Obama and the Press and people bitched about Bush using the press. They are no different.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...202045_pf.html

Obama's program not working, small fractions helped.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090804/..._mortgage_help

So now ole Rahm it Through wants to stifle Free Speech?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/25900.html

Oh No!

He's invoking Reagan's 11lth Commandment:

"Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican (Democrat)"

How could he stoop so low!

Actually, Shawnee, it is less that we're always right, than that you are so often so consistently wrong.

Capitalism's the way of the future, basically because the future goes to the money, not to the poverty. Our reasons are realer than any reason you can muster up, and we stand ready to demonstrate that over and over and over and over and over and over ad infinitum until even the worst, most economically illiterate fanatic Socialist must be convinced. Or else left isolated in his own cyst, walled away from the body politic by his own opinions. This eternal willingness is because what is true doesn't change... and it's more truth than you've ever possessed. Here's a teachable moment. Will it teach Shawnee enlightenment, or teach the enlightened that Shawnee has the brains of a planarian?

Um duh, um, mebbe I kin larn to think, ya think? Buts I only gots ONE brains so I can't live in that there planetarium your talkin' 'bout.

Now I see the problem: you are multi-brained, while little old me only has the one. :(

I would suggest that the so called drift to socialism is, in fact, simply a series of short term measures to correct the economy that was broken and heading towards collapse as a result of drifting away from any government regulation....to be followed by the restoration of reasonable regulations to keep the free marketeers from returning to those excesses.

They said "short term" about FDR's New Deal too. And its opponents opposed it on the grounds that if it was different from state socialism, they'd sure wouldn't want to live on that difference. It's not very much talked about, but might they have had a point then? You're not going to hear about this in high-school American History class, are you? (American history is not, I think, very well taught in grades 1-12 -- in spite of my always enjoying it and getting good grades. I could see why some people got bored and tuned it out and I could watch them getting bored stiff too.)

And the present bureaucracy and multiplicity of Federal Agencies of this that and the other is still here, even after the Supreme Court dissolved the National Recovery Administration.

That Other NRA

It's best if most of us don't get fooled again. That way we can resist the harebrained headlong national debt increase and the inflation that will follow in its wake if implemented, and vote out the dopes who've enacted this whole attempt to dismember a fifth of the world's economy, namely the American economy.

The finger of blame has been pointed at the Federal Government, particularly certain named Congresscritters like Barney Frank, for rejiggering investment risk and lending risk to induce a too-large expansion of debt as a part of the national economy. This would not have occurred without Congressional mandate, now would it have? Earlier Federal financial regulation was designed to contain the excesses of debt mismanagement that crashed the stock market and then everything else into the Depression. This earlier regulation was replaced by removing such regulation and insisting that credit be extended wider and wider and deeper and deeper -- and whattaya know, the debt burden grew to enormous size. It's a matter of public record, d'ya know. I mean, if Fox News Channel can find it, surely you can too, if you think you're smarter than a Fox.

I devoutly hope that you can.

For it would be pleasant. I like pleasant, and all the more for not always being so myself.

Sidereally yours,
UG/Reid
___________

"Keep Looking Up." -- Jack Horkheimer

Fox News Channel :eek:

Of course they blame Barney Frank, rather than eight years of a nearly totally deregulated financial services industry that ran amok.

In all fairness, Clinton and the Republican Congress of the late 90s share the blame with Bush and Republican Congress (of 2000-06) and the lack of any serious oversight for six years. The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 was an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen..and to no surprise, it happened.

It didnt just happen in 2007 when Barney Frank rose to the chairmanship of a House committee.

Apparently, they can't repay the loans, pop.

source

Text:

I've been dragging my bagpipe case out lately -- with its Kingdom of Atlantia sticker centered on its lid.

Actually, Redux, Fox News does and did apportion blame all over. Barney was just one of the ones they fingered. They found the things you found. See? -- they can't be wrong just because they sound a little more Republican than everybody else except the blogoverse.

:luv:

:) I'm not always pleasant either. But next time I have a hankerin' for being pleasant I'll be sure to shower some on you. :)

Economy recovering? No wai not with them stupid dems and Obama in charge...o wait...

Link

BUT WHERE ARE THE JOBS???!!!

Now now, we're just fragile females. We can't be worryin' ourselves with men issues.

See, these naysayers have this Big Bang theory for economic recovery. It should go from disaster to spectacular in 5 months. This slow move towards success is just piddly stuff: it won't add up.

So said the Hare to the Tortoise. By "Hare" I mean...ah well, you know. :p

One month of job improvement still does not equal "millions of jobs". It is all politics folks. It is easy to make promises for things that can't be measured.

http://www.propublica.org/ion/stimul...w-for-sure-520

Its easy to call "game over - you lose" after one quarter of play (or six months into a 18-24 month program)...but its not objective.

Ok, could you please document the number of jobs created that were "shovel ready" since the Stimulus Bill was approved?

Why,...the game is not over...its not even half time yet.

Objective people withhold judgement until a full picture is available.

And even in the short time to-date, the portions of the program to assist state/local governments and to extend unemployment benefits have had a significant impact.

Because they promised to kick start the economy with "Shovel Ready" jobs.

And they defined it in this way:

http://transportation.house.gov/Medi...20projects.pdf

But yet, the jobless rate remains above 9%, and climbing.

Only ideologues and idiots would expect any program to turn the economy around on a dime.

This is what The Administration promised, as quoted in their own words. So you think the Obama administration is filled up with "ideologues and idiots"?

Nope...I think they misjudged the extent of the economic downtown and are facing the political consequences from the the ideologues and the idiots who were looking for any excuse to proclaim the program a failure before giving it a chance to fully kick-in.

It is comical how many Republican governors have complained about the program while at the same time handing out checks for projects.

As defined by their short term goal of, "jump-start the economy and create a substantial number of new construction jobs by June", why yes, they have completely failed. To the tune of over 2 million job losses since Jan 09.

Money greases all politics. Another reason for the failure.

Well, here's one example of change.

Before anyone comes to the defense of the credit card industry, there are two points to be made here. The law merely states that customers have to opt-in. This simply means that like in any normal business relationship, the customer must agree to a service that will cost him or her money. In other words the customer should be able to decide up front whether to have a card denied on each occasion when they are over their limit or be hit with a $39 charge each time, even if they make individual small purchases.

The second is that credit card companies have been lowering credit card limits without adequately informing customers. This means that even customers who diligently track their purchases may be surprised. At at possible $39 for each transaction, it could be a very large surprise.

The law does not prohibit the practice, it merely states that the customer must explicitly agree to the feature.

I am more concerned that they are unilaterally removing an individuals access to previously available credit without notification. Although it should change now it says volumes about the shady business they run.

The credit card "bill of rights" while it could have done more was applauded by nearly all consumer organizations.

"This is probably the strongest piece of consumer legislation to pass Congress in a decade," said Travis Plunkett of the Consumer Federation of America.

"That's a big win," said Ed Mierzwinksi of US Public Interest Research Groups. "It gets rid of any 'gotcha" tricks."

"The bill picks up where the Fed's rules leave off, protecting all Americans from unjustified or excessive fees and stopping retroactive interest rate hikes that only bury struggling families in insurmountable debt..." said Lauren Saunders, Managing Attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...ill-of-rights/

They did good with that one.

Okay, who hacked Merc's account?

Take off that mask and show us who you really are!

Business as usual in D.C.

Firms with Obama ties profit from health push

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090819/...re_consultants

Hmm... an article about how nothing bad was done, but it could look bad if somebody wrote an article about how it could look bad, while taking care to point out that nothing bad was done. How meta.

Bwaaahaaahaaaa! :thumbsup:

And really, how could we ever get enough of these kinds of articles? I was just saying to myself today, "Self, how could you get your hands on hundreds of irrelevant articles on a daily basis?" There just aren't enough pointless meandering partisan articles around these parts.

Yea, I agree, sort of like when the VP left a company that he was on the board of directors and that company directly profited from their government contract. :lol:

Really, that's old news. Shouldn't we forgive Cheney for Halliburton by now? ;)

Well Obama is doing a live interview with some conservative radio talkshow host in the White House. Pretty impressive. I would give Obama two thumbs up on that one.

Pretty funny.

Ben Smith

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmi...h.html?showall

The sound of silence.

I'd say he is making room in the middle for religious moderates. The GOP used the right edge effectively to get their crusade in the Middle East. Obama is trying to make the middle comfortable for people who think religion is useful for something other than getting people amped up to kill. There are a lot of spiritual people in this country who've turned away from organized religion in part because of its marriage to the GOP regardless of the other policies it promotes based solely on an expressed opposition to abortion. Obama is doing a very smart thing. It may be cynical but at least his motive is in line with the beliefs of the target audience. Bushes hijacking of the nation's pulpits was brilliantly done. Franco would have been proud.

The move of the population away from organized religion began long before Bush came on the scene. Maybe more people moved away when the GOP expressed their overwhelming belief in faith based programs to assist in the issues of the charity. I can't recall anything other than a few sound bites that proclaimed faith to pursue the WOT. But given that many people were religious it sounds like a logical thing to do when you are about to go into armed conflict. I never heard any of the rally cries when I was on active duty at that time which ever invoked some kind of use of organized religion to "amp up" the troops. Maybe you had a different experience when you were serving at the time, or someone in your family, or even a close friend. I never heard it. The problem people have with organized religion in this country has very little to do with some fantasy that it was highjacked by the GOP. Seems to me that Obama and his reverend’s sound bite of “GOD DAMM AMERICA” Wright did more to move people away from organized religion than Bush did in 8 years.

Further, I would state that there have been three widespread expose's of hardcore religious infiltration of the military. 1) The Air Force Academy. 2) A bunch of high ranking generals involved in a quasi-military religious organization. 3) A recent article in Harpers that summarized some of the previous as well as some investigative reporting. I only heard about the last one because my brother, a hard core Obama worshiper, sent me the mag. It really was a pretty interesting read. Most of it was quite believable. The problem is I really don't know anyone who ever felt the way the investigator tried to portray members on active duty and their religious affiliation. I never heard much about religion. Even in the military it remains a pretty personal thing. It is not like there are a bunch of Jesus Freaks running around invoking GOD/Lord/Jesus on the way to battle. But when you deploy you tend to get close to God, in whatever sense that means to you, or spiritual. Funny the way the possibility of death will do that to you. Anyway, I also spent a fair amount of time around people of the 05-09 level on a fairly regular basis and I just don't ever recall hearing someone invoke GOD or something else as a motivation for impending military operations, other than the usual prayer by a Chaplin (mostly non-denominational). Maybe Reg Joe, Caphowdy, or some others with military experience during the Bush years could share and confirm or deny similar experiences. I am just one person with one experience, although it was an intense one for the last 9 years of my service. So I would be interested to hear what others have to say on the issue. I just never saw religion being invoked or high jacked to pursue activities in TWOT, Iraq or Afgan deployment activities. Every time I read something about it or a comment I am more convinced that it is another wedge that the liberal-left has used to solidify Bush Hate when really it was a non-issue.

On another note about the liberal press, why did they hide the guys race? I never even new the guy carrying was black until I saw a pic on the web but yet it was talked about for days on end.

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/gg...nt-a-race-war/

Definitely. I think the outrage there was more out of the Democrats anti-religion corner but subsidizing religious organizations regardless of mission is going to be controversial. Since the opposition was so loud Obama probably needs to reposition his party as less anti-religion. I meant amp up the civilian population to support a war of choice. ..."this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile." Everyone who has left a church has their own reasons. Mine had to due mostly with perceived close-mindedness, sharp movement away from Vatican II, adherence to dogma over reason, covering up clergy abuse, putting the Church before ethics, denial of the legitimacy of other religions, and miss-use of the pulpit to organize for the GOP. My Catholic diocese is fully in the pocket of the Republican Party with the bishop forcing the priests to read his political tracts and threatened denial of communion to Biden. I never saw that having an impact but then I never attended his particular church or denomination.

Definately. But it does not explain the silence on the part of those who are memebers of their "anti-religion corner". The outcry of those radical elements was huge. It just sounds like ANOTHER example of the double standard and pass given to Obama.

Possible. I never saw it that way, but like you (if I read your comments correctly) I am not all that connected to organized religion in any way. I just don't ever recall large groups of people invoking religion in the same way that Bush stated it. He said it. I never heard it repeated.

I agree 100%.

I couldn't respond, I haven't been but to a few weddings and funerals in the last 20 years.

That is my plan for the next twenty. :)

So he said it in dog-whistle language, and you're the dog. The rest of us didn't hear it, so it didn't happen for us.

I recall them being apologetic for the word crusade.

The people you're listening to are speaking in dog-whistle language, and the rest of us can't hear it. Why on earth would 10 seconds of one preacher's message give anyone cause to question their religious affiliation? If they abandon it for Rev. Wright, the message was surely not very important or meaningful for them in the first place. Whomever fed you this particular line of bullshit, stop paying attention to them.

They had you with 24 hour cable news. Different whistles for different dogs.

Well I guess Obama is full of shit. Maybe I should pay less attention to him. He clearly severed his ties to the church because of this politically damaging statement.

He severed ties to one church, not the church.

If a fact needs spinning, it is probably false on its face.

No doubt.

Then why'd you bring it up, Merc?

:lol2:

Gutteral response as an opposit extreme view of those who believe there is something bigger to it, like those who believe there is a religious element to Warrior Ethics.

OK, not the military necessarily, but have you heard the news about Blackwater and Eric Prince? Apparently he sees himself as some big crusader, like, in the original sense of the word.

"...The affidavits also claim that Mr Prince smuggled weapons into Iraq and that he “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe...”
http://www.economist.com/world/unite...ry_id=14291547

check this out......
http://la-gun.com/manning/obama3/

humph. Well, I didn't see that particular segment, but I do watch MSNBC all the time, and on the shows I watch, they most certainly DID show the guy's face and his race. Still, I agree that a LOT of the anger out there IS because we have a black man as president, and a lot of the animosity IS race driven.

Biased as all get out information isn't really information.
Bullshit - only among the uninformed/ignorant. Stop being such a patsy to the extremists.

I didn't say MSNBC is ALL I watch, just that I watch it a lot. I also watch other news sources, and read different news magazines. I even watch FOX sometimes when I can stomach it.

And I am not being a patsy to anyone, I am calling it like I see it.