Too Many Crises for Him to Handle, but Also Too Much Obfuscation and Meekness from Obama!

Tell me what is wrong with this picture! Citizens in our country are without jobs and Obama is attempting to provide Afghanis with employment. Members of Congress-primarily Republicans, are willing to pay for Afghanis to get jobs, but not for US citizens. Obama can give a good speech, but as things stand now his policies are favoring everyone else-including Wall Street fat cats, before he helps our middle-class! Afghanistan possesses no resources for a prosperous economy, and to them we are the hated infidels. It is the simple truth that we can't get a good return on our investment there--besides charity begins at home.

Allegedly Obama is a shrewd politician. He better understand that when the GOP supports his decision he is doing something that isn't good for the country or his base. They support the escalation of troops in Afghanistan simply because they hope Obama gets stuck in a quagmire there. They have to be identified by Obama as the enemy of creating jobs in the US. He tried being non-partisan and it hasn't worked. His communications must clearly and frequently vilify the obstructionist GOP. If he doesn't then how does he identify with the plight of our unemployed? As long as he lets the GOP to derail his plans for providing more jobs in the US without calling them out for their obstructionists tactics he is supplying us with misinformation. For what? Get it Obama-the GOP hopes you fail as it will get them more votes.

If FDR was confronted with this type opposition when he was making the New Deal legislation would he have accepted it? Obama has the reconciliation procedure. He has allowed the GOP to bend health care into something that Obama would never have proposed. Just the amount of time spent on it has been too excessive. He has to show some spine and say "Enough is enough. We want the public option in and we can't deal with jobs and GWOT with all of time being spent on GOP obstruction. Health care is going through reconciliation immediately!"

The 12/13/09 article "Wars or Jobs: Decide Now" at

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16527

puts it aptly as the article states "We must put the power of peace back in the Congress and force the House to use it. They have a final vote next week on a war funding bill, and do you know how they intend to pass it? They're going to include unemployment insurance in the same bill. When it's not relief for hurricane victims it's education for veterans. Now it's unemployment insurance as the lipstick on this pig of a bill, a bill that creates unemployment in the first place. Investing money in wars creates fewer jobs than cutting taxes, and cutting taxes creates fewer jobs than investing in education, mass transit, infrastructure, construction, and other nonviolent industries. Every dollar for war is a dollar less for jobs. Congress members are perfectly aware they can vote No on the whole package until the war money is taken out and the unemployment insurance is left in. And you know that you can force them to do it, now or in the coming weeks and months. You know that much more difficult things have been done. You know that it is far more enjoyable to engage in this struggle -- even in the cold -- than to sit home and complain. You know that the time is rapidly approaching when we must do what any civilized nation would have long since done and nonviolently shut down this town."

Why was the Democratically controlled Congress force to partake in the irony of hiding unemployment insurance in a war funding bill? It had to be done this way because the GOP wouldn't vote to extend unemployment insurance. How to get them to do so? Simple--the GOP is the war mongering party. They can't pass on a chance to vote for war funding-therefore unemployment insurance bundled up in a completely unrelated war funding bill. The author hopes that polls will show that the US wants money for jobs, not war, and that will intimidate Congress until helping our unemployed. Sadly, the polls already are clearly showing that and that hasn't swayed a single right-wing reactionary. The GOP thrives on war mongering and they enjoy seeing the Democrats being blamed for the unemployment rate-so they love seeing the Democrats fail. It will help them in the quickly approaching mid-term election.

The 09 December 2009 article "Can Obama's Jobs Plan Overcome Senate Roadblocks - and Save the Unemployed" at

http://www.truthout.org/1209094

explains how GOP politics is at the center of an attempt to prolong the plight of the unemployed as the article states "From reading the headlines Tuesday on President Obama's jobs program, you might think that all the president has to do is to tap into the unexpected $200 billion in remaining TARP bailout funds in order to save American jobs. He supposedly could then just spend the money on infrastructure programs, "cash for caulkers" weatherization, aid to states and localities and small-business lending. As MSNBC summed up the big picture: "Obama Outlines Bailout for Main Street: Spending TARP Money to Help Small Businesses, Create Jobs, Build Bridges."
Sounds almost easy, doesn't it? But despite the public clamor for more jobs and continuing deep unemployment at 17 percent for those seeking full-time work, steep obstacles to meaningful job-promoting initiatives remain in this hyper-partisan Congress."

The GOP is the enemy of everyone other than their top 1% crowd. The article continues "Jed Lewison pointed out: In a sober tone, President Obama portrayed the Republican Party as opportunistic, obstructionist, and deeply hypocritical, accusing them of both having created the economic crisis we face today and having done nothing to help solve it. He also slammed their hypocritical attacks on government spending, reminding them that they are the ones who created the deficit, and that the recovery act represents just a small portion of it."

Obama is trying, but our unemployment is rising. We've over-extended ourselves and we are a paper tiger.

The 12/01/09 article "Report: At least 600K jobs created" at

http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/1209/cbo_delivers_the_goods_b6e5bb16-7d2a-4896-82bc-2a475f251286.html

states "Between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs were created or saved through September as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to a Congressional Budget Office report."

About a third of the stimulus funds have been spent at this point, not including the $200 billion that was refunded from TARP, but with over 10% unemployment we can't spare a cent for any other priority.

As the article "Wars or Jobs: Decide Now" pointed out in addition to unemployment we have military crises, but every cent spend on military matters is a penny taken away from helping our US lost souls.

The 12/01/09 article "Afghan promises to insurgents often empty -- Incentives to fighters to switch sides are key to U.S. plan" at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/13/AR2009121302263.html?hpid=topnews
tells about Feda Mohammed who, as the article states "Lured to quit the insurgency by the government's promise of a job, land for his family and an end to the misery of fighting, Mohammed illustrated the hope of the top U.S. commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, for ultimately bringing about an end to the eight-year-old war. Programs to reintegrate former fighters into Afghan society, and perhaps even turn them against their brothers in the insurgency, are at the core of the Obama administration's new strategy.
Yet Mohammed's experience offers a cautionary tale: Four months after he gave himself up, the Afghan government has reneged on all its commitments, leaving him unemployed and his family of 10 with nowhere to live. Hunted by the Taliban and fearful of the U.S. military, he spends much of his time in hiding."

We can't comprehend these people as the article states "Mohammed, thin and balding at 36, first picked up a Kalashnikov in the late 1980s when Soviet troops still occupied Afghanistan, and like many of his countrymen he has hardly stopped fighting since."

He knows how to kill and will do so for money. It doesn't matter to him who pays him.

The flip-flopping GOP was gungho about the Iraqi reconstruction, but not with the Afghanistan theatre as the article states "The Bush administration displayed little enthusiasm for Afghan reintegration efforts, preferring to fight insurgents over trying to make peace with them, but Obama's strategists on Afghanistan have bet heavily on the idea. A recent Japanese government pledge of $5 billion in aid for Afghanistan is expected to be applied largely to reintegration efforts, and the United States has also vowed to commit money."

There are differences between Afghanistan and Iraq as the article dealing with Afghanistan states "Here, officials said, the situation is more complicated because of the many motivations for insurgents, including religion, ethnicity, poverty, illiteracy, the weakness and corruption of the central government and support from powerful elements in neighboring countries, especially Pakistan.
British Maj. Gen. Richard Barrons, who arrived last month to lead NATO's reintegration effort said the plan is not to pay former fighters directly, but rather to focus on cash-for-work programs that could give them an alternative source of income to the Taliban, which compensates its fighters relatively well."

If we paid some lucky Joe Blow money in the US to work on a construction project he would think that his benefactors were good people. That isn't the case in Afghanistan as the article states "Mohammed Abid, 24, abandoned the Taliban and joined the government's reconciliation program this fall. He represents, he said, a test case for about 70 other insurgents who are also sick of war, but want to know whether the government is serious about its promise to welcome former fighters back home.
So far, Abid said, he feels tricked, and no less resentful of the U.S. forces he thinks are occupying his country.
"History teaches us that all the other religions are against Islam, so as a Muslim, when I see the foreign troops, I can't help but feel hate," said Abid, his glare icy. "I feel it in every inch of my body."

Obama has to view the GOP as he would Mohammed Abid-someone out to kill his policies at every chance.

A gift fell from the sky when the TARP cost was cut by $200 Billion.
The GOP isn't willing to use the returned TARP money to provide US citizens with jobs. The article "US Sen Gregg:Using TARP Cash For Jobs Package Would Be Illegal" at

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=200912071508dowjonesdjonline000281&title=us-sen-greggusing-tarp-cash-for-jobs-package-would-be-illegal

states "A top Republican budget hawk said Monday any move by congressional Democrats or the Obama administration to reuse money from the Treasury Department's financial rescue plan to help offset the cost of another job creation package would be illegal. Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.), the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee and a renowned fiscal conservative, said reusing unspent or repaid Troubled Asset Relief Program funds would break the 2008 law enacting the rescue plan. It would be "totally a violation not only of the letter of the law, but of the spirit of the law," Gregg told reporters Monday.

You can't get much more against it than saying it was illegal. Gregg was one of the first Republicans to show Obama how things were going to work. Obama nominated Gregg to head the Commerce Department. Gregg accepted the position on February 2 and withdrew on February 12. Pretty clear example of obstructing and stonewalling. After realizing that he would never get a vote from an unemployed person again Gregg amended his comments to--as the article states "The administration would be justified in diverting unspent portions of the $ 700 billion TARP fund to provide more capital to regional and community banks in a bid to spur lending to small businesses, Gregg said, because this would meet the rescue plan's criteria of helping to stabilize the financial sector."

The Democrats want to help the unemployed. Obama's advisers have convinced him that he would be labeled pre-911 thinker if he didn't send more troops to Afghanistan. The GOP is salivating over the quagmire Obama is entering. Every penny spent in Afghanistan can't be spent here. The Afghanis hate the US infidels. Why are we wasting our military youths' lives and spending our treasure in a country whose citizens hate us?