Just 4 years ago
Feb 1st, 2012 by Tennessee Walker
Yes I remember it well. It was just 4 years ago when some conservatives told me that everyone needed to support Mitt Romney who was the only conservative who could stop the really bad moderate Republican John McCain. In fact Mike Huckabee (who I was told was really a conservative.) teamed up with John McCain to put McCain in the position of being the eventual nominee.
Well I stepped up and did in fact vote for Romney over McCain in the Delaware primary. Many of my friends, especially the Italian Americans, were initially supporting Rudy Guliani but his campaign flamed out in record time. After Huckabee’s initial success he lost momentum and decided to help out the moderate McCain in West Virginia which made Romney’s attempt to challenge McCain untenable.
Yes I still can recall what the so called Conservatives had to say about Romney’s need to stay in the race. They were 100% behind the idea of Romney spending his own money (Hey he’s got a lot of it. Spend it for us Mitt.) to stop the McCain train. Yes in the spring of 2008 the so called Conservatives considered Mitt Romney the guy on the white horse.
Now back in 2008 Mitt Romney still had been the Prior Governor of Massachusetts . He had helped create a statewide Health Insurance program.
The very same criticisms of Romney that are being advanced today could have been advanced in 2008. Yet individuals, who told everyone that they were the keepers of the flame of Conservatism, told all that Romney was the guy to stop the evil moderate McCain.
Now I have no problem with anyone who prefers a candidate other than Romney. In fact I have not made a decision as tho who I will vote for during the Delaware Primary. But the hypocrisy of those who are currently castigating Romney, when 4 years ago they did everything in their power to keep him in the race for the Republican Presidential Nomination, is galling.
Some so called conservatives are calling Romney a liberal and implying that Romney is the worst thing since Satan.
There are some really valid criticisms of Romney. He has flip flopped on certain issues. But how many times has Newt Gingrich flip flopped? Anyone who takes the total body of work of both men will find something to dislike. But Newt Gingrich has backed some very unconservative ideas throughout his career and of course he hung out with his buddy Nancy Pelosi to stop Global Warming.
Yet for some people they have to find an enemy that is a Republican. The constant sniveling and whining by those who like to complain that they are being kept down by the man is untrue and boring on top of that.
Mitt Romney may not be your choice but he is not evil incarnate. Those who hold these views are no better than the liberals they say they oppose.
Romney or McCain, it wouldn’t matter. They’re both vacillating ‘moderates,’ and neither could or will beat Omaba.
Yes we need true conservatives who go on TV with Nancy Pelosi to tell us about how we need to stop Global Warming.
We need true conservatives who trash our free enterprise system and the individuals who make money thru finding private equity to grow businessses.
We need true conservatives who have spent over 35 years living in DC and having the life of a DC insider with the extramarital affairs to prove it and the lobbying dollars to prove it.
Yes that is the way to beat Obama.
Rick Santorum
Aw c’mon Rick, anyone can beat the Little Red Star.
TW, thanks for the interesting observation that conservatives didn’t really hold Romneycare against Romney until Obamacare was invented.
In fact, if I go back and check the news archives, I bet I’ll find staunch conservatives praising Romney’s individual mandate as an example of “personal responsibility.” Go figure.
It is also interesting that the candidates most closely aligned with the Tea Party crashed and burned – Bachmann and Perry. And the candidate most closely aligned with “Christian” family values is also going nowhere (Santorum). So that silent majority on the far right is still silent, even within the GOP itself.
Face it, the GOP prefers moderates.
“In fact, if I go back and check the news archives, I bet I’ll find staunch conservatives praising Romney’s individual mandate as an example of “personal responsibility.””
Indeed you will. You’ll also find that “cap and trade” originated with the GOP as a “free market based solution” based on Reagan era proposals to have similar markets in emissions of other pollutants.
Nobody is proposing any celebrations to welcome home the troops from Iraq either. Why? Because they don’t want anyone to notice that the large scale military engagement in Iraq has ended. Every single thing is treated as a zero sum game in which simply setting aside politics for the national interest is the sin of collaborating with the Kenyan gay atheist Muslim Marxist.
If the Democrats consider any Republican idea and say, “Hey, there’s something we can agree about,” the Republicans drop the proposal like it was radioactive and claim they never supported it. It’s crazy.
Our Little Red Star is a brilliant politician, and he has a compliant mass media to help his cause. A billion-dollar war-chest won’t hurt, either.
In fairness to McCain, no party wins every time; after four years of the Kennebunkport Cowboy, only a complete breakdown would have lost the election for the Dems.
Of course, I meant eight years of the KC.
Please, if you like Newt, watch this video of him explaining why an individual mandate would be required to (a) not have a single payer system, and (b) maintain private health insurance coverage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcSjLvWLcxE
That is 2005. That is not some long bygone era. Listen to Newt explain how he thinks health insurance should be organized and mandated.
alpha, I don’t think this is what I said. What I said was that to the Conservative establishment (as opposed to the so called Republican Establishment) Romney care was an issue in 2008 but Romney’s biggest crime was his flip flopping on abortion.
Romneycare did get attention but when McCain emerged as the presumptive nominee, the conservative establishment decided someone had to stop him and they picked Mitt Romney.
I was there. I heard the arguments. I bought the T Shirt. My sole question is:
Why do the same conservatives who backed Mitt Romney in 2008 to stop John McCain just 4 years ago now trash Romney at every opportunity????
“Our Little Red Star is a brilliant politician, and he has a compliant mass media to help his cause”
All day long Limbaugh and Beck rule AM radio from coast to coast. Rush doesn’t make $50M a year because nobody is listening to him. The top rated news network is FOX. Is that the “compliant media” you are talking about?
Newt’s going to build a colony on the moon while cutting government spending. Oh, wait, no, he’s going to let private companies do it, because there is so much profit to be had on the moon, and offer “prizes” as incentives.
Mitt, of course, hasn’t actually worked a day in ages, unless you count running for office. Now, remind me again why he wants to be president?
There is a Mormon prophecy about the US Constitution. Do you know what it is?
Listen to Newt explain how he thinks health insurance should be organized and mandated.
I don’t support Newt but he didn’t say it should be mandated. Unless you say that tax deductions are “mandates.” Perhaps they are but people generally seem to prefer the government to shift their values and run their lives based on “incentives” or manipulations of their wealth instead of openly coercing them with a direct mandate and so on. The only problem is that eventually they will run out of “money”/credibility for their politicians to paper it all over with and will have to deal openly with exactly what their values are. They will have to take responsibility and restore the credibility that has been squandered as it seems that Boomers have generally been narcissists. Their greatest legacy is aborting posterity and enslaving them with debt by wallowing around in corruption instead of trying to correct it.
Corruption of this sort:
If the Democrats consider any Republican idea and say, “Hey, there’s something we can agree about,” the Republicans drop the proposal like it was radioactive and claim they never supported it. It’s crazy.
That goes both ways because they’re all generally interested in getting and maintaining power. Are you beginning to understand that yet or do you still believe that the Democrats care more about your health and so on?
In Romney’s Florida victory speech he promised to balance the budget while cutting taxes and expanding defense spending. That marks him as a big-government conservative like Reagan, who failed with the same set of promises. All the GOP presidents failed at those promises, because they are inherently contradictory and unwinnable. They are foolish promises to make.
“Indeed you will. You’ll also find that “cap and trade” originated with the GOP as a “free market based solution” based on Reagan era proposals ”
The proposals that the GOP once touted as conservative, are now considered liberal.
Conservatives keep lapping themselves in their race to the far right.
Alpha and nitpicker display the total idiocy of liberals. The emissions trading program of the late 1980′s, the law was actually passed in Bush 41′s term, was a targeted program designed to stop a problem of mid west states impacting mid Atlantic and New England states by a bona fide pollutant. In this case it was sulfur dioxide which was emitted by power plants. A market based solution will always be favored by conservatives over the heavy handed command and control approach of liberals.
One problem with the current liberal cap and trade nonsense is that it seeks to regulate an emission that is not a pollutant. If liberals seriously believed that carbon dioxide were killing the earth they would stop breathing and exhaling as everyone one of us produces carbon dioxide every second of our lives.
Another problem is putting the federal government in charge of regulating a process that impacts every aspect of your life. Everyone blogging on this site is generating carbon dioxide and the current liberal cap and trade laws allows for regulation of every aspect of our lives.
This in no way resembles the emissions trading program that was meant to deal with the regional problem of acid rain in the northeast.
I am weary of this false cap and trade argument. It makes sense on a pollutant level, but not on something as basic as CO2. it just amounts to a private energy tax because you can’t just by a scrubber and take out the CO2 like SO2. it is like saying that because I support driving from Dover to Philly THAT I am a hypocrite because I do not favor driving to China. Evaluating the practicalities is not a race to the far right, it is realism and common sense.
I am also tiring of this argument that Romneycare is the same as Obamacare. I never bought into Romneycare because I always opposed the individual mandate, but they are far from being the same. Ann Coulter had a great column today on that subject.
Alpha is once again trying to rewrite history.
Ronald Reagan’s economic policies doubled the revenue to the federal government. Ronald Reagan stopped the runaway inflation that he inherited from the failed liberal Jimmy Carter 1. Obama is Jimmy Carter 2.
Ronald Reagan’s defense build up led to the demise of the Soviet Union which was the single greates threat to freedom during the 20th century. Of course liberals believed that Reagan was too tough on the Commies. The liberals always favored Communists over Reagan. This is why alpha has to demean Reagan.
So remind me, what year was it that Reagan finally balanced the budget?
alpha asks in #19:
ANSWER: When the Republicans took control of Congress, and got the Democrats out of the process.
…the proposals that the GOP once touted as conservative, are now considered liberal.
The proposals that the Left once decried as “morally bankrupt”* it now seeks to mix in with the pseudo-science of global warming and its apocalyptic prophecies.
*
There is a difference between proposing good solutions to problems that can be observed in the real world and proposing solutions to imaginary events and apocalyptic prophecies. In any event, it was said at a conference on global warming that 2012 was the last year that we would be able to do anything about it. So there is that. Apparently there is nothing to be done about these imaginary events in the future even if their unfalsifiable forms of pseudo-science were true. Imagine that!
It’s too bad Delaware Liberal wasn’t around back when cap and trade was proposed by the “enemies of the earth” and the “exploiters” and so on. Something you might want to consider with respect to what you post now is that it will be recorded for as long as archives exist, so if you post something idiotic based almost purely on Leftist (“save mommy nature!”) psychological dynamics that basically have nothing to do with reality then there will be a record of it. I don’t read DL but I’d imagine that it could happen.
With all due respect to Jon Moseley, the only time in my lifetime (I’m not sure how old he is) that the Federal Budget was balanced, occurred because of three things..
1) A revenue bill boosted the top marginal rate up from 28% to 40%….. Allowing for more tax money to flow from top earners to the treasury, or if those wealthy instead, chose to itemize, it flowed into the economy spurring investment and economic growth.
2) The demise of the Soviet Union created opportunities to spend tremendously fewer dollars in defense procurements, creating a huge savings of overall government costs, making the surplus easier to achieve.
3) Large amounts of the Social Security Surplus Bubble, were shuffled from their protected status intended for future payments, … over to the actual budget allowing for income coming into the government to keep pace or grow at a greater speed, than expenses….
These are the reasons… Who gets credit, depends on who is on the soapbox….
The third option is no longer available. If Romney is to balance the budget, he must do so by cutting defense, cutting entitlements, and raising taxes. Otherwise it cannot be done….
My guess, Romney will be unable to balance the budget if elected.
Another problem is putting the federal government in charge of regulating a process that impacts every aspect of your life. Everyone blogging on this site is generating carbon dioxide and the current liberal cap and trade laws allows for regulation of every aspect of our lives.
That’s true…. but apparently it is comforting to people to think that they are preventing imaginary events in the future and so on. It is kind of fun actually. Actually I drive a lot less than I used to so I’m doing my part to prevent catastrophes and an environmental apocalypse. Imagine that… and yay for me for saving the earth!
Now if only the earth would save me.
http://nation.foxnews.com/newt-gingrich/2012/01/30/audio-gingrich-pushed-individual-mandate-2009
AUDIO: Gingrich Pushed Individual Mandate in 2009
Calling all Republicans! Hey support our nominee and stop denegrating him. Obama must go! All of you so called political experts need to get a life and stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Get used to saying President Romney and pray we don’t have to say President Obama after the election. For those of you who claim to be Republicans start acting like one.
‘Ronald Reagan’s economic policies doubled the revenue to the federal government.”
Yes, but he spent every dime of that, and then some. Big-government conservative all the way. That’s how Republicans like their candidates. Now it’s Romney’s turn.
“When the Republicans took control of Congress…”
Every one of those Republicans voted against the economic plan that finally balanced the budget. You didn’t hear too much griping the rest of the decade though, because they were all busy counting their money.
Alpha I know that ignorance of the U.S. Constitution is typical of a Liberal but the fact is over spending during the Reagan years was the result of Tip o’Neill and the liberal whack jobs in Congress. You see all spending bills must originate in the House. Every budget that Reagan proposed was declared Dead on Arrival by O’Neill and the other liberals with the usual accusations of racism against Reagan.
Reagan’s policies doubled revenues to the Treasury, you have admitted this. The president does not have a single vote on the budget. Your ignorance of the roles of the different branches of government is hereby noted. Your attempt to rewrite history, which is typical of liberals, will not go unchallenged. I was alive and I was there. Unlike a liberal my memory extends past the lifetime of a fruit fly.
Tennesse Walker,
Bravo!
Coherence isn’t strong suit for you is it Tennessee?
Reagan had no say in the budget or his policies doubled revenues to the Treasury?
On second thought, never mind. I’m sure in your M.C. Escher wingnut dreamworld it all makes perfect sense.
No, Reagan had effectively no say. According to the Budget Act, the Administration sends a budget *REQUEST* — that is a REQUEST, not a budget — to Congress.
Tip O’Neill’s Democratic Congress would then vastly INCREASE the spending proposed by Reagan every year. While Reagan doubled the amount of revenue to the US Treasury, the Democrats in Congress spent money like drunken sailors. That’s why Reagan made the joke about apologizing the drunken sailors.
Thanks for admitting that the budget-balancing economic plan could not be passed until a Democratic Congress and president were elected in 1992.
The 1990s Republicans did not lift a finger to raise revenue. Nothing they did contributed to balancing the budget. Even assuming the GOP was responsible for keeping some spending down, it still wasn’t enough to account for balancing the budget.
All of Clinton’s budgets could have been passed as is, and the budget would still have been balanced due to the strong revenue growth from Clinton’s 1993 economic plan.
Reagan’s policies doubled revenues to the Treasury, you have admitted this.
Actually I just went along with you on that. I didn’t fact-check you this time. Consider it a gift.
The president does not have a single vote on the budget.
Speaking of ignorance of the Constitution – the President has the last and greatest word on the budget: the veto.
Thanks for admitting that the budget-balancing economic plan could not be passed until a Democratic Congress and president were elected in 1992.
You’re looking at things on a shallow level. Our entire economy and therefore the creation of wealth and things of value that corrupt politicians seek to manage or balance after they are created is being manipulated or “stimulated” through our economic language.
Although politics may enter into it in some ways:
How can you have the entire economy of a nation being managed or “stimulated” through manipulations of its economic language and then play pretend that actually corrupt politicians managed it with tax rates afterwards? Supposedly they brought “balance” and credibility to our economic language after it was created, manipulated and managed by “the Fed,” i.e. private banking interests?
One side tends to like politicians who symbolizes things like nationalism, strength and so on while the other likes their politicians to portray themselves as caring and full of love. That’s about the extent of it, unfortunately all the theatrics of the Left and the Right are extraordinarily expensive. Whether it’s the “war on poverty” or “shock and awe.” Apparently the Herd likes its feelings stimulated so they will elect politicians of this sort even as they institutionally sense that their feelings are being overstimulated and that reality may intrude soon. But for now, if politicians are allowed or happen to ride an economic “bubble”/illusion to a political victory then they win because the Herd is stimulated to feel like it has food in its belly. But that is all, as the next day it may go hungry and then the same politician loses even as he tries to “stimulate” the same old visceral reactions in the Herd.
The bigger the bull, the bigger the bull market… as Karl Kraus once wrote.
Calling all Republicans! Hey support our nominee and stop denegrating him. Obama must go!
What is it that you like most about Romney? If any change will do as long as Obama must go then wouldn’t anyone be a fit candidate? And there Romney is, at least he’s someone.
All of you so called political experts need to get a life and stop trying to reinvent the wheel.
I think you may have a hard time with his image. Romney vs. Obama, one image vs. another and so on… but what would you like best about changes in policies?
As far as not reinventing anything I’d suggest “No you can’t.” or “It’s time to change the change!” Etc… If one could verbalize the instincts of the Herd they seem to be: “Change? Yes… seems like something is wrong so its time to moooove. Wait, which way is everyone else going?”
Alpha, Bill Clinton OPPOSED balancing the budget. Said it couldn’t be done. Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in Congress forced him to balance the budget.
In response to the Republicans demand to balance the budget sooner, Bill Clinton countered with a plan to balance it in 10 years.
The Republicans agreed to 7 years.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,4160,00.html
GOP leaders inthe House and Senate agreedlate Thursday on a compromise plan that would balance the budget within seven years, cut taxes by $245 billion and slow Medicare and Medicaid spending. “We have a deal,” House Speaker Newt Gingrich told reporters, as he came out of a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Senate Budget Chairman Pete Domenici andHouse Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich.”You’re going to love it,” Gingrich said. “You get more take home pay.” President Clinton, who favorsa 10-year balanced budget with fewer cuts in social services,has his veto pen ready.
Plus, Alpha, Bill Clinton did not have any policies to create jobs. The economic boom was caused by: (1) Ronald Reagan and George Bush winning the Cold War, (2) Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress passing tax cuts and reducing unnecessary regulations on businesses, clearing the way for economic growth.
WHAT exactly did Bill Clinton DO to help the economy? Nobody knew then, and nobody knows now. He never did anything.
Fortunately people can still create wealth and things of value even through all the distortions of their economic language. Even the policies of their elected representatives make some difference…
But America generally seems to be headed toward becoming the material of satire: The Daily Show
At some point it won’t be worth it for the Right and the Left to debate things. Although people seem to like trying to prove that they’re “right” on the one hand or more compassionate on the other while the value of their property is being looted. Apparently people who profit from war on all sides are banking on this state of affairs continuing.
Moseley, I don’t buy your (LSD based?) premise that Presidents have no power. But given the choice between a “powerless” Republican President like George W Bush, and Clinton who “never did anything” I think Americans favor Clinton’s version of smaller government.
The President has power, but so does the US Congress. That’s how our American system works. When the Democrats control Congress, the spend money in a way that would make drunken sailors blush.
The President’s power is mainly as Commander in Chief, head of US foreign policy, and management of the Federal departments and agencies, but those are greatly regulated by Congressional statute.
Mose, I seriously I hope that your beliefs comfort you. I do. Especially since if you ever lost your faith in the up is down fiscal universe that wingnuts have created, you’d have to confront the fact that Clinton balanced the budget and presided over a long term economic expansion and Bush exploded the national debt while driving our national economic car off a cliff.
I get that not confronting that fact keeps your spirits afloat, but it does not mean it is not a fact. Who said it? You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.
…and this is timely:
As Stephen Colbert famously said, the facts have a liberal bias.
(3) The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 have added over $2 trillion to budget deficits from 2002-2011.
And I bet that doesn’t even count the job-destroying effects of the ridiculously low investment taxes.
NotJason330:
Cilnton DID NOT balance the budget.
Speaker Newt Gingrich did.
Clinton OPPOSED efforts to balance the budget. Oh, yeah, he talked out of both sides of his mouth. But when it came to actions, Clinton was AGAINST the actions necessary to do it.
Newt Gingrich and the Republican revolution FORCED Clinton to balance the budget.
You’re right, Clinton didn’t balance the budget. Actually it was Al Gore who broke the tie to pass Clinton’s economic plan. Thanks, Al Gore!
Thanks, Al Gore!
What are you kidding, the guy who invented the internet and is a so called expert on global warming. Who also when told that Osama Bin Laden was the most evil man by Col. Oliver North didn’t have a clue. LOL
The Liberals just keep spewing the same old same old. The democratic controlled Congress has placed our Country in the financial crisis it is in. Just check the record, Social Security raided by the democrats just one example of many. Take away the money waisted on illegal immigrants and all the others that would rather collect food stamps than work for starters and of course there is Obamacare, what a joke. Balance the budget, hell no as long as our Government keeps giving it away.
Colonial Republican, are you aware that Oliver North himself has tried to stop circulation of that ridiculous distortion of his testimony about Abu Nidal (not Osama Bin Laden)?
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/warned-about-bin-laden/
Nitpicker,
Either way you get my point.
Nitpicker, the story IS true that Ollie North warned the Democrats about terrorists, and the Democrats failed to listen, as always. It just was a different terrorist, that’s all.
By the way, “Fact Check” is a left-wing propaganda outlet. It is often wrong. For example, it says “In 1987 bin Laden was still fighting Soviet troops occupying Afghanistan, with the support of the United States. ” However, there has never been any relationship between the United States and Bin Laden. Also, Bin Laden never did any fighting against Soviet troops.
Bin Laden is a SAUDI, an engineer, the son of an EXTREMELY rich Saudi family with 52 sons. The Bin Laden family disavowed Osama when he advocated over-throwing the royal family of Saudi Arabia.
The USA supported the LOCAL, indigeneous Afghan fighters, the Mujahideen. The Afghans knew their own country, Bin Laden did not. The Afghans knew how to fight, Bin Laden did not. (He learned a little from the Afghans during the war, but he is a terrorist not a fighter in the sense of fighting the Soviets.)
Bin Laden was worthless to the USA’s efforts to support the local Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviets, except that Bin Laden raised money in the Arab world to help finance the Mujahideen. Osama Bin Laden supported the Mujahideen financially. The USA never supported him. The USA supported those who actually knew how to fight inside Afghanistan, not rich playboys who came VERY LATE to the war to prance around and play soldier.
In fact, the only time Osama Bin Laden ever came close to combat against the Soviets was when he was just in the vicinity of one single battle, which his myth-makers have turned into Bin Laden personally fighting — which is sharply disputed by those who were there. Bin Laden’s FOREIGNERS from outside Afghanistan than fought a 10 year war against the Mujahideen the USA had supported.
SO LEFT-LEAINING “FACT CHECK” IS OFTEN NOT ACCURATE, JUST LIKE SNOPES IS OFTEN NOT ACCURATE.
“SO LEFT-LEAINING “FACT CHECK” IS OFTEN NOT ACCURATE, JUST LIKE SNOPES IS OFTEN NOT ACCURATE.”
You have given only one example of an inaccuracy for Fact Check. You cannot use the word “often” with only one example. But let’s not part hairs. Would you not consider it safe to say that – no single source is always accurate? Woud you also agree that Fact Check is accurate more often than not?
And do you have any sources of information that would evidence that Fact Check is a “left-wing propaganda outlet”?
Unfortunately Jon, your posts often seem to provide confirmation that the “right wing” are “nut jobs”. Not you all by yourself of course because there seem to be many. The “left wing” is certainly not without its adherents, but consider this. How often do you hear the term “left wing nut jobs” or some other pejorative term that suggests they are fruit loops? Honestly, not very often. Yeah, they have some real strangers out there on the left, but mostly they are so far on the fringe that they are nearly ignored. But look how visible the fringe on the right is. Far be it for me to tell you how your messaging is being perceived, but I know if I were the director of marketing for the Republican brand, I certainly would be paying attention to perception that you and others have created. You come across as a bible thumping, evolution denier, birther, or something equally strange. If your purpose is to sway opinion and not chase people away, I honestly think you are going about it the wrong way. You convince no one when you say things that Fact Check is a left wing progranda outlet, which you are wont to say whenever a source is critical of your side. The problem is, you protest too much and when you do, it is mostly of the form -well they do it too! Wrong message. Very few are convinced.
Dave asks: “And do you have any sources of information that would evidence that Fact Check is a “left-wing propaganda outlet”?”
Their funding and their leadership.
The Annenberg Foundation is the group that Barack Obama was on a Board of Directors with ADMITTED domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. It was a local Chicago project of the overall Annenberg Foundation. But the dominant funding source chose Barack Obama and admitted domestic terrorist Bill Ayers to run their local Chicago operation.
“Fact Check” has periodically leapt to defend Barack Obama against criticism with twisted arguments and mischaracterization of the facts (or presenting as facts what is unknown.)
So here is what your left wing progaganda organ said about the “State of Obama’s Facts”:
“Often the president’s facts and figures were accurate — but not the whole story. It’s true (barely) that Bush issued more new regulations than Obama at the same point in their presidencies — but Obama didn’t mention that his cost more. The president pointed proudly to increased oil drilling, increased U.S. oil production, and declining dependence on imports. But understandably he passed over any mention of chronically high gasoline prices, which hit a record of sorts last year. And he boasted of recent increases in jobs — which still number nearly 1.7 million fewer than when he took office.” And that’s just the summary!
And this is a left wing propaganda site? Jon as I said, your perception is your own reality. The sad thing is, it really is only your reality. The rest of us can separate the wheat from the chaff. The foundation is run nearly entirely by the Annebergs, who fund many worthwhile endeavors. And unlike many of the sources you consider less left wing, Factcheck.org discloses it’s sources of funding: http://factcheck.org/about/
You malign an organization that has a history of being above board and scrupilous when it comes to the facts. J’accuse you of bias in the worse degree. You cannot even make a pretense of dealing in facts. Your reality is such that it requires it to be continually reinforced. I can only conclude that your world is such a fragile place that cannot withstand an iota of critical examination lest it shatter.
At one time I thought perhaps you had a crush on COD and that’s why you so blindly defended her against all threats, real or imagined. But it seems that your defense of COD was not about her, but about your world, your reality, that must be defended at all costs.
All day long Limbaugh and Beck rule AM radio from coast to coast. Rush doesn’t make $50M a year because nobody is listening to him. The top rated news network is FOX. Is that the “compliant media” you are talking about?
Conservatives run AM radio. This is true.
But, FOX News is the number one cable news network- its audience is miniscule compared to ‘liberal’ ABC, NBC and CBS ‘news. Then, there’s the print media; the NY Times, Washington Post-Newsweek, LA Times and so on- all ‘liberal.’ There’s Hollywood and the music industry- completely biased toward the left. That’s the ‘compliant media’ I’m talking about.
…like Reagan, who failed with the same set of promises. All the GOP presidents failed at those promises, because they are inherently contradictory and unwinnable. They are foolish promises to make.
The Socialist-Democrats controlled the House of Representatives throughout Reagans tenure. As per the Constitution, ‘all revenue bills shall originate in the House…’
Reagan couldn’t adhere to his promises, completely. He did the best he could with a ‘liberal’i> Congress.
The 1990s Republicans did not lift a finger to raise revenue. Nothing they did contributed to balancing the budget. Even assuming the GOP was responsible for keeping some spending down, it still wasn’t enough to account for balancing the budget.
Huh? Only Congress can raise revenue. Only Congress can balance a budget. A president never can.
Gingrich and the Republicans took the House in 1994- remember?
Our country has only one political party anyway — Big Business. The Republicans vs. Democrats mock combats are mere bread and circuses for the sweaty clamoring crowd.
“Only Congress can raise revenue. Only Congress can balance a budget. A president never can. ”
Exactly. So thanks, Democratic Congress, and thanks, Al Gore! for passing the 1993 revenue bill that began shrinking the Reagan/Bush structural deficits, restored investor confidence, and balanced the budgets.
I knew we’d find common ground somewhere.
alpha,
There you go again spewing the liberal democratic BS. The only common ground is where you are standing. The liberal democratic congress of the past has placed our Country in the current mess. It took a long time to rob the retired of some of their Social Security benefits and jepoardize the future of Social Security and Medicare. No thanks to Al Gore and all the rest of the liberal members of Congress. The big give away is coming to an end. After this election the White House, Senate and House of Reprsentatives will be under a sensible Republican majority.
To Dave in #51: For some reason you have a real problem with the existence of truth versus falsehood. You glory in the murky fog of moral ambiguity, as if that is somehow superior. I see no value in the dreadful twilight you want to exalt as “better” than finding the truth.
Dave writes: “And this is a left wing propaganda site? Jon as I said, your perception is your own reality.”
Yes, Dave, as I have read the website over the years, I have seen that Fact Check has pasted together some transparently preposterous arguments in order to cover for Obama and other liberals and Democrats. An organization interested in being scrupulously factual would not string together logical fallacies and obvious nonsense to erect a fake image of an argument.
I say this having looked at specific “analyses” by Fact Check that could have been used as grounds for a good laugh in the college-level logic class I took at UF. We could have spent a week discussing all the logical fallacies in “Fact Check” posts. The illogic of its analyses could have come right out off the pages of the textbook in my logic class.
I do not speak from generalities, but from dissecting particular false posts by “Fact Check” in the past.
So what? What logic is there in your comment? The Ford Foundation funds many worthwhile endeavors, as well as left-wing news reporting and liberal causes. Most of the big foundations fund both left-wing causes and also “many worthwhile endeavors” at the same time. Is there any logic to your comment?
Why is it that the Annenberg Foundation could not be funding left-wing politics simply because it also “funds many worthwhile endeavors.”
Again, the local Chicago branch of the Annenberg Foundation is what put admitted domestic left-wing terrorist on is Board of Directors and made Barack Obama the Chair of the Board of Directors.
And that changes the situation, HOW, exactly? An Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3) foundation is *REQUIRED* to release this information. Did you know that you can request a copy of the tax return of any 501(c)(3) organization, and they must give it to you?
But in any event, why would that make any difference to the discussion?
Why do you claim they are scrupulous or above board?
Just because they call themselves “FACT CHECK” — YOU ARE COMPLETELY SUCKERED AND TAKEN IN. The name alone makes them truthful?
If I had happened to reserve the name “Fact Check” before they got around to it, you would then believe anything I say simply if I call myself “Fact Check” ?
No, I have analyzed their posts in the past and found them far from scrupulous or above board. Some of their posts are classic propaganda — half-truths strung together to create a false impression.
Why would you assume that based upon absolutely nothing? With ZERO factual basis for forming a conclusion, you would leap off a cliff? Where is the logic here?
I have known Christine O’Donnell since 2003. She is a wonderful, delightful, smart, charming, interesting, fascinating woman. Some man will be the luckiest man in the world. (She can be a handful. She can be difficult. She’s a real human being, not a 2 dimensional image on TV.)
But if I thought there were any prospects for any personal relationship with me, I sure wouldn’t be pursuing it on a blog. I have been alone with Christine many, many times over the years. If I wanted to ask her out on a date, I wouldn’t need to do it here. I have had dinner alone with her, to discuss her legal case. I could have made a move any time I wanted, if I expected any thing to happen personally rather than as friends.
Your first clue might have been when I *TOLD YOU* and everyone else why I was refuting lies — BECAUSE THEY ARE LIES.
I told Geezer and I am sure others as well that if they were falsely accused, I would feel morally bound to tell the truth about what I know for them, too. If I were in a liquor store, and watched some stranger rob the store, and then Geezer was FALSELY accused, I would be morally compelled to defend Geezer against those false accusations.
Why would you assume things contrary to the facts?
The bottom line is, you prize the idea that you are morally superior by maintaing a Faux Neutrality.
But you are just as doctrinaire, if not more so, than those you criticize.
Jon,
This is typical of your responses. You completely ignore direct quotes from Fact Check, criticizing Obama’s statements, which demonstrates they are not a left wing progaganda outlet and prattle on about you have been reading Fact Check for years, as if you are the authority on identifying left wing propaganda outlets and offer up a college exercise from a course you took a number of years ago, with the expectation that everyone must take your word for it.
I am so very tired of your methods. As I said, you live in your own reality. You are entitled to it, but most everyone else doesn’t share it. As I implied, I thought perhaps it was blind devotion that caused you to never waver from the coviction that COD could have won, in spite of the fact that Democrats outnumber Republicans in Delaware and she would have need the independents to win. Devotion is wonderful. Blind devotion is just blind.
The consequence of this blindness (or alternate reality if you will) is that no meaningful discussion can ever take place. Therefore, I will no longer have any comments to make regarding any of your posts. I will still read them, and be highly entertained, but will not engage in any more fruitless exercises with you. While your physical being is on the same plane of existence as everyone else, it is also obvious that your consciousness does not share the same space time. Ciao.
Dave writes in #59:
No, that does not prove any such thing. Again, you sound like you have not been paying attention to conservative politics for the last 20 – 30 years, yet you present yourself as an expert in why an independent politics is better, critiquing what you do not know.
Finally, you don’t seem to listen to anything. My arguments were not about whether Christine O’Donnell could have won with a 110,000 voter registration advantage of Democrats over Republicans, but to show that IF a Republican can win, it is NOT by going about it the way the RINO’s want to try. Had the Party united, there is a strategy or series of strategies that might work, while the RINO way is guaranteed to fail.
And I kept making it clear that these lessons have to be learned for the FUTURE: He who cannot learn from history is doomed to repeat it.
It has ALWAYS been the conservative complaint against the liberal news media that, yes, they will present the APPEARANCE of balance, to avoid totally losing their audience, but on balance tilt more toward the liberal message. Conservatives have NEVER suggested that the liberal news media NEVER criticizes liberals like Barack Obama.
But they simply criticize conservatives more than liberals, and do so in a different manner. If “Fact Check” never criticized Obama, it would not be able to fool gullible people into reading it. But the NATURE of the attacks on conservatives is different than of liberals. Conservatives are attacked more severely on key themes, while liberals are criticized superficially on relatively unimportant topics.
Conservatives have been discussing this phenomenon for decades. It is not a new topic. It is NOT the accusation of conservatives that liberal newspapers report stories favorable to liberals 100% of the time — only that they sink the knife in when it counts to help the Democrat Party, and then pretend they are neutral.
It is a famous analysis by Rush Limbaugh that the liberal news media will “campaign” for the Democrat for office but then immediately after the election try to COVER THEIR TRACKS by reporting lots of negative information about the Democrat. BEFORE the election, they won’t let the voters know a balanced picture. But AFTER the election they will hurry up and try to even the score, in the hopes that nobody will notice how biased they are.
If their bias were obvious, they would be ineffective.
A case in point is Chris Coons’ financial disaster leading the New Castle County government. The News Journal held that story back until AFTER the election, to help Chris Coons against Christine O’Donnell. The News Journal had the information. But it TIMED the information until after it was too late to inform the voters in the election booth. But after the election, they hurried to clean up their image.
Dave writes in #59:
No, that does not prove any such thing. Again, you sound like you have not been paying attention to conservative politics for the last 20 – 30 years, yet you present yourself as an expert in why an independent politics is better, critiquing what you do not know.
It has ALWAYS been the conservative complaint against the liberal news media that, yes, they will present the APPEARANCE of balance, to avoid totally losing their audience, but on balance tilt more toward the liberal message. Conservatives have NEVER suggested that the liberal news media NEVER criticizes liberals like Barack Obama.
But they simply criticize conservatives more than liberals, and do so in a different manner. If “Fact Check” never criticized Obama, it would not be able to fool gullible people into reading it. But the NATURE of the attacks on conservatives is different than of liberals. Conservatives are attacked more severely on key themes, while liberals are criticized superficially on relatively unimportant topics.
Conservatives have been discussing this phenomenon for decades. It is not a new topic. It is NOT the accusation of conservatives that liberal newspapers report stories favorable to liberals 100% of the time — only that they sink the knife in when it counts to help the Democrat Party, and then pretend they are neutral.
It is a famous analysis by Rush Limbaugh that the liberal news media will “campaign” for the Democrat for office but then immediately after the election try to COVER THEIR TRACKS by reporting lots of negative information about the Democrat. BEFORE the election, they won’t let the voters know a balanced picture. But AFTER the election they will hurry up and try to even the score, in the hopes that nobody will notice how biased they are.
If their bias were obvious, they would be ineffective.
A case in point is Chris Coons’ financial disaster leading the New Castle County government. The News Journal held that story back until AFTER the election, to help Chris Coons against Christine O’Donnell. The News Journal had the information. But it TIMED the information until after it was too late to inform the voters in the election booth. But after the election, they hurried to clean up their image.
Finally, you don’t seem to listen to anything. My arguments were not about whether Christine O’Donnell could have won with a 110,000 voter registration advantage of Democrats over Republicans, but to show that IF a Republican can win, it is NOT by going about it the way the RINO’s want to try. Had the Party united, there is a strategy or series of strategies that might work, while the RINO way is guaranteed to fail.
And I kept making it clear that these lessons have to be learned for the FUTURE: He who cannot learn from history is doomed to repeat it.
Exactly. So thanks, Democratic Congress, and thanks, Al Gore! for passing the 1993 revenue bill that began shrinking the Reagan/Bush structural deficits, restored investor confidence, and balanced the budgets.
I knew we’d find common ground somewhere.
The GOP handcuffed Clinton. He had to be dragged, kicking and screaming to the table. Without the GOP House, Clinton would have been just like Omaba.
Now, we can talk about today. Care to say anything about the Pelosi/Reid/Omaba ‘budget?’ I didn’t think so.
Bush was bad, but Omaba is almost unbelievable- he has no conception of money, except that it can be printed.