Citation required. The Community Reinvestment Act gets blamed by the GOP because it's an easy target. But, if you look at the numbers, they don't pan out.

You'd have to go back a lot further to find the actual roots of the economic problems. Back in 1980, Reagan got the FDIC limit bumped up to $100k for no particular reason. That combined with Glass Stegal being repealed in 1999. Arguably, Clinton is responsible for that, however, that was also the period in time where the GOP was trying to run him out of office and had a huge amount of seats in the legislature.

Bush, ultimately, was the trigger man. The lack of any effort at all to monitor what the banking industry was doing and the Bush tax cuts only made the situation worse. Leading to the final bubble that collapsed just as he was leaving office.

Romney would have/does (for your kooky string theorists) started/starts world war III by invading Iran, Syria, or North Korea.

....he'd have a spy plane over China right as we speak.

Why? I'd assume there are already satellites over China. Oh, look, there goes one now. Hedwards waves.

Yes and no. They do embrace a number those that hold those views, but they also embrace the opposite. Kinda depends on the particular issue. For instance, one can't possibly make me believe that the GOP opposed the technological advances that stemmed from, say, SDI. (Yes, I know where that example will take this, so just leave that direction alone and stick with my point.) But that doesn't matter: the message is, "the GOP hates science". No, it doesn't. It has problems with some science, like the stem cell research that might come, in the future, from embryo farming. Wanna use stem cells from adults? Go nuts. Is that anti-science, or is it the pursuit of science with some obstacles based on a moral stance that chooses to protect the defenseless unborn?

Depends on who you talk with. I suspect a large number on the left will agree with the characterizations expressed earlier, and that the positions are black-and-white. That's my entire point: no matter what the GOP message may be, the DNC is writing the message for them. That's how stupid crap like birth control swings an election.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I presume you'll understand if I say I hope you're incorrect on this. There is plenty of room for individual achievement and success to make the societal advances that may be inevitable. And I will continue to fight the notion that 'government is the best way', because I know in my heart that it's false. If there is one message to take away from anything the GOP says, it's this: the individual is capable of achieving great things, so don't squash that under the government thumb.

Pot, meet kettle:

It's not a gain in job 'growth' since that 170k per month can't even keep up with the birthrate (which roughly translates into the number of people entering the job market), let alone immigration. Obviously, that negative number then can't make up for those who were previously employed full-time and are no longer. We're not gaining jobs; at best, the rate of job loss has slowed.

Yes, quite seriously. As you pointed yourself, much of the war funding was done with supplementary expenditures (popularly called "Iraq War funding legislation" and other similar terms). This means it went through government funding processes, albeit much of it outside the regular annual budgetary processes, but that it absolutely showed up on the national debt tally. Don't confuse annual deficits from Congress-passed and President-signed budgets with the national debt, which accounts for both budgetary and supplementary spending.

In other words, while he did leave much of the war funding off the annual budgets, the war funding did show up in the national debt ledger during his terms.

Oh, and while we're here...

That war funding legislation that had to pass Congress each time? Obama has been doing that with the ENTIRE budget for going on four years now! From 2003 to 2008, Iraq war funding in toto (~600 billion: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf) was around half what Obama let slide for 2010 through continuing resolutions. Of course, he's been pushing for these continuing resolutions for over 1,200 days now, instead of coming up with an actual budget.

The silence is deafening.

Ah, yes, continue to solely blame Bush and the GOP for a problem that, as I've stated time and again, was both bipartisan and 30+ years in the making, starting with the Carter period and then each subsequent President and Congress adding their own little bit to it.

Speaking specifically of Glass Steagall, Clinton wasn't pressured into it as you claim in a later post. The roll call on the vote was overwhelmingly bipartisan, and Clinton himself could have pulled out the veto pen. He had little-to-nothing to lose in doing so: he was nearing the end of his lame-duck term (the partial repeal occurred in November 1999, so he had a bit more than a year left), and there were enough votes in both houses to override his veto, so that if crap hit the fan he could have rightly claimed "See, I tried to stop it."

But he didn't try to stop it.

And no, the alternative to food stamp (and, by extension, other non-retirement social program growth) is to focus on private-sector job creation instead of fiddle-farting around with health insurance reform that is expected to cause another decline in full-time employment after full implementation in 2014. Are we going to blame Bush for this upcoming recession, too?

I can easily find similarly stupid comments by other members of the Right. For example, that same committee's chair (Ralph Hall) that, "I don't think we can control what God controls" (might as well not build houses then with air conditioning or heating since that's controlling the temperature which is clearly God's domain) or Dana Rohrabacher thinking, “Is there some thought being given to subsidizing the clearing of rain forests in order for some countries to eliminate that production of greenhouse gases?”.

It's easy to paint the Right as being anti-science and anti-progress when they make it so easy to do.

You, of course, left out this bit:

Given the whining by religious institutions and other moral-stance takers opposed to having to provide birth control as part of insurance requirements, it's pretty easy to think that the Dems may have caved on it in the hopes that the Republicans and RMoney would've thrown them a bone on some other facet of legislation (hint: no, they wouldn't).

Ditto left. Your point? I mean, seriously, come up with something better than, "Some people I disagree with said some dumb things a few times so the people who agree with them in a general way on unspecified issues are ALL just like them!" LOL

Not sure why you're putting so much emphasis on this silly position, when I simply pointed out that you can't wrap in the same blanket all those who voted for Romney. You wouldn't appreciate me rolling out some of Debbie Wasserman Schultz / Pelosi / Reid / Clinton quotes and claim every Obama voter is just like her or him. And I wouldn't do so because I know enough Obama voters to say that those four simply do not represent all of the varied viewpoints of those Obama / not-Romney voters that I know.

I left it out because it doesn't matter: Supreme Court decisions are very difficult to overturn, and the President can not do it. But if you want to stick with that particular argument, please explain why the same hasn't been done with Roe v Wade? Ya know, if it simply requires a Republican President and solid Congressional majorities. Surely that's a bigger conservative / Republican / religious hot-button than condoms and oral contraception. When the GOP tried a middle-ground legislative approach with a late-term abortion ban except for mother's health, even though this would only change the trimester-timeframe of a small percentage of abortions and not actually STOP any of them, that measure was blocked by "bullshit whining and tantrum throwing" by the Democrats.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church and the right have not been pushing for any sort of legislative ban on birth control in general, though there has been some opposition to day-after methods (which, technically, aren't contraception); no, the gripe was that the government was forcing the Church, and other institutions, to directly pay for all inexpensive contraception products even though contraception may go directly against their centuries-old stand on the matter. Again, a failure on the messaging of the Church and GOP allowed their opposition to shape the message into something completely different, a so-called War on Women.

LOL. Gimme a break - Congressional compromise happens all the time. Look, even with the Presidency, the House of Representatives, and 60 seats in the Senate in 2009 and early 2010, the Democrats still had to negotiate with themselves in order to get enough Senate votes to pass ACA. The party, still in the afterglow of Obama's election, even then couldn't manage to get it's crap together, when the GOP couldn't do a damn thing about it.

Not sure how this was all supposed to be completely different if Romney had won. LO mofuggin' L.

Edit, damn formatting.

You are being purposely obtuse. By agreeing with them in a "general way" and continuing to vote for them you are saying that their (lack of) knowledge and way of thinking is ok.

Moving the goal posts.

You also neglect to take into account the fact that I DID say that stupid statements are not solely the province of the Right, but rather that chances are when one is seen, it's going to be a Republican that said it.

You are, again, being purposefully obtuse. They aren't overturning a SCOTUS decision, they are making new laws and amending old laws. There is a massive difference.

No, they haven't yet, but not for lack of trying by using State laws as proxies to garner a challenge to the SCOTUS decision of RvW. They are also slowly, but surely, chipping away at the opportunities of women (the people that aren't old, rich, white guys and will never be in a position to make the choice on gettiing one) to obtain said abortion. It makes little actual difference if they overturn it or just make it so profoundly difficult for the woman to obtain that it in effect becomes outlawed.

A...failure on the messaging of the Church... Tell me again why the Church should have any say whatsoever on the laws of the United States? While still maintaining their tax-exempt status? If you want to maintain your tax-exempt status then you should accept certain conditions upon what you must provide to the people that work for you.

Don't want to provide it? That's fine. Just give up your tax-exempt status. Otherwise, STFU.

I'll just leave this here...

"One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. [Sex] is supposed to be within marriage. It’s supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal…but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen…This is special and it needs to be seen as special.” - Rick Santorum, former candidate for President

Do you remember WHY they couldn't get anything passed? It's because Obama was trying to work together with the GOP. A GOP that had making sure he was a single-term president as its main goal to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. They then parlayed that into getting more seats in the midterm election, which in turn made obtaining a supermajority far outside the realm of possibility. Then, it was just a matter of threatening to filibuster and they ensured that the 112th Congress was singularly one of the most completely worthless ones in the history of this country.

Oh, and the Dems didn't have 60 seats in 2009. They had 57. There were 2 independents and 41 Republicans. So even then they HAD to negotiate with Republicans to find at least one, provided both Indeps went along, that was willing to cross the aisle to obtain a supermajority to block Republican filibuster threat.



You really need to take your head out of the sand and see what your party actually stands for and not some idealized version that may or may not have ever actually existed.

There isn't really anything left to say to you. I've made my point and whether or not you'll even consider it, is not up to me. Peace.

Though this has been a pretty civil discussion, I am reminded why the next four years of government in the United States will not be making much progress. Both sides are deeply divided, I just hope the Democrats and Republicans can work together else the world will be in some serious economic trouble.

What is killing the conservatives is twofold:

1) The far right that would like to tear down the social net and simplify it to disjointed family units and/or corporate enclaves

2) The religious nuts

Harper has been somewhat successful in Canada, because he held a military-like control over the elements of his party that wish those things, himself included.

A lot of conservative candidates look phoney because they are so far off the mainstream that if they showed their real selves, they'd never get elected in a million years.

On social issues alone, I consider it pathetic that gay marriage and abortion are considered issues worth objecting up in the public debate.

I understand how those issues might have been contentious at first, but we are now in the 21rst century. Those facts of life have been in the spotlight for quite some time now and we've had plenty of time to form a rational, sensible opinion about them.

For example, we know for a fact that accessible abortion reduces crime rate. It's a no brainer right there.

Hugh Segal wrote a somewhat interesting book about this.

I completely agree.

It's maddening how both sides are at each other's throats so viciously, I've not seen anything like it anywhere else. It's just so...unnecessary.

Much as I liked the video, Maher is quite clearly aligned to one side, even considering the awful things that some Republicans do and say, and that's a damn shame.

Sure, but elections are marketing. You're doing a realllllly shitty job marketing yourselves to Latinos and women, and those groups are extremely powerful and growing more powerful. And I truly believe the social conservative members of your base will fight any attempt to modify the part to appeal to those groups more.

I'm not sure what the answer for you is there. As a born-again social democrat I am thankful it is not my problem.

The simple fact is though that while fiscal conservatives like to say "look at Greece and Spain" or cite 4 week long waits for tooth repair, the vast majority of the Western world is more Liberal and Socialist than Obama would ever dream of being and are generally happy being so. It doesn't really work as a boogeyman anymore, at least not for me.

On a personal note I have been living in Georgia for almost a year now, a country that is extremely social and hardly individualistic at all. I don't necessarily enjoy that, so I am not sure I like the idea of it taking over my own country. Yet at the same time doesn't it all boil down to disliking change and being accustomed to what we were born into?

Then, you haven't been paying attention to Canadian federal politics, especially between the BQ/Conservative*, BQ/Liberal, Liberal/Conservative* and NDP/Conservative* (roughtly in that order in terms of animosity).

* Previously the Alliance Party

Those guys have been at each other's throat for some time now.