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Odder still is the number of dedicated, dispassionate baseball-minded folks who in a 30-day analysis might well celebrate a new finding.
Off a Presidential debate or even an entire Presidential campaign, not so much.
Most boring of all is the "undecided voter" meme.
The last acceptable stereotype, I guess.
The warring parties have assembled all their soldiers.
Start up the funeral pyre for the dregs.
We both need kindling.
Welcome to the Internet! Debates are great political theatre, that's about it. If you're an undecided voter and making your decisions off what's said in the debates I'd prefer you just don't vote. Not that you're that undecided voter.
You buried the lead, and rightly so.
Pass.
Post Fact Checker
"[W]e added this statement to the timeline after Josh Gerstein of Politico asserted that the phrasing “acts of terror” showed Obama acknowledged “terrorism” was behind the attack. From our many years of covering diplomacy we would say there is a world of difference, but readers can draw their own conclusions."
I don't think I've commented in this thread before, but it seems Bob Schieffer is supposed to be the moderator for the foreign policy debate? I think they will get to the bottom of this, and that the President's re-election is in very deep trouble.
Replacing it with the above-it-all-mien meme won't lead to change I can believe in.
Well, you're an undecided voter at this point, so I'll just call you a waffling idiot. Still wanna pass? Seriously, how the #### do you not have your mind made up yet? You've only had, I dunno, the last 50 years of US political discourse to pick a ####### side.
This isn't your local state senate race in the Bronx where there is a legit choice between the grass roots upstart 3rd party candidate or the entrenched but "brings home the bacon" incumbent. -- it's the US Presidency, there is only the head Democrat or the head Republican. Pick a side.
A buddy of mine and me watched the debate together this evening, and we agreed on this point. A well-informed voter who can't decide between these alternatives at this point in the proceedings is beyond ridiculous. Therefore one must be exceedingly skeptical about claims of "well-informed," or perhaps of the authenticity of the "undecided" claim, but both cannot plausibly be true.
Nah. It's partisan in here, but it isn't RedState and DailyKos. It is pretty snarky sometimes, but that is just BTF.
Not sure what this means, exactly, but I will say that the political discourse here very much reflects the demographic. A lot of Libertarians, a lot of technocratic FiCons, a lot of academia-type degreed-up Liberals (like me), and a lot of above-it-all guys of various stripes. Bill James has always handled politics that way--everybody is full of shitt except for me, I am dead center, I just want intelligent solutions with no partisan bullshitt, etc. Some people are into the debates for the same reasons they watch the LCS--to see who comes out on top when all the cameras are on.
As to your personal situation, Romney and Obama are, obviously, both big-time pols with a lot in common in the macrosense. There are, however, some very basic policy differences between the two parties, so there is definitely something on which to base a choice. As to the guys themselves, in terms of thumbnails, Obama is basically a pontificating professor and Romney is basically a cold-blooded CEO. Both of them are smart, competitive guys and both appear to be self-disciplined, relatively quiet-living family men when the cameras are off. There are other differences, of course, which have been discussed at length here and in the media.
If you are fed up with the whole two-party system, there is no shortage of guys here who will be happy to explain to you why you should vote for Gary Johnson, and you might even find someone who will tell you why you should vote Green.
When are we, as a nation, going to quit with the supply-side garbage? The economy will recover when DEMAND for products and services increases. Has either candidate acknowledged this fundamental point? Demand increases when poor and middle class folks have some bucks in their pockets to spend - which doesn't happen until we address income stagnation and stop pretending that it is okay that the top 1% have captured the lion's share of all GDP growth in the past 30 years.
With interest rates this low, the deficit nonsense is a short-term bogeyman. The government should be spending and borrowing - to stimulate job creation. The low interest rates virtually guarantee that the ROI will be multiples of the spending, particularly if the spending is tailored to traditionally high-yield areas. Of course, in both candidates' race to the right, neither even intimated that government spending could be part of the solution.
Yeah, the distinction between "acts of terror" and "terrorism" has the potential to be the greatest election game changer since Nixon spent most of his third debate with Kennedy claiming that Kennedy would let the Chinese Communists take over the islands of Quemoy and Matsu. The audience rolled its eyes and snickered at Nixon's strange obsession, and if any votes were changed they were changed in Kennedy's direction.
Seriously, this whole inane line of attack is nothing but one more volley in the endless "the Democrat Party is soft on...." line that excites the neocons and virtually no one else.
P.S. Those islands remained in Taiwan's hands long after Kennedy went to his reward.
Also the incumbent's four-year track record.
The audience rolled its eyes and snickered at Nixon's strange obsession, and if any votes were changed they were changed in Kennedy's direction
The (VP) incumbent trying to tar the challenger with scary stories?
This reminds me of how Obama is still trying to present himself as a bulwark against Romney ultraconservatism, rather than running on a record of actual accomplishment. Romney still looks to voters like a plausible alternative.
You really do get your marching orders from conservative blogs.
Wrong. Mitt Romney snorts coke off of Ann's ass while being blown by illegal immigrant house cleaners.
I'm not sure the best way to approach a conversation with a self-identified undecided voter is to tell them they're idiots for not having decided yet. I mean, if you're interested in advancing a dialogue. If you're just throwing stones, sure. But I was under the impression that that was what I was here for.
I would like a job and a growing 401K but I'm not sure I want my gay friend's door kicked in. Which is more important to you? If you decide to take the money, have you sold out good people? If you vote for social issues, how will you eat?
Okay, that's over the top; but, you all correctly point out that there are clear differences on the issues between Romney and Obama and Democrats and Republicans. But there are a lot more than one issue. Which is most important to you, which can you stomach? If we had a system in which the two sides worked together, you could vote for the best manager and hope it all gets sorted out, but we are increasingly at a point that you get all of one side's package or all of the other's.
That is, it isn't being undecided between Romney and Obama, per se, but undecided as to which issues are the most important at this point in time.
Which sucks.
Yep. The point where Snapper started seancing in Reagan was the point where you knew who was winning handily. Joe's just providing confirmation post-fact.
They need to start their own fair and balanced news organization.
Romney is still the same guy who couldn't beat mccain.
I agree with this critique; it's not like the GOP or Dems have radically changed their platforms on much of anything recently. Everything else is window dressing.
With that said, if I could figure out how "undecideds" manage to tune out the constant, unending drone of 24-hour, constant, 4-year campaigning that goes on these days and ignore politics for like, 3.5 years at a time... Yeah, I'd probably take that drug.
The (VP) incumbent trying to tar the challenger with scary stories?
No, just the same old "the Democrat Party is soft on...." line that the GOP has been peddling for the last 60 years. In Nixon's case it was communism, in the neocons' case it's terrorism.
It's the world's dumbest gotcha - let's imagine for a moment that Obama hadn't said what Romney seemed to have believed he hadn't said - Romney's entire point seems to be that Obama didn't use some secret decoder word in the right sequence or often enough to I don't know... what... get the bat terror signal so the neocon superfriends could start stomping around like a pissed off 5 year old?
We tried bellicosity and bluster as the primary underpinnings on foreign policy... All it got us were thousands of dead soldiers in the sands of Iraq, 10s of thousands injured - some permanently, damaged relations with our allies, distrust from nations that are neither friend nor foe -- and hella good talking points for nations that were truly our enemies. Meanwhile, the people that actually DID attack us became an afterthought, the nation from which they were primarily based was a sideways afterthought.
I mean, WTF cares about secret magic words in the appropriate proportion and sequence? Yes - those things matter when it comes nation-to-nation diplomacy, but what.... you think people willing to strap bombs to themselves and blow up markets or planes or buildings with civilians, even women and children are going to somehow respond differently to bluster and belligerence?
The final debate is going to be interesting as Mitt hasn't done well on foreign policy all along and could easily get caught in bluster there. But he's going to be well enough prepared that I'd guess it will come out about like this one, a perceptible but not gigantic win for Obama.
Exactly. A choice between R and D is no choice at all.
And an aside, does Romney drink stem cell smoothies or something? I had not idea the man was 65 until yesterday.
Of course there are differences. There were differences between the Buick LeSabre and the Oldsmobile 88, that doesn't mean they aren't essentially the same car.
Romney also brought up Syria, which baffles me, I mean Syria? I would think that the average person on the street's response to Romney is, "What? You want us to go into Syria??? Syria? no effing way"
There was some administration dissembling in the wake of the Libyan consulate attack (nothing like some of Bush's Iraq whoppers though)- but Romney's tactics in response are just so awkward that he's blown whatever advantage he may have hoped to gain, and he's still digging.
In truth, most of these issues are trivial when you look at the overall picture. Is gay marriage in and of itself trivial? No, of course not. But if you told someone, "Hey, you can marry your boyfriend, but we're going to run this economy into the ground so you have no hope of retiring until you die, and your income will never keep pace with inflation, and we reserve the right to grope your nuts every time you want to fly somewhere" etc. ad nauseum, what do you think the person would choose?
Both parties support policies and mindsets that are destroying the US. When one in five children live in poverty in the richest country the world has ever known, when you are subject to indefinite detention and execution on the mere suspicion of a crime, when entire cities are declaring bankruptcy, when Wall St. fraudsters can pillage with impunity, do you really, seriously believe that the right of a man to marry a man should be top of ####### mind? You guys are way too smart for this.
Not enough to make me want to try it or anything, but advantages.
A couple of other guys did that; I didn't, though, or at least did not intend to. I would add that the reverse is true, in that "undecided" doesn't mean "intellectually superior and bias-free."
He started preaching to the choir again, and he lost independent voters again. Go fig.
And this #bindersofwomen thing is getting a *lot* of play today. It has the potential to be Palin-esque in the comedy circles.
i am firm believer in bankruptcy as an effective means of resolving an ongoing financial situation. so while it should be the last versus the first choice it should still be a choice be the entity a person, a company or even a government (city, state, country)
bankruptcy is far more organized than just defaulting on one's obligations
i understand that this post will likely be perceived as me advocating for bankruptcies which is not the case. i just think bankruptcy as a 'tool of last resort' should be afforded to all organizations that accrue excessive debt obligations.
I have certain relations who, sadly, perfectly fit the stereotype of the entirely clueless undecided voter. I was speaking with one of them the other day, and he wants a candidate who will fix the budget, lower his taxes, increase his medical care coverage, beat the terrorists, and bring our boys back home. He calls himself a conservative, but generally just votes for whoever is leading the polls.
EDIT: I should say that I'm technically undecided, as I'm not sure if I'll vote for Obama or some third party. But I live in Illinois; if I lived in Ohio I'd definitely be voting for Obama.
Well, if you have proof of these things, that is a game-changer and moves me to "undecided" and to giving Romney a serious look.
I don't think it was dissembling as much as it was simply the fact it happened in the heart of a campaign -- rather than outside of that... If you look back at the significant foreign attacks that have occurred in our nation's history, it's really, really, really hard to find anything that happened weeks before an election...
9/11, both attacks in Lebanon under Reagan, the hostage seizing in Iran, heck - even Pearl Harbor...
These things - largely just by random chance - occurred without there being another candidate even existing looking to make hay out of it.
So an administration - any administration - is suddenly dealing with NOT just the foreign policy implications and the verdict on the specifics of what occurred and how to react, but the fact that the 24 news cycle is also running full tilt because it's election season.
I think it's interesting to compare the two attacks in Lebanon to this one --
Recall, there was an embassy bombing in the spring of 1983 that killed about a dozen Americans, followed by the Beirut barracks attack that killed more than 200 Americans (and about 50 French). I'm pretty sure that to this day, we STILL don't know the precise composition of the attackers of the embassy bombing -- but following the Beirut bombing, there was strong suspicion that it was a militant Shia faction (part of what would become/was at the time but still shadowy Hezbollah) that was directly supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Reagan's cabinet was split - I might have it backwards, but I think SecDef Weinberger didn't think we could be sure (I do know he was against going into Lebanon to begin with) and advised against retaliatory action, while others -- mostly the Haig faction leftovers who never liked Weinberger -- wanted to hit suspected Rev guard positions hard.
...and in a weird bit of irony given the way the last decade has gone regarding France and the US --- Reagan ultimately went more cautious (the US just responded with some naval bombardments and eventually disengaged), while it was actually France that retaliated with directed airstrikes in the Bekaa Valley.
I think bankruptcies are an important economic tool too, but what I was hoping for was that someone might question why entire cities were going bankrupt, when the country is leaving pervasive fraud on Wall St. unprosecuted, and spending five times more on their military than the next closest country. How a campaign can carry on without these questions being asked by the media should be a smack upside the head for anyone with a brain. I can understand the idiots who think accumulating free cell phones from the government is a good way to spend your time being incurious, but you guys should know better.
I'm not sure that kill-list are evil, if the alternative is a Bushian cluster #### war that drains the economy and demoralizes the body politic. Certainly, I have no problem with killing those who make war on my country. A war, and making war, is different from domestic policy. Who are these people who are citizens and reside in the United States who are on Obama's kill list?
I really hate this line of criticism. You really think that the candidate who proposes mathematically impossible tax plans should have an advantage on the economy?
If you want to criticize the way the admin has handled the recession, what is your counterfactual? What would you have done differently? Paul Krugman's answer is more stimulus and more activity on housing by replacing DeMarco. Those things would have helped, but we'd still be looking at 6%+ unemployment.
What do you think Obama should have done that would result in full employment (or at least below 7%), a lower deficit and continued low inflation?
1) Electing one party over another increases the odds of certain marginal differences becoming policy, either through Congress or executive order or appointment
2) Electing one party over another does not measurably increase the odds of radical, transformative social change
Some people emphasize radical, transformative social change so much that they are willing to work hard for it and to embrace the likelihood that, if it comes, it will be stabilizing to personal safety and property ownership. I personally don't think it's very likely, think if it happened it would be more likely to lead to bloodshed and confiscation than to measurable improvement, and so don't support it, even if I too have a utopia in my head where I'd rather live. But I wouldn't fault anyone for reaching different judgments and acting upon them.
Some other people act not at all but prefer the vision of utopia in their head to having to face the moral complexities of supporting marginal, but imperfect, differences, and so enjoy casting a pox on both parties. That's politics as aesthetics, a pose and a means of identity construction that puts no cost on the constructor and does put costs on everyone else, and for that I have no respect at all.
As a bankruptcy lawyer, I can answer this. Municipalities go bankrupt because the cost of incurring long-term liabilities are misaligned with the benefits of doing so. Issuing bonds to build things or taking on onerous employee benefits wins votes; that they make the city insolvent doesn't show up till years, really, decades later. This is why nearly every major city is balance-sheet insolvent. What caused the mini-rush of municipal banruptcies is that the collapse in revenue created liquidity crises at already insolvent municipalities.
In this way, it's actually very similar to the Wall Street banks - the misalignment of incentives lead to the employees acting in their own interests, rather than the long term interests of the bank and its shareholders, and left an balance-sheet insolvent entity that collapsed as soon as it got a tiny liquidity push.
What's a scary thought is that municipalities may easily turn into airlines. Airlines are never really "solvent"; essentially they exist in perpetual bankruptcy. They go into bankruptcy, shed the onerous labor contracts that put them there, come out, are more competitive than the other airlines who have been out of bankruptcy for longer, are profitable for a couple of years, enter back into labor contracts that they know will render the company insolvent unless growth is in the 80th percentile of projections, start losing money again, then a few years later, file, reject the contracts, rinse wash repeat.
Being the anti-science party is not trivial. Believing that government is the problem, not the solution, is not trivial (in most places, at most times it is even ahistorical). The legislative body of this country passing a resolution instructing the judiciary to decide a case a certain way is not trivial. Attempting to overthrow an election by the bogus use of the impeachment process is not trivial. Birtherism is no joke. The idea government that will not give you what you want is illegitimate and deserves to be frustrated corrodes the process and has been for thirty years at least. The idea that the rich can never be too rich, and thus too powerful, is demented. Much of the problems we have is because some people have too much money. That leaves only other people with too much money to combat them. We've become too comfortable with being a plutocratic kakistocracy, where the only thing that matters is ratings and polls (which are ratings).
See also the US and sugar.
Walmart has made their stance on this crystal clear -- closing the first store that opted to unionize.
Obama has continued and accelerated Bush's reprehensible drone warfare. Who among Bush's critics is faulting the Nobel Peace laureate for killing and terrorizing civilians and then labeling them enemy combatants on policy not evidence? This is going to only breed more animosity towards the US.
What's the alternative though (to 'reprehensible drone warfare')?
Bombers? Wet squads or special forces? Cruise Missiles?
I'm not saying that I don't recognize and appreciate the civilian deaths and the terrorizing of said civilians -- just that the alternatives seem to be more prone to even more of that.
As I've said previously, my only concern with 'drone warfare' is the all-too-greyish command-and-control of the strikes and as a proxy to that, the fact that it's the security apparatus (CIA/NSA/whatever) rather than the military than decides when to pull triggers... My take is that the military has much clearer rules regarding the dangers to civilians... I suspect they probably 'shoot less' - probably killer both fewer actual and legitimate targets, but also fewer civilians - but I'd prefer that trade.
Have the security apparatus solely feed intel and targets to the military, but the military decides whether the target fits within the confines of a strike or not.
I think the path of certain social issues (abortion, gay rights, immigration) can definitely have their trajectory changed by choosing one party over another. While the enactment of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" was by Democrat president, I don't think there is any chance that a Republican president would have struck it down in the next 2 or 3 terms of office.
And if you don't get rid of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", you can't really progress much farther down the gay rights path.
Is the administration conducting drone attacks on US citizens in the United States?
Is the United States in a war?
Are wars to be fought strictly according to a judicial process?
If drone attacks are prohibited, what would not be?
Yes, and it can work in the reverse. The idea introduced by Reagan that went viral--that government is the problem, not the solution--has degraded over the last 30 years to an idea that if government won't do what you want you have the right to frustrate and undermine it. There is no game. If you lose, you just seek to prevail by other means--and never acknowledge the legitimacy of an outcome you don't approve of.
I agree with bobm, I think the Drone nonsense is wrong (and have said so before). So there is at least one rodent faulting Obama on this. And I agree even if it is a good short term security thing to do (and I don't even think that) it is a terrible long term method that hurts our future security.
Not doing it. If your assumption that killing people right now in this far away place is needed then drone attacks are perhaps on the table as a lesser evil. How about no evil though. the object lesson - don't attack the US directly or allow safe haven to those who will, or the US will invade your country has been pretty well laid out there (whether this is the right object lesson is a different discussion), what purpose are we serving by staying?
Using every possible method of war (including drone attacks) we are not going to kill everyone who hates the US unless we kill everyone there. So what are we accomplishing?
1. Figure out which topic the question relates to.
2. Give your stock answer on that topic.
3. Criticize your opponent while giving the stock answer.
4. Pay lip service to the specific question.
5. Cite some statistics that make you look smart and informed.
6. Talk about energy and education no matter the question if you are Barack Obama.
7. Talk about Obamacare and Libya no matter the question if you are Mitt Romney.
Not let the Repubs take over the House and so many Statehouses
I'm serious, it's been Republican policies that have slowed the recovery and worsened unemployment, of course Obama had little ability to prevent or ameliorate 2010's Teaper spasm...
That doesn't just describe undecideds, it describes just about everyone
Agreed. This is the worrisome -- chilling, really -- new strain of ideology-over-anything-else zealotry that has pervaded the far right since the early 1990s, and has consequently had a profound change on the manner in which Republican officeholders govern. It's a very big deal. The notion that there is no important distinction between the way in which the two major parties wield responsibility is naive at best.
I'm all for no evil --
But what you seem to be at least tacitly approving is the neocon way -- harbor for any reason; you lack the will, ability, or whatever to deal with those you harbor -- and we're gonna invade and replace you with someone who will.
To me, that way lies madness...
Dealing with terrorism occupies a new space in between crime and war - and I do think the idea of limited engagement is tailored to a drone program run right (and do note, as I said, I DO have issues with the way the current program is run).
and those guys also insulted one another by the way.
Ahem.
People with their minds made up solely... but yeah - I agree... People want simple answers and as much I'm not against the two party system, it lends itself to ideological divides on issues that are pretty apparent.
So when people on the right snark and snip about Obama not being "the Messiah" (which very few people on the left ever claimed to be the case) what they really mean is "we want our Messiah who will make everything all better again, just like Mommy kissing the boo-boo better?"
Okay. Weird, but, whatevs.
A more isolationist foreign policy?
Ha, just kidding! Nobody with those beliefs will ever be allowed within 30 feet of a microphone!
=====
Drone war is bad, and a black mark on Obama's record, but as with the War on Drugs, anyone who thinks the Republicans would be any better on the issue is nuts.
And on name calling, I agree even louder. You could take every awful thing said by every newspaper and political candidate about Obama/Bush 2/Clinton and add it all together and it wouldn't match a good week's worth of personal invective directed at a presidential candidate from the 1880s. They were n-lovers and traitors and pimps and bastard children of Frenchmen, not in chat rooms but in newspaper coverage.
Politics is conflict. Conflict becomes personal. It's not my personal preference, but it's not going to go away, unless people themselves not responding to it. Politicians don't do it because they enjoy it; they do it because it works. And again, that's on us, as a people.
Yep. It's not a question of voting for the perfect candidate, but of avoiding the really, really, ####### terrible party. Anyone who claims to be for "liberty" but votes with the GOP/right coalition is just full of #### entirely.
I've re read that sentence/paragraphs a few times and the those claiming that it does not refer to the Libya attack as terrorism are delusional.
There were of course mixed signals being put out by the administration (being charitable to the administration) you could say that the Admin was equivocating, saying it was terrorism on one hand, and on the other saying it was a riot/demonstration that got out of hand- but insisting that the admin did not refer to it as terrorism for more than 14 days is a significantly worse act of dissembling than what the Admin did on that front.
Good summary, Morty, but just for the hell of it, let's try to take these points from the opposite POV.
Being the anti-science party is not trivial.
Being the party that wages war against religion isn't trivial.
Believing that government is the problem, not the solution, is not trivial (in most places, at most times it is even ahistorical).
Look at Europe, where you have to wait for months or years to see a doctor.
The legislative body of this country passing a resolution instructing the judiciary to decide a case a certain way is not trivial.
Unelected judges need to be guided by the will of the people.
Attempting to overthrow an election by the bogus use of the impeachment process is not trivial.
Perjury by a president is an legitimately impeachable offense, not trivial in the least.
Birtherism is no joke.
Strawman. Only a minority of Republicans are Birthers. But then nobody ever needs to ask Romney where he was born.
The idea government that will not give you what you want is illegitimate and deserves to be frustrated corrodes the process and has been for thirty years at least.
Tell that to our Founding Fathers when they overthrew the British.
The idea that the rich can never be too rich, and thus too powerful, is demented. Much of the problems we have is because some people have too much money. That leaves only other people with too much money to combat them.
That's straight out of The Communist Manifesto. Why am I not surprised?
Now obviously on one of these issues (the government's role in the economy) there's a lot of middle ground for gradations of emphasis, though even there there's a clear demarcation line between the party of Obamacare and the party that would repeal it. But I honestly can't see the idea that the sum of these chasms should be overridden by the use of drone missiles (by the left) or the by acquiescence in rent-seeking on the part of Republican special interests (by the right). Once again the complete absence of a sense of proportion by the fringes never ceases to amaze me.
This.
No, they are allowed near the mike, they're even allowed to touch it- if the power is off.
Five hours? God, no. I certainly wouldn't sit through that. But 90 minutes, which is how long last night's debate was, or two hours and do away with the 30 minutes of "analysis" afterward? I agree with Ray. I think it would be more instructive to remove the audience and the two-minute time limits and just let the two candidates give dueling speeches / have a conversation on an agreed-upon topic. "Your topic is the economy: Governor Romney gets the first word, President Obama gets the last word. Go."
For that matter, they could even do it like Jon Stewart does his interviews: when they run too long to fit onto his show, he throws them up on the Internet for anybody who's interested. If Obama and Romney want to keep talking for five hours, go ahead and let them, just with the understanding that they're not going to have nearly the audience that they had for the first 60 or 90 minutes.
Gary Johnson 2012
But you were OK with it when the Dems went that same route in the 1970's?
again and again i write you can shut yourself in but you cannot shut the world out
Good luck with that.
Swing and a miss, snapper. There is no equivalence on this as a matter of historical fact. And even if hypothetically there were, it would not rationalize the current-day far-right zealotry that continues to drive the GOP base ever-rightward.
She was neither wrong nor out of place, and in fact one** of the main reasons that last night's debate was infinitely superior to the first one is that Crowley, like Martha Raddatz, defined her job seriously and didn't let one of the candidates pre-empt assume her role.
**emphasis added, in case anyone thinks I'm pretending that the more significant difference wasn't that this time both candidates were visibly awake
I'm completely unfamiliar with the Dems going this route in the 70s (the McGovern nomination?), but when I could vote I voted for Reagan...
Yes, if only they'd been able to locate that guy you know who could quantify the number of welfare takers getting free big screen TVs from the government, the debate would have been conducted on a much higher level.
Is an "act of terror" the same as an "act of violence"? If no, then the President did not label the Benghazi raid an act of terror -- he merely left that as a possibility as against some other act of violence. As I quoted at the top of this page, the Washington Post's diplomatic staff noted this lack of specificity in September.
Hey, I agree with Ray on something...
You guys are priceless, absolutely priceless...
and by that I mean absolutely shameless
it's called communicating
This is nonsense. SWA has an industry leading compensation package for their unionized employees, has never been in bankruptcy, and is the most profitable airline in history.
American Airlines is not in bankruptcy because of onerous labor contracts. Every union employee could be paid minimum wage with no benefits and they would still be losing money. Prior to bankruptcy, American's unionized employees were among the lowest compensated among major airlines.American is in bankruptcy because of unsustainable levels of debt, much of it stemming from and extremely ill advised takeover of TWA just prior to 9/11. All that's left from that boondoggle is a handful of employees on the wrong side of 50, and billions in debt.
On voting for Gary Johnson or someone else, I think that also is responsible (though obviously not my choice) as long as it is understood the same level of moral weight as voting for one of the two major parties, i.e. a willingness to assume partial responsibility for the outcome. So I will vote for Obama not because I admire all his policies--I don't--but because I am willing to bear the responsibility of some of his wrong-headed and even murderous ones in order to avoid the real threat of a far-worse party which will continue those same policies. And I bear that responsibility in part because I don't think a third party can or will win, and I find that responsibility preferable to bearing the responsibility of helping elect Romney.
People who vote for third parties because they say there's no difference between the two parties are just being silly. Of course there are differences. Voting for a third party believing that it absolves you of any culpability for the messiness of the world, though, is a pose, not a politics.
But people who vote for a third party because they judge the chance of eventual third-party success differently than I do, and are therefore willing to bear their share of the responsibility of electing their least-preferred major party (whichever that is), I have full respect for that. It isn't my judgment, but it's a judgment.
If, say, drugs are your main issue, and you vote for Johnson, then you have to start by asking what specifically a president could accomplish without a party base in Congress--something but not everything as presidents aren't dictators. And to make judgments about what else would likely come out of a Johnson presidency. And then to balance the odds of Johnson winning or of building a future viable party against the marginal difference of electing one's own least-preferred major party candidate to President with a constituency in Congress. I and someone with similar views on drug policy might walk those decisions in different ways. As we are both acting freely, we are both responsible, morally, for our choices. As none of us are prophets, neither of us can be sure we're right!
Obamacare and Libyajobs and unemployment no matter the question if you are Mitt Romney.FTFY
Next, could you give us your hackeneyed views on how to solve for stagflation? Then we can talk about getting the Iranian hostages home.
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