Third Party & Independents Archives

David,

When the Republicans have no new ideas, all they seem able to do is to attack those that do.
I listen to Limbaugh and Hannity regularly and the only ideas they seem to have is to “stay the course” with Reagan.

Wow, if this is the best they have to offer, and if truly nearly half the country agrees with them, the Republicans will be out of office, and dare I say lose even more seats over the long term.

Rocky

david

she makes herself a target. publicly acusing the CIA of lying to congress. demanding the use of a peticular gov’t aircraft, and when they are not available getting pissed. if she isn’t the poster child for elitism, i don’t know who is. the issue of enhanced interogation is going nowhere because it will drag the dems into its web, and prove many of the biggest protestors to be hypocrites, and liars. poor nancy pelosi, they’re just picking on her..LOL!!!!

rocky

“Wow, if this is the best they have to offer, and if truly nearly half the country agrees with them, the Republicans will be out of office, and dare I say lose even more seats over the long term.”

wow, talk about living in a fantasy world. after obama and the dems triple the defecit, and start levying the taxes needed to fund all thier socialist dreams, it will be the dems that will be thrown from office, just like they were in 1994. how long will it last when they impose the tax on peoples employer paid medical benefits, and allow the bottom two tax rates to go back up after the bush tax cuts expire? make no mistake you ARE going to see the largest tax increase on the middle class in history, and it will start IMO with those two items i mentioned. lets not even get started on the increase in energy costs with cap, and trade. can you say one trick pony.

dbs,

“she makes herself a target.”

Yep, and of course you guys can’t wait to start taking pot shots.
Do you have nothing better to do?

“publicly accusing the CIA of lying to congress.”

And of course the CIA has never lied to Congress, or to anybody for that matter. Oh, and publicly accusing the CIA of lying is a Capital Crime, right?
This is schoolyard bully crap.

“allow the bottom two tax rates to go back up after the bush tax cuts expire?”

You guys threw McCain under the bus by telling the country he was against the tax cuts, when in actuality all he wanted was to know what programs were going to be cut to make it work.

So, what are you guys gonna cut?

“it will be the dems that will be thrown from office, just like they were in 1994.”

And if this is the case you guys will have the chance to screw it up just as badly.

I’ll ask again, are these the best ideas you guys have to offer?

Rocky

rocky

“Yep, and of course you guys can’t wait to start taking pot shots.
Do you have nothing better to do?”

i could ask you the same question.

“And of course the CIA has never lied to Congress, or to anybody for that matter. Oh, and publicly accusing the CIA of lying is a Capital Crime, right?
This is schoolyard bully crap.”

if there’s proof of this acusation, then bust it out. seems there are some different accounts as to what was said in those briefings. she was the one who came out and acused the cia of being liars, and then melted down when tough questions were asked. so lets see what the truth is. my guess is this matter is dead, and will be swept under the rug to avoid anymore embarrasment.

“So, what are you guys gonna cut?”

cut, hell you guys are going to make the bush defecits look like chump change, and ram through your euro socialist agenda by taxing the sh@t out of EVERYONE, while at the same time devaluating our currency to the point where no one will loan us money, just like those dumdasses in CA, brilliant. hell lets just print 3.6 trillion, and there’ll be no problem, right? forget about inflation, and interest rates. it’s all about doing this as quickly as possible. obamas gonna look like jimmy carter on steriods.

don’t even get me started on barack the appologist jeeze.

dbs,

“if there’s proof of this acusation, then bust it out.”

I am by no means defending Pelosi, however, the CIA has a long record of fudging the facts to Congress.

http://pubrecord.org/commentary/916-the-cias-history-of-bamboozling-the-congress.html

I would award you an A for originality except for the key Hannity/Limbaughspeak phrases you used in your rant. Both of these guys are known to parse the facts in order to make political hay at the expence of the truth.

Rocky

It’s particularly outrageous that Republicans attack Pelosi in this manner when you consider the sweetness and generosity extended by Democrats to previous Republican speakers like DeLay and Gingrich. Since Democrats have never sought partisan advantage by seeking to undermine Republican leaders, it’s just sick to to see the Republicans doing it now.

Yep LO, it makes perfect sense.

They did it first so it is imperative that we do it now.

Would you accept the “they did it first” defence from a 5 year old?

Rocky

Loyal Opp, heard the same logic from conservatives on torture. They do it, so we should. What did that logic get the Republicans? And extended vacation from power.

Republicans have got to figure out what they are for that the majority of Americans can and will support. So, far, all they seem to be able to figure out is who they are against. That doesn’t win elections.

Loyal Opp, heard the same logic from conservatives on torture. They do it, so we should. What did that logic get the Republicans?

Please point out one single example of a Republican who said that they torture and so we should too. Otherwise just admit that you make stuff up to bolster your arguments.

They did it first so it is imperative that we do it now.

Would you accept the “they did it first” defence from a 5 year old?

Actually, I’m not the one who is complaining about a political party seeking to exploit the unpopularity of a rival party’s leader. It’s as natural as the sun coming up in the morning. All I’m doing is pointing out the rank hypocrisy of suddenly complaining about it when the shoe is on the other foot.

Loyal Opp, Oh, I see, ACTUALLY TORTURING is OK, just saying one tortures and that our enemies do to, is NOT OK, as in the case of Dick Cheney, who authorized and promoted torture, but, now won’t say that torture was torture.

Actions speak louder than words, Loyal Opp. No invention required here at all.

David, nice attempt to change the subject. You claimed to have “heard” something from Republicans that you did not hear because it was never said. When challenged, I’m not surprised to see such obfuscation and sputtering arguments that attempt to change the subject.

Actions speak louder than words? I love it because I know full well that such a standard will NEVER be applied to Barack Obama on torture or any other subject since all he offers is words. When it comes to actions, he just continues to do what George Bush did.

LO,

“All I’m doing is pointing out the rank hypocrisy of suddenly complaining about it when the shoe is on the other foot.”

So I guess that you would accept the “they did it” defence.

And you did no complaining before, right?

What’s hysterical here is that the hypocrisy seems to run both ways.

Rocky

rocky

“I am by no means defending Pelosi, however, the CIA has a long record of fudging the facts to Congress.”

fine then lets have that investigation and let the facts speak for themselves. like i said before though IMO this whole thing will be swept under the rug, in order for many to avoid embarrasment.

“I would award you an A for originality except for the key Hannity/Limbaughspeak phrases you used in your rant. Both of these guys are known to parse the facts in order to make political hay at the expence of the truth.”

spend a lot of time worrying about limbaugh, and hannity huh. why so? after all the republican party is doomed unless they move left, right? seems i remember the right claiming the same thing about the left. so how’d that work out?

BTW, what part of my last statement wasn’t accurate? the part about the 3.6 tril budget, the part about monetizing the debt, and devaluating our currency,the part about there being different stories as to what was said in those briefings? so what was it? oh thats right thats all just limbaugh, and hannityspeak. never mind.

True.

But the circular, blind, mindless, divisive, distracting partisan-warfare goes both ways.

Aside (for the most part) from the extremes each go to, there’s not much difference between the two main parties.

I don’t have any sympathy for anyone in Congress (who give themselves automatic raises every year; 10 times in the past 12 years while U.S. troops risk life and limb, go without promised benefits, and have to endure 2, 3, 4, 5+ tours in Iraq and Afghanistan).

And whatever happens, they all blame it on the previous administration (which was undoubtedly thoroughly screwed up too). But, the end result is more corruption, dysfunction, and a severely bloated federal government that continues to grow to nightmare proportions.

At any rate, the voters have the severely bloated, wasteful, incompetent federal government that the voters elect (and re-elect, and re-elect, and re-elect , … , at least until that finally becomes too painful).

dbs,

“spend a lot of time worrying about limbaugh, and hannity huh.”

If they both fell off the earth tomorrow… well…

Listening to Rush today was enlightening. He spent 15-20 minutes railing on how he wanted GM to fail so that Obama’s plan wouldn’t succeed. He also interjected that he had nothing against the GM workers (I can only assume that he was including the union guys) but he wanted GM to fail.
He followed this up with a GM service commercial that he read (I couldn’t tell if was live or recorded).

Irony, thy name is Rush.

“the part about monetizing the debt, and devaluating our currency,”

I can’t find any “news” story where this has actually happened yet.

Perhaps you could share.

“different stories as to what was said in those briefings”

Did you read the link I provided?

Rocky

It might be because people just like Obama better than Pelosi. I know I do. I have never liked Pelosi. I like Obama, so I cut him more slack.

I am not the only one.

This whole posting reveals the troubling reach of partisans and projections of partisans onto others. You seem to think that Pelosi = Democrat and Obama = Democrat therefore Obama = Pelosi. I suppose that transitive principle works for true partisans. But I see them as different individuals.

I don’t like everything about Obama, but I think he is an honest man or integrity, intelligence and charm. Nancy Pelosi shares none of those traits. Why should I treat them the same?

BTW - Just because I like Obama doesn’t mean I fall for his rhetoric. The economy will probably rebound by next year. Economies do that. It will rebound less because of the big government and we will be under a fantastic debt, at least double that of any time since we paid off the WWII debt. It may reach almost 80% of GDP.

Democrats may be able to sell a majority of the American people that they succeeded. After all, you can fool some of the people all of the time. Maybe that has now become a durable majority.

LO,

“Please point out one single example of a Republican who said that they torture and so we should too.”

I don’t think that it was so much that we were doing tit for tat as it was that we decried the treatment of our soldiers at the hands of the Iraqis, and said that those that violated the Geneva Conventions would be prosecuted as war criminals, yet we treated captured Iraqi soldiers in the same manner.

http://pubrecord.org/torture/928-powell-told-us-tortured-detainees-but-he-failed-to-act.html

Rocky

David,

Excellent post, but still a bit premature to equate Obama with a rather lofty group.

I don’t agree that opposition can’t win elections, it seems most of Obama’s campaign was about the “wrong track”. He smartly did repackage it into a vague sense of “Hope”, but I’m not really sure what that meant, but it certainly felt as good as Uncle Ron’s….”Well,….”

It’s certainly nice to have an intellect that is capable of communicating more than My Pet Goat to an audience, but my jury is still out. He has done the distasteful necessities of turning around the economy, but we aren’t out of those woods, yet.

Loyal Opp, you comment is obviously blind or oblivious to any factual news on the topic of Republicans and torture. Follow this interview with Boehner:

(Boehner:) “Last week, they released these memos outlining torture techniques. That was clearly a political decision and ignored the advice of their Director of National Intelligence and their CIA director.”

“When it comes to what our interrogation techniques are going to be or should be, I’m not going to disclose, nor should anyone have a conversation about what those techniques ought to be. It’s inappropriate. All it does is give our enemies more information about us than they need.”

(Reporter:) “Shouldn’t the American public know what’s being done in their name?” asked one. “Shouldn’t they have an idea?”

(Boehner:) “Let me take a deep breath here. We’re talking about terrorists who are hell bent on killing Americans. All right?”

(Reporter:) “Alleged terrorists.”

(Boehner:) And 3,000 of our fellow citizens died. And there were techniques that were used by Americans and our allies around the world that helped keep America safe,” Boehner said. “I’m not going to allow our professionals and our allies around the world to get denigrated because they were working to keep our country safe.”

As you can see, Boehner first states we do torture by admitting the contents of the memos were from the CIA, and he elsewhere defends the CIA, saying they don’t lie. Then he turns right around and responds to the Reporters queries about the people’s right to know by saying what we did to our enemies was justified by their heinous act on 9/11. They are terrorists, he says, and defends our treatment of them, torture, as justified by their actions.

Which is exactly what I claimed in the article. And which your arguments can only negate by refusing to accept the facts of record about Republicans logic on this issue in their own words.

You can Google the quotes for verification, if you care to bear witness to the facts.

Gergle, he is in that lofty group as of this time, in my opinion. Considering the abject divisiveness and brink of horror we faced with the economy, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and the remarkable pulling the nation back from the brink in such short order (5 months), I have to put him in that lofty group, so far.

But, yes, pulling back from the brink, does not equal sustainable resolution, and other seemingly intractable challenges loom in N. Korea, our export-import trade with China, and Israel-Palestine. He has given us all reason to expect much from him, however, and I don’t think he intends to let us or himself, down on these matters.

Like you, I don’t agree with everything he has or is doing, but, then, I regard it impossible for a president to meet all my expectations. I couldn’t even do that, if I were president.

DR
Nice to see some credit where due. Can you imagine where we would be if McCain had won? We could have been having food riots by now.
This thing with Pelosi reminds me of a time I was doing picket duty for my union. There was usually two women and two men on the picket line. If us guys were away the big bad scab supervisor would come out and try to get heavy with the women. They held their own of course. That scab had no idea who he was trying to push around. The same is likely to happen with regard to Nancy. That,s one Italian grandmother they mess with at their peril.

Christine

“The economy will probably rebound by next year. Economies do that.”

Thanks for making my day. From the start of the debate on the stimulus package I have been predicting that we will know recovery is near when we start hearing the Y2K syndrome. Remember after y2k when some people started started wailing about all the money we wasted trying to fix y2k when, after all, nothing happened. Guess its time to start buying some stocks. Thanks again.

David,

LOL, aww, don’t be so humble. David Remer in 2012!!!!

billS

Economies do recover. The Fed did the right thing by pushing up the money supply. Protection the system was useful. But most of the “Stimulus” will not even happen until later this year.

The New Deal probably prolonged the depression, but it was popular and seemed good at the time.

Bush did and McCain would have done some of the same things. I worry about the big government push that is not necessary and BTW - I would have let GM and Chrysler go bankrupt a bit early and not poured the taxpayer money down those rat holes and achieving the same result.

Christine, the New Deal prolonged the Depression because it was too little spread over too long a period of time. The evidence that this is true was the massive short term Government spending to produce jobs in gearing up for WWII. WWII turned the economy around by massive deficit spending to create jobs, putting extraordinary numbers of men and women into the work force, both military and civilian.

The New Deal and FDR were hampered by a reluctant Congress to spend too much too fast through deficit spending. That was understandable in hindsight, since economic theory and history were not as complete as today. This potentially catastrophic economic meltdown in 2008 was avoided by precisely by preventing the banking sector to grind to a halt, and preventing a rapid and dramatic rise in unemployment, by, for example, preventing GM and Chrysler from shutting down and dumping 10’s of thousands more workers into non-consuming unemployment lines.

The possibility now exists that unemployment may not exceed 10% at its highest level, and begin a fairly rapid decline throughout 2010 and 2011. Just months ago, fears were rampant that unemployment may reach the mid teens. The New New Deal under Obama has worked so far to prevent a Depression, and will avert the repetitive cycle of Recessions experienced throughout the 1930’s, in all likelihood.

The great unanswered question of the day, is whether the deficits can be zeroed out and national debt brought down. In 1940, America had a vast untapped labor pool (women) to draw upon to stimulate unparalleled economic growth. That is not the case today. America is going to have to at least the following two things to address our debt and deficits:

1) significantly lower the per capita cost of entitlement spending while increasing per capita tax revenues, and
2) stimulate innovation and technological breakthroughs geared toward meeting foreign population needs and demands, dramatically expanding our export markets.

Number 1 above is potentially doable if the government can motivate the conversion of for-profit health care to non-profit health care in a big way, while holding Medicare/Medicaid premiums at current levels, or increasing them somewhat. And of course, modifying Soc. Sec., lifting income caps on SS contributions, inducing greater individual savings, and means testing benefits.

Number 2 above, I think, is actually the more difficult because it will require a paradigm shift in corporate thinking toward minimizing profit on a per sale basis while developing technologies desired and needed by dramatically larger numbers of consumers abroad. This of course will constitute a technological race for supremacy in the innovation of human basic needs concepts like fresh water, food, efficient and lower cost product distribution systems, and an international enforcement agency for patents, contracts, and trade agreements, to insure innovators advances are protected from infringement. Not an easy thing to accomplish by any means for a host of reasons.

gergle, perish the thought. I cherish my private life far too much to even consider public office at the federal level. I love my solitude, and am too selfish to give it up. Despite my many critiques, I actually respect and admire those willing to sacrifice so much of their personal and private lives to serve public needs. Not that our government is over-populated with such folks, but, there are enough to still admire, Jack Kemp, Russ Feingold, and Julian Bond for examples. (Julian Bond is with the NAACP) Though Kemp is no longer with us.

Chritine
Again with revisionist history. The New Deal prevented the US from decending into chaos among other little things. A Bolshevik revolution was a distinct possibility. The banking regulations that came out of it held us in good shape until they were removed, starting with Saint Reagan. The infrastructure created is still in use today and some of the programs created are still effective in reducing poverty and providing economic stability. Really,the Heritage Foundation is not a credible sourse of information.

I agree, I would of let the auto company’s go bankrupt a long time ago. Same for the banks, even though for one of the biggest and I love my job. “techy nerd”

About the whole CIA thing. I just think it’s funny that even the own CIA director said that he could not guarantee the accuracy of the reports that were given to congress, and that the congress would have to use their meetings notes to know if what they have said is true or not. Besides there have been several Repubs that have said CIA has lied to congress. Newt being one of them. To me, do an investigation don’t really care lets waste a few million dollars just to prove nothing?!?!? CIA already admitted their notes are not perfect, nor is their information. So what is the point, besides knowing that we spend probably billions on the CIA for most likely half @ss information?

It’s kind of funny how much we worry about terror in the USA. You have a higher chance of dieing in a plane, a car crash, struck by lightning then being killed by terrorists.

Christine
Here is a link you might find interesting re the stimulus bill from the Wall Street Journal.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/06/05/republicans-launch-misleading-attacks-on-obama-job-numbers/

kudosupreme,

It really depends how you look at stats. On 9/11 in New York, your odds of being killed by a terrorist were greatly elevated above lightning and even car accidents.

Many Republicans wanted GHW Bush to replace Dan Quaye with Jack Kemp before the 1992 elections if he had things might have been different Kemp knew Economics and was very sharp and many of the minorities liked him IMHO it would have done the republican party good.

Much of It’s personal Newt helped bring down speaker Jim Wright back in the 1980s I wish they’d stop the partisan Crap on both sides and run this country right like the Founders designed , “” Quote Wright became the target of an inquiry by the House Ethics Committee. Their report in early 1989 implied that he had used bulk purchases of his book, Reflections of a Public Man, to earn speaking fees in excess of the allowed maximum, and that his wife, Betty, was given a job and perks to avoid the limit on gifts. Faced with an increasing loss of effectiveness, he resigned as Speaker on May 31, 1989, effective upon the selection of a successor. On June 6, the Democratic caucus brought his Speakership to an end by selecting his replacement, Tom Foley, and on June 30 he resigned from his seat in Congress.

The incident itself was controversial and was a part of the increasing partisan infighting that has plagued the Congress ever since. The original charges were filed by Newt Gingrich in 1988 and their effect propelled Gingrich’s own career advancement to the Speaker’s chair itself. Seven years later, Gingrich would himself face 84 charges of ethics violations.”“

Term limits anyone what’s your thought 12-16 or so years in congress and 18 in the Senate is that harsh?

David:

I disagree with your analysis. Pelosi pretty well represents what is wrong with politics these days. The is hyper partisan, negative, and was basically a gunslinger after Bush.

Democrats have many great examples of statesman that have had the Speakers job. Tom Foley she is not!! Now that Democrats have secured power it’s time to change speakers from an attack dog to someone with a broader vision.

She is less popular than Dick Cheney right now. According to Rasmussen Pelosi is about as popular among democrats as Obama is across the nation.

We need leaders who are less gunslingers and more statesman. I hope the democratic party makes the adjustment.

Craig, you mean like J.Edgar Hoover going after Al Capone? Pelosi going after Bush for violations of the law and treaty is not political, even if it has a political motive component. It is what our government is supposed to do, first and foremost, protect and defend the Constitution and laws emanating from it.

Any attempts to call government official’s calls for investigation of alleged illegal activity a partisan act, simply does not hold up under our Constitutional rule of law system, and those making such accusations are the partisan players.

She only needs to be popular amongst the Democratic Caucus to be House Speaker. The House Speaker role is not directly elected by the people, but the majority party seats in the House. And she is popular amongst that caucus by definition.

What you call gunslinger, is simply someone attempting to protect and defend the rule of law being equally applied to everyone including a past president. Law enforcement and investigation of alleged illegal activities is not gunslinging and your partisan attempts to paint Pelosi as a gunslinger only demonstrates your comment’s attempt at an apologetic defense of the GOP.

I don’t like Pelosi’s priorities one iota, and I like even less her double standards and placement of Party above national public needs and demands. But, on this issue of going after the Bush administration for illegal use of torture, she is simply doing the job which ANY speaker of the House should be doing, regardless of what party they belong to.

David:

I disagree with your claim that Pelosi was interested in the rule of law. If that were her motive, she would have started impeachment hearings immediately.

She herself says that her job was to regain the majority which she did. That from her own mouth is political.

She certainly is no statesman. Remember the first bail out vote?

Here is one of her classic moments trying to bring the country together:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey3ZlsmIkz4&feature=PlayList&p=730C8A800FF60974&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=

This is much better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffm5GMIHn7U&feature=PlayList&p=293DDC09375B0AD0&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=8

Craig said: “I disagree with your claim that Pelosi was interested in the rule of law. If that were her motive, she would have started impeachment hearings immediately.”

She didn’t have the votes from her caucus. She is just the speaker. She can’t do crap without at least a simple majority vote, contrary to conservative hyperbole.

WOW, I think this posted needs to be in the Democratic post. Talk about a lovefest for BO, and in NO way is he anywhere near FDR/Kennedy or even Ronnie, maybe more like Herbert Hoover.

As far as Nancy goes, I wonder if BO told her to keep her mouth shut, because everytime she opens it, it causes more problems then it helps.

Kick the DOG, I hope the people of SF wise up and kicks her to the curb.

KT

KT, thank you for that fine example of baseless, unreasoned, factless, and partisan opinion.

Perhaps explaining WHY you don’t believe BO belongs in the group of JFK,FDR, or RR, would improve the credibility of your comment about 100% or so. As it stands, your comment reflects only a negative partisan passion without reason or factual base.

david

“As it stands, your comment reflects only a negative partisan passion without reason or factual base.”

and we won’t be having any of that around here…LOL..;-)

Quite the contrary, dbs, we have similar comments arise often around here. No harm in pointing out when such commentary lacks any meat on the passionate bones, to give it credible shape.

david

“No harm in pointing out when such commentary lacks any meat on the passionate bones, to give it credible shape.”

very true.

OK DR tell me why a man with little experince rates to be up there with FDR/Kennedy or Ronnie?

He has not proven in my opinion that he is a LEADER, but just a good bs’er. Tell’s everyone what they want to hear and then moves on, but then again all politicans do the same thing.

So why is he as great or greater(by the way you are making it sound), a President with a whole 6 months under his belt then those that you mentioned.

Yes my opinion is partisan as a independent who votes for who he thinks is the best for the job(and it wasn’t BO), and as I stated this post should have been in the Democratic Lovefest Archive. As far as being factless, you haven’t shown any facts to back your opinion.

KT