The Republican Thread

[Balta1701]

This one's for Tex. The Hammer will be on this season's Dancing with the Stars.

 

Personally, I'm rooting for the Chairman.

[mr_genius]

And the racist, definitely white male, hate monger whom created the Obama joker picture is found out....

 

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington...ker-artist.html

 

Firas Alkhateeb, a senior history major at the University of Illinois

 

 

But whyyyyyyy

 

 

After Obama was elected, you had all of these people who basically saw him as the second coming of Christ," Alkhateeb said. "From my perspective, there wasn't much substance to him."

 

and more on this racist right wing hate monger

"I abstained from voting in November," he wrote in an e-mail. "Living in Illinois, my vote means close to nothing as there was no chance Obama would not win the state." If he had to choose a politician to support, Alkhateeb said, it would be Ohio Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

 

Alkhateeb's assessment of Obama: "In terms of domestic policy, I don't think he's really doing much good for the country right now," he said. "We don't have to 'hero worship' the guy."

 

lol, so true.

 

Edited August 18, 2009 by mr_genius

[KipWellsFan]

I have to agree with you a little on this one Genius. I think a lot of these nutjobs raving about Obama are just whacked, not neccessarily right wing and whacked. The most leftist, conspiracy junkie I know believes that Obama wasn't born in America, that Bilderberg runs the world, that Obama's national service thing is some evil plot, and 9/11 was some conspiracy.

 

Still, those polls of southerners and Republicans on Obama's birthplace are pretty telling.

Edited August 18, 2009 by KipWellsFan

[southsider2k5]

And the racist, definitely white male, hate monger whom created the Obama joker picture is found out....

 

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington...ker-artist.html

 

Firas Alkhateeb, a senior history major at the University of Illinois

 

 

But whyyyyyyy

 

 

 

 

and more on this racist right wing hate monger

 

 

lol, so true.

 

 

I am sure he is white, male, and from the south...

[EvilMonkey]

 

Video of Representative Eric Massa (D-NY) telling people that he will vote against the wished of the very people who elected him because he knows better than they do. What arrogance.

[Balta1701]

 

Video of Representative Eric Massa (D-NY) telling people that he will vote against the wished of the very people who elected him because he knows better than they do. What arrogance.

He may not have phrased it very artfully at the time, but frankly, isn't that exactly the point of our system where we have a "representative democracy" rather than a direct democracy?

 

Our system is built on the concept that you can't really expect every single person to be fully informed on every issue. Thus, you're supposed to select a person who's judgement you trust and who you agree with on a number of issues and then trust/convince that person to vote the way you want him to in Congress. If you wind up disliking how he's voted, then you remove him by voting against him the next time. He's supposed to understand these issues better than many others; that's the whole point of having a limited number of representatives.

 

If you really believed that every person out there should be well enough informed to make their own decisions on every topic, then a direct democracy would be the way to go.

[EvilMonkey]

He may not have phrased it very artfully at the time, but frankly, isn't that exactly the point of our system where we have a "representative democracy" rather than a direct democracy?

 

Our system is built on the concept that you can't really expect every single person to be fully informed on every issue. Thus, you're supposed to select a person who's judgement you trust and who you agree with on a number of issues and then trust/convince that person to vote the way you want him to in Congress. If you wind up disliking how he's voted, then you remove him by voting against him the next time. He's supposed to understand these issues better than many others; that's the whole point of having a limited number of representatives.

 

If you really believed that every person out there should be well enough informed to make their own decisions on every topic, then a direct democracy would be the way to go.

Then why do they ever do public opinion polls then, if not to find out just what the mood of their constituents are? Do those moods only matter when they coincide with current Democrat positions? And I do believe that there are probbaly more people in just his district that know more about that issue than all the reps put together. How many of them actually read the bill? They keep trying to rush this stuff thru. health care reform is a fundemental shift in the way our country runs. it deserve much debate, much discussion, not 1500 pages of legalese ramrodded thru at breakneck speed with no room for dissent. This should not happen over night.

 

And of a different note, you never answered my question if you refer to left wing group when you post as left wing groups, or you just reserve your snark for right wing groups.

[Balta1701]

And of a different note, you never answered my question if you refer to left wing group when you post as left wing groups, or you just reserve your snark for right wing groups.

Actually, yes I did, it appears you just weren't satisfied with my answer.

[Balta1701]

it deserve much debate, much discussion, not 1500 pages of legalese ramrodded thru at breakneck speed with no room for dissent. This should not happen over night.

Yeah, you know what would be great? If we actually had a full scale national election where each candidate specifically had put forward a plan for healthcare reform and we voted on it.

[EvilMonkey]

Actually, yes I did, it appears you just weren't satisfied with my answer.

If this was your answer,

^ this. When I come in this thread and post something that I think might be interesting, I flag where the source is because otherwise people won't pay attention. I post stuff from Fox News in here the same way: I flag where it's from so that you folks might actually see whether there's anything interesting in it

.

Then you really didn't answer it at all. Do you mention in your posts, when citing left wing sites, that they are left wing sites, or do you only feel the need to point out sites that you feel are right wing? I am sure that the Cato Institute isn't called the Right Wing Cato Institute, you put that in there. Why?

 

[Balta1701]

Then you really didn't answer it at all. Do you mention in your posts, when citing left wing sites, that they are left wing sites, or do you only feel the need to point out sites that you feel are right wing? I am sure that the Cato Institute isn't called the Right Wing Cato Institute, you put that in there. Why?

Because why would a conservative read something I was posting if I didn't point out "Hey, this is something you might like".

[southsider2k5]

Because why would a conservative read something I was posting if I didn't point out "Hey, this is something you might like".

 

The posting of it in the GOP thread, might be as giveaway...

[StrangeSox]

[...]-wing is usually used in a derogatory manner. It would have been better to say "conservative" or "libertarian" imo because those don't contain the negative connotations. Edited August 19, 2009 by StrangeSox

[lostfan]

[...]-wing is usually used in a derogatory manner. It would have been better to say "conservative" or "libertarian" imo because those don't contain the negative connotations.

Good point

[Cknolls]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=new...id=aV3dLt6wmZH4

 

 

I'm sure they'll tell us we are misinterpreting this story. Ax-man is an honest guy. Its always different with this admin.

[StrangeSox]

Maybe I'm just missing it, but what's supposed to be dishonest about this?

[southsider2k5]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=new...id=aV3dLt6wmZH4

 

 

I'm sure they'll tell us we are misinterpreting this story. Ax-man is an honest guy. Its always different with this admin.

 

Thank god they aren't using lobbying groups... Oops.

[StrangeSox]

Maybe I'm just missing it, but what's supposed to be dishonest about this?

 

 

Thank god they aren't using lobbying groups... Oops.

 

Oh, right, that.

[EvilMonkey]

Maybe I'm just missing it, but what's supposed to be dishonest about this?

Seemed that every time Haliburton got any type of contract, regardless of how qualified they were for it, screams erupted from the left about favoritism, etc. So, you don't see the issue with assloads of cash going to firms with strong ties to those high up in the Obama admin?

[NorthSideSox72]

Seemed that every time Haliburton got any type of contract, regardless of how qualified they were for it, screams erupted from the left about favoritism, etc. So, you don't see the issue with assloads of cash going to firms with strong ties to those high up in the Obama admin?

Some of us have issues with both. *raises hand*

 

[StrangeSox]

Seemed that every time Haliburton got any type of contract, regardless of how qualified they were for it, screams erupted from the left about favoritism, etc. So, you don't see the issue with assloads of cash going to firms with strong ties to those high up in the Obama admin?

From reading through the article, I wasn't seeing government funds going to it.

 

But, as ss2k5 pointed out, there's the lobbyist hypocrisy.

 

[mr_genius]

From reading through the article, I wasn't seeing government funds going to it.

 

Who is paying the $350 million tab? That's a lot of money. Well, for the government it's not a lot. Running 2 trillion a year deficit is passed off as if it's nothing.

Edited August 20, 2009 by mr_genius

[southsider2k5]

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/...-senate-request

 

NYT's Goodnough Fails to See Cynical Motive in Kennedy Senate Request

Photo of Ken Shepherd.

By Ken Shepherd (Bio | Archive)

August 20, 2009 - 17:27 ET

 

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* [Printer-friendly version]

 

 

Five years after he successfully lobbied state legislators to change his state's law governing the filling of Senate vacancies, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy (D) now wants the law changed again.

 

Kennedy successfully encouraged Democratic state legislators in 2004 to push through a change in the law in order to thwart the possibility of then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) appointing a Republican successor to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) should the latter win the presidential election.

 

But rather than reporting Sen. Kennedy’s flip-flop as more partisan gamesmanship, the Times’s Abby Goodnough buried Kennedy’s role in the 2004 legislative drama in paragraph nine of her 17-paragraph August 20 story:

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Up until 2004, state law called for the governor to appoint a temporary replacement for a Senate seat that became vacant. But in that year, when Senator John Kerry, a Democrat, was running for president, the Democratic-controlled Legislature wanted to deny the governor at the time — Mitt Romney, a Republican — the power to name a replacement if Mr. Kerry won the presidency.

 

In his letter, Mr. Kennedy, who has held his seat for 47 years, wrote that he supported the 2004 law, but he added, "I also believe it is vital for this Commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election."

 

As New York Times reporter Pam Belluck noted in the June 25, 2004 edition:

 

There is also the irony that Senator Kennedy, who urged state legislators to approve the special election bill, was himself once an indirect beneficiary of the state's appointment system. When John F. Kennedy left his Senate seat to become president in 1960, Gov. Foster Furcolo, a Democrat, appointed Benjamin Smith, a former college roommate of the president's, to fill the seat until Edward M. Kennedy could run in 1962. That prevented anyone else from making a name as a senator to compete with Mr. Kennedy.

 

In the same article, Belluck chronicled Bay State Democrats' principled-sounding arguments for a change in the Senate vacancy law, as well as a brass-knuckles political calculus that told a more complex story:

 

Democrats say they are granting the citizens the right to vote, instead of having to accept a handpicked senator for any length of time.

 

''This is an elected position, not an appointed position, and there's been a process that's evolved over a period of time where I believe the people should vote and voice their opinions in situations of significance,'' said the State Senate's president, Robert E. Travaglini.

 

Massachusetts citizens might recognize that line of argument as the same reasoning used recently by Mr. Romney when he tried to get the courts to delay the start of same-sex marriage for two and a half years so the people could have a chance to vote on an amendment that would ban such marriages.

 

But that is not the through-the-looking-glass aspect to the Senate seat debate. While the Democrats often portray themselves as the protectors of women and minorities, Mr. Romney and his aides have tried to seize that side of the argument. They have suggested that a ''shotgun election'' would hurt minorities and women because the governor would most likely appoint a member of a minority or a woman as an interim senator, but the Democrats likely to seek Mr. Kerry's seat are all white male Massachusetts congressmen.

 

By contrast, Goodnough merely took at face value Senator Kennedy's stated reason for his wish to reverse the 2004 law:

 

In his letter, Mr. Kennedy, who has held his seat for 47 years, wrote that he supported the 2004 law, but he added, "I also believe it is vital for this Commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election."

 

Mr. Kennedy also asked that Mr. Patrick "obtain, as a condition of appointment of the interim Senator, an explicit personal commitment not to become a candidate in the special election."

 

Although the letter was delivered to Mr. Patrick and legislative leaders on Tuesday, it was dated July 9. Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Senator Kennedy, said the senator had written it then, but did not send it until "word began to leak out" recently about "quiet conversations that have been occurring about the law."

 

"He decided he needed to get the letter into the Governor’s and legislative leaders’ hands so that his position would be publicly known," Mr. Coley said in an e-mail.

 

Asked why Senator Kennedy would not want a temporary appointee to run for his seat in the special election, Mr. Coley said he "wanted to ensure that whomever received that appointment did not have any head start or advantage in the special election."

 

Originally published at TimesWatch.org.

 

—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters

[EvilMonkey]

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/...-senate-request

Why is it that Democrats think of Senate seats as property that can be handed down or transferred to a relative or political crony?

[Texsox]

Why is it that Democrats think of Senate seats as property that can be handed down or transferred to a relative or political crony?

 

Because that's how it's always been done.