Replies to post #90255 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

What happens when Obama acts alone. Dammit!

Wed Jan 20, 2010 at 09:05:57 AM PST

In some ways, i'm a bit relieved. All the super majority did was to make Joe Lieberman king and cripple Barack Obama. Sure, Obama made his fare share of mistakes - As he is human facing massive shit-storm. But the big picture, the narrative, the atmosphere and perception that brought last night's nightmare - That's all due to a terrible political system, a terrible media, and especially due to a terrible Democratic Party, divided and disloyal. Andrew Sullivan wrote last week: "I hate what the Democrats did to Obama", and I couldn't agree more. Because when Obama just does things by himself, this is the result:

"BY FAR THE BEST FIRST YEAR ON THE ENVIROMENT OF ANY PRESIDENT IN HISTORY"

This week marks the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama's inauguration. The economy, war and health care are dominating discussions about what he has or hasn't accomplished.

Yet with little notice from the public, Obama has been steadily rewriting a major area of American policy — the environment — from global warming to gas mileage rules, logging to endangered species...

...After methodically reversing many of the Bush administration's environmental policies, with little help from Congress, Obama is drawing criticism from Republican and industry leaders...

"This is by far the best first year on the environment of any president in history, including Teddy Roosevelt" said Carl Pope, national executive director of the Sierra Club, in San Francisco. "Most presidents have done their best environmental work late in their term. This is a very, very strong opening."

The list of what he has done impressed every expert, as they acknowledge that it all got lost in the reality of the economy. But here's the thing:

Most of the changes have come through executive branch rules, rather than laws passed by Congress. As a result, they could be overturned by future presidents.

So Obama did it alone and it may not stick, because HUGE majority in congress is still not enough. And it's not like the corporations are going to go away quietly:

"There's no doubt they have been super active. They seem to be throwing a lot of policies at the wall and seeing which ones stick. But not all of them are going to stick," said Frank Maisano, a spokesman for Bracewell & Giuliani, a Houston law firm that lobbies on behalf of oil refineries, electric utilities and other industries.

Environmentalists, however, are just giddy about this first year. Sadly, they're delusional if they think it will be acknowledged:

"It really is a new day," said Mary Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board. "When things clear up a little bit and people can focus on things other than whether they have a job, he'll get more credit."

Really? Who will give him this credit?

The media? The media celebrate today 365 days of Obama bashing. 365 days of ignoring the historic, transformative investments and steps that he took in areas like education, clean energy, transportation, science, environment, government openness, ethics, and yes, the tough and unpopular decisions he had to take to prevent a second Great Depression.

Progressives? Progressives made the environment a top priority during the campaign, but now they couldn't care less. They're so in love with the idea of using Right Wing talking points to "move the Overton Window", that they can't even see how they push the best vehicle they had in the White House in 45 years, out of the freaking Overton window.

Or maybe the public? Yea, sure, the public. The people of Massachusetts (!) gave Ted Kennedy's seat to a nude model teabagger. The public is stupid.

History. Only history will give this president credit. And historians will spend a lot of time and words on researching how the same country that elected such quality president during one of its worst periods - could give him barely 8 months to fix 8 years of catastrophe, and killed him after less than a year.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/1/20/827356/-What-happens-when-Obama-acts-alone.-Dammit!

http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_14218053?nclick_check=1

[fuagf]

Turkey's PM Erdogan vows to 'annihilate' PKK rebels

Page last updated at 02:46 GMT, Sunday, 20 June 2010 03:46 UK


Mr Erdogan described the latest
PKK attacks as "cowardly"

Turkey has vowed to fight Kurdish rebels until they are "annihilated", after attacks killed 11 soldiers.

PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday's "cowardly" assaults would not end Turkey's determination to fight the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) "to the end".

The army said it had retaliated with a helicopter attack that killed at least 12 rebels.

There has been a sharp increase in the number of recent clashes with the PKK.

On Friday the Turkish military said it had killed about 120 Kurdish rebels since March, while 43 members of the Turkish security forces had also died.

Attacks

Rebels killed nine soldiers in a raid on an outpost near the Iraqi border early on Saturday, in the deadliest attack against the Turkish military since April 2009, when nine soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb that was blamed on the PKK.

Analysis

Jonathan Head,
BBC News, Istanbul

The deaths of 11 men in a single day will certainly harden official attitudes towards the PKK.

In a country where every soldier's funeral whips up a frenzy of nationalist sentiment, Mr Erdogan's party is vulnerable to charges of selling out to terrorists, because of its efforts last year to promote a softer approach to the conflict.

The increasingly bold attacks by the PKK this year have effectively killed off that initiative, although it was already running out of steam.

But after 26 years and 40,000 deaths, few officials can be under any illusion that just
throwing more military forces at the PKK along the Iraqi border can finish the movement off.

Later on Saturday, two soldiers were killed in a mine explosion while attempting to capture rebels near the border.

As well as responding with helicopter attacks, Turkey launched air raids on PKK positions inside Iraqi territory.

Mr Erdogan said his government would not "give in to the spiral of violence" unleashed by the rebels.

"Our fight will continue until the terrorist organisation has been annihilated," he said.

He plans to travel to south-east Turkey later on Sunday to attend a ceremony for the dead soldiers, the state-run Anatolian news agency reported.

The PKK, meanwhile, said Turkey wanted to "take us towards war" rather than dealing with the "Kurdish issue" peacefully.

"We will take our operations to all Turkish cities if the government continues its attacks against us," PKK spokesman Ahmed Denis told AFP news agency.

Public hostility

Turkey has urged Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to expel the 2,000 PKK fighters believed to be based in its territory, saying it must promote efforts to curb the banned group's activities.

On Wednesday, Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq and killed four PKK fighters after the group made an unsuccessful attack on a border outpost.


Saturday's attacks were the deadliest in more
than a year for Turkey's army (19 June 2010)

Last month, imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan said he had given up any hope of dialogue with the government.

But correspondents say the clashes had resumed well before that, and
the real reasons for this sudden resurgence of fighting are not clear.

The PKK began its armed struggle against the Turkish government in 1984, calling for a
Kurdish homeland within Turkey. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the resulting conflict.

Last year, the Turkish government announced a new initiative to end the conflict and to address the grievances of the Kurdish minority, but it never produced the promised package of measures, and now appears to have abandoned the initiative, correspondents say.

The PKK is officially branded a terrorist organisation by the US and European Union.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/10359237.stm