I use Tapatalk and didn't see that edit at the bottom.
I use Tapatalk and didn't see that edit at the bottom.
You need to define the term socialist before we can even begin the discussion.
We didn't give arms to ISIS. They took the arms when they overran military bases held by people we thought would stand up against that type of force, rather than bring their weapons and join them.
A lot of people wanted to send in troops to prop up regimes in Libya and Egypt, but we have meddled in too many countries like that. We should know better. We sometimes need to let countries choose their own governments, even if they will not be pro-western governments or even democracies. It sucks, but that is reality.
And the tax cuts for the rich, and derail common-sense climate change regulations, and double down on the war on drugs policies of the Republicans seems to cause the polar opposite of the type of humanity that Jesus seemed to stand for.
And it is funny that you call me a 'lefty'. I was a registered Republican as recently as 2011 but stopped supporting and campaigning the party after their disastrous 2000s, and am currently unafilliated.
And for the record, over 75% of the Democrat congresscritters consider themselves to be active Christians. Another big portion are Jews, and one is a Muslim. The remainder just don't mention religion.
Are those people the party who are trying to remove God from your country?
Again, the country is naturally moving to the Left (which is still moderately Right by European standards), and the new Centrist position will of course be to the left of where you think it should be.
Last edited by NorthwestUteFan; 09-20-2015 at 12:51 AM.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
And FWIW (channelling my inner Yoda): When debates the Democrats have, discuss them we will...
“We Have Contained Them.”
—President Obama regarding ISIS, speaking with George Stephanopoulos on Friday's edition of ABC’s Good Morning America, in an interview videotaped Thursday.
Back in August, the Obama White House tweeted, “No challenge poses a greater threat to our future than climate change,” echoing a near identical statement from the president in April and in February.
These are tragically clueless statements, and really quite infuriating in light of what's happened.
Last edited by LA Ute; 11-14-2015 at 01:41 AM.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
I got the feeling that Trump and Putin would dine on fava beans, panda bear liver, and human fetal tissue with a nice Chianti and then choke out a Hooker for dessert.
Last edited by NorthwestUteFan; 09-21-2015 at 11:25 AM.
Scott Walker drops out.
"Scott Walker announces today that he's dropping out of the presidential campaign to remind everyone that he was actually still in the presidential campaign."Originally Posted by NorthwestUteFan
Everybody who polls lower than the 15 yr old kid from Iowa called 'Deez Nutz' should drop out now. Also Deez Nutz needs to find a running mate named Anya Chinn...
And finally, remember that Michelle Bachman and Rick Santorum were running #1 and #2 at this point before the 2012 election. There is a LOT of football left to play between now and then.
The Deez Nutz kid should get sued by Utah's greatest cyclist David Zabriskie for trademark infringement.
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Isn't Dave an attorney? It seems a lot of the Zabriskies were attorneys. I went to HS with at least one of his older sisters.
Sorry. I misremembered the product name. It's simply DZ Nuts. The kid's off the hook.
The cyclist Zabriskie is not the same as the attorney Zabriskies. I'm not sure how much distance there is between the two, but from what I can tell, at least one of those went to BYU which alone would indicate at least a significant distance.
I've become a huge fan of Ben Carson. My concern is that he is too soft spoken and doesn't engage in the yelling and name calling, which probably makes people think he's uninformed.
I don't understand why Chris Christie doesn't get more support than he does. I guess the fact he was willing to praise Obama over anything at all has made him toxic to the GOP.
I was a huge Ron Paul fan, but I can't stand Rand Paul.
It seems like its time to cut some guys loose for the R's. Its a joke having 17 guys or whatever up on the stage. They should say something like "double digit percentage folks only" or "fav 5 only".
Walker is out. Hard to believe any of the second stage candidates are still in this thing.
Would like to see Kasich make a significant move. He comes across to me as presidential and willing to reach across the aisle to get some things done.
“Children and dogs are as necessary to the welfare of the country as Wall Street and the railroads.” -- Harry S. Truman
"You never soar so high as when you stoop down to help a child or an animal." -- Jewish Proverb
"Three-time Pro Bowler Eric Weddle the most versatile, and maybe most intelligent, safety in the game." -- SI, 9/7/15, p. 107.
From @TheTweetOfGod:
"The Mexican border is less insecure than Donald Trump."
I saw a tweet this morning to the effect:
"Trump vows to prevent hurricane Patricia from crossing the border illegally."
The Democrat debate was interesting.
Jim Webb wants to be a Republican, and even threw out an 'I killed the bastard with my bare hands after he threw a grenade at me' line. He spent most of his time complaining about not being allowed to talk. He has already dropped out.
Lincoln Chaffed used to effectively be a Republican. He actually did an admirable job as an interim Senator, a post to which he was appointed after his father passed away in office. He made a few good points. He also dropped out.
Martin O'Malley looked like he was running for VP. He may get the call.
It was interesting those three were in the debate, while Lawrence Lessig was left out. All of their poll numbers were similar to Lessig's. Lessig is a Prof at Harvard Law School and his major focus is on campaign finance reform. He wants to establish a citizen-funded campaign finance organization that will equally fund campaigns for all candidates for a particular office. This will bring transparency to campaigns and will free political office holders from fundraising. In theory this will shift the balance of power away from big donors and bundlers and tilt toward the individual voters. This will allow office holders to spend more time discussing issues with voters and less time getting chummy with big donors like George Soros, the Koch brothers, and Super-PACs. This is a fascinating topic, and one that voters across the entire political spectrum should support. He can't win, and won't get more than 1%-3% of the vote, but this idea certainly has merit.
Bernie Sanders was in fine form as a crusty old Jewish man from Brooklyn. He makes some good points about the strengths of having a single source funding for healthcare, student loans/tuition, child care, and other expenses that can bury low- and middle- income families under insurmountable mountains of debt. Some of the funding for these programs would come from eliminating the cap on SS tax which currently lies at around $110k (eg somebody earning $75M pays the same in SS taxes as somebody making $110k). There would probably be tweaks to the top marginal rate, and perhaps adding a new rate for incomes over $500k+ income. Much of the rest would need to come from increased system efficiency. For reference, the federal government makes ~$64B in annual profit on interest from student loans, which are now single-source. This profit could be used to offset a free tuition program at state and community schools, for example.
Bernie was asked why a member of the military (for example a war hero like Jim Webb) would vote for him, he simply answered that he wouldn't send them into places where he would get them killed. I have to admit that is a compelling answer. In fact Bernie and Chaffee were the only people on the stage (who had a vote) to vote against going into Iraq. And Chaffee was a Republican at the time. Hillary voted for it and should be held accountable for that vote, positive or negative.
But Bernie overreached when he speaks about the social programs in countries like Denmark and Sweden and Canada. Those countries have a lot going for them and their citizens generally have a great quality of life. But he needs to focus on the existing social programs in the US that have been successful at helping Americans, (eg Social Security, Medicare, WIC, CHiP, food stamps programs, housing programs, the military - which is the biggest socialist program of all, etc).
But I am not convinced Bernie can win. And I am almost certain that he would be unable to get his reforms into place anyhow, at least not without a significant increase in political activism from citizens - particularly from the younger people who have a bigger stake in the future than do older voters.
Hillary Clinton gave solid answers to most of the questions, with two notable exceptions.
1) when asked how she would be different from previous presidents, she answered that she is a woman. And what else, Hill-dawg? That plus $5 will get you a coffee at Starbucks.
2) when asked what political enemies she has made, she immediately said 'Republicans'. This is an insufficient answer IMHO. I would prefer the president to be more of a uniter, one who can speak for a people rather than immediately discounting opposition parties. The battle needs to be won with rhetoric and the strength of the argument, rather than simple political positioning.
Now back to Hillary. I have not been a fan of her. But I have to say that watching her during the Benghazi hearing I came away impressed. She comes across as an effective leader and a compassionate and empathetic person. In the positive side she may be the best qualified presidential candidate (in terms of actual bureaucratic leadership experience) in many decades, or even centuries.
In my opinion she won the election in a landslide this week. The Republicans on the Benghazi hearing embarrassed the party and spent hours rehashing topics they had already put to bed.
In the words of Elijah Cummings, we are better than that as a nation. The entire hearing showed itself to be a little more than a McCarthy-esque witch hunt and they had no problem throwing very good people under the bus (eg Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Adm. Mike Mullen) And Hillary proved that she weighs more than a duck and that her crooked, wart-covered nose was placed there by Rep Gowdy.
I hoped we would see a serious challenge from the Republicans on actual issues, but this one is all over except for the formalities.
On a positive note the next president is going to inherit a solid economy and a decent situation. The question is, will he/she be closer to an Urban Meyer at tOSU or a Brady Hoke at Michigan?
It never really mattered who ran or how they performed. The Democratic nominee was assured of the inside track to the White House because the demographics in a national election are in their favor. The last time a Republican candidate got a significant percentage of the Hispanic vote was 2004. Since then, the candidate who won that election introduced an immigration reform plan that was labeled amnesty by his own party. That party has consistently stood in the way of immigration reform ever since. At the same time, the tea faction has emerged, and there has been an effort to push so called RINOs out of the GOP. The Republicans desperately need to shed their image as the old white man party, but they are too busy reinforcing that image.
"It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view." -- Oscar Levant
Demographically and numerically you are absolutely correct. But it goes deeper than that.
The Republicans finally got the football in the mid 2000s and held the presidency, the house, and the Senate. But they squandered all that power and still spent us into oblivion, digging a financial hole so deep that we might not be able to claw ourselves out. And we broke a number of other countries in the process, to the point that some of them can use our own definition of 'terrorism' to describe many of our actions in their countries.
We would be wise to go back to bring the Shining City on a Hill, instead of being known as the Country With the Flying Robots of Death.
As a Reagan Republican this breaks my heart.
Ha. Just saw that the RNC has ended their partnership with NBC over the last debate. Was it really that bad? I need to dig it up this week because the Ted Cruz response clip that I saw sounded a lot like my three year old.
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It was pretty bad. Even I, Joe Republican, must say that if I had seen similar questions asked of Hillary and Bernie I would've thought the moderators were being idiots. Yes, I would've felt schadenfreude, but I'd still have thought they were being idiots.
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"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
It is funny they are distancing themselves from NBC over the CNBC debate, while Donald Trump will be on SNL this weekend (on NBC). Donald Trump is the honey badger, he don't give a f@*&.
The debate format and lines of questioning seem to be intended to drive ratings for cable news stations.
This election is shaping up to be a group of strong international military interventionalists, with Hillary leading the charge.
Last edited by NorthwestUteFan; 11-02-2015 at 07:26 PM.
Pres Obama today:
"I see all these Republican candidates claiming they will be able to stand up to China or Russia, but then they complain about hard questions from CNBC moderators."
That is too funny.
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It's a heck of a zinger by the POTUS. Ben Carson responded with one of his own:
"That wouldn’t happen to be the same President Obama who was afraid to go on Fox, would it?”
Last edited by LA Ute; 11-04-2015 at 09:53 AM.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Excellent stump speech by Chris Christie today. We need to greatly revise the way we deal with addiction in this country.
Like.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
I like him a lot. I think he could have broad appeal (nationwide, across party lines). I wish he could gain more traction (within the Republican primary).
Last edited by NorthwestUteFan; 11-06-2015 at 12:30 AM. Reason: Edited for clarity
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