my two cents

[CHEW]

It was tradition to hang black people for no reason, should we start doing that again for traditions sake??

Stop fighting change, and let it happen.

[Maximus]

http://rense.com/general32/americ.htm

Current Communist Goals EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, January 10, 1963 .

16. yews technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. yews them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and yews mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

Opposed to traditional (historical) American religion, meaning Christianity, are numerous organizations including Communism (very much alive and well throughout the world, and in the US), radical Islam including the Muslim Brotherhood and their various front groups including CARE and ISNA, the entire pro-death (abortion, eugenics, cloning, stem cell research, health care rationing, euthanasia) array, bogus legal rights groups like the ACLU, militant atheists like the FFRF, and numerous others (EDIT 21 Oct): How could I forget the enviro huggers, anti-speciests (forget American exceptionalism, they oppose human exceptionalism), PETA, climate change alarmists, and population control advocates?

All of these groups are radically opposed to Christianity and will not be content until its public expression is suppressed to the point of equivalence to the racist hangings Chew mentioned. In other countries this is already happening; Canada and some Euro countries are starting to punish people simply for being Christians because their religion is "intolerant". Obviously many primarily Communist/socialist and Islamic countries already suppress or outright persecute Christians.

Based on my debates with certain people, I am becoming convinced that the choice before us as individuals and as a society is becoming more binary. You can believe in truth, goodness, beauty, virtue, etc, or you can believe in nothing. There is purpose to everything, or there is purpose to nothing. Life has meaning, people have meaning, actions have meaning, or nothing at has meaning; the very word "meaning" is meaningless.
If there is truth we can discuss the nature of it. The truth is frequently inconvenient to our personal agendas, which is why there is a strong conflict of interest against it in our society today. As Nietzsche said, [if] “there is no truth, everything is permissible”. Nearly everyone has some rule they wish wasn't there. The difficulty is in recognizing that there are certain inconveniences that can be worth living with for the greater good of preserving the truth as a whole. Sometimes the only way to avoid the slippery slope is to hold what may seem to be, at least emotionally, an unnecessarily hard line. If the right to life is not absolute, then your right to life is not absolute. Quoting another German (Martin Niemöller) "First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."

In 1968, Pope Paul VI (6) issued the encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (Human Life). In it, he reaffirmed the Church's teaching against birth control, despite hopes from some quarters that he would change this doctrine (hint: he can't). He predicted that the widespread availability of birth control, which was initially available to only married couples, would result in widespread social ills, such as divorce, out of wedlock births, loss of respect and objectification of women, and government abusing this new technology as a means of social engineering. The world laughed and said he was an old fogy, completely out of touch. 45 years later, his predictions have come true in a tidal wave of teenage pregnancies, rampant STIs, 50% divorce rate, hook-up break-up culture – and somehow we have accepted this as normal and to some degree inevitable. It doesn't have to be this way. It wasn't this way before.

We consider ourselves the “land of the free”. As Uncle Ben reminds us, “with great power comes great responsibility”. There is a difference between freedom and license. Freedom is the right to do as one ought, the “right to do right”. License is, strictly defined, permission to do something, which may or may not be morally permissible. Nowadays when most people say freedom, they really mean license. They think ability, or the ability not to get caught, means permission. The test of character is what you do when no one is looking, or when you think you can get away with it. You do not have a right to do what is wrong, even if you have the ability. The “don't impose your morality on me” argument is bogus, since it attacks the very idea of law. Law is, precisely, imposed morality. The only question is what morality shall we impose. Taking the least common denominator of all known moral systems is not necessarily the best kind of law.

There are three options for a society. 1) People do the right thing on their own (self control); 2) people are forced to do the right thing by laws and law enforcement (state control), 3) neither, in which case you have anarchy (no control). The United States was founded under the assumption that the citizens would by and large practice #1, supplemented to a small extent by #2 (the “locks keep honest people honest” principle). We have seen the results of police states around the world; there is no freedom there. The only safeguard for freedom is to exercise our own freedom responsibly. When you get free candy out of the machine by shaking it, return a product that you broke yourself but claim it was defective, download a movie without paying for it, etc, you are reducing your own personal freedom and society's collective freedom. There's no such thing as a victimless crime. Every crime affects someone, even you. It is perhaps counterintuitive that by exercising freedom irresponsibly, you are reducing freedom in the world, by increasing the need for more state control. The state will always move to fill the control gap, and rightfully so, because the alternative is a slide into anarchy. The TSA is only a shadow of things to come if the vast majority of citizens do not exercise freedom responsibly.

It is because of these principles, or more accurately the erosion thereof, that I fear for the future of this country and this world. Religion (mainly Christianity, for this country) does not restrict freedom; it encourages it. It proposes a moral standard which can to a certain degree remove the need to have more laws and more law enforcement. It provides motivation beyond the reach of law, into the area of character, when no human may be looking on. As Chesterton would say, our problem is not that we have followed our faith too well, but that we have not followed it well enough.

I strayed rather far from the original topic, but I am finding it's hard to argue specific topics when people are no longer believing in the general principles that underlie them. As I said before, if there is truth, we can discuss the nature of it. If there is no truth, then there is nothing to discuss, and the direction our society takes will be dictated by numerical majority, or whichever side fights harder.

[MajorMajor]

This is going to be a long, long reply.

Top Ten (make that twenty, I couldn't pick just ten) Reasons Not to Vote for Obama (in No Particular Order)

1. Voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act 4 times. America's first pro-infanticide president?

2. Told Mevedev he would “be more flexible” after the election, in regard to nuclear disarmament, but the principle certainly applies to more than that.

3. Did not keep his promise regarding transparency and dissociation with lobbyists. Has stonewalled access to all kinds of information; Fast & Furious etc.

4. Had prior knowledge of the danger to our personnel and property in Libya based on previous attacks, and if he didn't, he should have. The State Department declined requests for additional security, even though the ambassador feared for his life. Still to this day some sources blame an amateurish Youtube video trailer which at the time of the attack had 300 views, for “spontaneous” riots in front of US facilities in 20 mostly Muslim countries, some of which "just happened" to include mortars and RPGs. Weeks later all the administration will say is “the investigation is ongoing.” In the aftermath of the attack, went to Vegas. Went before the United Nations and spent his time apologizing for our freedom of speech.

5. Reckless disregard for national security in releasing the video about killing bin Laden, conveniently 2 days before the election. A number of former Special Forces personnel have referred to this as a breach of national security, compromising far too much about our methods and capabilities.

6. Casualty rates in Afghanistan are approximately 3 times higher under Obama than under Bush. Also 2/3 of the total money spent in Afghanistan has been spent under Obama.

7. The price of gas has doubled since Obama took office. Obama has not issued permits for fossil fuel extraction on US federal land; all increased domestic production has been on permits issued under Bush, or on private land.

8. Coal provides 42% of US electricity. Under difficult environmental rules set by the EPA, 100 of 500 coal plants have shut down. Another 200 are set to shut down before 2016. The price of electricity, at least in certain areas, will increase dramatically.

9. Appeared on Letterman. (Should be a reason on its own). Was either unable or unwilling to state the value of the $16T national debt, when prompted by Letterman. Stated that the national debt was “not a problem in the short term, but only in the long term, and medium term” (meaning he thinks he can hold off the worst consequences until after the election or after his second term).

10. Skips about half of his intelligence briefings, even though we have troops actively deployed in two foreign wars.

11. Gave $90B to “green energy” initiatives, the majority of which failed and the leadership of which just happened to be major Democratic donors.

12. Falsely claimed that an executive order would contain Hyde amendment-like language that would prevent federal funding of abortions under Obamacare, which does not fall under the existing Hyde amendments. This lie was the reason some Democratic swing votes in the house voted for PPACA, allowing it to pass. I do not know if such an EO was ever written, but if it was, it will not stop the federal funding of abortions as Obama indicated.

13. The issues with Obamacare alone are sufficient reason to remove the Democrats from power to get it repealed. The cost is projected to be 2-3x what we were told when it was being voted on. Numerous penalties to individuals and businesses are far higher than projections. Health insurers are telling the government they will not implement many of the provisions, because they would be forced out of business if they do. 30% of doctors say they are considering leaving the medical profession due to the bureaucracy, costs, and decreased income. The idea of “no exceptions” for the Catholic Church etc is a farce, since the Amish are exempt, as are some 2000 organizations, mostly Democratic unions and the like.

14. Has pledged to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, forcing states to recognize same sex “marriages” performed in other states, and paving the way for recognition of same sex “marriage” at the federal level. As has already happened in numerous cases, this will result in widespread infringement on religious freedom, among other things.

15. Repealed Don't Ask Don't Tell, largely against the recommendations of military leadership.

16. Continues to repeat the lie that Romney will raise taxes by $5T. Numerous other studies have clarified the Tax Policy Center study that Obama cites as the basis for this number; the Princeton professor has gone on record saying that Obama is mischaracterizing his work.

17. Promised to halve the deficit; he doubled it.

18. Promised Social Security and Medicare reform. Has not even presented a proposal toward this goal.

19. Claimed the money from the bailout has been repaid. The same day, the CBO released a report saying the taxpayers are still out $24B.

20. Promised comprehensive immigration reform. The DREAM act is far from comprehensive and does nothing to secure our borders.

1. This is an interesting bill. I could see being inclined to vote against it because it is just a backdoor way to try and outlaw ALL abortion by the far right. That said I don't disagree with it in principle. Killing an infant who was just born is wrong. I just think it leaves out a few things.

The first problem is if an infant is born during an abortion it probably isn't going to live very long because abortion procedures commonly occur earlier than an infant can survive outside the womb. In that regard, the bill is completely useless because its trying to save someone who can't be saved. Second, if the procedure fails and the infant is born and lives then the bill doesn't seem to specify any procedure for adoption. This seems like an oversight because its blatantly obvious the parents didn't want the child in the first place.

2. We don't need more nukes. Heck, we don't even need all we have. Posessing more nukes than it takes to blow up the planet one time is just overkill. What are you expecting, an alien invasion?

3. This seems to be two complaints, one involving lobbyists and the other involving transparency of the fast and furious program. The first point involving lobbyists is one I will completely conceed. I will also point out that no politician in Washington disassoctiates themselves from lobbyists. Not Obama, not Romney.

I assume you are referring to Secretary Holder's refusal to release Justice Department documents. I don't recognize the lack of transparency here because it has everything to do with a congressional witch hunt. The Justice department released many documents freely and when congress didn't find anything they went and asked for more which had nothing to do with the investigation. The main blame for the program and where one should be looking for evidence of wrong doing is with the ATF since it was their program. The Justice department is a level up from that organization and while they likely knew about the program it isn't likely they knew the details of it.

4. I have no idea what Obama knew about the Libyan security situation and neither do you. What I can say is that we have hundreds of embassies and consulates around the world and if he was briefed on it then it probably wasn't in detail. We have a Secretary of State who's job it is to deal with this stuff. Obviously, she failed to keep aprised of the situation and provide necessary assistance. So while I fully grant that the administration failed I don't believe you can place the blame squarely on President Obama.

If you actually read Obama's speech in full you'd realize that he condemned the idiotic video the third-rate movie director made. Why not? Its a piece of hate mongering shit. More importantly if you continued past this part of the speech he STANDS UP FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Thats right, he STOOD UP for freedom of speech. Stop only reading things half way or only reading the partial quotes right wing news gives you.

5. I honestly don't get the part about it being released two days before some election. I'm not familiar with this time line you are referring to. They killed him and like a day later it was all over the news. That doesn't seem like they were holding anything for the right release date. As to them releasing too much information about various operations. I totally agree with you. But this isn't just an issue with Obama. President Bush was giving us play by play of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns which told the Taliban and Queda fighters exactly what our goals were. I figure any administration Republican or Democrat is going to bow to public pressure to know more about what is going on even if it doesn't make good sense.

6. Can you say the word "Surge"? I do believe we did this at the behest of our cheifs of staff. So it is reasonably non-political. If the rates are higher its because we sent more targets over there to walk down dusty roads.

7. Do I want another oil spill on my gulf? No, thank you. These permits were held up for this reason. As for gas, its a free market economy you seriously aren't suggesting he should manipulate the price of our commodities like a communist government are you?

8. Thank god we'll be breathing less smog. We should switch over to nuclear anyway.

9. Appearing on Letterman or Leno is an excellent way to get your message out. Romney should try it. Also, I completely agree that our debt is a problem which is looming. If it were a short term problem then we would be in a state of emergency and need to implement immediate austerity measures. We aren't quite there yet. Ergo, Obama wasn't wrong about it not being a problem in the short term but I'll grant it does depend on your idea of short, medium, and long-term.

10. This is the Presidency. Other things come up all the time. I'd bet if you looked back at our previous presidents you'd find they skipped equivalent numbers of important meetings. Plus, do you really want him taking too much of a personal interest in the operations of our military when it could better be left up to our commanders who know what they are doing? Its smart to leave it to the professionals.

11. Yes, some companies failed. This happens all the time with or without goverment intervention because no one can get it right all the time when investing money. Also, and this is important, YOU ARE COMPLETELY WRONG that those failing were a majority. They were a minority. Stop exagerating.

12. I honestly don't know much about this either. I'd expect Romney would have been attacking Obama mercilessly on this when asked about women's issues if he hadn't though. Anyone know more?

13. Already talked about this. Why repeal everything when you can just keep the things that work? It makes absolutely no sense and makes those who say it look dumb.

14. Among other what? I'd really like to know what horrible things you think will happen if homosexuals can get married. This is a religious freedom issue anyway. A schism in the church. Some believe in gay marriage some don't. Our constitution allows those that believe in it to exercise those rights. By no means do I believe a priest who doesn't believe in it being forced to marry two guys. I don't believe its constitutional to stop the ones who would marry them either.

15. About damn time. Being able to fight has absolutely nothing to do with your sexual preference. If some straight soldiers can't exercise enough self-control ( one of the major things they train you in when you join up) to work with homosexual soldiers they don't deserve to wear the uniform. Just suck it up and do your jobs.

16. You do know that three of the six sources Romney referred to were blogs right? If he were turning in a paper in college he'd be failed with sources he referred to. Plus do you honestly believe just ending loopholes is going to balance our massive budget? Get real. He'd have to make massive cuts if he didn't raise taxes. There is no other way to definitely get the money. I point out that not once has he ever state just how much money closing those loopholes/deductions would generate. I just want an figure. Preferrably one that actualy comes from somewhere other than thin air. If you can't produce that then you have no idea what his plan will do.

17. Yes, we have more debt. Do I like that? No. Do I think Romney will fix that any better than Obama? No.

18. He has done some medicare reform. Mainly through Obamacare. He reduced the funding of medicare so we wouldn't double up on spending for the same things through Obamacare. He also has made it a point to go after medicare fraud. Is there more that could be done? I'm sure there is. It'd be nice if congress would move on from trying to repeal Obamacare and submit some other legislation to him.

19. Most of the money has been repaid with interest the last I checked. Don't know what if any is still out there recently. Don't have time to google it right now after spending all my time writing this.

20. I do disagree with some of Obama's illegal immigrant policies. I like that he is letting those who were basically raised here stay by executive order. It would be ridiculous to deport people who didn't make the choice to come here and don't speak spanish. I do disagree with his opposition to the Arizona law which lets cops check immigration status. How else are we supposed to know who is legal and who is illegal? I think we need an amnesty program to allow illegals to stay and get their green cards while at the same time filtering out the felons and strengthening our border security to stop any more illegal crossings.

P.S. Why are Republicans blaming Obama for what he hasn't started to do when Bush and them had eight years to take care of these same issues? My answer: They are the party of NO and didn't want to do anything anyway.

[Magyk]

Shocked it took so long for someone to bring the Bush administration into the mix, that seems to be everyone's favorite area to point fingers at. They're like the Alex Rodriguez of American politics.

[Maximus]

We went at it back in 2008 on a lot of issues at which time you made it pretty clear that you are liberal in most senses of the word, so I'm not going to waste a lot of time with you. My latter long post is probably more relevant for you than is this list.

4. I have no idea what Obama knew about the Libyan security situation and neither do you. What I can say is that we have hundreds of embassies and consulates around the world and if he was briefed on it then it probably wasn't in detail. We have a Secretary of State who's job it is to deal with this stuff. Obviously, she failed to keep aprised of the situation and provide necessary assistance. So while I fully grant that the administration failed I don't believe you can place the blame squarely on President Obama.

If you actually read Obama's speech in full you'd realize that he condemned the idiotic video the third-rate movie director made. Why not? Its a piece of hate mongering shit. More importantly if you continued past this part of the speech he STANDS UP FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Thats right, he STOOD UP for freedom of speech. Stop only reading things half way or only reading the partial quotes right wing news gives you.

Yes that's precisely the point. (Rush and company did play the majority of the speech, for the record.) Almost reluctantly, the general feeling of his statement on freedom of speech was, “we're really sorry, the government had nothing to do with the video, we can't stop our people from “blaspheming the prophet of Islam”, please stop attacking us!!!11” The administration spent 2 weeks placing motivation for the attack on a video that practically no one had seen. It had been out two months, then suddenly on a “random” day (Sept 11) the terrorists decided to get all mad about it and attack our embassy with hundreds of well armed troops, or so the picture they painted went. More and more information is emerging to the effect about how much Washington (CIA/State Dept/White House) knew; the only part not clear is how far what particular information was flowed upstream at what time. Hilary is apparently torn between taking the fall for the sake of party loyalty for the current election, and damaging her reputation for her inevitable run in '16. The intel community and State Dept. are starting to leak information that makes the picture look worse as to what the higher levels (WH etc) had been told. I have yet to hear of any credible source beneath the WH level that seriously suggested to their management that a video was responsible for all of the violence. It sounds suspiciously like a very desperate cover story thrown together by the WH press staff just to have something to say. The entire situation would have been much better off if Obama had simply given a little more attention to the situation, and refused to say anything other than “the investigation is ongoing”. With the election so close they may have judged that more damaging and simply gone with the video story since it makes Obama look like he has a handle on things.
We know from previous information that Obama skips about half of his daily security briefings with his staff and only reads the summary or the abbreviated versions. Combine that with his at best boorish attitude toward relations with Israel and you get a picture of either 1) incompetence or 2) a position of subtle but steady empowerment toward the Muslim world. The first American ambassador killed in 30 years, and Obama doesn't call for a security meeting, he just wanders off to another fundraiser in Vegas. Politics is quite a bit about appearance, and even though realistically there wasn't much he could have done personally after the fact, the nonchalance he displayed at such an action is concerning to say the least. Basically, acknowledging this attack was a planned terrorist attack, and by extension that Al Qaeda is alive and well, is to acknowledge that his foreign policy of encouraging the “Arab spring” has simply created a power vacuum into which radical Islamists have stepped and exploited, and are now turning against us. It also detracts from the supposedly great victory of killing bin Laden.

I honestly don't get the part about it being released two days before some election. I'm not familiar with this time line you are referring to. They killed him and like a day later it was all over the news. That doesn't seem like they were holding anything for the right release date. As to them releasing too much information about various operations. I totally agree with you. But this isn't just an issue with Obama. President Bush was giving us play by play of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns which told the Taliban and Queda fighters exactly what our goals were. I figure any administration Republican or Democrat is going to bow to public pressure to know more about what is going on even if it doesn't make good sense.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1790885/
Apparently I received inaccurate information on this one. I was told the release date was going to be the first weekend of November, a rather convenient timing. However IMDB is saying December.
Due to the massive leak of information right after the raid, the Pakistani doctor, without whom we would not have had solid enough intel for Obama to decide to go in, will spend decades in prison. That's going to impact intelligence gathering all over the world; no one wants to work with us if they're going to take the fall for it. It also removed the element of surprise from utilizing any information gathered at bin Laden's compound.
Obama, probably as any politician in office would, takes credit for ObL as if it was all him. He opposed “aggressive interrogation” (waterboarding) without which we would likely have never found ObL. It was Bush that put us in Afghanistan, within striking distance of where we eventually found ObL. I don't say I agree with all or even most of these actions, but in all honesty, the credit goes mostly to Bush, military, CIA, intelligence sources, pretty much everybody than Obama. He just happened to be in the right place to get the political credit for the kill, after everybody else set up and took the shot for him.

Do I want another oil spill on my gulf? No, thank you. These permits were held up for this reason. As for gas, its a free market economy you seriously aren't suggesting he should manipulate the price of our commodities like a communist government are you?

I grew up on the Gulf Coast so I care about the beach as much as anybody. There were multiple red flags in the case of Deepwater Horizon. BP/Transocean had something like 180 safety violations on record, in comparison to Exxon and some other companies having single digits. DH was a completely preventable disaster, just like Chernobyl was. Probably any sitting administration would have temporarily cut back permits and done audits to make sure the problem was not systemic, but now that that one is over and the lessons have been learned, we need to get back to energy production. In the long term we certainly need to work towards alternative/sustainable. Fossil fuel is “not optimal” (kind of like having our ambassador killed), but realistically it's the only thing that's going to get this economy out of a recession within this decade. If the economy is functioning we can put more private, and perhaps public, funding into advancing that technology faster than when we're stuck in recession.

Thank manatee we'll be breathing less smog. We should switch over to nuclear anyway.

An interesting position, especially considering the enviro huggers shut that down decades ago. The only thing that sends them into hysterics faster than hydrocarbons is nuclear anything. We have far safer and more efficient reactor designs than ever before, but we're not likely to be allowed to build them. One of Obama's staff (don't feel like looking it up) says he'd be just fine with $8-10/gallon gas. Good luck trying to recover the economy when Obama is hitting the middle class with the full costs of Obamacare AND doubling energy prices (which of course affect the prices of everything that isn't produced locally, which is just about everything).

Yes, some companies failed. This happens all the time with or without goverment intervention because no one can get it right all the time when investing money. Also, and this is important, YOU ARE COMPLETELY WRONG that those failing were a majority. They were a minority. Stop exagerating.

I would be interested to see an extensive list of the supposed successes of the green energy initiatives, particularly those enabled by public funding under Obama. Sure, Chevy is building the Volt, but from what I hear they're not exactly flying off the shelves.

16. You do know that three of the six sources Romney referred to were blogs right? If he were turning in a paper in college he'd be failed with sources he referred to. Plus do you honestly believe just ending loopholes is going to balance our massive budget? Get real. He'd have to make massive cuts if he didn't raise taxes. There is no other way to definitely get the money. I point out that not once has he ever state just how much money closing those loopholes/deductions would generate. I just want an figure. Preferrably one that actualy comes from somewhere other than thin air. If you can't produce that then you have no idea what his plan will do.

Yes, we need massive cuts. Welfare, not including SS/Medicare, now account for $1T annually under Obama, up (from my bad memory) about 30% since Bush.

Most of the money has been repaid with interest the last I checked. Don't know what if any is still out there recently. Don't have time to google it right now after spending all my time writing this.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-w ... 24-billion
The CBO report is linked. Summary: of the $700B authorized, $417B was disbursed, with another $14B projected, for a total of $431. Of that, $325B has been repaid, $27B “written off”, and $65B outstanding. They are projecting the “subsidy cost” to be $24B.
Yes, TARP was a Bush program, and there is the potential that much of the outstanding $65B may be repaid. But Obama just says “we got back every dime”, which is at this point in time incorrect. It shows his same flippant attitude toward financial matters as his comment on Letterman that he “doesn't know precisely” what the debt is. Obama of course voted for TARP as a Senator. Quite a few fiscal conservatives were against TARP, and didn't really care for a lot of Bush's fiscal policies. He was the “spendingist” president we had until Obama.

[Darth_Wayne]

CHEW obsessed with butt fucking, it seems. Just making an observation.

Men were also fucking (more specifically, raping) animals in ancient Rome (and Greece and Britain and Germany and India and the rest of the world), so would that be traditional, too?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VKWLC87Uzw

Still happening bro!

[Turquoise Dragon]

CHEW obsessed with butt fucking, it seems. Just making an observation.

Men were also fucking (more specifically, raping) animals in ancient Rome (and Greece and Britain and Germany and India and the rest of the world), so would that be traditional, too?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VKWLC87Uzw

Still happening bro!

Ya think? I have a few distant aquaintances into that stuff. It gets very creepy/awkward at times.

[Ramshi]

I'm normally rather interested in this political sort of discussion but this = tl;dr

[Magyk]

I like the arguing, but not the logic.

[MajorMajor]

Shocked it took so long for someone to bring the Bush administration into the mix, that seems to be everyone's favorite area to point fingers at. They're like the Alex Rodriguez of American politics.

Well when you spend eight years breaking the country...

The question is whether or not Obama spent four years trying to put it back together again or took a hammer and bashed it into smaller pieces.

Then we have to decide if Romney is actually writing things down in permanent or if it is a dry erase marker when telling us what he is going to do.

My opinion is Romney is giving us the Sunshine and Rainbows speech like all politicians. We can keep recovering SLOWLY with Obama who we know or we can pick Romney and hope he doesn't turn that around. Romney is like taking a chance when you already have a sure bet. To me Obama is better even if it is only the five dollars in your pocket and not the millions you could win.

@Maximus:

I took a look at your earlier link. After reading points one and two I'm not sure you should be taking advice from a guy who would prefer we play a game of nuclear chicken with China and Russia.

That should be the most disturbing thing about your post since it risks utter anihilation but what really bothers me is that you think PETA is a radical anti-Christian group. I'm honestly worried you're going off the deep end with that one. Please come back to the center. Heck, please come back to the far right.

I'm having trouble determining whether in your argument you would prefer more state control or less state control. I say this because you make the case that laws are an extension of morality. If so then you appear to want laws imposed that are Christian. You appear against the freedom of people to make choices. But what strikes me as counter to this is you also appear to be afraid of state control.

Also, the whole point of democracy is that decisions are dictated by the numerical majority. Are you against democracy now too?

Reading what you've written I get the sense not just that you are afraid but that you are terrified. I have trouble reconciling this with the idea that you are a person of faith. This is becuase if one has faith that things will work out in the end then there is no need to be terrified.

Throughout many years people have said that certain changes will destroy America or its various institutions. Whether it is letting women vote, wear higher skirts, letting blacks vote, or marry white people, or letting gays serve in the military, or get married, none of these things have destroyed America. The shoe has not dropped. I have faith that it will not drop. There is no reason to be terrified of the future because of social change. Nations aren't destroyed by that. People aren't killed by that. They may be killed for it. Nations may be destroyed for it. But that is other people hurting people. Other nations destroying nations. Not divine wrath or some judgement on society in general.

Don't be afraid. Be kind to others. If your path is the one meant for them then they will see it through your heart, your kind works, your reason, and they will change and it will spread.