Scott's DiaTribes » Barack Obama

Obama and Ignatieff dicuss Omar Khadr.

Scott Tribe — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 04:48:15 +0000

True to his word, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and (presumably) Bob Rae discussed Omar Khadr with the President today. Here’s part of the discussion President Obama had with Iggy over the Khadr file, as made public by the Liberal leader:

The leader of the official Opposition said Obama told him that the detainees are being classified at different levels. But he did not indicate in which category Khadr was being placed. The president indicated he “was glad to know that the Canadian party is concerned about Mr. Khadr,” Ignatieff said. Ignatieff (also) said he told Obama if the Liberals form a government in the future that “we would be [...]

Canadians can lobby Obama to not exempt tarsands from environmental regulations

Scott Tribe — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:30:16 +0000

I saw this link mentioned by a prominent left-wing columnist at Facebook, and was very interested in it.

This is a picture of a proposed ad Avaaz.org wishes to run in the Wednesday version of the Washington Post a day before Obama is scheduled to visit Canada (to prevent eye injury from squinting, click on ad to enlarge and read in full):

Their mission statement on this ad reads as follows:

When Barack Obama visits Canada on Thursday, Harper will desperately try to push him to agree to exempt dirty tar sands oil from global regulation – effectively undermining the global deal we need to stop catastrophic climate [...]

Yes they did.

Scott Tribe — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:14:00 +0000

Congratulations to the President-elect and Vice-President elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The last 8 years of Bush misery are now over and will soon be a distant memory.

Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama

Scott Tribe — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:22:59 +0000

I’ve been a tad busy today, so I didn’t hear about retired General and former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama until this afternoon. That’s big news for Obama, and bad news for Mccain. I know there are folks down there on the progressive side of the ledger who still say that Powell was complicit in the Bush Administration’s false information on Iraq and will never forgive him for that, but opinion polls in the US still show him with a very high favourable rating amongst the American public, and this endorsement will do a lot for independents and moderate Republican voters, as well as military [...]

Snap polls immediately after debate favour Obama

Scott Tribe — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 12:29:04 +0000

I didn’t watch the Mccain/Obama debate last night, so I don’t have an opinion on who won or who lost, but I note that all the snap polls and study groups this AM favour Obama. Some mention is made of how McCain came across as angry and not ever looking at Obama while debating.

So, if you watched the debate, what was your impression?

Barack Obama’s acceptance speech. Wow.

Scott Tribe — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:09:32 +0000

I just finished watching Barack Obama’s acceptance speech as candidate for the Democrats as President Of the United States.

Wow.

This wasn’t just soaring rhetoric; he laid out some of the policies he wanted to do, and he was taking it to John McCain and the Republicans and going head-on against the attacks they’ve been levelling against him. He was also being pretty gutsy in laying out that he respected those who disagreed with him on gay marriage, guns, abortion, social security, etc. Talk about being bold for bringing up all those right-wing boogeymen topics.

Full text of speech here, but you really need to see it to [...]

Obama’s move to the centre/right.

Scott Tribe — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:23:30 +0000

There’s been a backlash against Barack Obama in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party for his reversal on the controversial FISA legislation.� He changed course from a year ago when he vowed to oppose this law from passing and supported the passage of this law that offers retroactive immunity to telecom companies for obeying illegal orders by President Bush and his administration to eavesdrop on American citizens in the name of fighting terrorism,� without a warrant, back several years ago.

This new FISA law is a sore spot for libertarians and liberals alike because it not only prevents Americans from suing these telecom companies for allowing that illegal [...]

The US Democratic Race is over – Hillary to endorse Obama this weekend.

Scott Tribe — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:44:39 +0000

Check it out:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will endorse Senator Barack Obama on Saturday, bringing a close to her 17-month campaign for the White House, aides said. Her decision came after Democrats urged her Wednesday to leave the race and allow the party to coalesce around Mr. Obama. Howard Wolfson, one of Mrs. Clinton�s chief strategists, and other aides said she would express support for Mr. Obama and party unity at an event in Washington that day. One adviser said Mrs. Clinton would concede defeat, congratulate Mr. Obama and proclaim him the party�s nominee, while pledging to do what was needed to assure his victory in November.

Congratulations to [...]

Whitewash?

Scott Tribe — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:38:40 +0000

I agree with a couple of my blogging acquaintances – there are other stories worth discussing besides Bernier. It appears from this story by Jim Travers that there are folks inside the civil service not very happy with the Lynch Report which basically claimed it couldn’t find who leaked the Canadian government’s notes questioning Barack Obama’s truthfulness on re-opening NAFTA to the Associated Press. Those people have started talking , and according to them, the source of the leak appears to have come directly from the PMO, and it started� with them sending it to a Republican friend of theirs in Washington:

Multiple sources say the Canadian note questioning [...]

Book it, bank it!

Scott Tribe — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:51:39 +0000

Obama IS going to be the Democratic candidate for the President of the United States. I’ve been saying that for a while now whenever I came across skeptics or Hillary supporters up here claiming he couldn’t or wouldn’t win the Democratic race, and I think the voting results a couple of days ago should remove all doubt. The mainstream media in the US has come around to that conclusion too, and the TIME front-page article is one example.

He has weathered Jeremiah Wright (twice), and has shown that while he bent a bit, he did not break.� There were predictions by media down south and up here and [...]