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Well outside of Kacinich, Clinton would be the only one I would actively vote against and fill the campaign coffers of anyone running against her, short of Ron Paul.

Ahtman wrote:Actually President Clinton will probably be remembered for his massive Welfare reform more then NAFTA, and for tax cuts for small business.

I know it is hard for people to remember when the only reminders come from Rush Limbaugh or Michael Moore, but Clinton was much more moderate then pundits make him out to be, and Bush is not as conservative as he is painted. Talk to a full on conservative and they will paint a different picture of how Bush isn't conservative enough.

Welfare reform was good. But that will not be what he is remembered for. Wag the Dog anyone?
Tax cuts? He stood watch over a series of tax increases. Tax cutting is not exactly his reason d etre.

Wag the Dog? Are you serious?

Tax increases were part of balancing the budget and actually developing a budget surplus. Which was then squandered by an ostensibly “conservative” President and congress.

jfrazell wrote:****Manny none of this is directed at you in any way.

No worries.

jfrazell wrote:****Sorry you're brilliantly wrong. He's run Fortune 100 corporations. He's no bubble head. But he is a flip flopping poll watcher.

Mea Culpa on Romney. I’ll happily concede that he’s smarter and better than Bush, particularly since I don’t think a worse president is actually possible. That said, he has a habit of saying similarly inane things.

jfrazell wrote:

mannahnin wrote: Rudy has the same problem, having been Mayor of NYC. His personal and social views and practices have been as or more hedonistic/free than those of most liberals.

]****And you say it like its a bad thing Anyone who will contiue to work while under mob death threats is my kind of guy.

It’s not a bad thing IMO, except insofar as it makes him say/do crazy things to try and make for it via pandering to nutjobs.

jfrazell wrote:

mannahnin wrote: Both of them are now trying to make up for this by saying bats**** insane things that they think will endear them to the rightwing nutjobs, like Rudy's endorsement of building and staffing a wall across the entire 1969 mile US/Mexico border,

****Nothing wrong with that. When the terrorists cross the border that way or heaven forbid cart a nuke across-how will you feel then?

Where are we supposed to get the money or the people? I honestly don’t see a nuke coming across that way anyway.

jfrazell wrote:*****Ron Paul believes 9/11 was a government conspiracy. Many of supporters reflect anti-semetic views. Sorry but he left the heat lamp on too long and fried his brain.

Can you provide a quote from Paul to that effect? I know he’s said some stupid things that sounded pretty racist. And he does have a lot of weirdos supporting him (both good weirdos and bad weirdos, IMO).

Surplus was built up on taxing the internet boom (bubble).

Bubble burst + 911 = no more surplus.

DarthDiggler wrote:Surplus was built up on taxing the internet boom (bubble).

Bubble burst + 911 = no more surplus.

9/11 didn’t kill the budget. Wasteful spending, a stupid, murderous, and wrongheaded war, and unnecessary tax cuts killed the budget and created the largest deficit in history.

You're forgetting about the 2002 recession, and military spending on the war which blew the budget before Iraq.
but yes, it seems once the war started someone rang the dinner bell for all the hogs to come feed (of both parties). Easily remedied-tie Congressional salaries to the budget. If they don't balance Congress gets no paycheck. Problem solved almost instantly.

All that tying individual salaries to the budget would accomplish is to force honest politicians into taking money from lobbyists (either before or after they leave office) and reduce the options for dealing with economic crisis (e.g. the New Deal and WWII ran at a deficit - both got America out of the Great Depression).

I don't think it would solve the problem at all.

The problem is when the deficit continues for too long and when it exists for the wrong reason. Quite separate from any assessment of the Iraq war, there did need to be a temporary rise in taxes to pay for it.

So, er how would that be differeent than now?

New Deal didn't get us out of the Depression. WWII got us out fo the Depression.

It wouldn't be much different, just a little worse.

"Almost the same, but worse!" makes for a lousy campaign slogan.

As Asmodai said, you need to pay for a war. GWB completely blew it after 9/11, when everyone in the US (and nearly everyone in other countries) said “What can we do to help?” Instead of accepting our willingness to make some economic sacrifices (though it wouldn’t have been anything like WWII), he said “No, keep everything totally the same, be wasteful and selfish and keep those tax breaks.” While we had pretty much unilateral support in Afghanistan, going after the culprits, he then proceeded to squander international support by engaging in a completely unnecessary war of choice with an uninvolved country.

For me (and I think a lot of other people), a critical issue in this election is moving away from 8 years of bad policies and destructive decisions. IMO that’s the main reason independents are leaning toward the left, even if most of us aren’t as big lefties as I am personally.

I’m also hoping that McCain and Obama’s leads represent a referendum on honesty and integrity as important values. 8 years of this much lying, deceit, and secrecy (substantially worse than the Nixon administration) is more than enough.

Mannahnin wrote:IHuckabee is Satan. He talks a good game, and that makes him genuinely scary, as I find his policy ideas morally repellent, and they are exactly what the religious nutjobs are looking for.

I would step back from language like that. I am a pastor who is all too often lumped in with the "religeous nutjobs" even though I am placing all my
political hopes on Obama. People should not be regarded as one group based on their professed religeon. I am part of a young postmodern group of
Christians who vote on the left because they are interested in the plight of those in poverty and the restoration of the marginalized.

I do think Huckabee is reading his Bible backwards or something because he says so many things that I find apalling. I was hoping the republican party was starting
to get over its adherance to a small but loud part of the religous community. I guess not.

Oh and did I say Obama rocks.

http://www.factcheck.org/

Great site devoted completely to debunking the lies and misleading statements / comercials / debate claims of US politicians. Very even handed and very good about sighting (and linking) their sources. Best resource I've ever found to root out political lies.

7 out of 3 facts on factcheck.org are outright lies. I saw
this on wikipedia.

Jezrael wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:IHuckabee is Satan. He talks a good game, and that makes him genuinely scary, as I find his policy ideas morally repellent, and they are exactly what the religious nutjobs are looking for.

I would step back from language like that. I am a pastor who is all too often lumped in with the "religeous nutjobs" even though I am placing all my political hopes on Obama.

Thanks for not going too harsh in your reproval.

I did not mean in any way to imply that all religious people are nutjobs. I’m a religious person myself.

To clarify, there is a large population of religious persons within the US whose interpretation of Christianity, and whose ideals of how it should be applied to our government and society, absolutely appall and frighten me. People who seem never to have heard of Thomas Jefferson or James Madison, or to know anything about the concept of Separation of Church & State except to attack and deride it. Further, most of the Republican party seems to have a clear policy of pandering to and using this base, either due to sharing the same values, or simply through cynical manipulation of them to further their personal ambitions.

Jezrael wrote: People should not be regarded as one group based on their professed religeon. I am part of a young postmodern group of Christians who vote on the left because they are interested in the plight of those in poverty and the restoration of the marginalized.

IMO that seems much more like the original message of Christianity. Helping the poor, sick, and needy. Not creating more through “holy war”, or by dismantling government assistance programs (which ironically tend to be used more by the residents of states which politically trend conservative).

1 out of 2 facts on wiki are lies. I saw that on factcheck.org.
So there!

Was Hillary's sob fest the other day a benefit or a loss for her.

I think for the first time ever you acctually saw a non contrived emotional side to a candidate (at least if it was set up she did a brilliant job). Something missing from her (and all the candidates).

However it can be viewed as weakness and it seems alot of Americans hate weakness in a president.


Superobama:

Also Obama's slogan 'CHANGE We Can Believe In'. What is he changing?
Almost all he wants is pretty similar to the status quo but with a lefter leaning as would be expected from a democratic standpoint.

Someone needs to an image of 'Obama Llama'

Change. I believe in getting six singles for a five.

Change:
Make Abercrombie and Fitch turn down their music and turn some lights on.

Make southern whites stop naming their kids with hyphenated double first names.

Raise the minimum wage and get rid of tipping.

Make Malfred Secretary for Education...

Thank you, thank you I'll be here all week. Try the schnitzel, its great!

Clint, right now we've got a deceitful and secretive administration which...

A) Blatantly flouts the constitution and "lesser" laws
B) Wiretaps innocent citizens & tortures prisoners
C) Led us into an unneccesary war (and shows signs of looking for another)
D) Lies to our troops (Ref the press conference in which Rumsfeld lied right to the men's faces about body armor) while endangering them unnecessarily
E) Lacks any semblance of fiscal responsibility or budget control
F) Panders shamelessly to the energy industry (see: Enron) and to corporate polluters (Clear Skies Act)
G) Enriches its corporate sponsors (Enron, Halliburton, KBR) with no-bid contracts at taxpayer expense
H) Supports social and domestic policies which are by turns anti-freedom (anti-choice, anti gay-rights) and flat out destructive to our children (unfunded No Child Left Behind, abstinence-only sex ed) for the sake of gratifying the religious right and getting their votes.

"Change", to me, means stopping all the above crap.

I literally wept in 2004 when Kerry dropped the ball and we as a people let this administration stay in office. It was a lesson to me in the willful ignorance, greed, and selfishness of my nation.

My wife already wants to move to Denmark. I've always thought the idea of moving away was cowardly, but if we let the Republicans keep the White House this year, I'm not sure what to think about us as a nation.

Mannahin: What you'd HAVE to think.

There are a lot of scary people out there.

jfrazell wrote:Welfare reform was good. But that will not be what he is remembered for. Wag the Dog anyone?
Tax cuts? He stood watch over a series of tax increases. Tax cutting is not exactly his reason d etre.

I kind of threw those two together and that was my fault. With the tax cuts was pointing out that he was not the uber-liberal he is often painted as. As for Wellfare reform I guess it depends on what group you are hanging out with. It is the difference between cummunal history (Boston Tea Party was a great rebellion and they stuck it to the British!) and actual history (they did it quietly and did not talk about it for 50 years and was little known).

Mannahnin wrote:
My wife already wants to move to Denmark. I've always thought the idea of moving away was cowardly, but if we let the Republicans keep the White House this year, I'm not sure what to think about us as a nation.

And you are absolutely right. It is monstrously cowardice. Your choice can't win every election, and in a nation of 300 million not everything you want is going to happen. On the other hand if you just bitch out it seems that you don't think what you have to say is worth standing up for, just running away from.

If you don't like something your child does should you throw them out and never have anything to do with them? Or do you discipline them and/or try and help them get to a better place? (discipline does not mean beating or even touching, though the threat of a chainsword goes a long way.)

Ahtman's right.

At least wait until they kick you out.

jfrazell wrote:So, er how would that be differeent than now?

New Deal didn't get us out of the Depression. WWII got us out fo the Depression.

Only if you believe the revisionists. The New Deal turned your country around. In Canada, where RB Bennet did as the neo cons now suggest Rooseevelt should have done Bennet is now best remembered for horse drawn Model T's (Bennet Buggies). As bad as the Us depression was it was largely done before the war. Pre depression proseperity hadn't returned, but the depression had ended. Some of the backwaters may not have seen improvements until the war. The war led to prosperity, but the economy had stabilised and returned to normal before the war began.

For what it's worth the wikipedia article is in agreement with my now long distant university memories. By 1935 there was a 9% unemployment rate (which while bad is better then Canada had during the 1990s.) There was another dip in the year 1937-1938, but not as bad as the initial fall.

The New Deal worked and helped set America up for a prolonged period of prosperity after the war.

Edit: and the successful projects and programs of the New Deal enriched America

-Federal Writers' Project
-Works Progress Administration
- FDIC, Securities and Exchange Commission and Securities Act of 1933
- Minimum wages
- National Labor Relations Board
- NRA board to set labor codes and standards
- Social Security

Which would you do without and more importantly why?

Mannahnin wrote:As Asmodai said, you need to pay for a war. GWB completely blew it after 9/11, when everyone in the US (and nearly everyone in other countries) said “What can we do to help?” Instead of accepting our willingness to make some economic sacrifices (though it wouldn’t have been anything like WWII), he said “No, keep everything totally the same, be wasteful and selfish and keep those tax breaks.” While we had pretty much unilateral support in Afghanistan, going after the culprits, he then proceeded to squander international support by engaging in a completely unnecessary war of choice with an uninvolved country.

The least problem for America is how it handled it's allies, sadly we're used to it. It's dumb to be insulting to the people who want to help.
I think that the American people traded liberty for security in the yeasrs following 9/11 was worse. The Bush Administration made democracy look bad. Dumber
I think ultimatley in 20 years time the great failing of the Bush Administration may be viewed as the tax cuts during a time of war. Dumberest.

I don't care who you are and what your economic leanings are. A 100-200 billion dollar a year war is a recipe for economic disaster in the postwar period. To mkae matters worse, it's a trillion dollar a year occupation... with no end in sight. There are no positives. Your government is like a crack whore trying to pay it's dealer (Halliburton) with a credit card. Find some crack whores and ask them how well that worked for them in the long run.

Out of everything stupid/bad/awful that GWB has done, the one thing that stands out in my mind is how he managed to take the single biggest worldwide outburst of support and good wishes for the US, her government and her people after 9/11, in which no nation state said a bad thing about the US - even the palestinian government put out a 'we are sorry for your loss' propaganda piece, and then GWB managed to turn it around and made more citizens of earth hate the US than at any other time in history whilst polarizing the nation. A better man would have been able to completely change the world with that level of support but it was utterly destroyed by the administration. Bravo!

legoburner wrote:Out of everything stupid/bad/awful that GWB has done, the one thing that stands out in my mind is how he managed to take the single biggest worldwide outburst of support and good wishes for the US, her government and her people after 9/11, in which no nation state said a bad thing about the US - even the palestinian government put out a 'we are sorry for your loss' propaganda piece, and then GWB managed to turn it around and made more citizens of earth hate the US than at any other time in history whilst polarizing the nation. A better man would have been able to completely change the world with that level of support but it was utterly destroyed by the administration. Bravo!

To be fair, I think a lot of that support was very superficial to begin with. He could have done more with it, but I don't think any human could have turned most of it into anything permanent.

Even in Canada, which is one of America's closest allies it took less than a week for the editorial line of the left-wing newspapers to change to 'Well they deserved it.'

Interesting thread.
I was unaware of the depth of dislike for the clintons (though my brother did point out the Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton possibility), and I'm suprised at how popular Obama is. I would prefer to see him get it for mostly whimsical reasons: He's personally more charming than Hillary, he's not an irratating feminist, and he shows less evidence of selling out to my cursory glance.
I stopped caring about US presidential elections after Bush got voted in for the second time. I find it hard to care about it now too much, though I do read the pieces in the Irish times. (And I'll continue to follow this thread).

The US system seems so wierd to me, since almost all Irish governments have to be coalitions of conflicting factions.

Impressive. Bush is evil. Of course Bush isn't running so its irrelevant.

Da Boss wrote:Interesting thread.
I was unaware of the depth of dislike for the clintons (though my brother did point out the Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton possibility), and I'm suprised at how popular Obama is. I would prefer to see him get it for mostly whimsical reasons: He's personally more charming than Hillary, he's not an irratating feminist, and he shows less evidence of selling out to my cursory glance.
I stopped caring about US presidential elections after Bush got voted in for the second time. I find it hard to care about it now too much, though I do read the pieces in the Irish times. (And I'll continue to follow this thread).

The US system seems so wierd to me, since almost all Irish governments have to be coalitions of conflicting factions.

Hillary isn't really a radical feminist. At least not by our standards. She might have been in the past, but I think that America has caught up with her.

Yeah, I didn't say she was one.
Just irratating.
(TBH I don't know much about the candidates, but this stage of things would require too much investment of time for me at the moment to get properly educated)

I'm sure if I took the time to look into Obama I could find some stuff that annoys me about him.