It is election night in Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota and Georgia, and there’s a lot of teabaggery at stake. So please join us for an evening of electoral politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Some folks will be there early for dinner.
Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 276 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.
Paul denies “kidnapping”:
You’d think they’d see the irony of someone clearly stoned out of their mind (Paul), and citing their memory of events and other’s perception of those events as an alibi.
But you’d be wrong.
Linkage @1:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com.....nyone-ever
Another verson of Paul’s story:
“…and that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!”
(Thought bubble: now, how many people were there, and what are they going to say when the media tracks them down???? If only I could remember!!!!)
What’s amusing to me is that Palin says she wants to have politicians who *understand* the Constitution. Huh? You mean like her? Or, say, a Constitutional scholar like Obama? I would wager that Palin has never even read the Constitution.
The “atheist influence on society” in a handy-dandy flowchart:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyn.....i_didn.php
The comments are a hoot!
Re 4
You mean one like Obama, who publicly called the Constitution fundamentally flawed in a lecture to his students? That kind of scholar? I don’t even like Palin and wish she would stop speaking publicly, but at least she believes in the Constitution and this country.
BTW, Obama was speaking not of errors of compromise like the slaves being counted for voting purposes while lacking the vote. He wasn’t speaking of the original document prior to the 27 Amendments it has had. He was speaking of the document as it is today. You know, the one he swore to defend and uphold. What a patriot!
Before anyone asks-
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=79225
World Net Daily? Really, lost? That’s just lame and pathetic, man.
BTW, assume your computer get’s hammered with shit if you click lost’s link. Fair warning!
re 9
All right, use NPR archives to get the same information. It was in an interview with them that he made the comments. Frankly I just googled Obama calling Constitution flawed and hit the link. I should have checked the source, fair enough.
Re 10
If World Net Daily (whatever that is, I’ve never seen the site before) uses viruses or whatever please heed Zotz warning.
One last comment and then I’ve got to take my wife to dinner or risk sleeping on the sofa.
Yes, I made a mistake at 6, referring to an Obama lecture. It was in fact an interview with Chicago public radio. My error, but it hardly changes the content of Obamas commments.
And that is the point. We have a president who believes that the founding document of this country and the socioeconomic culture it helped foster is fundamentally flawed. Call me crazy, but a president who doesn’t like his country kind of bothers me.
Larry Kudlow calls it correctly…
Butt butt butt Odumbacare wouldn’t hurt the economy… IT DOES!
Hey Lost. Read the quote not just the WND & Limbaugh reaction. Can it not be argued that Obama answering the question of the “radical” nature of the Warren court Obama stated that a truly “radical” court would have overstepped the constitution.
“It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.” Reading comprehension 101. The Warren court wasn’t radical because the DIDN’T go beyond the constraints of the founding fathers. To do otherwise WOULD have been radical (and maybe unconstitutional.)
“I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.”
So….in conserva-world, working within the legislature to pass laws or constitutional amendments rather than rely on an activist courts is somehow “radical.” Again, it must be exhausting to deal with the mental contradictions of the modern conservative.
BTW, the righties went into a tizzy about the “negative rights” view of the constitution. But look at the bill of rights:
Amendment 1: “shall make no law”
Amendment 2: “shall not be infringed”
Amendment 3: “No soldier shall”
Amendment 4: “shall not be violated”
Amendment 5: “no person shall be held…nor shall any person…nor shall be compelled…”
Amendment 6: O.K. You got one, it says what rights an accused crimanal shall have, not what the government shall not do.
Amendment 7: “no fact tried by a jury, shall otherwise be re-examined”
Amendment 8: “shall not be required”
Amendment 9: “Shall not be construed to deny”
Amendment 10: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” which is a long way of saying that the federal doesn’t have certain rights.
So there you have it. 9 out of 10 explicitly forbid things or…wait for it…negates them.
Lost,
“And that is the point. We have a president who believes that the founding document of this country and the socioeconomic culture it helped foster is fundamentally flawed.”
You mean he believes the Constitution is just “a goddamn piece of paper?”
Oh…wait…that was someone else.
Hey, since the kids are in bed, the wife’s in L.A. and “Minute to Win It” is the kind of TV that makes America stupid…
Just for laughs, I found the entire transcript:
http://obamahood.org/complete-.....interview/
The first use of “redistribution” was 34 minutes into the interview:
Obama “A classic example would be something like public education where after Brown vs. Board a major issue ends up being redistribution. How do we get more money into the schools, and how do we actually create equal schools and equal educational opportunity?”
So rather than redistribution of private property, as the righties bleated, Obama was referring to the redistribution of state property. So, the premise is crap. They were talking about how everyone should be given equal opportunity to the services provided by government, not how everyone should have equal access to private property.
But classic example of the echo chamber. Snip the quote of context, put it on Drudge, goes to Limbaugh, goes back through the blogoshpere and picked up by a few MSM outlets (newspapers, Fox), echoes around righty radio for weeks, and a decade later, Lost believes that Obama explicitly said he was coming for his property.
Of course the genius checksez doesn’t realize who owns the “state property”… THE PEOPLE DO! How does the state get “property”, through taxation. So when one is redistributing the “state property”, he’s calling for the redistribution of your tax $$$$$$.
Stay stupid checksez… You’re doing great!
@18
Puddy, Puddy, Puddy…
In your moronic knee-jerk reaction to anything I might say are you claiming that public schools should be abolished? Are you saying that every single thing the government pays for should be abolished? Are you really that stupid? well yes, but that’s beside the point.
So if the state is mandated to provide education (look up statues, court decisions, public opinion, whatever you’d like on that) Obama argued that the quality and funding of that service needed to be redistributed to make it as equitable as possible.
The people, starting with the founding fathers involved in the first United States Congress, agreed to be taxed to provide services. You can be pissed about that all you want, but you can’t make it immoral, illegal, unconstitutional or make it go away. (quick, U.S. history challenged Puddy, look up the first bits of legislation passed in the U.S. It’s taxes!)
Puddy, “Ugh…taxes…BAAAAD. (bang fist on ground) Errr…uneducated people GOOOOOD! ME no pay for anything. Me want anarchy so me can keep money!”
Where did Puddy claim anything you wrote above? Once again you write stupid trash and then say oh look at this… isn’t it great?
Where did Puddy say taxes bad? Ask ylb and he’ll produce what Puddy wrote on this subject. Apparently you possess the same mental midget power of Steve Steve Steve!
That’s the DUMMOCRAPTIC line for inner city minorities!
What a moron!
Re 16
I don’t know who you’re implying said that. I assume Bush or someone in his administration. And I’ve frequently written about Bush administration violations of basic liberties. What differentiates him from Obama is honesty. Like him or hate him you always knew where Bush stood and what he believed. Obama has not the courage of his far left convictions and hides them as best he can.
Re 17
I read the transcript. Thanks. I have heard the video, but reading gets closer to the matter as tone of voice etc don’t distract.
In my opinion you only got part of what Obama said. He and Brandes agreed that fundamental redistribution is not a court function, but should be done legislatively. The terms used were social justice and so on, which always refer to one mans property being transferred to another man. Obama didn’t question this, and offered a number of reasons for choosing that course.
Sorry, but Obama didn’t refer to the Brown v Board decision except as a marker for what the Warren court was willing to do that prior courts had not been. Interesting fact, there were 2 Brown decisions. The second was brought about by state foot dragging by pretending not to understand ‘with all deliberate speed.’
Czechsaaz,
To be fair, a lot on the right did hear only the redistribution of wealth comment without the context. In the end the context shows a very liberal Obama who supports such redistribution. But this business of demonizing individual representatives of a political view rather than debating the relative merits of that view is not helpful, whether it comes from the right or the left.
EEEE-HEEE-HEEE-HEEE.
(Puddy doesn’t even recognize when he’s being made the butt of a joke.)
I’ll rephrase…”So when one is redistributing the “state property”, he’s calling for the redistribution of your tax $$$$$$.” = “it’s perfectly O.K. with me if a student at Bellevue High is given a higher percentage of my tax dollars than a student at Evergreen High. I don’t resent the taxes, I resent them being spent equally. To suggest evening that playing field is radical socialism.” (Rhetorical paraphrasing, what a concept!)
Hmmmm…arguing for equitable spending is a Democratic line for inner city minorities. That’s right! By arguing for equal funding, we are really wanting less funding for the inner cities. You’re onto us! You’ve figured out the mystery! Does it hurt to think so incoherently? Is it possible for you to post without name-calling?
Final note, then off to bed for an early day tomorrow-
The constitution is a negative grant document. That is to say, Obamas comments notwithstanding, powers granted to the federal government are those specified, with all others devolving to the several states and the citizens of them.
Obama in his interview talks about what government ‘must do’ for citizens. That too is clear in the Constitution, or it would be if it didn’t so violently conflict with his agenda.
Re 23
Sorry, but this cries out for correction.
My federal tax dollars support a department of education which essentially does nothing. Very expensively.
My state taxes go to another department of education (can’t have too many departments of education!) which actually does impact schools, and money from this is distributed more or less equally to districts.
My property or other local taxes support my local school district. Bellevue has more revenue or chooses to dedicate more of it to schools, so students get more money spent on them than say Lincoln High. Additionally the citizens of Bellevue may elect to support their schools more with levies and so on. All this is outside of the realm of the courts.
@25
And all that throws the lie to the idea that America is the land of equal opportunity. Poor neighborhoods, poor schools. If you won the womb lotto, your chances of doing well in this game are greater.
And it’s a partisan argument to say the federal department of education does nothing. Congress just authorized $10B in additional spending for the department to send to states. That’s an awful lot of teachers the states can retain. Or I suppose crappy state departments could keep it all in administration.
But we can all pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. There’s no structural inequality in our system. (Standard conservative claim.)
(H.T. to Warren Buffet for introducing the phrase “womb lotto” into the lexicon.)
Not really. Just because a person is dealt a poor hand doesn’t mean they can’t make the best of it. And I’ve known plenty of children of well off parents who never amounted to much, measured by finances.
Steve writes about an upbringing of poverty. He also writes about comparitive affluence now. And his story is repeated over and over in this country.
Ask yourself, if opportunity is in such short supply here, why is it the choice of emigrants all over the world for a place to start over?
Ask yourself also, if the utopian dream of everyone starting at a point of perfect equality were realized, what kind of world would that be? A government capable of giving one everything is one that is capable of taking everything away.
@27
But the f***ups I grew up around moved from lives of childhood wealth to lives of adult lower middle class.
I’m just saying, the idea that everyone has an equal chance at birth is crap. But that’s the line you hear from the right. It’s no more true than if were to assert that it isn’t possible for people in poverty to make something of themselves. Both are myths. But one ideology clings to their myth as an argument for not trying to do anything about structural inequality. The right confuses opportunity with survival of the most motivated.
Yes, I’m painting with a broad brush.
In a sense, it is a womb lottery. Inner city peeps have fewer opportunities in life. Poorer schools, more crime, poorer offered services are their way of life. If you think otherwise checksez then your meds are way off dude!
There is no confusion with motivation vs survival? People survive everywhere. It’s the ones who try th achieve and meet the obstacles placed by DUMMOCRAPT intransigence to inner city people. The “war on poverty” could have been solved long ago if DUMMOCRAPTS really wanted to solve it.
Butt then again some Americans are just lazy. Did you read about the people offered a $45,000 year long term contract position with benefits and they turned it down to stay on unemployment and lounge at home? Another anecdotal story… NOPE. It’s been happening for a while, the libtardo news is finally admitting to these events as companies tell the world this is what’s happening.
SO checksez, why teachers over firemen or policemen? Why this 26 Billion handout to teachers unions? Why do scumbucket teachers stay employed because their union jockstraps them? Why are they not weeded out. Once you get tenure some teachers are on IPR. Figger that out checksez. This is one of the reasons people are upset over this “handout”.
While the KLOWNS are drinking and circle-jerking about Progressivism, Real Americans express growing discontent with ObaMao.
Congrats!
LOWEST RATING EVER!!!
ObaMao’s scheme of blaming Bush and attacking the Tea Party is really working well…FOR THE REPUBLICANS!!
What an idiot.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
@28 & 30
In Puddyworld, it’s a-o-k to keep the poor poor. But it’s not Puddy and his ilk, it’s the Democrats (name calling, small mindedness) doing it.
And Puddy would be A-O.K. “weeding out” teachers, ’cause who needs education and stuff. Puddy may not explicitly say it (hee, hee, hee) but Puddy hates public education. If kids need skoolin’ the should pay for it themselves! Everything the gubmint does is just a “handout.”
I’d also support emergency funds to keep first responders in place. I’d rather reform the drug war and find the money elsewhere but I’m willing to pay dearly for education and safety. “Inner city peeps have fewer opportunities in life. Poorer schools, more crime, poorer offered services are their way of life.” In other words, it’s a-o.k. Puddy doesn’t want to be taxed for YOUR public safety. You’re on your own.
czech@32–
Way to go overboard misstating what Puddy I said.
Alert–
The current level of government salaries & Benefits at all levels is UNSUSTAINABLE.
The Private Sector is collapsing…especially small business.
Until we have leaders with the courage to take on the Government Employee Unions, we will sink into deeper debt.
It’s obviously not about keeping poor folks poor. The Democrats have done a fine job of that with the Black Community by keeping folks dependent on entitlements to the point it is no longer worth looking for work.
Sustainability is critical.
The current Big Government model is clearly not working as the National Debt to GDP has risen from 74% when Bush left….to over 90% under the ObaMao Regime. Those are the facts.
Did we learn nothing from Europe’s meltdown?
ObaMao’s wife is trying to boost Spain’s economy…but what about here?
Only solution–
Cut Taxes
Rollback costly Regulations
Free up free enterprise!
“The Democrats have done a fine job of that with the Black Community by keeping folks dependent on entitlements to the point it is no longer worth looking for work.”
How do you reconcile this with the point you’ve previously made that black people are lazy and are afraid to work like a white man.
Puddy sez, “scumbucket teachers”
Well, that was certainly ugly. I suspect that someone would have to be seething with hate to write such a thing.
Wow, you got all the talking points in there
The private sector is collapsing. That’s becuase of the governemnt right? How much faster would it collapse if the government weren’t giving the unemployed “handouts” to, you know, buy goods and services from the private sector?
It’s the employee Unions! Sure, pushing a higher % of people into lower wage categories won’t have ANY effect on demand.
You even got a Spain bit of nonsense in there.
Cut-taxes (even though historically higer taxes have provided greater periods of growth and employment.)
Rollback Regulation! Damn, what the Gulf needed, what coal miners need, what meat packagers need is government off their backs. There won’t be any external costs with increased lack of safety, right?
That was a supreme example of talking-point bullshit in just a few short paragraphs.
34. Steve spews:
I never said Black people are lazy & afraid to work…I said ObaMao is!! He never had a real job. Kommunity Organizer?? It was all about getting entitlements which has destroyed a huge segment of the Black community and made much of Black America dependent upon Big Government and the Dummocrats.
Look at the Real Unemployment Numbers…17%!!
Black America is much, much higher than the average. Why? Entitlements. The Dummocrats are in charge. They have controlled Congress for the past 4 years. Have things gotten better? Hell no.
ObaMao is even losing support among Black America. He has dropped over 5 points. The trend is bad. 88% of Blacks supporting ObaMao is not racist….but 60% of White Americans not supporting ObaMao is????
Too Damn Funny.
Steve, human beings need hope in their lives. They need a fishing pole…not fish.
Dummocrats make them stand in line for their fish.
How is that helpful?
I have great confidence in all Americans, including Black Americans, if Free Enterprise is unleashed and Big Government is put to rest.
It’s a transition to go from generations of entitlements to self-reliance…but I vote to give WE THE PEOPLE the chance.
Look, anybody who’s reasonably educated in the law, or even in simple civics, understands that the U.S. Constitution is a document which had, and continues to have, lots of problems with respect to it’s application in specific instances. That’s why we have so many court decisions trying to interpret and apply it.
Note that the original Constitution doesn’t identify who is, and who is not, a citizen. It doesn’t identify what rights non-citizens have within our borders. It’s treatment of who can vote is cursory at best, leaving it generally up to the states to decide for themselves. It wasn’t until the 14th Amendment that there was even an attempt in this regard, and yet courts thereafter still excluded large groups based on race or national origin (Chinese, Japanese) from having ANY civil rights over a half-century later, preventing them from even applying for citizenship or owning property.
Then let’s get into the question of the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment starts out by saying “Congress shall make no law…”. But what about the states, counties, cities? Do the Bill of Rights prohibit only the actions of the national government, or do they prohibit similar attempts by state and local governments as well? This caused almost 170 years of litigation as courts decided, by virtue of the “Due Process” clause, that individual rights under the first ten amendments were meant to apply to the states, on a case-by-case basis. It wasn’t until the 1960’s, I believe, that the Supreme Court ended that nonesense by applying all of the first ten amendments to state and local action as well.
And in general, the classic exception that “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre” is just a shorthand way of saying that in practice, no rights are absolute. But the Constitution is silent on the process by which a court would determine the limits of those rights. Right now it uses a variety of tests, depending upon the rather value-laden notion of the “importance” of the right.
So any law professor who didn’t contend that the Constitution contains some fundamental flaws doesn’t know his subject.
And speaking of the first ten Amendments, the Second Amendment has to be one of the worst-worded phrases in the Constitution, not clarifying if the reference to the well-regulated militia modified the right to bear arms, or not. The recent court decisions seem to indicate that
“I never said Black people are lazy & afraid to work…I said ObaMao is!!”
No, you told us a joke that is steeped in the ugliest of racial stereotyping – the lazy black man being afraid to work like the industrious white man. You thought it was funny.
I hope this doesn’t spell the end of another Quayle’s political career: http://voices.washingtonpost.c.....l?wprss=44
It is so entertaining to have a Quayle around to mock.
So ObaMao is now -22 in the Strong Approval Poll with the Dow at 10,700. Today it drops 265 points. Do you think this will improve ObaMao’s position??
Since ObaMao never had a real job, I don’t think he understands how the free market works.
He wrote a silly book about his father who deserted him and got millions. Is that free market?? It was a pay-off.
ObaMao is killing Progressivism. It’s awesome to watch. Candidates want to keep as far away from him as possible…and he’s only been in office 19 months!!
Hysterical!
Hopefully he will be unemployed come 2012.
All the lunatics will probably shower him with money so he can perpetually avoid having a real job.
Steve is apparently trying to become Madame Steve.
He calls Puddy an Oreo and makes all kids of Uncle Tom comments….but in his alleged mind, he isn’t a racist because he has a pretend Balck friend (who died!),
Steve has a nice Tollycraft and was Kommador of his all-white Yacht Klub. He refuses to marry his gal. And he belongs to a virtually all-white Kountry Klub.
What a testimony to Leftist hypocrisy.
Yet another ass-drubbing for never-had-a-real-job ObaMao and his moronic duo Pelosi & Reid!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Dead-heat for ObaMao’s old seat–
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Cynny,
Take all the comfort you can from your August polls. When people start paying attention as the November election nears, and see the silliness and insanity that passes for mainstream GOP policy, we’ll see how those numbers change. BTW, Cynny, clinging to ideological vapor and being an asshole is no way to go through life.
Indeed it’s a sad bunch of right wingers tuned into right wing hate talk radio and waiting for the ring of the Rasmussen robocall.
Wrong again checksez. You can’t display one comment or fact to back that up. Go ahead and ask ylb cuz he’s gots every PuddyComment backed up in Seattle. You are a moronic comment a minute. It’s DUMMMOCRAPTS who keep inner city minorities in the dumps. een that was F O R E V E R!
Show Puddy a DUMMOCRAPTIC led city that has normal achieving SAT scores.
NUFF Said Sucka!
This is so stupid I can’t believe it.
At the federal level the top line items are Defense/Social Security/Medicare&Medicaid
Scratch out the latter two because the overhead is tiny compared to benefits paid.
At the state level the highest expense is education.
At the County level the highest expense is public safety and courts./
So the KLOWN is for cutting the salaries/benefits of soldiers/sailors/airmen/marines/teachers/judges/prosecutors/prison guards/cops/firemen.
People who are paid modestly enough as it is. No one’s getting rich doing those jobs.
Idiot.
Re 38
With respect-
I agree with much of what you write.
But Obama is a law professor (for a few lectures and a few classes until the pose served its purpose, as is the general gist of his ‘career.’) He knows as you presumably do that the Constitution addresses such flaws in the Amendment process, and in the interpretative powers of legislators and the courts. And I stand by my comment. If he so strongly feels the nation and Constitution are fundamentally flawed why would he swear to uphold and defend it? Fundamentally as differentiated from procedurally, which can be addressed, as I noted through Amendments and other Constitutional powers.