"A black sheriff?!": The Official Topic of Obama and New Era American Politics

[The Fake Shemp]

UH HELLO ITS SNOWING EARLY IN TEXAS YOUR STUPID SCIENCE HOAX IS EXPOSED

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Who the fuck cares about the East coast?

Today the temperatures were so cold and winds so high that it felt like my face was freezing off.

[FlameOfCallandor]

I wonder if Global warming will come back... say around next April or so? 

[Flannel Boy]

Who the fuck cares about the East coast?

Today the temperatures were so cold and winds so high that it felt like my face was freezing off.

1200 km north of you.
Cry moar.

[Flannel Boy]

I wonder whether an isolated cold front is insufficient to decide whether the Earth, as a whole, is warming.

I wonder if Global warming will come back... say around next April or so? 

I wonder whether the Earth has a Southern Hemisphere.

[Boogie]

Who the fuck cares about the East coast?

Today the temperatures were so cold and winds so high that it felt like my face was freezing off.

1200 km north of you.
Cry moar.

This guy on a police forum I post on has this as his sig:

"Welcome to Winnipeg.  We were born here, what's your excuse?"

Well?

[Flannel Boy]

First Cute-Girl, now you?

[Oblivion]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/12/teabagging_is_the_new_nr.php?ref=fpblg

  They don't even get why people call them teabaggers.

I thought they came up with the term themselves?

[Phoenix Dark]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/3/810660/-Palin-goes-birther

She's finally reached the highest point of crazy. No where else to go but down now

[Mandark]

You'd think if Palin would have any scrap of decency or empathy, it would be in the area of politicians dealing with unfounded personal rumors.  Oh well.


PS fwiw we just had the 2nd hottest October on record, following the outright hottest September.


PPS Did you know that Ron Paul voted for a bill that increased the federal debt by ~$2 trillion?  With no offsetting spending cuts attached or anything?  Tsk tsk.

[Brehvolution]

Didn't you hear Mandark? It might snow in Texas.

[FlameOfCallandor]

PPS Did you know that Ron Paul voted for a bill that increased the federal debt by ~$2 trillion?  With no offsetting spending cuts attached or anything?  Tsk tsk.

What bill?

[FlameOfCallandor]

I wish I lived in oblivious bliss a.k.a. liberal la la land. 

[Human Snorenado]

I wish I lived in oblivious bliss a.k.a. liberal la la land. 

It has it's benefits; for example we don't have to continually look at the inside of our own anus, like libertopians with their heads up their own asses.

[FlameOfCallandor]

[youtube=560,345]OM9jhGiIAFM[/youtube] <-- card cheat, triumph, Biff or whatever the fuck you go y these days.

[Brehvolution]

And we don't get spoon fed shit we are supposed to hate. I didn't always hate republicans and conservative types and I sure as hell wasn't told to despise them.

[Phoenix Dark]

In reality we're spineless cowards who snunk away at the first sign of conflict  :'(

[Stoney Mason]

I am not the Eric Burns who heads Media Matters, the liberal watchdog group. I am the Eric Burns who used to host Fox News Watch on the right-wing partial-news-but-mostly-opinion network. In the past year and a half, since departing from Ailes and friends, I have been much more silent about media matters than my namesake.

I speak out now because it is the time of year when one is supposed to count blessings. I have several. Among them is that I do not have to face the ethical problem of sharing an employer with Glenn Beck.

Actually, Beck is a problem of taste as well as ethics. He laughs and cries; he pouts and giggles; he makes funny faces and grins like a cartoon character; he makes earnest faces yet insists he is a clown; he cavorts like a victim of St. Vitus's Dance. His means of communicating are, in other words, so wide-ranging as to suggest derangement as much as versatility.

He is Huey Long without the political office.

He is Father Coughlin without the dour expression.

He is John Birch without the Society.

He is an embarrassment to all true conservatives, men and women who believe sincerely, thoughtfully and sensibly that the role of government in American life should be limited.

Of course, Beck does not call himself a conservative; he is, rather, a libertarian, which may be defined as a conservative-squared, a person who wants the feds to collect no money in taxes, spend no money on programs, but make available all services that the libertarian deems necessary for his own convenience and safety.

It is remarkable that Beck has attracted the amount of attention he has. Remarkable because, every night, Fox's Sean Hannity and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann stage a duel of one-sidedness in political commentary that would have been the talk, and the shame, of a more civil era.

Remarkable because, every night, Fox's Bill O'Reilly stages an exhibition of contentiousness, mean-spiritedness and self-aggrandizement that would similarly have affronted civil viewers of the past.

Remarkable because, every night, CNN's Campbell Brown stages an exhibition of a different kind, one of honorable pugnacity, an exhibition that would have stimulated viewers of the past but instead makes her a part of her network's continuing decline in prime-time ratings.

Yet Glenn Beck surpasses them all. He is the talk of the talkers. It is he who causes commentators to comment, fans to swoom, foes to fulminate. And it is he who has motivated me to burrow up from my literary researches to opine on journalism one more time.

I ask myself what I would have done if I worked at Fox now. Would I have quit, as the estimable Jane Hall did? Once a panelist on my program, Hall departed for other reasons as well, but Beck was a particular source of embarrassment to her, even though they never shared a studio, perhaps never even met.

I think . . . I think the answer to my question does not do me proud. I think, more concerned about income than principle, I would have continued to work at Fox, but spent my spare time searching avidly for other employment. I think I would not have been as admirable as Jane Hall. I think I would not have reacted to Beck with the probity I like to think I possess.

But, in my defense, I would never have gone out in public without wearing those funny black eyeglasses with no glass, bushy eyebrows and a fake nose.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-burns/if-i-still-worked-at-fox_b_376972.html

[The Fake Shemp]

He will be dead by sundown. His family too, if he has angered Ailes enough.

[Mandark]

PPS Did you know that Ron Paul voted for a bill that increased the federal debt by ~$2 trillion?  With no offsetting spending cuts attached or anything?  Tsk tsk.

What bill?

You're the one who's so well-informed, kid.  You tell me.

[FlameOfCallandor]

I'm too busy fighting off global warming here in a fucking Houston blizzard. 

[Mandark]

Blizzard?  Really?

Not the first time FoC's wildly exaggerated something that was really just 1-3 inches.   

[FlameOfCallandor]

If it's lower than 60 degrees it's a fucking blizzard in Houston.

[Mandark]

In the short term, cutting spending would prolong the recession.

In the long term...

[Stoney Mason]

What would happen if we went with the Republican agenda, i.e. scrapping the health care bill, stopping cap and trade, cutting spending, cutting taxes?

[Brehvolution]

What would happen if we went with the Republican agenda, i.e. scrapping the health care bill, stopping cap and trade, cutting spending, cutting taxes? I'm having trouble envisioning all the ramifications of their proposals.

Couldn't it be said that the way things are now is because of the republican agenda?

[Stoney Mason]

What would happen if we went with the Republican agenda, i.e. scrapping the health care bill, stopping cap and trade, cutting spending, cutting taxes? I'm having trouble envisioning all the ramifications of their proposals.

Couldn't it be said that the way things are now is because of the republican agenda?

But you have to remember those weren't real conservatives because they didn't cut spending! Reagan, Bush, Bush #2 were all faux conservatives

Once you get a real conservative in there to cut the budget it will ALL WORK!!!!

So we need to either elect Sarah Palin or Ron Paul! NOW!!!

[Brehvolution]

30 years of fake conservatives. Could one surmise that they are all phonies?

[Human Snorenado]

What do you guys make of the notion that the health care bill is one of the big reasons businesses aren't hiring?

Load of crap.

[The Fake Shemp]

Triumph just can't handle the truth!

[Kestastrophe]

What do you guys make of the notion that the health care bill is one of the big reasons businesses aren't hiring?

That's bullshit. Sounds almost like Ricardian Equivalence

[FlameOfCallandor]

What do you guys think about

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nobody knowing WHERE THE FUCK THE STIMULUS MONEY WENT?

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[Dickie Dee]

Blizzard?  Really?

Not the first time FoC's wildly exaggerated something that was really just 1-3 inches.   

[Human Snorenado]

[The Fake Shemp]

Free market = code word for special interest groups that fund my campaign
Spending government money on projects executed by the private sector = socialism

[Stoney Mason]

What do you guys think about

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nobody knowing WHERE THE FUCK THE STIMULUS MONEY WENT?

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My wife is working on a project paid for by stimulus money.  They just hired some people to work on it.

So your wife is a communist. Great. 

[The Fake Shemp]

I've met his wife. I can confirm that she is, indeed, a communist. She has a thick Russian accent, and she kept asking me for directions to military installations. It was weird.

[Dickie Dee]

(Image removed from quote.)

Bu-bu-bu-bububu

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...bu!

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[Phoenix Dark]

bubububu...war time

[Mandark]

What do you guys make of the notion that the health care bill is one of the big reasons businesses aren't hiring?

About as credible as businesses not hiring cause Obama bowed to Japan's head samurai.

[Mandark]

Since fisking, like Romney's talking points, are soooo 2003 I'll just sum up:

Businesses aren't holding off on investing because of some potential policy changes that haven't been passed through Congress and won't take effect for years even if they are.  They're holding off on investing because we're in the middle of a fucking recession.  They know that there's less being spent, so they're not going to be able to sell as much, and are cutting production as a result.  This started happening way before Obama took office, and it's happened many times with no regard to the partisan affiliation of the current president.

Mitt Romney knows this.  He spent time in the private sector, and fired enough people to understand how the process works.  Nobody's out there saying "Gee, I was gonna build a couple new factories to sell my widgets, but because of the possibility of a cap-and-trade bill several years down the road, that doesn't even target my particular industry, I'm just going to sit on this cash!"

I mean, honestly now.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I do know of quite a few people who truly believe businesses and people are too scared to invest a dime into anything because of the cap and trade, health care, etc. initiatives. 

[ToxicAdam]

I agree with Mandark on this one. It's really just bottom lines we are talking about here. You budget your spending for the quarter on perceived revenues and then go from there. Infrastructure spending gets puts on the back burner first.

The other Romney talking point has me scratching my head:

Repair the stimulus. Freeze the funds that haven't yet been spent and redirect them to immediate, private sector job-creation priorities.


I could be mistaken, but I think a good portion of the stimulus money left is actually TAX CUTS that are supposed to take effect in 2010. Good luck being a Republican and cancelling tax cuts.

[FlameOfCallandor]

Is There a Doctor in the House?

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Ron Paul, the GOP's unlikely savior.

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http://www.newsweek.com/id/225723

[brawndolicious]

It basically just says that Paul's ideas are "unworkable", that his fans can be fairly crazy, and that he basically bombed in the presidential primaries.  But that despite all that, some of his ideas eventually gained traction after several years (wrt recent Federal Reserve auditing).  So basically just by being patient and saying the same thing over and over again, he gained some grassroots type support for his very unorthodox policies, and that that is something the GOP should study and try to emulate some-fucking-how.

The writer is pretty clearly saying that the republicans should try to get the type of supporters that he has to come to their side, not that they should emulate the man himself as he's at best considered untouchable among the party leaders.  What was your point in linking that?

[Mandark]

Ron Paul's kind of interesting in that I don't think he's ever accomplished anything politically.  <Biden>And I mean that sincerely.</Biden>

As a candidate, he got lots of people to click on his tip jar.  As a Congressman, he votes no on everything and uses hearings as an opportunity to badger people with mind-bogglingly dumb questions.  Has anything substantive come of it?

He doesn't bother sponsoring or amending bills because he's so dogmatic about the illegitimacy of everything the federal government does.  So he gives up any practical chance at moving policy towards his goals.  If he had any effect whatsoever on the platforms or rhetoric of the mainstream GOP candidates, I didn't see it.  He seemed completely uninterested in pressuring them to take more libertarian stances.



edit:  I just brought today's WaPo in from the snow, and the Outlook section's feature piece is an editorial by Eliot A. Cohen.  What the fuck guys?  Morning ruined.  Going back to sleep.

[Dickie Dee]

I don't think Dr. Paul's real-world irrelevancy is a bug, it's a feature. If he actually staked out real, implementable ideas it's pretty clear how quickly his worldview would be objectively ridiculous, along with all his critter followers.

[Kestastrophe]

Tax policy shifts the Aggregate Supply curve through the labor markets, but I have no idea if that would change hiring practices 

[Brehvolution]

Question: would a big tax hike on the top 2% of earners in the country encourage companies to pay their executives less and hire more workers/raise salaries for the average employee? Or would there be some other result that I'm not thinking of?

They only pay capital gains(15%) anyway. Plus, in 2003, Bush cut their tax rate 19% effectively while only giving the other 95% of Americans a 4% tax cut. This is class warfare and it needs to be fought back.

[FlameOfCallandor]

Question: If we raise taxes on people that provide jobs will that make them more likely to spend money?

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liberal logic

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[Boogie]

Question: If we raise taxes on people that provide jobs will that make them more likely to spend money?

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liberal logic

[close]

I'm going to beat you with a stick.

[FlameOfCallandor]

A stick would work better than your shitty logic.

[Boogie]

A stick would work better than your shitty logic.

Please give evidence of my shitty logic.

Since in the past five pages, I'm pretty sure my only posts have been making fun of Winnipeg and expressing the desire to beat you (more) senseless.

[FlameOfCallandor]

I genuinely want to see one of you guys suggest something that doesnt reeuire taxes to be raised. You cannot do it.

Anyway, nothing exists in a vacuum. Raises taxes anyone will not stimulate anything. The only way you can lower the job rate is to get people spending again. That's not gonna happen if you start talking about raising taxes.

[Van Cruncheon]

flame, your knowledge of basic economics could fit in danny bonaduce's condom with room for his spurt remaining.

that said, we can lower taxes for some folks -- if we raise them steeply on other folks and entities

[Van Cruncheon]

i want the upper 1-2% and corporations taxed at eisenhower levels, and taxation for the middle class and small businesses whacked in half. trouble is, the middle class and small businesses actually PAY their taxes :'(

[The Fake Shemp]

Prole, but your solution forces the disgustingly filthy rich to settle for being merely filthy rich. That's ridiculous, and not the American way.

[Van Cruncheon]

even worse, it means money for the filthy lazy useless poors comes disproportionately out of the coffers of the wealthy, who are all hard-working geniuses and not at all silver-spoon dynastic heirs or opportunistic market gamblers or usurious bankers with privileged access to the majority of society's resources. besides, have you seen the poor people, recently? they are so gross. they poop out lots of babies and pretend to be sick because they are crazy! WHY SHOULD PARIS HILTON'S OR BERNIE MADOFF'S HARD EARNED DOLLARS GO TO GETTING THEM HD TEEVEES AND CIGARETTES??


edit: bubububububububu john galt-esque industrialists! IN MY AMERICA? not a chance!

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

tax reform is perhaps needed more badly in this nation then health care reform, and getting that done would be even more difficult.

There's billions and billions and billions of dollars left on the table, so the speak, that the government could be or should be using that is not being collected, or just isn't being taxed.  When Warren Buffet says he's being taxed unfairly, in that he's not being taxed enough for the health of the country, I'd listen to him.

[Human Snorenado]

Question: If we raise taxes on people that provide jobs will that make them more likely to spend money?

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liberal logic

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You know, we had pretty good economic growth from the late 40's to mid 70's when, you know, the rate on the top earners was like 70%.  Oops.  Pesky facts.