The Many Faces of US Politics...

[J70]

It's quiet because TO has disappeared. Don't think anyone else is really bothered enough to come screaming everyday about the latest fake partisan outage.

[stew]

It's quiet because TO has disappeared. Don't think anyone else is really bothered enough to come screaming everyday about the latest fake partisan outage.

That's bullshit.......................... TO has been gone for a long time now, you lot have no problem posting when things are perceived to be going well for the democrats.

Fake partisan outrage my hole..................... CNBC and CNN has you well trained!!!!

[seafoid]

It's quiet because TO has disappeared. Don't think anyone else is really bothered enough to come screaming everyday about the latest fake partisan outage.

That's bullshit.......................... TO has been gone for a long time now, you lot have no problem posting when things are perceived to be going well for the democrats.

Fake partisan outrage my hole..................... CNBC and CNN has you well trained!!!!

stew- no idea what cnbc says. I never watched it in my life. The republicans are nuts. Norm Ormstein says it and he is no marxist.  Kevin Phillips is another who knows the party and how it has been hollowed out by the extremists.

[give her dixie]

Stew, not often I would agree with you, but you are spot on regarding Obama and Romney. They are both shite. If Obama had of fulfilled the promises 4 years ago, he would be way out in front in the polls. He has been a great failure in my books regarding his failed promises. Romney on the other hand is just as bad I would say when it comes to fulfilling his promises.

Both men are bought and paid for by big business, Wall Street, AIPAC, the Pharma industry, and the weapons and military industry. They are the people they will serve in office, not the people who elected them.

Sadly US politics has gone downhill so badly that it is hard to tune in and pay interest to it and it is rotten to the core.

The people will speak in a few weeks time, and either way, it will be a tough 4 years ahead.

[The Iceman]

Stew you do an awful lot of huffing and puffing about it. Reminds me of a great song about Keady Swimming pool.

Wee Tommy Cavanagh learned to swim,
put on his togs and his water wings,
he went to the pool but they wouldnt let him in,
so he banged on the door then he lost his cool

he then brought out the bands to blow
like Joshua at the walls of jericho...

We could have had a free Ireland if you had stuck about Longstone.....

[J70]

It's quiet because TO has disappeared. Don't think anyone else is really bothered enough to come screaming everyday about the latest fake partisan outage.

That's buleelshit.......................... TO has been gone for a long time now, you lot have no problem posting when things are perceived to be going well for the democrats.

Fake partisan outrage my hole..................... CNBC and CNN has you well trained!!!!

Why don't you look back and tell me the number of times I've posted stuff here that is NOT a response to someone like yourself, responses that mostly go unanswered as it happens.

And BTW, CNBC is a BUSINESS channel! Home of Larry Kudlow and the guy whose rant gave birth to the tea party movement. Not that it matters, but I don't watch cable news. NPR meets my news needs very adequately. No screaming, no bullshit.

[J70]

And BTW, its undeniable that certain individuals or groups feed certain threads. This particular one was always centred around TO and his fake outrage, for better or for worse.

[Eamonnca1]

And BTW, its undeniable that certain individuals or groups feed certain threads. This particular one was always centred around TO and his fake outrage, for better or for worse.

This thread has been taken over by the mad hatter Stew. No wonder people aren't posting. Why would anyone in their right mind lower themselves to the level of responding to that intellectually-challenged cretin?

[stew]

Stew you do an awful lot of huffing and puffing about it. Reminds me of a great song about Keady Swimming pool.

Wee Tommy Cavanagh learned to swim,
put on his togs and his water wings,
he went to the pool but they wouldnt let him in,
so he banged on the door then he lost his cool

he then brought out the bands to blow
like Joshua at the walls of jericho...

We could have had a free Ireland if you had stuck about Longstone.....

So you know me, good for you, I probably know you, that said I have an opinion you fecking eejit, it differs from many on here and that is ok!

Man up and send me a pm, next time I am in Armagh you can tell me I am one for huffing and puffing,m see where that gets you 

[Eamonnca1]

Barry knocked em dead tonight, lads!

[ballela-angel]

Come election day in the US, Ballela 1 - Longstone 1, (if Longstone is eligible to field a team)

[The Iceman]

Stew you do an awful lot of huffing and puffing about it. Reminds me of a great song about Keady Swimming pool.

Wee Tommy Cavanagh learned to swim,
put on his togs and his water wings,
he went to the pool but they wouldnt let him in,
so he banged on the door then he lost his cool

he then brought out the bands to blow
like Joshua at the walls of jericho...

We could have had a free Ireland if you had stuck about Longstone.....

So you know me, good for you, I probably know you, that said I have an opinion you fecking eejit, it differs from many on here and that is ok!

Man up and send me a pm, next time I am in Armagh you can tell me I am one for huffing and puffing,m see where that gets you 

Everybody knows you on here. I'm in NJ, no need to go all the way back to Armagh. 21 hours would drive you up the road and I'm happy to sing that wee song for you and tell you that you're huffing and puffing
I just think you don't spend any time or even care what anyone else's opinions are - you blast everyone with your propaganda fed rhetoric.

[screenexile]

Here's a question . . . is the fact that Aaron Sorkin has produced 2 worldwide and successful pro-democrat TV Series is that brainwashing people across the world to hate the Republicans?

I'm a huge fan of both West Wing and the Newsroom but I would say that they bash Republicans every chance they get. Especially the Newsroom and the tea party (although I think that's no bad thing). What I'm getting at is that maybe the Republicans are getting a raw deal.

My own opinion on it is that Romney is a knob and doesn't have the charisma to beat Obama in the election. In terms of people giving out about the economy well show me a country that hasn't suffered in the past 4 years? Is Obama supposed to be some kind of miracle worker, especially given the fact he's working against a Republican Congress. If Obama took back the house (can't see it) I think we would see some real action!!!

[Declan]

Romney's Seven Biggest Debate Lies
by George Zornick
Perhaps the most famous moment to come out of Tuesday night's presidential town-hall style debate in Hempstead, New York, was when moderator Candy Crowley fact-checked Mitt Romney on the spot on Libya.

But that isn't the only time the Republican candidate said something completely false—it was perhaps just the most obvious. Here are the seven biggest lies Romney told:

ROMNEY: "We have fewer people working today than we had when the president took office."

This is flatly false. The Bureau of Labor statistics just revised estimates from March 2011 to March 2012 upwards by 386,000 jobs—meaning that Obama crossed the magic imaginary barrier of net job creation for his term, and has actually created a net positive 125,000 jobs. This is a simple fact. And there have been 868,000 jobs created in the private sector during this time, which have been offset by public sector job losses—something Mitt Romney would like to see continue.

Moreover, this is an awful tough metric to judge Obama on in the first place. As he's fond of mentioning, the economy was hemorrhaging 800,000 jobs a month when he took office—so holding him to a net job creation standard means he has to make up for those massive losses that were out of his control entirely. But he's still done it.

ROMNEY: "I don't believe employers should tell someone whether they could have contraceptive care or not. Every woman in America should have access to contraceptives."

Recall back in March, when Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri introduced a bill that would allow employers to deny contraceptive coverage to employees.

Mitt Romney said: "Of course I support the Blunt amendment.... Of course Roy Blunt, who is my liaison to the Senate, is someone I support and of course I support that amendment. I clearly want to have religious exemption from Obamacare.... I really think all Americans should be allowed to get around this religious exemption."

This one is pretty simple.

ROMNEY: "I am not going to have people at the high end pay less than they're paying now. The top 5 percent of taxpayers will continue to pay 60 percent of the income tax the nation collects. So that'll stay the same. Middle-income people are going to get a tax break."

A Center for American Progress examination of Romney's tax plan concluded that the top 10 percent of income earners would reap half of the plan's benefits, and the top 1 percent would reap one-third of the benefits.

Romney tries to dodge this unassailable fact by saying he'll cut deductions for the wealthy—but he refuses to say which ones. He's also ruled out raising the tax breaks the wealthy get on capital gains and dividends. This lead the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center to conclude that Romney would have to end up cutting deductions used by the middle class to make his math work—thus raising their taxes.

ROMNEY: "As a matter of fact, oil production is down 14 percent this year on federal land."

Obama immediately challenged this point, leading to the first of many back-and-forths between the president and Romney. But Obama was right. It's true that drilling on public lands dropped 14 percent in 2011, but it went up 15 percent the year before. Overall oil production on federal lands is up under Obama—and Romney is being extremely dishonest in singling out the one year that it dropped.

We must pause here to note that—since the oil drilled on federal land in the United States has zero impact on global gas prices, since it's such a trivial amount—it's not such a hot idea, and not one Obama should be particularly proud of increasing. But he did increase it.

Also, it should be noted that Romney plainly said later in the debate that "coal jobs are not up." In fact, 1,500 jobs in the coal industry have been created since Obama took office.

ROMNEY: "And — and so we — we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women's groups and said, 'Can you help us find folks,' and they brought us whole binders full of women. I was proud of the fact that...[Massachusetts] had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America."

First of all, that effort was spearheaded by a nonpartisan coalition of women's groups, not Romney. Second, the number of women in high-level appointed positions declined 27.6 during his tenure as governor.

More importantly Romney has opposed pay equity for women in much more substantive policy ways beyond these anecdotes—opposing the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Also, there were no binders full of women at Bain Capital—there were no female partners at that firm during the 1980s and 1990s, according to The Boston Globe. Today, only four of forty-nine of the firm's managing directors are women.


ROMNEY: "I want to make sure we keep our Pell Grant program growing."

This is simply not true. Romney and his running mate would cut Pell Grants—Romney has been vague on the issue, using ominous budgetspeak that he wants to "refocus" Pell Grant dollars to "place the program on a responsible long-term path," but Paul Ryan has been far more specific—his budget would cut Pell Grants for up to 1 million students.

ROMNEY: "We're going to bring that pipeline in from Canada. How in the world the president said no to that pipeline? I will never know. This is about bringing good jobs back for the middle class of America, and that's what I'm going to do."

Romney is joining many other members of the Republican party in saying the Keystone Pipeline is a job-creation engine. It's not. The Cornell Global Labor Institute says it would create only 2,500 to 4,650 short-term construction jobs while it was being built—and the State Department found similar numbers  in its environmental review of the project. That's not enough to impact the unemployment rate, and is notably far, far less than the millions of jobs independent analysts say would be created by Obama's American Jobs Act, which focuses on many infrastructure projects and increased hiring of teachers and public safety workers.

[J70]

Here's a question . . . is the fact that Aaron Sorkin has produced 2 worldwide and successful pro-democrat TV Series is that brainwashing people across the world to hate the Republicans?

I'm a huge fan of both West Wing and the Newsroom but I would say that they bash Republicans every chance they get. Especially the Newsroom and the tea party (although I think that's no bad thing). What I'm getting at is that maybe the Republicans are getting a raw deal.

My own opinion on it is that Romney is a knob and doesn't have the charisma to beat Obama in the election. In terms of people giving out about the economy well show me a country that hasn't suffered in the past 4 years? Is Obama supposed to be some kind of miracle worker, especially given the fact he's working against a Republican Congress. If Obama took back the house (can't see it) I think we would see some real action!!!

I think Romney could easily win. Or maybe I fear that! It's going to come down to two or three states, as most of them are totally predictable in terms of who'll win them. The US electorate is evenly split. It all comes down to enthusiasm. The Republicans had it two years ago when they rode the tea party wave. The key this time is whether Obama can get his base out and whether many people will fall for Romney's attempted reinvention as a moderate Republican over the past two weeks.

As for Aaron Sorkin, well the right wing has a monopoly on talk radio in the US. It's all available online for anyone who wants their point of view, assuming you don't get Fox News.

Haven't watched either show, as preaching to the choir type of shows don't interest me, which is why I don't get the attraction of talk radio/Fox News and its angry white christian echo chamber.