posted
No joke. Thursday evening I turned onto my street to find it absolutely crawling with police officers and men in suits. I thought a crime had been committed and that the guys in suits were lawyers. I parked my car and spoke to a couple of kids that live on my street, and they didn't know what was going on.
A few minutes later three of the suited men walked up to me, shook my hand, and introduced themselves. Two men were from the Secret Service and one was from White House Security. They let us know they would be there all weekend and that the President would be coming on Monday to meet with the people on the street and give a speech concerning his jobs bill.
They have been on my street every day since. They have constructed tents for the media, blocked off our street to traffic, and set up a stage for the President to give his speech. They are coming by in a few hours with dogs to search my home for any explosives. Yesterday they set up giant curtains in between my house and my two next door neighbors so that nobody could see into the street.
I am not a big fan of the job the President is doing, but I am VERY excited to meet him. Meeting the President and shaking his hand is something that most people will never get the opportunity to do in their lives.
If I am allowed to take pictures I certainly will and will post them when I am able.
I am not sure I will be able to ask him any questions (I doubt it) but if I were able what would you all suggest I ask him?
tldr; The President is giving a speech today literally in front of my house.
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Hey, we "know" the next Joe Plumber!
Yep, next thing you know I'll have a book deal and a shot at Congress! Look out world, here comes "Bryce the Payroll Professional?" "Bryce the Tax Preparer?" I can't think of a good name.
In all seriousness, I've been thinking about what I would ask him if I had the opportunity, and I simply don't know. I don't want to ask him a question that would come across as disrespectful. I may not like how he is doing his job, but he is doing better than I ever could. I respect him for that.
I am sure he gets asked serious questions all the time, so if I had the opportunity I might just want to ask him a silly question like "If I come to the White House could we hang out and play a game of NBA Jam" or "What is your Xbox Live ID?"
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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quote: I am not sure I will be able to ask him any questions (I doubt it) but if I were able what would you all suggest I ask him?
I was super excited about his idea of having service in the peace corp help pay for college, and I haven't heard a peep about it since. College for patriots who can't or don't want to enter the military but can't afford college alone.
<--- Disabled American who would not only jump at the chance to help people in need and spread goodwill, but is broke and stuck in Arizona. I would really like to know what he has to say on the matter.
Haha, how about this. "We all know that you are a democrat, and that graduated from Harvard law but we don't know something that could change the entire way members of a particular generation view you... PS3 or Xbox360, or do you prefer the green party of the game world, the Wii?"
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
Here is a picture of my street yesterday. You can see the media tents set up and parts of the stage they were putting up. They also put long black curtains in between my house and the my neighbor's houses on either side. They said it was to make sure nobody from the houses behind us could see from their windows. It was a security thing.
This morning they put short metal fences up in front of our houses and I had to ask one of the SS guys (His name is Mike, we are on a first name basis now ) to get out.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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I am amused by how much Vegas housing developments look like many in the L.A. area. Not surprised (weather is somewhat similar), but amused.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Um... are you allowed to take pictures and such? they sure are taking alot of precautions and all...
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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Well, I was talking to two SS guys at the time I snapped the photo, so I think it is ok.
I've been talking to the agents regularly since Thursday evening so they know that I live there, and have been cooperating and giving them any information they ask for. I've been pretty open about everything I don't think they have a problem with it. I even opened my home up to them for whatever they needed.
Saturday I was outside trying to get a tough oil stain off of my driveway and was interviewed by one of the CBS radio stations here in town. I got to meet the guy I listen to every morning for news, so that was pretty cool as well.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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posted
I would ask him how much, on average, as a % of GDP, he thinks the federal government should tax and spend. Then I'd ask him what he thinks the best way to get from where we are to his ideal budget point is.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote: They have constructed tents for the media, blocked off our street to traffic, and set up a stage for the President to give his speech.
This would tork me to no end. I don't care who you are, you don't get to declare temporary eminent domain over a street for the purposes of using it as a nifty backdrop for a political rally.
Go co-opt a stage at an elementary school, or something. I'm driving here...
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Do this, and we will totally pool together and bail you out. Do it live on camera, and you'll get a service charge!
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Do this, and we will totally pool together and bail you out. Do it live on camera, and you'll get a service charge!
I'm in, someone just keyed my car and my deductible is five hundred dollars, but if you buzz the president of the united states of America I will redirect my car paint money your way.
That way whenever someone asks me about the two foot long key scratch I can say "you know that guy who wore a shock ring when he met the president?"
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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Well, they brought the dogs in, sniffed everything out, and I'm good. They also had everyone walk to the end of the street to get screened one more time before the President gets here. The stage is literally right outside my window so we are just waiting now until he arrives. There aren't many people so hopefully he will shake all of our hands.
And I can't use a joy buzzer. I don't want to get arrested for assaulting the President.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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When the moderator is laughing when people are insulting you, its okay to give in to peer pressure!
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:When the moderator is laughing when people are insulting you, you have to give in to peer pressure!
FTFY.
Seriously, Geraine. What are you gonna listen to? A moderator for an Internet discussion board, or your instincts warning you it would be a very bad idea and your legal knowledge suggesting it's 'illegal' to assault the President of the United States by surprise surrounded by Secret Service and police?
C'mon. Don't be a wussy!
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I think a good gift for the President would be a chocolate revolver. And since he is so busy, you'd probably have to run up to him real quick and give it to him.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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SUPER nice guy. He made sure to shake everyone's hand that lived on our street. There was only about 40 of us there, and we were all in front of my house.
We were all screened but there was another group of people on another street that had gathered that yelled so loud that the President went and shook their hands as well. The secret service was visibly surprised but they went anyways.
A few minutes after I shook his hand I put my hands in my pockets (something I usually do) and a secret service guy kind of went off on me. He told me to take my hands out of my pockets and put his own hand behind his back. I knew what he was reaching for so I took my hands out
Was a really good experience. I recorded the entire speech as well as him arriving, but the speech was too long for my youtube account.
And as much as I like all of you, I didn't give into peer pressure and joy buzz him. I just think it would have been a REALLY bad idea.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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Oh, Scott R, I think I should say that everyone that was here really tried to make this as painless as possible. They spoke to us all weekend and bent over backwards to make sure we were able to get where we needed to be. The president left about 3 hours ago and everything is almost gone. I didn't mind parking a block away for one night.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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quote: They have constructed tents for the media, blocked off our street to traffic, and set up a stage for the President to give his speech.
This would tork me to no end. I don't care who you are, you don't get to declare temporary eminent domain over a street for the purposes of using it as a nifty backdrop for a political rally.
Go co-opt a stage at an elementary school, or something. I'm driving here...
This. Inconveniencing everyone so someone can promote himself is obnoxious. If I lived there, I'd be really tempted to refuse the explosive search. I wonder what happens if you do. And what did they expect disabled people to do when you had to park a block away?
quote:I may not like how he is doing his job, but he is doing better than I ever could.
How do you know? It's not like you'd have to make any decisions. You'd have advisors to tell you what to do.
Posts: 1658 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:How do you know? It's not like you'd have to make any decisions. You'd have advisors to tell you what to do.
This is, after all, what Presidents do-they ask advisors what they think, and then act accordingly. They have advisors to tell them which advisors to pick as well.
quote:This. Inconveniencing everyone so someone can promote himself is obnoxious. If I lived there, I'd be really tempted to refuse the explosive search. I wonder what happens if you do. And what did they expect disabled people to do when you had to park a block away?
Well, I suspect-but I think neither of us know-that if that came up, well, provisions would be made. I'd be very surprised if the assorted advisors (who make all the decisions) and handlers and such would just say, "Well, screw John Handicapped, he can just stagger along with his walker an extra couple dozen yards." That's not, like, a PR screwup or anything that they'd seek (for self-interested reasons) to avoid or anything. Setting aside the morality of the thing.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:This is, after all, what Presidents do-they ask advisors what they think, and then act accordingly. They have advisors to tell them which advisors to pick as well.
Republicans have managed to convince me that this IS how they think. Every time one of them says that the President should just defer to the "commanders on the ground" it just tells me more and more that they don't think the president should be commander in chief, he should just do what people tell him to do...at least, when a Democrat is in office. Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Like when a Republican is a better military commandwe, even when he's a national guard pilot and the other guy was in Nam? Heh
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:This is, after all, what Presidents do-they ask advisors what they think, and then act accordingly. They have advisors to tell them which advisors to pick as well.
Republicans have managed to convince me that this IS how they think. Every time one of them says that the President should just defer to the "commanders on the ground" it just tells me more and more that they don't think the president should be commander in chief, he should just do what people tell him to do...at least, when a Democrat is in office.
Well to be fair, presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were very much this style of commanding. This isn't to say they didn't make any choices, but they were very content to let advisers do the nitty gritty decision making, and then on the rare key decisions hear all the arguments and then go with whatever rubric they personally used.
On the flip side of things Carter and LBJ were notorious one man armies. Carter was famous for personally doing the math on budgetary reports to keep them honest and wore himself out doing it. LBJ actually had military maps on his desk and was making decisions as to where the military should be striking, as well as tactical decisions. It didn't help to say the least. But I imagine it's an incredibly potent opiate to play risk on a map for real.
Listening to generals on the ground doesn't just extend that far either. Remember Trueman nearly committed political suicide firing MacArthur over a war decision. There is still a segment of the population that feels the President should differ to their generals, and work out the diplomacy side of things with the other side's heads of state.
Are there folks that are going to latch on to something like "the President got in the way of victory?" because it fits their overall narrative of Democrats making terrible presidents? Sure. But I don't the criticism is without merit.
I personally think Obama is making the correct choices regarding both nations. I know the military wants desperately to come out of both conflicts with something more akin to what we got at the end of WWII, complete victory and honor. Instead in Iraq we have a very tentative maybe victory, and in Afghanistan it's essentially Vietnam. We'll leave, and God knows what is going to happen next, probably nothing abjectly good.
That's frustrating, depressing, and people look to blame somebody when we don't win.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Oh Wow! My house isn't actually shown in that picture, the angle is wrong. My house was actually to the right of the podium, about 15 feet away. The angle of that picture only shows the last house on my street. I wonder if the Wall Street Journal got a picture of it, they interviewed us after the visit.
We were on our local news last night along with the inside of our home, and I was on a news radio station this morning for a 5 minute interview.
Here is a picture of Pete Souza. I was actually JUST out of this photo. I was directly behind Pete behind my neighbor with the blue shirt. My house is also right there. The guy in the suit in the background is a Secret Service Agent in my driveway:
posted
Didn't Armoth get to meet Pres. Obama with the Maccabeats? Maybe this well be an advancing trend.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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On second thought I now wish that I never meet the president, because I don't think I have your self control Geraine.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:This is, after all, what Presidents do-they ask advisors what they think, and then act accordingly. They have advisors to tell them which advisors to pick as well.
Republicans have managed to convince me that this IS how they think. Every time one of them says that the President should just defer to the "commanders on the ground" it just tells me more and more that they don't think the president should be commander in chief, he should just do what people tell him to do...at least, when a Democrat is in office.
Well to be fair, presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were very much this style of commanding. This isn't to say they didn't make any choices, but they were very content to let advisers do the nitty gritty decision making, and then on the rare key decisions hear all the arguments and then go with whatever rubric they personally used.
On the flip side of things Carter and LBJ were notorious one man armies. Carter was famous for personally doing the math on budgetary reports to keep them honest and wore himself out doing it. LBJ actually had military maps on his desk and was making decisions as to where the military should be striking, as well as tactical decisions. It didn't help to say the least. But I imagine it's an incredibly potent opiate to play risk on a map for real.
Listening to generals on the ground doesn't just extend that far either. Remember Trueman nearly committed political suicide firing MacArthur over a war decision. There is still a segment of the population that feels the President should differ to their generals, and work out the diplomacy side of things with the other side's heads of state.
Are there folks that are going to latch on to something like "the President got in the way of victory?" because it fits their overall narrative of Democrats making terrible presidents? Sure. But I don't the criticism is without merit.
I personally think Obama is making the correct choices regarding both nations. I know the military wants desperately to come out of both conflicts with something more akin to what we got at the end of WWII, complete victory and honor. Instead in Iraq we have a very tentative maybe victory, and in Afghanistan it's essentially Vietnam. We'll leave, and God knows what is going to happen next, probably nothing abjectly good.
That's frustrating, depressing, and people look to blame somebody when we don't win.
I'm not saying I necessarily agree that presidents should be calling for specific airstrikes on targets, or anything close to that degree of micromanaging.
But when Obama says "yeah it's time to get out of Iraq," that's not necessarily a military decision. Wars are politics. And I don't mean campaign politics. The decision when to invade, when to cut our losses, and perhaps most importantly, what our objectives are, are all political decisions best made by the civilian leadership, not the military commanders. It's the entire basis of civilian-led government.
Obama says to pull all the troops out. Republicans are saying the commanders want troops on the ground and THAT makes Obama a bad leader (with Romney also saying he's a poor negotiator, which is disingenuous at best). But if you're going to cede that high level of control to the military, then you might as well stop calling him the commander in chief.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Obama says to pull all the troops out. Republicans are saying the commanders want troops on the ground and THAT makes Obama a bad leader (with Romney also saying he's a poor negotiator, which is disingenuous at best). But if you're going to cede that high level of control to the military, then you might as well stop calling him the commander in chief.
I admit I haven't been following the rhetoric closely for a bit. But isn't the argument more about troop counts in an area we're still operating in, rather than decisions on whether to be there or what the objectives should be while there?
It isn't totally unreasonable to criticize if, for a given set of objectives, the president disregards expert opinions on what resources are needed to accomplish those objectives.
But again, I say all this with the disclaimer that I may well be out of date with regard to whatever the current Republican rhetoric actually is.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Lyrhawn: I completely agree, what makes the Republican candidates' criticisms even more invalid is that Obama has certainly spoken with the generals on the ground face to face and heard much more in depth debriefings than they ever could. They don't know anything about how well the generals made their cases, or how strongly those generals held to their conclusions. Generally the military doesn't talk to reporters about what they've said to the president, except good ol' Stanley McCrystal of course.
But running for President is a two pronged approach.
1:Why I'm clearly the best choice.
2: Why the other guy has to go.
If say Romney becomes President, nobody is going to seriously whine about how he didn't give Obama credit if Iraq turns out great. Much of the way things are in campaigning is never even mentioned again once a candidate wins, so the temptation is to just play the game now until it's no longer necessary.
edit: Heck, can you imagine how much Republicans don't want Obama to have a legacy term? Three whole years where he doesn't have to give a crap about reelection? And then a fourth lame duck year, where who knows what crazy out of left field legislation will all come down to his pen?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by ricree101: I admit I haven't been following the rhetoric closely for a bit. But isn't the argument more about troop counts in an area we're still operating in, rather than decisions on whether to be there or what the objectives should be while there?
Yeah, I think this is out of date.
To make a long story short, the current issue AFAIK is that the Iraqis want the Americans out and they have a prior agreement with Bush to pull out this year. In the case that Iraq may be able to get their arm-twisted into accepting American troops again, they want American troops to be accountable under the law.
The Americans want to stay in Iraq in order to make sure that the government is accountable to *them* and to counter possible influence by Iran. However, having their troops accountable under Iraqi law is a non-starter, so hence the withdrawal.
In other times, this kind of thing was called extraterritoriality, and in Chinese history was a major point of conflict between China-Britain and China-America, something that has consequences up till today.
In other words, I don't think this is an easy negotiation.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Geraine: So I found the video of my house and my parents being interviewed. They own the house I am renting, so they interviewed them.
quote:Originally posted by AchillesHeel: Didn't Armoth get to meet Pres. Obama with the Maccabeats? Maybe this well be an advancing trend.
I've actually "met" him now three times. By met, I mean shook hands with. Once as primary contender, once as the democratic candidate, and once as president. I have a video of the latter.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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