lostfan

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 04:49 PM) "Your compliance is noted"

It would've been easier to set a tee out for the Tigers and try to get outs that way instead of actually making the pitchers work.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 04:43 PM) Ummm, I just find it hilarious that someone tried to get people to believe that there was 2 million dollars in the stimulus for shamwows. lol

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 04:41 PM) it's reporting that they are dangerous and need to be watched. if it said "Muslims" instead of "veterans" you would be going crazy about the injustice. then we would have a less hilarious thread about 'evil racism against muslims.' Nuke would probably return, only to get banned. It would be a complete fiasco. Not to detract from the epic hilarity of this thread, but I'm going to vouch for that report. That's a pretty standard line to include in any report about right-wing extremists. Left-wing extremists have a whole other set of conditions that apply to them.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 04:39 PM) that's what you call a reverse 360 pwned That ends up being pwnage back in the same place.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 01:01 PM) It comes from Clinton scaling back military spending from Reagan/ Bush, too, right? Sort of. Which I don't really get because then Congress was controlled by the GOP and they seemed to be fine with it then on the "small government" principle. QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 01:04 PM) I think the reason it's so stereotyped is John Kerry (our troops are raping in the middle of the night), John Murtha (our troops kill people for no reason), Harry Reid (the war is lost). I think that's enough. That's really "supporting the troops". To make this clear, Obama NEVER said these things - but his party did. Yeah, good point.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 04:36 PM) my account must have been hacked. wasn't me. Whoops I thought I was replying to BigSqwert. You'll be even easier to sic the dogs on.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 04:33 PM) Double whammy for you. You had trouble peeling off that Ron Paul bumper sticker before you realized he was a whack job. Yeah it baked itself into my bumper before I got it off. I ended up spraypainting over it though.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 04:33 PM) sorry lostfan, but a pre-emptive strike is a pre-emptive strike. we can't risk not taking action in these trying times Meh I have pull. I can easily have them come after you instead. After all, I heard you say Obama wasn't the progressive leader you thought he was about a month ago.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 04:30 PM) the only solution is a pre-emptive strike. preferably against veterans and the unemployed. oh and people with Ron Paul bumper stickers. JAIL. Aw f***.

This thread = epic win

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 01:04 PM) Ron Paul is right, but WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY over the top, which makes him wrong. I hope that makes sense. It does actually.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 12:47 PM) Once there was talk of Obama entering the race I knew he was going to win it, there was a certain way it felt. At no point did I really think HRC could actually beat Obama. lol you were on the Ron Paul bandwagon dude. I think we jumped off at about the same time actually, sometime in winter 2008 when the Dem primaries started heating up. (I realize this post looks extremely odd to posters here)

I wasn't in the U.S. at the time so I definitely don't remember, but I do remember the speech itself pretty clearly because it was all over the news. The talk was about a "new young African-American politician" and there were some black intellectuals dropping hints but not actually saying he was presidential material. At the time I laughed thinking that was putting the cart before the horse (and it was).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 12:16 PM) He'd probably get a much, much, much better response, because everyone knows the Democrats hate the military. I don't even know where that comes from, it's such a lame ass stereotype. Other than something I posted about 2 or 3 weeks ago about Obama trying some weak ass budget-cutting measure for charging combat injuries to vets' private health insurance, I can't think of anything Obama's done to give him this "anti-military" image. He mostly does all the same things Bush did for the military, except support the actual war. Anti-war =/= anti-military.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 12:13 PM) "At a time of war, you cannot gut the military..." But to your points, what if a Republican president asked for the same cuts? And honestly Balta, the 4% increase in the DOD budget is kind of funny because Obama is asking more for Iraq then GWB ever did. WOAH! He's not cutting spending for the actual war itself (like you just said). He is reorganizing priorities, there is a lot of bureaucracy, dependence, and self-licking ice cream cones within that sector. For evidence just see the uproar at even the mention of cutting a major defense program, they've kind of gotten it into the public's minds that all this stuff doesn't come with such a big price, and that it gets used, even (against what and who, like why is extra carriers a priority in 2009, for example?). The actual dollar amount doesn't even look like it's changing much, so it's pretty irrelevant, and the next-highest defense budget pretty much gets what they wants or steals it anyway. The "cut" is to make better use of the existing funds on things we can use against the enemy we're actually fighting, not a hypothetical war (although we have to be ready for that too). I'd never criticize a Republican president for doing something I wanted him to do.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 11:31 AM) You cannot sit there with a straight face and say that Obama's spending binge is "better" then GWB's spending binge. Obama's is just beginning. And all these campaign appearances by the Messiah were pretty much the equivalent of the "tea parties". But let's not ruin a good chance to bash right-leaning Americans. The part of that piece that I liked, and I harp on this all the time, is where he said criticizing government spending is worthless without either an explanation or without saying what exactly needs to be cut. The fact that conservatives immediately started to squirm and shout when Gates announced defense cuts (more accurately, a reorganization and slowdown in spending) let me know they weren't serious.

I mean, it sucks to be charged for a companion to travel with you that's not there, but also if your ass takes up 2 seats, that's one less person that can ride the plane.

How can one person run on a bank?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 08:55 AM) I wasn't really going for how they are elected, but more like how they should vote on the specific issues. Put on your "If I were the legislator" shoes. For example, this thought originated out of school district realignment talks in my hometown. They want to move many of the poorer (ie black) kids into the richer (ie white) schools and all of the parents in those areas are pissed. Should a person who is voting on this respect the wishes of the majority of the school district and vote against it, or should they vote for it, knowing it is better for the kids, and for the district in the long run (poor kids get better schooling opportunities being the biggest reason)? Oh, sorry, I kind of danced around that a little. I think that, within reason, they should do what they think is best for the kids. Assuming they have all the information available to them to make such a decision. Same thing as tax increases, nobody wants to pay more taxes, but sometimes you have to, and nobody's going to do it on their own unless you tell them to. So I'd say on a national level, if we're talking about a hypothetical vote on a war and you represent a liberal leaning (i.e., anti-war) district/state but you feel that the war is the right thing to do, you vote for the war and worry about your reelection chances/having to explain the vote later. Of course you run the risk of it biting you in the ass like it did Hillary Clinton, but that's a risk you take.

I think that generally speaking they are elected for their judgment and not on specific issues, since this is a republic, but it's a little of both. Depending on the constituency and the year, they may elect someone with Judgment Pattern A (Dem) over Judgment Pattern B (Republican) or vice versa. You're not going to expect them to do things you agree with all the time, but you're not going to vote for someone who makes decisions that are philosophically different from yours most of the time.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 02:49 AM) I'm still wondering what would have happened if Jack Ryan didn't get busted for wanting kinky sex and having to withdraw from the senate election, which gave the seat to Obama. Jack Ryan was almost a virtual lock to win it, IIRC. I wonder, who would be president right now? McCain? Romney? Hilary? I think this is pure speculation, nobody really knows how that would've played out.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 01:42 AM) Actually there was good Democratic leadership after the 2004 disaster election. It came from Democracy for America and Howard Dean. They pioneered the 50 state strategy for the Dems. And they realized and started to talk about a few things. In many, many cases - people support the liberal point of view on policy in this country. They were just afraid of the label - so they worked on taking it back. I'm not a fan of Dean as an elected official. But as a party leader and party builder? Amazing. Yeah, this is stuff I realized belatedly, but not at the time, I was so pissed off. I still wonder what would have happened had Dean been the Dem nominee in '04 though.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 15, 2009 -> 12:02 AM) Could it be all this talking about teabagging? No, several orders of magnitude worse.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 14, 2009 -> 11:13 PM) Which is why they got their asses handed to them, and deservedly so. I wish for once that they actually had some balls and stuck to their calls for reduced spending. If they would do that and lower taxes, they would stay around a lot longer. But no, they get greedy, lie through their teeth, act like they're principled when they have no intention of being so, and get thier ass kicked, which paves the way for more bloated government thanks to Democrats. Gotta love that cycle playing out over and over again. Bottom line, I don't trust either party when it comes to paying the nation's bills.