| Author | Message | ||
     Rich Dec Unregistered User |
Over the past 8 years, I believe America has lost credibility in the world. Our leaders have applied the "do as we say, not how we do" approach. This has applied to our economic philosophy, our military approach, and how we treat people. Fortunately, American citizens clearly demonstrated yesterday that our actions can be nationally congruent with our principles around equality and opportunity. Regardless of how we individually voted, American citizens showed the power of a functional democracy and one which can look past race in electing its leader. An incredible step forward and an example for the rest of the world. | ||
| Supporter Unregistered User |
I disagree with your last point, "American citizens can look past race". That may be true if one is caucasion and voted for someone of a differing race, like Obama. However, there were many African-Americans that admitted to voting for Obama because he was black. As a matter of fact, and I am no fan of Stern, but he went into a Harlem, NY neighborhood and substituted McCain's platform and talking points for Obama's and those who were interviewed stated that they agreed with everything that was said. Although that was done as a joke, it proved that there were people that voted only due to race, which is a travesty, again, like you said, regardless of outcome. | ||
| artie Unregistered User |
Sorry, Stern went to Harlem and interviewed homeless people and junkies, big difference. | ||
| Realitycheck Registered User Username: Realitycheck Post Number: 555 Registered: 10-2007 |
forget about stern, if you look at all the exit polls concerning who would be best for the country in crisis, in leadership and several other key areas, McCain had the clear lead, yet Obama won. Stern had the right idea and several other radio personalities (ie Hannity) did similar exercises with their 'man on the street' bits. It was the same outcome. Obama could have been caught on tape committing felonies and the electorate would have still ignored it and voted for him. He won on charisma, charm, race and little else. | ||
| Supporter Unregistered User |
Artie-the people interviewed did not sound like "junkies" to me. Plus, what are you saying about homeless people, that they shouldn't have an opinion? Hey "tolerance", "GMAB", and "New2Robbinsville", help me out here! Seriously what makes you think that the people interviewed were not a "fair sampling" as you imply? I believe that this was representive of what went on in this country and the result proves my point. http://blogs4mccain.com/2008/10/14/howard-stern-harlem-voters/ | ||
| BiBiGOP Unregistered User |
Even Fox News agrees that the Republican Party is in big trouble. 8 years of GWB has ruined the country. (people made the mistake of voting in a man who bankrupted his fathers oil companies) People are tired of the Republicans and GWB!!! For example there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in Rville so its just showing a sweep of change. | ||
| vote! Unregistered User |
95% of African-Americans voted for O. 95% of Americans will see no change or get a tax cut under the O plan. If you look at a purely financial motive, the African-American turnout is can be fully explained without considering race, or a need for an in depth understanding of the issues. I am not by any means suggesting that this election signifies an end to racism – that is like declaring an end to fear of the unknown, and comfort in the status quo. However, this election was substantially not about race, and I was embarrassed for old-timer commentators like Tom Brokaw for even bringing it up. RC, you can show anything you want with a collection of street interviews, and if you listen to the whole Stern clip, a McCain supporter was equally confused. Leno regularly does a similar bit in CA and its hysterical, but it doesn't mean much about the intelligence of the people in CA . The questions asked did not involved the economy, and that was the #1 issue. Are you really asking us to look at a Stern bit for a glimpse at reality? I think its interesting that the “strengthen our military” issue was a no-show, even during a war with our resources stretched thin and more conflict on the horizon. Reagan would have been all over this making people feel safe in the face of a hostile world. Despite his experience and military pedigree, McCain was not able to make voters feel safer with him. O's “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” McCain quote was the comeback of the debates. In one quote it ruined McCain's high ground. On a single issue that Obama did not adequately address, I almost voted for McCain. But in his 1st 24 hours he has already proven to me that my overall confidence in his judgment was the better call, and my concern over that one issue was likely off. I agree it was an incredible example of democracy, and the power of new ways to connect. The old fashioned democratic machine is still at the heart of the new machine, but it now operates at warp speed. There was nothing likely about O pulling this off. He won on skill. Have some hope. | ||
| artie Unregistered User |
Supporter, I am not relying on what they "sounded" like. The bit was broadcast with video on the Howard Stern TV channel. It is a very common 'bit' that he has done for years. Homeless jeopardy, etc. These people are not a reflection of the black community of Harlem. That is also a misconception. Harlem is a vibrant residential and business community with successful very wealthy African-Americans. It also contains a high population of neo-urban residents of every color and race. Remember it is a 'bit', created to entertain. They go out and interview many homeless, looking for the mentally challenged and the ones who are the most removed from reality. It is funny, although a sad commentary on how our society has failed so many people. The even gave a weekly call-in show to a deranged African-American who believes he was captured by aliens and taken to another planet. It is called the Riley Martin Show. Should I now presume that all African-Americans believe in aliens. Please don't get your social or political views from an entertainment show. It makes you sound kind of shallow. | ||
| wtcitizen Registered User Username: Wtcitizen Post Number: 470 Registered: 08-2007 |
vote!.....instead of winning on skill, which I assume you mean he ran the better campaign, I would have hoped that both parties would have given us seasoned leaders with experience. Unfortunately I believe both parties failed us. However, it is now up to Obama to prove to the American people that he was worthy of our support. He is intelligient, charismatic and a great communicator I hope all of these attributes are enough to sustain him. Of course of equal importance will be the people he surrounds himself with in his cabinet as well as his advisors. Hopefully, he will reach across party lines and include some Republicans, enough bi-partisanship where nothing can get accomplished due to party lines. Our country, what we like to call the greatest nation in the world is in serious trouble and we need the cooperation of everyone in the Congress to see to it that Obama can lead us back to the top. | ||
| Realitycheck Registered User Username: Realitycheck Post Number: 556 Registered: 10-2007 |
wt, he is only a great communicator when he is scripted. As was seen in the campaign, whenever he went off script he was horrible. What's even funnier/scarier is that even his most ardent network news cheerleaders have no idea who the 'real' Obama is. He campaigned to the middle but every fiber of his history and voting record is far-left. It will be interesting to see what type of administration he puts together. Based on his choice of the most partisan goon for chief of staff, I'd say he is off to a bad start. But we will see over the next 3 months. | ||
| New2Rville Registered User Username: New2rville Post Number: 85 Registered: 09-2008 |
Sad to see that you are clinging to anger and bitterness. It makes me concerned that the haters will drag down any hope of accomplishment in getting this country on a more positive track. I challenge you to rise above partisanship and contribute more than namecalling. | ||
| vote! Unregistered User |
I admit that O’s youthful lack of experience was an issue for me too early on. I remember sitting in the very chair I am sitting in now and saying no way. Knowledge, talent, and experience are all important, and I think too often experience is over used as an indicator for the first two, which O clearly has. When you look at some of the great presidents, “experience” does not seem be the key factor. I don’t believe there is any job like the presidency, so in that respect, all candidates are inexperienced. No doubt he has some great writers, they all use them. It is no coincidence that O echo’s JFK – some of the same writers have helped O, but there was no teleprompter for the debates, and he was still focused and clear. I think we can all agree that the quality of the press is terrible and getting worse at all levels. If a commentator does not know what O’s positions are, that is more of a reflection on the commentator. Its too bad that reporting isn’t seen as a public service where we get to elect the editor’s in chief and reporters that represent us. The free market does not seem to be working in this area any more. | ||
| artie Unregistered User |
OK RC,the challenge for you is to back up your claim about his voting record. Produce facts, specific votes on bills on which he voted "far-left". | ||
| Realitycheck Registered User Username: Realitycheck Post Number: 558 Registered: 10-2007 |
artie, simple answer.... All of them. new2, I've been challenging dems to rise above partisanship for 8 years and they never did, they only got MORE partisan with each passing year. What makes you think republicans should now? But, That being said, I already stated we need to give him a chance to be non-partisan and be a successful president. Unlike the dems and Bush, I am willing to at least try. I have no hate for the man personally, the same cannot be said about the dems. I may not agree with his track record or his true viewpoints (regardless of how much he tried to hide them)but if he truly reaches out and attempts to find middle ground, he can be a very good president. As also stated, his choice for chief of staff, is in the WRONG direction. We doesn't need a pit bull, he needs a mediator. | ||
| New2Rville Registered User Username: New2rville Post Number: 87 Registered: 09-2008 |
You were asked to provide facts and specifics--you replied with talking points. I will point you to the research; http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=400629 http://www.votesmart.org/bio.php?can_id=9490 Tell me which "true viewpoints" he tried to hide during the nearly 2 years of campaigning. | ||
| artie Unregistered User |
Challenging Dems for 8 years, how have you been doing that? Thanks New2, maybe RC will find the time to back up his ramblings. While you at it RC, let us know how many times McCain voted the same way as Obama, oh that's right when he does it his a "Maverick" | ||
| rr Unregistered User |
rc is part of the 10% who don't think that the country is going in the wrong direction. Don't you realize that the current problems are due to Clinton's actions of seven years ago and the current Congress's actions of the last 20 months. The seven plus years that Bush has been president and the 6 plus years that the Republicans controlled the Congress? Not their fault. Also, the peace and prosperity during the Clinton years were due to Reagan's actions of eight years prior. Oh, just in case you forgot - liberal media. | ||
| ww Unregistered User |
RC, I don't think you understand what the Chief of Staff does, he runs the office of the president. If I were the president I would want the toughest and strongest person leading. It has nothing to do with being partisan. Good choice | ||
| ronaldregan Unregistered User |
either RC is busy looking through the voting record, or as usual he has nothing to back up his mouth. | ||
| sp Unregistered User |
Hey RC, does the pitbull Obama chose wear lipstick? | ||
| lincoln Unregistered User |
no he is busy writing the next issue of RR. | ||
| EEOC Unregistered User |
Obama is the affirmative action candidate. It's just like here at work when a less qualified minority is promoted beyond there ability so the HR manager can meet his quota. Then when he/she don't perform, they cut all kinds of slack. This will be no different. The only upside is no Hillary until 2016. | ||
| Cowboy Jim Unregistered User |
RC, you say that Obama won on race, charisma, and charm....do you have any appreciation for how difficult it is for someone, especially someone who is a minority, to be elected president of the Harvard Law Review? (let alone be alone president of the US!). RC: 1) Where did you go to school? 2) Major? 3) Spend much time outside of Robbinsville or too busy watching TV? | ||
| New2Rville Registered User Username: New2rville Post Number: 88 Registered: 09-2008 |
EEOC - I should ignore your bigoted and ignorant response, since it hopefully will be deleted. I believe the word you were looking for was "their" ability, rather than "there" ability. Maybe those communication skills were the reason you were passed over for promotion. I don't think that you--unlike President-elect Obama--would have been accepted to Harvard. | ||
| Beat me to it Unregistered User |
I was going to comment on EEOC's "there" vs. "their" grammar, but I see that New2Rville has beat me to making you look like an A$$. EEOC, If you don't have anything nice to say, you needn't say anything. My 4 year old has more couth than you. | ||
| Realitycheck Registered User Username: Realitycheck Post Number: 559 Registered: 10-2007 |
Sorry, folks, I haven't been sitting inside at my computer all day. I've been out and about. I don't know where to start. NEw2. the two websites you posted are very interesting. Right there on the center right of the page is a 'fuel gauge' showing where he sits on the political spectrum. Clearly he is way over on the left. In addition, if you look at the voting record, he was absent 25% of the time since 2005. Of the time he was present, he had significant numbers of no votes. As to the maverick column, it is not being a maverick when you vote down your party line. It is when you vote AGAINST your party. RR, I will be the first to admit the current congress (both R and D) have lost their way. They are all in it for their own personal gain and not the greater good of the country. While the Rep have a significant share of the blame, there is plenty to go around. I like how everyone says the Republicans have been in power doing whatever they want for 8 years. 1st , most of the policies they wanted to implement were blocked by dems and filibusters. Just look at all the judicial appts. that went nowhere, the dems wouldn't allow an up or down vote. 2nd, the DEMS have been in control of both the house and senate for the last 2 years NOT THE republicans. In the last 2 years they have not addressed a single big issue. Your liberal media comment isn't even worth debating, unless you are up to your nose in kool aid, even the LEFT agrees the media was in the tank for Obama. ww, I understand completely what the COS does. There isn't a document, phone call, meeting or note that gets to the president that doesn't go through the COS. He is the liason to all of congress, so if someone has an issue, if the COS doesn't want to promote it, the president won't ever see it. Being as partisan as he is, he will filter only the items that he wants. Cowboy Jim: Actually, harvard being as PC as they are, there are MANY minorities on the board. True he was the 1st black president back in 91, but Susan Estrich was the 1st woman way back in 78. IN 2008 they had their first latino president. As to the selection of editors, here is the process: "Selection Using a competitive process that takes into account first-year grades, an editing exercise, and a written commentary on a court decision, The Harvard Law Review selects between 41 and 43 editors annually from the second-year Law School class, which numbers 560. Two editors from each of first-year class's seven sections (fourteen in all) are selected half by their first year grades and half by their scores on the writing competition. Another twenty are selected solely on their scores on the writing competition. The other seven to nine are selected by a discretionary committee, either to fulfill the review's race-based affirmative action program, to select students who just missed the cut by either of the other two processes, or by some other criteria as the committee sees fit." So in summary about 41 out of 560 are chosen editors. Of that 41, 14 are chosen based on writing and testing, another 20 based on writing alone and 7-9 based on things like affirmative action numbers. So cleary 9/43 or about 20% are selected based on political reasons. New2: maybe if he was a minority he would have been accepted. | ||
| Realitycheck Registered User Username: Realitycheck Post Number: 560 Registered: 10-2007 |
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/89632?utm_source=embedded_video_2 | ||
| Interesting Read Unregistered User |
Please take a few minutes to read the following. It is a very interesting look at where we are in our history as compared to the other great civilizations of the past. How Long Do We Have? About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier: 'A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.' 'A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.' 'From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.' 'The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years' 'During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence: 1. From bondage to spiritual faith; 2. From spiritual faith to great courage; 3. From courage to liberty; 4. From liberty to abundance; 5. From abundance to complacency; 6. From complacency to apathy; 7. From apathy to dependence; 8. From dependence back into bondage' Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election: Number of States won by: Democrats: 19 Republicans: 29 Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000 Republicans: 2,427,000 Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million Republicans: 143 million Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2 Republicans: 2.1 Professor Olson adds: 'In aggregate, the map of the territory Republican won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the United States. Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare...' Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the 'complacency and apathy' phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the 'governmental dependency' phase. | ||
| Vote! Unregistered User |
EEOC & RC – you make me laugh. O graduated magna cum laud, which puts his grades in the top 10% of his Harvard Law class, in addition to being selected by his peers as the President of the Harvard Law review, a position that demands 40-50hrs of additional work a week. One more interesting point on the national race – voter age. Usually the age brackets are much within a point or so, but in this election there is a clear generation bias. This has big implications for 2012, as older M voters are replaced by younger O voters at a ratio greater than 2:1. Age O%/M% 18-29 66/32 30-44 52/46 45-64 50/49 65+ 45/53 | ||
| Realitycheck Registered User Username: Realitycheck Post Number: 561 Registered: 10-2007 |
interesting read. That was very interesting and very scary. So much for learning from the past and not repeating history. vote, I understand he worked his butt off and did not get selected president of the review by affirmative action. My point was there are MANY affirmative action editors. Clearly he is a very intellgent man. As I said, I do not personally dislike him. I disagree with his policies. I don't think you will see the outright nastiness and hate from the republicans towards Obama that you see from the democrats towards Bush. | ||
| vote! Unregistered User |
interesting read - where are all of these government owned tenements in Robbinsville? funny, but no. Total BS - this Olson guy never wrote it, and in your cut and paste frenzy did you notice it was referencing the 2000 election? http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp | ||
| sheep skins Unregistered User |
vote! - should then our pool of future candidates for president be limited to Ivy League magna cum laud graduates? There are so many great presidents that did not fit this mold. | ||
| rr Unregistered User |
Boy, rc. You really fell for the "interesting read" didn't you? I guess you'll believe anything you read as long as it agrees with your position. I think maybe you should have "vetted" this piece first. Hey interesting read - if everyone in the blue states lives in government owned housing, where do the feds get all of tax revenue that is shipped from blue states to red states? | ||
| New2Rville Registered User Username: New2rville Post Number: 89 Registered: 09-2008 |
Hey, people...instead of endlessly rehashing the campaign, can we turn this discussion toward a more positive talk about what you would like to see happen over the remaining 10 or so weeks of the Bush administration, and the first 100 days of Obama? Vigorous debate is essential to freedom, and I appreciate hearing differing viewpoints. I don't think we should gang up and just bicker at each other. | ||
| vote! Unregistered User |
I agree. I have already sent a note to Bush on what I would like to see before the end of his term. He has a tough job right now and we need to let him know that we need him these last couple months. We can't afford the luxury of a lame duck exit. | ||
| New2Rville Registered User Username: New2rville Post Number: 91 Registered: 09-2008 |
We need a huge stimulus in the form of infrastructure investments. I'm not a fan of big deficits, but we are going to have to battle our way out of this mess. I do NOT want to sink money into big highway projects, those lead to more cars and more oil needs. What I want to see is a WPA-style initiative that builds out our energy and public transport systems. Put lots of people to work and establish the platform for the next phase of growth. Big solar, wind and nuclear projects, and the modern, reliable grid needed to deliver power. Expanded, high-speed intercity rail to reduce cars, trucks and planes. These investments will pay us back many times over. | ||
| vote! Unregistered User |
I agree. Expanding roads is the wrong paradigm to chase today. How about reducing traffic by facilitating relocation? Give a tax credit for every mile you reduce your commute from a move. I hear CA is going to be allowed to force higher MPG ratings, and that many states will follow. Its time to recognize the total cost of cheap gas and foolish consumption. Its sickening to be looking at spending billions to bail out floundering automakers just because nobody wanted to mandate higher MPG earlier and now nobody wants to buy a guzzler. A manhatten project for energy development and efficient use would be great. |
