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October 7, 2010 - 1:40pm
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Election predictions
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I'll go with you on the Republicans gaining the majority in the House (and Pelosi refusing to give up her position as party "leader" after a humiliating defeat on the order of the Republicans in 2006.)
Dems hold the Senate, 51-49, but do not learn anything from their defeat.
___
Harry Reid postponed the tax cut vote, perhaps placing the final nail in his coffin himself (and switching me from Harry to "none of the above, personally.) Angle the crazy lady beats him....but Harry wins the recount by "400 votes!" Amazing!
The witch gets burned in Delaware, and the lady who got fired by HP for incompetence loses her rich-lady run for D.C. via California.
Meg Whitman hits 180 million dollars or more pissed away (that's a fiscal conservative?) and loses the most expensive campaign ever undertaken (even for President, outspending Jerry by over 40-1) and Jerry-o-Jerry-o-baby takes California back to the future!
Meg parlays her 180 million, and 120 million more in two years into a win in 2012 as Di Fi retires and her Senate seat goes to Meg the Red. A grateful California uses the combined 300 million bucks Meg tossed our way to build half a school in L.A. or "save" 15 jobs.)
After the election, the Democrats try to push through the Bush Tax Hike, but are thwarted by the Republicans, who signed off on the tax hike 7 years ago!
People earning 200 grand per year celebrate being able to keep half their money!
Tea Party starts hating the red Congress - who love to spend like drunken Bush era Republicans, and readies for Rand Paul's 2012 Presidential run under the banner of the dumb ass "Return to the Gold Standard" banner.
Am I close?
I predict: Bipartisan stupidity on a grand scale!
We got a winnah...
You left out:
Republican congress returns women to chattel status via abortion regulations.
Republican congress appoints Pope to Supreme Court
...
I also forgot Democrat Senate requires abortion for any detected fetal anomaly.
Remember the flack Palin took from the left for having birthed a baby with Down's Syndrome?
Those NOW chicks forgot that being pro-choice insludes a choice other than abortion.
(I'm pro-choice, so I do not mean to editorialize abortion, just point out the abortion idiocy of some on the far left.)
Cheers, man. (Come to CES.)
I predict Democrats crying like JJ. You winners were so happy a couple of years ago?
Executive Branch approval rating: 44%
Congress approval rating: 18%
Doesn't take a genius to figure out the larger pieces of the pie. But you're no genius JJ.
Reid loses, Boxer loses, Feingold loses...and in a squeaker, Conn goes into overtime...NY 23 goes republican.
Good list, but Boxer is up by 6 in the polls....it will take something new to happen to shift out of it for Fiorina.
Crazy Angle just tried to bribe an opponent and made a press release saying no abortion, even for rape or incest victims. She keeps trying to give it back to Reid!
ahem.... Congress has no power to appoint. The President appoints, Congress and the Senate supposedly vets and then votes.
Mark
Americans are idiots plain and simple. If the current president and house and congress( no matter which party is in control) can't fix everything in a jiffy then out they go next election. We are too fixated with wanting things fixed NOW.Doesn't matter that things are so screwed up that it will take years to sort it out, we just want it done NOW. NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!......Tantrum throwing little twits that can't see electing the other side isn't going to change anything what-so-ever.Everything is controlled by MONEY and the GREEDY.Good luck electing our next "God" and his subjects.
So your estimate on democrat losses is????
Please do not lie about my political affiliation.
Yeah, like Robert Bork... Right.
Yes, I know, strictly speaking the president appoints justices.
The problem, of course, is this "Senatorial Courtesy" thing that has completely crippled the entire Federal Court System. Perhaps you should see where the power really sits, Mark.
What he said! WHAT HE SAID!!!
HEAR HEAR HEAR
Who the hell knows, it will depend on the fickle public. If I could predict the future I'd be down at the horse races placing bets, wouldn't you?
I think the writing is sufficiently clear the the only issue is how large the defeat will be...I think more than 60 seats making it the biggest defeat in the post war period...
I sadly suspect that you're correct. However on the other hand I'm filled with optimism for the 2012 elections since all those newly elected Republican/Tea Party congressmen and senators do not have a clue on how to fix the economy other than more tax cuts, which is part of what caused the mess we're in today. So instead of even trying to fix things they will just spend the next two years dreaming up bogus scandal after scandal about Obama and the White House.
The real Tea Party supporters will become super mad once they realize how they have been completely used and abused by the Republicans and they will try to make the Tea Party a true third party, thus all but giving the Democrats a sweeping victory in 2012.
That's the optimistic side of me. The pessimist thinks that Obama will be successfully impeached and the US's present decline into third world status will rapidly accelerate so that by 2014 or so poverty will be so widespread that rioting will breakout throughout the country with Detroit and Newark once again (as they did in the 1060's) leading the way .
So your saying Fed chair Tim Geithner does have a clue on how to fix the economy as well as Obama, Reid and Pelosi. If thats true, then the Democrats should sweep in November because the stimulus bill was a huge success and the economy is great now and unemployment is at an all-time low...right?
Wrong. The stimulus was an utter failure. George Bush spent like a drunken sailor, and Obama is Bush on steroids when it comes to deficit spending.
This is what baffles me, Democrats jump at the chance to illuminate a prospective Republican candidates "inexperience" when they run for an election. BUT the very same democrats nominate and vote for THIER chosen candidates that have no experience. ie; party loyalty.
Party loyalty is what is killing this country.
Has it occurred to you that some of those Tea Party Congressman and Senators could possibly have one thing Tim Geithner, Pelosi, Reid, and Obama don't have... which is experience in actually owning a business which hires employees and makes a payroll?
Wealth re-distribution has and never will fix an economy. It destroys business incentives and consequently leads to government control of private business, which in turn subjugates the employee of said business. THIS is what the Tea Party is against.
..as Dennis Miller says, " Of course, I could be wrong."
Mark
Actually, all these folk need to do is stop the spending and defund the HC scheme...Look at the markets today...in anticipation of a big republican win, the markets are up. After November, they will boom and money will begin to flow. I suspect unemployment will be down below 8% by this time next year...Obama and the dems will not get credit.
Oh unemployment will most certainly be down now that businesses have a vast pool of non unionized workers to draw from willing to take 20% less than what they were previously making. Oh and their current employees had better be willing to take a 10% pay cut if they know what's good for them.
As for the Republican "plan" to fix the economy please fill me in on what exactly it might be other than more tax cuts and less regulation, exactly the two main things that brought the US to the point it is now in.
A few Republican/Fox News/Wall Street Journal myths debunked:
Tax cuts create jobs - not true, more jobs were created during Clinton's term than during Bush's term. In addition, the tax cuts are in place now and where are the jobs????????????????
The President must be a businessman. Really was the GOD of the Republicans, Ronald Reagan, a businessman? No he was an actor and a union leader.
Deregulation is a good thing. Really ask the people in the Gulf about that one or anyone who lost 50% of their savings during the market collapse of 2008.
The nine most terrifying words in the English language:"I'm from the government and I'm here to help" I don't know, all those Wall Street firms and banks didn't have any problems going to the government, hat in hand, to beg for a bailout.
However there is one thing that the Republicans do get right: Tax policy can be used as a transfer of wealth. Yes indeed as the Bush tax cuts have clearly shown as the richest 1% of the population just keeps getting richer and richer while the other 98% just keeps getting poorer and poorer.
.........and so the "We want things fixed NOW!" crowd just keeps ranting on and on and on and on and making asses of themselves.
Give it a rest, you can't fix 8 years of broken in 2
Here are some Republican policy flip-flops since Obama became President:
Deficit spending is a no-no. It wasn't a no-no as Bush took us from a budget surplus to a budget deficit nor was it a no-no when the money went to tall their super rich friends with the $700 billion dollar bailout, which was passed while Bush was in office.
Don't even think about touching Medicare - for years, in fact from the moment Medicare was created back in the 1960's right up until the start of the great health care debate in 2009, the Republicans have made Medicare reform a major goal of their overall strategy.
One would think that with all the resources currently available to the American people that they would actually check even one of these reliable resources every once in a while instead of relying on that massive Republican propaganda machine known as Fox News. Even Goebbels would be impressed with the outright lies that the American are willingly swallowing. Not mistruths or even differences of opinions but outright boldfaced lies.
But then I'm not surprised since Reagan's days the Republican's have systematically replaced hard scientific facts with pseudo-scientific non-sense. Some examples:
creationism versus evolution
discrediting the overwhelming evidence in favor of and scientific support for climate change
discrediting the overwhelming evidence in favor of and support among every leading economist for further stimulus spending
[quote
Give it a rest, you can't fix 8 years of broken in 2
So when are the democrats going to start fixing 8 years of broken?? all we have gotten is more deficit spending. They have controlled congress since 2007......... and deficit spending has exploded. Obama, in his speeches stated that he didn't want to stick with the republican status quo?? I'm confused.
You obviously overlooked my "Bush spending like a drunken sailor" too. BOTH parties have spent us into oblivion.
Try to be more objective in your political scope of reason.
Again, party loyalty and voter apathy is one reason this country is broke.
Mark
No I didn't overlook it since it's a rather weaselly way out, as in Bush also ran up the deficit but now we really have to stop spending. Yes I agree that Bush was "spending like a drunken sailor" but where were all the objections BY REPUBLICANS to his spending when he was President, oh wait I know the answer: there weren't any and why was that? Because his spending did not involve giving any money to the poor and middle class but rather it involved a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class in the form of tax cuts to the wealthy and government contracts to his war profiteering friends.
Elementary economics teaches us that there are two sides any budget: spending and revenue. Why is only the spending side being addressed by the Republicans and many sorry assed blue dog Democrats? Why not the revenue side? Because that beings up the question of raising taxes, i.e. increasing revenue. Basically what the Republicans want is to balance the budget on the backs of the people least able to afford it: the working poor and middle class. And not by having the wealthy pay even close to their fair share with a marginal tax increase.
Here are some Republican policy flip-flops since Obama became President:
Deficit spending is a no-no. It wasn't a no-no as Bush took us from a budget surplus to a budget deficit nor was it a no-no when the money went to tall their super rich friends with the $700 billion dollar bailout, which was passed while Bush was in office.
Don't even think about touching Medicare - for years, in fact from the moment Medicare was created back in the 1960's right up until the start of the great health care debate in 2009, the Republicans have made Medicare reform a major goal of their overall strategy.
One would think that with all the resources currently available to the American people that they would actually check even one of these reliable resources every once in a while instead of relying on that massive Republican propaganda machine known as Fox News. Even Goebbels would be impressed with the outright lies that the American are willingly swallowing. Not mistruths or even differences of opinions but outright boldfaced lies.
But then I'm not surprised since Reagan's days the Republican's have systematically replaced hard scientific facts with pseudo-scientific non-sense. Some examples:
creationism versus evolution
discrediting the overwhelming evidence in favor of and scientific support for climate change
discrediting the overwhelming evidence in favor of and support among every leading economist for further stimulus spending
So Bush never took any criticism for his stimulus?
And, am I to understand that the democrats never flip-flop?
Also, Am I to assume the democrat propaganda machine msnbc, CNN, ABC, CBS, Media Matters, Daily Kos, Daily Beast, move-on, etc; etc; etc; never tell outright lies?
It's interesting you mention Hitler's minister of propaganda Goebbels and the comparison to Fox news.
Would the same apply to the DNC? ie: the Willie Horton ads, James Byrd ads??
objectivity is good thing.
Mark
the objections are why the Tea party started, And if you can obviously see....the establishment republican big spenders are losing nominations all over the country.
a couple of examples: establishment Repub Mike Castle losing. Establisment Repub Charlie Crist way behind Marco Rubio. etc; etc; etc;
Define "the wealthy"
Define "fair share"
Mark
Medicare Part D - 2003 - an unfunded trillion dollar mandate courtesy of the red party. Red Congress and Senate and White House. Agreed to pay full retail for all covered drugs. No volume discount, etc...nice
It's fully bipartisan. Anyone who thinks it's one side or the other is the proverbial type of person born every minute.
Notice how the reds give Reagan credit for Clinton's balanced budget and blame the current mess on Obama.
Partisan thinking is lazy.
Wealthy: let's say yearly income at least 10 times the national average, which I believe would be somewhere around $500,000 per year.
Fair share: A top tax rate at least equal to the top tax rate while Reagan was President, which I believe is somewhere around 50%
Hey you asked.
Man, allowing someone to only keep half the money he or she earns...ouch.
No government funded pension, no mecial care....half for what?
If you look at 200K per year now:
14% of the first 106,800 bucks - about 15 grand to Uncle Sam.
2% to Medicare - 4,000 more.
28% of the first 165,000 = 46,200
35% of the money between 165 and 200 thousand = 12,000
Here, Cali takes 10% more.
That turns a person making 200,000 bucks a year into a 100K a year income "keeper."
I think that's too high, and I'm a liberal.
Also, that's not even able to keep us out of a federal budget deficit!
Time for some serious cost trimming.
Very good points Buddha and I agree with your last statement: "Time for some serious cost trimming." Going back to a conversation we had on another thread regarding NJ Governor Christie I'd like to say that while I don't agree with his politics I do agree with his methods. I'll explain. Christie came into office facing a huge budget deficit and rather than waste time with endless fighting about should and shouldn't be cut he just made across the board spending cuts - no sacred cows and nothing too important to be cut.
My problem with both the Democrats and Republicans is that instead of figuring out ways to cut spending they spend all their time identifying all the things that they would never cut. Democrats say no to cuts for education while the Republicans say no to cuts in military spending and so on and so forth. It all breaks down to each side doing their best to protect their sacred cows and the end result is that nothing gets cut and spending just keeps on increasing.
Let's follow Christie's lead and propose an across the board 10% spending cut just to get rid of all the sacred cows and move forward from there.
In the end I hope that I'm not being unreasonable but rather just trying to be fair and fairness dictates that spending cuts be applied equally across the board, sacred cows be damned.
Well, I have to give you credit for at least being more generous that the Obama administration at $500K.
Two questions:
1. Where in the constitution exists a provision that gives the government the right to confiscate 50% of a business owners earnings.
2. If government confiscates 50% of a business owners earnings, will said business owner have the incentive to hire more employees thus creating more jobs OR will said business owner have the incentive to lay off employees or not hire new employess to recoup losses due to excessive taxation.
Mark
1) The Sixteen Amendment
2) The correct answer is none of the above: a business operates to make a profit and the business owner will take whatever action increases profit regardless of taxes. In other words if hiring more workers means higher profits along with higher taxes then the owner will hire more workers. Period. The argument you lay out only works on a state to state level - with all other factors being equal if one state has higher taxes than another then a business owner may chose to move the business to the state with lower taxes. However on a national level I ask where is the business going to move? Oh wait I know that answer: to another country while still reaping the benefits of living in the USA. Perhaps that's more the real reason why the USA is in such bad shape.
Of course you know the 16th admendment of 1913 was initially at a rate of 1% and suppose to expire after 1 year. My question to you was concerning 50%, not 1% of 1913. as far as 1913 goes.. Well study Woodrow Wilson and his beliefs on freedom and The State and you will completely understand why that admendment was put in. Especially what wilson said about public education.
There is no provision in the U.S. Constitution to confiscate half (50%) of anybodys earned income.
If what your saying is true, then government can confiscate any amount it deems necessary for any reason deemed necessary by government. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont democrat turned Independent, and avowed socialist, made that comment back in 1993 when hillary clinton was pushing national healthcare.
None of the above is incorrect. Business are not currently hiring and businesses are going under everyday thats why unemployment is at 10%. I thought Obama promised that unemployment would not go over 8% IF the stimulus was passed?
So, are your comfortable with businesses having to move state to state or even offshore just to evade the draconian tax code and regulations. I'm not.
I like the idea of government getting out of the way of business prosperity so businesses will have the incentive to stay in America and hire American workers. Seems that would be best for the American economy and jobs for American citizens.
I think Karl Marx and Frederick Engels said it best in the communist manifesto: "to each according to their needs, and from each according to their ability."
Thats wealth re-distribution, Thats Marxism.
I can't subscribe to that philosophy because history has proved it to be a failure. Ayn Rand, a Russian immigrant, who lived under socialism/communism laid it out nicely in her book "Objectivism/Collectivism." It's a great read if you are so inclined.
Mark
Go fuck your already oversexed ass. If were such idiots stop reading our fucking rags.
America. Love it or leave it. Don't let the door hit you in your oversexed ass as well.
There I fixed your quote
by the way I'm American so piss off 
Tee hee....
I'm not surprised you'd be into suggestions of violence. You know, if somebody had pointed this kind of stupid cartoon at republicans, you'd have called Homeland Security already.
Why do you hate America?
Yikes!
J_J, would you happen to know Elmer's success rate?
I find it entirely appropriate the tea baggers use Elmer as a spokesperson.
However, get ready for the usual mid-term losses for the Dems - which the teabaggers will also greet without irony....not realizing how theses elections typically go in these years, eh?
Get ready for it....
Teabag Spokeman, November 2010: "Never before in the history of earth have we seen midterms elections show a decline in majority party representation! We are vindicated!"
Think any teabaggers read history?
This is a cartoon, which is not reality but a parody.
Here is the reality of threats of violence:
New Black Panther Party with nightsticks in front of a polling place:
SEIU members inciting violence. Here's a story from a liberal site confirming violence at townhall meetings.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/22/12736/8368
Mark
Nice job trying to spin the facts.
None the less, we all know on which side the violence MOSTLY sits, I know, you know, and we all know which side is much more willing to use force, visibly or in a hidden fashion.
And it's not the hippie contingent, either.
I guess you've forgotten about the more sophisticated forms of violence and prejudice, you know, like disqualifying voters, hiding voting results then having them destroyed, etc...
Oh, wait, which side have they helped in the last 30 years?
Guys, the political violence in America is so rare that it is newsorthy when it occurs!
This rhetoric of violence is an affront to both sides.
Although....
We have this crazy teabagger chick running for Senate in Nevada, and she had this to say about political violence, and I quote.
"I hope that's not where we're going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."
"The nation is arming. What are they arming for if it isn't that they are so distrustful of their government? They're afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways? That's why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?
Mark
Perhaps you haven't found out yet that one of your conservative buddies actually forged the ACORN debacle, and that it was a total, absolute fraud.
Having said that, ACORN wasn't entirely clean, either, but your portrayal is so thoroughly dishonest that I have to write you off as a bigot.
a bigot?....got any proof? Didn't think so. You don't know me, neither do I know you.
Your the particular type of leftist democrat that is incapable of honest debate, void of any objectivity, and blinded by party loyalty. Subsequently, your type labels anyone that disgarees with the current adminstration as "racist" "bigots" etc; etc; to ad nauseum...
Not suprised though, thats standard operating proceedure for leftists these days.
This may help you J_J
Debating 101:
Name calling is an open admission to losing the debate.
appreciate it
Mark
As someone who spent a few decades dealing with folk who do violence for a living, I find your inability to understand the difference wildly amusing.
What I hate is the perversion of America the left has created, the caricature country more Alice's Wonderland than America of personal responsibility and genius. That country of revisionist history and silly dead white guys is the 'America' I hate, the Potemkin village the left created over the last 20 years.
This Tea Party fellow KNOWS the average loss in the house for the last score of elections has been about 35...the largest since WWII was 51 in 1994 and this one will be the largest since 1934...
Just how far back n time do we need to go for the left, in denial, to see this is a route unseen in 80 years?
Those are fucking Black Panthers with sticks. They did this sort of shit during the last presidential election but I guess you missed the Today Show. I guess they are just looking for somebody to give that stick to. Obviously, somebody lost those sticks. Nice Black Panther.
You do realize that you (the left) are trying to have it both ways. On the one hand they pretend the right is made up of elderly white folk as evidenced by Tea party turnout and here you pretend these geriatrics are more dangerous than the unions thugs or the Black panthers...
You need a real story line here.
I'm not on the left. Please cease lying. Lying about someone's political affiliation is neither ethical nor moral.
It is quite clear to me that your political views are so fundamentally, insanely perverted as to suggest that you would identify Barry Goldwater and Dwight D. Eisenhower as leftists.
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