Barack Obama

[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by randolph

Panic will not get us out of this, however. If Obama can keep us from panic then there is a chance we can pull through this. He is the only one I know of who has the charisma to do it.

If I remember right, Carter also had charisma. It's what got him elected. It didn't stop the economy from going down the crapper. Charisma helps actors succeed. This is the real world though. We need someone who knows what he's doing.

Originally Posted by randolph

Wealthy families
Over the past three decades, these families have seen their incomes double and triple while the rest of the country stagnated. Now Obama proposes to increase their tax bill by $12,000 - not even enough to get them back to the rates they were paying when Ronald Reagan left office. This is a very, very modest nod toward fiscal fair play, very much in keeping with Obama's modest optics. You'd have to drink several pitchers of Rush Limbaugh's Kool-Aid to think this counts as soaking the rich.

What generates more money for the government. Taxing those who make more than $250,000, or keeping taxes as they are and put millions of tax payers back to work? Which is better for the economy?

Small business owners who make around $250,000 - $300,000 are not all that rich. They're the Joe The Plumbers of America. And as for the richer... if you make it too uncomfortable for them here, they will take their business elsewhere. Then they'll each employ thousands of Chinese or Indians, instead of thousands of Americans.

[CreativeMind]

[QUOTE=TracyCoxx;69420]If I remember right, Carter also had charisma. It's what got him elected. It didn't stop the economy from going down the crapper. Charisma helps actors succeed. This is the real world though. We need someone who knows what he's doing.

Well, this is the irony of history repeating itself. Carter was elected for one reason and one reason alone: he came on the heels of Nixon/(temporarily Ford) at which point there was that classic "populist mood" that always seems to swept through the nation in a cyclical nature (created by Nixon/Watergate) that the government was bad...it was totally corrupt...the Emperor from Star Wars was running things...thus Washington needed a thorough cleaning.

The only problem being, of course, that while Nixon himself might have been bad for what he did, it didn't mean the WHOLE SYSTEM was corrupt or wrong. As a result, as people voted with a traditional and emotional knee jerk reaction, it was out with temporary Ford and in with good ol' Jimmy. It was out with a genuinely good politician known for working in a true bipartisan way, who had an established Congressional record for getting things done, and in for a guy who simply smiled at you alot. Because -- gosh darn it! -- didn't seeing him smile at you make you FEEL good?

Well, it felt good on Inaugeration Day. Anyone here old enough to remember that? I do. I remember how the press drooled all over Carter and Rosalyn, and praised them for walking the parade route waving to people. Because -- gosh darn it! -- he was smiling! And that MUST mean "goodness" was back in the White House!

Of course, what it REALLY resulted in was a true idiot in the Oval Office. It resulted, as Tracy noted, with having someone in the White House who didn't have a clue. It resulted in double digit inflation. It resulted in double digit unemployment. It resulted in gas rationing. It resulted in a military that was so underfunded that we LITERALLY had to ground portions of the Air Force because we LITERALLY could NOT afford to fly planes because we LITERALLY didn't have the spare parts to fix them if something broke on them. So they HAD to stay grounded in case of emergency, otherwise we were fucked (which we already knew we were). Oh yeah, and on Carter's watch...since he believed in globalism and America not taking a strong stance or involvement on foreign affairs...we had the Iranian Revolution, which laid the foundations of radical Islam rising up -- personified by the Iranian Embassy hostage situation, which sealed Carter's presidency as an utter failure and complete embarrassment.

So, I feel good that Obama has that mega-watt smile and waves alot and--

Oh fuck. What was that I said about history repeating itself???

[CreativeMind]

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

Small business owners who make around $250,000 - $300,000 are not all that rich. They're the Joe The Plumbers of America. And as for the richer... if you make it too uncomfortable for them here, they will take their business elsewhere. Then they'll each employ thousands of Chinese or Indians, instead of thousands of Americans.

This is what is utter lunacy about the Obama economic plan.
It's like a dog chasing his own tail that just runs in place and in circles.

The economy is bad, so Obama wants you to go out and spend money to get it going again. But the economy is bad because people have ALREADY spent their money -- heck, they've OVER spent and are deeply in debt. Someone on TV made a brilliant analogy to Obama and his plan, where Obama is a husband and the American people are the wife. The commentator noted it's like a husband coming home, only to find his wife sitting at the kitchen table, pulling her hair out, frantically trying to pay their monthly bills. And the wife says, "We have no money left in our checking account! How are we ever going to pay these bills?"

At which point the husband says "You're right, honey. We have to get out of this hole we're in. We really need to rebuild our savings account. Come on, let's go to the store and buy a few plasma TVs. THAT ought to do the trick!"

[randolph]

Just to set the record straight on The Shah of Iran. From Wikipedia.
The Shah came to power during World War II after an Anglo-Soviet invasion forced the abdication of his father, Reza Shah. Mohammad Reza Shah's rule oversaw the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry under the prime ministership of Mohammad Mossadegh. During the Shah's reign, Iran celebrated 2,500 years of continuous monarchy since the founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great. His White Revolution, a series of economic and social reforms intended to transform Iran into a global power, succeeded in modernizing the nation, nationalizing many natural resources and extending suffrage to women, among other things. However, the decline of the traditional power of the Shi'a clergy due to parts of the reforms, increased opposition.

While a Muslim himself, the Shah gradually lost support from the Shi'a clergy of Iran, particularly due to his strong policy of modernization, secularization and conflict with the traditional class of merchants known as bazaari, and recognition of Israel. Clashes with the religious right increased communist activity and a 1953 period of political disagreements with Mohammad Mossadegh, eventually leading to Mossadegh's ousting, caused an increasingly autocratic rule. In 2000, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright stated:

"In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Massadegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs."[1]

[randolph]

And finally, Rush Limbaugh generated huge applause at CPAC for labeling the White House agenda as a "bastardization of the Constitution." He proceeded to say, "We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness." Given his interest in the "bastardization of the Constitution," it's worth noting that these words aren't in the preamble to the Constitution.

[TracyCoxx]

WTH...? North Korea is calling Obama a warmonger. I thought Bush was the warmonger?

[randolph]

I wonder what McCain and Palin would be doing right now?

[CreativeMind]

Originally Posted by randolph

I wonder what McCain and Palin would be doing right now?

Actually, I laughed at that Obama editorial cartoon, but NOT for the reason the artist intended...

The gag the cartoonist meant is simply this: as Obama is about to sign the Stimulus Bill, the "bipartisan" pen runs out of ink -- i.e. the analogy/symbolism being that the Republicans are now no longer willing to help.

What DID make me laugh was the size of the pen. So, I would scratch off the word "bipartisan" and simply have Obama saying the pen has gone dry, at which point the cartoon is still funny -- but more important, it would be far more accurate. That's because then we'd see Obama signing a bill SO big and composed of SO many pages that he used up all of the ink in the pen -- even one that humongous -- all because he just signed off on SO MANY RIDICULOUS THINGS!!!!!!!!