Chairman Mao'Bama

Rightie...you lost whatever creditability you might have had when you called the President of the United States, duly elected by a majority of Americans, a "Monkey". Such hatred and ignorance tells us much about your character...the truth really hurts if you have the courage to honestly look at yourself in the mirror and see you for who you really are....I doubt that is the case with you however.

All of you continue to hide behind your delusions of communists behind every door. Those of us that do not look at every issue through rigid ideology and tainted political expediency,"a regard for what is politic or advantageous rather than for what is right or just" see you as you continue to marginalize yourselves in the eyes of our country as well as the world.

Where were all of you the last 8 years as the Bush administration was doubling the national debt, refusing to put the cost of the two wars on the budget, refusing to make the SEC enforce oversight of the financial services companies, rewarding costly "no bid" contracts to their cronies? WHERE THE H_ _ WERE YOU WHEN THIS CRAP WAS GOING ON?? WHERE WAS THE OUTRAGE THEN???

Let's hear someone answer these questions with some honesty and intelligence. The truth is you bought all the crap sold by the "right wing media" instead of stepping back and actually educating yourself and then applying common sense and logic to determine how we got to where we are.

Now that we have a President who is trying to clean up this horrific mess you all run to the communist card and make threats of civil war and call him terrible names...shame on you.

Good God people...wait up and open your eyes and your brains instead of just blindly buying in to the immature and intellectually pretentious arguments of the radical right. Don't buy the crap from the radical left either. Use your ability to reason and learn without beginning from an already bankrupt dogma that only reinforces ignorance, stereotypes, and racism.

Failure to do so will only find you and your kind more marginalized and undoubtly more reactive. It is not a struggle you will win. If you want to win and if you want the country that you say you love so much to win...then educate yourselves free from political dogma. Only then will you be taken seriously.

Looks like both sides of the Political spectrum are excellent Trash talkers, Blind to everything beyond the 'center line,' and do not realize that their typed words, may well live in infamy for decades, subject to coming back to haunt you, at a time you would least desire them to return.

Can we, please, have a modicum of respect?

President Obama is, in my opinion, heading our country toward, a strict, Socialistic direction, of Governmental ownership, and/or control, of our free enterprise system. Bailing out capitalism failure is totally contrary to the strength of capitalism, and unto a Socialistic/Communistic end status.

Capitalism is only an excellent system, so long as we keep God, and Honesty, as the guiding control. I fear that over the past seventy five years, we have slowly allowed our officials, and the wealthy to consider themselves 'above' the laws we, the majority follow.

With this in mind, please back up, wipe the mad from your eyes, and concentrate on what we can do to fix the problem we have. Borrowing to buy our way out is one of the worst avenues to follow that I can think of. We can not fix a low tire by mounting a flat tire on the vehicle.

In the name of God, let us try to save our country. Arley Steinhour.

G5,

"a few years ago?" When exactly are we talking about here? I think it has already been discussed in a previous comment thread that the democratic party was supported (and did support) by the KKK at one point (as were the protestant churches).

But we're not talking about the democratic party from LAST CENTURY, we're talking about how the parties exist in the PRESENT.

For example, look at the economic policy during the Lincoln presidency. By modern republican/conservative standards, he was a VERY liberal president.

-The Pacific Railway acts in 1862 and 1864 provided government assistance and funds for the transcontinental railway (can anyone say HUGE government spending?)

-The National Banking acts helped create the national banking system

-Lincoln's treasury exerted huge influence over the cotton trade (government control of an industry?! Isn't that the "liberal's" job

-During his presidency, the US instituted higher tariffs on imported goods (how anti-free market of him!)

So, government control of an industry, creating national banks, spending government money on a HUGE project, and limiting the free trade of goods. I wonder if people called Lincoln a "socialist".

Seems to me that the republican party was fairly liberal at the time the democrats were propping up the KKK. I think if I lived during that time I would have been a republican.

But, we don't live in 1865, we live in 2009. And at some point, there was a drastic switch in party perspectives and ergo the geographical distribution of democrats and republicans.

Obama is not a socialist, i don't know how else to put it.

And if you are such a fan of pure capitalism as you say you are:

You would have no problem with an oligarchy?

You would have no problem seeing billionaires get tax cuts while thousands of children in the inner cities die in line at the hospital because they didn't have health insurance?

America is called a capitalist nation, but pure capitalism is impossible. Pure capitalism is a monarchy. The rich become so rich they possess all the power where the poor become so poor that they must bow down to the rich. Slavery is an example of pure capitalism. You pay for a "product" and the product has no free will.

Basic capitalism is the best form of government, but pure capitalism is atroscious.

And John McCain himself admits that Obama is not a socialist.

PUH-LEEZE!!!

Cut to the facts.

Daschle signed a contract with a businessman to be a 24-hour "on-call" employee. The businessman provided in the package a 24-hour vehicle with a driver AND A SECURE SATELLITE TELEPHONE.

Not a cell phone, but a security-scrambled SATELLITE unit.

The same any of us can secure from Hughes Satellite Service or any of the other satellite communications services.

The employer required Daschle to stay within immediate contact of the vehicle and telephone.

Initial tax advice was that this requirement meant the car and driver were a company need and therefore not taxable as personal income.

Then, the IRS changed the rules.

The car service was only business related, during the times Daschle was using the telephone for his employer's business.

O.K. Sam -- Let the IRS rule that you can only be paid for the miles you put on in your big rig, while on the radio with the dispatcher. Those empty miles where you are doing the "Breaker, good buddy," are not payable. You are working for free.

It is a reversal on the rules changes -- but would smart, wouldn't it.

To add insult to injury, the company functionary responsible for giving Daschle an accounting of the cost of the car service failed to include the last month of the last year of the service in the cost accounting for his taxes.

So, he underpaid on that amount.

After review -- he paid that.

Every one who has had any complicated tax returns for business or personal purposes has turned the records over to a professional,signed what they said to sign and paid what they said to pay.

We all sit and read through that ridiculous mess as if we know what we are doing -- when we haven't more than a faint clue.

For years, I had a standard CYA system, just did not turn in all my deductible expenses to the tax preparer. Then, if the IRS audited me -- I had made an honest mistake and deducted too little -- and they owed me.

It was worth the pained look on that auditor's face as he signed for the extra refund.

[On by the way -- for the financial whiz guy. He was working half time in Europe for the International Monetary Fund, half time in the U.S. He was told -- BY THE I.R.S. he did not owe SSI deducts for the time in Europe.

Then, the I.R.S. reversed itself. Guess who paid for their "misteak" -- WITH INTEREST AND PENALTIES?? That's right cuzzin, the financial genius, who was smart enough that when the IRS reversed itself, he just paid and shut to HELL UP!]

Bill Clinton, Gary Hart, Gary Condit, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Charlie Rangel, Tom Daschle, etc. etc. I might also add Al Gore; in my opinion, he is one of the biggest hypocrits in the government now. And remember, we're not splitting hairs here. But this is an exercise in futility; you have your preferences, I have mine. Does that make you "more correct" than me. Not in my book.

mainly corrupt, but then, I believe most politicians are after they have been in Washington for a while. Perversion? I guess that would have to depend on your definition of perversion. We know that your definition and mine would differ. And in general terms, I guess you could consider corruption a perversion.

and again, we agree on many things. BTW, do you engage in supposition?

I understand completely and be assured it was going no further than what I posted. And thanks for the reminder; I do remember that particular post.

Perhaps I am alone in my optimism, but I'm positing that President Obama is too savvy to disappear after his first term. I think it's likely that he'll ask Congress and the country to let him finish the job he's started (including cleaning up after the last administration) and that he'll have that support. Also, if he fails to be re-elected, then I think he'll have set the political stage for a president from the Democratic party because he will have accomplished much of what he's laid out in his recent speech, and the Democrats will take credit and push ahead in much the same way Republicans did in the 70s and early 80s. However, it's much too early to be speculative, especially as the current economy continues to fluctuate in a downward trend for the next two months to a year.

G5 and Guillermo, I appreciate the web site references as much as any person, but I would argue that in this case, it's sometimes easier and more comfortably accurate to draw conclusions from less divisive media (I don't dare say more objective on this blog) or more mainstream media. I'd say that both resistnet and moveon do an excellent job of pointing out the gaps in people's viewpoints, but they don't always present the whole picture. Just a thought.