DISQUS

avahome · 5 months ago

So is this the reason MSNBC wants to see the WH visitor logs?

Bostonian_Queer_in_Dallas · 5 months ago

Maybe it's time for Americans to begin the Twittering of our own revolution. This is not the Obama I voted for...by a fucking mile.

katiec · 5 months ago

Have been viewing your site for many days but have not commented. We bloggers are well aware that you are upset with some of our presidents actions and you have the right to be to a degree. It is a very special interest to you and I understand that, but your dissatisfaction on this issue seems obvious in statements made concerning every other issue.
Quite frankly, there are many special interest issues that need to be addressed, but my main concern right now is the survival of our country. We are in shambles and right now all attention needs to be given to what is most important. Our president will make mistakes and every campaign promise will not be able to be fulfilled, but he is trying, doing the best he can. Where do you think we would be if his opposition had control?
My grandson, who I love and support totally, is gay. I see the hardships and anguish he goes through because of this,
but at this time I say to him, the priorities, the policies, problems that need to be addressed for our country as a whole are and must be at the top of the list.

HelenRainier · 5 months ago

An honest mistake is ONE thing, but bringing the Trojan Horse into the middle of the battle is only asking for more trouble.

I am an apolitcal person. I have always been a registered independent. I am more than fair and even-minded when it comes to giving people the benefit of the doubt.

I have had it with Obama. He's becoming to come across like a pig wearing a more expensive brand of lipstick as opposed to Sarah Palin who was using "Wet 'N Wild."

Ben Dover · 5 months ago

Yes, yes. We should wait because now is not the time and there's way too much on Obama's plate and there are much, much more important issues for him to deal with than silly old equality for American citizens.
Tell you what, you go make S'mores and I'll get the others to hold hands and sing Kum-ba-ya until you return.
It's easy to deny others their rights when you already have yours, isn't it?

Get Real · 5 months ago

Doing the best he can? You should probably take off your rose colored glasses so you can see that Obama is really just more of the same, owned and directed by Wall Street. Too bad you are letting the complaints about LGBT issues bother you when there are plenty of other issues that concern the future of the nation that Obama is blowing too? Read some of the financial and economic blogs. The proposed changes to financial regulation are a joke and another gift to Wall Street. More than likely any health care reform will be so watered down to appease everyone that their will be little benefit from it. Talk about transparency is all talk. Obama continues to hold onto and expand the power of the executive branch. This one term Senator is in way over his head. Making campaign promises to win an election are easy but leading the nation is a different story. You are in for a lot greater disappointment than you probably have the capacity to even see.

Steve_in_CNJ · 5 months ago

you're scaring me. addressing human rights causes economic disaster. what a lousy message to be teaching your grandson.

Blueflash · 5 months ago

Maybe instead of lecturing us to wait (and we've been told to wait for decades now) you should focus your energy against the right. Obviously, you believe it would be enormously difficult for Obama to make good on any of his promises to the gay community, so confront the actual obstacle, not us. It's not as if we're going away any time soon. Do you want your grandson to have to spend his life in the same struggle because you told him to wait? And I think you really underestimate the change for the better in heterosexuals' attitudes toward us (the same heterosexuals your grandson will spend his life surrounded by) that will come when government is finally sending the message by way of our legal equality that we are as worthy of respect as all other citizens.

HelenRainier · 5 months ago

If this isn't the fox guarding the henhouse, I don't know what is.

WTF? Is Obama giving them a second opportunity to go on and finish the job for once and for all?

Sure looks that way.

What about taking advice from a Nobel prize winning economist like Krugman and perhaps what sounds like some practical advice from Warren Buffett? Taxing wealthier Americans at a higher rate (as advocated by Gates and a few others, including Bill Clinton, also an advocate)?

GlennNYC · 5 months ago

I am as disgusted with the influence of lobbyists, particularly from the financial industry, as anyone. But to argue that representatives of the industry proposed to be regulated shouldn't even have input into those regulations is absurd. If for no other reason, they have more information about the industry and possible consequences of regulation than anyone else. The question is how much greater their voices are heard than other voices, but one can't really tell from that story the answer to that question. I'm wary, of course -- the history of every administration has been to give the industry disproportionate sway. So let's see what happens. But just having them to the White House to discuss seems pretty reasonable.

rgblk · 5 months ago

As an "expert" in a completely different industry I know that there are many "experts" in my industry outside of the companies I have worked for. I'm sure the same can be said of the financial industry as well so there really wasn't a need to call in people from these corporations to bias the legislation.
This smells as bad as the experts W had come in to shape the nations energy policy. Like they say, if it walks like a duck...

HelenRainier · 5 months ago

Are you sure you're not diminishing the influence and power (read that campaign contributions) that the industry lobbyists have on our federal representatives?

I most certainly am not and it's easy (at least for me) to see on whose side the politicians think their toast is buttered. And it sure isn't We, the People.

katiec · 5 months ago

I do not wish or want the rights of anyone to be denied.
And, yes, admittedly I have more than you.
But if our financial system, health care, world relations fail, than I think the rights for everyone will be insignificant.
Your equality will happen. It will take time, just, as a woman, our rights were very slow in materializing. I do
not wish that for you.

KerrynowCampau · 5 months ago

If we fail address climate change ASAP in a big way all those things you mentioned will be insignificant as well

Indigo · 5 months ago

And the Big Kahuna surfs on . . .

yoyogibear · 5 months ago

Maybe the financial industry lobbyists visiting the White House are the ones on the White House logs that the President doesn't want us to see.

I heard this overhaul doesn't change the ratings agencies at all.

My patience with Obama is wearing thin. They better not cave on health care.

NoTransparency · 5 months ago

I guess this explains the Obama administration's continuance of the Bush administration refusal to comply with FOIA requests on visitors to the White House. They wouldn't want us to know who really drafted the proposed regulations.

katiec · 5 months ago

Oh for crying out loud. President Obama has been the most transparent President we have had.
I could care less, nor is it my business who does or does not visit the White House.
What is more important is how the republicans are becoming our most dangerous domestic terrorists.

Get Real · 5 months ago

No, citizens like yourself who are no different from the lemming Republicans who supported Bush for eight years are a greater risk to our nation. Just because a Democrat holds the office now doesn't mean we should check our obligation to hold them accountable. And the lack of transparency extends beyond MSNBC's FOIA request.

TimF · 5 months ago

Good Grief...giving them a seat at the table is hardly one-in-the-same as letting them write the thing.

Also, there is ZERO indication that any lobbyist had any influence within the White House. Did you think that they wouldn't lobby on the hill?

Obama is dammed if he does and dammed if he doesn't these days. It's starting to become absurd.

I'm pretty socialist myself, yet I find some on the left who act as though Obama should power grab like Putin and rule with an iron fist a bit disconcerting. It's never enough for the left. Even if the right is going batshit crazy over the proposal.