Patterico's Pontifications

1/21/2013

Congratulations to Barack Obama on Another Four Years to Cement the Utter Destruction of My Children’s Future

Filed under: Budget,General — Patterico @ 12:33 am



Today, we (re)inaugurate a liar.

What stunned House Speaker John Boehner more than anything else during his prolonged closed-door budget negotiations with Barack Obama was this revelation: “At one point several weeks ago,” Mr. Boehner says, “the president said to me, ‘We don’t have a spending problem.’ “

There is no possible way Barack Obama is that stupid.

He knows spending as a percentage of GDP has exploded under his presidency.

Source

He knows that whether the top tax rate is 90% as it was in 1960, or 30-40% as it’s been since 1990, federal revenue is always 15-20% of GDP:

Source

We don’t have a spending problem? That’s precisely what we have and Barack Obama knows it.

And he doesn’t care.

When this guy was first elected, I knew he was going to enact disastrous policies. But the reality, while it has been less disastrous in many ways than I imagined, has been far worse on the economic front than I could have dreamed possible.

I worried that he would destroy the balance of the Supreme Court. So far, he hasn’t been able to. I worried that he would close Guantanamo, try people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in federal court, and generally close down the war on terror. He tried some of that, but on balance, he’s been OK fighting terror.

But on the debt and deficit, he has been an unparalleled disaster.

Barack Obama has exploded our debt and shows no signs of letting up. The damage he is wreaking upon this nation will take decades to recover from — if we ever do. He is certainly making my children’s futures far more miserable.

Meanwhile he grins his way through his narcissistic life as if he hasn’t a care in the world.

Over the past four years, this guy has proven himself to be a horrible human being. I say this, not as a hyperpartisan who started out inclined to hate any Democrat with my heart and soul before he had spent a day in office. I say it as someone who has watched him spend four years ruining my kids’ future with the power he had. He has enacted rules changes that reward sloth and discourage work. He has enacted crushing regulations that stomp into the ground any plans that a business might have to grow and create jobs. He has taken credit for “creating or saving” jobs while enacting policies that anyone with a room temperature IQ knows are destined to keep unemployment high. He has taken companies into banktuptcy and told bondholders to go screw themselves while putting his union pals ahead of them in line to collect the scraps. He has taken away the last chance to let the free market control health care costs by pushing through ObamaCare — the biggest change in the relationship of individuals to their federal government since FDR. He has relentlessly engaged in rhetoric that he knows is dishonest class warfare. He has beat a cowardly retreat from any hint of “entitlement” reform that might keep my children from working all their lives to pay outlandish taxes to fix his mess. And that’s if my children don’t die in a nuclear war that comes about from the collapse of the world economy that is likely to happen due to his incredible abdication of any responsibility for making our spending relate to our revenues.

In short, he is ruining my children’s future with a big idiot smirk on his face.

I don’t care whether he is intentionally trying to ruin the country’s economy, to drive us into European-style socialism, or whether he is just fiddling while Rome burns because that’s the easiest thing to do politically, and he knows our crap feckless media won’t call him on it. It doesn’t matter. Either way, he knows better and is not doing what is necessary.

In the past four years he has shown himself to be a wretched, God-awful excuse for a human being. God help the country that today officially “welcomes” another four years of this unthinkable set of economic atrocities.

This guy’s wife said, when he was elected the first time around, that it was the first time she had ever really been proud of her country. Now we live in a country that has re-elected this buffoon — and for the first time in my life, I am not really proud of our country. How dare he parade around children to read letters about a real tragedy, to enact a cynical gun-grabbing agenda for cheap partisan gain. After what he has done to my children’s future, the idea that he would use children as props for any policy advantage is infuriating enough to make me want to bang my head against the wall hard enough to bring down the house around my ears.

And watching our media lionize this scumbag is more than I can take. You can bet I won’t turn on the television today. If I did, I’d throw a shoe at it.

I see nothing but misery on the horizon, and we’re rushing headlong towards it, led by a pompous, self-satisfied, grinning narcissistic fool.

Happy Inauguration Day, everyone.

266 Responses to “Congratulations to Barack Obama on Another Four Years to Cement the Utter Destruction of My Children’s Future”

  1. If I were a dwarf, I’m pretty sure I would be Grumpy.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  2. no, just realistic

    EPWJ (c5f1fc)

  3. OK, I just have to read absolutely no more news until maybe Wednesday.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  4. Amen. Just nothing more to say on Stanley Ann’s reckless rebellion. She really trashed ‘Thou Shalt’ good. In your face Propriety, Honor, Rectitude, and all the rest of that B.S.

    So everybody on the Right, from Rushbo on down, said as definitively as they could, this last election for POTUS was the most important of our collective lives.

    And after all that 25% of the electorate chose this abomination.

    Now we hear on the Right, that the best response, going forward is to win the next time. We’ll do our best to dawdle, to be deliberate, to piss and moan while we’re at it, but putting up a real stink, stepping on toes, being the sort of obstinate bastards we’re accused of being, would be a mistake, would threaten our goal of next time, sitting in the catbird seat and really accomplish something, whatever it might be.

    Good luck with that.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  5. Here are some questions I have been asking myself lately, “Why do so many white people hate themselves and are embarrassed by their color and everything that their race stands for? And why, conversely, do they have to elevate minorities, such as BO, to exalted status? I live in a very left wing area and know a number of these types of people and it is very sad. They are sad. To them BO can do no wrong. Another aspect of their personalities is that for them the US is the root of all the wrongs in the world and BO is the corrective. Remember without this type of white voter, BO would have never won. And sad to say there are millions of them.

    Ipso Fatso (1e3278)

  6. and Team R has nothing what can beat Hillary

    just susan b anthony crotch-sniffers

    game over

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  7. My thoughts exactly…
    I’m not watching any coverage of that thing either…and I’m going to work wearing a black armband.

    Tru (14b39f)

  8. The problem is the electorate that voted him in. Let’s face it, there will always be demogogues who pander to the worthless for votes. If it wasn’t BHO it would be some other fraud. Too many stupid and lazy people want what he is offering. Simple as that. However, reality always wins at the end of the match. Then it gets ugly.

    Kevin Stroup (fe711f)

  9. Happy,

    Palin would wipe the floor with her, so would any candidate – EXCEPT ROMNEY!!!!

    Even John McCain

    Hillary is someone’s spouse – we are not giving control of the country to someone who’s entire resume was – she was married to a serial cheater

    We are going to easily win back the senate in 2014 and make even more gains in the house.

    EPWJ (c5f1fc)

  10. This fella and his party plan on putting white folks at the back of the bus permanently.

    Dirty Old Man (0c7e45)

  11. [redacted]

    htom (412a17)

  12. Team R is still hopelessly addicted to divisive wedge issues and bigot-appeasement I think

    it’s who they are it’s what they do

    it doesn’t matter that it’s the same thing the obamawhores do

    the obamawhores do it better

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  13. Happy,

    And the other side isnt addicted? Geez buddy, THEY are the VERY definition of divisive issues.

    They just made history with the only wining two term president to receive less popular votes and electorial votes.

    Once the tea party gets alittle better organized we wont be giving up 5 to 7 senates seats every election.

    32 state legislatures have 2 or 3 branches of the government – a record for wither party – this happened in this last Obama Tsunami that didnt happen

    Him going after guns just lost them 5 pts in 2014.

    Have faith

    EPWJ (c5f1fc)

  14. Republicans hold an overwhelming number of state legislatures and with Michigan and Wisconsin making sweeping changes and pther states following Rick Perry’s call to end state income taxes – this is not going to go unnoticed.

    EPWJ (c5f1fc)

  15. i think Team R is still viable locally

    but there’s very little evidence that it’s viable nationally

    nationally they just greased the skids for porky porky chris christie’s insanely pork-laden mugging of our sad bankrupt chineser-sponsored treasury

    so if they don’t stand for fiscal responsibility so what do they stand for?

    the saddest part of the last campaign cycle wasn’t really the bizarre Akin babblings or the incredibly sick Mourdock meltdown… it was when everybody had to pretend that bringing home a dead baby in a box was normal and healthy

    these people are freaking weird

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  16. looks like poor confuzzled pseudo states’-rightser cap’n ed can’t resist his inane compulsion to nationalize new york state abortion policy

    but the reality is – I will tell you what the reality is – the reality is that nobody outside new york should give a good goddamn about their abortion laws, and this is especially so when their sad pitiful cowardly little country is circling down the debt toilet at a dizzying speed

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  17. Well pikachu, Christie is the feckless slug, that luvs Hamas, cap and trade, and Obama, in that order,
    who threw Bret Schindler to the wolves, for an error that the teacher’s union lackees made,

    narciso (3fec35)

  18. No, he will run on that platform, don’t you get it,

    narciso (3fec35)

  19. not to mention what porky porky did to Romney in the final stretch

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  20. Mr. narciso it’s already a given that Team R will nominate some variant of a susan b. anthony fetus fetishizing crotch-sniffer

    cuomo is positioning himself for the primary not the national

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  21. Happy

    Its really hard to deprogram Americans and the guilt that they would be called racists to vote against Obama

    and, against Romney – he barely won. Romney – the worst candidate at the worst time

    EPWJ (c5f1fc)

  22. i agree Romney was an abysmal choice

    but the instinct to preference a governor over a congresswhore (a la mccain) was the correct one I think

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  23. This is a sad sad sad sad sad sad day

    JD (b63a52)

  24. so many people are going to get hurt over the next four years

    so many people will succumb to hopelessness and dependency

    you would think it would be a catalyst for some serious rethinking on the part of Team R

    led of course by the estimable John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and Rinse Prebus (sp?), without whom we would be lost lost lost

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  25. Another 4 years and what do you get,

    4 years older aod $6 trillion more in debt

    Bugg (b32862)

  26. Can’t help but think had Romney taken an antiwar stance he would being sworn in today. It was the greatest weakness Obama has. Any president would’ve gone after OBL, and none of them would allow Valerie Jarrett isnide the White House, much less give her the right to scrub the mission.

    The wars are not only unpopular, but at this point wrong. And yet the GOP continues to support this 2×4 in their eye while babbling about the size, scope and cost of Big Government.

    Bugg (b32862)

  27. No, you cannot get to the left of Obama, Romney tried to do so with Kennedy, and they Bained him

    narciso (3fec35)

  28. that’s a good point Mr. Bugg instead we got McCain’s Libya adventurism

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  29. Forget about our children, our future is ruined.

    AZ Bob (28c32d)

  30. what possible appeal do leprechauns have when people find out there’s no gold at the end of the rainbow?

    pdbuttons (949c1e)

  31. its over in 18 months the senate control for the dems is in doubt, waay in doubt

    people will be hurt, but the notion before that a president couldn’t personally affect their theavg citizens lives has been forever shattered by Obama

    EPWJ (c5f1fc)

  32. a leprechaun without gold is like an America without food stamps

    it’s unthinkable

    ok well it’s thinkable but it’s really really disturbing and scary to think about

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  33. leprechauns, don’t exist, except in that very kitschy film, where Jennifer Anniston got her start.

    narciso (3fec35)

  34. Awesome article, Patterico!

    Also, RACIST!!!!!!!1!!!elventy!!

    MunDane (9f5b13)

  35. The president said to me, ‘We don’t have a spending problem.’

    Actually, I think he’s right. It’s really very easy for him to spend money.

    John Marsh (be413d)

  36. There is something unintentionally deceptive about the graph of Federal tax revenue as a percentage of GDP over time.

    Its this: GDP per capita has been increasing over time. We’ve become wealthier in terms of our GDP production.

    That means that in absolute terms, the Federal government’s revenues per person have been increasing over time in absolute terms. Greatly so.

    SPQR (768505)

  37. I guess you no longer believe that he is a good man. A good man would NOT knowingly do all of this.

    CC (eac19d)

  38. you are a very good guesser

    ok now guess what I had for breakfast

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  39. I have a work crew coming so I’m going to limp outside, but before I go – we are not going to change Obama –

    The change comes in 18 months and sets the stage for the next 8 to 16 years

    look foward – and give heart to Boehner he is fighting a reargard action preserving the republic against the maximum damage this man will inflict until reinforcements arrive in Nov 2014

    EPWJ (c5f1fc)

  40. The president said to me, ‘We don’t have a spending problem.’

    Actually, I think he’s right. It’s really very easy for him to spend money.

    Comment by John Marsh (be413d) — 1/21/2013 @ 8:28 am

    I think there’s a joke like that about drinking.

    Gerald A (f26857)

  41. Look on the bright side. At least we’ve gotten our first black president and our first gay president out of the way.

    luagha (bd4637)

  42. Mark Steyn is absolutely killing it on Limbaugh’s show right now!

    Icy (406046)

  43. Greetings:

    At the risk of abusing your hospitality, I would like to make a comment about your first (top ?) graph.

    I find it to be in poor form in that it does not make any reference to the origin (zero ?) point as it starts at 15. In essence, this turns the graph into a marginal analysis which tends to over emphasize the amount of variation by removing the stability of the 0 to 15 data.

    Previously, this information was indicated by a kind of squiggly line on the vertical to show that visual information was, in fact, missing. Regrettably, this practice seems to have fallen into disuse these contentious days.

    Thus, that graph would meet one of my criteria for a statistical manipulation.

    11B40 (845766)

  44. To the earlier comment about Romney being a poor choice:

    The shocker about the election was that on paper it should have gone the other way what with the poor economy. And Romney actually ran a decent campaign. Maybe he could have been more aggressive on Benghazi but it really would not have mattered.

    What really happened was that this society has reached a tipping point in which voters accept poor economic performance in order to have a government that equalizes misery.

    AZ Bob (28c32d)

  45. You’ve mentioned before that your wife is a pretty staunch Democrat. I’m curious what she thinks of this Presidency, in particular the spending and its impact on the next generations. I’d ask a staunch Democrat myself, but I don’t have the constitution to listen to their answers.

    BuckIV (c49856)

  46. An awesome and inspirational inaugural address and inauguration. A call for equality for the middle class, women, gays… national anthem sung by a black woman, prayer given partially in Spanish by a Latin American. Responsibility for education and a call to action for the future, confronting climate change. America is moving forward. Regressives have been put on notice. Take note. A far cry from the protests and egg throwing we say at GWB’s 2001 inauguration.

    Dad (c03711)

  47. who can afford to fritter away their food stamps on eggs to throw anymore

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  48. We have a Barack Obama problem !

    Elephant Stone (c09f25)

  49. They used to call it ‘speaking truth to power’ whatever became of that.

    http://www.jammiewf.com/2013/fiasco-rapper-booted-off-stage-at-inaugural-event-after-anti-obama-comments/

    narciso (3fec35)

  50. What galls me is that he makes statements like “I will cut the deficit in half” and the media never ever hold him to it. And of course the Obamabots never do either.

    I agree with Ipso Fatso: every liberal I know says things like “Oh, Americans, they’re so (insert insult here).” Next time I’m going to say “Compared to what?”

    They despise themselves but feel they earn a dispensation with their Obamalove.

    Patricia (be0117)

  51. The shocker about the election was that on paper it should have gone the other way what with the poor economy. And Romney actually ran a decent campaign. Maybe he could have been more aggressive on Benghazi but it really would not have mattered.

    What really happened was that this society has reached a tipping point in which voters accept poor economic performance in order to have a government that equalizes misery.

    Comment by AZ Bob (28c32d) — 1/21/2013 @ 9:27 am

    It was a combination of things. The Obama campaign’s unprecedented effectiveness at finding and getting to the polls lots of low interest/low information voters was a key. But even without them Obama might have pulled out a narrow win because of Romney’s errors. Obama clearly gained ground the last couple of weeks before the election. Romney miscalculated and needed to have sharper attacks and respond to the heavy attacks of Obama/Clinton etc. Allowing hurricane Sandy to be a positive for Obama was a huge blunder. Romney’s campaign was asleep at the switch.

    Gerald A (f26857)

  52. A call for equality for the middle class, women, gays… national anthem sung by a black woman, prayer given partially in Spanish by a Latin American.

    Inspiring if only Obama hasn’t Balkanized this nation for his political gain for the past 5-1/2 years. Encouraging more division via normalizing Spanish in our country is not good thing. Identity politics is disgusting and harmful to this country – you’d think that would be obvious even to progressives after what has happened over the past 50 years. But as long as their cause benefits they couldn’t care less about the damage it does.

    in_awe (7c859a)

  53. “In the past four years he has shown himself to be a wretched, God-awful excuse for a human being. ”

    This is just way too much hate for me. Even though I may share some of your political views, I find this attitude to be dangerous and delusional.

    This one comment illustrates exactly what is wrong with the people who ally themselves with the Republican Party. It’s time for the voice of sensible people to rise up and displace you haters from the discourse. You do nothing more that pollute it with your lunacy.

    Powder Dry (3d5492)

  54. Q: When you’re asked about Stricker’s semi-retirement, with the political situation the last couple months … what did you mean by that? Do you find it an unsettling time in a way?

    Phil Mickelson:

    Well, it’s been an interesting offseason. And I’m going to have to make some drastic changes. I’m not going to jump the gun and do it right away, but I will be making some drastic changes.

    Q: Meaning leaving from California?

    Mickelson:

    I’m not sure.

    Q: Moving to Canada?

    Mickelson:

    I’m not sure what exactly, you know, I’m going to do yet. I’ll probably talk about it more in depth next week. I’m not going to jump the gun, but there are going to be some. There are going to be some drastic changes for me because I happen to be in that zone that has been targeted both federally and by the state and, you know, it doesn’t work for me right now. So I’m going to have to make some changes.

    Yes. Tax the rich and get used to watching European and South American sports.

    Neo (d1c681)

  55. Patterico, what the hell makes you think he knows better?

    Anon (e45886)

  56. “This one comment illustrates exactly what is wrong with the people who ally themselves with the Republican Party. It’s time for the voice of sensible people to rise up and displace you haters from the discourse. You do nothing more that pollute it with your lunacy.”

    When the Dems want to apologize for all the things they said about Sarah Palin, her kids, and George Bush, wake me up and I’ll join you.

    Anon (e45886)

  57. How did he put it, ‘Reagan’s dark deeds, help inspire my choice to be a community organizer’
    what were some of Reagan’s dark deeds, well Obama
    instead of supporting the Pershing missiles, thought
    the nuclear freeze, didn’t go far enough, we need to totally disarm, the point was made in the Columbia publication Sundance

    narciso (3fec35)

  58. Thank god for the teaparty. Without their extremism, bigotry and hate, Obama would have never won a second term. America is turning away from those regressives. Thanks to their bogus “moral”, fundamentalist and fear-based agendas, the GOP is now known to reasonable conservatives as “the stupid party”. Of course all reasonable non-science denying Republicans are rejected out of hand by the dying far right.

    Dad (c03711)

  59. Dad and Powder Dry are hysterical.

    JD (d420da)

  60. And by hysterical, I mean they possess invincible ignorance and blatant dishonesty.

    JD (d420da)

  61. You find Gen. Colin Powell as invincibly ignorant and dishonest? What are your qualifications?

    Dad (c03711)

  62. Colin Powell is a racist lying whore god love him

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  63. “Colin Powell is a racist lying whore god love him”

    Thank you. That’s why you are losers and soon to be extinct.

    Dad (c03711)

  64. you are welcome let me know if you need me to revile any other members of our loathsome political class

    it’s what I do

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  65. Thank god for the LEFT. Without their extremism, bigotry and hate, Obama would have never won a second term.

    — Fixed that for you, Dad.

    Icy (406046)

  66. No, not ignorant, to ratify the fraud of Benghazi as a random accident, requires something else,

    narciso (3fec35)

  67. Obama raised taxes on little kids’ braces

    the amount of ass this man sucks is difficult to quantify

    maybe you could do it in excel

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  68. The nation survived progressives Woodrow Wilson and FDR; what is in question is whether the nation can survive a nation massively on the dole.

    I believe that’s why Obama pushed the safety net to such disastrous proportions.

    Patricia (be0117)

  69. Benghazi – the great white hope.

    Dad (c03711)

  70. It is curious when the only African American Senator is a Republican, as well as two Hispanic
    Senators.

    narciso (3fec35)

  71. Dad, it’s too bad that you NEVER actually engage anyone in substantive debate, preferring to drop ridiculous and demonstrably false ad homs like you’re fertilizing your lawn.

    Icy (ebf4df)

  72. A year after a similar attack in Sanaa, the underwearbomber, sent by the same folk, tried to blow himself up over Detroit, less than a year after the USS Cole, you had 9/11

    narciso (3fec35)

  73. Dad – I said nothing about Colin Powell. I specifically referred to you, a d the other drive-by.

    JD (d420da)

  74. Please Please Please GOP – Give us a real candidate in 2016. A Conservative who wants to help the poor not be poor. A Conservative who earns the right to run for President, not because it’s his (or her turn)turn. Not a radical nut-job. Hey, someone who represents a state that has balanced its’ budget during the Recession! Is there someone out there who can get the job done? Thune, Rubio, others? Get real. Romney was unelectable, Palin was unelectable. You know it. Let’s get honest with ourselves and put together a plan to restore our Country. There is a candidate out there who can work effectively on both sides of the isle. Find him. Now.

    Rakota (100959)

  75. I thought Romney was electable.

    But I realize now that was stupid.

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  76. I felt like I had to settle for Romney. We need a candidate that we can get energized about.

    Rakota (100959)

  77. The idea that Romney or McCain was a radical nutjob is laughable.

    JD (b63a52)

  78. I think that was maybe a Ron Paul reference.

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  79. McCain would’ve been a good candidate 20 years ago. Palin is viewed as a nut job, even though she has some good things to say. She’s not electable. Romney was uninspiring.

    Rakota (100959)

  80. oh. Got it. I should’ve guessed Palin.

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  81. I don’t recall Palin running for President.

    JD (b63a52)

  82. Any candidate I could get energized about would be too radical for this stupid electorate. Our problems demand radical
    solutions; we probably need to declare a national bankruptcy. Perry called Social Security a Pomzi scheme which it is, but he got bounced. I want Ron Paul with sane foreign policy. Rand?

    Patterico (8b3905)

  83. JD, I didn’t say she ran for President, though she was a last ditch gimmick for the McCain campaign, that didn’t work, at all. I have heard her name floated for 2016 and I think it would be a bad idea. She would not get elected.

    Rakota (100959)

  84. This one comment illustrates exactly what is wrong with the people who ally themselves with the Republican Party. It’s time for the voice of sensible people to rise up and displace you haters from the discourse. You do nothing more that pollute it with your lunacy.

    How dire do you consider our economic situation on a scale from 1 to 100?

    You’re talking to someone who resists demonizing political opponents. If I feel this way it is not because I am hyperpartisan but because I am paying attention. I wonder if you are, which is why I ask the question above.

    Patterico (a08a41)

  85. What in her actual record do you find so horrible?

    JD (b63a52)

  86. Whoever we pick needs to remember to buy off porky porky chris christie with promises of huge quantities of tasty pork or he WILL go all superstorm sandy on their ass.

    Cause that’s just how he rolls.

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  87. Funny how PowderDry aka Dry Powder aka Larkosa aka True American spits out the same nonsense regardless of topic.

    JD (b63a52)

  88. I’m pretty much a single issue voter at this point, but unwilling to vote for someone dangerous. I’d ALMOST vote for Ron Paul at this point except that he is dangerous on foreign policy. I have grown to despise Christie, but if he came out swinging on entitlements I might vote for him over a “staunch” conservative who could not articulate the problem.

    We need someone who does nothing but talk about how the country is going to collapse if we don’t reform entitlements. Such a person cannot be elected but a) I would be enthusiastic about them and b) they would be seen as a prophet after the collapse. Then maybe we could get the real reforms this country needs to bring us back in line with the Founders’ vision.

    Right now it’s hopeless. Only when we look at the rubble in retrospect will the things I want to happen have a chance of happening.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  89. Trying to wade through the pix here is as disgusting as picking up a copy of People magazine.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  90. Rakota,

    Are you suggesting that Romney was not elected because he was too radically right-wing?? That surely cannot be what you’re saying.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  91. He has relentlessly engaged in rhetoric that he knows is dishonest class warfare.

    Definitely. But his own understanding of economic (and social cultural) issues isn’t much better than that, and he doesn’t easily learn. He’s paid most attention to military and foreign policy issues, but even there, he’s quite often opted for chimeras.

    His database of facts is still small. And he doesn’t mind making misleading arguments.

    With guns, he’s actually going along with he NRA. One of the things the NRA touts is background checks. But if you listen carefully, you see that background checks are highly overrated. H pays no attention.

    He sometimes is affected emotionally – and that’s true with what’s going on with guns now – but he never tries to discern what might be the right thing to do, or at least what won’t work. He sometimes, f=if he stays involved, picks up a little bit of information at a time. He’s much better at arguing than at getting raw facts. He doesn’t even seem to realize the need for it. Doesn’t seem to realize that the answer may not be out there on the table, at least not anyway among the first things he will hear. Only failure can teach him that, or extensive involvement.

    He has beat a cowardly retreat from any hint of “entitlement” reform that might keep my children from working all their lives to pay outlandish taxes to fix his mess.

    I’m not sure what you are saying. How would people work all their lives? All I see is he’s just made some general trends worse, and he doesn’t understand how some entitlements truly work – doesn’t understand incentives at all.

    And that’s if my children don’t die in a nuclear war that comes about from the collapse of the world economy that is likely to happen due to his incredible abdication of any responsibility for making our spending relate to our revenues.

    The world economy won’t collapse, and even if a lot of things collapse, the ability to do things won’t, although cutting the military budget too much could create problems. He doesn’t seem to think Iran will remain a problem. SW Asia is OK, the Middle East is OK, NW Africa is OK – we only need to worry about the Chinese military. That’s where he is right now.

    The New York Times had an op-ed piece where someone basically said we don’t need any nuclear weapons and now some approving letters. He hasn’t gone that route.

    But he doesn’t see – maybe nobody sees – that a country like Iran could think there might be circumstances where they could get away with the use of nuclear weapons, and if they do, then we are in trouble.

    Either way, he knows better and is not doing what is necessary.

    I think he believes it is not necessarily necessary to do any more budget cutting. He has economic advisers who assure him things will be OK – the debt as a percentage of GDP will plateau, unless we are hit by some very new surprises..some Republicans are not so confident.

    By the way there are a lot of problems with Republicans. If Republicans made sense, they’d get votes. I just had a conversation with someone. She doesn’t like Republicans in general – I think because they don’t care about people – and they are pro-gun, and she’s glad that idiot that ran last year didn’t get elected.

    This guy’s wife said, when he was elected the first time around, that it was the first time she had ever really been proud of her country.

    When he won primaries.

    to enact a cynical gun-grabbing agenda for cheap partisan gain.

    The problem here is that he doesn’t think about any kind of an issue – that he doesn’t think it needs thinking. He never or almost never questions his sources – and he may being cynical too, in throwing stuff into the legislation. As I said, he’s going for background checks.

    After what he has done to my children’s future, the idea that he would use children as props for any policy advantage is infuriating enough to make me want to bang my head against the wall hard enough to bring down the house around my ears.

    At least get frustrated over personal things – like you hired or agreed to hire somebody for something, and things look too difficult.

    And watching our media lionize this scumbag is more than I can take. You can bet I won’t turn on the television today. If I did, I’d throw a shoe at it.

    He gave a kind of civil rights speech.

    I see nothing but misery on the horizon, and we’re rushing headlong towards it, led by a pompous, self-satisfied, grinning narcissistic fool.

    Sammy Finkelman (b74417)

  92. I hope these aren’t all drive-bys, but I’m not sure.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  93. By the way there are a lot of problems with Republicans. If Republicans made sense, they’d get votes. I just had a conversation with someone. She doesn’t like Republicans in general – I think because they don’t care about people – and they are pro-gun, and she’s glad that idiot that ran last year didn’t get elected.

    And this little anecdote is supposed to be illustrative of the deficiencies of Republicans, and not the electorate?

    Hoo-kay then.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  94. The only comfort I can take away from President PitchingWedge 2.0, is knowing both myself and my daughter will be able to look at our kids/grandkids years from now and proudly say we gave every ounce of effort we had to stop it.

    sybilll (67652e)

  95. Patterico: I see nothing but misery on the horizon, and we’re rushing headlong towards it, led by a pompous, self-satisfied, grinning narcissistic fool.

    I think it was Adam Smith who said “There’s a lot of ruin in a country.”

    The thing is I don’t think it’s that dangerous. It’s easy to make projections that are all wrong: The population explosion, famine, we’re running out of oil, we’re running out of everything, the icebergs are melting, climate change – the same thing is the case with the federal debt.

    Get a little it of economic growth started, and the problem will go away for a many years, at least until the world’s population begins heading downward, which shouldn’t happen for maybe 50 years. Then some countries are definitely going to go bankrupt.

    Why assume growth is going to continue at extremely low rates? Of course the longer it goes on, the more people begin to think it is inevitable.

    Sammy Finkelman (b74417)

  96. I had heard he was a good man. Go figure.

    .
    .
    .
    .
    .

    A leftist is a leftist and they are never, ever good. TO boot, smart men who are leftist are usually profoundly evil megalomaniacs. Just saying.

    Rodney King's Spirit (951136)

  97. Get a little it of economic growth started, and the problem will go away for a many years

    Hogwash

    JD (b63a52)

  98. So Patterico, at what point in time is passive (or active) resistance no longer “wrong” or “against the law?”

    Just curious what the lawyers are thinking. Cuz to me we are way past that time. I am basically a Cloward-Piven man myself.

    Rodney King's Spirit (951136)

  99. Why assume growth is going to continue at extremely low rates?

    Have you seen any evince that they wish to take their collective foot off the throat of companies, taxpayers, etc …?

    JD (b63a52)

  100. “He’s paid most attention to military and foreign policy issues”

    Sammy – There’s no evidence for the above assertion given he spent 15 months getting Obamacare passed. He’s actually paid most attention to his golf game.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  101. “If Republicans made sense, they’d get votes. I just had a conversation with someone. She doesn’t like Republicans in general – I think because they don’t care about people – and they are pro-gun, and she’s glad that idiot that ran last year didn’t get elected.”

    Comment by Patterico (8b3905) — 1/21/2013 @ 12:12 pm

    And this little anecdote is supposed to be illustrative of the deficiencies of Republicans, and not the electorate

    If the Republicans gave some signs of understanding the argument on the other side, it wouldn’t be possible to maintain that point of view. It wouldn’t have any credence. You can’t talk abstractions.

    And Romney was an idiot.

    The quality of a candidate makes a difference. If the electorate is somewhat disposed to be against one party, it’s even more important to that party.

    Sammy Finkelman (b74417)

  102. Why assume growth is going to continue at extremely low rates?

    Comment by JD (b63a52) — 1/21/2013 @ 12:30 pm

    Have you seen any evince that they wish to take their collective foot off the throat of companies, taxpayers, etc …?

    At some point somebody is going to realize what’s causing it, or maybe just randomly change policy somewhere. I also don’t think it’s exactly that somebody has some foot exactly on companies, but something is wrong. It could even be entitlements.

    By the way, Obama was ready to say that Social Security – the fact you could fall back on it – is what gives people the courage to start businesses. Maybe so, for some people, but that’s been a constant factor for the last 60 to 75 years, and nobody’s proposing abolishing Social Security. He cold make a bigger argument for health insurance, except that the problem is all he does is force people to buy it and drives up the price, and his remedy for people who can’t afford it is Medicaid.

    Sammy Finkelman (b74417)

  103. On a scale of 1 to 100 I’d rate our financial crisis a 125. I want a President that has the stones to slash spending, can pass a fiscally conservative budget and balance the checkbook, protect the unborn and the elderly, honor our troops (repeal DADT), compel people who CAN work to get off of welfare to some kind of work, shrink government, and manage a right-sized military. Who can understand the importance of fossil fuels for our countries safety and independence while working towards energy independence. And I want a President who stands for ALL of the Constitution, no just parts and pieces.

    Rakota (100959)

  104. I know a number here, Thugs or Pinkies, think I’m just a curmudgeon but here’s someone paid to make the same points with a bit more flair:

    http://minx.cc/?post=336737

    Japan longer has the foreign scratch to lower their rate of inflation. What could go wrong?

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  105. 81. “Palin is viewed as a nut job”

    Mostly by Pink Slime and Gorgons, not the most rational stable of critics.

    In your case the two above sets might just find union.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  106. #

    “He’s paid most attention to military and foreign policy issues”

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/21/2013

    Sammy – There’s no evidence for the above assertion given he spent 15 months getting Obamacare passed. He’s actually paid most attention to his golf game.

    I think he paid more attention to foreign and military policy – switching generals even – than he did to the details of Obamacare. He paid a little attention to the politics of passing it, but I don’t think even that was him. Obama was never interested in reviewing options with regard to health insurance. We’ve debated it for 60 years he more or less said. It was like the way he saw civil rights – you knew what you wanted, the problem was getting a bill passed.

    That’s not the case with foreign and military policy. He did study that. He did review or change policy.

    The big problem now is he thinks he has answer to a lot of problems, including financial, by having Chuck Hagel, who’s been on some review board for a few years, cut the defense budget, without, he thinks, harming anything important, like drones.

    Sammy Finkelman (067111)

  107. Actually, Obama may have paid more attention to his fund raising than to his golf game.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  108. “Get a little it of economic growth started, and the problem will go away for a many years”

    Comment by JD (b63a52) — 1/21/2013 @ 12:29 pm

    Hogwash

    You’re ignoring the power of compounding.

    Sammy Finkelman (067111)

  109. 97. “It’s easy to make projections that are all wrong”

    Mea culpa. Economics is a study of human behavior, groups pursuing their self interest.

    I must confess I’m not very good at projections, not for lack of trying.

    Sammy, it pains me to say so, does about as well with accomplished fact and past event.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  110. Get the sense that people like Sammy saying “Romney was an idiot” are trying to jsutify voting for a fiscal illiterate like Obama. ROmney had many faults, but being stupid wasn’t one of them. He may ahve run a stupid campaign.

    What many of us think is there are 2 different conversations going on, and many on the left as well as much of the DC GOP don’t get it yet. We have the political/media orbit still talking about the merits of Obama his party, and the flaws of Romney and the GOP.This is window dressing, worrying about whether your faucet is leaking while your hosue s engulfed in flames.it might have mattered in the past, it doesn’t matter now in our time of $16 trillion debt.

    But beyond that many of us grasp it’s so much bigger. We are broke. We’re on the cusp of fiscal disaster. And the politcal/media orb doesn’t want to deal with this bigger issue. And worse we have a president who will not deal with these issues or is knowingly breaking things. And it’s clear he will demonize, attack, marginalize and destroy anyone who dares discuss this.

    Simply nobody can borrow 40 cents of every dollar they spend forever. If a Republican toyed with something as insane as the trillion dollar coin, he would rightly be institutionalized. But the media is too busy dropping rose petals onto Obama’s path instead of asking any hard questions sbout how he will address this. We have a spending problem,and Obama has no plan at all.

    Bugg (ba4ca9)

  111. “Obama was never interested in reviewing options with regard to health insurance.”

    Sammy – That’s right. It was passed without Republican support and Obama even had to bribe members of his own party to get enough votes to drag it over the finish line it was so underwhelmingly popular. But in terms of attention, how many speeches did he give about it over the fifteen months prior to its passage?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  112. Oh, yes Obama has paid a lot of attention to fundraising.

    And none to eliminating the need for excessive time devoted to it, because it would level the playing field, and reduce centralized party control of candidates and vastly improve our politics.

    No, the stupid nostrums usually trotted out, which would only benefit incumbents more.

    Higher campaign contribution limits, as long as substitutes are available, and dollar for dollar tax credits for campaign contributions, and have accounts or campaign reporting all being managed by disinterested third parties like banks. They could offer special campaign accounts and handle all reporting, as long as everything was run through it, like some companies now do for payroll..

    Sammy Finkelman (067111)

  113. 63. “Qualifications”

    I have a pulse, can fog a mirror and can make my mark. Need I more?

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  114. Let see, he shifted out McCrystal, who helped reorganize the intelligence system, and carried forth the plan, he asked for, he pushed Petraeus out of CentCom and sent him to Afghanistan, he stalled on the SOFA in Iraq, and now AQi Iraq is
    ravaging the country, and Syria next door, the one good General, Mattis is being purged,

    narciso (3fec35)

  115. *No, NOT the stupid nostrums usually trotted out. (more limits, difficult to qualify and low value ppublic financing)

    Sammy Finkelman (067111)

  116. 96. Word, humbly uttered.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  117. Comment by Bugg (ba4ca9) — 1/21/2013 @ 12:59 pm

    Get the sense that people like Sammy saying “Romney was an idiot” are trying to jsutify voting for a fiscal illiterate like Obama.

    I actually did vote for him, but I didn’t like it. Obama was worse, but not on general economics, although everything he said was a lie.

    Ryan would have been pretty good, even though he was mistaken. But he was honest, and would correct himself. It’s important to be honest and let an honest debate be conducted. It’s also important to have an intelligent debate, and make sense.

    But Obama was right not to worry too much or panic. All his details were wrong or lies, but hi overall assessment – no need for special measures wasn’t too bad. His big lie was that the Republicans were going to destroy things.

    Sammy Finkelman (067111)

  118. 6 trillion dollars of debt in four years is a pretty special effing measure I think

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  119. 55. “In the past four years he has shown himself to be a wretched, God-awful excuse for a human being. ”

    This is just way too much hate for me. Even though I may share some of your political views, I find this attitude to be dangerous and delusional.

    This one comment illustrates exactly what is wrong with the people who ally themselves with the Republican Party. It’s time for the voice of sensible people to rise up and displace you haters from the discourse. You do nothing more that pollute it with your lunacy.

    Comment by Powder Dry (3d5492) — 1/21/2013 @ 10:11 am

    Too funny. This one comment “illustrates exactly what is wrong with the people who ally themselves with the Republican Party.” It is “just way too much hate” for people like Powder Dry who ally themselves with people like Barack Obama woh say “help me punish your enemies,” or Biden who say “they’re gonna put y’all back in chains, or Andre Carson who says “This is the effort that we are seeing of Jim Crow. Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second class citizens. Some of them in Congress right now with this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me… hanging on a tree,” that conservatives want to kill kids for jobs per Van Jones, that Republicans want to poison your kids per Barack Obama, or Nadler who say that NRA (and therefore its 4+ million members) are “enablers of mass murder,” and Paul Ryan wants to kill granny per the entire DNC and…

    Oh, why go on? Only a “wretched, god-awful excuse like a human being” like Powder dry could pretend to be so offended by that one comment given the constant stream of far worse coming from the left.

    This is why when lefties talk about shaming the right over anything the proper response is to just point and laugh. OMG, conservatives, we have to learn to be civil to people like the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus:

    Rep. Marcia Fudge and Newt Gingrich agree to bipartisan exchange after Fudge calls GOP colleagues “evil” and “nuts” (video link)

    Ahh, civility now!

    Powder Dry ranks up their with Condoleeza Rice who, like Colin Powell, thinks the GOP has a messaging problem in that whole swaths of the population are made to feel unwelcome.

    I felt like asking, Condoleeza who? Weren’t you the barefooted illiterate maid in the Bush administration? Oh, no, that’s right; like Colin Powell you served as Secretary of State in the Bush administration. It was just mainstream leftist (but I repeat myself) press organizations that called you the barefooted nursemaid and step-&-fetchit to the Bush administration using imagery and language that would get you shot if directed by Obama.

    But it’s the GOP that has the messaging problem. Got it. Stockholm syndrome is pretty obvious when you see it. The side, like Obama’s spiritual mentor Rev. Wright who called her “Condosleaza,” gets to tell her who has the messaging problem.

    And that was just off the top of my head.

    Please don’t go away, Powder Dry. We need somebody to add some levity to today’s affairs by making a complete arse of him or herself. Faux outrage and rank hypocrisy are two attributes we look for in a Patterico’s Pontifications court jester.

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  120. Obama lied about taxes on the rich being a solution, but the point was cutting spending wasn’t a solution either. When the big problem is economic growth.

    ROmney had many faults, but being stupid wasn’t one of them. He may ahve run a stupid campaign.

    Look at the way he stumbled during the debates. The only general election debate he did good at was the first, where even an idiot, provided he was somewhat informed, could begin to take apart the stuff Obama was saying.

    Sammy Finkelman (067111)

  121. Comment by Steve57 (4c041b) — 1/21/2013 @ 1:20 pm

    Well Said!

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  122. If the Republicans gave some signs of understanding the argument on the other side, it wouldn’t be possible to maintain that point of view. It wouldn’t have any credence. You can’t talk abstractions.

    Let’s consider the “argument” of your friend:

    “If Republicans made sense, they’d get votes. I just had a conversation with someone. She doesn’t like Republicans in general – I think because they don’t care about people – and they are pro-gun, and she’s glad that idiot that ran last year didn’t get elected.”

    Republicans are pro-gun meanies. If we want to attract your friend’s vote, we should abandon the Second Amendment and stop being such meanies. Brilliant.

    As for the “argument” of the professional politicians on the other side on how we can maintain Social Security and Medicare: it is a lie. That is the very point of the post and the charts it contains. I understand the argument and reject it as utterly and knowingly dishonest.

    Patterico (007fd1)

  123. Obama lied about taxes on the rich being a solution, but the point was cutting spending wasn’t a solution either

    Cutting spending is silly talk

    JD (d420da)

  124. Economic growth would help, but what would it take to really spur growth — *real* growth. A bunch of stuff we will never do.

    Abolish the minimum wage.

    Repeal ObamaCare.

    Eliminate the EEOC and repeal anti-discrimination laws in hiring and firing.

    Eliminate the corporate income tax.

    Eliminate or sharply curb unemployment insurance.

    Reverse the rules changes that make it easier to get food stamps, mortgage assistance, and other handouts when your income is low.

    Reform Social Security and eliminate the payroll tax.

    And so on. Remove disincentives to work, make it easy to fire people, slash regulations, and you’d see the economy explode with unprecedented growth.

    Won’t happen. We’re too weak to trust markets. To trust ourselves over government.

    Patterico (a08a41)

  125. Health care and higher education costs have skyrocketed because of government involvement, and these people want to “fix” the problem by involving government *more*.

    It’s laughable but it’s deadly serious.

    Patterico (a08a41)

  126. what many of us think is there are 2 different conversations going on, and many on the left as well as much of the DC GOP don’t get it yet. We have the political/media orbit still talking about the merits of Obama his party, and the flaws of Romney and the GOP. This is window dressing, worrying about whether your faucet is leaking while your house engulfed in flames.it might have mattered in the past, it doesn’t matter now in our time of $16 trillion debt.

    Let’s say the house is in flames. When people don’t believe the house is in flames, it matters more than ever you have someone capable of arguing that it is,and why.

    And that he knows what to do about it.

    But beyond that many of us grasp it’s so much bigger. We are broke. We’re on the cusp of fiscal disaster. And the politcal/media orb doesn’t want to deal with this bigger issue.

    I think Paul Ryan thinks so. But eve he doesn’t think it’s so close that you can’t extend the debt limit three months.

    And worse we have a president who will not deal with these issues or is knowingly breaking things. And it’s clear he will demonize, attack, marginalize and destroy anyone who dares discuss this.

    Simply nobody can borrow 40 cents of every dollar they spend forever.

    This is where you go wrong by making projections

    You can still borrow quite a lot.

    And you can still avoid utter disaster.

    I think the relationship to GDP matters too. The Confederate States of America raised only about 5% of its spending from taxes. The rest came from borrowing or printing money. They didn’t lose because they went broke. Although the price level was seven times as high (in Confederate dollars) in 1865 as it had been (in U.S. dollars) in 1861. Averaged out that’s an inflation rate of only 62% a year.

    If a Republican toyed with something as insane as the trillion dollar coin, he would rightly be institutionalized.

    It’s not insane, it just seems that way. It’s better than some alternatives. And $15 trillion would be too high to go.

    Obama has actually rejected it, but he might reverse himself in a year or two, if the debt limit does not get raised, or another president might. Once you have eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, you can’t take it back, and this will remain an option until or unless repealed.

    But the media is too busy dropping rose petals onto Obama’s path instead of asking any hard questions sbout how he will address this. We have a spending problem,and Obama has no plan at all.

    Obama’s solution is to raise taxes now, promise spending cuts latter, and lay anything unpopular in any deal at the feet of the Republicans, and wait for economic growth to take off.

    Sammy Finkelman (067111)

  127. askeptic @124, well said despite all the typos?

    Well, thank, thank you very much! I’ll be here for the rest of the day, avoiding anyplace that may have a working TV and deeply grateful I cancelled my cable.

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  128. Let’s say the house is in flames. When people don’t believe the house is in flames, it matters more than ever you have someone capable of arguing that it is,and why.

    And that he knows what to do about it.

    I agree with that. But you also need to be prepared to denounce as liars and horrible people anyone who knows the house is in flames and denies it.

    It’s a crappy analogy because when a house is in flames you can see it and you know you will get burned if you don’t deal with it. People want to deny that the country is in trouble, liars like Obama enable their denial, and they figure that if anyone is going to burn it won’t be them but people in the future.

    Patterico (a08a41)

  129. Comment by Patterico (a08a41) — 1/21/2013 @ 1:39 pm

    OMG, man!
    That way lies Anarchy!
    Next thing we’ll know, you’ll be praising Capitalism, and publishing dog recipes.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  130. Wait-there really is a Congressperson Fudge?

    Sammy, you cannot borrow on this scale long term. We are fast approaching the the debt service causing real damage and harm. It didn’t work for the Romans, nor the Brits nor the French after WWI, nor Weimar Germany, nor the Soviets, nor Galtieri’s Argentina. It doesn’t work.

    The trillion dollar coin is in fact magical thinking run amok. And in fariness the “growth” idea is magical thinking. along it’s corollary about the percentage of debt to GDP. Lawrence Kudlow says much the same-wrong-thing often. Growth is wonderful, but to get out of this mess the level of growth would have to match that of the 1950s times 2 or even 3. And there is no way America can hope for that kind of growth. It was a special set of circumstances which cannot be replicated.

    Things have to get cut. We can either do that sensibly now, as Canada under a liberal government did not long ago. Or we can do them in a panic like Greece. Obama is putting this country on the path to Greece.

    Obama thrives on crisis rather than stability. First day of economics class we were taught what an economy needs more than anything else for businesses to thrive is stability; tomorrow will be like today, so you can plan. When we have crisis afetr crisis after crist, nobody can plan long term. Not only is growth unlikely on the scale you hope for because it’s unrealistic, under President Obama the things we need for business growth are by his rule precluded.

    Bugg (ba4ca9)

  131. A friend who I would consider generally intelligent made the following comment on my wife’s facebook page,
    “What can the President do to get the Republicans to stop blocking him? Nothing, but the people will see through what the Republicans are doing and get tired of it and then they will stop”.

    It is really like needing to deprogram people. Agree or disagree with the president on specific issues, but where has he been blocked by Republicans?
    Now he has clearly equated the “right” to gay marriage with anti-racism civil rights legislation, made a commitment to fight the “clearly documented danger of global warming”, and again condemned the practice of political demonization and name-calling (when other people do it).

    I would like to see him make a speech that would satisfy pro-gay Muslims. If any one could pull off such a display of intellectual contradiction it would be him.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  132. I had heard he was a good man. Go figure.

    Four years of exploding the debt have shown that he is not.

    Patterico (a08a41)

  133. “Obama’s solution is to raise taxes now, promise spending cuts latter, and lay anything unpopular in any deal at the feet of the Republicans, and wait for economic growth to take off.”

    Sammy – Obama just wants responsibility for tough decisions to avoid sticking to him. It’s been the hallmark of his political career.

    Republicans wanted to negotiate broad budget and tax code reform deals but Obama refuses to negotiate because he is so reasonable. Republicans are unreasonable for wanting to negotiate.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  134. “higher education”?
    Don’t neglect “lower education” (K-12).
    Those costs have sky-rocketed when you compare the Dollar spent to the result attained.
    It is not dis-similar to buying a candy-bar at the same price but a reduced size.
    PE has been “reducing the size” for over a generation, and has elected themselves a “President for Life”.
    No rational person would continue the “education” of their children in PE if they weren’t forced to by the state absent an affordable alternative.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  135. hey Pat: could you do us all a solid and hide the pictures of our SCOAMF?

    i know i need to lose weight, but projectile vomiting is hard on the furniture & drapes. 😎

    redc1c4 (403dff)

  136. “It is really like needing to deprogram people.”

    Patterico – A lot of people suffer from Krugman poisoning. It’s a brain wasting disease.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  137. Does this person want to keep his insurance, do they want ‘electricity to necessarily skyrocket, do they believe ‘you didn’t build that’;

    narciso (3fec35)

  138. “…and wait for economic growth to take off.”

    2017 will be the first likely date for that, assuming you idiots don’t elect another Demonrat president.

    redc1c4 (403dff)

  139. It’s a brain wasting disease.
    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9)

    Brains are a terrible thing to waste.

    Where is “Radio Free America” when you need it? I guess “talk radio” is it, but the “Pravdainian” propaganda machine is effective in countering.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  140. 2017 will be Hillary’s time

    unless she’s all clotted up

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  141. The prospect of fair elections make progressives panic, which is why they love the idea of background checks for gun purchases but call voter ID laws racist and an attempt to suppress the vote.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  142. Sammy Finkelman #93:

    The New York Times had an op-ed piece where someone basically said we don’t need any nuclear weapons and now some approving letters. He hasn’t gone that route.

    Actually, he is. Sammy Finkelman #97:

    Why assume growth is going to continue at extremely low rates? Of course the longer it goes on, the more people begin to think it is inevitable.

    That’s wishful thinking, Sammy. As NPR reported in July 2011, America’s continued weak/slow economic growth rate has an insidious and disturbing impact on the U.S. economy and its workers in the short run and the long run. The article notes it would take a long time to recover with 10 years of 2% growth, but ZeroHedge explains that the impact of the 2013 tax hikes may depress GDP up to 3.5% (or more, if the sequester takes effect).

    In other words, I agree economic growth would help but only if the Obama Administration embraced policies that promote economic growth. It doesn’t and the prospect for growth is dimmer than ever.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  143. I think Sammy is an excellent example of the problem with our electorate. He isn’t stupid — far from it — but he “knows” so much that isn’t true, and he won’t listen to anyone who challenges what he knows.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  144. Cloward Piven.
    .
    .
    .
    .
    Do your part to end the insanity.

    Rodney King's Spirit (951136)

  145. I am just thankful that Al Qaeda is dead or on the run and that the Muslim Brotherhood is a benign, moderate political party.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  146. Plus I am grateful of course that Obama saved us from the scourge of underinflated tires. I did not want to forget my gratefulness for that.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  147. Pat @125, really instead of understanding the argument of this “friend” you need to understand the underlying and conflicting rationalizations of this “friend.”

    Have you ever heard of this book?

    Amazon: What’s the Matter with Kansas?

    This book doesn’t tell you much about Kansas, no matter what the NYT book review imagines:

    Book Description:

    The New York Times bestseller, praised as “hilariously funny . . . the only way to understand why so many Americans have decided to vote against their own economic and political interests” (Molly Ivins)

    Hailed as “dazzlingly insightful and wonderfully sardonic” (Chicago Tribune), “very funny and very painful” (San Francisco Chronicle), and “in a different league from most political books” (The New York Observer), What’s the Matter with Kansas? unravels the great political mystery of our day: Why do so many Americans vote against their economic and social interests? With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank answers the riddle by examining his home state, Kansas-a place once famous for its radicalism that now ranks among the nation’s most eager participants in the culture wars. Charting what he calls the “thirty-year backlash”-the popular revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment-Frank reveals how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans.

    It does provide a great deal of insight into the liberal mind. They talk about generosity:

    “A more generous vision for America:” Miami Herald endorses Obama

    Really, as Frank admits in his book they are talking about appealing to voters to vote in their “economic and social interests;” in other words, greed.

    People like this “friend” want to convince themselves they are being “generous” when they vote to divide somebody else’s money up in hope that they will benefit from it. And that voting to take it makes them morally superior to the person who worked to make it and who, therefore, wants to keep it. The latter now represents greed (I’m sure in your work as prosecutor you run across people who justify their larceny in the exact same way; now they have a political party).

    During the VP debate Biden said of Romney, “I don’t doubt his personal generosity.”

    This would imply there is some other kind of generosity but there isn’t. Like the category of “assault weapon” they’ve created one to fill the need. people like like this “friend” who respond to what Frank openly acknowledges to be the liberal appeal to class warfare and greed want at the same time to maintain the illusion that they are morally superior for doing so.

    It’s sort of a section eight housing version of Gordon Gekko’s “greed is good” philosophy.

    Kansas, by the way, is dysfunctional and stupid for not tearing out the page from its Bible that says “thou shalt not steal” and replacing it with the new revised page that says “blessed are they who vote in their own self-interest, for they shall inherit free health care.”

    Only what is public is to be trusted. Your gun is private. The policeman’s gun is public. So what if Obama is privately cold and callous; he wouldn’t even interrupt his fundraising but instead flew to Vegas immediately after Chris Stevens was killed. But he’s “publicly” generous with other people’s stuff.

    Romney might “personally” comfort a dying child or make sure someone had something for Christmas. But so what? That “costs” this “friend” who sees that as just money down the drain when she could have divvied up along with the politically like minded and put it to a higher use; paying for stuff they want. Private charity “costs” the public because what’s wasted on such charities is money that’s never made “public.”

    This is the new “generosity.” All else is “meanness.”

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  148. “Dad” writes: Thank god for the teaparty. Without their extremism, bigotry and hate, Obama would have never won a second term.

    What a bizarre combination of typical Democrat lies and hatred.

    The TEA Party was not extremist, had no bigotry and no hate. All of the hate came from the Democrats. And a majority of America shared TEA Party positions.

    This comment was really how Obama won a second term, by offering no substance at all, by intentionally avoiding talking of his own utterly failed policies and lying about the opposition with the brazen conspiracy of the media.

    SPQR (768505)

  149. Sammy still amazes me with how much of an “expert” on the NRA he is … and yet can get nothing right about NRA positions.

    SPQR (768505)

  150. 152. “Dad” writes: Thank god for the teaparty. Without their extremism, bigotry and hate, Obama would have never won a second term.

    What a bizarre combination of typical Democrat lies and hatred.

    The TEA Party was not extremist, had no bigotry and no hate. All of the hate came from the Democrats. And a majority of America shared TEA Party positions.

    This comment was really how Obama won a second term, by offering no substance at all, by intentionally avoiding talking of his own utterly failed policies and lying about the opposition with the brazen conspiracy of the media.

    Comment by SPQR (768505) — 1/21/2013 @ 2:47 pm

    SPQR, Dad is simply trying to say that the TEA Party enraged him by not agreeing that it’s entirely to blame that he’s a twisted, hateful, greedy, soulless ghoul.

    Therein lies its extremism.

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  151. Forgot to add, SPQR, you could substitute Boy Scouts, Catholic Church, etc.

    “Extremists” like them just enrage the self-anointed like Dad when they have the temerity not to do what they’re told.

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  152. “At one point several weeks ago,” Mr. Boehner says, “the president said to me, ‘We don’t have a spending problem.’ “

    Barack Obama went on to say “We have a health care problem” – meaning that Medicare and Medicaid were costing more and more every year – meaning that the spending problem was the result of health care inflation.

    Now Barack Obama seems to subscribe to the notion that markets are inefficient except when the government is spending the money!

    But it’s not over forever.

    Sammy Finkelman (067111)

  153. What did help the Democrats were the voter-ID laws and other efforts to reduce turnout, like by eliminating early voting days. That really enabled the Democrats to turn out their base, and make them vote for Democrats without much thinking.

    These laws did, however, have a small effect in reducing Republican turnout.

    Sammy Finkelman (067111)

  154. “That really enabled the Democrats to turn out their base, and make them vote for Democrats without much thinking.”

    Sammy – Plus, who would want to vote for that murderous, tax cheat, racist, Mormon loon, plutocrat of a candidate Romney, right?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  155. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 1/21/2013 @ 2:50 pm

    Sammy still amazes me with how much of an “expert” on the NRA he is … and yet can get nothing right about NRA positions.

    Didn’t Wayne LaPierre come out for prosecuting any person who attempted to buy a gun and was turned down after a background check?

    Isn’t the NRA for disqualifying more people?

    http://hazelwood.patch.com/articles/nra-responds-to-presidents-gun-control-proposals-calls-us-mental-health-system-broken

    The NRA will continue to focus on…..fixing our broken mental health system..

    You think that only means locking more people up? And doesn’t mean disqualifying more people from purchasing guns??

    They’re talking background checks.

    Sammy Finkelman (067111)

  156. he was pretty freaky

    not an easy guy for normal people to relate to

    I hate obama but I’m glad Romney’s gone away cause man he just wasn’t adding any value my life

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  157. *to* my life I mean to say

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  158. happyfeet, right now “not adding value to my life” as opposed to “sucking value out of my life like a black hole” sounds like a very good trade.

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  159. Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 1/21/2013 @ 2:20 pm

    He’s a Reagan Liberal.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  160. “…meaning that the spending problem was the result of health care inflation…”

    Then why does his solution – “ObamaCare” – increase those costs both for consumers and providers?

    The man is an Economic Moron!

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  161. Didn’t Wayne LaPierre come out for prosecuting any person who attempted to buy a gun and was turned down after a background check?

    Yes, he came out for enforcing existing federal and state laws that restrict firearms purchases.
    It is a five-year, $10K (Fed) felony for someone who is forbidden by law to possess firearms to attempt to purchase same, and the ammunition too.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  162. Features, and bugs, askeptic.

    JD (d420da)

  163. Actually, Sammy, if you have been committed to a mental hospital by a court order, or been declared by a court to be a danger to yourself or others, or have been found to be incompetent to manage your affairs, your name is supposed to be entered into the NICS registry as someone who is to be automatically denied permission to purchase firearms from an FFL.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  164. I agree Mr. 57

    this whole situation is just not optimal as food stamp would say

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  165. “Didn’t Wayne LaPierre come out for prosecuting any person who attempted to buy a gun and was turned down after a background check?”

    Sammy – Even if they didn’t lie on the application? Really?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  166. Like Steve57 I spent the day avoiding any location where there was a working TV or a talking head. Had a nice long lunch with wine, saw Zero Dark 30 and bought a new pair of cool bright red water sandals. Now I’m making soup with a Clapton CD in the background. Tomorrow is another day.

    elissa (62b250)

  167. How did you find ZD 30, elissa?

    narciso (3fec35)

  168. I hate to interrupt Obama’s celebration of Obama, but this just in:

    BREAKING NEWS: Two More Americans Discovered Among Victims Of Algerian Hostage Standoff

    U.S. officials say the bodies of two Americans were recovered from gas plant, bringing total to three Americans killed in standoff.

    The Telegraph – Algeria hostage crisis: Most weapons used in attack came from Libya

    Most of the weapons used by al Qaeda-linked militants to storm a gas facility in southeastern Algeria came from Libya, the Daily Telegraph has learned.

    Now we return to wall-to-wall network coverage of just how totally awesome Michelle Obama’s new fright wig is.

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  169. We all win some and lose some. But to be losers and deny reality will lead quickly to extinction. Such anti-rational denial is rampant.

    Dad (c03711)

  170. nobody is denying that republicans are losers Mr. Dad

    nobody but nobody

    happyfeet (4bf7c2)

  171. Narciso–

    Saw ZD30 with a small group of friends–1/2 of one couple is career military (Army). All of us thought it was well done, exciting and stirring, without being over-dramatic and that it came across as surprisingly apolitical in spirit while never denying that politics impacts wars, policies, decisions, careers, lives, etc.

    Most important, I thought, the script reminded everyone watching that from 1998 through 2011 there were dedicated and mostly unheralded people behind the scenes tirelessly tracking Bin Laden and doing the best they could during the course of three presidential administrations. And doing it with never enough assets or resources.

    I’d be interested in hearing what others who have seen it think.

    elissa (62b250)

  172. Dad, you are the one lying about people you don’t like.

    SPQR (fa6335)

  173. From what little I glimpsed of the inauguration today, did anybody besides me notice that Obama took a more shrill line with conservatives who still resist absorption into the one-party state collective than he did with the terrorists in Algeria?

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  174. ‘they cannot be assimilated and added to the distinctiveness,’ whereas Hagel has said the AQIM
    are possible negotiating partners.

    narciso (3fec35)

  175. Either way, he knows better and is not doing what is necessary.

    Patterico, I recall that 4 years ago (hard to believe it has been that long), back around January 2009, you were arguing on this board that you thought Obama was a basically decent person. I had mixed emotions about such a contention, mainly because I didn’t know enough about Obama — as he was and is behind closed doors — to strongly judge him one way or the other. However, I did sense there was something philosophically/ideologically/emotionally corrupt about the guy, enough so as to feel hesitant about giving him more than a micron of the benefit of the doubt.

    In these past 4 years, and witnessing generally nothing but disreputable aspects of Obama, I truly feel he’s the most marginal, radical character to ever occupy the White House. Of course, his willingness to schmooze for almost 20 years with a “goddamn America!” minister from Chicago made my original cynicism and skepticism not exactly such a stretch or unwarranted.

    I don’t know what the US will be like over the next several decades, and I’m not sure if I’m being overly skeptical in saying that America jumped the shark — forever after — in November 2008. But I do know that when observing countries like Mexico, Greece, Venezuela, Argentina and France, the downward trajectory such societies face can be very, very steep. Yet no matter how far they fall, enough people in those places will be foolish (and reckless, and stupid) enough to take their nations down even further.

    Don’t cry for us, Argentina.

    Mark (e66007)

  176. “That really enabled the Democrats to turn out their base, and make them vote for Democrats without much thinking.”

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 1/21/2013 @ 3:15 pm

    Sammy – Plus, who would want to vote for that murderous, tax cheat, racist, Mormon loon, plutocrat of a candidate Romney, right?

    In the places it happened it was more like “those evil Republicans, who want to run government in th interests of the top 1%, or who want to deprive you of the right to vote, have created obstacles to voting. Let’s show ’em!”

    I don’t think they ever used murderous. That was more like heartless: Fires people and causes them to lose health insurance and later their lives.

    Tax cheat was Harry Reid hoping Romney would embarrass himself – it would have been more doesn’t want the rich to pay taxes and wants to cut benefits people need to survive.

    Racist was maybe used – the voting laws were supposed to prove racism. They hyped black turnout – plus there is the fact that people who voted in one election, are much more likely to vote in the next. That’s why turnout rises with age. People who registered and voted in 2008 didn’t drop out in 2012, something the people doing the calculating didn’t take into account.

    Mormon loon wasn’t used, but plutocrat (without using that multisyllable high SAT score word) was used. In general the Republican Party was accused of being plutocratic.

    Sammy Finkelman (067111)

  177. Racist was maybe used

    ARE YOU ON. CRACK !?!?!?!?!??!!?!

    JD (b63a52)

  178. Yes, Sammmy is on something.

    Mark, give it a rest.

    SPQR (768505)

  179. “…meaning that the spending problem was the result of health care inflation…”

    Then why does his solution – “ObamaCare” – increase those costs both for consumers and providers?

    I don’t think he’s admitted that, and he won’t until he’s absolutely forced to, and then only to the absolutely minimum degree necessary, and he’ll come up with a false solution..

    The man is an Economic Moron!

    He is. Although maybe he hasn’t even looked into it and is relying entirely on aides from whom he doesn’t want anybody saying this won’t work. Some ofthe “cost-saving”ideas may come from lobbyists.

    He never much questions anything he hears from the “right” people. That’s not how he maintained his voting record, and his conscience, in Illinois.

    Sammy Finkelman (067111)

  180. Sammy, Obama’s voting record was of avoiding gettin onto the record more than any other Illinois legislator.

    SPQR (768505)

  181. 179. Dad, you are the one lying about people you don’t like.

    Comment by SPQR (fa6335) — 1/21/2013 @ 4:42 pm

    As he must. This is a nation in deep denial on so many levels, and people like Dad who want to live in a bubble have to lie about people who occasionally burst it.

    That was the quality of Obama’s speech as (what little I caught) as well as the reporting on the speech.

    For instance David Ignatius in the WaPo:

    A flat, partisan and pedestrian speech

    (Yet of course hyper-partisans like Dad will always accuse partisanship of only coming from the right. Whether as narciso points out it’s a hyperpartisan GOP President who refuses to cross the aisle and compromise enough with his Dem critics to satisfy them [Bush 2005] or hyperpartisan GOP critics of a Dem President who refuses to compromise at all who refuse to capitulate entirely to him [Obama 2013]. So clearly Ignatius is a bigot, and if I bothered to read the comments I’m sure suspicion would be borne out.)

    The area where the speech was spongiest was foreign policy. Obama reiterated his campaign theme that “a decade of war is now ending” and that maintaining peace does not require “perpetual war.” That certainly fits the mood of the war-weary nation that re-elected him. And there was a ritual assertion of internationalism, in the insistence that “America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe.”

    This is good rhetoric, but empty policy guidance. A listener wouldn’t have had a clue that a war is going on in Syria that has claimed over 60,000 lives, and that there is no discernible American policy to deal with it. A listener wouldn’t have known that a group called Al Qaeda still exists, let alone that it has left savage calling cards this past week in Algeria, just as it did in September in Libya.

    Ignatius didn’t notice; Obama declared the era of having a clue over and the era of big government to have returned.

    It was a bizarre speech. Why on earth would this nation be “war weary?” What has this country as a nation done? Except disappoint those who were serving on their behalf because the “99%” of this “war weary” nation whose entire contribution to the “war effort” consisted entirely of sitting on their fat behinds watching American Idol or Jersey Shore and electing Obama to redistribute someone’s wealth to them.

    Beyond that, in this speech once again we are treated the spectacle of Obama declaring things to be true that are demonstrably 180 degrees out from the truth.

    “[A] decade of war is now ending?”

    Both on the international and domestic fronts this is not true.

    So of course Dad must lie and say it’s Obama’s critics who aren’t dealing with reality.

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  182. Remember that Ignatius bought the talking points on Benghazi, not once but twice, as the line goes ‘we’re not interested in war, but war is interested in us’

    narciso (3fec35)

  183. But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.

    As narciso points out in #181 AQIM, and indeed its many guises, are worth negotiating partners as far as the Obama administration is concerned. So are the Taliban, Ahmadinejad, you name it.

    But not conservatives who want to address our economy crushing entitlements. Like Chrysler secured bond holders, those are the kind of people the Obama administration are willing to call terrorists.

    In the twisted vision of how economies work (I don’t believe he believes it, but it provides sufficient cover for his active sabotage) entitlements are the ball-and-chain that will allow our economy to soar ever higher.

    Naturally he vowed not to give an inch on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

    Naturally he grew that ball at the end of that chain larger with Obamacare. On which I’m also certain he won’t compromise.

    So the only way to deal with the deficit is to suck more capital out of the private sector on their behalf. And also to pay for all those teachers and other infrastructure projects.

    The after squeezing all the blood he can out of the private sector to fund his “economic vision” we just have to sit back and wait for the economy he’s shackled to take off.

    And Dad thinks we’re not dealing with reality.

    Of course he’s willing to declare a truce with our foreign enemies; he just declared war on his domestic enemies.

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  184. Well from Kengor’s bio of Frank Davis, he compared those that resisted the Soviets to Klansman, a Stalinist apologist at the same level with Robeson,
    who had a grudge against General Motors, one of the companies, the govt took over.

    narciso (3fec35)

  185. Mark #182:

    Patterico, I recall that 4 years ago (hard to believe it has been that long), back around January 2009, you were arguing on this board that you thought Obama was a basically decent person.

    This has been said several times before but I like to respond to it when I see it. Here is the post where Patterico called Obama a good man. Please look at the context in which Patterico made that statement — explaining to his daughter why they had to accept the results of the 2008 election. I understand why Patterico said that.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  186. someone get us off
    no it’s not what yer thinkin’
    off this crazy train

    Colonel Haiku (e71ca2)

  187. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people

    Some things never change; set up ridiculous straw man, knock it down, make a grandiose claim that he made before and is still unfulfilled (shovel-ready, anyone?)

    And I thought the Tea Party was all about wanting the Congress critters to first read what they were going to vote on and to realize that you can’t always spend more and more than you have. Who’d a thought those were such extreme and marginalized views.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  188. Dimocrats may say
    allisfairinloveandwar
    I’m hating me some

    Colonel Haiku (e71ca2)

  189. GW Bush, “This will be a long war for generations” (or something like that)
    BH Obama, “The decade of war is over”.

    10 years from now it will be clear who was telling the truth, sort of like that “war to end all wars” 100 years ago.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  190. angus 0bama
    no place for a schoolboy on
    his Highway to Hell

    Colonel Haiku (e71ca2)

  191. 0bama trades “endless war” for perpetual poverty.

    Colonel Haiku (e71ca2)

  192. Looks like he is coming down with a touch of gingivitis. Perhaps he should visit a gov’t periodontist to have this taken care of. He should cut down on his smoking- it makes his gingivitis worse.

    RDH in VA (0e7231)

  193. million fingernails
    on hundred thousand chalkboards
    that’s 0bama’s voice

    Colonel Haiku (e71ca2)

  194. BamBam 0bama’s
    trusty sidekick Joe Bidet
    just f*ck me dead now

    Colonel Haiku (e71ca2)

  195. “Power springs from the lips of 0bama”

    – Eldridge Cleaver

    Colonel Haiku (e71ca2)

  196. This has been said several times before but I like to respond to it when I see it. Here is the post where Patterico called Obama a good man. Please look at the context in which Patterico made that statement — explaining to his daughter why they had to accept the results of the 2008 election. I understand why Patterico said that.

    I appreciate that. Of course it’s been ripped from context often enough that many remember only the statement and not the context in which I made it. But that was then. Four years later I taught my daughter a different lesson, which I have also talked about already: that there are bad people living it up on money she is going to have to pay back when she grows up. This President and his incredible irresponsibility has had a coarsening effect on my willingness to give the benefit of the doubt to people who want to party on funds stolen from my children. His sorry track record in office makes all the difference to me.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  197. leaves feathers blushing
    unbearable lightness of
    being 0bama

    Colonel Haiku (e71ca2)

  198. food stamp represents not just his own real world feebleness but also that of america’s pitiful and parasitic academia, media, and piggy piggy government worker classes

    he’s like a goddamn icon

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  199. I think anyone who goes back and reads that whole post will see a man not inclined to demonize his opponents, and a father teaching his daughter a lesson.

    The people who took issue with me then, for the most part, did not so so because they foresaw that he was going to add $6 trillion to the federal debt in four years, win re- election, and grin as he asked for more deficit spending. They cited Rev. Wright or his Chicago background or other things unrelated to the debt. I don’t feel like re- arguing those issues, but they are not the main reason my opinion has changed so radically. I feel so different now because of that $6 trillion combined with his narcissistic self-satisfied grin. Someone who mugs like that while pissing all over my children’s finances is worthy of my contempt. But again: my opinion is based on what he did in office.

    I expect those who ripped my initial statements from context to claim vindication based on an equally context-free restatement of my comments today. To that I say: whatever. I have bigger issues to deal with than people who would twist my words for personal benefit whoever they may be. And I sure won’t back down from speaking my mind just because people stand ready to twist my words. Good people of honest character will read my comments for what they are and react accordingly, and that’s all I care about.

    I do appreciate, very much, DRJ’s effort to put my original statements in their proper context.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  200. Sammy Finkelman #93:

    The New York Times had an op-ed piece where someone basically said we don’t need any nuclear weapons and now some approving letters. He hasn’t gone that route.

    DRJ #145:

    Actually, he is.

    That seems to be something about Hagel from the Weekly Standard. The web page keeps jumping away somewhere – I can’t see what it says on this computer.

    But, anyway, that;’s not Obama, that’s Hagel – and his prior positions. Which is maybe bad enough, but it’s not nuclear disarmament.

    What I was referring to was this Op-ed piece in the New York Times last week (which seems to be written for a world in which the regime in Iran does not exist)

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/opinion/the-myth-of-nuclear-necessity.html?pagewanted=all

    Every couple of days the New York times seems to run a completely off the wall Op-ed piece (though never from a right wing perspective)

    That Op-ed piece claims there are five myths about nuclear bombs, and nobody needs them. It seems to talk as if we could wish them away.

    First, it didn’t cause Japan to surrender. No, that was the Soviet invasion. Second, massive loss of civilian life don’t cause enemies to surrender in war. It didn’t work during World War II in Germany (and he’s saying not in Japan either)

    Third, nuclear weapons don’t make countries more cautious – President Kennedy was pretty reckless in 1962. Neither does a nuclear umbrella help. It didn’t prevent the Yom Kippur War. Great Britain having nuclear weapons didn’t prevent the Falklands War. Fourth, nuclear weapons didn’t maintain the long peace – because you wouldn’t say you had a preventative for metal fatigue just because an airplane didn’t crash. And small countries would be protected by alliances.

    So now he’s said there’s nothing good about them – they don’t end wars and they don’t prevent wars.

    Finally, the fifth correction to a myth he’s offering is, it is not irreversible – you can put the genie back in the bottle – look – you can’t can’t get technical support for 3 year old equipment. Technologies fall out of use all the time, and this one should too. Nuclear bombs are useless because nobody’s used them in war for 67 years.

    Then he discusses which country would be the last to get rid of nuclear weapons, and says it wouldn’t be Israel, it would be France.

    It’s hard to imagine anything more stupid, really.

    So today they printed approving letters:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/opinion/what-nuclear-weapons-cost-the-world.html

    Sammy Finkelman (067111)

  201. Here is the post where Patterico called Obama a good man. Please look at the context in which Patterico made that statement…

    Thanks for posting that, DRJ. I now realize the thread I was recalling goes back even a bit past early 2009. As each year goes by, it seems like I’m in a time warp, as though time is moving faster and faster.

    As for Pat writing “[Obama is] a good man trying to do what he thinks is right for the country” — and my acknowledging the full context of that comment (ie, his discussing matters with his daughter) — if anything, I’m struck to an even greater degree that the sentiment was more generous (or naive?) than Obama deserves. I say that because of my awareness — then and now — of the even fuller context of any discussion regarding the current occupant of the White House. Namely, that Obama comes with a radical, US-hating background.

    So if Barry Obama is doing what he thinks is “right” for America, then I’m going to be sarcastic and say that’s analogous to a bank robber claiming that it was a right thing for him to hold up the bank, because, after all, he needs the money to support his old lady, and the bank is too greedy and still will have enough dough to survive.

    Mark (e66007)

  202. It wasn’t really that hard to figure how he would turn out, the 150 million of the CAC, destined for the public schools, ended up in Ayer’s crony’s pockets, the way he eliminated all his opposition in ‘1995, anything less then token opposition in 2004, the vicious lies directed at his only political opponent, back during that contest, and no it wasn’t McCain,

    narciso (3fec35)

  203. I feel so different now because of that $6 trillion combined with his narcissistic self-satisfied grin.

    Another reason why I’ve always been very weary and suspicious about Obama is because of the nature of the left in general. I still recall the crass, politicized, heartless nature of the public funeral for Minnesota’s late senator, Paul Wellstone (killed in a plane crash in 2002), an event that would have rubbed me the wrong way — big time — even if I admired the ideology of the people who were behind it. I’ve never forgotten that spectacle, and the behavior of Obama over the past 4 years has merely solidified my disdain towards what makes so many liberals tick.

    Mark (e66007)

  204. I sh shh shh hoot a rainbow in the air
    where it lands only leperchauns dare
    To break the
    to sit in my passenger seat…useless but for
    the county that counts such drive/drivel
    ‘ See u at 4..4 ish” I qask so open ended but close the door on his fading syllable
    ‘”You Betcha”

    pdbuttons (949c1e)

  205. you got a leprechaun in your passenger seat you can use the hov lanes, which is nice if your exit isn’t coming right up otherwise they’re kinda silly

    but still it’s nice to have choices

    people forget how nice it is to have choices

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  206. I don’t feel like re- arguing those issues…

    Moreover, it’s not important now.

    I would like to take the opportunity to point out that, going forward, I think it’s a tactical error to attribute good intentions to one’s opponents or that their “heart’s in the right place.”

    Recall during the vice-presidential debate how Biden asked “who do you trust?” during the back and forth on Medicare.

    On the one side we have people like CBC chair Marcia Fudge who calls Republicans “evil” and “nuts.”

    And on the other side we have we have Republicans who have to admit their opponents are well intentioned people whose hearts are in the right place.

    In answer to Biden’s question who is the low information voter supposed to trust; the side that everyone agrees is well intentioned?

    Or the side that continuously has to deny it’s evil, mean, and crazy?

    This is how the democrats, and I’m including their propaganda arm the MFM in the term, always intend to frame the question. “Oh, it’s just so complicated. Don’t you worry your little heads over those details. Who do you trust?”

    Can we just please stop making things easier for them?

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  207. SF, if the ‘bamster is relying on his aides for economic advice, and has not grounded himself enough in the discipline to know when they’re blowing smoke up his backside, or are just plain wrong, then not only is he an economic moron, but a political one as well.

    I defer to Harry Truman’s sage advice about economists:
    Find a one-armed one, so that he won’t be constantly saying “on the other hand”.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  208. Well it should be evident by now there is no profit to be found in reconciling Amerikkka’s differences, in compromising to solve her problems.

    What we really need is to cull the genepool of insidious, misbegotten chaff.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  209. See we have an example here;

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/greg-laden-liar/

    Although the edited Zimmerman audiotape, released after the full unredacted one was aired, it formed a template. the scurrilous, and easily contradicted rumors behind ‘Julianne’s Bender’ the innocent shepherds, which nonetheless led us to Bin Laden’s door.

    narciso (3fec35)

  210. 213. you got a leprechaun in your passenger seat you can use the hov lanes, which is nice if your exit isn’t coming right up otherwise they’re kinda silly

    but still it’s nice to have choices

    people forget how nice it is to have choices

    Comment by happyfeet (ce327d) — 1/21/2013 @ 7:27 pm

    I’m going green, Mr. Feets.

    Them leprechaun’s are building me a buggy right now at subsidized shovel ready factory in Finland. As soon as it’s off the boat I’m heading down to the state-sponsored unicorn stud farm to pick out a beast to pull it.

    Obama’s picking winners and losers and the Amish are going to be the losers in the green buggy race in our centrally directed economy of the future.

    I hear John Corzine’s and Al Gore’s new start-up just got a trillion dollar platinum coin grant to build a factory in China to manufacture a web-enabled buggy whip. I gotta get me one of them iWhips.

    It’ll go with my smart wood burning stove. The iStove. Because of the sensitive electronics it crashes just as soon as your house starts to get warm then you have to reboot.

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  211. I would like to take the opportunity to point out that, going forward, I think it’s a tactical error to attribute good intentions to one’s opponents or that their “heart’s in the right place.”

    As a matter of rhetoric, it’s more powerful to claim to assume your opponent’s good intentions.

    But I can’t engage in rhetoric I don’t believe, even though I can dispassionately recognize what works.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  212. Mr. 57 that’s exactly the kind of collective effort this gulag rewards handsomely!

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  213. Sammy Finkelman:

    That seems to be something about Hagel from the Weekly Standard. The web page keeps jumping away somewhere – I can’t see what it says on this computer.

    But, anyway, that;’s not Obama, that’s Hagel – and his prior positions. Which is maybe bad enough, but it’s not nuclear disarmament.

    You can’t read my link but you’re sure it’s irrelevant?

    That’s hard to argue with, Sammy.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  214. If it can be imagined, it becomes, possible, then plausible. However actual referents and facts become subject to bizarre reinterpretations.

    JD (b63a52)

  215. The first one of those premises, seem to come from Gar Alperovitz, the first of the A bomb revisionists, which shows how far off the charts Hagel has seemingly traveled, unless this facilitates an Iranian and then a Saudi bomb, then his financial tie to Iran, through Deutsch Bank and other connections, then make sense,

    narciso (3fec35)

  216. The way forward…. Benghazi!

    lurch (c03711)

  217. Well it’s arguable, that the enemies’s capacity to project power, was key, in Germany, certainly, in Japan, the A bomb made the further pursuit of hostilities unproductive, Operation Downfall, might have had a similar impact, but after the death of millions,

    narciso (3fec35)

  218. Pat, I don’t really understand your point @219.

    I’m not speaking from emotion; the past two election cycles we saw the GOP run candidates who’d trip over each other to praise nice guy Obama and his lofty intentions.

    Meanwhile Obama and his surrogates made the elections a stark choice. Malignant Bush clone McSame or the robber baron who’d fire you after giving your wife cancer just as soon as he made his investor group rich.

    I’m not seeing the rhetorical power of praising one’s opponents’ good intentions, because the petty thin-skinned narcissist won each time and now he’s even taking cheap shots in his inauguration speech. I’m not looking for emotional gratification. I just don’t see this route as being effective, and I didn’t care to go down it in 2012, and I care even less to keep going down it in the future.

    In fact I see it as counterproductive. The election ended over 2 1/2 months ago and still the media is making the story about how intolerant and extreme the GOP is. And they’re getting Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice and others to help them! The TEA Party extreme racists (sounds like a reality show) have taken over the party. Really? If the TEA party had taken over the party would we have had McCain and Romney as our last two candidates? What “dark vein of intolerance” are Powell and Rice talking about that forced the GOP to cough up as its Presidential candidate the Senator from Arizona who called his own base “racist” for failing to support his last attempt at amnesty?

    The lesson learned is that as a party attempting to demonstrate your high opinion of Obama’s good intentions leads to nothing but demands to repudiate more and more people from Donald Trump to Sarah Palin. The GOP needs to learn that the only way it can nominate someone moderate enough to please the media as well as “centrist Republicans” like Powell is to agree to stop giving its evil TEA Party base any input at all and instead run whomever comes in second to Obama in the Democratic primary.

    I do suggest the geniuses running the GOP try a little change of pace. Instead of spending years talking about how much they hope President Wonderful succeeds and how badly they want to work with him instead talk about the disaster he’s proving to be, proven to be, and promised to be during the 2008 primary/general election. Leave it to the voters to decide if Obama is doing it because he’s stupid or ill intentioned or whatever.

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  219. Which is the course that Dickerson recommended, force the GOP to give up on it’s principles, and he’s CBS’s political director, he’s only one stepped removed from Chelian, who was Gibson’s guy at ABC,

    narciso (3fec35)

  220. narcisso, you sir are of course correct.

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  221. “What, me worry?”

    Bill G (967a3c)

  222. The “European-style socialism” cliche should have been abandoned a long time ago. If anything, it’s African-style socialism he seeks. Obama dreams from his father, a Kenyan. Obama could have picked up some European utopian dreams, but we *know* he has African ones.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_socialism

    And what an utter disaster. We’re not drifting toward France. We’re drifting toward Kenya. 40-50% unemployment. 10% inflation. Stagnant wages for the last 50 years.

    I understand why you say it’s the first time you’re not proud. This election was strike one. Every country that people have fled had those early warning signs that it was time to bail. I guarantee the smartest folks are beginning to assess their options and plan a long-term exit strategy, for if and when the third strike comes.

    Joseph D (ece5cb)

  223. I don’t know if it has been said yet, but I guess that “Good man” thing didn’t pan out for you. Sux don’t it?

    Gulermo (621247)

  224. way to bring it Mr. Gulermo

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  225. “How dire do you consider our economic situation on a scale from 1 to 100?”

    Kind of a stupid and irrelevant (to my point) question, quite clearly.

    Unless people like you can take the inappropriate and displaced anger out of their comments, they will be (rightly) ignored as the prejudicial rantings of a loonie.

    Dry Powder (3d5492)

  226. Comment by Gulermo (621247) — 1/22/2013 @ 6:54 am

    Heh. Indeed.

    McGehee (cf9671)

  227. Right we can be as responsible as Obama demagoguing
    Stafford funding, having voted against it, or Gore
    with the ‘they betrayed us, they played on our fears’ or Hillary’s screeds about how she wasn’t allowed to ask questions or something, not to mention Howard ‘Yeargh’ Dean,

    narciso (3fec35)

  228. Kind of a stupid and irrelevant (to my point) question, quite clearly.

    Unless people like you can take the inappropriate and displaced anger out of their comments, they will be (rightly) ignored as the prejudicial rantings of a loonie.

    By not answering the question, which is totally relevant, you show yourself to be a troll who should be ignored.

    You want your opinion to have a chance of counting,here, you need to defend it when challenged.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  229. “I think anyone who goes back and reads that whole post will see a man not inclined to demonize his opponents, and a father teaching his daughter a lesson.”

    “…that there are bad people living it up on money she is going to have to pay back when she grows up. This President and his incredible irresponsibility has had a coarsening effect on my willingness to give the benefit of the doubt to people who want to party on funds stolen from my children. His sorry track record in office makes all the difference to me.”

    “…feel so different now because of that $6 trillion combined with his narcissistic self-satisfied grin. Someone who mugs like that while pissing all over my children’s finances is worthy of my contempt.”

    I genuinely feel bad for your your kids that their father sees nothing harmful in transferring his overblown fears, paranoia and prejudice onto them. Instead of being taught to think through an issue and come to their own conclusions.

    1) the federal debt will affect them no more than it does now or has in the past. It will eventually shrink. Running deficits is business as usual for government, for centuries. Republican and Democrat alike.

    2) judging the content of a mans character by his “grin” is pure prejudice.

    3) teaching them to transfer blame o to others is a recipe for a life of entitlement and disappointment.

    Do your family a favor and get a friggin grip. Do yourself a favor and realize that the place you’re in leads only down, not up. Do your fellow Republicans a favor and stop being the willful enabler of irrational hate and anger.

    Dry Powder (3d5492)

  230. i made cornbread

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  231. “You want your opinion to have a chance of counting,here, you need to defend it when challenged.”

    I could say the same about you. You’re being challenged to defend your overblown emotions and come back asking me to “grade the economy on a 1-100 scale”? What does that even mean?

    Dry Powder (3d5492)

  232. For the record I think the economy is a mess at the moment. But I do believe it will recover.

    Dry Powder (3d5492)

  233. Dry Powder, the debt will shrink eventually? Really? Using what, hydrocortisone? The Democrats refuse to consider any plan to actually reduce deficits themselves, much less achieve any surplus that would shrink the debt.

    Your comments reveal your utter ignorance of the subject. It is your belief system that is irrational.

    SPQR (768505)

  234. Calamine, SPQR, he isn’t much denser then Yglesias, or Klein, or Krugman, just not that good at hiding it.

    narciso (3fec35)

  235. Dry Powder,

    You’ve successfully stated the liberal talking points. Now try discussing the facts.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  236. narciso, I was thinking of what would be prescribed for hemorrhoids like him.

    SPQR (768505)

  237. I said “the economy” SPQR.

    Dry Powder (3d5492)

  238. you said “the federal debt will affect them no more than it does now or has in the past. It will eventually shrink.”

    It meaning the debt.

    happyfeet (ce327d)

  239. the federal debt will affect them no more than it does now or has in the past. It will eventually shrink.

    So your claim that you were talking about the economy when you we talking about the debt and deficits is a lie. Or you don’t pay attention to your own words.

    Oh, and pick one name.

    JD (b63a52)

  240. http://tinyurl.com/5a66vj

    Because I am a giver.

    Gulermo (621247)

  241. “the federal debt will affect them no more than it does now or has in the past. It will eventually shrink.”

    Because you say so?

    http://tinyurl.com/88mca2w

    Gulermo (621247)

  242. “Running deficits is business as usual for government, for centuries. Republican and Democrat alike.”

    I’m betting that’s as deep as DP’s understanding of the current situation goes. No wonder, then, he only sees emotion in any contrary view. If so, he’s indeed a troll who should be ignored.

    Joseph D (ece5cb)

  243. “That seems to be something about Hagel from the Weekly Standard. The web page keeps jumping away somewhere – I can’t see what it says on this computer.

    But, anyway, that;’s not Obama, that’s Hagel – and his prior positions. Which is maybe bad enough, but it’s not nuclear disarmament.”

    Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 1/21/2013 @ 8:25 pm

    You can’t read my link but you’re sure it’s irrelevant?

    That’s hard to argue with, Sammy.

    Well, I know it can’t be too biig because it didn’t hit anything else I read.

    Turns out he’s aligned wth Global Zero. He wrote a report calling – not for unilateral diarmament, but cutting down to 900 total strategic nuclear warheads – he wants to eliminate land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

    He also was associated with Chas Freeman

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/chuck-hagels-ties-to-another-controversial-nomine

    Hagel seems to be a propagandist for bad regimes and bad policy. Something very close to a foreign agent.

    But still, Obama is not endorsing any of that.

    He probably picked him because Hagel has convinced he can cut the Defense budget safely.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  244. This nomination maybe could be stopped.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  245. “Hagel seems to be a propagandist for bad regimes and bad policy. Something very close to a foreign agent.”

    Sammy – Seems in very close alignment to Obama. Makes the nomination much easier to understand.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  246. No, they both hate Israel with a passion, Freeman is so much a Saudi minion, that in 2006, he had ‘doubts’ about who carried out 9/11.

    narciso (3fec35)

  247. If the mess in your economy lasts more than four years, you should contact your health care provider.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  248. 239. I could say the same about you. You’re being challenged to defend your overblown emotions and come back asking me to “grade the economy on a 1-100 scale”? What does that even mean?

    Comment by Dry Powder (3d5492) — 1/22/2013 @ 8:02 am

    You were challenged to defend the wildly overblown rhetoric of the Democrats who accuse in explicit terms Republicans of wanting to kill old people, children, and minorities.

    Not metaphorically. As in bringing back the lynching tree.

    I see you can’t. You ignore it as if it doesn’t exist. Which is really the only course you can take, troll, given the sheer volume of hate speech coming from the left.

    You are just a troll. An internet joke. Are you sure you’re not Obama? He, too, in a fit of self-unawareness called for the country to unite behind his vision while sneering at those who disagreed with him as not knowing the difference between name calling and reasoned debate.

    In case you haven’t noticed. There is no “reasoned debate” with Obama in Obama’s world. On every issue all reasonable people already agree with him, leaving only some group arguing in bad faith advancing some strawman he’ll be happy to tell you about.

    Got it, troll. We’ve all got it. We’ve got your tired, shopworn tactics down. You need a new playbook. Since all reasonable economists or gun owners or what have you already agreed with Obama, we’ve already heard how the only people disagreeing with Obama are doing so because they’re a) special interests or b) putting party before country or c) racists who can’t stand having a powerful black man in the White House or c)…..

    Look, you’re just a propagandist. And not a very good one.

    Steve57 (4c041b)

  249. “I said “the economy” SPQR.

    Comment by Dry Powder (3d5492) — 1/22/2013 @ 8:19 am”

    Falsehood.

    SPQR (e945d7)

  250. “Falsehood.”

    Fuggetaboutit, Jake, it’s Rhinotown.

    Gulermo (621247)

  251. Look on the bright side you will be rid of him in four years time.

    We in the UK had thirteen years of the mad men Blair and Brown.

    David Ossitt (091626)

  252. During his inaugural address, which was largely a paean to equality or a riff on “We hold these truth to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” – how we had gone so far in that direction, and also built railroads and highways, schools and college, antitrust rules and anti-fraud rules, cared for the vulnerable and protected people from misfortune – all the while valuing work, and being skeptical of central authority – we had gone very far in that direction, but our journey was not yet finished, etc. etc. Barack Obama “forgot” to mention this:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/us/pentagon-says-it-is-lifting-ban-on-women-in-combat.html?hp&_r=0

    On second thought, maybe he didn’t completely. He did say something that in retrospect, is a clear reference:

    Our brave men and women in uniform, tempered by the flame of battle, are unmatched in skill and courage.

    Sammy Finkelman (151ce5)

  253. Aw, stop all your whining! Obama is what he is, maybe even ANTICHRIST; but probl’y not, just a catspaw. And anyone Catholic out there who reads this site SHOULD’VE known JUST what Obama was really all about. ’cause a certain Cardinal in the Vatican called Obummer out for for who he REALLY is in 2008. Cardinal James F. Stafford said this in 2008: “on the surface, Obama apprears to be a relaxed, smiling man. With rhetorical skills that are very highly developed. But under all that (seeming) grace and charm there’s a tautness of will, a state of constant alertness, to attack and resist ANY external influence that might affect his will.” In other words, Obama’s kinda like A. HITLER, and will brook NO interference. The good cardinal ALSO said that Obama is “APOCALYPTIC AND DIVISE.” Sounds just a little scary, huh? So be afraid, be VERY afraid, ’cause NOW Obummer has a second term in which to REALLY transform us. Gulag anyine? GOD HELP US ALL, MARKRITE

    MARKRITE (80c552)

  254. I think we need a new law to take the shift key away from people who abuse it.

    SPQR (4a7f9c)

  255. This is the actual official white House posting of the Inaugural address (link good until the next president)

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/01/21/inaugural-address-president-barack-obama

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  256. A. HITLER = THE LIAR (anagram)

    I would have thought Stalin was more of a liar and Hitler a killer, but then, who fooled whom?

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)


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