You may have heard this story already, but White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs recently attacked the President’s critics on the left.
The White House is simmering with anger at criticism from liberals who say President Obama is more concerned with deal-making than ideological purity.
During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.
“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”
Gibbs later walked back his remarks partway, but the outburst is telling.
First, attacking criticism from the left is just stupid on his part. It’s certainly not going to stop it. And none of the critics on the left are saying that Obama is like George Bush. They’re saying that many of his policies are like George Bush’s, as Glenn Greenwald has exhaustively detailed, and that he has reneged many of his campaign promises, particularly in the areas of civil liberties and government secrecy/accountability.
But Gibbs is also tone-deaf in a second way. By using the phrase “Those people ought to be drug tested,” he is showing a lack of respect for the huge portion of this country that is calling for a serious dialogue on drug policy.
It’s reminiscent of Obama’s glib Townhall response last year
“There was one question that voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation,” he said. “And I don’t know what this says about the online audience, but … this was a popular question. We want to make sure it’s answered. The answer is no, I don’t think that’s a good strategy to grow our economy. All right.”
Add to that the drug czar’s “legalization is not in our vocabulary” nonsense, and you have a White House that is not only unwilling to engage in the important questions about drug policy, but is also uninterested in showing anything but cluelessness.
True and necessary change is not going to come from the top. It’s going to come from the people rising up for something better for the kids, and it’s going to come from California challenging the U.S. Government.
“True and necessary change is not going to come from the top. It’s going to come from the people rising up for something better for the kids, and it’s going to come from California challenging the U.S. Government.”
And it’s that ‘challenge’ that has the closet oligarch’s pulling Obama’s strings in a sweat.
Google “Obama Clinton June 6 2008 Virginia ” and you’ll understand that party affiliation means nothing; wealth, and the power it provides is what’s important…unless you have a groundswell so great the oligarchs won’t dare do more than raise luke-warm objections.
These people are directly threatened by legal cannabis in any form, medicinal or industrial. Hence the dismissive laugh-offs…delivered with an increasingly tremulous voice, for as California goes on 19, so shall the rest of the country. And then the petrochemical industries will finally get a true ‘run for their money’ in the form of an agrarian based economy once more. A prospect the Energy Monopolies are terrified of.
Gibbs’ irritation at the criticism (well deserved, I might add) marks an understandable frustration with the net roots left. The base of $50-$500 dollar donors who put him over the top in ’08 are deserting him wholesale. This wasn’t unexpected by the Obama team….they operated on the assumption that once the corporate power structure realized he was a mainstream, moderate republican with a democratic lable, they would come on board and not only work with him, but support him with their big money. This won’t happen. Ever. The Obama Whitehouse is being a little slow in picking up on this fact, however. They are stressed at this point, losing support among liberals, yet gaining nothing from the center right, who they desperatly need to come on board if there’s to be any hope come ’12.
They are terrified of looking anything but mainstream, absolutly frikkin’ terrified of seeming to be the radicals the right makes them out to be.
We’re looking at a sorry one termer unless he figures out soon that he needs us. Drug testing may be in order, Mr. Gibbs, but do you really think a urine test will change people’s opinions of your policies?
Hmm Does congress, etc get drug tested? If not shouldn’t we subject them to the same situation that have placed millions of US citizens. Invading their privacy of what they do on their own free time. I propose pre-employment test for the government so we can at least catch the few drug users that work in government office. I bet drug testing would become un constitutional in a blink of the eye if this were to occur. Because you see our politicians probably do par-tak herb, and other drugs. Similar to how some do par take in extra marital affairs while preaching family values etc. THey may not be caught for Mj but im pretty sure that some of our major political politicians probably use perscription drugs that they only get by coercing a doctor. Hell even john Mcains wife was a pill addict stealing them from a charityshe worked for. She got a slap on the wrist if only all americans were treated the same.
Bobreaze, Congress generally exempts itself from all the liberty-restricting laws it has passed. The average civil servant has as much protection from unwarranted searches (such as urine testing requires) as the average citizen; namely, none at all.
Drug testing serves only one purpose: to cow the Working Classes into subservience with the threat of unemployment (which, in this economy, increasingly has all the hallmarks of a death threat) , while those who make the rules are blessedly free from such coercion.
That’s it. Nothing more. A means of social control. Period.
Guess what, many government jobs already require urine testing. I think you missed a VERY important fact: When workplace testing is required, in government and private workplace, it is almost invariably required ONLY of the HOURLY WAGE/ENTRY/NON-MANAGEMENT positions. Do you REALLY think the CEO, or for that matter, any upper level management has to actually pee in a cup? In front of a witness? The idea of such humiliation being inflicted on the elites! Sorry, you need to look into the drug testing procedures as they are REALLY applied here in Amerikkka. This special form of debasement is reserved for us, the little guys.
Actually, oddly enough, because of the Fourth Amendment, government employees generally cannot be drug tested unless you can show that it’s required for safety reasons (although that gets broader all the time). Private companies can test without that reason, since they are not bound by the 4th Amendment. It was because of the 4th that the Supreme Court refused to allow public schools to drug test all students, but they came up with some pretty weaselly justification for allowing testing of voluntary extra-curricular activities.
There have been a couple of instances where Assemblymen or some such were required to be drug tested, but the courts wouldn’t uphold that requirement.
Uh, Bobreaze? I haven’t missed a thing…having been such a Gub’mint worker in my early life, and subjected to piss-testing every 5 years, if not sooner. So, I do whereof I speak.
Pete, a ‘non-exempt’ Federal civil service employee (as I was) can be tested at any time a supervisor gets a wild hair up the arse; Constitutional ‘protections’ aside.
One more reason for my leaving was that said supervisors were politically motivated to weed out the ideological ‘misfits’ who dared questioned policy on on Constitutional basis. A practice that is mirrored in the rest of society by quite a few employers.
the really sad thing about the “drug test ’em” mentality is that every single one of the asshats in the financial industry who have collectively destroyed our economy would easily pass a drug test.
OT, but very hot: Big Bidniss is beginning to invest in MMJ:
Amergence Subsidiary Candidate — Altitude Organic Licensing Corp. — Signs Up Another Medical Marijuana Dispensary
Sorry, too many windows open. Comment 7 directed to DarkCycle.
The point being that once drug testing was enabled, no one but Congress was safe from it. And if anyone needs such testing, it’s Congress.
I was just posting my thoughts. While not one hundred percent acurate on governemtn employees i really meant elected officials etc. Thank you for correcting and enlightening me kaptinemo. BTW sorry your boss was an asshat hopefully you get the last laugh.
Pete
That loophole you refer to was enacted my junior year in high school. I really disliked that they implemented makes you feel violated. My wife actually was tested 4 times in a single year after it was put in place. Again i thank you for such a valuable web site. I enjoy checking i daily to gain more information and read various views on drug policy. Please keep up the great work it is impressive.
Kaptinemo
“Drug testing serves only one purpose: to cow the Working Classes into subservience with the threat of unemployment (which, in this economy, increasingly has all the hallmarks of a death threat) , while those who make the rules are blessedly free from such coercion.
That’s it. Nothing more. A means of social control. Period”
This is a great statement and completely true.
darkcycle
Amerikka land of the freely enslaved. Lol god i wish it wasn’t true.
Kap.. “A means of social control” exactly! Mr.Obama woke a sleeping giant when he gave the great unwashed masses hope that he would be a different kind of president. Unfortunately the only thing that makes this president different than all the other presidents is, he owes a giant a promise he cannot keep.
Now he is nervous because the giant is making noise about payback. Why would he give up his only weapon to control the giant? The Giant is awake and the world is changing. Change will happen. It will either come like the fall of the Berlin wall with cooperation and integration. Or the government will react like the Chinese at Tiananmen Square with the futile continuation of the repression and imprisonment called the “War on Drugs”.
The Giant will sleep no more. If it is to be war, so be it. The ballot box awaits the Giants tactical strike. We will all find out what kind of metal we are made of in these days and weeks leading up to Prop 19. Change will come. Obama’s only choice is how, through peace or war.
If there are any of you here that are US Citizens and live outside the US, next time you enter and go through Immigration, pay attention to how they treat you. The fact that you don’t live “under their thumbs” is quite noticable.
I elected to move to get out from under “that thumb.” And it’s so nice, being “outside the shell.” While I might be out of country, I’m not “out of range.” I still can and often do “fire for effect.” It’s nice to no longer live with that pressure.
Bobreaze, I will have the last laugh when we are all free to buy, sell, trade, gift, use and enjoy the intoxicants of our choice without being killed in order to ‘save’ us from our decisions.
And, yes, I do mean all of them. Leave not a single legal loophole, not a single hook or bolthole for the control-freak bastards to harm another sovereign citizen, ever again.
Cannabis first, for that’s the foundation block holding the entire fascist wall together. Yank that out, and the rest will fall, on top of the ‘stonemasons’ who erected it. When it does, they won’t be hurt as hard as those whose lives they destroyed with their ‘works’…more’s the pity.
It’s pretty ridiculous if any of you have read justice Scalia’s opinions in Von Raab (case involving drug testing of I believe it was border control agents) and Veronia School District (case involving drug testing of high school athletes). Scalia wrote a scathing dissent in Von Raab calling urinalysis humiliating and unnecessary but then turned around and allowed a school administrator to hang out outside a bathroom stall to listen for “sounds of urination” as if it is any less humiliating for children. This is not to mention how filled with drug war hysteria the Veronia School District case was. Bottom line is we have Justice Scalia and his hypocrisy to thank for a lot of this urinalysis shit.
Change you can believe in, haha, new world order with a new black face, what a joke.
Cobb, do you have something to say, or are you just tossing out racist nonsense?
I’ve got a lot of specific policy disagreements with Obama that I have identified here, and none of them had to do with the color of his face. If you have a policy disagreement that has to do with his being a black man, then please identify it, rather than just throwing out a bunch of buzz words.
“but … this was a popular question. We want to make sure it’s answered. The answer is no, I don’t think that’s a good strategy to grow our economy.”
These words still ring in my ear, especially after the rise of medical cannabis dispensaries in the No Co area were basically saving the commercial real estate sector here. I say were because there will be many dispensaries going out of business due to new laws by Democrats.
Interestingly, Senator Chris Romer (D) Colorado Senate and Former Governor Roy Romer’s (D) son has spearheaded a senate bill (1284) which was just signed by Bill Ritter (D) just a couple of months ago. This new law stifles all of the progress made by the medical cannabis movement with byzantine rules which are still being interpreted by the lawyers, cities and counties.
Do you see a trend my friends? I see that the Democrats just had the opportunity to make significant changes to cannabis policy which could have opened the door to eventual legalization for everyone. What did they do?
They made things way worse for everyone, especially the patients and those who invested hard earned money to help others, employ fellow citizens and make a legitimate living. Now the only people who will be able to participate are the big money players. Meanwhile, people are getting out of the legitimate medical cannabis market and returning to the black market where the rules are not so onerous.
Way to go Democrats!!!
Cliff and friends, consider this: The situation is rapidly sizing up that the only thing left to do, to avoid those stupidly byzantine rules (thought up by stupidly byzantine people) and regulations is to go all out for full re-legalization.
Pinch a water hose, and what happens? The water comes out with more force. That’s what’s happening. The prohibs think they can shut off the ‘water’ of reformers by pinching it; instead, they’ll increase the pressure for a full and final settlement of the prohibition question by forcing the necessity for re-legalization.
And what usually happens to something in front of a high-pressure water hose? With sufficient pressure, that something usually gets washed away. As should be the pols who vote to restrict the public’s access to legal cannabis.
Those incumbents that have shown a lack of support (and respect!) for drug law reform need to be given the back of the electoral hand. And framing it in that fashion, that the pols who don’t respect the ‘will of the people’ as expressed in their voting in favor of MMJ laws and re-legalization are out of touch and need to go. Pointing out how much their intransigence on the issue has cost the taxpayers, when a legit cannabis market would have produced much needed revenues, is salt in a wound. That salt needs to be rubbed in mercilessly; after all, what have they done to cannabists (as opposed to for them) all these years?
And fence-sitters deserve double the salt; they could have come off that fence on the side of the people, but they didn’t. Time to tell them not to let the door hit you where The Lord split you.
“Pointing out how much their intransigence on the issue has cost the taxpayers, when a legit cannabis market would have produced much needed revenues, is salt in a wound. That salt needs to be rubbed in mercilessly…”
Yes, mercilessly, unceasingly and relentlessly, use this truth to rhetorically slay your prohibitionist opponent. I know I have, at every opportunity. I can think of no other fitting fate for the prohibitionists than Charles Freck’s(Scanner Darkly).
Freck Suicide Narrator: Charles Freck, becoming progressively more and more depressed by what was happening around him, decided, finally, to off himself. There was no problem in the circles where he hung out in putting an end to yourself. You just bought a large quantity of downers and took them with some cheap wine. The planning part had to do with the artifacts he wanted found on him by later archeologists. He had spent several days deciding, much longer than he had spent deciding to kill himself. He would be found lying on his back, on his bed, with a copy of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and an unfinished letter to Exxon, protesting the cancellation of his gas credit card. That way, he would indite the system, and achieve something by his death, over and above what the death itself achieved. At the last moment, he changed his mind on a decisive issue and decided to drink the pills with a connoisseur wine, instead of Ripple or Thunderbird. So he set off on one last drive, over to Tiny’s Liquors, which specialized in fine wines, and bought a bottle of 2001 Azalea Springs Merlot, which set him back almost seventy dollars. Back home again, he uncorked the wine, let it breathe, drank a few glasses of it, tried to think of something meaningful but could not, and then, with a glass of Merlot, gulped down all the pills at once. However, he had been burned. Instead of quietly suffocating, Charles Freck began to hallucinate. The next thing he knew, a creature from between dimensions was standing beside his bed, looking down at him disapprovingly.
My Favortite Part!
Freck: You gonna read me my sins?
[Creature nods]
Freck: Eh, it’s gonna take a hundred thousand hours.
Creature: Your sins will be read to you ceaselessly, in shifts, throughout eternity. The list will never end.
Creature: [starts reading] The Sins of Freck
Freck Suicide Narrator: Charles Freck wished he could take back the last half hour of his life.
Creature: [Creature continues to read] … theft of fingernail clippers…†… you did knowingly and with malice…†… punched your baby sister, Evelyn…†… December, theft of Christmas presents…†… one billion lies…â€
Freck Suicide Narrator: One thousand years later, they had reached the sixth grade, the year he had discovered masturbation.
Creature: [Creature continues to read] … November fourteenth, Percodan… Vicodin… Cocaine…â€
Freck Suicide Narrator: Charles Freck thought, At least I got a good wine.
Yo, Nemo, re-read, please, my comment was clearly directed at bobreeze, not you. Look at the post, I was writing that response at the SAME TIME YOU WERE POSTING. Gitagrip, bonehead.
Oh yeah, I too was a government contract worker subjected to urine tests.
Er….Sorry about the ‘bonehead remark….
aye darkcycle… no scufflin’ on the couch. If bonghits are req’d, ask… someody will surely beam one over.
As a lazy pothead I was working a full time job, 2 part time jobs and keeping my finger on the drug war pulse when I was called for a random at my fulltime job – the day after I took my first puff in 10 months or so. Oh, and when I stopped puffing…? The withdrawals were terrible!
Anyway, like Cliff, I no longer will work for an employer requiring my pee. FTS.
We can’t say “let’s drug test Congress” when we just want drug testing to go away. By using performance baselines and testing for impairment when there is an appropriate question regarding one’s personal substance issues we will be treated according to civilized standards. And I rarely use the word civilized unless it’s in quotes and a mocking context.
We’re so, so far from being civilized… sigh …
But no to drug testing! Drug war profiteers is what the pee-testers are…
Allan, my proposition was intended as all such suggestions are regarding our purblind, would-be masters: what’s ‘sauce for the goose’ will become ‘sauce for the gander’ if they want to keep their jobs…they’ll get the message fast enough, if they have to be subjected to the same humiliation.
Of course, they won’t do that voluntarily…which means removing them through the electoral system, and letting their replacements know they will share the same political fate if they don’t wise up, and quick.
Think of it as political jiu-jitsu; using the enemy’s strength against him. In this case, it’s a cushy salary for a job few actually perform according to the expectations of the electorate who send them to Congress. Threaten that, and they do sit up and take notice. And as the times get harder, so will people’s resolve to get the most for their money, in ever dimension.
So, they either be told to agree to pee in a cup…or rescind the laws. Get enough thoroughly pissed off people (I believe that we will reach critical mass in that regard in a year) in this country, direct them properly at the pols, and watch said pols change their tunes.
It really is hardball time, and we’re used to getting down and dirty. “Think of it as evolution in action”. They made us what we have become, infighters with a take-no-prisoners attitude, thanks to that same attitude being applied to us.
It’s time to thank them properly…
allan 420.
I would actually prefer drug testing to cease unless there is a just cause. I should have mentioned that in my firsts comment. However since that is unlikely i would settle for elected officials to be subjected to the same scrutiny they have subjected millions of their voters.
by just cause i mean obvious work impairment or accidents. For MJ the test would have to be able to verify that the user is impaired at the time. None of the you smoked weed 30 days ago so your fired crap.
Hey Alan, I’m not the one who said “let’s drug test congress.” I’ll repeat the post. A response to bobreaze: “Guess what, many government jobs already require urine testing. I think you missed a VERY important fact: When workplace testing is required, in government and private workplace, it is almost invariably required ONLY of the HOURLY WAGE/ENTRY/NON-MANAGEMENT positions. Do you REALLY think the CEO, or for that matter, any upper level management has to actually pee in a cup? In front of a witness? The idea of such humiliation being inflicted on the elites! Sorry, you need to look into the drug testing procedures as they are REALLY applied here in Amerikkka. This special form of debasement is reserved for us, the little guy.”
Is there some sort of posting error I’m not aware of that is making everybody attribute my posts to other people, or personalize my responses? In the captain’s case, he thought I was addressing my post to him….I was responding to Bobreaze. I Never said drug test congress. The idea that they would submit is laughable. I was originally, about a thousand words or so ago, JUST TRYING TO POINT THIS OUT!!! JEEZ….I really Do need bong hits now….sorry I ever said anything.
tilt
I’ve been criticizing Obama for being like Bush for at least a year now. The only thing that distinguished Obama from bush are the campaign promises he’s broken. He’s continued torture (“enhanced interrogation”), he has kept guantanamo open, he’s continued Bush’s abuses of executive privilege and overclassification, he’s continued Bush’s abuses of our civil rights vis a vis wiretapping and has even EXPANDED those abuses beyond what Bush even tried to do. Obama has even claimed that as president he has the authority to assassinate anyone, including american citizens, who pose a danger to the country (Bush never even went close to this extremism, and “pose a danger to america” will inevitably include the 19 year old “narcoterrorist” selling cheap pot on a streetcorner). Obama has sold out to the health insurance companies before he even got sworn in, just like Bush. Like Bush Obama has continued the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, refusing to bring any troops home and even copying Bush with a “surge” in Afghanistan. Obama has defended DOMA in court briefings and refused to get rid of don’t ask don’t tell, just like Bush. Like Bush, Obama’s first appointment to the Supreme Court was a right-wing republican catholic pro-life prosecutor (Sotomayor) and his second pick was someone with no judicial experience, analogous to Harriet Miers. And of course, like Bush, Obama has prosecuted the asinine drug war vigorously. Over the past year and a half I have written about at least 100 other reasons why Obama is like – or worse than – Bush. And to be clear, I’m a liberal who voted for Obama. Talk about voter’s remorse. I wish I hadn’t even voted.
I’ve been calling him “Bushbama” for close to a year now, and I see him as the single most ineffective, biggest failure of a president this country will ever have. Bush was a moron with horrible policies but he was able to get things done. Obama is the weakest, most pathetic excuse for a leader this country has ever seen. He’s like Bush not out of ideology but because he wants his enemies to like him, so he sucks up to them. Obama’s fundamental failure is not understanding that “bipartisanship” is a means, not an end.
Other than the trivial “tax cut” and abortion-related things republicans like to whine about Obama is just like Bush, and even worse than Bush in many ways. If BUSH had said he has the power to assassinate any American citizen who he alone deems to be a danger to the country, the heads of every liberal in america would have simultaneously exploded. But it’s okay for Obama?
Robert Gibbs is a prick, he’s just as incompetent as Obama is. I hope Obama is a one-termer, even if he’s replaced by someone as horrendous as Sarah Palin.
Please, NOT SARAH PALIN! People who claim wars are a mission from God infuriate me.
Nothing would bring about the bankruptcy and total, irrevocable destruction of the federal government faster than a president palin. Since I think the government is broken and worthless and that we’d be better off without it, casting a vote for palin would be the most simple, straightforward, and of course non-violent way of bringing that about. The America that was once a great nation is gone, now it’s just a bitchy, bossy, debtor teetering on bankruptcy spewing ridiculous, insipid propaganda faster than joseph goebbels on crack.
I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to actually cast a vote for Palin, as it’s an act of terrorism and that’s much farther than I’m able to go, and since I live in Texas this state will go to palin anyway (and it will be Palin vs Obama, mark my words). I simply won’t vote for President (if at all) in the next election. A lot of my friends who voted for Obama feel the same way – he’s the ultimate spineless wimp who cares more about sucking republican cock than keeping his campaign promises. He just gave Fox News helen thomas’s front-row seat in the white house press room. That pretty much says it all. You think Bush would have given MSNBC a better seat, let alone one in the front row? Obama sickens me. If this were the 50s he’d be the one black guy at a KKK rally helping them burn crosses on the lawns of other black people to try to get the racist rednecks to like him. I hated Bush, but I have much more respect for him – he knew what he wanted to do (regardless of how idiotic it was) and he did what he had to do to get it done. Bush didn’t give a rat’s ass about what the democrats thought, said, or wanted.
2 to 1 odds are the federal gov’t will have collapsed before the 2012 election so we won’t even have to deal with Obama vs Palin.
Rather than voting for Palin or Obama (or whichever party hacks the duopoly decides to run against each other), people who want a return to “life, liberty, and property rights” should be voting for the libertarian minded candidate, regardless which party banner s/he runs under. Even if the libertarian minded candidate doesn’t win, each and every single vote for him/her will be understood by the duopoly as a vote against them and their agenda.
The larger that vote against them, the better for us and our goals, and if, by chance, the libertarian minded candidate should win, well then we’ve won a huge victory. Extrapolate that against-the-duopoly-vote to every congressional seat up for grabs and we could really rock the boat!
In every election in the past 36 years too many who claim to support the libertarian agenda have abandoned their principles at the last minute and voted “to keep the wrong guy out”. However, all that accomplished was to keep electing all the wrong guys, anyway, since the “lesser of two evils” was still evil and still a “wrong guy” (as has been clearly proven with Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, and Obama).
In general I say I’d have to agree.
I just wish that Pres. Obama would come clean on the disastrous state we’re in, instead of trying to maintain an air of “every thing’s OK” confidence, it irritates me. But then again, perhaps he’s asked his advisors to shield him from the facts so he can have that “plausible deniability?”
As far as I’m concerned the longer he puts it off the more likely he’s going to get all the blame for it, instead of having some shred of an excuse in being able to point back to the past X administrations.
I understand he’s trying to herd cats, but my opinion is he needs to shine some serious disinfecting light on the whole sausage making process, ala The Jungle; and the recently revealed “intelligence” monstrosity needs serious pruning or complete dismantling.
I agree, we’re past broke. But it’s not clear to me what happens when China realizes it can’t be paid back or trust US money. The US forks over natural resources? China attacks us to take something as collateral? According to the video “The Ascent of Money” countries have defaulted before, I think it said Russia defaulted twice, but there weren’t wars.
Obama is an ‘old wine in new wine skin’; he belongs to the same elitist clubs that all previous Prez’s have.
The proof of that occurred on June 6, 2008 in my own area of NoVa (Northern Virginia) where he met with the real power behind the scenes, and pledged his fealty to them, ensuring his election as another, brighter, more useful tool of the international oligarchs (‘brighter’ as opposed to the vicious dim-bulb that resided at 1600 Pennsy Ave before him). Which is why we haven’t seen much of that promised ‘change’.
A good rule of thumb: anyone who makes it to the Presidency has puppet strings attached to his limbs. Those strings are pulled by people who consider themselves the pinnacle of human evolution by nature of their wealth and power, and see the rest of us as scum and dross, in need of ‘supervision’…in the harshest way possible.
kaptinemo: anyone who wants to be president should be disqualified from the job.
The late, great comedian Bill Hicks had this theory that when a new president is elected, after being sworn in, on his first day on the job, the first thing that happens is the president is brought to a room somewhere, shown the Zapruder film, and told “this is what happens if you don’t listen to us, the corporate-financial-military interests… any questions?” It’s why no president since TR has seriously gone after a company, it’s why the SEC is full of people who sit at their computers looking at porn all day long. It’s the way everyone wants it – even Joe Public Moron who makes $20k a year and has 10 shares of Apple stock doesn’t want the government going after Apple for illegalities, fraud, lies, whatever – it will cause the stock to drop, and that will cause the DOW to go down.
As for voting libertarian, the one thing Republicans and Democrats agree on besides selling out the people for corporate/wallstreet interests, is that no 3rd parties shall be allowed to partake in the election process. So they team up and keep all third parties out of the debates, the news media, the primaries, even ballots. Third parties stand no chance, it’s as if the Constitution establishes republicans and democrats as a matter of law.
I don’t know what will happen when China wants to be paid back and is told “sorry.” There’s no international bankruptcy court, and America would never participate in one if there were. We’re America, we don’t have to pay back our debt because we’re the good guys, and that’s especially true when we’re talking about paying back communists. It will be interesting. Not all of China’s credit is unsecured – it owns a lot of collateral – land, buildings, etc. The unsecured credit, however, might have to be regained via the collection agency known as the Chinese army.
@darkcycle… urp, you’re right, it was bobreaze. Pass that bong!
FLIK…..bubble…bubble…bubble…snork…caugh..caugh caugh. Bahhhhhhhhh……What?
“Anyway, like Cliff, I no longer will work for an employer requiring my pee. FTS.
Thanks for joining me on our quixotic struggle against those who would claim ownership over our sovereign, mortal bodies. I just wished that this damn drug war wouldn’t have lasted so long, man, I’m tired of consciously avoiding jobs because of a stupid test which can never test the true character of a person.
Behold, all of the economic and environmental devistation to our great nation caused by our piss testing, greedy, reckless, immoral, holier than thou self appointed masters, who haven’t even been punished. I dare anyone to tell me that someone who causes damage to no one but possibly himself is a criminal who should be excluded from even having a chance at middle class life in our society.
I hold down 2 jobs for less than half what I made 5 years ago. I used to work for a company for 15 years before a new owner (non-cannabis user) ran it into the ground in 2 years leaving me and my co-workers with nothing and basically having to start from scratch. I have a BA and MS, but I am pushing 50 and no one will hire me unless I work part-time with no benefits and take those jobs Americans won’t take, like janitoring. I also did my first environmental report (kind of a Phase 1 ESA without interviews) in over 3 years for a public housing project. The commercial real estate sector here is dead.
However, it is kind of easy taking this stand now, because I can’t even get an interview in this economy with all of the 40 and younger set , who are just as qualified and talented if not more so, are looking for work as well. I just have to take what I can get and keep looking for more opportunities. So much for the amotivational stoner stereotype, you will not find it here.
Sorry for the rant.
Sorry to hear that Cliff. This country has turned to shit. It’s so sad, because it used to be such a great country.
“Not all of China’s credit is unsecured – it owns a lot of collateral – land, buildings, etc. The unsecured credit, however, might have to be regained via the collection agency known as the Chinese army.”
The Comminists truly sold us the rope, by which we are currently economically strangling ourselves with. The sad part is, it was done with the help of Great American Corporation Walmart and trading our manufacturing empire for debt. We (collectively) let this happen to us and it ain’t coming back.
I imagine a scene in which Mr. Wu (from Deadwood HBO series) is telling America, “You pay now, wide eye!” It’s kind of ironic, how we have went from a creditor nation with a manufacturing base to a debtor nation of entitlements and a wealth gap like a 3rd world country in less than 80 years. Most of us haven’t woken up to that reality.
Meanwhile, people who are all on board with pee for pay are now losing thier jobs because thier corporate masters decided that they are too expensive to keep on the books. I hope people who think drug testing is a good idea enjoy that smug feeling of superiority as the tool and die equipment and the EDM’s and other manufacturing components were packed up and sent to China.
“It’s so sad, because it used to be such a great country.”
Thanks, BruceM. It is sad, because I see from my own experience that America has become a greedy country with great resources which it wastes and valuable human beings who want to contribute but are pushed to the side in the competition for the biggest deal.
The ‘free market’ here is really an excuse to apply preditorial capitalism to our society. It is no longer a place to exchange your labor and intelligence for a fair wage, no it is a place where the winner makes a killing or gets the better deal at the expense of another. Our country is in a world of hurt.
The hard part is, seeing this happen after serving in the US Army over 20 years ago in West Germany and seeing the border and what lay across it. I am afraid that we are heading for a fate similar to what I saw in East Germany.
I think Gibbs just knows which part of their demographic “base”, is disappointed with the President/WH-Staff…
That would be us – and he resents the stinging reality of the situation they’re stuck in.
And I’m sure he quickly realized (possibly a matter of a seconds or a fraction of a second later) the “Freudian-slip irony” in what he had just said.