2012 Elections in the USA

[QUOTE=Tiny12;426832]One individual preventing a vote in the USA Senate isn't any worse than 40 out of 100 preventing the vote? Or does that just apply if the majority of the 40 are Republicans?[/QUOTE]It's one person either way. Parties don't filibuster and vote in a bloc unless their party leader tells them to. Last I saw, Mitch McConnell was the same number of people as Harry Reid. They are each engaging in exactly equivalent preventions of simple majority rule in the Senate. You don't seriously mean to make the ludicrous suggestion that McConnell's maneuverings in the Senate and Reid's maneuverings are in any way different in legitimacy under the Senate's rules? If you are suggesting that, you need to dial back on the hallucinogens. Incidentally, the Dems aren't doing anything different from what the Republicans did when they held the majority (but not a super-majority) in the Senate in the 1990s under Trent Lott or in the early years of the Bush administration under Bill Frist. The difference was, the Democrats did not filibuster nearly everything in those Republican majority Senates.

You obviously don't understand how the senate rules work. So let me make this simple for you. If Harry Ried refuses to put a bill on the floor it does not matter if the other 99 senators would vote for the bill, no action can be taken on the bill since Reid will not permit it to be debated or voted on.

You seem to be as confused about the Senate rules as you were about Amendments.

[QUOTE=Doppelganger; 426840]You obviously don't understand how the senate rules work. So let me make this simple for you. If Harry Ried refuses to put a bill on the floor it does not matter if the other 99 senators would vote for the bill, no action can be taken on the bill since Reid will not permit it to be debated or voted on.

You seem to be as confused about the Senate rules as you were about Amendments.[/QUOTE]Actually, it's you who is quite obviously confused. I never once mentioned any Constitutional amendments in any of my posts.

It's true. There are at least 2 books on this:

Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the US House of Representatives (by Robert Draper) (2012)
The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era (by Michael Grunwald) (2012)

Republican strategist Frank Luntz organized a dinner for a small group of Republicans on January 20, 2009. The guest list included House members Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions; and Senate members Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl. Newt Gingrich was there too. From one review:

[QUOTE]The session lasted four hours and by the end the sombre mood had lifted: they had conceived a plan. They would take back the House in November 2010, which they did, and use it as a spear to mortally wound Obama in 2011 and take back the Senate and White House in 2012, Draper writes.

"If you act like you're the minority, you're going to stay in the minority, ' said Kevin McCarthy, quoted by Draper. 'We've got to challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign."[/QUOTE]The second book focused on the Stimulus:

[QUOTE]It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.”[/QUOTE]Passage of health care reform would have been smoother with more Republican support, but based on these accounts you can see there was no way Republicans were going to help Obama.

Republicans strategized right from the beginning to completely obstruct Obama, irregardless of how it affected the country. And that's just sickening and pathetic behavior on their part.

Reid does not control every Senate vote, there are exceptions. Such as the fake "Obama budget" that was voted down 99-0, which I explained before. It is truly staggering how much misinformation comes from the right.

[QUOTE=Esten; 425310]The budget introduced by Republican Senator Jeff Sessions was a a small 56-page document with the same topline numbers as Obama, but no specifics. So it had a connection, giving some cover to call it Obama's budget. But without specifics it was just an empty shell. From the White House: "For example, rather than ending tax breaks for millionaires his budget could hit the revenue target by raising taxes on the middle class and rather than ending wasteful programs, his budget could hit its spending target with severe cuts to important programs."

Predictably, nobody voted for this perverse gimmick.

[url]http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/house-and-senate-unanimously-reject-obama-budgets-or-do-they/[/url]

Wrong. Republicans used a Senate rule allowing any lawmaker to require votes on a budget if the chamber's Budget Committee hasn't produced one by April 1. Senate Dems did not produce one because they considered the Budget Control Act the de facto budget.

When you dig into the details, you learn this was nothing but a Republican stunt for headlines. Anyone who believes Congress voted on Obama's budget, has been duped by the Republican party.[/QUOTE]

I keep thinking if Ryan and Romney wins.

They would have to have meetings with Foreign Countries, negotiating treaties, trade agreements, defense problems, etc.

But, what would the other Countries think about our new government?

One that used misinformation and Lies to win.

How could they Trust the USA any more.

A Governor that has changed his position more times than his age and a new young guy that says he ran a Marathon in 2 hours plus: which really was around four hours.

The Countries watch what is going on in our politics. They know they Lie and Change positions, how can They Trust Us?

Romney has already insulted a few countries already.

[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/romneys-foreign-policy-offers-more-rhetoric-than-content/2012/09/26/9a892138-073d-11e2-858a-5311df86ab04_story.html?wprss=rss_national-security[/url]

I keep thinking if Obama and Biden wins.

They would have to have meetings with Foreign Countries, negotiating treaties, trade agreements, defense problems, etc.

But, what would the other Countries think about our new government?

One that used misinformation and Lies to win.

How could they Trust the USA any more.

A President that has changed his position more times than his age, and a old guy that couldn't run a marathon, period.

The Countries watch what is going on in our politics. They know they Lie and Change positions, how can They Trust Us?

Obama has already insulted a few countries already.

[QUOTE]'We've got to challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign."[/QUOTE]How is this different from the Democrat's own strategies in the past?

[QUOTE]. in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency.[/QUOTE]I know that this is hard for you to envision, but the fact is that Cantor and McConnell fought to stop Obama because they genuinely thought that the Obama Stimulus Program was a waste of money. As it turns out, they were right.

However, here's the real issue: A [u]REAL[/u] leader would have met with, schmoozed, backslapped, buttonholed and otherwise used his innate people skills to bring his detractors together to get things done, much like Clinton did with Gingrich on a number of issues.

Unfortunately, Obama does not possess these leadership skills. This is his failing.

Thanks,

Jackson

[QUOTE=Jackson;426857]I know that this is hard for you to envision, but the fact is that Cantor and McConnell fought to stop Obama because they genuinely thought that the Obama Stimulus Program was a waste of money. As it turns out, they were right.[/QUOTE]There's no evidence whatsoever that Obama's stimulus package was a waste of money. Much more likely is that the Stimulus prevented the USA economy from falling into a worse depression than that of the early 1930s, given the magnitude of the job losses and wealth losses that occurred at the beginning of the crisis (the wealth loss is the one that is under-appreciated. The nation lost more than half of it's aggregate wealth, in terms of stock equity, housing equity and savings. But over 2/3 of that lost equity has been restored in the intervening years of the Obama Presidency). If the stimulus was a failure in any way, it's that it was too small, and not enough oriented toward infrastructure investment on the energy front to put a dent in our dependency on foreign oil.

And there is a big difference between objecting to one bill (which actually passed) and obstructing everything, including the positions that they themselves had previously espoused, simply because it came from Obama.

BTW, I completely agree with you, Jackson, about what Obama's main failing is, as I said earlier, in that regard, he's no Bill Clinton. The best evidence of this was how he got rolled during the debt ceiling fiasco. Clinton basically stated that Obama should have made the public statement at the outset that he had the Constitutional power to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling to meet the nation's obligations through executive order, and then said, given that, what he PREFERRED to do was to reach a grand bargain that lowered the deficit and raised revenue over time. Instead. Obama said up front that he wouldn't do that, thus completely handing the leverage to Cantor and McConnell, and he got played, and lost his ability to get that deal done. That being said, while Obama is no Bill Clinton, thankfully, he's no Mitt Romney either, and Romney has not advocated a single, solitary economic policy that hasn't already proven to be a failure under prior administrations.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;426864]There's no evidence whatsoever that Obama's stimulus package was a waste of money. .[/QUOTE]Hahahahahaha!

Regarding your comments about the state of the economy, lots of countries have been through tough recessions in the last 20 years that chopped chopped their aggregate wealth in half. Russia, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. They acted responsibly, took their medicine, and set stable bases for growth going forward. The United States under Obama and Bernanke on the other hand seems to be following the southern European model. It won't work.

[QUOTE=Tiny12; 426866]Hahahahahaha!

Regarding your comments about the state of the economy, lots of countries have been through tough recessions in the last 20 years that chopped chopped their aggregate wealth in half. Russia, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. They acted responsibly, took their medicine, and set stable bases for growth going forward. The United States under Obama on the other hand seems to be following the southern European model. It won't work.[/QUOTE]Oh yeah, Mexico's economy is really booming now.

[QUOTE=Member #2041;426867]Oh yeah, Mexico's economy is really booming now.[/QUOTE]Yep. 3.9% GDP growth last year, despite having us as their largest trading partner. Perhaps I should have said "bases for sound economies" instead of "bases for growth." If you look at government debts and deficits, the countries on my list are in good shape, while we, Japan and much of Western Europe are headed for financial Armageddon in the long term unless something changes. Obama's 4 years accelerated this in the USA.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;426868]Yep. 3.9% GDP growth last year, despite having us as their largest trading partner. Perhaps I should have said "bases for sound economies" instead of "bases for growth." If you look at government debts and deficits, the countries on my list are in good shape, while we, Japan and much of Western Europe are headed for financial Armageddon in the long term unless something changes. Obama's 4 years accelerated this in the USA.[/QUOTE]Growth from a catastrophic base level does not mean an economy is sound, Mexico is a basket case. Oh, and BTW, the percentage of overall economic activity that comes from government spending vs. the private sector, excluding defense, in Mexico is FAR greater than in the U.S. In any case, the fact is, other than South Korea, every economy you mentioned is only growing because they started out as a 3rd world country, with well below average prosperity. South Korea happens to have the biggest increase in manufacturing productivity in the world over the past several years, which is the basis for their growth. Indonesia is similar but to a lesser degree. Thailand is not by any means healthy, and Russia is benefitting from moving to being an open society from a formerly totalitarian one. The simple fact is, under policies such as those that Mitt Romney espouses, by definition, poor countries will do better than affluent countries moving forward, because every nation will drift toward the mean, and ALL affluent economies will do poorly relatively speaking. In that scenario, there is no possible way that an affluent country can do well, it can merely slow the drift toward the mean. But Romney's policies accelerate that process as the manufacturing jobs are aggressively outsourced. Only tax policy and trade barriers can slow that down, while aggressive education and training policies for the middle class. Which Romney opposes, can actually allow the country to maintain some sort of comparitive advantage worldwide. That's what has happened with South Korea.

Basically, any poor country, that has any infrastructure at all, unless it has a repressive regime that limits mobility and communication, such as North Korea or Burma, will by definition have far more robust growth than will advanced, developed nations, as all of their high-value jobs tend to get outsourced. And policies such as Romney's tend to accelerate that process, thus allowing only the wealthiest people to benefit who can leverage that, at the expense of the vast majority of the populace. Suggesting that the loss of half of the U.S. wealth, without much of it being restored as quickly as possible, would have been beneficial for the U.S. in the long haul is utterly ludicrous. If Mitt Romney's policies were to really be implemented in the U.S., in a couple of decades there really would be very little to distinguish the U.S. economy from that of Mexico, except that the poor and the middle class in Mexico do get basic healthcare at little to no cost.

Provide any proof what so ever Obama's Stimulus package 'saved' the country from a worse recession.

Well, well, now are we finding it difficult to prove a negative? Liberals demand this of conservatives all the time. How does it feel to now have the proverbial shoe on the other foot?

As you cannot find any creditable definitive data to support your assertion it would have been worse without the Stimulus, let us deal with the reality.

1. Obama promised, if enacted, his Stimulus package would prevent unemployment from rising over 8% and be a little over 5% by this date. Unemployment increased beyond 10% and is still above 8.

2. Obama also promised prosperity and a thriving economy by this date as well. Our current anemic growth rate is so low it will not even provide enough jobs for those entering the work force each year much less recover all the jobs lost, not to mention the growth rate is so low it barely keeps us above a second recession.

3. Not to mention Obama promised to cut the deficit in half during his first term in office, which means the deficit should be at $5 Trillion and change by this date, but he instead increased the national debit by 50% all by his little self in just 3. 5 years.

Get a grip, it's a bust and the money was wasted in real terms of promised performance vs actual results.

I know, I know, Bush did it, the Republicans did it, the rich did it everyone is to blame except the Democrats and Obama.

Usually senate leaders do not "block" important agendas from floor debate since members could retaliate it by filibustering other legislation the leaders want to debate and pass. However, they may not introduce an agenda opposed by 40plus senators to the floor, since the bill would meet filibuster and waste time otherwise. A report or allegation that Reid blocked a bill seems to be unfounded.
[QUOTE=Jackson; 426829]Yes, but many of those bills had 51 Senators supporting them, but we'll never know because Reid won't even let them come up for a vote.

That's just wrong.[/QUOTE]