Presidential Debate 10/16/2012

[Steve]

Not passionate, not going at it. What part of 'this is an act' did you not get? All manufactured by their handlers - every bit of it. This isn't even something one can argue over, they bloody well TALK about how they're going to coach their candidates to speak, what body language to use, what to wear, facial expression, eye contact, gestures, all of it. It's very thoroughly discussed in the news; you are watching to Disney Animatronic figures.

There is no 'passion' and no 'going at it' present. None.

Understand that I get that it's a performance. But, last night, it was a good show. I enjoyed it.

That, and I think that on the scale of cynicism, I'm over in the same area as you, but I think you're further down the path than I. I still, whether naively or not, believe that most people involved with government are patriots. Maybe that's just something to help me sleep at night, but it is what it is, I guess.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Understand that I get that it's a performance. But, last night, it was a good show. I enjoyed it.

OK, I can get it as entertainment. Morbid entertainment perhaps, but entertainment still. Sort of like watching WWE then.

That, and I think that on the scale of cynicism, I'm over in the same area as you, but I think you're further down the path than I. I still, whether naively or not, believe that most people involved with government are patriots. Maybe that's just something to help me sleep at night, but it is what it is, I guess.

Yeah, I got pretty much none of that anymore.

In my opinion, there may be lots of politicians who go into politics with noble goals and lofty ideals, and I am not saying that in a snide way. But the system itself destroys them, it has to. You cannot win major elections without serious money behind you, and that money never comes without strings. Campaign finance reform means nothing - even if we had it, it would have zero effect. It's all quid pro quo, one hand washing the other, and the revolving door of elected officials to lobbyists to appointed heads of government agencies, back to elected officials again, it never ends. No one in DC would ever let this frickin' Kabuki theater end; it's the only way to keep things going.

That freakshow, Jesse Ventura, called it a 'work' and he was absolutely correct; it is no different than professional wrestling. The candidates take shots at each other; but none of it matters in the least. The Senators and Congressmen make speeches and call each other vile names and behind the scenes, they wheel and deal, they buy each other drinks and party it up with their money connections. It's fake, it's manufactured, it's all sound and fury, and signifies, as the Bard said, nothing. Fake outrage, manufactured consent, and nothing that would jeopardize their reelection chances; but even those who fall on their swords are taken care of behind the scenes; unless they are absolutely not team players, they never get cast aside, they only drop out of the public eye.

There are sides; obviously the pockets of business that want one thing or another find either the GOP or the DNC more sympathetic to their point of view or native to their interests in some cases; but not all; it's not that unusual for some large corporations to push huge chunks of money at both candidates; they don't care who wins, they just want a sympathetic ear.

Do I think politicians at that level are crooks? Yes, I do. All of them, without exception. They only vary in what kind of crooks they are. There are no mavericks, there are no heroes, there are no outsiders. Everybody plays by the same rules, even if they are on different sides of the aisle.

The Tea Party was only the most recent group inside of one of the major parties to be subverted. They only have clout now because once they struck a chord with a lot of angry voters and started getting voted in, the corporations found parts of their platforms to like and started pouring money into their coffers. Do you think the Tea party is beholden to the Koch brothers, or Rupert Murdoch? You're damned right, they are. They're the Koch's beyotches now, and they'll do as they are told. It was only after they got elected that they became targets for money, and it was only after they made it clear that they were willing to play ball with major sponsors that they were able to fund elections that got others of their kind elected and to keep office themselves. But as I said, campaign finance reform won't change any of that, money can change hands in all kinds of ways, and there is always and will always be a way to funnel money legally to candidates and officeholders. Nothing can change, nothing will ever be allowed to change.

Do I believe in some grand conspiracy? No, I do not believe anyone, not even politicians and bankers, are capable of keeping secrets that well. I don't believe that people will work together towards hidden goals that well; there's always someone who feels they've been ill-treated who is willing to trip the alarm. No, I do not believe in the big conspiracy theory. But I do believe in lots of tiny little crapass shitbag conspiracies. Tiny minds conniving together and scheming behind the scenes, shifting alliances, secret backroom deals that the public isn't generally aware of at various levels, that come and go and ebb and flow over time. Even the conspirators don't know all the conspiracies, only what happens in their squalid little worlds.

The system is bankrupt, corrupt from bottom to top, and utterly, completely, broken. No accountability, no restraint on power at any level, and no way to stop this train until the electorate has finally had enough.

So far, no elected official has ever failed to leave when voted out of office. We have never lost the power of the ballot box, and I do not believe that our electoral system is fraudulent, there is no need for it to be, since it seldom matters who is elected, especially at the federal level.

When the day comes that we actually do not have the power to remove the crooks from office, then our Republic will be over. Until that time, we have ceded all power to the scoundrels, the ne'er-do-wells, the morally bankrupt criminals we place into power and keep there. We're bought off with promises of tax relief and happier days ahead, we're given poison and told it's medicine, and we have managed to convince the hard-core partisans that the party they believe in actually wants the things they claim to want. If the DNC was against poverty, poverty would be over now. It's not, and you know why? Because once a person is no longer poor, they have no vested interest in having their wealth taken and given to the poor, which they no longer are. The DNC would never allow that, think about it. If they kept a single one of their promises, they'd alienate their own base by turning them from people with something to gain into people with something to lose. And the GOP is no different, I don't think there's a nickel's worth of difference between them in the end.

It's all words, and it's all meaningless. Until we, the electorate, have had enough, and I mean enough in a very real sense. Until we ignore their outrage and have some of our own.

I will never vote for a member of the GOP or the DNC ever again. I will never vote for an incumbent again. They are all crooks and liars, and I don't vote for crooks and liars. And if that is throwing my vote away, so mote it be. When enough people join me, things will change. Until then, enjoy eating feces, because that's what you're being served.

 

[Sukerkin]

I have said much the same myself, Bill. That was very well expressed I have to say - take a bow, my friend.

It is a sadness that all too often when we have lived long enough and seen enough we come to realise that our cynical fathers and grandfathers who told us it was so had the right of it after all .

 

[Steve]

OK, I can get it as entertainment. Morbid entertainment perhaps, but entertainment still. Sort of like watching WWE then.

Yeah, I got pretty much none of that anymore.

In my opinion, there may be lots of politicians who go into politics with noble goals and lofty ideals, and I am not saying that in a snide way. But the system itself destroys them, it has to. You cannot win major elections without serious money behind you, and that money never comes without strings. Campaign finance reform means nothing - even if we had it, it would have zero effect. It's all quid pro quo, one hand washing the other, and the revolving door of elected officials to lobbyists to appointed heads of government agencies, back to elected officials again, it never ends. No one in DC would ever let this frickin' Kabuki theater end; it's the only way to keep things going.

That freakshow, Jesse Ventura, called it a 'work' and he was absolutely correct; it is no different than professional wrestling. The candidates take shots at each other; but none of it matters in the least. The Senators and Congressmen make speeches and call each other vile names and behind the scenes, they wheel and deal, they buy each other drinks and party it up with their money connections. It's fake, it's manufactured, it's all sound and fury, and signifies, as the Bard said, nothing. Fake outrage, manufactured consent, and nothing that would jeopardize their reelection chances; but even those who fall on their swords are taken care of behind the scenes; unless they are absolutely not team players, they never get cast aside, they only drop out of the public eye.

There are sides; obviously the pockets of business that want one thing or another find either the GOP or the DNC more sympathetic to their point of view or native to their interests in some cases; but not all; it's not that unusual for some large corporations to push huge chunks of money at both candidates; they don't care who wins, they just want a sympathetic ear.

Do I think politicians at that level are crooks? Yes, I do. All of them, without exception. They only vary in what kind of crooks they are. There are no mavericks, there are no heroes, there are no outsiders. Everybody plays by the same rules, even if they are on different sides of the aisle.

The Tea Party was only the most recent group inside of one of the major parties to be subverted. They only have clout now because once they struck a chord with a lot of angry voters and started getting voted in, the corporations found parts of their platforms to like and started pouring money into their coffers. Do you think the Tea party is beholden to the Koch brothers, or Rupert Murdoch? You're damned right, they are. They're the Koch's beyotches now, and they'll do as they are told. It was only after they got elected that they became targets for money, and it was only after they made it clear that they were willing to play ball with major sponsors that they were able to fund elections that got others of their kind elected and to keep office themselves. But as I said, campaign finance reform won't change any of that, money can change hands in all kinds of ways, and there is always and will always be a way to funnel money legally to candidates and officeholders. Nothing can change, nothing will ever be allowed to change.

Do I believe in some grand conspiracy? No, I do not believe anyone, not even politicians and bankers, are capable of keeping secrets that well. I don't believe that people will work together towards hidden goals that well; there's always someone who feels they've been ill-treated who is willing to trip the alarm. No, I do not believe in the big conspiracy theory. But I do believe in lots of tiny little crapass shitbag conspiracies. Tiny minds conniving together and scheming behind the scenes, shifting alliances, secret backroom deals that the public isn't generally aware of at various levels, that come and go and ebb and flow over time. Even the conspirators don't know all the conspiracies, only what happens in their squalid little worlds.

The system is bankrupt, corrupt from bottom to top, and utterly, completely, broken. No accountability, no restraint on power at any level, and no way to stop this train until the electorate has finally had enough.

So far, no elected official has ever failed to leave when voted out of office. We have never lost the power of the ballot box, and I do not believe that our electoral system is fraudulent, there is no need for it to be, since it seldom matters who is elected, especially at the federal level.

When the day comes that we actually do not have the power to remove the crooks from office, then our Republic will be over. Until that time, we have ceded all power to the scoundrels, the ne'er-do-wells, the morally bankrupt criminals we place into power and keep there. We're bought off with promises of tax relief and happier days ahead, we're given poison and told it's medicine, and we have managed to convince the hard-core partisans that the party they believe in actually wants the things they claim to want. If the DNC was against poverty, poverty would be over now. It's not, and you know why? Because once a person is no longer poor, they have no vested interest in having their wealth taken and given to the poor, which they no longer are. The DNC would never allow that, think about it. If they kept a single one of their promises, they'd alienate their own base by turning them from people with something to gain into people with something to lose. And the GOP is no different, I don't think there's a nickel's worth of difference between them in the end.

It's all words, and it's all meaningless. Until we, the electorate, have had enough, and I mean enough in a very real sense. Until we ignore their outrage and have some of our own.

I will never vote for a member of the GOP or the DNC ever again. I will never vote for an incumbent again. They are all crooks and liars, and I don't vote for crooks and liars. And if that is throwing my vote away, so mote it be. When enough people join me, things will change. Until then, enjoy eating feces, because that's what you're being served.

I'm not sure I understand. If you'd just stop mincing words, maybe it would be more clear!

 

[arnisador]

Good showing for Obama, but Romney got his bump in the first debate and this won't matter much.

 

[James Kovacich]

Or, if you believe we are better off today then 4 years ago then......................

Many people are. Me, like many others as well, were going the foreclosure.
That huge crisis didn't come from Obamas watch and nobody could of healed our country as fast as the Republicans are "acting" like they "could of."

How soon so many forget how bad it really was. It is getting better.
Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

 

[Josh Oakley]

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[Makalakumu]

If you guys are into podcasts and into History, I highly recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. He has a series on the fall of the Roman Republic (free by the way), and boy are we rhyming. What is so striking is just how similar everything is going down. Our society has some serious cultural differences with the Romans and that explains why our stories are different, for the most part. But, the ultimate effect of corruption, politicians making promises with other people's money, and constant war has been the same. The fabric of how we attempt to control power in society is being shredded.

After listening to Dan Carlin's podcast, where are we on the Roman scale? Tiberius Gracchus and his brother have been killed (think Kennedy's). We've seen the warmongers take over and make promises to everyone they cannot keep. A major difference is that we don't have a major external threat, so we won't see another Gaius Marius appear (which leads to Sulla, which leads to Caeser). However, I think economic forces could cause the major divisions in our society to split. If the US dollar tanks and the wheels come off the economy, cracks would appear that a real out in the open dictatorial cabal could use to rip the rest of this Republic down.

Who knows if it will actually go down like that? It will go down, it's not sustainable, the fabric of how we control power in our society is shredding. The lesson of the Romans is that Rome didn't fall in a day. They made decisions that set in motion a chain of events that surely must have seemed impossible to control, impossible to change. Yet, if they could look forward and see the misery they were heading into, maybe they would have taken the seemingly drastic steps that could have made a difference at the time. It took 150 for the Republic to fall. Generations of people stuck their heads in the sand. We might not see the collapse in our lifetimes, but we surely aided it by ignoring the uncomfortable truths.

 

[Josh Oakley]

Question : how can you make sure I have a job when I get out of college?
Romney: that is a good question, and I know this story about a girl with the same question and we have got to make sure you and her both get jobs, and good paying ones too!


I didn't like either of these guys, but one thing I gotta say: just answer the damn question!

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[Tames D]

Question : how can you make sure I have a job when I get out of college?
Romney: that is a good question, and I know this story about a girl with the same question and we have got to make sure you and her both get jobs, and good paying ones too!


I didn't like either of these guys, but one thing I gotta say: just answer the damn question!

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

No one can guarantee you a job. As a college graduate, it's your job to get out there and play the game. The University already made their money off you. They don't care about you anymore (and they are laughing about it, trust me). It's your job to interview and put your foot in the door. The President is not going to put in a word for you. It's totally up to you.

 

[Tames D]

Experience? Mr Romney's only experience with governance is his one term in MA. A state that overwhelmingly supports his competitor. If Romney was such a damn fine governor, then those numbers should be a bit closer, you'd think. Running a bussiness and running a government are like comparing apples and oranges. Both fruit, but not even close to being the same.

If you believe that a %20 tax cut across the board is feasable with congress deciding how to pay for it, then Romney is your choice.
If you believe in the reversal of Roe vs Wade, then Romney is your choice.
If you believe strength in foriegn policy is going off half cocked without facts, then Romney is your guy.
If you believe 8 trillion dollars can be made up by closing tax loopholes and no one but the rich will be impacted, then Romney is your guy...and I've got a bussiness propisition for you.
If you believe that 14% tax rate is acceptable for rich millionares, while people making $50k a year pay a greater effective tax rate is fair, then Romney is in your corner.
If you believe a war with Iran is unavoidable, Romney is your War Hawk.
If you believe Russia is our greatest social economic threat, Romney agrees with you...though it begs the question, have you heard of Al Quada, Iran, and China?
If you believe in the full repeal of Obamacare, even though it will cost money to do so, then Romney's your fellow.
If you believe that the constitution should outlaw same sex marriage in all of america, then Romney fits the bill.
If you believe the day after pill for rape victims should not be paid for her isurance, then Romney is a man after your own heart.
If you believe that a sitting president can do much about the prices Opec sets for crude oil, well not even Romney is for you, because it isn't going to happen.
If you believe oil production should be increased by at least %50 here on our own shores, then Rom...no wait Obama did that.
If you believe terrorist should be hunted down no matter where they are then Romn...nope agian that is Obama.
If you believe in smaller government, then romney is definitley...um not your person. Obama has shrunk it by 2% for the last three years.
If you believe that GM and Chrysler should have recieved funding to keep the recession from getting worse, that was Bush continued by Obama, against the very public op ed Mr Romney wrote about letting the industry fail.
If you believe that Romney would do anythig different in foriegn affairs than Obama has, other than talk tough, Romney is your guy and god help us all.
If you think gays openly serving in the military is something you find repugnant, Romney's your guy.
If the average corporate tax rate of 4% is good for you, then Romney should be you vote.
If shrinking the government is something you believe should happen, then Romney...no wait, it is Obama that shrunk the government by 2% a year for the last 3 years.
If you believe a woman's decision to take contraceptives should include anyone other than her doctor, you will find Romney very supporting.

This a great list and I appreciate the time you put into it. But my question was are YOU and OTHERS better off now than 4 years ago?

 

[bluewaveschool]

Can I just vote Biden? Honestly, crazy as it sounds, experience wise he is the best of the four. Also, after the debates, he seems to be the only one with a pair. Or he's just plain effing crazy, and I'm mistaking his crazy for confidence. He gets bonus points for calling Romney a liar. Also, there is this -

Joe is grinning like a boss in the background.

 

[seasoned]

No one can guarantee you a job. As a college graduate, it's your job to get out there and play the game. The University already made their money off you. They don't care about you anymore (and they are laughing about it, trust me). It's your job to interview and put your foot in the door. The President is not going to put in a word for you. It's totally up to you.

Yes!

 

[crushing]

Many people are. Me, like many others as well, were going the foreclosure.
That huge crisis didn't come from Obamas watch and nobody could of healed our country as fast as the Republicans are "acting" like they "could of."

How soon so many forget how bad it really was. It is getting better.

Where in the world did this "president's watch" meme come from? If the legislative and judicial branches are allowing the executive branch to have the "watch," then they are doing it wrong.

I have been curious about this phenomenon of congress (made up of people seeking power) increasingly delegating its powers and responsibilities to the president over the years and found this interesting take from Lee Hamilton, former Democratic member of the US House from Indiana.

http://congress.indiana.edu/why-does-congress-want-give-power

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Many people are. Me, like many others as well, were going the foreclosure.
That huge crisis didn't come from Obamas watch and nobody could of healed our country as fast as the Republicans are "acting" like they "could of."

How soon so many forget how bad it really was. It is getting better.
Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

Really? I lost my house in 2010. Where was Mr. Obama?

 

[WC_lun]

This a great list and I appreciate the time you put into it. But my question was are YOU and OTHERS better off now than 4 years ago?

As a country, yes we are better off. There are individuals that are worse off and there always will be. Some people's memory seem pretty short, but I remember what a mess we were in when Obama took office. Need another list?

 

[crushing]

No kidding about the short memories. Some people only remember back to 2008. It didn't take long after the 2006 midterm elections for the economy to go bad again as it looked like we were finally beginning to fully recover from the previous economic downturn that began in early 1999.

 

[billc]

Hmmm...perhaps Romney/Ryan could call Biden a plagarist...

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2008/08/the_write_stuff.html

Biden's downfall began when his aides alerted him to a videotape of the British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, who had run unsuccessfully against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The tape showed Kinnock delivering a powerful speech about his rise from humble roots. Taken by the performance, Biden adapted it for his own stump speech. Biden, after all, was the son of a car salesman, a working-class kid made good. Kinnock's material fit with the story he was trying to sell.
At first Biden would credit Kinnock when he quoted him. But at some point he failed to offer the attribution. Biden maintained that he lapsed only once—at a debate at the Iowa State Fair, on Aug. 23, when cameras recorded it—but Maureen Dowd of the New York Times reported two incidents of nonattribution, and no one kept track exactly of every time Biden used the Kinnock bit. (Click here for examples of Biden's lifting.) What is certain is that Biden didn't simply borrow the sort of boilerplate that counts as common currency in political discourse—phrases like "fighting for working families." What he borrowed was Kinnock's life.

Biden lifted Kinnock's precise turns of phrase and his sequences of ideas—a degree of plagiarism that would qualify any student for failure, if not expulsion from school. But the even greater sin was to borrow biographical facts from Kinnock that, although true about Kinnock, didn't apply to Biden. Unlike Kinnock, Biden wasn't the first person in his family history to attend college, as he asserted; nor were his ancestors coal miners, as he claimed when he used Kinnock's words. Once exposed, Biden's campaign team managed to come up with a great-grandfather who had been a mining engineer, but he hardly fit the candidate's description of one who "would come up [from the mines] after 12 hours and play football." At any rate, Biden had delivered his offending remarks with an introduction that clearly implied he had come up with them himself and that they pertained to his own life.

Would Romney/Ryan be able to accuse Biden of slander or libel against the truck driver involved in the accident which killed Bidens wife.

About the truck driver...

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/...and_bully.html

As reported by Inside Edition, a police investigation of the accident showed that Mrs. Biden pulled into an intersection after she failed to notice an oncoming tractor trailer, which apparently had the right of way. The truck's driver, Curtis Dunn, put his own life at risk in an effort to avoid the collision; he twisted the wheel so hard that he overturned his vehicle. Delaware Online adds emphatically that neither driver had consumed alcohol. Senator Biden, as reported by the New York Times, nonetheless chose to publicly and falsely accuse Mr. Dunn of killing Biden's wife and child while driving drunk (emphasis added):

"Let me tell you a little story," Mr. Biden told the crowd at the University of Iowa. "I got elected when I was 29, and I got elected November the 7th. And on Dec. 18 of that year, my wife and three kids were Christmas shopping for a Christmas tree. A tractor-trailer, a guy who allegedly -- and I never pursued it -- drank his lunch instead of eating his lunch, broadsided my family and killed my wife instantly, and killed my daughter instantly, and hospitalized my two sons, with what were thought to be at the time permanent, fundamental injuries."​

A false accusation of a crime such as killing somebody while driving drunk is of course automatically libel or slander, but Mr. Biden waited until Mr. Dunn had died of natural causes to make this accusation. A dead person cannot sue for defamation, nor can his family sue on his behalf, which means Biden attacked somebody who could not defend himself. This makes Barack Obama's running mate a coward as well as a liar.



Biden therefore used his power as a U.S. senator to brutalize an ordinary American family so he could grandstand about how he felt the pain of the 9/11 victims, and that makes him a bully: "A person who uses strength or power to harm or intimidate those who are weaker." To this may be added his prostitution of the memory of his own wife and daughter, whom he used for the same purpose.

[/QUOTE]

Or Could Jake Tapper, one of the few real journalists left, call Biden...a liar...

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/10/17/Tapper-VP-Debate-Lie

Jake Tapper's reporting on Joe Biden's provably false social security brag during the vice presidential debate has thus far been almost completely ignored: During the vice presidential debate last week, Vice President Joe Biden seemed to significantly overstate his role in the 1983 negotiations over Social Security.
Asked about Medicare reform, the vice president said, “Look, I was there when we did that with Social Security in 1983. I was one of eight people sitting in the room that included Tip O’Neill negotiating with President Reagan. We all got together and everybody said, as long as everybody’s in the deal, everybody’s in the deal, and everybody is making some sacrifice, we can find a way.”
The comment would seem to suggest that Biden was one of the few, key players “in the room” working in a bipartisan way to reform Social Security.
On “Meet the Press” on April 29, 2007, then-Sen. Biden made a similar claim, saying he was “one of five people — I was the junior guy — in the meeting with Bob Dole and George Mitchell when we put Social Security on the right path for 60 years.”
But according to the historical record, Biden was not one of the small group of people in “the room,” or in “the meeting” — nor was he even a key player in reforms.
And there you go.
And yet, even though Tapper filed his story yesterday, this is likely the first time many of you are hearing about what should be a pretty big deal. After all, Biden is a sitting VP, he's been caught red-handed lying by a respected journalist, and the lie occurred in front of about 60 million people during a nationally televised debate.

Obama is still a bigger liar than Joe Biden but not by much...

 

[billc]

The mortgage meltdown goes back way before you guys. You have to go all the way back to Jimmy Carter, and then throw in Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, and the odd republican here and there. You should look up their involvement in the problem, interesting reading.

Oh, and here is another act of plagarism by Biden when he was in law school...from wikipedia...

He went on to receive his Juris Doctor from Syracuse University's College of Law in 1968,[SUP][19][/SUP] where by his own description he found it to be "the biggest bore in the world" and pulled many all-nighters to get by.[SUP][15][/SUP][SUP][20][/SUP] During his first year there, he was accused of having plagiarized 5 of 15 pages of a law review article. Biden said it was inadvertent due to his not knowing the proper rules of citation, and he was permitted to retake the course after receiving a grade of F, which was subsequently dropped from his record.[SUP][20][/SUP] He was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969.[SUP][19][/SUP]

 

[WC_lun]

What does Biden's past mistakes have to do with it at all? You see where a discussion is not pro-republican and you start posting links attacking various democrats. Its almost a Pavlovian response by now, isn't it? Please join the discussion, but leave the non-related attacks and link fu behind.