"Bill van Auken" - Obama at the United Nations -- The Arrogant Voice of Imperialism

President Obama delivered an empty and arrogant sermon to the United Nations Wednesday, laced with platitudes about “peace” that were designed to mask Washington’s predatory policies.

The American president received a tepid response from the assembled heads of state, foreign ministers and UN delegates. Not a single line in his speech evoked applause. The novelty of two years ago, when Obama made his first appearance before the body posing as the champion of multilateral-ism in contrast to Bush, has long since worn off. As the world quickly learned, changing the occupant of the White House did little to shift the direction of American foreign policy or curb the spread of American militarism.

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"Andrew Kreig"- Obama Team Feared Coup If He Prosecuted War Crimes

President-Elect Obama's advisers feared in 2008 that authorities would oust him in a coup and that Republicans would block his policy agenda if he prosecuted Bush-era war crimes, according to a law school dean who served as one of Obama's top transition advisers.

University of California at Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley, Jr., above, the sixth highest-ranking member of the 2008 post-election transition team preparing Obama's administration, revealed the team's thinking on Sept. 2 in moderating a forum on 9/11 held by his law school (also known as Boalt Hall). Edley was seeking to explain Obama's "look forward" policy on suspected Bush-era law-breaking that the president-elect announced on a TV talk show in January 2009.

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" The Borowitz Report"- Obama: ‘Best Debate Ever’

‘First Good News I’ve Had Since I Nailed bin Laden,’ President Says

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – A jubilant President Barack Obama said that tonight’s Republican forum was “the best debate ever,” calling it “the first good news I’ve had since I nailed bin Laden.”

Mr. Obama watched the debate surrounded by advisors in the White House Situation Room, where the mood was said to be tense “up until the first time Rick Perry opened his mouth.”

“I’m not a big TV watcher,” Mr. Obama said, “but that debate had to be the most entertaining two hours I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing.”

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"Matt Taibbi" - Obama Goes All Out For Dirty Banker Deal

A power play is underway in the foreclosure arena, according to the New York Times.

On the one side is Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General, who is conducting his own investigation into the era of securitizations – the practice of chopping up assets like mortgages and converting them into saleable securities – that led up to the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

On the other side is the Obama administration, the banks, and all the other state attorneys general.

This second camp has cooked up a deal that would allow the banks to walk away with just a seriously discounted fine from a generation of fraud that led to millions of people losing their homes.

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"Joel Hirschorn"- Brain Dead Obama

Everyone who voted for Obama should feel betrayed, ashamed and disgusted.  Anyone who still trusts, admires and respects Obama is a fool.  Here is my political fantasy: I wake up one day soon and hear the news that President Obama has a fatal brain tumor and will soon resign.  Praise the Lord!

If you have any doubt whatsoever about how bad a president Obama is, then take the time to read this incredibly fine essay by Drew Westen “What Happened to Obama?”

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"Mark Engler"- Stopping Obama's Next Betrayal

The debt-ceiling debate has been a sad one for the Left—and also, in large part, a boring one. Boring because we haven’t had too much to add. As a friend said to me, you know things are bad when the New York Times liberals say pretty much all there is to say.

In this case, they have. Paul Krugman noted that the debt deal

will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status....Republicans will surely be emboldened by the way Mr. Obama keeps folding in the face of their threats.

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"Glenn Greenwald"- Barack Obama is Gutting the Core Principles of the Democratic Party

In 2005, American liberals achieved one of their most significant political victories of the last decade. It occurred with the resounding rejection of George W Bush's campaign to privatise social security.

Bush's scheme would have gutted the crux of that entitlement programme by converting it from what it has been since the 1940s – a universal guarantor of minimally decent living conditions for America's elderly – into a Wall Street casino and bonanza.

Progressive activists and bloggers relentlessly attacked both the plan and underlying premises (the myth that social security faces a "crisis"), spawning nationwide opposition. Only a few months after he unveiled his scheme to great fanfare, Bush was forced to sheepishly withdraw it, a defeat he described as his biggest failure.

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"Steve Holland" -New poll carries warning signs for Obama in 2012

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A poll released on Wednesday carried warning signs for President Barack Obama's re-election chances in 2012.

The Public Policy Polling survey found that for the first time since July, Obama does not lead Republican front-runner Mitt Romney in the group's monthly national poll on the 2012 election race. Romney has pulled into a tie with Obama at 45 percent.

Obama's overall approval rating was at 46 percent, with 48 percent of voters disapproving of him, and this is in line with other recent surveys.

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"Ted Rall"- GOP Strategy Wrecks Economy and Obama in One Fell Swoop

Ross Douthat, the conservative columnist who elevates bland to middle-brow art for The New York Times, thinks Republicans have overreached in their showdown with Obama over the debt ceiling. “[The Republicans'] inability to make even symbolic concessions has turned a winning hand into losing one,” he says.

Advantage, according to Douthat, representing the mainstream media: Obama.

Of course, Obama had already agreed to begin dismantling Social Security and Medicare, surrenders Republicans have craved for decades. If he pulls off this “victory” Obama will have done more damage to the Democratic Party and its core values than any president in our lifetimes. How will he promote what Douthat fears will be a “victory”? I wonder.

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"Joe Conason" -Will Obama Finally Play Hardball In Debt Ceiling Standoff?

At long last, President Obama seems to have run out of patience with the truculent Republicans who have rejected all of his overtures for a budget deal -- just as Moody's and other economic authorities again warned of the potentially catastrophic consequences of a debt default.

On Wednesday afternoon, Obama finally stood up at the bargaining table and walked out of the stalemated budget talks, telling House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., that he will "take this to the American people" unless the Republicans showed a real inclination to compromise. Exactly what the president meant by that remark is not yet clear, but some leading Republicans have now realized that pandering to their party's hard-line base could have serious consequences for them as well as for the country.

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