AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

@georgeob1,

There are many such articles on the www if you bother to research them. I did not add Bush, that was in the article.

Rather than question the source, why not provide any credible source that refutes those facts? Can you?

2 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

This is from Bloomberg.

Quote:

Stocks Return More With Democrat in White House: BGOV Barometer
By Bob Drummond - Feb 21, 2012 9:00 PM PT

While Republicans promote themselves as the friendliest party for Wall Street, stock investors do better when Democrats occupy the White House. From a dollars- and-cents standpoint, it’s not even close.

I would like to see you refute this thesis with some credible source, and not your personal opinion.

0 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

... the GOP blocked most of Obama's legislation in the House. The dynamics of congress is all screwed up!

It's not amazing that this red herring keeps being served up by liberals, but that they seem to actually believe it is astounding.

Apparently, two years with Democratic control of both the Senate and the House were not enough to counter balance one and one half years of a Republican controlled House.

This despite the fact that Obama was able, in his first two years, to have the following passed:

Obamacare
The Stimulus
Dodd-Franks

Since none of these major achievements (and one an actual Big ******* Deal) have proven to be accomplishments Obama has any intention of highlighting in his bid for a second term, we must assume even he knows they were duds.

Based on the nonsense about Republican obstructionism we must also assume that liberals believe he was prepared to launch even bigger ******* deals over the last year and a half. What were these BFD's that, without, the nasty GOP, would have had American's singing "Happy Days Are Here Again," and itching to extend Obama's stay in the White House?

I came across the following site the other day and just have to share it with Obama supporters:

http://obamaachievements.org/

Given this incredibly long list, you'd be hard pressed to figure out what the hell else he could have achieved without those ornery Repuglicans.

The lists are a hoot and very closely resemble those created by useless corporate execs who learned the secret of active verbs (http://jobmob.co.il/blog/positive-resume-action-verbs/).

I particularly love these:

FOREIGN AFFAIRS:

2.Re-established the United States standing in the world
5.Visited more countries and world leaders than any first year president
9.Bolstered the military’s ability to speak different languages
12.Middle East: Appointed envoys to the Middle East and AFPAK affirming the power of American diplomacy
24.Aus: Nuclear arms agreements with Australia

Here's a few real favorites:

15. Middle East: Pressured Israel to end Gaza blockade
Of course Israel didn't, but it was a great achievement, never-the-less, to apply pressure.

23.Africa: Helped stabilize Somalia (Exec Order).

What was the EO? "Somalia is to be stabilized!" Damn! Good thing The Big O took that bold move. Toursits can now regularly visit Somalia, providing they are taken there by pirates.

LAW AND JUSTICE

10.Established crimes programs for the new Orleans area (sic)
11.Brought greter alignment to sentencing guidelines for powdered versus crack cocaine. (sic)
12.Denounced SCOTUS ruling in Citizens United

MILITARY AND NATIONAL SECURITY

2.Began restructuring the military to reflect present day threats and technology (Apparently just beginning something is an achievement in Demo DC)
4.All servicepeople receive education in a region’s culture and language before deployment there (a soldier said this on Maddow).
(Well there you go, a soldier said it on Maddow and so let's add it to the list!)

MILITARY VETERANS AND FAMILY

12. Medal of Honor Commemorative Coin Act of 2009 (Good thing the Tea Partiers hadn't overrun the House because they sure as hell would have blocked this one!)
24. Green Vet Initiative to promote environmental jobs for veterans

SPACE EXPLORATION

9.Added another Space Shuttle flight
16.Cracked down on tax cheats (exec order).
(because you know what 1% bastards those astronauts are)
19.Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act. (Yep, that was intended to promote space exploration.)

TRANSPARENCY

3.Instructed all federal agencies to promote openness and transparency as much as possible (Apparently it's a lot tougher to do this than he or anyone thought - see Atty General Holder - who is another "achievement" by the way.)
8. Imposed limits on lobbyists’ access to the White House (They can't visit more than 100 times in a year and they can never sign the WH Guest Book as "Lobbyist.")
20.Cracked down on tax cheats (exec order). (There it is again)
23.Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act (Apparently the multi-purpose Achievement)

Since these all seem to fall under multiple categories, I'll let y'all decide where the following should apply:

3.Championed the importance of arts education
12. Cut salaries for 65 bailout executives (Pay Czar).
14.Signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
14, Expanded access to places to hunt and fish
18. Encouraged more controlled burns to reduce wildfires

And it goes on, and on, and on and...

Goodness, he hasn't been the useless tool I imagined him to be all along.

2 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

... that was in the article.

What article?

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

It's a red herring to you, because you have no clue about the No Party, and their determination to make Obama a one term president.

Quote:

McConnell: Stopping Obama’s re-election still ‘single most important’ goal

By David Edwards
Sunday, July 10, 2011 11:30 EDT

Even with the country on the brink of default, the Senate’s highest ranking Republican says his “single most important” goal is to make Barack Obama a one-term president.

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told National Journal‘s Major Garrett in October.

Fox News’ Bret Baier asked McConnell Sunday if that was still his major objective.

“Well, that is true,” McConnell replied. “That’s my single most important political goal, along with every active Republican in the country.”

“But that is in 2012,” he added. “Our biggest goal for this year is get this country straightened out and we can’t get this country straightened out if we don’t do something about spending, about deficit, about debt and get the economy moving again. So our goal is to have a robust vibrant economy to benefit all Americans.”

McConnell told Baier that a “Grand Bargain,” where Republicans agree to tax hikes in exchange for cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits, was likely off the table.

“I think it is. Everything they told me and the Speaker is to get a big package would require big tax increases in the middle of the economic situation that is extraordinarily difficult with 9.2% unemployment. We think it’s a terrible idea. It’s a job-killer.”

“Nobody is talk about not raising the debt ceiling,” McConnell later insisted.

Taking a break from debt limit talk, the Senate’s top Republican also said that it was time to send more terrorism suspects to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

“They are going the try a couple of foreign terrorists in Kentucky, my state, whose fingerprints were found on IED’s in Iraq. These foreign terrorists are enemy combatants. They should be taken to Guantanamo. They should be tried in military commissions.”

Watch this video from Fox’s Fox News Sunday, broadcast July 10, 2011.

Watch this video on iPhone/iPad

1 Reply

@realjohnboy,

Here. http://currencythoughts.com/2011/08/08/an-updated-look-at-how-the-u-s-economy-performed-under-democratic-and-republican-presidencies/

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

For those of you who have difficulty with the written word, here's a link to youtube on the subject of who performs better for our country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOtHoVnKTcE

2 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

The primary contest for the Senate seat in Indiana gets curiouser and curiouser.
Veteran moderate Republican (and powerful) Dick Lugar faces the Teaparty movement's darling Richard Mourdock in the May 8th race.
A poll I saw from Politico had Mourdock ahead by 5.
A pro-establishment PAC - American Action Network - abruptly ended pro-Lugar ads without any plausible explanation that I could discern.
Now, a PAC associated with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor - Young Guns Network - has released a hard hitting attack on Mourdock; accusing his fellow Republican of being "extremist" for wanting to abolish the Dept of Education.
The ad goes on to note that the primary is open to any registered voter. "You (meaning Dems and Indys) simply need to show up to vote for Senator Dick Lugar."

0 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

For those of you who have difficulty with the written word, here's a link to youtube on the subject of who performs better for our country.

Thank you Cicerone

0 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

I applaud their focus on seeing that he isn't re-elected.

Considering the mess he's made during a first term in which he felt restrained by the desire to win re-election, I quake in consideration of what he will do if he has more "flexibility" as he told Medved of Russia.

In any case, having screwed the economy with his early BFD's why would Republicans believe he had any new ones that deserved support? What were the newly proposed BFD's which the GOP blocked but which would have turned the nation around? Raising taxes? Borrowing more money from China?

He didn't even bother to ask them or their Democratic counter-parts to support his military initiative in Libya, but if they had blocked that one, would the world be a worse place in which to live?

What did the House kill that would have returned us to "the good old days?"

Blaming the opposition, when they control only one arm of Congress is pathetic.

2 Replies

@Finn dAbuzz,

Your top contender, Willard, is much worse; he lies upon his own lies. Do you really know where he stands an any important issue? If you do, please delineate them for me/us. I'm sure everybody else would be interested in hearing your "take" on Willard.

You seem to be a one issue voter; ObamaCare is all you care about? How about "bin Laden is dead, and GM is alive!"

You probably wouldn't understand the nuances of such accomplishments.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Nothing would have returned us to the 'good ol' days.' You are arguing an extreme to avoid talking about the real-world situation, in which the GOP aggressively used the Filibuster to an unprecedented extent, to block everything Obama wanted to do and to water down everything they couldn't block.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html

The fact that you blame Obama for 'screwing the economy,' and not the very policies that YOU have supported for years - policies which directly led to the financial crisis and ensuing recession - sort of paints you as a fool, Finn.

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

Obama might not have lived up to our expectations, but I don't believe he made things worse. And yes, that's how low the bar is.

Most of us remember what happened the last time Republicans were allowed to choose our president. You put Bush in there for two terms and he was a terrible president by Republican standards (small government, deficit spending, fiscal responsibility, etc...) Point is, if even your own people can't get close to executing your vision why should you get to keep putting them there? You've had significant power, including at least one super majority, over the last 30 years and have gotten your way over and over again yet nothing gets solved -- not health care, not the future of social security, not balancing the budget, not paying down the deficit, not education, not anything.

I'm not sure when your party started sucking at governing, but in my opinion it clearly does suck now. It's pretty good at the whole elections thing, though, I'll give you that. We are still living with the consequences of the attempt at a permanent majority, which now appears to have simply shifted to different levels of government after 2008 rather than being abandoned. At this point your party most closely resembles the boogie men you are afraid of but you don't see it. The Democrats hardly have to do anything to look like the better alternative (and yes, that's about as much as they have done). I can say with certainty that it will be a very long time before any Republican ever gets my vote for anything again, and I kind of doubt I'm the only one. You're only real hope is to scare the crap out of people some time in November or show pictures of Al Sharpton eating aborted babies while standing in a welfare line and wiping his ass with an American flag.

3 Replies

@FreeDuck,

FreeDuck wrote:

...Al Sharpton eating aborted babies while standing in a welfare line and wiping his ass with an American flag.

The Aristocrats!

0 Replies

@FreeDuck,

Quote:

I'm not sure when your party started sucking at governing, but in my opinion it clearly does suck now. It's pretty good at the whole elections thing, though, I'll give you that.

The GOP electoral strategy is in large part successful, because it relies on two of the basest of human emotions: fear and greed. They promise endless amounts more money for everyone (lower taxes) while keeping them safe from nebulous threats (foreigners, immigrants, 'socialists'). It asks nothing of any American other than to continue fearing and being greedy. It asks for no public service or sacrifice from anyone and continually pumps up the fictitious 'free market' as a cure for every single ill that plagues us. Most of all, however, the modern GOP brand is an expression of white middle- and lower-class resentment at the loss of their reign of dominance in this country; white resentment and perceived white suffering is the cornerstone of the GOP strategy.

Easy to see why that approach would have a big draw.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@FreeDuck,

To piggy-back on your post, here are a few more issues that the republicans will have difficulty with.

a) Destroy Planned Parenthood that helps low income women with health care. How many women (and men) will vote republican?
b) Destroy government unions - including safety officers and teachers.
c) Make it harder for citizens to register to vote, because they know that reducing democratic voters gives them a better chance in November.
d) I'm not sure how big the Occupy Movement is, but republicans are doing everything they can to distance themselves from this group.
e) Banks were saved from bankruptcy by taxpayers, but republicans don't want to tax their higher incomes. What's wrong with this picture?
f) Republicans want to destroy Medicare by converting it into a voucher system, and increase defense spending. I don't understand how republicans can support this position.
g) Willard lies more than all candidates put together, and he's the top contender for the republicans. (How can this happen?)

Republican voters are just stupid! They want to destroy their own safety nets by letting the rich keep more of their income by taxing the middle class more, and letting our national debt increase. They have no idea about the Buffett Rule (his secretary pays a higher tax rate).

There's no cure for stupid.

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@cicerone imposter,

I'm still waiting for the list of BFD's that Obama sought to pass and the House Republicans killed.

If it was after page 2 of Cyclo's linked article, I'm afraid I missed it as I've no desire to subscribe to the Washington Post online.

0 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

The GOP electoral strategy is in large part successful, because it relies on two of the basest of human emotions: fear and greed. They promise endless amounts more money for everyone (lower taxes) while keeping them safe from nebulous threats (foreigners, immigrants, 'socialists'). It asks nothing of any American other than to continue fearing and being greedy. It asks for no public service or sacrifice from anyone and continually pumps up the fictitious 'free market' as a cure for every single ill that plagues us. Most of all, however, the modern GOP brand is an expression of white middle- and lower-class resentment at the loss of their reign of dominance in this country; white resentment and perceived white suffering is the cornerstone of the GOP strategy.

Easy to see why that approach would have a big draw.

Cycloptichorn

Nicely written and at least self-consistent. One major misstatement though. The thing we commonly call the "free market" realy exists - it is not a fiction. Perhaps Cyclo means to quibble with some of the attributes implied in the name.. However, the fact is it refers to the observable actions of people in various capacities; buyers, sellers, producers, consumers, distributors, etc. in exchanging goods and services and even ideas based on the choices they make. It is as old as communities of humans. It has even continued to exist in authoritarian socialist exonomies, though usually in underground or illegal forms.

The main defect though is the hypocritical and shallow self-righteousness implicit in the laughable assignment of virtue to himself and those he favors and vice to those he opposes, and do so over precisely the same motives and behaviors.

Thus the desire of many to keep more of the money they earn out of the hands of a wasteful and too often ineffective government, is styled as greed, while the desire of others to use the power of government to extract that wealth from others to provide for themselves, or to provide themselves with economic "security" through goverrnment enforced protection rackets (i.e. labor unions for unaccountable and ineffective government employees) is styled as self sacrifice. The question of the ineffectiveness of the very government programs so favored by those who seek personal power througth government giveaways is, of course, not even addressed.

One doesn't require much knowledge of history to understand that not all the threats to the freedom and welfare of humanity or even this state are nebulous or imaginary. The history of the last few centuries has been vividly dominated by various authoritarian movements that styled themselves as vasrious reformers of humanity and human society while sacrificing the lives and freedom of millions of humans. Despite this blind apologists for them still exist, and others who, like Cyclo, merely choose to be blind to the lessons and even contemporary, observable facts of all this (such as the sordid, little tyranny that still exists in Cuba), describe concerns about the preservation of individual freedom as "nebulous fears".

Finally his descent into the worst sort of racism in characterizing all this as an expression of the fear of white people over the supposed end of their dominance in the country that has proved itself to be more able and willing to assimilate immigrants and people from all over the world than any other is truly laughable to anyone who bothers to think even a little about the words he reads or writes.

Thinking for yourself is a bit harder than merely consuming endless opinion pieces from the propaganda vendors one relies on to confirm his prejudices. However it has a lot to recommend it. Cyclo should try it.

2 Replies

@georgeob1,

Quote:

The thing we commonly call the "free market" realy exists - it is not a fiction.

It's a fiction, because it's not really 'free.' The minute companies get enough money, they begin to use it to pervert the market to their advantage - there's no 'level playing field.'

Quote:

Finally his descent into the worst sort of racism

This is not the worst sort of racism, George. But I can totally understand why you would perceive it that way! It fits neatly in with the electoral strategy for your party - the idea that whites are subject to racism in this country in any meaningful way, let alone the worst way.

It's not often that someone confirms what I wrote so readily, I thank you, George. Your post basically agreed with me, while characterizing all those points as good things or true things Laughing

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:
The thing we commonly call the "free market" realy exists - it is not a fiction.

It's a fiction, because it's not really 'free.' The minute companies get enough money, they begin to use it to pervert the market to their advantage - there's no 'level playing field.'

Perhaps you don't read very well. The phrase in question was "the free market" not the Cyclo's own "fair" market or some similar construct meeting some set of your prejudices or preconceptions. It is a free market in the sense that the actors involved exercise their free choices about what to buy sell or produce and act in their own self-interest. It is called free for precisely that reason.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:
Finally his descent into the worst sort of racism

This is not the worst sort of racism, George. But I can totally understand why you would perceive it that way! It fits neatly in with the electoral strategy for your party - the idea that whites are subject to racism in this country in any meaningful way, let alone the worst way.

It's not often that someone confirms what I wrote so readily, I thank you, George. Your post basically agreed with me, while characterizing all those points as good things or true things

Cycloptichorn

You once again read your own self-serving script into the words of others. You advanced an offensive and highly contrived theory based on your own odd mixture of self-loathing and racist interpretations of the actions of others, reducing the legitamate desire of many in this country (of all backgrounds and colors) to see less government intrusion in their lives and who fear the self-serving populism of those who seek personal power by expanding the reach and cost of government giveaways they use merely to expand their power through a government already drowning in debt.

However I don't entertain any hope of persuading one who reads the words he imagines are there, not what is written, and who sees the worls through the distorted lenses of those who create his opinions for him.

1 Reply

AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

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