“When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.” Thus began Michael Steele, quoting Thomas Jefferson, in his address at Benedictine University Wednesday night. I was fortunate to have the former head of the RNC and current analyst on MSNBC speaking a mere twenty minutes from my home. As I sat there among a cross-section of students and the general public, I got that instinctive chill that Founding Father quotes always give me when spoken by Republicans. I thought to myself, “uh oh, here we go again with a speech that compares Barack Obama to King George III”. Of course, this was not the Michael Steele I had come to admire from his appearances on MSNBC and to my great relief his address did not go in the Obama-as-tyrant direction.
Steele did say, however, that he sensed a fear among Americans as he traveled the country, a fear borne mostly of economic uncertainty. He commented that people want to work for their own dreams, not for others and that no one wakes up in the morning saying “I think I’d like to be poor today”. Although it has been stated by both candidates and might be considered hyperbole by some, I agree with Steele when he says this election is about no less than what kind of country we want to be:
- Redistribution of wealth vs ownership of wealth
- Public sector vs private sector
- Big government vs limited government
This is when Steele broached what I would say was the overarching theme of his talk, accountability. He finds that neither campaign is specifically tackling these alternative visions of what our country will be. Neither party is comfortable with accountability. Each prefers to play the blame game or kick the can down the road. Steele shared a prescription for better accountability. He said that when politicians get elected they should treat their term as the only chance they will get to effect change. This is contrary to the current mode of running for your next term as soon as you win the current election. Steele recounted his time as Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, a position that was a long shot victory in the traditionally Democratic state. His attitude was that his good fortune at being elected made it imperative that he treat the term as potentially his only term and get stuff done. It is almost reminiscent of Martin Luther King’s “fierce urgency of now.”
Staying on this theme of accountability, Steele reminded the audience that George W. Bush increased federal spending by 41% in his eight years without apology and Barack Obama has followed suit by accelerating this spending. Hand in hand with the spending was lots of borrowing and the bank note will come due someday. Steele expressed some frustration with both political conventions, suggesting that the lesson learned from the GOP convention is you don’t give Clint Eastwood a spotlight on the evening of the nominee’s acceptance speech. He was equally unimpressed with the Democratic convention which he implied pandered to Hispanics by promoting Julian Castro as the Democratic answer to Marco Rubio.
Steele offered two political lessons that he lives by:
- You can’t do it all at once but you have to start. He has zero tolerance for folks who say “we can’t do it because it’s never been done that way.”
- You can’t please everyone but you can piss everyone off at the same time. If this happens remember lesson 1.
Of course, as a liberal, I would contend that “Obamacare” is a fine example of Steele’s lessons. It is a start and it certainly pissed off just about everyone.
In closing his prepared remarks, Steele returned to accountability one last time, this time audience accountability. He reminded us of the gravity of this election and that the direction of this country will be decided by our vote. If we don’t vote, we cannot complain.
Q&A
I took note of a few audience questions, including one from your’s truly. I’ll paraphrase the questions and Michael’s answers.
Q. What are your thoughts on the new voter id laws and do you believe they disenfranchise potential voters?
A. Steele opined that voter fraud is real, citing cases of votes being found in trunks of cars. He said that the primary problem with the voter id “clean up” efforts is poor communication and poor implementation demonstrated by the huge push-back the laws are getting. Having politicians explicitly tie the laws to Romney’s election only made matters worse, a clear reference to Mike Turzai of Pennsylvania. Registration of valid voters should be made as easy as possible. His bottom line was “If they take the vote away then you are not free.” (It is worth noting that votes being found in the trunks of cars is not solved by the current voter id laws. A good follow-up question for Mr. Steele would have been, is there any evidence of an identification problem at the polls and if so, what is the incidence of it?)
Q. Your thoughts on government spending?
A. Steele rejected the guns or butter paradigm saying that we can come up with the appropriate spending priorities that don’t neglect military or non-military issues. However it cannot be done without a budget. He lauded Paul Ryan for at least putting something on the table (see political lesson #1 from his prepared remarks) and he scolded Senate Majority Lead Harry Reid for failing to produce a budget for several years.
Q. What about a third party?
A. Steele said that the powers that be within both the Democratic and Republican parties have made it next to impossible for an independent candidate to succeed on a national scale. The focus needs to be on third party candidates at the local and state level.
Q. I asked Steele about Romney’s recently revealed remarks about the 47% of the electorate who are not worthy of his time. I asked whether this fueled the already bad reputation of Romney as out of touch, and the reputation of the Republican Party in general.
A. Steele said that it is very valid to question the degree of dependence fostered by a too-powerful federal government. However he acknowledged that 47% cited by Romney cast the net a bit too wide, even including some Republicans. “We compete for every vote. I do not want to see this party marginalized,” said Steele. He suggested that Romney is not getting the best advice from his campaign team.
As the night drew to a close, I pondered how different a night it would have been had the speaker been Reince Priebus, the current RNC Chairman. As far as I am concerned Priebus exemplifies what is wrong with the current GOP. He is divisive, confrontational, tactless and comes across as an Obama-hater. Michael Steele in person, confirmed my impression of him on the political shows. Steele demonstrates humor, class and a positive agenda for our future. If anyone could seduce me to “change sides”, it would be Steele. Sadly, I get the impression that his party has left him behind. His victory in architecting the massive Republican wins of 2010 turned out to be a triumph of quantity over quality. Even Steele thought aloud to the crowd Wednesday night, talking to the Congressional class of 2010, “what have you done for us lately?”
While I felt that the lack of appreciation he gets from his own party still stings, I am impressed by his refusal “to go away”. It is ironic that the uber-liberal MSNBC is providing a forum for one of the saner voices in conservative politics. And true to his sensible political style, Steele welcomes the forum and takes full advantage of it.
At the risk of being labeled a “suck-up” I prefaced my question to the Chairman by saying he should have his own show on MSNBC. If the President of MSNBC, Phil Griffin happens to read this … the ball is in your court Sir.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Photo credit: R. Lawson
Rutherford Lawson's Bar & Grill 
I’m glad you liked my little joke about hammers and carrots. I hoped you would.
I am in a lot of pain because someone needed to borrow one of our cars to get to work in Omaha, and since we both need them, we spent time making our Festiva run. I have been awake since 2AM from the pain , and I will attend a meeting at ten o clock thirty miles away. Hence my hijacking the premise of your post.
Obama knew he was so special he could share his magnificance and the world would swoon. He made an applogy tour and told us all it would be different because he had arrived. What did we get for it? Less than nothing.
The Democrats crowed about one of Obama’s few foreign policy successes at their convention, and a week later a Salafist flag flew over our counsolate and four men were dead. Our ambasador was tortured and dragged through the streets. Mobs chanted “Obama, Obama, there are a million more Osamas!”
The White House lied to us and maybe itself that a video trailer had triggered the attacks. They even tried to get Youtube to drop the video, and authorities brought the producer in for questioning. Some liberal fascists said he should be jailed for excercising his right of free speech.
Most of domestic news media repeated the lie so often that we had to trust foreign news reporters, the Libiyan and Egyptian governments for the truth.
The Russians were also supposed to recognize our reset as a new beginning of friendship. How has that worked. Putin said one good thing about Romney is he is outspoken. Russia has also expelled the US Agency for International Development.
I think that as much as the video, Democratic triumphalism at their convention angered the Muslims.
I like Mr. Steele, though he is a bit more liberal than I but this morning, I don’t give a damn what he thinks. I care about accountability for this clueless adminstration and the damage it has unwittingly inflicted. I want accountability for the press who hide the truth until it is too late.
If you pray, you ought to pray for anyone at the meeting who crosses me and for the secretary of another organization if she hesitates to do what she needs to do this morning.
I like Michael Steele. He seems able to debate issues without making it personal and usually parts the discussion with a smile on his face. Rancid Priebus always appears to have a termite up his ass.
Be nice to the secretary, James she probably isn’t voting for Obama either. 🙂
Tex, from the last thread. The wager was your idea, I simply stepped up to take the challenge, so it’s entirely up to you. I don’t need the money either, so, if I win, you can just donate it to a local charity, perhaps the Humane Society. We both like dogs, correct?
Best of luck today James. Get some rest when you return home.
I’ll take the money. Woof.
Good luck James.
As a black man, I wonder why Steele would vote against his own interests. 🙄
This is from the prior thread but I want to make sure Tex and everyone else sees it.
Let’s get this straight Tex cos I’m tired of your bullsh*t.
Facebook works on permissions. The reason you saw more of my Facebook stuff than I ever intended was that I was accidentally publishing everything to “public” (which I’ve subsequently changed). Unless you are a hacker, you CAN’T see anything Sensico doesn’t want you to see. It’s as simple as that.
So … let the room know once and for all that you are a hacker (which might have some legal implications) OR that you have in your posession stuff on Sensico that any Tom Dick or Harry could have because she has set up non-restrictive permissions.
The more you talk about this stuff, the deeper you dig your hole.
So again …. either email me what you think you have … or if it is so “sensitive” then tell the room right here and now that you are a hacker and you hacked Sensico’s Facebook account.
Your choice.
P.S. The “trust” thing really pisses me off. I’ve been VERY careful with the information that I have in my possession on everyone who posts here and I consider it the ultimate insult to have trust issues thrown in my face. You’ve crossed a line.
From the prior thread: I’ll deal with him [Rutherford] soon enough.
Oooooo, I’m scared.
Thor I had no interest in being the middle man in this “bet” in the first place and I always considered the bet just another example of Tex blowing off steam. I never expected the bet to materialize. I doubt there is any way to anonymously transfer funds short of Tex reducing the bet to five dollars and mailing it to you in an envelope with no return addr. Of course, then you’d need to share your address with him.
My apologies to the board for participating in this nonsense. Tex hit one of my hot buttons and I’m tired of the bullying nature that he falls back on more frequently than I can count.
I think for now, Tex has left the building…
As for Michael Steele, I always felt he was slighted by the mainstream conservoes and he seemed almost apologetic that he was black and republican. I think much of the GOP was embarrassed to have him represent them. He did have some gaffs that were played out.
Tough to be tough if you’re worried what others think.
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Go get ’em, James! I’d hate to consider working on any of my vehicles at this point. Funny, I spent so many nights under vehicles I’ve owned in the past, sometimes for days on end.
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LOL Tigre I saw that coming from a mile away. If I had the opportunity, I would chat with Steele about that. From the bit of research I’ve done, Steele is a big “opportunity” man. He was very involved in education issues as Lt.Gov of Maryland as well as business opportunity issues.
I’ve gone on record before that if the GOP expressed interest in injecting opportunity (not handouts) into the inner city, I’d be impressed with them. But I think Mitt gave away their true ethos …. forget about the poor cos they’ll never vote for us anyway.
Muffy, from the prior thread, I define a birther as someone who believes that Obama was not born in the United States … so much so that they allege the birth certificate to be a forgery.
“But I think Mitt gave away their true ethos …. forget about the poor cos they’ll never vote for us anyway.”
This is such a deliberate bastardization of what he was saying I know you know better. Gaff, yes. Inartfully stated point, yes. A revealing statement proving a lack of compassion or antipathy towards the poor? Not by any reasonable standards.
R, the best thing that can be done for the urban black community is to quit pandering to it and perpetuating governmental and societal dependence and expectations of atonement.
Just a little food for thought for folks who think the govt takeover of medicine is a great thing: Remember I told you that the VA was trying to kill my cousin, and as his Medical Power of Attorney, I had him transferred to another VA (Richmond), where they actually began feeding him? (no nutrition for 4 days – that I know of – at the other facility. The MD bugged me daily to make him a “no code” as well, which I refused.)
Well, the Richmond VA is an “acute care facility” only, and after they tuned him up in short order, he had to go back to the original VA.
He died there last night.
If you like the VA system, you’ll LOVE Obamacare.
re 14,
That really sucks, PFesser. It really is appalling to see how we treat veterans. And this after exposing and supposed restructuring of the system beginning with Walter Reed several years ago. We wonder why they take their own lives at the rate of one every 80 minutes? No wonder, really.
Just proves the ‘support our troops/veterans’ crowd remains shallow and provides mostly lip service or political points at best.
At a local eatery there was a group that gathered every week to ‘support’ the troops. I think it was initiated by wives and families of those serving overseas and after the patriotic push of 9/11. They would have speeches and discussion, even with uniformed military present. Originally they were kept in one area, but in time often spilled into the rest of the dining facility.
Then, as a normal part of the event, it became a box stuffing party as they stuffed USPS ‘care’ packages to send to Iraq and Afghanistan. The junk that went in those boxes was pitiful, to me. Nothing appeared to have any real value, but more represented the commercial consumer fare so prevalent in today’s society. Processed junk food, China made kitsch de jour, and the like. I guess that is more what is recognized as ‘American’ anymore.
Then the ritual was they handed the filled boxes through a procession of ROTC folks and then out the back door into a series of vehicles to be transported to the post office. All this occurred with great pomp and high fives all around, culminating with rallying cries evoking a nationalist jingoistic fervor.
The whole ordeal really made dining a strained experience and I determined to avoid that spot on those nights, only to forget a few times and had to endure another meal in that frenzied atmosphere.
I’m certain the youth involved felt they were doing some sort of good toward the war ‘effort’, even if their leaders were just exploiting them. It really kind of took away my appetite knowing how these young folks were being so readily MANipulated™.
Thanks folks, we all survived. The meeting was successful, and we persuaded a local historian to let us use his new book for storie in our newsletter. I chair four organizations and serve on a couple of others. My wife is also an officer, and she writes grant applications.
The secretary corrected an another organization’s oversight with no argument. .
We got the bright idea of merging the groups for certain projects, and while the synergy is nice, it is like herding cats.
Our DVD player-recorder got sick and tech support says it must go tot the shop in Texas. I reported the weather and was told need to cover our tomato plants. My wife is still gone with her group’s meeting.
I agree with you about cars, Poolman. It is hard enough to find spark plugs now. We take cars to the mechanic. We still have a 1976 Maveric I can still understand.
it was a good day, but I am tired.
I know the UK system. You soon will see this as the good old days of medical care.
Tigre, I know we’ve had our semantic arguments but how in heaven’s name can you parse this to not be offensive?
All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it — that that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. … These are people who pay no income tax. … [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. Highlighting mine.
Now Tigre how can you characterize the highlighted parts as simple gaffes or inartfull speech? What exactly does he have to say for you to believe he says what he means?
PF I’m sorry for your loss. FWIW my mother was not in a VA hospital and I felt her treatment (or lack thereof) was atrocious.
It sounds like you did your best by your cousin.
I like the post. It’s good to know someone is out there talking about accountability. Wouldn’t it be interesting if every politician thought they should work for the privilege of being elected.
Rutherford, this one’s for you. I know I’ll be slammed for supporting your addiction but thought you would enjoy reading it if you haven’t already.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama
Well Noah finally showed his true colors. Doesn’t surprise me at all just had to find the tipping point.
PF, When I hear stories like yours I think there but for the grace of God, go I and feel sorry that my children will have to deal with those matters with regards to me.
James, so glad to hear you made it through the day 😉 Pain “sucks”
Give you a day off and you’re still raging. You’re going to have an aneurism, then I really will feel responsible for shortening your miserable life. That’s what happens when your hopes and aspirations dependent upon Chaz Maddow’s opinions and pose them as facts. You should read more books and turn off the TV.
Listen up, chief. That comment about dealing with you was no threat. That would be like kicking the pet gerbil. It was simply a statement I would deal with this when you cooled off. You always assume the worst. Going to war with you would be like going to war with Yeller Dawg.
I did make one mistake. I thought you had some donate button once upon a time in the header and I haven’t looked in a long time. That was how I was going to make my deposit in the catastrophic event Rev. Jeremiah Hussein Farrakahan Wright Jr. wins the election, bub. There was no middle man – the very reason I didn’t bet Thor direct. If he still wants to carry forth, I’m still game. But your mouth cost you $100.00 in the event chump wins.
There was no blowing steam – it was going to be my donation for your economic and personal health after these four years – figure it was the least I could do for turning you into a typing time bomb. If Thor got to do it for me, so much the better. A little history – it was you that practically begged Rabbit and me to come over to begin conversing your untrafficked blog because you were getting frustrated when we were making fun of you elsewhere. Remember?
And I didn’t hack anything. I didn’t do anything illegal. It’s just this Sensico is as dumb as you are about setting privacy rights. And since I knew you two stooges would be in complete denial, I grabbed a few screen shots. Seemed harmless enough. I doubt even that dolt remembers what she’s posted all over this net. What I’m not comfortable about is passing personal information to anybody – especially a man I DO NOT TRUST like you. The more I thought about it, the more it became a really bad idea. And I decided I’m not going to be a real shit in real life, pulling your chain and exposing you as fraud is enough, because that goes way beyond mockery on a blog.
So I was right, wasn’t I? 😛
You’re still seething, so I’ll once again sit on my hands before I school you once again ad nauseam somewhere else. This place has become a zoo – feckless, Jooo hating losers like Poolman are what you deserve.
I will leave you alone. 😉
But before you go to mocking someone’s faith, maybe next time you’ll have reservation about doing so, lest you get your face rubbed in dog shit again when the wrong person comes along.
You’re damn right I was here to teach you a lesson.
But that I can convince Ms Muffy I’m not completely heartless and bullying, I’m sorry for making you so angry, pointing out massive disconnects, lack of facts, and complete buffoonery. It was easy. You’re a Lib.
Tex, don’t imagine for a second that I think otherwise (re: heartless and bullying). I see this treasure, this Eden, circling the drain and I know how it’s come to pass. We – they – elected a beguiler, for one thing. But much of the larger unrest is just humans being humans. 😦
I just don’t believe that Rutherford would out you. But I put myself in your shoes and thought that I wouldn’t feel very comforted knowing that someone on any one of these political blogs knew my name.
I’m glad that you didn’t expose sensico.
“You’re damn right I was here to teach you a lesson.”
I don’t recall ever saying you’re here to teach me anything. As I told Muffy once I underestimate how much the religious poking bothers you. It’s easy to forget that an Internet bully has feelings. Admittedly my bad.
But finally, for the record because your revisionist history is so laughable, the only person I ever begged to come to the blog was the late great HP and that was when you guys were kicking my ass on some topic and I wanted some support.
I was VERY surprised when you and Rabbit arrived here. I probably told you at Chens to stop talking about me if you weren’t even going to sample my wears. That hardly constitutes begging. Both Alfie and Huck (née The Red Pill) precede you here.
Besides hard as it is to believe I’ve never blogged for “hits”. Don’t get me wrong. I like traffic but I write for me, not for anyone else.
At least I got you to clarify you’re not a hacker. A hacker with your volatile temper really is something to be feared. I’m not kidding about that. I had a hacker for an employee and had to fire him.
Peace.
Muffy FWIW Tex knows my real name as well. When I realized that my Facebook account was public it uneased me but I was convinced enough of Tex’s basic decency that I didn’t lose sleep over his seeing pics of my family etc. it’s funny that he knows way more about me than vice versa.
I changed my Facebook permissions because I didn’t want real creeps looking at my family (especially my daughter).
As for trust, take my word for it. Tex has shared more with you guys than he ever shared with me in private correspondence. So I’m not really sure where his trust issues come from. I’ve got “nothing on him”.
Damn, I ask if Rutherford wrote the last blog while taking a dump and he responds by interviewing Micheal Steele. Well done, sir.
I read on the other thread that Noah was fucking with cars. Dude, you are fucking nuts. Did, I read that wrong?
Rabbit thanks dude and in all fairness I didn’t interview him. I just asked him one question. And with Murphy’s law in full swing my microphone failed and I had to shout the question. It helped that I was in the first row maybe about 12 feet from him.
I didn’t put this in the article cos I didn’t want to sound too star struck but afterward I did get to shake his hand and get his biz card. I sent him a link to the article. Hopefully he reads it sometime.
As to your other question either he pulled that story out of his ass or he did indeed f*ck with people’s cars. Either way you can find his status from my perspective at the end of the previous thread.
Raji, I saw Michael Lewis on Morning Joe talking about this Vanity Fair article but I hadn’t had a chance to read it yet. Thanks for the link.
James –
re: Mavericks. When I was in college, my girlfriend was looking for a good, cheap, reliable car. She saved up her money from working at a fast-food place and bought a ’74 Maverick, having seen the commercials where the stewardesses took one apart and reassembled it. (remember that?) It was a horrible mistake. This was right after the first round of EPA-mandated pollution controls. The car had a 6-cyl motor and got 11 mpg. Think about that. The exhaust lasted 3 months and rusted out. The shocks lasted about the same. In a month, the chrome bumper was pitted, with rusty spots everywhere; within a year the brakes went out and the fender wells had rusted completely out. I had to cut metal and bondo up a makeshift edge on the rear quarter panels around the wheel wells. 15,000 was a good life for points and plugs. And the unions wonder why Americas threw other Americans (them) to the dogs. Hell, I’m an American, too – why didn’t they make a good car to sell to me? I have owned two American-made cars since then: a Dodge diesel truck and a Ford Bronco.
R –
I don’t know what to think about Tex. I think that under the right circumstances, he and I could be GOOD friends, but this Internet thing seems to just kill basic civility – hell, we’ve all lost our tempers at times, but Jesus Christ…it’s almost like the basically good guy who gets behind the wheel and all of a sudden he’s Mr. Hyde.
My Oldest and Best Friend Joe and I were talking about this yesterday. He is MUCH farther left than I, but when we talk – especially about politics (which is all the time) – we have sort of an unspoken agreement that there are lines we don’t cross. You don’t have to say where they are; you just KNOW.
Anyway, there is something unsavory about his and Noah’s posts at times. It’s like a violation of the basic host-guest relationship…I can’t express it any better than that.
re: poolman@15. Hear! Hear! If Americans, sitting comfortably in their easy chairs, want to support the troops, then 1)support a universal draft, so EVERYBODY can contribute for real, not just lip service, and 2)stop sending them to hell-holes like Afghanistan, with no strategy or defined endpoint.
All the platitudes and “CARE packages” don’t amount to a row of pins. If you really support them, My Fellow Americans, then really show it. but the fact is that we can never make up for the current betrayal of our own young men and women. Never.
FYI, poolman, I am done. Fucking goobers. It’s a Ron Paul write-in. Case closed.
Obama rubes voting for Ron Paul? That’s cool with me. Its not a vote for Obama. Ron Paul is a staunch pro lifer. Wants to audit the Fed. And, doesn’t have a chance in hell of winning, so I don’t have to fear his foolish foreign policy. I tell all the Hope and Changers to vote Ron Paul.
Thanks, Ragi.
In late 2005, a doctor told me I might not be walking in two years. A neurosurgeon told me if I could stand the pain, never let someone like him touch my hack. This time, it is my neck with damage caused in another auto accident combined with the results of my Air Force adventures.
I’m feeling better, but you won’t hear much from me, because I don’t want to interrupt the improving trend. I have to be fit to celebrate my birthday in Omaha next month.
Obama spoke at a meeting sponsored by Telemundo. He lied about Fast and Furious when he said it began during the Bush administration. He needs to take responsibility for that failed program and the lives it cost.
Doctors say concussions are associated with a higher risk of Alzheimers or other mental disabilities. I was unconscious, and my brain swelled.That must explain why if i voted for Obama, Biden would be the reason.
Biden said Cheerleaders are really gymnasts. “The stuff they do on hard wood, it blows my mind.” I’ll bet it was good wood!.Ha!
Pfessor, I agree, but this Maveric is one my aunt sold us.She drove it until she was 98. As she signed the papers she had a small stroke, and couldn’t sign her name. She retrieved her phone book and copied her name from the directory.
My aunt fell down a flight of stairs in England. The National Health Service fixed her end finished with physical therapy. I think it cost her $100 and she wasn’t a citizen.
“Tigre, I know we’ve had our semantic arguments but how in heaven’s name can you parse this to not be offensive?”
Well, here we go again (I guess). Because I understand his point and his meaning, I’m not looking to validate a media caricature political bias as you are.
As simply as I know how to say it, the reason I don’t find it offensive is because (1) it doesn’t describe me, (2) although it’s literally hyperbolic, what he said is also largely true, (3) the context, audience and purpose (fund raising for big donors and an electorate locked into a 47% vote for Obama NO MATTER WHAT) was entirely directed at what it takes to “win the election” not a policy speech, and (4) no fucking way is Romney’s personal belief a “fuck the poor” — that’s the MSNBC version of Romney, not the real one.
I too am shocked at the support for Obama after having seen what he’s made of. Yes, shocked. I don’t get you and your ilk in the least Rutherford. You work from images that reflect a view antithetical to what I believe and in In trying to understand why that is I reach much the same conclusion.
Romney was of course speaking to the bigotry of low expectations that defines the unmovable Obamaites whether they are among the dependent and — here’s where he fumbled — those that support his policies of dependence he was including in the 47%.
Romney is absolutely right to say that 47% of the people will vote for Obama no matter what. He is also right to say that an increasing number of people are in receipt of money from the federal government while paying no federal income tax. Regardless of what Obama says, things are not good nor improving when there are more people who obtained Social Security Disability Insurance than obtained a job.
Yes, it was not accurate to say that all of Obama’s vote comes from people in receipt of government entitlements. There are rich people who support Obama and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of sitting in his presence. We all know that. Obama spends his time among celebrities.
So, the assumption that those in receipt of said entitlements don’t want to improve their lives is not true for all,offended or not it is true that there is a HUGE segment that are perfectly content to be receipt of government entitlements. So when Romney says it’s “not his job to worry about those people”, it is the same as when he said he’s “not concerned about the poor” last February. As then, I understand the difference a statement about campaign strategy (the appeal of his message) and compassion or empathy.
BTW, the so-called “semantics arguments” with you Rutherford have resulted, without exception, from your not having read and considered what I said carefully before going on a tirade. It’s also why you have lost every single one of them.
Romney’s 47% statement sums up every thing wrong with this country and can be linked perfectly to Steele’s comment on accountability. Votes bought with the next generation’s wealth. I don’t care if it offends good people who make up that 47%. I doesn’t change the dangerous situation we are in. As ancient philosophers and our founding fathers have noted, this situation is the silver bullet that kills republics.
Mr. “corporations are people, my friend’ is just as bad as (or worse than) mr. “you didn’t build that yourself”. Both are out of touch with what and where this country is and needs to get back to and are beholden to the corporate entities that have propped them up and given them support. They are both politicians with proven records of saying whatever gets them the most political points in a given situation. It’s called pandering and it isn’t very pretty.
A vote for any one of these candidates is a vote for the continuation of the debt prison we are all part of. They both stand for ongoing wars of empire and both support the illegal Federal reserve without any insistence of oversight. Both supported the bailouts and the continued practice of allowing the Fed masters to print more fiat.
I do believe many that will vote for Obama are dependent on government support for their means and that does color their vote. But much of that is the fault of the dependent society we have created over the decades. Though it does not reflect philosophy of the founders, don’t think that wasn’t the intent of the planners. Control is always the ends, though the means may often vary.
A non interventionalist foreign policy WAS the original intent of the founders. Ron Paul gets it. The others, including so called “conservatives’ here, do not. We stayed that non interventionalist course until a century ago when elements infiltrating our government finally prevailed and pushed us toward superpower-police-the-world and-spread-democracy mode. Most mainstream folks think it’s now normal, our default mode. It isn’t. If you ascribe to that, you’re wrong. Simple as that. No matter how you approach it. Wrong.
Right now Obama is keeping Israel from attacking Iran, a check Rmoney would remove in his overzealous support for all things Bibi and Israel. Can another Obama term prevent WWIII? Doubtful. Right now he’s just a speed bump in the ongoing race for zionist world dominance.
Go Ron Paul! The one true statesman.
One question for poolman and Pfessor, why don’t you just vote for the Libertarian Party candidate on the ballot? Wouldn’t that be easier than doing a write in?
poolman #15 shows what an utter douchebag you are. There is so much wrong with your take on the thing including the potential lines that actually shows how much an epic fail you are when it comes to points Paul Jr and real libertarians care about. You truly are a total douchebag
@ PF a universal draft solves absolutely nothing unless you believe class issues can impact foreign policy.
A wide draft does not help the military overall and not at all in peace. In the setting of the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan I doubt a wide scale draft would’ve helped other than to create wedges in and outside of the military. Basically the only thing a draft could’ve accomplished would have been the potential to eliminate multiple tours or at least the make up of multiple and decrease the use of PMC’s.
As for helping veterans….I see no way supporting a draft helps veterans,makes more of them sure,helps them…not so much.
The sad state of helping actual veterans has nothing to do with the warrior class nor the political class. It has the most with the majority class of Americans who simply are too selfish,too self centered to care about the veterans or the policies that create them.
@ Rutherford perhaps my memory is failing me but I do not remember any fondness for Steele from you in times past.
Alfie, I really could give a shit what you think about my take. It is my take, and based on my life and observances.
War isn’t noble. There. That’s where we primarily disagree. You think war is somehow a noble and honorable human endeavor. I see your mindset as wrongheadedness and the major reason we are in the situation we are ALL in. You probably don’t like Jesse, either…
Newt raises an interesting point. How does Gary Johnson differ from Ron Paul?
AND since we know Paul’s campaign is purely ideological with no hope of winning why didn’t he follow his so called principles and leave the corrupt GOP and become a Libertarian? That would have been in line with his philosophy. Why for that matter is Rand a Republican?
Bernie Sanders at least has the courage of his convictions and is an Independent.
The nobility or lack of nobility of war is not the issue at all.
“I do not remember any fondness for Steele from you in times past.”
Alfie I’ve been critical of Steele as much as I am for any Republican. But my esteem for him increased after he left the RNC role. He’s not in the tank for his party and I appreciate that.
The Libertarian Party Rutherford is a stew. If there is one thing I can give Ronnie P some props for it is his not going the Libertarian Party route in 2012.
The LP has your Reason types,some Paulists but it also has the LaRouchies and assorted freakazoids. It is a joke party which helps to assure the two party system.
If true Libertarians really cared they get the Reason folks and the Paulists to boot out everyone and push hard for the 3rd party scenario at the state and local levels and grow & go from there.
Gary Johnson, the libertarian candidate, does not ascribe to all the same principles as Dr Paul. I have come to appreciate Dr Paul as I have learned more about him and where he believes we should be as a nation. For one, the foreign policy of both men is not in agreement. I do agree with much of the libertarian platform. I find I agree with some of the green party platform, too.
Although I have become more libertarian in my ideology, I still reject party politics. This past go round really solidified my distaste for them. Political parties are a big contributing part of our current chaos.
Bernie Sanders at least has the courage of his convictions and is an Independent.
That’s hilarious on so many levels. The term Independent has been sadly bastardized across the nation.In MA it gets tossed around as freely as it does in other places but officially its a fallacy. There has been an Independent Party. So folks that are the traditional (I) are actually called the nebulous..”unenrolled”.
Alfie, I really could give a shit what you think about my take.
I think you mean “don’t give” or “couldn’t give”. Otherwise I know you really could give a shit given your propensity to offer up comedians and lunatics on youTube as sources of wisdom. Thats a big ole pile of shit
@ Rutherford I really thought I recalled you being in line with those that viewed him in the Uncle Tom way. I’m glad you’ve reconciled at least one (R) misconception you’ve had.
I like Bernie Sanders. I do agree the term independent has been bastardized. But that also applies to many terms used in our world. A true independent is rare, especially in politics. They still have to work with others that are far from independent.
Don’t you find it ironic how we can go to the local grocery store and find aisles of differing cereals to satisfy everyone’s taste, but then when it comes to voting for our government representatives we have really one of two choices? And if you do some research beyond that, you discover there really are not two choices, rather just a different flavor of the very same product. How many have switched ‘teams’? It’s a rigged match. In any other industry it is considered criminal.
George Washington made a point to warn us of such and the resulting impending doom that leads to, yet most of you here embrace it wholeheartedly. It is a disease of which we keep treating the symptoms yet never confront the cause.
Military doesn’t seem to have a recruitment problem. I have no idea how a universal draft would help anyone. Cracks me up when I hear dudes in their 60s who have never served talking universal draft. If that isn’t the ultimate chicken hawk move, I don’t know what is.
The VA is like any other nanny mess except its taboo to bash. They waste a ton of money on the wrong dudes. Thousands abuse the system while wounded heroes wait in line. And you know what? Let me get a little chicken hawk myself. Half these PTSD motherfuckers are pussies. I know a teacher who was a reservist. He did a year in Iraq. He’s now back in the classroom, functioning perfectly. He’s getting 100% disability for PTSD. Wtf?
Maybe in your part of the country. My shit is gonna happen regardless of what it is you think, not as a result of it. That is all your opinion is to me. The primary difference, I suppose, is the one I am responsible for can flush away and the smell also dissipates.
Well, I find truth in all sorts of places. I don’t need a corporate stamp of approval to believe. Comedians and lunatics are people too, my friend. People thought Galileo, for one, a lunatic. It’s a convenient label society places on a lot of freethinkers.
I have decided that you are somewhat of a shit expert. In the future when it comes to shit, I’ll defer to you for expertise and wisdom.
Well let it be known than that Alfie,Shit Expert,certifies Poolman as a grade AAA Piece of Shit.
Lookie there pools you have a better rating than the economy of the USA does.
Hey Rutherford…looking forward to your next post. i think I’m quite done with this one.
😆 Wow. I didn’t know shit could even aspire to a triple A rating. Does polishing it help? Can it degrade over time? Shows what I know about shit. I’ve smoked some that I considered close, if not at AAA, but it wasn’t officially certified as such.
This one feels like my precious. It’s going to sting locking it up in my bank booty chest.
Man does the Obama administration like to feed America a line of bull shit when we get attacked by Al Queda. The Fort Hood attack was due to work related stress. Our embassador murdered in a coordinated hit and were told its not even an attack on America. Hell…..we were told it wasn’t even an attack! Just an angry mob rightfully pissed but worngly out of control about a movie that the administration blabbed about for 5 days straight.
Lol….looks like I might have posted some gay erotica with my Gabor Szabo track.
Interesting music track, rabbit. It reminded me somewhat of Traffic.
I love it. The alarm has been going off for awhile now. Time to wake up.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/september192012/roundup-911-ih.php
Poolman I will give the truther movement this smidgeon of legitimacy. I do NOT believe Bush’s admin explicitly complicit in 9/11. But I do believe it is highly likely that there has been a coverup of massive and stupid and tragic failure in our intelligence/law enforcement branches. SOMEONE should have lost their job over 9/11. Instead, we got two wars and Bush reelected.
Tigre, a remark was made about the 47% thing this morning on (yes) MSNBC that I think is worth your consideration … and two thirds of the argument were made by conservative National Review editor Kevin Williamson.
One big problem with the 47% remark was that it conflated three separate constituencies. The remark implied that the Venn diagram of Obama supporters, zero Fed tax payers, and government “dependents” were completely overlapping circles when in fact they are not. There are Romney supporters in that 47%. There are zero fed tax payers who are not government dependents. There are government dependents (to some extent) who pay fed tax.
So even if you’re insisting on giving Romney a pass on “victims” and “don’t want to take responsibility for their lives” surely you have to agree the statement was very simply flawed just on the pure mathematics of it.
Dude. Give it up. Too many people on the dole who vote. It’s a dangerous situation. Mince it all you want. Yay! MSNBC thinks they can cause drama. So does Rutherford! Mean while the debt bomb grows and discussion of a fiscal cliff isnt even shocking anymore.
R, I said it was flawed or hyperbolic from the outset. The comments have not (and will not) change your vote or my vote. Pass or no pass, are potential Romney voters repulsed by the comments or underlying concept? Nahh.
Rutherford, why does Obama lie after every Al Queda attack? They quickly and vehemently spew bull shit after EVERY attack. And they seem to get a way with it. It’s pretty unnerving to see the administration so concerned with the political spin first and foremost when we get attacked by the stink beards. Transparency my ass.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/permanent-spin_652887.html
Oh, get over it! Happens ALL the time. Just go fucking shopping or the stink beards will win. 🙄
Huh? Just go shopping? That was merely a request for a return to normalcy. What does that have to do with misleading the country?
Rabbit, if you’re pulling the lever for Romney you’re not voting for a solution. We will hit the fiscal cliff before Romney becomes Pres if he wins. Second. if Ryan’s budget reflects anything close to Romney’s budget, we don’t balance until 2040.
You’re fooling yourself to think you’re betting on a winning horse here …. whether he actually wins or not.
That depends on what potential means. By potential do you mean current undecideds? If so, you couldn’t be more wrong. REPUBLICANS are distancing themselves from Romney’s remarks.
Honestly Tigre, do you simply engage in wishful thinking? I’m giving you facts, not MSNBC spin. Republicans from Scott Brown to Lindsay Graham have stepped two steps away from Mitt. Peggy Noonan has written two devastating editorials in the past week alone.
Am I saying the 47% remark loses the election for Mitt? No, of course not. But unlike you, I recognize that it doesn’t help. And understand something — early voting has begun in half the states in the country. This means that if Romney puts foot in mouth on any given day, he can lose the vote on THAT day. We’re not talking polling anymore. We’re talking about visceral reaction from voters who might not want to wait until the debates to vote if they find something Romney said to be real obnoxious.
Honestly, you sound like the members of Romney’s incompetent campaign team … “don’t worry Mitt. You can be as big an a$$hole as you want cos this is a referendum on Obama.” I think that’s a lousy strategy.
BTW since you are on Romney’s campaign team, could you please explain to me why his trustee just came out and admitted that his charitable contributions deduction was manipulated to keep his tax rate high? I’m not saying that smart reporters wouldn’t have figured it out, but did the trustee actually have to come out and say it? That’s right in the category of “I can’t have illegals … I’m running for President for Pete’s sake.” Except in this new nutty chapter of the saga it’s “I can’t have below a 13% tax rate, I’m running for President for Pete’s sake.”
Reverse engineering your taxes basically to fool the American voter. Yeah, another winning strategy.
Absolutely the wrong message to send. When you have decided you are at war, there is no return to normalcy until the war is over. Instead taxes were reduced for the first time during a war in the country’s history. No sacrifice was asked of anyone except the sad 10% of Americans who volunteered to go overseas and have the “stinkbeards” blow their heads off.
Rabbit I AM bothered by the difference in opinion between the US account of the Libyan assassination of our ambassador and the Libyan version. But as I said on my radio show last week, both parties have reason to lie. Libya might think it is more in their interest to give the impression they can control their population but they can’t control Al Qaeda. The US of course thinks it is in their best interest to avoid the conclusion our intelligence failed.
I’ve not been keeping up with the FBI findings, I do know Susan Rice told the Washington story you don’t believe … but she did say it was their preliminary assessment.
That is totally beside the point. A draft would have meant that folks who didn’t want to go would HAVE to go. And their parents, seeing them compelled to go to an unwinnable war based on lies (Iraq) would have said “HELL NO”. Both wars would have been shorter.
Alfie, I’ve made some Uncle Tom comments in the past and I have altered my view slightly. I can see blacks trying to change the GOP from within to focus on pro-growth in the inner city. I really need to read up on Jack Kemp because from the little I know, he had the right approach to eliminating poverty. Again, a cursory review gives me the impression Steele is in the Kemp boat.
Oddly, Kemp was supposedly a hero to Ryan … but I can’t figure how that plays into Ryan’s policies.
Look R, believe what you want. The wishful thinking you accuse me of belongs to you. Your so-called “facts” and assessments of “visceral reactions” filtered through MSNBC are not what I’m talking about. I know; I watch it. I see how Noonan articles you don’t read or the approach of a republican candidate in Mass-a-fucking-chusetts suddenly becomes your proof that Romney’s all through once reported on Morning Joe.
We all get the meme: the Republican’s hair is on fire over everything Romney says. Got it. And it’s besides the point. I won’t repeat what I’ve said. You’re “since you’re on Romney’s campaign team” stupidity shows me you’re deliberately mischaracterizing the scope and content of it. I am not going to play along. It’s just too lame.
As to whatever else you were talking about. . . sure, sure. Romney’s going down. He’s been exposed. He’s a liar, cheat, thief, criminal, sociopath, racist, that hates the poor and minorities or whatever. You got him. Everyone’s running way from him. 🙄
Suffice it to say that you are a fool to think that I and others here are as emotionally and personally invested in Romney as you are Obama. I can survive another new cycle without assurances that I will be proven right through the outcome of this election. I do not pretend to carry Romney’s message or feel an obligation to protect him as you do Obama. You are mistaken to assign your motives to me.
alfie@43. re: draft. The govt was appalled how it had lost control of the masses during Vietnam, and they did their homework. When every eighteen year-old man in America was subject to being drafted, sent to a hellhole and have his guts shot out, suddenly the idea of war became Real Personal, not some abstraction, and the people rebelled. You don’t see any such protests now, do you? That’s because it ain’t your kid in danger – it’s somebody else’s kids. And our right-winger friends can always say, “Well, they volunteered, didn’t they?”
Volunteered my ass. Youth employment is probably around 25%, and any young man or woman with ambition knows his/her best choice is the military – make that “nearly his/her only choice.”
No, like I said, the gub’ment did their homework. The first step toward totalitarianism is to keep a country in a continual state of war, so you can take the people’s freedoms one at a time. On that front there is not a nickel’s difference between the Dimocrats and the ReBiblicans – both are driving us headlong to the same place, while their mouthpieces spout off about Ron Paul’s “silly foreign policy” or somesuch. Feh.
“It has the most with the majority class of Americans who simply are too selfish,too self centered to care about the veterans or the policies that create them.”
No, it’s because that majority has no dog in the hunt. If THEIR kids were subject to military service, I can guarantee you they would pay attention. As for the “warrior class” – that terminology is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. We should ALL be warrior class; that’s what a real democracy is all about.
We talk about how people on the dole don’t participate in this country or care about the rest of us who do; well, maybe the same principle applies to military service.
The reason we are in a world of shit right now is quite simple: this government Of the People, By the People, For the People is wildly out of that People’s control, and those selfsame People are so damned ignorant about their own Constitution, what it says and how it has been successfully implemented for 200 years that they don’t have a clue about how to put things back on track.
We – and when I say that, I mean this, MY generation – has utterly failed in executing its obligations to all the generations of Americans that came before, and all those that will come after. (if there are any)
“Absolutely the wrong message to send. When you have decided you are at war, there is no return to normalcy until the war is over.”-R
Yeah. We should have all been growing victory gardens and instituted the draft. We should have switched to a command economy and been forced to sing patriotic songs.
That being said. What does that have to do with Obama lying about the nature of pretty much every attack? Did you read that article?
As for you guys and your draft. Do you really think I would want to put my life in the hands of millions of quasi high school kids who shouldn’t be in the military in the first place? And don’t want to be there? Do we draft women too?
As for the instant turn towards a peaceful nation, I would remind that some of the most militaristic countries in history had a mandatory draft. Prussia ring a bell? Yeah…..that turned out well. So, it’s not a garuntee that we would always be so peaceful.
“Rabbit, if you’re pulling the lever for Romney you’re not voting for a solution. We will hit the fiscal cliff before Romney becomes Pres if he wins. Second. if Ryan’s budget reflects anything close to Romney’s budget, we don’t balance until 2040.” -Rutherford
I’m pulling the lever for Romeny as a last ditch effort to repair what Obama did to a nation that already was sinking. As for Ryan…..key word BUDGET….as he actually makes an attempt.
I already know Obama is a complete failure. The numbers are right in front of my face. I have a slim hope Romeny won’t also be a failure. I don’t get tingles up my leg over him. I didn’t even watch the GOP convention. I youtubed Clint Eastwood. Read the transcript of Rubio.
The ultimate politician!!
[WASHINGTON (AP) – The world’s leaders are gathering in New York, but President Barack Obama has no plans to meet privately with any of them.
He will make time for “The View,” a freewheeling TV talk show more likely to reach voters than Obama would with the diplomacy he is skipping at the United Nations.
Unlike his predecessors, he is skipping the face-to-face meetings with counterparts where much of the U.N. works gets done, leaving Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to pick up more of those sessions herself.]
And Obama was just lecturing about his FP experience? 🙄
As I’ve said, imagine if this guy didn’t have a complicit media. He feels so comfortable they’ll do whatever it takes for him, he actually has the balls to go out and call Fast & Furious a Bush program KNOWING THAT’S A LIE — already hashed out. But who cares? Now, like OBL, he’s got to lie about the cause in Benghazi. He insisted that the attack on the consulate in Benghazi was a protest that “spun out of control” — and sent Susan Rice to the Sunday talk shows last weekend to insist on it. He rolled out a false story even while the Libyan President said there was “no doubt” that the attack was premeditated and well organized.
Good call on that Arab Spring Obama. Keep wagging you finger on your middle east strategy. The MSM has your back. Sweden has a meddle for you.
Now where’s those Romney tax returns?
DR –
“As for you guys and your draft. Do you really think I would want to put my life in the hands of millions of quasi high school kids who shouldn’t be in the military in the first place? And don’t want to be there?”
First of all, you’re too old. But if you have kids, that will be incentive enough, though. As Herb Spencer said, “The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.” We, the fools, send other people’s kids out to be maimed and die. We need to face sending or own and we won’t be so goddamned cavalier about doing it.
“Do we draft women too?”
You bloody well right we do.
“As for the instant turn towards a peaceful nation, I would remind that some of the most militaristic countries in history had a mandatory draft. Prussia ring a bell?”
Apples and oranges. The Prussians had absolutely no control over our government. At least nominally, we do. Draft my kid to be maimed in order to bring “democracy” to a cadre of bloody cavemen and I will be on your ass like a duck on a Junebug.
sending our own, not or own
shit. control over THEIR government. not our.
Too busy to proof properly. Apologies.
“You’re too old.” Pfessor
Am I? I’m 38. I better be too old, I feel too old.
🙂
And I already served. As did 3 out 4 of my brothers.
Drafting chicks huh. Yeah. Try to take my one niece and all 5 of my brothers will be locked and loaded.
Ha ha. I always count myself as a brother. I’m not crazy and either am I.
Actually, I might be talking out of my ass now that I think of it. While Prussia glorified the military and service to country was the only way to achieve power, I’m not sure they had a constant conscription policy.
Got to love you baby boomers, Pfessor. Every fix includes fucking the young ones over. Now they all have to go to bootcamp for the sole reason of checking horrible policy. Dude, who knows. You may be too correct on this one. Maybe they will decide to tar and feather your entire depends wearing, blue pill popping generation of vampires. Just start tipping wheel chairs and refuse paying taxes.
The biggest fallacy of big government philosophy and Obama’s message (Reynold’s Law):
The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people.
But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter and stay in the middle class.
Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.
This is why liberal/progressive politics fail and will always fail – it doesn’t comprehend the traits that bring out the best in people, offering satisfaction and contentment.
It caters to the idea of low expectation and victim status by birth. And it cheapens us, dividing one against the other through theft, covet and envy.
Tigre arguing with you is like arguing with a brick wall. I’m beginning to think you simply oppose ME. I’ve given you facts, not spin, and like a little boy you put your fingers in your ears and yell “nananana”.
Since I don’t think you’re dumb or crazy I just have to assume you argue more honestly with others than you do with me.
@PF I think your Vietnam lesson plan is incorrect and reflective of a a part of a generations way of thinking. It is ironic you attempt to state another part of that generations thinking,ie policy makers.
The all volunteer force has achieved a level of professionalism and overall quality not to mention capability that a draft force could not.
The draft forces through other times in our history are not a good comparison since general war and our previous failings to maintain proper levels during peace is the big skewer.
I think the thing on display here with you is your true evolving into a Paultard.
You honestly believe all genies can be put back in their bottles. You believe a draft would impact foreign and domestic policy. You believe the gold standard can bring fiscal harmony. A myriad of realities throughout history throughout the world have proven those beliefs to be fallacies or at least superficial thinking on behalf of the “believers”
What are your “facts” Rutherford and how does it apply to what I said specifically; not what you said? I already watched MSNBC. This is getting tired. Haven’t you figured out it’s tired for others here too? To say arguing with you is like arguing with a brick wall is being too generous. You absolutely refuse to read and consider what I write or as you call it “semantics.” 🙄
I graduated high school in 75. The draft was discontinued in 73. I did not even have to register. Now one is supposed to register if between the ages of 18 and 25, in case it gets reinstated.
I have friends that were drafted and served, several did tours in Vietnam. I also have friends who have enlisted and now friends whose kids have enlisted. Most of the recent enlistees chose to do so after finding it difficult to gain decent employment otherwise.
I don’t agree with this statement of Alfie’s based on my experience. He may be a Shit Expert, but his expertise is questionable here. There has been plenty of complaints made regarding today’s “professional” armed forces. Numerous instances where recruitment of gang members has caused internal problems and even bigger issues when they get out. There is also extreme religious discrimination in today’s military, much of the problems occurring in the academies where our most ‘professional’ are being trained. And since more enlisted personnel commit suicide today than ever in recorded history, I don’t know whether the facts support his assertion either. I know morale is low, maybe the lowest it has ever been. It doesn’t help that we have no real enemy or purpose in fighting and that civilians and children make up the largest percentage of killed and wounded. It’s hard to put your life on the line for a lie, day in and day out..
Of course, in the past 11 years we have been engaged in ongoing wars that we ourselves have initiated, as no country has attacked us or declared war on us. We’ve even drawn borders and separate nations where the people living there don’t and haven’t throughout history. We readily send in armed drones to kill ‘insurgents’, the result of which continually terrorizes whole lands and cultures, creating frustration, hatred, and anger, and establishes enemies innumerable that no other propaganda campaign has been able to equal. We’ve taken our nation from proud to perverted in just a few short years.
So, bottom line, I’m done pretending we’re righteous. The facts of history don’t show that at all. Unless you can admit a problem, you cannot fix it and only serve to exacerbate it.
I speak with the authority of one who served in the all volunteer Army. I also am literally surrounded by friends who have served or are still serving.Their professionalism and integrity is unmatched by the overwhelming majority of their civilian/never served peers.
I think the bulk of pool mans comment speaks well and true to that he only embraces his talking points superficially so as to denigrate people who are so superior to him it is mind blowing.
Anyone with an ounce of integrity knows the US military has amongst its ranks some of the best,men and women I’d put heads and shoulders above any number of the college pukes and selfish self centered pricks who talk a lot of shit but can’t back it up or speak to the full points.
Seriously poolman your comment…the more I read it the more I wonder why I bother communicating to you or those that do.
Folks as I type this I can see poolmans comment…I’m actually getting angry just looking at it.
Poolman you are a total piece of shit
Alphie, 3 sentence rule. Any thing more then that by the poolman and I skip it.
Regarding PF’s draft speech … Bravo and hear hear!
Tigre you’re losing it. F&F did have its genesis under Bush. FACT. Holder and by extension Obama have just been exonerated regarding F&F. FACT. Obama White House now acknowledging that Libyan attack was terrorist. FACT.
Why don’t I see you writing about the decent moderate Muslims who carried signs apologizing to America and the group that just took over a radical militia site to bring them to justice?
Doesn’t fit your narrative.
Good people in the military? I know many. Most are top notch.
I’m talking a top down corruption that you don’t seem to grasp.
What is noble about our mission? Step outside of your box.
My nephew just shipped out. The boot camp he was in left a very bad impression on him and others. You may have heard of it.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/news_columnists/o_ricardo_pimentel/article/Congress-should-look-further-into-Lackland-sex-3886802.php
@96. Well, why don’t we extend all that professionalism to everybody? Let’s institute a universal draft, so everybody gets to drink in all that goodness! There’s the solution to America’s problems. Let’s all become superior human beings like Alfie and his buds.
Please. Spare us the lectures on the moral superiority of the Citizen Soldier. I’ve seen plenty of really, really fucked up soldiers in my lifetime – which by the way, has been a lot longer than yours. You may get the superior training, alright, but you also can get stressed in ways that make you not only screwed up in the head, but dangerous.
Those who have seen combat generally don’t talk about it, and take a very dim view of the boys who sailed through the military having only fought for a good place in the mess hall and then moralize to everyone else.
Its not just combat, guy. It can be a dangerous job in peace time. Ever work on a tug boat? Would you like to work on one with some hack who was indentured? There is going to be a doctor shortage soon. Maybe we should conscript your old ass back into service for 1/4 the pay. It would be good for the motherland, after all. Secondly, wtf would we do with all the motherfuckers? Standing army loitering in every urban area? You are a smart guy. You’ve read about labor. Too many mothetfuckers can be worse then too few. Particularly 18 year olds!
The revolutionaries in Libya ran Al-Qaeda out of town. Knives beat guns.
Israel has a two year military service requirement for ALL men and women, I believe.
R, you have the mempry of a goldfish:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/president-obama-falsely-claims-fast-and-furious-program-begun-under-the-previous-administration/
I am not aware of what “exoneration” has occurred. Please enlighten. I recall Holder being held in Contempt of Congress. That’s a finding of obstruction, not exoneration.
As for moderate Muslims, how the hell does this relate to my “narrative?” I was referring to the Obama administration’s complete lack of candor. What does your comment have to do with mine?
Ah, forget it. You’d obviously rather trash talk than actually read what I wrotel.
In my line of work if a guy doesn’t pull his weight he’s not in my line of work.
“In my line of work if a guy doesn’t pull his weight he’s not in my line of work.” Poolman
Exactly my point!
“Israel has a two year military service requirement for ALL men and women, I believe.”
I’m all for the draft in times of an immediate existential threat.
Israel has claims their entire existence has been under threat. You agree?
Uncle Sam now claims we are under constant threat, even domestic ones.
Yes I do.
Why are they? Is it because of the way they came in and violently took land and are still advancing their borders today? Or is it the age old Jew v Arab conflict of brother fighting brother to death?
One thing this group has in common, pessimism! Get some Prozac, alcohol isn’t doing it for you.
I’m not getting into Israeli Palestinian conflict with you. Perhaps you believe the Jews should be “driven into the sea” as the Arabic lyrics bellow out of the cars here in Dearborn exclaim….and these are moderates. The Israelis live in a tough neighborhood full of irrational people with a penchant for attacking them. Some have clearly stated goals of eradicating them with a direct political lineage to Hitler himself. As pfessor said, if the Israeli’s military vanished today, they would be gone tomorrow. Existential.
Newt….cough…your executive husband may make you feel happy and satisfied…..but we’re dealing with almost 10 percent unemployment here in Michigan….my sons are weighed down in debt from politicians they will never know that give them nothing in return. They had no say in it. The entire country is very pessimistic. Suicide is more common now then car accident deaths. You pop the champain you’ve been talking about. The Federal Reserve keep using the word “fiscal cliff” and believe things to be so dire they deemed it necessary to print indefinitely. The rest of us know people who are suffering and suffering dearly. And that ain’t no partisan spin. So, enjoy your political gotcha game. It’s no game for the rest of us.
Poolman highlights several valid points but he left one out. Without the draft our military is understaffed, hence the multiple deployments that take a cumulative toll on the enlisted.
“The revolutionaries in Libya ran Al-Qaeda out of town. Knives beat guns.”
No one here is interested. Would ruin the narrative of the fundamentally sick religion of Islam.
“I am not aware of what “exoneration” has occurred. Please enlighten. I recall Holder being held in Contempt of Congress. That’s a finding of obstruction, not exoneration. ”
It would help if you kept current. Lead investigator last week found Holder had no knowledge of F&F and stopped it when he learned of it.
Great. Holder exonerated. Now, I was speaking to Obama’s claims that F&F started under Bush. Remember what I said? The link?
Rabbit, I do understand and no one is going rah rah for things as they now stand, but this is a situation that can be fixed. This country has been through the worst of it and things are getting better. Do not let tough times sour you on life, you still have your job right?
It does take plenty of staffing to keep up 900 bases across the globe and continue the Bush doctrine, for sure. We also now employ contractors. Plenty. It takes a whole lot of fiat to keep it all fired up. That’s where our future is funneling.
Rabbit has more than a job, Newt. He’s a mentor. He’s responsible for shaping young minds.
Everyone is so job obsessive. Isn’t what you do valuable aside from the monetary price society assigns to it? If you are just working to pay for all your stuff and the job sucks, I feel bad for you. I hope you find joy in what you do for a ‘job’. Even if it’s just mopping bathrooms. I understand needing to pay the bills, but life’s too short to be spending quality time in hell. Everyone needs vision. I think parent and teacher are the two jobs we should be focusing on if we expect to improve as a people or a land or a nation or a world. They don’t pay the most, but they provide the most value to humanity.
Pfesser, you were saying something about my civility? In my absence, it doesn’t appear that the Waltons won they day. While I’m driving, I appear to have much company. 😉
———–
The ease with which Rutherford lies anymore forces me to suspend disbelief it’s just by accident:
FACT: You’re wrong (as always). Even your complicit and beloved Obama media has recognized this fact.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/president-obama-falsely-claims-fast-and-furious-program-begun-under-the-previous-administration/
In fact, it appears the Obama Administration has trouble telling the truth about much of anything from Fast & Furious, to the economy rounding the corner.
What truth does Obama own? Jimmy Carter is the best case scenario.
Obama can’t even get the message that the mideast riots were based on terrorism. The gang that couldn’t shoot straight.
I also see our illustrious President, exposed as immutable dunce and lightweight by Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, referred tonight on CBS the chatter of a nuclear armed Iran just “noise.”
STEVE KROFT: “How much pressure have you been getting from Prime Minister Netanyahu to make up your mind to use military force in Iran?”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Well—look, I have conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu all the time (after Jay Z). And I understand and share Prime Minister Netanyahu’s insistence that Iran should not obtain a nuclear weapon, because it would threaten us, it would threaten Israel, and it would threaten the world and kick off a nuclear arms race.”
STEVE KROFT: “You’re saying, you don’t feel any pressure from Prime Minister Netanyahu in the middle of a campaign to try and get you to change your policy and draw a line in the sand? You don’t feel any pressure?”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “When it comes to our national security decisions—any pressure that I feel is simply to do what’s right for the American people. And I am going to block out—any noise that’s out there. Now I feel an obligation, not pressure but obligation, to make sure that we’re in close consultation with the Israelis—on these issues. Because it affects them deeply. They’re one of our closest allies in the region. And we’ve got an Iranian regime that has said horrible things that directly threaten Israel’s existence.”
Noise being Benjamin Netanyahu. So what are you doing to prevent it, Mr. President?
Little or nothing.
Feckless.
PF you’re such a dishonest fuck I just don’t know what to say. Oh yeah I do…FUCK OFF!
Hit a nerve, did I, big Alf?
I have spent years studying WWII, and take every opportunity to converse with the Greatest Generation. One thing they all have in common: they don’t like braggarts and blowhards who never saw a minute’s combat, but then lecture the civilians about how good they have it because of the military’s sacrifices – none of which were made by them.
The REAL warriors don’t glorify military service; to the last man they say, “I had no choice; I did what I had to do. There is no glory in killing, or lying on a hillside with shit running down the inside of your pants-leg because you are frightened out of your mind.”
But you wouldn’t know about that, would you?
There are good folks all over, and knotheads, too. I personally find some of the Poolman’s ideas pretty odd, but I will give him one thing: he’s not been fooled by the gub’ment enemas about “patriotism,” “love it or leave it,” and a dozen other memes that lead the credulous flag-wavers around by the nose, while that selfsame govt takes away the freedoms that MADE this greatest country that ever was.
Wise up, General Patton. The government is raw power, nothing but. REAL patriots don’t brag about how superior they are because they are ex-military; they work to ensure their country stays (or America’s case returns to being) free.
Yes, you are right, Tex – everybody has a limit. But there is a very big difference between losing your temper occasionally and making it a way of life.
New wrote this group is too pescimistic. I think they are realistic. The suicide rate is now higher than the death rate of auto accidents. More people are taking disability or food stamps because they can’t find jobs.
Over two thirds of our Afghanistan war deaths have happened during Obama’s watch.
Our Middle East policy is in shambles and Afghanistan is fading. Iraq is not doing so well either.Russia’s goal is discord in the Middle East to enhance oil prices which helps their income. Ours is lower prices through stability. Who is winning/
Obama called the Libyan deaths and presumably the killing of Brian Terry and nearly 300 Mexicans as a bump in the road.
I survived the draft. I enlisted, and for two weeks, the Army and Air Force fought over me. I will support the draft the minute the Obama daughter enter basic training.
My mother thought I should have fled to Canada. Considering the state of their economy, she may have been right.
Pfessor those are cheap shots towards Alphie. And if you are directing them at me down right laughable as I think all here would agree I’ve been pretty honest over my 4 years in service.
You’re so over the top on this issue I suspect there are some other forces at work. Perhaps a little guilt that you dodged?
Instead of being a meany to Alphie over his peace time service and the fact that he thinks the army should stay professional, why don’t you go slumming and answer the old rabbit’s questions.
Why is it ok to draft young people to solve policy issues and not you?
What do we do with millions upon millions of 18 year old bootcampers? Shall we tie arm bands on them and make them sing songs as they provide security at the 12 Oaks Mall?
Hey Dr X Ray where am I bragging?
Am I mistaken about the number of essays,novels,movies etc. written by those that served? And again where was I bragging?
I was stating an opinion first about the draft in context and opposition to a comment you offered. I then added on about the character of those that serve.
If you have the ability or inclination to offer up something on something I actually did let it rip,otherwise the best rx for you might well be to STFU
You weren’t bragging. You were simply taking pride in the professionalism you saw in the army.
His barbs about your lack of combat experience have nothing to do with the issue at hand. The funny thing is you would swear pfessor is claiming HE is much more aware of the combat experience then you are because…well…he is older and smarter. Stay tuned for stories of the coal mine, his deadly accuracy with a rife and his numerous inventions. He is better stuff then you, Alphie. You shouldn’t have disagreed with him about the universal draft, despite his lack of logistics, because younger generations exist to solve his generation’s problems and….uh….you don’t know what it was like at Point Omaha maaaaan. Oh, Poolman has more integrity then you do because he doesn’t drink the kool aid. Good day.
Pfesser,
I don’t even lose my temper here, much less live it. Only a few times have I even gotten miffed. Most of this is in jest, and I would hope it is the same for you. Yes, I am almost sure we would be friendly at a high level in reality – our sense of humor is much the same, and I generally lean toward the story telling, bloviating type – we are two.
There are some here I like much better than others and would even welcome meeting in real life, mostly out of curiosity to see if my picture matches reality, but it is still fantasy league football in a room of strangers. One would have to be certifiable to let that impact their health.
My point was, I was singled out for my mouth (fair enough, it is rather large), but your very first comment here was a heaping dose of religious bigotry. The very first comment. Even I didn’t stoop to such a low level out of the box. 😀
I really don’t feel like I’m tougher on poor Rutherford than any other feckless, mindless dimwit from the Left. You and I have a different philosophy on that take. You have a fair argument since Rutherford the host, I owe a degree of passivity, restraint and respect toward him. I cede your point.
But I have a fair argument Rutherford is the author and deliverer of rank propaganda, mendacity, egregious distortions, cognitive dissonance, projection, perceived bias, false conclusions, hostility toward my faith, and mouthpiece for evil, deserving to be hammered with the 20lbs sledge.
I would respect Rutherford’s wishes if he told me to get lost. He knows that. He also knows I would just carry the message elsewhere, which frustrated him big time four years ago. He asked me here – I complied.
I certainly would not treat Rutherford like that nag that owns Fat Grannies and the clowns on the dunk tank that frequent there, insulting their intelligence, getting banned, and then returning to breach security to insult some more just to watch them swing from the branches. When I call Fat Grannies a monkey cage, I mean that.
Rutherford carries the same message, but a more serious author and real believer, who deserves a more serious response.
So at the very least, I ask my doctor friend to share in the incivility charges as we rip around the track sharing the driver’s seat.
Alfie, for what it is worth, I actually consider you the fairest guy or gal on the entire board. You’re at least willing to listen to the egregious lying and respond civilly the first time around.
Most of us don’t even have that degree of patience.
To my point Rutherford:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81584.html
Pfesser,
Let me give you but one example of why I am so vocal in my contempt for Rutherford’s voting bloc.
Voter ID laws.
We all know why these useless bastards are calling it voter suppression. It is.
It’s a well known and provable fact, voter fraud has been rampant in the urban centers for years – dead people voting, double voting, stuffing ballot boxes at the ACORN center, illegals voting.
Then these POS have the unmitigated gall to tell us we’re “stealing” elections.
Look, If you want to have a say in how much I and others get to pay for your freebies, then get a picture ID. Got to have a picture ID to board a plane, cash a check, get into a bar, get into the Democratic Convention, get a social security card, and a zillion other reasons. I don’t even know how people get by without a picture ID. They’re issued at every level of higher education by academia.
But now academia wants to excuse it when it comes to voting. Are you kidding me?
It’s time to smoke out the cockroaches.
The most partisan, least productive Congress in memory has skipped out of Washington so lawmakers can make their case for voters to re-elect them.
The Senate closed the Capitol not long after sending President Barak Obama a spending bill that will make sure the government won’t shut down Oct. 1, the start of the new budget year. The measure passed early Saturday by a 62-30 vote.
Left behind for a postelection session is a pile of unfinished business on the budget and taxes, farm policy and legislation to save the Postal Service from insolvency.
PF, you’ve grown on me a lot since you first started commenting here. But I must say (as I have before),you of all people would lecture anyone on what it means to be a braggart respecting any subject.
If they gave away a free iphone to those with a picture i.d., there’d be lines at the DMV a mile long. Ah, but not for verifying the right to vote in a national election.
“you of all people [should not] lecture anyone”
Enhancement of the audio tape made by Terry Strubbe of the Kent State massacre picks up the ‘order to prepare to fire’ at unarmed students. Alan Canfora, one of the injured students who has been leading a movement to get the truth out, requested the US Justice Department reopen the investigation. Obama refused.
We prefer to keep our history sanitized and facts buried for image purpose. Inconvenient truths are surfacing everyday from around the globe. Some people want to know truth more than others.
Our government is still trying to keep the Libya spin intact, along with other recent events. It’s getting much tougher for governments to keep up the spin with so many recording devices, the internet, and citizen journalists in today’s public squares.
Technology is sometimes a two-edged sword.
When I was in college we had classroom critiques of our art. It was difficult for many, myself included, to take criticism for what was often very personal and emotional work. It seemed cruel and mean-spirited many times. I often became depressed based on peer review. At first every criticism was a blow to my ego.
But after a few semesters, I looked forward to the critiques as they helped me and I used them to strengthen my work. That is what they were meant to do. Once I got past the personal affront, I could see how the critiques were really helping me improve.
I think it is the same with my fellow countrymen. The first instinct is to shut down the dissenter. Uncomfortable truth doesn’t make for a happy day. Image is often the only thing that matters to some.
I don’t live this way but I should … I think we all should.
My feeling is that there is nothing in life but refraining from hurting others, and comforting those who are sad. -Olive Schreiner, author (1855-1920)
🙄 A mindless quote if there ever was 🙄
Like radical jihadists?
I normally make exception to this guy as he an equal opportunist offender, but his take on Islam, Libya and the Muslim Brotherhood is little too close to an appropriate answer to that dimwitted quote:
Poolman are you sure rabbit is a teacher? From what he says about Michigan, and what I assume would just naturally be a concern about the education of the next generation, wouldn’t he support and defend President Obama’s stimulus? Chances are it saved his job and kept teachers in the classroom: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/us/31stimulus.html
Now even you guys should realize Romney won’t be President. http://www.politicususa.com/wheels-fall-romney-obama-leads-nascar-fans-48-41.html
I have no reason to doubt it. I know he has a disdain for the teachers’ union and state control aspect of it all.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81584.html
I already posted that at #135 Tex.That and the majority of daily tracking polls don’t support his take on Mitt Romney’s May statements.
Densi up there telling us Republicans have lost the NASCAR Vote? 😆 Yeah, well I trump that in that Obama lost the black vote. I’m sure I read that some place.
I’ve seen two polls recently, both on Politico – hardly a conservative site – in fact, they’re Baghdad Bob for leftists on a good day.
Two facts now: Romney leads the middle class by 14%. Romney leads the Independent vote by 14%.
Something is not adding up with all of this polling. I can’t tell you for sure, but this crap that Mitt Romney has lost the election? 😈
All I know is for sure is Obama is going to lose by about 40 points in my state. I predict an all-time blowout record loss here where the corn grow as high as an elephant’s eye. West Nile Virus is more popular than Obama.
Alfie, thanks for your thoughts on the Libertarian Party from way back in the thread. As usual, I’m in catch up mode.
Tex, we all expect your state to go for the white dude.
My wife taught school for 39 years, and she belonged to the NEA for one year. So, I believe rabbit is a teacher.
Latest electoral map, note Oklahoma is red.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/2012/romney-vs-obama-electoral-map
And Densi. We all expect your housing project to go for the black dude.
Just make sure you make it back by Nov. 7th.
Poolman, Kent State’s shooting should not have happened, but it was not cold blooded murder.Reports at the time said the National Guard troops were green and nervous. The protesters were aggressive and violent. They threw rocks and other objects at authority figures, They charged the Guardsmen.
You or I might have fired too. I don’t think the authorities should have sent in the National Guard, or if they did, they should have sent experienced soldiers. They should have been issued tear gas, fire extinguishers or some other non lethal defense., The students should have known more than to charge a group of armed men.
As Jim Croche observed.”You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind.”
Newt is just blowing smoke. No one knows who will win the election, not even Romney or Obama.,
Agreed James. Kent State’s real history has been rewritten over the years, by the same media in bed with Obama and Bill Ayers, and the same scumbags who feel our incompetent government responsible for 9/11 mastermind.
Popular folklore with the Left, but only the minority in America didn’t think the shootings justified.
Buildings set on fire, National Guard attacked, rocks and bricks thrown at guards, SDS and the Weather Underground responsible for the melee, and four people lost their life on account of it. Had the NG done that back in ’67, could have saved America a lot of unrest. Didn’t tear up many campuses after that either.
Wish they’d do a little more shooting and a lot less shielding.
We all realize not all teachers like their union, but most teachers do not like 40+ students per classroom (because of teacher layoffs), students without desks (sitting on the floor) nor do they like a shortage of books. Other concerns for teachers in depressed areas is the lack of school supplies and hungry students. Seems rabbit would be the exception. I for one find that an odd attitude for any teacher. Most teachers in depressed areas are very happy to even have a job and they are are also very concerned about their students, but rabbit thinks poor Mitt needs lower taxes. Odd!
Yeah guys, and the Branch Davidians set fire to their own complex. 🙄
40+ students to a classroom is also a myth…
Perhaps Rabbit doesn’t like the idea of his kids having $35,000 of debt plus interest added to their bills under Obama in less than four years.
Another thing about domestic protesters, Tex was their outrage when the authorities responded in kind. The Governor called out the National Guard when I was at the University of Iowa in 1970. I think the protesters caused several million dollars in damage.
The most concentrated riot I saw was at a Naples train station,The police subdued it with clubs and drew a lot of blood. Unlike our domestic rioters, the Europeans regarded the arrests and injuries as a cost of doing business.
I’ve gone on record before that if the GOP expressed interest in injecting opportunity (not handouts) into the inner city, I’d be impressed with them. But I think Mitt gave away their true ethos …. forget about the poor cos they’ll never vote for us anyway.
Two words, which I don’t expect you to look up anyway.
Brownfileds. Initiatives.
Not the product of Dem thinking.
Poolman after I watched Jesse Ventura, who BTW looks MUCH better bald than with that bizarre hair hanging down in the back, I pondered a phenomenon of becoming an adult.
One hallmark of adulthood is to stop asking childish questions. Yet childish questions are sometimes the most honest ones … the ones most needing to be asked and answered. As we get older society indoctrinates us to believe that some questions are just too impolite to ask, no matter how much they might need to be asked.
This, in a nutshell, is probably the main reason I have not thrown you under the bus completely as so many others here have done.
We answered a list of questions the other day with a grade. I borrowed this from my pal CF.
What Would The Leftist Media Do If:
1) A Republican President and Senate did not produce a budget for more than three years?
2) A Republican President, House and Senate passed a legislation that the majority of the country hated, that they never read, that they used bribes and kickbacks to pass, that was a hidden tax, that was passed in the middle of the night in reconciliation barring participation of the Democrats?
3) A Republican President targeted individuals with drones for summary executions, including American citizens?
4)A Republican President went on TV and did not know the amount of the national debt or the deficit?
5) A Republican President serially offended the Israeli Prime Minister and refused a meeting with him to go on the View, Letterman and a show with the pimp with a limp?
6)A Republican President serially skipped his intel briefings, instead suggesting he gets all the info he needs from his teleprompter printouts?
7)A Republican President gave a speech in which he told union workers and pensioners “You didn’t earn that” in discussing their sweetheart deals and kickbacks for votes?
8)A Republican President and his UN lackey went around claiming that a carefully planned and orchestrated assault on an undefended ambassador was the result of an unseen movie trailer,or a Lady Gaga song, or a Piss Christ “art” exhibit?
9)A Republican President and his feral dogs rousted at midnight an “artist” with whom they disagreed politically, for exercising his right of free speech on some trumped up “parole violation” charges and perp walked him before the world?
10)A Republican President and his Department of Energy cut a sweetheart deal with a flailing energy company, cutting out the American public from recovery of their money and giving it instead to their cronies?
11)A Republican President attacked a private corporation and stopped it from opening a new plant, utilizing the NLRB, for trying to expand in a pro-union state?
12) A Republican candidate for President hid his college records, his associations with hateful characters, attended a church for twenty years that preached racial hatred, has dinners with an avowed advocate against Israel, (would they hold that tape hostage, at the request of the donor…have they ever?)
My wife still buys things for poor students. Our school gets most of its income from local property taxes and some state aid according to an established formula. Federal aid is incidental.
Too many teachers and other government workers have used most of the golden eggs, and we have little left to sustain them. /Chicago, for example, has become a money pit.
Poolman. I don’t know who started the fire. I do believe hat Janet Reno over reacted when she heard the rumor that children were being abused. In my opinion, the government was guilty of unintentional manslaughter,
Mmmm BiW according to you I’m too lazy to look up “Brownfileds. Initiatives.” and yet ironically, you’re too damn lazy to spell the thing correctly. 😉
And I looked it up and I now ask you so-friggin-what? Grants to rehabilitate contaminated abandoned commercial property. This helps the poor find long term jobs how?
Like I said, I need to do more research on Kemp and see what if anything he proposed floats my boat. I’ve heard of “enterprise zones” but I don’t know what they entail specifically.
If you’d like to pipe in on that instead of being a wise-ass, be my guest.
What does the leftist media do with a list full of lies, and distortions? They tear it apart piece by piece. Thank you Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes. Your work is appreciated. 🙂
Rabbit that silver kilo looks like a big chocolate coin wrapped in silver foil. Made my mouth water.
James,
I’ve always found it troubling in America that we expect our National Guard, our police, our emergency personnel to use restraint to the extreme when facing people throwing bricks at them. Since when did a thrown brick or rock not become a lethal weapon and assault?
Just my opinion, but you throw a brick at a cop or the National Guard, you deserve a bullet to the head. Which reminds of this funny when Chris Rock was still funny:
What does a shill propagandist do with a series of well documented truths that has no easy excuses? He diverts attention away from the list of truths, leaves them unanswered and unchallenged, and instead reverts to personalities that have no answers either with shows of dozens and dozens of viewers.
Not bad to divert. Actually more clever than most deflections I’ve read around here.
Buwahahahahaha…don’t expect to see this picked up by the LSM. Maybe this is why Obama’s transcripts are behind lock and key. Not only does it appear he was a marginal student, but that his education may have been funded by the Sauds.
Evidence emerges Obama’s entry into Harvard may have been funded by the Saudis
http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2012/09/evidence-emerges-obamas-entry-into.html
Remember this article when you read of all these polls showing Obama up – way up – being distributed by the MSM.
Like Ace said. There’s a good chance Obama might be repudiated. But there’s a better chance these propagandists are going to be humiliated.
http://minx.cc/?post=333153
I understand your point, tex, but my experience with domestic protesters was that with the exception of a few, most were clueless pretend revolutionaries. Some of the hard core types were willing to sacrifice their fellows as martyrs. They knew a few casualties in such a charged environment would do what the Muslim tape allegedly did.,
For all we know that is what happened at Kent State. It is why I think the wrong National Guards men were assigned to protect Kent State. I saw the damage cool-headed British, Italian, and French police could do with billie clubs or gas.
There was no need to kill anyone-just to knock them senceless.,I mentioned fire extinguishers because I have had personal experience with them. They can be lethal weapons at close range.A Guardsman could also have smashed students in their heads with the rocks they had thrown.
I agree if the students had been armed, the troops should have mowed them down. In normal times someone who throws a brick at a police officer deserves to be shot. The late sixties and early seventies were an abnormal time.
Yes, Chris Rock could be funny,
Obama’s possibliy being funded by the Saudis is the best laugh of the day, I hope its true for the entertainment value. It would be great in a debate.
Tex, I’d love to see the flawed polling work against Obama. The LSM is clearly trying to further the perception of momentum in the numbers and that the Romney campaign is hopelessly broken. If that keeps the not-so-motivated dems from going to polls becuase it’s “in the bag” all the better.
Now what I’d like somebody to explain is why the national polls show Romney advancing but the swing states are bucking the trend. Coincidence? I ain’t buying it.
I would wager Tigre, if you were to take a vote right now, you would see an election similar to 2004 – close either way.
But if the debate fair, I think Romney can put the vote away first debate. Obama’s record is a travesty and a national disgrace, no matter how these libs are spinning. And Obama’s foreign policy is blowing up before the world’s eyes. The SOB was on the set of The View today – didn’t even meet with foreign dignitaries. Obama is a joke and nothing but cause célèbre. It disgusts me what this asshole has gotten away with from the corrupt media whores covering for him.
You know Romney’s terrible week last week? Obama dropped three points in the latest Gallup poll and they were statistically tied at the end of the week. The huge Romney gaffe about the 47%? Baloney. Many that aren’t politicos like we are went “what the hell? Is that true?” Romney needs to run all of that by America.
You know how Obama is going to spin. It’s the Thor routine, who does a pretty good job of Obama machine imitation, I think. I wouldn’t let Obama spin and I’d be real aggressive while doing so. I’d have every fact and figure that libs can’t answer here at my finger tips and systematically destroy Obama’s weak argument.
I think Obama shallow and one dimensional. And I think he is easily beaten in debate. Hell, Univision made Obama look like a damn flunky and liar. Romney may not be completely comfortable with the little man, but he’s a smart guy and infinitely better than McCain.
I’ll be sorely disappointed if Romney can’t pick Obama apart – hell, I could; you could; Gorilla could. Romney went head to head with what I find the best political debater I’ve ever heard – Gingrich.
And Romney held his own. I’m feeling pretty good about Romney’s chances.
Tex, agreed. Calling Obama to task on the national stage falls entirely on Romney. The LSM sure as hell won’t. What’s going on goes well beyond bias to outright deception. Pitiful record, no plan. Nothing from the LSM. Biden? It’s just incredible.
When my wife’s grandma started teaching in a lumber camp in Matoon, WI, around 1914, she was eighteen years old and had the equivalent of a high school education and two years of “normal school,” which netted her a “teaching certificate.” She had fifty – FIFTY – students in first grade, many of whom did not speak English. There were Poles, Norwegian, Russian, German children. There in central Wisconsin the winters were brutal – not only because of latitude, but because winters back then were brutal everywhere, and every morning she arrived before the children to build a fire in the wood stove in the bitter cold. She is a family legend, but in point of fact she was not unusual for that day and time.
Our schools now turn out dunces; I see it every time my son’s friends visit us; one boy was just out of high school and was grossly ignorant about even the basics, like grammar, spelling, English. FORGET math, biology or science.
I know a lot of the problems cannot be solved by the teachers, but forgive me if I have very little sympathy for an entire system that is so dysfunctional.
Tex noted: “Let me give you but one example of why I am so vocal in my contempt for Rutherford’s voting bloc.
Voter ID laws.
We all know why these useless bastards are calling it voter suppression. It is.”
Tex, here is somewhere we are in complete agreement. Voting is not a trivial thing that should be bestowed on anybody with a pulse. It needs to go to those who are identifiable as citizens, having a vested interest in deciding how the country is run, and in particular paying the bill for it all. In my opinion, nobody who does not pay taxes has any business voting. When you are being supported by others, you should not be able to vote even more burden on them; they alone should make the decision as to how THEIR money is spent. (And it IS their money; the govt HAS no money, they only spend what they take by force from people who earned it.)
I would argue that the dunce has always existed in substantial numbers. Its just harder to hide them now.
Can anyone (particularly Alfie) explain why Romney said on 60 Minutes that uninsured folks should just go to the ER and get “free care”? He knows that’s on your dime right?
hello, everyone! We have been out of town on vacation and I hope everyone is well. Rutherford: It is my understanding that ERs are just required to stablize patients. They are not required to do more than that and of course they do not do treatments such as for cancer or diabetes at all. Mr. Romney also said that states deal with uninsured patients in different ways–some with ERs and some with “clinics.” I do not know what he meant by that.
Rutherford: I apologize for being rude. I did not ask how your wife is doing. Better, I hope.
Oh Pfesser, from a financial standpoint, we probably completely agree. These dimwitted, useless libs have no concept of economics, financial risk, etc…you do. You know something that can’t go on forever, won’t. I give us 24-36 months before we collapse.
We’re not so far apart on most things – but the social issues are a huge gulf, admitted.
I personally think you’re throwing your vote away this time, and will regret it even more than that last four years if you write in Paul. My vote doesn’t mean squat because Obama couldn’t beat Hugo Chavez in my state – we hold Obama in contempt and held the phony bastard in contempt four years ago. We knew a monumental phony when we saw one. They try to blame it on racism? Total B.S. – we put the first black Republican in Congress eighteen years ago in J.C. Watts.
But your vote and your wife’s vote is in a swing state – and it will be close. You sure you want to risk Obama operating another four years, this time without threat of reelection? You think he’s been awful the last four years? He’d be a whole lot worse without reelection threat. The man is a monster who would walk all over the Constitution given the opportunity. You know that.
Romney, truth be known, is probably a lot closer to you than he is to me.
Thank about man. Medicare is close to going under. You rather have Paul Ryan listening to doctors or Joe Biden and Valerie Jarrett. You said you had a kid hoping to go to med school. My daughter is already there. Think of the damage Obamacare is going to do if not revoked.
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2012/09/24/#006683
The WSJ rips Obama’s excuses for the debt apart, line by line – and almost by accident, screws Rutherford’s apologies for Obama’s failures into the dust too…
The 10% President: The annotated Obama: How 90% of the deficit becomes somebody else’s fault.
Sweet!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444358804578016270614705726.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Hey Rabbit, I just learned that early voting has started in Michigan. If I were you I’d get that vote for Romney in ASAP before he says something REALLY stupid that makes you change your mind.
No Tex … FACT: YOU’RE WRONG. As I’ve written before on this blog either in comments or an article, F&F has it’s approach (letting guns slip so you can track them) traced back to the Bush administration. No F&F itself as a formal program did not begin under Bush but it’s approach (wrong then, wrong now) did. And the article says that.
Noise being Benjamin Netanyahu. Absof*ckinglutely!!!! Old Bibi whines and whines IN PUBLIC to make great hay when he knows damn well that Obama has his back. Ehud Barack has said so in no uncertain terms. And I challenge anyone to give me a material difference between Obama’s current approach with Iran and Romney’s approach. There’s hardly a glimmer of daylight between them.
Rutherford,
You specifically mentioned Fast & Furious started under the Bush Administration. I just provided a link from a sympathetic liberal site proving you wrong.
That you can’t accept that your statement wrong, is only one more indicator you’re not truthful and very loose with the facts.
How do we know Obama has Israel’s back? His message is muddled at best, and most Israeli’s certainly don’t believe this. It looks like some American secular Jews are beginning not to believe it either.
Obama has in no certain order declared Israel must move back to the 1967 demarcation lines, before recanting after a national outcry.
Obama stated just yesterday Israel, that Israel is “one” of our closest allies in the middle east? Who are the others?
Obama condemned Israel intervening in the flotilla, after the flotilla boarded by Israeli soldiers crossed illegally into Israel waters, two guards were then beaten with rods and anchors on the “peace flotilla.”
Obama has had time to entertain “The View” voters, but not meet with Netanyahu at the U.N. – or any other foreign dignitary for that matter.
Obama opposed even stronger sanctions against Iran passed with the overwhelming support of both houses of Congress.
Under the Obama Adm, for the first time the US has systematically leaked Israel’s most closely guarded secrets to the media.
Obama and his fellow Democrats first left out God and Jerusalem in the Dimocratic Convention platform, before recanting.
This is just a partial list of grievances the last 46 months.
Some truth in one of Tex’s comments above until he got to
He asked me here – I complied.
He needs to stop that lie. Back in the day when I suggested he and Rabbit pay a visit instead of kicking me in someone else’s house, I got responses like “on a cold day in hell Rutherturd”. I was as surprised to see Tex start commenting here as I would be seeing the Easter bunny come hopping through my living room. And like the Hotel California, it seems that while he can check out any time he likes, he can never leave. That’s fine … he livens up the place. But as I said in a comment on the prior thread, the only one I beseeched to come here (actually to come here AGAIN cos he’d been gone for a bit) was Hippie Professor when I needed some reinforcements from an attack.
On rare occasion (I can count it on one hand) I’ve emailed a “regular” who’s been gone a while to make sure they’re ok. I don’t think that started until HP died. Then sudden lengthy absences started spooking me. I don’t do it cos I need the “hits”. I do it because, to the extent this can happen on the anonymous Internet, I actually like some of you.
Well. Its official. My inlaws have moved out of our old neighborhood and out by us. My father in law’s early onset Alzheimer’s has pretty much rendered him a toddler. A toddler that smokes two packs a day, loves nigger jokes and hates Republicans. But a toddler nonetheless. Here is the catch. I’m the only person on the planet that seems to be able to help him. I know what he is trying to say. i get it when he is starting to get pissed. i can make him feel like he isnt crazy. i pretend the stories are new. Everyone else hates him or has no patience. Even his wife. He was a rail road guy and a high level teamster that chose whiskey and cocain for 30 years over his family. While those days are over, he has no remorse, none that I can tell anyways. No redeeming qualities outside of vile jokes that he can’t finish anymore. The other day he and my three year old son were behaving the exact same way over a stray cat that walked on the porch. Same laugh. I feel like Charon the boatman.
Hey Rabbit. Being it was you that conned me into coming into Rutherford’s blog, we could have a damn good time here taking Rutherford’s promises at Chen’s against Obama’s actual performance. It’s a hoot.
Talk about a textbook case of current cognitive dissonance. Sad part is, Rutherford was a more sound debater four years ago, actually somewhat fun, and not the least bit bitter. He was a gracious winner.
Of all the people on this blog most damaged by Obama, it is ironic that I find Rutherford the most damaged of all. Give Satan his due. You’ve changed, Mr. Rutherford. And certainly not for the better. Your posts were so much better back then.
I found this. I lit this one sorry sack of crap up one night at Chen’s blog and he went off like a Roman Candle. I’d like to think I literally shut down the mofo’s worthless blog, because to the best of my knowledge, he left shortly thereafter, never to return. 🙂 Those were the good, old days.
Get this when Rutherford still like me:
😆 😆 😆
I think the love has gone out of our relationship. You can thank Obama for that. 😉
Ha ha. Yeah. Rutherford the blogger was ruined by Obama. He’s like Jay Carney. Hope isnt even part of the equation any more. Just partisan drivel and expediency. Imagine what another 4 years will do to him.
Bibi may whine, but we’re giving them plenty. He’s been screaming about Iran having nukes for over 20 years, guaranteeing they would have them just about every year since 1992.
Like many before and around him, he’s an opportunist and a liar.
He may appear to have been shunned by Obama, but at the same time Hillary was giving him an important victory, mainly by way of the ‘official’ terrorist group list – those we approve and often sponsor versus those we ‘officially’ oppose. MEK was just upgraded to friendly, and that is good for Israel. They were responsible for the numerous Iranian scientist’s assassinations.
Israel has a huge representation in our government and the mainstream media. The biggest and most influential lobbies advocate for them. Plenty of world events, mostly involving our nation’s sacrifices, have been good for Israel. Even Bibi recognizes that. That’s what he feels we are here for. We exist to serve Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/report-netanyahu-says-9-11-terror-attacks-good-for-israel-1.244044
re: DR @ 197. My mother- and father-in-law are in their eighties; the mom was never the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but she is in early-mid Alzheimer’s; the Dad very early. He still beats me and my wife at Scrabble, LOL.
My wife and her family are beside themselves about Mom’s and Dad’s mental decline; I just take it in stride. In WV there are primarily old people; I grew up around folks in their declining years. All the young people have, and do, move out ASAP, since there have been very few jobs there since the ‘fifties, leaving just old folks behind.
We never called it Alzheimer’s; it’s just “getting old.” I always tell my wife to just listen to the stories and comment as if she had never heard them before, but she has the hardest time not saying, “Mom, you told me that three times.” I don’t think she realizes how much it means to just have them around. I lost my Dad in 1979 – my God, what is that, 33 years ago? My Mom died in 1995; I would surely like to hear some of their old stories about a hundred more times.
I’m sorry for what rabbit’s family and Pfessors have endured. My parents stayed with us for the last two years of their lives. Since they lived next to us on the same farmstead, they were never really separated from their home.
My mother didn’t have Alzheimers, but congestive heart failure made her mental status unpredictable. Sometimes, she was a teen- ager again.My mother was a good musician who played by ear. She had not played her accordian for years, and suddenly, she wanted it.
I hunted in her closets until I found it and she spent a day playing her accordian, as I video taped her. Then, she lost interest in it. A week later,she was dead. My father died at 95, and he was sharp to the end.
Our lawyer was a family friend. After my father died he said “you occupy a lonely position. You have now stepped to the head of the line.”
Rutherford wrote he wonders what happened to people who quit posting. It is why I try to tell you if I will be gone. I will be someday. I am one person who can leave the Hotel California and have done so before. H&M for example.
Obama appeared on the View without meeting any of the leaders speaking at the UN because he knows it would look bad after he snubbed Bibi.His campaign is more important to him than diplomatic inititives.
Not meeting world leaders face to face, especially Netanyhoo after he spoke of war is the same as Obama’s not attending security briefings. Face to face contact accomplishes things printed words and phone calls do not.
“Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance,” he told CBS reporter Scott Pelley in an interview that aired Sunday night on “60 Minutes” that is linked here. “If someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care.” Forbes
I haven’t seen the video but in reviewing Romney’s statement on ER care at Forbes and Huffington post, it appears to me he is stating a fact not advocating the use of the ER as a solution for the uninsured.
At times Romney has a serious case of “hoof and mouth” disease.
Just heard President Obama address the UN; I think it was his best speech to date.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/president-obamas-2012-address-to-un-general-assembly-full-text/2012/09/25/70bc1fce-071d-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_story.html?hpid=z2
This for you Rutherford, be prepared for all the whimpering. http://juanitajean.com/2012/09/25/the-ladies-did-not-need-a-scientific-study-to-prove-this-honey-we-knew-this/
OBAMA BLAMES ‘THE FILM’ FOR MIDEAST VIOLENCE
Willfully ignorant or willfully dishonest.
Enough said…
As I sat in my car waiting for my daughter’s bus to pick her up this morning I was quite alarmed by what I heard on progressive talk radio (yes there is such a thing). The over confidence of these people was mind boggling. This was the Stephanie Miller Show and she and her cronies not only had the election locked up but were predicting a Reagan style win for Obama.
All I could do as I listened was flash forward about 45 days and try to figure out what tune they will be singing if Obama loses.
I know most of you boys think nothing of Romney’s disastrous September but I will give you this. It is still anybody’s race. The swing states in which Obama now leads could turn on a dime given the wrong comment or the wrong world event. If Obama gets lazy and flubs the debates the whole thing could change.
Frankly I was shocked by what I heard on the radio this morning. Why would they want to set themselves up for such potential humiliation? Now is the time to hedge one’s bets.
“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.”
Damn PF… that’s one of the best quotes I’ve read in some time.
I can’t help but suspect that “Newt” was interviewed for this program.
http://realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/09/24/howard_stern_interviews_obama_supporters_2012.html
I can get the irony of ORmney on the ER thing. RomneyCare was essentially started as to help hospitals via eliminating the over use of ER’s.
It doesn’t really translate in reality though for a number of reasons,not the least being those that did use the ER the most and at the highest cost tend not to be covered by RomneyCare components.
I think he got ahead of himself in feeling that the interviewer (Peeley?) was looking to hit him with the NO care card as a policy,which is simply a fallacy no matter what.
Finally Tex posts something close to sensible.
I’m not sure I sign up for this “traits” business BUT I do think Tex’s quote points out an interesting cause/effect, chicken/egg scenario. It seems reasonable to say that a college education and home ownership in particular are by-products of middle class life, not creators of middle class life.
The way you enable people to send their kids to college and own a home is to provide them with good work at good wages. It is the work and the wages that feeds the middle class. Focusing on home ownership particularly, you don’t give someone a “break” on owning a home when they are not financially situated to handle it. Entry into the middle class is a prerequisite for home ownership, not a result of it.
The education part seems a bit more murky to me. Education (in a decent economy) prepares you for that good paying job which in turn buys you entry into the middle class. To cut the disadvantaged off from education prevents social mobility.
P.S. Tex, please take a breath and notice how what you posted was actually a very reasonable and interesting topic about which to debate. There is no debating if Obama should be “frogmarched” out of the White House. That’s just drama for drama’s sake. And the cumulative effect of it makes me snap at you as much as your perception of my “mendacity” makes you snap at me.
Rutherford it happens on both sides. Some folks do it secondary to trying to skew the election others to sound relevant or fresh.
The polls are garbage and this thing gets settled 2-3 weeks out of Election Day,no sooner. White Independents rule this election with a potential tip to some of the Hispanic areas,definitely though this is going to be a classic indie thing with crossovers .
I’ll play Devils Advocate to 213.
An ownership society regardless of the actual $$ level I think fosters ideology and character.
Nothing washes out ghetto when ghetto is a state of mind;however, there are plenty of very upstanding folks in $$$ depressed areas that take pride in their little piece of the world when they own it.
So I guess one could ask is a middle class neighborhood a neighborhood simply because of the real estate values and median incomes? OR can a block of houses neatly kept,stable and productive be seen as “middle class”
I know for me personally the broadness of the application on the title “middle class” bothers me.
I have a question for those better versed in history than am I. Now there really is no “right” answer to the question because I’m asking for conjecture, but here it goes:
If there had been no Holocaust, what would the United States policy be toward Israel? (This assumes Israel would have been formed regardless of the Holocaust.) And while we’re on it, isn’t it interesting that the most vile, disgusting and devastating attack on Jewry was committed by Germans, not Arabs.
Discuss.
Tigre, as I battle a chest cold and low grade fever today I’m going through my comments sequentially again instead of jumping around and it looks like I was ignoring you. I wasn’t … I just missed some of your comments (including your F&F link … which I later saw when Tex reposted it).
You da man! (even if you are Romney tone-deaf).
Poolman and PF this one is for you:
@216 Way too many variables….
I suppose if we go the most simplistic route and accept the formation of Israel I think our policy would be the same and that most if not all of the following history would’ve likely played out as well.
I’d like to list the variables as they were as I see some of them…
Europe still crumbled?
Britain victorious but belittled?
To what extent do you mean “Holocaust not happened” Just the deaths or the whole del,concentration camps and all? That is a biggie since without the complete lesson in anti-Semitism provided international jewry I wonder if international zionism would’ve flown.
Now your assignment that will require a few simple key strokes,some conjecture for you Rutherford. Google SS St Louis and ponder what our actions may have been as well
Beyond dumb.
Poor people don’t fly.
You don’t need a picture id to get into every bar and anyone who says you do is lying.
Poor people don’t get any “level of higher education”.
Two words for your voter id BS Tex — Mike Turzai. You don’t want to comment on that? Do you?
This is exactly why we can’t have a Romney win. A Romney win is a victory for those who hate the poor.
We live in a fascinating country right now. A good number of Americans are fed up with the rich and a good number of them now hate the poor. Our values are so screwed up it’s not funny.
The Holocaust (means burnt offering and was coined many years afterward) was used to gain world-wide support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland. That was good for cause of the zionists. The ‘event’ served to sway public opinion in their favor. It wasn’t just on Jewry that these atrocities were committed by the Germans. True, they have been the ones most remembered and associated with it. Some recently released transcripts of secretive recordings reveal the warped and evil minds of many of the perpetrators against their victims.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204160/Darkest-atrocities-Nazis-laid-bare-secretly-recorded-conversations-German-prisoners-war.html
If you do the research, there has been an infiltration of all governments by zionists and their sympathizers. That was also part of their agenda. They have also infiltrated all ranks of our institutions, including our security and defense apparatus.
Finally, there is now an ongoing effort to weed out the Israel firsters in the hope to regain our national sovereignty and security.
Expect plenty of incoming spin and internal posturing. Of courseand as usual, accusations of anti-semiticism will be the first response.
…a paper entitled “Preparing For A Post Israel Middle East”, an 82-page analysis that concludes that the American national interest in fundamentally at odds with that of Zionist Israel. The authors conclude that Israel is currently the greatest threat to US national interests because its nature and actions prevent normal US relations with Arab and Muslim countries and, to a growing degree, the wider international community.
The study was commissioned by the US Intelligence Community comprising 16 American intelligence agencies with an annual budget in excess of $ 70 billion. The IC includes the Departments of the Navy, Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Defense Intelligence Agency, Departments of Energy, Homeland Security, State, Treasure, Drug Enforcement Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency commissioned the study.
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/08/28/us-preparing-for-a-post-israel-middle-east/
So the tide IS turning. I don’t expect the beast to lay down quietly, however.
R observed Herbert Spencer’s, “The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.”
So, tell me, Rutherford – why does the two-lane highway work so well? After all, you have automobiles whizzing past each other in opposite directions with combined speeds of about 110mph, carrying twenty gallons of a highly explosive liquid. Why does such a seemingly-unsafe system work almost perfectly?
It works because the penalty for crossing the centerline is instant, reliable and severe. Which is to say, the system is self-correcting and robust.
Now, why does the welfare-mom system not work? Because the penalty for irresponsibility is ……… a check.
We have shielded these girls and boys from the effects of their folly; what do we get? We get exactly what you see – more just like them.
Rutherford come back to the light…come back….
Dude get a grip. Look at the electoral history of PA. Voter ID in no way will impact the vote.Also PA has gone out of its way to help folks get an acceptable piece of identification.
There are a lot of myths out there on the voter ID thing. That means on your side too Rutherford.The biggest is that any given state is littered with 90+ year old black illiterates with no family,no mail box no television,no contact with the outside world but who still rollout every two years and do their civic duty.
Tex had to swallow hard to post that Pat Condell video about Islam. You see, as Tex says, he’s an “equal opportunist offender” … i.e. he finds Christianity as ludicrous as Islam … just without the modern day violence. Tex, I assume you’ll find the following offensive. So you have a right to be offended but you have every right to offend Muslims. Is that the way the game is played?
Bravo to Pat Condell. He takes it ALL on from Christianity to Scientology. His dismissal of Islam has credibility. Tex’s does not.
221, are you serious, Rutherford? A victory for Romney is victory for those who hate the poor?
By your reasoning, Obama hates me because I belong to the middle Class. I have documented his association and possible membership in the socialist New Party and his comments about redistribution. Why would I vote for a man who will steal money I earned and give it to poor people, deserving though they might be, who did not earn my money?
As we continue your logic, Democrats want to keep it easy to vote fraudulently as over a thousand did in Minnesota because they care more about winning than fairness.
You say our values are screwed up. I don’t have to tell you how it came to be do I?
Poverty, except for the abject variety is relative. Ukraine, for instance has a hard-working, well educated population which works very hard to live a semblance of the Middle Class life.
The official average income is estimated to be equivalent to $185 per month. The official poverty rate is $117,00 per month. 20% of city dwellers and %37 of rural and village families live below the poverty line.
The Ukrainians make up for their relative poverty by working as many extra jobs as their physical limits will tolerate. They also use their cars as unofficial taxis. Many city people own country cottages and they raise large gardens to sustain themselves.One reason Ukrainian women are known as some of the most beautiful in the world is that they are overworked.
Most of the extra income is hidden, and paid and spent as cash. Thus, no one really knows how much the average Ukrainian earns.
The average family may have four generations living under the same roof. An actual family sited has a grandmother who owns the house but her pension is too small for her to pay the bills. Her son and his wife as well as their daughter cannot afford to rent or buy their own home. A sixteen year old boy plans to attend college after he graduates from high school Five of the family members hold MA degrees.
They have a country daca where they grow a large garden and harvest fruit which they can.
” They cannot afford to buy another apartment or a house. Even if they could manage to do it, they would be faced with other additional expenses. For example, if the older lady we talked about were to live alone, she could not be able to make house payments and to buy food,because her pension is not big enough to pay for both.”
This could be our future. By your logic in 221, Obama would probably be fine with it.
My wife and I don’t own I phones, nor do we plan to.
re 229,
There is a lot more barter in other countries and rural communities, so real income is hard to track. Some really do trade in food and services.
With the QE practices of recent years, the value of US dollars income goes down proportionally. The trickle down is actually inflation and doesn’t get counted as such. Median income households lose every time that income element is inflated, no mater how nice ‘easing’ sounds. It’s easing on the banks that get it first while the inflated devalue hasn’t spread itself throughout the globe. It’s like a slow, easy rape. Same result, just gently applied as to avoid screams and screeches. Kind of like the same purpose for a silencer on a gun or a result of a stealthy pick pocket. Proven to work well for slow reacting fructose-induced comatose coach potato folks of any color.
Smarter folks are becoming inventive to get around the problem. I think that is why some are spending the fiat now before the end product it obtains is double or triple today’s dollar equivalent.
Regarding the Zogby poll showing NASCAR fans favoring Obama … one reason I think these polls are suspect is to what degree, in light of Romney’s recent gaffes, is it simply fashionable for folks to say they don’t like him? Will that “fashion” follow them into the voting booth? I wouldn’t be so sure.
While I’m on Romney … folks say he’s an excellent debater. I say it depends on format. If there is little or no room for interaction with the opponent, Romney does well .. simply answering the debate moderator. It’s when he has to answer a challenge from his debate opponent that he gets into trouble (“10,000 bucks?”) It should be very interesting.
I’d like to see voting done in real time via the internet. It would not be a difficult software to develop and with everyone monitoring it, authenticity would be less likely questioned. But then I’d like to see total transparency in all government activity. With everything remaining secretive, it doesn’t serve us rather serves itself and at our expense. It’s too big. Should those in government be allowed to vote for those in government? It seems overtly self-serving, and yet it is what happens.
It’s like a snowball rolling down a hill that has gained so much momentum it can’t be stopped. I think we’re nearing the bottom. Step aside and come out of her. Leave that huge icy mound to melt at the bottom and follow the clear path back up.
More smack talk. I have found Politico to be pretty middle of the road and quite critical of Obama.
As goes Oklahoma, so goes the nation …. thank God that’s not true!!!! 😉
Poolman, as a major fan of the Net I’d like to sign on to your Internet voting idea but I just can’t. It’s so ripe for abuse it’s just not funny. I don’t know how it could possibly be conducted in a truly secure fashion.
P.S. Besides, it discriminates against the rural poor unless you’re suggesting computers replace traditional voting booths so that those without a home computer could use them.
Looking at the Huff Post electoral map it is interesting that two out of Mitt’s three “home states” are going Obama. Mitt will get Utah (the Mormon capital, no surprise there) and Obama will get Michigan and Massachusetts. If Romney really loses Michigan, that should sting.
James speaks truth …. ESPECIALLY neither Romney nor Obama. If any set of folks is engaged in wishful thinking it is each of these campaigns.
It has taken a bit of restraint for me not to devote a blog to this but I have controlled myself because in the end it really is irrelevant. BUT check out this Ann Romney gem:
It is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is, and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.
Is she f*cking kidding me????? We’re lucky to have Mitt and the only reason we don’t know it is we haven’t realized it yet? We need to wake up?
I called this one weeks ago. Ann Romney is a very angry woman with a real arrogant country-club-wife streak going. The thought of seeing her mouth off on important issues of the day for the next four years makes me cringe.
AND the supposed angry black woman, Michelle Obama has never come off this angry. Never. The Washington Post puts it very well.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/could-michelle-obama-get-away-with-ann-romneys-fire/2012/09/24/b2c246fe-063d-11e2-9eea-333857f6a7bd_blog.html
The Chris Rock vid on how not to get your ass kicked was fantastic. Of course Tex couldn’t just post it without the “when Chris Rock was still funny” diss. IMHO the dude is still funny.
Poor Stephanie had to move back in with her parents … and it’s all Obama’s fault!!! Booooo hooooo. I wonder what words of praise she has for her Republican congressman and Senator who don’t get sh*t done?
(A reference to the Rom/Ryan ad posted by Tex.)
Now it’s up to the game changers to give one or the other the advantage before November. As a skeptic or an accused conspiracy theorist I must say it’s my belief nothing happens by coincidence.
Whoever gains the initial benefit of an event generally had a hand in some way persuading it in that direction. These FP events generally play into the mix. There is usually an October surprise of sorts before an election. I’m certain this type of planning is always happening in think tanks and other realms. We become expectant. The anticipation is high.
What do debates usually offer? The silverest tongue gets the gold?
Chris Rock is a funny guy. Like all entertainers they have their opinions aside from their craft. Some, and especially comedians, have an edgy side. I can appreciate Chris the comedian even if I don’t agree 100 percent with Chris the person.
Rutherford,
Admit it. You’ll probably kill yourself if Bongo should lose. It’s keeping you up at night. I’ve never read a more pitiful man. You’re literally coming unhinged. Your life rides on the outcome.
First it was Palin, the Michelle Bachmann, now Ann Romney. Next, it will be Ryan’s wife. I can only surmise it is insane jealousy. 😀
I don’t know what your problem is. Frankly, I don’t care either. You were tolerable when Obama was King. Now that he’s washed up, you can’t live with yourself if he should lose or something.
Poor people require a photo ID for government assistance. Poor people require a photo ID to get a loan shark loan. Poor people have to take a photo ID to obtain their food stamps in every state I’m aware.
This voter ID thing is simple common sense. And the only reason, and I mean the only reason you are against it, is the herd mentality and you know your side cheats, lies and steals and has for years. Blacks are the absolute worst and everybody knows it.
Period.
One day, I guarantee you voter ID will be the law of the nation. Until then, you can help ACORN stuff the ballot box in this election.
And you wonder why I don’t trust you as a person?
I’m really not sure what you’re not buying. Where is the rocket science here? Most of the country is solidly red or blue. The nation taken as a whole is a virtual tie. I don’t know where you see Mitt “advancing” but we’ll leave that for another day.
Bottom line, polling is not an electoral vote exercise. His current lag in Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, etc. i.e. the swing states, is what MIGHT spell his ELECTORAL defeat.
So again, I ask you, where is the mystery?
I love folks who complain about the “LSM” but don’t watch it. But Tigre I’ll give you this much credit … and I mean this sincerely, it is good that you and some others on this board have enough to fill your time that you don’t have time to indulge in the LSM.
The proof you don’t know what you’re talking about … EVERY morning on Morning Joe all I hear is about how NEITHER candidate is addressing the issues. This morning Obama got smacked for appearing on the View and save for 60 Minutes, not submitting to any serious interviews … plus no press conferences in six months.
But like Sarah Palin, complaining about the LSM is your shtick. I get it.
P.S. Sarah came as close to winning an Emmy last Sunday as she will ever come in this lifetime. She owes Julianne Moore props for the award winning portrayal … which was by the way, quite sympathetic. None of you would know that since one of you watched it.
Are you f*cking kidding me???? Damn PF right when you have a streak of sensible comments you come up with a turd post like that.
You want a plutocracy? How are you going to measure “tax paying”? Does sales tax count? How bout FICA? Voting is now a financial transaction?
Goddam that was stupid beyond belief. 😡
Picture ids solve a non existent problem. The fraud occurs pre and post voting. It occurs during registration and it occurs when votes wind up in the trunks of cars. It does not occur because Henry visits the polls twice, once as Henry and once as Micky Mouse.
Solve the real problems and let the folks who turn out to vote, exercise the right, people in this country have died for.
HOW DARE ANYONE ROB THE ABILITY TO VOTE FROM A LEGIT AMERICAN CITIZEN???? AND SOME HERE CALL THEMSELVES PATRIOTS. FEH!
So voter fraud is a non existent problem, hey old pal.
Well, why don’t you explain this one to me then…and I guarantee you this is happening all the time.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/democratic-congressional-candidate-resigns-over-2006-08-voter
If you’re not capable of getting a photo ID, and again I remind you that you need them for your food stamp pickup, you’re not worthy to cast a vote and you shouldn’t be voting.
You ought to be ashamed for covering for dishonesty, Rutherford. I never thought you would sink this low.
One is too many.
BTW, regarding this new found piece of papyrus that has Jesus using the words “my wife”, Jon Stewart had a great take on it … in isolation it means nothing. What if we finish it off: “my wife, if I had one, would be a real looker.” or “my wife is a phrase you will never hear coming out of my mouth”. LOL some Harvard egghead thinks it might prove Jesus was married. 🙄
Charlie may be wrong but this much makes sense to me. Obama has to LOSE a lot of people that he won in 2008 for Romney to be the victor. So that may be the central question this year. Will enough people who voted for him in 2008 turn away from him?
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/charlie-gibson-barack-obama-going-win
And there Emily I think lies the problem. BTW, welcome back I hope you enjoyed your vacation. I don’t think Romney knows what he means by that.
First Romney said kill Obamacare. Then he said “repeal and replace”. Then he got more specific (DANGER Will Robinson) and said the replacement would contain protection against discrimination against pre existing conditions. Then I believe he retracted that. No one knows what he is for or against. We just know what he did in MA only works in MA for some strange reason … MA must be real special.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and make this personal but I need those here who might be flippant about universal health care to listen carefully.
I just learned yesterday the predicament my nephew-by-marriage is in. His wife got breast cancer. She then lost her job and her insurance. She switched over to his insurance. He just got laid off. Now they are uninsured. I’m waiting for the chorus of folks here to tell me they now should depend on the kindness of strangers (charity). Indeed, they are throwing a benefit in a couple of weeks to help pay the bills.
Is she supposed to die of breast cancer in the most civilized country on the planet because we can’t figure out a way to make health care affordable? If the answer is “tough sh*t” then don’t bother answering.
P.S. Just to be clear, that last salvo was not aimed at you Emily. My comment to you segued into my comment to the larger audience.
You’re a sweet heart … no rudeness at all. Thanks for asking. She had the cyst removed two weeks ago today. The size of a small melon … no wonder she was in such pain. The tissues were all tested and there was no underlying cancer so we are all very relieved. The whole thing was done outpatient.
She’s about 95% back now … but wouldn’t you know it … we both just got a nasty cold with fever. 😐
PF if you’re taking voting advice from Tex you’re in bigger trouble than I thought. My case in point: “I give us 24-36 months before we collapse.” Completely laughable. If it weren’t for the chorus of loons on Fox Tex couldn’t write such nonsense without fear of being referred to a psychiatrist.
If there is low Obama turnout in VA, a vote for Paul is a vote for Romney. Otherwise, it’s a vote for Obama. If Paul truly represents your beliefs, then vote your conscience and the rest be damned.
What all the Obama-haters on this blog fail to understand is that we need major changes that have not been articulated by either candidate. And if you look at the way AARP booed Paul Ryan you can see quite clearly that no constituency in this country is ready to sacrifice.
With any luck, we’re just in a bad business cycle and as long as we don’t break things further (we haven’t IMHO) we will come out of it.
LOL Tex you’re quite the comedian. I just looked at your comic strip. I heard Mitt say on the tube something to the effect “And we’ve had the Muslim Brotherhood elected in Egypt” and I yelled at the TV … ELECTED MITT!!!! What about elected do you not understand? Neither Obama nor the rest of us get to choose the winner of the election.
Michele Obama said that with her husband’s nomination she was at last proud of this country. It may not have been angry, but it was insulting.
American Thinker printed a headline “Can Michele Obama’s Media Blitz erase her ‘angry black woman” image?’She has been on a charm offensive to counterbalance the previous attitude she has mostly privately displayed.
The Washington Post is a poor source about Michele’s disposition. Its staff is rooting for her to continue as first lady.
I’m not criticizing either woman. As we know they occupy difficult positions. I do believe you are being unfair to Mrs. Romney without acknowledging Mrs.Obama’s slips.
oh, I am so glad she is alright–that is wonderful news! Hope that you and she feel better soon from the colds.
I just read your post about your nephew’s wife. So sorry about their troubles. And I believe that there should be care for people like them. No, I am not a Democrat!! But I think that a society does need to provide for those who, through no fault of their own, are at such risk.
That is a heart-rending story about your nephew’s wife, Rutherford.
We know people around here with similar emergencies. I don’t know where your nephew and his wife live, so I have no specific suggestions.
Iowa Concern is a hot line which offers suggestions for emotional problems and gives legal advice. It probably gives advice for people like your nephew’s wife. Your state probably has something similar. Iowa concern might even be able to give you some leads.
Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Program provides treatment for eligible low-income California residents. The program offers treatment for the duration of the illness.
These are not in your area, but they might have some information. Other organizations are probably in your state.
Caring.com last updated on August 21, 2012 has a heading How can I pay for cancer treatment with no insurance? Approximately 300 hospitals provide some treatment to indigent people under the Hill-Burton Hospital Program. 800 422 6237 or http://www.cancer.gov will provide more information and help.
Other resources are mandated under the Breast and cervical Cancer Treatment Act of 2000. The law extended Medicaid coverage for women who have been screened and diagnosed through the National Breast and cervical cancer early detection program in cooperating states. Go to http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/nbccedp/index.htm or call 888 842 6355.
Tex, Pfessor and others are much more knowlegable than I. I do know raffles and pancake feeds and other benefits that rely on the kindness of strangers are the way to go. However, researching agencies of medical help are essential. If one can’t help, maybe it knows who can.
Omaha, I think has a non-profit association of medical people who provide medical care at a low cost. Maybe something like it is near you. Some hospitals will offer regular payment terms, like paying off a new car.,
Please let us know what happens,.
A couple of things on the 10% President in the Wall Street Journal. I was rolling along nicely till he dissed Obamacare ignoring the CBO findings of its cost savings.
Note that in addition to his stimulus, what he calls “emergency actions” include his new health-care entitlement that will cost taxpayers $200 billion per year when fully implemented and grow annually at 8%, even using low-ball assumptions. Yeah low ball assumptions that I am supposed to take his word for it? He cites no source. Like I said, if I’m not mistaken the CBO blessed Obamacare.
At every turn he has demagogued the Romney-Ryan proposals to modernize the entitlement state so it is affordable, and he personally blew up the “grand bargain” House Speaker John Boehner was willing to strike last summer. Words like “demagogued ” tell me we’re dealing with someone who doesn’t like Obama. This is not an objective remark. So Freeman betrays his partisanship and we can no longer take what at first looked like an objective dissection seriously.
Furthermore, there is an interesting alternative take to Obama blowing up the grand bargain with Boehner. Boehner was the Tea Party’s lap dog:
Obama made every mistake in the book in trying to negotiate a “grand bargain” on taxes and spending last year with Mr. Boehner. But I’ve always had one question: Boehner said that he walked away after Obama, at the 11th hour, asked for $400 billion more in taxes to bring along more Democrats. Why did Boehner just walk away and not call Obama back and say, “Here is my deal — no $400 billion more — take the original bargain or leave it.” He didn’t do that because he was afraid Obama might take it — and Boehner knew he could not deliver his Tea Party base or would lose his speakership trying. So he didn’t try.
Sure, the president tried to up the ante, but why didn’t Boehner make Obama eat the deal? A deal that had the grudging support of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? We’ve long known the answer to this. Boehner didn’t have the votes and had no hope of getting them. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/the-big-question-from-the-grand-bargain/2012/09/24/fd5ee6fa-063c-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions
Finally, while I cannot level this charge against James Freeman (the WSJ author), WSJ is in a bit of hot water for printing articles by Romney staffers and not identifying them as Romney staffers. Nice, real nice.
James: you are a kind and big-hearted man.
Hi Emily.
“Well, why don’t you explain this one to me then…and I guarantee you this is happening all the time.”
Please enlighten me Tex as to how a picture id solves this problem? In fact do you really think the double-voter in the article DIDN’T have a picture id?
Thanks for playing. Try again.
James Michelle made one “slip” that wasn’t even a slip. Many of us were proud of America regarding Obama. And yes I’ll say it … most of the offense at Michelle was manufactured and racist in nature.
Michelle was gracious not angry. Ann on the other hand has bristled before. Remember the gripe at the press? No more tax returns for “you people”?
She’s got a chip on her shoulder the size of Utah. Four years of her will be damn near unbearable.
Lets also not forget that she told Mitt in 2008 “never again”. It’s a shame he didn’t take her advice. She’s the worst candidate wife since Kerry’s.
I don’t think I can agree with you about Mrs. Romney, Rutherford. I think that it has to be very hard to campaign, to always be “on” and to have you and your family insulted and joked about. Of the whole campaign, the press has seized on a very few moments and I don’t think that gives a fair impression. Now, I also felt that the press and people were unfair to Mrs. Obama. As for worst candidate’s wife…I guess I would agree that Mrs. Kerry was not very likeable. Even though she could be quite crabby, Barbara Bush was sharp and funny. And Laura Bush was lovely. But what a thankless position to be in!
Rutherford, people behave the same in the same situations. Boehner was under pressure from the Tea Party, many of whom wanted no taxes. Obama behaved like my wife.
Obama blundered and could have had a deal. I support my version with my wife’s first attempt at bargaining and with comments from Europeans who say Obama has little personal rapour. He enters a country and expects his speeches will do the work of personal relationships.
Congresspeople have said the same about him here. He has offered little contact with the Republicans, and that hurts. Obama is no LBJ.
I see no difference between Obama’s experience and my wife’s first bargaining endeavor in Piza, Italy. Everything progressed with give and take until my wife got bloody minded and refused to budge.The merchant turned away in disgust.
Obama was like my wife that day. He blew it and bears the primary blame.
“We never called it Alzheimer’s; it’s just “getting old” -pfessor
Pfessor….can you believe my father in law was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at 57? I can’t remember if he turns 60 this year or if he did last year (maybe I have it too). In that short span of time he has already regressed to essentially being a child.
Oh God….”you people” has made a return.
Rutherford, I saw nothing racial in Michele’s comment. I saw an ideologue who thought this country was too conservative. As I wrote, I found several sites describing Michele as angry at times.
As Emily wrote, we judge first ladies and wannabes too harshly. They are in the public eye less from choice than from their spouses’ ambitions. We are not electing the wives.
Rabbit: That is very sad. I am sorry.
If I had been Ann Romney I would have said “no more tax returns for you bastards.” She didn’t sound especially angry to me.
I called one of our representatives an educated fool at a public meeting, and I told a man at another meeting he was a trogodlite for endorsing teaching creationism in schools.
And you think Ann Romney was nasty?
Yes it is sad, rabbit. Emily, you add class to this site.
DR – When I was in med school, the synonym for Alzheimer’s was “presenile dementia.” Implicit in that definition was the idea that dementia was a normal accompaniment to senility; dementia had to be unexpected – early – to be considered Alzheimer’s. Now anybody who is senile has Alzheimer’s, no matter the age.
Rutherford – I have been in the medical business a long time, and I have watched the changes since I was a small boy.
IMHO, the reason medicine is expensive is *precisely* because the government is in it. Think about it for a minute. When a corporation invests, it invests carefully and wisely, for – unlike Spencer’s fools – the corp lives and dies by its decisions.
Not so the govt. It has earned NONE of the money it spends; it just confiscates it by force, therefore it is not careful with how it is spent. It distributes those dollars by some unknown algorithm,
http://i.imgur.com/XaiUx.gif>
and supply/demand takes over – the easy availability of wads of cash causes prices to go up. The govt then looks at the prices – fruits of its own policies – and says, “Prices are too high; you need more government to lower them.”
Of course, one of two things will happen. If they are not serious, prices continue to rise. If they are serious, there are shortages of the product (medical care).
We are about to enter the second scenario. Count on it. Come see me in ten years; I will either be taking care of the Amish on barter, or I will be in Costa Rica. As for America: “I ‘ope you liked your drink,” sez Gunga Din.
**********************
Just for comparison: I just bought in the open international market a carburetor for my Honda lawn mower. Eighteen bucks, delivered to my door.
Medicine needs to be overhauled from the ground up, Rutherford, but the first process is to get the government out of it, so prices can assume a normal value. That ain’t gonna happen…
#259 James you did good! Rutherford, I believe every hospital has a social worker, who could direct your nephew’s wife to the proper agency. I hope this helps, since I doubt she wants to be uprooted to Omaha. And I also hope her cancer was caught early. Glad your wife is better.
Thanks Newt and also for mentioning social workers I forgot them. Yes there is probably something like an Omaha service closer to home.
James many thanks for all the leads. I wasn’t expecting that and it’s much appreciated.
James comparing Obama to your wife unintentionally cracked me up. 🙂
Pfessor, I think the bumps and booze for 30 years streight did it to him. I get the feeling Alziemers is kind of an umbrella term for host of different kind of dementia. Am I wrong?
Rutherford, once again you said voter fraud is none existent. I just proved beyond a shadow of a doubt not only is voter fraud existent, it exists for Dimocratic political candidates too. It doesn’t just exist, it’s ubiquitous.
Let me be clear. You’re as dishonest as your useful idiot View President, your party, and the media and you’ll do or say anything to win. Frankly, you’re only use to provide a new thread. Otherwise, your Newt with a penis.
The fact you’re too ignorant to know America is teetering economically is telling. You’re fucking Harlem, pal. Harlem. If we got to talking about economics, Howard Stern should be interviewing you and we’d all be laughing at how dumb you are for the world to see. Does the fact Obama a Mormon bother you, Rutherford?
These debt downgrades you keep poo pooing? US federal debt is approaching its highest level since the formation of the federal government in 1789 (other than during WWII and its immediate aftermath). We didn’t have that little safeguard in 1940. When Asia quits buying, goodbye sweetheart.
Here’s another little diddy you ought to remember. That government you trust? In the late 1960’s, the government estimated that Medicare expenses would grow by 7 times by 1990); they grew by 70 times instead. What can’t go on forever, won’t.
I could go on and on trying to demonstrate how phenomenally uninformed you are to a crowd that already knows as much, that you have absolutely no idea its implications, and what is it predicting future tense.
But then again, you’re the one who didn’t learn anything from 9/11 either. Go back to masturbating to the View.
My MIL was just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She’s 75. I understand it to be a form of dementia. That’s how it was described by her neurologist. They have really made advances in understanding it. Her husband had the same and passed 5 years ago. They both really never drank any alcohol. Just a little sherry, on occasion.
She’s in advanced stages, apparently had it some 5 plus years, but hid it from everyone well. Looking back we see that the signs were apparent, but we missed them. It wasn’t until she claimed someone was living in her attic and was constantly tormenting her. Then more recently she started seeing demons’ heads in bushes and occupying empty cars. Before we moved her, she got real paranoid and continually barricaded herself in her house.
She hates democrats, Obama, Mexicans, and Muslims. She used to only watch FOX and they gave her all her opinions. She never cursed until about six months ago. Now we often can’t get her to stop. That and punching people. She has good days and bad days.
We took her to an assisted living home in El Paso, the one her husband was in, but she insists she’s on the other side of Phoenix and keeps wondering when we are going to pick her up and let her go home.
It has actually changed, Tex. You don’t have to examine the brain tissue, anymore to diagnose. My wife has been researching it on line. They actually have made a lot of advances, even identifying causes and cures.
I guess I should say ‘potential’ causes and cures. The findings need to be verified and studied.
A friend of mine told me a joke he credited to SNL.
How does Mitt Romney get his taxes down so low?
Easy. He claims 47% of Americans as dependents. 🙂
Emily, nice to see you back. You might be interested in knowing. Noah self-deported.
“Does the fact Obama a Mormon bother you, Rutherford?” – Tex
Obama is a Mormon?
I agree R, much too early for anyone, on either side. to be talking about a November victory. We still have four debates and two Jobs reports before the election.
But it is interesting to note, after all the campaigning, after all the money that has been spent, with arguments over the stimulus, Obamacare, Solyndra, Fast and Furious, the debt ceiling, deficits and unemployment, almost nothing has changed on the general Presidential election landscape. If the polls are to be believed and the election held today, Romney would only pull one state away from Obama’s 2008 win column, Indiana, hardly a blue state to begin with.
DR – “Pfessor, I think the bumps and booze for 30 years streight did it to him. I get the feeling Alziemers is kind of an umbrella term for host of different kind of dementia. Am I wrong?”
Yep. Alzheimer’s is a very specific disease process according to the way we were taught. It is characterized at autopsy by “neurofibrillary tangles” and “amyloid plaques” in the brain tissue. It is not just brain atrophy, as occurs with alcohol abuse and multiple whacks to the head (boxers, bar-fighters, etc). The cause is unknown – “idiopathic.” My data is pretty old. Since there is no way to diagnose it by X-ray or by MRI, we don’t do much with it. My understanding is that the Dx is made at autopsy only.
Since my brain is my second-favorite organ, real Alzheimer’s is a horrifying thought. They say it doesn’t matter, since you don’t know you are nuts, but those folks really don’t seem to be having all that good of a time.
I have invented a cure for Alzheimer’s in a young person, but you have to be a pilot. It’s called a “ground loop.” It is a loop in which a portion of the arc intersects the ground.
Tex @ 280. re: dishonesty. That word gets thrown around a lot. I am baffled by some of Rutherford’s positions and often wonder what kinds of life experiences lead someone to those POVs, but there is no reason that I have ever seen to say that he does not believe every word of it.
You’re welcome Rutherford. As for the unintentional laugh. you deserve to chuckle once in a while.
My mother didn’t have Alzheimers, but she might as well have had. Congestive heart failure robbed blood from her brain, and she slowly entered another world except for occasional lapses to the present.
After she died. I found a note she had written to herself. “I’m getting so forgetful lately. I MUST try harder to remember with notes. I’m so afraid.” She had tried to cross out the last sentence, but it was still clearly readable. At some point in the disease, they know.
Rutherford, you joked that Sarah Palin should be honored because Juiet ? won an Emmy.
Do you remember when I proved through documentation and logic that Game Changer was a hit piece? A critic reviewing the Emmy show wrote that though he is a liberal he knows that movie was a hatchet job, and that is one reason it won an Emmy.
I also offered proof that Al Frankin was elected in part due to over a thousand inelligable voters, some of whom are now in jail.
When I was in the service, I bought Thunderbird for a friend because he was under age. Why did storekeepers ask for my ID? Couldn’t they have just trusted me?
Some of my stories were included in a local history published in North Carolina.
I wrote how I wanted to ask a girl to the college Christmas party. I knew she took accelerated English,so I waited outside of the classroom for an hour. She wasn’t there, so I waited another hour. Three hours later,she walked out of the classroom, and I pretended I had accidently been there.
I asked if she would attend the party with me. She said “yes” Then, asked “what’s your name, and where do you live?” We got married five years later because she probably thought I needed a keeper.
Here’s where you and your enchantment with Obama enter the story,, Rutherford.My story is a fine example of the “AUDACITY OF HOPE”
http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?id=626898
Joseph Goebbels might have believed every word of it too. But I doubt it.
But I don’t know how you come to that conclusion when he’s been corrected at least ten times on numerous points with immutable proof, and he still repeats the same falsehoods time after time.
So that leaves only two possibilities: (1) He’s dishonest; (2) He’s unteachable. 😐
Take your pick.
Many liberals and conservatives are ignorant and their low information level allows them to be swayed
Rutherford and some others who post here are Clovis Firsters. All of the evidence supported the hypthosis that the oldest found spear points settled the story of when the first Americans arrived.As Al Gore said about human caused global warming, the science was settled.
The science is settled for folks like Rutherford. Contradictory evidence which showed people were here for much longer than the Clovis point suggested and that some early settlers might have been Europeans caused an uproar and accusations of planted evidence/. Scientists had invested so much of their career and psychic energy in what was to them self-evident they couldn.t accept the new information.
In other words, Clovis Firsters couldn,t handle the truth.
CIA agents said the administration knew within 24 hours that the Egyptian and Libyan attacks were planned while the administration still blamed a bad viideo.
Poolman and I agreed at the time it was sad that we must trust foreign governments and reporters before our own government, and we were right.
My first comment on this thread has proven to be correct.
The press has been quiet because Obama is not Bush. Someone should hit them up side the head with a Clovis Point.
I think a lot of people can’t handle the truth, James. Especially if it upsets their long held and well-fortified paradigm. It is uncomfortable to step out in faith. It’s always risky. We prefer placing safety in numbers and confidence in known knowns. It does promote uniformity, but often hinders real discovery and growth.
My wife, who’s been real interested in UFOs and has been scouring the internet for information, found some interesting things that she’s shared. Yesterday she was reading about one documented in the late 1800’s that crashed in Aurora, Texas, where the lone pilot was described as an alien that died and was buried in the local cemetery. There is now a hysterical (historical) marker there regarding the event. The local paper from the time is fun to read. There was no doubt, even though there was a campaign by many to make it seem to be a hoax to attract attention to the town for PR purpose.
There is actually quite a bit of news like that from all over the globe.
I remember reading a news story written in the 1930’s where a huge underground chamber was found by a rancher or explorer in the Grand Canyon that had many mummies and Egyptian art and writings, including inscriptions and artifacts that were identical to those found at the great pyramids. The Smithsonian was given the information and sent archaeologists and scientists right away that spent years discovering and documenting it.
The PTB decided it too controversial and started a disinformation campaign and cover up. Today the area is restricted by the government and the public cannot access it.
Inconvenient truths that go against the state’s narrative are generally dealt with like poisons and kept locked and away.
James and Poolman, I don’t understand your beef with how the Libyan attack was portrayed. As early as the morning after the attacks, experts on several venues were saying the attack in Libya was clearly different than the one in Egypt. While Romney was still blaming the “apology”, these experts were saying the attack in Libya was more than flag burning over a trailer, it involved RPG’s and coordinated small arms fire. Perhaps you guys missed that reporting?
Here’s an AP report from the day after with the distinction already being drawn.
“U.S. government officials said the Benghazi attack may have been planned in advance and there were indications that members of a militant faction calling itself Ansar al Sharia – which translates as Supporters of Islamic Law – may have been involved.
They also said some reporting from the region suggested that members of Al-Qaeda’s north Africa-based affiliate, known as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, may have been involved.
“It bears the hallmarks of an organized attack,” one U.S. official said. However, some U.S. officials cautioned against assuming that the attacks were deliberately organized to coincide with the September 11 anniversary.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/12/us-libya-usa-attack-idUSBRE88B0EI20120912
I watched the Daily Show last night. The guest was King Abdulla of Jordan. It was interesting to listen to the narrative between Jon and Abdulla. They both stayed within the accepted ‘official’ account, though you could tell they both did not believe it. Officially claiming the controversial film ignited all the rioting and led to Stevens’ death. The reality is few Libyans were even aware of the film.
Stevens’ personal journal also indicated his life had been threatened and feared his security had been compromised. This proved true and apparently his attack was planned well in advance and with insider help.
Intelligence had issued warnings that an event might occur on the anniversary of 9/11. The warnings were downplayed and ignored, even removed before they could be heeded.
There’s something rotten in Denmark…
Nope Tex. You added “in the middle east”. I’m pretty sure he just said “one of our closets allies”. That would be an accurate statement. We have several close allies. I believe more Brits have died along side us in Afghanistan than Israeli’s have.
Rabbit sorry to hear about your father-in-law. Alzheimer’s is one disease that scares the crap out of me. The dude sounds unique … loves ni**er jokes AND hates Republicans. Makes it hard for me to figure out if I’d like like the guy or not.
But the bigger question in my mind is how did you abide living in the same neighborhood as your in-laws? Reminds me of “Everybody Loves Raymond”. My wife’s family is 90 minutes away and that is the perfect distance. They’re great people but I don’t need to see them when I walk out my front door.
Ahhh damn! And I thought I begged you to come? Come to find out it was the influence of the old Rabbit.
Hey Rabbit, remember that odd summer when you transformed into Rabbit 2.0? Ahhh those were the good old days. 🙂
LOL MJ did have a meltdown on you Tex, didn’t he? Maybe I have changed but so have you. You lean more toward hyperbole of late, cater to your Archie Bunker side way too often. More pronounced though are the extremes. Back in the old days you were a pretty persuasive scumbag. As I said to MJ, very sound points buried under the ad hominem … but the ad hominem was consistent and unrelenting. Since then you’ve become a Dr Jekyl/Mr. Hyde. On one thread, sensible, funny, actually sensitive, actually FUN to be with and then on another with neck breaking whiplash 180, a very nasty piece of work. In a sense, the “two Tex’es” are almost harder to deal with than the one Tex of old.
I think in “the beginning” you were still in Med school, fitting in blog insults in your spare time. Now your “life of leisure” has you flitting all over the place. I’m underemployed but I do have business on my mind some of the time. I’d say 2 out of 3 potential clients just kick the tires which is pretty frustrating. But it does broaden my focus away from this blog from time to time. So does the occasional online course I take.
Seriously dude, get a job or a time consuming hobby so you can return to the old Tex Taylor who only came around to dish out the nasty. That way I know what to expect and I don’t get lulled into believing you’re a 3 dimensional human being. 😉
PF, very poignant observation on the “old stories” of old people. I had a “grand-uncle” (my Mom’s uncle) who was losing it. He used to say to me “hey you remember when we used to be up on the roof?” I had never once been up on any roof with my grand uncle. But I nodded politely.
I don’t want to get too mushy. If an elderly relative lives to become a real nasty bastard, then I could do without the stories. But if they remain more or less pleasant then I agree with you. I’d rather have them alive telling a story for the 100th time than be gone forever.
Well I sure hope it won’t be anytime soon James. While I disagree with you politically most of the time, you are a gentleman and your absence would be felt.
Newt linked to Obama’s UN address.
Newt, one word of caution. A comment I heard on the tube the other day rang way too true for me. Obama thinks speeches are “an end”, not a means to an end. He gives the appearance that he thinks the speech itself solves the problem when in fact should only be the opening volley before the hard work begins.
This is the flaw that is cited with respect to Obama not being the darling of the Muslim world. He naively thought that if a powerful black American who had lived in a Muslim country did the talking, radical Muslims would suddenly mellow. It didn’t (and doesn’t) work that way.
Should he be reelected, methinks Obama needs to do fewer speeches and more relationship building with his foreign counterparts.
LOL I’ve followed Newt’s links to Juanita Jeans a few times but I am just now noticing its “emotional resemblance” to M&H. Very catty with a noticeable dose of “man-disdain”.
Well I guess life is full of yin and yang. Tex can’t attack Dem women without being sexist and M&H and Juanita’s prove that they can’t attack Republican men without being sexist.
Oh well.
Alfie thanks for the suggestion on the SS St Louis. It was news to me, and by my reckoning a shameful part of our past. I have heard non-specific charges that we turned a blind eye to the Jews’ plight and only got involved when Japan showed its ass. This seems to confirm that somewhat.
Since many have spent a lifetime studying the Jews predicament, I could not hope to “get it” in a few hours of reading. It baffles me why one group has been so singled out for so long for hatred by so many.
I continue go be busy and only have a moment. However, in light that Obama knew about the Bengali threat, R do hour still think he has been great on FP? Next time you talk to Huck, ask him how wonderful this Arab Spring is…
#310 Rutherford, now you sound naive. Obama knows it takes more than a good speech to solve world problems.
Obama is a good orator. That is what first piqued my interest in 2004 it was. Since then I have less reason to believe the words that escape his lips. Though often well articulated, I find the words do not reflect his actions all that very often. The machinations of empire still underpin the polished exterior.
Jon Stewart was making fun of O going on the View instead of meeting with any global leaders while they were here. I think he’s in total campaign mode, a mode he knows well. He apparently lets others deal with the day to day.
Meanwhile Mitt stumbles over himself trying ultra hard to appear presidential.
Such a clumsy, meaningless dance.
“Noah self-deported.”
While I promised myself I would not acknowledge any further references to Noah, I can’t resist. Thor, that was truly classic.
P.S. Your friend was right. The Romney dependents joke came from SNL’s “Weekend Update” with Seth Myers.
Rutherford, I have been active with four blogs and message boards since 2004. i have abruptly left when my interest leaves.
One of the quirks of my service days is that over time, I have a need to be alone. Its hard to do in real life, but after two to seven years, I get tired, and move on.
Thanks for the complement. I like you too, and as hard as it may be to believe, I like everyone here.
Rutherford, 310 is right on, You couldn’t have written more accurately. I have written virtually the same thing here. You are not naive in this case.
Newt, Obama surely knows it takes more than a good speech, but after he leaves the stage he lets others do the hard work.
, Thor, Poolman can speak for himself, but we seemed to agree on what happened. Its true the mostly foreign press, Libya, and Egypt quickly said it was an attack, not a spontaneous reaction to a video.
However,the administration peddled the emotional meme for over a week. Sec Rice said it on Fox and other shows. Rutherford wrote that she made him roll his eyes.
CIA agents now say the administration knew twenty four hours later, so why did they repeat the lie? Either they knew and wanted to hide the truth or they were hopelessly out of touch.
Romney was right to criticize the embassy’s weak appology, and I think Obama disavowed it later.
That is my beef with how the administration handed news of the attack.
Bad assumption PF and again part of this new game in America of “hate the poor”. Why do you assume irresponsibility? What about the working poor? There are loads of them. Deny them food stamps? How many folks are living the high life on welfare? How many enjoy being poor? Flashback to my article — Michael Steele asked the audience “how many woke up this morning and said ‘I’d like to be poor today’?”
PF you’re no racist and I doubt you are a “poor-ist” but damn you are really playing into a racist and “hate the poor” meme. Get the big corps to get off that pile of cash and put our citizens to work. How ’bout that be our top priority before we go taking food out of the mouths of poor babies?
Actually James … didn’t you just describe your own reasoning?
Do you own any sort of “smart phone”? If so the iPhone video applies to you too. In fact, as far as that 911 legislation is concerned, it probably applies to any mobile phone period … regardless of “smartness”.
Re pfessor
By bumps I meant lines of cocaine.
ROTFLMAO! Tex, the only thing that kept me up at night two nights ago was the constant need to blow snot out of my stoma (that explicit enough for you?)
But thanks for the suicide prediction …. I’m contemplating a blog post this week that will tangentially speak to it. 😉
Noah probably got arrested for fucking with people’s cars.
” The dude sounds unique … loves ni**er jokes AND hates Republicans.” -R
Oh how very little you know of the old school, Irish, unionized Democrat………
Tex, you gave as your evidence of voter fraud a woman who voted in two different states in the same election.
Let me say it again — a photo id would NOT have stopped that.
I don’t deny election fraud occurs. I doubt it seldom really effects the outcome … but putting that aside, the vast majority of voter fraud is not solved by picture ids. PERIOD. Picture ids solve a problem that does not exist in any statistically real way. PERIOD. Hence, the hassle (and often the expense) of obtaining one is a deliberate disincentive to particular constituencies (mainly liberal) to vote … and again because of the expense in many cases, amounts to nothing more than a 21st century poll tax.
My goal from now until November 6 is to tweet a phone number that will inform folks on how to vote. I did it yesterday and today. I hope to do it every day until Election Day.
I no longer agree with fighting the laws that conspirators like ALEC have thrown together … I say we beat you at your own game. Play by these new rules and do it in style. Use every means possible to make sure EVERYONE who wants to vote fulfills the req’s no matter how unreasonable.
YOU WILL NOT STEAL THE VOTE.
My wife is from the same suburb I am. We got the hell out of there a while ago. My in laws have now followed us to where we live now.
Damn liberals are losers. Can’t even produce the same ID they use to get food stamps. What an ignorant bunch of hicks.
What gives with the “you just hate [the poor, Obama, blacks blah, blah, bah].” Don’t you realize these are meaningless and easily inverted to apply to all of your comments? Why you think this is persuasive escapes me but sure confirms how much the victim angle never gets tired for the left.
Rabbit the concern is about folks who don’t have photo ids. If you need a photo id to get food stamps (a “fact” I haven’t verified) then you’re obviously not in the affected group.
One of the big groups hit by this are urban folks and the elderly who don’t own or drive a car.
Are you aware that (I think it’s Pennsylvania) if you’re a student your college picture id is NOT sufficient?
My wife and I got food stamps several years ago for about six months. You have to provide all kinds of ID and information to get set up. After that, you just need to keep them informed of any changes in household income. When you buy with them at the store you don’t need to show ID. AZ issues a card and it gets ‘money’ put on it every month. But it’s use it or lose it. Once we thought we’d wait until the monthly amount was added to balance and it didn’t work that way. The previous balance went away when they ‘filled’ the card.
After 6 months of it we decided we could afford to pay for our own groceries. It would have been easy to continue and easy to defraud. I’m certain plenty do.
There is no way. Repeat. No way a guy like poolman, well versed in the trades, should ever be on food stamps. I don’t care how bad the economy is at the time. You can make enough to buy beans and rice, a healthy and perfectly sustainable meal. Pathetic.
I vote absentee and don’t need to show ID every time. If folks were a little more ‘with it’, that part would be a non issue. I still think real time on the internet would be the best solution. People can access the web from a cell phone. How hard is it to provide internet access to those who don’t have it? You could still have absentee for all the fogies. Like a big tetras screen, everyone’s vote could fill in a region and everyone could watch it float into whatever chosen candidate’s zone. Easy peasy pie. 🙂
Well rabbit, if you ever have no income and you’ve maxed your credit cards and spent all your retirement to keep the bills paid and have one daughter’s income and 5 mouths to feed you might see what it takes to apply. I could easily be on them still, the way the system works. I decided after six months I could afford to pay for my own and let them go away. I think it was close to 270 a month. I sucked nanny’s teat for 6 months. Kiss my chlorinated ass. 😉
Big win for the Tigers. Big fucking win.
Rutherford, we own a regular cell phone. It would let us text if we wanted to, and it will take pictures and videos,You are probably right about its being tracked even if it isn’t smart.
You were being ridiculous when you wrote Romney hates poor people, so I decided to match you with silliness of my own. Your reasoning lets me say Obama hates rich people. I’m not rich, so I substituted middle class to apply to me.
The attitude about giving money to poor people who don’t deserve it was mine overstated to mystify you. Rabbit wrote “inverted” That’s what I did and not for the first time.
James, I wrote inverted. The “hate” device is so simplistic I honestly don’t get it. As I said, it has some kind of appeal to a particular mindset, i.e. one that believes it possess a superior form of compassion and morality, that is quite telling.
Truth is R, there are welfare queens and large segments of society in which welfare and food stamps are a way of life. It’s a problem that has no solution in denying that it exists.
There are plenty on the dole. Some even sit behind desks. It’s a systematic problem that people have taken advantage of. It needs to be cleansed. It needs a top down douche.
Sorry ElTigre.
If poor elderly city dwellers can’t leave their homes to get IDs, how do they buy groceries, clothing, or other necessities? Do all of their doctors make house calls? Surely such shut ins could prove their identities to one of their many product-laden visitors and the visitors could make IDs for them.
A failed Nebraska bill provided for the government’s paying for IDs if one was too poor.
Poolman is right. We were on the dole during the farm recession with farm disaster and price support payments. We could have survived without them, since my wife was teaching, but more of our neighbors than did would have lost their land,
I read a Nice Deb blog about liberals altering polls to discourage conservatives, and in the comments was a familiar handle. YEAH TEX TAYlOR!!
So Tex is out tilting at windmills, eh. 😀
Tigre why is it a stretch when someone says most welfare recipients are lazy moochers for me to think they hate, or at the very least disrespect the poor?
My problem is that many of the folks in your tent don’t stop at dissing the policy … they have to diss the beneficiaries of it also.
In all fairness I did not distort what she said. I did NOT say she was referring to the middle class or the poor as many liberals have lied about her. She was referring to the media.
BUT
It still sounded defiant and angry, not a trait you want to see in a FLOTUS nominee. I’m telling you, this is Teresa Heinz Kerry without the accent.
I agree with you and Emily on that score, and as I said before, Ann told Mitt at the end of the 2008 attempt “never again” so it’s not surprising she came into this with a chip on her shoulder.
The campaign should know when to keep a potential FLOTUS waaaaaay in the background if she might become a liability. Like just about everything else in this election, Mitt’s advisers are failing him. Ann belongs on TV as little as possible.
From what I saw, she made a flippant remark about what causes she would pursue as First Lady on Jay Leno last night. It started out well enough … “MS, cancer …” but then she had to try her hand at humor and add “and any other disease I get between now and then.” Self-effacing humor? Maybe. But the joke torpedoed any sincerity she was trying to portray as far as passion about her causes was concerned.
I think Michael Savage is a complete and utter a$$hole but he is right about Ann Romney … she needs to take more of a back seat.
I’ve been seeing a new and very amusing meme of late … pretty sure I saw it in this thread too. The meme is that the latest polls are a liberal machination to discourage Republican voting (the notion being they won’t vote out of despair). LOL!!!!! You’ve gotta be kidding me!
First, when any lib gripes about massive spending by SuperPacs influencing the vote, we’re called cry babies. But then the thumb suckers cry about the latest polling data out of OH, IL and VA.
Second, anyone with any real convictions, doesn’t let polls effect their choice.
Third and most importantly, as reported by well known RINO Joe Scarborough, GOP internal polling CONFIRMS the results being broadcast on the media right now. So, no … the polling is not rigged to discourage Republican turnout.
You folks will grab for any excuse in the book to avoid the obvious conclusion that you have a very weak candidate.
Now let me repeat … I don’t think you should let the polls get you down anymore than I’m taking them too seriously. There’s a whole lot that could go down between today and election day. But you know there’s a problem when the crowd yells “Ryan Ryan Ryan!!!” and then goes silent when Mitt urges them to yell “Romney/Ryan Romney/Ryan Romney Ryan”. 😳
P.S. This video has copyrighted stuff so I doubt it will be up long.
Damn R. Was what he said rhetorically proximate to promoting poverty? 🙄
“How many woke up this morning and said ‘I’d like to be poor today?”
Alot R. They might not say it aloud. But I assure you, there are many, many, many that are poor by choice and prefer it that way. I have plenty of first had observations/accounts but most are no different than the examples shown on those magazine-type programs done on the fate of a majority of lottery winners. And it isn’t just a lack of sophistication as much a socialized behavior in most all instances.
Ever watch that PBS underground cult documentary about Jessco the Dancin’ Outlaw? You should. If you haven’t, there’s not enough space her to set it out — but I have personally met the family members in the film and can tell you they in effect wake up saying they’d like to be poor.
So, quit being a hater R. The left’s allegations of coded language is a really transparent device to quash frank dialogue, particularly ones that the expose indefensible positions.
R, you forgot to add a “bwahahahahahahahahahahah” to your 347.
Ever wonder how and why liberal and conservative media outlets have differing poll results that almost universally support their candidate? Although that’s not say all the polling showing an Obama advantage is wildly inaccurate (my gut tells me there’s something wrong with what’s being reported), but it’s not coincidence either. Deny it all you want, I personally hope you keep cheering the polls you like as loudly as possible — for a reason.
‘Now, why does the welfare-mom system not work? Because the penalty for irresponsibility is ……… a check.’
“Bad assumption PF and again part of this new game in America of “hate the poor”. Why do you assume irresponsibility? What about the working poor? ”
I think your response says more about you than it does me, R. The check I am referring to is in payment for illegitimate birth, not being poor – as is the reference to irresponsibility. If you are unmarried and get preggers today, you get a check. That is a perverse incentive for irresponsiblilty. Remember the stats about unwed motherhood in Europe vs. America? We created this monster – simply by subsidizing this particular kind of irresponsibility.
I certainly don’t hate the poor. I grew up poor, played with poor kids, worked in the mines to go to college. But it’s like what Jerry Clower said about the seven-year’s-itch: it’s no sin to GET it; it’s a sin to KEEP it. What I learned from my family is that poor is a state of mind. We never had much, but we were never POOR, if that makes any sense. Nobody stopped working long enough to whine about their station in life. We worked, got ahead, and we all did just fine.
The gub’ment has taken away all incentive for poor folks to pull themselves up, telling them they are poor, victims, downtrodden – and most importantly – incapable of doing anything about it.
No, the problem nowadays is not a poverty of money; it’s a poverty of spirit – all encouraged and funded by your government.
poolman@333. Very brave of you to admit that in this den of wolves.
I, too, used food stamps for about six months when I was in med school. Couldn’t work in the summers, since we did classes year ’round. It was very, very helpful.
Rutherford, you listen to Michael Savage? Our son says he is either a genius or insane, and on most days, it is hard to tell the difference. He is entertaining.
I think the Democrats’ attempt to portray the Republicans as waging a war on women prompted Romney advisers to put Ann out front to show that Romney likes women and is a great guy.
I know poor people. Most are there because of bad decisions or bad luck.I don’t know if it applies elsewhere, but it certainly does here. North Omaha has a high crime and gang rate. The most popular family comment about a dead gang member is “He was just beginning to turn his life around.”
Our three churches operate a food bank. My wife works there twice a week, and we donate money and things we buy at thrift stores. They need incentives for job training and help at managing their lives. They don’t need permanent aid disconnected with any serious effort to reorganize their lives and to look for jobs.
Andy Williams died yesterday. He was born in Wall Lake, Iowa, and he he often returned home.
We could have collected food stamps during the farm recession, but it would have shamed us. Instead, I fixed my boots with duct tape and bought a $400 pickup with no motor mounts. I wired the engine in place. Duct tape held shut the passenger door of the car my wife drove to school. Our daughter wanted a Cabbage Patch doll, but she didn’t get one until she graduated from high school.
My wife could put together an outfit costing a dollar from clothes she bought at the Salvation Army. and other places.
We wore coats in the house so because to save fuel, we kept the temperature at 55 degrees.
Our children walked three miles to school, each morning, and it was uphill all the way. It was still uphill when they walked home. Ha!
Our in laws did go on welfare. They served commodity cheese at picnics It was some of the best cheese I ever ate.
Saying the poor wants to be poor is just semantics. Actually many welfare recipients are less poor than minimum wage earners which fosters the current system. Welfare recipients with children get a check, food stamps and Medicaid while being able to stay home. A minimum wage earner with children pays child care, gas and payroll taxes. You do the math.
I know of seasonal small businesses that close for 3-4 months of the year and all the employees receive unemployment benefits until they are “rehired”. Isn’t this practice still fostering the current welfare/unemployment system?
Disability Social Security is the real culprit in the draining of government entitlements. It usually 2-3 years to obtain permanent disability SS based on your previous salary. If you obtain a disability lawyer you are pretty much guaranteed to be approved usually in 2 years and a large portion of approved disability is 60% mental, 40% physical. Once you have been approved you will receive a lump sum payment that amounts to the total of the years you spent seeking approval which can range from 25K-50K. The lawyer receives his 35% from this lump sum.
To do the math, the recipient now gets 2K a month for life plus 48K lump sum (assumes it took two years to get approval) minus lawyer fees. It gets better. If you have a dependent child, he receives 1K (half) plus a lump sum of 24K until the age of 18. Disability recipient now gets a take home of 3K a month tax free.
Sweet! Might be nice to wake up poor and disable 😉
I’m an officially disabled veteran but too minor to get money I should claim it is worse and maybe I could get a government check too.
Thor asked what our beef is with Obama and the attack on the Libyan counsolate. The Washington Times writer Glenn Kessler wrote that Obama lied for political reasons. His Secretary of State lied to Congress, and the ambassidor to the UN lied on national television,.
If Obama was a Republican, you can bet the press would be talking about this travesty as loudly as they did about Watergate.
A few days ago, a New York Times writer defended the concept of death panels in Obama care because rationing is the only to control expenses. Obama himself once told a reporter that maybe it is better to give a very sick or old person a pain pill,
Sarah Palin was right.
@365. You know I’m no fan of Palin, but damned straight she was right about the death panels.
I think a lot about R’s POV. I don’t often encounter thinking libs – or thinking right-wingers, for that matter. It seems that we all look at everything through a filter of sorts that colors every thought with that POV. Now if I could just turn my own filter off…
Rutherford you are wrong on PA
http://www.votespa.com/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=1174114&parentname=ObjMgr&parentid=4&mode=2
Folks it has to be said and stressed time and time again. There is a difference between poor and an underclass. PF,James and Raji have pointed at the elements that show the difference. Poolman has hinted at it as well putting forth his personals.
Rutherford you seem stuck in a weird kind of rhetoric/partisan loop whose time I can’t quite peg.
I wish to apologize to Alfie for losing my temper and being snotty with him. Mea culpa.
FWIW PF clearly a classic example of how a thread conversation actually runs counter to communication. The way my head was exploding on my end that day wouldn’t have happened if we were afforded real time dialog and all the human things like muscle twitches,smirks etc.
No worries.
Sandi points out that most of us will pay for Mitt’s tax relief to the rich. It seems pretty well documented. Anyone care to refute it with anything other than ad hominem attacks?
http://cassandrafiles.com/2012/09/26/mitts-magic-math-or-math-is-hard/
Mrs poolman and I were discussing the other day how 90 percent of human communication is body language. The way things are said and all the nuances are generally not picked up entirely from the written word. My cats get that. They can’t read but react to the same words differently depending on delivery. It takes a special talent to write in a way that truly expresses an idea to others as you intend. Most times it doesn’t come across 100 percent and is often misconstrued. Happens here a lot.
And then like PFessser said, we do all have our own filters that can hinder or alter understanding.
Alfie and Pf, well done gentlemen. It’s amazing what we lose in communication when we can’t utilize a wink, a smile, a touch on the shoulder. Being human is so much more than the words we utter, polished or not.
James, I know you aren’t big on links, but can you give me something. I just don’t get how the administration could be orchestrating some huge lie about Libya when within 24 hours of the attack they were already hinting that they suspected an organized terrorist attack, not just a protest gone wild.
PF I see your point but that is a failure of our democracy don’t you think? The ideal is that legislators who spend recklessly get thrown out of office by their constituents. So ultimately, isn’t it the American people who are not holding these folks to account?
And I also hope her cancer was caught early.
Newt, she had just finished surgery, chemo and radiation on one breast with the coast clear … when the other one got diagnosed. 😦 Now she’s back to square one. I’m not sure but I think she’s in the middle of chemo now.
Speaking of sucking nanny’s teat…
I collected unemployment in 2005 after getting fired from my job (first time in my life). I mainly did it to get back at my former employer. They have to pay into the fund. We were feuding and that was my way of getting back, since we had a gentleman’s agreement he reneged on.
The initial filing was extensive and I received top benefits for months before I had become gainfully employed again. I was earning $1,100.00 per week before getting canned. The max benefit from unemployment was $244 a week. Every week I would need to report in and answer the recorded questionaire correctly to continue receiving benefit.
It was something like this…
Have you been gainfully seeking employment?
Have you interviewed with any potential employers?
Did you receive any income from any source this week?
Have you attempted to learn a new trade or seek work outside of your particular training?
Something to that effect. You had to answer honestly (they claim) and only the right answers would keep the money rolling in. In effect my representative told me I had to lie to get the income, but that was okay. It’s the way the system worked.
I explained to him that I was studying for my contractor’s license and preparing to start my own business. I had told them my situation from the beginning. They knew I was not out job hunting, but the system required that I said I was. The person said it was fine but I would still need to tell the system I was seeking employment and was basically job hunting.
I collected for about 3 months and up until I was earning a little money from my new company. The other difficulty from the state’s side was that a contractor could not contract for work until he was officially licensed by the state. Any contracting prior to the issuance of said license would disqualify one from receiving the license one was attempting to gain.
Our whole system is designed to force folks to be dishonest in some form or fashion. Psychopaths have the definite advantage in today’s corporate world.
Alfie, if one gives their money to a super pac, is there any control by the donor where it goes? What I’m getting at is, if this thing continues to go south on Romney, what is to keep the RNC or Rove from pulling the plug on him and spending their money say in … the Missouri Senate race.
I could see how it might piss off a moderate Republican if the money they donate, thinking it will help win back the White House, actually goes to elect the guy who thinks women’s bodies naturally produce post-rape spermicide.
G, I expect you’ll be too busy to see this reply but I would imagine Huck would be pleased that:
1. Morsi, with some prod from Obama, did the right thing. Morsi is in a tough spot politically with a lot of different factions to please. From my understanding as a newbie President, Morsi performed adequately in the crisis.
2. Libyan moderate Muslims for the first time in recent recorded history went on record to condemn the actions of the radical terrorists, going so far as to oust them from one of their strongholds.
It’s a shame that you ignore the positive developments in the Arab Spring simply to bolster your case.
Think about this possibility … in an age where the momentum is towards freedom perhaps now moderate Muslims will wake up and see that THEY are being killed by the radicals, and a change in Islam power structure might see the light of day?
I’m an officially disabled veteran but too minor to get money I should claim it is worse and maybe I could get a government check too.- James
James, just tell them you are depressed because of your physical disability but be sure and wait until after you have had a profitable farm year 😉
So ultimately, isn’t it the American people who are not holding these folks to account?- Rutherford
Absolutely! We the stockholders are not doing our job. Talk about needing some Hope and Change!!!!
The American people need to wake up but I fear we are just like the moderate Muslins you hope will wake up and change the Islam power structure.
Rutherford you do operate on the glass half full theory and I admire your optimism in a pessimistic world
Poolman regarding your video about a false flag provocation against Iran, this is JUST the kind of thing a Romney admin scares me for. I fear Romney will be manipulated by neocons to put us into war with Iran.
This is true.
You really really really believe that? How are you defining poor Tigre? I don’t mean people who choose to live “simple”. I mean people who don’t know where their next meal is coming from. People who are two steps from being thrown out into the street … or already live there.
On, of all places, “The Voice” on NBC last night, they had a young singer whose mother saw him being harassed by gang members and she chose to uproot the family to another state rather than surrender her son to a life in gangs. The kid seemed like a real decent kid too. I submit not every mother can pull that solution off. I submit some families are trapped. They have to suffer cos a few folks abuse the system?
I’ll try to learn more about this Jessco the Dancin’ Outlaw. But I’ll tell you right now, if the documentary on this person was made by some right wing nutjob ideologue, you can forget it. I’ll tell you something else, if there is one Jessco for every ten legitimately indigent, then I call it the price of doing business and I can live with it.
P.S. Let me repeat … I favor welfare to work programs with free training as part of the mix and food stamps available only so long as a minimum income cannot be achieved.
Correction to my last comment … “The Voice” was not on last night … I was watching it on my TiVo.
@368 I don’t know,I doubt it, not unlike union dues. The thing with both though is that their agendas do tend to be pretty clear.
I’m not feeling the anti-Mitt stuff simply because I always believed this is how he’d run,message wise anyway and that the quality of the campaign is being seen through biased lenses primarily the MSM.
@ Rutherford 361
I can get the link if you want,I think you’d hate the source: Heritage Foundation. They have quite a lot of stuff filed away under Taxmaggedon. It is very interesting that even given the source one should be able to step back and from a bipartisan citizen stance scream “Holy Crap”!!!
We’re heading for some serious crap.The passed buck stops eventually.
Also re false flag versus Iran. Anything Iran gets will be going at a 60-40 line. Seriously the Prez o’ Tehran reiterated a diatribe of anti’s that was a ton scimitar rattling. The shitbag then is shocked when the other side rattles the swords.?!
There are no simple solutions and there are a clear number of missteps to say the least on behalf of the West but really….takes two to tango.
@ 370 to be fair Rutherford the Arab Spring isn’t all pretty blossoms and the gardening metaphors could go on and on including multiple references to manure.
Morsi also delivered a pretty clear “fuck you” to US.
Tigre, Dancing Outlaw doesn’t seem to be available on Netflix but a more recent film about Jesco’s family is. I did watch some YouTube vids about him.
Cut to the chase … did the documentary show that he is collecting welfare or does the documentary simply show he’s a crazy stoned hillbilly? If not the former, then I’m not sure I see your point.
That was not the point. Of course different outlets will quote polls that support their bias. It happens here all the time when one of you guys rolls out the notoriously conservative Rasmussen poll.
I have no quibble with that. My quibble is with the suggestion the polling itself is deliberately rigged in some sinister conspiratorial way.
Of all the folks here, I probably quote polls the least because they are the weakest defense or offense strategy. If I do quote them it’s usually in response to one of you quoting one first.
One thing though … if a preponderance of polls show the same trend don’t you think a campaign should pay attention?
I don’t participate in polls or surveys. My experience has been that the questions are formed in a certain way to elicit a certain response. Often the question you want to answer isn’t asked. They often ‘give’ you something if you participate. Bait and reward.
I flat refuse to participate and that generally flabbergasts the questioner. The always want to know why not.
Oh well. Free speech means I can hold mine if I so choose.
Rutherford, you listen to Michael Savage?
No, I don’t … nor could I bear to. I found him while researching Ann Romney. Truth be told, he is sufficiently repugnant that I should LIKE Ann because he dislikes her but I still think he has a point about her.
I think the Democrats’ attempt to portray the Republicans as waging a war on women prompted Romney advisers to put Ann out front to show that Romney likes women and is a great guy.
You are 100% right about this. In fact I like to joke that Ann is Mitt’s Ambassador to the Country of Vagina. He even told the press once, something to the effect of, “Ann talks to women all the time”. I had to laugh. Why can’t YOU talk to women Mitt?
He’s a piece of work. I’m telling you, given his limited perspective, I like the guy. I think he’s probably real smart in the board room, a real goofball at home. I don’t think his 47% remark was malicious in intent but simply a skewed world view influenced by his 1% ethos. In fact, I dislike the prick who queued up the question that got Romney in trouble more than I dislike Romney. Sadly, Romney’s top priority is to please the prick … just to make sure he’s part of that 50+% that gets him elected.
Contrast that with 2008 John McCain who was willing to sacrifice votes to tell that nutjob that Obama was not “an Arab”. I still say that was McCain’s finest moment and it redeems him from being totally dismissed by me as a waistoid.
BTW James …. absolutely Andy Williams R.I.P. I don’t know much about the guy’s personal life but he always seemed a real decent fellow to me.
I feel like I’m reminded of my mortality daily every time one of these icons I grew up with meets his/her maker. I think last week it was Phyllis Diller.
BTW, a bit of music trivia … if I’m not mistaken, Andy Williams discovered The Osmond Brothers.
I just learned a new acquaintance’s husband works for Bain Capitol, she almost didn’t want to tell me. I am cool with it, a job is a job. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/1985-romney-bain-harvest-firms-profits-video
OK Alfie ,,, I was wrong about PA voterid vis-a-vis student id cards. Thanks for the update. My bad.
Sorry to comment on the most trivial part of Poolman’s comment but … it is hilarious. I am notorious for not heeding the first call to dinner when dinner is ready. So now, when my wife calls for dinner, my cat Ollie (the only real family member name I’ll share here) comes into my office and looks at me until I comply. Then he accompanies me back to the dinner table.
Cracks me up every time. 😆
I’m not at all surprised by PF and Alfie’s exchange today. Both have proven themselves to be stand-up guys when it comes to debate. We all lose our temper here.
Thor one of the things James is upset about … and I share his concern .. was the appearance of Ambassador Susan Rice on Meet the Press, Face the Nation and Fox News Sunday, where each time she said “our best knowledge tells us this was a spontaneous reaction to the video”. I shook my head in disbelief when by that time, Libyan officials were already saying otherwise.
I know the conservatives want to turn this into some mini-9/11 screw up which is preposterous but I will say the White House did a terrible communications job on this. Absolutely terrible.
“You really really really believe that? How are you defining poor Tigre?”
Yes, I really, really, really do. I guess I hate the poor?
R, pick your battles. I am defining it the same way you did in the comment I was responding to. Those that qualify for and receive long-term/lifetime government assistance by choice. The ones that proved to you that PF “hates the poor.”
No, the documentary was not a right wing anything. In fact it portrayed folks from WV that guys like PF are probably familiar with but do in fact represent the depths of poverty — and not the urban recipients you used to support your second accusation of racism.
I am still trying to get your “you must hate the ___” b.s.
Thor my two cents …. the word from my dreaded liberal media is that Karl Rove will wait until the first debate is over. If Mitt blows that, the cash register will be closed and Karl will try to ensure a GOP House and a take over of the Senate.
With Akin now un-moveable and Scott Brown’s staff lampooning Native Americans, there is a good chance the Senate will stay democratic.
We shall see,
Alfie, I’d never characterize Iran as “the good guys”. But even the evil and crazy want to solidify their power and safety in the region. I still think Bibi’s rhetoric makes matters worse not better.
“I have no quibble with that. My quibble is with the suggestion the polling itself is deliberately rigged in some sinister conspiratorial way.”
I don’t know what you’re point is. Mine was that poll results are manipulated and for a reason. That is conspiratorial becuase it’s concerted and intended to provoke a reaction. What’s yours? A collective conspiracy is absurd? I already mentioned that.
Jeesh, David Corn is on a roll (a “cornroll” . ba dum dum).
Guess old Cornie does NOT want to see Romney elected. 🙂
Newt, I agree that there is no shame in working for Bain Capital. They’re not criminal after all.
Holy crap … that shows just how “black” I am. The hair style is “corn rows” not “cornrolls”.
I guess I’ll stop getting those NAACP emails now. 🙂
Tigre maybe you’re playing catchup but please answer my earlier question. Does the documentary in question say that the hillbilly (whose name I’ve ALREADY forgotten) was getting welfare? And if not, then why did you use him as an example?
I am FINALLY caught up with a blog thread. Damn!
Now that I am caught up I want to say to Dead Rabbit … dude NEVER judge if someone should be getting food stamps unless you know the facts.
When I got laid off, it never even occurred to me to collect unemployment because I immediately started my own business and I assumed I couldn’t collect unemployment and be self-employed at the same time.
A month or two ago, my wife, on one of her more depressed days, asked me if I had considered going on disability. Again, I assume I’d have to give up my next-to-no income business to do it … and for me it’s just a matter of pride.
But all that said, I would never assume sh*t about Poolman’s circumstances.
“Does the documentary in question say that the hillbilly (whose name I’ve ALREADY forgotten) was getting welfare?”
Yes, and if the first documentary say so, later media did. And as I said, I met the family in and Jessco himself.
But that is besides the point i was making which was simple: some do choose to be poor. For many, welfare and entitlements are a way of life.
Do you remember what YOU said? Do you remember all that I said?
If you ever spent the day in one of these places to apply for assistance, you would see the difference in people and come to your own judgment. Some are embarrassed to be there. Others have an entitled air. Some appear clueless. It really is a mix. It is a humbling experience to be there for aid. Some are wearing their best clothes, while others appear to be in underwear or pajamas.
Many homeless are too proud. I have met many homeless folks. Phoenix is notorious for transients especially in winter because of the weather. Some do travel across state lines. Plenty are being picked up and who knows what happens to them. More always seem to fill the void.
It’s really pretty sad to see this once land of opportunity appearing so openly inhumane. It reminds me a lot of pictures and stories of the great depression, another mostly bankster induced event from our history.
Do you ever?
Let’s look at your comment again: Although that’s not [to] say all the polling showing an Obama advantage is wildly inaccurate (my gut tells me there’s something wrong with what’s being reported), but it’s not coincidence either.
Seems you’ve hedged your bets on the “conspiracy”. What exactly is your gut telling you? The numbers are not wildly inaccurate BUT your gut tells you something is wrong. Try to parse that for me.
I am saying that most pollsters (I suspect Gallup is an exception) lean right or left based on their audience sampling habits, etc. I think we agree on that. I am further saying that the media reports the polls that bolster their wishful thinking (Real Clear Politics which averages them is probably an exception). I think we agree on that.
Finally I am saying the media reports polls that delight their audience, they don’t report polls hoping the polls discourage the opposition from voting. That is where I think the silly conspiracy theories come into play. I’m not sure we agree on that.
LOL I know you can’t answer this but I am left wondering whether you defended Jesco or prosecuted him. 🙂
You’ve told me enough (combined with the YouTube footage I watched) for me to render a verdict. You really think Jesco freely “chose” the life he is living? You think sane men snort glue and gasoline fumes? You don’t think he came out of one doozy of a dysfunctional family? F*ck, you met the man … so I know you know everything I just said is true.
This is exactly what I mean by the “hate the poor” trend that is popular right now. Jesco should fill a man like you or me with sadness not resentment. Jesco should make us ask where have we gone wrong as a society that he and many like him live in squalor.
If we say an entitlement society is to blame, then fine. Let’s blame the policy. But let’s then recognize that there are a lot of innocent folks swept up into that entitlement trap, who appear “happy” because it’s their way of survival. Our challenge as a country, particularly if we are going to be a conservative country is to find a way to decrease these programs and HUMANELY get these people off the dole instead of condemning them as happy lazy loafers.
Your dismissive attitude toward Jesco is only one step up the ladder from passing judgment on the mentally retarded.
Does it occur to anyone that the contentedness at poverty is just a facade covering up deep shame?
I think Poolman’s assessment of the cross section of people he’s seen just about covers it. And shame is a big component with lots of these folks taking a helping hand from Uncle Sam.
@ Rutherford 403 not for nothing but when you add a+b+c=x I don’t see how you can dismiss d:they don’t report polls hoping the polls discourage the opposition from voting.
Seriously, we all lived through 2000 -right?
For me calling races and the pre-election polling are on the same sheet of shame and sham.
@ 403 and 404…you see that’s the thing. I apologize for the caps….
THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE POOR AND A SAFETY NET AND THE UNDERCLASS AND A HAMMOCK.
There is a lot of dots for this and it is global. We can also get into a whole level of things regard the poor,slums and the actual human value and benefit thereof etc.
I love this subject like pools likes 9/11…bring it!
Poolman regarding your ALEC video … remember, I already went there and was dismissed for it. ALEC is f*cking dangerous.
https://rutherfordl.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/the-trayvon-martin-case-three-related-issues/
They may be cousins but I think calling a race prematurely on election night via exit polling is far more destructive than simply reporting polls pre-election.
In fact, I would argue that with early voting in some states, seeing polls that show your “man” at a disadvantage might trigger some reactionary early voting in response to the benefit of the projected “loser”.
Alfie defining that dividing line between the poor and the underclass is tricky don’t you think, unless you’ve found some good objective measure/definition. Can I assume you believe the underclass have “volunteered” for a lifestyle that the poor have not?
“the word from my dreaded liberal media is that Karl Rove will wait until the first debate is over. If Mitt blows that, the cash register will be closed and Karl will try to ensure a GOP House and a take over of the Senate.” – R
I raised the question because I had never heard a campaign actually attack the validity of multiple polls before. Perhaps downplaying one oddball result, but not the whole swath of them. If this scenario is accurate, then the push back makes sense.
A missing comma should make this clearer:
In fact, I would argue that with early voting in some states, seeing polls that show your “man” at a disadvantage might trigger some reactionary early voting in response, to the benefit of the projected “loser”.
I think someone in this thread or another said I was comma-challenged. I plead guilty. I’m awful with them.
I have to step out but real quick..
No…the underclass actively and aggressively pursue the lifestyle and are coddled by a system that is insane. Poor is state of wallet. Underclass is a state of mind and soul.
Thor I think you’ve got it exactly right. The poll-denial partly involves the campaign telling folks like Karl Rove “nothing to see here”. But again the sad truth is the GOP internal polling is confirming the public results. That’s one reason Romney and Ryan have reunited on the campaign trail.
“I shook my head in disbelief when by that time, Libyan officials were already saying otherwise.” – R
And our own officials were saying it the day after the attack. So she is either an idiot or a liar. It doesn’t mean the entire administration was trying to dupe us. Did the esteemed members of the press core on these shows instantly correct her, thus putting an end to the misinformation?
Thor apropos of our conversation, I just got this email from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC)
Rutherford — As Mitt sinks in the polls, Karl Rove is expected to shift his money into a Republican Senate takeover. And we now believe one single seat could cost us the Senate majority.
We need Elizabeth Warren to win in Massachusetts, Claire McCaskill to defeat Todd “legitimate rape” Akin in Missouri, and Tammy Baldwin to win in Wisconsin. And each race is polling within the margin of error.
Let’s just say they challenged her and she stuck to her guns using the “what we know at this time” caveat. I don’t know who she was getting her marching orders from.
It’s not fantastic, but someone on Obama’s team read my plea for a plan. It’s simplistic but it’s a start. I think the section on health care is the most effective/damning to Romney.
Newt and Thor, enjoy. The rest of you, not so much. 😉
http://www.barackobama.com/plans
Rutherford if you are referring to the poll by the Winston Group I think you are guilty of premature ejaculation. Don’t worry funky…it happens to all men
My on again off again p.m. plans are on again so I ca’t jump in2 the Obama plan. I just have to say LOL
A kindergartener could shred those points. Sadly with proper ID or not there are a lot of Americans with the intelligence and maturity and vision of a kindergartener so perhaps Obama gets re-elected.
Stupid electorate+shitty shitty biased softball douchebag media=4 more years. Something to be proud of R
Two things,both kind of Bain,Romney,Obama related:
First look who likes Bain and why:
* Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund ($2.2 million)
* Indiana Public Retirement System ($39.3 million)
* Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System ($177.1 million)
* The Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension System ($19.5 million)
* Maryland State Retirement and Pension System ($117.5 million)
* Public Employees’ Retirement System of Nevada ($20.3 million)
* State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio ($767.3 million)
* Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System ($231.5 million)
* Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island ($25 million)
* San Diego County Employees Retirement Association ($23.5 million)
* Teacher Retirement System of Texas ($122.5 million)
* Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System ($15 million)
Second. the story about the Sensata technologies plant in Freeport Ill.. the division specializes in automobile sensors. 170 jobs are going to China where,let’s be honest, the future car market is huge. JUST ASK GM who owes most of their success to SAIC as opposed to D.C.
Anyway my question is…will the media and people be as sharp when Sensata shutters a medical sensor plant secondary to the increase in corporate taxes and the coming 3.8% medical device tax that is part of ACA?
Rutherford, I believe on disability, you are entitled to earn a certain amount of income without penalty. It would be easy enough to find out ahead of time.
#421, said and done. Actually I am shocked you haven’t looked into it.
Sorry, I walked away from my computer and then realized I didn’t give you the link. A phone call or a visit will, of course, give you more information.
http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/317/~/working-while-receiving-social-security-disability-benefits
“Your dismissive attitude toward Jesco is only one step up the ladder from passing judgment on the mentally retarded.”
R, I am recovering from surgery I had yesterday and I am in a considerable amount of pain. You’re back to your old tricks and it’s making me angry. Since my fuse is short, I won’t bother feeding the monster any more. But do me a fucking favor would ya? Try following along with my overall point rather than just isolating one statement to the exclusion of everything else, i.e. context.
I offered an observation of the Jessco primarily because and he’s not black, a large part of your insulting “you hate” comment. He occurred to me as an example not because I pity or loathe the guy (or his family). He’s the pathetic “hillbilly” that you clearly hate. It was also that your comment followed a conversation I had with a black liberal friend in federal law enforcement that had to go into remote areas of Appalachia. He grew up inner city (DC) and said (in so many words) that he believed blacks had a near monopoly on poverty until he saw what real poverty looked like — and it wasn’t black. It was an eye opener for him. Not me. That’s all. Nothing heavy.
Jessco is a counter image to the ones you rely on for your silly accusations. Nothing more. Not some kind of shining example of why welfare or other programs should not exist or why the poor are inferior losers or whatever you’re trying to stretch it to mean. You already know I have plenty of contact with the urban black communities you wish to treat like children.
R, at the moment, I don’t have tolerance for another attempt to challenge what I’ve said without understanding it. So you win. Conservatives are haters of everyone that’s not like them and no one chooses (wants) to be poor — whatever that means in America. 🙄
R, arguing with you makes me feel like the woman on the left:
Trying to go to bed early tonight … so a real quickie … sorry to hear about the surgery Tigre. Speedy recovery to you!
Alfie, I will agree with there being a difference in mentality between poor and low class. Entitlement is an ugly wardrobe
I’ve met folks from all levels of few societies and found both good and poor character throughout. In this country we often reward the incompetent for their skill. Outwitting the government is sometimes taken to an art form.
We have a failed system that many take advantage of. We like to kick at the lowlifes demanding their share of the pie and bypass the LIBOR Fed IMF bankster criminals that are helping themselves to our
bootybounty with their QE and TARP bailout magick.. Unfortunately, many characters aspire to the latter. In money god we trust. Certainly the sponsors don’t want to lose any sponsorship.re 425 😆 😯 😆 😯 😆
yes, Rutherford, Andy Williams seemed to be a good man. He was from a few counties away from my home, and when he visited Omaha, he mentioned the Osmonds. He sang Moon River for the mother of the interviewer.
One of the biggest scandals of his life was when his French model wife Claudine Langay SP shot and killed her lover. Andy publiclly defended her and said she was a good person. The shooting was later ruled an accident.
Andy Williams was the first I heard tell this joke. A couple filed for divorce. The official noted that they were both over 100. “Why couldn’t you work things out after all of this time?” “We decided to wait until the children died.”
El Tigre, I hope you feel better soon.
I’ve traveled through Applelachia, and the the living conditions are truly rural Lithuanian. Another depressing place is the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
thor, the reaction to the attack was not uncordinated. The administration was either caught off guard in their ignorance or they tried to change the narrative. The Fox interviewer didn’t sharply call Rice on her interpretation, though the Sunday Panel afterward doubted her story.
Had Obama been Bush the press would have unmercifially attacked his role in the scandal. As its is, the press worried more about Romney’s 47 comment, and there is no scandal..
Mitt was unpolitic because he thought he was speaking privately, but he was right. Many, not all of the 47 percent as so dependent on the government their interest lies in the status quo. Moreover, many, not all are so ignorant they can hardly find their shoes in the morning. They wouldn’t vote Republican unless you paid them. They buy Obama’s lies when he tells them.
Obama is relying on the stupid vote to re hire, him as he runs against himself. I think he has a good chance of winning this election. The debates may change the dynamic.
ET noted: “But that is besides the point i was making which was simple: some do choose to be poor. For many, welfare and entitlements are a way of life.”
As you know, I grew up right in the middle of “Appalachia.” I almost hate to weigh in on this, but I think I may have some insight. And I am just speaking about Hillbillies, whom I know very well.
No, nobody wants to be poor or chooses to be that way If They Have Any Choice. Everybody wants a new car, a nice house and good clothes for their kids. Everybody. But the second part of that is, They Don’t Know How Not To Be Poor – it is, indeed a way of life. But saying it is a way of life implies they like it; they do not, it’s just the only life they know, Yes, they hear that you can do better, and occasionally they even KNOW somebody who has, but it never occurs to them that those things are open to THEM.
I am now an outsider – a Martian – hell, I could be A New Yorker! – even though I grew up there and am always very careful to spit, cuss, tease the old boys, dig graves, and NEVER criticize anybody to their face. It is unthinkable that a boy from the hollers could be a Big Doctor. Unthinkable.
But you are wrong too, Rutherford, in thinking that the solution lies outside these people – that they are victims of circumstance over which they have no control. In a way that is true, and it is not. Their poverty comes from their inabilities, but those inabilities come from poor schools, low standards, an extremely corrupt WV government that lets the coal companies rape the land but provide no long-term plans for the people.
The solution must come from within – just like black folks’ solutions. But most critically, they both need real leaders – well-educated, charismatic, and focused on straightening out the system. And then the people themselves have to be straightened out. They must throw off that mantle of victimhood, stand up straight and say By God we intend to have a good life. They need to get good educations – if it means working in the mines, so be it. They need to question the politicians carefully and field good candidates of their own. They need to become immune to the do-gooders and, in blacks’ case, the racial ambulance-chasers like Sharpton, et al who get rich by fanning the fires and telling them how much they are downtrodden.
No, R, more gub’ment is NOT what they need. They are not children; they are men and women – with the same capabilities as everybody else – and they need to be treated that way.
And that means accepting their rights – AND RESPONSIBILITIES.
Apologize for the length. Now you guys are sorry you brought it up.
421 Newt is probably right about disability.
That list of pension funds includes my wife’s Iowa’s Public Employees Retirement System since she just retired from teaching.
“Rutherford — As Mitt sinks in the polls, Karl Rove is expected to shift his money into a Republican Senate takeover.”
That statement is why Rove scares the crap out of me. He has come back to full power but stays behind the lines.
Tigre, I hope you have a speedy recovery
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-28/obama-cabinet-flunks-disclosure-test-with-19-in-20-ignoring-law.html
Yep! It’s Karl Rove we should be frightened of!!! More Solyndra!!!
http://news.yahoo.com/us-postal-default-second-5b-payment-075128930.html
I know! I know! Anybody this efficient should be in charge of health care!
Obamacare 2015:
We don’t do shots on the weekends, and stitches are administered M-W-F. No physician on site – please see Nurse Ratched in office 313. Remember to take a number.
MORE SOLYNDRA!
Poolman, you would have been crazy not to take unemployment. That’s another wage suppressor your employee has to fork out for those very reasons. Indirectly, you did pay for that. Like not taking an earned benefit.
I never had a problem with people drawing unemployment for 12-36 weeks when the employers were paying for it. I had a big problem when government started extending it to 99 weeks and we had to start paying for it.
PF, I disagree completely and can speak from personal experience too.
I have seen first hand “poor” folks that are truly unhappy with the responsibility and expectations that come with acquisition of wealth. I have watched those that would be classified as poor find there way back to the bottom after a huge windfall and prefer it that way. And yes, I am talking about something different from “not knowing how to handle wealth.” I am talking preference.
My completely fried friend Jessco handled his new found “wealth” like a cat handles a trip to the vet. I am not referring to earned wealth like yours. The desire to change the status quo being what separates you from the type I am referring to. I am also not speaking in absolutes. However, I KNOW your statement that “nobody wants to be poor or chooses to be that way If They Have Any Choice” and “Everybody wants a new car, a nice house and good clothes for their kids” not to be true. Whatever your experiences in WV that cause you to believe what you do for “all people” directly contradicts my own experiences (urban and rural) — and there are many. And yes, I am referring not to mere ignorance but actual preference with an actual choice presented.
Thanks for the well-wishes guys.
9/11 redux. The mysterious ANTHRAX and the Patriot Act connection.
Tigre, hope you’re feeling better. Just got the notice. One of the few voices of fiscal sanity I find left on these WordPress boards. I’ve never met such mass ignorance – had no idea America had become this stupid. My only hope is there is a world of intelligence folk out there that doesn’t bother with the internet garbage other than to pay bills and learn a hobby.
My neighbor and I were talking yesterday. He’s 86 years old, and one of the most talented men I’ve ever met. About like us politically and self-made man. Grew up dirt poor and learned to fend for himself. His attic looks nicer than most living rooms. Could build his own house, lived on a farm, one of the most generous people I’ve ever met, and never went a day to college. He told me 50 years ago when he heard the word “stocks”, he thought they were talking about cattle. 😆 Still grows his own vegetables and feeds the neighborhood. Really, a very nice Christian man.
We both agreed now that his wife has passed away, if we didn’t have kids and in Andy’s case grand kids and great grand kids, we might actually root for Obama to win – just to watch these lying thieves and mooches taught a real lesson in life when this all implodes. Might be the only way to save the country. Clean house.
The next bubble to burst. I can hardly wait – may this too happen under Obama:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-15/cost-of-college-degree-in-u-s-soars-12-fold-chart-of-the-day.html
I really did it to get back at the guy I had worked with for eight years and was supposed to have been a partner with in the business I helped him found. It did make him sorry he fired me, since I had given him 30 days notice a couple days before and was willing to bring my replacement up to speed on all the details regarding the ongoing projects we had. I did not want the customers to suffer.
I agree I had paid in, and the company had an established fund with the DES that was not ever tapped prior. To me, the payout is/was pitiful, and one is forced to lie every week to get it. At least in my situation as I was advised – off the record.
It was funny when I applied and the person came back and said I was eligible for the highest benefit. That put a smile on my face up and until they said the max benefit was a mere 244 a week. That meant me living off savings to supplement my income at the time.
Then, like I said, the Arizona Registrar of Contractors made it known any contracting prior to issuance of a license was strictly verbotten. I had a couple projects lined up but could not start them right away. Other work I could have done I had to pass on.
It worked out, but gave me a glimpse of the way the system operates. Knowing others would have to work the same system that often required dishonesty just to get anything from it was very disheartening.
I also was shown years later when my wife sought employment that most of corporate America operates in similar fashion. Rules and requirements are spelled out officially, but one cannot perform the tasks at hand without breaking many of those stated rules and requirements.
It is designed to make us okay with being dishonest, even just a little. It’s a foothold and helps crack open the door to greater acts of dishonesty.
Tigre, hope you are feeling better. Just think of us as your family visiting you in the hospital. Some relatives make you want to grasp their hand, converse. Others just make you want to turn up the pain medicine. 🙂
Hope they are letting you have cigars.
“Its a foothold and helps crack open the door to greater acts of dishonesty.” That describes the Obama administration.
They lied and a compliant domestic press largely cooperated because Obama miscalculated about the Middle East and terrorism. Obama is still alluding to the video as he did on The View and in his UN speech.
Now, the creator has been arrested under what I believe are suspicious circumstances. The charge of violating an order to avoid the internet is probably valid, but why now and. why is he held without bail?
Jake Carney said roughly let’s be clear, this protest was a reaction to a video.That was a lie. NPR still supported the lie when they called the terrorist charges Republican conjecture.
Last night, al Quaeda soldiers attacked a prison and released prisoners as they shot their way out. Iraq is less stable than it was because Obama sent too many troops away before their time for political reasons.
Democratic and Republican Congresspeople as well as news reporters have begun to ask questions. We need someone like Cato the Elder to consistantly attack Obama’s policies.
How can anyone vote for someone who blatantly lies to his own country? Maybe because he/she owns an Obamaphone.
Newt, thanks for the link on Social Security. The reason I’ve never looked into it is that I’ve never even considered going on disability. It’s a matter of pride as much as anything else. But the point I was making earlier in the thread is that it doesn’t put me in the position of judging anyone else, like Poolman, for example.
I hope they let you have cigars too.
Let’s lift ET’s spirits. Let’s talk about BEER. According to this chart, Tex and ET should be big on Sam Adams. I prefer Tequila or a good coffee nudge. Beer isn’t really my thing. But I do enjoy both a Molson or a Labatt. This indicates I am high turnout, but on both sides of the spectrum. Take a look at what your own preferences say about your politics. Kind of fun.
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2012/09/the-politics-of-3.php
Well Rutherford, SS disability isn’t charity.
Well thor, I’m into Dos Equis right now and have been for a few years, so accordingly that puts me here:
Americans who most often drink Dos Equis are in the middle-of-the-road
I used to be a big Coors fan and at the time I considered myself more right wing. So there is some merit to the chart. I was never a Bud fan, but if cold and the only option, I have been known to suck down a few of them. And if the choice was Heineken or Michelob, I’ve been know to gravitate toward either one.
You can keep your tequila. The hint of it still makes me queasy today, though it has been 30 years since I swore off of it. 😀
“How can anyone vote for someone who blatantly lies to his own country?” – James
Blatant lie? Really? WMD’s was a blatant lie. It went on for years and led us into an unnecessary war. This is a week of mis-communication, which is being followed up by an investigation and we are attempting to straighten it out. Completely different. Not a blatant lie.
Romney says that Obama threw Israel under the bus. Now that’s a blatant lie.
Rutherford, I agree with newt that SS isn’t charity, but i would do the same as you. I like that in you.
I don’t like beer, but i can discuss Templeton Rye, Al Capone’s favorite whiskey. Iowa farmers made it, and it is being sold again. I have visited Templeton and seen now it is made. That stuff tastes delicious, and it won’t burn on the way down.
Thor, WMD was not a blatant lie, because most of the world’s governments including Democratic leaders believed they existed. Sadams’ son in law fled Iraq and told autherities Hussein had ordered the weapons dismatled to be rebuilt later.
Time Magazine wrote that Saddam lied about the WMD to protect Iraq from attack No WMD left his country vulnerable to Iran and other enemies. . Not even most of his generals knew the weapons were gone until the allied invasion was encroaching on Baghdad.
If you think Obama supports Israel as past presidents have, I have an old camera to sell you. Abe Lincoln himself used it to phptograph his girlfriend.
I wouldn’t have invaded Iraq when we did, but that is another issue.
The Anthrax scare was what pushed us into Iraq. It was on the table with their supposed mobile bio-weapons units that were never there, but the administration needed congressional okie dokies to pass a declaration to go to war along with the pre-written, right’s usurping Patriot Act.
You guys have such malleable memories.
I think the anthrax scare was a side show. WMD and the goal of creating a democratic or at least less extremist bastion in the Middle East would weaken the jihadists because it would present an alternative.
Sure it was. Complete cover up. You bastards can’t even be honest when you’re completely busted.
That WMD that didn’t exist?
I’m sure that Yellow Cake Saddam was holding was to be used as batter mix. And were those chemical weapons that killed Saddam’s own people? A figment.
Of course, if Bush was lying, so was Hillary Rotten, Slick Willie, John Kerry, Vladamir Putin, Madeline Not Bright, Dingy Reid, Sandy Berger, Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller, Joe Biden, Evan Bayh and 109 Democrats who voted to support the Iraq War, before they were against it…
All under “false pretense.” And I’ll guarantee you were right there with them. Hypocrite, liar and arm chair quarterback in denial.
More examples of Obama’s shills and useful idiots working against American interests. Still too late to declare war on these traitorous, phony propagandist types?
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/shocker-matt-damons-anti-fracking-film-is-funded-by-middle-easter-oil-interests/
I got me a 30/30 with a Bushnell scope just itching to have a trigger pulled from 100 yards. You wouldn’t find anything but torso. We could learn a few things from the radicals in the Mid East. They seem to get a little more cooperation from the Left. I wonder why?
I collected unemployment after the military. I scammed the tax payer and worked cash jobs. Pathetic. I also qualified for financial aid for tuition despite getting the G.I. Bill. Also pathetic. I would party with that money. Hell, I’ve probably sucked the teet harder then poolman. But expecting me to believe an able bodied tradesman can’t hustle a few dollars for food? I ain’t buying it. I think more of us need to start judging, not less.
R, arguing with you makes me feel like the woman on the left — El Tigre
LOL. Holy crap I couldn’t finish watching the vid cos I was outside with my iPhone and it was too explicit. U can’t be in that much pain. That was funny as hell.
Ok now that I’m back home I finished Tigres video. Damn that was funny.
Tigre I’m telling you hatin’ on po people will make you slap somebody. It’s like church! Lord have mercy.
P.S. The woman on the left behaved like the other ones mother. I could see the wheels turning in her head “girl, you talkin’ crazy”.
Who would have put such a show together?
Do you think Usama ordered sending cards and letters to our institutions? If not, why was it done? Did it accomplish it’s goal?
The 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, also known as Amerithrax from its Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) case name, occurred over the course of several weeks beginning on Tuesday, September 18, 2001, one week after the September 11 attacks. Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and two Democratic U.S. Senators, killing five people and infecting 17 others. According to the FBI, the ensuing investigation became “one of the largest and most complex in the history of law enforcement”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks
Damn, in this Bongo economy things are getting expensive.
Apr 2011 – Prostart Car Battery $77.00
Sep 2012 – Prostart Car Battery $113.00
Same identical car, same warranty, same Pep Boys. And people really don’t think we are experiencing inflation? Shiiiiittttt….
That video was funny as hell, Tigre. Took me about 60 seconds to figure out what it was talking about. The lady’s look on the left was priceless.
Trickle down the Bernacke way, baby. For the Keynesian spin, see how your battery has increased in its value? 😀
Could be, Poolman. Printing funny money doesn’t seem to making life any easier, hey? But somebody is profiting big time. Unfortunately, it ain’t any of us.
LOL James great joke about the 100 year old divorced couple. 🙂
I’m glad you liked the joke, Rutherford. It reminds me of Andy Williams.
I don’t think Ossama had anything to do with the anthrax scare. It doesn’t fit the pattern. My best guess is a copy cat, but the incident seems strange. No one was captured or successfully charged, for a long time. The incident seemed amateurish.
I don’t know if it accomplished its goal.
I think it did. Once it was smeared in the right faces. It was deemed a domestic threat, but still remains unsolved.
Rabbit, what are you doing to make restitution? As I see it, you stole from all of us.
Oh I stole much more then that. When I walked from my mortgage, after the value of my home was cut in half, I had an outstanding deficiency of over a hundred grand. I have to admit, Fannie Mae put up a good fight. I played hard ball on the phone for two months streight. But, they eventually settled. 2,200 dollars. The rest of you paid the rest. To be honest, I don’t even think the fuck wad I was dealing with at Fannie understood how it all worked.
Newt, I’m not proud of it. But your system makes gangsters of all but the most noble of men. Turns out I wasn’t that noble. I wonder how my kids will turn out? Noble might be your worst nightmare.
And Newt. I welcome the “judgement”. It’s a good start. There are millions upon millions of me.
I think there are far more people like Rutherford, who are reluctant to even apply for what they are due. I guess you live with yourself by saying everyone does it.
“All under “false pretense.” And I’ll guarantee you were right there with them. Hypocrite, liar and arm chair quarterback in denial.” – Tex
Whatever.
I supported going in. That’s because I was LIED to.
In locations north, south, east and west of Baghdad …
We can’t wait for the mushroom cloud …
Centrifuges …
If there is a cover up going on in Libya, why do you know so much about it? Let me guess, Holder did it. 🙂
Thor….what do you get out of being a Jay Carney type turd? I don’t get it. Are you trying to say that the administration didn’t try to spin the true nature of the Al Queda attack in Libya?
Come on man. How do you expect me to take you seriously?
Newt, there needs to be far more people like Rutherford. So yes, keep shaming me…..and others like me.
Newt….care to guess how much Fannie Mae was bailed out?
This yellow cake?
“In his January 2003 State of the Union speech, U.S. President George W. Bush said, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”[2] This single sentence is now known as “the Sixteen Words.”[3] The administration later conceded that evidence in support of the claim was inconclusive and stated, “These sixteen words should never have been included.” The administration attributed the error to the CIA.[4] In mid-2003, the U.S. government declassified the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, which contained a dissenting opinion published by the U.S. Department of State stating that the intelligence connecting Niger to Saddam Hussein was “highly suspect,” primarily because State Department’s intelligence agency analysts did not believe that Niger would be likely to engage in such a transaction due to a French consortium which maintained close control over the Nigerien uranium industry.”
The documents “proving” Iraq was attempting to purchase yellow cake from Niger were outed as forgeries (by the IAEA) BEFORE the invasion of Iraq.
Let me guess… Bush did it?
Apparently, we can wait for the mushroom cloud – that’s not as important as eating lunch with Hillary.
Osama is dead…so is Christopher Stevens.
I don’t care what Snopes thinks they’re covering for. Mohamed ElBaradei is corrupt as hell. His record at the IAEA was a nightmare, the same Mohamed ElBaradei that tried to convince the world Saddam was not in possession of weapons grade uranium in 1982 – which has since been discovered to be a coverup and lie. And who sits on the board of I.C.G. board ElBaradei currently head of?
George Soros. You fucking people from the Left in your naivety and stupidity don’t even know the unsavory characters you’re dealing with.
I’m talking Iraq had 500 tons of Yellow Cake. Period. Don’t care where it was derived. Don’t care how it was purchased.
You act as if it didn’t exist.
Let’s review what yellowcake is…
Yellowcake is used in the preparation of uranium fuel for nuclear reactors, purified uranium metal which can enriched in the isotope U-235 – weapons grade uranium.
The same French “consortium” that sold Iraq nuclear reactors in the 1970s, now covering their asses. Guaranteed in 1982 had you been old enough, you would have been condemning with the rest of the Dhimmi world, Israel blowing Saddam’s reactors to hell.
Rabbit @473, see 451 and 364. Carney is a press secretary. Of course he spins. But saying this is some grand conspiracy is a little ridiculous when the cat was out of the bag less than a day after the attacks.
You’re up kinda late. One of your kids sick? More likely watching the Tigers. 🙂
Things getting a little tighter after tonight. At least the Sox are playing a team that still has some skin in the game.
“Guaranteed in 1982 had you been old enough, you would have been condemning with the rest of the Dhimmi world, Israel blowing Saddam’s reactors to hell.”
Wrong again.
Yeah, well Thor. I don’t believe you. Not a word. The duplicity is mind numbing.
Like I tried to tell you emasculated wienies that killing Osama, while a nice prize buck, changed nothing. And Rutherford concluded the election was over and Obama won.
Here’s what your messiah’s Cult of Personality and dialogue have brought us the last four years.
“Obama, Obama, we are all Osama!”
Islamists that our government refuses to confront or even recognize. What is terrorism now called under the Obama regime? Man made disasters? 😆 You people are helpless.
Nine days of lying; nine days of coverup; four dead Americans – gross incompetence and Hillary Rotten should be fired immediately.
Had this been George Bush flying off to Las Vegas for fundraising while embassies burned, or heading back to bed after being informed, you would be calling for his head.
Hypocrites.
A press secretary defends the presidents’ policy and goals. To suggest he was speaking for himself stretches the boundries of credulity to fantastic territory..
Obama is responsible for our foreign policy, and he is quick to take credit for real and imagined successes. The fact is that Obama miscalculated, and he lied about it. Obama’s self deception caused four men to die.
I suggest that Obama’s constant crowing about the death of Osama bin Ladin helped inflame extremists as much as a stupid video most people never saw. My evidence is the “Obama.Obama, there are a million Osamas”, or something like that. At the very least, it gave the terrorists an additional incentive to stick it to us on the 911 anniversary.
Andria Mitchel said we have two options. We accept a cover up, or the administration is lying to prevent this from being an election issue. The New York Times also said this could hurt Obama. None less that John Kerry was one of several senators asking the White House for more information.
Lest we forget Fast and Furious, Obama declared much of the evidence off limits through executive privilage.about an operation which killed nearly three hundred people. Once again, Obama lied at his Telemendu conference when he said it was a continuation of Bush’s Linebacker scheme.
The press has covered this confidence man and discredited themselves for doing so.George Bush would have been run out of town with the only safe speaking venues held in secret.
The word, as Tex wrote is hypocricy. Another is gullible. One of the bases I served on had so many rats, we kept cats. Some of the jerks called a cat, and when it came, they kicked it into a quansite hut.Peanuts never learned, even after they set fire to her and the fire went out.
This thread is about accountability. Where is it? It seems that too many of us are like Peanuts.
Hypocrisy, in some cases.
Gullibility in other cases.
Cowardice in all cases.
Hillary is a disaster and Obama is a flim flam man, and the media is their chariot.
Tigre, more wishes for a speedy recovery.
America, Get Well Soon.
Rabbit, I am going to make the broad assumption, that you originally bought your house with the intention of paying off the mortgage and just leave it at that. But for you to collect unemployment at the same time you were going to school on the GI Bill….
Muffy, get off those downers, they spoiling your outlook of life.
I didn’t collect unemployment while I went to school.
As for my mortgage, why leave it at that? Don’t do that! The tax payer was put on the hook for every single Fanny foreclosure. And you want to leave it at that?
Newt, comedy really isn’t your forte. Perhaps you are gifted in some other area?
#489 Okay, that was my issue, I thought you deliberately scammed the government so you had extra money to party. The high foreclosure rate that you signed on for, I have mix feelings. Yes buyers were dubbed, but I do find it difficult to believe buyers shouldn’t have concluded that the conditions of the loans they were offered were a huge mistake. A couple of years of interest only must have sounded great, but all too soon when they had to pay interest plus principle, they would be in trouble. The bankers knew this, that is why they bundled the loans and sold them. But people also need to own up their mistakes, in my opinion. What were they thinking? What were you thinking? In any case, I hope you learned something from your experience.
Tigre, props for #425. Many happy returns of laughs at the thought of it. And James, #483 is a great example of why the Fat Grannies of the world dislike you so. .
Newt, my loan was not the problem. I walked because my house lost about 55 percent of its value. I wasn’t among the cycle of foreclosures that took place in 2009 due to ARM loans. I was one of the strategic defaulters of late 2011. Now, it also looked like my wife and I could end up being unemployed. So we decided to be proactive assholes. We walked from our house and my wife told her work she will only stay if they let her work from home (at the time we were also paying for day care).They tried to see if she was bluffing and when they found out she wasn’t, they took her offer. In my defense, I didn’t realize the tax payer was on the hook for every single Fannie bond in the country. I will leave that for you to explain.
When I enrolled at the local community college, the veterans services desk whisked me into another office and told me about all the free money I qualified for in the form of grants. I took the money and rambled.
I also worked cash jobs while I collected unemployment when I first got out of the service. Again, fucked up.
The point is, I’m not even lazy and I ripped the tax payer off.
I think it’s good you are questioning my motives. Indeed they were nefarious. I only ask that you apply this same skepticism of me to the entire system. Do you realize how many people get high on opiates off the tax payer dime, with enough pills left over to sell them on the street? Do you realize how dirty the food stamp underground is? Do you realize how much the system is gamed?
I’ve got the business from a few conservative posters here for my choices. And I deserve it.
“I’ve got the business from a few conservative posters here for my choices. And I deserve it.” Yes you do. And this comes from a liberal. Contrary to some people’s opinions, we, liberals, don’t countenance ‘using’ the system.
The whole system rips off the tax payer. As an entrepreneur, I strive to make things work efficiently. When I look at the revenue the government takes in compared to the way it disperses it, I’m sickened. There is no accountability. To big to fail? It’s already failed. The question is how long can a failed state function? The answer might be as long as its citizenry buy into it.
The system Newt. Now move from the microcosm of the dead rabbit and apply it to the whole system. Safety net my ass. Trust me, my brutal honesty is the only thing that sets me apart from millions upon millions of people. Your big government rips off tax payers and screws the people who are honest. Guys like Tex and Tigre. And you blame them for resisting your ever expanding government? You are too afraid to really research things. Why is it you libs defended Fanny Mae so much? Why should the tax payer be involved with mortgage bonds? How can it be that the tax payer floods the streets with Oxycotin. How can it be that 3 generations of family live off of hand outs. How is your goal NOT to shrink the government at every turn?
I showed up at work this Fall and was given a free Ipad on the tax payers dime. Everyone of us. Supposedly some half cranked government policy to improve technology in the class room. I watch Breaking Bad via Netflicks in my bed. Trust me, my Ipad isnt needed.
Must make you sick. Here I am getting bread from Caesar yet I refuse to vote for the party of hand outs.
“But saying this is some grand conspiracy is a little ridiculous when the cat was out of the bag less than a day after the attacks”.
Yeah, that was some investigation, wasn’t it?
I’ve been off the blog all day celebrating (belatedly) my wife and my twelfth anniversary. More about that later … but first …
Read this quote and then tell me the campaign doesn’t need to pull Ann Romney out of the spotlight:
The aspiring first lady was asked in an interview with KTVN-Reno what her biggest concern for her husband was if he were to win the White House in November.
“You know, I think my biggest concern, obviously, would just be for his mental well-being,” Romney said.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/259299-ann-romney-mitts-mental-well-being-would-be-her-biggest-concern-if-elected
In this sound-bite world, you have to phrase stuff very carefully. As the full article points out, she’s suggesting the job would take an emotional toll on him cos he’s such a sensitive guy, but the way she puts it initially makes him sound like a nut job.
There has got to be a better way to deploy this woman on the campaign.
So September 2, our anniversary was about 9 days shy of my wife’s surgery and she was feeling terrible so we decided to postpone our celebration. With our kid at gymnastics trip to Six Flags amusement park followed by an overnight, we figured today would be a good day for a make up anniversary.
Not a bad day at all. We saw “The Master” with Philip Seymour Hoffman. The movie was a C at best. Then we tried a new pizza place and had some of the best pizza we’ve had since we moved here. Then it was non-political TV night. Among our TV treats were three pilots, “The Mindy Project” (much better than I expected), “Elementary” (ho hum procedural with a twist that gets old very quickly) and “Last Resort” with one of my fav TV actors Andre Braugher. DAMN, that show was GOOD! It will get another viewing.
Looks like you all have been busy. I’ll read a few comments before calling it a night.
Hope you’re feeling better …. you drew the wrong inference. When I mean black I say black. When I mean poor I say poor. What I said is that it is becoming fashionable to hate the poor. I did not take Mitt’s famous 47% statement in any way racial. I took it as a statement about class.
Happy belated anniversary, Rutherford.
Was this guy a prophet or what? Eerie…
Wow, thank goodness again for 425. I caught up on comments, mostly depressing as hell, and 425 was a much needed laugh .. it never gets old. I cracked up when I watched it yesterday. I cracked up again today.
The problem I have with the overall thrust of the thread in the last fifty or so comments is this notion that just because Tigre knows deadbeats, and Poolman has seen them at the gubment offices and Dead Rabbit used to be one, I am supposed to believe that the abusers DEFINE the system.
EVERY system is abused. If we stopped every program because some folks are dishonest, we wouldn’t have any programs and no one would get any help. You guy can call me Peter Pan but I’d rather be Peter Pan than Eeyore any day.
Thanks Poolman … and by the way, “Last Resort” was tailor made for you. A show about the government turning on its own … we just don’t know why yet. Great pilot ..you can see it here: http://abc.go.com/watch
I highly recommend it.
Thanks, muffy.Tthat fat grannies dislike me is a complement. I’m something right.
Happy belated anniversary Rutherford. It must be a good time for you both given what you faced earlier.
I agree with newt about personal responsibility. Many of the people who lost their homes, cars, etc, victimized themselves with unrealistic expectations. The same thing happened during the farm crisis. Watching the housing bubble burst was deja vu all over again.
I agree that Ann Romney could unintentionally give the wrong impression. If you want to see emotional problems in a presidential family, look at the Lincolns. Neither was emotionally normal.
I do think fraud and entitlement has become endemic in our safety net system. Its human nature to expect something for nothing or to twist rules for ones’ advantage.This issue of Time magazine wrote that Mormons believe strongly in helping unfortunate people, but they don’t like charity. They believe some one must return the favor, even if it is only a token.
Our food pantry operates that way. While it is not required, a large percentage or the regular volunteers receive food from the pantry too.
R – nobody hates the poor. I, for one, DO hate the system that generates poor people out of those who could – and would – work, and would be happy to do so.
I am reminded of a conversation with an old grade-school acquaintance “up the holler” about twenty years ago. He had grown up on welfare, was married and had about 4-5 kids. THIS family was on welfare, just like his father’s had been.
We spoke very frankly, having been friends since we were little. I asked him flat out, didn’t he want the pride and material possessions that came from working for a living? Did he like living in a trailer in the head of the holler?
He told me that – even if he could – he would be crazy to get a job; he had dropped out of high school, had no marketable skills to speak of. “If I get a job, I lose my welfare payment dollar-for-dollar which means I am working for nothing. My kids and I lose all our medical care, dental care, optical care.”
These people are not stupid, and contrary to what ET says, I have never met one who does not want to live in a nice house or have a better car. They don’t like being looked down-upon; they just do not *know* how to better themselves, and more importantly, do not believe it possible.
R, the welfare system is – like a lot of do-gooder plans – great in theory, but an absolute destroyer of good people in practice. I am not against helping someone who is down on his luck, but taking the easy way out, the gub’ment way – confiscating wealth of those who earned it to give to those who did not – is wrong, wrong, wrong. It is wrong and unfair to the man who earned it, and more importantly it destroys the man who receives it. All the theories in the world do not counter what I saw every day with my own eyes – generations of proud Scotsmen, Germans, Irishmen – transformed wholesale into dissipated shells.
Has anyone watched “Revolution”? Coast to Coast talked about it. An astraunimer referred to the Carrington Event which was the biggest solar storm witnessed in modern history. It fried telegraph lines, and even when when operators turned off batteries, the telegraph lines still worked. Others got electrical burns.
Now, unless we spend a couple of billion dollars to protect our electric devises and power grids, another Carrington event would take out the power of the northern hemisphere and maybe the world. One danger not mentioned in “Revolution” is nuclear power plants which could go Chernable if back up generators failed.
He said of course the series is dramatized to hold interest, but the basic premise is right. If it happened, one should leave the big cities as soon as possible. That man isn’t the only scientist who has said we could have big trouble with out power grid and satalites.
The woman who bragged about her Obama phone personifies our entitlement mentality and dovetails with what Pfessor wrote. The program began with Reagan to insure that poor people had access to land lines.
Ideally this is how a helping hand should work. A more reasonable example of a good outcome would be like the family of a man I met years ago. His mother divorced his abusive father and she and her three young children went on welfare. The mother attended nursing school and after graduation she got all of them off welfare. He is very proud of his mother, she used welfare as a bridge to a better life for her entire family. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/jk-rowling-says-no-she-couldnt-have-built-it-without-government-aid-and-health-care/2012/09/27/3e2930aa-08bd-11e2-9eea-333857f6a7bd_blog.html
There’s always free cheddar in a mousetrap
“what’s due him”
Wow one could go places with that but what’s the point. If one is so far gone to believe the statement in the first place how can you hope to change anything?
@PF Since you have the “on the ground” chops on this I want to ask….
Would you agree that in the case of the “hillbillies” there is a mix bag of sorts?
That bag consists of folks economically challenged and its accompaniments ,some cultural causes,and then the third player,the underclass types.
I ask because in reading your comment earlier I was struck by home one could change the demographics in an urban setting and get the same vibe.
For example from my life you have Boston which like many cities felt “White Flight” and job losses which resulted in a very specific economic environment. So white,black,Asian or latino if you were left behind…in many ways you were literally left behind.
This said though we still had our morality on a human scale and dealt with things.Absolutely state assistance came in2 the picture. The kicker is though that there was also this new group. the folks that held the view that assistance was a right,that caring for the housing they resided in-not their responsibility,trying in school showed a lack of “black solidarity-“ya trying to be white”!?!?,the “Stop Snitchin'” phenom and a number of other things.
Again your earlier comment hit me and I’d be interested in any follow up. thx
struck by how one could…
**by morality I don’t necessarily mean faith based specifically. There was this common good thing going on that crossed the racial lines and stitched together communities that had challenges ripping at them. See busing for a prime example.
I respect Ms Rowling for what she has accomplished, but she is wrong to believe the government did it for her.
Statists like Elizabeth Warren and Obama with “you didn’t build this…” meet “the hell I didn’t!” because they fail to realize that though the government helps through our tax dollars, individual inititive, talent, luck and help from family and neighbors built it.
The government didn’t build Rowling’s empire. She did. If the government did most of the work, many angry people should be asking their leaders, “why did you do that for her and not I. I am just as deserving.”
My experience in the UK let me meet many people with Rowling’s erroronius assumptions. They are like propagandised cattle. Others would make good Tea Party recruits.
I agree with Newt’s concept of how a helping hand should work. It is part of the immigrant ethos we still carry, though it is being diluted. For example, my wife’s grandmother left Sweden at age 16. Her brother who had come before her found her a job as a housekeeper.
Once she was established, the next sibling came. This repeated seven times and again for the parents. The government created infrastructure, schools and opportunities, which helped, but the families like the nurse who pulled her family up from poverty did it for themselves.
Hat they not, they would have been living off of our tax money and bragging about their Obama phones.
James of course she is aware what she did it herself and she said, she was very proud of her accomplishment. And nothing takes the place of hard work. But if you know anything about her history, you’d know that her husband left her and her baby homeless and penniless. Like she said, she didn’t do all on her own. Anymore than you built the roads your crops go to market on.
@alfie512 – I’m not sure what you are asking. I think there are several things going on, but that does not mean it is too complex to fix; you just start with one fix at a time and do them in priority order.
Firstly, I want to say that I do not take the approach, “It’s a moral failure of the person himself.” I tend to just look at human behavior pragmatically and then try to see how the system can be changed so that, when people do what they do naturally, it also is the ‘right’ thing – just like my two-lane road example: self correcting, without external intervention.
It seems to me that the problem is that we have (with the best of intent) set up a system that cannot lead anywhere but to failure for the average guy trying to get ahead. We have burdened the man and wife who do the right thing and incentivised those who do not. We need to make the right path the easy one and the wrong one unpleasant.
I will give you just one example: starting tomorrow, the gub’ment will pay for contraception. (not critical, but let’s use it just for argument.) Nine months and one day later, however, it will be illegal for any state or national entity to provide any type of assistance – financial or otherwise – for moms with babies.
Entirely self-correcting. Now the potential grandmas and granddads will be damned good and sure that little Sarah and Sammy know all about birth control and use it, since the upkeep for any new bastard children will now fall to them. In other words, simply replace the current system with NOTHING. Nothing is one program that you can’t game, no matter how smart you are.
I’m not sure I answered your question.
“In other words, simply replace the current system with NOTHING. Nothing is one program that you can’t game, no matter how smart you are.”-pfessor
Lol. Well said.
I know some of Ms.Rowling’s history. She wrote parts of her books late at night in restaurants because she had no where to go. I agree, “No man is an island.” I also know the government through contractors built the roads which let us take our crops to market.
Here is the distinction I see. Obama and folks like him are socialists. I documented his affilation with and possible joining the New Party in Chicago.
He was not speaking of our interconnectedness. He was saying that government made success possible and people who have prospered are under an obligation to give the government its due in the form of higher taxes.
Another proof of Obama’s socialist tendencies is his big stimulus law. It failed because he spent most of the money on governments which created little new wealth. He redistributed what already existed.
Ms Rowling is richer than the Queen, and she is paying a huge share of taxes, but the government has no moral claim on her success other than payment to keep the government running..
We taxpayers created the government.
Happy belated anniversary to you and your wife, Rutherford!
“You know, I think my biggest concern, obviously, would just be for his mental well-being,” Romney said.”- R
Well, at least she was honest as I would think that would be the concern of every FLOTUS. They all turn gray in four years! I do agree she needs to “think before speaking” but as you well know regardless of how you say something there will be someone out there that takes great offense.
“In other words, simply replace the current system with NOTHING. Nothing is one program that you can’t game, no matter how smart you are.”-pfessor
Well said. The word “nothing” is at least a “consequence”, a concept that is going the way of the dinosaurs.
Nice save by your falcons ET. My Broncos didn’t do so shabby either! 🙂
My Lions lost but I finally got laid tonight. And the Tigers won. Play off bound.
“[Y]ou drew the wrong inference. When I mean black I say black. When I mean poor I say poor. What I said is that it is becoming fashionable to hate the poor.”
Come on. You’ve said so on numerous occasions in refernce to the “food stamp president” and “welfare.” Remember? The MSNBC coded message from republicans referring to “blacks? and other minorities.” Coulda fooled me. Hell I thought you just said something to that effect to PF who also “hates the poor.”
Well at least my Falcons are holding up. I had to hear about it from my son. I wished I could’ve seen it. If I can keep the Pats from steering off course it might be a worthwhile season for Sunday t.v. time. . . and a stogie!
@ PF well I’m missing the something but you have indeed clarified/reaffirmed a big thing.
I too believe there is a conditioned nature found within a large segment of the population that would be deemed “poor”. Again I embrace the term “underclass” because it best explains how full and corrosive it all is while at the same time showing pure economic poorness is different,state of wallet vs state of mind.
I think everyone here from center to right believes the system is part of the problem. The left not so much and thats nuts since the evidence is overwhelming and quite damning.
In a round up fashion….
Congrats R.
If the Pats did not win this last one they were to be banned from my home for the rest of the year. the bugger is that I need them not to suck since my game is locked out,and nobody else cares.
msnbc is so intellectually dishonest Rutherford you should never ever cite them again.
polls still suck and spin laden.
debates…..won’t be watching.
cheers!
Why avoid the debates?
btw not for nothing but Rowling’s story isn’t all true. First off the great and powerful NHS didn’t save her mom who died at 49. Her book written in a coffee shop gig….coffee shop was owned by relatives.
As for the continuation of the didn’t build it bullshit….For crying out loud….if one gets into college,pays for it themselves absolutely no govt funds the likes of newt would still say the USPS delivered the acceptance notice. UN-FU@#ING- BELIEVABLE
Why avoid the debates?
1. can’t move me one way or another.
2. formats tend to put too much focus on moderator or setting,don’t get me started on the phoney “town hall” ones.
3. neither side can really put forth anything other than a sound bite and I’m deeper than that. Lets face it Romney will be roasted in the media no matter what and Obama will get yet another handful of David Brookes et al “pass”.
Bottomline is that I’m voting the way I am because on the POTUS level I know where Obama is going and I have a real good bead on where I think Romney wants to go. The former sucks ass and the latter is at least the baby steps we need.
Alfie, agreed on all points. Me too. 😆
Only difference is that I can’t avert my eyes. Curiosity I guess. Given every facet of Obama’s record I just want to see how he plays it (or “plays us”). Perhaps it’ll just disgust me. . .
PF, we don’t have any real disagreement on the drives/desire of the poor. Apparently we have different experiences though. Ultimately it is of no moment. You made the point about constitution/expansion of failed entitlement (dependency) programs well.
Thanks for the clarification, Alfie. As we know the NHS has the equivalent of death panels as it rations health care to ward off insolvency.
obama’s former car czar, i think, wrote in the New York Times that Obama care needs death panels though one wouldn’t call them that. It already has an administrative board. Sarah Palin was as right about rationing as Libyans were about the Al quaeda attack on our counselate.
I watch the Olympics and I will watch the debates.
KFAB Omaha is sponsoring viewing parties to be conducted as if the crowd was watching a football game. The first will be held at a sports bar.
The debates will be a show of one-upmanship. There won’t be any substance or revelation. It’s strictly for entertainment, just another team sporting event. Rah, rah! One in a long series of mind-numbing and unedifying endeavors. Might as well just watch a little porn if you enjoy masturbating.
Poolman serious question if you don’t mind sharing….
Which scenario helps the Libertarian/Paul position most…A Romney win or loss?
btw Rutherford….you won’t be ahead of the curve but you’d be in an early wave if you made a quick post that takes my question to pools and added your ‘way of the Whig” mantra.
p.s. to my last. It would be good to hear from anyone on the thread on the question I tossed towards pool man.
it is something the center to right folks may have to face
PF it amazes me how you can so clearly recount your hillbilly friend’s conversation and then come to the WRONG conclusion about it.
The problem is not welfare. The problem is a job market that rewards the rich and shortchanges the middle class. The dude is telling you that he can’t find work that will do him or his family any good. It won’t pay his bills and it won’t keep his family healthy. Your answer is to stop welfare and pull the rug out from under him instead of DEMANDING (yes a la the Occupy movement) that employers start paying their f*cking workers a decent living wage.
Wages for the middle class have totally stagnated (adjusted for inflation) over the past 30 years while the income of the wealthy has increased hand over fist …. I wish I could remember the percentage I heard over the weekend but it made my stomach turn.
We live in a country with greedy bastards making record profits and refusing to share their good fortune with those who made them what they are. Now the rich bosses are the “makers” and the middle class and working poor who do the actual WORK are the “takers”.
And what is your response? Pull a lifeline away from those who are getting screwed by this system. F*ck the losers and side with the winners.
Makes me sick. 👿
And I will watch the debates, because I find Romney’s sense of humor irresistible and love how he guffaws at his own jokes.
Wild video from DR but lets not forget that “There’s always free cheddar in a mousetrap, baby” is from the song “God’s Away on Business”. Why ain’t God watching the shop? Oh I forgot, that’s not His job. 😐
Dammit James … that’s NOT what she said. She said the government gave her help when she needed it. That their policies helped keep her healthy when she was raising kids alone.
This “each man is an island” is pure bullsh*t. There is not one person on this board who hasn’t benefited from the government “teat” but nooooo now we’re suddenly all self-made men and women. Puke!
Exactly Raji. My wife and I were just commenting yesterday that Ann would have been better off making a more complete statement like “Look at FDR at the beginning and end of his terms. Just look at how our current President has aged. That’s my concern for Mitt.”
I’m not sure whether Ann’s problem is she talks too damn much or not enough. She seems to favor clipped terse comments that come off prickly. She might actually be better off saying more … or nothing at all.
Don’t let your wife find out. 😉
LOL I think it’s funny …. MSNBC says it 10 times. I say it once … now suddenly I say it on numerous occasions. You’re having trouble Tigre separating this blog from TV.
Context is everything. In this discussion of “hating the poor” I do mean the poor. Now if we’re having a conversation about Newt’s “food stamp President” and the welfare ads, sure I can easily see how those are dog whistles harkening back to a racist past. But I don’t think that’s what we’ve been discussing in this thread.
re 533… Alfie, I think the GOP has done much harm to itself this season by the way they have marginalized the Ron Paul supporters. The TP had previously energized the party, but the establishment within co-opted them and rode the new found popularity successfully into the 2010 election cycle.
Since, it has proven unwilling to pursue or adhere to any of the principles that radical faction stood for and espoused, though it does continue to provide some lip service. It has as a result disillusioned many, mostly younger would be republicans.
I really don’t see a lot of difference in the two platforms. The same people that gave us Obama are giving us Rmoney. Goldman Sachs is still the number one contributor. Both are playing for team bankster and represent to 1 percent. Both complain the press works for the other. It really boils down to a PR struggle for top billing. A true cult of personality campaign.
That said, I think the campaign itself has done much to energize the libertarian movement. Regardless of which one gets the vote, the libertarian/Paul position has been strengthened and it is continuing to grow in popularity. The gap between the establishment and the anti-establishment has not been as wide as it is today since the hippy movement in the sixties. I only see the trend continuing as governments are further revealed as the menacing and MANipulating™ force they’ve shown themselves to be.
It’s getting harder to sell America and the west as righteous.
If Rmoney gets the gig, I think we will go into Iran pretty quick. There will be no holds barred for the neocon/zionist agenda, the one libertarians and many true conservatives vehemently oppose. There will likely be social upheaval and possible violence from the black and maybe even the gay communities.
Whereas, if Obama gets a second term, the slow erosion of rights will continue and the GOP may be able to save face and recoup some of those that are presently pissed at the overall direction of the party. Socialism and government intrusion will continue to progress along with the national debt. Not that the debt wouldn’t continue to amass under a Rmoney win, but the spend would be somewhat different and the social aspect would trend toward privatization.
Really if Obama wins, there is no stopping the GOP in 2016, as long as we remain a two-party team resembling a sporting event That may be the underlying plan. I know you are a Rmoney fan, but the rest of the GOP is less than thrilled with him and would prefer someone with more charisma or in the least, a character of perceived integrity.
At this point I don’t think the GOP CAN win this round for top position. They will likely be more successful in the lesser seats. So I predict an Obama win at this point. I think that result will be a wedge for further fracturing of the citizenry.
Specious observation. I benefited from the money pit of a poorly built house that I paid top dollar for, but it still kept me dry.
You act as if the best benefactor we ever received was payback from our federal tax dollars. I say bang for the buck, it’s been without doubt my worst investment ever.
Your philosophy closely is starting to resemble from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. More Obama phones, please?
I say my best benefit I ever received was from a high paying job that government had little or nothing to do with, and in fact too often was over regulated and impinged upon, further depressing the private wage standards.
If we’ve proven nothing the last four years, it should be obvious behemoth government actually lowers the middle class wage scale:
The Census department confirmed today that median household income continued to drop in 2011, the second year of the economic “recovery.” It dropped by about 4 percent, which is pretty close to the estimate produced in late August by two former Census statisticians at Sentier Research (4.8 percent). Unlike Sentier, the Census didn’t conclude that median income fell more during the recovery than during the recession; it found that median income fell by about the same amount in both periods.. The Census calculation of how much median income has dropped since 2008 (8.1 percent).
Here’s the dirty secret Mr. Obama doesn’t want you to know. His “job creations” are low paying.
That’s a head scratcher Alfie. How will you be able to see through the morning-after-spin if you haven’t watched it yourself?
Maybe a better question … do you think the importance of the debates has been overblown?
BTW, today’s soundtrack is Green Day’s new album (first in a trilogy) called Uno. It’s a 60/40 … 60% decent, 40% excellent. Real hard to follow up from two blockbuster rock operas in a row. For anyone who has read the reviews, yes I can confirm it’s a revisit to an earlier sound. Only one song “Carpe Diem” sounds like a leftover from “American Idiot”. The standouts are “Nuclear Family”, “Stay the Night” and “Let Yourself Go”.
“You’re having trouble Tigre separating this blog from TV.”
Funny that. I was thinking the same thing.
I won’t hunt for it because I don;t care enough, but I sure as hell thought you made the “coded language” statement (or something along those lines) to PF or Tex in this or the last couple of threads. Something about “welfare queens” or images of minorities being evoked or something. . .
Oh well. You’ve stretched my point well beyond the scope of the comment so if I’m mistaken, “back at ya.”
Just for old time’s sake … back when Billie Joe used to mug a lot and Tre used to abandon his drum set at the end of the song. 🙂
18 years ago … damn I remember when I watched it live … has time really gone by that fast?
Alfie even though I still love the “way of the Whigs” meme I have become convinced of (resigned to) the fact that there will always be enough knuckle draggers out there to support the current incarnation of the Republican party. It does not mean they will win big elections but they’ll be around … like a blister on the foot or a boil on the ass.
Green Day was one of my eldest daughter’s favorite bands back in that day, Rutherford. It seems everything is cyclical, even music styles.
Not sure I’ve ever heard of the Senators before. Thanks for the introduction Poolman.
I likely won’t be watching the debates because I’m still being crushed by the non-terrorist terrorist attack against our consulate in Benghazi.
R, I just want you to know that everything the Administration has told you about Benghazi has been a deliberate lie. I obviously can’t get into details, but I knew within hours, and so did he. The last three weeks and the commentary coming coming out of the WH in light of the reality we all know is down right disgraceful. YOUR pResident is a bald faced liar and YOU are an idiot for buying it.
— President Obama, in a new two-minute television ad released Sept. 27, 2012 […]
The Pinocchio Test
It is time for the Obama campaign to retire this talking point, no matter how much it seems to resonate with voters. The financial crisis of 2008 stemmed from a variety of complex factors, in particular the bubble in housing prices and the rise of exotic financial instruments. Deregulation was certainly an important factor, but as the government commission concluded, the blame for that lies across administrations, not just in the last Republican one.
In any case, the Bush tax cuts belong at the bottom of the list — if at all. Moreover, it is rather strange for the campaign to cite as its source an article that, according to the author, does not support this assertion.
We nearly made this Four Pinocchios but ultimately decided that citing deregulation in conjunction with tax cuts kept this line out of the “whopper” category. Still, in his effort to portray Romney as an echo of Bush, the president really stretches the limits here.
Three Pinocchios
Department of Agriculture personnel in the Obama administration have met with Mexican Government officials dozens of times since the president took office to promote nutrition assistance programs — notably food stamps — among Mexican Americans, Mexican nationals and migrant communities in America.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/01/obama-usda-met-30-times-with-mexican-govt-to-promote-food-stamp-use-among-mexican-immigrants/
Thank God the long dark night of fascism under GW has finally given way to a new dawn of respect for bedrock constitutional principles.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/333831
Damn straight, Tigre. Obama and his negative liberties concerning the Bill of Rights has ushered in a new dawn….
Brownshirts and long knives.
Look, I gave up trying to change these minds. There’s basically four types of Americans that are going to vote for Obama and it won’t change even if an Iranian nuke went off in a major metropolitan area:
(1) The entitled and the helpless
(2) The covet and envy crowd
(3) Academia and those invested in race or celebrity
(4) Those so abjectly stupid, they don’t even recognize failure but make a decent livelihood and live a comfortable life by birthright, and reason it because of Obama.
I’ll leave to the individual to judge which group the leftist individuals here fall, and the categories aren’t mutually exclusive.
One thing that I find not worthy of argument. Obama’s successes as measured by the historical standards of America.
There are none. You can apply the DOW, but anyone with a brain knows that not only is the stock market a crock, but brokers using political reports instead of fundamentals is no way to run a market.
There are none. You can apply the DOW, but anyone with a brain knows that not only is the stock market a crock, but brokers using political reports instead of fundamentals is no way to run a market.
So full of it. First if this boom happened under a GOPher you’d be citing it as people’s exhibit #1 of success. Second, aside from your wife’s salary your 401K is your major asset right now. So send Obama a thank you note.
P.S. I’m assuming in this housing market that your house isn’t worth sh*t right now.
By the way, Tex your avatar is pretty creepy. Is that Liz Warren morphed with Obama?
Dumb as a stump.
It did happen under a GOPher. In fact, it was 6% higher than it was at this minute in Oct. 2007 and was accompanied with a fully employed market with median income 8% higher for the middle class. Duh…
Wrong. Salary is not an asset. My wife and I now have a substantial amount of assets completely removed from the market. My 401K in safer funds and has been for some time. Have I missed an opportunity? Possibly. Have I slept at night without fear? Absolutely.
One question? Why should anyone lend any credibility to your perception of finances and personal decisions? 😐
Matt Damon, Team America – actively working to punish poor America with Saudi money and slander, and too stupid to even know it.
Rutherford observed –
“PF it amazes me how you can so clearly recount your hillbilly friend’s conversation and then come to the WRONG conclusion about it.
The problem is not welfare. The problem is a job market that rewards the rich and shortchanges the middle class. The dude is telling you that he can’t find work that will do him or his family any good. It won’t pay his bills and it won’t keep his family healthy. Your answer is to stop welfare and pull the rug out from under him instead…”
Whoa there, big fella. Nobody said anything about ending welfare, let alone ending it by “pulling the rug.” What I was ending was *one component* of welfare, and that was paying girls to have bastard children – no more, no less.
Where you and I differ is that I remember when a guy working an ordinary job, without a working wife, could afford a pretty decent life – and put something away for retirement. Now the taxes make up such a large part of the paycheck that only folks who make a REALLY good living can do that. The average person has absolutely no idea how much taxes eat up. Now we have inflation on top of that. The government is not your friend, R.
“Negative liberties?” What the hell is that?
Tigre,
Did you miss this from our Constitutional Expert, Barack Hussein Obama?
Oh my Lord. I did miss that. That’s the damndest thing I’ve ever heard. Holy shit. A constitutional law scholar? Wow. Negative liberties. Just. . . wow.
Wow.
Pfesser,
You and I are approximately the same age. You bring up a point that I have contemplated for some time that apparently few did.
You’re smart to probably have lived your lifestyle with one income, maybe perhaps you could, but more probably because like my wife and I, you saved for your retirement under the assumption Social Security may not be there.
One of the smartest things my wife and I ever did was to live our family life as if we had only one income. We didn’t always to this, but most of the first 15 years of our marriage, we did. And then we allowed compound interest to work its magic. We did alright in the 90s. Now because of my choosing to say “screw it”, we’re not nearly as “rich” as we used to be. But we’re not burning the milk money either.
Because taxes and fees have been trending substantially higher the last 40 years as our federal and state governments attempted to become surrogate parent, and by taxes I mean the aggregate taxes including state/local/sales/excise, the American pubic was able to offset the losses with two incomes for the better part of 35 years.
We may have improved our standing as far as possessions, but we have been suckered into doubling our risks.
It’s just not the Fed that is out of bullets – it’s the American family. People can either learn to simplify their life, or they can burn.
Redistributive change.
Fuck.
I guess that explains his concept of property rights.
Yeah……negative liberties…..sheesh……I need to join the Michigan Militia.
Context, Rutherford. Obama’s “you didn’t build it” made no sense unless he was arguing in favor of higher taxes for the successful.His comment dovetails with his past and other comments.
Newt inserted a Rowling statement about the government’s helping her succeed, and unless I remember it wrong, Eiizabeth’s Warren’s name was included in the link.
Why would Newt post the statement if it was a generic comment about helping each other? She is a liberal, and I conclude she posted it because the link supported critics of people who took offense at Obama’s statement.
I also agreed with the concept that “No man is an island” and that our grain goes to market on roads the government hired built with our tax money.
Republicans are like a blister etc. I’ll raise you one. Democrats are like an infected third molar.,
I re read Newt’s post. I was right and you were wrong. Ms. Rowling did indulge in classism. She may be playing both sides, or she is a fool if she thinks the government gave her her success.
She has the talent to succeed anywhere books can be printed and people can read. She might not be worth a billion dollars, but she would have made it even in the Soviet Union.
#571, In case you aren’t aware James, Russia now has several billionaires.
re 563, doesn’t sound like Obama talking. Is there another source?
R, sometimes it’s hard to boil complex systems down to easy-to-understand pieces, but I think the essence of the Obama/socialist problem can be understood:
In theory, it shouldn’t make any difference whether you spend your own money for your own benefit or the government takes that money from you and spends it for the same purpose.
In theory. In reality, others have tried this dozens of times and it never works, and the reasons are two: firstly, central planners can never decide where resources need to go as efficiently as millions of individuals, each working for his own benefit. The Castros, Breznevs, Obamas may be smarter than the average man, but they are not smarter than a million of them.
Secondly, the producers simply stop working. I have now done it twice. The first time I was out for eight years; closing my practice deprived the government of about a half-million in taxes per year for eight years – and that was when a half-million was really worth something – say, about $50,000 or so in 1971 dollars.
It’s beginning, R. Look at the cost of everything you buy. Look at the price of fuel. This is all due to the socialist policies of BO, carried out by his minions, like The Bernank and Geithner, AND THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING. A 4% inflation rate is a 4% tax that *compounds*; we are far above 4%; nobody knows HOW far, because the gub’ment changed the way it calculates inflation.
“Compounds” is a very, very important word, R. Compounding 4% tax will make people into paupers, doing it at 10-12% will do it in just a few years.
Clearly you are a decent fellow, Rutherford, but I swear sometimes I think you are asleep at the switch. How can you not see what is happening to the Greatest Country that Ever Was?
Newt, I know Russia has more than several billionaires. It has had a form of Mafia capitalism for a generation. I know a German businessman who regularly visits Russia.. He said the average Russian in cities is well-off and limited only on how to spend money.
In some ways, Russia is more capitalist than the United States.
My comment was directed at the Soviet Union which was much different than Russia. .
“She seems to favor clipped terse comments that come off prickly. She might actually be better off saying more … or nothing at all.” – R
She does come off a bit prickly but so did Kerry’s wife. I wonder how much is the region they are from. New Englander’s tend to sound a bit prickly at times. The “hail fellow well met” or the “bless your heart” regions seem more sincere to the general populace. Just an observation.
Ann Romney’s facial expressions are misleading due to her disease MS. I expect the stress of the campaign is not helping.
Don’t know what you’re alluding to but you don’t want to get into a pissing match with me about personal decisions.
Raji, Muffy has also conjectured about the effects of MS on facial expression. Are we just giving Ann a convenient pass here or is there some basis in fact that MS patients have issues with facial muscles?
As for New England, Ann is originally from Michigan, same as Mitt as far as I know. Where she grew up should inform her demeanor more than where she lived her adult life. It’s kinda like you can take the country boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the country boy.
Besides, I care less what shows on her face vs what comes out of her mouth … and I won’t give her an MS pass for that.
There will be no rigged media to save you….and there will be no argument about opinion but simple statement of fact. Your personal decisions are equally as failed as your once promising leader and equally as pathetic.
Worse, your biggest mistakes are still in the works.
Idle threats amuse me, gnats annoy me. By all means, piss away. I double dog dare you.
@ Rutherford 579
I think you are being unfair,judgmental and misogynistic.
I think you deserve the same scorn folks on your side want to dish out to the likes of Scott Brown. In his case he makes it a point to stress Lizzie Warrens proper title;Professor, and yet he’s a snarky disrespecting douchebag for doing so.
Neither Ann Romney nor Michelle Obama chose to be in the limelight and it is actually unfair to hold them to the high standard an official candidate is to be.
Ann Romney’s “credentials” are as good as they need to be for her to be FLOTUS
On a side note I find:
Where she grew up should inform her demeanor more than where she lived her adult life.
to be absolute garbage.
Hell on a social science level it is easily wrecked.It doesn’t help make a great case for Ann Romney, especially not in the court of liberal idealism and dogma, but when and where do you think she grew up and when did her adult life begin?
Not a threat. You continue to be vague and so long as you leave it at that I have no problem. Few people are in a position to judge the “personal decisions” of another man. You are not one of them.
581 and 582:
First, she happens to be a woman. My criticism of her makes me a misogynist? Next thing you know my criticism of Israel will make me an anti-Semite. Let me be clear, Romney’s campaign DOES control how much she is in the limelight. They need to back her off. She is ineffective. I don’t know what the qualifications for FLOTUS are but I would agree with you that I see nothing disqualifying about her. If she ends up in the White House, a bit more sugar and a bit less vinegar would be called for.
Now to 582: I was under the impression that she and Mitt lived in the midwest (Michigan) until Mitt went to Harvard. I can live in Illinois the rest of my life and my basic demeanor will be informed by the Northeast where I spent my formative years.
I think you’re bluffing. I think you’re empty like your candidate. I triple dog dare you. 😀
Damn I love “A Christmas Story”. LOL the funny thing is Tex it’s never anything you haven’t already discussed on the blog yourself. It’s just a matter of my reminding you of it when you get a wee bit too judgmental. 😉 But like I said, I can live with your vague allusions to my poor decision making. I won’t get specific unless you do. I’m nice like that, 😉
I’m under my wife’s thumb today. Some former colleague of mine “unfriended” me on Facebook today after reading my latest piece. I wouldn’t have known it if the bozo hadn’t written to tell me. LOL like elementary school, had to get “last licks”. I came THIS close to telling him off but my wife (usually wiser than I) told me to ignore him.
If I’ve learned anything from 12 years of marriage it is restraint … at least some of the time.
Never said a thing on here that would embarrass me a bit. If that’s all you got, you better hold your water, cause you’re going to have a permanent drip when I’m through.
I got game, man! Loaded for bear.
“Rutherford! You magnificent son of a bitch. I read your BOOK!!!!” 😆
@ 584 you didn’t get the full content of my comment. People in my parts are heavily criticizing Brown for referring to Warren as “professor” I was just spinning it back to you. The thing is you personally not so much but many of the females that have been here (sens,net,fake) all have the same mo of demanding respect and rights and then defaulting when equality gets icky.
You are guilty by association and secondary to your comments on Ann deserved my part joke part real comment.
As for the Ann Romney makeup part. I think you are just plain wrong and not in touch with when she was “formed”.
Contrast the two potential FLOTUS’s starting in 2013.
You have a rich,sheltered and structured person who altered her life under potentially questionable scenario and entered into a life of wealth,security and stability.
The other is undeniably the poster child for affirmative action plus personal grit minus tired stereotypes come to life.
I neither defend or condemn the two I’m just saying I think the track that anyone has a bead on when either came into their own is off their game.
Damn I didn’t get the royalty check. You pay for it? 😉