View Full Version : World Politics - Thoughts & Commentary on the Obama Administration
That's easy, and I'm surprised you didn't know the answer: "Do not heed the words of the Antichrist! (http://o.bamapost.com/)"
Just say that, and you'll ace the test.
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More proof that Obama is the son of Satan and a jackal born to woman (as if any were needed): He has subverted Hugh Hewitt. (http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/36407569-f0e1-42c9-bac0-92b8910bc94c) Or maybe replaced him with one of his shape-shifting incubi.
Tom Daschle should be confirmed quickly because (1) his biggest error it looks to me to be the sort of error that a former senior elected official used to riding around in government cars could easily make, while the others look like the screw-ups that a suddenly wealthy former senator could easily make, (2) he wouldn't have endangered his political career and ambitions for this amount of money given the huge income he had coming in, and (3) we absolutely have to fix the confirmation mess or more and more people will flee public service at the highest levels. [...]
Errors on tax returns related to unusual circumstances and nanny issues are simply not the sort of character issues for which confirmation should be denied. Fixing the "confirmation mess" requires some restraint when presented with targets. The GOP should stay fixed on the stimulus bill, and not go chasing Daschle.
Crazed Rabbit
02-02-2009, 18:55
I am glad these traitorous leaders of the Republican Party appointed this Black racist, affirmative action advocate to the head of the Republican party because this will lead to a huge revolt among the Republican base. As a former Republican official, I can tell you that millions of rank-and-file Republicans are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore! We will either take the Republican Party back over the next four years or we will say, “To Hell With the Republican Party!” And we will take 90 percent of Republicans with us into a New Party that will take its current place!
LOL! To hell with you too, Duke, and tell them the GOP sent you and doesn't want you back!
CR
ICantSpellDawg
02-03-2009, 02:01
Americans approve of most actions by Obama to date...
EXCEPT THE ABORTION DECISION (http://www.gallup.com/poll/114091/Americans-Approve-Obama-Actions-Date.aspx)
Maybe guys like me aren't as out of touch as some make us seem? If the Mexico city decision was unpopular, what would FOCA be?
I approve of Obama so far. I've said it before and I'll say it again - if Obama was pro-life or on the fence I WOULD HAVE VOTED FOR HIM.
Don Corleone
02-03-2009, 02:50
So, while we're discussing new cabinet level appointees, what does anybody know about Eric Holder. He likes giving out get-out-of-jail-free cards to his boss's political donors, but other than that? I heard a quote he gave on NPR this morning that made me a little bit nervous about his views on affirmative action and equal opportunity, as a legal onus, not just a good idea.
A fair question I suppose. I hope this wasn't a litmus test question.
Nope, thank god. :P
Don, I don't know enough about Holder to have a valid opinion.
Meanwhile, another candidate drops out because of tax problems (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/02/official_performance_czar_withdraws_candidacy_2.php). This would be the "Performance Czar." What the **** is a Performance Czar?
That sum included $298 in unpaid taxes, $48.69 in interest and $600 in penalties.
So people are dropping out for errors to the tune of $298? That doesn't seem entirely logical ...
Vladimir
02-03-2009, 18:27
Don, I don't know enough about Holder to have a valid opinion.
Meanwhile, another candidate drops out because of tax problems (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2009/02/official_performance_czar_withdraws_candidacy_2.php). This would be the "Performance Czar." What the **** is a Performance Czar?
That sum included $298 in unpaid taxes, $48.69 in interest and $600 in penalties.
So people are dropping out for errors to the tune of $298? That doesn't seem entirely logical ...
Hold on! Some partisan hack makes excuses as to why he owes 100,000 when someone else drops out for less than 1,000?
:dizzy2:
But hey, maybe it isn't her fault (http://govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=41952&dcn=todaysnews).
Hold on! Some partisan hack makes excuses as to why he owes 100,000 when someone else drops out for less than 1,000?
Nah, apparently it isn't working out so well for Daschle (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/tom-daschle-withdraws-as-health-nominee/) either.
Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination on Tuesday as President Obama’s nominee to lead the Health and Human Services Department, a decision that came one day after Mr. Obama declared that he would stand behind Mr. Daschle as problems over unpaid taxes were scrutinized on Capitol Hill. [...]
The decision to withdraw his nomination as a member of the Obama cabinet comes as the White House battled across several fronts on Tuesday with tax problems of the president’s top political appointees. Mr. Daschle had expressed regret for not paying about $140,000 in back taxes, but on Monday vowed to press ahead.
Crazed Rabbit
02-03-2009, 20:08
Obama's really having some trouble with his nominees. I mean, it seems like an awfully high percentage of nominees dropping out, especially for tax trouble.
More of that taxes are good and patriotic for you, but not for me, from the dems. ~;p
CR
Vladimir
02-03-2009, 20:23
Nah, apparently it isn't working out so well for Daschle (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/tom-daschle-withdraws-as-health-nominee/) either.
Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination on Tuesday as President Obama’s nominee to lead the Health and Human Services Department, a decision that came one day after Mr. Obama declared that he would stand behind Mr. Daschle as problems over unpaid taxes were scrutinized on Capitol Hill. [...]
The decision to withdraw his nomination as a member of the Obama cabinet comes as the White House battled across several fronts on Tuesday with tax problems of the president’s top political appointees. Mr. Daschle had expressed regret for not paying about $140,000 in back taxes, but on Monday vowed to press ahead.
Thanks.
This just goes to show what hypocrites politicians are. The party that speaks out against gay sex gets caught doing it, and the party who wants to raise your taxes can't pay their own.
I still want to know what a Performance Czar does. It sounds like something that involves Russia and pornography.
I still want to know what a Performance Czar does. It sounds like something that involves Russia and pornography.
Close. I believe he is in charge of taking over the Russian botnets and spamming us all with V1@gra emails.
Edit-> wiki provides: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Performance_Officer
Vladimir
02-03-2009, 20:34
I still want to know what a Performance Czar does. It sounds like something that involves Russia and pornography.
That is a poor name. I would use stamina Czar! :grin:
Wow, we elect a Chicago thug and this happen, I'm soooooo shocked.
Soooo true. That white chick who missed $298 in unemployment co-payments over three years? Stone cold gangsta, homes. That's just how she rolls.
I can't help but think they found more skeletons in Daschle's closet and are just using the tax issue to push him out of the running. Clearly, it's been established that tax issues aren't enough to preclude someone from nomination. Daschle wasn't a lobbyist- in name only. He has lots of ties to the healthcare industry and lots of money changed hands there over the years. I'd wager something dirty turned up that the administration didn't want getting out. :shrug:
A take (http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=02&year=2009&base_name=who_killed_daschle) on why Daschle was dropped:
This was not a GOP hit. The Obama administration didn't move because they thought Republican senators would defeat his nomination. They moved because they, and the left, thought Daschle's presence would harm the administration's image and degrade their credibility on health care. It was too easy to write the attack ads "Tom Daschle took $220,000 from the health industry..."
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Proof that we are in a different era, as Obama utters three words (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28994296/) you would never have heard under the Bush Administration: "I screwed up."
Askthepizzaguy
02-04-2009, 12:19
I've gotta say- Obama, sure he's big government liberal, but I'm willing to take a wait and see approach. Clinton managed to do some good on a few issues and maybe Obama will do the same. But what really creeps me out is the fact that we now have Joe Biden as VP.... every time I think about that, it still makes my skin crawl. :sweatdrop:
Not to restart old debates, but spending under Bush made Clinton look like a small government conservative, and under Clinton the budget had been balanced. And Bush spent far more than he took in in taxes, which creates problems for future presidents, problems that future presidents will get the blame for having to clean up, and reduces their political capital to do anything positive for us.
Oh, I smell a rant coming. Spoilers.
Bush also was one of the first to suggest these huge economic bailouts, abandoning small government conservative principles when it was no longer politically damaging to do so, and too late, might I add. And there was no oversight. None. And his bailout package did not help us at all.
With Obama's package, the money will have oversight and might actually create jobs. In fact it is guaranteed to create jobs, and that's already much more than Bush's bailout did. If you're going to spend all that money, and as a small government type, I disagree with, at least spend it wisely.
That's why if you're going to have a government, it should be responsible for saving people's lives, not lining the pockets of the rich. Stimulating the economy with trickle down economics and tax breaks to the rich doesn't work, but helping cover the cost of healthcare does several things; encourages people to go see a doctor when they need to, the doctors actually get paid and the hospital doesn't go under, and the money the doctors and hospitals take in gets spent, to a large degree in our local economy.
Point blank, giving tax breaks to people who invest in stocks and buy expensive foreign things, does not stimulate the economy. Giving tax breaks to people who spend basically all the money they have, does stimulate the economy. Giving aid to people who will use it on doctor's bills, which often times go unpaid and have to get covered by local governments ANYWAY, is actually a more efficient use of the money and improves our nation's healthcare.
I'd prefer that over pork barrel spending such as bridges to nowhere, which Palin supported before she opposed. I always found it funny that Palin called the democrats "socialist" when her own state redistributes oil money to the residents of that state. In fact, her town that she was the mayor of, Wassilla, Alaska, doesn't actually function as the administration of fire departments and schools and so forth, basically what the government of Wassilla Alaska did was send out the oil checks, and not much else, according to the current mayor of Alaska herself.
So when you get "small government conservatives" like Bush and co. spending as much or more than "big government liberals" like Bill Clinton, and getting a lot less out of it for their trouble, and you have wingers accusing their opponents of doing something they themselves do to a much greater extent, I have to wonder why. Probably because they are the party of Rush Limbaugh, who is someone that sitting Republican senators and congressmen cannot openly criticize without being forced to apologize or become disenfranchised.
Rush, by the way, accused the Democrats of being unpatriotic and treasonous when they opposed George W. Bush in a time of war, and within Obama's first week, he was already openly expressing his desire that Obama FAIL. Forget how good it would be for the greater good of the country if Obama succeeds in turning our country around, Rush is concerned with the Republican Party, but mostly he's just concerned with himself. Numero Uno: Self-Interest.
What else could Rush possibly say and still be Rush Limbaugh? He cannot support Obama, and the Republicans have no ideas except to limit the stimulus plan and give more tax cuts, which is more of the same, ideas currently rejected by the majority of the public. So he cannot really endorse those plans as the loyal opposition either. All Rush can do is create controversy and hopefully that will generate ratings and loyal listeners, and therefore get more people out to the polls in 2012 voting Republican. In the meantime, he's totally written off the next 4 years and is actively trying to get people to not support our current president and stonewall all progress, thereby extending the depression and putting off our problems until the next Republican is in power.
It's partisanship like that that made me leave the Republican party. There is no room from :daisy: like that in America. I am registered Independent, and until the Republicans actually have a plan of action besides tax cuts (which, to be fair, were done, and they got a fair shake, and it did not solve our problems), I am going to support Obama.
Until he royally messes something up and no longer deserves our support, I am supporting him. Out of the good of our country, I am happy to see many of my fellow orgahs, especially conservatives and Republicans, giving Obama a fair chance. This is to be expected, this place is full of enlightened and fair minded people, and usually not blatant hypocrites.
Even when someone is ideologically opposed to you, if they are the leader of your country you should hope they succeed in their endeavors. I didn't like the reasons for the Iraq war, but I supported the troops and hope they all survive and come home soon. I didn't like Bush's idea for solving the social security mess, but I would have given it a chance, and I would hope he succeeded. I didn't like the use of torture in Gitmo, but I had hoped they would have used the information to stop future attacks (though I am opposed to the mantra "what is good for the many is good for us all", and diametrically opposed to the use of torture on people who never even got a trial by jury, let alone fundamental human rights) and otherwise succeeded in their endeavors to protect this nation. I didn't like the plan of action under Bush, which was fight a war and cut taxes at the same time. That made no sense. But I hoped the stimulus would turn the economy around and we would win the war too.
8 years later, that fair chance, that fair shake, that benefit of the doubt, that loyal opposition, has expired.
Obama deserves at least 4 years of a fair shake in return. And the bitter divisiveness between the parties needs to stop. I for one see no use in having political parties to begin with, but if they refuse to set minor differences in philosophy aside, they need to go to China where opposing the ruling party is a crime. Then they will understand the dangers of hyper-partisanship.
That goes for Democrats, too. Don't browbeat Republicans just for being Republican, or you turn yourselves into the very thing you claim to oppose, and I've no use for hypocrites.
Yak, yak, yak. I don't want to hijack this thread, so if anyone wishes to comment we can take the conversation into a different one.
Don Corleone
02-04-2009, 15:34
Proof that we are in a different era, as Obama utters three words (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28994296/) you would never have heard under the Bush Administration: "I screwed up."
And with those three words, gained more of my trust than any defense of improperly vetting Daschle could have possibly achieved.
I wonder if the G.O.P. is paying attention, as that was actually a rather shrewd move on Obama's part. If they continue to press on Obama over the Daschel nomination, they immediately transition from "watching out for the public good and protecting us from influence peddling", to partisan hacks that are just out to score points.
Askthepizzaguy
02-04-2009, 15:43
IMHO this, more than any silly ideological argument, is the primary difference between a good or a bad leader.
Under a very strong leader, any philosophy can work. If everyone actually agreed to do it voluntarily, communism works. Just look at all the charitable and volunteer work that religious and secular organizations do without being prompted by governments or without being paid. All you need is good leadership and people willing to follow. Capitalism works under sound and wise leadership from businessmen. Republican trickle-down economics could work, in theory. Democratic soft socialism could work, in theory. Ancient societies which worshipped sun gods and practiced cannibalism seemed to function as a strong society. But only with strong leadership.
A strong leader needs to appear to be invulnerable, but without risking the loss of the support of the people, and the connection to the people. If a leader stubbornly refuses to acknowledge obvious mistakes that they've made, they've lost touch with the people and have lost touch with reality. How can they resolve the errors in their thought process if they refuse to acknowledge they have errors?
A leader who calls a spade a spade is a better leader. Saying "my bad" is not only OK, it's considered basic decency, especially from a leader who is accountable to the people whose interests he represents.
I also like the bipartisan selections for the cabinet, which have been characterized as naked moves to gain power in Congress by one party. I don't see how that is, especially if the person selected to fill their previous position is from the same party. Frankly it seems like more of the same noise that lost an election.
EDIT: And Democratic senators got selected, too. So it doesn't even make sense.
Don Corleone
02-04-2009, 15:52
Well, being from New Hampshire, I can shed a little light on the Judd Gregg selection, and it's a litlte more complicated than it might appear at first glance. John Lynch, the Democratic governor, is beloved by folks on both sides of our local aisle. I'd seriously have to question somebody's faculties regardless of their affiliation who wouldn't at least pay the man basic respect.
However, he has made it very clear that he wants Judd Gregg's senate senate seat when his gubenatorial term is up in 2 years. Selecting Bonnie Newman, who had no designs on the office and has pre-agreed to not seek re-election in 2 years was pure brilliance. Bipartisanship AND favoring friends...
I think what the Nancy Pelosis and Barbara Boxers of the world need to come to grips with is that for President Obama, a Democratic Congress for the next few years is a given. But that doesn't mean the President is going to let them set his agenda for them. I think of the old Citibank commercial... not just Visa, Citibank Visa.... Obama is trying to put not just Democrats, but loyal allies in key positions. Very shrewd.
And as far as bipartisanship goes, you should read what's coming out of the Lefty blogosphere about Lynch selecting Bonnie Newman. There is rage, for a guy who arguably is the future face of their party. But people I know and respect are seething that the elusvie 60th seat will have to wait....
Askthepizzaguy
02-04-2009, 16:00
I honestly haven't heard much from the Lefty Blogosphere. I figure I can get the left-wing slant from MSNBC.
Olbermann is pretty hardcore with that stuff. He has lucid moments, but more often than not he's just a Republican-hating Limbaugh clone from the Left.
That said, he is pretty good at nailing Limbaugh with his recent naked and unabashed double standard I mentioned regarding the ideals of "supporting a president during a time of war".
Practically anything that is wildly partisan or wingnut-laden, I don't read, I don't want to read. Would you read the political manifesto of the Unabomber? I don't think so, I don't care what his wacky environmental/anti-industrial views are, when he talks about morality and then murders the innocent, he's a :daisy: hypocrite wacko lunatic.
Any right or left winger who consistently sees the world through red or blue glasses or sees the opposing philosophy (as if there were only two) as the devil is an idiot in my opinion, because that blatantly ignores half of the people responsible for our current dilemma. There's enough blame to go around. That's why, in spite of Bush, I can't just declare myself a Democrat. There's plenty of idiots in that party that need to be replaced, and I'd take an experienced, competent, and not frothing-mad Republican over an untested and potentially dangerous lefty Democrat.
That's why I'm not a big fan of Al Franken. Sure Obama needs support, but Franken is a partisan nutjob.
I'm also from New Hampshire, by the way. Just don't live there anymore. 18 years, born and raised.
Live Free or Die, brother.
Well we might hear some more "my bad"s coming from Obama in the near future, if you read the Politico's (http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090205/pl_politico/18444) chronicle of the new presidents missteps and screwups during his first few weeks in office.
Simply put, the way to exploit a White House moment is not to compete with it.
That kind of PR self control can drive the coverage from the relentless and omnipresent cable outlets back -- again and again -- to that singular event.
But the new White House sometimes runs over its own, central economic message.
For instance, Obama hosted at the White House nearly a dozen corporate executives who support his recovery package on the same day the House passed its version of the legislation on a party line vote.
As a consequence, the support for the legislation from a host of cutting edge technology CEOs was buried amid coverage of the lack of a single House Republican vote in favor of it.
On Monday the White House tried again.
Obama had sought to illustrate the support he has among governors for the stimulus package by inviting Republican Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas for remarks.
But that news was quickly overtaken by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s swearing in ceremony.
Indeed, the Obama team has yet to fully exploit the open and enthusiastic support it has received from such higher profile Republican governors as Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California for his stimulus program. I also like how Obama makes several disastrous nominations, says "oops, my bad" and is praised for it. :laugh4: The stimulus plan also seems to be quickly headed towards disaster as Republicans are successfully labeling as a pork-laden mess and public support for it is plummeting. The mistake there was in letting congressional Democrats craft whatever they wanted with little or no direction from the White House. Obama needs to pick up the learning curve and turn talk into action before the honeymoon is over.
I look forward to being called a horrible person for interrupting the love-in. ~;p
Crazed Rabbit
02-05-2009, 17:12
IMHO this, more than any silly ideological argument, is the primary difference between a good or a bad leader.
Under a very strong leader, any philosophy can work. If everyone actually agreed to do it voluntarily lost all natural human instinct and became like a large group of ants, communism works.
Fixed!
Just look at all the charitable and volunteer work that religious and secular organizations do without being prompted by governments or without being paid. All you need is good leadership and people willing to follow.
Charity work and the work you do as the central part of your life to support yourself are quite different things.
I also like how Obama makes several disastrous nominations, says "oops, my bad" and is praised for it.
In fairness, its better than pretending said mistake never happened.
CR
I look forward to being called a horrible person for interrupting the love-in. ~;p
According to the locals, I believe the love-in officially ended last week. ~D
In fairness, its better than pretending said mistake never happened.And that's a valid point. However, saying you're sorry doesn't make the screwup go away. He screwed up and admitted it. Ok. Now what?
It just seems to me that many Americans have become fixated with apologies. Apologies are great, but learning from your mistakes is better. If it was between an arrogant jerk who never admitted any mistakes- but learned from it and avoided future goof ups and a guy who admitted his mistakes, but kept on making more... who would you rather have? Hopefully Obama will be the guy to admit he screwed up and will also learn to make better decisions from it. Again, apologies are great, but speaking personally, actions are more important than words. :yes:
I've gotta say- Obama, sure he's big government liberal, but I'm willing to take a wait and see approach.
So is it safe to say that after two whole weeks, you've waited and seen?
I'm loving your forced choice between "an arrogant jerk who never admitted any mistakes- but learned from it and avoided future goof ups and a guy who admitted his mistakes, but kept on making more." I don't suppose there's any need to delve into the logical flaws in that bit of rhetoric, now is there?
So is it safe to say that after two whole weeks, you've waited and seen?Well friend, Obama still has a lot of time in office to hopefully do some good. But, so far Obama has made quite a few missteps even for a n00b. :yes:
I'm loving your forced choice between "an arrogant jerk who never admitted any mistakes- but learned from it and avoided future goof ups and a guy who admitted his mistakes, but kept on making more." I don't suppose there's any need to delve into the logical flaws in that bit of rhetoric, now is there?If you finished reading my thoughts, there's no need.
Hopefully Obama will be the guy to admit he screwed up and will also learn to make better decisions from it.See? A positive combination of both would be preferable. But then here was the point:
Again, apologies are great, but speaking personally, actions are more important than words.
Seamus Fermanagh
02-05-2009, 18:06
...I also like how Obama makes several disastrous nominations, says "oops, my bad" and is praised for it. :laugh4:
Brilliantly played. He's in his honeymoon, had a stumble, gets to look honorable for taking the blame on himself, but does so during a time-frame when there is no downside to the measure. He disassociated himself from the "mistakes" BY taking responsibility for them -- and simultaneously fed a little red meat to the Bush haters who never got to hear those words from the person they define as the source of evil.
Obama is an adroit politico. Unfortunately, he'll have (is having) more trouble getting his own party in step then side-stepping GOP efforts. What his team wanted for their first big bill was a Reaganesque broad support and a quick passage based on Obama's prestige -- and that was a solid idea. What the administration got was a porcine effort with too much Dem pork in one ugly chunk -- and the House leadership gave the GOP core something to hammer on.
I won't like the bill coming out of the Senate either, and the conference result even less, but something will pass within the month.
Curioser and curioser said Alice.
Don Corleone
02-05-2009, 21:32
And now, Hilda Silas.... Hilda Salis confirmation put on hold to investegate tax liens against husband. (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/02/05/solis_senate_session_canceled.html?hpid=topnews). Boy, for folks that are big on raising them on the rest of us, do ANY Democrats actually pay taxes? (the ones in office, that is).
Don Corleone
02-05-2009, 21:43
And now, Hilda Silas.... Hilda Salis confirmation put on hold to investegate tax liens against husband. (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/02/05/solis_senate_session_canceled.html?hpid=topnews). Boy, for folks that are big on raising them on the rest of us, do ANY Democrats actually pay taxes? (the ones in office, that is).
For the record, this is not a partisan hack or me being led by the masses... this is the VERY reason I have never trusted the Democrats in office. It's not that I don't have a big heart or want to help people. It's that you do enough digging, and you learn that they don't, that government is just one giant Ponzi scheme. After the past 8 years, I have a host of reasons not to trust the Republicans either, so I guess I'm voting Federalist in the next election.
Judd Gregg Withdraws as Commerce Secretary Nominee (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/gregg-withdraws-his-name-from-commerce-secretary-nominee/?hp)
“It has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census, there are irresolvable conflicts for me,” Mr. Gregg said in a statement. “Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy.”I never understood why Gregg ever contemplated the nomination to begin with- glad to see he changed his mind. I'd guess the census issue was probably the final straw.
His nomination has been catching flak from minorities over the control of the 2010 census. He apparently opposed some changes for the 2000 census, I guess the heat got to be too much.
Apparently everyone and his dog has a theory about why, exactly Gregg walked away from Commerce. The bloggers are all pontificating, at greater length and with more vehemence than you'll see here. I expect the talking heads on cable to go on about for at least a full 24-hour news cycle.
I don't get the impression that anybody yet has the authoritative take on why Gregg went back to the Senate.
His nomination has been catching flak from minorities over the control of the 2010 census. He apparently opposed some changes for the 2000 census, I guess the heat got to be too much.As far as I know, Obama had already said that the census would be taken out of the Commerce Department and put under the direct control of the White House. I'm sure that didn't sit well with Gregg. I'm not comfortable with it either- some of the sampling ideas I've heard kicked around are very questionable Constitutionally.
As far as I know, Obama had already said that the census would be taken out of the Commerce Department and put under the direct control of the White House.
Gregg was also fully aware (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/04/gregg-supports-stimulus-b_n_163956.html?show_comment_id=20480975) of the stimulus bill.
"We need a robust [stimulus package]. I think the one that's pending is in the range we need. I do believe it's a good idea to do it at two levels, which this bill basically does, which is immediate stimulus and long-term initiatives which actually improve our competitiveness and our productivity," -- Judd Gregg
So that leaves pressure from constituents (who wouldn't really be his constituents anymore, so I'm not clear on how hard they could hammer him) and pressure from the GOP, which appears to have decided that any form of cooperation with the Obama Administration is unacceptable.
Don Corleone
02-13-2009, 01:39
So that leaves pressure from constituents (who wouldn't really be his constituents anymore, so I'm not clear on how hard they could hammer him) and pressure from the GOP, which appears to have decided that any form of cooperation with the Obama Administration is unacceptable.
Or, as you so graciously sidestepped with catlike agility, maybe it's Obama's plans for the census, as Xiahou has said... oh I don't know, 3 times now?
Or, as you so graciously sidestepped with catlike agility, maybe it's Obama's plans for the census, as Xiahou has said... oh I don't know, 3 times now?
I have catlike agility? Cool. That's kinda like a superpower, right?
Okay, somebody explain or link to an explanation about this whole census thing. What's the big whup?
LittleGrizzly
02-13-2009, 03:30
I have catlike agility? Cool. That's kinda like a superpower, right?
That depends... do you think normal cats have something kinda like a superpower... ~;)
Oh, get real, you with your speciesist talking points. Everybody knows that when you give a human being animal powers everything gets extra-fancy. Werewolves, for instance, aren't just doggie humans; they're super-powerful monsters. So if Don is going to declare that I have cat-like powers, I think it's perfectly logical to expect my were-cat abilities to be heightened beyond those of the ordinary housecat.
Meanwhile, I think Xiahou should go correct Senator Gregg, since the man clearly doesn't know his own mind (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2009/02/_sen_judd_gregg_said.html?hpid=topnews). "[D]uring a news conference with reporters, Gregg said 'The Census was only a slight catalyzing issue. It was not a major issue.' "
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Reading further in that piece, it doesn't seem that any of the previous directors of the Census have a problem with whatever plans are afoot. And apparently the Bush Administration did a lot of coordinating for the 2000 Census. Is this a real issue, or is this Fairness Doctrine Mark 2?
But Kenneth Prewitt, who served as Census director from 1998 to 2001, said he worked with White House staff during the 2000 Census on budgeting, advertising and outreach efforts. In an e-mail, Prewitt said he never met with anyone "more senior than a deputy chief of staff, except once when I met with the entire cabinet on how each member could assist in the large outreach effort then underway."
Other former Census directors agreed that coordination with the White House on budgeting and outreach was appropriate while data collection and analysis should be kept separate.
As for potential political interference, “It’s virtually impossible to do something wrong without someone finding out about it,” said Vincent P. Barabba, who ran the 1980 Census. “It’s about as transparent an agency that exists.”
Barbara Everitt Bryant, who served as director during the 1990 Census, said: "I would have liked a little of the bully pulpit help, because one of the big things is just to get everyone to answer the questionnaire. The president would have a lot more clout on that than anything we could have done at the Census bureau."
Okay, somebody explain or link to an explanation about this whole census thing. What's the big whup?Here (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123423384887066377.html) is some background:
"The real issue is who directs the Census, the pros or the pols," says Mr. Chapman. "You would think an administration that's thumping its chest about respecting science would show a little respect for scientists in the statistical field." He worries that a Census director reporting to a hyperpartisan such as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel increases the chances of a presidential order that would override the consensus of statisticians.
The Obama administration is downplaying how closely the White House will oversee the Census Bureau. But Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insists there is "historical precedent" for the Census director to be "working closely with the White House."
It would be nice to know what Sen. Gregg thinks about all this, but he's refusing comment. And that, says Mr. Chapman, the former Census director, is damaging his credibility. "He will look neutered with oversight of the most important function of his department over the next two years shipped over to the West Wing," he says. "If I were him, I wouldn't take the job unless I had that changed."
As to Gregg's stated reasons- he lists the census as a reason, I suspect he's trying to downplay how much of one it was. The census is one of the biggest responsibilities of Commerce isn't it? I can't imagine he was happy when he found out that it was being taken out of his Dept.
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Some of the other threads are wandering a bit. Time to give issues relating to the formation and actions of Obama's administration a home of their own. SF
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Yeah, I saw in Google News that the WSJ piece you quote was the most mainstream source putting this out there. Lots of hits in the Fox News Forum and NewsMax and other rightwingish places. I guess this is the outrage of the week. Helloooooo Fairness Doctrine: The Sequel. Just when you thought Rupert Murdoch's various media organs were done talking about flag pins ....
The first census to be conducted under the auspices of a Democratic President in thirty years comes along, and the rightwing media goes ape. I am Lemur's total lack of surprise. And because some hispanic groups have been agitating for statistical sampling, this means that the Dems are going to gerrymander the entire nation or something, right?
And even though Gregg says the census was not a primary motivation, it really was. Gotcha.
Look, Gregg lobbied for the cabinet post. He wasn't offered it out of the blue. And by all accounts, the Obama Admin was working with him and trying to make things right. Gregg was fully aware of the stimulus bill (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/02/12/1793330.aspx) (for those of you who skipped Macroeconomics 101, "stimulus"="spending"), and he was fully aware of the census brouhaha. Something happened.
I find this at least as suspicious as the dude with the security cameras who just happened to have a loaded weapon ready when four men armed with assault rifles came to "rob" his home.
-edit-
Looking at the issue again: Bruce Chapman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Chapman), the only named source in the WSJ piece you quote, is firmly linked with the religious right. Specifically, he founded an institute that pushes Intelligent Design (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Institute). He also never conducted a census, since he was appointed by Saint Reagan a year after the 1980 census.
The person who actually conducted the 1980 census says (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2009/02/_sen_judd_gregg_said.html?hpid=topnews): “It’s virtually impossible to do something wrong without someone finding out about it,” said Vincent P. Barabba, who ran the 1980 Census. “It’s about as transparent an agency that exists.”
Secondly, what's with the flip-out about White House involvement in the census, anyway? Guess what? The Commerce Department is run by ... (drum roll) ... a political appointee! Who answers only to .... (drum roll) ... the President of the United States! So if you were okay with a census being conducted by the Reagan Administration, and then by the Bush Administration, and then by the Bush Administration ... hmmm ... what's changed?
I think, Lemur, i was more about appearances. Obama wants to be bipartisan so he appoints Gregg, he then promptly strips Gregg of one of his primary responsibilities because he apparently doesn't trust a Republican to do it. It's Obama that politicized it in doing so. Had he wanted to be apolitical or post-partisan or whatever the buzz word is, he would've left it alone.
If there was no need to worry about funny business, why did they change it?
I'm taking a look at what the Department of Commerce actually does (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Commerce). Why is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (including the National Weather Service) part of that department? Should I even ask?
Also, perhaps it's time for us to move our Obama discussion to a new thread. His inauguration was three weeks ago or something near.
If there was no need to worry about funny business, why did they change it?
Haven't the foggiest. I seriously doubt that the only explanation is the one being peddled by the rightwing blogs. In fact, I haven't seen any confirmation that the 2010 census is being "taken away" from commerce outside of the rightwing news sources. According to the Dept of Commerce (http://www.commerce.gov/) web site, the census is very much in their purview.
If it walks like a manufactured controversy, and it quacks like a manufactured controversy ...
Seamus Fermanagh
02-13-2009, 05:27
I do love these Lemur v Xiahou arguments -- sources, well-expressed points of view, just enough "edge" to give it liveliness. Good STUFF!
KukriKhan
02-13-2009, 05:36
Stupid me, I pushed forward the idea that the US Postal Service, with it's "visit every address, 6 times per week" mandate, might be better equipped (and cheaper, vs. the independent contractors usually used) to conduct the actual census.
We (the usps) make a few extra bucks in these down times, and save the Gov't a few bucks to boot.
Sadly, I hadn't counted on the politics involved.
CountArach
02-13-2009, 05:48
Stupid me, I pushed forward the idea that the US Postal Service, with it's "visit every address, 6 times per week" mandate, might be better equipped (and cheaper, vs. the independent contractors usually used) to conduct the actual census.
We (the usps) make a few extra bucks in these down times, and save the Gov't a few bucks to boot.
Sadly, I hadn't counted on the politics involved.
Unfortunately the problem is that then no one counts the homeless. That's the only defence I can think of for using sampling over a head count census-wise.
Proletariat
02-13-2009, 06:15
Lemur, did you see where he mentions the census in his formal statement?
However, it has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me. Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy.
You think his remarks in his press conference trump his formal withdrawal wording? Nevermind what he says tho, I'm sure if you keep scouring the blogosphere you'll get to the bottom of this.
Edit: Kukri has started a pattern of coming up with simple answers to questions too confusing for our elected officials.
Sasaki Kojiro
02-13-2009, 06:34
Postal service isn't really an option. Putting mail in a box is a lot easier than finding people at home to interview. Lots of people won't be home at that moment so you have to come back later, and interviewing takes up time.
KukriKhan
02-13-2009, 15:33
Postal service isn't really an option. Putting mail in a box is a lot easier than finding people at home to interview. Lots of people won't be home at that moment so you have to come back later, and interviewing takes up time.
Actually, for the last 2 headcounts, most of the census was conducted by mail. Lots of census forms got returned, unopened, due to faulty/non-existant addresses (the Commerce Dept had hired a mass-mailing company, to use their mailing database, which turned out to be only about 60% accurate). Nowadays, the USPS maintains a 98+% accurate address database of its own.
The Comm Dept then hired (lowest-bidder) local sub-contractors to do physical interviews with about 10% of their list of "survey received, but not returned" addresses. Those guys were constantly stopping me and my co-workers for directions, they being out-of-towners with no clue where houses were. One such guy shared with me that he got $15 per hour (this was year 2000), roughly the same as I was making.
So we postys were/are already deeply involved in census-taking. Mail volume is down 30% this year, and many of us are having a hard time putting together a 40-hour week. We'd have time, without overtime pay, to conduct 2-3 interviews per day from a list of (say) 20 non-responders. Do a couple a day, and in a month we've got a pretty good sampling.
Unfortunately the problem is that then no one counts the homeless.
Good point. However, there are homeless shelters that do have street addresses, where that population's numbers could be substantially "captured" via interviews with shelter staff.
I'm not fighting hard for this, especially as it seems the powers-that-be ahve already decided the issue. I'm just saying, we could have done it cheaper, and more reliably, with our already-available resources.
Edit: Kukri has started a pattern of coming up with simple answers to questions too confusing for our elected officials.
That's because most of our elected officials are lawyers with no real idea how things run. :yes:
The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/us/politics/11citi.html?_r=1&ref=politics) voices concern over Obama's naming of former Citigroup execs to his administration:
Senior executives at Citigroup’s Alternative Investment division ran up hundreds of millions of dollars in losses last year on their esoteric collection of investments, including real estate funds and private highway construction projects, even as they collected seven-figure salaries and bonuses.
Now the Obama administration has turned to that Citigroup division — twice — for high-level advisers.
“You sort of have to wonder why it is so smart to put them in charge now, if they helped create the mess that we are in,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “They wouldn’t strike me as the natural choice.”
As of last fall Citigroup Alternative Investments managed $49 billion worth of capital from individuals and institutions, investing in nontraditional ventures like a program that builds highways, runs airports and oversees other major public projects for governments.
In the first quarter of last year, the Alternative Investment division lost $509 million and for the whole year, it was part of a larger Citigroup division that lost $20 billion, according to Citigroup.At least one of them received the horrible bonuses we've heard so much about:
Citigroup paid Mr. Lew, 53, at least $1.1 million in salary and bonus last year, according to a financial disclosure form filed last month. The form noted that he might get an additional undisclosed bonus for his work in 2008 before he started his federal job.
Anyone think it's a little bit disingenuous for Obama to setup executives of these companies as economic boogeymen, whose greed caused our crisis when he's hiring them on to his administration? Froman is going to be an economic adviser to the president and Lew will oversee financial matters at the State Dept. :dizzy2:
Vice President Biden apparently doesn't get the special privileges of his predecessor. He is NOT in an undisclosed location, the Naval Observatory is no longer pixelated in Google Maps. ~D
Anyone think it's a little bit disingenuous for Obama to setup executives of these companies as economic boogeymen, whose greed caused our crisis when he's hiring them on to his administration?
Actually, if I remember correctly, Obama's criticism of the Wall Street Bailout bonus crew was fairly measured. I think you're conflating President Obama with the Congresscritters who've been grandstanding and making great declarations of shock and shame in the hearings.
It's okay, I know everyone who isn't a Republican looks the same to you.
Hey, check it out! I started a new thread and didn't even know about it!
KukriKhan
02-15-2009, 16:54
Actually, if I remember correctly, Obama's criticism of the Wall Street Bailout bonus crew was fairly measured. I think you're conflating President Obama with the Congresscritters who've been grandstanding and making great declarations of shock and shame in the hearings.
It's okay, I know everyone who isn't a Republican looks the same to you.
Hey, check it out! I started a new thread and didn't even know about it!
So you DO have cat-like agility. :)
Actually, if I remember correctly, Obama's criticism of the Wall Street Bailout bonus crew was fairly measured. I think you're conflating President Obama with the Congresscritters who've been grandstanding and making great declarations of shock and shame in the hearings.
It's okay, I know everyone who isn't a Republican looks the same to you.Whoa, you're right. I thought this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoV42Nk73Dk) was Obama calling the bonuses "the height of irresponsibility" and "shameful". I'd better go see a doctor, clearly I'm hallucinating. :beam:
Obama has been more muted than some of his fellow blowhards in congress, but he hasn't been above piling on. So if it was the height of irresponsibility for Lews to accept a bonus in excess of $1 million, what is it when you appoint him to your administration?
KukriKhan
02-16-2009, 07:03
So Commerce is still vacant. Anybody want it?
Going once. :smash:
Going twice. :smash:
OK, I'll take it.
USPS gets the census for 70 million bucks. (We'll save the remainder of the $1B allocated)
NOAA gets 4 more satellites over north america.
I need new numbers guys for the Institute for Standards & Tech, Telecomm and Info Administration, Econ and Stats Admin.
Need sci-guys for Trademark and Patent.
And Chinese and Arabic-speakers/writers for the Intnl Trade Admin.
Any takers?
Wait. I got a speeding ticket in New Mexico (90 in a 70) in 1986, that I might have forgotten about until just now.
Glad to see that the rightwing's most public persona is staying strong (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_02/016892.php) for his country: "I want everything he's doing to fail... I want the stimulus package to fail.... I do not want this to succeed."
David "diapers and prostitute (http://wonkette.com/277270/diaperman-david-vitter-likes-his-diapers)s" Vitter lays out the "hope for fail" strategy in greater detail:
According to Vitter, the GOP is basically betting the farm that the stimulus package is going to fail, and the party wants Democrats to go down with it. "Our next goal is to make President Obama and liberal Democrats in Congress own it completely," he said. Instead of coming up with serious measures to save the economy, the party intends to devote its time to an "we told you so" agenda that will include GOP-only hearings on the bill's impact in the coming months to highlight the bill's purportedly wasteful elements and shortcomings.
While Vitter seemed to think this was a brilliant new political tactic, voters might be less enthusiastic than Federalist Society members about politicians who spend the next 18 months rooting for the economy to get worse, just to prove a point.
Going back to the unfillable position of Commerce Secretary, I always suspected there was more to the Gregg dropout than was made public. You don't lobby for a position like crazy, then turn around and say you can't take it on "principle." What politician ever turned anything down on principle, anyway?
Details (http://www.whotv.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-gregg-real-estate,0,1245582.story):
[The] former nominee to become commerce secretary, Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, steered taxpayer money to his home state's redevelopment of a former Air Force base even as he and his brother engaged in real estate deals there, an Associated Press investigation found.
Gregg, R-N.H., has personally invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Cyrus Gregg's office projects at the Pease International Tradeport, a Portsmouth business park built at the defunct Pease Air Force Base, once home to nuclear bombers. Judd Gregg has collected at least $240,017 to $651,801 from his investments there, Senate records show, while helping to arrange at least $66 million in federal aid for the former base.
“pro-life”: anti- abortion. Most of them are for Death Penalty, hardly “pro-life” stance…:laugh4:
Evil_Maniac From Mars
03-01-2009, 09:35
“pro-life”: anti- abortion. Most of them are for Death Penalty, hardly “pro-life” stance…:laugh4:
“pro-choice”: pro- abortion. Most of them are for Gun Control, hardly “pro-choice” stance...:laugh4:
Well, I rarely found the political terms americans use very clever but they keep using them and they own the internet, so what can we do? :shrug:
Seamus Fermanagh
03-01-2009, 16:54
Well, I rarely found the political terms americans use very clever but they keep using them and they own the internet, so what can we do? :shrug:
Boycott the internet and go to the barricades!
From Philanthopy.com (http://philanthropy.com/news/updates/index.php?id=7285):
Obama's Tax Plan Could Cause Giving by the Wealthy to Drop by Several Billion Dollars AnnuallySo, good idea, or great idea? :dizzy2:
seireikhaan
03-05-2009, 03:28
From Philanthopy.com (http://philanthropy.com/news/updates/index.php?id=7285):
So, good idea, or great idea? :dizzy2:
could
I can think of a boatload of ideas that could cause any number of things. Could is a tad vague, no?
Alexander the Pretty Good
03-05-2009, 03:55
Increasing (or re-instating) taxation on charitable donations seems likely to do so, logically. Heck, charitable donations went down with the economy; with less money available due to increasing taxes, why would it do anything but continue to drop?
could
I can think of a boatload of ideas that could cause any number of things. Could is a tad vague, no?Read the article- all I posted was the headline. Don't just jump on the word "could" in the title and proceed to dismiss all the reasoning that went into it out of hand.
I'd like to think that upper-income folks give to charity purely for the fact that they like helping others and that it being a tax write-off doesn't factor in. But seriously, don't you think the tax advantage plays at least some role? :inquisitive:
The Politico (http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/19663;_ylt=AsPHrpC0rfl15_uOwmRxyXeWwvIE;_ylu=X3oDMTE2amxjNGRjBHBvcwM0BHNlYwN5bl9mZWF0dXJlZARzbGsDb2J hbWFzdGVsZXBy) takes notice of Obama's teleprompter addiction:
President Barack Obama doesn’t go anywhere without his TelePrompter.
The textbook-sized panes of glass holding the president’s prepared remarks follow him wherever he speaks.
Resting on top of a tall, narrow pole, they flank his podium during speeches in the White House’s stately parlors. They stood next to him on the floor of a manufacturing plant in Indiana as he pitched his economic stimulus plan. They traveled to the Department of Transportation this week and were in the Capitol Rotunda last month when he paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln in six-minute prepared remarks.
Obama’s reliance on the teleprompter is unusual — not only because he is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one so consistently and at so many events, large and small.
CountArach
03-06-2009, 12:55
“pro-choice”: pro- abortion. Most of them are for Gun Control, hardly “pro-choice” stance...:laugh4:
It's perfectly valid in regards to issues of life, not issues of arms control.
KukriKhan
03-06-2009, 14:52
The Politico (http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/19663;_ylt=AsPHrpC0rfl15_uOwmRxyXeWwvIE;_ylu=X3oDMTE2amxjNGRjBHBvcwM0BHNlYwN5bl9mZWF0dXJlZARzbGsDb2J hbWFzdGVsZXBy) takes notice of Obama's teleprompter addiction:
He's still in that "anything but the last guy" n00bie stage. W did it with Clinton, Billy with HWbush, on back ad infinitum - they've all done that.
-don't fumble your words
-don't fall into "folksie"
-don't invade Iraq
-don't let the WTC fall
-don't bankrupt the country (oops, that might need tweaking) :)
Devastatin Dave
03-06-2009, 17:24
I'm just happy everyone in the world is experiencing "Hope and Change" like we are here in the States; Global economic downturn and another Great Depression (Obamas words) is Change we all can believe in!!!:laugh4:
This is what the world view of a community organizer looks like... enjoy it fellow members of planet earth. :2thumbsup:
My 401K looks awesome!!! Everytime this guy's teleprompter tells him what to say, the DOW drops atleast another 150.
Evil_Maniac From Mars
03-06-2009, 22:32
It's perfectly valid in regards to issues of life, not issues of arms control.
Heard that before, and my reaction is the same. :laugh4:
Regardless, I shall give you another example. The issue of the death penalty. As pro-choice people are generally against the death penalty, I see no reason why they would be opposed to a responsible body of people, after due deliberation, passing a death sentence. After all, it is the choice of the people.
I can go on ad nauseum, but I hope that instead of trying to defend your side, you will see my point.
I'm just happy everyone in the world is experiencing "Hope and Change" like we are here in the States [...]
Yup, seems like the vast majority of Americans are hoping and changing as hard as they can (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123612000246123253.html):
The poll found a sharp jump in the proportion of Americans who say the nation is "generally headed in the right direction" since Mr. Obama's January inauguration, a period when economic indicators and financial markets have suggested the opposite. The survey shows that 41% of Americans say the country is headed in the right direction, up dramatically from 26% in mid-January, before Mr. Obama took office, and up from 12% before the election.
The number who say the country is on the "wrong track" is still higher at 44%, but given the economic conditions, pollsters expected it to be much higher.
In the past, similarly sudden improvements in national mood were recorded only after national emergencies that prompted a rallying effect, such as the 2001 terrorist attacks. In this case, the boost is being driven by Democrats and other Obama voters who are pleased with the opening weeks of the administration. Overall, two-thirds of all Americans say they feel "hopeful" about Mr. Obama's leadership and plans, compared with 28% who say they feel "doubtful."
Take this only as seriously as you want to, it is not meant as a prophecy per se, but only as a funny coincidence.
Stalin was named Man of the Year by Time Magazine.
Hitler was named Man of the Year by Time Magazine.
WWII broke out.
Putin was named Person of the Year by Time Magazine.
Obama was named Person of the Year by Time Magazine.
...
Hitler ran on the slogan of change. (Don't have my book with me, but something like: "If you want to keep doing the same thing, vote for the other guy. If you want change, vote for Hitler")
Hitler relied heavily on symbols and taking advantage of a national crisis that he promised to lift Germany out of.
Obama ran on a slogan of change.
Obama relied heavily on symbols and taking advantage of a national crisis that he promised to lift America out of.
The entire world loved Hitler and wanted him elected, because he preached politics of Hope for a new age to the world.
The entire world loved Obama and wanted him elected, because he preached politics of Hope for a new age to the world.
Hitler supported abortion (until he needed a higher population), gun control, more government direction of industry, bigger national government, etc.
Obama supports abortion, gun control, more government direction of industry, bigger national government, etc.
Race factored significantly into Hitler's run.
Race factored significantly into Obama's run.
There was a cult in Russia built around Stalin's personality.
There was a cult in Germany built around Hitler's personality.
There was a cult in Russia built around Putin's personality.
There is a cult in America built around Obama's personality.
Once in power Hitler quickly set out to made deals with Stalin.
Once in power Obama quickly set out to made deals with Putin.
A Historian is a Prophet in reverse - Benjiman Franklin (I think, not sure about that one)
EDIT: Hitler created a massive civilian section of the military that he then used to control the country.
Obama wants to create a massive civilian section of the military...
a completely inoffensive name
03-07-2009, 09:09
I'm just happy everyone in the world is experiencing "Hope and Change" like we are here in the States; Global economic downturn and another Great Depression (Obamas words) is Change we all can believe in!!!:laugh4:
This is what the world view of a community organizer looks like... enjoy it fellow members of planet earth. :2thumbsup:
My 401K looks awesome!!! Everytime this guy's teleprompter tells him what to say, the DOW drops atleast another 150.
The ignorance of this post is suffocating me. :no:
Alexander the Pretty Good
03-07-2009, 09:32
Vuk, your post is really silly.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090306/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/eu_clinton_russia :no:
lol, it was meant to be funny in a way. :P
Banquo's Ghost
03-07-2009, 10:11
The ignorance of this post is suffocating me. :no:
Welcome to the Backroom. ~:wave:
You will find that Devastatin' Dave has an idiosyncratic view of some subjects, but is nonetheless loved by all. (Yes, Lemur, it's true :wink:)
We discourage one-line rebuttals that merely rely on a charge of ignorance as their argument. Good form is to demonstrate the member's mistake in a respectful fashion, or with clearly signposted humour (supported by smileys).
Lavrov to Hillary Clinton: You're doing it wrong (http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/17517).
The Politico reports She handed a palm-sized box wrapped with a bow. Lavrov opened it and pulled out the gift: a red button on a black base with a Russian word peregruzka printed on top.
“We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?” Clinton asked.
“You got it wrong,” Lavrov said.
Instead of "reset," Lavrov said the word on the box meant “overcharge.”
Clinton and Lavrov laughed.
“We won’t let you do that to us,” she said. Trying to recover, Clinton said the new administration was serious about improving relations with Moscow. “We mean it, and we’re looking forward to it.” I think this is pretty symbolic of the Obama administration's foreign policy thus far. :sweatdrop:
Russian media teases Clinton over 'reset' button (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090307/od_afp/russiausdiplomacyoffbeat_20090307074740)
Devastatin Dave
03-07-2009, 21:00
Lavrov to Hillary Clinton: You're doing it wrong (http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/17517).I think this is pretty symbolic of the Obama administration's foreign policy thus far. :sweatdrop:
Russian media teases Clinton over 'reset' button (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090307/od_afp/russiausdiplomacyoffbeat_20090307074740)
God, how embarrassing. Atleast the Russians now for a fact now its amatuer hour for the US government...
Welcome to the back room a completely inoffensive name, enjoy my ignorance and I will enjoy your naivity!!!:laugh4:
Sorry to suffocate you, you'll just have to learn to breath through your nose when your mouth is occupied.:yes:
Strike For The South
03-07-2009, 21:25
God, how embarrassing. Atleast the Russians now for a fact now its amatuer hour for the US government...
Welcome to the back room a completely inoffensive name, enjoy my ignorance and I will enjoy your naivity!!!:laugh4:
Sorry to suffocate you, you'll just have to learn to breath through your nose when your mouth is occupied.:yes:
Louis learned that along time ago :thumbsup:
As for Obama. As much as I want some crazy cataclysmic event to take the lives of my friends and family while I scream "I was right I was right, teh antichrist" I think he will just go the way of James Earl Carter.
Boring but that's what I see. Ho hum
As for Obama. As much as I want some crazy cataclysmic event to take the lives of my friends and family while I scream "I was right I was right, teh antichrist" I think he will just go the way of James Earl Carter.
Boring but that's what I see. Ho humSo, he'll be a one-termer and followed by Reagan? :beam:
Strike For The South
03-08-2009, 04:41
So, he'll be a one-termer and followed by Reagan? :beam:
One could only hope!
Alexander the Pretty Good
03-08-2009, 09:26
Zombie Reagan wants brains - and tax cuts!
Zombie Reagan wants brains - and tax cuts!
Not to start an off-topic debate or anything, but the government gets their money from the people, and the more money that the people have, the more money the government can get.
EDIT: And BTW, I am one of the few conservatives out there you will find who is NOT a fan of Reagan - not by any stretch. I admire his values, but I think he was off on too much. He was probably one of the best though.
Alexander the Pretty Good
03-08-2009, 10:02
I was jus' bein silly. :clown:
Crazed Rabbit
03-09-2009, 18:43
The Telegraph says certain 'sources' say the President was too tired not to snub (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4953523/Barack-Obama-too-tired-to-give-proper-welcome-to-Gordon-Brown.html) the British Prime Minister.
Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.
British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.
But Washington figures with access to Mr Obama's inner circle explained the slight by saying that those high up in the administration have had little time to deal with international matters, let alone the diplomatic niceties of the special relationship.
...
The real views of many in Obama administration were laid bare by a State Department official involved in planning the Brown visit, who reacted with fury when questioned by The Sunday Telegraph about why the event was so low-key.
The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment." The apparent lack of attention to detail by the Obama administration is indicative of what many believe to be Mr Obama's determination to do too much too quickly.
For a guy that campaigned on 'restoring our alliances', using diplomacy to solve all the world's problems and all that, this is especially pathetic.
Bush didn't pull this kind of stunt (iirc) and his appointments, save for Harriet Miers, certainly went over better.
CR
The Telegraph says certain 'sources' say the President was too tired not to snub (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4953523/Barack-Obama-too-tired-to-give-proper-welcome-to-Gordon-Brown.html) the British Prime Minister.
For a guy that campaigned on 'restoring our alliances', using diplomacy to solve all the world's problems and all that, this is especially pathetic.
Bush didn't pull this kind of stunt (iirc) and his appointments, save for Harriet Miers, certainly went over better.That's a half-hearted excuse if I ever heard one. The real reason, of course comes later:
They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.I guess that's what happens when you elect a political neophyte. :shrug:
It's kind of hard to imagine that at least someone in the White House didn't know the proper protocol for a state visit, but the alternative to ignorance is a deliberate snub of our closest ally and it's hard to imagine why Obama would do that.
In other Obama news, the fight to pass the Legalized Worker Intimidation Act, which is laughably called the "Employee Free Choice Act (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19786.html)" begins. I think it's great the Democrats have their priorities straight. I mean, what could be more important right now than giving a big wet kiss to their union donors?
Seamus Fermanagh
03-09-2009, 21:39
That's a half-hearted excuse if I ever heard one. The real reason, of course comes later:I guess that's what happens when you elect a political neophyte. :shrug:
It's kind of hard to imagine that at least someone in the White House didn't know the proper protocol for a state visit, but the alternative to ignorance is a deliberate snub of our closest ally and it's hard to imagine why Obama would do that.
In other Obama news, the fight to pass the Legalized Worker Intimidation Act, which is laughably called the "Employee Free Choice Act (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19786.html)" begins. I think it's great the Democrats have their priorities straight. I mean, what could be more important right now than giving a big wet kiss to their union donors?
And NOBODY in the White House protocol or Dept. of State could have briefed anybody?
Possible, I suppose, but that's a surprising degree of negligence from a group that was so successful in image management during the campaign.
Are we sure it isn't Obama snubbing Brown in order to signal to a majority of the UK'ers (Brown has higher approval than Dubya did this past year, but I understand it isn't by much) and the current Labour Govt. that they should replace him?
What do our UK'er folks think?
Are we sure it isn't Obama snubbing Brown in order to signal to a majority of the UK'ers (Brown has higher approval than Dubya did this past year, but I understand it isn't by much) and the current Labour Govt. that they should replace him?Could be. But I think that kind of meddling would be considered very bad form. Like I said, the implications of it being a deliberate snub actually seem worse than it being incompetence. :sweatdrop:
LittleGrizzly
03-09-2009, 22:31
Are we sure it isn't Obama snubbing Brown in order to signal to a majority of the UK'ers (Brown has higher approval than Dubya did this past year, but I understand it isn't by much) and the current Labour Govt. that they should replace him?
What do our UK'er folks think?
I wouldn't think so... mainly for two reasons...
one it isn't a given that Brown will not be re-elected so it would be counter productive to actively campaign for him to be voted out
two imagine the reaction in the US if a foriegn prime minister gave his support to an opposition candidate, US public would probably react badly to it, i don't think the uk public would mind quite as much but there would be some negative reaction towards it.
Personally i suspect that Brown was eager to be seen with Obama to help sure up support at home and was willing to squeeze himself into Obama's busy schedule...
KukriKhan
03-10-2009, 01:46
And there is more: Mr. O pooh-pooh's UK 2001 gift, and blunders in gift exchange (http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/22474/).
... Well, eventually the ice breaks and America goes up and we pull that thing out of the ice and we sail it over to England and we return her in, like, 1850 something or other as a gift. Well, the Resolute is in service for England and, you know, it signifies our gift to England and we say, please forgive us for everything that we've gone through in the past 50, 75 years. We are brothers. The Resolute is a big deal. So when the Resolute is decommissioned, Queen Elizabeth decides, I'm going to take the wood and I'm going to make two desks. I'm going to make one for me and one for the president. This is as significant as France giving us the Statue of Liberty. So she takes this and she makes it into two desks. It's the desk that -- remember little JFK, Jr., he opens up the trap door and he looks, you know, through it? That's the USS Resolute desk. There's only two of them: One with the queen, one with us. FDR put that door there. This is such a historic desk. He put that door there so it would hide his wheelchair so nobody could see his wheelchair. The door is the only place where the seal has the eagle looking down at the arrows instead of the olive branches, okay?
So what does Gordon Brown do? He comes to meet with the president and he gives him a set of pens made from the wood of the USS Resolute to match the desk that should be in a museum. He gives him a matching set of pens. Barack Obama hands him a basket -- I'm not kidding you, hands him a basket of DVDs that he can't play...
Dear British Friends and Staunch Allies:
Please let me apologise for this. I am so ashamed. We have kept our new leader so busy lately, right out of the gate, that we've failed to get him up to speed - I think no one has told him yet that He is the leader of the free world. We'll (and he'll) do better soon, I promise.
Sincerely,
The United States of America
LittleGrizzly
03-10-2009, 02:17
While it is a little incompetent to give someone a present they can't use (the DVD's) in terms of its effect on the UK population im sure we'll get over it, infact im sure i could support our leaders giving each other more economical gifts. Thinking on it do our leaders really need to give each other gifts... they are wealthy men already....
Though i suppose i wouldn't want Gordon Brown 'snubbing' another leader in such a way.... it is more the uncaring attitude that comes across with it...
If its any consolation this snub by obama is making people question our special relationship and may push people more the way of further eu integration!
BTW how is this special relationship seen in the US, i always thought its was more of a UK term to describe our relationship with the US more seeing us a close ally, something like a more independent less controversial Israel, but some americans seem to see it as a special relationship also...
I think of Great Britain as a colder, less friendly version of Hawaii. You know, an important military staging area that also has some other stuff going on. Frankly, I think you should save yourselves a lot of bother and become the 51st state. We'll let the Queen stay on as a sort of semi-official celebrity if it will make you happy. You'll get two Senators out of the deal. Your tax burden would be slashed in half, but you'd lose your single-payer healthcare.
In keeping with the American tradition of having obscure cities be the capitol, we'd need you to change your seat of government from London to Milton Keynes.
KukriKhan
03-10-2009, 03:14
While it is a little incompetent to give someone a present they can't use (the DVD's) in terms of its effect on the UK population im sure we'll get over it, infact im sure i could support our leaders giving each other more economical gifts. Thinking on it do our leaders really need to give each other gifts... they are wealthy men already....
Though i suppose i wouldn't want Gordon Brown 'snubbing' another leader in such a way.... it is more the uncaring attitude that comes across with it...
If its any consolation this snub by obama is making people question our special relationship and may push people more the way of further eu integration!
BTW how is this special relationship seen in the US, i always thought its was more of a UK term to describe our relationship with the US more seeing us a close ally, something like a more independent less controversial Israel, but some americans seem to see it as a special relationship also...
Funny you describe it that way. Lotsa guys over here, smarter than me, describe it just that way: "like Israel, without the complications". LOL.
I don't fancy myself speaking for the US, but I see it this way:
we left you, to be free of what we saw as religious oppression, but hung onto you for support, anyway. After years of that dependant status, we decided the price of that support was too high, in liberty restrictions and money matters, so complained. Those complaints having fallen on deaf ears (so we thought) we decided to divorce ourselves from you (a procedure we learned from you).
You objected to the divorce, and our proposed settlement terms - so we fought. Meanwhile, we wrote some pretty fancy, high-falutin' words about freedom and equality and creator's intent and self-determination. We won the fight when you lost interest.
Then, just to be sure it really was "over", we fought again a few years later, and you burned down the Boss's house - showing that you coulda kicked our butts if ya wanted to, but didn't. We settled for a minor after-treaty victory in Louisiana. You again, lost interest.
Time marched on. And we started to take those high-falutin' words seriously - and so did the rest of the world. And they, and you, and we, held us to them. So we fought a civil war over those "equal" and "freedom" words. And started to broaden our idea of just who was a "citizen", entitled to rights and privileges.
Meanwhile, in your land, you took notice, and started applying similar principles to your area. Pretty soon, it was almost a race to see who could be the free-est, most equalist, of the 2 of us.
Then some nutters on the continent got frisky, and you got involved. After much anguish, we realized we were pals now, united not only be an instinctive striving for freedom, but a seeming mutual tendancy to see the world as "free" or "not free", and to prefer the company of the "free".
Then it happened again on the continent, and after much more anguish (I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but: we'd rather not fight) we joined in, with you hosting millions of our warriors.
Since then (or maybe before), we've felt a special relationship with Britain; like an older 1st cousin; a bit odd for our taste, but always there in a tussel, covering our rear. We can only but be there whenever they need, too.
Obama Monday (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19795.html):
On Monday, Obama issued a memorandum effectively negating Bush’s signing statements by telling agencies not to follow on them without consulting with the Justice Department in advance.
“There is no doubt that the practice of issuing such statements can be abused,” Obama’s directive said. “Constitutional signing statements should not be use to suggest that the President will disregard statutory requirements on the basis of policy disagreements.”
Obama today (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/03/obama-issues-his-first-signing-statement.php):
After Obama signed the $410 spending bill that keeps the government funded until October, the White House released a statement outlining its take on the constitutionality of several of the bill's provisions.
Perhaps the most notable portion of the statement gives Obama room to reallocate money as he sees fit without abiding by the spending bill's requirement to first get approval from Congress
Major Robert Dump
03-12-2009, 10:26
And George HW Bush went to a grocery store in the early 90s, saw an item scanner, and remarked how amazing it was and asked how long it had been in use and it turns out it had been around for the last, i dunno, 5 years. Get over it. So the president doesn't know his DVDs can't be played in the UK, Big Frakkin Deal, he probably also doesn't know Islamabad is the capitol of France.
Marshal Murat
03-12-2009, 16:02
Energy Corporations moving to Switzerland (http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSL312427120090312?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssEnergyNews&rpc=22)
Yet a wave of energy companies has in the last few months announced plans to move to Switzerland -- mainly for its appeal as a low-tax corporate domicile that looks relatively likely to stay out of reach of Barack Obama's tax-seeking administration.
So do we have to call "Big Oil" it's name in French or German?
FBI Raid Obama appointee (http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0309/FBI_raids_office_of_DC_CTO_Obama_appointee.html)
Federal agents this morning are searching the office Washington, D.C.'s Chief Technology Officer.
Energy Corporations moving to Switzerland (http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSL312427120090312?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssEnergyNews&rpc=22)
So do we have to call "Big Oil" it's name in French or German?
FBI Raid Obama appointee (http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0309/FBI_raids_office_of_DC_CTO_Obama_appointee.html)
RIP America. :sad:
Energy Corporations moving to Switzerland (http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSL312427120090312?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssEnergyNews&rpc=22)
So do we have to call "Big Oil" it's name in French or German?
Well, that's where all of his class warfare rhetoric and demonizing gets us. These companies, ultimately, are going to look out for their best interests. They're not going to sit here and take it while the president engages in name-calling and threatens to put the economic screws to them. :no:
Crazed Rabbit
03-12-2009, 18:50
Well, here's something I can agree on:
Obama's Drug Czar will Focus on Treatment instead of Incarceration (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031103567.html?hpid=topnews)
The White House said yesterday that it will push for treatment, rather than incarceration, of people arrested for drug-related crimes as it announced the nomination of Seattle Police Chief R. Gil Kerlikowske to oversee the nation's effort to control illegal drugs.
The choice of drug czar and the emphasis on alternative drug courts, announced by Vice President Biden, signal a sharp departure from Bush administration policies, gravitating away from cutting the supply of illicit drugs from foreign countries and toward curbing drug use in communities across the United States.
As a plus, it also gets the idiot Seattle police chief out of the state. He's anti-gun, but also got his gun stolen out of his car.
CR
I think of Great Britain as a colder, less friendly version of Hawaii. You know, an important military staging area that also has some other stuff going on.
I've been told Churchill looked quite fetching in a mumu...
https://img12.imageshack.us/img12/3410/bp13potraitofsirwinston.jpg (https://img12.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bp13potraitofsirwinston.jpg)
https://img12.imageshack.us/img12/5782/homermumu397x500.jpg (https://img12.imageshack.us/my.php?image=homermumu397x500.jpg)
Major Robert Dump
03-12-2009, 22:34
That's it I'm moving to Switzerland. Are the chics there hawt? Are there Muslims? Can I keeps my guns?
Major Robert Dump
03-13-2009, 05:14
So I'm reading today that most everyone who opposed the spending bill filled with pork actually threw in their own projects because, to quote Dr Dre, "I gotta get mine." On one hand, why should only the
Democrats bring home some scrilla? On the other hand, saying you are opposed to something but you will do it if everyone else is doing it is sort of, um, lacking in the cajones department. It's the best of both worlds come re-election time.
Of course voting against it and not taking money for pet projects would allow one to completely resolve oneself of responsibility for future fiscal debt and claim moral superiority in future issues, but I guess not everyone can be Tom Coburn now can they? I wonder if Muskogee is proud of him, or if they will oust him next election for not getting them any bling.
LittleGrizzly
03-13-2009, 18:12
to quote Dr Dre, "I gotta get mine."
It is a difficult choice for politicians no doubt, at what point do you abandon your philosphy and go with practicality... you are after all there to do the best for the people of your state... i guess i wouldn't be overly citical of those politicians taking a practical viewpoint...
There is something you can really admire about sticking to your guns though...
Commentary so far: I hope the stem cell issue results in scientists being able to regenerate spines (literally and metaphorically). He could use one (particularly with the string of broken promises thus far, what was that bit about ending the war in Iraq again? lol), so cant the republicans (I mean jindal and palin are the best they have now? lulz).
Other then that too soon to tell, the liberal police havent hunted me down yet for my NRA membership.
Oh yeah the belling aching over the spending. When he starts 2 wars, then cuts taxes in the middle and dosent include the costs in his budgets I'll bitch about it. IMHO he's a touch better then bush, at least hes incurring the debt on thing that will likely be built here not a 3rd world backwater that dosent want us there in the first place.
Were in debt and will be for a long time, I much rather have a new safe bridge then enuculate 100,000 africans against typhoid, or set up regimes in the middle east to counter balance Iran.
So far his grade from me is B (it would have been a C+ to B- but his budget inclusion of war costs got him bonus points).
Marshal Murat
03-15-2009, 23:12
Fundamentals of this economy are sound! (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090315/D96ULF580.html)
The economy is fundamentally sound despite the temporary "mess" it's in, the White House said Sunday in the kind of upbeat assessment that Barack Obama had mocked as a presidential candidate.
During the fall campaign, Obama relentlessly criticized his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, for declaring, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." Obama's team painted the veteran senator as out of touch and failing to grasp the challenges facing the country.
One does love some good ol' Sunday politicking.
Sasaki Kojiro
03-15-2009, 23:37
:laugh4:
Anyone else remember McCain being attacked from proposing to partially privatize veteran's healthcare? Well....
Obama mulls making vets foot bill for service injuries (http://www.buffalonews.com/180/story/610029.html)
In other news, Mexico has imposed tariffs (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=axu42OVmfsj0&refer=latin_america) on US goods after a trucking program was killed as part of the recent spending bill that was passed by congress and signed into law.
Major Robert Dump
03-18-2009, 01:26
the trucking law should not have been killed. All the pooh-pooh about the trucks being dangerous to americans on the highways turned out to be unsubstantiated and ultimately false, and it had a hardly, if any, impact on American jobs. Now, if the trucks covered under this law were being used to smuggle immigrants or drugs, that would be another story, but I have heard nothing to indicate such, as all the mexican vehicles caught smuggling on american highways around here are illegal to begin with
the thing about the VA has been brewing for a few days now, but I wanted to wait for more info before I commented. I don't think it would pass Congress
Don Corleone
03-18-2009, 01:47
The only reason I can think of for killing the Mexican truckers bill was a discussion I had with a trucker from California. He just dropped my parents' car off from San Diego. Guess what, we can't drive trucks there either, and we wouldn't be able to with the passage of this bill.
Quid pro quo. You want Luis driving a rig in Duluth? Let Bubba drive a rig in Guadalajara. Or quit your damn bitchin.
Major Robert Dump
03-18-2009, 02:00
Understandable, but I bet the list of American truckers who want to foray into Mexico is a pretty damned short list.
Nonetheless, seems like thats how NAFTA has worked so far: illegal immigration and outsourcing to mexico, neither of which benefits american workers. It's a take-take situation on the part of Mexico. The difference in currency value ensures that. The only thing I could see American truckers wanting to haul through Mexico would be goods from outsourced manufacturing plants returning the product to the US, and even then why would the company pay an American to do it when they could get cheaper drivers down there?
Killing the law seems a bit protectionist, and really doesn't improve anything, but hey, if it makes the Mexican government angry I'm all for it.
a completely inoffensive name
03-18-2009, 06:35
but hey, if it makes the Mexican government angry I'm all for it.
That's the spirit! Boo international cooperation!
Major Robert Dump
03-18-2009, 14:36
Democrats like Jim Webb of Virginia give me a hard-on because they aren't liberals and, I hope, will keep the Obamas and Pelosis in check. Republicans like Tom Coburn give me a bigger boner because they stick to their principles, even if it means they won't get re-elected because they aren't bringing home the pork. I don't know what this has to do with the thread but I thought I'd say it anyway.
Conservative Dems and moderate Repubs are a good thing. Both parties become their ugliest, most useless selves when the fringes (http://www.cpac.org/) are allowed into the drivers' seat (http://www.dailykos.com/).
Major Robert Dump
03-19-2009, 01:44
I find the argument for earmarks that its only 1% of the total bill price is hilarious. What an awesome way to do business....the bigger the price of the main body of the bill the smaller percentage the earmark will make up....no one would dare do 1 million of earmarks for a 4 million dollar bill, for a 4 mill you just do 40k, no fuss. But the more earmarks you want the more you need to spend altogether so theres plenty of reason to overspend: you don't want to look like you are overspending! It's all so clearz now!
The only reason I can think of for killing the Mexican truckers bill was a discussion I had with a trucker from California. He just dropped my parents' car off from San Diego. Guess what, we can't drive trucks there either, and we wouldn't be able to with the passage of this bill.
Quid pro quo. You want Luis driving a rig in Duluth? Let Bubba drive a rig in Guadalajara. Or quit your damn bitchin.
There was this was a spending bill, it wasn't to allow for the trucks. What the bill did was cut funding for the program that was already in place.
Also, my understanding is that US trucks were allowed into Mexico along the lines of a similar pilot program that the US had, although I expect Mexico would have similarly ended their program as well. I can find passing references to that fact, but pretty much all Google results about US, trucks, and Mexico are all about the US ban and I can find little the talks about US trucks in Mexico with any specificity. If anyone can shed some more light on that, it'd be appreciated.
KukriKhan
03-19-2009, 03:31
I can find passing references to that fact, but pretty much all Google results about US, trucks, and Mexico are all about the US ban and I can find little the talks about US trucks in Mexico with any specificity.
Yeah, hard to find any relevant info from the news sites (which dominate google). This little tidbit from Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE52F7D720090316?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews) refers to USDA data:
Last year, Mexico was the top export destination for U.S. rice, the No. 2 destination for soybeans and the third largest buyer of U.S. wheat, according to U.S. Agriculture Department data.
Suggesting .gov websites might reveal more.
This (http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Content.asp?ContentID=296136) isn't .gov, but records USDA-reported exports of various product from US > Mexico. Mostly "down" sadly for that week.
Maybe that stuff is shipped via boat, or train, or donkey cart; we don't know, so looking at dot.gov for guidance, we get:
DOTs press release (2007) (http://www.dot.gov/affairs/cbtsip/dot2107.htm) touting that:
Approximately 100 U.S. operators would be licensed by Mexico for cross-border operations.
Then this 2007 worldnet (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55469) article announces reciprocal 100 Mexican operators access to US roads:
As WND previously reported, when the Mexican truck pilot project initially was introduced by Peters Feb. 23, the test was entirely one-way. Mexican trucks from 100 Mexican trucking companies were to be given free access to the U.S., but at that time, Mexico had not agreed to open up to U.S. trucks.
So, looks like 100 operators = 100 operators. Eventually.
But now that's going away.
Major Robert Dump
03-19-2009, 04:10
I hear you can make a good buck trucking guns down to Mexico. 2000 , according to Mexico, cross the border each day and all fly into the hands of the cartels. 2000 a day, and most of them assault rifles/ Thats 740k per year, and seems to me to be vastly exagerrated
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/09/eveningnews/main4855001.shtml
Devastatin' Dave's worst nightmare:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/090320_obamamags_350.jpg
Crazed Rabbit
03-20-2009, 22:54
So Obama made a joke about the special Olympics, in relation to his bowling skills:
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=301603
A bowler for the special olympics, who's bowled five perfect games since 2005, says he can beat the president "easily":
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D971TJ1O0&show_article=1
But really, a special oylmpics joke? That's pathetic.
CR
Seamus Fermanagh
03-20-2009, 23:05
So Obama made a joke about the special Olympics, in relation to his bowling skills:
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=301603
A bowler for the special olympics, who's bowled five perfect games since 2005, says he can beat the president "easily":
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D971TJ1O0&show_article=1
But really, a special oylmpics joke? That's pathetic.
CR
All too common as a kind of joke actually. Parent's joking at the bus stop when the "short bus" drives by; comments made when the local "donate your car" charity that provides services for such folks comes on the radio; etc.
Obama's joke was tasteless, but far from uncommon.
It does serve to reinforce that, when off "script," he is prone to a few malapropisms and verbal gaffes. Dubya was even more cumbersome with the off-the-cuff stuff, but Obama seems determined to catch up.
It does serve to reinforce that, when off "script," he is prone to a few malapropisms and verbal gaffes. Dubya was even more cumbersome with the off-the-cuff stuff, but Obama seems determined to catch up.Give him time- it's only been a couple of months.
In other news, the CBO now says the Obama deficit projections were way off (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/20/AR2009032001820.html?hpid=topnews):
Deteriorating economic conditions will cause the federal deficit to soar past $1.8 trillion this year and leave the nation wallowing in a sea of red ink far deeper than the White House had previously estimated, congressional budget analysts said today.
In a new report that provides the first independent analysis of President Obama's budget request, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that the administration's agenda would generate deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion a year over the next decade -- $2.3 trillion more than the president predicted when he unveiled his spending plan just one month ago.
More and more, I'm beginning to look back wistfully at the Bush administration... I never thought that would happen. :wall:
Strike For The South
03-21-2009, 02:29
He made a retard joke. Everyone makes retard jokes. Get off your horses.
Sasaki Kojiro
03-21-2009, 04:03
But really, a special oylmpics joke? That's pathetic
Ahaha! The republicans are the PC party now!
KukriKhan
03-21-2009, 15:16
He made a retard joke. Everyone makes retard jokes.
With all due respect: that's not true. Children, who don't know any better, do. Some adults, who should know better, do. But at least 50% of America doesn't. Certainly parents and relatives of retarded persons don't. Millions of Special Olympians and their supporters don't.
The Most Powerful Man on Earth, the Leader of the Free World, The President of the United States, shouldn't. And so should not, we.
:soapbox:
Sorry for the diversion. :bow:
Strike For The South
03-21-2009, 23:22
With all due respect: that's not true. Children, who don't know any better, do. Some adults, who should know better, do. But at least 50% of America doesn't. Certainly parents and relatives of retarded persons don't. Millions of Special Olympians and their supporters don't.
The Most Powerful Man on Earth, the Leader of the Free World, The President of the United States, shouldn't. And so should not, we.
:soapbox:
Sorry for the diversion. :bow:
He made a gaffe, a dumb joke. There is plenty to crucify the man over besides his one off color joke. 50% You and I both know thats wrong. Kurki I want you to think back all of your 50 odd years and think hard.
Very dumb in front of a live audience? Yes. Is Obama holding some grudge against the mentally retarded? No he's not.
Sasaki Kojiro
03-21-2009, 23:45
Clapping for a bowling score of 129 is like giving someone "olympic gold" for running not particularly fast. That's the joke... :wings:
KukriKhan
03-22-2009, 03:58
He made a gaffe, a dumb joke. There is plenty to crucify the man over besides his one off color joke. 50% You and I both know thats wrong. Kurki I want you to think back all of your 50 odd years and think hard.
Very dumb in front of a live audience? Yes. Is Obama holding some grudge against the mentally retarded? No he's not.
I take all your points, and nod agreement. Even my President does - realizing his insensitivity, he phoned the head of Spec Olympics personally from AF1 to make amends, and the WH issued a statement in less than 24 hours. Afterall, it's obvious he was trying to make fun of his own self, a worthy goal.
I don't wanna crucify him. I just don't want us - you and me, and our readers, thinking that "tard jokes" are OK, cuz, heck even Obama does it, on national TV.
I don't get up on my soapbox very often (at least, I hope not); this seemed like a good time to do it though; because making fun of folks because of their mental capacity, physical capacity, skin color, where they were born... all seems un-American to me, in this place where we've proved last year that anybody can become the head guy, or get rich, or invent a new religion or whateverthehell they wanna do or be.
I know this site is international, not just American. It just bugged me a bit to have the gaff disregarded as "everybody does it, so get over it."
Strike For The South
03-22-2009, 17:47
Fair enough
And this (http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/92400?fp=1) is after he threatened a reporter in his FIRST conference as President. So much for freedom of press. You remember how viciously Bush was grilled by the press? How would people react if he had treated them like Obama treats the press when he gets a few sissy questions? I am telling you, this guy has dictator written all over him.
:help::unitedstates:
CountArach
03-25-2009, 11:36
this guy has dictator written all over him.
I literally lol'ed :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::lau gh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4: :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::lau gh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
I literally lol'ed :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::lau gh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4: :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::lau gh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
Why? I do not mean the Stalin type of dictator. He will be the kind of dictator where he stifles free speech, and uses the press to create a cult of personality around himself. When there is only one opinion out there, there is only one thing to believe, and that is what Obama says you should believe. He'll control the education system, so he won't need a massive military, because children will learn about he world according to Obama. All anyone will see on TV and in newspapers is what Obama wants them to. Meanwhile his massive civilian sector of the military that he promised he would create will be his brown shirts who will bully everyone into doing what he says. (kind of like the ACORN groups he trained in Chicago to bully bankers and politicians) As it is people already are scared of ridiculing him, because they know that everyone they know will rip them apart for it. Everyone I know who voted for someone other than Obama, when they are asked turn red, look down, and try to get out of the question. The liberal media has made people feel ashamed if they do not support Obama (not to mention you are a racist and right-wing wackjob if you do not). Everytime I tell a liberal that I did not vote for Obama I have to sit through the never-ending speech "Do you even read anything? Do you even know what is going on? Bush was like Hitler, and McCain is just a puppet of that lunatic Palin who wanted to control all of the world with her mental Christian regime! Blah-blah-blah". It has gotten to the point where I (and I got a pretty good stomach for debate) usually just tell people that they use secret ballots for a reason. I know a lot of girls especially who felt so ashamed that they did not support Obama that they just did not vote at all, because they did not want to be the bad guys. That is a product of the liberal control of the education system and media, just wait till Obama gets more control.
(Before you laugh CA, tell me why it is that people in America feel ashamed of themselves and afraid of what others will think if they do not support Obama? Is that a product of fair media and education?)
Why? I do not mean the Stalin type of dictator. He will be the kind of dictator where he stifles free speech, and uses the press to create a cult of personality around himself. When there is only one opinion out there, there is only one thing to believe, and that is what Obama says you should believe. He'll control the education system, so he won't need a massive military, because children will learn about he world according to Obama. All anyone will see on TV and in newspapers is what Obama wants them to. Meanwhile his massive civilian sector of the military that he promised he would create will be his brown shirts who will bully everyone into doing what he says.
Hilarious! When is he going to move us out into the countryside for forced collectivization? When will private property be abolished? When will the Christians be packed off to death camps, since we all know the Great Leader is a crypto-Mulsim? When will good-hearted Americans have their guns and God taken away?
Thanks for helping me start my morning with a laugh.
Hilarious! When is he going to move us out into the countryside for forced collectivization? When will private property be abolished? When will the Christians be packed off to death camps, since we all know the Great Leader is a crypto-Mulsim? When will good-hearted Americans have their guns and God taken away?
Thanks for helping me start my morning with a laugh.
lol, starting your morning off with a personal attack I see sir moderator! I said I did not think he would be a Stalin type of dictator, but simply that he would stifle out all other opinions and push his agenda's through the government. Did you read my post by any chance? Also, I see how you associate God and guns, like Christians are some wackos. The last two posts I have seen you make have not only been void of any substance Lemur, but they have been sarcastic and cutting, and made unfair and untrue associations. I have said outright many times that I have disagreed with other people's opinions very deeply, but have been polite about it without attacking them or the followers of their beliefs in general. I have showed the basic courtesy that should be afforded to another member on an internet forum and disagreed with them without disliking them or cutting them down. I think a moderator should set a better example than what you have been setting Lemur. :embarassed:
(and I am talking mostly about your post in the media thread, but I think this one is representative of much the same attitude and willingness to show your distain for other members.
EDIT: BG does not agree with me and does not like me that much either. He often is extremely itchy with the trigger when I am involved and moderates in a way that I believe is way too selective, but he at least treats members with respect. While I disagree with BG on most issues, and think his warnings often unfair, I respect him for at least acting professional about it. (Oh dear, did I just get TWO of the Backroom mods mad at me in the same post. :P lol, warnings incoming. :P)
CountArach
03-25-2009, 13:26
I'm still laughing... I'm screenshotting this thread so I don't ever lose it :laugh4:
I'm still laughing... I'm screenshotting this thread so I don't ever lose it :laugh4:
lol, is it so funny that someone thinks that Obama is corrupt, yet it isn't when thousands of liberals believe in a massive conspiracy between Bush and oil companies to invade the Middle East so that they can get rich? And that Dick Cheney is trying to run the world and using Bush as a puppet, and that the US manufactured AIDS as part of a racist conspiracy to wipe blacks out, etc?
KukriKhan
03-25-2009, 14:01
Point-of-order: Lemur does not Moderate the backroom. He has the same rights, privileges and restrictions as any other Member.
Backroom asigned Moderators are: Banquo's Ghost, Ser Clegane, Papewaio & Seamus Fermanagh.
Point-of-order: Lemur does not Moderate the backroom. He has the same rights, privileges and restrictions as any other Member.
Backroom asigned Moderators are: Banquo's Ghost, Ser Clegane, Papewaio & Seamus Fermanagh.
Still, he is a moderator, and his posts should be respectfull and set an example for other posters. I have never treated Lemur disrespectfully before, I do not think it is fair that he treats me so, esp when he is a moderator.
I'm sorry if I'm coming off disrespectful, Vuk, but you don't do yourself any favors by playing the victim card early and often. In the Backroom I'm another Orgah like any other. If you think I should no longer be a mod, by all means, start a petition. I would miss the hefty paycheck we get, but I'll still find a way to make ends meet, even without my Org money ....
lol, starting your morning off with a personal attack I see sir moderator!
Ah, the victim thing. Vuk, I made light of the ideas you expressed, not you. There is exactly zero evidence that President 44 wants to be a dictator or is angling to be such, so yes, those ideas are humorous. I found it equally ridiculous when left-wing moonbats went on about Bush wanting to be dictator, and let's face it, a better argument could be made for President 43, since he declared that he had an unreviewable right to detain and torture enemy combatants on the field of battle (and the field of battle was everywhere, and the duration of the war was forever, and an enemy combatant was anyone).
Just because I find your talking points ridiculous doesn't mean I am attacking you, unless your personal integrity and identity is somehow wrapped up in Sean Hannity's rhetoric.
I said I did not think he would be a Stalin type of dictator, but simply that he would stifle out all other opinions and push his agenda's through the government. Did you read my post by any chance?
Word for word, laughing so hard there were tears squirting out of my eyes. Oh, so he won't be a "Stalin type of dictator," that's a relief. Chavez type, then? Khmer Rouge type? Mussolini type? I'm working very hard not to violate the prime corollary of Godwin's Law here ....
Also, I see how you associate God and guns, like Christians are some wackos.
I was parroting the extremist rhetoric which seems to have you in its grip. Don't be a dullard, mistaking parody for reality—you have read The Onion on occasion, yes?
The last two posts I have seen you make have not only been void of any substance Lemur, but they have been sarcastic and cutting, and made unfair and untrue associations.
If the quality of my posts is sub-par, I'm very sorry; if I've verged off into bad behavior, I've no doubt I'll get my knuckles rapped by one of the Backroom mods. It's happened before and doubtless will happen again. (I think I am the only Mod to ever put on the robes while still carrying a warning point. Thanks, DevDave!)
That said ... if you want to have an intelligent debate, perhaps you should start from a less hysterical premise? Throwing out the most extreme rightwing domination fantasies hardly seems likely to provoke a measured, logical response from those who disagree with you. Sometimes laughter really is the best response, no matter how little you appreciate it.
I think a moderator should set a better example than what you have been setting Lemur. :embarassed:
Hey, like I said, start a movement to de-frock me. Go for it. Nobody says we have to be mods forever, and if I'm past my prime, by all means, bring it to the other mods' attention and turn me back into a Member. Just think of the fun I can have without these robes ....
Anyway, if you really, honestly believe that Obama is planning to become a dictator, then back it up. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So far your posts have consisted of bare assertions with no evidence. No links, no articles, no statistics, no legislation, nothing. You simply assert the improbable and then run crying "victim!" when I make light of it. If you want to make a real, evidential case that Obama is planning to unleash the brownshirts on America, then make the case.
As the gangsters say in the movies, come heavy or go home.
I'm sorry if I'm coming off disrespectful, Vuk, but you don't do yourself any favors by playing the victim card early and often. In the Backroom I'm another Orgah like any other. If you think I should no longer be a mod, by all means, start a petition. I would miss the hefty paycheck we get, but I'll still find a way to make ends meet, even without my Org money ....
I am not saying I do not think that you should be a mod (or that you do a bad job in whatever forum it is you moderate, simply that I think you should show more respect, esp since you represent the Org. If you are indeed ignorant as to what you said that offended me and why it would offend me, allow me elaborate further in my post.
Ah, the victim thing. Vuk, I made light of the ideas you expressed, not you. There is exactly zero evidence that President 44 wants to be a dictator or is angling to be such, so yes, those ideas are humorous. I found it equally ridiculous when left-wing moonbats went on about Bush wanting to be dictator, and let's face it, a better argument could be made for President 43, since he declared that he had an unreviewable right to detain and torture enemy combatants on the field of battle (and the field of battle was everywhere, and the duration of the war was forever).
First of all, I will leave off defending my opinion of Obama in this post, as it irrelevant to what I think is offensive in your posts. It was not that you disagreed with me, or that you found my ideas laughable that offended me, but rather the offensive associations you keep making. When you make those associations, you are saying something about my views, my character, and myself...something that is untrue and offensive to say the least. Combine that with your sarcastic dismissals like: "We all know where Vuk is coming from...", and I cannot see how you could not consider that a personal attack. At the very least, I am sure you can see that it is unproductive at best.
Just because I find your talking points ridiculous doesn't mean I am attacking you, unless your personal integrity and identity is somehow wrapped up in Sean Hannity's rhetoric.
My talking points? Sorry, but I do not have "talking points", and my opinions and beliefs are not "Sean Hannity's rhetoric".
Word for word, laughing so hard there were tears squirting out of my eyes. Oh, so he won't be a "Stalin type of dictator," that's a relief. Chavez type, then? Khmer Rouge type? Mussolini type? I'm working very hard not to violate the prime corollary of Godwin's Law here ....
I explained exactly what I meant by a dictator in my post.
I was parroting the extremist rhetoric which seems to have you in its grip. Don't be a dullard, mistaking parody for reality—you have read The Onion on occasion, yes?
Sorry, but I do not think it is at all reasonable to make ridiculous allegations about someone (which you did by your associations), and then laugh it away as humor.
If the quality of my posts is sub-par, I'm very sorry; if I've verged off into bad behavior, I've no doubt I'll get my knuckles rapped by one of the Backroom mods. It's happened before and doubtless will happen again.
That said ... if you want to have an intelligent debate, perhaps you should start from a less hysterical premise? Throwing out the most extreme rightwing domination fantasies hardly seems likely to provoke a measured, logical response from those who disagree with you. Sometimes laughter really is the best response, no matter how little you appreciate it.
My premise was hardly hysterical, you just do not agree with me.
Hey, like I said, start a movement to de-frock me. Go for it. Nobody says we have to be mods forever, and if I'm past my prime, by all means, bring it to the other mods' attention and turn me back into a Member. Just think of the fun I can have without these robes ....
Don't play victim yourself :laugh4:, I am not trying to do anything to your 'frock' :beam:, or anyother part of you. I am simply a little frustrated with posts that you have made which I find offensive.
Anyway, if you really, honestly believe that Obama is planning to become a dictator, then back it up. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So far your posts have consisted of bare assertions with no evidence. No links, no articles, no statistics, no legislation, nothing. You simply assert the improbable and then run crying "victim!" when I make light of it. If you want to make a real, evidential case that Obama is planning to unleash the brownshirts on America, then make the case.
As the gangsters say in the movies, come heavy or go home.
You did not try to dispute what I said, you made unfair and untrue allegations about me in an effort to besmirch my views. And I DID mention several facts in support of my opinion which you and CA have completely ignored. (one of the reasons I doubted that you read my post.)
To reiterate what makes me think that:
A: His corrupt background in Chicago that including training ACORN volunteers to bully politicians and bankers (Hannity did a special on it, look it up ~;))
B: The left-wing press and education system's worship for him, and stigmatizing of anyone who does not support him.
C: His attempts to intimidate any reporters who give him questions that are in anyway challenging.
D: His promise to create a massive civilian sector of the military. It has been done often throughout history, always with the same result and the same aim. I see no reason to think this will be any different. Obama has never given a satisfactory answer as to why this needs to be created.
F: His dirty election policies ring of anything but a fair player.
To reiterate what makes me think that:
A: His corrupt background in Chicago that including training ACORN volunteers to bully politicians and bankers (Hannity did a special on it, look it up ~;))
B: The left-wing press and education system's worship for him, and stigmatizing of anyone who does not support him.
C: His attempts to intimidate any reporters who give him questions that are in anyway challenging.
D: His promise to create a massive civilian sector of the military. It has been done often throughout history, always with the same result and the same aim. I see no reason to think this will be any different. Obama has never given a satisfactory answer as to why this needs to be created.
F: His dirty election policies ring of anything but a fair player.
First and foremost, I think you're suffering from a misunderstanding of what the word dictator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictator) means.
A: Plenty of politicians have come out of Chicago. None have yet attempted to assume total power over the United States. Sean Hannity can say what he likes, and run as many specials as he pleases; he's not a reliable source.
B: This is what's really getting up your nose. Your classmates and profs are all rabidly pro-Obama, and in the small, closed world of a University, it probably feels like you aren't allowed to say otherwise. Welcome to the wonderful world of academia. Ideas get entrenched, groupthink takes over, and relatively immature undergrads don't know how to have a civil debate. This is not uncommon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q6KAg6qEGY). Irritating? Sure. Stifling? probably. Signal of an imminent dictatorship? Uh, no.
C: It's hard not to answer this one with a joke, 'cause it's so out there. "Intimidate any reporters who give him questions that are in any way challenging." ORLY? Did you watch the most recent presser? He got plenty of edged questions, and I didn't notice any intimidation going on, beyond the usual fawning that reporters do over powerful people. You're going to need to provide a source for this one.
D: Source, please.
E: You skipped E. This must mean something.
F: "Dirty election policies." What does that mean? You mean he ran a dirty campaign, in some notable way dirtier than the usual Presidential race? Worse than Kennedy v. Nixon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1960#Controversies)? Worse than Bush v. McCain (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/03/21/the_anatomy_of_a_smear_campaign/), or Bush v. Gore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore)? Once again, you assert without backup. Source, link, gimme something. Otherwise this is like boxing a cloud.
Here's an interesting article (http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/03/why_doesnt_he_get_it.php) about how the leftwing Dems are edgy and restless, largely because they are incapable of exerting the sort of control over their party that the rightwingers are able to hold over the Repubs: (warning, contains polling data and may cause statistical arousal for CountArch)
In cumulative Pew data for 2008, Kohut says, only one-third of self-identified Democrats described themselves as liberals; the rest identified as moderates or conservatives. For Republicans the proportions were reversed: two-thirds of Republicans considered themselves conservatives, while only one-third identified as moderates or liberals. Gallup's findings are similar: in their cumulative 2008 data, just 39% of self-identified Democrats described themselves as liberals, while 70% of Republicans identified as conservatives.
Looking at Obama's actual vote in 2008 reinforces the story. According to the Edison/Mitofsky Election Day exit polls, liberals provided only 37% of Obama's total votes. Moderates (50%) and conservatives (13%) provided far more. By contrast, conservatives provided almost three-fifths of John McCain's votes, with moderates contributing only about one-third and liberals a negligible 5%.
The bottom line is that, compared to Republicans, Democrats are operating with a much more diverse electoral coalition-and one in which the party's ideological vanguard plays a smaller role. That's one reason why in a Pew post-election survey, nearly three-fifths of Democrats said they wanted the party to move in a more moderate (rather than liberal) direction, while three-fifths of Republicans said they wanted the party to move right. The parties "have a difference in our bases," says Jim Kessler, vice president of Third Way, a group that works with centrist Democratic Senators. "Certainly the most loyal part of the Democratic base is going to be self-identified liberals, but numerically moderates are a bigger portion of the coalition, so there is going to be some tension."
Strike For The South
03-27-2009, 04:31
Am I the only one who sees Bush and Obama as the same man on opposite ends of the spectrum?
Can you expand on that thought, Strike? Which spectrum? Opposite how? Give us a little more meat to chew on, please.
Sasaki Kojiro
03-27-2009, 04:42
Am I the only one who sees Bush and Obama as the same man on opposite ends of the spectrum?
Obama is doing very little to pander to the far left.
Strike For The South
03-27-2009, 04:46
-Both men were seen as under qualified
-Both men are seen by the other side as being "radical"
-Both men are seen as not really in control
-Both men are wholly convinced they are right
-Both men are prone to gaffes
-Both men are seen as wanting to destroy The American Way.
It just seems like both are polarizing figures who are wholly convinced they have all the answers
Seamus Fermanagh
03-27-2009, 05:10
Obama is doing very little to pander to the far left.
And Dubya did zip for fiscal conservatives, darn little for religious conservatives, and had to be kicked, prodded and thumped into naming a constructionist judge to the court instead of a Texas crony. You could draw a parallel here. Even to the respective fringes of the opposition party frothing over the watered-down effort both men made in their respective "righty" and "lefty" agendae.
Crazed Rabbit
03-27-2009, 05:11
Here's an interesting article (http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/03/why_doesnt_he_get_it.php) about how the leftwing Dems are edgy and restless, largely because they are incapable of exerting the sort of control over their party that the rightwingers are able to hold over the Repubs: (warning, contains polling data and may cause statistical arousal for CountArch)
Just how much control was the conservative side of the GOP able to exert when they held power in the government? :inquisitive:
CR
Sasaki Kojiro
03-27-2009, 05:20
And Dubya did zip for fiscal conservatives, darn little for religious conservatives, and had to be kicked, prodded and thumped into naming a constructionist judge to the court instead of a Texas crony. You could draw a parallel here. Even to the respective fringes of the opposition party frothing over the watered-down effort both men made in their respective "righty" and "lefty" agendae.
Yes...I don't have a clear picture of what's far right on the right.
-Both men were seen as under qualified
-Both men are seen by the other side as being "radical"
-Both men are seen as not really in control
-Both men are wholly convinced they are right
-Both men are prone to gaffes
-Both men are seen as wanting to destroy The American Way.
But strike, 4 of these relate to how the person is seen, not who they are, one is pointless (gaffes) and the other is a requirement for anyone who is going to put the effort in to become president.
The comparison of bush and obama seems to be that they are both politicians, and that they are both moderates in their own party. But, you know, most people consider the parties to be rather different...boils down to you saying "He's a democrat and he's a republican! So they are the same!"
:strawman3:
Just how much control was the conservative side of the GOP able to exert when they held power in the government?
Enough to make absurdities like the Terry Schaivo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Schaivo) case an issue of national governance. Oh, without a doubt President 43 used the religious right as something to wipe his bottom with, except when he needed their votes. But I think the polling data stands as an interesting differentiator between the two parties, no matter how you want to spin in.
More thoughts (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2009/03/more-paranoia.html) on this subject:
Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck have far more power in the Republican Party (it sometimes seems to include veto power) than Klein, Lee, and Moore have in the Democratic Party. The views of right-wing commentators in the grip of the paranoid style (Obama is a stealth radical, the Democrats are imposing socialism) are much closer to mainstream conservative and Republican belief than the views of their counterparts on the left (the levees in New Orleans were blown up by the government, the White House had something to do with 9/11) are to mainstream liberal and Democratic belief. The reasons are complex, but I would list these: the evangelical and occasionally messianic fervor that animates a part of the Republican base; the atmosphere of siege and the self-identification of conservatives as insurgents even when they monopolized political power; the influence of ideology over movement conservatives, and their deep hostility to compromise; the fact that modern conservatism has been a movement, which modern liberalism has not.
This is not to say that the more destructive forms of populism and outright paranoia can’t appear on the left. They have, they do, and they will, especially in times of extreme distress like these. It’s only to say that the infection has been more organic to the modern right.
Sasaki Kojiro
03-28-2009, 20:33
Jim Webb's courage v. the "pragmatism" excuse for politicians
There are few things rarer than a major politician doing something that is genuinely courageous and principled, but Jim Webb's impassioned commitment to fundamental prison reform (http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/03/a_push_for_prison_reform.php) is exactly that. Webb's interest in the issue was prompted by (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/28/AR2008122801728.html) his work as a journalist in 1984, when he wrote about an American citizen who was locked away in a Japanese prison for two years under extremely harsh conditions for nothing more than marijuana possession. After decades of mindless "tough-on-crime" hysteria, an increasingly irrational "drug war," and a sprawling, privatized prison state as brutal (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=1) as it is counter-productive, America has easily surpassed Japan -- and virtually every other country in the world -- to become what Brown University Professor Glenn Loury recently described (http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/03/11/glenn-loury/a-nation-of-jailers/) as a "a nation of jailers" whose "prison system has grown into a leviathan unmatched in human history."
What's most notable about Webb's decision to champion this cause is how honest his advocacy is. He isn't just attempting to chip away at the safe edges of America's oppressive prison state. His critique of what we're doing is fundamental, not incremental. And, most important of all, Webb is addressing head-on one of the principal causes of our insane imprisonment fixation: our aberrational insistence (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/us/23prison.html) on criminalizing and imprisoning non-violent drug offenders (when we're not doing worse to them (http://www.theagitator.com/2009/03/27/the-lethality-of-marijuana-prohibition/)). That is an issue most politicians are petrified to get anywhere near, as evidenced just this week by Barack Obama's adolescent, condescending snickering (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20526.html) when asked about marijuana legalization, in response to which Obama gave a dismissive answer that Andrew Sullivan accurately deemed (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/03/obamas-pathetic.html) "pathetic." Here are just a few excerpts from Webb's Senate floor speech this week (http://webb.senate.gov/email/incardocs/FS_CrimJust_3-26-09.pdf) (.pdf) on his new bill to create a Commission to study all aspects of prison reform:
Let's start with a premise that I don't think a lot of Americans are aware of. We have 5% of the world's population; we have 25% of the world's known prison population. We have an incarceration rate in the United States, the world's greatest democracy, that is five times as high as the average incarceration rate of the rest of the world. There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice. . . .
The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the criminal justice system is the sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200%. The blue disks represent the numbers in 1980; the red disks represent the numbers in 2007 and a significant percentage of those incarcerated are for possession or nonviolent offenses stemming from drug addiction and those sorts of related behavioral issues. . . .
In many cases these issues involve people’s ability to have proper counsel and other issues, but there are stunning statistics with respect to drugs that we all must come to terms with. African-Americans are about 12% of our population; contrary to a lot of thought and rhetoric, their drug use rate in terms of frequent drug use rate is about the same as all other elements of our society, about 14%. But they end up being 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison by the numbers that have been provided by us. . . .
Another piece of this issue that I hope we will address with this National Criminal Justice Commission is what happens inside our prisons. . . . We also have a situation in this country with respect to prison violence and sexual victimization that is off the charts and we must get our arms around this problem. We also have many people in our prisons who are among what are called the criminally ill, many suffering from hepatitis and HIV who are not getting the sorts of treatment they deserve.
Importantly, what are we going to do about drug policy - the whole area of drug policy in this country?
And how does that affect sentencing procedures and other alternatives that we might look at?
Webb added (http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Sens._Webb_Specter_Prison_system_national_0326.html) that "America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace" and "we are locking up too many people who do not belong in jail."
It's hard to overstate how politically thankless, and risky, is Webb's pursuit of this issue -- both in general and particularly for Webb. Though there has been some evolution of public opinion (http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=11742) on some drug policy issues, there is virtually no meaningful organized constituency for prison reform. To the contrary, leaving oneself vulnerable to accusations of being "soft on crime" has, for decades, been one of the most toxic vulnerabilities a politician can suffer (ask Michael Dukakis). Moreover, the privatized Prison State is a booming (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705334657739263.html?mod=googlenews_wsj) and highly profitable (http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15308) industry, with an army of lobbyists, donations (http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2797/follow_the_prison_money_trail/), and other well-funded weapons for targeting (http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2008/12/lobbyists-for-t.html) candidates who threaten its interests.
Most notably, Webb is in the Senate not as an invulnerable, multi-term political institution from a safely blue state (he's not Ted Kennedy), but is the opposite: he's a first-term Senator from Virginia, one of the "toughest" "anti-crime" states in the country (it abolished parole in 1995 and is second only to Texas in the number of prisoners it executes), and Webb won election to the Senate by the narrowest of margins, thanks largely to George Allen's macaca-driven implosion. As Ezra Klein wrote (http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=03&year=2009&base_name=webb_emerges_as_the_prison_guy), with understatement: "Lots of politicians make their name being anti-crime, which has come to mean pro-punishment. Few make their name being pro-prison reform."
For a Senator like Webb to spend his time trumpeting the evils of excessive prison rates, racial disparities in sentencing, the unjust effects of the Drug War, and disgustingly harsh conditions inside prisons is precisely the opposite of what every single political consultant would recommend that he do. There's just no plausible explanation for what Webb's actions other than the fact that he's engaged in the noblest and rarest of conduct: advocating a position and pursuing an outcome because he actually believes in it and believes that, with reasoned argument, he can convince his fellow citizens to see the validity of his cause. And he is doing this despite the fact that it potentially poses substantial risks to his political self-interest and offers almost no prospect for political reward. Webb is far from perfect -- he's cast some truly bad votes (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00309) since being elected -- but, in this instance, not only his conduct but also his motives are highly commendable.
* * * * *
Webb's actions here underscore a broader point. Our political class has trained so many citizens not only to tolerate, but to endorse, cowardly behavior on the part of their political leaders. When politicians take bad positions, ones that are opposed by large numbers of their supporters, it is not only the politicians, but also huge numbers of their supporters, who step forward to offer excuses and justifications: well, they have to take that position because it's too politically risky not to; they have no choice and it's the smart thing to do. That's the excuse one heard for years as Democrats meekly acquiesced to or actively supported virtually every extremist Bush policy from the attack on Iraq to torture and warrantless eavesdropping; it's the excuse which even progressives offer for why their political leaders won't advocate for marriage equality or defense spending cuts; and it's the same excuse one hears now to justify virtually every Obama "disappointment."
Webb's commitment to this unpopular project demonstrates how false that excuse-making is -- just as it was proven false by Russ Feingold's singular, lonely, October, 2001 vote against the Patriot Act and Feingold's subsequent, early opposition to the then-popular Bush's assault on civil liberties, despite his representing the purple state of Wisconsin. Political leaders have the ability to change public opinion by engaging in leadership and persuasive advocacy. Any cowardly politician can take only those positions that reside safely within the majoritiarian consensus. Actual leaders, by definition, confront majoritarian views when they are misguided and seek to change them, and politicians have far more ability to affect and change public opinion than they want the public to believe they have.
The political class wants people to see them as helpless captives to immutable political realities so that they have a permanent, all-purpose excuse for whatever they do, so that they are always able to justify their position by appealing to so-called "political realities." But that excuse is grounded in a fundamentally false view of what political leaders are actually capable of doing in terms of shifting public opinion, as NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen explained when I interviewed him (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2009/01/16/rosen/index1.html) about his theories of how political consensus is maintained and manipulated:
GG: One of the points you make is that it's not just journalists who define what these spheres [of consensus, legitimate debate and deviance] encompass. You argue that politicians, political actors can change what's included in these spheres based on the positions that they take. And in some sense, you could even say that that's kind of what leadership is -- not just articulating what already is within the realm of consensus, which anyone can do, but taking ideas that are marginalized or within the sphere of deviance and bringing them into the sphere of legitimacy. How does that process work? How do political actors change those spheres?
JR: Well, that's exactly what leadership is. And I think it's crippling sometimes to our own sense of efficacy in politics and media, if we assume that the media has all of the power to frame the debate and decide what consensus is, and consign things to deviant status. That's not really true. That's true under conditions of political immobilization, leadership default, a rage for normalcy, but in ordinary political life, leaders, by talking about things, make them legitimate. Parties, by pushing for things, make them part of the sphere of debate. Important and visible people can question consensus, and all of a sudden expand it. These spheres are malleable; if the conversation of democracy is alive and if you make your leaders talk about things, it becomes valid to talk about them.
And I really do think there's a self-victimization that sometimes goes on, but to go back to the beginning of your question, there's something else going on, which is the ability to infect us with notions of what's realistic is one of the most potent powers press and political elites have. Whenever we make that kind of decision -- "well it's pragmatic, let's be realistic" -- what we're really doing is we're speculating about other Americans, our fellow citizens, and what they're likely to accept or what works on them or what stimuli they respond to. And that way of seeing other Americans, fellow citizens, is in fact something the media has taught us; that is one of the deepest lessons we've learned from the media even if we are skeptics of the MSM.
And one of the things I see on the left that really bothers me is the ease with which people skeptical of the media will talk about what the masses believe and how the masses will be led and moved in this way that shows me that the mass media tutors them on how to see their fellow citizens. And here the Internet again has at least some potential, because we don't have to guess what those other Americans think. We can encounter them ourselves, and thereby reshape our sense of what they think. I think every time people make that judgment about what's realistic, what they're really doing is they're imagining what the rest of the country would accept, and how other people think, and they get those ideas from the media.
We've been trained how we talk about our political leaders primarily by a media that worships political cynicism and can only understand the world through political game-playing. Thus, so many Americans have been taught to believe not only that politicians shouldn't have the obligation of leadership imposed on them -- i.e., to persuade the public of what is right -- but that it's actually smart and wise of them to avoid positions they believe in when doing so is politically risky.
People love now to assume the role of super-sophisticated political consultant rather than a citizen demanding actions from their representatives. Due to the prism of gamesmanship through which political pundits understand and discuss politics, many citizens have learned to talk about their political leaders as though they're political strategists advising their clients as to the politically shrewd steps that should be taken ("this law is awful and unjust and he was being craven by voting for it, but he was absolutely right to vote for it because the public wouldn't understand if he opposed it"), rather than as citizens demanding that their public servants do the right thing ("this law is awful and unjust and, for that reason alone, he should oppose it and show leadership by making the case to the public as to why it's awful and unjust").
It may be unrealistic to expect most politicians in most circumstances to do what Jim Webb is doing here (or what Russ Feingold did during Bush's first term). My guess is that Webb, having succeeded in numerous other endeavors outside of politics, is not desperate to cling to his political office, and he has thus calculated that he'd rather have six years in the Senate doing things he thinks are meaningful than stay there forever on the condition that he cowardly renounce any actual beliefs. It's probably true that most career politicians, possessed of few other talents or interests, are highly unlikely to think that way.
But the fact that cowardly actions from political leaders are inevitable is no reason to excuse or, worse, justify and even advocate that cowardice. In fact, the more citizens are willing to excuse and even urge political cowardice in the name of "realism" or "pragmatism" ("he was smart to take this bad, unjust position because Americans are too stupid or primitive for him to do otherwise and he needs to be re-elected"), the more common that behavior will be. Politicians and their various advisers, consultants and enablers will make all the excuses they can for why politicians do what they do and insist that public opinion constrains them to do otherwise. That excuse-making is their role, not the role of citizens. What ought to be demanded of political officials by citizens is precisely the type of leadership Webb is exhibiting here.
An interesting article--I think most people who follow politics will agree that their immediate reaction to "their guy" not standing up for the right thing is that they are being "pragmatic" and that "that's how you have to play the game". At least that's what mine is.
I can see it being a good idea when you are giving bipartisanship an honest try. But I hope Obama's numbers start to tank if he keeps choosing to answer softball questions like "will legalizing marijuana help the economy" rather than "should we reform the war on drugs and the prison system".
Crazed Rabbit
03-28-2009, 20:52
Ah, Jim Webb. I'm glad he got elected.
Wired online has an article (http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/03/obama-declares.html) on how the Obama administration is refusing to release details on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, citing National Security reasons.
President Barack Obama came into office in January promising a new era of openness.
But now, like Bush before him, Obama is playing the national security card to hide details of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being negotiated across the globe.
The White House this week declared (.pdf) the text of the proposed treaty a "properly classified" national security secret, in rejecting a Freedom of Information Act request by Knowledge Ecology International.
"Please be advised the documents you seek are being withheld in full," wrote Carmen Suro-Bredie, chief FOIA officer in the White House's Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
The national security claim is stunning, given that the treaty negotiations have included the 27 member states of the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Switzerland and New Zealand, all of whom presumably have access to the "classified" information.
In early January, the Bush administration made the same claim in rejecting (.pdf) a similar FOIA request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
If ratified, leaked documents posted on WikiLeaks and other comments suggest the proposed trade accord would criminalize peer-to-peer file sharing, subject iPods to border searches and allow internet service providers to monitor their customers' communications.
In his first days in office, Obama publicly committed himself to transparency, instructing government agencies to err on the side of public access and divulge information whenever possible under the Freedom of Information Act. Obama recently released a trove of documents relating to the Bush administration's rationale for torture of enemy combatants and other abuses.
At the same time, though, Justice Department lawyers have been arguing in court that the "state secrets privilege" should bar lawsuits over the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.
More info here:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10195547-38.html
A June 2008 memo (PDF) from the International Chamber of Commerce, signed by pro-copyright groups, says: "intellectual property theft is no less a crime than physical property theft. An effective ACTA should therefore establish clear and transparent standards for the calculation and imposition of effective criminal penalties for IP theft that...apply to both online and off-line IP transactions." Similarly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has called for "criminal penalties for IP crimes, including online infringements."
Last fall, two senators--Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Penn.)--known for their support of stringent intellectual property laws, expressed concern that the ACTA could be too far-reaching.
and also here:
Plenty of folks are quite concerned about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations are being negotiated in secret. This is a treaty that (from the documents that have leaked so far) is quite troubling. It likely will effectively require various countries, including the US, to update copyright laws in a draconian manner. Furthermore, the negotiators have met with entertainment industry representatives multiple times, and there are indications that those representatives have contributed language and ideas to the treaty. But, the public? The folks actually impacted by all of this? We've been kept in the dark, despite repeated requests for more information. So far, the response from the government had been "sorry, we always negotiate these things in secret, so we'll keep doing so." At one point, even the ACTA negotiators held a closed-door meeting and then released a press release saying they discussed being more transparent, but haven't actually followed through.
A shame. So much for real openness.
CR
Seamus Fermanagh
03-29-2009, 04:36
An interesting article--I think most people who follow politics will agree that their immediate reaction to "their guy" not standing up for the right thing is that they are being "pragmatic" and that "that's how you have to play the game". At least that's what mine is.
I can see it being a good idea when you are giving bipartisanship an honest try. But I hope Obama's numbers start to tank if he keeps choosing to answer softball questions like "will legalizing marijuana help the economy" rather than "should we reform the war on drugs and the prison system".
Thanks Sasaki, that was a good read. I voted against Webb, reluctantly, based on party loyalty the last time. If he continues in this vein, I doubt they'll field a GOPer who I would vote for in preference.
Sasaki Kojiro
03-29-2009, 04:48
Thanks Sasaki, that was a good read. I voted against Webb, reluctantly, based on party loyalty the last time. If he continues in this vein, I doubt they'll field a GOPer who I would vote for in preference.
Yes, and that's exactly the point the author was making--when a politician is willing to stake his career on an issue, people will take notice and minds can be changed. That's what being a leader is all about.
Ironside
03-29-2009, 11:31
A minor note about those prison numbers if anybody is interested. The US have comparable conviction numbers compared to the rest of the Western world, but the punishments are much longer. :book:
Major Robert Dump
03-29-2009, 14:37
Sasaki where was that article from pls I need to send it to some people.
KukriKhan
03-29-2009, 14:57
Sasaki where was that article from pls I need to send it to some people.
Salon.com (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/28/webb/) opinion piece.
Hosakawa Tito
03-29-2009, 15:29
That's a good article. Prison reform is definitely coming to my State, New York. However, it's more of a budget issue than any sense of leadership. The "Rockefeller Drug Laws (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/mar/27/rockefeller-drug-laws-new-york)" are to be repealed and a more viable alternative for some offenders will be enacted, but nobody really has said what that is. A program that I've been working in for years, Shock Incarceration (http://74.125.93.104/search?q=cache:XJSORbe7SEMJ:www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/shockny.pdf+shock+incarceration&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) , is one such alternative.
Yes, and that's exactly the point the author was making--when a politician is willing to stake his career on an issue, people will take notice and minds can be changed. That's what being a leader is all about.
Another good reason for term limits. Take the worry out of getting re-elected and maybe some politicians can find the will to do the right thing.
Sasaki Kojiro
03-29-2009, 16:08
Another good reason for term limits. Take the worry out of getting re-elected and maybe some politicians can find the will to do the right thing.
Seems like a tricky issue though. If you give them more than one term, they will still probably act the same way until their last term. And if you only give them one term, then who do we elect president? Someone who has served on term in the state senate and one term in the US senate? I also worry that with only one term, they will have the tendency to make out like bandits with corporate "gifts" while they still can, with retirement looming. And when you get an actual good guy, he won't be there for long.
I don't think you can legislate a solution, especially when the problem is with the legislature. The point needs to be hammered home to more people: being "pragmatic" is usually an excuse.
I like the way Virginia imposes limits on the governor, no consecutive terms. Keeps the governor from spending half his time in office running for reelection, and the electorate gets a good chance at reviewing the results of his/her prior session in office in a long-term sense.
Webb is a solid Virginia Democrat, I'm happy with my choice. :yes:
Haven't seen it mentioned in any other threads, so here is the WaPo's headliner from Sunday's paper:
Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/28/AR2009032802066.html?nav=hcmodule)
When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.
The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.
In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.
Moreover, within weeks of his capture, U.S. officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President George W. Bush had publicly described him as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations," and other top officials called him a "trusted associate" of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.
While all of this was pretty much known/expected, hopefully this will kick the Obama administration to get the ball moving on bringing some charges against the former administration officials behind this disgrace. Yoo and Addington at the least need to face the music for this.
a completely inoffensive name
03-31-2009, 05:36
Term limits is just another cure for the symptoms not the problem. Just as the 17th amendment failed to make Senators more accountable and instead just removed the state governments from having a say in federal policy, term limits will do no good except limit the time good members of Congress can make positive progress. Get rid of the temptation, get rid of the gifts, get rid of the lobbyists and special interest groups who should have followed the rules, voted for who they thought was the best candidate and live with the consequences, not undermine the entire process with their secretive ********.
Seems like a tricky issue though. If you give them more than one term, they will still probably act the same way until their last term. And if you only give them one term, then who do we elect president? Someone who has served on term in the state senate and one term in the US senate?Sort of like we have now? :eyebrows:
But yeah, I agree term limits may not be the answer. The problem is really with us- the voters. We keep sending the rats back to office because they bring home the bacon, or pork, as it were. People can overlook a lot of shady dealings or back scratching as long as their representative brings in federal dollars. :shame:
Rush Limbaugh coins the phrase (http://wonkette.com/407442/407442) "anal poisoning" to describe President Obama's effect on other people: “But the slobbering [over Barack Obama], the slobbering… this guy, folks I’m telling ya, if he keeps this up throughout the G20, Gordon Brown will come down with anal poisoning and may die from it.”
-edit-
Oh, this has to be one of the Hysteria Award Winners: So this Prof. at Yale gives speech at a Yale Club event where he says that "sharia law, among other foreign laws, could have applicability within the United States in certain circumstances." The event is summarized and answered (volubly) in the pages of NRO (http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTNhNzA4NDZhOTJmMTc0YzEwN2JmMGI0ZjY1YWZjZjM=) in March of 2007. Why am I bringing this up?
Well the dude got some sort of appointment at State, and now Fox News (http://www.dailykostv.com/w/001090/) is claiming that this means President Obama may want to enshrine Sharia law in the U.S.A. No, I am not making this up. Ye gods, do these people eat extra bowls of Crazy Flakes in the morning?
ALISYN CAMEROTA (Fox anchor): The White House is defending its nominee to be State Department Legal Adviser. Now, some of the criticism of this nominee, Harold Koh, is based on remarks that he reportedly made saying that Islamic Sharia law should apply in U.S. courts, even though those laws are used in some countries to justify stripping women of basic rights and even worse, frankly.
Nonie Darwish is with the group Arabs for Israel. She is also the author of the book “Cruel and Usual Punishment.” Nonie, thanks for joining us this morning.
NONIE DARWISH: My pleasure, thank you.
CAMEROTA (Fox): So this man, Harold Koh, this potential State Department nominee has impressive credentials. He’s a Dean at Yale University, but he also has a history of supporting Sharia law — even here in the U.S. What are some of the things that he has said in the past that has raised eyebrows?
DARWISH; Well, uh, I heard that he doesn’t mind referring to laws, foreign laws and integrating them into the U.S. legal system. It’s very hard for me to imagine that an American official can incorporate Sharia law, because Sharia is totally at odds with our bill of rights, and our Constitution. Sharia does not allow freedom of religion. It dscriminates against women, against non-Muslims. There is no equal rights under Sharia.
A Muslim head of state can come to power through seizure of power, not through elections. A Muslim head of state must be obeyed even if he is unjust. A Muslim woman can be beaten by her husband. There are so many laws that are totally against our Constitution.
CAMEROTA (Fox):Does it go so far to recommend honor killings in the event that a woman has done something inappropriate, or even public stonings?
DARWISH: Sharia law does not discriminate between crime and sexual sin, so you can have somebody who murders a non-Muslim and if you murder a non-Muslim, you won’t have the death penalty. But if a woman commits a sexual crime, like having a boyfriend, it is legal to kill a woman who commits apostasy or commits sexual crime. There are three murders allowed under Sharia law. The first one is to kill an apostate. The second to kill an adulterer, and to kill a highway robber. A Muslim can kill a non-Muslim and he will never get the death penalty.
CAMEROTA (Fox):Sorry to interrupt you, Nonie, but the picture we’re seeing there is of that nominee, Harold Koh. He reportedly back in 2007 told the Yale Club in Greenwich, Connecticut, that, quote, “in an appropriate case, he didn’t see any reason why Sharia law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States.” What might that appropriate case be?
DARWISH: I cannot think of one case that can bring us any benefit from Sharia. While there are many people in the Middle East fighting Sharia, and, we are not doing a service to the reformists in the Middle East by acknowledging that Sharia is the kind of law that we can respect here in America. Sharia is totally barbaric. It is anti-woman. It is anti non-Muslims, and uh, I cannot even think of one thing except the brutal punishment of criminals.
CAMEROTA (Fox):Okay now very quickly, since the Obama Administration surely knows Harold Koh’s position on this, why would they be tagging him as the State Department nominee?
DARWISH: Perhaps he is trying to appease Muslim countries, but this is the wrong kind of policy because we’re standing against progress in the Muslim world. The Muslim world has a lot of reformers who are trying to progress because the laws of Sharia support Jihad. Supports Jihad against non-Muslims. It is the duty of a Muslim head of state to do Jihad, and by Jihad, the definition of Jihad according to mainstream Sharia books is a war with non-Muslims to establish the religion.
Do we want to confirm that Jihad is ok against us in America? This is Sharia!
CAMEROTA (Fox): Excellent question. Nonie Darwish, thank you so much for joining us this morning and giving us all of this background.
DARWISH: Thank you very much, my pleasure.
Major Robert Dump
04-02-2009, 01:46
You just wait Lemur, you just wait. When they come to drag you outside and stone you for being an infidel I would come to defend you, cept all my guns and internet will have been taken away. We will see who is laughing then, and it won't be kid with corndogs
Oh, this has to be one of the Hysteria Award Winners: So this Prof. at Yale gives speech at a Yale Club event where he says that "sharia law, among other foreign laws, could have applicability within the United States in certain circumstances." The event is summarized and answered (volubly) in the pages of NRO (http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTNhNzA4NDZhOTJmMTc0YzEwN2JmMGI0ZjY1YWZjZjM=) in March of 2007. Why am I bringing this up?
Well the dude got some sort of appointment at State, and now Fox News (http://www.dailykostv.com/w/001090/) is claiming that this means President Obama may want to enshrine Sharia law in the U.S.A. No, I am not making this up. Ye gods, do these people eat extra bowls of Crazy Flakes in the morning?
lol Lemur, it does not disturb you that Obama wants to put this guy onto a position often considered the springboard to the Supreme Court? He has said before that he thinks US law should be overridden by International Law. That means that the constitution of this country could be made invalid by what some socialists over Britain do. He is talking about completely underminging US law and the soverignty of the US government. And I do not know if you know it or not Lemur, but Sharia law is the incarnation of everything radical in islam. You know how people say that islam is not bad to women, and islam does not promote terrorism, it is just these radical countries of extremists. Well it is Sharia law that these extremists follow. It is Sharia law that Osama Bin Laden follows, and it is under Sharia law that the 911 attacks were made. Do you honestly think there is any reason NOT to be concerned when a guy like this is being nominated for one of the highest legal positions in the country? Perhaps you would like me to cite for you exactly what Sharia law means.
Strike For The South
04-02-2009, 03:59
lol Lemur, it does not disturb you that Obama wants to put this guy onto a position often considered the springboard to the Supreme Court? He has said before that he thinks US law should be overridden by International Law. That means that the constitution of this country could be made invalid by what some socialists over Britain do. He is talking about completely underminging US law and the soverignty of the US government. And I do not know if you know it or not Lemur, but Sharia law is the incarnation of everything radical in islam. You know how people say that islam is not bad to women, and islam does not promote terrorism, it is just these radical countries of extremists. Well it is Sharia law that these extremists follow. It is Sharia law that Osama Bin Laden follows, and it is under Sharia law that the 911 attacks were made. Do you honestly think there is any reason NOT to be concerned when a guy like this is being nominated for one of the highest legal positions in the country? Perhaps you would like me to cite for you exactly what Sharia law means.
I think you have been drinking to much of the kool-aid.
Lord Winter
04-02-2009, 04:08
lol Lemur, it does not disturb you that Obama wants to put this guy onto a position often considered the springboard to the Supreme Court? He has said before that he thinks US law should be overridden by International Law. That means that the constitution of this country could be made invalid by what some socialists over Britain do. He is talking about completely underminging US law and the soverignty of the US government. And I do not know if you know it or not Lemur, but Sharia law is the incarnation of everything radical in islam. You know how people say that islam is not bad to women, and islam does not promote terrorism, it is just these radical countries of extremists. Well it is Sharia law that these extremists follow. It is Sharia law that Osama Bin Laden follows, and it is under Sharia law that the 911 attacks were made. Do you honestly think there is any reason NOT to be concerned when a guy like this is being nominated for one of the highest legal positions in the country? Perhaps you would like me to cite for you exactly what Sharia law means.
You do know that treaty law is above normal U.S. law, right? It's not Obama that says that, it's the Constitution.
Strike For The South
04-02-2009, 04:17
You do know that treaty law is above normal U.S. law, right? It's not Obama that says that, it's the Constitution.
Yup (http://www.asil.org/insigh10.cfm)
Treaty has a much more narrow definition in the senate and as noted in the article the executive branch and the legislature have had fights over it.
LittleGrizzly
04-02-2009, 12:06
That means that the constitution of this country could be made invalid by what some socialists over Britain do.
We have socialists in Britian... and they are in charge?!
Well thats great news... unfortunatly socilaist policys are non existant... socialist mp's are non existant*... and socialist rhetoric is non existant*...
So we have socialists in charge who don't enact socialist policy, don't use socialist rhetoric and don't class themselves as socialists... im starting to think we may not have socialists in charge at alll....
*from those actually in power... i guess there probably would be a few fairly socialist labour mp's mulling around the back benches unhappy...
Major Robert Dump
04-02-2009, 14:18
OH MY GAWD!!!! HE SAID SOMETHING!!!! OH MY GOD. AND HE CALLED US AXIS OF DISOBEDIENCE!!! I COULD DEAL WITH TAX EVASION BUT NOT THIS REVOLUTION IS COMING RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR GET UR SABERS HURRY
Major Robert Dump
04-02-2009, 14:28
Oh, wait, he's also been a fierce critic of GWBs dumbhead move to invade Iraq, a critic of GWBs treatment of detainees, and a critic of all GWBs attorneys general.....funny the conservatives aren't really talking about that so much as they are talking about this one thing he said this one time at band camp. I think I may be onto something.....
I found out where the crazy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTzCdY6SqDQ) is coming from ...
I found out where the crazy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTzCdY6SqDQ) is coming from ...
If he is calling Hitler a fascist he should study history.
Major Robert Dump
04-02-2009, 16:55
Oh I loves me some Glenn Beck. At least he's funny. I just rented his stand-up DVD. He may be a sabre rattler, but he does it with style.
Major Robert Dump
04-02-2009, 17:10
Oh dear, fried chicken eatery renames itself after 44th President. I don't see this ending well
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0331092chicken1.html
I found out where the crazy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTzCdY6SqDQ) is coming from ...
lol, I have heard of Glenn Beck before, but I thought he was only a comedian, I did not know he did politics. :P
Oh, wait, he's also been a fierce critic of GWBs dumbhead move to invade Iraq, a critic of GWBs treatment of detainees, and a critic of all GWBs attorneys general.....funny the conservatives aren't really talking about that so much as they are talking about this one thing he said this one time at band camp. I think I may be onto something.....
Sure, that makes sense Dump! So what if I am an outspoken critic of GWB's policies, yada yada, but I make an isolated statement that I think all Jews should be wiped off the face of the earth and a Nazi regime set up. Sorry for an extreme analogy, but you get the point, right? Who gives a flying-:daisy: what else he says when he says something like that. That IS worthy of intense focus, as the theoretical comment I made would be.
OH MY GAWD!!!! HE SAID SOMETHING!!!! OH MY GOD. AND HE CALLED US AXIS OF DISOBEDIENCE!!! I COULD DEAL WITH TAX EVASION BUT NOT THIS REVOLUTION IS COMING RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR GET UR SABERS HURRY
Yes, peacefully exercising our political voice (as Democrats do all the time...when they are not holding violent rallies, burning flags, buildings, and people, throwing stones and molatov cocktails at people, etc) as is both our constitutional right and our duty as citizens to do make sure an appointee we think will be harmful to our country does not get in is sabre-rattling? Funny you say that, yet almost all the violence and vandalism that is done with political motivation is done by the left, not the right. During the Republican convention look at all the violence and destruction that leftwing wackjobs did as they protested that America should dare to have more than their one party.
You think it is unreasonable to get concerned when obama appoints someone guilty of tax evasion as secretary of the treasury?!! Or even worse, when he wants to appoint someone who said what this guy said? You think that is a small thing that should be overlooked? If it was a Republican, I garuntee that you and every other leftist on this board would be burning this thread down with your protest.
Seriously, answer me two questions:
1. Do you know what Sharia Law is?
2. Do you have any idea as to the unConstitutional consequences that would result if we instated Sharia Law in America?
Oh I loves me some Glenn Beck. At least he's funny. I just rented his stand-up DVD. He may be a sabre rattler, but he does it with style.
I love Beck as well, he has one of the better op-ed columnist style shows on the air. He's also cleaning the competition's clocks in the ratings. Since leaving CNN for Fox the scope of Beck's success is astounding, he not only trounces the competition but he manages to command a prime time sized audience in his late afternoon time slot (5pm EST), it's insane.
Speaking of which, based on the ratings I've seen since I began working here at CNN big bad Fox seems to be benefitting enormously from the Democrats' control of Congress and the White House. Fox absolutely dominates the ratings now, it's a full fledged massacre from 4pm to 12am. It's as if their afternoon/prime-time lineup has morphed into the 1927 Yankees and the rest of cable news is like a bunch of also-rans from the bush leagues. The powers that be here at CNN are starting to panic, our ratings are tanking and the brain trust suits that were chest pounding and strutting about during the boom times leading up to the election are now crapping their pants.
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=12784891&ch=4226716&src=news
Interesting. What do you all think?
Strike For The South
04-02-2009, 19:30
Seriously, answer me two questions:
1. Do you know what Sharia Law is?
2. Do you have any idea as to the unConstitutional consequences that would result if we instated Sharia Law in America?
Muslims make up .4% of a population that is overwhelmingly Christian. Somehow I just don't see it
Muslims make up .4% of a population that is overwhelmingly Christian. Somehow I just don't see it
Population does not matter Strike. If a few people in the government decide to impose Sharia law, then the majority suffers under it. Just look at history Strike, tiny amounts of people in governments have always ruled the majority.
Strike For The South
04-02-2009, 19:43
Population does not matter Strike. If a few people in the government decide to impose Sharia law, then the majority suffers under it. Just look at history Strike, tiny amounts of people in governments have always ruled the majority.
And who will lead this charge for Sharia law?
LittleGrizzly
04-02-2009, 19:48
The tiny minority in goverment will quietly push it through with a few leftys who are muslim obseesed... dont you watch any conspiracies ~;)
Just look at history Strike, tiny amounts of people in governments have always ruled the majority.
But you are aware that rulers need the acceptance of the majority? If not you get a revolution.
And I don't see a muslim majority in any of the western states.
But you are aware that rulers need the acceptance of the majority? If not you get a revolution.
And I don't see a muslim majority in any of the western states.
Not at all, and esp not in the States. In the States we have a belief that if we are not satisfied with something we have the power to change it, and if it is not changed, it MUST be because it is the will of the people, and we do not need to revolt against the government, but join activist groups and change the minds of the people. I tell you agian, look at history. Look at how many times things have been done in American history by the government directly against the wishes of majority of the citizens. We have had no revolutions against our government yet. (and no, the war betweent he states does not count, it was not a revolution)
Strike For The South
04-02-2009, 20:31
Not at all, and esp not in the States. In the States we have a belief that if we are not satisfied with something we have the power to change it, and if it is not changed, it MUST be because it is the will of the people, and we do not need to revolt against the government, but join activist groups and change the minds of the people. I tell you agian, look at history. Look at how many times things have been done in American history by the government directly against the wishes of majority of the citizens. We have had no revolutions against our government yet. (and no, the war betweent he states does not count, it was not a revolution)
Whom will do it then?
Whom will do it then?
What do you mean whom will do it? :P Obama is trying to get a guy in who said he wants to do it. Don't play dumb.
EDIT: So let me get this right Strike, you are saying I am being unreasonable to assume that when a guy is put into power, he will try to do what he has said he thinks should be done? That does not make very much sense on your part. If someone said that they think all blacks in the country should be killed, don't you think it would be reasonable to assume that if you put them in a position to do so it is likely that they will try? And don't you think that is a reason for concern? Why then is it far fetched to be concerned that a guy who believes the US should be ran by Sharia law may be put into a position where he would have power to pursue that and possibly bring it about?
Strike For The South
04-02-2009, 21:00
What do you mean whom will do it? :P Obama is trying to get a guy in who said he wants to do it. Don't play dumb.
EDIT: So let me get this right Strike, you are saying I am being unreasonable to assume that when a guy is put into power, he will try to do what he has said he thinks should be done? That does not make very much sense on your part. If someone said that they think all blacks in the country should be killed, don't you think it would be reasonable to assume that if you put them in a position to do so it is likely that they will try? And don't you think that is a reason for concern? Why then is it far fetched to be concerned that a guy who believes the US should be ran by Sharia law may be put into a position where he would have power to pursue that and possibly bring it about?
The man floated an idea in academia filled with "maybes" and "coulds" I'm not worried.
The man floated an idea in academia filled with "maybes" and "coulds" I'm not worried.
Not really Strike, he is a professor, and he expressed that thought it is what the US should do. Even so though, don't you think it warrants concern when he "floats around" ideas like that? Think of my (over used :beam:) example: If I "floated around" an idea that I think all blacks should be killed, don't you think it would warrant concern if I was put in a position where I may have the power to bring that about? Sorry, but I would oppose anyone who "floated" Nazi ideas around, and I oppose anyone who "floats" Sharia law supremacy ideas around. Surely there is someone far less dangerous and equally (or more so) qualified who could fill the position. I do not think America should take chances by giving people like that the power to fufill their ideas.
What do you mean whom will do it? :P Obama is trying to get a guy in who said he wants to do it. Don't play dumb.
The dude said that some aspects of Sharia might be applicable in some situations. And he said this in an academic setting.
But by all means, remove the qualifiers and turn it into a battle cry. And remember that crazy flakes are an important part of every kid's breakfast.
Not really Strike, he is a professor, and he expressed that thought it is what the US should do.
I have yet to see any quote in which he says that integration of Sharia is what "the US should do." Provide a source, please.
Sorry, but I would oppose anyone who "floated" Nazi ideas around, and I oppose anyone who "floats" Sharia law supremacy ideas around.
Sir, put down the dramatics and step away from the unmarked black helicopter. Sharia law is not exclusively about killing infidels and stoning homosexuals. I can easily imagine a situation in which, say, two Algerian immigrants have a contract with one another based on Sharia, and now one of them has broken it. Say you're the judge; these two men had a contract. Assuming this contract does not violate existing laws in the U.S.A., might it not be enforceable? And what about regulating some of the looser forms of Islamic lending? Again, so long as the agreements/contracts/business norms fall within the law here, I don't see why taking their Sharia into account is the end of Western Civilization.
To expand on your Godwin-confirming example of Nazi Germany: We have integrated lots of ideas, practices and personnel from the Nazis. Hello, Volkswagen Beetle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle)? Hello V2 rocket program (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2_rocket)? Hello Operation Paperclip (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip)? Hello Werner Von Braun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Von_Braun)? Hello blitzkrieg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_arms)? Not only did you drag out the rotting corpse of Nazi Germany, but you did it to no purpose.
Islam is not a solid wall of thuggery, and their law is not one long violating of human rights. People live their lives, do their business, and they needs ground rules. Your hysteria about an academe musing on the applicability of exterior law when applied in the U.S. is unbecoming, sir. And from which aspect of your buttocks did you pluck the word "supremacy"?
Strike For The South
04-02-2009, 21:23
Vuk. Aren't you in Hungary right now?
Evil_Maniac From Mars
04-02-2009, 21:24
And I don't see a muslim majority in any of the western states.
Do you count Albania as a Western state now that it is in NATO? If so, it is 70% Muslim. Regardless of that, Britain does not have a Muslim majority - and yet... (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4749183.ece)
Vuk. Aren't you in Hungary right now?
So? That does not mean I do not pay close attention to the news and talk to people in the States regularly.
Major Robert Dump
04-02-2009, 21:31
Yes, peacefully exercising our political voice (as Democrats do all the time...when they are not holding violent rallies, burning flags, buildings, and people, throwing stones and molatov cocktails at people, etc) as is both our constitutional right and our duty as citizens to do make sure an appointee we think will be harmful to our country does not get in is sabre-rattling? Funny you say that, yet almost all the violence and vandalism that is done with political motivation is done by the left, not the right. During the Republican convention look at all the violence and destruction that leftwing wackjobs did as they protested that America should dare to have more than their one party.
You think it is unreasonable to get concerned when obama appoints someone guilty of tax evasion as secretary of the treasury?!! Or even worse, when he wants to appoint someone who said what this guy said? You think that is a small thing that should be overlooked? If it was a Republican, I garuntee that you and every other leftist on this board would be burning this thread down with your protest.
Seriously, answer me two questions:
1. Do you know what Sharia Law is?
2. Do you have any idea as to the unConstitutional consequences that would result if we instated Sharia Law in America?
1. I know exactly what Sharia law is and taking a few sentences uttered and turning it into OMGZ we're turning into Iran is over doing it.
2. I know exactly how incompatable Sharia law is with liberty, our constitution, and my way of life, and I've been getting warnings on these boards for making fun of muslims since before you were born. But the fact that I don't agree with it or want it does not make me go nutso because an otherwise very qualified appointee said some stuff to try to pander to muslims sympathizers. What you should be angry about is Henry Kissinger, the herpe who will not go away, being in cahoots with Obama and the string of tax evading people he is appointing. My point is: right fervor, wrong target. Take a deep breath.
3. I'm not a leftist, guy. Things are not black and white. Capitalism does not exist anywhere in the world right now, it is not you vs me. Really.
This is exactly the same rubbish that comes from over scrutiny of every new president, and believe me, Obama will do himself in just fine without your help. Actions speak louder than words. Republicans have been muzzled the last two elections and they are now taking pot shots at anything they can, it's the natural order of things. I expect another flag-burning amendment to come up just before the next congressional elections, like it does every 8 years or so when Republicans need a boost, and just about the time Democrats lose power they will start initiatives they know won't pass and they know the public in general doesn't support because they want reassurance that, if all else fails, well they still got the perceived victim class to go to bat for them. And everyone invokes Hitler, every time, without fail. God, it gets so tiring.
As for your earlier paragraph, please spare me the conservative indignation over the violence of the left. No, really, please. Labeling an entire broad spectrum of people based on the actions of the fringers shows just how little you know of variance, conflict and unholy alliances within parties because, unfortunately, thats how the two party system works, unless of course you are being entirely sarcastic and I'm missing your self aggrandizement. Now, if you don't mind, we can continue this discussion later. When you are done bombing the abortion clinic and ironing your confederate flag give me a call, I'll just be hanging around here making scat porn to fund my Marxist bake sale at the PETA headquarters.
When you are done bombing the abortion clinic and ironing your confederate flag give me a call, I'll just be hanging around here making scat porn to fund my Marxist bake sale at the PETA headquarters.
If I believed in siggies, I would siggie this instantly. And I guess it would have to be a Backroom-only siggie, and I'm not even sure if those are working.
Anyway, epic sentence. This is why I read the Org. Normally I expect brilliant flights of rhetoric like this to come from DevDave, so it's an added pleasure to see it from you instead. I LOL muchly and bow in your general direction. Bravo!
Strike For The South
04-02-2009, 21:37
Can I get in on that scat porn?
So? That does not mean I do not pay close attention to the news and talk to people in the States regularly.
It might help to be here if you are going to make those kind of accusations.
Do you count Albania as a Western state now that it is in NATO? If so, it is 70% Muslim. Regardless of that, Britain does not have a Muslim majority - and yet... (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4749183.ece)
Being part of the NATO does not make a western state. Turkey is part of the NATO and they have a Muslim majority. Suprise eh?
But that's not a western state.
What are you trying to prove with that link? This has nothing to do with the discussion?
Major Robert Dump
04-02-2009, 22:27
Not one dime of extra taxes will be paid by poor people.
Unless they smoke.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D979POSG0&show_article=1
Evil_Maniac From Mars
04-02-2009, 22:35
Being part of the NATO does not make a western state. Turkey is part of the NATO and they have a Muslim majority. Suprise eh?
But that's not a western state.
Definitions differ. I don't consider Albania or Turkey western either - I was trying to figure out yours.
What are you trying to prove with that link? This has nothing to do with the discussion?
It has everything to do with the discussion. You don't need a Muslim majority for Muslim influence or Islamic law.
I don't care who's in charge, this is good stuff:
White House Corrects Conference Call Number After Directing Reporters to Sex Line (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/02/white-house-corrects-toll-free-number-mishap/)
Journalists seeking to talk a little foreign policy with high-profile Obama administration officials live from the G20 meetings in London this week were solicited for phone sex instead after ringing up the toll-free number given by the White House.
In a press release, the White House accidentally listed a sex line number for journalists seeking an "on-the-record briefing call with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Advisor Jim Jones to discuss the NATO summit."
But after dialing, a soft-voiced female recording that was clearly not Clinton asked for a credit card number if you "feel like getting nasty."
It has everything to do with the discussion. You don't need a Muslim majority for Muslim influence or Islamic law.
You are comparing a minority court with the discussion if the majority will have the sharia.
No offsense, but that's not an argument.
Evil_Maniac From Mars
04-02-2009, 23:41
You are comparing a minority court with the discussion if the majority will have the sharia.
No offsense, but that's not an argument.
Sure it is. It may be a minority court, but it is still legally binding. The fact there is Sharia law at all is disturbing, whether it is applied the minority and majority. I doubt I am the only one who believes that this will escalate the larger and more influential the population in question becomes.
Sure it is. It may be a minority court, but it is still legally binding. The fact there is Sharia law at all is disturbing, whether it is applied the minority and majority. I doubt I am the only one who believes that this will escalate the larger and more influential the population in question becomes.
It seems we cannot agree on this issue here.
Have you read the post by Major Robert Dump? It says alot about "how" disturbing the Sharia is.
KukriKhan
04-03-2009, 02:34
Not one dime of extra taxes will be paid by poor people.
Unless they smoke.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D979POSG0&show_article=1
It's *cough* for teh *cough* chil'ren *cough-hackahhhhh- inhale*
Happy to support the kids. Works even if I buy 'net-ciggies from Ukraine, right?
KukriKhan
04-03-2009, 02:54
Meanwhile, back at the Castle, Mz O touches HRH (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1888962,00.html). Is this an act of war? An event of eternal damnation? A breach of protocol ? A gesture of kindness? Two women surprised by their fondness for each other?
If Michelle came to my house to deliver an iPod filled with some songs she liked - and thought I might, too, - I'd be OK with her "guiding" me along as if I were a doddering old idiot who needed help... because I am. But, the queen, please.
Someone please tell her to not do that in Thailand or Japan. Hilarity might ensue.
:laugh4:
Major Robert Dump
04-03-2009, 03:17
It's *cough* for teh *cough* chil'ren *cough-hackahhhhh- inhale*
Happy to support the kids. Works even if I buy 'net-ciggies from Ukraine, right?
I'm starting to think the tobacco tax was actually also a hand out to the cigarette manufacturers because, while people may smoke less packs due to the taxes, the taxes on rolling tobacco increased $25 per pound, which effectively raises the price of rolling tobacco by about 100%. So, people who save money by rolling their own are going to be saving practically nothing now and may go back to packs.
Wow, a tax that is 90-100% of the base price. Unbelievable.
CountArach
04-03-2009, 03:17
I just have to say it: I love this thread <3 :laugh4:
Major Robert Dump
04-03-2009, 03:34
Hmmm.... tea bagging congress, I like this idea, especially when it involves U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter. My god, this is hilarious.
http://www.wmur.com/news/19068098/detail.html
InsaneApache
04-03-2009, 08:44
Meanwhile, back at the Castle, Mz O touches HRH (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1888962,00.html). Is this an act of war? An event of eternal damnation? A breach of protocol ? A gesture of kindness? Two women surprised by their fondness for each other?
If Michelle came to my house to deliver an iPod filled with some songs she liked - and thought I might, too, - I'd be OK with her "guiding" me along as if I were a doddering old idiot who needed help... because I am. But, the queen, please.
Someone please tell her to not do that in Thailand or Japan. Hilarity might ensue.
:laugh4:
Yeah, just read it. Off with her hands and then her head.
YOU DO NOT TOUCH HER MAJESTY! SHE DOES NOT TOUCH YOU! (That's why she wears gloves)
Bloody colonials. :whip: :laugh4:
So there is room for theological argument as to whether the American reciprocity of touch was allowable given the social dynamics of the situation. (Less explicable was when President George W. Bush winked at the Queen.) :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
Also I love the caption. Mickey O is about 6 foot tall and black, Madge is about 4' 6" and white..hilarious.
YOU DO NOT TOUCH HER MAJESTY! SHE DOES NOT TOUCH YOU! (That's why she wears gloves)
According to the press, 1960 called and it wants its monarch back (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/G20/article6022502.ece).
When Michelle Obama put her arm round the Queen at Buckingham Palace, some of the more excitable elements of the media - particularly the Americans - suggested she may have been guilty of a breach of protocol.
They missed the real story, however. What was far more interesting was that the Queen put her arm round the First Lady.
It is less than 20 years ago that the Australian Prime Minister was branded “the Lizard of Oz” for committing the supposedly heinous crime of putting his hand on the Queen’s back during an official tour of Australia.
Now the Queen is not just putting up with physical gestures of affection from a woman she has only just met, but is reciprocating with one of her own. [...]
A breach of protocol? Hardly. Buckingham Palace was very relaxed today about the incident, and attitudes there have changed significantly since the days of Mr Keating and his lese-majesty. And no, they don’t issue instructions to people about not touching the Queen.
“This was a mutual and spontaneous display of affection and appreciation between The Queen and Michelle Obama,” said a Palace spokeswoman.
InsaneApache
04-03-2009, 14:01
At least she didn't shout "Yo Queenie!" :laugh4:
At least she didn't shout "Yo Queenie!" :laugh4:
Or try to sell her crack or use the word "mother" in an obscene combination. I hear American negros do such things (http://www.avclub.com/articles/bill-oreilly-on-the-difference-between-white-peopl,10594/).
InsaneApache
04-03-2009, 15:01
Aye 'Moms' always shouting Mutha...... this and Mutha...... that all day long. :egypt:
And, despite what you might think, those restaurants are exactly like restaurants run by white people, with tables and chairs, and food, and everything:
I remember this from a year or two back. Hilarious.
KukriKhan
04-03-2009, 15:49
Buckingham Palace was very relaxed today about the incident, and attitudes there have changed significantly since the days of Mr Keating and his lese-majesty.
So it was actually, technically, a mistake. But Her Royalness has the grace to not only ignore it, but to play along. Good on 'er.
The secret, real reason why you never touch the Queen. She's poisonous. (http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=222786&title=the-poisonous-queen)
EDIT: Removed hotlinked picture. Please host pictures yourself on a site like photobucket. BG
Major Robert Dump
04-04-2009, 17:07
No more Chia Obama
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/local/chia_obama_walgreens_040309
CountArach
04-05-2009, 00:45
The secret, real reason why you never touch the Queen. She's poisonous. (http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=222786&title=the-poisonous-queen)
Yeah I loved that :laugh4:
Marshal Murat
04-05-2009, 01:06
Obama prepares to call for an end to nuclear weapons (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090404/pl_nm/us_obama_europe)
During his visit to Prague, the President met with several key Czech leaders. The meeting ended quickly, the men inside stricken with blindness. An Obama aide said about the meeting, "Obama raised his arms above his head, and shouted unto the Lord, our God, 'There shalt be no more nuclear weaponry!' and thus it was so. For God on High is almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth."
Bad and impractical idea that I don't understand.
CountArach
04-05-2009, 01:18
Obama prepares to call for an end to nuclear weapons (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090404/pl_nm/us_obama_europe)
Bad and impractical idea that I don't understand.
No more Nuclear weapons = Bad idea...
I don't follow.
seireikhaan
04-05-2009, 01:22
No nuclear weapons = no threat of reciprocal destruction in war.
However, corollary to that is
No nuclear weapons = no terrorist organization using them on nation states.
CountArach
04-05-2009, 01:31
No nuclear weapons = no threat of reciprocal destruction in war.
Good, we might actually start looking for real diplomacy that isn't at the barrel of a gun then.
No nuclear weapons = no terrorist organization using them on nation states.
Spot on.
Marshal Murat
04-05-2009, 01:31
Where would the nuclear weapons be stored or destroyed? What happens to all that uranium and other radioactive materials?
The idea that we can, peacefully, remove all nuclear weapons and prevent them from being built again to me is the height of optimism. While Obama could remove most major nuclear weaponry, to me it is highly suspect that every nation will move in this direction and it is also highly suspect that terrorists or other guerrilla groups won't figure out the basic method of nuclear weapon creation.
I think it's similar to the Kellogg-Briand Pact that "outlawed war", which sounds nice, but how can we take back something that has already occurred?
Evil_Maniac From Mars
04-05-2009, 01:37
Good, we might actually start looking for real diplomacy that isn't at the barrel of a gun then.
On the contrary, that is what forced us to keep using diplomacy.
seireikhaan
04-05-2009, 01:46
Maniac is quite correct, CA. For the first time in human history, every person had reason to avoid war at all possible costs. Because, for the first time in human history, that war could be the end of humanity.
HOWEVER, that does not mean that we shouldn't be drawing nuclear arsenals. When the US can, by itself, blow the entire world to bits without even needing "help" from the rest of the world on the task, there's something not quite right. Nobody should logically need more than a dozen nuclear bombs, let alone hundreds or thousands.
Does anybody else think that this "universal disarmament" talk (which ain't gonna happen, as Obama well knows) is a ploy aimed in the direction of a certain country that really, really wants to join the nuclear club? (Cough, cough, Iran, cough, cough.)
Shaka_Khan
04-05-2009, 01:56
I wonder how Obama will handle the "Axis of Evil". It's too early to tell.
Meanwhile, the increasing number of American gun crime is getting freaky.
CountArach
04-05-2009, 03:47
For the first time in human history, every person had reason to avoid war at all possible costs. Because, for the first time in human history, that war could be the end of humanity.
I don't know about you, but I think there have been quite a few wars since WWII...
Strike For The South
04-05-2009, 03:49
Getting rid of Nukes now isn't feasible.
Does anybody else think that this "universal disarmament" talk (which ain't gonna happen, as Obama well knows) is a ploy aimed in the direction of a certain country that really, really wants to join the nuclear club? (Cough, cough, Iran, cough, cough.)Aimed at Iran with what goal? It'd be very foolish to think that he could shame the Iranian leaders into stopping nuclear research with his disarmament talks. But then again, maybe you're right- amateurish foreign policy moves like that seem to be a hallmark of the Obama administration thus far. :shrug:
seireikhaan
04-05-2009, 04:38
I don't know about you, but I think there have been quite a few wars since WWII...
Name them, then tell me the defining characteristic of every single one of them that separates them from the continual blood orgies that characterized Europe for 500 years.
CountArach
04-05-2009, 04:39
Name them, then tell me the defining characteristic of every single one of them that separates them from the continual blood orgies that characterized Europe for 500 years.
There's no difference at all... so what have Nukes done to stop them?
seireikhaan
04-05-2009, 04:40
There's no difference at all... so what have Nukes done to stop them?
You see no difference in a war between France and Germany and a war between the United States and Vietnam?
CountArach
04-05-2009, 04:49
You see no difference in a war between France and Germany and a war between the United States and Vietnam?
People are still dying for moronic causes.
EDIT: Not to say there is no difference, just that war has not been stopped by the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Sasaki Kojiro
04-05-2009, 04:52
People are still dying for moronic causes.
EDIT: Not to say there is no difference, just that war has not been stopped by the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
The question isn't whether wars occurred, but whether other wars were avoided.
seireikhaan
04-05-2009, 04:56
People are still dying for moronic causes.
EDIT: Not to say there is no difference, just that war has not been stopped by the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
War has been stopped between those who have them and the capability to deliver them to a target. Especially for a small nation, nuclear capability is necessary. Look what happened to Iraq when Saddam tried to go toe to toe with the US, or the various examples of military hilarity involving Israel and Arab nations. Conventional forces are getting increasingly powerful, complex, and exotic. Personally, I can't blame Iran for wanting a nuclear weapon. They know they can't stand up in a conventional war. I just don't understand how they can possibly perceive their foreign policy is effective in accomplishing it, assuming that they want it for defensive purposes.
*And yes, generally the causes are fairly moronic, however that doesn't stop them from happening now does it?*
Crazed Rabbit
04-29-2009, 08:46
Obama wants SCOTUS to overturn a pretty fundamental right of defendants in our legal system; to have the police stop questioning them when they request a lawyer.
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is asking the Supreme Court to overrule long-standing law that stops police from initiating questions unless a defendant's lawyer is present, another stark example of the White House seeking to limit rather than expand rights.
The administration's action _ and several others _ have disappointed civil rights and civil liberties groups that expected President Barack Obama to reverse the policies of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, after the Democrat's call for change during the 2008 campaign.
Since taking office, Obama has drawn criticism for backing the continued imprisonment of enemy combatants in Afghanistan without trial, invoking the "state secrets" privilege to avoid releasing information in lawsuits and limiting the rights of prisoners to test genetic evidence used to convict them.
The case at issue is Michigan v. Jackson, in which the Supreme Court said in 1986 that police may not initiate questioning of a defendant who has a lawyer or has asked for one, unless the attorney is present. The decision applies even to defendants who agree to talk to the authorities without their lawyers.
Anything police learn through such questioning cannot be used against the defendant at trial. The opinion was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the only current justice who was on the court at the time.
...
The administration's position assumes a level playing field, with equally savvy police and criminal suspects, lawyers on the other side of the case said. But the protection offered by the court in Stevens' 1986 opinion is especially important for vulnerable defendants, including the mentally and developmentally disabled, addicts, juveniles and the poor, the lawyers said.
"Your right to assistance of counsel can be undermined if somebody on the other side who is much more sophisticated than you are comes and talks to you and asks for information," said Sidney Rosdeitcher, a New York lawyer who advises the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.
A real shame. It should be obvious that a suspect interrogated for hours, perhaps poor and ignorant of the law, is not on equal terms with a professional interrogator.
CR
Incongruous
04-29-2009, 08:55
Getting rid of Nukes now isn't feasible.
Don't worry you uranium loving yanks, Obama isn'T really downgrading your nuclear capabilities, he is actually going to modernise them:2thumbsup:
Yay for "Change!":laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
Obama wants SCOTUS to overturn a pretty fundamental right of defendants in our legal system; to have the police stop questioning them when they request a lawyer.
A real shame. It should be obvious that a suspect interrogated for hours, perhaps poor and ignorant of the law, is not on equal terms with a professional interrogator.
CR
Linkage man, LINKAGE!
Crazed Rabbit
04-30-2009, 17:43
Biden:
Open mouth, insert foot. (http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/us_world/Swine-Flu-0428.html)
WASHINGTON (CBS) ―
Vice President Joe Biden may not be a doctor, but he dispensed curious medical advice on the morning network news shows Thursday, advising Americans to avoid "confined places," such as airplanes, malls and classrooms. And while he did not mention them specifically, his admonition apparently also included subways, confined spaces used by tens of thousands of New Yorkers and tourists daily.
Later, though, the White House issued a statement saying Biden meant people should avoid confined spaces if they are ill.
Meanwhile in New York City, Biden's comments seemed to sound the bell of alarm. For tens of thousands of New Yorkers and tourists the subway system is the only possible form of transportation.
CR
Linkage man, LINKAGE!
Here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090424/ap_on_go_su_co/us_obama_defendants__rights) it is. From the AP.
Also from the AP is an astonishingly blunt fack check of Obama's 100 day speech:
FACT CHECK: Obama disowns deficit he helped shape (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090429/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_fact_check_obama)
"That wasn't me," President Barack Obama said on his 100th day in office, disclaiming responsibility for the huge budget deficit waiting for him on Day One. It actually was him — and the other Democrats controlling Congress the previous two years — who shaped a budget so out of balance.
And as a presidential candidate and president-elect, he backed the twilight Bush-era stimulus plan that made the deficit deeper, all before he took over and promoted spending plans that have made it much deeper still.
Additionally, the article took issue with Obama's claims that spending more on preventative medicine would yield huge long-term savings...
THE FACTS: It sounds believable that preventing illness should be cheaper than treating it, and indeed that's the case with steps like preventing smoking and improving diets and exercise. But during the 2008 campaign, when Obama and other presidential candidates were touting a focus on preventive care, the New England Journal of Medicine cautioned that "sweeping statements about the cost-saving potential of prevention, however, are overreaching." It said that "although some preventive measures do save money, the vast majority reviewed in the health economics literature do not."
And a study released in December by the Congressional Budget Office found that increasing preventive care "could improve people's health but would probably generate either modest reductions in the overall costs of health care or increases in such spending within a 10-year budgetary time frame."
----
Biden:
Open mouth, insert foot.It's good to hear from Biden again, I was wondering where he's been. I'm sure Nepolitano was glad that she got to correct someone else's statements for a change. :laugh4:
It's good to hear from Biden again, I was wondering where he's been. I'm sure Nepolitano was glad that she got to correct someone else's statements for a change. :laugh4:
Not quite the unforgettable Dan Quayle yet, but Joe is getting there.
This should be in News of the Weird, but it's just a smidgen too political.
Looks as though the Mormon Church posthumously baptized Obama's mother, without his permission (and obviously without hers). No harm, obviously, but it's still weird.
Details. (http://www.americablog.com/2009/05/did-mormons-baptize-obamas-mother-after.html)
A reader contacted me last week, saying that last year, in the heat of the presidential campaign, the Mormons had posthumously baptized Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. Baptizing the dead of other faith's, secretly and without the consent of their families, is a common Mormon practice. For the past fifteen years the Mormons have caused quite a stir by forcibly baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims - in other words, converting them to Mormonism - despite strong objections from the Jewish community.
Thus, it's hardly a stretch to imagine the Mormons' doing this to Obama's mother. Still, I had no proof. Then yesterday, I received a document. It's allegedly a screen capture of the registration-only section of the Mormon-run Web site, FamilySearch.org. In that screen capture, excerpted above, is clearly the name and correct date of birth and death of Barack Obama's mother (Stanley Ann Dunham, born 29 Nov 1942 in Kansas, died 07 Nov 1995) and the date of her alleged post-death baptism by the Mormons. You can see the entire document here:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/obamamormon.jpg
-edit-
To their credit, the Mormon Church is taking this seriously (http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0509/Mormon_Church_investigates_baptism_of_Obamas_mother.html?showall).
"The offering of baptism to our deceased ancestors is a sacred practice to us and it is counter to Church policy for a Church member to submit names for baptism for persons to whom they are not related," said spokeswoman Kim Farah in an emailed statement. "The Church is looking into the circumstances of how this happened and does not yet have all the facts. However, this is a serious matter and we are treating it as such."
Obama's promised line-by-line scrub of the federal budget has produced a roster of 121 budget cuts totaling $17 billion — or about one-half of 1 percent of the $3.4 trillion budget Congress has approved for next year. The details were unveiled Thursday.$17 billion, huh? :inquisitive:
But it gets better:
Those savings are far exceeded by a phone-book-sized volume detailing Obama's generous increases for domestic programs that will accompany the call for cuts. And instead of devoting the savings to defray record deficits, the White House is funneling them back into other programs.So, who's surprised? Anyone?
link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090507/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_budget)
$17 billion, huh? :inquisitive:
But it gets better:So, who's surprised? Anyone?
link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090507/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_budget)
Oh, uh...I'm shocked...
Found the link to the pdf. that covers all the programs and what-not being... "budgeted"
Budget of the US Government Fiscal Year 2010 - Terminations, Reductions, and Savings (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2010/assets/trs.pdf)
Obama burgergate. Too silly to even attempt a summary, but let's put it this way: If you find mustard offensive, this story is for you.
Hannity ignites the firestorm. (http://vodpod.com/watch/1596762-sean-hannity-attacks-obama-for-ordering-dijon-mustard)
Rush Limbaugh's show keeps it up, and Laura Ingraham must comment on mustardgate as well. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/07/hannity-attacks-obama-for_n_198851.html)
Obama burgergate. Too silly to even attempt a summary, but let's put it this way: If you find mustard offensive, this story is for you.
Hannity ignites the firestorm. (http://vodpod.com/watch/1596762-sean-hannity-attacks-obama-for-ordering-dijon-mustard)
Rush Limbaugh's show keeps it up, and Laura Ingraham must comment on mustardgate as well. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/07/hannity-attacks-obama-for_n_198851.html)
Huffingtonpost...hmm, huh? What? :laugh4:
Seriously though, I concur with the original poster that people are making too big a deal out of something like this. I do think it is just another pathetic attempt at showing the public what a peoples' person he is though.
rory_20_uk
05-08-2009, 17:14
I thought that a fanfare for $17bn isn't really justified when it's roughly 0.5% of the budget. I sort of assume that government reviews things and tries to save these sums routinely.
~:smoking:
Huffingtonpost...hmm, huh? What? :laugh4:
Yes, it's true, I linked to a video in the Huffington post. Strange that you weren't around to lob your smilies when I've also linked to NRO or American Conservative. Strange that I only get flack when linking left, never right. Work the ref, much?
P.S.: Here's a site much more your speed (http://o.bamapost.com/), Vuk.
rory_20_uk
05-08-2009, 17:56
That anyone can call "fancy" the sludge which is apparently mustard that americans dump on their food is the most interesting thing.
~:smoking:
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