Balta1701

Last night, there was a Republican debate held at Historically African American Morgan College, focused on minority issues. The 4 GOP front runners all skipped the event, so you had an actual chance to hear guys like Paul, Huckabee, Brownback, and Keyes talking.

At least something positive comes out of all this.

My goodness can that man draw a crowd.

If we're only looking @ the smaller guys, line me up with Dodd.

I think the media is getting the script down for how to embarrass Fred Thompson. The instructions are: "1. Ask him a question. 2. Let him answer."

The Oz goes after Uribe:

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Sep 28, 2007 -> 07:34 AM) FREDDY THOMPSON! Seriously, do you all think the Goracle is going to run? If/When he takes home the Nobel Peace Prize it might change, but for now, no.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Sep 27, 2007 -> 06:51 AM) Goddamn, I'd love to see the Sox at Chavez Ravine. Practically down the street from me. Been waiting for them to show up here for a couple years now. Finally will be hitting up Dodger stadium. Yahtzee.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Sep 27, 2007 -> 11:41 AM) Michelle Obama was quoted yesterday as saying Barack had to win Iowa, or it was "over". The campaign has sent out a transcript of her actual remarks and is saying that the Quad City Times misquoted her. The QC times has corrected said quote:

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Sep 27, 2007 -> 02:14 PM) What does that mean? You would take all of those players over the best pitcher in baseball? If that's what he meant, for the White Sox at least, I can see 1, maybe 2 guys on that list I'd rather have than Santana. If I'm the D-Rays or Marlins it's a different story because I can't afford any of them that aren't rookies, but it's hard to believe most people would rather have those guys over Santana if the money wasn't the biggest issue. Except Pujols.

How was the dog?

Thome produces big time at the beginning of the season in 06, and he's unclutch because he didn't produce as much down the stretch. Thome gets hot down the stretch in 07, and he's unclutch because he got hurt at the beginning of the season.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Sep 27, 2007 -> 12:38 PM) Just convert him to a hitter already. Did you guys miss the "4 hit shutout" part of his description?

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Sep 27, 2007 -> 12:11 PM) I commented on this earlier... she IS, which is why I say you liberals out there have been totally duped. Enjoy what you sew, because it's going to be ugly. As long as the remaining Re-pube-licans can keep her from getting her way on health care, whatever, because she is no different then the rest of them. Excuse me while I go barf. One of the things that is probably helping Hillary big time is that when you ask what people think Hillary's policy on Iraq is...most people say she'll withdraw all troops within about 6-9 months, which is totally not the case. It's entirely possible that as her position becomes more clear and people pay more attention, that is something that could majorly hurt her.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Sep 27, 2007 -> 11:01 AM) I love seeing this levelk of compromise. We're all better for it. And what happens when both of those are vetoed?

QUOTE(Texsox @ Sep 27, 2007 -> 10:39 AM) I wonder if centralist could envoke enough support to actually get elected in high enough numbers. I think a third party needs an almost cult like core and average doesn't necessarily do it, but it would be the best possible world. But then still, Balta's point that they would still need to join together to get anything done is the problem point. So it's a centralist third party needing the outer fringe to help. I still fear a pork fest of the highest calling. I think it would be vastly more effective and vastly easier to totally overhaul the campaign financing system than it would be to count on another party magically appearing and deciding that they'll be the good guys who will fix everything and who everyone will agree with.

So, the Dems in Congress are actually having the start of a fine day, at least before they fold over when Bush vetoes all of this as being too good. First, the SCHIP program expansion the Dems have been working on is expected to fly through the Senate today, on its way to a Bush veto since anything that makes the government cover insurance for more people is bad. Here's the WSJ admiring how solid of a compromise this bill actually is. And of course, since bipartisanship and actual negotiation is bad, this will be vetoed by the President. Meanwhile, the Democrats also passed in the Senate (beating another filibuster attempt) a bill to expand hate crime legislation and apply it to hate crimes committed due to sexual orientation. Which I can imagine will probably be vetoed also.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Sep 27, 2007 -> 10:15 AM) I would love to be the third party that everyone had to come to to get anything passed. Oh how the pork would fly. Far better to fix the existing parties than have a three way split of power where everything would take coalition building. I would really, really, really love to see how this system would work if we could just rebuild it so that people in Congress didn't spend 3/4 of their time raising money.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 27, 2007 -> 10:16 AM) So are you voting for Kucinich or Richardson in the primary, then? Dodd has actually been acting and sounding scarily sensible lately. Richardson has an in on me with his Iraq policy, but a lot of his other issues he's simply not where I'd want him to be (i.e. esp. domestic politics), and while he's not at the Fred Thompson level, he has sort of acted like a "not ready for prime time" guy as well, and after the 04 campaign, I'd really worry about voting for another one of them.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Sep 27, 2007 -> 06:31 AM) The troop question was poorly worded. I hope were there in 2013 rebuilding the country after *they* get *their* s*** together. I even see a military base or two. But I would not want field operations, moving neighborhood to neighborhood. I don't think that's a poorly worded question at all. I think it actually shows where the debate the 70% of the country who is sick of this war is going to wind up. The question is...do we just throw down and get out all the way and let the people there fight it out with the guns we've bought them, or do we leave a presence in the country to try to slow down the rate at which they kill each other after we leave? Personally, I think it's fairly silly to leave a small, residual force barricaded around bases in a country that hates you with long, expensive, and vulnerable supply lines. You don't remove the "The U.S. is holding onto territory in Iraq" issue, you don't remove the U.S. propping up the government issue, and you massively increase the risk to the remaining U.S. forces there. (unless, of course, you surround them with dudes from Blackwater).

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Sep 27, 2007 -> 10:02 AM) The problem with that is you can only be "Us vs Them" for so long before people get sick of it. The whole rest of the world manages to have a system that includes way more parties and ideals than we do. I really hope eventually one or more of these group can break through. But you know the remarkable thing about those systems, the parliamentary ones which allow lots of parties? They rapidly wind up breaking down into quasi 2 party systems as well. Because a lot of times, the new parties that appear are not these magical, centrist, "Everyone will agree with us" parties that for some reason people envision should pop up and make everyone happy. They wind up being vastly farther out on the fringe, and they wind up just making coalitions and governments harder to build, because you have to cater to that fringe party in order to build a government. Give you an example...right now, you could probably get 30% of the vote for a party who's sole goal was to get the U.S. out of Iraq, and which would refuse to join a government without that. If you then wound up with 3 parties in a parliamentary type system, it might be nearly impossible for a government to form without the aid of that party. In other words, you would have to cater to the farthest wing in order to be able to form a government, and you'd have to placate that minority party to keep the government from falling.

Unlike last year, I can't say I've seen anything in the new shows that has caught my interest this year.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 26, 2007 -> 03:03 PM) But they did that. They amended the spending bill. Now, maybe they didn't word it usefully, I don't know. But if they have an amendment saying the funding is contingent on doing X, then there it is. Perhaps they didn't do that - maybe the amendment just said "we think you should do X". If that is the case, then I guess they just wimped out again. Yes. This was a specifically non-binding part of the Senate bill. I'll let ABC sum it up repeatedly how pointless it actually is: It is totally non binding. So yes, Bush can simply ignore it, laugh at it, and use it as toilet paper, and it doesn't matter at all.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Sep 26, 2007 -> 03:08 PM) Trading Fields or Danks is a horrible idea, imo. Danks + Fields for Santana.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 26, 2007 -> 02:29 PM) So, Congress agrees a change in course is needed, they endorse that change in course, but fail to put any teeth whatsoever in the amendment. What good does that do? I do have to ask though - since Congress has no authority over Iraq's government per se anyway, and the executive branch can pretty much implement their end of things how they want to... could Congress even do anything binding along these lines anyway? Congress could do anything it wants to do if it was willing to use the funding for the war as a negotiating tool. Basically, Congress has the ability to say "Either you will agree with our plan, or we will not fund this war any farther". Until it does that, it has given up its only negotiating tool with this President before it starts. If the President vetos whatever plan the Congress comes up with, then the Congress can give him the same plan right back, and eventually the Executive branch winds up having no choice between agreeing with Congress or ending the war entirely with the funding already appropriated. But the Executive branch knows right now that the media will buy into the "The Democrats aren't funding the troops!" meme, as they already have done, so it's already a given that if Congress actually tries to use its power, the Democrats are going to be the ones capitulating.