OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

[Tichy]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

Obama did associate with pseudo-marxist organizations, namely ACORN and to a lesser extent his church. He did remain in contact with Ayers until
2006, he does come from an intellectual tradition that tends to blame America first and always.

ACORN's not "pseudo-marxist." In fact I'm really not sure what "pseudo-marxist" is. You're either for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the destruction of the bourgeoisie or you're against it. Last I checked, Obama was against it. ACORN doesn't even have a stated position on taxes or the economy in general. Their focus is housing for low income people. The voter registration stuff spun out of that.

Ayers is a distinguished professor of education at U. Illinois Chicago. He and Obama served on a board about education reform (the Annenberg project) that had republican funding. Apparently he wasn't too much of a terrorist to get invited to sit on that board, or to be declared Chicagoan of the year in 1997 for his work on it. I'm not denying that they're acquaintances, even friends. What I'm denying is that Ayers is a "terrorist." That "didn't do enough" line about his activities in the 60's that keeps getting thrown around isn't "didn't bomb enough" but "didn't oppose the war effectively enough." Did he do some stupid things in the 60's? Yes. Is he a fringe voice or terrorist sympathizer now? Hardly.

If by "blame first and always" you mean "acknowledge errors and work to correct them," I agree. We've just had eight years of blame last and never, and boy did it work out great.

[lch]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

IS not the only thing backing him up - there were 2 other documents, and an interview with the principle of his school, plus a kenyan birth certificate.

I just remembered something, and that is a story that I read in my newspaper almost exactly three months ago, about Obama's journey through life and his supporters. Among it was the heart-warming story about him visiting his old Highschool Punahou in Honolulu on December 17th in 2004, where he spent his time from 1971 (5th grade) to 1979 (12th grade). His supervisor and liaison teacher at the time, Eric Kusunoki, embarrassedly remembers how the 13-year-old Obama offered "You may call me Barry" after Kusunoki pronounced his first name like "barracks". Yes, Barry was his nickname. No, it wasn't anything else. I'd like to see a copy of that kenyan birth certificate. You should probably know by now that you're better off by assuming that that one is a manufactured forgery, instead of the Hawaiian one, like you should have assumed it in the first place. No matter how strongly you may wish that it was the other way around.

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

I don't expect any candidate to produce name change things etc.
But I think every candidate should be able to prove they are a natural born U.S citizen.

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Point is - no he never submitted a birth certificate to the courts. Takes all of ... 5 minutes right?

There never was a court trial, hence he never had to or even could submit it before court. How long does it take you to pierce that into your skull?

Regarding the validity of his Hawaiian birth certificate, see my previous post on the page before.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Tichy

ACORN's not "pseudo-marxist." In fact I'm really not sure what "pseudo-marxist" is. You're either for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the destruction of the bourgeoisie or you're against it. Last I checked, Obama was against it. ACORN doesn't even have a stated position on taxes or the economy in general. Their focus is housing for low income people. The voter registration stuff spun out of that.

Ayers is a distinguished professor of education at U. Illinois Chicago. He and Obama served on a board about education reform (the Annenberg project) that had republican funding. Apparently he wasn't too much of a terrorist to get invited to sit on that board, or to be declared Chicagoan of the year in 1997 for his work on it. I'm not denying that they're acquaintances, even friends. What I'm denying is that Ayers is a "terrorist." That "didn't do enough" line about his activities in the 60's that keeps getting thrown around isn't "didn't bomb enough" but "didn't oppose the war effectively enough." Did he do some stupid things in the 60's? Yes. Is he a fringe voice or terrorist sympathizer now? Hardly.

If by "blame first and always" you mean "acknowledge errors and work to correct them," I agree. We've just had eight years of blame last and never, and boy did it work out great.

Thats simply not true. Both in his book and in an interview after 9/11 he said he was sorry he didn't do more. When asked (after 9/11) if he was sorry if he bombed the police station he said 'no'. His wife was #1 wanted female by the FBI with a heading of 'terrorist.'

Personally, I really despise the use of labels, so had I been advising the mccain camp I would have avoided calling him a terrorist, and avoiding saying things .. like socialist, liberal.

I would have tried to explain why the facts were relevent. Just using labels tends to overstate, and I think people rejected that.

But there will always be a significant portion of the population that does not feel that ayers is a distinguished member of society.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by lch

I just remembered something, and that is a story that I read in my newspaper almost exactly three months ago, about Obama's journey through life and his supporters. Among it was the heart-warming story about him visiting his old Highschool Punahou in Honolulu on December 17th in 2004, where he spent his time from 1971 (5th grade) to 1979 (12th grade). His supervisor and liaison teacher at the time, Eric Kusunoki, embarrassedly remembers how the 13-year-old Obama offered "You may call me Barry" after Kusunoki pronounced his first name like "barracks". Yes, Barry was his nickname. No, it wasn't anything else. I'd like to see a copy of that kenyan birth certificate. You should probably know by now that you're better off by assuming that that one is a manufactured forgery, instead of the Hawaiian one, like you should have assumed it in the first place. No matter how strongly you may wish that it was the other way around.

There never was a court trial, hence he never had to or even could submit it before court. How long does it take you to pierce that into your skull?

Regarding the validity of his Hawaiian birth certificate, see my previous post on the page before.

Dude, you are either not reading my posts or english is not your first language.

I *understand* that there was never a trial.

The *reason* there was no trial was because obama/the dnc made a motion to dismiss which was granted by the judge. Said dismissal was for lack of standing.

Obama could have (I would say should have) simply said - hey judge here's my birth certificate.

Understand - the judge didn't say - obama is a citizen. What he said was, Mr. Berg - you don't have cause to seek redress.

In other words, the question of whether Obama is actually a citizen has never been answered in a court.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

If it was an opinion piece, I would accept the merit of your opinion.

However, since I am betting you did not even look at the article, I will clarify. The article uses statistics compiled from the economic report that the White House presents to the President himself, and Congress, every year. If you doubt the veracity of the analysis itself, simply because you consider the source biased - then I would offer to confirm the results. But since I am sure you would consider me biased at this point (yes, I am biased towards truth, rather than denial), then maybe you should follow the link the the government webpage that will allow you to directly download the entire report, in PDF format.

Do you honestly believe that? How on Earth can you state something like that as fact? The Federal government clearly disagrees on your assertion that deficit increased under Clinton. In fact, by their records, he showed the only budget surplus since 1969 (2001 was still in surplus, but the year a President takes office, is not their budget).

Jim, by the way

This is where a little understanding goes a long way. Back in 1994 (if I remember) - the democrats voted to remove/take social security obligations off the table. So while social security revenues are taken in and used to 'fund' the budget, social security obligations are no longer calculated as part of the 'federal' deficit.

The deficit figure up until 1994 or so includes SSO. The deficit numbers after do not. Someone here will look up the exact date I'm sure.

When you include social security obligations, the actual national debt is somewhere around 52 trillion dollars, and has increased every year, including your vaunted clinton years.

The deficit caused by excessive govt spending was never fixed - we just pretended the emperor has clothes. voila! the problem is fixed!

The problem is really obvious is you just take a graph of govt spending and compare it to growth in gdp. Or, look at govt spending per capita.

[lch]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Dude, you are either not reading my posts or english is not your first language.

I wonder if you are really reading mine. Let me quote my own post again since you seem to have troubles finding it:

Originally Posted by lch

Obama's campaign released his birth certificate on June 13, 2008 and launched a fact-check Web site named Fightthesmears.com in response to allegations that he doesn't have a valid birth certificate, and in response to allegations that he would be muslim (which isn't true as well). The state's Department of Health director of Hawai‘i released a statement verifying the legitimacy of Sen. Barack Obama birth certificate.

That underlined sentence there is a link to a Web site, BTW. If you hover your mouse over it and click, you can quickly check my statement. Or you may seek other sources that give the same information. I think my Google query was something as ingenious as "Obama birth certificate valid" or so.

I'd like you to always add sources to your statements from now on, too, since it's a hassle to go through Google and find out again and again that they're not facts but conspiracy babble. That Kenyan birth certificate would be a good start, I can't find it. And I'd like you to show your own birth certificate, too, since apparently that's customary.

[Gregstrom]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Lets make it simple:

I believe the statistics show that after wwii, the gnp of the american economy exceeded all other powers involved in the war - combined. In fact, the GNP of the American economy is more than 50% of the GNP of the rest of the world combined.

It certainly wasn't true after 40 years of democratic rule.

So Jims assertion that the democrats do (did) an outstanding job of managing the economy fails on its face.

I don't believe that the two are related. I suspect that the statistics show that war-damaged economies recover faster than peace-time economies can grow. As a baseline comparison, why not use the pre-war economies?

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

But if you need a link, here is a comparison of US growth rates to japanese growth rates post wwii:

http://books.google.com/books?id=5aE...esult#PPA45,M1

Here you see similiar statistics for france, italy and spain
ie., that they are narrowing the per person gdp all through the 1960s and 1970s... IE., that the the democrats did not do an outstanding job.. indeed - they did worse than the managers of four countries.

...and of those 4 countries, 3 had strong genuinely socialist political parties between WWII and now. 2 had influential communist parties, in fact. Are you suggesting that having far-left socialist rulership is better for an economy than having a far-right and centre-right 2 party state?

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Aezeal

Somewhat more than 38% of people will get money, when they pay nothing.
Something like 50% will get a tax decrease.
And something like 5% will get a huge increase.

what can I say... sounds good?

Aezeal, it may surprise you to know that I believe we need to increase what the poor and middle class earn. And I believe that insofar as obama gives wealth to the lowest part of our economy, that he will actually help in pulling us out of the economic prolems we are in.

However, there are good ways, and bad ways to accomplish that.

I am *all* in favor of increasing aid and grants to education.
I am all in favor of giving micro loans so people can start businesses. I am in favor of increasing the minimum wage carefully so that it doesn't cause job loss.

However, using our tax code to do this is wrong.

First, at over 10,000 pages our tax code is already ridiculous. It takes an army of accountants and lawyers to figure it out - and if you can't figure it out - correctly - you're at risk.

Second, the cost of complying with the tax code is huge and non productive - and there are lots of both productive and non productive taxes in our system.

When the government taxes a sale, for example - the government gets some money. Theoretically we all benefit. The hidden kinds of taxes are when the government makes a regulation and the benefits are non existent.

Say for example you are driving - you come to a stop sign. You stop, wait your turn and then proceed. There is no traffic for miles around - you are in the middle of nebraska.

You had to stop - at risk of getting a ticket etc. It had a cost to you - it took 2 minutes out of your day, costs you gas to accelerate again. But the point is.. in this particular case - no one benefited.

In the same way, an inpenetrable tax code benefits no one - and is in fact a hidden tax on all of us.

Second:

Mixing missions is bad policy. The purpose of the IRS should be to collect taxes. Its performance can be measured. How well did it collect taxes. How many audits did it do.. etc

Once you give another role to our tax code - collecting funds AND redistributing wealth, and promoting education, and promoting home ownership, and promoting social equality - how do you measure the success of our tax code?

Every one decries tax loopholes - but here you are saying its a good thing because it benefits you personally.

Transparent politics is letting the tax code stand on its own - and then setting up a separate program - to increase home ownership - to increase education. And each of these programs can stand on its own feet - and be measured.

Im not saying this is 100% possible - but it is a goal that should be achieved as much as feasible.

Finally:

There is the old saying - give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.

Benjamin Franklin said something like - the poor should not be made comfortable in poverty - then should be lead, or if necessary, driven from it.

Look, welfare reform pushed by republicans and signed by clinton was an enormous success in getting people off the welfare roles and into jobs.

We need to make jobs and living wages *more* possible for everyone, not make it easier for more people to live in welfare, which is what just giving people money is.

[Mithras]

http://www.republicanoperative.com/f...lly-won-1.html

Its been posted here before but I'd just like to reiterate.
Read it its scary and funy. The ignorance out there is amazing
For example according to some of these people the US is now:
Going to have shira law
Going to have terrorists invited round to the whitehouse.

Don't we just love fear/hate mongers. I'd like to say again that personaly I would have preferd Obama if he were Muslim but that was not very likely... he's a Muslim and worships in a church with a mad pastor... there's something wrong there... btw does Obama have a passport? He's been out of the country right? That should be adequate proof of citizenship.

Anyway read the above forumn and enjoy (but be very very scared) Oh and lets all hope that Obama is the godsend so many people wish him to be... I like him but I have a nagging feeling he'll disapoint...
Maybe I just haven't been brough up to expect much from the president of the united states (George Bush Jr since I was 8)

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by lch

I wonder if you are really reading mine. Let me quote my own post again since you seem to have troubles finding it:

That underlined sentence there is a link to a Web site, BTW. If you hover your mouse over it and click, you can quickly check my statement. Or you may seek other sources that give the same information. I think my Google query was something as ingenious as "Obama birth certificate valid" or so.

I'd like you to always add sources to your statements from now on, too, since it's a hassle to go through Google and find out again and again that they're not facts but conspiracy babble. That Kenyan birth certificate would be a good start, I can't find it. And I'd like you to show your own birth certificate, too, since apparently that's customary.

Dude, I cannot believe you are continuing this argument.

1. There have now been THREE lawsuits on this same topic.
Source: your own kitv article. This is madness.

2. Some Democratic functionaire saying 'yes he has a legitimate' birth certificate is of *no* legal validity. Releasing a document on a webs site is of *no* legal validity.

It is a *court's* perview to settle the question. In a court, the plaintiff and the defendent could provide their own experts - and the credentials of each other can be questioned or not.

I am not taking any position on whether Obama is a citizen.

I am saying:

A. Any candidate should have to prove his qualifications.
B. Obama should have just released his birth certificate to the court, instead of squashing the suit on techical grounds.

If you want to argue with me - address those two points. I don't even see how anyone can think otherwise.

There have now been three *stupid* and time wasting lawsuits on this stupid subject. How many do we have to have? How does that help anyone? Its a big enough deal to enough people.

Obama wants to be a politician for all the people? How does it hurt anyone if he submits a birth certificate to the court *AND IT WOULD MAKE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE TRUST HIM MORE*. Some of them would simply say.. huh... I guess he is eligible. Great.

You apparently think I want to discredit him as president. At the present time - I would rather he HAD a birth certificate rather than he didn't. Read it again. I would rather he had one than he didn't.

But yeah, I think a citizen has a right to know that a candidate meets the qualifications of the office.

There is a logical tactic called Reductio ad absurdum - lets use it now.

Suppose the republican party nominated Putin to be president of the United States and Karl Rove said.. yes I've seen his birth certificate. And somehow.. Putin leads in the polls. (An even better example might be renominating GWBush)

Are you really expecting me to believe that you would find that OK? You'd wouldn't want to see that in court... wouldn't expect it go to court? I know *I* would.

I think you're a liar if you say yes, you'd just accept it. So give those on the opposite side of the equation the same respect and the same rights that you'd hope to enjoy for your side.