Originally Posted by James50

Gov Mitch Daniels from Indiana has a good track record as well.

James50

Dont forget John Thune, Senator from South Dakota

Dan Quayle, the elder? Neil Bush?

Originally Posted by wtrg8

Clinton and Bush share equal responsibility in this Housing Crisis. I do not blame Obama for this mess we are in with the Real Estate Foreclosures.

Clinton signed the so called Financial Modernization Act of 1999 which repealed the Carter-Stegall safeguards against the kind of outright fraud that banking deregulation leads to. He also kept "bubbles" Greenspan on as Fed. chairman. Because of these two acts he deserves some blame.
However, the last 8 years of the 9 years of policy excesses that led to the 2008 bank meltdown happened under dubya. There were plenty of warning signs along the way that the fool's paradise could not last, but they listened to "bubbles" Greenspan and the corporatist groupthink and chose to ignore all chances to modify policy.
So no, the blame is not equal, but there is more than enough to go around.

And yes, Obama inherited the CF, but he is the president and presidents always get the credit and blame for judgments that should be directed elsewhere. It will cost the Democrats some seats in Congress next month and a very bad economy will likely also factor into the 2012 election.

GOP will be just as responsible as Obama/Democrats if this Country hasn't improved by 2012.

I'm guessing that you believe that a viable third party is close at hand and that enough voters may turn to it to make a difference in 2012.
As I see it, a GOP takeover of at least the House makes that more plausible. If the Democrats go into 2012 in control of both houses of Congress then they will get the blame for everything that goes wrong.

For all those here who suggest any GOP nominee besides Sarah Palin ..... what I am saying is that it is Palin herself that will decide this thing and no single decision other than her running or not running is more important than that. Palin will decide and everyone else is merely a bystander until that happens. Palin holds all the high cards and everyone from Romney on down are hoping she folds and goes away to make more money and leave running for President to them.

It matters precious little right now who else anyone wants or who might or might not make a good Republican nominee. It all comes down to the decision Palin will make.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

For all those here who suggest any GOP nominee besides Sarah Palin ..... what I am saying is that it is Palin herself that will decide this thing and no single decision other than her running or not running is more important than that. Palin will decide and everyone else is merely a bystander until that happens. Palin holds all the high cards and everyone from Romney on down are hoping she folds and goes away to make more money and leave running for President to them.

It matters precious little right now who else anyone wants or who might or might not make a good Republican nominee. It all comes down to the decision Palin will make.

Palin is powerful within the party but not as powerful as you describe. Especially when she begins to be savaged by those in her own party during a primary race.

from Weave

Palin is powerful within the party but not as powerful as you describe. Especially when Palin is powerful within the party but not as powerful as you describe. Especially when she begins to be savaged by those in her own party during a primary race.

Who else in the party is more powerful right now?

And before she begins to be savaged by those in her own party during a primary race, she must do as i said and make a decision on this. Until that happens, everything else is just a contingency plan based on her actions.

Well in 2006 Obama was a rookie Senator, not a recognizable leader of his party. But Palin also fits closer to Obama's generational role, so maybe she does represent a foil in the same "new wave" of leadership.

Otherwise I don't see anyone rallying to the Republicans so much as rejecting the Democrats. Gridlock is better than rushing toward policies that the people don't connect with, so if the Republicans do make big gains in 2010 I'd expect Obama to be re-elected as well.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

For all those here who suggest any GOP nominee besides Sarah Palin ..... what I am saying is that it is Palin herself that will decide this thing and no single decision other than her running or not running is more important than that. Palin will decide and everyone else is merely a bystander until that happens. Palin holds all the high cards and everyone from Romney on down are hoping she folds and goes away to make more money and leave running for President to them.

It matters precious little right now who else anyone wants or who might or might not make a good Republican nominee. It all comes down to the decision Palin will make.

Historically, the front runner a year or two out rarely gets nominated. After all, who's heard of President Nelson Rockefeller (1964), President George Romney (1968), President Ed Muskie (1972), President Dick Gephart (1988), President Howard Dean (2004), or President Hillary Rodham Clinton or President Rudy Guiliani (2008)?

The following is from the Nation's Magazine. We only thought that the corporations had a grip on this country. We haven't seen anything yet.

Democracy for Sale
On October 6, amid the tidal wave of corporate cash flooding the 2010 campaigns—which could attach a $5 billion price tag to the most expensive midterm election in history


Bill Moyers told Common Cause that money in politics is “the dagger directed at the heart of democracy.” He had just warned that “the activist reactionary majority on the Supreme Court…has opened the floodgates for oligarchs and plutocrats to secretly buy our elections and consolidate their hold on the corporate state.”

What is happening this fall is not just about parties and candidates or television attack ads or a media fantasy of “the grassroots Tea Party movement.” We are witnessing an assault on democracy by multinational corporations that, freed by the Citizens United ruling, are out to get the best government money can buy. Who’s buying? Billionaire businessmen with a stake in energy, finance and telecommunications policy debates—like Trevor Rees-Jones, Robert Rowling and Jerry Perenchio —are writing checks for as much as $1 million each to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads project. What’s more, Crossroads GPS, an allied group that’s pouring tens of millions into Congressional races, is organized under tax laws that allow Rove to hide the names of donors. But we do know the targets: by early October, the group had spent $14 million on ads attacking senators Barbara Boxer in California and Patty Murray in Washington, as well as a handful of other Democrats in races that could decide which party controls the Senate. The Crossroads campaign is part of a broader push from corporations to buy not just Congress but a guarantee that there will be fewer challenges to corporate abuses, bankster speculation and free-trade policies that allow multinational corporations to shutter American factories while exploiting the world’s poorest workers.

Fronting this corporate campaigning is the US Chamber of Commerce, which, according to the Center for American Progress, collects and deposits money from US-based multi nationals and groups from India and Bahrain that ends up “in the same 501©

(6) account the Chamber is using to run an unprecedented $75 mil lion attack campaign, mostly against Democrats.” The Chamber joins Crossroads and other Republicanfriendly groups in refusing to reveal its sources of funding.

Reformers are under attack from Rove’s apparatchiks for demanding enactment of the DISCLOSE Act, which Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer says “would carry forward a forty-year-old principle of campaign finance laws that campaign contributions and expenditures should be disclosed.” That’s a start, but transparency is not enough. Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, a target of the Chamber’s attack ads, is right when he says the central issue is corporate power. Democrats should pick up on Feingold’s theme, in this campaign and in the next Congress. They must push responses ranging from public funding of campaigns to amending the Constitution so that it guarantees that legislatures can regulate corporate campaigning. More is at stake than House and Senate seats. “Democracy in America has been a series of narrow escapes, and we may be running out of luck,” warns Moyers. If the dagger of corporate money pierces the heart of democracy this year, we may not have the strength to pull it out afterward. The 2010 election is a watershed for America. It is money versus democracy. We dare not let the money win.

Whatever the outcome of the election, we will have divided government.

Therefore, events will control us. Not something either party wants to broadcast at this time (pun intended).

Originally Posted by Deb C

The following is from the Nation's Magazine. We only thought that the corporations had a grip on this country. We haven't seen anything yet.

Democracy for Sale
On October 6, amid the tidal wave of corporate cash flooding the 2010 campaigns—which could attach a $5 billion price tag to the most expensive midterm election in history


Bill Moyers told Common Cause that money in politics is “the dagger directed at the heart of democracy.” He had just warned that “the activist reactionary majority on the Supreme Court…has opened the floodgates for oligarchs and plutocrats to secretly buy our elections and consolidate their hold on the corporate state.”

What is happening this fall is not just about parties and candidates or television attack ads or a media fantasy of “the grassroots Tea Party movement.” We are witnessing an assault on democracy by multinational corporations that, freed by the Citizens United ruling, are out to get the best government money can buy. Who’s buying? Billionaire businessmen with a stake in energy, finance and telecommunications policy debates—like Trevor Rees-Jones, Robert Rowling and Jerry Perenchio —are writing checks for as much as $1 million each to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads project. What’s more, Crossroads GPS, an allied group that’s pouring tens of millions into Congressional races, is organized under tax laws that allow Rove to hide the names of donors. But we do know the targets: by early October, the group had spent $14 million on ads attacking senators Barbara Boxer in California and Patty Murray in Washington, as well as a handful of other Democrats in races that could decide which party controls the Senate. The Crossroads campaign is part of a broader push from corporations to buy not just Congress but a guarantee that there will be fewer challenges to corporate abuses, bankster speculation and free-trade policies that allow multinational corporations to shutter American factories while exploiting the world’s poorest workers.

Fronting this corporate campaigning is the US Chamber of Commerce, which, according to the Center for American Progress, collects and deposits money from US-based multi nationals and groups from India and Bahrain that ends up “in the same 501©

(6) account the Chamber is using to run an unprecedented $75 mil lion attack campaign, mostly against Democrats.” The Chamber joins Crossroads and other Republicanfriendly groups in refusing to reveal its sources of funding.

Reformers are under attack from Rove’s apparatchiks for demanding enactment of the DISCLOSE Act, which Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer says “would carry forward a forty-year-old principle of campaign finance laws that campaign contributions and expenditures should be disclosed.” That’s a start, but transparency is not enough. Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, a target of the Chamber’s attack ads, is right when he says the central issue is corporate power. Democrats should pick up on Feingold’s theme, in this campaign and in the next Congress. They must push responses ranging from public funding of campaigns to amending the Constitution so that it guarantees that legislatures can regulate corporate campaigning. More is at stake than House and Senate seats. “Democracy in America has been a series of narrow escapes, and we may be running out of luck,” warns Moyers. If the dagger of corporate money pierces the heart of democracy this year, we may not have the strength to pull it out afterward. The 2010 election is a watershed for America. It is money versus democracy. We dare not let the money win.

That's almost exactly what Alex Jones has been saying on InfoWars.com

[flash forward to 2013] The Bilderbergers stole my pension and all I got was this stupid Believe in Change T-shirt.

Originally Posted by Poodle

I wasn't aware that Emmanuel had said that. Off to Chicago with him, indeed.

For someone from St. Louis to make that comment, you must not like the guy ... at all.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

For someone from St. Louis to make that comment, you must not like the guy ... at all.

It has been a bad year.

LaRussa is probably finished, and Pujols will be a free agent. Next year is looking bad- which is good for me, since I can eat downtown again, and find my parking space.

And, we have the Rams, who have failed me by not going 0-16.

Originally Posted by Deb C

The following is from the Nation's Magazine. We only thought that the corporations had a grip on this country. We haven't seen anything yet.

Democracy for Sale
On October 6, amid the tidal wave of corporate cash flooding the 2010 campaigns—which could attach a $5 billion price tag to the most expensive midterm election in history


Bill Moyers told Common Cause that money in politics is “the dagger directed at the heart of democracy.” He had just warned that “the activist reactionary majority on the Supreme Court…has opened the floodgates for oligarchs and plutocrats to secretly buy our elections and consolidate their hold on the corporate state.”

What is happening this fall is not just about parties and candidates or television attack ads or a media fantasy of “the grassroots Tea Party movement.” We are witnessing an assault on democracy by multinational corporations that, freed by the Citizens United ruling, are out to get the best government money can buy. Who’s buying? Billionaire businessmen with a stake in energy, finance and telecommunications policy debates—like Trevor Rees-Jones, Robert Rowling and Jerry Perenchio —are writing checks for as much as $1 million each to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads project. What’s more, Crossroads GPS, an allied group that’s pouring tens of millions into Congressional races, is organized under tax laws that allow Rove to hide the names of donors. But we do know the targets: by early October, the group had spent $14 million on ads attacking senators Barbara Boxer in California and Patty Murray in Washington, as well as a handful of other Democrats in races that could decide which party controls the Senate. The Crossroads campaign is part of a broader push from corporations to buy not just Congress but a guarantee that there will be fewer challenges to corporate abuses, bankster speculation and free-trade policies that allow multinational corporations to shutter American factories while exploiting the world’s poorest workers.

Fronting this corporate campaigning is the US Chamber of Commerce, which, according to the Center for American Progress, collects and deposits money from US-based multi nationals and groups from India and Bahrain that ends up “in the same 501©

(6) account the Chamber is using to run an unprecedented $75 mil lion attack campaign, mostly against Democrats.” The Chamber joins Crossroads and other Republicanfriendly groups in refusing to reveal its sources of funding.

Reformers are under attack from Rove’s apparatchiks for demanding enactment of the DISCLOSE Act, which Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer says “would carry forward a forty-year-old principle of campaign finance laws that campaign contributions and expenditures should be disclosed.” That’s a start, but transparency is not enough. Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, a target of the Chamber’s attack ads, is right when he says the central issue is corporate power. Democrats should pick up on Feingold’s theme, in this campaign and in the next Congress. They must push responses ranging from public funding of campaigns to amending the Constitution so that it guarantees that legislatures can regulate corporate campaigning. More is at stake than House and Senate seats. “Democracy in America has been a series of narrow escapes, and we may be running out of luck,” warns Moyers. If the dagger of corporate money pierces the heart of democracy this year, we may not have the strength to pull it out afterward. The 2010 election is a watershed for America. It is money versus democracy. We dare not let the money win.

Karl Rogue may yet be dictator of the United States by controlling campaign finances and hence the political "discourse" in American elections -- if he is successful this time.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Karl Rogue may yet be dictator of the United States by controlling campaign finances and hence the political "discourse" in American elections -- if he is successful this time.

The only power corporations cannot buy, is the green 'VOTE' button that you as the individual can push. Some will say it doesn't matter, but it does.

Originally Posted by wtrg8

Is this the reason we have 10+ unelected Czars under Obama. Un-beholden to the Constitution and Congress? Next..

They aren't "Czars", they are advisors without any power. Karl Rove was allowed to make policy decisions, an authority he did not have under the law. It was done by Bush doing whatever Karl told him to do (until the end when Bush finally wised up and fired him).

The "Czars" nonsense is more right-wing bullshit. Obama has no more or less advisors than any other modern president. All people with policy power are subject to the approval of the Senate. That is, when the Repugs get out of the way and allow up or down votes on nominees....

Originally Posted by takascar2

All people with policy power are subject to the approval of the Senate. That is, when the Repugs get out of the way and allow up or down votes on nominees....

Do we have a selective memory? Remember all those votes the Senate Democrats blocked on Bush judicial appointees?

Not to mention juvenile crap terms like "Repugs." Shame some folks can't make their argument without insults and name calling. That reflects badly on YOU a lot more than on the "Repugs."

No, I'm definitely no defender of the GOP, but hypocritical, double standard crap like this combined with name calling raises my hackles. 4T or not, this kind of crap isn't helpful.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Of course you can, because the idea that the individual and the collective are necessarily in opposition is false. The individual is in fact part of the collective, and the well-being and liberty of the individual depends on the health of the collective and vice-versa.

Correct. These teabaggers like to complain that "I made my money and I want to keep it", except that, while their effort was neccessary, they did NOT (and none of us) make our money in a vacuum.

Anything that any of us has was earned within the framework of a "Commons" - a common society, a common infrastructure and a common government.

Corporations CANNOT worry about the greater welfare of society - they are designed to make profits only - thats ok, as long as we have some structure that will look out for the things that the corps cannot look out for.

Things like building roads, providing fire protection, police protection, social safety nets, etc.

That institution is called GOVERNMENT.

Without it, we would have chaos, lawlessness and social unrest. Corporations would not be able to operate as the society would be too unstable. There would be no jobs, no economy, just a mad max world of isolated individuals and clans all hiding in caves, hoarding food and staving off others who try to take those provisions.

I wonder if some of the right-wing gasbags who are infesting this thread would survive under those circumstances. Most of them are a bunch of cowards who, when confronted, run and hide.

Originally Posted by takascar2

Corporations CANNOT worry about the greater welfare of society - they are designed to make profits only - thats ok, as long as we have some structure that will look out for the things that the corps cannot look out for.

Things like building roads, providing fire protection, police protection, social safety nets, etc.

That institution is called GOVERNMENT.

Without it, we would have chaos, lawlessness and social unrest. Corporations would not be able to operate as the society would be too unstable. There would be no jobs, no economy, just a mad max world of isolated individuals and clans all hiding in caves, hoarding food and staving off others who try to take those provisions.

This is all a fair point and I agree with it. It's too bad you couldn't leave it here without concluding with more personal attacks and name-calling.

If you believe in your message, don't turn people off of it by being a rude messenger.

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

Do we have a selective memory? Remember all those votes the Senate Democrats blocked on Bush judicial appointees?

The number of Bush executive nominees that had been stymied was very low. But Obama can't even staff his adminstration due to peersonal blocks on many nominees. And the number of Bush judicial nominees that were approved is severeal times the number of Obama nominees in the same time period.

I would avoid that line of argument, if I was you. The pot is a lot dirtier than the kettle.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I would avoid that line of argument, if I was you. The pot is a lot dirtier than the kettle.

Not the point.

The point isn't to "keep score" as to who does what more -- I leave that to blindly partisan hacks for whom it's a full-contact sport where you want to kill the other side rather than do what's best for the people.

Simply put -- if you are on "Team A" and you criticize "Team B" for doing something even though you've done it yourself, stop throwing stones in the glass house. I don't care who has thrown more stones. It's not the point. We don't say "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones unless you're throwing at someone who has thrown more stones than you have."

Unless, of course, one is blinded by partisanship.

All of this back and forth only convinces me more firmly than ever that the 2012 elections will be one of the more important presidential elections in the last 120 years. We are fast becoming a nation where the middle is no longer holding - both in political terms and in economic terms. As a nation, we cannot long survive if the middle collapses or is seriously threatened and weakened. The pendulum seems to be swinging faster and farther than it has in recent memory. I fully expect that the Republicans will now take at least the House of Representatives in two weeks and will do so from the far right. The success will only embolden more attacks and more vitriol from the right. This is going to be a very bad two years for the nation with anger and division that we have seen since the late Sixties and early Seventies.

This is going to be bad folks, really bad. I make no apologies for being a Baby Boomer and am proud of it. That gives folks like me a distinct advantage because we can well remember the divisions of our youth when we came of age. Get ready for more of that.

I was exploring another site today and came across a discussion about Social Security which was dominated by X'ers and Millies who were venting a lot of anger and hostility at older generations for stealing their money before they ever had a chance to accumulate any. They all had the same smug assumption that the political balance is changing and the anti-government crowd that they expect to sweep into office is going to bring about some libertarian right-wing paradise where they pay little tax and do as they please with almost anything.

As Gomer Pyle used to say - "surprise surprise". If you think that is going to happen without a political and cultural fight like you have not seen since the 19th century. Combine that development with the destruction of the manufacturing base of this nation and the loss of good union jobs being outsourced overseas and you have the next great Crisis shaping up right before our eyes.

And 2012 will play a large role in it.

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

This is all a fair point and I agree with it. It's too bad you couldn't leave it here without concluding with more personal attacks and name-calling.

If you believe in your message, don't turn people off of it by being a rude messenger.

NO sir , I'm not in a mood to be nice to knuckle-dragging imbeciles who are ruining my country and getting in the way of us getting on the path to solving our poblems.

They aren't nice to me and President Obama (carrying around racist posters of him at their teabagger rallies), why should I be nice to them?

Originally Posted by takascar2

NO sir , I'm not in a mood to be nice to knuckle-dragging imbeciles who are ruining my country and getting in the way of us getting on the path to solving our poblems.

Nice to know I can just put you on "ignore" then. You aren't interested in anything but scorched earth politics. That is a knuckle-dragging behavior in itself.

I do not want anything to do with anyone who can not advance their argument without being intentionally rude, disrespectful and -- yes -- HATEFUL for anyone who disagrees with you politically.

Hypocrite.

Bye!

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

Nice to know I can just put you on "ignore" then. You aren't interested in anything but scorched earth politics. That is a knuckle-dragging behavior in itself.

I do not want anything to do with anyone who can not advance their argument without being intentionally rude, disrespectful and -- yes -- HATEFUL for anyone who disagrees with you politically.

Hypocrite.

Bye!

Is it the partisanship that offends you more, or the name-calling?

I just voted a straight Democratic ticket (except for one nominal "Republican" in a minor office -- she was someone I'd met at a forum who never had struck me as very right-wing). In my view, the Republican Party is bat-shit crazy, and the Tea Partiers produce quite a bit of guano themselves.

I am not thrilled with the Democrats, but, honest to God, I have seen some whackjob Republicans in my thirty years of voting, and they get worse all the time. Sharron Angle? Christine O'Donnell? Sarah Palin? Ron Johnson? Why would any reasonable person give these people any political power whatsoever?

So, yeah, I am voting against the nutjobs this year more than voting for anyone in particular. If that makes me a blindly partisan hack in your eyes, Ziggy, so be it.

I care enough about my country that I don't want to see this version of the GOP in control.