Tom K. a voice of sanity in the crazy world....I agree with 100% of your post....I wish...really wish that others would take a minute and let what Tom wrote sink in. This is exactly what I feel.


However....I do believe that there are more dubious things going on....racism. Yes I said it. There are people out there than cannot accept a black President. Sad but true.

"There are people out there than cannot accept a black President."

The people mostly financing the Republican party and partly the Democratic party only care about enriching themselves.

Obviously, they wouldn't win if they said all they cared about was making the super-rich people wealthier.

So, they have to pick up various sub-groups, such as people that hate that a black person is president. All they have to do is occasionally say something like that Obama is like a tar baby. When challenged, they say all they meant was like a blob of tar, but the racists think the Republicans are secretly with them so will vote for them.

Tom,

I am not surprised you flee when somebody doesn't roll over for you. With the overwhelming majority of the people being from liberal areas of CA and the northeast, it is also no surprise that you are unaccustomed to running into people that still believe in the principles that this country was founded on. You surround yourself with other left wing people and you become blinded to reality. It isn't all your fault.

I give you facts backed up with numbers and your defense is a threat of fillibuster? You claim the reason democrats voted against their own president's budget is that they didn't want to be on the record for what was in it! That is ridiculous sounding. I fail to see how that is a valid defense even in a liberal's twisted mind. They are scared to be associated with the bill if it isn't a sure thing. They don't want it to be used against them because they know it is terrible. So they will only vote for it if they know it will go through and the American public has no choice but to swallow it.

The number of fillibusters is an incremental increase. It has been incresing by leaps and bounds but you act as if the increase in surprising. It is a trend. It wasn't that long ago that the Democrats were fillibustering to deny Republican judicial appointments. So when you point your finger, there are 4 pointing back at you. And yes, fillibuster has been misuses by both sides as regards to judicial appointments.

Please saver your pity for those that need it. The current president has taken more towards Socialism than anybody since FDR. It creates more problems than it solves and I'm apposed to it. Obama's list of failures is lenghty. And his most recent actions in Lybia were criminal.

I'm sorry if you don't like the term "lie." But how else would you discribe you claiming the budget wasn't voted on, when it was? You intentionally misreprented my comments, Tom. Am I suppose to ignore that so that I don't hurt your feelings? I thought this was chaff?

You have still ignored the time that the liberals had a fillibuster proof majority and still refused to pass a budget. [5 months not 1 Jerry]

You ignore the fact that Obama campaigned on a promise of unification and then we see him use the Dem power in both houses to ram down as much left bills as possible. He used the bailout to fund left groups and to pay of his supports. So please don't act surprised that the right is now refusing to cooperate.

I'm fine if you don't respond. But don't expect me to let you run rampant over reality.

Michael...sorry (in sarcasm) you are wrong....maybe you need to sit down and really figure out where "our" nation is heading..it is sad really

Kennedy was replaced September 24. Brown won election January 19. Slightly less than 4 months. There was a Christmas break in there too.

Still, not very much time to get anything done. And they probably assumed a Democrat would win or they may have had more urgency. Fine, you can blame the Democrats for not seizing the opportunity.

Didn't you blame the Democrats for not getting anything done for 2 years when they controlled everything - 2009 and 2010? That is definitely incorrect.

Ken -

Ah so radical from the bay area is going to set me straight? Remove yourself from your bastion of liberalism and get back to me. Anybody that thinks we are headed in the right direction is crazy imo. I blame both parties but at least the right's tax breaks can be repealed. And they are only on the ones actually paying taxes.

Try to roll back the entitlements the left enacts. We can't even touch medicaire or SS and the left wants to put in more spending and gov't.


Jerry-

According to liberal sources, one month in summber and 4 in the fall/winter. That's five. Christmas was short. So yeah, whenever I mentioned 2 years of fillibuster proof (and I probably did) I was wrong. I listened too much to CNN saying that the Right needex X number of seats in the last election to break the 60 vote Left. I didn't check into it myself.

I guess we could discuss kennedy not voting but still a democrat... or independents who may or may not. but the supermajority wasn't as complete as cnn led me to believe.

Edited by mpl_35 on 10/28/2012 21:25:31 MDT.

Interesting article: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/why-i-refuse-to-vote-for-barack-obama/262861/

My favorite paragraph: "The whole liberal conceit that Obama is a good, enlightened man, while his opponent is a malign, hard-hearted cretin, depends on constructing a reality where the lives of non-Americans -- along with the lives of some American Muslims and whistleblowers -- just aren't valued."

For those many of you who continue to believe that you must vote for one of the lesser of two evils, please remember, you're still getting 'evil.'

"Anybody that thinks we are headed in the right direction is crazy imo. I blame both parties but at least the right's tax breaks can be repealed. And they are only on the ones actually paying taxes.

Try to roll back the entitlements the left enacts. We can't even touch medicaire or SS and the left wants to put in more spending and gov't."


We're "out of" Iraq and on a path to leaving Afganistan. We didn't get into any new wars. The economy is improving, although anemically. They got rid of "don't ask don't tell" and the military didn't fall apart. They didn't privatize student loans which would have increased interest rates. More people have health care now, although we had to make a conservative compromise and use private health insurance companies. I think we're headed in a better direction than when Bush was president and Romney appears to want to go back to that. I'm channeling Colin Powell's endorsement.

The left has not enacted any entitlements during the Obama term so I don't know what you're talking about there.

SS and Medicare and health care for everyone have ballooned over many years. Part of Obamacare includes a panel of experts that will idenitify effective and cost effective health care which might be a step in reducing the cost of health care, but mostly we ignore this. Liberals refuse to discuss reducing SS and Medicare so I'll agree we have a problem there. Ryan proposed replaceing Medicare with "a voucher" - a fixed amount and the seniors will be responsible for paying any inflation, so basically the government would just ignore it and let seniors deal with it on their own in the future, so that's not much of a solution.

SS pays an amount between $1000 and $3000 a month. Maybe we should just pay everyone the minimum $1000. Then the people that need it most will be unaffected. Everyone will get it so it won't become welfare that gradually gets defunded like Medicaid. That's the problem with the Republican "means testing" it.

We should eliminate the Bush tax cuts for everyone. Rs won't get rid of the rich people's. Ds won't get rid of non-rich people's. I agree, their both screwed.

You and I agree on a thing or two : )

In the spirit of college sports recruiting, I'm officially off the board. I voted this morning and signed my letter of national intent with.....

It was a difficult decision, but after much consideration it just felt like home. Looking forward to spending the next four years at... and bringing a championship to our team.

Feeling better already and will celebrate the occasion tonight with my family at CiCi's pizza.

Brad

"For those many of you who continue to believe that you must vote for one of the lesser of two evils, please remember, you're still getting 'evil.'"

Evil is spread out along a continuum, IMO. At one end you find stuff that will out and out kill you; at the other, maybe it just tastes bad; in between is the type of evil that is a bit harder to sort out, and that's where elections tend to be fought out. Name your poison, I guess, but outside of emigrating we're all going to end up drinking something that doesn't taste so good, no matter who wins. If anybody has an alternative that will actually change that stark reality in the near term, sign me up.

"If anybody has an alternative that will actually change that stark reality in the near term, sign me up."

Ah, well, that's the thing, isn't it. The near term. Nothing happens in the near term, we both know that. Without a long term view, nothing will ever change. Some times you have to be willing to accept pain in the near term for a better long term outlook.

But I'm afraid the vast majority of folks think in the near term. At least in the U.S. That's why things just get progressively worse, regardless of which of the two major parties are in power. And that's why things will continue to get worse, regardless of which of the two major parties are in power. The near term just keeps one of the two major parties in power. The lesser of two evils.

I'm going for the long term. I refuse to choose either. I want to be a part of the solution, and neither of the major parties are part of the solution. In my opinion, of course.

"I'm going for the long term. I refuse to choose either. I want to be a part of the solution, and neither of the major parties are part of the solution. In my opinion, of course."

I also think in the long term, Doug, but from a slightly different perspective. I agree that things will likely get worse as long as one of the two parties holds power, until things get bad enough that the manure hits the fan. At that point, people will either set aside their differences and work toward a solution that all can live with, or we will end up a third rate nation and others will decide for us. IMO, this is going to take longer than I am likely to be around, and so I continue to vote for what I consider the lesser of two evils in the hope, perhaps vain, that they will at least slow down the process long enough for me to live out my life in peace. I just do not see any alternative on the horizon that has enough likelihood of success for me to waste my increasingly precious time and energy on. All this is based on my sense that the only way most people really learn is thru what I call "hard lessons", and the same goes for nations. Our lessons just haven't been hard enough so far, but it is very clear to me that this will not remain the case much longer. Our fate depends on how quickly we master the material that is, and will continue to be, presented to us in the form of "hard lessons". I am not particularly optimistic. We are rapidly running out of time; simple as that

Well, Tom, we agree on where we're probably headed, we just don't agree on the best way to prepare for when it arrives. I'm okay with that. There is, after all, more than one road that leads forward. ;-)

I think a hell of a lot of people in this country have already been beaten down pretty good by the hard lessons you speak of.

Here's some food for thought from a Los Angeles area teacher's perspective:

I've based these statistics off the median household size in Los Angeles: 3

For a student to qualify for free lunch at school a household of 3 has to make $464 PER WEEK or LESS. To qualify for reduced fare lunch, a household of 3 has to make between $464 and $660 per week.

A typical Los Angeles area elementary school, Crescent Heights Elementary (which happens to be my 4th and 5th grade alma mater) has over 77% of its students on free or reduced lunch.

77%.

It costs an average of $47,000 per year to keep an inmate locked up in Los Angeles County and yet community colleges are slashing classes, budgets, and admissions because there's "just no money". Funny, because $47,000 per year is actually more than what it costs to send a kid to the University of Southern California.

We seem perfectly happy to add a million dollars to the national debt to burn a single radical Talib alive with a bomb in Afghanistan while local PTAs are busting their butts at bake sales to raise money to get 30 calculators for a math class (nevermind where the future funding for the batteries will come from).

In this city you can see people $hitting on street corners at 5AM only two or three blocks from where they roll out the red carpet for the Emmys and 800 sq. foot condos sell for half a million.

If things keep going the way they're going, and I don't give a daMn who you blame for it, right or wrong, the well-off are not going to be able to build their walls high enough.

edit: grammar.

Edited by xnomanx on 10/29/2012 19:08:16 MDT.

"If things keep going the way they're going, and I don't give a daMn who you blame for it, right or wrong, the well-off are not going to be able to build their walls high enough."

I'm not so sure, unfortunately. 'They' seem to do a very effective job of getting the middle class and less well off to blame and fight each other, instead of uniting to turn their efforts against those who would keep them down. It just seems far too easy to demonize those making a decent living to those not fairing well, while the very well off keep laughing all the way to the bank.

"It just seems far too easy to demonize those making a decent living to those not fairing well, while the very well off keep laughing all the way to the bank."

It is absolutely too easy to demonize them and I'm not saying it's right.
But given how easy it is, and how stressed so many are becoming, it might not be about what's right or wrong.

I remember the Los Angeles riots in 1992 very clearly. I remember seeing firsthand little women, just average moms, looting a Payless shoe store for childrens shoes after someone threw a brick through the window. One had a 2-3 year old child under her arm and three boxes of shoes in the other. Baby formula was another hot item in the looting.

That says something to me.

When people reach that boiling point, right or wrong go out the window. And a whole lot of people here today have it far worse than in '92.

"we just don't agree on the best way to prepare for when it arrives."

I'm not sure I can even agree that we disagree with your idea of how to prepare for when it arrives until I hear exactly what it is. ;)

"I'm okay with that. There is, after all, more than one road that leads forward. ;-)"

And even more trails, although most of the ones I take seem to lead just about everywhere BUT forward. ;0)

"I think a hell of a lot of people in this country have already been beaten down pretty good by the hard lessons you speak of."

Apparently not quite hard enough to start connecting the dots you have laid out so clearly. When they do, "the well-off are not going to be able to build their walls high enough.".....

And that is precisely what I hope doesn't happen in my lifetime. Or ever, for that matter. It's a messy business that is way too bloody for an ageing, instinctively non-violent ouzel with an even gentler wife to worry about. Which is why I keep on voting for the lesser of two evils, in the hope that the lesser of two evils will begin to turn things around, as the well off begin to see the handwriting on the wall, or at least delay the otherwise inevitable upheaval until I and the love of my life are gone. Obviously, I hope for the former, "for the sake of all living things", but I find it increasingly hard to be optimistic, as the clock ticks away on so many fronts.

Yea man that is all bad, but it doesn't mean there's some "shadow" government running the world...I mean really dude. Our government is incompetent enough, no way there's a secret one pulling all the strings. Do you also think the "shadow government" is causing climate change?

Getting millions of dollars from the wealthy and giant corporations isn't an indication of a shadow government, it's an indication of a crappy election system.

It is good that a fan supports their team no matter how lousy they may be. Loyalty is admirable in sporting events, but this election isn't about baseball it is about the direction this country is headed and it is headed in a very dangerous direction.

Where is the great unification of people we were promised? Not seeing it. Just encouragement of divisiveness on all fronts, race, sex, religion, wealth you name it.

National debt from 10 trillion to 16 trillion. More government. More unrest. More subterfuge. More ego.

Fast and Furious isn't just about guns it's about the administration high-jacking our government agencies for purposes contrary to the will of the people. Then when the representatives of the people ask for an explanation they tell us to go whistle for it. Not acceptable.

A general disregard for the processes and procedures of this republic. The process IS more important than the outcome.

A whole media willing to overlook any transgression. No news, no late night jokes, no lampooning, just an eerie silence. Why does this not make the liberals among us uncomfortable? They of all people should be uncomfortable.

Do us all a favor and vote for the other guy or some other guy.