Remember when all those people ran out to buy guns and ammo when President Obama got elected because they were afraid he would take away their guns?
Yeah, that never happened.
But at least the guns and ammo places weren't hurt too much by the recession. I wonder if they will thank the president....
Moreover, my own home state legislature just voted to give the use of deadly force anywhere the thumbs up. This is one of many examples in which the president has largely left the issue of gun rights up to the states. The results of this hands off policy has seen a great loosening of gun laws that honestly haven't been seen in decades.
So you think they would be happy, right?
Nope.
They say that President Obama is a Muslim, but if he isn’t, he’s a secularist who is waging war on religion. On some days he’s a Nazi, but on most others he’s merely a socialist. His especially creative opponents see him as having a “Kenyan anti-colonial worldview,” while the less adventurous say that he’s an elitist who spent too much time in Cambridge, Hyde Park and other excessively academic precincts.
Yeah...which is it again? I can't keep track.
Whatever our president is, he is never allowed to be a garden-variety American who plays basketball and golf, has a remarkably old-fashioned family life and, in the manner we regularly recommend to our kids, got ahead by getting a good education.
Isn't he a model that we should point to and say to our kids, "Hey, be like this guy?" After all, he fulfills the checklist of the base in terms of family values and working hard to get himself ahead. In so many ways, he is illustrative of the opportunity that comes with this great country. And yet, they shit all over him.
It’s simply astonishing that a man in his fourth year as our president continues to be the object of the most extraordinary paranoid fantasies. A significant part of his opposition still cannot accept that Obama is a rather moderate politician quite conventional in his tastes and his interests. And now that the economy is improving, short-circuiting easy criticisms, Obama’s adversaries are reheating all the old tropes and cliches and slanders.
That's my favorite bit of the whole piece. It's so fucking accurate. And so fucking sad. It's likely that the rest of this election year is going to see them descend into deeper and heretofore unfathomable paranoia.
But there is something especially rancid about the never-ending efforts to turn Obama into a stranger, an alien, a Manchurian Candidate with a diabolical hidden agenda. Are we trying to undo all the good it did us with the rest of the world when we elected an African American with a middle name popular among Muslims?
Yes. Yes, they are. Why? Because THEY LOST THE ARGUMENT AND ARE CHILDISH.
It makes me wonder what will happen if the president wins a second term. I honestly wouldn't be surprised they started saying that the president is building an army of killer robots that are going to take away their guns.
24 comments:
Finally! This will stir up some comments.
[Full disclosure: I didn't bother to read your screed.]
So you think they would be happy, right?
Who are they?
Why do you care if they are happy or not?
Isn't he a model that we should point to and say to our kids, "Hey, be like this guy?"
Maybe in your fantasy?
Not my model who is a liar and uses people to lie for him. Not my model of an ignorant fool pretending to know what is best. Not my model about economic ideas for which he is embarrassingly incompetent. Not my model for spending more time on vacation and golfing than actually doing real work. Not my model for a shirker of responsibility and breaking of the public trust (including money).
May your moral character is tolerant of that bullshit but not mine.
And yet, they shit all over him.
No, he does that to himself. He surrounds himself with scumbags too. The funniest part is that you continue to shill for him like a little lapdog.
Economic incompetence? The Dow is double what it was when he took office. Jobs are being added every month and GDP has been growing every quarter. What on earth are you talking about?
Jobs are being added every month and GDP has been growing every quarter.
That is a Stern fan for ya - stupid clean down to the bone. If you are going to challenge anything about the President and the economy, it should be that he in any way shape or form manages it. Mostly, it happens around him and at best he has some minimal influence on its course.
But let's take a better example of the faulty moral compass of this Administration. Tapper absolutely nailed it. Of course I only say this because I'm racist and a right-wing knuckledragger.
It's pretty clear that the president has done a good job with what he was handed when he came into office. Achilles (if he or she really feels this way and isn't just putting us on) is a great example of the paranoid fantasy of which Dionne speaks. The good news is that the American public largely knows this and isn't paying much attention to the drivel that is emanating from the right.
Sure M, you can continue to listen to your echo chamber but the rest of us actually pay attention. Even inheriting a mess, he is dragging on the economy more than usual.
The Dow is double what it was when he took office. Jobs are being added every month and GDP has been growing every quarter.
Dow isn't double but it is almost back to the pre-democrat congress take-over level.
GDP Growth is far below historical averages (11.9%)and far below normal recession recoveries. Great job by the big economic drag called Obama.
"Employment-to-population ratios bottom out 18 to 37 months after the onset of the recession in each of the previous six cases of output contraction. This time around, 43 months after the beginning of the recession, the trend continues to be negative, with the ratio down 4.6% to 58.1% in what has been almost four years of negligible recovery in labor markets."
Gas Prices are at historical levels for this time of year - putting a huge drag on the economy.
Obama has not helped energy costs other than spend on failed green energy efforts with the exception of an approval for a new Nuclear Plant. Link contains the Dumbocrat talking points deconstructed.
US Debt to GDP passed 100% and is climbing fast - NO effort to address it at all by Obama.
Trillion Dollar deficits projected for a long time - No effort to address it at all by Obama.
Almost 50% of Americans not paying any taxes - No effort to address it at all by Obama.
Food Stamp costs have double since Obama taking office and are still growing! - Obama still pushing for more funds.
No plan for reigning in spending and no intention of addressing it per Tim Geithner.
And scandal after scandal - mostly payoffs and waste to connected insiders (Solyndra and multitudes of others)- yeah, the very thing being railed against here yet supported because it is 'Obama' doing it. Hypocrite much?
Now to address this post and M's willful ignorance of Fast and Furious scandal. That ENTIRE operation was specifically targeted at guns. If you haven't been following, and I know you haven't, they wanted to showcase the fake US guns in Mexico meme to leverage stronger restrictions on dealers and target specific types of guns. Yeah, this administration setting up for increasing restrictions using a fake info. Documented, Evidence abounds, and under investigation. And he isn't trying to attack guns? You are a complete fool!
In summary, you champion a fool and incompetent and pretend that he is doing a great job. I have only highlighted a small fractions of the crap this administration peddles. His entire philosophy is spend money on the symptoms and exasperate the causes.
Who is the bigger fool, Obama or you for supporting his incompetence?
Well, 6Kings, I give you credit for putting together some points with only a few personal insults. Let's take a look at them one by one...
First of all, you fail to seriously consider (other than a passing word) that our current economic situation was inherited by the economic policies (or lack thereof) of the Bush Administration. It's simply not logical to have a discussion about the current economic situation without an in depth discussion the root causes. So points off for being not thorough and, well...dishonest.
he is dragging on the economy more than usual.
Millions of private sector jobs added, hundreds of public sector jobs lost (i.e. government shrinking). And we have this, in terms of GDP.
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdp_glance.htm
That's growth in every quarter since his policies starting having an effect (2009, Q3). You can certainly have the opinion of it being a "drag" but you're not entitled to your own facts. Growth is growth and any growth, considering the environment the last few years, is a good thing.
Dow isn't double but it is almost back to the pre-democrat congress take-over level.
On the day that Obama took office, the Dow was 7949.09. On Friday, it was 12,982.95. Divide that by 2 and we have 6,491.475. Technically, that's true, it isn't double but it is nearly double and another example of how he is decidedly not putting drag on the economy. In addition, you are incorrect in your statement as well. The Dow was at 12,398.01 right as the Democrats took over Congress in Jan, 2007, less than what it is now.
http://www.nyse.tv/dow-jones-industrial-average-history-djia.htm
In fact, if you look at how the year went while the Democrats did take over Congress, we hit a high of 14,164.53 on October 9, 2007 which is much closer to double. But this discussion is fairly silly as we know that the economy really wasn't healthy at that point. The only salient point out of all of this is that, in terms of the DJIA, the president is not putting a drag on the economy nor is he killing free enterprise, as Mitt Romney has said many times.
GDP Growth is far below historical averages (11.9%)and far below normal recession recoveries. Great job by the big economic drag called Obama.
Are you talking real GDP or nominal GDP? And what years are you using as historical averages?
http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=354&count=500
Even if you are using nominal GDP, we haven't seen 11.9 percent since 1984 so I'm not sure what you mean by historically. And you have to figure in inflation which would put that quarter in 1984 at 7.9 percent. In terms of real GDP, we haven't seen 11.9 percent growth since Q4 in 1950 and that's not a characterization of historical averages. I guess I don't know what you mean here or the source of your numbers. Speaking of which...
What is your source for your quote on employment?
Gas Prices are at historical levels for this time of year - putting a huge drag on the economy.
That's not the president's fault. The situation with Iran as well as the Arab Spring instability are having a profound effect on gas prices. What would you have him do?
And, if we are going to talk about gas prices, we need to including skyrocketing world demand so, again, be fully honest about ALL factors for gas prices.
Obama has not helped energy costs other than spend on failed green energy efforts with the exception of an approval for a new Nuclear Plant. Link contains the Dumbocrat talking points deconstructed.
A right wing blog is not "proof" of anything. Non biased sources with your own critical analysis, please. Interesting that there is no mention of the federal loan given to the nuclear plant that is 8.3 billion dollars, 16 times that of Solyndra. No problem with this?
US Debt to GDP passed 100% and is climbing fast - NO effort to address it at all by Obama.
Trillion Dollar deficits projected for a long time - No effort to address it at all by Obama.
See my post today about debt and deficit. Unless you are pulling the lever for Ron Paul, your next best option is Barack Obama.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/19/obama-to-present-balanced-plan-to-tackle-deficit/
Now, I know that Fox News is a biased source of news but I figured you'd be OK with that:) Here's another more current source.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/0213/Does-Obama-blueprint-reduce-budget-deficit-fast-enough-video
Almost 50% of Americans not paying any taxes - No effort to address it at all by Obama.
Complete lie. Add in the word federal and include corporations like GE and then you would be more accurate. Do your American's "not paying taxes" include tax breaks for the wealthy as well? Or just the poor stealing the fruits of your labor? The latter pay state, local, sales and payroll taxes even if they don't pay federal taxes so your statement is completely dishonest.
Food Stamp costs have double since Obama taking office and are still growing! - Obama still pushing for more funds.
Unbiased source? Critical thinking? I haven't looked into this one much so educate me with non Brietbart information, please.
No plan for reigning in spending and no intention of addressing it per Tim Geithner.
From a link with the under title of "A Digest and Commentary on the War Against Jihad." Really? Again, check your source for bias and offer a more critical analysis. If you choose to decline, then I will proceed to put up counter links to Michael Moore and the Daily Kos which you must also accept as fact.
As Mitt Romney recently said, "We can't cut our way to growth." He's right. The paranoid focus you guys have on spending is what's actually a drag on the economy. Seriously, consider the downside of austerity measures and what that will mean for the economy in the short run.
mostly payoffs and waste to connected insiders (Solyndra and multitudes of others)- yeah, the very thing being railed against here yet supported because it is 'Obama' doing it. Hypocrite much?
I'm not sure if you were a part of our previous discussion about Solyndra but take a look at this.
https://lpo.energy.gov/?page_id=45
This was a program started under President Bush and expanded under Obama. Your statement about Solyndra leaves out all these other companies that got loans (some much more than 500 million) and paid them back. Solyndra was a small part of a much larger program that has been successful. Note the listing here of the new nuclear power plant loan as well as the one in Idaho, not mentioned in the news. Please take note of all the "closed" loans and research how each of these companies did and then compare the outcomes to Solyndra. In other words (again), offer a critical analysis.
This link also shows the fallacy of your previous statement regarding Obama's energy policy. In fact, I think it's time I turned this into a post due to all they lying that's been going on.
Regarding Fast and Furious, I think you and sadly many others on the right are using the very tragic death of Brian Terry to push your paranoia about the government and gun grabbing. The facts say that the bullet that killed Agent Terry was too badly damaged to conclusively be linked to a FF weapon although I'm willing to say that it is likely.
This was a program started under President Bush as "Operation Wide Receiver" in 2006-2007. In fact, this sort of thing has been done for the past 20 years with similar efforts and quicker interdiction to seize the guns. The current FBI and JD made the mistake of trying to resurrect the program in the hopes of catching high level cartel members. This is why they let the guns walk so their intentions were good but they failed to account for other factors and ended up catching the same lower level guys they always do.
Here is a more critical analysis of the events that led up to Agent Terry's death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fast_and_Furious#cite_note-19
Documented, Evidence abounds, and under investigation. And he isn't trying to attack guns? You are a complete fool!
Again, where? Non right wing blog links, please.
Who is the bigger fool, Obama or you for supporting his incompetence?
Neither, because as I have shown above, the comments you made here are simply not accurate nor are they reflective of reality. This is exactly what Dionne is talking about when he says "The president as alien." You've made up a fictitious person that doesn't exist and now you are attacking him. That's known as a straw man argument and now it makes perfect sense to me why you guys always accuse me of doing that...because (again with the Rove) that's what YOU do. Maybe you think that if you label me with it first that it will then offer a cocoon of defense against accusations of straw man arguments upon yourselves.
Sadly, you live your life inside of a bubble (similar to a cult) that doesn't allow outside information in to allow for a more honest approach. You're not a fool, 6Kings, but it's clear you are angry and afraid...probably more of the latter...afraid of being wrong, losing the argument on a smaller level...afraid of change and new ideas on a much larger level...and that has lead to an irrational hatred of the president and anyone else outside of the bubble, including me. So, stop being afraid and start thinking.
The villains you see simply don't exist.
I expected as much...
That's it? That's all you have to say for yourself? You assholes chide Mark for being Brave Sir Robin and after he responds thoroughly to your charges, all you have are 4 words? What a fucking coward.
I don't think he's a coward in the way you are thinking, 6Kings. I'm certainly not anyone to be afraid of at all. But there is fear, though, and it's growing among conservatives. You can only base a party for so long on anger, hatred and fear particularly with the problems we face today. Ideological intransigence doesn't get the job done. I think the fear is coming from the realization that they are going to have to change.
So since I'm not a member of the conservative base M what is your description of why I won't play nice with the liberal program?
Either you have an answer to that, or you could say you don't know, or you can try and classify me as something I am not. Which will it be?
Well, based purely on what you write here (which really isn't any sort of measure since I don't know you personally), I'd say it's the adolescent rebellion thing that most libertarians tend to have. You don't like it when someone tells what is best for you and that's even if they do actually know it because you recognize very few to zero people as having more intelligence than you do.
The ironic part about all of this is that there are many people in the federal government who DO know more than we do about many of the issues we discuss on here. They have access to information that we don't have so our views are pretty uninformed if you stop and think about it for a moment. But because they are "Gubmint" that means they are stupid-that's how our society has been trained and that includes everyone, not just conservatives.
Now, I do know last in line personally and I can say that he votes the way he does mainly out of stubborn pride.
I'd say it's the adolescent rebellion thing that most libertarians tend to have
Jesus fucking christ on a pogo stick - could you get any more condescending... and wrong? You are a Christian for sure (just like Santorum, Bachmann, Falwell et al) - insisting that God has given you the inside scoop. What a fucking joke.
It would be bad enough if you and God were so sure about what is best for me, but then you throw in the entire population of govt bureaucrats. Perhaps you are that fucking stupid that you need that kind of 'guidance', but real grown-ups (hell, my 23 year old son) doesn't need that.
Why did I ask. I should've known I couldn't possibly get a reasonable answer.
This was a program started under President Bush as "Operation Wide Receiver" in 2006-2007. In fact, this sort of thing has been done for the past 20 years with similar efforts and quicker interdiction to seize the guns. The current FBI and JD made the mistake of trying to resurrect the program in the hopes of catching high level cartel members. This is why they let the guns walk so their intentions were good but they failed to account for other factors and ended up catching the same lower level guys they always do.
This is a statement born of ignorance, idiocy or insidiousness.
Wide receiver had agents to follow the guns, radio tracking bugs on the guns and coordination with the Mexican police to catch the criminals.
Fast and Furious had none of these things. F&F couldn't follow the guns, couldn't find them if they lost them, and had no method of arresting the bad guys.
Wide receiver looked good on paper but was flawed in practice. Fast and Furious is so flawed that even on paper you'd have to be a utter moron to think it would work. It would be like a narc cop wanting to catch drug users by selling them drugs and waiting for them to show up as an overdose at the ER.
So which is it Mark? Do you not see the difference because you haven't looked at it, because you are unable to recognize the differences or because you are dishonest about it?
Ignorance, idiocy or insidiousness. Come to think of it that could explain half of what is posted here.
Wide receiver had agents to follow the guns, radio tracking bugs on the guns and coordination with the Mexican police to catch the criminals.
No, that's not what happened. Look, GD, I have no problem discussing this with you but we have to do so with the inclusion of facts.
From the wiki link with 3 sources to back it up...
With the use of surveillance equipment, ATF agents monitored additional sales by Detty to straw purchasers. With assurance from ATF "that Mexican officials would be conducting surveillance or interdictions when guns got to the other side of the border",[24] Detty would sell a total of about 450 guns during the operation.[22] These included AR-15s, AK-47s and Colt .38s. The vast majority of the guns were eventually lost as they moved into Mexico.[7][23][25]
In addition, the smaller probe after that lost 200 guns. So, where was your outrage at that time? Oh, that's right...it's OK when the good ol' Texan did it but not when Blackie McBlackerson and his henchman Sambo Samberson were in charge.
Ignorance, idiocy or insidiousness.
The first mistake was allowing William Newell to be in charge of another operation. Clearly, he failed with the Phoenix operation. After that, it's obvious that the people in charge of this operation fell into groupthink and thought they could actually catch big time dealers by letting guns walked. It was a flawed idea and they made a mistake. Alert the media...the government made a mistake. It certainly hasn't been the first time. Nor do they hold the privilege of being the only type of organization to make mistakes (BP, Blackwater, Haliburton etc). The problem here is that you assume your perception on me and other Democrats. We don't think that making a mistake or admitting one means that our ENTIRE IDEOLOGY IS THEN FLAWED. That's you guys throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
It is not 100 percent certain that Agent Terry was killed by one of these guns either. It is likely but not a fact which you assume in your emotions over this. There's also no evidence that I see that this was some sort of secret plot to seize guns from responsible and legal gun owners.
The other issue here is that you are not looking at the big picture. The problem is not the guns but the drugs and that you can blame the government for...right up their ass. The reason why there are so many deaths is prohibition, a faulty ideal that has never worked, and if you stop for a moment and think about how much violence would go down if drugs were made legal, then you would see that this "scandal" is a small pebble in a large ocean of FUBAR.
The larger mistake is not actually solving the problem and that is far more idiotic than Fast and Furious.
juris, look, dude, I already qualified my statement by saying that since I don't know you, all I have to go on are your statements on this blog. That's hardly accurate nor is it fair.
And I don't think it's condescending to say that someone who is researching breast cancer in the army, for example, knows more than you do about it and probably knows the best course of treatment for the friends and family that you have that hopefully will never be afflicted with this tragic disease. Nor is it condescending to think that the people who were involved in the GM bailout saw that the best course of action was the one taken...one that had it not been taken would likely have adversely affected YOU, my friend. So how about a little gratitude, huh?
So, Mark, you do admit that Wide Receiver was a failure, in spite of the efforts to track the buyers and guns with the so-called co-operation of the Mexican government. It failed and was shut down as a failure. Then under the next administration, a much larger operation (and likely more than one) was launched with none of the safeguards that had been hoped would work during Wide Receiver, concealed from the Mexican government (hello! Didn't anybody think Mexico might just take exception to this violation of their sovereignty?) What conceivable theory of law enforcement were they using? They knew damned well that earlier efforts with serious attempts at tracking had failed, so they just said, "Fuck it! We'll track them when they turn up at crime scenes?" Of what possible law enforcement use is that?
And while the bullet that killed terry was too damaged to be conclusively linked to the two FF AK-47s abandoned at the scene, you should be aware that it is standard practice for the Mexican gangs to leave weapons that have been used killings to try to avoid being linked with them. It's just barely conceivable that another weapon was used, but both of those abandoned weapons had been fired at the scene and dumped. Perhaps they were actually carefully placed at the scene by GuardDuck or juris "Bully Weasel" imprudent in an elaborate false flag operation. Funded by the Koch brothers, no doubt. My God, is there no limit to libertarian evil?
Sure, both programs were failures. But they certainly weren't as far reaching and awful as they have been portrayed by the propaganda machine. And, as I said above, the criticism completely ignores the main problem to begin with by not looking at the prohibition of drugs canard. Why waste your energy on this, now a defunct program, when you could spend it trying to legalize all drugs and actually solve the problem?
Unless, of course, you are simply obsessed with trying to prove certain people wrong and win the argument:)
Just because you are ignorant of so much does not make everyone as ignorant (or dishonest) as you.
If you really wanted to use your own ignorance as a reason for believing the party line, you should say so right up front. It would save us a lot of wasted circumlocution. Instead, you insist erroneously that you have access to factual data that you say shows the law was followed. The latter is either substantiatiable or not - unfortunately for you, it is not. As every source save one under discussion agrees - the bankruptcy legal process was subverted by political demands. You even tacitly agree when you say that they chose the best course possible (implying that avoiding the more difficult legally sound approach was less viable [at least with respect to political concerns]).
I get that you are a relatively mindless political drone - so naturally you assume that those that oppose you are the same in mirror image. When they are better at that than you, your invective level goes off the scale. What you simply cannot conceive is that there is a level of discourse to which you are not privvy, but others of us are. That is just not acceptable to you (even though you argue that such is true with respect to the human beings that collect govt paychecks).
What a sad, strange creature you are.
And now we've come the point where we sadly arrive quite often where:
a)There are no facts that I could present to you to change your mind. The president, Congress, Judge Gerber, GM, the Unions et al broke the law for purely political reasons. End of conversation, no more points to be made, Mark is an ignorant fool. Amen.
And b)saying things that are, in fact, more accurate descriptions of yourself in another classic case of Projection/Flipping.
When you are ready to discuss this topic with a more open mind, you know where to find me:)
There are no facts that I could present to you to change your mind.
Indeed. You don't even pay attention to your own links, e.g. Economist, let alone the ones I give you. Instead you fall back on one dubious wiki post - ONLY.
But I understand, you don't like that I've called you on your bullshit. You reserve doing that to others just for yourself. I really like the bit how I can't possibly understand the case because you don't and only people that work for govt have that extra special knowledge that just happens to agree with you. If you aren't childish, you are dishonest - and sometimes both!
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