Comments on: Obama Alert: Reagan’s “Dismal Legacy on Civil Rights”

By: LawKiller

LawKiller — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:56:51 +0000

Public notification of offenders will never protect any child. The list of offenders that the police have will never protect any children. The ONLY thing it can do is produce an instant list of suspects AFTER the child is already abducted. Does a person living 1 foot outside the restricted area make anyone any safer? Do you think they wont go somewhere else? There are no laws anyway that say an offender cant enter a school. How does residentcy laws prevent anyone from doing anything? Will someone inside the area who lived there before the law started make any decision to offend or not just because of where their house is located. Anyone who urinated outside because of stupid judgement while intoxicated is subject to the same laws as a criminal who raped a 2 year old baby. These laws must end now. Laws must be enacted to seriously punish repeat and violent offenders, not people who have mooned a bus, dove in a lake nude, or streaked across a sports field.

By: Leslie

Leslie — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:32:22 +0000

The GOP has not been the party of ideas. Obama is wrong. But Reagan was able to project Republican ideas in a way that many people bought into. That ability is what Obama is referring to. That doesn’t mean Obama’s agreeing with Reagan’s ideas.

I believe Obama means that Reagan did for the Right what Obama would like to do for the Left: Be a vehicle for change, for progressive change in Obama’s case.

By: Ron Cowin

Ron Cowin — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:34:00 +0000

Thank you Susan for a great posting. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I wouldn’t join hands with the likes of Karl Rove (even with rubber gloves) and sing kumbaya for all the gold supposed to be in Fort Knox. Bush is just Reagan without the so-called communication skills, and a room temperaure IQ. At least Reagan was smart enough to get our troops out of Lebanon without being accused of cutting and running.

By: Stanley Evans

Stanley Evans — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 16:42:57 +0000

In 1993 I was living in Southern California and one evening I struck up a conversation with a local Italian restaurant owner. He was bitching and moaning about the Clinton administration and predicting that he would lose all the economic gains he had enjoyed during the Bush years. He might even be forced to sell one of his Cadillacs if things got as bad as he expected. Clinton would raise taxes, give the revenues to lazy no good lay about’s, increase the bureaucracy and so on. My wife and I moved to Southern Utah a few months later and I never had the chance to check up on this guy and ask how he managed to survive Clinton economic policy. I don’t think he lost money. And I’m sure he was able to trade in his luxury cars when ever the ash trays filled up.

By: 1950democrat

1950democrat — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:35:15 +0000

Sorry, dunno why the last post is blank. I posted an image, a very telling graph: the only surplus shown is in the Clinton years. The deficit was worst under both Bush’s. From the biggest deficit (till then) to the biggest surplus, then back to a worse deficit under Bush Jr.

If the image still doesn’t come up, it’s at
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2254/1713743698_2e51b3b1c6_o.gif

By: 1950democrat

1950democrat — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:28:48 +0000

By: Kathleen

Kathleen — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:17:30 +0000

Susan you did it again! Great info. Reagan made it fashionable and acceptable to be greedy.

The media and Edwards…interesting info
not just a perception a reality

http://www.johnedwards.com/whereisjohn/

By: BernieO

BernieO — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:27:21 +0000

Clinton did even more for than you list. He expanded the earned income tax credit and increased access to child care for low income people. Because of measures like this during his tenure there was a record number of people who moved out of poverty into the middle class.
As for Reagan’s legacy, many of the huge problems we face today are a direct result of his half-baked policies.
After the oil crisis in the 70’s Jimmy Carter got laws passed that put us well on our way to energy independence, requiring fuel efficiency in cars, funding R&D, giving incentives for energy saving things like increasing insulation in homes, etc. Our per capita use of energy dropped substantially. Then Reagan came in with his pie-in-the sky- “there is no energy shortage” blather, and reversed Carter’s policies, setting us back on our old gas guzzling path. We are trapped in the middle east in large part as a result.
Reagan also pushed libertarian free market policies, deregulating when he could, making sure there were not enough people to enforce regulations that he could not get reversed. Presto! We had the multi-billion Savings and Loan collapse which we taxpayers got the privilege of paying for.
He bought into a fringe economic idea called supply side economics and pushed through tax cuts, claiming they would pay for themselves. They didn’t and our debt ballooned.
He bought into the neocon’s (yes those guys were around then, they just weren’t called neocons) loopy missile defense program which mainstream rocket scientists said would never work. We are still paying for that and it still does not work. Because it was the idea of Saint Reagan, politicians don’t dare get point out that it is a boondoggle. The media would eat them alive.
Reagan implemented policies weakening environmental protections.

Bill Clinton undid a lot of the damage that Reagan caused, but Bush, a devotee of Ronnie has successfully implemented Reagan type policies and we are paying the price. Hostage to oil, ballooning deficits, a crisis of confidence in our markets because of lack of oversight and the resulting fraud, environmental degradation, etc.

Obama is either incredibly uninformed or extremely calculating and arrogant.

By: SusanUnPC

SusanUnPC — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:53:18 +0000

I surely will, Simon. That is very important — and in my mad typing I didn’t include Mississippi.

By: Mr.Murder

Mr.Murder — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:52:50 +0000

Apologies, that was the efforts of one Ronald Reagan, whom Obama praised, albeit not entirely in naivety.

By: JerseyJeffersonian

JerseyJeffersonian — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:50:51 +0000

Susan,

Would you be so kind as to amend your post to make it clear that the “Philadelphia” to which you refer is the one in MISSISSIPPI, and not the one in Pennsylvania, please. I’m a South Jersey boy, and Philly is my city; I wouldn’t want it to be confused with the Philadelphia in MS, site of the murder of three civil rights workers. See the entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia%2C_Mississippi

Simon,

I think you’ve got it figured out. Maybe this is how they do politics in Chicago; but if so, it undermines all of Obama’s blather about rising above partisanship. This is one stone progressive who might find another candidate to vote for in the general election if this Reagan Lovin’ poser gets the nomination.

By: Mr.Murder

Mr.Murder — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:48:51 +0000

Ahhh, adding intent beyond reasonable doubt, to limit the number of prosecutions and convictions for said item.

That worked magnificently for Scooter Libby, kept him from facing treason charges.

Obama did this for anti discrimination enforcement?

I didn’t mean to do that, but who could have ever imagined? Is that the new ‘get out of jail free’ move for violence, motivated by dislike of civil rights?

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:04:21 +0000

Barry’s political strategy appears to be back stab “liberal” democratic values, and democrats, to win the broader white vote, race bait to win the black vote, and paint yourself as a hip young tolerant progressive to win the youth.

Ah, the politics of unity, reconciliation, and hope.

Maybe he DOES admire Ronald Reagan…