USA Politics

Here's a reason why Obama looked bad in the debate: he is genuinely a gaping asshole who doesn't give a shit about business or the economy in general. For about the tenth time since he has been elected, he has completely disrupted the business community in LA by setting up a motorcade through (1) the busiest business districts in town, either downtown or Century City, (2) at the busiest time of day. As I type this I am sitting about half a mile from my office building because I literally cannot get any closer, as Obama has had the police block off all the streets. And it is 8:50 am on a Monday. Not like people have to get to work or anything. (I understand that New York has had similar problems.) On a prior Obama visit, a friend could not get to work because Obama had cleared nearby streets -- and I am not making this up -- so he could play basketball at a public rec center with George Clooney with no one else around. The guy is a prick who obviously puts his own convenience and his star-fucker lifestyle above hard working Americans just trying to do their jobs. Why is he in town, you may ask? Visiting a cancer research hospital maybe? Meeting with an immigrant rights group? Nope. Just fundraising. Fuck him. I now want Romney to win just so I can get to work on time.

P.S. For security reasons, why is it a good idea to plan a motorcade through a bunch of skyscrapers??
 
I agree. Romney's motorcade will fuck up LA just as much as Obama's.

Did I ever tell you guys about the time I got past security at HMC Dockyard because they thought my family was the Prime Minister? Being in a motorcade is way better than being stuck by one.
 
LooseCannon said:
I agree. Romney's motorcade will fuck up LA just as much as Obama's.
Click to expand...

I seriously doubt that. Bush and Clinton somehow managed to visit LA with minimal traffic disruptions, but nothing like Obama has done repeatedly throughout the term. Most public servants actually care about, and plan around, morning commutes in busy business districts. Obama doesn't. I actually witnessed at least a dozen people fly into rages this morning, including two black people yelling "fuck you Obama" as his motorcade passed. It was inspiring.

Look, if a president has pressing or urgent business that requires traffic stoppage at 9am, so be it. But just to raise funds from his rich Hollywood buddies? [Link.] It's imperious and offensive.
 
Perhaps it is not Obama, but his advisors, who are at fault. Somehow, I doubt Barack Obama plans the routes his motorcades take. That sounds like a Secret Service gig to me, in many ways.
 
Why apologize for him? He could have flown home last night after the event and slept in a comfy bed on Air Force One. Or, he could have risen early (he's used to East Coast time anyway) and left before traffic this morning. Instead, he chose to travel during rush hour this morning. He's an asshole. Trust me, I am not alone in my anger. It's actually becoming a big deal here in LA, lots of people are complaining. He won't lose the California electoral votes over it -- which is probably why he figures he can get away with it -- but someone who actually gave a damn about business and about people who work for a living would care nevertheless.
 
This has been discussed here before, though don't know if that thread made the transition to this new host. At any rate, the drinking laws in America are coupled with the driving laws, same can be said of other countries. For example, and Perun can correct me if I am wrong, but in Germany the legal drinking age is 16, however you can't get a driver's license until you are 18 AND it is something around the lines of $2,000U.S to get. So yes, the drinking age is lower, but they have stricter requirements on driving privileges.

There was a time when drinking in the U.S was allowed for 18 year olds and even younger in some states. The changes came from two fronts. One was the activism of SADD (students against drunk driving) initiated by a hockey coach who had a party for his team, one of the players decided to go home and was killed in a car wreck, directly linked to his drinking at the party. The coach, feeling guilty I supposed, started SADD to promote the dangers of drinking and driving, not necesiraly that minors shouldn't do it, but just the negative effects. This led to legislation, which in turn turned to Federal Mandates that stipulated if states wanted federal funding for the freeways/highways, they MUST raise the legal drinking age to 21. Why 21? after a few years of studies the results showed the overwhelming amount of accidents by minors in general were astronomically higher than "adults," even higher when alcohol was involved.

So, as I told the kids of my church youth group. What do you prefer? to be able to DRIVE at 16 or drink? They can take the bus you say? Try that in "small town" Tucson, AZ where the bus takes about an hour to come by and what could be a 15 minute drive turns into a 2 hour bus odyssey. Oh, and they stop running after 10pm. So driving affords said teens the FREEDOM to go troll the mall without bugging mom or big bro for a ride.

On a more serious note, it is a cultural thing. The U.S isn't going to raise the speed limit on freeways and make DLs more expensive and start cracking down on small moving violations like they do in Scandinavia and Germany just so minors can drink. Sure people on the Autobahn can go as fast as they can (in certain sections), but slower traffic better stay on the right and you better not be tailgating. In the U.S what do you do when there is a slower car on the left lane? Um... move to the right. Is that proper highway etiquette? Fuck no, but no one cares, not even highway patrol apparently, at least judging by the number of slow pokes I bump into when I visit family in other cities/states.
 
Cornfed Hick I remember when Clinton caught a rash of shit for delaying air traffic at L.A. International just so he could get a haircut on Air Force 1 so it's not just Obama. Also it's not just LA. Sorry but on a regular day traffic still sucks in LA. You want see traffic shut down for a whole city you ought to see what happens when the President visits smaller cities and towns.
 
I kinda side with Cornfed on this one. Biden made it to my town ... a totally small 15,000 person town, he had his gig literally a block and a half from my work, and I had no problems at all. They cleared one parking lot, but there was tons of space in the other. I could get to work, drive to lunch, get a slurpy from the block next to the assembly.

I dunno if I'd blame Obama specifically for the LA bit, but if I was Obama, I'd think about giving someone a hard time for scheduling the drive during morning work traffic.
 
Blame people wanting to kill presidents. It is PRESIDENTS in general, has nothing to do with party or person, has to do with the office. Security has gone overboard with the president for quite a few years now.
 
Plus, the shutting down one of the major highways for reconstruction/widening projects doesn't help much either, but of course that's the presidents fault too, right?
 
I just think that Obama probably has very, very little control over what happens outside his motorcade, because the Secret Service does that part of his job. He's likely quite insulated from it (I was reading an article on the Secret Service and they keep the president quite insulated from their decisions so he can't veto stuff), and if there is extra security, it's probably because there's been more threats against him than any other president.

But yes, I am sure that it fucks the day when the president comes to town.
 
You're all missing the point. I'm not complaining about heightened security -- I expect that. Nor do I think he personally plans out the driving route -- of course he doesn't. It's the decision, "no, I don't want to leave the night before or even at 9am EST (6am PST) which is when I usually get going on any other day (and when the roads are clear and security would be easier, by the way) -- no, I want to leave during rush hour." That is ultimately the President's decision, not anyone else's. And it's not like this has happened only once -- it happens again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Clinton's airport haircut was indeed another example of inappropriate Presidential imperiousness, but at least he got the message not to pull that shit again, so he didn't. Obama, in contrast, is a repeat offender who serially causes major disruptions to the LA business community. Therefore, either he is clueless about the effect he is having on business, or he knows and just doesn't give a damn. Either way, that's bad.

I realize that this is, in the grand scheme of things, a minor point relative to the overall economy, but do Obama's repeated affronts reflect his indifference (or hostility) to the business community generally? Whoever the next President may be, whether Obama wins reelection or Romney unseats him, that President needs to recognize that, amidst fears of a global recession, and despite a class warfare-type focus on the supposed haves and have-nots, supporting businesses big and small is essential to any economic recovery. It has become disturbingly chic in American (and world) politics to paint business interests as evil or undeserving of protection, but business is the engine that drives American democracy and makes our way of life possible.
 
Whoever wins the election is not going to give a rat's ass about the common working man and how or if the security detail is screwing up the traffic. Name me the last guy who ran for president who wasn't a millionaire. They aren't like the average working joe, therefore they can't and don't have a clue as to what it's like having to get up and go to work, worry about their job (unless it's election time), worry about paying the bills or their kids education. You want to settle the health care debate in this country? It'd be real easy. Every citizen gets the same health care plan that the president, senate, and congressional members and their families receive. After all they supposedly work for the citizens so why should they have the best health care program while some of the people they supposedly work for have to do without? Of course you can almost hear the big rush of those self serving bastards getting in line to support that plan.
 
I'd have to say that Biden won the debate tonight. I didn't like the way he was laughing and IMO denegrade Ryan, but he came out and attacked just as he should have. Ryan has the same problem as Romney. They keep saying that they have a plan to fix everything, but yet they can't reveal any specific details. Well if your plan is so good, why won't you say what it is? Hell I can say I've got a plan to fix everything, doesn't mean anything if I can't explain how I'm going to go about doing it.
 
Biden had the edge last night, I am not sure how much it matters in the long run though as most people vote the top of the ticket. Biden probably accomplished the task of stopping some of the bleeding from the last debate and probably fired up Dems (who wish Obama would have done some of what Biden did). I thought Ryan did well though and from the instant polling, while Biden had the edge, Ryan's positives went up as well.

Instant polling

CNN Post-Debate Poll
Ryan - 48%
Biden - 44%

CBS News Poll
Biden - 50%
Ryan -31%
Tie - 19%

CNBC Poll
Ryan - 53%
Biden - 41%
Neither - 6%
 
I was playing around with the "create your electoral map" feature on RealClearPolitics.com today and see a possibility of a 269-269 tie. Romney would need to win Florida, NC, Virginia, NV, and Iowa, and CO. He is currently leading or within a point in all those states with the exception of Iowa which has not had much post 1st debate polling. Obama would need to win Ohio, NM, WI, and NH, PN, and MI .. he is currently leading in all of those, though Ohio has gotten pretty tight.

The possible wild card is Nebraska, which along with Maine give votes out proportionally. Obama won 1 vote from Nebraska in 2008, this seems unlikely his time as his popularity is down and the district he won was redistricted in the GOPs favor.

The other wild card would be a faithless elector. This has happened in the past, but seems inprobable what one would occur to flip the election. If Romney wins by a fair amount, I could see one or two voting for Ron Paul, but not to give the election to Obama .. same applies on the other side.

In the event of a tie, the House will determine the President. Each state delegation gets one vote. The GOP currently leads 33 to 16 with Minnesota tied. Even the most optimistic Democrat sees no change for them to capture the majority of the delegations. It would be the next Congress that votes, not the current one.

What makes this more interesting is that the VP would be determined by the Senate, with each Senator getting one vote. The way it looks now, the best the GOP can hope for is a 50-50 tie, meaning Biden would get the vote to determine the VP (Congress is seated Jan 3, the President and VP remain in office until Jan 20). Assuming everyone votes party line, we could possibly see Romney as President and Biden as VP.
 
Onhell said:
For example, and Perun can correct me if I am wrong, but in Germany the legal drinking age is 16, however you can't get a driver's license until you are 18 AND it is something around the lines of $2,000U.S to get. So yes, the drinking age is lower, but they have stricter requirements on driving privileges.
Click to expand...

For beer and wine. Anything beyond is 18. FYI, the driving age has been lowered to 17 (with an adult companion) recently.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top