Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[vadia]

Any of you who are against obstructionist behavior etc, should write an email to their respective reps (and senators [hey why not]) that they sould compromise.  If they get a few thousand letters [more than they do on the other side] even those who are least likely to compromise will tend to get the point eventually.

In fact tell your friends and family to do so also.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington them (Did I just make a movie title into a verb?)

[Jervill]

I actually would vadia, but I'm quite pleased with my house rep [Walz] and senators [Klobuchar, Franken].

[darkflagrance]

Libya: Intervening to protect civilians is totally unacceptable when a democrat does it.  Never mind that we are still engaged in multiple wars that republicans started for that exact purpose.  But hey, no surprise, we saw the same damn thing in Yugoslavia.
Obamacare: Mandating people buy insurance is completely unconstitutional when democrats propose it!  Never mind that it was an idea first proposed by 19 republican senators and the republican presidential candidate at the time (Bob Dole).
Stimulus: Never, ever, ever works and is just a big handout to special interests.  That must be why Bush included stimulus in both his 2001 and 2003 budgets and why our republican appointed president of the Fed is begging us to pass more stimulus.

Even a stopped clock is right twice three times a day

Also, it's not like the Democrats totally flipped on civil liberties, the PATRIOT act, etc the instant Obama took office or anything.

Would a republican president have done differently? Those who opposed the curtailing of civil liberties never had a choice except between two evils.

[SalmonGod]

Well it punishes the virtuous capitalist who owns an insurance company and rewards the undeserving poor people who never made anything with their lives.

I'll never understand how people can be tricked into thinking this way...

My immediate reaction upon reading that sentence:  The virtuous (as defined by their success) capitalist has already, by definition, been rewarded, and therefor doesn't need the help of public institutions to pile even greater rewards upon them.  The poor may sometimes be undeserving, but they may also have all the elements necessary to be successful (I would just simplify by calling them virtuous, but in this context virtue means having already become successful...) and simply have not made it yet.  In this case, it's hard to imagine how one would argue that punishment is deserved, and likely prevents would-be successes.

I totally understand that the above is the product of billionaires protecting their status, and their propaganda machines are vast and relentless... but no amount of propaganda should be capable of making the whole ideology any less vulnerable to 2 seconds of honest critical thought.

[GlyphGryph]

Would a republican president have done differently? Those who opposed the curtailing of civil liberties never had a choice except between two evils.

A democrat from Seattle might have. As always, a lot of this stuff is determined long before the election, in the primaries and earlier, and like grassroots efforts for local offices by third parties, this is where many of the gains are to be made.

[tahujdt]

First of all, the Republicans did not oppose Libya. Second, the Repblicans are filibustering not to get tax cuts, but spending cut (yes, even military), and lastly, they are not demonizing the same policies they had weeks ago, there are new strings attached.

[mainiac]

First of all, the Republicans did not oppose Libya.

That would explain why their senate minority leader, house majority leader and presidential nominee all floated conspiracy theories about it.  Oh wait, no it doesn't.  That's because their hipocrites.

Second, the Repblicans are filibustering not to get tax cuts, but spending cut (yes, even military)

Do you not follow politics or something?

[Sirus]

That's because they're hypocrites.

Sorry, my inner Grammar Nazi just had to say "hi"

[GlyphGryph]

First of all, the Republicans did not oppose Libya. Second, the Repblicans are filibustering not to get tax cuts, but spending cut (yes, even military), and lastly, they are not demonizing the same policies they had weeks ago, there are new strings attached.

On Libya: Yes, they did, you clearly weren't paying attention at the time.

On the rest:
Their primary point of contention is to re-pass the Bush tax cuts as-is. This is not their only sticking point, but it is their MAIN sticking point (at least so far as they've said publicly).

And their "spending cuts" are not fiscal tools (look at the most recent Republican "spending cut" proposal, which manages to spend MORE than the government is spending now is entitlement, but targeted mostly towards business and entrenched interest with a side course of military-industrialism) but cultural and political ones - they want their cuts as a tool to gut Democrat-friendly programs so they can later point and say "Look! The Democrat's program isn't working!"

[Helgoland]

That's because they're hypocrites.

Sorry, my inner Grammar Nazi just had to say "hi"

Let's hippo-crit the hypocrits!

(I find myself advocating political violence a lot these days. Worrying.)

[Darvi]

Well still better than hyperbrits.

Wait what?

[Helgoland]

I look forward to hyperbits in the interest of running an aleph-two cardinality number of dwarves.

[tahujdt]

Republicans want to cut all programs. This is not something that they want just to sabotage the Dems, they want to avoid the incoming crisis. Extending the Bush tax cuts would be a good thing, but better if we could get spending cuts too. Also, I'd like to point out the Mr. Obama could have offered the tax cuts at any time, but he chooses to do so now because he knows the Republicans are after something bigger. Spending cuts. Also, Obama had promised to cut spending before, but he hasn't. Government will not cut spending voluntarily, so we need to do it involuntarily. That is, force the spending cuts that happen if Democrats don't agree to compromise.

[kaijyuu]

Or you know, raise taxes. The horror.

[GreatJustice]

Or you know, raise taxes. The horror.

Which ones? How much?