kamui

I wonder if Obama is executing a well prepared plan after being politically almost impotent in the past years. First the women: ordering the health insurance companies to pay for birth control pills. The GOP and the Catholic church took the bait and ran straight into his trap and thus mobilized women associations around the country. Second the gay, buy supporting gay marriage and shutting down don't ask don't tell. The GOP couldn't really react, since more and more Americans are pro gay. And now the Latinos, by bringing substantial relief to hundreds of thousands of young Latinos, who traditionally do not vote at presidential elections. Especially in regard to the immigration topic the GOP is now cornered and gave contradicting responses. Every time it was done just with the strike of his pen, without endless fights with congress and senate. And every time it was aimed at group which was disappointed by Obama. But of course this doesn't make Obama a winner - especially if the economy will tank further.

Does this have any consequences for Obama? Except the Cubans and the Puertoricans all other young Latinos will gain from Obama's decision.

Obama energizes Latino vote By: Edward-Isaac Dovere and Darren Samuelsohn June 15, 2012 08:20 PM EDT President Barack Obama on Friday tried to grab back the mantle of change — and remind his base why they came out in force for him four years ago. The broad strokes are the same as when he declared his support for gay marriage last month: a key 2008 constituency that had spent three and a half years nursing its disappointment, now thrown a late-breaking move to ramp up its enthusiasm. In both, the president had very little to lose — many voters who dislike his support for gay marriage or refusal to deport young immigrants probably weren’t in play anyway. But he had a huge amount to gain in enthusiasm, in reconnecting with the spirit of his first campaign, and most of all, in driving up turnout. In an election that could well turn on the margin of Latinos supporting him in key swing states— and coming out to the polls — that’s no small matter. ..... The bold move by Obama shows that he is still playing to win. He hit one of the weakest spots of Romney who is now cornered in the immigration debate. Romney was against the Dream-Act and for "self-deportation". It will be difficult for him to move away from this position without alienating the hardcore GOPs, while he knows that the Latinos will be able to decide _any_ election the future. The decision affects up 800.000 Latinos directly and millions of Lationo indirectly who have a family member or relative who is now secure to pursue his/hers career in the USA. Additionally the order is temporary as the GOP has pointed out (how stupid can they be?) which means that the Latinos know what will happen when Romney becomes president. IMHO this raises Obama's chances, because Lations are playing a major role especially in the swing states.

Are you sure?

The campaign money is being dwarfed by the amount of USD the Super PACs are planning to spend. HuffPo worte that the Koch brother alone plan to spend 400 Mio. for Romney.

I wonder if you have to watch your back when it is getting dark. Not that I know much about these matters, but what I have read in Thai newspapers....

In Wisconsin the GOP outspend the DEMs 8 to 1! Since the Citizen United ruling the rules of the game have changed completely. The Dem's grassroots fundraising machine has no chance against the GOP billionaires. A very small group of GOP big money donors can easily outspend 10 Mio grassroots Dem donors.

Germany doesn't downplay it at all. Otherwise it would have been impossible to develop really good realationships with our neighbouring countries as well as with Isreal. (of course occasionally there are some frictions) The German government(s) paid reparations to many countries and is still paying pensions to foreign victims of the Nazi regime in Poland and elsewhere. On a local level German history schoolbooks document the Nazi regime and WWII very well. Nothing is being denied or hidden. In many cities you will find Nazi documentation centers and many private citizens are involved in researching the fate of Jews e.g. in their cities and villages. In Cologne for example at many places you find small bronze bricks with names inscribed in the pavement in front of certain houses. These are names of Jews living in the house who where deported... That's quite different to Japan which still denies the Nanjing massacre, which has enshrined so called Class A war ciminals in a major temple in Tokyo and which for example denies individual payments to sex slaves of Japanese WWII regime.

For years the German-Poland relationship was very complicated. But it is getting better now. I just had been invited to Krakow (definitely one of the most beautiful cities in Europe) and it was extremely pleasant to work with the Polish. By the way, after the fall of the Iron Curtain many Polish went to work in West Europe (Germany, GB, e.g.), but now Poland is doing so well that most of them returned home. In regard to US jails my information is of course limited, but it seems that in some prisons they even stopped serving food 3 times a day for financial reasons. Another major problem seems to be that more and more people get really old in prison and that the prisons can't/ won't take care of them. The same seems to apply the growing number of people with mental illnesses.

In Germany, if you are on social security (called Hartz 4) of have a low income, you get a lawyer for free, paid by the state - if your case is deemed legit. The state pays as well all court fees and optional expert witnesses (if this is the correct term). Only if you lose a court case you'll have to pay the winning side. And unless like in the USA those 'free' lawyers are not the bad apples of their profession or the incompetent ones . More details here (in German language)

That's a fucking arrogant and insulting post. I guess it is time to put you on the ignore list.

Both examples in regard to Germany and Libya are not valid. Freeing the Lybian terrorist happened outside the usual process. It was in the end a political decision. Letting out German terrorists happened as well outside the usual process. They received amnesty by the German president after years of public discussion. None of the terrorists has committed a crime after they left prison. Generally in Germany very few people stay in prison for life without parole. This happens only to those who are deemed to go on with capital crimes (murder, pedophelia, e.g.) if they are let go. This is a small group. The USA seems to have a very high prison rate for minor offenses, especially due to three strike law and due to drug offenses non-withes. And they put many people in jail for life without parole. On the other hand, as I understand the USA has a strange amnesty system. Every outgoing US governor and president gives amnesty to prisoners, among them are usually prisoners who in a way connected to governor/president. Anyway, in Germany life is pretty secure. Driveby shootings are rare, as well as shootings within a family or among relatives/fellows, since an usual household doesn't own a gun... (personally I have never seen a gun private hands in my whole life). But this is a different topic. In the USA if terrible crime with guns happens gun laws are being softened. In Europe, when such a crime happens gun laws are being hardened (see Scotland and Germany). PS: just compare the number of prisons and prison cells in Germany and the USA for get a idea of the number of inmates. It's simple math.

A fine example of American exceptionalism: The USA has the most prisoners in the world. It's interesting to look at despised enemies of the USA like Iran or to countries the USA wanted to democratize like Iraq (144). LOUISIANA INCARCERATED How we built the world's prison capital http://www.nola.com/prisons/ PS: Louisana has 10 times as many prisoners as Germany (161 per 100.000) See full list here: http://en.wikipedia....arceration_rate

Reagan: End of the Cold War

Just before the sale, the FB increase the number of share as well as the price - while at the same time GM was pulling ads from FB worth 10 mio USD. It seems that FB and the supporting banks aimed too high and lost.. Which means that they did a bad job. A few billion USD were burned within a very short time. Since this sale had been hyped in the media for months, this is very bad PR for the stock market, which has already lost a large chunk of investors who don't trust the stock market anymore.

When quoting Breitbart.com you should wait at last 48 hours. Usually journalists don't need more time to disprove their stuff. See here: http://mediamatters.org/blog/201205180026

What's bad about the book text?

I guess this doesn't change the fact that Whites of European decent aren't being in the majority anymore. Considering that the median age of WASPs is 42 their birthrate will decline even more. I wonder how the two political parities, especially the GOP will look like in a decade? And how they talk about immigration, education, e. g.? PS: It won't disturb me to see more Jessica Alba's, Salma Hayek's, e.g. in Hollywood movies.

Cheers C-Steve, even though I presume you are not involved in this. Whites Account for Under Half of Births in U.S. By SABRINA TAVERNISE WASHINGTON — After years of speculation, estimates and projections, the Census Bureau has made it official: White births are no longer a majority in the United States. Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49.6 percent of all births in the 12-month period that ended last July, according to Census Bureau data made public on Thursday, while minorities — including Hispanics, blacks, Asians and those of mixed race — reached 50.4 percent, representing a majority for the first time in the country’s history. Such a turn has been long expected, but no one was certain when the moment would arrive — signaling a milestone for a nation whose government was founded by white Europeans and has wrestled mightily with issues of race, from the days of slavery, through a civil war, bitter civil rights battles and, most recently, highly charged debates over efforts to restrict immigration. While over all, whites will remain a majority for some time, the fact that a younger generation is being born in which minorities are the majority has broad implications for the country’s economy, its political life and its identity. “This is an important tipping point,†said William H. Frey, the senior demographer at the Brookings Institution, describing the shift as a “transformation from a mostly white baby boomer culture to the more globalized multiethnic country that we are becoming.†Signs that the country is evolving this way start with the Oval Office, and have swept hundreds of counties in recent years, with 348 in which whites are no longer in the majority. That number doubles when it comes to the toddler population, Mr. Frey said. Whites are no longer the majority in four states and the District of Columbia, and have slipped below half in many major metro areas, including New York, Las Vegas and Memphis. A more diverse young population forms the basis of a generational divide with the country’s elderly, a group that is largely white and grew up in a world that was too. The contrast raises important policy questions. The United States has a spotty record educating minority youth; will older Americans balk at paying to educate a younger generation that looks less like themselves? And while the increasingly diverse young population is a potential engine of growth, will it become a burden if it is not properly educated? “The question is, how do we reimagine the social contract when the generations don’t look like one another?†said Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, co-director of Immigration studies at New York University. The trend toward greater minority births has been building for years, the result of the large wave of immigration here over the past three decades. Hispanics make up the majority of immigrants, and they tend to be younger — and to have more children — than non-Hispanic whites. (Of the total births in the year that ended last July, about 26 percent were Hispanic, about 15 percent black, and about 4 percent Asian.) Whites still represent the single largest share of all births, at 49.6 percent, and are an overwhelming majority in the population as a whole, at 63.4 percent. But they are aging, causing a tectonic shift in American demographics. The median age for non-Hispanic whites is 42 — meaning the bulk of women are moving out of their prime childbearing years. Latinos, on the other hand, are squarely within their peak fertility, with a median age of 27, said Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center. Between 2000 and 2010, there were more Hispanic births in the United States than there were arriving Hispanic immigrants, he said. The result is striking: Minorities accounted for 92 percent of the nation’s population growth in the decade that ended in 2010, Mr. Frey calculated, a surge that has created a very different looking America from the one of the 1950s, when the TV characters Ozzie and Harriet were a national archetype. The change is playing out across states with large differences in ethnic and racial makeup between the elderly and the young. Some of the largest gaps are in Arizona, Nevada, Texas and California, states that have had flare-ups over immigration, school textbooks and priorities in spending. The nonrural county with the largest gap is Yuma County, Ariz., where just 18 percent of people under 20 are white, compared with 73 percent of people over 65, Mr. Frey said. Perhaps the most urgent aspect of the change is education. A college degree has become the most important building block of success in today’s economy, but blacks and Latinos lag far behind whites in getting one. According to Mr. Frey, just 13 percent of Hispanics and 18 percent of blacks have a college degree, compared with 31 percent of whites. Those stark statistics are made more troubling by the fact that young Americans will soon be faced with caring for the bulging population of baby boomers as they age into retirement, said William O’Hare, a senior consultant to the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, on top of inheriting trillions of dollars of government debt. “The forces coming together here are very clear, but I don’t see our political leaders putting them together in any coherent way,†he said, adding that educating young minorities was of critical importance to the future of the country and the economy. Immigrants took several generations to assimilate through education in the last large wave of immigration at the turn of the 20th century, Mr. Suarez-Orozco said, but mobility was less dependent on education then, and Americans today cannot afford to wait, as they struggle to compete with countries like China. “This is a polite knock on the door to tell us to get ready,†said Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. “We do a pretty lousy job of educating the younger generation of minorities. Basically, we are not ready for this.†But there are bright spots. Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, said the immigration debate of recent years has raised the political consciousness of young Latinos and he is hopeful that more will become politically active as a result. Only half of eligible Latino voters cast ballots in 2008, he said, compared with 65 percent of eligible non-Hispanic voters. “We have an opportunity here with this current generation,†Mr. Vargas said. About 50,000 Latinos turn 18 every month, he said. And the fact that the country is getting a burst of births from nonwhites is a huge advantage, argues Dowell Myers, professor of policy, planning and demography at the University of Southern California. European societies with low levels of immigration now have young populations that are too small to support larger aging ones, exacerbating problems with the economy. “If the U.S. depended on white births alone, we’d be dead,†Mr. Myers said. “Without the contributions from all these other groups, we would become too top-heavy with old people.†NY Times

Therefore you are unfit to become president of the United States! BTW, wasting billions by sending your people to an unjust war will bring you at least 150.000 USD per lecture after your retirement. You just think too small. You should think in pennies at all.

Romney's friends(?) didn't say that the incidents didn't happen at all. They just they give a character assessment, that this shold not have happened, considering Romeny was such a nice guy. So why did Romney already apologize almost immediately for his behavior during his youth? Is he so weak that he apologizes for things he didn't do? And the WAPO had 5 different sources (much more than for the Watergate scandal). Anyway the Romney campaign has of course the disadvantage that the whole right wing media and related groups spend already 4 years researching the life of Obama ever. By now nothing really stuck (the Birther Stuff was a boomerang obviously, which puts off non right-wing independent voters, e.g.). One reason of course is, that Obama had been so clever to reveal his "sins" during his youth by himself. We can expect that the media will do much more digging in regard to Romney's past. By the way, don't forget: The term "swift boating" was coined in regard to a very ugly and dirty right wing campaign.

As your really trustworthy source says [/irony off], this was already in the mainstream media (Chicago Post) in 2007 and Obama provided the information himself... It seems that the WP scoop caught Fox et al on the wrong foot. By the way, as a teacher, don't you agree that mobbing and attacking classmate(s) for being gay (or just being perceived as gay) and smoking a joint are really different things?

Yeah, right, as if the whole right wing media (Fox and co.) wouldn't jump on this kind of story if it wasn't Romney. The timing of the story was of course perfect: a day after Obama supported gay marriage, Romney is being described as a homophobe who personally attacked and abused a gay classmate and mobbed another classmate who just looked gay in his eyes...

In Germany there are nearly no millionaires in the parliament - as far as I know. Our party and election system is completely different. Parties as well as elections are funded mostly by public money. Therefore the candidates mustn't neither be rich nor be funded by (super)rich supporters/corporations.

I guess it will become an extremely expensive (I read somewhere the number of one Billion USD) and almost probably a very dirty election campaign. I fear that the super rich will simply buy the next president. Wallstreet has turned against Obama and conservative billionaires are already spending big.