No, they hate us because we overthrew the peaceful, democratic government of Iran because they were *gasp*, socialists, and because of our blank-check support for Israel.
Why is it so anathema to talk about safety nets? Why, for example, is it so evil to consider that the reason we need universal health care isn't because it's the most productive way to run our economy, but because we should all feel comfortable that basic humans needs will be met, no matter what the goddamn economy is doing?
Because of where the conservative movement came from. It's based on elitists opposed to the New Deal and a backlash to the Civil Rights movement. The elitists wanted to make as much money as possible as fast as possible, so their lackeys slashed their taxes and cut regulations. And beneath the conservative opposition to "handouts to lazy people" is the (generally) unspoken "handouts to lazy minorities".
Ron Paul promoted stability, discipline, and responsibility and nobody gave him the time of day. It's not the message they want to hear. Safety over wealth is political suicide in this nation of "I want more than the other guy, and I want it NOW."
Ron Paul is a Libertarian loon. Libs are great when government action needs to be prevented, like the Iraq invasion or warrantless wiretapping. When government action needs to be taken - global warming, economic crisis, universal health care - Libertarianism is a brick wall.
In particular, Ron Paul can rant about the Federal Reserve and the gold standard all he likes, but none of his policies would have prevented investment banks from taking on too much risk and overleveraging their assets.
Big spending on the little people who contribute a small percentage to the GDP while the people contributing a large percentage to the GDP foot the bill
It's workers and consumers who drive the economy, not the rich.
and both suffer from the delusion (common in managers) that if they don't know much about it, it nevertheless can't be too complicated.
[Citation needed]
Obama has a history of calling up knowledgeable people and asking them for advice, like when he called up SEC chair Bill Donaldson over a year before the financial markets collapsed:
Donaldson, who was tapped by Bush to head the SEC, says Obama called him last year about the financial-regulatory problems. He has never heard from McCain.
``Obama has been talking about the need for better financial regulation well before this crisis hit and has done some real thinking about it,'' says Donaldson, a lifelong Republican. ``McCain comes across as someone who suddenly realized changes have to be made.''
All of the actions of the federal government that led to our current economic crisis can be traced to violations of this amendment. All of the 'fixes' - whether they're signed by Obama or McCain - will also most likely violate this same amendment.
Newsflash: the Constitution does not stop at the 10th Amendment. You might want to read up on something called the "Commerce Clause".
There is only one moderate view: it's none of your damn business if gay couples decide to get married, anymore than it is your business that inter-racial couples get married, which also used to be illegal.
Every time someone professes to be an Obama supporter, ask them to name/describe three of his policies. Out of several dozen people I've asked, every one of them tells me he's the new hope, that he's a stable guy, that he's not old... and ONE has been able to actually name three policies. Obama has perfected saying absolutely nothing and all indicators imply he's going to win because of it.
Then you're an idiot that hasn't talked to very many people. Quick, name all of Woodrow Wilson's cabinet members. If you can't do it right now, off the top of your head, it means they didn't exist.
McCain pisses off the liberals by being a conservative, the conservatives by being a free thinker and made the mistake of picking a VP who keeps having opinions about everything, whether they fit the platform or not... and is on course to lose because of it.
More garbage. McCain pisses people off because he's an incompetentflip floppinghot head who can't make a singleattack on Obama that doesn't blow back into his hypocritical face.
And Palin? She makes George W. Bush look like a knowledgeable, experienced polititican.
...and it's infinitely worse after 8 years of Bush.
I tend to think that a monolithic Democrat government will ultimately end up raising taxes and social spending while cutting military spending, resulting in large deficits.
Taxes raised on the rich, and more social spending == a larger and more affluent middle class, and with it a more healthy and stable economy. This is why the rich do about as well under Democrats as they do under Republicans, because Democrats grow the whole economy as opposed to redistributing all it's benefits to the top. However, the middle class does twice as well under Democrats and the poor do six times as well.
About all the government can do is make things worse - having lived through Nixon's wage and price controls, and having studied the Great Depression and other panics, recessions and depressions, I see that the federal government can do much to create a shallower but much longer crisis at the expense of a fairly short, deep crisis.
Try reading up on the Great Depression a little more. We could end this "crisis" in less than a year: bring back the 91% marginal tax rates, roll out universal health care, cut middle class taxes, pay for college education and start investing a trillion dollars in infrastructure.
This is like Boston freaking out over Lite-Brites. I hope the kid not only calls their bluff and asks for a jury trial, but finds some way to counter-sue.
Clinton was under investigation for PERJURING himself in a completely different sexual harassment suit brought against him, not for getting a BJ in the White House.
Republicans didn't investigate Clinton because they had probable cause, but because they wanted to investigate him and remove him from office by any means necessary. They couldn't find any actual crimes, so instead they went with a manufactured perjury charge. You can't even proved he lied, unless you can physically read minds. Secondly, even if he did lie, it's not perjury because the lie has to be RELEVANT. As the judge ruled that whatever happened between Monica and Bill was irrelevant to the Jones case, it was. not. perjury. Period.
Don't forget that Clinton pardoned like a million friends and supporters basically on his way out the White House door.
And how many of those friends could have testified against him? And even with the much ballyhooed Marc Rich pardon, Rich had to pay a $100 million fine as a condition, and he was still left open to civil suits.
As a big Clinton supporter in the day, it broke my heart.
If you were a big Clinton supporter, maybe you shouldn't have bought into faux Republican hysterics.
Indeed. Instead, we have many people (including many on Slashdot) advocating for term limits, which force those politicians to immediately start thinking about their income post-service, and what they can do now to ensure it.
Exactly. And what's going to give you better job prospects down the road: doing the people's business, or selling out the people to cozy up to big business?
Palin has been at odds with Stevens for a while now
Sure, for the same reason Bush is unpopular with Republicans who've backed his policies that have made him unpopular: rats flee a sinking ship. Palin doesn't castigate other Republicans because she's ethical, but because she's a ladder climber happy to climb over your back if you stumble.
This story belongs in the political section at best.
Sure does.
I haven't seen YRO articles on Cold Cash Jefferson blah blah blah
You can whine about a lack of balanced coverage when the Democrats have caught up to the Republicans on corruption. You can name three corrupt Democrats? Whoop de fuckin do. There are dozens of Republicans sitting in jail, right now, and if we ever have investigations of the Bush Administration's crimes, we'll have dozens more.
Your party is corrupt. Your party is rotten. Your party is morally and intellectually bankrupt. Sad say for you.
Well, actually, to be fair, the republicans sent Ken Star to act on Whitewater. Star went to the justice department and got approval for the other investigations and only had to go to the republicans for increased funding. Sure, there might have been republicans rooting or cheering him on but they didn't sick him on those other charges.
1000000% manufactured. What actual underlying crime that was supposed to have been committed? We have courts and prosecutors in this country to punish the guilty, not to make innocent people jump through hoops until you can trip them up and charge them with perjury.
He lied in court and even though the impeachment failed
Completely false. Read the link. The only way you can prove he lied was to have physically read his mind.
the judge cited him for it, made him pay the Paula Jone's attorney fees, and he settled the case out of court when they appealed the dismissal
Which he could have easily appealed, as he was just following her instructions to the letter. But she also ruled that even if Clinton did exactly what Jones accused him of doing, that it wouldn't amount to harassment. She also ruled that whatever happened between Monica and Bill was irrelevant to what happened to Jones and Bill. And if it's not relevant, it's not perjury - even if he lied through his teeth, which he did not.
So "showing some love for the Rays" amounts to a flip-flop, much less a disqualifying one? Gumby would tear his arm out of his socket at the thought of reaching that far.
Yes, seriously. Just recall Bill Clinton's jockeying to dodge baseless Republican witch hunts left and right...
Fixed that, too. Things to keep in mind:
1) Republicans investigated and re-investigated everything from White Water to Vince Foster. 2) They came up with jack squat. 3) They finally had to settle on a manufactured perjury charge (which Clinton didn't even do) 4) The worst thing they could pin on him was a manufactured perjury charge.
Let's set Ken Starr on your ass with a $60 million+ budget to destroy your life and see how you you look, mmmkay? Not to mention the enormous hypocrisy over throwing Probable Cause and "innocent until proven guilty" out the window for Clinton, yet we know for a fact that Bush has broken laws, treaties, and the Constitution.
Actually, no, I'd like to know, that who I'm voting for will be who hands the power over to the next president-elect. I don't want an opportunist, who "adapts and changes" with the latest breeze.
So since you are so very Concerned over the issue of experience, you backed Gore to the hilt in 2000, right? He had 30 years of varied public service, whereas Bush's resume consisted of going AWOL on his Air Guard commitments, running businesses into the ground, and serving five years as the 2nd most powerful executive in Texas (lt gov has more power than gov in TX).
No, he doesn't email because he never wanted to learn how. Nothing wrong with that, Bill Clinton doesn't either. But he doesn't have to lie about it.
He gave his standard 'cry wolf' excuse: he was A POW
Fixed that for you.
In the 2000 election, he was called the most technologically savvy candidate in the race for using things like online fund raising. (Look it up, McCain was the first to do this.) Fun Fact: One of the other candidates in the race (who McCain was more technologically savvy than) was Al Gore, who was an Atari Democrat (a young Democrat who understood and ran partially on technological issues) who invented the Internet.
Bwhahaha. Saying McCain (who doesn't use email) is more tech savvy than Al Gore is like claiming Sarah Palin is more qualified than Barack Obama. How long has Baghdad Bob been writing talking points for the Republican Party?
Slashdot Mirror
Pick your issue - Iraq war, education, abortion - the issues held by the "left" of the Democratic party are favored by a majority of Americans.
The overton window had been dragged so far to the right (or the appearance of it) that Richard Nixon would almost be a communist in today's GOP.
No, they hate us because we overthrew the peaceful, democratic government of Iran because they were *gasp*, socialists, and because of our blank-check support for Israel.
Why is it so anathema to talk about safety nets? Why, for example, is it so evil to consider that the reason we need universal health care isn't because it's the most productive way to run our economy, but because we should all feel comfortable that basic humans needs will be met, no matter what the goddamn economy is doing?
Because of where the conservative movement came from. It's based on elitists opposed to the New Deal and a backlash to the Civil Rights movement. The elitists wanted to make as much money as possible as fast as possible, so their lackeys slashed their taxes and cut regulations. And beneath the conservative opposition to "handouts to lazy people" is the (generally) unspoken "handouts to lazy minorities".
Ron Paul promoted stability, discipline, and responsibility and nobody gave him the time of day. It's not the message they want to hear. Safety over wealth is political suicide in this nation of "I want more than the other guy, and I want it NOW."
Ron Paul is a Libertarian loon. Libs are great when government action needs to be prevented, like the Iraq invasion or warrantless wiretapping. When government action needs to be taken - global warming, economic crisis, universal health care - Libertarianism is a brick wall.
In particular, Ron Paul can rant about the Federal Reserve and the gold standard all he likes, but none of his policies would have prevented investment banks from taking on too much risk and overleveraging their assets.
Big spending on the little people who contribute a small percentage to the GDP while the people contributing a large percentage to the GDP foot the bill
It's workers and consumers who drive the economy, not the rich.
and both suffer from the delusion (common in managers) that if they don't know much about it, it nevertheless can't be too complicated.
[Citation needed]
Obama has a history of calling up knowledgeable people and asking them for advice, like when he called up SEC chair Bill Donaldson over a year before the financial markets collapsed:
All of the actions of the federal government that led to our current economic crisis can be traced to violations of this amendment. All of the 'fixes' - whether they're signed by Obama or McCain - will also most likely violate this same amendment.
Newsflash: the Constitution does not stop at the 10th Amendment. You might want to read up on something called the "Commerce Clause".
You pick a well thought out, moderate view
There is only one moderate view: it's none of your damn business if gay couples decide to get married, anymore than it is your business that inter-racial couples get married, which also used to be illegal.
Every time someone professes to be an Obama supporter, ask them to name/describe three of his policies. Out of several dozen people I've asked, every one of them tells me he's the new hope, that he's a stable guy, that he's not old... and ONE has been able to actually name three policies. Obama has perfected saying absolutely nothing and all indicators imply he's going to win because of it.
Then you're an idiot that hasn't talked to very many people. Quick, name all of Woodrow Wilson's cabinet members. If you can't do it right now, off the top of your head, it means they didn't exist.
McCain pisses off the liberals by being a conservative, the conservatives by being a free thinker and made the mistake of picking a VP who keeps having opinions about everything, whether they fit the platform or not... and is on course to lose because of it.
More garbage. McCain pisses people off because he's an incompetent flip flopping hot head who can't make a single attack on Obama that doesn't blow back into his hypocritical face.
And Palin? She makes George W. Bush look like a knowledgeable, experienced polititican.
...and it's infinitely worse after 8 years of Bush.
I tend to think that a monolithic Democrat government will ultimately end up raising taxes and social spending while cutting military spending, resulting in large deficits.
Taxes raised on the rich, and more social spending == a larger and more affluent middle class, and with it a more healthy and stable economy. This is why the rich do about as well under Democrats as they do under Republicans, because Democrats grow the whole economy as opposed to redistributing all it's benefits to the top. However, the middle class does twice as well under Democrats and the poor do six times as well.
About all the government can do is make things worse - having lived through Nixon's wage and price controls, and having studied the Great Depression and other panics, recessions and depressions, I see that the federal government can do much to create a shallower but much longer crisis at the expense of a fairly short, deep crisis.
Try reading up on the Great Depression a little more. We could end this "crisis" in less than a year: bring back the 91% marginal tax rates, roll out universal health care, cut middle class taxes, pay for college education and start investing a trillion dollars in infrastructure.
It's not a question of more spending or less spending. The real question is: what is the right amount of spending.
There are good cops, there are bad cops.
But the good cops will cover for the bad cops, so you still have no accountability.
Now that's the State Troopers words, and may not be true, but it's right there in the article itself.
Sure, sure, just like how people who sit at home, smoke pot and order a pizza are a threat to society. Not buying it.
It's because being tough in America is more important than being effective. See crime & punishment, military spending, Iraq invasion, etc.
This is like Boston freaking out over Lite-Brites. I hope the kid not only calls their bluff and asks for a jury trial, but finds some way to counter-sue.
Clinton was under investigation for PERJURING himself in a completely different sexual harassment suit brought against him, not for getting a BJ in the White House.
Republicans didn't investigate Clinton because they had probable cause, but because they wanted to investigate him and remove him from office by any means necessary. They couldn't find any actual crimes, so instead they went with a manufactured perjury charge. You can't even proved he lied, unless you can physically read minds. Secondly, even if he did lie, it's not perjury because the lie has to be RELEVANT. As the judge ruled that whatever happened between Monica and Bill was irrelevant to the Jones case, it was. not. perjury. Period.
Don't forget that Clinton pardoned like a million friends and supporters basically on his way out the White House door.
And how many of those friends could have testified against him? And even with the much ballyhooed Marc Rich pardon, Rich had to pay a $100 million fine as a condition, and he was still left open to civil suits.
As a big Clinton supporter in the day, it broke my heart.
If you were a big Clinton supporter, maybe you shouldn't have bought into faux Republican hysterics.
Indeed. Instead, we have many people (including many on Slashdot) advocating for term limits, which force those politicians to immediately start thinking about their income post-service, and what they can do now to ensure it.
Exactly. And what's going to give you better job prospects down the road: doing the people's business, or selling out the people to cozy up to big business?
Palin has been at odds with Stevens for a while now
Sure, for the same reason Bush is unpopular with Republicans who've backed his policies that have made him unpopular: rats flee a sinking ship. Palin doesn't castigate other Republicans because she's ethical, but because she's a ladder climber happy to climb over your back if you stumble.
This story belongs in the political section at best.
Sure does.
I haven't seen YRO articles on Cold Cash Jefferson blah blah blah
You can whine about a lack of balanced coverage when the Democrats have caught up to the Republicans on corruption. You can name three corrupt Democrats? Whoop de fuckin do. There are dozens of Republicans sitting in jail, right now, and if we ever have investigations of the Bush Administration's crimes, we'll have dozens more.
Your party is corrupt. Your party is rotten. Your party is morally and intellectually bankrupt. Sad say for you.
Well, actually, to be fair, the republicans sent Ken Star to act on Whitewater. Star went to the justice department and got approval for the other investigations and only had to go to the republicans for increased funding. Sure, there might have been republicans rooting or cheering him on but they didn't sick him on those other charges.
Arkansas Project
And no, the perjury charge wasn't manufactured.
1000000% manufactured. What actual underlying crime that was supposed to have been committed? We have courts and prosecutors in this country to punish the guilty, not to make innocent people jump through hoops until you can trip them up and charge them with perjury.
He lied in court and even though the impeachment failed
Completely false. Read the link. The only way you can prove he lied was to have physically read his mind.
the judge cited him for it, made him pay the Paula Jone's attorney fees, and he settled the case out of court when they appealed the dismissal
Which he could have easily appealed, as he was just following her instructions to the letter. But she also ruled that even if Clinton did exactly what Jones accused him of doing, that it wouldn't amount to harassment. She also ruled that whatever happened between Monica and Bill was irrelevant to what happened to Jones and Bill. And if it's not relevant, it's not perjury - even if he lied through his teeth, which he did not.
So "showing some love for the Rays" amounts to a flip-flop, much less a disqualifying one? Gumby would tear his arm out of his socket at the thought of reaching that far.
Yes, seriously. Just recall Bill Clinton's jockeying to dodge baseless Republican witch hunts left and right...
Fixed that, too. Things to keep in mind:
1) Republicans investigated and re-investigated everything from White Water to Vince Foster.
2) They came up with jack squat.
3) They finally had to settle on a manufactured perjury charge (which Clinton didn't even do)
4) The worst thing they could pin on him was a manufactured perjury charge.
Let's set Ken Starr on your ass with a $60 million+ budget to destroy your life and see how you you look, mmmkay? Not to mention the enormous hypocrisy over throwing Probable Cause and "innocent until proven guilty" out the window for Clinton, yet we know for a fact that Bush has broken laws, treaties, and the Constitution.
Actually, no, I'd like to know, that who I'm voting for will be who hands the power over to the next president-elect. I don't want an opportunist, who "adapts and changes" with the latest breeze.
Fixed that for you.
So since you are so very Concerned over the issue of experience, you backed Gore to the hilt in 2000, right? He had 30 years of varied public service, whereas Bush's resume consisted of going AWOL on his Air Guard commitments, running businesses into the ground, and serving five years as the 2nd most powerful executive in Texas (lt gov has more power than gov in TX).
McCain doesn't e-mail because he can't type.
No, he doesn't email because he never wanted to learn how. Nothing wrong with that, Bill Clinton doesn't either. But he doesn't have to lie about it.
He gave his standard 'cry wolf' excuse: he was A POW
Fixed that for you.
In the 2000 election, he was called the most technologically savvy candidate in the race for using things like online fund raising. (Look it up, McCain was the first to do this.) Fun Fact: One of the other candidates in the race (who McCain was more technologically savvy than) was Al Gore, who was an Atari Democrat (a young Democrat who understood and ran partially on technological issues) who invented the Internet.
Bwhahaha. Saying McCain (who doesn't use email) is more tech savvy than Al Gore is like claiming Sarah Palin is more qualified than Barack Obama. How long has Baghdad Bob been writing talking points for the Republican Party?