Obama and the Supreme Court

[Nathan Poe]

i was referring to lybia.... *crosses fingers and hopes i'm not referring to Iran as well*

Lybia -- and exactly how many US troops and how much money have we committed to Lybia?

As for Iran, what exactly are you crossing your fingers for?



you already dodged that bullet.

The majority of the fighting was over by the time he took office. At that point it would have been a bigger trick to keep them there.

http://articles.cnn.com/2008-02-14/p..._s=PM:POLITICS

So you dodged another bullet.

Afghanistan on the other hand, he is hardly in touch with his military such to the point he had to replace his former general because the general did not respect Obama in the least.

If I make it publicly clear I don't respect my boss, I should expect to be fired. Don't you?

On top of that bush was fighting 2 wars and lost 4852 troops while he was in office. Obama is mostly just cleaning up after the 2 (and mostly just fighting 1) and hes already lost 1578 troops. His methods of fighting this war are leaving our troops out to dry.

Right, because Bush's inspired leadership is what was keeping those troops alive -- except, check your numbers; it wasn't.

Obama is fighting half as many wars, and has lost less than half as many troops. Do the math.

We are going to have to agree to disagree. The guy has been caught sleeping during Obama's speeches.

And that made the alternative better? Palin was more qualified to be Veep?

The real problem is that Obama has been trying (or at least it appears that he has) to raise gas prices and he doesnt have a problem with things being too expensive as he did actually state, "...energy prices would necessarily skyrocket."

I'm sure it appears that way, but do you have substantive proof?

And what will happen to his new friends when/if we dont elect him again? will they cause problems? will they just leave? will they stick around at all? what about our old friends? while its unlikely anything terrible will happen, i dont like the questions.

So first he was alienating our friends, now you're complaining that he's making too many -- will you make up your mind?

he continually mocks/attacks the right until he needs their help and then claims that they are being greedy and self centered.

Have you seen the Right lately? they deserve mockery. I mean, look at the best they were able to put forward for the primaries!

Actually, you can't, because "the right" have either already dropped out of the race or (in the case of Gingrich) may finally be getting the hint that it's over. So who's left? A "Republican" so liberal than even the Right (re: Santorum) actually quipped that Obama would be a better choice!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012...a-over-romney/

As long as the Right spends more time attacking Obama out of pure spite than actually getting their own house in order, they earn all the mockery they can get.

From the republicans can help but they gotta sit in the back to claiming that the country needs the republicans to agree with the democrats to get the country back on track.

Well, The Republicans had their shot in the driver's seat -- how much headway did they make?

Meanwhile, we've seen what being the "party of 'no'" has gotten them.

the Sarkozy thing was an accident although certainly not helpful and i was surprised to see that Barack defended Ann Romney.

So Obama did something good, then? When a Democrat slammed a Republican's wife, Obama stepped in and said it was over the line?

Sounds like he's not as bad as you thought he was.

Then there was the bait and switch with the contraception crap.

Obama proposed a law. The Catholic Church threw a hissy fit. Obama added an exception to the law to make them and only them exempt from it.

Bait and switch? How so?

The other bait and switch with Obama's now top general.
the lies about carbon-credits fixing our country.
ill consider continuing this list later.

Please do -- and while you're add it -- how about explanations instead of soundbytes -- most of what you've gone into detail so far has shown itself to be far less than what you've made it out to be; I suspect this will prove likewise.

fair enough.

Because when 2 wrongs dont make a right, keep trying.

So you agree then that Congress had no business getting involved in the Schaivo fiasco? They they were wasting their time trying to push though emergency legislation to try and supersede the judiciary?

I ask because it's only "two wrongs" if you actually believe they were wrong.

well heres something we can both agree on for sure. thank god Gingrich wont win...

And yet, he was the best "The Right" had to offer -- and you wonder why they get mocked?

Which is why when i realized how difficult it was going to be to argue the point, i'd rather just concede. some points ill fight ya tooth and nail, while others i'd rather just not fight at all.

Fair enough.

i guess ill just make a couple comments instead of just giving up. First is that most of those things came in such massive bills you cant show me where in which bill most of them came from.

Point out a specific one, and I probably could. But that's not the point -- the point is that they got done under Obama's watch -- he personally signed each and every item on those lists into law.

And since, as you pointed out, they were part of much bigger bills, that only means he's done a lot more.

i can easily say i did a thousand things today and then say well i picked up 6 apples and 4 oranges, so that makes 10 things i did.

But Obama never said he did a thousand things -- you said he did nothing. your analogy falls flat.

No all i did was my grocery shopping and all he did was pass the buck. Secondly, that list includes things like his memorandum that doesnt mean anything. Presidential Memorandum protecting gay and lesbian partners’ visitation/healthcare decision-making rights (4/15/2010) didn't modify/change/alter/extend a single thing. I have 2 gay cousins and my wife's brides maid (who is not only gay but male) had never had a problem in any state they had ever been to. I also have a cousin who works as a nurse and another who does some lower level admin stuff and they agree that the memorandum did nothing.

If you're concerned with gay rights, I suggest you take that matter up with your Right-leaning politicians.

Obama repealed DADT. Obama signed The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law. Obama required hospital visitation rights and decision-making rights to be available to same-sex couples at Medicaid or Medicare-assisted hospitals.

I could go on, but let me just point out that your Right-Leaning friends (the ones you complained Obama was mocking) fought all of these measures tooth and nail, and would repeal them if they were able.

Obama is on record as being in favor of gay rights -- and admittedly, there's plenty that needs to be done. But it's a lot more difficult to grant civil rights than it is to keep them restricted -- which is exactly what the Right has worked hard to do whenever they've gotten the opportunity.

So go and ask your gay cousins and wife's bridesmaid who they would rather have in the driver's seat -- who would do more for their rights: the guy who wants to help but can't do it all, or the people who've made making their lives miserable all but a part of their platform?

Once again, Obama's the lesser of the two evils.

He is lost without his teleprompter. He "um"s and pauses about as much as Bush did (no i dont actually know for certain but it sounds like it).

A president relying on a teleprompter?

reagan.jpg

TeleprompterBushI.jpg

Teleprompter.jpg

Say it ain't so, Shoeless Joe!

THIS is why the Right is being mocked -- and you're not going to make any headway standing up for them as long as you keep regurgitating their non-issues.

Add this to the way he seems to flip flop between 2 ideals, it just doesn't feel like he read through his speech before he got to it or thought about how he felt about what hes talking about.

Maybe because how he feels is irrelevant, and what needs to be done is important. Obama came into office with some high ideals, and learned the hard way (thanks you your friends on the Right) that they're not all going to happen. He's tried to compromise, and as such, has probably had to buck up and "support" a lot of ideas that he didn't personally agree with.

Of course, the Right sees this as a sign of weakness, and has reacted in kind. Senator Blunt is a good example, which I was discussing on another thread.

But we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.-Nancy Pelosi

last I checked, Pelosi is not Obama -- how you could confuse the two is a mystery; they don't look anything alike.

she had to say it because while Obama was running around making one set of claims, it was extremely easy to make another set in part because the health care bill was changing so much and was so large. most of the claims run by the republicans about the bill ended up being true.

Including the one about the death panels? because I recall that one being something of a whopper.

You might want to do some fact-checking before making such broad statements -- it's a good habit to get into.

he should not have said anything about the health care bill that was malleable and he was wrong/lied about the rest.

The whole thing is malleable -- Every bill is as it worms its way through the Congressional digestive tract.

Of course, if the bill is so evil, why then is the Republican "alternative" practically identical?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickunga...ore-obamacare/

deficit neutral? only for the first 10 years, ya know until the thing really gets started and it sets in.

Again, facts please.

Its a problem in this country and a problem with every president since.... before i could remember at least. It should still be listed.

Right -- because Obama deserves special blame for that one.

Its not his image thats the problem. Thats why his ratings are still so high.

So when you said he wasn't bothered by people who don't like him, that's actually a good thing -- so why were you complaining about it?

People have a hard time disagreeing with someone they like who is supposed to know more than them. what people arent liking is that their situation only seems to be getting worse. the republicans' arguments are showing to be true.

Not all th Republican's arguments -- Secret Muslim, Socialist, Birth Certificate -- but if you throw enough spaghetti at the wall, and some things will stick.

And much like the spoiled children they are, the Republicans excel at throwing spaghetti.

I thought complaining about the lack of progress had substance.

An honest mistake.

What about falling victim to the same list of failures as every other president in recent history?

So Obama is doing about the same as every other president in recent history? This merits special mention?

What about putting forward an alternative who won't?

What about his inability to learn from his mistakes? His inability to build a cohesive cabinet?

What about them? As you said, the same failures as every other president in recent history.

And the Right wonders why it gets mocked...

[odis]

Lybia -- and exactly how many US troops and how much money have we committed to Lybia?

I couldn't find the numbers but it was easy to find how much we were spending. Now i have no problems with the cost especially when so few of the good guys die, but a kinetic military action is a war!
Gates said the price tag on the Libyan engagement is currently about $550 million. And, as the U.S. shifts responsibility to NATO, he estimated the cost would run about $40 million a month. When Bartlett pressed him on the timeline to identify ways to cover that cost, Gates demurred.

“I'd have to consult with the White House,” he said.
Even if no U.S. troop will be on the ground in Libya, the U.S. share of the cost to maintain a no-fly zone in the country is likely to be a staggering sum. In the first two days of U.S. engagement alone, 122 Tomahawk missiles were fired from U.S. warships. With the missiles estimated to cost a little more than $500,000 each, the U.S. military has already spent at least $61 million on the effort.

I'm not sure how we could be spending so much money if none of our troops are involved. Are all of our naval units automated?

As for Iran, what exactly are you crossing your fingers for?



you already dodged that bullet.

yea right up until they build the nuke, then what? that they have had been researching for years (no i dont know how long but they even admitted to it) and might be close to having one completed!

http://articles.cnn.com/2008-02-14/p..._s=PM:POLITICS

So you dodged another bullet.

wtf? are you honestly stating that what we did to japan post war is bad in comparison to having another war? Because that is what he is suggesting what we do with iraq. We already tried exactly what we did this time and it didnt work. it was no trick to bringing our troops home. What would have been a trick would be bringing peace.

If I make it publicly clear I don't respect my boss, I should expect to be fired. Don't you?

I wasn't disagreeing that he shouldn't have been canned, i was disagreeing with the methods that let up to the lack of respect.

Right, because Bush's inspired leadership is what was keeping those troops alive -- except, check your numbers; it wasn't.

Obama is fighting half as many wars, and has lost less than half as many troops. Do the math.

I did the math, half the duration and half the wars equals one quarter, not one half. Would you like to try again?

And that made the alternative better? Palin was more qualified to be Veep?

After everything i've been saying, you still think I'm trying to say the republicans are better than the democrats? The democrats maybe the problem but the republicans sure as heck aren't the solution.

I'm sure it appears that way, but do you have substantive proof?

Barack Obama: "Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." (January 2008)
At 2M15S
He specifically stated that he does intend to use the cap and trade bill to bankrupt a business instead of allowing the population to choose not to buy their goods or providing enough of a strong alternative that it wont be needed.

So first he was alienating our friends, now you're complaining that he's making too many -- will you make up your mind?

hahahaha. No my complaint was about alienating our previous friends and my next worry is our new friends. Just because i make a statement or a question doesnt mean its a complaint.

Have you seen the Right lately? they deserve mockery. I mean, look at the best they were able to put forward for the primaries!

Do you even understand how that part works? We dont send our politicians forward, they step up and run for president. Just because they are running doesnt mean they are the pick of the litter. I have a cousin who is a politician and refuses to go on to the next bigger seat because he likes where he is. Being president isnt for everyone....... That being said, the left is the group who claims to desire peace through understanding, and then has the loudest group exemplifying anything but.

Actually, you can't, because "the right" have either already dropped out of the race or (in the case of Gingrich) may finally be getting the hint that it's over. So who's left? A "Republican" so liberal than even the Right (re: Santorum) actually quipped that Obama would be a better choice!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012...a-over-romney/

As long as the Right spends more time attacking Obama out of pure spite than actually getting their own house in order, they earn all the mockery they can get.

How is their house supposed to be in order? This isnt like a sports team where everyone is supposed to get along.... We arent even talking about anything with clear cut lines. There are plenty democrats who are more conservative than republicans and vice versa. When you have teams like this, nothing is smooth. I can only hope you were already aware of this....

Well, The Republicans had their shot in the driver's seat -- how much headway did they make?

Oh, i'm sorry you must think that i'm claiming that the republicans are better. Well let me be clear. The republicans aren't the answer as they currently are and i don't think they ever will be again. They once were the solution to each other's faults, but now both sides share many of the same faults.

Meanwhile, we've seen what being the "party of 'no'" has gotten them.

lol they arent the party of no anymore then the dems are!

So Obama did something good, then? When a Democrat slammed a Republican's wife, Obama stepped in and said it was over the line?

Sounds like he's not as bad as you thought he was.

No hes still terrible, hes just not a %^&* like i thought he might be. That or its a political thing but i'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Obama proposed a law. The Catholic Church threw a hissy fit. Obama added an exception to the law to make them and only them exempt from it.

Bait and switch? How so?

Most christians threw a fit; it wasn’t just the catholics. First he proposed a law that was constitutionally illegal to draw out an argument, and then made it look like he was being reasonable when there was no difference between the 2 at all! There is no difference between saying that you can only buy electricity from a solar power plant and mandating that only solar power can be provided! And to add insult to injury he also tried to add that the companies couldnt charge you for the service! So then who is going to pay for the condoms? Do you think the some magician is going to show up and pull them all out of a hat? If the insurance companies dont pay for them, then the production companies will have to supply them for free. Pulling off a bait and switch is all about getting the other guy to oogle about one thing while you hand him something different. Making something look like its constitutional or good doesnt make it constitutional or good.

The other bait and switch with Obama's now top general.
the lies about carbon-credits fixing our country.
ill consider continuing this list later.
Please do -- and while you're add it -- how about explanations instead of soundbytes -- most of what you've gone into detail so far has shown itself to be far less than what you've made it out to be; I suspect this will prove likewise.

At the moment i am planning on doing it later, not now, thats why i included both quotes so i dont have to go looking for what we were talking about.

So you agree then that Congress had no business getting involved in the Schaivo fiasco? They they were wasting their time trying to push though emergency legislation to try and supersede the judiciary?

I ask because it's only "two wrongs" if you actually believe they were wrong.

Oy vey dude. At present i dont care to really look into the matter. You made a comparison, and so you believed the 2 were connected. Which is why i responded that if it was an error the first time, we did we repeat it.

And yet, he was the best "The Right" had to offer -- and you wonder why they get mocked?

Why do you think that he was the best?

Point out a specific one, and I probably could. But that's not the point -- the point is that they got done under Obama's watch -- he personally signed each and every item on those lists into law.

Like i said, i could say i did 10 things today, pick up 4 strawberries and 6 oranges, but in reality all i did was get some groceries. Obama pressed through one law that did 20 things and most of those things were never debated. No one worked to get anything through; they just slapped a couple extra things onto another bill and listed them, and then debated over the big topic. What he really did was get the law passed and sit back and watch the list of tasks get completed (i'm not downplaying getting the law passed, just feel that you shouldnt credit a person for saving the world when all they did was tighten a bolt, but rather those that aided him to tighten that bolt and the system that allowed the set of tasks to be completed).

And since, as you pointed out, they were part of much bigger bills, that only means he's done a lot more.

Hardly. Did the US kill 166,000 people in Hiroshima or did big boy do it? Without big boy, Hiroshima would never have been so devastated. Of course the US did it! It wasn’t just the guy who dropped the bomb or the guy who ordered it to happen!

But Obama never said he did a thousand things -- you said he did nothing. your analogy falls flat.

LOL! OK I'm sorry ill try to be more clear next time. I promise not to be so loose with my words; From here on out i will state exactly what i mean.

If you're concerned with gay rights, I suggest you take that matter up with your Right-leaning politicians.

Except i'm not. I was simply pointing out something that was on that list that makes it look like he did more than he actually did. Is English your first language?

Obama repealed DADT. Obama signed The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law. Obama required hospital visitation rights and decision-making rights to be available to same-sex couples at Medicaid or Medicare-assisted hospitals.

Oh my bad. Hospitals everywhere denying gay couples from making choices for the other while letting straight couples in identical circumstances (this is sarcasm). I forgot about all the coverage on same-sex couples getting denied and that hour long MSNBC special......

I could go on, but let me just point out that your Right-Leaning friends (the ones you complained Obama was mocking) fought all of these measures tooth and nail, and would repeal them if they were able.

And since nothing changed when Obama added them, nothing would change if they get taken away. Probably one of the main reasons they wont be taken away.

Obama is on record as being in favor of gay rights -- and admittedly, there's plenty that needs to be done. But it's a lot more difficult to grant civil rights than it is to keep them restricted -- which is exactly what the Right has worked hard to do whenever they've gotten the opportunity.

If that was true then why didn't the country pass a bill on gay marriage? Heck republicans are split on that so he could probably build popularity if he did, but apparently it just isnt something hes interested in doing.... so much for in favor of gay rights....
leftright_US_1416.gif

So go and ask your gay cousins and wife's bridesmaid who they would rather have in the driver's seat -- who would do more for their rights: the guy who wants to help but can't do it all, or the people who've made making their lives miserable all but a part of their platform?

Well since 2 of them havent had jobs since they graduated from college and have since defaulted on their loans, im gonna take a random stab and say any guy who is going to take the seat away from obama...

Once again, Obama's the lesser of the two evils.

yea.... starvation or we can drill for oil, hmmm.... i'd rather drill for oil so that we can have jobs, keep people fed, and drive down gas prices.

A president relying on a teleprompter?

reagan.jpg

TeleprompterBushI.jpg

Teleprompter.jpg

Say it ain't so, Shoeless Joe!

So you found pictures of them using teleprompters. That doesnt mean anything more than my statement that he doesnt make me feel like he knows whats in his speeches. It never was nor ever will be a provable idea either way.

THIS is why the Right is being mocked -- and you're not going to make any headway standing up for them as long as you keep regurgitating their non-issues.

Non-issues? Soldiers dying is a non-issue? A president who has no intention of doing what he promised on his way into the white house? The guy who doesnt seem to care that americans are loosing their homes because they no longer have jobs? That america is more split now than its been since the civil war? You dont see a problem with any of these?

Maybe because how he feels is irrelevant, and what needs to be done is important. Obama came into office with some high ideals, and learned the hard way (thanks you your friends on the Right) that they're not all going to happen. He's tried to compromise, and as such, has probably had to buck up and "support" a lot of ideas that he didn't personally agree with.

LOL your right, when he promised that he would let the US read every bill 5 days before he signs it, he just needed to toss that right out the window as soon as he took office (This is also sarcasm depending on how you would define sarcasm. I'm not going to debate the definition of a word.).

Of course, the Right sees this as a sign of weakness, and has reacted in kind. Senator Blunt is a good example, which I was discussing on another thread.

When anyone sees someone who is inable to make a decision, they see it as a weakness.

last I checked, Pelosi is not Obama -- how you could confuse the two is a mystery; they don't look anything alike.

You asked for proof so i gave some. Should i give less examples or more? I cant read your mind and your simultaneously telling me to do both...

Including the one about the death panels? because I recall that one being something of a whopper.

Well i wasnt and still am not ok with the lie.

You might want to do some fact-checking before making such broad statements -- it's a good habit to get into.

The CBO, in an update to its budget outlook, now estimates that the overall coverage cost of Obama's Affordable Care Act will drop slightly, to $1.083 trillion over the next decade. Last year, the CBO estimated the price tag to be $1.131 trillion over the same period of time.
Since the bill isnt generating any revenue and is currently costing money, the bill Obama passed is not deficit neutral. Do i also need to find his claim about that or can we just agree that thats not correct either?

And here is an article about how unspecific the bill was while obama was promoting it.
Readers should not be surprised to hear about added government spending on health ranging from $1 trillion to $2 trillion over the next 10 years. The low estimates may reflect a very slow phase-in of health care reform, or a bare-bones benefit package or only modest subsidies toward the purchase of health insurance, or all of the above. The high estimates would reflect faster phase-ins, more generous benefits or more generous subsidies, such as Senator Kennedy’s bill (just released), which would phase out subsidies only for, say, a family of four with an income excess of $110,000 a year. With so many design parameters still in flux, all kinds of estimates can be plausible.

The whole thing is malleable -- Every bill is as it worms its way through the Congressional digestive tract.

Of course, but not many bills vary by a trillion dollars.

Of course, if the bill is so evil, why then is the Republican "alternative" practically identical?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickunga...ore-obamacare/

A wolf in a sheep's wool is still a wolf. if it was evil while being proposed by the democrats, i'd be hypocritical if i didnt think it was evil the other way around.

Again, facts please.

Just the facts:
the results are as critics expected: the ten-year cost of the law's core provisions to expand health insurance coverage has now ballooned to $1.76 trillion. That's because we now have estimates for Obamacare's first nine years of full implementation, rather than the mere six when it was signed into law.
In March 2010 leading democrats and their lackeys in the state-run media were "just giddy" to report that they crunched some numbers and found the nationalized health care bill they were pushing would reduce the deficit by $138 billion.

It was a lie. Democrats knew it was a lie...

Right -- because Obama deserves special blame for that one.

Why would he deserve special blame? He deserves his just like everyone else before him deserves theirs. Ignoring the problem doesnt make it go away.

So when you said he wasn't bothered by people who don't like him, that's actually a good thing -- so why were you complaining about it?

Because if he cared, he may change. If not, i wont be loosing any sleep over it. Its not that big of a deal. The man is his own person and doesnt need my approval.

Not all th Republican's arguments -- Secret Muslim, Socialist, Birth Certificate -- but if you throw enough spaghetti at the wall, and some things will stick.

Well he is a socialist, the thing with the birth certificate was just funny and was very true that he never brought forward his certificate of live birth as is required by law, and depending on how you define muslim, he is! Apparently, it is muslim custom (I’m not even sure if it’s a custom, I used to know. Maybe it’s a muslim law?) that any child born from a muslim father is a muslim. Which his father just happened to formally be. I think its also written somewhere that once your muslim, you cant change your religion. That might be a law from a government as opposed to a law from islam but I really wouldn’t know. That being said, I’ll be explicitly clear, I do not think that obama is muslim and to add to that, who really cares?

And much like the spoiled children they are, the Republicans excel at throwing spaghetti.

Lol anymore than the democrats? It’s a human egotistical thing, not a republican thing.

So Obama is doing about the same as every other president in recent history? This merits special mention?

As does all those before him and as will all those after him.

What about putting forward an alternative who won't?

I’ll tell ya what, when I find an alternative on either side, you’ll be the first to know.

What about them? As you said, the same failures as every other president in recent history.

I said it once and ill say it again, since 2 wrongs don’t make a right, we should keep trying….

And the Right wonders why it gets mocked...

And the left wonders why they cant solve any problems….

[Nathan Poe]

I couldn't find the numbers but it was easy to find how much we were spending. Now i have no problems with the cost especially when so few of the good guys die, but a kinetic military action is a war!
Gates said the price tag on the Libyan engagement is currently about $550 million. And, as the U.S. shifts responsibility to NATO, he estimated the cost would run about $40 million a month. When Bartlett pressed him on the timeline to identify ways to cover that cost, Gates demurred.

“I'd have to consult with the White House,” he said.
Even if no U.S. troop will be on the ground in Libya, the U.S. share of the cost to maintain a no-fly zone in the country is likely to be a staggering sum. In the first two days of U.S. engagement alone, 122 Tomahawk missiles were fired from U.S. warships. With the missiles estimated to cost a little more than $500,000 each, the U.S. military has already spent at least $61 million on the effort.

I'm not sure how we could be spending so much money if none of our troops are involved. Are all of our naval units automated?

Are our Naval units at risk? Well, of course there's always a risk, but let's be honest, it's not the same as putting boots on the ground -- far less chance them them secretly coming back in flag-draped coffins.

Sounds to me like we're doing in Lybia the same thiing Bush did in Iraq -- but at a fraction of time, tax dollars, and manpower.

yea right up until they build the nuke, then what? that they have had been researching for years (no i dont know how long but they even admitted to it) and might be close to having one completed!

Ah, so you do want us to go into Iran, then? Will you whine then, if Obama does what you want him to?

wtf? are you honestly stating that what we did to japan post war is bad in comparison to having another war? Because that is what he is suggesting what we do with iraq. We already tried exactly what we did this time and it didnt work. it was no trick to bringing our troops home. What would have been a trick would be bringing peace.

Sheesh -- do you want the troops in or out? make up your mind, then whine about it.

I wasn't disagreeing that he shouldn't have been canned, i was disagreeing with the methods that let up to the lack of respect.

So it's all Obama's fault, then? Seems like the man can honestly do no right in your eyes.

Here's the thing -- you never, never, let it publicly be known that you think your boss is a jerk -- even if he is one. It's a straight shot to the unemployment line.

And now you want to blame Obama for somehow forcing this schlub to disrespect him? Any military man with that little discipline has no business being in the uniform in the first place.

I did the math, half the duration and half the wars equals one quarter, not one half. Would you like to try again?

I get it -- you're anti-war. And yet, it's Obama's leadership which is directly responsible for all those deaths.

After everything i've been saying, you still think I'm trying to say the republicans are better than the democrats? The democrats maybe the problem but the republicans sure as heck aren't the solution.

Well the bad news is, those are the only two choices on the menu -- and don't even pretend that third parties are relevant; the only time dems and repubs will ever work together is to stomp an upstart out of the picture.

So before you whine about what's in column A, take a gander at column B -- because that's the only other choice on the menu.

Politics is about the lesser of two evils, and like it or not, Obama is currently it.

[hahahaha. No my complaint was about alienating our previous friends and my next worry is our new friends. Just because i make a statement or a question doesnt mean its a complaint.

You've got so many things to complain about, it's getting hard to keep track.

Do you even understand how that part works? We dont send our politicians forward, they step up and run for president. Just because they are running doesnt mean they are the pick of the litter. I have a cousin who is a politician and refuses to go on to the next bigger seat because he likes where he is. Being president isnt for everyone....... That being said, the left is the group who claims to desire peace through understanding, and then has the loudest group exemplifying anything but.

And nobody, but nobody on the Right is ready or willing to step forward and do something about it -- the ones who are have seemingly been coming from the bottom of the barrel.

How is their house supposed to be in order? This isnt like a sports team where everyone is supposed to get along.... We arent even talking about anything with clear cut lines. There are plenty democrats who are more conservative than republicans and vice versa. When you have teams like this, nothing is smooth. I can only hope you were already aware of this....

I am -- Some of our Republican friends, however, are resorting to shenanigans such as "loyalty oaths" in order to keep the faithful in line.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...-loyalty-oath/

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/new...ty_pledge.html

(Although in all fairness, I just heard the Virginia plan fell through -- but you know what they say, "if at first you don't succeed...")

Oh, i'm sorry you must think that i'm claiming that the republicans are better. Well let me be clear. The republicans aren't the answer as they currently are and i don't think they ever will be again. They once were the solution to each other's faults, but now both sides share many of the same faults.

I agree with your sentiment -- politics has become a matter of choosing, not between good or bad, but between bad or worse. But as I said, don't be so quick to knock column A unless you'd rather have column B -- otherwise you're just whining pointlessly.

lol they arent the party of no anymore then the dems are!

If you say so -- I'll grant you, the Dems weren't much better when they weren't in charge, either.

No hes still terrible, hes just not a %^&* like i thought he might be. That or its a political thing but i'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Fair enough.

I'll say this much for McCain -- he was a class act. He even defended Obama at townhall meetings whenever the "Secret Kenyan Muslim" nonsense reared its ugly head.

I've said it before -- if the McCain of 2000 had run against Obama, I would've voted for him. Alas, the 2008 model was a sold-out shell of his former self.

Most christians threw a fit; it wasn’t just the catholics. First he proposed a law that was constitutionally illegal to draw out an argument, and then made it look like he was being reasonable when there was no difference between the 2 at all!

Church businesses had to provide certain health benefits -- then they didn't. I'd call that a difference.

There is no difference between saying that you can only buy electricity from a solar power plant and mandating that only solar power can be provided! And to add insult to injury he also tried to add that the companies couldnt charge you for the service! So then who is going to pay for the condoms?

If you're a church business -- your employees.

Everyone else -- your business' health plan.

At the moment i am planning on doing it later, not now, thats why i included both quotes so i dont have to go looking for what we were talking about.

Fair enough.

Oy vey dude. At present i dont care to really look into the matter. You made a comparison, and so you believed the 2 were connected. Which is why i responded that if it was an error the first time, we did we repeat it.

And so I ask -- was it an error or were you just whining pointlessly?

I agree, two wrongs don't make a right -- so why can't you even bring yourself to say that we're dealing with two wrongs? I can.

Why do you think that he was the best?

By default. Nobody better stepped forward.

As I said, he was the best you had to offer.

Like i said, i could say i did 10 things today, pick up 4 strawberries and 6 oranges, but in reality all i did was get some groceries. Obama pressed through one law that did 20 things and most of those things were never debated.

Did most of them have to be?

No one worked to get anything through; they just slapped a couple extra things onto another bill and listed them, and then debated over the big topic. What he really did was get the law passed and sit back and watch the list of tasks get completed (i'm not downplaying getting the law passed, just feel that you shouldnt credit a person for saving the world when all they did was tighten a bolt, but rather those that aided him to tighten that bolt and the system that allowed the set of tasks to be completed).

If tightening a bolt saves the world, then why shouldn't they get credit?

Not all important things have to be big and complicated -- if Obama can get things done with a minimum of hassle, why shouldn't he?

last I checked, we usually praise people for that sort of thing.

Hardly. Did the US kill 166,000 people in Hiroshima or did big boy do it? Without big boy, Hiroshima would never have been so devastated. Of course the US did it! It wasn’t just the guy who dropped the bomb or the guy who ordered it to happen!

What are you babbling about?

LOL! OK I'm sorry ill try to be more clear next time. I promise not to be so loose with my words; From here on out i will state exactly what i mean.

Good to know. My point what that Obama made n claims of any kind concerning how much or how little he got done -- you did.

And now we see that those claims have fallen flat.

Except i'm not. I was simply pointing out something that was on that list that makes it look like he did more than he actually did. Is English your first language?

Quite so -- is it your fourth?

Don't worry -- I won't tell your cousins or your wife's bridesmaid that you're not concerned with their rights.

Oh my bad. Hospitals everywhere denying gay couples from making choices for the other while letting straight couples in identical circumstances (this is sarcasm). I forgot about all the coverage on same-sex couples getting denied and that hour long MSNBC special......

Perhaps you should be making more of an effort to know what's going on with these sort of things.

And since nothing changed when Obama added them, nothing would change if they get taken away. Probably one of the main reasons they wont be taken away.

Nothing changed for you -- you're (I assume) straight. Don't be so quick to assume that taking rights away from other people changes "nothing."

If that was true then why didn't the country pass a bill on gay marriage? Heck republicans are split on that so he could probably build popularity if he did, but apparently it just isnt something hes interested in doing.... so much for in favor of gay rights....

probably because no such bill is needed -- under the 10th Amendment, any power not explicitly granted to the Federal government is reserved for the states -- this includes the right to recognize marriages.

Currently, six states -- CT, IA, VT, MA, NH, and NY -- as well as the District of Columbia, recognize and allow same-sex marriage. Clearly, Obama does not want to unnecessarily stretch the Constitution to cover something it doesn't cover, to do something the states seem to (slowly but surely) be doing on their own anyway. it would be intrusive and redundant.

On the other hand, certain Republicans have been known to call for a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, forever expanding the federal government's power into the private lives of its people, and nullifying states' rights.

So you see, in gay rights, as in most other things, Obama is once again the lesser of two evils.

Well since 2 of them havent had jobs since they graduated from college and have since defaulted on their loans, im gonna take a random stab and say any guy who is going to take the seat away from obama...

Fine -- put the likes of Perry or Santorum in office and see what happens. Even money says unemployment and debt will be the least of their problems.

yea.... starvation or we can drill for oil, hmmm.... i'd rather drill for oil so that we can have jobs, keep people fed, and drive down gas prices.

melodramatic much?

So you found pictures of them using teleprompters. That doesnt mean anything more than my statement that he doesnt make me feel like he knows whats in his speeches. It never was nor ever will be a provable idea either way.

So you're entire rant about him using teleprompters was more pointless whining. Check.

Non-issues? Soldiers dying is a non-issue?

You weren't talking about soldiers dying -- you were talking about teleprompters.

Republicans started two wars -- don't pretend they care about soldiers dying.

A president who has no intention of doing what he promised on his way into the white house? The guy who doesnt seem to care that americans are loosing their homes because they no longer have jobs? That america is more split now than its been since the civil war? You dont see a problem with any of these?

I don't see how Obama is to blame for all society's ills -- you know perfectly well most of this has been brewing for a very long time now.

LOL your right, when he promised that he would let the US read every bill 5 days before he signs it, he just needed to toss that right out the window as soon as he took office (This is also sarcasm depending on how you would define sarcasm. I'm not going to debate the definition of a word.).

At least you know what sarcasm is -- now if only you knew that politicians lie.

When anyone sees someone who is inable to make a decision, they see it as a weakness.

Is "trying hard to make everyone happy and insure that everyone gets what they want" the same as being unable to make a decision? Blunt thought so, apparently.

You asked for proof so i gave some. Should i give less examples or more? I cant read your mind and your simultaneously telling me to do both...

Right now I'm thinking you don't know the difference between Pelosi and Obama.

Well i wasnt and still am not ok with the lie.

There were a lot of lies going around about Obamacare.

Of course, but not many bills vary by a trillion dollars.

Neither did this one -- check where the decimal point is.

A wolf in a sheep's wool is still a wolf. if it was evil while being proposed by the democrats, i'd be hypocritical if i didnt think it was evil the other way around.

And now we have two wolves fighting over the same sheep costume. As I keep saying -- before you whine about column A, take a gander at column B.

You complain about "evil," I say, better the devil you know...

Why would he deserve special blame? He deserves his just like everyone else before him deserves theirs. Ignoring the problem doesnt make it go away.

So let's blame everyone responsible, not just Obama.

Because if he cared, he may change.

And why should he care?

If not, i wont be loosing any sleep over it. Its not that big of a deal. The man is his own person and doesnt need my approval.

So you won't change -- why should he?

Well he is a socialist,

:yawn:

the thing with the birth certificate was just funny and was very true that he never brought forward his certificate of live birth as is required by law,

Actually he did -- and say what you will, it was a brilliant political move. It shut up the birthers right when it did the most good.

and depending on how you define muslim, he is! Apparently, it is muslim custom (I’m not even sure if it’s a custom, I used to know. Maybe it’s a muslim law?) that any child born from a muslim father is a muslim. Which his father just happened to formally be.

So, all those Muslims out there who swear they've left Islam and have converted to, let's say, Christianity... are liars? Or are they just wrong? Once a Muslim, always a Muslim?

I think its also written somewhere that once your muslim, you cant change your religion.

Well, when what's written "somewhere" is worth anything, I'll care.

That might be a law from a government as opposed to a law from islam but I really wouldn’t know. That being said, I’ll be explicitly clear, I do not think that obama is muslim and to add to that, who really cares?

You've be surprised how many on the Right did and still do.

Lol anymore than the democrats? It’s a human egotistical thing, not a republican thing.

Right -- and when the Dems start doing it, I'll be the first to agree that it's childish and pointless. But here and now...

[QUOTE]As does all those before him and as will all those after him.[QUOTE]

Wouldn't really be all that special if everyone got it.

I’ll tell ya what, when I find an alternative on either side, you’ll be the first to know.

Right -- until then, better the devil you know...

I said it once and ill say it again, since 2 wrongs don’t make a right, we should keep trying….

Right, maybe three wrongs will do it. Do you even want to take a peek at what's waiting for you in column B?

And the left wonders why they cant solve any problems….

Same reason the Right never can.

[Jaecp]

If you say so -- I'll grant you, the Dems weren't much better when they weren't in charge, either.

Really? I don't recall dems saying no to stuff that they proposed just to stall the process

[Nathan Poe]

Really? I don't recall dems saying no to stuff that they proposed just to stall the process

Honestly, neither do I -- I was just being polite.

[Darth Executor]

Really? I don't recall dems saying no to stuff that they proposed just to stall the process

There is nothing wrong with saying no just to stall the process when the process being stalled is another unholy abomination that brings the country closer to ruin.

[Jaecp]

Man,

I need to make the weird hyperbole you're constantly spewing into a tumblr

[Nathan Poe]

There is nothing wrong with saying no just to stall the process when the process being stalled is another unholy abomination that brings the country closer to ruin.

Thank you for showing how the Republicans have been their own worst enemy -- not to mention America's.

[Darth Executor]

Thank you for showing how the Republicans have been their own worst enemy -- not to mention America's.

Obama: Hey, let's reinstate the Holocaust!
Republicans: Wait a minute...
Nathan Poe: Damn those obstructionist Republicans!

[Nathan Poe]

Obama: Hey, let's reinstate the Holocaust!
Republicans: Wait a minute...
Nathan Poe: Damn those obstructionist Republicans!

That's an exciting world you live in there -- you must find reality so dull...

[odis]

Are our Naval units at risk? Well, of course there's always a risk, but let's be honest, it's not the same as putting boots on the ground -- far less chance them them secretly coming back in flag-draped coffins.
Sounds to me like we're doing in Lybia the same thiing Bush did in Iraq -- but at a fraction of time, tax dollars, and manpower.

You completely missed the point… I said it was a war, you said Obama fights better… I disagreed but all I really care about is that he actually admits to participating in a war. Beyond that its very close to what I would have done except I’m not sure I would have let the change of power occur the way it did. I can only hope it turns out for the best but to be honest once again, the situation makes me nervous. I guess it cant be too much worse than what was already going on there?

Ah, so you do want us to go into Iran, then? Will you whine then, if Obama does what you want him to?

At this point all I want is for no one to get nuked.

Sheesh -- do you want the troops in or out? make up your mind, then whine about it.

No, I want to do something that makes sense! We already did exactly what we are doing now and it didn’t work. So lets try plan B and see what happens. Anything but plan A.

So it's all Obama's fault, then? Seems like the man can honestly do no right in your eyes.

Its obama’s fault for not talking to his general and giving his general the boot was well justified. If his general was so grieved by it, he should have just stepped down.

Here's the thing -- you never, never, let it publicly be known that you think your boss is a jerk -- even if he is one. It's a straight shot to the unemployment line.

Agreed. But its your bosses fault if things go awry if you’ve been pleading for assistance.

And now you want to blame Obama for somehow forcing this schlub to disrespect him? Any military man with that little discipline has no business being in the uniform in the first place.

I would hardly call that being the result of little discipline. The general was watching his men die. He shouldn’t have said it and may have gotten off easy, but I have a hard time blaming him for it.

I get it -- you're anti-war. And yet, it's Obama's leadership which is directly responsible for all those deaths.

No I’m anti-stupidity and pro-truth. If I can just find a politician who is like that, they will have my vote even if I despise their platform.

Well the bad news is, those are the only two choices on the menu -- and don't even pretend that third parties are relevant; the only time dems and repubs will ever work together is to stomp an upstart out of the picture.

I wouldn’t know. In my state there is no third party.

Politics is about the lesser of two evils, and like it or not, Obama is currently it.

Maybe. Honestly, I’d rather roll the dice.

You've got so many things to complain about, it's getting hard to keep track.

If you point out the mistakes, maybe someplace, somewhere, someone will take notice and improve….

And nobody, but nobody on the Right is ready or willing to step forward and do something about it -- the ones who are have seemingly been coming from the bottom of the barrel.

Sadly very true.

I agree with your sentiment -- politics has become a matter of choosing, not between good or bad, but between bad or worse. But as I said, don't be so quick to knock column A unless you'd rather have column B -- otherwise you're just whining pointlessly.

I disagree, I’d rather rock everyone’s boat until they start improving.

Church businesses had to provide certain health benefits -- then they didn't. I'd call that a difference.

Except that they did. Instead of forcing the church to buy it, they forced the insurance companies to sell only what had it included. Therefore, there was no difference.

If you're a church business -- your employees.
Everyone else -- your business' health plan.

Obama mandated that the insurance company couldn’t charge extra and had to supply condoms. How are those condoms going to get paid for?

And so I ask -- was it an error or were you just whining pointlessly?

You brought up that example, I didn’t.

I agree, two wrongs don't make a right -- so why can't you even bring yourself to say that we're dealing with two wrongs? I can.

I wont claim that it was wrong because, as I said, I don’t care to look into the matter. I don’t know anything about it. If it was wrong, then yes it was bad.

By default. Nobody better stepped forward.

So you think the most arrogant of people are also the best?

As I said, he was the best you had to offer.

I didn’t offer anyone. There has never been a candidate that represented me even mostly in my lifetime. I suspect that many people feel similar to this.

Did most of them have to be?

I think most of them looked like good ideas, but he still didn’t do the work to get them passed. They got grandfathered through.

If tightening a bolt saves the world, then why shouldn't they get credit?

Why should the guy who tightened a bolt get the credit? Why not the guy who lost his life giving joe shmoe the opportunity to turn a bolt? Why not give the credit to the workers who slaved over the system to save the world?

Not all important things have to be big and complicated -- if Obama can get things done with a minimum of hassle, why shouldn't he?

Because, as you keep pointing out, politicians lie and so we need to comb through each law suggested for their BS. If we found a politician who didn’t lie, we wouldn’t have to search for their BS.

last I checked, we usually praise people for that sort of thing.

I don’t know why you would praise someone for passing a bill so large that no one is willing to read it and find out whats actually written in it for themselves. 2700 pages. 1147271 words. This is why I quoted peloci. The bill was so big, more than 99% of the US population couldn’t read any of it and make any sense out of it. If the bill was smaller, it would be easier to read and understand and thereby, more difficult to lie about.

What are you babbling about?

Big Boy is the name of the nuclear weapon that was dropped on Hiroshima. The pilot may have flown the plane but we don’t blame the pilot for the weapon’s effects. The laws are the tools used by the politicians and while Obama, like the pilot, delivered what he intended, we should fault/credit the nation that supported the action and not the deliverer, unless the deliverer is also the designer/master architect.

Good to know. My point what that Obama made n claims of any kind concerning how much or how little he got done -- you did.

Please clarify?

And now we see that those claims have fallen flat.

There’s more in my claims than in Obama’s promises that’s for certain.

Quite so -- is it your fourth?

Well for it being your first language your having an awfully hard time reading the letters on the screen in front of you.

Don't worry -- I won't tell your cousins or your wife's bridesmaid that you're not concerned with their rights.

They know their rights aren’t in danger so you can tell them if you wish.

Perhaps you should be making more of an effort to know what's going on with these sort of things.

Oh I’m sorry. Who do you know that had a problem? Since your accusing me that I don’t know what I’m talking about I can only assume that you’ve had firsthand experience?

Nothing changed for you -- you're (I assume) straight. Don't be so quick to assume that taking rights away from other people changes "nothing."

I didn’t say it would take away “nothing.” I said nothing would change as a result of removing it.

probably because no such bill is needed -- under the 10th Amendment, any power not explicitly granted to the Federal government is reserved for the states -- this includes the right to recognize marriages.
Currently, six states -- CT, IA, VT, MA, NH, and NY -- as well as the District of Columbia, recognize and allow same-sex marriage. Clearly, Obama does not want to unnecessarily stretch the Constitution to cover something it doesn't cover, to do something the states seem to (slowly but surely) be doing on their own anyway. it would be intrusive and redundant.
On the other hand, certain Republicans have been known to call for a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, forever expanding the federal government's power into the private lives of its people, and nullifying states' rights.
So you see, in gay rights, as in most other things, Obama is once again the lesser of two evils.

HAHAHAHAHAHA Had we waited for the south to free the slaves on their own, blacks still wouldn’t have the right to vote. Sometimes you’ve got to butt your head in where it doesn’t belong just to stir some stuff up. Aside from that, the US gov can and should grant equality.
Because the individual states can fix the problem, the US gov should stay out of it because *eventually* all 50 states will adopt the same set of rights rather than passing a law now to grant equal rights to all immediately. Theres just so much I could say about this that I don’t even know where to begin….

Fine -- put the likes of Perry or Santorum in office and see what happens. Even money says unemployment and debt will be the least of their problems.

Well they really cant do a job worse than obama or they would get voted out and I would be ok with that (them getting voted out if they did a bad job).

melodramatic much?

You don’t know the whole story of the great depression do you? Well let me just pick out the good parts. Depression hits because the USA & co stacked on too much dept and a handful of other factors. There is no food or money or anything else for that matter. The US gov started several projects including a massive damn to bring energy to the united states. The increase in jobs and energy made food prices go down because there was more of any form of energy with which to use. Granted there are other reasons too but like I said, just the very short story.

So you're entire rant about him using teleprompters was more pointless whining. Check.

No its me looking for something to say “hey look at least hes trying” and seeing him as an even bigger failure every place I look.

You weren't talking about soldiers dying -- you were talking about teleprompters.

No I was talking about obama not demonstrating that he had any idea what was written in his speeches and used teleprompters to keep up so that he could be lazy. I supported that with something about a teleprompter and then you showed me that presidents use teleprompters. The thing your really missing is that even if he were so lazy that he didn’t even tell his speech writer what he wanted to say, I wouldn’t care about him using teleprompters if he was doing a good job, but I just don’t think he is. So I’d at least like him to know what he’s talking about, but he doesn’t make me feel like he does.

Republicans started two wars -- don't pretend they care about soldiers dying.

Well Bush was in constant contact with his generals, unlike obama who refused to meet face to face with his for several months! And no the republicans didn’t start either war, get your facts straight. One war was started when planes were crashed into the twin towers and the pentagon and the second was started when the united nations voted to overthrow Iraq’s leader for having weapons of mass destruction. (it doesn’t matter if they had weapons or not, the war was *initiated* because it was believed that they did)
On 8 November 2002, the Security Council passed Resolution 1441 by a unanimous 15–0 vote; Russia, China, France, and Arab countries such as Syria voted in favor, giving Resolution 1441 wider support than even the 1990 Gulf War resolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_1441
So no, the republicans engaged in 2 wars but hardly started either of them. Get your facts straight.

I don't see how Obama is to blame for all society's ills -- you know perfectly well most of this has been brewing for a very long time now.

A president who has no intention of doing what he promised on his way into the white house is not a result of society. The guy doesnt seem to care that americans are loosing their homes is not a result of society. People not having jobs is not a societal ill? That america is more split now than its been since the civil war I do blame him for because America was more united during Bush’s administration and so there must have been a decline someplace. You can joke that it was against bush or what have you but we were united. If Obama could make me feel that he deeply cared about these things then I wouldn’t fault him nearly as much as I do. But someplace between joking about there being no such thing as a shovel ready job and blaming bush for all his problems, he broke my give-a-sh%^.

At least you know what sarcasm is -- now if only you knew that politicians lie.

Now if only you could figure out that its not a job requirement that they do lie. In fact they can stop at any point.

Right now I'm thinking you don't know the difference between Pelosi and Obama.

Strange thing about the truth, it doesn’t require you to believe in it to be true.

Neither did this one -- check where the decimal point is.
Readers should not be surprised to hear about added government spending on health ranging from $1 trillion to $2 trillion over the next 10 years. The low estimates may reflect a very slow phase-in of health care reform, or a bare-bones benefit package or only modest subsidies toward the purchase of health insurance, or all of the above. The high estimates would reflect faster phase-ins, more generous benefits or more generous subsidies, such as Senator Kennedy’s bill (just released), which would phase out subsidies only for, say, a family of four with an income excess of $110,000 a year. With so many design parameters still in flux, all kinds of estimates can be plausible.

Looks like its 12 zeroes after the 2 in 2 trillion and the 1 in 1trillion. So I’m going to stick to my claim that the health care cost doubled.

And now we have two wolves fighting over the same sheep costume. As I keep saying -- before you whine about column A, take a gander at column B.

Oh, i'm sorry you must think that i'm claiming that the republicans are better. Well let me be clear. The republicans aren't the answer as they currently are and i don't think they ever will be again. They once were the solution to each other's faults, but now both sides share many of the same faults.
A wolf in a sheep's wool is still a wolf. if it was evil while being proposed by the democrats, i'd be hypocritical if i didnt think it was evil the other way around.
Why would he deserve special blame? He deserves his just like everyone else before him deserves theirs. Ignoring the problem doesnt make it go away.
Lol anymore than the democrats? It’s a human egotistical thing, not a republican thing.
As does all those before him and as will all those after him.
I’ll tell ya what, when I find an alternative on either side, you’ll be the first to know.

What really makes you think I wasn’t supporting column B in college? Heck, in college I was almost a communist.

You complain about "evil," I say, better the devil you know...

So we keep the devil and never chance finding an angel? I’d rather roll the dice.

So let's blame everyone responsible, not just Obama.

Who said I rested all the blame on his shoulders? Every leader should share the blame and the credit with those under him. Hence the analogy about big boy.

And why should he care?

Because a good leader does.

So you won't change -- why should he?

I literally just said he didn’t have to change. Ive been saying we need to find someone better.

Actually he did -- and say what you will, it was a brilliant political move. It shut up the birthers right when it did the most good.

Yes but it’s the law to present it BEFORE running for president not after. Why should Obama get a special pass?

So, all those Muslims out there who swear they've left Islam and have converted to, let's say, Christianity... are liars? Or are they just wrong? Once a Muslim, always a Muslim?
Well, when what's written "somewhere" is worth anything, I'll care.

It was simply humorous. Nothing more. You don’t need to read into every comment to find some hidden meaning. If theres something deeper, I’ll just tell you.

You've be surprised how many on the Right did and still do.

Not really. I simply don’t care. A percentage of people will always believe whats been disproven a million times over. Some people still believe explosives took down the twin towers…

Right -- and when the Dems start doing it, I'll be the first to agree that it's childish and pointless. But here and now...

Because the dems haven’t turned down every idea the republicans have given them…

Wouldn't really be all that special if everyone got it.

Why would it need to be special?

Right -- until then, better the devil you know...

I’d rather roll the dice on someone new.

Right, maybe three wrongs will do it. Do you even want to take a peek at what's waiting for you in column B?

No. The ends don’t justify the means. Whats wrong is always wrong.

Same reason the Right never can.

Of course they can, we just need a good one to show up to the fight. Sadly, it doesn’t look that that will happen ever again.

[Nathan Poe]

You completely missed the point… I said it was a war, you said Obama fights better… I disagreed but all I really care about is that he actually admits to participating in a war. Beyond that its very close to what I would have done except I’m not sure I would have let the change of power occur the way it did. I can only hope it turns out for the best but to be honest once again, the situation makes me nervous. I guess it cant be too much worse than what was already going on there?

So Obama's doing a good job with it, isn't he?

Just out of curiosity re the bolded section -- how would you have handled the change in power?

At this point all I want is for no one to get nuked.

A noble sentiment to be sure -- To which I wouldn't worry too much. Even if Iran does get the bomb, Ahmadinejad strikes me as more of the "loony but not suicidally so" type. He's got his hands full inside his own borders to actually get into a nuclear scrape with Israel (which he must know he'd lose).

Actually, acquiring the bomb would help his condition -- he gets the bomb, throws in a little saber rattling at Israel, and the US comes running along to put the screws to Iran... which gives him an excuse to crack down on his own people and fundie them up, as it were.

No, I want to do something that makes sense!

Clearly you have little experience in politics.

We already did exactly what we are doing now and it didn’t work. So lets try plan B and see what happens. Anything but plan A.

Great -- so what's plan B?

Its obama’s fault for not talking to his general and giving his general the boot was well justified. If his general was so grieved by it, he should have just stepped down.

Sounds like the general is to blame for his own situation -- Obama owed him exactly squat.

Agreed. But its your bosses fault if things go awry if you’ve been pleading for assistance.

Not if the answer to your pleas is "no." Plead for assistance all you want, but if the coffers are empty, you aren't going to get it. That being the case, mouthing off about it isn't going to end well.

I would hardly call that being the result of little discipline. The general was watching his men die. He shouldn’t have said it and may have gotten off easy, but I have a hard time blaming him for it.

That's what generals do -- and men had been dying there since 2002; now there's a problem with it?

No I’m anti-stupidity and pro-truth. If I can just find a politician who is like that, they will have my vote even if I despise their platform.

As am I -- which might explain why I haven't voted in the last 12 years.

I wouldn’t know. In my state there is no third party.

Yours is hardly the only state like that -- care to guess why?

Maybe. Honestly, I’d rather roll the dice.

And then you risk losing everything. Most people are not so willing to gamble with their own futures -- too much to lose.

If you point out the mistakes, maybe someplace, somewhere, someone will take notice and improve….

And maybe they're just get better at covering them up.

I disagree, I’d rather rock everyone’s boat until they start improving.

A pity they won't -- why should they?

Except that they did. Instead of forcing the church to buy it, they forced the insurance companies to sell only what had it included. Therefore, there was no difference.

sounds like everyone gets what they want -- the employees get insurance, the insurance companies get money, and the church gets a clear conscience, since it's not them who are providing it.

Obama mandated that the insurance company couldn’t charge extra and had to supply condoms. How are those condoms going to get paid for?

Condoms are not exactly what anyone would call a prohibitive expense. The insurance companies will take a .001% cut in their profits by paying for them themselves -- trust me, they can afford it.

You brought up that example, I didn’t.

I wont claim that it was wrong because, as I said, I don’t care to look into the matter. I don’t know anything about it. If it was wrong, then yes it was bad.

Good, then you agree that wrong things are bad.

Myself, I agree that national politicians shouldn't try to use local incidents in order to maintain the illusion that they're in touch with us peons. It's wrong when Obama does it, and it's been wrong when any president, Senator, Representative, etc., has done it in the past -- as they have done countless times.

So you think the most arrogant of people are also the best?

I think that this current crop of republicans had a pretty deep barrel to scrape the bottom of -- and like it or not, they're all going to hold their nose and rally behind one of them (most likely Romney) as the greatest thing since sliced bread at the RNC -- because that's all they got.

So yes, from a very limited selection, this is the best you've got to work with. Seems like nobody better wants the job.

I didn’t offer anyone. There has never been a candidate that represented me even mostly in my lifetime. I suspect that many people feel similar to this.

Nor do I -- which is why I don't vote.

Most of the voters, however, either stay loyal to a party or simply hold their noses and vote the lesser of two evils.

I think most of them looked like good ideas, but he still didn’t do the work to get them passed. They got grandfathered through.

So they got through even without the work -- and you're complaining? You want to make more work where none was needed?

Why should the guy who tightened a bolt get the credit? Why not the guy who lost his life giving joe shmoe the opportunity to turn a bolt? Why not give the credit to the workers who slaved over the system to save the world?

"Workers of the World, unite!" And they call Obama the socialist...

Because, as you keep pointing out, politicians lie and so we need to comb through each law suggested for their BS. If we found a politician who didn’t lie, we wouldn’t have to search for their BS.

And if they didn't lie, they wouldn't be in politics.

Reagan once said that politics was the second-oldest profession, and that he'd noticed it had a lot in common with the first. I'll give him credit for hitting that one on the head.

I don’t know why you would praise someone for passing a bill so large that no one is willing to read it and find out whats actually written in it for themselves. 2700 pages. 1147271 words. This is why I quoted peloci. The bill was so big, more than 99% of the US population couldn’t read any of it and make any sense out of it. If the bill was smaller, it would be easier to read and understand and thereby, more difficult to lie about.

I'm sorry that reforming the entire health care system for over 300 million Americans couldn't be reduced to something that people would be willing to read. If they could've fit the whole shebang into a 30-minute infomercial, I'm sure they would've -- but who has that kind of patience to watch it?

Big Boy is the name of the nuclear weapon that was dropped on Hiroshima. The pilot may have flown the plane but we don’t blame the pilot for the weapon’s effects. The laws are the tools used by the politicians and while Obama, like the pilot, delivered what he intended, we should fault/credit the nation that supported the action and not the deliverer, unless the deliverer is also the designer/master architect.

So, since the pilot didn't design the bomb, but Obama is the brain behind Obamacare, you're babbling about Hiroshima for no reason whatsoever.

Please clarify?

First you said Obama got nothing done -- I corrected you on that one.
Then you had said that Obama had been boasting about the things he'd done -- I called you out on that one.
(Of course, now he's going to boast -- but what do you expect in an election year?)

There’s more in my claims than in Obama’s promises that’s for certain.

But a whole lot less than what's in Obama's results. The man's gotten some good done -- just not nearly enough.

Well for it being your first language your having an awfully hard time reading the letters on the screen in front of you.

It would help if the words formed by those letters formed coherent and cohesive ideas -- right now, you're hit-and-miss.

They know their rights aren’t in danger so you can tell them if you wish.

None of my business. (A phrase conservatives should remember on the subject of gay rights, IMHO.)

Oh I’m sorry. Who do you know that had a problem? Since your accusing me that I don’t know what I’m talking about I can only assume that you’ve had firsthand experience?

Secondhand, actually -- a few gay and bisexual friends of mine have shared some stories over the years. I live in a relatively liberal state -- they've told me of their travels in less accommodating places.

I won't assume you care to hear the stories.

I didn’t say it would take away “nothing.” I said nothing would change as a result of removing it.

They had rights, then they won't -- and nothing will change. Yeah, that seems so sensible in principle...

HAHAHAHAHAHA Had we waited for the south to free the slaves on their own, blacks still wouldn’t have the right to vote. Sometimes you’ve got to butt your head in where it doesn’t belong just to stir some stuff up. Aside from that, the US gov can and should grant equality.

Voting is a Constitutionally guaranteed right -- as such, the government has the authority to enforce it. Marriage... not so much.

Because the individual states can fix the problem, the US gov should stay out of it because *eventually* all 50 states will adopt the same set of rights rather than passing a law now to grant equal rights to all immediately. Theres just so much I could say about this that I don’t even know where to begin….

Well, you can start by demonstrating a little Constitutional knowledge -- voting is in there; marriage is not.

The feds cannot enforce a "right" which is and has always been in the hands of the states -- that's why laws such as those regarding age of consent or whether or not cousin can marry vary from state to state.

The feds have never regulated marriage, and I don't see them starting now.

Well they really cant do a job worse than obama or they would get voted out and I would be ok with that (them getting voted out if they did a bad job).

if only it actually worked that way -- put one of them (Column B) in office and see what pops up in Column A four years later.

Americans will choose the lesser of two evils -- even after Obama is a memory.

You don’t know the whole story of the great depression do you? Well let me just pick out the good parts. Depression hits because the USA & co stacked on too much dept and a handful of other factors. There is no food or money or anything else for that matter. The US gov started several projects including a massive damn to bring energy to the united states. The increase in jobs and energy made food prices go down because there was more of any form of energy with which to use. Granted there are other reasons too but like I said, just the very short story.

Very short -- you completely forgot about the reckless bank speculation, the credit bubble collapsing, or the fact that most of those gov. projects (including the dam) were too little to cause any kind of lasting effect -- it took the production boom of WWII to really get the US out of the depression.

No its me looking for something to say “hey look at least hes trying” and seeing him as an even bigger failure every place I look.

Still melodramatic, I see.

No I was talking about obama not demonstrating that he had any idea what was written in his speeches and used teleprompters to keep up so that he could be lazy. I supported that with something about a teleprompter and then you showed me that presidents use teleprompters. The thing your really missing is that even if he were so lazy that he didn’t even tell his speech writer what he wanted to say, I wouldn’t care about him using teleprompters if he was doing a good job, but I just don’t think he is. So I’d at least like him to know what he’s talking about, but he doesn’t make me feel like he does.

So basically, he's lazy because he doesn't make you feel like he cares.

Well Bush was in constant contact with his generals, unlike obama who refused to meet face to face with his for several months! And no the republicans didn’t start either war, get your facts straight. One war was started when planes were crashed into the twin towers and the pentagon and the second was started when the united nations voted to overthrow Iraq’s leader for having weapons of mass destruction. (it doesn’t matter if they had weapons or not, the war was *initiated* because it was believed that they did)

And so Bush's legacy is completely exonerated.

A president who has no intention of doing what he promised on his way into the white house is not a result of society. The guy doesnt seem to care that americans are loosing their homes is not a result of society. People not having jobs is not a societal ill? That america is more split now than its been since the civil war I do blame him for because America was more united during Bush’s administration and so there must have been a decline someplace.

For a couple of years after 9/11 -- it was during the second term that things started to get ugly.

[QUOET] You can joke that it was against bush or what have you but we were united. If Obama could make me feel that he deeply cared about these things then I wouldn’t fault him nearly as much as I do. But someplace between joking about there being no such thing as a shovel ready job and blaming bush for all his problems, he broke my give-a-sh%^.

And he's not exactly bending over backwards to make you like him again -- is that what's bothering you?

Now if only you could figure out that its not a job requirement that they do lie. In fact they can stop at any point.

They can stop at any point -- it's usually called 'retirement."

Seriously, can you even fathom why they lie? They wouldn't get elected if they didn't tell us what we wanted to hear, so yes, in a sense, it is a job requirement.

Strange thing about the truth, it doesn’t require you to believe in it to be true.

Sage advice for us all.

Looks like its 12 zeroes after the 2 in 2 trillion and the 1 in 1trillion. So I’m going to stick to my claim that the health care cost doubled.

Ah yes, this link makes it a lot clearer than your last one.

What really makes you think I wasn’t supporting column B in college? Heck, in college I was almost a communist.

Communist? Ah, you mean column C -- I bet I can guess why you abandoned that ship...

So we keep the devil and never chance finding an angel? I’d rather roll the dice.

Ain't no angels in Washington, my friend -- they don't want the job. Best you learn that before you fall for the next devil who tricks you with a dimestore halo.

Who said I rested all the blame on his shoulders? Every leader should share the blame and the credit with those under him. Hence the analogy about big boy.

As convoluted as it was -- of course, now that you've finally put in some effort to explain yourself, it makes a modicum of sense.

Because a good leader does.

Or a vain leader. A good leader does what needs to be done and doesn't give a rodent's posterior what people think of it.

Now, by that definition, Obama is far from a good leader -- he tried pleasing everyone at first, and quickly learned that it simply can't be done.

[QUOTEYes but it’s the law to present it BEFORE running for president not after. Why should Obama get a special pass?

He didn't -- he presented a birth certificate; the conspiracy nuts wanted more -- and he strung them along until just the right time.

Say what you will about the man, he knows politics.

It was simply humorous. Nothing more. You don’t need to read into every comment to find some hidden meaning.

Well, lacking an overt meaning, I figured there had to be a reason for it somewhere.

If theres something deeper, I’ll just tell you.

(Word of advice -- you might want to try a winking smiley in the future, so I know you're having fun, and not a genuine kook -- I do believe there's an internet law regarding that sort of thing)

Not really. I simply don’t care. A percentage of people will always believe whats been disproven a million times over. Some people still believe explosives took down the twin towers…

Perhaps you should care -- who do you think supports those bottom-feeders who get nominated?

Because the dems haven’t turned down every idea the republicans have given them…

never said they didn't -- I expect the parties to bicker pointlessly. You don't?

Why would it need to be special?

Considering the topic of the thread...

Of course, as long as we're in agreement that most of these shortcomings are the same as what other pols do, then there's nothing special about it.

I’d rather roll the dice on someone new.

Unfortunately, our national election is a two party system -- you're not rolling the dice so much as you're flipping a coin -- and you've already seen what's on the other side.

No. The ends don’t justify the means. Whats wrong is always wrong.

Great -- except when "it's wrong when anyone but us do it" -- which we get enough of from both parties.

Of course they can, we just need a good one to show up to the fight. Sadly, it doesn’t look that that will happen ever again.

Then we're just spinning our wheels here.

[odis]

So Obama's doing a good job with it, isn't he?
Just out of curiosity re the bolded section -- how would you have handled the change in power?

Unsure which is why I don’t have a strong attachment to this critique.

A noble sentiment to be sure -- To which I wouldn't worry too much. Even if Iran does get the bomb, Ahmadinejad strikes me as more of the "loony but not suicidally so" type. He's got his hands full inside his own borders to actually get into a nuclear scrape with Israel (which he must know he'd lose).
Actually, acquiring the bomb would help his condition -- he gets the bomb, throws in a little saber rattling at Israel, and the US comes running along to put the screws to Iran... which gives him an excuse to crack down on his own people and fundie them up, as it were.

Possibly. I have no knowledge of this and wont claim to have any idea how this may play out. I simply just don’t like the situation.

Great -- so what's plan B?

Build them up like we did with japan. Convert billions of our money into theirs and toss it into a vault. Educate, and employ as many as possible while upgrading their infrastructure. Build a government similar to ours with several differences including the lack of an army but a very strong police force. The drillable oil the country has should be plenty enough to sustain their economy and when the country blossoms, reconvert the money in the vault back into dollars.

Sounds like the general is to blame for his own situation -- Obama owed him exactly squat.
Not if the answer to your pleas is "no." Plead for assistance all you want, but if the coffers are empty, you aren't going to get it. That being the case, mouthing off about it isn't going to end well.
That's what generals do -- and men had been dying there since 2002; now there's a problem with it?

I did not claim the general was not to blame. I just claimed that Obama shares in it. Soldiers die in war, it’s a sad unfortunate fact. The best we can do is make their sacrifices worth something. Make it so that we wont have to fight the war again.

Yours is hardly the only state like that -- care to guess why?

Maybe you’d like to share your insights?

And then you risk losing everything. Most people are not so willing to gamble with their own futures -- too much to lose.

We risk loosing our lives every 4 years and I don’t see our current path being very fruitful.

And maybe they're just get better at covering them up.

Maybe, does that mean we should stop?

A pity they won't -- why should they?

If enough people join in, we can capsize it. In the political windstorm, theres always a new boat coming along. Since I would make an awful leader, I can only hope a decent one would come along.

sounds like everyone gets what they want -- the employees get insurance, the insurance companies get money, and the church gets a clear conscience, since it's not them who are providing it.
Condoms are not exactly what anyone would call a prohibitive expense. The insurance companies will take a .001% cut in their profits by paying for them themselves -- trust me, they can afford it.
But they are providing it! The words on this page are not connecting properly in your head….

I don’t care about that .001% cut. Fact is that cut has to come from someplace and where do you think it comes from? When Obama said that the insurance companies couldn’t charge for it, that means the money cant come from outside the company unless its in donations. This being the case, the insurance company would daily be in violation.
Even if the wording of the law was that the company could not take condoms into account for the condoms, the churches are still forced into the situation of either not covering health insurance (taking the bait and being looked at as the bad guy) or doing specifically what they feel is morally wrong (taking the bait).

Btw, this next part was painful, I hope you’ve enjoyed putting me through this.

I think that this current crop of republicans had a pretty deep barrel to scrape the bottom of -- and like it or not, they're all going to hold their nose and rally behind one of them (most likely Romney) as the greatest thing since sliced bread at the RNC -- because that's all they got.

So yes, from a very limited selection, this is the best you've got to work with. Seems like nobody better wants the job.

Fair enough.

So they got through even without the work -- and you're complaining? You want to make more work where none was needed?

No I’m saying that you shouldn’t blanketly credit him the way you are.

"Workers of the World, unite!" And they call Obama the socialist...

Well I did say I was basically a socialist in college didn’t i?
In all seriousness, I would *prefer* that those who did the work/put the money into it, got the credit. While Obama does deserve a significant portion of it, I wouldn’t jump up and down with that list saying he did all these things.

I'm sorry that reforming the entire health care system for over 300 million Americans couldn't be reduced to something that people would be willing to read. If they could've fit the whole shebang into a 30-minute infomercial, I'm sure they would've -- but who has that kind of patience to watch it?

True enough but they could have done it in sections. Divide up the law into parts and pass them through.

So, since the pilot didn't design the bomb, but Obama is the brain behind Obamacare, you're babbling about Hiroshima for no reason whatsoever.

except that hes not. Hilary Clinton proposed it and obama was against it saying that it wouldn’t work just like mandating that the homeless buy a house.

First you said Obama got nothing done -- I corrected you on that one.
Then you had said that Obama had been boasting about the things he'd done -- I called you out on that one.
(Of course, now he's going to boast -- but what do you expect in an election year?)

I didn’t mean precisely that he did absolutely nothing. It was a figure of speech. I am not surprised that hes boasting about things hes done. My gripe is that hes taking credit for things that should not be credited to him. For example, if he was forced to put something in a bill that he didn’t want in order to get it passed, should we also praise him for reaching across the aisle? I don’t think so.

It would help if the words formed by those letters formed coherent and cohesive ideas -- right now, you're hit-and-miss.

Good to know. My point what that Obama made n claims of any kind concerning how much or how little he got done -- you did.

As it seems, no one is perfect.

None of my business. (A phrase conservatives should remember on the subject of gay rights, IMHO.)


Secondhand, actually -- a few gay and bisexual friends of mine have shared some stories over the years. I live in a relatively liberal state -- they've told me of their travels in less accommodating places.

I won't assume you care to hear the stories.

They had rights, then they won't -- and nothing will change. Yeah, that seems so sensible in principle...

Your word is good enough for the moment.

Voting is a Constitutionally guaranteed right -- as such, the government has the authority to enforce it. Marriage... not so much.

and in the specific case in which a state is denying a person their right, the gov has the option of enforcing their right. That is one of the the purposes of the supreme court.

Well, you can start by demonstrating a little Constitutional knowledge -- voting is in there; marriage is not.

The feds cannot enforce a "right" which is and has always been in the hands of the states -- that's why laws such as those regarding age of consent or whether or not cousin can marry vary from state to state.

The feds have never regulated marriage, and I don't see them starting now.

The feds never enforced healthcare, they do now. The feds never denied separate but equal, they do now.

if only it actually worked that way -- put one of them (Column B) in office and see what pops up in Column A four years later.

Americans will choose the lesser of two evils -- even after Obama is a memory.

I’d rather go down swinging than go down with my hands tied. One bad president after another is painful to every piece of our country.

Very short -- you completely forgot about the reckless bank speculation, the credit bubble collapsing, or the fact that most of those gov. projects (including the dam) were too little to cause any kind of lasting effect -- it took the production boom of WWII to really get the US out of the depression.

True I did leave those out but here is an irresistible fact and one that the dems got right; a good plan in the right place done properly can pay you back for centuries. Sadly, we will never be able to find out how things might have been changed if a “little” plan was never constructed.

Still melodramatic, I see.

from my standpoint, a president should be a twenty times more successful than Obama is. And if hes not, he can at least not destroy the place on his way out.

So basically, he's lazy because he doesn't make you feel like he cares.

No hes lazy and doesn’t make me feel like he cares which only matter because I feel hes been unsuccessful.

And so Bush's legacy is completely exonerated.

Or partly used as an example of what not to do. The only good thing bush did was fight well and bring the country together.

EDIT: actually, I shouldn’t credit him for bringing the country together because its more likely that being attacked was the sole force and nothing he did.

For a couple of years after 9/11 -- it was during the second term that things started to get ugly.

Yes and I blame bush for that too, but this thread isn’t supposed to be about him.

And he's not exactly bending over backwards to make you like him again -- is that what's bothering you?

whats bothering me is that hes a failure.

They can stop at any point -- it's usually called 'retirement."

Seriously, can you even fathom why they lie? They wouldn't get elected if they didn't tell us what we wanted to hear, so yes, in a sense, it is a job requirement.

my cousin has never told a lie while in office and since hes taken the seat, not a single opponent has been able to give him a run for his money. For the past 6 years they haven’t even given him someone to run against. It’s just a popular option to cover up their mistakes. So yes I can fathom why actually.

Ah yes, this link makes it a lot clearer than your last one.

And here is an article about how unspecific the bill was while obama was promoting it.
Readers should not be surprised to hear about added government spending on health ranging from $1 trillion to $2 trillion over the next 10 years. The low estimates may reflect a very slow phase-in of health care reform, or a bare-bones benefit package or only modest subsidies toward the purchase of health insurance, or all of the above. The high estimates would reflect faster phase-ins, more generous benefits or more generous subsidies, such as Senator Kennedy’s bill (just released), which would phase out subsidies only for, say, a family of four with an income excess of $110,000 a year. With so many design parameters still in flux, all kinds of estimates can be plausible.

I linked 2

Communist? Ah, you mean column C -- I bet I can guess why you abandoned that ship...

probably not. I kept giving all my money away and the only people I attracted were people after my money. Several hard lessons later and I changed.

Ain't no angels in Washington, my friend -- they don't want the job. Best you learn that before you fall for the next devil who tricks you with a dimestore halo.

I’m not nearly so neive. If I don’t see his faults, I start looking for them.

Or a vain leader. A good leader does what needs to be done and doesn't give a rodent's posterior what people think of it.

Now, by that definition, Obama is far from a good leader -- he tried pleasing everyone at first, and quickly learned that it simply can't be done.

I’m not sure he was trying to please everyone. The way it looked to me was that the dems had the power and squandered it…. It’s a shame too because I was wondering if they actually could fix anything.

He didn't -- he presented a birth certificate; the conspiracy nuts wanted more -- and he strung them along until just the right time.

It wasn’t his birth certificate, however I withdraw my claim for the sole reason that it is not required by the US constitution. It is only required that he prove his citizenship, which he did in a different form.

Say what you will about the man, he knows politics.

I wouldn’t claim otherwise.

Well, lacking an overt meaning, I figured there had to be a reason for it somewhere.
(Word of advice -- you might want to try a winking smiley in the future, so I know you're having fun, and not a genuine kook -- I do believe there's an internet law regarding that sort of thing)

Noted.

Perhaps you should care -- who do you think supports those bottom-feeders who get nominated?

And some will always blindly support the bad guy. There’s nothing that can be done about it.

never said they didn't -- I expect the parties to bicker pointlessly. You don't?

i miss memorized a previous quote. although very similar, also very different.

Considering the topic of the thread...
Of course, as long as we're in agreement that most of these shortcomings are the same as what other pols do, then there's nothing special about it.

I feel it should be mentioned even if it’s the same flaw every president has had since the first one.

Unfortunately, our national election is a two party system -- you're not rolling the dice so much as you're flipping a coin -- and you've already seen what's on the other side.

Yes but there are independents and the sheer hope that the next guy will be better.

Great -- except when "it's wrong when anyone but us do it" -- which we get enough of from both parties.

Agreed.

Then we're just spinning our wheels here.

More or less. As the last person who is fit to lead the country, all I can do is yell at the top of my lungs and vote, but if I yelled, I’d just look like another goon.

[Nathan Poe]

Unsure which is why I don’t have a strong attachment to this critique.

Fair enough.

Possibly. I have no knowledge of this and wont claim to have any idea how this may play out. I simply just don’t like the situation.

I'm not too thrilled about it either, but bombing things I don't like certainly isn't the answer.

Build them up like we did with japan. Convert billions of our money into theirs and toss it into a vault. Educate, and employ as many as possible while upgrading their infrastructure. Build a government similar to ours with several differences including the lack of an army but a very strong police force. The drillable oil the country has should be plenty enough to sustain their economy and when the country blossoms, reconvert the money in the vault back into dollars.

"Like we did with japan" isn't going to work -- our war there was against the Japanese government -- it was easy to rebuild them after the officially surrendered. In Afghanistan, the government is already (officially, anyway) on our side -- but any money we funnel into it is going to wind up in the hands of Tasliban/Al Qaeda sympathizers.

Lack of an army? Their army isn't the problem. besides, have you seen their neighbors? Good luck getting them to cooperate with that one.

The drillable oil can sustain their country, but their current #1 export -- opium -- is already doing a much better job. Why should they change without pressure?

I did not claim the general was not to blame. I just claimed that Obama shares in it.

For what -- making the general disrespect him? Please...

Soldiers die in war, it’s a sad unfortunate fact. The best we can do is make their sacrifices worth something. Make it so that we wont have to fight the war again.

Agreed.

Maybe you’d like to share your insights?

Two words -- Democrats and Republicans. The only thing that ever really gets them cooperating is eliminating upstarts.

We risk loosing our lives every 4 years and I don’t see our current path being very fruitful.

"Losing your lives"? Can the melodrama -- no election has ever been a life-or-death issue. People vote for either the one who they think will make their lives better, or the vote against the one they think will make it worse. It's their livelihood, not their lives, that are at stake.

Besides, if you were right, you wouldn't be so quick to "roll the dice" with your life.

Maybe, does that mean we should stop?

It means we should set realistic goals.

If enough people join in, we can capsize it. In the political windstorm, theres always a new boat coming along. Since I would make an awful leader, I can only hope a decent one would come along.

You want to fight the system, join OWS or something similar. Just don't be surprised when the system fights back.

I don’t care about that .001% cut. Fact is that cut has to come from someplace and where do you think it comes from?

The insurance companies' profits -- and I, for one, don't have a problem with that.

When Obama said that the insurance companies couldn’t charge for it, that means the money cant come from outside the company unless its in donations. This being the case, the insurance company would daily be in violation.

Unless the money comes from within the company -- and trust me, they can afford it.

Even if the wording of the law was that the company could not take condoms into account for the condoms, the churches are still forced into the situation of either not covering health insurance (taking the bait and being looked at as the bad guy) or doing specifically what they feel is morally wrong (taking the bait).

Except they're not taking any bait -- the burden is entirely on the insurance companies, which -- again, trust me on this one -- won't even miss that .001%.

A friend of mine died of cystic fibrosis after his insurance company decided that the kidney transplant which would've saved his life wasn't as cost-effective as the drug treatments which his doctor told them weren't working -- do not expect me to shed a tear over them making less money.

Btw, this next part was painful, I hope you’ve enjoyed putting me through this.

Didn't even give it a second thought.

Fair enough.

No I’m saying that you shouldn’t blanketly credit him the way you are.

Man got something good done -- good for him.

Man got it done without breaking a sweat -- still good for him.

We expect a certain degree of theatrics from our politicians -- if things got done without making them into ordeals, I neither credit nor blame Obama for that.

Well I did say I was basically a socialist in college didn’t i?

I was starting to think that college wasn't so far back.

In all seriousness, I would *prefer* that those who did the work/put the money into it, got the credit. While Obama does deserve a significant portion of it, I wouldn’t jump up and down with that list saying he did all these things.

And how much work was involved? Someone wrote it into the bill, but if you check the bottom line, you'll still find Obama's signature. As President, he's the one who signed them into laws -- they never would've happened otherwise.

That deserves some credit, as you've just admitted -- certainly enough to refute the claim that he's done "nothing."

True enough but they could have done it in sections. Divide up the law into parts and pass them through.

And how long should that have taken? Over a period of five years? Ten? Twenty? The overhaul was done in one shot and AFAIK, certain parts of it still haven't taken effect yet -- At this rate, nothing would've gotten done.

When a country goes to war, you send the army over to the enemy -- you don't send them one soldier at a time.

except that hes not. Hilary Clinton proposed it and obama was against it saying that it wouldn’t work just like mandating that the homeless buy a house.

Clearly something has changed if Obama is now in favor of it. Or are you saying that he shouldn't be blamed, because he's just the pilot, as it were?

I didn’t mean precisely that he did absolutely nothing. It was a figure of speech. I am not surprised that hes boasting about things hes done. My gripe is that hes taking credit for things that should not be credited to him. For example, if he was forced to put something in a bill that he didn’t want in order to get it passed, should we also praise him for reaching across the aisle? I don’t think so.

When the alternative was either vetoing the bill, or adding in a signing statement which allows him to ignore the part he doesn't like, then yes, he should get credit for reaching across the aisle.

Your word is good enough for the moment.

Good, because you do not want to hear their stories.

and in the specific case in which a state is denying a person their right, the gov has the option of enforcing their right. That is one of the the purposes of the supreme court.

Exactly. When the state is denying a right that the federal government guarantees, then the federal government has the right to step in and enforce it. The 14th Amendment gives them that power.

Voting is a right guaranteed by the federal government. Getting married is not. Under the 10th Amendment, the states, not the feds, get to decide who can or cannot get married. The last notable time the feds intervened in marriage was in Loving v. Virginia (1967), which effectively struck down anti-miscegenation laws on the grounds that they were racially biased -- which was against the Federal Civil Rights act of 1964. Again, the 14th Amendment gave the feds juristdiction to enforce its own laws and protections of its citizens.

No such federal protection exists for sexual orientation -- yet.

The feds never enforced healthcare, they do now. The feds never denied separate but equal, they do now.

The feds argued (and we can argue this one) that health care is guaranteed in the Constitution ("promote the general welfare," and all that) -- Marriage is not. As for "Separate but equal," it because painfully obvious to anyone living in pre-Civil Rights America that "separate" was almost never "equal" in practice.

I’d rather go down swinging than go down with my hands tied.

Then you'll go down -- melodramatically.

One bad president after another is painful to every piece of our country.

And we've had lousy presidents before; we'll have lousy presidents in the future -- we've always gotten through it. Neither Obama nor Bush come anywhere near the distinction of being the worst... except in the minds of the melodramatic.

I'll grant you, we're in a patch of mediocrity at this point in our history -- Reagan and Clinton (with a mediocre Bush I in between) were flawed but popular and effective presidents -- after them, it is a heck of a drop off to Bush II and Obama, but such is life -- you take the ups with the downs.

True I did leave those out but here is an irresistible fact and one that the dems got right; a good plan in the right place done properly can pay you back for centuries. Sadly, we will never be able to find out how things might have been changed if a “little” plan was never constructed.

I'm actually thankful we'll never know. And let's face it -- the Manhattan Project was a desperate gamble; we needed The Bomb before the Germans invented it.

from my standpoint, a president should be a twenty times more successful than Obama is. And if hes not, he can at least not destroy the place on his way out.

Sad to tell you, Obama isn't destroying anything that hasn't been wrecked before -- quit being melodramatic.

No hes lazy and doesn’t make me feel like he cares which only matter because I feel hes been unsuccessful.

And he's lazy because he doesn't make you feel like he's not, then? What a shame.

Or partly used as an example of what not to do. The only good thing bush did was fight well and bring the country together.

Bush brought the country together?!?

EDIT: actually, I shouldn’t credit him for bringing the country together because its more likely that being attacked was the sole force and nothing he did.

Thank you -- I almost did a spit-take on my monitor.

What Bush did was take the worldwide and domestic support for America from 9/11 and flush it over the remainder of his presidency -- and even that doesn't make him the worst president we've ever had.

Yes and I blame bush for that too, but this thread isn’t supposed to be about him.

Then stop bringing him up.

whats bothering me is that hes a failure.

Only because you refuse to give him credit for things he's gotten done -- all you think he deserves is blame.

my cousin has never told a lie while in office and since hes taken the seat, not a single opponent has been able to give him a run for his money. For the past 6 years they haven’t even given him someone to run against. It’s just a popular option to cover up their mistakes. So yes I can fathom why actually.

I take it your cousin is a local politician -- ever ask him why he doesn't set his sights higher?
I'll tell you why -- because in order to succeed, he'd have to become something he couldn't stomach. There's a limit to how much a politician can accomplish without selling out; congrats to your cousin for finding his before it was too late.

probably not. I kept giving all my money away and the only people I attracted were people after my money. Several hard lessons later and I changed.

Yeah, that's the problem with Communism -- Human nature. It looks good on paper, but it only works in practice if everyone plays by the rules.
And if everyone always played by the rules, we wouldn't need jails, now would we?

I’m not nearly so neive. If I don’t see his faults, I start looking for them.

When do you stop?

I’m not sure he was trying to please everyone. The way it looked to me was that the dems had the power and squandered it…. It’s a shame too because I was wondering if they actually could fix anything.

Looked to me like the Repubs preferred stalemating the government rather than let the dems fix things... also a shame.

It wasn’t his birth certificate, however I withdraw my claim for the sole reason that it is not required by the US constitution. It is only required that he prove his citizenship, which he did in a different form.

Fair enough.

I wouldn’t claim otherwise.

And well you shouldn't -- Machiavelli himself would've been proud of how Obama handled the the birther nonsense.

And some will always blindly support the bad guy. There’s nothing that can be done about it.

Never blindly! They support the bad buy because they think he's the good guy -- or they think the other guy is the worse guy.

I feel it should be mentioned even if it’s the same flaw every president has had since the first one.

Then don't forget to mention it in every president since the first one.

Yes but there are independents and the sheer hope that the next guy will be better.

Independents = Snowball's chance in Hades. Remember those who fight the system should expect the system to fight back.
The Tea Party tried it; now they're all but absorbed into the GOP. Occupy Wall Street tried it -- they've been minimized and shouted down by the MSM.

David vs. Goliath went the underdog's way in the Bible; results in the real world vary greatly.

As for hoping the next guy will be better -- maybe he will, maybe he won't -- but don't just hope: research. It's a two party system, so you already know who the next guy is. Do your homework.

In this particular case, is the next guy going to be any different?

[odis]

For what -- making the general disrespect him? Please...

The leader is always at fault for what his subordinates do. While the peon gets fired, his manager is blamed for the mistake, and the manager’s boss loses some…. I cant find the right word to put here.

"Losing your lives"? Can the melodrama -- no election has ever been a life-or-death issue. People vote for either the one who they think will make their lives better, or the vote against the one they think will make it worse. It's their livelihood, not their lives, that are at stake.

Besides, if you were right, you wouldn't be so quick to "roll the dice" with your life.

I’m not being melodramatic. On bush’s way out the door, he didn’t care at all about our economy and Obama was supposed to play catch but he dropped the ball. I know far too many people who aren’t with us because of it. While neither obama nor bush can be blamed for the end result, they certainly are to blame for the situation that matches the result.

It means we should set realistic goals.

realistic goals while striving for unrealistic achievements.

You want to fight the system, join OWS or something similar. Just don't be surprised when the system fights back.

not so blindly and not the whole system and as ows. Because I hope for unrealistic achievements, I wont go trampling on everyone’s front lawn, but I certainly will speak my mind.

The insurance companies' profits -- and I, for one, don't have a problem with that.

Unless the money comes from within the company -- and trust me, they can afford it.

and where do the profits come from? the people who are paying the insurance company. Therefore, the customer still foots the bill. unless of course they are printing money.

Except they're not taking any bait -- the burden is entirely on the insurance companies, which -- again, trust me on this one -- won't even miss that .001%.

A friend of mine died of cystic fibrosis after his insurance company decided that the kidney transplant which would've saved his life wasn't as cost-effective as the drug treatments which his doctor told them weren't working -- do not expect me to shed a tear over them making less money.

I couldn’t care less if the insurance company loses money as long as its done in a worthwhile way. Forcing anyone to supply something is unconstitutional especially when they believe that its wrong. Its not like someone brought up this idea after the bill was proposed or even in our recent history. That sect was against birth control for centuries.

Man got something good done -- good for him.

Man got it done without breaking a sweat -- still good for him.

We expect a certain degree of theatrics from our politicians -- if things got done without making them into ordeals, I neither credit nor blame Obama for that.

Then do you fully credit bush for tarp reform?

And how much work was involved? Someone wrote it into the bill, but if you check the bottom line, you'll still find Obama's signature. As President, he's the one who signed them into laws -- they never would've happened otherwise.

Do you mean if someone else was president or if he simply hadn’t signed it? Clinton would have signed the healthcare bill in a heart beat.

That deserves some credit, as you've just admitted -- certainly enough to refute the claim that he's done "nothing."

I wasn’t speaking 100% literal. I simply ment that 80-90% of what he has done isn’t helping. If you ran in circles for a year straight, you may be getting a work out, but your not going anywhere (again, not literally as you are actually going in circles).

And how long should that have taken? Over a period of five years? Ten? Twenty? The overhaul was done in one shot and AFAIK, certain parts of it still haven't taken effect yet -- At this rate, nothing would've gotten done.

But at least our politicians would actually have know what was in the law instead of having people tell them whats in it. It’s the worst possible thing they can do. Well ok maybe not buts its close.

When a country goes to war, you send the army over to the enemy -- you don't send them one soldier at a time.

you also don’t send them in completely blind if you can avoid it.

Clearly something has changed if Obama is now in favor of it. Or are you saying that he shouldn't be blamed, because he's just the pilot, as it were?

I’m saying that he should be given credit for what he did. If he wrote any of the law, then he deserves credit for that. The law wasn’t his idea, he does not deserve that credit. Because the overwhelming majority of the credit should be given to so many people, the only thing I would credit (and from my perspective fault) to obama is actually getting the bill passed and he shouldn’t even be given all the credit there either.

When the alternative was either vetoing the bill, or adding in a signing statement which allows him to ignore the part he doesn't like, then yes, he should get credit for reaching across the aisle.

We will have to agree to disagree.

Exactly. When the state is denying a right that the federal government guarantees, then the federal government has the right to step in and enforce it. The 14th Amendment gives them that power.

Voting is a right guaranteed by the federal government. Getting married is not. Under the 10th Amendment, the states, not the feds, get to decide who can or cannot get married. The last notable time the feds intervened in marriage was in Loving v. Virginia (1967), which effectively struck down anti-miscegenation laws on the grounds that they were racially biased -- which was against the Federal Civil Rights act of 1964. Again, the 14th Amendment gave the feds juristdiction to enforce its own laws and protections of its citizens.

No such federal protection exists for sexual orientation -- yet. [/QUOTE]

But any state that tries to deny a homosexual marriage is in violation of equality. Each state must treat all members of any sex identically.

The feds argued (and we can argue this one) that health care is guaranteed in the Constitution ("promote the general welfare," and all that) -- Marriage is not. As for "Separate but equal," it because painfully obvious to anyone living in pre-Civil Rights America that "separate" was almost never "equal" in practice.

My point is they are adding things to it’s list. Why not this one? Just because the states can doesn’t mean the fed shouldn’t.

And we've had lousy presidents before; we'll have lousy presidents in the future -- we've always gotten through it. Neither Obama nor Bush come anywhere near the distinction of being the worst... except in the minds of the melodramatic.

I'll grant you, we're in a patch of mediocrity at this point in our history -- Reagan and Clinton (with a mediocre Bush I in between) were flawed but popular and effective presidents -- after them, it is a heck of a drop off to Bush II and Obama, but such is life -- you take the ups with the downs.

They don’t have to be the worst. They just have to be bad enough. And if enough have the same faults, the US will be left with one awful problem in one spot and it can/will drag down what they were good at doing. Say for example every president we have for the next 10 years is awful with the economy. Nothing else will matter because we wont be able to pay for it.

I'm actually thankful we'll never know. And let's face it -- the Manhattan Project was a desperate gamble; we needed The Bomb before the Germans invented it.

It would be nice to know for certain how much some projects have helped/hurt.

Sad to tell you, Obama isn't destroying anything that hasn't been wrecked before -- quit being melodramatic.

A friend once told me that you cant just topple over a vending machine. You should rock it back and forth several times and then its easy. With every time it gets wrecked, people see it and say its happened before and try to convince themselves that its not as bad as it has been before. I cannot claim that this is the worst because I don’t know. I cannot claim that our “vending machine” will fall over because I don’t know. I don’t even know at what point our “vending machine” will fall over. What I do know is that I want change and not the kind of change that is rushed or forced through. I want solid and productive change for the better.

Thank you -- I almost did a spit-take on my monitor.

What Bush did was take the worldwide and domestic support for America from 9/11 and flush it over the remainder of his presidency -- and even that doesn't make him the worst president we've ever had.

Only because you refuse to give him credit for things he's gotten done -- all you think he deserves is blame.

well apparently I haven’t said it straight out yet so I’ll do that now. The operation Obama started in Libya was a great tactical move even if I don’t agree with how he finished it. Sending our troops into Iran to get that shmuck was ballsy, I think there was a better option but I’m not the one with advisors. Literally, I personally feel those two things were the only good things he’s done his whole presidency. Additionally I’ll have to credit him for the gay rights in hospitals thing but I’m still thinking about how much to actually give.

I take it your cousin is a local politician -- ever ask him why he doesn't set his sights higher?
I'll tell you why -- because in order to succeed, he'd have to become something he couldn't stomach. There's a limit to how much a politician can accomplish without selling out; congrats to your cousin for finding his before it was too late.

That’s possible but knowing the man, I think its because he’s just not ambitious.

Yeah, that's the problem with Communism -- Human nature. It looks good on paper, but it only works in practice if everyone plays by the rules.
And if everyone always played by the rules, we wouldn't need jails, now would we?

Sad but true.

When do you stop?

I never stop looking for them. No one is perfect and everyone slips up. If he looks perfect, hes just better at hiding his faults than I am at finding them. A good president wont have to worry about hiding his, but its also important not to fault someone for something that you have no evidence of.

Looked to me like the Repubs preferred stalemating the government rather than let the dems fix things... also a shame.

they would never have had the chance if Obama was doing what America wanted. Getting them jobs. The biggest thing we needed help with was our economy and all Obama did was waste money on “shovel ready” plans that everyone who knew anything knew wasn’t going to do anything. As you said, we need lasting spending.

Never blindly! They support the bad buy because they think he's the good guy -- or they think the other guy is the worse guy.

no, I know plenty of people who blindly vote for the democrat or the repub. Its probably the worst thing you can do but if you try to talk to them about it, make sure they cant easily get to a weapon.

Then don't forget to mention it in every president since the first one.

You can count on it.

Independents = Snowball's chance in Hades. Remember those who fight the system should expect the system to fight back.
The Tea Party tried it; now they're all but absorbed into the GOP. Occupy Wall Street tried it -- they've been minimized and shouted down by the MSM.

David vs. Goliath went the underdog's way in the Bible; results in the real world vary greatly.

Sadly true, but if we don’t have hope, all we are left with is our weapons.

As for hoping the next guy will be better -- maybe he will, maybe he won't -- but don't just hope: research. It's a two party system, so you already know who the next guy is. Do your homework.

In this particular case, is the next guy going to be any different?

Yea, obama actually passed a couple of things he promised. I don’t think Romney will do anything hes promising. I have no idea who I’m voting for. How about you? Do you want to run? (again this isnt entirely literal)