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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Heckuva Job, Barry

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Ted Rall
Obama, Losing Jobs, Soon to Be Shovel-Ready Pro-Obama political cartoonists have drawn variations of the same cartoon: the president, in the role of badgered parent on a family trip, is driving a car labeled “The Economy.” The American public, depicted as Uncle Sam or Joe Average, whines: “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” With official unemployment approaching 10 percent and underemployment at 16.5 percent, Americans are running out of money—and patience. Obama’s approval ratings are down between 15 and 20 points, meaning that he has lost one in six Americans. His biggest weakness: the economy. “I think the public knows three things: We inherited a total mess; we’re working hard on it; and we’re not going to get out of it overnight,” says Chief White House propagandist Rahm Emanuel. That part is true. The trouble for Obama is that people don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. “The key to what…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Obama Covers Up a Dozen My Lais

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Ted Rall
Were 3,000 Afghans Murdered As U.S. Troops Stood By? “I’ve asked my national security team to…collect the facts,” President Obama told CNN. Then, he said, “we’ll probably make a decision in terms of how to approach it once we have all the facts together.” Probably. Such was Obama’s tepid reaction to a New York Times cover story about an alleged “mass killing of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Taliban prisoners of war by the forces of an American-backed warlord during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.” Obama sounds so reasonable. Doesn’t he always? But his reaction to the massacre in the Dasht-i-Leili desert is nothing more than the latest case of his administration refusing to investigate a Bush-era war crime. There are two things Obama doesn’t want you to know about Dasht-i-Leili. First, the political class and U.S. state-controlled media have sat on this story for six to seven years. Second, U.S. troops are accused of participating in the atrocities, which involved…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: The Fog of Obama

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Ted Rall
Why Can’t Obama See His Wars Are Unwinnable? Robert McNamara, one of the “best and the brightest” technocrats behind the escalation of the Vietnam War, eventually came to regret his actions. But his public contrition, which included a book and a series of interviews for the documentary “The Fog of War,” were greeted with derision. “Mr. McNamara must not escape the lasting moral condemnation of his countrymen,” editorialized The New York Times in 1995. “Surely he must in every quiet and prosperous moment hear the ceaseless whispers of those poor boys in the infantry, dying in the tall grass, platoon by platoon, for no purpose. What he took from them cannot be repaid by prime-time apology and stale tears, three decades late.” McNamara’s change of heart came 58,000 American and 2,000,000 Vietnamese lives too late. If the dead could speak, surely they would ask: why couldn’t you see then what you understand so clearly now? Why didn’t you listen to…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Sorry, Mr. Bush

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Ted Rall
The Poor Get Poorer, Presidents Get Worse I miss Bush. Stop the presses and shut off the RSS feeds: the bashiest of the Bush-bashers is starting to appreciate the Exile of Crawford. I haven’t forgiven George W. Bush for stealing two elections, starting two wars, bankrupting the treasury and doing his damnedest to turn the U.S. into a fascist state. He deserves one of hell’s hottest picnic spots for refusing to lift a finger to bring the 9/11 murderers to justice. Bush was stupid. He was vicious. He should be in prison. He was the worst president the U.S. had ever had. Until this one. On major issues and a lot of minor ones, Obama is the same as or worse than Bush. But Bush had an opposition to contend with. Obama has a compliant Democratic Congress. Lulled to somnolent apathy by Obama’s charming manners, mastery of English (and yes, the color of his skin), leftist activists and journalists have…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Half Healthcare, 100% Dead

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Ted Rall
Time for Obama to Get Serious Half measures are boring. That political reality derailed Bill Clinton’s 1993 healthcare reform plan. And it will likely unravel that of Barack Obama. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office finds that Obama’s plan, sponsored by Senators Chris Dodd and Ted Kennedy, “would reduce the number of uninsured only by a net 16 million people. Even if the bill became law, the budget office said, 36 million people would remain uninsured in 2017,” reported The New York Times. Yet it would cost at least $1 trillion over ten years. Americans like Obama’s basic idea: “Seventy-two percent of those questioned [in the latest Times/CBS News poll] supported a government-administered insurance plan–something like Medicare for those under 65–that would compete for customers with private insurers. Twenty percent said they were opposed.” The support is broad. But it isn’t deep. “Pay higher taxes for a healthcare plan that probably won’t help you personally, even if you’re uninsured” isn’t much…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Resistance is Purile

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Ted Rall
The Going Gets Tough. The Tough Start Blogging.This is the second of two parts. NEW YORK, NORTH AMERICAN PROTECTORATE, GREATER GERMAN REICH—At first glance, everything looks fine. Sixty-five years after the Nazi victory at D-Day brought this North American city into the fold of the Greater German Reich, the security situation is calm. Families stroll the sidewalks. Stores that haven’t been boarded up are filled with browsers. Travelers line up to take the express elevator to the top of Manhattan’s Adolf Hitler Tower to board express zeppelin service to Germania. But not everyone is happy. Decades after being conquered by Germany, North American subjects of the Greater Reich are growing restive. “We would greatly appreciate it if you would consider withdrawing,” reads the pointed graffiti on the side of a local SS recruiting station. Why the anger? Six months after a new chancellor came to power amid promises of dramatic change, the Reich remains at war. Between the officially unemployed…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Taking Time Takes Patience

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Ted Rall
Desperate and Afraid, People Trust Leader This is the first of two parts. WASHINGTON, NORTH AMERICAN PROTECTORATE, GREATER GERMAN REICH–From Honolulu to Portland, Maine, North American citizens of the Greater German Reich gathered on June 6th to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the victory of Axis forces at D-Day, the battle that decided World War II. Fallen heroes of the Wehrmacht and SS were commemorated at solemn ceremonies and Party rallies throughout the Reich, but the day held special meaning in Washington, which until 1945 was the capital of the former United States. Speaking at the Supreme Kommandatur, which was built at the site of the former American presidential palace, Chancellor Adolf Hitler III said the war against the Western Allies paved the way for the years of peace and prosperity that followed. “It was unknowable then, but so much of the progress that would define the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, came down to the battle…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: How To Talk to a Pro-Lifer (and you must)

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Ted Rall
How Pro-Choicers Should Learn to Talk to Pro-Lifers All too often in American politics opposing sides talk past one another, firing off arguments loaded with language that stands no chance of persuading those who hold other views. The debate over what to do about 9/11 was such a moment, one that initiated the current era of polarization. When liberals recoiled at torture and GOP attacks on civil liberties, conservatives accused them of being anti-American traitors. When Republicans supported preemptive warfare against Iraq, liberals called them fascists and warmongers. If we had the chance for a do-over, it would probably happen just the same way. The attacks in New York and Washington exposed a fault line in Americans’ views of what makes our country great: liberals treasure the U.S. for the Bill of Rights whereas conservatives value living at the center of a wealthy and powerful empire. The kill-’em-all-let-God-sort-’em-out crowd doesn’t live in the same universe as those of us who…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Mr. Obama: Resign Now

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Ted Rall
With Democrats Like Him, Who Needs Dictators? We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through. From healthcare to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn’t have the ‘nads to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning? Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to…
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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Bail Out Your Own Damn Self

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Ted Rall
Time for a Tax and Mortgage Strike The calamari salad was world-class. Still, my friend the CPA’s face screwed up. “You know what still has me pissed off? The bailouts. All wasted on CEO bonuses. But nobody cares!” I told him I thought people cared, but they didn’t know what they could do about it. “I’ll tell you what we should do,” he fumed. “Stop paying our taxes. And our mortgages. They can’t throw us all in jail! They can’t evict us all!” What should we demand? “The bailout money. Make ’em give back every cent to us, the people who need it.” How would the money from The Mother of All Clawbacks be distributed? Equally? Should people in foreclosure get more? Or those who pay higher taxes? He didn’t know. So some details need to be worked out. But the point remains: it’s time for a revolt. The economic collapse began eight months ago, in September 2008. The Bush…
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