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Silver Star, Good points. Bush and Republicans did their part in running up the debt, although the Democrats are worse than the Republicans. Gary Johnson would be my ideal candidate. I agree with most of his platform. I believe Romney and Ryan have a chance at pulling us back from the precipice. They're cut from a different mold. One has actually fixed broken companies and an Olympics, and the second is truly concerned about the effect of government indebtedness on the future of the country.
Any Obama fans?
[url]http://exitoina.com/2012-10-22-130037-la-espectacular-cola-que-apoya-a-obama/[/url]
I am no genius but I think a lot of people feel very comfortable with Romney after this 3rd debate.
[QUOTE=El Alamo;427983]I am no genius but I think a lot of people feel very comfortable with Romney after this 3rd debate.[/QUOTE]I'm no genius either but, I think a plurality of the American voters now know that our president is a petulant c*nt.
I'm no Romney fan-boy but, this Obama is a freakin' train wreck on so many levels. I am hoping for a change.
[QUOTE=Tiny12;427971]Silver Star, Good points. Bush and Republicans did their part in running up the debt, although the Democrats are worse than the Republicans. Gary Johnson would be my ideal candidate. I agree with most of his platform. I believe Romney and Ryan have a chance at pulling us back from the precipice. They're cut from a different mold. One has actually fixed broken companies and an Olympics, and the second is truly concerned about the effect of government indebtedness on the future of the country.[/QUOTE]There should be no quarter for politicians that wantonly run up the national debt, REGARDLESS OF PARTY.
I'm kind of surprised there is not more focus on Congress vs. The presidential administration as far as the debt goes. Congress is the one with the final say on the budget. I wonder if four year Congressional terms might be cheaper and also reduce the temptation of first-term legislators to immediately introduce pork legislation to ensure re-election. I'd like to focus a bit more on the QUALITY of government spending. For sure that is a hard thing to measure but what if we cut the number of legislators in half? That would not change the power balance between the House and Senate in any terms other than empire building terms. Save a lot of money that way. I agree with Romney that multiple government agencies could be eliminated, or at least consolidated. I would start with the whole FBI CIA Homeland Security cluster fuck. In a global world I see no reason to separate the FBI and the CIA, in particular, and those fuckers gobble up a LOT of funds. That whole spook industry is a lot more information intensive and a lot less capital intensive than it once was, so let's capture the savings from that. The DEA can go, too. I would address hard drug smuggling through a more comprehensive and consolidated immigration and border control policy. You have the INS and the border patrol at odds at times. I do advocate evaluating everyone who wants to come into the country, one way or the other; it just stands to reason we want the most qualified immigrants we can get.
[QUOTE=Tiny12;427971]Silver Star, Good points. Bush and Republicans did their part in running up the debt, although the Democrats are worse than the Republicans. Gary Johnson would be my ideal candidate. I agree with most of his platform. I believe Romney and Ryan have a chance at pulling us back from the precipice. They're cut from a different mold. One has actually fixed broken companies and an Olympics, and the second is truly concerned about the effect of government indebtedness on the future of the country.[/QUOTE]This brings up the question of whether the fact that we have essentially been a two party system for over 100 years has led to the extremism I complain about. Johnson is just a Republican who couldn't get nominated so became a Libertarian, and would become a Rhinoceros if that would get him elected, but in general I'm increasingly questioning the two-party system. Run off elections are messy and inefficient but it seems like in the electronic age we could handle it. It might help in consensus building. I don't think the average American has very good consensus building skills. We tend to dominate efforts at coalition building (see Bretton Woods, for example). I personally find myself looking for more centrist candidates in local elections in particular; there are some real wing nuts on my local ballot right now, both left and right.
[QUOTE=Dickhead;427998]This brings up the question of whether the fact that we have essentially been a two party system for over 100 years has led to the extremism I complain about. Johnson is just a Republican who couldn't get nominated so became a Libertarian, and would become a Rhinoceros if that would get him elected, but in general I'm increasingly questioning the two-party system. Run off elections are messy and inefficient but it seems like in the electronic age we could handle it. It might help in consensus building. I don't think the average American has very good consensus building skills. We tend to dominate efforts at coalition building (see Bretton Woods, for example). I personally find myself looking for more centrist candidates in local elections in particular; there are some real wing nuts on my local ballot right now, both left and right.[/QUOTE]The multi-party system seems to be even worse. I follow New Zealand politics much closer than I do US politics. The mult-party system leads to extreme situations of the tail wagging the dog. For example, if there was an election in New Zealand right now, the governing conservative party would probably get about 45-48% of the vote. So, if all the other parties got together, you would have the liberal party in power while only getting 30% of the vote. And the government would be beholden to every single party in its coalition. It is a real possibility that all those parties would get together and the result would be political paralysis.
Chezz, I didn't follow US politics closely at the time, but somewhere in the 1960-1970s, things changed. We used to have a lot of conservative democrats in the South. Now conservative Southerners are mostly Republican. Something happened to make them change parties. And whatever caused them to switch parties also seems to have lead to the polarization of the two main parties.
One of the two main parties is going to destroy itself. Right now, it seems like a race in mutual self-destruction. But eventually, those of us in the middle will form a new party. Hopefully, it is something along the lines of our founding fathers (aka Libertarian), but we are likely years away from that situation.
[QUOTE=El Alamo;427983]I am no genius but I think a lot of people feel very comfortable with Romney after this 3rd debate.[/QUOTE]You must have watched a different debate than the one that was televised last night. I thought it was amusing how Romney essentially agreed with everything Obama has actually done in foreign policy, yet contended that Obama's doing so weakened us. It was also indicative that Romney's internal polling must have told him that he got his ass handed to him in the last debate about the Libyan Consulate attacks, so he never went back to the issue in this debate.
This is hilarious. CBS had a post 3rd debate panel of 8 'undecided' voters from Ohio. Repeat Ohio. Surprise, surprise. 6 became romney supporters after the 3rd debate and 2 became Obama supporters. It looked like the CBS anchors were going to stroke out when they heard the results. I guess they were beginning to believe their own BS about how well Obama did in the third debate.
To me, Romney was masterful. Obama spent $300 million dollars in ads this summer trying to portray Romney as Snidely Whiplash come to foreclose the mortgage. In each debate Romney came across as kind, caring and capable and Romney has President written all over him. The third debate probably sealed the deal for Romney.
[QUOTE=Dickhead;427997]I'm kind of surprised there is not more focus on Congress vs. The presidential administration as far as the debt goes. Congress is the one with the final say on the budget. I wonder if four year Congressional terms might be cheaper and also reduce the temptation of first-term legislators to immediately introduce pork legislation to ensure re-election. I'd like to focus a bit more on the QUALITY of government spending. For sure that is a hard thing to measure but what if we cut the number of legislators in half? That would not change the power balance between the House and Senate in any terms other than empire building terms. Save a lot of money that way. I agree with Romney that multiple government agencies could be eliminated, or at least consolidated. I would start with the whole FBI CIA Homeland Security cluster fuck. In a global world I see no reason to separate the FBI and the CIA, in particular, and those fuckers gobble up a LOT of funds. That whole spook industry is a lot more information intensive and a lot less capital intensive than it once was, so let's capture the savings from that. The DEA can go, too. I would address hard drug smuggling through a more comprehensive and consolidated immigration and border control policy. You have the INS and the border patrol at odds at times. I do advocate evaluating everyone who wants to come into the country, one way or the other; it just stands to reason we want the most qualified immigrants we can get.[/QUOTE]There are some VERY robust reasons for keeping the CIA and the FBI separated. In particular, the issue about the primacy of the civil liberties of American citizens, vs the way we deal with potential adversaries. The fact that in the post 9/11 world, both parties have agreed to trade liberties for a perception of enhanced security does not ameliorate the need to continue to maintain this divide. Arguably, it makes it more imperative than ever. So that it remains clear that the compromises to civil liberties that we have seen take place post 9/11 remain understood to be emergency exceptions, and never actually become the accepted norms of the way our government operates. Even if in fact, the govt. IS spying on it's own citizens in ways that would make our founding fathers turn over in their graves. This must never be allowed become the standard operating procedure without being continually questioned as the impingement over citizens' rights that it is, possibly acceptable in emergencies, but never tolerated as NORMAL. Merging the FBI and CIA would eliminate any difference in the manner with which citizens rights are forfeited as being no different from those of non-citizen potential enemies of the state.
As for Homeland Security, I would put it under the CIA, but that would inherently come with severe restrictions upon their jurisdiction over American Citizens, other than when they are returning to the U.S. from foreign soil.
[QUOTE=El Alamo; 428004]This is hilarious. CBS had a post 3rd debate panel of 8 'undecided' voters from Ohio. Repeat Ohio. Surprise, surprise. 6 became romney supporters after the 3rd debate and 2 became Obama supporters. It looked like the CBS anchors were going to stroke out when they heard the results. I guess they were beginning to believe their own BS about how well Obama did in the third debate.
To me, Romney was masterful. Obama spent $300 million dollars in ads this summer trying to portray Romney as Snidely Whiplash come to foreclose the mortgage. In each debate romney came across as kind, caring and capable and Romney had President written all over him. The third debate probably sealed the deal for Romney.[/QUOTE]Small sample, completely unscientific. The more scientific polling is running something like 50% Obama. 30% Romney, among undecided voters, across a broad range of polls. Incidentally, your latter observation is a textbook example of why the opinions of those who have already made up their minds are discounted as being irrelevant in these sorts of analysis. Because you will fit any result, no matter how contrary, with your already locked-in belief structure. Romney could stand on his head yelling that Obama is a Kenyan Muslim and you would observe how Presidential Romney looked while doing so.
[QUOTE=Member #2041;428007]Small sample, completely unscientific. The more scientific polling is running something like 50% Obama. 30% Romney, among undecided voters, across a broad range of polls. Incidentally, your latter observation is a textbook example of why the opinions of those who have already made up their minds are discounted as being irrelevant in these sorts of analysis. Because you will fit any result, no matter how contrary, with your already locked-in belief structure. Romney could stand on his head yelling that Obama is a Kenyan Muslim and you would observe how Presidential Romney looked while doing so.[/QUOTE]Me thinks Obama is throwing in the towel
[QUOTE=El Alamo;428009]Me thinks Obama is throwing in the towel[/QUOTE]Are you a comedian? Just curious.
The handwriting is on the wall. The house of cards known as Obama is collapsing