State of Affairs et tu

[null0010]

The same press that got the dupes ensorcelled into the Obama myth, want you to believe Palin will be the worst president ever.

I would argue that Palin wants us to believe she will be the worst president ever. Not like it matters though, I do not believe she intends to run for that office.

[Will Robinson]

But that is impossible Krom because TC says there are only 3 candidates in every election: repubs, dems and tea partiers. /sarcastic poke in TC's eye

Dollars to donuts, these will be our 2 main choices for Pres. in 2012. Unless there's a miracle and someone comes forward to challenge these 2 that isn't either an idiot or ideologue....

Those being the "two main choices" is not the same as them being the only choices. You are an enabler if you continue to think you have no choice. In fact you are a key part of the problems that you complain about since you advocate choosing from only the two. As long as enough people think the way you do there is no reason for the status quo to dissolve.

[null0010]

Voting for a third party is a wonderful way to split a party's vote and cause the party without a split vote to win the election. No amount of oh it shouldn't be that ways will change that.

[Will Robinson]

Voting for a third party is a wonderful way to split a party's vote and cause the party without a split vote to win the election. No amount of oh it shouldn't be that ways will change that.

She doesn't want the same old crap but she shouldn't vote in a way that might harm one of the two party's that are responsible for ensuring we have all this crap to deal with? Your point is irrelevant to her situation.

Increasing the number of votes that leave one of the two big parties and end up as votes for a third party is a wonderful way to tell a party that it lost because the voters are abandoning the status quo.

We have put far too much power in the hands of the two national parties and if the trend shows voters are rejecting the two bigs they will have to listen or die.

The democrats would love for everyone to think of the Tea Party as simply another republican effort but that isn't the case. The Tea Party is a grass roots spontaneous effort. It is the result of people getting fed up with the governments abuse. Obviously since the Dem's are in the driver seat of the government the Tea Party has them in their sights right now but it could just as easily have been a liberal oriented Tea Party. There is just as much anger on their side just no more Bush in the White House or Gingrich in the Congress for them to raise up against.
The point is, both parties and all the pundits and political advisers know the incumbents, and recently ousted incumbents, have or had, pushed America to the tipping point. So in the wake of the looming massacre coming in two weeks any sign that the base of either party is raising up to smite their leadership is something they will be watching out for. It is something that will be the focus of much pontificating in the aftermath of the next few elections.

So the more we-the-voters show up to vote anyone-but-you-bastards-in-power-is-an-improvement the better off we all will be and the more likely we are to see them change their ways and start listening. Right now the elite in power have absolute contempt for the voters and not just those of the opposing party! They have contempt for all of us regular people because their focus has become that of their own little fraternity of Congressmen and Congresswomen not the people out here in normalville and all our complaining is because we 'don't understand how things work' etc. Well we do understand and we are realizing that we don't like the way they work!

Hopefully enough of us see that so it will be their downfall. TC doesn't see it yet because she's been drinking the Kool-Aid too long. Your comment about how a third party vote can hurt one of the two parties is just what either of the two bigs would want you to say because it is that kind of short sighted thinking that ensures their undeserved seat of power.

[Gooberman]

I would argue that Palin wants us to believe she will be the worst president ever. Not like it matters though, I do not believe she intends to run for that office.

I agree. In fact, while i wouldn't vote for her, my respect for her would increase if she did actually run. Right now, she just striked me as an opportunist who is making an *insane* amount of money off the backs, fears, and hardshipes of those she claims to represent.

[Avder]

Voting for a third party is a wonderful way to split a party's vote and cause the party without a split vote to win the election. No amount of oh it shouldn't be that ways will change that.

Want proof of this statement? Governor Tim Pawlenty of my very own state of Minnesota was elected because the Democratic ticket keeps getting split by the independence party allowing Republican governors into office despite the fact that this state is predominantly democratic. Thanks a lot, third party, by allowing Pawlenty in, you've earned a share of the blame for him running this state into the ground with fiscal policies that rival the idiocy of the federal government. If you do it again and let another Republican governor in with the same policies, I'm moving to North Dakota, even tho they too have a republican governor too. At least theirs is actually in touch with and on top of his states needs unlike Pawlenty, who is screwing Minnesota over in an effort to make himself look like a poster child for everything the Republican party wants in a a nominee in 2012.

I would say the same thing almost let Coleman "win" a second term (he got really lucky when Wellstone bought it and let him in for his first), but the amount of people voting third party in that race was clearly attributable to people of both parties simply being fed up with the negativity between the two front runners. Now if only we could get third parties to work THAT way instead of the usual way.

So who am I going to vote for in the next election, given a choice between Obama and whatever piece of garbage the Republicans cough up? Write in for Big Bird/Snuffleupagus. I'm not kidding. But if for some reason Palin somehow manages to be the republican nominee (I'm considering eating my hat if she is) I might have to vote for Obama :/

[woodchip]

I would argue that Palin wants us to believe she will be the worst president ever. Not like it matters though, I do not believe she intends to run for that office.

I agree. In fact, while i wouldn't vote for her, my respect for her would increase if she did actually run. Right now, she just striked me as an opportunist who is making an *insane* amount of money off the backs, fears, and hardshipes of those she claims to represent.

Or Palin could just be smart enough to amass her own funding so she wouldn't be as beholding to special interest groups like Obama is.

[fliptw]

Or Palin could just be smart enough to amass her own funding so she wouldn't be as beholding to special interest groups like Obama is.

If thats true, all that SIG money she isn't taking will be used against her.

[Avder]

I would argue that Palin wants us to believe she will be the worst president ever. Not like it matters though, I do not believe she intends to run for that office.

I agree. In fact, while i wouldn't vote for her, my respect for her would increase if she did actually run. Right now, she just striked me as an opportunist who is making an *insane* amount of money off the backs, fears, and hardshipes of those she claims to represent.

Or Palin could just be smart enough to amass her own funding so she wouldn't be as beholding to special interest groups like Obama is.

You really think shes *smart* enough for something? She was freaking caught with notes written on her palm for freaks sake.

[Will Robinson]

...
You really think shes *smart* enough for something? She was freaking caught with notes written on her palm for freaks sake.

Yea, too bad she can't find a way to make the tax payers fund a state of the art, three teleprompter system complete with production and support crew and a plane to fly it everywhere she goes so she doesn't look like someone who jots down notes to use in a speech

[woodchip]

I would argue that Palin wants us to believe she will be the worst president ever. Not like it matters though, I do not believe she intends to run for that office.

I agree. In fact, while i wouldn't vote for her, my respect for her would increase if she did actually run. Right now, she just striked me as an opportunist who is making an *insane* amount of money off the backs, fears, and hardshipes of those she claims to represent.

Or Palin could just be smart enough to amass her own funding so she wouldn't be as beholding to special interest groups like Obama is.

You really think shes *smart* enough for something? She was freaking caught with notes written on her palm for freaks sake.

Palin was obviously smart enough to get elected to a state governorship. She is also smart enough to get involved in the grass roots movement of backing strongly conservative candidates (read: guess how many ringing endorsements she will get if she runs for POTUS). If she would of stayed on as governor I suspect she would of still been bogged down with leftist lawsuits. I believe, if she runs in 2012, she will best articulate those concerns many working and laid off workers have. At the very least it will be a damne interesting presidential race if she does run...especially here on this board

[flip]

Eh, when I think of Palin I think of every other woman I've ever known. Guess it doesn't matter nowadays though

[Tunnelcat]

....The democrats would love for everyone to think of the Tea Party as simply another republican effort but that isn't the case. The Tea Party is a grass roots spontaneous effort. It is the result of people getting fed up with the governments abuse. Obviously since the Dem's are in the driver seat of the government the Tea Party has them in their sights right now but it could just as easily have been a liberal oriented Tea Party. There is just as much anger on their side just no more Bush in the White House or Gingrich in the Congress for them to raise up against.
The point is, both parties and all the pundits and political advisers know the incumbents, and recently ousted incumbents, have or had, pushed America to the tipping point. So in the wake of the looming massacre coming in two weeks any sign that the base of either party is raising up to smite their leadership is something they will be watching out for. It is something that will be the focus of much pontificating in the aftermath of the next few elections.

Grassroots, BAH! Not with the funding and cheerleading from Dick Armey (who's essentially the founder and a "cough", Republican) and other REPUBLICAN or Corporate-based sources and PAC's. And then we have THESE 2 very rich bozos funding and cheer leading things over at Tea Party Central:

Koch Brothers

They wouldn't be doing it if they thought the Tea Party wasn't just an arm of the Republican Party!

...Hopefully enough of us see that so it will be their downfall. TC doesn't see it yet because she's been drinking the Kool-Aid too long.....

Now we come to the Concerned Taxpayers of America, which consists of only 2 taxpayers, one owns a concrete firm, the other is a Hedge Fund manager. Nice! They've been running constant ads against the local Democrat, Pete DeFazio and pumping wads of cash to the Republican/Tea Party????????? opponent, Art Robinson. This guy is a certifiable nutcase! So how is this going to change Washington when a Hedge Fund guy wants to influence our local election and try to get someone elected that will further the agenda of the wealthy? It certainly isn't going to benefit little shlub me.

By the way, I already voted (we have vote by mail), and NOT ONE Tea Partier got my vote. However, I didn't vote blindly along Democratic lines either.

[CUDA]

So how is this going to change Washington when a Union guy wants to influence our local election and try to get someone elected that will further the agenda of the Unions?

Fixed it for ya

and if you believe the Unions are out for the working guy, I've got a nice bridge I'd like to sell you.

[Will Robinson]

TC just because you can find dyed in the wool repubs who are trying to co-opt the TeaParty doesn't prove the Tea Party is a republican movement it only proves that the repubs fear them for the potential to split the party vote in the next presidential election!

There are more than a few of us out here in the real world watching this whole thing unfold and it looks to us like Palin is being pressured/bribed/begged/cajoled and probably voo-doo dolled into being the republican trojan horse sent into the TeaParty midst to make sure their momentum ultimately swings in favor of the Repubs.

The libs who want you to be sure to show up to vote for them will no doubt try to get you to focus on the old school repubs involved in the Tea Party because it is a good scare tactic, it keeps you right there on the Dem plantation but the truth is the republican national party wishes the Tea Party would just go away so they could do nothing and take the election by default. Without the Tea Party Obama would be the dem's Bush in the sense that Repubs could copy what the dem's did last time and simply run on anyone but Obama, offering nothing but bumper sticker platitudes like \"better hope, better change\". As it stands now the repubs who get in office are going to have to live up to the Tea Party expectation or else face them in the next election cycle...and the next...etc.

The Tea Party grew out of no funding, no organization, just people who are of conservative bent who got fed up with republicans-in-name-only taking them for granted and they were quickly joined by numerous factions starting with those with similar leanings and of course once a group gets attention the fringe elements came along to steal some spotlight.
If it makes you feel better about fearing the outside of the box then go ahead and believe they are just rightwing operatives. Meanwhile they will be operating outside the box and the next wave of political change to sweep through will have no input from you at all because you kept your mouth shut like a good little dem.

[Tunnelcat]

So how is this going to change Washington when a Union guy wants to influence our local election and try to get someone elected that will further the agenda of the Unions?

Fixed it for ya

and if you believe the Unions are out for the working guy, I've got a nice bridge I'd like to sell you.

So you think that unions can give anywhere NEAR the amount of money that these big corporate donors have been spending lately and that they will possibly have any MODICUM of influence on our local elections? I've also got a nice bridge to sell you...

Will, show me a more moderate, or even a slightly liberal-leaning Tea Party candidate and I'll change my mind, just a hair. But with supporters like these, I'll pass.

[Heretic]

Labor unions plan to spend about $145 million for Democrats.

[woodchip]

So how is this going to change Washington when a Union guy wants to influence our local election and try to get someone elected that will further the agenda of the Unions?

Fixed it for ya

and if you believe the Unions are out for the working guy, I've got a nice bridge I'd like to sell you.

So you think that unions can give anywhere NEAR the amount of money that these big corporate donors have been spending lately and that they will possibly have any MODICUM of influence on our local elections? I've also got a nice bridge to sell you...

Will, show me a more moderate, or even a slightly liberal-leaning Tea Party candidate and I'll change my mind, just a hair. But with supporters like these, I'll pass.

Any better than racist SEIU thugs beating up a black tea party protester?

[Will Robinson]

Will, show me a more moderate, or even a slightly liberal-leaning Tea Party candidate and I'll change my mind, just a hair. But with supporters like these, I'll pass.

You're getting tiresome TC. I never said you should vote for a Tea Party candidate. I said you shouldn't vote for a democrat or republican. I used the Tea Party to illustrate how people can take back the process from the two big party's and affect change in the way they operate.
You keep trotting out the fringe of the Tea Party as an example of the only alternative you have even after we have proven you have other choices on your states ballot. You do it as rationalization for your refusal to think outside the democrat party box. It doesn't work to convince me...is it really working on you?

[CUDA]

So how is this going to change Washington when a Union guy wants to influence our local election and try to get someone elected that will further the agenda of the Unions?

Fixed it for ya

and if you believe the Unions are out for the working guy, I've got a nice bridge I'd like to sell you.

So you think that unions can give anywhere NEAR the amount of money that these big corporate donors have been spending lately and that they will possibly have any MODICUM of influence on our local elections? I've also got a nice bridge to sell you...

dont know much about the Unions do you? it's not JUST about the $$$ they spend.
not only will they spend Millions on advertising for the DNC. they also strong arm their members to vote for the DNC. I have 3 friends that are Union menbers here in Portland, 1 of them is a Union negotiator. all 3 of them tell me that they are expected to vote DNC and even harrassed to do so. just last week at work I was talking to a co-worker who's husband is a Union member, she tells me the Harrassment is so bad they she has taken to asking the Union phone callers who they want her to vote for just to make the phone call end as quick as possible.

[Spidey]

That’s when you have to learn how to lie…

Who did you vote for?

A Democrat.

[Heretic]

Nevada voting machines automatically checking Harry Reid's name; voting machine technicians are SEIU members

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... z13b7KGvoZ

All hail the Unions

[CUDA]

just a follow-up on my earlier comment

So much for Big Business buying the election for the GOP I guess

Also on Tuesday, an analysis from the Center for Responsive Politics revealed that taken as a whole, Democrats and Democratic allied groups have raised and spent far more than their Republican counterparts -- $856 million to $677 million.

The same day, the AFL-CIO, the umbrella labor group that includes AFSCME and other public-employee groups like the American Federation of Teachers, was in Nevada rallying for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, saying that Reid's victory would be key to labor's agenda. Unions are spending millions to defeat Republican Sharron Angle, more than in any race except perhaps for the Colorado Senate contest.

It's the big, big money and ground troops unions provide that will spare some vulnerable Democrats.

Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/ ... z13b8KF9m4

[Mjolnir]

LOL Tell that to all the people on the street that EXPECT something (besides the basics that government SHOULD provide) from the government. Tell that to all the public sector unions that expect YOU the taxpayer to provide 100% of their medical and pension benefits. Get a clue. Look at the people in France who are on strike because the government wants to raise the retirement age to 62. 62! Jeez!

We would be lucky to have a population like that at the moment.

[Tunnelcat]

dont know much about the Unions do you? it's not JUST about the $$$ they spend.
not only will they spend Millions on advertising for the DNC. they also strong arm their members to vote for the DNC. I have 3 friends that are Union menbers here in Portland, 1 of them is a Union negotiator. all 3 of them tell me that they are expected to vote DNC and even harrassed to do so. just last week at work I was talking to a co-worker who's husband is a Union member, she tells me the Harrassment is so bad they she has taken to asking the Union phone callers who they want her to vote for just to make the phone call end as quick as possible.

Oh, I do know the unions very well, at least the one I was in. I was a member the Machinist's Union for 5 years. I was never harassed or pressured to vote for DNC candidates. Sure the meetings were laced with leftie worker propaganda and the "vote for this guy or that held OUR beliefs", but as it turned out, not all of it was propaganda, in my experience. Nor did I loose my own will of thought and follow their "advice" blindly either. We even had a card-carrying commie in our midst, and I personally thought he was crackers. Any decisions I made were for my benefit alone, not the employer's or the union's. The employer NEVER had my best interest in mind, by the way, and I think it has gotten FAR worse today than in the mid 1970's. Now, the unions are grappling for lost power and flailing, under assault from global corporations, our own government and even their own greed and power that rose from the previous long stretches of Democratic power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Unions are just as susceptible. But to claim that unions have more money to buy influence than the multinational corporations is just ludicrous.

Don't get me wrong, pure socialism has problems just as pure capitalism does, so I don't espouse going all socialistic, as you guys seem to paint on me. I just don't like the 'gung ho' for pure capitalism going on right now either, especially since people seem to have short memories and forgotten about what caused the recent economic meltdown in the first place, unregulated capitalism and pure GREED! In 1982 the average CEO made 42 dollars more than the average worker. By 2005, it was up to a whopping 525 to 1! Why is that? There has to be a happy medium that makes everyone at least comfortable in their lives for this country to survive peacefully with all it's myriad classes.

The unions aren't the only entities telling people how to vote. Corporations, like McDonalds are just as guilty and have far more sway, namely in the form of holding pay and benefits hostage if one doesn't vote the company way.

Will, you thought that the movie Gasland was an eye opener about the natural gas industry, so I recommend reading the book Fast Food Nation if you want to see how far America has gone in worshiping profit, not people. You too CUDA.

[Spidey]

Do we still have a secret ballot in this country, or not?

[Lothar]

It always cracks me up to see tunnelcat blame the recent meltdown on \"unregulated capitalism\"

You should know better than that. The recent meltdown was caused by capitalism that was unregulated in some ways and overregulated in others. The problem wasn't lack of regulation, it was regulation being applied in all the wrong places.

[Grendel]

The root cause of that meltdown is not putting regulations on derivatives. I don't see what overregulation played a role.

[Will Robinson]

The root cause of that meltdown is not putting regulations on derivatives. I don't see what overregulation played a role.

Government telling the financial institutions they must lend money to people who don't qualify and will be unable to pay the debt, setting up the taxpayers to cover the losses with government guarantees on the loans so the lenders had no incentive to avoid making the bad loans.

[Mjolnir]

Heretic, given your "42" reference in another thread, I thought you'd appreciate Douglas Adams quotes. No?

Has does my reference of a science fiction book disqualify that only 13% of the population get upset with God being referenced as the creator of the universe? Seems to me that 13% of the population are really the religious intolerant.

Sorry to derail the thread but I had to reply to this...



I won't apologize for my brothers and sisters, we're finally coming out with a voice instead of letting everyone step all over us like in the past. Also to be fair, it really started with the attacks on science/secularism(you reap what you sow).

[Spidey]

Please don’t ever lose an excuse to use some dumb graphic.

[Lothar]

it really started with the attacks on science/secularism

From what I can tell, this can actually be traced back to a rift within Christianity a little over a hundred years ago. "Liberal" theologians started to promote ideas about the Bible being unreliable and not to be taken seriously; "fundamentalism" arose as a counter-movement and took everything hyper-literally. The liberal theologians began to use science (eventually, evolution) as a bludgeon to attack fundamentalists, who responded by attacking evolution and science as a whole.

Both sides were wrong. And nowadays, both sides (along with atheist/agnostic allies on one side, and Islamic allies on the other) sit there and assign blame for the whole thing on "attacks" and "intolerance" from the other side. Your "he started it" mentality makes you a pawn in their stupid war. To be truly fair, it didn't start with "attacks on science/secularism", it started with a rift between two branches of Christianity who misused both science and the Bible in their arguments with each other.

[null0010]

Doesn't matter who started that nonsense, what needs to happen is one of the sides needs to get over the childish notion of \"winning\" and stop being so damn immature and whiny all the time.

[Mjolnir]

Please don’t ever lose an excuse to use some dumb graphic.

Don't hate, I love my graphics.

[woodchip]

Doesn't matter who started that nonsense, what needs to happen is one of the sides needs to get over the childish notion of "winning" and stop being so damn immature and whiny all the time.

One side? Let me guess which side you have in mind.

[woodchip]

Please don’t ever lose an excuse to use some dumb graphic.

Don't hate, I love my graphics.

Substitute the word Atheist with the word Jew and you have a classic Nazis propaganda poster.

[null0010]

No, this is a classic Nazi propaganda poster.

One side? Let me guess which side you have in mind.

Okay, guess.

[woodchip]

Your Nazis bible stabbing poster may in fact be in error:

\"But Gerhard Engel, one of Hitler's generals, reported that Hitler had told him: \"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so\" (in an entry in Engel's diary during 1941).[30]\"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany

Christianity was alive and well in Nazis Germany.

[null0010]

r we really going 2 believe anything that Hitler said?

[woodchip]

r we really going 2 believe anything that Hitler said?

Do try and read the link before making lame replies. Information is such a powerful tool.