What was so laughingly ridiculous in this was the rightwing response to the episode.
Quote:
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Iran toys with U.S. days before we pay them, ridiculously, billions of dollars. Don't release money. We want our hostages back NOW!
4:09 AM - 13 Jan 2016
Quote:
Jeb Bush ✔ @JebBush
If our sailors aren’t coming home yet, they need to be now. No more bargaining. Obama’s humiliatingly weak Iran policy is exposed again.
Cruz, of course, said something equally ridiculous but can't find it now.
0 Replies
Blickers
1
Wed 13 Jan, 2016 09:20 pm
@Lash,
Quote Lash:
Quote:
excerpt
Obama soon added a harsher note to the argument: that Hillary, perhaps like her finger-wagging husband, was untrustworthy. On November 10, 2007, Obama’s advisers, in a private memo before a pivotal speech in Iowa, laid out the strategy. “Clinton,” they argued, “can’t be trusted or believed when it comes to change,” because “she’s driven by political calculation, not conviction.”
So what does that quote prove in the way of Hillary being untrustworthy? By the quote's own wording, it was merely a strategy on Obama's part to use against Hillary's candidacy-it says nothing about Hillary actually being untrustworthy at all.
The reason that Bill and Obama didn't get along at first-and that fact was well-known and discussed openly in the press-is simply that Bill gave his all for his wife, and it is often easier for the person who is directly hurt by something to forgive than the ones who love that person to forgive. But to admit that is the reason Bill kept his distance from Obama would be for a Clinton hater like yourself to admit what they NEVER will- that Bill and Hillary love each other and care for each other. Since the hate-Clinton brigade has been trying to portray these two as cold, calculating monsters for decades now, you have to invent all sorts of reasons for the two to be distant lest the public realize just how much Bill was hurt by Hillary's defeat at the hands of Barack Obama. She got over it quick enough, Bill took a long time.
it was merely a strategy on Obama's part to use against Hillary's candidacy-it says nothing about Hillary actually being untrustworthy at all.
Well, yeah.
0 Replies
blatham
2
Wed 13 Jan, 2016 09:30 pm
Now, this is interesting...
Quote:
Democrats tend to project their preference for policymaking onto the Republican Party — and then respond with anger and confusion when Republicans don't seem interested in making a deal. Republicans tend to assume the Democratic Party is more ideological than it is, and so see various policy initiatives as part of an ideological effort to remake America along more socialistic lines.
McConnell acknowledged that Americans are “probably” better off than they were when Obama took office in January 2009 — an unusual concession by a leading Republican at a time when the party’s presidential candidates sound like they aren’t sure the country will still be standing by Election Day.
Then the dude, even after hedging with that "probably", on quick reflection, decided that he'd better get back on message...
Quote:
But he quickly added the caveat that “that’s not the way to measure it” because the Democrat took office in the middle of a devastating global financial meltdown.
What gave you the impression I was trying to prove she was untrustworthy? If you're going to dip into other conversations, you should try to know what they're talking about.
Consider the irony of that Ted Cruz-Canada debate. Cruz was born in Calgary and Donald (“People Are Saying”) Trump has raised the question of whether that makes him ineligible to be president. We’ll let constitutional scholars figure it out. But, meanwhile, we can enjoy recalling that Cruz’s father, Rafael, once told a Texas Tea Party group that he’d like to send President Obama “back to Kenya.” Hehehehe.
She has a light and deft touch with her satire. And she's a smart one.
0 Replies
blatham
2
Thu 14 Jan, 2016 06:11 am
From Robert Costa and Philip Rucker...
Quote:
Haley’s plea for tolerance draws cheers and jeers, revealing GOP divide
...But Haley’s moment and its aftermath revealed an uncomfortable reality for GOP leaders. Even as they praised their chosen representative for condemning the polarizing politics fueling the rise of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the currents of the 2016 race still churn against the establishment.
Conservative talk radio and social media lit up with contempt for her critique. “Trump should deport Nikki Haley,” commentator Ann Coulter tweeted. Rush Limbaugh accused Haley of taking part in a GOP conspiracy to “drive conservatives out of the party.”
...“There doesn’t seem to be a plan for how to deal with Trump. They’re afraid,” said William J. Bennett, a top official in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. “Instead of taking him on directly, they’re making vague, diffuse references.
...Ryan and McConnell reviewed the text of Haley’s speech before her delivery, but there was no coordination to use the setting to attack Trump, their aides said.
And George Will takes a big swing at Marco Rubio. God knows what Will might be hoping for, other than to put on a powdered wig and frilly velvet shirt for the next ball in the palace at Versailles - 200 years ago. http://wapo.st/1N9bZ34
Why is Donald Trump doing so well with Republican primary voters (and with Republican voters more generally)? Why is this rude bully with less understanding the the constitution, the US political system, law, US history and the world than most anyone writing here at a2k? Something to do with modern conservatism? No. Does it reflect the consequences of decades of conservative talk radio. Absolutely not. Victor David Hanson at NRO has the real cause figured out...
A leading Republican pollster privately told Speaker Paul Ryan and his leadership team Sen. Ted Cruz would be the biggest drag on House Republicans should he win his party’s nomination, according to multiple sources who attended a small meeting of senior GOP lawmakers earlier this month.
There's another piece at Politico on discussion previously held and upcoming on the possibility of a contested convention (the last was in 1976). I have no sympathy. The GOP fostered this monster that's now chomping on their intestines.
0 Replies
blatham
1
Thu 14 Jan, 2016 07:03 am
Wall Street Journal headline...
Quote:
Republicans and Democrats Agree: We Hate Wall Street
And most of all, this is true for Ted Cruz who really, really seriously hates Goldman Sachs where his wife works and who gave him that money he failed to report. He will soon say, I expect, that he's a "severe anti-Wall Streeter"
What gave you the impression I was trying to prove she was untrustworthy? If you're going to dip into other conversations, you should try to know what they're talking about.
Lash, with your several daily pokes at all things Clinton, how could anyone possibly know what you're trying to prove?
Maybe you are in the wrong thread Blatham? You don't seem to be discussing Hillary at all. Merely dissing her rivals.
I'm just chatting with georgeob, an old friend, who started this thread.
0 Replies
blatham
1
Thu 14 Jan, 2016 08:47 am
I'm going to spend the day doing what I'm supposed to be doing. But tonight I'm going to break my common practice and watch the debate. I almost never watch these things (either party) and would probably find a meal of fried rat brains less unpleasant. But this one promises to be special. Oy vey.
0 Replies
Blickers
1
Thu 14 Jan, 2016 09:44 am
@Lash,
Quote Lash:
Quote:
What gave you the impression I was trying to prove she was untrustworthy? If you're going to dip into other conversations, you should try to know what they're talking about.
Little things, like this Raymond Chandleresque bit you wrote here:
Quote Lash:
Quote:
Obama. I watched his face during those debates, during the convention... He knows what the Clintons are, and he likely had some ugly back room meetings with them to make deals as he grabbed that nomination.
She does act as though she is a fly on the wall in the supposed back door meetings and can read minds.
0 Replies
Blickers
1
Thu 14 Jan, 2016 10:33 am
@blatham,
Quote blatham:
Quote:
And George Will takes a big swing at Marco Rubio. God knows what Will might be hoping for, other than to put on a powdered wig and frilly velvet shirt for the next ball in the palace at Versailles - 200 years ago. http://wapo.st/1N9bZ34
Will is no Al Stewart fan then....
0 Replies
georgeob1
0
Thu 14 Jan, 2016 10:47 am
It's a curious and strange political season in many ways. The unconventional and improbable appaears to be dominating the contests in both parties. A superannuated socialist from Vermont, infused with worn-out last century ideas on economiuc policy appears to be leaving the annointed queen (lovely phrase) of the Democrat establishment in the dust, while, on her own, she works her way to irrelevance with her continuing awkward lies and distractions. In stark contrast, a hotly contested race among Republicans is dominated by an outsider who flouts all their conventions and increasingly demonstrates a sometimes unsettling appeal to very cross-cutting segments of the body politic.
Blatham expresses wonder at Mitch McConnel's statements that our President is smart, but wrong-headed, and that not everything in the country is a wreck because of him. McConnel acknowledges our recovery from a world wide financial crisin and recession; that we are better off as a result, but notes that it has been slower and more tepid, with lower overall employment levels, than all such cyclic recoveries in the past half century because of the uncontrolled expansion of government and unwise policy initiatives. I see nothing either surprising, unreasonable, or incorrect in those statements - their stark contrast with the implacable rhetoric of Democrats general, and Blatham himself, notwithstanding.
