Why am I reading this? I asked myself earlier in the week. I am referring to the report from Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. He purported to the media that he had conclusive proof that President Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery.
I read the AP reports, I even read some of the more colorful articles by “birthers” or “birther-sympathizers.” I’m still astonished that, for instance, Jeffrey Kuhner, a columnist for the Washington Times, writes, “America may be facing a constitutional crisis. Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., has made a startling declaration: President Obama’s birth certificate is fraudulent. If true – and I stress if – then this scandal dwarfs Watergate. In fact, it would be the greatest political scandal in U.S. history.”
He writes later, “Sheriff Arpaio’s findings threaten to plunge America into an unprecedented crisis.”
The problem, as he notes, is the key phrase he repeats over and over, “if.”
The problem with the “if” is that it is just not there. The so-called investigators come to startling conclusions such as “the document is a forgery” and it is “full of errors and omissions,” based on almost nothing.
As far I can tell, reading their investigation, there is very little of substance to prove anything. The investigator claims that they have uncovered the code – handwritten numbers next to the fields – that a 95-year old retired records keeper translated for them. Think about that just on the surface.
Other conspiracies have focused on the hospital name – which appears to be based on a misreading of the hospital’s historical website. Other birth certificates issued the same year show the hospital was in existence at the time.
But here should be the bottom line – the investigation really had nothing other than some hearsay and conjecture. There is no affirmative evidence in the least to suggest a forgery.
I must admit this is all a bit amusing to me. But it shouldn’t be. This is no laughing matter when 25% of the people in this nation believe that Barack Obama was actually foreign-born.
It also should not be amusing when I realize that this is a sheriff’s deputy. No only is he going to Hawaii on the Maricopa County taxpayer’s dime, but he has himself an investigative team that is making declarations that this is definitely a fraud based on the thinnest of all evidence.
Again – this is a law enforcement officer who is supposed to undertake criminal investigations and he is putting forth an investigation that no one but the most ideologically-based conspiracy theorists buy.
But, in a strange way I agree with the Washington Times columnist, it would be a great fraud. If I had the resources and the inclination, what I would do is follow the paper trail.
“President Obama was born in Honolulu, and his birth certificate is valid,” Joshua A. Wisch, a special assistant to Hawaii’s attorney general, said in a statement. “Regarding the latest allegations from a sheriff in Arizona, they are untrue, misinformed, and misconstrue Hawaii law.”
That is one name and the other name is on the certificate that is posted on the White House website.
A real investigation would follow the paper trail. In order that this be a fraud, either it must have fooled a huge amount of people in the Hawaii Attorney General’s office and their records departments, or they must all be lying.
Think about both of those ideas. On the one hand, the forgery must be good enough to fool every expert official in Hawaii but must have been evident to the band of investigators for Sheriff Arpaio. Or probably hundreds of people in Hawaii are part of a huge cover up.
The idea that in an open and free society with anonymous social network sites you could completely cover up anything up this big with no leaks defies all logic. Now you are beyond the realm of conspiracy and to the realm of fantasy.
The problem is that this is not funny – not funny at all. What it suggests is that a trusted law enforcement official is practicing poor investigative techniques in the name of an ideological witchhunt. There are real victims here.
The Arizona Republic unloaded on the sheriff in an editorial.
They write: “Pity poor Joe. His routine has gotten painfully stale. His latest ‘birther’ news conference didn’t provide much entertainment value. His sleight of hand was too clumsy. The attempt at distraction too transparent.”
“Obama’s birth certificate? It isn’t even a side show anymore. Not even a fringe issue. It’s the fuzz at the end of the fringe. A desperate tactic from those who would rather discredit President Barack Obama than debate him,” they write.
“The so-called ‘evidence’ Joe Arpaio and his birther team revealed Tuesday wasn’t just thin, it was anorexic,” they continue. “The only news out of the event was that there was no news. Just an aging hoofer trotting out his act one more time.”
That bad investigative work – turns out it only exists in the world of make believe.
Writes the Republic: “While Arpaio was honing his national image as immigration tough guy, hundreds of reports of sex crimes were not properly investigated by the Sheriff’s Office.”
Illegal immigration, they argue, is a legitimate concern and therefore they suggest that “You could argue that Arpaio’s focus was appropriate, albeit myopic. His methods, which included using minor traffic violations as a pretext to stop Latinos, were not.”
But they said he was at least addressing a local issue there. They argue, “There is no good reason for the sheriff of Maricopa County to spend tax money, public resources and energy looking for evidence to back up a ridiculous, discredited fantasy.”
And remember, this is a man facing a federal investigation and a class action lawsuit.
But do not dismiss this that easily or lightly.
In a US News column, Mark Davis writes, “The “birther” movement might dwell in the grassy-knoll precinct of American conspiracy theory, yet polls show one in four Americans believe President Obama is foreign born. That this myth refuses to go away tells us a lot about the intense emotions emerging from the ideological polarization of America.”
This is the cautionary tale in all of this. I have watched in my adult lifetime political rhetoric become increasingly polarized and heated. The incessant witch hunt by the right of Bill Clinton in the 1990s turned into the incessant witch hunt by the left of George W. Bush in the 2000s and has now turned into something even more heated with Barack Obama who adds some interesting elements of race and ethnicity to an already toxic partisan mix.
You have the Tea Party meeting the Occupy Movement, the extremes of both sides, and each side ramping up the rhetoric even further.
Mark Davis makes a critical point here: “Do these people ever imagine what a successful lawsuit challenging the right of Obama to be president would look like? Imagine the case wending its long and tortuous route to the Supreme Court, where the justices, after hours of staring into the Number 9, move in a 5-4 vote to remove Barack Obama on Constitutional grounds.”
Of course, we don’t really have to imagine that scenario, we actually saw a similar scenario 12 years ago where the Supreme Court did vote 5-4 to halt the Florida recount and seat George Bush as president.
Mr. Davis continues, “Or imagine Mitt Romney, just as he is preparing to assume the mantle of the Republican nominee for president, being dragged off to a courtroom by special prosecutors appointed by Attorney General Eric Holder.”
He adds, “The true believers imagine that the sharp bang of a gavel would disqualify their ideological opponents for all time. The American people would, once and for all, see the light. They would finally line up with the forces of the good and the true.”
On the other hand he points out, “The likely result, of course, would be the eruption of violent emotions, with each side further entrenched in their conviction that the other side is irredeemably evil… And nothing would change.”
As he noted, Watergate did not kill the Republican Party after 1972 and the Republicans learned that their prosecution of President Clinton was actually a lose-lose scenario.
“Why do these fantasies keep coming? The country is torn. The reason America is so ideologically riven is because one-third of the American people passionately believe that the public sector is more effective, or at least more virtuous and just, than the private sector, while another third with equal passion believes that a Leviathan state preys on those who work hard and show initiative,” he writes.
And he is correct. For the right, it is the evil of socialism and for the left, it is the evil of corporatism.
I do not see an end in the road. Actually the situation is not all that unique. Democrats and Republicans, despite it all, are actually playing things out on a fairly narrow swath of ideological territory and the lack of huge ideological differences leads to a ferocity.
The factions among the very ideological components of society are not all that unique. The problem that America faces is that the system is not set up for that level of discord. You cannot govern effectively in this country without compromise. The minority party by design can thwart majority will.
For over 200 years we made the system work with some periodic explosive consequences like the Civil War. Then again, I suppose you could argue we survived the civil, we’ll survive this as well.
Then again, we were arguing about real issues back then, not whether a birth certificate was forged.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
ranks with other conspiracy theories:
1. Cheney/bush went to war with Iraq to steal their oil – went to war with Afghanistan to build a pipeline.
2. the 9-11 conspiracy – or 9-11 “truth” movement.
3. palin being behind the shooting of congresswoman giffords.
“ranks with other conspiracy theories”
That’s actually the point of the article, though I did not list other conspiracies.
I guess we’d be better off going with a parliamentary system, in order to avoid the pitfalls of two-party politics and this kind of ideological polarization.
Like Romney and his tax returns, Obama did not help himself refusing to submit his birth certificate for so many months. It only added fuel to the birther conspiracy theories.
I have a weird perspective on this.
There are quite a few people that consider Obama to be a major threat to the country. More specifically, they think he is a leader of a movement to change the social, cultural and economic design to something they detest and reject. They are feeling powerless to prevent this.
People feeling powerless can be dangerous… especially the real nutty ones.
I would prefer that they fixate on invalidating Obama’s qualification to be President based on a conspiracy theory, than by other more dangerous means.
Now, how does this compare to the conspiracy theories about Romney’s tax returns?
Jeff: I disagree on several points here. I understand your point on Obama’s delay on releasing the birth certificate, but I think it’s misapplied here. The not giving the charge credibility weighs in, so too does the fact that releasing the birth certificate has not really changed much.
Romney’s refusal is more perplexing in that the request has become standard and it has fueled not a conspiracy theory but the belief that it will show that Romney made a lot of money at times when others were suffering. That’s a political issue in that it undercuts his economic theme.
Of course you disagree David. You can rationalize just about anything that supports your political views. We all do it.
In this polarized class-war time enflamed by Democrat politicians and the left-biased media, it is smart for Romney not to release his tax returns.
He is successful and he is wealthy.
There is no doubt he took advantage of all tax loopholes to retain as much wealth as possible.
Even though that was his right, and the tax loopholes are those that our stupid-ass politicians designed and implemented, it will be used against him in the court of public opinion where the media is complicit to support Democrat politicians who demonize successful people.
This is a media that does not apply nearly the same attention to all of our limousine liberals in Congress.
How about this… Obama should release all of his education records, and Romney will release another 4 years of tax returns. Could you live with that?
Jeff
[quote]There are quite a few people that consider Obama to be a major threat to the country. More specifically, they think he is a leader of a movement to change the social, cultural and economic design to something they detest and reject. They are feeling powerless to prevent this. [/quote]
I can completely relate to the truth of your comment. I remember crying when I realized that the candidate that had won the popular vote was not going to be president after all because of what I considered ( and still do consider) to have been a partisan decision on the part of the Supreme Court in 2000. I cried because of the entirely helpless feeling that I had knowing that the country was going to be headed by “leaders of a movement to change the social, cultural and economic design to something I detest and reject”. This is how I feel about the Bush/Cheney years and the havoc that their war mongering expenditures wreaked, not only on the countries they chose to attack, but on our own. So please, understand, that at least some of us on the left
do indeed understand the feelings of the right, just from the other side of the fence.
I understand the fear that drives people to cling to any lie or distortion put before them such as the claims by Arpaio and the birthers. It is just that I refuse to accept irrationality as a means to change, even if it favors my cause. I don’t see the only two alternatives as fixating on a conspiracy theory vs other more dangerous means.
How about a third alternative where people give the other side the benefit of the doubt, accept that although they do not agree, both sides love the country as they understand it to be, and attempt to work together ?
Why is this not an acceptable alternative ?
Romney is smart not to release his past tax returns. If he did that’s all the left leaning media would dwell on. It’s better to take the hit for not releasing them than to let the left harp incessantly about them. Romney needs to stop defending himself and go on the attack. There’s much to go after with this failed president’s policies.
“This is how I feel about the Bush/Cheney years and the havoc that their war mongering expenditures wreaked, not only on the countries they chose to attack, but on our own.”
Yeah, and in my view those who “wreaked havoc” was the peace movement and the press – having the sadistic desire to see our country fall in battle just to prove Bush/Cheney were failures even while our enemy was on the ropes. I think that wreaked havoc on our country more than anything else – meanwhile patting themselves on the back for a job well done. Sorry, but thats the way I saw it.
91 Octane
[quote]having the sadistic desire to see our country fall in battle just to prove Bush/Cheney were failures even while our enemy was on the ropes.[/quote]
I don’t doubt that you saw it that way, but I am curious about what information you would site that would make you believe that anyone had a “sadistic desire to see our country fail”. Many might have wanted us to disengage from the wars, including me, but who exactly are you crediting this ” sadistic desire for failure” to?
for starters newsweek magazine who “reported” that our troops in guantanamo bay flushed a koran down the toilet. It turned out that they couldn’t verify the accuracy of that information. But even if they could – flushing someones Koran down the toilet is hardly what I’d call “torture” or even “mistreatment.”
91 Octane
[quote]just to prove Bush/Cheney were failures even while our enemy was on the ropes.[/quote]
My memory of this may be faulty, but it seems to me that when we potentially “had our enemy on the ropes” in Afghanistan after launching Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001, Bush/Cheney decided to launch us into another was in Iraq in 2003. It is my opinion that this ill considered military adventure is what prevented us from being successful in Afghanistan, not whatever minimal role the “peace movement” ( virtually non existent in my opinion) may have had.
However, it does seem that there is something here with which we can agree. It is probably at least the profound difference in how we view the world that hinders us from working effectively together. When one makes the decision to decide that the other side are sadists, or somehow otherwise unworthy, it makes it very easy to overlook what may be reasonable and rationale, and maybe even helpful in what they are saying.
After all, why would one want to consider anything put forward by a sadistic gynecologist ?
someone’s Koran went down a toilet – cry me a river.
well lets look at Iraq – I get accused of not looking at facts and figures and focusing on rhetoric – so lets dispense with the rhetoric. After nine years what maybe 5% of our original force fell in battle? maybe? and based on that our war/cause is lost?
” It is probably at least the profound difference in how we view the world that hinders us from working effectively together. When one makes the decision to decide that the other side are sadists, or somehow otherwise unworthy, it makes it very easy to overlook what may be reasonable and rationale, and maybe even helpful in what they are saying.”
you accused cheney/bush of being warmongers in the paragraph above.
Hey Octane,
Do you remember Harry Reid saying the war was lost right when we were in the middle of it?
It was close to being a treasonous statement being that it was coming fron the head of the Senate.
Yeah I would have to say that was wishful thinking on his part.
“someone’s Koran went down a toilet – cry me a river.”
You don’t seem very sensitive towards the feelings of others… just an observation. You seem to have a lot of anger issues.
“Do you remember Harry Reid saying the war was lost right when we were in the middle of it? It was close to being a treasonous statement being that it was coming fron the head of the Senate.”
How is an honest if subjective assessment a treasonous statement? Was he wrong? No he wasn’t. Did we change policies and get a somewhat though arguably better outcome? We did. But I fail to see how stating that we are losing is treasonous. I would reserve treason to outright betrayal such as leaking secrets or spying.
[quote]And remember, this is a man facing a federal investigation and a class action lawsuit.[/quote]
I think this is what people need to keep in mind when listening to Arpaio’s claims…
Oh please, the war is lost is past tense and it was anything but lost. We were in the middle of a troop surge and would say that we actually won the Iraq war. For Reid to say that at that time was unpatriotic at the least and treasonous at the worst.
[quote]you accused cheney/bush of being warmongers in the paragraph above[/quote]
I don’t see this so much as an accusation as a statement of fact. We were not at war. These men were our national leaders. They were the chief proponents of engaging in war. Is this not warmongering ? If so, how not? Now, I can see that you might object to my choice of words, but I do not think you can credibly argue that both were not instrumental in leading us into these wars.
Elaine
[quote]I think this is what people need to keep in mind when listening to Arpaio’s claims…[/quote]
Well and concisely spoken. Although I usually try to separate issues and judge each statement on it’s relative merits, I think this concise observation is very well made in this particular case.
“Oh please, the war is lost is past tense and it was anything but lost.”
If we’re arguing verb tense, then I need to see the exact quote.
[i]”I can completely relate to the truth of your comment. I remember crying when I realized that the candidate that had won the popular vote was not going to be president after all because of what I considered ( and still do consider) to have been a partisan decision on the part of the Supreme Court in 2000.”[/i]
Medwoman, I can just see Tom Hanks yelling: “There is no crying in politics!” 😉
I get your point… and your emotional sour grapes… over the 2000 election. Hold that thought for the moment.
[i]”How about a third alternative where people give the other side the benefit of the doubt, accept that although they do not agree, both sides love the country as they understand it to be, and attempt to work together ?
Why is this not an acceptable alternative?”[/i]
That would be so boring and so ineffective.
And so not possible.
I have a better idea… learn how to love conflict. Learn how to respect your opponent as you defeat him. Lean how to be humble with success, and humble in defeat… resolved to fight another day. Learn how to let facts, and not stories, drive the debate. But, most importantly, learn how to not let political outcomes be so personally defining that it causes you emotional distress. (this is just my opinion)
Cooperation requires shared goals.
The American left and the right see the world much more differently today. There are not enough shared goals between both ideologies that supersede the desire to implement and protect their respective visions.
Now, a good leader could weave a story of shared goals. That is what Reagan, and to a lesser degree Clinton, did. They crafted a story that made you proud to be an American in the American tradition of soft Christian-conservative values. For those that needed it, these leaders communicated empathy for their constituents’ pain. They were leaders, and despite their many flaws, they both had the skill to bring our country together. They brought hope, and pride and can-do-it attitudes. They motivate the country to move forward to greater success.
Now getting back you being upset over the 2000 election…
I think liberal Democrats went nuts over that 2000 election. They cried. They raged. They let loose a new level of political vitriol outside the previous rules of accepted civility. Frankly, from my vantage point it appeared that the election of W was some crucible unleashing repressed emotions over so many unresolved childhood issues plaguing the baby-boomer generation. Then 9-11 hit, and W’s performance and popularity spiked. It was like salt in their wounds. Here was a guy that did not feel their pain. He did not connect with them emotionally. He behaved similar to all those WW-II veteran dads unable to hug their free-loving and drugged-out children. And others actually liked him!.. Arg!!! It appeared to me that the election of W felt like some deep-seated personal rejection to US liberals; and it generated copious anger over the lack of validation for so many hurt feelings.
Liberals are still mad… many are still angry at their father (baby boomers get four times the therapy as did their parents) … and they still hate the President that reminds them of this anger. Obama is their cool uncle and messiah riding in to save them from all these bad feelings. He is their engine of calming retribution for all that have harmed them and made them feel unwanted or rejected. He is the punisher of those that stand in the way of their personal happiness… and their personal happiness is more important that anything… and causes them to be blind to the long-term damage being caused the country. They loyally support Obama even as his real performance undeniably sucks.
IMO, the reasons that we cannot cooperate are three:
1.The country is heading off a cliff from the continued bad policy decisions resulting from the inexperience and tone-deafness of the current ruling Party.
2.We are too far down the path of polarization from the actions and words of the Divider-In-Chief and the likes of Reid and Pelosi. There is a complete lack of trust between the Parties. It will take new leadership to start developing that trust.
3.There is no viable public solution to substitute for a lack of personal happiness. Because of this, GOP compromise will never be enough.
Hopefully liberals hold it together if they lose big in 2012. I am worried about them more so than I was in 2000.
Jeff
[quote]Hopefully liberals hold it together if they lose big in 2012. I am worried about them more so than I was in 2000.[/quote]
I suspect liberals will do at least as well if they lose big as conservatives did when they lost the 2008 election and then made defeating any initiative put forward by Obama their greatest priority or as well as Arpaio has done in choosing to use taxpayer money to chase down a birth certificate in Hawaii. They could hardly do worse.
Liberals have not won in a long long time. Democrats are center-left at best these days.
I used to think that the fact that Obama had a 1961 birth announcement posted in two Hawaii newspapers was all the proof that I needed that he was a citizen until I read this:
http://thedailypen.blogspot.com/2011/04/final-report-obamas-birth-announcements.html
Rusty this gets too much into conspiracy theory.
[i]”Liberals have not won in a long long time. Democrats are center-left at best these days”[/i]
No they are not. “Blue Dog Democrats” are Kennedy Democrats.. but they are outside the mainstream Dem party led by the likes of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. How far left do thes politicians have to be before you conceed that they are liberals? Notsee Peloski is a pure San Francisco liberal.
I looked back for a Presidential quote matching Obama’s recent one that people that own businesses did not build them. It took me all the way to François Mitterrand and Juan Peron.
The Democrat party has turned sharply left and US liberals have just raised their expectations for ideological transformation. However, from a historical perspective Obama, Pelosi and Reid would be deemed socialists and voters would have rejected them in a heartbeat.
“the mainstream Dem party led by the likes of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. “
Pelosi is liberal, she’s also a good deal to the left of the average Democrat in the house. Reid has always been a moderate within the party. Now I would grant you that as leader, Reid has had to move to the middle of his caucus and that makes him appear more liberal than he actually is.
I think it’s correct to argue that on a national level, Democrats are more center-left than they are at the local level.
I also think it’s correct to say that Republicans are as a party more conservative than Democrats are liberal. But in terms of a global perspective, the difference between the parties is fairly small ideologically.
Rebutting Jeff: [url]http://voteview.com/blog/?p=494[/url]
Republicans have grown much more conservative. Democrats have grown somewhat more liberal.
Don,
That is just one obscure statistical model to draw that conclusion.
Here is another that counters that opinion: [url]http://www.openleft.com/diary/18195/longterm-trends-show-democratic-party-moving-to-the-left[/url]
From your article:
[quote]Though Democrats have not moved nearly as much to the left as the Republicans have to the right, they have also contributed to polarization, in our opinion, by embracing identity politics as a strategic tool. In Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Democrats advocated redistribution and regulation of business. These issues remain active to some extent, but with time emphasis has shifted to issues centered on race, gender, ethnicity, or sexual preference (Gerring 1998). As this issue evolved, it mapped onto the existing liberal-conservative dimension. The mapping is marked by members of the Black Caucus anchoring the liberal end of the dimension. What our roll call analysis shows is that Democrats did not vote much further to the left on the new issues than on New Deal issues. The comparison works because some New Deal issues, such as minimum wages and regulation of the financial sector, continue to lead to roll call votes.[/quote]
Identity politics and social and cultural transformation, combined with a much more liberal-friendly media are new… and have a lot to do with the new counter rage of conservatives putting heat on the Republican party. The Tea Party developed and has pushed the GOP right because the Democrats and society as a whole had been drifting left.
These hard core conservatives are pissed because they see the history of Republicans moving left also.
JB: [i]I looked back for a Presidential quote matching Obama’s recent one that people that own businesses did not build them. [/i]
How about Romney?
Romney to Olympians: ‘You didn’t get here solely on your own’ ([url]http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/23/12904508-romney-to-olympians-you-didnt-get-here-solely-on-your-own[/url])
“Rusty this gets too much into conspiracy theory.”
David, did you actually read the article? I think it has some very compelling information that has the ability to put to question all those that stated that since Obama’s birth announcement was published in two local papers how could it have been faked.
“However, the primary reason for his family registering his birth in Hawaii was to make sure he was eligible for something far less significant than the presidency. His grandparents wanted to make sure Obama could receive state financial assistance and medical care as an infant of an unemployed, wayward teenage mother and a foreign dead-beat, alcoholic, bigamist.
“The birth announcements were printed from unconfirmed information provided to the Newspapers by the Department of Health who received the information from Obama’s grandparents, not a hospital,” says Crosby in a phone call from Oahu.
“This information was publish without the DOH or newspaper editors confirming the actual location of the birth in any hospital or location in Hawaii. I found thousands of birth registration records of children born outside of Hawaii who have their announcements published in these two newspapers.”
“David, did you actually read the article? I think it has some very compelling information that has the ability to put to question all those that stated that since Obama’s birth announcement was published in two local papers how could it have been faked.”
I did read the article, it’s almost entirely based on some guy named Crosby’s account. There is almost zero corroboration from authorities as to his account. I have no basis to evaluate his claims.
Jeff: I urge you to look at the source of the article you linked. It goes back to the same “obscure statistical model” and is based on a HuffPost article.
Come on wdf1, that is pitiful and desperate, don’t you think?
How can you compare Olympic athletes – many that cannot pursue their goals without financial support because they are unpaid amateurs – with business owners that only survive if they grow a profitable business?
I work in the small business industry, and the government is not helping these people succeed. They are more and more challenged to find a way to succeed because of what government does to them.
Yes, they rely on government supplied infrastructure. Businesses and conservatives support investment in infrastructure. Yes, they rely on government supplied safety and law enforcement. Business and conservatives support spending money on these things too.
For Obama to have made that comment, it confirms what most of us already know about him. He was the most liberal Senator and is the most liberal President. He does not have any private sector work experience. He frankly does not get it. He does not understand. He was helped and propped up by government policies, so he thinks everyone else is too.
There should be a symbiotic relationship between business owners and the governance goals of the left. I view it as being analogous to a garden. If planted and tended well it will provide a bountiful crop that can be used to feed the hungry. However, what Obama has chosen to do instead is to demonize the garden and pit it against hungry and envious people for political purposes. That is fantastic given that there is no other garden to harvest. Taxable wealth does not just exist… it has to be earned throw business and commerce.
As our supreme leader, his words and actions carry the weight of amplification. From his bully pulpit he has driven a wedge of public opinion between those that produce and those unable or unwilling to produce for themselves. He has given business owners every reason to not expand. His words, actions and policies have pumped continued uncertainty and malaise into an economy still clawing out of a collapse from several decades of reckless wild exuberance brought on primarily from other politicians that did not get it.
And, as our economy continues to fail to provide adequate growth, we will create many more hungry people that vote for Democrats that will have even fewer options.
Obama and our Dem Senate has to go, or we are economically doomed. It may already be too late.
[i]Jeff: I urge you to look at the source of the article you linked. It goes back to the same “obscure statistical model” and is based on a HuffPost article.[/i]
Awe come on Don. If this article used the same statistical model, then how did it arrive at a completely oposite conclusion?
From my link/study/article:
[quote]For me, the lesson in these numbers is not that progressives should be satisfied with the current incarnation of the Democratic Party, or that we should take victory in the ongoing internal ideological struggle for granted. Instead, I take it as a rejection of the notion that there was some idyllic time in the past when Democrats were a “true” left-wing party. That time never existed. For all the mythology about how great the party was under FDR or LBJ, the truth is that Democrats were more right-wing back then they are now. This hits home even more when one realizes that the above numbers only measure ideology in terms of the economy, and do not take into account past internal party struggles on matters like civil right and the Vietnam War.
There was no glorious time in the past when Democrats were a “real progressive” party. There has actually never been a more progressive Democratic Party than its current manifestation. Whether that makes you excited, because the long-term trend shows we are winning, or depressed, because the most left-wing version of the party is not very left-wing, is probably a matter of individual orientation along the pessimism / optimistic linear binary.[/quote]
So, are you a glass half full, or glass half empty progressive?
U.S Poverty rate going to the highest since 1960. We’ve got to get the divider-in-chief out of office before he puts us under.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57477487/us-poverty-on-track-to-rise-to-highest-since-1960s/
JB: [i]So, are you a glass half full, or glass half empty progressive?[/i]
[img]http://mariopiperni.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Opportunist_Note.jpg[/img]
medwoman – lol bush being a warmonger is an “established fact.” lol. you can see the problem don’t u? I will grant you that of all the insults bush has taken during his presidency this is hardly the worst, but I still consider it an insult. You can see how difficult in this country the polarization has made it difficult for both sides to get along. When bush went to war their was such extreme hatred/disgust and it manifest itself over and over. I’m disgusted with those who stood against the war just as much. How do we settle this? lol.
LOL! On a hot day like today, I hope it included some ice cubes.
“U.S Poverty rate going to the highest since 1960. “
Not surprising. Maybe surprised it did not get there sooner.
So David, you would be okay with that if a Republican was in office?
What makes you think I’m okay with it now?
On US Poverty rate.
The vision for solution:
[b]Liberal progressives[/b]: increase taxation on the wealthy (as defined as families making $250,000 or more per year) and use it to hire more government workers and to redistribute it to individuals and families to raise their income above the poverty line.
[b]Conservatives[/b]: Shrink the expense of government to head off debt cliff and to re-focus role of government to critical functions. Reduce barriers and uncertainty in tax and regulatory policy, and increase help and incentives for capital to invest in economic expansion and job growth. Get more people working to earn and grow their own prosperity out of poverty. Hire more government workers (only) to provide increased services supporting economic growth.
[b]Obama and Dem’s argument against the conservative vision:[/b] “That would be returning us to the policies that got us into this mess.”
[b]Conservatives argument against the liberal-progressive vision:[/b] “Just do the math… it is not a sustainable solution even if we were not so far over our heads in debt. Also, the previous policies that got us into the mess were primarily government social engineering policies that distorted and corrupted the free market and caused the housing bubble that collapsed. We will make sure those types of policies do happen again.”
[b]Liberal progressive argument against the previous:[/b] “That would be returning us to the policies that got us into this mess.”
[b]Conservative response:[/b] It is clear we cannot work with these people, so let’s block everything they try to do and focus on getting them out of office before they cause more damage.
Jeff: You want to deal with poverty, you have to deal with drug laws which put huge numbers of people into categories where they cannot get jobs.
[i]So, are you a glass half full, or glass half empty progressive?[/i]
I’m a moderate Democrat.
[i]If this article used the same statistical model, then how did it arrive at a completely oposite conclusion? [/i]
It didn’t.
From my article: “[i]we find that contemporary polarization is not only real — the ideological distance between the parties has grown dramatically since the 1970s — but also that it is asymmetric — congressional Republicans have moved farther away from the center than Democrats during this period.”[/i] [url]http://voteview.com/blog/?p=494[/url]
The blog post you cite, which is based on an article from HuffPost: [i]”DW-Nominate, the only ideological voting scorecard for members of all Congresses, all-time (1789–current), shows Democratic Senators moving, on average, decisively to the left over the past eighty years…”[/i]
DW-Nominate is the statistical methodology used by the author of the article I cited (Dr. Poole).
Here’s a graphic:
[img]http://voteview.com/images/polar_senate_means.jpg[/img]
After WWII, with the realignment of the parties (largely due to civil rights and the migration of Southern Democrats to the Republican Party), the parties drifted to about the same level of partisanship at about the same rate. Then, in 1998, they leveled off at their respective rates (statistically about 0.39). Then look what happens in 2005.
Many of us believe that the Republican Party and conservatives in general became much more radical several years ago. What the Democratic Party went through from 1968 – 84 is what we see the Republican Party going through now. Bill Clinton and his DLC realigned the Democrats (much to the chagrin, I’d imagine, of progressives like David Greenwald). I don’t see anyone realigning the Republicans. They’re still on the outward-bound trajectory.
[i]Jeff: You want to deal with poverty, you have to deal with drug laws which put huge numbers of people into categories where they cannot get jobs.[/i]
I agree with that David. When polled, the majority of Americans are for a plan to decriminalize and tax some drugs, and use the money for treatment programs. Don’t you wonder why it is not happening given this?
I used to be pretty hard ass about adiction and subtance abuse. Frankly, it was a “let them binge and die” mindset… basically a libertarian view that people should be free to destroy their own life if they choose. I have changed my view on this having experienced addiction and substance abuse stuggles of friends and loved ones. What I see is that there is some physical difference in some people that cause them to use and abuse. It still pisses me off that they cannot control themselves, but I now see that some need a lot of help doing so. I support finding away to lower the devistating life impacts from a crime record from drug posession, lowering the cost of drug enforcement (because it does not work), and spending more on treatment.
JB: [i]Shrink the expense of government to head off debt cliff and to re-focus role of government to critical functions. [/i]
I guess you were pleased when this came out:
[img]http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/images/item/1a.jpg[/img]
Rex Nutting:Obama spending binge never happened
Commentary: Government outlays rising at slowest pace since 1950s ([url]http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor[/url])
With comments from Politifact.com: Viral Facebook post says Barack Obama has lowest spending record of any recent president ([url]http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/may/23/facebook-posts/viral-facebook-post-says-barack-obama-has-lowest-s/[/url])
I take this to mean that we’re headed in the right direction, especially for a fiscal conservative.
wdf1:
[quote]The Congressional Budget Office projects that the national debt under President Obama’s policies will rise to $21.665 trillion by 2022, according to its updated budget outlook.
The updated outlook, released Tuesday, found that current Obama administration policies will result in a 50 percent increase in debt held by the public and a 40 percent increase in intra-governmental debt held in the trust funds of entitlement programs.
“In CBO’s projections, debt held by the public is expected to increase by more than 50 percent between the end of 2011 and the end of 2022, and debt held by government accounts is expected to rise by nearly 40 percent,” the CBO report found.
As a result of this rise in federal debt, CBO projects federal debt will reach $21.7 trillion by 2022″[/quote]
The primary reasons spending growth from Obama has fallen is that the GOP was blocked Democrat legistlation, the economy fell off a cliff and is still near the bottom, he buried much of his spending in Obamacare which was delayed until 2014 so folks like you would post articles like this in his defense.
Jeff: You should watch the Frontline special on meth, they discuss among other things how Meth changes one’s brain chemistry and alters the ability of an individual to feel pleasure permanently.
JB: Based on the chart I posted above, the record under recent Republican v. Democratic presidents, Dick Cheney’s quote, “deficits don’t matter,” and that GW Bush had 8 years to avoid the housing meltdown and didn’t, I’m not prepared to believe that the current Republican brand cares about federal spending beyond talking about it to win elections.
66,832,230 the number of votes Obama got.
wdf1:
Great chart you showed in your post above. You would think that republicans might look at this and begin to wonder how much of the differences in fiscal policy between the two parties is just rhetoric, and how much is real. The historical record would seem to demonstrate that the claim of more prudent fiscal policies by republicans is inaccurate. A similar conclusion can be drawn from looking at the historical data record for the debt; particularly since the 1970s when it exploded, the percentage rate of debt growth has been much higher during Republican presidencies than during Democratic ones. The data support the statement that Democrats have been the spend and tax party; and Republicans have been the spend and borrow party (the supposedly more fiscally responsible party dumping the spending costs to their children and grandchildren to pay off; certainly it doesn’t make the bankers unhappy or decrease their leverage over the federal government).
By the way it seems to me there is little difference in the economic policies of the two parties; its mainly a bunch of overblown rhetoric that for some reason people seem to take seriously; like a kind of hypnotic trance induced by seeing things thru an ideological lens; rather than examination of the actual historical record.
Re: conspiracies and sheriff Joe
You can frame the so-called ‘birther’ movement as a ‘conspiracy-theory by a group of nutcases’; but this type of framing requires a bit of twisting; as the core of it is trying to get to solid and irrefutably legitimate evidence of Obama’s birthplace. There are doubts about the documents produced so far; some of these doubts may be reasonable and some not. I am not a ‘birther’ and frankly don’t care much about this issue; however it is interesting to me how much effort and mud is being thrown to de-legitimize the so-called ‘birther’ movement. Methinks this will serve to make it stronger. Regarding using taxpayer money to investigate the documents; has he used the public funds illegally? How do the taxpayers in his county feel about using taxpayer money this way? If the taxpayers in his county don’t object, I don’t know why anyone else should; if they do object than it is up to the taxpayers in his county to take measures to stop this spending.
I guess you would not say the efforts to smear and de-legitimize sheriff Joe would amount to any conspiracy; certainly some efforts could not possibly be related any very politically powerful, well-connected, and wealthy people and interest groups, and could not possibly have any connection at all to Joe’s efforts to strengthen border enforcement.
It is curious to me how enforcement of the law can be so selective; on the one hand there are large, concerted efforts by government agencies and well-funded interest groups to dig up any dirt or errors on sheriff Joe that they can find; including hiring fleets of legal advisors to find ways to bring Joe in to court; and at the same time very little effort or attention is given to strengthening enforcement of our border laws; when it is indisputable that enormous numbers of people are breaking the border laws every day, month, and year; and that most citizens do in fact support strengthening our border enforcement laws.
Like many in Arizona and the US, I support sheriff Joe in his efforts to enforce US border laws. For myself and I imagine many other Americans, it is heartening to see that the swarms of politically correct technocrats that have been hatching in all areas of government have not yet been able to secure control over every last corner of the country.