“Building a new stadium down the street does not work unless (Ron) Lancaster spilled some DNA in the lot where they’re going to build the new stadium,” he added. “You have to refurbish (Mosaic Stadium). You’ve got to can all new ideas you might have and use the sacred ground. Fenway did that and that is why Fenway is loved. The new Yankee Stadium isn’t the same as it used to be.”
The former Boston Red Sox and Montreal Expos pitcher will not be running for the vacant mayor’s position in Regina later this year. With his opinion on the new stadium, he wasn’t sure he would garner many votes anyway. But that is nothing new to the former member of the Rhinoceros Party. Lee ran on the Rhino ticket in 1988 for president of the United States. Not surprisingly, he didn’t make the ballot in a single state. He said one of the high-ranking members within the party gave him a six-pack of Molson Canadian and asked him to run for president.
“I adhered to their funny philosophy,” Lee said. “My campaign slogan was ‘No guns, no butter. They’ll both kill you.’ And I only campaigned in federal prisons where I knew they couldn’t vote, and I only accepted a quarter in campaign contributions.”
With it being an election year in the U.S., Lee said he is all in for the re-election of Barack Obama.
“The only time (Mitt) Romney opens his mouth is when he needs to change feet,” Lee said of the Republican nominee. “If Obama does lose this, which I can’t see happening, then it’s because of a lady in Florida who works for Jeb Bush and Diebold, the voting-machine company. If Obama even comes close to losing this election, it’ll be fraud.”
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Yep, because Obama is the messiah and incapable of doing anything wrong, and if you disagree with that you're a racist hate- mongering redneck.
No, it's not. Next!
You're so freaking cute when you talk like this.
Of course there is a bit of a link between Obama president and Obama candidate, but still. I admit I also like your line about: "Obama is a war-mongering, freedom-killing con man". Obama is more warlike than I would prefer, but he is extracting us from various wars we were in and has started fewer wars than the previous president did. I assume freedom killing is Health care related. Con man though? That one has me puzzled.
Bottom line is that people who think Obama and Romney are the same have a very limited perspective. The two parties have a few areas of agreement but very few (I admit they are areas I tend to disagree with both though).
#8 - Hmmmm. maybe it could be retroactively changed. Speaking of Romney it has been a very short while but I already miss the excitment of waking up every morning to find out what he screwed up on his trip around the world.
Politician. Ipso facto.
Actually, Rants, aren't you Canadian? That's what I meant about #6. Do you have any strong feelings about your own country's politics?
Hey now the last one had name calling and outright Clintonian style lying also! But there was some real political discussion there too. I would rather talk world politics though, more to learn.
But the way it is called out, it sounded like he was a con man above and beyond. I guess the fact that Obama is such a centrist pragmatic left/center Democrat who runs crazy efficient but drama free campaigns (and an overly cautious drama free White House) keeps fooling me. I totally get hating him (well not really, but I am not into hate), but acting like he is an empty suit with nothing there always strikes me as bizarre.
He is many things, but con man (other than the normal politician flavored) is not one of them.
More to be depressed with.
Just a thought about it though: Doesn't it behoove the organizations that were dead set against against interventions in Yugoslavia and Libya to speak up and loudly praise the international community for their perfectly spineless handling of Syria?
I said Obama and Romney are the same, yes. They are both scumbags, which is enough similarity for me to consider them the same.
Yes, I'm Canadian. Our situation is not good. Stephen Harper is Putinesque in the level of control and fealty he demands from his underlings, I mean Cabinet Ministers, and backbench MPs aren't allowed to say anything at all. Harper has taken a lot of credit on the international stage for the relative stability of our baking sector, but that rests with the previous government.
And Bitter Mouse, maybe its just me, but for a politician to run a campaign as if he's the second coming of Bobby Kennedy, only to continue with the Washington status quo, makes him a con man. He promised major change, a whole new attitude, openness and fairness - none of which has even remotely come to pass. I know, its all the Republicans in Congress's fault.
people are somehow affronted by the idea that someone would call him a war monger or a threat to freedom.Hey on the things you listed I agree with you to a degree, so I was not offended. I would much rather less war and less blatent disregard for civil liberties (two of my least favorite things about Obama). He is still less warlike than the previous president, and he has never hid from the fact he is relatively hawkish from a foreign policy perspective.
However, someone will end up as president, and the choices are Obama and Romney. Obama might be relatively hawkish, but he is drawning down the war machine on various fronts and has called for cuts in defense spending. Romney has a much more aggressive posture (example: Iran) and wants to greatly increase defense spending.
Both can be more militant than you want and there can still be a better and worse choice. There are no perfect candidates - you go to the ballot box with the candidates you have, not the candidates you wish you had.
On the civil liberty front, extrajudicial killings and such - I got nothing.
You say that like it's a bad thing, man.
Pretty much ... but only one wears magic underwear!
Its great for the CIA!
Politicians run campaigns to get elected. I admit I am not sure how much of the "hope and silliness" Obama personally believed. Still the policy positions his campaign put out and his actual talking points were always pretty centrist Democrat. The fact people bought into the hype is, I think, some what on them. Anyone paying attention knew how Obama would govern. Anyone who thought Obama would (or could) bring comity to DC is a moron.
The GOP has some of the blame for a lack of policy compromise. They have been one of the most obstructionist ever. But Obama has been very cautious in dealing with that reality and other Democrats have not really woken up to the obstruction except very slowly. There is plenty of blame to go around.
Didn't matter how much he believed but how much voters believed. If you promise rainbows and unicorns after eight years of war and blight, the public will eat it up. I don't think he was a snake oil salesman. He outlined the product reasonably well but the messaging attached to that product promised more than any president could deliver, especially one with an opposition party who worked harder on his demise than on the country's problems.
BC bud is the best.
But in total I think you are spot on and said it better than I did.
This is hard to tell. On the one hand, Obama inherited a huge mess that probably prevented meaningful changes in transparency or openness. On the other hand, the initial staff were all former pros from the Clinton years, who could reasonably be expected to behave like they did when they were in office the last time.
I think ultimately, H&C was probably never going to be a realistic outcome of the Obama administration, and it probably meant something different to O than it did to the rest of the country. O has always been about intelligent public policy rather than big, sweeping changes. This probably helps to explain the relative lack of scandals.
Torture not compassionate enough for ya?
I spend 1-3 months a year in India and am heading back there in 2 weeks. Fortunately, this next trip is to the Southern part of the Country (Bangalore and Panaji) where this power outage hasn't been felt. I am always amazed that with such a rapidly growing economy, and industrius population, the infrastructure is absolutely horrid. I am not suprised in the least that more than half a billion people were without power for an extended time due to a grid failure.
Back to politics ... did you know that it is illegal to sell liquor in India on election day? I was shocked to learn that. A good bottle of bourbon is the only way that I can make it through most U.S. elections.
And colour me blown away that the Regina Leader-Post would ever get posted on BTF. Actually, colour me blown away that the Leader-Post still exists. I recall people at the University of Regina Journalism School not bothering to look for work there on the assumption it wouldn't be around much longer.
Hopefully there's a backlash against how Harper is running things and we establish some kind of MP independence. The assumption of strict party discipline is my biggest problem with Canadian politics.
EDIT: It's also kind of cool that Bill Lee knows who Ron Lancaster is.
People are optimistic. It's not a bad thing until they run into marketing.
No, no, the problem is that it wasn't vacuous enough. 'Hope' is good, but anyone can look around and see nothing much has changed since 2008. Plus it invites unwelcome questions such as 'what exactly do you propose to change?' that require a person to carefully word his response so as to avoid actually promising anything measurable.
Pretty sure that used to be true in Arkansas back when I was living there (through 11/01), at least while the polls were open. Might still be*.
*Apparently not, judging by the Wikipedia listing of alcohol laws by state, but evidently it's still the case in Alaska, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Utah & West Virginia, & was until 2007 in Oklahoma.
I assume you are being facetious; it is illegal to sell liquor while the polls are open in the U.S., at least everywhere that I'm aware.
Partial coke to gef - it is still against the law to sell liquor while the polls are open in Indiana for sure. If you happen to drive past a liquor store or tavern here on election day you will see people starting to line up outside, waiting for 6:00 PM when the polls close and they can start selling booze.
So long as you're not doing anything that would otherwise get you arrested for disorderly behaviour.
As I just posted, apparently that's actually pretty rare, or maybe it's just a matter of local rather than state proscription.
But yeah, in general, maybe because of where I grew up (a dry county, as it happens, next door to another dry county where I went to college), I'm sort of shocked that anyone would marvel at that. Some people lead intriguingly sheltered lives, I guess.
Being obviously intoxicated in public will usually get you arrested even if you're not doing anything notably disorderly at the time. The police tend to take a very much 'better safe than sorry' approach to that kind of thing. I imagine they would crank that approach up to eleven on Election Day.
Over 1 billion had no power, but for 300 million or so, it was just another Tuesday.
My understanding, based probably on nothing in particular, is that such laws stem from the apparently common practice many decades ago of getting certain people falling-down drunk & then dragging them from polling place to polling place to vote for the candidate of the liquor supplier's choosing. Supposedly, that could've led to Edgar Allan Poe's final, fatal drunk ... though I gather he was discovered in the gutter on the first Sunday in October, which would seem to cast doubt on that scenario.
Not necessarily getting them falling-down drunk. Simply providing free booze in return for votes, early and often, was the deal.
The 19th century was AWESOME.
Many states still have election day blue laws -- I believe Indiana still does, at least it did about 10 years ago when I was still bartending in the state... Can't sell liquor - even at a bar - until the polls close.
Now they just give them food stamps.
Almost precisely zero chance of this. First of all, the party as a whole does not have fond memories of the rebellion against Diefenbaker (and has strong institutional memories of those days).
Of greater import, the party leaders hold an MP's career in their hands. If the party leader won't sign the nomination papers, they can't run for the party (regardless of how the riding association feels about the matter). One or two MPs have been booted from the party and run successfully as an independent, but in general your career is over if the party leader so decides.
Oh well, a guy can dream.
Or tax breaks.
George Washington lost his first political race, but then won his second. The only substantive difference was that he started handing out free booze. The rest is history.
They must have been votin' for a new President or somethin'
X
Poe died of rabies.
Mexico, however, is a dry country for 3 days during thier election. Sadly, the only time Ive been to Mexico was on election day. Streets were empty.
We watched John Cusack's Poe last weekend (not an experience I recommend, but my wife and I were bored), so I know how he really died.
FWIW, Baltimore looks like it was a far better place to live in the mid-nineteenth century than it is today.
This is one of the reasons the two-party system is so problematic. In order to avoid the more distasteful candidate, you essentially must either throw your vote away or endorse the less distasteful candidate. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have any reason to avoid the extremes because it's not like there's a consequence.
Both want to avoid the extremes but Romney feels he has to continue to massage them. Obama's not heading left, he'll stay as close to center as possible.
The two party hegemony is especially bad when they come to agreement leaving one basically no options (other than long term primary type options). You can over time influence a party - the Republican Party has been very thoroughly shaped over the past twenty years far to the right of where it was, and as a consequence the Democratic Party has also shifted a bit right as well.
Of course in a representational democracy almost no candidate will exactly represent anyones views, so you are always going to have to make priority judgements. Heck I have even voted Republican twice (Once the Democrat was clearly corrupt as heck, the other the Democrat was a well meaning loon and the Republican was a sensible moderate - who was later essentially booted from the GOP for being such).
Obama is trying to excite his base by playing the populist card, but frankly it is weak sauce, because he really really isn't a populist kind of guy.
Look at how much trouble Obama has had at passing legislation in spite of having had at least a 58% majority in both houses his first two years. Part of that is the fillibuster problem, and part of that is Obama's political inexperience/legislative ineptitude, but how hard should it be to compromise enough to get one or two republican senators on your side? When the two sides are as far apart as they are (polarized to a far greater degree than the US population), it's apparently quite hard.
Here's a tip to members of both parties. If you want to see your presidents actually change the direction of the country (without invading other countries), start electing legislative lifer types instead of governors and half-term senators who lack the political experience, relationships, and skill to pass legislation.
Except for his convenient election-year "evolutions" on gay marriage and amnesty.
People are always claiming to want a serious third-party option, but what would a winning third-party platform look like? With the internet, it should be easier than ever to organize such a movement, but no serious third parties emerge. Hell, the Constitution Party managed to get on the ballot in all 50 states — and then struggled to find a candidate.
Yes, the gerrymandered "safe" districts yield distinctly polarized, paralyzed legislatures.
Here in California we finally passed a law changing the way state legislature primaries are run: now, the primary is open, and the top two vote-getters in the primary face off in the general election, even if they're from the same party. If this works as intended (and of course we'll have to see if it does), it would provide an incentive for candidates to run toward the center rather than pandering to the base on either side.
This is a good question. Unfortunately, it will probably look like a like of Ron Paul clones.
If it's something else - it's going to have to be a bizarrely unexpected and I'd say actually unpredictable groundswell of right place, right time, insanely strong leadership.
Both poll for the majority. Neither are liberal ideas they cover the center.
Exactly. The notion that Obama is, ever was, or is ever going to be a hard-core liberal is pretty rich.
Now, if we had a parliamentary democracy, any number of third and fourth parties would arise. The Greens would do well. An anti-immigration party would be successful. You see a Friedman-Bloomberg party for centrist elites. A movement like the Tea Party would probably have become a party rather than seeking to gain as much control of the Republican party as possible. An anti-globalization / anti-free-trade party could get somewhere. Maybe some socialists.
Kudos, Lassus. You might be the first person I've ever seen opine on what a third party should do to be successful who hasn't said "coincidentally, I believe a successful third party would agree with me up and down the line".
The sweet spot for a 3rd party in US politics is not in the weeds of the far right. The GOP covers the far right. The only real space for a 3rd party in the US would be a real liberal/democratic socialist party on the left. The Dems abandoned any true leftist theory decades ago.
As background, Mitt Romney has been extremely secretive about his tax plans. He has made clear really only two things:
(a) his tax plan will be revenue-neutral, not cutting revenue to the government, and
(b) his tax plan will cut rates on working income by 20% across the board and eliminate taxation of capital income
He claims that he can square this circle by eliminating loopholes in the tax code. He has yet to specify a single loophole he would close. He has yet to identify a single way in which he would actually raise tax revenues in order to avoid blowing a hole in the budget.
So, Brookings took him at his word, and studied the tax code. In order to raise the revenues lost from the cuts to base tax rates, what would be the most progressive possible arrangement of other changes to the tax code, eliminating tax expenditures? And what they found, of course, is that there's no way to do (a) and (b) without a significant tax hike for the middle and lower classes.Now, of course, Romney doesn't actually plan to raise taxes on the middle class. What he plans to do is cut taxes without being in any way responsible about the fiscal outcome of his tax cuts (like Bush before him). But because he's decided to lie baldly about it, Brookings is entirely correct that unless you assume Mitt Romney is lying, you have to assume he plans to raise taxes on the middle class and the lower class in order to cut taxes on the rich.
If a clear majority of Americans favored amnesty, Obama would have moved on it when he had a filibuster-proof Senate. He's just doing what Kerry, Gore, et al., did before him: Dangle the carrot to Latino voters while knowing full well that amnesty is D.O.A. for the foreseeable future.
I don't know. My guess is it will work differently depending on the makeup of the district.
In other words, Romney is trying to win an election with the voters we have rather than the voters we wish we have.
Since "the rich" don't have enough assets, let alone income, to shoulder the tax burden alone, the U.S. simply can't continue spending like it is without everyone paying more. But any candidate who says that might as well fold his campaign and go golfing. Like the bankrupt Greeks and Spaniards who want more no-strings money from Germany, U.S. voters want more services without contributing anything toward the cost.
But is there any conceivable reason to not assume Mitt Romney is lying?
I don't think there's enough difference between the two parties right now to leave room for a third-party to catch the middle.
One way that I could see something like this happening is if the Republican party splinters into two different parties. If the fiscal conservatives and the social conservatives become divided enough, I suppose it's possible even if very unlikely. A secular version of today's Republican party might be very attractive to moderates currently voting for Democrats. If Obamacare or similar policy becomes the nation's expected standard (much like Social Security is now), and the Republicans shift from fighting it to fighting to keep it from shifting closer to single-payer, that could also shift the debate to one that is friendlier to the right.
I don't think any true libertarian party will be successful (too fringe). It might be more libertarian overall though, because it would be less extreme on the regulatory side than the Democrats while less extreme on the individual human rights side than the Republicans.
55% Support Obama Work Permit Program
A successful third party that takes its votes evenly from both parties will see the two major parties move to take over its issues and voters and crush it. See Perot, Ross.
A successful third party that takes its votes from one party more than the other effectively acts as a stalking horse for the party it's further away from. If the Greens started polling 10-20%, Republicans would win 75% of the House and Senate. This has never happened in modern American politics, though Nader's 2-3% in 2000 is probably the closest thing to an example of the actual effects of successful ideological third parties. You can't grow a party that will only hurt its ideological ally.
It's possible for a third party to be so successful that it kills one of the two major parties and takes its place, as with the Republicans and the Whigs before the civil war. Otherwise, our system doesn't allow for third parties to be effective.
In a continental European democracy, you can have third parties because of proportional representation rules. So long as we have districts and first-past-the-post and the electoral college, we will not have third parties.
55% Support Obama Work Permit Program
I was gonna say: if only there were some way to find out.
As I strove to explain to one of my nephews, who was fully on the Nader/Green bandwagon back in 2000.
Yes, a one-off poll proves that Americans favor a broad immigration amnesty. Absurd.
Obama makes noise about immigration when he talks to Latinos and only when he talks to Latinos. There's a reason for this.
You have to look a little further. There are several polls on that page which show that between 54%-64% agree with Obama's "amnesty" policy.
One poll is more evidence than zero polls.
Cue Joe moving his goalposts ...
On the real issue of structural immigration reform, there is sadly no majority for anything that resembles a coherent policy, and the movements to demonstrate what an inhumane mess the current regime is haven't built support for actual reform. So we get the continuation of the current mess with at best marginal improvements around the edges, like the DREAM act. (And at worst, marginal moves to make things worse around the edges, like Obama's stepped-up deportation rate.)
Bill Lee appears out of touch with the state of the economy.
We have no coherent policy because we allow idiocy, like self-deportation or walls, to enter the discussion when we should be talking about earned citizenship.
He's enforcing the law.
If the Dream Act was extremely popular, it would have been passed by now.
There's nothing "inhumane" about the U.S.'s current immigration system. The U.S. will admit more legal immigrants this year than every other country on Earth combined.
***
To the contrary, the U.S. has a very coherent policy. The problem is, millions of illegal immigrants have chosen to ignore it.
I see someone has a dated view of how the Senate works.
Employers and consumers have chosen to ignore it.
I see someone is unaware Obama had a filibuster-proof Senate for his first year in office.
***
Sure, but that doesn't mean the current system is "inhumane" or entitle the lawbreakers to "earned citizenship."
Bill Lee appears out of touch with the state of the economy.
I don't know about Bill Lee's command of the state of the economy, but the 538 blog's current forecast gives Obama a 72.5% chance of winning if the election were held today, and a 69.0% chance of Obama winning on November 6th.
That's a lot of ground for Romney to make up in less than 100 days.
I see someone is unaware that the filibuster-proof Senate was intact for exactly 7 weeks.
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