– The Stranger’s primary endorsements.
– The Joe Paterno statue has to go.
– McKenna’s Aide resigns over those godawful tweets.
– Only 53% of people think Romney’s policies favor the wealthy?
– It’s over a year later and having my abortion was the best thing I did.
– Tomorrow is a good day to volunteer at parks in Seattle.
McKenna’s (former) aide is 22. She may have been 21 when she posted the offensive tweets.
I have two thoughts:
1. What is a 22 year-old doing in a PR position, in ANY gubernatorial campaign?
2. It’s not like it’s tough to check FB, Myspace, Twitter, and other social media prior to hiring someone, especially for PR. Was this not done with her?
Own-goal for the McKenna team. Amateurish.
She’s the daughter of Larry Ehl, lobbyist and former chief-of-staff to Slade Gorton. That’s why.
Bobbie Mac, hiring the best and brightest lights of the Republican Party, entitled little bigots from day one.
Just saw from this comment:
http://horsesass.org/?p=44782#comment-1167218
that my first question in @ 1 has already been answered.
I don’t think it was any smarter when McCain let his daughter loose to blog during his campaign. To the extent that people like Meghan McCain and Chelsea Clinton might be permitted shape American thought, because they’re children of famous people, we’re poorer as a nation.
@ 2
Thanks, my comment got hung up for about 15 minutes. While you’re on the subject of entitled little bigots and tweets, don’t forget that it happens on both sides:
http://www.miamiherald.com/201.....ebbie.html
It’s just that Dems tend to explain it away, or try to, anyway.
VA isn’t blue. Not this year.
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/inst.....aseID=1778
Republican challenger Mitt Romney wipes out President Barack Obama’s lead in Virginia and the two candidates are deadlocked 44 – 44 percent in the race for the Old Dominion’s 13 electoral votes, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
This compares to a 50 – 42 percent lead for President Obama in a March 20 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University and a 47 – 42 percent Obama lead June 7.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a trend line in the VA polls over, say, the past four months. Maybe we’re just approaching parity, but I suspect that trend line will continue. It’s all tea leaves, but that PPP poll from earlier in the month is looking like quite the outlier at this point.
@ 4
Right, because something someone said 6 years ago is just as currently relevant as something someone said 6 months ago.
Rasmussen has Obama up +1 in VA, with a small sample (LV) and a pretty big MOE:
http://www.rasmussenreports.co....._president
I should point out that both Quinnipiac and Rasmussen polls were obtained when Romney supposedly was staggering to manage the Bain attacks, and right after Obama (again) proposed raising taxes on the wealthy, which a healthy majority of Virginians support.
So, if Obama is only even with Romney after all of that, where’s he going to be after a couple more months of sub-par economic news?
“Romney’s rich.” isn’t exactly a four-month winning campaign strategy. Of course, neither is Obama running on his record. Tough call, that.
@ 6
Something said by kids, months before they were associated with campaigns, shouldn’t be relevant, period.
Kids shouldn’t be doing much more in a campaign than painting signs and bringing coffee, anyway.
@4
Nice bit of counter-oppo.
Is the Miami Herald on your morning reading list, along with the Sacramento Bee and the Indianapolis Star, and the corn futures? Or do you have someone feeding you this stuff?
Moreover, your counterexample is not perfectly congruent, as the DWS aide was a Jew ragging on other Jews, while the Ehl woman was a privileged white woman griping about Asians and old people – qualitatively different.
Nice try, though, and fast on the link.
@7
Reverting to form:
“OH NOES!!! OBAMA IS **DOOMED** !!1!11!!!!”
You need new schtick. It was nice while you were lying low.
Au contraire – “Where’s the cash?” is the new “Where’s the beef?”
@ 9
It’s kind of silly that we’re even spending any time talking about what 20-22 year old kids said on Twitter/FB, isn’t it?
@ 11
You run with ‘Where’s the cash?’.
My side will go with ‘You didn’t build that.’
See here:
And here, and here, and here.
And here – good one!
You go with that, big guy.
Why can’t Republicans tell the truth? Is it genetic?
Translation: UNCLE!! Let’s, um, talk about ‘You didn’t build that!’ Yeah, let’s talk about that!!”
@ 14, 15
Recall McCain’s “Make it a hundred.”
Recall Romney’s “I like firing people…”
This is just your turn.
Lib Sci, you can run a 30 second or 60 second clip of what he said, unedited, and it doesn’t matter.
You’re viewing it as a liberal, employed individual.
You need to look at it as how it will be/has been perceived by the nation’s 3 million business owners.
What’s golden about what Obama said to those of us who oppose him is that no editing is really necessary. It’s what he thinks. It’s who he is.
And it’s instructive, particularly to people who have not up until now been paying attention.
@ 12
It’s kind of silly that we’re even spending any time talking about what 20-22 year old kids said on Twitter/FB, isn’t it?
1) My 12 year old daughter is a kid. My 20 year old daughter is an adult. Neither of them would even entertain posting tweets like these, which does reflect on their upbringing and the kinds of behaviors they’ve learned form their parents.
2) It’s not any more silly than discussing the efficacy of a political TV ad that we both know is fundamentally dishonest. The amusing thing is, Gov. Romney, after lambasting Pres. Obama for a particular turn of phrase in a single sentence taken out of context, fully endorsed Pres. Obama’s point.
@18
Gov. Romney, after lambasting Pres. Obama for a particular turn of phrase in a single sentence taken out of context, fully endorsed Pres. Obama’s point.
Please go on/provide detail.
But Beck & Limbaugh doing it makes us a great country?
You think a Jewish girl telling jokes about Jews is bigoted?
You think perhaps she is an antisemitic Jew? Very interesting.
Not nearly as silly as the birfurs looking for Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate.
Or the loons describing Obama as a Commie Socialist Muslim Atheist radical Christian.
It has to be some sort of brain defect. And it is associated with their lack of empathy and their paranoid delusions of greatness.
“My 12 year old daughter is a kid. My 20 year old daughter is an adult.”
Bob and his fellow wingnuts would be oarless in the water without situational ethics and false equivalencies.
Serial Conservative,
“I wouldn’t mind seeing a trend line in the VA polls over, say, the past four months.”
Better yet, look at the actual results for the entire election season…current through last Tuesday.
My assessment then: “On balance, the polling looks slightly better for Obama.”
From my drive time commute and dial spinning through the conservative talk radio stations, Islamaphobia and Socialism were the amped up fear topics of the day.
In their minds, since our president is not for getting rid of any and all regulation on business and returning to slavery for the profits, he’s against capitalism.
Also because there are brown people who are not frothing Christians somewhere in the government, our president is actively promoting terrorism against the US.
Really, this is what passes for discussion on the right wing radio. Is fear mongering and race baiting like that legal?
@4. You never heard black people tell jokes about black people? how about gay people tell jokes about gay people?
But trust you, what you think is a “joke” about the looks of African American girls is not a joke, it’s bigoted comment.
@ 25
I looked there just this morning, specifically at VA. The polls are all squashed together in the graph. How about stretching it out over just, say, four months, and add the new @5, @7 ones, just for VA?
That’s what I thought would be interesting. My guess is if you redid the Monte Carlo on VA, it would look a little closer than this:
Obama wins 99,646 times and Romney wins 354 times
VA’s probably really close to a Monte Carlo tie, I would imagine.
Nice summation. Not that it matters to SerCon and the other greedy corporate conservatives.
It’s patriotic to pay your taxes. Stop trying to weasel out of your fair share.
@ 29
Stop trying to weasel out of your fair share.
Ah, yes. Our ‘fair share’. That sliding scale which enables our elective representatives to use our wallets as a piggy bank for their favored interests.
And we should just shut up and pay, because they say so.
Not ‘we’ as in we the people, but ‘we’ as in those of us who earn more.
Make it ‘we’ as in we the people, raise taxes across the board, and you and I are in alignment. Continue to demand that others pay for what you want, while you just sit on your ass and agitate, and there’s a problem.
If you REALLY want to reduce the deficit, you need a broad source of higher revenues. Soak the rich doesn’t do it and you know it. Call for across-the-board tax increase and Obama is sunk in November and you know it.
So what to do?
“Hey, Romney sure is rich.”
Yeah, that’s leadership.
Why does Mittens hide his money in the same banks used by drug cartels and other criminal organizations?
Could it be that Mittens really does have something to hide?
And how did Mittens manage to get so many millions into his IRA?
@ 33
Good question. My guess is he bought stock at pennies and it’s now worth tens of dollars, and he bought a lot of it. I don’t think you can hold options in an IRA.
There is a difference between someone who actually makes his millions/billions by actually creating products that others want and are willing to buy and someone who buys companies, sells the assets, raids the pension fund and fires the employees then sells the remains to Communist China.
So which does the Republicorps choose as their presidential candidate?
So which does the Republicorps choose as their presidential candidate?
They choose the guy who understands that high school graduates making $100K by working as UAW members for GM and Ford are not the way of the future, and modeling our economy with an eye to the future, rather than in the past when times were different and life was easier, is preferable to continued taxpayer-funded payoffs to various levels of unions.
Thomas Edison isn’t one of the candidates, by the way. And none of us would want a Ross Perot running things.
Wow, converting a few thousands into millions. I’d sure like to know what penny stocks to buy like Mittens did.
@13 Not sure what you’re alluding to, but I’d like to remind everyone the working class built absolutely everything in this country, while the capitalists stood around and watched.
http://thestandardedition.com/.....-as-nails/
@ 37
You’d probably also like someone to blame besides your own poor investment decisions if you were to invest in a penny stock that subsequently went tits up. That’s the liberal way.
Oh, and someone else to take care of you because you squandered your retirement savings, natch.
@29 I saw an interesting article on CNBC this morning. You may think you’re getting a great deal when your bank pays you 0.1% on your savings and gives you a 3.65% mortgage, but according to this article, the rich get mortgage rates in the 1% range. In other words, they’re living large on your savings …
@19
Please go on/provide detail.
Well: http://youtu.be/1cgSXUQDTM0
@36
Much much better to spend tax-payer money on F-22s. 120 planes at over 400 billion each (and counting.)
And Ross Perot, he may be crazy but he was at least against sending all of our good paying jobs to China, unlike Mittens.
@34 No, but if you’re managing your own IRA (or some who’s managing it for you is acting on your instructions) and you’re in the business of flipping companies, you can stuff it full of shares in companies you’re planning to flip. Is that legal? I dunno. Would such a thing be a trifle embarrassing for the voters to know about when you’re running for high office? Probably.
Name any stock broker who has done as well as Mittens did with his investment?
Nobody here is saying “Hey, Romney sure is rich.” as a sole reason to support or avoid him. That’s YOUR talking point.
We are not saying
“romney is not presidential because he is a rich man”
, but I personally feel
“romney is not presidential because he is a man of the rich”
and will only serve his fellow 1%ers. IMHO.
@36
UAW members pay their fair share in taxes. Mittens does not.
@37 The only people who make money on penny stocks is those who own the pump-and-dump shops. The “investors” are only there to be relieved of their money. So if Romney made millions on penny stocks he was, by definition, a crook.
And Ross Perot, he may be crazy but he was at least against sending all of our good paying jobs to China, unlike Mittens.
Don’t you mean he was against sending them to Mexico or Canada, unlike Bill Clinton/Al Gore?
@36 How about the high school graduates with Cisco certification who were making that much a few years ago? Or for that matter, the non-union carpenters building all those McMansions over the same time period? Is the issue all about the big bad unions, or is it simply that your vision of a better America doesn’t work if people whose blood isn’t sufficiently blue are allowed to make a comfortable living?
@ 42
BTW Ross Perot is dead. Thomas Edison, too.
Last year there were 20 cases of whooping cough in Washington State. This year there are 3,000. That’s your rightwing ideologues refusing to immunize (“communist plot”) their kids.
http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_new.....years?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Not content to inflict their home-schooled kids on society, they want to spread communicable diseases, too.
@50 “BTW Ross Perot is dead.”
Someone forgot to tell him he’s dead, and he’ll probably be very surprise to learn he’s dead, because he thinks he’s very much alive.
@10
Shorter lib lab tech: I’m only comfortable in a group-think environment
@ 43
Is that legal? I dunno.
Then perhaps felony behavior should not be alleged, if one has no basis to make that allegation. However, Obama’s minions did just that a week ago.
I can’t quite remember which Clintonista – Shaheen? – during the 2008 primaries rhetorically queried as to whether Obama was selling drugs during his youth. If you don’t think that mode of speech is appropriate when used against your candidate it should not be used against your opponent.
@36 “high school graduates making $100K”
I know of a high school graduate who made $100B.
“And we should just shut up and pay, because they say so.”
But isn’t that what we heard from you guys, along with “traitor”, when we took exception to your wasting zillions on a senseless war waged against a country that didn’t cause us any harm, even you ran up huge deficits with pig-at-the-trough spending sprees? Seeing as how you show no lessons learned and want to go back to the same policies with the same damned neocons lurking in the background, why should anybody expect anything different from you the next time around?
“Continue to demand that others pay for what you want, while you just sit on your ass and agitate”
What, do you stand as you type your comments or something? Listen up, Bob, we have jobs, we run businesses, we work as hard as you and some of us have attained huge success, likely considerably more than you ever will. You have nothing over us, you smarmy bastard.
“Soak the rich doesn’t do it and you know it.”
That isn’t the intent and you know it. A few percentage points is not “soaking the rich”. The wealthiest of us have done just fine and we can afford it. Of couse that doesn’t “do it”. And you’d have a point if anyone ever said that it would. It’s a start. And just because it doesn’t “do it” doesn’t mean that start somewhere. With a decidedly un-American mindset like yours there would never have been a General “Jimmy” Doolittle. We get things done, like winning wars, by starting somewhere, even if that start alone doesn’t “do it”.
“So what to do?
“Hey, Romney sure is rich.”
Yeah, that’s leadership.”
No, that is a figment of your imagination, Bob. I thought you should know.
@ 52
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
You got me. I’m confusing him with someone. No idea who, right now.
Apologies @ 42 for that unforced error.
@ 56
That isn’t the intent and you know it.
Red meat for your base, that’s the whole intent.
Here’s a question: Who’s worth $100K a year, an autoworker who knows his job and builds cars that never fail, or a surgeon who kills every patient who comes under his knife?
It isn’t how much education you have, or how smart you are; it’s how hard you work and how good you are at what you do.
@46
Dummy ekim totally missed the point about uaw workers…what a fucking idiot..no wnder your finances suck.
Edit function is messed up again, should read,
“doesn’t mean that we don’t start somewhere”
@51
Or illegals who don’t have any immunization shots…..
@56 Apparently Bob thinks making the rich pay the same tax rates is the rest of us is “soaking the rich.” If it is, then so be it. Someone has to pay the bills run up by the elites. The middle class
has been soaked enough.
@ 60
RR @ 59 didn’t do any better.
Ah, yes. Our ‘fair share’. That sliding scale which enables our elective representatives
to use our wallets as a piggy bank for their favored interests.…to fund needed government services that Fierce Individualism cannot or will not accomplish.
Tell me how you, as an individual, would handle the services of DSHS? There are hundreds of kids in foster care, would you like to write a personal check to care for them? Can we send them to your house?
I didn’t think so.
Tell you what, You list the “their favored interests” you object to, and I’ll list the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions and occupations and that trump anything you can think of.
It’s patriotic to pay your taxes. Stop trying to weasel out of your fair share.
@57 Fact-checking before posting prevents this sort of embarrassment.
@59
Yep..that’s called merit pay, and unions are against that…so you must be anti-union
Let’s see – what have we accomplished today. Looks like absolutely nothing. This place is as dsyfunctional as Congress. No wonder this Country is so fucked. Republicans have brought this place to a new low. bicker, bicker, bicker, hate, hate, hate, divided, divide, divied. Republicans Suck!
@64 I would argue otherwise. But I don’t need to bother. It’s enough to say the fact you spew silliness doesn’t make it true.
@67 ha-ha-ha Any working stiff can tell you what “merit pay” is all about. It’s whoever gives the boss blowjobs on his lunch break. Do any of you stupid trolls actually believe the utterly corrupt ruling class doesn’t abuse merit pay along with everything else?
@ 66
Full disclosure – I did, just not his death (or lack thereof). Wasn’t looking at his birth/death data because I opened a Wiki page for another reason.
I was absolutely sure I read he died in the past coupla years.
Lol @ fair share
Here is how the liberals define fair share: make a few well off people pay the way and provide “free stuff” to the lazy and stupid, which guarantees the lazy and the stupid will always vote D.
@ 63
You probably want to rephrase. The rich pay higher rates on income and on capital gains. Paying the same would mean a tax cut from current rates.
@72 except the lot of lazy and stupid that vote Republican. The ones without teeth and call themselves scooter
“Red meat for your base, that’s the whole intent.”
No. Raising taxes by a few percentage points on the very wealthy who can well afford it is the intent. It is not “red meat” any more than it’s “class warfare” or “soaking the rich”.
SerCon, of the government services you currently benefit from, what would you like to have cut, or what would you like to pay a lot more for?
‘We’ve given all you people need to know’
Hmmm.. “You people”.. Ok Anne. I guess we should just leave you and Willard alone so you can go about the business of making your rich friends so much richer..
The “job creators”.. (rolls eyes)..
Is lying about what the president said, red meat for YOUR base?
REPORT: Fox News Spends Two-Plus Hours Distorting Obama’s Small Business Comments
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2.....tin/187202
@48 Ross Perot may be crazy, but he isn’t dead. You should fact-check more.
George Zimmerman went on Fox last night and said killing Trayvon Martin was part of “God’s plan.” Only on Fox …
@ 80
Yes, thank you again, RR.
Your headline du jour:
Economic Fears Hurting Obama, Poll Indicates
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07.....wanted=all
By all means, let’s hear more about Mitt Romney’s IRA. While we’re at it, let’s be sure to mock his wife’s choice of exercise to combat her MS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded
Hey, Libbies:
It’s the economy. It’s not how many houses, whether Cadillac is singular or plural, or the number of times we can recall the death of OBL between now and November.
It’s the economy.
God’s Plan – ahhh, yes everything is God’s Plan. All them Rapes and Murders and Molestations, All God’s Plans.
Cool. Let’s talk about the economy. Let’s pay teachers and cops and policemen more. Let’s stop offshoring. Let’s strengthen unions. Let’s raise the minimum wage so people have disposable income. Lets enact policies that strengthen the middle class. Let’s not waste obscene amounts of money on needless invasions and occupations. Let’s get a jobs program going. Let’s extend unemployment for the people not able to find work.
Oh wait, the republicans blocked ALL of that. SerCon you must be proud.
I don’t own any penny stocks. I do own Walgreen, which is up 11.6% today, and I also own IBM, which is up 4% today.
I’ve said before, and I’ll repeat as many times as necessary, the only way to invest today is stocks of blue-chip companies that raise their dividends every year. Anything else is a bad deal for the investor, unless you’re one of the mega-rich who have special access to special deals not available to the rest of us. At today’s stock prices you can build a diversified portfolio yielding 4% the income from which will grow even if you never invest another dime. And there eventually may be substantial capital gains, too, as high-quality dividend stocks are undervalued right now.
Thanks to those two stocks (out of about three dozen I own), I’m having an okay — not great, but okay — day in the market today. Half an hour before the close, it looks like I’ll make about $600 to $800 today. I’ll take that — it sure beats working for Republican wages.
Our troll friends think there’s something wrong with an autoworker making $100K a year. (My understanding is that includes benefits, and the only way a UAW autoworker can make $100K of cash wages is by working massive overtime hours.) Working in an auto assembly plant is ball-busting work (or back-breaking, if you’re a woman, or if you’re squeamish about shop-floor language). Anyone who says those guys (and gals) don’t deserve their paychecks and benefits has no idea what it’s like to work in an auto assembly plant.
On the other hand, if I can make $1,000 in the stock market every trading day, that’s $200K a year. Do I deserve $200K a year for correctly guessing Walgreen would settle its dispute with Express Scripts? And buying that stock from people who thought it was worth only 30 bucks? (As of today, the whole world thinks it’s worth 34 bucks, and it’ll probably go back up to 45 bucks.)
I don’t think so. What did I make? Nothing. What wealth did I add to the economy? None. All I do is flip stocks. Why is that worth $200K a year, but building cars isn’t worth $100K a year?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t claim to make $200K a year flipping stocks, I don’t. I could if I had a couple million to play with, but it’s not that much. I’m doing fine with what I do have, and that’s what matters. But why, exactly, is it “good” for a vulture capitalist like Rmoney to make hundreds of millions by flipping companies, but it’s “bad” for an autoworker to make $100K building cars?
I don’t understand that.
Endless charts and graphs had SHOWN that republicans in charge drives the economy in the ditch. (pesky facts and data. Dang truth.) Tell me what romney is going to do differently, that will cause an economic utopia?
it’s “bad” for an autoworker to make $100K building cars? It’s obvious, a autoworker is not the same class as a venture capitalist. Cannot have those low lifes in OUR club. They also might vote democratic. Can’t empower that kind of thinking. We are the lords, they are serfs. Get used to it.
Let’s pay teachers and cops and policemen more.
Why?
What’s the unemployment rate among teachers? Among policemen? Since it’s municipalities, where does the money come from? Do we boost their pensions as well? Shorten the school day, perhaps?
Let’s strengthen unions.
Which ones? The ones whose members can retire at 50 or 55 and earn pensions near 100% of salary, while their employers spiral to bankruptcy?
Do we strengthen GM/Chrysler UAW above and beyond all of the billions of dollars Obama handed to them in 2009? Do they need more?
I won’t argue with some of what you said but handing out more money to near-100% employed individuals without explanation is just perpetuation of the idiocy that has dominated during the past three years.
2010 happened for a reason. Pelosi is telling members of the House not to attend DNC for a reason.
I freely admit I’m a capitalist leech. What’s strange is that anyone would call me a socialist.
@89 What our country really needs is more unemployed derivatives traders.
Absolutely, Serial Conservative, you are so right. Let’s pay the government employes a lot less and gut their benefits. That will show them they cannot hold the economy hostage!
And those unions. Studies have show that places with unions drive up the wages around them. Strip the unions!
Get rid of the minimum wage. When everyone is working at 3rd world nation wages, golly the economy is going to take off!
Serial Conservative, I genuflect to your economic brilliance.
@ 90
capitalist leech
You’re some sort of sucker if you’re an Obama supporter.
@ 92
I didn’t say that. I asked what the rationale was for paying essentially fully employed aspects of our workforce more money, without expecting anything from them in return, in an economy when we borrow 40% of what we’re already spending.
I repeat that question.
@93 My coal stocks will skyrocket if Rmoney wins, but I’d rather have breathable air. Money doesn’t do you any good if you’re dead.
Rick Scott commits MURDER for Willard (R-Money):
http://articles.orlandosentine.....oter-rolls
The guy and his henchmen all need to be put in JAIL!
It is now that it’s over and done with. The issue of McKenna’s campaign black-listing a pulitzer prize winning newspaper is the real issue.
@94 “without expecting anything from them in return”
You seem to assume wages are a gift and workers are decoration.
“we borrow 40% of what we’re already spending”
What do you mean “we”? The 1-percenters run the show. If you have an issue about how things are being managed, talk to them about it.
@ 97
Any mention of that outside HA and the Stranger? It isn’t of particular interest to me but I haven’t heard it on the NPR stations or seen it in the Seattle Times. I may have missed it and I don’t do the P-I.
Can’t a helpful reporter be goaded into covering it?
@ 98
I’ll revise.
Why hand them more money without expecting anything more from them in return than what they already do?
Better?
@100 Fair enough, provided we also ask why businesses should be allowed to charge more for smaller packages of poorer quality products.
I think you’ll agree that in a free market businesses can charge whatever the market will bear, and workers can get paid whatever employers will agree to. If I’m a business, I’ll charge as much as I can; if I’m a worker, I’ll bargain for the best wages I can get. Got any problem with either of these concepts?
Serial Conservative, I’m on your side, I like where you are going with this. I am totally agreeing with you. I’m just riffing on your idea. Why hire any more? why pay them more? Just imagine how much better the economy would be if we didn’t pay our public servants, except for the politicians, over minimum wage? Think of all the lower taxes!
We could use that money to buy rent a cops for our walled villas and private schools.
If we cut all the entitlements to 0, would allow us to stop spending that 40% over, without touching the defense budget, or maybe even have some surplus so we could grow it?
Boy Howdy, with a zeroed out entitlement society and a fully funded defense industry, the economy would be in overdrive then.
Serial Conservative, you are just so right.
Serial Conservative, I totally get your point. Why would education be any better if there was 5 to 1 teacher ratio vs a 50 to 1 teacher to student ratio like Romney wants. It’s up the parents to have a parent stay home and home school if they want a education. Whiny ass parents. Why don’t they just hire tutors if they don’t like the teachers.
Besides, far too often, educated children do something called “critical thinking” and don’t follow the path their elders have set for them. Look at that ungrateful CPAC kid who was has turned to the dark side now that he’s grown and in college. Liberal brainwashing.
@ 101
You’re conflating private sector with public sector. And if a business overprices smaller items of lesser quality, or otherwise fails to provide value, the market will put that business out of business pretty quickly, so it’s a long-term non-issue.
Oh, unless that business is a green-jobs company given large amounts of government subsidy, in which case when it gets into trouble there will be more government subsidy. Silly me for forgetting that.
103
He didn’t say ‘hire more teachers’ or cops. He said pay them more.
There’s a difference.
Serial @ # 36: a”…They choose the guy who understands that high school graduates making $100K by working as UAW members for GM and Ford are not the way of the future….”
Please understand that you are making several questionable assumptions at the same time.
First of all, you are assuming that the average auto worker in Detroit only has a high school degree. I think if you check, you would find quite a lot of workers with more education – technical training, 2-year degrees, even a smattering of three-year degrees. The higher wages are probably paid to those with decades of experience, anyway – something a four-year degree doesn’t confer.
Second, you are assuming that the average auto worker in Detroit makes $100 K per year. I assume you are including benefits and employment taxes paid by the employer. But this is not common, most UAW contracts went to “tiered” pay scales over the past couple of decades, with newer hires earnign considerably less.
Third, you are assuming that this is an on-going thing. After the scale-back of the industry in 2009, now UAW plants are trying to push cars out very fast to keep up with demand. This results in a lot of overtime, which really drives up the payroll costs, but is only temporary – as things get more back to normal, the overtime will disappear.
Fourth, you are making a MORAL ASSUMPTION on the top pay scale which a high-school graduate should receive. I find this rather incongruous, since Republicans always insist that there are no moral restrictions on how much money the top wage earners, CEO’s, or investors can make, nor should there be. What part of this double-standard don’t you recognize?
@ 106
Actually, pulled it out of my ass. Back when things were good and lotsa SUVs were being sold a lot of plants were running scheduled OT and with all the goodies many of them earned $100K+.
My point was, those days are gone and they aren’t coming back. Apologies to The Boss.
Now go wash your hands.
How dare they question applying company practices to government. If my Snickers gets smaller, I can just eat a 3 Musketeers, or Milky Way, or a Twix. That’s like questioning the practices of Enron, or Damon Corp, or GlaxoSmithKline. How DARE they sir. HOW DARE they.
And don’t try to find a parallel between green-jobs companies and the oil and gas companies. The Oil and Gas companies NEED those subsidies to survive. Whiny liberals. Serial Conservative, why do you put up with them?
@105 Serial Conservative, I’m agreeing WITH you. If we want to boost the economy, we have to pay our public servants less, not more, and have a lot less of them.
Bain will go away.
This won’t.
“It wasn’t a gaffe. It was instead his ideology,” Romney said.
http://thehill.com/video/campa.....8;tw_p=twt
It’s a lot of people’s ideology. Companies thrive because of the Commons. Companies cannot thrive without the Commons, no more than a spleen can thrive without a body. Otherwise places without a robust Commons like Somalia would have thriving Somalian equivalent multinational companies of Microsoft and Nike and GM. I notice a lack of them there.
You are a shill.
@ 111
Well, this shill is telling you that the ideology espoused by Obama (Wait, now it’s an acknowledgment? Wasn’t I just a liar or being dishonest @ 14 for some unexplained reason?) will be used even more commonly than the ‘one term proposition’ in Fall TV ads and very likely will be looked back as the one thing that bounced Obama out of office.
I actually commend Obama for saying what he thinks. It’s what an awful lot of us believe he truly thinks. It’s just not what most of America thinks.
For all the “dog people” out there:
http://imgur.com/gallery/UnTzF
Serial Conservative,
“I actually commend Obama for saying what he thinks.”
I don’t think you know what he thinks. You have, once again, latched onto a dishonest bit of Wingnut propaganda.
It might be great politics for Republicans, but it is, at its core, a lie. It’s fun stuff to play with, as long as you don’t try selling it as “truth”. That just makes you a liar.
Come-on, quit being a asshole, and VALUE TRUTH. We might even take you seriously (but no promises).
Cripes! Didn’t we use to have some honest trolls ’round here??
“It’s the economy.”
Other than repeating every mistake you made that led us to the Great Recession, what’s your plan, Bob? That’s where you fall short. All you have is more tax cuts and deregulation. Been there, done that. The rich got their tax cuts. Corporations got their deregulation. Look at where were at, Bob. Where’s the jobs? Obama had nothing to do with your failures. His sole failure as president is in not fixing in four years the mess that it took the failures of thirty years of Reaganomics to create. And all you have to offer is more of the same.
The economy, Bob? What are you going to do that’s different than what failed before?
@112 “and very likely will be looked back as the one thing that bounced Obama out of office”
From the guy who repeatedly spiked the ball before the SCOTUS ACA ruling. How’d that one work out for you? That’s some track record of prognostication you’ve going there, dipshit.
Just heard a great question on the radio:
Do you think romney would purchase a company if he was only provided two years of booking records?
117 – Anne says two years is enough for “you people”…
Can you imagine the firestorm of outrage if Michelle had said that?
Republicans could not win against President Obama and his record. So they construct a “straw man”, calling him a terrorist, socialist, fascist, Kenyan, whatever, and distort his records. Limbaugh keeps telling his listeners not what the President did, but what he thinks the President “wants” and “feels”.
Why must Republican keep lying in order to win elections? Oh, wait, never mind. That was a rhetorical question.
@ 116
Doctor Steve’s hindsight meter is at 20/20 again. You’re right, I failed to foresee that after initially voting with the other four justices to invalidate part of the law, that CJ Roberts would then switch his vote to something that virtually no one else saw coming, either.
My bad. I’m so ashamed.
Well said.
Oops!
If ‘economic dependency’ means taxpayer supported, Allen West is Exhibit A
Typical teabagger hypocrite.
What a surprise, another republican caught cheating.
@104 “You’re conflating private sector with public sector.”
Not unless you consider auto companies “public sector.”
But while we’re on this topic, let me ask you this: Should a worker be paid less simply because he works for a public employer instead of a private employer? If so, why?
@114 “Didn’t we use to have some honest trolls ’round here??”
Not that I remember.
@ 126
Follow the thread back, RR. The discussion was teachers and cops, and paying them more. See @ 94. Then you brought in businesses and poor quality @ 101, which had nothing to do with paying teachers and cops more without any expectation of getting something additional in return from them.
@128 I wasn’t talking about teachers and cops.
However, while we’re on that subject, would you like to answer my question @126?
One thing I would point out is that if inflation is 2% and teachers get a 2% COLA you’re not paying them “more.”
Does anyone still wonder why no one trusts Mitt Romney?
Mitt signed an anti-porn pledge. He also took campaign donations from a pornographer. Which side are you on, Mitt?
http://thinkprogress.org/polit.....?mobile=nc
I personally prefer rabbit porn. You ugly humans are grotesque enough with your clothes on.
http://www.dizzyboy.com/jokes/.....p?image=85
(NSFW)
@ 114
I suppose that to the extent we thought he was serious in 2008 when he said he would close Gitmo, none of us really know what Obama thinks.
He spoke, without teleprompter (I think – didn’t look to me like he was reading, at least not when he strayed), for a long enough period of time for me to perceive, honestly, that he is downplaying the significance of personal risk-taking, effort, and accomplishment, in the ‘It takes a village.’ mode. Others made it possible for you to succeed, so you have to cut an ever-increasing check to the government because of it. The government has a moral authority to force you to spread your wealth around when it wants to spend more. Or something to that effect. He never got there because he strayed from his speech (in mid-sentence), but his point was that because the individual relied on the government for things that made the individual successful, the government should be able to take what it needs from the successful (and, by implication, to not take from those less successful). That’s the full context. Because you took risks, worked hard, and persevered more than the average citizen, we’re going to target you when we need cash. Never mind the fact that we took cash from you every step along the way, you still don’t get credit for helping build that road you used, and we’re going to take more of your cash because we feel like it.
He chose his words poorly, certainly, but his thought process, to me, was rather clear. It was quite similar to Warren’s videotaped comments about who paid for the roads that led to the building you built, etc.
So this is a common sentiment amongst that liberal elite and, according to @ 111, a lot of others. Fair enough.
I certainly am looking forward to an explanation from Obama as to what he was trying to convey what he meant when he said what he said. I don’t give a shit what his minions try to dismiss or claim was taken out of context.
This isn’t some 5 second sound bite making the rounds, Darryl. At least not what I have seen. I’ve seen a longer clip and I’ve read the White House transcript. This is sufficient, unedited video of Obama for his thoughts to be fairly clear.
To the extent that he may try to walk them back, I suggest that it’s because he knows how damaging they were, are, and will be to him.
I really don’t mind paying higher taxes. What I DO mind is being targeted because of my success. If we need to reduce the deficit, if we need higher revenues, then we ALL should be targeted. If my tax rate can go up 3%, then the tax rate of someone earning 1/3 of what I earn can go up 1%. We’ll see how popular a tax increase is if it isn’t just on the wealthy. I doubt it will be 60-70%.
Ernst & Young study
Analysis
Watch the freaks go nutz now.
That’s because Lib da schmuck lives on left wrong wing nutz sites while the test tubes dry!
@135,
Well if an accounting firm “Prepared on behalf of the Independent Community Bankers of America, the National Federation of Independent Business, the S Corporation Association, and the United States Chamber of Commerce”,
then that’s absolutely something you can take to the bank.
No way an auditing firm would EVAH deliver a horsed report. Just the other day I read that Arthur Andersen gave Enron the thumb’s up.
Serial Conservative,
“I suppose that to the extent we thought he was serious in 2008 when he said he would close Gitmo, none of us really know what Obama thinks.”
So…he wasn’t serious about closing Gitmo now?!?!
There you go again, being a lying asswipe. Fuck you! You are a waste of time.
So that’s how you got “a-head” Roger DUMB Wabbit?
Do tell. You brought it up!
@79,
Media Morons…? A George Soros funded site?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
@ 138
Hard to know, isn’t it? To me, most likely explanations are either a campaign promise never intended to be fulfilled or an incredibly naive thing to promise without delving into the mechanics of how it would actually happen. He didn’t have a national security team during the campaign? Someone like, say, Colin Powell, or Wesley Clark, who could tell him how attempting to close Gitmo might go? He wasn’t an attorney supposedly with a Constitutional Law background?
Blatant dishonesty in the heat of a campaign or naivety. Take your choice. I’d believe either.
Does the crazed deranged HA hemorrhoid deala ylb @96 actually read his news feeds
So if it’s from the SSA, who runs that department moron? Obummer does!
Whatanidiot!
No he outsourced the “i” technology to China all the time accepting the praise of Obummer!
And the Fascist one forgets he was in harms way defending the ideals of America.
You are an ASShole!
they arent $400 billion each you fucking dipshit.
are you really that dumb?
Serial Conservative @ 141,
Sorry, but your answer is so uninformed or disingenuous that it doesn’t merit a response.
Spew bullshit at someone else.
ya, because “heterosexuals are all murderers!” posts from you just bring us all together.
shut the hell up you god damned freak.
racist much?
yes, you are.
@42, 145
The planes cost $150M each, the total cost for the program is $66.7B.
Not sure what their going to use them for, our guys are getting killed by propane tanks packed with high explosives and RPG’s.
Its called Karma, and the stranger has a lot of bad karma, and its coming home to roost.
I love it.
well thats a whole hell of a long ways from “$400 billion EACH”.
ekum is just a moron….
thanks for presenting some facts Michael
Getting back to F-22…I think it was a huge mistake to cancel the program.
F-22 could have been a mainstay front line fighter for 40-50 years, and with such low production numbers, we didnt get the monetary benefits of economy of scale….
what a shame.
“I’m so ashamed.”
Well, that statement does match you actions, slithering off as you did when the SCOTUS decision didn’t go your way. Prior to that, you were prancing around like a dressage horse, as though it had already come down. Sucked for you, didn’t it, Bob? Here you are, doing it again.
You’re not much for lessons learned, are you? That brings me back to the question you ignored. Name one lesson Republicans learned as they ran this country into the ground. Name one thing you’ll do that’s different from what you did before that led to our present economic calamity.
Most Americans think Willard (R-Money) should release more tax returns..
http://www.latimes.com/news/po.....5712.story
Again, the lady Anne thinks the poor dears in her husband’s campaign has done more than enough for “you people”..
“Think” he calls it..
But how about fucking REPUBLICAN Sec Def Robert Gates:
http://www.alternet.org/rss/1/.....se_budget/
“you people”..
Years ago I was about to put an end to some black teens harrassing a middle-aged white woman on the 7 Rainier bus when she let loose with a somewhat desparate remark about how her employer “had done so much to help you people“. When I saw what those two words did to those teens, I decided not to intercede. They weren’t hurting her in any way except with words and I thought she really needed to hear those kids speak their minds about what it’s like being viewed by her as “you people”.
I guess the crazed deranged databaze HA hemorrhoid ylb doesn’t like to be called “you people”. Well it beats what we call you here!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
@135 Look, putz, we all know letting Bush’s Tax Cuts For The Rich (TM) expire won’t eliminate deficits. It takes a combination of spending cuts and tax increases to get deficits under control.
But with federal revenues (as % of GDP) at the lowest level in 60 years, the argument for more revenue is obvious, and there are several compelling reasons why the rich should ante more. First, they got the largest tax cuts, so they should get some increases. Second, top tax rates will still be far below postwar historical levels. Third, they’ve gotten almost all of the last 30 years’ GDP gains, so they should get more of the responsibility for paying taxes. Fourth, the economy is awash in idle investment capital and lacks consumer demand, so if you want to help the economy, it makes more sense to raise taxes on wealthy investors than on middle class consumers.
As for spending cuts, the 80% increase in military spending since 2001 seems like an obvious target. I would be okay with repealing or scaling back Bush’s unfunded Medicare Part D, which is different from Social Security and Medicare, in that nobody has paid taxes for it — it was wholly funded by borrowing from our Chinese enemies. We also should consider cutting the billions being spent ineffectively on the War On Drugs. And, of course, no-bid contracts to GOP cronies have got to go.
Collecting the billions of taxes owed but not paid by tax dodgers also would help.
Got any problems with any of these ideas, putz?
Business Week columnist Joshua Green says Romney was very good at getting rich but stinks at being rich.
http://www.businessweek.com/ar.....lated-rail
F-22 and F-35 have completely different mission profiles, lazy YLBigot
Then again, as someone who hates the military, I am not surprised that you are clueless.
Its like comparing F-15 to F-18
just shut the fuck up for a change and thank big max for paying your “fair share” in taxes.
lazy bums like you never pay anything.
@157 How did that work for you in 2008?
Why do DUMMOCRAPTS like David Brock want to keep their Super PAC donors secret while trying to get Republican based Super PACs to have their donors disclosed to the world?
@160 World War III will last about 2 hours. World War IV, which starts immediately afterwards, will be fought with sticks and stones.
In Vietnam, we fired millions of artillery shells costing maybe a hundred bucks each. Today, our forces are equipped with a few thousand missiles costing millions each. Once your ordnance is expended — and today it takes only minutes to expend it — what you do next is throw rocks.
In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with a modern army designed to defeat NATO trooops in Europe. They went up against illiterate farmers armed with World War 1-vintage .303 Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifles. The Afghans eventually got better weapons — mainly by capturing them from Russians — but at no point in that 10-year conflict did they ever have tanks, helicopters, or jets — yet they smacked the shit out of a huge modern army that did. In 1989, the Red Army crawled out of Afghanistan with its tail between its legs.
My point is that spending trillions of dollars on fancy military hardware gets you trillions of dollars’ worth of fancy military hardware and not much else. If you studied military history, as I have, you would be positively frightened by the extent to which the outcome of history’s major wars has depended on pure chance — blind, dumb, luck. Force structures, technology, and logistics aren’t irrelevant; but they can be negated by one lucky shot.
Our erstwhile enemies in Vietnam lost every major battle. We had overwhelming firepower and killed them in droves. Do I need to remind you who won? What I’m trying to say is that military toys have their limitations. And the poorer and more poorly-equipped your adversary is, the less relevant and useful expensive military technology is. The ugly truth is the only way to fight guys in sandals with rifles is to pull on a pair of boots, get out of your fancy military ride, lock and load, and start walking.
You mean Obummer used “you people” in his commentary?
Do tell Mr. “a-head”!
So you wanna take away Obummer’s drone use?
@164 What a dumbshit response.
@165 Let’s put it this way, putz. We spend more on military stuff than the rest of the world put together. We lost in Vietnam, we didn’t really win in Iraq, and we’re certainly not winning in Afghanistan. I’m tempted to tell you to figure out yourself where to cut our military spending, but frankly I don’t trust you with that job, so here’s a few suggestions.
Our nuclear deterrent is hugely expensive, and much of it is outmoded and useless. So it makes sense to get rid of the outmoded and useless part of our nuclear establishment. The rest should be evaluated under the highly probable assumption that none of it will ever be used. Ergo, we should keep only enough to make sure it isn’t.
At the height of the Cold War, we and the USSR deployed around 100,000 nuclear weapons. I’ll bet you didn’t know this, but in the 1960s, the Nike-Hercules anti-aircraft missiles deployed at Fort Lawton in West Seattle, in Redmond, and other Nike bases around the Puget Sound region were equipped with nuclear warheads, because with the technology we had in those days, it took a nuke to knock down Russian bombers (and we had no defense at all against ICBMs). Things have changed. Now, we can physically hit a bomber or ICBM with a missile and destroy it with kinetic energy (whereas a nuke is a proximity weapon) — you don’t even need conventional explosives. We got rid of the Nikes and their nuclear warheads long ago. Now it’s time to rethink the remaining 5,000 or so nuclear warheads in our arsenal.
Military experts think we can safely bring this down to 700 to 900 warheads. They say we don’t need land-based ICBMS at all, and they’re vulnerable anyway. Obama has been negotiating the next round of nuclear reductions with Putin. These negotiations will make the world safer and save billions in arsenal upkeep costs.
Do we really need 2,400 F-35s? Do we need any? Many experts have questioned its capabilities and one leading U.S. defense expert has said we’d be better off maintaining our existing fleets of F-16s and FA/18s. And can we afford them at $133 million each? Will our country cease to exist if we simply eliminate the trillion-dollar F-35 program?
How many aircraft carriers do we need? We have 12 (11 active and 1 in reserve); no other country has more than 2. (Those countries happen to be Spain and Italy.) There are 22 aircraft carriers in the world, and we and our allies have 18 of them; Russia has 1, China is building 1, and India has none and is building 2. We’re building 2 more — why?
Does the U.S. really have to foot the bill for keeping all the world’s sea lanes open, providing a “nuclear umbrella” for dozens of countries, and maintaining a standing army in Europe?
Above all, our military planners need to learn the limits of force. Wars, even little ones, are crapshoots. Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan should have taught us that all that expensive military hardware doesn’t get us much, if any, political wherewithal to determine events in the rest of the world. We probably could defend our country quite adequately without some of it.
To a dipshit question!
TOUCHÉ!
I’m sure Phil Knight is surprised!
Leave it to puddles to suggest cutting drones, one of the most cost-effective weapon systems we have. I hate to think what he’d be like as a platoon sergeant. I can see him handing some poor dogface grunt a single magazine of 20 bullets for his M-16 and saying, “These cost 20 cents apiece, so this is all you get for this week.” What a dumbshit. Clue to the clueless: The more something costs, the fewer you can afford! Drones are cheap. Missiles and fighters are not. Plus, you don’t need to spend $2 million training the guy who flies a drone, and it doesn’t cost you $133 million if he smashes one. (Note: Flyboy McCain trashed no less than five government airplanes! And he’s just one pilot! It’s hard to tell whether he cost us taxpayers more as a jet jock or a politician.)
@169 For tedious inanity, that’s a new low, even for you.
@168 Glad you think so. No one else does.
You’re talking about Robert Gates right?
Bush’s freaking Sec Def?
What an idiot!
No amount of defense spending will ever provide absolute security. Osama bin Laden proved a $500 billion military budget couldn’t stop a 99-cent box cutter.
Military spending is a complex subject, of course. There’s a vast amount written about it. Here’s an article that might be helpful in getting you started thinking about it.
http://prospectjournal.ucsd.ed.....-security/
@162 Why should we disclose ours if you don’t disclose yours?
Absolutely I thank you for showing everyone who cares to look how a dumbshit racist homophobic right wing moron “thinks” and behaves.
People can look at your defecations in these threads and see clearly how NOT to be in the world.
Btw I found this the other day.
This guy distills it really well:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/winslow-t-wheeler/
Anything you can find of his on the Center for Defense Information website is well worth reading.
Now you useless DUMB Wabbit… where did I say that?
Man you are a senile useless pellet!
While the rest of HA was out working… this moron is at home scanning his captured crazed HA databaze.
http://www.businessweek.com/ar.....lated-rail
This crowd indeed stinks.. We’re in a whole lot of trouble if they get their way in November.
@162
Beats me. Why do they Puddy?
I’d think good, moral, members of the left, wouldn’t have anything to do with Super Pacs.
Leftists don’t like Super PACs? Then what did Misogynist Bill Maher give $1MM to?
Michael, leftists are always not what they do but what they say is what counts.
nope…you.
184 – Gates didn’t think much of your boondoggle F-22 dumbshit..
Fuck they grow them stupid northeast of Tacoma.
yawn…perhaps you need to examine what an air force does(ours) to another air force(Iraq) that was one generation behind in jets(not to mention training).
I like that kind our military to have that kind of advantage…the progressives seem OK in giving that kind of advantage away…
hmm.
@183
I’m not saying leftist don’t like super-pacs, obviously plenty of them do. I’m saying good, moral, members of the left such as my self don’t like super-pacs.
I really don’t care what a twice used douche nozzle like Bill Maher thinks. I’ve never even heard of David Brock.
bloviate all you want, but Im the guy paying your “fair share”….a simple “thanks Max” will suffice.
or…get off your lazy ass and go make some money.
I sure am doing pretty well financially for a stupid guy…so whats your excuse? I mean, besides being lazy….
nailed it.
Hmm, the second link in #177 leads to this:
“54. Sir Eustace Tennyson D’Eyncourt spews:
Roger Rabbit spews:
@18 Yes, it’s too bad President Obama has to run these huge deficits in order to save us from an economic disaster created by the GOP’s idiotic ideology and failed policies.
Fortunately, President Obama’s efforts appear to be working: The stock market is roaring back and the economy is stirring to life; even home sales are improving!
People who think the economy is ‘roaring back’ after barely 2 weeks positive gains are fools and tools.
Show me 6 months of steady, controlled growth and then we might have something.
Short term thinkers like yourself are exactly why this country is in the hole that it is.
Also, BOTH parties created this mess – stop being so partisan and use your brain. Partisan “party first, nation second” mindset of our government and many citizens is exactly what will destroy this nation.
The fools on the radio(both sides) are mere tools that are looking for $$$$….nothing more – and that includes the guy running this site.
04/12/2009 at 2:13 pm”
Typical troll work. I didn’t say the “economy” came roaring back, I said the “stock market” came roaring back, which it did — 2009 was my best-ever investing year, I damn near doubled my money that year — my 2009 return was over 90%.
Back then, Goldy was still running this site, and I’ll let our dear readers decide whether he was doing it for $$$.
Then he accuses me of being a “short term thinker” and blames me for “the hole” we’re in. Strike three, strike four. A new baseball record for most strikes in a single out!
If I were a short term thinker, I wouldn’t be loading up on dividend growth stocks. I’m doing it because I think we’re going to be in this zero-interest environment for years to come. Dividend stocks are the only financial investments that still pay any income, so that one’s a no-brainer, although you’d be amazed how few people are buying dividend stocks and how many are piling into zero-interest bonds.
As for me, I’m not in a hole, and I didn’t put us in this hole. I paid off my student loans, my car loans, my mortgage loans — everything. I have zero debt. And I don’t shelter income from taxes in Cayman Island tax havens or Swiss bank accounts. So it wasn’t me who dug the “hole.” It couldn’t possibly have been me, because I’m not a Republican.
One thing that has remained constant on this blog is the trolls have always been stupid and uninformed.
@178 Wheeler is definitely a big gun on the subject of military spending.
@168
A couple of months ago I talked to a guy who was on leave from The ‘Stan, according to him people are still getting shot at by the occasional .303.
Maybe we should take some of that military budget and use it to suck up some of the extraneous arms that are floating around out in the world and stop selling new stuff to damn near all comers?
@179 “where did I say that?”
Here:
“@165 So you wanna take away Obummer’s drone use?”
@183 I’ve said all along Democrats need to behave more like Republicans. Maybe they’re finally listening to me.
@186 What do you need an air force for, when you have IEDs? Shit, have you talked to anyone who’s been in Iraq or Afghanistan?
Heh. Yeah this was a dead giveaway from that thread:
partisan lemmings are funny
His party is the party of stooooopid.
@188 “Im the guy paying your “fair share”….”
Good one! That’s truly funny!
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
@193 A .303 kills you just as dead today as it did in 1914.
Who said
[] Obummer
[] Romney
[] Lib da schmuck
[] Roger DUMB Wabbit
Well listen to this great ad
KAAAAAAAAABLAAAAAAAAAMMMMMO!
More fecal odors from the Willard (R-Money) camp:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....87081.html
Fucking unreal..
Really useless one? It’s the economy STUPID!
202 – The families of those putting their lives on the line over there apparently don’t matter to “real americans”..
Thanks for playing stupid.
Oh now you care?
Whatanidiot! It’s the economy stupid. Remember Obummer is ending Afghanistan. Oh wait your left wrong puke sites didn’t cover that!
b cs -t puddymoron -b “real american” -c
+——-+
| count |
+——-+
| 55 |
+——-+
1 row in set
And guess who he hails as the first “real american” in these comment threads?
Leisure suit Larry
aka Captain Now Dead at Hot Air. See here:
http://horsesass.org/?p=985#comment-69925
Tooooo Funnnnyy..
Oh noes,
Another feckless attack from the hemorrhoid. Another EPIC FAYLE! While the rest of HA was out working… this moron is at home scanning his captured crazed HA databaze.
Yawwwwn. This moronic america hater puddyidiot is booooring me.. Time to turn in.
Truth hurts the HA pinhead. So he runs away.
Stupido… I don’t hate America… I travel getting bidness to keep Americans working… I realize you don’t comprehend what working is!
@208 — When did you start hating America?
Same day you did @209.
A moron kills at least 12 at Batman opening.
# 193: I seem to recall something about when the U.S. Marines took over Nicarauga, the first thing the guy in charge did was take control of the ports and then offer to buy up all the firearms which were prevalent outside the city. Lots of outdated firearms were purchased this way, the guys selling them thought they were making a great deal and they could use the money to buy newer firearms. But suddenly they realized that the supply of arms into the country had been cut off by the Marines.
Anyway, I don’t know how true the story is. But even if true, it wouldn’t work now. Too many suppliers of too much hardware, rapid news delivery to every part of the world, and hundreds of different ways to get it into the wrong hands. There lots of former Soviet block factories who still can turn out tens of thousands of AK 47’s if a buyer can be found. That’s one of the things which has made the civil wars in Africa particularly nasty over the past couple of decades.
Remember when the libtard media tries to blame the lunatic killings in Aurora on conservatives and Limbaugh… it was DUMMOCRAPTS who first said the Bane/Bain association was too hard to pass up…
Chronology is important; something lost on libtards and social media.
Obama is clearly an anti-capitalist. He espouses his brand of “social justice” which clearly means taking from successful people and redistributing it to his definition of the downtrodden using taxes and government as the vehicle for his greater good mission. 49% of Americans pay ZERO income tax and most receive some sort of handout. It’s unsustainable. You see more & more folks depressed because they are not productive. Obama believes in the welfare state. Look at his actions and look at the results. Food stamp recipients skyrocketing.
No thanks to that vision of America.
Canard.
If there is any use for your drivel, it’s perhaps in setting up for this – the bottom 50% of households only possess 1% of the nation’s wealth. And that’s a 67% decline since 1989.
The vast majority of Americans – the people you call lazy and shiftless and non-productive – are being systematically turned into serfs.
Feature, not a bug in your neofeudal dystopian conservative supply-side wet dreams.
This is exactly the America that Reaganite, tax-cut-and-spend, Teahaddist policies create. “No thanks” you say? But this is what you monsters have been agitating for for 30 years.
Why can’t you people just come out and say that this is what you want – a vast ocean of poor, docile, desperate, inexpensive labor. Because that is what this is about – labor is the only thing that creates wealth, and controlling labor and making sure that the products of that labor only flow upward to a more and more rarefied stratum is what conservative/Republican policies are all about.
Libdickwad-
The point is the Government has failed being the arbiter of wealth. It saddens me to see so many people with their hands out wanting more, more more for doing less less less.
Do you really think more handouts is the answer?
Where do you draw the line?
What does the World according to Obama yield in terms of maximizing human potential?
And you are being ridiculous trying to pin all the problems on Republicans. Who controlled the House for most of those years? And Obama had a filibuster-proof Senate and supermajority in the House and squandered it with a failed Porkulous package and ObamaCare.
Grow up numbskull.
It saddens me to see so many people with their hands out wanting more, more more for doing less less less.
Please elaborate on this statement. What specific groups or types of people are you referring to?
Liblimpdicktesttubewad – There he goes again… ThinkProgress… As stated above @136
Why do you HATE America Liblimpdicktesttubewad? America was built on sharing the load. The only load you got is the smelly one in your panties. Is this fact hitting home? It’s from ABC News, a libtard site not a stupid left wrong blog you always run to!
Elitist… Liblimpdickelististesttubewad… fixed.
Ever since the libtard great society on LBJ, black out of wedlock births have skyrocketed, drug use skyrocketed, fatherless children skyrocketed, and the clueless ones like you and Al NotsoSharpton, Jesse Hi-Jackson and James Loves Me Some Pelosi Clyburn haven’t lifted one finger to change the plight of my people.
And also notice you nary hear a peep from rujax, the great lib black man HA say anything about these issues… Maybe he’s part of the problem too!
Everyone ya fascist moron! See the story above ya idiot!
See the libtard media is already trying to blame conservatives for the shooting… Just as Puddy predicted.
And you wonder why Fox News KICKS ASS? Look no further than stories like this!
You pathetic leftists are so predictable.
I swear, is there really a more dense collection of idiots than the HA trolls?
http://www.realitysandwich.com/fantasy_finance:
People who work for a living have gotten screwed. That’s a trend that started more than 30 years ago. That trend didn’t happen because government got too big. It happened, because congress-critters stopped representing the interests of all of their constituents and started representing an ideology.
What I want is a country where working folks will share in the income gains that result from their increases in productivity, and what I know is that the policies promoted by Gov. Romney won’t get us there. In fact, the policies promoted by Gov. Romney are what got us here.
GOP senators block top Obama jobs initiative
Tell me. After actions like this by the republicans, how can you argue that the republicans are not being obstructionist, deliberately hurting the economy for political gain.
@220 faux news spends hours and hours lying about what the president said about The Commons and you want to try to hold them up as a shining example of news objectivity? shill.
@220 “See the libtard media is already trying to blame conservatives for the shooting… Just as Puddy predicted.”
It isn’t liberals who insist on anyone being able to carry a gun anywhere.
No sequitor to the blame game DUMB Wabbit!
We wake up this morning to learn a madman shot at least 60 people in a Colorado movie theater, at least 12 of whom are dead.
One of the dead in this shooting had a narrow escape from last month’s Toronto mall shooting.
This is madness. Either the guns have to go, or people are gonna go. We’ve simply got to rethink our gun policies in the Bloody USA.
A 4-month-old baby was among the injured. Insane people with guns spare no one.
America’s crazy gun culture simply must change.
A CNBC writer, relying on CBO data, says the rich have been clobbered by the recession.
“Between 2007 and 2009, … the incomes of the top one percent fell 18 times more than the incomes for the middle class at the start of the recession.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48257611
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This seems plausible to me. The rich get a large share of their income from what economists call “rents,” which includes things like dividends and bond interest, and with the precipitous drop in investment returns, it makes sense they’re getting less income from those sources.
This doesn’t mean we should feel sorry for the rich, though. They brought it on themselves. It was they, not the working class or middle class, who killed the goose that laid their golden eggs.
As I’ve been saying in these threads for years, if you’re a wealthy business owner, you can’t keep slashing wages and outsourcing jobs forever without destroying your business. When you push your customers into poverty, you no longer have customers or a business.
Tea Party Republicans will do anything to preserve the special tax privileges of the ultra-wealthy. They’ll even agree to spending they never agreed to before to keep the rich from losing their tax cuts.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48253574
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I’ve never understood why so many people of ordinary means are so determined to let the rich keep screwing them. There’s some weird psychology going on here.
Typical conservative lie. Blame poor for being poor. As above, graph is from Congressional Research Service, reprinted from Federal Reserve – despite puddlet’s whining about its provenance – and shows that 50% of households possess 1% of national wealth.
Is this because half the country is lazy, slacking, dole-addicted? Really? That’s your argument?
Why do you hate hard-working Americans?
Around an equitable distribution of wealth and income, security and leisure, merit-based and effort-based advancement, happiness. It’s what unions and community organizers and ACORN and the civil rights and women’s and gay movements have been about – shared participation and access in this great country and its bounty.
We are all in this together, and you cannot make an argument that half of Americans are so lazy and good-for-nothing and incapable that they deserve to share 1-fucking-percent of the national wealth.
You are a typical greedy I-got-mine-so-fuck-you type unevolved asshole.
There is a grain of truth here – far far too many in both parties – essentially all Republicans, and a substantial number of Democrats – serve the interests of the wealthy at the expense of everybody else. but the creed they serve is the one that is explicitly Republican.
@225 Typical asinine puddy retort. Game? No, it isn’t a game — 60 people were shot and 12 are dead. And that’s just in today’s Mass Shooting Of The Day (TM). This one happens to involve more victims than the average Mass Shooting Of The Day (TM), but these incidents occur on almost a daily basis in our country now. Clearly, it’s out of control. Blame? Yes, absolutely, conservatives are to blame for this, because they’ve insisted on unregulated access to guns, and it is that policy which puts guns into the hands of the perpetrators of these horrific crimes. When conservatives change their stupid position on this issue, then we’ll reassess their culpability. Until then, yes, they’re to blame.
I’m not even going to take the time to respond to puddles anymore – he has so jumped the shark it’s pointless.
We really do need a better class of troll…
@231 “people with their hands out wanting more, more more for doing less less less”
A perfectly apt description of the rich who keep demanding more special tax privileges in the name of creating jobs that never materialize.
@233 “We really do need a better class of troll…”
You can’t even buy a decent troll around here. We get the trash recyclers don’t want. We’re the final destination of the world’s most worthless trolls, sort of like that garbage swirl in the Pacific Ocean.
I saw an ‘NRA’ sticker on a car as I walking into the hospital today…
Made me think about the political industry that is the ‘gun rights’ movement. What it is is a cynical but very very effective means for drilling into the immature psyches of far too many people – tickle the right-wing id with ‘GUNS!’ and then get them to dance to the whole right-wing tune – that’s what the NRA is about and nothing more or less.
It plays on a predisposition – fear, need to appear stong, need to project power – and creates a fetish of the gun. The whole “I got to protect my castle and my wimmins from the marauding hordes” is inane and insane. It’s emblematic of the fearful, xenophobic right-wing mindset. Unfortunately they’ve very effectively foisted on this nation a culture that is awash in guns and assholes ‘standin’ their ground’ with said weapons.
@231 It’s no accident that a few people hog the wealth and income. They’ve spent decades and vast sums of money rigging the political and economic system in their favor. They’ve systematically undercut the bargaining power of workers and consumers. They’ve manipulated markets, often by criminal means. They’ve turned America into a corrupt society. But as we saw in the Arab countries, plutocrats can exploit the common people only so much and only for so long before they turn against them. We may be approaching that tipping point here, too.
if you’re a wealthy business owner, you can’t keep slashing wages and outsourcing jobs forever without destroying your business. When you push your customers into poverty, you no longer have customers or a business.
Many many people here have made this point to our conservative trolls, but they never acknowledge this fact. Remember how SerCon just freaked at the idea of increasing wages?
Eric Holder on control fraud committed by high level bankers:
They’re just some good old boys, never meaning no harm.
OK, so maybe Holder never said that, but he may as well have. A little over 1,000 people went to jail in the S&L scandal, not so many this time around.
@220–
I agree. Brian Ross and ABC News are dispicable and constantly ignoring the Society of Professional Journalist Code of Ethics. Ross was absolutely delighted when he mis-reported without vetting the information that the mass murderer was a Tea Party member. Absolutely delighted was Ross. Then, he had to eat a shit sandwich-
Shit Sandwich.
Credibility==Zero
Viewership==Close to Zero.
Ross should resign.
Hopefully the Tea Party will demand that.
Did obama report this as an In-Kind Contribution from Ross and ABC??
In a statement on the Colorado shooting, Mitt Romney offers comfort and prayers for the victims — but not a rational gun policy for America. You can view the video on CNBC’s home page.
http://www.reuters.com/article.....AM20120720
Oh NO Wonder the asshat troll LURVES the ‘burbs!
And it’s little coincidence that such places draw those of his mentality..
Easily, easily the troll with the most VIOLENT fantasies here. Freaking puddybud doesn’t even come close.
To asswipes of this kind, there’s not a single problem out there that CAN’T be solved with violence!
Hearing on the radio, about 2 dozen incidents like this where 4 or more people are killed in a mass shooting happen every year in this country..
This country is like a pot boiling that spills over the brim 2 dozen times a year.
The States where these shootings happen tend to be poorer and lean right wing but strangely they happen very often in affluent suburban like places like Aurora and Columbine where the population tends to be more homogeneous..
CNN reports 71 people were shot. The shooter used the types of weapons the NRA doesn’t want outlawed — assault rifle, high-capacity magazines, etc.
If everyone was packing heat in that movie house this wouldn’t have happened right???
@245 That’s right! If 250 people had opened up on him, he would have dropped dead in 2 seconds, and stray rounds probably wouldn’t have killed more than 400 bystanders.
GOP Votes Against Jobs For American Workers
“Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked the No.1 item on the president’s congressional ‘to-do-list,’ refusing to allow a vote on a bill that would give tax breaks for companies that ‘insource’ jobs to the U.S. from overseas while eliminating tax deductions for companies that move jobs abroad.”
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/19/.....?hpt=hp_t2
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This doesn’t need any commentary; it speaks for itself.
@ 247
This doesn’t need any commentary; it speaks for itself.
Except to predict that the knuckle-draggers around here will still blame Pres. Obama for the failure to implement tax incentives for firms to invest their idle cash.
Oh look what happens when “the market decides”..
http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.co.....e-students
Here’s a good example of why the economy, too, needs traffic laws and traffic cops.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48238771
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Call it nanny government if you want, I feel some people are so ignorant or desperate they need to be protected from themselves. We don’t like shysters troll the corridors of nursing homes looking for vulnerable elderly people, do we? In the larger society, how far should be go in letting people be exploited by loan sharks? All I’m sayin’ is usury laws make a certain amount of sense. The argument against usury laws is they restrict the availability of credit to less creditworthy people. But isn’t there also an agument that some people shouldn’t have access to credit for their own good?
This damn thing is so sick I don’t want to think about it anymore..
Asshat from your dumbphone, the floor is yours.
Or they would have assumed that the other people pulling out guns were part of the attack and everyone would have shot each other (and god knows how many others), meanwhile the police would be getting reports of 250 assailants instead of one,
# 245, 252: A good number of those carrying guns (presumably legally) have the unfounded assumption that they could win a shoot-out with another gunman.
The Aurora shooting demonstrates the ideocy of that fantasy. The alleged shooter came in through the exit door (taped open earlier?), dropped some kind of gas grenades (tear gas?), was wearing not only a bullet-proof vest but also other protective gear plus a gas mask, and started shooting with rapid-firing semi-automatic weapons with extended clips (reducing pauses for re-loading).
The audience, thinking that they were there for a movie, were at first confused, thinking this was a promotional stunt. Women probably had their guns in their purses, men probably had them in a waist or ankle holster – assuming they didn’t just leave them in the car. Incapacitated by the gas so they couldn’t see clearly, the odds of them hitting the shooter in an un-protected area when the adreneline is flowing and they are simultaniously trying to look for other shooters and deal with their wifes/girlfriends/kids, is very low.
I’ve mentioned before in this forum watching a police video of a trained police officer and a suspect trading shots over a car, not more than 15 feet apart, where both unloaded their weapons without hitting each other.
Similarly, just a week or so ago the pro-gun guys were distributing a video of a man in his seventies in Florida who chased some robbers out of an internet cafe with his pistol – but I noticed that he was firing constantly at them, using a two-handed stance and apparantly aiming, without hitting either of the robbers as they fled. I’m assuming he’s taking some training, but in the heat of the moment he couldn’t drop a shooter wearing no protective gear at all.
So that’s all it is, a fantasy. It takes a highly skilled and trained shooter to be able to hit a small target when other people are shooting at him. Unfortunately, few people carrying guns really fit into this category.
I’m assuming that’s why they push so hard for assault rifles – since they can’t aim and drop a target with certainty, they want to use the “spray and pray” approach. Of course, the collateral damage would be considerable.
Republicans brag they’re raising more money than the Democrats. Federal election commission reports say otherwise. In June, Obama raised $43 million to Romney’s $33 million. That looks like a pretty substantial advantage in financial firepower for the Democrats.
http://tinyurl.com/7246zsw
@254
Well, here’s some good news in that report.
@253 “I’ve mentioned before in this forum watching a police video of a trained police officer and a suspect trading shots over a car, not more than 15 feet apart, where both unloaded their weapons without hitting each other.”
And then there was the infamous 1989 shootout in Tacoma’s South Hill neighborhood between drug dealers and Fort Lewis Army Rangers in which over 300 rounds were exchanged — and nobody got hit.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/.....night.html
If I’d been those Rangers’ commanding officer, I would have marched them out to the firing range at 0600 hours every day, and kept them there until they could hit something.
# 254: Direct contributions are one thing, so-called “independent PACS” are something else. This morning NPR was reporting that American Crossroads is airing $9.7 million dollars in negative campaigning against Obama in key battleground states – effectively criticizing him for criticizing Romney.
As usual, they call the President’s campaign ads as “lies and distortions”, but don’t indicate what they claim to be a lie or a distortion. In short, they are trying to criticize him for his campaign discussing the facts about Romney and hitting his weak points. Their only real complaint is that it’s working.
One way to test this is to have the next psychopathic shooter walk into one of those gun shows and start shooting. Say with a .45 Thompson with extra drum clips.
Note: I am not recommending anyone become an unhinged shooter. I’m just suggesting a scenario in which the better armed wingnuts could demonstrate how safe they’d be with all their guns to protect them.
If the shooting had occurred in Florida, the shooter could claim self defense because he felt threatened by the audience.
@258
Would those .45 Tommy guns be “$400 billion each”!!!!111111eleven….
@260
Ah, yes they do. But I’ll give you a 20% for 10 or more.
Interesting that the Democrats controlled the White House, House & Senate and never brought up a Gun Control Policy for vote. Can you explain that please?? Seems like Obama was a bit…tepid on this issue. So were Pelosi and Reid.
Once again, the boneheads blame Romney or others instead of themselves.
So where is the Obama Policy??
For six months maybe..
http://538refugees.wordpress.c.....rity-myth/
Why control guns? I thought you right wingers hated that.
More on the lie trolls love..
http://mcspocky.com/2012/04/13.....-majority/
I generally respect the military, and the people who serve, but rape is endemic in the armed services and overall they’ve done a miserably poor job of policing it. But this rapist is going to jail — I call it a start in the right direction.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....andal.html
“George W. Bush will not attend the Republican National Convention …. Mr. Bush is still an unpopular political figure: A CBS News poll found he left office with just a 22 percent approval rating, and recent surveys show it has improved little since then.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-50.....onvention/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Delegates, you can take your gas masks off now.
Boardroom Brouhaha
In case you haven’t been following it, Progress Energy and Duke Energy have merged to form America’s largest electric utility. Regulators were told Progress CEO William Johnson would manage the merged company. Then the Duke board fired him on his first day on the job — and gave him $44 million of severence pay. Here’s why they canned him:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48263354
In short, William Johnson will live in the lap of obscene luxury for the rest of his life for being a failure. But don’t work, Duke/Progress shareholders won’t eat the $44 million. The directors will figure out a way to wring it out of customers.
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Does anyone still wonder why Big Bidness is so distrusted?
@263–
Hey, it’s the Progressive constituency that screams for more Gun Control every time tragedy strikes. Obama has’t listened to you much, has he.
ev makes a good point.
The establishment left is not at all focused on gun control.
We have a culture awash in firearms, where any disturbed, mentally injured individual can put together a personal arsenal and wreck carnage like Aurora, Tucson, Columbine.
…is a misleading use of the passive voice. The incidents aren’t like tornadoes or earthquakes, striking out of the blue, but are rather a predictable and frequent outcome of policies and cultural norms.
I can see why gun control has been de-emphasized politically, tactically, by the left, but that doesn’t make it right. The conservative right has very successfully linked the little-boy gun fetish part of the right-wing id with larger political power, all embodied by the NRA and the outsized veneration for the second amendment. It has been very very successful, unfortunately at a massive cost for the rest of us.
@269 Tobacco companies knowingly sold a dangerous product and eventually were held liable for it — $225 billion in damages to the states alone for Medicaid expenses, not counting individual lawsuits. Of course, they passed this cost through to consumers by raising prices for cigarets, but the higher prices discourage cigaret consumption.
Gun manufacturers knowingly sell a dangerous product and I believe they, too, eventually will be held liable. They, too, will pass the costs through to consumers by raising prices for guns. Then the price-demand curve will work its magic to reduce the supply of guns.
Just as there are no cheap cigarets anymore, someday there will be no cheap guns, either. When that happens, as it inevitably will, we’ll have trial lawyers to thank for making our country safer.
The beauty of this approach is you don’t have to mess with the Second Amendment. The Constitution will still guarantee the right to bear arms. The Constitution gives no one a right to not be sued.