MERGED: The Politics Thread

[Real]

What happens to the Republicans who dare respect the actual dictionary definitions of words the GOP has decided to re-invent:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/09/bob-inglis-i-refused-to-c_n_675580.html

[stunning36hh]

It's important to get rid of the RINOs.  Bob Inglis can run as a Democrat now.

[JJ]

The economy is hurting big time; people are out of work and losing their jobs; many families are faced with hardships in putting food on the table and paying basic necessity bills; worst of all the Obama/Democrat plan for "investments in the economy to stimulate growth" never had a chance of working and sure enough, isn't working.  It's "George Bush's fault" is all you hear from the White House these days, a laughable slogan if ever there was one.  Two years into his Presidency, it's clear Obama doesn't have a clue how the American Free Enterprise system really works.  But then entrusting someone with the White House when they've never even run a lemonade stand is what you get when you get Obama.

Now the worst slap of all.  Michelle Obama vacations in Spain?  Couldn't spend the money here in the USA anywhere.  No, we have to go to Spain and stay in a five star hotel with our kids?  All of this while people are losing jobs and facing higher costs for everything.

Nice move Michelle.  Isn't this what we call uppity and arrogance from those that believe they are entitled to the good life and know better than the rest of us what is good for us?   And them?

============================================================================
Life with the 'Bama man in 2010 White House days........................

[rtpoe]

And thus we see that not only does JJ fail to understand the "American Free Enterprise" system (let me recommend a book to you about what it's like when the government keeps its hands off of private enterprise - it's called The Jungle by Upton Sinclair), he also has no clue about how diplomacy works.

Michelle Obama's trip to Spain to maintain our friendship with that country probably cost less than last year's bonus for the CEO of Goldman Sachs. And I'd wager she did more good work in that trip than Lloyd Blankfein did in the whole year. Why don't these CEO's use their bonuses to hire workers instead of lining their pockets? Answer me that, JJ.....

[TheZookie007]

Personally, I think it's more important for the Republicans to get rid of the racist, xenophobic section of the party (best exemplified by the Tea Party), totally repudiate it, and return to its roots: true conservatism of the Barry Goldwater/William F. Buckley Jr. strain, not this Frankenstein's monster it has become.

[3deroticer]

They don't want to lose their votes, same reason they don't denounce KKK and NAZI, and kiss ass to any organization of christian family values. While be the political party with the most debauchery of sexual deviation from those family values they claim to have.

[3deroticer]

After GWBush alienation of the world as being the least diplomatic president ever, You would think Michelle Obama visiting other countries would be a good thing in restoring faith in doing business with us.

May I recommend Des Moines, Iowa for a great American vacation, "JJ"? Let's be like China and form a wall and just all of us stay here inside our border.

[stunning36hh]

Q_BE throw me a line!  I'm drowning over here.  Any right wingers in the right wing tavern?  (sound of crickets)  Dammit!  "I'll have some of the Kool Aid yer servin' here, seems to be doin' the trick for the others 'round here."   

[3deroticer]

LOL ! Figures! don't beat yourself up! Facts are hard on rebuttal. Feel free to denounce any of the Hate crime organization, anytime you want to love gay people, embrace Islamic people, and help poor people get a hand-out on progress so their children will be better off. Jump right in and prove me wrong.

[onion_writer]

Obama doesn't have a clue how the American Free Enterprise system really works.  But then entrusting someone with the White House when they've never even run a lemonade stand is what you get when you get Obama.

Um, I've run six businesses, two of which I founded. I've had payrolls of 50, and I did all the tax filings and payroll myself.

What is your great experience, JJ? What makes you right and me wrong? How is it that you are such an expert on free enterprise? How many businesses have you run, yourself?

[pedonbio]

Um, I've run six businesses, two of which I founded. I've had payrolls of 50, and I did all the tax filings and payroll myself.

What is your great experience, JJ? What makes you right and me wrong? How is it that you are such an expert on free enterprise? How many businesses have you run, yourself?

My father died early in the Bush Administration, in 2001. He was a lifelong Democrat and fairly conservative, but he loathed the Bush family and saw them as the bringers of disaster. When I asked him about it, all he said was that none of them had held a job in four generations. I didn't get it until the Bush economic policies started to collapse in 2004: There was no concern about job losses or "outsourcing"; it was evident that none of the frat boys in the Bush White House had any understanding of what it is like to depend on a job to provide a living for oneself and one's dependents, and what it is like to lose that job.

[3deroticer]

The economy is hurting big time, and many of the bills after working with the republican are sent waiting to pass. So far the Republican have delayed, and delayed, and then say "No"

"JJ" what have you done to urge your republican to pass these bills that you think we should move forward on? Remember Obama is not a dictator, he can't do it without the consent of congress. While you are at it, get them to swear in those judges waiting to fill the position left behind from the last administration.

If you haven't done anything then you really have no one to complain to.

[TheZookie007]

"Michelle Obama's Spain trip: The inside story why she went"

...A ritzy vacation in Spain while the U.S. faces tough economic times was off-message -- as was highlighting the beaches in Spain after urging Americans to head to Florida's Gulf Coast to help out the tourism industry impacted by the BP oil spill. (The first family flies to Florida this weekend.)

But the reason Mrs. Obama made the trip -- and other facts, not rumors about the travel -- are important in knowing the whole story and understanding why she made the call to go.

First, some numbers. Mrs. Obama did not travel with 40 friends, a number used by some news outlets....

Mrs. Obama does travel with significant security -- and in a trip like this, three shifts of uniformed and plain-clothes agents and military personnel flew with her on a big Air Force 757. No matter where she goes -- domestic or international -- any first lady gets protection and she does not decide how many agents are needed.

So why did Mrs. Obama go to Spain at this time? She's not tone-deaf politically. What was behind the "mother-daughter" vacation?

A White House source told me that [longtime Chicago pal, Anita Blanchard]'s father passed away and Mrs. Obama was not able to make the funeral at the beginning of July. Blanchard [the obstetrician who had delivered the Obamas' offspring] who had promised her daughter she would take her to Spain for her birthday. She asked Mrs. Obama and Sasha to come with. (Malia is at overnight camp.)

"She felt it was important as a dear friend to do this," I was told.

How did they end up at the five star Villa Padierna, part of the Ritz-Carlton chain? Because of security concerns, there were just some places they could not go. Agents were able to secure Villa Padierna and the nearby beach area.

Totally not true, though reported by some big-league outlets that she went:
Mrs. Obama did not attend a charity ball at their hotel hosted by Antonio Banderas and Eva Longoria on Saturday night. Mrs. Obama went out to dinner with her pals.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked at a Wednesday briefing if there was any concern about "the appearance" of Mrs. Obama's Spain trip.

"The first lady is on a private trip. She is a private citizen and is the mother of a daughter on a private trip. And I think I'd leave it at that," Gibbs said.

Gibbs is wrong. Mrs. Obama oversees a major Obama domestic initiative, the **09** health campaign. In April, she flew to Mexico to launch her "international agenda" of youth engagement. And she supervises an East Wing staff that is responsible for every special event in the White House, from bill signings to state dinners. Mrs. Obama is a public figure and it is reasonable to ask how she spends taxpayer resources....

Yes, maybe there's potential for some bias in the rebuttal since the Sun-Times is a Chicago paper, and the Obamas are hometown heroes, but, still...if you're going to lie about someone, at least do it using the facts. Which is a nonsensical statement but you know what I mean. And it's not more nonsensical than some of the opposition to this president and his family has been and continues to be. After all, she is not the first First Lady to go on vacation, and to take her daughter along for the trip, and she won't be the last.

[TheZookie007]

Oh, and stunning36hh, as I've told others here and elsewhere before, just because I voted for the Democratic candidate in the last election, does not make me a left-wing. And I'm not. You can be a leftist and a Republican, and you can be a right-winger and a Democrat. Just like "liberal" and "conservative", they are adjectives, which qualify a noun, and the noun has to be put in the sentence before you can say explicitly what one is or isn't.

Just a thought.

[onion_writer]

Remember Obama is not a dictator, he can't do it without the consent of congress.

Indeed. JJ is quick to remind us that there are three branches of U.S. government -- though he somehow has the mistaken notion that it takes only the executive branch to make expenditures.

Or maybe that's how it will be when the Tea Party takes control. (Shivers!)

[Shara]

the horror when I had to learn that political system of yours

[BillN]

We have a system?   

[pedonbio]

Personally, I think it's more important for the Republicans to get rid of the racist, xenophobic section of the party (best exemplified by the Tea Party), totally repudiate it, and return to its roots: true conservatism of the Barry Goldwater/William F. Buckley Jr. strain, not this Frankenstein's monster it has become.

Interesting observation, Zookie. A few months ago I heard an interview with Chris Buckley, William F.'s son, who said that he thought his father's greatest contribution to conservatism was to drive the anti-semites out of the Republican Party. Too bad it didn't last.

[CarlTL]

We have a system?   

I thought it was a series of suggestions.

[JJ]

the dog days of the Summer of 2010 roll on as things get worse and worse for

the 'Bama Man

1. Overwhelmed, no-nothing, inexperienced President throws gas on the economic fire,
2. practices half hearted loyalty to the flag,
3. lack of military experience (another one who never served) shows up,
4. but, continues overexposure on TV to make sure the masses get his misdirected messages.

And the poll numbers go down, down, and down....................




===================================================================
DEMOCRATS BITE DEMOCRATS, PART 2  -  Obama Stimulus not working

By Thomas Sowell   




 Rumors of Congressional Democrats privately expressing disapproval of the Obama administration's actions and policies have been given more credence by such things as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's public criticism of White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. But when two long-time Democratic pollsters, Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen, called President Obama "cynical" and "racially divisive," that was a dramatic statement. It was like saying that the emperor has no clothes.

A much more rhetorically subdued but nevertheless devastating implicit criticism of current government spending policies came from an even more unlikely source: the Congressional Budget Office, whose director is a Democrat.

Without naming names or making political charges, the Congressional Budget Office last week issued a report titled "Federal Debt and the Risk of a Fiscal Crisis." The report's dry, measured words paint a painfully bleak picture of the long-run dangers from the current runaway government deficits.

The CBO report points out that the national debt, which was 36 percent of the Gross Domestic Product three years ago, is now projected to be 62 percent of GDP at the end of fiscal year 2010-- and rising in future years.

Tracing the history of the national debt back to the beginning of the country, the CBO finds that the national debt did not exceed 50 percent of GDP, even when the country was fighting the Civil War, the First World War or any other war except World War II. Moreover, a graph in the CBO report shows the national debt going down sharply after World War II, as the nation began paying off its wartime when the war was over.


By contrast, our current national debt is still going up and may end up in "unfamiliar territory," according to the CBO, reaching "unsustainable levels." They spell out the economic consequences-- and it is not a pretty picture.

Although Barack Obama and members of his administration constantly talk about the so-called "stimulus" spending as creating a demand for goods that is in turn "creating jobs," every dime they spend comes from somewhere else, which means that there is less money to create jobs somewhere else.

There is no reason to believe that all this runaway spending is creating jobs-- on net balance. The fact that the unemployment rate remains stuck at nearly 10 percent belies the idea that great numbers of jobs are being created-- again, on net balance.

White House press Secretary Robert Gibbs' recent rant against Rush Limbaugh for criticizing the bailout of General Motors went on and on about how this bailout had saved "a million jobs." But where does Gibbs think the bailout money came from? The Tooth Fairy?

When you take money from the taxpayers and spend it to rescue the jobs of one set of workers-- your union political supporters, in this case-- what does that do to the demand for the jobs of other workers, whose products taxpayers would have bought with the money you took away from them? There is no net economic gain to the country from this, though there may well be political gains for the administration from having rescued their UAW supporters.

The same principle applies to money that came from selling government bonds, thus adding to the national debt. People who bought those government bonds had other things they could have invested in, if those government bonds had not been issued.

As the Congressional Budget Office puts it, if the national debt continues to grow out of control, a "growing portion of people's savings would go to purchase government debt rather than toward investments in productive capital goods such as factories and computers; that 'crowding out' of investment would lead to lower output and incomes than would otherwise occur."

Just paying the interest on a growing national debt can require higher tax rates, which "would discourage work and saving and further reduce output," according to the CBO.

It would probably do no good to send Robert Gibbs-- or Barack Obama, for that matter-- a copy of the government's own Congressional Budget Office report. Spending vast sums of money in politically strategic places helps the Obama administration politically, and that is obviously their bottom line.


more at:    http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell080410.php3

[100ProofBE]

Personally, I think it's more important for the Republicans to get rid of the racist, xenophobic section of the party (best exemplified by the Tea Party), totally repudiate it, and return to its roots: true conservatism of the Barry Goldwater/William F. Buckley Jr. strain, not this Frankenstein's monster it has become.

Couldn't agree more, though I'd argue the Tea Party isn't any more racist/xenophobic than Rush, Beck or any of the other hot-air machines on the far right. Honestly, the central idea behind the Tea Party is a noble one. Reigning in wasteful government spending is a great thing. Unfortunately, what the Tea Party is really against is any spending Obama and the current Congress want to make (as made crystal clear by their silence regarding defense spending and their willingness to embrace extending tax cuts... the two biggest deficit creators of the last 10 years) so their chance to be anything but a party-sponsored echo chamber is null and void.

I'm not necessarily against traditional fiscal conservative policies, but the transformation the Republican party has made in the last 30 years has pretty much assured I'll never vote for them in my lifetime. Threatening to change the constitution solely to outlaw gay marriage or "anchor babies"? Blocking mosques from being built at Ground Zero (even though it's actually an Islamic Cultural Center and 4 blocks from the site) and all over the country? Teaching Christian fables as science in schools? Keeping America constantly mired in war and therefore guaranteeing out-of-control defense spending? Blocking valuable scientific research because it might affect cell clumps that at one point could've had the potential of becoming a **09**? All fear-mongering stupidity that has no place in a rational political discussion.

All that said, I'm not really a fan of the Democratic party either. I vote for them because the alternative is far more frightening, but they're just as crooked, just as self-serving, and they have just as many crazies with ridiculous ideas on their fringe. The difference is that they don't make those ridiculous ideas their talking points during an election cycle (Sorry, wingnuts... affordable health care for all is not ridiculous).

This country's government will continue to be ineffective and crooked until we get term limits in Congress, REAL campaign finance reform, and a banning of corporate lobbying. And that's just a start. Honestly, a sustainable and credible 3rd party would be ideal to bring nuanced, rational discussion back in to the political discourse. An actual progressive party would be nice. So would an actual conservative party.

[onion_writer]

Hear, hear! Yes!

[pedonbio]

All that said, I'm not really a fan of the Democratic party either. I vote for them because the alternative is far more frightening, but they're just as crooked, just as self-serving, and they have just as many crazies with ridiculous ideas on their fringe. The difference is that they don't make those ridiculous ideas their talking points during an election cycle (Sorry, wingnuts... affordable health care for all is not ridiculous).

100Proof, I think you've made an excellent point--Over the past couple of centuries, and until the Reagan Administration, all political parties recognized that politics always attracts crazies, and parties have an obligation to keep the crazies in the closet. The problem has been that during the Reagan Administration several cabinet members (James Watt comes to mind) came out of the crazy closet and became policy makers. The Democrats keep them in the closet.

This country's government will continue to be ineffective and crooked until we get term limits in Congress, REAL campaign finance reform, and a banning of corporate lobbying. And that's just a start. Honestly, a sustainable and credible 3rd party would be ideal to bring nuanced, rational discussion back in to the political discourse. An actual progressive party would be nice. So would an actual conservative party.

We had a Progressive Party with almost exactly that platform from 1911 to 1923. It failed.

[3deroticer]

We have Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul that are against corporate aristocracy, and neither one of them were allow to debate anywhere near the final on the media. Yet in their first round they both garner the most popular choice on the polls. I think that scared the crap out of the Aristocrats media owners and they just conveniently eliminate them.

How do we get around that?

[JJ]

OBAMA IN SERIOUS DECLINE...............

The last few weeks have been a nightmare for President Obama, in a summer of discontent in the United States which has deeply unsettled the ruling liberal elites, so much so that even the Left has begun to turn against the White House. While the anti-establishment Tea Party movement has gained significant ground and is now a rising and powerful political force to be reckoned with, many of the president’s own supporters as well as independents are rapidly losing faith in Barack Obama, with open warfare  breaking out between the White House and the left-wing of the Democratic Party. While conservatism in America grows stronger by the day, the forces of liberalism are growing increasingly weaker and divided.

Against this backdrop, the president’s approval ratings have been sliding dramatically all summer, with the latest Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll of US voters dropping to minus 22 points, the lowest point so far for Barack Obama since taking office. While just 24 per cent of American voters strongly approve of the president’s job performance, almost twice that number, 46 per cent, strongly disapprove. According to Rasmussen, 65 per cent of voters believe the United States is going down the wrong track, including 70 per cent of independents.

more at.......................    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100050412/the-stunning-decline-of-barack-obama-10-key-reasons-why-the-obama-presidency-is-in-meltdown/

[Real]

and somehow he's still more popular than house republicans.

funny how having no direction, no ideas except "no" and no discernibly different policy than the disastrous w. bush will do that to an out of touch party that doesnt know how to serve anyone but the rich...

[3deroticer]

Considering that the nation is pretty well divided between those that are Republican or Democrat, and that there is a newsworthy story that 50% of the people don't approve of Obama. "JJ" is just jumping all over it with this non-news story.

[Real]

especially when new polls show that the top 2 choices with republicans for 2012 are the first legislator to put Obama(Romney)care into action and....Sarah Palin lol.

[rtpoe]

Jonathan Swift on why we shouldn't bother arguing with JJ:

"Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion which by reasoning he never acquired." - Letter to a Young Clergyman

And as an aside, William Jennings Bryan on the difference between the two parties:

"There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it."

The first one is also known as "trickle-down" economics, and we know how well that worked....

[Shara]

other sideother side (large)

[JJ]

other sideother side (large)

===========================

................and this is on topic, in keeping with the OBAMA theme in what way?   

[JJ]

In the year of 2010 of the presidency of the 'Bama Man, former Community Organizer, Chicago, South Side and 90 day resident of the U.S.Senate.

=======================================================================

Truer words were ever spoken ??

 
 NO CONTEST!
 
This has got to be amongst the best quotes of all time.





"As an American I am not so shocked that Obama was given  
the Nobel Peace Prize without any accomplishments to his  
name, because  America  gave him the White House based on  
the same credentials."
                                                                          ~ Newt Gingrich  ~

[3deroticer]

other sideother side (large)

"JJ" wouldn't recognize himself if you hold up a mirror!

[TheZookie007]

TPM: "Tea Partiers Say Net Neutrality Hurts Freedom"

...of course, they used their Twitter feed, their Ning network, their YouTube channel, and their fb Page to get the word out on this


And meanwhile, here is an account of the irony of why the current attempt to kill an ant (stoppin' dem dirty wetbacks from besmirching our fair country by having millions of anchor babies, durrrr!) with a sledgehammer (repealing the 14th Amendment) is especially rich:

PBS: "In perspective: Dred Scott and the Fourteenth Amendment"

In April 1866, the Congress passed a Civil Rights Act declaring that people born in the United States were to be considered citizens. The bill was designed to extend citizenship protections to freed slaves. President Andrew Johnson promptly vetoed the law — only to have the Radical Republicans in Congress override him in one of the first great showdowns that would end in Johnson's impeachment.

Worried that subsequent legislatures might take Johnson's position, supporters of civil rights pushed ahead two years later with the 14th amendment, which enshrined birthright citizenship in the Constitution.  The point: that no person born in the United States could ever be treated like Dred Scott, a slave who had sued for his freedom — and been informed by the Supreme Court he could never be a citizen....

Republicans standing up for civil rights. Unheard-of....

[pedonbio]

And meanwhile, here is an account of the irony of why the current attempt to kill an ant (stoppin' dem dirty wetbacks from besmirching our fair country by having millions of anchor babies, durrrr!) with a sledgehammer (repealing the 14th Amendment) is especially rich

Zookie, it never ceases to amaze me that so many politicians (like Mitch McConnell and the supremely ignorant John Bohner) shoot off their mouths as if these things hadn't been discussed at the time they were done. At the time the 14th Amendment was passed no Chinese could become a naturalized citizen. But the transcript of the debate (the Congressional Record) shows that the authors of the amendment knew that it would make the children of Chinese residents citizens.

Also, BTW, these twits haven't figured out yet that the 14th Amendment is the legal basis of corporate personhood. Repeal the 14th Amendment, and corporations lose all rights not expressly granted by statute.