but criminalizes the right to strike. Again, however, the labor managers maintain a “seat at the table” to impose these attacks.

Although the NEA is the first union to endorse Obama, it is only the first of what will be many endorsements. The Democratic Party is thoroughly right-wing and anti-worker, but for the union officialdom this is something they can live with, since the Democrats employ their services to push through their agenda.

Some concern was voiced among delegates about the endorsement of Obama, given the record of attacks. Clearly sensing the unease among some of the delegates, Vice President Joe Biden gave a demagogic speech saying any differences with the union were “more a fight within the family” than a fundamental disagreement.

The NEA endorsement underscores the necessity for teachers and all those that oppose the attack on public education to break with this rotten organization, and develop a political movement—based on a socialist program—to fight the Obama administration and the capitalist system, which it defends.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jul2011/neas-j06.shtml

Ok, this one's funny


CandidateObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/CandidateObama) Barack H. Obama II by Antiwarcom
Didn't get your #AskObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskObama) question answered by the President? #AskCandidateObama (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23AskCandidateObama) instead.
3 minutes ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/CandidateObama/status/88708440423276544)

What timing. I was just reading this

Sandy_English (http://twitter.com/#%21/Sandy_English) Sandy English
World Socialist Web Site: US teachers’ union endorses Obama for 2012 election http://dld.bz/afFxZ #edchat (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23edchat) #edreform (http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23edreform)
8 minutes ago (http://twitter.com/#%21/Sandy_English/status/88700031296741376)



Yeah. I'm in the other big union, AFT, but I don't doubt that we're going to walk straight off that plank too when the time comes. It's really hard watching your own side shoot itself in the ass. But I guess the pain has to reach past steerage up into the second and first class cabins for the power brokers to finally acknowledge what the rest of us already know. We've hit the iceberg.

Like in Titanic, where they locked all the steerage in the hull to drown?

Hang on to your life vest, we're sinking fast


President Obama openly acknowledged underestimating the length and magnitude of the worst recession since the Great Depression in a response to a question during his Twitter town hall.

Always a tough question to answer, Obama was asked what mistakes he made in handling the economic crisis and what he would have done differently looking back on his first months in office.

Obama freely admitted that he would have tried to do a better job explaining "to the American people it was going to take a while to get out of this."

"Even I didn't realize the magnitude -- because most economists didn't realize the magnitude -- of the recession until" it was many months into his presidency, Obama said Wednesday.

The question came via a tweet during the President's online town hall Wednesday, in which he responded verbally via a video livestream to questions posed to him via the hashtag #AskObama. Obama began the virtual town hall held in the White House's East Room by sending out one tweeted question to himself on a computer set off to the side -- an apparent attempt to respond to criticism that he would not actually be tweeting responses to the questions streaming in via Twitter.


"In order to reduce the deficit, what costs would you cut and what investments would you keep?" he asked himself in an effort to set the tone and keep the discussion focused on jobs and the economy and which federal programs should be on the chopping block.
Aside from underestimating the scope of the recession, Obama said he didn't respond aggressively enough to the crisis in the nation's housing market, which fueled much of the downturn and continues to plague the U.S. economy.


"The continuing decline in the housing market is something that hasn't bottomed out," he said, noting that the administration is "going back to the drawing board" to figure out new ways to help the housing sector and encourage banks to modify more mortgages.
But Obama defended the $830 billion stimulus package he shepherded after talking office, deeming it "absolutely the right thing to do" in order to help states and rebuild the country's infrastructure, something he said he would like to expand despite GOP opposition.
Twitter and select Twitter users from around the country chose the questions the President was asked, including on from Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) that asked him, "After embarking on a record spending binge that has left us deeper in the debt, where are the jobs?"


Obama took a shot at the partisan nature of the question from his political rival.


"This is a slightly skewed question," Obama said before going on to answer it by denying its premise. Obama said the country has produced more jobs in recent months -- just not as quickly as Congress would like. He also said he would like to try to boost the economy by investing in more national infrastructure projects that would get constructions workers -- one of the hardest-hit sectors -- back to work but Republicans have so far rebuffed more stimulus spending.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/obama-i-underestimated-magnitude-of-the-recession.php?ref=fpblg

I can't read, cut and paste these. It's moving too quickly. #1 comment is what a sham this is. Obama's just giving one long infomercial about what a great job he's doing. The underlying message is that if we just tighten your belts a little more, it won't hurt so much and we'll appreciate how dazzling the bullshit is.


And that's good enough a fig leaf for the believers. Listening to him explain this country's foreign aid is nauseating and now he's on NPR too and jesus this guy is such a tool.

The true believers must not be feeling the pain much at all. So there can't be that many of them. If they can be satisfied with the rhetoric, they can have a clean conscience, meanwhile the people who are supposedly benefiting from x, y, or z program are just sinking deeper and deeper into poverty while the working class as a whole sees it's wages benefits and job security shrinking. I don't understand how people can be so disconnected from reality. But I guess that's why party politics for so many people is like a religion. They just have to believe that these things are happening (hope and change and whatever they are). They can't even see it, the actual conditions around the world and how it came to be this way. And if you point it out you are just being negative.

I have a really hard time engaging with people about poliltics who see things that way. Which is tough to avoid in this town.

Anyway, it's much easier to just believe when you are cozy and comfy. The pain is spreading and the dazzle will fade and lose more meaning as it does. Ooops. There I go being negative.

The true believers must not be feeling the pain much at all.

The pain is spreading and the dazzle will fade and lose more meaning as it does. Ooops. There I go being negative.

Well the pain is really spreading today with the announcement of the Obamarama Entitlement Kabuki. The list of people I ignore on a democrat forum is up to 543, in real life I can't engage with them either. But ooops, I guess I'm just not *hope*ful either.


The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

Washington's Farewell Address 1796

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp

We got different sort of politics aroound here, one mile north of my shop:




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjntjPoBjcA&feature=player_embedded

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/05/137554737/campaigning-in-south-carolina-bring-your-appetite

Seems like I always miss this stuff but I'm gonna make a greater effort to stay on top of things, if only for the freak show and maybe a cheap shot, dunno if anything constructive is possible. Suggestions welcome.

http://bp0.blogger.com/_DofLEXUVwIE/R57IrLOgV5I/AAAAAAAADH8/8AKW0T7hIwA/s400/AndrewKinard110207.jpg