Thoughts Prompted by Joint Chiefs Appointment. An article hilited on AOL today, "Martin Dempsey Named Chairman Of Joint Chiefs Of Staff By Obama" brought out a lot of the Radical Right loons who swarm any news story about President Obama. I answered some of them in the 49 comments below, comprising about 2,500 words. By the way, Dempsey is from New Jersey, my state. Yippee.

No one has the information to second-guess the President/Commander-in-Chief. To pick one excellent candidate is not to disparage another.
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The entire discussion about Christie is off-topic and should be removed, including my littel contribution here: Conservatives tend to know other Conservatives, and Liberals, other Liberals. So the few people you may know from NJ are not necessarily the slitest indicative. I DO live in NJ, and was astonished that he was elected in this very Blue state. But, as someone else points out, his approval rating is now 40%.
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They must have a mailing list that gives the URL to stories to swarm, and provides talking-points. Or a website with the same information, because they do seem very unified in everything they say -- all 36 of them.
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We don't have an "empire". That is Cold War, Communist nonsense, dressed up in a dated reference to the Roman Empire. By the way, you do realize that the United States is a descendant of the Roman Empire, don't you? Look at our Capitol, a great Roman building. If Rome had not stuck with its empire, the nature of the world today is impossible to know.
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So, everything President Obama says is political, eh? Then, equally, isn't everything EVERY politician, of any persuasion, says also political? Dictionary.com's first definition of "political" is "of, pertaining to, or concerned with politics". And "politics" means "1. the science or art of political government. 2. the practice or profession of conducting political affairs". So of course everything the President of the United States says in public matters is political. "Politics" is NOT a dirty word.
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Hardly surprising [that some union members who voted Republican in the past intend to vote Democratic next time], given the pathological hatred of unions by the Tea Party version of the Republican Party.
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Sorry, but Liberals are still waiting for him to close Gitmo, withdraw from Iraq, offer single-payer health insurance, etc., and are livid at his siding with Republicans on cutting back Social Security, Medicare, and heating assistance. He has broken an awful lot of promises, and before he gets my vote, he will have to fulfill his promises BEFORE November 2012.
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Plainly you do not know that the only reason the Tea Party made inroads in the midterm elections is that we don't have compulsory voting, and midterm elections ALWAYS produce starkly lower turnout than Presidential-year elections. Turnout in 2010 was 37.8% (http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2010G.html); in 2008, 56.8% (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html). If 56.8% had turned out in 2010, the Democrats would have CRUSHED the Republicans. This is why Republicans don't want compulsory voting, because their PERMANENT MINORITY status would become plain, not just as a point of view but also as a voting block.
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Keep using the phrase "Kool-Aid". It shows everyone who sees it that you are not to be taken seriously.
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The Radical Right never gives up, and never accepts with the people's will as shown in re-election of Presidents. They impeached Bill Clinton in his SECOND term. And Clinton was a closet Republican, as can be seen from his recent, open betrayal of Americans in encouraging Paul Ryan in his attacks on basic American institutions.
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You do not have the right to slander people as "Commies". I have flagged that comment as abusive. But you don't understand it to be abusive, do you?
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Huh? ALL military are yes-men to the Commander-in-Chief, once he issues an order. They don't have the right to say, "No, sir, I will not." Their duty is to reply "Yes, sir!", or "Aye-aye, sir!" As regards what they say in counseling the President, I have never been in the chamber with them, so do not dare to impugn their integrity in offering candid advice, even if it opposes the President's predispositions.
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The majority does NOT have the right to censor speech just because they disagree, but only if it is intrinsically abusive. AOL before it took over HuffPo allowed readers to thumbs-up or thumbs-down VOTE, a feature that should be restored to comments areas.
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Not true [that the U.S. is NATO]. The U.S. canNOT get NATO to go along with just anything, and when operations are controlled by a foreigner, they ARE controlled by that foreigner.
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No, Liberals understand that sometimes there really is no alternative to war. When everything else fails, and the only way to defend a principle or innocent people is warfare, then we do, sadly, accept the need for war. We hate it -- I chanced across some WWII coverage last nite on PBS (including the Battle of the Bulge, during which I was born; no pun intended, tho my mother said she won that one), and was appalled that we ever had to engage in such barbarism. But we accept that not all wars are "senseless". The Iraq War? Yes, senseless as regards U.S. principles and interests. The Afghan war? Not the slitest senseless, but fully justified, in many ways, as regards training camps allowed to Al-Qaeda by the Taliban, as regards the monstrous Taliban regime, as regards interrupting the flow of heroin to the West, etc. All those issues are still at issue in the future of Afghanistan, and we dare not let things return to the execrable and dangerous condition before 9/11.
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And your basis for asserting that group slander [that generals 3-star and up are all political yes-men] is what? How many 3-star generals (and up) have you ever met, talked with, or observed carefully, and if you claim to have observed them, via what mechanism or media?
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Given the HUNDREDS of Radical Right comments that appear here, the claim that non-Liberal posts are automatically removed is not just fatuous but also an example of The Big Lie Technique that the Radical Right employs endlessly. Say 180-degrees opposite the truth, on the theory that people will assume that there must be some truth in what you say because no one would be so brazen as to lie in the PRESENCE of disproof. Oh, yes they would!
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Pls provide proof, not an absolutely empty assertion, for your claim that the Moslem Brotherhood is taking over in Egypt. Got none? Didn't think so.
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And if a premature U.S. withdrawal produces the return of the Taliban, the return of Al-Qaeda training camps for attacks upon the United States, and the murder of women and homosexuals, will the man responsible for the Taliban's return be regarded as a hero or a villain -- not to say moron?
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Actually, the assent of Russia's Putin/Medvedev and Iran's Khamanei to the ouster of Qaddafi would be HUGELY meaningful in signifying a willingness of people to work together for democracy and peace.
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And that is meaningful how? Let us face the sad fact that most people in the military are now and have been since the arrival of the all-volunteer force, in the military because they can't find work in the private economy, or because they want GI benefits after leaving. They have NO special expertise in military affairs, much less in realpolitik. I don't want to say that they are the dumbest of us, but how smart is it to risk your life for a paycheck and the chance to go to college or a trade school on the GI bill IF you survive a war?
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The President does not "step out of the way" to let the military do its own thing. You are living in a fantasyland. As for the President's being burned in effigy in a FEW places, shouldn't that hearten you, in showing that he is not loved by the "fellow Moslems" that the Radical Right keeps talking about?
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The filibuster is unconstitutional. Nowhere does the Constitution permit any antidemocratic supermajority except when it SPECIFIES a supermajority.
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I hope people who are not part of the tiny coterie of RadRite commenters here are realizing how short and empty of substance the myriad comments placed here by Rightwingers are, so come to understand that there are only a tiny number of you people posting DOZENS of one- or two-line, inflammatory remarks to camouflage the reality that there are very few of you, and you do NOT represent ANY significant portion of the American public.
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Another two-line inflammatory, utterly empty nonsense post by a Radical Rightist. You do realize that saying something does not, in itself, make it happen, right? Why do you people keep talking about a certain defeat for Obama, when you can NOT see into the future? Just wait. We will all see, early in November 2012. Be patient.
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That's another two-line flame by a Radical Rightist. The President ORDERED the strike. He wasn't hiding anywhere. Where exactly were YOU when the President ordered the execution of Usama bin Laden?
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You plainly do not know what Communism is. One thing it ISN'T is insisting that everyone buy health insurance from PRIVATE COMPANIES.
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Pls do not invent your own facts. Obama hasn't even nearly doubled the national debt -- tho Bush did; after Reagan and Bush's father together quadrupled it (http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt.htm), so that Republicans OCTUPLED the national debt -- much less has Obama tripled it. GM is still a private company, which has paid back what was lent, and is now making a tidy profit, despite the will of disloyal Republicans to destroy that major American corporation, for the benefit of foreign automakers. The stimulus HAS worked; when Obama came into office, we were losing 655,000 jobs a MONTH; now we're not. On and on, everything you say is false. Go ahead, add items to your list, and fair-minded people who respect TRUTH will shoot them down. But you can't take the time to write more than 2 or 3 lines, can you? You have to put up DOZENS of Radical Right comments a day to try to persuade people that your tiny fringe group is majority opinion.
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How quaintly bizarre, to think that the Commander-in-Chief has nothing to do with what the military does. That is seriously delusional thinking. As for the comparison of the military, which a President CAN command, to a free-market economy, which a President canNOT command, there IS no comparison. But by November 2012, we are almost certain to be out of the Great Recession that Bush and his cronies caused. You will HATE that, and not just because it will likely give Democrats the White House and both houses of Congress, but because decent, Liberal, working people will have jobs and good lives, and that would make you miserable.
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But Bush didn't make that decision, did he, despite the claims by desperate, pathetic Radical Rightwingers that Bush's intelligence found Usama, so what does that make Bush? If Obama had wanted to evade that strike, he could have used the excuse/explained the valid reason that the Pakistani Government would not permit U.S. forces to operate in their territory, and pressed the Pakistanis to arrest Usama and extradite him to the U.S. But Obama said early on that he was going to get Usama, and he did. You can't put those two things together, but everyone else on planet Earth EXCEPT the U.S. Radical Right DOES.
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Another 2-line, empty, meaningless, silly flame from the Radical Right. Pls provide link to a reputable website that suggests that Bill Ayers was ever under consideration. Serious people have no time for such nonsense.
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Altho rotating among services is traditional, it is not carved in stone. Besides, there is more than one high-level officer in each service who might have been chosen. The Commander-in-Chief has complete freedom of operation.
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Let us have none of this kumbaya nonsense. What do you think law-enforcement is, except local war? The assertion that war is always wrong is as absurd as would be an assertion war is always right.
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"Liberals are far better educated than other groups (48% college graduates, compared with an overall average of 27%)." (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/17/in-search-of-ideologues-in-america). See, a SUPPORTED assertion, not an EMPTY slander, from a Liberal who respects truth, not a Radical Rightwinger who has absolutely no respect for truth.
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There is something called the "permanent government", of people in the civil service and military who continue to serve after a change of President. We need a certain amount of continuity, and expertise.
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Yet another 2-line, empty, group-slanderous, meaningless comment by someone in the Radical Right who can never support anything he says. The statistics are readily available online. For Afghanistan: http://icasualties.org/OEF/index.aspx. For Iraq: http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx.
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Does anyone remember that in 2010, Obama was savagely attacked for not going to Arlington, but to another military cemetery, in Illinois? How come the same people who savaged that are completely silent when he DID go to Arlington this year?
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There is no God, and there is no reason to drag God into this discussion.
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Which war are you attacking? ALL wars? The Iraq war? Afghanistan? They are DIFFERENT, you know.
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The U.S. public can DEMAND the total suppression of the heroin trade from Afghanistan, and indeed SOME military units have destroyed poppy crops.
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Pls stop inventing blacks who side with you.
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Do you assume that the President does not solicit nor pay attention to recommendations from senior military staff as to who should or should not be promoted? We don't have an autonomous military. That's why we haven't have a military coup.
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Eisenhower (a much underappreciated REPUBLICAN -- REAL Republican -- President who first made us aware of the "military-industrial complex", which he DESPISED and warned us about) was an OLD MAN when he took office. How many old men do you know who are involved in basketball?
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The President of the United States NEVER runs out of things to do. YOU could not handle his job for three days without suffering complete exhaustion. We cannot have the President burn out. He needs recreation. "All work and no play..." I suppose you never heard about that.
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Martyrs accomplish nothing. Most are forgotten in weeks.
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So you have reviewed ALL of Obama's appointments, in all parts of the Government, have you? I don't believe that for a millisecond.
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Nonsense. Reagan was in PUBLICITY units, period. He never did military service as people conceive of military service: carrying a gun, going into war zones, fiting an enemy.
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There are a very few extreme pacifists who consent to be killed by dictators rather than fite back. Fortunately, many of them are killed off before they pass on any genes responsible for such madness.
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Making a statement of intent is not lying, even if you don't deliver on it entirely. Obama HAS removed lots of troops from Iraq. He must be pressed to remove the rest. But promising something and not living up to it is NOT lying. Dictionary.com for "lie": "to express what is false; convey a false impression". Note the PRESENT tense, "is" false. Statements of intentions for the future are ipso facto not lies.

(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,454 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 8:13 PM

 
McCain on Palin over Obama. John McCain has disgraced himself in stating, on Fox News Sunday today, that "of course" Sarah Palin could defeat President Obama in 2012 if she chose to run against him. I left a bunch of comments in reply to pre-existing comments at the Huffington Post/AOL news story about that statement. The following 32 comments, comprising 1,880 words, are representative. I also put up a few others more concerned with things like improper language in some people's remarks.

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McCain is still trying to rationalize away something for which he was never guilty, the choice FOR HIM of Sarah Palin as VP candidate, which was made by the Invisible Hand, the collective Republican Presidency that saddled us with the actor Reagan (the most brilliant actor in the history of the world, who had billions of credulous people believing he was really the President of the United States) and the marionette Dubya. McCain's campaign was flailing about, and about to fail, when the puppetmasters chose McCain IF he would let them name the VP candidate. THEY chose Palin, one of their very rare blunders of consequence; McCain had nothing to do with it. He checked her out only minimally, then signed on the dotted line, selling his political soul to the invisible, nameless cabal of Republican powerholders without whom he had no chance of winning the nomination. If he were a man of honor, he would have answered the question about Sarah Palin with, "Don't be ridiculous. There's no way in hell that that boob could win the White House." He should then have told the world his shameful secret, that he was so desperate to win the nomination that he'd have chosen Bonzo the Chimp (if that were legal) if the powerplayers demanded it. But no, it seems he'll take that shameful secret to the grave, and not expose the role of faceless, nameless powerbrokers in the Republican Party in deciding who gets the nomination -- virtually every time.
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How sad, to think so absurd a thought is reasonable. What astonishes me is that so-called CONSERVATIVES think that electing a WOMAN President and Commander-in-Chief is somehow CONSERVATIVE, when it is actually RADICAL LEFT, lesbian feminism. Plainly we are seeing not Conservatism at work, which defends our traditions -- which do not include a woman President and Commander-in-Chief -- but TRIBALISM, in which anyone from among "Us" is better than anyone from among "Them".
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How is Radical Feminism traditional Americanism?
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"The media" are not a monolith but include diverse voices, including conservative newspapers, radio talk shows, and Fox News Channel. So you are talking nonsense.
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Republicans from Reagan to Bush II OCTUPLED the national debt, borrowing from COMMUNIST China, and you're complaining about Obama's budgetary attempts to mitigate the Great Recession?
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If Hillary Clinton, an able, intelligent woman, was defeated for the Democratic nomination, what chance has Sarah Palin of capturing the Republican nomination?
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That has ALWAYS been U.S. policy. As it is, "Israel" got about 60% of Palestine, a country they stole right out from under the people who had lived there for centuries. How can they complain that they need to steal even MORE of Palestine?
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A hostile article in Britain's Daily Mail newspaper said of that Spain trip: "The exact cost of the trip is unclear as Mrs Obama, 46, and her friends are footing personal expenses themselves - which is just as well"

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1300852/Spanish-police-close-public-beach-Michelle-Obamas-250k-Spanish-holiday.html#ixzz1Nm9XlERz

So which is it: you want the First Lady to be a prisoner in the White House? Or you want the President's family to risk assassination whenever and wherever they travel?
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So you are pretending that it is the President's "agenda" that you are concerned about. Do you really think you're fooling anyone?
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Why can't the Radical Right ever get anything right? January 2009 to May 2011 is NOT three years. Your political reasoning is no better than your math.
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Israel may be the country you identify with, but Americans don't give a fig about Israel.
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Rush Limbaugh has been divorced THREE TIMES. That's "family values", in your view?
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She QUIT mid-term, in the office of a governor of a state with fewer people than my COUNTY.
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I guess you're a Radical Zionist if you are so blinded by your ideology that you cannot see that it is OBAMA who schooled Netanyahu. And you know why? Because the President of the United States can DESTROY Israel any time he wants, simply by NOT sending it U.S. taxpayer dollars and NOT defending it in the UN or in the event of a military attack from the Arabs, Russia, and China. Netanyahu puts on a brave face, but he is shaking in his hobnail boots.
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How do you people keep repeating the same nonsense year after year about Obama never having had a real job? The man is 49 years old and has been out of law school for 20 years, supporting himself (and making MILLIONS of dollars as an author). He practiced civil-rights law, taught law at the college level, and was an Illinois State Senator before becoming President. How is the practice of law, the teaching of law, and holding public office in a state legislature not having a real job? You people make no sense, but you keep repeating the same NONsense year after year, as tho you think that people actually believe it.
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In all fairness (and Liberals must be fair, always), Ms. Palin actually said that you can see Russia from an Alaskan island (Little Diomede), which is true, at least on a clear day, since Russia's Big Diomede Island is only 2.4 miles away. It is Tina Fey on SNL who gave us the silly "I can see Russia from my house" line, and it was intended to be comic hyperbole, not to be taken seriously.
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He could, and should, have said "I'm not going to comment on that. No one can see into the future."
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But if Palin WERE the nominee, it would be great for the economy, with the Radical Right and corporations wasting hundreds of millions of dollars but in the process employing thousands of people to print the useless posters and make and air the useless political ads. It would also empower Democrats to redirect some of the Presidential campaign and PAC money to Democratic candidates for both houses of Congress. So it would do some good for the Nation, tho not for the Republican Party. Wouldn't that be sad?
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What is not obvious is why Congress has not extricated itself from the morass of corruption by money from donors who demand favors in return for their campaign contributions, simply by enacting public financing of campaigns and forbidding the Supreme Court to rule against restrictions on private money by putting that law beyond judicial review (which Congress can do in accord with Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution). Do they PREFER to be bullied by the rich, to being able to vote their conscience, always, and not fear that they won't have enuf money to run for re-election? I wouldn't.
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Most days she would only have to find her way from the living quarters to the West Wing of the White House, and some butler or Marine guard could help her out.
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"I read them all." "What do you mean by ...?" Etc., from the Katie Couric interview as only one example of a public display on her part of vast ignorance. Of course ignorance is NOT the same as stupidity, but the two do tend to go together.
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Who, exactly, do you think currently does the fiting? The rich? No, it's all those people at the bottom of society, who just barely reach adulthood without starving, thanks to those "entitlements", who fite the wars, and staff the police departments and fire departments that keep us safe. Do you really believe the rich will consent to be drafted and sent to the wars they are all for, until they are told THEY will have to fite?
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No one has to answer any question he doesn't want to. There's always the pithy, "No comment", you know.
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I give up. For whom does the Huffington Post/AOL work? Senator McCain is a member of Congress. Congress was consulted on intervention in Libya; the UN authorized that action; the President acted. What is your problem with that? The last declared war was WWII. Yes, we should always declare war before going to war, but few of us have been adamant about that in every case. I'm one of them. If going to war is the right thing to do, then Congress should be glad to declare war. As for the Patriot Act, I have to check what provisions were renewed and see if those are the ones that Liberals were concerned about. The Act was very sweeping, and few people objected to some of its provisions. But if the onerous, oppressive provisions were extended, then Liberals must campaign against Obama -- not, however, to the point of working for Palin.
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$200,000 a year, or, a figure I heard in 2008, $179,000 a year, is NOT "a modest income". This is the same nonsense the Radical Right uses to defend lower taxes on people who make $250,000 a year and more, the idea that such wealth is "a modest income".
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No, a ghost writer wrote a book with Palin's name on it. And Palin makes THOUSANDS of dollar per speech on an endless speaking tour, as many dates as she can book.
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Tho Obama has alienated most Liberals in some degree, there is plenty to show for Obama's tenure thus far, including health-insurance coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, and coverage for kids still in college, under their parents' insurance; reining in abusive fees by credit-card issuers; and other policies that show concern for the poor and middle class. Since the Republican Party shows no such compassion, it would be extremely difficult for Liberals and moderates to vote Republican. Thus, unless Democrats can run a real Liberal to replace Obama as the candidate, it is most unlikely that any significant number of Liberals and moderates will be able to vote Republican.
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You do know, of course, that "thug" is code? Now, pls tell me of a single national campaign that has NOT looked for "dirt" (typed right) about ALL competitors? Since "dirt" would be indications of a lack of character on the part of a candidate, it is an OBLIGATION of all campaigns to look for "dirt" that reveals unfitness of character.
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Spare us military rule, thank you.
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The President has NOTHING to do with the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) formula, which has been in place for many years. The formula is wrong, and Congress should act to fix it, but that has nothing to do with the President. Obama did NOT freeze Social Security payments; Congress allowed that to happen, and Congress has to fix it. Why isn't anyone agitating for Congress to act now?
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The bridge was not to "nowhere" but to an airport. She could have defended it on that basis, except that the costs per passenger were too high.
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What economy are you talking about? The U.S. economy is $14.2T, not $4T. And of COURSE you can run an economy on any energy source that works. Windmills and solar panels, geothermal, hydro, and other nonfossil energy sources, work fine. The only way oil and coal can compete is thru being allowed to deduct all costs of production and distribution as pre-tax expenses. If all the costs of installing renewable energy were ALSO deductible as pre-tax expenses, renewables would wipe out nonrenewables in a matter of months.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,454 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 8:46 PM

 

Letting Illegals Stay, Despite the Law. I left the following 74 replies to comments (comprising about 4,000 words) at a Huffington Post story, "Chipotle, Undocumented Workers, And The Trouble With 'Enforcement-Only' Immigration", to clarify some issues in immigration.

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WE didn't DO that to the people of Central America. In the 1840s, the United States was approached by people in some countries of Central America about having their countries join the U.S. as States. Had that been done then, almost 170 years ago, and Mexico annexed in 1850, after the Mexican War, that entire region would be prosperous Sunbelt states today. If we do it now, in 30 years the dire poverty of that entire region will disappear. In the interim, however, the United States must protect and serve its OWN people. If Salvadorans want the right to work in the District of Columbia, let them agitate to have their government petition for statehood.
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I'd have NO PROBLEM deporting 12 million illegals. No hesitancy, either. You either HAVE the right to be here, because you followed the rules, or you do NOT. And if you do NOT, go home! (Besides, the number of illegals, tho impossible to establish with any certitude, since they hide from the Census, is probably much less due to the Great Recession.)
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Pls do not blame multinational corporations for the monetization of subsistence-agriculture societies that are, today, much as they were in the 14th Century. People everywhere want to join the 21st Century, and they are entitled to -- in their own country. The Chipotle worker mentioned made $8 an HOUR, not a day. Certainly other employers, who exploit illegal immigrants by paying them less than the law requires for legal workers, need to be punished with extreme severity. Flogging would do nicely; it would hurt a lot more, and make more of an impression, than fines that might not remotely make up for the money they saved by exploiting helpless people. And a flogged fatcat is not going to want to be flogged again, tho he'd be perfectly happy to face fines again. Exile is a good punishment that the world has let pass. Perhaps if we exiled, to, say El Salvador, offending employers, they will learn their lesson for life, and perhaps use their entrepreneurial skills to create jobs in El Salvador so Salvadorans don't have to leave their own country, and family, to find work.
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From the link you provided: "As discussed below, the Department of State [of Colorado] is nearly certain that 106 individuals are improperly registered to vote." Is it possible that as many as 11,805 noncitizens in Colorado are registered to vote? Sure. We may well need to titen the registration process. If an illegal alien votes, s/he should be deport[ ]ed. But to suggest that there is a serious problem of illegals voting is a huge exaggeration. There are, for instance, over 5 million people in Colorado, and fewer than 12,000 are said, in the report you cite, to be POSSIBLE illegal voters. All <12K should be deported, of course, but let's not think our system is being fundamentally subverted by such trivia.
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All illegals caut here should be fingerprinted before deportation, and if caut back here later, illegally, should be punished severely, as by flogging or imprisonment for several months at hard labor, such as working in a chain gang on repairing roads, digging irrigation/drainage ditches, etc., and then tattooed prominently (as on the back of the hand) with a mark to indicate a two-time offender, so any third invasion can be punished even more severely, as by a large tattoo on the FACE before deportation. We cannot simply consent to repeat invasions.
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I dout there are significant numbers of illegal European immigrants. LEGAL immigration from Europe dried up a couple of decades ago, and there are many unfilled quota spaces for Europeans. There are, however, indeed many illegal Asian immigrants, few of which are caut in debacles such as the Golden Venture ship grounding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Venture). I don't care where illegals come from. Deport them all. Some people from Communist China might well be entitled to refugee status, of course, but most are only economic migrants.
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I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean RACIAL issue? If so, say so. Is it a RELIGIOUS issue, in that most illegals from Latin America are Catholic, and the ruling class of the United States (except for the Supreme Court, of course) is Protestant? If you mean to say something, why don't you just say it, and not leave us gessing?
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My first job was in McDonald's, right out of high school. I sure as heck would not want to have been unable to find that job because somebody who was not entitled to be here already had it. The issue is not "having" to fite over low-paid jobs but the RIGHT to accept a job. If we had a labor shortage, that's one thing. Instead, we have a catastrophic Great Recession. Even in times of labor shortage, we can fill undesirable jobs with LEGAL immigrants on short-term stays. thru a renewed Bracero program (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero).
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What can people you cheat do? Hm. Let me think. Oh, I know. They can STAB you. There are more dangers to an underclass of illegals than you might think.
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Pls cut the Cold War era, Communist crap. The United States has done far more good for Latin America in recent decades than all the harm it may have done in the past, and most of that past harm was in merely working with governments that we did not install and could not oust without being called "imperialists". 70 years ago, much of Latin America was controlled by dictators or corrupt oligarchies that might as well have been formal dictatorships. Now, thanks to constant pressure from the U.S. Government, and assistance from U.S. unions and NGOs, there are almost no dictatorships in the whole Continent.
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Amnesty INVARIABLY produces more illegal immigration. NO amnesty. Mass deportation first, then we'll talk about what else needs to be done.
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No one believes the NEXT amnesty will be the LAST amnesty. We were told that the LAST amnesty would be the last, but all thinking illegals assumed there would be future amnesties, so if only they could hide long enuf, they would, eventually, gain the right to be here. There IS a long-term solution -- two actually. (1) An EU-type arrangement of full integration of economies, with free flow of both capital and LABOR; (2) annexation to the United States, as States of the Union, of the sending countries, so we gain the right and power to change those countries so they work for their people, and for us as well. But we never do anything fully right in this country. We take half-measures, which invariably fail, rather than full-measures, which would invariably work. Thus "Obamacare" rather than single-payer. Single-payer would work, brilliantly. "Obamacare"? Not so much. If we want a permanent solution to the problem of illegal immigration from Latin America, we must transform the countries now sending miserable hordes across our border. And we can't do that with the arrangements now in place.
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You don't punish the workers for the crimes of the bosses. Punish the individual responsible, not the entity at large. That would just victimize workers and worsen unemployment. Kindly THINK before you speak.
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There are 6 billion people in the Third World, and many more are born each day. There is NO level of immigration to the United States that can satisfy the demand for admission from the Third World.
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Nonsense. In Spanish, the terms are (honest) "ilegales" and (dishonest) "indocumentados". There is no basis in logic or grammar to object to the term "illegals". We really don't have to load down language with needless extra words, like "aliens" every time "illegal(s)" is mentioned.
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We most definitely need to stop thinking every kid needs to go to college, and recognize that there are a host of honorable, well-compensated trades that we should be training kids for who don't have either the ability, or simply interest, to pursue.
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Actually, PR is NOT part of the U.S. It is a semi-independent "Free Associated State" within the realm of SOME U.S. laws, but not all. For instance, Federal taxes levied there go to the "Commonwealth" government, not to Washington. And there is a serious question as to whether a resident of PR can run for President, because altho s/he is a "natural born citizen", s/he may not have resided in the "United States" for the requisite period before running. Puerto Rico's bizarre status -- first as a colony of a country that should never have had colonies, then as a "Commonwealth", in neither/nor limbo -- has kept it poor for generations. We need to bring it into the Union: http://www.expansionistparty.org/PR.html. And once we do, we can get rid of Spanish on ballots anywhere the people don't want it. Most Puerto Ricans can indeed speak English. They are taut it every day in school. Not so Mexicans, Guatemalans, etc.
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Pls, everyone who links to a video, explain how it relates to the article we are talking about. And don't introduce irrelevancies.
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So are MOST Democrats [hardworking family people of faith]. And polls and exit polling show plainly that by far most Hispanic voters ARE Democrats. The only exception is Cubans, drawn from the rich and middle class who left the island after the Communist takeover.
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Kindly do not "correct" me by supplying WRONG information. The Spanish version of Puerto Rico's name is "Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_rico), the English version of which is, AS I SAID, "Free Associated State [of Puerto Rico]". In that the U.S. Constitution does not RECOGNIZE such a form of association, for purposes of U.S. laws, it is "territory" (property) of the United States, but ordinary "territories" do not have the powers of the "Commonwealth" of Puerto Rico. And please learn how to QUOTE. And reply AT the comment you are replying to, so you don't HAVE to quote. But above all, consult a reputable REFERENCE before "correcting" something that is already correct.
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The job pays what it pays, to whoever applies. The presence or absence of illegal applicants does not change the pay rate.
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You contradict yourself in telling people to "work on a legal path to citizenship" and accepting that the very first step on that path, being born in a place your mother had no right to be, is illegal but that doesn't matter. And if you shut down a business, you throw EVERYBODY out of work. That is not smart. Punish the guilty -- the employer who knowingly hires illegals -- not the innocent (other workers in that business).
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Let's not forget that many illegals present very legal-looking documents.
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The employer shouldn't keep money intended for illegal workers; the worker who defied the law shouldn't get it; it should go to the Government to offset part of the costs of enforcing the law and deporting illegals.
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Stop the Communist crap. There are, aside from Cuba, essentially NO dictatorships left in Latin America: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/1022/Where-have-all-Latin-America-s-dictators-gone , so your first two points are pure b.s. Your third point is irresponsible lunacy, and paranoid to boot. The U.S. Government is "supporting drug cartels"? Perhaps you are on drugs yourself; if not, seek professional help.
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If people born in the United States are not to be considered U.S. citizens, then NO ONE could be considered a U.S. citizen, because at some point, present or past, EVERYONE except naturalized citizens acquired citizenship by being born here.
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Ah, another dishonest euphemism: "unauthorized immigrants". What next, a study to prove that the international drug trade actually makes money for us
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Speak for yourself. 250 MILLION Americans, at least, would prefer to Buy American but aren't given that choice by greedy corporations -- not citizens.
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What are you talking about, "indirect tariffs"? Tariffs made the United States a great manufacturing and economic power. The lowering or removal of tariffs has robbed us of much of our manufacturing AND economic power. That is what is "Not a great idea": free trade.
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Mexico has a very short border with the rest of Latin America. We have a very LONG border with Mexico. Guess what? It is much easier to control a short border than long border. So Mexican Immigration's experience may be entirely irrelevant to our problems. Of course, if we annexed Mexico and Central America as Sunbelt States of the Union, our border with South America would be extremely short -- and in nearly impassable jungle.
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There is no proof nor disproof for undated prophecies. Give us a date-certain for the collapse of the dollar, then we will be able to evaluate, AFTER that date, whether you were right or, more likely, wrong. But this discussion does not belong in a separate location, only at the original post.
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Actually, the Great Wall of China worked fine. Some enemies managed to get AROUND it, but not OVER it. Some may have been invited THRU it by one Chinese faction eager to use their forces to defeat their Chinese rivals. But in general, the Great Wall worked great.
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NO, do NOT fine the business; prosecute and fine -- or imprison, or flog -- the INDIVIDUAL responsible for violating the law. You could DESTROY the business, and thereby put legal workers out of work.
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Amerinds were slautering each other for centuries -- Aztecs killed as many as 100,000 of their neighbors in some years, in human sacrifice -- before the arrival of Europeans. They were living at subsistence. There are BILLIONS of people around the world who would do almost ANYTHING to have the rights of American Indians. And in fact, if they weren't already here, they would be trying desperately to get into the United States -- not to their particular ancestral lands but to the United States as a society.
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Actually, illegal immigration has more likely militated AGAINST outsourcing, by supplying downward pressu[r]e on domestic wage rates.
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You are making that up. NAFTA has been of enormous aid to Mexico. Corporations do not have to steal land. They have the money to BUY land.
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What standard of proof do we require? There are lots of illegals who produce very convincing documentation.
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I have already pointed out that you MISREPRESENT what that report says, which is that only extremely trivial numbers of illegals are BELIEVED to have voted illegally. But let people follow that link and see for themselves that less than 200 are known to have voted and less than 12,000 are THOUGHT to have voted in Colorado, a state of 5 million people.
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NO, birth in the United States determines U.S. citizenship. Parentage is a second type of qualification, and being born here of foreign parents generally entitles a child to a choice of citizenship at the age of majority. As for who paid for the medical care -- if any -- during those births, in this country, most illegals pay their own, and do without what they can't afford. If they have a job with medical coverage, they gain the right to such coverage by virtue of their employment.
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Pls supply (a) URL to a reputable source for your assertion about 70% of births being paid for by Medicaid, and (b) provide proof as to what SHARE of Medicaid-assisted births are to illegal-alien parents.
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It is indeed hard to understand why there are no borders against the rich.
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On the contrary, when Obama took office, the U.S. was losing 655,000 jobs a MONTH. Now we are losing essentially NO jobs, which means that the Obama Administration (if any Administration can be credited with job creation) has created 655,000 jobs a month, for well over two years.
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Pls explain how a lack of immunizations in OTHER people has anything to do with the health of Americans who DO get their immunizations.
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Why are you and so many others eager to close down businesses and throw people out of work? If a manager or executive knowingly violates the law, the fault and legal liability is HIS, not the company's. HE should be punished INDIVIDUALLY.
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You're talking nonsense. There are MILLIONS of people willing to work at unskilled jobs with no responsibilities beyond the actual time they put in. Recent high-school graduates, college students who need some supplemental income, as well as retirees who want a part-time job, and regular workers who don't have skills and don't have the money to acquire higher skills, etc.
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You are accepting the "high series" population projection for the U.S., which is not likely to prove correct. Immigrants tend to emulate the wider society, and per-woman birthrates drop. Europe's population is declining, and Europeans would plainly much prefer to admit Christian Latin Americans who speak European languages than Moslems, Chinese, people from the Indian Subcontinent or other areas who do not share Europe's Western Civilization. But population control, a huge necessity, has very little to do with the issue of illegal immigration.
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The bracero program worked fine, and could work perfectly, so pls do not assert that guest-worker programs have failed.
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The problem of free trade is NOT with Mexico but with CHINA. So why are you blaming Mexicans?
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"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." THAT is what Christians favor. Plainly you have forgotten that. Enforcing laws is something everyone can sign onto. Killing Mexicans for trying to enter the United States is something NO Christian can sign onto, unless they were doing so as an invading army killing Americans. Oh, I guess I need to add, for some people, Mexicans are NOT doing any such thing.
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No one is "supported by the government" long-term without working who CAN work. Stop falsifying the laws.
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There is a wide misunderstanding -- sometimes willfully induced by people who know it is false -- that Latino immigrants do not assimilate. The reality is that a far higher percentage of present-day immigrants learn English than did immigrants in earlier eras, who had to have their children translate everything. That is because of TV in the home and the wide availability of teaching materials in audio and video form within the home. English-language teaching programs are one of, if not the single largest, advertiser/s on Spanish-language TV in the United States.
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FALSE. Immigrant: "a person who migrates to another country, usually for permanent residence": http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/immigrant. The fine legal niceties you try to impose upon the English language do not work. English does not listen to you, nor the USCIS. Legal or illegal, someone who moves from another country is an immigrant.
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Believe it or not, there are a lot of places all around this planet where children can live very good lives. Indeed, some inner-city immigrant children here are in far worse danger in the U.S. than they would be in Mexico.
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Your grandfather obeyed suchever laws as regulated immigration. The illegal alien, from whatever country, does not. Big difference. Another big difference, when your grandfather came to this country, the world had perhaps 2.5 billion people, and the U.S. had perhaps 125 million. Now the world has almost 7 billion, and the U.S. over 300 million. There is a limit to how many people we can accept.
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The way to fix the world is to take in not individual immigrants but entire countries, with their people and resources, as States of the Union. Then we can improve life THERE so only the "best and britest" want to come HERE, and struggle with an unfamiliar culture.
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If illegal aliens are using the Social Security numbers of children, then they are paying into those children's Social Security account's tally for purposes of figuring retirement benefits. The illegal worker himself gets no benefit from those earnings taken as SS taxes. As long as the identity theft of children does not produce other problems, and the illegal stays out of legal trouble, then, the child actually BENEFITS from the misuse of his or her SS#.
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A candidate's religion DOES matter to most Conservatives. Why do you think we have had only ONE Catholic President?
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Why can't Republicans understand that there are TWO HALVES to the deficit equation, income and outgo? You DON'T have to cut spending if you increase revenues. It IS possible to raise taxes on the rich. There's no provision in the Constitution against it.
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Mexico's resources are not used for wide public benefit because they have always been conrolled by the rich, who wanted only THEMSELVES to benefit. That is where WE are headed, as more and more of the Nation's wealth falls into fewer and fewer hands.
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Illegal aliens are NOT eligible for welfare. Stop falsifying the state of the law.
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The Constitution does not even say that immigration law must be blind to race, religion, sexual orientation, color of hair, or anything else. People are entitled to equal treatment once they are allowed in, not before. Until then, they are just foreigners, with no right of entry.
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We did NOT "entice" illegal aliens to come to the United States. That is an inexcusable bit of nonsense.
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There is no such thing as an "anchor baby" because having a child in the United States grants the PARENTS no special rights under U.S. immigration law: http://www.scottimmigration.net/AnchorBaby.pdf.
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Yes, Mexicans have been stopped by the vicious ruling class and the officials they own, for centuries. The best thing that could have happened is if the U.S. had taken all of Mexico after the Mexican War, not just the northern half. Then all of Mexico would be prosperous Sunbelt states, and Mexicans would live as well as we do -- without having to leave home.
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If I were President, I would CRUSH "sanctuary cities". One of the causes of the Civil War was asserted "nullification" by states. What states cannot nullify, neither can cities.
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NO, no one should have automatic entry to the United States, and most foreign students' skills are needed far more in their own country than ours. They should go home and help their own country.
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Nonsense. "Undocumented" is a LIE. The reason they don't have documents is that they are not ENTITLED to documents because they are ILLEGALS.
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For that, we would have to have a relationship with all the world such as the European Union has among European countries. You can't have free movement of people between rich countries and poor without enormous disruption.
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And we've had laws against murder for millennia, but there are still murders. Your solution, I suppose, is just to legalize murder, or give it a different name.
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So we could have 500 million people pour into the United States from the Third World, and that would be fine with you, eh?
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I'm the 13th generation in this area, and I have to show proof of citizenship to get a job.
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Some considerable free movement between the U.S. and Mexico would actually be much in both countries' interest -- even if we do not annex Mexico as several states. For one thing, Americans could live well on Social Security in most of Mexico, if the U.S. negotiated a treaty to allow Medicare to operate in Mexico. For another, younger workers could contribute to Social Security in the U.S.
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Drivel. Mexico was a mess when it was New Spain, and Mexicans blamed Spain. Then it was a mess as an independent country, and they blamed the United States. Then they gave up on trying to ignore the giant nextdoor, and negotiated NAFTA, which helped a lot, but hurt some sectors of the economy. Latin America is very good at blaming others for their problems, and very bad at assuming responsibility for their own misbehavior, then making the kinds of fundamental cultural change necessary to giving the people a good life.
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"Tens of millions" [of illegals]? Kindly don't make up "facts". You really think Liberals want the United States to be destroyed culturally and economically? Are you out of your mind? We LOVE this country, and believe every word of our national credo, all that "liberty and justice for all" stuff. (The U.S., by the way, is not "her", but "it". Or "we".) Liberals want everyone on Earth to live the life they deserve, good or bad dependent upon their own nature, not artificial limits. We do NOT want open borders unless we gain some power to improve things in countries on the other side of those borders, as we would get if we ANNEXED Mexico and Central America as states.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,452 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM

 
Views of Obama on HuffPost/AOL. I left the following 85 comments (comprising about 6,700 words) after the online story "Analysis: Reimagining Obama After Gutsy Bin Laden Raid".

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I'll let you in on a secret: President Obama has the same personality defect that most people who achieve high office in a non-meritocratic democracy have: they want to be liked. They are encouraged in this dysfunctional behavior by a system that rewards the gladhanding, backslapping Good Old Boy, and frowns upon the dour man of principle. Obama has a specially bad case of this disorder, in that he was an interracial child who encountered a lot of hostility not because of WHO he is but WHAT he is. It became supremely important for him to be accepted REGARDLESS of what he is, by people he should have had the good sense to hold in contempt, but couldn't, because they held HIM in contempt, on account of something he could do nothing about. So he has spent his entire life trying to make peace with his myriad enemies, even if that meant selling out his friends. His friends would forgive him for cozying up to his enemies. Or at least that has been his 'reasoning'. So Obama can sell out the people who put him in office to try to mollify the people who voted against him the first time, and voted against him in the midterm elections, and will vote against him in the next Presidential election, and still expect his friends never to lose patience and vote against him themselves.
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NO ONE overrules the President, if he is a REAL President -- unlike Reagan and Bush II, both of whom were puppets of a collective Presidency. You're talking nonsense. The President's military title is "Commander-in-Chief", not "Somewhere Down the Chain of Command"
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And you know all this because YOU were in the room during those deliberations, and YOU forced his hand. Yes, you know everything, far more than the President of the United States -- well, at least more than any BLACK President of the United States.
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Cut the crap. No one in the United States is STARVING -- except for the occasional child killed by their insane parents whom Child Protective Services don't hear about. But of course the Radical Right wants to fire everybody in Child Protective Services.
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You CANNOT blame Congress for ANYTHING during a Presidency of the other party. That's not the way things work in the real world. The PRESIDENT proposes legislation and the budget. If Congress REFUSES, or overrides a Presidential veto, you have a case. That RARELY happens. The System is based on COOPERATION: give to get. The President has veto power. If Congress sends a budget the President vetoes, the Government shuts down. "Compromise" is the lowercase-d democratic modus operandi. "Go along to get along" -- as long as you can do so without selling out fundamental principles.
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Huh? Are you saying that Bush refused to take advantage of an agreement with Pakistan to kill bin Laden? Republicans would be very surprised to hear that.
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How, pray, could raising taxes on the rich do anything BUT decrease the deficit? Perhaps you do not understand rudimentary economics: a deficit is the difference between income and outgo. You can decrease a deficit EITHER by decreasing outgo or increasing income. The way a government increases income is by RAISING TAXES. The tax cuts on the rich have RUINED this country. We must restore the tax rates on the rich before the Reaganite Plutocratic Revolution of 1986 ("Tax Reform Act of 1986"). Once we do that, we can PAY OFF the national debt and do EVERYTHING we should be doing. Why do people who are NOT rich fite so hard to keep the rich from paying higher taxes? Is any of them really so credulous that they believe the ridiculous lie that ANYBODY can be rich, and they wouldn't want taxes to be high on the rich because someday THEY might have to pay those tax rates? Who, that is now poor or middle class, would mind for an INSTANT paying higher taxes once rich, if AFTER paying taxes, they are STILL rich?
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You are a petty, foolish person who pretends that the President had no choice. Of course he had choices. Other anti-Obama commenters have suggested that the Bush Administration got the intel that led to this action, but isn't it curious that Bush didn't kill Usama, that is, CHOSE not to act on the intel that Obama DID act on?
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That is a sensationally nonsensical comment. EVERYBODY knew that Navy Seals carried out that raid. Who CARES where any given Seals team is stationed? There is NOTHING dangerous in anything you mention. You're just grasping at straws.
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Gas under Bush was indeed at one point $4. Gas prices go up, gas prices go down, and rarely does the President have anything to do with it.
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How, pray, does a NON-leader get to be President of the United States? You make no sense.
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The Commander-in-Chief is NOT supposed to put himself in danger carrying out ordinary military operations. MANY battles have proven disasters, and even empires fallen, when the commanding general/emperor was KILLED in combat. But the Radical Right doesn't care if the United States falls, as long as that black man in the White House is removed, by whatever means necessary. Question: will they really be happy with President BIDEN?
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There are a great many bad first-pitches by celebrities. They are NOT professional baseball players. You have a very peculiar value system if you think the President of the United States should be a pitching expert, and that not pitching a baseball to YOUR satisfaction means anything at all in the real worl[d], a place you might like to visit someday. Never mind. You wouldn't like the real world.
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Stop the dopy attacks on illegal immigrants, who have nothing to do with anything the President has done. Illegals are NOT living high off the hog at your expense.
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Curious that each of you misspelled "site"/"sight", a different wrong spelling in each post. And, ben..., you presumably meant "Obama" at the head of your post but wrote "Osama" -- confusion resultant from a moronic misspelling of the terrorist's name, which is Usama. There is no O in the Arabic alphabet, and if media had just always spelled bin Laden's name "Usama", as they SHOULD have, we would all have been spared hundreds of wrong references this past week.
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Barack Hussein Obama is ALREADY history. He made history when he broke the racial barrier to the White House. YOU, by contrast, are NOT going to appear anywhere in history, are you? Not you, not any of the meanspirited racists who haunt online comments areas to spill their bile.
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No one gets to be President of the United States without a huge ego -- or people putting into office someone they can control. I suspect that YOU have a narcissistic disorder, thinking that anyone wants to hear your self-vaunting drivel -- YOU know better than everybody else. YOU know better than the writer of this article. YOU have some kind of inside information that nobody else does. NO, you really DON'T.
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How very interesting. Public employees get NO credit for the work they do; the ordinary working people who do all the actual work of corporations get NO credit. Only the chief executive officer gets any credit for the work of the actual workers in civilian society. But only the actual workers in the military society are to be given credit? What an interesting view of the world the Radical Right has: NO working people except soldiers get any credit for anything they do.
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C'est bon. The Radical Right knows nothing, and is proud of it.
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Cry "Thief!" if you ARE the thief doesn't always work, because not everyone's a fool. Liberals aren't the ones who hate people because they're different; we hate despicable BEHAVIOR and ATTITUDES. We are the people who created the United States, when all the good Conservatives wanted to stay colonials of Britain, without a vote in Parliament. Long before that, we were the people who followed Jesus when he showed us a God of Love in lieu of a God of Wrath. WE are not the haters.
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Let me say clearly now, for people who do not understand how Government and the military work: NOBODY overrules the President of the United States. There is NO ONE ON EARTH who can overrule the President of the United States. And NO ONE in Government, nor any combination of people except both Houses of Congress operating by supermajority on an act of legislation -- and this was not an act of legislation -- can overrule the President of the United States. NO ONE in the military can overrule the COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. Generals do not order the Commander-in-Chief around, any more than privates order generals around. I repeat "President of the United States" for the sake of people who do not understand the majesty and power of that office, nor that the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES is virtually sovereign upon this planet, and NO ONE is over him. NO ONE. The people of the United States, collectively, are over him. But no one within Government, nor in any foreign government, can overrule the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
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But still you spend LOTS of time here. What kind of person spends a lot of time commenting at an "insignificant" service? Oh, I know, I know! Please, please, let me answer! Please!: an insignificant person, that's what kind of person spends a lot of time commenting at an insignificant service. So, which is it? Is HP/AOL insignificant? or are you? The answer is either "both" or "neither". Choose wisely. What am I saying? You can't choose wisely.
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Sadly, the Radical Right network of interconnected, talking-points-issued mindless haunters of Internet sites (probably connected by email alerts as to which stories to swarm) have indeed descended like vultures upon HuffPost/AOL stories. You still are very certain that nobody realizes that there are only about 3 dozen of you at any given story, posting dozens or hundreds of RadRite propaganda pieces in hopes of fooling casual visitors into thinking that the Nation is dominantly Radical-Right racist. But there are still only a few dozen of you at any given story. And once people realize that they recognize the same style -- even under a different username; you people change usernames like most people change channels on a bad TV nite -- and come to realize that there are only a few dozen RadRite propagandists hounding Liberals from story to story, they learn to relax and consign you to the shelf of meaningless nuisance.
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It's a pity that at the end of the Civil War we didn't sterilize every single Reb, and replace them with immigrants. This country would be 100% better today.
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Let us be clear: there is NOTHING President Obama could do that would in any way alter your racially-biased hatred of him. Just admit to the obvious, and save us the second it takes each of us to realize that you are a mindless bigot.
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Ah, we see one of the RadRite swarmers in his/her regular garb, "dumpdemliars1". So, how many other Radical Right racist haunters of Internet sites did you bring with you? Do you people have a central mailing list that alerts you to which stories to swarm? Or is there a RadRite talking-points website you all check into each day to see which URL's to swarm?
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Bush did NOT get Bin Laden. If BUSH had this info -- which would have HAD to be the case if the info came from waterboarding, which Obama forbade on being inaugurated -- and did not act on it, why are you not furious with BUSH? You really can't have it both ways: either the info did NOT come from waterboarding/coercive interrogation under Bush, or Bush HAD the information but REFUSED to act on it. There is no way your side looks good in this. Assuming the truth of the assertions about the Seals killing Usama bin Laden recently, LIBERALS killed Bin Laden, NOT Conservatives.
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Empty, nonsensical lies about Democrats rewriting history mean NOTHING. Obama became President by nearly 10 MILLION votes in 2008. And if we had compulsory voting, he'd have won by 15 MILLION votes or even more. Midterm elections get something like half the turnout of Presidential elections, so, absent compulsory voting, the Republican PERMANENT MINORITY can make hay while the nonvoting-sun shines. But 2012 is a Presidential year, and the people who came out in 2008 but stayed home in 2010 will be out voting again in 2012. We'll see how that turns out for y'all THEN, won't we?
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Drivel. If waterboarding produced the info that revealed Usama's hiding place, why didn't BUSH kill Usama years ago? You are talking pure nonsense. EIGHT-year-old intelligence about a hideout Usama had been using for only SIX years doesn't cut it. Got it? Waterboarding did NOT catch Usama. BUSH did not catch, nor kill, Usama. OBAMA killed Usama (if what we are told is true, and Usama didn't die years ago, of natural causes; Al-Qaeda would be glad to play along with a recent, military, and thus "heroic" death rather than admit that Usama died of kidney disease -- weakness or, worse, being struck down by God!). Bush did NOT kill Usama bin Laden, and had the good grace to congratulate Obama. Why can't the Radical Right have George W. Bush's good grace? If you think Bush's information-gathering should be credited with finding Bin Laden, then SURELY Bush HAD to know where Usama was but REFUSED to kill him. Your call. But, call it as you may, YOU LOSE, and Liberals win. Conservatives couldn't do the job. Liberals could. And Liberals DID.
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So we should give the working man in the world's corporations ALL the credit for the successes of their corporations and the world's economies, and NONE to the rich, right?
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Who, at high levels of politics, is NOT a narcissist?
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AIG has paid back BILLIONS of dollars. GM has paid back billions, and is turning a profit. AIG is NOT receiving any Government moneys anymore, and tho the Government SHOULD rein in bonuses, there has to be legal warrant for such legislation. The Federal Government is STOPPED from taking full command of the economy, by the Constitution, by the Republican Party, and by popular distaste for Government intervention in the holy "free market". The line between the free market's operating responsibly and corporate managements' acting rapaciously is NOT really that fine, but Republicans want Government to "keep its hands off free-market capitalism". In that ONLY Conservatives/Radical Rightists use the term "Obamacare", we are JUSTIFIED in being extremely skeptical of your claim to have voted for Obama. Sad to say, there are many LIARS in the world, and it would be foolish to take any pseudonymous commenter's word for what s/he says if it directly contradicts OTHER things s/he says.
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You were NOT in the room during deliberations. You know NOTHING of what happened but what you read, so don't pretend to know the whole truth when the rest of us know only part of it. You do NOT know how long discussions -- not "dithering" -- went on, nor what countervailing arguments were put forward for EACH alternative. You do not know ANYTHING about the diplomatic or realpoltic considerations that may have entered into the ultimate decision. You are NOT an expert in military affairs, or diplomatic affairs, or ANYTHING, or you would use your real name so we would KNOW to accord your opinions more respect than we accord the opinions of just any nut off the street.
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No one has any reason to believe YOUR version of events nor ANY unknown website's version of events but a legitimate, well-respected, facts-careful medium's website. "Socyberty.com", whatever that is, is UNKNOWN to the great preponderance of the world's informed population, so I will not waste my time reading what may very well be political FICTION. Kindly provide us a link to a REPUTABLE website we have reason to trust, for comparable information. Wikipedia has NO article on "socyberty.com", so serious people cannot take seriously assertions at that website that in any way contradict well-regarded news sources. Give us a URL to ABC/NBC/CBS/BBC/CBC News, Britain's Guardian newspaper, Le Monde, The Globe and Mail, Dawn (Pakistani English newspaper) or ANY respectable and credible news medium, and then MAYBE we will check out your assertions.
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No "martyr" is more dangerous dead than alive. That is all nonsense. When JFK was assassinated by a Communist, that did NOT make us more anti-Communist, but led us to give Southeast Asia over to Communism -- which ended up killing 2 or 3 million Cambodians. Had it not been for the living LBJ, the dead JFK's entire program would have vanished with his death. No one knows how many ideas failed with the death of their chief proponent, but it has to be a lot. Nazism did not gain renewed strength and fanatical adherence from the death of Adolf Hitler. Indeed, very often in history, an idea HAS been killed by killing its leader. Is Radical Islam such an idea? It has no single leader, but if ALL its major leaders were indeed killed off, would it survive? History provides absolutely no example of an idea outliving the violent death of all its proponents. If Jesus and all 12 of his Disciples had been killed at the same time, no one today would ever have heard of "Christianity".
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The Radical Right loons who talk about Obama lying can NEVER produce even ONE example of his having lied. Not living up to promises is not lying. People often promise things they can't stick to. That is sad, and possibly contemptible, but it is not lying. Lying is saying one thing when you know another is true. Obama's enemies cannot provide so much as ONE example of the President's saying ANYTHING that was, at the time he said it, demonstrably contrary to fact.
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How sad you Radical Right fools are. The President is not TOLD we are doing ANYTHING you don't allow us to do. The President of the United States is COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF of the U.S. military, all 1.2 MILLION in number. NO ONE "tells" him what to do. If you really believe that lunatic storyline, you need to be in a lunatic asylum, medicated or electro-shocked to try to get you back to sanity.
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If Bush developed this information, then he did not do anything with it. Now, do you really want us to believe that Bush had the information but refused to act on it? Choose wisely, if you can. This is, I should warn you, a Catch-22 situation. So be careful what you credit Bush with, because it can also condemn him -- and you.
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Ah, the old "devil's advocate" crap! Do you REALLY want to be held accountable for saying that Usama bin Laden was "innocent until proven guilty" -- in a court of law, as, for instance, in New York City's criminal courts? Didn't YOU PEOPLE want to forget the whole "innocent until proven guilty", no-incarceration-without-indictment 'b.s.' Don't try to turn tables on us. We don't cling to legal niceties out of naïveté. Liberals believe that where there is a QUESTION of guilt, there needs to be a trial. We also, however, understand that sometimes a trial really is just a waste of time, but that a civilized society can afford the time, trouble, and expense to go thru the motions for the sake of standing for a principle; but that sometimes a trial really is a waste of time, etc. If there are 6,000 eyewitnesses, and video of the conspiratorial talks leading up to the crime, and video shows the people before the killing rampage rushing out with machineguns blazing, we understand that we do NOT need a trial. We also understand that in time of war, trials are an unfortunate nonnecessity, but we can, and do, kill on sight. Liberals HATE war, and HATE the idea that we can be killed on sight by our wartime enemies as easily and 'legitimately' as we can kill them on sight. We HATE IT, but ACCEPT it. We do NOT hold trials for every soldier we shoot on a battlefield.
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No one in Government or the military tells the President/Commander-in-Chief they are doing ANYTHING he has told them not to do. In civilian life, that is punishable by termination; in the military, by EXtermination.
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An absolutely unsupported "BULL!" is not an answer. The indisputable fact is that the REPUBLICAN Party REFUSED to close the tax loophole that led to massive export of jobs.
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That is absolutely crazy, Know-Nothing b.s. A very large majority of all businesses in the U.S. are SMALL businesses. And they are loyal. It is only the MAJOR corporations that are actively treasonous, intent on maximizing profits at the expense of Americans. Taxes are on PROFITS, not revenues. No profits, not taxes. Think about that, for even 10 seconds.
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NAFTA was negotiated by George H.W. Bush, and was intended to keep Mexicans HOME, not pouring over the border. So which are you opposed to, Bush the Elder, or Mexicans staying home?
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Obama's refusing to live up to his pledge to close Guantanamo is not in the slitest funny. Do you WANT him to close Gitmo? Or are you just trying to have it both ways?
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President Obama knew the operation was going on. He ORDERED it. You did NOT. YOU had NOTHING to do with it. Would YOU have been so "gutsy" as to order American troops to risk their LIVES on such a mission? Would you have THOUGHT about their lives? Or is it all just SO EASY to sit at home, thousands of miles from the action, and b...complain?
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The President expects fair people to be fair, and give credit where credit is due. He cannot expect unfair people to be fair, nor to give credit where credit is due unless it happens to fall on people they favor.
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That is an astounding foolish post. Bush REFUSED to kill Bin Laden because he KNEW "it would do more harm ... than good", did he? NO, he did NOT. He CONGRATULATED Obama on killing Bin Laden. Nothing you say makes the slitest bit of sense.
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No one at all EVER attacke[d] George Bush for no reason, and certainly not for being black -- which is the be-all and end-all of the Radical Right's insane hatred of President Obama, the BLACK man in the WHITE House. Actually, almost everybody in this country LIKED George Bush, even as we DETESTED his policies and actions. In fact, a lot of people understood that Dumbya was just a helpless puppet of a Collective Presidency who had NOTHING TO SAY about what was done in his name.
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Being from Newark, a GREAT city with a thoroly undeserved bad reputation, I understand that sometimes you HAVE to toot your own horn when nobody wants to hear the truth. Obama (may have) killed Usama; Newark is NOT the crime capital of the Nation. Non-torture interrogation provided the information we needed to find Bin Laden; Newark is filled with art and music. Often the obvious to knowledgeable people isn't obvious at all to the ignorant.
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I know that the racist Radical Right wants to believe that Obama's election by almost TEN MILLION votes in 2008 was a fluke, and that the midterm elections, when HUGELY fewer people vote, was more indicative of the Nation's ACTUAL sentiment, but realists know that in 2012, at least 20 million more people will vote than in 2010, and the permanent Republican MINORITY will emerge as a plain reality that not even the Radical Right can deny -- except of course to themselves, since they are capable of astounding self-delusion.
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Cut the crap. The legitimate media -- Fox "News" not included -- do NOT campaign for any candidate whatsoever.
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The Radical Right knows no end of silliness, does it? There is NO WAY he could have blamed Bush for this, and you KNOW it. You are just LYING, the Radical Right's way of dealing with truths they cannot accept.
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Kindly check the Internet for FACTS before writing FICTION. Obama's lowest poll number was 41%; Bush's, 25%: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnitedStatespresidentialapprovalrating .
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The Chinese have a proverb that goes something like, "Do not ignore a good word because it comes from a bad mouth." The ancient Chinese culture has wisdom. You have none.
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Why did we oppose the extermination of Jews by Hitler? Why did we help China fite off the Japanese when we were in a Depression? Every responsible person in the United States opposed deficit spending on the war in Iraq. Bush CUT taxes on the rich and then DOUBLED the national debt ONLY because he CHOSE to refuse to tax the rich. That is something EVERY sane person on planet Earth (you might like to visit sometime, from wherever you are in outer space) condemned.
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Ah, I see. Japan NEVER attacked Pearl Harbor. Democrats just MADE THAT UP. Pulling the U.S. out of Southeast Asia produced the death of 2-5 MILLION Cambodians and other Indochinese, but you APPROVE of those deaths, at the hands of COMMUNISTS. The Republican Party that freed the slaves is NOT the Republican Party of the Neo-Confederacy. Abraham Lincoln would be a DEMOCRAT today.
*Exactly what is >>Anthony 3" Weiner<< supposed to mean? Have you been having sex with Anthony Weiner? If not, how would you know how well-endowed, or not, he is? Are you even a woman, so your Radical Right cohorts would APPROVE of your having sex with Anthony Weiner? Or would that still not be approved, because he's a JEW? Are you really in Los Angeles? Wouldn't you be happier in Utah, Mississippi, or Nazi Germany? Alas for you, we destroyed Nazi Germany, so perhaps Utah or Mississippi is the closest you can come to your ideal homeland.
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Huh? Pakistani Government officials have a duty of secrecy regarding the CIA? Is that what you're saying?
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If yu meen "Pokiston", yu or beeing sile in abjekting tu Oeboma'z pranunseeaeshan. Tha faakt iz thaat moest peepool on the Indeean Subkontinant pranouns it "Pokiston". In the Yuenietad Staets, eether "Pokiston" aur "Paakistaan" iz karekt. "Pokistaan" aand "Paakiston" or boetth INkarekt. The vouwal in the ferst aand laast silaboolz iz tha saem, eether shaurt-O/"braud"-A or shaurt-A. If we speld tthings fanetikle (http://www.fanetik.org aur http://fanetik.tripod.org) EVREEBUDE wood noe hou tu pranouns EVRE werd AAND NAEM witthout hezitaeshan. But we woodan't wont tu du thaat. We'd raather wunder hou the hek tthingz or sed, aand kamplaen hwen sumwun sez sumtthing we doen't sae.
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The only "state media" in the United States are things like the Voice of America. Pls seek professional help if you think that the major media, owned by huge corporations, are government media. You are delusional, SO delusional that NO honest person can explain your baseless hatred of the President by ANYthing but racism. The racists keep putting out baseless slander of the President, thinking they are hiding their racism, but since there is no "there" there, we ALL know it is simpleminded racism.
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Yes, how dare a BLACK man occupy the WHITE House. Ignore all his accomplishments, such as reining in abusive fees by banks, forbidding health insurers from barring people from denying coverage for people because of "pre-existing conditions", compelling health insurers to let kids stay on their parents' policy until after college, end DADT, stop fiting to enforce the idiotically named "Defense of Marriage Act", changing the perception of the United States in most of the world as an arrogant, racist empire. None of that, or any of his other accomplishments means a thing. He's still BLACK.
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Kindly cite to the URL of ANY news story in ANY reputable medium that says that Usama bin Laden waved a white flag of surrender. WHO on Earth keeps a white flag in his house? Try to be a little more inventive with your FICTION. Pls also cite the URL of any news report from ANY reputable medium that states that the FBI says that Usama bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11. You may be one of the clumsiest propagandists in the history of propaganda.
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We Liberals have many quarrels with Obama's trying to accommodate the worst people on the planet, but what do YOU Radical Rightists have to complain about?
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The current price of oil has NOTHING to do with increased demand, since supply is very much larger than demand, but only with GREED on the part of SPECULATORS. What is YOUR personal interest in FALSIFYING things? I just don't get it. Are you a p.r. professional wasting time in an Internet comments area? P.r. professionals don't spend time on things of such little practical importance, and rich people don't spend ANY time on Internet comments areas. So who are these Radical Right loons who spend HOURS and HOURS a day trying to persuade people that they are the majority? They are NOT. They are at very, very most 25% of the population, and not by any stretch of the imagination the smartest or best-educated. It's sad to see all these people, most of whom have probably never made so much as $60,000 in their very best year, making excuses for why the rich need to be OBSCENELY rich. Sad, and incomprehensible.
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No sane person cites Free Republic as a source for ANYTHING. They are a bunch of Radical Right lunatics, and everything you say is insane. Not one thing you claim as fact tallies with reality. If you think life is so good for the poor, why don't you give up your job and live the life of Reilly off the taxpayer? YOU try to live on the income MAXIMUM for food stamps. YOU try to pay the rent or mortgage and property tax and electricity and gas and heating oil, and food, and clothing, and cleaning, and gasoline, and all the other expenses of a family of four on the benefits this ungenerous society provides. You are just full of ..it. The rich can pay more, or they can see the people rise in revolution and KILL them. France did it with its rich. We didn't kill the rich in our first Revolution. That does not mean we won't, or can't, do it in our Second Revolution. I don't imagine that would much affect YOU, however, because I doubt that you have EVER been even remotely rich, but just want to IDENTIFY with the rich -- who do NOT identify with you.
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You are a 24-karat fool if you do not understand that this planet is AWASH in FREE energy, from the sun, from tides, from the heat of the Earth. What moronic TRASH are you listening to that induces you to make RIDICULOUS claims about renewable energy? I doubt you are even on the payroll of an oil company. You're probably just one of those sad DUPES, who have absolutely no personal profit motive for spouting nonsense. You just do it because you don't know any better, and do not understand that new can be better than old. Do you refuse a microwave oven because it's not a "real" oven? So you want nuclear power, do you? If so, you are RETARDED: one word for you to consider -- Fukushima.
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You and everyone like you is an enemy not just of the United States but of the world. We ALL know why you hate Obama. NOBODY is in the slitest doubt.
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Drivel. It is not corruption but an insane Radical Right/Radical Libertarian IDEOLOGY that is causing the problems today, people who have raised greed and selfishness to the level of GODS.
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You are full of BULL. Waterboarding EIGHT YEARS AGO did not lead to the attack upon a house that did not exist eight years ago. You mention Reagan's turning tail and running out of Beirut with his tail between his legs, but not so graphically, because he was a Republican. If a Democrat had done that, you would have CRUCIFIED him. It wasn't Democrats who made peace with the Vietcong/North Vietnamese, buddy. That was Nixon and Kissinger, REPUBLICANS. Who came out appearing weak from THAT? Nothing the Radical Right says is EVER true. The conclusion is inescapable that this is NOT about ideas but about TRIBE, "Them" against "Us". That is all. Liberals have principles; the Radical Right has only TRIBE.
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The assertion that increasing taxes (on the rich) does not increase revenues is a flat-out LIE. Of COURSE it does. Cutting taxes on the rich has impoverished us, despite all the promises that we would all enjoy the benefits of "trickle down" "voodoo economics". What is "MSM"? Pls do not use jargon that is not part of common knowledge. Wikipedia shows no sense for "MSM" that seems to fit your sense. Republicans have OCTUPLED the national debt since 1980, but pretend to be fiscal conservatives. All Radical Rightists are liars. All Republicans at the highest level, hypocrites and liars. Nothing you say is true. You SHOULD be ashamed of yourself, but one of the most contemptible things about the Radical Right is THEY HAVE NO SHAME.
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To the Radical Right, "Marxist" is just a name, like "poopyhead". It has no meaning, because they have no idea what a Marxist is, and could not in a million years find even ONE program of the Obama Administration that is Marxist.
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If you can make a specific assertion as to a percent increase in spending, you should as well be able to cite to a reputable online source. You don't do that. Ergo, you are not to be believed.
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Midterm elections do NOT bring out the bulk of voters. Presidential elections do. We SHOULD have compulsory voting. Then we would REALLY know what the people want. But you would HATE that, wouldn't you?
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I have no idea what "teabagger" means sexually, Nor do I think most people do.
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Why is a Radical Zionist Jew posing as a WASP? You plainly don't give a damn about the human rights of the Arabs in the Middle East, but only about your beloved Israel. Why don't you just go to Israel and put your money/life where your mouth is? The Moslem Brotherhood has NOT taken over Egypt. That is a clumsy Zionist lie, as everything you say is a clumsy Zionist LIE. You pose as a Middle East expert but can't even spell Al-Qaeda. If you are a Radical Zionist Jew, just use your own Jewish name, or a forthrite ID ("RadZion" or "JewSupreme"), and admit your extreme anti-Arab, anti-Moslem PREJUDICE. Israel is responsible for ALL the attacks upon the United States. I do not see any reason whatsoever in terms of U.S. INTEREST, for the U.S. to support Israel to any degree. I would MUCH rather support the people of Egypt, Palestine, Libya, Syria, etc., than the invading bigots who stole Palestine right out from under the people who had lived there for centuries. Let's just throw Israel under the bus, if U.S. interests are what matters. Tell Israel to dissolve itself and merge into a reunified Palestine, because we aren't sending "Israel" one more dime. The Soviet Union and East Germany were "wiped off the face of the Earth", but no one died. Palestine can be reunified without ANY death to any decent person.
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Bush did NOTHING that resulted in the Pakistan attack. NOTHING. If what Bush had done had been in the slitest effective, BUSH would have announced the death of Bin Laden YEARS ago. Cut the CRAP.
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So Obama uniquely does not suffer the problems of the little guy, eh? Bush did? Boehner does? Cantor? McCain? Palin? Bachmann? Be evenhanded, or be quiet.
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Kindly stop making things up. Banks were NEVER pressured to make loans to "criminal aliens". Unemployed people who have NO money DIE. But that wouldn't bother you, would it, if hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens DIED on the streets. That's the Republican fix to the economy. Never mind that people with no income cannot buy anything, so the economy is subverted with each additional unemployed person. The Radical Right understands NOTHING about economics, social responsibility, social cohesion, fairness, or anything else that is important to HUMAN beings.
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Torture of prisoners is NEVER right, and if WE do it to OTHERS, they are automatically entitled to do it to US. Ergo, you want Americans taken prisoner by any enemy to be tortured. Very good thinking. When he was shot, UBL was an enemy combatant in an active war. We don't have to take prisoners in warfare unless they surrender. He didn't surrender. According to reports, his forces in the compound fought back against the Navy Seals, so this was an active battle. We don't have to read people Miranda rights in battles. But had UBL been taken alive, he would be entitled to be treated according to U.S. law, which forbids torture. Besides, we got lots of digital data, far more than he could personally remember.
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Pls stop the nonsense. Bush did NOT kill UBL. Bush did NOT know where UBL, despite his torture of prisoners, unless you believe that Bush REFUSED to kill Bin Laden. That may be your choice of belief, but it is almost no one else's.
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The Radical Right is very flexible. It can turn completely around on its back, and assume the exact opposite stance one minute from what it supposedly stands for the next minute. Snakes can do that naturally. People aren't supposed to be able to do it, tho.
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The only redistribution of wealth that has been going on in this country since 1986 is redistribution UP, TO the wealthy FROM the poor and middle class. I very seriously doubt that you or anyone else commenting here is wealthy, so I do not understand why they fite so hard to steal from the poor and middle class -- including themselves -- to give to the rich.
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Let's make a deal. We'll let the wealthy make as much money as they want, as long as we can take off a year of their lives for every $100,000 they accumulate. And when their time is up, we euthanize them and chop them up for parts for the poor and middle class they have worked very hard to harm. Money for time; a form of payment for their misdeeds. They steal from the rest of us, they die sooner by the hand of the people they have wronged. By act of law..
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Poisonous nonsense. Only the wealthy deserve to live well. What do the rich do for the rest of us? How are they doing more than their fair share? How many of the soldiers, firemen, and police officers who protect us -- AND the wealthy -- come from among the wealthy? How many rich people die on our battlefields defending our freedoms, including economic freedoms? Not remotely all those people you imply are parasites are parasites. Welfare was REFORMED under Clinton, but you refuse to accept that people are NOT entitled to sit around collecting welfare when they could perfectly well work. You pay absolutely no attention to the working poor, who need help with rent and food simply to survive, but who do hard labor that the wealthy do NOT do, and without which society could not function. You ignore all the taxes that the poor and middle class pay to the Federal Government, from excise taxes to gasoline taxes to taxes on phone service. And when they finish living up to their responsibilities, they may have to borrow $2 just to get to work on payday to pick up their check. If all men are created equal -- a part of the Declaration of Independence you conveniently leave out of your posts -- then they should all make about the same amount of money, after taxes, shouldn't they?
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The attack on Iraq had nothing to do with making Bush the Elder happy. He had REFUSED to take Baghdad. Iraq, not Saddam, was the target, and the reason for the war was to destroy ISRAEL'S only credible enemy.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 4,452 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 11:59 PM