So, we're fucked, right?

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reports of Obama's death are greatly exaggerated?


Obama retakes lead in 2012 generic ballot
By Michael O'Brien - 08/09/11 04:24 PM ET

President Obama jumped ahead of a nameless Republican challenger in Gallup's monthly survey of the generic ballot.

Registered voters shifted toward Obama over the last month, erasing the advantage a generic Republican challenger to the president had enjoyed over the two previous months.

Forty-five percent of registered voters said they would pick Obama, versus 39 percent who would favor "the Republican Party's candidate."

The generic GOP candidate had led Obama 47-39 percent in mid-July, and 44-39 percent in mid-June.

While the generic matchup is an imprecise measure of how Obama might perform against specific Republican candidates, it represents an overall shift in the balance in how voters are thinking about the presidential election, in a broad sense.

The most recent generic test came in a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted Aug. 4-7, after a politically bruising week in which Obama was forced to relent on a debt-ceiling compromise deal that included only spending cuts and no new revenues, and after the ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded its rating of U.S. debt.

The poll has a 4 percent margin of error.
Source:
Obama retakes lead in 2012 generic ballot - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room


seems like most Americans don't like the Tea Party/GOP, and that they won the battle but are losing the war:

Poll: Dems up, GOP down
By: Jennifer Epstein
August 9, 2011 12:55 PM EDT

The debt ceiling debate hurt Americans’ view of Republicans, bolstered their opinion of Democrats, and drove the tea party’s favorable ratings to a new low, a poll on Tuesday found.

Just 33 percent of Americans approve of the Republican Party, while 59 percent disapprove in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday. That’s a net negative 10-percentage-point shift from less than a month ago, when 41 percent of those surveyed by CNN said they had a favorable view of the GOP while 55 percent had an unfavorable one.

At the same time, Democrats’ numbers have improved slightly, with approval and disapproval each at 47 percent. In July, 45 percent approved and 49 percent disapproved, a net 4-point positive change.

The tea party movement fares slightly worse than the GOP and has its most dismal ratings since CNN began asking about the movement in polls in January 2010. Thirty-one percent said they see it favorably while 51 percent see it unfavorably. In July, those numbers were 37 percent and 47 percent, respectively.

Of those surveyed, just 41 percent say they think the House member in their district should be reelected — the lowest ever — while 49 percent said the member does not deserve another term. A year ago, 52 percent supported reelection of their representatives while 42 percent opposed it.

Meanwhile, ratings for leaders in Congress are mixed, but all are low. Republican House Speaker John Boehner’s favorable rating in the poll is 33 percent, while his unfavorable rating is 40 percent. An additional 27 percent say they’ve never heard of him or have no opinion. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi does worse, with 31 percent of those surveyed saying they see her favorably while 51 percent see her unfavorably.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, gets the approval of 28 percent of those surveyed, while 39 percent disapprove and 33 percent say they have never heard of him or have no opinion. For Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the numbers are a bit worse, with 21 percent favorability, 39 percent unfavorability and 40 percent say they haven’t heard of him or have no opinion.

The poll was conducted Aug. 5-7 and surveyed 1,008 adults. The error margin is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Poll: Dems up, GOP down - POLITICO.com Print View
 
Obama has to take his share of the blame. Whatever happened to "the buck stops here"? That's what a leader does.

I voted for the guy but all I can see right now is such a disappointing lack of leadership. Right now I don't feel like he's a leader at all-just a laid back follower who points fingers and blames everyone but himself. Bush, S&P, ________. He is limited in what he can do because of Congress and the whole political mess we are in. But beyond those limits I want him to display at least the leadership qualities that I thought he had when I voted for him.

His biggest problem is trying to be a great compromiser. You can't compromise with people who are actively working to make sure you fail. Plus the way he negotiates, it's like he starts off at the bottom line and has no room to maneuver.

Another issue is he was dragged too far to the right, (along with the rest of the Democrats) yet they still call him a liberal socialist. He's basically in line with Bush's policies, and his health care reforms were almost the same ones that Nixon proposed in the 70s and almost the same one the Republicans proposed in the 90s.

In this instance, is back was against the wall. They had to pass the debt ceiling. It was that or default. He could have negotiated better or at least tied it to renewing the Bush Tax cuts last year or something.
 
You're right BVS and it's a struggle. The risk of having someone like McCain was too great, so giving Obama the nod was the right way to go.

but there really isn't anyone who would be right to fix this. Reagan would not have as well, considering he really started this whole joining up with Wall Street crap anyway (or at least was a lot more visible considering who he put on his staff).

I'm not sure we could find anyone who would be the liberal tea party. You'd have tea party who are against taxes, versus the liberal party who would be for 100% taxes. I just don't think you could find anyone towards that spectrum, or the financing to go with it.

Just imagine if the Left were as organized, and committed to getting things done as the Right. Obama may have gotten his policies past the first two years with no problem, but there's always bickering within the Left. Where the right is so afraid of the extreme, they all fall in line despite quite a few disagreeing with the method.

I'm starting to feel that Obama doesn't stand a chance in 2012. We've wiped out our 401k gains that had started to come back. We're in another war with Libya, that seems to be forgotten. We just had one of the most tragic losses of life in Afgan, and who knows how Iraq will be in the next year.

I think this 2012 cycle will be one of the ugliest in American history, and I don't know if Obama can weather it.

Actually, I think he'll win.

What may happen is we'll see a split in the Republican party when they nominate someone more moderate. I really think the Wall Street wing of the party who are the real financiers and the real power behind the party are going to say enough is enough, we created a monster with this Tea Party, now we have to marginalize them. We may see the tea party and the far right wing bolt, hold their own convention and nominate someone like Bachman.

If that doesn't happen, I really think he'll hold on to the independent moderates who will pick him over the sacrificial lamb the Republicans would nominate. Plus November 2012 is a long time away. Anything could happen between now and then.
 
Arizona Republic, Aug. 9
U.S. Sen. John McCain's town-hall meeting Monday in Gilbert [AZ] broke down into a shouting match at times as "tea-party" activists directed their anger and frustration toward the senator over issues ranging from his characterization of them as "hobbits" to the nation's sagging economy.

At one point during McCain's first town hall since last fall, a heated verbal exchange between two men prompted the senator to call for "a modicum of courtesy" and sent town officials scurrying for more security.

The meeting began with a 15-minute speech loaded with criticism of President Barack Obama, whom McCain blamed for a surging national debt and the poor economy...But the vastly conservative crowd began to turn on the senator when he opened it up for questions, and it became clear McCain had as many critics as supporters in the room.

Kelly Townsend, a Gilbert resident and member of the Greater Phoenix Tea Party, demanded that McCain apologize for a comment made last month on the Senate floor about "tea party hobbits." ...At first, McCain became defensive. "Is there anything wrong that I said?" McCain asked. "I don't know what to apologize for." McCain explained he was reading from a Wall Street Journal editorial, and he meant the notion of passing a balanced-budget amendment now is fantasy, like hobbits. "I'm sorry if it was misunderstood," McCain said. "I'm not sorry for what I said. I mean, why should I when it's the fact?"

Tea-party activists called McCain "out of touch" when the senator said he didn't know about United Nations "Agenda 21." One man described the initiative as a "takeover of the United States of America by taking over our farms." "First, our firearms, then our farms," another man added. McCain said no Congress would allow that to happen, but that didn't satisfy several in the room who subscribed to the theory.

Gilbert has been a hotbed for the conservative tea-party movement for a few years, and groups have organized anti-tax rallies there and had a growing influence on local elections.
 
... but the Tea Party are just just stupid brainless clowns! they would be laughed out of town here! as a European i am baffled as to how they have managed to get such a loud voice and be given the time of day in the political arena...

Let's just say... watching the bailouts of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain -- the European austerity riots, the chronic double-digit unemployment, your oppressive tax rates and the unraveling of your cradle-to-grave social welfare utopia... makes the Tea Party message of limited government, economic freedom and low taxes all the more appealing.

Laugh all you want but if the Tea Party doesn't get its way over here we figure we can take Paris in less than 48 hours. Ce n'est pas difficile de faire.
 
I really think the Wall Street wing of the party who are the real financiers and the real power behind the party are going to say enough is enough, we created a monster with this Tea Party, now we have to marginalize them.


i think W. Bush was the last mainstream candidate who could speak convincingly to the Jesus Camp Crowd and Wall Street.

McCain couldn't. Romney speaks to one, but not the other, and he has no appeal on abortion (flip-flop) and SSM has lost it's traction as a genuinely divisive social issue. in fact, supporting it helps progressives more than hating it helps conservatives.
 
Laugh all you want but if the Tea Party doesn't get its way over here we figure we can take Paris in less than 48 hours. Ce n'est pas difficile de faire.

Ooooh, Hollywood and remakes these days - should do a kind of Lampoons update with a new spin, series of films about Tea Partiers Taking Europe. Old Man Tea Party confronted by people who like sex and healthcare, but they turn out to not be the antichrist. HILARITY ENSUES.
 
Ooooh, Hollywood and remakes these days - should do a kind of Lampoons update with a new spin, series of films about Tea Partiers Taking Europe. HILARITY ENSUES.

Ma-Pa-Kettle-on-Vacation1.jpg


Can't top this one.
 
I understand that and the position he's in. For me he could start by no more blaming the mess he inherited (which he just did again Monday) and no more arguing over S&P and just accept what they did. Take your share of the blame, voice it, maybe get some new people to work for you to give you advice. Cancel your vacation and get Congress back to work too. Get working on job creation and inspiring some confidence instead of blaming and excuses.

Who is he blaming--that doesn't deserve to be called out (i.e. the Republicans)?

What exactly did Obama do wrong though--how was he ill-advised? Who should be fired?

And how is Obama supposed to get working on job creation? How is any president supposed to create jobs anyway?

Not meaning to pick with you on this issue--you know I :heart: you--I just want to probe your thinking on this.
 
i think W. Bush was the last mainstream candidate who could speak convincingly to the Jesus Camp Crowd and Wall Street.

McCain couldn't. Romney speaks to one, but not the other, and he has no appeal on abortion (flip-flop) and SSM has lost it's traction as a genuinely divisive social issue. in fact, supporting it helps progressives more than hating it helps conservatives.

What I think will happen is that the Wall Street crowd is going to purge the Jesus Camp from the party. I could and probably am wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen. 2012 is going to be an interesting year.
 
Let's just say... watching the bailouts of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain -- the European austerity riots, the chronic double-digit unemployment, your oppressive tax rates and the unraveling of your cradle-to-grave social welfare utopia... makes the Tea Party message of limited government, economic freedom and low taxes all the more appealing.

Europe is an elite club, and the unelected leaders are kind of living in a utopia and trying to save an ideology right now and are out of touch with the situation on the ground, and things are pretty scary on that level, yes...

i do not understand why you are so anti paying tax? where do you think your roads, schools, etc. come from? it's about living in a community, those who can, chip in! what makes my mind boggle the most is prominent members of the Tea Party claim to be "believers", but their philosophy is the antithesis of everything that Jesus Christ preached, caring for the poor and the vulnerable, giving to Caesar what is Caesar's etc... to imagine that the poor could be deprived of healthcare, a basic human right, in a country such as the US is unthinkable to me, a downright disgrace, and certainly not "christian"... how do you reconcile what Jesus wrote about the poor and the needy? (i'm not religious btw but i can quote the Bible from cover to cover when i need to which i mostly do in arguments with "Christians") - the Tea Partiers are an embarrassment to Christianity!

Laugh all you want but if the Tea Party doesn't get its way over here we figure we can take Paris in less than 48 hours. Ce n'est pas difficile de faire.

ooh goody, i'll just polish my guillotine :D
 
it's true, though. they believe health care is a commodity and that everyone should have the opportunity to buy it (via insurance).

And that is what American Exceptionalism is all about, right? Only in this case, the rest of the world does not understand the U.S. concept of health care as commodity instead of basic human right.
 
Daily Beast, Aug. 10
The political crisis of hyper-partisanship created our current fiscal crisis by compounding the problem of unsustainable deficits and debt. Now the next challenge is hurtling toward Congress in the form of the Joint Special Committee, whose 12 members will be chosen by party leaders over the next week. This bipartisan supercommittee is empowered to find at least $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade. The broad policies necessary to put our nation on stronger fiscal footing are well known—they include tax reform and entitlement reform and have been analyzed in reports ranging from the Bowles-Simpson Commission to the Gang of Six. The most important question is what people will be selected to serve on the committee. If ideological stubbornness is the key virtue partisan leaders are looking for in appointees, more political paralysis looms.
The initial selections, announced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid late Tuesday afternoon, do not inspire much confidence in this regard. They include Senators Patty Murray of Washington, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Max Baucus of Montana...Reid intentionally decided to sidestep any member of the Gang of Six—including centrist Mark Warner, Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad and liberal Dick Durbin, who also served on the Bowles-Simpson Commission with distinction, managing to find common ground with conservative Sen. Tom Coburn on contentious issues like raising the retirement age...Instead, the co-Chair of the committee, Patty Murray, is also the chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee—making her a blatantly political pick who will work hand in glove with Reid. John Kerry is a fine selection to the extent that the 2004 presidential nominee at least commands national attention, but he has not been part of the bipartisan groups that have been deep-diving on deficit and debt reduction to date. Max Baucus is the chairman of the powerful Budget Committee with plenty of bipartisan bona fides, but he voted against the Bowles-Simpson Commission recommendations at least in part because of his concerns that farm subsidies headed to his home state might be affected. That should be a disqualifying vote for serving on this committee.
Because Democrats dissed the Gang of Six, it virtually guarantees that the GOP will bypass it as well. As former senator Alan Simpson—the respected co-leader of the Bowles-Simpson Commission—told me last week: “If you see the leadership not appointing members of the Gang of Six to the new commission of 12, you’ll know they don’t want to get anything done.” Well, that is what we are seeing right now. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already drawn a stubborn line in the sand, saying he will not appoint anyone willing to even consider revenue increases. (As Speaker John Boehner found out in his failed attempt to forge a $4 trillion grand bargain with President Obama, closing the tax loopholes that are essentially earmarks embedded in the tax code is now considered the same as tax hikes—even if rates are reduced—in the Tea Party’s new math.) McConnell also dismissed previous bipartisan deficit reduction plans in a July 31st interview on CNN’s State of the Union, in which he sought to distance this joint committee from Bowles-Simpson. “We haven’t had anything like this before,” he said. “It is not a commission that consists of outsiders.” “Outsiders”—that word choice reflects the insularity of the congressional echo chamber. Instead of “outsiders” like Simpson and former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, who are presumably tainted by their independence, McConnell seems to prefer the appointment of predictable partisan insiders like Jon Kyl of Arizona—a man who walked out of deficit reduction meetings with Vice President Biden and who infamously defended making false statements on the Senate floor in a debate over defunding Planned Parenthood by having a flack explain that it was “not intended to be a factual statement.”
Already, Eric Cantor has reaffirmed his no-new-revenue pledge, while Nancy Pelosi has promised that entitlement reform will be avoided by her yet-to-be-announced appointees. The net result is a Joint Committee that seems likely to be stuffed with the ideologically stubborn, receptive to special interest arguments, and therefore unlikely to achieve bipartisan agreement. It is a recipe for failure at the very time we need just such a Joint Committee to succeed...It is a hyper-partisan vice parading as high-minded virtue. Even the urgency provided by the first downgrading in our history seems unlikely to dislodge it.
 
And that is what American Exceptionalism is all about, right? Only in this case, the rest of the world does not understand the U.S. concept of health care as commodity instead of basic human right.

Rather than take this thread over I'll start a thread debating health care as a right this weekend. Hope to see you there to defend your position. :wave:
 
i do not understand why you are so anti paying tax?
From the name Tea Party you could say it's in our DNA. It separates America from Europe... or used to anyway.

where do you think your roads, schools, etc. come from? it's about living in a community, those who can, chip in! what makes my mind boggle the most is prominent members of the Tea Party claim to be "believers", but their philosophy is the antithesis of everything that Jesus Christ preached, caring for the poor and the vulnerable, giving to Caesar what is Caesar's etc... to imagine that the poor could be deprived of healthcare, a basic human right, in a country such as the US is unthinkable to me, a downright disgrace, and certainly not "christian"... how do you reconcile what Jesus wrote about the poor and the needy? (i'm not religious btw but i can quote the Bible from cover to cover when i need to which i mostly do in arguments with "Christians") - the Tea Partiers are an embarrassment to Christianity!

Not to go deeply into theology but I believe Christianity is about personal faith, personal salvation and a personal relationship with God. What you speak of is collective salvation or the Social Gospel. It's charity vs "it takes a village." The Social Gospel sounds good on the surface but is in reality socialism and secular progressivism cloaked in Christian thought and religious tone. Hence, liberals that argue Christian beliefs have no validity in deciding moral issues such as abortion, gay marriage or pornography have no problem dropping Jesus' name in defending higher taxes and increased government spending.

By any measure Americans (and conservatives more so) are the most charitable people on the planet-- so no lectures on who's an embarrassment to Christianity please.
ooh goody, i'll just polish my guillotine :D

Yes, we should compare the American and French revolution sometime. Most informative.
Anyway, glad to see you have a sense of humor. Always welcomed by me. I have a few bêtes noires here that are frightfully humorless. :)
 
From the name Tea Party you could say it's in our DNA. It separates America from Europe... or used to anyway.



Not to go deeply into theology but I believe Christianity is about personal faith, personal salvation and a personal relationship with God. What you speak of is collective salvation or the Social Gospel. It's charity vs "it takes a village." The Social Gospel sounds good on the surface but is in reality socialism and secular progressivism cloaked in Christian thought and religious tone. Hence, liberals that argue Christian beliefs have no validity in deciding moral issues such as abortion, gay marriage or pornography have no problem dropping Jesus' name in defending higher taxes and increased government spending.

By any measure Americans (and conservatives more so) are the most charitable people on the planet-- so no lectures on who's an embarrassment to Christianity please.


Yes, we should compare the American and French revolution sometime. Most informative.
Anyway, glad to see you have a sense of humor. Always welcomed by me. I have a few bêtes noires here that are frightfully humorless. :)

I agree that Christianity is about personal faith and a personal relationship with God, but I really don't think Jesus would be in favor of denying someone rights because of their sexual orientation or letting people starve in the street because they lost their job or die from preventable medical issues because they had no insurance... I also think he'd take issue with using his name to further a political cause.
 
Not to go deeply into theology but I believe Christianity is about personal faith, personal salvation and a personal relationship with God. What you speak of is collective salvation or the Social Gospel. It's charity vs "it takes a village." The Social Gospel sounds good on the surface but is in reality socialism and secular progressivism cloaked in Christian thought and religious tone. Hence, liberals that argue Christian beliefs have no validity in deciding moral issues such as abortion, gay marriage or pornography have no problem dropping Jesus' name in defending higher taxes and increased government spending.

By any measure Americans (and conservatives more so) are the most charitable people on the planet-- so no lectures on who's an embarrassment to Christianity please.

Jesus spoke to the individual and the collective, to pretend or ignore otherwise is showing a huge misunderstanding of the Bible.

But you know this, the Tea Party picks and chooses when it wants collective salvation. When anyone speaks to me about the wrongs of "collective salvation" while being against gay marriage and speaks of a Judeo-Christian Constitution reminds me of those that pray on the street corners (Matthew 6:5).
 
Who is he blaming--that doesn't deserve to be called out (i.e. the Republicans)?

What exactly did Obama do wrong though--how was he ill-advised? Who should be fired?

And how is Obama supposed to get working on job creation? How is any president supposed to create jobs anyway?


I don't think it matters who deserves to be called out-you can play that game forever. He's the President-suck it up and just move on. Basically. That's what a leader does. People are obviously dead tired of the blame game. It gets us nowhere, especially now.

I don't know who should be fired, maybe he just needs something like an expert economic panel. I think a President can have more business friendly policies and that is supposed to create jobs. Whatever those are, I'm no expert. But supposedly his policies are making businesses afraid to expand, to hire, to spend money. I don't know how much of that is true and how much is certain business people just wanting to keep more profits for themselves.
 
I don't think it matters who deserves to be called out-you can play that game forever. He's the President-suck it up and just move on. Basically. That's what a leader does. People are obviously dead tired of the blame game. It gets us nowhere, especially now.

I disagree to a certain point. A good leader is suppose to define what works and what doesn't. If a company ran into a big mishap the CEO/President should define the mistake and punish those that caused the mistake. I think it's important to define the mistakes so that you don't repeat history.

But I do agree there's too much finger pointing and not enough defining.
 
Not to go deeply into theology but I believe Christianity is about personal faith, personal salvation and a personal relationship with God. What you speak of is collective salvation or the Social Gospel. It's charity vs "it takes a village." The Social Gospel sounds good on the surface but is in reality socialism and secular progressivism cloaked in Christian thought and religious tone.

I don't disagree about the personal nature of salvation, but since Jesus' message was also in the context of His Kingdom, you can't ignore that personal salvation is meant to have larger ramifications -- hence, exhortations in the Scriptures to remember the cause of the widow and the orphan, to welcome the alien, to do good to others, to meet the needs of the poor. The early church, after all, was composed of individuals who sold their goods on behalf of those who had need. Where you and I can probably agree is that such generosity is not meant to be externally coerced, but rather a reflection of internal motivation from a heart that seeks to give rather than receive.
 
Where you and I can probably agree is that such generosity is not meant to be externally coerced, but rather a reflection of internal motivation from a heart that seeks to give rather than receive.

Unfortunately this is something the right cannot be consistent about... :shrug:
 
I don't disagree about the personal nature of salvation, but since Jesus' message was also in the context of His Kingdom, you can't ignore that personal salvation is meant to have larger ramifications -- hence, exhortations in the Scriptures to remember the cause of the widow and the orphan, to welcome the alien, to do good to others, to meet the needs of the poor. The early church, after all, was composed of individuals who sold their goods on behalf of those who had need. Where you and I can probably agree is that such generosity is not meant to be externally coerced, but rather a reflection of internal motivation from a heart that seeks to give rather than receive.

Oh I agree. The belief that human beings are created in His image logically leads to an obligation to the well-being of our fellow man. "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

This belief led directly to churches, monasteries and religious orders funding or building orphanages, shelters and hospitals. Christians founded the Red Cross and Salvation Army. I recognize also the role of government in providing emergency relief on a grand scale as well as some form of a safety net for those that cannot care for themselves. Private secular humanitarian organizations do wonderful work as well.

But you and I believe that there is a poverty other than that of the purse. The poverty of the soul. And to ignore either one, I believe, is to ignore Biblical teachings.
 
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