Liberals turning on Obama

[Shooter]

Amazing stuff, and in the NY Times no less . . .

. . . A second possibility is that [Obama] is simply not up to the task by virtue of his lack of experience and a character defect . . .

. . . He had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state . . .

. . . He had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography . . .

. . . Before joining the United States Senate, he had voted "present" (instead of "yea" or "nay") 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues.

. . . Or perhaps, like so many politicians who come to Washington, he has already been consciously or unconsciously corrupted . . .

. . . Perhaps those of us who were so enthralled with the magnificent story he told in “Dreams From My Father” appended a chapter at the end that wasn’t there — the chapter in which he resolves his identity and comes to know who he is and what he believes in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/o...-passion.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&smid=fb-share

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

Americans love to kick a man when he's down.

 

[jlprk]

Those quotes (character defect and all that BS) are ones that would be made by someone who hated him from the start. Why don't you find an article from an Obama critic on the left, not the right. The writer you found is a fake.

 

[Shooter]

Those quotes (character defect and all that BS) are ones that would be made by someone who hated him from the start. Why don't you find an article from an Obama critic on the left, not the right. The writer you found is a fake.

Did you even read the article? The writer is clearly a liberal and an Obama supporter (or at least he used to be).

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

I told you so.

 

[jlprk]

You mean I have to look at it? I was going by your rightist choice of excerpts.

...Oh that one. I saw that a couple of days ago. Didn't go beyond page 1 of 4 because the writer babbled about mythology or something for half the page.

Okay now I read it. Don't they know how to be concise in New York? Yes, the writer's liberal, and I'll save everyone time from reading it. He says:

Obama is a wimp and won't fight Republicans. Democrats are right, but haven't tried to communicate their beliefs to voters.

He's right. That's why I'm against Obama, and that's why the powers-that-be will get him re-elected. (I always expect to be right and to lose.)

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

http://www.basketballforum.com/poli...e-examples-what-barack-obama-has-changed.html

http://www.basketballforum.com/portland-off-topic-forum/410518-community-organizer.html

other threaks have been deleted by the illuminati.

 

[BrianFromWA]

are R-star, 123 or HB on here in different names?

 

[Mediocre Man]

Seems like all the things republicans warned about before the election.

 

[Shooter]

Now Maureen Dowd is piling on . . . It's starting to look like an avalanche.

. . . The politician who came across as a redeemer in 2008 is now in need of redemption himself . . .

. . . Faced with a country keening for reassurance and reinvention, Obama seems at a loss . . .

. . . He turns out to be the odd case of a pragmatist who can’t learn from his mistakes and adapt . . .

. . . Many of his Democratic supporters . . . are disillusioned . . .

. . . The president has been . . . spectacularly unable to fill the leadership void in Washington . . .

. . . It took him three days on vacation in Hawaii to speak about the terrorist incident when the country was scared about national security, and then he spent the next week callously shuttling from the podium to the golf course . . .

. . . His withholding and reactive nature has made him seem strangely irrelevant in Washington, trapped by his own temperament . . .

. . . He doesn’t lead, and he doesn’t understand why we don’t feel led . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/opinion/withholder-in-chief.html?src=me&ref=general

 

[Shooter]

Don't they know how to be concise in New York?

Apparently Maureen Dowd does. Maybe you'll like her column better.

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

Obama had a hard week. Time for a 9 day vacation!

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-vacation-20110810,0,2949215.story

:MARIS61:

 

[Shooter]

More good news for Obama . . .

Mr Obama's capitulation to Republicans in the recent tussle over deficit reduction is being seen as the lowest point of his presidency and the latest in a series of blows to the liberal agenda.

Faced with the staunch opposition of the Tea Party contingent of the Republican Party, he agreed to widespread cuts in government spending without winning any revenue increases in exchange.

Finding it hard to defend his often listless and repetitive performances, Democratic strategists and commentators are privately agreeing with Republicans and comparing Mr Obama to Jimmy Carter, another Democrat who remains the post-war benchmark for a failed president.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...s-doubt-Barack-Obamas-reelection-chances.html

 

[santeesioux]

 

[Denny Crane]

This morning on MSNBC, they were comparing him to Carter, but also to GHW, who had a super high job approval rating and economy in recession.

 

[maxiep]

There's really no comparison to our current President. Presidents Carter and Clinton learned from their mistakes and tried to change course. Our current President is a True Believer. He doesn't care about the steering wheel or the brakes, he only wants to step on the gas.

 

[Shooter]

There's really no comparison to our current President. Presidents Carter and Clinton learned from their mistakes and tried to change course. Our current President is a True Believer. He doesn't care about the steering wheel or the brakes, he only wants to step on the gas.

And drive us right off a cliff . . .

 

[Denny Crane]

Talk about media bias. This morning, MSNBC cited the Reuters/Ipsos poll saying Obama's Job Approval was at 45%.

Check it out:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

 

[jlprk]

And drive us right off a cliff . . .

A Republican president will drive us off a little faster. But I think we're going over, one way or the other, as long as the rich won't pay their taxes. So I'd rather have a Republican president to kick around than Obama.

Obama's not doing anything differently from a Republican president, yet I'm having to hold back because I'm a Democrat. Bring on a Republican president to take history's blame for the downfall of the nation.

 

[BrianFromWA]

funny how you describe those 47M workers who don't pay taxes as "rich". They are, compared to the rest of the world, but I don't know that <50k meets today's definitions.

 

[jlprk]

BS gimmick talk like that is accomplishing what no socialist revolutionary ever could.

You are biting off your nose to spite your face. Rich Republicans just can't see beyond your wallets and do what's best for your own long-term wealth.

After this decade's American collapse, the Chinese template which the world will begin imitating in the 2020s will not be as capitalist as the American template and will have a lot fewer rich people.

As you kill the American economy you won't completely kill capitalism, but you are making a Chinese hybrid the new dominant paradigm. And you're vastly decreasing the wealthy class in the new subordinate U.S.

You'll agree with me by the end of this decade, but it will be too late to recover momentum against China. Then I give it till 2030 for them to clearly become Number 1.

 

[BrianFromWA]

if you think the Chinese state will be even recognizable from what it is now by 2030, we have entirely different views of geopolitics.

You're railing on about a couple of percentage points in the upper tax bracket (difference between what, 35% and 37%? I haven't looked at it in a while) while 47M people don't pay ANYTHING towards that 1.1T in federal income tax receipts (put towards defense, infrastructure, the interest on the debt that the Medicare is racking up).

You realize you get more by taxing those 50k-and-under workers 11% then by taxing those making 250k an extra 2%, right? And there's a heckuva lot more people making 50k and under than those making 250k. Or are you advocating that the "fair share" for the "rich" is >50% of their salary, while keeping almost half the workforce from paying a cent?

 

[jlprk]

I calculate that in the 5 minutes it took you to write that nonsense, we got .5% closer to being China's biggest asskisser in the world.

The lowest amounts by U.S. class in 60 years are coming from which class again? You already know, it's the rich, not the poor. The poor and middle class have seen no reduction. The big change is from the rich and corporations. But you already know that, because it's been posted over and over. Put the country and capitalism ahead of your little gimmick argument.

 

[BrianFromWA]

it's hard to see a reduction when YOU DON"T PAY A SINGLE PENNY IN INCOME TAX.

Edit: Actually, I'm wrong. It seems that, with credits, the government is actually giving back more in returns than the people paid in tax, and in effect paying some people to be here. So I guess you could count that as a way to get a reduction.

I'm still waiting for a response to the math above. I know you can understand it....I'm confused why you're choosing not to.

 

[Draco]

it's hard to see a reduction when YOU DON"T PAY A SINGLE PENNY IN INCOME TAX.

Edit: Actually, I'm wrong. It seems that, with credits, the government is actually giving back more in returns than the people paid in tax, and in effect paying some people to be here. So I guess you could count that as a way to get a reduction.

I'm still waiting for a response to the math above. I know you can understand it....I'm confused why you're choosing not to.

Yes there are a lot of people paying 0% income tax, and they are paying 15.4% payroll taxes which fund the general operations of the US government. Been that way since Reagan and the Democrats passed the "tax cuts" that were revenue neutral in the 80's.

Most of the super rich pay 15% capital gains tax on the bulk of their taxable income, less than people in the 0% tax bracket.

 

[jlprk]

I calculate that in the 5 minutes it took you to write that nonsense, we got .5% closer to being China's biggest asskisser in the world.

The lowest amounts by U.S. class in 60 years are coming from which class again? You already know, it's the rich, not the poor. The poor and middle class have seen no reduction. The big change is from the rich and corporations. But you already know that, because it's been posted over and over. Put the country and capitalism ahead of your little gimmick argument.

I wrote that badly. Let's try again.

According to many articles posted on this board, current government revenue from the rich is the lowest amount per rich taxpayer practically in history, or at least in the last 60 years. The poor and middle class have seen no reduction. The big reduction is from the rich and corporations.

If you want small deficits, return to the tax rates when we had small deficits. Your argument about the poor paying no tax is irrelevant (a more polite word for "gimmick"), because that was true when deficits were small.

In summary, the thing that has changed (=the cause of the increased deficits) is the change in how much the rich pay, not the poor, which hasn't changed.

 

[jlprk]

It's easy. Simply reinstate the policies in place when deficits were small. We don't have to reinvent the wheel.

This country had a normal tax rate for the rich, then under Reagan it was lowered, then under Clinton it was brought back to normal, then under Bush it was lowered.

This country had a small deficit, then under Reagan it became giant, then under Clinton it became negative (an actual giant surplus), then under Bush it returned to the giantism of Reagan.

A correlation--what a coincidence! But here's what Republicans say.

70% of the wealth is held by the top 2%, so let's solve the deficit by increasing taxes on--wait for it--the other 98% who own, in comparison, nothing. Let's get more from those impoverished louts at the bottom. They're hiding a treasure of money. That's where to find it.

 

[Denny Crane]

Utter nonsense.

The govt. spends 40% of GDP and has NEVER taxed as much as 20% of GDP. If you return to any prior rate of taxation, the govt. is still spending close to $2 for every $1 it takes in.

The 40% of GDP spending is highest the govt. has spent in the last 60 years.

Face it, the govt. is addicted to spending ever increasing amounts of money, screw the taxpayer. They cannot tax the tax payer enough, so they borrow nearly as much a year as Clinton spent in a year.

We had small deficits because social security ran huge surpluses. Those surpluses have disappeared because the program is a ponzi scheme. In a ponzi scheme, yesterday's investors are paid by taking money from today's investors. There just happen to be far too many of yesterday's investors to be paid off than there is money to be taken from today's investors.

So instead of $200B in surplus masking the deficit, the program is costing us $100B. That is a net -$300B to the bottom line that is only getting worse as more baby boomers retire. Things were great when 1/2 govt. spending was for a program that was in the black. Now that it's in the red, there's no money left to spend on much of anything else, without borrowing obscene amounts from the Chinese.

All of the tax cuts in history don't add up to $300B.

If you think the deficit can be made up by raising taxes, think again. Doubling everyone's taxes won't cover the negative.

 

[jlprk]

Ah, the old escape. The ratio of debt to GDP. Do GDP units pay the debt or do humans? All that matters is the ratio of debt to the population. The predictive power of GDP has never materialized in reducing debt.

As for Social Security decreasing the deficit, Republicans are the big advocates of merging it all together because it hides what their presidents did. Democrats are the ones who want to separate the two in budgeting.

 

[Denny Crane]

Bullshit.

GDP is what the govt. could tax if it taxed everything 100%. This is its significance.

I didn't write about debt to GDP ratio, I wrote about spending to GDP ratio.

When govt. spending was 20% of GDP, the economy boomed. When govt. spending is 40%, we resemble the old Soviet Union, just before it collapsed under its own weight.

If GDP were $1, and the govt. taxed 10%, it could spend $.10 and have a balanced budget. If GDP were $100, and the govt. taxed 10%, it could spend $10 and have a balanced budget.

It doesn't take much in the way of math skills to get it.