Thom: Why the G.O.P. doesn’t want the Fed to help.
Liberal Viewer: FAUX News bias in editing Warren video.
Ed and Pap: Cheney’s incompetence killed 3,000 Americans.
Ellen makes ‘nice’ political ads for Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.
Sam Seder: Rand Paul is SCHOOLED on government jobs under Obama.
Bill Maher: It’s a Significantly Less Wonderful Life.
Let’s talk about values.
Daily Show: How to spin doctor a story.
Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.
Buzz60: Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Pat Boone indicate that the Birfer movement is over.
Young Turks: Snoop Dog, “Bush Fucked up for 8 years, vote Obama.
Jonathan Mann: Bearhug the President.
Sam Seder and Glenn Greenwald: Getting away with torture.
Greenman: An interview with Mauri Pelto about retreating glaciers in the Pacific Northwest:
Lawrence O’Donnell: NBC battleground poll shows big leads for President Obama.
Chris Mathews plays FDR clip that perfectly describes Republicans.
Willard!
- Ann Telnaes: Romney tries another strategy to get a bounce in the polls
- Slate TV: Democrats turn Tables and question Romney’s national security competence.
- Top five reasons why Mitt won’t release his tax returns.
- Tagg and Craig with Romney Rock!
- Buzz60: Swing states are swinging to Obama.
- Slate TV: Romney spoiler—Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson on ballot in 47 states.
- Thom and Pap: Media ignores Romney lies in favor of politicization
- Maddow: War on Women in VA could cost Romney the race.
- Young Turks: Conservatives defending Romney’s erroneous statement on Libya.
- Zina Saunders: The Romney Identi-Kit.
- Young Turks: Romney’s “embassy” comments backfire.
- The Cheeters.
- The three branches of Mitt Romney’s ‘Neo-CON’ foreign policy
- Slate TV: Romney’s attack backfires.
- Sharpton: Romney campaign hands out ‘Talking Points’ on Libya
- Maddow: Ryan shares billing with “former Terrorist” at fringe conference.
- Buzz60: Kanye West new song takes on Mitt Romney’s taxes.
- Thom: Romney finds a new way to lie.
- Slate TV: Kanye West, “Mitt Romney Don’t Pay No Tax”
- Ann Telnaes: Mittstep.
Maddow: Judge says Walker’s union-stripping law is unconstitution.
Young Turks: Bachmann or Palin…who’s CRAZIER???
Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.
“Obama Style”: a hit video that simply destroys Obama.
Sam Seder: Bush’s 9/11 fail is far worse than you thought!
G.O.P. Voter Suppression Efforts
- Pap and Thom: G.O.P. steps up voter suppression efforts.
- Sam Seder: G.O.P. makes it difficult to register in Florida.
- Thom: Voter ID goes to PA Supreme Court.
- Maddow: Exposing the G.O.P. voter suppression effort.
White House: West Wing Week.
Kimmel: This week in unnecessary censorship.
Young Turks: Poll shows some Republicans think Mitt Romney killed bin Laden.
Liberal Viewer: FAUX News suggests Obama hates God.
Thom: more Good, Bad and Very, Very Ugly.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Obama is a f#@*ing liar again!
http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....to-deadly/
Obama failed to do anything to prevent the death of that Ambassador despite lots of activity leading up to 9-11. Need House Hearings ASAP.
Who knew what when.
@ 1
Posting a link to that propaganda company does nothing to enhance your credibility. That company was founded on the dissemination of false information. Its specific purpose is to lie. They even filed lawsuits to protect that business model. Lawsuits that they won. It is not a news organization, it is a fascist propaganda company.
But you knew that already. It’s what you are all about.
@1 Why weren’t you there defending our diplomats with your BB gun? You should’ve deployed months ago at the first sign of a threat.
The Rethug Retards can then vote on regulating women’s vaginas again. That is what they are good at.
Obama should immediately retaliate against ‘kida. Let’s send the troops into some foreign country. I know, let’s invade Hawaii!!!
Bachmann Facing Re-Election Trouble
“Michele Bachmann is no lock for re-election. The well-funded firebrand is nearly tied with novice Democratic challenger Jim Graves in Minnesota’s newly redrawn 6th District; a recent Democratic poll found Graves winning independents by 15 points. Upshot: for the first time in three terms, Bachmann’s seat isn’t safe.”
http://www.time.com/time/magaz.....z26YPpQiks
@1
That won’t happen unless it involves vaginal probes. Dipshit.
@4
Oops – you beat me to it! Great minds…
OWS Anarchist Loving Fraggy…
What part of the Fox News story is untrue…?
Need another source?
From WiKipedia
So Fraggy, friend of OWS anarchists… Sucks to be you this morning.
As Puddy said earlier this week, when the dust settles… it ain’t looking good for Obummer! So sad Obummer and friends thought more of campaigning than protecting overseas embassies! Then the moron went to Las Vegas. We were told not to spend money in Las Vegas… remember?
Obummer and Las Vegas…
Puddy Remembers!
So, according to Doctor Steve and the other HAers, Romney should have held his tongue until he had all the information regarding the Libya consulate attack.
Problem with that, for Romney anyway, is that the State Department has lawyered up on the whole thing:
State Department: Stop asking us about the Benghazi attack
Posted By Josh Rogin Friday, September 14, 2012 – 9:26 PM
http://thecable.foreignpolicy......azi_attack
How, er, convenient for Barack and for Hillary. Anyone want to bet that the investigation will be finished in time for people to review it before the election? I’m betting it goes into the black hole until after Inauguration Day.
Shut up, he explained.
It isn’t just the Fox viewers that are misinformed:
http://www.ijreview.com/2012/0.....an-profits
Gary Bauer is both foul, and stupid:
Checks from the government? There’s that dogwhistle again!
puddybud – if captured alive, would you favor the death penalty for the perps who killed the Ambassador and the other Americans?
Would you be in favor of torturing them first, if useful information could be obtained?
@ 15
Why do you want Puddybud captured alive?
@16
ha!
No tax Grover and GOP budget = massive cuts for State Department.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy......operations
Back in the ’88 election, I was living in another state. I met a public school teacher who was going to vote for Dukakis because “he will lower the interest rate so I can afford a house.” (Interest rates were a lot higher back then.) I know two young people who will be voting for the Milk Chocolate Messiah because “he’ll take care of our student loans.”
People will vote for whomever promises them the most “stuff,” whether it’s lowering the interest rate or forgiving their loans. I’d say that Obama has the edge over Romney in that department. There are more “where’s my free stuff?” voters than there are capitalist pig-dog bourgeoisie. So, usual suspects, you have no worries – your guy is gonna win in November.
@18
Well of course…it’s the only rational outcome for any budget plan whose central tenet is massive tax cuts.
Either the deficit balloons again/more, as with the Bush and Reagan tax cuts, or spending is slashed, or both.
There is no other rational outcome.
@18
Who needs a State Department, anyway? When confronted with international challenges, just bomb the fuckers.
Defense spending is going to grow infinitely under President Romney, doncha know.
@19
God, you’re a buffoon.
“Romney should have held his tongue until he had all the information regarding the Libya consulate attack.”
He lost the election when he attacked our embassies at the same time the bad guys were attacking them. Understandable that you’re freaked out and anxiety ridden over it. Sad to see, though, that you’re now reduced to being a Klown act like @1.
He blew it. Sucks for you, Bob, but you’re just going to have to learn to live with it. On the bright side, there’s alway 2016. Maybe you’ll have sense enough to run a real human being next time instead of a malfunctioning robot. But you guys aren’t very good at lessons learned, though, are you? No, you’ll just blow it again.
Yeah Serial Conservative… Lib da dunce would rather see me dead!
Notice when Puddy supplies a lefty rag to discount and destroy the proffered argument above, their tune changes? Fox News is RIGHT again! Puddy was told truth can come from many sources. It’s the leftist pinheads who don’t like to see or read truth from right thinking sources!
This is why Puddy always looks for leftist rags to KABLAMMO their hapless arguments. This is why Puddy uses overseas sources whenever possible. Unvarnished truth, hidden by the Obummer loving slobbering leftist libtard msm!
“Milk Chocolate Messiah”
Must you act like a Klown as well?
puddybud –
I asked you this the other day…and never got an answer. I’m really interested in what you think about this…
Steve spews:
“Milk Chocolate Messiah”
Must you act like a Klown as well?
I do it to piss you off. Works every time!
Wait a minute… we were told he lost the election when he chose Paul Ryan. Wait a minute… we were told he lost the election when he killed Joe Soptic’s wife. Wait a minute… we were told he lost the election when he didn’t release his tax returns. So what is your next excuse?
Ummm nope… Obummer is on the defensive now over their do nothing but campaign attitude. The slobbering leftist libtard msm can only hide the facts so long Steve. And when the facts come out people will scratch their short hairs and ask why didn’ I know this earlier? Why did the slobbering leftist libtard msm hiding these facts?
Romney was spot on! The facts are proving it.
Why do we bring them here? They are not American citizens. Leave them in the field of battle, not breathing.
Then this is a funny
Don’t you remember El Presidente (my older son calls him that) said this…
So that question is a non sequitor, not worthy of the pixels wasted.
See ya Lib da dunce. You can’t remember much of anything any more. BTW Puddy asked how are those new ASSHOLES delivered by Obummer feeling? You never answered that!
Indeed. We all do need to know the answers to the questions you pose – they are good and necessary questions.
However, asking the question, and answering it with self-serving speculation informed only by you political agenda are two VERY DIFFERENT things, whether you realize that or not.
When the dust settles, as you say, and when a rational, objective inquiry is completed only then can informed decisions be made. Until then, all you’ve got is simmering hatred of your political enemies and a spittle flecked computer monitor.
So on ‘the field of battle’ it is OK to kill them?
That was never part of my question. I just asked about executions, I didn’t designate a jurisdiction.
“I do it to piss you off. Works every time!”
In you’re fucking dreams. I usually ignore your tripe because your both dumber than a box of rocks and irrelevant.
Hatred… Nope you Dope… You exhibited BDS for many years now. The recession ended June 2009. Looks like the US Credit rating was downgraded again yesterday!
Now twice under Obummer!
From the man who bragged yesterday about upsetting Mr Cynical by calling him goat names!
You tell me Lib? What would you do?
That’s a rather crude, rather transparent way of running away from the question.
Come on, I really want to know what you think about that.
Would it be OK with you if the perps of the embassy attack were tortured for information if they were captured alive?
Fox New is RIGHT again!
@ 28
Wait a minute… we were told he lost the election when he chose Paul Ryan. Wait a minute… we were told he lost the election when he killed Joe Soptic’s wife. Wait a minute… we were told he lost the election when he didn’t release his tax returns.
He lost the election when he became Mormon.
Somehow any criticism of Obama is racist but overt distortion of Romney’s faith is just fun and games to the Doctor Steve crowd.
@36
I asked you first. I’ve been asking you for your thoughts about violence because you also threaten me with damnation when your god returns “in clouds of glory”, though I thought he was a god preaching love and forgiveness. I’m just trying to understand the basis for things you’ve said to me, and others, on these threads.
“The slobbering leftist libtard msm can only hide the facts so long Steve.”
I’m looking forward to November when you’ll disown Gekko/Galt and assign them to the Richard Armitage/Alan Greenspan wing of the Democratic party.
“He lost the election when he became Mormon.
Somehow any criticism of Obama is racist but overt distortion of Romney’s faith is just fun and games to the Doctor Steve crowd.”
God, you’re fucking stupid. I’m likely the only Mormon posting here.
“Doctor Steve”
Gawd, you’re lame. You obviously didn’t learn anything at all from the lesson I gave you over on the “More Doctors” thread. I can only conclude that you’re trying to make me cringe at your stupidity. Congrats, it’s working, Bob.
@34 President Obama 50%, Mitt Romney 39%
It looks like Pennsylvania is not buying what Mitt is selling this year.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballo.....nnsylvania
“From the man who bragged yesterday about upsetting Mr Cynical by calling him goat names!”
I didn’t brag. I tried to teach you a fucking lesson because I’m tired of your lame attempts to insult people here. It’s like amateur hour. Some things work, some things don’t. You’re just too fucking stupid to come up with anything that works. You’re pretty much like Romney’s campaign that way. Robotic. Ineffective. Lame. Going nowhere.
“you also threaten me with damnation when your god returns “in clouds of glory””
Odd, how Jesus loves those who spew hate in his name while lying their asses off to score cheap political points.
Why shouldn’t we consider it fun and games? The “overt distortion of Romney’s faith” is coming from your righteously right fundamentalists who don’t trust Mormons. We’re just pointing and laughing. It’s all good fun, you know…
“It looks like Pennsylvania is not buying what Mitt is selling this year.”
The only hope they have left is denying little old black ladies the right to vote. Of course, lovers of Democracy all, Republicans are going for it. That must thrill a racist like Bob.
Before you came back with your lame “Doctor Steve screams racist again” bullshit, Bob, how about explaining to everybody here again how it was that you concluded that Trayvon Martin was a “thug” who got what was coming to him. And please share again with everybody here your racist vision of white militias roaming the streets of Detroit shooting blacks.
Heard Ryan Crocker on NPR this morning.. The diplomat who dutifully did Bush’s bidding in Iraq, Aghanistan, etc..
He said all embassies are highly protected. Like fortresses..
Consulates are another matter.. Lack of manpower, budget etc..
There are many instances of attacks on U.S. facilities during Bush’s reign with attendant loss of life.. A Dullard (R-Money) maladministration will only start another war and U.S. embassies/consulates will be attacked even more.
Yawwwwwn.. It’s desperate times on the right.
“Somehow any criticism of Obama is racist”
What’s racist, Bob, is your continuing to believe the lies, fake photos and tweets about Trayvon Martin posted by extremist right-wing racists long after they were debunked. That’s what a racist does, Bob. Racism is also your dream of unelected whites ruling Detroit, unleashing armed white militias to roam the streets, keeping order. In your fantasies, who are they going to shoot at, Bob? White people?
You know, I’ve noticed that whenever I ask puddybud detailed questions regarding the intersection of right-wing blood lust with Jesus’ teachings, he disappears…*poof*
I was really, honestly looking forward to hearing how he does that….
Greg @43,
Pennsylvania Rethug voter suppression efforts may still pull off a Mitt the Twitt victory.
“Fox New is RIGHT again!”
You must be talking about the Fox poll that shows Obama kicking Romney’s ass. That’s the only thing they’ve gotten right in ages.
John McCain smacking down Hannity for being a lying idiot. Can we assume that now makes John McCain a member of the Armitage/Greenspan wing of the Democratic Party?
So now we have the “League of Extraordinary Assholes” featuring the puddypussypissypants and the cereal klonservative…and somebody made the hateful bigot Mr. Cynical own cry???
Precious.
It’s so simple, gang. The Republican Party as it is presently constituted is dead.
Reaganism failed. They lost the “culture war”.
It’s like 1964, folks…back to the drawing board.
@48
I’m not surprised.
While the trolls are asking valid questions regarding the series of events leading up the the deaths of those Americans in Libya, they’re immediately filling in the blanks with self-serving, delusional ravings and hoping to create a scandal where none necessarily exists.
I’m also reminded, by bob’s braying above about ‘sweeping things under the rug’, that we still haven’t seen Mitt’s taxes.
Bob is rightly demanding an investigation into what happened, so Americans are fully informed, particularly prior to an election. It’s doubtful, however, that a competent, unbiased investigation involving intelligence and analysis and actions by the administration could be completed in less than 2 months.
However, for Americans to be fully informed about Mitt and his money, all Mitt has to do is release 10 years of tax returns, just as he demanded of Paul Ryan. Do you think that that could be completed before the election…or will it be ‘swept under the rug’, as bob says?
Kansas Birther Balloon crashes and burns in Topeka.
http://www.kansas.com/2012/09/.....lenge.html
@34 “Looks like the US Credit rating was downgraded again yesterday!”
You seem pleased. And who is Egan-Jones, who downgraded the credit rating?
From Wiki,
Lame point for you to make because it’s due to efforts to recover from the Great Bush Recession caused by the failures of 30 years of Reaganomic trickle-down bullshit. Far lamer than that is your being thrilled about a credit downgrade. Just how much damage are you willing to see this nation suffer just so Republicans can regain power?
Of course he is. Rooting for failure, on any and all fronts, is central to their desire to destroy Obama.
It’s all about taking power.
Will Aryan-Zona “just say no” to Birther Sheriff Joe Arpaio this year?
http://tucsoncitizen.com/hispa.....-his-jail/
Heh. I like that..
A couple of the other people who died with him were ex-Navy Seals. It’s not like he was unprotected. He died in a fire, not a fire fight. Maybe he should have had a squad of fire fighters with him? I’m guessing Obama did the same stuff the Bush Admin did and the Clinton folks did before him.
He could have at least gotten the time line correct and not lied about what the Egyptian Embassy said. That information was out there and plenty of other folks seem to have gotten it right.
Romney’s started getting security briefings from the Obama Admin a little while back, but somehow I doubt it will help his accuracy.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....S-election
Nope, those aren’t a Daily Kos Diarist’s words. That’s from editorial in a major Israeli newspaper.
And of course, right on cue, our trolls have been carrying this right wing water.
“It’s all about taking power.”
And without any concern whatsofuckingever for the damage they do to the nation and it’s citizens. As long as they regain power, it’s all good.
Party before country. That’s the gist of Puddy’s comment. A credit downgrade that hurts the nation is a good thing if it can help the party in even the smallest way.
What the election is really all about:
http://www.nationofchange.org/.....1347714864
Who stands for the ordinary American trying to make it? It sure isn’t Dullard.
Profitable company, makes a lot of money but it’s never enough for the Bains of the world, so they’re sending the jobs to China and the American workers have to train their Chinese replacements..
This has got to stop.
“attack Iran”
Oh, great, another Middle-East war started by those damned neocons. Just what this nation needs after a decade of senseless war.
Wingnuts apparently won’t be happy until the entire world is in flames.
@64 From your link,
If only American workers would show some sense and offer to work for the pittance received by the Chinese and third world countries, they could have kept their jobs and not suffered the humiliation of training their Chinese replacements.
Bain/Romney have no desire to see life in the third world improve. What they want is to see the American worker’s will broken and for them to become willing to work for third world wages with no benefits whatsoever.
@ 60
I’m guessing Obama did the same stuff the Bush Admin did and the Clinton folks did before him.
I’m not sure that’s correct. I’m a little distrustful of the sourcing but here’s some info:
The U.S. maintains over 285 diplomatic facilities worldwide. MCESG provides 152 security detachments provide internal security at designated U.S. diplomatic and consular facilities in order to prevent the compromise of classified material vital to the national security of the United States. Perimeter security is the responsibility of the host nation police/security forces. The embassy in Tripoli and the consulate in Benghazi do not have a MCESG detachment. Typically, when a new embassy is established, it takes time to grow a new MCESG detachment. In coordination with the State Department, there was discussion about establishing a detachment in Tripoli sometime in the next five years. Overall, the plan is to grow the number of MCESG detachments worldwide to 173.
and
The Marine Corps does not establish ROE for MCESG detachments or other embassy security forces; that is the responsibility of the State Department and/or operational commanders depending on the command relationship.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-P.....i-in-Libya
The above italicized from a USMC response to questions asked by the source.
The way I interpret the above, there are Marines providing security at most but not all (152/285) of the diplomatic installations. State Department controls what goes where.
My interpretation is that if State Department wanted Marines guarding Libyan and other Middle East diplomatic installations on 9/11, they would have had them.
I also believe this is why State lawyered up @ 12. There is now enough time elapsed, and initial responses from USMC received, for people to wonder why State didn’t have more protection. Those questions might put the heat more on Hillary than on Obama.
@ 61
Romney will get security briefings beginning next week:
(CBS News) WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney does not currently receive national security briefings, his campaign confirmed to CBS News today.
Typically, presidential candidates begin receiving briefings after securing their party’s nomination, which Romney did in Tampa two weeks ago.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-50.....briefings/
@ 60
“A couple of the other people who died with him were ex-Navy Seals. It’s not like he was unprotected.”
Not quite.
One of the four Americans killed in this week’s attack has been identified as a former Navy SEAL, but he was in the region on a mission to track weapons, not to protect the consulate.
http://www.popularmechanics.co.....ck=pm_news
I’m sure we all recall Bob dissing his employees because they had the gall to take Labor Day off. He actually resented them for not working that day. I’m sure we all also recall how Eric Cantor used Labor Day, of all days, to celebrate America’s Galtian Lords and didn’t even mention America’s working class. Bob and Eric. Two American worker hating assholes.
In case anybody hasn’t noticed, not once has Bob or any other troll condemned the right-wing extremist who made the video, lied to the actors he hired, and then lied about being Jewish. How telling.
You can go to fucking hell, Bob.
@67 Sudan pulls the “just say no” routine on more Marines. Could it be we own the Embassy and they own the roads, and the airspace? I wonder what the blathering birthers over at Breitbart think about that?
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/po.....-security/
@ 70
Um, would it matter if I had? Would I have any cred if I condemned something I have not seen and have no interest in seeing?
I owe you nothing, Doctor Steve. There’s no need for me to put up a false indignation over something protected by the Fist Amendment, as was Bill Maher’s movie.
You express enough false indignation for the both of us, Doctor Steve. Carry on.
@ 70
Hey, Doctor Steve:
Check out Greg’s link @ 71.
Look at the last couple of lines:
Indications are that the attack on the consulate may have been an organized terrorist attack and not a result of any outrage motivated by the movie.
Do you still want me to express false indignation over a movie protected by the First Amendment which might not have had any influence on the attack, Doctor Steve?
Would that make you feel any better?
Would that take the heat off of Barack and Hillary?
Doctor Steve?
Oh, Doctor Steve, shouldn’t you be asking Jay Carney to blame the attacks on the movie?
TAPPER: The group around the Benghazi post was well-armed, it was a well-coordinated attack. Do you think it was a spontaneous protest against a movie?
CARNEY: Look, this is obviously under investigation, and I don’t have — but I answered the question.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/po.....-wh-91412/
Oh, Doctor Steve, do you think Carl Levin would agree that the pre-planned, coordinated terrorist attack on Benghazi was due to the movie, after the briefing he received (link @ 74)?
TAPPER: While we were sitting here, Secretary Panetta and the vice chair of the joint chiefs briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the senators came out and said their indication was that this — for the attack on Benghazi — was a terrorist attack organized and carried out by terrorists, that it was premeditated, a calculated act of terror. Levin said — Senator Levin, I think it was a planned premeditated attack, the kind of equipment that they had used. There is evidence it was a planned premeditated attack. Is there anything more you can — now that the administration is briefing senators on this, is there anything more you can tell us?
CARNEY: Right. Well, I think we wait to hear from administration officials. Again, it’s actively under investigation, both the Benghazi attack and incidents elsewhere, you know. And my point was that at — we don’t have and did not have concrete evidence to suggest that this was not in reaction to the film.
But we’re obviously investigating the matter, and, you know, I’ll certainly — you know, I’m sure both Department of Defense and the White House and other places will have more to say about that as more information becomes available.
-Jake Tapper
Doctor Steve, you can keep up the charade that Romney’s statement is the ‘disaster’. Good luck with that.
At the speed information is coming out about the cause of the attack, and where we did and did not have people in place ahead of time to provide protection (on the anniversary of 9/11!!!) for our diplomats in the Middle East, you won’t be successful in deflecting the questions. They’re good questions.
No wonder State @ 12 lawyered up. They’ve got ’12 and ’16 candidates for president to protect.
Oh, Doctor Steve, even the NYT acknowledges that the Romney statement distracted from where the REAL focus should have been:
The unrest has suddenly become Mr. Obama’s most serious foreign policy crisis of the election season, and analysts say it is calling into question central tenets of his Middle East policy. Did he do enough throughout the Arab Spring to help the transition to democracy from autocracy? Has he drawn a hard enough line against Islamic extremists? Did his administration fail to address security concerns? Has his outreach to the Muslim world yielded any lasting benefits?
These questions come at an inopportune time domestically as Mr. Obama enters the last stages of a campaign season with a measurable lead in polls. His policies escaped serious scrutiny in the initial days after the attack that killed four Americans in Libya last week, in part because of the furor over a statement by his opponent, Mitt Romney, accusing the president of sympathizing with the attackers. White House officials said they recognized that if not for Mr. Romney’s statement, they would have been the ones on the defensive.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09.....emityn.www
“Inopportune”, indeed.
@ 71
Sudan has rejected a US request to provide protection of its diplomats.
This gives Obama and Hillary two uncomfortable options:
1. Leave their people in Sudan, without the protection they obviously think is needed.
2. Pull diplomats from Sudan, which is an acknowledgment of a rapidly spreading Middle East crisis, the type of crisis Obama told us in 2007 we would avoid if we elected him.
This might only be the beginning. Here’s a map:
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201645180959880549419.0004c9a894dfb66defab9&msa=0&ll=26.273714,58.798828&spn=42.034439,53.613281
of all the Middle East protests. How many places will we decide we have to send Marines, and how many countries will diss Obama by telling him No Way, José?
Boob’s got the ODS. Must’ve caught it from puddypussypissypants.
Poor boob’s working’ overtime here.
Once upon a time this would get the ACLU all up in arms:
FEDS INVESTIGATE CHRISTIAN FILMMAKER
That’s the current headline at Drudge.
That’s Obama’s administration, ‘investigating’ someone on Free Speech grounds.
I actually am quite confident that the ACLU will continue to protect free speech. Credit to them for occasionally helping out the right, in the name of consistency as well as protection of our freedoms.
I cannot say I feel the same about this administration.
The “red line” and who feeds Iran? I what Netanyahu is going to say on our “Sunday Shows” about the BoA & JP Morgan investigation? Does he have similar investigations concerning money laundering with the enemy by Israeli banks?
http://www.newser.com/story/15.....ering.html
@80 The guy is meth manufacturer, bank fraud felon. Do you think the ACLU is going to fight to get him off parole? Perhaps you should start up a fund here for Coptic Christian crazy AKA Sam Bacile? You can start with puddy & rhett for contributions?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/.....probe.html
@ 82
I think the ACLU is pretty much unswervingly supportive of free speech rights, and the victim they represent is irrelevant if rights have been violated. It’s what they are. It’s what they do. I don’t agree with them much of the time but I admire them for their consistency and dedication to purpose.
Last time Lib da dunce… Puddy doesn’t live here. Sunny day, hang out in the sun. You stay here spewing your continuous stream of useless nonsense.
We were told torture is not in the play book anymore, so it is a non sequitor. Oh since you didn’t get the memo… Obummer and Fast and Furious Holder are not going after the CIA people anymore. So it must not have been torture or they didn’t want it to come out that the “enhanced techniques” led Obummer to Bin Laden.
Has to be one or the other, nothing else!
Now enhanced interrogation techniques – yeah baby, they must still be approved by the Obummer gang!
@83 The Coptic Church has a long history in the dope racket. Sam is just another con man on parole. Check out this video from 60 minutes about The Coptic Church and dope dealing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHIyjfXVWnc
Wait a minute… McCain is an idiot then McCain is a hero? Which is it Steve… Are you back on your Stupid Solution again? BTW if McCain is right how could Al Qaeda stage their multiple attack opearation? Hmmm…? A free and democratic state as McCain claimed Libya is would have had their soldiers protecting American interests. Apparently McCain is in stupid mode again. BTW Steve, you can ask HA’s arschloch ylbuttspigot for proof; Puddy didn’t jockstrap McCain in 2008 either.
And so does the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but muslim teachings say stay away from those things.
And your point is greg? Never mind there wasn’t one!
Serial Conservative…
Overseas newspapers and web sites said this attack was known at least by September 9th. Those reports came out last Wednesday night. This “furor” over Romney’s comments was ginned up by the slobbering libtard leftist msm. Now Romney has new ammo. When did they know and who knew it?
The lame-o’s here are just waking up to the fact Obummer has failed again!
First off Steve, Puddy hasn’t watched this video or trailer, looked into the video and trailer because Puddy doesn’t dwell on that crap. Puddy does care about how Obummer allowed 4 people to die while he was out campaigning and then while their bodies were going to entropy, he sleeps during the crisis and then flies to Vegas to fund raise.
@82 & 87 The freedom of speech and worship rights have limits. That is why death threats, and yelling fire in a crowded venue are prohibited. And bringing in 20 ton loads of dope is law violation.”AKA Coptic Sam” requested police protection.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.co.....-says.html
The wisdom of Dullard (R-Money):
“95 percent of life is set up for you if you are born in this country”
http://youtu.be/l2J61379sEs
Hint: he’s not talking about Sweden.
We happened to “we build that”??
“I owe you nothing, Doctor Steve.”
OK, so you support a hate-filled extremist right-wing Coptic Christian wack-job impersonating Jews and lying to employees while using them in an effort to ignite violence and chaos in the Middle-East. You would have people die to score a point for Romney and you don’t care who the fuck it is who dies, even if it’s Americans. Got it.
“Doctor Steve, you can keep up the charade that Romney’s statement is the ‘disaster’.”
Fuck you, you stupid piece of shit. I quoted Republicans and you damned well know it. If you have a fucking problem with it, take it up with them. If you have a problem with me, you can shove it up your ass as you’re a goddamned coward who would never do anything about it.
And, yes, your candidate is a fucking disaster. And you’re a fucking coward who actually crowed about the courage you displayed – for simply obeying the law and signing up for the fucking draft. You’re a real fucking piece of work.
Oh my ylbuttspigot… you claiming something “through” Daily Kooks now? It’s a known fact Obummer has been dissing Netanyahu for months now. Remember last November between Sarkozy and Obummer? Wait a minute… no databaze no memory… 24 hour libtard lemming loser moronic memory malady.
BTW where did Puddy say it was from Kooks ya moron? Try reading instead of leaving continual diarrhea stains ylbuttspigot!
93 – The words come from Haaretz stupid..
The Likud wants America to do Israel’s dirty work.
Bibi is using tools like you to carry his dirty water.
With Bibi pulling shit like this every chance he gets, I don’t blame Obama for not liking the guy.
But Obama gave Israel its small arms shield against Hamas anyway..
Nice try fool.
And when the first Iran developed nuclear weapon goes boom,, what will Steve say?
crickets will chirp loudly!
Three thousand Americans died because the last adminstration had it’s thumb up it’s ass. Your response? First, Tora Bora. Then you invade the wrong fucking country. Quit your pathetic and unpatriotic whining about this president and get on your fucking knees and apologize to this country and beg our forgiveness.
Obummer still hasn’t visited Israel, yet he’ll run to Cairo and tell them he’ll close Guantanamo and try them terraists in NYC!
puddy, Check out this inside story about Steve Klein and how hanging out with “AKA Sam Bacile” has impacted his family.
http://www.pe.com/local-news/t.....istory.ece
Puddybud sez:
First, I asked what you think, not what the Obama Administration has said. I find your evasions pitiful.
Second, I do not believe you understand the meaning of non sequitur, and clearly not its spelling.
“And when the first Iran developed nuclear weapon goes boom,, what will Steve say?”
I’d say that the last president was too busy to pay any attention to that problem at all because he was invading the wrong damned country, resulting in the deaths of thousands of our troops. I’d say that Romney has the same damned neocons who pulled off that disaster advising him now. I’d say Romney’s solution would probably be to invade Canada and to ship more jobs to China, even as he strives to eliminate all taxation on himself and other Global corporatists loyal to no country, especially not this one.
Ummm… those 3 thousand died because the previous administration to the last one didn’t track those terraists when their visas expired!
Your ARGUMENT is fallacious hence non sequitur! There is a full disconnection between your premise and the conclusion you are trying to proffer. El Presidente claims the US doesn’t torture. But enhanced interrogation techniques are A-OK because those CIA people are off da hook. So as Puddy wrote above in #84 which answered your question, butt you can’t read so try again!
“First off Steve, Puddy hasn’t watched this video or trailer, looked into the video and trailer because Puddy doesn’t dwell on that crap.”
Of course you didn’t. You’d have to pull your head out of your ass. You’d have to recognize that right-wing haters have attained what they sought – innocent people dying and the Middle-East in flames. And for what? For what, Puddy?
@ 92
Absence of condemnation does not equate to support, Doctor Steve. You know that.
Should we assume that Obama supports everything he does not explicitly condemn? No, I wouldn’t hold him to that idiotic standard.
And you’re being similarly idiotic.
@101
Really puddybud?
You find Clinton more culpable than Bush for 9/11?
Really?
HAHAHAHAHA! Remember Bush criminalized centrifuges to Iran. He succeeded there, and told Europe it’s in their back yard, quit appeasing Iran. So Bush implemented Operation Olympic Games. When Obummer appeared Europe turned a blind eye. You mean Operation Olympic Games which Obummer continued when he took over da whitey house? You mean you didn’t know about Operation Olympic Games Steve? And how many centrifuges did Iran have when Bush was president?
“Ummm… those 3 thousand died because the previous administration to the last one didn’t track those terraists when their visas expired!”
You have never once accepted responsibility for anything you fucked up. Ever. Not once. You delude yourself into thinking that the Republican record is one of absolute perfection. No, it is not. It is a record of one failure after another and not once have you accepted responsibility for anything you’ve screwed up. Instead you blame everybody but yourself. Failure, excuses and lies. That is your record.
@102
I didn’t ask about the Obama Administration, or the CIA.
I asked about YOU.
I asked YOU whether YOU thought that torture would be OK, if the perps were caught alive and there was the possibility that they had valuable secrets.
All this dancing around the Obama Administration is really unseemly and pathetic. And no, my question to you is completely independent of what the Obama Administration has done. Your juxtaposition of the two is meaningless, and your use of the term non sequitur is wrong.
So please, stop the charade, and just answer the question.
“You find Clinton more culpable than Bush for 9/11?”
Of course he does.
@104 “No, I wouldn’t hold him to that idiotic standard.”
That’ll get you kicked out of the GOP.
ASS up rectum disease… DUMMOCRAPT disease Steve. Warnings over 9/11 attacks ignored. Head up rectum disease. Why watch something Puddy never agreed with?
Gotta go Steve. Sunshine a wasting… be back lata!
@111 Don’t get smart or anything while you’re gone. We like you just as you are. You’re more fun that way.
puddy, It looks like “AKA Coptic Sam Bacile’s” number one propaganda man Steve Klein is feeling the heat. Now he is coming to the door waving a pistol wearing white ink stained shorts.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html
@104 You can go to hell, you fucking racist coward.
Just before leaving Puddy read Steve’s latest missive. What did Puddy
What did Puddy do? Golly Steve, Clinton didn’t track ’em!
Okay gone now!
@ 109
Don’t you think there’s plenty of blame to go around?
The Bush administration, certainly, at least if Clarke is to be believed. Sandy Berger, definitely. I wouldn’t call Jamie Gorelick directly complicit but clearly the ‘Gorelick wall’ interfered with communication between, um, if I recall correctly, federal agents in different organizations in Arizona and Minnesota that otherwise had a pretty decent shot of putting two and two together.
@16 Damn good question.
@ 114
Aw, Doctor Steve. Reverting to true form. The crap about Romney’s statement isn’t going to stick and you’re beginning to figure that out, aren’t you?
@67
It will all come out eventually, it always does. Between now and then it’s really best to not run around like a chicken with it’s head cut off, which is exactly what a high % of the right, yourself and Mitt Romney included, are doing right now. Failing the “level headed test” right before an election is generally a good thing for the other side.
I had an uncle that worked for the CIA. He started under Johnson and ended under Clinton and his job was pretty much the same the whole way though. For the most part, (Bush II was an exception to this) protocol’s change when they need to change, not when a new guy gets elected.
We know that the Libyan Ambassador died from smoke inhalation from fires started by RPG’s fired from outside the compound he was in. I kinda doubt that had there been a few Marines in the compound instead of a few ex-Navy Seals in the compound the results would be any different. Or that the results would have been different if there was a Republican in the White House. I seem to remember plenty of anti-American protests that took place while Republicans occupied the White House.
I have another uncle who’s an ex-Marine and actually did guard duty at embassies for a while*. From what I’ve heard from him there aren’t many Marines stationed at embassies and they aren’t very heavily armed. There’s not much they can do against a well planned attack or large groups of people.
Obviously, there was a screwup here and we need to get to the bottom of what happened and some changes need to be made, but nothing the right is currently doing is helpful in this.
@116 No, because after Jan. 20, 2001, we had a president who was deaf to warnings, making “what-ifs” before that date immaterial. The only thing that could have changed the outcome was different behavior by Bush and his advisers.
@119
The * is just a typo.
“Don’t you think there’s plenty of blame to go around?”
Of course there is. Why bother going there when Republicans do nothing but blame everybody else for their fuckups? No. You’d just go on claiming that your own shit smells like a rose.
@ 119
Obviously, there was a screwup here and we need to get to the bottom of what happened and some changes need to be made, but nothing the right is currently doing is helpful in this.
Well, since the State Department has stopped talking, probably at least until November 7th, and Jay Carney is referring people with questions to the State Department, if the right was being ‘helpful’ according to your apparent definition of the term, that would play very well into the hands of the Administration and its departments, which happen to be the ones not doing the talking right now, wouldn’t it?
Sorry, ‘Shut up, he explained.’ won’t fly on this one.
@95 You should go to Iran and take it away from them. If you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself.
“The crap about Romney’s statement isn’t going to stick and you’re beginning to figure that out, aren’t you?”
Dream on.
No, I’m calling you out as a fucking coward because that’s exactly what the fuck you are.
@95 puddy, If the Iran bomb goes boom who will get the blame? Do you think the Bankers at BoA and JP Morgan have anything to do with the game?
http://www.timesofisrael.com/u.....-for-iran/
@ 119, 121
Perhaps you might ask your uncle* if there’s a tendency to identify, in advance, dates* or events that might inflame local tensions, and whether the embassies and consulates do anything in the periods shortly before to shortly following those sensitive times* to make sure their people are protected to the greatest extent possible.
’cause protecting my staff on the *anniversary* *of* *9/11*, in a country whose citizens had shot their leader in the head little more than a year before would seem to be a fucking no-brainer to me, if I were making decisions regarding security and safety.
Of course, I’ve never worked in the public sector, so what the hell do I know.
http://www.mediaite.com/online.....eagan-did/
Since Colorado’s going to go blue in this presidential election and all (Michael), you would think Democrat House candidates would be willing to say the words ‘Barack Obama’ in public.
You would think.
http://www.redstate.com/2012/0.....ama-video/
Doctor Steve @ 125, I think this comes closer to the definition of coward.
@ 128
YLB, I agree that the did-or-did-not-visit-Israel is a trumped-up non-issue that bears no relevance to a candidate’s competence for office, nor a candidate’s leanings insofar as the Middle East is concerned.
It’s very similar to the tax-returns thing in terms of its irrelevance with the exception of political points-scoring.
What might be more relevant to Obama’s relationship with Israel is an outspoken NY Jewish Democrat politician warning listeners
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded
against voting for Obama.
“I do not trust the president of the United States with regard to the security of the state of Israel.”
Wow.
In which we begin to understand why RR is such a dumbfuck:
LATEST NEWS
Study: Sex Can Make You Smarter
September 14, 2012 10:59 AM
http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2012.....u-smarter/
@127 “I’ve never worked in the public sector, so what the hell do I know.”
Probably the most informed thing you’ve said today.
Nice try, wrong again, though. And you started that post so well…pity.
Cereal seems to have a problem with the fact Libyan rebels shot Ghadafi in the head. My only problem is it was too quick. I would have shot off his knees first, then his balls, then elbows …
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi.....ckpit4.png
@127
Considering that our ambassador was both well liked in Libya and an expert in the region, he probably thought he had a good read on what was going on in the area. No Staff Sergeant is going to outrank an ambassador. When an ambassador says lets go to place X that Marine is going to say OK.
It looks to me like the state department answered every question they could and then got back to work. It’s not their job to stand there 24/7 and answer every lunatic ranting that’s thrown their way. When they get more info it will come out.
Damn straight it will. It’s looking like Nevada, which I thought the Republicans were going to be able to flip is going to go blue as well. Romney’s fucked.
It’s really too bad that America’s gone from a strong 2 party system to a weak .5 party system that’s only interested in doing the bidding of the ultra-wealthy.
I seem to be getting blocked from posting a Golden Goat Award. It’s too bad.
I’ll see your Likud-friendly political hack and raise you one long-serving leader of Israel
http://www.politico.com/news/s.....79162.html
Wow. (rolls eyes)
Romney’s ‘3-2-1’ Strategy
3: Take back 3 traditional GOP states Obama won in ’08: IN, NC, VA.
Status: IN is Romney’s, NC is in play, and VA leans Obama. 1 out of 3 isn’t good enough; Romney must win NC (and probably will). He could make up VA by winning two addtional states in the “1” category.
2: Retake FL and OH.
Status: Obama leads both, and they’e enough for him, so Romney has to win at least one and it gets very hard without both. He could substitute MI for OH (or WI + CO for OH), but if he loses FL he’ll have to win every other tossup state.
1: If Romney pulls off 3 + 2 he needs 1 more ’08 Obama state: MI, WI, CO, NM, NV, IA, or NH.
Status: His best bet is IA, which is plausible. If he loses VA, as now looks likely, he also needs CO or WI plus another state.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/14/.....?hpt=hp_t3
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Romney’s most plausible path to victory requires him to keep his lead in North Carolina (which shouldn’t be difficult), turn things around in Florida and Ohio, and piece together another 17 electoral votes by winning Wisconsin and Colorado (or one of them plus Iowa and New Hampshire). It gets very much more difficult if he loses either Florida or Ohio, and he can’t lose both, because then he would need Michigan which looks out of reach.
Romney’s 3-2-1 strategy requires winning at least 6 states Obama carried in 2008. Obama is simply playing defense, although if he becomes competitive in Missouri, that would be a huge problem for Romney. Obama wins with Florida and Ohio, and can win without either, so those are Romney’s most crucial states. If Romney becomes competitive in Michigan, that’s a game-changer, but that’s unlikely.
If I were Obama, I’d count on Ohio, not count on Florida, and really work Virginia, Colorado, and Wisconsin.
If I were Romney, I’d pray for a miracle and plan a post-election vacation.
My dear fellow HA’ers, it’s been so long since a Goat has been awarded around here that you must be thinking that the members of the Goat Academy have passed on, deservedly, to the Great Hereafter. Why, none of our trolls have been so honored since the election season of 2010. There is something about election seasons which seems to get our trolls rabid, frothing, and grasping desperately for a Goat, and this election season is no exception. Such scrambling for recognition should not go unrecognized.
Well, I’ve got a real treat for you today, you rascally HA trolls—the Goat is back. Sure, members of the Goat Academy had their usual personal demons with which to wrestle that caused a failure to honor our trolls—gender reassignment surgeries, rehabs and time in county jails (yet again), hiding from INS agents because of lack of proof of citizenship and birth certificates, inability to travel due to no funds because of chronic unemployment, and the like. Nonetheless, this week, at long last, in tribute to the rising level of whacked-out wingnuttery occurring around here, a quorum of Academy members gathered at a local medical marijuana dispensary and we took care of business. I am proud—proud as a puffed-up peacock, in fact—to announce that we have a Troll of the Week Award (aka The Golden Goat) to give away.
Because of the time that has elapsed since the Goat was last given, it might be helpful to again set out the criteria which a number of HAers have identified in the past as instructive to picking a winner. Examples of such criteria include: abhorrence of logic; hyper-allergic reactions to facts; having no concept of causality (classic troll example: the economy is bad, Obama is president, so the state of the economy is Obama’s fault); interchangeably using both “socialist” and “fascist” to describe anything that Obama might do; flaunting self-righteousness and judgmentalism in quantities sufficient to float boats; conflating “this is what I believe” with “so this is what the Constitution and Christian doctrine demand”; having a frothy man-crush on Grover Norquist; thinking that Paul Ryan is an intellectual; possessing a Romneyan disregard for principle; treating rules of grammar, syntax, and punctuation like hostile forces; refusing to condemn anyone on the same side no matter how ridiculous or offensive the position espoused; and, simply, never adding anything of value to the discourse. Again, however, remember that while such criteria are helpful and lend some objectivity to the selection process, ultimately the determining factor is more intuitive—to paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of pornography, we know true trollness when we see it.
In the national arena, recent examples of trollness are so inspiring they drop me to my knees in simple wide-eyed awe: Todd Akins’ “legitimate rape” quote, Mitt Romney’s I don’t even know how we want to characterize his Egypt/Libya craziness, anything from Jon Koster here locally. Plainly, these folks set a high bar for our trolls.
With regard to our trolls here at HA, lads (we no longer have any lassie trolls given that all women have left the wingnut movement), you have not disappointed. Huzzahs and hurrahs to all of you. You have been so reliable in providing us with platters of partisan pap, with a bountiful buffet of bilious babble. We have been feasting on your foolery and fury, and we are ever so grateful. I lustily roll daily in the stink of your fetid, decomposing dead ideas. I am ever so grateful.
To the task at hand. Who gets to join the pantheon of proud past winners of the Goat? Surely, we can never forget the outstanding historical contributions to trollery that have come from our hallowed Hall of Famers like Puddy, Cynny, manofshit, and Troll. Though I’d like to award all of our contestants (and would love to yet again honor Puddy’s ceaseless and selfless contributions to trollery), everyone can’t get a ribbon. This ain’t no T-ball game. This competition is s gloves-off blood sport. Someone wins, someone loses. Only one troll gets honored today. Fortunately, the decision really wasn’t that hard—the sheer volume of his vapid posts, his unrelenting adherence to Limbaughian talking points, his deft ability to tack whichever way the wingnut wind is blowing on any given day, his inability to see the distinction between ideology and reality—this boy just stacked the deck. Ah, and then there are his narcissistic natterings that never end . . . Enough of this, you all know who I’m talking about.
And, the Goat goes to—
Poor Dullard (R-Money) supporter, billionaire and jawb kweatoh Harold Hamm (of Montana oil fracking fame)..
The taxes on the profits of Continental Resources have been just too damn high!
2.2 percent…
http://freakoutnation.com/2012.....damn-high/
Serial Conservative/Bob. Celebrate tonight, my friend. You are a winner. Kudos!
“Wow”.. Bob, this is the highest honor a troll can attain here in the threads.
Indeed, congrats..
@139 You left out the most important Goat qualification of all, to wit: Possessing the ability to blindly trust Mitt Romney to be as conservative as he claims he is. You can’t win the Goat if you can’t trust Romney, because then you’d be rational.
@143, 144 – Shit, I arrrived too late to vote. Cereal is worthy of an honorable mention, but Puddybutt is in a class of his own.
“Puddybutt is in a class of his own”
That’s why he has earned our highest honor, the Golden Goat Lifetime Achievement Award.
Congratulations, Bob. You earned it.
I’m sorry, Puddy, but you found yourself standing between me and the kind of person I don’t cotton to, the kind of person I will never tolerate. A damned racist.
My sincere apologies to you.
The Quack ‘Expert’ Behind Romney’s Welfare Ads
“In recent weeks, a Mitt Romney campaign ad has … claim[ed] Obama ‘gutted’ the [welfare work] requirement …. Media fact-checkers quickly debunked [it] …. Yet Romney stuck with the welfare attack on the stump, and Romney aide Ashley O’Connor said the ad was the campaign’s most potent of 2012.
“Romneyland didn’t whip up the bogus welfare attack on its own. It relied instead on the work of Robert Rector, a senior researcher at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington, DC. …
“Rector has made controversial and dubious claims on the issues of poverty and economics for decades. In 1995, for instance, he said to a Washington Post reporter: ‘Is poverty harmful for childhood? I think not.’ Julia Isaacs, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who studies childhood poverty, says there’s ‘considerable evidence’ indicating the opposite of what Rector claims. …
“Rector’s ideas about poverty, work, and wealth don’t sit all too well with experts in these fields. But they’re good enough, it seems, for Mitt Romney: The only source his welfare ad cites is the Heritage Foundation.”
http://www.motherjones.com/pol.....ert-rector
Oh the moronic lunacy of ylbuttspigot. There was never any doubt where GW Bush was in Israel support idiot!
Stooooooooooooooooooooooooopid!
Oh darn… proud leftist… My golden goat is lonely… And that special man-sauce y’all left in it spoiled. You didn’t leave the goat tap open for Puddy to “drain it”. There are floaters in it now!
HAHAHAHAHA!
It’s okay Steve. You I can live with. Others… pffffffffffffffft!
Why was there doubt about Obama? Was it the “D” next to his name? Ehud Barak has no problem with him..
Oh Obama is opposed to a war of choice with Iran! So are many Israelis!
What… the ultimate progressive act of everyone gets an award is gone? DAMN!
Puddydumbass’ lifetime “achievement”:
b cs -t puddymoron -c
+——-+
| count |
+——-+
| 35107 |
+——-+
1 row in set
Are U this stupid? From Obummer’s June 2009 Cairo speech direct from da whitey house!
Bush said outposts needed to go per Israel agreements not settlements… Bush said that in AMERICA not as Obummer did in a ARAB country!
Stooooooooooooooooooooooooopid!
Just 35000? Oh I am shooting to be the best ylbuttspigot.
I am in your head 24×7. PWNED!
It’s amazing how proud goatist can enumerate all the latest in HA libtard actions. How did he keep track?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Who claimed it was relevant for office competency? ylbuttspigot? What does ylbuttspigot know except cruising left wrong sites during weekdays when others are working hard?
He knows how to stalk others.
He knows how to live vicariously on other leftist posts.
He knows unemployment too.
He knows mooching too.
He knows lunacy too.
He knows stoooooooooooopidity too.
He knows how to be an idiot too.
He’s tied for the bestus HA leftist with rujax; two gutter dwellers!
Think about it ylbuttspigot… Puddy could be the best poster if Puddy acted like you… Stay at home cruising left wrong whack-a-mole sites all day… but Puddy works so Puddy comes home and visits HA and comments during nights and weekends.
MORON! PWNED! 24×7!
@143
Does a check come with that?
Damn straight… As illegal as the settlements in the Sinai and Gaza ever were.
We have closed our embassy in Sudan.
Someone @78 figured that would happen.
It’s so good to see the ylbuttspigot finally admit Puddy is right about Obummer attacking Israel in Cairo. Never before done by any president; left or right!
LMAO!!! RR is #1 at over 74k comments..
YOU’ll ALWAYS BE:
#2
Fits perfectly!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Nope you’re wrong.. As always..
Ehud Barak calls you an idiot as well.
SC @ 161
The Goat is worth far more than cash in wingnut circles. Just ask Puddy, who has received a Lifetime Achievement Award. Tonight, Puddy’s posts clearly display his envy about your honor.
Oh what did Obama say again Puddystupid?
mmmmm.. oh yeah..
in an ARAB country?? Do tell fool, do tell..
Yaawwwn.. Enough of Pidiot’s antics for tonight..
Movie time..
Survey USA has Obama up only one point over Romney in CO. Obama not doing nearly as well among Hispanics there as he does elsewhere. Anyone know why (I don’t)?
Golly proud goatist… Puddy took his to the Seattle Pawn shops and they laughed at it. One comment was “it’s not worth the “glass” it’s made from”. Something about the horns up it’s ASS. Puddy said well it was conceived by a leftist lawyer. The priceless answer: “Really? Well his heart was definitely in the design.” ROTFLRHMBBAO over that comment. Puddy almost dropped Puddy’s Golden Goaty! Oh well it sits in the bathroom on the ledge.
Now about Goaty envy? What? Puddy wanted a mate for it’s Goaty. Butt alas, they only come in males! Puddy wonders why? Oh yeah… ekim demanded male goats only and proud goatist acquiesced!
There’s a new Spongebob Squarepants out ylbuttspigot? That’s about your speed!
@143 Inasmuch as we awarded the Golden Goat to Cereal Bob tonight, I feel it’s appropriate to nominate one of his earlier posts this year for special mention, to wit:
* * * * *
28. Serial Conservative spews:
@ 25
The claim that Obama is levying a huge tax on the American public won’t be directed at you, RR. Your vote won’t change.
It will be directed at the undecideds, and the voters who usually skew right but went left in 2008.
You know that.
06/28/2012 at 7:29 am
* * * * *
Okay. Everyone remembers Obama’s huge tax on the middle class. Right? You do remember … you don’t remember. Not at all?
Maybe that’s because we’re hearing NOTHING about Obama’s huge tax on the middle class from the Romney camp in this campaign. You know, the claim that “will be directed at the undecideds” …
But, but, but … Bob PROMISED us … !!!
(crickets chirping)
Obummercare, SCOTUS, tax. Yeah? And your point is Roger SENILE Wabbit?
Hey, Puddy,
The Academy did want, yet again, to recognize and reward your enduring efforts to promote trollery here. Man, you work so hard to spread wingnut nonsense. But, you can’t win every time. Sometimes, we must recognize new talent. SC/Bob has really been pouring it on lately. I hope you don’t take your loss too personally. There’s always next week, Puddy!
It’s late U$C squad of minimum academically eligible got beat by the smart kids at Stanford and the Bruins are rolling to a shutout. Giants are a lock for the playoffs Could it get better? Why yes it can.
Despite silly amounts of Republican money spent in Ohio, Sherrod Brown is as close to a lock as you can get. Even Rasmussen admits it. Curious though. Brown has a 9 point lead per Rasmussen but Rasmussen clings to the Obama by 1%. Who are these Romney & Brown voters Rasmussen is finding or is there some other factor. Oh, it’s Rasmussen so of course they have the top ticket race tight but even their weighting can’t quite get to a Willard lead.
Mock laughter /snark.
Oh goatie, remember I make fun of your stupidity! Reread #171.
Good day!
Oh my let’s scrub the damning evidence…
This would be big time news for the slobbering libtard leftist msm if a Republican occupied da whitey house. Sad day for four US families.
First, Fox News breaks down how Obummer’s sadministration ignored warnings. Puddy was even faster last week surmising this was premeditated and the US knew about it beforehand. Lib da dunce ridiculed me over that post last week. Now CNN tells us more. Seems America is waking up to the feckless foreign policies of this sadministration.
Seems Lib da dunce is a stoooooooooooooopid as ever. Puddy been telling you HA leftists to stop drinking the Daily Kooks man-juice. Puddy is prescient again!
Stay stoooooooooooopid HA liftists. The Friday Night Comics don’t tell you jack butt you continue to read and drink at the fountain!
Holy mackeral, Puddy!!!
You know, it’s almost comical when a rightie bitches and moans and whines about how the librul media isn’t covering a story.
He Piddles, weren’t you one of the ones talking about the Yahoo news reporter fired during the RNC for making negative remarks about Willard. Then you link to a Yahoo news story to say the librul media isn’t covering something. Ohhh, the stupid….it burns!
Good to see you here this morning, puddybud.
Now, fresh after a good night’s sleep, ready for a new day, would you please answer my question about YOUR view on handling terrorists…
If any of the perps of the embassy attacks in Libya were captured alive, would YOU be OK if our forces, or anybody else, for that matter, tortured them to gain information that might be valuable to the US?
And again, what I’m asking has nothing to do with the Obama administration, or the Bush administration – I’m asking about your views.
It’s so good to see I am in Lib da dunce’s head. I already told you my answer. Can’t you read? I actually answered it twice. TWICE!
What is wrong with Lib da dunce?
checksez, there is a difference when it’s in certain newspapers and when it’s the lead story on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. Puddy realizes these simple things confuse your simple mind. Again, if this was a Republican administration, the LEAD story would be these killings/murders!
So sad and so stooooooooooooooooopid!
What? No shoes to throw?
Afghans burn Obama effigy at film demo
(AFP) – 2 days ago
KABUL — Hundreds of Afghan protesters took to the streets on Friday, setting fire to an effigy of US President Barack Obama and demanding the death of a film-maker who they say insulted the Prophet Mohammed.
http://www.google.com/hostedne.....MLRjHONNVg
Remember all those platitudes about how electing someone who grew up with exposure to Islam would smooth our path in the Middle East?
Back when it was considered inappropriate to look at a candidate’s religious background and how his beliefs and his teachers might affect his mindset?
@ 184
One of life’s simplest accomplishments is to get into Lib Despair’s head.
It’s what happens when a child is toilet-trained at gunpoint.
Well, you didn’t, and your slippery spinning was quite the sight for all to see.
Hiding behind Obama – who’d have thought you’d do that?
You’ve never said what you thought, which was the question all along…your fans are waiting…
@186 Kornflake Konservative
“Remember all those platitudes about how electing someone who grew up with exposure to Islam would smooth our path in the Middle East?”
Nope.
Cute…but sadly, no.
I’m really enjoying making you dance, though.
@ 189
Let me help you out, then.
Here’s a nice fawning article that began with that concept:
As a child, Obama crossed a cultural divide in Indonesia
March 15, 2007|Paul Watson | Times Staff Writer
JAKARTA, INDONESIA — As a boy in Indonesia, Barack Obama crisscrossed the religious divide. At the local primary school, he prayed in thanks to a Catholic saint. In the neighborhood mosque, he bowed to Allah.
Having a personal background in both Christianity and Islam might seem useful for an aspiring U.S. president in an age when Islamic nations and radical groups are key national security and foreign policy issues.
http://articles.latimes.com/20.....na-obama15
It’s Lib da dunce dancing… He keeps whining about Puddy didn’t do this Puddy didn’t do dat. Dude, Puddy is in your head BIG TIME. If you can’t figger it out, Puddy ain’t gonna put it on a golden platter for you.
More rats leaving the sinking Gekko/Galt ship
Republican lawmakers say Romney campaign needs to change course
@ 189
This was what I was looking for. Straight out of the mouth of the candidate himself:
Then: Caller Question: “Can you tell me a little bit more about your background and your experience, and how it will help to repair our negative image in the world?”
Then: Barack Obama, November 21, 2007: “Well, I truly believe that the day I’m inaugurated, not only does the country look at itself differently but the world looks at America differently. If I’m reaching out to the Muslim world they understand that I’ve lived in a Muslim country and I may be a Christian but I also understand their point of view…
http://www.breitbart.com/Breit.....-Will-Ease
Now, do you remember, MBS? This Middle East shit was supposed to stop when we elected The One. Oceans were not going to rise further, either.
Tall order. Hopenchange, baby. And all by electing a guy with virtually no experience.
Maybe for his next promise he’ll turn water into wine.
@192
No, puddybud, I’m just asking you to clarify what seems a huge contradiction, a hypocrisy, regarding Jesus’ teachings of peace and love, and Republican blood lust – and you won’t answer, which is telling.
I’m just pressing the question that you seem incapable of, or afraid of, answering – going to length of hiding behind Obama policy to try to evade the question.
Rather pathetic, and like I said, telling.
@191 Kornflake Konservative,
Nope. I don’t remember that article.
As it was written a month after Barack Hussein Obama announced his candidacy in February 2007, was it ever an issue in the campaign?
You gotta October 2008 citation?
Or was this obscure article the only thing you could find to fit your premise?
Never mind. We already know.
I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered anyone quite as full of shit as you, goatboy.
Spin, spin, spin – keep it up, it’s rather like what your boy Willard is doing around the drain right now…
All Cereal is left with is the pummeling of straw men…the only things they’ll let him play with at the wingnut mothership, after all…for fear he’ll fuck up something important.
Sad.
@194 Kornhole Konservative,
You keep flailing. You’re an idiot.
White House desperately spinning Benghazi, all mounting evidence to the contrary:
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, maintained on Sunday that the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was not planned by terrorist groups. She said the attack spun out of protests, which were sparked by an anti-Islamic video produced in the U.S.
http://www.nationaljournal.com.....1;20120916
Just your average protest. With RPGs handled by people who know how to use them. Nothing to see here. Move along now.
You know this is a serious crisis when Team Obama tries to convince you otherwise.
Meanwhile, the news is emerging that Benghazi was a Big Fucking Deal to someone on the other side, and the video had nothing to do with it:
In an interview for “Face the Nation” Sunday, President Mohamed Magariaf also said that evidence “leaves us with no doubt” that the attack was pre-planned.
“It was planned, definitely, it was planned by foreigners, by people who entered the country a few months ago, and they were planning this criminal act since their arrival,” he told Bob Schieffer.
Memo to the HA ostriches:
Al Queda killed four Americans on US soil, on the anniversary of 9/11.
Verstehen?
re 202 — More Americans were killed by defective auto parts.
Test post – having trouble posting…
Hey piddles, as of this moment irs the lead story on CNN.com. I could have linked to all 2700+ news outlets that Google says is covering this but I chose a few at random, one of them was CNN oh master of the internet.
Try again?
The only thing better than you using thr lazy ‘liberal media’ trope is your doubling down claiming that CNN didn’t do EXACTLY what they did.
And stupid has no ‘o’ in it and certainly not 17 if them.
Liz Cheney, daughter of DICK Cheney, finds a criticism of the Obama administration that is factual! Take THAT Obama! Liz Cheney, whose sole credential is being the union of sperm and egg, daughter of war criminal and friend shooter in the face NAILED Obama!
Liz told us today that Obama “abandoned” Czechoslovakia.
Now, I know what the liberals are going to say. ‘Czechoslovakia ceased to exist in 1993, nearly 20 years ago.‘, but that does not take away Liz’s truth. Has Obama just once called for the reformation of Czechoslovakia? NO! What next? Will Obama abandon Atlantis?
Republicans, stoopidly following stoopid leaders.
Pssst trolls… The stimulus worked pretty good..
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09......html?_r=2
4 more years indeed.. If only the stimulus had been bigger, this website would have been troll free all this year.
@206
on MTP, David ‘fluff’ Gregory has just introduced Jeffery Goldberg, Andrea Mitchell, Bob Woodward, Peter King and Keith Ellison to discuss foreign policy, using a quote from the Liz Cheney to start the ball rolling.
Aside from Ellison, it’s a fucking clown car. God help us. I’m hearing Peter King saying that Obama is always apologizing for America…
Earlier on the show, Gregory called Netanyahu the “Leader of the Jews”. Ugh.
@ 206
Liz Cheney, whose sole credential is being the union of sperm and egg,
What was Hillary Clinton’s credential to become US Senator, other than being unwilling to swallow Bill often enough to keep him happy?
And yet half the Democrat Party wanted her to be president.
I could similarly ask about every politician named Kennedy who followed John F., why they were worthy of the office to which they were elected, and whether they would have been elected had their name not been Kennedy.
@ 207
The majority of economists agree that it helped the economy grow by as much as 3.8 percent, and kept the unemployment rate from reaching 12 percent..
Were any of those the same economists who once thought that it would keep the economy from reaching 8% unemployment?
You do understand that a revision from a wildly incorrect assumption does not lend credibility to the arguments, don’t you, YLB? Why not just say it kept unemployment from reaching, say, 25%? And there’s always that ‘created or saved’ figure, when it’s now apparent that the job creation was woefully short of projections.
It’s popular to match Obama’s tenure in office with the rise of the stock market. My recollection is the bottom occurred March 9, 2009, and the rise is history. It’s coincided with his presidency, that’s true.
What’s not talked about much, though, is how far the value of the dollar has fallen since that period (due to Fed actions pumping money into the system), and what that effect has been upon gold-demonimated valuation of the stock market.
To whit:
The finagling of inflation measures by federal bureaucrats tries to obscure the declining value of the dollar apparent to real people. But they can’t fool the market for the single monetary asset that can’t be readily manipulated, gold.
What’s apparent is that the Fed and other central banks have succeeded in boosting the price of gold even more than the price of stocks. Since Oct. 30, 2009, the S&P 500 SPDR ETF is up 46.7%. Over the same span, the SPDR Gold Trust ETF is up 63.8%.
Viewed another way, a share of SPY would have been worth .9598 shares of GLD on Oct. 30, 2009. As of Wednesday’s close, a share of SPY was worth .8598 shares of GLD. Thus, in terms of real money — gold — the S&P SPDR is down 10.4% since that date.
http://online.barrons.com/arti.....=djembdr_h
Whew!
And I thought we weren’t on the gold standard anymore…
…silly me.
Add @ 212…
…the cornflake klownservative is really reaching.
Apparently the same agency that helps the State Department staff its Libyan security forces also helps the NFL find replacement referees.
ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reports that the NFL has pulled side judge Brian Stropolo from the Saints-Panthers game, because he is a rabid Saints fan.
http://profootballtalk.nbcspor.....e/related/
@ 212, 213
Let me help you understand, Rujax.
Gold is a commodity. Oil, and its end-product gasoline, is a commodity.
Relative to the value of a dollar based on the relationship between a dollar’s value and that of gold, a gallon of gas is 40 cents more expensive now than three years ago, because of the Fed’s decisions to print more dollars over that period of time.
It’s a large part of why gas is twice as expensive as it was when Obama took office.
Similarly, it’s a large part of why oranges, pork chops, and raisin bran cereal are far more expensive now than they were three years ago.
Prices are supposed to fall in a recession, Rujax. Has that happened?
LOL! The price of gold is a measure of people’s fear.. Only people who can afford to buy gold are people who already pretty well off and just want some other asset that’s performing better than stocks, bonds.. If baseball cards were doing better than silver they’d be doing that.
Right winger Charlie Munger (Warren Buffet’s partner) says it pretty well about gold:
@ 216
The price of gold is a measure of people’s fear.
OK. I guess people are a whole lot more scared now than they were four years ago, and when gold spiked about a year ago. I wonder if that has anything to do with how much better off they are now than they were in 2008. After all, gold didn’t spike in 2008 or in early 2009, when things were at their worst.
What do you think, YLB?
Wow. And sticking money in a mattress because tomorrow it might buy more apples (or for some, gold) is a behavior we want to encourage when employment is a problem.
That’s called deflation and we saw it in spades in the 1930’s. So much so, farmers plowed their crops under or slaughtered their animals and burnt them rather than doing something rational.
More cowbell, “bob”.
YLB, you know I can’t use the word ‘spades’. Doctor Steve might be around and you know what kind of response that would elicit from him.
By the first weekend in November anything other than a simple a, e, i, o, or u will be racist language according to the Doctor Steves and Chris Matthews’ of the world.
“bob” is like the Cowboys…
..20 points down with a minute left in the 4th Quarter.
Nope some people are simply more afraid they’re not making enough from other assets so they’re just doing what others are doing..
In the late nineties they bought dot coms and Lucent Technologies and drove them up to idiot levels. Today they buy precious metals.
And this idiot crowd behavior in the markets is Obama’s fault how?
Not to describe a person of african descent no.. I wouldn’t recommend that.
@ 222
“And this idiot crowd behavior in the markets is Obama’s fault how?”
First, I don’t see it as idiotic. I see it as a natural response to global uncertainty – a flight to a known investment entity that will always be in great demand.
I would blame those who choose to deficit-spend and those who choose to fund it by flooding the market with newly printed money. That list extends beyond Obama, Bernanke, and Reid. Republicans go along with it rather than choosing to shut down the government, which is the alternative.
People put their money into gold because they don’t believe the stock market valuations are sustainable absent a major improvment in the underlying fundamentals, and because they have little other choice in their investment options. They can hold cash but holding cash has already resulted in the easy money being made. Much harder to make easy money nowadays. Unless you’re Roger Rabbit, who never loses and who always makes his money off of dumb Rethuglicans.
They can hold bonds but bonds offer very little return and will be pounded once rates begin to rise.
So they hold commodities. It raises the price of oil, gas futures, gold and other precious metals, soybeans, corn, and beef/pork. When those commodities become more expensive to procure because prices have been bid up, it makes food more expensive.
What to do about this problem? Print less new money. Either spend less or tax more.
Taxes haven’t gone up, won’t go up, and we’re spending wildly. The spending has not been wise. So we’ve made commodities cost more and we have little to show for it.
We can either raise taxes (good luck with that), spend less, spend but do it more wisely so that we have a net benefit this time around, or continue down the merry path to the life that is Greece.
@224..
…got that cowbell, yet?
@ 225
Rujax, I stopped considering you in the conversation as soon as I realized you wouldn’t understand that oranges are a commodity.
Go watch another rerun of Sesame Street.
Who chooses to deficit spend Bob???
According to this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....-deficits/
Half of public debt is because of tax cuts and wars.. Whose policies are those?
Who chooses to fund it? If you’re referring to the federal reserve maybe you should read Scott Sumner who blames the recession on the Fed and the lack of a decent recovery on bad fed policy..
http://www.themoneyillusion.co.....38;paged=6
Sumner has been credited in part with the change in recent fed policy.
“bob” reminds me of Don Rumsfeld…right twice a day for one second.
Add @228…
How serious is “bob”, the “klownflake clownservative”?
Wrong about the auto “bailout”, continually touting failed economic policies and trying to support the failed policies he promotes by quoting propagandists for the policies of the past that are failing…and/or have failed.
Let’s elect Raw-Money…then we will be like Greece.
Like I said “bob”, “more cowbell”.
@224
I’d say we need to do all three but as you’ve, probably correctly, pointed out taxes probably aren’t going to go up.
But, all in all, a reasonable post.
@211 “My recollection is the bottom occurred March 9, 2009, and the rise is history.”
You’re half right. The stock market bottomed in March 2009. But it’s still going up.
@211 “What’s not talked about much, though, is how far the value of the dollar has fallen since that period (due to Fed actions pumping money into the system)”
Oh c’mon, you don’t want to pay back all that national debt with expensive dollars, do you?
@215 “Relative to the value of a dollar based on the relationship between a dollar’s value and that of gold, a gallon of gas is 40 cents more expensive now than three years ago, because of the Fed’s decisions to print more dollars over that period of time.”
Which would be noticed only by people who pay for gas with gold bars.
“It’s a large part of why gas is twice as expensive as it was when Obama took office.”
Umm, no. It’s a tiny part of why, if any at all. Gas was cheap when Obama took office because we were in a DEPRESSION and a lot of people were UNEMPLOYED and not commuting and fewer people were FLYING and there were fewer TRUCKS AND SHIPS consuming fuel because people weren’t buying the stuff they haul and so on. In other words, prices collapsed when the “demand” side of the supply-and-demand equation collapsed.
Obama should actually get praise for higher gas prices, because the higher gas prices are due to the economy doing better.
@217 The price of gold, like everything else, is subject to the law of supply and demand. In a world of expanding human populations and economies and relatively fixed gold supply, demand for gold naturally will rise faster than gold supply increases, so other things being equal, gold prices will trend up over time.
@224 “I see it as a natural response to global uncertainty”
When has there not been global uncertainty? In the investment world, uncertainty is a constant, which merely fluctuates up and down a little from day to day.
@224 “Republicans go along with it”
They do a hell of a lot more than that, Bob. The Bush-era Republicans were such profligate deficit-spenders the term “borrow-and-spend Republicans” was coined (pun intentional) to describe them.
@224 “They can hold cash but holding cash has already resulted in the easy money being made. Much harder to make easy money nowadays. Unless you’re Roger Rabbit, who never loses and who always makes his money off of dumb Rethuglicans.”
Huh? Who has made money from holding cash in the last five years? Besides the banks who charge negative interest (i.e., they charge you to hold your cash)?
It’s never easy to make “easy money,” but it’s no harder now than it usually is.
“Roger Rabbit, who never loses”
That’s not true. I get duds like everyone else. The trick is to win more than you lose. It’s not hard, nor is the technique a mystery. You buy when the market is down and sell when the market is up. Rinse and repeat.
And, while it’s true you don’t make money by holding cash, you can’t buy stocks without cash, so you’ve got to take cash out of the market when the market is up and then sit on the cash until the market is down. It’s the stocks, not cash, that make money but you need cash to make money from stocks.
One more thing about holding cash: Nobody ever lost money on a stock they didn’t buy. You’ve gotta be selective.
My investment results for the last 10 years are as follows:
2003: +4.5%
2004: +36.4%
2005: +4.5%
2006: +10.1%
2007: +21.6%
2008: -44.8%
2009: +73.8%
2010: +20.5%
2011: +1.9%
2012: +14% (to date, annualized)
@224 “They can hold bonds but bonds offer very little return and will be pounded once rates begin to rise.”
True, but it will be years before rates rise.
“So they hold commodities. It raises the price of oil, gas futures, gold and other precious metals, soybeans, corn, and beef/pork. When those commodities become more expensive to procure because prices have been bid up, it makes food more expensive.”
Food prices aren’t go up because people are using corn or pork as money. Food prices have gone up because 40% of our corn is used to make ethanol that’s burned in cars, and what’s left is used to feed livestock, so when livestock feed goes up because we’re burning corn ethanol in cars, meat prices go up.
Next year, food prices will go up some more because drought and hot weather reduced this year’s corn crop. And if it keeps getting hotter and drier because of global warming, there will be less and less grain and food to feed more and more people will keep getting more and more expensive until the high cost of food results in negative human population growth.
“What to do about this problem? Print less new money. Either spend less or tax more. Taxes haven’t gone up, won’t go up, and we’re spending wildly. The spending has not been wise. So we’ve made commodities cost more and we have little to show for it. We can either raise taxes (good luck with that), spend less, spend but do it more wisely so that we have a net benefit this time around, or continue down the merry path to the life that is Greece.”
This is a nice little screed. It’s also a pack of bullshit. Republicans slashed taxes on the rich to the lowest levels in 60 years, while increasing defense spending by 80% in 8 years, then claimed we can’t afford middle class entitlements because we’re running deficits.
We’re not spending wildly. The Bush Republicans spent wildly, but Republicans aren’t in power anymore, so their spending binge is over. The federal budget grew 3 times as fast under Bush as it did under Clinton. Federal employment is shrinking, not growing, under Obama. Romney says he wants to increase defense spending and cut taxes for the rich and corporations. That sounds like a formula for more wild Republican deficits to me.
Republicans will come up with any bullshit excuse they can think of to take away what little the middle class still has left. If they can’t find an excuse, they’ll manufacture one.
Yes, I’m all for spending more wisely. Instead of throwing away our wealth on warplanes that cost a billion dollars each, and spending trillions on unnecessary foreign military adventures, let’s spend it on things that help our economy grow and help Americans live better lives. Let’s spend it on infrastructure, research, education, and health care.
Want to know why Greece is broke? It’s not because of spending. Greece is broke because nobody — especially the rich — pays taxes. Greece lacks an effective tax collection system and is afflicted with massive tax evasion, and nobody pays less Greek taxes than Greece’s upper class. Those people thumb their noses at the tax collector and get away with it. If you want America to go broke, then let our rich do the same thing.
Should we raise taxes on our rich? Of course we should. That’s a no-brainer. They’re paying less taxes now than at any time since World War 2. They’ve received most of the tax cuts. We’re running massive deficits because of those tax cuts. And the tax cuts haven’t produced jobs. Anyone with half a brain can see the rich should pay more taxes.
Whose fault is it that we’re running massive deficits? Obama offered the Republicans $10 of spending cuts for every $1 of revenues. They said nyet. Personally, I think we should throw people like that off the cliff. I say let taxes go up and defense cuts take effect on Jan. 1. You’ll instantly see a huge drop in the deficits. That’s what Republicans want, isn’t it? So let’s give it to them. We’ll all be better off. We may have to pay a bit more taxes ourselves, but it’s for a good cause.
Everybody on Wall Street is whining about how the tax rate on dividends will jump to 35% on Jan. 1 if we go over the cliff. Maybe they have that problem, but I don’t. Half of my investments are in IRAs, so the taxes on my IRA stocks won’t go up at all — they’ll stay at zero. The tax rate on my taxable investment income will jump from 10% to 15%. BFD. I can pay, and I will pay it, I can live with paying an extra 5% on my dividend income. Anyone who will have to pay 35% on their dividend income is a hell of a lot more comfortable than I am, so I figure they can afford it, too. Those free riders have had it too good for too long and they want us to pay for their continued free ride by slashing our Medicare and Social Security benefits? No thanks, I won’t vote for that.
Re billion-dollar warplanes: I own stock in Boeing and Lockheed, just in case Romney wins.
@227 Back in 2007, after the financial crisis hit, everyone from giant corporations to little old grannies hoarded cash. This hoarding sucked over $3 trillion out of circulation. The economy began to collapse like a balloon losing its air. The Federal Reserve responded by creating over a trillion dollars of “new” money and pumping it into the banking system. This prevented a bank collapse and a deflationary “death spiral,” saving us from another Great Depression. That was QE1.
QE2 did something entirely different. It helped recapitalize the banks, and inflated stock prices, but almost none of it trickled down to small businesses needing credit or individual consumers. Basically that money never left Manhattan. Maybe rebuilding banks’ balance sheets and reinflating the value of stock portfolios were necessary intermediate steps, but because Main Street didn’t see any of the QE2 money, the average citizen thinks QE2 was a crock.
The intent behind QE3 is to get consumers to borrow and spend. That’s a hokey idea, given that consumers need to delever, not releverage. And I’m skeptical it will have that effect. I’m not going to go out tomorrow and borrow money just because more money is available for borrowing. I’m not going to borrow because I don’t want to be in debt and already have everything I need. Other people won’t borrow to buy a house because they can’t sell the house they have because they’re underwater on it. I don’t expect this QE to juice stocks very much, because stock values are driven by earnings, and if higher consumer spending doesn’t materialize, there won’t be higher earnings to drive up stock prices. But it will drive dollar-denominated commodity prices higher simply because dollars will be worth less, and if QE3 succeeds in boosting economic activity the higher demand will be another force driving commodity prices higher, so you’ll get a double-whammy price increase that will be passed through to consumers if QE3 is successful. And that will counteract whatever boosting effects QE3 had because higher prices for food and fuel will squeeze consumer discretionary spending.
Basically, Bernanke is trading a certainty of higher inflation for a hope of higher growth and lower unemployment that may not materialize. Coming on top of the Fed’s zero-interest rate policy, this is a horrible policy for savers and retirees on fixed incomes. There’s a ton of moral hazard here, too, because these policies punish the prudent and thrifty who saved their money and reward the profligate borrowers who lived high on debt. And there’s really an issue of whether the Fed’s interference with markets is helping or hurting the broader economy at this point. The situation may be akin to a medicine that provides partial relief of cold symptoms but prolongs the cold. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suddenly turning into a libertarian and I’m certainly not a gold bug. But the thesis behind the Fed’s sensible initial policy was the QE1 money would be withdrawn from circulation once the hoarded money came out of the mattresses and back into circulation. So it seems to me Bernanke should be easing up on the money-printing instead of accelerating it. We’ll find out in a few months whether he made a mistake. I could be wrong, but QE3 makes me nervous.
@230 “I’d say we need to do all three”
I’m with you.
#224 started out as a reasonable post, but it fell apart when he got on a soapbox and launched into wingnut polemics.
RR: #224 started out as a reasonable post
No, it didn’t. The premise of the entire discussion was Con’s statement @ 215:
Prices are supposed to fall in a recession
The recession ended three years ago. Making lame inferences about commodity prices under the assumption that we’re in a recession is a really great way to screw yourself into the ground, which is what Bob just did to himself.