# Obama in Rolling Stone



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Obama in Command: The Rolling Stone Interview*





> *What music have you been listening to lately? What have you discovered, what speaks to you these days? *
> 
> My iPod now has about 2,000 songs, and it is a source of great pleasure to me. I am probably still more heavily weighted toward the music of my childhood than I am the new stuff. There's still a lot of Stevie Wonder, a lot of Bob Dylan, a lot of Rolling Stones, a lot of R&B, a lot of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Those are the old standards.
> 
> A lot of classical music. I'm not a big opera buff in terms of going to opera, but there are days where Maria Callas is exactly what I need.





> *You had Bob Dylan here. How did that go?*
> 
> Here's what I love about Dylan: He was exactly as you'd expect he would be. He wouldn't come to the rehearsal; usually, all these guys are practicing before the set in the evening. He didn't want to take a picture with me; usually all the talent is dying to take a picture with me and Michelle before the show, but he didn't show up to that.
> 
> ...


_These are obviously among the least important moments of a long interview. As for the rest, try this for fun: When you're reading the article, rather than Obama's voice, see if you can imagine G.W. Bush speaking instead. There's an incongruence to logical, structured thought that is audibly incompatible with that buffoon._

(Rolling Stone)


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

A great article, CM. Gracias, mi amigo.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

> These are obviously among the least important moments of a long interview. As for the rest, try this for fun: When you're reading the article, rather than Obama's voice, see if you can imagine G.W. Bush speaking instead. There's an incongruence to logical, structured thought that is audibly incompatible with that buffoon.


Obama is great on the TelePrompTer, terrible off it. I hate to see him dropping his "Gs" for effect when he's trying to kowtow to the little "folks."


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## rgray (Feb 15, 2005)

Too bad Hunter Thompson wasn't still around to do this interview....


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

rgray said:


> Too bad Hunter Thompson wasn't still around to do this interview....


Now that would be a slaughter worth listening to...


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

Macfury said:


> Obama is great on the TelePrompTer, terrible off it. I hate to see him dropping his "Gs" for effect when he's trying to kowtow to the little "folks."


As opposed to Bush who was terrible off TelePrompTers, and even worse on them. :lmao:


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MannyP Design said:


> As opposed to Bush who was terrible off TelePrompTers, and even worse on them. :lmao:


Bush was not bad in informal speeches, bad in formal speeches. But at this point in Obama's disastrous presidency, his silver tongue isn't helping him a whit.


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## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

I sure wish we had Obama here in Canada to replace our current leadership deficit.


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## Aurora (Sep 25, 2001)

Yeah. Right


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

jimbotelecom said:


> I sure wish we had Obama her in Canada to replace our current deficit.


Why? Bush left office with an unflattering $600 billion deficit and a $700 billion TARP deficit--of which $500 billion has been repaid. So that leaves Bush with a deficit of between $600 and $800 million.

Obama doubled that to a current annual deficit of $1.56 trillion in mere months. Compare that to around $53 billion in Canada. Adjusted for population, that's about one-third of the Obama deficit.


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

Macfury said:


> Bush was not bad in informal speeches, bad in formal speeches. But at this point in Obama's disastrous presidency, his silver tongue isn't helping him a whit.


If Obama's roll as president is disastrous, then there is no word in any language for what Bush's was. It's amazing what time does to people's memory.


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## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

Of course he inherited the mess created by Bush. 

Ol George is certainly a popular president. Ha Ha.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MannyP Design said:


> If Obama's roll as president is disastrous, then there is no word in any language for what Bush's was. It's amazing what time does to people's memory.


Yeah, there is a term for Bush's presidency--relatively benign. Obama has actually managed to make people nostalgic for Bush. The backlash heading down the pipe this November is just the beginning.


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## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

Macfury said:


> Yeah, there is a term for Bush's presidency--relatively benign. Obama has actually managed to make people nostalgic for Bush. The backlash heading down the pipe this November is just the beginning.


Nostalgic only that we miss ****ting on the idiot.


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

MannyP Design said:


> If Obama's roll as president is disastrous, then there is no word in any language for what Bush's was. It's amazing what time does to people's memory.


It might have something to do with the expectations surrounding Obama when he was first elected, perfectly symbolized by the Nobel Peace Prize (which we're all still waiting for him to earn, btw). It is telling how his defenders have gone from describing his presidency as one that will return hope to America to "well, he's not as bad as Bush" as you seem to be demonstrating.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Yeah, there is a term for Bush's presidency--relatively benign. Obama has actually managed to make people nostalgic for Bush. The backlash heading down the pipe this November is just the beginning.


relatively benign?

No that's just taking a joke too far.


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

Macfury said:


> Why? Bush left office with an unflattering $600 billion deficit and a $700 billion TARP deficit--of which $500 billion has been repaid. So that leaves Bush with a deficit of between $600 and $800 million.
> 
> Obama doubled that to a current annual deficit of $1.56 trillion in mere months. Compare that to around $53 billion in Canada. Adjusted for population, that's about one-third of the Obama deficit.


Why are you comparing Canada? We were affected quite differently from the financial crisis than the U.S. by the very nature of how our banks are run. It could have been much worse.

Blaming Obama would be akin to lauding Harper for keeping Canada out of massive debt. :lmao:


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Macfury said:


> Yeah, there is a term for Bush's presidency--relatively benign.


"benign"? Seriously? Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's "benign" in your dictionary? 

Obama's inherited financial problems went far beyond the deficit. Ongoing war costs, financial sector meltdown as a result of idiotic deregulation... "benign"? 

Somebody call the cops... we need to test MacFury's blood (if one can get ice through the syringe, that is)...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MannyP Design said:


> Why are you comparing Canada? We were affected quite differently from the financial crisis than the U.S. by the very nature of how our banks are run. It could have been much worse.
> 
> Blaming Obama would be akin to lauding Harper for keeping Canada out of massive debt. :lmao:


Because a previous poster expressed a wish that Canada could have Obama's debt.


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

chasMac said:


> It might have something to do with the expectations surrounding Obama when he was first elected


Absolutely—when you have such hype built around you, nothing you do can ever live up to it. But I think the hype was compounded by the nation's desperate need of Bush to exit. Fast.



> perfectly symbolized by the Nobel Peace Prize (which we're all still waiting for him to earn, btw). It is telling how his defenders have gone from describing his presidency as one that will return hope to America to "well, he's not as bad as Bush" as you seem to be demonstrating.


People like you seem to be under the impression that Obama gave himself a big ol' Nobel pat on the back. He was surprised as much as anyone else. Is it _his_ fault the rest of the world had one giant collective joygasm?

I think it perfectly illustrates just how f'ing bad it was with Bush around. They were so bloody ecstatic that they couldn't contain themselves. Talk about premature adulation. beejacon


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> "benign"? Seriously? Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's "benign" in your dictionary?


Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon?



CubaMark said:


> Obama's inherited financial problems went far beyond the deficit. Ongoing war costs,


Bush's deficit included the cost of those wars. 



CubaMark said:


> ... financial sector meltdown as a result of idiotic deregulation... "benign"?


Both parties were responsible for empowering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to launder those Wall Street derivatives. An unintended consequence of social engineering--as usually happens when the government alters the rules of the game.


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

MannyP Design said:


> People like you seem to be under the impression that Obama gave himself a big ol' Nobel pat on the back. He was surprised as much as anyone else. Is it _his_ fault the rest of the world had one giant collective joygasm?


People like me? So you are saying any criticism of Obama should more appropriately be directed at those who adored him prior to any good works on his behalf? I did use the word _symbolize_.



> I think it perfectly illustrates just how f'ing bad it was with Bush around. They were so bloody ecstatic that they couldn't contain themselves. Talk about premature adulation. beejacon


Not sure about that. Don't think the reaction would have been at all similar if Hillary had been elected, e.g. And she is a not-Bush.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MannyP Design said:


> People like you seem to be under the impression that Obama gave himself a big ol' Nobel pat on the back. He was surprised as much as anyone else. Is it _his_ fault the rest of the world had one giant collective joygasm?


In Obama's own words: "I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."

Tell the children he was in _Rolling Stone_ too. Future generations will find it difficult to fathom.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


who's talking about Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> who's talking about Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon?


These presidents were responsible for far more military deaths than was George Bush.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> These presidents were responsible for far more military deaths than was George Bush.


this somehow makes Bush's "benign"?

This must be one of those conservative (oops libertarian 'scuse me) things where you just constantly compare to something else to deflect criticism.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> this somehow makes Bush's "benign"?
> 
> This must be one of those conservative (oops libertarian 'scuse me) things where you just constantly compare to something else to deflect criticism.


I don't care if anyone criticizes Bush--he deserves it--but his presidency needs to be put into perspective. Lionizing Obama, however? I won't sit still for that.


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Macfury said:


> These presidents were responsible for far more military deaths than was George Bush.


(a) the vast majority of the deaths to which I refer were civilian; (b) Nixon and Kissinger deserve to spend eternity sitting on whirling trident pitchforks, among other just rewards; (c) WTF? The issue here is not who killed how many... it's your definition of "benign".


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> (a) the vast majority of the deaths to which I refer were civilian; (b) Nixon and Kissinger deserve to spend eternity sitting on whirling trident pitchforks, among other just rewards; (c) WTF? The issue here is not who killed how many... it's your definition of "benign".


Fidel Castro and Che Guavera? Pitchforks for them too?

More than 400,000 American civilians died on Lincoln's watch.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Yeah, there is a term for Bush's presidency--relatively benign. Obama has actually managed to make people nostalgic for Bush. The backlash heading down the pipe this November is just the beginning.





CubaMark said:


> "benign"? Seriously? Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's "benign" in your dictionary?
> 
> Obama's inherited financial problems went far beyond the deficit. Ongoing war costs, financial sector meltdown as a result of idiotic deregulation... "benign"?
> 
> Somebody call the cops... we need to test MacFury's blood (if one can get ice through the syringe, that is)...


CubaMark yes Macfury is correct. When Bush is compared to an Exploding Nuclear device he is *relatively benign*, as compared to other weapons of mass destruction if unleashed then Bush is *relatively benign.* It's like saying incest is all relative.

So in review, relative, in any of these instances, is not a very desirable situation, just like the Bush/Chaney Administration.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> CubaMark yes Macfury is correct. When Bush is compared to an Exploding Nuclear device he is *relatively benign*, as compared to other weapons of mass destruction if unleashed then Bush is *relatively benign.* It's like saying incest is all relative.


You must think FDR authorized the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was Truman.


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Macfury said:


> Fidel Castro and Che Guavera? Pitchforks for them too?


Ah, and now my thread has been blessed with the infamous MacFury topic diversion technique (aka "answer aversion syndrome"). Not much more to say, really. :clap:


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Bush was not bad in informal speeches, bad in formal speeches. But at this point in Obama's disastrous presidency, his silver tongue isn't helping him a whit.


I saved this for such a day as this.

It took a little time to find this on a hard drive, but thankfully I did. 

I first heard this in western New Brunswick between Edmundston and Grand Falls New Brunswick on a news broadcast from Maine. I was scanning the dial for an english speaking radio broadcast when I happened to catch a station out of Maine.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing and laughed so hard that I nearly lost control of the truck I was driving. I pulled over so I wouldn't drive off the road. Why this isn't better known as a "Bushisim" I'll never know.

MacFury is this an instance of Bush, at his best, of *"being not bad"* in informal speeches?



NPR News Item May 31 said:


> GREENE: And to defend administration policy. The latest harsh criticism has come from the human-rights group Amnesty International, which called US treatment of suspected terrorists at facilities such as Guantanamo Bay `a new version of the Soviet prisons and the Gulag.'
> 
> (Soundbite of press conference)
> 
> Pres. BUSH: It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of and the allegations by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that have been trained, in some instances, to disassemble. That means not tell the truth. And so it's an absurd report.


Here is the link. You can travel to yesteryear and listen to Bush speak.

To this day I don't know what Bush was trying to say instead of "disassemble. Perhaps in the Excited States disassembler is a "parliamentarian" euphemism for liar. What word do you think Bush was trying to say?


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## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

'dissemble'.
have to say he wasn't too far off. but certainly no obama...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

boukman2 said:


> 'dissemble'.
> have to say he wasn't too far off. but certainly no obama...


boukman2 has got it right. As I've said, I've heard him speak at less formal gatherings than a press conference and he came off passably. Obama has the capacity to be a better speaker, but this current "n" droppin' and talkin' to "the folks" is a weary exercise.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> Ah, and now my thread has been blessed with the infamous MacFury topic diversion technique (aka "answer aversion syndrome"). Not much more to say, really. :clap:


Just tell me if they deserve pitchforks and I'll weigh in on Bush.


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

Macfury said:


> In Obama's own words: "I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
> 
> Tell the children he was in _Rolling Stone_ too. Future generations will find it difficult to fathom.


"You're either with us, or against us"

Benign, indeed. :clap:


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

Macfury said:


> These presidents were responsible for far more military deaths than was George Bush.


If we're taking body counts, then sure. Yeah. Bush is an amateur. But we know it's not just about numbers, now. Is it? :heybaby:


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

the conservative/libertarian unit of measure, or standard of excellence... "not as bad as..."


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

MF, you are responsible for, and must be commended for, the most exquisitely appalling trail of BS throughout this thread.

J'accuse.



Macfury said:


> Yeah, there is a term for Bush's presidency--relatively benign. Obama has actually managed to make people nostalgic for Bush.


Black humour at its very best. Dix points.



Macfury said:


> The backlash heading down the pipe this November is just the beginning.


This Freudian reference is to do with your oft-touted, impending Novembergasm?



Macfury said:


> Because a previous poster expressed a wish that Canada could have Obama's debt.


Entirely incorrect. No-one in this thread has expressed that wish. Nul points. This is what was said:


jimbotelecom said:


> I sure wish we had Obama here in Canada to replace our current leadership deficit.


It said 'leadership deficit', not 'financial deficit', although you sneakily erased the word 'leadership' from jimbotelecom's post when you quoted him. So, therefore you compounded the misdeed, didn't you? (The answer is, "Yes, I did.")
You then went ridiculously derail-happy by dragging in past Presidents, Castro and Che Guevara as well as off-topic drivel about Fanny and Freddie.

Just as I was drawing breath from all the laughing, I read:



Macfury said:


> You must think FDR authorized the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was Truman.


That was a dazzling non-sequitur of a brain-f*rt to surpass all of your previous.

You, Sir, are a true artist.


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Cuba Mark, are you are still reading posts from the train-wreck of this thread?

Thank you for the link to the RS article. A good read.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> Cuba Mark, are you are still reading posts from the train-wreck of this thread?


November won't be a "'gasm" of any kind. But it will be enjoyable to watch Obama--who has complained of Republican obstructionism for two long years despite majorities in both House and Senate--actually face the wrath of voters who will disempower him. 

"The folks have spoken."


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> November won't be a "'gasm" of any kind. But it will be enjoyable to watch Obama--who has complained of Republican obstructionism for two long years despite majorities in both House and Senate--actually face the wrath of voters who will disempower him.


An reply which, as well as being irrelevant in the context of this thread, is appended to a quote to which it has no connection whatsoever.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

A reply to your reference to the "impending Novembergasm." Surely you remember saying this a few moments ago? However, in future I'll be more careful to connect you to your own comments for reference.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Don't midterm elections historically turn out poorly for the party in power?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> Don't midterm elections historically turn out poorly for the party in power?


They often do, but this one is looking like a rout--barring any good economic news, or the capture of Bin Laden.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

I don't think it'll be fatal for Obama for a second term. The Republicans are too fractured to get a viable candidate that can actually challenge him for president.

But i do agree that he's acted like a huge pussy so far. He should have just seized the opportunity and used the power given to him to enact the change he promised.


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> A reply to your reference to the "impending Novembergasm." Surely you remember saying this a few moments ago? However, in future I'll be more careful to connect you to your own comments for reference.


Well, yes I surely do remember. What I found slightly non-linear about your witty rejoinder was the juxtaposition of your comment with the quote you selected. As for the future ... it can only involve much more hilarity.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> As for the future ... it can only involve much more hilarity.


I can promise you that--though I may find it more hilarious than you do... !


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> I can promise you that--though I may find it more hilarious than you do... !


"There you go again" - to quote the Blessed Ronald.

The future I spoke of was the one in which you promised to be more careful. There, in that narrow scenario, you see it ... the potential for much hilarity.


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

That Rolling Stone article was an excellent read. It shows a more sane side of political and journalistic life in the U.S.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> That Rolling Stone article was an excellent read. It shows a more sane side of political and journalistic life in the U.S.


It certainly showed the partisan side of _Rolling Stone_--such a friendly article and so well-timed to coincide with the mid-terms!


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> It certainly showed the partisan side of _Rolling Stone_--such a friendly article and so well-timed to coincide with the mid-terms!


And well deserved, too. More power to RS.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> ...well deserved, too.


Earned, at least... and guaranteed when the Dems are in this sort of trouble.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> You, Sir, are a true artist.


He is, isn't he? Called upon to defend his one or two sentence derailments with something more substantial than another quip, our MF often goes MIA. I'm still waiting for his detailed explanation of exactly what it is his Tea Party actually stands for.

But good catch SQ, this WAS rather low of MF:



jimbotelecom said:


> I sure wish we had Obama here in Canada to replace our current leadership deficit.





Macfury said:


> jimbotelecom said:
> 
> 
> > I sure wish we had Obama her in Canada to replace our current deficit.


... and then MF goes on to rant about Obama's spending, parroting the Republican disinformation campaign. 

Of course, only a small percentage of Obama's deficit is new spending, the over-whelming majority of it is spending that Bush committed the nation to with his bailouts and wars, that Obama has no choice but to pay for. 

It's almost like, knowing he was going to win the election in the fall of 2008, they made sure that he'd inherit the worst possible situation. But now that they set the US on a course of massive indebtedness, the GOP and their hillbilly accomplices in the Tea Party want to ensure that the wealthiest 5% of Americans have no hand in paying for it.


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> But good catch SQ, this WAS rather low of MF:


He nearly slipped that one in under the radar, eh? He's a cheeky rascal, of that there is no doubt - more trouble sometimes than a sackful of monkeys (or red-in-tooth-and-claw Republican sympathisers).

I thought the article in RS consisted of good questions eloquently and articulately answered ... altogether a breath of fresh air compared with the halitosis that passes for journalism from the likes of the Murdoch media.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> I'm still waiting for his detailed explanation of exactly what it is his Tea Party actually stands for.


Reduced spending, reduced taxes, reduced borrowing--which is why you see Tea Party candidates butting heads with more typical tax-and-spend Republicans, often knocking them out of primary races. And yes, some of them want Social Security untouched, some want it cut.



GratuitousApplesauce said:


> ... and then MF goes on to rant about Obama's spending, parroting the Republican disinformation campaign.
> 
> Of course, only a small percentage of Obama's deficit is new spending, the over-whelming majority of it is spending that Bush committed the nation to with his bailouts and wars, that Obama has no choice but to pay for.


Obama voted for every one of the ill-advised bail-out deals engineered by Bush. The automobile bailout was crafted along with Obama who had won the election, but was not yet president. 

The Congressional Budget office shows that the deficit for 2009 was 1.4 trillion and the estimated 2010 deficit will be 1.3 trillion about twice as high as when Bush left office--including the Bush bail-outs of which only $200 billion has not yet been repaid.

Of that 1.3 trillion, 130 billion is related to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you count all of the increases in unemployment and mandatory social spending as the fault of George Bush (it isn't) then cut Obama the slack of an additional $75 billion. We're still at $1.1 trillion.

Doesn't wash 'sauce. You're just swallowin' Obama's line on inherited deficits that he uses on "some folks."



Snapple Quaffer said:


> I thought the article in RS consisted of good questions eloquently and articulately answered... .


Sweetly eloquent... and wrong-headed.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> Reduced spending, reduced taxes, reduced borrowing--which is why you see Tea Party candidates butting heads with more typical tax-and-spend Republicans, often knocking them out of primary races. And yes, some of them want Social Security untouched, some want it cut.


… with their tough-talking fiscal god being President Reagan, second only to Dubya in spending money as if it was going out of style. But as we know there hasn't been a conservative President since Eisenhower who has even come close to balancing a budget.

So the Tea Baggers believe in reduced spending, eh? But many of them, with the demographics of their revolution leaning towards the grey and greyer, don't want to mess with Social Security. Also most of them don't want to reduce military spending at all, while many proudly believe in the massive expansion of US worldwide military action that is the hallmark of most ********. Well this is where a hefty chunk of the US budget goes to so what do they actually propose? I guess they could bankrupt all the states and cities … who needs fire departments anyway?

And the Baggers believe in reduced taxes too? So really, beyond SS and the military they really won't have an extra dime. Obama is currently proposing the largest tax cut in decades for the bottom 95% of Americans, while letting the Bush cuts for the top 5% expire (as they were designed to) but these dim bulbs are in favour of stopping this from happening. So their leaders are really going to stand up and vote against this tax cut, to prevent the ultra-rich from returning to Reagan-era levels of taxation?

But I guess the Baggers hold on to the Bush era propaganda that giving those cuts to the richest 5% will allow them to hire more Americans and jump start the economy. Just like they've been doing for the last 8 years since Dubya granted them those tax cuts … oh check that … well the wealthy are gonna do it fer sure this time if they can keep their tax cuts, right?

The Tea Party slackjaws are simply angry and have no plan whatsoever. They're being used by the same corporate GOP backroom operatives like the multi-billionaire Koch brothers who are sprinkling millions on that "grassroots" astroturf, to make sure the middle class and poor in the US keeps getting suckered by the super-rich plutocrats.



Macfury said:


> Obama voted for every one of the ill-advised bail-out deals engineered by Bush. The automobile bailout was crafted along with Obama who had won the election, but was not yet president.
> 
> The Congressional Budget office shows that the deficit for 2009 was 1.4 trillion and the estimated 2010 deficit will be 1.3 trillion about twice as high as when Bush left office--including the Bush bail-outs of which only $200 billion has not yet been repaid.
> 
> ...


… and you and the Tea Baggers are just gagging' on whatever the Heritage Foundation puts on a corndog stick for you. 

New spending by Obama is responsible for only 18% of the deficit. Like government deficits that have appeared around the world since the recession, including Canada's, the US deficit's cause is attributed to a massive plunge in tax revenues due to slower economic activity. As well there is no practical way any amount of cutting to government expenses could entirely eliminate these deficits. The drop in tax revenues of $419 billion was 4 times the size of Obama's new stimulus spending in 2009.










We could talk about the cause of the recession and I'm sure we'd disagree. In my opinion this lies squarely in the laps of US conservatives and their willingness to allow the US financial institution foxes to regulate themselves and guard the henhouse. Curiously here in Canada we have Harper taking credit internationally for Canada's strong banking regulations, opposed by his own party during the 1990s, when the US was deregulating like crazy.

But I think you're wrong on the Bush war costs. His "smaller deficits" didn't include the cost of the ongoing wars he started because the costs of those operations were budgeted under emergency supplemental appropriations funding and other measures not included in his budgets. Add those onto his figures and they look worse than the Obama budgets. Congressional Research Service .pdf link 

But nevertheless, in my opinion Obama should do far more than he's doing to end those military operations as quickly as possible. Not that you could get most of the Tea Party to agree on that. 

And the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich decreased revenue to the federal government by $1.7 trillion and resulted in a further $2 trillion in debt. The 2001-2006 Income Tax Cuts With and Without Conforming AMT Rate Cuts, Static Impact on Individual Income Tax Liability and Revenue ($ billions), 2001-10

These deficits belong to the disastrous W. terms.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

^^good post.


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## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*krugman on rolling downhill*

paul krugman's analysis of the tea party proposal began with this: 
"Once upon a time, a Latin American political party promised to help motorists save money on gasoline. How? By building highways that ran only downhill."
"Never mind the war on terror, the party’s main concern seems to be the war on arithmetic."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/opinion/24krugman.html?scp=3&sq=krugman&st=cse


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Excellent post, GA. And boukman2: Krugman's article: classic.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Nope, Sauce--many in the Tea Party are split on the Iraq and Afghan Wars, and a lot of them believe that the U.S. should have flattened those countries to rubble and left. Many of them want reduced Social Security spending as well.

In terms of emergency appropriations for Bush-era war budgeting, I saw one in 2007 for 47 billion--but neither you nor I can be sure this was not added to the budget at some point. I believe it was.

Federal revenue has increased by an estimated $60 billion between 2009 and 2010 but made minimal impact on the Obama deficit. I blame Obama for much of the continued poor performance of the US economy, and lower federal receipts, because his administration has failed to provide a coherent tax policy that allows businesses to plan growth. I have no doubt you give him a free pass for this--just a poor lonely president taking in whatever the country offers him.

Now what's this nonsense about the Heritage Foundation? My info comes straight from the Congressional Budget Office as does yours. Even the CO PDF you link to suggests that unless Obama changes course, the country is heading into big trouble.

Recessions are cyclical, but in this case the cause of the bubble and crash belongs to both parties--Clinton for signing a bill allowing massive changes in what banks can do, both parties for encouraging home ownerships among the disadvantaged class, and both parties for creating the the grotesque malfeasance of FNMA and FDMC, willing partners in whitewashing derivatives for Wall Street. 

Krugman? He's a left-leaning pundit and confessed liberal apologist rallying to Obama's defense. However, he mischaracterizes the "Pledge to America" by stating that the Republicans can't balance the budget, but probably have a secret agenda of dismantling Medicare and Social Security. That presumably means they will touch the untouchable programs and balance the budget in ways Krugman despises. Which is it Krugman? You can't have it both ways.

Regardless of Krugman's misfire, The Pledge is an effort by Republican insiders to co-opt Tea Party support with weak ideas that--while superior to the growing national debt offered by Obama--have left many Tea Party supporters cold. As one pundit states, the Pledge is like the husband who has destroyed his marriage by sleeping with 10 women, but wants to smooth things over by cutting it down to eight. 

As Tea Party power broker Erick Erickson put it: "The entirety of this Promise is laughable. Why? It is an illusion that fixates on stuff the GOP already should be doing while not daring to touch on stuff that will have any meaningful long-term effects on the size and scope of the federal government."

So Sauce, you fail once again by equating the goals of Tea Party activists with that of Republican Party insiders.


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## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*tea party manifesto*

ah! i see the tea party has released a guide to their proposals for the general public!


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

boukman2 said:


> ah! i see the tea party has released a guide to their proposals for the general public!


Would have been funnier without the title showing on the front of the book. In the meantime, the publisher is receiving death threats over its publication. Lefty mouth breathers?



> The author-publisher of "The Tea Party Coloring Book for Kids" says he has received death threats over its publication.
> 
> Wayne Bell, publisher of Clayton, Mo.-based Really Big Coloring Books, said in an interview with CBS that his $3.59 coloring book is not political...
> 
> "We're not really making a political statement," Bell told CBS, adding that his company also publishes coloring books on the Rockettes, Cirque du Soleil and President Obama.


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## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*he he*

yes, true... 
in all fairness it must be said that the publisher also has an obama colouring book. but for some reason that isn't funny...
and you are right about the death threat thing. appalling...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I did check to see whether the company really produced an Obama colouring book. It does--and it pretty much shows that the company is sincere in producing (badly drawn) colouring books of all types:


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

This thread gets immeasurably more interesting when you block one poster. Try it, you'll be amazed at the depth and diversity of good discussion here.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

chas_m said:


> This thread gets immeasurably more interesting when you block one poster. Try it, you'll be amazed at the depth and diversity of good discussion here.


Three great things about being blocked:

1. You get to poke fun at the guy doing the blocking and he has to make like he can't see it.
2. Certain blockers seem to feel compelled to tell you over and over that you're being blocked--it makes one feel like a bit of a celebrity.
3. They still get to see your comments when they're quoted by the other posters--but they have to pretend they can't see them!


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## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*in defense of furious mac*

i understand what you are saying chasm, but on the other hand where would this thread be without him? his opinion isn't mine, but he works hard at his side, is passionate and stands up for himself! without him, we would just be a bunch of people sitting around agreeing with each other. dull. it is good to understand what the other side of the argument is, even if you don't agree! plus it's fun to dispute...


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> Nope, Sauce--many in the Tea Party are split on the Iraq and Afghan Wars, and a lot of them believe that the U.S. should have flattened those countries to to rubble and left. Many of them want reduced Social Security spending as well.


Oh really 'Fury, so there are a few lone voices in your Tea Party who disagree with the horrific waste of human lives and the ongoing plunder of taxpayer money to the tune of several trillion bucks that these wars represent? So where were these brave souls during Bush's disastrous tenure? Where were their angry cries to "Take Back America"? Let me guess, with the exception of one or two oddballs who voted for Libertarians and the occasional independent voting for a Conserva-Dem, they were all voting for George W. while wearing their little Stars 'n' Stripes pins.



Macfury said:


> In terms of emergency appropriations for Bush-era war budgeting, I saw one in 2007 for 47 billion--but neither you nor I can be sure this was not added to the budget at some point. I believe it was.


Total funding from since 9/11/2001 to 2010: $1.08 trillion. From the document I linked:


> Most war funds were provided in either supplemental appropriations enacted after the fiscal year has begun and in bridge funds included in DOD’s regular appropriations acts to cover war costs before supplementals are requested. In both cases, Congress generally designated war appropriations as emergency funding or designated for “overseas contingency operations,” which exempts these funds from the caps and budget rules that limit funding for discretionary spending, which fund all DOD and State Department programs and some but not all of VA programs.


 Bush buried the war costs and didn't include them in his already massive deficits. 



Macfury said:


> Recessions are cyclical, but in this case the cause of the bubble and crash belongs to both parties--Clinton for signing a bill allowing massive changes in what banks can do, both parties for encouraging home ownerships among the disadvantaged class, and both parties for creating the the grotesque malfeasance of FNMA and FDMC, willing partners in whitewashing derivatives for Wall Street.


As Reagan would say, there you go again. Contrary to your revisionism the cause of the recession lies entirely at the feet of conservatives in the US in thrall with laissez faire economic BS that believed unregulated markets can do no wrong. Clinton signed the main deregulation bill, since a GOP congress ensured that it was veto proof. There were many in the Democratic Party at the time warning that these deregulations were reckless and stupid, but some of them bought into what the GOP and their corporate backers were selling. 

But blaming the recession on the "disadvantaged class" taking mortgages they couldn't afford is the most pernicious lie that right-wingers like to bring up. The only reason that these people were able to get mortgages in the first place were because banking deregulation allowed these newly formed bank/investment houses to go crazy making massive profits in the sub-prime mortgage market and then packaging up this bad debt into lucrative speculative crap that flowed through Wall Street like cheap drugs. They were all making out like bandits until the predicted inevitable bubble burst and the suckers they convinced to buy their loanshark term mortgages started to default. The recession was caused by the greed and stupidity of Wall Street enabled by conservative politicians who moronically believed that their wealthy corporate gods could never fail.



Macfury said:


> As Tea Party power broker Erick Erickson put it: "The entirety of this Promise is laughable. Why? It is an illusion that fixates on stuff the GOP already should be doing while not daring to touch on stuff that will have any meaningful long-term effects on the size and scope of the federal government."
> 
> So Sauce, you fail once again by equating the goals of Tea Party activists with that of Republican Party insiders.


I didn't post the Krugman article so I think you're confused. But you're also confused if you think that your Tea Party isn't aided and abetted by GOP insiders and won't be ultimately consumed by them. The Tea Party candidates who've won nominations are already singing from the party handbook, or at least the whack-job edition of it that scapegoats immigrants, supports racism and allows for church and state being integrated (as long as you're talking Jay-sus). Go Glenn Beck, Go Sarah Palin!


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Also from the Rolling Stone, quite a telling close-up view of the embarrassing guts of the Tea Party: Tea & Crackers | Rolling Stone Politics

Some great quotes from the article:


> "The scooters are because of Medicare," he whispers helpfully. "They have these commercials down here: 'You won't even have to pay for your scooter! Medicare will pay!' Practically everyone in Kentucky has one."
> 
> A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet [Sarah Palin speaking at a Rand Paul fundraiser] hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it.





> Vast forests have already been sacrificed to the public debate about the Tea Party: what it is, what it means, where it's going. But after lengthy study of the phenomenon, I've concluded that the whole miserable narrative boils down to one stark fact: They're full of s**t. All of them. At the voter level, the Tea Party is a movement that purports to be furious about government spending — only the reality is that the vast majority of its members are former Bush supporters who yawned through two terms of record deficits and spent the past two electoral cycles frothing not about spending but about John Kerry's medals and Barack Obama's Sixties associations. The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending — with the exception of the money spent on them. In fact, their lack of embarrassment when it comes to collecting government largesse is key to understanding what this movement is all about — and nowhere do we see that dynamic as clearly as here in Kentucky, where Rand Paul is barreling toward the Senate with the aid of conservative icons like Palin.





> Suddenly, tens of thousands of Republicans who had been conspicuously silent during George Bush's gargantuan spending on behalf of defense contractors and hedge-fund gazillionaires showed up at Tea Party rallies across the nation, declaring themselves fed up with wasteful government spending. From the outset, the events were organized and financed by the conservative wing of the Republican Party, which was quietly working to co-opt the new movement and deploy it to the GOP's advantage. Taking the lead was former House majority leader Dick Armey, who as chair of a group called FreedomWorks helped coordinate Tea Party rallies across the country. A succession of Republican Party insiders and money guys make up the guts of FreedomWorks: Its key members include billionaire turd Steve Forbes and former Republican National Committee senior economist Matt Kibbe.





> So how does a group of billionaire businessmen and corporations get a bunch of broke Middle American white people to lobby for lower taxes for the rich and deregulation of Wall Street? That turns out to be easy. Beneath the surface, the Tea Party is little more than a weird and disorderly mob, a federation of distinct and often competing strains of conservatism that have been unable to coalesce around a leader of their own choosing. Its rallies include not only hardcore libertarians left over from the original Ron Paul "Tea Parties," but gun-rights advocates, fundamentalist Christians, pseudomilitia types like the Oath Keepers (a group of law- enforcement and military professionals who have vowed to disobey "unconstitutional" orders) and mainstream Republicans who have simply lost faith in their party. It's a mistake to cast the Tea Party as anything like a unified, cohesive movement — which makes them easy prey for the very people they should be aiming their pitchforks at. A loose definition of the Tea Party might be millions of pissed-off white people sent chasing after Mexicans on Medicaid by the handful of banks and investment firms who advertise on Fox and CNBC.





> Beyond that, [Rand] Paul just flat-out stopped talking about his views — particularly the ones that don't jibe with right-wing and Christian crowds, like curtailing the federal prohibition on drugs. Who knows if that had anything to do with hawkish Christian icon Sarah Palin agreeing to headline fundraisers for Paul, but a huge chunk of the candidate's libertarian ideals have taken a long vacation.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Some great quotes from the article:


Sauce, this is really weak. In any organization or movement sufficiently large, one can find people to lampoon. That _Rolling Stone_ feels the need to do this, or congratulates itself for being clever, shows me that the stink of fear over a major Obama backlash is in the air.

Check the internet, why don't you? Plenty of pithy quote from Democrats, without poking fun at the socially disadvantaged:



> The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person, who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know, you know, there's a reaction that's been bred in our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way, and that's just the nature of race in our society.
> 
> Democrat President, Barack Obama





> "In Delaware, the largest growth of population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7/11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."
> 
> Democrat Vice-President, Joe Biden





> "If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very very low crime rate."
> 
> Marion Barry, Democrat and former mayor of Washington, DC:





> "I'm going to be honest with you -- I don't know a lot about Cuba's healthcare system. Is it a government-run system?"
> 
> John Kerry , Democrat





> "We're seeing the reality of a lot of the North Pole starting to evaporate, and we could get to a tipping point. Because if it evaporates to a certain point - they have lanes now where ships can go that couldn't ever sail through before. And if it gets to a point where it evaporates too much, there's a lot of tundra that's being held down by that ice cap."
> 
> Henry Waxman, Democrat





> "My fear is that the whole island (Guam} will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize."
> 
> Democrat Congressman Hank Johnson


Do you want to look for some more quotes to make some more neato points, Sauce?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

The quote attempting to disparage the disparate view of Tea Party supporters is also pretty hilarious, now that I think of it. Left-leaning Democrats look at their own rag-tag band of social welfare clients, Marxists and eco-freaks and call it a "rainbow coalition."


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

boukman2 said:


> i understand what you are saying chasm, but on the other hand where would this thread be without him? his opinion isn't mine, but he works hard at his side, is passionate and stands up for himself! without him, we would just be a bunch of people sitting around agreeing with each other. dull. it is good to understand what the other side of the argument is, even if you don't agree! plus it's fun to dispute...


Good post boukman2. Nice to see that some people can appreciate differing points of view without feeling the need to ridicule or belittle their opponent/the person they don't agree with. :clap:


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> Sauce, this is really weak. In any organization or movement sufficiently large, one can find people to lampoon. That Rolling Stone feels the need to do this, or congratulates itself for being clever, shows me that the stink of fear over a major Obama backlash is in the air.
> 
> Check the internet, why don't you? Plenty of pithy quote from Democrats, without poking fun at the socially disadvantaged:
> 
> ...


Actually my friend, what's truly weak here is that you keep trying to deflect whatever points I raise with incidental arguments, rather than addressing them. While the Rolling Stone article is full of examples of crazy Tea Party individuals, (of which there is certainly no shortage), the writer critiques the whole movement, talks about its leaders and provides information about its astro-turfing, super-rich Republican backers. 

You're missing the point, it's not just the crazy individuals that are attracted to the Tea Bag Revolution who are easy to poke fun at, it's their whole confused and contradictory movement. I've yet to see one of their crop of "leaders" who isn't either bat****e crazy, already backing away from their whacko former pronouncements, afraid of speaking directly to the press for fear of putting their foot in it, accepting money from wealthy GOP backers and fundraising endorsements from the likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, starting to take on the positions of the former "mainstream" GOP candidates that they claim to be rebelling against, or all of the above. Are you prepared to defend confused (to be charitable) politicians such as Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell or Michele Bachman? Is there anyone in the Tea Bag stable that manages to have some semblance of a coherent policy?

It seems to me that the Tea Party's leaders and candidates rather than representing some kind ideological alternative are simply more of what we've seen from the GOP, power at any cost, to hell with principles. The Tea Party movement itself is nothing more than a faux-grassroots astroturf mob, that woke up one day to find out that their President was a black liberal and not one of them. One result of many of these Tea Party endorsed nominees is to make their election races competitive for Democrats, in areas where they previously were thought to not have much chance of winning against mainstream GOP names.

I know it goes against your 2 sentence, clever quip style of posting, but it'd be nice to see you attempt to argue a position once in while rather than simply provide throwaway jibes. I know you can do it.


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

The avatar MacFury deserves...


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Michele Bachman? Is there anyone in the Tea Bag stable that manages to have some semblance of a coherent policy?


Michelle Bachmann is, without a doubt, batsh** crazy. _ Deranged. _



> "No one that I know disagrees with natural selection — that you can take various breeds of dogs ... breed them, you get different kinds of dogs," she said. "It's just a fact of life. ... Where there's controversy is (at the question) 'Where do we say that a cell became a blade of grass, which became a starfish, which became a cat, which became a donkey, which became a human being?' There’s a real lack of evidence from change from actual species to a different type of species. That's where it's difficult to prove." - Michele Bachmann quoted in the Stillwater Gazette, September 29, 2003.













> "I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence." -Rep. Michele Bachmann, on the 1976 Swine Flu outbreak that happened when Gerald Ford, a Republican, was president, April 28, 2009













> "Take this into consideration. If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that's how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps. I'm not saying that that's what the Administration is planning to do, but I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up, in a violation of their constitutional rights, and put the Japanese in internment camps." -Rep. Michele Bachmann, June 2009


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Rolling stones and Macfury gather no moss.

We have to apply the quantum mechanical Principle of Uncertainty here ... if we know where he is, we don't know in which direction he's headed; if we know where he's going, we sure as hell don't know where he is.

He loves all the attention.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Sauce, your efforts to tie the Tea Party movement to the Republican Party miss the entire point. It's a two-party system and thy need to get candidates elected by having them nominated in either one party or the other. Which one would you choose? They're essentially trying to hijack the Republican Party which has been sitting on its collective fat ass and played politics as though they were Democrats. 

You can blame the rich. Blame the Republican power brokers if you want. You're missing the entire point. If you see no sharp delineation between Obama's presidency and any president who went before him, again, you will not understand the Tea Party movement. At all.

That won't stop the steamroller though.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

done


Macfury said:


> Sauce, your efforts to tie the Tea Party movement to the Republican Party miss the entire point. It's a two-party system and thy need to get candidates elected by having them nominated in either one party or the other. Which one would you choose? They're essentially trying to hijack the Republican Party which has been sitting on its collective fat ass and played politics as though they were Democrats.
> 
> You can blame the rich. Blame the Republican power brokers if you want. You're missing the entire point. If you see no sharp delineation between Obama's presidency and any president who went before him, again, you will not understand the Tea Party movement. At all.
> 
> That won't stop the steamroller though.


Actually BO has done an admirable job of continuing the Republican Prime Directive: Rob From the Poor and Give to the Rich. To be fair, to get the budget under control BO would have to pull out completely from Afghanistan and Iraq and keep his heine out of Iran. This would of course destroy the Military Industrial Complex which is the only piece of the American Economic Pie which is functioning at all.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

eMacMan said:


> Actually BO has done an admirable job of continuing the Republican Prime Directive: Rob From the Poor and Give to the Rich.
> View attachment 16278


The cartoon is largely correct. People wanted to give him a chance to prove that he could restore confidence in the presidency. Even those conservatives who gave him a shot thought he would govern from the centre instead of the far left.

That said, BO thinks he's done a phenomenal job so far, so at least he's happy. There are still a few people up for election who want him to appear at their rallies.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

(CNN) – Delaware Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell says she tried "every other kind of religion," including witchcraft and Buddhism but became a Christian because of her love of Italian food.

"I would have become a Hare Krishna, but I didn't want to become a vegetarian," O'Donnell said in an interview with Bill Maher in 1999. "And that is honestly the reason why, because I'm Italian and I love meatballs."


Makes sense to me.


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

You really have to wonder if O'Donnell is for real, or if it's some kind of political performance art.... I mean... Bachmann is deranged, but O'Donnell? There are no words...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> You really have to wonder if O'Donnell is for real, or if it's some kind of political performance art.... I mean... Bachmann is deranged, but O'Donnell? There are no words...


Focusing on Republicans when the Democrats are running Alvin Greene for Senate in South Carolina? He's facing obscenity charges and this is his plan to bring jobs to the state:



> "Another thing we can do for jobs is make toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an army uniform, air force uniform, and me in my suit. They can make toys of me and my vehicle, especially for the holidays and Christmas for the kids. That's something that would create jobs. So you see I think out of the box like that. It's not something a typical person would bring up. That's something that could happen, that makes sense. It's not a joke."


Alvin Greene: America's most unlikely politician | World news | The Guardian


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Seriously, MF? You're countering my Bachmann and O'Donnell with a Greene? Man, I would love to play poker with you....

.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> Seriously, MF? You're countering my Bachmann and O'Donnell with a Greene? Man, I would love to play poker with you....


Just curious to see if you would be humbled. Why not throw in Kesha Rogers, the Democrat Congressional candidate from Texas, running on the Lyndon La Rouche platform:


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## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*frank rich*

i see frank rich in the nytimes (that discredited old stalinist rag...) has an interesting take on the wacky republican theme:

"But while these billionaires’ selfish interests are in conflict with the Tea Party’s agenda, they are in complete sync with the G.O.P.’s Washington leadership. The Republicans’ new “Pledge to America” promises the $3.8 trillion addition to the deficit and says nothing about serious budget cuts or governmental reforms that might remotely offset it. Surfing the Beltway talk shows last Sunday, you couldn’t find one without a G.O.P. politician adamantly refusing to specify a single program he might cut at, say, the Department of Education (Pell grants?) or the National Institutes of Health (cancer research?). And that’s just the small change. Everyone knows that tax cuts for the G.O.P.’s wealthiest patrons must come out of Social Security and Medicare payments for everybody else.

They are acing it, these guys. Election Day is now only a month away. The demoralized Democrats are held hostage by the unemployment numbers. And along comes this marvelous gift out of nowhere, Christine O’Donnell, Tea Party everywoman, who just may be the final ingredient needed to camouflage a billionaires’ coup as a populist surge. By the time her fans discover that any post-election cuts in government spending will be billed to them, and not the Tea Party’s shadowy backers, she’ll surely be settling her own debts with fat paychecks from “Fox & Friends.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/opinion/03rich.html?hp


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

boukman2 said:


> Surfing the Beltway talk shows last Sunday, you couldn’t find one without a G.O.P. politician adamantly refusing to specify a single program he might cut at, say, the Department of Education (Pell grants?) or the National Institutes of Health (cancer research?). And that’s just the small change. Everyone knows that tax cuts for the G.O.P.’s wealthiest patrons must come out of Social Security and Medicare payments for everybody else.


So essentially, the Republicans are going to cut the Obama deficit by a little instead of a lot--the way the _NY Times_ wants the government to do? Oh, wait! The NYT supports Obama.

The thing that has been notoriously lacking on the talk shows has been Democrats willing to talk about how far they're going to raise taxes to pay for their failed stimulus program, program spending increases beyond inflation, continued transfusions to the hemorrhaging Fannie and Freddie, and health care boondoggle (you know--the one Obama promised would save the country money). 

The real fear among libs is that the Tea Party candidates will support cuts to mandated programs. A balanced budget amendment--the kind proposed by Rand Paul--would do just that, with across the board cuts to all programs and departments if lawmakers fail to balance the budget. 

Obama's lip service to PAYGO--the current "deficit buster" has been appalling. He just ignores it.

When some Republicans balked at recent Democrat suggestions to cut defense spending, many Tea Party candidates agreed: 



> “Everything is on the table,” insisted Mark Meckler, a national coordinator with the group Tea Party Patriots. “I have yet to hear anyone say, ‘We can’t touch defense spending,’ or any other issue. ... Any tea partier who says something else lacks integrity.”
> 
> [Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), a tea party favorite], a bitter critic of Obama — and no fan of Gates or the history of U.S. military intervention since World War II, including NATO — said the country “cannot be a protector of the whole world. We cannot do that any longer. We don’t have the money to do it anyway.”


The Tea Party And Defense Spending - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> Sauce, your efforts to tie the Tea Party movement to the Republican Party miss the entire point. It's a two-party system and thy need to get candidates elected by having them nominated in either one party or the other. Which one would you choose? They're essentially trying to hijack the Republican Party which has been sitting on its collective fat ass and played politics as though they were Democrats.
> 
> You can blame the rich. Blame the Republican power brokers if you want. You're missing the entire point. If you see no sharp delineation between Obama's presidency and any president who went before him, again, you will not understand the Tea Party movement. At all.
> 
> That won't stop the steamroller though.


Fury, it's not my effort to tie the Tea Bags to the GOP. The Tea Party candidates themselves are doing so, by accepting the astro-turf money from Dick Armey or fundraising help from Palin and company. The Tea Party is not a coherent movement, just a melange of patsies from various conservative camps and from under extremists rocks who are ripe to be used by the big money boys. You say they are hijacking the GOP, but it's the other way around. Their inchoate, unfocused rage at discovering that the country they thought belonged solely to them includes others who don't look at all like them is being directed by the people whose collective fat asses you claim to oppose. That's my understanding of the Tea Party, rather than the libertarian fantasy you hope it is.

As for that "steamroller", well, like I said earlier, Go Tea Party! They are definitely energizing some of the 25% of low-info Americans that polls show believe Obama is Muslim foreigner. But polls are also showing that they are hurting the GOP's chances of winning some of the races that were earlier looking like a slam-dunk for them. Look at Harry Reid's Nevada Senate race. He was considered a dead man walking until extremist Tea Partier Sharron Angle showed up. Now as she moves closer to the standard GOP talking points in hopes of recovering the independents, she's being challenged by another Tea Partier who the Angle camp is calling an extremist "whack-job" and threatening to split the Tea Party vote. I guess you can't be nutbar enough to please the Tea Party faithful. Imagine a Tea Party extremist calling another one a whack-job?

The GOP will almost certainly make gains in the coming elections and some of those Baggers will win seats. This is standard stuff for many midterm election years, especially in a bad economy. Incumbents always suffer under these conditions. There are some Repub incumbents in danger too. The GOP has a better than even chance of taking control of the House and potential to take the Senate too (possibly hijacked by Christine O'Donnell), according to current polls. I think that with some real substantive policies and platforms rather than confused rhetoric from the Bagger fringe, the GOP would stand to do even better.

But ultimately the coming demographics don't look good at all for this movement primarily of the white right. The USA is getting browner by the year, with current younger Americans being 40% non-white. The aging baby boomers are 80% white and the Tea Party is 99.99% white. "Taking America Back", in the code-word fashion most of these people mean it, is hardly a realistic option. There's a significant swath of people who want to take America back from crazies like Glenn Beck.



Macfury said:


> http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/06/the-tea-party-and-defense-spending.html


You forgot the rest of Andrew Sullivan's commentary:


> I'm waiting, like a lot of people, to see whether they mean what they say. So far, they have failed utterly.


----------



## screature (May 14, 2007)

Ok, I will probably get slammed for this... but why are some folks so obsessed with the politics of our American cousins. I realize they are a dominating force on Canadian trade and culture, but the degree to which some people seem to be actively reading/engaged about/with US politics I wish could be demonstrated in some of the threads here based on Canadian politics.

Maybe for "political animals" it is all just good "fun and games" and I guess I get that, kind of like watching the NFL for football fanatics, but sometimes I think if the amount of time and energy that is spent on watching the US were spent being actively involved at home maybe there could be more educated and balanced debates about our own political climate.

For example aside from those who live in a given province how much do we know about what it going on outside our home province. Not trying to point fingers but sometimes our obsession with the US gets a little tiresome relative to how relatively little we really know about the politics of other provinces within our own federation.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

screature said:


> Ok, I will probably get slammed for this... but why are some folks so obsessed with the politics of our American cousins. I realize they are a dominating force on Canadian trade and culture, but the degree to which some people seem to be actively reading/engaged about/with US politics I wish could be demonstrated in some of the threads here based on Canadian politics.


Prior to Obama's election I was seriously considering immigrating to the U.S., so I have a good excuse. I have a good idea as to what's going on in Canada and a reasonable idea as to what's going on in neighbouring provinces.

Canada's commodities base has saved it from serious recession, thanks to the resources held in the west--Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan primarily, with help from Newfoundland on the East. Demand from China, India and emerging Asian nations is fueling our economy for the moment while the U.S. lags seriously behind.

What happens in the U.S. over the next very few years is a significant factor in our economic outlook. I should probably spend more time looking at India and China as well, but the failure of the American economy to recover is the hot topic for me at the moment.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Macfury said:


> Prior to Obama's election I was seriously considering immigrating to the U.S., so I have a good excuse. I have a good idea as to what's going on in Canada and a reasonable idea as to what's going on in neighbouring provinces.
> 
> Canada's commodities base has saved it from serious recession, thanks to the resources held in the west--Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan primarily, with help from Newfoundland on the East. Demand from China, India and emerging Asian nations is fueling our economy for the moment while the U.S. lags seriously behind.
> 
> What happens in the U.S. over the next very few years is a significant factor in our economic outlook. I should probably spend more time looking at India and China as well, but the failure of the American economy to recover is the hot topic for me at the moment.


True but the failure of the economy to recover is not the fault of either party but rather the control of both parties by the Banksters. The current depression was deliberately caused by the banksters and putting Goldman Sachs in charge of the recovery is unlikely to improve matters.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Macfury said:


> Prior to Obama's election I was seriously considering immigrating to the U.S., so I have a good excuse. I have a good idea as to what's going on in Canada and a reasonable idea as to what's going on in neighbouring provinces.
> 
> Canada's commodities base has saved it from serious recession, thanks to the resources held in the west--Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan primarily, with help from Newfoundland on the East. Demand from China, India and emerging Asian nations is fueling our economy for the moment while the U.S. lags seriously behind.
> 
> What happens in the U.S. over the next very few years is a significant factor in our economic outlook. I should probably spend more time looking at India and China as well, but the failure of the American economy to recover is the hot topic for me at the moment.


From a certain macroscopic standpoint I understand where you are coming from... But how in-tune are we with what is in "our own back yard"? You say you pay attention to provincial/inter-provincial politics and that is commendable. How about municipal?

Sometimes I think it is easier to be "involved"/"engaged" with the macroscopic because all it involves is reading/research and no real action/involvement. What can you do to *affect* American or Chinese policy? Basically nothing. At the provincial or municipal level you can possibly actually have some effect if you choose to put your intelligence/energies there.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Clued into municipal quite well--and a little about the GTA, too. You're right that I can do nothing--or very little--to affect the foreign policy of other nations. 

I don't spend any time watching football, or the Olympics, but enjoy the spectator sport of American politics much better. Takes less time, I can watch whenever I have time, and only two major events every four years.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Macfury said:


> Clued into municipal quite well--and a little about the GTA, too. You're right that I can do nothing--or very little--to affect the foreign policy of other nations.
> 
> I don't spend any time watching football, or the Olympics, but enjoy the spectator sport of American politics much better. Takes less time, I can watch whenever I have time, and only two major events every four years.


:lmao: Good enough. 

BTW I wasn't referring specifically/only to you in my commentary... just a general observation on some Canadians obsession with US politics, sometimes in exclusion (not in your case as you say) to matters that are much closer to home.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

I would imagine that we study and talk about the States much like neighbouring nations avidly watch China, or Russia, or India. Each are large populous nations with not insignificant industrial and economic (and military!) muscle.

It's not merely a spectator sport to me; it's much more a case of what happens south of our borders creates reverberations that are not only felt here, but around the globe. America is a world power; Canada not. I find it natural to pay attention to the goings-on of the powerhouse in our corner of the world.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Max said:


> I would imagine that we study and talk about the States much like neighbouring nations avidly watch China, or Russia, or India. Each are large populous nations with not insignificant industrial and economic (and military!) muscle.
> 
> It's not merely a spectator sport to me; it's much more a case of what happens south of our borders creates reverberations that are not only felt here, but around the globe. America is a world power; Canada not. I find it natural to pay attention to the goings-on of the powerhouse in our corner of the world.


But what power/influence do you have in foreign policy? Where is your actual engagement with effect? As a spectator sport sure it has its interest but if it is to the exclusion of activity/knowledge in/of a more local/provincial/federal level I question its value unless you are employed to make such studies for a greater purpose. If all you are engaged in is "macropolitical" issues you are merely a political spectator and not a participant.

All that being said there are far more destructive pastimes... Just reading the thread and thought, "geesh I don't see this level of engagement in local issues...." Then I went on a rant...


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Sure I am a spectator. What of it? Not to put too fine a point on it, but you too are largely a spectator, even in your own country. Yes, the more local you act, the greater the impact you'll have - locally, that is. As I said, I believe it's more than mere observation. Discussion of politics and social issues of the day are enlightening to me from psychological and sociological standpoints. Forums like this one are, on the whole, social constructs. They help bind us to one another. They help fight boredom. They rarely, if ever, directly aid in solving the great insurmountable problems of our day. Indeed, spending too much time in a place like this could arguably be said to be a dereliction of civic duty - that is, if one believes that we should always political animals - why spend time chatting back and forth when one can do door-to-door work, or some telephone canvassing, or designing a website for a local pol whose mission you think is important?

Anyway, back to your question. I find America endlessly fascinating. There is much to admire in the nation. They have ten times the people we do and umpteen times the intellectual capital - their sense of imaginative initiative is striking and refreshing. When they blunder, they blunder large - but at least they're on the world stage and they try to hold their ground in an era when the ground is nothing if not unsteady. I love my own country but it's for different reasons. May I add at this point that both nations' politics, as covered by media mainstream and otherwise, is more similar than it is different. Sometimes it seems to me that it boils down to a clutch of feisty talking heads mostly talking _at_ one another, sandwiched between massive commercial breaks; sometimes it feels very much like politics on the ground is another matter entirely and that television and the net, creatures having their own needs, filter out more than they present to the public. I'm not sure if I entirely trust that filtering system, or if I admire the cult of personality I see in many news anchors and mouthy pundits purporting to say important things to us.

But that's another thread altogether, ain't it. LOL!


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

screature said:


> Ok, I will probably get slammed for this... but why are some folks so obsessed with the politics of our American cousins. I realize they are a dominating force on Canadian trade and culture, but the degree to which some people seem to be actively reading/engaged about/with US politics I wish could be demonstrated in some of the threads here based on Canadian politics.
> 
> Maybe for "political animals" it is all just good "fun and games" and I guess I get that, kind of like watching the NFL for football fanatics, but sometimes I think if the amount of time and energy that is spent on watching the US were spent being actively involved at home maybe there could be more educated and balanced debates about our own political climate.
> 
> For example aside from those who live in a given province how much do we know about what it going on outside our home province. Not trying to point fingers but sometimes our obsession with the US gets a little tiresome relative to how relatively little we really know about the politics of other provinces within our own federation.


I'm not going to slam you for it, but when I'm confronted with things like threads about new BMWs, Star Wars movies or Canadian Idol, I just ignore them if I'm not interested in the subject and leave it to those who are.

I have to agree with Max that US politics seems more than a "fun 'n' games" spectator sport to me, for the reasons he stated. While I am attracted to the amazing amount of drama that US politics offers, and following the issues of Tea Party craziness can be quite entertaining, I also think the national or even state-level outcomes there are vitally important to everyone in the world. The recession that we are living through has much to do with laws in the US and how they affected US banks and international banks headquartered in the US. The situation around the USA's two recent military actions also affects all of us. What goes on politically in the USA has immense importance to people all around the globe and while other citizens can't vote we certainly have every right to an opinion about matters that affect us, including who wins their elections.

I also feel that I have some tiny influence as a participant in that political climate, not through voting of course, but through online discussion directly with Americans and through face to face discussion with Americans that I meet all the time as well as friends and relatives who do vote. The internet is international and the world of online politics is available to all. I did live and work in the US for several years and feel connected in that way also.

And finally, Americans that I speak with in person or online are often very interested in hearing what Canadians have to say about their politics. 

But as you certainly know I'm also highly opinionated about Canadian issues on all government levels.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Max said:


> Sure I am a spectator. What of it? Not to put too fine a point on it, but you too are largely a spectator, even in your own country. Yes, the more local you act, the greater the impact you'll have - locally, that is. As I said, I believe it's more than mere observation. Discussion of politics and social issues of the day are enlightening to me from psychological and sociological standpoints. Forums like this one are, on the whole, social constructs. They help bind us to one another. They help fight boredom. They rarely, if ever, directly aid in solving the great insurmountable problems of our day. Indeed, spending too much time in a place like this could arguably be said to be a dereliction of civic duty - that is, if one believes that we should always political animals - why spend time chatting back and forth when one can do door-to-door work, or some telephone canvassing, or designing a website for a local pol whose mission you think is important?
> 
> Anyway, back to your question. I find America endlessly fascinating. There is much to admire in the nation. They have ten times the people we do and umpteen times the intellectual capital - their sense of imaginative initiative is striking and refreshing. When they blunder, they blunder large - but at least they're on the world stage and they try to hold their ground in an era when the ground is nothing if not unsteady. I love my own country but it's for different reasons. May I add at this point that both nations' politics, as covered by media mainstream and otherwise, is more similar than it is different. Sometimes it seems to me that it boils down to a clutch of feisty talking heads mostly talking _at_ one another, sandwiched between massive commercial breaks; sometimes it feels very much like politics on the ground is another matter entirely and that television and the net, creatures having their own needs, filter out more than they present to the public. I'm not sure if I entirely trust that filtering system, or if I admire the cult of personality I see in many news anchors and mouthy pundits purporting to say important things to us.
> 
> But that's another thread altogether, ain't it. LOL!





GratuitousApplesauce said:


> I'm not going to slam you for it, but when I'm confronted with things like threads about new BMWs, Star Wars movies or Canadian Idol, I just ignore them if I'm not interested in the subject and leave it to those who are.
> 
> I have to agree with Max that US politics seems more than a "fun 'n' games" spectator sport to me, for the reasons he stated. While I am attracted to the amazing amount of drama that US politics offers, and following the issues of Tea Party craziness can be quite entertaining, I also think the national or even state-level outcomes there are vitally important to everyone in the world. The recession that we are living through has much to do with laws in the US and how they affected US banks and international banks headquartered in the US. The situation around the USA's two recent military actions also affects all of us. What goes on politically in the USA has immense importance to people all around the globe and while other citizens can't vote we certainly have every right to an opinion about matters that affect us, including who wins their elections.
> 
> ...


Me just feeling grumpy about the level of local involvement in political issues amongst the people I talk to in my neighbourhood. It is all good... and I certainly understand where the interest in American issues come from... 

I realize that the people who post here on topics such as this are probably more engaged in politics, even at the local level, than the average Joe.... It is just that sometimes I wish that people, in general, were as invloved in issues over which they could have direct input as they are in issues that they don't, if they were just to get off of their butts. Then they could actually have some say and actually have a reason to complain because they are actively involved.

Once again me just feeling grumpy... carry on...


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*...speaking of the Tea Partier star of the moment, Christine O'Donnell, the following may be of interest:*



> On telling the truth. According to Christine O'Donnell, it's never, ever, OK to lie -- not even if you were hiding Jews in your home in Nazi Germany and Hitler came to your door to round them up. Confronted with this possibility on "Politically Incorrect," O'Donnell said: "I believe that if I were in that situation, God would provide a way to do the right thing. You never have to practice deception."


(Progreso Weekly)


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> *...speaking of the Tea Partier star of the moment, Christine O'Donnell, the following may be of interest:*


So her faith tells her that God would provide a way to protect the person in hiding. This is supposed to be damning? Very weak.


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> So her faith tells her that God would provide a way to protect the person in hiding.


Does it? Where does it say that, MF? (Hint: The answer is, "Nowhere.")

Or are you, by way of your witty post, providing us with an example of a very much weaker assertion?


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Hilarious article, by the way, CM. Thanks for a good read.

Does anybody know her IQ, btw?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> Does it? Where does it say that, MF? (Hint: The answer is, "Nowhere.")
> 
> Or are you, by way of your witty post, providing us with an example of a very much weaker assertion?


. 


> "I believe that if I were in that situation, God would provide a way to do the right thing."


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

> I believe that if I were in that situation, God would provide a way to do the right thing.


.


Macfury said:


> So her faith tells her that God would provide a way to protect the person in hiding.


A Macfury spin. Weak.

She dodged the question. She played her get-out-of-jail-free card ... 'God'.


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## MacGuiver (Sep 6, 2002)

Spin?

Your making yourself look silly refuting Macfury's correct summation. Its obvious that its exactly what she's saying. If you don't agree, what exactly is she saying in that line? I'd love to hear it.

Cheers
MacGuiver


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

What she's saying is the person hiding Jews should have simply converted them to Christianity and then lying would be out of the equation.

You're pretty much guaranteed sainthood after that.


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

MacGuiver said:


> Spin?
> 
> Your making yourself look silly refuting Macfury's correct summation. Its obvious that its exactly what she's saying. If you don't agree, what exactly is she saying in that line? I'd love to hear it.
> 
> ...


Cheers! And, in the spirit of your impertinent and ungrammatical post, may I offer the following for your consideration:

Her words:_ "I believe that if I were in that situation, God would provide a way to do the right thing."_

Macfury's words: _"So her faith tells her that God would provide a way to protect the person in hiding."_

A close, but not overly demanding, textual analysis shows that she never uttered the words "God would provide a way to *protect the person in hiding*".

(MF then conjures up the notion that his concocted interpretation is being used to damn the poor wretch, and promptly declares _that_ itself to be weak. This is a second-order-straw-man type of argument. Very weak.)

She passed the buck. An decent and honest answer might possibly have been something like, "God would understand if I were to bend the truth a little (i.e. just a teensy-weensy bit)."



MacGuiver said:


> If you don't agree, what exactly is she saying in that line? I'd love to hear it.


Well, since you so graciously ask, I think her answer might have been based on thoughts similar to all or some of the following:

"Aw sh*t! I can't say I'd tell Hitler I ain't got no Jews here on account of that'd be lyin'. Maybe I'd just shop 'em, but I can't do that or else I'd be in trouble with the Jewish folks that might vote for me. This is too tricky for me so I'll kick it upstairs to the big man."

But, whatever her reasons, we are pleased to be able to read _her_ answer as quoted. Twist it how you will.

Cheers!!


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

MannyP Design said:


> What she's saying is the person hiding Jews should have simply converted them to Christianity and then lying would be out of the equation.
> 
> You're pretty much guaranteed sainthood after that.


Bravo, MannyP. :lmao:


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> Cheers! And, in the spirit of your impertinent and ungrammatical post, may I offer the following for your consideration:


It must be a cultural difference that prevents you from understanding the nature of the quote and what it implies. In the days before Christians sent missionaries to the British Isles, your understanding might have have been different.


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## MacGuiver (Sep 6, 2002)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> Well, since you so graciously ask, I think her answer might have been based on thoughts similar to all or some of the following:
> 
> "Aw sh*t! I can't say I'd tell Hitler I ain't got no Jews here on account of that'd be lyin'. Maybe I'd just shop 'em, but I can't do that or else I'd be in trouble with the Jewish folks that might vote for me. This is too tricky for me so I'll kick it upstairs to the big man."
> 
> ...


Wow! And you accuse MacFury of Spin. LOL!!!


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Macfury said:


> So her faith tells her that God would provide a way to protect the person in hiding. This is supposed to be damning? Very weak.


What's damning about it is the utter ignorance of the reality of the situation and the blind faith she puts in a "god" to bail everyone out. 

that kind of strategy is not pragmatic, and a terrible quality in someone who is supposed to lead.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

i-rui said:


> What's damning about it is the utter ignorance of the reality of the situation and the blind faith she puts in a "god" to bail everyone out.
> 
> that kind of strategy is not pragmatic, and a terrible quality in someone who is supposed to lead.


And another thing that's quite damning is that there are people out there willing to defend obviously unqualified, delusional & looney candidates like O'Donnell and some of these other Tea Party weirdos in the hopes that they'll appeal enough to a seriously delusional segment of the American electorate to edge out the Democrats. Where would the American right wing be without their frenzied fringe?


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> It must be a cultural difference that prevents you from understanding the nature of the quote and what it implies.


There was no implication of any substance in the quote, other than "God" would do whatever "God" would do. It's that banal. She dodged the issue. However, _you_, as usual, made an _inference_ to suit your own ends, as in ...


Macfury said:


> So her faith tells her that God would provide a way to protect the person in hiding.


 ... and then you invented the notion that someone had damned her for saying it (she hadn't) as in ...


Macfury said:


> This is supposed to be damning?


If there was any damning, then it was self-inflicted damnation on the part of our heroine.
Your finale was a masterpiece of self immolation, to whit:


Macfury said:


> Very weak.


Indeed. A perfect self assessment.

This reminds me of the brilliant display of slippery evasiveness you put on when you declared that WW2 was Roosevelt's finest policy decision. :lmao:


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

MacGuiver said:


> Wow! And you accuse MacFury of Spin. LOL!!!


Wow! And you missed the point. LOL!!!


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## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

i-rui said:


> What's damning about it is the utter ignorance of the reality of the situation and the blind faith she puts in a "god" to bail everyone out.
> 
> that kind of strategy is not pragmatic, and a terrible quality in someone who is supposed to lead.


Quite.

Can you imagine clowns like this near the levers of power? "God told me to ... "

One of them has a bad oyster for dinner, and regards the delirium-inspired visions as Delphic utterances.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> Can you imagine clowns like this near the levers of power? "God told me to ... "


I don't think we have to imagine it SQ, we've seen it, — GW Bush in all his glory. Now his successors in office are suffering politically for not cleaning up the remains of his insanity quickly enough, and more clowns are poised to succeed them. 

Such is the idiocy of a significant segment of the US electorate and such is the craven cynicism of those who are backing those clowns.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GA and SQ: You two through pleasuring each other?


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

```

```



Macfury said:


> GA and SQ: You two through pleasuring each other?


Awww Macfury! Reduced to adolescent quips again?

Meanwhile the American Values Survey, a recent survey of American attitudes on religion, values and politics, has found that the Fox News spin on the Tea Party and what's important to most Americans isn't quite accurate.

Among the findings:

The Tea Party is made up of mostly white people overwhelmingly supportive of Sarah Palin, who are not libertarian, but socially conservative and make up about 11% of the US population.

Amongst all voters 54% say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supported health care reform, including the majority of independent voters.

58% are in favour of a path to immigration for undocumented immigrants.

Public support for same-sex marriage and gay rights in general is increasing over the last several years.

PDF Link

This indicates that the Tea Party movement is definitely a fringe movement, is not libertarian in character and that the positions that most of their candidates are taking regarding health care, immigration and gay rights are not necessarily winners.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

how could any REAL libertarian be against same-sex marriage and gay rights?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> how could any REAL libertarian be against same-sex marriage and gay rights?


The Tea Party candidates are not all Libertarians. However, a Libertarian would argue that government should not be the arbiter of what is defined as marriage, nor should it be given the power to force others to recognize those definitions. There would be no argument about whether men could marry men, women or camels if they wished to.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Macfury said:


> a Libertarian would argue that government should not be the arbiter of what is defined as marriage, nor should it be given the power to force others to recognize those definitions.


a libertarian would not endorse FORCING religious institutions into recognizing gay marriage, but would stand behind the idea of equal legal rights for gay couples. so I think they WOULD support the government making a LEGAL definition of marriage.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> a libertarian would not endorse FORCING religious institutions into recognizing gay marriage, but would stand behind the idea of equal legal rights for gay couples. so I think they WOULD support the government making a LEGAL definition of marriage.


Very few would. They would wonder why people required the government to sanction _any_ marriage. If you want to marry a dolphin, go for it, but don't ask the government to decide if such a union satisfies the definition of marriage.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

there are legal rights associated with marriage. that's why you need a definition.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> The Tea Party candidates are not all Libertarians.


The Tea Party candidates are not all social conservatives. Fixed that fer ya MF.

There might be one who is an actual libertarian, but who has since backed off his libertarian positions to make himself more electable and more amenable to GOP big money. He's also a hypocrite, having stated that defunding Medicare is not a position he endorses. Why? Because he's a doctor and believes doctors deserve a good standard of living that cutting off that Medicare billing would threaten. Like all tea partiers, their passion for cutting "big government" cools quite significantly when it might affect their pocketbook.

All in all, libertarians are unrealistic utopian idealists who read too many Ayn Rand books when they were pimply teenagers and longed to be tough and powerful like Rand's chiselled heroes.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> All in all, libertarians are unrealistic utopian idealists who read too many Ayn Rand books when they were pimply teenagers and longed to be tough and powerful like Rand's chiselled heroes.



Did you have pimples?


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> All in all, libertarians are unrealistic utopian idealists .


Replace "libertarian" with any other political ideology and you could apply the above statement universally.

Nothing wrong with being a Libertarian, as long as you're reasonable & pragmatic. That goes for every political affiliation.

It's all about where you place your values & priorities.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> here might be one who is an actual libertarian, but who has since backed off his libertarian positions to make himself more electable and more amenable to GOP big money. He's also a hypocrite, having stated that defunding Medicare is not a position he endorses. Why? Because he's a doctor and believes doctors deserve a good standard of living that cutting off that Medicare billing would threaten. Like all tea partiers, their passion for cutting "big government" cools quite significantly when it might affect their pocketbook.


Rand Paul says that Medicare needs to be untouched only for retirees and those nearing retirement because they can no longer prepare for changes to the program. He's also in favour of users of Medicare making co-payments when they go to the doctor.

Rand's campaign says half of Paul's income comes from Medicare and Medicaid. Many doctors refuse to take patients enrolled in these programs and opt out because the rate of return is so low. He's doing these patients a favour by seeing them.

Rand Paul sees costlier Medicare | cincinnati.com | Cincinnati.Com


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

i-rui said:


> Replace "libertarian" with any other political ideology and you could apply the above statement universally.
> 
> Nothing wrong with being a Libertarian, as long as you're reasonable & pragmatic. That goes for every political affiliation.


Yes, I shouldn't have slagged ALL libertarians, because I'm sure there are some who can be pragmatic. But unfortunately, I see a lot of "all or nothing" coming from the libertarian camp, proposing ridiculous ideas that have no hope of being adopted by most people. I can agree with many libertarians on issues of personal freedom, but not with right libertarian's social Darwinism or seeming lack of any sense of shared responsibility for living in society.



Macfury said:


> Did you have pimples?


Like most teenagers, yes. And even back then when I was reading Rand, even though I didn't really understand what she was selling, I could smell the stench of a ranting idealist evangelical and see that her notions of her heroes were as simplistic as comic books. Other pimply teenagers got taken in by this stuff though.



Macfury said:


> Rand Paul says that Medicare needs to be untouched only for retirees and those nearing retirement because they can no longer prepare for changes to the program. He's also in favour of users of Medicare making co-payments when they go to the doctor.
> 
> Rand's campaign says half of Paul's income comes from Medicare and Medicaid. Many doctors refuse to take patients enrolled in these programs and opt out because the rate of return is so low. He's doing these patients a favour by seeing them.


Rand Paul is an outlier amongst the Tea Party approved candidates and among the Tea Party's supporters. His radical libertarian economic ideas have no more appeal to either Repbulicans or Democrats than his father's do. And the Tea Party, being almost completely social conservatives — not libertarians — are not interested in either Pauls ideas about personal liberty, which is why Rand is soft-pedalling them and palling around with the likes of Sarah Palin. At least Rand's poppa would never sink to that level and can be lauded for not being a hypocrite.

An example of the kind of doctrinaire adherence to ideals among libertarians is when Rand Paul announced he disagreed with portions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, specifically preventing businesses from discriminating on the basis of race. He felt like this limited the liberties of business people. Of course this is nonsense, but goes to show how looney some libertarians can be.

But currently Rand Paul is distancing himself from the libertarian principles that his father stood by. He can win in Kentucky by bashing the welfare state, but not by bashing the warfare state. He insisted on Fox News that he's in favour of continuing with foreign military interventions and that he differed significantly from the Libertarian Party. Other libertarian ideas that he once spoke about have disappeared as he cozies up to the TARP funders and GOP money boys or the blazing Tea Party contradiction herself, Ms. Palin.










David Horsey editorial cartoons, commentary @ seattlepi.com


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

The above cartoon sums up the Tea Party -- and how unbelievably ignorant they are -- perfectly.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Yes, I shouldn't have slagged ALL libertarians, because I'm sure there are some who can be pragmatic.


This is a lot of wasted space attempting to slag Tea Party candidates who are not in lockstep with one particular vision. I won't waste the same amount of space slagging Democrats who have views differing from Obama's--or Democrat nutcases. 

As has been demonstrated before, many Tea Party Candidates and conservative voters want to see Medicare and other entitlement programs slashed or eliminated. While this cartoon sends a thrill up the leg of committed Obamazombies like Chazz, it's been been done to death a hundred times. 

Change the words a little? Oh my--there's the typical welfare state Democrat with the same beer gut spouting some some other hypocrisy:


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

A recent speech showing Obama's misguided view of the economy:



> I should point out that these continuing layoffs by state and local governments, of teachers and police officers and firefighters and the like -- would have been even worse without the federal help that we provided the states over the last 20 months. Help that the Republicans in Congress have consistently opposed. I think the Republican position doesn't make much sense, especially since the weakness in public sector employment is a drag on the private sector as well.


The weakness of the public sector is A DRAG on the private sector? This is like saying that the horse is a drag on the broken down cart it's forced to pull.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Good news for the President though: Americans consider Obama a better president than George Bush. Obama leads by a stunning 47 to 45 in the recent CNN poll.

I recall some doubt expressed earlier on in this thread that many people were becoming nostalgic for Bush under Obama's troubled presidency.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Macfury said:


> Good news for the President though: Americans consider Obama a better president than George Bush. Obama leads by a stunning 47 to 45 in the recent CNN poll.
> 
> I recall some doubt expressed earlier on in this thread that many people were becoming nostalgic for Bush under Obama's troubled presidency.


A scary stat indeed given that the Shrub was very close to the worst president in the entire history of the US.

While many of his problems are inherited, the BO administration has stuck closely to the course set by the Shrub.

Voting for the Bankster Scam has set the tone of his presidency. Had the big investment banks been allowed to collapse, they would have taken their quadrillion dollars worth of toxic derivatives down with them. Taxpaying Americans damaged by the collapse could have been bailed out for a smaller net cost leaving the nation better off today.

Like his predecessor BO clearly has more loyalty to Goldman-Sachs, Monsanto and of course Halliburton than he does to the USA or Americans in general.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

eMacMan said:


> While many of his problems are inherited, the BO administration has stuck closely to the course set by the Shrub.


This is true, although BO voted in favour of all of the bail-outs under Bush. Bush also sat down with Obama after the election was won, but before BO took office, to work out the details on the auto bail-out and and other stimulus/bail-out measures. Suggesting that BO inherited this mess against his will is a falsehood. Likewise, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--the two government agencies that laundered all of the mortgage derivatives for Wall Street, are getting carte blanche from Mr. O.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> This is true, although BO voted in favour of all of the bail-outs under Bush. Bush also sat down with Obama after the election was won, but before BO took office, to work out the details on the auto bail-out and and other stimulus/bail-out measures. Suggesting that BO inherited this mess against his will is a falsehood. Likewise, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--the two government agencies that laundered all of the mortgage derivatives for Wall Street, are getting carte blanche from Mr. O.


I don't people are so much referring to the bailout mess... perhaps the incredibly disastrous 8 years of having this historic meltdown, and wild spending the precipitated required bail outs in order to prevent a full out depression.

That part, which seems to be blocked out from your memory.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> I don't people are so much referring to the bailout mess... perhaps the incredibly disastrous 8 years of having this historic meltdown, and wild spending the precipitated required bail outs in order to prevent a full out depression.
> 
> That part, which seems to be blocked out from your memory.


The meltdown was not historic. Bush spending was excessive, but nothing like Obama's. The bailouts were not required. They are merely transfer payments to business cronies and efforts to expand the power of the federal government.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Macfury said:


> The meltdown was not historic. Bush spending was excessive, but nothing like Obama's. The bailouts were not required. They are merely transfer payments to business cronies and efforts to expand the power of the federal government.


It COULD have been historic. In the end TARP may actually MAKE money for the US government. It has actually been really well managed by the Obama administration.

The REAL problem is Obama didn't reform the system. It's still very much business as usual on wall street. They're playing the same games, paying out the same insane bonuses, and not redistributing that money with loans to small businesses.

Your analogy of a horse pulling a broken down wagon is bunk. The horse has been set free from the wagon for decades and does as it pleases without any worry of being accountable to the public.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> Your analogy of a horse pulling a broken down wagon is bunk. The horse has been set free from the wagon for decades and does as it pleases without any worry of being accountable to the public.


The broken down wagon is the government, dragging the people down by doing as it pleases.


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## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

i'd agree that the government is broken. no question of that. 

the problem is crony capitalism. The private sector has had it's paws inside the government for so long that they're part of the institution.

Politicians spend 50% of their time on phones begging for money instead of running the country, and that money comes from lobbyists within the private sector. That problem has spread out to both political parties.

The US is in dire need of campaign finance reform, and they need to squash all laws giving corporations the same rights as people.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> *The meltdown was not historic*. Bush spending was excessive, but nothing like Obama's. The bailouts were not required. They are merely transfer payments to business cronies and efforts to expand the power of the federal government.


Nonsense. You just want to scream about Obama, and fuzz out a huge part of the story.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> This is a lot of wasted space attempting to slag Tea Party candidates who are not in lockstep with one particular vision. I won't waste the same amount of space slagging Democrats who have views differing from Obama's--or Democrat nutcases.
> 
> As has been demonstrated before, many Tea Party Candidates and conservative voters want to see Medicare and other entitlement programs slashed or eliminated. While this cartoon sends a thrill up the leg of committed Obamazombies like Chazz, it's been been done to death a hundred times.
> 
> Change the words a little? Oh my--there's the typical welfare state Democrat with the same beer gut spouting some some other hypocrisy:


Well I invite you to waste some space to tell us what the Tea Party is then, 'cause nobody's doing much of a job of that. You and others hint that it's some great, new revolutionary force on the right, yet say it can't be defined because it's a mix of people and neither the candidates nor supporters can be criticized individually because their idiosyncrasies don't necessarily represent the whole. 

I'm slagging them because it's an incoherent and contradictory mess, fraudulently masquerading as a grassroots movement while either knowingly or ignorantly accepting big astroturf bucks from the old guard GOP. The only thing that seems to unite them is general anger that their kind of people aren't calling the shots, hence the need to "take back America" from them and who only seem to truly be speaking for a fringe, yet Fox News claims they're the voice of the American majority. 

Your only reply ever seems to be, "well the other side is just as bad" — hardly a positive endorsement, old buddy.

As to your clever little cartoon adaptation, the original reflects what Tea Party members and leaders have actually said. I've never heard anyone saying anything like the silliness you invented.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> The meltdown was not historic. Bush spending was excessive, but nothing like Obama's. The bailouts were not required. They are merely transfer payments to business cronies and efforts to expand the power of the federal government.


Still carrying on with the revisionist history, MF? New spending by Obama is responsible for only 18% of the deficit. Bush hid his war spending so it didn't show up on his budgets. See post #58 earlier in this thread.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> Nonsense. You just want to scream about Obama, and fuzz out a huge part of the story.


Why don't you place the historic meltdowns in order and see where this one ranks?


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

the


GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Still carrying on with the revisionist history, MF? New spending by Obama is responsible for only 18% of the deficit. Bush hid his war spending so it didn't show up on his budgets. See post #58 earlier in this thread.


I pin the cost of Bush wars at roughly $5 Trillion. That's how much debt the US acquired during the war efforts. FWIW Clinton was balancing the budget but only by stealing from Social Security, a practice the Shrub continued to the point where Social Security went from being fully funded tthrough 2050 to where it is anticipated that it will suffer shortfalls by 2017. This alone should have Bush in jail. Social Security is not an entitlement program. In the 1990s self employed US taxpayers were paying over 14% of every dollar they earned into the Social Security fund. To have it stolen in this manner is nothing short of criminal.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Still carrying on with the revisionist history, MF? New spending by Obama is responsible for only 18% of the deficit. Bush hid his war spending so it didn't show up on his budgets.


I suppose if you rely on the figures from the James Carville Budget office it looks like three trillion. The Congressional Budget Office says under Bush, both Iraq and Afghanistan cost the U.S. $790 billion.

You can find the PDF document here. This includes so-called hidden funds:

http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/117xx/doc11705/08-18-Update.pdf

A nice chart to show the effect of the war on the deficit over a decade:


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Obama's so-called "18%" discretionary spending only looks passable because so much of his porkulus, TARP and bail-out spending are not considered discretionary.

_Only 23 days until Obama gets bitch-slapped by American voters._


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

Clearly that chart presents the data in calendar year, not fiscal year (talk about passing the buck, LOL). Secondly, this is what happens when you let a moron drive the car into the ditch. The clean-up is always more costly than the prevention.

But, hey. Let's believe that Bush solved the bank/housing/auto/war crisis just before he exited.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MannyP Design said:


> But, hey. Let's believe that Bush solved the bank/housing/auto/war crisis just before he exited.


Stop with the straw man, please. Both the Democrats and Republicans were responsible for creating the conditions leading to the bank meltdown. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the government entities that laundered mortgage derivatives to their own advantage. The notion that home ownership should be broadened to those who could not afford it was a fantasy of both parties.

However, if one considered the untenable position that BO has been saddled only with problems not of his own making (even though he and his party voted in favour of the conditions that created many of them)--you would still have to answer the question of whether BO played the cards that he was dealt with well or badly. I think he handled them like the rank amateur he is. You can't simply pull some strings, read a few platitudes from a Teleprompter, bend a few arms and come out smelling like a rose.

If you think he handled the job with aplomb, then you will support him.


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

You're right. It's all Obama's fault.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MannyP Design said:


> You're right. It's all Obama's fault.


I haven't said that. But his response is his own choice. The situation is the fault of both parties. But Obama supported many of the policies that led to financial meltdown and continues to support them. However, with a majority in the House and Senate, Obama needs to take considerable responsibility for the past two years of policy. Instead of focusing on the economy, he focused on passing an unpopular health care act, then wasted further effort on Cap and Trade, running car companies, shutting down Gulf oil production, Immigration Reform and a host of pet projects. 

Only hard-line Democrat voters are happy with this record. Judging from the way many Democrat candidates are trying to bury the record of the past two years in the mid-term election campaign, I suspect few are willing to proudly run on that record.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> I haven't said that. But his response is his own choice. The situation is the fault of both parties. But Obama supported many of the policies that led to financial meltdown and continues to support them. However, with a majority in the House and Senate, Obama needs to take considerable responsibility for the past two years of policy. Instead of focusing on the economy, he focused on passing an unpopular health care act, then wasted further effort on Cap and Trade, running car companies, shutting down Gulf oil production, Immigration Reform and a host of pet projects.
> 
> Only hard-line Democrat voters are happy with this record. Judging from the way many Democrat candidates are trying to bury the record of the past two years in the mid-term election campaign, I suspect few are willing to proudly run on that record.


ah the old wascally wiberals nonsense. No wonder you get testy when I point it out. Look the liberals are just as at fault! LOOK!! Shiny BALL!!!!

How dare a president actually do other things for the country, besides focusing on the country. To think Obama should do nothing else, is simply ludicrous.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

groovetube said:


> ah the old wascally wiberals nonsense. No wonder you get testy when I point it out. Look the liberals are just as at fault! LOOK!! Shiny BALL!!!!
> 
> How dare a president actually do other things for the country, besides focusing on the country. To think Obama should do nothing else, is simply ludicrous.


Not sure how anyone could call BO's health reform good for the country. Great for the insurance companies but forcing people who cannot afford it, to buy health insurance is NOT good for the country.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

eMacMan said:


> Not sure how anyone could call BO's health reform good for the country. Great for the insurance companies but forcing people who cannot afford it, to buy health insurance is NOT good for the country.


that's your opinion. However valid, or not that I may think it is.

But to say Obama shouldn't be doing other things for the country besides the economy, is ridiculous.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

eMacMan said:


> Not sure how anyone could call BO's health reform good for the country. Great for the insurance companies but forcing people who cannot afford it, to buy health insurance is NOT good for the country.


That's how BO wants to help pay off the debt--by forcing people to buy insurance and have the IRS chase them down if they don't. I'm not sure if this has sunk in for a lot of people yet.




groovetube said:


> ah the old wascally wiberals nonsense. No wonder you get testy when I point it out. Look the liberals are just as at fault! LOOK!! Shiny BALL!!!!
> 
> How dare a president actually do other things for the country, besides focusing on the country. To think Obama should do nothing else, is simply ludicrous.


You're really fixated on the "wiberals" and the "shiny ball" when nobody is even discussing them. Are you sure you're posting in the right topic area? Are you hallucinating?

When the president indulges in his pet projects while failing to pursue a program that succeeds in promoting economic recovery, he is failing.


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

groovetube said:


> But to say Obama shouldn't be doing other things for the country besides the economy, is ridiculous.


Right, because millions out of work, losing their homes, crushed under debt they could never repay, etc... not really important compared to... um, whatever else he was doing.

What was he doing? Let see..

Universal heathcare? Sorry, just mandatory private insurance payments.

Pulled out of Guantanamo? Not so much.

Sunlight before signing? Shh, you weren't supposed to remember that one.

Bring all combat troops home by May 20, 2010? Err...

But he was on the ball and decisive with the Event Horizon disaster though, right? Right? Hello?


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> That's how BO wants to help pay off the debt--by forcing people to buy insurance and have the IRS chase them down if they don't. I'm not sure if this has sunk in for a lot of people yet.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


the "wiberals", are the democrats. I think that's very easy to figure out macfury, and it is YOU, who are fixated on them. Quite clearly, you are willing to grant Bush quite the pass, even though you protest you don't, your words say otherwise. This whole libertarian/tea party thingy, is just a convenient slippery place without taking any responsibility for poor decisions. It's always easy to criticize from a position without responsibility isn't it. Just ask Harper, who seems to be finding this out these days eh?

Just because you happen to believe Obama should have reversed Bush's path and allowed all the big banks to fail completely, plunging the country into a sure depression for an unknown period, doesn't mean he has done nothing about the economy. You simply disagree, but need to frame it as "do nothing".

The damage was already done before he ever took office. You're complaining about a big if, as if it's an absolute, in the face of a past president's actions and consequences that have -already- occurred. 

Hence your "shiny ball"...


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

groovetube said:


> The damage was already done before he ever took office.


Absolutely true. You'll never catch me defending Bush.

The problem is, Obama has control of the house and the senate. he had every opportunity to slow down if not start reversing the damage. Instead he put the pedal to the metal and exacerbated the damage several times over. He was dropped into a hole that someone else made, but chose to dig faster rather than look at how to climb out.

Summary: Bush = very bad. Obama = exponentially worse.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

bsenka said:


> Absolutely true. You'll never catch me defending Bush.
> 
> The problem is, Obama has control of the house and the senate. he had every opportunity to slow down if not start reversing the damage. Instead he put the pedal to the metal and exacerbated the damage several times over. He was dropped into a hole that someone else made, but chose to dig faster rather than look at how to climb out.
> 
> Summary: Bush = very bad. Obama = exponentially worse.


ok, well first that was directed to macfury, see the quoted.

Second. Now this:


> Summary: Bush = very bad. Obama = exponentially worse.


So, the person carrying the policies of the past president to address the mess, is -exponentially- worse even though the past president created the mess in the first place?

Right no bias there lol...


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

groovetube said:


> Right no bias there lol...


If anything, I have the opposite bias than what you're accusing me of. 

I hate the Republicans with a passion.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bsenka said:


> If anything, I have the opposite bias than what you're accusing me of.
> 
> I hate the Republicans with a passion.


I had actually hoped that Obama would do some good, but I have found nothing heartening in BO's presidency.The Republicans were depressing, but the Democrats under BO are alarming.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Right. And the tea partiers represent far more sanity.


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

groovetube said:


> Right. And the tea partiers represent far more sanity.


I think you're in the wrong thread again.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

I'm afraid you can't just limit the scope of the discussion when it doesn't go well.

I think my point is clear.


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

groovetube said:


> I think my point is clear.


What was it?


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Macfury said:


> I had actually hoped that Obama would do some good, but I have found nothing heartening in BO's presidency..


Really! Which hot minute of which day was that?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> Really! Which hot minute of which day was that?


1. When he said he would govern from the centre. 
2. When he said he would support net neutrality. 
3. When he said he would support a human mission to moon by 2020
4. When he said he would post all bills online and allow five days of public comment before signing them.
5. When he said that no family making less than $250,000 will see any form of tax increase.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Macfury said:


> 1. When he said he would govern from the centre.
> 2. When he said he would support net neutrality.
> 3. When he said he would support a human mission to moon by 2020
> 4. When he said he would post all bills online and allow five days of public comment before signing them.
> 5. When he said that no family making less than $250,000 will see any form of tax increase.


Hmm I had forgotten all about four of those lies. Still there are enough other examples that he still wins my vote naming him liar of the year.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

What is really incredible, is sitting here reading how a president lied about a tax increase, and all the while, considering him exponentially worse than the president, who lied to the country, no, the world about Iraq, covered it up, and spent BILLIONS, and BILLIONS of our tax money borrowing from everyone's future, to pay for a war that benefited no one but huge corporations.

And he was just, "bad". You can't even try... to make this stuff up can you.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> What is really incredible, is sitting here reading how a president lied about a tax increase, and all the while, considering him exponentially worse than the president, who lied to the country, no, the world about Iraq, covered it up, and spent BILLIONS, and BILLIONS of our tax money borrowing from everyone's future, to pay for a war that benefited no one but huge corporations.
> 
> And he was just, "bad". You can't even try... to make this stuff up can you.


Don't you EVER READ the threads before posting? I'll make it simple for you. The question was whether any of BO's promises ever made me feel hopeful. 

But I'll admit, hearing you whine about Bush wasting "BILLIONS" and borrowing money from the future in light of BO's commitment to spend trillions is about the funniest thing I'm likely to see here today.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Don't you EVER READ the threads before posting? I'll make it simple for you. The question was whether any of BO's promises ever made me feel hopeful.
> 
> But I'll admit, hearing you whine about Bush wasting "BILLIONS" and borrowing money from the future in light of BO's commitment to spend trillions is about the funniest thing I'm likely to see here today.


well it's good to see I hit something. That was easy.

Sometimes, you just have to cut through the BS to find out what people really think throughout the whole slippery stuff.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> well it's good to see I hit something. That was easy.
> 
> Sometimes, you just have to cut through the BS to find out what people really think throughout the whole slippery stuff.



We know where your thoughts were on discussing BO--that horrible Bush!


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> We know where your thoughts were on discussing BO--that horrible Bush!


I was merely laughing at the notion that Obama, was "exponentially worse" than the president who created the mess in the first place.

Run in circles as you wish.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> I was merely laughing at the notion that Obama, was "exponentially worse" than the president who created the mess in the first place.
> 
> Run in circles as you wish.


As others have suggested--you're starting to live your avatar!


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Posting here because it's the most recent U.S. election thread. Get a load of this ad by a Democrat accusing a candidate of "worshiping false idols."




+
YouTube Video









ERROR: If you can see this, then YouTube is down or you don't have Flash installed.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

While I don't support much of Rand Paul's agenda, I think that this ad was way over the top and in very bad taste. Keep in mind that I am a registered Democrat, but I do NOT support this sort of ad.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Is that Ron Paul's kid? If so he certainly lacks either the class or the integrity of his father.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

eMacMan said:


> Is that Ron Paul's kid? If so he certainly lacks either the class or the integrity of his father.


Yes, that is his son. Still, he does not deserve to have these comments taken out of context in this manner. That is right out of the Karl Rove Playbook of Dirty Politics.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> Yes, that is his son. Still, he does not deserve to have these comments taken out of context in this manner. That is right out of the Karl Rove Playbook of Dirty Politics.


EDIT: Sorry, should have watched the clip, was thinking of a completely different one that I don't think is really a part of the current campaign.

Sadly this is what now passes as political campaigning for both major parties. Thankfully I was able to vote third party/independent in both the Senate and Congressional ballot.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

eMacMan said:


> EDIT: Sorry, should have watched the clip, was thinking of a completely different one that I don't think is really a part of the current campaign.
> 
> Sadly this is what now passes as political campaigning for both major parties. Thankfully I was able to vote third party/independent in both the Senate and Congressional ballot.


In Georgia, there was a Libertarian running for both the House and Senate on my Georgia ballot, but I liked both of the Democratic candidates. Strang, but it used to be that a Republican, the party of Lincoln, could not get elected in Georgia, and in most of the US south. Now, it is difficult for a Democrat to get elected in certain areas. 


In what state are you voting, eMacMan?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Well, Obama certainly looks like he's animated by _something _in his most recent campaign appearances. Looks like something from _The Exorcist_.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

*He just can't get it right*

Poor BO, has managed to blow even the simplest and completely non-political chore.



> *Wrong number? Obama doesn't call champion Giants*
> Tuesday, November 2, 2010
> 
> 11-02) 03:49 PDT San Jose, Calif. (AP) --
> ...


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

I voted for Obama in 2008 ......... I have been a Giants fan from birth and waited 56 years for another World Series victory by them ............ I cried when they left NYC in 1957 ............. and I cried a bit once again last night when the Giants won the World Series. Personally, I have a feeling that Obama has more on his plate than a call, so the fact that he will have them to the White House is fine with me. I never understood the calls to championship teams, unless a president was a true fan (I believe Nixon started this tradition).

Still, I shall be voting for Obama again in 2012, regardless if this omission was intentional or not. I cried when he was being sworn in after the 2008 election.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Love the images Dr.G I do feel that it is somewhat unfair to try and lay the blame for the current economic crisis entirely at BOs feet but cannot see how voting Republican will change anything.

This economic catasstrophy was a bi-partisan effort going all the way back to Clinton, culminating with The Great Bankster heist under the Shrub and Repo-gate under the current admin. 

Everything I have seen over the past two years convinces me that BO and the Demobums answer to the exactly the same corporate masters as the Republirats. So I shall be voting third/non party for the foreseeable future. That's as close to "non-of-the-above" as I can get under the current system. BO has not closed a single base in Iraq, has failed to shutdown Gitmo, has accelerated the war effort in Afghanistan, continues to promote war on Iran... 

On top of all of that he wants to drop Cap & Trade, Carbon Taxes and a 1% bank transaction fee on a population that cannot afford any of those.

Like it or not the US will have to abandon these wars and the military bloat if it is to stand a chance at balancing the budget.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Obama may not even run in 2012. He's getting whupped tonight and--with all respect to Dr. G.--he deserves it.

I did not weep when he was inaugurated, but I'm smiling tonight.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

Macfury said:


> Obama may not even run in 2012. He's getting whupped tonight and--with all respect to Dr. G.--he deserves it.
> 
> I did not weep when he was inaugurated, but I'm smiling tonight.


Macfury, we shall see who is smiling in 2012 on the day after election night on the first Tuesday in November. Meet me here then and we shall compare note. Paix, mon ami.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

As long as one supports sending our soldiers and money to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the abuse of human rights at Gitmo, the (anti) Patriot act, Homeland Security, NSA, giving trillions to Banksters and the MIC, having your eMails and phone converstaions tapped... you cannot go wrong voting either DemoBum or Republirat. 

If this is not your cup of tea you are SOL.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Well BO has officially placed the nail in the coffin of Cap & Trade and of Carbon Taxes at least for the moment. This is good news no matter which side of AGW you buy into. Attempting to control carbon emissions in this manner would have been devastating to the poor and those on fixed income. The reason is very simple, in order to noticeably impact CO2 emissions the cost of these new scams would have to be very high indeed and as always those that could least afford it would pay the highest price.

OTH AFAIK The 1% fee on all bank transactions was not removed from the plate just yet. One can only hope this will join the carbon gouge fees in the capitols landfill site.


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