So Kentucky's going to give the country a Tea Party senator, I guess.

Fucking hell. Kentucky is wonderful.

I know it's part of your history and all, but really, Tea Party sounds so fucking gaaaaay.

Olds would know.

Olds wrote:I know it's part of your history and all, but really, Tea Party sounds so fucking gaaaaay.

Yeah I agree, maybe somebody should mail the person a fancy dress, petty coat, hat and gloves so they can have a real Tea Party.

Barack "Jesus Christ" Obama had to correct 30+ years of Reaganomics and other ills within 18 months. Hmm, he should have held a press conference turning water into wine.

I will be interested in seeing how badly these Tea Party people fuck things up. They can't deliver what they promise, and what they will do can only make government completely non-functional.

I have to question the intellectual capacity of anyone voting for a party promising tax cuts and spending cuts while balancing a deficit of over a trillion dollars. I don't think the general public in America have the appetite for the level of spending cuts actually necessary at present taxation levels. I don't think the US has the wherewithall to actually do what the UK has done, and the only alternative to that is a slow march towards a Greek-style crisis.

spaced cowboy wrote:I will be interested in seeing how badly these Tea Party people fuck things up. They can't deliver what they promise, and what they will do can only make government completely non-functional.

I have to question the intellectual capacity of anyone voting for a party promising tax cuts and spending cuts while balancing a deficit of over a trillion dollars. I don't think the general public in America have the appetite for the level of spending cuts actually necessary at present taxation levels. I don't think the US has the wherewithall to actually do what the UK has done, and the only alternative to that is a slow march towards a Greek-style crisis.

It takes brass balls and some serious grade A level bullshit to convince voters that their taxes went up when they actually went down for 90% of the population, and that keeping the Bush "tax cuts" is good for everyone when in reality everyone except for those making over $250,000 would actually see their taxes go down when the Bush cuts expire, but the GOP are masters of controlling the dialogue in ways the Democrats couldn't conjure up in their most fevered dreams.

I've seen at least a few interviews with GOP members where they've said they're going to cut spending, but not once have they mentioned what they're going to cut. I saw one cunt being interviewed by Chris Matthews saying they'll be cutting "discretionary spending," and then when pressed on the definition of that, she refused to answer the question, then stated there will be "across the board" cuts. Matthews then asked if that means she'll be cutting Medicare, defense spending, social security, etc, and she said no defense spending cuts. Matthews said, "Oh, so not across the board then." She then said, "You're not listening to me Chris, we're going to cut discretionary spending, then we're going to make cuts across the board."

TL;DR version...they have no fucking clue what they're doing.

A lot of the Blue Dog Democrats who were obstructing health care reform and other progressive programs got bounced, though. I think the reason a lot of House seats fell to the GOP was because the Democrats' base voters were really disillusioned with the Blue Dogs. When the next round of House voting comes around in two years, and America finds nothing is getting done, you might see more progressives get voted in. But until then, we've got two years of the House putting out a lot of shit that won't get through the Senate and vice versa, and anything crazy that does make it through will get vetoed handily. It'll be gridlock for a while.

Obama will get the blame though, and the Republicans will clean up.

I think the problem is that Obama overestimates the intelligence of the average American, whereas Republicans treat everyone like idiots and it seems to strike a chord.

Republicans have absolutely no shame. That was made obvious when the angle used to keep Kerry out was that he didn't have a cohesive plan to deal with Bush's collossal fuck up. Now the same thing has happened - Obama couldn't fix Bush's legacy from turning the US into an economic wasteland and the Republicans have managed to blame everything since slavery was abolished on poor Barry.

I did love the Fox News version of Obama's back of the car quote.

Thing is, that everybody expects him to just automatically fix eight years worth of economic damage in...well, not even four years, but he's somehow already supposed to have done it. Just because we're not enjoying the prosperity of the 90's, even though we're just two years into his term, and he still has to deal with two wars we can't really get out of, this all automatically makes him a failure? I mean he's just one man, and he's got a shitton of stuff on his plate already. Even he said he said--from the beginning, even--that he's not going to be able to fix everything within one, or even two terms. And you can tell he's stressed the fuck out; he's not as exuberant or charismatic as he was when he was running, he's getting wringkles, a five o'clock shadow, and the man's almost completely gray now. Not only that, somehow--and I don't follow this logic at all-- the BP oil spill has to be his fault, even though it was (mis)run by three private companies, and he responded the day after, and even so, there still wasn't very much he could do about it, except find out "whose ass to kick."
And then he caught flack for that? Uh, we kinda need a president who knows how to kick ass, even if it is just keeping pressure on BP/Transocean/Halliburton to pay money out their wazoo for screwing up the gulf's ecosystem. They've had their asses kissed for eight years, maybe now it's time they got a few well-deserved kicks.

Granted, he hasn't really done much of anything for the past year and a half except push through a health care bill that apparently nobody wants, and that republicans kept snubbing and democrats kept making compromise on. And then Republicas want to call it "Obamacare," as a means of blaming Obama , because they finally decided the bill screwed enough people over that they could go ahead and vote it through, to make him the badguy (or maybe they just got tired of seeing it on their desks every week).

And the Teabaggers just latch onto this, and nit pick every little thing, as though it could have been helped. Okay, their mouthpiece is an airheaded twat who thought she had "foreign diplomacy experience" just because her state borders Canada; or because it's close to Russia, and "if Putin rears his ugly head, who's he gonna come after?" You don't even know what the fuck you're talkign about. Bitch please. Shut the fuck up and make me a damn sandwich.

and there is the problem with allowing everyone equal voting rights. most people are fucking clueless

The US Fed Reserve creating another $600B out of thin air (Q.E.2) has done along with the first Quantitative Easing package more to hurt the real wealth of every American than anything Obama or the Dems in Congress have done in the last 2 years including the Healthcare Bill which ironically is very similar to the one Bob Dole (Republican) was running on in 1996. and BTW more socializing your health care will save you each personally as an American and your government through its share of expenditures more money than any Republican favoured tax cut could or what Q.E. 2 package may try to achieve. BTW Quantitative Easing won't do anything to create more real wealth nor dig your nation or any nation which tries the same sort of stuff out of its hole. It only buys the greed hands a bit more time to kick the ball down the road and for the greed hands to pilfer money from all of it care of the avg. US citizen.

It's all about misguided ideology folks. Tea Party followers will be especially shown for this.

Never in my life have I seen the USA more divided. I think only during the US Civil War was the nation more divided and yes my dark cloud side of thinking can see that the USA can easily sooner than later see civil strife and even civil war happen again.

A sad shell of nation I once new as a kid/youth growing up.

i wonder how much we could save without all these bullshit wars.

ryguy79 wrote:i wonder how much we could save without all these bullshit wars.

not a lot. if there was no war the price of oil would go through the roof

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

ryguy79 wrote:i wonder how much we could save without all these bullshit wars.

not a lot. if there was no war the price of oil would go through the roof

Dubious.

ryguy79 wrote:i wonder how much we could save without all these bullshit wars.

If there was a general sense of global security the defence spending would naturally go down much as it did after the Cold War when all developed nations began and rightfully so cut defence spending. The appearance and fear of some threat is fodder for increasing defence spending. Now of course I stand behind responsible and well thought out defence spending. That said the USA combining with its current wars is said to be forecasting spending almost 1 Trillion on defence next fiscal year. Seriously???

But other savings could be made if society would finally reject the current global monetary/banking system and what really is a non-free(er) market economic system we currently live by. But that requires a lot of intelligence, cooperation and political guts which we world wide obviously don't seem to have.

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

ryguy79 wrote:i wonder how much we could save without all these bullshit wars.

not a lot. if there was no war the price of oil would go through the roof

Not really. With no war America would hav had the funds to stimulate itself out of recession.

Swerve wrote:

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

ryguy79 wrote:i wonder how much we could save without all these bullshit wars.

not a lot. if there was no war the price of oil would go through the roof

Not really. With no war America would hav had the funds to stimulate itself out of recession.

it has nothing to do with any recession. iraq has potentially the largest oil reserves in the world. in an area where the west was viewed with increasing suspicion if we hadn't invaded oil price would have grown drastically.

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

Swerve wrote:

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

ryguy79 wrote:i wonder how much we could save without all these bullshit wars.

not a lot. if there was no war the price of oil would go through the roof

Not really. With no war America would hav had the funds to stimulate itself out of recession.

it has nothing to do with any recession. iraq has potentially the largest oil reserves in the world. in an area where the west was viewed with increasing suspicion if we hadn't invaded oil price would have grown drastically.

you'd think humanity would have found a viable alternative to oil by now....

The_Edge wrote:

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

Swerve wrote:

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

ryguy79 wrote:i wonder how much we could save without all these bullshit wars.

not a lot. if there was no war the price of oil would go through the roof

Not really. With no war America would hav had the funds to stimulate itself out of recession.

it has nothing to do with any recession. iraq has potentially the largest oil reserves in the world. in an area where the west was viewed with increasing suspicion if we hadn't invaded oil price would have grown drastically.

you'd think humanity would have found a viable alternative to oil by now....

people are outraged by the war and the deaths its caused, but they'd be alot more outraged if the price of everything they buy doubled. i wouldnt have much faith in humanity...

I think about 95% of Americans don't realize what petroleum is used to make besides motor oil and gasoline.

For my two uneducated cents on the subject, this country just dug the hole we were in just deeper and I'm starting to see China shining through.

Seriously, this country needs jobs. There has been too much outsourcing in the last 30 years by American companies. There needs to be something done about that. I had family friends lose their jobs when Briggs and Stratton moved their engine plant from Milwaukee to Mexico. WTF?

The politians (particularly the republicans) don't see this.

Obama wants to put the money down to build highspeed rail. He wants to start start small (Chicago to Detroit and St. Louis) then hopefully grow to a national system. It would not only employ people who have been out of work (like union carpenters, pipefitters, and Ironworkers), but people who have lost their jobs. An entirely new infrastructure has to be built. It would also get us out of the dark ages of passenger train service, considering that the passenger train service hasn't changed one bit since the 1930's. I don't know about anyone else but I would rather take a train than a plane anyday.

This amount of republicans are going to fuck shit up. I am tired of the majority of this country blaming everything on Obama. They are already talking on the tv that he probably won't have a second term because he hasn't kept up with his promises from his election. You know why people? Because he's busy fixing all sorts of other shit that needed to be fixed first. One man cannot please everybody. What's that? Several of your schools have lost funding? Your food tax is too high? Grandma can't get a home health nurse and has to go to the nursing home? Talk to your state senators, represnatives, and governors first before you start shit talking about how the president sucks. There are many other levels of government that help make the decisions.

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

Swerve wrote:

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

ryguy79 wrote:i wonder how much we could save without all these bullshit wars.

not a lot. if there was no war the price of oil would go through the roof

Not really. With no war America would hav had the funds to stimulate itself out of recession.

it has nothing to do with any recession. iraq has potentially the largest oil reserves in the world. in an area where the west was viewed with increasing suspicion if we hadn't invaded oil price would have grown drastically.

We confirmed those suspicions by going ahead and invading. Before we took over, I don't recall at the time a general level of unrest or suspicion that was any greater than that of the past few decades.

And in the US, after combat operations ended, gas prices ended up nearly doubling anyway.

SBF wrote:I think about 95% of Americans don't realize what petroleum is used to make besides motor oil and gasoline.

For my two uneducated cents on the subject, this country just dug the hole we were in just deeper and I'm starting to see China shining through.

Seriously, this country needs jobs. There has been too much outsourcing in the last 30 years by American companies. There needs to be something done about that. I had family friends lose their jobs when Briggs and Stratton moved their engine plant from Milwaukee to Mexico. WTF?

The politians (particularly the republicans) don't see this.

Obama wants to put the money down to build highspeed rail. He wants to start start small (Chicago to Detroit and St. Louis) then hopefully grow to a national system. It would not only employ people who have been out of work (like union carpenters, pipefitters, and Ironworkers), but people who have lost their jobs. An entirely new infrastructure has to be built. It would also get us out of the dark ages of passenger train service, considering that the passenger train service hasn't changed one bit since the 1930's. I don't know about anyone else but I would rather take a train than a plane anyday.

This amount of republicans are going to fuck shit up. I am tired of the majority of this country blaming everything on Obama. They are already talking on the tv that he probably won't have a second term because he hasn't kept up with his promises from his election. You know why people? Because he's busy fixing all sorts of other shit that needed to be fixed first. One man cannot please everybody. What's that? Several of your schools have lost funding? Your food tax is too high? Grandma can't get a home health nurse and has to go to the nursing home? Talk to your state senators, represnatives, and governors first before you start shit talking about how the president sucks. There are many other levels of government that help make the decisions.

When Clinton was in his first terms as president and the Republicans took over all of Congress, people were saying the same things about him, and there were some pretty close parallels to what was going on then compared to now.

The big difference now is that most of the Republicans have gone way off the deep end. And it's remarkable how they've built a base of voters supporting them--many of them working class people being hurt badly by the recession--to support their policies, which ironically consist of lower taxes on the wealthy, higher taxes on the poor, and deregulating corporations and allowing them to move jobs out of the country with no penalties. But to a lot of them, it's almost like, "That's okay if they send my town's jobs to the Philippines, or the company goes bankrupt to let the CEO rake in $200 million and put everyone on the streets, just as long as they don't let gays marry or abortions happen."

The GOP refuses to compromise on anything in Congress...when the Democrats were in control, I watched as the Dems watered down so many bills over and over again to appease the Republicans and garner support, and then the when they got their way, Republicans still refused to vote for the bills when they went through. Now that a lot of the more conservative Democrats just got voted out, things are going to clash more than ever.

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

Swerve wrote:

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

ryguy79 wrote:i wonder how much we could save without all these bullshit wars.

not a lot. if there was no war the price of oil would go through the roof

Not really. With no war America would hav had the funds to stimulate itself out of recession.

it has nothing to do with any recession. iraq has potentially the largest oil reserves in the world. in an area where the west was viewed with increasing suspicion if we hadn't invaded oil price would have grown drastically.

And you think that 'suspicion' hasn't increased since they've invaded two Muslim countries in the same decade? Oil is a marketable commodity, the producers would have a difficult time artificially pushing up the price just because they didn't like one of the parties buying it.

And besides, if your weak thesis held any water in the first place, America would just redouble development efforts in the Canadian tar sands. Iraq officially has fewer reserves (143 billion barrels) than Alberta does (175 billion barrels recoverable at today's prices/technology).

The war for oil may well have originated as a viable economic gambit, but they fucked up hard and it's pretty difficult to argue that they're on the upside of their investment at this point...

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

ryguy79 wrote:i wonder how much we could save without all these bullshit wars.

not a lot. if there was no war the price of oil would go through the roof

I think that is rather questionable. The price of oil is largely supply and demand. OPEC has shown that they can't control the price in a viable way, because a) not every country with oil to sell is a member and b) they all cheat on their quotas, meaning the supply is always greater than advertised, leading their price targets to be unachievable.

Most of the oil for US consumption does not come from the middle east, so access to the supply of middle east oil is not actually critical to the US. The advantage to controlling the supply of middle east oil is that it royally fucks the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans who have no oil of their own.

Also, QE2 was the only option Bernake had. The Fed has a dual remit of controlling inflation and maintaining employment levels. With unemployment rates not moving, and the legislative side of the government refusing to do anything constructive (and with the new make-up, guaranteed to do absolutely nothing helpful in any way), he had to either act, or basically acknowledge that the US government, and Fed in particular could do nothing to help employment levels. Given his background as a serious student of the Great Depression, I don't think doing nothing was an option he would consider. And if he can actually help inflate the US debt away at the same time as boosting employment, so much the better. It's no skin off his nose if the US dollar is permanently devalued. It will make most of Asia shit their pants though.

Turbofrog wrote:

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

Swerve wrote:

Pennzoil GT-R wrote:

ryguy79 wrote:i wonder how much we could save without all these bullshit wars.

not a lot. if there was no war the price of oil would go through the roof

Not really. With no war America would hav had the funds to stimulate itself out of recession.

it has nothing to do with any recession. iraq has potentially the largest oil reserves in the world. in an area where the west was viewed with increasing suspicion if we hadn't invaded oil price would have grown drastically.

And you think that 'suspicion' hasn't increased since they've invaded two Muslim countries in the same decade? Oil is a marketable commodity, the producers would have a difficult time artificially pushing up the price just because they didn't like one of the parties buying it.

And besides, if your weak thesis held any water in the first place, America would just redouble development efforts in the Canadian tar sands. Iraq officially has fewer reserves (143 billion barrels) than Alberta does (175 billion barrels recoverable at today's prices/technology).

The war for oil may well have originated as a viable economic gambit, but they fucked up hard and it's pretty difficult to argue that they're on the upside of their investment at this point...

of course its increased...but it was becoming increasingly unstable of its own accord. america needed to guarantee supplies of crude oil, which is A LOT different to unconvential oil. the canadian reserves are huge but much, much more difficult and expensive to extract. only in recent years have oil sands been able to even break even. forgetting cost, one of the biggest problems and the reason why unconvential oil in europe hasnt been extracted is because of the amount of surface area it takes up on the ground.

its impossible to know if its proven worth it or not, but it's a lot closer to even than you probably think it is.

JaysonAych wrote:

SBF wrote:I think about 95% of Americans don't realize what petroleum is used to make besides motor oil and gasoline.

For my two uneducated cents on the subject, this country just dug the hole we were in just deeper and I'm starting to see China shining through.

Seriously, this country needs jobs. There has been too much outsourcing in the last 30 years by American companies. There needs to be something done about that. I had family friends lose their jobs when Briggs and Stratton moved their engine plant from Milwaukee to Mexico. WTF?

The politians (particularly the republicans) don't see this.

Obama wants to put the money down to build highspeed rail. He wants to start start small (Chicago to Detroit and St. Louis) then hopefully grow to a national system. It would not only employ people who have been out of work (like union carpenters, pipefitters, and Ironworkers), but people who have lost their jobs. An entirely new infrastructure has to be built. It would also get us out of the dark ages of passenger train service, considering that the passenger train service hasn't changed one bit since the 1930's. I don't know about anyone else but I would rather take a train than a plane anyday.

This amount of republicans are going to fuck shit up. I am tired of the majority of this country blaming everything on Obama. They are already talking on the tv that he probably won't have a second term because he hasn't kept up with his promises from his election. You know why people? Because he's busy fixing all sorts of other shit that needed to be fixed first. One man cannot please everybody. What's that? Several of your schools have lost funding? Your food tax is too high? Grandma can't get a home health nurse and has to go to the nursing home? Talk to your state senators, represnatives, and governors first before you start shit talking about how the president sucks. There are many other levels of government that help make the decisions.

When Clinton was in his first terms as president and the Republicans took over all of Congress, people were saying the same things about him, and there were some pretty close parallels to what was going on then compared to now.

The big difference now is that most of the Republicans have gone way off the deep end. And it's remarkable how they've built a base of voters supporting them--many of them working class people being hurt badly by the recession--to support their policies, which ironically consist of lower taxes on the wealthy, higher taxes on the poor, and deregulating corporations and allowing them to move jobs out of the country with no penalties. But to a lot of them, it's almost like, "That's okay if they send my town's jobs to the Philippines, or the company goes bankrupt to let the CEO rake in $200 million and put everyone on the streets, just as long as they don't let gays marry or abortions happen."

The GOP refuses to compromise on anything in Congress...when the Democrats were in control, I watched as the Dems watered down so many bills over and over again to appease the Republicans and garner support, and then the when they got their way, Republicans still refused to vote for the bills when they went through. Now that a lot of the more conservative Democrats just got voted out, things are going to clash more than ever.

I think what had bugged me the most on this election is how many republican candidates kept saying "WE'RE GOING TO TAKE THIS COUNTRY BACK!!!" I mean WTF? Are we a bunch of nobody high schoolers trying to take our town back from Russians and Cubans? (WOLVERINES!) Has North Korea invaded and we now are a militia? It's just a fucking joke.

My dad is hardcore Republican and I change the subject every time he brings up politics; he is extremely biased and is so worried about how the democrats are taking away or rights and social security and blah blah blah. He always has Fox News on at his house, He always has Rush Limbaugh on in the car, and He has Sarah Palin's book sitting on his coffee table.

BTW, it took 3 days for our state to give us a governor. Bill Brady (R) would not concede until 100% of the votes were in. It was fucking ridiculous.

SBF,

As I said earlier, in and around the era of lifetime I have never seen the USA more divided and IMO that includes the Vietnam War era.

I truly do hate to say it but the USA as we all have seen post WWII is now like a ship sailing towards an iceberg. What happens for its longer term future will greatly result over events its society create and has effect to in the next oh 3-5-7 years. It's not looking so good.

Les_Vipers_rule wrote:SBF,

As I said earlier, in and around the era of lifetime I have never seen the USA more divided and IMO that includes the Vietnam War era.

I truly do hate to say it but the USA as we all have seen post WWII is now like a ship sailing towards an iceberg. What happens for its longer term future will greatly result over events its society create and has effect to in the next oh 3-5-7 years. It's not looking so good.

For once Les, I agree with you.

I've heard similar fears over growing strife causing a second Civil War. I hope to God that it doesn't happen.
but if it does, I'm moving in with Pennz.

Turbojett wrote:I've heard similar fears over growing strife causing a second Civil War. I hope to God that it doesn't happen.
but if it does, I'm moving in with Pennz.

If an actual civil war were to happen, it wouldn't happen for long. We have a really good modern military and better forms of communication that we did in the 1800's.

SBF wrote:

Turbojett wrote:I've heard similar fears over growing strife causing a second Civil War. I hope to God that it doesn't happen.
but if it does, I'm moving in with Pennz.

If an actual civil war were to happen, it wouldn't happen for long. We have a really good modern military and better forms of communication that we did in the 1800's.

But which way would the military fragment? Given the political views prevalent in the military it might not be an equal split. Or would the split be regional? If so, how would the country handle the split. Especially if the split separated the core urban areas of the US from the hinterland which seems to vote Republican more strongly...

spaced cowboy wrote:

SBF wrote:

Turbojett wrote:I've heard similar fears over growing strife causing a second Civil War. I hope to God that it doesn't happen.
but if it does, I'm moving in with Pennz.

If an actual civil war were to happen, it wouldn't happen for long. We have a really good modern military and better forms of communication that we did in the 1800's.

But which way would the military fragment? Given the political views prevalent in the military it might not be an equal split. Or would the split be regional? If so, how would the country handle the split. Especially if the split separated the core urban areas of the US from the hinterland which seems to vote Republican more strongly...

Honestly, I don't see a civil war really happening. I see a lot of riots and such, but never another civil war.

Not all revolutions result in complete war and blood in the streets. History shows nations have had velvet revolutions that reshaped nation states. Sure violence may and often does play a part but a civil uprising and a revolution does not always result in mass bloodshed and destruction. But politically via social movements can result in nations breaking up and/or looking very different afterwards.