Well and Newt too, if it comes to that. Which, unfortunately, it has.
For those who don’t like political posts, you can skip this one, short though it is.
In 1966 while running for Governor, Ronald Reagan popularized what was called the 11th Commandment. To wit,
Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.
While it is fine, in fact it is quite legitimate, to debate ideas and methods of implementing conservative political philosophies, the discussion should stop short of attacking your opponents personal habits, private life, taste in clothes, whiskey, cigars, or women. It’s quite unseemly and uncivilized. I have no doubt that the Obama campaign will do a lot of that due to the President’s almost complete lack of actual factual material to debate or campaign upon.
Yeah, I know, negative campaigning works. Everyone professes to hate it, but when the chips and polls are down, everyone uses it.
Senator Rick Santorum apparently had a bit of a melt down the other night during the debate. In no uncertain terms, he chastised the two leading candidates for their unseemly behavior.
I have no doubt that Gingrich and Romney have a personal dislike for each other. Fine, no one is asking you two to take long showers together (sorry for the mental image), but would it be too damned much to ask you to act like the grown ups and leaders you keep telling us you are?
Get back to discussing how best to get the economy back on track, re-establish cordial relations with all of the allies that the incumbent has pissed off, and either defeat or intimidate our enemies thereby making the country more secure. I don’t get a rat’s ass who married and divorced who, who prays to God in what manner, who paid more taxes, who was the biggest Ronald Reagan fanboi, or any of that other shit. Tell us how you are going to fix the joke that is Homeland Security, get unemployment down below the 15% it is in real terms, keep the military strong, and keep the borders secure.
You two are not only making Santorum look more Presidential, but you’re making Ron Paul look more Presidential.
Now, I’m going to vote for which ever of you gets the nomination, but I’m not the problem. So are most Republicans, even people like Borepatch and Glenn Reynolds. They’ll grip, they’ll probably hold their noses, but they’ll vote. The 30-40% of voters who are “independent” are your problem. They are going to decide the election, not Republicans or Democrats. Unless I miss my guess, they’re not impressed with school yard bickering by two grown men who want to lead the nation. Not. One. Bit. So, they’ll either stay home or go into the voting booth, hold their noses, and vote for President Obama.
Then we’ll really be in the shit. And we’ll know who to blame.
Knock it off.
Back to medical blogging tomorrow, promise. I’m working on venting my spleen, or what Christina calls one of my medical rants.
I wish Herman Cain was still in the race. He actually had concise plans to fix things. And he didn’t attack the character of the opponents.
I’d say “How in the hell did we end up with THESE candidates??”. . . but, well, they call it The Stupid Party for a reason.
I’m not voting for Mitt. I might not vote for Newt “Moonbeam” Gingrich either.
You know how I feel about that, although I respect your right NOT to vote. Each Republican that stays home in November is just another vote for 4 more years of Obama. I can’t countenance that no matter how little I might like the Republican candidate. Mitt is just malleable enough that a Republican controlled Congress can push him to the right enough to make some progress on fixing things. Obama, even with both Houses controlled by Republicans will do such damage that it won’t be corrected in my lifetime.
I’m curious as to what aspects of this presidency you disagree with. I’m guessing as an EMS professional you are not a millionare, so what’s the fascination with the party that caters to the wealthy and gullible? What specific policies had our President supported that are against your best interests?
Eliminating the middle man (big banks) form student loans? Lower taxes and extended unemployment benefits during an economic recession? Successful military actions against terrorists around the world (Muammar Gaddafi who? Osama what?). An albeit not-nearly-far-enought-but-better-than-status-quo healthcare law that expands coverage to millions, mandates 80% of premiums go to actual healthcare (who woulda thunk), allows those up to 26 to stay on their parents plans shoud they not be able to find employment in this recovering economy, and insurers no longer able to deny coverage based on pre-existing health conditions (like acne and pregnancy). I’d have liked to see a single payer system where all the money currently sent to thousands of inefficinet for-profit insurers with high overhead is put into a not-for-proft medicare for all by a small tax.
I won’t say that the Democrat party is perfect. The middle class is held hostage by both parties, but given the choice between captors, I’ll take the one that just wants to shoot me in the leg over the one determined to shoot me in the head.
1) The Democrat Party has more millionaire donors than the Republican Party. That’s public record thanks to campaign finance laws.
2) The people who are replacing Gaddaffi and Mubarak, as well as other middle east dictators are worse and will cause more problems for us than the guys they replaced. Just as the leaders of Iran have caused far more problems than did the Shah, who was in fact an ally. Right now the Muslim Brotherhood controls 75% of the Egyptian Parliament. Look at every country that had a revolution during the “Arab Spring” and you will find that the government that replaced it is more repressive. Look at Turkey, a former ally, now less democratic than it was. Killing Osama was fine, but it was not, as Obama seems to be indicating a signal that the war against Islamofascism has been won. In fact, we’re at best in a draw right now and Obama is sending signals that can only embolden and encourage the enemy.
3) Obama hasn’t lowered taxes, lower taxes are the legacy of President Bush, retained over the objections of Obama. Obama has proposed tax increases, and don’t for a minute believe that they won’t be across the board.
4) Obamacare will bankrupt the country, just as socialized medicine is draining the economies of most of Europe. Not to mention all of the special deals that were cut to pass the bill. If it was so good, why did Congress specifically exempt itself from the law’s provisions?
5) The economy is not recovering. There is not one leading economic indicator that points to a recovery. Unemployment is higher, the debt is much higher, industrial tool orders are down, the value of the dollar is down against most currencies, gold is at all time highs, food and fuel prices are through the roof. Oh, and more people are now on public assistance than during the eight years of President Bush.
This guy has done nothing to help the country, but a lot to help his cronies. The stimulus failed, money to green companies has disappeared, the military is stretched more thin and underfunded, our allies and our enemies are laughing at the President and the Secretary of State for their ineptness.
You didn’t even bother to check on the FACT that for greater than 60% of middle-class homes taxes are lower under The Pres than under Shrub. Yes he caved in to extend the Bush-friends’-tax-cut-during-wartime, though it was really held hostage to allowing an extension of unemployment benefits.
So you’re argument against fighting terrorism is to discuss Egypt which we had really no involvement in other than a phone call urging Mubarak to step down. What about Gadhafi? We used like 10 days of air strikes and handed over the operation to the UN and Libyan people, no American lives at risk minimal treasury spent. Now le’ts compare Iraq… Or maybe you’d prefer to forget that debacle. Saddam gone, the country in worse shape than when we went in, Iran stronger than ever as a result, 100,000+ maimed and killed, a trillion dollars that could have feed those food-stamp people you look down on, or provided healthcare for all. At least we got all those WMDs…. oh wait we didn’t? Well at least the war paid for it self like they said it would… oh wait….
As for the ACA. Please do explain how it’s going to bankrupt the county, by what specific mechanism. Seems here in MA we’ve been getting by pretty well. Still on top in education, still top in job growth, still in the top states putting out more federal money than it takes in. Been over a decade here now that RMoney put that mandate into our laws. BTW it’s not the mandate of the ACA the republiCons have a problem with, it’s the fairness written in. After all the mandate to fork money over to private insurers was a repub idea back to Bob Dole’s run for the WH, way before RMoney thought it was a good idea, then a bad idea, then…..What the cons hate is not allowing insurers to drop loyal customers once they become ill, and not allowing them to deny insurance based on a childhood case of diarrhea. The public option, if not blocked by the cons, would have put competition into the mix. You know competition, that capitalistic idea that a better product at a better price will drive down costs and drive up better services. Nah, they couldn’t stand it if the insurance companies had to compete.
Doesn’t matter anyway, the provision in the ACA that was a genius chess move, if I ever saw one, was the provision that allows states out of the law if they can do a better job providing coverage. Vermont has signed a bill to go single payer by 2014. When they succeed the blue New England states, MA especially, will quickly follow, the red sates dragged along a while later kicking and screaming, for their own good.
The President has nothing to do with setting property tax rates. Those are set by local authorities and are based on the value of the property. If the value of the property decreases, which has happened to most people, then the property taxes go down. So, not only did Jug Ears have nothing to do with setting tax rates, his actions have further depressed home values with NO turn around in sight.
Air strikes in Libya lasted THREE MONTHS, not 10 days. NATO had and has limited air strike capacity so when they ran out of bombs, guess who got to go back in again and again?
Iraq was only a debacle to liberal minds. Forget WMDs, that was one of 11 reasons President Bush gave AND it was the last. If you read the complete ISG report you’ll note that there were WMDs in Iraq, some were found and most were moved somewhere else. Where? Russia or more likely Syria.
James, look at health care costs in MA. They continue to rise for everyone, but mostly for people who pay for their insurance. If you are unemployed or self employed, insurance is expensive and crappy. My daughter has looked into this as she gets ready to go to grad school and is going to drop to part time status. If you don’t get health insurance through an employer and don’t qualify for Medicaid, you get expensive crappy insurance.
If you want to see what single payer insurance is like, look at Britain or Canada. Canada is considering allowing individuals to buy supplemental insurance because wait times are so long and resources are so scarce. Keep this in mind. There are more CT machines in California than in all of Canada. Need diagnostic imaging in Canada? Be prepared to wait for months. Need a hip replacement in Canada? Be prepared to wait 18 months on average. In the US, the wait is 8 weeks on average. Single payer health care inevitably leads to rationing as it has in England and Canada and will here.
Your head is firmly planted in a blue cloud of Unicorns and rainbows. Enjoy the dream.
Give this a quick read, it’s from a supposedly conservative writer. He laid out the arguments for Obama more eloquently than I could. These are verifiable, searchable facts. Please turn off Faux Nooze for 5 minutes and take time to read the article.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/andrew-sullivan-how-obama-s-long-game-will-outsmart-his-critics.html
I haven’t read anything by Andrew Sullivan in years. He is not a conservative, although at one time he was. What he is now, is full of shit. No one takes him seriously Jimmy and by citing him you undermine your positions. Oh, did you happen to see that Jon Corzine, a billionaire, raised $500,000.00 for Obama? Corzine, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Spielberg, and lots of other super rich people support Obama. Why do you think that is?
How dare those rich philanthropists give billions of dollars to charity AND support President Obama. Dude, I think you need to stop skipping your aricept, it does slow the decline. Pretty soon you’ll have to change your moniker to toooldtothink. Only a party of sociopaths could coin a phrase like ‘bleeding-heart-liberal’ and mean it in a derogatory way, as if caring about your fellow human beings was aflaw to be ashamed of, to be despised. Enjoy the company you keep.
Like any con you attack the messenger and say it undermines my position, no it surely doesn’t, you have no defense against the message.
Unless I missed what you were saying, in a previous rant you suggested that Republicans were the party of the wealthy and the Democrats the party of the working guys. Since you’ve decided to substitute invective for debate, you’re done here. I’m pretty liberal when it comes to comments, but you’ve done over the edge into asshatery. Thus you are disinvited. Start your own blog if you want and I’ll be sure not to visit it.
Concur… dammit…