Despite my distaste for his policies, that's what I actually like about him. He might be wrong, but he actually gives a shit and is willing to back an argument with data. I don't know a polite way to say it, but my opinion is that most people are simply too stupid to comprehend arguments that can't be laid out without using numbers.
Were I a betting man, I would put money on Ryan being deemed the winner of the coming debate, in part due to the bump from the first debate. With boring versus unpredictable, I place my money on boring since it is less likely to stir controversy.
@Wells
I agree. I don't see him as dumb, or at least not bad dumb. He just says dumb stuff.
Oh, absolutely not. This is why I have to try very hard to put myself in the shoes of others when I'm trying to figure out who "won" a debate. I thought Obama absolutely buried Romney for the first 15 minutes the other night. People that were insufficiently informed to recognize Romney's lies thought he was great.
Perhaps I should clarify. When I say "win" I mean "come away with the least shit flung on them by the press". Obama received the brunt of the negative press after the debates, and I expect the same for Biden.
So, I realize this whole Paul Broun thing was discussed already before I got here tonight, but I need to rage about it just a bit. Here's his remarks:
There's a lot wrong here, really so much wrong that doesn't bare going over in specific. The thing that particularly irked me on reading this is this disingenuous prick using the turn of phrase, "as a scientist". He is not a scientist. He's a politician. He got a BS in Chemistry 45 years ago, then proceeded to medical school. Never has he done any actual science. It's quite telling that he feels the need to lie about his own credentials to bolster his pathetic claims in front of his flock.“All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.”
“You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.”
Last edited by Spectral; 2012-10-09 at 02:58 AM.
One time, I took an economics class. I also read Paul Krugman and listen to Econ Talk on my phone. I think I shall call myself an economist.
I haven't seen this hilarious video posted yet. Obama putting on his black Southern voice and speaking about Katrina back in 2007. When he rails on the Stafford Act being applied to Florida and New York, he must've forgotten that he voted AGAINST waiving the Stafford Act for New Orleans 10 days before this speech.
"Down in New Orleans, where they still have not rebuilt twenty months later,” he begins, “there’s a law, federal law — when you get reconstruction money from the federal government — called the Stafford Act. And basically it says, when you get federal money, you gotta give a ten percent match. The local government’s gotta come up with ten percent. Every ten dollars the federal government comes up with, local government’s gotta give a dollar.”
“Now here’s the thing,” Obama continues, “when 9-11 happened in New York City, they waived the Stafford Act — said, ‘This is too serious a problem. We can’t expect New York City to rebuild on its own. Forget that dollar you gotta put in. Well, here’s ten dollars.’ And that was the right thing to do. When Hurricane Andrew struck in Florida, people said, ‘Look at this devastation. We don’t expect you to come up with y’own money, here. Here’s the money to rebuild. We’re not gonna wait for you to scratch it together — because you’re part of the American family.’”
That’s not, Obama says, what is happening in majority-black New Orleans. “What’s happening down in New Orleans? Where’s your dollar? Where’s your Stafford Act money?” Obama shouts, angry now. “Makes no sense! Tells me that somehow, the people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much!”
You act like the only thing in the bill was waving Stafford. The whole thing was a huge list of additional expenditures for a wide variety of departments. I don't know, but I'm betting one or many of those other appropriations are why Obama voted against it, not the Stafford Release for New Orleans.
There is also the fact that the vote was slow in coming, and FEMA bungled every stage of getting the money to where it needed to be, but hey, let's paint things with a broad brush to support our views.
Last edited by Chrysia; 2012-10-09 at 08:20 AM.
3DS Friend Code: 0146-9205-4817. Could show as either Chris or Chrysia.
So because, possibly, he was against one of the other titles in the bill, he voted against:
Title 2 - Hurricane Katrina Recovery
$3,400,000,000 - Disaster Relief
Title 4 - Additional Hurricane Relief and Recovery
$50,000,000 - State and Local LaEnforcement Assistance
$110,000,000 - NOAA for impacts to shrimp and fishing industries post Katrina
$20,000,000 - NASA for "exploration capabilities" related to Katrina
$25,300,000 - Army for construction projects in New Orleans
$1,407,700,000 - flood control
$181,069,000 - SBA loans
$710,000,000 - FEMA disaster relief
$10,000,000 - National Park Service (Interior) Historic Preservation Fund
$30,000,000 - Higher Education Act - compensation for closures, etc in wake of disaster
$30,000,000 - Elementary and Secondary Education Act to recruit/train new teachers, adminstrators, etc
$871,022,000 - DOT Emergency Relief Program
$35,000,000 - DOT transit services
$7,000,000 - HUD
$14,484,754 - Veterans Affairs Construction, Minor Projects
Title 5 - Other Emergency Appropriations
$40,000,000 - USDA for needs not meet by FEMA or private insurers in conjunction with presidential declaration of disaster
Title 7 - Elimination of Schip Shortfall And Other Matters
$650,000,000 - State Children's Health Insurance Fund (DHHS)
Title 8 - Fair Minimum Wage and Tax Relief
Minimum wage raised to $5.85 an hour, beginning on the 60tt day after the date of enactment of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007; $6.55 an hour, beginning 12 months after that 60th day; and $7.25 an hour, beginning 24 months after that 60th day.
Erenax, are you one of the people angry that Obama didn't veto the NDAA?
Not necessarily one, One or more of, and forgive me for not counting, but what appears to be dozens of individual appropriations for everything from military hardware, FBI equipment, and ATF personnel to FEMA relief, veteran affairs, and DOT services. It's a long list, with such a wide gamut of appropriations that, frankly, you can't claim that Obama voted against any specific part of it without asking him about it.
3DS Friend Code: 0146-9205-4817. Could show as either Chris or Chrysia.
Am I angry he didn't veto it? No. Do I see problems with the "indefinite detention" part of the bill? Yes.
---------- Post added 2012-10-09 at 04:48 AM ----------
So raising the minimum wage, waiving the Stafford Act for aid to victims of Katrina, and covering a budget shortfall for millions of minority children's health care isn't good enough to say ok to the rest of the bill? How about if it included free food for starving puppies and kittens too?
Nah I was trying to point out that a lot of bills have a ton of shit poured into them. For instance, that section of the bill should never have been rolled into a military payment bill. But it was because it is quite hard to veto one of those since paying our military is kind of a necessary thing.
Edit -> If you look at the summary of the entire bill, for instance, it was about a lot more than Katrina.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquer...:@@@D&summ2=m&
It seemed to be giving 3.5 billion to the Sec of Defense to use however he wanted to in Iraq and Afghanistan. That isn't about Katrina, is it?
Then it goes over Katrina.
Then it talks about increasing the size and funding of Homeland Security.
Last edited by obdigore; 2012-10-09 at 10:05 AM.