2012 American Election (Presidential and otherwise)

[4too]

Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave!

Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave!

… There's even claims that Nixon may have … better chance in the 1968 elections.

Back channel deal? Dubious results to keep Vietnam a hot issue.
Wonder if a Democratic Viet-ization / peace with honor package could have clearly formulated in time for the election, any way.


1968. The popular vote was close, but the electoral college vote decisive.

Link to large election results map. http://www.upa.pdx.edu/IMS/currentprojects/TAHv3/Content/Maps/1968_Presidential_Election_Map.jpg

Third party spoiler? How many 'yellow dog' Democrats would have voted Humphrey, with his Civil Rights history, rather then for Nixon, even though he was Republican, ( the party of Abe Lincoln, ya'all).

Approx. 10 million country wide voted for Wallace. How important was Vietnam vs Civil Rights to this demographic?

Demographic shift in progress. The solid South changing the funny hats and party favors. Former 'Blue' Dixi-crats fade to … Republican 'Red'.


Imagine, if this back channel scheming is/was correct or not, then it fits the Tricky Dick profile that made Watergate possible.

Could it have been THE info of a 1968 back channel deal that worried Nixon?

Keep stirring that conspiracy pot!

Would it have mattered with an opponent like McGovern? Nixon/Kissinger 'Peace With Honor" was in the works. Announced in January 1973.



'The Good' Nixon too big an icon to let wither in neglect?

Would The Nixon Brand benefit from a regrooved persona?

Shakespearean fatally flawed lack the wheels to motor into the 21st Century?

Outlaw biker logo "Born To Lose".

This wild one:

Plus:

Morphing into:

Behold! Bad Boy Nixon ReBranded as OUTLAW BIKER!

(Amp up Steppenwolf. audible lyrics … like a true nature's child we were born, born to be wild … }






4too

 

[mobucks]

That last one is the coolest pic I've ever seen in my life. The dipped blue PVC gloves really set it off.

 

[valcik]

Interesting, it looks like some of the American states don't want to be a part of United States of Obamerica anymore:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20301477

 

[Sander]

Interesting, it looks like some of the American states don't want to be a part of United States of Obamerica anymore:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20301477

No, some idiots in some states don't want to.

 

[Threepwood]

Interesting, it looks like some of the American states don't want to be a part of United States of Obamerica anymore:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20301477

With any luck all the idiots who signed the petition will line up in ranks to fight the U.S Army.

 

[4too]

Got Your Attention?

Got Your Attention?

… some idiots in some states …

During the GW Bush years there was a degree of mumbling by some discontented about emigrating to Canada.

Ecotopia predates that grumbling by several decades.

Heard about Ecotopia?

Various configurations of the Pacific Northwest, with or without northern California or west Montana, are dramatically proclaimed sovereign (beyond their means) by ANOTHER group of disaffected Americans.

It is annoying at times and it is part of the American political discourse, a familiar platform for passive aggressive theatre.

Secession? A motion for emotion.

Whether some of the some, of the some, are actual , virtual, or situational idiots, or merely aspire to higher planes of cognitive dissonance, listen to their complaints.

Texas voices had economic concerns. Who doesn't have economic concerns?

Might even be a sample of the back handed, dry humor that is used to dominate a targeted debate.

The 'birther' rhetoric may be more then questioning the Constitutional legitimacy of the Obama Presidency. A racial under tone may be "lurking in the wood pile". And a troll's trap.

Two for flinching if show this rattles your picket fence. Take another pinch if allow this strategy to take control of the implied discussion.


I'll spin this another way, Sander, maybe Texas will want to join the Euro! Why, how could that be self defeating or counterproductive!






4too

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

Re: Got Your Attention?

4too be right, this is the kind of passive-aggressive, partisan sore loserism akin to removing all the Ws from keyboards prior to Bush's inauguration, or the neo-cons with their "freedom toast". Same shit.

Whether some of the some, of the some, are actual , virtual, or situational idiots, or merely aspire to higher planes of cognitive dissonance, listen to their complaints.

Right, not all secessionists are bellicose, fire breathing neo-cons. See the Vermont secessionist movement and their manifesto.

I'll spin this another way, Sander, maybe Texas will want to join the Euro! Why, how could that be self defeating or counterproductive!

Well, we know who helped back the Confederacy in the last secession. Who knew they cared for states' rights so much.

With any luck all the idiots who signed the petition will line up in ranks to fight the U.S Army.

This is a stupid notion to start with, but that might not work out the way you think, given that red states are overrepresented in the military and have historically made the best soldiers.

Besides, the Feds have shown that the best way to exterminate the Waco/Ruby Ridge types is to shoot their wives, kids and pets in the back.

The secession poutfest is just a precursor to those militant/militia/doomsday assholes coming back out of the woodwork.

How does The Turner Diaries look on a Kindle?

 

[DammitBoy]

The last two posts made me lol. Thanks guys!

 

[4too]

How Soon UUe Forget

How Soon UUe Forget

... partisan sore loserism akin to removing all the Ws from keyboards prior to Bush's inauguration ...

Ya-all got a spare 'UU' for a Q_ERTY keyboard a tad alphabetically light?





4too

 

[Mad Max RW]

Uhoh. Now the media is catching up with what I've been saying all along. http://www.cnbc.com/id/49836852

Inflation bringing up the costs of food, rent and everything else. I'm sure Sanders will find a way to dismiss it, but I'm not concerned with the regurgitated thoughts of a college kid living halfway around the world. Come back to me when you've been surviving on your own for at least several years.

And the Euro zone is officially back into a recession today. Isn't that lovely news?

 

[Sander]

Uhoh. Now the media is catching up with what I've been saying all along. http://www.cnbc.com/id/49836852

Inflation bringing up the costs of food, rent and everything else. I'm sure Sanders will find a way to dismiss it, but I'm not concerned with the regurgitated thoughts of a college kid living halfway around the world. Come back to me when you've been surviving on your own for at least several years.

Straw men and ad hominems. Lovely combination.

Let's go through all the massive mistakes you're making. By the way, if you're going to insult me, could you at least do me the favor of getting my name right? It's not that complicated.

1) I never claimed there was no inflation. Of course there's inflation. The point, however, was that A) inflation wasn't exactly high (and it isn't by any measure, including consumer prices) on a macroeconomic scale B) inflation could actually be a good thing for the economy as a whole and C) even if inflation was high (which it isn't), this does not mean we're about to see hyperinflation. You may note that this story addresses exactly none of these claims.

2) A small one-month rise in inflation linked directly to an exogenous event isn't exactly proof that pumping money into the economy is causing hyperinflation. In fact, those two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

3) The media is not actually 'catching up with' anything, they're simply reporting a minor one-month rise as a minor one-month rise, caused by a hurricane. 'The media' is absolutely not reporting that QE3 is causing hyperinflation, because there's no evidence whatsoever to suggest that.

4) QE3 will cause inflation. I have noted this throughout this thread. This is a good thing, because the economy is in a liquidity trap: there's plenty of money to be invested, it's just not being invested. Rising inflation incentivizes people to start investing, provided that they know inflationary policies won't just end as soon as the economy climbs out of a depression. QE3 is designed to do exactly that, as QE1 and QE2 barely made a dent in inflation rates. In addition, inflation will devalue debt, both private and national debt -- again, a good thing. And, yet again, inflation won't suddenly lead to hyperinflation, spiralling out of control. The USA is not 1920s Germany or Zimbabwe.

Now, I'm sorry that you and people you know are suffering from a poor economy. I am not trying to belittle those issues, and they are most certainly real for you and a lot of people. But, as hard as it is to hear this, micro-level economic events are not good measures of the effects of macro-economic policy and macro-level economic events. The mistake you're making is tying your own personal experiences to macro-level developments, and you're doing so in ways that do not actually make logical sense. Worse yet, you're then drawing spurious macro-level conclusions that have been constantly contradicted by actual, macro-level events.

Now, if you're just going to dismiss my views as those of some European college kid ('cause the economy here is just fine, obviously), realize that you're also dismissing the views of the American Fed, and every American (neo)-Keynesian economist, as well as many American monetarists.

And the Euro zone is officially back into a recession today. Isn't that lovely news?

No, it's fucked up, and the problem has largely been the exact austerity policies you've been advocating here.

 

[TorontoReign]

Uhoh. Now the media is catching up with what I've been saying all along. http://www.cnbc.com/id/49836852

Inflation bringing up the costs of food, rent and everything else. I'm sure Sanders will find a way to dismiss it, but I'm not concerned with the regurgitated thoughts of a college kid living halfway around the world. Come back to me when you've been surviving on your own for at least several years.

And the Euro zone is officially back into a recession today. Isn't that lovely news?

I thought it was fairly obvious that the cost of food, rent, etc, was going up in the US? EVERYTHING is going up in the US (everywhere else it seems too), except for our fucking pay rate. Numerous factors are at play here. Drought for instance is responsible for a lot of the food prices rising around here. Cattle aren't being fed as much, so they are being sold, thus beef prices are going up. Many farmers can't plant crops this year, because their corn harvest was a complete failure, therefore many guys I know are having to sell their farms altogether. This is a community of farmers and pipeliners too. Of course the pipeliners are never out of work, but the farmers are hurting big time, as for everyone else around here too. Even my step dad who works for Boeing up in Tulsa is struggling to pay the bills, and he makes a shitload of money. The cost of living keeps going up, yet we get paid the same as many years ago. It doesn't take an expert in economics to figure this shit out. It's not exactly easy to pin down any one reason for why things are the way they are. Blame the housing bubble. Blame excessive spending. Blame war. Blame shit leadership. Blame the Republicans. Blame Bush. Blame yourself. Doesn't matter who or what you blame, since blame doesn't solve jack shit. History repeats itself and no one ever gives a shit after the dust clears.

Word of mouth might not be the best info to rely on, but you can't argue with ever single person I know not having enough money to make ends meet, and being forced to shell out more money year after year for less stuff. Sure that gets pretty old after awhile, yet I look at cities like Detroit and it breaks my fucking heart. An American city letting it's historical landmarks crumble into ruin, police practically fleeing the city, and people left behind to fend for themselves with no way to get out. Before my dad died a few years ago, his business brought in a couple hundred thousand a year. Then it dropped off to well under a seventy thousand. This was one of the best businesses in the town, and he could hardly keep the doors open. I can only imagine how much it would have hurt for him to be forced to carry health insurance on his workers when he could barely keep the business of 30 years afloat.

As for the idiots in Texas, the petition is near 100,000 last I checked. The country does seem to be bitterly divided. If any state COULD secede from the union, it would be Texas. Their oil industry is pretty strong, and if they did drop out, I'm sure a few states might follow. A ridiculous notion, but hey, stranger things have happened. Now, first crisis that came along, I'm sure they would be regretting not having the federal government to come bail their ass out, so once again, not gonna happen. It's more of a way to get people to notice than anything else.

At this point I'm not sure it even matters who the president is. Countries all around the world are having similar issues. It is a Global Recession right? Inflation is just a small part of the problem. I know the US got into this state after spending trillions on a war that didn't fucking matter, and then spending trillions on bailing out companies that made horrible decisions, then gave themselves big fat bonuses after the fact (among dozens of other issues). Some might argue that those companies needed to be bailed out. I won't argue either way, since we can't change what happened. I do think it was a bad idea to help the American auto industry after they disregarded what the consumers were saying for so many years - Your cars are crap. They fall apart after a few years and don't last as long as many imports. Love USA. - Yet they still chugged along pumping out huge gas guzzling "Hummers" for the few rich people who could afford them, leaving all the average Americans to buy their shitty sedans with the cheapest components imaginable.

Additionally, Vietnam was a giant waste of time. Got to stop those crazy Communists! Oh yeah? Is that why we owe an insane amount of money to a Communist country? All to stop them from gaining power. Yes, that worked out well. All an attempt at destabilizing their efforts only to waste countless lives, being forced to pay for treatment of numerous vets which were injured in said conflict, and then getting into the same position all over again with Iraq/Afghanistan. Learning from history are we? Not to mention that the war was started on false pretenses...wait a minute. Kinda like another war I'm thinking of...Nixon one of the better presidents of the 20th century? Fuck me running. Sure JFK is practically deified, but what about Clinton? The Oslo treaty comes to mind, not to mention one of the best economic growth spurts in recent history. You might argue he let terrorists take power, but I argue that we funded them to begin with. How about Eisenhower? The National Highway System was just one of his biggest contributions to our great country, along with his Civil Rights concerns. Don't forget that he didn't make any huge fuckups like many of the other presidents that are consistently said to be the greatest...*cough* Nixon and FDR...

Sure, whether you are a Liberal or Conservative usually dictates who you might think the greatest president is. How about forgetting all of that crap for once? The party system is flawed anyway. That hack Sylvia Brown thinks the party system will go away in a few years. Maybe the crazy bitch is right? Personally I hope it does go away. Voting strictly based upon your party is a screwed up way to vote. All of those Romney lovers are pretty damn hilarious though. It looked like their families were burned at the stake or something after the election. I'm sure after he dies, Romney will be a great God to some mindless sheep on his own little Mormon planet in some far off Galaxy. If Ron Paul wanted to win maybe he should have gotten rid of Alex Jones and his band of nutters. Nah, he never had a chance either. He should have took the VP spot he was offered. Guess he can always go back to being a kooky Gynecologist.

Sincerely,
Toronto Rain


Edit: Abuse of power.

 

[Mad Max RW]

The people signing all those petitions to secede are screwing themselves. They might as well personally visit the IRS and beg for an audit.

Heh, they stopped making Hummers in 2006. Dealers stopped selling them in 2010.

 

[Sander]

Word of mouth might not be the best info to rely on, but you can't argue with ever single person I know not having enough money to make ends meet, and being forced to shell out more money year after year for less stuff.

Well, as you note, there are many causes for these issues. And, again, inflation does exist and has happened.

But inflation is not the cause of the issues facing the American or European economy. Inflation has been modest throughout the current depression, and it has been modest basically no matter the measure you prefer. However, pay rates have not risen (which causes issues). But then we're talking about a decline in purchasing power, and that's not the same as high inflation.

Moreover, there is no evidence whatsoever that the money that has been pumped into the economy has caused inflation to rise - that has only happened slightly with QE3, because that policy was designed to cause inflation to aid the economy. And it will aid the economy as a whole by effectively kickstarting investment. Again: the US is in a liquidity trap, and that's the underlying issue.

The US economy has a ton of problems, and so does the European economy. But inflation really isn't one of those problems, and it can in fact be part of the answer to the real problems: a lack of investment, high unemployment and stagnant capital.

Preferably, those policies would be coupled with stimulus to increase employment, increase purchasing power and lift private debt burdens. Unfortunately, getting that through congress has been very difficult.

 

[TorontoReign]

Word of mouth might not be the best info to rely on, but you can't argue with ever single person I know not having enough money to make ends meet, and being forced to shell out more money year after year for less stuff.

Well, as you note, there are many causes for these issues. And, again, inflation does exist and has happened.

But inflation is not the cause of the issues facing the American or European economy. Inflation has been modest throughout the current depression, and it has been modest basically no matter the measure you prefer. However, pay rates have not risen (which causes issues). But then we're talking about a decline in purchasing power, and that's not the same as high inflation.

Moreover, there is no evidence whatsoever that the money that has been pumped into the economy has caused inflation to rise - that has only happened slightly with QE3, because that policy was designed to cause inflation to aid the economy. And it will aid the economy as a whole by effectively kickstarting investment. Again: the US is in a liquidity trap, and that's the underlying issue.

The US economy has a ton of problems, and so does the European economy. But inflation really isn't one of those problems, and it can in fact be part of the answer to the real problems: a lack of investment, high unemployment and stagnant capital.

Preferably, those policies would be coupled with stimulus to increase employment, increase purchasing power and lift private debt burdens. Unfortunately, getting that through congress has been very difficult.

True enough. I did notice you say depression. Do you think they call it a recession even though it's more like a depression, just to keep the fear in check? (Hehe. I wrote that as derpression at first)

 

[Sander]

True enough. I did notice you say depression. Do you think they call it a recession even though it's more like a depression, just to keep the fear in check? (Hehe. I wrote that as derpression at first)

No, I don't. Whether you call it a depression or a recession isn't that relevant - the former is just a more severe version of the second. Fear-mongering is good for a lot of people (most notably: any challenger in an election), and you can't really talk about a "they" because of that.

 

[TorontoReign]

True enough. I did notice you say depression. Do you think they call it a recession even though it's more like a depression, just to keep the fear in check? (Hehe. I wrote that as derpression at first)

No, I don't. Whether you call it a depression or a recession isn't that relevant - the former is just a more severe version of the second. Fear-mongering is good for a lot of people (most notably: any challenger in an election), and you can't really talk about a "they" because of that.

Well, when I speak of they I mostly mean the mainstream media, as opposed to politicians, but I catch your drift.

 

[Courier]

other presidents that are consistently said to be the greatest...*cough* Nixon and FDR...

I don't think I've ever heard anyone call Nixon a great president...

 

[Yamu]

I'm no fan, but in the last couple of days on these very boards there've been some convincing arguments made that he was (at the very least) not as bad as I thought he was, when viewed in a certain light. Even if you hate the guy, you can't deny that he did some great things, though a fair deal of it can be chalked up as "right place, right time" or "too little too late."

 

[TheWesDude]

articles are starting to show up with places cutting back employee hours to under full time status, and an average of 5% price increases across the board due to obamacare taxes.

net effect: less people insured due to fewer full time employees and prices going up. but as long as you have insurance you are still good.

so people with low wage jobs are going to make less due to lower hours, which would force them to pay the new tax, or apply for waivers. less hours worked means less taxes unless they get a 2nd job. then it would increase tax revenue.

so that might be a plus. before hand they could survive off 1 paycheck. now they will have to get a 2nd, and if they do get a 2nd they wouldnt qualify for waivers requiring them to pay for it privately.