2012 Republican Convention....

[Big Don]

What people need to watch for is not what they say current but what they have voted for what they have put into writting and who they have taken support from one term or not 4-6 years can do alot of damage

Gee, maybe you should apply those three standards to President Obama... (oh, but that would be racist...)

 

[Sukerkin]

Don, I have seen an awful lot of hyperbole on this site that is brimming over with hatred (and no that is not too strong a word) for President Obama. Even tho' I pay attention to what my fellows here of Republican bent write, I am still not really very clear about what he is supposed to have done or not done that is deserving of it. Certainly I do not see what miss-steps he has made that could make those of a Right Wing inclination think that Romney & Ryan are worth voting for - they are Snake-Oil salesman of the first water from what I can see (disclaimer - interested foreigners viewpoint there).

I can tell you, that other than some n00b diplomatic screw ups, Obama is pretty well regarded elsewhere in the world - altho' that might just be in comparison to what came before. How the man has aged in office is a sign of someone who cares about what he is doing too, which is usually a good thing in a politician.

Of course, altho' the PR front has been a bit better (or less front-page news at any rate) he has still continued pretty much with the same foreign policies that the Bush administration laid down. As an aside, that is perhaps something he should be asked about rather than, frankly, 'slur' campaigns about whether he was American or not and so forth?

 

[WC_lun]

For Republicans, Obama's great sin is that he is not Republican. Yes, there are some racist that have problems with him, but that is a minority of his ditractors. From the far left's view point, Obama is a disapointment because he has supported original Republican ideas. He has not been able to live up to all the promises he made in the last election, but he also has had a congress obstructing anything and everything that he proposes, soley in the effort to make him a one term president.

Since he is Democrat instead of Republican, and not the normal looking president, everything is being thrown at him in the hopes that some of it sticks with the various group of the right. Issues have become secondary to painting him with the brushes of socialist, Al Queda, Muslim, Kenyan, etc. to make him look like someone who is the "other" and not American. It doesn't matter if those accusations are the truth or not, as long as they serve the purpose.

Given the circumstance that he walked into as persident and the continuing efforts of the right to choose party over governance, he has actually accomplished quite a bit. Many will debate whether what he has done has been beneficial or not, which is actually where the discussioin should be. Instead of having that discussion, many would rather throw up these distractions.

 

[billc]

We'll see how you feel when he backs Argentina over the Faukland Islands if he gets re-elected.

 

[Sukerkin]

Stop trolling, Bill; I know it's hard but I am sure you can do it .

Honestly, I asked a reasonable question and I am interested in getting a reasoned answer rather than diversions and evasions.

 

[billc]

Well, Dinesh D'souza predicts that one outcome of the election will be his siding with them against you guys. Check out 2016 and we'll see after the election who was right. Unless we manage to vote him out, then we can be BFFs again.

 

[billc]

--Unemployment 8.3 percent, said he would get it under 5.
--bail out of G.M. is going south, as predicted
--obamacare, still highly unpopular with the majority of Americans.
--blocked the Keystone pipeline and all the jobs it would have created
--Fast and Furious scandal cover up (300 hundred mexican civilians murdered with "assault" rifles supplied by his justice department, two federal agents murdered as well.)

--He poured billions of dollars into green energy companies that keep going bankrupt, and plans to continue doing it.
--Spends even more tax money than George Bush did and has no plans to stop...hello Greece.
--Tax increases to hit in January have businesses in this country locking up their cash. He likes the increases.

 

[Sukerkin]

I suggest how the American government reacted last time we engaged the Argies is a decent guideline for how things would happen if things blew hot again - even with the Ronnie and Maggie love-in you still largely hung us out to dry.

Really, no Trolls please (or I'll Rick Roll you) - it's a serious question, perhaps one requiring a little introspection and thought as to where this vitriol springs from. I'm not for a second suggesting it's something as obvious as racism. There is something at work under the surface that is making people less than rational in the political sphere and I'm intrigued to hear what it is that you fellows here, who I (virtually) know quite well, latch on to as you post what you do.

 

[billc]

His open mic comments to medvedev have many people troubled as well...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...re-elections/2012/03/26/gIQASoblbS_story.html

“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space,” Obama can be heard telling Medvedev, apparently referring to incoming Russian president — and outgoing prime minister — Vladi*mir Putin.
“Yeah, I understand,” Medvedev replies, according to an account relayed by an ABC News producer, who said she viewed a recording of the discussion made by a Russian camera crew. “I understand your message about space. Space for you . . .”
“This is my last election,” Obama interjects. “After my election, I have more flexibility.”

Another big one, obama doesn't care if Iran gets nuclear weapons, sees it as no different than Israel having them, his moral compass is way off.

 

[arnisador]

--Unemployment 8.3 percent, said he would get it under 5.
--bail out of G.M. is going south, as predicted
--obamacare, still highly unpopular with the majority of Americans.
--blocked the Keystone pipeline and all the jobs it would have created
--Fast and Furious scandal cover up (300 hundred mexican civilians murdered with "assault" rifles supplied by his justice department, two federal agents murdered as well.)

--He poured billions of dollars into green energy companies that keep going bankrupt, and plans to continue doing it.
--Spends even more tax money than George Bush did and has no plans to stop...hello Greece.
--Tax increases to hit in January have businesses in this country locking up their cash. He likes the increases.

If you ask people about the specifics of Obamacare--pre-existing conditions covered, etc.--they're very positive.

The Republicans have plenty of scandals to their names--Watergate, Iran-Contra-gate, and so on.

The bailouts and the stimulus worked very well over all and the latter should've been bigger.

Unemployment is an international issue with the recession.

Are the "tax increases" you mention the ones passed under GWB that are no coming due, on schedule, per his plan, or something else?

He didn't pour billions of dollars into green energy companies that kept going bankrupt. It was half a billion into one company. And start-ups are expected to not all succeed--do you have any idea what the stats are on that?

 

[billc]

Solyndra was just one green company that went belly up...

http://news.investors.com/ibd-edito...green-energy-investments-arent-paying-off.htm

Consumers' lack of interest in electric cars helped push another Obama-backed company — Ener1 — into bankruptcy protection late last week, despite the $118 million grant its battery-making subsidiary got from the Energy Dept. As the CEO put it, the company suffered a lack of demand, thanks to lower-than-hoped-for electric car sales.Ener1 joins two other failed green companies — Solyndra and Beacon Power — that took $571 million in taxpayer subsidies down with them.To top things off, the House is stepping up its probe into Obama's $500 million green job training program, according to a USA Today story this week.​

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An earlier Labor Department inspector general report found the program placed just 8,000 people in jobs after 17 months, or about 10% of the program's goal.The IG went so far as to suggest scrapping the program altogether and returning unspent money to the Treasury.Unfortunately, like a bad investor, Obama wants to double down on his failure.​

The democrats wanted January 1 to sunset the Bush tax cuts, not the republicans.

Fast and furious killed innocent civilians with weapons provided by obama's justice department, that's sort of a big deal.

Unemployment is still his responsibility, it's over 8% on his watch, it's his problem.

The American people don't want obamacare, polls still show this and he doesn't care, didn't care and we won't know how badly we are screwed by obamacare until 2014...if he is re-elected.

And that G.M. Bail out...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2012/08/15/general-motors-is-headed-for-bankruptcy-again/

President Obama is proud of his bailout of General Motors. That’s good, because, if he wins a second term, he is probably going to have to bail GM out again. The company is once again losing market share, and it seems unable to develop products that are truly competitive in the U.S. market.
Right now, the federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on Tuesday. This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock, and sitting on an unrealized loss of $16.4 billion.

Right now, the government’s GM stock is worth about 39% less than it was on November 17, 2010, when the company went public at $33.00/share. However, during the intervening time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by almost 20%, so GM shares have lost 49% of their value relative to the Dow.
It’s doubtful that the Obama administration would attempt to sell off the government’s massive position in GM while the stock price is falling. It would be too embarrassing politically. Accordingly, if GM shares continue to decline, it is likely that Obama would ride the stock down to zero.
GM is unlikely to hit the wall before the election, but, given current trends, the company could easily do so again before the end of a second Obama term.
In the 1960s, GM averaged a 48.3% share of the U.S. car and truck market. For the first 7 months of 2012, their market share was 18.0%, down from 20.0% for the same period in 2011. With a loss of market share comes a loss of relative cost-competitiveness. There is only so much market share that GM can lose before it would no longer have the resources to attempt to recover.

Obama's overall "investment" strategy...

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/professor_obamas_investing_101.html

And as to the stimulus spending...

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/obama_and_the_government_emplo.html

[FONT=times new roman,times]"Fully one-third of the 'stimulus' money went to state and local governments -- an obvious payoff to public employee unions that contributed so much to Democrats," as Michael Barone [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]noted[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]. Barone[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]describes[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] the corruption at the core of this dealing:[/FONT]

[FONT=times new roman,times]Public-sector unionism is a very different animal from private-sector unionism. It is not adversarial but collusive. Public-sector unions strive to elect their management, which in turn can extract money from taxpayers to increase wages and benefits -- and can promise pensions that future taxpayers will have to fund.[/FONT]

[FONT=times new roman,times]The results are plain to see. States such as New York, New Jersey and California, where public-sector unions are strong, now face enormous budget deficits and pension liabilities. In such states, the public sector has become a parasite sucking the life out of the private-sector economy.[/FONT]
​

[FONT=times new roman,times]Obama and the Democrats have been well-rewarded for their patronage. Unions contributed up to 400 million dollars to Democrats in 2008 and engage in skullduggery to advance their aims. The latest revelation: a[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]union-funded slush fund[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] secretly targeting GOP candidates through the use of money-laundering and front groups. Unions have funded all sorts of political activity -- undoubtedly the major reason Obama, in one of his first acts as president, [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]ended union disclosure rules[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] requiring them to report how their members' dues were being spent. So much for transparency.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]
[/FONT]

 

[billc]

What did we get for all the stimulus spending...

http://news.investors.com/021712-601526-obamas-stimulus-natl-debt-up-41-incomes-down-7.aspx

Without any fanfare whatsoever from the White House, February 17 marks the three-year anniversary of the day President Obama signed the much ballyhooed stimulus into law.At the time, Obama claimed that it would "create or save" up to 3.5 million jobs, and that "a new wave of innovation, activity and construction will be unleashed across America." The stimulus, would, he promised""ignite spending by businesses and consumers" and bring "real and lasting change for generations to come."

So three years later, how do the stimulus results stack up? Here's where various indicators stood in or around February 2009, and where they stand today.

Unemployment rate: The jobless rate is unchanged from February 2009 to January 2012, the latest month for which we have data. Both stood at 8.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Obama's economists had initially predicted that with the stimulus, unemployment would stay below 8%.Number of long-term unemployed: The number of workers who have been unable to find a job in 27 months or more has shot up 83%, with their ranks now at 5.5 million.Civilian labor force: It has shrunk by 126,000. In past recoveries, the labor force climbed an average of more than 3 million over comparable time periods.Labor force participation: The share of adults in the labor force — either looking or working — has dropped 3% — also highly unusual in a recovery. At 63.7%, labor force participation is at a low not seen since the middle of the very deep 1981-82 recession, when fewer women were in the work force. A lower participation rate makes the unemployment rate look better.

Household income: Median annual household income is about 7% below where it was in February 2009, according to the Sentier Research Household Income Index.

National debt: Up $4.5 trillion, or 41%, according to the Treasury Department's monthly reports. The latest Treasury figures put the national debt at $15.4 trillion, larger than the entire U.S. economy.Deficits: The deficit for fiscal year 2009 totaled $1.4 trillion. The Obama administration's proposed deficit for 2012 is $1.3 trillion, which would mark the fourth year of deficits topping $1 trillion.Gross Domestic Product: Real GDP has climbed just 6% between Q1 2009 and Q4 2011, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.Spending by consumers and businesses:

Personal consumption has managed to climb 10% in the past three years, according to the BEA, but companies continue to hoard cash, with cash on hand up 27% since Q1 2009, according to the Federal Reserve Bank.Stimulus price tag: The original estimate for the cost of the stimulus was $787 billion.

Now the Congressional Budget Office says that, when all is said and done, it will have cost$825 billion .​

Yeah, we really need to spend more tax money like this...

I guess the Unions got their share of the stimulus money though...

 

[Big Don]

Don, I have seen an awful lot of hyperbole on this site that is brimming over with hatred (and no that is not too strong a word) for President Obama. Even tho' I pay attention to what my fellows here of Republican bent write, I am still not really very clear about what he is supposed to have done or not done that is deserving of it. Certainly I do not see what miss-steps he has made that could make those of a Right Wing inclination think that Romney & Ryan are worth voting for - they are Snake-Oil salesman of the first water from what I can see (disclaimer - interested foreigners viewpoint there).

I can tell you, that other than some n00b diplomatic screw ups, Obama is pretty well regarded elsewhere in the world - altho' that might just be in comparison to what came before. How the man has aged in office is a sign of someone who cares about what he is doing too, which is usually a good thing in a politician.

Of course, altho' the PR front has been a bit better (or less front-page news at any rate) he has still continued pretty much with the same foreign policies that the Bush administration laid down. As an aside, that is perhaps something he should be asked about rather than, frankly, 'slur' campaigns about whether he was American or not and so forth?

What people need to watch for is not what they say current but what they have voted for what they have put into writting and who they have taken support from one term or not 4-6 years can do alot of damage

There is a threefold test there:
What he has voted for, i.e., what legislation he has supported
What he has put into writing
Who he has taken support from
Lets start from the top.
He voted "present" a number of times, while in the Illinois senate.

In 1997, Obama voted in the Illinois Senate against SB 230, a bill designed to prevent partial-birth abortions. In the US Senate, Obama has consistently voted to expand embryonic stem cell research. He has voted against requiring minors who get out-of-state abortions to notify their parents. The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) gives Obama a 100% score on his pro-choice voting record in the Senate for 2005, 2006, and 2007.

(that would be, what he's voted on and who supports him)
He pushed the ACA, commonly and not pejoratively known as Obamacare.
His mentors (people who have supported him) include former terrorist Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, of "God Damn America" fame.
His wife, called Kenya his home country. Not the home of his ancestors, which would be different.
I believe wherever he was born, and btw, I think he was born in Hawaii, by virtue of his mother being an American citizen, that makes him an American citizen. That said, he did not help his cause on this issue one tiny bit. How hard is it to get a copy of one's birth certificate? I had to get one a few years ago, I went to the website for the county I was born in, paid $11 and had it three days later. Doing that would have shut up a lot of people who the majority of republicans think of as kooks, nearly as nuts as the 9-11 conspiracy theorists.
I like Martin Luther King Jr's rule: Judge people by the content of their character. Doing that, can you honestly say Obama has been good for this country or the world?

 

[arnisador]

The stimulus has been judged a success by the majority of economists who looked at it! It should've gone further and focused more tightly on infrastructure, but he was dealing with the GOP in congress.

 

[Big Don]

The stimulus has been judged a success by the majority of economists who looked at it! It should've gone further and focused more tightly on infrastructure, but he was dealing with the GOP in congress.

Wasn't that in the first two years of his term? You know, when the Democrats dominated congress...

 

[WC_lun]

Short memory again. Democrats only had the majority in congress for 3 weeks and 4 days. Ted Kennedy, remember? Even then, Republicans had started thier tactic of filibustering every piece of legislation, effectively neutering any majority in congress. How is it these things forgotten so easily?

According to economist, the worst thing about the stimulus is it did not spend enough. It did however, reverse the downward trend, keeping us out of another great depression.

 

[CanuckMA]

Shorter memory still. The first stimulus package was under Bush.

 

[WC_lun]

Shorter memory still. The first stimulus package was under Bush.

...and just like the second one was done because economist said it was the best shot for staying out of a full fledged depression. It seems that maybe some people's memory may not be so much short as selective and ignoring anything that might help the other team.

 

[Sukerkin]

Quite so, Lun. One reason for my asking the question, as well as genuine curiosity, was to try to get posters to seriously re-evaluate what they feel by revisiting and thinking about the issues they care about.

 

[granfire]

Quite so, Lun. One reason for my asking the question, as well as genuine curiosity, was to try to get posters to seriously re-evaluate what they feel by revisiting and thinking about the issues they care about.

I wish there was a way by rationally presenting argument to get the 'other side' to at least think about the matter.
it is not happening.
Not even with proof.

That was from an unrelated issue, no less political: How much power can you allow a group of people who thrives to eliminate some basic rights of humanity. Not quiet as explosive as abortion and stem cells, but not less hard fought over.