It's not just that the wheels are coming off President Obama's credibility; they're also starting to come off the federal government in general.
Washington is no longer able to hide its failures behind the flag. Its mistakes are too obvious and too costly. Even ardent “my country, right or wrong” patriots are now distinguishing between America the nation, which we all rightly revere, and the political enterprise in Washington — which nearly everyone now distrusts.
The politicos in Washington have gone into business for themselves. And most folks — like newly price-conscious consumers — aren't any longer buying the elixirs that Washington is peddling. They all cost too much, almost none of them work, and most have severe side effects.
Like Google.org, which Larry Brilliant ultimately walked away from, this has token money from Google and is a really great idea badly funded. It has Vint Cerf and Ray Kurzweil, and it claims to be seriously interested in ensuring that we understand the future impacts of technologies–something of a contrast to the Kurzweil-Spivak “technology ubber alles” views expoused in book-length form.
We have added this to our Professional Sites, and will await further developments.
State governments are in serious trouble now and once the federally-provided Stimulus Funds are used up in FY10 many states willhave no choice but to cut significant numbers of staff as well as marginalize social & health services programs (not to mention Corrections,compliance programs like Environmental Protection) dislocating chunks of the American population. As you can imagine, the US has manydomestic problems ahead.
Congressional oversight of intelligence is broken. That was the dismal conclusion of a 2006 report by the Center for American Progress, as well as the bipartisan 9/11 commission, both of which scoured the histories of congressional watchdogging — real and imagined — and concluded that the system set up to guard against abuses and keep intelligence in line with U.S. policies was not working the way it was intended.
Click on the logo for the index of campaigns, the latest of which is against Kraft Foods for dumping toxic ingredients into food sold in the USA, ingredients not allowed in Europe and not included in Kraft products sold in Europe.
Most Americans do not realize that the USA is now a dumping ground for both toxic chemicals in food and other products, and unsafe products, because the Congress and Executive of the USA have been bribed to look the other way. The Federal Government, for example, now sets CEILINGS on environmental controls rather than floors, and this is one reason so may states are beginning to exercise their rights of nullification (one step down from secession from the United STATES of America.
Europe is more responsible, and hence a safer environment, for humanity. For the USA to become a dumping ground for toxins and products not allowed in Europe is an indictment of Congress and secessive Executives, and the two-party tyranny that has consistently betrayed the public trust and helped transfer the public dollar from the payer to the special interests looting the public treasury with Democratic and Republican party line voting that has been bought, not won on the merits of public intelligence. ENOUGH!
