Obama or Romney?

[Johann]

Rush Limbaugh is whining that Republicans are outnumbered and were outnumbered in the election.
Bill O'Reilly says that it isn't a "Traditional America" anymore. That many people want "STUFF" and Obama will give it to them.
You rich Fuck.
You got your "salary stuff"- don't knock the poor for looking higher than food stamps.
Christians are whining that Republicans didn't get out the vote. Cry me a fucking river.

Glenn Beck is saying he's gonna buy up lots of guns and farmlands to protect himself from the Socialist Agenda.
Bye! You won't be missed.
Glenn said that if you want to find the people who are most like you and go camping with them to save themselves from the Socialopocalypse, check out the counties near and note how they voted. Near you. Your fellow fear-mongers are waiting to Flee ObamaLand in droves.

Yee Hah!
Get along little doggies!

[Chris Knipp]

Wouldn't it be nice if they all just went away and lived in some remote corner. But maybe not, if they armed and organized for a terrorist attack of their own, like Oklahoma City. I believe "socialopolypse" is your own original creation.

[Johann]

I was paraphrasing Glenn.
"Sociopocalypse" is a word I'll take credit for.

That's what the Right are barking about.
That's what I'll give them.
Tired of their stupid shit. LOL

[Chris Knipp]

I have to confess I read about what the right is saying more than I read or listen to what they say. Probably Noam Chomsky listens. He knows everything and follows everything. I think he's said he does, when he's in his car.

[Johann]

We'll see how Republicans re-adjust to the shellacking they just got.
When will they learn that money and ignorance are just not that awesome?

Donald Trump called the election a sham.
No, it wasn't Donald.
I was certain it would be though, I have to admit. I was certain Romney bought it, lock, stock and fucking barrel.
In fact, I was so sure he was going to steal the election I'm still in a state of bewilderment that America actually saw right through Mitt's scheme.
Thanks again. You put the right Man in the Oval Office again.
Better times are definitely ahead. You. Just. Watch.

[Chris Knipp]

I don't think anybody is going to go through a transformation. Obama will go on being too timid and the Republicans will go on being outrageous and getting away with it. Obama is already using the word "fiscal," which is the code word for budget-cutting and letting the economy tank again, just as the Right, for reasons I do not understand, want it to do. Well, one reason is that they want the Democrats to fail, at all costs. And of course screw the majority.

[Johann]

Taking off my rose-colored glasses for a moment, I have to say that the U.S. is facing an incredibly serious problem.
You can't spend the way Obama has been spending and have the deficit get higher and higher, while a gridlocked Congress raises the debt ceiling.

So Republicans can stop licking their wounds and start getting America on track.
Don't stonewall, don't whine, don't piss and moan. America voted, and you lost. Just like 4 years ago.
Get with the program.
You can pat yourselves on the back (like you love to do) when the country is back on a "fiscal" track.
A budget is still at least a decade away for the United States, but taxing the super-rich is a VERY sound plan.
Make these super-pac bitches PAY THROUGH THE NOSE.
Money isn't real anyways, so it's no problem.
The Rich Righties can suck it. You didn't lift a finger for your wealth. And you arrogantly look down on those who see you for what you are?
Eat Shit and Die.
I almost want the whole global economy to collapse so I can smile hard.
"We're in this together" isn't a catchphrase. You breathe the same air I do, Paco.
You think "classes" are necessary and that the human race should be segmented. There is a difference between a "mixed economy" and outright Class War. And the poor have had quite enough of it. There is no trickle down. The trickle stopped on 9/11.

Mitt Romney and his batshit insane idiot backers thought money was all he needed.
Nope.
You needed a soul, a clue, a brain, a plan, a Life, in short, a HUMAN to win the election.
Take note Republitards: Don't ever put a sad-sack piece of shit corporate clown up for President again.
If you do, we'll just laugh at you again.
And vote for Michelle Obama. (She will probably run right after her Hubby!)

[Johann]

I was speaking to all the rich fucks who think the world is ending with Obama's win in that last post.

And I'm speaking to you now: If I was a millionaire, I would know that many people helped me get it. That would be a given.
No man or woman on the planet made millions by themselves. In fact, that is my number one problem with a "free market" system:
I cannot make a million dollars unless I make someone else a million dollars FIRST.
I have to be "let in" to the club, so to speak.
Man's humanity has been waning for a long time, and with the Reich-Wing thinking money is the end-all be-all for the world's problems, we are starved for leaders with HUMANITY. The Leaders are usually are rich too (Obama is Richie Rich himself) but it is a small miracle that he includes ALL Americans in his plan for America. It's quite remarkable, actually. It's a real breath of Fresh Air.
It's something to celebrate.
Class War and divisions between "Americans" is a cosmic joke. I can't believe that people WANT that type of system,
that they embrace it with both arms, that they want to be partisan until they DIE.
Wow. Who raised you?
Orangutans?

One Nation. Under God.
Heh.

[Johann]

You know what I loved the most about the election?

Mitt Lost Michigan AND Massachusetts.

Thank you America. From the bottom of my Canuck heart.
You put an EXCLAMATION POINT on your choice for President.

[Chris Knipp]

Taking off my rose-colored glasses for a moment, I have to say that the U.S. is facing an incredibly serious problem.
You can't spend the way Obama has been spending and have the deficit get higher and higher, while a gridlocked Congress raises the debt ceiling.

So Republicans can stop licking their wounds and start getting America on track.
Don't stonewall, don't whine, don't piss and moan. America voted, and you lost. Just like 4 years ago.
Get with the program.
You can pat yourselves on the back (like you love to do) when the country is back on a "fiscal" track.

I guess you are just saying this to set up to say the rich must pay more taxes. You are an independent minded man, but I fear you are influenced by the right wing Harperites who surround you. Because the "fiscal cliff" is a myth, and the "deficit" is not a serious looming problem. I refer you to Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist, whose column this morning is called "Hawks and Hypocrites".

You'll find this column here.

Krugman says in part:

It’s not just the fact that the deficit scolds have been wrong about everything so far. Recent events have also demonstrated clearly what was already apparent to careful observers: the deficit-scold movement was never really about the deficit. Instead, it was about using deficit fears to shred the social safety net. And letting that happen wouldn’t just be bad policy; it would be a betrayal of the Americans who just re-elected a health-reformer president and voted in some of the most progressive senators ever.

And he further says:

And then there’s the matter of the “fiscal cliff.”

Contrary to the way it’s often portrayed, the looming prospect of spending cuts and tax increases isn’t a fiscal crisis. It is, instead, a political crisis brought on by the G.O.P.’s attempt to take the economy hostage. And just to be clear, the danger for next year is not that the deficit will be too large but that it will be too small, and hence plunge America back into recession.

Deficit scolds are having a hard time with this issue. How can they warn us not to go over the fiscal cliff without seeming to contradict their own rhetoric about the evils of deficits?

This wouldn’t be hard if they had been making a more honest case on the budget: the truth is that deficits are actually a good thing when the economy is deeply depressed, so deficit reduction should wait until the economy is stronger. As John Maynard Keynes said three-quarters of a century ago, “The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity.”

This is an essential point to learn. We need more infusion of capital, not holding back. There has been too little of that, not too much.

[Johann]

"Deficit Scolds" are rampant, agreed. I am anti-fearmongering, so I read your post with great interest.

So essentially what Mr. Krugman is saying is that there is no deficit, that we can ignore it until the boom times come back, that it is not a problem whatsoever. There is no "fiscal cliff" to fall off of. Am I hearing him right?
That sounds a helluva lot like "KICK THE CAN FURTHER DOWN THE ROAD!"
The GOP is definitely guilty of milking the deficit fears, but is it a truly manufactured crisis? Really??
The deficit is not an issue aside from being a political football?

You believe that Chris?
China doesn't have to come knocking?
No budget for the United States is no problem until the next boom?

[Chris Knipp]

Deficit doesn't mean the same thing as debt for a family or an individual -- something which for a while Obama erroneously claimed. The situation is far more flexible for corporations or governments than for private individuals.

Krugman is not saying there is "no deficit," he is saying deficit is not the real worry now. That running a deficit for the richest country in the world is not anything to worry about now, that in fact a deficit is desirable because it will provide funds to stimulate the economy when it most needs stimulation. This is standard Keynesian economics. Pay off debts during boom times, spend during times of weak economic activity to stimulate growth. The fact that imposing austerity has only brought on more and more dire economic results during the current period of severe recession has been proven recently -- repeatedly -- in Greece and in western Europe. And yet they're imposing more austerity, most recently in Greece. They just don't get it.

This is not surprising. It's like in the old days when they bled people when they were sick in the belief that this got the sickness out. They bled them, and they got sicker, so they bled them some more. They got sicker, and weaker, so they bled them some more. Then they died.

Here in the US deficit fears and the invented "fiscal cliff" are used for one main purpose: as an excuse to impose a right wing agenda. Namely to take away the social safety net, to remove benefits for the poor and working class. The theory is that this will ultimately leave more money for the rich. This is not spoken of openly, of course.

Even that selfish goal is illusory, because austerity is bad for the economy generally, so few really benefit from it in the long run.

This is not a question of "no budget." There is always a budget.

Right wing claims that Social Security and Medicare are in danger and the money for them will run out are just excuses to eliminate them. Remember that the right has found they can lie, say just about anything, and people will believe them. Again this comes out of an ideological agenda, and also represents the dubious notion that cutting social services will provide more money for the rich. All that it surely does is create more suffering. Going back to an earlier time.

Obviously this is ideologically motivated, not fact- based. Nobody on the right is warning that we can't afford to go on building weaponry or funding wars, though they cost more than the social services. The biggest causes of deficit spending are war expenditures. This is never mentioned. "Cutting runaway government spending" means cutting social benefits. The real runaway government spending is never considered. The right has always talked in recent decades about making government smaller, while in fact spending lots of government money, on things like armaments that benefit their corporate cronies and feed the American empire.

Cutting back on empire -- eliminating some of those 800 military bases around the world -- is a form of "austerity" that could work, but is not considered. It could provide more momey to fund such things as green industry, projects to employ people repairing the US infrastructure, bringing wi-fi up to top first world levels, developing public transportation. Unfortunately, Obama is really a drill, baby, drill guy. He temporarily postponed the Keystone pipeline, then gave the go-ahead for a part of it.

[Johann]

I've always said that the economy will never collapse and you just explained why.
Thank you. Glad you read more newspapers than I do. ;)

So the Right will use this tagline of the deficit crisis for the next 4 years?
It will be their platform?
I wondered how a Nation can raise $4 Billion for a certain Republican candidate for President yet they can't work in Congress "fix" the debt in a constructive manner, with job creation or austerity or whatever.
They can't get on the same page to lift the Nation up and THEN impose ideological agendas?
YOU ALL SUCK! LOL
Your high ground is Gone. Wallowing clowns. LOL

What would I do without your clarity Chris?
You are omnipotent on certain days. Ha Ha

[Chris Knipp]

The economy could collapse, but the US economy doesn't seem in much danger of it. The danger is that Obama seems to believe these deficit hawks/scolds. He does not seem to be altogether perceptive about economics.

He just needs to read Paul Krugman's NY Times op ed column every Monday and Friday. Krugman keeps on saying the same things but nobody listens.

But CREDO just send out an email petition to Obama saying Listen to Krugman. Their petition letter begins with a quotation from Krugman:

"[S]tanding up to hostage-taking is the right thing to do for the health of America's political system. So stand your ground, Mr. President, and don't give in to threats."1 -Paul Krugman

Stand your ground, Mr. President.

1Their note is to Krugman's recent colulmn, "Let's Not Make a Deal," http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/op...deal.html?_r=0

[Johann]

"Hostage Taking"- perfect words to describe the GOP.

Stephen Harper just used the words "fiscal cliff" in a speech about the United States.
So there you go.
It is a situation of taking hostages.
Right-Wingers are Terrorists.
They do not belong in Government.