I can't believe what's happening. - Page 2

She does?

Are they for real?

Americans want to know.

I agree. I think we should adopt the Euro model whereby we have votes about the EU Constitution, ignore them and then let the agencies grab all the money and begin setting themselves up anyway. Then we should move on to letting Sharia courts be set up and enforce the rule of law. Finally as a kicker we should always ignore action in our backyard and profit from the sactions we set up.

That would be awesome.


See I see the opposite. Europe is about the become Islamic while suffering a demographic implosion within their native cultures and people. Japan and China are much the same with regard to demography only worse since they enforce one child policies or are so racist they wouldn't allow immigration to attempt to solve their problems. Among all that I consider the odds of the U.S. better than most.


Perhaps it would be good to consider the source for your information. If you keep getting bad readings, perhaps you should check the instrument taking the readings.


I'll take it over most other places. I wish we would realize that Canada can be smart enough to socialize medicine and also drill and utilize every natural resource they have available to them. Here in the U.S. a lot of good possibilities get tossed due to extremism be it environmental or societal. I'm thinking the boomers dying will take care of a good chunk of this though.


Perhaps some perspective would help with those feelings. We aren't suffering the black plague nor are we having wars across the world or continent. One of the chief complaints about wars now is how easy it has become to ignore them. That is one of my big complaints with conservatives and taxes. When 40-45% of the entire population are off the tax rolls, how can a tax increase or cut really help or scare them? Put everyone back on and watch the interest rise again.


Perhaps you could check your conclusions. I'm not calling you a liar, but I haven't seen Obama be that great of a candidate. He plans occasional big events that get the cable news channels excited but at the end of the day he hasn't said more nor done more than a sitcom in my view. That view can be wrong, but as you note, why the constant bewilderment about why reality doesn't seem to jibe with the "facts."

Everybody seems to claim ownership of certain facts in this day and age. They spend a lot of time claiming themselves truthful and someone else a liar due to their absolute certainty about their "facts" and the belief that they are incontrovertably true. Yet reality seems to disconnect from their facts. I don't have to label them but I would ask them to re-examine why this is so.

I don't consider McCain any sort of great candidate. If he were I think he would have put Obama away long ago even given the media storm and political climate. Obama really isn't that good of a candidate either hence the muddle. McCain has strung together enough good decisions and efforts to earn my vote but that endorsement came very late and it is still the lesser of two evils for sure. I don't know for sure that he will win and certainly consider the election Obama's to still lose. Until the generic vote is closer and until the Republicans truly offer up a better platform I don't see them performing much better than they are now.

The Republicans have gotten better at launching criticisms at Democrats and the Democratic ability to nationalize criticisms is part of what helped them win in 2006. However nobody is giving off a good unifying message and plan of action that people can easily understand and support. The Republicans are almost there with energy. If they truly tossed some of the older leadership and added good budgeting back into the mix they would be back strong.

The next big events in the chain are the debates. I still suspect McCain and Palin will do better than Obama and Biden. Obama doesn't really seem to venture into areas where his viewpoints are challenged. I think that will be telling at the debates. We've all seen McCain willing to go on The View, Letterman, Ellen, CBSNews, all sort of places where his views aren't just challenged, but where he is literally confronted about them. He won't be rattled.

Palin, I think by then will still be full of energy and will have grown stronger from each interview, I mean media attack. The media enables the Democrats by protecting them, but when push really comes to shove, the Democrats can't cross the line because there is something that is gained by having to engage in the attacks. Just my view, of course and we will see how the chips fall.

Obama has nothing to gain by going on Fox News.*

*Notwithstanding his secret agreement with Murdoch to go on O'Reilly in exchange for...?

I'll let Hassan return fire on his own, but Nick does raise an excellent point.

Because most journalists tend to lean left on social issues, the Democrats have been sheltered in the past when hot-button moral issues are in play. This does eventually hurt them since Hollywood and media types are fundamentally at odds with many Middle American values.

It ends up taking less to knock a Democratic campaign off-stride than a Republican one, because the GOP knows going in that they have to fight harder, target their core base, and prevail against large media organizations to make their point.

This isn't really a secret. Left-wingers on this board have commented on how much "better" the Republicans do political campaigns. This is a big part of the reason why.

Dear internet:

The "liberal media" meme was only ever a strategy play the refs, as more than one Republican strategist has candidly attested to. The fact that some people took it to be literally true is a lamentable byproduct of an idea cooked up by people with a keener grasp of how all this works.

Any argument that proceeds from "because the liberal media" is doomed to stupidity. Any argument that prefaces that claim with "because most reporters are liberal" is simply ignorant of how journalism works.

Stupidity and ignorance, internet. Best avoided.

Regards,

Addabox

I always wondered why this is the case.

Care to expound?

Deregulation.

I don't like big goverment anymore than the next guy but sometimes in a free society you have to have a little control otherwise sometimes things go hog wild. Deregulating the banks and encouraging them to loosen their standards are what caused them to give risky loans which later defaulted. If you put this all together with the other negative economic factors and shake well....

I was talking to a friend who's an econ professor at work and he could see this coming a mile away.

But I'm sure you'll have some rational for this. You can read the news as well as I.

Are you aware of the massive tax cuts he's proposing?

Ok. Let me spell it out here. Obama is cutting income taxes for 95% of Americans. Including you.

Now you may honestly believe in "trickle-down" theory but that's not what you're arguing here. You're saying Obama is raising taxes, again, rinse and repeat, just like all the other mindless Republican drones.

Obama is not raising taxes, not "massively", not "minimally". Even McCain's most senior economic adviser admits this. Yet you continue to distort, "Are you aware of the massive tax increases he is proposing..."

What is your motivation here, in repeating something that's been proven to be factually incorrect?

Oh, but didn't you hear? The deregulation was a Democrat idea. It was a "pet project" of theirs. And the Democrats, in their typically sinister, deceptive way, managed to "trick" Republicans into proposing, and then passing, the relevant bills. Don't you see? It's all the Democrats' fault.

<jimmac opens can of worms>

You'll pardon me for saying that IMHO, {personal attack removed -JL} It's like you're reading Nancy Pelosi. "Deregulation" is nothing more than a buzz word at this point, especially to those like you (no offense) that throw it around in attacking the GOP for political purposes.

The fact is that the current crisis has more to do with disorganized and needlessly complex regulation than "deregulation." Reform is needed in this area. And as to who has allowed this, it's been happening for at least 20 years. It's not one party. The mortgage industry has been allowed to relax lending standards for decades.

But regulation and/or deregulation are not the prime reasons for the meltdown, either. They are merely part of the problem. We've had a perfect storm: Widely accessible cheap credit, creative financing terms (negative amortization, teasers, etc), sub prime and less-than-prime borrowers, a huge real estate bubble, and unscrupulous mortgage bankers/investment banks.

The house of cards looked solid until the housing market inevitably blew up. Teaser rates disappeared, equity vanished and loans got called. The financial engineers created and sold products that they themselves didn't understand. Sub-prime loans were packaged with prime loans and sold as "Grade AAA" type products. This all coincided with the surge in energy prices as well.

Very little was due to "deregulation" by the GOP. Even if you say it was, what about the Democrats for the last two years? According to Pelosi, they bear no responsibility. OK then.

This thread, and any current discussion about Obama vs McCain and the forthcoming election are redundant, a waste of time, if the peoples' votes are not reliably counted, or not recorded in the way the voters intended, or altered by a third party, or people are intimidated/coerced into not voting, or have been illegally removed from the voter rolls, or have been tricked into thinking that they are correctly registered to vote... or any other shenanigans that have characterized the last two presidential elections.

If *ANY* of these practices are employed in this election, then the final result is meaningless. If the prospect of a bogus election isn't bothersome to people, then we might as well say "screw democracy, lets have a dictatorship or a monarchy instead". Even then, half the country wouldn't care... 50% of eligible voters don't go to the polls.. for whatever reason.

Like I said you'd rationalize.

What about the republicans in total control for 6 years before that. And how long has the republican congress been in power? Sorry Charlie but there's no way for you to wiggle out of this one. Please!

Yeah!

Can you explain how you can cut taxes for 95% of Americans when 40-45% of Americans pay no federal income tax?

Good point. Can you explain why 40-45% of Americans are so poor that their standard deductions are higher than their income?

95% of working americans and Obama is proposing to do it mostly via providing tax credits to individuals and families...

Now, of course, you would know this if you actually read that link provided earlier to disprove your claims that Obama has no plan...

You've clarified it to what I already knew. I just wanted to see Tonton clarify it since it has been repeated several times this way by him.(not mentioning the work requirement)

Of course I'm pretty sure that if a Republican proposed a tax cut of a $1000 to someone earning $249,000 while giving nothing to someone who is not working, not paying taxes and is already poor, we would call that a tax cut for the rich.

I'm glad to know it isn't anymore.

BTW is there any reason why as a Californian, I can't pronounce the A in American when I talk?

I've already said you had a good point, and I'll correct my usage of the phrase accordingly.

I am not sure.

Maybe that's just the way I hear it...

Btw, were you actually insulted by my now deleted post? I am just not sure how it constituted an ad hom...

Didn't you suggest that anyone with a brain could see X and that you were pretty sure that Nick had a brain even though he couldn't see X so it must mean that his wife was withholding sex? That's pretty much an ad hom. It was a (bad) joke, but it was an ad hom.

If McCain manages to keep the election within the "margin of error" (so to speak, I'm not talking about specific numbers here) by election day, stealing the election would be possible.

The two bits of solace Obama has regarding election fraud are:
1. Obama may have enough swing states that don't have the same potential for fraud to win the election without those trigger states like Florida and Ohio.
2. Although Diebold creates, owns, maintains, and has complete control over the voting machines, and that the leadership at Diebold is conservative, I'd venture to guess the smartest technical minds in the country are mostly liberal... Perhaps there will be some kind of counter action... fighting fire with fire. You get into exceedingly dangerous territory there though.

PM sent.

Yeah and the KKK endorses McCain. I'd take the Communist Party endorsement any day of the week over the KKK's. As if it even mattered. There's always going to be some extreme wacko organization supporting someone for president.

Fucking ridiculous.

It matters when that "extreme wacko" organizations views mirror a political parties platform.

Oh come on now, the KKK isn't that similar to the Republican party.

That's my point... Can the Democrats say the same thing of the CPUSA?

Gee, that's funny..... they usually endorse the Republican candidate, don't they?

In other news, the John Birch Society is, shockingly, NOT endorsing Obama.

sigh...

Makes less sense to me than Hillary supporters being for McCain.

"Would you like to go to church with me on Sunday...?"

Actually... Murdoch has expressed a modicum of support for Obama.

Reposted in the How Low Can He Go thread.

You keep giving examples of Supporters who do NOT mirror the Republicans platform. Surely you can do better.
Let me help you here is the Republican Platform .

What exactly is the Republican platform? It seems to be changing every day.

I posted a link to it. Put your mouse over the highlighted text and click, Then read the text. Here it is again along with all the others...
Republican Platform
Democrat Platform
Libertarian Party Platform
Communist Party PLatform

Oh, now I get it.

I could give you a great recipe for a tasty dish, but there is a very good chance one might get a little creative and add or subtract things to suit their (or their family's) tastes.

Unfortunately, that's how platforms are and have become and have changed over the years. Their supporters too.

Also, can't you take a joke?

So sad.

Please explain yourself.