Bet you're sorry you voted for Obama now

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Cleo's Mom:

You go girl. PG has too much time on her hands. I can't quite figure out if it is hypocricy or insecurity though. I left the Born-Agains forum -- I'd had one too many ladles of her BS. Now I discover she infects this forum, too, offering up the pre-chewed rather than the original; PG lets others do the heavy lifting and simply parrots. Is independent thinking so hard? (That is rhetorical question, PG. I can sense she is poised to extract that quote, ready to launch another sortie of FauxNews wit)

Looking forward to other postings, some of which may actually offer up something new and different.:grouphug:

Thanks. I do what I can. I made a pledge that I was not going to allow any of that right wing crap and lies to go unanswered on here and it can almost become a full time job. LOL.

[Will_B_Healthy 0]

Keep up the good fight. I deal with this mentality every day. I live in one of the few parts of the country that remained "red" -- like the color of Ronald Reagan's hair. My Obama campaign signs were defaced daily; my car has been keyed and spat upon because my bumper sticker was "unacceptable" to my right wing neighbors.

Silence is sanction. Although it seems like the myth of Sisyphus to quell the mob, we must - as you so eloquently said, "not . .. allow any of that right wing crap and lies to go unanswered." That resonates like Howard Beale's manifesto from NETWORK: "I'm mad as hell and . . ."

Keep the faith. Peace.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Keep up the good fight. I deal with this mentality every day. I live in one of the few parts of the country that remained "red" -- like the color of Ronald Reagan's hair. My Obama campaign signs were defaced daily; my car has been keyed and spat upon because my bumper sticker was "unacceptable" to my right wing neighbors.

Silence is sanction. Although it seems like the myth of Sisyphus to quell the mob, we must - as you so eloquently said, "not . .. allow any of that right wing crap and lies to go unanswered." That resonates like Howard Beale's manifesto from NETWORK: "I'm mad as hell and . . ."

Keep the faith. Peace.

My state is barely hanging on to being blue. It is more purple, really. My county is very redneck and conservative and my car too has been keyed. I just got touch up paint. Bring it on. I will not be intimidated.

My summer reading:

Killer Politics (how big money and bad politics are destroying the great american middle class) by Ed Schultz

Get Opinionated - A progressive's guide to finding your voice (and taking a little action) by Amanda Marcotte

Toxic Talk - How the radical right has poisoned America's Airways by Bill Press

So get prepapred for more truth to the lies!!

Thanks for your support.

[Will_B_Healthy 0]

My state is barely hanging on to being blue. It is more purple, really. My county is very redneck and conservative and my car too has been keyed. I just got touch up paint. Bring it on. I will not be intimidated.

My summer reading:

Killer Politics (how big money and bad politics are destroying the great american middle class) by Ed Schultz

Get Opinionated - A progressive's guide to finding your voice (and taking a little action) by Amanda Marcotte

Toxic Talk - How the radical right has poisoned America's Airways by Bill Press

So get prepapred for more truth to the lies!!

Thanks for your support.

Happy to support you.

Thanks for the reading list. I am always open to new approaches and ideas that provide growth.

You probably already have one of the works by Howard Zinn like A People's History of the United States (c. 1980). I am doing a leisurely read through A Power Government Cannot Suppress (c. 2007). Bill Moyers had the good professor on his PBS program The Journal about six months ago; I listened to the podcast interview again yesterday. :grouphug:

Back to work.

Edited July 13, 2010 by Will_B_Healthy
Senior moment

[pattygreen 5]

[pattygreen 5]

Obama Economy Sends Americans to Their Mattresses

Home mortgage interest rates are the lowest in history, but house sales are plunging. Banks can make money easily because of the Federal Reserve's low interest rates, but they're not making many loans. Major corporations are sitting on something like $2 trillion in cash, but they're not investing.

Unemployment is running at 10 percent, rounded off, for the 11th straight month, but few employers are hiring and a million people have stopped looking for work in the last year. Small-business hiring is at a nine-month low, and retail sales are tailing off.

Government policies designed to stimulate the economy seem to be having the opposite effect. Consumers aren't buying, businesses aren't hiring, and those fortunate enough to have some cash on hand don't seem to be investing.

I call it the mattress economy.

People seem to be following this investment strategy. Step one: Go to Mattress Discounters and buy the biggest mattress you can find. Step two: Take it home, and stuff all your money in it. Step three: Lie down, and get some rest.

This hurts the economy, but it's a rational response to the Obama Democrats' public policies. And that's not just the view of their political opponents.

Consider the plaint of Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, head of the Business Roundtable, which has been playing footsie with the Obama administration for most of the last 18 months. "By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life," Seidenberg recently wrote, "government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise new capital and create new businesses."

Or take a look at Obama backer Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight.com Website. "Why aren't businesses hiring?" asks tax lawyer Hale "Bonddad" Stewart. "Uncertainty: There has been a tremendous amount of change over the last 12 months. Businesses are still trying to figure out what this means for their bottom line. Until there are firm answers, they will freeze hiring."

In other words, the Obama Democrats' vast expansion of the size and scope of government — and the threat that they may pass even more such legislation in a lame duck session of Congress after the November election — has chilled the animal spirits that John Maynard Keynes said were the driving force for economic growth.

Instead of stimulating the economy, the Obama Democrats' policies have shocked it into immobility. People are lying on their mattresses, waiting for the next shock. At least one is definitely coming: The Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year, which means that high earners can be sure they will very soon keep less of what they make.

Politicians up for re-election are taking notice. Congressional Democratic leaders can't round up the votes for another stimulus package and have not dared to ask their members to vote for a budget resolution.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman keeps beating the drum for even more increases in federal spending. But congressional Democrats are refusing to dance.

Democrats can plausibly claim that their 2009 stimulus package, passed less than a month after Barack Obama was sworn in, prevented a 1932-style downward spiral. But it didn't hold unemployment below 8 percent, as they promised it would.

They can argue that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's stress tests prevented a meltdown of the big banks. The problem is that it didn't get them back into the lending business.

And Democrats can claim that the General Motors and Chrysler bailouts are working out better than some of us doomsayers predicted. Unfortunately, the transfer of assets from secured creditors to the United Auto Workers — which I dubbed "gangster government" last year — has undoubtedly deterred investment in similar enterprises.

But the brute fact remains that even enormous government spending can't revive an economy when government threatens to take away anything you earn.

America has seen this kind of thing before. In the late 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt raised taxes on high earners, encouraged lawless sit-in strikes by labor unions and took over utility businesses, the response was a "capital strike."

Instead of creating jobs, businesses and investors put their money in mattresses. The result was a stagnant economy and double-digit unemployment-and a 75-seat Republican gain in the 1938 off-year elections.

Back then, the economy eventually perked up thanks to mobilization for World War II. No such mobilization appears on the horizon today. You may need to get a bigger mattress.

Michael Barone

Edited July 15, 2010 by pattygreen

[pattygreen 5]

Why doesn't Obama want Gulf oil spill cleanup to succeed?

President Obama does not want the oil cleaned up from the Gulf of Mexico, at least, not anytime soon. If you don't believe that, you have to believe he is a complete idiot. Although he has found time to play golf at least nine times since the spill began, Obama has done nothing to expedite the cleanup and everything to slow it down.

Foreign countries with oil-spill experience offered their help. Obama took 53 days to respond and accepted help from only five. Three days after the spill, the Dutch offered four skimmers that together have the capacity to collect 146,000 barrels of oil per day. As of June 9, 64,650 barrels had been recovered. Obama is blocking the construction of sand berms to keep the oil offshore.

There are 2,000 oil skimmers in the United States. Only 31 of them are in the Gulf, in case they're needed elsewhere. A giant oil-skimming ship is being tested after sitting idle for two months. It will be refused if it does not return Water to the Gulf that is 99.985 percent clean. Obama seems to feel it's better to have 100 percent of the oil in the Gulf than it is to have it 99.1 percent clean.

Obama has threatened to use executive orders to cram carbon regulation down our throats if Congress doesn't do his bidding. He could use executive orders to waive the Jones Act and EPA regulations to make the cleanup faster but has refused.

A company in Maine has miles of oil-skimming boom Obama refused to use because of phony concerns of quality. Oil-skimming barges were stopped from their work for a week so the Coast Guard could determine whether they had enough life vests and fire extinguishers.

Actor Kevin Costner offered centrifuges to clean the water, but they first had to undergo "rigorous EPA testing." Even if they were only 80 percent effective, isn't that better than doing 100 percent of nothing?

What has Obama done? He ordered a moratorium on oil drilling over 500-foot depths. That puts more people in the Gulf region out of work and makes us more dependent on foreign oil. Moreover, the rigs are being moved elsewhere. The Obama administration said the moratorium was based on the recommendations of a panel of experts. It was a blatant lie. Eight of them specifically said a moratorium would hurt more than help. Obama also said he approved additional offshore drilling only after being assured it was "absolutely safe." And that, dear readers, is another absolute lie. No one asserts offshore drilling is "absolutely safe."

So either the most powerful man in the world is plain stupid or he doesn't want the Gulf cleaned up anytime soon. It's your pick. But before you choose, remember the motto of this administration: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."

John Kanca III

Middlebury

[pattygreen 5]

The solution is fewer people depending on government to solve all their problems and more people willing to get off their butts and take responsibility for their lives. However, like narcotics, government aid becomes addictive. And as narcotics become too expensive for even the wealthiest addicts, so are dependency programs becoming too expensive even for the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. The warning is for the United States to start weaning its government addicts at once, or it wont be long before they're going to have to absorb the far greater shock of going cold turkey!

[Cleo's Mom 257]

We need to let the tax cuts for the rich expire. If not, it will add to the spending and deficit. Allowing it to expire will help with the deficit.

And if the tax cuts helped create jobs then why did the unemployment go from 4% to 8.1% under bush?

ANSWER THAT- ALL YE DEFENDERS OF THE TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH BEFORE YOU CUT AND PASTE MORE RIGHT WING CLAP TRAP!!!!!!!!!!!

[marty_m 0]

What a load of crap - a bunch of republican talking points swiped right from Fox News.

He's not doing any worse than any other president and he inherited this abortion of an economy from GWB. Obama is cleaning up the repub's mess because you all had your turn and couldn't (or wouldn't) do anything about it. Just let Wall Street run unregulated and fill the world's economy with toxic investments.

But I will say this - I got a great house at a rock bottom price thanks to the home market tumbling in AZ.

Foreclosures are only bad to the people losing their homes - it was great for me.:smile:

If engaged, compassionate government is socialism then I will take 2 helpings please and I will vote for BO in the next election.

So - no - not sorry at all (to the OP)

[Will_B_Healthy 0]

What a load of crap - a bunch of republican talking points swiped right from Fox News.

He's not doing any worse than any other president and he inherited this abortion of an economy from GWB. Obama is cleaning up the repub's mess because you all had your turn and couldn't (or wouldn't) do anything about it. Just let Wall Street run unregulated and fill the world's economy with toxic investments.

But I will say this - I got a great house at a rock bottom price thanks to the home market tumbling in AZ.

Foreclosures are only bad to the people losing their homes - it was great for me.:tt2:

If engaged, compassionate government is socialism then I will take 2 helpings please and I will vote for BO in the next election.

So - no - not sorry at all (to the OP)

:smile::biggrin::scared2::biggrin::tt2::biggrin:

Marty_m:

The only thing you seemed to have left out was a good swipe at all the morons who voted for GWB . . .TWICE!

I have never understood how anybody with less than $1M in personal wealth can embrace the GOP and their fascist platform. Livin' the delusion that anybody can make it to the top; add that one to the check is in the mail list.

Not only am I a lifelong Democrat, but a lifelong Liberal Democrat, a fourth generation Yellow Dog Democrat. Huzzah for Eugene Debs. And like you and anyone sporting more than a double digit IQ, I will be voting and actively campaigning again for President Barrack Obama.

Needless to say I loved your post, buddy. Do more and do it often. It gets lonely here with all the predigested FauxNews rants and projectile vomiting TeaParty dweebs and microcephalics who haven't experienced an original thought yet. These are the same douche-bags who get all gooey inside when you show them a video of the Berlin wall getting torn down and then start chanting with equal glee over the building of a wall to keep them nasty "illegals" from coming across the border and taking all the jobs away from our nuclear physicists.

I better take another Zoloff.

Over and out.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

:smile::biggrin::scared2::biggrin::tt2::biggrin:

Marty_m:

The only thing you seemed to have left out was a good swipe at all the morons who voted for GWB . . .TWICE!

I have never understood how anybody with less than $1M in personal wealth can embrace the GOP and their fascist platform. Livin' the delusion that anybody can make it to the top; add that one to the check is in the mail list.

Not only am I a lifelong Democrat, but a lifelong Liberal Democrat, a fourth generation Yellow Dog Democrat. Huzzah for Eugene Debs. And like you and anyone sporting more than a double digit IQ, I will be voting and actively campaigning again for President Barrack Obama.

Needless to say I loved your post, buddy. Do more and do it often. It gets lonely here with all the predigested FauxNews rants and projectile vomiting TeaParty dweebs and microcephalics who haven't experienced an original thought yet. These are the same douche-bags who get all gooey inside when you show them a video of the Berlin wall getting torn down and then start chanting with equal glee over the building of a wall to keep them nasty "illegals" from coming across the border and taking all the jobs away from our nuclear physicists.

I better take another Zoloff. :tt2:

Over and out.

That's because people don't like to have to think for themselves. They want the news reduced to short sound bites (like death panels) and they allow themselves to be influenced by fear and emotional rants. They don't want to do their homework and separate fact from fiction.

I don't watch fox news but it is my understanding that they have had 300 reports about the so called voter "intimidation" outside of Philly. 300? Are you kidding me? Talk about a tempest in a teapot. But I'll bet not one of those reports included the FACT that it was the bush administration's Justice Dept. that made the decision not to pursue criminal charges against members of the New Black Panther for this alleged voter intimidation in 2008. Instead Pres. Obama and his administration get the blame.

You also won't hear on fox that it was the bush DOJ that decided not to pursue criminal charges against members of the Minutemen, one of whom allegedly carried a weapon while harassing Hispanic voters in Arizona in 2006.

So, it's up to us to speak truth to the lies.

[Will_B_Healthy 0]

That's because people don't like to have to think for themselves. They want the news reduced to short sound bites (like death panels) and they allow themselves to be influenced by fear and emotional rants. They don't want to do their homework and separate fact from fiction.

I don't watch fox news but it is my understanding that they have had 300 reports about the so called voter "intimidation" outside of Philly. 300? Are you kidding me? Talk about a tempest in a teapot. But I'll bet not one of those reports included the FACT that it was the bush administration's Justice Dept. that made the decision not to pursue criminal charges against members of the New Black Panther for this alleged voter intimidation in 2008. Instead Pres. Obama and his administration get the blame.

You also won't hear on fox that it was the bush DOJ that decided not to pursue criminal charges against members of the Minutemen, one of whom allegedly carried a weapon while harassing Hispanic voters in Arizona in 2006.

So, it's up to us to speak truth to the lies.

Well said and well done. That's true of your post and also something entirely alien to FauxNews.

A great friend just sent me this "story" re-reported from Faux: U.S. Atheists Reportedly Using hair Dryers to 'De-Baptize'. He captioned it as the one that gets the prize for most ridiculous of the week! The source is actually Nightline but the mere inclusion by Faux and its philosophy of foul and imbalanced re-reporting is self evident lunacy.

Two things continue to frighten me: the thought of who actually makes up the "jury of my peers" and that more than 70% of polled Americans believed the WMD tripe that GWB et al were spewing to drum up a fraudulent and immoral war. :smile:

H L Mencken wryly observed: "It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office."

Peace out,

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Well said and well done. That's true of your post and also something entirely alien to FauxNews.

A great friend just sent me this "story" re-reported from Faux: U.S. Atheists Reportedly Using hair Dryers to 'De-Baptize'. He captioned it as the one that gets the prize for most ridiculous of the week! The source is actually Nightline but the mere inclusion by Faux and its philosophy of foul and imbalanced re-reporting is self evident lunacy.

Two things continue to frighten me: the thought of who actually makes up the "jury of my peers" and that more than 70% of polled Americans believed the WMD tripe that GWB et al were spewing to drum up a fraudulent and immoral war. :smile:

H L Mencken wryly observed: "It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office."

Peace out,

Well, you could have counted me in the other 30% who never believed a word bush said as well as the 5% who didn't support him right after 9/11. As far as I'm concerned he probably knelt down and thanked the gods above for 9/11 because without it he would not have been able to advance his extremist agenda: invade Iraq, Patriot Act, set up illegal prisons, illegal spying on americans, torture, rendition, expanding the powers of the president, etc..all in the name of the "war on terror" and the americans just gave a collective shrug to all of it.

Now that we have a black man in the white house, all of a sudden everyone's a constitutional expert and they KNOW what our founding fathers meant because they tell us everyday. Now they worry about our constitution. Now they worry about budgets, deficits, spending, etc.. And yet 32% of those in the south didn't even know from whom we got our independence. But I'll bet they could recite the second amendment word for word.

Edited July 18, 2010 by Cleo's Mom

[Will_B_Healthy 0]

Well, you could have counted me in the other 30% who never believed a word bush said as well as the 5% who didn't support him right after 9/11. As far as I'm concerned he probably knelt down and thanked the gods above for 9/11 because without it he would not have been able to advance his extremist agenda: invade Iraq, Patriot Act, set up illegal prisons, illegal spying on americans, torture, rendition, expanding the powers of the president, etc..all in the name of the "war on terror" and the americans just gave a collective shrug to all of it.

Now that we have a black man in the white house, all of a sudden everyone's a constitutional expert and they KNOW what our founding fathers meant because they tell us everyday. Now they worry about our constitution. Now they worry about budgets, deficits, spending, etc.. And yet 32% of those in the south didn't even know from whom we got our independence. But I'll bet they could recite the second amendment word for word.

OMG -- that 2nd Amendment crack is a terrific smack down!

America, in all its wealth and splendor, has grown complacent and certainly soft. GWB was the epitome of this. Who took more vacation time than W? What POTUS ever went to bed while the sun was still shining? The burning and nagging question I have is what books will fill the shelves of his library besides THE PET GOAT?

Our great blessing was that W dislodged the killer pretzel or we'd have had Darth Vader Cheney who, if the truth be told, was the puppet master for eight years anyhow. We'd see lots of brown shirts, patent leather boots goose stepping through the streets rounding up all the liberals for reprogramming treatments.

I really don't believe W was quite as ruthless and cavalier as he is often characterized. If you look at his roots, his previous experience from college to the White House, he lived a life of privilege. He never ran a successful business, as governor he was actually second in command -- more figurehead than worker. I think W was looking forward to lots of good ole Texas Bar-B-Ques on the White House lawn until those crazies decided to bury 4,000 people in the rubble of American greed on a clear September morning. He wasn't a great leader and certainly not a great speaker though memorable. He and those who surrounded him believed in the principles that secured the keys to the Oval Office: win at all costs, play by no rules, history is written by the victors, the winner and those who helped him deserve the spoils, and what the heck is noblesse oblige anyhow?:tt2:

So this is our game to lose now. We have a majority control in Congress and a progressive in the White House, a man who inherited a legacy fraught with impending disaster and an economy so anemic even billions of dollars cannot stanch the lethal flow. In short order President Obama has recouped and rebuilt our image in the world through honesty, innovation, sincerity, and candor. He may be erudite and even a bit aloof in his delivery of the messages but isn't that a welcome change from the bumbling, fumbling, blather and BS?

Adlai Stevenson was one of the most intelligent men to ever run for POTUS, perhaps too smart. The real trouble was he was opposed by one of America's great and real war hero, Dwight D. Eisenhower. After the second rout in 1956, Adlai was asked if he had lost his faith in the American public; Stevenson paused and thought over the question only to reply, "No. I haven't lost faith in the American public, but as to their taste, Coca-Cola still outsells champagne."

Not much has changed. Although quite a few have migrated to Diet Coke! :scared2::redface::smile::biggrin::tt2::wink2:

Peace out,

Edited July 18, 2010 by Will_B_Healthy
misspelling, changes for emphasis and clarity