Who's gonna win?

[Diogenes]

You guys like to cry "cut cut" but what would you cut? While the government is wasteful, that waste is an order of magnitude less then the amount that is needed. The closest you can get is to just delete the Medicare / Medicaid programs entirely, then you have merely a small deficit. Of course you then get rioting in the streets / chaos and whomever deletes those is swiftly elected out of office.

What you have said is that these train tracks lead into a wall. Thanks FDR, LBJ!

[ladajo]

So I am in Russia and the Russians are asking me, "Obama wins what do you think?"

I say, "It will hurt, and I did not vote for him".

They say, "It matters not who won. We don't care."

Hmmmm. But. Hmmmm.

Makes me think the idea of a "No" vote could be useful.

[Diogenes]

Typically what is done to clear the books is war or revolution. Sometimes both. You might want to look at the history of the Austrian Corporal in that regard.

Killing off a lot of people is one sure fire way to distribute the remaining assets. It works economically, but is horrible morally. I think this may have been the plan all along.

[Diogenes]

I read Human Action by Von Mises when I was 17. Ever heard of Austrian Economics? Murray Rothbard? Hard to find anyone more arrogant than a Socialist, yet socialism has failed for a hundred years. Go figure.

Uhh hu, keep going

Notice how when confronted you retreat to the old tired "SOCIALIST!!!!!!! DIE COMMUNIST!!!!" red scare bunker.

Still shows you don't know how federal money works.

It doesn't. In the long run the Ponzi scheme collapses.

[Diogenes]

At the same time we need to be looking in less expensive ways to maintaining that safety net, no more stupid expensive land invasions. Obama's handling of Libya was a good example.

Why absolutely! Now all of Africa and the Middle East is in Islamist extremist hands. Jimmy Carter only managed a f***up of this magnitude with a single country. Obama has surpassed him by far.

Got everyone else to do the hard work while we just threw missiles, took pictures and made grand speeches. Attained the goal, ensured the government will be somewhat friendly to the USA (if that's even possible) and wasted the fewest tax dollars / lives doing so.

At the time, I thought we should have taken Iraq, kill Saddam and then leave. (Should have done it in 1991. Thanks George HW Bush.) Didn't care who ran the place after that, the point was made. We didn't do it, and it turned out badly.

Invading Iraq was the right thing to do. Saddam had led everyone to believe he had nuclear weapons and Nerve agents, and ala Curtis LeMay, blowing the sh*t out of these people before they can bring such weapons to bear is always the right thing to do.

Unfortunately, in the case of Iraq, we had bad and false information.

[GIThruster]

Yes indeed. Its scary. Considering what OBama did when he had supermajorities in both houses, it's a bit shocking to consider how extreme his real agenda might be. Now that he doesn't have to worry about staying in office, the only restraint is the House.

Personally, I would lay odds that he'll try to broker a deal between the left and right while playing "only adult in the room" again, in order to stop sequestration. I hope he'll fail. With fiscal irresponsibility running rampant in both parties, sequestration seems to be our only hope for economic survival.

[ScottL]

Yes indeed. Its scary. Considering what OBama did when he had supermajorities in both houses, it's a bit shocking to consider how extreme his real agenda might be. Now that he doesn't have to worry about staying in office, the only restraint is the House.

Personally, I would lay odds that he'll try to broker a deal between the left and right while playing "only adult in the room" again, in order to stop sequestration. I hope he'll fail. With fiscal irresponsibility running rampant in both parties, sequestration seems to be our only hope for economic survival.

I'd say Obama has been trying to broker deals since they lost the majority in the House, however; no deal(s) have come to fruition. More importantly though, the House is not standing in the way. Obama can enacted his executive powers at any point and bypass congress altogether. While this tends to cause an uproar by the opposing party, presidents have been doing this for a very long time. I'd go so far as to say his lack of doing this on say the national budget has been to show a sign of respect for the Republican party in an attempt for bipartisanship, but I'm thinking that ship is starting to sail.

[GIThruster]

You're sadly mistaken about the limits of executive powers. The responsibility is directly on the shoulders of congress. If it were not so, the right would have been beating POTUS senseless over the failure to have a budget for 4 years.

In other words, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Executive order is NOT a replacement for law. It is only an order given to executive agencies, and it does not include the ability to fund those agencies. That responsibility is reserved by the constitution to congress.

[paperburn1]

You're sadly mistaken about the limits of executive powers. The responsibility is directly on the shoulders of congress. If it were not so, the right would have been beating POTUS senseless over the failure to have a budget for 4 years.

In other words, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Executive order is NOT a replacement for law. It is only an order given to executive agencies, and it does not include the ability to fund those agencies. That responsibility is reserved by the constitution to congress.

Orders can include funding and then require a supermajoity by congress to remove funding to check it.

[GIThruster]

Nevertheless, the bulk of USG's funding is now to entitlements which are not executive agencies. OBama cannot simply order Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare to be funded. That takes an act of congress. He can order the military services be paid, which he did not do back during the last event when congress was fighting about funding.

Doesn't seem much like our government cares abut the rule of law however. They are ordering everyone be paid despite they have no budget. Doing this they can literally spend as much as they want on whatever they want without restraint and without accountability to the people. Despite this, Harry Reid and his cronies are still in office.

It's a mad house. A MAD HOUSE!!!

[Diogenes]

Yes indeed. Its scary. Considering what OBama did when he had supermajorities in both houses, it's a bit shocking to consider how extreme his real agenda might be. Now that he doesn't have to worry about staying in office, the only restraint is the House.

Personally, I would lay odds that he'll try to broker a deal between the left and right while playing "only adult in the room" again, in order to stop sequestration. I hope he'll fail. With fiscal irresponsibility running rampant in both parties, sequestration seems to be our only hope for economic survival.

I don't think we are going to survive this.

[Diogenes]

Yes indeed. Its scary. Considering what OBama did when he had supermajorities in both houses, it's a bit shocking to consider how extreme his real agenda might be. Now that he doesn't have to worry about staying in office, the only restraint is the House.

Personally, I would lay odds that he'll try to broker a deal between the left and right while playing "only adult in the room" again, in order to stop sequestration. I hope he'll fail. With fiscal irresponsibility running rampant in both parties, sequestration seems to be our only hope for economic survival.

I'd say Obama has been trying to broker deals since they lost the majority in the House, however; no deal(s) have come to fruition. More importantly though, the House is not standing in the way. Obama can enacted his executive powers at any point and bypass congress altogether. While this tends to cause an uproar by the opposing party, presidents have been doing this for a very long time. I'd go so far as to say his lack of doing this on say the national budget has been to show a sign of respect for the Republican party in an attempt for bipartisanship, but I'm thinking that ship is starting to sail.

I wish you had better news sources. Obama has far exceeded all other presidents in scope of use and abuse of power.

Coal is screwed.

[Skipjack]

Coal is screwed.

Cant say that I am sad about that. It kills some 30k americans every year. I just wished that Obama was investing more into nuclear power instead. All that alternative energy crap is just that, crap...

[Stubby]

Yes indeed. Its scary. Considering what OBama did when he had supermajorities in both houses, it's a bit shocking to consider how extreme his real agenda might be. Now that he doesn't have to worry about staying in office, the only restraint is the House.

Personally, I would lay odds that he'll try to broker a deal between the left and right while playing "only adult in the room" again, in order to stop sequestration. I hope he'll fail. With fiscal irresponsibility running rampant in both parties, sequestration seems to be our only hope for economic survival.

He never really had a supermajority in the Senate.

EDIT People have said he had 2 years of supermajority, but in fact he had 11 days in 2009 and 13 days in 2010. As for the HoR, the Dems had 257 of 435 seats which is 57%. Where do you get your information?

[GIThruster]

I'm shocked no one wants to talk about the "Grotesque Decadence".

No liberals to defend the swing in popular culture and our steady march toward state and national bankruptcy and the economic collapse of the west? Did anyone watch the vid? It's very good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMvztdNh ... r_embedded