Somewhat political post, non baseball

[NorCalAtlFan]

not sure citing kj is your best defense you damn hick!

ahh, kj is now the esteemed psychologist. thank you dr

[KJ Duke]

not sure citing kj is your best defense you damn hick!

ahh, kj is now the esteemed psychologist. thank you dr

That was my second professional choice after what I decided to do, so thank you. Maybe I'll actually become one after the market implodes under HRC.

[Edwards Kings]

not sure citing kj is your best defense you damn hick!

Hicks get the chicks, dude!

[TOXIC ASSETS]

Wayne, your party's response to the first black President was to nominate a white nationalist bent on instigating violence. If you're not emotionally able to accept that, it's not my problem.

This is Donald Trump's legacy. Feel real proud when you pull the lever for him.

Please do not characterize me as some sort of misanthropic redneck. But typical of a Democrat, when making a stupid allegory about why Republicans and other people are against Secretary Clinton because she is woman, and getting FACTS to the contrary, you change to a different argument rather than even consider evidence that challenges your myopic views.

Just again to prove how bent you are, I am not a Republican. I admit I have during most of my political life been a Republican, beginning with the Reagan revolution. However, I began shifting some many years ago to being less inclined to believe the straight party dogma and now fully consider myself an Independent. I fully recommend the change. Thinking for yourself is liberating, slick.

So. I am not a Republican. And can you read? If you check prior posts, you will find I have been equally disdainful of Donald Trump, who is only an American businessman of the worst order, not someone I want as my President.

Also, since I have shot down your shallow gender bias challenge, and your assertion that I somehow support Trump (whom I believe to be totally unprepared for office but not a "white nationalist bent on instigating violence"), let's address calling me a racist. It appears that anyone who calls out President Obama for his horrendous handling of national, economic and international affairs is labeled a "racist" so those who so blindly believed the garbage he has dribbled this last few years will not have to face the facts.

"The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion dollars for the first 42 presidents — number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion dollars of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic." Senator Barack Obama, July 3, 2008. After eight years of now President Obama, the national debt is $19.7 trillion. So how does that bit of truth hit you, pal?

KJ has already exploded the disaster that is the Affordable Care Act.

The ATF “Fast and Furious” scheme.

IRS targets conservative groups.

Solyndra.

The "Red Line".

Signing a Disastrous Nuclear Deal with the Mullahs of Iran.

Released 5 Taliban Prisoners For Deserter Bergdahl.

Paying ransom to Iran for hostages- and using foreign currency in unmarked plane.

Benghazi.

U6 Labor Under utilization rate still at nearly 10%. Labor Force Participation Rate was 65.8% when President Obama took office and has not been that high since. Now 62.9%


And on and on and on. The second fours years has been hard, I admit, for President Obama because he can no longer blame President Bush (insert "Snowball" reference from "Animal Farm" here).

I am and despite what the network news organizations claim, most of Americans, are not racist. It constantly amazes me that 39% of whites voted for President Obama in 2012 but only 6% of blacks voted for Romney, but me, as a WASP am automatically the racist.

So, I am not a racist but I still think President Obama has been the worst Chief Executive we have known. When it all comes down to it, believe what you want, sport. Do not be confused by the facts.

To borrow a line from Ronald Reagan's '84 debate..... there you go again. Posting FACTS.
I am sick and tired of the leftists calling anyone who disagrees with them a racist or sexist. Because it's all they've got....they can't argue the facts.... look at the ridiculous comeback by Yah Mule on your last posting. You gave him a multitude of information, and he gave you 3 pictures of white rednecks....AKA you're a racist Wayne!

This country is TOAST. It's done. Hillary is going to win. There are only a few people who even seem interested in this thread even though we are just a few weeks away from the election. As George Carlin said in one of his epic rants.... "When you have selfish ignorant citizens, you get selfish ignorant leaders. This is if folks, this is the best we can do.

And for everyone's entertainment, I've posted the entire George Carlin routine on politicians. It's a classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07w9K2XR3f0

[NorCalAtlFan]

since we're quoting actors, here goes, "are you not entertained! are you not entertained!"

i think the "this country is toast" mantra goes back to Roosevelt in 1912. it's not a new refrain. just one toxic uses now. us libtards used in 2000, and on and on and on.

i'm just hopeful/thankful that the supreme court will be in good hands and not regress. that's something we can all agree on

[gsjanoff]

Why is this even a discussion?

This election isn't about Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. This election is about facts.

We have 1 political party that royally screwed up the economy and left us with 2008, and another political party that has partially rescued us from that period and has us on the path to a full rescue.

For those of us still living in 2008 and think that was great, this election is easy.

For those of us living in reality, the election is even easier.

[Edwards Kings]

Why is this even a discussion?

This election isn't about Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. This election is about facts.

We have 1 political party that royally screwed up the economy and left us with 2008, and another political party that has partially rescued us from that period and has us on the path to a full rescue.

For those of us still living in 2008 and think that was great, this election is easy.

For those of us living in reality, the election is even easier.

Respectfully, I disagree with your assessment, unsupported though it is. But I have hopes that people can change their minds. Look at my Grandfather for example. Voted Republican till the day he died. He has voted Democrat ever since.

[NorCalAtlFan]

easy with the name calling you damn redneck, bobby cox loving, cousing kissing, sob!

[KJ Duke]

Why is this even a discussion?

We have 1 political party that royally screwed up the economy and left us with 2008, and another political party that has partially rescued us from that period and has us on the path to a full rescue.

As someone that has studied economics and the markets for my entire adult life and a hater of both parties, this is the single most outrageous statement in the entire thread. And that's saying something. Wow, talk about living with your head in the sand and talking out of your a**.

[Baseball Furies]

“Why Is Clinton disliked?“

“Why the hate for Hillary?“

“Why do people hate Hillary Clinton so much?“

Is it because of partisanship?

Or a hard-fought primary?

Maybe, NBC once suggested, it’s because “she’s not a train wreck.”

Funny how the answers seem to be everything but the obvious.

We go on endlessly about how “untrustworthy” she is, while fact checkers rank her as the second-most honest prominent politician in the country. (And her opponent as by far the least.)

We say that she has trouble with transparency, while her opponent refuses to release his taxes and the current administration sets records for secrecy.

We decry her ties to corporations and the financial industry, while supporting a walking tax shelter or mourning the exit of a president whose re-election was funded by a record-shattering Wall Street haul.

We list so very many explanations, all of them complete bullshit.

In truth, the Hillary haters seem to resent her more than disagree with her. They demand to be humored and catered to. They hold her to wildly different standards than her male counterparts. They regard her with an unprecedented degree of suspicion. Above all, they really, really want to see her punished. And an aggressive male presence—even if dangerously incompetent—seems to comfort a great many of them.

Everyone but them knows damn well why.

Bad news for the haters: History is decidedly unafraid of “the woman card.” It doesn’t care how many people will stand on tables today and swear they’d feel the same if she were a man. It will see us for what we are—a sick society, driven by misogyny and pathetically struggling to come to terms with the fact that women do not exist solely to nurture.

If that answer isn’t as nuanced as the average thinkpiece, that’s because we, as a people, are not. No matter how many branches have formed, they all emerged from the same seed, planted way back when Bill Clinton first ran for governor. She wouldn’t be so suspicious of the press, or so measured in her presentation, or so any one of a thousand other things, if she had been born a man.

The lengths we go to in order to rationalize this all will be seen, in retrospect, as extraordinary.

When the Bush administration was discovered to have erased millions of emails illegally sent by 22 administration officials through private, RNC-owned accounts, in order to thwart an investigation into the politically motivated firing of eight US attorneys, just one talk show covered it that Sunday.

When Mitt Romney wiped servers, sold government hard drives to his closest aides and spent $100,000 in taxpayer money to destroy his administration’s emails, it was barely an issue.

When Hillary Clinton asked Colin Powell how he managed to use a Blackberry while serving as Secretary of State, he replied by detailing his method of intentionally bypassing federal record-keeping laws:

I didn’t have a Blackberry. What I did do was have a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line (sounds ancient.) So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department servers. I even used it to do business with some foreign leaders and some of the senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels.
... There is a real danger. If it is public that you have a BlackBerry and it it [sic] government and you are using it, government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and subject to the law.
Yet the fact that Hillary Clinton emailed through a private server and didn’t use it to cover anything up is somehow the defining issue of her campaign. “My God,” people cry, “anyone else would be in jail!”

Or is the real scandal that her family runs but does not profit from a charitable foundation awarded an A grade by Charity Watch, a four out of four star rating by Charity Navigator and responsible for helping 435 million people in 180 countries get things like clean drinking water and HIV medication? Because the AP seems super concerned that she encountered people who donated to it—specifically Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus—in her official capacity as Secretary of State.

It should at this point be observed that her opponent is a shameless con artist who has built an empire bilking people with fake businesses, fake universities, fake charities and, now, a fake campaign. Last week, he told a lie every three minutes and fifteen seconds. Oh, and did we mention that he, like so many of his online “supporters,” is a goddamn Russian stooge? I tried to list all of the dumb, awful stuff that he does every day and I cannot come close to keeping up.

Voters, it seems, are his easiest marks yet.

And it isn’t just Republicans. The double standards are even more transparent on the left.

Back in the mid-90s, Clinton’s persistent unwillingness to hide the fact that she was a thinking human female really freaked the center-left establishment out. Michael Moore observed that, “[Maureen Dowd] is fixated on trashing Hillary Rodham in the way liberals love to do, to prove they’re not really liberal.” The bashing slowly morphed into a creepy, extraordinary sort of policing.

Since then, Clinton racked up a Senate voting record more liberal than any nominee since Mondale. Her 2008 platform was slightly to Obama’s left on domestic issues. Her 2016 platform was barely to the right of self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders.

Yet, we have all heard and seen countless liberal posers passionately decrying her “far right voting record,” untrustworthy promises or ever-changing policy positions. Jon Stewart recently called Clinton “a bright woman without the courage of her convictions, because I don’t know what they even are.” Because if he doesn’t know, she must not have any, right?

In fact, there is a very lengthy trail of public records all pointing in the same direction. If you can’t figure out which, maybe the problem is you.

Yet, many on the left who gladly voted for John Kerry, two years after he voted to authorize the Iraq war, now say they couldn’t possibly vote for Clinton, because she did, too.

And view her with contempt for opposing same-sex marriage in 2008, while fawning over men like Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders, who held the same position at the same time.

It’s time to stop pretending that this is about substance. This is about an eagerness to believe that a woman who seeks power will say or do anything to get it. This is about a Lady MacBeth stereotype that, frankly, should never have existed in the first place. This is about the one thing no one wants to admit it’s about.

Consider, for a moment, two people. One, as a young woman at the beginning of a promising legal career, went door to door searching for ways to guarantee an education to the countless disabled and disadvantaged children who had fallen through the cracks. The other, as a young millionaire, exacted revenge on his recently deceased brother’s family by cutting off the medical insurance desperately needed by his nephew’s newborn son, who at eighteen months of age was suffering from violent seizures brought on by a rare neurological disorder.

What kind of a society treats these two people as equal in any way? What kind of society even considers the latter over the former for its highest office?

Generations from now, people will shake their heads at this moment in time, when the first female major party presidential nominee—competent, qualified and more thoroughly vetted than any non-incumbent candidate in history—endured the humiliation of being likened to such an obvious grifter, ignoramus and hate monger.

We deserve the shame that we will bear. -Larry Womack, former Associate News Editor of the Huffington Post.

No, I didn't write this as you can see, but it's one of the best articles I've read out there on why people feel the need to hate Hillary Clinton. So let's stop with this bullshit of even attempting to put Trump in the same league as HRC let alone comparing his horrific level of ignominy as equal to hers. It's not. It isn't. And it never has been nor will it ever be even close. If you want to come on here as a Republican who longs for a capable candidate who espouses Republican values and a conservative platform, great. I have all the respect in the world for you because it's part of what makes our Democracy great. But if you want to be a Republican (or worse yet, someone from the Alt Right camp) and come on here espousing the "virtues" of a Donald Trump or a Trump presidency as good for this country, you are misinformed or have been sadly misguided, and your position of supporting him at this point is indefensible, though I'm sure some of you will continue to try. So be it, but I'm not going to engage it. Is Hillary the perfect candidate for the presidency? No, but she is the best one who is running by far.

Just throwing my usual, non-polarizing and populace position into the ring as I always do. Now back to my hibernation until baseball drafting resumes for me in November.

[KJ Duke]

What the above article is missing, which all Dem Party supporters are missing, is that "best qualified" to run something does not mean longest resume and least delusional. Less delusional? Yes, I believe she has that over Trump.

But her basic philosophies and beliefs are intellectually lazy, historically ignorant and economically destructive. Much like Obama, her objective is to score points with constituents that like their politicians to do things that seem like good, fair and just ideas. The GOP national party has the same objective, so as a country we end up with the worst of both and the best of neither.

Like any business, the devil is in the details. A good-sounding business plan and a market opportunity does not make for a profitable business. That is the easy part. Executing a strategy, managing people, managing incentives, catering to customers, these things are more important in determining success and this is where politicians, especially career politicians fail miserably. They really don't care about any of these details relating to execution. Look at the "affordable care act" as the latest massive example, it's just one of thousands of failed programs that all suffer the same fate. For liberals, label something green or helping the poor and they will happily throw billions of dollars at something that any analyst could tell you is likely to fail, but they will simply sweep the failure under the rug, call it bad luck and brag about their good intentions. Same goes for the GOP and national defense, guns and immigration. Is it good legislation ... who cares? Voters won't be able to judge as they are ill-suited to evaluate outcomes. As a Senator voted for X, Y and Z. Rah rah rah Hilary, we like those things you've got our vote. Did those things work? No time to evaluate that, next question?

Government programs fail year-after-year, decade after decade, not because the idea didn't sound good, but that government can't execute because incentives needed for successful outcomes do not exist. Lobbying gets gov't to overpay and poorly structure programs; politicians put people in place for political favors with little regard for actual talent in running such programs. "More government" running things means more of our money taken away and given to the very trump-like con-men that you think you are voting against as Liberals. Putting HRC will enrich them even more. Liberals don't understand even as that is exactly what happened under 8 yrs of Obama. Voters buy into simple, dumb narratives. I can go on the attack just as easily against many so-called conservative voters because most of them don't even understand the conceptual inconsistencies of the Party's most basic platforms, but for now HRC is in my crosshairs because Mikey thinks HRC is "just fine" as a choice after reading a useless long-winded article that has nothing to do with her ability to run the country.

Obama, "because he was black", was gonna finally help minorities. That was the narrative that helped get him elected. Instead, highest-ever gaps in income and wealth from top to bottom, black people getting shot by cops (at a seemingly higher rate) and more in fear of getting pulled over than ever, the worst economic recovery cycle since WWII, a disastrous healthcare program that further extends the govt concept of giveaways for the non-workers at the expense of working people. Obama was an Illinois politician, the worst kind. He has no concept of how capitalism works, and more importantly how it doesn't work. He bowed down to lobbyists to let them re-write the rules to further enrich themselves at the expense of all non-one-percenters. And he flat out lied about bringing reform to the political process and money in politics.

I don't want a Black President. I don't want a Woman President. I want a Competent President. I don't care what they look like, what they've done, how many facts they know or where they were born. Many major US companies are run competently by foreigners, minorities, women and "yes" even white men, but in politics the important thing for many, many voters is race or gender. Pathetic, ignorant voters.

I want someone that delivers results and that starts with having a basic philosophical and practical understanding of how capitalism works, how government fails, and a sense of fairness and justice; not a phony, pandering "we'll have the government do everything you want it to do" schtick. This entire HRC article is a bunch of nonsense because none of it goes to her ability to lead a government or an economy. She is well-versed in running "for things", not "running" things other than campaigns which is no qualification. She doesn't have the knowledge to be an effective President- this article is tabloid-level meaningless personality-oriented, mis-directed marketing BS which doesn't mean a damn thing.

[Edwards Kings]

Who the hell is Larry Womack? I admit I haven't read him nor can I find a reliable biography (i.e. other than Huffington, who has he worked for). If anyone can find one, I would like to know.

Mikey, he truly presents only one side of the story. On Secretary Powell, the other side might be the part where he attempted to discourage Hillary Clinton and her team from using him as a scapegoat for her private email server problems, according to newly leaked emails from Powell’s Gmail account:

“Sad thing,” Powell wrote to one confidant, “HRC could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me to it.” The emails show Powell regularly corresponding with reporters and friends about the Clinton email server scandal, explaining that his situation was different. When Powell arrived at the State Department, the information technology system was badly dated, he argued. And unlike Secretary Clinton, Powell never set up a private server. Instead, he used his personal AOL account, on a server maintained by AOL, and used a government computer for classified communications. “They are going to dick up the legitimate and necessary use of emails with friggin record rules. I saw email more like a telephone than a cable machine,” Powell wrote last year to his business partner Jeffrey Leeds. “As long as the stuff is unclassified. I had a secure State.gov machine. Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.”

Judicial Watch on August 30th submitted questions to Secretary Clinton concerning her email practices. The answers, under oath, were due on September 29. The questions were here if you are interested http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room ... tember-29/ and Judicial Watch was limited to only 25. Secretary Clinton objected to 18 and stated "I do not recall" to 21. Hmmmm....this is an issue that Secretary Clinton should be up on, but either she is circumventing the truth or she is ill and her memory is fading. In either case, not much of an endorsement.

As to being truthful, the list of evidence to the contrary is staggering. But lets stay, as one example, with emails.

"Let me repeat what I have repeated for many months now," Secretary Clinton said July 2, 2016, "I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified. This was not the first time Secretary Clinton stated this, but while still running for the nomination, Secretary Clinton was interviewed by the FBI on the email issue. The FBI released the reported in September that Secretary Clinton said she did not know what the marking (C) — used to denote classified information deemed "confidential" — meant. When presented with an email chain using the (C) mark, Clinton "speculated it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order," according to the report.

So, even IF you believe Secretary Clinton did not know what "(C)" meant (and here is a conundrum for Secretary Clinton supporters...is she a liar or so incompetent at her job as Secretary of State that she didn't recognize classified information and their designations), she KNEW she had sent and received classified materials yet is STILL claiming she didn't.

But that is ok. President Bill Clinton’s "private, unplanned meeting" with Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch at the Phoenix airport to talk about grandchildren, coming at a time when the Justice Department was nearing completion of its examination of Secretary Clinton’s use of a private server for her emails as Secretary of State made everything all better. A few weeks later, Justice declined to prosecute.

Anyone believe we would have been given a similar pass?



On her early life as a lawyer, Womack wrote "Consider, for a moment, two people. One, as a young woman at the beginning of a promising legal career, went door to door searching for ways to guarantee an education to the countless disabled and disadvantaged children who had fallen through the cracks."

During this time that she defended Thomas Alfred Taylor, a 41-year-old man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl. The girl is now a woman and has appeared with the women President Bill Clinton raped/molested. Secretary Clinton of that time said "Of course he claimed he didn’t. All this stuff. He took a lie detector test. I had him take a polygraph, which he passed, which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs. [laughs]". “Children in early adolescence tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences and that adolescents with disorganized families, such as the complainant’s, are even more prone to such behavior,” Clinton wrote in her affidavit. Clinton negotiated a plea deal and Taylor was charged with “Unlawful Fondling of a Child Under the Age of Fourteen” and was sentenced to one year in a county jail and four years of probation, according to a final judgment signed by Judge Cummings. On October 9th, Kathy Shelton, the woman who was the raped child said that “at 12-years old, Hillary put me through something that you would never put a 12-year-old through” and accused her of “laughing on tape saying she knows they did it.”

Arranging a one year jail sentence for the rape of a 12 year old girl. Yes, most of the blame goes to the judge, but yup...Sec. Clinton is a real peach with a solid moral barometer. Not quite the altruistic career as a crusading defender Womack tries to portray.

As to the Clinton Foundation, was some of the funds misdirected to noble causes...sure, but primarily I believe (and of course anyone can believe differently) that it is/was a lobbying arm to sell access to the Secretary of States office and will again allow access to the Oval Office when Secretary Clinton wins (as I believe she will and I do not support Trump). From a DNC report section titled, “CLINTON FOUNDATION INDIVIDUAL FOREIGN DONORS":

THE CLINTON FOUNDATION RECEIVED DONATIONS FROM INDIVIDUALS TIED TO SAUDI ARABIA WHILE CLINTON SERVED AS SECRETARY OF STATE

INDIAN POLITICIAN AMAR SINGH, WHO HAD DONATED AT LEAST $1 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION, MET WITH HILLARY CLINTON IN SEPTEMBER 2008 TO DISCUSS AN INDIA-U.S. CIVIL NUCLEAR AGREEMENT

BILLIONAIRE STEEL EXECUTIVE AND MEMBER OF THE FOREIGN INVESTMENT COUNCIL IN KAZAKHSTAN LAKSHMI MITTAL GAVE $1 MILLION TO $5 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION BEFORE CLINTON BECAME SECRETARY OF STATE
SOON AFTER SECRETARY CLINTON LEFT THE STATE DEPARTMENT, THE CLINTON FOUNDATION “RECEIVED A LARGE DONATION FROM A CONGLOMERATE RUN BY A MEMBER OF CHINA’S NATIONAL PEOPLE’S CONGRESS”

A GERMAN INVESTOR WHO HAS LOBBIED CHANCELLOR MERKEL’S ADMINISTRATION GAVE BETWEEN $1 MILLION AND $5 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION, SOME OF WHICH WAS DURING MRS. CLINTON’S TENURE AT THE STATE DEPARTMENT

A VENEZUELAN MEDIA MOGUL WHO WAS ACTIVE IN VENEZUELAN POLITICS DONATED TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION DURING CLINTON’S TENURE AS SECRETARY OF STATE

AN EMBATTLED BUSINESSMAN WITH “TIES TO BAHRAIN’S STATE-OWNED ALUMINUM COMPANY” GAVE BETWEEN $1 MILLION AND $5 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION

DURING CLINTON’S TENURE AS SECRETARY OF STATE, A FORMER CLINTON POLLSTER REGISTERED AS A LOBBYIST FOR PINCHUK AND TOOK MEETINGS WITH CLINTON AIDE’S ABOUT ISSUES IN THE UKRAINE

Does anyone honestly believe there was no conflict of interest? If people are ok with that, fine. In this case, this is truly you get what you pay for.

But ok, we will agree to disagree. We will be in for a world of hurt over the next four years.

Now, Mikey, about country music....

[gsjanoff]

You can talk about having your head in the sand all you want, but the simple fact of the matter is that it is inarguable that we are better off economically today than we were in 2008, Are we perfect? No. Not even remotely close. But we have come a long way back from a big hole created by previous leadership.

Obama didn't win in 2008 because he was going to help minorities or because he was black. He won for 1 reason only and that is that the country was screwed up under then president Cheney and his puppet George Bush. Frankly, the democrats could have run Mickey Mouse in 2008 and he would have won. It really was that bad.

Obama is not a great president, and will never go down in history as having been one, I don't believe, but to look at where we are now compared to 2008, it is better, and he did it with essentially zero help from congress, which by the way has an 11% approval rating while Obama has a 53% approval rating. Both of these figures from the latest polling.

I also wont argue that Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act is a great piece of legislature as that is an argument that can't be won, but frankly it is a good starting point and provides insurance for many people that previously didn't have it. There are serious flaws that need to be fixed within it, and I personally believe with the right leadership, those flaws will get corrected, but starting from scratch isn't a better solution as it undoes what the best part of the program is which was to insure those who had no insurance at all, and that has to be worse.

Human nature is to resist change, and from what I have learned (since I wasn't alive at the time), people hated Medicare when it first was introduced. I can't say whether it's a great program either, as I'm not old enough to take advantage of it, but it has to be better than nothing at all.

The increase in the debt is the biggest argument against Obama and against the democrats in general, yet if you go back to 1980, which is the last 10 presidencies counting them in 4 year cycles, the least money spent by any president over those 10 cycles is Obama from 2013-2016, and the second least is Obama from 2009-2012. Those most, for those interested is Reagan from 1982-1985, and the second most is Bush from 2005-2008. The debt has increased in large part due to sheer size and interest being paid on that debt, and it will continue to do so until we get more money coming in than going out, which is nothing more than plain old common sense.

There are really only 3 ways to accomplish that (listed in no particular order)

1.) raise taxes for some so that more money is coming in (assuming it is spent correctly)
2.) get even more people back to work than we have done since 2008, as more people working means more income tax being paid, and thus more income for the government.
3.) Fix the loopholes in the tax code which ultimately will mean more income

The problem with the latter is that the republicans, though they talk about this, don't really want to do this, as effectively this is viewed as a tax increase. Do you think Donald Trump really wants to start paying taxes? Most of the rich people (top 1%) have actually come out and stated they are willing to pay more taxes, yet the republicans inexplicably want to lower them. Why?

Both political parties have blame as each has gotten too far to the left or too far to the right. You need leadership that is much closer to the center to be successful, and at least Hillary had that reputation during her term in the senate. The vast majority of republicans will even tell you so.

[Edwards Kings]

A few points.

I also wont argue that Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act is a great piece of legislature as that is an argument that can't be won, but frankly it is a good starting point and provides insurance for many people that previously didn't have it.

When this was gathering steam, the estimated number of uninsured was 45.7 million (number came from a 2007 Census Bureau estimates). How could we, as the most powerful nation on earth, allow all these poor people not to have access to insurance? Or did we?

The census question was around private insurance, so this did not count the people covered by Medicare. Of the estimated uninsured at that time, about one-quarter of them were eligible for insurance already (Medicaid and the various state Children's Health Insurance Programs) but were not enrolled. About 70 percent are from families with one or more full-time workers (Kaiser Family Foundation). Some 40 percent of the uninsured are between the ages of 19 and 29 and speculation varies between don't feel the need, to just starting working and can't afford. About 20% were not citizens of the United States and half of those undocumented.

In short, the drive to enact one of worst (yes, my opinion) boondoggles in US history was based on bad or misleading numbers. There is of course some overlap in the percentages above, but I wonder what kind of program we could have come up with had we all focused on the real numbers?

The increase in the debt is the biggest argument against Obama and against the democrats in general, yet if you go back to 1980, which is the last 10 presidencies counting them in 4 year cycles, the least money spent by any president over those 10 cycles is Obama from 2013-2016, and the second least is Obama from 2009-2012. Those most, for those interested is Reagan from 1982-1985, and the second most is Bush from 2005-2008. The debt has increased in large part due to sheer size and interest being paid on that debt, and it will continue to do so until we get more money coming in than going out, which is nothing more than plain old common sense.

I think this is a bit misleading. Size matters. Our GDP goes up (usually) every year and how the debt tracks to that GDP may be more illuminating. Debt to GDP in 1962 was 49%. 1972 34%. 1980 32% and 1988 49% (yes, Reagan spent with good result...another point to argue I guess). By 2000 (Clinton I) 54% (which is a bit misleading as 54% was actually part of a late term downward trend). 2008 it was up to 67%, a 6% spike over 2007. By 2010, 90%, 2012 99%, 2014 102%. I do not believe we have gotten value for the money spent nor do I believe we can continue. Where would be be without sequestration?

Most of the rich people (top 1%) have actually come out and stated they are willing to pay more taxes, yet the republicans inexplicably want to lower them. Why?

Reference?

The vast majority of republicans will even tell you so.

Reference?

[NorCalAtlFan]

stop it you damn hick! you're giving your fellow southerners a bad name with your proper sentence structure and sentient thought. i bet you have a full set of teeth as well. fraud!

[KJ Duke]

You can talk about having your head in the sand all you want, but the simple fact of the matter is that it is inarguable that we are better off economically today than we were in 2008, Are we perfect? No. Not even remotely close. But we have come a long way back from a big hole created by previous leadership.

Obama didn't win in 2008 because he was going to help minorities or because he was black. He won for 1 reason only and that is that the country was screwed up under then president Cheney and his puppet George Bush. Frankly, the democrats could have run Mickey Mouse in 2008 and he would have won. It really was that bad.

Obama is not a great president, and will never go down in history as having been one, I don't believe, but to look at where we are now compared to 2008, it is better, and he did it with essentially zero help from congress, which by the way has an 11% approval rating while Obama has a 53% approval rating. Both of these figures from the latest polling.

I also wont argue that Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act is a great piece of legislature as that is an argument that can't be won, but frankly it is a good starting point and provides insurance for many people that previously didn't have it. There are serious flaws that need to be fixed within it, and I personally believe with the right leadership, those flaws will get corrected, but starting from scratch isn't a better solution as it undoes what the best part of the program is which was to insure those who had no insurance at all, and that has to be worse.

Human nature is to resist change, and from what I have learned (since I wasn't alive at the time), people hated Medicare when it first was introduced. I can't say whether it's a great program either, as I'm not old enough to take advantage of it, but it has to be better than nothing at all.

The increase in the debt is the biggest argument against Obama and against the democrats in general, yet if you go back to 1980, which is the last 10 presidencies counting them in 4 year cycles, the least money spent by any president over those 10 cycles is Obama from 2013-2016, and the second least is Obama from 2009-2012. Those most, for those interested is Reagan from 1982-1985, and the second most is Bush from 2005-2008. The debt has increased in large part due to sheer size and interest being paid on that debt, and it will continue to do so until we get more money coming in than going out, which is nothing more than plain old common sense.

There are really only 3 ways to accomplish that (listed in no particular order)

1.) raise taxes for some so that more money is coming in (assuming it is spent correctly)
2.) get even more people back to work than we have done since 2008, as more people working means more income tax being paid, and thus more income for the government.
3.) Fix the loopholes in the tax code which ultimately will mean more income

The problem with the latter is that the republicans, though they talk about this, don't really want to do this, as effectively this is viewed as a tax increase. Do you think Donald Trump really wants to start paying taxes? Most of the rich people (top 1%) have actually come out and stated they are willing to pay more taxes, yet the republicans inexplicably want to lower them. Why?

Both political parties have blame as each has gotten too far to the left or too far to the right. You need leadership that is much closer to the center to be successful, and at least Hillary had that reputation during her term in the senate. The vast majority of republicans will even tell you so.

This response proves the point that you are a sucker for media fluff. Picking a low point in a business cycle and attributing a cyclical recovery to the fact that someone new stepped into the oval office is literally the world's dumbest political argument pushed at any given moment by whichever party can claim it.

In this instance it's even worse when you consider that the past 8 years have been the weakest recovery since the Great Depression, all of the "gains" have accrued to the top 10% of income population (for which the Federal Reserve, not the oval office is primarily responsible), even with those gains the overall standard of living/purchasing power has declined, and that both Parties played huge roles in the '08-09 economic descent to begin with. You have no hope of objectivity if you only listen to one side and your mind was made up beforehand anyway.

Likewise, your 3 solutions for fixing the budget amount to: #1 take in more money for govt from people, #2 take in more money for govt from a different set of people, #3 take in more money for govt from a third set of people. More money in = a less productive society, less private sector jobs, a lower standard of living, more power and more money to be wasted by a corrupt political system and be funneled back into the most corrupt elements of the private sector. That plan hasn't worked in the history of capitalism, it's not going to start working now.

[headhunters]

both parties completely rely on people either ignoring basic economics or just never learning them. i am shocked at how many people have zero understanding of an economic cycle.

[DOUGHBOYS]

It is incredible how party folks are like baseball fans. Even through bad times and bad teams, they cling to stats that put their party or team in a good light.
Preferring to stay true to original roots through the years, rather than take a deep look at what they're rooting for.
My brother, a dyed-in-the-wool Republican abhors Trump...and is voting for him.
My mother-in-law, a lever pulling Democrat, voting for anybody with a D by their name. No matter the agenda.
Parties count on close-mindedness.
Both parties are broke. They are big business, spending billions and paying little in taxes themselves.
Ironic.
But, they're making the rules.
Defending either party is folly.
They are both in last place. Hard to do in a two-team race. An accomplishment of sorts.
And no matter what 'facts' or statistics folks come up with, they have lost a tangible that can probably not be re-gained from the American people. At least those who are still free-thinking.
Trust.

[COZ]

Your "Democratic" National Party. You can add "bird-dogging" or inciting to the Alinsky Radical Liberal playbook of isolate, ridicule, marginalize to those in opposition. Scary stuff. Feel real proud about the division created by your party when you pull the lever for the Demoncrats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHu ... e=youtu.be

[NorCalAtlFan]

that was a sweet video coz. thanks!

i knew i liked the clinton's, this validates it

[KJ Duke]

Your "Democratic" National Party. You can add "bird-dogging" or inciting to the Alinsky Radical Liberal playbook of isolate, ridicule, marginalize to those in opposition. Scary stuff. Feel real proud about the division created by your party when you pull the lever for the Demoncrats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHu ... e=youtu.be

Dem voters respond:



Oh, Hi Mikey. What are you doing down there?

[NorCalAtlFan]

that and we as a country have already seen the damage done by one actor in the white house. not sure we'd recover from a 2nd.

if only nancy would have talked ron out of running......damn

[COZ]

that was a sweet video coz. thanks!

i knew i liked the clinton's, this validates it

No, prob. You should appreciate this video on Obama & Clinton's hero too, then. And guess who Shillary wrote her senior thesis
about? Your boy, Saul....

https://youtu.be/7FUHnvUGi38

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpag ... c_id/53923

Wake up, Sheeple!

[KJ Duke]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... ring-back/

... and this is the Wash Post, not Fox News. Liberals (and Mikey, whatever you are) please click on link below, not the one above.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lu-0mCNgba0/V ... n-sand.png

I know, I know, I'm just driving NorCal straight into Hilary's all-inclusive arms.

[NorCalAtlFan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... ring-back/

... and this is the Wash Post, not Fox News. Liberals (and Mikey, whatever you are) please click on link below, not the one above.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lu-0mCNgba0/V ... n-sand.png

I know, I know, I'm just driving NorCal straight into Hilary's all-inclusive arms.

i was already there.
foxnews was so yesterday. the republicans new vessel of hate is the post.........