U.S. Presidential race - Democrat Discussion

[Grizzly Willy]

And one of the two systems the right is drooling to get rid of completely is going to be expanded? Ha. They'd sooner cut their own paychecks.

Let's be honest, they wouldn't even do that.

[ishootblanks]

Actually, I was told that I could have my papers checked at any time to determine my nationality, and without some show of being in the US legally, ie my papers, could be deported. That said, foreigners in the US share all the rights that citizens do, therefore there are only certain times when a police officer can require you show your ID (pulled over or being legally detained being the most usual suspects).

of course you were told that.. it's US law.. but! in Washington state.. state government employees such as police officers can't ask you.. only a federal ICE or Border Patrol agent can legally ask you to present you papers..

---------- Post added 2012-06-28 at 06:33 AM ----------

Ain't happening. That's more "socialist" than Obamacare, Republicans won't even look at it.

most democrats won't even look at it.. the USA does not want socialized medicine.. we are accustomed to having the best system and best doctors on the planet..

[Bobdoletoo]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...706139792.html More transparency from the obama administration. I am sure the democratic apologists will say this is old news or not worth mentioning. This is just more politics as usual from the guy who was going to change everything.

If more then one democrat votes to hold eric holder in contempt, does that make it bi-partisan? Under obama anything with one republican is considered bi- partisan , so i figure 2 and we're golden.

[ishootblanks]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...706139792.html More transparency from the obama administration. I am sure the democratic apologists will say this is old news or not worth mentioning. This is just more politics as usual from the guy who was going to change everything.

If more then one democrat votes to hold eric holder in contempt, does that make it bi-partisan? Under obama anything with one republican is considered bi- partisan , so i figure 2 and we're golden.

nice find! it's amazing when blatant crony capitalism (downright corruption in this case) is being stuffed in our faces and the people speaking out simply get called racists and obstructionists..

when are people going to realize just what exactly is happening in this nation!??!?!

[Bakis]

Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare today, I will keep my fingers crossed for a positive step on the way towards civilized health care system in the US.

[ishootblanks]

Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare today, I will keep my fingers crossed for a positive step on the way towards civilized health care system in the US.

you'll change your mind over there in Sweden when you realize that our current system is the reason 9/10 new medical innovations and breakthrough medicines come from the USA..

[Bakis]

you'll change your mind over there in Sweden when you realize that our current system is the reason 9/10 new medical innovations and breakthrough medicines come from the USA..

Sure I would if it had anything to do with providing "free" health care for the population a la euro style...

[Wells]

AKPD has always catered to democratic causes though, its just their business model. So barring some better evidence I don't see much to this.

---------- Post added 2012-06-28 at 07:38 AM ----------

you'll change your mind over there in Sweden when you realize that our current system is the reason 9/10 new medical innovations and breakthrough medicines come from the USA..

I didn't know Blue Cross invented medical technology.

[KingHorse]

What was the point to that?

If something is unconstitutional (and it's the job of the Supreme Court to decide what is constitutional and what isn't) then the wailing and gnashing of teeth over it's death is misguided, unless you are simply anti-constitution. In that case, carry on I guess, but at least admitting so would simplify further discussion.

[Catta]

you'll change your mind over there in Sweden when you realize that our current system is the reason 9/10 new medical innovations and breakthrough medicines come from the USA..

I dont know - you americans seem to be quite happy with Novo Nordisk's socialist diabetes medicine

[saffi]

most democrats won't even look at it.. the USA does not want socialized medicine.. we are accustomed to having the best system and best doctors on the planet..

is that why the US is spending what...17%+ of it's total GDP on healthcare, while a lot of the european countries spend waaaaaay less (as in the #2 spot spends 12%). To phrase the question a bit better, do you think that the cost of healthcare in the US is attributed to it being (in your opinion) the best in the world?

[Maharishi]

If something is unconstitutional (and it's the job of the Supreme Court to decide what is constitutional and what isn't) then the wailing and gnashing of teeth over it's death is misguided, unless you are simply anti-constitution. In that case, carry on I guess, but at least admitting so would simplify further discussion.

I personally don't think the individual mandate is a constitutional power. I, however, think that healthcare is such a pressing problem that I'd rather see the law upheld and reform occur. I wish that the congressional republicans hadn't held their breath and forced a terrible law to such an emergent problem, but they did, and now we have the choice between having a better American society and upholding the constitution.

[TecPontificates]

The problem with looking at a chart that shows job growth or loss either as a percent or as actual numbers and then attempting to compare those charts as a reflection of the president in term during these periods is that it implies totally false pretenses.

For example, you could look at the fact that under Bush a lot of public jobs were created, and under Obama, a lot of public jobs were lost.

But the reality is that both federal and state government spent like drunk sailors during the Bush years, particularly early on when the Dow was skyrocketing on the false real estate-driven bubble (that everybody - and I mean every single economist who was not mentally retarded - knew would burst any day). When the markets contracted and eliminated large amounts of wealth from, say, the pension fund of some town in some state, these states had to reassess how many people they had on their payroll and reasses whether they could afford to continue to spend.

The reason that public sector jobs are being lost now has nothing to do with Obama's policies. On the contrary. Every time he talks, he repeats the same tired crap about our crumbling infrastructure. I'm not sure where you live, but just a couple of months ago my road was repaved. I haven't seen a single road or bridge in a 100 mile radius of where I live that is in such bad shape that I think to myself, "gee, our infrastructure is CRUMBLING, better spend some federal money on the double!"

But then again, I'm not a mouth-breathing retard who regurgitates the crap that my party says to me in speeches and debates. And then again, there may be places in the country where the infrastructure is actually crumbling, but I don't live in one, so naturally I'm not going to vote to spend my tax dollars to solve someone else's problem. That's what state taxes are for. But I digress..

The point is that Obama wants desperately to add public jobs to the payroll but he simply can't because the people who are hiring - municipalities and the fed - are broke. Recently, for the first time in history, a U.S. municipality filed for bankruptcy. I can assure you - they're not hiring.

That's what I don't get. You people talk about losing public sector jobs like it's a good thing, because it is when you have a $12t deficit, but at the same time, you've got a president who's sitting there saying we need to add jobs. At the same time, Bush DID add public jobs, and you use that fact as an insult, like hey, look how many hundreds of thousands of jobs Bush spent money on during his term!

You can't have it both ways. Either public sector jobs are a good thing (in which case, Obama has totally failed because he lost jobs in his term), or public sector jobs are a bad thing (in which case Obama is a hero and Bush was a spendthrift who is responsible for all the debt). In the latter case, why then is Obama whining about our crumbling infrastructure and begging Congress to let him throw money at schools to hire more useless, expensive teachers?

Job growth is a totally irrelevant figure if the contry remains at 8% nominal unemployment, because young people enter the work force every year and middle-aged people re-enter it (e.g., a stay-at-home mom whose kids are now in school is getting back to work). If the number of new people who need jobs is outpacing the number of jobs created then we're in an unsustainable situation.

Now, all that being said, the final thing you need to remember is that people love to use the economy as a reflection of a president but truthfully the president has very little control over the economy especially when he has an oppositional congress, which was the case for Bush's second term and is the case for Obama now. The economy is much like the climate - so many millions of variables that looking at any one thing only gives you one perspective. We can blame Obama for the economy, we can blame Bush for the economy, but really, neither of them are at fault. The incredible loss of equity that occured when housing prices contracted back into the realm of realistic figures screwed pretty much everybody. Case in point: my house is on the market right now, and if I sell it for what I'm asking, I'll only have lost $70,000. That's $70,000 that I could have spent stimulating the economy in other ways such as buying a bunch of useless shit that I don't really need, but I'll buy anyway because I don't have anything better to do with the money.

And, when you compare the economy now to the economy during the real-estate boom, people were making money hand over fist and artificially inflating the economy, so the crash only amplified the losses.

So, what the election in 2012 comes down to is:

If you believe in Obama's vision for America, do you believe that he will be able to execute it? So far he hasn't had much luck, and a big part of that is due to a Republican congress that absolutely does not believe in his vision and is therefore cockblocking him at every opportunity. If you vote for Obama, know that unless he also regains a congressional majority, his time in office will essentially be wasted becuase congress will not let him do anything.

If you don't, you'll want to vote for Romney so that congress will play ball with him and he'll be able to do at least something. If you are afraid that those somethings will be worse than the inaction that Obama has produced in the last 2 years, then don't vote for him.

Essentially, the worst thing that can happen is that congress and the president are playing for different teams, whether that is Obama with a republican congress or Romney with a democratic congress. It's pretty clear at this point that the people in Washington are not going to play nicely with each other no matter who we elect.

I personally cannot in good conscience vote for anyone who wants to try yet again to spend our way out of a crisis by expanding government. It won't work and it will just put us deeper into a hole. We need someone to go in and make the hard decisions that nobody wants to make for the sake of balancing our checkbook. It is clear at this point that Obama is just going to continue doing what he was going to do completely irrespective of the current economic situation; the only difference is how he frames it to the American people. If the economy were booming he would deliver speeches that say things like, "with the great success of America today, it's only right that we reinvest that success in America's crumbling infrastructure." Instead, he's telling us: "we need to get people back to work so let's employ people to fix America's crumbling infrastructure." It's clear as day, but since the typical American is a total idiot, they'll believe whatever pretty men in positions of power tell them to believe, and they'll reiterate the same crap they heard on cable news as if it's their own opinion and spout off facts as if they did the research themselves and didn't just lift it off of MoveOn.org.

I'm no fan of Romney either. I think he's as big of a douche as every person who runs for President since the cold war ended (you know, when shit actually mattered). At least Romney has some experience around failing enterprises, which, let's face it, the federal government is. It wouldn't last one second as a private company because it runs an enormous deficit. (Yeah, blah blah, there's no profit in fixing roads or teaching children, I get it, that's not the point). If Romney came to the conclusion that the only way to balance America's books was to outsource to China all of those completely useless federal jobs like, "data entry monkey" and "process server" and all the other bullshit white collar airconditioned office jobs that we give to college grads who majored in Liberal Arts and have no actual applicable skills, I'd vote for him with a smile and be happy that he was doing it. Somebody like Obama would rather see the country go bankrupt than concede even a single one of his liberal principles and that is why he has no business staying in office. If he were willing to compromise, as Cliton did, he has the potential to be a great president. But he isn't , so he won't be.

[Ausr]

Thanks Supreme Court for not pushing us back even more behind the more modern nations.

[Riidii]

Thanks Supreme Court for not pushing us back even more behind the more modern nations.

That's funny, I think the US is the more advanced nation for not having universal healthcare.

To me, it is a step towards the bottom.

[Dacien]

That's funny, I think the US is the more advanced nation for not having universal healthcare.

To me, it is a step towards the bottom.

I agree. Our government is making a scary power grab. It's very concerning.

[Tastyfish]

So anyone else waiting for Bill O'Rielly admitting he is an idiot? I am.

[Riidii]

The argument is always "Ya, now you guys can catch up to the rest of the world" or "Ya, now you guys can be like Europe".

Why the fuck would we want to be like Europe? Seriously, why? Why would we want to be like the rest of the world?

For Christ sake, America became the most powerful nation this world has ever seen because of American principles. Principles we set when we started this country. Having the government get out of our lives.

I'm so sick of it.

[Tastyfish]

For Christ sake, America became the most powerful nation this world has ever seen because of American principles. Principles we set when we started this country.

I'm so sick of it.

A lot of those were christian principals, don't get mad now that charity for the sick is happening.

[Dacien]

The argument is always "Ya, now you guys can catch up to the rest of the world" or "Ya, now you guys can be like Europe".

Why the fuck would we want to be like Europe? Seriously, why? Why would we want to be like the rest of the world?

For Christ sake, America became the most powerful nation this world has ever seen because of American principles. Principles we set when we started this country.

I'm so sick of it.

Thank god somebody gets it around here.