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PoliGAF Thread of PRESIDENT OBAMA Checkin' Off His List
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krypt0nian
Banned
bishoptl said:
He's constantly telling us not to post news about DADT. I got fed up. I'll edit if you want but the feeling will always be there.
speculawyer
Member
Do not click on this link. Reid will try to put you to sleep. Amazingly dull. Franken then takes over the tag-team of blandness. He is very earnest but amazingly dull.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ1WEzxKPy0
I can mock Palin as much as I want, but at least she is interesting.
(Well, Franken can be very interesting too but I guess he is trying to start off with humility and seriousness.)
Edit: Maybe it is a very subtle attempt to show he is the opposite of Palin . . . instead of resigning in an amusing incoherent rambling speech, he is taking office with a dull straight to the point speech.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ1WEzxKPy0
I can mock Palin as much as I want, but at least she is interesting.
(Well, Franken can be very interesting too but I guess he is trying to start off with humility and seriousness.)
Edit: Maybe it is a very subtle attempt to show he is the opposite of Palin . . . instead of resigning in an amusing incoherent rambling speech, he is taking office with a dull straight to the point speech.
and here is CNN's article about GOP Mitch McConnell's speech on Canadian health care system. Lots of videos also from the link as well so I hope you guys watch them !
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/06/canadian.health.care.system/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/06/canadian.health.care.system/index.html
Deus Ex Machina
Member
PHOTOS Russia, Day One (July 6)
First Lady Michelle Obama meets with Russian First Lady Svetlana Medvedeva
:lol
Right: Svetlana Medvedeva, Michelle Obama and Yelena Gagarina, director of the Kremlin museums and daughter of the first man in space Yuri Gagarin
Left: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev shows his office to U.S. President Barack Obama at the Gorki residence outside Moscow, Russia
First Lady Michelle Obama meets with Russian First Lady Svetlana Medvedeva
:lol
Right: Svetlana Medvedeva, Michelle Obama and Yelena Gagarina, director of the Kremlin museums and daughter of the first man in space Yuri Gagarin
Left: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev shows his office to U.S. President Barack Obama at the Gorki residence outside Moscow, Russia
According to breaking news from swedish media, USA and Russia have agreed on several important terms already that brings the countries closer. One of the things that was agreed on is that USA is now allowed to fly troops and weaponry over russian airspace, holy shit.
Obama is a genius.
Obama is a genius.
Specifically this only applies to missions in Afghanistan, and Russia has apparently agreed to waive the normal reams of paperwork and cost that come with this. They're still quite a ways apart on the missile shield (Medvedev arguing that even a defensive system has a latent offensive threat).darkwings said:
SouthernDragon
Member
A question on healthcare:
People who argue against UHC because they'd be paying for someone else's procedure... aren't they doing that already through their health coverage?
People who argue against UHC because they'd be paying for someone else's procedure... aren't they doing that already through their health coverage?
From what I've read there aren't - the two have a mutual interest in ensuring Afghanistan's stability. There was also a general agreement on nuclear arms reduction, which also (hopefully) ties into greater Russian assistance with both North Korea and Iran.Gaborn said:
FlightOfHeaven said:
I think the difference there is typically their coverage has exactly what rights they have spelled out, so they know things that their insurance does and does not cover for them, and they also know what illnesses and conditions other people with their insurance may not have to receive coverage (pre-existing conditions for example which significantly raises risks and therefore costs for insurance providers. That's why "better" insurance is usually more restrictive as to who can and cannot be covered, because that keeps costs down for other people on their plan.
FlightOfHeaven said:
It's a red herring. US already spends considerable tax dollars in a patchwork of healthcare solutions that lacks the buying power or the centralization of a UHC system.
No one is arguing for nationalizing hospitals, but the way resources should be directed can be done better than the way its being done now.
FlightOfHeaven said:
They are doing it with their tax dollars. On average the US pays almost 3 times as much per household to subsidize wages and pay for uninsured ER visits than countries with UHC do. The people that are against UHC are oxymoron(s) in the fact that they are against something that they are actually for, and for something (discretely), that they stand against. UHC would allow some of the people who are mooching on the system to pay a portion of their own costs into a pool, and less tax dollars would be spent needlessly.
Deus Ex Machina
Member
Bullying people never works.darkwings said:
speculawyer
Member
We kill those fucking Taliban jerks that killed so many Russian solidiers a few decades back.Gaborn said:
Also, some specific trade agreements, currently "only" worth $1.5b but are beind used as a start to more open and expansive trade.scorcho said:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/31759819
Also, one benefit of the shorter air travel:
And by shaving time off current transit routes, the White House expects the deal to save $133 million a year on fuel and other costs.
Mercury Fred
Banned
I put Door2Dawn on my ignore list ages ago. I recommend the same. He's rarely quoted so you can go free of seeing anything he posts pretty easilykrypt0nian said:
But I agree about people whining about what's allowed to be posted in here or not. Sometimes I wonder if it would make more sense to have a PoliGAF thread and a separate Official Obama Appreciation Thread.
GoutPatrol
Forgotten in his cell
Hootie said:Whoa whoa whoa, Robert McNamara died today?
RIP
In many ways a brilliant policy creator, in many ways a terrible human being.
maximum360
Member
gluv65 said:
That was great. I never thought I'd ever see something like this on Fox News.
:lol
WickedAngel
Banned
Sleeker said:
That page was just a bastion of enlightenment.
charlequin
Banned
Mercury Fred said:
Well, I encourage you (and everyone) to continue posting whatever stories are, indeed, political (which quite obviously includes stories about gay rights) in this thread, whether they're positive about the Prez or not.
Telecoms Face Antitrust Threat by Amol Sharma
The Department of Justice has begun looking into whether large U.S. telecommunications companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are abusing the market power they have amassed in recent years, according to people familiar with the matter.
The review, while in its early stages, is an indication of the Obama administration's aggressive stance on antitrust enforcement. The Justice Department's antitrust chief, Christine Varney, has said she wants to reassert the government's role in policing monopolistic and anticompetitive practices by powerful companies.
The law that covers such behavior, the Sherman Antitrust Act, has been used in the past against giants ranging from Standard Oil to Microsoft Corp. It lay essentially dormant during the Bush years, with the agency bringing no major case. The telecom industry is among several sectors now coming under scrutiny. Others include health care and agriculture.
The Justice Department is already cracking down on certain agreements. It recently filed an objection to plans by airlines in the global Star Alliance to cooperate more closely on international routes and fares. It has targeted payments large pharmaceutical producers sometimes make to generic-drug makers to delay cheap copies of medicines. In addition, Ms. Varney is investigating Google Inc.'s settlement with authors and publishers over its Book Search product.
The telecom review isn't a formal investigation of any specific company, and it isn't clear it will ever become one. The review is expected to cover all areas from land-line voice and broadband service to wireless.
One area that might be explored is whether big wireless carriers are hurting smaller rivals by locking up popular phones through exclusive agreements with handset makers. Lawmakers and regulators have raised questions about deals such as AT&T's exclusive right to provide service for Apple Inc.'s iPhone in the U.S. Big carriers say limiting exclusive deals would hurt innovation.
The department also may review whether telecom carriers are unduly restricting the types of services other companies can offer on their networks, one person familiar with the situation said. Public-interest groups have complained when carriers limit access to Internet calling services such as Skype.
Through a spate of consolidation and organic growth, AT&T and Verizon have become the two dominant players and have a great deal of clout with equipment makers. Combined, they have 90 million land-line customers and 60% of the 274 million U.S. wireless subscribers. They operate large portions of the Internet backbone.
Past antitrust regulation played a major role in shaping the telecom sector. The U.S. pursued a landmark antitrust case against AT&T, resulting in the 1984 breakup of the "Ma Bell" telephone monopoly into regional carriers. One of those, SBC Communications Inc., later led a merger roll-up, and by 2006 had reconstituted the giant now known as AT&T Inc.
Verizon, created in 2000 in a merger of GTE Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp., bulked up through deals such as its 2006 acquisition of MCI Inc. Its wireless unit, a joint venture with Vodafone Group PLC, acquired Alltel Corp. early this year.
Some antitrust experts said the U.S. would have a tough time opening a Sherman Act case against telecom providers and showing a company was abusing market power. "It would be a very hard case to make," said Donald Russell, a Washington attorney who reviewed a number of telecom mergers as a DOJ antitrust lawyer in the Clinton Administration. "You don't have any firm that's in a dominant position."
"Investigations don't necessarily lead to court cases," said Ketan Jhaveri, an attorney with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP who once worked on the Justice Department's telecom antitrust task force. He noted that antimonopoly litigation consumes a lot of resources.
"What you'll probably see is a lot of investigations opened, but they'll bring cases where they have the best shot of succeeding in litigation and clarifying the law," Mr. Jhaveri said. He added that the scrutiny itself might help deter anticompetitive behavior, even if suits aren't filed.
Harold Feld, from the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, said the telecom review reflects the Obama administration's philosophy on antitrust. Traditionally, he said, the government has tried to show that a single firm had monopolistic power; but Mr. Feld said it is possible for more than one company to exercise monopoly-like power in sectors like telecom. He argued Verizon and AT&T had thrown around their weight in a variety of ways, from gobbling up radio spectrum to charging high fees for other companies to connect to their networks.
Major telecom companies say the industry is very competitive, both in land lines, where cable and phone companies are dueling fiercely, and in the wireless sector, where there are four major national carriers. They also argue that regulation of specific areas of telecom, including exclusive handset deals, would harm innovation.
The debate over exclusive handset deals has been escalating. The Federal Communications Commission said last month it will investigate them. That followed a congressional hearing that spotlighted the complaints of small carriers that said they are being shut out.
"This is the outcome of indifference on the part of the government to the concentration of power in the hands of a few," said Jack Rooney, chief executive of Chicago-based U.S. Cellular, in a recent interview. U.S. Cellular has 6.2 million customers, mostly in rural areas.
AT&T, with the iPhone deal, isn't alone in striking exclusive arrangements. Verizon is the exclusive provider of Research in Motion Ltd.'s touch-screen BlackBerry Storm in the U.S. Sprint Nextel Corp. will be the only carrier with the Palm Inc. Pre until early next year.
The carriers say such exclusives enable them to take risks on expensive new smart phones and bring them to market at discounted prices. The deals limit the ability of manufacturers such as Palm, Apple and HTC Corp. to distribute their devices widely. But some analysts say those companies benefit by getting a significant share of a carrier's marketing and sales resources.
"If you are launching an absolutely new product to the market, pairing up with a Tier 1 carrier gives you instant visibility and buzz and a first-rate marketing campaign," said Andy Castonguay, a wireless analyst at Yankee Group.
Paul Roth, AT&T's president of retail sales and service, told Congress last month that the billions of dollars the company invests in its network and services would be put at risk if government were to "impose intrusive restrictions on these services or the way that service providers and manufacturers collaborate on next-generation devices." Mr. Roth said there is plenty of competition and innovation in the wireless industry.
Verizon said it has tried to negotiate deals with some small rural carriers, including Cellular South, on certain handsets made by LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., but the sides haven't been able to agree on final terms. "In the absence of regulation and political interest, we are showing that we're willing to change our business relationship with rural carriers," said a Verizon Wireless spokesman, Jeffrey Nelson.
Jon Muleta, former wireless bureau chief of the FCC, said exclusive handset deals won't be an issue the government can pursue on antitrust grounds unless major handset makers say they're being forced into the deals. "The equipment providers enter into these deals willingly," Mr. Muleta said.
Elizabeth Williamson contributed to this article.
The Department of Justice has begun looking into whether large U.S. telecommunications companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are abusing the market power they have amassed in recent years, according to people familiar with the matter.
The review, while in its early stages, is an indication of the Obama administration's aggressive stance on antitrust enforcement. The Justice Department's antitrust chief, Christine Varney, has said she wants to reassert the government's role in policing monopolistic and anticompetitive practices by powerful companies.
The law that covers such behavior, the Sherman Antitrust Act, has been used in the past against giants ranging from Standard Oil to Microsoft Corp. It lay essentially dormant during the Bush years, with the agency bringing no major case. The telecom industry is among several sectors now coming under scrutiny. Others include health care and agriculture.
The Justice Department is already cracking down on certain agreements. It recently filed an objection to plans by airlines in the global Star Alliance to cooperate more closely on international routes and fares. It has targeted payments large pharmaceutical producers sometimes make to generic-drug makers to delay cheap copies of medicines. In addition, Ms. Varney is investigating Google Inc.'s settlement with authors and publishers over its Book Search product.
The telecom review isn't a formal investigation of any specific company, and it isn't clear it will ever become one. The review is expected to cover all areas from land-line voice and broadband service to wireless.
One area that might be explored is whether big wireless carriers are hurting smaller rivals by locking up popular phones through exclusive agreements with handset makers. Lawmakers and regulators have raised questions about deals such as AT&T's exclusive right to provide service for Apple Inc.'s iPhone in the U.S. Big carriers say limiting exclusive deals would hurt innovation.
The department also may review whether telecom carriers are unduly restricting the types of services other companies can offer on their networks, one person familiar with the situation said. Public-interest groups have complained when carriers limit access to Internet calling services such as Skype.
Through a spate of consolidation and organic growth, AT&T and Verizon have become the two dominant players and have a great deal of clout with equipment makers. Combined, they have 90 million land-line customers and 60% of the 274 million U.S. wireless subscribers. They operate large portions of the Internet backbone.
Past antitrust regulation played a major role in shaping the telecom sector. The U.S. pursued a landmark antitrust case against AT&T, resulting in the 1984 breakup of the "Ma Bell" telephone monopoly into regional carriers. One of those, SBC Communications Inc., later led a merger roll-up, and by 2006 had reconstituted the giant now known as AT&T Inc.
Verizon, created in 2000 in a merger of GTE Corp. and Bell Atlantic Corp., bulked up through deals such as its 2006 acquisition of MCI Inc. Its wireless unit, a joint venture with Vodafone Group PLC, acquired Alltel Corp. early this year.
Some antitrust experts said the U.S. would have a tough time opening a Sherman Act case against telecom providers and showing a company was abusing market power. "It would be a very hard case to make," said Donald Russell, a Washington attorney who reviewed a number of telecom mergers as a DOJ antitrust lawyer in the Clinton Administration. "You don't have any firm that's in a dominant position."
"Investigations don't necessarily lead to court cases," said Ketan Jhaveri, an attorney with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP who once worked on the Justice Department's telecom antitrust task force. He noted that antimonopoly litigation consumes a lot of resources.
"What you'll probably see is a lot of investigations opened, but they'll bring cases where they have the best shot of succeeding in litigation and clarifying the law," Mr. Jhaveri said. He added that the scrutiny itself might help deter anticompetitive behavior, even if suits aren't filed.
Harold Feld, from the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, said the telecom review reflects the Obama administration's philosophy on antitrust. Traditionally, he said, the government has tried to show that a single firm had monopolistic power; but Mr. Feld said it is possible for more than one company to exercise monopoly-like power in sectors like telecom. He argued Verizon and AT&T had thrown around their weight in a variety of ways, from gobbling up radio spectrum to charging high fees for other companies to connect to their networks.
Major telecom companies say the industry is very competitive, both in land lines, where cable and phone companies are dueling fiercely, and in the wireless sector, where there are four major national carriers. They also argue that regulation of specific areas of telecom, including exclusive handset deals, would harm innovation.
The debate over exclusive handset deals has been escalating. The Federal Communications Commission said last month it will investigate them. That followed a congressional hearing that spotlighted the complaints of small carriers that said they are being shut out.
"This is the outcome of indifference on the part of the government to the concentration of power in the hands of a few," said Jack Rooney, chief executive of Chicago-based U.S. Cellular, in a recent interview. U.S. Cellular has 6.2 million customers, mostly in rural areas.
AT&T, with the iPhone deal, isn't alone in striking exclusive arrangements. Verizon is the exclusive provider of Research in Motion Ltd.'s touch-screen BlackBerry Storm in the U.S. Sprint Nextel Corp. will be the only carrier with the Palm Inc. Pre until early next year.
The carriers say such exclusives enable them to take risks on expensive new smart phones and bring them to market at discounted prices. The deals limit the ability of manufacturers such as Palm, Apple and HTC Corp. to distribute their devices widely. But some analysts say those companies benefit by getting a significant share of a carrier's marketing and sales resources.
"If you are launching an absolutely new product to the market, pairing up with a Tier 1 carrier gives you instant visibility and buzz and a first-rate marketing campaign," said Andy Castonguay, a wireless analyst at Yankee Group.
Paul Roth, AT&T's president of retail sales and service, told Congress last month that the billions of dollars the company invests in its network and services would be put at risk if government were to "impose intrusive restrictions on these services or the way that service providers and manufacturers collaborate on next-generation devices." Mr. Roth said there is plenty of competition and innovation in the wireless industry.
Verizon said it has tried to negotiate deals with some small rural carriers, including Cellular South, on certain handsets made by LG Electronics Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., but the sides haven't been able to agree on final terms. "In the absence of regulation and political interest, we are showing that we're willing to change our business relationship with rural carriers," said a Verizon Wireless spokesman, Jeffrey Nelson.
Jon Muleta, former wireless bureau chief of the FCC, said exclusive handset deals won't be an issue the government can pursue on antitrust grounds unless major handset makers say they're being forced into the deals. "The equipment providers enter into these deals willingly," Mr. Muleta said.
Elizabeth Williamson contributed to this article.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
Nobody better be stifling my gays!
And nobody better take away my Baracky picture time!
I love my chocolate Jesus President.
*swoons*
And nobody better take away my Baracky picture time!
I love my chocolate Jesus President.
*swoons*
speculawyer
Member
Sleeker said:
Meh:
speculawyer
Member
Double-post
Aaron Strife
Banned
Breaking news!Sleeker said:
A member of the Republican party is actually racist!
speculawyer
Member
:lolreilo said:
Hmm . . . sounds familiar.
Edit: Hey . . . if you want to to some anti-trust work, why not break up those banks that are "Too big to fail". Any entity that is so big that we will not let it fail should be broken up into smaller pieces.
platypotamus
Member
Mercury Fred said:I put Door2Dawn on my ignore list ages ago. I recommend the same. He's rarely quoted so you can go free of seeing anything he posts pretty easily
But I agree about people whining about what's allowed to be posted in here or not. Sometimes I wonder if it would make more sense to have a PoliGAF thread and a separate Official Obama Appreciation Thread.
For the record, I appreciate the updates on DADT. I'm also a bit impatient for positive change on the issue, though I think I'm a bit more optimistic about it than you are.
Also, more antitrust investigations! Break that shit up!
Deus Ex Machina
Member
PHOTOS Moving In.
James Pogue installs the name plate of Sen. elect Al Franken (D-MN) on his new office in the Hart Senate Office building on Capitol Hill July 6, 2009 in Washington, DC.
James Pogue installs the name plate of Sen. elect Al Franken (D-MN) on his new office in the Hart Senate Office building on Capitol Hill July 6, 2009 in Washington, DC.
Ignis Fatuus
Banned
I was thinking the same thing. I mean, wow.Tamanon said:
speculawyer
Member
Yeah, I don't think that is much of a case either. I just thought it was a little ironic to see AT&T back in anti-trust trouble.Tamanon said:
It would be nice to see some anti-trust enforcement . . . but the cellphone market looks competitive enough with both service providers (AT&T, verizon, sprint, T-Mobile, etc.) and even more competitive in the handset makers & phone OS arena.
speculawyer
Member
Is that the same level of respect you show to our Federal Employees in the military?laserbeam said:
charlequin
Banned
Killthee said:
Fixed.
polyh3dron
Banned
So, Rush Limbaugh has now called armed insurrection of the US government and Glenn Beck has wished for the deaths of thousands of Americans, both on nationally broadcast talk shows. Why have they not been arrested yet.
speculawyer
Member
Because they are douchebags that hardly anyone takes seriously.polyh3dron said:
But how can they continue to be such total douchebags knowing that there are some people that that their words seriously. You hate Obama? Fine. But careful what you ask for . . .
polyh3dron
Banned
Yeah but you'd have to be a douchebag to say shit like they have said, and said shit is illegal. I know we have the first amendment and all that but you still can't yell "fire" in a movie theater and that pales in comparison.speculawyer said:
I didn't hear what Rush said but Glenn Becks's statement was rather humorous.polyh3dron said:
I mean, what really has changed outside of stupid semantic word games over what we call the "war on terror" and I guess we're going to stop waterboarding people who've been held for the better part of a decade.
Besides that, what's really changed on the war on terror? Unless one of these Guantanamo douchebags has some skinny on a 5 year in the making plot that miraculously hasn't changed and was finally going to spill the beans after the 88th waterboarding, getting attacked now would probably be the same as getting attacked on Bush's watch.
The whole circular logic that Beck displayed was great. I mean, only Osama can save us, by successfully attacking us so we have to be more aggressive because if no one ever attacks us we'll be vulnerable. Wow. The idea that Osama would purposely not attack us so that we'd remain unsafe is fucking gold.
What does a terrorist do? Attack the weak country because it's vulnerable and send a message or not attack the vulnerable country so that it remains vulnerable? Such a dilemma.
Perhaps Osama never wanted to attack the US successfully in the first place, he merely wants us vulnerable enough so that he could attack, if he wished it.
And Beck looked so sad, like if Osama never ever attacked us again and the US went for hundreds of years without a terrorist attack that it'd be the worst thing ever.
It made for some really shocking TV that's for sure. You'd think for someone so budget conscious that he'd celebrate no longer needing to spend so much money since Osama's too smart to fall for the vulnerable America trick twice.
Fuck though, that fake concerned, on the verge of crying, forced look of his really pisses me off. It should be pieces of shit like him running around in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So what did Rush say?
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