There has been some discussion regarding Pres Obama nominees/appointees. Here is a partial list.

[rhett o rick]

Last edited Wed Dec 3, 2014, 05:13 PM - Edit history (2)

Please help me update this list:

Tim Geitner, Lawrence Summers, Ben Bernanke, William M. Daley, Jeff Immelt, Dave Cote, Jeb Bush (consultant on education reform), Robert Gates, Gen Stanley McChrystal, Jacob Lew, Jeremiah Norton, Gen Petraeus, John Brennen, Chuck Hegal, Michael Taylor, James Comey, James R. Clapper, Robert Gates, Leon Panetta, Robert Mueller, Michele Leonhart (DEA), Lois Lerner (IRS), Arnie Duncan (education) , Rahm Emanuel, Penny Pritzker, Michael Froman as U.S. trade representative, Republican Senator Judd Gregg nominated to be Commerce Secretary, Kenneth Salazar (DINO) Dept of Interior, Tom Wheeler FCC, Charles Ramsey,

I feel that all of the above are either conservative, strongly conservative, or Republican. If you disagree, let's discuss.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. These are all great picks, proud patriots who love their country

Why do people like you begrudge the good fortune of others? They worked hard to create and enforce federal regulations that make themselves and their families very, very rich and powerful by grabbing your money, and that's the American way.

Move to Denmark if you want to live in some commie hell hole. Imagine! The horror of Big Macs that cost a full 35 cents more than ours, and universal health care!

Regards,

TWM

[rhett o rick]

2. Oh yeah. I am reporting you to the hosts.

There is no room for Third Way crap here.

PS: Will you forward this message to a decent host for me?

[demwing]

8. Can't help

By any measure, I am mostly indecent.

[rhett o rick]

11. I knew this would happen if you let Manny and his multiple personalities in the "Group".

Can hosts be impeached? Just askin'.

[demwing]

12. Only for meaningless and trivial annoyances

and none of my annoyances are either trivial or meaningless.

I'm just not much help today

[Enthusiast]

3. We certainly didn't suspect candidate Obama would make such appointments

when we supported him for president.

Why should we have had such suspicions. His appointments have been unprecedented. Unbelievable! It is as if he is ideologically Republican.

[mopinko]

4. arne, rahm and daley are just homies.

arne, in particular. people dont seem to realize what pride we have here in our university civil leadership. the university of chicago is the leader in the world for research on education. the lab school there, where both the obama kids went and rahm's kids go, is the model of what education should be.

the first black pres was smart to bring some homies with him.
i, personally, think these guys are pretty seriously misunderstood.

i wont go as far out on a limb for billy daley. but, hey, chi.

[rhett o rick]

5. Yes but they are conservative "homies". I am looking for appointees that are not

conservatives.

[mopinko]

6. you are saying they are conservative.

they say they are not.
i'm not too inclined to think they are, myself.
rahm isnt.

maybe you need a definition.

[rhett o rick]

7. Seems the line has shifted so far to the right that some call people

who would have been Republicans 20 years ago non-conservative.

What Arnie Duncan want's to do with schools and teachers is right directly out of the conservative play book.

How can we forget all the derision that Rahm spit at the left. And Penny Pritzker is a female Mitt Romney that calls herself a Democrat.

Now it's your turn to say why you don't think they are conservatives?

[QC]

13. In a world where a cautious corporate centrist like the president

is considered the second coming of Karl Marx, Rahm and Arne probably do count as liberals.

But I'm with you--they are not liberals in any meaningful sense of the word, certainly not Arne, whose ed policies are even more corporate than George W's.

And let's not get too sentimental about the University of Chicago, which inflicted Leo Strauss and Milton Friedman on the world. Few thinkers have ever done as much damage those two.

[merrily]

20. Rahm isn't a traditional Democrat or a liberal, nor does

he claim to be anything but a centrist with a contempt of liberals he was content to make quite public.

[mopinko]

21. well, that isnt the way he is running the city.

he has made a lot of moves on energy, urban farming, parks, early childhood education and more.
sorry, he does not fit the pigeon holes.

[sabrina 1]

22. Anyone who is for privatization of the Public Schools, is Conservative. They are definitely

Third Way, right leaning on most issues, except the ones needed to pass as Democrats.

Arne Duncan knows nothing about Education. He is worse than Bush's Ed nominee who was also anti-teachers and who outraged the Left back then, to the point where airc, he had to be let go.

Now it appears some on the Left are okay with pretty much the same and even worse Education policies.

[demwing]

9. I must have missed Jeb Bush as a nominee/appointee

or did he just slip in unnoticed through the darkness... like a dark, unnoticeable slippy thing?

[rhett o rick]

10. He may not have been appointed per se but was identified as a consultant.

"Jeb Bush was consulted to the dismay of teachers of the country by Pres Obama and Arnie Duncan regarding education reforms." http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/obama-right-and-wrong.html

[zipplewrath]

14. And the end of the day, Obama himself

Really, we're talking about a guy that has described himself as not all that different than Eisenhower. He was vastly more comfortable with people like Lincoln, Spector, and Baucus than Sanders or Kucinich. Heck the two presidents that have had the most influence on him are apparently Lincoln and Reagan. He hired a whole passel of ex-Clinton staffers. He had to "evolve" to gay marriage. He picked Biden as his running mate. The majority of his Sec Defs have been GOPers.

[merrily]

19. Ironically, he chose Lieberman as his mentor.

But he didn't really have to evolve on gay marriage. A questionnaire he had signed when he ran for the Illinois senate stated he favored equal marriage. (IIRC, it was 1994, but I am not swearing to the year.)

When that questionnaire surfaced, his people tried to distance him from it by saying he had not personally filled it out. However, he had signed it and he is a lawyer who totally understands that you don't sign something that you don't read and agree with--and he never denied reading it or signing it. So that attempt didn't really fly.

IMO, he "evolved" away from his position only because he thought he would not lose many Democratic votes and might gain some RW votes. And evolved back to it because some things had eased some in society between 2008 and his evolution and also because gay bundlers and fundraisers and lobbyists negotiated hard with him.

[sabrina 1]

15. Did you leave out Gates? That's a list any Republican would love btw. But wouldn't it be a shorter

list to just post the Progressive Democrats in the President's cabinet?

I can only think of one, Van Jones, and he 'resigned' after the right wing dug up some ridiculous poll he voted in or something. War Crimes are okay though, Conflicts of interest, see Clapper who came straight from Booz Allen to the NSA where he managed to get billions of dollars for his old Private Security Corps, to which he will probably return and be richly rewarded for his 'work' at the NSA.

[rhett o rick]

18. I added Gates. Thanks for the reminder. nm

[wavesofeuphoria]

16. Abusive Cop Picked to Head Police Reform Commission

Something not really right about this appointment as co-chair

Abusive Cop Picked to Head Police Reform Commission
Chief Ramsey has been a national leader in militarized policing.

http://www.alternet.org/activism/abusive-cop-picked-head-police-reform-commission

Philadelphia Police Chief Charles Ramsey, one of two co-chairs apppointed by President Obama to head a commission on ways to demilitarize local police, is known for leading repeated bloody and abusive crackdowns on protesters when he was Washington, D.C.’s chief a decade ago, according to a civil rights attorney who won millions in damages for 100s of citizens attacked by D.C. police.

“If the president’s idea of reforming policing practices includes mass false arrests, brutality, and the eviscerating of civil rights, then Ramsey’s his man. That’s Charles Ramsey’s legacy in D.C.,” said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), speaking of the ex-D.C. chief and current Philadelphia Police Commissioner. “Obama should immediately rescind his appointment of Commissioner Ramsey, who is a mass violator of civil rights and civil liberties.”

On Monday, Obama appointed Ramsey and Laurie Robinson, a George Mason University professor of criminology, law and society, to head a commission that the president said will suggest steps that the executive branch can take to unwind the most visible aspects of America’s militarized police—its domestic use of military gear.

[rhett o rick]

17. Thanks for adding to the listing. Sounds like a great choice. nm

[sabrina 1]

23. Another Fox to guard the Henhouse. I remember Ramsey. I would have expected

him to be appointed by Cheney/Bush.

So, now that we have seen how just electing a Dem to end Republican rule and policies isn't the answer considering how important the cabinet appointees will be, how do we stop the next Dem from keeping Republicans and Third Wayers in control by doing the same thing?

[wavesofeuphoria]

24. I've been thinking about citizen watch groups of late ...

If there were some way to establish watch groups that establish "rules" for government ... hiring, firing, benefits, etc etc. ... rather than having government folks governing themselves. For example, congress makes its own rules for compensation, pension, work hours, etc etc. for its members ... fox/henhouse.

Anyway, I'm rambling thoughts that haven't completely gelled here ... but ... point being, reform is needed and I thinking that putting that reform in the hands of citizens/the people is needed.