Topic: US Presidential Election 2012: Obama V Liars Paradise: Obama Wins!

[JohnHobbes]

The leadership is.

You won't get any argument from me on that.

I meant the moderate individuals who used to work across the divide but are being attacked by the extreme wings of the party who now have to leave the centre to survive or are losing their primaries/seats. Real shame.

[exiledintheUSA]

You won't get any argument from me on that.

I meant the moderate individuals who used to work across the divide but are being attacked by the extreme wings of the party who now have to leave the centre to survive or are losing their primaries/seats. Real shame.

Beyond a shame and in the end it will cost the Country as we are going to go through carbon copies of the last 2 years when f*ck all gets done.

[jerseyhoya]

Who could you possibly be referring to?  

Disaster relief is already mostly under the purview of the states. First responders and everyone else involved are generally state or local employees. Governors, county officials and municipal leaders are the ones making the key decisions. There is some role for federal coordination, and it's important for the federal government to provide disaster relief money so random disasters don't ruin state or local budgets in a given year. Spreading the risk around is a good thing, although I don't mind pushing for offsets. And it's my understanding that that money is usually appropriated separately by Congress (or maybe that's only when the initial appropriation runs out?) and isn't really the same thing as FEMA. There's also overlap and redundancies, and there are probably portions that can be comfortably eliminated. Debate answers, especially when there are 8 people on the stage or whatever so you get 30 seconds, aren't exactly ideal places for making cogent policy statements. Romney seemed to be answering the question more generally about the role of the federal government rather than focusing specifically on disaster relief funding, regardless of the King interjection. Agencies should be reevaluated, and if they can be handed down to states that already handle the majority of the responsibility anyway while saving money, go for it. If they can't, then they should be kept, or possibly expanded if need be. A reflexive backlash to any suggestion that any agency ever be eliminated is the reason government always grows. As Reagan said, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth. If you can't look at eliminating things that might be redundant, then we might as well just give up now. But I don't think you're going to find a Romney administration in favor of looking inept and impotent in the face of natural disasters.

[exiledintheUSA]

Disaster relief is already mostly under the purview of the states. First responders and everyone else involved are generally state or local employees. Governors, county officials and municipal leaders are the ones making the key decisions. There is some role for federal coordination, and it's important for the federal government to provide disaster relief money so random disasters don't ruin state or local budgets in a given year. Spreading the risk around is a good thing, although I don't mind pushing for offsets. And it's my understanding that that money is usually appropriated separately by Congress (or maybe that's only when the initial appropriation runs out?) and isn't really the same thing as FEMA. There's also overlap and redundancies, and there are probably portions that can be comfortably eliminated. Debate answers, especially when there are 8 people on the stage or whatever so you get 30 seconds, aren't exactly ideal places for making cogent policy statements. Romney seemed to be answering the question more generally about the role of the federal government rather than focusing specifically on disaster relief funding, regardless of the King interjection. Agencies should be reevaluated, and if they can be handed down to states that already handle the majority of the responsibility anyway while saving money, go for it. If they can't, then they should be kept, or possibly expanded if need be. A reflexive backlash to any suggestion that any agency ever be eliminated is the reason government always grows. As Reagan said, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth. If you can't look at eliminating things that might be redundant, then we might as well just give up now. But I don't think you're going to find a Romney administration in favor of looking inept and impotent in the face of natural disasters.

But is it 'immoral'? I bet the people of the Eastern Seaboard be they Rebuplican or Democrat don't see it like mittens does.

[jerseyhoya]

But is it 'immoral'? I bet the people of the Eastern Seaboard be they Rebuplican or Democrat don't see it like mittens does.

The amount of debt that we're piling up is immoral I think. Obama, when he was running, called the debt increase under Bush from $5 trillion to $9 trillion irresponsible and unpatriotic.

[exiledintheUSA]

The amount of debt that we're piling up is immoral I think. Obama, when he was running, called the debt increase under Bush from $5 trillion to $9 trillion irresponsible and unpatriotic.

Good swerve, Romney would be proud.  Not the debt as a whole, is disaster relief immoral?

[Trada]

Trump is about to blow his top.

Reuters Top News ‏@Reuters

Obama will visit New Jersey on Wednesday to check out the storm damage

[exiledintheUSA]

Trump is about to blow his top.

Reuters Top News ‏@Reuters

Obama will visit New Jersey on Wednesday to check out the storm damage

$5M says Trump does not have the balls to go down and confront him.  Utter, utter shithouse, spineless twunt.

[Trada]

$5M says Trump does not have the balls to go down and confront him.  Utter, utter shithouse, spineless twunt.

I hope he doesn't just do a fly over like Bush did.

[exiledintheUSA]

I hope he doesn't just do a fly over like Bush did.

No chance, that would be political death at the moment.  He will be knee deep in water - which is exaclty what he would have been if he was POTUS during Katrina.

[JohnHobbes]

I hope he doesn't just do a fly over like Bush did.

Surely Trump is more a comb over man? Especially if he has already blown his top and lost the wig

[jerseyhoya]

Good swerve, Romney would be proud.  Not the debt as a whole, is disaster relief immoral?

Romney doesn't think disaster relief is immoral, and it takes some willful misreading of what he meant to think that

[exiledintheUSA]

My water cooler politics is on over drive today, just overheard some of the neo-cons going on about Chris Christie and how he is bigging up the President because Romney did not select him as running mate.  Genius.

[exiledintheUSA]

Romney doesn't think disaster relief is immoral, and it takes some willful misreading of what he meant to think that

'You didn't build that' springs to mind, something POTUS never even said, at least Romney is on record as using the phrase 'It is simply immoral'.

[jerseyhoya]

'You didn't build that' springs to mind, something POTUS never even said, at least Romney is on record as using the phrase 'It is simply immoral'.

He quite literally said "If you've got a business - you didn't build that." The Dem argument is the context preceding those words meant he was referring to societal goods which helped make building the business possible when he said 'that'.

[exiledintheUSA]

He quite literally said "If you've got a business - you didn't build that." The Dem argument is the context preceding those words meant he was referring to societal goods which helped make building the business possible when he said 'that'.

Sorry I misspoke, it was gods will.

[hansen6]

He quite literally said "If you've got a business - you didn't build that." The Dem argument is the context preceding those words meant he was referring to societal goods which helped make building the business possible when he said 'that'.

Radical stuff

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me – because they want to give something back. They know they didn't – look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business – you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.

[jerseyhoya]

I didn't bring it up. Someone said he didn't say 'you didn't build that,' which he pretty clearly did. But I know we only care about being accurate with facts in this thread if it's a Republican trying to smear a Democrat.

[exiledintheUSA]

I didn't bring it up. Someone said he didn't say 'you didn't build that,' which he pretty clearly did. But I know we only care about being accurate with facts in this thread if it's a Republican trying to smear a Democrat.

You assume I am a Democrat.

[Mouth]

He quite literally said "If you've got a business - you didn't build that." The Dem argument is the context preceding those words meant he was referring to societal goods which helped make building the business possible when he said 'that'.

Yeah and before he said that, the that he was refering to was the fucking roads and bridges, the fucking infastructure and community support that enabled them to build those businesses, its a bit of disengenuous propaganda manipulation that Goebbels would be supremely proud of.

This is the speech -

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me – because they want to give something back. They know they didn't – look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business – you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

[Gene]

He quite literally said "If you've got a business - you didn't build that." The Dem argument is the context preceding those words meant he was referring to societal goods which helped make building the business possible when he said 'that'.

The Dem argument? You're smarter than that. Anyone with a grasp of the English language could understand what he meant.

[jerseyhoya]

Jesus titty fucking christ. I didn't bring it up. It was raised as some sort of an equivalence by exiledintheusa for justifying taking what Romney said and willfully misinterpreting it to make him look worse. Except he said Obama didn't utter the now famous phrase, when he clearly did.

[hide5seek]

Pity that famous phrase keeps getting mis represented by so many, its fairly obvious what he was getting at.

[hide5seek]

Can Christie ever run for the presidency?

[Brian Blessed]

Can Christie ever run for the presidency?

i gather he can't run at all.

[Mouth]

Can Christie ever run for the presidency?

Only if his running mate is a cheeseburger on the end of a stick.

[blah]

Jesus titty fucking christ. I didn't bring it up. It was raised as some sort of an equivalence by exiledintheusa for justifying taking what Romney said and willfully misinterpreting it to make him look worse. Except he said Obama didn't utter the now famous phrase, when he clearly did.

In today's soundbites for idiots driven media, it isn't the meaning or context of what he said, only the phrase itself.

[RojoLeón]

Jesus titty fucking christ. I didn't bring it up. It was raised as some sort of an equivalence by exiledintheusa for justifying taking what Romney said and willfully misinterpreting it to make him look worse. Except he said Obama didn't utter the now famous phrase, when he clearly did.

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

Obama's case is a sure case of fallacious out of context quoting. Is a pure smear job.

Romney meant what he said. he wants to devolve some fairly important powers to State government - incidentally pretty scary for women and minorities in the south and midwest.

Would you honestly prefer if the country had a 'state lottery' when it came to disaster aid? Yes, you are right that it is locals who provide much of the equipment and man power currently, but there are some states will less resources than others. Would you like to put all your faith in your state, or worse, a private agency like Halliburton?

A country is the sum of it's parts - all of them, the good and the bad. If you let it devolve too much you threaten the threads that tie the country together - the natural evolution from such policies is eventual irreparable socioeconomic polarization. The North East and the West Coast will be fine. The South will be fucked and the people therein. They already receive the most federal funding, social handouts and other outside aid. The GOP, if it were to follow such a path would be dooming the rural poor to a second tier standard of living.

Hoya, I like you - you are a good guy and I hope you and yours are well and without any lasting damage from the storm. The GOP don't care for you or yours. The Democrats don't much either, to be fair. The Republican party of today is not the one you read about in the history books - the Democrats are more akin to them.

Romney and his constituents (the mega rich) want to effect the kinds of changes that will see the completion of the corporate takeover of USA. What you see happening to Greece now, will be the USA's fate eventually, should their plans come to pass. This is not a matter of nailing your colours to your team, or supporting the party through thick and thin. They are not the Republicans you think they are - you need to get involved in reclaiming that side of the party back - because there were great Republican presidents in the past, and great, socially responsible men in the party of yore. The lunatics have taken over and unless they lose next week, you are never going to get the party back from the racist, misogynistic, homophobic, religious theocratic mentalists that are steering the Elephant. Get rid of them and their ideas. All is not lost.

Romney will kill your party, and take a lot of good people with him.

[fudge]

Hoya, I like you - you are a good guy and I hope you and yours are well and without any lasting damage from the storm. The GOP don't care for you or yours. The Democrats don't much either, to be fair. The Republican party of today is not the one you read about in the history books - the Democrats are more akin to them.

Romney and his constituents (the mega rich) want to effect the kinds of changes that will see the completion of the corporate takeover of USA. What you see happening to Greece now, will be the USA's fate eventually, should their plans come to pass. This is not a matter of nailing your colours to your team, or supporting the party through thick and thin. They are not the Republicans you think they are - you need to get involved in reclaiming that side of the party back - because there were great Republican presidents in the past, and great, socially responsible men in the party of yore. The lunatics have taken over and unless they lose next week, you are never going to get the party back from the racist, misogynistic, homophobic, religious theocratic mentalists that are steering the Elephant. Get rid of them and their ideas. All is not lost.

Romney will kill your party, and take a lot of good people with him.

Couldn't agree more, it's tragic

[Golden_Child]

A perfect example of blind political partisanship going bad. Most normal(ish) republicans just don't realise what they are actually voting for, probably because most either don't care or lack the knowledge to make an informed decision.

[Mouth]

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

Obama's case is a sure case of fallacious out of context quoting. Is a pure smear job.

Romney meant what he said. he wants to devolve some fairly important powers to State government - incidentally pretty scary for women and minorities in the south and midwest.

Would you honestly prefer if the country had a 'state lottery' when it came to disaster aid? Yes, you are right that it is locals who provide much of the equipment and man power currently, but there are some states will less resources than others. Would you like to put all your faith in your state, or worse, a private agency like Halliburton?

A country is the sum of it's parts - all of them, the good and the bad. If you let it devolve too much you threaten the threads that tie the country together - the natural evolution from such policies is eventual irreparable socioeconomic polarization. The North East and the West Coast will be fine. The South will be fucked and the people therein. They already receive the most federal funding, social handouts and other outside aid. The GOP, if it were to follow such a path would be dooming the rural poor to a second tier standard of living.

Hoya, I like you - you are a good guy and I hope you and yours are well and without any lasting damage from the storm. The GOP don't care for you or yours. The Democrats don't much either, to be fair. The Republican party of today is not the one you read about in the history books - the Democrats are more akin to them.

Romney and his constituents (the mega rich) want to effect the kinds of changes that will see the completion of the corporate takeover of USA. What you see happening to Greece now, will be the USA's fate eventually, should their plans come to pass. This is not a matter of nailing your colours to your team, or supporting the party through thick and thin. They are not the Republicans you think they are - you need to get involved in reclaiming that side of the party back - because there were great Republican presidents in the past, and great, socially responsible men in the party of yore. The lunatics have taken over and unless they lose next week, you are never going to get the party back from the racist, misogynistic, homophobic, religious theocratic mentalists that are steering the Elephant. Get rid of them and their ideas. All is not lost.

Romney will kill your party, and take a lot of good people with him.

Hahaha very Ludendorff.

[RojoLeón]

Hahaha very Ludendorff.

Ja Wolle!

[jerseyhoya]

A perfect example of blind political partisanship going bad. Most normal(ish) republicans just don't realise what they are actually voting for, probably because most either don't care or lack the knowledge to make an informed decision.

Hilarious

[Zanchent]

What you see happening to Greece now, will be the USA's fate eventually, should their plans come to pass

This is my ultimate fear(and regretably, prediction) for the western world. And for me, is what every one of our economies must completely focus on avoiding. People don't have a fucking clue what's going to hit their kids/grandchildren.

Now, if you think Romney's ideas will compound the issue, fair enough. But, what makes you believe that the present administration is not leading America down the same path? What policies do you believe they will create to avoid such catastrophe?

[Sammy5IsAlive]

Can Christie ever run for the presidency?

I think it could be an interesting indicator of what those with their ears to the ground are hearing with regards to the election. If Christie was expecting a Romney victory he would have to be crazy to do the talk show rounds like he has, biting the hand that feeds before it even has any food in it. Even if it was marginal, would you want to take the risk of being painted by his rivals as the Republican that handed Obama the presidency?

[rafathegaffa83]

It will be interesting to see how much Romney's anti-FEMA comments affect the polls. But as many journalists have noted, climate change surprisingly hasn't been much of a talking point in either campaign. I'd expect that to change in the final days.

[LiverBirdKop]

Jesus titty fucking christ. I didn't bring it up. It was raised as some sort of an equivalence by exiledintheusa for justifying taking what Romney said and willfully misinterpreting it to make him look worse. Except he said Obama didn't utter the now famous phrase, when he clearly did.

Man, you're something else. You probably own a T-shirt with the phrase don't you?

[vagabond]

Romney and his constituents (the mega rich) want to effect the kinds of changes that will see the completion of the corporate takeover of USA. What you see happening to Greece now, will be the USA's fate eventually, should their plans come to pass.

Hopefully some time before this some economist will finally realise the insanity of demanding unending economic growth every year in a finite world and we won't have the sort of exploitation that follows such absurd practices.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

It will be interesting to see how much Romney's anti-FEMA comments affect the polls. But as many journalists have noted, climate change surprisingly hasn't been much of a talking point in either campaign. I'd expect that to change in the final days.

Would certainly be ironic if climate change finally became an issue on the back of a once in a lifetime 'perfect storm' whose extent almost certainly has very little to do with climate change!

[LiverBirdKop]

It will be interesting to see how much Romney's anti-FEMA comments affect the polls. But as many journalists have noted, climate change surprisingly hasn't been much of a talking point in either campaign. I'd expect that to change in the final days.

It's a shame climate change hasn't been mentioned much.

Think it's too late for anything to affect the election's results that much at this stage. If Obama wasn't a negrito, he'd be up by 10 in the national polls easily given how bad  Romney is as a candidate. The man is a complete joke. When this election is over, when or if he loses I hope I never hear his name ever again unless it's for doing some jail time for tax evasion or something of the sort.