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Thread: 2012 Elections - Page 243







Post#6051 at 01-23-2012 10:46 PM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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Is this a serious post? I assume so ...
Quote Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough View Post
Many of the posts in this thread neatly illustrate what put Gingrich over the top. Conservatives, in the eyes of the left, the elite and the media, are always motivated by bigotry. Whether it be religious bigotry, racism, or something else. Juan Williams made such an accusation against Gingrich in last week's debate. Rather than doing what nearly every Republican politician does, which is to cower from racial McCarthyism and apologize for having done nothing wrong, he said "no, I am not a racist for saying the welfare policies of the Democrats hurt people instead of helping them, and I'm not going to sit here and let you make that charge against me". He got a standing ovation.
Juan Williams was right on this. Gingrich made comments that were either patently offensive or incredibly stupid. A SC audience may give him points for his response. I doubt the rest of America does.

Quote Originally Posted by JPT ...
Later in the same week, another moderator (following the lead of ABC News) tried to use Gingrich's private life against him. When the left tells us constantly (as they did for Bill Clinton) that people's private lives should be off-limits, but then repeatedly uses that kind of attack on their enemies with impunity, the hypocrisy is overwhelming, and eventually it's going to backfire. Especially since Gingrich has converted to Catholicism, openly admits his past sins, has publicly asked for forgiveness, and the behavior in question is almost 15 years in the past. The timing of it, clearly intended to be the primary equivalent of an "October surprise", also backfired mightily. People realize that the elites are trying to rig the game, and they're not going to play it anymore.
Do you not understand the concept of being a monumental hypocrite? I'm sorry, but asking God for forgiveness may satisfy God. I can't speak for God. The voters have the right to expect better.

Quote Originally Posted by JPT ...
In short, all of the slanderous garbage being spewed in this thread is precisely the reason why Gingrich has caught fire. He's shown willingness and an ability to stand up to it, call it the lie that it is, and not back down. So you can go on telling yourselves that people don't vote the way you want them to because they're a bunch of knuckle-dragging, backwards bigots. You're just motivating them to vote that way even more intensely.
High dudgeon from the party of the Birthers. Here's a hint: we know beyond any doubt that Gingrich screwed-over two wives and slept around pretty much at will. Calling him on it, when he's such a pompous ass, is no only fair ... it's a must! This is the guy who led the fight to impeach a President over the same indiscretions he was committing at the time ... only moreso. And you think calling him on this qualifies as slander?

Quote Originally Posted by JPT ...
Put simply: You say they vote the way they do because they're bigots. When in reality they're voting the way they do, at least in part, because you keep calling them bigots. Get it?
I call them hypocrites. They "forgive" their fellow conservatives, no matter how inappropriate the conduct or how high-and-mighty the sinner, yet they crucify anyone not in the fold for actions that are pale in comparison.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#6052 at 01-23-2012 10:55 PM by annla899 [at joined Sep 2008 #posts 2,860]
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How is this not pandering to people who believe that all black people are on food stamps? He directly ties Obama being a "Food Stamp President" to talking with the NAACP.

BTW, 59% of people on "food stamps" (SNAP) are white.

GINGRICH: More people are on food stamps today because of Obama’s policies than ever in history. I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history. Now, there’s no neighborhood I know of in America where if you went around and asked people, “Would you rather your children had food stamps or paychecks,” you wouldn’t [SIC] end up with a majority saying they’d rather have a paycheck.

And so I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps. And I’ll go to them and explain a brand new Social Security opportunity for young people, which should be particularly good for African-American males — because they’re the group that gets the smallest return on Social Security because they have the shortest life span.
Here's the link to the video as well.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012...mps/?mobile=nc







Post#6053 at 01-23-2012 11:08 PM by KaiserD2 [at David Kaiser '47 joined Jul 2001 #posts 5,220]
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Quote Originally Posted by annla899 View Post
How is this not pandering to people who believe that all black people are on food stamps? He directly ties Obama being a "Food Stamp President" to talking with the NAACP.

BTW, 59% of people on "food stamps" (SNAP) are white.



Here's the link to the video as well.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012...mps/?mobile=nc
It's disgusting and obvious.

Romney is giving Gingrich a very hard time about lobbying in tonight's debate. Gingrich's surge is continuing. This is the goddamndest political year I have ever seen. We have been moving towards anarchy in our political system for quite some time, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. Newt's angel just kicked in a second $5 million for Florida ads--it's incredible what one person can do now.

By the way, does anyone know who the Koch brothers' candidate is at this point?

Mikebert is right about Romney and the Republicans. And I am now pretty much convinced we'll have another panic before the 2016 elections. Bubbles are still all we know how to do.
Last edited by KaiserD2; 01-23-2012 at 11:11 PM.







Post#6054 at 01-23-2012 11:10 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough View Post
Many of the posts in this thread neatly illustrate what put Gingrich over the top. Conservatives, in the eyes of the left, the elite and the media, are always motivated by bigotry.
Bigotry? These fellows stand for equal-opportunity ruin for the non-elite for the enhancement of the wealth and indulgence of the economic elite. They are as likely to $crew white people as they are to $crew blacks or Hispanics. Poor whites are the last to catch on -- don't ask why. If they ever figure that the Hard Right is $crewing them they will turn on those elites.

Whether it be religious bigotry, racism, or something else. Juan Williams made such an accusation against Gingrich in last week's debate. Rather than doing what nearly every Republican politician does, which is to cower from racial McCarthyism and apologize for having done nothing wrong, he said "no, I am not a racist for saying the welfare policies of the Democrats hurt people instead of helping them, and I'm not going to sit here and let you make that charge against me". He got a standing ovation.
Juan Williams is a conservative. Unless they are insulated tokens, even conservative blacks know what racism is.

The Hard Right loves to reduce political discourse to sound bites beyond analysis or criticism. Sure, if only people had to choose between starvation of their family and working to exhaustion for a pittance or even under peonage they would do the "right thing". Real progress is that the economic norms of the Gilded Age are a distant memory. The economic elites that the Hard Right serves can profit greatly from a cheap-labor, high-cost economic system.

Later in the same week, another moderator (following the lead of ABC News) tried to use Gingrich's private life against him. When the left tells us constantly (as they did for Bill Clinton) that people's private lives should be off-limits, but then repeatedly uses that kind of attack on their enemies with impunity, the hypocrisy is overwhelming, and eventually it's going to backfire. Especially since Gingrich has converted to Catholicism, openly admits his past sins, has publicly asked for forgiveness, and the behavior in question is almost 15 years in the past. The timing of it, clearly intended to be the primary equivalent of an "October surprise", also backfired mightily. People realize that the elites are trying to rig the game, and they're not going to play it anymore.
Newt Gingrich is a dishonest, moralizing, pretentious, corrupt politician. He has had three moral failures in marriage.

http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_t...ml?TextId=4462

This poem in the original German was masterfully set by the composer Gustav Mahler (of course "masterful" and "Mahler" form an inherent redundancy) -- with music that wonderfully catches the futility of religious outreach to hypocrites. The fish, turtles, and crabs love the sermon of Saint Anthony of Padua ... and revert upon its completion to their old predatory, corrupt, sensual, indulgent ways. But they loved the sermon!

Eels, pike, sturgeons, and carp have the excuse that they are still fish, and the turtles and crabs are still turtles and crabs. So what is Newt Gingrich's excuse? I would not be surprised to find that he loves the Vespers of Monteverdi, Bach's B-Minor Mass, and the Requiem Masses of Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi. So do I -- but I do not pretend to be a Catholic.

In short, all of the slanderous garbage being spewed in this thread is precisely the reason why Gingrich has caught fire. He's shown a willingness and an ability to stand up to it, call it the lie that it is, and not back down. So you can go on telling yourselves that people don't vote the way you want them to because they're a bunch of knuckle-dragging, backwards bigots. You're just motivating them to vote that way even more intensely.
If you will notice I scrupulously avoid the derogatory stereotypes of southern white people as "a bunch of knuckle-dragging, backwards bigots" (I cite you on that). People are not "trash" because they live in trailers; I know people who have lived in trailers, and I have met such people in Census work and in political canvassing. Some good people -- retired people, recent immigrants coping with low income, people with cr@ppy jobs -- live in trailers. I can imagine myself living in one one day. People are "trash" because they do horrible things to people, whatever their class affiliation, their wealth, and their income, their titles, and their education. Trash can be the usual gutter life of pimps and pushers -- or, on the other side, WWII-era European aristocrats who collaborated with Hitler in the Holocaust.

Put simply: You say they vote the way they do because they're bigots. When in reality they're voting the way they do, at least in part, because you keep calling them bigots. Get it?
People can vote for a reactionary economic agenda for reasons other than bigotry -- like being perpetrators of the agenda or figuring that if they only get to be enforcers they could live very well. I just can;t think of anyone having an honorable reason for voting for or otherwise supporting the politics of cruelty.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#6055 at 01-23-2012 11:17 PM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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Quote Originally Posted by KaiserD2 View Post
It's disgusting and obvious.

Romney is giving Gingrich a very hard time about lobbying in tonight's debate. Gingrich's surge is continuing. This is the goddamndest political year I have ever seen.

Mikebert is right about Romney and the Republicans. And I am now pretty much convinced we'll have another panic before the 2016 elections. Bubbles are still all we know how to do.
Sadly, we may have to let one run its course for a while. I know that's a bit cruel, but a GOP President and Congress will be predisposed to that solution, if "solution" is even the right work for it. The rose-colored glasses are still in place, and the belief in belief is still incrediblity strong. It may take some of those hard knocks to fix things ... assuming they get bad enough to trigger real pain. Apparently, the current level of pain is still below the ouch point.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#6056 at 01-23-2012 11:29 PM by Deb C [at joined Aug 2004 #posts 6,099]
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PolitiFact:

The Truth-O-Meter Says:

Monday, January 23rd, 2012 in a Republican presidential debate in Tampa



Newt Gingrich repeats claim that he balanced the federal budget four times as speaker

"When I was speaker, we had four consecutive balanced budgets, the only time in your lifetime, Brian, that we've had four consecutive balanced budgets," Gingrich said. "Most people think that's good."
[/h]We’ve checked this -- such as during the Dec. 15, 2011, Republican presidential debate in Sioux City, Iowa -- and never found it to be accurate.

Gingrich was speaker from January 1995 to January 1999, when he was a Republican congressman from Atlanta’s suburbs.

The federal budget runs on a fiscal year calendar that begins October 1 and ends September 30. During fiscal years 1996 and 1997 -- the first two that Gingrich helped shape as speaker -- there were deficits: $107 billion in 1996 and about $22 billion in 1997.

By fiscal year 1998, the federal budget did reach a surplus of $69 billion. And in fiscal year 1999 -- which Gingrich can claim some responsibility for, even though he was out as speaker for most of the fiscal year -- it was in surplus as well, to the tune of $126 billion.

But that’s only two balanced budgets he can plausibly claim credit for. The federal government did run four consecutive surpluses, but for the last two of those -- fiscal years 2000 and 2001 -- Gingrich was no longer serving in the House.

It’s also worth noting that even the two balanced budgets for which Gingrich can claim some credit were collective accomplishments by a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, and the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate.

Our ruling

Gingrich was off-base with this claim -- again. The budget was indeed balanced for four years, but it’s a stretch for him to take credit for anything more than two of those years. We rate Gingrich’s claim False.


Last edited by Deb C; 01-23-2012 at 11:32 PM.
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a







Post#6057 at 01-23-2012 11:40 PM by JustPassingThrough [at joined Dec 2006 #posts 5,196]
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Quote Originally Posted by annla899 View Post
How is this not pandering to people who believe that all black people are on food stamps? He directly ties Obama being a "Food Stamp President" to talking with the NAACP.

BTW, 59% of people on "food stamps" (SNAP) are white.



Here's the link to the video as well.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012...mps/?mobile=nc
I'm not going to argue with you all over the the fact that you do what you do. You can't stop it, it's deeply ingrained in your psyche. Your first response to every policy issue is to accuse anyone who disagrees with you of racism. You can't survive without it. The good news is, you're not going to survive for long, politically speaking. It is increasingly backfiring, and this year may be the tipping point.







Post#6058 at 01-24-2012 12:14 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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Quote Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough View Post
Put simply: You say they vote the way they do because they're bigots. When in reality they're voting the way they do, at least in part, because you keep calling them bigots. Get it?
Sure, that probably applies to the 5% of American voters who vote in Republican primaries, especially to 40% of those who voted in this primary in the small conservative state of South Carolina that once led the fight for slavery and still flies the confederate flag. Get it?
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#6059 at 01-24-2012 12:21 AM by annla899 [at joined Sep 2008 #posts 2,860]
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Quote Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough View Post
I'm not going to argue with you all over the the fact that you do what you do. You can't stop it, it's deeply ingrained in your psyche. Your first response to every policy issue is to accuse anyone who disagrees with you of racism. You can't survive without it. The good news is, you're not going to survive for long, politically speaking. It is increasingly backfiring, and this year may be the tipping point.
I didn't say he was racist. I said he was pandering to it. And obviously.

You can't help what you believe either. You don't even question it.

I actually carefully looked up the whole quote when I heard about people accusing Gingrich of saying this. Because I thought people were probably exaggerating. Because you will deny I say this, but I see exaggeration on all sides of the political spectrum. Things get taken out of context and blown up. And then I found it. Heard it for myself. In unedited video.

It's admirable that he want to be the "paycheck" president.
Just out of curiosity, what do you think Gingrich means with this whole statement? And talking with the NAACP?
Last edited by annla899; 01-24-2012 at 12:49 AM.







Post#6060 at 01-24-2012 12:37 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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I doubt the Republicans have gotten more fuel for their political fires than the sentiment that Gingrich and other Reaganoids stoke and pander to: lazy people, often black, who don't work, get librul politicians to steal money from them to get welfare, especially for children they had deliberately, and out-of-wedlock, in order to get more AFDC welfare. Without this meme the Republicans would be nowhere, and they have nothing else to offer but militarism and religious prejudice.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 01-24-2012 at 01:36 AM.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#6061 at 01-24-2012 12:38 AM by annla899 [at joined Sep 2008 #posts 2,860]
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Quote Originally Posted by The Rani View Post
I'm sure that Newt didn't mean it like this, but what he said reminds me a bit of Malcolm X:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2a9_1178512785

And maybe he would talk about African-Americans in this case because he'd be at the NAACP convention?
It wouldn't make sense to talk about getting white folks off food stamps in such a venue.

(I'm not a fan of Newt, just amazed at how this thread got so ugly all of a sudden.)
Me, too, actually.

But ya kinda have to wonder why he picked the NAACP to discuss food stamps when he could have just as easily picked a less specifically race-related organization. And why did the audience applaud it?







Post#6062 at 01-24-2012 12:48 AM by annla899 [at joined Sep 2008 #posts 2,860]
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Quote Originally Posted by The Rani View Post
I don't know, but do we have to automatically jump to "racism" as the assumed answer?
(I added a video where he explains himself at the end of my last post.)
Did I use the word racist in my first post? Didn't think so. I was, however, told I was calling Gingrich racist.

And his response his pure spin. I don't buy it for a minute. And politicians do it all the time--not just New Gingrich.







Post#6063 at 01-24-2012 01:03 AM by JustPassingThrough [at joined Dec 2006 #posts 5,196]
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Quote Originally Posted by annla899 View Post
Me, too, actually.

But ya kinda have to wonder why he picked the NAACP to discuss food stamps when he could have just as easily picked a less specifically race-related organization. And why did the audience applaud it?
Because the Democratic Party primarily appeals to the black community with two arguments:

1. "You need the government to come along and fix your problems for you, you can't do it for yourself." That often takes the form of welfare programs.
2. "Republicans are racists, and you have to vote for us to protect you from them."

Gingrich attacked assertion 1, and the Democrats (i.e. the media) immediately resorted to assertion 2. It's like clockwork.







Post#6064 at 01-24-2012 01:08 AM by annla899 [at joined Sep 2008 #posts 2,860]
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Quote Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough View Post
Because the Democratic Party primarily appeals to the black community with two arguments:

1. "You need the government to come along and fix your problems for you, you can't do it for yourself." That often takes the form of welfare programs.
2. "Republicans are racists, and you have to vote for us to protect you from them."

Gingrich attacked assertion 1, and the Democrats (i.e. the media) immediately resorted to assertion 2. It's like clockwork.
Oh, brother. It's not even worth it.







Post#6065 at 01-24-2012 08:50 AM by KaiserD2 [at David Kaiser '47 joined Jul 2001 #posts 5,220]
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I am still inclined to give the Rani the benefit of the doubt and assume she was being ironic, although she does have a way of standing up for the right wing some times.

An honest statement would run something like this:

"The country is suffering from its worst economic distress since the Great Depression. Record numbers of Americans now have to rely on food stamps. They, and we, need to put them back to work."

If one were speaking, let us say, to the NAACP (which he wasn't when he made the statement), one could add that as always, black unemployment rates, and therefore food stamp rates, are significantly higher than white ones, even though the largest number of food stamp recipients are white.

To use food stamps and black Americans in the same sentence without any reference to unemployment as a national problem is an obvious attempt to pander to the stereotype of lazy you-know-whats who would rather depend on the government than work, all the more so since they have one of their own in the White House nowadays. I believe even Romney has accused Obama of "encouraging dependency."

There's no mystery about any of this. By the way, a Martian watching the Republican debates and checking out the audience would conclude that there are almost no black people in the whole south.
Last edited by KaiserD2; 01-24-2012 at 09:12 AM.







Post#6066 at 01-24-2012 09:11 AM by KaiserD2 [at David Kaiser '47 joined Jul 2001 #posts 5,220]
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The other day, I referred you to the Gingrich PAC's 30-minute video about Romney and Bain, "When Mitt Romney came to Town." Google will take you right to it.

Now this week, the esteemed Ann Coulter devoted her column to that video. It states that AMPAD, which made paper, is the only company in the movie that Bain put out of business while Romney was there. It then proceeds to argue that the real villain at AMPAD was a union leader who insisted on going on strike even though the paper products industry was in big trouble in the 1990s.

This is completely inaccurate. The very first company discussed in the film isn't Ampad at all--it's Unimack, which made washing machines in Florida. There are two others. (I'm not going to watch yet again to write down the names.) Coulter has completely fabricated the content of the film. And at the end of the column, she writes, "The anti-Romney hysterics don't get to come back later with another company allegedly looted by Bain that I'll have to spend another week researching. Henceforth, I shall refer you back to the Ampad example -- their smoking gun -- which, as we have seen, is not even a water pistol. "

In other words, don't bother me with any more facts.

This is rather interesting because, of course, Coulter, Limbaugh and the rest have made millions pulling this kind of garbage on Democrats for many years. But now they are doing it to other Republicans, giving some hope that the monster is devouring itself.

Other fascinating news this morning concerns Gingrich's financial angel, a Silent, Sheldon Adelson, a Las Vegas casino magnate with a net worth of $23 billion [sic]. He gave Newt $5 million to turn things around in South Carolina and yesterday his wife Miriam, who was an Israeli doctor when he met her (she's his second wife), kicked in $5 million more for Florida. The New York Times leads with a story about a viciously anti-Muslim propaganda film, The Third Jihad, which the NYPD ran as background in its trainee processing center for many months and showed as a training film. It turns out that the film seems to have been produced by a foundation controlled by Adelson. Adelson publicly praised Gingrich's statements to the effect that the Palestinians are nothing but an invented people.

The Republican Party is becoming a polity of capitalist feudal barons (oxymoron, I know). Romney, one such, is running himself. Others anoint their own professional candidates. Even in the Gilded Age, Rockefeller, Carnegie and the rest did not pick candidates. And in this case, the feudal baron behind Gingrich seems to be as concerned about the interests of a foreign power as he is about the USA, which has been, if I may say so, rather good to him. Newt has a consultant's mentality. We couldn't understand why he made that over-the-top statement about the Palestinians. (Jews are not a major voting bloc in southern Republican primaries.) But now we know.







Post#6067 at 01-24-2012 09:29 AM by Child of Socrates [at Cybrarian from America's Dairyland, 1961 cohort joined Sep 2001 #posts 14,092]
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Quote Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough View Post
Because the Democratic Party primarily appeals to the black community with two arguments:

1. "You need the government to come along and fix your problems for you, you can't do it for yourself." That often takes the form of welfare programs.
2. "Republicans are racists, and you have to vote for us to protect you from them."

Gingrich attacked assertion 1, and the Democrats (i.e. the media) immediately resorted to assertion 2. It's like clockwork.
So why do blacks actually vote Democratic by such large margins?







Post#6068 at 01-24-2012 09:52 AM by Earl and Mooch [at Delaware - we pave paradise and put up parking lots joined Sep 2002 #posts 2,106]
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Quote Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon View Post
I find it ironic that anyone in the South has the chutzpah to whine about subsidies, when the entire region has been a ward of the state for decades. The South rose because FDR insisted that it should.
Federal seed money to the South goes back at least a century. The New Deal merely perpetuated it.
"My generation, we were the generation that was going to change the world: somehow we were going to make it a little less lonely, a little less hungry, a little more just place. But it seems that when that promise slipped through our hands we didn´t replace it with nothing but lost faith."

Bruce Springsteen, 1987
http://brucebase.wikispaces.com/1987...+YORK+CITY,+NY







Post#6069 at 01-24-2012 12:11 PM by ziggyX65 [at Texas Hill Country joined Apr 2010 #posts 2,634]
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Quote Originally Posted by The Rani View Post
This is the exact part which reminded me of Malcolm X.
As I recall, Malcolm X was a full 180 from this. Malcolm X told black America that they had to rise up for themselves because they couldn't expect the white man controlling government and industry to do it for them.







Post#6070 at 01-24-2012 12:30 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,443]
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Quote Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough View Post
Because the Democratic Party primarily appeals to the black community with two arguments:

1. "You need the government to come along and fix your problems for you, you can't do it for yourself." That often takes the form of welfare programs.
2. "Republicans are racists, and you have to vote for us to protect you from them."

Gingrich attacked assertion 1, and the Democrats (i.e. the media) immediately resorted to assertion 2. It's like clockwork.

Various Republicans may or may not be racist.

But the one thing we know for sure about them is that they lie all the time and about everything.

Here's a good honest breakdown of the food stamp issue -

http://factcheck.org/2012/01/newts-f...d-stamp-claim/

Newt Gingrich claims that “more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history.” He’s wrong. More were added under Bush than under Obama, according to the most recent figures.


....U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition service for month-by-month figures going back to January 2001. And they show that under President George W. Bush the number of recipients rose by nearly 14.7 million. Nothing before comes close to that.

And under Obama, the increase so far has been 14.2 million. To be exact, the program has so far grown by 444,574 fewer recipients during Obama’s time in office than during Bush’s.

It’s possible that when the figures for January 2012 are available they will show that the gain under Obama has matched or exceeded the gain under Bush. But not if the short-term trend continues. The number getting food stamps declined by 43,528 in October. And the economy has improved since then.
Moreover, the above numbers are based on the cutoff point being Obama's inauguration. Only a complete ideologically-blind moron would suggest that Obama was immediately responsible for countercyclical measures automatically-initiated, BY EXISTING LAW, in response to the greatest economic contraction since the Great Depression and financial meltdown of 2008 just a month before his election and 3 months before he took office.

The GOP is made up of two types of people - the first, a vast majority of complete fricken morons predisposed to lapping up bullshit like this foodstamp crap, and then, a much smaller but very powerful group completely cynical, willing to say anything to manipulate the first group so that they can gain power and continue to line their off-shore tax havens.

I'm pretty sure, JPT, that you don't have a Mitt'ens account in the Caymans.

Romney advisers stressed that the holdings in the Caymans - along with those in a Swiss bank account that was closed in 2010 after an investment adviser decided it could be politically embarrassing to Romney - were reported on tax returns and were not vehicles to avoid taxes.
- yea, he just needed access to several million from the Cayman Bank ATM to buy a cup of joe when in town for groceries on vacation.

and I bet you even pay your Medicare payroll tax -

Newt Gingrich's tax return shows that he purported to avoid $50,000 of Medicare payroll taxes by using the so-called John Edwards Sub S tax shelter - a scam that Forbes says the IRS has "consistently and successfully attacked." The trick is to avoid the 2.9 percent Medicare payroll tax by forming a shell entity that supposedly employs you. Then, when others pay for your services, the money goes to the entity, which underpays you from a reasonable compensation standpoint. This ostensibly results in converting the lion's share of your compensation income into business profits, which do not face the Medicare payroll tax. If you actually need the cash, you can still ask the entity to pay it to you (and it will probably say yes to its 100% owner), but you label the payments as dividends, which also are exempt from the Medicare payroll tax (and indeed are tax-irrelevant, given that a subchapter S corporation is taxed as a flow-through entity whose profits accrued to you anyway).
Nay, that doesn't matter when we got 46 million on food stamps that breaks out as such

47 percent of beneficiaries were children under age 18.
8 percent were age 60 or older.
41 percent lived in a household with earnings from a job — the so-called “working poor.”
The average household received a monthly benefit of $287.
36 percent were white (non-Hispanic), 22 percent were African American (non-Hispanic) and 10 percent were Hispanic
Just think of the money that could be going to the Cayman bank accounts if we let 22 million kids starve!

GOP, maybe not all be racists, but certainly heartless lying greedy morons sure fill their ranks.
Last edited by playwrite; 01-24-2012 at 12:52 PM.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#6071 at 01-24-2012 12:33 PM by ziggyX65 [at Texas Hill Country joined Apr 2010 #posts 2,634]
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01-24-2012, 12:33 PM #6071
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
Various Republicans may or may not be racist.

But the one thing we know for sure about them is that they lie all the time and about everything.
Everything? Wow. That in itself may not be a lie, but it sure as hell is an exaggeration.







Post#6072 at 01-24-2012 12:38 PM by summer in the fall [at joined Jul 2011 #posts 1,540]
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01-24-2012, 12:38 PM #6072
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
I doubt the Republicans have gotten more fuel for their political fires than the sentiment that Gingrich and other Reaganoids stoke and pander to: lazy people, often black, who don't work, get librul politicians to steal money from them to get welfare, especially for children they had deliberately, and out-of-wedlock, in order to get more AFDC welfare. Without this meme the Republicans would be nowhere, and they have nothing else to offer but militarism and religious prejudice.
This has been posted before. But sometimes folks needs a reminder...

Atwater on the Southern Strategy

Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "N****r, n****r, n****r." By 1968 you can't say "n****r" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N****r, n****r."
Best...







Post#6073 at 01-24-2012 12:47 PM by summer in the fall [at joined Jul 2011 #posts 1,540]
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Quote Originally Posted by Child of Socrates View Post
Quote Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough View Post
Because the Democratic Party primarily appeals to the black community with two arguments:

1. "You need the government to come along and fix your problems for you, you can't do it for yourself." That often takes the form of welfare programs.
2. "Republicans are racists, and you have to vote for us to protect you from them."

Gingrich attacked assertion 1, and the Democrats (i.e. the media) immediately resorted to assertion 2. It's like clockwork.
So why do blacks actually vote Democratic by such large margins?
That's a good question.







Post#6074 at 01-24-2012 12:54 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,443]
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Quote Originally Posted by ziggyX65 View Post
Everything? Wow. That in itself may not be a lie, but it sure as hell is an exaggeration.
Really? Can you give us one example of a major issue where there are not outright lies by the major GOP candidates or by Republican leaders in the Congress?
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#6075 at 01-24-2012 12:57 PM by ziggyX65 [at Texas Hill Country joined Apr 2010 #posts 2,634]
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01-24-2012, 12:57 PM #6075
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
Really? Can you give us one example of a major issue where there are not outright lies by the major GOP candidates or by Republican leaders in the Congress?
Major issues? You are moving the goalposts now. You said "everything" before, with no qualifications.

I can't think of any controversial issue where there aren't some lies, half-truths and omissions on both sides. (And no, I'm not claiming it's "equal" on both sides.)
Last edited by ziggyX65; 01-24-2012 at 12:59 PM.
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