American Politics during the Obama Presidency

[QUOTE=Moveon; 416129]HA. HA! Hehehehe-

According to previous comments by the esteemed Militia members of this forum, social security is currently bankrupt!

Or, was this the typical mis-information by these same "patriots?"

We should just be eternally thankful that George W. Bush's quest to privatize it went nowhere. [/QUOTE]Clearly, moreon is unable to engage in reasoned debate due to a combined lack of reason and intelligence. In light of his shortcomings, he compensates by using inordinate amounts of intellectual dishonesty, which can catch one off guard, given the aforementioned dearth of intelligence.

Would you please identify for me what the SS 'trust fund' is, where it is deposited and what the assets and liabilities of the 'trust fund' are? Would you also mind telling us how the assets of the trust fund are invested and what the expected returns are on those investments?

Thanks. Looking forward to your response.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;416174]Would you please identify for me what the SS 'trust fund' is, where it is deposited and what the assets and liabilities of the 'trust fund' are? Would you also mind telling us how the assets of the trust fund are invested and what the expected returns are on those investments?[/QUOTE]Who said anything about a trust fund?

Well, I knew after a while, the same neocons that had the brilliant idea of invading Iraq would need to find another reason to get into another war.

Yup, you guessed it. Paul Wolfowitz. Bush's favorite advisor cannot just say no, it seems.

According his newspaper article last week, he states: "It is both morally right and in America's strategic interest to enable the Libyans to fight. And in preventing Gadhafi and his sons from restoring their reign of terror (blah, blah, blah)."

Basically, what Republican Senator John McCain and many Tea Party idealists like Sarah Palin, etc.

But wait just one minute.

What about the budget deficit?

Is this not the TOP PRIORITY of this nation?

These are the same Republicans who say that the US is so broke and that we need to cut spending on domestic services that actually help our tax payers.

Heck, no problem finding the money for wars and military adventures.

No problem at all.

Moreon wants to stifle all points of view that don't align with those of our glorious leader. Problem is, our glorious leader is AWOL and has failed to lead on any substantive issue from the budget to Egypt, from Libya to Japan. Therefore, I guess every point of view is in violation of Moreon's thought police.

[QUOTE=Moveon; 416194]Well, I knew after a while, the same neocons that had the brilliant idea of invading Iraq would need to find another reason to get into another war.

Yup, you guessed it. Paul Wolfowitz. This scholar cannot just say, no it seems.

According his newspaper article last week, he states: "It is both morally right and in America's strategic interest to enable the Libyans to fight. And in preventing Gadhafi and his sons from restoring their reign of terror (blah, blah, blah)."[/quote]What position does Wolfowitz hold in this administration? Why shouldn't he be free to express his opinions?

[quote=]Basically, what Republican Senator John McCain and many Tea Party idealists like Sarah Palin, etc.[/quote]Please provide any evidence supporting your claim that either McCain or Palin has advocated invading Libya.

[quote=]But wait just one minute.

What about the budget deficit?

Is this not our nations TOP PRIORITY? [/quote]Not if you ask Obama. The most important thing for him is videotaping his NCAA picks so that they can be played on ESPN. He's far more interested in being a celebrity than he is in being a leader.

[quote=]These are the same Republicans who say that the US is so broke and that we need to cut spending on domestic services that actually help our tax payers.[/quote]Why do you use the plural? Neither McCain nor Palin were part of the Bush administration.

If Obama didn't blow $5T on Democrat give-aways, we wouldn't be in this problem, despite the expense of the wars.

[quote=]Heck, no problem finding the money for wars and military adventures.

No problem at all. [/QUOTE]Considering Obama has given away and wasted more money in two years than the country has spent on both wars, combined, should give you a certain amount of pause. However, I doubt your yap ever stops flapping long enough for any form of contemplation.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;416196]Why shouldn't he be free to express his opinions? [/QUOTE]Sure. It's a free country, last time I checked. It's bizarre though, that after the Iraq fiasco, he wants more of it.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;416196]Please provide any evidence supporting your claim that either McCain or Palin has advocated invading Libya. [/QUOTE]They are all for advocating helping the rebels with arms, munitions, no fly zone, etc. Look it up.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;416196]Why do you use the plural? Neither McCain nor Palin were part of the Bush administration.[/QUOTE]They are all REPUBLICANS who wish to spend MORE of our tax dollars on wars and now, a civil war in Libya.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;416196]If Obama didn't blow $5T on Democrat give-aways,[/QUOTE]Yes, I know Obama health care is a giveaway. It can only help the needy and middle-class. Something you cannot comprehend or accept, I'm afraid.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;416196]However, I doubt your yap ever stops flapping long enough for any form of contemplation.[/QUOTE] I've got your "contemplation" swinging, sir.

For all those deficit-obsessed Republicans: Help me understand how you can spend more money on wars or indirect foreign military intervention- while at the same reducing the budget deficit???

[QUOTE=Punter 127;416128]I'd say Krauthammer's Realistic [/QUOTE][QUOTE]That's a bit of a stretch, IMHO or should I call it spin?

[url]http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/565640/201103101838/Will-Voters-Buy-Hoax-That-Is-Social-Security-.htm[/url]

[/QUOTE]Krauthammer's ideas on Social Security means testing may be realistic, but that is irrelevant.

It's wrong to take other people's money. Especially when we take it from people who [i]earned[/i] it, and give it to those who were too [i]lazy[/i] to save for their retirement. Taking from one to give to another is THEFT.

Furthermore, punishing the job creators is bad for the economy.

Get it?

They didn't teach leadership at Community Organizer College.

Egypt, Libya and Japan all look to the US for leadership in dealing with their plights. The entire US looks to Washington for some leadership on deficit reduction. In both cases, what do they get? Obama's picks for the NCAA. I thought he was against going to Vegas. Looks like his only solution to all of the world's problems is to provide us with his divine insight into who will win so that we can go lay down a bet on it.

I'll lay down a bet that if things don't improve demonstrably (I. E. Better than fake unemployment numbers) by April 1, 2012 the Handicapper in Chief is going to have plenty of free time to be on ESPN, play golf and do all those other things that are more important than the wants and needs of the American people and fidelity to the Constitution.

I don't know what you are talking about. The nations are not like perto rico.

[QUOTE]Egypt, Libya and Japan all look to the US for leadership in dealing with their plights.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Esten; 416208]Krauthammer's ideas on Social Security means testing may be realistic, but that is irrelevant.

It's wrong to take other people's money. Especially when we take it from people who [i]earned[/i] It, and give it to those who were too [i]lazy[/i] To save for their retirement. Taking from one to give to another is THEFT.

Furthermore, punishing the job creators is bad for the economy.

Get it? [/QUOTE]It's a shame there's no demand for left-wing comedians, (many unemployed now) besides it would be really hard to upstage the clown that's in the White House right now.

Get it?

Hopefully, most of you have read about the latest NPR debacle. Trying to take money from the Muslim Brotherhood while claiming that the Tea Party is scary and that they don't need the federal money they beg for each year. This, of course, was a follow-on to the ACORN revelations.

The latest one is much bigger. I should have seen this coming. [url]http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/oped/2011/mar/15/TDOPIN02-us-stunned-by-latest-undercover-sting-ar-905677/[/url]

What is abundantly clear is that Obama is wholly unqualified for the position of POTUS. He is derelict in the execution of virtually all of his duties and of the oath he allegedly swore upon entering office. Remember how he butchered the oath during the inauguration? Perhaps that wasn't a mistake.

Obama is a creation of the media and the Left, the American public had this phony POS foisted upon us as the second coming. Some of us saw through it from the start, unfortunately not enough saw through the charade. Those who criticized Obama for his inexperience, left-wing radical associations, extreme positions (when he wasn't busy voting 'present') and incoherence on important issues were called racists. Further, Obama received preferential treatment by the media because he is a minority and he is one of their own creations. He was never scrutinized by the main stream media. Not one member of the MSM asked him a single, difficult question nor did anyone in the MSM follow up on any major flaws pointed out by the public. This whitewashing (for lack of a better word) of the record continues to this day.

I could write a book on this but let me give you a few examples:

Obama's monetary and fiscal policies contributed in a significant way to the uprisings in the middle east. His intentional devaluation of the dollar assisted in creating a spike in food prices, which was the genesis of the first uprisings in Tunisia. As the contagion spread to Egypt, Obama, amidst an incoherent and inconsistent stream of messages coming from his administration (Biden, Clinton, Obama, etc) fanned the flames of revolution (not democracy, because it was never clear that the rioters had that objective in mind) and participated in handing the country over to military rule, which is no different than it was before, there is just a different boss.

Moving on to Libya, where due to this administrations dawdling (the most generous term I can come up with) we have already missed any opportunity to play a role in either deposing Qaddafi or enshrining him. We have done nothing to further or protect American interests in the area. To the contrary, by giving the anti-government rebels a glimmer of hope, Obama has led them to slaughter. The remaining rebel forces should be beaten back out of their last strongholds over the next several days and Qaddafi will further entrench himself as Colonel-King. The oil spigots will come back on line within 3-6 months and we'll be back to the status quo.

The Obama administration has turned a blind eye to Saudi Arabia's handling of its own uprisings. In large part, this is due to the fact that we have to. Due to leftist policies in America, we are beholden to middle east oil, for our survival. If we allowed drilling on the Northern Slope of Alaska, off-shore California and the Gulf of Mexico (remove some of the current restrictions) and without tapping shale oil in the Rockies, we could increase US domestic oil production by 5-6 million barrels per day which would more than double the amount of oil we currently import from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Venezuela (currently around 748 million barrels per year or 28% of our total oil imports).

How about transparency? When Obama promised transparency, the gullible (Esten, Moreon and the rest of the sheep) took it as a certainty that the Chosen One would be as pure as the driven snow and would remove the veil covering past, evil administrations dubious behaviors.

What he really meant was transparency for your body as you pass through a full-body scanner, manned by the oh-so-helpful and well-trained TSA. As I told you some time ago, the scanners are not intended to detect a weapon hidden under your clothes. Nor are the invasive searches designed to uncover weapons concealed ON one's body. The latter (invasive searches) are intended to drive you into the machines. The objective of the former (full-body scanners) is to search for weapons concealed IN your body as well as items (weapons, contraband, cash, etc) that may also be concealed on your body. The TSA recently revealed that the machines emit 10X the radiation that they are 'supposed' to. While the TSA will shrug this off as 'bungling' it is nothing of the sort.

Now Mr. Transparency wants to enable truly warrant-less wiretapping on US citizens by adding streaming and downloading internet content to the list of dangerous crimes that currently qualify for wiretapping. All in an attempt to curry favor with leftists in Hollywood and in the music industry.

If a republican president presided over any of these catastrophes, the media would be screaming 24/7 about the abuse of power and shredding of the constitution and relentless in its efforts to drive the president from office. But since Obama is a creation of the media and the Left they don't say a word.

While many Americans were fooled into voting for Obama, I don't think most will be fooled a second time. Despite poll numbers, which are artificially skewed in his favor, we are witnessing one of the most unpopular presidents in US history. I would caution anyone looking at popularity polls to consider this, when asked if they like Obama, even his critics (excluding me of course) are weary of saying 'no' for fear of being branded a racist.

If the republicans are smart, and true to the people that put them in office this past fall, they will oppose everything for which Obama and the Left stands. The opportunity to gut the federal government is here now, it will be gone in a few short months, when we will be back in a presidential election cycle. A government shutdown only closes nonessential services. If they are nonessential, why should we be paying for them? Shut down the government, we'd all be better off.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;416210]Egypt, Libya and Japan all look to the US for leadership in dealing with their plights.[/QUOTE]Are you kidding me? Spare us, please, with your childish beliefs.

[QUOTE=Punter 127;416214]It's a shame there's no demand for left-wing comedians, (many unemployed now) besides it would be really hard to upstage the clown that's in the White House right now.[/QUOTE]As you may have noticed, my last two posts on Krauthammer were merely repeating conservative talking points about wealth redistribution. In fact two of our very own resident conservatives believe this amounts to Socialism (Stan) and theft (Jackson). Their silence on Krauthammer's Social Security proposals is deafening.

Those talking points are funny stuff indeed.... hard to take seriously. Socialism and theft? Too much ! LOL

As far as left-wing comedians, I'd say they are doing well. Colbert and Stewart are quite popular. In contrast to those right-wing comedians.... yeah I can't name any either. Unless you count Beck and Palin.

Speaking of Colbert, check out the video segment where he talks about Fox News coverage of the Wisconsin protests:

[url]http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/376076/march-02-2011/wisconsin-prank-call-bill[/url]

You know Fox News had been trying to portray the union protestors as violent, to smear them and influence public perception against them (no surprise). Well in a Fox News piece where O'Reilly is asking another reporter about the Wisconsin protestors, they play video showing a protestor pushing somebody. Problem is, it's not video from Wisconsin, it's from another rally in another state. The truth is that the Wisconsin protestors were overwhelmingly peaceful, and Fox News had to resort to other file footage, but presented it in a story on the Wisconsin protests. Fox News has a history of using misleading video footage.

Colbert also mentioned that Wisconsin Republicans have sponsored a bill to ban prank calls. I thought it was one of Colbert's jokes, but nope, it's true. I guess it would be fair then to ban posing as someone you're not, to get 'undercover video'.

[QUOTE=Esten;416241]As you may have noticed, my last two posts on Krauthammer were merely repeating conservative talking points about wealth redistribution. In fact two of our very own resident conservatives believe this amounts to Socialism (Stan) and theft (Jackson). Their silence on Krauthammer's Social Security proposals is deafening.[/QUOTE]Esten, I'm not sure there's an argument to be had between you and the libertarians on this site about social security. Krauthammer wants to change who gets what from a massive shell game. That's what social security is and will remain unless politicians grow some gonads and fix it, instead of trying to appeal to the AARP crowd. I'd argue you need to do away with it entirely, and replace it with something like what Singapore or Chile has. A mandatory pension system. A defined contribution plan, not a defined benefit plan.