Reply #31: Thanks for the back up, and here's my counter on your inititial post..... [View All]

[FrenchieCat]

"We still hold prisoners at GITMO without the benefit of trial."

Yeah.....its a work in progress, but it isn't what it was, and is moving in the righ direction.
or else we wouldn't have headlines like this:


Gitmo Detainees Intend to Plead Not Guilty in U.S. Court
November 23, 2009
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/11/gitmo-detainees-intend-to-plead-not-guilty-in-us-court.html

Although Congress denied him the funding to close Quatanamo, he is finding a way around it.

"We still send prisoners to secret locations in different countries to be tortured."

Barack Obama Campaign Promise No. 176:
End the use of extreme rendition
"From both a moral standpoint and a practical standpoint, torture is wrong. Barack Obama will end the use torture without exception. He also will eliminate the practice of extreme rendition, where we outsource our torture to other countries."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/176/end-the-use-of-extreme-rendition/

If Barack Obama is ordering extreme rendition of prisoners to other countries for torture, than you have the basis for his impeachment, but your source on this is quite shaky, at best.

"We have done nothing to help the people in the Sudan."



Sudan: Obama Team Launches 'Calibrated' Policy to Tackle Dual Conflicts
Reed Kramer
25 October 2009
Washington, DC — After protracted debate, the Obama administration last week rolled out a policy blueprint for Sudan, Africa's largest country in land area. The policy is designed to address the challenge of bringing peace to the oil-producing nation that has experienced both a long-running civil war between northern and southern areas and a humanitarian crisis in the western Darfur region, where the violence has been widely labeled as genocide.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200910260014.html




Sudan: Obama Sudan Strategy Hailed By Africa Policy Specialists
Jim Fisher-Thompson
9 November 2009

Diplomats and Africa policy specialists are hailing the Obama administration's new policy toward Sudan as a practical approach to stopping violence in Sudan's Darfur region while preserving a peace accord that ended the nation's 22-year civil war in 2005.

At the October 19 unveiling of the new strategy, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, "It reflects the administration's seriousness, sense of urgency, and collective agreement about how best to address the complex challenges that have prevented resolution of the crisis in Darfur and full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement ."

Key elements of the CPA include sharing power at the national level between the predominantly Muslim North and Christian South Sudan for six years, an equal distribution of oil wealth and a referendum in the South in 2011 on the question of secession from Sudan.

The Obama plan calls for a greater dialogue among the United States, international partners and Sudan to end the Khartoum government's support of attacks in Darfur and spur implementation of the CPA while pressing the Sudanese to get tougher on terrorism. The Obama strategy includes potential sanctions if certain benchmarks to progress that remain classified are not met.

Terming the strategy "smart, tough and balanced," Susan Rice, U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, said at an October 19 State Department briefing in Washington that she hoped the Khartoum government would appreciate the need for urgency because "for years, paths to peace have been littered with broken promises and unfulfilled commitments by the government of Sudan." (See "Clinton, Amb. Rice and Special Envoy Gration on Sudan Strategy.")

David Shinn, a U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia in the mid-1990s, also lauded the new strategy, telling America.gov it "properly recognizes several inescapable facts."

Steve Morrison, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Jennifer Cooke, director of the CSIS Africa Program, in a recent policy paper, captured the sentiment of many in the nongovernmental organization community who like the new strategy's focus on multilateralism.

This approach "places the United States in greater alignment with critical international partners concerned with Sudan -- the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, France and key African partners -- and opens the way for greater collaboration and consensus building with China and other key global powers," they wrote.

Morrison and Cooke say the collaboration, which fits with the Obama administration's emphasis on a "smarter" more multilateral-oriented diplomacy, "also has the benefit of strengthening the credibility and effectiveness of any pressures the United States might bring to bear... key Sudanese actors."
http://allafrica.com/stories/200911100066.html

"Hell we have done nothing to help people who are in the midst of foreclosures.

He's not the Messiah, and no, he doesn't walk on water!

Still....

Obama administration expands mortgage foreclosure help

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is throwing a new lifeline to homeowners facing foreclosure who are ineligible for its current aid programs. The enhancements announced Thursday include:
•Foreclosure alternatives. Homeowners unable to qualify for a modification to their mortgage will see a more streamlined process for pursuing short sales and deeds-in-lieu-of-foreclosures, which transfer a home back to the lender. The goal is to help homeowners avoid a foreclosure that could severely lower their credit score.

A short sale is when a home is sold for less than the balance of the mortgage, but lenders consider the debt paid off.

•Protections against falling home prices. New incentives will be offered to help spur loan modifications in areas where home prices have fallen the most and lenders fear that they'll keep falling. The incentives are designed to partly offset investor losses on the mortgages, and encourage loan modifications instead of foreclosures. A total of $10 billion in incentives could be paid to lenders, mortgage servicers and investors to modify loans.

Since the housing rescue plan started in March, the government has extended more than 55,000 loan modifications to qualifying borrowers.

The Obama administration has said it expects to help up to 9 million homeowners.

But the complexity of the program has made for a slow start and foreclosures have risen as moratoriums expired. The number of households facing foreclosure rose 32% in April from April last year, RealtyTrac says.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-05-14-administration-housing-mortgages_N.htm

-------------
Thu Oct 22, 2009
The government's other effort to stem foreclosures, the Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, helps homeowners who are current on their mortgages but owe more than their homes are worth, get more affordable loans.

As of September 1, the watchdog report said, HAMP had helped arrange 1,711 permanent mortgage modifications, with an additional 362,348 borrowers in a three-month trial stage. HARP has closed 95,729 mortgage refinancings, it said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/gc03/idUSTRE59L5V120091022
--------------
Obama’s Program to Help Homeowners With Foreclosures is Progressing
Posted on November 12, 2009

The US economy is going through a turbulent phase. Unemployment is at its peak and as people lose jobs, they are faltering on mortgage payments. Hence, foreclosures have become common. The Federal government has come up with a $75 billion scheme to help homeowners. As a part of this program, homeowners would get assistance that would help them to modify loans.

For quite sometime, the homeowners had complained that the program has been riddled with bureaucratic bungles. There is confusion as lenders became swamped with calls from innumerable homeowners. However, the Obama administration is now confident that the program has at last gathered steam. It has put pressure on companies to move quickly so that more homeowners are helped.
Now 500,000 homeowners have had their loans modified as part of the program. Loan payments have now been lowered faster. Roughly 40 per cent of the total 1.2 million homeowners have received help so far.

It is an important development that so many families are getting assistance. This is driving down their housing cost. However, economists are not very sure if the program would stabilize the housing sector in the future.
http://www.governmentrepohomes.com/blog/foreclosure/obama%E2%80%99s-program-help-homeowners-with-foreclosures-progressing/

"That "credit card" bill was the biggest insult of all...while we bail out banks with interest free loans from the taxpayers, we continue to allow them to loanshark their customers."

Establish a credit card bill of rights
The credit card bill of rights would "ban unilateral changes ... apply interest rate increases only to future debt ... prohibit interest on fees ... prohibit 'universal defaults' (whereby a credit card raises its rates because the consumer was late paying a different creditor ... require prompt and fair crediting of cardholder payments."



The bill passed and Obama signed it on May 22, 2009, despite worries from the banking industry that it would reduce credit availability during the economic crisis. In large part, the law fulfills Obama's campaign pledge: It prevents creditors from imposing arbitrary rate increases on customers, it prohibits most rate increases meant to penalize consumers for late payments on unrelated accounts, and it requires companies to post credit agreements on the Internet, among other things.

The bill falls short when it comes to a prohibition of interest on the fees card companies charge consumers if they go over their credit limit or fail to pay their bills on time. But this omission is not considered significant by consumer advocates. They say the measure goes a long way in reforming the credit industry. For example, most people pay more than their minimum payment every month. That extra cash will now go toward paying down card balances associated with the line of credit, said Lauren Saunders who works for the National Consumer Law Center.

Another example: The new law prevents companies from raising interest rates on existing balances unless the bill goes unpaid for more than 60 days.

"That's a big win," said Ed Mierzwinski of U.S. Public Interest Research Groups. "It gets rid of any 'gotcha' tricks."

Obama promised voters a credit card bill of rights that prevents arbitrary rate hikes and makes contracts clear, and nearly every line of the new law matches Obama's pledge. Even though the law does not prohibit interest on fees, consumer advocates who have spent years lobbying on the issue say the bill represents a major step forward for consumers. As a result, we give Obama a Promise Kept.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/33/establish-a-credit-card-bill-of-rights/

"We are stuck with two wars that are draining our economy. It has to stop.


On IRAQ:

Obama sets date for withdrawal of troops from Iraq
Updated: Friday, February 27th, 2009 | By Robert Farley

"Today, I have come to speak to you about how the war in Iraq will end," President Obama said in a formal announcement of a new Iraq strategy at Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, on Feb. 27.

Under the new plan, Obama said, the United States will remove all combat troops by Aug. 31, 2010.

The plan came about, Obama said, after a comprehensive review of the U.S. strategy in Iraq by a national security team that included the defense secretary, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and commanders on the ground in Iraq. The plan to "transition to full Iraqi responsibility" begins, he said, with the "responsible removal of our combat brigades from Iraq."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/126/begin-removing-combat-brigades-from-iraq/


ON AFGHANISTAN:

Obama’s Afghan plan will include exit strategy
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4144666

and so, I disagree with the portrait you have painted of this President....
he never claimed he would get all that you demand as quickly as you have ordered it...
but he sure in the fuck is working on it. Folks like you act like he's not addressing concerns,
and I disagree with that assessment. He's not addressing them exactly to your specification,
but that is a far cry from your lament.