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US Election's Only VP Debate Tonight: Weigh In With Your Reactions
Tonight's debate between the two largest American political parties' candidates for vice president of the United States takes place at Danville, Kentucky's Centre College, starting at 9 p.m. Joe Biden and Paul Ryan will face each other on stage, and are expected to talk about issues "including the economy, foreign policy and the role of the Vice President," according to C-SPAN, which will feature a live streaming view of the event. (Criteria from the Commission on Presidential Debates
means you won't hear tonight from other presidential candidates' running mates (like Cheri Honkala, Jim Clymer, and
James Gray, of the Green, Constitution, and Libertarian party tickets, respectively). If you'll be watching the debate tonight, please add your commentary below. It would be helpful if you start your comment's title with a time-stamp (to the minute), too, for context. (Like this: "9:08: $Candidate just intentionally mis-repeated the Q on taxes.") And Yes, we're posting this here in a vain attempt to keep the political discussion out of other story threads tonight.
Update: 10/12 01:18 GMT by U L : If you don't have flash, you can use rtmpdump and mplayer to watch (incantation duplicated below, in case the site is slashdotted).
Via Don Armstrong an incantation to watch the debate without flash:
rtmpdump -v -r rtmpt://cp82346.live.edgefcs.net:1935/live?ovpfv=2.1.4 \
--tcUrl rtmp://cp82346.live.edgefcs.net:1935/live?ovpfv=2.1.4 \
--app live?ovpfv=2.1.4 --flashVer LNX.11,2,202,238 \
--playpath CSPAN1@14845 \
--swfVfy http://www.c-span.org/cspanVideoHD.swf \
--pageUrl http://www.c-span.org/ | \
mplayer -xy 3 -;
Joe Biden and Paul Ryan speaking in the same room? Yeah, I'd rather not.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
They will surely be debating the finer points on Windows or Linux being better for government computing.
Carbonite Backup Solutions is extremely relevant to technology
I'll be playing Logical Fallacy Bingo against my friends. I personally expect it to be a fast bingo game.
Is this one where he talks about when his wife & daughter died: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GwZ6UfXm410
His humanity is the opposite of Robomittens. /stupid onions.
$Candidate intentionally lied to the public
You might want to check this out. Don't blame me if you have a hangover in the morning.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Vice presidential candidates are meaningless.
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
And for Freezing Hans Solo too?
I prefer backblaze myself.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Windows in the Government? Naw, it'll never happen. It's too newfangled. I hear Ultrix 32 is the latest shiznit over at the IRS.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Does anyone pick the president by the VP they choose? Do they think, "I like the other guy more for president, but I'm voting for this guy because he will be a better VP"?
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
we get rid of the "INDICATORS OF ELECTORAL SUPPORT" requirement of 15% by the polls to be included in the debates. This is just so messed up. How are they suppose to increase poll numbers without being able to get into the debates? It is almost catch 22 for third party candidates.
Personally, I think they should change laws so the top six vote getters of the last election, by party and independent status, automatically get ballot access nationwide let alone automatically get into any debate to be seen by more than 50,000 expected viewers.
Commission on Presidential Debates
a.k.a. the Republican and Democratic parties. They will never allow a third party to debate; if they happen to meet the criteria, they'll simply increase the threshold(s).
This is one of the major issues preventing any real change from happening in the US federal government, simply because new ideas are being suppressed by the incumbents.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
The stranglehold that the so-called two party system has on the public is unbelievable but somehow these dogs have figured out a way to fool the man on the streets that they have a real role in their future.
Your future, as a citizen, in politics is one of getting fucked by the man and hoping the next administration will at least give you a reach around.
No matter who wins this debate, or the election, Americans have lost.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
If you stood them side by side, I'd have to guess Biden is the MS guy and Ryan is the Mac guy
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
Question straight to the heart
Number Two.
That's what they are. Both of them.
while we argue over 3 deaths in a foreign country, 45 people were murdered in this country today
I come to /. because there isn't a nerds section in Google News.
They both suck big wet ones and so do their masters.
For those who are wondering which time zone, it's starting at 9pm EDT (UTC-4).
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Are you smarter than an Ayatollah?
Looks a bit like the Jack Nicholson Joker...
Yankees vs Orioles and Tigers vs A's tonight
who gives a shit about a debate for a job that has no constitutional power
well under the ryan plan tech will look at your health care history.
And soon under that plan DNA testing will be used to pre load on to the pre-existing condition list.
I think "Bob" is winning the debate.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
Can I mod this article "-1 Flamebait"?
Is Biden taking this debate seriously? Why isn't he taking his opponent seriously?
I don't understand his attitude. If he disagrees with Ryan shouldn't his reaction be concern? Why is this man smiling?
Doesn't Biden give a damn?
I admit I didn't watch the debate with an open mind GANNAM STYLE. I have a view of Ryan as a negative for Romney because he's been caught lying too many times WOP WOP WOP.
I've already dismissed Ryan after his 'truthiness' in this OH WOP speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kw9uJtBrAw&feature=related
OH WOP GANGNAM STYLE. Then there was the messup with the reporter where he admits tax cuts are the magic fix and his handler has to cut the interview short:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDdw20LFFlc
WOP WOP WOP, but mostly it's that I can't imagine him single PSY's song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60MQ3AG1c8o
Does choosing a candidate based on whether they can mime to a song, make me a bad person?
Ruling Party douchebags pretending there's a difference between their brands.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You won't read anything about Biden not being engaged tomorrow. So far he's making Ryan look like an amateur and he's not letting Ryan get away with lying.
Biden is crushing it.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It is always humorous to watch the political fanbois go at it from the sidelines. Seeing people become so impassioned about which set of crooks are going stuff the shirts this time around is a devil's belly laugh. As has been said so many times, when the boot of government is on your throat, it makes no difference if it is a left boot or a right boot.
Both sides may be "crooks", depending on the criteria, but I don't think you can say that it makes no difference who is elected. ie. The Affordable Care Act is an event on the scale of the imposition of an federal income based tax, or the start of the Social Security system. Regardless of your feeling of the act itself, its is highly significant, and its a certainty that it wouldn't have passed if McCain had been elected. So its petulant and intellectually dishonest to say that its "makes no difference"
I just need to comment on Biden' disrespectful manner in which he is handling this debate. He is rude, interruting, laughing during Ryan's floor time. President O'Bama this man is n idiot and a poor representative of your office and the office of VP of these United States. I would say this to his face on the air. I am embarrassed that the world is seeing this man's immature and unprofessional handling of the debate. If I were the president I would dismiss this embarrassment of public office.
Biden discussed nuclear bomb making.
The rtmpdump works beautifully! I probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere near these debates without it, whether I wanted to or not.
One thing I've always wondered about is the apparent logical inconsistency of political opinions.
Lots of people here have noted the equivalence of Republicans and Democrats - self-serving corrupt parasites who sell favors to special interests, in total disregard of the welfare or wishes of the people. They're the same - either side will screw the people.
Yet whenever the president comes up it's "Your guy is worse than my guy". Obama is a man of the people, but Romney is a financial predator, Romney is a financial genius while Obama is a profligate wastrel.
Can anyone identify an issue - not an opinion or a general feeling or a policy goal, but an actual issue - for which Obama and Romney are on opposite sides? Something for which Obama would veto and Romney would pass, or vice versa? (Note: It's not health care.) Does such an issue exist? Is there any concrete way to differentiate between candidates?
Another aspect is the image of the man versus the actions of the man. Obama has continued and extended most of the odious practices started by Bush. Attacking Libya, assassinating an American citizen, voting telecom immunity, increasing drone strikes, running up the deficit - types of actions which were roundly decried when Bush did similar, but Obama seems to get a pass. Are we voting the image or the actions? Ethics is supposed to be absolute - are there different versions for red and blue states?
Everyone yells how great things will be when *their* candidate gets elected. "We can do so much to change the world, but first we have to get elected".
Quick question: if Obama will be so great once he gets reelected, why can't he do some of that great stuff *right now*? This is his employer mid-term review. How about showing us what he can do in the 3 months running up to the election? Sort of a "try before you buy" kind of thing. Ryan's a congressman - how has he voted in the last 3 months? What legislation has he proposed in that time? (Romney's hard to judge with this, usually it's a congressman running for president.)
A president cannot instigate many changes, that's true. He can't unilaterally pass legislation, for instance. However, a president has the power to stop bad things from happening. Like when the president told the Justice department not to oppose challenges to the Defense of Marriage act. He can veto things, he can suggest legislation, and he can negotiate for outcomes. He can tell the executive branch what to do - why can't he just tell the TSA to stop violating our rights?
(Oh, and incidentally: if he tells the military to do something, they *have* to do it. He doesn't need permission from Congress to close Gitmo.)
The information available about each candidate is noise and randomness. Each issue is a labyrinth of mis-quotes, mis-information, and nuance. Did Obama double the deficit? Or is it the debt? Or did he double it, but it's Bush's fault? Or was it the Democratic Congress? Did Romney pillage the retirement funds of Bain companies? Was it just one company or all of them? Was it actually Romney or the company owner? Was Romney even aware? Should (or shouldn't) either of them be held responsible?
Candidate choice appears to be an emotional decision. It certainly follows no discernible logic.
The only realistic reason for voting one way or the other I can think of is this: vote the incumbent out. We know for certain that "his way" isn't working. If we vote for him again, nothing will change.
Maybe that's the rule we should follow - if things aren't fixed, vote the incumbent out. That sounds more in line with the ideals of democracy.
Regardless of the R or D after the name, how about we just vote the incumbent out?
Where the answers are made up and the points don't matter!
i watch on ip0ad
In the colonial Commonwealth of Massachusetts, my vote does not count. I'm not far from Plymouth Rock, the place where pissed-off subjects of King George landed after betting their lives that there was a better way to civilize.
I have voted for Republican candidates in the past but I'm done with them. GWB/Cheney/Rumsfeld fucked us hard. That bastard Romney came here to my state, where he doesn't fucking belong, and fucked us over. Now he's attempting to take over the Oval Office on the grounds that what he did to Massachusetts should not be done to the USA. He should be swimming with the fish in Boston Harbor.
If there was a candidate who ran on the platform of tearing off Romney's head and shitting down his neck, he'd get my vote.
I'm Alien Being and I approve this message.
where is federal reserve/monitory policy question?
What does it mean in body language terms to repeatedly tick the table whit the index finger, Biden is over doing it. Like reaffirming what he is saying. May be there is something else with that gesture, this is /. so I'm assuming someone will know (and that someone will answer to FTFG).
Ryan looks really calm about everything, he for sure know about non-verbal communication.
Why in the world would I watch a show who's only purpose is to lie to me?
I feel like Obama was put in the drivers seat just when the car we're in has come under attack by drug cartel because some idiot drove us into a warzone, so now when he's trying to get us out of there, the previous driver is in the passenger seat complaining about following the speed limit and all traffic laws and grabbing at the steering wheel and brakes. and the passengers in the car are saying..why aren't we going anywhere?! we're so mad we're going vote the original driver back in..
I think the defining issue is ending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. If you watch Fox, they've tried all sorts of talking points to try to kill this issue and they keep trying new angles:
Remember, 'taxing job creators'? As if taxing rich peoples personal income will cause their companies to fire lots of people.
Remember 'dividing American?' i.e. claiming that singling out rich people for more taxes is dividing American!
Remember '53% vs 47%', the flip of dividing America, where they claim the majority are against the minority who don't pay direct fed taxes... that one died when it was pointed out a lot of the top 1% don't pay any taxes at all.
Remember 'the haves and the soon to haves?' i.e. you'll be rich soon, and then you'll get to pay less than 13%!
What about 'Robin Hood on Steroids'? The latest one, the 'income redistribution is bad', as if taking their tax cuts away from them is some sort of highway robbery!
You can see just from watching Fox, what the Republicans feel their defining issue is. It's tax cuts for the rich.
Doubtless that someone always pays. The act changes who is going to be directly paying. That's significant.
And there's other examples, some of them quite easy. Gore likely wouldn't have put troops into Iraq, again supressing your feelings of the event itself. What would Carter have done with the air traffic controllers, and would it have precipitated or acted against the rise of anti-union feeling in the country since? Would Nixon have initiated the Great Society and all its culteral consequences?
But like the last time, the missing subject?
Civil liberties... Oh well, gotta keep that prison population up to pay the rent...
Because Obama lost the debate and forgot to show up.
What you saw on the screen going against Romney was just a puppet they use in the window of the presidential limousine in case a sniper with armor piercing bullets tries to take him out.
At about 9.48 PM Eastern Time, Ms Raddatz characterized the Romney Tax cut plan as a 20% across the board cut
This is a major fail
It is a 20% cut in the top marginal rate, which is very different.
Perhaps she just mis spoke, but this is a major sleaze thing by Romney - by saying everyone gets a 20% cut, he is hiding that a 20% cut in top marginal rate is overwhelmingly tilted to the wealthy
It reminds me of the Live Polling bit on the Onion.
he also out-spoke Biden. The fact is, that Ryan worked hard to not say anything. He spoke about balancing the budget, but would come up with nothing. He spoke about troop pull down, but continued to ignore the fact that Afghanistans were replacing our NATO troops, etc. etc., etc.
OTOH, Biden really just kept saying the same thing over and over.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I used to think that, until the Iraq War. That disaster made me much more partisan. I really think hundreds of thousands of people died because Gore (barely!) lost that election.
Even more concerning is the callers at the end.
Not being an American, it was rather a shock to hear a member of the military calling up after the debate that America should invade Iran and they they urge people to vote for a certain candidate so nobody touched the military. The justification? "We have to get them before they get us".
Great work America - fix your shit up by going to war. That worked so well last time.
Sendmail is like emacs: A nice operating system, but missing an editor and a MTA.
Except for #1, the debate participant rules (http://www.debates.org/index.php?page=candidate-selection-process) do look biased in favor of the ruling parties:
2) Mathematical chance of securing a majority of the Electoral College votes. This doesn't take into account the possibility of say a three-corner fight where nobody gets the desired number of votes.
3) 15% popular support. Why is this set so high when a majority or significant plurality of Americans don't vote?
You missed 9:04
Then why is the democrat side continuing all of Bush's wars and expanding the violence overseas? Seizing executive killing powers without oversight? Why are both parties increasing the anti-iran rhetoric?
You know why I'm AC.
You don't think the difference between the two sets of candidates will reflect on the tech marketplace? I do.
As for my reaction, As I saw it, Biden had Ryan for lunch. Actually, that's what happened in the first debate too, if you go by the actual substance, because Romney lied his *ass* off to come out on top in perception. Obama was too polite; he knows that, has said so, and I expect Romney to have his butt handed to him in perception as *well* as facts the next time around.
If the republicans really want that seat, they need someone better than Romney. The man is an ass. Ryan is simply sans clue.
Too bad they couldn't see their way to run Paul. Aside from the religious dumbfuckery (which they all share so they can get elected), Paul would have been the most interesting candidate. Might have been able to vote for him. But no way can I vote for Romney. Man doesn't even know how to treat his dog.
So, from July 7, 2009 - February 4, 2010 the Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. My recollection is that for most legislation, there was a cloture vote, which meant that every piece of legislation had to be supported by every Democratic Senator (hardly a monolithic group) in order to get passed. After Scott Brown was elected, and the Senate was split 59-41, the cloture votes stopped the legislation the Republicans wanted to block.
I watched most of it, and the entire time I kept thinking that Joe Biden should stop beating up on that poor kid sitting next to him.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
Gitmo is still open because you voted in Republicans into the House:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/8/congress-deals-death-blow-gitmo-closure/?page=all
The fix is to stop voting in these GOP morons.
The stuff they couldn't block, like killing Osama Bin Laden, he did. When they held the Presidency, they didn't even try to get him. He was too useful as a bogeyman.
He muddled through Health Care Reform in exchange for no rich people taxes, I'll give you that.
To me the biggest triumph was the Republican 'lets kill Americans bill' (akak National Defense Authorization Act). He was supposed to reject it, and GOP/Fox would label him as being a terrorist sympathizer. Instead he rejects it 'because it isn't tough enough', and then gets them to put in safeguards against Americans, and rules it shouldn't be used by his administration.
So the Republicans didn't get their talking point, and now if you vote Republican, you're voting for a party that WILL USE this law they pushed through against Americans. He turned their bill into a poison pill against them.
Skillful politics, but he would never have had to do that if you hadn't have voted in the Republicans into the House.
It's a first step to single-payer. It's about time the USA makes a step towards re-joining the First World.
> Weigh In With Your Reactions
Haha! 134 idiots responded.
135, shit.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I think this close to the election, presidential politics is relevant on slashdot. Which administration do you think would be better for the tech sector?
Now, we should remember that Al Gore "invented the Internet", and that Bush thought it was a "series of tubes". A big plus for Obama: he can describe Bubble Sort!!!
Seriously, tech was better off before Washington DC got all hot and heavy in their face when they started to make money. And, by the way, Ryan is a total waste of carbon.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
But not a word about lasers!.. Much less sharks...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I caught ~20 minutes of it while driving home from work tonight. It did seem like Biden was more aggressive than the usual M.O. for this administration and Ryan was surprisingly calm. Considering how far outside the mainstream Ryan's ideas fall, I figured he would be more passionate about it. It seemed like the moderator didn't do much to stop them from addressing each other directly, yet it didn't seem to phase Ryan much.
That said, what I heard was towards the end. Attitudes of the candidates may well have changed along the way.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Correct. There's a difference. If Romney wins, there will almost certainly be a war with Iran. If Obama wins, there may not be. That is literally a life or death difference to many, many people who would live or die according to that choice.
-Gareth
I hope Paul Ryan was using birth control after that raping from Biden. I think Romney was in full clench just watching.
the other team has a pretty high score too. I don't think people at wedding ceremonies blown up by the US drones see any substantial difference.
Before long, America will have attacked everyone with the justification being that they could, at some undisclosed point in the future, harm America. Warmongering bullshit.
Jabs and accute politicking aside, the two men offer very different ideologies and views on life. Whereas Joe Biden says "privatization" like it is a bad thing, to Paul Ryan "government's control" is the worst curse.
Having grown up in the USSR with first-hand experience of government's control of economy, I would've preferred Ryan even if he did not look so persuasive and hands-on and even if Biden has not shone his uber-smile in such unsettling manner all the time.
Last, but not least, I still remember Biden's sequence of idiocies (no, not gaffes) from 4 years ago...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
We'll never know how many would have died at the hands I'd Saddam's son either (he was known for being a complete sociopath with homocidal tendencies, torturing multiple people to death because they displeased him).
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
The only thing I left with that is new was that Biden is a rude, interrupting asshole. Outside of that.... meh... nothing to see here... same stuff from both
That was the commercial break.
I don't know how much experience most of you have with drug addicts, but to me, it seemed that Ryan was just a bit too bright eyed and chatty. Exactly like a tweaking meth-head.
I think that is what the GP is talking about.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
Seeing people become so impassioned about which set of crooks are going stuff the shirts this time around is a devil's belly laugh.
I'm pretty sick of this whole "they're crooks" thing. That generally cover for the cognitive bubble. Most politicians really believe in things.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Doubtless that someone always pays. The act changes who is going to be directly paying. That's significant.
It is not just who pays, but also changing incentive structures which will limit rent seeking behaviour from insurance companies. There is a reason why the USA pays more than twice as much per person on healthcare than anybody else in the world.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
This tech board is mostly moderate, and thus likely to be more Democrat than Republican. So astroturf here points people to vote for the third party, rather than the Republicans. It's to try to split the opposition vote.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/27/1010778/-BREAKING-Leaked-Rove-email-singles-out-Daily-Kos
1. Main mission: Infiltrate all liberal web sites, posing as disaffected liberals with liberal-sounding user names, icons and signatures. (Reference Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, FDR, Smedley Butler, Bill Clinton, etc.)
2. Express. Disappointment. With. Obama. (Whining pays double!) (jk!)
3. Push primary challenge. Push third party. Push Green. Push Socialist. Push write-in voting. Push non-voting to "send a message."
4. Effective memes/talking points:
"Obama is a DINO."
"Obama is no different than a Republican."
"Obama has sold us out."
"It feels good to vote your conscience."
"It feels good to stick to your principles."
"Don't be trapped into voting for the lesser of two evils."
"We need to punish Obama and the Democrats by not voting."
"We'd be better off with a Republican in the White House."
"Obama is a war-mongering, torturing, corporatist shill."
I simply cannot emphasize this point enough: No meme is too extreme or radical. "Obama is worse than Bush!" "Obama is a war criminal!" Remember: the reader thinks he is reading the opinion of a fellow liberal. It's all about peer suggestibility, people. Keep expanding the Overton Window. The more you push a radical notion, the more likely a slightly less radical notion becomes acceptable. Someone else said it this way: "The bigger the lie, the more likely people will believe it."
So take it over the top. Absolutely nothing is outside the realm of plausibility. "Obama is an alien from the planet Negron." I like it!
This time the Democrat was the hot one, the alpha male while the Republican stayed calm and cool and occasionally counter-punched with clever quips.
Yeah, there was more to it than that. But that's what seems to matter most to the viewing audience.
Once you're in you're in. Politics is the art of the possible.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
My favorite part of the debate was when the fact box at the bottom said, "Approximately 12.1 people remain out of work"
After tonight, approximately 13.1 people will remain out of work...
Wait, you're complaining about Romney's dog? What about Obama literally eating a dog???
Obviously your reaction isn't indicative of a typical American reaction, since all the post-debate polls showed Romney won hands down.
As for the VP debate, Biden spent most of his time trying to bully Ryan in order to distract from his lack of any ideas for the future and lack of any excuse for the Obama administration's failures.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
But the USA would be defeated in a bloodbath by China, therefore, the USA will never invade China. Every US president since Nixon, I think, has kissed the feet of the Chinese government. Most favoured nation, indeed.
Jon Stewart vs. Bill O'Reilly.
The only political debate worth watching in this election.
End of story.
I think watching any American in a public space is simply funny...
I used to think that, until the Iraq War. That disaster made me much more partisan. I really think hundreds of thousands of people died because Gore (barely!) lost that election.
Enough Democrats (including Hillary and Kerry) voted for the Iraq war that GWB could get away with it.
Yeah, it makes a difference. The Democrats will be better than the Republicans. But the Dems have moved so far to the right that the difference is getting smaller every year. If you look at the issues, Obama is farther to the right on domestic policy than Nixon.
-- Instead of a single-payer health care system, or even a public option, Obama gave us a health care plan designed by the Heritage Foundation, for the benefit of the insurance companies that contributed even more to Obama's campaign than to McCain's.
-- Obama took GWB's No Child Left Behind, and added to it with Race to the Top, which forces states and cities to break their union contracts and destroy public education with charter schools if they want to keep getting their federal education money. It's destroying the unions.
-- Instead of prosecuting the people responsible for the worst financial crisis since the depression, including outright fraud, he appointed the very people responsible for the crisis to handle the crisis.
-- When O'Keefe made a fraudulent video about ACORN, instead of defending ACORN, the Democrats abandoned ACORN and let the Republicans destroy the most valuable voter-registration organization the Democrats had. Brilliant! Now who's going to register your voters?
-- When you ask Democrats why we should vote for Obama, they're finally reduced in desperation to saying, "Supreme Court." Yeah, we'll get Supreme Court justices who are merely "centerists" (conservatives) rather than getting far-right partisan justices who will brazenly ignore the Constitution as they did in Bush vs. Gore. Of course the Democrats would never consider a filibuster in a Supreme Court nomination.
"Vote for us, because the alternative is horrible" is not a very inspiring reason to vote.
------
I wanted an FDR and all I got was this lousy Obama.
The mods have spoken.
Obviously your reaction isn't indicative of a typical American reaction, since all the post-debate polls showed Romney won hands down.
No surprise with Romney's tactics: Americans like to be lied to so they can keep their precious illusions intact. That is a huge part of the reason your country is in such a mess now. A bit of humility and actually getting to grips with reality could place the US firmly back in the 1st world. (Forget about "world leadership". That is and has always been one of these illusions. The ability to destroy something does not imply you lead anything.)
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It's an awfully boring fact that the number of people who die depends not so much on how great or terrible their ruler is, but on whether the mains power run, water flows, hospitals operate, etc. Even in a war like the one in Iraq, the number of people killed directly by bombs, bullets etc. is only ~110,000, compared to the ~1,000,000 who died from lack of air-conditioning, insufficient sanitation, etc. caused by the war, measured against the base death rate under Saddam's rule. (See list of casualty estimates; note the difference between "deaths" and "violent deaths".) Saddam's son could have tortured a hundred people to death every day, and it still wouldn't have mattered as much as whether he did a better or worse job of maintaining Iraq's infrastructure than the invading Coalition army did.
To understand the game being played here, read Karl Rove's memo, or the (now hidden) Advantage Consultants website (they provide bloggers to flood discussion sites like Slashdot with talking points):
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/27/1010778/-BREAKING-Leaked-Rove-email-singles-out-Daily-Kos
http://web.archive.org/web/20110622211824/http://advantageconsultants.org/
Karl Rove talking points:
"Obama is a DINO."
Search on [obama dino] and you'll see the comments posted.
"Obama is no different than a Republican."
I'm sure you've read this one endlessly on Slashdot.
"Obama has sold us out."
Another popular one here.
And so on.
The best estimates of the number of people GWB killed in the Iraq war are between 150,000 (New England Journal of Medicine) and 600,000 (The Lancet).
Even Uday wouldn't have killed that many people. Indeed, we probably tortured more Iraqi prisoners to death than Uday did.
At least Saddam knew how to run a country. Everybody got a basic food basket. The electricity ran. Iraq had the best health care system in the Moslem middle east. Iraq had one of the best education systems -- they had a higher ratio of women college professors than the US. They sent graduate students to study medicine and engineering in London. Saddam was a secularist who suppressed the Islamist extremists. What did GWB replace it with? A third-world country in which armed gangs kill more people than Saddam did. In which Sunnis and Shiites kill each other like the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.
Romney's promised to repeal Obamacare, but I don't think he actually wants to. It IS his health care plan, after all. Unless he has a super majority in the senate, he won't be able to, so he'll be able to keep it and blame the Democrats for not being able to get rid of it. That's textbook having your cake and eating it too right there.
All in all, if Romney is elected he'll be a mostly ineffectual president, being blocked by the Democrats on most of the things he promised during his campaign. If Obama wins, he'll be a mostly ineffectual president, being blocked by the Republicans on most of the things he promised during his campaign. Unless the numbers in the house and senate make a major shift, it doesn't really matter who ends up being president. Not that much, anyway.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The resemblance is uncanny in this debate
But then, the Iraqi might have stepped up and participated in their own Arab Spring. We will never know that, and worse, neither will they.
The fact that Obama is not perfect,doesn't mean he's the same. I fear Romney would be much more likely to get us in a war in Syria or Iran; he might decide we need to stay in Afghanistan, might repeal Obamacare, and might change the tax code to make it less fair; also, he might push/allow for more government intervention in private life, and allow more corruption and incompetence. So, not the same.
I think you need to check your news sources, dude. The information is out there, but you're not going to get it from NBC, ABC, CNN or any of the other yahoos
lol! Did Obama double the deficit? Or the debt? It is not a matter of opinion, unless you descend into the alternate reality of conservative media. And of /course/ traditional media has to be biased. How else could conservatives coddle their feel-good universe?
Two words: epistemic closure.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Am I the only one who though Biden lost hard? He was obviously angry and emotional, but his arguments were almost completely defensive, arguing why Ryan was lying or wrong, but very little criticism of the Romney/Ryan platform. And much of what he said seemed incoherent. Ryan on the other hand kept his cool, made compelling and reasonable-sounding (though possibly completely wrong) arguments. Biden was a cornered animal fighting for his life. Ryan was the fearless hunter who knew he would win in any case.
And I'm almost always a reliable Democratic voter.
That said, I don't believe the Romney/Ryan position. Cutting taxes may help the economy, but will disproportionately benefit the rich. Big stock portfolio? It grows with the economy. As the money trickles down, the rich keep their share before the rest of us ever see it. I also don't believe there's enough loopholes to pay for it, so it will increase the deficit in order to hand cash directly to high income earners. I do like the idea of economic growth to inflate our way out of the Social Security/Medicare/Medicade problem, but will congress really not increase payments under those programs as the economy grows? And the slash and burn attitude Romney had towards federal discretionary spending will /hurt/ the economy, possibly more than the tax cuts will help.
In the end, I think Obama is right. We're in a pickle and we'll have to endure both tax cuts and spending cuts to get out off it. If we focus those on the rich, the poor and middle class will continue to spend and at the very least they won't slow growth too much.
I still think Biden lost hard though. The only question is whether he did worse or just almost as bad as Obama. I had to do a lot of thinking to decide why I wasn't considering voting republican. I wish I'd voted for Hillary 4.5 years ago now though.
Can anyone explain how the Romney tax plan works. We've all heard it doesn't add up, so I'll just summarize that below. What I'm looking for are explanations of how it makes sense. I heard Ryan not explain it. He talks about "broadening a base" via eliminating deductions. What does that mean?
Summary of the tax plan (taken from Romney website):
1) No AMT, no estate tax
2) No tax on Dividends, INterest or Cap gains.
3) cut maximum tax bracket by 20% from bush maximum: that is to say 15% on ordinary income.
4) Eliminate "most" deductions but keep home mortgage deduction.
Other bullet points (taken from Romney web page).
1) wont lower revenues
2) upper income earners wont pay a smaller "share". (unclear)
3) won't raise taxes on taxes on middle class. (presumably in aggregate).
Clear areas lacking explanation:
Consider that top teir earners pay most of the tax in the US right now and that they earn most of their income from Cap gains not Ordinary income like wages. If you remove the tax on cap gains, then they pay only a few percent on their combined income. This will drastically reduce not just their "share" but strongly imapct total revenue.
Note that lowering deductions barely affects this analysis. Even if you set the ordinary income tax rate at 110% on the wealthy, the fact that nearly all their income is cap gains means they still pay almost no tax. Furthermore since there is no estate tax, this situation does not correct itself at death.
SO how can this meet the claims about revenue neutral, not lowering the share of the upper income earners, or not push more taxes on the middleclass.
I'm looking for explanations not anti romney propganda. And what does "broadening the base" mean if there's no cap gains tax?
thanks!
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I love slashdot. I just can't stand it participants.
Great work America - fix your shit up by going to war. That worked so well last time.
Yeah, well, you know, as long as it stays far off shore, it's all good.
Iraq Regime change policy was adopted under Clinton in 1998. Look up Iraq Liberation Act.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Strange as it seems, not everyone on /. is a sociopathic Libertarian.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Romney's promised to repeal Obamacare, but I don't think he actually wants to.
Romney has an even better plan!
He promised to repeal the Health Care Act, but keep just the good parts that everyone likes (preexisting conditions/covering children/etc).
Consistent with his general budget plan of cutting taxes for everyone 20%, increasing military spending and remaining revenue neutral or even positive.
Magic.
I was unable to watch (at work), but did SOPA/PIPA, ACTA, TPP, US Six-Strike come up at all and Biden's best friend Chris Dodd of MPAA fame come up at all? Or were both parties in agreement that it wouldn't serve either's interest to discuss these things (in public)?
Well, that'd be the oft-repeated claim by the Romney/Ryan camp that the US Navy is at its smallest size since WW1.
Are they such complete retards that they think that's in any way a valid comparison? That somehow what the US Navy looked like in WW1 matters?
After WW1, the US had over a dozen battleships. The US Navy has 0 Battleships now. They rely heavily on Aircraft and well, Aircraft Carriers.
The parameters of war-fighting have changed. Considerably. Blind comparisons like that one from the Romney camp rely heavily on rhetoric, but are empty on substance.
If they want to make an argument about the insufficiency of the US Navy to conduct some operations, they can do so with specifics rather than pointless comparisons.
That they do so, however, is an indictment to their character, and like Paul Ryan says, shows how little they really have to say. Thanks Mr. Ryan, thanks. You gave yourself enough rope to dangle from the yardarms.
*Does the USA have to act like a 3rd world country, trying to always resolve things using the Military? The USA has other Federal Departments and NATO that can resolve most problems and save 2.7 Trillion Dollars & millions of lives without using the military. The Republican Party has a mind set that Republicans would be in power if there was a war with Iran. Just like the Bush/Cheney era mentality of waging wars so that Bush/Cheney would be in the White house for a second term total 8 years.
*Did you all watch the news where U.S.A Ambassador Chris Stevens compound/building in Libya was blown to pieces with a rocket/bomb? What if there was an extra 42 Marines? What if those 42 Marines was in the building guarding Ambassador Chris Stevens then the total death toll would increase by 42 extra died Marines. TERRORIST ACTIVITY IS NOT CENTRALIZED, TERRORIST ACTIVITY IS ALL OVER THE MIDDLE EAST.
*How is Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan going to reduce 20% of TAX for (Corporations, Billionaires, Millionaires) & have revenue neutral without paying down the Federal Deficit?
*Bush/Cheney TAX CUT caused an increase in the Federal Debt so what do you think reducing an extra 20% of TAXES will do Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan plan?
Good Question!
I'd also like to know how this might affect the tech sector.
1) I note the following a few companies that are doing well (Apple I'm looking a you) have massive foreign earnings accumulating. Is this income or cap gains? If cap gains then is there is the possibility they would repatriate this to the US allowing higher dividends to share holders. They might also use their discretion to book more profit in the US if the max tax bracket was 15%? On the other hand, their a multi-national company so they would only do that if stockholders demanded it--they have no obligation to the US. They might even use it as leverage to get more favorable rates from other countries.
2) many start ups thrive on options. But with options come cap gains taxes. Look at Zuckerberg having to sell stock to pay for the options taxable value. Would this change how startups are financed?
The two main parties are so close to being the same thing, and religiously avoid talking about things that really matter, like loss of our freedoms, like the hideous expense of trying to run an empire in a post imperialistic world, like how it's the big corporate gambling and beer lobbyists who pay for the Presidential debates through their joint "non-profit" corporation, and thereby get credit for giving equal amounts to both parties, so you are guaranteed a corrupted party no matter which one you vote for, like how in the old days before capitalist cronyism took over from honest capitalism, when the League of Women Voters used to insist on moderators that would ask real questions instead of the softballs that the two parties get to specify in their written contract with their lobbyist sponsors, before the debate dates are even set. How about that. They work together, mainly to make sure that no third party even gets heard of. The sponsors don't really care which of their puppets gets in or stays in power.
Vote Libertarian, Vote Green, Vote Flying Yogis, anything but mainstream. Don't even look at their mind rot, and someday we will be free again.
Only look at the platforms of the sincere alternatives. Don't waste you honest mind on corrupt politics.
You guys know that they choreograph the matches and the outcomes are predetermined, right?
Wait, you're complaining about Romney's dog? What about Obama literally eating a dog???
What about it? It wasn't his dog, he had no more attachment to it than one might to a hamburger, porkchop, or whatever other meat product is served in a restaurant.
And yet there are people who keep all sorts of animals as pets. Including pigs and cows.
Yes, a lot of Americans freak out over the idea of eating dogmeat, but it's part of Indonesian cuisine, and given that Obama was a young child, I don't think we can ascribe to him any responsibility for any cruelty that might have happened to the dog which was eaten by him, if indeed there was any of substance. Which has never been alleged anyway.
The same cannot be said of Mitt Romney. That was his dog. He was an adult. He transported it on the roof of his car. What kind of person needs to be told not to do that? It's quite different from eating the meat you're served as a child, to which you have no attachment at all.
Of course, if you're a vegetarian and oppose the eating of meat at all, you're free to do so, however I doubt Mitt Romney is a better choice in that regard. I haven't noticed him favoring Vegetarian ideals, and since he's claimed some association with a certain Pizza company, well, he's actually profited over their work selling meat to the public.
You may wish to look elsewhere if that's the case with you.
But don't expect me to not be able to tell the difference between eating meat and how you treat your pet.
Does anyone pick the president by the VP they choose? Do they think, "I like the other guy more for president, but I'm voting for this guy because he will be a better VP"?
LOL, no. These debates aren't for swaying people's opinions. The people already have their horse picked out going into the debate. They just want to see "their guy" bash the other guy so they can be cocky and post taunts on Facebook at what a moron the other guy and all his supporters are.
The requisite 15 minutes of Hate has now been extended out into an hour or two, minus commercial breaks of course. Politics these days more and more resembles mainstream wrestling; some of the minor details like words spoken in a certain moment may be spontaneous, but the whole of it is theater, basically a live TV performance. Any verbal gaffes or logical inconsistencies occurring in the heat of the moment due to the real ignorance and stupidity lurking and carefully concealed beneath his fake smile and plastic demeanor, can easily be explained away by an army of aides and speechwriters as "misspoke" or "taken out of context" or "whatever", and twisted and turned and spun this way and that for as long as it takes until the public simply intellectually gives up, or becomes bored/confused and moves on to more important things like Lohan's fight with her mom.
The Nazis would have been exceptionally proud of what we've become.
Well that's just Reagan vs Carter all over again. Iran knew Carter wouldn't bomb them if they didn't release the hostages. Reagan pretty much promised to. Iran released the hostages the moment Reagan was elected.
Umm. Didn't they release the hostages because the US, under Reagan, agreed to sell them weapons through proxies?
Where'd you say you're from? May have to add you to the list.
Well that's just Reagan vs Carter all over again. Iran knew Carter wouldn't bomb them if they didn't release the hostages. Reagan pretty much promised to. Iran released the hostages the moment Reagan was elected.
From most of the accounts of the Iran hostage crisis that I have read, it always seemed fairly clear that Carter did all of the negotiations to free the hostages, and Iran only waited until Reagan took office before releasing them to spite Carter for his support of the Shah. Unrelated events also put pressure on Iran to end the standoff, such as the USSR invading their neighbor Afghanistan and being invaded themselves by Iraq. That last part was probably the biggest driver for an end to the crisis, as Iran was fielding primarily American military hardware and hoped that by releasing the hostages they could secure parts and supplies to keep their military going.
Paul is a flaming idiot. He's taken bits and pieces of economic theory and moulded them to comport with his own agenda. Economic theory has the benefit of peer review and scientific method. Paul eschews all of that. His routine is to take the first two or three concepts from some economic theory and veer sharply in the direction of whatever point he wants to make (logical connectives be damned). When he's most honest, he's just 150 years out of date; when he's most dishonest he's just completely out of touch with reality.
He's actually worse than Romney in that respect. Romney's just flat out lying and no one knows his agenda. Presumably, Romney might be amendable to rational thought if he were to ever be in power. Ron Paul, on the other hand, is genuinely far out in right field. He's so far gone the stadium lights can't even locate him. Only Paul knows where he is at any given moment, and you can bet that's where he intends to stay.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
The military in this country is basically indoctrinated to be conservative and I know this as I grew up an army brat; born and raised to adulthood. This nationalistic chest thumping is quite popular on the other side of the fence. And if you don't chest thump just as hard as they do, that makes you a homosexual, peace loving, coward with no comprehension of the evils our country is threatened by. You only need to listen to a few of the radio extremists to understand what I mean.
Now, the old conservative party was more isolationist because wars cost money.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
You can see it write large on Ryan's wife's face:
http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com/img/upload/2012/10/11/AP655688226697.jpg
"And I'm almost always a reliable Democratic voter."
Nah, you work for Advantage Consultants, or another of those turf groups. Of your 20 comments, the longs ones are all Rove talking points, the short ones, one line fillers.
http://web.archive.org/web/20110622211824/http://advantageconsultants.org/
http://slashdot.org/~pseudorand
"I just donated to Obama to enter to win dinner with him. Why? So I can give him a piece of my mind."
" took the Colorado TCAP (no child left behind equiv tests) and said they were pretty difficult"
"1) The 99%/1% stat describes inequality in the distribution of wealth, not income. The government they're petitioning has some leeway in addressing income inequality through tax policy, but the only way to address distribution of wealth inequality quickly would be to violate the protection of private property."
etc etc.
The trouble with turfers is they have no substance beyond their single issue. So comments in other fields are always empty short filler.
Iraq had the best health care system in the Moslem middle east. Iraq had one of the best education systems -- they had a higher ratio of women college professors than the US.
yeah ... in 1960. Care to update your stats from the last 20 years?
And if by "best" you mean better than Iran, Syria, etc... then I wouldn't be bragging.
Dont ask, dont tell.
Think you are white washing Saddams crimes.
The New York Times placed the lifetime deaths attributable to Saddams at 1 million, both civilians and military killed.
Of course, nearly all of the deaths were carried out by his orders. It is impossible to say how many he killed with his own hands.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
That this analysis is modded insightful is just sad. Are you seriously touting the virtues of Saddam's Iraq over GWB and US Foreign Policy. We might have a lot of internal disagreement within the US (and the wider Western world) about whether GWB was a good president and whether taking action in Iraq was appropriate at that point in history, but trying to make a case that GWB was more harmful than Saddam is quite the extremist stretch of the imagination. Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein's_Iraq
11*43+456^2
In Canada, you essentially vote for a party. Due to strong party discipline and the indirect way the Prime Minister is selected, it doesn't matter much who you actually send to Parliament, but rather which party he/she represents. In the US, the candidates actually matter a little.
Also, two parties are not sufficient for a healthy democracy. Suppose a politician of your preferred party does something corrupt while in office. When election time comes, do you vote for him/her anyway? Or will you vote for the opponent, whose values are the opposite of yours, just to toss the bum out? Politicians know that in a two-party system, they can get away with a lot of crap and still get re-elected.
Two party can very quickly come to a very comfortable situation where they "exchange" seat but lose nothing as they both got a handhold of 50/50 of the seat of power (either at the same time spread over the states, or alternatively with presidential seats). Basically they are more or less chumy and don't dispute any hard point, jsut sound bytes.
Now when a third party comes in the situation changes. The incumbent can naturally let itself be corrupted by the 2 other party, the kow towing of the two other party means they have to compromise, and before that he HAS to rise to enough proeminence and thus there is at least an intermediate state where it is pointing the HARD stuff in political campaign forcing the 2 big party to go away from sound byte. Furthermore once there is 3 party, and the 3rd party fuck it up let itself corrupted, then a FORUTH aprty can spring up and rally the votes. Meaninf there is a constant flux and nobody can assert itself and more importantely no two aprty can fully ignore the folk will as they are doing in the US. Not for very long. But in the US ? it is kettle and pot, and unless democain and repucrate fucks it up royally leading to a revolution or are shown to be eating babies, then nothing changes. Sound byte for election followed by royally ignoring the populace and putting in DMCA, Patriot acts and so forth.
Now, we should remember that Al Gore "invented the Internet", and that Bush thought it was a "series of tubes".
...except of course that Gore never claimed he invented the Internet
That was the commercial break.
You LIE!
There were no commercials!
Yes. Contragate. The hostages were released the day Reagan took office, which means the Reagan team was negotiating with America's worst enemy behind the back of proper diplomatic channels during a campaign, and whipped up the drugs for arms for Iranians deal.
And shortly after Reagan created the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Watch these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5CKO400_7M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGo1DqmfHjY
Need Mercedes parts ?
Human rights don't mean shit when you're dead.
Waiiii!!!!!! I have bad karma!
THIS comment gets a fucking 5? That Lancet estimate has the most widely discredited paper in history.
Oh shit. The guy with a Lord of the Rings nickname is telling America how bad we all are.
Fuck. It's all over now.
Iran knew Carter wouldn't bomb them if they didn't release the hostages.
Uhhh... Carter was the one that sent in the US military. Operation Eagle's Claw.
The vanguard Spec Ops forces failed spectacularly and the strike missions were cancelled, but the A-7s and F-14s were armed and ready on the carrier decks. They even had special "invasion stripes" painted on their wings for recognition.
I prefer this version
Lack of air conditioning?
So it does make one wonder just how many will die should a guy like Romney who thinks global warming is a joke takes charge of the EPA and efforts to save the habitability of only planet most of us live on.
That seems surprisingly low to me. Over the entire lifetime of Saddam Hussein's reign (25 years or so), 1 million died. During the course of the US invasion (8 years), up to 650,000 died (Lancet).
That's a hell of a comparison. 2/3 of the people killed in 1/3 of the time, in a war where the invader was genuinely trying to win hearts and minds. Tricky to take the moral high-ground with those figures.
http://browneyedgirl65.com/2011/07/10/fdr-predicts-modern-republicans/
Here is FDR in 1936 laughing at Romney in 2012:
Let me warn you and let me warn the nation against the smooth evasion that says “of course we believe these things. We believe in social security. We believe in work for the unemployed. We believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die [laughter, applause] we believe in all these things. BUT, we do not like the way the present administration is DOING them! Just turn them over to us. We will do ALL of them. We will do MORE of them. We will do them better! And most important of all, the doing of them will not. cost. anybody ANYthing!” [much laughter, much applause].
I believe VP Biden stated that the US would not intervene with Syria because (1:06:03 in the debate) because it was 5x larger and 1/5 the population of Libya? Did I hear that right? I thought I knew a bit of geography and this kind of took me back. So I checked...
Syria - - - - - - - - - Libya
185,180 - - - - - - 1,759,540 Total Area (sq km)
20,178,485 - - - -6,310,434 Population
source : http://cia-world-fact-book.findthedata.org/compare/57-105/Syria-vs-Libya
I couldn't find a date but I don't think it could be that outdated. According to this Syria has about 1/10 the size and 3x the population. I wonder which source he used? Is VP Biden just making stuff up? What else could just be pulling out of his hat like that?
I used to think that, until the Iraq War. That disaster made me much more partisan. I really think hundreds of thousands of people died because Gore (barely!) lost that election.
I'm afraid you're wrong. Saddam was a butcher that killed his people in peace and war - the Iraqi government is still finding mass graves of Iraqis killed by his regime. The rulers of Iraq's future, his sons, were more violent than he was - he had to restrain them. Think of that - mass murderer Saddam Hussain acting as a restraining influence, and what that would mean for the future of Iraq. The number of people that died from terrorist and insurgent violence under coalition occupation until the reconstitution of the Iraqi government and return of sovereignty to it was no worse than Saddam's long term average. As it is, the mass killing by the government of Iraq is done because Saddam was removed from power, although terrorism is still killing a few thousand people a year in Iraq. If Gore had been elected, and hadn't removed Saddam from power, as was US policy developed under President Clinton, Saddam would still be killing today. Would you feel better if he was still in power and still killing?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
__
On one side, we have a couple thousand deaths due to drone strikes. On the other, we have a couple hundred thousand deaths due to pointless war. No rational human being would say that there isn't a "substantial difference".
You're right that the people who've had loved ones killed by drones likely wouldn't see a difference, but they're not exactly in a state conducive to rational thought. Victims can rarely be objective in judging such things. It's human nature.
Much more likely? Romney has already promised many campaign contributors he WILL go to war. He has appointed all the previous Bush neocons to his "defence" policy transition team.
No Reagan sold weapons to Iraq not Iran big difference. Also it was because Iraq was at war with Iran from 1980 to 1988
Ok, so by that way of thinking then if Gore was president then Osama Bin Laden would not have attacked the U.S. and the world trade centers would still be there right? When are liberals/dems going to stop trying to lay blame on a president that is long gone. Hell I should still blame high gas prices on Carter then.
and all this information from a person that was never in Iraq. You forget how the whole Iraq story started back in 1991. Ask Kuwait how they feel about Iraq. I was there, I know.
you don't have to be a sociopathic libertarian to know that in the era of aging populations there will never be enough money for hc. The First World simply sweeps the problem under the rug with deficits.
I live in a country with universal hc (admittedly 2nd world), yet the waiting queues, shortages and quotas make many people that value their time not bother with it, especially when their life is on the line.
no
You really advertise your confusion here... let me clear it up for you:
Some dingbat Democrats (not the regular sort) who were very angry after Reagan won in 1980 started circulating the claim that Reagan sent Bush to Iran before the election to negotiates some deal to have Iran keep holding the hostages until Carter lost... this idea was even tossed about on TV... until it was pointed out that when you accounted for time zones etc the only hole in Bush's schedule that had been unaccounted for would have required a plane much faster than an SR-71; the case fell apart and the crazies took off their foil hats
Years later, the Reagan admin tried to buy the freedom of a CIA man who'd been nabbed in Lebanon. Reagan did not want to leave the guy to rot, but the nation had endured the Lebanon marine barracks bombing so he was not inclined to "send in the marines". As a result, Reagan's people came up with a scheme to get Israel to transfer some of their old obsolete hawk missiles to Iran (the puppet masters of the guys in Lebanon who held the hostage) with the US later replenishing the Israeli supply... then the idea got more elaborate as funds from this activity were used as a way to cleverly work-around the congressional block on aid to the Contras in Nicaragua. This turned out to be too-clever-by-half and the whole thing blew up into the "Iran Contra crisis" after a mercenary plane was downed in central america and a survivor of the crew was captured.
Americans like to be lied to so they can keep their precious illusions intact. That is a huge part of the reason your country is in such a mess now.
Spanish unemployment ~ 25%, Greece borders on revolt, the PIGS face economic collapse. The Eurozone is in danger of dissolving. Native European birthrates are so low that Europe is heading toward demographic catastrophe. Large percentages of the large numbers of immigrants brought into Europe do not accept European values and represent a long term danger of civil war. And yet, you cast stones. . .
A bit of humility and actually getting to grips with reality could place the US firmly back in the 1st world.
I think most Americans would rather move forward than back.
(Forget about "world leadership"
That would be taking the eyes off from the road. That doesn't end well usually.
The ability to destroy something does not imply you lead anything.
The ability of the US Navy to destroy the Iranian naval forces planning to block the Straits of Hormuz means that if the need arises, the US Navy will lead the naval task forces keeping the oil flowing to Europe despite the threats of Iranian generals to freeze Europeans in winter.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
you don't have to be a sociopathic libertarian to know that in the era of aging populations there will never be enough money for hc. The First World simply sweeps the problem under the rug with deficits.
The US's problems with healthcare spending were (and still are) entirely out of proportion with respect to everyone else's. When you're spending approximately double what anyone else is (as a proportion of GDP) and not getting particularly great outcomes for it, something's got to give. (I've also seen comments on slashdot which said that healthcare was being used to create effective indentured servitude; that's Just Plain Wrong if it is true.) Moving towards a universal healthcare system at least starts to align everyone's interests again, and encourage the use of healthcare solutions that reduce costs rather than increasing them.
The rising costs associated with an aging population are best addressed by requiring people to work longer; if the boomers were to retire at 70, there'd be much less of a problem as they'd be net paying in for much larger proportion of their lives. (OTOH, I can understand why this would be unpopular...)
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Those numbers or so incredibly dishonest that it is disappointing to see that there are still useful idiots using them.
The number of deaths blamed on Bush always include all the Muslims killed by other Muslims during the civil war that occurred in Iraq, and the people who died in iraq from hunger or disease. The propagandists who pushed those numbers tried to justify them by pretending the place was a utopia before the war and that everything that has gone wrong in that country post-invasion was Bush's fault.
By that reasoning, It's all England's fault. After-all, the US was built from English colonies... if they'd never colonized North America then the US would never have existed and then it never would have invaded Iraq...
The adults in Iraq are... adult human beings. They are not some inferior less-evolved species. They have total responsibility for their own actions. If an Iraqi Shia decides to blow himself up in a market to kill a bunch of Sunnis it is his fault and nobody else's. It's not Bush's fault. It's not the fault of the UN. it's not the fault of the Queen, or the illuminati, or the bilberbergs, or space aliens from planet nine. If an Iraqi child died because the adults in Iraq refused to act like adult human beings and take care of their children, then it is their fault... not Bush's, not Blair's, not Freddy Mercury's, nor the Cookie Monster's. If an elderly person in Iraq starves, then it is the fault of the adults in Iraq... it's not Bush's fault, nor the Pope's fault, not Putin's fault, not Darth Vader's fault, not the fault of Sylvester or Tweetie-Bird...
Adults take responsibility for their actions. I believe we should assume the adults of iraq are adults. If you feel that the people of Iraq are some other non-human less-evolved species, then by all means, speak up, illuminate us, and explain why they are not to be considered responsible for their own actions.
So your strawman is from Spain - pity the guy you were actually replying to is probably from somewhere else.
if only the partisan democrats you cower behind would have voted against the Iraq War.
I won't let you drag those dirty liberal facts onto my property, mister!
Well that's just Reagan vs Carter all over again. Iran knew Carter wouldn't bomb them if they didn't release the hostages. Reagan pretty much promised to. Iran released the hostages the moment Reagan was elected.
Umm. Didn't they release the hostages because the US, under Reagan, agreed to sell them weapons through proxies?
No, they released them right around the inauguration, long before the arms debacle.
Wow.. talk about an ad hominem, let's not only target the guy, let's target his whole continent...
Ok, so I'll take the bait....
America has the same issue with demographics. After having a record number of births in 2007, birth rate has subsided to 1.9, lower than France and lower than the 2.1 needed to sustain the population. You can come to you own conclusion on what happened in 2007. Hispanic birth rates are historically higher and the big influx of immigrants from Central and South America mean that it is only a matter of time that white Americans will be a minority in the US. The only difference in the issue with integration is that Islamic radicalization is more prevalent in Europe, but then there is more home grown terrorism unrelated to geo-political disputes in the US, so this issue is not as clear cut as it seems.
Regarding the economic issues, what is really surprising is the resilience of the Euro in spite of all the issues with Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal.
Let's talk about Greece first. Greece has had big fiscal deficits (ie. public borrowing) since the early 90's that was hidden fro view in order for them to join the Euro. They shouldn't have joined the Eurozone at all the in beginning and it really was a failure of political leadership at the EU level that led to this situation. Having joined the Euro, the Greek government and normal Greek people can borrow money at much lower interest rates and this led to a worsening of the situation.
However, the issue with Spain (and Ireland) is a lot different. Spain fell into the current hole due to a property and credit bubble (private borrowing), which when it burst led to a sharp contraction of the economy and in turn - tax receipts. The Spanish government is paying record interest rates on its increased borrowing now because of a lack of regulation during the boom years. Saving the US from a similar fate is the amount of money pumped into the system through QE, and the fact that the USD is the main reserve and trading currency internationally. This also allowed the US to continue to borrow at low interest rates to stimulate growth. Otherwise it will end up in a death spiral like Greece.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Biden was wrong about the point of threat and Iranian nuclear breakout. With high velocity artillery and high quality, highly enriched U235 (HEU), it means a half industrialized nation can be nuclear arm state, right now. Even in 1942, HEU gun based nukes were considered comparatively trivial, and did not even need testing like plutonium implosion based bombs.
Obviously your reaction isn't indicative of a typical American reaction, since all the post-debate polls showed Romney won hands down.
No surprise with Romney's tactics: Americans like to be lied to so they can keep their precious illusions intact. That is a huge part of the reason your country is in such a mess now. A bit of humility and actually getting to grips with reality could place the US firmly back in the 1st world. (Forget about "world leadership". That is and has always been one of these illusions. The ability to destroy something does not imply you lead anything.)
Most insightful comment I've read so far. Funny how as a nation we so quickly believe that generalizations prove anything. We're 90% sheep, we want the look of doing the right thing, at all expense. We're 8% sheepdogs, those fight for what they believe is right (no matter who is in office) and sadly there's the remaining 2% wolves, those who pray on the sheep. There's no silver bullet to fix the ills of our country. There are parts of each platform which fit nicely for 95% of us. The far left and the far right go too far for a majority of us. I don't really put much into these debates, we're not seeing anything new or fresh that we haven't seen already. We need to focus as a nation on the things which work and discard those that do not. And I for one, do believe there is common ground between both parties on all the major issues. Both won't and shouldn't get everything they want, but compromise gives each side tick-marks for their respective win column. But like both candidates, we quickly fall into a "winner takes all" mentality; and that is tearing us apart. I think I'll write in Ross Perot this year, at least he was entertaining at the flip charts!!
Murasaki Skies wrote:
>Human rights don't mean shit when you're dead.
``Live Free or Die!'' --- New Hampshire state motto.
There wouldn't be a U.S. if the founding fathers hadn't believed that a new nation w/ new principles was worth pledging their ``Lives, ... Fortunes, and ... Sacred Honor''.
Of course, it's easier to do something other than look on as evil is done if one is not disarmed as much of the world is.
``Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.''
--- John Stuart Mills
Here's the sort of thing which happens when a nation is disarmed:
http://twinbuttebunch.org/index.php?fuseaction=misc.sendguns
And here's what happens when one brave man takes a stand (despite being limited to low capacity bolt action rifles):
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/11/mexican-marines-reconstruct-death-of.html
“If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.”
Malcolm X.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Uh, the fact that Europe isn't much better off doesn't really change the fact that at the rate things are going our fancy Navy vessels might start looking like the old Soviet ones. Kind of hard to run a big Navy when nobody accepts your currency as a form of payment, including your own citizens.
Moreover, Saddam would still be funding suicide bombers in the Gaza Strip:
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-202_162-543981.html
How is one going to have any sort of peace process there w/ that kind of outside influence?
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
And Biden. But he wanted you to forget that when he chastized Ryan for voting for the wars.
1. Break union contracts, good. They are often very costly to the schools. I remember one complaining mid-career 5th grade teacher making over 85,000 in pay and benefits.
2. Destroy public schools, no. Charter schools are public schools, just not government-run schools, but held to the same standards of education.
3. Destroying the unions. I note your sig saying "I wanted an FDR." FDR absolutely opposed the concept of public sector unions, and did not allow them to happen during his tenure. Public sector unions are the union bosses negotiating with the politicians they help put into office how to put more taxpayer money into union coffers, which goes back around to reelecting those same politicians. Do you see the kids anywhere in that equation? It isn't. As one famous teacher union boss said, they'll start looking out for kids when the kids start paying union dues.
Sounds like you're more pro-union than pro-education. You've moved to the left.
You can't put lawmakers in jail for how they vote. Dodd is retired and Frank will soon, so we won't be able to fire them for preventing the higher oversight sought by Bush. And it would be politcially impossible to prosecute all those bad-credit homebuyers who wanted something for nothing.
Because ACORN was obviously willing to help people engage in criminal enterprise. He did do some selective editing, but overall the evidence is quite damning.
Yes they would. They're capable of any underhanded tactic, even racist. They filibustered the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the DC appeals court (first time ever at that level) because he's Hispanic. He was being groomed to be the next Supreme Court justice, but staff notes got leaked that the Democrats did not want the Republicans to appoint the first Hispanic justice to the court. The Democrats wanted that honor for themselves, and were willing to push that date back by years in order to get it. There would be an Estrada instead of an Alito or Roberts.
That's true, and applies to the particularly uninspiring Republican side too.
pretending [...] that everything that has gone wrong in that country post-invasion was Bush's fault.
The numbers (from the Lancet survey at least; not sure about the others) are based on the difference in the death rate before and after the invasion. If the death rate jumped by ~100,000/year when the invasion occurred, I think it's reasonable to attribute those extra deaths to the invasion.
Most of them aren't from violence, either: they're from lack of food, inadequate medical care, and other failings of the usual apparatus of civilized society that is disrupted by military action.
Because moving in, turning the world around, and then just pulling out again, is a dick move.
You have to at least pay for dinner as well.
By that reasoning (which I'd only slightly dispute), the massacre in Iraq began long before we invaded. The sanctions on Iraq were undermining its infrastructure since 1990.
Which is something I think about every time Obama brags about how tough the sanctions against Iran are, and every time Romney brags about how much tougher he'd make them. The whole point of sanctions is to make life under the sanctioned government so awful that they have to either do what we tell them or risk open revolt by the common folk of the country. In other words, they use the suffering of the masses as a political weapon.
Something ain't right there.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
The Lancet journal study was censured:
In a highly unusual rebuke, the American Association for Public Opinion Research today said the author of a widely debated survey on "excess deaths" in Iraq had violated its code of professional ethics by refusing to disclose details of his work. The author's institution later disclosed to ABC News that it, too, is investigating the study.
http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/story?id=6799754&page=1#.UHgfJJWZx3g
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
The fundamental problem facing our nation right now is materialism. People value money and ease of life over freedom. We need only look to recent history--and current events in other places--to have reason to choose freedom over material wealth. But that's not popular now. Our Founding Fathers--and the nameless men who died under them--must be spinning in their graves. This is not the freedom they died for.
This mindless tirade against "the rich" or "the 1%" is just that: mindless. It's a tool used to manipulate the masses. And I'm nowhere near being part of that "1%". The question is, who is pulling the strings?
I don't care if cutting taxes benefits "the rich": it benefits ME by letting ME keep MY money in MY pocket and letting ME decide what to do with MY money--not the government. It also gives the government less money to spend--and we need less government, not more.
This "1%" movement is emotionally driven. It's about materialism. It's about enforced equality, about forced redistribution of wealth, about "fairness". People just want to be as rich as "the rich". They care more about that than about FREEDOM.
Freedom is our most valuable possession as citizens. Freedom includes the right to own property and seek wealth. Freedom means that some people will have more than others. That's how life works. Life is not fair.
People would rather cede control of their money--and, ultimately, their lives--to the government and let the government even things out between them and "the 1%." It's easier than taking responsibility for oneself.
Elections aren't about principles or values anymore. They're all about "what will you do for ME during the NEXT TERM." They're about, "Will he MAKE things 'better' in the next four years?" with "better" best defined as "making my life easier."
We are spoiled in this country. We have had it easy for so long, and we take our freedoms for granted to such an extent that we are willing--even wanting--to hand them over for the sake of empty promises. We need to do more interviews with immigrants who came from communist countries, who escaped the Iron Curtain, and heed their warnings. We need to listen to how much they value the freedoms we enjoy here in the USA, the freedoms we are trying to give up.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
--John Donne
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
That quote could be applied to any election in which the incumbent President were a Republican--or just any election, period. That quote boils down to, simply, "We want to help you, too! We will just do it better than the incumbent! So vote for me!" You're being disingenuous.
It seems to me that the Republicans are more candid about the costs of welfare spending. The Republican platform leans more toward small government than does the Democrats'. That's not to say that the Republicans have done everything right, or that they will in the future. GWB and the Republicans have done many things I disagree with. But I think there is a more substantial difference between the parties than most people will admit. The problem is that the focus on short-term, "what will you do for ME" issues obscures the deeper principles.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
It's easy to twist statistics to prove whatever you want.
Invading a nation and replacing an evil regime (i.e. having a war) will obviously cost many lives. Comparing the lives lost in war to those lost during relative peacetime is comparing apples and oranges.
Regardless of whether one thinks the Iraq War was a good idea or justified, it's mind-boggling that anyone would try to downplay the evils of Saddam Hussein's regime, to suggest that he would be the lesser of two evils. Collateral damage and civilian casualities are indeed tragic--but at least a purpose was to replace an evil regime with a democracy. How much more tragic are the needless deaths perpetrated by an evil dictator bent on preserving his own power.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
I find it difficult to believe that Democrats would appoint SCOTUS justices who would defend the Constitution to a greater extent than those whom Republicans would appoint. I'm not saying that Republican-chosen ones would defend it to any great extent, either. I think it's a bit of a false dilemma. There doesn't seem to be any great value placed upon the Constitution by either party.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Not magic! He's just glossing over the stuff he'd cut from domestic spending and the unfunded mandates he'd push out to the states. And he's only doing that because if he actually told us, the Obama administration would seize the opportunity to class warfare him! You don't want to see the poor guy class warfared, do you?! That would be like some obscenely rich guy getting all bent out of shape because people below the poverty line pay less of a percentage of taxes than he does!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"The only agenda I have is to be treated like a human being." Your sig is so ironic. You advocate good treatment of human beings, yet at the same time you advocate destruction of human life.
If banning abortion would be a decision based on religion, then why not legalize murder? After all, Christianity is against murder, and we mustn't have laws against things which Christianity declares wrong.
"Because your right to do whatever you want ends when it interferes with my right to life."
Then a woman's right to do whatever she wants with her own body ends when it interferes with an unborn baby's right to life.
The only way to justify abortion is to devalue human life. And, of course, without religion, there is no reason to value human life--humans are just bags of randomly-generated organic goo. Therefore, murder is just as justifiable as abortion. Survival of the fittest, you know.
Of course, you conclude by equating Christian values with Islamic law. It's hard to be much more intellectually dishonest than that.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
At least Saddam knew how to run a country.
Oh, yeah. Gassing an ethnic minority is a great way to run a country. I'm sure the Kurds loved to see those clouds descending on their villages, killing them indiscriminately. And he suppressed the Islamic extremists so they wouldn't bother his Ba'athist extremists. I could Godwin this post, but I won't. The similarities are already clear enough anyway.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
"Yes it does!"
"No it doesn't!"
That's all it boils down to. It's all about short-term economic growth, about "What will you do for me in the next four years?" Nevermind the deeper principles at stake, like "Make them give their money to the government so the government can give some of it to me (in the form of services or benefits)! Feed me, government, feed me! Peep, peep!"
I don't care if tax cuts also benefit "the rich": I want to keep more of my money in my pocket. I want the government to have less of it to spend foolishly and wastefully. I want to have the freedom to make my own decisions.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
It's destroying the unions.
As someone who works in an industry rife with unions (and thankfully not in one), you say this like it's a bad thing....
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The GP asserts an ad hominem against the entire USA. The parent points out that the GP's argument ignores the problems in the rest of the world and creates a false dichotomy. Then you claim the parent's examples are ad hominems against the continent of Europe. WHOOSH. It's ok for one guy to do it, but not the other? Hypocrisy is rampant.
Reverse discrimination is as bad as discrimination. Reverse bullying is as bad as bullying.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Your posting illustrates my point rather nicely, thanks.
1. Greece is pretty irrelevant to the EU it is so tiny, the situation of Spain is not well characterized by this one number, and there is a bit more world outside the US than just the EU.
2. Forward to where? On a downward spiral? Do you even understand what you wrote?
3. You think the US Navy is necessary for that? Your are just useful idiots doing the dirty work.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You have a very simple minded vision. those jobs that were created meant more than 1 year's employment. The money spent was re-spent many times. The labor of some person was harvested for the benefit of the GDP with that money (as opposed to giving them money for free). And it maintained bussiness enterprises as functional, preserving other jobs. It helped jumpstart new industries like green power.
More importantly, cities can't deficit spend (have to use bonds). Hence in recessions when revenues fall, cities have to lay off. Which makes the recession jobs spiral worse. In cities where the tax base doesn't fall in a recession (property tax) then this also take smore money out of the disretioanry economy and bussinesses fail. Stimulus money is thus a way for the tax payers to loan the city money (the feds rpovide it, and future taxes pay it back).
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Joe Biden is not trying to get elected to any position where he would write laws!
Yes, that's the basis for the Helpless Bystander Fable. The problem is it's the liberal version of the GOP's "no one could have predicted" excuse for their inaction in the face of Hurricane Katrina. A false argument that insults the intelligence of the listener.
How is it false? Let us count the ways...
1) The filibuster could have been ended when the new Congress was sworn in with a new set of rules for the Senate, which only requires a simple majority. The GOP was already setting filibuster records when the Dems first took back the Senate in 2006, so they cannot claim they were shocked, shocked! at continued abuse of the filibuster. Obama was running around promising a public option and the Employee Free Choice Act with only 51 Democrats in the Senate, yet he's suddenly a helpless bystander with 59 or 60 Democrats? Bitch please.
2) The filibuster could still be ended via the Nuclear Option, which only takes 50 Democrats + Biden. The filibuster is a Senate rule, not a Constitutional one. So all it would take to amend the Senate rules is a majority vote, with Biden casting the tie-breaking vote if need be. They could do it in the next five minutes if they wanted to.
3) Reconciliation bypasses the filibuster, and could have been used to pass most of the 2008 party platform, with a serious jobs bill to boot. It could have been used to end the Bush Tax Cuts for the rich while keeping those for the middle class....but the Democrats chose not to use it.
4) The Bully Pulpit. If you can think of a bigger sword for the GOP to fall on than obstructing a serious jobs bill in the face of a depression, by all means call up OFA and suggest one.
5) The one and only time you hear about the filibuster or the "60 votes" nonsense is when some liberal idea is being killed. It wasn't an issue for passing telecom immunity, where Reid even ignored a hold from a member of his own party. It wasn't an issue when it came time to reconfirm Bernanke to the Fed, when the supposedly ironclad 60 vote requirement disappeared.
It was all a commercial.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
I'm okay with my military doing it, so yeah, why not? I say murder the murders who murder the murders who murder the murders. All you have to do is ensure that you always keep one murderer alive, otherwise you won't have anyone to kill. Then who would do the killing?
You use Saddam as an easy target to criticize, but you don't really care about murder; you care about being able to feel good at night for being on the right side.
No human rights vs anarchy.
Tough choice.
And lets see how long it takes for Iraq to become another Iran. Which would make Saddam look like a benevolent, humanist leader.
"Vote for us, because the alternative is horrible" is not a very inspiring reason to vote.
I dunno, "the alternative is horrible" inspires me pretty well . . .
Americans like to be lied to so they can keep their precious illusions intact. That is a huge part of the reason your country is in such a mess now.
Spanish unemployment ~ 25%, Greece borders on revolt, the PIGS face economic collapse. The Eurozone is in danger of dissolving. Native European birthrates are so low that Europe is heading toward demographic catastrophe. Large percentages of the large numbers of immigrants brought into Europe do not accept European values and represent a long term danger of civil war. And yet, you cast stones. . .
Low and negative "native" birth rates are usually associated with more developed countries, because of higher equality and rights for women and higher standard of living overall. It's not sustainable long-term and needs to be addressed via immigration or something else with their own issues, but it's a definite correlation. That the US is able to sustain and grow its population even without immigration should tell you something.
Germany: relatively socialist. Doing pretty well thankyouverymuch. Canada: also relatively socialist, and its Liberal banking regulations saved it from tanking as badly as it could have (the present Conservatives like taking credit for that, despite their initial failed attempts to pass deregulation laws).
This is, of course, a lie. The mujahedeen in Afghanistan that was supported by the United States became the Northern Alliance, whose leader was murdered by the Taliban the day before 9/11.
Why, as it's a thoughtfully Republican health insurance (not care) plan? First proposed by the Heritage Foundation when H.W. Bush was running for re-election, then championed by Bob Dole in '96, then implemented by Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts, and it was still a Republican plan when Obama signed it into law.
Before someone asks why the Republicans were suddenly opposed to it, the answer to that is obvious. If a policy supported by Obama is a success, credit will go to Obama. That's why Republicans vote against ideas that were Republican suggestions to begin with, like the end-of-life planning that was smeared as "Death Panels". Secondly, if an Obama policy is going to be a failure or unpopular, they don't want to have their votes attached to it.
Like, oh, say, the mandate to buy junk health insurance. It wont matter that the mandate was a Republican idea or that they don't have a better health care plan as an alternative. They wont be the ones that saddled the poor and middle class with the mandates that Obama ran against but enthusiastically supported as president.
That's almost certainly a tautology. McCain was the GOP candidate that was chomping at the bit to "bomb bomb bomb" Iran, not Romney.
Secondly, if Romeny were to become president, Obamabots might remember they were antiwar before Obama decided to embrace war. Speaking of, Obama had gotten away with a lot of shit that would have had Democrats out in the streets if it was Bush doing it, like assassinating Americans or starting a war without Congressional authorization.
Speaking of, Obama's own VP threatened to impeach Bush for hinting at doing to Iran what Obama went ahead and did with Libya: start a war without Congressional authorization.
The "consequence" of not having the elderly die in their homes from the lack of basic medical care? Now, go be a good little Libertarian sociopath and tell us how your standard of living is completely independent of the society in which you live....
Idealism is nice, but in the end one CAN weigh huge numbers of deaths against "dictator-enforced stability" if one wants. Most people prefer to live and hope for the future than to die now for nothing useful (i.e. die in current Iraq due to all sorts of violence that does not move Iraq towards "democracy"). Let the idealists choose the times of and reasons for their own deaths if they wish, while the rest choose to live on and hope.
Waiiii!!!!!! I have bad karma!
The Health Insurance Profit Protection Act is not only not the first step towards single payer, it's the first step towards ending Medicare. Because it provides no government based platform to be expanded upon, the way Social Security did in the 30's. Because if vouchercare is good enough for a low income person of 64 years of age, it's good enough for a low income person of 70 years of age.
They sold directly to Iraq and indirectly to Iran through proxies.
So... the U.S. has a sustained and growing population without immigration because it's not a developed country and/or lower equality and fewer rights for women along with a lower overall standard of living?
The reason the rest of the world is cheaper is because their health care systems are subsidized by US taxpayers, US pharmas, and US medical device makers.
US Pharms do the R+D, operations, marketing and manufacturing that US investors and taxpayers pay for and then the rest of the world gets all the benefits at a lower cost per pill/treatment
Merck, Pfizer, BMY-Squibb, Lilly, JNJ, Abbott, Watson, Mylan, Gilead Sciences, etc. are all US based companies. There are almost no equivalents in the rest of the world. For example, drug development is almost completely dead in Europe except for the Swiss (Roche), and the lone ~2 remaining UK players.
Same thing goes for medical devices: JNJ, GE, BSX, MDT, STJ, EW, BCR, EK, et al. [Siemens being the main exception.]
As it stands, the rest of the world only pays the variable costs of all the research, drugs, and new products invented in the US after being subsidized by US taxpayers, gov't, and investors, essentially behaving as free-riders.
There are numerous academic studies demonstrating this, as well as the market itself showing how simple it is, for example, to make a profit re-importing the same drug from Canada *back* to the US.
What will be very interesting is the effect of a health care system like the affordable care act on the US. The reason other countries get to free-ride is because the US pays so much. If the US tries to change that then house of cards comes crashing down, and either the quality of medical care will go down all across the board, or the medical costs of the rest of the world will escalate.
But it helps to be a sociopathic libertarian when you want to ignore the fact that socialized medicine provides better care for less money.
Because people don't deal with waiting queues, shortages and quotas in the United States on a daily basis....oh wait, they do. You wait in an ER, you wait to see a primary physician, you wait to see a specialist, and your insurance company has quotas up the wazoo on everything from where you can see a doctor to how much medication they will to cover to what 50 year old procedures might be denied as "experimental".
Any more sociopathic talking points?
The Republican candidate I wanted could write a bubble sort.
That was really scary, it was apparent to me that as far as understanding how trivial it is to make a nuclear weapon out of weapons grade uranium;
the current administration is a "Beavis and Buthead" team.
At least Bidden go Cornholio on TV, with all of the laughing to himself, I wasn't sure what was going to happen.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Laughable. As if you wingers aren't still ranting about the 16th Amendment, FDR, or the CRA. Yet we're supposed to forget the incompetence of Obama's immediate predecessor...who do you think you're kidding?
It's unlikely in the extreme that Gore would have responded to point-blank warnings that Bin Laddin was determined to attack the United States, that he wanted to do it soon, and that he might use hijacked planes to do with with an "Okay, now you've covered your ass" and then ignored it.
Could not stand to watch the debate.
Biden was condescending, rude, disruptive, immature. A total dick.
Biden was constantly interrupting Ryan, 82 times in fact. His condescending laughs weren't good either. He came off as a petulant bully, and he failed in his promise to keep 100% factual. And Ryan had the best zingers, about Biden needing to come from behind (due to Obama's loss), and about Biden's propensity of sticking his foot in his mouth (Biden has had some bad gaffes, and in a couple cases flat-out contradicted Obama's positions).
You're right, I meant to include "overly religious" as a factor in higher birth rates.
I'm afraid you are projecting, as far more people died in the invasion and occupation than if Saddam was left in power. You could have left Saddam in power, killing dissidents, and it wouldn't have come to but a percentage of the fraction of the numbers killed in the invasion or resulting civil war.
And that's just a fact that war supporters will have to deal with.
If it meant that hundreds of thousands of people were still alive and millions of refugees were still in their homes? If it meant that girls and women were as free to attend school as men? If it meant that you had constantly running electrical and sewage services rather than a couple hours a day?
Your math, and your priorities, need some work.
Was Saddam giving them billions the way the U.S. does every year with the Israeli military? The Israel that was founded on land stolen from the native population by a bunch of immigrants? The Israel that was illegally expanded in Israel's war of choice in 1967?
Resistance to a hostile military force that has invaded and occupied your homeland is not terrorism.
Right, because making plans for a possible war is the same thing as waging it.
/facepalm
As someone working in a unionized industry, you're sneering at the higher pay, longer vacations and due process that unions bring? Why don't you go ahead and Go Galt and let us know how that works for you....
Bush wasn't stupid is a liberal fact?
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
But it helps to be a sociopathic libertarian when you want to ignore the fact that socialized medicine provides better care for less money.
until it doesn't. Costs are a function of multitude of things. Demographics? Go way below fertility ratio of 2 and things go south quickly (1.4 here). There is no country with more fat asses roaming than the US, wouldn't that add a shitton? The fact that the US HC is easily the worst of both worlds doesn't help either (supposedly free market, yet the competition is pretty much forbidden by law)
Where i live you can wait 11 months to see a specialist and begin treatment for breast cancer or whatever, only because the quota runs out right of the bat in January. Public HC here is only for old people, because only they have all the time in the world to waste in several hours long queues.
If you took the tax money you pay in taxes you'd have a very nice coverage in private sector with all the convenience like making appointments online that make sure you can show up on time and go on with your life soon after.
True.
Smashing, another elitist who wouldn't touch a teachers job for under six figures. Get tens of thousands in student loan debt, earn a masters degree, work at least ten hours of unpaid overtime a week, take continuing classes for the rest of your career, act as parent/disciplinarian/babysitter/mentor/social worker before you even get to the teaching part, which involves more and more students packed into rooms with less and less money for quality supplies. And then they want to judge you based on performance metrics where the biggest variable is entirely outside of your control: what kind of home the student goes back to at the end of the school day.
Not on this planet or on any other. The entire charter school movement is about putting public money in private hands while breaking the teachers unions, period.
Other than being free to pick and choose students and avoid special needs children entirely, of course. /rolls eyes
Because fighting with them is the same thing as opposing their existence. Not. But you know who spoke out strongly in favor of collective bargaining? Ronald freaking Reagan.
Randian drivel. The average union worker wants a fair days pay for a fair days work, same as you. But when he organizes to negotiate for it, then he becomes a monster in your eyes. Businessmen are free to pool their capital, though, and spend far more money getting far more money from the government....but that's just being a "savvy businessman".
Only if you're focused on ignoring it, of course. And when Kaplan owns every charter school within 200 miles of your middle class ass, what are you going to do about it? When the rich son of a board member starts bullying your kid, what are you going to do about it? When your daughter turns out to be dyslexic but Kaplan has cut all special education to save a few bucks, what are you going to do about it?
Ooo! Anecdote time, can I play? I worked at an anti-union shop where a man said to a young woman "I'd like to rape the shit out of you". He was a walking sexual harassment case that was never disciplined by the company because he was buddies with the boss.
Therefore, all non-union companies need to be banned. Like, right now.
Wall Street bankers are not members of Congress.
Tired teabagger lie with zero basis in reality. And as if Bush was held up by two Democrats when Republicans were firmly in control of congress. Who do you guys think you're kidding with this crap?
Oh yeah, attack a giant straw man. No one is saying that Saddam was a teddy bear. People are pointing out the fact that yes, Iraq would have been better off if Saddam had been left in power. Hundreds of thousands of people would still be alive, millions wouldn't have been made refugees, the country wouldn't have been bombed back into the stone age, and women's rights wouldn't have been rolled back 200 years. That Saddam was a ruthless authoritarian changes none of that.
Deal with it, war supporters.
Of course they are Bush's fault. The only dishonesty here is pretending that the deaths in the resulting civil war isn't the fault of both the sectarians who were engaging in it and those who set if off with a dishonest war of choice.
You're seriously engaging in deflection with an obvious straw man. Saddam was a bad guy. Iraq would also have hundreds of thousands of people still alive, millions of refugees still in their homes, they would still have a 2nd world infrastructure and health care system, there would have been no sectarian civil war, and civil rights for women wouldn't have been set back 200 years. Both these things can be true at the same time, so...
Of course Iraq would have been better off if the invasion had never happened.
Deal with it, war supporters.
Biden acted like a jerk.
Sayeth the pot.
Except that's a bullshit straw man. The only ones whitewashing crimes or downplaying deaths are the Iraqi war supporters in this thread pretending that more people and more destruction weren't caused by the invasion than if Saddam had simply been left in power.
"Enough Democrats (including Hillary and Kerry) voted for the Iraq war that GWB could get away with it."
I hear this alot, but its kind of disingenuous to say it when the guys controlling the intelligence apparatus were lying through their teeth even to the point that guys that are basic good, smart people who are genuinely working for the good of the country within that same administration like Colin Powell were fooled into believing the administrations case.
You have a little cabal within the administration working on this fiction so hard that even the people closest to them have to go along in the interests of defending us from this phantom threat and you expect democrats on the outside to be able to magically tell that they are lying hit the brakes on this thing when the result if they are wrong is a serious threat to the basic security of the nation? Sounds like bullshit to me. Democratic legislators got lied to and fooled, just like everyone else
We won't disagree there, but that isn't what I was talking about. A 5th grade teacher making that much mid-career has no reason to complain about how much he's making. But this guy was.
You have the breaking union part right, unions being considered an impediment to education.
And if FDR had his way, they wouldn't exist. And Reagan was a former union boss himself (although not a public one). I'm not much of a Reagan fan.
Difference between public and private union. In a private union, the union negotiates with the company on the allocation of the company's money. Both have an interest in getting the best deal, both protect their own interests. In a public union, the union works with the politician to give them both the best deal, paid for the taxpayers who get screwed. The taxpayer money is funneled back from the union to the politicians to help ensure the taxpayers' interests don't get a seat at the table.
When the rich son of the public school board member starts bullying your kid, what are you going to do about it? When your daughter turns out to be dyslexic, but the board has cut special education to pay for union excesses, administrator pay and perks, what do you do about it?
One anecdote about a worker, which could have been resolved with a lawsuit. This versus a founder of teacher unions in this country giving his opinion on the role of the union. All anecdotes aren't equal.
It shows the Democrats were in the pockets of the bankers as much as anybody.
This is about ACORN helping a guy claiming to be a pimp of underage illegal alien kids defraud the government, and various other successful stings along the same line. That is what finally killed the organization. No Democrat wanted to be associated with an organization that would do that.
There's the little problem of a leaked Senate Democrat memo saying they must oppose him because of his race, they can't give the Republicans that advantage.
And killed half a million Iraqi children by restricting food and medicine. Which the Secretary of State said was "worth it" when asked.
We've called actions far less severe "terrorism". Even if you don't want to call it that, there is something evil about punishing a civilian population to force out a dictator that they don't even like. Now, before some neocon brings up Dresden or Hiroshima, we weren't at war with Iraq, and the sanctions did as much to cripple any opposition as the rest of the population.
Or, I don't know, go for Option 3: don't drone bomb or invade people that have not attacked us nor are in the process of attacking us. Here's your sign.....
That's pretty funny, I always hear this argument, except that my girlfriend recently had a pretty bad fall and waited several hours to see someone anyway. So in a first world nation with insurance we're still waiting, so why not insure everyone again? Why force people into bankruptcy or worse?
You alluded to this, but I think it's important to stress that the idea of a "filibuster proof majority" is mainly used as a distraction. As in "blame my opponent for not preventing me from blocking that bill".
If there are 60 Dem and Dem-friendly Senators, and only 59 vote for cloture on an issue you care about, you should assign more blame to the GOP's 40 Senators (100% voting against your interest) than the Democratic + Independent Senators (2% voting against your interest).
First of all, they're optional and don't carry the force of law. It's just a road map for the next year (and next 4 years). Appropriations bills are what fund or defund specific things.
Second, the House and Senate need to agree. Currently the Senate has a Democratic majority and the House has a Republican majority.
A budget resolution is not a law. It doesn't fund or defund any agency or program.
of whatever it is that this guy's smoking.
The American Association for Public Opinion Research is an organization of pollsters who work mostly in the U.S. The Lancet surveys were conducted in a country at war, where foreigners were likely to be killed, and even the surveyors and respondents might be killed. As the Lancet authors said, they could not disclose the details the AAPOR was asking for, because it was too dangerous. Their coworkers and sources might have been killed.
The answer to them is, if you don't like the survey, go to Iraq and do your own survey. They wouldn't because it was too dangerous.
You want to talk about professional ethics? What about ABC's professional ethics in publishing a news story about a controversy written by one party to the controversy?
"Full disclosure: Gary Langer is a member of AAPOR and past president of its New York chapter."
at least a purpose was to replace an evil regime with a democracy.
A purpose was to replace the dictator Saddam Hussein with our hand-picked dictator, Ahmed Chalabi. Instead, we replaced the dictator with mob rule. Now Iraq has a hundred Saddam Husseins.
http://www.juancole.com/2007/02/3-month-record-for-us-troops-killed.html
Speaking of scams, Neoconservative Douglas Feith is teaching at Georgetown. So in the run up to the 2003 war, I’m told, Douglas Feith was challenged by a State Department official who knows the Middle East about what in the world the US would do in Iraq once it won the war.
State Dept. Official: “Doug, after the smoke clears, what is the plan?”
Feith: “Think of Iraq as being like a computer. And think of Saddam as like a processor. We just take out the old processor, and put in a new one–Chalabi.”
State Dept. Official: “Put in a new processor?”
Feith: “Yes! It will all be over in 6 weeks.”
State Dept. Official: “You mean six months.”
Feith: “No, six weeks. You’ll see.”
State Dept. Official: “Doug.”
Feith: “Yes?”
State Dept. Official: “You’re smoking crack, Doug.”
Feith: “Oh, so you’re disloyal to the President, are you?”
We shouldn't let anyone tell us we're so incompetent we can't have a better, cheaper and universal health care system in this country. Other countries do it and we can too.
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Sayeth the pot.
Now, now, I'm not the one citing statistics. Maybe you confused me with other people in this thread.
Except that's a bullshit straw man. The only ones whitewashing crimes or downplaying deaths are the Iraqi war supporters in this thread pretending that more people and more destruction weren't caused by the invasion than if Saddam had simply been left in power.
I don't think those are the only ones doing that. I think both sides are doing that. And neither side can prove what WOULD have happened had the U.S. not invaded. It's all speculation.
The real question is whether Iraq is better off now, or whether it can be better off in the future, than it would have been if Saddam and his sons had remained in power. That's not provable either way, either. But that Saddam and his sons were evil is hardly disputable. And while many have died as a result of the invasion, and while the U.S. has made many mistakes, it's rather ludicrous to say that the U.S. is more evil than Saddam and his sons and their regime.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
If your point is that there were people in favor of the war who had ulterior motives, I'm sure that's true, even inside the administration. The government is not monolithic, nor is the Cabinet. So what?
My point is simply this: Saddam and his sons were just plain evil. They committed horrific atrocities and would have continued to do so. Now I'm sure the U.S. government has people in it who have less than altruistic motives, and I'm sure there were plenty of them involved in all the activities surrounding and leading up to the invasion. But I still think it's rather absurd to say that the nation of Iraq would ultimately be better off if Saddam's evil regime were still in place. Has the U.S. made mistakes? Of course. Does that mean it's as bad as or worse than Saddam? Of course not. That's just hyperbole, which obscures truth and hampers rational discourse.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Actually Iraq's health care system was up to first world standards. Saddam sent students to medical school in London. There were a lot of Iraqi doctors in London (and I read articles and letters in The Lancet and BMJ that they had written denouncing Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses). According to a Washington Post story, Iraq had one of the best health care systems in the Arab/Persian middle east, and people came from all over the region to use their hospitals.
The Iraqi war was an interesting case history to show what the world would be like if the Republicans had their way. GWB was essentially the dictator of Iraq, and he could organize it any way he wanted. According to the Washington Post, GWB fired an experienced public health person who had done this before. He appointed some Evangelical Christian anti-abortion hack to reorganize the health care system. First thing he did was "privatize" the drug delivery system. In order for the privatization system to work, he needed a computer system. He never got the computer system working. Hospitals couldn't get drugs, except on the black market. That's your neocon free market.
As one famous teacher union boss said, they'll start looking out for kids when the kids start paying union dues.
Among all your misinformation, this one is the most egregiously wrong and easily disproven.
http://shankerblog.org/?p=2562
Quote, Unquote
Posted by Matthew Di Carlo on May 13, 2011
This post is co-authored by Matt Di Carlo and Esther Quintero.
Update: Please see this May 2012 “Fact Checker” piece on the Shanker quote in the Washington Post.
***
This week, in an Atlantic article, former New York City Public Schools Chancellor Joel Klein dropped an incendiary Albert Shanker quote that you’ve probably heard before:
When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.
The negative implications of this statement are obvious, which is why it is so frequently quoted by (mostly) conservative pundits and journalists.
We didn’t know Al Shanker personally. He died while we were still college undergraduates. So, we were surprised to learn that the people who knew and worked with Shanker have long thought this quote to be apocryphal.
We were skeptical but intrigued, and decided to do a little detective work.
The quote has been used many hundreds, perhaps many thousands, of times in newspapers, magazines, blogs, and speeches. Virtually none of the authors has bothered to provide a source – a date, an event, anything. Nevertheless, we uncovered two possible sources of origin.
The first is an article in the Meridian Star (a newspaper in Meridian, MS) from August 13, 1985. It is the earliest published version of the quote that we could find, and a couple of subsequent articles also suggest that it is the first (see here). In addition, this paper cites it as the original (page 176), as do a couple of blog posts (this one, for instance). We were unable to locate an electronic copy of this article, so we took a quick trip over to the Library of Congress, and found it on microfilm.
The article, called “Teacher unions made their bed, must sleep in it”, has no byline. Here is the relevant passage:
American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker may have hit the key difference between his organization and both the public and the legislature a couple of years ago when he said, “When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.
So, unless you consider “a couple of years ago” to be journalistically-rigorous sourcing, this is not a source.
The second possible origin is the Congressional Record, also from August 1985. For example, a 1995 book, Do the Right Thing: The People’s Economist Speaks, by George Mason University economist Walter E. Williams, attributes the quote (page 83) to a statement made by Shanker that was supposed to have been included in the August 1985 Congressional Record. A 1997 paper by David W. Kirkpatrick, published by the conservative Reason Public Policy Institute, also uses the quote, citing (via footnote on page 10) a Washington Times article called “Rip-Offs in the Schools?” (9/5/92). This article also attributes the quote to the 1985 Congressional Record.
So we searched the Congressional Record. The quote does not appear in August 1985. In fact, there are only two instances in which that quote has ever been entered into the Congressional Record. The first was on March 23, 1994, when former Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX) used the quote secondhand. The second was on May 23, 2001, when the quote was put forth (again secondhand, with no source) by Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO). It’s plausible that the Meridian Star article was entered into the record.
It is very difficult – sometimes impossible – to prove a negative, especially w
Solely with your choice of username, that is. :)
Bollocks. There are a lot more non-US based pharma companies than that. Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, Roche and AstraZeneca are examples but only two of those are from the UK. These all have large R&D budgets. I keep hearing this crap that US companies do more R&D but it isn't quite as simple as you think it is. Quite often when I did in deeper some drug allegedly invented by an US pharmaceutical company was originally discovered by state funded European university researchers and the US company basically spent money to develop a method to produce it in quantity and to conduct clinical trials. While this is important work there is more R&D work being done outside the US than you seem to realize.
Plainly bollocks considering Bin Laden himself was part of these "mujahedeen" back then when he was back in Pakistan helping to run training camps to fight the Soviets. The "mujahedeen" included all sorts of tribal warlords including what would become the Taliban funded by Pakistan's secret services.
Iran-Contra? Oliver North? Rings a bell?
Look kid, when somebody points out that the US economy is not in fantastic shape just now it's not fair to cherrypick Spain, Greece or even fucking North Korea when more than half the worlds population live in places where the economy is growing.
What we have here is somebody projecting an image of boom times while your economy is struggling (hence the guy above writing "Americans like to be lied to so they can keep their precious illusions intact"). It's being done just to make people happy and win votes and has nothing to do with reality. So that's Romney, and maybe Obama too, but either way it's a lie.
The posts above are the stupid kneejerk reaction to somebody pointing out that lie. It was pointed out in a pretty blunt way but still the reaction of deflecting things to places that are experiencing what the USA went through in 2008 (plus more in some cases), really has nothing to do with Romney pandering to a feeling that everything is going to be fine without anyone doing anything. I agree with gweihir but would have substituted "voters" for Americans to be both more accurate and avoid the over-patriotic backlash from people turning their brains off the second they think somebody is insulting their nation. Your news and entertainment monopolies are more to blame than apathy on the part of citizens - you are being trained to be apathetic and xenophobic. All you guys can do is get your parents to look after your kids as much as possible so the next generation is less of a writeoff.
People say Gary Johnson, and his VP James (Jim) Gray, shouldn't be in the debates because they have no chance of winning. And yet the debate is all about standing and not substance.
People forget that Johnson is polling at 6%, except they know it's less than the 15% required. Of course, that's no different than Ross Perot, who was at 6% pre-debate too, back when only 5% was required. Perot took far more than 6%, or 15% for that matter, as a result. And like Perot, Johnson-Gray will be on the ballot in all 50 states, just like the Libertarians have been for all recent elections.
But most of all ... keep this in mind as an American. Perot didn't win, but what changed? The rhetoric between Democrats and Republicans dropped significantly thanx to Perot. The issues started coming out. The Republicans swept the 1994 Congressional election on a new platform pushed to a point very similarly to Perot's Constitutionalist Party. And Clinton was then forced to work with a new government, after increasing the debt while passing taxes on anyone making more than $20K.
Why are Americans so afraid to let Johnson-Gray in the debate? Maybe it's because it might expose the two parties for what they are. No different, pushing debt, Romneycare v. Obamacare, stupid non-sense. That's what is mind boggling. Especially since Johnson is taking away from Obama as much as Romney, the first Libertarian to do so, because Obama is actually a right-winger on civil rights.
Johnson was no one 2 weeks before the Republican primary for New Mexico's governor in a state that votes 2:1 Democrat. He was no non-sense, fiscally conservative, socially accepting Republican of yesteryear, before the Libertarians broke away. He doesn't waffle on civil rights, including marriage equality. He always came out in full support of regulated drug use even as a Republican. And when allowed in polls and to state his views, people love him.
Jim Gray is a judge who has lambasted the federal government on continued erosion of our civil liberties, especially under Obama. He too really puts the President and Romney to shame as well.
America needs a Handiman ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP69507fTKY
Only a complete dupe without any semblance of critical thinking would be so fooled as to believe there is any democracy left in America, any rule of law for the new class of citizenry: the government and corporate elites - who don't get rules and regulations like the rest of us.
The fact is, both Rmoney and Obamanation were more or less equally funded by the same corporatist interests via Goldman Sachs and J P Morgan / Citibank et al. They are both for war. They are both for the NDAA indefinite detention without charges - the evisceration of everything that is America. It's a one party system, a one horse race. By the way, these corporate interests have funded into the front of the race these two "candidates" with bailout money they got. Sick huh?
The only solution is self education - bypassing the corporate media propaganda system (google Amber Lyon CNN to see just how fake the news is) - and peaceful non-compliance.
And Sarah Palin never said she could see Russia from her house (that was Tina Fey).
And Romney never said he didn't care about the 47% (he said that 47% will never vote for him).
And Obama did say "You didn't build that." Which, taken in context was bad enough. But then they said that wasn't the context, but the context they said it was supposed to be was just as bad as the original.
We're already at war. It's just subversive and no one is dieing in direct conflict with Iran. But like the Cold War, we are fighting an Iranian war on their terms.
By the way, Mexico is at Civil War, a lot of us don't even know it. We didn't start the fire, It was always burning, Since the world's been turning, We didn't start the fire, No we didn't light it, But we tried to fight it.
Also, why do the dissidents always try to fight when the USA has a weak President with no fortitude to assist them? (Okay, not ALWAYS, but the US has a mediocre record since WW2's aftermath rebuilding Japan and Germany.)
And Sarah Palin never said she could see Russia from her house...
That's correct. What Palin said (in interview, to 'prove' her international policy experience) was:
GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of this state give you?
PALIN: They're our next door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.
I don't know who you're responding to with the rest of that. Are you are misquoting things just so you can correct them?
Here's a bone:
"Mitt Romney would be a horrible president."
Abraham Lincoln -- 1862
"The thing about quotes on the internet is that you cannot confirm their validity." -Abraham Lincoln. Yes, pretty much. There are a lot of mischaracterization of Romney - a caricature developed by Kennedy, the MSM, Republican opponents and the Democrats that just isn't true. Obama believed the hype and got caught during his first face-to-face meeting.
Obama lost and may lose the election because of the mean spirited snarky condescension on his face as Romney talked. The issue is not Romney's truthfulness, but his demeanor. People do not like Obama as much as they thought they did. He gave us the chance to turn the page on the pigment impediment and we took it. But he wasn't the dude from the hood who made good, shooting hoops in the yard. He was from Harvard. Neither are leaders. They do not inspire.