" Mitt the Twit"

[SR]

Mitts inability to poke the obvious hole in obamas foreign policy badge of hone makes me think he's almost as stupid as the fuckwit.

It was six hours after bin laden took his final breath that Obama took to the stage and invited the world to celebrate. Hardly enough time to debrief the principles in the matter nor to disseminate the boatloads of data that was taken from the compound. Besides western porn and e-coupons, there was data that could have annihilated al Qaida for good.

[Hype]

@A.S. for someone that seems to be a smart person you seem to be very closed minded. Anyone that has a different opinion is either, stupid, racist or whatever else you have said. Why does race have to come into this. This is the second time you have said anyone that doesn't like or vote for Obama is a racist. That to me is just a lazy thing to say and really offensive.

It isn't about opinions. The two sides are simply not equal. As a friend of mine likes to put it: reality has a liberal bias. Feel free to disagree. But then I will point out why you're wrong.

And frankly, I think there is a significant amount of racism involved in the opposition to Obama. That doesn't mean any particular person who doesn't vote for him *is* in fact racist (whether they're aware of it or not), but the data doesn't lie. Romney has ZERO percent (+/- what?) support from African Americans. The guy thinks "middle income" is $200-250,000 a year. If people vote for this guy, they have to be a little slow (which of course doesn't mean if you vote for Obama you're smart...).

"At the bigotry-laden Values Voters Summit, former Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum inadvertently characterized conservative values as something smart people do not have.

"We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country. We will never have the elite, smart people on our side.""

It's really hard to believe that Republicanism doesn't involve a significant racist component when they have spokespeople like this:
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/09/10/us ... ls-college

TORONTO - Conservative U.S. political commentator Bill Whittle unabashedly says Western civilization is “morally superior” to all others.

He has his reasons.

“Only because of what we value as people,” Whittle says. “We think that individual freedom is good. In the West, we don’t condemn half of the population to slavery because they were born female.”

Already a popular speaker at Tea Party events, Whittle is in Toronto for a talk scheduled for Monday evening 8 p.m. at St. Michael’s College on Bathurst St.

Born to a hotel manager in New York and raised in Bermuda, Whittle originally didn’t care for politics. He didn’t know his father was a Republican until he turned 17.

“We just never talked politics,” he says. “I’ve never found it interesting.”

He also never dreamed of majoring in theatre — University of Florida in the 1980s — or becoming a writer, much less an influential one. When his childhood aim of becoming a fighter pilot and eventually going into space collapsed because his vision was not good enough, he turned to drama.

“They said ‘No pilot for you,’” Whittle recalled. “I mean, I just had 12 years of ambition shattered.”

Described as non-adversarial, he readily admits to being “a lot more liberal” in his college days, as well as changing his mind once someone with a substantial argument defeats his beliefs.

“Everybody has an opinion,” he adds. “I want to have my opinion based on something.”

His evening talk will focus on what he calls an assault on civilization — both external and internal.

“The end stage of every civilization always looks the same,” Whittle says. “It’s never overrun from the outside, it always collapses from within, and it collapses from the top-down.”

He believes this is what’s happening in the United States, and to some degree in Canada and Europe, as well.

“Europe is no longer willing to defend itself,” he said. “Great Britain no longer has a British identity.”

General admission is $15, with $20 at the door.

[SR]

I, for one, am not a moral/cultural relativist.

[LJF]

Well doesn't racism work both ways? By what you said about support for or lack there of for Romney. I could be wrong because as you have said over and over I'm a stupid racist.

One thing that makes me happy is you live in Canada and can't vote here.

You bash republicans for bring racist,simple, homophobic among other things, but you are just as closed minded. What makes you any different?

I enjoy the discussion with most people here, but you have such an elitist attitude you become unbearable. I try not to get personal, but that is all you do.

[Hype]

I, for one, am not a moral/cultural relativist.

That is good.

The Republican obsession with what THEY call "individual freedom", by the way, is one of the major causes of significant lack of freedom in the United States. It's been long established (since Isaiah Berlin pointed it out, and I've talked about this here before) that there are, apparently, "two concepts of Liberty", and if you focus only on the narrowly construed sort ("freedom from (constraint/government interference)", which may or may not even be worth calling 'freedom') you sort of miss the point altogether.

The Republican party pre-Reagan wasn't so obsessed with stripping government of any sort of social services or support structures (there was still an emphasis on fiscal solvency, but not to the degree they pretend to be obsessed with it when it comes to social programs, and then ignore it when it comes to their own salaries and defense-spending). But really the "moral majority" shit in the 80s has turned the Republican party into a really odd cocktail of faux-Christian anti-rights faux-morality-based politics that they use to pseudo-justify narrowly construed fiscal policies that don't actually make any sense for the majority of Americans. They're extremely successful at getting poor (predominantly white) folks to vote AGAINST their own interests. That's really what I mean by "stupid" -- not necessarily intentional stupidity, but it simply is stupid to vote against your real interests. If you're poor or middle-class and you don't vote democrat... there's something really wrong... you've probably been brainwashed. Unfortunately the Democrats have not been in power the majority of the last 50 years, but when they have, things have generally gotten better very quickly (4 years is not enough time, try 6-8).

I guess I can't blame LJF for politically aligning the way he does, since, in fact, political allegiances have a genetic and upbringing-based component (conservatism is in part motivated by anxiety/fear about the future, and a desire not to take risks; it's not always stupid to feel that way, but to vote that way is kind of stupid, especially when the Democratic party is "conservative" by the standards of the rest of the world to begin with...). Most people from conservative households tend to grow up and vote conservative, and vice versa.

LJF, if I appear closed-minded, it is only because I have worked out views on the matter. In my line of work we don't operate in the same realm as "it's just my opinion"-based beliefs. My views are not merely 'opinion', but beliefs that I take to be justified based on reasons that I take to be true and arguments I take to be valid. To say that this is "closed-minded" is crazy (and is one of the first things we try to knock out of university students who don't know how to think their way out of a cardboard box...), what it is is a systematized attempt to think clearly about something. I can still be wrong, of course, but not simply because someone else "disagrees". If you disagree you must do one of two things: you must either, as a skeptic about my view, show that there are mistakes in my reasoning; or, you must sufficiently defend your view, irrespective of my view, so that it is justifiable to hold it in the face of scrutiny. This is called reasoning, rather than merely having an opinion. I would be closed-minded if I refused to countenance THIS. But I don't. I have asked you AD NAUSEAM on these boards to try to do a little bit of this kind of thing for your view, but we never got very far.

Well doesn't racism work both ways? By what you said about support for or lack there of for Romney. I could be wrong because as you have said over and over I'm a stupid racist.

Well, yeah, you'd have to explain African American support for Bill Clinton.

[chaos]

I didn't realize there was so much voter ID fraud in Pennsylvania.

Pa. House Republican Leader Mike Turzai speaks on June 23, 2012

[Hype]

I didn't realize there was so much voter ID fraud in Pennsylvania.

Pa. House Republican Leader Mike Turzai speaks on June 23, 2012

They were talking about this on Maher's show last night, and the one guy said something like: Yeah, you know what they say about Pennsylvania? Pittsburgh on one side, and Philadelphia on the other, and Alabama in-between. I've had lunch in rural Pennsylvania (it was a stop-over on the way to Baltimore, through the mountains), and I have to agree, as Lisa Simpson would put it: "Everything has a creepy Pat Boone-ish feel to it."

[Hype]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ ... aphic.html

I just don't see how you can say the US has done better under Obama. W was a disaster and from what I see Obama hasn't done much better. In fact I'd say we are worse off.

For me Romney impresses me less now than before. The Republican Party clearly has issues, this election shouldn't even be close.

You seem to be blaming Obama for the global financial crisis?

Explain that to me. Please really try to explain how I'm blaming Obama for the financial crisis.

I'm telling where we stood when he took over and where we stand now.

Do you think the financial crisis can really be pinned on one person? If so who would you blame?

No, I don't. But I do blame the difference between "where we stood and where we stand now" on the global financial crisis, and NOT on Obama. You keep saying that difference in where we stand is a big reason why you won't vote for Obama, essentially ascribing blame to him for an extremely complex series of events and relationships, which, all things considered, preceded him (and G.W. for that matter). I'm very curious to hear what you have to say.

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/sta ... -debt-gop/

President Obama 'built' nation's $16 trillion debt, GOP Rep. Reid Ribble says

When President Barack Obama said "If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that," he meant that success in business was the result of government, not hard-working people, according to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

In late July 2012, PolitiFact National rated the claim False, saying Romney took Obama’s words out of context. But barely a month later, the Republican National Convention was replete with referencesto Obama’s "you didn’t build that" comment.

Among those sounding the theme from the Tampa, Fla., gathering was U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Wis., a first-term congressman serving the Green Bay area.

During an Aug. 30, 2012 interview, Ribble and Jerry Bader, host of a conservative radio talk show on WTAQ-AM and -FM in Green Bay, talked for several minutes about the Obama comment. The interview was done the day after U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Romney’s running mate, spoke to the convention.

Ribble said: "What the president did build, though -- and (Ryan) talked about this last night -- is he built this $16 trillion debt. He did build that."

Wait. All of it?

At first glance, Ribble’s claim may appear way off. But let’s examine the numbers.

How much we owe

We checked the U.S. Treasury Department’s "debt to the penny" meter for the day Ribble made his statement. The debt was a few hairs under $16 trillion, although it crossed that threshold several days later.

We then spun the meter back to Jan. 20, 2009, the day of Obama’s inauguration. The debt was $10.6 trillion.

That means debt rose $5.4 trillion under Obama -- about one-third of the $16 trillion total.

By saying Obama "built this $16 trillion debt. He did build that," Ribble suggested Obama was responsible for the entire amount.

Ribble spokeswoman Ashley Olson disagreed, saying it’s obvious the $16 trillion accumulated over many years. Her boss’ point, she said, was that it reached $16 trillion because of Obama.

But even if that was what Ribble meant in blaming Obama, he cited the $16 trillion debt figure, not the roughly $5 trillion accumulated during his presidency.

Obama’s role

As for what role Obama played in the accumulation of debt, Olson cited a number of news articles about how much debt and spending increased during Obama's time as president. Let’s look at two of them.

1. "Obama is the undisputed debt king of the last five presidents"

That line is from PolitiFact National, although it is a bit dated. It’s from May 2011, when our colleagues rated as Pants on Firea claim by then-U.S. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., that Obama "increased the debt" 16 percent while President George W. Bush raised it 115 percent.

In saying Obama was the debt king among the last five presidents dating back to Ronald Reagan, PolitiFact National found that under one measure -- debt as a percentage of gross national product -- Obama ranked highest. As of December 2010, the ratio under Obama had risen nearly 22 percentage points; Reagan was second at 14.9.

(However, using raw numbers, our colleagues found that at the time, the debt had increased by 34 percent, or $3.66 trillion, under Obama -- well below the 86 percent increase, or a total of $4.9 trillion, under George W. Bush.)

2. Obama budgets and spending up each year

A May 2012 analysis by The Washington Post Fact Checker found that Obama's budgets have increased each year, from $3.27 trillion in 2009 to $3.65 trillion in 2012; and that Obama proposed more in spending each year than Congress ultimately approved.

So, the debt has increased significantly under Obama. But, despite Ribble’s claim, the responsibility goes far beyond the White House.

Other factors

When Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said at the GOP convention that $5 trillion in debt had been added over the past four years, PolitiFact National rated his statement Mostly True. Our colleagues pointed out that while the figure was on target, the blame is bipartisan. Democrats had majorities in the Senate and House for two years of Obama’s presidency, but Republicans have controlled the House since January 2011. Moreover, our colleagues noted, much of the debt stems from entitlement spending policies that were set under past presidents and Congresses.

PolitiFact Ohio made similar points in June 2012 when it rated as Half True a statement by Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Ohio, that debt under Obama had risen $5 trillion -- more than any other president.

Our Buckeye colleagues noted that although Obama approved the stimulus bill and a deal to extend tax cuts, both of which contributed to the debt, Obama’s administration has cited decisions made under GOP President George W. Bush -- including tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Medicare prescription drug program -- as major contributors to the debt.

Our rating

Ribble said Obama "built this $16 trillion debt." His spokeswoman said Ribble meant that the debt had reached that level because of Obama.

But Ribble used the $16 trillion figure, not the roughly $5 trillion that the debt has increased under Obama. Moreover, the debt grew not only due to Obama’s actions, but those taken by present and past presidents and Congresses.

We rate Ribble’s statement False.

[Artemis]

[mockbee]

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

Yeah.......... 47 percent of Americans suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!



Time for a jog!

[Hype]

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

Yeah.......... 47 percent of Americans suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!



Time for a jog!

All those things Mitt says people believe are true, and are good things. What is it with Republicans and: a) separating "the government" from the people, and b) thinking that legislation should not be used to make our lives better?

In the first case, we've talked about how a lot of it could be left-over antipathy toward the North by Southerners still angry about the civil war/civil rights. But the second case is just stupid. Of course people are entitled to health-care, food, and housing. That's why those are called NECESSITIES. A society which does not find some means to provide these things for its worst-off citizens is no society. It is evil. Not only evil, but as I say, stupid. It's stupid because in fact, providing housing for the homeless is CHEAPER than leaving them homeless. It reduces healthcare costs immensely, and generates revenue by getting them one major step closer to being a net gain for the rest of society. Republicans claim to be about fiscal responsibility, but when the math shows that they should favour a progressive policy for those reasons, they're against it. This really shows that they're not about fiscal responsibility, they just use that concept to perpetuate anti-government plutocratic nonsense.

[chaos]

I didn't know where to put this. I decided to put it here since the host thought she would be interviewing a serious Romney supporter. Kind of funny.



http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/fox ... 09206.html

‘Fox & Friends’ punked by Obama supporter

An aspiring comedian pretending to be a former supporter for President Barack Obama appeared on "Fox & Friends" morning show via satellite on Monday during a segment that suggested the staggering unemployment rate for those aged 18-24 may cost Obama the youth vote in November.

"Fox & Friends" co-host Gretchen Carlson introduced Max Rice, the comedian, as a "recent college grad who voted for President Obama" and who "just moved out of his parents' home."

Rice interrupted Carlson's introduction, saying "S'up," and then told her, "Miss USA, it's an honor." After Carlson, a former Miss America winner, corrected Rice, he said, "Miss Universe in my book." Things quickly got worse from there.

"I was a huge Obama supporter in 2008," Rice said. "I met him in third grade. I met him when I was little."

When asked why he is now supporting Mitt Romney, Rice claimed he lost a bet to a friend in a pickup basketball game.

"Are you being serious about this interview or not?" Carlson asked.

"Yeah," Rice said. "I can't see your face right now. This is so weird."

Fox News said it is investigating the incident. "We are still examining the situation, but it will be addressed with the appropriate parties involved," Bill Shine, Fox News' executive vice president of programming, said in a statement.

"They were just casting a part in a show," Rice told the progressive website RawStory.com. "The first thing that shocked me is that they were that desperate to find someone that fit that category. What they were seeking is someone who voted for Obama in 2008, then somewhere in the last four years got disenfranchised and now is a huge Romney supporter. But I feel like anyone who fits that mold would also dis Romney at the same time. So, they just couldn't find anyone. They're in New York City, so they had to go find a kid in Chicago."

[creep]

there was a really good opportunity to make that funny but i didn't think he was funny at all. he blew it.

[Hype]

there was a really good opportunity to make that funny but i didn't think he was funny at all. he blew it.

She's not dumb (she's just evil). She did a great job of not getting punked at all. The stupid thing is... the liberal part of America doesn't NEED to do that kind of shit to get votes for Obama... the Left is already right. (See what I did there? )

[chaos]

I thought what made the segment funny was that out of all of the people Fox could have chosen for it they got that guy, from another state no less. So much for the screening process if there is any. Those let's-get-some-random-person-to-give-his-opinion-segments tend to be ridiculous anyway since little to no effort is put into them.

[Romeo]

so Rmoney stated that Obama supporters are all mooching off the government

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... fundraiser

Yes YOU Grandma, living high on your $600 a month Social Security check & you lazy disabled Soldier....YOU!

[SR]

so Rmoney stated that Obama supporters are all mooching off the government

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... fundraiser

Yes YOU Grandma, living high on your $600 a month Social Security check & you lazy disabled Soldier....YOU!

[mockbee]

Okay, Romney is dead in the water.


He's done.


He is absolutely frightening, terrifiying. Gimme G.W. Bush before this guy.......

[Romeo]

There are some that are defending what he said. It's just scary.

So now the GOP pulls a POTUS sound bite from 1998.....15 years ago....trying to deflect from the fact he admitted to only caring about 55% of the American population

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162- ... n-comment/

[SR]

Gimme G.W. Bush before this guy.......

[mockbee]

Gimme G.W. Bush before this guy.......

At least GWB and his posse were in their element, they knew what they were doing, however misguided it was. I would rather have a guy with a gang who has an idea, maybe it's misguided; than a rudderless ship. Romney has no clue why he wants to be president. Period.

And it's not just the 47% comment. A) He doubled down on it.( Obama didn't double down on the clinging to guns comment) B) He is flat out wrong for 'why' he believes that comment and C) That was a 70 minute tape, it is the first time I have seen Romney in his element, where he actually looks comfortable. He needs to be the president of a country club, not the United States of America. He says Israel/Palestine is a lost cause- too hard, he suggested how Iran could attack America with great effect but was completely off base with his reasoning. You don't need enriched uranium to make a dirty bomb.....all you need is some radioactiv materials and an explosion, just about every country in the world has those things. It goes on and on the list of ineptitude. Maybe he doesn't beleive these things, who the hell knows, that's the problem.

Romney is like a psychopath who has lost his moorings, Bush just struck me as the goofball in the back of class who goes along with whatever....

For rich Republicans, the stereotype is all about the money: They have it, other Americans don’t, and those resentful, entitled others might just have enough votes to wage class warfare and redistribute the donors’ hard-earned millions to the indolent and irresponsible.

For rich Democrats, the stereotype is all about the culture wars: They think they’ve built an enlightened society, liberated from archaic beliefs and antique hang-ups, and yet these Jesus freaks in flyover country are mobilizing to restore the patriarchy.

Both groups of donors seem to be haunted by dystopian scenarios in which the masses rise up and tear down everything the upper class has built. For Republicans, the dystopia is (inevitably) “Atlas Shrugged.” For liberals, it’s one part “Turner Diaries,” one part “Handmaid’s Tale.”

The way Obama and Romney employed these stereotypes are not actually equivalent. Both behind-closed-door comments were profoundly condescending, but only Romney explicitly wrote off the people he’s describing. As Slate’s William Saletan notes, Obama embedded his bitter- clingers characterization in a longer riff about why it’s important for Democrats to keep fighting for blue-collar votes. Romney’s remarks were more dismissive and therefore should prove more politically damaging: “I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” he said, of millions of his fellow countrymen, and left it at that.

[mockbee]

Doug K
San Francisco, CA:

"We’re in search of the real Romney."

Not any more, I think. We've found him.

He seems to be little more than a modern day cross between Ebenezer Scrouge, without the whiff of redemption and the most callous caricature of Marie Antoinette. One has to wonder that with such attitudes, Romney and his class might not make a lasting contribution to Marxism by showing that left unfettered long enough, capitalism cannot help but foster violent revolution.


FOr my part, I am punch drunk from being unable to recover from each stupid Romney statement before being bowled over by the next one.

[LJF]

I said earlier in another post that this election shouldn't even by close, but that the republicans had issues. This is why I feel that this election shouldn't be close, voters feel worse after Obama's term, but Romney and the republican party clearly don't make people feel included or wanted.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/vote ... ction.html

If the republicans don't win and even if Romney does they better change a lot of their views. They are caught up on backwards thinking. They need to be more inclusive. There are issues that shouldn't even be issues.

I think, yes A.S. this is just my opinion, that there are moderate Republicans and independents that would feel a lot stronger about Romney and the party as a whole if they changed some views. Examples gay rights, abortion and women's rights. The party is being held back by what I think to be a small but strong hardline, probably older base in the party.

And yes I think what he said was stupid. Even if that is what he thought he should have kept it to himself.

[Hype]

I think, yes A.S. this is just my opinion, that there are moderate Republicans and independents that would feel a lot stronger about Romney and the party as a whole if they changed some views. Examples gay rights, abortion and women's rights. The party is being held back by what I think to be a small but strong hardline, probably older base in the party.

Huh... It always seemed to me the other way around... It's the VERY old Republicans who were the moderates (the ones who were around before Reagan) and it's this weird younger generation... grandchildren of hippies and aging Gen-Xers, who are noticeably more socially conservative than their parents/grandparents.

You make it seem like there's a grass-roots youth movement of "progressive" Republicans just hoping the old guard will die off... but it sure doesn't look like that.

[SR]

Gimme G.W. Bush before this guy.......

At least GWB and his posse were in their element, they knew what they were doing, however misguided it was. I would rather have a guy with a gang who has an idea, maybe it's misguided; than a rudderless ship. Romney has no clue why he wants to be president. Period.

And it's not just the 47% comment. A) He doubled down on it.( Obama didn't double down on the clinging to guns comment) B) He is flat out wrong for 'why' he believes that comment and C) That was a 70 minute tape, it is the first time I have seen Romney in his element, where he actually looks comfortable. He needs to be the president of a country club, not the United States of America. He says Israel/Palestine is a lost cause- too hard, he suggested how Iran could attack America with great effect but was completely off base with his reasoning. You don't need enriched uranium to make a dirty bomb.....all you need is some radioactiv materials and an explosion, just about every country in the world has those things. It goes on and on the list of ineptitude. Maybe he doesn't beleive these things, who the hell knows, that's the problem.

Romney is like a psychopath who has lost his moorings, Bush just struck me as the goofball in the back of class who goes along with whatever....

For rich Republicans, the stereotype is all about the money: They have it, other Americans don’t, and those resentful, entitled others might just have enough votes to wage class warfare and redistribute the donors’ hard-earned millions to the indolent and irresponsible.

For rich Democrats, the stereotype is all about the culture wars: They think they’ve built an enlightened society, liberated from archaic beliefs and antique hang-ups, and yet these Jesus freaks in flyover country are mobilizing to restore the patriarchy.

Both groups of donors seem to be haunted by dystopian scenarios in which the masses rise up and tear down everything the upper class has built. For Republicans, the dystopia is (inevitably) “Atlas Shrugged.” For liberals, it’s one part “Turner Diaries,” one part “Handmaid’s Tale.”

The way Obama and Romney employed these stereotypes are not actually equivalent. Both behind-closed-door comments were profoundly condescending, but only Romney explicitly wrote off the people he’s describing. As Slate’s William Saletan notes, Obama embedded his bitter- clingers characterization in a longer riff about why it’s important for Democrats to keep fighting for blue-collar votes. Romney’s remarks were more dismissive and therefore should prove more politically damaging: “I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” he said, of millions of his fellow countrymen, and left it at that.

There is no way to respond as the fuckwit implemented evil and as you say, mitt has the potential for evil. That said, I couldn't disagree more with your sanitization of the fuckwit/Cheney regime.