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Facts are stubborn things. Don't let them get in the way of a good story.
So you have no idea how Bush drove us into a ditch?
"Deregulation."
But that started under...
"Ditch!!"
You didn't let me finish.
"Sorry. I get excited sometimes. Where's my 'no justice, no peace' sign?"
So back to the ditch.
"It was Wall Street, those fat cat mothers."
Then why did they give so overwhelmingly in 2008 to...
"Ditch!"
And why is the current DOJ refusing to file charges against...
"Cheney! Halliburton!"
And why did Dem Governor Corzine, who almost became the Treasurer, and is a close adviser, get away with...
"Tax breaks for the rich!"
But what happened to those peoples money? Thousands lost their life savings, Corzine broke the law, and no charges. In fact, he's still a top campaign bundler for...
"They took the money, those greedy guys with yachts that don't pay taxes."
John Kerry?
"No, not him. He's one of us. We're the good guys."
One last question. You keep adding more and more layers of government, making it bigger and bigger. Is that good for the country?
"I don't care. Every one of 'em votes for us. Don't you get it? Eventually they'll be enough of them that we won't need elections. There won't be enough to vote for the other party."
But is that kind of government good?
"Sure it is. What little happiness there is in this miserable world, that comes from government. Your wife make you happy at night? She didn't do that. Government did. Showed her how. Your kid hug you in the morning? That was government and the FCC, with the help of television. You enjoy your little business you run there? You didn't build that. We did. Czech Republic never did invade the US did it, now? That's 'cause of us and the department of defense(spits on ground)."
The Czechs? You mean the Soviet Union?
"Don't you be talking about the Soviet Union like that!!"
Sorry. I forgot.
"You just relax and let us do the driving. Matter of fact, why don't you just get out and walk. I'm tired of listening to you. This is a community. You don't want to ride with us, you just leave. We don't like you and your questions anyhow."
Thomas Donilon is the National Security Advisor. This is a cabinet level position, the equivalent of of the head of the CIA. The job's qualifications are such that people appointed generally have a lifetime of experience in intelligence gathering work.
Donilon worked his entire career as a Democratic political operative. That's it. Period.
You will find one other thing on his resume. He worked 6 years as a lobbyist for Fannie Mae. Which meant he got to keep doing what he was doing, for a boat load of money. And his years at Fannie happened to be the years when it was becoming obvious Fannie needed reform. If life were a Batman movie, this guy is pretty close to a cartoon villain. It gets worse though.
Right now, as head of NSA, he is making about 172K a year. But he's also collecting a lifetime pension of 148k from Fannie! For being a lobbyist for 6 years! For being one of those corrupt cartoon characters responsible for the real estate bubble!
But that's not the end of the story. I wish. Donilon works at the highest level of government, has access to all of our secrets. How a President could be so irresponsible or careless to put a man like that in this position is hard to fathom, whatever party you belong to. But what has emerged is truly unbelievable.
Recently, classified information has been leaked which clearly puts lives in danger and puts the nation's security at risk. And what was the purpose of these leaks? One purpose: to make the President look tough. That's it. There is no other motive. There is no other benefit. Even Democratic Senator Feinstein has expressed her outrage. It is absolutely unprecedented in American history that an administration would systematically leak information that critically damages national security just to make a President look tough in an election year.
Evidence is now strong that a good chunk of this leaking has come right from Donilon.
Which might explain why the President put a political operative in this kind of position in the first place.
I believe the Constitutional definition of treason is "high crimes and misdemeanors". This probably does not meet that. If the President authorizes the release of national secrets, it is perfectly legal.
But in language we all understand, when a President deliberately puts lives and national security at risk just to further his political career, only one word suffices: treason.
False Narrative: We were losing 800,000 jobs a month when President Obama took office; his policies stopped the bleeding and put us on the path to recovery.
Rebuttal: Job losses in the last recession peaked at 741,000 (not 800,000) the month President Obama was sworn in. Job losses immediately started a steady decline when he took office, before the president even had the chance to pass his stimulus plan. The recession ended in June 2009, when stimulus spending had barely begun. Obama likes to imply that without his stimulus, we would have continued to hemorrhage jobs at the same rate that was occurring when he became president. The timeline proves otherwise; credit for reversing the damage more likely goes to the emergency measures put in place by Bush. But while Obama cannot take credit for ending the recession, he can certainly take credit for what liberal CBS News calls “the worst economic recovery that America has ever had.”
End paste
"But the ditch?! What about the ditch? Bush drove us into a ditch, and I had to get us out."
What about unemployment?
"It went up more than we expected, but it's coming down."
Yes, but it only looks like it's coming down. That's because more and more people are dropping out of the workforce. Were it not for that, unemployment would be over 11%.
"But we need more time. Do you wanna go back to the policies that created the mess?"
Which policies.
"Tax breaks for the rich."
Are you saying an across the board tax cut for everyone, say of 10%, is a tax cut for the rich?
"Yup. It's a cut for the rich, cause they make more."
What's that hanging from your rear view mirror?
"That's my Nobel."
Maybe you should throw it in the river like John Kerry did. Or did he?
"You tryin' to swiftboat me? Cause I'm no John Kerry."
It's easy to cut, paste, and parrot other peoples comments, to quibble over numbers - insignificant ones at that ... 741,000 Vs 800,000. Really, is that a point of argument?
Pretty silly, Seven. If you read the thread, you'll see cutting and pasting is a very small part of my arguments. Very. I only do it so people won't think it's just me throwing stuff out there.
You're the type whose very thoughts are cut and pasted, lifted from others. It's the party line of the irrational, of those who in their paranoia, see a liberal behind every tree, a convenient scapegoat, someone to blame.
Using an act of terrorism as a political football is beneath Mitt Romney. Pretty sure he'll reflect on today's press conference with deep regret. In the heat of the race, he's kowtowed to poor advice once more. Nobody sensible thinks Obama is apologetic for American values, beliefs or is attempting to engineer a socialist takeover. Obviously these far right types don't realise socialism was intended as a stage to communism, which never intended for government takeover. It's always amusing to see these people unaware the intended goal of communism was to the contrary. Then again, to actually try and understand another view is compromise, and compromise is supposedly bad.
When even Rupert Murdoch can see Mitt Romney is pandering to a far right extremist crowd - that will lose him the election - you know it's gone far too far. The crazies really are running the asylum in the Republican Part right now. The upshot, of course, for the Republicans is it'll give them a reason to ignore this vicious little crowd and turn to a more nuanced conservatism like the One Nation Tories of Disraeli and the Republicanism of Eisenhower.
I will avoid any comment on the wisdom of Romney's remarks. Or whether his complaint is legit.
But a curious thing did happen.
First, the media portrayed the remarks as ill timed and political.
But then it changed for some reason, and I watched it all day, mostly on CNN. Eventually it was the White House reaction to these remarks that did in fact come under pressure.
And as proof: the White House began putting out the explanation that the remarks were unauthorized and had been put out by the embassy, or by lower level State Dept staff. In other words, they were dancing to distance themselves from the very statement Romney was criticizing. Strange, huh?
I do want to comment on Hillary's presser. She says they are just baffled, simply baffled. How could people who we supported just turn on us like that?
Liberals are often baffled. They think if you help people out they will love you for it. I'm not saying we shouldn't help people out, but don't expect love in return. Helping people out only creates a perception that they are lower than you...and they resent it. Not to mention that these people will hate us no matter what we do. To not understand that is to confuse reality with some kind of wishy washy feel good movie.
We are witnessing great (and meaningless) political theater.
Every four years, two minority political parties spend hundred of millions of dollars collected from special interests. They use this money to flood our senses with meaningless sound bites and photo ops. None of which have anything to do with how they will actually mismanage our Nation, ignore the will of the majority or pursue their own (not our) agenda.
Both parties want their turn to waste our money, devalue our currency, enrich their supporters and feed their deficit spending addiction.
Both parties are phantom choices. Both parties are opposite sides of the same coin.
If you take off your political party bias colored glasses, you can see both parties have essentially produced the same results since the end of WW2; more debt, more war, more speicial interest enrichment and more inflation. While they are lving large at great public expense and pointing their fingers at each other.
America, we are at war with two minority political parties and they are winning.