I can't watch it yet, but it sounds like Obama beat them bloody today from what I've read, so I decided to see how FreeRepublic is reacting for shits and giggles...
You guys are late to the party!
The GOP representatives reamed Barry a new one! He lost all composure, started stuttering, eyes twitching, mouth clenched, reverted to “negro” dialect.
O_o I wonder how much effort it takes to maintain such a skewed worldview.
I wish I could live in a teabagger's reality for just one day. Just to see what it was like.
I can't watch it yet, but it sounds like Obama beat them bloody today from what I've read, so I decided to see how FreeRepublic is reacting for shits and giggles...
You guys are late to the party!
The GOP representatives reamed Barry a new one! He lost all composure, started stuttering, eyes twitching, mouth clenched, reverted to “negro” dialect.
O_o I wonder how much effort it takes to maintain such a skewed worldview.
I wish I could live in a teabagger's reality for just one day. Just to see what it was like.
Picture 1984, combined with like boys in the hood, mixed with The Watchmen (you play the part of the "heroes")
Preacher on
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I thought the speech was alright. At this point, I've seen Obama talk so many times about such a wide brevity of subjects, I'm starting to curve how effective I think his speaking is. My problem with a lot of this speech is the same problem I have with any politician speaking though (ie: a lot of rhetoric, very little in terms of any solid promises.) I think the only thing for certain is that Demoracts will like this speech and Republicans will dislike it.
In any case, here are some of my thoughts about it in order of watching it.
Populist reach out. Doesn't appeal to me, but I'm sure some people on each side will get either furious or orgasmic over it. The optimism seems a little forced, but he was kind of elected as Mr. Optimistic.
The bank bailout. I think there's a lot of speculation in what he's saying, but I'll let that go. My problem is with the transparent and accountable part. There's a number of problems with accountability part. He says he's going to hit them with fees. I find this a little disingenuous as whatever fee the banks are hit with they'll pass it along to consumers.
Tax cuts. It goes against every libertarian bone in my body, but taxes do need to be raised on a number of people in conjunction with the spending freeze to get the debt under control.
Jobs and Recovery Act. It's not surprising that giving out money creates jobs, but whether or not those jobs will remain once the money runs out is speculative. On top of this, as the Chinese are diversifying their security market from buying US debt, I'm not entirely sure how we'll afford all of this on top of the 5 trillion dollar increase in debt that was the Bush administration.
30 billion to community banks seems like it would be more of a worthwhile investment than what happened with the big banks.
Infrastructure. I agree with him on a lot of this. The US has a crappy infrastructure. The clean energy stuff seems the most dubious though. You can't really force the technology to get to the point you want. Frankly, it could all just lead to a boat load of lost money. The rebates to clean energy is also something I like. The ones to companies that operate in America sounds nice, but I will reserve judgment. In the end, this all boils down to "I'll believe it when I see it."
The China reference for revamping the economy was kind of silly.
Innovation and energy. This is the biggest "I'll believe it when I see it." The nuclear power plants a la France was something I liked. Forcing clean energy remains a dubious affair. It's hard to argue against "Pollution is bad" though. Honestly, high tech manufacturing for things like green energy is potentially huge. It's also a potentially gigantic waste of time and money if it doesn't appeal to buyers.
Increasing farming exports. I would have liked him to talk about big corporate farm subsidies here.
Enforcing trade agreements sounds good, but how? How will the US make anyone do anything at this point?
Education. He's saying things that sound good, but this is all in execution. Adding more education after high school with community college and normal college sounds good, but the problem remains, in my mind, in improving K-12 education. I go to a pretty good school, but even we have some very basic English and math courses.
Health care. This shouldn't be as funny as the congressmen and women seem to think. Bringing down the deficit by a trillion dollars over two decades. Does that mean that the deficit will be cut by 50 billion on average a year? If this doesn't happen there's no accountability. It's forecasting 20 years down the line. If it succeeds at all in bringing down the deficit, that'll be great, but at some point someone is going to have to make the tough call and ration medicare at some point like every country that provides universal health care does at some point. End of life care in particular.
Spending Freeze. America did not have a budget surplus. In 2000 we had a 5 trillion dollar debt. If he's talking about the deficit, he's referring to the excess in social security money that came in that is basically just extra spending money to the congress as they have no desire to keep the excess money secure. Social security reform is so difficult though. The spending freeze does give me some incredibly cautious optimism. I know for a fact that were Republicans in control, a spending freeze would be incredibly unlikely as they are only mouthpieces for fiscal discipline with little regard for acting on it. I find his willingness to take the political hit on the "flip flop" to be fairly admirable. What if the economy doesn't get better next year though?
I hate blue ribbon commissions. Executive Order seems interesting though. Is this a bit of that ol' Bush elbowing?
I think it's a bit disingenuous to say the tax cuts were responsible for the big debts. I'd say the wars and the giant spending bills by the Bush administration exacerbated that the most. They certainly didn't help, but going back to Clinton level taxation is definitely not going to pull us out of this financial hole.
The lobbyist stuff sounds nice, but it seems like it'll be very difficult to enforce. We'll see.
I like the earmark reform stuff.
I liked that little hit on Nelson and Landreiu. You silly geese.
I don't really care about the partisan stuff. The sausage making aspect of politics is one I find incredibly hazy (as I think it was designed as such.)
It is nice to see Obama make points that a lot of republicans do love the country though. It shows a disconnect from people like the dailykos who think republicans are just silly geese that want to eat babies and hunt poor people from helicopters. Will that catch on with the more progressive democrats? Doubtful, but it's nice to see Obama do it.
Foreign policy stuff. He'll have the "combat" troops out of Iraq by the end of August, but there will still be a crap load of troops in Iraq, so the troops coming home statement seems disingenuous. Afghanistan is a clusterfuck. Nuclear treaties are always good.
tl;dr: some stuff I liked. Some stuff I didn't. In general, the more concrete stuff I liked.
you know that there's a decent chance you're all giggling over a troll post, right
With Free Republic it's 50/50 that's real.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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BarcardiAll the WizardsUnder A Rock: AfganistanRegistered Userregular
edited January 2010
well i went to fox news to see their spin on the debate and i found this idiocy. But they actually went ahead and posted some of the jucier parts of the debate as well. Interesting that they didnt ignore it webwise.
If the main question is going to be what do we do about Medicare costs, any proposal that Paul makes will be painted factually from the perspective of those who disagree with it as cutting benefits over the long term.
Paul, I don't think you disagree with that -- that -- that there is a political vulnerability to doing anything that tinkers with Medicare. And that's probably the biggest savings that are obtained through Paul's plan.
And I raise that not because we shouldn't have a serious discussion about it. I raise that because we're not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterize whatever proposals are put out there as, "Well, you know, that's -- the other party's being irresponsible. The other party is trying to hurt our senior citizens. That the other party is doing X, Y, Z."
That's why I say if we're going to frame these debates in ways that allow us to solve them, then we can't start off by figuring out, A, who's to blame; B, how can we make the American people afraid of the other side.
And unfortunately, that's how our politics works right now, and that's how a lot of our discussion works. That's how we start off. Every time somebody speaks in Congress, the first thing they do, they stand up and all the talking points -- I see Frank Luntz up here sitting in the front.
OBAMA: He's -- he's already polled it...
(LAUGHTER)
... and he said, you know, "The way you're really going to -- I've done a focus group, and, you know, the way we're going to really box in Obama on this one or make Pelosi look bad on that one" -- I know -- I like Frank. We've had conversations between Frank and I. But that's how we operate. It's all tactics, and it's not solving problems.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Jesus Christ, I can come up with far more legitimate criticisms of Obama than these people are, and I support the man.
Like given a chance to ask him questions, after changing my pants, I'd be like "so whats up with warrantless wiretaps?"
They support warrantless wiretaps. 95% of what we would take issue with they can't emphasize because it undercuts their points and the other 5% is process stuff no one cares about.
And it took Rust until January 21st to declare Obama a total failure and just like Bush emo emo emo.
Jesus Christ, I can come up with far more legitimate criticisms of Obama than these people are, and I support the man.
Like given a chance to ask him questions, after changing my pants, I'd be like "so whats up with warrantless wiretaps?"
They support warrantless wiretaps. 95% of what we would take issue with they can't emphasize because it undercuts their points and the other 5% is process stuff no one cares about.
And it took Rust until January 21st to declare Obama a total failure and just like Bush emo emo emo.
hurr
if you've dipped to wristcutting stereotypes already it's obvious you're not even trying
which works because i stopped trying to argue with you people about six months ago
well i went to fox news to see their spin on the debate and i found this idiocy. But they actually went ahead and posted some of the jucier parts of the debate as well. Interesting that they didnt ignore it webwise.
If you are related to someone who was living in the British Colonies in 1687 chances are you're probably related to like half of the people who can trace their ancestry back to the colonies as well. I don't find this that remarkable.
well i went to fox news to see their spin on the debate and i found this idiocy. But they actually went ahead and posted some of the jucier parts of the debate as well. Interesting that they didnt ignore it webwise.
If you are related to someone who was living in the British Colonies in 1687 chances are you're probably related to like half of the people who can trace their ancestry back to the colonies as well. I don't find this that remarkable.
He's related to Cheney too, and joked about it frequently on the campaign trail.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Maaan. Look at his face when he's carefully and logically addressing and refuting many of the erroneous or misleading republican points. Look at the corners of his lips turn down and he looks down at his desk and he furrows his brow - and then says something nice. You can tell he's feeling alot of emotion. I'd say it was contempt, or rage.
Which I feel when I listen to their talking points. I wonder if Obama is actually as cool and collected as he seems. His voice and his words are always nice, but his face in this exchange is hilarious. He's clearly holding back alot of emotions.
Maaan. Look at his face when he's carefully and logically addressing and refuting many of the erroneous or misleading republican points. Look at the corners of his lips turn down and he looks down at his desk and he furrows his brow - and then says something nice. You can tell he's feeling alot of emotion. I'd say it was contempt, or rage.
Which I feel when I listen to their talking points. I wonder if Obama is actually as cool and collected as he seems. His voice and his words are always nice, but his face in this exchange is hilarious. He's clearly holding back alot of emotions.
If you read Dreams From My Father the answer is no. Dude is very, very self-controlled. The clearest indication of that is the "The truth is Brian, we're not going to solve global warming if I change the fucking light bulbs in my house, it's something collective" quote.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
And -- this is the last point I'll make -- if you're calling for just across-the-board tax cuts and then, on the other hand, saying that we're somehow going to balance our budget, I'm going to want to take a look at your math and see how that -- how that works. Because the issue of deficit and debt is another area where there has been a tendency for some inconsistent statements.
I can't believe it's taken 30 years for someone to say this.
I think Obama was honestly expecting some of them to ask real things, be substantive, bring up actual points. Each and every one of them was trying to "Get him" in some way, I wonder if he's starting to understand these people at all yet.
Posts
I wish I could live in a teabagger's reality for just one day. Just to see what it was like.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Picture 1984, combined with like boys in the hood, mixed with The Watchmen (you play the part of the "heroes")
pleasepaypreacher.net
Collared greens and grape drink too.
If Fox tries to spin this as a win for Repubs or sweep it under the table, I'm gonna love watching TDS on Monday.
Boy don't diss the president by getting his drank wrong.
pleasepaypreacher.net
In any case, here are some of my thoughts about it in order of watching it.
Populist reach out. Doesn't appeal to me, but I'm sure some people on each side will get either furious or orgasmic over it. The optimism seems a little forced, but he was kind of elected as Mr. Optimistic.
The bank bailout. I think there's a lot of speculation in what he's saying, but I'll let that go. My problem is with the transparent and accountable part. There's a number of problems with accountability part. He says he's going to hit them with fees. I find this a little disingenuous as whatever fee the banks are hit with they'll pass it along to consumers.
Tax cuts. It goes against every libertarian bone in my body, but taxes do need to be raised on a number of people in conjunction with the spending freeze to get the debt under control.
Jobs and Recovery Act. It's not surprising that giving out money creates jobs, but whether or not those jobs will remain once the money runs out is speculative. On top of this, as the Chinese are diversifying their security market from buying US debt, I'm not entirely sure how we'll afford all of this on top of the 5 trillion dollar increase in debt that was the Bush administration.
30 billion to community banks seems like it would be more of a worthwhile investment than what happened with the big banks.
Infrastructure. I agree with him on a lot of this. The US has a crappy infrastructure. The clean energy stuff seems the most dubious though. You can't really force the technology to get to the point you want. Frankly, it could all just lead to a boat load of lost money. The rebates to clean energy is also something I like. The ones to companies that operate in America sounds nice, but I will reserve judgment. In the end, this all boils down to "I'll believe it when I see it."
The China reference for revamping the economy was kind of silly.
Innovation and energy. This is the biggest "I'll believe it when I see it." The nuclear power plants a la France was something I liked. Forcing clean energy remains a dubious affair. It's hard to argue against "Pollution is bad" though. Honestly, high tech manufacturing for things like green energy is potentially huge. It's also a potentially gigantic waste of time and money if it doesn't appeal to buyers.
Increasing farming exports. I would have liked him to talk about big corporate farm subsidies here.
Enforcing trade agreements sounds good, but how? How will the US make anyone do anything at this point?
Education. He's saying things that sound good, but this is all in execution. Adding more education after high school with community college and normal college sounds good, but the problem remains, in my mind, in improving K-12 education. I go to a pretty good school, but even we have some very basic English and math courses.
Health care. This shouldn't be as funny as the congressmen and women seem to think. Bringing down the deficit by a trillion dollars over two decades. Does that mean that the deficit will be cut by 50 billion on average a year? If this doesn't happen there's no accountability. It's forecasting 20 years down the line. If it succeeds at all in bringing down the deficit, that'll be great, but at some point someone is going to have to make the tough call and ration medicare at some point like every country that provides universal health care does at some point. End of life care in particular.
Spending Freeze. America did not have a budget surplus. In 2000 we had a 5 trillion dollar debt. If he's talking about the deficit, he's referring to the excess in social security money that came in that is basically just extra spending money to the congress as they have no desire to keep the excess money secure. Social security reform is so difficult though. The spending freeze does give me some incredibly cautious optimism. I know for a fact that were Republicans in control, a spending freeze would be incredibly unlikely as they are only mouthpieces for fiscal discipline with little regard for acting on it. I find his willingness to take the political hit on the "flip flop" to be fairly admirable. What if the economy doesn't get better next year though?
I hate blue ribbon commissions. Executive Order seems interesting though. Is this a bit of that ol' Bush elbowing?
I think it's a bit disingenuous to say the tax cuts were responsible for the big debts. I'd say the wars and the giant spending bills by the Bush administration exacerbated that the most. They certainly didn't help, but going back to Clinton level taxation is definitely not going to pull us out of this financial hole.
The lobbyist stuff sounds nice, but it seems like it'll be very difficult to enforce. We'll see.
I like the earmark reform stuff.
I liked that little hit on Nelson and Landreiu. You silly geese.
I don't really care about the partisan stuff. The sausage making aspect of politics is one I find incredibly hazy (as I think it was designed as such.)
It is nice to see Obama make points that a lot of republicans do love the country though. It shows a disconnect from people like the dailykos who think republicans are just silly geese that want to eat babies and hunt poor people from helicopters. Will that catch on with the more progressive democrats? Doubtful, but it's nice to see Obama do it.
Foreign policy stuff. He'll have the "combat" troops out of Iraq by the end of August, but there will still be a crap load of troops in Iraq, so the troops coming home statement seems disingenuous. Afghanistan is a clusterfuck. Nuclear treaties are always good.
tl;dr: some stuff I liked. Some stuff I didn't. In general, the more concrete stuff I liked.
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=The+GOP+representatives+reamed+Barry+a+new+one!+He+lost+all+composure,+started+stuttering,+eyes+twitching,+mouth+clenched,+reverted+to+“negro”+dialect.&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Post 21.
Free Republic posts are likely concealed from Google. PA was like that for a long time.
With Free Republic it's 50/50 that's real.
Woaaah. Where was this?
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
They support warrantless wiretaps. 95% of what we would take issue with they can't emphasize because it undercuts their points and the other 5% is process stuff no one cares about.
And it took Rust until January 21st to declare Obama a total failure and just like Bush emo emo emo.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
I honestly don't know what to say. I was wrong. I just didn't know. I didn't know there were people like that.
In fact I'm going to go home and cry.
You didn't know there were racists?
hurr
if you've dipped to wristcutting stereotypes already it's obvious you're not even trying
which works because i stopped trying to argue with you people about six months ago
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
don't care, remember!
there's only so much honest intellectual discussion someone can offer up in the face of so much smug
SteamID: devCharles
twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesewise
If you are related to someone who was living in the British Colonies in 1687 chances are you're probably related to like half of the people who can trace their ancestry back to the colonies as well. I don't find this that remarkable.
He's related to Cheney too, and joked about it frequently on the campaign trail.
Maaan. Look at his face when he's carefully and logically addressing and refuting many of the erroneous or misleading republican points. Look at the corners of his lips turn down and he looks down at his desk and he furrows his brow - and then says something nice. You can tell he's feeling alot of emotion. I'd say it was contempt, or rage.
Which I feel when I listen to their talking points. I wonder if Obama is actually as cool and collected as he seems. His voice and his words are always nice, but his face in this exchange is hilarious. He's clearly holding back alot of emotions.
If you read Dreams From My Father the answer is no. Dude is very, very self-controlled. The clearest indication of that is the "The truth is Brian, we're not going to solve global warming if I change the fucking light bulbs in my house, it's something collective" quote.
No worries, man. I didn't want to believe I just read that either.
Only a bit? Good lord Carrot.
pleasepaypreacher.net
If you think about it that way, we're all related. We all come from Scientific Eve and Adam.
We're also all black.
But to stay on topic...
MSNBC is running a 2 hour thing tonight at 8pm going over the president's visit with the republicans today.
and since msnbc is the only cable news channel I get.....
wee.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Bolded has to be the biggest understatement ever.
Olbermann and Maddow are going to be obnoxious tonight about that, yes.
After today it will never happen again.
pleasepaypreacher.net
We will call it the Questions to the President. America needs to rip off the British.