HILLARY'S UGLY 'JOKE'
 

These guys are all nuts - Aren't there any normal people in politics? :headshake Or is that an oxymoron...

I'd run for president, but there is that time that I said the word "fuck" in public.

Killed it for me.

I don't say the word "fuck" anymore though.

So you think typing it doesn't count?

Too late, RJoe, you're unelectable. Might as well start swearing again.

Shit - Is that what ruined it for me too? I thought it was the posts I made in the Humor thread....

That's what did Ron Burgundy in too.
"Don't you know I'd never say fuck!? I'd never fucking say that!! Fuck!"

edit:
Pretty impressive sounding essay for a K-iddo btw.... I'd like to see it.

Wow!! Ron Burgundy and Me in the same post!!

People know me.

So...you could be vice pres instead. :biggrin:

I think it would be great if we had someone in office who would start to say it more often in public. If anyone will slip up with that word it will be Hillary.

You know, I think I would quite like to see that - Hillary going all Pulp-Fictionesque and threatening to pop a mutha-f&%$#in cap in some mutha-&%$#er n#$%&rs ass ...

She is just about the last person I want to see in the White House. We need someone new fresh and different.

I bet they would gig him for wanting to be a cowboy too.

I wouldn't get your hopes up, the only three candidates that would fit that category are Kucinich, Gravel, and Paul. Neither of them will have half a chance.

Gravel scares me.

I think edwards is still the best candidate in the top-tier field for 'fresh and different'. He's much more pro-change than either of the other two democratic leaders. Hillary's too entrenched in the political world, and obama's the halfway point.
Hillary wants to keep the system mostly the same, but make it look different.
Obama wants to change the system but keep it intact, just tinker with it until it's better.
Edwards thinks the system's prettymuch FUBAR, and wants to completely rework it.

Barack Obama was writing essays of national import when he was in kindergarten.

Damn!

Hillary's a lifer
Barack doesn't have the power
Edwards is a weinie

the Republicans are mostly retreads
this blows chunks!

Retreads, schmetreads. We're in a war -- started by other people, as some need to be reminded of periodically -- so vote for a war winner.

Hegemony, after all, is a lot more fun when you're the Hegemon. That way you can have hegemonized milk with your PNAC butter cookies.

Isn't everybody is tired of his personal narrative already? "My Dad worked in a factory." How horrifying, I can't believe somebodies Dad worked in a factory in this day and age.

Obama might be ok.
PH45 has the list of qualified candidates (those who opposed invasion) and none of them has a shot. The media will paint them as having, too much socialism(K), too much capitalism(P), and well I'll have to check on Gravel...

I was going to raise these questions actually. I keep a vague eye on US politics, and I can't see any candidates who impress me as being particularly worthy. Are there any worth being interested in?

Clinton or Obama would be mildly interesting if only for the sake of having a woman or a black person as President ... but the novelty would wear off well before their four years were up.
Idea! Clinton/Obama ticket, pres. gets booted out after two years ... they can both do it! Better - Vote Rice! two for the price of one.

Hes too insane.

That's weird right off, when Piercehawkeye calls somebody too insane.

This Gravel hasn't said anything to draw my attention.

Well if his campaign videos are any judge, he hasnt said anything. Ever.

Hmm; might explain it. Well, some other night.

That's not true at all. Gravel has flat out stated that he has no hopes for winning the presidential nomination and that he is only campaigning for President so that he can get his message out.

Of course, this means that everyone can find some way that they strongly disagree with him and he has been pretty effectively marginalized and he's been excluded from some of the debates.

I know that Gravel favors:
* ending the drug war
* getting out of the oil wars in the Middle East
* oil independence "within 5 years"
* gay rights
* year round schooling???
* progressive sales tax???
* and some other stuff

He has his own health care plan, too, of course.

Gravel does has some decent views, most I've heard are unrealistic, but his "insanity" comes from how he debates.

It was a joke.

My goodness, that's the first I've heard of such a thing as a "progressive sales tax." Let us count the ways that's a bad idea... one, you really shouldn't abuse the rich just for being rich, which is what the thing seems to enshrine simply by definition. Two... (have at it, folks).

Well those first four have a fair bit going for them, (not to say that they're workable or have nothing going against them though) ... but ... progressive sales tax?? What??
How would that even work? Rich people have to pay more than poor people on the same item? Or expensive items are taxed at a higher rate than lower price items?
I don't have time to even start listing how unworkable either approach would be.
Torrere, can you tell me what the idea is here?

I tire of these egotists who run just to promote an agenda.

Even those who become President don't get to automatically implement an agenda. They are usually politically hamstrung; they are only a third of the government anyway. You can pretty much ignore which health care plan is being promoted by whom, eleven months before the election. The politics of it will change over and over again before anyone has a chance to suggest any change at all. Even in cases where the President has a Senate and House controlled by their same party, nothing is automatic.

People promoting an agenda get to ignore all that and just say "Well, if *I* was President..." Well shit, we all have said that, since we were little kids.

Lies, damn lies, and political campaign promises.

Expensive items will have a higher tax rate than cheaper items.

For example, if an item costs $10.00 it will have a tax rate of 5.00% making it $10.50 in total.

But if an item costs $10,000 it will have a tax rate of 10.00% making it $11,000 in total.

And at what amount does that line get drawn? Are vehicles included... how bout houses... ?

And the double-sized family pack ($110) gets taxed more than the regular pack ($60) of the same stuff?
And the $110 bag of driveway salt is taxed more than the $90 jar of caviar?

Nope, I don't think this one's gonna fly. :headshake

This sounds like it'll create more problems than it'll solve. In our own lives we make choices based on all the needs and information we have. Having a congresscritter or cube dwellar in Washington decide our needs really rubs folks the wrong way.

Ex: Right now under the present system we have the morgage deduction. For a minority of people at lower incomes it can get them into a house. For everyone else it creates an incentive to buy more house than they can really afford and creates an imbalance in peoples investing toward real estate.

It is the same basic flaw that that you see in a lot of government programs, the group is deciding what is of value to the individual. If you believe in government at any level you're supporting this idea. To me the key is the minimization of the coercion. Put Hillary's mandatory care up against Obama's health incentive plan and you go with Obama's. They are both bad ideas brought about as a response to earlier bad ideas, but Obama's appears to be less reliant on force.

We already have a progressive sales tax to a certain degree: why do you think basic necessities like food and toilet paper are not taxed?

Perhaps I have an unusual perspective on sales tax (I live in a state with an abnormally high sales tax and no income tax, which is how we deal with having so many illegal immigrants who don't pay income tax but who still buy things like everyone else, and it works really well for us) but I don't see anything inherently wrong with a progressive sales tax, depending on where the lines are drawn--it is no different than the progressive income tax system we already have. Now, if you disagree with all progressive tax schemes, okay; or if your main problem is the government's basic inability to draw reasonable guidelines without making a clusterfuck of the whole thing, sure--but doesn't that mean you should all be clamoring for a flat income tax too?

As a side note, I can't find a cite on this in either direction, but as far as I know there is no "sales tax" for the purchaser of a home. There can be a tax on the profit to the seller of the home, but there are exclusions that make that really only apply to investors who are not living in the house.

That's true, but there is a property tax on a house. You don't find property tax on something like a hammer, even though a hammer will usually last just as long.

Sure, but in theory property taxes wouldn't be affected by a progressive sales tax system, if one were to be implemented.

I don't know about yall, but I plan on writing in xoB. Nobody else is worth doodly-squat.

Love how the pics of Hillary are changing. A month ago everyone was all smiles an shit - now everyone is hedging. Interesting article too.