LOL, I knew there were some good Canadians in this forum, glad to finally see one.
I started to go through and itemize responses to your op, but it's basically a book of talking points and takes too long to get through.
It's like you lumped over a hundred different threads into one post. It's not like any of the facts presented or even the spin you put on them is news to anyone here. We've debated them ad nauseum on this site.
Essentially, you've posted what you perceive to be all the positives that have happened in the last 4 years and given credit to our president and said anything negative came from the evil opposition.
You are welcome to assume that no one is capable of debating the OP, but it really comes down to no one wants to wade through it with nothing new being presented (or at least they haven't so far).
President Obama has not satisfied me that he is capable of running this country.
His whole attitude is contrary to what I believe is good for us. He wants to expand government and polarize the country. I say this fully aware of the legislation he has passed and current economic conditions.
McCain would have been worse for us, though. If the president gets a second term, we will survive. I think we need a Gary Johnson in his seat, however. Failing that, I would prefer a successful businessman and governor. Obama was the better choice 4 years ago, today I think we have better options.
If Obama wins.. Canada will be laughing at us..Canada will be looking better and better... : )
We already sort of are laughing at you. No offence.
We are going through a bout of sefl-confidence I have never seen in my lifetime. We have always had a bit of an inferiority complex vis-a-vis the US, which manifested itself in various ways, but it truly seems we are moving beyond that. Our recession was extremely mild, our deficits are completely under control and working back to zero (at least nationally), or oil and gas plays out west and in newfoundland are driving massive investment, and our dollar has gone from funny money at 67 cents to the greenback to above parity in just a few years.
While it's probably a fiction, I think the sentiment here is that we've grown beyond our abject dependence on the US and can be proud of ourselves in our own right.
And we laugh at you from both sides of the political spectrum, to be honest. The right sees the complete unseriousness of your leadership, particularly on economic issues, while the left laughs at your fixation on guns and your unwillingness to adopt a single payer health care system, along with your fixation on right wing social issues. The only thing that tempered these in the past was the rather obvious reality that you guys were far mroe successful than us, implying you were doing a lot more right than we were, but that disparity has largely dissipated and we are continuing our upward trajectory while you languish in economic mismanagement with a dysfunctional political system of "checks and balances" (we just let the party that gets 40% of the votes do whatever it wants).
As for Canada looking better and better, you do know that if the govenrment pays for a particular health care service you need to go through the public pay system and it is illegal to pay cash to jumpt the queue? Oh, and my marginal tax rate is 46.41% (which kicked in at about 130k) and we have a 13% sales tax on pretty much everything.
Just saying.
My observations have nothing to do with your talking points, and everything to do with the way you throw yourself around and disparage everyone who disagrees with you.
There is some real anger in there, and it's not that hard to see. It permeates your writings.
But thank you for the concession that I know how to read. Mighty kind of you.
Let's start there. I posted a list of the Official Declarations for what this President has done. Those declarations can be found on the very website that the President promised you during his campaign as a matter of adding more transparency. The other "Official Declarations" can be gleaned from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics and the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis. Any remainder can be easily looked-up with a browser and a search engine, for anyone who dared to actually see what this President has done....
Another Fact about the Obama Administration and their record.
“Shoot ’em, bomb ’em, **** ’em. They will kill your children.”
“The foreign correspondent and 60 Minutes star skewered American policy in Afghanistan and Libya, called for a ramped-up military campaign against terrorists, and criticized the Obama administration and others for both underestimating the Taliban’s strength in Afghanistan and for tolerating Pakistan’s obvious coddling of terrorists killing American soldiers.
The Taliban and al Qaeda, she made clear, ‘want to destroy the West and us,’ and we must fight fire with fire. She appeared to leave the assembled alternatively riveted and just a bit troubled by a critique with interventionist implications clearly drawn from her reporting.”
In addition the latest Military Times Poll has Romney with a 2 to 1 lead over Obama showing who our military supports so another accomplishment and fact about OBama that his supporters want to ignore
The opening post appears to be a talking paper from Obama Inc Cut and Pasted on this forum. Indeed, many of the opening poster's posts appear to be from Obama inc
Geepers. The fact that I can string a coherent sentence or two together, is no evidence of a cut and paste campaign. You guys are hilarious! You dance and dance and dance, all day long and yet none of you have dared touch the real subject of the OP.
That speaks volumes. Thanks.
Ok, let's got check it out.
Ok, I check it out by reading every word.
My thoughts are that I feel this Woman's pain. However, not for the context shifting reasons that you have clearly attempted to inject here. A more clear and precisely reading of the link that you provided, would have pointed you here:
Reporter Logan Sexual Abused in Egypt.
When I read something as convoluted as this:
Logan -
Followed by this:
Logan -
Then I know I am reading someone who is at the very least emotionally compromised. She has a darn good reason to be angry. However, misdirecting that anger by spewing statements that have no rational or coherent basis in either fact, nor any method or means for being successfully accomplished (even if what she says is fact), is simply not a realistic framework to judge the President's performance on so-called "terrorists."
This President has a very clear record on the subject. He did what Bush, failed to do in Bora Bora and he gave the orders to take out Osama Bin Forgotten. He's also given order to take out many of Al-Qaeda and Taliban higher ranking practitioners and he's lead the way to causing serious damage to both organizations. As I have already made clear, he's lead the way on dealing with Mubarak and Qaddafi, via the proper channels through the United Nations and through NATO, while resolving that U.S. Forces be used in a limited capacity. Both engagements were successful in returning all U.S. Troops homes safely.
That's is the proper way to handle matters such as the Arab Spring. The other way is paved by the words that come from Neocons on Faux Newz. That somehow the President should strut like Male Peacock and flap his wings while wearing a Flight Suit that he did not earn, as he proclaims from on high how North Africa and the Middle East should go about conducting their lives and organizing their post-dictator affairs.
Look, the bottom line is that even the United States of America went through a Civil War, remember? How many people did we lose in that war? Over 620,000 people. Yet, did anyone from another country proclaim how we should have handled our affairs at the time, other than the British, who were seeking to provoke the incident? We tend to forget our own past and we tend to be rather hypocritical when it comes to someone else doing the exact same thing that we did, during settling of our own nation.
Let these guys work matter out for themselves. Our role should be extremely limited in a direct sense and only through the United Nations and NATO, should we get engaged in military conflict during this period of time where these people sort out their own affairs. What does Logan, want exactly? She says, we should fight fire with fire. Ok, what exactly does that mean? What is the Strategic Military Agenda and Assessment for fighting fire with fire? Does it look like Iraq, circa 2003? Because, if it looks anything like the illegal invasion of Iraq, then I want no part of that nonsense.
However, if it looks more like what we did in Egypt and in Libya, where we took the mandates of the United Nations Security Counsel and worked closely with our allies and with NATO forces to apply limited military force for the sole purpose of either protecting innocent people from being slaughtered according to the protocols outlined in the United Nations prohibitions against member nations attacking its own people, then I can get on board with that kind of joint, milti-lateral action.
But, sitting back and taking pot shots at the President, for not invading Pakistan, or something equally as ridiculous, is not the way to approach these issues. People often times make it seem as if the United States can do all things, solve all problems and protect all people. We cannot afford to take that position as a Foreign Policy Strategy. Just look at how stretched our military was while engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. We cannot be sprawled out all over world, solving every single hot spot with unilateral action.
Now, I will ask Logan, this very simple question: Where was her outrage during Apartheid in her homeland South Africa? Was she as outraged then? Do we have any links to her outrage over the Darfur Genocide?
This is no rebuttal to the OP, and I believe I have demonstrated at least that much in my reply to the Logan link.
Oh, geepers. More Ignore the Facts Himself, wants to talk about people "ignoring" things? That's a hoot!
Yes, indeed. I'm very surprised that a Military Poll comes down in favor of the Republican Candidate. Do you have anymore shocking news from the North Poll?
I stopped reading after seeing the BS of the title...
Why? Because PW400 tells the truth?
I've done what I believe most Americans should be doing - sit down, read books, news articles and other literature from a vast cross-section of authors, journalist and professionals who speak on the issues that matter in this country - and then compare what you learn to how the country is being governed not just by the President but also by our legislatures at both the state and federal levels. I, too, have kept abreast of the President's many accomplishments as "scored" by PolitiFact and FactCheck and other organizations, and frankly I don't get how people who have "done their homework on the issues" can come away with this notion that this President - with all the obstacles placed before him - can be described as a failure. Other than FDR, I don't know of any other sitting President who's had to deal with as many issues as President Obama has within his first term. NONE!
- A failing national economy
- High and prolonged unemployment
- A failing auto industry
- A corrupt banking industry
- A dubious stock exchange (Wall Street)
- Widespread corporate greed
- An inept and uncooperative Congress
- A failing and mismanaged health care system
- Overwhelming federal debt due to years of wreckless spending
- TWO wars abroad
- A plethera of national disasters from all four corners of the nation - wild fires, forrest fires, floods, droughts, earth quakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, unexpected bitter winters - you name it, it has happened!
And those were the real problems, not the manufactured issues, i.e., which budget or bill to pass, what social issues is more important over the other, how to deal with this foreign leader or that terrorist group, etc.
I would love to see what this President could have accomplished in his first term WITHOUT all the partisan rancor, but it's difficult to achieve much in a hyper-partisan environment when your opponents have openly and continuously declared that their first mission - and in many respects their only mission - isn't to create jobs as they say it was based on 1) winning the House in 2010 and 2) their Plege to America, but rather to make THIS President a 1-term President. It's nothing short of amazing that he has accomplished anything at all. But unlike many people including some who post to this forum every day, I don't sit an listen to partisan talk radio all day everyday. And I don't subscribed to partisan newsletters. And I don't sit and watch the 24/7 news cycle. As such, I'm able to filter through all the BS and discern for myself what's really going on in our national politic. And based on the issues, I think the man who is currently sitting in the White House deserves to have a second term because the alternative wouldn't foster a stronger middle-class. Instead, Romney would only embolden the wealth-class more. And before anyone says it, I don't begrudge anyone of their wealth. I just believe based on the evidence - news reporting, books, state and federal agencies (i.e., BLS, IRS, etc.) and professional economist themselves - that unless Congress and the corporate elites (captain's of industry) work toward real solutions to strengthen the middle-class and pay people a living wage, this country will be in deeper trouble in the near future. Moreover, unless someone with a level head a foresight is able to tread the waters of foreign policy without making undue waves, this country could very well be headed on a glide path to another war.
Thus, IMHO, Mitt Romney is not that guy. But people have to come to their own conclusion based not on misleading or distorted information, but the truth. PW400 has provided much of it. It's up to the people to figure out the rest.
What flim-flam. Just what would you have American companies spend their "hoards of cash" on? Building new plants they don't need? Hiring people they don't need? Buying equipment they don't need? What?? Tell us.
You do know Obama had two years to do anything he wanted.. and he chose to lie and take our freedoms with Obamacare...
His record is a disaster... he doesnt deserve 4 more days in office.
So, what you're really saying is our economy is just fine. Corporations don't need to hire anyone else, small businesses can just get bent and to hell with the poor or those who have been impacted by all these natural disaster or who have lost their jobs due moreso to their greed and negligence than to spend their money to help preserve this country's properity? Sounds to me you're just fine with all the outsourcing that has taken place over the years, and all the spending to maintain the Industrial Military Complex, and all the tax shelters that have been enacted that do more to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Is that really what you're saying?
What flim-flam. Just what would you have American companies spend their "hoards of cash" on? Building new plants they don't need? Hiring people they don't need? Buying equipment they don't need? What?? Tell us.
Apparently, you are about to be smoked.
Your argument is bogus. It is not bogus because I say so. It is bogus because you do not understand how our nation's fiscal policies decisions have been made over the course of the previous 50+ years. Your education begins here, however.
The facts are crystal clear. The NUMBER #1 cost factor to this country for decades, has been the rising cost of its national health care. The NUMBER #1 contributing factor to the increase in our nation's Debt and Deficit, has been the rising cost of this nation's health care. The very fact that you don't yet understand this, speaks volumes about your ability to reply on the merits, instead of replying off the cuff based on what you have watched on TELEVISION as opposed to what you have actually READ in an Economic Journal and/or an official Government document related to the current and project cost expenditures that this nation has faced in previous decades and WILL face in future decades, if we do not get our house in order relative to the massive burden that national health care costs have placed on the American Tax payer. That's the introduction to your re-education on the subject.
You need to educate yourself on the history, cost containment factors, relevant drivers and expenditures of our health care system, before you can even dream of having an argument to make that this President did the wrong thing by focusing on National Health Care as a method for ensuring long term economic stability for the United States of America. You have sat an listened to a man (Mitt Romney) during the debates who has no ability to think or act strategically and therefore, he had no idea what he was saying when he called himself schooling the President on why he would spent time working on health legislation, while at the same time dealing with TARP I, TARP II and Stimulus. President Obama, was smart to deal with Health Care up front, because he knew that UNLESS this nation gets its health care costs under control, there will be NO ECONOMIC FUTURE worth debating over in the decades to come, as the entire nation will be forced into a state of hyper inflation from which it would never recover.
Now, let's get down to some brass on Health Care and YOUR education about it.
Health care costs in the United States soared past $2.5 trillion dollars in 2010. In 1980, those same costs were a whopping $256 billion. That is a multiple of 10, just in case you need help with the math. But, that's not the destructive component. The real destructive component to all of this bloated health care expenditure, is the fact that current rates of growth in health care costs will EXCEED OUR NATIONAL INCOME at the current pace. Now, just stop being so Hyper-Political and THINK about what that means!
We are a nation that was headed down the path of spending more on just health care, than what our nation drives in aggregate annual income. That is totally UNSUSTAINABLE and it would have bankrupted our entire country. When you couple that with the fact that our country has been either in Recession or fighting from entering Recession over the past 12 years, and the lower incomes that are a direct result of constantly battling Recessionary pressures, that places an enormous burden on the average citizen, struggling to make current health care payments that continue to skyrocket and have skyrocketed over the past several DECADES.
97% of employers have seen an increase in health care costs SINCE 2002. This was not an Obama caused phenomena as Right Wing Nut politicians have lied about. Health Care costs rose the MOST under Bush 43 - that's a fact. Because the nation is growing older and more people are reaching the age where they become eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, the public sector cost expenditures have risen as well, placing even more burden on Federal and State Budgets. As a nation, we spent more than 18% of our GDP on health care and that was back in 2002! Again, NOT a problem created by President Obama, as the Right Wing Lies have concluded.
In giving you this education MaggieD, and in order for you to understand the importance and the significance of what the President did by pushing for the Affordable Health Care Act as early as he possibly could during his first term in office, it is extremely important that you fully understand just HOW our nation spends its health care dollars.
According to Health Affairs, in 2012, The United States of America spent:
1% on Government Administration (Republican Myth Busted)
3% on Residential and Personal Care
3% on Direct Home Health Care
3% on Retail Products related to Health Care
5% on "Other" related Personal Health Care
5% on Nursing Home Care
6% on Net Cost of Health Insurance
6% on Health Insurance Investments
7% on Other Professional Services related to Health Care
10% on Retail Drug Prescriptions for Health Care
20% on Physician and Clinical Services for Health Care
31% on Hospital Care
Now, when you look at these numbers it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that we are spending (as a nation) more than 51% on Physician, Clinical Services and Hospitals. Well, guess what MaggieD. Physician Costs, Clinical Services Costs and Hospital Costs was PRECISELY what the Affordable Health Care Act, is primary geared to deal with. Please READ about how it works and what it TARGETS, MaggieD:
HealthCare.gov
Now, what are the Drivers of Health Care Expenditures in the United States, MaggieD? Let's continue our education on the subject, shall we.
- New Drug Patents
- Clinical Drug Trials
- New Medical Equipment Certification Costs
- Administrative Costs
- Chronic Disease Costs
Chronics Diseases are estimated at being nearly 75% of the aggregate cost of national health care in this country, MaggieD. That's HUGE. That's one of those cost factors that I alluded to in my summary introduction to you back at the top of my reply. Anything that consumes 75% of your expenditures is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO BE CONTINUALLY IGNORED! And, this is PART of what the new Affordable Health Care Acts is designed to tackle, MaggieD. Those are the facts - like it or not. We cannot continue to delude ourselves as a nation by pretending that Preventative Care Treatment is not something worth spending a LOT of time, energy and effort into making tremendously better than it is at present and THAT is also what the Affordable Health Care Act attempts to deal with, MaggieD.
Lastly, is the issue of Cost Containment. There are several factors here that I do not have the time to fully elaborate on, but some of the key issues that YOU need to educate yourself on are the following:
- Increased government oversight of insurer premiums, protocols and practices
- Increased competition among Health Insurance Providers AND Health Providers themselves
- The establishment of open-ended (Come As You Go) Health Care Exchanges
- Reforming the way payments are made when errors in treatment are detected and recognized
- Greater funding for CER (Comparative Effectiveness Research)
- Greater focus on a Patient Centric Model for Delivery of Care
- A more Enterprise Oriented approach to using Information Technology in Care Facilities
ALL of which were designed to be addressed by the Affordable Health Care Act.
Until you get your head around the fact that our economy WILL NOT SURVIVE on the current trajectory of national health care expenditures as such a massive component of our GDP, the sooner your real education on this subject will commence and the sooner you will understand what an amazingly important decision was made by this current President, to get the major ball rolling on solving our nation's Health Care COST Crisis.
We've been INCORRECTLY calling it a "Health Care Crisis," but the correct term is most definitely a Health Care COST Crisis and this President, nearly single handily, helped this country in future decades and generations to come and he has not NEARLY received anywhere near the level of credit for having done so, that the history books will one day proclaim.
THAT is what you have failed to properly understand about WHY this President spent the first half of his first term in office, dealing with Health Care. He was dealing with our Long-Term National Economy as a DIRECT result. The entire matter has been blown out of proportion by extremist on the Right, and twisted into proverbial knots as they lied about (and continue to lie about) what this President has actually done.
Now, you KNOW better.
They "appear" that way to you because your world is filtered through right wing radio and television. You are being cited detailed facts and your only response that it "appears" to come from some place....The opening post appears to be a talking paper from Obama Inc Cut and Pasted on this forum. Indeed, many of the opening poster's posts appear to be from Obama inc
You got that diatribe from my saying:
Our economy isn't "just fine." I never said that. I never said any of that **** you've posted. If you want to have an intelligent discussion about what you think big business / small business should spend their money on that they don't need to spend? I'm your gal. If not, then find another poster to harangue.
They "appear" that way to you because your world is filtered through right wing radio and television. You are being cited detailed facts and your only response that it "appears" to come from some place....
You do know Obama had two years to do anything he wanted.. and he chose to lie and take our freedoms with Obamacare...
His record is a disaster... he doesnt deserve 4 more days in office.
Edited for boredom.
Sry, bud, but that post is just too overflowing with hack for me to really get into much detail.
You wrote another book that again doesn't cover anything new. I mean, heck, I can't even quote the whole thing to address it out of pity for the folks who are reading this thread for a laugh.
Simply put, I spoke to the talking points, not the facts you mingled in there. The cherry picking of data presented can be a talking point. This is easily evidenced by simply stating the U3 went down to 7.8% without mentioning how many people dropped out of the workforce or mentioning how many jobs were added over the last 31 months without mentioning that the number doesn't even keep up with population increases.
It's also cute how you seem to think you are the only person creating threads here. Lumping threads together was referencing all threads, not just yours and we have covered these topics. The fact that you mock the discussion on this site doesn't speak well to the value of us bothering to reply to you.
The media has done a fine job of lauding the president's "accomplishments".
The problem you have there is that not everybody is fool enough to think they were all positives.
We know of them. We have debated them.
By and large, I disagree with most of his choice of legislative focuses. From the ACA he shoved down the throats of the American public to Lily Ledbetter Right to Sue act, we are aware of them.
In the next few chapters of your book, you talk about the value of personal opinion and then proceed to claim ignorance makes folks disagree with you.
You even cite Maggie, who is a well-respected and incredibly intelligent poster here.
It's pretty entertaining to read these even if it is a baseless assumption. Turns out you aren't the smartest person around and it's quite possible and even highly likely that informed folks with high IQ scores will disagree with you and your quest to praise Obama and spin everything into a positive.
In the continued incessant ramblings of that post, you give the usual talking points about Romney and 47% and flip-flopping and blah blah.
Dude! You need to re-post this in the Health Care forum!!
Well Done!!! :applaud
You do know Obama had two years to do anything he wanted.. and he chose to lie and take our freedoms with Obamacare...
His record is a disaster... he doesnt deserve 4 more days in office.
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