Since he refused to see wounded soldiers without a photo-op, and to have an American flag behind him in the speeches he gave, I have to wonder about this guy....Obama said he shouldn't have the flag behind him because he wasn't president. Yet that didn't stop Nancy Pelosi from showing the colors when she met with Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv back in May. Any number of US officials (elected and appointed) have regularly flown the flag on foreign soil when they are there and have a press conference.
It brings to mind Coulter's lame excuses post. This Obama guy can't seem to take responsibility for anything!
17 comments:
Newsmax Editorials don't exactly constitute unbiased reporting.
Are you going to use your blog to parrot the MaCain camp propaganda, or do you want to really think about what is best for the country? Because if we get another administration like the Bush administration, I wouldn't be surprised to see the deficit top 1 Trillion dollars, inflation exceeding 10%, the cost of gasoline marching towards 10 dollars a gallon, and our nation's wrecked economy belonging to the Chinese.
But hey, if stopping to visit injured vets is what is going to win your vote, if that is what you consider really important, then Obama will do that with flair, and leave old school McCain in the dust there too.
Genetic fallacy, Jodie? I thought I could expect better from a lawyer.
The McCain camp has been awful at putting out any propaganda. I'd like to see some!
You're right in saying that the current GOP leadership has abandoned principles of fiscal conservativism. That's going to be an issue for many - and why McCain needs to be careful with his VP selection.
But I think Obama would be infinitely worse. His tax increases on the productive class will be incredibly destructive. The worst thing you can do in an economic slow period is increase taxes or regulations, and Obama has promised to do both. For instance, he proposes raising the minimum wage. That's disastrous and misguided - and it's a pandering to the unions.
Further, I don't see how increased taxes on oil companies and further restrictions on supply (through no-drill policies and greater regulation in environmental policies) are going to cut the cost of gas. Increasing supply or deregulation are the only ways to even help with that issue.
Chris,
They are not taxes as much a membership fees in the world's greatest society. Taxes are what colonialist empires and feudal lords charge their subjects to improve their own well being. What we have are membership fees that benefit everyone in the commonwealth.
They allow high quality education for the benefit of everyone. High quality enabling infrastructures that benefit economic growth. Clean air and water for a healthy environment that leads to better food supplies and a healthy population. A healthy population reduces medical costs, improves the development and economic growth, reduces crime, and leads to general well being.
Oil is an infrastructure that not only has a devastating effect on the environment and causes severe political instabilities, it is going to run out. The usage fees on this non renewable resource are used to improve the transportation and communication infrastructure and to enable the development of alternative, cheaper renewable energy sources. Cheaper renewable energy sources will lead to economic growth and prosperity, improved world food supplies, lower world political tensions, and improve general well being.
Look around you. The deregulated deficit spending dog-eat-dog survival-of-the-richest economic strategies of the GOP will only lead to making America into a third world country with lots of mangy dogs on the loose.
Been there done that. Not going to vote for it.
You've got to be kidding me.
"High quality education" - are you talking about American public schools?
I agree that environmental cleanliness is a good thing and does what you say it does. I think it's best managed at the local level with state and federal oversight/ networking.
Oil causes political instabilities where there is no democratic sharing of its benefits. If people are able to get better jobs, or invest in it for return of profit, then that enables growth for all. However, if the gov't monopolizes it, or it's in the hands of a few wealthy folks (like a Saudi royal family) who sh*ts on everyone else, then you're asking for instability.
For cheap power that is environmentally friendly, lets start going to NUCLEAR. We would have done this 20 years ago if the econuts hadn't been alarmist.
And I agree with you on deficit spending. The government is too big for its britches. It thinks its there to solve everyone's problems (like education, healthcare, social security, etc.). What will solve our problems is a nation full of people who feel responsible for their own lives, their families, their communities, their states, and their nation. Our current government policies are driving us towards nanny-statism (the kind that is destroying France and threatening Germany and Britain). I think Barack Hussein Obama will lead us further down that road.
Is McCain our hero? No. But I think he'll do a better job of leading us back to the principles of independence than Obama would. McCain is no Reagan - I wish he were. But Obama is worse than Carter.
Obama
Is going to be almost as good for our economy as Jimmy Carter.
McCain is few conservatives first choice but he is in this two man race the only choice.
Considering that Bush fought two wars, oversaw our country during a devestating attack upon its financial sector, and had dealt with a hostile press - he has done a pretty good job.
By contrast what was the National Debt as a percentage of GNP during Carter or even Clinton?
What was the unemployment rate during those two presidencies?
No the press has created a recession where there isn't one and by harping their false story for two years has nearly pushed us into one - but by definition there has not yet been 2 quarters of zero growth. Hardly sounds cataclysmic to me.
So the only one around here sipping cool aid is the usual suspect.
Right on, Bill. The US Economy is, in the words of Pat Toomey, the "the greatest story never told."
But the koolaid bibbers can't accept good news, in Iraq, the economy, or anywhere else. Watching Obama try to say that the surge was working and failing at the same time, and that Israel has a right to exist yet needs to die for us all, was almost too fun.
He's too conflicted and inexperienced to lead even a medium-size corporation.
Bill,
If you think invading other countries on trumped up charges and running up 150 billion dollars of debt a year doing it - let alone all the widows, orphans and amputees - is a good job, then I think you need to have your head examined. Certainly your soul.
If Bush were the CEO of a major corporation he would have been ousted by now. If he were the head of another state we'd have him on trial in the Hague by now.
As far as the numbers under Clinton, you must be smoking some good stuff there. Care to share?
Chris,
Education, you got me there. There seems to be no money left for it after all the wars we need to fight and all the tax savings we need to give to the rich. Of course they send their kids to private schools, so they don't care what happens to the public school system.
"nanny-statism" Ha. You are such a sucker for right wing culture. You talk about taking responsibility on the one hand, and then you call the methods we use to be responsible as nanny-statism, as if our government were some kind of authoritarian paternalistic regime. But this is America. We the people ARE the government. It is by governing responsibly that we show our responsibility. Locally and federally. Which is why it is criminal to let the GOP take another crack at power and not bring Bush to justice.
Nuclear power is an option IF it is tightly regulated. The technology is not friendly to profit driven cost optimization methods, and nuclear waste is dangerous for thousands of years. In moderation it is manageable, but it's not a long term solution either.
It's on the come back, so take responsibility and demand the safety measures it needs, or Chernobyls and Three Mile Islands will be back as well.
By the way, Obama has never said nor implied that Israel needs to die for all of us. What an ugly lie.
Jodie,
So, um, why weren't the schools performing better under Carter or Clinton when they didn't have all that money siphoned off to bomb women and children?
It appears we both have a bloated sense of the voter's responsibility. I think that they'll actually run with the freedoms protected by the constitution. You think people are making educated choices when it comes to policy. I'll call it a draw.
Three Mile Island would have been safe even if nobody had been in the plant that day. The automatic safety mechanisms worked better when humans weren't mucking things up. Since then, our controls are better - not because of regulation, but out of mean, nasty, vicious, mouth-frothing capitalist concern for safety, PR, and long-term viability.
And Jodie...I don't know how else to say this, but quit pissing in other people's yards. You can call me a sucker and say that Bill is a pot-smoker whose salvation is in question. If you want to say that kind of garbage, get your own blog. To this country boy, you sound like a chickensquit.
Hey,
You are the guys who brought up Jimmy Jones cult following cyanide drinking allegations. You say cool aid, I say weed smoking. Why yell at me? At least weed leaves you mellow.
And I still think invading other countries on trumped up charges is immoral and illegal. I can't wrap my head around self professed students of Jesus not sharing that point of view. I think there must be something more there than just a mere difference of opinion.
I studied Three Mile Island as it is a classic engineering case study. There were many issues involved, but the common thread between it and other high tech failures is economics driven management hubris.
One of the interesting contributers to the accident was the fact that the valve actuation detectors did not monitor valve actuation but only the fact that a command was sent to actuate a valve. Thus the control panel indicated the valves in one position while they were stuck in another. That's the low cost solution to building a control panel. People know better, but as they say, the difference between engineering and science is economics.
You would think that with nuclear plants people would err on the side of safety. But you would be wrong. There is a price on human lives. It's lower than you would guess. It's all about financial trade-offs and who is the smoothest talker.
Jodie,
O Anonymous One, couldst thou please taketh a moment to scribbleth down the exceeding few things on which thou art not an expert so that I mayest restrict mine ignorant blogging to these topics? Verily, thou shouldst make unto thee thine own blog on which to share thine unctuous and desultory musings.
Cool a REAL political discussion, not some mamby-pamby spin doctoring. Chris, check out http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/afghanistan.asp from a day or so ago. No wounded soldiers, no flags but no slouch either as far as greeting the troops, in their words. Also Newsmax sucks as a source of news unless one believes the Colbert report is real news.
[BACKGROUND]
I'm a lifelong demo. I was raised in a house where we wouldn't vote for Jesus on a GOP ticket. AND i have no idea who I'm supporting yet.
I like Carter. He's the only Pres. whose confessed faith in Christ I don't have to wonder about and that includes Presbyterian Ronald Reagan, he joined BelAir Pres. and SBC Clinton. Why? because he was willing to let the Shah of Iran in for medical treatment even though it would mean doubling the price of oil and gas. Why? Because he took seriously Congress' call to link trade with human rights. So we didn't sell Wheat to Russia and boycotted the Olympics.
BTW Jodie, my off hand guess is that more women and children suffered from Carter's act than from the bombs in Iraq. Oh and ask those from Kuwait if it wasn't time for Sadamm to go. I'd also refer each of you to Thomas Barnett's Pentagon's New Map and Blueprint for Action.
Nuclear power works, to heck with the profit motivation. The nuclear industry in the US was regulated into the ground and that's why there is so little of it. BTW France isn't losing sleep over it's nuclear waste. they've got this really big trench in the Pacific. If greenpeace gets in the way they blow up their ships.
Finances and the deficit. I'm Political Science not econ so I'm shooting a bit blind here but how much of the nearly 1 Trillion is due to the slide of the US Dollar vs. Euro etc. Bush is not a war criminal, not by ANY sane definition of the term by ANY international court. To believe otherwise is stupid.
One has to define terms such "The Rich" "raising taxes" etc. For example, if anyone who makes 100,000 is Rich then I qualify. If you bump it up to those in the 500K bracket I'll never be there. If you're talking about raising taxes by getting rid of inheritance tax, the limit for 2009 is 3.5 million before taxes come into play.
Most people already make over the minimum wage so this is just a political stunt and I hope we all know it. Gasoline at $10 a gallon. It does cost that in most of Europe already.
But folks, both GOP and DEM get off the tax band wagon. Just look at Sweden, France, Switzerland etc. and see what percentage of income is paid and smile big because we're doing MUCH better than that.
One last thing you gotta check out the latest Demotivator's poster.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/afghanistan.asp
This is fun...
Alan
Thanks, Alan. For full disclosure, I'm a lifelong Rethuglican myself. (My grandpa was one because he hated racism in the Democratic party. He was a bus driver who refused to make blacks sit on the back of the bus...and he carried a leather slap in his pocket in case any other white folks disagreed with him.)
However, also in the interest of fool disclosure, I did NOT vote for George W. Bush in the 2000 primary (Alan Keyes, before he became Don Quixote), and I didn't vote for him in 2004. I saw right through that compassionate conservatism talk. (It would turn out to be neither compassionate nor conservative.) I think Obama's attempted centrism will have similar ill results.
Full disclosure - I did enhale once and during that period voted democratic briefly then came back full circle to the GOP after I got sober (actually before). I was card carrying until they began to sell out and spend like drunken sailors (sorry drunken sailors).
I also met in prayer groups with people who knew George Bush personally - good people every one. and that is all I am going to say about that.
This war was set up during the Carter Administration period. Carter gave the Shaw a blank check to build his military they had the 4th largest in the world - he did this despite the British telling him that the Shaw would fall soon.
AFter the radicals took over the fourth largest military in the world Carter's administration and Reagan after decided to fight a proxy war through Iraq. The plan was and always have been to take out the survivor. Looks like both were still hanging around.
Jodi you might think its ok to have guys like Sadam Husseing hanging around but I just don't agree. Plenty more people would be hurt by him than were during this war. You can argue that case. I think you are naive you think I'm a monster - I stopped caring about your opinion a long time ago.
When we get 20 years out and Islamo Fascism is defeated like radical communism - Bush will be praised for having the guts to do it, and keep the economy somewhat stable in the process.
I ultimate leave the decisions about the projection of power to the state, I do not preach these opinions from the pulpit - I strongly believe in your right to disagree with me.
Weapons of mass destruction were found just not in large numbers - never reported
Attempts to acquire yellowcake did occur never reported
The nuclear facility materializing in thin air in Syria pretty much proves the crossing the border theory connection never reported.
Bombings by Al Queida and Iran resulting in civilian deaths laid on the lap of the US Soldier constantly reported.
the work of the "free press" to enslave this nation is ridiculous. Anyone who disputes it is drinking cool aid.
cool aid again... sigh...
Let me get this straight. A country has a leader we don't like and that gives us the legal right to invade and destroy it? People will thank us later??? Is that some kind of twist on "its a tough job but somebody has to do it?"
Perhaps you think that if a man is a known criminal it is OK to burn his house down and kill half his family and leave the rest homeless and orphan in order to catch him?
Some people do think that. But it fails the centuries old Christian burden imposed on nations for "just war".
It is far more likely that the words Jesus spoke to Judas apply in force. Something like "It is inevitable that somebody is going to do it, but woe to him who actually does it. It would have been better for him that he never have been born".
"[...] never reported"
And you've seen this "never reported" evidence yourself?
No.
But somebody you trust knows somebody they trust who says they have, right?
I know how that works.
Hearsay is not evidence. Not even in the bible.
Bill, I don't think you are a monster. But I think your concept of ethics is deeply flawed just as your concept of what satisfies a burden of evidence is also deeply flawed.
Perhaps it's a case of worldly culture not giving way to Kingdom culture?
Yes jodie all the stories I've mentioned have been sourced just on a very few new sources like Fox and Newsmax.
I just don't want to have the time to constantly catalogue these inconvenient facts for the cool aid set.
and the other portion of my comment was to point out that these arch devils manipulating the world for their own ends are actually - people. You leftists like to talk about how mean the right is meanwhile you are actually pretty cruel.
I love the whole "bush is an idiot who is taking over the world" bit. Either he's an idiot or an evil genous I don't think he can be both. Pick one and run with it.
As to the people getting killed imagery. World War II Jodie was fought to stop a madman for taking over his region of the world, annihilating a race of human beings, and in fact trying to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Go do the battle cost of that war and compare it. We're talking about comparing thousands to millions. I guess that one was ok because it was for westerners. Or maybe you are planning on being consistant and arguing against world war II?
Oh yeah and the allies were what about a half dozen countries fighting another 3 - hmmm... no consensus there.
Some people would like to put their fingers in their ears and try to act like the bad people will just go away - the stakes today are just a little different with nuclear warheads hanging around out there we could see millions dead on the next 911.
Again you are laying at the feet of the US soldier the deaths of people killed by Islamic Extremests.
As to popularity figures Bush's popularity rating was down in the 40's when he won 52% of the electorate. Those polls are useless. Also the popularly elected congress has ratings in the teens - guess they are all to be thrown out on their ears too?
Bill,
How about "Bush is an idiot surrounded by evil genius"
A useful idiot perhaps.
But those are your words, not mine. I would say amoral. And too incompetent to execute his own agenda.
I'd like to go on record to say I am not a leftist. Not even close. I am however a disciple of Jesus, and so I filter right wing and left wing b.s. through the filter of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. My Lord never taught me to do unto others before I get done unto.
Is that what he taught you?
Neither left nor right.
Bill, there are also some serious differences between WWII and Iraq. Germany and Japan satisfied the conditions of "just war" on all accounts. Iraq satisfied none of them. I thought you said you studied history.
Neither Fox nor Newsmax have presented any evidence or data. Just unsubstantiated allegations by unverified sources. i.e. gossip.
Even Collin Powell in his speech to the UN did not provide any real evidence, and he tried. He stretched what he had beyond all reasonable bounds, and still he could not make a case with any chance of holding up in court. And it didn't.
But if you know of any real data I'd like to see it. Seriously.
I lay nothing at the feet of the US soldiers. They do what they are told in your and my name, and that is as it should be. It is our responsibility to see to it that they are not asked to do in our names what we would not be willing to stand before God and explain as if we did it ourselves.
About them Nukes, there is only one country out there that has ever actually used them in anger, and that country is quite capable and willing to use them again. Nuff said.
We give Thee hearty thanks and praise, O Jodie, for thine moral excellence. Yea, it is very right and very meet so to do. Thou art He whose property it always is to exposeth our right wing agenda, for thy name's sake. Were it not for thy plenitude of goodness, our vile nation might yet again have lashed out in religious anger to smite our enemies with the fiery perdition of nuclear war. Grant, O Jodie, a measure of thy grace and wisdom that we mayest think as we ought and bloggeth for naught.
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