The Audacity of Nope

82 comments on “The Audacity of Nope”

1. Sorry couldn’t disagree more. You need to really look at Obama. If Hillary thinks he will step down and turn stuff over to her in 2016 she is dreaming. He has the making of a petty dictator and taking America down. You as an author should know how important biographical info is. His own authorized bio listed him as born in Kenya and raised in Hawaii and Indonesia. He did not change that for many years. He has a history of leftest radical leanings and most sources agree that the gold ring he wears and used as wedding band says “There is no God but Allah.” So sorry that many will accept anything to keep a “liberal” in.

   1. It’s so *cute* that it sounds like all you know about him is from that piece of crap propaganda – excuse me, “movie”. Please, go drink the Kool-Aid. 😛

   2. Thanks for coming over here and sharing all the same Fox talking point lies and more that you brought up over on Facebook.

      PAD

      1. It’s all part of the “If I repeat this bûllšhìŧ often enough, I may actually start to believe it” mantra.

      2. That I should agree with Craig — I’m starstruck! But, he has described Obama perfectly.

      3. Wow, and just when you thought Bobby couldn’t come up with anything new, he strikes gold!

         No, you’re not agreeing with me. You’re twisting my words because there’s something fundamentally wrong with you.

         Here’s how I describe Bobby: insane, and covered in crap from having his head shoved up Romney’s backside.

      4. My high-school econ teacher, a Kennedy Democrat 50 years ago, told his class right up front that the best recommendation he could make for any student to any employer was: “This man can make money for you.”

         If anyone reading wants to see the difference between Craig and me, that’s easy to describe: No, I don’t think the sun rises or sets in Mitt Romney’s áršëhølë; however, whereas Craig sees Mitt’s success as threatening and wants to punish him for it (stealing as much as he can get in the name of “fairness”), I don’t care what Romney does with his money and, indeed (if offered the chance) would try to double it for him.

         Maybe that is an insane behavior on my part; but, gentle reader, you tell me who gets the job and keeps it?

         The Bible cautions us not to covet our neighbor’s wealth. I doubt that advice comes from God, but it remains good advice.

   3. “most sources agree that the gold ring he wears and used as wedding band says “There is no God but Allah.” So sorry that many will accept anything to keep a “liberal” in.”

      Bwa-ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

      If by “most sources” you mean one source, as in WND, you’re correct. The official home of the Birthers has a new bûllšhìŧ fantasy to push to the stupid. And the stupid are apparently lining up and begging to look like happy little fools.

      1. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry! Don’t you remember? We covered his on Facebook. She’s not a birther; she just believes he was born in Kenya.

         PAD

   4. “most sources agree that the gold ring he wears and used as wedding band says “There is no God but Allah.” So sorry that many will accept anything to keep a “liberal” in.”

      If by “most sources” you mean mainly one source, WND, the official home of the Birther idiots, then you would be correct. Yes, the Birthers are back with a new bûllšhìŧ fantasy to push on the stupid and the stupid are apparently lining up and begging WND to tell them whatever they need to look like morons.

      Seriously? Jerome Corsi’s fantasy world crap is what you’re going to present here as fact? Stop embarrassing yourself.

   5. Wow, you have been absolutely chugging the crazy sauce.

   6. He has the making of a petty dictator and taking America down. You as an author should know how important biographical info is. His own authorized bio listed him as born in Kenya and raised in Hawaii and Indonesia.

      Ms. Howard, please stop helping. We have enough to live down after nominating Christine O’Donnell and Sharon Angle for the Senate two years ago; by repeating facially absurd criticisms you’re just making the Democrats look reasonable.

      President Obama is not a petty dictator. He was legitimately elected, hasn’t done anything particularly dictatorial, and frankly doesn’t have enough mojo to take America down even if he wanted to. We survived Carter, we’ll survive this.

      The “born in Kenya” meme is tired. Please, just, stop. He produced a birth certificate, someone dug up his birth announcement in a Hawaiian newspaper morgue, and if he ever claimed to be born in Kenya, I’ve never seen any citation to it. Plus, it doesn’t matter. His mom was a US citizen, she’d lived most of her life in the US, therefore her child was entitled to US citizenship at birth. “Citizen from birth” is the only gloss of “natural born citizen” that makes any sense. It doesn’t matter if he was born in Hawaii, Kenya, or on the holodeck of DS9; he’s eligible for the presidency. Your efforts are far better spent on getting out the vote to make him a one-term President than rehashing tired arguments that are both wrong and moot.

2. “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

   First, you used the wrong quote.

   ““Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term.””
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-A09a_gHJc

   It’s a rather important difference since McConnell and the Republicans tried to weasel out of having said it by claiming that they said and meant what you quoted him as saying and saying that, obviously, that was just the general thing that the opposition party always feels and not a statement of what their top political goal was.

   Second, you know that the first Republican/conservative supporter is just going to ignore every bill blocked by the Republicans over the last four years and just bring up the Republicans bogus jobs bill or talk about the budget, right?

   1. Well, here’s where I got the quote from:

      http://www.prunejuicemedia.com/2010/classic-quote-from-sen-minority-leader-mitch-mcconnell-r-ky/

      Maybe he said it more than once?

      And as it turned out, Jerry, you were wrong: Over on Facebook, the first Republican/conservative supporter brought up not the bogus jobs bill or budget talk, but instead the old canard about the Democrats having a filibuster proof majority for two years. Maybe the first one here will do it, though.

      PAD

      1. Oh, I knew he said both and more than once, but the earliest ones used the words “political priority” when he said it. I pointed that out because, as I said, the defense they started using to the line was that they only said that it was an important goal in the way that it’s always important to the party in opposition and not as a statement of political priority.

         And… Oh, the fake “he had 60” bit. Put that one out of my head by now.

3. Bottom line, Peter: All of those 375 DEMOCRATIC bills (your words) cost money at a time when the government is borrowing 40 cents (actually closer to 42 now) of every dollar it spends and reserving that bill for YOUR kids, not mine (since I don’t have any, though my brother does).

   So, getting rid of Obama really is the key, because his solution to everything is solely to look for more money to steal, and since he can’t get it from me and mine, he’s looking to get it from you and yours!

   Since I do recall that jesting thread you wrote about Governor Romney warring on Christmas, allow me to take this opportunity to point out that, in the long run, I’m showing more concern for your children than you are (and so is Governor Romney).

   It really does pain me to think how they will get your bill.

   But, somehow, all that never makes it into your threads because, like all the other demodonkeys who post here, you are NOT willing to double everyone’s taxes to pay for your stuff or to put that proposition squarely before the voters so that they can tell you what they really think of it.

   Well, you cannot fool all of the voters all of the time, which means that, sooner or later, your side is going to lose. It really makes little difference to me what the immediate result is (I’ll be happy if Romney wins, and I’d be VERY happy if Johnson could win, but I’ll make more money in the next 4 years if Obama wins, so it’s almost a push).

   In the meantime, if Obama wins, your side will confront the reality of having turned the United States into a giant Greece or Spain, except that we’ll be inflated to the hilt by all the legalized crooks at the Federal Reserve.

   To paraphrase the late Wizard of Ooze, “A [tr]illion here, a [tr]illion there — pretty soon, you’re talkin’ real money!”

   1. While I hate to feed a troll, tell me how Romney will help anyone other than the rich. And try to do it without bashing Obama if possible.

      1. Even better, Neil, have anyone explain what Romney actually stands for. He changes his positions every other week and in some cases three to four time in a three day period. He is so prone to just saying whatever he thinks the audience in question wants to hear that he says anything and everything and has even been factchecked by his own campaign; including for things he said during the debate.

         He has no core values or beliefs. He has no political positions that he holds dear. The only way we can judge him politically at this point is by the people he surrounds himself with and he has been surrounding himself with advisers who all have had their hands in the biggest economic and foreign policy blunders of the W. Bush administration.

         When people say that Romney’s Presidency would be the W. Bush policies on steroids, that’s a warning and not a joke.

      2. Jerry: I believe that Romney has a core belief. He wants to be President. That’s it. That’s all. He will say anything that anyone wants to hear because his core belief is that he should be running the country. If you keep that in mind, everything else falls into place.

         PAD

      3. Pretty much. Fellow Mormon & Republican John Huntsman pretty much nailed it when he described Romney as a “perfectly lubricated weather vane.”

      4. Ok, I guess my response is, How is Obama going to help out anyone other than the rich? I do mean this seriously, if you have any doubt…

         Why do I feel this way? Look at what he HAS managed to do during his first term.

         His highpoint was a 1000 page health care bill which is advertised as giving millions healthcare, but is really a bill giving the insurance companies the ability to charge billions more to all their customers in its name. Yes, you now get a large amount of mandated coverages, but we are the ones that get to pay for those coverages. I don’t even want to imagine all the other little goodies that were slipped in there that had nothing whatsoever to do with healthcare. Ask your accountant about 1099s, and watch him shudder…

         He pushed through a huge stimulus bill whose major result seems to have been to inefficiently funded a few public works projects while giving billions away to campaign contributors and democratic supporters. If you quote the Keynesian fantasy of how government spending stimulates the economy, then you loose points unless you can also exhibit evidence you truly believe in Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the Great Pumpkin…

         And, then there is the government takeover of General Motors, wherein he decided that the assets of public citizens should really belong to the people, and that the interests of Unions were more important than the protections of the Constitution. I am still waiting to see what the true bill for that bit of government action will be. The demise of the Volt will just be the start.

         I sometimes think Obama just might throw the election so that he won’t be in charge when the bills for his actions come due…

      5. PAD – If true, and it may very well be, that Romney has only one core belief – that he should be president, point his believers at Paul ‘I wanna be Prime Minister, I wanna be Prime Minister’ Martin Jr who worked for several years with but one goal in mind: become Prime Minister of Canada. And, when he got there, we learned he had nothing to offer the job. He’d spent whatever intellectual capital getting to the post, rather than thinking about what he’d do once he got there. His apologists point out there was nothing he could do as he was in a minority government and the latter was true, but compare this with his successor (the reviled Harper) who unfortunately did get quite a bit done, in spite of having two successive minority mandates.

   2. Wow, that’s two of the three classic GOP Big Lies(tm) right there in one package. To your credit, you explicitly disavowed the third (Obama wants to tax you to death), avoiding the trifecta.

      1. Although you didn’t explicitly state that the GOP would actually reduce spending, you implied it repeatedly. The Republican Party has an atrocious record for balancing the budget and/or reducing government spending. There is absolutely no reason to think that they’ll suddenly start now.

      2. You reiterate the talking point that President Obama and the Democrats want to turn the United States into a Greece or a Spain. That’s, as the kids say, an epic fail.

      2.1 – Socialized government does not preclude responsible government and sound fiscal policy. Exhibits A, B and C: Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

      2.2 – The amount of legislation that would be required to change the United States into even a Canada, let alone a France or a Greece would be simply stunning. Even if there were the will to do so, it would take decades, not a single term.

      2.3 – The Democratic Party has no such intention. Even in their ideal cases, the platform of the Democratic Party, economically, still barely gets to the point of the Conservative Party in Canada.

      If you’re really worried about the legacy of debt, the bigger problem in the States is a political system that has become excessively mired in election cycles and faux-accountability to attack adds. Until that’s changed, no majority of politicians on either side of the aisle will brave the storm and make the big changes required.

      Secondly, getting back to your opening point of those Democratic bills costing money: government spending in a recession or depression stimulates the economy. Unlike tax cuts, which don’t (corporate tax cuts increase corporate profits, middle class tax cuts go into savings or paying down credit card debt), government spending creates direct and indirect employment.

      Not to mention the fact that a great deal of the national infrastructure dates back to the NRA of the Great Depression, and is falling apart. (not that all Democratic bills addressed this, of course). Nonetheless, even if you have to borrow to do it, infrastructure spending would not only increase direct employment, but also indirect employment (people rebuilding bridges and highways now able to eat out, buy cars, etc.), but also save the government from spending double, triple or more of the cost of preemptively fixing, say, a bridge, when it collapses later.

      At least, that’s my two cents.

      1. I don’t know where you studied economics, Moose, but wherever it was, you need to avoid that university and find one to give you a refresher course.

         1. The deficit problem is structural, and it won’t be easy for either party to address. Whether Republicans are to blame for their inability to do so in the past can be debated, but you are right that they often have been almost the big spenders of their opposition (why I’d be even happier if Johnson could win — libertarians won’t take a chain saw to the deficit; they’ll take a chain saw to the budget). Rep. Ryan clearly recognizes the problem, however, and that gives some cause for hope and change (what Obama says ONLY as a talking point).

         2. I don’t recall saying that Democrats WANTED to reduce America to the financial status of Greece, only that they would. Demodonkeys live in a jáçkášš world: They say things like, “Republicans are waging a war on women,” when the only truth that counts is that half of the babies killed in the abortions they tolerate are girls.

         But, I will concede that demodonkeys really BELIEVE it’s all the Republicans fault. They also BELIEVE they can defy the laws of economics and get away with it. To that proof, you appear to be Exhibit A. (I said you were a fool, not a liar or a traitor.)

         3. Taxation in the Scandanavian countries always has been both exorbitant and excessive. If you want to move there, be my guest (I’ll stay where I am).

         If you want to stay here and promote Swedish policies, at least be honest enough to say, “Yes, that’s what I’m after, and I’m willing to double everyone’s taxes to get it.” Perhaps you will be able to establish a socialist or interventionist state that will not spend itself into the ground and in which all your victims will be willing to play dead and cough up the money, but you would have to get elected first, and if you ran on a platform promising to double all taxes, you’d not only lose, you’d be annihilated.

         4. It really makes no difference how much legislation is needed to get to the level of Canada. The point made was that the Democrats are proposing 345 more pieces of legislation they are unwilling to pay for (why the House Republicans are blocking it). Again, run on the real platform: I want more stuff, and I want to raise taxes to pay for it, and by the way, I want someone other than me or mine to pay the taxes.

         5. As for the rest, your Keynesianism is showing, and Keynes died in 1946. His primary concern then was severe unemployment in a severe depression occasioned when all the banks failed. Because the problem was people taking their money out of the banks (it’s called a “run”), his solution was to use paper-money tricks to stop them from doing that.

         That specifically is admitted in the General Theory (if you’ve read it), which gives us the foundation for defining “inflation” as a rise in consumer prices (such a definition explains why marginal depositors remove their money from their accounts).

         In fact, inflation is an artificial increase in the money supply, and things like the recent QE3 (QE forever) do foist inflation on us (along with higher taxes) even though the evidence recognized by Keynes won’t show up in your wife’s shopping cart for awhile — the inflation is parked in the capital plant and has to work its way back to the consumer via higher wages for workers or higher costs for raw materials, e.g., oil.

         In other words, to get the true picture of inflation (and the unconstitutional fraud behind it), one needs to look at BOTH the CPI AND PPI (which you aren’t doing), and when one does that, one realizes that your “stimulus” (itself a talking-point falsehood) actually is waste (you are diverting resources from where they are used best to some other use which is less economic but politically more expedient for demodonkey politicians). That can’t be done forever (eventually the banks will generate too many unproductive loans and fall apart).

         Then we’re back to Keynes.

         6. Finally, your argument re why we should rob the rich (the middle class better can use the money) is not an economic law but a value judgment resting on your preference for socialism. When you attach actual numbers to it, you find that, once more, all you engage in are political diversions. Indeed, Obamacare is a classic example of demodonkey cost shifting, and the result has been that companies on the cusp — those close to hiring the 50th person full time — simply are refusing to hire as a way of avoiding the excessive cost or turning to part-time workers. Banks are refusing to lend because of complex (and often pointless) regulation in laws like Dodd-Frank. The EPA has run amok because Obama’s new employees there haven’t enough to do, so they spend their time dreaming of new ways to harass producers. And, all of this bogs down the recovery.

         This, of course, is what one expects when one substitutes political influence for economic decision-making.

      2. No, no…

         Robert, you can’t get refills here. You have to send the request to you psychiatrists and your pharmacy. Look, just because we helped you with finding your pills and told you how to take them doesn’t mean we can do everything for you.

         You’re going to have to start learning to deal with your mental issues on your own.

         Sheesh…

      3. Jerry, all of us who have been here awhile know your tactics, and they don’t work, so why do you waste our time?

         For the newcomers:

         Jerry first will try to overwhelm you with what the police department taught him re looking things up on the internet.

         When that doesn’t work, he tries to overwhelm his critics with his verbosity — on and on and on and on, often rambling semi-coherently.

         When that doesn’t work, he’ll pull out his 4-letter-word dictionary, which obviously is abridged, since he hasn’t learned yet what monkey smegma is. But, he will fling the rest of it at you.

         When that doesn’t work, he plays ostrich, declaring that you are “shrouded,” and that he will never talk to you again. He’ll also try to get all the other demodonkey posters here to follow suit; however, when that doesn’t work because it shows too much ostrich áršë and makes available too many pin feathers to pluck —

         He goes back to mimicking cleverness by denouncing his critics as crazy.

         He never actually rises to the issue propounded, which is his plan eventually to double everyone’s taxes to pay for all his Obamacrap.

         But, that doesn’t surprise me.

         Bottom line, Jerry: To the extent you were serious once about me claiming multiple doctorates, that’s a lie, and you know it.

         It does appear to be the truth that I was reading Nobel laureates when you were reading comic books — perhaps what explains the difference in our abilities.

      4. Good.

         So long as your local pharmacy can help you, you should be just fine. Glad you’re finally trying to get your mental illness problems and inability to distinguish reality from your fantasy life taken care of.

         Way past time that you did it though.

      5. Jerry: I believe that Romney has a core belief. He wants to be President. That’s it. That’s all. He will say anything that anyone wants to hear because his core belief is that he should be running the country. If you keep that in mind, everything else falls into place. — PAD

         The Onion has this covered…

      6. For the newcomers:

         Robert is a troll, and a poor one at that.

   3. Robert, once you use “demodonkeys” you lose any shred of credibility you had. How would you react to GOPutzs or republofascists? Go back to your EIB broadcasts.

      1. As opposed to “Tea Baggers?”

      2. “Teabagger” is phrase they themselves have regularly used. Some stopped when they were clued in as to the double meaning (they were too ignorant to know) but many continue to embrace it.

         http://theweek.com/article/index/202620/the-evolution-of-the-word-tea-bagger

      3. Or there’s my favorite one from the channel that championed the Tea Party and then turned around and denounced anyone for using such a vulgar slur.

         Score One for the Tea Baggers
         Published May 20, 2009
         Neil Cavuto

         http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520899,00.html

         Because we all know that they never called themselves that and certainly no one in the respectable media ever did.

      4. Neil, you need to look up what a “fascist” is.

         Fascism is a form of socialism, aka “German socialism” (to distinguish it from Russian socialism or “communism”). Under fascism, entrepreneurs are retained by the state as managers but stripped of their entrepreneurial function (it is the state which decides what to produce, where, and how much).

         The closest America ever came to formal fascism was twice during the Roosevelt Administration — first under NIRA and later (during the war) under the second WPA.

         NIRA was declared unconstitutional in the “sick chicken” and “hot oil” cases for incorporating the same procedures which brought Hitler to power in Germany; the WPA was upheld with a clothespinned nose in Yakus v. United States (the Court was loath to interfere with the Government’s conduct of the war effort but made clear what it actually thought), but Republican victories in 1946 (and the end of the war) brought about its demise.

         Since then, fascism (to the extent it is possible in America at all) has been the program primarily of the Democrats.

         But, to answer your question directly, Democrats like Obama foolish enough to impose fascism on free minds and free markets are called “Demodonkeys” (for thinking like jáçkáššëš), and Republicans who drift into “me too” positions are called “Republicrats” (for betraying what Republicans really should stand for).

         In other words, as soon as you get your perjoratives straightened out, I guess I have no objection at all.

4. PAD: “…you send one of theirs to the morgue.”

   Now you’re talking. That’s how to handle treason. 🙂

5. Peter, I know these threads generally line up along political lines with one side nit-picking the other’s post as though that gives them some sort of win, so there isn’t much of anybody trying to convince anybody else of anything. But what I’ve always wondered is this: what if Romney becomes president and the Democrats retain the Senate? Could they not effectively hamstring Romney for the bext four years, just as the GOP did to Obama? That would effectively mean that all these big promises that Romney has been spouting for his first day in office are effectively useless. And then the whole thing starts all over again for 2016…

   1. Sadly, I doubt that will ever happen. The one thing I dislike more than the Republican Party platform is their litmus test for anyone running. Unlike most elected Republicans, Democrats tend to have different agendas from one another and will not vote lock-step with each other. Look at how many Democrats Obama had to convince to vote for his health care plan, for example.

   2. Hamstring Romney? Maybe. Effectively? I doubt it. Democrats are still saddled with the desire to be liked and just aren’t terribly good with the “Screw all of you, we’ll do whatever the hëll we want” thing.

      PAD

   3. Regardless of who’s President, the Senate still won’t pass a budget

6. In the end, the GOP is the abusive husband, and America is the battered wife.

   1. Well, this makes for an interesting tangent:

      Inside A Secret NHL Focus Group: How A Top GOP Strategist Is Helping Hockey Owners Craft Their Lockout Propaganda
      http://deadspin.com/5951872/inside-a-secret-nhl-focus-group-how-a-top-gop-strategist-is-helping-hockey-owners-craft-their-lockout-propaganda

      “You’re going to hear a lot about “shared sacrifice” from the NHL in the days and weeks to come.”

      What’s the tangent? Well, when you think about this country’s budget, and how the deficit is supposedly going to be reduced, you have the Democrats saying that both sides need to make sacrifices. On the other side, the Republicans say the Dems need to make ALL of the sacrifices.

      And that’s exactly what’s going on with the NHL lockout. You’ve got the really rich owners who will soon be saying how there needs to be “shared sacrifice”. Yet there will be no sacrifice on the part of the owners; all of the sacrifice is demanded to be carried by the players (and fans).

      It doesn’t shock me in the least that a Republican came up with this idea & phrase.

7. One of Obama’s biggest problems was (to paraphrase Bill Maher) was that he saw bipartisanship as an end, and not the means to an end, so he worked really hard and disappointed many liberals in many failed attempts to get Republicans to join him. He didn’t take into account the ever-growing extremes of the Republican party (No new taxes ever! Birtherism! Cut spenidng on everything but the military!) or that compromise means you get something for what you give up, not just give up things and get nothing in return. He also let them make him scared of his own accomplishments: Until Bill Clinton spoke, Obama was virtually silent on a health care plan that provides millions of uninsured Americans with better options than just going to the emergency room when things get really bad.

   Let’s hope in the next debates Obama does what Biden did: show support for his achievements and call out the falsehoods of the opposition.

   1. Actually the new health care plan does not give better options for uninsured Americans. I’m now forced to have to get insurance ..I have ALS.. the insurance companies want to charge me slightly less than $1,000 a month, plus I still have to pay $300 a month for medicine (not counting other medical expenses not covered by insurance) ..that’s $1,300 a month, I don’t clear that monthly after taxes ..plus I still need to pay rent, electricity, water. You know how hard it is for someone with ALS to find higher paying jobs (regardless of their previous work experience & higher education)? There is no physical or feasible way that I can afford the new health care mandate that our government pushed on the public without first letting the people voice their opinion on.

      1. Bravo Lewis, on being willing to put up facts and figures on an emotional argument. So many seem to think that these ‘benefits’ are FREE, and that the insurance companies will just give them away out of the goodness of their hearts. They just don’t realize that these laws were written BY the insurance companies, FOR the insurance companies, and any protests by the insurance companies are on the order of “Don’t throw me in dat’ der’ briar patch!”

      2. I have not investigated the numbers myself, but the plan is said to include aid for those that cannot afford it. Have you looked into that? (Not to mention that if you are clearing only $15K a year, you should qualify for a number of existing programs.)

         That being said, the current program was written bu the insurance companies for the insurance companies. Which is why we need actual Socialized Medicine, without insurance companies acting as middlemen.

      3. I’ve read some of the ACA, and I’m not sure where you’re going to be charged…first, do you have insurance? If not, you should be able to take advantage of the ACA. Do you make too much money to do that? Then you should be able to buy private health insurance. Is your complaint that you’re being “forced” to buy insurance? That would be true only if you can afford it, that is to say you make $XXK/yr. The idea behind the act is not only to get health care to those less able, but to prevent people who are better of from taking advantage of the system (PSYCH). Further, the ACA is going to take those insurance firms to task to prevent them from raising rates willy-nilly. Where did you get your info?

      4. Yup, I checked into it and the problem, I am told, is that I fall right between the cracks of whom the gov’t will help and who they won’t. My income is based on sales so it varies year to year (16-20). I was told if I had a drug problem that I could get aid, but I don’t. I was told if I was homeless that I could get aid, but I’m not. I was told that if I had any prior criminal record that there were certain kinds of aid I could apply for, but the worse thing on my record was a parking ticket from my college days when the meter overran while I was taking a final exam. I was told that if I were a different gender or culture that there were certain organizations that I could contact to assist in gov’t aid. I even had one wise guy tell me not to worry about it because I’d probably be dead from the ALS anyway before the new mandate went into affect; I told him that I’d pass on his wise nugget of medical genius to Stephen Hawking who has had ALS for 50 years.

         Look, there are certain things about the new Health Care that are good ..forcing people to take it without being able to voice whether or not it is the right thing for them is not good ..penalizing people that can’t afford to pay for it is not good either. Having the ones who created it going around saying that it is a great benefit for everyone is a straight up lie (or they just haven’t taken the time to research all of the real numbers). The ones who fall between the cracks don’t have an option either way, and the sad thing is that it really is all about money and the ones who will see the payday from the new Health Care law (hint: it’s not the taxpayers).

         At this moment in time we have more medical knowledge & technology than ever in recorded history and yet people die every day because they can’t afford medical treatment. What type of society have we become that we let people die because of greed?

      5. Lewis, I just looked it up—the cutoff is 50k not 20k—Technically by income, you qualify for the help and not the penalty. Exactly where did you read that 20k was a cutoff point? I need to see that because the ACA says 50K

      6. Based on his rants and talking points, I doubt he ever has. I’m starting to doubt his story as well. In the last two days, I’ve heard two different people while channel surfing the XM who hit all his same talking points in close to the same wording and refused to back down even when the program hosts pointed out facts.

      7. Typically, that’s what I find as well. It’s a big step towards fanaticism. People can’t or won’t shake their beliefs for facts even when they see them in black and white. Ask their sources, and…..?

      8. Chris H: Then maybe some of the regulations have changed since I last talked to people a year ago. The things I mentioned before was what I was told at the local gov’t aid offices when I went looking for information, and also by a medical financial aid counselor at the hospital that one of my doctors directed me to, and from some insurance people. Regardless, I’ve always paid my medical bills in cash, have never been in debt (I even worked multiple jobs in high school & college so I could pay my way through college w/o having to take out a student loan), have always paid taxes w/o trying to look for loopholes, but now am forced to purchase insurance (that I don’t need/want) that will actually cost me more than my monthly medical bills. Plus the insurance wanted to regulate the medicine that I take (even though they won’t cover the cost of the medicines). The choice of medicines I take should be decided by either me or my doctors, not an insurance company. They want me to switch to cheaper generic medicines ..which I’ve tried in the past and have found out that I am either allergic to them or they have little to no affect in regards to blocking pain. I would rather pay more for medicine that actually works than waste money on medicine that doesn’t work or causes bad side effects, but the insurance company doesn’t seem to understand that and it’s a moot point trying to talk to them about it unless you are fortunate enough to talk to someone there who has either suffered themselves or has had a family member who has suffered then they are pretty cold and don’t want to give a “problem” person the time of day to try and find a solution. Think about it tho.. I have a “terminal illness” where most of the upcoming medical expenses I will face are for the most part not covered by insurance ..so why should I be forced to have insurance if it really isn’t going to help me? The thing is, I don’t want any gov’t freebies (I’m not the type of person who has ever asked for a handout) but with various new gov’t laws/regulations people like me are backed into a corner to have to depend on the gov’t ..and when more and more of our society is forced to become dependent solely on the gov’t that’s not a good thing.

         Jerry C: Dude, I wish I was faking. I would give anything to get rid of this pain and to have the ability to just be me again and not trapped in this prison of a body. When I was 28, I was a corporate manager and worked roughly 60-80 hours a week. I got some kind of flu bug and could never shake it, nothing the dr prescribed could kick it. Eventually I ended up flat lined in the ER because it turned out that whatever virus I had shut down my lungs and had started working on my heart & brain. When I came to there was a machine making my lungs breathe ..that is the weirdest/scariest feeling in the world to feel a machine move your lungs and you don’t control your own breaths. The good news was my lungs eventually started working on their own again, but the damage had been done to my body’s nervous system & muscles. I suddenly went from being able to bench almost 300 lbs to not being able to open a box of cereal or go to the bathroom w/o help. I went from healthy to suddenly being diagnosed w/ ALS, fibromyalgia, arthritis, and type 2 diabetes all in one swoop. All I say is this, never take for granted the life you live because it can all disappear in a heartbeat. And don’t put off things you’ve always wanted to do but do them while you can.

      9. Understood perfectly—Have gone in 3 weeks from 3-4X week at YouFit to being on O2 due to a bout of double pneumonia.

         The kicker about the ACA is that it does exactly the one thing needed: regulation. Insurance firms can’t raise rates willy-nilly based on health, pre-existing conditions become non-issues, and no one is overburdened by taxes because of it. Medicare will monitor medical firms for overcharging–=318 hospitals have already been caught so far–and pharmaceutical firms will have caps on meds and machines. But the best part is that 80-85% of your insurance MUST be devoted to your care, not profit or company care. That’s not a handout, you PAID for this with taxes for YEARS. Taxes that were diverted between 2000 and 2002 to pay for two wars. That’s going to change, God willing. And best of luck to you in your situation.

      10. Chris H: Thank you for the updated info, I will definitely look into it. Double pneumonia is nasty bad! I hope you get over it soon, will keep you in my prayers.

8. No, Robert, you’re just amazingly wrong. And using demodonkeys makes you sound as buffoonish as Rush. Can we call them GOPutzs?

   1. Double post. This was from my mobile and I didn’t think it made it.

9. PAD wrote “Romney beat up Obama. He was lauded as looking strong in doing so; even Democrats said so in polls. Biden beat up Ryan. He was condemned by pundits as looking rude in doing so, in snide commentary mixed with blatantly ageist attitudes. How dare an old man so thoroughly trash a young guy?”

   What I find most interesting in this is the various men’s respective ages. Romney was born in 1947; Obama, in 1961. Biden was born in 1942; Ryan, in 1970. Why wasn’t Romney condemned for his rudeness and his “trashing a young guy?” Oh. That’s right. Romney’s a republicon. The ‘cons have a different set of rules they play by.

   1. Yep, only the GOP is allowed to be obnoxious. I’m tired of Democrats having to be wimps and not fight back. The Republicans get soooo upset when they do.

      1. Actually, it is all a matter of style. Romney did interrupt, but gently. He smiled knowingly, but didn’t break out into obnoxious snickers. He was forceful, but respectful.

         Biden came across as arrogant, obnoxious and disrespectful, while Ryan came across as serious and respectful. Romney appears confident and aggressive while Obama was laid back and somewhat apologetic. Thus you have the dichotomy – both sides acknowledge Romney won, while each side believes their VP won. Biden did act the bully, while Romney just acted the Alpha male. There is a big, and very important difference.

      2. Charlie,
         I admit that Obama didn’t do well in his first debate. Would you ever admit a GOPer fûçkëd up or would that explode your bubble worldview?

      3. When it happens, I am perfectly willing to admit it.

         It just didn’t happen in these debates…

      4. Then you’re just a blind sheep the GOP depends on. Congratulations.

      5. Charlie E—

         Seriously? You mimic Fox News quotes and you want to be taken as anything other than a GOP sheep?

         ‘Actually, it is all a matter of style. Romney did interrupt, but gently. He smiled knowingly, but didn’t break out into obnoxious snickers. He was forceful, but respectful”–you said.

         No, Romney was smug and kept cutting off the moderator rudely and should have been slappy-smacked. Being rude isn’t style. And laughing at a bald-faced liar isn’t is not disrespectful. Because liars don’t DESERVE any.

      6. Chris, Neil,
         Yes, I did watch both debates, in real time. I don’t watch fox news (well, on occasion, I have seen the final few minutes on Sunday mornings while waiting for their NFL coverage…) so I have no idea what their talking points are. Your calling me a blind sheep reflects on your own prejudices and blinders more than mine. It sounds more like pot-kettle type of arguments…

10. At the end of a debate, the average American voter (who isn’t affiliated with either Party) that views the debates aren’t going to remember the numbers or statistics that the candidates throw around but rather how the candidates came across in their actions & attitudes rather than their facts & figures. Romney didn’t come across as a bully but rather a fighter who wanted the title more, Biden came off as arrogant and snarky (which is totally opposite of the kind of guy that Joe is known for being). Face it, we live in a world where the top selling singers aren’t the ones with the best voices but rather the ones who dance around in the skimpiest outfits. What helped President Obama get elected the first time around isn’t going to be the thing to help him this time (ie- a swell of emotion from people wanting change). And the personal attacks on Romney, calling him a liar, comes across two-faced in the mist of the administration’s conflicting stories each week about what transpired at the Libya consulate. I’m not a member of either political party, but realize that there is still 3 long weeks to go before the American people (and let’s hope they’re legal & alive voters) decide on a winner ..and unfortunately the candidates’ policies probably won’t factor as much down the stretch with the undecided voters rather than how they act in public and treat one another.

11. Republicans have not only aggressively stonewalled both the Obama administration and the needs of the electorate

    Of course, there is the thought that stonewalling President Obama is exactly what the electorate needed– that for the final two years of his first (and hopefully only) term one of the primary Republican responsibilities was keeping the Democrats from screwing anything else up. Stonewalling Obama also stonewalls the needs of the electorate if and only if you think Obama was going to do something constructive. We don’t. Certainly the voters in the 2010 midterm didn’t approve of how things were going. The 2010 Democratic “shellacking” was every bit as much of a message sent by the voters as the 2006 “thumping” of the GOP. Are you suggesting that Nancy Pelosi should have cooperated with furthering President Bush’s agenda? If not, why should the GOP cooperate with Obama?

    1. Hopefully tomorrow Obama will “shake it off” and do what needs to be done, rip off Romney’s head and šhìŧ down his neck hole…

       1. Maybe Obama needs this guy to give him a pep talk.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEbN6Vnr1g8

          PAD

    2. Considering that the GOP has been stonewalling things that they originally conceived and championed (like individual-mandate-based healthcare reform and cap-and-trade) as well as things that were considered bipartisan no-brainers right up until Obama wanted them passed (START ratification, DREAM Act, most everything included in the American Jobs Act, etc.), the assertion that the Republicans are completely stonewalling Obama and the Democrats for the electorate’s own good is, at best, deluded.

       1. Oh crap, I’m deluded? Thank you for the psychoanalysis. I will seek help tomorrow. It never occurred to me that opposing a measure based in part on something that someone in my party considered and dropped 20 years ago was a sign of mental illness.

       2. No problem—you’ve shown the first sign hat you know you’re mentally challenged. Good luck in dealing with it.

       3. Just remember, we’re all there too..MUHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

       4. and dropped 20 years ago

          Apparently that former governor of Massachusetts who’s now the Republican nominee for president didn’t get the memo.

       5. Considering that the individual mandate was still championed by the GOP pretty much up until Obama embraced it, I’ll concede that such thinking isn’t deluded, but merely completely disingenuous.

       6. (And again, let’s not forget about-faces on cap-and-trade, START ratification, the DREAM Act, most everything included in the American Jobs Act, etc.)

12. Let’s take a look at just one of those bills with the so-noble titles: The Elder Abuse Victims Act.

    http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S.462.IS:

    Now, I confess I enjoy punching grannies, but I understand not everyone sees the appeal. So, for the purposes of this argument, I’ll go along with the consensus that abusing elders is Bad.

    What would the bill do? Set up a brand-new bureaucracy in the Department of Justice, staffed with more bureaucrats who will compile statistics and issues reports that hardly anyone will read. It’ll give money to the states for “elder abuse,” with all kinds of strings and conditions attached.

    And at no point does it note that elder abuse simply isn’t a federal issue. Unless we’re talking about scams that cross state lines, and those are already illegal. The vast majority of elder abuse is a matter for the several states.

    And it’s something handled far better at the state level. The local officials are better prepared to handle such matters, leaving the feds to handle things that are actually a legitimate concern for federal officials.

13. Peter, I agree with pretty much everything you said – except for one point. I honestly don’t think Obama gives two ášš flaps that he has been stymied by Republicans at every turn. He has enacted and supported and signed enough Republican-like legislation, that I don’t personally even see him as a Democrat any more.
    .
    He’s more like Republican-lite, and Romney is Classic-Republican.

    1. So then who is new Crystal-Republican? With no preservatives or dyes you can finally see your legislation.

       1. Let’s hope it’s not Rand Paul. I might have to change brands, er, parties.

       2. I dunno. But it would be hilarious if it was secretly made in Mexico.

14. Breaking: Some Right-Wingers On PAD’s Site Already Declare Romney The Winner Of Tonight’s Debate

    From a completely predictable response from User X, “No matter how much of a d-bag Romney comes across as tonight, no matter how many lies he tells, no matter the complete lack of details he gives of any of his plans for crushing the poor and middle class in this country, I know deep down that he won in unprecedented fashion.”

    “And he wasn’t even born in Amurrica!” added User Never-Seen-Before-and-Will-Never-Be-Seen-Again.

15. Peter —

    I think Obama avoids “blaming” the GOP for “obstructionism” because it looks unpresidential and it comes across as whining. From a business standpoint, a CEO can’t whine that no one wants to work with him. He either replaces those who don’t or, if it’s not directly within his power to do so, works to replace those who don’t.

    I agree with you that it’s galling… but that shouldn’t be surprising. Romney is able to take “leadership” credit for basically working with Democrats who are consistently more tractable than Republicans. Thus, Bush has a record of bi-partisanship but Obama does not.

    What I’m curious about is whether Obama really thought it would be different and that he’d end the Clinton/Bush-era partisanship. If he did, he probably gave the U.S. far more credit than it deserved as far as post-racial thinking. On paper, the accusations of “otherness” (Kenya-born, unAmerican socialist) don’t make sense based on his actual political views compared to previous Democratic presidents, especially the Clintons (AGAIN CONSIDERING THEY WERE IN OFFICE 20 YEARS AGO). Maybe he thought he could work with the GOP. But they had no interest in this.

16. What continues to amaze me is the short term memory loss of the average American, which the Republicans use to their benefit. I’ve had to remind so many people screeching about the stimulus bill and the deficit and balancing the budget that BUSH passed the first of the bailouts (don’t you remember McCain wanting to suspend the campaign to go back to DC to work on the bill?), that the deficit soared under Bush, and that his budgets never included the cost of two wars (which were all funded by “emergency” war fund bills). Where was all the outrage and urgency then? Don’t they remember that taxes on the rich have been lowered and lowered over the past 30 years and all the jobs created by the “job creators” have been overseas?

    Long term memory is suffering also. Don’t the senior citizens among us remember the Depression? What caused it? The financial reform passed to keep it from happening again? That Reagan started to dismantle in the 80’s? Don’t they remember the Savings and Loans bailout from the 80’s, that was caused by lax regulations and the help of a guy named Bush?

    Nobody seems to remember that after WWII the federal tax rate of the richest of Americans was over 80%. No, that’s not a typo. Was there a exodus of rich Americans in the 50’s and 60’s that I haven’t heard about? Did the upper class close down their businesses because they couldn’t afford to do business anymore? Most people I talk to think it was the hey-day of American life.

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