Silicon Valley Is Filling Up With Ex-Obama Staffers 211
HughPickens.com writes: Edward-Isaac Dovere reports in Politico that the fastest-growing chapter of the Obama alumni association is in Silicon Valley. For the people who helped get Obama elected and worked for him once he did, there's something about San Francisco and its environs that just feels right: the emphasis on youth and trying things that might fail, chasing that feeling of working for the underdog, and even using that word "disrupting" to describe what they do. "A lot of people who moved out here were present at the creation of the Obama '08 campaign," says Tommy Vietor. "There's a piece of them that wants to replicate that." Vietor left the White House two years ago, and he and his business partner, former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, founded a communications strategy firm with a focus on speechwriting for tech and other start-ups. "If you're writing for a CEO out here, they're more likely to be your peer than your grandfather," says Vietor. "They're young, they're cool, they get it."
Other former Obama staffers who have come to Silicon Valley include former campaign manager and White House adviser David Plouffe at Uber, Kyle O'Connor at Nest, Semonti Stephens at Twitter; Mike Masserman, at Lyft; Brandon Lepow at Facebook; Nicole Isaac, at LinkedIn; Liz Jarvis-Shean at Civis; Jim Green and Vivek Kundra at Salesforce, Alex McPhillips at Google; Gillian Bergeron, at NextDoor; Natalie Foster at the Institute for the Future; Catherine Bracy at Code for America; Hallie Montoya Tansey at Target Labs. Nick Papas, John Baldo, Courtney O'Donnell and Clark Stevens at AirBnB, and Jessica Santillo at Uber.
There are so many former Obama staffers in the Bay Area that a recent visit by former White House senior adviser David Axelrod served as a reunion of sorts, with more than a dozen campaign and White House veterans gathering over lunch to discuss life after the administration. Obama himself rarely misses an opportunity to come to San Francisco. He says he loves the energy there, loves the people and according to Dovere, the city's ultra-liberal leanings mean he was greeted as a rock star even during the dark days before last year's midterms. Obama's even become friendly with Elon Musk. "There should be a welcome booth at the SFO airport," says Jon Carson, the former Organizing for Action executive director now at SolarCity.
Other former Obama staffers who have come to Silicon Valley include former campaign manager and White House adviser David Plouffe at Uber, Kyle O'Connor at Nest, Semonti Stephens at Twitter; Mike Masserman, at Lyft; Brandon Lepow at Facebook; Nicole Isaac, at LinkedIn; Liz Jarvis-Shean at Civis; Jim Green and Vivek Kundra at Salesforce, Alex McPhillips at Google; Gillian Bergeron, at NextDoor; Natalie Foster at the Institute for the Future; Catherine Bracy at Code for America; Hallie Montoya Tansey at Target Labs. Nick Papas, John Baldo, Courtney O'Donnell and Clark Stevens at AirBnB, and Jessica Santillo at Uber.
There are so many former Obama staffers in the Bay Area that a recent visit by former White House senior adviser David Axelrod served as a reunion of sorts, with more than a dozen campaign and White House veterans gathering over lunch to discuss life after the administration. Obama himself rarely misses an opportunity to come to San Francisco. He says he loves the energy there, loves the people and according to Dovere, the city's ultra-liberal leanings mean he was greeted as a rock star even during the dark days before last year's midterms. Obama's even become friendly with Elon Musk. "There should be a welcome booth at the SFO airport," says Jon Carson, the former Organizing for Action executive director now at SolarCity.
huh (Score:5, Insightful)
"They're young, they're cool, they get it."
Translation: Fuck opportunity based on skill, this is a politically based system of finding the youngest possible candidates at the lowest price. If they are bandwagoneers, all the better.
Re:huh (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at what's happening in colleges and universities. You've got radical leftists and radical feminists pushing for racial quotas instead of merit. Even several universities have come out with their "meritocracy is a microaggression" bullshit. AKA University of California campuses. [ucop.edu] Surprise, those young, kids who want to be protected from everything...
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Look at what's happening in colleges and universities. You've got radical leftists and radical feminists pushing for racial quotas instead of merit. Even several universities have come out with their "meritocracy is a microaggression" bullshit. AKA University of California campuses. [ucop.edu] Surprise, those young, kids who want to be protected from everything...
Holy canolli! That read was simultaneously hilarious and pathetic. As it turns out though, that kind of ultimate whining victimthink has been around on campuses for a long time. Like at least from the 60's
In the end, you just write it off to whiny folk, at the far end of the spectrum, sort of like the liberal versions of Ted Cruz. Too far out to be taken seriously.
Re:huh (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's easy to write them off, but the fact is that we already have an affirmative action infrastructure in the USA, which could easily be adapted for every conceivable "protected class".
Somehow I doubt the microagression folks will gain much of a toehold. Way too far to the left, and catering to a demographic that I fear might have some basic human genetic parts missing. If they cannot handle any disagreement without calling it aggression against them, they are doomed to failure.
It's roughly the same thing as the far right's litmus tests. You could be the most charismatic, most competent leader possible, but unless you toe the line. as in you must be anti-abortion, pro certain middle eas
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The religious right have firm control of their party.
Not really. They haven't gotten what they want from the party for quite some time. The Neocons are firmly in control these days. They are the ones that put up McCain, then Romney (eviscerating the Ron Paul wing in the process). Oh, they get a lot of play in the MSM (easy targets), but influence in the GOP - not so much.
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The religious right have firm control of their party.
Not really. They haven't gotten what they want from the party for quite some time.
Are you seriously trying to say that a pro-choice candidate could ever get the Republican nod for president?
You even see Republican presidential candidates, when asked if they believe in evolution, making a canned reply of "Well, I'm not a scientist", as if caving to a batshit insane idea of 4004 bce creation date is a possibility..
The Neocons are firmly in control these days. They are the ones that put up McCain, then Romney (eviscerating the Ron Paul wing in the process).
The Neocons, that trotskyist group that wants eternal war in the middle east - and has probably pretty much succeeded in entrenching us in it, are yet another group that has t
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Problem with Goldwater was that with foreign policy he was an outright warmonger.
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"Peace through strength" sounds like straight up Orwell double-speak from 1984, except it's not being used in a fictitious setting.
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
"I could have ended the war in the month. I could have made Vietnam look like a mud puddle"
"You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians."
"The only summit meeting that can succeed is the one that does not take place."
Domestically though, I think he'd have been better than Reagan.
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"Peace through strength" sounds like straight up Orwell double-speak from 1984, except it's not being used in a fictitious setting.
Orwellian might be more like war is peace. or making war for peace.
"Peace through Strength" sounds like a reasonable thing to me. I can't imagine having peace through weakness.
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
"I could have ended the war in the month. I could have made Vietnam look like a mud puddle"
Exactly. One should never ever go to war unless one is prepared to win it. Limited warfare does not have a good track record.
"You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop b
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Problem with Goldwater was that with foreign policy he was an outright warmonger.
And the neocons are not? They make Goldwater look like the college kids putting daiseys in the rifle barrels of the national Guard soldiers.
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Except that affirmative action has not yet succeeded in its goals. We have in no way reversed the centuries old system that was in place so that there's equality today. People only think there is equality because the law forbids slavery and discrimination in voting, and they think this is all that is needed. As long as we tell the underclasses that they're equals, they think, there is no need to actually make them equals. This is not just something from the distant past, we still have people with power
Color Blindness is a "Micro-Aggression" (Score:2)
Re:Color Blindness is a "Micro-Aggression" (Score:5, Insightful)
Here are some addendums:
White men should not congregate together. Groups of white men send the message that women and minorities are not welcome.
White men should not congregate with minorities or women. It trivializes their struggles and and makes it seem like you are patronizing them.
Re:Color Blindness is a "Micro-Aggression" (Score:4, Insightful)
It is simply anti-white politics. Racism never goes away, it is human nature. Instead it attack the group that peoples can get away with. And by excluding women, the professional victim, this will go on for a long time because men will not accept to plead victim-hood to make it stop.
This is brilliant social engineering. There is no way out of this situation, the enemies of the West has already won.
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"Enemies of the West"? What sort of claptrap is that?
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Don't conflate yourself with humanity in general.
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Which is fine. The real world will never be 100% fair. As adults most people learn that things aren't perfect yet we try to improve ourselves anyway or just deal with things. The problem is that some people want to try and enforce this. I still think it's just some fringe wackos on colleges, but those wackos do seem to think that they can and should be able to a comfort zone around themselves.
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It initially targeted the universities in the 50s.. now it's built up 5th columns in every major industry and institution in western society, especially the media and government.
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Did you read the explanation in the column next to it? I sounds like you didn't.
Saying colour is irrelevant trivializes or denies the problems associated with skin colour. It's really not hard to understand. Don't discriminate or generalize about skin colour, and don't deny that it's a problem in society.
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Here's the interesting thing.
Let me preface all this by saying my values generally agree with you. You should earn your living. You have no right to be better or more well off than someone else except if you are able to be of more service to the world and convince people to voluntarily pay you more money.
That all said, these kids who want to be protected from everything and who want no responsibility for themselves. The ultra-feminists and ultra-leftists as many would point out. Well here's the thing. do we
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They cite that as an example of someone complaining that minorities are given jobs not on merit, but because they are a minority. The relative merit of that exact phrase depends on context. In the context of "I think a meritocracy is a good thing" it's fine, in the context of "they only got that job because they are black and there is a lower bar for them" it's problematic.
The problem with linking to individual documents like this is that people take them out of context or without understanding the language
yep (Score:5, Interesting)
"young" used to be a gentle way to say "gullible", "ill-informed", "not yet experienced enough in life to exercise proper caution and restraint particularly when the lives, liberty, and property of others are concerned", etc.
These hyper-political slimy freaks are going to where they will be most-comfortable: San Francisco - the home of American crypt-fascist corporate-politico evil where people are punished for not engaging in group-think, and engineering new ways to spy on, and manipulate, people for both corporations and politicians are the preferred way to get rich. The Bay Area and Team Obama deserve each other.
This is how big business pays-off corrupt politicians and their staffs for all the political favors they gave while in power:
Give 'em high-paid jobs they did not earn and are not qualified for
Put them on the Board of a corporation, with stock options which they can then cash-out and get rich from (Apple and Al Gore ring any bells?)
Line them up for access to some nice IPOs
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Wow, you beat me to pointing out the most ear gratingly bad quote of the piece.
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So basically the same hiring strategy as other parts of Silicon Valley.
(although the article makes the erroneous assumption that Silicon Valley includes San Francisco)
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They all seem to want to try to turn the US into a socialistic type society modeled after much of Europe.
Right now we're looking more and more like Greece in a few years after they've left....
Just great (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just great (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just great (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah! Just like they've destroyed our health care system! Oh, wait...
"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."
"If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."
And there's still time for the Obamacare premium death spiral to set in. How much higher can insurance rates go?
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"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."
"If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."
You prefer that there was a law passed which forced companies to offer the same plans for eternity?
If it's so obvious, then obviously Obama knew he was lying when he uttered those phrases.
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What is this "sub-standard" you mention?
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Blue Cross in Michigan used "Oh, our mainline plan, good for 50 years, is now legally substandard because it doesn't offer (fuck if I know, abortions for Pekingese maybe) as an excuse to dump tons of people off the gold standard Blue Cross plan, and then offer new plans for thousands of dollars more a year.
There was nothing substandard at all about the previous plan, as it was the mainline Blue Cross plan, and even if so, that's irrelevant, because a Man Who Wasn't Lying said you could keep your plan. Well
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I prefer intellectual honesty.
You comment only addresses one of the two comments that you quoted.
I get it that plans change. Conditions change so it is reasonable that plans offered change as well. That is NOT what POTUS promised. It was a foolish promise and never should have been made.
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Yet another dishonest leftist shill trying desperately to change the conversation, because he can't hope to win the argument.
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Doctors are not federal employees
Well how did they get out of it when the rest of us are working for the Federal government for almost 5 months?
Or you prefer that doctors be drafted?
That's not the goal? After all, if healthcare is a "right", you need someone drafted to provide it...
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Yeah, cause all of the developed countries in the world that have public healthcare, have "drafted" their doctors.
Oh wait, no they haven't. Guess that was just a strawman by you after all.
Are you sure about that [bbc.co.uk]?
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No, Boehner and McConnell gave a sigh of relief. The majority of the party wondered why so many members of the Supreme Court lost the ability to read.
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That's right, it can't be considered liberalism if private ownership of property is allowed.
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And by the current leftist standard, anyone who agrees that people can own property is right wing. Anyone who owns two properties is extreme right wing.
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You're not familiar with Obama, are you? They're going to change things for the better, not destroy things for the worse.
You made up the "for the better" part. That was not in the script.
[T]hings that ... fail: lots of experience at that (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, Obama staffers have a lot of experience at failure.
Syria: Fail. The "JV" has taken over.
Libya: Obama's exercise in failed "regime change" has left Libya more fucked up than what W did to Iraq. Why'd Obama depose Qaddafi again?
Iraq: Yep, fail. Sending troops back in...
Iran: About to surrender to crazed mullahs looking to get nukes. When the FRENCH call it a bad surrender...
US labor participation rate is the lowest it's been in 40 years. Only jobs being created are all part-time. Under-employm
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Libya: Obama's exercise in failed "regime change" has left Libya more fucked up than what W did to Iraq. Why'd Obama depose Qaddafi again?
From my reading, that was actually Europe, mostly France and Italy. They were willing to push their agenda and get rid of Qaddafi, got Europe involved, and then realized that they couldn't carry out such a mission without NATO resources, which meant dragging in the US. I can't find real reference to it, but I suspect that Europe basically said "we supported you in Iraq, now you can support us in this" and we had to get involved in North Africa to scratch Europe's back. Notice that that was the NATO operatio
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not everything is a 1 or the other situation
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Re:[T]hings that ... fail: lots of experience at t (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:[T]hings that ... fail: lots of experience at t (Score:4, Insightful)
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free like it is in the other 95% of the world
You don't even actually understand who pays for things, do you?
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Facts hurt your feelings? All that shit is true and that should tell you something. That you think they're talking points shows that you have no idea what's actually going on with your government. And it's something that a foreigner like me already knows about.
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That you think they're talking points shows that you have no idea what's actually going on with your government.
This isnt quite correct I think. It isnt that he doesnt know whats going on. Its that he doesnt understand the significance of the facts. He only understands the "significance" of the sound-bites that tug on heart-strings. This is the guy that thinks that when it comes to public policy, that "everyone's opinion is of equal worth." Opinion trumps data and facts in his world.
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By that standard, everyone in every country other than the US should never complain about our import/export and copyright laws. Because, hey, they aren't part of the US, so we obviously can't affect them in any way.
You take imbecility to a new level.
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Re: [T]hings that ... fail: lots of experience at (Score:2)
Is that you, apk?
Lame duck (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lame duck (Score:5, Interesting)
Confirmation bias aside, he's actually been far better than many we've had in decades.
That's confirmation bias. The first thing he did was hire bankers to solve the banking crisis. Instead, he should have listened to wise people like Paul Volcker, who said, "Any company that is too big to fail is too big to exist. If a company needs government bailout money, it should be broken up and sold off in pieces."
ACA was a step in the right direction if you ideologically favor government control of healthcare, and it did help some people without healthcare, but it would have been cheaper to just buy those people healthcare (also, the law was so poorly written it took heroic interpretations from the supreme court to save it).
He favored gay marriage.....once it was politically expedient.
He got us out of Iraq......then back in, in a worse situation than when we left.
He started a war, then messed around in another war, and stuck his foot into situations he didn't understand, making a mess of things (Egypt, Honduras).,
He promised transparency........of all the things he promised, that was the one I most hoped for, because it could have the biggest effect. Fail on that point.
He failed to get his trade bill, which is either good or bad, depending on your ideology, but it shows his lack of competence for working with congress.
He did do some good things.....I would say he helped improve race relations, and personally he seems like a great guy; but overall, we haven't had a competent president in over a decade. It's depressing enough that I am voting, not on party, but entirely on competence. Right now there are a couple candidates from either party who I would be willing to vote for.
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We've never caught Obama calling for riots and disruption like we have with those two. The harshest word he's ever had for any white person is a cop who behaved "stupidly" for arresting a black professor for looking suspicious on his own property.
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Re:Lame duck (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say he helped improve race relations
I'd have to say this is one of his biggest failures. I have never seen a president try to play races against each other as much as this one. "If I had a son, he would look like Travon?" WTF?? Can you imagine if Regan/Bush Sr/Clinton said "If I had a son, he would look like [insert white victim killed by black man]"
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"The Police acted stupidly".
If the cops showed up at my place because I was trying to break in, I'd prove I lived there, then thank them for showing up.
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"The Police acted stupidly".
If the cops showed up at my place because I was trying to break in, I'd prove I lived there, then thank them for showing up.
As they held you down with a knee on your back whilst shouting "stop resisting".
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He favored gay marriage.....once it was politically expedient.
That's hindsight. It was still a minority position when Obama "came out" in favor of it, and he was handing a huge issue on a silver platter to all the folks who hate him. However, his statement immediately made it a partisan issue, which brought around a large amount of Democrats who were on the fence about it. Overnight it became a majority opinion. Perhaps it looks obvious in retrospect, but he was going out on a bit of a limb when he did it.
Now perhaps he was a master strategist and saw that all this w
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He favored gay marriage.....once it was politically expedient.
That's hindsight. It was still a minority position when Obama "came out" in favor of it, and he was handing a huge issue on a silver platter to all the folks who hate him. However, his statement immediately made it a partisan issue, which brought around a large amount of Democrats who were on the fence about it. Overnight it became a majority opinion. Perhaps it looks obvious in retrospect, but he was going out on a bit of a limb when he did it.
Now perhaps he was a master strategist and saw that all this would happen. Or perhaps he just decided it was time to do the Right Thing.
Or perhaps he favored gay marriage all along, but lied about it to get elected president. Then after securing obamacare, he knew anything he pushed would have to be allowed because anyone who stood against him was labeled racist by every liberal shill and the mainstream press. So he finally admitted that he had supported gay marriage for years and that he also had placed Justices on the Supreme Court who already had their agenda set on the issue.
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Thats one way of looking at it. But what if I see healthcare as a totally different type of market that anything else. That it's not a true market with info and choice. There's also insurance as not really being a market, and moral hazard every place. The side effect is - it takes someone outside of the market to regulate this and create something. In this case, that outside force is the government. Govern
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Remember, before Obama took it over,the conservative Heritage Foundation invented what is now the ACA,
Oh you thought that this fact defended the ACA? Since you sit there actively defending evil, we can only conclude one thing: You are evil too.
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He failed to get his trade bill, which is either good or bad, depending on your ideology, but it shows his lack of competence for working with congress.
No, actually, the TPA was recently passed [hoosieragtoday.com], providing fast-track for the TPP (and the TPIP), which means it will only get an up-or-down vote when Obama finishes negotiations. Maybe they'll keep it secret until after that vote, too, who knows. I don't know what kind of bribes and/or threats were used to get it passed, but there it is.
Frankly, it's stunning how much of the Neocon agenda can get implemented when there's a Democrat president pushing for it. If a Republican president had done some of the thi
Re: Lame duck (Score:2)
Personally, I'm rooting for a Sanders/Warren ticket. It's farther left than might be safe, but I don't think anyone the republicans have are any good this cycle, so I think it could work out.
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That's a big part of what gave him a chance to win, the Republicans didn't take him seriously and spent most of their time fighting Hillary. Hardly anyone expected him to get the nomination much less win the presidency.
It was a good demonstration of the power of the MSM. Obama was their darling, going way back to his run for the US Senate. They started covering him, I think it was Time that did the first big fluff piece about him, way back in 2003. Other far-left "reporters" picked up the mantle and ran with it. They created him, and put him in place. It's no wonder he got such favorable coverage.
Has nothing to do with idealism (Score:5, Insightful)
Has everything to do with:
1) Corporations' cozy relationship with politicians
2) Ex-staffers promising companies inside info and access
Convenient lobbyists (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama staffers make convenient lobbyists. They have connections.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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sorry to break to you. but you're too much of an engineer to even begin to grasp politics.
he managed a few little changes because he gave others up. popularity means very little. specially on a two part system.
Re:You could see Obama's character in '08 (Score:4, Interesting)
Ironically, if Obama had done even half of what he promised to clean up the government, he could have asked for a Cuban-style health care system and his popularity would have made it impossible for the Republicans to stop him. We've reached the point where an honest politician with balls could practically control the federal government just by sheer force of the people's awe at his honesty.
This reads like a work of fan fiction.
I live here in the real world, where 30% of the country votes Republican and hates Democratic presidents no matter what, and a large part of the rest listens to these people, or are just plain racist. A 2008 black president would never, never, never (oh, and did I say "never"?) have been able to talk Congress into passing socialized medicine. The fact that he passed any kind of universal coverage at all is in retrospect just ridiculous. I'm still in awe that he managed it. I say "he", but frankly a lot of people sacrificed for this. And it still teetered on a razor's edge at multiple points.
Do you not remember Senator Robert Byrd being wheeled into the Senate Chamber straight from his deathbed to break a Republican filibuster? They were trying to delay a vote (on an unrelated bill ahead of ACA on the docket) until he died and they could likely pick up his seat and kill the whole effort. Remember him whispering "shame shame" at his fellow senators for forcing him to do that, as many of them cynically applauded him? That's my memory. Thereafter Byrd did die, and they did pick up the seat, which stuck Congress with the bill in the form the Senate passed. Nothing new could possibly get past the filibuster.
If Obama had delayed even a couple of days in starting the process, we wouldn't have the ACA today. That's a fact.
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Yes, if memory serves, it was passed in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve.
Really something to be proud of...
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Yes, if memory serves, it was passed in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve.
Really something to be proud of...
Your memory is pretty good. The only thing missing is that this was the Republican strategy from the get-go: Delay everything, even bills they supported, so that the ACA could not be gotten to by the Christmas recess. So the credit for the passage goes to the Democrats, while the "credit" for it being in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve goes to the Republicans.
I suppose which part is worthy of being proud of is a matter of perspective.
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, if Obama had done even half of what he promised to clean up the government, he could have asked for a Cuban-style health care system
Cuban-style health care system? I know an American who lives in Cuba. His wife (Cuban) had a spot on her tongue and was worried it might be cancer. The Cuban health care system could not schedule an exam for her for two months, so her husband flew her to the US to be looked at the next day. Turned out a dental fixture was irritating her tongue. Whenever the people I know have a problem they think requires immediate attention, they fly to the US. This doesn't happen very often, but at least they have a choic
Political types use connections: News at 11 (Score:2)
Political types use their connections to stay employed.
News at 11.
Fortunately the reverse is happening too (Score:2)
http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-th... [nbcnews.com]
In other news, (Score:2)
Working for the underdog (Score:2)
As underdogs Obama and staff were so fake.
Yup.. they will do well in Silicon Valley!stumpwm area out of bounds
What do they *do*? (Score:2)
That sounds cool and all, but what do they actually do there? What does an Engineering business need with a political functionary?
For the most part, the value in having a former administration official is in leveraging their political ties. However, the Obama administration had notoriously bad relations with Congress, so there just won't be a lot of value there.
The best I can come up with is that It does get you an in with the White House for the next year and a half or so. Since Congress can't do anythi
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Lobbying usually has a much greater return on investment than research or manufacturing.
Hahahahahah (Score:2, Funny)
"Change"
"This is going to be the most transparent administration ever"
"There will be no place for Lobbyists in the new Washington"
Did I miss any?
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This is a blatant infiltration of one of the centres of power by the illuminati., If you don't know what the illuminati is, please do your research,.
Sadly, this is one of the least delusional posts on this story so far.
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"For the 5th year in a row, potatoe production has far exceeded government estimates!"
"We have now experienced an unprecedented 64 straight months of job growth!"
Government will never fail. Programs are judged by their intentions. Similar to how "businesses" in Frisco can have billion dollar IPOs without any positive revenue, or plans to make any.
We live in bizzaro-world.
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Dan Quayle, is that you?
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Isn't that what a pivot is?
But pivots are often only for startups. IN a large company, you most certainly can redefine the objective to some degree and/or have it set so low initially that it's a guaranteed success.
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Did someone tell them that there are capitalists in Silicon Valley?
Maybe they're trying to change the system from the inside...