EXCLUSIVE: Agenda disappears from Obama Web site

[atprm]

**there have been a few articles already about Obama "changing" his "change we can believe in" theory to "downsize" to something a little closer to reality...so I am not sure why this article is such a surprise to anyone who has been following along, even half-assed.**


~*~




EXCLUSIVE: Agenda disappears from Obama Web site
Stephen Dinan (Contact)
Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Over the weekend President-elect Barack Obama scrubbed Change.gov, his transition Web site, deleting most of what had been a massive agenda copied directly from his campaign Web site.

Gone are the promises on how an Obama administration would handle 25 different agenda items - everything from Iraq and immigration to taxes and urban policy - all items laid out on his campaign Web site, www.BarackObama.com.

Instead, the official agenda on Change.gov has been boiled down to one vague paragraph proclaiming a plan “to revive the economy, to fix our health care, education, and social security systems, to define a clear path to energy independence, to end the war in Iraq responsibly and finish our mission in Afghanistan, and to work with our allies to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, among many other domestic and foreign policy objectives.”

“We are currently retooling the Web site,” said Obama spokesman Nick Shapiro.

The site went active on Wednesday and was available to the public Thursday. The agenda items, which were active for at least part of the weekend, appear to have been deleted by late Saturday.

The site still contains pages about how to apply for jobs in the Obama administration, biographies of top transition team members and a call for Americans to serve in volunteer jobs and for students to do 50 hours of community service. The site also has press releases and a transition blog.

The 25 agenda items are still available on Mr. Obama's campaign site.

[pepperpot]

no surprises....a politician changing some tunes after the election?....no surprises....

[SurferGirl]

We all know he didn't keep his word over the campaign financing so you shouldn't be surprised if he doesn't keep his word about anything.

[gmyers]

There's no way he could have done all the stuff he was promising. He had to tone it down and be realistic. But I think politicians in general shouldn't promise the world just to get elected. And people shouldn't believe they can do it all either.

[jeanea33]

Next year the trick will be more money disappearing from your paychecks lol

[anothersta]

There are websites who've saved parts of the 'agenda' if anyone wants to see it. I noticed it was gone also. Been gone for a few days now.

[whatever]

Well here is my theory on this. He knew his lies (OOPS PROMISES) would get him elected. And boom it did. Now he can do whatever he wants. And people are so in love with him it will take his 4 yrs for them to see the truth. IMHO.
IF even then.
HE already wants another stimulus backage (UM that's a bush thing isn't it?)
ANd I also think he will say to the people I'm sorry we just can't lower your taxes right now with the economy as it is and us having to bail out (I mean SAVE) this companies that basically you are paying for.
So he will basically probably RAISE taxes on most households making over $100,000. Again these ARE MY theories.
I don't look for him to keep ONE promise led alone the many he made. He has already gone back on ALOT of them in the final weeks of his running.

[Jolie Rouge]

His campaing has been "sanitizing" their websites and such throughout the election.... no big surprise now. He started changing his tune as soon as Hillary was out of the way.

A historic win. A changed nation.
Now, can Obama deliver?
Jerry Lanson
Thu Nov 6, 3:00 am ET

Boston – It was a night Americans said, "Enough!"

They crashed the polls to cast ballots for Barack Obama. But they also cast their vote against the politics of fear. Against trickle-down economics that don't trickle. Against wars with no end in sight. Against President Bush and his party.

Mr. Obama's victory was historic: America's first African-American president, and arguably the first black leader of any white-majority nation in recorded history. And he led the Democratic Party to one of its best nights in half a century.

But the Democrats' jubilation, their celebration, will be short-lived. Because from January, they'll have to shoulder all the blame.

Still, this is a moment for them to savor. The political landscape has been transformed – by the soaring rhetoric of change, superb organization, and a groundswell of grass-roots activism.

Obama's victory was powered by a surge of voters under 30, the passion of African-Americans who stood in long lines in key early-voting states, and surprisingly strong support among Hispanics.

But exit polls show he also won nearly 1 in 5 of Bush's 2004 supporters. And 41 percent of white men. That may not seem like much, until you consider that no Democrat since Jimmy Carter had until Tuesday's election earned more than 38 percent of the white male vote. Obama also became the first Democratic presidential candidate since Carter to win a majority – not just a plurality – of votes.

It is Obama's very appeal across divides of age, race, and ideology that led Colin Powell to declare that Obama could prove to be a "transformational figure."

"We are watching history," said Roger House, an Emerson College historian.

Still, if Obama's victory is an indelible marker of the country's progress on race, the staying power of his presidency and party will depend on his performance from his first day in office.

Political scientists talk about "realignment" – rare pivot points in American history when the public adopts a fundamentally different political outlook. The 1932 election was one, the Reagan Revolution of 1980 was another. Could 2008 be, too?

Possibly. Cautions Thomas Patterson, a professor of government at Harvard's Kennedy School: "He's got to deliver and I think he's got to deliver in some really big ways."

"Is this going to be transformational?" Mr. Patterson continues. "I think that fundamentally gets down to, 'Is anything going to happen?' It's not just the election. It is the presidency that is going to give us the answer."

Patterson recalls Carter's presidency, which began in the aftermath of Watergate and Vietnam with the promise of greater trust in government. It lasted just four years, a victim, among other things, of stagflation, an oil crisis, and a standoff with Iran. Sound familiar?

"If anything, conditions out there now are worse," he says.

Sobering. And yet Obama will begin his presidency with a level of global support unrivalled since perhaps John F. Kennedy. A Gallup poll taken in 73 countries earlier this year found his support topped John McCain's by greater than 3 to 1. His personal history – his childhood years in Indonesia, his search for his African roots – makes him uniquely suited to spread America's message abroad. And his call for diplomacy before intervention stand in stark contrast to the combative unilateralism of the Bush years and offer an opportunity to lift America's sagging standing in the world.

His campaign has mobilized citizens in fresh and original ways. His fundraising – much reliant on millions of small donors – shattered records. His get-out-the-vote campaign precipitated the highest level of early voters ever. His reach extended to all regions of the country. And though it's not official yet, evidence suggests overall voter turnout was the best in generations.

Obama's presidency will depend on many factors outside his control. But it will also depend on the tone he sets. On that score, he already has built a foundation of reaching out to the other side – a side that suddenly feels itself diminished. As Obama has repeatedly said, it's not about red states or blue states but about the United States of America.

"If he can change the political culture of this country, then he's changing the world for his children," says Michael Brown, another Emerson colleague.

In his victory speech, Obama began to launch that change with a call for service and sacrifice to help others in these hard economic times. Perhaps a new Civilian Volunteer Corps could provide such assistance, and serve as an immediate symbol of Obama's call for governance that bubbles up rather than being handed down.

For a quarter century, Americans have heard that government is the problem, not the solution. Obama has yet to turn that perception, yet to crystallize that solution. But he has set a tone that improves his odds of doing both. He has also shown his toughness.

When Obama began his quest for the presidency almost two years ago, he faced nearly insurmountable hurdles, starting with the legendary Clinton machine. He cleared every one. Throughout the campaign, he withstood a barrage of labels – Marxist, Muslim, pal of terrorists – and emerged stronger, more determined, undeterred in his calls for unity.

An even greater test, however, lies squarely ahead: converting the call for change to reality in very shaky economic times.

Jerry Lanson teaches journalism at Boston's Emerson College.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20081106/cm_csm/ylanson;_ylt=AvU_kKkQmidUFmRx nqvPzpas0NUE

[atprm]

Well here is my theory on this. He knew his lies (OOPS PROMISES) would get him elected. And boom it did. Now he can do whatever he wants. And people are so in love with him it will take his 4 yrs for them to see the truth. IMHO.
IF even then.
HE already wants another stimulus backage (UM that's a bush thing isn't it?)
ANd I also think he will say to the people I'm sorry we just can't lower your taxes right now with the economy as it is and us having to bail out (I mean SAVE) this companies that basically you are paying for.
So he will basically probably RAISE taxes on most households making over $100,000. Again these ARE MY theories.
I don't look for him to keep ONE promise led alone the many he made. He has already gone back on ALOT of them in the final weeks of his running.


Well, he has to "justify" the $550B he is borrowing (or Pelosi and congress) from COMMUNIST CHINA... so he might as well "distribute the wealth" and give all of us some of that hard-earned-Communist-Cash.

[DrHolliday]

no surprises....a politician changing some tunes after the election?....no surprises....

Ah, but this was supposed to be a different kind of politician. "Change we can believe in", right?


And there in lays the problem with Obama. Outside of demographics, he's no different than the rest, and he's dangerously inexperienced. Even his own VP said he wasn't qualified to be Prez.

[DrHolliday]

Well, he has to "justify" the $550B he is borrowing (or Pelosi and congress) from COMMUNIST CHINA... so he might as well "distribute the wealth" and give all of us some of that hard-earned-Communist-Cash.

And just who will hold him accountable? The media? Good luck with that.

[Jolie Rouge]

China's Path to World Power

For decades, before a heedless congregation, some of us have preached the old Hamiltonian gospel. Great nations do not have trade partners. They have trade competitors and rivals. Trade surpluses are superior to trade deficits. Tariffs on foreign goods are preferable to taxes on U.S. producers. Manufacturing, not finance, is the muscle of the nation.

Economic independence is vital to political independence.

Following Hamiltonian precepts, the United States grew from 13 rural and agricultural colonies into the greatest industrial power in all history, producing 42 percent of the world's manufactured goods. We were the awe and envy of mankind, the self-sufficient republic, maker of half of the armaments produced by all the nations in World War II.

That is the America we grew up in -- that has now vanished.
Chrysler, Ford, perhaps GM, may be dying. Manufacturing has sunk to 10 percent of U.S. employment, a level unseen since before the Civil War. Europeans and Asians are to assemble in Washington this week to impose upon the United States a New World Economic Order like the one we imposed on them at Bretton Woods in 1944.

Such are the fruits of free-trade ideology.

Across the Pacific, a nation that studied how America rose, and watched as America declined, chose a different path. China adopted and pursued a China First policy of economic nationalism.

In July, Charles McMillion of MBG Services testified to the U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission on China's progress. Beijing began its astonishing rise by devaluing its currency 45 percent in 1994, slashing the prices of exports in half and making imports twice as expensive. As America threw open her market and invited China to come in and capture it, China had erected a Great Wall around her own.

Results: China's worldwide trade surplus in manufactures, $31 billion in 2001, hit $401 billion in 2007, a 1,300 percent increase, and may reach $500 billion in 2008. China has shoved Germany aside to become the world's greatest exporter and now leads the world in the export of manufactured goods to Japan and the European Union, as well as the United States.

While running trade deficits with Asian neighbors like Taiwan, to tie them politically to Beijing, China is running record trade surpluses with the European Union and the United States, making America and the West as dependent upon China for our manufactures as we are on OPEC for our oil.

Chinese auto production has quintupled since 2001. She now produces more cars than Germany and may exceed the United States in 2009. While Chinese auto exports are still heavily in parts, finished cars are coming soon to a dealer near you. The Chinese will likely run the sword through the last standing member of America's Big Three.

Before 2004, China's manufacturing trade surplus with America was largely in textiles and apparel. But, since then, China's rocketing trade surplus in electronics, computers and parts has far exceeded her surplus in textiles and apparel.

China's trade surplus in computers and components rose from $8.1 billion in 2001 to $73.5 billion in 2007. In cellular phones and parts, her worldwide trade surplus grew from $3 billion in 2003 to $50 billion in 2007, and may reach $60 billion by year's end.

China still imports commercial airliners. But she now has a large and growing trade surplus in airplane parts. This follows the pattern in textiles, computers and autos. First, the Chinese learn by assembling parts in factories in China. Then, China begins to produce the parts. Then, China produces the finished products and goes out to capture the world market, while protecting her own by keeping her currency cheap.

On items the Commerce Department categorizes as advanced technology products, America began running a trade deficit for the first time early in the George W. Bush years. China now exports to us four times as much, in dollar value, in ATP items as we sell to Beijing.

As America mothballs the shuttle, relying on Russian rockets to get our astronauts back up to a space station we built, China is putting men into space and heading for the moon.

Since America ushered China into the World Trade Organization in 2002, Beijing's growth rate has been four times that of the United States, accelerating from an average 10 percent of gross domestic product to 12 percent in 2007. With her immense trade surpluses, China's reserves have surged from $200 billion in 2002 to $2 trillion. Awash in dollars, Beijing now waits patiently, writes McMillion, to cherry-pick the crown jewels of America's industrial empire -- "patents, talents, natural resources, brands" -- at fire-sale prices in the global crash.

As America plunges into recession and our industry hollows out, while China is still growing at 9 percent, as the 20th century's greatest creditor nation now borrows from Beijing to pay for booster shots for its sick economy, may we hear once again the Bush-Clinton refrain about how the terrible danger we all face is from "protectionism."

[atprm]

so now I ask, again... Congress is borrowing $550Billion from China -- but what is the "cost" of that "loan"????

[pepperpot]

so now I ask, again... Congress is borrowing $550Billion from China -- but what is the "cost" of that "loan"????

Life, as we know it......

[DrHolliday]

so now I ask, again... Congress is borrowing $550Billion from China -- but what is the "cost" of that "loan"????

Haven't you heard? We're going the Socialist route now. We'll just be annexed by China and the loan will be written off. :dancing:

[DrHolliday]

Life, as we know it......

We are so screwed. :banghead: