I liked the little girl crying over Justin Bieber better!Originally Posted by Aramea
LOL, I saw that this morning. Suck it up crybaby, this is how America rolls these days...
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I liked the little girl crying over Justin Bieber better!LOL, I saw that this morning. Suck it up crybaby, this is how America rolls these days
Hey! You best be talking about the icon, mister Eric! LOL!!!!
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a
Speaking of this, I just got my power back. Thank god I'm no longer shivering with three cats for warmth...
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
This is mostly a rant, if you want to skip it, go right ahead.
I am absolutely sick and tired of this fucking election! Not only is my mailbox getting spammed with a bunch of right-wing flyers from my state's Republican party, but I am just sick with the general tenor of it.
There's a lovely local woman who sends me a postcard each election. Well, guess what... instead of a postcard I got a six page letter (double-sided) for this election. I started reading it and just can't get through it as she keeps inserting racist digs and outdated ideas that make the 1950s look pinko commie.
I also got a lovely little "voter audit" notice from the "Americans for Limited Government" organization which just made me flip. Notice the name of the organization, now keep this in mind as I tell you what they did. They audited my local neighborhood to see WHOM voted in the last few elections and WHOM DIDN'T and sent out a flyer listing myself and all my neighbors' information on whether we've voted or not in the past few elections (trying to "shame" the non-voters into voting IMHO). The hypocrisy was just too much to bear and I snapped and sent a handwritten reply asking them to keep their Big Government noses out of mine and my neighbors' personal information. Because only friends of "Big Government" such as the Fascist Republicans and Communist Democrats would post personal information publicly, not true patriotic "Americans for Limited Government".
It was a very cathartic experience... but I do not care to repeat the experience with the Silent local woman who keeps sending me her opinions every election--she'll be dead soon and gone thankfully. How do I know she's Silent? Because only Silents and Homelanders are named Ruth--well, them and a few GIs.
Despite my best judgment I feel like I should vote all Democrat just to piss Ruth off, I really do. I won't, but I feel like it at the moment. Time to go start a fire since I have the kindling...
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
Hopefully they'll have the decency to knock first.Thanks, but I still don't want your photograph.
I'm still ah, ah, ah, viewing the one of Rani.
Responders better arrive quickly!
Well, I hope not too quickly.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch
"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy
"[it] is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky
Good to hear you made it through OK!
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Back in 2008 I got spammed with push polls constantly, this year I have had no push polls or robocalls. I guess the Republicans have written off Minnesota.This is mostly a rant, if you want to skip it, go right ahead.
I am absolutely sick and tired of this fucking election! Not only is my mailbox getting spammed with a bunch of right-wing flyers from my state's Republican party, but I am just sick with the general tenor of it.
There's a lovely local woman who sends me a postcard each election. Well, guess what... instead of a postcard I got a six page letter (double-sided) for this election. I started reading it and just can't get through it as she keeps inserting racist digs and outdated ideas that make the 1950s look pinko commie.
I also got a lovely little "voter audit" notice from the "Americans for Limited Government" organization which just made me flip. Notice the name of the organization, now keep this in mind as I tell you what they did. They audited my local neighborhood to see WHOM voted in the last few elections and WHOM DIDN'T and sent out a flyer listing myself and all my neighbors' information on whether we've voted or not in the past few elections (trying to "shame" the non-voters into voting IMHO). The hypocrisy was just too much to bear and I snapped and sent a handwritten reply asking them to keep their Big Government noses out of mine and my neighbors' personal information. Because only friends of "Big Government" such as the Fascist Republicans and Communist Democrats would post personal information publicly, not true patriotic "Americans for Limited Government".
It was a very cathartic experience... but I do not care to repeat the experience with the Silent local woman who keeps sending me her opinions every election--she'll be dead soon and gone thankfully. How do I know she's Silent? Because only Silents and Homelanders are named Ruth--well, them and a few GIs.
Despite my best judgment I feel like I should vote all Democrat just to piss Ruth off, I really do. I won't, but I feel like it at the moment. Time to go start a fire since I have the kindling...
~Chas'88
Oh, and there are Homelanders named Ruth???
Oh, and I have a Boomer relative named Ruth, it isn't just a Silent name.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
I am getting sick of it too, and I am a very partisan Democrat. Even the six non-partisan initiatives and allegedly non-partisan State Supreme Court choices have ugly campaigns behind them. The eventual Republican nominee for Senate started the year with the infamous ad laden with Chinese stereotypes attacking the incumbent Democratic Senator as "Debbie Spend-It-Now". GOP front groups cast President Obama as Satan or the Antichrist for all practical purposes. To my regret I get stuck listening to FoX Propaganda Channel -- loud due to a parent with poor hearing -- and with it, Tea Party ideology barely altered. I could not drown this out with the music of my choosing (classical). Mercifully the Detroit Tigers had a good year (the only reason for which I was convinced that I had not died and gone to Hell) until the World Series so I could get some break.
That 'newsletter' demonstrates its potential success upon people unsophisticated about politics, history, and even mathematics. That Barack Obama is black should have nothing to do with this election unless he gives unusual and undeserved benefits to black people (which he isn't doing). If you can refute it, then congratulations on a solid education, or at least not falling asleep in history and civics classes. I would ask people whether they would like to go back to the 70-hour workweek and 40-year lifespan typical for industrial workers and farm laborers 120 years ago, child labor as a norm when people were worn out at age 35 and needed the income from their kids working in mines or factories, and plenty of booze and fundamentalist religion as opiates of the masses even if opiates are outlawed.There's a lovely local woman who sends me a postcard each election. Well, guess what... instead of a postcard I got a six page letter (double-sided) for this election. I started reading it and just can't get through it as she keeps inserting racist digs and outdated ideas that make the 1950s look pinko commie.
I got copious e-mails with the usual smears of Barack Obama as a Muslim, a 'poverty pimp', a Communist, a fascist, and a Panther-style racist -- often together -- from people that I shared information with due to my hobby (genealogy). Some people just don't know where the political world ends and all else begins.
"Limited government" has often become code words for "unlimited power of economic elites". The local feudal lord who could have you burned at the stake for hiding grain or the executive who has the prerogative to call in a private militia to mow down strikers is as dangerous as a fascist dictator, a Communist Party boss, or a mad tyrant like Nero, Ivan the Terrible, Henry VIII, or Idi Amin. I see great danger in people who would short-circuit the usual checks and balances necessary for responsible government and accumulate political power as Party bosses or leaders of front groups unaccountable to anybody else.I also got a lovely little "voter audit" notice from the "Americans for Limited Government" organization which just made me flip. Notice the name of the organization, now keep this in mind as I tell you what they did. They audited my local neighborhood to see WHOM voted in the last few elections and WHOM DIDN'T and sent out a flyer listing myself and all my neighbors' information on whether we've voted or not in the past few elections (trying to "shame" the non-voters into voting IMHO). The hypocrisy was just too much to bear and I snapped and sent a handwritten reply asking them to keep their Big Government noses out of mine and my neighbors' personal information. Because only friends of "Big Government" such as the Fascist Republicans and Communist Democrats would post personal information publicly, not true patriotic "Americans for Limited Government".
Karl Rove or Grover Norquist as such a boss? Such might cause me to emigrate if I were much younger.
Part of progress is that the promoters of the most ludicrous superstitions and absurdities die off without leaving a legacy. Much of what is now mainstream science is so because people who had a stake in promoting the old and flawed knowledge are no longer around. So it is with evolution, relativity, and continental drift.It was a very cathartic experience... but I do not care to repeat the experience with the Silent local woman who keeps sending me her opinions every election--she'll be dead soon and gone thankfully. How do I know she's Silent? Because only Silents and Homelanders are named Ruth--well, them and a few GIs.
Howe and Strauss showed a very flattering image of the Silent due to some of their political (MLK, RFK) and cultural (Harper Lee, Lorraine Hansberry, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Mary Travers) figures. But they also have some sleazy characters (Lee Harvey Oswald, Charles Manson, John Gacy, Ira Einhorn, Kenneth Lay, Bernie Madoff, Jerry Sandusky, Ted Kaczynski) as well. The creeps won't be missed.
There has to be some use for paper first put to a dreadful use.Despite my best judgment I feel like I should vote all Democrat just to piss Ruth off, I really do. I won't, but I feel like it at the moment. Time to go start a fire since I have the kindling...
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
Haven't you noticed a lot of Homies are being named "granny" names that we haven't seen since the GIs, Losts, and Missionaries kicked the bucket? Olivia, Ava, Abigail, Sophia, Evelyn, Lillian, Victoria, Scarlett, Stella, Camilla, Audrey, Emma, Aubree, etc.Back in 2008 I got spammed with push polls constantly, this year I have had no push polls or robocalls. I guess the Republicans have written off Minnesota.
Oh, and there are Homelanders named Ruth???
Names that rose to popularity with Xer & Millennial girls are on the downward slope from their peak: Ashley, Alyssa, Brianna, Morgan, Alexandra, Jennifer, Jessica, Melissa, etc.
Also I thought the Friends episode where they decided to name their possible daughter Ruth, started a trend... IIRC.
Yes, but it was most popular with the 1890s - 1930s cohorts and has since had a significant drop in popularity...Oh, and I have a Boomer relative named Ruth, it isn't just a Silent name.
http://www.behindthename.com/top/name/ruth
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
While we're playing the name game, I remember in the 1970's and 1980's there were all sorts of Jennifers and Jessica. In my growing up years the most popular girls names were the likes of Donna, Linda, and Sharon. How often are these used today? For boys my own name Brian is still very common, and stalwarts like John and Michael never really went away. This is a bit of a diversion from the serious tone of the majority of this thread, IMO. Might add that the names Luke and Laura are still very common today. Makes you wonder if many named their babies after those soap opera characters. Oh yes, and Shirley was another popular name from the 1950's and 1960's. What made me just think of that was Shirley Ellis, who performed the song I references at the beginning of this post. Wonder if she is still around.
This is good news, particularly for women -
http://www.courierpress.com/news/201...ependent-poll/
Could this put Indiana back in play for Obama???Mourdock down double digits according to independent poll
"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
Speaking of the worm's a-hole, this was a good observation -
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madr...-grover-norqui
Hurricane Sandy: Finally, Grover Norquist's Dream Comes True
By Susie Madrak
Imagine if, instead of paying your homeowner's insurance, you raised your kids' allowance. It wouldn't make much sense, would it?
But that's what our local, state and federal politicians have been doing for decades. And because of it, a lot of things that should be fixed in this country, aren't. That's what Grover Norquist meant when he said he wanted to make government small enough to drown it in a bathtub.
He finally got his wish. Hey New York and New Jersey - let's give Grover the credit he so richly deserves!
So here we are, dealing with a weather catastrophe. Was it completely out of our control, or could we have done some things to make it less likely?
Think of all the money we haven't spent, that instead went to tax cuts. Tax cuts are only loans against money needed for our national infrastructure.
All the levees and sea walls that weren't built. The bad roads. The unsafe bridges. The aging urban sewage systems that are only fixed when they break, spilling millions of gallons of water into the streets. Our fuel pipelines are leaking.
It's so bad, it's considered a national security risk.
When I saw those nurses carrying premature babies downstairs after their generator failed, I thought, isn't that something our tax dollars should do -- protect the power supplies of our hospitals? Our high rise housing projects?
Shouldn't our mass transit system be well preserved, instead of nickeled and dimed to death by budget cuts? Instead, we see plans to sell off our parks, our turnpikes, and other important public resources.
Yet we are a country that always has more than enough money for wars, and covert operations, and weapons.
When they tell us they can't pay for the things we do need, what they're saying is they won't. Both parties have bought the Austerity Doctrine and don't even remember how to dream big for America.
Because the fixation on deficits and tax cuts at the expense of reality have made our visions very, very small. Let's not put up with this crap anymore, no matter who wins the election.
and you gotta love this -
"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
I'll start a topic, though I know The Wonkette had a Match the Name to a Generation guessing game thread a few years back.
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
I posted this elsewhere:
Indiana acted as if Barack Obama were a Favorite Son in 2008; such is not so in 2012. The advantage for a Favorite Son is roughly 10 except in max-out situations, applying between states with similar politics, and to winners and losers alike. It also reverses, which explains why John McCain did not do as well in Texas in 2008 as did George W. Bush. Barack Obama could campaign at will in Indiana from Chicago as President as he could not campaign as an incumbent President in Washington DC.Barack Obama invested much time, effort, and money in Indiana in 2008 beginning in the primaries. He set up a strong campaign apparatus that he kept in place because Indiana seemed like a desirable state to win. Because he was campaigning from Chicago he could negate the ability of nationwide Republicans to use the R machine to secure the state. Barack Obama was able to win the state largely because of economic distress that hit the vehicle industry hard.
President Obama is not going to win Indiana, but if Indiana goes for Romney. He has campaigned little in Indiana because he has easier and richer rewards for electoral votes (notably FL, NC, OH, and VA). The Indiana economy was a lose-lose proposition for him. If it stayed bad President Obama would lose due to economic failure which would show him ineffective enough to lose the state by 15-20 and not get re-elected (because he would also lose such states as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). If the economy got better, then other issues would come to the fore (taxes, cultural issues) that would cause President Obama to lose the state for much the same reasons that would cause him to lose Kentucky.
Indiana is conservative, but it isn't crazy. Lugar was a good choice for Senate in Indiana for years, and he would probably be on his way to another landslide had he won in the primary election. He typically won a significant number of Democratic votes that Mourdock was never going to get. Extremists can win reliably in ultra-safe bailiwicks, but Indiana is not quite one of them. Mitt Romney can win Indiana because he isn't a raging fascist.
Indiana is a tough state for Democrats to win. It went twice in four times for FDR; it went for Eisenhower by 18 and 20 despite Adlai Stevenson being from the neighboring state; it went for Nixon by 11 in a very close election and by 13 for him in 1968 in a three-way election in which George Wallace's racist campaign probably picked off some voters who would have otherwise gone to Nixon. It went to Ford by 8 and never went to Bill Clinton (who should have been a fairly-good match for the state). Gore lost Indiana by 15 and Kerry lost by 20. That's before I discuss R blowouts in 1972, 1980, 1984, and 1988.
Indiana goes to a Democrat in a huge landslide or perhaps if the Democrat does much campaigning there (close in 1948 for Truman in a close election that had plenty of whistle-stop campaigns in Indiana; bare win for Obama when the state acted as if Indiana had a Favorite Son. The difference between Indiana in 2008 and 2012 is much the same as if the Democratic candidate were a Favorite Son in 2008 and is not this year.
If Indiana goes for Romney by 10 or less, then President Obama wins nationwide. So it was with Truman, Kennedy, Carter in 1976, or Clinton twice.
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
The worst thing about it is that something like 2000 could happen again. If there is some skewing of the polls coming from the Obama campaign and the media, Romney could win with enough of a margin that it will not be in doubt. If the polls (and poll averages) are right, it is completely tied. Even more so than 2000, where Bush had a clear lead until the DUI story was dropped on him at the last second.This is mostly a rant, if you want to skip it, go right ahead.
I am absolutely sick and tired of this fucking election! Not only is my mailbox getting spammed with a bunch of right-wing flyers from my state's Republican party, but I am just sick with the general tenor of it.
There's a lovely local woman who sends me a postcard each election. Well, guess what... instead of a postcard I got a six page letter (double-sided) for this election. I started reading it and just can't get through it as she keeps inserting racist digs and outdated ideas that make the 1950s look pinko commie.
I also got a lovely little "voter audit" notice from the "Americans for Limited Government" organization which just made me flip. Notice the name of the organization, now keep this in mind as I tell you what they did. They audited my local neighborhood to see WHOM voted in the last few elections and WHOM DIDN'T and sent out a flyer listing myself and all my neighbors' information on whether we've voted or not in the past few elections (trying to "shame" the non-voters into voting IMHO). The hypocrisy was just too much to bear and I snapped and sent a handwritten reply asking them to keep their Big Government noses out of mine and my neighbors' personal information. Because only friends of "Big Government" such as the Fascist Republicans and Communist Democrats would post personal information publicly, not true patriotic "Americans for Limited Government".
It was a very cathartic experience... but I do not care to repeat the experience with the Silent local woman who keeps sending me her opinions every election--she'll be dead soon and gone thankfully. How do I know she's Silent? Because only Silents and Homelanders are named Ruth--well, them and a few GIs.
Despite my best judgment I feel like I should vote all Democrat just to piss Ruth off, I really do. I won't, but I feel like it at the moment. Time to go start a fire since I have the kindling...
~Chas'88
If Obama is re-elected by a razor-thin margin, he'll be the weakest second term president in recent history. Second terms are always cruise control for whatever happened in the first term. The president becomes a lame duck as soon as he's inaugurated, and nothing new or major gets done. They usually end up focusing on foreign policy. We are in desperate need of an economic turnaround. If Obama wins again, it's not going to happen. Aside from any philosophical or ideological issue, that's what worries me most. Add another 2000 debacle to it, with the "fiscal cliff" right around the corner and Obamacare bearing down on the economy, and we're in deep trouble.
"I see you got your fist out, say your peace and get out. Yeah I get the gist of it, but it's alright." - Jerry Garcia, 1987
Darwin Awards?
Sad, but it might provide a clue as to why Libertarians are a minority -
"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
Part of totalitarian rhetoric is the demonization of anyone on the other side, and a word like "parasites" exemplifies the Other Side as useless troublemakers who might as well be eliminated. Not that I want to call Norquist a Nazi, the Nazis used the phrase "useless feeders" to describe those people who due to their mental and physical handicaps could not make contributions to the Nazi war machine. Such "useless feeders" could be murdered. (Norquist, so far as I can tell is not a racist, but I can't say that he is a militarist. He is probably for neo-conservative foreign policy).
If someone like Norquist were to become the dictator of America as an unelected and unaccountable Party Boss, then America would soon become a good place only for the economic elites (tycoons, executives, and big landowners) and -- for people who would visit but never try to make a living here -- people on cheap vacations. That's how Spain was under Franco, Portugal was under Salazar, and Greece under Papadoupoulos. The common man would be priced out of Yellowstone and Yosemite or the beaches of California or Florida. The middle class? Reduced to enforcers whose survival depends upon subservience to the economic elite. Teachers, journalists, and librarians would spoon-feed people the Orwellian propaganda and prolefeed that the Government allows. Preachers would teach prayers blessing bosses 'so that they would be generous enough with the lash to lovingly coax the needful production from us lazy and unappreciative workers' and stockholders. Cops would be expected to mow down strikers or torture dissidents. If you disobey you will be convicted of a severe crime -- and your family will be ruined.
Ow a small business or farm? You will be squeezed into bankruptcy with 'your' store or farm being devoured by some giant cartel. Sell out while you can and go elsewhere. Consider what many Spaniards and Portuguese did after World War II -- they emigrated to France and made up for wartime loses. Their children are French. (Add Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians for escaping Commie rule. Does 'Sarkozy' remind you of anything?)
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
Economic cycles mostly happen despite whoever is president. Whether Romney or Obama is elected won't make much difference in the short term. The recovery is going to get stronger no matter who is elected. It's the long term where Romney's policies would do great damage. More tax cuts, refusal to spend on things we need, less regulation of financial gambling, more military spending and adventures, more inequality, will all make things worse as move toward the crisis climax in the 2020s, and make it less likely that it will be successful. On the other hand, if Obama is elected, the long-term outlook will be better because the modest reforms he achieved in his first two years will not be repealed.
Obamacare will help, not hurt, the economy, because health care is already becoming less expensive and will continue to help businesses by spreading around the expense. That worked in MA and it will work nationally. Obama cut the waste out of Medicare, and Romney wants to put it back. It will be expensive to cover more people with Medicaid, but with the mandate this expense won't cripple businesses and it will lessen the dangers of bankruptcy for many people who can't afford health care now, and must now instead be subsidized by people and businesses who pay expensive premiums. Premiums are already subject to refunds if they are excessive under Obamacare, and have been paid out. Controlling greedy insurance companies is job one in reducing health care costs for the economy and everyone in it. Costs are already moderating.
More taxes would be good, not bad, for the economy, just as they were in the 1990s. Low taxes are only a mild stimulant. They didn't work at all in the Dubya years, and only worked for the wealthy in the Reagan years. Romney's return to trickle-down economics would not create any "turnaround." It doesn't work. Obama is more determined to prevail now with his tax hike on the wealthy; let's hope he sticks to it. Of course, a democratic congress would repeal the fiscal cliff, but aside from that hope, it will be up to congress to wise up and continue some of the spending that we need, and to continue to cut the military. The domestic spending cuts and defense spending hikes that may happen will not be healthy, but the economic cycle will operate anyway. Housing, consumer confidence and manufacturing are coming back now, and all that will continue regardless of errors made by the president and congress. It is the long term outlook we are deciding next Tuesday. And if we don't fire the Tea Party Tuesday, which seems likely not to happen, then that will be a decision necessary to make in 2014, if we are going to come out of this 4T successfully. The closer we come to doing it this time, the better things will be.
Playwrite is exactly right of course. With Libertarians in charge, there would be no disaster preparation or relief except what people do on their own, and that's not enough. And of course, refusal to deal with climate change absolutely guarantees many more Sandys.
Can you accept that if you ignore his ideology, Barack Obama does about everything as well as possible? His foreign policy is the old Bush I/Clinton foreign policy that didn't cause trouble but hit hard where necessary. He is a realist on the Arab Spring. Revolutions do not always break as expected. All in all the loss of some Americans in Libya because President Obama did not want to show a heavy hand where it might have been inappropriate is a tragedy. An incompetent approach that would have allowed Moammar Qaddafi to remain in power and butcher thousands of Libyans would be a bigger one.
He got the opportunity to whack Osama bin Laden -- and used it.
He has responded swiftly and competently to natural disasters. The Republican Governor of Alabama praised the President for his handling of tornadoes. The President had the Cabinet preparing a response to hurricane Sandy before the storm struck. The President can do nothing to stop horrific storms, but he can coordinate an appropriate response if he so chooses. In a heated campaign the President so chose even if it was likely to cut into campaign time. The national polls have improved for him.
In 2009 we had an economic meltdown then ominously similar to the first half of the 1929-1932 meltdown. With the D majorities in the House and Senate he was able to get swift and effective measures to prevent a replay of what could easily have been the second half of the 1929-1932 meltdown. Don't fool yourself -- the cause was much the same and the consequences could have been much the same for failure to meet the economic crisis.
Mitt Romney had a muddled response to the superstorm. Buying $5000 worth of stuff in an Ohio Wal-Mart to be shipped off to afflicted areas is terribly ineffective $5000 does not go far in disaster relief. The Red Cross can supply people with debit cards useful for buying what they need in the wake of a disaster -- lumber, food, clothes, drinking water, gasoline for a generator, replacement of prescription medicines, maybe bus fare to go to Indianapolis where one has relatives... Even $500 for a person on a debit card goes only so far. If you know the demographics of Staten Island, then you recognize that people living there would use such a debit card wisely. But $500 is more valuable to me than clothes that do not fit, ham or bacon (or a Bible) if I am an Orthodox Jew or a Muslim (I am neither -- but think again of the demographics of the New York metropolitan area), the wrong tires for my car, or a plane ticket to Milwaukee where I know nobody... cash prevents such mistakes.
The GOP majority in the House hamstrung President Obama, who at the least had a strong set of legislative achievements in the first two years of his term, has ensured that he could accomplish nothing. Democrats are going to keep a hold on the Senate, and the House could surprise you. Some high-profile Republicans have said things that nobody could accept -- two of them Senate candidates -- on RAPE. About the only people who don't find rape disgusting are rapists. Ectopic pregnancies mandate a literal abortion.If Obama is re-elected by a razor-thin margin, he'll be the weakest second term president in recent history. Second terms are always cruise control for whatever happened in the first term. The president becomes a lame duck as soon as he's inaugurated, and nothing new or major gets done. They usually end up focusing on foreign policy. We are in desperate need of an economic turnaround. If Obama wins again, it's not going to happen. Aside from any philosophical or ideological issue, that's what worries me most. Add another 2000 debacle to it, with the "fiscal cliff" right around the corner and Obamacare bearing down on the economy, and we're in deep trouble.
The only 2000-style debacle is electoral fraud by some political hack who chooses to "deliver" the Presidency to one or the other. Who will be the Kathryn Harris or Kenneth Blackwell this time? I hope that the answer is "nobody". If President Obama is re-elected (likely) and he keeps a majority in the Senate (likely), then a D win of the House (not so likely) gives the President the opportunity for even more legislative achievements. A hint: anyone in the House who opposes the reconstruction of the coastal areas of New Jersey and New York that Hurricane Sandy ravaged on ideological grounds needs to be defeated. I suggest that any Democrat running against a Tea Party stooge make this challenge.
Fiscal cliff? You ignore the fiscal cliff of 2008 -- one founded in corruption. We now have slow growth, and reconstruction of New York City and surrounding places is going to create economic activity as big as some of the giant projects of the past -- like the Hoover Dam and Boston's Big Dig.
This is a 4T, and the rules of political life change drastically. FDR was re-elected in 1936 with unemployment far worse than 8%. Barack Obama, I assure you, is closer to being a new FDR than to a new George W. Bush. This is a 4T, and we are in big trouble no matter who we elect. We have to work our ways out of it, and Romney would make that much harder.
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
Nah, it's fine. PW thinks that you call people who leave themselves totally helpless unless some Big Daddy comes and takes them by the hand "libertarians". Don't bother arguing with him, though -- you'll put him off his prune oatmeal.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch
"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy
"[it] is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky
Predictably, each state has its own challenges in regards to the recovery from Sandy. The FEMA/State/Local government model works pretty well, all things considered. When nearly 8 million are out of power and there are fuel shortages, things will get ugly.
I have to say, I do appreciate Mitt Romney for trying to help with a donation. It is possible that this is how Mormons handle situations like this, and I can't fault him for trying.
No, libertarians are the ones who decide to leave others totally helpless unless some Big Daddy comes and takes them by the hand...... and I'm sure these others are grateful when Big Daddy comes along! Thank you Big Daddys Obama and Christie, Bloomberg and Cuomo!
What's happening now is that relief is on the way and people are getting help. That does not mean that a libertarian government that has so far refused to prepare for the future can handle all the results of such neglect when the waters come home to roost, so to speak. Nature's superstorms will do their damage, especially if we allow them to get worse by giving fossil fuel barons carte blanche to spew CO2 into the air unrestrained, as libertarians want to do. And Obama cannot dictate to Bloomberg whether to hold a marathon or not. A few generators in central part is not much of a big deal anyway. I am thankful that Bloomberg spoke up about climate change as the reason to endorse Obama. That in itself is a giant step towards relieving the problem he faces today!
