I guess the duty falls to me.
ATTENTION AMERICA
BARACK OBAMA WINS. HILLARY IS EATING A SHIT SANDWICH AT THIS MOMENT.
on the Republican side, Mike Huckabee takes the cake (and probably the hookers backstage but we won't hear about that until later)
This could mean that, come November, the race for the White House will be a toss-up between:
A) A WHITE CHRISTIAN MALE with a stick up his ass who thinks he's on a mission from God to rid America of "immorality."
and
B) A PROGRESSIVE BLACK MAN with a history of listening to the facts before making his decisions, and admitting he doesn't know absolutely everything.
OH GEE I WONDER WHO AMERICA WILL PICK.
fuck this, I'm moving to Switzerland.
MEXICOOOO HERR I COME WHERE I WILL BE RICHHHH. or murdered. hehehe
(plz win black man plz)
i would like to slather choice A in sazon and adobo and place in bbq smoker for 18hrs
choice B ......... at least it's not choice A
Caucuses rarely determine the next president. Iowa is quite different demographically than most of the other states. Same with New Hampshire.
Sad thing is, the results have created this hilarious outbreak of Ron Paul paranoids saying the polls were rigged. Give it a week and there will be elaborate stories detailing Obama's secret lizard identity and his plans for enslaving the world. Ah, I hate politics.
ron paul makes me want to kill babies and cows and buckets and everything.
Quote from: vexati0n on January 04, 2008, 06:15:23 AM
on the Republican side, Mike Huckabee takes the cake (and probably the hookers backstage but we won't hear about that until later)
Please to be noting what this year has taught us.
The cake is a lie.
Quote from: vexati0n on January 04, 2008, 06:15:23 AM
I guess the duty falls to me.
ATTENTION AMERICA
BARACK OBAMA WINS. HILLARY IS EATING A SHIT SANDWICH AT THIS MOMENT.
on the Republican side, Mike Huckabee takes the cake (and probably the hookers backstage but we won't hear about that until later)
This could mean that, come November, the race for the White House will be a toss-up between:
A) A WHITE CHRISTIAN MALE with a stick up his ass who thinks he's on a mission from God to rid America of "immorality."
and
B) A PROGRESSIVE BLACK MAN with a history of listening to the facts before making his decisions, and admitting he doesn't know absolutely everything.
OH GEE I WONDER WHO AMERICA WILL PICK.
fuck this, I'm moving to Switzerland.
Go blow Sean Penn and Michael Moore.
HUCKABEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
So, where did Ron Paul and Dennis Kunicichicchcichcichcih end up? Is it lolworthy to find out?
rp got 10% which is technically more than he should have got, but still not enough to count for anything.
Who won the Iowa caucases for the Dems in 04? I don't remember but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Kerry. I seem to recall it being Howard Dean.
New Hampshire will be interesting. The voters there are more secular. I think Huckabee will have a rough shot at winning there. It'll probably be between Romney and McCain. Romney has an advantage being a former Gov of neighboring Mass. McCain has an advantage in that he won New Hampshire the last time he ran.
On the Dems side. I expect Hillary will probably do better but the win in Iowa may sway some undecideds in New Hampshire who let the Teevee make their decisions for them.
Quote from: Cain on January 04, 2008, 01:38:29 PM
HUCKABEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
So, where did Ron Paul and Dennis Kunicichicchcichcichcih end up? Is it lolworthy to find out?
I read something somewhere that Kucinich told his supporters that if he didn't get enough votes in the first round that they should caucus for Edwards.
Quote from: GlompChomp on January 04, 2008, 07:57:31 AMSad thing is, the results have created this hilarious outbreak of Ron Paul paranoids saying the polls were rigged. Give it a week and there will be elaborate stories detailing Obama's secret lizard identity and his plans for enslaving the world. Ah, I hate politics.
Already happened. As soon as Obama came on the scene and seemed to be challenging the usual Democratic consensus from a left wing direction, they found out he was a member on the Council on Foreign Relations...which as we all know is an INTEGRAL PIECE OF THE CONSPIRACY. Not just a bunch of rather dreary wannabe academics who foolishly bought into neoliberalism, the Washington Consensus and multilateralism, THEY ARE HIDDEN GLOBALIST ELITES WHO WILL IMPOSE A SOCIALIST, SATANIC NEW WORLD ORDER THROUGH THE UNITED NATIONS.
And so on and so forth. At least lizards are somewhat
imaginative.
Quote from: vexati0n on January 04, 2008, 01:43:09 PM
rp got 10% which is technically more than he should have got, but still not enough to count for anything.
Ah, OK.
Kunicnichicnchcnichcich seems fairly sensible with that plan, has he ever considered just giving up and throwing his weight behind Edwards totally?
I think eventually he will, but he's gotta go through the motions first.
Gravel got nuthin', huh?
Quote from: mian tiao noodle on January 04, 2008, 08:06:51 AM
ron paul makes me want to kill babies and cows and buckets and everything.
Fred speaks accurately.
Although, I feel the same way about Huckabee.
If only Canadia weren't so chilly and Europe weren't so hostile to giving Americans citizenship and/or asylum! :cry:
I've said it before and I'll say it again--
Wouldn't it be PROGRESSIVE for America to elect a black man or a woman?
I guess. But what would be MORE progressive would be to NOT LET RACE AND GENDER INFLUENCE YOUR DECISION.
:wrong:
French Foreign Legion. You only need to serve for 8-10 years to gain citizenship.
The Democrats, despite the progresivity pandering, as mentioned by Cram, seem like the lesser wevils.
The Republican side of things worries me in a general church vs. state way.
I've always thought our country would be better off if we had a nigger running the country.
Quote from: I_Kicked_Kennedy on January 04, 2008, 03:02:44 PM
I've always thought our country would be better off if we had a nigger running the country.
:|
Werz Iowa?
\
:mullet:
Quote from: Richter on January 04, 2008, 03:01:44 PM
French Foreign Legion. You only need to serve for 8-10 years to gain citizenship.
Oooh. I don't know if I can wait 8-10 years before the apocalypse happens, but we'll see.
Also, your sig makes me sad. Do not frown upon genitals! :cry:
I think for a country who bases our fucking foundation on "freedom" that we're the most chauvinist, racist, misogynist, and above all prude bunch of assholes on the planet.
But that's pretty well known.
You all may return to your regularly scheduled programming.
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on January 04, 2008, 02:56:41 PM
I've said it before and I'll say it again--
Wouldn't it be PROGRESSIVE for America to elect a black man or a woman?
I guess. But what would be MORE progressive would be to NOT LET RACE AND GENDER INFLUENCE YOUR DECISION.
:wrong:
But wouldn't it be kind of scary if the woman was, say, Elizabeth Dole and the black man was, say Clarence Thomas? But that speaks to your second point. Who gives a fuck about race or gender, I'd just like to see someone as President who can lead the fucking country.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 04, 2008, 04:02:03 PM
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on January 04, 2008, 02:56:41 PM
I've said it before and I'll say it again--
Wouldn't it be PROGRESSIVE for America to elect a black man or a woman?
I guess. But what would be MORE progressive would be to NOT LET RACE AND GENDER INFLUENCE YOUR DECISION.
:wrong:
But wouldn't it be kind of scary if the woman was, say, Elizabeth Dole and the black man was, say Clarence Thomas? But that speaks to your second point. Who gives a fuck about race or gender, I'd just like to see someone as President who can lead the fucking country.
I WILL ONLY VOTE FOR A W.A.S.P. MAN!!
\
:mullet:
Wait...do rednecks even know what WASP means?
Yes, but I don't think they would ever vote for Blackie Lawless. I know I sure as hell wouldn't.
True. But SOMEONE would somewhere.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 04, 2008, 04:08:03 PM
Yes, but I don't think they would ever vote for Blackie Lawless. I know I sure as hell wouldn't.
:mittens:
i just did an online test who i should vote for if i were to vote:
80% John Edwards (D)
70% Hillary Clinton (D)
70% Barack Obama (D)
30% Rudy Giuliani (R)
25% John McCain (R)
20% Mike Huckabee (R)
15% Fred Thompson (R)
10% Mitt Romney (R)
most important thing i seem to disagree about with mr edwards is that i think nuclear power is a good thing, where he probably mistakenly thinks it's dangerous or something.
and the other thing about making guns harder to buy or something. not because i like guns that much, but i just don't think it'll work very well in the USA, as far as i can judge.
Quote from: triple zero on January 04, 2008, 05:45:53 PM
i just did an online test who i should vote for if i were to vote:
80% John Edwards (D)
70% Hillary Clinton (D)
70% Barack Obama (D)
30% Rudy Giuliani (R)
25% John McCain (R)
20% Mike Huckabee (R)
15% Fred Thompson (R)
10% Mitt Romney (R)
most important thing i seem to disagree about with mr edwards is that i think nuclear power is a good thing, where he probably mistakenly thinks it's dangerous or something.
and the other thing about making guns harder to buy or something. not because i like guns that much, but i just don't think it'll work very well in the USA, as far as i can judge.
According to the Bill of Rights, we have the right to bear arms. LOL.
It just costs a lot, AND, the state you live in can alter it as they see fit.
...Or at least RI does...but we like to pretend the federal gov't doesn't exist here.
Quotehttp://According to the Bill of Rights, we have the right to bear arms. LOL.
It does? I thought it gave the states a right to raise militias...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_bear_arms
Quote
In the United States, the meaning of "bear arms" is a matter of recent dispute and continuing political debate.[1][2] One argument is whether the expression involves the rights of the individual to 'bear arms' meaning to 'have arms', or whether it relates to a military service meaning of 'bear arms' as with the functioning and maintenance of a militia.[1]
In Rhode Island...we have a shitload of guardsmen.
in Alabama...:mullet:
It's the state's interpretation.
Edit: Further reading...The 2nd Amendment is the militia, the 9th is the arms for personal use, hunting/sport, etc.
Quote from: Suu Fett on January 04, 2008, 08:44:39 PM
According to the Bill of Rights, we have the right to bear arms. LOL.
the quiz just asked about whether i think the rules for obtaining arms should be made more stringent or not.
i thought not, since you already have the right to bear arms, and that's not going to go away (even if it wasn't in the Bill of Rights, it would be like making pot illegal in the netherlands--not gonna work), making it more stringent would just give more advantage to criminals.
Criminals will get weapons whether it's legal or not. I don't think it will make a big difference.
that's what i said, right?
Quote from: vexati0n on January 04, 2008, 06:15:23 AM
fuck this, I'm moving to Switzerland.
What, just when things are getting FUNNY? :lulz:
Quote from: LMNO on January 04, 2008, 08:50:13 PM
Quotehttp://According to the Bill of Rights, we have the right to bear arms. LOL.
It does? I thought it gave the states a right to raise militias...
That's because you have a problem, apparently, with simple English.
The first clause justifies the second. It does not modify or limit it.
Please call your 7th grade English teacher and chew her ass out for failing to teach you how to diagram a sentence.
Amendment 2
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the
right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.Let's take a closer look.
Clause 1:
Amendment 2
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, (this is the intro clause, which explains why clause II exists.)
Clause 2:
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. (This is the declarative clause, which tells you what is being justified by clause 1).
Love that last phrase:
shall not be infringed. Heh. Shall not be touched upon.
I want my flamethrower, bitches.
Also, you will notice that nowhere does it say the state has the right to raise militias. First of all the state has powers, the citizens have rights. Second of all, it doesn't say shit about powers, but the
right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
So it doesn't have shit to do with the state.
Quote from: triple zero on January 04, 2008, 09:15:31 PM
Quote from: Suu Fett on January 04, 2008, 08:44:39 PM
According to the Bill of Rights, we have the right to bear arms. LOL.
the quiz just asked about whether i think the rules for obtaining arms should be made more stringent or not.
i thought not, since you already have the right to bear arms, and that's not going to go away (even if it wasn't in the Bill of Rights, it would be like making pot illegal in the netherlands--not gonna work), making it more stringent would just give more advantage to criminals.
It also violates the 2d amendment by "infringing" on the peoples' right to bear arms.
If you oppose gun ownership, you support the state as the final arbiter of your freedom.
Quote from: Suu Fett on January 04, 2008, 09:00:29 PM
Edit: Further reading...The 2nd Amendment is the militia, the 9th is the arms for personal use, hunting/sport, etc.
Bullshit. See above.
Obama is black?
i took a political test and it said im a 95% match for kucinich and gravel. does that make me a damned liberal hippie?
Quote from: Nigel on January 05, 2008, 02:06:42 AM
Obama is black?
naaaw, he's just a brown colored white dude.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 04, 2008, 11:48:47 PM
Quote from: vexati0n on January 04, 2008, 06:15:23 AM
fuck this, I'm moving to Switzerland.
What, just when things are getting FUNNY? :lulz:
:lol: Because last century wasn't funny enough.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 04, 2008, 01:45:53 PM
Who won the Iowa caucases for the Dems in 04? I don't remember but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Kerry. I seem to recall it being Howard Dean.
New Hampshire will be interesting. The voters there are more secular. I think Huckabee will have a rough shot at winning there. It'll probably be between Romney and McCain. Romney has an advantage being a former Gov of neighboring Mass. McCain has an advantage in that he won New Hampshire the last time he ran.
On the Dems side. I expect Hillary will probably do better but the win in Iowa may sway some undecideds in New Hampshire who let the Teevee make their decisions for them.
I think if Hillary does badly, she just might be in trouble.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 04, 2008, 01:46:51 PM
Quote from: Cain on January 04, 2008, 01:38:29 PM
HUCKABEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
So, where did Ron Paul and Dennis Kunicichicchcichcichcih end up? Is it lolworthy to find out?
I read something somewhere that Kucinich told his supporters that if he didn't get enough votes in the first round that they should caucus for Edwards.
Saw an interview with him. He said for them to go to Obama.
Just cause I am a lazy mother fucker and have not read the entire thread yet, I am asking which you fuckers want to lose some internet props..... I will put my ass on the line.... It will be Hillary and McCain. Fucking Hillary wins.
Who wants to bet? Anyone got the nads?
Quote from: mian tiao noodle on January 05, 2008, 04:38:33 AM
i took a political test and it said im a 95% match for kucinich and gravel. does that make me a damned liberal hippie?
Yes. I took a test and I scored about 60% as my top choice, meaning I don't really much like anyone (though I'm thinking Obama would probably be a less evil choice than the rest, pretty much. Maybe Edwards too).
Also, I always read the 2nd Ammendment as saying the right of the individual to bear arms shall not be infringed. Thats a necessary precondition to the formation of a militia, it would seem.
Also, I think McCain has age against him, while Hillary would almost certainly win...if she run as a Republican (she LURVES the Iraq war, Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, the idea of invading Iran etc etc). Only lying partisan hacks will fall for her supposed anti-war stance, which is what is driving the Democratic base currently.
Quote from: DarkStar on January 05, 2008, 09:38:10 AM
Just cause I am a lazy mother fucker and have not read the entire thread yet, I am asking which you fuckers want to lose some internet props..... I will put my ass on the line.... It will be Hillary and McCain. Fucking Hillary wins.
Who wants to bet? Anyone got the nads?
your wrong.
Anyone have a link to a good "test"? I looked at one but I didn't like any of the answers.
Quote from: Darth Cupcake on January 04, 2008, 03:50:57 PM
Quote from: Richter on January 04, 2008, 03:01:44 PM
French Foreign Legion. You only need to serve for 8-10 years to gain citizenship.
Oooh. I don't know if I can wait 8-10 years before the apocalypse happens, but we'll see.
Also, your sig makes me sad. Do not frown upon genitals! :cry:
If it was a zombie apocalypse, the french foreign legion might be a fun place to be.
Quote from: Richter on January 04, 2008, 03:01:44 PM
French Foreign Legion. You only need to serve for 8-10 years to gain citizenship.
You can bunk with them with 3 months while you try and procure a passport by other means, if soldiering in Chad doesn't sound like a good long term career move. They give you a last minute chance to back out.
Good to know, and an intelligent policy on the Legion's part.
If the zombies show up I've already got an outfit to roll with.
Quote from: Nigel on January 05, 2008, 08:13:05 PM
Anyone have a link to a good "test"? I looked at one but I didn't like any of the answers.
i took: http://www.eenvandaag.nl/stemwijzerusa
it even has a button for "english version", but it might be more fun to try the dutch one.
Quote from: Penumbral on January 05, 2008, 04:58:10 PM
Quote from: DarkStar on January 05, 2008, 09:38:10 AM
Just cause I am a lazy mother fucker and have not read the entire thread yet, I am asking which you fuckers want to lose some internet props..... I will put my ass on the line.... It will be Hillary and McCain. Fucking Hillary wins.
Who wants to bet? Anyone got the nads?
your wrong.
You think so? Then who are you willing to put out there? Obama will not do well on super tuesday. Clinton will move into the front runner at this point. From the Republican side, what is wrong with my suggestion, bet? I think McCain does well in NH and that carries him forward. I don't see Huckabee having what it takes to carry the base. I don't see Rudy carrying the base. I do see McCain carrying it, which would mean, he will be the candidate. Romney is done. If he loses NH, he is finished. He might hang around a bit, but fadesville. It's going to be Clinton and McCain. Fucking pick your picks? I will bet you. What are you willing to lose?
Quote from: DarkStar on January 06, 2008, 05:17:38 PMQuote from: Penumbral on January 05, 2008, 04:58:10 PMQuote from: DarkStar on January 05, 2008, 09:38:10 AMJust cause I am a lazy mother fucker and have not read the entire thread yet, I am asking which you fuckers want to lose some internet props..... I will put my ass on the line.... It will be Hillary and McCain. Fucking Hillary wins.
Who wants to bet? Anyone got the nads?
your wrong.
You think so? Then who are you willing to put out there? Obama will not do well on super tuesday. Clinton will move into the front runner at this point. From the Republican side, what is wrong with my suggestion, bet? I think McCain does well in NH and that carries him forward. I don't see Huckabee having what it takes to carry the base. I don't see Rudy carrying the base. I do see McCain carrying it, which would mean, he will be the candidate. Romney is done. If he loses NH, he is finished. He might hang around a bit, but fadesville. It's going to be Clinton and McCain. Fucking pick your picks? I will bet you. What are you willing to lose?
DSPN thread's over there -----------------------> :roll: (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=14803.0)
Apparently I mostly agree with Edwards, although we don't match up all that well.
I hope people aren't actually using quizzes like that to decide how to vote. I bet they are though.
Quizes? Please. They're deciding who to vote for based on their dress sense and how the candidate "makes them feel". If ONLY they were using tests to decide.
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article2168901.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6343881.stm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/winning-hearts-and-minds_b_52893.html
http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/nov/12/presidential-candidates-hope-their-stump-speeches-/
It's a quandary what people actually USE to decide...I have a feeling they ARE listening to the punditry that is flying at lightening speed throughout all the medias around the teevee and talk radio stations.
To see the record numbers coming out of Iowa of the "below 60 years of age" set to vote in the caucus is telling. Obama tapped hard into that particular subset, and he got results.
Those people were listening. So, largish numbers CAN be reached...as to who exactly IS reaching them remains to be seen at this point, imho. I have a few theories (mostly named above), but there are also churches, universities, parents and local party leaders at work as well.
Fuck I'm glad I don't watch television. It's so depressing.
Quote from: DarkStar on January 06, 2008, 05:17:38 PM
Quote from: Penumbral on January 05, 2008, 04:58:10 PM
Quote from: DarkStar on January 05, 2008, 09:38:10 AM
Just cause I am a lazy mother fucker and have not read the entire thread yet, I am asking which you fuckers want to lose some internet props..... I will put my ass on the line.... It will be Hillary and McCain. Fucking Hillary wins.
Who wants to bet? Anyone got the nads?
your wrong.
You think so? Then who are you willing to put out there? Obama will not do well on super tuesday. Clinton will move into the front runner at this point. From the Republican side, what is wrong with my suggestion, bet? I think McCain does well in NH and that carries him forward. I don't see Huckabee having what it takes to carry the base. I don't see Rudy carrying the base. I do see McCain carrying it, which would mean, he will be the candidate. Romney is done. If he loses NH, he is finished. He might hang around a bit, but fadesville. It's going to be Clinton and McCain. Fucking pick your picks? I will bet you. What are you willing to lose?
Not sure what you have, Hil can't win it, as it was her fault that Bill got a blowjob and everyone will be reminded of that in the primaries to keep it from happening during the general election.
I think Obama et all will win the election, but either Bush, McCain or Cheney will take the presidency...I don't even think its that much of an outside bet.
If it's Clinton and McCain, I'm going to vote for McCain. srsly.
Attn: TGRR, RE: 2nd Amendment.
I'm standing over here, in the corner marked "corrected".
Quote from: vexati0n on January 07, 2008, 02:45:51 AM
If it's Clinton and McCain, I'm going to vote for McCain. srsly.
ditto. I don't know if anyone caught the debates on Saturday (yeah I know football was on too.) but man, I think whatever amount of consideration I had for Hillary was gone. It sounded to me like when she talked about "experience" she wanted to take an awful lot of credit for things that happened during
his her husband's administration.
Actually, I think it was Obama who picked up on that and got a little dig in, saying something like, yes "BILL Clinton certainly did make some advancements..."
I think McCain's got some issues. But, I also think he's going right of where he really his to rally Conservative support. I certainly would twitch and cringe while checking the box next to his name, but I'll be goddamned if I'm gonna vote for Hill.
Then again, rumors fly that Bloomberg will throw his hat in.
If its Clinton vs McCain I'm buildinga nuclear bunker and waiting the next 4 years out.
Quote from: vexati0n on January 07, 2008, 02:45:51 AM
If it's Clinton and McCain, I'm going to vote for McCain. srsly.
I'm with you if for no reason other than half the country Actively Hates Clinton... and we've had 16 years of half the country actively hating the president. Good for the LULZ, but bad for the survival chances of the nation. Besides, McCain seems not bad for a Republican (as Obama seems not bad for a Democrat).
Yep, and that was me in the crowd what told Hillary to go iron some shirts.
RWHN,
A bad, bad boy.
The BBC is pushing Obama and McCain as the front runners, as is the Guardian.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22551718/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22551718/)
Dixfield Notch and Hart's Location (two tiny, tiny towns in NH) have already cast their votes. Obama and McCain each win both towns.
I know it's early, buy my wife and I were talking about this last night. Obama and Edwards ticket mayhaps?
Quote from: Cain on January 08, 2008, 02:03:17 PM
The BBC is pushing Obama and McCain as the front runners, as is the Guardian.
I hope that's how the ticket turns out in November, it'd make for a much more stimualting election.
The past few I've been elligible for have been discouraging.
If it's Obama, I really hope he chooses a pragmatist as a running mate.
Obama/McCain might actually be a good ticket...
My guess is if Obama gets the nod he's going to add a running mate with some experience. Sort of a Democratic Dick Cheney if you will. Especially if the Republican nominee ends up being McCain.
Obama/Hillary versus McCain/Huckabee?
:lol:
Quote from: Cain on January 08, 2008, 02:29:10 PM
Obama/Hillary versus McCain/Huckabee?
:lol:
Well it would be a change, rather than the VP and P being in collusion all of the time, they would be at each others throat ;-)
Obama/Hillary would essentially be life insurance for Obama, much like Bush/Cheney.
"I know you want to assasinate me, but look who would be president!"
Quote from: LMNO on January 08, 2008, 02:42:30 PM
Obama/Hillary would essentially be life insurance for Obama, much like Bush/Cheney.
"I know you want to assasinate me, but look who would be president!"
Oh god I know I shouldn't, but....
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
Actually, wouldn't Edwards make a good VP? He's got credentials in areas Obama lacks (with the unions and with older and more left wing voters) and doesn't actually seem batshit insane.
Quote from: Cain on January 08, 2008, 03:01:11 PM
Actually, wouldn't Edwards make a good VP? He's got credentials in areas Obama lacks (with the unions and with older and more left wing voters) and doesn't actually seem batshit insane.
I think he probably would, of course it would make the second time that he ran first then accepted second fiddle to someone else. In the US that could be political suicide, particularly if they didn't win in November.
Political suicide for who, Edwards? He isn't a Senator anymore and I can't see him running for National office again. He'd just pursue the Gore route if it didn't work out. There are plenty of non-political opportunities for someone like Edwards.
Fuck John Edwards.
Quote from: hunter s.durden on January 08, 2008, 07:29:00 PM
Fuck John Edwards.
Hell No! If I were to fuck John Edwards he would summon all of those Spirits that he likes to communicate with and send to to Haunt me!!!!
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/291927 (http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/291927)
Hillary crying, I heard on the radio from a radio talk show that the question was about her hair and make-up...any verification on this? Could be really bad for her if it is taken as weakness :wink:.
Quote...by asking the 60-year-old Clinton, as one working woman to another, how the candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination pulled herself together each day to go out and face the rigours of the campaign.
It was not about hair and make-up, asshat. The question was how does Clinton keep herself so cool and composed despite all the hate being directed at her; how does she continue to head up her campaign despite how many hurdles she has to jump over.
I don't particularly stand by Clinton's politics, but I do respect her efforts, her resolve, etc. Honestly, after everything she went through with the stupid Lewinsky thing back during Bill's administration, do you really think she'd cry about HAIR and MAKE-UP? Us vapid womenfolk do occasionally get emotional about other things.
If Obama wins the nomination (currently Hillary is beating him in NH with about 40% of the vote counted), I'll bet my dollar on Joe Biden being his VP pick, due to Biden's extensive foreign relations experience, which is probably Obama's weakest area.
I keep forgetting Biden exists.
Truth be told, I know far more about the Republican nominees. They're far more amusing.
Meanwhile in New Hampshire....
I won! I won! One step closer, fuckers!
\
:mccain:
Hillary is leading Obama so far, with 23% of the vote counted (BBC Newsire).
Oh yeah, I went there.
ONe of the things I have to say about Hilary crying is that I respect it as a campaign move; in the 80's women in business or politics were expected to "act like men" and a lot of stupid cocksucking misogynistic "jokes" are based on this expectation. The reality is, most women do cry more easily/often than most men, and it doesn't make us any less strong; so in a fearless political campaign, a female campaigner should not be afraid to cry, thereby not showing her weakness, but her LACK OF GENDER-BASED FEAR.
GOOD STRATEGY.
DAMNIT THAT VAG WON :argh!:
Also just in: Ron Paul placed 28th, just behind write-in candidate Cookie Monster. Apparently, you can't win primaries by spamming Digg and /b/ from mommy's basement. Who knew?
New Hampshire disappoints me.
Quote from: vexati0n on January 09, 2008, 07:11:40 AM
Also just in: Ron Paul placed 28th, just behind write-in candidate Cookie Monster. Apparently, you can't win primaries by spamming Digg and /b/ from mommy's basement. Who knew?
What's even more hilarious is that Giuliani only finished 1% ahead of Ron Paul.
Also, note to John McCain. When you win a Primary don't fucking READ your victory speech. Goddamn, it was like watching a 4th grader give a book report.
:lulz:
I heard it was pretty tight between Obama and Clinton, at least according to the Liberal Conspiracy (http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/) (a British blog group, and also a group of people who keep CONTROLLING THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA). Clinton was expected to win lots of areas in new Hampshire, and the idea was to campaign heavily there to invoke parallels with the first Clinton campaign. When Bill won NH, he was hailed by the media as the "comeback kid", as you may recall. Directly tying Hillary's fate in with Bill's is a cornerstone of her campaign strategy.
I agree Cain, I've been following the Republitards much more closely than the Demotards this year.
I'm real happy for McCain. I thought he was through but the old bastard's still got some fight left in him. Where's the next primary -- South Carolina? Isn't Huckabee really strong there? Doesn't matter, he's fucked.
If it comes down to Hillary vs McCain I'll probably give seven faces of the d20 to Hillary and ten to McCain. (leaving three faces for NOODLE PARTY 08)
I agree, I thought McCain was dead in the water and Giuliani was a shoe-in. Then all the steam went out of the latter's campaign about 4 weeks ago. The BBC prediction of wanting centrists seems to be playing out.
Yeah, the Democrat game this year is Radical Change
The Republican game this year is to be the most moderate
Has anyone been following the Daily Show's roast of the word Change? They've assembled a wonderful montage of every time in the last week a Democrat candidate has said the word "CHANGE" or "I stand for CHANGE" or "Which candidate represents CHANGE?"
Jon Stewart last night was so spot-on... his impression of Hillary: (paraphrasing) "I can make CHANGE. Anybody got a Ten? Feed it into my mouth, I'll spit out a five and five singles!"
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on January 09, 2008, 04:09:18 PM
I agree Cain, I've been following the Republitards much more closely than the Demotards this year.
I'm real happy for McCain. I thought he was through but the old bastard's still got some fight left in him. Where's the next primary -- South Carolina? Isn't Huckabee really strong there? Doesn't matter, he's fucked.
If it comes down to Hillary vs McCain I'll probably give seven faces of the d20 to Hillary and ten to McCain. (leaving three faces for NOODLE PARTY 08)
IM GONNA WIN TEH ELECKSHUN
I'm thinking of getting some Noodle Party stickers made out of LMNO's graphics. :mrgreen:
the site that LMNO uses to make them will actually sell you those exact custom stickers pretty cheap.
Hmm....time to spatter the province with propaganda.
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on January 09, 2008, 04:09:18 PM
I agree Cain, I've been following the Republitards much more closely than the Demotards this year.
I'm real happy for McCain. I thought he was through but the old bastard's still got some fight left in him. Where's the next primary -- South Carolina? Isn't Huckabee really strong there? Doesn't matter, he's fucked.
If it comes down to Hillary vs McCain I'll probably give seven faces of the d20 to Hillary and ten to McCain. (leaving three faces for NOODLE PARTY 08)
Michigan if first. Also, I was listening to a Republican insider on the radio this morning. He says he's heard it directly from Christians voting in the NH primary that some of them are not voting for Romney because of the Mormon thing alone. I know, I know, not a big shocker really. I think he will se more of this, especially in states like South Carolina. He has more money but I think he has too many hurdles. Giuliani, meanwhile is hoping that these results continue to be spread out between McCain, Huckabee and Romney and that he will rise above the ashes starting in Florida.
On the Daily Show last night:
Giuliani's Advisor: The more you learn about Ron Paul, the more disturbing you'll find elements of his personality
Jon Stewart: Really? You should check out your guy.
Giuliani's Advisor: uhhh uhhhhhmm... uhhh....
Jon Stewart: MY BRAIN ISN'T ON STRIKE, MAN!
:lulz:
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on January 09, 2008, 05:38:12 PM
On the Daily Show last night:
Giuliani's Advisor: The more you learn about Ron Paul, the more disturbing you'll find elements of his personality
Jon Stewart: Really? You should check out your guy.
Giuliani's Advisor: uhhh uhhhhhmm... uhhh....
Jon Stewart: MY BRAIN ISN'T ON STRIKE, MAN!
Wow. I guess I should start watching again.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=147108&title=introducing-a-daily-show
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on January 09, 2008, 05:38:12 PM
On the Daily Show last night:
Giuliani's Advisor: The more you learn about Ron Paul, the more disturbing you'll find elements of his personality
Jon Stewart: Really? You should check out your guy.
Giuliani's Advisor: uhhh uhhhhhmm... uhhh....
Jon Stewart: MY BRAIN ISN'T ON STRIKE, MAN!
It was a beautiful moment... as beautiful as Colbert when he said "Now that they have self driving cars, how long will it be before they start making self-writing shows" and then just stared into the camera.
ROFL!!! The boys are back... thus now is a good time to resurrect our old gag idea... it would, possibly give them something to talk about, no? (recruit Stewart to the ELF and Colbert to the Illuminati).
In fact, maybe it would be a good project to run during our Discordian 21st century Jake/Cyberwar/troll/Cabal training...
Actually, the video is on the dailyshow.com front page, not the link I gave. My bad.
John Oliver may be interested in our sort of hijinks too. He used to change the subtitles on BBC America programs to make them more amusing.
Quote from: Cain on January 09, 2008, 07:18:30 PM
Actually, the video is on the dailyshow.com front page, not the link I gave. My bad.
John Oliver may be interested in our sort of hijinks too. He used to change the subtitles on BBC America programs to make them more amusing.
I didn't know that... beautiful...
Anyone got a line on contacting him?
Not sure. here is the article on what he did though
http://www.tvweek.com/blogs/blink/2007/05/translated_from_the_british.php
John Oliver is one of my favorite Daily Show correspondents. And it is not just the accent! He is also, conveniently enough, hilarious.
Now I want to own a TV again just so I can watch his closed-captioning. Damn.
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on January 09, 2008, 04:17:50 PM
Yeah, the Democrat game this year is Radical Change
The Republican game this year is to be the most moderate
Has anyone been following the Daily Show's roast of the word Change? They've assembled a wonderful montage of every time in the last week a Democrat candidate has said the word "CHANGE" or "I stand for CHANGE" or "Which candidate represents CHANGE?"
Jon Stewart last night was so spot-on... his impression of Hillary: (paraphrasing) "I can make CHANGE. Anybody got a Ten? Feed it into my mouth, I'll spit out a five and five singles!"
:lulz:
Between the "change" montage, as well as Giuliani's "9/11" being inserted everywhere, last night's show just cracked me up. Whole show was awesome.
some (dutch) guy told me tonight that hillary should win cause it would be fun to watch the drama as she's bound to take 'revenge' for the lewinski debacle :lol:
entertainment value
Not just Lewinsky. There was the whole Vince Foster business too. The Military Commissions Act suddenly doesn't look like such a bright idea now, does it?
Vince Foster is one reason why Hillary will NOT win the presidency, even if she wins the Democratic nomination. Those skeletons are just waiting in the closet to see if they're needed.
There were some dodgy land deals too, weren't there?
I mean, putting aside the fact that half the country seems willing to commit suicide rather than have Hillary for President (including a fair few Democrats). That may be a factor in her losing as well.
Edit: I found a fairly interesting test. http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=7275841208965272931 Apparently I should vote for Edwards.
Why the US 2008 primaries suck
Or, more accurately, why the candidates do. Because, lets face it, having any one of these morons with their finger on the nuclear trigger, let alone the economic, cultural and political hub of the world, is rather discouraging.
Or not, depending on your sense of humour and approach to large scale devastation. Since mine is black and, if it has to be done, make it as lulzy as possible, I shall explain why the US primaries do not matter, since all of them are pretty much committed to the above, in one form or another. As such, I shall end my analysis of each leader with which part of the world they are prepared to attack, since that is really the only important policy for a foreigner like me.
Lets start with the Republicans, since I've been following their campaign the closest, for 2 main reasons. Firstly, there seems to be no real natural leader among them who even appeals to the Republican party. Oh sure, when they finally pick one, they'll all pretend to back them 110%, but I've been paying attention to the grass roots members, and they're not too impressed. Secondly, they are generally lulzier than the Democrats, and so are much more entertaining.
My starter for 10 is Rudy Giuliani. Tipped as an early front runner, he has had his ass handed to him twice so far, and is currently eating a shit sandwich. Which makes me happy, because he's a jumped up little NeoCon at heart, whose speeches seem to be a stream of consciousness rant about 9/11. And nothing else. While he originally hoped to play his socially liberal credentials to attract independents and especially democrats, he failed at it and so tried to drum up support from the Christian Right, which he also failed at. Hilarious. Would probably pre-emptively attack Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Jacques Chirac with nukes, if he got into power.
Next on the list is Mike Huckabee. Now Huckabee, he's an odd one. He represents a break in the Republican party that has been developing for a while, that between the allied forces of the intellectual NeoCons, Wall Street and the Christian Right. It was going to happen eventually, and Huckabee is riding the crest of that wave for all it is worth. Doesn't believe in evolution, or enforcing the laws of the state if they go against his morals, which is kind of a downside in a leader, though it does make their excesses far more interesting. Apparently also gives a shit about poor people, which makes him different to most Republicans. Is endorsed by Chuck Norris, with whom he is probably having some sort of strange Platonic love affair. Since he apparently cannot tell the difference between Mexicans and Pakistanis, "it's interesting that there were more Pakistanis who illegally crossed the border [than] any other nationality except those immediately south of our border," he'd probably bomb Juarez, mistaking it for Karachi.
Duncan Hunter is now up. Who the fuck is this guy? Seriously, does he even exist, or is he just some huge Discordian hoax perpetrated on the mass media? Well, according to Wikipedia, he allegedly does exist, so I'll go along with this...for now. Hunter is your basic modern Republican. He's for 'Christian values' except when he has to actually act like Jesus, he's for free trade except for when it ends up benefiting those damn smudgy people, hates illegal immigrants and wants to oppose the UN for the sake of it. Has stated he would pre-emptively bomb Iran with tac-nukes.
Alan Keyes is a black dude in the Republican party who once worked for the UN. In other words, he is one messed up little puppy who has less than a zero percent chance of getting in. Is influenced politically by Bloom, making him one of the smarter NeoCons. He also threw out his daughter for being a lesbian. This must be that compassionate conservatism we keep hearing about. Anyway, this guy is only on the ballots for 18 states, and Wikipedia is demanding citations to prove people voted for him at all, so you could kinda say he's a minor player. His foreign policy would probably involve bombing the stock exchanges of countries that did not agree with him, since he essentially did a non-violent variation of the above for the Reagan administration. Assuming he could even get the foreign countries to take notice of him in the first place.
John McCain is next, a guy who is so old he is lucky to be allowed to run in the Presidential race at all, since the country was founded in the year of his birth. McCain is known as a maverick, mainly for putting up token resistance to President Bush before caving in to every single fucking demand he makes. And for his disregard to culinary etiquette, as noted by Stephen Colbert. He's considered a fiscal Conservative, which basically means he promises not to act like a frat boy with daddy's credit cards while in power. He is also considered capable of bi-partisanship, which basically a nice way of saying if the Democrats have a popular idea, he will steal it. Is also noted for whoring himself out to any interest group going, if it will make him popular. Will likely pre-emptively attack Iraq, again, if elected.
Ron Paul is the wingnut candidate of choice. Noted for his massive support on Digg, among the tinfoil hat brigade and in basements everywhere, Ron Paul is considered the only candidate who can save America. And by save America, he means removing all the laws, however rarely enforced, that stop the corporations fucking the average American repeatedly up the ass. Also noted for taking money from Stormfront, the Nazi/White Supremacist website, though to be honest I don't see a difference between that and taking money from Halliburton. Also thinks fertilized eggs in women count as real people, and has some interesting history in regards to race commentary. Would likely bomb New York, for hosting the UN Headquarters, and Moscow, since his aims to withdraw from certain treaties will provoke a new Russian President no end.
Mitt Romney is a Mormon whose favourite book is Battlefield Earth. That's all you really need to know about him, that he wears magic underwear and his taste in fiction SUCKS. That is to say, both the Book of Mormon and Battlefield Earth. Also thinks fertilized cells are real people, and is often considered the Reaganite candidate of choice. That just means he is too bland as a Republican to be branded a NeoCon, not Christian enough to be a fundamentalist, and too opposed to the Democrats to be a maverick. Is probably secretly plotting to turn America into a Mormon/Scientologist theocracy and his inanity as a political candidate is just a clever act. Would most likely bomb Hillary Clinton, mistaking her for France (apparently, "Hillary = France." No, I don't get it either) then go onto Pakistan.
Fred Thompson is a failing actor with a hot wife, whose only reason for running is that the ongoing writer's strike has given him far too much free time. Unlike most other Republican candidates, he doesn't actually hate people who are gay, lesbian or transgender, which is somewhat surprising, since 99% of Republicans only rail against Big Government outside of the bedroom. Is supposedly keen on the Constitution, yet doesn't understand basic concepts like separation of Church and State. Really, the only good reason to vote for him is that his wife would make the hottest ever first lady. Would probably invade Cuba, because its 1961 again and the Cubans are going to impose Communism on America.
Now, with that delightful bunch considered, its time to have a look at the party of dullness and invertebrates, the Democrats. Because the Democrats are usually incapable of stating a position without immediately apologizing for offending people who disagree, its much easier just to make fun of them personally. Which is what I intend to do.
First on the list is Hillary Clinton, current frontrunner for possible Anti-Christ's of the World, 2008. Apparently will impose a lesbian socialist dictatorship on America if elected. Famously voted for the Iraq War, Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, and the Kyl-Lieberman Iran amendment designating Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. Yet somehow she is just too liberal for those conservatives. Will cry on demand if she doesn't get her way. Would also probably be the first candidate to inspire mass suicide in the American population if she won the primaries. Most likely to bomb Ken Starr, Matt Drudge, all suspected members of Vast Right Wing Conspiracies, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and any good looking interns.
John Edwards is famous for not being able to scream as well as Howard Dean, and claims he will end poverty. Don't be tricked however, he means he will end poverty by eating the flesh of poor people, because he is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and thus obviously a shape-shifting reptilian. Has also promised to send every child in America to college, because apparently there are not enough burger-flippers who are able to talk in depth about Derrida or the works of Constable. Is a noted baby-killer by proxy, and plans to genetically engineer cows to not fart methane so much, as to combat global warming. Voted for the War in Iraq, but is against the War on Terror (lol wut?). Would most likely bomb strike-breakers and labour relation consultants everywhere.
Mike Gravel is a crazy old man who lives in Alaska and has gone mad from the lack of human contact, as well as eating elk meat every day for the past 20 years. Gravel is most noted for helping end the Vietnam War, by aiding the Viet Cong in storming the US Saigon Embassy. Is ready and willing to implement crazy taxes and economic theories, purely for the lulz. Gravel is also noted for wanting to force gays to marry, whether they want to or not, and possibly even with straight men. Is also blatantly an addict, as he wishes to decriminalize most drugs, especially marijuana. He also advocates a 15 year long vetting period for buying firearms. Would most likely bomb Palestinians, since he wants the US to guard the borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state.
Dennis Kucinich is the Fred Thompson of the Democrat Party. That is to say, the only real reason to vote for him is that his wife is really quite hot. Also like Fred Thompson, he is only running because the writer's strike has left him nothing to do. On TV, he plays a gnome, and, occasionally, a politician. Kucinich was famously an ordinary man until an encounter with a UFO in in the 1980s, which told him he was the Chosen One, and that it was his destiny to conquer America and usher in the Age of Blood and Death. He plans to do this by legalizing everything, leading to an era of pure anarchy. Is most likely to bomb Dick Cheney.
Barak Obama is an Islamic fundamentalist masquerading as a Democrat moderate. His plan is to win the primaries, then announce he is the 12th Imam and that his running mate is Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Also has the backing of the Oprah Winfrey empire, leading to speculation that he will enforce self-actualization and positive thinking exercises on the population at large. Supports net neutrality for fear that corporate charges will take vital funding away from Jihadist's pockets. His main strategy, however, is to chant "change" repeatedly while never being tied to any specific policy, thereby retaining an aura of mystique while being hard to criticize. In that sense, he is kind of an anti-Giuliani. Is most likely to bomb Pakistan, as well as The Jenny Jones show, for stealing Oprah's ratings.
:mittens:
:mittens:
You certainly seem to have a firm grasp on the pulse of the American political landscape.
By the way, Gravel moved into first for me last week. His talk to high school kids about dope was priceless. He might be the guy to finally push my "Mantitory Drug Use Bill."
QuoteHas also promised to send every child in America to college, because apparently there are not enough burger-flippers who are able to talk in depth about Derrida or the works of Constable.
:potd:
:thanks:
It's amazing that a limey could hit so many consecutive nails on the head.
Wikipedia is incredible.
lolRonPaul
My boss just told me "you're not going to believe this. Look who people are voting for. There's gotta be something wrong with this" and showed me some straw poll on aol.com re: the candidates. Wouldn't you know, the ENTIRE country loves Ron Paul, and on the democrats side, almost everyone, save 2 states loves Hillary. Which when he first showed me the poll 10 min. ago Obama had about 5 or 6 states, but is down to two now. The comments below are just hilarious.
QuoteRon Paul could be one of our greatest Presidents ever, the one who saved our nation from ruin.
QuoteBe sure to void and restart the poll cause Ron Paul is winning!!!
Paul for Peace!!!!!
:lulz: :lulz:
At least some people have the right idea:
QuoteIt's funny how this Rep. map is all dark green right now. What happens when Ron Paul doesn't come in at least third place in Michigan? And then he comes in fourth or fifth in Nevada? Then what?
QuoteThat Ron Paul is leading this poll simply confirms the existence of thousands of unemployed wing nuts spending their lives online.
Yea, I know. Nothing new. But briefly entertained me.
hxxp://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/01/14/aol-straw-poll-jan-14-21/
Paul/Hillary-bots have been busy. Its no different to the Freeper scum purposefully fucking around with polls to make it look like everyone agrees with them. Funnily enough though, as Vex has pointed out, fucking up polls via Digg has amazingly NOT resulted in any sort of electoral presence for Ron Paul. Incredible that.
That's because the lizard people and the joos are working together to suppress all of Ron Paul's glory.
Or at least, I suppose that's the excuse.
LIZARD JOOS!
Requesting someone edit this image to include a skull cap:
(http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/8940/1195029615333bd5.jpg)
They restarted the poll today and Paul isn't represented at all. I guess the Paulites haven't figured out there was a restart yet, so they haven't had a chance to descend like locusts with proxies to falsify the results.
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2008, 08:43:08 PM
They restarted the poll today and Paul isn't represented at all. I guess the Paulites haven't figured out there was a restart yet, so they haven't had a chance to descend like locusts with proxies to falsify the results.
Or them and all their proxies got banned, fucking it up for everyone else who wanted to falsify results.
YEAH, THANKS A LOT GUYS!
Quote from: Cain on January 14, 2008, 08:17:04 PM
LIZARD JOOS!
Requesting someone edit this image to include a skull cap:
(http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/8940/1195029615333bd5.jpg)
:lulz:
Also,
Quote from: NigelThey restarted the poll today and Paul isn't represented at all. I guess the Paulites haven't figured out there was a restart yet, so they haven't had a chance to descend like locusts with proxies to falsify the results.
On my screen, it says the poll was restarted around 12:20 p.m. today, but shows Paul all over the US. w/ 34%. Unless the map is of last week's results? Though the date does say 1/14 - 1/21?
Oh, no, you're right! Wierd, I would have sworn he wasn't there before.
This totally needs to happen:
http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php
What did Obama teach when he was a lecturer?
Actually, Ron Paul would probably win, since he's a doctor. Gravel too maybe, he's got an economics background...Thompson might be surprising as well, since he did Philosophy...
I think it would work better as a discussion of the role science plays in government, and how they would prioritize the budget.
NO, IT WILL BE A SCIENCE FIGHT. FEAR THE BUNSEN BURNER!
[cue Richter's avatar]
Also,
(http://static.flickr.com/5/4712374_8fcab79a41.jpg)
Quote from: LMNO on January 15, 2008, 08:09:54 PM
[cue Richter's avatar]
Also,
(http://static.flickr.com/5/4712374_8fcab79a41.jpg)
Dude, where did you get that? It's wonderful!
google image is my friend.
So, I was literally falling asleep in my chair last night watching the Dems debate in Las Vegas. Seriously, the single most boring event ever held in Las Vegas I'm guessing. I mean, okay it's good they buried the "race card" hatchet but does that mean you need to go on a 2 hour snooze inducing love fest with no substance? Jeebus, one of those suits could be in the White House next January, and the thought of that fills me with anything but a feeling of safety and security.
Obama really does look inexperienced in the debates. I really doubt him being able to handle a Katrina-like crisis. I think he's be more responsive than Bush was, at the very least in a PR sense. But in a logisitcal sense, I'm not so sure.
Hillary to me is pure ambition. Too much ambition I think. And man, I wouldn't trust her for a second. She just seems very shifty when she's answering questions.
Edwards, who are we kidding. He has a snowball's chance in hell. And he's a one trick pony. Yeah, yeah, we get it John. The Middle Class is getting screwed over. So what the hell are you gonna do about it?
Fuck me, I'm gonna vote for my cat.
THE MORMON WON MICHIGAN!
It would have been pretty pathetic if he had lost Michigan. Just about everyone in his family has run for office in Michigan. His dad for Gov (actually I think he WAS governor for awhile if I remember correctly), his Mom for Senator, his brother for State Attorney General, I think his uncle Al ran for head of the Sewer District. He was a shit-head.
Yeah, I was reading about that on BBC News.
Also, lol, Ron Paul came fourth. You'd think the Lizard Conspiracy would stay away from Michigan, especially at this time of year. I bet its freezing up there.
Paul even beat Giuliani. Seriously, that guy needs to give it up. With the win in Michigan, Romney's gonna get a bump from that. And actually, he has a pretty big lead with delegates. He has 44, Huckabee has 36 and McCain has 19. Mr. 9-11's got a fat goose egg. I know he's counting on Florida to get him back in the game but I don't see it happening. I think it's pretty much between Romney and McCain at this point. Maybe Huckabee get's in the mix here and there.
I'd agree. It depends how McCain does against Huckabee, I think. McCain will likely pick up more support among independents in New England states, whereas Huckabee might have the Bible Belt pretty much down. I don't know which primaries come first however, but whichever does will shape media perception a lot more. If Romney does take the lead, he'd be sensible in picking McCain as VP, it would shore up a lot of moderate support for him.
Yep. The other route he could go would be to pimp more of his business and executive credentials. Olympics, etc., and then pick someone like Huckabee as a running mate. Because, in what I've seen, he's really been focusing a lot of attention on the social aspect of Conservatism, which I think he did because he does have some question marks there. But with the economy being the big issue in the U.S. now, if he played up that experience more, I think he'd probably do better.
Because McCain is going to have a really hard time pitching himself as a saviour on the economic front. And as time goes on, the U.S. voting population is going to be less concerned about security and terrorism outside of a major terrorist attack.
Incidentally, has Obama come up with any sort of comprehensive governmental strategy other than "Hope and Change"?
Because the current Governor of MA ran on that, and nothing has changed, except more foreclosures, a dozen or so murders, failing education, and we're building a casino to try to make a buck off the back of the poor.
I posted his book in the random links section. You could probably read it yourself.
Also, I thought McCain had it pretty sewn up on the economic front? While he wasn't for tax cuts that, incidentally, only benefitted the richest segments of society, I thought his record on government spending was meant to be fairly solid?
Yeah, but government spending doesn't hit very close to home. Sure, if affects taxes, but people are going to be more interested in jobs, the sub-prime mortgage debacle, housing prices, issues like that. I feel like McCain really hasn't addressed as much these sorts of things. Romney, on the other hand, has had practical experience in turning around companies that were failing economically. I'm not sure McCain has anything to really combat that.
Ah, fair point.
On the other hand, no-one can manage the US economy (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/business/13econ.html?ex=1357880400&en=78dee1a55ad3c761&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss) but public perception rarely takes such things as "facts" into account.
Very true.
Also, Romney kind of fucked up the MA economy.
Pffffffft, facts. He was a CEO! Think with your gut!
Quote from: Cain on January 16, 2008, 02:02:16 PM
THE MORMON WON MICHIGAN!
If we have Mormon v. Bitch in the general election, it'll be the exact same race it's been the last 2 elections.
Awful.
Except there will be magic pants.
Magic pants!
If Romney is the GOP candidate, we need to organize people to show up to rallies wearing the Mormon "Garments".
And nothing else.
And carrying copies of Battlefield Earth, surely?
Or some golden tablets...
I'm in.
Romney Fun Fact: Mitt (lolwut) is the only Republican candidate I won't vote for in the event of a Hillary nomination. I guess there is a conscience down there somewhere!
What about Alan Keyes?
Should we wear his skin to a Mitt rally, or would I vote for him?
I would vote for Keyes in a second. There's a treasure trove of unseen lulz buried in his mind, I just know it.
Well, I meant voting for him, but to be honest, the former sounds like it could be more interesting...
NSA bot wouldn't like this talk of skinning, if anyone in the NSA knew or cared who Alan Keyes was.
:lulz:
Poor Alan Keyes...I suspect there are probably only 20 people in the country who even pay attention to him. Including the daughter who no longer wants anything to do with him.
See people, the Republican Party cares about black people.
As long as you publicly denounce homosexuality as an unnatural sin against God, anyone is in.
Wait, so you are saying people aren't Keyed into him?
All jokes aside, is he even running anymore?
He didn't even throw in his hat at all this year.
Hasn't run since at least 2000, maybe '96.
Oh, yeah now that I think about it, I haven't seen him in any of the debates.
His name is on the ballot in 16 states, I believe.
So he used some campaign money to buy ballot spots, but hasn't bothered announcing, debating, or even attempting to win?
At least he's being realistic, and using his time more effectively (I am imagining him watching the playoffs and playing "Gears of War" while laughing at the other candidates for putting in actual work.)
Apparently so http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Keyes#U.S._Presidential_election_campaign_2008
He has a forum too, you know. 8)
Ron Paul lizard conspiracy attacks?
Quote from: Cain on January 16, 2008, 06:30:14 PM
He has a forum too, you know. 8)
hmmm
Quote from: wikipedia
In an interview with Michelangelo Signorile, a gay radio host, Keyes defined homosexuality as centering in the pursuit of pleasure, literally "selfish hedonism". When Signorile asked if Mary Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney's avowed lesbian daughter, fit the description and was therefore a "selfish hedonist", Keyes replied, "Of course she is. That goes by definition."
Only if I get to be the psychotically and ridiculously anti-gay fanatic.
GAYS DID WTC.
Gay Bolsheviks started Communism.
http://www.renewamerica.us/bb/
Its phpbb. Like drop-kicking a baby...
This needs to be adjourned to OMF.
I think I'm going to like our new playground.
I agree.
HIMEOBS or Discordian outing? Or both?
I'm gnitov for Hillarity because I want another 4 years of sex scandals in the white house.
Obama is a rascist.
Paul is a fascist.
Huckabee is a consevangelitive fucktard.
Romney is a former gov of my state.
If it comes down to it, I'll take McPain as he seems to be the least dishonest.
One, then the other.
I want to practice being outlandish.
Did you see some of those threads?
Illegal Immigrant Murder! :lulz:
I'll recon it today and we can go in tomorrow. Thread in O:MF and everything. Should be fun.
Quote from: saint aini on January 16, 2008, 06:52:36 PM
I'm gnitov for Hillarity because I want another 4 years of sex scandals in the white house.
Obama is a rascist.
Paul is a fascist.
Huckabee is a consevangelitive fucktard.
Romney is a former gov of my state.
If it comes down to it, I'll take McPain as he seems to be the least dishonest.
'fraid I have to agree with the Furry :lulz:...McCain seems less horrific than the other options... and maybe half the country won't hate the president for a change.
Alan Keyes is certainly running this year, but he got in the race very late.
Quote from: Cain on January 16, 2008, 07:52:53 PM
I'll recon it today and we can go in tomorrow. Thread in O:MF and everything. Should be fun.
Awaiting approval.
Danny DeVito in a fursuit 2008!
Is he still alive?
Shit, does it matter?
Quote from: hunter s.durden on January 16, 2008, 09:32:06 PM
Quote from: Cain on January 16, 2008, 07:52:53 PM
I'll recon it today and we can go in tomorrow. Thread in O:MF and everything. Should be fun.
Awaiting approval.
Same. Urgh.
It's been 20 hours since I registered, and no approval yet.
I'm guessing people aren't breaking down doors to join that forum, so the mods check in about once a month.
Damn.
Damn damn damn. I fucking
knew it.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18186247
Relevant bits:
QuotePresidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is not concerned about the "technical definition" of a recession. Nor is he scrambling to pay for proposals to jumpstart the economy. He just knows that people across the country are struggling, and his mix of tax cuts and direct spending will give the economy a fast-acting fix, he says.
QuoteAnd how will he pay for the proposal?
He doesn't plan to.
"from a perspective of a one-time temporary boost, it's important for us to just get the money out."
Deficit spending.
The guy who was stringing us along with "hope" and "change" is going to use
the same retarded economic strategy as Bush.
Enjoy your $300 check. Your grandchildren will burn you in effigy.
:lulz:
Well, it'll end up changing the country, eventually, so its not like he is lying.
It will turn the USA from a country with a functional, if fucked up economy into a third world country. Your children will hope that one day someone will realize how fucked up this economic plan is.
No-one ever said change was good.
VOTE OBAMA!
:aww:
I don't wanna me a 'murrican no more... *sniff, sniff, cry*
Well, at least the job I have is fairly secure. I'm not likely to go unemployed when our country goes into massive economic recession. I'll probably take huge gouges in pay and benefits, but at least I'll have something. I consider that better than nothing.
But god damn if it doesn't make me want to start stabbing people with the pointy end...
QuoteIt will turn the USA from a country with a functional, if fucked up economy into a third world country. Your children will hope that one day someone will realize how fucked up this economic plan is.
Naw, look at the world stock markets, we won't be going down alone...
Anyone catch the interview he did where he praised Reagan and tried to paint himself as the Reagan Democrat?
Also, anyone catch the interview Romney did at a Staples in which he was dancing around whether or not he had a lobbyist running his campaing. I think he has been studying at the Bill Clinton Institute of Word Parsing.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 18, 2008, 03:45:23 PM
Anyone catch the interview he did where he praised Reagan and tried to paint himself as the Reagan Democrat?
Are you serious?
The Republican candidates are expected to show how "Reagan" they are, but a Dem?
He's doing it wrong.
QuoteHe's doing it wrong.
-depends on the real objective surrounding his candidacy. Could be another set-up, like John Forbes Kerry, the best guy on the democratic side that the republicans can actually beat in a general election.
Quote from: Diseris on January 18, 2008, 05:41:18 PM
QuoteHe's doing it wrong.
-depends on the real objective surrounding his candidacy. Could be another set-up, like John Forbes Kerry, the best guy on the democratic side that the republicans can actually beat in a general election.
John Kerry is an idiot. If he was truly the best that the Dems could throw up against Bush... then America got what it deserved because apparently we suck.
Quotetruly the best that the Dems could throw up against Bush
that the republicans could still beat. Not the best candidate either in dem philosophy nor strategically. The better proof is the utter lack of will to show the hilarity of Ohio and New Mexico by bringing the whole case to trial.
At least this time around, it will be really obvious to everyone that the election was stolen, but with the current supreme court line-up, the trial will be tabled at least until the new rep pres is inaugurated, and therefore untouchable.
Quote from: Diseris on January 18, 2008, 03:38:50 PM
QuoteIt will turn the USA from a country with a functional, if fucked up economy into a third world country. Your children will hope that one day someone will realize how fucked up this economic plan is.
Naw, look at the world stock markets, we won't be going down alone...
Thats fine.
I for one welcome our Russian and Indian overlords.
QuoteI for one welcome our Russian and Indian overlords.
Black market thugs and religious zealots? Not much change coming.
Yeah, but they'll be black market thugs with hot dyevs and religious fundamentalists with decent food.
Even that beats our current system.
Quotedecent food.
I just hope they bring some good curry to the NW.
I hope they bring it to my home town too.
We've already got an Indian, but we could sure as hell use decent food. The Bangladeshi place here is awesome though, I must say.
Oh, and Obama is trying to show he can be fiscally in line with the Republicans. Its kind of like Giuliani playing his socially liberal credentials, or Hillary 'pretending' to be a raging megalomaniac on foreign policy. ie; doomed to failure in courting the opposition
Quoteie; doomed to failure in courting the opposition
yes! won't impress the opposition yet will alienate a block of his base that just won't show up to vote! Its like a double vote for the Greedy Ole Party.
Quote from: hunter s.durden on January 18, 2008, 04:46:54 PM
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 18, 2008, 03:45:23 PM
Anyone catch the interview he did where he praised Reagan and tried to paint himself as the Reagan Democrat?
Are you serious?
The Republican candidates are expected to show how "Reagan" they are, but a Dem?
He's doing it wrong.
It was the editorial board of some newspaper in Vegas. Anyway basically what he said is that Reagan was the last president to have a meaningful impact on the direction of the country. He even took a swipe at the Clintons by suggesting he did not have that kind of impact. I think he's basically trying to secure the moderate Dems and independents by saying things like this.
Well, Reagan said...
Do you know what Reagan did?
Reagan was the real identity of Captain America.
Reagan once opened a beer bottle with his ass-crack.
Reagan managed to defeat the Evil Empire and its homosexual-liberal allies amost single handedly (he once took a break for 5 minutes to have a piss, and Ollie North took over).
Reagan managed to bring down the Berlin Wall through the power of prayer (and a timely intervention by David Hasselhoff).
Even as we speak, Reagan and McCarthy are smiting liberals from the Heavens (copyright Ann Coulter @ her father's funeral).
Reagan actually shits apple pie and pisses coca-cola, he's so American.
[/every presidential candidate at every debate ever]
I think I agree with the point in some sense. The Gipper does seem to be the last president we had that heavily impacted the direction of the country... for better or worse. GHWB did nothing to heavily affect America (even his war was too lame to cause any major changes). The Clintons had an impact, but more an impact to the credibility of the job and the rise of unbridgeable partisan posturing, than on the future course of the nation.
Now all that being said... I would argue that W has probably affected this country for some years into the future. We won't know until later if his idiotic decisions will shape the politics of this nation, or if once he's gone it will fade like a bad dream. I hope for the latter and assume its the former ;-)
Well, it looks like the Neocon think tanks have picked the wrong people to side with in the elections, so far. Some of their left-wing doppelgangers have got into the Clinton camp, but apart from that, they don't seem to be touching anyone with a chance of winning. Then again, they're embedded enough in the Pentagon and NSC that they'll have influence for a fair few years yet. And its not like they haven't been out in the cold before...it'll just make them even more bitter by the time they attach themselves to another President.
Quote from: Cain on January 18, 2008, 06:44:23 PM
Well, it looks like the Neocon think tanks have picked the wrong people to side with in the elections, so far. Some of their left-wing doppelgangers have got into the Clinton camp, but apart from that, they don't seem to be touching anyone with a chance of winning. Then again, they're embedded enough in the Pentagon and NSC that they'll have influence for a fair few years yet. And its not like they haven't been out in the cold before...it'll just make them even more bitter by the time they attach themselves to another President.
Yeah, I'm really surprised they didn't take the chance to jump in bed with McCain's support of the surge. Maybe they figure McCain wouldn't do their bidding once he was in power though. So NC's are backing who, Rudy or Fred?
QuoteYeah, I'm really surprised they didn't take the chance to jump in bed with McCain's support of the surge. Maybe they figure McCain wouldn't do their bidding once he was in power though.
I suspect its part of framing McCain for the win. He wouldn't have as much appeal to the 'common man' if he was the favored candidate of the money men nor if he was best buds with Dubya. Without their overt support he has managed to become the underdog and even labeled as a come-back kid, both favorite candy flavors here in the US.
The only hope I hold is that he'll have enough bitter left in him from his earlier defeats to not do the bidding of the power brokers and spite them.
heh.
there's a good chance that we'll have TWO brokered conventions this year.
there'll have to be a new word invented because "sleazy" won't do this justice.
although it may provide an inadvertent glimpse of some of the REAL power brokers.
Quote from: Ratatosk on January 18, 2008, 08:41:46 PM
Quote from: Cain on January 18, 2008, 06:44:23 PM
Well, it looks like the Neocon think tanks have picked the wrong people to side with in the elections, so far. Some of their left-wing doppelgangers have got into the Clinton camp, but apart from that, they don't seem to be touching anyone with a chance of winning. Then again, they're embedded enough in the Pentagon and NSC that they'll have influence for a fair few years yet. And its not like they haven't been out in the cold before...it'll just make them even more bitter by the time they attach themselves to another President.
Yeah, I'm really surprised they didn't take the chance to jump in bed with McCain's support of the surge. Maybe they figure McCain wouldn't do their bidding once he was in power though. So NC's are backing who, Rudy or Fred?
They were clustering around Rudy. Some of the biggest names, like Norman Podhoretz, were on his foreign policy team.
That said, I don't know where many of the new generation NeoCons (like Eliot Abrams son, and one of the masterminds behind Facebook) stand, and I've been trying to find out for a while. These guys are potentially much smarter than the current crop, and alot quieter. Many of them are technocratic, "neolibertarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolibertarianism)" fantasists though, and so they might be able to slip through the cracks into the campaigns of someone like McCain, whose moderate views on domestic affairs would not be a problem. They often mimic the language of moderate conservatives too, at least until foreign policy is mentioned, where they turn into frothing maniacs, so it may be harder to pick them out, especially among newer faces in politics.
Quoteheh.
there's a good chance that we'll have TWO brokered conventions this year.
there'll have to be a new word invented because "sleazy" won't do this justice.
It looks like the media already have the playbook, at least for the Dems. Remember Iowa? They managed to turn that into an Obama/Hillary issue even though Edwards came second. The press have also been urging Huckabee to get into some vicious fights with Romney and smear his campaign, smearing Huckabee when he didn't play by the rules set down, cheering him on when he did as they want. Similar stuff has happened with Hillary/Obama, though Clinton's own nasty rumours campaign hardly needs any more urging on. Some of it is obviously usual election hysteria = sales thinking, but some of it is the creation of rivalries in order to promote two-horse races in each party, and so control the outcome.
I really enjoy your observations on this race, Cain.
esp. this:
Quote from: Cain on January 19, 2008, 04:28:18 AM
It looks like the media already have the playbook, at least for the Dems. Remember Iowa? They managed to turn that into an Obama/Hillary issue even though Edwards came second. The press have also been urging Huckabee to get into some vicious fights with Romney and smear his campaign, smearing Huckabee when he didn't play by the rules set down, cheering him on when he did as they want. Similar stuff has happened with Hillary/Obama, though Clinton's own nasty rumours campaign hardly needs any more urging on. Some of it is obviously usual election hysteria = sales thinking, but some of it is the creation of rivalries in order to promote two-horse races in each party, and so control the outcome.
Thanks. Of course, I have time to spare, and actually watch many of the 24 hour news channels, just so I can get a first hand feel for this bullshit (I would recommend you not do this. Get your information elsewhere, like...I don't know, graffiti? Crazy homeless guys on the corner? Ron Paul fans? But not the news channels). I have the time to process all this crap and notice trends.
I also stalk think-tanks in my spare time (they don't move very fast, easy targets).
For those of us keeping score here are the latest numbers from the AP:
In the red trunks weighing in at 5 tons of flax-
"In the overall race for delegates, Romney leads with 59, followed by Huckabee with 40 and McCain with 36. A total of 1,191 delegates are needed to secure the republican nomination."
oddly enough, no report on the reptilian nominee...
McCain wins SC which has been the barometer for the GoP for 28 yrs, while Romney crushes in NV with 95% of the large mormon population there proping him up for 17 out of 31 delegates as the only Rep campaigning there...
and in the blue trunx, weighing in at 5 tons of flax-
"Clinton leads the overall race for delegates with 236, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates. She is followed by Obama with 136 and former Sen. John Edwards with 50. A total of 2,025 delegates are needed to secure the Democratic nomination."
Overall Hil is 50 delegates above the combined might of Hussein and the shyster...
The gap between Romney and Huckabee is much smaller than it is between Hillary and Obama too.
Yay! Hilllary vs Romney or Huckabee! Brb, off to slit my wrists.
You shouldn't have to, the bombs should be there shortly....
Clinton v. Romney
I may have said "Fuck Jesus" one too many times.
I'll take the hit on this one.
do we have the search feature working now?
I'd like to go back and find the post I made after the '04 elections where I called Romney as the winner in '08.
Search isn't working, but I remember you making that call as well.
The economy's free-fall is good news for Romney and Hillary.
I think this is what we call pouring hydrochloric acid into an open wound.
Obama is now going after Bill. Bad move?
He wants to address some facts Bill has stated, but attacking a dude who is a national hero to some could cause more alienation. He needs a shill to attack Bill or wind up debating a strawman.
Romney will only be interesting until they let out more facts behind the Moron religion. It's not even as deep as scientology.
Who the hell is Bill?
"Where the hell is Bill?" - Camper Van Beethoven.
Bill, you know, the next first lady...
Has the media started to refer to Bill and Hillary as "Billary" yet? They really should, since they're a single political unit, when all is said and done.
Okay, so in a certain sense I suppose alot of Americans will be proud if we elect Hillary Clinton, the first female president. (though honestly, I think it should be more along the lines of, what took so long?)
That said, I think there will be a collecive "OFUK!" as soon as they realize that means they also get Bill Clintion as the first, First Husband.
And on that note, I know Hannity, Rush, O'Reilly, etc., rail against the Hillary candidacy, but don't you think, deep down, they want Hillary to win? Because think of all the material they will have (true or concocted) with Bubba back in the White House.
That's true.
Also trying to get her elected because she is a woman and that "will show everyone that we have equality now and you can be fucked over by politicians of both sexes" is probably the WORST reason to elect a President ever. I know you're not saying it, but a fair few Democrats have been.
Because they are morons.
Also, what is it with the right-wing and postmodernism? Statements from the NeoCons in the White House sound like they were scripted by Foucault (see my current sig), and now Huckabee is using irony to increase his appeal. Has he managed to hire Lyotard to write his campaign strategy now?
http://www.alternet.org/story/73781/
Does anyone get the feeling that once president Hillary fucks everything up, there won't be another female president for another 200 years?
Quote from: LMNO on January 22, 2008, 01:30:10 PM
Does anyone get the feeling that once president Hillary fucks everything up, there won't be another female president for another 200 years?
you mean just like after bush fucked up you won't get another idiot president for another 200 years?
You know, I wonder, how many people really think about the gender thing with Hillary. No, I don't mean that in a "she's kinda mannish" way, but I really think her being a Clinton has a bigger impact on whether or not she wins. There are many Conservatives who absolutely hate the Clintons, I mean HATE. I know some personally. And if she does get into office, they will relish every mistake she makes. Not because she is a woman, but because she is a Clinton. Sure, I'm sure there are a fair amount of chauvanists out there who won't vote for her because she is a woman, and will give her flak for being a woman, but I think her Clintoness outweighs her womanness.
Quote from: triple zero on January 22, 2008, 01:32:22 PM
Quote from: LMNO on January 22, 2008, 01:30:10 PM
Does anyone get the feeling that once president Hillary fucks everything up, there won't be another female president for another 200 years?
you mean just like after bush fucked up you won't get another idiot president for another 200 years?
:mittens:
Quote from: Cain on January 21, 2008, 08:40:11 PM
Has the media started to refer to Bill and Hillary as "Billary" yet? They really should, since they're a single political unit, when all is said and done.
I think everyone's afraid to because they already did it last go-round.
Pfft, thats no fun. We haven't had a worthwhile single unit celebrity couple since Bennifer. I owe so much to that celebrity pairing. Back in the day, when I used to play Celebdaq (http://www.bbc.co.uk/celebdaq/)on the BBC Website (for lack of anything better to do) I bought about a thousand shares in each of them just before their relationship got crazy. Broke into the top 10 on that alone.
Someone should make a political version of Celebdaq. I'd play a game like that to the bitter end.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/election08/#74669
Romney tries relate to black youth culture.
Quote from: Cain on January 23, 2008, 05:18:12 PM
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/election08/#74669
Romney tries relate to black youth culture.
hahahahahah
QuoteIn his dress shirt and tie, and with his unwavering smile, he walked over and posed for photographs with a group of black youngsters. Putting his arm around a teenage girl, he waved to the cameras and offered, "Who let the dogs out?" He added a tepid "woof woof."...
Later, Mr. Romney admired a child's gold necklace and said, "Oh, you've got some bling-bling here."
I flat out didn't believe this until I saw the video.
This reminds me of that scene in Borat (and numerous other movies) where the white guy asks the black kids to teach him how to talk like them. Then in the next scene he utters some sharply uncool street slang.
It's a subtle appeal to white Republican Social Conservatives.
That fact that he's doing it so badly, and in just a pandering way sends a message that he will completely ignore them when elected.
I believe it. It's either that or he has some really piss poor advisors.
Heh. Dorky white man funnay.
Good gawd I need to defect to somewheres.
http://mikepower.net/not-a-blog/2008/1/23/presidential-paintball.html
Much better than any actual debates.
If it has already been posted, then sue me... :lulz:
Does anyone have a youtube thing for the South Carolina debate via the dems? I am looking for the whole debate. I tried looking on youtube but I am too ignorant to figure it out. If you know of this youtube thing, I would really appreciate being shown the way......
Sweet merciful fuck, why would you want to see the entire debate? Those things are entirely devoid of content, and boring as fuck, to boot.
Because you can quote it at people who weren't watching it, to feel superior, or while trolling their Youtube account, to wind up their supporters.
I've taken in a couple of the debates. The one they did in NH with both parties, and part of the NH debate after Hillary and Obama supposedly buried the hatchet (apparently in each other's backs).
I suppose you can learn a little bit about personalities, especially when they are asked a question they clearly don't want to answer. But you get little to nothing out of them on actual policies they would enact as President. They deal strictly in generalities when they aren't taking swipes at each other. And I suppose some of the voters need that and may not be able to contemplate fine details, but damnit, don't tell me you're going to turn the Economy around, tell me HOW you are going to do it.
Quote from: Cain on January 24, 2008, 02:08:15 PM
Because you can quote it at people who weren't watching it, to feel superior, or while trolling their Youtube account, to wind up their supporters.
I always true to use the "quote to feel superior" bit to motivate myself to watch the debates, but I just can't do it.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 24, 2008, 02:31:00 PM
damnit, don't tell me you're going to turn the Economy around, tell me HOW you are going to do it.
ALL THE CANDITATES AGREE: DEFICIT SPENDING.
Even Huckabee and Paul?
To be honest, if the economic situation worsens, those two are going to reap the benefits of it, as far as I can see.
I already know who is going to reap the benefits over here, and being an immigrant and all, I'm looking at ticket prices.
The bus to work was ABSURDLY full this morning (we actually passed several stops because there was just no more room for people, etc) and when we were stopped at a light and everyone was just standing around silently accepting their fate of spooning with strangers, some obnoxious guy began preaching to all of us about how we need to write letters to the MBTA to force them to run more 47s at rush hour, etc, how it's unsafe to have so many people in a bus, etc, etc, etc.
It was very hard to not yell at him, "Holy fuck, buddy! This is fucking public transit! What the shit did you expect? You want comfort and safety features? Buy a car!" But that aside, what I REALLY wanted to scream was "And where the hell do you think this money is going to come from?! The MBTA is already in massive debt, and adding more service, while appealing, is only going to make it worse. And he is probably another one of those people that complained when the fares went up--but money doesn't just appear out of thin air. It doesn't just materialize because we want it.
This is not a huge contribution to this thread. Just sort of a microcosm of the current state of my country, so far as I can tell--people want more, better, etc, but are unwilling to think about the implications of it.
Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if people vote for deficit spenders because they want the money and the services and they want them NOW--long term impact and repercussions, the actual significance of those sorts of fiscal decisions, are completely not in their thought process.
Quote from: Cain on January 24, 2008, 02:43:32 PM
Even Huckabee and Paul?
To be honest, if the economic situation worsens, those two are going to reap the benefits of it, as far as I can see.
I already know who is going to reap the benefits over here, and being an immigrant and all, I'm looking at ticket prices.
Huckabee: Cut taxes, increase spending by 6% of GDP (~$200 billion).
Ron Paul: Eliminate the Federal Reserve and the IRS. (Assume he actually does this. The cost of the gvt will remain largely the same, but the amount of money it gets will be dramatically reduced.)
Looking at the big picture, both solutions are ultimately deficit spending.
As far as I can tell,
no one running for president has a solution that balances the money coming in from taxes and the money going out as spending.
True, but the above two may be sufficiently removed from the stigma of Neoliberal economic policies for it to aid them.
This isn't meant to sound argumentative, but... who is "them" that is getting aided?
The aforementioned candidates.
Not the voters or anything. Much has been made of the fact that their economic policies are quite distinct when compared to pretty much everyone else in the race. They're not, not really (look at political compass for some serious pwnage) but they have a few eye-catching policies that will mark them out. And given how well the current system has worked, that may be all they need.
I don't put too much stock into anything being offered up by the also-rans, except maybe Huckabee because I could see him being picked up as a VP candidate. Paul's done, he's just staying in to keep his profile up, just as Kucinich is doing on the Dem side of things.
The problem with economic reform is that I feel it misses a big chunk of the equation. The responsbilility of consumers. It was people signing for mortgages they couldn't afford that started this whole mess. And the predatory lending schemes just piled on. So then people can't afford to pay their monthly mortgage payments, let alone go into Best Buy and buy a shiny flat-screen.
And giving tax-rebates, like Bush wants to do, is going to be a short-term, window dressing band-aid. There needs to be policies in place that address imparting the ideas of responsible financial decision making on the part of the consumers. The 2000's in a lot of ways are similar to the 80's as far as being a me-decade. People need to learn to dial their lifestyles back when they get them to a point where they can't afford them.
To me, giving those kind of people tax-rebates is like trying to combat a drug-addiction by throwing them a hit of heroin.
Quote from: LMNO on January 24, 2008, 02:55:54 PM
Quote from: Cain on January 24, 2008, 02:43:32 PM
Even Huckabee and Paul?
To be honest, if the economic situation worsens, those two are going to reap the benefits of it, as far as I can see.
I already know who is going to reap the benefits over here, and being an immigrant and all, I'm looking at ticket prices.
Huckabee: Cut taxes, increase spending by 6% of GDP (~$200 billion).
Ron Paul: Eliminate the Federal Reserve and the IRS. (Assume he actually does this. The cost of the gvt will remain largely the same, but the amount of money it gets will be dramatically reduced.)
Looking at the big picture, both solutions are ultimately deficit spending.
As far as I can tell, no one running for president has a solution that balances the money coming in from taxes and the money going out as spending.
Well as far as I can tell, RP seems to think that the Fed Reserve and IRS need to go away, but only after a series of program cuts. In one interview, he basically said that people expect the government to do lots of things it shouldn't and they would have to be educated and weaned off the various programs. So, I do think Paul's move would reduce the cost of government:
No IRS, No Fed Reserve, No FDA, No FCC, No FTC, No ATF, No War On Some Drugs, No Federal Housing, Dept of Edu etc etc etc
Further, if the ink pen given to me by the Illegal Immigrant/Pizza Delivery Guy is correct, we're spending a very large chart symbol on the military compared to everything else. So his isolation/defense only policy would probably drastically reduce the costs there.
Now, of course, its up for debate as to how well such a society would function... given the nature of human beings, but the government spending, I think, would be under control.
Actually, Ron Paul's foreign policy would increase spending.
He wants to withdraw from various nuclear control treaties, which will provoke Russia especially. He wants to withdraw from NATO and the UN, which will to start with create a decrease in military spending, but as the rest of NATO fell apart or into the Russian sphere of control, would necessitate more spending to make up for the lost resources of European militiaries.
He would also outsource the majority of the war on terror, using Letters of Marque to enable private armies to be raised.
Ok Cain, I get what you're saying. Beneficial to the candidates, not the voters.
I suppose the trick is to repackage the same old bullshit in a new candy coating.
RWHN, the problem seems to be that the best thing for the citizen would be saving and paying off debt, while the best thing for the national economy would be increased spending and debt.
[edit: damn, this thread got popular fast]
But I think there is a middle ground. I know because I live on it. I save money, I don't have credit card debt, I am able to make my mortgage payments, and I have some things/material goods. It is possible to put money into the economy and maintain a financially stable household. Now, of course, I am the Middle Class, and it's a whole different bowl of wax for lower middle class and the poor.
And I know there's always been irresponsbile spending and there always will. I guess the big difference really was when so many people were being irresponsible with finances when it came to buying houses. If that shit isn't fixed, it doesn't matter what Bush, Pelosi, and Reid come up with to stimulate the economy, because we'll be right back at square one in a few years.
Just got to work out the year early tax credit numbers-
$1.4b / 300m = $466.67 per person average.
PRT=i
4.2% on 30 yr T-bills
Quotehttp://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/update/
30 year maturity
466.67*.042*30
$588 interest per person
=$1054.67 per person average cost, because the money you get at first is your own assumed tax return from next year.
That's per person though, not taxpayer
Quotehttp://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=380531
140b / 130,728,360 = $1070.92 cost per taxpayer, 30 yrs later its $1349.36 in interest total cost
is $2421 ea for your $600-1200 refund.
Is this correct? I have payday loans that were a lot worse than that
The numbers look real bad per individual when you do the same for the national debt....
Quotehttp://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
Vote early, vote often, vote with your money.
have a nice day. :lulz:
Sorry, it gets just a bit worse, lol
30225*.042*30 =$38083.5 ea in interest
$30225.0
$68k owed by each living person to pay for the government if the govt were to stop spending right now and pay off the debt 30 years from now?
I don't even really understand what that means, or maybe I'm just having cognitive dissonance.
Add another $5000 per person, per annum.
For when China's economy goes up merde creek sans une paddle.
ok, someone explain this to me.
I just read in the paper (so it's a summary, and might be false) that poor people will get $300, and the middle class will get up to $1200.
So the people that need it less will get the most?
Poor people will put their money to essential uses, like food and heating and bills.
Middle class people will spend it on iPods and laptops and lunch at suishi bars.
The latter helps the economy more. Didn't you realize people exist only to serve The Market?
At least they aren't sending GIANT checks out to the upper class.
It doesn't seem right to me that the regular people get checks and then lower class get mini-checks, but on the other hand, the dividing line is "people who make so little that they don't pay taxes." And I guess the justification is that in paying money to people who don't pay taxes, you will NEVER see return on that money. Cause they don't pay taxes. The middle class pays taxes, so while they will get double the check, they will eventually at least marginally contribute to paying it back.
Not saying that I think that's correct, but I just imagine that is the logic.
Although, you have to be making so absurdly little to not actually have to pay taxes. The cut-off is around $5k a year. So most of the "working poor," people stuck in minimum wage jobs, working two jobs, etc, will be well above the cut-off to get the $600 instead of the $300.
The "logic" is to keep consumer spending high in order to keep the Chinese economy afloat. Because if its not kept afloat, then you can pretty much kiss goodbye the chance to see your current standard of living again in your lifetime.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/opinion/25fri1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/opinion/25fri2.html
NY Times articles showing who they are backing.
Quote from: LMNO on January 25, 2008, 01:33:13 PM
ok, someone explain this to me.
I just read in the paper (so it's a summary, and might be false) that poor people will get $300, and the middle class will get up to $1200.
So the people that need it less will get the most?
No, the $300 checks are going to single individuals while the $1200 is for couples. Couples with children may also quality for an additional $300 per child. Unless anyone here made over $170,000 last year, in which case you are shit out of luck.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 25, 2008, 02:57:59 PM
Quote from: LMNO on January 25, 2008, 01:33:13 PM
ok, someone explain this to me.
I just read in the paper (so it's a summary, and might be false) that poor people will get $300, and the middle class will get up to $1200.
So the people that need it less will get the most?
No, the $300 checks are going to single individuals while the $1200 is for couples. Couples with children may also quality for an additional $300 per child. Unless anyone here made over $170,000 last year, in which case you are shit out of luck.
What I got on the news last night is that it's $600 to individuals, $1200 for couples, plus $300 per child. This is available for individuals who earn less than $95k a year and families at less than $170k. For people who are making so little that they do not qualify to pay taxes, it is $300 to individuals and $600 to couples. There might've also been some money for children in there, but I didn't catch that.
Yeah, I was just pulling that from the examples given over at MSNBC.com I think there are a lot of different scenarios that will mean more/less money. I'm sure there will be one of those "Choose Your Own Adventure"type formula thingies like they use on the 1040.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 25, 2008, 03:15:23 PM
Yeah, I was just pulling that from the examples given over at MSNBC.com I think there are a lot of different scenarios that will mean more/less money. I'm sure there will be one of those "Choose Your Own Adventure"type formula thingies like they use on the 1040.
(http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb163/wompcabal/chooseyourown1040.jpg)
"If you're Gross Adjusted Income is less then $72,000 then go to page 37 and fill out lines 34 through 47. If you're Gross Adjusted Income is more than $72,000, STOP, you can't take this credit and you are going to be eaten by a Bear!"
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on January 25, 2008, 03:21:55 PM
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 25, 2008, 03:15:23 PM
Yeah, I was just pulling that from the examples given over at MSNBC.com I think there are a lot of different scenarios that will mean more/less money. I'm sure there will be one of those "Choose Your Own Adventure"type formula thingies like they use on the 1040.
(http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb163/wompcabal/chooseyourown1040.jpg)
:lulz: Ahh, I had a bunch of those books when I was a kid. Fun times.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 24, 2008, 02:31:00 PMI've taken in a couple of the debates. The one they did in NH with both parties, and part of the NH debate after Hillary and Obama supposedly buried the hatchet (apparently in each other's backs).
I suppose you can learn a little bit about personalities, especially when they are asked a question they clearly don't want to answer. But you get little to nothing out of them on actual policies they would enact as President. They deal strictly in generalities when they aren't taking swipes at each other. And I suppose some of the voters need that and may not be able to contemplate fine details, but damnit, don't tell me you're going to turn the Economy around, tell me HOW you are going to do it.
wouldn't you rather look at
- actual policies
- personal viewpoints on certain issues
?
or are you telling me that information really isn't out there?
You can find all that shit out on Wikipedia (and edit it, when you're bored).
Quote from: triple zero on January 26, 2008, 01:59:53 PM
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 24, 2008, 02:31:00 PMI've taken in a couple of the debates. The one they did in NH with both parties, and part of the NH debate after Hillary and Obama supposedly buried the hatchet (apparently in each other's backs).
I suppose you can learn a little bit about personalities, especially when they are asked a question they clearly don't want to answer. But you get little to nothing out of them on actual policies they would enact as President. They deal strictly in generalities when they aren't taking swipes at each other. And I suppose some of the voters need that and may not be able to contemplate fine details, but damnit, don't tell me you're going to turn the Economy around, tell me HOW you are going to do it.
wouldn't you rather look at
- actual policies
- personal viewpoints on certain issues
?
or are you telling me that information really isn't out there?
Oh sure, it's out there. On their campaign websites, in the news, etc., but I think the best
potential to learn about a candidate, as a person, is them answering a question on-the-spot. For example, I saw an event Romney did at a Staples, I think it was in New Hampshire. Anyway, one of the press people started to, uh press, him on someone in his campaign who was a lobbyist. He was basically using the Clinton technique of "Well it depends on what your definition of "is" is." The press guy was saying Romney had a lobbyist heading his campaign while Romney said he was "an advisor". Anyway, an exchange like that tells me alot about this guy and how he probably isn't very trustworthy. I know, I know, shocker right?
But when a politician has time to prepare their message, they go over it with a fine-tooth comb. Not to make sure it has the most amount of truth and validity in it, but to make sure it's going to maximize their poll numbers, primary votes., etc. I want to see what they are like when they have to be on their toes.
word. Politicians spend most of their time preparing themselves to attack and defend in certain ways, to cover their weak points and maximize their opponents' weak points. When someone asks them a question which takes them off guard, you can see the gears in their head grinding. The good ones think on their feet. The bad ones repeat themselves, fall back on rhetoric, they change the topic... The debates are full of that stuff, it's wonderful.
That's exactly why Hillary is beating Obama IMHO. The opinion that Obama has less experience is supported by his inability to adlib when thrown a curveball. Hillary, on the other hand, can take a random question and turn it into a touching emotional moment.
Plus if half the Democratic Party were reporters, their assignments would read: embedded up Hillary Clinton's arse.
She's been in politics for 20+ years, including 8 years right next to the seat of power. She has a power structure embedded within the Democratic party that has been built up for a generation, at the highest levels of government and media, and that counts for a hell of a lot.
Yeah. I think Obama is getting a lot of anti-Hillary votes from Democrats who really can't stomach going through 4 to 8 years of another Clinton presidency. I've already heard a couple of talking-heads suggest there will be new inquiries by the Republicans if she gets into power. It'll be like the 90's all over again, except, probably without the good economy.
Hillary just comes across to me as another in-crowd politician with a calculated agenda and a premeditated career. Her ambition to be President is just the logical conclusion to everything she's done so far, and every step she has taken has been deliberately planned. That just turns me off to begin with, before we even get into her political beliefs or her agenda. Both of those suck but you can afford to ignore them since, like every other politicians, her beliefs and agenda will change like magic the moment she takes an
oath of office.
Plus, if Hillary is elected, she will be able to get practically nothing done unless the Democrats win the kind of majority in Congress that would obsolete the entire Republican Party, which isn't going to happen. But I don't think Hillary is even electable. It's looking like the Republican nominee is going to be McCain, who has broad appeal to a lot of people, including Democrats. And half of Democrats hate Hillary anyway.
I know a guy who is going to vote for Hillary just because he wants a Democrat in the White House -- nevermind that her foreign policy is basically identical to Dubya's; nevermind that Hillary is obviously a scheming, manipulative politician who will say anything and adopt any stance to win votes; nevermind that she is another corporate-sponsored candidate.
But is there a realistic alternative? I think Obama is more electable than Hillary is, against McCain or any other Republican. The problem is that so many Democrats are fooled by Hillary's bullshit that Obama won't get the nomination, and then their party will lose the White House for another 8 years.
The dems will lose again if they don't put a southerner up for president against the republicans. I don't think the senator from New York counts as a southerner any more and I don't think Obama has Kennedy's presence. The Dems are doomed yet again this round :cry:
I'll get you and your little dog too!
\
:mccain:
Is the idea that Obama can't win really that tenable though? I keep a close eye on Alternet, where a lot of the Democratic progressives hang out, and the consensus is that Obama trounced Hillary totally (well, he did) and that its still too close to call. There is a fair representation of Democratic views over there, and they don't seem to feel Obama is out of it at all.
Also, if McCain is ascending in the polls, which he seems to be, might not independents come out more heavily in support of Obama in upcoming primaries?
I'm not sure how much impact independents have in the primaries, or how many states let them vote. Independents don't get a vote in the primaries as you can only vote within your party in the primaries here.
I need to look at some demographics on the first part, but historically it doesn't look feasible, verifying.
Are you sure? I'm certain in New Hampshire the independent vote was vital for McCain's victory...
Quote from: Diseris on January 28, 2008, 05:58:11 PM
I'm not sure how much impact independents have in the primaries, or how many states let them vote. Independents don't get a vote in the primaries in washington state as you can only vote within your party in the primaries here.
sry fixt.
Quote from: Cain on January 28, 2008, 05:10:48 PM
Is the idea that Obama can't win really that tenable though? I keep a close eye on Alternet, where a lot of the Democratic progressives hang out, and the consensus is that Obama trounced Hillary totally (well, he did) and that its still too close to call. There is a fair representation of Democratic views over there, and they don't seem to feel Obama is out of it at all.
Also, if McCain is ascending in the polls, which he seems to be, might not independents come out more heavily in support of Obama in upcoming primaries?
Obama
can win in a general election, but I don't know about his chances in the Democratic nomination process. In general, the Democratic party is solidly split between people who will vote for Hillary no matter what, and people who won't vote for Hillary no matter what. Which of the two sides is larger or more likely to actually vote in primaries remains to be seen. We know that the media is pro-Hillary for the most part so we can expect poll numbers to suggest Hillary is in the lead.
Hillary is definitely out of the "inevitable winner" slot, and until Feb. 5 nobody can be sure what will happen. It's boding well for Obama that voter turnout, especially among younger voters, has broken records in almost every state so far. If that patter can be maintained through next Tuesday he might yet win.
I just don't know that it will matter with the establishment so entrenched and pro-Hillary. Many Democrats are convinced for some reason that Hillary would fare better in a general election than Obama would, so there's a lot of strategy-voting going on. Maybe it's the same fear that I have for Obama in a general election -- that millions of dumbshit Americans who would normally never vote in their life will crawl out from under a rock somewhere to vote for the Republican candidate just because they would just die if there was ever a Black man in the White House. I don't think that's really what would happen, but the
fear of that happening just might be enough to stop Democrats from nominating Obama.
Quote from: vexati0n on January 28, 2008, 06:14:44 PM
-- that millions of dumbshit Americans who would normally never vote in their life will crawl out from under a rock somewhere to vote for the Republican candidate just because they would just die if there was ever a Black man in the White House. I don't think that's really what would happen, but the fear of that happening just might be enough to stop Democrats from nominating Obama.
My fear is that same crowd plus a few will come out for Hil as well.
2 non-southern democratic presidents since the civil war:
FDR and JFK...start the BHO chant, that'll work.
Quote from: Diseris on January 28, 2008, 06:11:15 PM
Quote from: Diseris on January 28, 2008, 05:58:11 PM
I'm not sure how much impact independents have in the primaries, or how many states let them vote. Independents don't get a vote in the primaries in washington state as you can only vote within your party in the primaries here.
sry fixt.
Ah, I see.
QuoteHillary is definitely out of the "inevitable winner" slot, and until Feb. 5 nobody can be sure what will happen. It's boding well for Obama that voter turnout, especially among younger voters, has broken records in almost every state so far. If that patter can be maintained through next Tuesday he might yet win.
Although, Hillary seemed pretty convinced she wasn't going to win South Carolina, and spent her time in Feb 5th states while Bill crashed and burned for her in SC. But yes, I can see it coming down to whose bloc of core voters is bigger, which is worrying.
Do you think the Kennedy endorsement for Obama counts for much?
Let me tell you this...
With the Kennedys endorsing Obama...he just won MA and RI outright. We don't even need to have primaries now.
Quote from: Cain on January 28, 2008, 06:47:22 PM
QuoteHillary is definitely out of the "inevitable winner" slot, and until Feb. 5 nobody can be sure what will happen. It's boding well for Obama that voter turnout, especially among younger voters, has broken records in almost every state so far. If that patter can be maintained through next Tuesday he might yet win.
Although, Hillary seemed pretty convinced she wasn't going to win South Carolina, and spent her time in Feb 5th states while Bill crashed and burned for her in SC. But yes, I can see it coming down to whose bloc of core voters is bigger, which is worrying.
Do you think the Kennedy endorsement for Obama counts for much?
I think so, because in a certain sense it's the old-guard, or at least part of the old-guard of the Democratic party saying they want to move on from the Clintons. Whether or not this actually translates into a majority of Democratic voters going along with it, it remains to be seen. Like Suu said, the biggest impact will be in New England, probably less of an impact in the South.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 29, 2008, 03:24:05 PM
I think so, because in a certain sense it's the old-guard
Nailed it.
The numerous comparisons to JFK definatly had to touch a few people.
Quote from: hunter s.durden on January 29, 2008, 03:26:48 PM
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 29, 2008, 03:24:05 PM
I think so, because in a certain sense it's the old-guard
Nailed it.
The numerous comparisons to JFK definatly had to touch a few people.
I never understood what the big JFK comparison was all about anyway... I mean he did good on the Cuban crisis and certianly pushed for some liberal ideas... but mostly he just kinda died before a real legacy of actual stuff could be established, didn't he?
Let's see, stuff that happened on JFK's watch:
Bay of Pigs (real winner there)
Cuban Missile Crisis (Good job on this actually)
Using Specter of Communism to engage in questionable foreign policy stuff (like backing a bloody Baathist revolution in Iraq to out the Communists)
The Peace Corps was a good idea, the Space Race was fun...
But what actually did the guy accomplish? Am I missing something huge, or is JFK just a meme at this point?
I was saying that the comparison was valuable, not that JFK had merit.
JFK is an American God.
Ask yourself this,
Do you think there would be the outpouring of National grief if W got plugged? Do you think there would be as much of the "Where were you when W got shot?" as there was for JFK? If the answer is no, then you have your answer to your previous question.
He did some good stuff in standing up to the CIA/Pentagon's resident crypto-fascists and on the civil rights front.
But again, he did some very bad stuff, like emboiling the USA in Vietnam, treating the CIA like a personal assassination service and pointlessly provoking the Soviet Union (thankfully, Khrushchev was smart enough not to call the bluff of a drugged out crazy).
Really,I think its because he got to bang Marilyn Monroe, was drugged up to the eyeballs 90% of the time, and died young. I mean, shit, rock and roll President or what?
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 29, 2008, 05:26:21 PM
Ask yourself this,
Do you think there would be the outpouring of National grief if W got plugged? Do you think there would be as much of the "Where were you when W got shot?" as there was for JFK? If the answer is no, then you have your answer to your previous question.
http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=7498&IBLOCK_ID=35
A PATRIOT FALLS
MAUMEE, OHIO -- America is in shock and mourning following the surprise assassination of President George W. Bush during a campaign rally yesterday in Maumee, Ohio.
The suspect, a white American male, was quickly subdued and transported to an undisclosed location. So far no group has claimed responsibility, and it is believed the gunman acted alone.
Bush received at least nine bullet wounds while delivering a stump speech to a friendly crowd of unemployed factory workers, many of whom identified with Bush's strong values and congenial personality.
"It was just like in a movie," said Randy Walker, a recently-laid-off 46-year-old auto parts assembler from Maumee. "I heard what sounded like firecrackers and the President slumped into the podium, gurgling. I figured he was just illustrating a point about tax and spend liberals because he just kept right on at Kerry, even after he shorted the mike out with his blood."
"He fought real hard, like a true hero," agreed Lance Tiggs, a 32-year-old Army mechanic who lost both of his legs in Iraq and has since stumped for Bush.
The President, who had lost all vital life signs within minutes, was quickly airlifted to an emergency care facility in Cleveland, where he warned his surgeon and nurses that John Kerry would have big government telling them how to run their lives.
"It was heartbreaking," said Dr. Morris Feingold, Bush's surgeon. "He just didn't understand how grave his situation was."
At 2:54 p.m., as he was praising the Iraqi people for taking more responsibility for their lives, the President was pronounced dead. In a hasty ceremony reminiscent of Lyndon B. Johnson's assumption of power in 1963, Vice President Dick Cheney immediately took the oath of office, which he consummated by sucking from Bush's head wound and eating his heart. "It's an old Indian thing," he explained.
Across the country, Americans set aside their differences and bonded together as a nation. In Boston, after the World Series was canceled with the Red Sox up 10-0 in the sixth inning of Game 4, Democratic party activists held a somber "American Unity" prayer ceremony headed by George Steinbrenner and Senator Zell Miller. Farther south, in Tampa, blacks agreed to refrain from voting in order to give local white poll monitors time to grieve.
However, unrest broke out in several parts of the country. In one of the worst incidents, Bush supporters in La Jolla, California rampaged in their golf carts through South San Diego's Latino neighborhoods, setting fire to trees and forcing thousands to flee their homes.
The National Guard was called up in twenty-nine states in order to maintain order. Due to the Iraq war, the severely-depleted Guard was forced to supplement its numbers with private militias and paintball teams. Unconfirmed reports say that Canadian Mounties are massing at the U.S. border and are prepared to intervene "if asked."
The eXile's Special Assassination Supplement was conceived, composed and performed by Jeff Koyen, editor-in-chief of the New York Press, along with eXile editors Jake Rudnitsky and Mark Ames, and eXile designer-babe Dasha Mol'.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 29, 2008, 05:26:21 PM
Ask yourself this,
Do you think there would be the outpouring of National grief if W got plugged? Do you think there would be as much of the "Where were you when W got shot?" as there was for JFK? If the answer is no, then you have your answer to your previous question.
Pretty good point, but W is just so... Gawd.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 29, 2008, 05:26:21 PM
Ask yourself this,
Do you think there would be the outpouring of National grief if W got plugged? Do you think there would be as much of the "Where were you when W got shot?" as there was for JFK? If the answer is no, then you have your answer to your previous question.
So then, JFK is remembered because he was a Hot, Young and Charismatic President, not for any actual merit on its own? Or is it because it was the destruction of innocence? I mean, what real value is there to "He's like JFK" if it only means he's young good looking and may be shagging some famous Marilyn?
Oh wait... that means...
(http://www.aolcdn.com/red_galleries/marilyn-manson-400a052307.jpg)
Oh, there was the whole "Camelot" mystique, I suppose, but that was marketing, not policy.
Quote from: Cain on January 29, 2008, 05:36:10 PM
Oh, there was the whole "Camelot" mystique, I suppose, but that was marketing, not policy.
Maybe Mr. Manson can be Lancelot?
What I'm getting at is that JFK seemed to have the ability to move people, in a positive way. It was good looks, certainly, and charisma and conviction. When he said he wanted to go to the moon he had the country hanging on his every words. Maybe you don't remember but it was just a couple of years ago W was talking about going back to the Moon and then on to Mars. Do you remember that? Probably not. It didn't make the big headlines like JFK's space initiatives did.
So, I think some people in the DNC are seeing the potential of Obama having some of these qualities. I don't buy it myself. I think he is a good speaker, I think he has some charisma, but he doesn't have that same self-assured swagger that JFK seemed to have. I don't think he can captivate the America of the 2000's like JFK captivated the America of the 60s.
http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-kennedys-are-endorsing-obama.html
Senator Edward Kennedy has decided to endorse Barack Obama for President, saying he wants a President who "can make us believe again." Over the weekend John F. Kennedy's daughter, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, announced her support for Obama, saying he reminded her of her father. Kennedy's speech writer Ted Sorenson asked what he could do for Obama last year, hoping no doubt that after the election Obama will ask what he can do for Sorenson. Like Kennedy, Obama is young, handsome and inspiring and he represents the passing of the torch to a new generation. But it is not just that Obama reminds them of Kennedy, it is also that the Clintons remind them of Lyndon Johnson. And if there is anything that the Kennedys don't like, it's a bunch of hillbillies in the White House, which is being kept in trust until a competent Kennedy can be groomed to take it back for its rightful owners. Until that time Obama will do.
Like Johnson, the Clintons play politics like it was mud wrestling or the roller derby, while the Kennedys have always believed that politics should be like a friendly game of touch football or beanbag. They never had to get down in the dirt with their opponents. Their father and his friends always took care of that for them.
When Hillary Clinton pointed out that it took Lyndon Johnson to get the Civil Rights bill passed, she was not only insulting Martin Luther King but also JFK, who did all the hard work of asking southern Democrats very politely to please vote for the Civil Rights bill, which they might have done some time in future as soon as they looked into their consciences and realized it was the right thing to do. Then Kennedy died and Johnson stepped in, rudely cajoling people and threatening to show them his scar unless they voted for it. Is that the kind of politics we want in America? Of course, if Kennedy had lived he also would have awakened one day and realized, unlike Johnson, that all of his advisers were not the best and the brightest but were really a bunch of dopes and he would have stood up to them and got us out of Vietnam.
In 1968 Robert Kennedy tried to take the White House back from the dumb hick who had taken it over by a fluke of history, but he was killed, too, before he got the chance. Ted Kennedy tried to save the country from another country bumpkin who got the keys to their house in 1980, but he lost to Jimmy Carter in the primaries. At first the Kennedys let Bill Clinton burnish their image by showing the photo of how he was somehow able to sneak his way into the White House to shake President Kennedy's hand when he was a young man. Now the Kennedys are saying enough is enough.
No one loved the Kennedys and hated Johnson more than liberals and the liberal media and they feel the same way about the Clintons. "Is the right right on the Clintons?" liberal pundit Jonathan Chait asks in an article in the Los Angeles Times. For years conservatives have been saying that the Clintons give politics a bad name. We look back with nostalgia to a time when gentlemanly Democrats like Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, George McGovern and Hubert Humphrey lost elections with grace and dignity. They didn't go around smearing their opponents and cynically triangulating the way the Clintons do. Now many liberals and members of the liberal media are coming around to thinking we've been right all along.
Although Republicans do not love the Kennedys the way liberals do, we hate Johnson and the Clintons more. Like many northeastern liberals we hate the way Johnson and the Clintons seem to believe unfairly that Americans are a bunch of racists. Unlike Johnson and the Clintons, Republicans are completely colorblind and never think of race at all. After the Civil Rights bill passed many southern Democrats were so tired of the way Johnson crudely and repeatedly flashed the Race Card that they became Republicans. President Nixon never mentioned race at all in his battles against busing and crime. President Reagan, who paid silent tribute to three Civil Rights workers who were killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi, when he launched his campaign there, never used the Race Card either when he fought against Welfare Queens and quotas. The first President Bush loved black people except when they were criminals like Willie Horton and his son appointed black people like Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice to his cabinet and felt really bad about all the black people who died in New Orleans.
And you don't see divisive racial battles in the Republican primary. None of the candidates has even mentioned the fact that Alan Keyes is black. When Rudy Giuliani was mayor of New York he lowered crime, which disproportionately affects black people, by giving more power to the police and ended all the racial divisiveness that erupted during the previous black mayor's term. Mitt Romney feels really comfortable around black people probably because his father marched with Martin Luther King, which affected his son so much that he imagined he was there, and how he did cry tears of joy when the Mormon Church announced that black people were no longer considered evil and his maid wouldn't have to go to hell after all. Governor Mike Huckabee stood up for the rights of all the people of South Carolina, black, white, brown, yellow and green, not to be told by white northern elites that they can't have the Confederate flag flying on their state buildings, which is a historical symbol of their unique culture going all the way back to 1962. And all the Republican candidates have fought very hard for the rights of African-Americans not to have their low-paying jobs taken away by illegal immigrants.
Conservatives are really appalled at the way the Clintons are injecting race into this campaign. In a piece in Red State called "Democrats: The Party of the Klan?" Eric Erickson writes, "They are always claiming that Republicans are racist, but it is looking more and more like the Democratic Party, to its core foundation, is racist." In South Carolina the Clintons threw everything at Obama they could think of except pointing out that he fathered a black child. Republicans are offended by such down-and-dirty politics, which reminds them of the time they had to employ Lee Atwater to counter all the dirt the Democrats were putting out, which even Atwater himself regretted as soon as he was dying. His protégée Karl Rove no doubt was also troubled by all the dirty politics that erupted in campaigns he was involved with, which could never be traced back to him since he had nothing to do with it at all.
Many conservatives are saying nice things about Barack Obama, even though he is liberal and black, which they probably don't even realize, because they long for the days before the Clintons ruined politics. "I tell you, he almost had me tonight until he talked about the war that shouldn't have been authorized and reminded me there are real policy issues at stake in this election!" gushed Kathryn Jean Lopez in The Corner. "But listening to his inspirational, rallying speech tonight it's clear and obvious that if he's the nominee, he will be tough to beat." Andrew Sullivan, who makes no secret of his hatred for the Clintons, has endorsed Obama. Unlike the Clintons and many white Democrats, they don't see him as the black candidate. Almost 25% of white voters voted for Obama in the South Carolina primary and if he is nominated he may even get a few white votes in the general election, though probably not enough to win. That's because race is no longer an issue for voters in the South and it really is rude of the Clintons to subtly imply that it is, if that's what they were doing and we know it was because the media has constantly pointed it out.
I think everyone is tired of the kind of politics the Clintons represent, which sees voters as easily manipulated racist dupes and does not appeal to the better angels of their nature the way Barack Obama does. Conservatives are really hoping that the Democrats nominate Obama because he gives us a chance to heal the wounds that the mean-spirited Clintons have inflicted on the body politic. Conservatives would relish the chance to debate about ideas again. I can assure you that I and my fellow conservative bloggers and pundits will not go digging around for mud to throw at him. We won't spread rumors that he's a Muslim or bring up past drug use or go looking through his books Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope for contradictions we can exploit.
That was the old kind of politics, which is entirely the fault of the Clintons. We want to transcend that. I agree with Bob Kerrey that it is great that Obama went to a madrassa and I think Hussein is a very nice middle name. I think it's about time we had a President who admits to using cocaine in the past so that he can tell our youth from experience how bad it is. Conservatives can all get behind a man who talks so movingly about faith even if his church does have some wacky ideas about white people being devils and it once honored Louis Farrakhan. And I think we'll all forget that he is black and best buddies with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. If the Democrats nominate Obama conservatives will relish the chance to talk about issues and make the election as he says not "about black and white but about the past and future." Who couldn't be stirred by that kind of rhetoric?
Of course, we won't vote for Obama in the general election but that will only be because he is a tax-and-spend liberal who wants to surrender in Iraq, is against executing murderers and wants to impose gay marriage on everyone. In other words, we will just point out that we have a few policy differences with him. We relish the chance to debate the nuances of Obama's policy proposals and we'll be relieved not to have to drill into the heads of voters simplistic demeaning labels the way we had to do when we constantly referred to John Kerry as a flip-flopper and Al Gore as a phony. And the media will be happy not to have to repeat these charges in every story they write, which must have gotten kind of boring for them. Instead, they will be able to write the kinds of long thought pieces about issues that matter to people, which is what journalists really want to do. Conservatives will be so grateful to actually be able to finally debate the issues in a civil manner that we won't even mention all the other troubling stuff about Obama. You can trust us.
McCain and Hillary wins, but Hillary is pwned because she gets no delegates.
So it's looking more and more likely that it's coming down to McCain and Hillary unless this Kennedy endorsement gives Obama some legs on Super Tuesday.
If this is the case I can't wait to listen to Rush Limbaugh's program. He hasn't been shy about how much he hates McCain, but I figure he's going to have to support him. It should be quite entertaining seeing the logistical gymnastics he performs to rationalize his former positions on McCain.
The entire Fox New pundit team has been repeatedly pwned during this primary cycle.
QuoteLet's take an extended multiple choice quiz. Right now, which of the following topics is likely causing the discomfort inside Ailes' Fox News empire?
A) CNN's resurgence as the go-to cable destination for election coverage.
B) The incredible shrinking candidacy of Fox News' favored son, Rudy Giuliani.
C) The still-standing candidacy of Fox News nemesis and well-funded, anti-war GOP candidate Rep. Ron Paul.
D) The Democratic candidates' blanket refusal to debate on Fox News during the primary season.
E) Host Bill O'Reilly being so desperate for an interview from a Democratic contender that he had to schlep all the way to New Hampshire, where he shoved an aide to Sen. Barack Obama and then had to be calmed down by Secret Service agents.
F) Former Fox News architect and Ailes confidante Dan Cooper posting chapters from his a wildly unflattering tell-all book about his old boss. ("The best thing that ever happened to Roger Ailes was 9/11.")
G) The fledgling Fox Business Network, whose anemic ratings are in danger of being surpassed by some large city public access channels.
H) Host John Gibson's recent heartless attacks on actor Heath Ledger, just hours after the young actor was found dead.
I) Fox News reporter Major Garrett botching his "exclusive" that Paul Begala and James Carville were going to join Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, and then refusing to correct the record.
I'd say it's
A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. (I doubt Gibson's grave-dancing or Garrett's whopper caused Ailes a moment's concern.)
....
Sean Hannity served as Fox News' official ambassador to the Giuliani campaign; a campaign that Ailes and Fox News were hoping to ride back into the White House. Yet despite showering Giuliani with all kinds of laudatory coverage, both Hannity and Ailes have been powerless, as they watched Giuliani's rudderless campaign go nowhere for months.
Even an all-out Fox News marketing blitz to label Giuliani "America's Mayor" never got traction. In fact, it ranked right up there with the launch of New Coke, in terms of branding success.
....
In the meantime, the rise of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and especially Mike Huckabee, with his populist streak, has caused all sorts of consternation at Fox News. Even the conservative Weekly Standard took noticed. The magazine recently wrote that "A lot of conservatives have problems with both Huckabee and McCain. Last night on Fox, for example, Sean Hannity could barely conceal his distaste for both pols."
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/75359/
:lulz:
Well, at least we won't have to deal with the whackjob Rudy.
Unless of course he becomes McCain's running mate.
Also, in "Who didn't see this one coming?" news:
John Edwards will be dropping out of the race today:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22913001/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22913001/)
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 30, 2008, 02:37:24 PM
Unless of course he becomes McCain's running mate.
Actually, according to
Morning After, McCain is dangling the offer of becoming VP in front of Huckabee to keep him in the race and siphon off votes from Romney, and apparently Huckabee is biting.
Think happy thoughts now.
Yeah, I heard that theory last night as well. It's essentially become everybody against Mitt Romney.
And also, I'm interested in y'alls theories as to why Ron Paul is still in the race. I tend to think he must have enough common sense to know he has no shot. So what does he gain by staying in? Any theories?
Probably because if he quit now, his supporters would blow up the UN Headquarters or Federal Reserve for "forcing him out of it".
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 30, 2008, 02:58:40 PM
Yeah, I heard that theory last night as well. It's essentially become everybody against Mitt Romney.
And also, I'm interested in y'alls theories as to why Ron Paul is still in the race. I tend to think he must have enough common sense to know he has no shot. So what does he gain by staying in? Any theories?
Same reason Kucinich stayed in past the first week. To "bring attention to issues".
Like blowing up the Federal Reserve and DOE.
Quote from: Cain on January 30, 2008, 02:51:11 PM
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 30, 2008, 02:37:24 PM
Unless of course he becomes McCain's running mate.
Actually, according to Morning After, McCain is dangling the offer of becoming VP in front of Huckabee to keep him in the race and siphon off votes from Romney, and apparently Huckabee is biting.
Think happy thoughts now.
link?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemons/mike-huckabee-everyone_b_83212.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/8003.html
http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/01/26/in-alabama-huckabee-defends-mccain-from-romney-dishonest-charge/
http://www.spectator.co.uk/americano/467891/the-republicans-debate.thtml
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/us/19carolina.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
There is certainly a level of collusion between the two.
sweet. thanks.
My dad is a big Mccain guy, I can't wait to see the look on his face when I tell him his guy is gonna put a fundie nutjob within a heartbeat of the presidency.
Its life insurance, Republican style. Who'd want to assassinate McCain, when they realize who the next in line is?
hey, it worked for W.
Makes me wonder who Hillary will pick as her VP though. Joe Lieberman?
Bill Clinton, of course.
especially since a federal judge just ruled that nothing in the Constitution would prevent him from being her Veep.
Funnily enough I was thinking about that just the other day...
How perfectly hideous.
It won't be Lieberman, he's publicly said he won't be a VP candidate. Granted the question to him was whether or not he'd be McCain's mate, but he was ruling out the idea in general as well.
To continue that thought, if she were picking from some of the others who ran but dropped out, I'd think Bill Richardson would be on the list. He would help sure up the Hispanic vote. Also maybe Joe Biden. And they were sitting next to each other at the Bush State of the Union speech.
Well, I'm not happy with any of the options, but I really think I could stomach voting for McCain or Obama, even though they both have different political views (well, we assume Obama has political views ;-) ). However, both of these men seem likely to try to work with both parties and after 16+ years of half the country hating the President, I'd kind of like having a president most people could deal with. I mean I'm not sure if the blogosphere could survive not having American fratra-hate to live on, but oh well.
So, from what I hear, it appears Ron Paul is most likely going to win the Maine Republican Caucuses and get all of its Delegates. Of course we have squat for delegates, but he'll at least have one small victory to brag about. We are the same state that gave Perot his one and only Electoral vote the first time he ran. Just goes to show how weird things can be up here.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 31, 2008, 02:07:38 PM
So, from what I hear, it appears Ron Paul is most likely going to win the Maine Republican Caucuses and get all of its Delegates. Of course we have squat for delegates, but he'll at least have one small victory to brag about. We are the same state that gave Perot his one and only Electoral vote the first time he ran. Just goes to show how weird things can be up here.
say what you will about the guy, but I'm glad he's gonna get at least one state.
Yay, go Maine! Stick it to the Reptilian/Illuminati/International Banker/Zionist/Satanist/Socialist Conspiracy! KICK EM IN THA NADS!
The woman in charge of the Republican Caucuses doesn't sound to be too pleased with this development. (My guess is she's a Romney supporter). Apparently Ron Paul has some real solid operations in states like Maine where the frontrunners really aren't spending any time or money on. He even brainwashed (just kidding everyone, don't freak out) my brother into volunteering for him. We've got a lot of Libertarians here and even a good chunk of the Republicans tend to hate the more establishment-type candidates.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 30, 2008, 02:58:40 PM
Yeah, I heard that theory last night as well. It's essentially become everybody against Mitt Romney.
And also, I'm interested in y'alls theories as to why Ron Paul is still in the race. I tend to think he must have enough common sense to know he has no shot. So what does he gain by staying in? Any theories?
Think he could maneuver himself into a VP spot on the ticket with the threat of pulling a Ralph Nader and splitting the GoP? Pulling 5% of the popular vote could be a real blow in the general election.
There is also some low voter threshold for getting paid out of the national election fund (the check box on your tax form), so he might be after that as well.
It could be an interesting gun for him to use to get some third party recognition, even if it is under the GoP banner.
VP spot? I think McCain would sooner pick Obama to be his running mate before he picked Ron Paul.
Agreed. I think Ron Paul is going to try and create a Libertarian/Republican split using his popularity and lead his followers back to the Chosen Land - that is the political wasteland of the Libertarian Party.
A split will give the election to the Dems.
A vote against Paul for VP might well be a vote for Hillary or Obama.
Running the libertarian party again will only put more distance between mainstream GoP and the Libertarians, look how much good the green party got from Nader's run, practical non-existence.
Yeah, but if they were smart, they wouldn't be in with the Libertarian party in the first place.
Eh, I don't think either the Libertarian or Green parties will ever have any significant play in American politics outside of the odd-ball state like mine. Third-party candidates, no matter the party, are always little more than a novelty when it comes right down to it. Even Bloombers would've been relegated to that same status. It's going to take a really convincing, charismatic, and engaging figure as a third-party candidate to make any headway in that respect.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on January 31, 2008, 04:08:55 PM
Eh, I don't think either the Libertarian or Green parties will ever have any significant play in American politics outside of the odd-ball state like mine. Third-party candidates, no matter the party, are always little more than a novelty when it comes right down to it. Even Bloombers would've been relegated to that same status. It's going to take a really convincing, charismatic, and engaging figure as a third-party candidate to make any headway in that respect.
Has got to be true, as there doesn't seem to be any amount of overt criminal activity that will deter voters from picking the main parties.
A third party has never won the presidency
but numerous times in American history, a third party has become a second party
I mean - the Dems were formed to fight the federalists
Most of the original Republican were dropouts from the Whig party (which believed Congress should be stronger than the executive branch - lol). They rode anti-slavery to the white house and were only really "legitimate" post-Lincoln.
My prophecy:
The Dems/Repubs disagree on principle. Even compromise doesn't necessarily lead to the best answer for many things. Eventually there's gonna be an issue which neither of them can solve, and a third party is going to have a better solution. If the issue is big enough, and the Dem/Repub candidates are disliked enough, some third party will ride all the way to the white house. Sadly, this may not happen in our lifetimes.
The problem already exists. Its called, in economic parlance, taking on more responsibilities than one has resources to deal with, and it will involve the US economy getting hammered into the ground.
Kind of like what is happening now.
The 'solution' is privatization. Of everything.
It will be bad. It will result in much death and misery. It will destroy the USA as you know it. It will result in the unstoppable rise of corporations like KBR, Blackwater, Monsanto and DuPont as political power holders. But it will also solve the economic crisis that is looming, by forcing the government, or what will be left of it, to drop all of its outstanding responsibilities and concentrate economic power purely in the hands of the market.
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas//USA%20Inc_3.pdf for an idea of what it might look like.
They are adept at burying all such issues. But, honestly, I think the GOP is as close to death as it has ever been. All it would take to kill off the party is a landslide loss in both Congressional and Presidential elections, to the point that they can't even filibuster Democratic moves. Things like that have happened but only when the party in question rides an incredibly unpopular position on a big issue all the way to oblivion -- party suicide. When a third party has a better solution, most often that solution is absorbed by one of the major parties.
As long as both Fox News and MSNBC are on the air it won't happen. The left/right polarization is being sold to the American public on a daily basis and they are eating it up. Maybe when we're in the throes of Global Climate meltdown, but even then, there are probably enough Republicans like McCain who actually believe in manmade Global Warming, that the party would still survive. I'm very doubtful about ever seeing another viable party besides the Dems and Repubs in my lifetime.
So, after hearing Obama and Hillary last night about their plans to withdraw from Iraq, if elected, I am fully convinced that in fact neither one will actually withdraw from Iraq. Hillary, in particular. When I hear "We will "carefully and cautiously" remove our presence from Iraq", that to me says if they actually go ahead and get out of Iraq it's going to take a long, long time. Especially if even one commander or General says they shouldn't leave. They're selling the same BS the Dems were selling in 06 about changing the course in Iraq.
Meet the new boss....
Same as the previous douchebag...
Anyone catch Bill Clinton throwing Ted Kennedy under the bus yesterday. Of course he was technically correct when he talked about how Kennedy and Bush masterminded the No Child Left Behind debacle. But you know it's because he's pissed-off that he (Kennedy) endorsed Obama and not Hillary.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on February 01, 2008, 03:35:00 PM
Anyone catch Bill Clinton throwing Ted Kennedy under the bus yesterday. Of course he was technically correct when he talked about how Kennedy and Bush masterminded the No Child Left Behind debacle. But you know it's because he's pissed-off that he (Kennedy) endorsed Obama and not Hillary.
Lol, its fun to watch them act like kids... and he's young enough that we'll have to put up with him every four years for the next 40. LOL
I reckon Bill Clinton has a secret plan to legalize gay marriage. Think about it. There aren't that many women in politics that are well known, and not many good looking ones either. And he can't run for President by himself again. So if Clinton were to marry Obama as a matter of political expedience....well...could be the next Presidency after Hillary's sorted out.
Amazingly good political propaganda:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY
Yeah, its convinced me Obama is a douche.
But he's going to CLEANSE THE VAGINA of the USA!
Well, I'm 0 for 2 this weekend. Not only did the Pats lie down like a rug, but Ron Paul infact did not end up winning the Maine Republican Caucuses. Romney ended up winning. Some individual counties did vote for Paul, in fact Aroostook County, where I am from originally, overwhelmingly voted for Paul. In fact, my two younger brothers were designated as delegates, and since there is no mandate that they vote the same way as all the other delegates, I can safely say Paul will be getting at least two delegate votes.
OMG ITS A CONSPIRACY, WE MUST HAVE AN ARMED REVOLT AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT!
TEH LIZARD PEEPOLES HAZ INVADID MAYNE!
Heh, they even have converted my Mom into a hard-core Paul supporter. She sounded a little dissappointed yesterday when I told her that not only am I not a Registered Republican, but that I probably wouldn't vote for Paul anyway.
As for Romney's victory, it appears that our Republican Senators Collins and Snow spent a lot of time in the more populated districts before the caucuses, and was probably one of the deciding factors in getting a more mainstream candidate the win.
I don't know anything about Olympia Snow, but I've met Susan Collins in person and she's almost painfully dumb considering that she's a fucking US SENATOR.
Surely you mean "even for"? I mean, Ted Stevens isn't exactly going to win any intelligence tests anytime soon, is he?
Won't matter. I think current Representative Tom Allen will unseat her this year in the election. All he's gotta do is win over the already liberal Cumberland and York counties and he'll pretty much have it made.
BREAKING NEWS!
Satirical 'political' blogger "Episkopos Cain" has left a reign of terror in his wake this morning, leaving sarcastic and mocking comments on the sites of every UK based blogger stupid enough to stay up last night and 'live-blog' the Souper-Tuesday results.
Cain, who spent last night getting heroically drunk, engaging in kinky sex and sleeping a full 8 hours (though not necessarily in that order) was especially harsh towards UK based supporters of Barack Obama, whose failure to definitively win or lose has meant his position is almost exactly the same as it was 24 hours ago - a few delegates behind Hillary Clinton. That they pointlessly wasted their time is a key theme in many of the comments.
===================
For those who want the real news, Hillary is 20 delegates ahead of Obama and took Cali, McCain is massively in the lead for the Republicans. IOW, the same as yesterday, pretty much.
:lulz: :mittens:
Tell me more about the kinky sex...
We did it to incoming reports of primary results via CNN.
Oh, icky!
Truly Excellent. Someone finally does something good with this election babble.
I actually probably wont remember until I get to damn well eat something, which might take a while. Until then, my head is fuzzy.
Anyway, some Clinton supporting lail:
http://www.slate.com/id/2183594/
I saw Clinton's lead up to 80 delegates, but in the grand scheme of things nothing to write home about.
I think on the Republican side of things, the amount of success Huckabee had was a bit of a surprise to many Repubs who left him for dead. Though really it shouldn't be much of a surprise. My sense is the deep south are leery of "Magic Pants" Romney, and McCain is just too moderate for him.
What's interesting is that McCain basically won in the blue states, while Huckabee won the Red states, and Romney was winning the sort of Purplish states. They need to somehow graft the three of them together if they have any shot at winning the Presidency.
Oh yeah, and Paul has 9 delegates. Two of which are my brothers. True story.
Rumours are being floated of a super-delegate coup in favour of Hillary, in which case the dems may as well kill themselves and get it over and done with.
Also, interestingly, the battered and weary remains of the Neo-Cons have managed to somehow creep into the McCain camp http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?%20p=102
Quote from: Cain on February 07, 2008, 05:08:42 PM
Rumours are being floated of a super-delegate coup in favour of Hillary, in which case the dems may as well kill themselves and get it over and done with.
Also, interestingly, the battered and weary remains of the Neo-Cons have managed to somehow creep into the McCain camp http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?%20p=102
I'm noticing a lot of the Independents that went with the Neo-Con's over the past 7 years are running straight into McCain's camp for the most part, as are most moderate Republicans and now the least crazy of the neo-cons. Wouldn't it be interesting to actually see a moderate President elected by the independents? I can't even imagine what that might do for future elections. Money no longer seems to matter, party BASE no longer seems to matter, could it be that people just want answers and solutions rather than Dogma? If so, then US politics may get much more interesting soon.
Quote from: Ratatosk on February 07, 2008, 05:31:41 PM
Quote from: Cain on February 07, 2008, 05:08:42 PM
Rumours are being floated of a super-delegate coup in favour of Hillary, in which case the dems may as well kill themselves and get it over and done with.
Also, interestingly, the battered and weary remains of the Neo-Cons have managed to somehow creep into the McCain camp http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?%20p=102
I'm noticing a lot of the Independents that went with the Neo-Con's over the past 7 years are running straight into McCain's camp for the most part, as are most moderate Republicans and now the least crazy of the neo-cons. Wouldn't it be interesting to actually see a moderate President elected by the independents? I can't even imagine what that might do for future elections. Money no longer seems to matter, party BASE no longer seems to matter, could it be that people just want answers and solutions rather than Dogma? If so, then US politics may get much more interesting soon.
No, that isn't it. People forming unpredictable opinions is just a side-effect of the TV Writers' strike. It'll pass soon and everything will go back to normal.
Quote from: vexati0n on February 07, 2008, 05:35:38 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on February 07, 2008, 05:31:41 PM
Quote from: Cain on February 07, 2008, 05:08:42 PM
Rumours are being floated of a super-delegate coup in favour of Hillary, in which case the dems may as well kill themselves and get it over and done with.
Also, interestingly, the battered and weary remains of the Neo-Cons have managed to somehow creep into the McCain camp http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?%20p=102
I'm noticing a lot of the Independents that went with the Neo-Con's over the past 7 years are running straight into McCain's camp for the most part, as are most moderate Republicans and now the least crazy of the neo-cons. Wouldn't it be interesting to actually see a moderate President elected by the independents? I can't even imagine what that might do for future elections. Money no longer seems to matter, party BASE no longer seems to matter, could it be that people just want answers and solutions rather than Dogma? If so, then US politics may get much more interesting soon.
No, that isn't it. People forming unpredictable opinions is just a side-effect of the TV Writers' strike. It'll pass soon and everything will go back to normal.
Really? I don't think the writers strike has really impacted pundits etc has it? I was under the impression that guys like Rush and Coulter wrote their own bullshit...
McCain's a war mongerer in the mold of Bush et al. He's more moderate on social issues and torture, but that's not especially hard.
Also, Romney's out.
Quote from: Cain on February 07, 2008, 05:42:49 PM
McCain's a war mongerer in the mold of Bush et al. He's more moderate on social issues and torture, but that's not especially hard.
Also, Romney's out.
Well, personally I don't mind the war mongering. If there are international threats then war may be a fine option. I'm mostly against poorly planned war mongering which is what Bush excelled at. I think McCain, if he were to go to war, would probably do it under heavy advisement from his Generals and make the right choices. Had we done Iraq correctly (and that means not lying to the Americans about how easy, cheap and quick it would be), then I think we'd be in a much better position now. Whoever the next President is, they will likely be a War President. Leaving Afghanistan and Iraq right now would be a really bad idea in my opinion. From my study of insurgent tactics, it would simply open the whole country up for war again, leaving Iran and Saudi to play puppet masters. As much as I'm no fan of War, I'm not about to support a withdraw that would probably endanger many, many lives.
And, if the Mossad is right and Iran is three years away from a bomb (and maybe Mossad is Full of Shit), then I would guess that Obama, Hillary and McCain will have to deal with it via military means.
For me, I like McCain for two reasons:
1) Most people in the country seem to like him except for pieces of shit like Coulter and Rush. After half of the country hating the Gipper, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II... I would like to have a president that was liked by more than 40some percent of the population.
2) McCain has a great history of pragmatic compromise, rather than the Gingrich style "My Way or I'll break the government and no one can use it". He's worked across the aisle on Finance reform, even though it lost him huge points in his own party, he's worked across the aisle on Immigration, even though its cost him in support. He's never been afraid to tell his party where to shove it, if he thinks they're putting the nation in danger and he's proven to my satisfaction that he cares more about the US than the GOP.
Currently, he appears to be the only person in the race that meets those two key points.
Hillary would be another hellish nightmare of pundits and hateful screeds.
Obama, I'm not at all sure, will be able to handle the next four years with such little experience... and I'm pretty sure half of the country will hate him as well.
So that's my current thinking
McCain supporst the war in Iraq forever, threatening Iran with military action and antagonizing Russia at a time of great political uncertainty.
None of these could in any way be described as "sensible" options. In any combination, or by themselves.
Quote from: Cain on February 07, 2008, 06:04:12 PM
McCain supporst the war in Iraq forever, threatening Iran with military action and antagonizing Russia at a time of great political uncertainty.
None of these could in any way be described as "sensible" options. In any combination, or by themselves.
Well, I think he supports the war in Iraq until we're done... which (in hyperbole) could be forever. Iran may or may not deserve the threats... I'm not at all comfortable with a state that sponsors terrorism working on nuclear technology. As for Russia, what are we supposed to do, sit quiet while Putin plays fast and loose with what democracy means, while assassinating dissenters, booting out election monitors and helping Iran with its research?
I'm no fan of war, but I understand its occasionally necessary. In the three areas listed (as well as Afghanistan) I see no other options that currently appear at all useful.
BREAKING:
ROMNEY PULLS OUT OF RACE...EJACULATES IN MCCAIN'S ASS.
fucking war-mongers.
:mccain:
Meanwhile: The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations overhears the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts utter an audible, "YES!" and follows suit.
Quote from: Ratatosk on February 07, 2008, 06:20:14 PM
Quote from: Cain on February 07, 2008, 06:04:12 PM
McCain supporst the war in Iraq forever, threatening Iran with military action and antagonizing Russia at a time of great political uncertainty.
None of these could in any way be described as "sensible" options. In any combination, or by themselves.
Well, I think he supports the war in Iraq until we're done... which (in hyperbole) could be forever. Iran may or may not deserve the threats... I'm not at all comfortable with a state that sponsors terrorism working on nuclear technology. As for Russia, what are we supposed to do, sit quiet while Putin plays fast and loose with what democracy means, while assassinating dissenters, booting out election monitors and helping Iran with its research?
I'm no fan of war, but I understand its occasionally necessary. In the three areas listed (as well as Afghanistan) I see no other options that currently appear at all useful.
Putin's done nothing worse than Bush has....often with McCain's support, so McCain has no grounds on which to try and lecture Russia. Besides, since when has the US given a fuck what a regime has done internally, so long as it was on side? Their dispute with Russia is illegitimate, because it is based on stopping the emergence of potentially powerful countries and gaining access to their resources, not whatever Putin is doing internally. They didn't care when Yeltsin did it, and he was far worse than Putin could ever hope to be...they care because Putin blocked their attempts to gain control of Russian oil via Yukos and is intent on having his own foreign policy, nothing more or less.
If I thought anyone in a present or future administration actually cared about the Russian people, I might agree with you. But when you have Cold Warriors shacking up with the likes of Kasparov and the National Bolsheviks, I very much doubt they have any Russian's best interest at heart.
Quote from: Cain on February 07, 2008, 06:54:18 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on February 07, 2008, 06:20:14 PM
Quote from: Cain on February 07, 2008, 06:04:12 PM
McCain supporst the war in Iraq forever, threatening Iran with military action and antagonizing Russia at a time of great political uncertainty.
None of these could in any way be described as "sensible" options. In any combination, or by themselves.
Well, I think he supports the war in Iraq until we're done... which (in hyperbole) could be forever. Iran may or may not deserve the threats... I'm not at all comfortable with a state that sponsors terrorism working on nuclear technology. As for Russia, what are we supposed to do, sit quiet while Putin plays fast and loose with what democracy means, while assassinating dissenters, booting out election monitors and helping Iran with its research?
I'm no fan of war, but I understand its occasionally necessary. In the three areas listed (as well as Afghanistan) I see no other options that currently appear at all useful.
Putin's done nothing worse than Bush has....often with McCain's support, so McCain has no grounds on which to try and lecture Russia. Besides, since when has the US given a fuck what a regime has done internally, so long as it was on side? Their dispute with Russia is illegitimate, because it is based on stopping the emergence of potentially powerful countries and gaining access to their resources, not whatever Putin is doing internally. They didn't care when Yeltsin did it, and he was far worse than Putin could ever hope to be...they care because Putin blocked their attempts to gain control of Russian oil via Yukos and is intent on having his own foreign policy, nothing more or less.
If I thought anyone in a present or future administration actually cared about the Russian people, I might agree with you. But when you have Cold Warriors shacking up with the likes of Kasparov and the National Bolsheviks, I very much doubt they have any Russian's best interest at heart.
Well, I for one don't trust Yeltsin or Putin. They both seem to act like jackbooted thugs. If they're actively working with Iran on a nuclear plant, which is what intel now claims... then I would say they're a problem. I also disagree that Bush was anything close to Putin. He was an idiot, he had scheming experts to help him and he was surely more interested in his agenda rather than the US, but I really think that he wasn't evil... policy arguments, arguments over water boarding being torture or not... but at the end of the day, he wasn't actively supressing votes (though I'm sure the left would love to believe it). I really think that the past 16 years have been a combination of incompetent Presidents and assholes on the other side with tinfoil hats. I seriously doubt the Clintons killed Vince Foster and I seriously doubt that Bush actually stole the election.
Now, I will agree with you that there probably are much better ways to deal with Russia, but I'm willing to give him a pass on that if it means potentially uniting the nation and letting moderates get control of the GOP after Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich hijacked it. The GOP base isn't a bunch of crazy evil bastards, they're Rockafeller Republicans that traditionally worked with the Democrats as partners with different perspectives.
If we have to bomb Iran and piss off Putin to get back to that... I'm ok with it.
Because dropping bombs solves everything.
I decided I liked McCain after his appearance on the Daily Show. Jon Stewart used typical liberal claptrap and a cheering strong-left audience to railroad him into a corner. But despite all this, he still managed to make his point:
McCain thinks the war has been handled poorly and is somewhat miserable right now. He wish it were over. He also feels that the people who decry it have very good points. But withdrawing support now from the fragile situation in the mideast would be irresponsible and lead to far more long-term problems.
I also admire his ability to disagree with his party regarding torture, stem cell research, and a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. So far, I think John McCain is a good choice for moderates. At the very least, he's a much better choice than the other repub candidates.
hey, When did Romney drop out? Are you guys saying he's definitely out, or are you saying he's out because he doesn't have a chance?
Quote from: Suu Fett on February 07, 2008, 07:17:47 PM
Because dropping bombs solves everything.
No, but I'm willing to let McCain drop bombs if it means relegating the crazies on the right to the corner where they belong. What are our other choices at this point? Hillary will make a bad situation worse (and she's pretty damned hawkish herself), Obama seems like a nice guy, but I'm not at all sure he has nearly enough experience to actually run the country (and he's done some pretty serious warmongering over Pakistan if you recall).
So we get to pick between three candidates, all of whom seem to accept military options... one of whom has some real experience... and most of the country seems to like him... and he tries to work with parties rather than hold Congress hostage.
Seems like a sensible option to me... though I can see Obama being a sensible option as well. He seems to want to work across aisles, he has some really good ideas, though I'm not sure how workable they are.
Currently though, the people voting for Hill must have rocks in their head as far as I can tell....
And Prof, Mitt announced he was out today.
Russia just issued Iran warnings over its missile tests and told it if its thinking about a nuclear weapons program, it better stop right now. Russians don't care for proliferation any more than the American government. Russians remember their history well, too well in fact, and they remember how their embassy got stormed way back in the 19th century, and how the Marxists they backed in the country got slaughtered by the Ayatollahs. As far as they are concerned, Iran is a business investment, not a military ally. Its too untrustworthy, and missiles that can reach Europe can reach them.
Political violence has been reduced under Putin's leadership. Putin never bombarded his own Parliament to get them to sign a constituional change he wanted, and neither did he let millions sink into poverty while he lived it up with oligarchs, not giving a shit about the state of the economy so long as his buddies were rich and doing well. Putin may have had a hand in helping re-ignite the Chechen conflict, but the evidence mostly points to Boris Berevosky, the billionaire exile who hates Putin's guts for not pandering to him in the way Yeltsin did.
The Pentagon has covered up assassinations of journalists done by US troops and contractors in Iraq. How is that any different to the journalists who died during Putin's leadership? Incidentally, the evidence in the case of Anna Politsyanna points to Igor Setchin, a political backer of Putin and not Putin himself, but if we are indicting on the basis of relationships, we must equally consider the suspicious deaths of journalists in Iraq as well as those in Moscow. Also the bigger picture suggests a group of exiled oligarchs who are attempting to blacken Putin's name abroad, in order to discredit him internationally. Because of how politics are in Russia, if Putin were to leave the political scene, he'd end up dead rather quickly. He can't go abroad, because he's viewed as some sort of next coming of Stalin (which is ridiculous) and he can't let go of power, because he'll wind up dead. He discredits himself, the oligarch backed 'Liberal' opposition take power. Oh, and the OSCE, who observe votes within the former USSR, have admitted they ignore illegitimate practices when the party in question is favoured by the USA, and play them up when they are not, so its actually very hard to know how legitimate Russian elections are. Most people agree Putin has a 60% or so approval rate though, which probably means it is closer to 70%, given the "accuracy" of many polls taken by the Western media in Russia.
As for McCain, if he's hanging around with and attracting the sort of people who Bush attracted, it doesn't say much for his bi-partisanship. Many of the NeoCons, such as Bill Kristol, actually backed him in 2000, and he's exactly the sort of person who would play party politics from a position of strength. Remember his statements on Chelsea Clinton? "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father." Yeah, a nice guy he's not. And how are another 2 useless wars with a bankrupt economy ever going to help the USA?
Quote from: Suu Fett on February 07, 2008, 07:17:47 PM
Because dropping bombs solves everything.
There's always the alternative.
We could nuke it and give it to the jews.
Yeah, Romney announced he was "suspending his bid" a few hours ago.
I have a feeling that McCain is going to pick him as his running mate.
You'll have to pardon my moment of American exuberance, but at least on the Democrat side we have the chance of getting a minority in the office. Be it a woman or a black man, and imo, that's a HUGE step for the country, considering our preachiness towards equality and civil rights, and yet flipping out anytime a minority is in a position of power. Even though their ideas are odd, I don't see them as being a bad thing. Our country is being left in a shitty state this year, you KNOW Bush will do whatever possible to fuck up more, so whoever gets elected at this point, Dem or Rep, best just get to steppin'.
McCain is right, up and leaving the Middle East is a rotten idea. It makes us look bad, but meanwhile support for the war stateside isn't exactly strong. So the Dem nod is going to have to take that all into consideration.
But we all know that, so I have no idea why I feel I need to make this post.
Anyways, I won't be in-state for the RI Primaries, though I have my bet Clinton is going to take it because she won in Mass despite the Kennedy nod of Obama, and god only knows whatever MA does we have to do too!
Not that it matters in the long run, we popular vote Dem in the big one, and have a total of 4 electoral votes who always goes Dem, so the country ignores us usually. We really should be granted more votes, because our population by area exceeds that of a lot of states. But ...the country ignores us, and I think Rhode Island likes it that way.
Quote from: keeper entropic on February 07, 2008, 07:42:41 PM
Quote from: Suu Fett on February 07, 2008, 07:17:47 PM
Because dropping bombs solves everything.
There's always the alternative.
We could nuke it and give it to the jews.
This made me lawl and think of the Running of the Jews in Kazakhstan.
What I don't like about McCain is that he seems to be another cowboy type. And his agenda, like the agenda of every president since Truman, is keeping hold of the status quo. Politics, especially international politics, is all about gridlock. Progress on any front is out of the question because it makes everybody uncomfortable. There will be no progress away from imperialism under McCain, there will be no progress on civil liberties, government spending, or human rights (except torture, maybe, and it's pathetic that we have to make progress away from torture in the first place).
The NeoCon community just doesn't get international politics. If you want to actually accomplish something, zealous nationalism and lightly-veiled 20th Century fascism disguised as "keeping regulation out of the market" isn't going to accomplish anything.
Since when were women considered a "minority", btw?
Quote from: Suu Fett on February 07, 2008, 07:43:58 PMat least on the Democrat side we have the chance of getting a minority in the office.
They're not minorities, they're politicians. Washington is already 110% politicians.
QuoteMcCain is right, up and leaving the Middle East is a rotten idea. It makes us look bad, but meanwhile support for the war stateside isn't exactly strong. So the Dem nod is going to have to take that all into consideration.
I think the ridiculous thing is that the obvious answer to Iraq -- repartitioning -- is for some reason the one thing that nobody in power will even consider, including the Dems.
Also, if we just pull out and leave them in chaos, how is that different from staying there and imposing chaos?
Because if we impose disorder, order will naturally arise?
Amidoinitrite?
Quote from: vexati0n on February 07, 2008, 07:54:05 PM
Quote from: Suu Fett on February 07, 2008, 07:43:58 PMat least on the Democrat side we have the chance of getting a minority in the office.
They're not minorities, they're politicians. Washington is already 110% politicians.
A very good point, but that seems true of every one who ran.
Quote
QuoteMcCain is right, up and leaving the Middle East is a rotten idea. It makes us look bad, but meanwhile support for the war stateside isn't exactly strong. So the Dem nod is going to have to take that all into consideration.
I think the ridiculous thing is that the obvious answer to Iraq -- repartitioning -- is for some reason the one thing that nobody in power will even consider, including the Dems.
Also, if we just pull out and leave them in chaos, how is that different from staying there and imposing chaos?
Repartitioning isn't a simple answer either. If the Kurds were on their own, Turkey seems likely to invade. If the Sunni were on their own, they'd have no oil, no money and be poor as dirt. And Southern oil fields would be under the control of the Shia. So, that would mean the lone sane group out of the three would be dealing with crazy Turks (and will have once again been abandoned by the US), The Sunni will be neck deep in poverty and crazy muslims(fundamentalists and extremists) and the Shia will be very happy, very rich and playing footsies with Iran. Somehow I don't think thats a good idea.
As for the Chaos, right now there is medium to low chaos (compared to High, Very High and OH MY God from earlier in the war). If we were to pull out now, the Iraqi government would collapse and OMG level Chaos would return. At least, thats what I think based on the available info coming out of Iraq.
suu please excuse the capslock to follow
Quote from: Suu Fett on February 07, 2008, 07:43:58 PM
You'll have to pardon my moment of American exuberance, but at least on the Democrat side we have the chance of getting a minority in the office. Be it a woman or a black man, and imo, that's a HUGE step for the country, considering our preachiness towards equality and civil rights, and yet flipping out anytime a minority is in a position of power.
IT WOULD BE SO MUCH MORE PROGRESSIVE TO NOT ELECT SOMEONE ON THE BASIS OF RACE OR GENDER.
WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY SEEM TO UNDERSTAND THIS?? I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS HERE.
Well, how do you tell the difference between someone hiring a white guy on the basis of merit alone, and Aini?
Maybe, but all we're doing now is postponing the OMG VIOLENCE anyway. We are not affecting Iraqi society in any real or lasting sense. We have a bunch of boots on the ground that are having a dampening effect on the violence, but we're not actually convincing anyone that violence isn't the answer. Eventually, we are going to leave and they are going to revert to violence, or they'll revert to violence even with US troops in Iraq.
Quote from: LMNO on February 07, 2008, 08:16:47 PM
Well, how do you tell the difference between someone hiring a white guy on the basis of merit alone, and Aini?
when the person in question explicitly says they want a black or female president, and that takes precedence above any other factors.
I mean, I know a few black guys who are voting for Obama "because he's black." and that's
stupid. Do they really think he's gonna be a better choice "because he's black"? If so, they should KTSFTB.
No I understand completely, and I know you like caps Cram, so I forgive you. But I think that's something that a lot of people in our generation don't seem to understand, especially in what the rest of the country calls the Liberal Northeast. I've seen bum-fuck America, where unfortunately most of our population is, and if people out there would get their heads out of their fucking sister's cooches, they'd realize this, but they won't. I was talking to my friend in Montana the other day who said he was voting for Romney because he was a Mormon and refused to believe that Obama was Christian because his last name rhymes with Osama, and therefore he IS is a terrorist. This is a man with a political science MASTER'S degree from the University of Idaho. Woo, go America!
This is also how 90% of the old people in the nation think too, and as long as those old conservative fucks can still work a voting machine, no one is going to get elected based on their ability to lead the country. It always comes down to age, race, religion, and general popularity, just like voting for fucking prom queen.
You're right it WOULD be more progressive to vote not based on these matters, too bad no one wants that.
Does anyone remember that the surge was originally supposed to quell enough violence so the Iraqi Gvt could have some breathing room to establish itself?
Yeah. That worked pretty well, don't you think? While the violence did go down a little, the surge has failed because the reason for the surge didn't happen.
But then who's at fault? Us, them, or both?
Both. There's plenty of blame to go around.
Quote from: LMNO on February 07, 2008, 08:25:57 PM
Does anyone remember that the surge was originally supposed to quell enough violence so the Iraqi Gvt could have some breathing room to establish itself?
Yeah. That worked pretty well, don't you think? While the violence did go down a little, the surge has failed because the reason for the surge didn't happen.
Violence has gone down because of a unilateral ceasefire by Sadr's Mahdi Army, and Sadr has no fear of US military power in Iraq, it has nothing to do with US troop presence.
So basically us for not holding their hands through it, and them for well...not doing shit. :x
I have to admit that I've never felt so fervently about politics since I joined this board. After my first voting experience was the 2000 presidential elections...in FLORIDA...I gave up hope. Now I'm actually starting to give a shit again. THANX PD.COM!
It's Ron Paul's fault.
Quote from: Suu Fett on February 07, 2008, 08:28:39 PM
But then who's at fault? Us, them, or both?
The US Occupational Authorty set the groundwork for the current government. Their policies excluded key players at early stages and helped exacerbate political divides between Shi'ites and Sunnis. They wanted Iraq to be Ohio, or failing that, Lebanon. Iraq is neither, both the models fail. The election system set up by them creates weak parties and coalition governments and is not representative on a national level. It gives far too much influence and power to local political issues which, along with the violence, have helped Balkanize the country.
Edit: that said, the shitheads in the Sunni Triangle didn't have to side with Al-Qaeda, or ethnically cleanse the area of Shi'ite Muslims. And vice-versa in Baghdad with Sadr City. The problem comes in untangling the origins of the insurgency....documents suggest it was Saddam, who with a few loyalists took advantage of the situation in Iraq. However, Saddam liked to believe he was in charge even when he wasn't, and since he was the one with the rubber stamps and the typewriters, I don't totally believe this scenario, because he was deeply unpopular.
That's completely wrong. Iraq is a mess because they hate our freedoms.
It's Baywatch's fault.
Super Tuesday conversation overheard by Mrs Mang's ex-husband:
A Moron: What's this country coming to? Having to choose between a nigger and a bitch?
So that's what's happening in the liberal, progressive North East.
Quote from: Suu Fett on February 07, 2008, 08:40:56 PM
It's Baywatch's fault.
That damn show. First my extra laundry, now this.
Quote from: Mangrove on February 07, 2008, 08:41:06 PM
Super Tuesday conversation overheard by Mrs Mang's ex-husband:
A Moron: What's this country coming to? Having to choose between a nigger and a bitch?
So that's what's happening in the liberal, progressive North East.
No, that's Connecticut. You guys don't count. Sorry.
But yes, that is a prime example of a perfectly good vote gone to waste. Now he WILL vote for McCain based on the fact that the Dems running are "a nigger and a bitch".
Welcome to America, Mang. :sad:
Political blunders aside, how much did the UK bitch when Thatcher was elected?
People stopped bitching about Thatcher?
:lulz:
How much dissent was there about a woman in the runnings for PM I mean?
Quote from: Suu Fett on February 07, 2008, 09:00:20 PM
:lulz:
How much dissent was there about a woman in the runnings for PM I mean?
Well my socialist grandfather died in 1993 and I have it on good authority by CT's best psychics, that he's still pissed about Thatcher.
The funny thing was...most of her Cabinet, hell the whole Tory party, were bigger wimps than she was.
Of course, given the track record of the Tory party and kinky sexual preferences involving leather and domination, perhaps its not such a surprise they put Thatcher in charge...
Anyway, moving swiftly on, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck are all willing to support Hillary over McCain.
No troll.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/02/limbaughs_mccain_derangement_s.asp
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/01/30/michelle-tells-glenn-beck-i-wont-vote-for-mccain-over-hillary/
http://factbeat.com/get_story.php?id=210
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/016839.php
I was about to bring up what Pakistan must have thought about Bhutto, then I remembered that she was recently assassinated. :lulz: That answers my question.
Crap, even Campbell wasn't popular in Canada, was she?
Women
must suck.
Quote from: Cain on February 07, 2008, 09:09:58 PM
The funny thing was...most of her Cabinet, hell the whole Tory party, were bigger wimps than she was.
Of course, given the track record of the Tory party and kinky sexual preferences involving leather and domination, perhaps its not such a surprise they put Thatcher in charge...
Anyway, moving swiftly on, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck are all willing to support Hillary over McCain.
No troll.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/02/limbaughs_mccain_derangement_s.asp
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/01/30/michelle-tells-glenn-beck-i-wont-vote-for-mccain-over-hillary/
http://factbeat.com/get_story.php?id=210
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/016839.php
lolwut?
I used to love listening to Glenn Beck before he became TOO much of an asshole. "It's just another isolated incident".
But Coulter is either feeling his/her womanly side, or has completely snapped.
New Zealand's Prime Minister, Helen Clark, is highly thought of.
Of course, all she really has to do is keep the flow of sheep coming into the country, and not do anything stupid, like try to invade Indonesia and she's pretty much set anyway. Even Hitler couldn't ruin New Zealand that much.
I really think we have a serious problem in this country. I think it involves a seperation between what individuals THINK the world should be like and what the world is actually like.
Large portions of the American populace are racist and/or sexist. They will not vote for either Democratic candidate. Large portions of America are centrist, they don't want crazy religious nutjobs or crazy socialists. The Republican nuts are learning this right now. A large gulf exists between ideals and reality. It surprises me when national parties ignore that. In fact, I would not at all be surprised to see McCain win in November, if for no other reason than there will be large prejudice against Obama and Clinton (not to mention the complete lack of credentials either of them have).
But Coulter is either feeling his/her womanly side, or has completely snapped.
Nah, she's looking to her pantry. If McCain wins, he will work with Democrats. He will compromise on most issues. He will behave like an adult. He will, in short, leave her with nothing to scream and screech about. The pundits today rely on partisan BS ala the Gingrich-era. They'll sputter out if Rockefeller Republicans take control of the party (yet another reason to vote McCain).
New Zealand is one country I wouldn't mind moving to, in all honesty.
Quote from: Ratatosk on February 07, 2008, 09:17:27 PM
I really think we have a serious problem in this country. I think it involves a seperation between what individuals THINK the world should be like and what the world is actually like.
Large portions of the American populace are racist and/or sexist. They will not vote for either Democratic candidate. Large portions of America are centrist, they don't want crazy religious nutjobs or crazy socialists. The Republican nuts are learning this right now. A large gulf exists between ideals and reality. It surprises me when national parties ignore that. In fact, I would not at all be surprised to see McCain win in November, if for no other reason than there will be large prejudice against Obama and Clinton (not to mention the complete lack of credentials either of them have).
TITCM, and it's somewhat sad, going back to what Cram blasted.
Quote
But Coulter is either feeling his/her womanly side, or has completely snapped.
Nah, she's looking to her pantry. If McCain wins, he will work with Democrats. He will compromise on most issues. He will behave like an adult. He will, in short, leave her with nothing to scream and screech about. The pundits today rely on partisan BS ala the Gingrich-era. They'll sputter out if Rockefeller Republicans take control of the party (yet another reason to vote McCain).
This is Ann Coulter. She'll backstab the GOP as long as she can continue to bitch and write shotty bestsellers on her unwarranted opinions.
Quote from: Suu Fett on February 07, 2008, 09:21:00 PM
New Zealand is one country I wouldn't mind moving to, in all honesty.
Quote from: Ratatosk on February 07, 2008, 09:17:27 PM
I really think we have a serious problem in this country. I think it involves a seperation between what individuals THINK the world should be like and what the world is actually like.
Large portions of the American populace are racist and/or sexist. They will not vote for either Democratic candidate. Large portions of America are centrist, they don't want crazy religious nutjobs or crazy socialists. The Republican nuts are learning this right now. A large gulf exists between ideals and reality. It surprises me when national parties ignore that. In fact, I would not at all be surprised to see McCain win in November, if for no other reason than there will be large prejudice against Obama and Clinton (not to mention the complete lack of credentials either of them have).
TITCM, and it's somewhat sad, going back to what Cram blasted.
Quote
But Coulter is either feeling his/her womanly side, or has completely snapped.
Nah, she's looking to her pantry. If McCain wins, he will work with Democrats. He will compromise on most issues. He will behave like an adult. He will, in short, leave her with nothing to scream and screech about. The pundits today rely on partisan BS ala the Gingrich-era. They'll sputter out if Rockefeller Republicans take control of the party (yet another reason to vote McCain).
This is Ann Coulter. She'll backstab the GOP as long as she can continue to bitch and write shotty bestsellers on her unwarranted opinions.
It's amazing how a Discordian discussion of politics seems so much less discordant than most political blogs ATM.
It makes perfect sense when you think about it.
MONARCHICAL SMACKDOWN!
On War #248: My Master's Voice
By William S. Lind
Yesterday I placed my annual call to my All-Highest War Lord and Sovereign Master, Kaiser Wilhelm II, to offer my usual felicitations on his birthday. His Majesty was laughing when he picked up the receiver, so after congratulating him I took the liberty of inquiring what Heaven found so funny.
"Democracy," His Majesty replied.
"I take it you are watching this year's Presidential election in the U.S.," I said.
"The flea circus? That's part of it," said the Kaiser. "It nicely illustrates one of democracy's contradictions, namely that no one who is willing to crawl and grub for votes can be worthy of the office to which he aspires. There's no place for the nolo episcopari in democratic politics, it seems, nor for anyone with the slightest shred of character. Your Giulianis and McCains, Clintons and Obamas are happy to eat every toad in the public garden."
"I think the American public is no happier with their options this year than is Your Majesty," I replied.
"Thereby illustrating another funny aspect of democracy," the Kaiser shot back. "Who do they think is responsible? They are, of course. No candidate who told them the truth could get above 10% in the polls. They want nostrums, bromides, comforting lies, and they won't tolerate anything else. America speaks of citizens, but all it has are consumers whose heads are as fat as their bottoms. That too is where democracy leads, to an ever-declining lowest common denominator. It cannot do anything else."
"The funniest aspect of the whole business," His Majesty continued, "is that the lower America sinks, the more determined its politicians are to force democracy on everyone else. All but one of your Presidential candidates has pledged to continue crusading for democracy, despite the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. By comparison, even the late Spanish Hapsburgs were models of realism."
"The democracy advocates - and I trust Your Majesty knows I am not one - would reply that democracy is necessary to freedom," I suggested.
"Another contradiction," said the Kaiser. "Prussia in my day was far more free than America is today, because Prussians understood what freedom is. Freedom is not doing whatever you feel like. Freedom is replacing imposed discipline with self-discipline. No democratic office-seeker would dare say that, because the voters would not like it. They want to be told that they can do whatever they please - spend without saving, live immoral lives without degenerating, vote without thinking - and suffer no unfortunate consequences. If the public wants to square the circle, Presto!, a hundred politicians promise to do it."
"I trust that Your Majesty's preferred alternative to democracy in monarchy, as is mine," I said.
"Yours, mine and Heaven's," the Kaiser replied. "As I have said before, Heaven is not a republic. Though there are, I think, two countries God intends should be republics."
"And those are?", I asked.
"Switzerland, to show that it can be made to work, and America, to serve as a warning to everyone else."
"Were America to wake up to the virtues of monarchy - and God knows our current election campaign should wake us up - who would you recommend for the American throne?", I inquired.
"An Austrian Hapsburg, I should think," said the Kaiser. "They are accustomed to ruling over ramshackle, polygot, decaying empires. My old friend Emperor Franz Josef did so remarkably well."
"One last question, if I may," I said. "Should America continue on the unhappy road of democracy, what lies in our future?"
"Let's just say that the combination of military defeat and economic depression is not a happy one," the Kaiser answered. "And now I must ring off. I hear the band of the Garde du Corps playing, which means it is time to review the troops. I think the tune is, 'And the World Turned Upside Down.'
===================
Ignoring the blantant monarchism coming from both of them, they may just have a point....
Can i HAS it to Steal?!!!! I can think of about 50 blogs that need to read that!
Lind's stuff gets stolen all the time, I suspect he doesn't mind so long as he is given credit
http://dni2.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/on-war-248-my-masters-voice/
Quote from: Cain on February 07, 2008, 10:10:12 PM
MONARCHICAL SMACKDOWN!
On War #248: My Master's Voice
By William S. Lind
Yesterday I placed my annual call to my All-Highest War Lord and Sovereign Master, Kaiser Wilhelm II, to offer my usual felicitations on his birthday. His Majesty was laughing when he picked up the receiver, so after congratulating him I took the liberty of inquiring what Heaven found so funny.
"Democracy," His Majesty replied.
"I take it you are watching this year's Presidential election in the U.S.," I said.
"The flea circus? That's part of it," said the Kaiser. "It nicely illustrates one of democracy's contradictions, namely that no one who is willing to crawl and grub for votes can be worthy of the office to which he aspires. There's no place for the nolo episcopari in democratic politics, it seems, nor for anyone with the slightest shred of character. Your Giulianis and McCains, Clintons and Obamas are happy to eat every toad in the public garden."
"I think the American public is no happier with their options this year than is Your Majesty," I replied.
"Thereby illustrating another funny aspect of democracy," the Kaiser shot back. "Who do they think is responsible? They are, of course. No candidate who told them the truth could get above 10% in the polls. They want nostrums, bromides, comforting lies, and they won't tolerate anything else. America speaks of citizens, but all it has are consumers whose heads are as fat as their bottoms. That too is where democracy leads, to an ever-declining lowest common denominator. It cannot do anything else."
"The funniest aspect of the whole business," His Majesty continued, "is that the lower America sinks, the more determined its politicians are to force democracy on everyone else. All but one of your Presidential candidates has pledged to continue crusading for democracy, despite the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. By comparison, even the late Spanish Hapsburgs were models of realism."
"The democracy advocates - and I trust Your Majesty knows I am not one - would reply that democracy is necessary to freedom," I suggested.
"Another contradiction," said the Kaiser. "Prussia in my day was far more free than America is today, because Prussians understood what freedom is. Freedom is not doing whatever you feel like. Freedom is replacing imposed discipline with self-discipline. No democratic office-seeker would dare say that, because the voters would not like it. They want to be told that they can do whatever they please - spend without saving, live immoral lives without degenerating, vote without thinking - and suffer no unfortunate consequences. If the public wants to square the circle, Presto!, a hundred politicians promise to do it."
"I trust that Your Majesty's preferred alternative to democracy in monarchy, as is mine," I said.
"Yours, mine and Heaven's," the Kaiser replied. "As I have said before, Heaven is not a republic. Though there are, I think, two countries God intends should be republics."
"And those are?", I asked.
"Switzerland, to show that it can be made to work, and America, to serve as a warning to everyone else."
"Were America to wake up to the virtues of monarchy - and God knows our current election campaign should wake us up - who would you recommend for the American throne?", I inquired.
"An Austrian Hapsburg, I should think," said the Kaiser. "They are accustomed to ruling over ramshackle, polygot, decaying empires. My old friend Emperor Franz Josef did so remarkably well."
"One last question, if I may," I said. "Should America continue on the unhappy road of democracy, what lies in our future?"
"Let's just say that the combination of military defeat and economic depression is not a happy one," the Kaiser answered. "And now I must ring off. I hear the band of the Garde du Corps playing, which means it is time to review the troops. I think the tune is, 'And the World Turned Upside Down.'
===================
Ignoring the blantant monarchism coming from both of them, they may just have a point....
This is beyond epic win. Mad mittens to the author.
One thing about Mitt dropping out that really pisses me off.
In his concession speech, basically said that a democrat in the white house means the terrorists have won, and will put the US in great danger of another attack.
I know it's a familiar GOP tactic, but it fucking infuriates me.
He really is an oily SOB. Just looking at him makes me wanna punch him inna face. He just has that smug look of "Hey, I'm better than everyone!" Fuck, even his advisors like Mary Matlin act the same way. She made that comment before he dropped out about his family being a shining example of "The Great American Family" which was clearly a swiped at Obama and more notably McCain who has an adopted daughter from Bangladesh. Fucktards all of them.
PUNCHEM INNA FACE!
I also wanna punch Howie Carr in the face for supporting him. Yesterday a caller was calling him out on the fact that he called Kerry a flip-flopper yet he won't do the same for Romney even though there is a clear record of his flip-floppiness. Either he thinks his audience is really stupid, or he is really stupid and can't comprehend logic.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on February 08, 2008, 02:21:00 PM
I also wanna punch Howie Carr in the face for supporting him. Yesterday a caller was calling him out on the fact that he called Kerry a flip-flopper yet he won't do the same for Romney even though there is a clear record of his flip-floppiness. Either he thinks his audience is really stupid, or he is really stupid and can't comprehend logic.
Pundits do not use logic, they use rhetoric.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on February 08, 2008, 02:21:00 PM
I also wanna punch Howie Carr in the face for supporting him. Yesterday a caller was calling him out on the fact that he called Kerry a flip-flopper yet he won't do the same for Romney even though there is a clear record of his flip-floppiness. Either he thinks his audience is really stupid, or he is really stupid and can't comprehend logic.
Its different when Romney does it. Quantifiably so, because Mitt Romney is trying to save America from the Brown Muslim/Liberal/Comme Horde and thus must use whatever duplicitous methods he can to try and bypass the craven Democrats.
Its kind of like all the Democrats who decried Bush's adventure in Iraq as illegal, yet fully supported Clinton's own duplicitous bombing campaign in 98, along with his illegal military aid to secessionists in Serbia.
Quote from: Cain on February 08, 2008, 03:35:58 PM
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on February 08, 2008, 02:21:00 PM
I also wanna punch Howie Carr in the face for supporting him. Yesterday a caller was calling him out on the fact that he called Kerry a flip-flopper yet he won't do the same for Romney even though there is a clear record of his flip-floppiness. Either he thinks his audience is really stupid, or he is really stupid and can't comprehend logic.
Its different when Romney does it. Quantifiably so, because Mitt Romney is trying to save America from the Brown Muslim/Liberal/Comme Horde and thus must use whatever duplicitous methods he can to try and bypass the craven Democrats.
Its kind of like all the Democrats who decried Bush's adventure in Iraq as illegal, yet fully supported Clinton's own duplicitous bombing campaign in 98, along with his illegal military aid to secessionists in Serbia.
Nooooo Teh Democrits R GUD!!!!
They Would Never engage in any duplicitous behavior... nor would they ever act in any way hypocritical...
:lulz:
So Obama handily defeated Hillary in the Maine Caucuses on Sunday. Hillary's tactics were all wrong. Instead of calling everyone on the phone she shoudl've been sending us shovels.
Seriously, we received at my house at least 4 recorded-message calls from the Clinton campaign between Saturday and Sunday morning. We only got one from the Obama campaign, and it was his wife, not him. He's got quite a head of steam up now, and I've read that the Clintion Campaign is trying to quell expectations about the upcoming DC/Virginia/Maryland primaries. They fully expect to lose all 3. I think she's in big trouble.
I hope to gawd that is the case.
Edit: please to be reading http://www.alternet.org/election08/76571/
Side point:
Freedom is replacing imposed discipline with self-discipline.
This greatly warms my heartfalse polystyrene nose.
Quote from: LMNO on February 08, 2008, 02:17:08 PM
PUNCHEM INNA FACE!
I've always wanted to punch Jonah Goldberg in the face.
Obama's got a 25 delegate lead over Clinton, currently.
Whether he can sustain it, given Clinton has already decided to cut her losses in the areas Obama just won, and concentrate campaigning in the final primaries, remains to be seen.
The only promising bit is that Obama cut deeply into Clinton's supposed "base" in yesterday's primaries.
I expect Hillary to pull out every dirty trick she has (and that's a lot) to steal the nomination if she can't win it fairly. In the spirit of feminism and "girl power," she will pay off anybody who catches her sucking superdelegates off in the bathroom at the convention.
And, ultimately, I expect her to be the nominee, run a typical bullshit campaign until November, and lose to McCain.
Mrs. LMNO has decided to jump into the politics of gender identity.
She now sees it as the Patriarchal cock once again repressing the feminine; that Obama is winning because America would rather have any man, even a black one, in the White House than a woman. It makes for fun rants. She knows I voted for Gravel, so she just seems me as a hopeless idealist.
On the plus side, she made an active decision to think this way... It wasn't some sort of subconcious knee-jerk thing.
But she's wrong. I know it's unpopular to make distinctions between true and false these days, but god dammit, it makes my brain hurt to think that there are people who are allegedly "smart" and "progressive" who are voting for Clinton just because she's a woman. The fact that she has a vagina doesn't make her mechanical heart human, or align her politics with the will of the people. She is a convenient candidate for the NeoCons, because she's a Democrat and she's a Woman, which in the minds of retarded people from Massachusetts to California, that means she is automatically going to go against the grain and effect change in DC. She's a member of the in-crown in DC. A vote for Hillary is a vote for the status quo.
Quote from: vexati0n on February 13, 2008, 04:08:55 PM
But she's wrong. I know it's unpopular to make distinctions between true and false these days, but god dammit, it makes my brain hurt to think that there are people who are allegedly "smart" and "progressive" who are voting for Clinton just because she's a woman. The fact that she has a vagina doesn't make her mechanical heart human, or align her politics with the will of the people. She is a convenient candidate for the NeoCons, because she's a Democrat and she's a Woman, which in the minds of retarded people from Massachusetts to California, that means she is automatically going to go against the grain and effect change in DC. She's a member of the in-crown in DC. A vote for Hillary is a vote for the status quo.
I, for the most part, agree with that.
And people give me these huge, baffled stares, and go, "But you're a
feminist! Aren't you, like, betraying your whole gender by not voting for Hillary?"
And I go, "As a feminist, I have decided that I have brains enough to think for myself and not do what everyone else tells me to do. Therefore, I can vote for whoever the fuck I want! Having a uterus does not necessarily mean Hillary and I have the same politics!"
And they go, "But... a WOMAN! You're a woman! She's a woman! Feminism!"
:roll:
-DC
Might agree with Mrs. LMNO if Hillary were a better candidate, but currently cannot form an opinion on the situation due to the fact that Hillary is not particularly appealing
So, supporting a woman candidate, because she's a woman, and not because of her policies....is feminist?
If so, fuck feminism
(yes, I know, we've had this debate before, and you know where I stand, but really, some so-called 'feminists' need to take their heads out of their arses)
No need to convince me. Hillary is the best candidate... for the GOP.
Mrs LMNO knows all the arguments, understands them, but has made the decision to go ahead with the gender politics while acknowledging that she's being overly gender-biased.
Quote from: Cain on February 13, 2008, 04:24:48 PM
So, supporting a woman candidate, because she's a woman, and not because of her policies....is feminist?
If so, fuck feminism
(yes, I know, we've had this debate before, and you know where I stand, but really, some so-called 'feminists' need to take their heads out of their arses)
I agree. Because they give those of us who really care a bad name, and I'm sick of getting labeled with and judged because of that bad name.
There's stupid people in all genders who will use said gender and the politics of it as an excuse to get away with whatever. And that's crap, no matter what gender it is playing the game.
I respect and admire Hillary for getting so far in her political career. That doesn't mean I have to like her, and I don't. But there's plenty of people that I can respect without wanting anything to do with them.
You know, considering that (most) women do not have penises, it's amazing how many of them have hard-ons for hillary.
:lol:
:lol:
where's a black muslim female midget with political ambitions when you need one??
Quote from: triple zero on February 13, 2008, 04:33:22 PM
where's a black half-Jewish muslim female lesbian transsexual disabled midget with political ambitions when you need one??
Fixed for maximum utility.
I think a lot of people are going to wise up and support Obama. Especially considering the war in Iraq may be starting to bubble up again. Because anyone who listens to Hillary, I mean really, really listens, would understand that she isn't going to withdraw our troops. Just like half of the Democrats wimped out and supported the telecom-amnesty amendment. I'm not 100% convinced Obama would either but from what I've heard from him, he seems the most likely to get us out of that mess.
People in Washington don't like Obama, which means he's at least marginally acceptable for me.
Someone likes him. He pulled in some mega-bucks for his campaign, and was being touted as far back as as 2006 for the Presidential race.
I am not enthused about Obama as president, but he's the most enthusiasm-inducing candidate I've seen in a while. His lack of concrete experience does make somewhat uneasy, but his policies and ideals are things I can get behind for the most part. As to whether or not they will work in execution is up in the air, but I'd rather go into the situation with a cynical attitude about an optimistic option than just resigned to something shitty!
Quote from: vexati0n on February 13, 2008, 04:32:06 PM
You know, considering that (most) women do not have penises, it's amazing how many of them have hard-ons for hillary.
Must be a regional thing. I don't really know much of any women who into Hillary, but I think that's because I'm in the bluest region of one of the bluest states. :lol:
Quote from: Cain on February 13, 2008, 04:36:49 PM
Quote from: triple zero on February 13, 2008, 04:33:22 PM
where's a black half-Jewish muslim female lesbian transsexual disabled midget with political ambitions when you need one??
Fixed for maximum utility.
But are her politics sound? :lol:
Quote from: Cain on February 13, 2008, 05:01:18 PM
Someone likes him. He pulled in some mega-bucks for his campaign, and was being touted as far back as as 2006 for the Presidential race.
He's in the pocket of Big Poverty.
I personally see lack of concrete experience as a plus.
Look at every other fucker who had concrete experience, and how that turned out,.
Quote from: Cain on February 13, 2008, 05:08:15 PM
I personally see lack of concrete experience as a plus.
Look at every other fucker who had concrete experience, and how that turned out,.
That's kind of how I'm approaching it. On the one hand, there's the danger that he could have absolutely no idea of what he's doing.
On the other hand, fuckin' tabula rasa, man. That could potentially be one of the better things to happen to Washington.
It's like that old saying about being silent and thought an idiot being better than speaking and removing all doubt--sure, Obama MIGHT be a massive debacle, but we already KNOW the others are! :lol:
Quote from: Cain on February 13, 2008, 04:36:49 PM
Quote from: triple zero on February 13, 2008, 04:33:22 PM
where's a black half-Jewish muslim female lesbian transsexual disabled midget with political ambitions when you need one??
Fixed for maximum utility.
WHY DO YOU HATE RETARDED MUTES??
Quote from: Darth Cupcake on February 13, 2008, 05:10:43 PM
Quote from: Cain on February 13, 2008, 05:08:15 PM
I personally see lack of concrete experience as a plus.
Look at every other fucker who had concrete experience, and how that turned out,.
That's kind of how I'm approaching it. On the one hand, there's the danger that he could have absolutely no idea of what he's doing.
On the other hand, fuckin' tabula rasa, man. That could potentially be one of the better things to happen to Washington.
It's like that old saying about being silent and thought an idiot being better than speaking and removing all doubt--sure, Obama MIGHT be a massive debacle, but we already KNOW the others are! :lol:
I think the clincher will be, if elected, who he surrounds himself with. Bush lacked leadership experience and surrounded himself with people who took advantage of his green-ness. If Obama does the same, well, buckle-up.
(http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/6086/1202568630983fw7.jpg)
Please pay attention to the top right corner.
lol.
Obama's RI HQ is down the block from my office. I'm thinking about going down there and grabbing some signs.
ATTN: AMERICA.
PLEASE FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION ON MASSACHUSETTS.
OUR CURRENT AFRICAN-AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC GOVENOR BASED HIS ENTIRE CAMPAIGN ON THE "POWER OF HOPE".
IF YOU NOTICE, THAT CURRENTLY IS TAKING THE SHAPE OF "I HOPE I CAN BALANCE THE BUDGET THROUGH DEFICIT SPENDING AND OPENING 3 NEW CASINOS IN DESTITUE NEIGHBORHOODS."
LMNO
-THE POWER OF "CHANGE", INDEED.
Obama may be my first choice, but that isn't really saying much this time around.
Heh, "Power of Hope" that the tunnels don't all collapse while he's in office.
(http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/4126/1202568630983fw7rp6.jpg)
zomg reptilian agents making us lose the game.
Looks like the Republicans feel that they can beat Obama in the polls. A website called republicansforobama.org is urging Repubs and Indepedents to "sign in at their polling place and request a Democratic ballot. They should then vote for Barack Obama" in the Texas primaries.
I think the media just got played. The Repubs might fear Clinton much more if she was in the running, its the only explanation for pushing primary votes for Obama, but the reporting suggests the opposite is true. So now I'm wondering, in addition to generalized racism and Islamophobia, exactly what do the Repubs have on Obama? There seems little talk about the depth of the Ayers connection. Tie that in, you have radical leftist/terrorism/Islamophobia/racism all coming into play against him in the main race. Or there might be something else entirely.
But be assured, this race will be between McCain and Obama and the Repubs have a hidden ace somewhere that they are dying to play.
So today this guy sez to me, he sez
"Got any change?"
and I said
"What do I look like, Barack Obama?"
Quote from: Cain on February 23, 2008, 07:29:36 PM
Looks like the Republicans feel that they can beat Obama in the polls. A website called republicansforobama.org is urging Repubs and Indepedents to "sign in at their polling place and request a Democratic ballot. They should then vote for Barack Obama" in the Texas primaries.
I think the media just got played. The Repubs might fear Clinton much more if she was in the running, its the only explanation for pushing primary votes for Obama, but the reporting suggests the opposite is true. So now I'm wondering, in addition to generalized racism and Islamophobia, exactly what do the Repubs have on Obama? There seems little talk about the depth of the Ayers connection. Tie that in, you have radical leftist/terrorism/Islamophobia/racism all coming into play against him in the main race. Or there might be something else entirely.
But be assured, this race will be between McCain and Obama and the Repubs have a hidden ace somewhere that they are dying to play.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Election2008/Default.aspx?id=68237
QuoteWASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama's refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin along with a photo of him not putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem led conservatives on Internet and in the media to question his patriotism.
Now Obama's wife, Michelle, has drawn their ire, too, for saying recently that she's really proud of her country for the first time in her adult life.
Conservative consultants say that combined, the cases could be an issue for Obama in the general election if he wins the nomination, especially as he runs against Vietnam war hero Sen. John McCain.
"The reason it hasn't been an issue so far is that we're still in the microcosm of the Democratic primary," said Republican consultant Roger Stone. "Many Americans will find the three things offensive. Barack Obama is out of the McGovern wing of the party, and he is part of the blame America first crowd."
Opponents of Sen. John Kerry proved in the 2004 election that voters are sensitive to suggestions that a candidate is not sufficiently patriotic. The Democratic presidential nominee's campaign was torpedoed by critics of his Vietnam War record called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, even though he won multiple military honors and was lauded by his superiors.
The Swift Boat campaign started as a relatively small television ad buy that exploded into an issue that dogged Kerry for months. The Massachusetts senator has conceded since losing to President Bush that the campaign and his lackluster response to unsubstantiated allegations he considered unworthy of a reaction likely cost him the election. And the term even became part of the campaign lexicon - swift boating.
Retired Major General Scott Gration, an Obama military adviser, said he expects the attacks will only increase if Obama wins the Democratic nomination.
"People are projecting things and taking things out of context," Gration said. "There's absolutely no question in my mind that Michelle and Barack are extremely patriotic, appreciate our freedoms and our values and everything else that the flag represents."
Officials with the McCain campaign and the Republican Party say they won't be suggesting Obama is less than patriotic, and instead plan to focus their criticisms on his record and inexperience if he wins the nomination. Well-funded outside groups, however, consider anything fair game.
Conservative Republican consultant Keith Appell, who worked with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, said Obama's opposition to the war will create a "striking contrast between McCain the war hero and Obama the poster child for the anti-war movement."
"If you are McCain, you want to play up the decorated war hero, loves his country, served his country," Appell said. "You want to play those themes up as much as possible, especially in comparison to Obama and his role in the anti-war movement."
Last summer, Obama was photographed by Time magazine at an event in Iowa standing with his hands folded during the national anthem. His primary rivals Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson appear beside him, with their hands on their hearts.
It has been repeatedly reported that the moment came during the Pledge of Allegiance, but that's not the case.
In October, Obama told Iowa television station KCRG that he decided to stop wearing a U.S. flag lapel pin during the run-up to the Iraq war because it had become "a substitute for, I think, true patriotism."
"I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest. Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great and, hopefully, that will be a testimony to my patriotism," Obama said.
Obama's comments led conservatives and media commentators to question his patriotism.
"First he kicked his American flag pin to the curb. Now Barack Obama has a new round of patriotism problems. Wait until you hear what the White House hopeful didn't do during the singing of the national anthem," said Steve Doocy, co-host of "Fox and Friends" on the Fox News Channel.
"He felt it OK to come out of the closet as the domestic insurgent he is," former radio host Mark Williams said on Fox.
Gration said he had a copy of the national anthem photo e-mailed to him by a friend who didn't know the facts and questioned how a military man could support someone who doesn't honor the Pledge of Allegiance.
"I go to baseball games and football games and there's just a minority of us who put our hands over our heart. It's not an indication of patriotism," Gration said. Gration said he personally wears a flag pin, but "if I meet someone who doesn't have a lapel pin, it doesn't mean they are more or less patriotic than I am."
And, he added, "I don't think you can find Barack again not putting his hand over his heart at the national anthem."
Hmmm
Also interesting to note after the New York Times spilled the beans on McCain's extra-marital shenannigans, Rush Limbaugh et al immediately accepted him into the conservative fold once again.
I'm not so sure about Rush. I mean, he will take ANY opportunity to rail against the NY Times even if it means to defend McCain. I was listening to his show on Friday on the way home from work and he was going on about how low his Conservative rating was over the last 8 years. I think he will probably be a lot less harsh on McCain now that he's going to be the nominee. I think he will focus most of his piss and vinegar on Obama (or Hillary). Again though, I think he secretly wishes for the Democrat to win because it's going to mean higher ratings for him over the next 4 to 8 years.
IN OTHER NEWS: Ralph Nader is in the race. I know, big shock right.
Ugh, I remember ALL to well "America Held Hostage"...the theme he had for the Clintonian Extravaganza of the 90's.
I think he's really jumped the shark this time. Assuming Obama is the Dem candidate, how does he fit into a race with Obama and McCain? Obama is the "Change" guy and McCain is the "finance reform" guy. I think he'll have a really hard time getting on enough ballots to even matter. I think dude is just looking to sell a new book or something.
To be honest, I don't care why Rush etc are doing it, only that they are. Its also ironic to note he's supporting someone who did, well, basically what Clinton did, only before getting into the White House in this case.
I'm also noting all the passes the media has given Obama lately, when compared to slip-ups Clinton has had. They think Obama is going to win the primaries, and they want him too, because they've basically exhausted the media narrative on Clinton, but Obama is still an untapped mine of big stories. Remember, the NYT sat on the McCain story for nearly 3 months, they can string along the patriotism/Weatherman connection stuff for months before becoming totally hysterical.
Yeah, I've thought for a while now that the media had "chosen" Obama over Hillary, and I think the Clintonian campside understands this as welll, given the negative interaction between them and the media at large.
The Rush thing is bizarre, but I don't really concern myself with it at this point, since the whole Conservatard media contingent will have to rally around "Mac" if they want him to survive Obama.
The New York Times is a better target for Right Wing Nuts than McCain is.
As to the other point, Obama has a better charismatic narrative.
In both cases, facts take a back seat to a good story.
Well, YEAH...it's the media.
Just you're not convinced of the Illuminati's role in this election
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08056/860162-294.stm
a Ton of previous presidents have been lefties.
(assuming Obama beats Hillary) BOTH of this year's candidates are left handed.
YOU GUYS GETTING THIS?
LEFT HANDED PEOPLE = MASONS
ok, now witness McCain's reaction to the punditry when it attacks the Dems--very interesting "high road" he's got thar...
http://blog.cleveland.com/openers/2008/02/rightwing_radio_host_rips_demo.html
QuoteRight-wing radio host rips Democrats, McCain apologizes for the spectacle
Posted by John Caniglia February 26, 2008 13:06PM
On the day the Democrats are set to slug it out in Cleveland, a conservative radio host fired some haymakers before an appearance by Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain.
In the GOP stronghold of Cincinnati, right-wing radio host Bill Cunningham whipped up a crowd of more than 300 supporters by using Barack Obama's middle name often, ripping Hillary Clinton as a first lady and referring to former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as an "ugly, old woman."
Some people cheered, while others sat shocked.
"At some point the media will stop taking sides and start covering Barack Hussein Obama the same way they cover Cheney and Bush," Cunningham roared. "(Obama) keeps talking about change, but when he's done, change is the only thing you'll have in your pocket."
Cunningham also said the media haven't covered the good that has happened in Iraq because it is pushing for a Democrat in the White House.
When McCain took the stage, he spoke for 26 minutes to more than 300 supporters at the century-old Memorial Hall, hardly mentioning his likely opponents.
Afterward, he walked up to a crowd of reporters and apologized for Cunningham's words. He said he respects Clinton and Obama and called them "honorable Americans."
McCain said he had no idea who brought Cunningham on stage, that he didn't invite Cunningham and had never met him. He said it will never happen again. He said he refuses to make disparaging remarks about his opponents.
"I take responsibility, and I apologize," he said.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters introduced Cunningham to the audience, calling him his friend and a man whose face was made for radio. Deters also ripped Obama, saying "the only thing that he ever risked was a filing fee for an election."
Former U.S. Rep. Rob Portman joined McCain in talking with reporters. He said Cunningham is controversial, and often says things that are controversial. Portman didn't say why Republicans allowed Cunningham on stage.
FACT: The most entertaining thing about this process so far is watching Hillary go down in flames.
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on February 26, 2008, 03:41:02 PM
YOU GUYS GETTING THIS?
LEFT HANDED PEOPLE = MASONS
My last marriage makes a lot more sense when viewed through this monacle.
Actually, it was watching Tancredo give a speech, and the reaction of Ron Paul fans as they realized they were being scammed by their messiah. Hillary ranks third, which is still very pleasing, but there other entertaining moments, and may be many more to come (wait until the media creates a narrative about Obama based on his ties to the ex-Weatherman terrorist/his UnAmerican wife/his UnAmerican background and the fact he thinks he is the 12th Imam come again).
They're only going lightly now in order to let him finish winning. Then the real fun starts.
Also, lol, Obama's not black enough (again).
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?&id=10043
Quote from: Cain on February 28, 2008, 11:52:32 PM
Actually, it was watching Tancredo give a speech, and the reaction of Ron Paul fans as they realized they were being scammed by their messiah. Hillary ranks third, which is still very pleasing, but there other entertaining moments, and may be many more to come (wait until the media creates a narrative about Obama based on his ties to the ex-Weatherman terrorist/his UnAmerican wife/his UnAmerican background and the fact he thinks he is the 12th Imam come again).
They're only going lightly now in order to let him finish winning. Then the real fun starts.
And if he really had anything to do with drugs they will be bringing a bunch of 'anything for a buck' witnesses to thr forfront for their day in the sunlight. Once middle assmerica decides he's a drug dealer it could be a much rougher road for him. Maybe Hil will bring it up before going down in flames.
Who's paying Nader anyway?
People who watch Fox are already convinced he was a crack dealer in the 80s, I am reliably informed.
As the new site, Taegan Goddard's Political Insider reports "...Several new polls out today give the Clinton campaign some reason for hope. In Ohio, three new polls give Clinton the lead — SurveyUSA, Public Policy Polling and Quinnipiac — of which two actually show Obama stalling. In Texas, two polls shows a statistical tie — Zogby and SurveyUSA — while a third, Public Policy Polling, gives Clinton the lead. Polls haven't seemed very reliable during this primary season, but today's numbers may change the narrative as we await Tuesday's results."
i hope Hillary wins both states and then chokes on her fucking popcorn.
Quote from: Cain on February 28, 2008, 11:55:32 PM
Also, lol, Obama's not black enough (again).
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?&id=10043
Wait, Waht? Obama is supposed to be black? I thought he was Puerto Rican.
Because the end of this whole Democratic primary fiasco would be a really, really good thing, it will be only appropriate if Hillary wins both Ohio and Texas to ensure that it drags on for a few more months. So my pessimism is predicting that Hillary will indeed win Texas and Ohio.
QuoteActually, it was watching Tancredo give a speech, and the reaction of Ron Paul fans as they realized they were being scammed by their messiah.
You wouldn't happen to have a link to that, would you? I'd like to show it to my bf, who insists that Ron Paul is the only one who can save us... :|
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 04, 2008, 07:09:53 PM
Because the end of this whole Democratic primary fiasco would be a really, really good thing, it will be only appropriate if Hillary wins both Ohio and Texas to ensure that it drags on for a few more months. So my pessimism is predicting that Hillary will indeed win Texas and Ohio.
So's mine. But I'm ok with it. I think the Democratic Party deserves what it gets.
They have fucked the people over too many times for me to feel sorry for them if they can't make up their fucking minds.
Quote from: Roo on March 04, 2008, 07:19:21 PM
QuoteActually, it was watching Tancredo give a speech, and the reaction of Ron Paul fans as they realized they were being scammed by their messiah.
You wouldn't happen to have a link to that, would you? I'd like to show it to my bf, who insists that Ron Paul is the only one who can save us... :|
http://www.nolanchart.com/article2641.html
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 04, 2008, 07:09:53 PM
Because the end of this whole Democratic primary fiasco would be a really, really good thing, it will be only appropriate if Hillary wins both Ohio and Texas to ensure that it drags on for a few more months. So my pessimism is predicting that Hillary will indeed win Texas and Ohio.
Fuck! I hate it when I'm right! :evilmad:
aaaahhahahah kuchinich won Ohio!
(http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb163/wompcabal/denniswing2-1.jpg)
did ANYBODY see THAT coming?
frankly, I didn't even realize he was still in the race.
(http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb163/wompcabal/denniswing.jpg)
oops - he won the Congress seat, not the presidental primaries. MY BAD FOR THE BAD INFO
and that's what I get for reading the news in the elevator AT ALL
:lulz: for Cram
And RWHN, I think this is exactly what the Dems deserve. If their asses would've voted HALF as determinedly in the last fucking 8 years, we may not be in the mess we are today.
Let the fucking Dems suffer...I know we suffer with them, but damn, that should be old hat by now.
Dammit. I wanted this to be /over/ with. So tired of hearing people jabber about who sucks more, hillary or barack, and who is teh awesomest. Worse when its people you otherwise like and respect talking this way. (Not refering to anyone here, but to IRL people.)
Its as bad as dealing with the constant talk of the Packers before the last superbowl. :x
What we need to do is merge the two candidates into one.
GO HILLARBAMA!
You know, I think it's the state I live in, but I never hear any "Obama Sucks" shit that isn't punditrized on teevee...don't know why. I hear fears he might not pull through, but never anything on the man himself round hereabouts.
People talk shit on Hillary all the time, but then she kind of reminds them of every bitchy hatemongering chick they know. *shrug*
Quote from: Cain on March 05, 2008, 04:52:20 PM
What we need to do is merge the two candidates into one.
GO HILLARBAMA!
:lulz: GO McHILLARBAMAIN
This is begging to be WOMP'd.
I read on MSNBC.com that Hillary has said she's willing to entertain being part of a ticket with Obama...
as long as it's Clinton/Obama and not vice versa.
Jon Stewart got her to admit that all 3 of them could end up in each others' cabinets when he interviewed her Monday night.
That tells you how close they all are in rhetoric.
My problem with Hillary isn't her rhetoric or her positions on big issues (notwithstanding the fact that they are all just politicians who never tackle truly important topics), but the fact that everybody hates her and a Hillary presidency would be another 4-8 years of gridlock.
Of course, the solution would be to elect McCain as president, and give Democrats more than a 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress so McCain can't do shit anyway.
It's surprising how easy it is to start subscribing to the partisan bullshit in election year. My chao isn't functioning properly.
I thought the House Democrats luuuuuuuuuuuuuurved Hillary?
Sure, the rest of the country, including most progressive elements within the Democratic Party and pretty much 99% of anyone on the right hates her guts, but the same could be said of Bush, and it didn't really result in gridlock....
This is just my personal theory,
in general the Democrats who are rabid Hillary supporters are Democrats who are still obsessing about impeaching Bush and "getting" all of his goons.
in general the Democrats who are rabid Obama supporters are Democrats who want to forget Bush ever happened.
Quote from: Cain on March 05, 2008, 05:49:01 PM
I thought the House Democrats luuuuuuuuuuuuuurved Hillary?
Sure, the rest of the country, including most progressive elements within the Democratic Party and pretty much 99% of anyone on the right hates her guts, but the same could be said of Bush, and it didn't really result in gridlock....
That's because the Dems have no fucking balls.
Quote from: vexati0n on March 05, 2008, 06:04:58 PM
Quote from: Cain on March 05, 2008, 05:49:01 PM
I thought the House Democrats luuuuuuuuuuuuuurved Hillary?
Sure, the rest of the country, including most progressive elements within the Democratic Party and pretty much 99% of anyone on the right hates her guts, but the same could be said of Bush, and it didn't really result in gridlock....
That's because the Dems have no fucking balls.
Word.
ugh
can't we just NOT pick a president this year?
A four year break from all this nonsense would be kind of pleasant, no?
wtf, cram
bitching about political landscapes we have no intention of taking up arms to enforce or protect is the new american pastime.
Quote from: vexati0n on March 05, 2008, 06:04:58 PM
Quote from: Cain on March 05, 2008, 05:49:01 PM
I thought the House Democrats luuuuuuuuuuuuuurved Hillary?
Sure, the rest of the country, including most progressive elements within the Democratic Party and pretty much 99% of anyone on the right hates her guts, but the same could be said of Bush, and it didn't really result in gridlock....
That's because the Dems have no fucking balls.
Well neither did the Repubs, if it we're talking about standing up to Bush. There wouldn't be political deadlock, it'd just be deadlock in the media discourse.
No, of course the GOP doesn't stand up to Bush. The Dems were the ones who swept Congress in 06 promising a strong new direction, and they have delivered exactly fuck all. At the very least, even without enough votes to actually pass new laws, they could have obstinately blocked all attempts by the GOP to gain any ground, but they're afraid of looking "weak on Terrorism," which I guess is worse than being weak on the Constitution.
Anybody who has watched Washington for the past six years and still thinks there is hope for the Republic is a complete tool.
Exactly. And have the Americans even TRIED to hold their gummament accountable for this? Naw. Why bother? "They don't listen ANYway!"
Ugh.
We lost this "democracy" to the corporate fucks so long ago, people barely nudge themselves awake enough to notice what's going down.
Is a Republic, not democracy...but yeah. People only care about what's going on in the part of the world they can see.
Which is why revolutions are always violent. By the time it gets bad enough for people to wake up and do something, there's no solution other than war.
Quote from: Roo on March 06, 2008, 04:42:04 AM
Is a Republic, not democracy...but yeah. People only care about what's going on in the part of the world they can see.
Hence the quotations around democracy. People often forget what a representative is for. They are there to represent interests of their voters/constituents. But making them work for the non-corporate fuck is a lot harder to do than just accepting their fuckstick up your ass. Because that's what you're used to, after all.
Quote from: vexati0n on March 06, 2008, 01:51:52 AM
No, of course the GOP doesn't stand up to Bush. The Dems were the ones who swept Congress in 06 promising a strong new direction, and they have delivered exactly fuck all. At the very least, even without enough votes to actually pass new laws, they could have obstinately blocked all attempts by the GOP to gain any ground, but they're afraid of looking "weak on Terrorism," which I guess is worse than being weak on the Constitution.
Anybody who has watched Washington for the past six years and still thinks there is hope for the Republic is a complete tool.
Here, here. We're on our own people.
What's changed there?
Thing is, scratch the surface of any presidency and it's the same thing, over and over again.
On the flip side, though, there are times and movements where just the right mix netted a beautiful result--like the Civil Rights Movement, Roe v. Wade, etc.
troof.
I think one of the biggest things that is turning me off this go-around is the media. I know Politics has always been a game, but really, the networks are making their coverage look just like sporting events. And it seems like the way they talk about it sounds more and more like some kind of football game or something. When they talk about what strategies a candidate should use, it's framed as "what strategy will get them more delegatees", "what strategy will get them more Super delegates", etc. The talk of strategies have little to nothing to do with how the campaigns will actually affect the people they are looking to serve, the American people.
Maybe all along we've always been left out of the equation, but I guess this go around if feels more blatant than ever.
That's why you should watch Jon Stewart for levity. He catches all their bullshit and makes fun of it, ad nauseum, ad infinititum. Gives some perspective to all their harranguing and meta-strategizing.
Quote from: vexati0n on March 06, 2008, 05:55:11 AM
Which is why revolutions are always violent. By the time it gets bad enough for people to wake up and do something, there's no solution other than war.
Well sure... but they have all the good guns, bombs, non-lethal madness, and (as George Carlin reminded us) "they have all the flamethrowers". At one time I thought a digital revolution might happen, but then the government got wise and hired lots of good hacker minds. :cry:
So we can complain and not vote... complain and vote... not complain and vote or not complain and not vote.
As of right now, there doesn't really appear to be another option.
Where was the mass violence in the 1989 revolutions again?
I must have missed the bloodbath that happened in every single Warsaw Pact country.
Cain, you have a good point. If we can get the Federal Government to fail entirely and go bankrupt... then maybe the States will be free to secede. Of course, the States seceding doesn't particularly mean good things for citizens, but its a useful analog to the late 80's/early 90's in Eastern Europe. The USSR failed, the member states withdrew, and the citizens got fucked... just this time by local thugs instead of the ones living in Moscow. More of a disillusion than a revolution, wasn't it?
Yeah, but you could say the same about almost any revolution, except that there was a notable lack of thousands of dead people in this particular case. That there was a significant and huge change in the power structure of the countries in question is undeniable. Which opens up the prospect of other forms of change that don't involve rivers of blood.
You might be right... but I haven't seen any of these bloodless revolutions that actually settle anything... how many wars have been fought since the balkanization of that area? Look at poor Lebanon with their Cedar Revolution. Sure they chased out Syria without a shot... but they didn't solve their main issue and found themselves getting the crap bombed out of them thanks to their southern brothers acting just as they did before the peaceful revolution (probably under the guidance of Syria). All of those peaceful politicians that helped with the revolution... how many of them are now dead, blown away by car bombs, bombed buildings or bullets in the face?
I really wish peaceful revolution worked, but I have not yet seen an example of one that doesn't simply push the violence off until a bit later, or was simply an example of one jackbooted thug taking over control from another jackbooted thug.
When has anything settled anything?
Sound suspiciously like you're suggesting there is an end state of political organization there...
Quote from: Cain on March 06, 2008, 04:53:02 PM
When has anything settled anything?
Sound suspiciously like you're suggesting there is an end state of political organization there...
No, what I'm saying is that the "revolution" simply pushed the violence out further, than engaging in the violence upfront... sorta like a ballooning mortgage. Consider Lebanon, for example. Their peaceful Cedar Revolution was intended to A) Free them from Syrian control and B) Provide a democratic government that would bring a moderate view to bear within Lebanon (one of my friends was there when it all went down). They accomplished neither. Their protests simply led Syria to take a less direct approach and left their government as impotent as Bob Dole before Viagra. Rather than going toe to toe against Hezbollah, the Cedar revolution simply thought that if they took over the government Hezzie would turn over a new leaf. Instead, Hezbollah invaded Israel, kidnapped a soldier and brought holy hell down on everyone.
Since Syria has abdicated, many of Syria's political enemies in Lebanon have mysteriously blown up or got a bad case of lead poisoning. The 'peaceful revolution' brought lots of rhetoric and good feeling, but it didn't fix anything. It didn't happen without bloodshed, the bloodshed was simply delayed a bit... and best yet, its not bloodshed from the hands of the revolutionaries, its bloodshed from those the revolutionaries tired to peacefully beat.
I'm not arguing that there IS an end state... just that what we sometimes perceive as peaceful revolutions might be a bit myopic.
There may be no particular political end-state, but there can be political climates more or less conducive to general public security and peace. No revolution ever fixed an entire country, but there have been a few revolutions that, at the very least, made progress in that direction. What happened to former USSR states didn't happen because people got fed up with Moscow, it happened because Moscow's stranglehold on the USSR caved in and the "freed" states had no choice but to withdraw. In most of these cases they weren't trying to accomplish anything except to avoid total collapse, and even outside the USSR there was no significant drive away from totalitarianism. Like Tosk says, the people switched from getting screwed by Moscow to getting screwed by the local tough guys. It wasn't a revolution in the sense that people threw off the bonds of unjust government, which actually does happen once in a while even if it just sounds like a tired speech by the Sons of Liberty.
Back on the subject of the American election this year, even if Obama wins the presidency and the Democrats take full control of Congress, I expect very little to change. Some token gestures given back to the people maybe, but even that much isn't guaranteed. Mostly everyone will go to DC, keep bitching about each other as if there are any actual differences between them, and spend the next four years wringing their hands and trying not to piss off the demographics who already hate them.
Well, you have to admit, whoever gets the Prez seat next has a lot of shit in front of them.
The economy's in the tank, the deficit is ginormous, soldiers are dying in Iraq, and gas prices are over $100 a barrel.
There's not much you can do to fix it. Raise taxes on the rich, subsidize failed mortages, get the troops home safely, and hope Iran doesn't assimilate Iraq.
A few speeches and $600 a citizen isn't gonna do much.
Agreed. I think no matter who wins will be looking at a one-term presidency, UNLESS there is some miraculous turnaround in the economy, the war gets better OR whoever runs against the incumbent is off-the-map mediocre.
Of course, I may be overestimating the will of the American people to actually care enough about the state of affairs.
I think you're dead on LMNO. That's a load of crap to deal with, not to mention trying to recover from the black eye we got with Bush in the White House. As for Iraq, I have yet to figure out how they're gonna pull the troops home 'safely' anytime in the next 2 years without simply handing Iraq over to Iran and Saudi to fight over.
I predict, that no matter what, no matter who is president... life as an Iraqi is gonna suck for the foreseeable future.
US warships off the coast of Lebanon suggest that there are no plans to leave the Middle East anytime soon. Israel and Syria are about 2 years overdue on another pointless round of bloodletting, and the US strategy in the region involved Syria as the next target in the transformation of the Middle East.
Quote from: Cain on March 07, 2008, 03:24:00 PM
US warships off the coast of Lebanon suggest that there are no plans to leave the Middle East anytime soon. Israel and Syria are about 2 years overdue on another pointless round of bloodletting, and the US strategy in the region involved Syria as the next target in the transformation of the Middle East.
You think they'll hit Syria before Iran?
Quote from: Ratatosk on March 07, 2008, 03:30:09 PM
Quote from: Cain on March 07, 2008, 03:24:00 PM
US warships off the coast of Lebanon suggest that there are no plans to leave the Middle East anytime soon. Israel and Syria are about 2 years overdue on another pointless round of bloodletting, and the US strategy in the region involved Syria as the next target in the transformation of the Middle East.
You think they'll hit Syria before Iran?
Absolutely. Syria is the conduit for Iranian intelligence and supplies to Hezbollah, as well as supporting Hezbollah with their own resources. Syria's tacit alliance with Hezbollah massively increases the threat range on Israel and makes any war much more difficult. Taking out Syria, in theory, solves this problem (it doesn't, but that is how the theory goes) and opens up the possibility of war on Iran without repurcussions like missiles raining down into north Israel, or car-bombings against European and American interests
It wont work, because Hezbollah realized the weakness of relying on Iran too much and have their own contacts within the former Yugoslavia who can supply them with the materials they need. Admittedly, those are harder to procure than ones being taken over the border by Sryian officials with diplomatic immunity, but if I know anything its that someone, somewhere is always willing to risk dying to make a quick, tax-free buck. It also wont work because Hezbollah are actually based on legitimate Lebanese greivances, and are not just some mindless drones of Iran, but the NeoCons are getting their grand strategy on now, and so have become impervious to that kind of reasoning.
Quote from: Cain on March 07, 2008, 03:39:04 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on March 07, 2008, 03:30:09 PM
Quote from: Cain on March 07, 2008, 03:24:00 PM
US warships off the coast of Lebanon suggest that there are no plans to leave the Middle East anytime soon. Israel and Syria are about 2 years overdue on another pointless round of bloodletting, and the US strategy in the region involved Syria as the next target in the transformation of the Middle East.
You think they'll hit Syria before Iran?
Absolutely. Syria is the conduit for Iranian intelligence and supplies to Hezbollah, as well as supporting Hezbollah with their own resources. Syria's tacit alliance with Hezbollah massively increases the threat range on Israel and makes any war much more difficult. Taking out Syria, in theory, solves this problem (it doesn't, but that is how the theory goes) and opens up the possibility of war on Iran without repurcussions like missiles raining down into north Israel, or car-bombings against European and American interests
It wont work, because Hezbollah realized the weakness of relying on Iran too much and have their own contacts within the former Yugoslavia who can supply them with the materials they need. Admittedly, those are harder to procure than ones being taken over the border by Sryian officials with diplomatic immunity, but if I know anything its that someone, somewhere is always willing to risk dying to make a quick, tax-free buck. It also wont work because Hezbollah are actually based on legitimate Lebanese greivances, and are not just some mindless drones of Iran, but the NeoCons are getting their grand strategy on now, and so have become impervious to that kind of reasoning.
Well, I doubt that the neocons will have the power to do anything for a long time... even if McCain gets the Oval Office, I doubt the GOP will maintain as many seats in the House and Senate, no matter how much McCain might like to kick Iran's ass (and there are some legitimate reasons), he won't without Congress. And Congress, if controlled by the Donks, aren't gonna go for a neocon strategy. I would also argue that McCain isn't a NeoCon, he sees war as a useful tool (which is scary) but I don't think he's got the same philosophy as Rumsfeld, Rove, ad nausea.
If the Dems control both houses and the Exectuive, things may get interesting. Surely, they could pull out... but every contact I have in the ME seems to think that would be folly. If they don't pull out, then I could see them trying to secure their position, particularly against Iran. On the up side, none of the candidates are Dominionists, so I think Israel won't get the biased attention its received for the past 8 years... which might calm things a bit, I dunno.
Either way, I think we'll be there for the next four years at least, probably the next couple decades if we actually take on another nation in the area.
Perhaps.
But they might not need to. If, for example, Hezbollah were to attack the American warships. Putting them into the area is act of provocation, as far as Hezbollah are concerned, and if they send up a UAV with explosives and crash it into a US warship, as a show of force....well, the analogies to the USS Cole will become tedious after day 2.
Putting the military into any situation automatically increases the chances of a war or some kind of armed conflict kicking off, simply because its the nature of the beast. If they're playing the odds, it could be this is the chance needed to get some US naval support on any Israeli attack. As far as I know, Israel is the one expected by the US strategists to do the heavy lifting in any war against Syria/Hezbollah. Israeli strategists disagreed, in 2003 and 2006, but they cant keep turning down US suggestions forever.
Quote from: Cain on March 07, 2008, 04:26:31 PM
Perhaps.
But they might not need to. If, for example, Hezbollah were to attack the American warships. Putting them into the area is act of provocation, as far as Hezbollah are concerned, and if they send up a UAV with explosives and crash it into a US warship, as a show of force....well, the analogies to the USS Cole will become tedious after day 2.
Putting the military into any situation automatically increases the chances of a war or some kind of armed conflict kicking off, simply because its the nature of the beast. If they're playing the odds, it could be this is the chance needed to get some US naval support on any Israeli attack. As far as I know, Israel is the one expected by the US strategists to do the heavy lifting in any war against Syria/Hezbollah. Israeli strategists disagreed, in 2003 and 2006, but they cant keep turning down US suggestions forever.
Well, maybe... I can't imagine that Hezbollah will attack one of our ships at this point... that would seem like direct provocation to war, and Hez wants to fight Israel, not the US (because, as you said, they have some actual grievances... they are also crazy and don't seem to hold any moral ground in this mess). If they give the US an invitation to waltz into Lebanon, it would be suicide, I think.
But, maybe not.
I'd think Hezbollah's leadership would be smart enough to see the trap as well, but the grass-root pressure might in turn be a factor as well. Alot of the new recruits they picked up after the last round of fighting with Israel are decidedly anti-American, and also somewhat Al-Qaeda influenced in grand strategy, which is predicated on attacking the US to make nearer enemies supported by them crumble. Hezbollah should be able to keep their people under control, but I dont know that for certain.
Quote from: Cain on March 07, 2008, 04:56:13 PM
I'd think Hezbollah's leadership would be smart enough to see the trap as well, but the grass-root pressure might in turn be a factor as well. Alot of the new recruits they picked up after the last round of fighting with Israel are decidedly anti-American, and also somewhat Al-Qaeda influenced in grand strategy, which is predicated on attacking the US to make nearer enemies supported by them crumble. Hezbollah should be able to keep their people under control, but I dont know that for certain.
Very astute observation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M70emIFxETs
Hillary is thinking of the children at 3am. Are you?
Thank goodness someone is. :roll:
I just had a hilarious thought.
Lets assume that, for whatever insane reason, Hillary manages to win the Democratic nomination. But not by popular vote, but because of the superdelegates within the party.
BUT THEN! Obama decides to run, as an Independent, for President. He picks a centre-right, antiwar Republican running partner and makes his bid for the leadership of the country.
What happens then?
Things get very interesting indeed....
What happens then is the Democratic party implodes, Rush Limbaugh takes over all broadcast television and radio, Pat Robertson co-opts the election authorities and declares Bush Dictator for Life, the Constitution is fed to dogs, and three months later the US nukes the shit out of France. Meanwhile, a new law requires all TV in the USA be related in some way to Football, and nobody south of Canada even notices what's happening.
Like I said, hilarious.
Does anyone esle get the feeling that Bush is spending the remaining months of his administration fucking up the country as much as he's capable, in order that the next president (presumably a democrat) will have no chance to fix things fast enough for our instant-gratification culture (which will cause massive resentment from the populous), thus greasing the way for another Republican victory in 2012?
Yeah, I think the next Prez, (including McCain) has zero shot at being a Two-Term Prez unless the Iraq insugency voluntarily lays down arms and the economy gets amnesia and forgets that it's phucked.
I also think Bush has been hitting the Oval Office mini-bar a little too hard. Anyone see that Irish Jig he did last week while waiting for McCain to show up?
Quote from: LMNO on March 10, 2008, 01:58:08 PM
Does anyone esle get the feeling that Bush is spending the remaining months of his administration fucking up the country as much as he's capable, in order that the next president (presumably a democrat) will have no chance to fix things fast enough for our instant-gratification culture (which will cause massive resentment from the populous), thus greasing the way for another Republican victory in 2012?
I've been saying that since 2005. The Dems should have thrown Iraq, and this current election, if they wanted to assure their long term viability as a political party.
As things now stand:
Grass root Dems are pissed off because Congress has done next to bugger all to halt the war or prosecute the excesses of Bush and cronies.
Republicans are pissed because...well, the Dems still exist. That's all most of them need.
Republican revisionists will lay the eventual defeat in Iraq at the feet of the next administration and current Congress especially. As the economy continues to slide, it will be a Dem who has to deal with it, and probably will do so badly, earning much more ire than the administrations previously that helped create the current economic conditions.
If the Dems had played the Congressional election and primaries weakly, then it would have left the idiots with no-one else to blame than the people responsible. As it is, the Dems have signed up for the role of scapegoat, for some bizzare reason.
It's because Barack Obama is America's Savior(tm), and the DNC thinks everything will get better if they take a real majority in DC. They can't let a major election year just walk past them without trying to jump into power, because they are politicians and therefore they are allergic to biding their time for that long. The GOP will be more than happy to oblige the liberals (ffs, MCCAIN is their nominee -- as far as half of the GOP is concerned, he might as well be a Democrat anyway) because they know the major fallout from Bush is going to come down sometime in the next 4 years.
The gamble for the Democrats is, can they actually deliver a solid and capable government, the likes of which hasn't been seen in this country for at least 50 years? Even if they can't, they're betting on Obama's ability to sweet-talk his way out of any trouble (and if they go for Clinton, the whole planet is probably fucked.) For the Republicans, the gamble is that the Democratic administration will be as boneheaded as the Bush administration has been, although that's hard to match.
I wonder how Blackwater will react to an entirely Democratic government? Erik Prince is a big fan of the GOP theocrats, possibly more so than he is a fan of huge profit margins and hired killers from around the globe. He also hangs around people who are very interested in making that vision of a Christian America a reality. He may not consent to his company helping a nominally more secular party.
Quote from: Cain on March 10, 2008, 04:05:05 PM
I wonder how Blackwater will react to an entirely Democratic government? Erik Prince is a big fan of the GOP theocrats, possibly more so than he is a fan of huge profit margins and hired killers from around the globe. He also hangs around people who are very interested in making that vision of a Christian America a reality. He may not consent to his company helping a nominally more secular party.
Oh wouldn't that bring sweet chaos?! Hillary says "We're Staying, but we'll need more troops now that Blackwater has proven that they are unpatriotic and are leaving us to fend for ourselves!
Then again... that many guys with guns, not directly under the control of the government... Whoo Hoo!
Quote from: LMNO on March 10, 2008, 01:58:08 PM
Does anyone esle get the feeling that Bush is spending the remaining months of his administration fucking up the country as much as he's capable, in order that the next president (presumably a democrat) will have no chance to fix things fast enough for our instant-gratification culture (which will cause massive resentment from the populous), thus greasing the way for another Republican victory in 2012?
I've thought that since he got into office the 2d round.
http://thepage.time.com/obama-campaign-annotates-clinton-press-release/
Just thought I'd link to that story... it made my lol.
:lulz:
I know the annotations are not from Obama but was that press release really from Clinton's campaign? I fear when our politicians use such twisted and assinine logic.
BREAKING! CLINTON SUPPORTERS AT DAILYKOS.COM GO ON STRIKE!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/14/20827/4727/132/476843
QuoteI've been posting at DailyKos for nearly 4 years now and started writing diaries in support of Hillary Clinton back in June of last year. Over the past few months I've noticed that things have become progressively more abusive toward my candidate and her supporters.
I've put up with the abuse and anger because I've always believed in what our on-line community has tried to accomplish in this world. No more. DailyKos is not the site it once was thanks to the abusive nature of certain members of our community.
I've decided to go on "strike" and will refrain from posting here as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution. I will not be posting at DailyKos effective immediately. I will not help drive up traffic or page-hits as long as my candidate – a good and fine DEMOCRAT - is attacked in such a horrid and sexist manner not only by other diarists, but by several of those posting to the front page.
http://tomwatson.typepad.com/tom_watson/2008/03/the-left-splits.html
A writer's strike at DailyKos is the latest symptom of a fast-moving infection in the progressive blogosphere - the all-too-real political fissure driven by online bullying that shows no signs of healing by August. Does this virtual walk-out presage the real thing in Denver? Too early to tell, but the real anger among Democratic bloggers who do not ardently support Barack Obama swats down the dismissive conventional wisdom of "they'll come back in the end" - at least for now.
Oh yes, this is brilliant! We need to exploit this, if it continues to spread. A fully blown political split bought on by the bloggers would be wonderful to behold! Ahahahahaha!
this just in --
Obama's campaign has 23 offices in the state of Pennsylvania.
no troll.
I took the 'which candidate' test linked earlier and it told me to take the republican test.
The republican test told me to take the democrat test.
Can we please just nuke DC and start over?
Also, the democrats are going to hand over the Oval office due to internal bickering *again* aren't they?
Yes.
http://www.alternet.org/election08/80248/
LOL, Hillary & Fundamentalists.
http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2008/03/20/will-mccain-and-conservatives-disown-this-bigot/
LOL, McCain and Fundamentalists
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,256078,00.html
LOL, Obama and Fundamentalists
:lulz:
Quote from: Requiem on March 20, 2008, 09:03:53 AM
I took the 'which candidate' test linked earlier and it told me to take the republican test.
The republican test told me to take the democrat test.
Can we please just nuke DC and start over?
Also, the democrats are going to hand over the Oval office due to internal bickering *again* aren't they?
I'm not so sure. McCain is a weak candidate. He's old, he's bitchy, and he has a hard time keeping his facts straight. His strength, or his perceived strength anyway, is National Security and the Iraq War. The prominence of the Iraq War on the American Agenda is falling like a stone. On Countdown lastnight a journalist remarked that on one survey it was actually behind Heath Ledger's death as far as prominence.
McCain is going to have a really hard time with the Economy questions. He's already admitted he doesn't know much about it. When he's on stage to debate the Economy with either Hillary or Obama, that greenness and lack of knowledge is going to show.
The way I see it, the only way McCain wins is with a large Republican turnout and a small Democrat turnout. The primary season suggests that probably won't happen. Sure the Obama/Wright flap might energize a few more Republicans but unless the story continues into August and September, I see that effect wearing off.
what i think drives the mcCain camp is more of a cult of of personality
he presents himself on talk shows ect., wether he is or not, as being very empathetic and reasonable
of course in reguards to reasonablity the bar has been set really low
McCain's appeal over the years has been that whole "Maverick" persona/myth that has grown up around him. It works as a Senator in a sea of Republicans. But as a lone Republican candidate against a lone Democrat candidate, he's not going to be able to rely on that.
He may not have to, however. The Democrats and Hillary in particular are shooting themselves in the foot by playing dirty and trying to smear each other. There is a lot of dirt that has yet to be released and will likely be sat on until certain moments within the campaign, to build up a general picture of incompetence or lack of patriotism.
It depends how much McCain's handlers have, and how the media will react in the main race.
politically, obama has no chance. but he hasn't run his campaign according to the political rulebook, and he hasn't had politically expectable results. the main threat to an obama presidency is not mccain or the GOP in general, it's hillary and her quest for satisfaction of her personal lust for power.
for mccain, he better hope to christ that hillary wins the dem nomination, because he will beat her in a national election. after all they are both war hawks, they are both corporate goons, and they both have a habit of pandering to anybody who will listen to them during a campaign and then forget about them once they're in office. i know in that situation my vote for president will be a write-in for John Quincy Adams (4 MOAR YEARS!), but most people will pick mccain because he's more likable than hillary and more retarded than Bush.
Chuck Hagel on the war:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23721893/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23721893/)
I guess there was a rumour going around that he might take a VP slot on a Bloomberg ticket. I'd really like to see them enter the race. Fuck Nader.
Quote from: vexati0n on March 20, 2008, 03:09:26 PM
most people will pick mccain because he's more likable than hillary and more retarded than Bush.
say
what?
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on March 21, 2008, 04:36:27 AM
Quote from: vexati0n on March 20, 2008, 03:09:26 PM
most people will pick mccain because he's more likable than hillary and more retarded than Bush.
say what?
For real. My chihuahua isn't more retarded than Bush.
Actually, did you hear "Mr Foreign Intelligence" claim that Iran was training Al Qaeda?
Lulz, indeed.
okay. objectively, as a (somewhat) functioning human brain, mccain might have a higher efficiency rate due to the fact that he has not drowned himself in alcohol for 3/4 of his adult life.
however
mccain, like bush, is a staunch supporter of the "i dont care what the reality is, i know what my gut tells me is true" school of "thought." so why he is not inherently more retarded than bush, politically he amounts to the same thing. and he might even be worse, considering the fact that he has BEEN to war and has BEEN on the receiving end of human rights violations, and yet he STILL thinks along the same lines Bush does.
McCain is not more retarded than Bush, he's just become more retarded in different ways over the years. He actually was not a bad alternative to Bushie back in the day (fuck, who wasn't, I think Mussolini would've been a breath of fresh air).
I don't think what the Dems are doing is untoward. It just shows that there's really two sides to the Democratic Party that need to have it out to decide what is really more important here: hegemony or real, actual change. Nothing wrong with that, and I'd rather the fight get a little dirty, because once it's mano y mano in the Dems vs. Republitard arena, it's going to get even worse.
I don't think Democrats won't vote for a fellow Democrat due to the in-fighting, either. If anything, it mobilizes them even more for the person they want to see get in there and kick some Republitard ass.
The issues, as far as I can see, are pretty clear and are clearing up even further.
I'm weary of the whole thing, of course, but I believe we'll have a clear winner in the coming weeks, and after that, it's kick McCain's ass time.
Wait, you don't think Obama is gonna bring "real, actual change," do you?
Take a peep at MA's new gov, Deval Patrick. He ran on the same things as Barak is doing.
Except Barack Obama has actually produced results in the last 20 years. Besides, if he's a sell-out, I'd rather have an Obama dictatorship than a McCain dictatorship, and god help us if Hillary gets in.
Quote from: vexati0n on March 21, 2008, 01:01:31 PM
Except Barack Obama has actually produced results in the last 20 years.
[citation needed]
He can't literally bring actual REAL change the way WE want it anyway. No possible, not with politicians.
The fact a black man with Muslim roots will be in office is change enough, in several ways.
Besides that, he's talking a good game right now, and what can I say, I'm a sucker for some honeyed words right now. Must be Springtime.
Quote from: Jenne on March 21, 2008, 01:04:14 PM
He can't literally bring actual REAL change the way WE want it anyway. No possible, not with politicians.
The fact a black man with Muslim roots
[citation
really fucking needed]
Oh stop. I didn't say he was Muslim. I said he has Muslim roots. I'm not playing the Republitard smoosh game, obviously.
Feh.
Quote from: LMNO on March 21, 2008, 01:02:35 PM
Quote from: vexati0n on March 21, 2008, 01:01:31 PM
Except Barack Obama has actually produced results in the last 20 years.
[citation needed]
State senate :
Adds health insurance for 20,000 children, Welfare reform,
Earned income tax credit, increased minimum wage ($5.15 to
$6.50). Death penalty reform making interrogations be video
taped passed Senate 58-0, signed to law by governor who first
opposed Obama's bill. Sponsored bill probing police profiling.
Federal Senate:
Jan. 2007, major ethics/lobbying reform bill, w/ Russ Feingold
insisted tougher measures banning lobbyist gifts/ meals/ jets,
disclosure of earmark & contribution bundling to candidates or
committees; restricts retiring Congress from going into lobbying
Cosponsored Secure Orderly Immigration Act by John
McCain. Passed 62-36. Makes undocumented persons who
have been here 5+ years only allowed to stay and apply for
citizenship, if pay back taxes, learn English and no criminal
record. 2 million undocumented persons who have been in the
United States for less than two years would be ordered home.
Worked for $13,000 / year helping inner city Chicago poor.
Registered 150,000 people to vote. Graduated first black
president of Harvard Law Review, passed over 600 high money
law firm offers to work for civil rights practice at fractional pay.
----
obviously this is the cherry-picked obama propaganda shit. but they are true, and imho, anyone for whom these things are true can't be 100% evil, and even 98% evil beats the other two.
Quote from: vexati0n on March 21, 2008, 01:10:01 PM
Quote from: LMNO on March 21, 2008, 01:02:35 PM
Quote from: vexati0n on March 21, 2008, 01:01:31 PM
Except Barack Obama has actually produced results in the last 20 years.
[citation needed]
State senate :
Adds health insurance for 20,000 children, Welfare reform,
Earned income tax credit, increased minimum wage ($5.15 to
$6.50). Death penalty reform making interrogations be video
taped passed Senate 58-0, signed to law by governor who first
opposed Obama's bill. Sponsored bill probing police profiling.
Federal Senate:
Jan. 2007, major ethics/lobbying reform bill, w/ Russ Feingold
insisted tougher measures banning lobbyist gifts/ meals/ jets,
disclosure of earmark & contribution bundling to candidates or
committees; restricts retiring Congress from going into lobbying
Cosponsored Secure Orderly Immigration Act by John
McCain. Passed 62-36. Makes undocumented persons who
have been here 5+ years only allowed to stay and apply for
citizenship, if pay back taxes, learn English and no criminal
record. 2 million undocumented persons who have been in the
United States for less than two years would be ordered home.
Worked for $13,000 / year helping inner city Chicago poor.
Registered 150,000 people to vote. Graduated first black
president of Harvard Law Review, passed over 600 high money
law firm offers to work for civil rights practice at fractional pay.
----
obviously this is the cherry-picked obama propaganda shit. but they are true, and imho, anyone for whom these things are true can't be 100% evil, and even 98% evil beats the other two.
So both of his federal accomplishments were basically hanging on McCain's coattails? Real way to instigate change there ;-)
Like with Ron Paul, the only way Obama is really going to change things is by causing a split within the Party which will allow progressives to gain control of one faction and stop aping Repulican-lite policies.
And that does not seem likely, despite this election highlighting weakpoints between official Party policy and grassroots support, on both sides.
Quote from: vexati0n on March 20, 2008, 03:09:26 PM
for mccain, he better hope to christ that hillary wins the dem nomination, because he will beat her in a national election. after all they are both war hawks, they are both corporate goons, and they both have a habit of pandering to anybody who will listen to them during a campaign and then forget about them once they're in office. i know in that situation my vote for president will be a write-in for John Quincy Adams (4 MOAR YEARS!), but most people will pick mccain because he's more likable than hillary and more retarded than Bush.
That would explain why Rush Limbaugh was encouraging people to break Federal law in Ohio and urge Republicans to change affiliation for a day and vote for Clinton.
Incidentally, that can get you fined $2000, IIRC.
so, people around keep asking me--goddess knows why--what i'd vote for in the upcoming elections.
so i tell them that i am not a US-citizen and therefore excused from having to make this decision.
so they say, but what if you were a US-citizen, would you then vote for obama/hillary/mccain/etc?
anybody got any brilliant advice to tell them? :D
of course they're just trying to make conversation, so perhaps i could just bend the subject over to the weather or something
Tell them Jon Stewart. It's about as much respect as a question like that deserves. :lulz:
Or just say Obama, so that they go away.
Say you're voting Huckabee, regardless of results.
NOODLE PARTY 08
WOOOOOOOO
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/80459/
LOL, Hillary self-pwnage
And while we're at it:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2003/03/0079525
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehrenreich
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer.html
Just while everyone else works themselves up into a frenzy over Obama and McCain.
Murdoch could start backing Obama
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/04/03/could-the-murdoch-empire-start-backing-barack/
So yesterday at a Press Conference Hillary Clinton says there is no such thing as "pledged delegates". So, in a way she is advocating for overturning the will of the people, since delegates in the Democrat primaries are pretty much split up by the popular vote. So wouldn't that disenfranchise voters if the appointed delegates voted for the other person?
Meanwhile, she's accusing Obama of disenfranchising Michigan and Florida voters because he's against them being seated, because those two states violated Democrat Party rules. Rules which both candidates agreed to at the beginning of this whole thing.
So bottom line: Disenfranchising is okay as long as it's voters who didn't vote for Hillary.
This ain't gonna end until the Convention. I'm really hoping a brawl or two breaks out in the convention while they work this whole thing out. And I kind of hope it does fuck up the Democratic Party. They deserve it.
I go back and forth. I know I've stated the Dems deserve it, but then I don't want to perpetuate the reign of the Republitard, either.
Very frustrating.
But also kinda cool to watch the Democrats eat shit for all their wishy-washiness and bullheaded behavior.
I'd honestly like to see them both collapse at the same time. Won't happen of course.
No, because McCain is gaining more and more Republifuck support. :(
Thats Republicans for you. Throw a hissy fit, then accept the status quo.
Also, Hillary's hypocrisy in this matter is hardly surprising.
Rumour time: the nasty whispered words on the street is that if Hillary can't win the nomination, she'll sabotage Obama's, quietly suggest her supporters vote McCain (he's far more experienced and able to be commander in chief, after all. Or words to that effect) and then spend 2 more years sabotaging Obama's base support and quashing any other party upstarts before running in 2012.
Another rumor:
McCain may only be planning on serving one term if elected. Heard this speculation on a recent edition of Countdown.
O rly?
Time to put on our tinfoil hats:
Hillary and McCain are working together to crush Obama. McCain gets his 4 years in the sun, and so does Hillary.
Yeah, I think it was a segment with Olberman and Rachel Maddow, or maybe it was another of his regulars.
Anyway, they were questioning why McCain kept bringing up his age at his appearances, cause the conventional wisdom is that you don't want to remind the voters that you are 75 years old and knocking on Death's door. So one of the theories is that he only plans to serve for one term if he wins, and thus, when considering VPs, would be looking for someone his successor. Nothing really to corroborate it, just speculation at this point.
Sounds sensible though.
Wasn't there some speculation McCain was going to have some fairly well known Democrats in his administration as well, should he win? The tin foil hat part of me says "pick Hillary, it will be hilarious" whereas in reality I could see it being the 'independent' Joe Libermann getting picked for such a role.
Lieberman and Lindsay Graham seem to be following McCain everywhere he goes. I would be shocked if they weren't at least on the list that he's drawing up.
I'm pretty sure that this election is fucking something up, somewhere, regardless of the outcome. Barack Obama, who as far as I can tell was supposed to be the Token Black Candidate and be out of the running by Feb. 5 to clear a path for HRC. McCain was also supposed to be out of the race by now, in favor of Giuliani or Romney, but that didn't work out either.
It seems more and more to me, especially the longer Hillary keeps beating the dead horse that is her campaign, that somehow the primaries have fucked up the king makers' plans for 2008. And if that's true, then that's all the more reason to fight tooth and nail for a president who wasn't hand-picked by the establishment.
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 04:46:41 PM
I'm pretty sure that this election is fucking something up, somewhere, regardless of the outcome. Barack Obama, who as far as I can tell was supposed to be the Token Black Candidate and be out of the running by Feb. 5 to clear a path for HRC. McCain was also supposed to be out of the race by now, in favor of Giuliani or Romney, but that didn't work out either.
It seems more and more to me, especially the longer Hillary keeps beating the dead horse that is her campaign, that somehow the primaries have fucked up the king makers' plans for 2008. And if that's true, then that's all the more reason to fight tooth and nail for a president who wasn't hand-picked by the establishment.
Son in that case... you're fighting for anyone but HRC?
Of course, you say that, but....
http://rigint.blogspot.com/2008/03/deep-ones-and-madness-of-crowds_27.html
When Obama wins, the only change will be that his supporters will be eaten first
I'm fighting for Obama, of course. But in a general election I will probably either not cast a vote for president or vote for McCain, for two reasons: one, he has a history of going against the grain of political momentum even when it's unpopular, and two, HRC needs to be taught a lesson that she can't ride into the White House just because that's the way some shadow government has it planned.
McCain policies will wreak economic havoc domestically, but that doesn't mean I won't vote for him. I do have the ability to adapt to such bullshit, and I have in the past.
Quote from: Cain on April 04, 2008, 04:48:53 PM
Of course, you say that, but....
http://rigint.blogspot.com/2008/03/deep-ones-and-madness-of-crowds_27.html
When Obama wins, the only change will be that his supporters will be eaten first
For the tl;dr crowd:
This, I think, is the deep context in which we should situate the perpetual travesty machine of American politics. Here too, restrained predation "doesn't quite kill or does kill only slowly." Here, rather, it "keeps hope alive."
All through the Bush years, scores of non-Republicans have anticipated the brutal full-flowering of traditional dictatorship with all the trappings: martial law, mass internment and the cancellation of elections. Through much of the Clinton years, many non-Democrats looked for the same. It didn't come (though some are still waiting). It's as if they've not only expected the worst, but sought it, to put them out of their misery. But the worst exceeds their expectations, and their misery is to be protracted indefinitely.
The Kennedys and King, the October Surprise and Mena, anthrax and Wellstone, Gore and Kerry, Florida and Ohio: you might think that would be enough to make most Democrats say You know what? This isn't working out. But elections are paced like the Olympics, and in another four years the Jamaican bobsledders may really have a shot. Hey, anything's possible. And so long as people believe that, and that anything means everything they want, the cycle repeats and self-perpetuates.
The great assassinations of the Sixties were decapitation strikes, never intended to kill the host or to extinguish hope. It's only the hopeless who are dangerous. Hope must be encouraged, because you don't need to do anything to have it, and it keeps the prey from becoming wise to its own nature and seeking extraction from the cycle. Hope makes it possible to write and believe such things as "Al Gore will save the planet but Barack Obama will save this country." Hope that the system works, even if it is just a digestive system.
Restrained predation upon the Democratic Party may be at an advanced stage of domestication, but it also mimics molecular endosymbiosis with the injection of alien organelles in the form of the Trojan horse DLC to which, of all the contenders, both Clinton and Obama are closest in tactics and ideology. Funny how that happened.
And how did that happen? I think there's an institutional instinct at work, in the Deep Context, that maintains the insectival social engine of power. Does Obama know his role? That may be irrelevant, because the volition and cognition of the individuals who form the living manifestation of the system may be grossly overstated. They have given themselves to the system, the system has groomed them and raised them above all others, and they instinctively know what the system requires.
Is it hopeless? Thank Christ, yes, so get used to it. There's a liberation to hopelessness, in knowing what can't be done (or more typically, politically, be done for you), which I personally find preferable to another four years of huffing one's own jenkem. There's no salvation within the political cycle of death and rebirth, consumption and excretion - jellies eat and shit through the same simple hole, which could also be a reasonably sophisticated media analysis - and to hope for such a savior is to be the doomed hero of Lovecraft's fiction.
Perhaps it's not be so far from the Deep Ones to Deep Politics. You could say it all comes out right in the end, but you know what comes out in the end.
Well, that's a fucking downer.
But we have no real alternative at this point in time.
I don't agree. I think it's possible to effect actual change. Even if the political landscape is a dumb beast, it can be tamed at times.
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 05:31:50 PM
I don't agree. I think it's possible to effect actual change. Even if the political landscape is a dumb beast, it can be tamed at times.
I dunno... maybe in theory, but I haven't seen much success in practice.
I saw some figure on Obama's campaign funds this morning. He's had over a Million donations coming from various donors. A quarter of these are first time donors. The average donor was less than $100. I can't say for sure, buy my guess is that the McCain and Clintion Campaigns can't boast these same sort of "grassroot" level donations.
In effect, he really doesn't owe anyone anything, financially speaking.
eta: I saw these on Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough
Lookit, I'm in the grassroots bidness, and so are you, RWHN, that's why it behooves us to IGNORE the motherfucking big picture. Otherwise, we might as well look around for a new rope to hang ourselves with, if you catch my drift.
Troof. Much troof.
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 05:02:22 PM
I do have the ability to adapt to such bullshit, and I have in the past.
So do we all, but why ask for it? Why buy it, if it's not what you want?
Just because they're selling the bullshit, doesn't mean you have to buy it. As long as you keep buying it, they'll keep selling it. All you're doing is maintaining the status quo.
Who are
you serving?
I said it a year ago, I'll say it again.
Anyone who has made it big enough to become a viable presidential candidate has made far too many compromises to be trusted.
Also, I stole from the above to post this at TCC:
I said it a year ago, I'll say it again.
Anyone who has made it big enough to become a viable presidential candidate has made far too many compromises to be trusted.
It may sound cliche, but the Who was right. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
http://rigint.blogspot.com/2008/03/deep-ones-and-madness-of-crowds_27.html
The politics of hope is the thing that is opressing masses the most. Because if you have hope in the system, then you'll keep playing the game, in the HOPE that it will finally turn in your favor.
But the game has been rigged. You will never get what you want. You'll get a passable fascimile, that makes you uncomfortable, but you've forgotten that the last election made you feel that way, too.
So slowly, you give up all you wanted, yet there is still a candidate that give you HOPE that this time, it will be different.
It is only the hopeless that is a threat to the system. And the system knows this.
They're going to shit themselves over at TCC if they read too much Rigint.
Satanism, cattle multiliation, gratuitous Lovecraft references, the occult in the military and corridors of power...from a Canadian socialist?
It'll send them into a meltdown of confusion.
Except that the hopeless are apathetic cockweevils who do nothing but shit on anyone who dares to dream big. The only thing hopelessness threatens is the will to achieve anything beyond the status quo.
And, if I may offer a less directly assaultive rebuttal to this nonsense about the "politics of hope oppressing people," it is not that the current "hope" guy is saying "let's do things by the book one more time and hope we get a better outcome." He's saying "this doesn't work and we need to change the mindset that's been keeping this country in the shitter for 50 years."
It isn't hope and faith in some candidate that drives my support for this mainstream guy, it's the recognition that literally millions of people are involved because of him that would otherwise be over their heads in apathy and distraction. It isn't like every one of them is ready to stand up and revolt, but it's better than it would be without them. It's not an expression of faith in the system, it's an expression of dissatisfaction with the system and a demand that it be changed to suit the will of the people.
It's all really idealistic and all that, and I know that optimism is a synonym of stupidity among some groups. And it all sounds like a bunch of people signing on for a campaign that's duped them into following the status quo by doing a good job of making empty rhetoric from 200 years ago sound like a viable modern political platform. And, maybe it will fail -- probably it will fail. But absent some widespread urge to start blowing shit up, this is the best there is.
So to the hopeless, I say when you do something real that goes beyond a bunch of Nihilist bullshit that has no place outside of a shitty independent film about the futility of trying, or when you prove that past 500 years' advances in human dignity and equality were going to happen anyway without anybody working for it, then I'll start to see hopelessness as a threat to the establishment.
Until then, all I see is a bunch of self-defeated quitters who choose the easy way out and claim the moral high ground with empty justifications.
That's generally my feeling about those who refuse to vote, vex. Part of that ol' "being part of the solution instead of part of the problem."
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 07:09:36 PM
Except that the hopeless are apathetic cockweevils who do nothing but shit on anyone who dares to dream big. The only thing hopelessness threatens is the will to achieve anything beyond the status quo.
And, if I may offer a less directly assaultive rebuttal to this nonsense about the "politics of hope oppressing people," it is not that the current "hope" guy is saying "let's do things by the book one more time and hope we get a better outcome." He's saying "this doesn't work and we need to change the mindset that's been keeping this country in the shitter for 50 years."
It isn't hope and faith in some candidate that drives my support for this mainstream guy, it's the recognition that literally millions of people are involved because of him that would otherwise be over their heads in apathy and distraction. It isn't like every one of them is ready to stand up and revolt, but it's better than it would be without them. It's not an expression of faith in the system, it's an expression of dissatisfaction with the system and a demand that it be changed to suit the will of the people.
It's all really idealistic and all that, and I know that optimism is a synonym of stupidity among some groups. And it all sounds like a bunch of people signing on for a campaign that's duped them into following the status quo by doing a good job of making empty rhetoric from 200 years ago sound like a viable modern political platform. And, maybe it will fail -- probably it will fail. But absent some widespread urge to start blowing shit up, this is the best there is.
So to the hopeless, I say when you do something real that goes beyond a bunch of Nihilist bullshit that has no place outside of a shitty independent film about the futility of trying, or when you prove that past 500 years' advances in human dignity and equality were going to happen anyway without anybody working for it, then I'll start to see hopelessness as a threat to the establishment.
Until then, all I see is a bunch of self-defeated quitters who choose the easy way out and claim the moral high ground with empty justifications.
:potd:
STFU VEX! UR VOTING IN THE OLD ONES, AND YOUR ONLY REWARD FOR YOUR SERVICE IS TO HAVE YOUR SOUL EATEN FIRST!
You're right. I apologize. I guess instead of voting, I'll just turn myself into the police for hanging out with terrorists who oppose the system.
What are all your home addresses again?
:roll:
I'll remember not to bother joking again. Jokes, even about politics are after all, SRS BUSINESS.
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 07:25:04 PM
You're right. I apologize. I guess instead of voting, I'll just turn myself into the police for hanging out with terrorists who oppose the system.
What are all your home addresses again?
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 07:09:36 PM
Except that the hopeless are apathetic cockweevils who do nothing but shit on anyone who dares to dream big. The only thing hopelessness threatens is the will to achieve anything beyond the status quo.
And, if I may offer a less directly assaultive rebuttal to this nonsense about the "politics of hope oppressing people," it is not that the current "hope" guy is saying "let's do things by the book one more time and hope we get a better outcome." He's saying "this doesn't work and we need to change the mindset that's been keeping this country in the shitter for 50 years."
It isn't hope and faith in some candidate that drives my support for this mainstream guy, it's the recognition that literally millions of people are involved because of him that would otherwise be over their heads in apathy and distraction. It isn't like every one of them is ready to stand up and revolt, but it's better than it would be without them. It's not an expression of faith in the system, it's an expression of dissatisfaction with the system and a demand that it be changed to suit the will of the people.
It's all really idealistic and all that, and I know that optimism is a synonym of stupidity among some groups. And it all sounds like a bunch of people signing on for a campaign that's duped them into following the status quo by doing a good job of making empty rhetoric from 200 years ago sound like a viable modern political platform. And, maybe it will fail -- probably it will fail. But absent some widespread urge to start blowing shit up, this is the best there is.
So to the hopeless, I say when you do something real that goes beyond a bunch of Nihilist bullshit that has no place outside of a shitty independent film about the futility of trying, or when you prove that past 500 years' advances in human dignity and equality were going to happen anyway without anybody working for it, then I'll start to see hopelessness as a threat to the establishment.
Until then, all I see is a bunch of self-defeated quitters who choose the easy way out and claim the moral high ground with empty justifications.
Alright, Vex, fair enough.
But what are all these people involved in? What is Obama offering in place of what isn't working? What does he want to 'change the mindset' to?
All I see from him is a bunch of empty promises. All I hear are nice little sound clips that sound great and make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but fail to provide anything in the way of a plan or a direction to go in. I really get the impression that if, by some miracle, Obama wins, all that talk of change is going to disappear before he takes the oath of office. Because I don't think Obama, or any of his supporters really want Change. Change is scary. What a lot of people really want is to keep living the way they've been living. Driving their nice cars, having vacations, talking around the water cooler. Being American. Buying the bullshit.
Hope allows us to keep on keeping on when the going gets tough. I get that. But sometimes giving up hope is what allows you to realize that it doesn't have to be so damned tough. Giving up hope means letting go of the illusion that everything is ok. And I think that's something that most Americans do not want to face. The scariest thing in the entire world is the belief or feeling that 'I am not ok'. When that happens to people, they tend to go at least a little crazy. But the thing is...'I
am not ok' doesn't ever magically turn into 'I
am ok.' You have to admit that things are not ok, before you can take the steps that lead to things being ok.
Quote from: Roo on April 04, 2008, 07:50:13 PM
All I see from him is a bunch of empty promises. All I hear are nice little sound clips that sound great and make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but fail to provide anything in the way of a plan or a direction to go in. I really get the impression that if, by some miracle, Obama wins, all that talk of change is going to disappear before he takes the oath of office. Because I don't think Obama, or any of his supporters really want Change. Change is scary. What a lot of people really want is to keep living the way they've been living. Driving their nice cars, having vacations, talking around the water cooler. Being American. Buying the bullshit.
[citation needed]
Do you get your news from Fuxed News? Because I hear this same talking point from that crowd. "All style and no substance." Have you watched any of the debates? He has given specifics about his health care plan, about his economic plans, about his foreign policy plans. It's one thing to disagree with his policy stances, it's quite another to accuse him of having none, especially if you haven't really been bothering to pay attention when he actually lays them out.
Quote from: Cain on April 04, 2008, 07:25:55 PM
:roll:
I'll remember not to bother joking again. Jokes, even about politics are after all, SRS BUSINESS.
my reply to you was actually a joke too.
Quote from: Roo on April 04, 2008, 07:50:13 PMAlright, Vex, fair enough.
But what are all these people involved in? What is Obama offering in place of what isn't working? What does he want to 'change the mindset' to?
All I see from him is a bunch of empty promises. All I hear are nice little sound clips that sound great and make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but fail to provide anything in the way of a plan or a direction to go in. I really get the impression that if, by some miracle, Obama wins, all that talk of change is going to disappear before he takes the oath of office. Because I don't think Obama, or any of his supporters really want Change. Change is scary. What a lot of people really want is to keep living the way they've been living. Driving their nice cars, having vacations, talking around the water cooler. Being American. Buying the bullshit.
Hope allows us to keep on keeping on when the going gets tough. I get that. But sometimes giving up hope is what allows you to realize that it doesn't have to be so damned tough. Giving up hope means letting go of the illusion that everything is ok. And I think that's something that most Americans do not want to face. The scariest thing in the entire world is the belief or feeling that 'I am not ok'. When that happens to people, they tend to go at least a little crazy. But the thing is...'I am not ok' doesn't ever magically turn into 'I am ok.' You have to admit that things are not ok, before you can take the steps that lead to things being ok.
The specifics are there. Read the man's website or listen to his speeches, instead of assuming the Media isn't feeding you bullshit about him being "all talk." If you want to you can also follow his entire career from being a community organizer to this current campaign, and you might find out that the guy not only has an agenda but has the ability to
get shit done.
I am 100% in line with the idea that the system gives us no real choices and no real change. But the SYSTEM hasn't chosen this candidate -- for the first time in probably 75 years, this is a guy who is where he is
in spite of the system, because
actual people have put him there. Even if I disagree with some of his positions, I will vote for him because I'll support anything that calls the supremacy of the status quo into doubt.
Vex, you are slowly winning me over into your strange Obama cult.
For now, I will allot him an additional face on my Die of Random Voting.
OR, it could be a two-man con...
After all, why would Obama not be a smart choice for the Shadowy Maintainers of the Status Quo? I mean if we give the Shadow Government theory any legs at all, then we must suspect all candidates, and all politicians equally.
1. We bring a dipshit to power, use a 'national crises' to consolidate and gain power under the dipshit.
2. By the end of the first four years, a lot of people will be unhappy. After eight years, a helluva lot of people will be very unhappy.
3. We raise up a Charismatic and Populist Visionary that decries the dipshit.
4. A grassroots movement made up of pissed off people swell to support the Charismatic candidate.
5. The candidate gets in office, everyone loves him, everyone forgets about the wiretapping, the water boarding, the sidestepping of FISA etc.
6. The charismatic President can then continue to consolidate power to the office, either for their later use... or for the next President.
Of course, we could drop McCain in the same scenario... who better than the Maverick to change direction (or maintain the direction while everyone is looking at how Maverick he is).
Of course, in my personal opinion, its unlikely that the shadow government is anything more than the subconscious actions of greedy humans... or its the Illuminati in which case were already fucked. :fnord:
I kept saying that about Ron Paul. It drove the Paulbots insane.
Of course McCain has pretty much disavowed his Maverick status.
My intuition about this particular ConspiracyTM is that the two-man con ruse is this:
even if some magical super-president fixes the health care, foreign policy, education, revises the patriot act, and fixes all that dross that's wrong with this country,
most people will still be miserable serfs living in bureaucracy. Comfortable, but dependant on society's poisonous, dessicated teat. Engaged, but only in disinterest. Perhaps temporarily satisfied with the taste of carrot, but still fearing that damn stick. Not just unable, but unwilling to think for themselves or able to navigate the byzantine labyrinth of successful modern living.
...
:lulz:
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on April 04, 2008, 08:39:39 PM
My intuition about this particular ConspiracyTM is that the two-man con ruse is this:
even if some magical super-president fixes the health care, foreign policy, education, revises the patriot act, and fixes all that dross that's wrong with this country,
most people will still be miserable serfs living in bureaucracy. Comfortable, but dependant on society's poisonous, dessicated teat. Engaged, but only in disinterest. Perhaps temporarily satisfied with the taste of carrot, but still fearing that damn stick. Not just unable, but unwilling to think for themselves or able to navigate the byzantine labyrinth of successful modern living.
...
:lulz:
And then the next President will fuck it all up again... (See: Clinton's Balanced Budget)
See, the thing with the "Hope" and "Change" meme is that I think many are blowing that out of proportion in many ways. We all know that the U.S. Government is a huge lumbering beast that cannot turn on a dime. So "Change" has to be incremental. But even if "Change" means advancing in say 3 or 4 increments, at least it is progress away from where we've been stuck. So while it is short-sided to just claim that "Hope" and "Change" are empty promises, it is equally wrong to expect too much from it. A calm and rational perspective needs to be maintained while entertaining these possibilities.
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 08:13:11 PM
The specifics are there. Read the man's website or listen to his speeches, instead of assuming the Media isn't feeding you bullshit about him being "all talk." If you want to you can also follow his entire career from being a community organizer to this current campaign, and you might find out that the guy not only has an agenda but has the ability to get shit done.
I am 100% in line with the idea that the system gives us no real choices and no real change. But the SYSTEM hasn't chosen this candidate -- for the first time in probably 75 years, this is a guy who is where he is in spite of the system, because actual people have put him there. Even if I disagree with some of his positions, I will vote for him because I'll support anything that calls the supremacy of the status quo into doubt.
Instead of assuming the the Media isn't feeding me bullshit about him being "all talk"? :?
Ok. for one, I assume that the Media is always feeding me bullshit. Secondly, if the specifics are so transparent, why not just state them here? In another tab, I have his website open right now. I'm looking at the part under Issues, and after sifting through the poli-speak...I see a lot of ideas that work to maintain the status quo. Tax relief...and a billion dollars here, 2 billion there...another federal program for this, putting our tax dollars to work for that. I still don't see plans for doing much of anything differently than it is now. I would really appreciate you pointing those specifics out to me, because I'm really starting to think that you can't.
Roo, you've got to pick a concern here... Either you think that he has no plans, or you think his plans maintain the status quo.
You're arguing from both sides, here.
RWHN:
As in: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
?
Nobody is the answer to all of society's problems. And that is recognized by sensible people all the time. Look at the difference between Obama die-hards and Ron Paul die-hards: the Paulbots were screaming crazies who kept going on and on about how RP is gonna fix the whole world and electing him would be the best thing EVAR and "we'll show those bastards" and blah blah blah blah. Obamabots, on the other hand, are more in touch with reality, if only slightly. Their level of discourse tends to be higher and more on-topic and to-the-point than any other bunch of political groupies in America right now, for one thing. For another thing, as much as everybody is decrying the movement for glorifying some anonymous guy from Illinois as "America's Savior," nobody in the BHO camp has actually said anything like that. It's always WE, not HIM, they recognize that policy can't change unless intentions change, and intentions can't change without fucking listening to people. So they do. Of course, it's all off the deep end as far as the media and the pundits are concerned, but there are more than a few people who at least seem to understand that the media and the pundits are full of shit, this time.
Quote from: LMNO on April 04, 2008, 09:07:13 PM
Roo, you've got to pick a concern here... Either you think that he has no plans, or you think his plans maintain the status quo.
You're arguing from both sides, here.
I guess I'm in a similar state as Roo... I see Obama say things, but I don't see any detail about how such things might get accomplished. He talks about a billion for X or Y, but where does that billion come from? He talks about leaving Iraq, but how is he gonna do it and make sure the whole thing doesn't collapse like the house of cards it currently is? I guess, I'm still not convinced that he's doing anything other than the normal politician's stump promises...
I'd vote for the guy if I saw something concrete, but I have his 70some page PDF, his website and I've watched the debates and I don't see details, just broad statements. Am I missing something?
bouncin off Vex:
Yep, and I know in at least one of the debates Obama emphatically and specifically stated that "Change" is going to be a group effort. He is actually the only one I see that has actually put any portion of the onus on the people. McCain and Hillary want to save the country for the people. Obama seems to, in some fashion, want to share that burden with the people. And to me, that is something different. Sure, some of it is stump speech, but at least it's getting the thought in people's minds.
Quote from: Ratatosk on April 04, 2008, 09:15:30 PM
Quote from: LMNO on April 04, 2008, 09:07:13 PM
Roo, you've got to pick a concern here... Either you think that he has no plans, or you think his plans maintain the status quo.
You're arguing from both sides, here.
I guess I'm in a similar state as Roo... I see Obama say things, but I don't see any detail about how such things might get accomplished. He talks about a billion for X or Y, but where does that billion come from? He talks about leaving Iraq, but how is he gonna do it and make sure the whole thing doesn't collapse like the house of cards it currently is? I guess, I'm still not convinced that he's doing anything other than the normal politician's stump promises...
I'd vote for the guy if I saw something concrete, but I have his 70some page PDF, his website and I've watched the debates and I don't see details, just broad statements. Am I missing something?
Okay, about Iraq. Do you really think it is wise for Obama to draw up a plan for Iraq, IN APRIL, that he will be implementing IN JANUARY OF 09????
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on April 04, 2008, 09:19:40 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on April 04, 2008, 09:15:30 PM
Quote from: LMNO on April 04, 2008, 09:07:13 PM
Roo, you've got to pick a concern here... Either you think that he has no plans, or you think his plans maintain the status quo.
You're arguing from both sides, here.
I guess I'm in a similar state as Roo... I see Obama say things, but I don't see any detail about how such things might get accomplished. He talks about a billion for X or Y, but where does that billion come from? He talks about leaving Iraq, but how is he gonna do it and make sure the whole thing doesn't collapse like the house of cards it currently is? I guess, I'm still not convinced that he's doing anything other than the normal politician's stump promises...
I'd vote for the guy if I saw something concrete, but I have his 70some page PDF, his website and I've watched the debates and I don't see details, just broad statements. Am I missing something?
Okay, about Iraq. Do you really think it is wise for Obama to draw up a plan for Iraq, IN APRIL, that he will be implementing IN JANUARY OF 09????
A concrete plan, of course not... a useful set of ideas would be nice though.
Based upon what?
i think the biggest "change" obama represents is the will to completely ignore party lines and party loyalty in order to actually work with anybody who will help to get things done. at first, "compromise" doesn't sound very revolutionary. but look at where this country has been for almost 50 fucking years. basically, it's been absolute gridlock, with the big issues becoming nothing but a call to arms and vote-bagging platform supports.
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 09:33:52 PM
i think the biggest "change" obama represents is the will to completely ignore party lines and party loyalty in order to actually work with anybody who will help to get things done. at first, "compromise" doesn't sound very revolutionary. but look at where this country has been for almost 50 fucking years. basically, it's been absolute gridlock, with the big issues becoming nothing but a call to arms and vote-bagging platform supports.
Well, McCain seems to have been doing the same thing for quite some time... in the actual senate, passing actual laws.
So why should I trust Obama's potential 'crossing party lines' over McCain's actual crossing of party lines?
*not trying to be an ass, actually asking questions*
I don't know if Obama HIMSELF is a step away from "politics as usual," but electing him sure as hell will be.
The ticker at the bottom of BBC America's broadcast last night said something like "70% of America ready to elect a black man."
That's fucking significant. Even if it is a media ploy, it's a good ploy in my book.
Quote from: Ratatosk on April 04, 2008, 09:43:42 PM
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 09:33:52 PM
i think the biggest "change" obama represents is the will to completely ignore party lines and party loyalty in order to actually work with anybody who will help to get things done. at first, "compromise" doesn't sound very revolutionary. but look at where this country has been for almost 50 fucking years. basically, it's been absolute gridlock, with the big issues becoming nothing but a call to arms and vote-bagging platform supports.
Well, McCain seems to have been doing the same thing for quite some time... in the actual senate, passing actual laws.
So why should I trust Obama's potential 'crossing party lines' over McCain's actual crossing of party lines?
*not trying to be an ass, actually asking questions*
It isn't just potential, you know. Read about the bills he's voted for and sponsored. Also look up his history in the state government of Illinois. There's actual history there. So not only is the "no substance" claim bullshit, so is the "no experience" claim.
Quote from: Ratatosk on April 04, 2008, 09:43:42 PM
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 09:33:52 PM
i think the biggest "change" obama represents is the will to completely ignore party lines and party loyalty in order to actually work with anybody who will help to get things done. at first, "compromise" doesn't sound very revolutionary. but look at where this country has been for almost 50 fucking years. basically, it's been absolute gridlock, with the big issues becoming nothing but a call to arms and vote-bagging platform supports.
Well, McCain seems to have been doing the same thing for quite some time... in the actual senate, passing actual laws.
So why should I trust Obama's potential 'crossing party lines' over McCain's actual crossing of party lines?
*not trying to be an ass, actually asking questions*
Do you really think McCain is still the Mythical "Maverick"? He's been towing the Bush party line ever since he entered the campaign. Just recently, a new GI bill has been introduced to Congress that will give more benefits to members of the Military when they end their service. Democrats and Republicans have supported it. But Bush doesn't like it because he fears it will encourage members of the military to quit early. Guess who else has reservations about this. Mr. Military himself John McCain. He's a farce.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on April 04, 2008, 09:49:13 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on April 04, 2008, 09:43:42 PM
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 09:33:52 PM
i think the biggest "change" obama represents is the will to completely ignore party lines and party loyalty in order to actually work with anybody who will help to get things done. at first, "compromise" doesn't sound very revolutionary. but look at where this country has been for almost 50 fucking years. basically, it's been absolute gridlock, with the big issues becoming nothing but a call to arms and vote-bagging platform supports.
Well, McCain seems to have been doing the same thing for quite some time... in the actual senate, passing actual laws.
So why should I trust Obama's potential 'crossing party lines' over McCain's actual crossing of party lines?
*not trying to be an ass, actually asking questions*
Do you really think McCain is still the Mythical "Maverick"? He's been towing the Bush party line ever since he entered the campaign. Just recently, a new GI bill has been introduced to Congress that will give more benefits to members of the Military when they end their service. Democrats and Republicans have supported it. But Bush doesn't like it because he fears it will encourage members of the military to quit early. Guess who else has reservations about this. Mr. Military himself John McCain. He's a farce.
I think that in some areas McCain drastically departs from the party line. In some areas he is in line with the Republicans and in some areas he is in line with the NeoCons. But the same could be said of Obama... in some areas he seems close to the party line, in other areas... not so much.
In practice, however, McCain has stood against his party, the president etc. In practice he has worked across party lines (McCain -Feingold, Gang of 14 etc).
In practice, Obama is a junior Senator that is saying interesting stuff.
I doubt either of them will do much more than make lots of noise and accomplish little. Except McCain might invade Iran.... ick.
I'm interested to see Obama's line on foreign policy myself.
Personally, everything except financial regulation can go hang, because it doesn't affect me at all.
His foreign policy team seem to have some interesting ideas, and are against what they call the "policy of fear" but what they describe as the national security state discourse. There were suggestions of economic opportunities and the use of cultural exchanges etc to improve America's international standing, as well as adherence to "international norms" (NOT the rule of law. But it suggests at least a return to Clintonian multiliateralism).
How they intend to put anything beyond diplomatic policy changes into place with a tanking economy, is, of course, another question entirely, but a fresh policy outlook would be nice.
Quote from: Cain on April 04, 2008, 09:58:45 PM
I'm interested to see Obama's line on foreign policy myself.
Personally, everything except financial regulation can go hang, because it doesn't affect me at all.
His foreign policy team seem to have some interesting ideas, and are against what they call the "policy of fear" but what they describe as the national security state discourse. There were suggestions of economic opportunities and the use of cultural exchanges etc to improve America's international standing, as well as adherence to "international norms" (NOT the rule of law. But it suggests at least a return to Clintonian multiliateralism).
How they intend to put anything beyond diplomatic policy changes into place with a tanking economy, is, of course, another question entirely, but a fresh policy outlook would be nice.
I agree... I would be solidly behind McCain, except his current position on foreign policy scares the hooey out of me.
Also, when you think of McCain, remember he was one of the Keating 5, who helped to save a floundering Savings & Loan industry from Justice.
Well, saving the economy simply isn't profitable at this stage. You have to wait until enough financial planners and bank owners are put out of business, so they can form a consultancy company and the government can outsource the problem to them.
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 10:03:39 PM
Also, when you think of McCain, remember he was one of the Keating 5, who helped to save a floundering Savings & Loan industry from Justice.
He was one of the Keating Five who attended a couple meetings, without realizing what three of the five were involved in. Both he and John Glenn were determined to hold little culpability for the incident and the inquiry basically exonerated them (with a statement that they both showed poor judgment in attending the meetings). After the incident, McCain began pushing hard to create rules to keep that sort of thing from happening again.
Are you getting your information from FAUX News? ;-)
i can tell that's a lie by the size of mccain's jaw line.
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 10:15:29 PM
i can tell that's a lie by the size of mccain's jaw line.
:lulz: :argh!: :lulz:
Quote from: LMNO on April 04, 2008, 09:07:13 PM
Roo, you've got to pick a concern here... Either you think that he has no plans, or you think his plans maintain the status quo.
You're arguing from both sides, here.
My concern is that he has no solid plans to create change, and that it seems like the plans he does have would function to maintain the status quo, instead of making the kind of lasting changes that he talks about.
what kind of plans do you think would institute actual change? keep in mind you have a center-right population in the country, a legislature that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Business Inc., and an economy that's teetering on the brink of OSHI!
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 11:38:33 PM
what kind of plans do you think would institute actual change?
Well, bad ones... maybe.
;-)
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 11:38:33 PM
what kind of plans do you think would institute actual change? keep in mind you have a center-right population in the country, a legislature that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Business Inc., and an economy that's teetering on the brink of OSHI!
Centre right?
By whose standards?
The Tory Party in the UK are considered centre-right, and they're barely to the right of the Democrats....
i mean center-right on the scale of american politics, where you have the neocons at one end and pissed off fascists at the other.
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 11:38:33 PM
keep in mind you have a center-right population in the country
I'm not too sure the leading politicians accurately represent the political ideals of the people of the US.
It seems to me to be more a case of voting for the lesser of two evils every election time.
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 11:46:50 PM
i mean center-right on the scale of american politics, where you have the neocons at one end and pissed off fascists at the other.
Oh no... the neocons don't seem the furtherest Right to me... I'd probably place them about halfway between the center and right. The Libertarians seem, to me, to the right of them and the Really Crazy Survivalist Weirdos to the right of that still.
Quote from: davedim on April 04, 2008, 11:54:33 PM
Quote from: vexati0n on April 04, 2008, 11:38:33 PM
keep in mind you have a center-right population in the country
I'm not too sure the leading politicians accurately represent the political ideals of the people of the US.
It seems to me to be more a case of voting for the lesser of two evils every election time.
Correct Motorcycle, Davedim!
Hell, that's been the case since a minority decided everyone was gonna secede from England.
Matt Tiabbi brings the thunder, as always: http://www.alternet.org/election08/81140/?page=1
In the space of three short months, I've contrived to write two lengthy, gloating political obituaries for Hillary Clinton, only to see both of them blow up in my face after fantastic eleventh-hour comebacks that ended with scenes of the Hillmeister doing the dual flabby-arm raise on CNN while gusts of confetti whooshed across the room, obscuring almost everything except the shocking results blaring out from the crawl on the bottom of the screen. There was a time when this race looked like it might become the most uplifting in a generation. It's now threatening to become the most divisive and disturbing. It is a good time to ponder how that happened — and to address a few of the other Frequently Asked Questions about this depraved circus that is now poised to continue well past Pennsylvania.
Isn't Hillary Clinton better qualified than Barack Obama to be president, given that she is the more experienced candidate?
The idea that Clinton is somehow more qualified to deal with international crises because she has more "experience" is one of the strangest things I've seen the media swallow whole in a long time, dating back to the "tiny, sand-covered, yet-to-master-the-art-of-plumbing nation of Iraq is an imminent military threat to the United States" fiasco. According to my calculations —worked out over many hours, using long division out to eighteen places —Clinton is a second-term senator, while Barack Obama, conversely, is a first-term senator. By any reasonable standard, both are political neophytes.
Clinton talks a lot about having visited "over eighty countries" —but then, Chelsea was with her on a lot of those trips, and I doubt folks are rushing to hand her the red phone. In case anyone has forgotten what exactly first lady Hillary Clinton really did all those years, here is a press account of a 1997 trip that she made to Senegal with her daughter: "Her first stop in Senegal was at Goree Island, where she peered through the 'Door of No Return,' through which slaves passed on their way to the dreaded Middle Passage of the Slave Trade. When she arrived in Dakar, the first lady was greeted by Senegalese who danced and serenaded her with lyrics written especially for the occasion." Shit, I feel better about that 3 a.m. phone call already!
It is worth noting that Hillary was being packed off on these trips into the heart of Africa at precisely the time when her husband was getting his knob polished by an intern in the Oval Office. That's not a reflection on her personally —but for the Hillary camp to tout her advantage in foreign affairs based on these trips into the marital wilderness, as compared to a candidate who has actually lived overseas and has actual relatives living in villages like the ones Hillary passed over in her glass-bottomed boat, is beyond absurd.
When it comes time for delegates to vote at the convention, shouldn't they take into account that Clinton has performed better than Obama in the so-called battleground states? Doesn't she stand a better chance against John McCain in the national election?
In reality, the exact opposite is true. Everything about the results so far suggests that Obama is the more electable candidate according to the "battleground" voter the Clinton camp is claiming for their own.
The Clinton strategy for winning the presidency is so simple, even a chimpanzee could grasp it. You win the blue states, the Massachusettses and the New Jerseys, almost automatically, just by being pro-choice and saying nice things about trees and gay people. You concede the really red states, the places like Tennessee and Kentucky where you're fucked anyway, places where huge pluralities believe the devil really exists and has thick red skin and a bull's horns. That leaves you free to compete hard in the mixed-bag states by drifting to the right as far as you can without losing your in-pocket blue territories, which is really hard to do unless you start wobbling on abortion or selling out the spotted owl. It is through the prism of this new Clintonian strategy that presidential politics has basically been reduced to winning Florida and Ohio.
But saying that Hillary is better qualified to take on John McCain because of her performance in those states only makes sense if (a) you believe that the people who voted for Clinton in the primaries will not vote for Obama in the general election, and (b) you believe that no Democrat can win the traditionally red states. In fact, Hillary has mostly been winning the traditionally blue states —places like New York, California, Massachusetts and New Jersey —that are going to go blue in November anyway, no matter who is running on the Republican ticket. And even in the states Hillary has won, it has been registered Democrats, not swing voters, who have carried her to victory, while Obama has dominated her in virtually every contest among registered independents. Even in her home state of New York, Obama whipped Hillary among independents by fifteen percent. In Missouri, that margin was twenty-eight percent. In California? Thirty percent.
Obama, meanwhile, has performed extraordinarily well in traditionally red states like Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina. And sure, some of that is due to the black vote. But all of his victories have been marked by two things: larger-than-usual turnout and routs among independents, leading to the large number of blowout wins that are basically responsible for his delegate lead at the moment. On Super Tuesday, Hillary won sixty percent of the vote in only one contest, Bill's home state of Arkansas. Obama won seven states by that margin or more.
In other words, Hillary is winning the Democratic voters who are going to vote Democratic anyway. Obama is bringing in new voters, and he's winning large numbers of swing voters in red states.
What happens if Hillary ends up taking the nomination despite trailing in both the popular vote and the delegate count?
Put it this way: If this race ends up getting decided by a bunch of political insiders, in defiance of the popular vote, it's going to render all self-righteousness about the 2000 debacle meaningless. And if Hillary ends up winning it by claiming Florida delegates from an uncontested election, in the process once again disenfranchising thousands of minority voters in Miami and other urban areas (who would have voted for Obama, just as they voted for Gore in 2000), then it'll end up being a double fuck-you to the public, a signal that the Democrats are no different from the Bush Republicans.
What if the nomination gets decided by the superdelegates?
In the old days, we had a different name for superdelegates. We called them party bosses. If either Clinton or Obama wins by virtue of a superdelegate revolt against the popular will —particularly when both candidates have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the superdelegates through their leadership PACs —then we're looking at an election that huge pluralities of the country will view as illegitimate. One more experience like this and we'll end up with Swedish election observers stepping in to run the 2012 race.
Are the Clinton camp's attacks against Obama racist?
Not really. What they are is opportunistic. The Clintonian campaign philosophy is basically an inverse of the Nixonian Southern Strategy: It accepts as gospel the notion that the old coalition of white labor and blacks that kept the South Democratic for generations has been severed forever by the rise of evangelical Christianity and social conservatism. Therefore the Clintons don't try to win back those white workers in the lost Southern states through, say, a more staunch advocacy of unions; instead, they try to pry away Nixon's old "silent majority" voters by courting the same fears about safety and national security that Tricky Dick used to take the South away from Democrats in the first place.
It's no accident that Hillary ran her "3 a.m." commercial in Texas but not Ohio; this was a cunning ploy to win back those scared white voters whom the Clinton strategy insists are needed to win. And it worked: After the ad, her support among white Texans jumped from forty-four to fifty-six percent. Does it help that her opponent is a black dude with a Muslim middle name? Sure. But the fearmongering by the Clintons is more about winning blue-collar votes without alienating their big-business buddies than it is about exploiting fears of a black planet. With the Clintons, ideology is always whatever gets them through the night. They haven't been reduced to balls-out, Willie Horton racism yet. That's not to say that they won't get there —they're just not there yet.
Won't the Republicans go after Obama with even nastier stuff?
Not long ago, I was talking to former Bush speechwriter David Frum, and he told me he thinks that Obama's Achilles' heel is patriotism. Put Obama in the general election, he said, and the Republicans are going to hammer him relentlessly. They're going to bring up everything they can find that bolsters the argument that Obama isn't slobberingly, priapistically patriotic: the famed decision to stop wearing his American flag pin because it was being used as a substitute for "true patriotism"; the now-infamous photo of him holding his hands at his waist while Hillary patriotically clasped her heart during the national anthem; the comments by his wife, Michelle, about being really proud of America "for the first time in my adult life"; the associations with Sixties radicals. Along with his middle name and the unkillable rumors of Muslim leanings, it's obvious where the Republicans are going to be aiming if they have to run against this guy all summer. If and when that happens, Obama is going to find out pretty quick that there's no explanation you can possibly give to Middle America for taking off your flag lapel pin that is going to make sense to them.
So Obama is weakest on the issue of patriotism?
No -- Obama's real weakness is that nobody really knows yet what he's all about. He is running as a symbol of a new politics, a politics somehow less disgusting and full of shit than the old politics. But if it were to get out that he's not that —that all he is is the same old deal dressed up in black skin and a natty suit —then he quickly morphs into a different kind of symbol, a symbol of how an essentially bankrupt political system can seamlessly repackage itself to a fed-up marketplace by making cosmetic changes, without altering its basic nature. There have been disturbing signs along that front, from the accusations that Obama aides called his anti-NAFTA stance "just politics," to his angry stumpery against a Maytag plant closing even as he pals around with Lester Crown, a Maytag board member who raised huge sums for his campaign. Right now, Obama has millions of voters thinking Santa Claus really does exist; but if he keeps getting caught turning the usual tricks with campaign donors, attention is going to shift away from his heroic image and toward the prosaic reality, which in politics is always grubby and depressing. And with that, his value as a symbol will evaporate, and Christmas turns into just another holiday with those same relatives you hated every other day of the year.
Should Obama go negative against Hillary, as the press is urging him to?
It doesn't matter what Obama does at this point. He's fucked either way. If he gets into a catfight with Hillary, the peanut gallery will slam him for being just another typical politician. If he sits there and just lets her plunge knife after knife into his abdomen, he'll have every hack at Time and Newsweek saying he doesn't have "what it takes" to compete in the "blood sport" that is politics (as if any of those news-mag yuppie turds know anything about actual "blood sports"). I'll say one thing: This endless he-said/she-said piss-fighting between the two camps, with its attendant daily purging of loose-lipped campaign staffers of the Samantha Power/Geraldine Ferraro genus, is a bad place for Barack Obama to be. Nobody in American history has ever been better than the Clintons at calculating the electoral math of resentment, paranoia, media aggression and just flat-out, back-alley nastiness. Every day, the Clintons come up with some new and brilliantly devious way to color the subliminal background of the electoral canvas, from using comparisons to Jesse Jackson to buttonhole Obama as a "black candidate," to floating rumors of an "unstoppable" Hillary-Obama ticket —despite the fact that Hillary would rather eat a KFC bucket full of her own shit than run with Obama —in order to con on-the-fence voters into thinking that a vote for Hillary might also be a vote for Obama. That's why it seemed so weirdly appropriate that Samantha "she's a monster" Power was forced to resign from the Obama campaign, while Gerry Ferraro could all but call Obama a nigger and then claim that she was the victim of discrimination. We expect the Clintons to play dirty, and don't demand that they apologize for doing so. But we'd be disappointed in Obama if he went there.
So with all this Democratic infighting, is John McCain going to be the next president?
McCain may be an asshole, but he's not an idiot. He's doing exactly the right thing right now by going overseas for a fact-finding tour in Europe and the Middle East —basically exiling himself from the public eye —while Obama and Hillary claw each other's eyes out every five minutes on MSNBC. He's smart enough to know that whichever candidate emerges from the Democratic scrum is going to have a face like an uncooked side of beef come general-election season; he doesn't need to say a word to raise both of their negatives. Hillary is doing half of McCain's dirty work for him by repeatedly assailing Obama's supposed lack of experience and questionable patriotism, while Obama is inadvertently helping McCain's cause by forcing Hillary to go all craven psycho-bitch on him to stay alive in the race. We saw this effect on display most overtly after the Cleveland debate, when the angry back-and-forth banter by both Obama and Hillary left McCain, for the first time, leading in the polls against either candidate.
Democrats had all the momentum going into this race because of seven years of uninterrupted press scrutiny of the Bush administration; by the time November rolls around, however, most voters are going to feel like the Democrats have been in charge for over a year. And McCain will be able to swoop in and ride a "throw the bums out" uprising straight to the White House —just in time to actually keep the same old bums in charge. In American politics, always look for the worst possible scenario to emerge triumphant. And right now, that's it.
Lets play......
PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINATION LOTTO!
Ladies and gentlemen, please prepare to place your bets! As the race is now down to the final 3, I've gone to the best security consultants in the business to calculate the odds of having a high profile political assassination before the end of this year!
Most likely to die first is of course Barack Obama. Not only is he the bugbear among the traditional far right/Neo-Nazi groups who are preparing for a race war, he's also in the sights of anti-Islamic nutcases and (possibly) disgruntled Hillary supporters in his own party! With concerns over his security also having been previously raised, we have to give Obama a 3/1 chance of taking a bullet in the head before he gets to sit in the Oval Office.
Next is Hillary Clinton. While conventional wisdom suggests she should be much safer than Obama, conventional wisdom and batshit insanity are seldom on the best of terms. Widely seen among the same Neo-Nazi right as a Zionis/Jewish controlled politico, she could very well end up on a hitlist if she wins the nomination (though this is, of course, not too likely). Other unexpected avenues could include Black Sepratists and segments of the paranoid right who believe Hillary is an agent of the NWO, or will put in place a Communist dictatorship. However, her security detail is excellent at roughing people up and has been with her for a while, so she may be a rather harder target to take. Odds of 7/1 of the 8 cent solution being carried out on Hillary.
Finally, there is McCain. Again, common sense would dictate a hawkish Republican would be pretty safe, right? WRONG! McCain's support for Israel is seen as proof of his Zionist credentials among the Neo-Nazi right, and he's also deeply unpopular with the anti-immigration crowd, many of whom are very keen on their firearms. McCain also face's a threat from the radical left, many of whom take some offence at his Iraq stance. But since the threat there is minimal, as radical leftists prefer college campuses to militia compounds, it seems unlikely. However, he does face a potential foreign threat from both Hamas and Hezbollah, who find his stance towards their Iranian paymasters...disturbing. Hezbollah are credited with several high level assassinations in previous years, and a capability to operate on foreign soil. Hamas are less impressive, but there are Palestinian sympathizers and emigree groups the world over, as well as many poor orphans from Gaza with a death wish. Odds of 5/1 on McCain snuffing it from unnatural causes.
Quote from: They Might Be Giants
This is where the party ends
I cant stand here listening to you
And your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
And your racist friend
It was the loveliest party that Ive ever attended
If anything was broken Im sure it could be mended
My head cant tolerate this bobbing and pretending
Listen to some bullet-head and the madness that hes saying
This is where the party ends
Ill just sit here wondering how you
Can stand by your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
You and your racist friend
This is where the party ends
I cant stand here listening to you
And your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
And your racist friend
Out from the kitchen to the bedroom to the hallway
Your friend apologizes, he could see it my way
He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking
Cant shake the devils hand and say youre only kidding
This is where the party ends
I cant stand here listening to you
And your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
And your racist friend
Excellent assessment, Cain. Thanks for the chewy bits.
Quote from: Cain on April 07, 2008, 12:52:55 AM
Lets play......
PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINATION LOTTO!
Ladies and gentlemen, please prepare to place your bets! As the race is now down to the final 3, I've gone to the best security consultants in the business to calculate the odds of having a high profile political assassination before the end of this year!
Most likely to die first is of course Barack Obama. Not only is he the bugbear among the traditional far right/Neo-Nazi groups who are preparing for a race war, he's also in the sights of anti-Islamic nutcases and (possibly) disgruntled Hillary supporters in his own party! With concerns over his security also having been previously raised, we have to give Obama a 3/1 chance of taking a bullet in the head before he gets to sit in the Oval Office.
Next is Hillary Clinton. While conventional wisdom suggests she should be much safer than Obama, conventional wisdom and batshit insanity are seldom on the best of terms. Widely seen among the same Neo-Nazi right as a Zionis/Jewish controlled politico, she could very well end up on a hitlist if she wins the nomination (though this is, of course, not too likely). Other unexpected avenues could include Black Sepratists and segments of the paranoid right who believe Hillary is an agent of the NWO, or will put in place a Communist dictatorship. However, her security detail is excellent at roughing people up and has been with her for a while, so she may be a rather harder target to take. Odds of 7/1 of the 8 cent solution being carried out on Hillary.
Finally, there is McCain. Again, common sense would dictate a hawkish Republican would be pretty safe, right? WRONG! McCain's support for Israel is seen as proof of his Zionist credentials among the Neo-Nazi right, and he's also deeply unpopular with the anti-immigration crowd, many of whom are very keen on their firearms. McCain also face's a threat from the radical left, many of whom take some offence at his Iraq stance. But since the threat there is minimal, as radical leftists prefer college campuses to militia compounds, it seems unlikely. However, he does face a potential foreign threat from both Hamas and Hezbollah, who find his stance towards their Iranian paymasters...disturbing. Hezbollah are credited with several high level assassinations in previous years, and a capability to operate on foreign soil. Hamas are less impressive, but there are Palestinian sympathizers and emigree groups the world over, as well as many poor orphans from Gaza with a death wish. Odds of 5/1 on McCain snuffing it from unnatural causes.
Any of these scenarios makes for Bush/Cheney 08. :sad:
Martial Law due to assasination/terrorism resulting in Bush being declared President for Life = HAIL CAESAR!
Vex, I move that you should change this thread to be called
"This thread about the Iowa caucuses ruined the site"
it didn't ruin the site. it just turned us into a bunch of squabbling toddlers. still, tho i see your point.
Wait until the UK General election. I'm going to make a 50 page thread, even if I have to make every single post myself.
And I will cover each of the 600+ seats up for grabs!
I will contribute a few pages. Maybe.
I think I'll probably be out of my depth immediately following the OP though...
b0mp
I still stand by Obama. If not for substance and change, at least for lulz.
I still stand by my sovereign, ALL HAIL CAESAR!
Wait, if this is the cancer...
What does that make me? :?
Herpes?
It is possible to have cancer in multiple places.
Anyway, to me you seem more like a minor diarrheal infection. Nasty, but not really lethal.
Quote from: Lenin/McCarthy on July 27, 2012, 02:12:40 PM
It is possible to have cancer in multiple places.
Anyway, to me you seem more like a minor diarrheal infection. Nasty, but not really lethal.
Oh good, you had me worried then.
Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on January 04, 2008, 06:15:23 AM
I guess the duty falls to me.
ATTENTION AMERICA
BARACK OBAMA WINS. HILLARY IS EATING A SHIT SANDWICH AT THIS MOMENT.
on the Republican side, Mike Huckabee takes the cake (and probably the hookers backstage but we won't hear about that until later)
This could mean that, come November, the race for the White House will be a toss-up between:
A) A WHITE CHRISTIAN MALE with a stick up his ass who thinks he's on a mission from God to rid America of "immorality."
and
B) A PROGRESSIVE BLACK MAN with a history of listening to the facts before making his decisions, and admitting he doesn't know absolutely everything.
OH GEE I WONDER WHO AMERICA WILL PICK.
fuck this, I'm moving to Switzerland.
Bump as proof that Vex had something nice to say about Obama once upon a time.