The Etch-A-Sketch Candidate

Barack Obama has the erasure talents of a wizard. With fantastic "1984" Orwellian flair, Team Obama has scrubbed from existence some highly important statements made by their candidate. Most recently, they sanitized the Obama campaign website of all of his previous criticisms of the U.S. military surge in Iraq, particularly his description of it as a "problem." The surge is, of course, a major military and political success, so Obama needs to chuck his previous position on it (which got him nominated) and go neutral. He can't actually embrace the right side of history, of course, because that would be a bridge too far.

This week, WorldNetDaily.com pointed out that on July 2nd, Obama gave a "call to service" speech that included his desire to create a "civilian national security force" that was just as big, "strong," and "well-funded" as the military.

Huh? He is calling for a separate military and police force with the same power and resources as the existing (and constitutional) military, and no one noticed? No one raised any questions about its constitutionality, cost, and reach? What, exactly, did he mean? No one knows, because you're not allowed to ask.

And no one knows because this statement has also been scrubbed from the official transcript of that speech. It still exists in YouTube land, but with the Obama erasure experts at work, there's no telling how long it will stay there.

All of this is very Stalinesque: making inconvenient or controversial statements just disappear, vaporized into thin air, as if they were never spoken. "What? I didn't say that. You must be crazy!"

The guy has us questioning our own sanity. Now THAT'S an effective--and totally terrifying and creepy---presidential campaign. Something tells me that the second he becomes president, all of these statements will become policy, and he'll say, "What? I told you I was going to do this. Didn't you hear me?"

Until then we are witnessing the Etch-A-Sketch candidacy: now you see it, shake shake, now you don't.

Comments

[SteveOk]

(Obama's Website):"Barack Obama believes we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. Immediately upon taking office, Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq: ending the war. The removal of our troops will be responsible and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government. Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of 1 to 2 brigades a month that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 – more than 7 years after the war began."
--------------------------------------------
What bothers me about his withdrawal plan is what "military experts" is he talking about? He has baked (half) a withdrawal plan and hasn't talked, as far as I know, with any of the commanders on the field in Iraq. Has he talked with General Petraeus before coming up with his plan? We have a one term Senator who doesn't know anything about national security and military issues who has devised a grand withdrawal plan with a fixed date certain and we don't know who he consulted with other than Michelle Obama.

His main beef with the surge is the lack of political progress in Iraq, which is the standard leftwing blathering points. The problem with his stump speeches is they are a little out of date. There has been significant progress on the political front and he refuses to acknowledge the facts. His stump speeches do not inspire me, they turn my stomach. The guy is a liar and a Nigerian Scammer.

[Ummahgummah]

I ended my last post on the prevous thread with the following paragraph:

After the election all but the most radical of the libs will say: This is not the Obama I knew!

LOL

And we'll be out of the country telling the rest of you: WE TOLD YOU SO!!!

[Ummahgummah]

Can you imagine the judges this guy will appoint??!!

Ruth Bader Ginsburg will look like a Constitutionalist compared to rev. Wrong, Michelle-O, William Ayers, Father [you ain't no catholic, you is a mullah] Krekkar, and Keith X Ellison.

Maybe he should choose his Veep from among one of these...

[SteveOk]

Ummah, I listen to a recent speech he made to a Latino group and I was amazed. This guy is a pure open borders, complete amnesty leftwinger. He even badmouths the law enforcement officers for doing their job (ICE). If you think we have an illegal immigration problem now, just wait until he is elected with a Democratic controlled Congress. He will give you complete amnesty and an open border that will let untold millions in with no checks whatsoever. And then to top it with a cherry, they will get full welfare/medical benefits including national health care and citizenship/voting rights. What a country.

[gringoman]

Monica,

Re the leftniki and Barack Obama '1984 Orwellian flair' you mention, I think we must credit GAB's Gringorella with a startling insight (whether intentional or not.)

The less comotose among us associate 'Orwellian' with the ominous 'Big Brother,' as you would know.

Of course, that sounds a bit dated to the "hip" or the "now" types. It reeks of commissars, mind control, personal destruction, mass manipulation etc. It sounds so 'Back in the USSR.'

What's Big Brother got to do with PC and "speech codes" and "sensitivity training" and instant revisionism and Obama's David Axelrod Memory Hole, and media stars knowing what will happen to them if they step over a certain line?

Gringorella, even if inadvertently, put his (I think) finger on who rules today, in the Politically Correct Republic of America.

That's right: the dreaded BIG BUBBY...... (gringoVision grants fair use to the deserving.)

[gringoman]

Barack Obama, prior to his "Presidential-like" World Tour with MSM rock-like accompaniment, has lectured Americans on learning to speak a language he does not himself speak, i.e. Espanyol. He made no mention of something else he may or may not speak: "body language," although we've heard and seen much on Mr. Obama's poise etc.

In the spirit of that sometimes arcane linguistic group....

July 18, 2008 Gringommentary: OBAMA BODY LANGUAGE. Here is a foto of Barack Obama with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. No need for any gringomanic prompting or commenting. You may put on your body language reading glasses and see what you see.

Now at http://www.gringoman.com
We Link/You Think (gringoVision grants....etc)

Escaping Politically Correct

[Ummahgummah]

Gringoman.. I checked out the picture in Washington Notes.. all I can see is a smiling Obama holding Brown at arm's length.

Maybe the guy has bad breath.

I don't see anything wrong with what Obama is doing in that particular picture.

I am of course openminded enough to be convinced otherwise.

What i definitely did NOT like was the tone of the article designating Brussels as the "capital of Europe".

The writer is definitely a U.nited N.azis / UESSR supporting one-world globalist.

[gringoman]

from REVEREND GRINGO (serving on the Gringo Advisory Board)

Dear Monica:

On the 'Etch-a-Sketch' man (our congregation likes that) recently I posted (with links) two questions for him. He could answer these on his World Rockabama Tour with Katie, Brian and the ABC guy.

1. Does he approve or disapprove of France's refusing citizenship to a woman who wants to wear a burqa?

2. Does he approve or disapprove of the decision by Holland's "Iron Lady" to ban outright the burqa?

Well, Monica, while he and David Axelrod are pondering those, here is a third one for them.

3. The Germans are now strongly opposing the building of a big mosque in their country. Does Obama (and David) agree with them or disagree? Link provided. Speak up, fellas. We are listening.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,565146,00.html

God Bless
Pray for the sodomites and liberals.
Have you hugged your Bible today?

[Ummahgummah]

Steve, that's exactly what I am thinking. At least there will be some Republicans to try and rein him in if Mexicain wins.. but HUSSEIN Obama.. we won't recognize this place when he is done!

Can there a be Constitutional challenge if he gives passports to all the illegals?

They're all going to vote dhimmicrat and that means for a share of YOUR and my money!

[gringoman]

from REVEREND GRINGO (serving on the Gringo Advisory Board)

Dear Monica:

On the 'Etch-a-Sketch' man (our congregation likes that) recently I posted (with links) two questions for him. He could answer these on his World Rockabama Tour with Katie, Brian and the ABC guy.

1. Does he approve or disapprove of France's refusing citizenship to a woman who wants to wear a burqa?

2. Does he approve or disapprove of the decision by Holland's "Iron Lady" to ban outright the burqa?

Well, Monica, while he and David Axelrod are pondering those, here is a third one for them.

3. The Germans are now strongly opposing the building of a big mosque in their country. Does Obama (and David) agree with them or disagree? Link provided. Speak up, fellas. We are listening.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,565146,00.html

God Bless
Pray for the sodomites and liberals.
Have you hugged your Bible today?

[Ummahgummah]

Gringoman.. I am afraid that HUSSEIN-O will try to bomb Europe into submission if they continue to pipe up against the unwanted murderers in their midst!!

He's coming just in time from an islamist's point of view when it comes to cowing the Europeans into "accepting pigslam!"

[Ummahgummah]

Redsistance is now forming in Denmark.. Holger Dånsker is awakening!!

See link in next post!

Scroll to second and third articles. They are in English.

[Ummahgummah]

https://sioe.wordpress.com/

[Ummahgummah]

We MUST keep Obama out of office or Europe will be in GRAVE DANGER!!

The amti-islamic resistance is still a tender fragile one which must be nourished until it grows so strong that it will sweep the forces of evil back across Asia Minor!

One day even Konstantinopoulos shall be liberated and returned to Greece!

[gringoman]

UG,

What I saw in that foto of the grinning O with Brit Prime Minister Gordon Brown (a pretty cold fish in his own right.)....

Yes, proper smile, facial expression all right. The give-away, at least to me, was in a rather rigid, or tightly clenched body. The good smile probably would have distracted most viewer's attention from the tell-tale tightness of body. To me, it was like the following stream-of-consciousness going through Obambi's head....

"....What am I really doing here? How is this happening? Can anyone tell I'm wondering too...These Brits, they got it down pat with their manner and this protocol crap. They're nothing anymore, but they still got the manner, like they're still the lords. So freakin' cool about
it,too, ain't nothin' like the dummy Americans who got all that power and so what? These Brits are too much. They still remember things Americans never knew---how to rule others. Now I could feel like a little preppie punk, and they would never let you know they see it in you. Thank God, or Allah, that David told Michelle to stay home. Thank God, or Allah, she listened to him. This is no place for a homegirl doin' stand-in for First Lady. Yeah, thank God, or Allah. Why do I feel they see right through me like Americans don't? Colonial masters, hundreds of years. Do they? Do they really see right through all of us?...."

But maybe it was just me. You might be right. Most probably won't see what I thought was stiffness in his body
language with "Lord" Brown.

[timothy_d11]

Karen Says: Larry Yates @ 53:

We need to find a word to describe the white Southern political grouping that moved from the Democratic to the Republican Party beginning in the 1960s and pretty much completing its move by the 1980s. In Virginia, this group was exemplified by Governor Mills Godwin, who served two non-consecutive terms, the first as a Harry Byrd Democrat, and the second as a Republican. Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott and many others began as Democrats, but left the party in protest against the increasing power of African-Americans in the party. That white Southern group has been the most powerful single force in US politics since the 1850s, despite its treason in 1861.

There is a word: Dixiecrats.

And the shifting alliances among respective Democratic and Republican coalition groups has been going on since the two parties had a duopoly on the federal government. The Republicans were severely split in the early 20th Century, a split that ultimately put Democrat Woodrow Wilson in the White House when Theodore Roosevelt broke from the Republicans, and ran against President Taft as a member of the [brace yourselves] Progressive Party.

Franklin Roosevelt’s progressive platform later began to transform the Democratic Party into one that pushed for a stronger federal government, one that could ensure the welfare of all Americans, and one that could begin to address the plight of racial minorities. Harry Truman continued in that tradition by adding Universal Health Care to the official Democratic platform and racially integrating the military. Infuriated long-time Democrats like Strom Thurmond began leaving the party in the 1940s, and Thurmond once ran for president as a Dixiecrat on the slogan, “Segregation Now, Segregation Forever.”

With a coalition of strong-fed progressives and more traditionalist holdovers in the south, the Democrats might have been unstoppable, had Richard Nixon not perceived a winning “Southern Strategy” — bring the racist Dixiecrats over to the Republicans in droves, and forge a coalition of Goldwater Republicans and Crazy, Authoritarian, Racist Republicans.

About the only thing the modern Republican Party has now with its founders is the faith in free markets, though their devotion to fiscal responsibility has been tossed out the window in favor of unlimited war spending. Their embrace of outright Theocrats — a neo-Southern Strategy, if you will — has pushed their more libertarian/Goldwater elements to the left, and soon there will be nothing left of the so called Party of Lincoln.

Republicans are no longer the GOP. They are the party of WASTE:

Warmongering, Authoritarian, Spendthrift, Talibaptist Egotists.

Neither Abraham Lincoln, nor Teddy Roosevelt, nor Barry Goldwater nor Martin Luther King would have anything to do with them.

[timothy_d11]

charlie reina Says:

Yes, the Republican Party was founded in opposition to slavery, championed civil rights amendments a century ago, and was the minority party in the Democrat-controlled segregationist South in the first half or more of the 20th Century. But in OUR lifetime, well, that’s another story. When Harry Truman reinvented his party as a force for racial equality, those segregationist Democrats took flight and followed Strom Thurmond, first to his Dixiecrat Party, and then to the Republican Party. By the mid-1960’s, there were just enough old-line southern Democrats in Congress to mount an internecine challenge to Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights legislation, but Johnson won the day. And by the end of that decade, it was the Republican Party that took up the obstructionist cause. The idea was to wrest the South from Democratic control by appealing to the segregationist sensibilities that remained in many parts of the South. It was called the Southern Strategy, and it worked. One by one, Republicans championing “states’ rights” and other anti-civil rights causes were elected to seats in the House and Senate long held by Democrats. Only one Democratic presidential candidate — a southerner, Jimmy Carter, in 1976 — has won the South since 1968. And from 1980 forward, the South has been a virtual presidential-year lock for Republicans. Fortunately, the principle of racial equality has won-over most Americans, Republicans and Democrats in the North and South. But to say that the Republican Party is the party of civil rights is to reinvent America’s modern, and most relevant, history.

[timothy_d11]

Jusker Says:

Teddy Roosevelt (R) established the first National Park. Now the Repugs want to destroy those same parks in the name of commercial enterprise. WTF

[timothy_d11]

Norse Says:

Well, first you need to divide it into blocks, and hand out to oil companies,

then they need to send survey ships to do geological surveys, mainly with sonars for the seafloor, and suchlike, to find places where there potentially may be oil stocked up, based on “plugs” they find on their scan of the earth, and analyse said pictures.

Then they need to send out drilling ships to drill several test wells, to locate actual oil.

Then they need to drill several more wells, to establish how large the field is, and if it is worth putting to production.

Then you need an actual production platform.

Several of these ships, and most likely the production of platforms, are bound into contracts for years ahead, and probably the personnell to make platforms as well. Moving platforms from producing wells, to unsurveyed, undrilled, untested areas is pretty much bs.

[timothy_d11]

steve davis Says:

Yes, you have to build the rig. Why do you have to build the rig? Because the damned things cost several hundred million dollars apiece, and they eat up so much steel that there’s a 5-year backlog before any of the rigs in service, or expected to come into service, could possibly get moved to the continental shelf. I should know. I own SeaDrill, and every available rig was recently snatched up for the deep-water project off Brazil. And SeaDrill has more rigs on order, which are also already under lease for when they are ready to come online.

[timothy_d11]

steve davis @ 18:

Yes, you have to build the rig. Why do you have to build the rig? Because the damned things cost several hundred million dollars apiece, and they eat up so much steel that there’s a 5-year backlog before any of the rigs in service, or expected to come into service, could possibly get moved to the continental shelf. I should know. I own SeaDrill, and every available rig was recently snatched up for the deep-water project off Brazil. And SeaDrill has more rigs on order, which are also already under lease for when they are ready to come online.

Brendan Says:

Good lord, man. Stop introducing facts into this. You’ll ruin the entire political process

[timothy_d11]

Lindsay @ 36:

Capitalism isn`t the problem greed is.

Backwoods Says:

You’re right but the structure of greed in this country is corporatism. when asked if you are against capitalism, you say no, but corporations allow the greedy to abuse capitalism, therefore the need for regulations and laws. They frame the discussion, they want you to admit you’re a commie, you tell them to kiss your a$$ and re-frame it.

[timothy_d11]

Charles Says:

Next they’ll just skip telling us we need to drill and not waste time trying to manage the perceptions of the citizens of this country that we need to drill and just make platforms and drill. We’re so dumb we wouldn’t know if they were doing it and since it wouldn’t be on the news we would only hear it from Greenpeace or independent sources. Then they could just sneak an insert in next year’s federal transportation budget bill to make it legal and we would be none the wiser.

There are no supply problems. Any oil drilled on our own land or in our own waters goes into an international pool and is sold on the open market so we will never see a decrease in the price until the speculation is taken out of the trading pits. If anyone tells you that drilling on our own land will make us energy independent or it will make for cheaper gas is a liar. The people who tell these lies expect that you’re not smart enough or don’t have time enough to research it yourself because you’re too busy making slave wages so you can put $4 per gallon gas into your cars.

[timothy_d11]

tee-hee Says:

So after they do all the surveys
and do test bores
and do actually find oil
and then they find out the field is actually big enough to make it economically feasible to pump
and after they move the rigs
and drill the production wells
and pump the oil...

who do they sell it to?

Why do these Fox a$$holes assume the United States automatically gets all the oil from those wells?

These conservatives are always all holy and righteous about the free market and capitalism, but they pretend that doesn’t exist when it’s time to sell the oil. They pretend all the oil drilled from offshore and ANWR will go to the US exclusively.

They ignore how huge the amount they have to find and pump in order to raise global supply levels enough to reduce the price caused by demand.

Fuc#ing dishonest retards. They better find an oil reserve the size of Saudia Arabia if they want to reduce supply enough to cause gas prices to drop more than a few cents per gallon.

I would so love to see all the Florida retirees and South Carolina conservatives and Texas goopers who screamed for this $hit, then look out their condo window on the coast and see oil rigs (and oil spills) and then see a fleet of Chinese and Indian tankers out there waiting to take all “their” oil away.

You don’t get to go around preaching holy Freemarket this and sacred Freemarket that, then pretend it’s a top-down economy when it comes to explaining how this oil that hasn’t even been found yet is gonna end up making gas cheap in the US.

Fuc#ing dishonest retards. Conservatives. Redundant.

[timothy_d11]

Charles Says:

Right. You must understand that this “free market” activity is anything but. They pool all the oil into an international market and then it gets bid and contracts are applied. This is done for total control of the commodity so that OPEC or Russia or the Venezuela doesn’t dump their oil to flood the market and drive down prices. That is also one of the main reasons that there will always be speculation built into the trading pits. The other is that there is no incentive for Exxon/Mobil to have lower priced oil. They’re making so much money, you think they want lower pricing? This is a totally fixed market. And the other funny thing is that the investment banks are using our 401k and hedge fund dollars to drive up the price of oil purchasing and selling oil futures. Shearson Lehman is holding $1 trillion in futures contracts alone. And they bet it long. So if the price of oil crashes, they lose massive amounts of money (most of it being ours).

[timothy_d11]

tee-hee Says:

"Environmental laws simply make it not worth the effort for any company to attempt to build a refinery, there are too many opposing factors, you have environmental lobbyists, hunters, land developers, etc, then you have concerned citizens in the local area that will need to be appeased, AND THEN you have the strict environmental regulations that must be followed to the letter at great expense."

Oh fuc#in’ pleeeeze. Not worth the effort? Too expensive? For oil companies that make record profits — ten to 11 billion dollars profit every three months? You lying sack of $hit.

No, if the argument that what’s causing high prices is the bottleneck due to limited refinery capacity is true, then what’s “not worth the effort” is not due to the cost — they can afford dozens of new refineries — but the effect new refineries would have on supply prices.

More refineries, no more supply bottleneck.
No more bottleneck, no more high prices
No more high prices, no more record profits

Blaming it on environmental laws is just more Conservative bulls#it coverup lies.

If there’s a bottleneck at the refineries, it’s because the oil companies want it that way.

Fuc#ing dishonest retards. Conservatives. Redundant.

[timothy_d11]

"You must understand that this “free market” activity is anything but"

tee-hee Says:

Never a truer sentence written, Charles, evah.

The “free market” these conservatives love to extol is as controlled as any communist economy, but it’s controlled for the benefit of the Exxon/Mobils and the Sherson Lehmans of the world.

In other words, folks, it’s rigged for them and theirs, and as a bonus they get to be all holier-than-thou while dishonestly conflating “free market” and “free enterprise” with “freedom” and “democracy” in the course of telling you of the wonderful benefits said free market provides for you at $5.85 an hour.

[timothy_d11]

k Says:

That’s it ! I’ve fuc#ing had it with Fox’s attempts at placing esthetically appealing people in the place of smart, credible people. Have you seen traders lately ? They’re coked out of their minds and money is the first and foremost preoccupation of their entire lives. Greed is good? How about extortion and white collar crimes. The bimbo had nothing to say. I am tired of idiots with good looks taking the mic - we need to smack them in the face WITH the mic or just ignore them. Take a little about Hayek and see how far they go, even if it’s in keeping with their economic values (do they really have any values ?). I haven’t seen the clip, but if I do, I might as well punch a hole in the wall, because I fear getting really angry. I was reading some posts by the NYU Stern Business school prof Nouriel Roubini and he had something interesting in there...Socialized the losses and privative the gains...Let those rich bitches (geared more towards those male-whores that snif and emit stupid predictions) suffer because of their bad bets, as opposed to having my tax dollar salvage their careers. Fucking assholes.

[timothy_d11]

"So if the price of oil crashes, they lose massive amounts of money (most of it being ours)."

tee-hee Says:

Privatize the profits, socialize the losses.

Typical fuc#in’ conservative agenda.

We’ve already seen this with the Bear Stearns bailout, and the Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae gov’t loans. BS execs made billions off of securities backed by mortagages they knew were under water, and the financial institutions used Freddy and Fanny as their reliable no-questions-asked buyer for the endless stream of shitty mortagages they knew they were writing. And they all made tens of billions in fees. And predictably they all bitched and moaned about taxes and capital gains and how taxing the rich would only harm everyone else, and how they deserved the outrageous amounts of money they were getting paid, how they were entitled to the grotesque bonuses they were taking home.

And when the bottom dropped out, as it must because as they were enriching themselves they were bankrupting their companies.

And now fuc#ing look what happened: Everybody has to pay to cover their losses.

They made billions, ran their companies into the ground, then cashed out. We the people get stuck holding the bag, to the tune of $30 billion for BS and god knows how much for the others.

Thirty billion to pay for the rich men’s party. How do you like that demonstration of the great Republican free market?

It’s the Ownership Society. And you just got owned.

[timothy_d11]

Drilling solves nothing (aka right wing hater) Says:

Hey Naomi....here is what you say to that 5 to 6 year BS...

In addition, new hydrocarbon fields are increasingly found in deep-water regions that are arduous to exploit. The paucity of the specialized equipment needed to extract oil from such new reserves has created a bottleneck in future offshore production. The world’s current fleet of specialized drill ships is booked until 2013. The price of building such a vessel has taken a five-fold jump to $500 million in the last year. The cost of crucial materials — such as steel for rigs and pipelines — has risen sharply. So, too, have salaries for skilled manpower in the industry. Little wonder then that while, in 2002, it cost $150,000 a day to hire a deep-water rig, it now costs four times as much.

[Ree]

More on Obama's magical tour of the Middle East.

http://bellalu0.wordpress.com/

[Ummahgummah]

All of Fred's rantings and insults aside.. I never thought this site needed a monitor before.

But to have to scroll past hours of the deluded ravings of a Koolaid-drinking KOTZ-kid is more than I can take.

[SteveOk]

A picture of what an Obama President would do is coming into focus now. Here is a few things that we know:

(1) He has set a fixed date certain for withdrawal from Iraq. We don't know who he consulted with in making this decision but we know he didn't consult with General Petraeus or any other commanders in the Middle East. This date is fixed and no matter what events happened he has promised to withdraw our troops.

(2) He is committed to letting the Bush tax cuts expire. The Bush tax cuts were an across the board tax decrease for everyone who paid taxes. What this means is an across the board tax increase for everyone. Anyone who pays taxes will have a tax increase under Obama. He has also proposed an increase in taxes on captial gains and dividends which will effect anyone who has a 401k or retirement account.

(3) He is a pure open borders/amnesty Democrat. If even has the gall to criticize our law enforcement people for enforcing our immigration laws. Not only is for open borders but he is willing to give illegals full citizenship and welfare benefits.

(4) He has proposed national health insurance for everyone which will mean huge increases in government spending. We don't know where he will get the money but one good guess is increases in taxes.

(5) One can only shudder at the prospect of what type of Federal Judges he will appoint. As the most liberal member of Congress who voted against the most qualified Justice in our history-John Roberts-you can rightly assume he will appoint liberal judges who will be more than willing to rewrite the Constitution to fit their leftwing political agenda.

(6) God only knows what type of influence his wife will have on an Obama Administration and she would be the most radical leftwing First Lady ever. I believe they attended Jeremiah Wright's church because of her.

This is only a partial list with more to come.

[timothy_d11]

Try reading it DUMMAH - you may lose some of your tremendous ignorance.

[timothy_d11]

1) It's way past time to get out of Iraq.

2) I don't know about you but my taxes changed very little over the last 15 years and if you make less than $50K yours didn't either. But you're d@mn right, it's time for the rich to pay for this war and the military industrial complex.

3) The Republican conservitard God Ronald Reagan gave amnesty to illegals - it was probably one of the few things he did right. Seal the borders and give the "illegals" a humane and compassionate path to being legal.

4) Sorry dope, if the free market can't affordably fit all citizens under the health care umbrella then it's time to tweak the system.

5) GW appointed 2 judges? Balance says it's out turn - get over it.

6) Fear mongering nonsense not even worthy of a serious rebuttal.

[Dgscol]

The decline in the price of oil signals the beginning of the end of the struggle over oil with Asia. The bankers are acknowledging that the American public does not want to divest in the US and invest in Shanghai.

The mortgages were being used as instruments to keep this investiture going, and now this Sorosian scheme has blown up, leaving a mess in its wake and some sympathetic Congressmen.

Looks more and more like America is interested in new high tech industry.

God Bless the USA

[timothy_d11]

Chris Rich Says:

Much of the world outside of Meathead Nation is reasonably convinced that an Obama administration is inevitable and they are wildly rooting for it, even EU conservatives like Merkel are increasingly accommodating to the Senator.

Obama is essentially a pragmatist rather than an ideologue and the ascension of witless neocon ideologues over the run of the Bush preziduncy has left us in the fix we’re in.

The US presence in Iraq has mainly served to make the two sides of the Islamic schism to unite in order to get rid of us. This is pretty impressive but hardly on the neocon radar screen as their ignorance of the complexity of Islam has long been striking. And I don’t imagine it was what they had in mind as this was really just a geopolitical oil grab all along. Even Greenspan admitted as much.

Obama’s method is to find out rather than to assume, to listen rather than assert in situations involving the complexities of geopolitics. It is like a doctrine of ascertainment, identifying regions of ignorance in order to obtain knowledge and it was described by Peter Drucker decades ago as the core basis for negotiating complexity at all levels.

Obama is doing a Drucker on the international relations front while he is confidently pursuing an unprecedented outreach to all potential constituents on the domestic front.

This is such a refreshing change after 8 years of malevolent morons cocksure that their contraption ideologies would hold water. And the rest of the world is by and large wildly excited about it.

Obama is really applying the principles of Thomas Jefferson in regard to international conflict, find out why there is conflict and negotiate.

[SteveOk]

Obama made his first stop in Afghanistan. I think he made this his first stop because he believes this country is more important than Iraq. He obviously doesn't have a clue to the fact that with his fixed date certain for withdrawal in Iraq of all US troops that will leave the terrorist and Iran free to concentrate on Afganistan. With no US presence in Iraq to divert their attention off Afghanistan they will be able to put everything into that country to support the Taliban. His fixation on the importance of Afghanistan and his disregard of Iraq for American long term interests is amazing. We have no long term strategic interest in Afghanistan but Iraq if extremely important both terms of its oil and position next to Iran. To set a fixed date certain for withdrawal in Iraq and put Afghanistan as a higher priority is absurd and speaks to the stupidity of his foreign policy.

[timothy_d11]

Hey a$$hole - Al Qaeda is in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Taliban are gaining strength there. Iraq is not ours to do as we please. According to you guys Iraq has turned out to be a success - we're done there, right? And Maliki says we're wearing out our welcome. Our bull s#it ventures there are done - it's time we vacate. Never should have been there to begin with.

By the way, how many people do you think are going to pick up from Iraq and come fight us in Afghanistan? Probably not many. We will be stronger in one place with our forces undivided.

[Ummahgummah]

HEY, T-**LIB**!! Since when do the likes of YOU care about us being stronger in one place or another..??!!

Try your shYte ELSEWHERE, u leftist TRAITOR!!!

[Ummahgummah]

Try telling it to FOUR-LARGE-APARTMENTS RANGEL, you lil dhimmicrat PUNKKK!!!

[timothy_d11]

Aw DUMMAH, looks like I struck a nerve.

But let's try not to be stupid. The whole country was for invading Afghanistan and ridding it of Taliban and Al Qaeda after 911. But then we got sidetracked with the war Chimp In Chief REALLY wanted.

We should leave Iraq simply because things have cooled off and we never should have been there in the first place. Congratulations - looks like your government put out most of the blazes it started to begin with in Iraq.

Now can we go back to Afghanistan (on the border of Pakistan) for some unfinished business? Is that OK with you DUMMAH?

[naijaman]

Al Qaeda is in the borde area of Afghanistan/Pakistan. Our own military intelligence says that the group Al Qaeda in Iraq is about 5% of the problem in Iraq. After 9/11, our attention should have remained on Afghanistan. Let's hope it's not too late. At this point I don't know what we gained by invading Iraq back in 2003.

[timothy_d11]

Naijaman you sound reasonable. I didn't think they had those types of people here except when Fred drops in. Continue avoiding the koolaid or building up an immunity to it.

[M/M]

I'm hearing signals that our focus will start shifting from Iraq to Afghanistan. Last week Laura Ingraham suggested people check out Michael Yon's on-line blog. Michael Yon is the writer who has been embedded with the troops in Iraq and wrote the book "Moment of Truth". Here is his blog:

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/

Yesterday, I heard General Petraeus say this:

"Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told The Associated Press on Saturday that after intense U.S. assaults there, Al Qaeda may be considering shifting focus to its original home base in Afghanistan, where American casualties are recently running higher than in Iraq."
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/20/obama-prepares-to-meet-with-karzai/

I haven't had time to listen to anything but sound bytes, but is our focus shifting to Afghanistan?

[M/M]

Ree,

I hope that Imus doesn't start apologizing for Jesse Jackson when he comes back from his vacation on Monday because I am just so sick of Jackson's hypocrisy. When Michael Richards was caught using the "n-word", Jackson just couldn't stop with Michael Richards, but had to go after the whole cast of Seinfeld by encouraging people to boycott their DVD.

"For instance, after a November 2006 rant by “Seinfeld” star Michael Richards during a stand-up routine laden with the N-word, Jackson joined other black leaders to challenge the entertainment industry to stop using the slur. He also called for a boycott of the “Seinfeld” DVD series that was coming out because of Richards’ use of the slur.

“We want to give our ancestors a present,” Jackson said at a news conference at the time. “Dignity over degradation.”"

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/17/jackson-also-used-n-word-in-taped-conversation-critical-of-obama/

Oh, didn't the "Reverend Jackson" counsel Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aV55iFU5tE

[M/M]

Sean Hannity said on Friday's radio show that he still hasn't heard a response from Obama's campaign to his invitation to appear on his television and radio show. Hmmm....

"I don't have a thick skin when it comes to criticism of my wife," Obama told the women's magazine Glamour in an interview to run in the magazine's October issue. "And you know, the problem is that rarely do these folks have the guts to say it to your face."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/07/obama-blasts-co.html

[naijaman]

Hope everyone stays cool today..it's very hot and humid out there. I have a soccer match later this afternoon, so I'm really going to need a lot of fluids in this heat.

Later folks!

[SteveOk]

Admiral Mike Mullin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, stated today that a fixed timeline for withdrawal in Iraq could jeopardize everything in Iraq. He supported negotiations for a time horizon withdrawal as opposed to a fixed date certain, and the final decision SHOULD BE DETERMINED BY EVENTS ON THE GROUND not some arbitrary date certain.

This goes back to my question originally, who the hell did Obama consult with in baking his 16 month troop withdrawal plan, beside Michelle (Angela Davis) Obama? And how could anyone (althought the Democrats do it all day long) consider Afghanistan more important to our national security interests than Iraq? Would someone please tell Obama and the other idiotic Democrats in Congress that we have no long term national interest in Afghanistan but we do in Iraq. OUR NATIONAL INTERESTS ARE IN IRAQ, NOT AFGHANISTAN. So why abandon Iraq to the terrorist and concentrate on Afghanistan where we have no long term intersts?

[timothy_d11]

"Sean Hannity said on Friday's radio show that he still hasn't heard a response from Obama's campaign to his invitation to appear on his television and radio show. Hmmm...."

Why would or should he? Sean Hannity is not to be taken seriously. All he can do is trip him up in some stupid soundbites for the Faux Noise neandertals. Obama would be smart to not even acknowledge his existence.