Obamanation Re-election MegaThread

[mr_genius]

He's really horrible. Then I read Rush Limbaugh saying last week that if Obama wins California will declare bankruptcy, Obama will get other states like Texas to bail it out and in Rush's words "we're doomed." Is this true???

 

i doubt it. if California was a swing state Obama probably would. everything is about politics to this regime.

 

if Obama did bail out California other states would be pissed and that could cost the Democrat party in the next election cycle.

Edited September 26, 2012 by mr_genius

[Soxbadger]

i doubt it. if California was a swing state Obama probably would. everything is about politics to this regime.

 

if Obama did bail out California other states would be pissed and that could cost the Democrat party in the next election cycle.

 

That doesnt make sense. California is a donor state (they pay more federal taxes than they receive), if anything the first step would be to have the non-donor states pick up the slack.

 

[Cknolls]

Yes, a train linking the 2nd, 8th, and 14th most populous cities in the united states is going from "nowhere to nowhere".

 

But the first portion is connecting here and nowhere at a hefty cost. And the final cost of this boondoggle will be well north of 100billion. Not sensible.

[Cknolls]

i doubt it. if California was a swing state Obama probably would. everything is about politics to this regime.

 

if Obama did bail out California other states would be pissed and that could cost the Democrat party in the next election cycle.

 

 

He can just issue an executive order.....and so it is done...

 

 

Romney's first actions as President should be to issue an EO to drill in every inch of public land feasible and every inch of ocean feasible. Build a pipeline from the Midwest to the east coast and build more refineries. Also issue an EO to use one type of gasoline nationwide. So when there is a refinery shutdown or accident it will not impact the price of gas as much as it does now.

 

 

 

Then he can clean out all the political hacks that work at the Justice Dept. this may be the worst and most political DOJ Evahhhh.

Edited September 26, 2012 by Cknolls

[mr_genius]

That doesnt make sense. California is a donor state (they pay more federal taxes than they receive), if anything the first step would be to have the non-donor states pick up the slack.

 

i'm fine with California paying less federal taxes. i'm fine with everyone paying less federal taxes.

[mr_genius]

http://taxfoundation.org/article/federal-t...state-1981-2005

 

if 2012 is anything like 2005 in federal tax, the government owes me some money.

 

75%? that's one of the worst rates of return!

 

then look at the Mississippi hillbillies getting 200% return.

 

 

[Soxbadger]

http://taxfoundation.org/article/federal-t...state-1981-2005

 

if 2012 is anything like 2005 in federal tax, the government owes me some money.

 

75%? that's one of the worst rates of return!

 

then look at the Mississippi hillbillies getting 200% return.

 

Yep, donor states is the dirty secret that Republicans and Democrats dont want anyone to know about.

 

Democrats dont want their constituents to know that they are subsidizing the people who always complain about govt spending.

 

Republicans dont want their constituents to know that they are the ones who are getting the hand outs they constantly complain about.

 

 

[kev211]

i'm fine with California paying less federal taxes. i'm fine with everyone paying less federal taxes.

2+2=5

[mr_genius]

2+2=5

 

2+2=4, Kev.

[mr_genius]

Yep, donor states is the dirty secret that Republicans and Democrats dont want anyone to know about.

 

Democrats dont want their constituents to know that they are subsidizing the people who always complain about govt spending.

 

Republicans dont want their constituents to know that they are the ones who are getting the hand outs they constantly complain about.

 

i would complain, but the GOP needs them for the new 65% strategy that will be implemented if Mittens loses.

Edited September 27, 2012 by mr_genius

[StrangeSox]

He's really horrible. Then I read Rush Limbaugh saying last week that if Obama wins California will declare bankruptcy, Obama will get other states like Texas to bail it out and in Rush's words "we're doomed." Is this true???

 

Don't put any stock into anything Rush Limbaugh says ever.

[StrangeSox]

But the first portion is connecting here and nowhere at a hefty cost. And the final cost of this boondoggle will be well north of 100billion. Not sensible.

 

I'm actually going to agree with you here.

[Jake]

Rush doesn't need even a shred of reality backing his statements to say them.

[bmags]

Yep, donor states is the dirty secret that Republicans and Democrats dont want anyone to know about.

 

Democrats dont want their constituents to know that they are subsidizing the people who always complain about govt spending.

 

Republicans dont want their constituents to know that they are the ones who are getting the hand outs they constantly complain about.

 

I don't think so, as a democrat one of the things I don't like is poverty. I don't want people to starve to death just because they don't vote with me.

[StrangeSox]

I don't think so, as a democrat one of the things I don't like is poverty. I don't want people to starve to death just because they don't vote with me.

^^

 

I'm fine with donor states.

[Soxbadger]

I don't think so, as a democrat one of the things I don't like is poverty. I don't want people to starve to death just because they don't vote with me.

 

 

^^

 

I'm fine with donor states.

 

If you guys are fine giving money to people who bite your hand at every turn, more power to you. But when someone says they dont want my money, Id prefer if I could give it to someone else in need that was actually appreciative.

 

Call me old fashioned.

[Jake]

I'd be okay with individuals being able to opt out of all government assistance, but not states because I hardly recognize the state as a legitimate political unit

[Cknolls]

Anyone know where I can get my OBAMA phone?

[Jenksismyhero]

Anyone know where I can get my OBAMA phone?

 

That program is 100% real. They have it here in Chicago. A buddy of mine is a cop and texted me a picture of the tent they set up on the West side. You don't even have to bring ID, you just have to bring proof that you're a welfare/SS/whatever recipient. The sign on the tent was "FREE GOVERNMENT CELL PHONES." And it was crowded. f***ing pathetic.

[StrangeSox]

There has been a series of posts on some left-blogs sparked by Conor Friedersdorf's "Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama" post. Friedersdorf is more or less a libertarian and, much like Glenn Greenwald, very focused on foreign policy and particularly the breaches of civil liberty and human decency in the "war on terror." The core of the discussion has be focused on voting for the "lesser evil" in the election versus voting for some third party also-ran (Gary Johnson in Conor's case) or not voting at all. While this is definitely a left-focused discussion, the same basic discussion could apply to the right as well. I think it's been interesting thus far. An excerpt from Conor's piece:

 

I am not a purist. There is no such thing as a perfect political party, or a president who governs in accordance with one's every ethical judgment. But some actions are so ruinous to human rights, so destructive of the Constitution, and so contrary to basic morals that they are disqualifying. Most of you will go that far with me. If two candidates favored a return to slavery, or wanted to stone adulterers, you wouldn't cast your ballot for the one with the better position on health care. I am not equating President Obama with a slavery apologist or an Islamic fundamentalist. On one issue, torture, he issued an executive order against an immoral policy undertaken by his predecessor, and while torture opponents hoped for more, that is no small thing.

 

What I am saying is that Obama has done things that, while not comparable to a historic evil like chattel slavery, go far beyond my moral comfort zone. Everyone must define their own deal-breakers. Doing so is no easy task in this broken world. But this year isn't a close call for me.

 

Erik Loomis responded by calling it "An Essay Only a White Person Could Write," meaning that Conor, from his perspective of a upper-middle-class white male, can afford to have the issues he's focused on be "dealbreakers" while not considering what else may be at stake.

 

More posts followed, such as:

 

I’ve ever heard to this kind of question, which I wholeheartedly endorse. It was, essentially, that she would be indifferent to voting for the least bad viable candidate when things had gotten so bad that she was actively involved in violent rebellion against the government. Significantly, this is a higher threshold than “things are so bad violent revolution is justified in the abstract, but I’m not currently doing it”, but actual active rebellion. This seems exactly right to me. Either you should use the tools available to make better/reduce the harm of the current state, of you should begin engaging in a plot to overthrow it, or find a way to contribute to an ongoing one. If the latter is not to your taste because you have other priorities, or you (probably wisely) deem it unlikely to be unsuccessful and as such not a reasonable risk of life and limb, you have no reason to avoid the first strategy, and you get no credit for moral high ground for avoiding it.

 

[...]

More centrally, though, the Friedersdorf-on-drones/youthful djw-on-welfare reform mentality on the purpose of voting is based on an indefensibly narcissistic account of democracy. The moral purpose of democracy is not to keep my hands clean and feel good about myself, no matter how much politicians and other demagogues claim otherwise. The moral purpose of democracy is the reduction of abusive power in the world. Unfortunately there’s a lot of it, and democracy’s pretty clearly an insufficient tool to address it, but that’s no reason not to use the tool, when and where you can.

 

 

 

and "All American Presidential Elections Are Choices Between Evils:"

 

So, to be clear, to believe in this kind of logic is to permanently abstain from American electoral politics. All meaningful votes for president are at best a choice for a lesser evil. What abstinence or voting for nothing but vanity candidates is supposed to accomplish I have no idea, but nothing good and much bad would come from it. (Like Henry, I’m assuming that we’re not discussing “how any individual should cast her meaningless vote” but are making an argument about how progressives should vote. If any individual wants not to vote for Obama as a moral statement on the grounds that it won’t actually have any consequences, knock yourself out. I’ll only note that the ineffectuality argument cuts both ways — if your vote doesn’t matter, abstaining doesn’t somehow morally insulate yourself from the consequences of bad American policy either. Refusing to vote for Obama because you’d prefer to wait for Godot isn’t actually any kind of meaningful moral statement, and you can’t escape moral consequences by refusing to vote for anyone who might actually become president.)

 

things start to heat up, with some insinuating that others are sweeping dead muslims under the rug:

 

I don’t see Loomis doing the work here. I agree with him that the poor in this country matter, and will be, despite all the failings of the Democratic Party, better off with a second Obama term. I agree with him that women’s control of their own reproductive systems matters, and a second Obama term will be much better on that score. Ditto for LGBTQ rights. These are all reasons I’m sucking it up and voting with the party of accommodating financial oligarchy against the party of worshiping it.

 

But you know, they are not so rich in Somalia and Pakistan, and not especially white, and a lot of them are women and girls. And Barack Obama operates a machinery that kills these people at a ferocious clip. This was wrong during the Bush years and it is wrong now. Loomis gives every indication of wanting to rule these men and women of color, modest means, and oh-so-convenient distance out of the moral calculus. You can do that, but you can’t do it while making a coherent point about white privilege.

 

and another response:

 

However, there are very real differences between the two parties and their candidates on a whole host of issues where my vote might matter. Abortion rights. Gay rights. Environmental protection. Labor rights. Access to voting. Etc. It is on these issues that we have to make our choices. The election is still close and every vote matters, both up and down ticket. Presumably, if you think that you need to vote for Gary Johnson in order to protest drone killing, you want others to do so as well. And doing so over an Obama vote both gives a half vote to Romney and suggests that you are fine with voting for a candidate who would eviscerate the social system of this country if, god forbid, he was actually elected. That is pretty reprehensible.

 

If either major party offered a platform opposed to killing Pakistanis through the air, that would be great. Instead, we face a choice between someone who has continued the terrible policies of his predecessor and someone who is openly campaigning to kill even more brown people. So even on this issue, there is a slight difference.

 

Given the reality of American life, I can either make myself feel morally clean, vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson and effectively give 0.5 votes to Mitt Romney, a man who would destroy the rights of poor people in this country while make the life of poor people around the world even worse. Or I can swallow my pride, vote for Obama, and work to change the Democratic Party and political life in this country so we can get to a point where we don’t have a bipartisan consensus that killing random Muslims is actually a good thing.

 

"There are many life and death issues"

 

We could argue about how to weight the relative evils if their was a choice between Obama and an opponent who would be better on some issues and worse on others. But that’s not the actual choice. Romney will almost certainly be far worse even with respect to the issues Friedersdorf emphasizes as well as the life-and-death issues he arbitrarily ignores. Obama has been bad on any number of civil liberties issues. But he ended the Iraq War,* stopped arbitrarily detaining and torturing people caught under the reach of American authorities, and didn’t invade Iran. Is that enough? Not even close. Is that far better than someone who is likely to bomb Iran and get the torture regime re-started? Obviously. Does the fact that Romney makes no pretense of caring about civil liberties somehow make these future victims less dead?

 

Again, I understand why people who want to make a big show about how they can’t possibly sully themselves a vote for Obama want to muddy the waters. But nobody’s saying you shouldn’t criticize Obama for his bad military and civil liberties policies, and nobody involved in this discussion would be criticizing him if that’s what he was doing. People are being criticized for suggesting that progressives should be fundamentally indifferent about the outcome of the 2012 election. I can understand why one would prefer to defend the former rather than the latter argument, but it’s the latter one that’s actually being criticized. And it’s being criticized because it’s both irrational and immoral, and incidentally is unlikely to actually start a productive discussion about the underlying issues.

 

some more here and here and here

 

[StrangeSox]

That program is 100% real. They have it here in Chicago. A buddy of mine is a cop and texted me a picture of the tent they set up on the West side. You don't even have to bring ID, you just have to bring proof that you're a welfare/SS/whatever recipient. The sign on the tent was "FREE GOVERNMENT CELL PHONES." And it was crowded. f***ing pathetic.

temper your rage, bro

[Jenksismyhero]

temper your rage, bro

 

Why would it say government cell phone if the government isn't involved?

 

 

[Y2HH]

temper your rage, bro

 

That fact check isn't quite right.

 

The telcos provide the service, but they are subsidized by the government, so yes, taxes are involved. However, it wasn't Obama that enacted this, Reagan did for land lines, and later in 2008, cellular phones were added on.

[Y2HH]

Why would it say government cell phone if the government isn't involved?

 

 

 

Because that fact check isn't telling 100% of the truth...

 

http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/cellphone.asp

[StrangeSox]

Why would it say government cell phone if the government isn't involved?

 

 

 

Government is involved via collecting fees from FCC licensees. It's a self-funded program.

 

Do you believe advertising claims are always 100% true and accurate? Why does it matter what some stupid sign says if you're wrong on the facts of the program?