# The Tea Party Thread



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Rather than run around the various threads looking for snippets on these deludigans, may I suggest a dedicated thread? With the mid-term elections coming up, we'll have lots to cover...

...such as:



> ...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.




(Rolling Stone: Tea & Crackers)


----------



## rgray (Feb 15, 2005)

Where is Hunter Thompson when we need him.... I'd love to hear his take on these "tea party" idiots...

See also The Patriot Declaration - PatriotPost.US and The 'Tea Party' Movement - Alexander's Essays - PatriotPost.US. The latter essay contains a lot of links which describe what they refer to as 'first principles'.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*From the RS article cited above:*


> Of course, the fact that we're even sitting here two years after Bush talking about a GOP comeback is a profound testament to two things: One, the American voter's unmatched ability to forget what happened to him 10 seconds ago, and two, the Republican Party's incredible recuperative skill and bureaucratic ingenuity. This is a party that in 2008 was not just beaten but obliterated, with nearly every one of its recognizable leaders reduced to historical-footnote status and pinned with blame for some ghastly political catastrophe.
> 
> There were literally no healthy bodies left on the bench, but the Republicans managed to get back in the game anyway by plucking an assortment of nativist freaks, village idiots and Internet Hitlers out of thin air and training them into a giant ball of incoherent resentment just in time for the 2010 midterms. They returned to prominence by outdoing Barack Obama at his own game: turning out masses of energized and disciplined supporters on the streets and overwhelming the ballot box with sheer enthusiasm.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

The notion that people were silent during the Bush spending deluge are fooling themselves. There were considerable complaints about defense spending, education spending, medicare spending and the senior prescription drug entitlement. However, campaigning against Bush while he was in office would have done what? Made sure some incompetent like Obama got into office next time? 

Still, if the GOP thinks the Tea Party candidates intend to play ball with them, they're in for a rude surprise.

28 days until Obama gets his...


----------



## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

Macfury said:


> The notion that people were silent during the Bush spending deluge are fooling themselves. There were considerable complaints about defense spending, education spending, medicare spending and the senior prescription drug entitlement. However, campaigning against Bush while he was in office would have done what? Made sure some incompetent like Obama got into office next time?


We see the same thing here. Many Conservative supporters are not happy at all with Harper's leftward shift, but what would a widespread protest yield? A move further to the left. <Insert frying pan-fire/baby-bathwater cliche here>


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

CubaMark said:


> Rather than run around the various threads looking for snippets on these deludigans, may I suggest a dedicated thread? With the mid-term elections coming up, we'll have lots to cover...
> 
> ...such as:
> 
> ...


"deludigans" is this a word you made up CM or is it borrowed?

Love the term, could be the hot commodity this Christmas err this years Shopping Season.


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*glenn beck flogging gold*

"Chapter 7 of Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America, looks at how Beck, who likes to present himself to his viewers as a regular schmo, has amassed an empire with an annual turnover of $32 million.

One route to his largesse, Milbank tells us, is his relentless plugging of gold which he tells his listeners and viewers is a sure-fire way for them to protect their savings amid economic collapse. "Conveniently, enough," he writes, "a top sponsor of Beck's radio, TV, and internet ventures is Goldine, a big gold dealer."

Goldline is featured in adverts sprinkled all over his website, GlennBeck.com. Goldline's president, Mark Albarian, has appeared on Beck's show many times, in which they regularly talk up its price.

"So, Mark, I saw a story last night that said we're ... we're running out of gold," Milbank quotes Beck as saying in one interview. "Is that even possible?"

"I think it is," Albarian replied. "Now, we won't actually run out of gold, but you'll see much higher prices in my opinion."

Beck makes regular mentions of Goldline on his radio show – paid plugs, says Milbank. And in a paid video made before he joined Fox, he invoked the Founding Fathers to make the case for gold. "If you're like our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, then just know that what's on the horizon is just temporary and this too shall pass. Here's the deal: Call Goldline.""


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

bsenka said:


> We see the same thing here. Many Conservative supporters are not happy at all with Harper's leftward shift, but what would a widespread protest yield? A move further to the left. <Insert frying pan-fire/baby-bathwater cliche here>


Harper has had a leftward shift? i think he's very much to the right of Mulroney.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

boukman2 said:


> "Chapter 7 of Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America, looks at how Beck, who likes to present himself to his viewers as a regular schmo, has amassed an empire with an annual turnover of $32 million.


Anyone who has listened to his program would know that Beck lets his listeners in on the value of his contracts, and the degree to which he amasses wealth. As Beck notes, his audience--unlike jealous left-leaning types--aren't consumed with jealousy, but encouraged by his success to go forth and do likewise.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> Harper has had a leftward shift? i think he's very much to the right of Mulroney.


Yes, from where he started and from his roots in the National Citizens Coalition. 

Mulroney, on the other hand, was far too pink for my tastes.

27 days until Obama gets bitch-slapped by voters.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

I took bsenka's comment to mean that Harper had shifted leftward during his time as PM. Perhaps i misinterpreted.

I didn't mind Mulroney. At least he tried to bring the country together instead of constantly wedge it apart.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> As Beck notes, his audience--unlike jealous left-leaning types--aren't consumed with jealousy, but encouraged by his success to go forth and do likewise.


Ah, yes, the weak, mysterious 'jealous' jibe so often weakly employed by the reptilian right.

Hands up anyone who's jealous of Beck!

Anyone?

Just as I thought. Does the poor old booby want everyone to be jealous of him? :baby:


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> Ah, yes, the weak, mysterious 'jealous' jibe so often weakly employed by the reptilian right.
> 
> Hands up anyone who's jealous of Beck!
> 
> ...


SQ: I'd forgotten that class envy had been wiped out in the British Isles so long ago.

In America, those who are jealous of another's wealth rarely come out and say they're jealous--they find other reasons as to why that person should not be wealthy, or otherwise attempt to taint the achievement. In the case of the OP's anecdote, the "secret" of Beck's wealth is well known to his audiences.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> SQ: I'd forgotten that class envy had been wiped out in the British Isles so long ago.
> 
> In America, those who are jealous of another's wealth rarely come out and say they're jealous--they find other reasons as to why that person should not be wealthy, or otherwise attempt to taint the achievement.


MF: Class *envy* might, or might not, have been 'wiped out' in the British Isles, to say nothing of the United Kingdom. You seem to know more than I about it. Can you enlighten us by putting a date on its passing? Perhaps you've forgotten that as well.

Class *contempt*, on the other hand, is endemic and entertaining, and is projected upwards and downwards with gusto.

The tag 'jealous' is often used by the well-off, be they aristos, media moguls, self-made millionaires, lottery winners etc. as a jibe to try and deflect attention away from any excesses and/or embarrassments of the moment. I include herewith a case in point from the recent past.

The phrase often used by right-wing politicos over here, when they wish to defend some measure that enrages the hoi polloi, is 'The Politics of Envy'. It's a babyish, soppy thing to say.



Macfury said:


> In the case of the OP's anecdote, the "secret" of Beck's wealth is well known to his audiences.


Tant pis.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

MacFury, I agree that Obama [ the one termer ] will get his, but it won't be by the GOP. his own Dems [ in a rush of "me too-ism" will flock to the Tea Party.....everyone likes to say they were on the winning team.

As for Beck, I detest him, he has a revisionist mind set to endorse his hegemony as historical fact, I especially like to line he uses [ after he plants his view ] for viewers to go read about his topics .... and of course why should they, if he encourages them to do so .... he must be accurate...... Most broadcasters on FOX are bullies, just watch any of their interviews, many ask a question, then answer it over their guest's voice, or won't allow them to finish their thoughts.

Beck is similar, but he is not the worst, but he seems to be the one that resonates the most with those living in what I call " the valley of the lost". I can hardly wait for him to start the: " if nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve" speech......


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Rps said:


> As for Beck, I detest him, he has a revisionist mind set to endorse his hegemony as historical fact, I especially like to line he uses [ after he plants his view ] for viewers to go read about his topics


I happen to have heard a few of his radio shows so I felt obliged to mention that the notion that his wealth is some sort of surprise is not accurate.

On another forum, I also pointed out in 2008 that a photo apparently showing Obama refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance at an Iowa primary was actually a photo of he candidates during the playing of the national anthem.

I need not agree with someone to defend them.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

MacFury, I can see your point, and we are free to defend whom we wish, and I too agree, you do not need to agree with them to defend their rights, however if we know that one makes stuff up or at least critically alters the presentation, then are they not abusing the concept of "rights" . We should be just as critical in our agreement as we are in our opposition.


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*worse than tea party*

finally, someone to make the tea partiers look sane and rational!!


----------



## patrickz (Sep 17, 2010)

I love those gold ads, for all the wrong reasons. It's a shame that some people fall for the scare tactics.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Just another of those "isolated" wingnuts that MF claims are not representative of the Tea Partiers...*



*Why is This GOP House Candidate Dressed as a Nazi?*



> An election year already notable for its menagerie of extreme and unusual candidates can add another one: Rich Iott, the Republican nominee for Congress from Ohio's 9th District, and a Tea Party favorite, who for years donned a German Waffen SS uniform and participated in Nazi re-enactments.





> Iott confirmed his involvement with the group over a number of years, but said his interest in Nazi Germany was historical and he does not subscribe to the tenets of Nazism. "No, absolutely not," he said. "In fact, there's a disclaimer on the [Wiking] website. And you'll find that on almost any reenactment website. It's purely historical interest in World War II."





> Historians of Nazi Germany vehemently dispute this characterization. "These guys don't know their history," said Charles W. Sydnor, Jr., a retired history professor and author of "Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-45," which chronicles an SS division. "They have a sanitized, romanticized view of what occurred." Sydnor added that re-enactments like the Wiking group's are illegal in Germany and Austria. "If you were to put on an SS uniform in Germany today, you'd be arrested."





> Asked whether his participation in a Nazi re-enactor's group might not upset voters, particularly Jewish voters, Iott said he hoped it would not: "They have to take it in context. There's reenactors out there who do everything. You couldn't do Civil War re-enacting if somebody didn't play the role of the Confederates. [This] is *something that's definitely way in the past.* ... [I hope voters] take it in context and see it for what it is, an interest in World War II history. And that's strictly all."





> "The entire German war effort in the East was a racial crusade to rid the world of 'subhumans,' Slavs were going to be enslaved in numbers of tens of millions. And of course the multimillion Jewish population of Eastern Europe was going to be exterminated altogether. That's what all these folks were doing in the East. It sends a shiver up my spine to think that people want to dress up and play SS on the weekend."


(Full story in The Atlantic)


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*bush & nazis*

of course there is a curious bush family connection to the nazis that is much closer than just 'play acting'...

"George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy."

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power | World news | The Guardian


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Sadly, six years later... I don't recall hearing of any progress on the civil suit... anyone with info?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> Sadly, six years later... I don't recall hearing of any progress on the civil suit... anyone with info?


I guess it died along with the suit against the Kennedy clan for the same thing.


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*lost in the constitution*

i am a bit surprised that the tea party thread died so soon when it is such an interesting subject. so here's something:



> The US constitution has its quirks but it is crystal clear on one issue: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," begins the first amendment, adopted in 1791. But more than 200 years later, its meaning appears to be lost on Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party favourite running for a US Senate seat.
> 
> At a debate today for the Delaware Senate seat once occupied by Vice President Joe Biden, O'Donnell appeared to be nonplussed by the wording of the first amendment, repeatedly returning to the subject and sounding incredulous after her Democratic opponent Chris ***** attempted to explain it to her.
> 
> ...


full article with shakey but good video:
Christine O'Donnell's church and state gaffe makes voters laugh | World news | The Guardian


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*and a look inside*

here is a very different look from someone who went to have a look at a tea party convention:



> Five months later, I was on the inside, looking out. When Tea Party Nation (one of several large rival groups across the country) announced that the first National Tea Party Convention, to be held in Nashville, Tennessee, in February 2010, would exclude the media, I signed up as a member and posted myself as a delegate. (Later, the organisers admitted hundreds of journalists from around the world, who were corralled on bleachers at the back of the ballroom where the main events were held, and whose view of the proceedings turned out to be very different from mine.) Breakfasting, lunching, dining (and smoking on the freezing balcony) with my fellow delegates over a three-day weekend inside the tropical pleasure dome of the Gaylord Opryland Resort, I met more bewilderment and incomprehension than I did rage.





> At mealtimes and on the smokers' balcony, I grew increasingly less guarded about voicing my own exasperation with the "birthers", the demonisation of immigrants, the idea that Barack Obama was part of a Marxist conspiracy to reshape the US into a communist tyranny, and the other hobbyhorses ridden by our plenary speakers; and nearly always I met with private agreement. People had come to Nashville spurred by rising unemployment figures in their towns, their underwater mortgages, the dwindling value of their retirement nest eggs, the shuttered storefronts on their local strip malls, excited by the Tea Party slogan, "Take Our Country Back". They wanted to do something to help, had hoped to learn how best to do it, and were impatient with the paranoid ideologues who harangued them in the ballroom.





> What I took home from Nashville was a troubling picture of the enormous gulf of trust and understanding that has opened up between the Obama administration and an unremarkable bunch of ordinary voters. The Tea Partiers I met were Republicans and independents, but (with a couple of exceptions) they weren't racist bigots, nor were they foaming-at-the-mouth rightwing hyenas. What led them to join the movement was less their anger than their perplexity – and one has to grant that they have much to be perplexed about.





> As Obama continues to talk to the nation as if we were grown-ups capable of appreciating the intellectual complexities of the situation we're in, he leaves more and more of his audience hungering for schoolroom certitudes and simple rules of thumb. So Christian fundamentalism has led directly to constitutional fundamentalism, in which the US Constitution is held to be a sacred text, to be interpreted literally, word by word. Palin herself has said that the Constitution is "law based on the God of the Bible and the 10 Commandments". The constitutional pietists, whose lips move as they trace the words with their forefingers, love the tenth amendment, which reads: "Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Because the Constitution fails to mention the minimum wage, Medicaid, social security or the department of education, Tea Party fundamentalists such as Joe Miller in Alaska and Sharron Angle in Nevada argue that such costly governmental fripperies are patently "unconstitutional", discretionary luxury items, to be adopted or rejected by individual states and their peoples. If we were only to read the Constitution aright, we'd be out of debt and recession tomorrow.


Jonathan Raban: Sipping with the Tea Party | World news | The Guardian


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

boukman2 said:


> i am a bit surprised that the tea party thread died so soon when it is such an interesting subject. so here's something:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


She wasn't bewildered, she was incredulous. The audience was wrong and O'Donnell was correct. Separation of Church and State relates to a Supreme Court decision. It is not in the First Amendment at all, which only prohibits the government from establishing a state religion a la the Church of England. When ***** realized his error, he tried to backtrack.

O'Donnell later asked ***** to list the five freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and ***** was unable to answer her question.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

boukman2 said:


> here is a very different look from someone who went to have a look at a tea party convention:


It's people like Raban who fail to understand that Obama is being rejected _because_ people understand what he is doing. They're not confused. They're not asking for platitudea (although Obama offers plenty of those: Hope, Change). They don't like the legislation Obama has passed and they don't trust him. They intend to reverse the legislation and disempower the President. No confusion there.



> A public plagued with Obama's version of plenty is turning on him and his abettors. It's not because voters have been rendered idiots by hard economic circumstances, as Obama put it somewhat more circumspectly in one of his talks, but because we see a truth he seems utterly incapable of accepting.


Ambrose: Oakeshott foretold Obama's fate | ScrippsNews


----------



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

Oops. As my grandfather once said, "You can put a shoe in the oven, but it won't come out a bagel." I have a feeling that some knowledgeable supporters of the Tea Party might be trying to distance themselves from Ms. O'Donnell, as this is not the image they are trying to present to the public. I don't buy into the whole "I am not a witch" controversy, since it is a foolish issue. However, her insistance of her being a constitutional expert is troublesome when one actually tries to discuss this document with her in public. We shall see. 

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> I have a feeling that some knowledgeable supporters of the Tea Party might be trying to distance themselves from Ms. O'Donnell, as this is not the image they are trying to present to the public.


I suspect most people in the U.S. government are not constitutional experts, however, O'Donnell was correct regarding the First Amendment and correctly held ***** to the flames over his error. The worst error by O'Donnell: she knew the Constitution but did not know the numbers of all of the amendments.

Most media will also not report, on the other hand, that in the same debate ***** failed to identify the five freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Michelle Malkin Chris ***** can’t name the five freedoms in the First Amendment



> O’Donnell was later able to score some points of her own off the remark, revisiting the issue to ask ***** if he could identify the “five freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment.”
> 
> ***** named the separation of church and state, but could not identify the others — the freedoms of speech, press, to assemble and petition.


----------



## Elric (Jul 30, 2005)

Is this the group that thinks they jizz demons?


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Macfury said:


> She wasn't bewildered, she was incredulous. The audience was wrong and O'Donnell was correct. Separation of Church and State relates to a Supreme Court decision. It is not in the First Amendment at all, which only prohibits the government from establishing a state religion a la the Church of England. When ***** realized his error, he tried to backtrack.


You seem to be in the minority....



> The US constitution has its quirks but it is crystal clear on one issue: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," begins the first amendment, adopted in 1791. But more than 200 years later, its meaning appears to be lost on Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party favourite running for a US Senate seat.
> 
> At a debate today for the Delaware Senate seat once occupied by Vice President Joe Biden, O'Donnell appeared to be nonplussed by the wording of the first amendment, repeatedly returning to the subject and sounding incredulous after her Democratic opponent Chris ***** attempted to explain it to her.
> 
> ...


(From the aforementioned Guardian article)

And...



> More tellingly, she stumbled earlier in the debate when she was asked if it was true she supported repealing the 14th (defines citizenship and allows foreign-born citizens to vote), 16th (establishes the income tax), and 17th amendments. She said would not repeal the 17th (direct election of senators), but needed a refresh on what the 14th and 16th were.
> 
> Look, if you handed me a quiz right now about the amendments to the Constitution, I'd fail. I admit this. But I am not running for Senate on a platform of returning the government to the founding principles enshrined in the Constitution, nor do I drop references to it every other sentence.
> 
> If you're going to wrap yourself in the Constitution, you ought to, you know, have enough of a nodding familiarity with it that you don't need a quick refresher in the middle of a public debate. (*O'Donnell claims a "graduate fellowship" at the Claremont Institute in constitutional law*...


(CaféMom blog)


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I'm not in the minority at all. An increasingly desperate media is mis-reporting the event in hope of stemming a humiliating blow against the Democrats. Even your link points out that the meaning and phrasing are found in Supreme Court rulings, not in the First Amendment. You'll scarcely see any reporting on *****' inability to list the five freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution during the same debate.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

I don't believe ***** has touted himself as a "constitutional expert" 

But as they say... even the devil can quote the bible to his own advantage....


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

er, furious, are you saying that after an entire auditorium of law students broke out laughing at her total ignorance of the constitution, you think that she understands it better than they do? i had the distinct impression that she had never even read the thing. we appreciate your enthusiastic support of untenable positions, but get a grip dude... stop being silly.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

boukman2 said:


> er, furious, are you saying that after an entire auditorium of law students broke out laughing at her total ignorance of the constitution, you think that she understands it better than they do?


Yes, I do.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> I don't believe ***** has touted himself as a "constitutional expert"


***** swore an oath to defend the constituion of the United States, yet he can't even list the freedoms that this Constitution guarantees all citizens.


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*no government at all is best*

you know furious, you were saying that you were thinking of moving to the US, but decided they were too lefty. well, i know a great place for you. no government and no taxes at all! really. you could see first hand how that works. you can find everything the tea party holds dear there. along with a compete absence of taxation, they have unrestricted ownership of weapons and religious fundamentalism is widespread. plus great beaches! it's a nice place in north east africa called somalia. just think of it. no government at all!


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I ask for Libertarianism, not anarchy!



boukman2 said:


> you know furious, you were saying that you were thinking of moving to the US, but decided they were too lefty. well, i know a great place for you. no government and no taxes at all! really. you could see first hand how that works. you can find everything the tea party holds dear there. along with a compete absence of taxation, they have unrestricted ownership of weapons and religious fundamentalism is widespread. plus great beaches! it's a nice place in north east africa called somalia. just think of it. no government at all!


----------



## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

boukman2 said:


> are you saying that after an entire auditorium of law students broke out laughing at her total ignorance of the constitution, you think that she understands it better than they do?


There is no question in this particular case that was exactly what happened.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Macfury said:


> ...O'Donnell was correct regarding the First Amendment and correctly held ***** to the flames over his error. The worst error by O'Donnell: she knew the Constitution but did not know the numbers of all of the amendments.
> 
> Most media will also not report, on the other hand, that in the same debate ***** failed to identify the five freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.


I'm going to have to go with bewildered, not incredulous, MF. She didn't know the 14th and 16th amendments either - so you should be holding her to the same standard as *****. 

And then there is this little tidbit:



> When asked recently what qualified her for the senate, O'Donnell discussed her "graduate fellowship from the Claremont Institute in constitutional government."
> 
> "By the way, the graduate fellowship she talks about from the Claremont Institute? The Claremont Institute is a conservative think tank, it's not a university, and the fellowship lasted a grand total of seven days," Cooper said. (Huffington Post / CNN)


Throwing out the phrase "graduate scholarship" and "Claremont Institute" likely impresses a lot of folks who can't be bothered to go beyond the superficial.

O'Donnell also claims to have studied at Oxford University (UK) - which turns out not to be true. The Claremont Institute (mentioned in the linked story) appears to have a less-than-stellar opinion of its alumnus :lmao:


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I invite anyone to read the nonsense article CubaMark has linked to at "Tea Party Muckraker." About as sad a piece of journalism as I've seen in recent years. The tiny claim may or may not be true depending on who you believe.

Pretty tiny story considering the Tsunami that will sweep Obama into oblivion in just a few days.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

So... you're not at all bothered by her self-misrepresentation. Interesting....


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> So... you're not at all bothered by her self-misrepresentation. Interesting....


The hurried desperation of the article is such that I can barely decide who is correct. I'll wait for some informed comment--including her own explanation--before weighing in.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Well - here's one you might be able to answer before awaiting word from "on high": Does O'Donnell's 7-day stint as a "graduate fellow" at the Claremont Institute sufficiently qualify her as a constitutional expert? 

Seems like a pretty easy question, MF...


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> Well - here's one you might be able to answer before awaiting word from "on high": Does O'Donnell's 7-day stint as a "graduate fellow" at the Claremont Institute sufficiently qualify her as a constitutional expert?
> 
> Seems like a pretty easy question, MF...


I believe she knows more about the Constitution than does *****, regardless of what the Claremont Institute is. Neither can be classified as experts.


----------



## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

Was just strolling by and thought I'd toss this in here:

3 GOP Hopefuls Have Spent a Quarter-Billion Dollars - Seriously ... and they're not even ahead in the polls

Yessir, them's the representatives of the true Merkin people ...


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

chas_m said:


> Was just strolling by and thought I'd toss this in here:
> 
> 3 GOP Hopefuls Have Spent a Quarter-Billion Dollars - Seriously ... and they're not even ahead in the polls


That's going to be a mighty big headline on the day your man Obama gets trounced, Chazz.


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*mogadishu*

you know furious, i am extremely disappointed that you didn't like my somalia plan for you. i was sure you would be on the next plane to mogadishu. why do you say it's chaos? they have businesses, millions of people live there, go about their daily lives. it's just that they don't have any government. isnt' that the ultimate goal of the tea party? 

but anyhow, i have another question for you. what about china? i mean, these guys are actual communists! self proclaimed, unlike obama. they admit it! plus, talk about big government... but they are kicking the **** out of america, aren't they? they are putting in an enormous high speed rail network, are working on all kinds of renewable energy sources, are buying up subtantial parts of africa, south america and who knows where else. there was an article in the nytimes a bit back about some silicon valley types who found a new way to make solar panels. way cheaper, way better. the best and brightest, backed by big private money. then china dumped $20 billion into conventional panel production. whoopsie. guess whose panels are going on the roof at walmarts?
i am a bit confused about this business of governments being bad.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

boukman2 said:


> you know furious, i am extremely disappointed that you didn't like my somalia plan for you. i was sure you would be on the next plane to mogadishu. why do you say it's chaos? they have businesses, millions of people live there, go about their daily lives. it's just that they don't have any government. isnt' that the ultimate goal of the tea party?


The proper function of government is to supply a judicial system, police force and national defense and as few additional services as are required to allow people to go about their own business freely. The goal of the Tea Party has never been to eliminate government but to reduce its power and role in the everyday lives of citizens.



boukman2 said:


> but anyhow, i have another question for you. what about china? i mean, these guys are actual communists! self proclaimed, unlike obama. they admit it! plus, talk about big government... but they are kicking the **** out of america, aren't they? they are putting in an enormous high speed rail network, are working on all kinds of renewable energy sources, are buying up subtantial parts of africa, south america and who knows where else. there was an article in the nytimes a bit back about some silicon valley types who found a new way to make solar panels. way cheaper, way better. the best and brightest, backed by big private money. then china dumped $20 billion into conventional panel production. whoopsie. guess whose panels are going on the roof at walmarts?
> i am a bit confused about this business of governments being bad.


\

China understands one half of the equation. It has allowed its businesses the freedom to do what they do best, without much government interference. As long as the U.S. continues to hobble its businesses through excess regulation and confiscatory tax policies, China will continue to kick its ass. If China grants its individual citizens the same freedoms once enjoyed by Americans, the U.S. will be crushed, both economically and culturally.


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

but in china, it isn't that the government is letting private enterprise do business, it's the government itself which is doing the business. the US didn't do anything to stop the solar panel guys, they even kicked in half a billion dollars. but in china, the government put in $20 billion (and provided land). that isn't just not stopping business. that's kickstarting it. likewise with their high speed trains. it's the government itself which is creating these huge, highly functional corporations/enterprises. even though they are pinko commies and are supposed to be wallowing in indecision and red tape...


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

You can get a lot done if the gubbmint has a Big Brother-style profile. Alas, you can do an awful lot of the wrong things in the process.

Beneath the surface however, Chinese government systems and Chinese big business share so many ties as to appear largely indistinguishable. Isn't that how it ultimately works here in Canada, for that matter? States, too. The biggest companies have the deepest pockets, thereby able to exert the most influence, lobby more effectively, fund the politicians they want to do their bidding, etc. Conversely, those companies which require state intervention to free things up (logging and drilling rights come to mind, as do cross-border tussles with neigbouring states harbouring coveted mineral and other rights) can (behind the scenes, of course) summon state powers to favourably change up laws and enact new ones.

All this is easier to perform if the host nation historically prefers a strong paternalistic leader culture, one in which the masses are inured to obeying state dictates; where individual rights are seldom admired, much less championed. It's harder to meld big business and government in North America, but then again it's still possible for the people to lull themselves into a kind of willful ignorance - all the better for all those shady shenanigans conducted behind closed doors.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max: I agree to a point. The people need to believe that their lot will also improve because of their efforts. 

In the case of China merely subsidizing its exports by having the government pay for it all--go ahead. That's a failing business model. We can sell half-price steel if we merely agree to pay the operating cost of all Hamilton steel mills. That's not a triumph of government but a ridiculous failing, by forcing the Chinese taxpayer to subsidize our purchases. How long can that go on?


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

er, i am not quite sure where i see the chinese model as failing? seems to me that what they are doing isn't subsidising, it's investing. they are putting lots of money into new technology and using economy of scale to make a better, cheaper product. and they will make pots of money. hardly a bad business model...


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

boukman2 said:


> er, i am not quite sure where i see the chinese model as failing? seems to me that what they are doing isn't subsidising, it's investing. they are putting lots of money into new technology and using economy of scale to make a better, cheaper product. and they will make pots of money. hardly a bad business model...


They can only make pots of money so long as customers outside of China are willing to pony up for their goods. That is a situation which can change at any time; a bad economy in the West can inflict heavy damages on China's own economy, considering how much of it is based on exports. The spectre of protectionism here could entail similar changes in the status quo.

Moreover, as China's standard of living rises, so do the expectations of its workforce - they want more in the way of material goods and will, inevitably, want safer working conditions, better wages for their efforts so as to have greater buying power... so it goes. It's not a static model. As well, there are signs that the Chinese people themselves want a more open democratic model than what is presently the case. There is already friction over this, particularly as it concerns the desires and customary authority of the politburo. That too can negatively impact their economic engine and aspirations for global dominance.

Yes, the Chinese are investing heavily in infrastructure, particularly transportation. Pretty smart. But when you're spending on the kind of scale they are, the mistakes can be very costly; centralized planning has its pitfalls.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

boukman2 said:


> er, i am not quite sure where i see the chinese model as failing? seems to me that what they are doing isn't subsidising, it's investing. they are putting lots of money into new technology and using economy of scale to make a better, cheaper product. and they will make pots of money. hardly a bad business model...


No, they're paying the world to buy their products by failing to reflect the costs of production in the price. It's unsustainable. Keep going China!


----------



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

Macfury said:


> No, they're paying the world to buy their products by failing to reflect the costs of production in the price. It's unsustainable. Keep going China!


Guess that they might have to fall back upon their stockpile of $700 billion dollars of US Treasury Bills. That should lessen the fall ............ unless the US defaults. We shall see.


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

boukman2 said:


> er, i am not quite sure where i see the chinese model as failing? seems to me that what they are doing isn't subsidising, it's investing. they are putting lots of money into new technology and using economy of scale to make a better, cheaper product. and they will make pots of money. hardly a bad business model...


Totalitarian Capitalism!....what could possible go wrong?


----------



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

BigDL said:


> Totalitarian Capitalism!....what could possible go wrong?


Right on, BigDL. "The business of America is business." So said Calvin Coolidge.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> Totalitarian Capitalism!....what could possible go wrong?


It was called an economic miracle when Hitler did it!


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

hmmm... i'm still not hearing anyone telling me that the chinese government's big business is doing badly. a couple of you tell me authoritatively that it will go bad, but we don't seem to be seeing any sign of that. and no one is saying that they haven't been able to move quickly and intelligently. now they are selling solar panels to the US, tomorrow it will be high speed trains...
another interesting comparison is to look at the military dictatorships in latin america from the end of the 50's up through to the late 80's. the cry was always 'we must save the country from socialism/communism! it will ruin the country!' they then 'opened up' the economies. what happened? well, i don't think anyone claims they did anything other than run their countries into the ground. industries weren't built, currencies plummeted, foreign debt rocketed upwards. plus, the infrastructure didn't keep up, increased crime followed economic polarization. bad stuff. finally they got the boot, democracy returned and under moderate to, heaven forbid!, lefty governments, they are beginning to improve. brazil in particular, under that notorious far lefty lula, has paid off its foreign debt, built up industrly, reduced poverty and is hovering on world power status. russia has a wide open for business attitude and it's a mess.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

boukman2 said:


> hmmm... i'm still not hearing anyone telling me that the chinese government's big business is doing badly. a couple of you tell me authoritatively that it will go bad, but we don't seem to be seeing any sign of that. and no one is saying that they haven't been able to move quickly and intelligently. now they are selling solar panels to the US, tomorrow it will be high speed trains...
> another interesting comparison is to look at the military dictatorships in latin america from the end of the 50's up through to the late 80's. the cry was always 'we must save the country from socialism/communism! it will ruin the country!' they then 'opened up' the economies. what happened? well, i don't think anyone claims they did anything other than run their countries into the ground. industries weren't built, currencies plummeted, foreign debt rocketed upwards. plus, the infrastructure didn't keep up, increased crime followed economic polarization. bad stuff. finally they got the boot, democracy returned and under moderate to, heaven forbid!, lefty governments, they are beginning to improve. brazil in particular, under that notorious far lefty lula, has paid off its foreign debt, built up industrly, reduced poverty and is hovering on world power status. russia has a wide open for business attitude and it's a mess.


Your statements are far too generalized to respond to with any precision. Even a "lefty" democracy will outperform a military dictatorship and a commodity-rich country such as Brazil will be able to maintain a decent balance of trade by selling its resources and dominating trade in the South and Latin American sector.

Russia is actually doing reasonably well, considering the amount of state interference in its economy. Saying it is "wide open for business" is misleading.

If you believe that having the Chinese government subsidize the price of its goods is a recipe for success, then why doesn't Canada merely halve the price of its export goods and have the taxpayer kick in the price of the other half?


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

yawn... oh, excuse me! did i fall asleep?? are you saying The Same Old Thing? the chinese govt isn't subsidizing, it's investing. didn't i say that already? 
hmmm... as for brasil my point was that the absence of control of life, aside from security, (your ideal state, except for somalia natch) as we saw under the military, didn't work. nothing to do with democracy. why would democracy be better for business? likewise with pretty much all the latino countries in that period. (argentina of course, crashed anyhow. oh well. nobody's perfect...) 
and why do you say russia interferes in business? if you have the money, the government will do anything you like. or not do anything, which is sort of your preferred position, isn't it? and they are a mess. in spite of being a Super Power, their GDP is less than those lefties in brasil. and they are a democracy. and they have piles of resources. 
and what do mean my statements are 'too generzlized'? this is just a friendly, amusing chat. you have some interesting ideas re: tea party and i am just poking you to see what you think. generality is sort of what this is all about, dont' you think? no phd's in economics here. jes' folks...


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

boukman2 said:


> yawn... oh, excuse me! did i fall asleep?? are you saying The Same Old Thing? the chinese govt isn't subsidizing, it's investing. didn't i say that already?


Well if it's investing in such a way that it makes the goods it sells to the world temporarily cheaper, by all means let it continue "investing" until it is bankrupt.



boukman2 said:


> hmmm... as for brasil my point was that the absence of control of life, aside from security, (your ideal state, except for somalia natch) as we saw under the military, didn't work. nothing to do with democracy. why would democracy be better for business? likewise with pretty much all the latino countries in that period. (argentina of course, crashed anyhow. oh well. nobody's perfect...)


Democracy and freedom are better for business because it allows fluidity in decision making and allocates resources where they are needed. Government is not capable of moving so deftly.

But discussing all Latino countries at once...? they're too varied. What do Chile, Venezuela and Ecuador have in common?



boukman2 said:


> and why do you say russia interferes in business? if you have the money, the government will do anything you like. or not do anything, which is sort of your preferred position, isn't it? and they are a mess. in spite of being a Super Power, their GDP is less than those lefties in brasil. and they are a democracy. and they have piles of resources.


The Russian government does not allow businesses to operate independently. They're a mess because they remain bankrupt after the collapse of their empire. Their commodities are saving their asses.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Tea Party, Inc: The Illustrated Guide*





> AlterNet and The Nation Institute's Investigative Fund teamed up to put together this fabulous report on Tea Party, Inc.





> The Tea Parties are billed as a people's movement. But they wouldn't exist without the help of deep-pocketed billionaires.


(Crooks & Liars)


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

^^^^^^^^^^
I'll read that after they trounce Obama on November 2nd.


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*monbiot*

here are some thoughts: 



> The Tea Party movement is remarkable in two respects. It is one of the biggest exercises in false consciousness the world has seen – and the biggest Astroturf operation in history. These accomplishments are closely related.
> 
> An Astroturf campaign is a fake grassroots movement: it purports to be a spontaneous uprising of concerned citizens, but in reality it is founded and funded by elite interests. Some Astroturf campaigns have no grassroots component at all. Others catalyse and direct real mobilisations. The Tea Party belongs in the second category. It is mostly composed of passionate, well-meaning people who think they are fighting elite power, unaware that they have been organised by the very interests they believe they are confronting.





> The Kochs want to pay less tax, keep more profits and be restrained by less regulation. Their challenge has been to persuade the people harmed by this agenda that it's good for them.





> The New Yorker magazine, in the course of a remarkable exposure of the Koch brothers' funding networks, interviewed some of their former consultants. "The Koch brothers gave the money that founded [the Tea Party]," one of them explained. "It's like they put the seeds in the ground. Then the rainstorm comes, and the frogs come out of the mud – and they're our candidates!" Another observed that the Kochs are smart. "This rightwing, ******* stuff works for them. They see this as a way to get things done without getting dirty themselves."


this is the money quote:


> Most of these bodies call themselves "free-market thinktanks", but their trick – as (Astro)Turf Wars points out – is to conflate crony capitalism with free enterprise, and free enterprise with personal liberty. Between them they have constructed the philosophy that informs the Tea Party movement: its members mobilise for freedom, unaware that the freedom they demand is freedom for corporations to trample them into the dirt.


i loooove the tea party!! it's the most interesting thing to come along since, well, george orwell i guess!

oh, quotes from: 
The Tea Party movement: deluded and inspired by billionaires | Comment is free | The Guardian

monbiot is some pinko mao jacket wearing geek forever writing about how we are wrecking the environment...


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Obama! Champion of the "little man."


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*back to the latin american analogy!!*



> Democracy and freedom are better for business because it allows fluidity in decision making and allocates resources where they are needed. Government is not capable of moving so deftly.


but furious, it is the chinese who allocated resources and made a fluid decision to dump huge amounts of money into solar panels and kicking the cr*p out of those brainy big bucks boys in silicon valley! that is my point exactly! thank you for making it clear! they also dumped even more (i have no idea how much...) into building a high speed rail network. meanwhile the americanskis are struggling with the idea... 



> But discussing all Latino countries at once...? they're too varied. What do Chile, Venezuela and Ecuador have in common?


but oddly, if you look at latin america since the end of the 50's what you see is exactly an astonishing commonality. countries with fledgling democracies that thought it would be a good idea to have some infrastructure, basic services like healthcare for the bottom of society, were dumped for what in chile was called 'the chicago boys', who brought in all this purported 'free market' principles, that trashed all their economies. oddly enought, they do have this basic structure all in common. the military followed, at least nominally, an economic 'philosophy' well in line with what the far right (i know, they are pinkos well to your left...), along wih the tea party, say would be great. uh, hullo? maybe you guys should have a little historical look at what happens when you actually do all this stuff? 
at least we agree the chinese and the brazilians are doing great!
do you really think the russkies interfere too much in the economy? i thought that was only when putin wanted some business, or say, all the gas, and someone disagreed with him so he threw him in jail?


----------



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

Breaking News Alert: Murkowski wins Alaska Senate race, AP reports
November 17, 2010 3:14:16 PM
--------------------

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has become the first Senate candidate in more than 50 years to win a write-in campaign, the Associated Press reports.

Murkowski emerged victorious after a painstaking, two-week count of write-in ballots showed she has overtaken tea party rival Joe Miller.

PostPolitics: Washington Post Politics Page, Political News


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

That's a shame. She should have run for the Democrat Party.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> Obama! Champion of the "little man."


Amen, Brother MF ........... although she is a woman. Still, she was able to beat back the onslaught of THE Mama Bear in Alaska. Paix, mon ami.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> That's a shame. She should have run for the Democrat Party.


Maybe she will sit with their caucus? We shall see.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*There's a problem with too much exposure, even in such a tightly-controlled / edited arena as your own reality series: you just can't cover up everything with a 'you betcha" and a wink...*

*Sarah Palin the TV Star Exposes Sarah Palin the Fake Hunter*



> Several others wondered why Palin, an experienced hunter, didn't bring her own rifle, pointing out that familiarity with one's weapon is a core principle of hunting. Another pointed out, regarding Palin's veteran hunter dad, "I was surprised to see him using the gun as a walking stick."
> 
> Several hunter friends to whom I showed the video were less than impressed. All agreed that she did not look like she had handled a gun many times. One, who just posted his November kill on his Facebook profile, said "I would not hunt with her."
> 
> ...


(The Awl)


----------



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

CubaMark said:


> *There's a problem with too much exposure, even in such a tightly-controlled / edited arena as your own reality series: you just can't cover up everything with a 'you betcha" and a wink...*
> 
> *Sarah Palin the TV Star Exposes Sarah Palin the Fake Hunter*
> 
> ...


Well, she can still see Russia from her kitchen ............. so if she can see them, those Ruskies had better watch out since she could also shoot them ................. possibly mistaking them for polar bears .......... and thus, starting WWIII. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*northern tragedy*

she is too a great hunter!


----------



## kps (May 4, 2003)

What the heck was that? She didn't even chamber the next round herself...some one had to do it for her. I'm actually surprised they showed all the misses. Either the rifle wasn't sighted in or she's a terrible shot. LOL


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

You have to wonder about anyone expecting reality from a reality series. Brings to mind the John Kerry hunting campaign of 2004 in which he blundered his way into duck blinds and piney woods all over America to prove what a hunter he was, delivering his famous line in an Ohio gun shop where he inquired, in some sort of imitation twang: “Can I get me a hunting license here?” At another stop he yanked out a shotgun and told alarmed listeners that he wanted to go "gobble-huntin'." Or the pheasant hunt in Iowa where he walked out of an Iowa cornfield, hands stained with what he claimed was "goose blood."


----------



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

CubaMark said:


> *There's a problem with too much exposure, even in such a tightly-controlled / edited arena as your own reality series: you just can't cover up everything with a 'you betcha" and a wink...*
> 
> *Sarah Palin the TV Star Exposes Sarah Palin the Fake Hunter*
> 
> ...


Just watched the video clip. SICK!!!! tptptptp

I was waiting for her to bring out a grenade launcher after her first few misses. 

Such a majestic animal killed for no reason at all other than a photo op. tptptptptptptptp:-(


----------



## kps (May 4, 2003)

I agree with you up to a point. I really truly hope that the animal wasn't killed needlessly just to satisfy a photo op and that the meat will be utilized or donated to someone who will.

But seeing that pathetic performance, I have an uncomfortable feeling in my gut about it.


----------



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

kps said:


> I agree with you up to a point. I really truly hope that the animal wasn't killed needlessly just to satisfy a photo op and that the meat will be utilized or donated to someone who will.
> 
> But seeing that pathetic performance, I have an uncomfortable feeling in my gut about it.


I would have doubted she would have skinned the animal and saved the meat on the spot. Maybe she will have the head saved to be mounted on her wall, but I still say it was a photo op and a needless slaughter of a majestic animal. It is one thing to hunt for food, but another thing just to hunt to say you killed something ............... and on camera. The three of them were getting frantic that she would lose this moment. tptptptp:-(


----------



## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Don't hunt any more and when I did it was only birds, but most of my avid hunting buddies claim they seldom fire a second round at the same animal.

My ******* buddy who teaches hunter safety, dam near turned Democrat when he saw that bit.


----------



## kps (May 4, 2003)

My gut also tells me she may not have downed that caribou herself. The whole thing is just sad really. The good news is... she really _outed_ herself. The great Alaskan hunter is a fraud. lol


----------



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

eMacMan said:


> Don't hunt any more and when I did it was only birds, but most of my avid hunting buddies claim they seldom fire a second round at the same animal.
> 
> My ******* buddy who teaches hunter safety, dam near turned Democrat when he saw that bit.


Good for him, eMacMan. Hopefully, enough people will be turned off by this act. We shall see. Paix, mon ami.


----------



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

kps said:


> My gut also tells me she may not have downed that caribou herself. The whole thing is just sad really. The good news is... she really _outed_ herself. The great Alaskan hunter is a fraud. lol


I found it interesting that they had the elk in the camera sight and cross-hairs as it was killed. No sign that she killed it herself. tptptptp


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> You have to wonder about anyone expecting reality from a reality series.


Ah, but, expectations notwithstanding, reality is precisely what we did get here - we got the _real_, inept, mutton-dressed-up-as-lamb, oaf that is Sarah Palin. It's not the 'reality' that she and her backers would wish to foist upon us, I'm sure.
If this was supposed to be a cute piece of propaganda, then it qualifies as what, in soccer parlance, is known as an own goal.

To be fair though, even if she doesn't know east from west, at least she didn't suffer a blue-on-blue, Cheyney-esque accident and shoot one of her fellow hunters ... this time.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

I just love this..... the timing of this show and the subject matter is the best type of non-politics politics. However, I have a question for all the hunters out there .... wouldn't that buck be gone after the first missed shot?


----------



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

Rps said:


> I just love this..... the timing of this show and the subject matter is the best type of non-politics politics. However, I have a question for all the hunters out there .... wouldn't that buck be gone after the first missed shot?


I thought that myself, Rps. Still, we may never know. tptptptp


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I would kill an animal to survive but I don't have the stomach for killing them as a pastime. I understand the need to cull deer herds where the deer are starving due to overpopulation--you may as well let someone who finds pleasure in hunting take care of that. 

I'm less inclined to be critical of Ducks Unlimited which actually creates and maintains wetlands--then picks off some of the ducks.


----------



## kps (May 4, 2003)

A couple of guesses if it wasn't skillful editing...I say that because we heard a shot while the animal was in a gallop. 

They were down wind and the sound would carry away from the animal and it wasn't loud enough to make it bolt. There was no perceived threat. Even when scared, sometimes they do not run too far and even come back.


----------



## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> Good for him, eMacMan. Hopefully, enough people will be turned off by this act. We shall see. Paix, mon ami.


Sadly I said almost. This is a man that is proud of having contributed to Bushes election campaign.

My own view is that both parties have long since sold out to the Banksters, Big Pharma, Monsanto, Big Oil..... The nations only hope is in the independents: 

Sen. Sanders: War Is Being Waged On America's Middle Class (VIDEO) | TPMDC


----------



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

eMacMan said:


> Sadly I said almost. This is a man that is proud of having contributed to Bushes election campaign.
> 
> My own view is that both parties have long since sold out to the Banksters, Big Pharma, Monsanto, Big Oil..... The nations only hope is in the independents:
> 
> Sen. Sanders: War Is Being Waged On America's Middle Class (VIDEO) | TPMDC


Good for him, eMacMan. I would be voting with him and, sadly, against Obama's compromise. I see why Obama did this, but I still could not vote in favor of extending these tax cuts for the top 1% of Americans in terms of wealth.


----------



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

Palin's reckless views on obesity - CNN.com

Maybe if the kids were out hunting they would not be obese???


----------



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

This just in from CNN.com -- Rand Paul said that he supports the tax cuts to those earning a million dollars or more, but is against the corresponding extension in unemployment insurance for those still out of work because of the recession. So, in his view, it is OK to cut an extra 13 weeks to a year of benefits for those trying to find work, but not to touch tax breaks for those earning a million or more. tptptptp

"The most important thing government can do right now for the economy is to extend the Bush tax cuts. I would be for extending them permanently...If you're going to extend and add new tax cuts, you should couple them with cuts in spending. Instead, we're coupling them with increases in spending and I think that's the wrong thing to do.

"So I'd be leaning against voting for it."


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I agree with Rand Paul on this. Extending unemployment benefits to three full years is helping to create a permanent underclass. If three years, why not four--or would you simply extend unemployment benefits ad infinitum, Dr. G?

As to the tax cuts, I believe there should have been a flat tax rate years ago. Cut them all or cut none of them--or move all taxes to consumption tax. Again, the current tax structure is also creating an underclass in which the bottom end of the fiscal spectrum pays no federal taxes at all. That number is currently set at 47 per cent of all Americans. This is not to say they pay NO taxes--they may still pay state and local--but they are voting for federal politicians who set federal tax policy while they have no skin in the game themselves.


----------



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

Macfury, the extension of unemployment benefits are for 13 months. This is for people who have been working for most of their lives, and are now out of work through no fault of their own. Giving them a bridge does NOT creat a "permanent underclass" since the tax cuts for millionaires will "trickle down" to provide them with real jobs once again, at least that is what the Republicans contend. I don't see this happening, so you are left with tax cuts for those who have no needs that can't be met with their basic income, and, as you propose, cutting benefits to people who have reached the end of their unemployment benefits. Personally, I hope you are never in the situation of this latter group. Paix, mon ami.

YouTube - A Christmas Carol -- Ignorance & Want

YouTube - Scrooge (Alastair Sim) #1

Sen. Sanders: War Is Being Waged On America's Middle Class (VIDEO) | TPMDC


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> Macfury, the extension of unemployment benefits are for 13 months. This is for people who have been working for most of their lives, and are now out of work through no fault of their own. Giving them a bridge does NOT creat a "permanent underclass" since the tax cuts for millionaires will "trickle down" to provide them with real jobs once again, at least that is what the Republicans contend. I don't see this happening, so you are left with tax cuts for those who have no needs that can't be met with their basic income, and, as you propose, cutting benefits to people who have reached the end of their unemployment benefits. Personally, I hope you are never in the situation of this latter group. Paix, mon ami.


Why consider this as an either/or situation. Turns out that Obama loaned a trillion more dollars to various private industries under the table through the Fed during the so-called financial crisis. If all of this money hadn't been shoveled out the door at such an alarming rate, both tax cuts and UI benefits would be easily affordable.

But I reiterate the question. How long should UI benefits last? Three years? Four years? Forever?


----------



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

The first $700 billion was "shoveled out" under the Bush Administration. Where that went, no one really knows. At least since Obama took over, there is a degree of accountability. I would say that the proposed UI extension of 13 months is fair, but if you want another number, three years is better. 

As I said, I hope that you are never in the position that some people are today, through no fault of their own. Paix, mon ami. 

YouTube - Scrooge (Alastair Sim) #9


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> If three years, why not four--or would you simply extend unemployment benefits ad infinitum


Not all slopes are slippery MF. Society can and should help people who are suffering, poor, uneducated, sick, unemployed, etc. to the greatest extent it is able to do so. But all socialized expenses have be be considered and prioritized in context. There is certainly an argument to be made for four, five or more years, but obviously this would be a proportionately greater expense. In a democracy, we vote for and elect representatives to decide where to draw these lines, on the basis of competing priorities.

To trivialize the argument about where the priorities are and where to draw the line by suggesting that extending UI benefits for X number of months is somehow indistinguishable from suggesting that they should be extended "ad infinitum" is disingenuous.

It is most unfortunate that the arguments about how much cash should be shovelled into the banker's marginally depleted coffers is held in isolation to the argument about how much UI support should be provided to the millions that were laid off due to the greed of those same bankers, but that is the nature of the current system. If you have any clever suggestions as to how that could be corrected, I'd love to hear them.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> It is most unfortunate that the arguments about how much cash should be shovelled into the banker's marginally depleted coffers is held in isolation to the argument about how much UI support should be provided to the millions that were laid off due to the greed of those same bankers, but that is the nature of the current system. If you have any clever suggestions as to how that could be corrected, I'd love to hear them.


I would have supported $0 to either the bankers or the car companies. The question I'm asking is whether unemployment insurance should be treated like an entitlement--to continue as long the person remains unemployed, regardless of reason. Could the government afford it--sure if it ceased to behave like a banker or automaker. The question is whether open-ended UI is good for people, or the economy.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> The first $700 billion was "shoveled out" under the Bush Administration. Where that went, no one really knows. At least since Obama took over, there is a degree of accountability. I would say that the proposed UI extension of 13 months is fair, but if you want another number, three years is better.
> 
> As I said, I hope that you are never in the position that some people are today, through no fault of their own. Paix, mon ami.
> 
> YouTube - Scrooge (Alastair Sim) #9


It's pretty clear where the $700 billion went--a little less clear where Obama's porkulus spending bill wound up.

I suspect the 13-month limit is being designed to end next Christmas, so as to make the most political hay when Democrats demand it be extended another year. We shall see.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Another land mine to step on ..... I sort of agree with MacFury on this. But the real issue is not tax cuts or dolling for dollars, rather the philosophy of the central government. When you think about it, all ministries, or secretaries in the U.S., are really built for minority interests, rather than the whole.

What the government should do is be fair ... that to me is giving elements of society what they need to succeed, but it should be at a sustainable cost. UIC, should be an insurance approach, I have a policy and I pay to receive a benefit if I am unemployed. If I have paid for years and never drew on it, that money should be rolled into my RSP.

A Flat Tax is fair, we may not like the idea, but it's fair. The reality is the U.S. [ and us ] insist on caving to the minority interest rather than the majority. It be effective the governments need to step back and look at where they are spending money [ our money ] and make choices which will impact the greatest number of people. 

Ask yourself this question [ pretend you are an American ] is the funding of our defense budget reasonable?
Ask yourself, in Canada, is the distribution of budget dollars by the Federal government fair, especially in light of the delegation of duties within the BNA?

We are a country of 30 plus million people, so ask yourself does the amount of money we spend annually on the running of Parliament make sense ... that includes the number of members elected and appointed.... and the GG?

So I think this is the question that the Tea Party is trying to ask of the American people. I think that they cater to the "wacko" element due to the philosophical underpinning of that pseudo-party. But our form of capitalism/democracy doesn't appear to be working, in my opinion .... I think it is focused on greed and not the majority interests.

You may assail me now.....


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I largely agree, rps.

I won't even play the ludicrous game of calling the current fiscal choices "tax cuts. These are the tax _rates_ and have been for 10 years. What Obama was proposing was a tax increase. The opportunity cost of not increasing taxes on the wealthy, then is about $69 billion this year. Cost of extending UI benefits is about $60 billion in spending, not opportunity cost. 

We have plenty of money available for social safety nets, but not when the government is spending money on propping up a beeswax industry created to provide materials for WWII munitions. What's shocking is to see how quickly money could be found to prop up Wall Street and GM, but how scarce it seems at other times. It's easy to find money for UI (Barney Frank) but impossible to find it if it involves maintaining tax rates for higher income earners.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> It's pretty clear where the $700 billion went--a little less clear where Obama's porkulus spending bill wound up.
> 
> I suspect the 13-month limit is being designed to end next Christmas, so as to make the most political hay when Democrats demand it be extended another year. We shall see.


Other way around. Bush $700 billion went to the banks but was not accounted for, while Obama's money went with strings attached.


----------



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

"It's easy to find money for UI (Barney Frank) but impossible to find it if it involves maintaining tax rates for higher income earners. " Again, the other way around. Money was found to give the high income earners their tax breaks, but Obama had to go begging for the additional 13 months of UI. Granted, take away an unfair tax break to the very rich and it will result in a tax increase for them. I see nothing wrong with this sort of increase.


----------



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

"But our form of capitalism/democracy doesn't appear to be working, in my opinion .... I think it is focused on greed and not the majority interests.

You may assail me now..... " 

No need to assail you, Rps. You are right. The current unregulated capitalism that was seen under Bush resulted in a near Depression similar to the Great Depression. That let loose the forces of greed, while the majority of people were left to pick up the tab. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> Other way around. Bush $700 billion went to the banks but was not accounted for, while Obama's money went with strings attached.


By accountable I meant, we know where the money went. Much of the porkulus fund went to pet projects that had nothing to do with stimulus or "shovel-ready" projects.



> Again, the other way around. Money was found to give the high income earners their tax breaks, but Obama had to go begging for the additional 13 months of UI. Granted, take away an unfair tax break to the very rich and it will result in a tax increase for them. I see nothing wrong with this sort of increase.


I know you see nothing wrong with it. However, I don't agree with you. I have never supported "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" unless this is done through personal choice. 

The point I'm making is that the government can find money when it wishes to, and becomes dirt poor when it does not wish to support a particular endeavour. Nancy Pelosi was uttering some nonsense about the way in which UI payments spur economic growth, and reward the country with $2 in economic activity for every dollar spent, therefore UI pays for itself. This is completely disingenuous reasoning.

Obama, by the way does not need to go "begging" for anything. He still has a majority in the House and Senate, so I see no reason for him to act as though he needed to negotiate on this entire issue. It's all grandstanding.



> The current unregulated capitalism that was seen under Bush resulted in a near Depression similar to the Great Depression. That let loose the forces of greed, while the majority of people were left to pick up the tab. Paix, mon ami.


Sez you. I think it would have resulted in the clean-out of some really underperforming and badly managed companies. Bush (with Obama's approval) and Obama on his own have see to it that these struggling behemoths continue to stagger and lurch across the economic landscape.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> By accountable I meant, we know where the money went. Much of the porkulus fund went to pet projects that had nothing to do with stimulus or "shovel-ready" projects.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes, $700+ billion went to the banks and investment firms that were "too big to fail", and that is all we know. The Obama billions went with strings attached, and some of the money has been repaid.

I did not agree with money going to "pet projects" that did not result in jobs, so we are in agreement there.

We will have to agree to disagree on the issue of letting those who are in need suffer, and those who make more in a year than all of us ehMacLander's combined will make in our collective lifetimes continue to get a massive tax break extension. I guess it comes down to what we value. I do respect your right to maintain your principles. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

For those interested in examining the data, rather than the rhetoric, you can start with TARPdata.com.

The Washington Post reported on November 30th that the $700-billion tab is now looking to be a net loss of no more than $25-billion:



> The Troubled Assets Relief Program, which was widely reviled as a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street titans, is now expected to cost the federal government a mere $25 billion - the equivalent of less than six months of emergency jobless benefits.





> "because the financial system stabilized and then improved, the amount of funds used by the TARP was well below the $700 billion initially authorized, and the outcomes of most transactions made through TARP were favorable for the federal government."





> total TARP outlays to $433 billion, of which about half - $216 billion - has been repaid.


Of course, the right-wingers have never cared about facts, just the crap they can spew and not be called on. And with mouthpieces like Faux News, they are very rarely called on their bull.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Cubamark, this comes down to ideology I think, you know that figures don't lie and liers can figure, so it is a matter of what camp you reside. That said, the U.S. government had little choice but to try to restore confidence in the system. 

MacFury, you may disagree here, but I think the government's did the right thing. I personally think it is harder to restore confidence after a major collapse than to prop it up [ thorns and all ]. But what is amazing to me is the lack of spin control by Obama.... PEOPLE OF THE U.S. HE DID SOMETHINGS RIGHT AND HE DID HAVE SOME SUCCESS PASSING LAWS WHICH ARE DESIGNED TO HELP YOU....... I don't understand how someone who had such great spin control during the election has none now........ I think this is the real problem here.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Rps said:


> Cubamark, this comes down to ideology I think, you know that figures don't lie and liers can figure, so it is a matter of what camp you reside. That said, the U.S. government had little choice but to try to restore confidence in the system.
> 
> MacFury, you may disagree here, but I think the government's did the right thing. I personally think it is harder to restore confidence after a major collapse than to prop it up [ thorns and all ]. But what is amazing to me is the lack of spin control by Obama.... PEOPLE OF THE U.S. HE DID SOMETHINGS RIGHT AND HE DID HAVE SOME SUCCESS PASSING LAWS WHICH ARE DESIGNED TO HELP YOU....... I don't understand how someone who had such great spin control during the election has none now........ I think this is the real problem here.


I completely disagree, Obama and Bush merely postponed the demise of some large corporations at risk to the the taxpayer. I don;t even believe that confidence has been restored in the system--credit is scarce, and the people have lost faith in both the banks and the federal government as a result of this.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Being an ex-banker and risk analyst, I think if people had lost faith in the banking system there would be runs on them, which hasn't happened. What people have lost faith in is the ability of central government to administer properly. You can't tell me that the Clinton [ who repealed the G-S act ] and the Bush administration [ who ignored all things not related to the Iraq war ] did there jobs in the administrative and risk management area.

Also, human nature such as it is, the administration of credit in the U.S. is basically a cultural and almost constitutional right. No one stepped up to the plate and said: "Guy sooner or later you have to pay for this stuff". Their whole economy was run on no money....only hollow promises. Someone once said that the U.S. economy [ and ours to a lessor extent ] was" people buying stuff they didn't make with money they didn't have".

That type of mindset placed a very danagerous table. No one, and I mean no one with the power to change the rules did so. In my own company my partner and I warned of the sub-prime for four years ... guess what......


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)




----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

CubaMark. do you think it's the stag he's talking to or is this a metaphor for U.S. foreign policy under a Palin Administration....................................................... either way scary stuff.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Palin Does Haiti Cholera: How’s My Hair? (Or is it AP Split Ends?)*











> *photo 1*: Dieu Nalio Chery/AP. *caption:* Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, center, has her hair done during a visit to a cholera treatment center set up by the NGO Samaritan’s Purse in Cabaret, Haiti, Saturday Dec. 11, 2010. Palin arrived Saturday in Haiti as part of a brief humanitarian mission in an impoverished nation struggling to overcome post-election violence and a cholera epidemic. At right, Palin’s husband, Todd Palin.


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*Earthquake. Cholera. Political strife. And now Sarah Palin.*



> Palin arrived at the invitation of Franklin Graham, a leading evangelical preacher who has drawn criticism for calling Islam a "religion of war" and for saying that Barack Obama has "the seed of Islam" in him.





> He heads a Christian relief organisation, Samaritan's Purse, which is overseeing Palin's tightly stage-managed visit. It declined to reveal her itinerary and told reporters to leave its compound in Haiti before the former Alaska governor's arrival, saying it was under a "security lockdown".
> 
> Samaritan's Purse has been accused during other humanitarian crises of putting its evangelical mission ahead of more tangible assistance to those in need. The organisation raises large sums of money from US Christians but the proceeds are not always visible on the ground.
> 
> ...


Sarah Palin visits crisis-hit Haiti | World news | The Guardian


----------



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

Washington (CNN) - "President Barack Obama signed a sweeping overhaul of child nutrition standards Monday, enacting a law meant to encourage better eating habits in part by giving the federal government more authority to set standards for food sold in vending machines and elsewhere on school grounds. 

Among other things, the $4.5 billion measure provides more money to poor areas to subsidize free meals and requires schools to abide by health guidelines drafted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. To help offset the higher cost of including more fruits and vegetables, the bill increases the reimbursement rate for school lunches."

What a waste of US tax dollars, which could better be spent on giving multi-billionaires a better tax break. Let these poor kids eat ketchup and Fruit Loops for their daily intake of vegetables and fruits.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Dr.G. said:


> Let these poor kids eat ketchup and Fruit Loops for their daily intake of vegetables and fruits.


A very generous proposal, Dr. G.

I have often thought that the lower orders could be made to function usefully, if fed on a diet of fat, salt and sugar, enhanced by the modest application of relatively non-toxic food colouring agents. A savoury entrée could be whipped up with fat and salt, whilst a dessert could be concocted from fat and sugar, all to be washed down with sweetened carbonated water, in a colour of the diner's choice.


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

I dunno; sounds like the usual fare available at the local 7-11.


----------



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

Snapple Quaffer said:


> A very generous proposal, Dr. G.
> 
> I have often thought that the lower orders could be made to function usefully, if fed on a diet of fat, salt and sugar, enhanced by the modest application of relatively non-toxic food colouring agents. A savoury entrée could be whipped up with fat and salt, whilst a dessert could be concocted from fat and sugar, all to be washed down with sweetened carbonated water, in a colour of the diner's choice.


A fine meal. If they wanted to eat properly, they should have been wealthier. Social Darwinism shall be the order of the day should Sarah Palin become president. "Survival of the fittest". We shall see.

Actually, what might make more sense is to reinstate child labor and let children work for pennies a day. This might attract some industries back to the US rather than outsourcing such jobs.


----------



## Ottawaman (Jan 16, 2005)

More expedient.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

I have a modest proposal which beginneth thus:

_It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes._

It's about time this Great Idea was resurrected and treated with the respect it deserves. I'm sure the Founding Fathers wouldn't object to it being adopted as the 28th Amendment.

The best ideas are often the simplest. This one must surely commend itself to the Messiah in waiting, the Chief Teapot, Palin.


----------



## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

Rps said:


> You can't tell me that the Clinton [ who repealed the G-S act ] and the Bush administration [ who ignored all things not related to the Iraq war ] did there jobs in the administrative and risk management area.


While Bill Clinton signed the law, he neither authored it nor supported it. It was entirely a product of Republicans, who had the majority in Congress at the time and voted for it entirely down party lines in the Senate (it was more bipartisan in the House, due to the upcoming midterms). It is helpful to remember that politicians' votes -- particularly those of Democrats -- are heavily influenced by where in the election cycles they are. Having elected a Democrat in 1992, the Democrats were -- as they were on this most recent cycle -- the underdogs in the upcoming midterms, and thus sought bipartisan compromise bills to vote on to protect themselves. This is perfectly normal behaviour in the US system post-Reagan. It will eventually lead to the ruination of a once-great country, IMHO, unless the entire process is severely reformed.



> In my own company my partner and I warned of the sub-prime for four years ... guess what......


I saw the crisis coming too -- got out of the stock market a little TOO early really, but better early than late I guess. Tried to get out of real estate too, but my father died and left us some property that promptly (2008-2009) lost 90 percent -- yes, NINETY -- of its value. We don't expect that to recover to anywhere near pre-2006 levels in our lifetime, quite frankly.

I have to say that from an economic standpoint, my moving up here was a very shrewd move. The (ongoing!) horror stories from Florida and my occasional visits are truly depressing, and are only marginally better than they were three years ago.

I walked away from a great (modest-paying) job, health insurance and 401K, went without any of that for three years and blew through all my savings, and I *still* did better than anyone I know in FL -- every one of the people I left behind is deeply in debt in one way or another.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

chas_m said:


> While Bill Clinton signed the law, he neither authored it nor supported it. It was entirely a product of Republicans, who had the majority in Congress at the time and voted for it entirely down party lines in the Senate...


I remember Clnton's speech as he signed it, praising the legislation as a great idea. Guess the Republicans made him say that too.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid*



> A new survey of American voters shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources.
> 
> _December 15, 2010_
> 
> Yet another study has been released proving that watching Fox News is detrimental to your intelligence. World Public Opinion, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the *University of Maryland*, conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation.


(AlterNet)


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

that is a very scary survey.
and why do i not like being referred to as a 'consumer of news'?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I read that list of survey items. Looks like these guys are all about making sure that Obama's reputation as an economic mastermind isn't further tarnished. In fact, many of the points can easily be shown to be true--or not true--depending on one's political affiliation. Regarding where Obama was born, he should just end all of this nonsense by releasing his original long form birth certificate--I don't know why he won't.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Regarding where Obama was born, he should just end all of this nonsense by releasing his original long form birth certificate--I don't know why he won't.


Perhaps every Presidential aspirant should be required to produce his/her original long form birth certificate.

Even if Obama were to stoop to all of the infantile goading and produce this document, the die-hard loony-toons would still find a way to gainsay the evidence.

Fox 'News' ... whose motto should be "And Moron Shall Speak Unto Moron".


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Macfury said:


> Regarding where Obama was born, he should just end all of this nonsense by releasing his original long form birth certificate--I don't know why he won't.


Oh good grief. MF, you're not seriously outing yourself as a "birther," are you? There are two reasons why Obama is likely not releasing the "original long form": (a) he has released the legal document that the State of Hawaii sends to anyone requesting a certificate of live birth, and (b) the continuing "birther" blather reminds most thinking Americans that the Tea Party / Republican Party really is separated from reality.

I refer again to the excellent Anderson Cooper interview with a wing-nutter Texas politician...





+
YouTube Video









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


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> Perhaps every Presidential aspirant should be required to produce his/her original long form birth certificate.


I believe it's going to become a requirement prior to the 2012 election. Honestly, in the face of Obama's incompetence, I wonder why people are wondering about where he was born.


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*delusional*



CubaMark said:


> Oh good grief. MF, you're not seriously outing yourself as a "birther," are you? There are two reasons why Obama is likely not releasing the "original long form": (a) he has released the legal document that the State of Hawaii sends to anyone requesting a certificate of live birth, and (b) the continuing "birther" blather reminds most thinking Americans that the Tea Party / Republican Party really is separated from reality.
> 
> I refer again to the excellent Anderson Cooper interview with a wing-nutter Texas politician...
> 
> ...


i must say, seeing someone on live national tv in a total state of denial of reality is a weird thing. people's ability to continue believing in something totally wrong in the face of clear evidence is fascinating. and scary. i also think that somewhere inside, these people know that what they are saying simply isn't true. 
the other thing is how it is possible to cast doubt simply by repeating something untrue over and over and over, which seems to be a major theme with fox 'news'. not a new idea of course, george orwell having gone into it in depth a long time ago...


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Isn't this clip the definition of epistemological solipsism? Denial just doesn't seem to cover it......


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

I'm inclined to think that one of the reasons the military and the right-wingers are so closely allied with fundamentalist religions is that it takes a certain kind of mind to be able to believe without questioning several logically exclusive things at a time. They remind me of Douglas Adam's Electric Monk (a labour saving device who could do your believing for you... I believe the high end model could devoutly believe in up to 12 mutually exclusive things at one time).


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*christine o'donnell investigated for misuse of funds*

the tea party has been quiet for a while, but...




> Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party star with a colourful past, is said to be under federal investigation for misusing donations made by supporters during her failed election campaigns.
> 
> The Associated Press reports that a criminal probe has been opened to examine whether O'Donnell broke the law by using campaign funds to pay for personal expenses during the Delaware Republican's attempts to win a seat in the US Senate.





> On the eve of the Republican primary, O'Donnell's former campaign manager accused her of being a "complete fraud," who lived on campaign donations "while leaving her workers unpaid and piling up thousands in debt."
> 
> Shortly afterwards, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, claiming that O'Donnell had used more than $20,000 in campaign funds for personal use. O'Donnell denied the charges, saying: "I personally have not misused campaign funds."


Christine O'Donnell's use of campaign funds 'under investigation by the FBI' | Richard Adams | World news | guardian.co.uk


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

...and yet, despite the historic evidence to the contrary, Republicans and Conservatives nonetheless have always successfully campaigned as being the party of "economic responsibility".


----------



## jef (Dec 9, 2007)

bryanc said:


> I'm inclined to think that one of the reasons the military and the right-wingers are so closely allied with fundamentalist religions is that it takes a certain kind of mind to be able to believe without questioning several logically exclusive things at a time. They remind me of Douglas Adam's Electric Monk (a labour saving device who could do your believing for you... I believe the high end model could devoutly believe in up to 12 mutually exclusive things at one time).


Maybe it is a certain kind of mind...

Study: Conservatives have larger "fear center" - Neuroscience - Salon.com


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> ...and yet, despite the historic evidence to the contrary, -------------- nonetheless have always successfully campaigned as being the party of "economic responsibility".


Fill in party name of choice...


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

jef said:


> bryanc said:
> 
> 
> > I'm inclined to think that one of the reasons the military and the right-wingers are so closely allied with fundamentalist religions is that it takes a certain kind of mind to be able to believe without questioning several logically exclusive things at a time. They remind me of Douglas Adam's Electric Monk (a labour saving device who could do your believing for you... I believe the high end model could devoutly believe in up to 12 mutually exclusive things at one time).
> ...


Nice one, jef.

Just read yesterday's Independent at last. Imagine my surprise! Now there's a thing: "******** - nature or nurture?"


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> Nice one, jef.
> 
> Just read yesterday's Independent at last. Imagine my surprise! Now there's a thing: "******** - nature or nurture?"


Probably one of those features, that, lacking in liberals, leads to eventual decay and death of the line.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Probably one of those features, that, lacking in liberals, leads to eventual decay and death of the line.


Nah. The ********'ll get there first - they'll just inbreed themselves into extinction.


----------



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

Some Tea Party stories have a happy ending.

(CNN) -- Alaska's top two elected officials on Thursday certified Sen. Lisa Murkowski's re-election in November as a write-in candidate, clearing the way for Murkowski to be sworn in on time for the new congressional session that starts next week.

Gov. Sean Parnell and Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell signed the paperwork certifying Murkowski as the election winner, according to a statement by the governor's office.

The papers now will be hand delivered to the secretary of the Senate in Washington before noon Monday, the deadline for Murkowski to be able to get sworn in when the Senate convenes again on January 5, the statement said.

Murkowski is the first senator to win election in a write-in campaign since Strom Thurmond did it in South Carolina in 1954, and her victory followed a lengthy legal battle over the way the votes were counted.

She was defeated in the Republican primary in August by Joe Miller, a Tea Party-backed candidate. Murkowski then waged the write-in campaign in the general election in November to defeat Miller, who filed a lawsuit challenging the result.

On Tuesday, a federal judge dismissed Miller's lawsuit, clearing the way for final certification of the vote.



Alaska certifies Sen. Murkowski's re-election - CNN.com


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

That's not a happy ending at all, Dr. G. She is a dreadful candidate and a discredit to the Republican party.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> That's not a happy ending at all, Dr. G. She is a dreadful candidate and a discredit to the Republican party.


So says you .......... but democracy and the voters of Alaska say differently. As Sarah Palin is fond of saying, "Let the people decide who should represent them in Washington." And that is just what the voters of Alaska did ........... albeit for a non-Tea Party candidate. Still, when democracy wins, we all win. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> So says you .......... but democracy and the voters of Alaska say differently. As Sarah Palin is fond of saying, "Let the people decide who should represent them in Washington." And that is just what the voters of Alaska did ........... albeit for a non-Tea Party candidate. Still, when democracy wins, we all win. Paix, mon ami.


Of course the voters should decide. However, the candidate and ultimate victor is a dud.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> Of course the voters should decide. However, the candidate and ultimate victor is a dud.


So says you. For someone who believes in states' rights, I would have thought that you would be applauding this victory for the individual voter to have his and her say. Of course, if Sarah Palin was still governor of Alaska, she could have refused to sign her papers to allow her to be sworn in to the next Congress. Interesting ..................


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> So says you. For someone who believes in states' rights, I would have thought that you would be applauding this victory for the individual voter to have his and her say. Of course, if Sarah Palin was still governor of Alaska, she could have refused to sign her papers to allow her to be sworn in to the next Congress. Interesting ..................


I applaud their victory. I mourn the result.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> I applaud their victory. I mourn the result.


Mourn all you want ........... the people of Alaska clearly got the person they wanted to represent them in Congress. Thus, democracy wins.

Score a +1 for democracy ...........and a 0 for the Tea Party.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> Score a +1 for democracy ...........and a 0 for the Tea Party.



The tea party and democracy are not combatants, Dr. G.


----------



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

One solution might be for God to speak directly to Sarah Palin. That way, when she speaks, and supports a candidate or a cause, it is from the voice of God she speaks. To be against a Palin edict is to be against God. 

Of course, God might side with those who want to help those in need with such things as support for housing, food, clothing, medical treatments, pre-natal supports, early childhood education, etc, ect ............ just the essentials of life. Then, she might be in a bind. Such is Life.

Or, God could speak to you directly. Thus, we here in ehMacLand could be punished for holding or expressing an un-Macfury thought or deed. You could create your own list, much like the HUAC list of Sen. Joe McCarthy. You could get ehMax to include in his registration procedure a list of organizations and thoughts that a person has joined or believes in and have a sort of ehMacLand loyalty oath. "Are you now, or have you ever been a member of ............... ?" ; Are you now, or have you thought/believed in/advocated any of the following ideas .................... ?".


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*god & sarah*



Dr.G. said:


> One solution might be for God to speak directly to Sarah Palin. That way, when she speaks, and supports a candidate or a cause, it is from the voice of God she speaks. To be against a Palin edict is to be against God. /QUOTE]
> 
> now, see what you don't realize is that god does, in fact, speak directly to sarah palin. but what most people don't realize is that He is actually really pissed with the US and she is His way of punishing them. unfortunately, much like what happened with His tsunamis, there is a lot of collateral damage. but it is clear that He is intent on destroying the US from within, using these fanatical believers as His unwitting tools. i am quite sure he is up there in His barkalounger drinking a beer, eating chips, and surfing all the american cable channels laughing His guts out at the chaos He has Created!
> he he...


----------



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

boukman2 said:


> Dr.G. said:
> 
> 
> > One solution might be for God to speak directly to Sarah Palin. That way, when she speaks, and supports a candidate or a cause, it is from the voice of God she speaks. To be against a Palin edict is to be against God. /QUOTE]
> ...


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I would think that Obama is more than enough punishment. He is a veritable one-man band of punishments for this once-great nation.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> I would think that Obama is more than enough punishment. He is a veritable one-man band of punishments for this once-great nation.


That is an acceptable thought, Macfury. It would be noted by the ehMacLand un-Macfurian Activities and Thoughts Committee as an acceptable thought/feeling/emotion/idea. Paix, mon ami.

"Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed."

Found an un-Macfurian thought. Your power is absolute. You should root him out and expose him to the light of your justice ................ and Room 101.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> Found an un-Macfurian thought. Your power is absolute. You should root him out and expose him to the light of your justice ................ and Room 101.


"Do it to Dr. G!!!!"


----------



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

Macfury said:


> "Do it to Dr. G!!!!"


XX)

But I am on your side, Macfury!!!! I believe that the states and provinces have the right to do what they want, regardless of the harm it brings to people or the personal liberties and human rights it tramples. People have no right to expect hard working Macfurians to support their welfare-state dependance and make sure that they have proper food, shelter or clothing. If they are poor, then too bad for them, since they should have been born with the ability to support themselves.

So, do it to CubaMark, not me. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I thought that the literary trope required me to visit this punishment on someone who shared my ideals, thus to highlight the depth of the betrayal.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Dr.G. said:


> So, do it to CubaMark, not me. Paix, mon ami.


Whoa, whoa, whoa!!! Dr. G., how have I wronged you to deserve such a horrible fate?


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Maybe if I did something like posting this image, I would deserve it, but... I'd never do that...


----------



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

Sorry, CubaMark, but you are the one person who has come forth with the most un-Macfurian comments of any other ehMacLander. So, it has to be you. 

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

thing is, cuba, you are the furthest away, hence safest. or at least you were. i think the only thing keeping furious out of your neck of the woods is that his brakes were broke. (see other thread). now that he has been totally ripped off by those outrageous capitalists at canadian tire, but who did at least fix them, he will be heading your way! see, he figured he needed the brakes to be in good shape because he looked at the map and he could see it was downhill all the way. realized it wouldn't even cost him in gas! (mind you, getting back up could be a problem... but he is a dedicated, er, something or other, and will burn that bridge when he gets to it!)
p.s. good thing you didn't post those images!


----------



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

I support Rep.-elect Allen West's contention that the schedule set by the incoming Republican majority leader is too short when it comes to the time they spend in Washington. 

Washington (CNN) -- Last year's midterm elections swept some tea partiers into Congress, and some of the new lawmakers are not wasting time making their voices heard.

Before the new Congress has even convened, Rep.-elect Allen West, R-Florida, is taking aim at incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

The issue is over how much time has been scheduled for lawmakers to be in Washington compared to their home districts.

New congressman wants more time in Washington - CNN.com


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Anybody who comes down this way better have their SUV bullet-proofed. Seriously.


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

who was it that said, 'poor mexico, so far from god, so close the united states...'?


----------



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

Hopefully, the newly elected Republican-controlled House in the US Congress will overturn this legislation, and keep the government out of the kitchens of the US and Canada. No company should be "forced to recall tainted food". There might always be a market for this "food", and someone might be hungry enough to buy it. Let the free market place and capitalism weed out the winners and losers.

Then, they sould go after Obamacare. Who wants a bunch of people who were previously uninsured clogging up the emergency rooms of our hospitals due to problems caused by consuming this contaminated food.

Then they should go after voting rights ............... bring back the Grandfather clauses, the Poll Tax, the property laws that required people to own property to be allowed to vote. Hopefully, they will not go as far as taking back the vote from woman, since Sarah Palin will be prevented from riding into the White House in 2012. "Amercia, love it or leave it." 

"A food safety bill in the U.S. that will affect most of the produce Canadians consume has been signed into law by President Barack Obama.

The new U.S. food safety bill will affect Canadians because 80 per cent of the fresh produce eaten in Canada comes from the U.S. 

The legislation gives the government new powers to increase inspections at food-processing facilities and force companies to recall tainted products. It's the first major overhaul of the U.S. food safety system since the 1930s."

Read more: CBC News - Consumer Life - Food safety bill becomes law in U.S.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

darn tootin' Dr G! :clap::lmao:


----------



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

groovetube said:


> darn tootin' Dr G! :clap::lmao:


Right on, GT. We need to get government off of the backs of average Canadians and Americans. Let business do what it does best, and allow the fittest to survive, be they corportations or people. Of course, there shall always be those companies that are too big to fail, and this sort of corporate welfare is acceptable, since it helps to prop up the economy. Tax breaks for the wealthy are acceptable as well, in that their income will eventually trickle down to the common folk like you and me. 

We need to start thinking and acting along the lines of John Galt, Dagny Taggart and Macfury. Man, what a country we could be if the three of them were in charge. :greedy::clap:

Still, luckily, we have Prime Minister Harper manning the barricades against the masses and the socialists. The US has the hope of the Tea Party to reform the socialist trend in the country and return it to the "good old days" of the 1950's. We shall see.

Paix, mon ami. Keep the Faith.


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Dr.G. said:


> We need to start thinking and acting along the lines of John Galt, Dagny Taggart and Macfury.


Careful there doc, we've recently lost another doc on account of taking sarcastic jabs at our beloved, but apparently thin-skinned MF.


----------



## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

bryanc said:


> Careful there doc, we've recently lost another doc on account of taking sarcastic jabs at our beloved, but apparently thin-skinned MF.


This is not rocket science.... 

*STOP WITH THE NEGATIVE PERSONAL COMMENTS TOWARDS OTHER EHMAC MEMBERS!!!*

Please?


----------



## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

bryanc said:


> Careful there doc, we've recently lost another doc on account of taking sarcastic jabs at our beloved, but apparently thin-skinned MF.


PS... MF never complained once about 24 hour vacation.


----------



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

When Sen. Richard Lugar is considered too liberal, watch out ................

Washington (CNN) - Hoping to head off a primary challenge from the right, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, sat down with Tea Party leaders last month but did little to persuade them of his conservative credentials.

CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*more fun from the tea party*

things have been getting a bit serious with the tea party. time to get back their real role... amusement! they have been getting up to no good again!



> Tennessee Tea Party Demands Idiocy Be Implemented as Core Public-School Pedagogy





> But their most intriguing decree came in the area of education. Seeming to extrapolate from the notion that blissful ignorance makes unintelligent people happier, the T.T.P. apparently wants to push idiocy as the backbone of the state’s public pedagogy. Witness their demands that textbooks used in the schools omit any “portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred [that] shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership.”
> 
> By way of clarifying exactly what this means, Hal Rounds, who acted as the group’s mouthpiece during its news conference, said this censorship of the truth and undoing of years of painstaking scholarship was necessary in order to counter “an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another.”


Tennessee Tea Party Demands Idiocy Be Implemented as Core Public-School Pedagogy | VF Daily | Vanity Fair


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I understand the point, even if poorly made by the writer. Some of the texts do unfairly tar the Founding Fathers for example. I love the three responses to the BLOG entry--all links to shopping sites. The man must have a huge following.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

There is an interesting article in the current edition of The New Yorker about the Constitution and the way it's been viewed over the years.

The article is a long one ... so ... a few tasters ...



> Although the document had its faults, he [Ben Franklin] doubted that any other assembly would, at just that moment, have been able to draft a better one. “Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.





> “This is my copy of the Constitution,” John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, said at a Tea Party rally in Ohio last year, holding up a pocket-size pamphlet. “And I’m going to stand here with the Founding Fathers, who wrote in the preamble, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ ” Not to nitpick, but this is not the preamble to the Constitution. It is the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence


:lmao: Also sprach the current Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. 



> ... the Constitution was so difficult to read that it amounted to a conspiracy against the understanding of a plain man, that it was willfully incomprehensible. “The constitution of a wise and free people, ought to be as evident to simple reason, as the letters of our alphabet,” an Anti-Federalist wrote. “A constitution ought to be, like a beacon, held up to the public eye, so as to be understood by every man,” Patrick Henry argued.




Read more The battle over the Constitution : The New Yorker


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Bill Maher, via the Far Left Side, sums up the Tea Partiers nicely...*



> "Now that they’ve finished reading the Constitution out loud, the Teabaggers must call out that group of elitist liberals whose values are so antithetical to theirs. I’m talking of course about the Founding Fathers, who the Teabaggers believe are just like them, but aren’t. One is a group of exclusively white men who live in a bygone century, have bad teeth, and think of blacks as 3/5 of a person, and the other are the Founding Fathers."
> 
> "Now I want you Teabaggers out there to understand one thing. While you idolize the Founding Fathers and dress up like them and smell like them, I think it’s pretty clear that the Founding Fathers would have hated your guts, and what’s more you would have hated them. They were everything you despise. They studied science, read Plato, hung out in Paris, and thought the Bible was mostly bull****."
> 
> ...


----------



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

CubaMark said:


> *Bill Maher, via the Far Left Side, sums up the Tea Partiers nicely...*


I think that Bill Maher got this one correct. I have often wondered what the Tea Baggers would have felt about the basically Deist religious views of many of the founding fathers ........... or those who were Free Masons???


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

I think the Tea Party longs for the good old days ...... however what they should understand is that most people, when given the choice, would not wish to go back that far .... I'm mean, really, teaching a class of students by painting symbols on a cave wall makes the task of education quite daunting.....and checking homework very difficult.


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

This is a Tea Pawty update of an ol' American classic

YouTube - Sarah Palin Battle Hymn


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Lots of Tea Party madness these past few days... but let's start with a graphical illustration to set the scene...*










Now, on to the good stuff...

Tea Party co-founder Michelle Bachmann (one of the looniest politicians in the U.S. today, and that's saying something) has a little problem in dealing with America's history... she apparently believes the "founding fathers" "worked tirelessly" to end slavery... yeah, back in the late 1700s... uh-huh...





+
YouTube Video









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






What is this "worked tirelessly" mantra that these wingnuts keep repeating. Palin did, Bachmann does it... it's really quite an odd thing.

Here's what the Encyclopaedia Britannica has to say on the subject.

Then comes the much-ridiculed "performance" in her presentation of the Tea Party's response to Obama's State of the Union address. Considerable controversy has arisen from CNN's broadcast of her tirade in its entirety (the Tea Party isn't even a political party - it's a sub-group within the Republican Party, and many Republican leaders are, shall we say, _peeved_ that she pulled this).

The content of the speech is the typical "liberty!" "freedom!" "less gubbermint!" blather we've heard over and over...

Unfortunately, too many commentators were not picking apart the stream-of-unconsciousness that was the speech, but instead focused on the fact that she chose to look directly at the camera during the entire speech. ...but not the camera that was broadcasting to the nation, rather the private Tea Party camera that was recording the speech, no doubt for burning to DVD to be sold in "collector's edition" leather-bound gun cases complete with a 30-aught-6 and a New Christian Bible autographed by... oh... let's go with Ted Haggard, since he's been in the news a lot lately (no idea if he's a Tea Bagger... oh, wait, double entendre!  )





+
YouTube Video









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






Seriously deranged. But now I have my "dream team" picked for 2012. Palin for President! Bachmann for V-P! Guaranteed Obama 2nd term! (not that he's anyone's favourite, but at least he appears to be sane)


----------



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

"Seriously deranged. But now I have my "dream team" picked for 2012. Palin for President! Bachmann for V-P! Guaranteed Obama 2nd term! (not that he's anyone's favourite, but at least he appears to be sane)." Throw in Ron Paul for President and Rand Paul as VP under the Libertarian Party banner and you will have an interesting race. We shall see.


----------



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

jimbotelecom said:


> This is a Tea Pawty update of an ol' American classic
> 
> YouTube - Sarah Palin Battle Hymn


God bless America. Yes, Sarah Palin will go south to "hunt some skunk". Right on, Sister Sarah.

Paix, mon ami, jimbotelecom.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

The traditional news media is in paroxysms of agony watching the dream of the Obama legacy being flushed down the toilet. Watch for a lot more of this eagle-eyed attention on one Tea Party member or another as Obama continues to founder.


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

Dr.G. said:


> I think that Bill Maher got this one correct. I have often wondered what the Tea Baggers would have felt about the basically Deist religious views of many of the founding fathers ........... or those who were Free Masons???


Maher uses the term "teabaggers" which I find delightful. I now use it myself.

Thanks.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> The traditional news media is in paroxysms of agony watching the dream of the Obama legacy being flushed down the toilet. Watch for a lot more of this eagle-eyed attention on one Tea Party member or another as Obama continues to founder.


As opposed to:

"The right wing news media is in paroxysms of agony watching the Tea Party flushing itself down the toilet. Watch for a lot more of Macfury's disturbing attempts to divert attention to Obama while the Tea Party continues to founder".


----------



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

Snapple Quaffer said:


> As opposed to:
> 
> "The right wing news media is in paroxysms of agony watching the Tea Party flushing itself down the toilet. Watch for a lot more of Macfury's disturbing attempts to divert attention to Obama while the Tea Party continues to founder".


Very true, SQ. Very true. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> As opposed to:
> 
> "The right wing news media is in paroxysms of agony watching the Tea Party flushing itself down the toilet. Watch for a lot more of Macfury's disturbing attempts to divert attention to Obama while the Tea Party continues to founder".



Obama is doing fine attracting attention to himself. It seems to be his one great success in office.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Obama is doing fine attracting attention to himself. It seems to be his one great success in office.


As opposed to:

The Tea Party is doing fine attracting attention to itself. It seems to be its one paltry success.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> As opposed to:
> 
> The Tea Party is doing fine attracting attention to itself. It seems to be its one paltry success.


I suspect taking the House away from the Democrats would be its other success.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> I suspect taking the House away from the Democrats would be its other success.


A typically wistful notion ... in Macfuryland the Tea Party is in charge of the House.


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

actually, it would be more accurate to say that the tea party lost the senate for the republicans...


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

boukman2 said:


> actually, it would be more accurate to say that the tea party lost the senate for the republicans...


On a race-by-race analysis, not at all. In a very few cases, some Republicans who vote like Democrats might have won over Democrats who vote like Democrats, but that's hardly a philosophical victory.


----------



## pcronin (Feb 20, 2005)

I saw this thread, and how many replies, and thought "wow.. so many people on this forum love Canadian rock"

Immagine my disappointment when this wasn't about YouTube - The Tea Party - The Bazaar


----------



## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

Blech XX). I always thought the singer was a Jim Morrison wannabe.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Congratulations on your 1000th post, ChasMac... Honourable Citizen!


----------



## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

Macfury said:


> Congratulations on your 1000th post, ChasMac... Honourable Citizen!


Cheers, thanks!


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*middle east - the view from the right*

extremely funny and entertaining collection of views from the right about the current situation in the middle east...



> Beck, the apocalyptically-minded TV host, has the most complete theory on Egypt: the protests there are part of what he calls the "coming insurrection".
> 
> He illustrates how it will happen in the clip below using blackboards featuring maps of Europe and the Middle East. He marks friends with a yellow smiley face (Israel), "Frenemies" (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.) with blue faces and enemies (Iran) with red. Through the use of stick-on fires to illustrate riots he announces to his American viewers: "I'm going to show you how all this cascades over to us".





> Key to all it all is that Europe, as his map shows, is already in flames because of some of our recent street protests. Beck never explains the connection between the Greek government's austerity programme, tuition fees demonstrations in the UK and radical Islam (which no one on the ground in Egypt says is behind the protests there). Do I need to? Because I can't.
> 
> To cut to the chase, a new caliphate will emerge in the Middle East and push further east until China, as Beck puts it, says "Knock it off guys" and takes over India, reaching some way into Pakistan. The caliphate will then push north, which is when it will absorb the UK:
> 
> "What happens to the overwhelming radical population of the UK, of radical Islamicists. What happens? Do they just sit around on their hands or do they see an opportunity? When you take the Marxists and you combine them with the radical in Islam the whole world begins to implode."





> Says a Glenn Beck radio show co-host:
> 
> "Even when the French riots were going on, this was before Greece. The rioting in France - Paris was on fire virtually every night - we said this is coming to other countries"
> 
> That's right. The origins of Egypt's protest lie not in Mubarak's dictatorship, a languid economy and lack of opportunity for young people but the 2005 unrest in Paris's banlieues.


video of the all the above. and lots more! beck with his magnetic smiley faces and chalk flames is great.
Middle East unrest according to Glenn Beck and friends | World news | guardian.co.uk

funny, of course, only until you realize that actually a lot of people believe this stuff...


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Why is this in the Tea Party thread? Make a Glenn Beck thread if you think enough people will find it interesting.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

> _middle east - the view from the right_


There'll no doubt be enough gaping primates among the admass to suck it all up and repeat it as fact while the 'official' right sits back snickering, hoping it'll stick, to their advantage.

It is funny, though.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Why is this in the Tea Party thread? Make a Glenn Beck thread if you think enough people will find it interesting.


:lmao:

This from the poster who scatters anti-Obama jibes among threads like confetti. You are a wag, Macfury. You display the most exquisitely ironic cast of mind at times. Such fun.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

(FarLeftSide)

And... related: *GOP Freshmen Discover Health Care Hell*


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

You really do lean heavily on _Crooks and Liars_ don't you? A steady diet of that porridge would turn anyone into a dried-out, lefty sourpuss.


----------



## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> You really do lean heavily on _Crooks and Liars_ don't you? A steady diet of that porridge would turn anyone into a dried-out, lefty sourpuss.


Speaking of sour, your last comment was positively astringent.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)




----------



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

Interesting, but at the CPAC conference, over 3000 conservatives were polled and Congressman Ron Paul had the most votes cast for him, just over 30%. I have to admit that I don't agree with many of his views, but I do like him as a politician. He is honest and does not take cheap shots at his Republican opponents or the Democrats. If he disagrees with something or someone, he says so openly and honestly.

Kudos, Rep. Paul.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

That oft-reused cartoon (at least on these boards) makes the grotesque error of extrapolating a freer system into anarchy. It's intellectually dishonest. Why not use it next time on any anarchists posting here?


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Macfury said:


> That oft-reused cartoon (at least on these boards) makes the grotesque error of *extrapolating a freer system into anarchy*. It's intellectually dishonest. Why not use it next time on any anarchists posting here?


No, it extrapolates the Tea Party movement into that of anarchy.

(although to be honest i think it'd be more effective if the artist didn't write 'anarchy' on his t-shirt..... the comparison to the chaos in Somalia would be enough).


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> No, it extrapolates the Tea Party movement into that of anarchy.
> 
> (although to be honest i think it'd be more effective if the artist didn't write 'anarchy' on his t-shirt..... the comparison to the chaos in Somalia would be enough).


Then it would be an error as well. And yes, the heavy-handedness of labeling the various players is a detriment to the effectiveness of the cartoon.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> That oft-reused cartoon (at least on these boards) makes the grotesque error of extrapolating a freer system into anarchy. It's intellectually dishonest.


_Now_ I understand the cartoon, Macfury!

It's funny because it 'makes the grotesque error of extrapolating a freer system into anarchy'. Yes! Yes! I get it now! :clap:

Then comes your own joke: "It's intellectually dishonest." :lmao:

P.S. I was able to click on the 'Like' thingy, after getting the joke!


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

actually, somalia isn't anarchy. it's very well controlled. certain groups control territory and various businesses, as well as providing community services.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

indeed. If someone(s) got outta line, they just send a bunch of vehicles with machine guns and keep it "controlled".


----------



## Ottawaman (Jan 16, 2005)

groovetube said:


> indeed. If someone(s) got outta line, they just send a bunch of vehicles with machine guns and keep it "controlled".


That sounds vaguely like American foreign policy for the past 50 years.


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*just like anywhere*



groovetube said:


> indeed. If someone(s) got outta line, they just send a bunch of vehicles with machine guns and keep it "controlled".


that is the same principal as we use with the police isn't it? most people do the right thing and don't have any trouble. unfortunately, suggesting that more guns, less government and a good dose of fundamental religion gets us to somalia isn't just a joke. somalia really is where you end up if you go down that road.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

boukman2 said:


> ... more guns, less government and a good dose of fundamental religion gets us to somalia isn't just a joke. somalia really is where you end up if you go down that road.


Or Appalachia?


----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*arizona or somalia?*



> An Arizona jury is deliberating on whether to impose the death penalty on a woman who led an anti-immigration group that killed two Mexicans.
> 
> Shawna Forde, 43, was found guilty on Monday of instigating a robbery in 2009 on a Mexican family's home which left a nine-year-old girl and her father dead.
> 
> Forde carried out the attack with accomplices disguised as police officers in the hope of stealing drugs and money to fund her vigilante activities with a Minutemen group.





> Then on 30 May 2009 Forde led two accomplices to the house of Raul Flores in Aravica, a small town about 10 miles from the Mexican border.
> 
> They knocked on the door, pretending to be police officers. When Flores questioned their identity, one of the accomplices shot him several times. The gunman also shot Flores's wife, Gina Gonzalez, who played dead. She survived.
> 
> Gonzalez told the jury that the gunman then confronted her daughter, Brisenia, aged 9, and shot two bullets into her head in cold blood.


Personally, i kind of like having a big, fat government keeping these people in line, instead of letting them take over...

Arizona jury to decide if vigilante will die for killing Mexicans | World news | The Guardian


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)




----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

boukman2 said:


> Personally, i kind of like having a big, fat government keeping these people in line, instead of letting them take over...


I've been following the Forde case since this shooting brought her to larger media attention (she previously was a common TV news interviewee on matters of border militias, as leader of one of the many "Militiamen" groups, her big-ass gun strapped to her hip). 

I have, in general, great concerns with the death penalty due to the wealth of cases in which guilt has later been disproven. But this case? Forget lethal injection. When she's put down, it should really, really hurt.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)




----------



## boukman2 (Apr 6, 2009)

*sarah 'likes' herself...*



> D.C. politics blog Wonkette discovered a private Facebook account registered to the user “Lou Sarah.” The account was used in part to positively comment on and “Like” things posted to Sarah Palin’s official page. The Lou Sarah account was registered to Ms. Palin’s Gmail account, Ms. Palin’s middle name is Louise and Lou Sarah’s small friends list consists of Ms. Palin’s political appointees.





> Coincidence? Wonkette didn’t think so, suggesting the account was set up by Ms. Palin.
> Soon after the accusation, Ms. Palin said she didn’t have any secondary accounts and the profile was removed from Facebook.


Is Sarah Palin ‘liking’ Sarah Palin on Facebook? - The Globe and Mail


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Haven't visited this thread for awhile. Must be fun preaching to the choir, eh guys?


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Stephen Colbert exposes Tea Party Nation effort to frame the unions (Video) - National Political Buzz | Examiner.com



> Former Tea Party Express Chairman Mark Williams proposed that people go to the website of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and "sign up as an 'organizer' for one of their upcoming major rallies to support the union goons in Wisconsin." Then, posing as SEIU activists and wearing SEIU shirts, Williams proposed that his imposters find "TV cameras" and pull out signs that say "screw the taxpayer!" and "you OWE me!" Colbert sums up the ultra-conservative philosophy in saying,
> 
> Continue reading on Examiner.com: Stephen Colbert exposes Tea Party Nation effort to frame the unions (Video) - National Political Buzz | Examiner.com Stephen Colbert exposes Tea Party Nation effort to frame the unions (Video) - National Political Buzz | Examiner.com


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

HA! This guy is trying to employ the SEIU's own tactics against them!


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

no, he wants people to lie to justify his beliefs & manipulate politics.

(par for the course with neoconservatives)


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

The SEIU has been hiring ringers for these demonstrations for years! It will be good to see their power diminished.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

by "ringers" you mean union members?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> by "ringers" you mean union members?


I suspect when they pay protesters to show up from other states, they're pretty much obliged to hire union aren't they?


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Macfury said:


> I suspect when they pay protesters to show up from other states, they're pretty much obliged to hire union aren't they?


first off they're organizing the demonstrations. I don't see anything about them paying people to show up.

secondly there is a *HUGE* difference between asking people to show up and voice their support for something they believe in vs. asking people to show up and *pretend they're someone they're not and then lie and provoke* the situation for political gain.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Hwre are some more photos of violent Tea Partiers using firearm imagery to frighten the populace.... Oh, wait. These are actually Democrat union types protesting in Wisconsin.

Never mind.


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Hwre are some more photos of violent Tea Partiers using firearm imagery to frighten the populace.... Oh, wait. These are actually Democrat union types protesting in Wisconsin.
> 
> Never mind.


You have never reloaded a lead (graphite) into a mechanical pencil, staples into a stapler, paper into a printer or photo copier?

Where is the gun images? I only saw one picture were there other photo(s) that I am missing?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> You have never reloaded a lead (graphite) into a mechanical pencil, staples into a stapler, paper into a printer or photo copier?
> 
> Where is the gun images? I only saw one picture were there other photo(s) that I am missing?


Yeah. You're missing the rifle cross-hairs super-imposed on the governor's head.


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Yeah. You're missing the rifle cross-hairs super-imposed on the governor's head.


Yes, yes I did. Sadly in their Excited States, many citizens resort to threaten with the constitutionally guaranteed remedy to tyranny.

Sadly many teabaggers, and republicans don't remember dear old Uncle Ronnie's prophetic words



Ronald Reagan said:


> *"They remind us that where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost. They remind us that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."*


For your ready reference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oITaWo5z1IQ


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> Sadly many teabaggers, and republicans don't remember dear old Uncle Ronnie's prophetic words...


Uncle Ronnie never intended that freedom to be applied to either state or federal employees--only municipal and county employees. Remember when he fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers?

And neither did FDR:



> All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations....Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that “under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government.”


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Uncle Ronnie never intended that freedom to be applied to either state or federal employees--only municipal and county employees. Remember when he fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers?
> 
> And neither did FDR:





> Quote:
> All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations....Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that “under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government.”


Seems to me that the above quote attributed to FDR even in its selective editing has more to do with striking than with Collective Bargaining.

The full quoted letter details the desire to allow Collective Bargaining but not the right to collectively withdraw workers labour as is allowed in the private sector.

I shall post the quote in full and the website I base my views on 



FDR said:


> As I am unable to accept your kind invitation to be present on the occasion of the Twentieth Jubilee Convention of the National Federation of Federal Employees, I am taking this method of sending greetings and a message.
> 
> Reading your letter of July 14, 1937, I was especially interested in the timeliness of your remark that the manner in which the activities of your organization have been carried on during the past two decades "has been in complete consonance with the best traditions of public employee relationships." Organizations of Government employees have a logical place in Government affairs.
> 
> ...




Read more at the American Presidency Project:


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*More news that is sure to be ignored by the Tea Baggers....*

*6 more U.S. banks pay back bailout funds*



> Six more U.S. banks repaid their government bailouts, bringing the bank capital program close to 99 per cent recovery, the Treasury Department said Wednesday.
> 
> The department received proceeds of $475 million US when the banks repurchased preferred shares and other investments that the Treasury Department got in exchange for its cash injections.
> 
> ...


(CBC)


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

C'mon CB, that doesn't include $100 billion to AIG and another $60 billion dispersed to others under TARP--and not collected. It also doesn't include opportunity costs of lending the money to the banks. Finally, it doesn't include government programs outside of TARP, given to banks who used it to replace their TARP gifts.

So nowhere near break-even-- a major loss for taxpayers.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

not bad after only a couple years.

Couldn't imagine the costs of not supporting the financial system to taxpayers.

Unfortunately the greed and pure BS happened well before the crash.


----------



## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

What? They didn't pay interest on their loans? Dang.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MannyP Design said:


> What? They didn't pay interest on their loans? Dang.


The supposed purpose of the program was to maintain a steady supply of credit to the U.S. economy--which dried up anyway, despite the TARP gifts to the banks. Incredibly, some of the banks used their interest-free loans to buy out other banks. 

So essentially, they received the loans at no interest, used money from other government programs to pay back TARP and there's still a minimum of $160 billion missing. There's a win-win all around!

Look carefully at the numbers and you can also see where TARP shifted their accounting methods half-way through the process.




groovetube said:


> Couldn't imagine the costs of not supporting the financial system to taxpayers.


I'll bet you couldn't!


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

The Tea Party Express will be a train wreck in no time... Michele Bachmann (seriously out of touch with reality) has declared as a U.S. Presidential candidate, while the "Gotcha! You Betcha!" (non-?) candidate Sarah Palin seems to have fallen even further out of favour with the Right. 

U.S. Politics. What a friggin' circus 



> _"The threshold question: It's not usually asked, but it's in everyone's mind in a presidential election. 'Should we give this person nuclear weapons?' ...Answers itself."_
> 
> — *George Will (Conservative Commentator / Journalist) on Sarah Palin*
> 
> (via Doonesbury 15 June 2011)


F*ound the video - from ABC's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour" a week ago*





+
YouTube Video









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


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

So we have several candidates vying for the job of Republican presidential candidate. You don't like one of them, while a person who isn't running is not favoured by Republicans--after failing to support her ticket in 2008. 

_This_ has got you exasperated?


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Macfury said:


> _This_ has got you exasperated?


_exasperated_? No - amused. Very amused


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> _exasperaated_? No - amused. Very amused


OK, so you're amused that one candidate in a field of more than a dozen is someone you don't like--and that another person is not running at all. 

Har! That's a ripper!


----------



## screature (May 14, 2007)

Macfury said:


> OK, so you're amused that one candidate in a field of more than a dozen is someone you don't like--and that another person is not running at all.
> 
> Har! That's a ripper!


CM has a US fixation and particularly a republican US fixation bordering on OCD that ranks right up there with Michael Moore's. I understand Michael Moore's motivation as he is a megalomaniac who has become very rich from his mental disorders, but I'm not sure what are CM's motivations.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

You guys are surprised that in a thread on the Tea Party, I'm posting this stuff? Okay... enjoy your befuddlement....


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> You guys are surprised that in a thread on the Tea Party, I'm posting this stuff? Okay... enjoy your befuddlement....


For my part, I don't understand the reason why the item is supposed to be of interest. What's up next, Taa Party meeting menus?


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

CubaMark said:


> You guys are surprised that in a thread on the Tea Party, I'm posting this stuff? Okay... enjoy your befuddlement....


Don't let a few putzes get to you. They appear in every thread where they can create disruption, all part of fun online.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

jimbotelecom said:


> Don't let a few putzes get to you. They appear in every thread where they can create disruption, all part of fun online.


Take it back. A smiley won't allow you to get away with calling me a putz.


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

Macfury said:


> Take it back. A smiley won't allow you to get away with calling me a putz.


Obviously you feel guilty. I never thought of you as a disruptor. You are number 1. You are a free man.


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

take it easy lad
deep breath, inhale, go on now~
forum life goes on


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max said:


> take it easy lad
> deep breath, inhale, go on now~
> forum life goes on


Bloodless haiku man
floats still above the forum
posts but does not speak


----------



## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

jimbotelecom said:


> Don't let a few putzes get to you. They appear in every thread where they can create disruption, all part of fun online.


Let's not resort to personal comments please.


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

ehMax said:


> Let's not resort to personal comments please.


A very indirect use of a group of putzes, but the use of putz, nonetheless. I will not resort to the use of putz or putzes again.

Cheers


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Take it back. A smiley won't allow you to get away with calling me a putz.


I did not see a comment directed at anyone personally, I saw counselling for CM on the trials and tribulations of posting on the internet, Why should jimbotelecom apologize to anyone?

Are you now taking ownership of being a putz(es)?


----------



## screature (May 14, 2007)

jimbotelecom said:


> Don't let a few putzes get to you. They appear in every thread where they can create disruption, all part of fun online.


Putzes... Excuse me. And like you are some Saint when it comes to thread disruption??? This is maybe my 2nd or 3rd post in this thread BTW. tptptptp


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

screature said:


> Putzes... Excuse me. And like you are some Saint when it comes to thread disruption??? This is maybe my 2nd or 3rd post in this thread BTW. tptptptp


Odd, again, I never considered you a disruptor either. Now I'll just wipe all that spit off my virtual face and smile again.


----------



## screature (May 14, 2007)

jimbotelecom said:


> Odd, again, I never considered you a disruptor either. Now I'll just wipe all that spit off my virtual face and smile again.


Well I apologize then, it seemed your use of the word putz was being applied to the posters immediately prior to CMs post... Here's a hanky for the spit.


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

screature said:


> Well I apologize then, it seemed your use of the word putz was being applied to the posters immediately prior to CMs post... Here's a hanky for the spit.


Thanks, I never thought that the use of the "P" word would bring people down. I'm going to have to watch my "P"'s and "Q"'s from now on.


----------



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

jimbotelecom said:


> Thanks, I never thought that the use of the "P" word would bring people down. I'm going to have to watch my "P"'s and "Q"'s from now on.


The "P" word for someone who understands Yiddish, is like the "C" word (chutzpah). I may be used with a positive or negative connotation. There are also a great many "S" and "M" words that you might want to avoid.

I have to admit that I learned the meanings of these words at a young age from my grandfather, who spoke Yiddish.


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

Dr.G. said:


> The "P" word for someone who understands Yiddish, is like the "C" word (chutzpah). I may be used with a positive or negative connotation. There are also a great many "S" and "M" words that you might want to avoid.
> 
> I have to admit that I learned the meanings of these words at a young age from my grandfather, who spoke Yiddish.


Thank you Dr. G. I learned more than a few Yiddish terms growing up when my best friends were Jewish. Obviously, I would never use the word "Schlemiel" or "Mishugena", definitely resorting to personal insults with them.

So I will now mind my S&M's too.


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

Dr.G. said:


> The "P" word for someone who understands Yiddish, is like the "C" word (chutzpah). I may be used with a positive or negative connotation. There are also a great many "S" and "M" words that you might want to avoid.
> 
> I have to admit that I learned the meanings of these words at a young age from my grandfather, who spoke Yiddish.


A further thought given the positive and negative attributes of the "P" word it's little surprise that some react negatively to its use, whereas others take the high road. I guess it's back to that age old question about the glass being half full or half empty. But that use of "P" really brought out the negatives.


----------



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

jimbotelecom said:


> Thank you Dr. G. I learned more than a few Yiddish terms growing up when my best friends were Jewish. Obviously, I would never use the word "Schlemiel" or "Mishugena", definitely resorting to personal insults with them.
> 
> So I will now mind my S&M's too.


Those "S" and "M" words are tame compared to what I was thinking of. Not wanting to be banned by the Mayor, I shall not post them here. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## screature (May 14, 2007)

Putz in common modern nomenclature in the English language: 

putz |ˈpəts; ˈpoŏts| informal
noun
1 a stupid or worthless person.
2 vulgar slang a penis.

verb [ intrans. ]
engage in inconsequential or unproductive activity : too much putzing around up there would ruin them.

I fail to see any positive connotation/denotation and I highly doubt the vast majority here have access to a Yiddish to English dictionary.

You can try and condone it's use in any non-pejorative way you choose to justify it's appellation, but the average English speaking person will not see it that way. They will see it as an insult.


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

I am but a simple goy now afraid to even think about using the "P" word again. 

I feel like a schmuck.


----------



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

jimbotelecom said:


> I am but a simple goy now afraid to even think about using the "P" word again.
> 
> I feel like a schmuck.




The "S" word has multiple meanings as well!!! Hopefully, you just see yourself as a big jerk. Paix, mon ami. Shalom.


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

Dr.G. said:


> The "S" word has multiple meanings as well!!! Hopefully, you just see yourself as a big jerk. Paix, mon ami. Shalom.


Oy Ve! I cant win. Have a manischewitz on me.


----------



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

jimbotelecom said:


> Oy Ve! I cant win. Have a manischewitz on me.


I love Manischewitz Concord Grape wine. But, any more talk of such things, or a discussion in Yiddish, and the Mayor shall ban us for a day or so, and no cry of “oy vey iz mir” will get us back.

So, sit back, have a nice cup of tea and discuss the Tea Party.


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

Dr.G. said:


> I love Manischewitz Concord Grape wine. But, any more talk of such things, or a discussion in Yiddish, and the Mayor shall ban us for a day or so, and no cry of “oy vey iz mir” will get us back.
> 
> So, sit back, have a nice cup of tea and discuss the Tea Party.


Right you are the tea baggers are making quite an impression. So much fun to observe.


----------



## KC4 (Feb 2, 2009)

This thread is kaputz.


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

KC4 said:


> This thread is kaputz.


I feel so poorly I might go live on a kibutz.


----------



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

KC4 said:


> This thread is kaputz.




The Mayor may wash your mouth out for this one, KC4 .......... depending upon your connotation.


----------



## screature (May 14, 2007)

Dr.G. said:


> The "S" word has multiple meanings as well!!! Hopefully, you just see yourself as a big jerk. Paix, mon ami. Shalom.


You and jimbo have yet to make any convincing argument that anyone with a modern English (you know the language we *all* speak here ) understanding of the word putz wouldn't be insulted by being called one... the Mayor made the right decision despite your claims to an obscure Yiddish meaning of the word... time to give it a rest and get over it.


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Macfury said:


> Bloodless haiku man
> floats still above the forum
> posts but does not speak


Very good!

Stalwart soul who hides
casts stones from his sheltered lair~
denounces, burping


----------



## kps (May 4, 2003)

screature said:


> You and jimbo have yet to make any convincing argument that anyone with a a modern English understanding of the word putz wouldn't be insulted by being called one... the Mayor made the right decision despite your claims to an obscure Yiddish meaning of the word... time to give it a rest and get over it.


I'm not jewish, but I believe the term "putz" is Yiddish, so there really can not be an obscure meaning of the term. I must defer to someone who actually may know or understand Yiddish.

But if we're going to derail a thread, it might as well be this one.:lmao:


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

The forum: much fun
where fools and dictators clash
ever waving swords


----------



## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

Fall down go boom.


----------



## kps (May 4, 2003)

I think Max is turning Japanese...I really think so.


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

You know, you would think that from recent evidence.

_Turning Japanese._ A tune I never did like. Oh, the 80s - what strange and bitter fruit it hath borne.

Is the thread derailment complete yet?


----------



## kps (May 4, 2003)

Max said:


> You know, you would think that from recent evidence.
> 
> _Turning Japanese._ A tune I never did like. Oh, the 80s - what strange and bitter fruit it hath borne.
> 
> Is the thread derailment complete yet?


It's now a train wreck...


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

You know when the ellipses start that it's all over... a train wreck cubed.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

truly, a really bad polka.


----------



## jimbotelecom (May 29, 2009)

Yo the teabaggers seem to be lost at sea for the moment. 

Harper cheers Canucks aimlessly 
Daughter in lap
Waiting to cut 5 or 10%


----------



## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

Max said:


> The forum: much fun
> where fools and dictators clash
> ever waving swords


Haiku - ku - kachoo!


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)




----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> What is that mess of a badly-drawn comic supposed to say? Is this about the Democrats wanting to add 7 trillion dollars to the deficit over then next decade and running the U.S. over a precipice?


 .... he squibbed, damply.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

.


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Yeah, usually Groove is your dance partner.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> What is that mess of a badly-drawn comic supposed to say? Is this about the Democrats wanting to add 7 trillion dollars to the deficit over then next decade and running the U.S. over a precipice?


Yes, because its always democrats fault... watch-out, the democrats are the boogie men in the closets trying to steal your children.


----------



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

ertman said:


> Yes, because its always democrats fault... watch-out, the democrats are the boogie men in the closets trying to steal your children.


Right on, ertman. Watch out for those democrats .............. because we know who is really behind them ........... the commies. "Better dead than red". Hopefully, the Tea Party shall take control of the House and the Senate in the US Congress, and maybe even win the White House with a Tea Party-controlled Republican president. Then you will see the US move .............. back to a time when if you could not make it on your own without a government safety net, then too bad. Taxes will fall, corportations will thrive, no more Obamacare, and the hot-button social issues will come front and center on the American stage. "The business of America is business".

Paix, mon ami.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Max said:


> Yeah, usually Groove is your dance partner.


oh he has a few dance partners, after he continues chanting the same lies over and over one just gets bored and another sometimes picks it up.


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

But you guys dance so well together. Except for the part where you disagree as to the leading and following bit. But beyond that, it's pure magic.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

macfury lacks rhythm though.


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

LOL

On the other hand, I'd say he's remarkably consistent.


----------



## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

groovetube said:


> macfury lacks rhythm though.


You saying he steps on your toes a lot?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

On the other hand, the very idea that the founding fathers would worry about a few members of one party attempting to stop a too-powerful central government from racking up unsustainable debt _is _pretty funny.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Is this the same party that nearly chained themselves to the white house to prevent government from giving out less ponies to the very rich?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> Is this the same party that nearly chained themselves to the white house to prevent government from giving out less ponies to the very rich?


The founding fathers didn't even conceive of income tax. You're out of your depth here, groove.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Macfury said:


> On the other hand, the very idea that the founding fathers would worry about a few members of one party attempting to stop a too-powerful central government from racking up unsustainable debt _is _pretty funny.


the idea that the founding fathers are used as icons for the tea party is hilarious :





+
YouTube Video









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


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> The founding fathers didn't even conceive of income tax. You're out of your depth here, groove.


I wasn't aware that there was a "founding fathers party", but admittedly, it'd be an interesting phenomenon should it occur.

Poltergeist anyone?


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> It's pretty funny to see some old fellow half a world away moved to typing only in lockstep with my posts.


Oh, it's absolutely hilarious. Really.

You provide so much entertainment. We have coves like you over here of course, but it's fun to see the same old drivel poured out there as it is here. Different accent, same pong.

I'm very disappointed that you didn't jump in quick with a copy of CM's cartoon re-jigged with the content of the speech bubbles changed in damp-squib fashion. You did it so well before.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Max said:


> LOL
> 
> On the other hand, I'd say he's remarkably consistent.


Absolutely, in a remarkably 'hard, impacted clay-like substance' sort of way.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

A piece from The Independent (Tues, 2nd August 2011), by Sarah Churchwell.

The second paragraph:



> Last week, while the US government was locked in stalemate and risked defaulting on its national debt for the first time in its history (and thus also defying the Constitution that Tea Partiers supposedly hold sacred, which declares in the 14th Amendment that it is illegal for Congress to default), Michele Bachmann instructed her followers not to listen to those who attempted to "scare" them with untruths that the US would default if it didn't raise the debt ceiling. When, of course, that is precisely what it would have done. But the Tea Party has never let facts get in the way of its belief system, and now that belief system is genuinely threatening the wellbeing of the nation they claim to love.


The last three paragraphs:


> The Tea Party version of the American Revolution is not just fundamentalist: it is also Disneyfied, sentimentalised, and whitewashed. It rests on a naïve, solipsistic and exceptionalist faith that for America it will all work out in the end, because America is "the greatest nation in the world". They take solace in tautology: America is great – this they know – because Fox News tells them so.
> 
> Their goal, as others have said, is to roll back the clock a century and more. In 1892, when the robber baron and corrupt financier Jay Gould died, Mark Twain wrote a scathing epitaph: Gould, he said, "reversed the commercial morals of the United States. He had put a blight upon them from which they have never recovered, and from which they will not recover for as much as a century to come. Jay Gould was the mightiest disaster which has ever befallen this country."
> 
> It has been a century and we have surely not recovered: but we have managed to create an even mightier disaster. It remains to be seen whether we will recover, but it is long past time to stop making declarations of independence. We need to get back to work forming a more perfect union – or any union at all.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> the idea that the founding fathers are used as icons for the tea party is hilarious


I'm certainly not. They would be appalled with both parties--but they would prefer the Tea Party members slightly.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> The founding fathers didn't even conceive of income tax. You're out of your depth here, groove.


Actually they did conceive of income tax, but I am sure they didn't foresee many other things.

-Regarding the average American, most people lived in rural areas and lived in households with large families, with population having more men then women and the average age would be in the early to mid-twenties. This is very similar to now where the majority live in urban areas and live in households with small families with the greater proportion being women with an average age of 35 years.
-Movement away from physical labour to intellectual.
-The nations population growth of 122x.
-Significant Civil war (lead directly to income taxes)
-World Wars, Cold war etc.
-Strengthening of trade between nations to the current level of globalization.
-Modern Economic practice.
-A few notable technologies, trains, automobiles, planes, the telephone, nuclear energy/weapons, radio, television, vaccines, computers, internet.

In short, anything we are accustomed to today the founding fathers didn't foresee.

As an added note, the taxation of income has lead to lower taxes in other forms such as taxes on goods, and 



Macfury said:


> I'm certainly not. They would be appalled with both parties--but they would prefer the Tea Party members slightly.


I am certain that they would hate the tea party, probably wouldn't like the other ones much either for being squabbling children.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

ertman said:


> Actually they did conceive of income tax, but I am sure they didn't foresee many other things.


They did not conceive of _imposing_ one. It took 50 years for the idea even to be considered, and as you say, only as a special wartime contingency.



ertman said:


> -Regarding the average American, most people lived in rural areas and lived in households with large families, with population having more men then women and the average age would be in the early to mid-twenties. This is very similar to now where the majority live in urban areas and live in households with small families with the greater proportion being women with an average age of 35 years.
> -Movement away from physical labour to intellectual.
> -The nations population growth of 122x.
> -Significant Civil war (lead directly to income taxes)
> ...


None of these things have any bearing on the Constitution, however. Vaccines and computers don't require an alteration of the constitution or federal taxation practices. Neither did they require the institution of central planning.



ertman said:


> AAs an added note, the taxation of income has lead to lower taxes in other forms such as taxes on goods, and


But the total of both has risen dramatically overall.



ertman said:


> I am certain that they would hate the tea party, probably wouldn't like the other ones much either for being squabbling children.


Just as _they_ squabbled with the British over a tiny tax on tea? Hardly.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

It seems macfury, you're a fish out of the water. Your unwavering desire for a return to the old west where, no one needed healthcare cause they just keeled over in the fields, and if someone disrespected you, well, you just went out in the street and had yerself a duel and shot 'im, unfortunately just ain't gonna happen.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> It seems macfury, you're a fish out of the water. Your unwavering desire for a return to the old west where, no one needed healthcare cause they just keeled over in the fields, and if someone disrespected you, well, you just went out in the street and had yerself a duel and shot 'im, unfortunately just ain't gonna happen.


What does the Old West have to do with the 13 Colonies. Astounding observations!


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

you're easily distracted by things aren't you. :clap:


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

. never mind... screwed up what thread I was in


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> They did not conceive of _imposing_ one. It took 50 years for the idea even to be considered, and as you say, only as a special wartime contingency.


No they did not implement income tax, nor did they conceive it as it is today, which is likely caused by the structure of society and not planning, as people did not have income as we know it. They did concieve of a direct tax, which income tax is a derivative of, they just didn't have the means to do it fairly as outline in the constitution.



> None of these things have any bearing on the Constitution, however. Vaccines and computers don't require an alteration of the constitution or federal taxation practices. Neither did they require the institution of central planning.


Sorry, I assumed you could read and understand the meaning of what was said. I never stated that any of what I was referring to had anything to do with the constitution, but rather what the founding fathers could forsee in the future. No not all of these require central planning, which costs money, but that wasn't the point. It was that items that were outlined and the cost of government for future plans is not inherently foreseeable at the time, I was trying to show that things change and cannot be accounted for over 200 years ago. 



> But the total of both has risen dramatically overall.


Only partially true, taxes on many goods are lower, and in today's world for many reasons require some if not significant centralized planning, which of course isn't free and without income tax would make taxes on goods huge. Infact the income tax was also put in place to lower tarriffs and such(domestic and international), without it taxes on goods would be even higher.




> Just as _they_ squabbled with the British over a tiny tax on tea? Hardly.


That doesn't even make sense. So your saying that the democrats and republicans are squabling like the colonies over a tax on tea? I get the referrence but it has mo bearing of likability of the current parties.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

apparently, this just in, fighting wars abroad, setting up massive homeland security blankets, and buying military hardware, building superjails etc etc, doesn't cost a lot of money.

Taxes are bad, y'hear?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

ertman said:


> No they did not implement income tax, nor did they conceive it as it is today, which is likely caused by the structure of society and not planning, as people did not have income as we know it. They did concieve of a direct tax, which income tax is a derivative of, they just didn't have the means to do it fairly as outline in the constitution.


They could have done so if they had intended to, but it was not their intention. 



ertman said:


> Sorry, I assumed you could read and understand the meaning of what was said. I never stated that any of what I was referring to had anything to do with the constitution, but rather what the founding fathers could forsee in the future. No not all of these require central planning, which costs money, but that wasn't the point. It was that items that were outlined and the cost of government for future plans is not inherently foreseeable at the time, I was trying to show that things change and cannot be accounted for over 200 years ago.


They never have conceived that a government would have intruded this so far into people's lives, simply because the Constitution was designed to prevent it.



ertman said:


> Only partially true, taxes on many goods are lower, and in today's world for many reasons require some if not significant centralized planning, which of course isn't free and without income tax would make taxes on goods huge. Infact the income tax was also put in place to lower tarriffs and such(domestic and international), without it taxes on goods would be even higher.


Add them all up. Show me how total tax rates--municipal, state, federal and sales--add up to anything lower than they had prior to the establishment income tax.



ertman said:


> That doesn't even make sense. So your saying that the democrats and republicans are squabling like the colonies over a tax on tea? I get the referrence but it has mo bearing of likability of the current parties.


The Tea Party contingent and a few others were pushing for a solution to the debt problem--cut, cap and balance. The others simply placed the car on cruise control as it runs off the cliff. Some issues are worth "squabbling" about.


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

This OpEd piece explains much to me. How many in the USA think of the debt crisis.



CBCNews said:


> I've never quite figured out how evangelical Protestantism and extreme fiscal conservatism are entangled. But they are, at least here in the U.S.
> 
> Apparently, the God worshipped by the most fundamentalist of born-again Christians prefers small government. He does not approve of raising taxes, even on the rich. (Some might say especially on the rich.)


Op Piece by Neil MacDonald


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Hopefully those who "worship" small government as outlined in the Constitution will have their way.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> They could have done so if they had intended to, but it was not their intention.


Once again wrong. They had allowed for the intention to do so, as long as it was done fairly, but was not implemented as already outlined.



Macfury said:


> They never have conceived that a government would have intruded this so far into people's lives, simply because the Constitution was designed to prevent it.


The constitution was not conceived or designed to perceive the current current state of society, your point is invalid. It was impossible for them conceive the need of future generations, hence amendments. To rely solely on a document conceived of over 200 years ago to govern American society is both ignorant and insane.



Macfury said:


> Add them all up. Show me how total tax rates--municipal, state, federal and sales--add up to anything lower than they had prior to the establishment income tax.


Also, not what I said, but hey don't let facts get in the way.



Macfury said:


> The Tea Party contingent and a few others were pushing for a solution to the debt problem--cut, cap and balance. The others simply placed the car on cruise control as it runs off the cliff. Some issues are worth "squabbling" about.


First, I am not sure if this even deserves a response, as it has nothing to do with what I or even you were originally discussing. Excellent use of distraction and spin doctoring to defer from the point though. 




Macfury said:


> Hopefully those who "worship" small government as outlined in the Constitution will have their way.


By "Constitution", you mean "Amendments to the Constitution" that limits government powers, 9th and 10th. This seems quite hypocritical to the other arguments you have made against other amendments, for example, Income Tax. You can't pick and choose which amendments that the country should follow, because of convenience or personal dislike for the particular amendment.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

ertman said:


> Once again wrong. They had allowed for the intention to do so, as long as it was done fairly, but was not implemented as already outlined.



Let's deal with these one at a time. Find me a reference for this OK?


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> Let's deal with these one at a time. Find me a reference for this OK?


Try the United States Constitution, Article 1 section 8 (powers of congress), then section 9 (limits of congressional power), article 5 (amendments).

The Founding Fathers could not foresee the needs of the future, so they provided in the constitution powers to the federal government in the defence and welfare of the nation, which includes taxes, and the ability to modify the constitution through amendments.

Later on, well after the founding fathers, income taxes had been collected and later ratified as the 16th amendment.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

ertman said:


> Try the united states constitution, Article 1 section 8 (powers of congress), then section 9 (limits of congressional power).
> 
> The Founding Fathers could not forsee the needs of the future, so they provided in the constitution the powers to the federal government in the defence and welfare of the nation.


You tell me precisely where you believe it gives the federal government this power. I won't do the work for you.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

ertman said:


> Try the United States Constitution, Article 1 section 8 (powers of congress), then section 9 (limits of congressional power), article 5 (amendments).
> 
> The Founding Fathers could not foresee the needs of the future, so they provided in the constitution powers to the federal government in the defence and welfare of the nation, which includes taxes, and the ability to modify the constitution through amendments.
> 
> Later on, well after the founding fathers, income taxes had been collected and later ratified as the 16th amendment.





Macfury said:


> You tell me precisely where you believe it gives the federal government this power. I won't do the work for you.


Why should I do the work for you?!?. I provided you the reference, read it yourself. Also, I added on a few things please read the quotation above.

I very much think that at this point, there is no longer any point continuing this discussion. If you are not willing to look at a copy of the constitution and read the sections I have outlined, then I believe reason will be ignored and discussion would be fruitless.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

ertman said:


> Why should I do the work for you?!?. I provided you the reference, read it yourself. Also, I added on a few things please read the quotation above.
> 
> I very much think that at this point, there is no longer any point continuing this discussion. If you are not willing to look at a copy of the constitution and read the sections I have outlined, then I believe reason will be ignored and discussion would be fruitless.


Even when Lincoln collected such income taxes as a temporary measure during the Civil War, he did so with the full admission that the decision was unconstitutional and the measures were framed as an extension of the legitimate powers of Excise Tax.

If you refuse to copy and paste the specific section you believe authorized the federal government to collect income taxes as outlined in the Constitution--I agree that continuing such a discussion is fruitless. You're firing blanks.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

oh so the federal government collecting taxes is "unconstitutional"

Smoke another one.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> oh so the federal government collecting taxes is "unconstitutional"
> 
> Smoke another one.


Don't embarrass yourself any further. You're literally out of your depth.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

yes that's your standard answer isn't it.

Please go tell everyone taxation is unconstitutional.

And tell us how in depth this is. Please. :lmao:

Do you really think anyone in 2011 cares what a bunch of old men thought in 1776?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

The poster child for the deficits of a modern education. Thanks for your input!


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

I'm sorry macfury, but you can assert no one has your level intellect all you want, but if you're going to insist someone prove the US government has the constitutional right for taxation as it has been doing, you're assertions become a joke.

I'm sure there are some who are anxiously awaiting -your- input.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Thank you again for your contribution.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> You tell me precisely where you believe it gives the federal government this power. I won't do the work for you.


"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." From the 16th Amendment of the US Constitution.

The founding fathers realized that they could not foresee every eventuality, so they provided for the Constitution to be amended, and thus, remain dynamic and to reflect the wishes of the Congress and the states.

So, with ratification (by the requisite 36 states) was completed on February 3, 1913 with the ratification by Delaware, the 16th Amendment became law. 

Remember, the federal government is made up of the President and the two houses of Congress, and they are held in check by the Supreme Court.

I would have to say that the founding fathers were rather wise to have crafted a constitution that has lasted this long and is still respected. 

Paix, mon ami.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

You're too kind Dr. G


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." From the 16th Amendment of the US Constitution.


Thank you Dr. G. for providing something of substance to discuss.

The initial question being discussed was whether the Founding Fathers conceived of a mechanism for collecting income taxes at the federal level.

I say that no such mechanism existed, because no such intention existed. That is why the 16th Amendment was added.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

oh come ON macfury, this was taught in flipping 101 class if you attended it.

Obviously as Dr. G stated the mechanism existed and was used for the amendments to make it possible.

Will the mewling ever cease?


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> Even when Lincoln collected such income taxes as a temporary measure during the Civil War, he did so with the full admission that the decision was unconstitutional and the measures were framed as an extension of the legitimate powers of Excise Tax.
> 
> If you refuse to copy and paste the specific section you believe authorized the federal government to collect income taxes as outlined in the Constitution--I agree that continuing such a discussion is fruitless. You're firing blanks.


Speaking of firing blanks... did you read what you just wrote about before posting, I challenge your statement.

So to deal with your irrationality and sheer laziness with spending the minute or two reading the constitution in its relevant parts...



> Portion of Section 8
> The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States


Power to tax etc.



> Portion of Section 9
> No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.)


Defining the power to directly tax, based on proportion of to the census or enumeration. Income tax is a form of direct tax, but wait there is more.



> Article 5
> The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.


Allows the government to make changes of to the constitution, allowing them to create amendments for future consideration.



> 16th Amendment
> The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.


In 1894 for example, a flat income tax was enacted and repealed as it was deemed unconstitutional, this is based on the fact that it was not apportioned to state population. So at this time, it was unconstitutional, however due to Article 5 in the Constitution, amendments could be made, which leads to the creation of the 16th amendment which allows for income tax without regard to census or enumeration.

The Founding Fathers did not have the precognitive ability to predict the requirements of American society, and how much things would change, including the funding of government itself in defence and welfare of the nation. So the Founding Fathers wrote in the 5th article to allow for changes to the Constitution. This power has allowed government to change the requirement of direct taxes. During the time of the Founding Fathers, income as we know it was not prevalent and therefore could not be fairly, effectively or reasonably taxed, hence why it was not explicitly outlined in the Constitution as "income tax", and hence the 16th amendment. 

The use of these taxes, is a whole other ideological discussion.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

> *Portion of Section 8*
> The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.
> 
> *Portion of Section 9*
> No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.)


Thanks for providing your interpretation.

My understanding is that this allowed states to collect taxes in proportion to their population, as their contribution in maintaining the minimal functions invested in the federal government. How the states raised this revenue was up to them.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> Thank you Dr. G. for providing something of substance to discuss.
> 
> The initial question being discussed was whether the Founding Fathers conceived of a mechanism for collecting income taxes at the federal level.
> 
> I say that no such mechanism existed, because no such intention existed. That is why the 16th Amendment was added.





groovetube said:


> oh come ON macfury, this was taught in flipping 101 class if you attended it.
> 
> Obviously as Dr. G stated the mechanism existed and was used for the amendments to make it possible.
> 
> Will the mewling ever cease?


Don't put words in my mouth, gt. The founding fathers discussed taxation, since it was the phrase "no taxation without representation" that was one of the flashpoints of the American Revolution.

James Madison, in discussing taxation before Congress identified a fundamental principle concerning the power delegated to Congress to lay and collect taxes:

"...a national revenue must be obtained; but the system must be
such a one, that, while it secures the object of revenue it shall not be
oppressive to our constituents."

The initial taxation laws went on to impose taxes, not on the citizens in each state, but on specific "goods, wares, and merchandise, imported into the United States". It was brilliant. Foreign companies who wanted to do business in the US would have to pay for this opportunity.

So, there was the opportunity and "mechanism" to impose a tax on income, but the founding fathers chose not to go down that path for a national tax. On this point, Macfury is incorrect. Still, from what I have studied of that period, I feel that at the time, they felt that there was no easy way to collect taxes on the income of each citizen. Thus, the taxation on doing business in the US, which foreigners paid and not US citizens.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> Thanks for providing your interpretation.
> 
> My understanding is that this allowed states to collect taxes in proportion to their population, as their contribution in maintaining the minimal functions invested in the federal government. How the states raised this revenue was up to them.


My minimal interpretations, as seen below each quote, and the interpretation, was done to show how the allowance for income taxes are possible as outlined in the Constitution and further amendments. Also, specifically the sections outlined were not for the states, but for Federal governance. Section 8 goes on to further describe some of the "minimal" functions and powers of the Congress.

Dr.G. having a significantly greater knowledge of the US seems to outline it more eloquently. I think Dr.G. and I are on a similar page on this one.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Dr.G. said:


> Don't put words in my mouth, gt. The founding fathers discussed taxation, since it was the phrase "no taxation without representation" that was one of the flashpoints of the American Revolution.
> 
> James Madison, in discussing taxation before Congress identified a fundamental principle concerning the power delegated to Congress to lay and collect taxes:
> 
> ...


I'm sorry dr. G, but the pomposity and intellectual superiority this macfury person displays after making such wild assumptions, is difficult to take.

It may have been 20 years since being in those 101 classes, but I know silliness when I see it.


----------



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

groovetube said:


> I'm sorry dr. G, but the pomposity and intellectual superiority this macfury person displays after making such wild assumptions, is difficult to take.
> 
> It may have been 20 years since being in those 101 classes, but I know silliness when I see it.


As my grandfather would say when I was a little boy, "You can put a shoe in the oven ........ but it won't come out a bagel." Paix, mon ami.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Dr.G. said:


> As my grandfather would say when I was a little boy, "You can put a shoe in the oven ........ but it won't come out a bagel." Paix, mon ami.


:lmao:


----------



## KC4 (Feb 2, 2009)

Dr.G. said:


> As my grandfather would say when I was a little boy, "You can put a shoe in the oven ........ but it won't come out a bagel." Paix, mon ami.


No, but it might come out a loafer.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> "...a national revenue must be obtained; but the system must be
> such a one, that, while it secures the object of revenue it shall not be
> oppressive to our constituents."
> 
> ...


Dr. G: Even Lincoln declared the brief flirtation with income tax unconstitutional during the Civil War. The income tax was quickly replaced with higher Excise Taxes. The U.S. Supreme Court declared income tax unconstitutional in 1895 with its decision in _Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co._, stating that any tax which did not originate among the states in proportion to population was illegal because it would be a "direct tax."

If the Founding Fathers had the mechanism to collect an income tax, they did not have the constitutional backing to do so.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> The U.S. Supreme Court declared income tax unconstitutional in 1895 with its decision in _Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co._, stating that any tax which did not originate among the states in proportion to population was illegal because it would be a "direct tax."


The sixteenth amendment nullified that ruling.


----------



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

KC4 said:


> No, but it might come out a loafer.


:lmao::clap::lmao:


----------



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

Macfury said:


> Dr. G: Even Lincoln declared the brief flirtation with income tax unconstitutional during the Civil War. The income tax was quickly replaced with higher Excise Taxes. The U.S. Supreme Court declared income tax unconstitutional in 1895 with its decision in _Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co._, stating that any tax which did not originate among the states in proportion to population was illegal because it would be a "direct tax."
> 
> If the Founding Fathers had the mechanism to collect an income tax, they did not have the constitutional backing to do so.


Macfury, what you don't seem to understand is that the US Constitution is a living and dynamic document, which has a well founded base to serve as a foundation for the amendments that may come. This was envisioned by the founding fathers. Read some of the papers of Jefferson, Madison, John Adams, et al, as to how they envisioned the Constitution to protect the rights of the individual while allowing for the protection and development of the nation. Try not to look at things as black or white, right or wrong, but rather, see the American Constitution ......... and in a sense America itself, as an ever-evolving republic "of the people, by the people and for the people". Paix, mon ami.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Dr.G. said:


> Read some of the papers of Jefferson, Madison, John Adams, et al, as to how they envisioned the Constitution to protect the rights of the individual while allowing for the protection and development of the nation. Try not to look at things as black or white, right or wrong, but rather, see the American Constitution ......... and in a sense America itself, as an ever-evolving republic "of the people, by the people and for the people". Paix, mon ami.


Well said.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> Macfury, what you don't seem to understand is that the US Constitution is a living and dynamic document, which has a well founded base to serve as a foundation for the amendments that may come. This was envisioned by the founding fathers. Read some of the papers of Jefferson, Madison, John Adams, et al, as to how they envisioned the Constitution to protect the rights of the individual while allowing for the protection and development of the nation. Try not to look at things as black or white, right or wrong, but rather, see the American Constitution ......... and in a sense America itself, as an ever-evolving republic "of the people, by the people and for the people". Paix, mon ami.


I understand the 16th Amendment quite well. The contention here is that Founding Fathers conceived the idea of income tax as a method of raising revenue through direct federal taxation. My position is that the Constitution allowed each state to do that if they chose, but, until the 16th Amendment, the federal government had no constitutional right to do so.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> I understand the 16th Amendment quite well. The contention here is that Founding Fathers conceived the idea of income tax as a method of raising revenue through direct federal taxation. My position is that the Constitution allowed each state to do that if they chose, but, until the 16th Amendment, the federal government had no constitutional right to do so.


Again, I don't think you understand the amending process. The 16th Amendment could easily have been the 11th amendment. There was always the constitutional right and opportunity to attempt to undertake this sort of action. They just chose not to attempt this sort of taxation at the time.

As I said, go back and read some of the thoughts on the founding fathers. I shall include Alexander Hamilton in the short list I provided to you earlier.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> Again, I don't think you understand the amending process. The 16th Amendment could easily have been the 11th amendment. There was always the constitutional right and opportunity to attempt to undertake this sort of action. They just chose not to attempt this sort of taxation at the time.
> 
> As I said, go back and read some of the thoughts on the founding fathers. I shall include Alexander Hamilton in the short list I provided to you earlier.


I'm not buying that, Dr. G. Your thesis here appears to be that since the Constitution can be amended, then all is permitted. Using that same theory, once could claim that the Founding Fathers understood that future generations might choose to eliminate the right to own private property, and the right to terminate liberty, so they wisely created a Constitution that could be amended.

The Founding Fathers did not simply choose "not to include" those things they would find repugnant. 

Direct taxation was something they sought to avoid and they wrote a Constitution designed to make it extraordinarily difficult to implement.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> I'm not buying that, Dr. G. Your thesis here appears to be that since the Constitution can be amended, then all is permitted. Using that same theory, once could claim that the Founding Fathers understood that future generations might choose to eliminate the right to own private property, and the right to terminate liberty, so they wisely created a Constitution that could be amended.
> 
> The Founding Fathers did not simply choose "not to include" those things they would find repugnant.
> 
> Direct taxation was something they sought to avoid and they wrote a Constitution designed to make it extraordinarily difficult to implement.


Once again, I say you should read the writings of the founding fathers. Yes, the founding fathers did, in fact, understand that the "right to own private property" (e.g., slaves) might need to be eliminated. Read Jefferson's diary about how his original "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence was initially "life, liberty and property" to bring over the southern colonies into the initial American confederation. Even though he held slaves at the time, he foresaw a time when slavery would be denied and abolished by law.

Read the debates that went on just following the US revolution and the proceedings of the first Continental Congress. Read the words of James Mason as they debated the various items that would comprise the Articles of Confederation. Read of the debates over how some felt that the 13 states were too large to govern by a central federal government ............. read how they argued over one word -- "the" vs "these", as in "the United States of America" vs "These United States of America".

Don't listen to me as being the authority on this ........... read what the founding fathers wrote and discussed and how those who framed the US Constitution felt about the various issues. 

I get the sense that you have some ideas about what happened back then, just as I did. That was until I took a graduate course on the US Constitution. I had no idea what actually went on in the back rooms as they were debating and framing this wonderful document, and even moreso the first 10 Amendments (aka The Bill of Rights). Read about the intricate organization they created with the President, Congress and the Supreme Court all, in theory, keeping each other in check. Even my #1 president, FDR, could not "pack" the Supreme Court and throw this balance out of order.

So, read and think before you write. I am not a Constitutional expert, and I don't claim to be. I don't want to argue with you back and forth like we did when you said that FDR was a leading cause of WWI. Don't take my word for what I just said .................. read THEIR words as to what they thought, feared and ultimately agreed upon. Open your eyes and mind and you shall see that some of the things you believe in were actually debated back then, compromised upon back then, fought over back then .............. just as they are right now. We actually agree upon many things re individual rights and freedoms. I am a neo-New Dealer/Great Society person within a body and mind that also believes in Jeffersonian democracy.

Paix, mon ami.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

I love a constitutional discussion. Especially when both participants are right. MacFury, the U.S. Constitution, as I am presuming you might agree, is a wonderful document. If you had a flow chart of the government of the U.S. the top box would be the Constitution. I'm assuming Dr. G that the Prez would be the second box. When it was written, it was written with the knowledge that they had at the time. Technology, social structure, economics all change. The beauty of the U.S. Constitution is that it, unlike ours, is over 200 years old and has been tested. That testing, to me, indicates that they got much of it right the first time, but the fact that it can be amended is its strength, unlike ours which we cringe at trying to amend. However, it is not an easy thing to do to amend it, that's why there are relatively few amendments when you think about it. To your comment MacFury, on anything is open, I agree it is. But amending and amendment would be difficult in this age, especially with all the case law that supports the current structure of the Constitution. 

Personally, I think the "right to bare arms" is an item that might fall under future review, I don't think the founding father envisioned the society that we live in where so many have injury inflicted so needlessly.


----------



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

Rps said:


> Personally, I think the "right to bare arms" is an item that might fall under future review, I don't think the founding father envisioned the society that we live in where so many have injury inflicted so needlessly.


Yes, it would be a difficult amendment to alter .............. especially since so many neglect to use the first part of the amendment in their arguements when they contend that they have the right to "bear arms".

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

From The Economist of 30th July






​


----------



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

Snapple Quaffer said:


> From The Economist of 30th July
> 
> View attachment 20934​


Good one, SQ. Sadly, to a point, it is so very true. Paix, mon ami.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Yes it is. Perhaps this latest debacle will highlight light for voters the next time round.

Not only didmthe republicans run the economy right into the ground, but now they're electing a party even worse.


----------



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

groovetube said:


> Yes it is. Perhaps this latest debacle will highlight light for voters the next time round.
> 
> Not only didmthe republicans run the economy right into the ground, but now they're electing a party even worse.


My wife was saying just the other day how sad it was that there was such high hope when Pres. Obama was sworn in and how these hopes were dashed when Bush turned over the "keys to the car" ............. after he had smashed it into a wall. tptptptp

My biggest concern is if the Republicans win the presidency in 2012, and keep control of the House of Representatives and win the Senate. That is a recipe for disaster. We shall see.

Paix, mon ami.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

yes, the same formulae we had for the biggest financial disaster in history. That and the tea party elements, should pretty much finish the US off completely.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Meanwhile, our Chinese friends are watching ... and waiting ...


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

One of my favourite comedians - on why he won't do Sarah Palin jokes...


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> My wife was saying just the other day how sad it was that there was such high hope when Pres. Obama was sworn in and how these hopes were dashed when Bush turned over the "keys to the car" ............. after he had smashed it into a wall. tptptptp
> 
> My biggest concern is if the Republicans win the presidency in 2012, and keep control of the House of Representatives and win the Senate. That is a recipe for disaster. We shall see.


I see Obama as the guy who grabbed the wheels to the car without any driving experience, then pushed the pedal to the metal. As the last experienced presidential candidate in modern history, the result is not a huge surprise.

My biggest concern is that Obama should win the presidency again. This is a recipe for disaster. He had two full years in control of both the house and senate and complained the whole time that he had no buy-in from the Republicans.

The U.S. has, for the first time, seen its Triple-A credit rating downgraded, not because Obama didn't get his debt limit raised, but because he did--while he's simply shown no leadership in controlling spending. Cut, Cap and Balance would have avoided that downgrade.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Macfury said:


> The U.S. has, for the first time, seen its Triple-A credit rating downgraded, not because Obama didn't get his debt limit raised, but because he did--while he's simply shown no leadership in controlling spending. Cut, Cap and Balance would have avoided that downgrade.


I think it is conjecture to think that a cut, cap and balance would have avoided the downgrade. The U.S. simply can't maintain its debt load by printing more money. I don't think they could cut and cap that much and still govern themselves. 

Obama simply took office at a bad time. The Republicans spent all the money and more and when the Democrats took office screamed where did all the money go .... note most of this came during the transition period from Bush to Obama.

All this, to me, is simply a case of the first and second rule of government...

First Rule: The role of government is to maintain being elected and not govern;
Second Rule: All government legislation invariably hurts those it is designed to protect.

Debate all you want, but this is more of the 2012 election than current economic "righting"


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Rps said:


> I think it is conjecture to think that a cut, cap and balance would have avoided the downgrade. The U.S. simply can't maintain its debt load by printing more money. I don't think they could cut and cap that much and still govern themselves.


The U.S. actually can do that--while hamstringing the economy and causing massive inflation. Cut, cap and balance showed actual leadership in balancing the budget. The current plan conservatively adds $7 trillion to total debt over 10 years, while cutting a pittance in spending... and Obama was pissed about the "spending cuts." Who would expect that this plan would result in a Triple A+ credit rating?

It's the borrowing at issue here. You either maintain this level of spending and taxes rise 50% on everyone (not just "the rich") to pay for it all, cut the spending, or do a combination of both. 

Raise taxes during a recession? I wouldn't, but it has its fans.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

When you wage expensive wars, someone has to pay for it. The rich cannot expect the middle class to be the only ones to step up to the plate and do their part. They can't continue to hide behind the governments skirt. It has to be a combination of both.

But when you have one side resisting cuts, and the other digging in and raising some taxes on the rich, well, just what did we expect?


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

I'm a supporter of tax fairness, which may mean raising the levels in some areas, but I also admire the arrogance of the lobby groups, which seem to be the agents of change in the U.S. more than the elected officials. To me, someone has to ask the question: "shouldn't we look at our defense spending and financing of 3 wars................." That would most certainly cut trillions out of the budget.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> I see Obama as the guy who grabbed the wheels to the car without any driving experience, then pushed the pedal to the metal. As the last experienced presidential candidate in modern history, the result is not a huge surprise.
> 
> My biggest concern is that Obama should win the presidency again. This is a recipe for disaster. He had two full years in control of both the house and senate and complained the whole time that he had no buy-in from the Republicans.
> 
> The U.S. has, for the first time, seen its Triple-A credit rating downgraded, not because Obama didn't get his debt limit raised, but because he did--while he's simply shown no leadership in controlling spending. Cut, Cap and Balance would have avoided that downgrade.


Guess we are talking about a different Pres. Obama. I see Bush as driving the car into the wall and then tossing the keys to Obama and saying "good luck", just as the car bursts into flames.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Dr.G. said:


> Guess we are talking about a different Pres. Obama. I see Bush as driving the car into the wall and then tossing the keys to Obama and saying "good luck", just as the car bursts into flames.


Well put, Dr. G.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> Guess we are talking about a different Pres. Obama. I see Bush as driving the car into the wall and then tossing the keys to Obama and saying "good luck", just as the car bursts into flames.


Obama supported the bail-outs and increased them, started an additional war in Libya, and extended U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Government institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who were essential in the financial meltdown continue to be supported by President Obama without any reform.

So if Obama is driving in a flaming wreck of a car, one would expect him to at least drive it through a car wash to put out the fire. He appears to be fiddling with the glove compartment.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Obama supported the bail-outs and increased them, started an additional war in Libya, and extended U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Government institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who were essential in the financial meltdown continue to be supported by President Obama without any reform.
> 
> So if Obama is driving in a flaming wreck of a car, one would expect him to at least drive it through a car wash to put out the fire. He appears to be fiddling with the glove compartment.


Come on macfury. Only a fool would believe half of this nonsense.

Extended the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? :lmao: that pretty much did it right there.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Macfury said:


> The U.S. has, for the first time, seen its Triple-A credit rating downgraded, not because Obama didn't get his debt limit raised, but because he did--while he's simply shown no leadership in controlling spending. Cut, Cap and Balance would have avoided that downgrade.


100% wrong. these are direct quotes from S&P on why they downgraded the US credit rating :



> The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.





> It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.





> The act contains no measures to raise taxes or otherwise enhance revenues, though the committee could recommend them.





> Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.


they went on further to say they could improve the US rating if :



> the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners lapse from 2013 onwards, as the Administration is advocating


the credit downgrade is firmly on the back of the tea party & republicans, unless you refuse to accept reality.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

i-rui said:


> 100% wrong.


actually i shouldn't say 100% wrong, Obama does deserve criticism for not getting a deal done sooner. Not because he wasn't reasonable, but because he was too reasonable. He should have used his power when he had it before the midterms to squash this tea party idiocy and pass a budget.

but still i'd say the blame is 90+% on the tea party & GOP for the downgrade.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

S&P's opening salvo said:



> We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that *further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements*, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process.





> Republicans and Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee decisions on more comprehensive measures. It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options. *In addition, the plan envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements, the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key to long-term fiscal sustainability.*


They don't really care how the U.S. balances its budget, but part of that must include controlling entitlements. Only the Tea Party advocated that.

How you saw that negotiation depends on which side of the aisle you're on. I saw it as a demand for spending to decrease in exchange for another round of borrowing--that spending cut was not achieved by the final deal. If one believes that only tax increases can bridge the gap, then you will see the Tea Party as spoilers.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

No one sees only tax increases as bridging the gap.

Don't be ridiculous. So far macfury, you're batting pretty much, zero.


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

This deal to address the debt crisis required compromises from Democrats and Democrats alike.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

the current deal doesn't touch entitlements, but Obama did put that on the table as long as revenue could be increased.

But rather then compromise and actually try to tackle the debt problem, republicans refused to budge and make their rich masters pay a penny more.

the irony is this tea party ideology of no new taxes (even though they're not really *new* taxes, simply repealing a tax cut that was supposed to end years ago) cost them the chance to also trim entitlements (but since most tea party members suck on the entitlement tit they didn't seem to mind)


----------



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

Macfury said:


> Obama supported the bail-outs and increased them, started an additional war in Libya, and extended U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Government institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who were essential in the financial meltdown continue to be supported by President Obama without any reform.
> 
> So if Obama is driving in a flaming wreck of a car, one would expect him to at least drive it through a car wash to put out the fire. He appears to be fiddling with the glove compartment.


Spin it any way you like, Macfury, but Clinton handed George Bush a surplus that was quickly turned into a deficit, and Bush handed Obama a time-bomb.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> S&P's opening salvo said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I shudder to think what sorts of cuts might be in store for the American people if the Tea Party ever got control of the presidency and both houses of Congress. I could see the EPA, NEA, Dept. of Education, Housing and Urban Development, and other social agencies being cut to the point of total ineffectiveness. We shall see.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> I shudder to think what sorts of cuts might be in store for the American people if the Tea Party ever got control of the presidency and both houses of Congress. I could see the EPA, NEA, Dept. of Education, Housing and Urban Development, and other social agencies being cut to the point of total ineffectiveness. We shall see.


Of course you can't envision it Dr. G, because you don't see anything particularly wrong with European style socialism. That traditionally entails low growth, low mobility and high institutional unemployment.

Social Security was devised to according to actuarial tables to provide assistance to people during the remaining two or three years of their lives, following retirement. It can't sustain people for 10 to 15 years without heavily punishing existing taxpayers. It needs to be raised to 67 as a starting point. Many such changes need to be made and only the Tea Party is serious about them.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Dr.G. said:


> Spin it any way you like, Macfury, but Clinton handed George Bush a surplus that was quickly turned into a deficit, and Bush handed Obama a time-bomb.


this is a rather difficult pill for right wing supporters to swallow. They think the solution, is a more extreme right wing government.

Boy that would be a wakeup call should that happen...


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> the current deal doesn't touch entitlements, but Obama did put that on the table as long as revenue could be increased.


Obama had two years in control of both Houses to make such changes. His death bed conversion to fiscal responsibility is disingenuous.


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Aren't cuts like that inevitable, DrG? America is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. A plethora of cost will have to be severely curtailed or eliminated entirely, from here on in - spending on the military, on health care, on education, on science - you name it. The cupboard is bare and China is serving notice that it's beginning to tire of holding American debt. Whether or not the Tea Party gains controls and speeds up the ruination is immaterial; the fall from grace is real and picking up speed. Indeed, playing the blame game strikes me as an infantile exercise which pointedly ignores the larger, infinitely more painful story - that is, the remarkable, remarkably sudden decline of the world's sole superpower - how that decline is contributing to a global economic mess, and what fresh, unforeseen folly may stem from that abysmal, worrying welter of conditions.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Max said:


> Aren't cuts like that inevitable, DrG? America is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. A plethora of cost will have to be severely curtailed or eliminated entirely, from here on in - spending on the military, on health care, on education, on science - you name it. The cupboard is bare and China is serving notice that it's beginning to tire of holding American debt. Whether or not the Tea Party gains controls and speeds up the ruination is immaterial; the fall from grace is real and picking up speed. Indeed, playing the blame game strikes me as an infantile exercise which pointedly ignores the larger, infinitely more painful story - that is, the remarkable, remarkably sudden decline of the world's sole superpower - how that decline is contributing to a global economic mess, and what fresh, unforeseen folly may stem from that abysmal, worrying welter of conditions.


I would think they are. But leaning on one ideology isn't going to solve much. Unfortunately for the US, (unfortunately because of the tug'o'war) embracing both solutions, deep spending cuts, and higher taxes, is the only way to get out of this mess. The left will have to accept the spending cuts, but the right will -have- to accept tax hikes. Relying on one, will fail.

That's the only way the US is going to save itself.


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Yes. Meanwhile the degree of polarization, thanks to a crippling dependency on ultra-partisanship and a failure of nerve to admit disaster, is ensuring that the problem only worsens.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Macfury said:


> Obama had two years in control of both Houses to make such changes. His death bed conversion to fiscal responsibility is disingenuous.


i agree to a point. he should have used the power when he had it, but to be fair the republicans were threatening to filibuster everything in the first 2 years. He was naive to try and reach some compromise with a party who are clearly willing to sabotage their own country in order to bring him down.

In hindsight Hillary could have been a better president since she understood what the republican political machine is capable of, and would have held firmer to her campaign promises.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> Of course you can't envision it Dr. G, because you don't see anything particularly wrong with European style socialism. That traditionally entails low growth, low mobility and high institutional unemployment.
> 
> Social Security was devised to according to actuarial tables to provide assistance to people during the remaining two or three years of their lives, following retirement. It can't sustain people for 10 to 15 years without heavily punishing existing taxpayers. It needs to be raised to 67 as a starting point. Many such changes need to be made and only the Tea Party is serious about them.


Yes, I shall admit that I see no major problems with the "Nordic model" of economic and social systems found in the of Nordic countries of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. They have an adaptation of the mixed market economy which is aimed specifically at enhancing individual autonomy, protecting a level of universal human rights while attempting to stabilize their economies. I especially like their approach towards education, literacy/libraries, child care (both pre and in-school programs), gender equality and health care.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Max said:


> Yes. Meanwhile the degree of polarization, thanks to a crippling dependency on ultra-partisanship and a failure of nerve to admit disaster, is ensuring that the problem only worsens.


exactly. The citizens of the country do not benefit from this polarization at all. We could all argue for our prospective 'side', but we can find holes, and warts on either side. The tea party to me, is just an extreme version of one side.

On a smaller scale, pretty soon we'll see here in Ontario, the whole "the other guy is baaad" sort of campaign. Neither is very good. But it'll work, and we'll just have more bad government. On it goes.


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Max said:


> Aren't cuts like that inevitable, DrG? America is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. A plethora of cost will have to be severely curtailed or eliminated entirely, from here on in


I agree with your argument, but I don't think it's necessarily as dire a situation as you paint it (although, with the republicans and tea party preventing any rational actions, it will get worse and may ultimately be as bad as you suggest). The US could put it's financial house in order by simply reigning in it's military, abandoning the war on drugs, and ending the Bush era tax cuts.

Some may argue that, without the US World Police, terrorism will spread, but I think the opposite will happen. Without the US (and it's allies, like us), stirring up hatred and violence around the world, terrorists will have a much harder time recruiting. We'd do far better dropping iPods loaded with western music, Hollywood movies and porn on Afghanistan than we've ever done with bombs. And it would be way cheaper.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

bryanc said:


> The US could put it's financial house in order by simply reigning in it's military, abandoning the war on drugs, and ending the Bush era tax cuts.


+1 for the short term. Long term the entitlement programs have to be reworked, but they don't have to be axed down into the ground.



bryanc said:


> We'd do far better dropping iPods loaded with western music, Hollywood movies and porn on Afghanistan than we've ever done with bombs. And it would be way cheaper.


great point. The war on terrorism should now be handled with intelligence work and policing.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

bryanc said:


> I agree with your argument, but I don't think it's necessarily as dire a situation as you paint it (although, with the republicans and tea party preventing any rational actions, it will get worse and may ultimately be as bad as you suggest). The US could put it's financial house in order by simply reigning in it's military, abandoning the war on drugs, and ending the Bush era tax cuts.
> 
> Some may argue that, without the US World Police, terrorism will spread, but I think the opposite will happen. Without the US (and it's allies, like us), stirring up hatred and violence around the world, terrorists will have a much harder time recruiting. *We'd do far better dropping iPods loaded with western music, Hollywood movies and porn on Afghanistan than we've ever done with bombs. And it would be way cheaper.*


ha ha ha ha. :clap:


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

The problem I see is that the U.S. ( and I'll bet us as well ) is controlled by lobby groups which when a programme was created only benefited the lobby group. Take health care. In the U.S. the HMOs and the hospitals over charge for everything....in fact you can get almost any test you want, regardless of cost, why, because the hospitals can bill the HMOs and get paid ..... provided you have the right insurance you can get any form of treatment. This does not help the cost of medicare, only increase it as we come to believe we have this entitlement. That is the reason they can't cut health care costs in the U.S. without drastically hurting the population, because those that do have insurance do not want to give their coverage up .... even though they are being reamed. Then, there are those without coverage, for an industrial superior nation it is criminal the rate of citizens without some form of health care protection. If you want to cuts health care costs you need to re-educate the populace to live a more healthy life-style and then rip apart the billing/insurance system....that would never fly. You want to talk about infrastructure, education, defense, it's all the same thing. The U.S. needs to green field their whole system of government programmes and start over. And that is why it will never get done ...... their systems have allowed things to get out of control.....and we're next.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> i agree to a point. he should have used the power when he had it, but to be fair the republicans were threatening to filibuster everything in the first 2 years. He was naive to try and reach some compromise with a party who are clearly willing to sabotage their own country in order to bring him down.


Obama made it very clear from Day One that he was going to move ahead on his own:



> "We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back."


and



> "We disagree on tax policy. Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won."


He was not reaching out at all.

Whether you think the Tea Party is sabotaging their country again depends on your worldview. I believe the Tea Party is the only group with the balls to save it. The Country Club Republicans and most Democrats are marching into the sea, arm in arm.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

heh heh. Macfury thinks the tea party isn't the country club party too.

They're merely the extreme version. Hey, we all need a saviour.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

groovetube said:


> heh heh. Macfury thinks the tea party isn't the country club party too.
> 
> They're merely the extreme version. Hey, we all need a saviour.


The trouble with the Tea Party is that they, on the surface, have a rational point of view. No one can argue that you can't keep raising debt forever, sooner or later you have to pay it back. The issue I see is that they have limited history in power with which we can draw an understanding of how they would react to pressure. There is a significant difference between being in power and having to make the decision to flick the switch and being in opposition wanting your switch flicked and just being on the outside just complaining.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Rps said:


> The trouble with the Tea Party is that they, on the surface, have a rational point of view. No one can argue that you can't keep raising debt forever, sooner or later you have to pay it back. The issue I see is that they have limited history in power with which we can draw an understanding of how they would react to pressure. There is a significant difference between being in power and having to make the decision to flick the switch and being in opposition wanting your switch flicked and just being on the outside just complaining.


Certainly. But all but a few Democrats and most Republicans are doing literally nothing. As Barrack Obama once said when he refused to vote to raise the debt limit for George Bush (holding him hostage?):



> "The fact that we're here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. Leadership means the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership."


Time for Obama to wear that.


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

BryanC, I admit my scenario is bleak. But I do not see the intransigence on either side of the great divide easing up any time soon - hence the downward spiral I predict. The people who would be players are beset with bickering and posturing. It's like Nero fiddling.

America will not go away. It _will_ be greatly reduced in power, scope and ambition - that's more than enough of a fall from where they once stood. but that same fall has implications for us all.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Rps said:


> The trouble with the Tea Party is that they, on the surface, have a rational point of view. No one can argue that you can't keep raising debt forever, sooner or later you have to pay it back. The issue I see is that they have limited history in power with which we can draw an understanding of how they would react to pressure. There is a significant difference between being in power and having to make the decision to flick the switch and being in opposition wanting your switch flicked and just being on the outside just complaining.


they're merely in place to protect the entitlements of the rich, and to ensure the middle class pays for their expenditures, such as the wars. How else do you think a have not with no healthcare would stand up screaming and protesting that he shouldn't get any healthcare because we can't afford it. We need to protect the wealthy from paying their fair share!

People buy this stuff because they brand themselves as the party of our forefathers. Then you'll see some even try to argue taxation as it exists is unconstitutional. Despite this basic stuff being taught in first or second year.

One born every minute it seems.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

Macfury said:


> Certainly. But all but a few Democrats and most Republicans are doing literally nothing. As Barrack Obama once said when he refused to vote to raise the debt limit for George Bush (holding him hostage?):
> 
> 
> 
> Time for Obama to wear that.


That is a fair statement. It's amazing how things come back to bite you isn't it?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Tasty!


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

sure, but that word salad pretty much sums it up, regardless of how bothered you are needing to find funny images.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

According to the IRS: 

* All Americans earned about $7.6 trillion in 2009.
* 8,274 Americans earned $10 million per year or more--$250 billion. 
* 227,000 people earned $1 million or more in 2009--$500 billion

The government already gets a significant portion of that, but presuming you took it all, "the rich" wouldn't put much of a dent in the deficit.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Sorry but your math logic might fly with a 10 year old, perhaps.

You may want to rethink that mess again lol.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> Sorry but your math logic might fly with a 10 year old, perhaps.
> 
> You may want to rethink that mess again


Good rebuttal as usual. You really knocked that one back to the IRS!



groovetube said:


> lol.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

ooooh you pull a couple numbers from the IRS website and you think this, should be the slam dunk hit'er in the bulls eye point.

Well hells bells, ain't the interwebs smart. 5 keystrokes and you have hit a home run as policy chief for the tea party.

well done macfury!


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> According to the IRS:
> 
> * All Americans earned about $7.6 trillion in 2009.
> * 8,274 Americans earned $10 million per year or more--$250 billion.
> * 227,000 people earned $1 million or more in 2009--$500 billion


These numbers are so far removed from data available elsewhere that they have to be something very nearly irrelevant, like salaried income or something like that.

The top few percent of earners control the vast majority of wealth in the US









That wealthy upper crust with the majority of all the capital in the system don't get it from their daily salary (or it would show up in those IRS numbers), but they get it all the same. So far from the small fraction of the whole your numbers imply, the wealthiest americans control well over 80% of the capital in the US economy.


----------



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

bryanc said:


> These numbers are so far removed from data available elsewhere that they have to be something very nearly irrelevant, like salaried income or something like that.
> 
> The top few percent of earners control the vast majority of wealth in the US
> 
> ...



Very interesting graphs, bryanc. It puts the issue into greater perspective for us all ............. or at least most of us ........... or better still for some of us. 

Paix, mon ami.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Once again, something not hard to figure out, seems out of some people's grasp. I doubt sanity and/or graphs will convince our resident atom smasher. But I'm sure beyond the "taxation that's surely unconstitutional", the insignificance of the tiny hard done by wealthy, which doesn't account for very much, we'll see some more lunacy. One -could- waste time finding rebuttals beyond laughing, but shoot me for only wishing to do so.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> These numbers are so far removed from data available elsewhere that they have to be something very nearly irrelevant, like salaried income or something like that.


They're income reported to the IRS. That includes salary and hourly wages.

Here's a fairly recent precis from the IRS--the top 1 per cent and top 10 per cent of gross income add to approximately 500 billion. So take it all, and you can make a small down payment on the current debt load--with a lot of collateral damage to the economy of course.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Or simply try this recent article:

IRS: Not enough rich to cover the deficit « Don Surber


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Of course you can't envision it Dr. G, because you don't see anything particularly wrong with European style socialism. That traditionally entails low growth, low mobility and high institutional unemployment.
> 
> Social Security was devised to according to actuarial tables to provide assistance to people during the remaining two or three years of their lives, following retirement. It can't sustain people for 10 to 15 years without heavily punishing existing taxpayers. It needs to be raised to 67 as a starting point. Many such changes need to be made and only the Tea Party is serious about them.


You totally ignore that the large commercial bankers left to their own greedy inclinations melted down the world's economy. I hear no other "commentator" blaming freddie and fanny for the situation caused by free enterprisers run amuck. The right is right is your credo but the credibility for your defence of the right is only one thing...a guy on the internet with an opinion.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> You totally ignore that the large commercial bankers left to their own greedy inclinations melted down the world's economy. I hear no other "commentator" blaming freddie and fanny for the situation caused by free enterprisers run amuck. The right is right is your credo but the credibility for your defence of the right is only one thing...a guy on the internet with an opinion.


The bankers were greedy--absolutely no doubt. I have always stated they deserved absolutely no bail-out, and some of them deserved to be tried for fraud.

However, the mortgage bundles were all swapped and laundered through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and sold to investors as "government-backed." 

These securities would never have made it to market if the buyers didn't believe they were backed by the U.S. government.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

you are clearly, as you like to put it, "out of your league".

Stop embarrassing yourself with this sheer stupidity, really. If you can't comprehend the concept of combined taxation reform and spending cuts, without this nonsense of yanking numbers from the air at the IRS, perhaps you'd be better off arguing about blackberries.

I have a surface knowledge of this and even I, can see the sheer lunacy.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

MacFury I'm not so sure about the ABCPs not making it to market if the buyers didn't believe they were government backed. At issue with these was the Clinton repealing of the G-S Act, which opened the door for investment banking, who greedily pawned sub-prime mortgages as fully backed investments. Many ( including myself ) warned their companies and governments of the folly of this and especially the complete absence of governance by the Bush Administration, we're talking 8 years here...... one cannot help but blame the whole republican party and its agenda on this most recent melt down.

If Obama has any fault in this, and I agree he could have been more forceful with both houses on the debt ceiling, he missed the boat on revamping the legislation on the governance of the banking and investment industry. To me, this is a fatal error on his part, and probably one that will cost him a second term, not so much the debt issue as the lack of stepping up to the plate and taking charge of the root cause. Once the failed to do this when he had the chance it will be a generation more before that opportunity will surface again.


----------



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

BigDL said:


> You totally ignore that the large commercial bankers left to their own greedy inclinations melted down the world's economy. I hear no other "commentator" blaming freddie and fanny for the situation caused by free enterprisers run amuck. The right is right is your credo but the credibility for your defence of the right is only one thing...a guy on the internet with an opinion.


"The business of America is business." Pres. Calvin Coolidge

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." Sen. Barry Goldwater, from his acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican Convention


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Rps said:


> MacFury I'm not so sure about the ABCPs not making it to market if the buyers didn't believe they were government backed. At issue with these was the Clinton repealing of the G-S Act, which opened the door for investment banking, who greedily pawned sub-prime mortgages as fully backed investments. Many ( including myself ) warned their companies and governments of the folly of this and especially the complete absence of governance by the Bush Administration, we're talking 8 years here...... one cannot help but blame the whole republican party and its agenda on this most recent melt down.


I think they would have made it to market but been far less popular. In Clinton's defense, the repeal of G-S was pushed by Republicans who didn't realize the ramifications of the changes they demanded. Clinton could have vetoed, but probably had little idea of what the bill would wind up doing either. On the other hand, it was Democrats who pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac heavily toward sub-prime mortgages to justify their existence. Toward the end of his final term, Bush did push for reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but by then he no longer controlled both houses--too little and way too late.

So a monstrous mess all around, which I blame on government in general, not any party in particular. The law of unintended consequences coming home to roost.



Rps said:


> If Obama has any fault in this, and I agree he could have been more forceful with both houses on the debt ceiling, he missed the boat on revamping the legislation on the governance of the banking and investment industry. To me, this is a fatal error on his part, and probably one that will cost him a second term, not so much the debt issue as the lack of stepping up to the plate and taking charge of the root cause. Once the failed to do this when he had the chance it will be a generation more before that opportunity will surface again.


His response to the banking industry was odd, seemingly focusing primarily on punishing individual bankers by attempting to strip them of their salaries or bonuses. While regulating the banking industry--and actually prosecuting some of those bankers--wouldn't have been out of the question, he could have addressed the systemic problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac without too much difficulty, and that's where I fault his administration primarily.


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> They're income reported to the IRS. That includes salary and hourly wages.


So, if we were to pick a random billionaire, like Steve Jobs, that annual salary reported to the IRS would be $1. You see my point?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> So, if we were to pick a random billionaire, like Steve Jobs, that annual salary reported to the IRS would be $1. You see my point?


Yes, I see your point. But if his income is $1, then how will raising his income taxes 50 per cent help out?


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

MacFury, I think I agree with your observations ..... these were often held by myself on many occasions. I think Obama let a golden opportunity pass by when he didn't completely revamp the fiat industry.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Make the rich pay?

We couldn't possibly, do that.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Rps said:


> MacFury, I think I agree with your observations ..... these were often held by myself on many occasions. I think Obama let a golden opportunity pass by when he didn't completely revamp the fiat industry.


It was much more expedient to appear to be punishing bankers than to open an investigation that would turn on both bankers and government agencies, prior to a change in regualtions. Note that there was little insistence on such an investigation in either party.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Macfury said:


> According to the IRS:
> 
> * All Americans earned about $7.6 trillion in 2009.
> * 8,274 Americans earned $10 million per year or more--$250 billion.
> ...


lol at trying to paint this amount as something trivial. "presuming you took it all" from those top 2%, that'd equal $750 billion, which would be almost the same amount as the stimulus package that the right wing nut jobs complain about. (well, except that $275 billion of the stimulus was actually tax cuts)

lets not stop there, over 10 years that $750 billion would equal $7.5 trillion, which would easily smash the expected reduction of $2.1-2.5 trillion that the debt ceiling agreement currently calls for. (which by the way doesn't even cover the bush tax cuts if they continue to be extended).


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> lol at trying to paint this amount as something trivial. "presuming you took it all" from those top 2%, that'd equal $750 billion, which would be almost the same amount as the stimulus package that the right wing nut jobs complain about. (well, except that $275 billion of the stimulus was actually tax cuts)
> 
> lets not stop there, over 10 years that $750 billion would equal $7.5 trillion, which would easily smash the expected reduction of $2.1-2.5 trillion that the debt ceiling agreement currently calls for. (which by the way doesn't even cover the bush tax cuts if they continue to be extended).


It's not that it's a trivial amount. I'm pointing out that you can't take away _all of_ the money earned by the top income earners and expect them to continue to work on behalf of the "little man." 

The current government take already includes a large input from this group anyway, so even if you decided to confiscate all of it, you'd add maybe $500 billion.

Considering annual shortfalls of $1.5 trillion under Obama, the rich alone could not stem his red ink tide, and the confiscatory tax policy you're finding so enticing would have a negative effect on economic growth.

So the truth still stands--the rich alone can't pay for Obama's debt. If they're not willing to cut spending, the people sucking on the government teat will wind up paying for their own programs through increased taxes.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

your original post said "presuming you took it all, "the rich" wouldn't put much of a dent in the deficit."

my point was that "presuming you took it all" it would very much put a nice sized chunk out of the deficit. 

Obviously you can't really take it all, but at the very least they have to repeal the bush tax cuts, and cut spending as well.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> your original post said "presuming you took it all, "the rich" wouldn't put much of a dent in the deficit."
> 
> my point was that "presuming you took it all" it would very much put a nice sized chunk out of the deficit.
> 
> Obviously you can't really take it all, but at the very least they have to repeal the bush tax cuts, and cut spending as well.


But it isn't a zero-sum game. If you took all of the money away from the richest Americans, the effect would be a one-time revenue boost--before they left the country, along with their money. 

What's really needed is a growing economy. That alone would raise significant revenue on existing tax rates.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

i still think they need to raises taxes, all-round, but there taxes increases should be progressive as the income level goes up. There should also be some/many of the tax loopholes closed.

This isn't a tax and spend policy I am suggesting there should be cuts, but what they really need is restructuring of departments and funding. An across the board cut isn't effective, as it hurts more than helps.

Taxing won't be enough, and neither is cutting. A compromise won't work either, in the US the situation is bad enough that both policies must be followed, not a half and half approach. Good luck on getting the parties to work together though.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> But it isn't a zero-sum game. If you took all of the money away from the richest Americans, the effect would be a one-time revenue boost--before they left the country, along with their money.
> 
> What's really needed is a growing economy. That alone would raise significant revenue on existing tax rates.


How do you propose to do this exactly? The problem seems to be more psychological than an actual business problem. 



Macfury said:


> So a monstrous mess all around, which I blame on government in general, not any party in particular. The law of unintended consequences coming home to roost.


I am not trying to create a further argument about this, but haven't you spent a significant portion of posts in this thread and other related threads blaming Obama and the Democratic party?

I also agree that its not any party in particular, but rather all of them and their inability to work toward a common good, some of which is not based on partisan politics.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

ertman said:


> I am not trying to create a further argument about this, but haven't you spent a significant portion of posts in this thread and other related threads blaming Obama and the Democratic party?
> 
> I also agree that its not any party in particular, but rather all of them and their inability to work toward a common good, some of which is not based on partisan politics.


I was a real opponent of profligate spending under George Bush. I believe that the U.S. primarily suffers from a spending problem and not a revenue problem.

To see spending accelerated to record levels under Obama while he stands firm on picayune spending cuts amounting to a penny on the dollar over 10 years tells me he is only interested in raising revenues, not cutting spending. From printing money, to ham-fisted control of General Motors, to bizarre health care legislation introduced in the middle of a terrible recession, failure to fix Fannie and Freddie and a stimulus program that did little but pay salaries for state government workers, almost every economic program championed by Obama has been a flop. Watching him consistently blaming others for his bad decisions compounds my distaste.

From my perspective, if this is the best you can do, given these challenges, then do nothing instead. Hope to see him gone in 2012 so somebody with an understanding of economics can take over.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

MacFury, let's put some of your thoughts in perspective here. First, the spending was pre-established by the Bush Admin and Obama had no choice but to follow through with the TARP funds. Second, Health Care was a legacy issue with Obama and had to be done ...some would say he didn't go far enough, but he did at least bring in some "reform" and I use the term loosely. And his government saved General Motors ... no debate here I know more about this aspect than I can mention. Take my word for it, he saved the auto industry and thousands of jobs ... the debate on how the industry got to this point is another issue however. Fannie and Freddie were doomed from the beginning and yes that needs to be looked at, but it will come.

The issue on raising taxes and spending cuts should be simple, yes raise taxes on those areas that make sense ... I understand you can't tax a billionaire into a millionaire and still keep them in the country, but some areas of the economy can have tax increase. And yes one should cut spending where it makes sense. The federal parties did little, in my opinion, to find a common ground to actually benefit the country .... this whole deal is electioneering plain and simple. If it was me, I'd do an FDR .... improve the infrastructure and create jobs. The real issue here is the unemployment. The U.S. is in the middle of a job crisis and that will help generate GDP ... the lower U.S. dollar will help with exports. Second, I would rip and tear the administration of the social system .... it is too heavy with graft, lobby, and who knows what. It isn't the socialist society that is wrong, it's how it is administered. We could learn a lesson here ourselves. There are so many poor and near poor in the U.S. that it is almost criminal to think that any government would allow that condition to exist. Bottom line, the U.S. invests its money in the wrong areas and that is what has to change.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> It's not that it's a trivial amount. I'm pointing out that you can't take away _all of_ the money earned by the top income earners and expect them to continue to work on behalf of the "little man."
> 
> The current government take already includes a large input from this group anyway, so even if you decided to confiscate all of it, you'd add maybe $500 billion.
> 
> ...


Here's a great example of how the lunacy of the right fights to protect it's own.

No one has ever suggested, we take away ALL of the money from the rich. What lunatic would say thus? But this is how it is framed.

First, the desperate howl that no, the rich doesn't account for a lot, backed up from some numbers cherry picked fro the inter tubes. Then when the obvious is pointed out, we need to jump into histrionics, raving that we want to rip all of the wealthy's cash from their poor hands, ALL OF IT! 

It certainly leaves little doubt as to whether the tea party and their supporters are extremists.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

groovetube said:


> It certainly leaves little doubt as to whether the tea party and their supporters are extremists.


GT, I'm not sure that the Tea Party are extremists .... I don't see their elected history to draw that conclusion. In fact, it wasn't that long ago that the NDP in this country was tagged that way. You can only tell how a party reacts when it is elected .... everything else is just electioneering and doesn't count. 

The problem is that there is soooooooooooooooo much miss-information and slanting that unless you undertook party policy as an academic study you would be lost. I'm mean really most people get their news and views from TV - slanted for entertainment and shock value, Talk Radio - the home of the conservative ---is there a single liberal talk radio host that you can name?, or the net - where anyone can pass an opinion and if it gets enough hits is suddenly credible .... we are facebooking and twittering ourselves into oblivion .

There used to be a game show called " Who do you trust?"..... one wonders.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Relax, 'groove. What i-rui and I were doing was playing out a "scenario." It isn't real. A thought experiment.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Rps said:


> GT, I'm not sure that the Tea Party are extremists .... I don't see their elected history to draw that conclusion. In fact, it wasn't that long ago that the NDP in this country was tagged that way. You can only tell how a party reacts when it is elected .... everything else is just electioneering and doesn't count.
> 
> The problem is that there is soooooooooooooooo much miss-information and slanting that unless you undertook party policy as an academic study you would be lost. I'm mean really most people get their news and views from TV - slanted for entertainment and shock value, Talk Radio - the home of the conservative ---is there a single liberal talk radio host that you can name?, or the net - where anyone can pass an opinion and if it gets enough hits is suddenly credible .... we are facebooking and twittering ourselves into oblivion .
> 
> There used to be a game show called " Who do you trust?"..... one wonders.


But aren't there tea party members elected? I'm basing what I say on their actions. Not what some group -says- they would do if elected.



Macfury said:


> Relax, 'groove. What i-rui and I were doing was playing out a "scenario." It isn't real. A thought experiment.


No macfury you spent several pages trying to convince everyone that the rich isn't a significant enough number to bother taxing. Then, after it became apparent that was just another one of your ridiculous rants, it became keeping their taxes low will ensure more jobs and a better economy.

You still fall for this trickle down scam? :lmao:


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> ou still fall for this trickle down scam? :lmao:


What does trickle-down economics have to do with what we were discussing? Have a coffee, man.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

I'm on my third.

It'll come to you. Just think, low taxes for the rich, better economy, they;ll create jobs... y'know. You'll figure it out.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Considering annual shortfalls of $1.5 trillion under Obama, the rich alone could not stem his red ink tide, and the confiscatory tax policy you're finding so enticing would have a negative effect on economic growth.


here, to jog your memory. All in one line, you suggest taxing the rich alone won't stem the deficit. What was your first clue? I don't think anyone ever suggested that.

And the gem, my god if you tax the rich, it'll "have a negative effect on the economy".

Well that's funny, it sure didn't for Clinton.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Maybe you should switch to decaf then. I don't have the time to get you on topic this morning.


----------



## Rps (May 2, 2009)

GT, I don't think the Tea Party are classed as a political party yet. The are a populist movement and generally align with the Republicans. I may be wrong but I don't think they, as a party, have elected anyone yet.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Rps said:


> GT, I don't think the Tea Party are classed as a political party yet. The are a populist movement and generally align with the Republicans. I may be wrong but I don't think they, as a party, have elected anyone yet.


you're splitting hairs here. Whatever form they are currently, they seem to be a little extremist to me. And likely to a lot of people.



Macfury said:


> Maybe you should switch to decaf then. I don't have the time to get you on topic this morning.


If you're having trouble making the connection, educate yourself on Reaganomics.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

well perhaps the tea party has it's competition.
Coffee Party | Wake Up and Stand Up


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> well perhaps the tea party has it's competition.
> Coffee Party | Wake Up and Stand Up


Oh, gosh, that sad sack David Frum is on the bottom of the page. Time to stop reading.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

you scrolled though that much content that quickly to find someone you didn't like?

That at least explains the silly cherry picking. I haven't even had time to read much of anything on it yet.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Nope, I even gave a free pass to that sad sack Al Gore. Wishy washy Frum was about all I could stomach this morning.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

I haven't had much time to really look at this really. But it bills itself as the party for the middle class it seems. It's either that, or anther grass roots movement designed to dupe the American people into believing they're standing up for themselves and the good of their country.

What would happen should a grassroots movement catch on that was, 'for the people'. Rather than for protecting the assts of the wealthy.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

The US political process will continue to get worse as long as they allow the millions of dollars from corporations and lobby groups to control their government.

It would take a national uprising to really let the people change their government, otherwise the fall will be inevitable. Hopefully something like this 'coffee party' might be the start of that.


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

This editorial in the NYT seems to sum things up quite well: Obama has compromised with the intransigent Republicans so much that he's been unable to accomplish anything of value. Compromise isn't a virtue when one side is wrong.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> This editorial in the NYT seems to sum things up quite well: Obama has compromised with the intransigent Republicans so much that he's been unable to accomplish anything of value. Compromise isn't a virtue when one side is wrong.


I have seen Obama as one of the presidents least willing to compromise. His "get in back" speech has rung true for the past three years. He had two years where he ran roughshod over the Republicans and one where he has been forced to compromise, merely because he lost a mid-term election. Hardly a virtue. 

The fact that Obama is usually wrong is a good reason to be thankful he's done so much entirely on his own. Less blame to go around.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

sure it's better to let the party that not only ran "roughshod" for 6 of the 8 years, but was largely responsible for causing this massive mess in the first place, be "right".

sure. barely 2 years sure as hell SHOULD have been enough for the democrats to fix this unbelievable mess wudn't ya think?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> \ure. barely 2 years sure as hell SHOULD have been enough for the democrats to fix this unbelievable mess wudn't ya think?


It's enough time to do something positive--instead of extending the worst excesses of the Bush era, spending money like water and creating an uncertain business climate for investors who simply don't know what bizarre new regulation is coming down the federal pipeline. Consumer confidence is ebbing and most Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction.

Well done, President Obama. Your time is up.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

oh please. It wasn't enough time to do anything but try to prevent a full blown depression caused by the right wing liars before them.

Clearly, you haven't a clue as to he magnitude of this crisis if you think that in any way 2 years was enough time to turn this around.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Obama has a plan that would result into transforming the U.S. into Greece. Any compromise he has made has delayed that transformation.

As Michelle Obama stated: "Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual."

I'm sure that threat is resonating with a lot of Americans today.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

is that similar to "you won't recognize Canada when we're done"?

Obama's plan wouldn't be turning the US into Greece anytime soon.

But then you love to state the maybes as absolute fact. We have all seen how the republican plan has worked. And that certainly has taken the US closer to Greece. And it seems you support more of the same.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I'll raise a glass of Ouzo to that!


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Well, if the republicans/tea party continue to get their way, perhaps you should!

Ours is busy spending their faces off too. Better get another bottle while you're still employed.


----------



## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I still don't get how a party that is serving at best, and I'm probably being super optimistic, the interests of just 5% of the American population has managed to brainwash at least 50% of the population. Of the upper middle class, I would say 10% are genuinely there and 90% are riddled in debt to be there.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

The major problem with the US is that their politicians are only interested in what can be done in 2 years, 4 at the most. This creates significant planning challenges. Sure it works well for the short-term but creates long-term strategic planning problems. The politicians prey on the ideological differences between people and exploit them to just get re-elected. This can be seen in recent events surrounding "the debt crisis", and you can even see this in how they create advertisements for election.

This approach has and is creating problems in moving the general welfare of a nation forward. It creates division in its people, and even though we are in Canada, some of this division can be seen in this very forum and thread. Its more important for many to hate those of opposing ideologies, then it is to believe in their own. This will slow long-term growth and improvement, and have devastating consequences long-term in both the US and in other trading countries unless lessons are learned.

On a Canada centric note, this same thing is beginning to happen in Canada.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

dona83 said:


> I still don't get how a party that is serving at best, and I'm probably being super optimistic, the interests of just 5% of the American population has managed to brainwash at least 50% of the population. Of the upper middle class, I would say 10% are genuinely there and 90% are riddled in debt to be there.


And how do you appraise the Democrat constituency?


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

ertman said:


> The major problem with the US is that their politicians are only interested in what can be done in 2 years, 4 at the most. This creates significant planning challenges. Sure it works well for the short-term but creates long-term strategic planning problems. The politicians prey on the ideological differences between people and exploit them to just get re-elected. This can be seen in recent events surrounding "the debt crisis", and you can even see this in how they create advertisements for election.
> 
> This approach has and is creating problems in moving the general welfare of a nation forward. It creates division in its people, and even though we are in Canada, some of this division can be seen in this very forum and thread. Its more important for many to hate those of opposing ideologies, then it is to believe in their own. This will slow long-term growth and improvement, and have devastating consequences long-term in both the US and in other trading countries unless lessons are learned.
> 
> On a Canada centric note, this same thing is beginning to happen in Canada.


the quickfixes. Even our resident atom smasher has no more attention than the 2 years Obama had with control of the houses, I don't think they appreciate how much damage has -been- done during the bush years. They're so desperate to blame Obama that they have never stopped to consider what would have happened if Obama turned off the taps.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> the quickfixes. Even our resident atom smasher has no more attention than the 2 years Obama had with control of the houses, I don't think they appreciate how much damage has -been- done during the bush years. They're so desperate to blame Obama that they have never stopped to consider what would have happened if Obama turned off the taps.


Obama has done so very much in those two years that he's worried about his re-election chances in 2012.What would happen if Obama turned off the taps? A lot of public servants would lose their jobs and the U.S. would no longer be running a deficit. But that's not how a statist operates.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Obama has done so very much in those two years that he's worried about his re-election chances in 2012.What would happen if Obama turned off the taps? A lot of public servants would lose their jobs and the U.S. would no longer be running a deficit. But that's not how a statist operates.


everyone? Who's everyone macfury. I don't see too many coming to that conclusion I'm afraid.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> everyone? Who's everyone macfury. I don't see too many coming to that conclusion I'm afraid.


I'll probably be sorry for asking, but why are you asking who "everyone" is?


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

it's great that often you are emailed the original post before someone edits it. Clearly, you edited your post before I hit reply. And likely everyone subscribed to the thread would get the same email.

Here's your original post sent in email:



> Obama has done so very much in those two years that he's worried about his re-election chances in 2012. *Everyone knows* what would happen if Obama turned off the taps--the U.S. would no longer be running a deficit. But that's not how a statist operates.


Any more 5 year old games you wanna play?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I never e-mailed my post to you.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Sure.


I think that was a rhetorical question.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> I never e-mailed my post to you.


ah changed it again I see.

well, have fun in your sandbox.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

groovetube said:


> well, have fun in your sandbox.


Looks like a litterbox in your avatar.


----------



## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

Macfury said:


> I never e-mailed my post to you.


If you subscribe to a thread, replies get emailed to you. So if you post, and edit it later, anyone subscribed, has the original post in their email.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> I never e-mailed my post to you.


No ... but 'someone else' did. You gotta be quick with your fancy footwork - get them patent leather dancing pumps oiled up boy.



hayesk said:


> If you subscribe to a thread, replies get emailed to you. So if you post, and edit it later, anyone subscribed, has the original post in their email.


Bada-Bing, Bada-Boom.


----------



## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

People subscribe to posts? And people actually read these subscription e-mails??


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

dona83 said:


> People subscribe to posts? And people actually read these subscription e-mails??


Eh? You're kidding!


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

dona83 said:


> People subscribe to posts? And people actually read these subscription e-mails??


I don't get it, but whatever floats their boat.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Getting back on topic....*

*The Transformation of Michele Bachmann*





> The transformation of Michele Bachmann from Tea Party insurgent and cable-news Pasionaria to serious Republican contender in the 2012 Presidential race was nearly complete by late June,





> Her appeal, along with her rapid ascent in the polls, is based on a collection of right-wing convictions, beliefs, and resentments that she has regularly broadcast from television studios and podiums since 2006, when she was first elected to Congress. Often, she will say something outrageous and follow it with a cheerful disclaimer.





> Bachmann belongs to a generation of Christian conservatives whose views have been shaped by institutions, tracts, and leaders not commonly known to secular Americans, or even to most Christians. Her campaign is going to be a conversation about a set of beliefs more extreme than those of any American politician of her stature, including Sarah Palin, to whom she is inevitably compared...





> in 2005, the Minneapolis Star Tribune asked Bachmann what books she had read recently, she mentioned two: Ann Coulter’s “Treason,” a jeremiad that accuses liberals of lacking patriotism, and Pearcey’s “Total Truth,” which Bachmann told me was a “wonderful” book.
> 
> This spring, during one of her trips to Iowa, Bachmann asked the audience if anyone had heard of or seen “How Should We Then Live?”





> In 1981, three years before he died, Schaeffer_ ("How Should We Then Live?") _published “A Christian Manifesto,” a guide for Christian activism, in which he argues for the violent overthrow of the government if Roe v. Wade isn’t reversed. In his movie, Schaeffer warned that America’s descent into tyranny would not look like Hitler’s or Stalin’s; it would probably be guided stealthily, by “a manipulative, authoritarian élite.”





> Bachmann was getting interested in politics just as her party was getting interested in people like her. In the late nineteen-nineties, she began travelling throughout Minnesota, delivering lectures in churches, and writing pamphlets, on the perils of a federal education law known as School to Work, which supported vocational training, and a Minnesota education law known as Profile of Learning, which set state education standards. In one pamphlet, she wrote that federal education law “embraces a socialist, globalist worldview; loyalty to all government and not America.” In another, she warned of a “new restructuring of American society,” beginning with “workforce boards” that would tell every student the specific career options he or she could pursue, turning children into “human resources for a centrally planned economy.”


There's much, much more - an interesting and somewhat terrifying read... if this person ever gets her hands on the nuclear codes.... :yikes:


(New Yorker)


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> No ... but 'someone else' did. You gotta be quick with your fancy footwork - get them patent leather dancing pumps oiled up boy.
> 
> 
> 
> Bada-Bing, Bada-Boom.


ha ha. atom smasher caught dancin.

awkward.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Relax, CM--Rick Perry will whip Obama's ass in '12, not her.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Macfury said:


> Relax, CM--Rick Perry will whip Obama's ass in '12, not her.


lol. Is he going to do another prayer-a-polooza to get elected?





+
YouTube Video









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


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Lol


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*MacFury: *man, you know, every once in awhile I think I've got you pegged - then you let loose a whopper like that.

*Perry? Really?*

_Well, he does fit the mould of Bush II:_



> *Black Ops: *Perry keeps a daily "political schedule" that he argues is separate from the "official schedule" that must be disclosed under Texas open records laws. His official schedule for the first six months of 2010 showed an average of 7 hours of work per week; he has admitted that he simply doesn't record much of his official business. His office destroys its emails weekly. (Mother Jones: "Rick Perry's Top Controversies")


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> lol. Is he going to do another prayer-a-polooza to get elected?


Nope. He's just going to stand by and watch Obama self-destruct. It scarcely matters who delivers the final blow to Bam's shaky presidency, though.

I'd prefer Ron Paul to deal the coup de grace, but he's not an establishment guy like Obama.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> Nope. He's just going to stand by and watch Obama self-destruct. ...


I'd argue the self destruct, part, at least so far.



Macfury said:


> ...It scarcely matters who delivers the final blow to Bam's shaky presidency, though...


I will agree about shaky presidency. Regardless to the starting conditions of the country at the beginning of his presidency, and they did suck, I do not think he showed enough strength as a leader and following too much the partisan lines. However, I haven't really seen a leader for the Republicans that will act differently in that regards, so we would just end up in a similar position but from the other side of the political spectrum.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury pretends the self destruction of Bush never happened. He needs to believe this whole economic mess is Obama's fault, because if he allows himself to believe Bush did this, well, you can imagine where some of this self destruction could occur.

Just take a second, and think of the incredible valiant fights he has put up in each and every thread, to turn things into, Obama. Obama, Obama, Obama!

It's almost, an obsession.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

ertman said:


> II will agree about shaky presidency. Regardless to the starting conditions of the country at the beginning of his presidency, and they did suck, I do not think he showed enough strength as a leader and following too much the partisan lines. However, I haven't really seen a leader for the Republicans that will act differently in that regards, so we would just end up in a similar position but from the other side of the political spectrum.


I believe that any Republican who looks steady and articulates an identifiable plan--whether it's a plan everyone agrees with or not--will look good in '12. There are definitely Republican who are beatable: Huntsman, Pawlenty, etc., but they're currently at the bottom of the pack.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

ertman said:


> I do not think he showed enough strength as a leader and following too much the partisan lines.


i agree that Obama deserves criticism, but for the exact opposite of the above. He has tried to reach across the isle and compromise, but has ended up evoking policy that is pretty much what his opposition wanted. None of his policies are what he campaigned on and are closer to republican than democratic agenda.

Health care? Not a single payer system, and more closely resembles the health care plan proposed by Bob Dole in 1994, and Mitt Romney's plan currently used in Massachusetts. Republican health care plans.

Stimulus plan? a third of it was tax cuts to appease republicans.

Bush tax cuts? extended.

Iraq & Afghanistan? Still there.

Gitmo? Still open.

Obama deserves criticism for not being partisan *enough*.

Still, i don't think that leaves him vulnerable to his base because the democrats obviously won't run anyone against him, and anyone on the left knows that despite his failings he is still infinitely better than any republican option.

If Rick Perry were to win as Macfury hopes I think the US would accelerate it's decent exponentially.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> i agree that Obama deserves criticism, but for the exact opposite of the above. He has tried to reach across the isle and compromise, but has ended up evoking policy that is pretty much what his opposition wanted. None of his policies are what he campaigned on and are closer to republican than democratic agenda.


From my perspective, Obama has been partisan all along--but has been too weak to turn his ideas into reality. He wanted to do each and every thing on that list, but found out he either didn't have the power as President, or the support of his own party, to do them.

It isn't that he wasn't partisan. He just couldn't achieve his goals.


----------



## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

"Weak" is just hyperbole substituting for lack of a reason. That assumes a "stronger" person could have done exactly what Obama tried to do (no more, no less), which we'll never know if that's true. We can say it, but we can't prove it.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

hayesk said:


> "Weak" is just hyperbole substituting for lack of a reason. That assumes a "stronger" person could have done exactly what Obama tried to do (no more, no less), which we'll never know if that's true. We can say it, but we can't prove it.


Weak: lacking in resolve, unable to convince other people to back his position, unable to assume a leadership position in such a way as to influence others. Petulant. Blaming of others.

We will never know "exactly" what a better leader would have done--any more than we might imagine what a weaker president than Obama would have achieved. I'm betting a stronger person would have done much better.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*....and now, back to the topic of this thread... you know, *_the Tea Party..._

*Michele Bachmann Wishes Elvis Happy Birthday...on the Anniversary of His Death*



> Michele Bachmann in Spartanburg, South Carolina this morning giving the King birthday wishes. The only problem, as every Elvis fan knows who mourns his loss, is that Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977.
> 
> "Let's all say Happy Birthday to Elvis Presley!" Said Bachmann. "We thought we'd celebrate his birthday as we get started celebrating Take Our Country Back Tour!"
> 
> Oops.


(Watch the video at Crooks & Liars)

*...and later in the day...*

*Bachmann On Elvis: All Shook Up?*



> By the time she arrived in Greenville, South Carolina Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Michele Bachmann finally had her facts straight. "Today is the day," she observed in somber tones, that "we observe the passing of Elvis Presley."


(FOX News)


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

meh,

Mistakes like this are made often enough, likely a staffers fault.

In no way do I support the divisive politics she puts forward.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I find this rather incredible non-news. When Obama claimed he had visited all 57 states during his election campaign, I wrote it off to tiredness.


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Macfury said:


> I find this rather incredible non-news. When Obama claimed he had visited all 57 states during his election campaign, I wrote it off to tiredness.


I did not follow the election campaign as I don't vote often in an Excited States election. When did Obama do that?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

May 2008. It received little play in a largely friendly media environment. Link deliberately collapsed:

Obama Claims He's Visited 57 States - YouTube


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> I find this rather incredible non-news. When Obama claimed he had visited all 57 states during his election campaign, I wrote it off to tiredness.


I would put it up on the same level.

Nice gaffe by Obama though. I think he was thinking about the 50 states - 2 (hawaii and alaska) - 1 state left to go = 57, I guess he was thinking about that 50 number when trying to say 47.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

It's "news" because Bachmann, the darling of the Tea Party "movement" has a penchant for committing pretty big gaffes. She enunciates better than Bush did, but the stuff that comes out of her mouth... man-o-man.... Confusing John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy, erring in the location of the town she happens to be standing in at any given moment, ....she's a late-night comedian's dream come true... (and a nightmare should she ever get near the Oval office).


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> It's "news" because Bachmann, the darling of the Tea Party "movement" has a penchant for committing pretty big gaffes. She enunciates better than Bush did, but the stuff that comes out of her mouth... man-o-man.... Confusing John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy, erring in the location of the town she happens to be standing in at any given moment, ....she's a late-night comedian's dream come true... (and a nightmare should she ever get near the Oval office).


Seriously? You never much paid attention to the nuttiness and gaffes of Joe Biden. Seems you only care when a Republican is the target.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> Confusing John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy


i remember that. 

lol


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Macfury said:


> Seriously? You never much paid attention to the nuttiness and gaffes of Joe Biden. Seems you only care when a Republican is the target.


To misquote the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, Biden ain't no Michelle Bachmann!

Biden never had the kind of media machine / fascination / cult of personality that's sprung up around the Tea Party darling.

I really can't believe you're rushing to her defence, MF. I mean, _seriously_.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> To misquote the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, Biden ain't no Michelle Bachmann!
> 
> Biden never had the kind of media machine / fascination / cult of personality that's sprung up around the Tea Party darling.
> 
> I really can't believe you're rushing to her defence, MF. I mean, _seriously_.


I'm not defending her, I'm attacking you.


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

After the uproar over THAT picture of Michele on the cover of Newsweek, here's one that's much less scary ... oooooooh, those wide scary eyes!!!






​


----------



## Ottawaman (Jan 16, 2005)

What beliefs predict a Tea Partier?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Ottawaman said:


> What beliefs predict a Tea Partier?


Interesting. So it's these factors that create a healthy approach to limited government? Who would have believed it?


----------



## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

I can't understand a party that claims to want less government and thus more freedom, but yet backs religious based laws to control what women can and can not do with their bodies, who people can marry, claim they don't want immigrants yet depend on them for housekeeping, babysitting, farming, etc. and an economic system that keeps poor people poor, and rich people rich.


----------



## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Not to stick up for a bunch of righteous yokels whose very stance offends my sensibilities, but really: every party has its own internal knots of absurd contradiction. Why the Tea Party should be any different is beyond me.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

hayesk said:


> I can't understand a party that claims to want less government and thus more freedom, but yet backs religious based laws to control what women can and can not do with their bodies, who people can marry, claim they don't want immigrants yet depend on them for housekeeping, babysitting, farming, etc. and an economic system that keeps poor people poor, and rich people rich.


Easy to create these dichotomies using a sample set. I can't believe that any party wants to help people by taking their money away from them. It's just a cheap word game.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

MF, where do you stand on Ron Paul? John Stewart is still scratching his head over the mainstream media's blind spot with this guy... he came in second to Bachmann in the Ames Straw Poll, but is treated as a joke by pretty much every "news" person...

*Jon Stewart: How did Ron Paul become the 13th floor in a hotel?*



> "Ron Paul is a serious candidate with a real constituency, a twelve-term congressman who ran for the Presidency twice (as a Libertarian and a Republican)," Stanley wrote. "He is a doctor, a veteran and a fine public speaker. I saw him orate at the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference and was bowled over. For ten minutes I was spellbound by his rapid-fire straight-talking, which detoured into scholarly pot-shots at the American-Philippine War of 1899 and John Maynard Keynes. He polled first in the Conference straw poll, a feat he repeated in 2011. Yet even when he romps home, the media pretends he doesn’t exist. If Ron Paul were to win every single primary on next year’s Super Tuesday, the New York Times would run with the headline 'Mitt Romney Comfortable Second – Nomination Assured.'” (Tim Stanley, writing for the Telegraph)


(Video worth watching at Digital Journal)


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> MF, where do you stand on Ron Paul? John Stewart is still scratching his head over the mainstream media's blind spot with this guy... he came in second to Bachmann in the Ames Straw Poll, but is treated as a joke by pretty much every "news" person...


He would be by number one choice for President, as he was my choice for the last election.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> He would be by number one choice for President, as he was my choice for the last election.


Actually, while I might not like some of the things that Ron Paul stands for politically, socially and economically, I truly respect his honesty and standing up for his principles. This is rare in some/many/most politicians these days.

Who would you support if it came down to Ron or Rand Paul???


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> Actually, while I might not like some of the things that Ron Paul stands for politically, socially and economically, I truly respect his honesty and standing up for his principles. This is rare in some/many/most politicians these days.
> 
> Who would you support if it came down to Ron or Rand Paul???


Right now, Ron Paul, because he has significant experience in the machinations of government. Rand doesn't have enough experience to be an effective president... yet.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> Right now, Ron Paul, because he has significant experience in the machinations of government. Rand doesn't have enough experience to be an effective president... yet.


True. I would agree here. I like Ron Paul's integrity. He says what he believes in and will back it up with his vote. The Republican Party could do far worse than having him as their candidate, although I think that the establishment will go with Perry or maybe Romney. We shall see.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Interesting associates Michelle Bachmann has....*

*Bachmann Staffer Was Arrested in Uganda on Terrorism Charges*












> The evangelical organizer who helped Michele Bachmann win the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa Saturday was previously charged with terrorism in Uganda after being arrested for possession of assault rifles and ammunition in February 2006, just days before Uganda's first multi-party elections in 20 years.





> *Peter E. Waldron* spent 37 days in the Luriza Prison outside Kampala, where he says he was tortured, after being arrested along with six Congolese and Ugandan nationals for the weapons, which were described variously in news reports as having been found in his bedroom or a closet in his home. The charges, which could have led to life in prison, were dropped in March 2006 after a pressure campaign by Waldron's friends and colleagues and what Waldron says was the intervention of the Bush administration.





> ...the Kampala Monitor reported that the inspector general of police "told a news conference Waldron was suspected of links to a group in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and 'planned to set up a political party here based on Christian principles.'"


(Crooks & Liars)


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Four words:

William Charles "Bill" Ayers


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Ah, yes, Bill Ayers (Wikipedia article - interesting reading). There is a wee bit of difference between a man (now widely honoured for his work in social justice and education) who took "_...responsibility for placing several small bombs in empty offices.... We did carry out symbolic acts of extreme vandalism directed at monuments to war and racism, and the attacks on property, never on people, were meant to respect human life and convey outrage and determination to end the Vietnam war..._" and an apparent evangelical warrior involved in subverting democracies in Africa.

I'm not excusing Ayer's acts, with the Weather Underground, but in the context of the 1960s, the Vietnam War, massive social uprising against an illegal war that killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, one can understand where that rage and desire to act originated. That's far and away a different context than Waldon.

The Atlantic article on Waldon is interesting reading too... 



> Lebanon. Iraq. Syria. Afghanistan. Pakistan. Uganda. India. For over thirty years, his family never knew where he went -- never knew what he did. Based on a true story, Dr. Peter Waldron was on a mission. Was he a businessman, a preacher, a spy? Tortured and facing a firing squad, he never broke his oath of silence. What secret was worth the ultimate price?


(The Atlantic)


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

> "Is one of those regrets that I took extreme measures against the United States at a time of tremendous crisis? No it is not. I don't regret that. "


William Ayers, 2002
An associate of a sitting president, 
not just a field worker in on state for the candidate for the nomination of one party


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

> "What I support is putting all science on the table and then letting students decide. I don't think it's a good idea for government to come down on one side of one scientific issue or another, when there is reasonable doubt."
> 
> — Michele Bachmann​
> "I figure you're smart enough to figure out which one is right."
> ...


(Saturday, 20 Aug 2011, Doonesbury)


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Bachmann: Americans fear 'rise of Soviet Union'*





> "What people recognize is that there's a fear that the United States is in an unstoppable decline. They see the rise of China, the rise of India, the rise of the Soviet Union and our loss militarily going forward,"
> *-Michelle Bachmann, 20 years after the Soviet Union ceased to exist*​





> The GOP presidential candidate has flubbed some facts in history before, such as when she mistakenly said that the Revolutionary War battles of Lexington and Concord occurred in New Hampshire. This week, she mistakenly wished Elvis Presley a "happy birthday" on the anniversary of his death.


(USA Today via BoingBoing)

_LOL'd at this comment on BoingBoing:
_


> _We should also be aware of the threat the ottoman empire poses - let alone the Aztecs. _


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

But she can see the soviet union from her house.

So it must... exist.


----------



## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

She does enjoy a day a the fair though.

Bossip | Gossip for the Hardcore | Black Celebrity & Entertainment Newshttp://bossip.com/?s=michele+bachmann&x=0&y=0


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Texas Governor Rick Perry - no economic philosophy, it's just "God teaching us a lesson". Whooo boy.





+
YouTube Video









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






(BoingBoing)


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

It's just Obama teaching us a lesson, Rick.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

apparently, this just in, god says this economic disaster was brought about by Obama Hussain.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I believe the only thing that can prevent Rick Perry from becoming president in 2012 will be Mitt Romney becoming president in 2012. Stick a fork in the Bamster--he's done.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> I believe the only thing that can prevent Rick Perry from becoming president in 2012 will be Mitt Romney becoming president in 2012. Stick a fork in the Bamster--he's done.


We shall see, Macfury. There is a little thing happening on the first Tuesday in November called the US Presidential election. Even a libertarian like yourself will allow those of us who support Pres. Obama the right to vote for him once again. 

So, predict all you want, but let the rest of us have the chance to express his or her democratic right to vote for whom we support. Merci, mon ami.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> We shall see, Macfury. There is a little thing happening on the first Tuesday in November call the US Presidential election. Even a libertarian like yourself will allow those of us who support Pres. Obama the right to vote for him once again.
> 
> So, predict all you want, but let the rest of us have the chance to express his or her democratic right to vote for whom we support. Merci, mon ami.



Yes, Dr. G.-- I am taking that little thing called the election into account. It is part of my calculation.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> Yes, Dr. G.-- I am taking that little thing called the election into account. It is part of my calculation.


I think that you are writing off Pres. Obama way too soon. But, that is your choice. Still, let the rest of us actually cast a vote before your select the winner.


----------



## Vandave (Feb 26, 2005)

Macfury said:


> I believe the only thing that can prevent Rick Perry from becoming president in 2012 will be Rick Perry.


Fixed.

He apparently loves strippers and whores and those scandals have yet to hit the media. 

His record as governor also doesn't lend itself to beating Obama on his weaknesses, which are government spending and the economy. Texas added something like 1/2 of government jobs created since 2008 and Texas has been spending federal government money like it was going out of style. It would be hard for him to slam Obama on these issues since he was doing the same thing himself.

It's too early to write Obama off in my opinion. His ability to speak is unlike anybody else. If Obama has a couple good quarters of economic growth and job creation going into the election, he will be hard to beat. The Federal Reserve all of a sudden has good reason to pump the economy at that time as they probably fear a Republican win.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Vandave said:


> It's too early to write Obama off in my opinion. His ability to speak is unlike anybody else.


Seriously? I believe his speeches inspire only those pre-disposed to supporting him. He stutters and hems and haws any time he isn't reading off a teleprompter. Once he starts dropping his Gs and acting folksy, he develops a tin ear for vernacular.



Vandave said:


> If Obama has a couple good quarters of economic growth and job creation going into the election, he will be hard to beat.


Exactly my point.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> Seriously? I believe his speeches inspire only those pre-disposed to supporting him. He stutters and hems and haws any time he isn't reading off a teleprompter. Once he starts dropping his Gs and acting folksy, he develops a tin ear for vernacular.
> 
> 
> 
> Exactly my point.


You have obviously never seen any clips of Obama speaking outdoors in front of crowds where his speaking is unscripted and still very inspirational.

"Exactly my point"???? Your point is that he will lose ............ there is nothing that he can do to save his presidency or to make you change your opinion about him.


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

*The French not attending the Tea Party Rich Tax Break*

France's government is introducing higher taxes on the rich



BBCNews said:


> The French government is to impose an extra tax of 3% on annual income above 500,000 euros (£440,000; $721,000).
> 
> It is part of a package of measures to try to cut the country's deficit by 12bn euros over two years.


Tax The Rich


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> You have obviously never seen any clips of Obama speaking outdoors in front of crowds where his speaking is unscripted and still very inspirational.


I have seen him inspiring crowds of Democrats.



Dr.G. said:


> "Exactly my point"???? Your point is that he will lose ............ there is nothing that he can do to save his presidency or to make you change your opinion about him.


He could cut the budget by 10 per cent.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> France's government is introducing higher taxes on the rich


I think the U.S. would be better off not emulating France--who wants to be caught in that economic malaise?


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> I think the U.S. would be better off not emulating France--who wants to be caught in that economic malaise?


I think the idea is to get _out_ of that economic malaise by insisting that the rich help, rather than hinder, the social and economic development of the country.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

CubaMark said:


> Texas Governor Rick Perry - no economic philosophy, it's just "God teaching us a lesson". Whooo boy.
> 
> 
> (BoingBoing)


This kind of talk worries me a bit from a possible republican presidential candidate. 

Based on some of his political history and the way he presents himself, I don't find he is that trustworthy. I find is words disingenuous to say the least. I realize politicians will often only say whats needed to get elected, but he comes across as one of the worst.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> I think the idea is to get _out_ of that economic malaise by insisting that the rich help, rather than hinder, the social and economic development of the country.


All this talk of "the rich: is just a smokescreen for overspending. Promote some class warfare and get "the rich" to contribute a little more and the country is still going to hell with spending.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> All this talk of "the rich: is just a smokescreen for overspending. Promote some class warfare and get "the rich" to contribute a little more and the country is still going to hell with spending.


I agree that this may be the case. However, in the States, I would like to see taxes raise all around, with a greater proportion being skewed to the 'rich'. I would then like to see spending cuts, but not just hack and slash (those too), but a full restructuring of the government agencies and spending distributions. This would include the cutting or merging of overlapping and redundant services and departments. I know that plan doesn't provide the immediate relief of extreme hack and slash spending cuts, but it provides a better longer term benefit to American society.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

bryanc said:


> I think the idea is to get _out_ of that economic malaise by insisting that the rich help, rather than hinder, the social and economic development of the country.


good luck getting that one across. SOme are content to shoulder the responsibility and will fight tooth and nail for the wealthy for it.

It's incredible.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

ertman said:


> I agree that this may be the case. However, in the States, I would like to see taxes raise all around, with a greater proportion being skewed to the 'rich'. I would then like to see spending cuts, but not just hack and slash (those too), but a full restructuring of the government agencies and spending distributions. This would include the cutting or merging of overlapping and redundant services and departments. I know that plan doesn't provide the immediate relief of extreme hack and slash spending cuts, but it provides a better longer term benefit to American society.


are you suggesting sanity? Surely you can't be, because generally neo cons and libertarians only understand extremes.


----------



## Vandave (Feb 26, 2005)

ertman said:


> I agree that this may be the case. However, in the States, I would like to see taxes raise all around, with a greater proportion being skewed to the 'rich'. I would then like to see spending cuts, but not just hack and slash (those too), but a full restructuring of the government agencies and spending distributions. This would include the cutting or merging of overlapping and redundant services and departments. I know that plan doesn't provide the immediate relief of extreme hack and slash spending cuts, but it provides a better longer term benefit to American society.


That's a recipe for a major crash. It would have been great ten years ago but the horse has left the barn. We are now in a balance sheet Depression where neither consumers or corporations are willing to spend. Increasing taxes on the bottom 99% will further damage the economy. Government spending is the only thing keeping tje economy steady. Cutting the last economic leg when two are already broken, will most certainly cause a downward spiral.

So we have a couple choices:

1. Let it crash. 
2. Keynesian stagnation. 

I wish that were not the case being a believer in small government. But that's my read of the economy, at least in the US.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Vandave said:


> 2. Keynesian stagnation.


Too broad. Define your meaning of the term.


----------



## Vandave (Feb 26, 2005)

Macfury said:


> Too broad. Define your meaning of the term.


Continued governments debts, bailouts and stimulus from both the Federal government and/or from the Federal Reserve.

If we pull back Keynesian actions from either of the above, then it's a guarantee that the economy will shrink.

Consumers are de-leveraging and businesses are sitting on cash waiting out this period of stagnation. Companies will not invest in greater capacity at present. The only thing holding up the economy is 'Keynesian stimulus' from the Federal Government and Federal Reserve.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Vandave said:


> Continued governments debts, bailouts and stimulus from both the Federal government and/or from the Federal Reserve.
> 
> If we pull back Keynesian actions from either of the above, then it's a guarantee that the economy will shrink.
> 
> Consumers are de-leveraging and businesses are sitting on cash waiting out this period of stagnation. Companies will not invest in greater capacity at present. The only thing holding up the economy is 'Keynesian stimulus' from the Federal Government and Federal Reserve.


I disagree. The main thing that is keeping businesses from investing and hiring is uncertainty about the direction of the federal government.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

perhaps it wasn't such a great idea to elect an extreme bunch of lunatics to the house to create such a chaos in direction.


----------



## Vandave (Feb 26, 2005)

Macfury said:


> I disagree. The main thing that is keeping businesses from investing and hiring is uncertainty about the direction of the federal government.


Prolonged stagnation has occured every time after and during consumer deleveraging. Why would businesses invest in growth under such circumstances if the market won't be there?

A huge chunk of the economy is currently insolvent. You can't grow or invest until you are solvent.

IMO... government direction has very little to do with the present economic situation. 

This Recession is unlike any other. It will likely take another decade to recover from.

Google Richard Koo if you want to know my opinion.

IMO... The boat left 10 or 20 years ago to create a small government, at least in the US. We can create that now, but the whole financial systtem will first have to crash. Canada is fortunate to have hit financial trouble in the 1990s which gave us time to clean things up. Our lack of a significant manufacturing industy has also mitigated the global downturn. I think we are going to weather this storm in good shape, but tje Americans are going to hurt.


----------



## Vandave (Feb 26, 2005)

groovetube said:


> perhaps it wasn't such a great idea to elect an extreme bunch of lunatics to the house to create such a chaos in direction.


It doesn't matter who was elected. The outcome is the same and will be the same going forward. There is 30 years of economic momentum driving this Recession. 

If you want somebody to blame, I would put Greenspan at the front of the line.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Vandave said:


> It doesn't matter who was elected. The outcome is the same and will be the same going forward. There is 30 years of economic momentum driving this Recession.
> 
> If you want somebody to blame, I would put Greenspan at the front of the line.


That may be true. But it was just a brainless volley matching the first.


----------



## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

For once I'm in agreement with Vandave - letting the uprecedented bubble grow unchecked for political reasons was irresponsible to an unimaginable degree and Greenspan recognizing the error of the libby theory came far too late.

It all must deflate and the sooner it happens the better...

That consumers played the shell game and house as debit card in no way relieves the lending institutions or the central banks of their irresponsible behaviour.

Until some government is wilful enough to put checks on speculative lending - history will repeat itself.

China is trying but even with their control of the economy it's a difficult battle to control rampant speculation.



> Recently, a ballad of lament hit the Internet: "Cheap things no longer exist, normal people can't afford to eat green vegetables."* It decries corruption and rising house prices, and ends asking, "Wouldn't we be better off returning to the '80s?"*
> 
> This shows how rising food prices represent a Pandora's box of discontent, whereby three decades of progress are undermined by the fact that people feel they can no longer afford to buy cabbage.


twas ever thus


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

A little historical perspective (as opposed to hysterical) is required here....



> The debt growth is actually slowing -- which is the precise opposite of what you'd expect if you're listening to all the screaming cable-news morons. We're not in a good place by any means, and the debt isn't going down quite yet -- but we're no longer seeing hockey-stick growth.
> 
> What the graph doesn't quite flesh out is how the debt got to be so bad. The short answer? The wars started by President George W. Bush and his tax-cuts for Americans making over $250,000 a year. All of this is laid out rather brilliantly in this chart from The New York Times:






> If you were looking to blame President Obama for something, it would be this: He folded like a leaf during the debate over extending the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% of income earners. And that eliminated his administration's only real chance to raise revenues -- and his own best chance to say that he was dealing seriously with the budget shortfalls we're experiencing.


*Who Created This Debt Nightmare?*


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

That's going to ruin macfurys morning coffee.

Obama Obama Obama!


----------



## Vandave (Feb 26, 2005)

MacDoc said:


> It all must deflate and the sooner it happens the better...


Will you be saying that when unemployment goes from 9 to 15 percent? In reality, it's closer to 20% at present. 50 million Americans are on food stamps. Are you willing to deal with 100 million?

There are serious risks to letting it all deflate. The whole system would spiral downwards. If you think the Tea Party are a wacky bunch, just wait and see who will be picking up the pieces. 

Nobody has the guts to step aside and let it fail anyways. Bet on stagnation and more Keynesian spending and stimulus.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


> A little historical perspective (as opposed to hysterical) is required here....


That's completely disingenuous. Allowing poor policies to continue was Obama's choice. Adding to the cost is his legacy.

Nice to see it slowed down so fast though--just $2 trillion this year alone.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Vandave said:


> Will you be saying that when unemployment goes from 9 to 15 percent? In reality, it's closer to 20% at present. 50 million Americans are on food stamps. Are you willing to deal with 100 million?


They are not all on food stamps because they can't afford food. I



Vandave said:


> There are serious risks to letting it all deflate. The whole system would spiral downwards. Nobody has the guts to step aside and let it fail anyways. Bet on stagnation and more Keynesian spending and stimulus.


I'll bet on more stimulus from Obama--but I say let it gently deflate.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Vandave said:


> Prolonged stagnation has occured every time after and during consumer deleveraging. Why would businesses invest in growth under such circumstances if the market won't be there?


Again, I think businesses are more afraid of the president than they are of economic conditions. The consumer sector is surprisingly active, considering what might have been expected.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

more afraid of the president than the economic conditions?

What kind of insanity is that? I'm sorry but that's a ridiculous statement. Each and every post, you desperately shriek OBAMA! OH MY GOD OBAMA!

Sorry macfury there's just a little more to this than, OBAMA!


----------



## Vandave (Feb 26, 2005)

I have to agree with GT. Obama has been pretty friendly to Wall Street. He isn't rocking the boat and he is more or less continuing with the economic policies that have been in effect for 30 years. He's in a stale mate situation. He can't really move one way or the other. 

I do agree with you on Ron Paul though. He is probably the only person who has a good understanding of what is going on. I'm not convinced his solution is the best, but at least he is offering something up.

I bet businesses are more afraid of a Republican President because there is a greater risk of change and economic disruption.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Vandave said:


> I have to agree with GT. Obama has been pretty friendly to Wall Street. He isn't rocking the boat and he is more or less continuing with the economic policies that have been in effect for 30 years. He's in a stale mate situation. He can't really move one way or the other.
> 
> I do agree with you on Ron Paul though. He is probably the only person who has a good understanding of what is going on. I'm not convinced his solution is the best, but at least he is offering something up.
> 
> I bet businesses are more afraid of a Republican President because there is a greater risk of change and economic disruption.


BO has been friendly to Wall Street by printing money and running a deficit--it's a great way to allow them to pay off their debts on the backs of taxpayers. It devalues the assets and savings of people who made good decisions and transfers that wealth to those who failed. 

I am not a fan of Richard Koo. The best he and his ilk can do is to back stimulus spending and--no matter how deep the deficit created by that spending--will merely say the spending was not enough. On the other hand, Greece seemed to be doing exactly what Koo advocates...

There's no free lunch. Either you attempt to offload your problems on future generations or you deal with them now. The U.S. has banks and businesses that badly need weeding out. Koo's approach preserves and institutionalizes the losers at the expense of those who deserve to take their place. If one is happy with a couple of decades of economic malaise, by all means.

Ultimately, the economy must be revived by consumer spending--then why all this talk about increasing taxes, not only on the wealthy, but on everyone else? Taking money directly from people's pockets AS they're spending it is going to boost a consumer-led recovery? Even if consumers themselves are deleveraging, taxing them heavily will only slow down the process.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Vandave said:


> That's a recipe for a major crash. It would have been great ten years ago but the horse has left the barn. We are now in a balance sheet Depression where neither consumers or corporations are willing to spend. Increasing taxes on the bottom 99% will further damage the economy. Government spending is the only thing keeping tje economy steady. Cutting the last economic leg when two are already broken, will most certainly cause a downward spiral.
> 
> So we have a couple choices:
> 
> ...


I disagree.

I do not have the same read. You are also assuming that the proposed changes will be drastic on the end consumer, which is not something I had suggested, in either the tax increase or spending cuts. You are reading more doom and gloom into the suggested scenario than already exists, or implied. It also does not take into that uncertainty is a main motivator for economic hesitation by consumers and businesses, and much of this is being driven by government inaction. The economy operates in a complex manner, and with the lack of strength in government (not just the president), then things are guaranteed to get worse.

Your alternatives is either to do nothing (relative status quo) and let things get much worse over a long-term (US is unable to support its current economic plan in the long-term), or do something and let things worse over a short-term. I am suggesting doing something and letting things to get slowly better.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> BO has been friendly to Wall Street by printing money and running a deficit--it's a great way to allow them to pay off their debts on the backs of taxpayers. It devalues the assets and savings of people who made good decisions and transfers that wealth to those who failed.
> 
> I am not a fan of Richard Koo. The best he and his ilk can do is to back stimulus spending and--no matter how deep the deficit created by that spending--will merely say the spending was not enough. On the other hand, Greece seemed to be doing exactly what Koo advocates...
> 
> ...


perhaps a balance of raising taxes on the wealthy, -and- spending cuts is the best course of action at this point for dealing with the deficit. And leaving the middle classes alone for the most part.

But this has only been suggested a multitude of times.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

> The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents. Number 43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic!"


 --Barack Obama, 2008


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Obama Obama OBAMA!!!!!


----------



## Snapple Quaffer (Sep 2, 2003)

Yes, once again, Atom Smasher has turned someone else's thread into a platform for his continuing, unhealthy, and very sordid obsession about Barak Obama.


----------



## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Snapple Quaffer said:


> Yes, once again, Atom Smasher has turned someone else's thread into a platform for his continuing, unhealthy, and very sordid obsession about Barak Obama.


I heard BO was a vampire ...

And now for something only tangentially related to Obama ...











*YES! Crazy cat lady for Prez!*


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

the ron paul one is great.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

The inscription "Apologies to Matt Groening" is apt. If Groening were savaging the Republican candidates it would be funny.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

awwwwww.....


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Q: How many right-wingnuts does it take to change a lightbulb?


A: THAT'S NOT FUNNY!


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)




----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> Q: How many right-wingnuts does it take to change a lightbulb?
> 
> 
> A: THAT'S NOT FUNNY!



How many does it take? 


Seriously, if you're going to do a riff on Tthe Simpsons, it had better be as funny as The Simpsons.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

it *IS* funny. not so much the actual cartoon, just the line up of republican candidates.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

i-rui said:


> it *IS* funny. not so much the actual cartoon, just the line up of republican candidates.


Match that up with Obama running on his record, and we've got a laff-riot in the works for 2012!


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Obama Obama OBAMA!!!!!


Hey everybody!!!!! OVER HERE!!!!!


OBAMA!!!!


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

groovetube said:


> Obama Obama OBAMA!!!!!
> 
> 
> Hey everybody!!!!! OVER HERE!!!!!
> ...


 When did Obama become the leader of the Tea Party?

Some here are either confused and/or obsessed (should maybe look into professional for that.)

This is "The Tea Party Thread" it's right there in the title of the thread. I was not the OP but I'm guessing the idea was to discuss the benefits/follies of the Tea Party, just say'n, for those that might be confused.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> When did Obama become the leader of the Tea Party?
> 
> Some here are either confused and/or obsessed (should maybe look into professional for that.)
> 
> This is "The Tea Party Thread" it's right there in the title of the thread. I was not the OP but I'm guessing the idea was to discuss the benefits/follies of the Tea Party, just say'n, for those that might be confused.


Obama is, in his own bumbling way, the founder of the Tea Party. His incompetence and ham-fisted government interventionism spawned the movement..


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

And I think Obama is definitely responsible, for world hunger.

That is all.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> Obama is, in his own bumbling way, the founder of the Tea Party. His incompetence and ham-fisted government interventionism spawned the movement..


I disagree, I believe that they had grown out of the overspending performed when GW Bush was President, just solidified and the movement became official under Obama.

In all likelihood, without the overspending by government with a republican president, there probably wouldn't be a "Tea Party", the ultra right wing would be quieter, and possibly not flying the "Tea Party" banner. Basically these feelings didn't form overnight, it took years to get to the point of the formation of the Tea Party.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

ertman said:


> I disagree, I believe that they had grown out of the overspending performed when GW Bush was President, just solidified and the movement became official under Obama.
> 
> In all likelihood, without the overspending by government with a republican president, there probably wouldn't be a "Tea Party", the ultra right wing would be quieter, and possibly not flying the "Tea Party" banner. Basically these feelings didn't form overnight, it took years to get to the point of the formation of the Tea Party.


I actually agree on this. The sentiments rose from resentment to full-out anger over the explosion in spending, but the feelings have been brewing for awhile.


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

groovetube said:


> And I think Obama is definitely responsible, for world hunger.
> 
> That is all.


Obama would make Chuck Norris lose


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> Obama would make Chuck Norris lose


Lose his lunch perhaps.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> You have obviously never seen any clips of Obama speaking outdoors in front of crowds where his speaking is unscripted and still very inspirational.


Three minutes, two teleprompters | Campaign 2012


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

yes you keep trotting that one out all the time.


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

Macfury said:


> Three minutes, two teleprompters | Campaign 2012


better to use two teleprompters and sound dignified than write on one hand and sound like an idiot.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Better still to learn public speaking skills.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

it seems those tea partiers are earning top marks in that regard these days!


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

I agree with the view of Obama's imperfect public speaking, but while not that good, it isn't that poor either, just average.

I am trying to think of when I heard a President or even a Prime Minister that had, in comparison, significantly stronger public speaking skills. I am fairly young, so my experience is limited to a short period of time, plus any video I might have seen.

Also, this doesn't really seem related to the Tea Party. So I'll bring up something. Is it just me, or does it seem that the Tea Party members seemed to be getting a large push to suddenly being front runners for the Republican nomination, with no real reason? Is it a media thing where they are attracted to the radical polarized view of the candidates?


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

ertman said:


> I am trying to think of when I heard a President or even a Prime Minister that had, in comparison, significantly stronger public speaking skills. I am fairly young, so my experience is limited to a short period of time, plus any video I might have seen.


I believe that most of them are simply average, or worse. I don't believe that Obama is a terrible public speaker, but most of those who think of him as a Great Orator are pre-disposed to supporting him already. They're the ones who get chills over his utterances.



ertman said:


> Also, this doesn't really seem related to the Tea Party. So I'll bring up something. Is it just me, or does it seem that the Tea Party members seemed to be getting a large push to suddenly being front runners for the Republican nomination, with no real reason? Is it a media thing where they are attracted to the radical polarized view of the candidates?


Who is a Tea Party member? You could say Michele Bachman and Ron Paul are, but Romney and Perry aren't.

In the most recent polls, Tea Party Republicans support the candidates in this order: Perry, Romney, Bachman, Paul.

Non-Tea Party Republicans in this order: Romney, Perry, Paul, Bachman.

Among all Republicans: Perry, Romney, Paul, Bachman.

If there's a surge in support from Tea Party voters, it's for Perry and away from Romney. That's because support for Romney was tepid to begin with, particularly in light of Romney's Massachusetts health care debacle, which resembles Obamacare to a great degree. A few weeks back Bachman was the big story, but largely because she had blown so much of her campaign money in the Iowa straw poll. The result was simply a surprise, but Rick Perry had not yet officially entered the contest.

Tea Party Supporters Backing Perry for GOP Nomination


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> I believe that most of them are simply average, or worse. I don't believe that Obama is a terrible public speaker, but most of those who think of him as a Great Orator are pre-disposed to supporting him already. They're the ones who get chills over his utterances.


I agree to this.



Macfury said:


> Who is a Tea Party member? You could say Michele Bachman and Ron Paul are, but Romney and Perry aren't.
> 
> In the most recent polls, Tea Party Republicans support the candidates in this order: Perry, Romney, Bachman, Paul.
> 
> ...


I guess to address my response by the candidates that you have listed. For the record, I do not know if any of these people are actual Tea Party members, I figured they may not be as this will likely turn off more centrist conservatives and turn off undecided when it gets to the presidential race. Here is my take.

Michele Bachman - She certainly spouting the tea party line. I think America would be much worse off with her in charge.
Ron Paul - If he is a Tea Party guy, he is far less extreme than others, and generally. 
Mitt Romney - Traditional Republican politics. Didn't Obama copy Romney's plan.
Rick Perry - He brings up many of the talking points of the Tea Party, who are now generally backing him, and running his campaign from what looks like the far right. However, I find that he is a fake, as some of his comments do not mesh with others and his history as governor doesn't necessary agree with this. I think he is using the extreme views to get noticed and coverage. He will likely be a traditional republican.

I guess my main point was that Rick Perry and Bachman were being considered the front runners by the media shortly after the straw poll (which means nothing), ignoring Paul completely. Only recently, yesterday, had that changed.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Ron Paul and Michele Bachman are the only two who have openly stated that they are part of the Tea Party movement.



> Ron Paul - If he is a Tea Party guy, he is far less extreme than others, and generally.


What's an extreme position? Paul believes the U.S. should get its nose out of other countries' business and thinks the defense department is horribly bloated. That's an extreme position even for many conservatives. He opposes many government programs. Not the kind of person that even the media is comfortable with.



> Mitt Romney - Traditional Republican politics. Didn't Obama copy Romney's plan.


I wouldn't say Obama copied it, but the plans are similar enough that it will cause Romney major grief. Romney's plan worked badly in Massachusetts and some Republicans are concerned that Romney will just cave on Obamacare.



> Rick Perry - He brings up many of the talking points of the Tea Party, who are now generally backing him, and running his campaign from what looks like the far right. However, I find that he is a fake


Perry's biggest liability is his soft stance on illegal immigration.

The U.S. media is largely advocacy media, so those outlets leaning Republican will promote the candidate they believe will beat Obama. 

The Democrat-left media will feature Republican candidates they feel will be beaten by Obama early on--big-time losers like John Huntsman, for example. Perry is now being featured in negative articles, while Romney is now the darling of these outlets. They're afraid of Perry, not only because of his political views, but because they simply don't know how to deal with a candidate spurring grassroots popularity. They're used to candidates that they either make or break.

What I find most interesting is that media outlets have almost no interest in Herman Cain, a black candidate. He certainly has some flaws, but it seems that the media is fascinated by black candidates when they run for the Democrat party, but not so much if they're conservative.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> ...
> 
> Perry's biggest liability is his soft stance on illegal immigration.


Yes, among others. I think you will find that, and it had been overstated, Perry would be a similar President to Bush, and I think that some of the stuff you didn't like with Bush will continue with Perry.



Macfury said:


> The U.S. media is largely advocacy media, so those outlets leaning Republican will promote the candidate they believe will beat Obama.
> 
> The Democrat-left media will feature Republican candidates they feel will be beaten by Obama early on--big-time losers like John Huntsman, for example. Perry is now being featured in negative articles, while Romney is now the darling of these outlets. They're afraid of Perry, not only because of his political views, but because they simply don't know how to deal with a candidate spurring grassroots popularity. They're used to candidates that they either make or break.
> 
> What I find most interesting is that media outlets have almost no interest in Herman Cain, a black candidate. He certainly has some flaws, but it seems that the media is fascinated by black candidates when they run for the Democrat party, but not so much if they're conservative.


So the democratic media is featuring Perry, and the Republican media is featuring Romney/Perry. Both democratic and republican media outlets have been featuring Perry and Bachmann, and I think it has more to do with how they sensationalize their press time. For example, Bachmann $2 gas (sounds kind of socialist), and Perry's unfriendly discussion about the fed printing more money (regardless of any truth, could have said it better and with more intelligence).


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

ertman said:


> Yes, among others. I think you will find that, and it had been overstated, Perry would be a similar President to Bush, and I think that some of the stuff you didn't like with Bush will continue with Perry.
> 
> 
> 
> So the democratic media is featuring Perry, and the Republican media is featuring Romney/Perry. Both democratic and republican media outlets have been featuring Perry and Bachmann, and I think it has more to do with how they sensationalize their press time. For example, Bachmann $2 gas (sounds kind of socialist), and Perry's unfriendly discussion about the fed printing more money (regardless of any truth, could have said it better and with more intelligence).


I believe Bachman is already ancient history.

Republican media are featuring Perry and to a lesser extent Romney to the degree they believe they can take Obama.

Democrat media is featuring Perry because they want to frighten potential voters and stigmatize his supporters. When they feature Romney at this point, it's to say how much they love him, because they like the idea of Obama vs. Romney in 2012.


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Macfury said:


> I believe Bachman is already ancient history.
> 
> Republican media are featuring Perry and to a lesser extent Romney to the degree they believe they can take Obama.
> 
> Democrat media is featuring Perry because they want to frighten potential voters and stigmatize his supporters. When they feature Romney at this point, it's to say how much they love him, because they like the idea of Obama vs. Romney in 2012.


Rick Perry will spout off about a hot topic issue, when in reality he would do little different. I also don't think that he would bring any more responsibility or financial conservatism to the office than any other candidate would, or could. Rick Perry also brings less to the table, but I think he is doing a good job of taking advantage of an economic and political situation.


----------



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

Ron Paul hits hard at Perry. 

Ron Paul Ad Trust (Old) - YouTube


----------



## ertman (Jan 15, 2008)

Dr.G. said:


> Ron Paul hits hard at Perry.
> 
> Ron Paul Ad Trust (Old) - YouTube


Cheerleader... awesome.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Fox News Deletes ‘Who Won the Debate?’ Poll Page After Ron Paul Wins*



> Hilariously, the poll, originally located here, is still accessible via Google cache. It’s actually a polldaddy.com poll, so the code that calls it is still works in Google’s cache of the page.


This is Google's cache of http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/09/22/who-won-debate/. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 23 Sep 2011 05:52:11 GMT.



(Cryptogon)


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

No major media outlet wants to see Ron Paul succeed.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> No major media outlet wants to see Ron Paul succeed.


Sad, but somewhat true. I have seen only CNN, the NY Times and the Washington Post fairly report RP's successes. They have questioned why the Republican Party does not highlight his successes.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Perhaps he refuses to pay the piper?


----------



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

groovetube said:


> Perhaps he refuses to pay the piper?


No, Ron Paul "tells it like he sees it", as the old saying goes, and does not play up to the Republican Party establishment.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)




----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

poor glenn beck.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


>



That cartoon is surprisingly accurate for once. I can't believe they nailed Obama for his crimes against the U.S. economy.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*'Joe The Plumber' To Run For Congress*





> Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, more commonly known as "Joe The Plumber," filed a statement of candidacy to run in Ohio's Ninth District Thursday, according to the Federal Election Commission website. The Joe For Congress 2012 campaign committee also filed a statement of organization Thursday





> Wurzelbacher was catapulted into the spotlight in October 2008 after he objected to then-candidate Barack Obama's plan to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those making $250,000 or more





> Subsequent reporting revealed that he wasn't a licensed plumber and would likely get a tax break under Obama's plans. Wurzelbacher later said that McCain "really screwed up my life."


(Huffington Post)


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Why is this in Tea Party thread? Wurzelbacher is running only as a Republican.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*"Joe the Plumber" was a common participant of Tea Party activities... *

Joe the Plumber at Michigan Tea Party: Saying ‘In God We Trust’ Will Get You Shot In Some Places | The Washington Independent

Victoria Jackson, "Joe the Plumber" Scheduled for Saturday's Tea Party Express - Westlake, OH Patch

Missouri Tea Partiers, Joe The Plumber Join Movement Against 'Radical' Anti-Puppy Mill Legislation | TPMMuckraker

Joe the Plumber at Atlanta Tea Party - Interviews - Hannity - Fox News

Joe the Plumber at D.C. Tea Party: No one on the Hill gives a rip about you « Hot Air


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Fair enough.


----------



## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Joe the Plumber is an unmitigated fool. 

Might as well join Congress. He might finally get himself into the 1% after he accepts enough of those corporate "contributions". He wasn't ever going to get there in the plumbing biz.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)




----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)




----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

a few on this board thinks so.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


>


The kind of person who sees a difference between earnings and taxes.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

CubaMark said:


>


I like that one. Well researched and cuts close to the bone for a change.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> The kind of person who sees a difference between earnings and taxes.


Bingo. :clap:


----------



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

(CNN) - A handful of Republican candidates took aim at Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan at Tuesday night's presidential debate, but only one went so far as to imply it could be the devil's work.

"When you take the 9-9-9 plan and you turn it upside won, the devil is in the details," Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota said during the New Hampshire debate, alluding to the number 666, which is commonly connected to Satan.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> (CNN) - A handful of Republican candidates took aim at Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan at Tuesday night's presidential debate, but only one went so far as to imply it could be the devil's work.
> 
> "When you take the 9-9-9 plan and you turn it upside won, the devil is in the details," Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota said during the New Hampshire debate, alluding to the number 666, which is commonly connected to Satan.


I am really impressed with Cain and support the 9-9-9 plan wholeheartedly.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> I am really impressed with Cain and support the 9-9-9 plan wholeheartedly.


It would be most interesting to see two African-Americans in a race for the presidency as the Democratic and Republican standard bearers. We shall see.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Tea Party stupidity knows no bounds....*

*Tea Party Nation asks businesses to stop hiring as expression of tea party*solidarity*



> _Resolved that: President Obama has seized what amount to dictatorial powers to bypass our Congress, and that because the Congress is controlled by a Progressive socialist Senate that will not impeach one of their kind, they have allowed this and yielded what are rightfully congressional powers to this new dictator. [...]
> 
> Resolved that: The current administration and Democrat majority in the Senate, in conjunction with Progressive socialists from all around the country, especially those from Hollywood and the left leaning news media (Indeed, most of the news media.) have worked in unison to advance an anti-business, an anti-free market, and an anti-capitalist (anti-individual rights and property ownership) agenda. [...]
> 
> I, an American small business owner, part of the class that produces the vast majority of real, wealth producing jobs in this country, hereby resolve that I will not hire a single person until this war against business and my country is stopped._





> Yes, because the socialists are coming to get you all. Socialists everywhere, redistributing your wealth, asking you to pay 1990s-era tax rates, making goddamn movies about sharing and filing reports about poor people and so on. Socialists are hiding in your closet right now, my friends, and are redistributing your socks.



(DailyKos)


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Uh, the drivel at the bottom of your post was written by the boobs at DailyKos. The first quote was written by one activist. Shall I begin posting every stupid thing quoted from the Occupy Wall Street gang? Would keep me really busy.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

> *Tea Party Nation sent to their members today a message from activist Melissa Brookstone* urging businesspeople to “not hire a single person” to protest the Obama administration’s supposed “war against business and my country.” Brookstone writes that business owners should stop hiring new employees in order to stand up to “this new dictator,” the “global Progressive socialist movement,” Hollywood, the media and Occupy Wall Street.


The DailyKos picked up the story from RightWingWatch.org.

Feel free to go to the TPN website and see whether Ms. Brookstone's message is out of the norm...


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Rick Perry hints he doesn't trust Obama's birth certificate - CTV News


ha ha ha. When ya got nuthin.

Man what a bunch of total kooks. One of them will be president.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

*Fox News Viewers Know Less Than People Who Don't Watch Any News: Study*












> Fox News viewers are less informed than people who don't watch any news, according to a new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
> 
> The poll surveyed New Jersey residents about the uprisings in Egypt and the Middle East, and where they get their news sources. The study, which controlled for demographic factors like education and partisanship, found that "people who watch Fox News are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government" and "6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government" compared to those who watch no news.





> "Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News. Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all."


(Huffington Post)


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

If somebody "watches no news at all" than they have to get their information elsewhere. 

And what a question: "To the best of your knowledge, have the opposition groups protesting in Egypt been successful in bringing down the regime there?" Which regime are we taking about? Mubarak's or that of Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi? 

The study also awards points to those who say that Occupy Wall Street is a movement of the Democrat Party, not a non-partisan protest. 

A supposed academic such as yourself should give a study like this wide berth. Instead you grasp at straws to reveal your biases. Embarrassing.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

it is indeed, embarrassing.


----------



## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

_*Aw, what a shame. So much potential lost... the comedians are weeping at this news...*_

*Michele Bachmann drops out of GOP race*



> "Last night, the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, and so I have decided to stand aside," she said at a hastily-arranged news conference here.
> 
> "I have no regrets," she added. "None whatsoever. We never compromised our principles." She said she "looks forward to the next chapter in God's plan."





> By suspending her campaign - as opposed to fully ending it - Bachmann can still raise money and apply for federal matching funds that would help her settle possible campaign debts.


(CBS)


----------



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

CubaMark said:


> _*Aw, what a shame. So much potential lost... the comedians are weeping at this news...*_
> 
> *Michele Bachmann drops out of GOP race*
> 
> ...


Sad. Still, perhaps one of "God's plan" for her is for her to return to the House of Representatives and help to put the fear of God into the hearts and minds of those lefty socialist Democrats who are going to ruin America. We shall see. :--(

Luckily, Ron Paul is still at the barricades keeping out the Obama-ites.


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

"What shall we view for eye candy?" oinked the chauvinists.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> ...those lefty socialist Democrats who are going to ruin America. We shall see.


They have already diminished that once-great nation, along with statist Republicans.


----------



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

Macfury said:


> They have already diminished that once-great nation, along with statist Republicans.


Sad, but all too true. Ron Paul for President and Rand Paul for VP could help matters somewhat. We shall see.


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Dr.G. said:


> Ron Paul for President and Rand Paul for VP could help matters somewhat.


Heck, why settle for half measures. Ayn Rand for Dictator-for-life!


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> Ayn Rand for Dictator-for-life!


That makes no sense at all!


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> That makes no sense at all!


It was sort of an attempt to play on the names and the politics... but you're right... it's weak.


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

BigDL said:


> "What shall view for eye candy?" oinked the chauvinists.


Maybe Ann Coulter will make a surprise bid for the Republican nomination?


----------



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

Macfury said:


> That makes no sense at all!


Agreed. Great minds, once again, think alike. Paix, mon ami.


----------



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

bryanc said:


> Maybe Ann Coulter will make a surprise bid for the Republican nomination?


An interesting selection. Still, I see her as Sect. of State in a Paul/Paul administration.


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

bryanc said:


> Maybe Ann Coulter will make a surprise bid for the Republican nomination?


Yeah maybe but she not nearly as entertaining and quotable as Ms. Bachmann though. Palin would be a closer match in quotes and erudition.


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Dr.G. said:


> An interesting selection. Still, I see her as Sect. of State in a Paul/Paul administration.


With the pair of em on the ticket no one could consider the Republicans as *A Pauling* the ballot.


----------



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

BigDL said:


> With the pair of em on the ticket no one could consider the Republicans as *A Pauling* the ballot.


Good one, BigDL .............. but it would end the slide of America into socialism and make Pres. Obama a one-term president. Ron Paul would serve two terms, then Rand Paul would have two terms. In those 16 years, America would return to a level of greatness it once enjoyed, and the memories of FDR, LBJ, the three Kennedy brothers, and Pres. Obama will fade into distant memory, recorded only in the history books which will gather dust in schools that will no longer be funded by the Dept. of Education (which will be abolished) public taxes ......... which will no longer be collected by an IRS which has also been abolished.


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Dr.G. said:


> Good one, BigDL .............. but it would end the slide of America into socialism and make Pres. Obama a one-term president. Ron Paul would serve two terms, then Rand Paul would have two terms. In those 16 years, America would return to a level of greatness it once enjoyed, and the memories of FDR, LBJ, the three Kennedy brothers, and Pres. Obama will fade into distant memory, recorded only in the history books which will gather dust in schools that will no longer be funded by the Dept. of Education (which will be abolished) public taxes ......... which will no longer be collected by an IRS which has also been abolished.


With any luck the operations of schools would fall back into the control of and of course the goodwill of Christians then other religious organizations as demographics change. Could I have a Hallelujah Brethren . Back to the future.


----------



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

BigDL said:


> With any luck the operations of schools would fall back into the control of and of course the goodwill of Christians then other religious organizations as demographics change. Could I have a Hallelujah Brethren . Back to the future.


True, and this shirft of control of our schools would end the teaching of theories of evolution, with no more sex education and a return to the values that made America great. English would be the only acceptable language in schools, special education would be a thing of the past, with no more teachers unions to obstruct the goals of the Ministry of Education, a small group of pseudo-scholars who would take over control of the defunt Dept. of Education. This group would oversee the control of schools placed back in the hands of the people .............. so long as the people agree to teach the "right things" in the schools.


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Dr.G. said:


> True, and this shirft of control of our schools would end the teaching of theories of evolution, with no more sex education and a return to the values that made America great. English would be the only acceptable language in schools, special education would be a thing of the past, with no more teachers unions to obstruct the goals of the Ministry of Education, a small group of pseudo-scholars who would take over control of the defunt Dept. of Education. This group would oversee the control of schools placed back in the hands of the people .............. so long as the people agree to teach the "right things" in the schools.


Yes and let's not forget that "tribute" will be needed by the Religious Organizations to provide "free education" for the community.


----------



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

BigDL said:


> Yes and let's not forget that "tribute" will be needed by the Religious Organizations to provide "free education" for the community.


Yes, free schooling, paid home schooling, and a lifting of bans on the teaching of religion ........... along with a balanced view of evolution and intelligent design ......... is the hallmark of a new Libertarian educational plan.


----------



## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

As usual Oliphant rules!


----------

