First of all I have a friend who goes down to Haiti and works as a nurse there every couple of months. She's not there now, but I can only imagine how many people she knows that have been affected by this disaster. My heart goes out to her and everyone else who's hurting right now.
This diary, though, is about Rachel Maddow's 9pm show. For those who missed it, it was a doozy. She went in great detail about Obama's successful first year and then goes into what could have been, had McCain won. The videos below are somewhat short clips that kinda summarize the points she made.
This video starts by showing how the Fed made money off the last investment then shows a graph representing the job losses in America the last year of the Bush administration as well as the first year of the Obama administration. It looks similar to the dow jones graph over the same period of time. The number of job losses is still in the positive, but it's going down and that's the point. The stimulus stopped the number lost jobs from growing each month as it was under Bush, and although we're still losing jobs, it's not nearly at the rate it could be, and appeared to be headed.
This video is a short clip about how effective a president is at getting the congress to vote with his agenda. LBJ had the record of 96% success rate in 1965. Obama got his way 97% of the time. This was a record for any president in any year of their administration as judged by Congressional Quarterly.
Not in this video, Maddow goes on to explain how Obama may have disappointed his base on some significant issues (DADT, guantanamo) and that he may have cherry picked a few battles to win, but he has been successful. He's passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, he got a Supreme Court nominee through, and done more domestically than any president since FDR. I suggest watching the whole segment so that when the one year anniversary gets here and you have to refute the claims of failure, you'll be armed with some awesome facts.
For those who want to sit on their hands during the upcoming elections, for those who wonder what we're fighting for on this site and others, we have this last video. This is what we get if we don't go out and organize, and inform, and educate, and VOTE VOTE VOTE. We get a party that cares nothing about this country and cares only about power. This last video is actually from Good Morning America and it sums up what the Republican Nomination for President feels about what's best for this country.
"I wouldn't know, nor care" about the possible President of the United States. But what I love more, is when Lauer originally presses him, McCain goes strait to his defense of "I just visited families of dead soldiers" as if that shields him from any and all criticism.
Update--It has come to my attention that this diary should be included in the discussion.