Week In The News: Egypt, Clemens, Holder

Jon from Clinton

I will not be able to listen Friday 6/22/2012, as i will be at the dentist. I was outranged after todays show on Holder when I went and listened to the NRA convention speaches from last April, and the repeated statements back then to find Holder in contempt. And, I agree with Nancy Pelosi on the distraction the GOP has manufactured. Dare I compare the GOP propaganda machine with the best of the Nazis’ without fearing from my life?

Terry Tree Tree

FEAR for YOUR LIFE! They can’t stand truth, unless it fits their pre-conceived notions.�
I used to be far more Republican-leaning, UNTIL I found I could NOT IGNORE the HYPOCRICY!
Terry Tree Tree

You may be getting the lesser pain! LOTS of this week’s news HURTS!
Azra

Are you from Clinton, Iows?

feettothefire

Time for a nice show on religion, something to calm us all down.

Terry Tree Tree

Catholic Child-Molesting Religion?

Ed

Today is the start of the ‘Fortnight for Freedom’ campaign that will end on July 4th with prayer and rallies across the country. For information about events text the word Freedom to 377377 or go to http://www.fortnight4freedom.com. There is a daily prayer to say also.

The first laws established by the Pilgrims and by the Catholics in Maryland in the 1630s (ship The Ark of the Dove) were laws on freedom of religion and of conscience. They haven’t been attacked in two hundred plus years, but they are now. The whole Catholic healthcare and education system, plus businesses run by Catholics, are in danger, and the Church is, after the government, the largest providers of services to the poor. Think twice.

At bottom is that the administration is using the ridiculous ACLU’s (enemy of religion for years) definition of religion, and they will not budge on this definition. And it’s an untrue definition – it’s not how religion defines itself.

Yar

Here is a search result of The Ark and the Dove

“When the first group of English settlers arrived in Maryland aboard the vessels The Ark and the Dove they were in need of shelter.” http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/educ/essay/html/96essay.html

“The colonists of Maryland were eager to learn how to grow tobacco, which had already become a valuable export for the colony of Virginia. With the help of the Native Americans, the colonists learned how to grow tobacco in the Maryland soil. The economy of Maryland quicky became centered around the production and shipment of tobacco. It was extremely popular with the Europeans and became a greatly valued commodity. Tobacco brought great wealth, prosperity, and prestige to the Maryland colony.
While the colonial traders became rich in Maryland, the Native Americans stayed poor. The Native Americans did not have a use for money, nor did they understand its value, so they traded for household items. The colonists were able to earn a living from the fur and tobacco trades, but the Native Americans were not able to improve their economic status through trade. On the colonial social ladder, the Native Americans were considered to be below the landowning colonists. They exisited under the same conditions for many years and were never able to improve their lot, either socially or economically, during this colonial time period.
As the fur trade increased, many Native American tribes became dependent on the colonists for the basic necessities of clothing, weapons, tools, and utensils. As a result, the peaceful Piscataway tribe forgot how to make bows and arrows after less than fifty years of colonization. [7] The Piscataways became dependent on their alliance with the colonists for protection from their enemies, the Susquehannock. However, when they needed help, the colonists did not come and many Piscataways died. [8] Although their lives became slightly more modernized, thanks to European tools, the Native Americans lost some of their ancestral knowledge and survival skills.
The Native Americans’ culture was undermined by the colonists. The Piscataway tribe, which had been almost 2,000 strong in 1634, was reduced to only 150 members by 1675 because of European diseases and their weakened defense against enemies. The colonists took the Piscataways’ land, hunting grounds, and farmland, which required them to become nomadic and flee from Maryland. Many tribes had such a fate and Maryland lost much of its Native American heritage. The tribes were underappreciated then and still are today, with only names on a map to signify their past existence. Without the cooperation of the Indians the Maryland colony would not have survived, however without colonization the Indians could have prospered.”

The institutional Church hasn’t changed much. Without universal health care our country cannot survive, with everyone included in health services we can prosper. What the church is fighting for is the right to exploit their workers. They want to deny their workers access to health services earned by the workers own labor.
The natives understood Matthew 25:35. The Church, not so much.
Terry Tree Tree

YOUR ‘religion’ DEMANDS the ‘right’ to MOLEST and ABUSE children, without interference?
YOU still have NOT written against this? ARE YOU a MOLESTING and/or ABUSING clergy?
YOU keep trying to divert attention from these CRIMES?
Terry Tree Tree

Catholic ‘religion’ DEFINES itself as Child-Molesters and Child-Abusers! By NOT fixing this decades-old, or hundreds of years old ‘religious practice’?
- Ed
  
  That’s the strategy that the Nazis used to attack the Church: calling monasteries houses of homosexual sex and calling them child abusers. And no doubt, as society turned sexual, they were drawn in, and they are paying for their sins and have developed a program against it. (And it is a problem in every institution, like public schools.)
  
  But the bad behavior of a few priests and religious doesn’t bear on the faith.
  
  As bad as sexual abuse is, people use this as a diversion from the greater crime: the killing of 4,000 children each day (counted) in abortion. And they use it as an excuse to avoid encountering the faith.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    A ‘FEW’ priests?   a few, is more than a couple, but LESS than FIVE!
       The ‘men of God’ you, and your clergy keep hiding and abetting, are CRIMINALS! Aiding and Abetting Criminals, is a CRIME!
       Sounds like THOUSANDS of CRIMINALS, doesn’t it?
  - J__o__h__n
    
    Nonsense. Don’t blame the sexual revolution. More openess brought this centuries old child abuse to light. Ireland wasn’t exactly the swinging sixties and the abuse there was widespread.
Azra

“Services to the poor” include providing effective, affordable health care.
- TFRX
  
  Well, if you’re a male. If you’re a female, get ready for that “Midnight Cab Ride” to a real hospital.
Roy Mac

Fortnight for Freedom. Well, that’s a real sobriquet! Freedom for priests to fuck children without fear of being revealed? Freedom to chain women and keep them in the cellar until it’s time for them to poop out another baby as fodder for the reviled priests whose lives are dedicated to evil decadence? You go, Ed–get your jollies, but don’t expect me to pay for your excrement.
J__o__h__n

Freedom of religion is not under attack. Churches are still exempt. All other services simply have to follow the same laws as everyone else. And you aren’t content to push for special rights for religious schools and hospitals. Now Catholic-owned businesses should also be exempt? Why should a Catholic business owner have the right to subject employees to religious beliefs?

donniethebrasco

Giving assault weapons to Mexican drug lords has made immense progress in trying to create laws to ban assault weapons.

Bravo, Obama

Gregg

It’s reckless disregard for life and the Constitution.
- jefe68
  
  Yeah, you all only mention the Constitution when it suits your ideology.

Newton Whale

Ann Romney (or at least her dancing horse) may be the
Olympic athlete in the family, but Mitt is an Olympic class liar.

Yesterday he said this:

“For two years, this
President had huge majorities in the House and Senate–he was free to pursue
any policy he pleased. But he did nothing to advance a permanent fix for our
broken immigration system. Instead,
he failed to act until facing a tough re-election and trying to secure your
vote.”

It’s a lie.

The DREAM Act was
introduced in both the House and the Senate on 3/26/09, two months after Pres.
Obama took office. It had enough votes to pass but failed to get an up or down
vote in the Senate on 9/21/10 because Republicans filibustered it. President
Obama pledged to reintroduce it. He did. The House passed it on 12/8/2010. On
the same day, once again, a Republican filibuster denied it an up or down vote.

On 5/11/11, the DREAM
ACT was reintroduced in the Senate and President Obama supported it. It has
been blocked by Republicans ever since.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DREAM_Act

On January 12, 2012, Mitt
Romney said he would veto the DREAM Act as President.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/01/romney-says-would-veto-dream-act/

That’s some Olympic Gold Medal lying, Mitt.

Gregg

That seems like a rather non-nuanced view. It reminds me of other shallow arguments like equating opposition to Obamacare with opposition to health care. Or equating “revenue” with tax hikes. Or saying the claim that Iraq harbored terrorist means claiming Iraq had something to do with 9/11. I call it jackhammer nuance.

“For two years, this President had huge majorities in the House and Senate–he was free top pursue any policy he pleased. But he did nothing to advance a permanent fix for our broken immigration system.”

Truer words have never been spoken. Obama’s DREAM act was not a fix.
- mary elizabeth
  
  You are once again trying to defend the indefensible. Romney lied.
  The Dream Act was obstructed by the Republicans, now they accuse the President of accomplishing nothing. Preposterous.
  - Azra
    
    Latinos are well aware that Republicans are against them, and were responsible for turning down The Dream Act, etc.. Heard interviews, including some just this morning, on Morning Edition.
    
    They know that Mitt is a phoney too.
    
    
Azra

Mitt’s audience was much more savvy than he gave them credit for. They saw through everything he said. When he finished, he received only lukewarm, polite applause.



Gregg

The physical therapists who work at our farm with children suffering from MS, CP, paralysis, emotional disorders and other afflictions are very pleased that Hippo Therapy is in the national news. This very legitimate therapy has dramatic life changing affects. I’ve seen it.

Terry Tree Tree

DEATH PANEL Insurance Company EXECUTEives actually cover the cost? OR is this SUCESSFUL treatment paid for by donations?
THANKS GREGG, for helping provide this service and joy to these children!! I APPLAUDE you and the people involved in this program, especially the Volunteers!

Gregg

Is Obama a pathological liar?

http://news.investors.com/article/615581/201206201901/obama-tells-stories-to-support-radical-agenda.htm

TFRX

Hey, if we’re just tossing out harmless lovable fuzzball crap without a shred to back it up:

Is your mother “a slut, a prostitute”?
- Gregg
  
  The link has 13 distinct documented lies and they come from an Obama sycophant to boot. Can you refute any of them?
  - TFRX
    
    Investors’ Bidness Daily’s cast of “an Obama syncophant” is hilarious, right up there with “Democrat Joe Lieberman”.
    
    If you want to fluff stuff like this, do what everyone else does and become a Drudge or Politico contributor.
    
    I’d ask you if you were you ever concerned about Shrub’s admin’s honesty, but the answer wouldn’t be worth the pixels its printed on.
    - Gregg
      
      No, the lies came from Obama sycophant David Marinass. So you’ve gone from “without a shred” to “fluff” but your still in the weeds and looking silly. Really, do you even think before you post?
    - TFRX
      
      You have some crazy ideas about “biographer” v. “syncophant”.
    - TFRX
      
      And “fluff” is a verb. It’s the treatment anyone with something not 2000% perfect about a Democrat can get from the mainstream media.
    - Gregg
      
      Obama is a documented liar and you have not refuted that fact.
    - TFRX
      
      Oh noes, a politician told a lie!
      
      Playing your game is like NPR “investigating both sides of the story” for the kind of horseshite you call news: It’s losing just to play. It elevates all your crap to “half of the story”.
      
      You gave up being taken seriously when you called Rush a harmless, lovable fuzzball.
    - Gregg
      
      He’s also very humble.
    - Gregg
      
      Let’s review: without a shred of evidence –> to fluff –> to a biographer documenting lies. Any dispute?
  - nj_v2
    
    ^ Thus demonstrating that Greggg doesn’t know the meaning of documented.
    - Gregg
      
      Documented
    - nj_v2
      
      Wanting desperately to be taken seriously, but lacking even half the necessary intellectual wherewithal, dense-as-asphalt-on-a-midwinter-Alaskan road, Greggg first posts a “editorial” with no author noted, and no references given for any of the claims of “lies” that it makes.
      
      Then Greggg asserts those claims are “documented.”
      
      Then he offers as documentation the Amazon page—not actual references to the original quotes, not relevant excerpts from the book—just the page of a book from an author presumably different from the one who wrote the “editorial.”
      
      Better go back and listen to Rush again and see if he can help you out.
    - Gregg
      
      Rush?
Terry Tree Tree

Rush Limbaugh lies in his OWN book. THAT”S why I cannot take him seriously.
Then there was the FRAUDS he committed to get DRUGS!
MANY other lies and contradictions, but that was enough for me!
- Gregg
  
  What’s Rush got to do with it? BTW, you are wrong in your assertions. He committed no fraud, he didn’t lie.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    Rush Limbaugh committed FRAUD, by going to another doctor, complaining of the same thing he already had a prescription for, to get another prescription, and another , and another, and another, and…….
    He LIED in his own book, and if he had the ‘manhood’ to face me on National Television,inviting ALL the networks not just Fox, etc…, Prime Time, I’ll PROVE IT!
    Can you get your wimpy buddy to do THAT?
    - Gregg
      
      You’re wrong.

Terry Tree Tree

NEWS, NEWS, and more news! LOTS this week, if you haven’t been under a rock.
Jerry Sandusky says he didn’t do it! BUT, if he did, he has a ‘DISORDER’ that damaged those children, NOT Jerry!
He didn’t testify, because that would have opened a chance for a clincher from his adopted son?

Terry Tree Tree

ACTIVIST JUDGES, in the Supreme Court, RULED on points that were NOT brought up in the case about union funds for political uses, THEREFORE were NOT argued, NOR allowed to be considered by the plaintiff, NOR the defendants?

Terry Tree Tree

$ 50 BILLION DOLLARS in Swipe-Fees went to Credit Card banks, in 2011? Guess who’s SWIPING your money?
GREEDY rich Banksters are WHINING about ‘losing money’? While they get $MILLIONS in BONE-USes, for shady deals, STILL?

Terry Tree Tree

Mitt proposes AMNESTY for aliens, to counter-act President Obama’s Work Visa type program for children brought here by their parents?
Mitt was his usual vague self, on HOW his AMNESTY program will look, so he probably will flip-flop, when it comes time to deliver, AFTER the election?

Brothersower88

To be fair, the current president ran on immigration reform and did not act on it when congress was more favorable to his views.

It seems both parties are seeking the Latino vote, but what are they willing to do in the long run is much more difficult to nail down.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  I heard news of him TRYING to act on it! Congress of “NO!” government, kept it from serious consideration. MANY distractions have come President Obama’s way, that seemed, or were, more pressing or important?
  Congress was elected to GOVERN, the BEST they can, FOR THE COUNTRY? NOT to keep their pledge to ONE un-elected individual? Dis-regarding the DAMAGE it does to the Country?
  - Brothersower88
    
    Which is why I mad sure to include the statement “congress was more favorable to his views.”
    
    When congress was more in line with his goals, he could have pushed immigration reform, but it didn’t make the highest slots in his list of priorities. Whether or not it should have been is arguable (depending on each individuals’ beliefs).
    
    Is the current congress failing the US people by their refusal to cooperate and compromise, yes. Are both parties over the last four years to blame (to at least some extent), yes.

Terry Tree Tree

ACTIVIST JUDGES in the Supreme Court, will probably help the DEATH PANELS of Insurance Company EXECUTEives, to KILL more people, with ‘Pre-existing Condition’ clauses, that vary from State to State, City to City, Insurance Company to Insurance Company, and even from Insurance Agent to Insurance Agent?�
LOTS of room for KILLING there, by denying services? For an ‘Existing Condition’, that even your physician had NO idea that you had? Did physician tell you? Say this obscure symptom was a ‘pre-existing condition’ to the problem that the Insurance DEATH PANEL says it’s part of, and should have been treated?

Terry Tree Tree

‘Reverend’ Richard Land says that “Every child deserves a mother and a father.”�
    HAS ‘Rev’ Land FORCED EVERY Dead-Beat-Dad, in his OWN congregation, to be RESPONSIBLE for ALL the children they have started?�
    What about the ‘Rev’ Land’s OWN history on this subject?   NO ‘Wild Oats’? HIS family? His Friends?
    Does the ‘Rev’ Land, DICTATE that children HAVE to stay with ABUSIVE, MOLESTING, or otherwise DANGEROUS ‘parents’, to have “a mother and a father”?   Is THAT what children ‘DESERVE’?

Brothersower88

Hmmm….

Questions like these could be asked about just about any situation. Vague questions in an accusatory tone without evidence tend to illicit an emotional response rather than beneficial dialogue.

It may be better to say:
‘Reverend’ Richard Land says that “Every child deserves a mother and a father.”�
Would it be better for Rev. Land to say that ever child deserves loving parents? What does that look like as a culture, community, and familial unit? Where does the Land’s statement fall short, and what beneficial meaning can be extracted from his comment?

I would be much more inclined to have a conversation with thought provoking questions rather than inflammatory ones. Hyperbolic statements will generally generate some sort of response; although, it generally is less constructive than it could be.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  NOT easy decisions? NEEDS more thought and consideration?�
  THAT is my point!
  The statement that “Every child deserves a mother and a father.” , CAN have MANY BAD and/or unachievable aspects!
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  Deadbeat dads, deadbeat moms, Abusive mom or dad?
  Mothers LEFT with children of rape?
  IS it going to happen?

Terry Tree Tree

Mitch McConnel, and cronies, DEMAND that FOREIGN Corporations and CRIMINAL Enterprises can CONTROL elections with MONEY, without THE PEOPLE even being allowed to find out WHO is backing LIES and DISTORTIONS?

Brothersower88

I’d like to see a basic change that only people eligible to vote in a particular election could fiscally contribute to that election.

Why should someone in MI be able to contribute to a congressional election in MA. My congressperson is supposed to represent my interest, not the interests of someone in MI. Why put him/her in the posistion of having conflicting interests across state/congressional/national borders.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  Why not simple FULL DISCLOSURE of who pays for what? If you know who’s paying for the campaign, and the ads, you usually can figure their PROFIT?

Terry Tree Tree

$2.99 ‘Bling’ Jeans produces $1600 ring? SIX women claim they lost the 1 ring in the 1 pair of jeans? THOSE women NEED a decent diet? SIX of them in 1 pair of jeans, with 1 ring on SIX fingers?

Terry Tree Tree

Pope Benedict ADMITS that he is too incompetent to understand why priests Molest and Abuse?
Pope Benedict and his predecessors have proven they are INCOMPETENT to handle the problem, EXCEPT to FURTHER HARM the VICTIMS?
ANY Catholic intelligent and compassionate enough?

Brothersower88

Trying to determine why anyone does anything is near impossible. To truly know someone’s heart and motives is beyond human understanding regardless of intelligence or compassion—we are, at best, left with educated guesses.

Has the Catholic church mishandled the situation, absolutely. Should there have been immediate confessions of wrong doing and all attempts at reparations made (including judicial accountability), absolutely.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  How many motivations are there, for raping a child? IS it a crime? Is it IMMORAL? IS it the Catholic way for hundreds of years?

feettothefire

The one fact the politicians of today understand implicitly is the fact they’d better toe the party line. When they come to Washington they leave their integrity at home next to their honor and their independence. When I was a kid of ten years old my little friends and I did a better job of working out our differences. Cosa Nostra does a better job of working things out for the good of the family than these bozos in Congress will ever do for the good of the country. Imagine that. The MOB understands the value of compromise and stability for the common good, better than Congress does. This will still be the case in ten or twenty years, when Obama, Romney, Boehner, Pelosi, Reid, and all the rest of them are long gone. Anyone who thinks today’s dysfunction will magically abate in the coming years needs to get off whatever mushrooms they’re eating. This the new reality in Washington. Stalemate = Victory. By the way, the American people are as much at fault as the jerks in Washington. After all, they’re only giving us the kind of leadership we want.

Azra

That’s the sad truth. We know we’re in serious trouble, and there will be no compromises, when one group signs a pledge, promising not to cooperate in any way. They have only one goal, which is bad news for everyone; to make America fail. That means NO COMPROMISE, NO COOPERATION . . . EVER!



Azra

More great news . . . gas prices have crashed to their lowest in 8 months! $78 a barrel!!!



Terry Tree Tree

Time for everyone that can, to switch to a Flex-Fuel-Vehicle, so that when OILgliarchs RAISE petrol prices again, THOSE drivers can buy cheaper Methanol and Ethanol, to keep gas prices lower for people that cannot afford to switch!
Still Here

Damn those speculators! You guy are complete tools.
- Azra
  
  It’s not great news? Don’t understand.
- Azra
  
  Please explain.
  
  

Sean

It sort of seemed like the GOP was making a bit of headway with voters outside of the old, male, and white, but then when you actually pay attention, you have to wonder:

Why do they feel they can’t win a single vote without distorting or outright lying, without re-writng history when the truth is easily found out, and why does the GOP feel they have to do everything possible to suppress any voter turnout other than the already brainwashed?

Their tactics illustrate just how worried they must actually be with respect to the longterm prospects of their dying party.

…it’s just too bad that they’re able to find just enough gullible voters to prolong their inevitable demise.

Gregg

Are you parroting Pelosi’s talking point?
Terry Tree Tree

MONEY TALKS!! Citizens’ United (actually Criminals United), plainly PROVES that!
When people can spend $BILLIONS of DOLLARS to LIE, and MIS-LEAD the public about a candidate, and the candidate has no money to defend themselves, HOW can the public be served?
CRIMINALS UNITED?
- Brothersower88
  
  You can’t buy a vote from someone who takes the time to educate themselves about the issues.�
  If someone cares enough, they can get access to all the information they want from public records.
  
  Votes tend to get “bought” from individuals who refuse (or are not able) to research for themselves. Instead of watching TV for 3 hours a night they could go to the library and use the interenet to investigate which bills have been voted in which way (along with other information).
  
  A lot of work, but it should be worth it to people who want their voice heard without being “bought”.
  
  Functionally, I agree that Citizens United can sadly “buy” ignorant votes, but is it a cultural problem or judicial/legislative problem?
  
  I would prefer citizens improve the culture rather than legislature take action, but that again is a lot of work and isn’t quick.
  
  I also recognize that I am assuming the majority of citizens have access to libraries or the internet.
  - Michiganjf
    
    Thus, Republicans have done everything in their power to make certain that as few as possible are educated in this country… from war on teachers and public schools, to policies that ensure public schools are ineffectual and fail, to a war on tenured professorship in colleges, to the undermining of the media and political discourse. Then, the icing… the packing of SCOTUS with lackeys who decide for “money” in the Citizens United case. Keep people ignorant and their vote goes wherever the wealthiest Super Pac wants it to go.

Eric

Why is it the GOP has given a vote of contempt on Eric Holder, yet they have done nothing to stop Joe Arpaio, especially since Arpaio has routinely disobeyed subpoenas and federal law.

Also, why has the GOP done nothing to bring in Florida’s Rick Scott who has disobeyed a federal ruling saying not to continue with the voter purge?

What is happening with this country, I mean, why do we have laws when the leaders who have sworn to uphold them go out of their way to break these said laws? If the average person in the street tried to ignore a subpoena, like Arpaio has done, we would end up in jail.

What is going on?

mary elizabeth

It is very scary.

Cory

Question for the guests: If the economic crisis in Europe deepens, does that in some way provide political cover for Obama heading into the election? In other words, he can blame our country’s economic woes on the continued problems in Europe, shifting attention away from his own policies, which could be difficult to explain and defend.

Thanks,

Cory

Still Here

He can’t justify it, but he’ll use the excuse anyway.
notafeminista

What do you mean can he? He already has and President Hollande took him to task publicly for doing so.

Terry Tree Tree

Banksters are involved in MOST of the serious problems we have? Banksters MAKE MONEY, whether everyone else LOSES?
Jamie Diamon says JPM ‘MAY’ claw-back SOME of the money the EXECUTEives ‘made’ off the $3 BILLION LOSS? �
Jamie Diamon’s own pay is ’100% on the table’? WANT TO BET?

TFRX

That Mitt Romney’s statement on immigration has to be “read pretty hard into” to make heads or tails should not be a surprise.

It is, after all, Etch-a-Sketch time. Howsabout we hear some of those clips from primary season, or are they all “disappeared” now?

Scott B, Jamestown NY

Moodys and S&P did to the banks what the Fed, Congress, and the European Central Bank could do, and should have done and didn’t – Rein in the banks from playing fast and loose with other people’s money, making them back up their bets with more of their own.

Nice to see Moodys and S&P’s mea culpa, basically admitting that they got it wrong back when they had the derivatives market, et al, marked at AAA.

Congress might take a hint here, but I’m wouldn’t hold my hand over my ass about it.

Terry Tree Tree

Moody’s and Standard and Poore SOLD ‘regulation’ and ‘evaluations’ to Banksters that sold BOGUS ‘financial instruments’?
HAVE EITHER paid back the money they COST the PUBLIC, the COUNTRY, and the WORLD?
- Scott B, Jamestown NY
  
  I’m still trying to figure out why the banks and the credit reporting agencies aren’t all at least on trial around the world for ostensible kick backs (credit reporting agencies get paid by the very banks they’re rating, book cooking in Europe (Greece in particular), fraud in the deliberately selling all that bad product in those bundles, the derivatives chicanery…
  
  But what do we hear those on the Right calling for? More austerity that has proven to not be working (Ireland and UK in worse shape than ever), more tax breaks for the rich and big biz (that helped get us up to our necks in debt), and more deregulation that led to the banks acting like they were in Vegas – regulation that helped keep our money safe for those of us not in the 1% (or the 1/10th of 1% that really made out like bandits).
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    Who’s pockets do you think they line MOST?
TFRX

The hint wasn’t taken, and barely registered in the media, when S&P said GOP obstructionism was what led to downgrading the US’s rating.

Michiganjf

Europe dragging down the world after it was just beginning to pull out of America’s downturn, where the world economic fiasco first reared it’s bloated head.

… and the blame should still go to precisely the same place- the greedy wealthy, whose reckless pursuit of an ever larger slice IS STILL HOLDING A FOOT ON THE NECK OF 99.5 PERCENT OF THE WORLD’S POPULACE!!!

… and Republicans are yet brain-dead and pig-headed enough to buy the arguments of the wealthy elite, HOOK, LIE, AND STINKER!!

You conservatives really need to clear the plaque out of your brains, for the good of yourselves AND the rest of us!!!

Still Here

Don’t blame the wealthy for your lack of success. You’d be a millionaire if we paid for excuses!
- TFRX
  
  You forgot to chide Michiganjf for being “envious”. Slipping a bit?
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  Just because they scammed $TRILLIONS, with BOGUS ‘financial instruments’, using BOUGHT bogus ‘ratings’, from cohort frauds, use ALEC to write laws for their ‘bought’ politicians to pass, KILLING any chance of competition by small businesses that want to grow, and have TWISTED the Patent Laws to GIVE ‘citizen’ FOREIGN corporations and CRIMINAL enterprises ALL meaningful patents by ANY applicant?
  That’s just a start of the stacked deck!
  PROVE ME WRONG?

Greyman

John Harwood: then why didn’t Obama pass comprehensive immigration reform when he had both a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House that he relied on to pass PPACA?

TFRX

Because it’s so easy to pass two, three or four biiiiig bills like this in one session.

Oh, wait…

And let’s not forget the fingernail marks of NormTheLoserColeman on the
doorjamb of his senate office, put there in July or such.
Michiganjf

Hey brainiac, the answer to your inane question was THE WHOLE POINT of John Harwood’s comment… didn’t you absorb a single word he said, or were you too busy foaming at the mouth??!!

I’ll repeat for him:

REPUBLICAN PHILIBUSTER AND OBSTRUCTIONISM!!!!
- Michiganjf
  
  Harwood’s point was that EVEN REPUBLICANS couldn’t get similar immigration reform passed when BUSH II had majorities in BOTH houses… again, because of the MOST RABID in your party!!!
  
  You should be able to relate to that!
  - kj
    
    this sort of bickering attains nothing for anyone. you obstruct the progress of the nation by the tone of your remarks.
    - Michiganjf
      
      yes, I’m soooo unreasonable!
      
      I just can’t seem to admit to the truth!
    - Michiganjf
      
      … after all, Republicans have shown themselves to be SO open to dialogue if the left would just try, RIGHT KJ????!!!
    - kj
      
      i know this is hard to accept, but regardless of how any party may act, if you get upset and insult them, you are doing the same thing you are accusing them of, and that makes real discussion impossible. if you really dont want partisan bickering, turn the other cheek. its not that i think you’re unreasonable, its just that the way you are arguing your point can only provoke hostility.
    - kj
      
      because in fact you’re right that the republicans dont want to compromise, but neither do the democrats, who did the same things the republicans do now under bush, and that culture is the problem, not either party independently.
    - Michiganjf
      
      I’m sorry you make a false equivalence here, but I don’t accept it as reflecting reality.
      
      Still, keep trying to attain what I consider to be a laudable goal!
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      THAT is their purpose in continuing the “NO!” government!
    - mary elizabeth
      
      Turning the other cheek does not get at the truth of a matter when misrepresented.
      Michigan’s comment was a very important clarification that needed to be told.
    - TFRX
      
      I’ll take a pass on anyone’s fretting over the tone of a left-winger’s opinion.
      
      I get enough of that from our “liberal media”.
  - Greyman
    
    Harwood’s account also reveals that Obama’s sense of priorities resulted in his NOT working on comprehensive immigration reform when he had the Congressional clout to do so. So Romney seems to have room to argue that Obama deferred on the issue altogether until last week (except for the 1,000,000+ deportations his DOJ took care of his first forty months in office), just as serious questions about his re-election chances began to emerge.
- Still Here
  
  Try paying attention, your tinfoil hat is obstructing clear thought.
- Greyman
  
  Obama had Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress between Jan 2009 and Jan 2011. If as Democratic Party leader he was able to corral all the votes he needed to pass PPACA without a shread of Republican support, why didn’t Dear Leader do the same with comprehensive immigration reform when he had the chance?
  - TFRX
    
    When did LoserNormColeman give up, again?
    
    And you’re handwaving away the “60 is the new 51″ Senate. It’s background noise in our “librul media”.
  - Still Here
    
    It was too far from the election to matter.
  - Michiganjf
    
    Did you get that answer THE SECOND TIME AROUND???!!!
    
    TOM SEEMS TO WANT TO MAKE SURE YOU FINALLY UNDERSTAND!
    - Greyman
      
      And I appreciate Tom’s willingness to clarify my questioning, thank you, Tom.
    - Greyman
      
      Oh, and thank you, John Harwood.
  - mary elizabeth
    
    But not filibuster proof. That is where our government breaks down.
    - Greyman
      
      PPACA passed filibuster-proof, did it not?
    - Gregg
      
      Reconciliation.
    - Still Here
      
      Please, that’s where democracy kicks in.
    - mary elizabeth
      
      The Repubs view everyone who opposes them as the enemy to be conquered rather than an entity to work with
      and adjust to changing needs and times. Scott Walker has ridiculed and alienated teachers et al, while in MA, after real work, a compromise has been reached with teachers union working with Stand for Children advocacy, to alter the old seniority terms. Similar work has been done in the state of Maryland where govt workers are given some degree of respect, not reviled.
    - Greyman
      
      Your initial assertion is true only in a hyperbolic sense:
      this week’s passage in the Senate of a farm bill (still subject to alteration
      in the House) shows that bipartisanship is not yet beyond us. That said, I’m
      not willing to ascribe much in the way of leadership skill or avid thirst and
      hunger for bipartisanship to President Obama, but let me stop lest I lapse into
      hyperbole of my own, even though naturally I am much given to understatement.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      WOW! We’re to be impressed by our government being able to pass 3 or 4 bills in 4 years? With ALL the important things they were elected to do?
      Damning with FAINT praise!
    - Still Here
      
      Irritating and false. State workers whose work has value are loved and respected. But layoffs have not diminished service levels or satisfaction, evidence that fat-trimming was overdue.
    - TFRX
      
      For all the closed parks, broken water mains, and extra lines at the license offices, I somehow don’t believe you.
    - feettothefire
      
      Several years ago many of the Republicans in the senate tried to have the filibuster abolished. They claimed it was an antiquated relic that hindered the democratic process. Of course, this was when they had a majority in the senate, a majority that Karl Rove told them was permanent. Now that they no longer have that senate majority, they just love to use that democracy hindering old relic. Were they lying to us when they told us it had outlived its usefulness, or are they trying to channel Mitt Romney’s Flip-flopping technique these days?
    - Gregg
      
      Are you talking about when Democrats tried to unconstitutionally filibuster federal judges? Apples and oranges.
    - feettothefire
      
      I’m talking about Republicans in the senate threatening to use the Nuclear option in an effort to thwart Democrats use of the filibuster. For weeks they tried to tell the American public that the filibuster was a nuisance. It took a coalition of seven Democrats and seven Republicans to tell them to go pound sand. Now Republicans want to use the filibuster in the same way the Democrats did. I’ll ask the question again. Were they lying when they said what the Democrats were doing was wrong, or are they just a bunch of opportunistic clowns with no principles, latching onto a procedure they condemned when used by others. By the way, I have no problem with anyone using the filibuster. Sauce for the goose, I say.
    - Gregg
      
      So you are talking about the attempt to thwart the constitution by filibustering federal judges, as I suggested. The nuclear option would have been preferable to the gang of 14.
    - feettothefire
      
      See up top.
    - Michiganjf
      
      Then don’t ask “WHY?” when wondering why nothing got done, even when Dems controlled a “NON-PHILIBUSTER-PROOF” majority in both houses!
      
      You admitted enough above, so quit asking that inane question in this forum again and again!
    - mary elizabeth
      
      Still Here deliberately irritates and has done much to diminish the quality of discourse.
mary elizabeth

Scott Brown took Senate office in Feb 2010, 1 yr into Obama Presidency with the intention to derail anything Obama

Michiganjf

John Harwood,

THE EXACT SAME ARGUMENT CAN BE MADE FOR ALL DEADLOCK IN CONGRESS AND THE LACK OF REAL PROGRESS, AGAIN VIA REPUBLICAN OBSTRUCTIONISM!!!

Still Here

Complete myth, the obstructionism is Obama’s unwillingness to compromise his socialist policies.
- TFRX
  
  “Obstructionism is Obama’s unwillingness to compromise his socialist policies”
  
  Submitted without comment.
  - kj
    
    all of that is silly. obama is neither a socialist nor a fascist. bush wasnt a fascist either but he got called that as well. you cant cast around meaningless insults without poisoning the pure water of political discourse, fellow countrymen, from which we must all drink to survive.
    - TFRX
      
      I meant to opine that the original poster’s words, which I posted verbatim, are so revealing to their ideas and takeaway in contrary to all the actual evidence, that there’s almost no way to insult them by adding words of my own.
      
      Ergo, “submitted without comment”.
      
      You and I carry the same opinion on this subject.
- feettothefire
  
  I wish conservatives would get together and decide whether Obama is a Socialist or a Fascist. It can’t be based simply on whatever issue is being discussed at the moment.
  - jefe68
    
    Don’t you know he’s both. Some on the right think that the National Socialist Party was socialist. What we have here are a lot of ideologues and they don’t care about facts. Which are such stubborn things.
    - Greyman
      
      Gee, jefe: so did 1974 Nobel economics laureate Friedrich A. Hayek, who devoted ch. XII of his ROAD TO SERFDOM to the subject: ch. XII is titled “The Socialist Roots of Naziism”.
    - Ray in VT
      
      Well, if that is the case, then, with all due respect to the late Mr. Hayek, I do not think that he learned his history very well.
      
      Perhaps it is just that libertarians tend to see all totalitarian movements in the same light. I’m not really sure. You know, like when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail.
      
      You mentioned Mussolini above, and I’ve heard that before, although much of my reading regarding fascism has focused on the German variety. I think that these sort of extreme movements tend to attact a certain type of personality, and it is not uncommon to see extremists on one side do a 180 and end up on the other extreme. One of my government professors had a nice illustration of this, and I’ll have to see if I can track it down.
      
      I think that ultimately the hard left and hard right movements both end up as some sort of totalitarian state, although they claim to do it for different interests/purposes.
    - Greyman
      
      Ray: with all due respect, I think I’ll defer to Hayek, since he actually lived through the period. (Have you read his work, btw?) Also, the intellectual history of the period seems to support the view that avid British socialists of the 1920s and 1930s turned their eyes from arguments that came from Hayek and Ludwig von Mises long enough to permit the rise of fascism as a political force that enforced the very socialist economic ideas that animated their genesis. Fascism thus was not a repudiation of socialism, it was an elaboration of socialism.
    - jefe68
      
      Well I guess all those Left wing socialist who joined up to fight Franco’s fascist in the late 30′s were wrong.
      
      You really are drawing at straws here.
      Fascism was a response to Socialism.
      
      Mussolini, Franco and Hitler were fascist. Again it’s amazing to me how right wing extremist have really turned reality upside down.
    - Greyman
      
      Indeed I am: see my response to you above.
    - Warren
      
      Ray you’re a reactionary.Ray refuses to read Ayn Rand because Daily Kos forbids it.I go to Berlin and have never had one German tell me Hitler was not a Socialist.His pal Mussolini was the editor of the Socioalist Rag Avanti.What is the difference between Hitler,Staklin,Mao.
      bn This kid is such a Reactionary he dismissed Prof.Lindzen.Ray the Main Guru,Lovelock just wrote a mea Culpa saying Climate Change is not immenent,nottt a problem.Hey Ray please do s “Snitch”check on Riversiong.You’re the Expert.
      
      I have never met a German who said Hitler was not a Socialist.Mussolini,was the Editor of Avanti,the Socialist Rag from Trento.Ray’s a reactionary.He refuses to read Ayn Rand because Daily Kos admonishes.He denies Prof Linzen,even though the Guru Lovelock, now says it was all a scam.Hey Ray,please go to your Felon site and do a Snitch Check on Riversong
    - Warren
      
      Sorry for the repetitions
    - jefe68
      
      Talk about a straw man argument. So now we should rewrite history based on Hayeks’ take on the socialist roots of the nazi party.
      
      This is why even commenting people like you is really such a waste of time. Go ahead, if you feel like calling the nazis socialist be my guest.
      
      The German social insurance and health care system began in the 1880s under Bismarck.
      You see the idea was a little Socialism would be better than a lot. Hitler picked that up perverted it.
    - Greyman
      
      It’s no matter of “rewriting” history, it’s a matter of simply understanding what occurred. You seem not to have read Hayek; have you not read Orwell, either? What happened in Catalonia was socialists killing socialists, not so different from Stalin having Trotsky murdered. National Socialists in Germany and Mussolini in Italy emerged in and from a broad socialist milieu. If you can’t handle that, don’t blame Hayek or me. (Hayek even quotes Max Eastman’s description of Stalinism as “superfascist”.)
    - Greyman
      
      For that matter, Mussolini himself emerged from the bowels of the Italian Socialist Party of c. 1912-14.
  - Gregg
    
    I’d say he is closer to a fascist but his membership with the socialist group (and lies about it) is hard to deny. On thing is for sure, he is not a capitalist.
- kj
  
  the obstructionism is the inability of the two parties, who it seems you both represent, to agree or to even converse in a meaningful way. you are both creating the problem about which you complain in the tone and manner of your own comments here. the politicians in the government would not behave this way if we ourselves did not do so as well and accept that sort of behavior. we all have to try to calm down and discuss things in a more serious and mature way or we will never move forward as a nation. we are all in this together and we cannot attain any victory in this democratic system by force, only by collaboration and compassion for one another.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  YOUR definitions of Socialist, and Facist, Please. So we can have an idea of why you say that?

Dee from NYS

When other nations figure out that offering Americans works student loan amnesty as welcome immigrants, we’ll be in twice as much trouble as we are now for high quality employees 20 years down the road we are currently on.

jim

with regards to the ECB accepting junk collateral for borrowing.. this action is out of desperate measure. in other words… it is bending rules that it was adamant to abide.

in addition if institutional investors think chasing returns are good after a bank downgrade… they will have a rude awakening. these banks are going to face high cost of borrowing, further crippling the economic recovery.

lastly, i hope Obama gets reelected. Romney is going to impose austerity by cutting taxes for the rich. This etch a sketch character has no ethical value.

Adks12020

The South Carolina representative seemed unable to speak in those hearings on Fast and Furious..I watched/listened live for a while…he just yelled the whole time. It was ridiculous.

Pete

The US economy and most probably elsewhere is suffering from a very large disparity of income. Since the 2008 disaster, humongous salaries for most of the 1 1/2 milliom 1%ers has not been reined in. It is high salaries and other non-investment income that is causing the economies to struggle along because of its extensive negative impact on the market for goods and services. All the banking reforms, incentives, etc will not do a thing until people start making money the old fashion way, that is work, whether manufacturing or service, real service and not financial exchange fees. Unfortunately much of the GDP counts financial services (30%) which is not real value. Money ios a measure of real value not fake value derived from money changing swapping.
No one is discussing the very detrimental effects from paying individuals for contributing extremely little value in comparison to their compensation. They contribute no real value.
They claim that this is a free country and if businesses pays them this extreme salary it is perfectly ok. Our constitution preamble states to provide for the general welfare and extreme salaries cause extreme harm to the country by stealing money from the workers who add real value. It is the duty of the government to control this.

Still Here

No one is discussing it because it’s patently false. Everyone gets paid on their merits except in government and union shops.
- TFRX
  
  Funny how much more meritorious so many middle class folks’ paychecks were some 40 years ago.
  
  The first part is go to K Street and make the government do your bidding.
  
  The second part is to tell everyone that that’s the InvisibleHand(TM) at work.
- kj
  
  that response seems absurd. do you mean to assert that those people who run companies are really contributing thousands of times as much to our economy and gross national product as those people in the machine shop who are actually making things? call me crazy, but in my opinion, the people that make things are really indispensable, and the people at the top who run the show are these days causing more problems than they are solving. witness mr. dimon and his ignorance to his own firms investments. that must certainly be an overpaid individual if he cannot prevent his own people from making bad bets on the market with the company’s money. also, last i checked, people who work for the government are paid less than their private sector equivalents, which is why so many in the government want to privatize so many things. your argument does not seem to reflect the economic realities at work in the market today.
  - Still Here
    
    Yes
    - kj
      
      so you’re agreeing with my criticism of your comment, ‘still here’?
    - Still Here
      
      No your first question, then I stopped reading.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      ???
    - Guest
      
      I think the “yes” response is for (1) people who run companies are really contributing thousands of times as much, (2) yes, we will call you crazy.
    - mary elizabeth
      
      Some of us value the $60,000 year paramedic who saves lives, more than the Wall streeters with their almost repugnant bonus’.
    - Azra
      
      The rest think that they’ll never have an accident, or a medical emergency. Good luck with that way of thinking.
    - notafeminista
      
      And some of us value everyone regardless of their income.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      A CEO, that BANKRUPTS HIS COMPANY, is 1,000 MORE VALUABLE, than the worker that makes the product the company sells? Explain?
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  WHAT did Rick Waggoner DO, in bankrupting General Motors, to EARN a $20 MILLION DOLLAR BONE-US? OVER his $20 MILLION pay?
  MANY other examples of $Millions of pay and BONE-USes, for LOUSY performance, or bankrupting their company?
  THOSE MERITS?

kj

i just want to say the friday news roundup is a fantastic institution and i really wish it could take up both hours of on point on fridays. there is always more than enough subject matter for discussion and plenty of interesting callers because with such a broad ranging discussion, how could there not be? besides that, it always stays interesting because it is quick moving and diverse in its topics. i have never yet been bored or disappointed by this, one of my favorite hours of radio, so i wish to commend you WBUR and especially Tom (you are a great host) and also humbly request the expansion of this great radio event.

Terry Tree Tree

DITTO!
mary elizabeth

Well said and agreed. Tom is among the finest.

Terry Tree Tree

HOW MANY guns, STOLEN in the U.S., have wound up in Mexico?�
I was told that over 3’000 stolen guns have been sent from my county, to Atlanta! Atlanta is a commerce point? How much does Atlanta ship to Mexico?
STOLEN guns are NOT a consideration?

Terry Tree Tree

‘Project Gun Runner’ was an ineffectual program that caught a few ‘straw-purchasers’ of guns, and crowded the prisons with them, like the ‘War on Drugs’ policy of arresting pot smokers and giving them hard-time in prison,, and a Criminal Record that cut their chances of getting a decent job?
   ‘Fast and Furious’ was an ineffectual program that was attempting to get to the BIG CRIMINALS in the Drug Cartels?
   WHY were TWO guns, that just happened to be from ‘Fast and Furious’, dropped at the Murder Scene of the Border Patrol Agent? BRAVADO? A MESSAGE?   How often do criminals DROP GUNS at the crime scene?
   BAD cops drop ‘throw-away’ guns at scenes to ‘prove’ the VICTIM was ‘armed’?
   LOTS to look into here?

Rex

Romney says the private industry is not fine? They are sitting on piles of money.
What about all these tax breaks given to create jobs? Where are those jobs?

Still Here

The tax breaks are too small relative to the tax increases that are coming, therefore no new jobs.
- kj
  
  was that also true when we cut taxes on the rich twice by more than half (cumulatively) in the last decade? at that time, the economy didnt grow and job creation was not positively affected. then there were no tax increases on the horizon, but there was still a lag in job creation. i think we need to try something else because we cant afford to cut taxes any more than we have because of the deficit (which was created by those tax cuts, by the way). unemployment was much lower under the clinton era tax structure, which also produced a budget surplus.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  TEN YEARS of Tax-Breaks for ‘Job Creators’, to create JOBS?
  TAX FRAUD!! Pay it ALL back, with interest and PENALTIES! PLUS Prison time!
  - Brothersower88
    
    I love/hate the term “Job Creators.”
    
    Thought experiment:
    I want to give more money to the wealthy, but my constituency won’t like it if I say I am giving more money to the wealthy, so lets call them something that the masses like… how about “Job Creators” that way I can give them all kinds of money which they will use in my re-election campaign while not upsetting the voting base.
    
    And really it has been 50 years of tax-breaks for the wealthiest.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      My point EXACTLY!
- TFRX
  
  If you wish to be taken seriously, look up “demand” in the economy.
- jefe68
  
  Talk about twisting the facts.
- Gregg
  
  Taxmegeddon will be devastating on Jan 1.
  - Still Here
    
    They already are affecting spending/saving behavior.
    - Gregg
      
      Absolutely, no one in their right mind would expand with what is coming down the pike.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    Sarcasm? I hope.
    - Gregg
      
      On Jan 1 the Bush tax cuts will expire. All of them. The poor will be hit the hardest.
    - Azra
      
      What’s new?
      
      
    - Gregg
      
      Just the revelation (to some) that the Bush tax cuts were not just for the rich but mostly for the poor. Obama will be responsible if those 6 million poorest must again pay taxes after Bush saw to it they paid none.
    - Azra
      
      He can just let the cuts for the richest expire.
    - Gregg
      
      Not without Congressional approval.
    - Azra
      
      So what’s new?
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      I got $300, Romney got $3 MILLION?
      EQUAL?
      Romney’s going to STARVE, without that $3Million?
    - Gregg
      
      Romney got $300.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      Of Course the poor will be hit the hardest!�
      The poor get hit the hardest, by the GREEDY rich, whichever way the FOREIGN CORPORATIONS AND CRIMINAL ENTERPRISES buy the politics.
      The poor can only hope to be hit LESS hard, if the GREEDY rich pay some of their part!
    - Gregg
      
      They will be hit by Obama’s tax hike, not by the greedy rich who will not take a dime from them.
    - TFRX
      
      If you’re gonna say “tax hike” maybe we’d believe you if one paragraph previous you didn’t say “tax cuts expire”.
      
      Switching like that gives the game away.
      
      This ain’t Fox Nation, we aren’t all here to get scared like people who agree with you tune into Fox News for.
Brothersower88

I have not yet been able to find any indication that tax breaks for the wealthy create comparable growth for the non-wealthy classes.�
From the studies I have seen, the trickle down effect has not been working in the US for the last 50 years (assuming the goal was an increase in wealth and the standard of living for everyone).

I would be happy to review any studies that include their numbers that will contradict my above paragraph. Please provide a link or title of the study that I could look up.
Worried for the country(MA)

If Obamacare is completely struck down by SCOTUS you might see an uptick of job creation.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  With NO Health-Care, and LOWER WAGES, WORSE work-conditions, and LESS Job-Safety?
  Something to look forward to?
- Azra
  
  Which jobs, exactly?

Greyman

Perhaps lastly for this hour or this week: from what we’ve heard, President Obama is still obliged himself to formally assert the executive privilege that the DOJ has asserted on his behalf, in order to expressly say upon what grounds he’s asserting (whenever he does it) executive privilege. When does Obama come forward himself to make his declaration? Is he obliged to do so prior to the House vote of contempt against AG Eric Holder?

Mike from Rutland

I wouldn’t believe anything from the Zimmerman’s. If they’re willing to betray their supporters and profit off of donations made to his defense, to what extent would they lie to save their hides from jail.

Azra

Saw Zimmerman video yesterday. He mostly stared at the ground, a sign that he’s lying, also what he said, and the way he said it. He had hours to come up with a story, and to rehearse it, and he still couldn’t pull it off.



Azra

Meant to say ” a sign that he’s guilty”.
Still Here

Sounds good, let’s skip the trial and to straight to execution! Please monitor YouTube and inform us of your judgments.
- feettothefire
  
  I’ve seen this kind or ridiculous statement from you before. Only in your demented mind did anyone call for a suspension of Zimmerman’s right to a trial. What Azra did above was give an “opinion.” He made a “comment.” Commenting is not convicting, Jackass. Damn, I’ve been making a sincere effort to drop the name calling. But morons like you make it nearly impossible.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    At least use some imagination in your name-calling? lol!
    - feettothefire
      
      I refuse to use up too much of my imagination on a dope like him.
    - Still Here
      
      Like you have any imagination knuckle-dragger.
    - feettothefire
      
      Boy o’ boy have I met my match in you. I best git while the gittin’s good, before you really hurt my feelins’
    - Pagassae
      
      You are totally rude, why not find another site to harass the commentors??
  - Still Here
    
    I can tell by the fact that you begin your “comment” with a space indicates you are lying piece of shite with mommy issues. IMHO
    - feettothefire
      
      Why is it that when people point out to idiots like you exactly how stupid you are, you don’t even TRY to defend yourselves. I guess I must have convinced you. Kudos to me on a job well done.
Worried for the country(MA)

Interesting. I think he was looking at the ground because he was looking at the site of the confrontation.

My take away from the video was he was believable and truly afraid for his life. Unless there is new evidence put forward it will be difficult to convict him.
- feettothefire
  
  Better be careful. That genius STILL HERE is going to accuse you of wanting to skip the trial and go straight to acquittal. How dare you express an opinion. I just can’t wait to see his criticism of your comment.
- Azra
  
  His body language betrays him.
Terry Tree Tree

Information from the Zimmerman case keeps getting MORE complex, and MORE questionable?�
It has been presented as fairly cut-and-dried, from BOTH sides, since the killing?
By the time of trial, it will be MORE complex?
William

Mr. Zimmerman suffered some serious injuries by the suspect, Mr. Martin. It is amazing he was able to get his gun out and defend himself.
- Azra
  
  Yes. Amazing.
  
  Equally amazing that his clothes weren’t ripped, no buttons missing, no dirt, blood or grass stains. Amazing that he was able to walk normally, and his nose wasn’t bleeding, or even swollen, after being punched with the force of someone who was fighting for his life.
  
  Amazing, indeed.
  - Guest
    
    It sounds like you haven’t seen the police pics. He was bleeding and his nose was smashed. This is a horrible situation where the shooter is being charged by local hate.
    Stand your ground is the law in Florida and other places, too.
    - Azra
      
      I saw the video, filmed moments after the crime. There was no blood on his clothing, or his face, AT ALL. It wasn’t even necessary for him to go to the hospital to have his nose set, or to get even a single stitch, or for any other reason.
- feettothefire
  
  When did the dead kid become the “suspect?” I thought George Zimmerman was the one in jail.
  - Azra
    
    . . . . along with his wife.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    With Catholics, the VICTIMS are to blame, and to PERSECUTE, to protect the CRIMINALS!
    Right, William?
  - William
    
    The physical evidence indicates Mr. Zimmerman was attacked by Mr. Martin.
    - feettothefire
      
      Find a legal dictionary and look up the term “suspect.”

kj

perhaps this question cannot be answered, but i would like to know when your guests think that the present economic and political crisis will end and when the world economy will begin growing again. this seems like the question behind so many discussions being had at the moment, but it is rarely discussed directly.

Guest

We ARE terribly overpopulated. We need to establish a steady and stable economy but not one based on growth. GROWTH is killing us. Wake Up!
- notafeminista
  
  Steady and stable is also known as stagnant.

Ciabelle

Regarding the situation in Cairo: The US has been supporting the Egyptian military financially. It did not stop after Mubarak’s fall from power. I have to wonder if “OGA” is trying to turn back the tide of the Arab Spring in continuing to prop up dictators in strategic locations over fostering democracy.

It’s telling that for all the sabre rattling toward Syria and Iran; nary a word is mentioned about Bahrain’s crackdown on its citizens.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QME6C6XTBAYFEJP2GYDH3VQEMU Beat

I blame the new Media for not showing the events in Bahrain except for Al Jazeera.
Terry Tree Tree

I have heard NPR reports about it, FROM Bahrain! I think it was Louisa Limb?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QME6C6XTBAYFEJP2GYDH3VQEMU Beat

Zimmerman said Treyvon was hiding in the bush. I didn’t see any bushes but grass and apartment buildings.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QME6C6XTBAYFEJP2GYDH3VQEMU Beat

iOnePoint:

Congratulation to the Filipino muslim women that passed the Sharia Law bar exam in Manila.

The Filipinos has proved to the world that Islam laws can be changed with the power of the constitution to have Women’s Rights in the Philippines.

Sharia Law in the Philippines has changed dramatically. it is now protects Filipino muslim women.

Michiganjf

Thus, Republicans have done everything in their power to make certain that as few as possible are educated in this country… from war on teachers and public schools, to policies that ensure public schools are ineffectual and fail, to a war on tenured professorship in colleges, to the undermining of the media and political discourse.�
Then, the icing… the packing of SCOTUS with lackeys who decide for “money” in the Citizens United case.
�
Keep people ignorant and their vote goes wherever the wealthiest Super Pac wants it to go.

Greyman

Democrats have performed wonders of their own to reduce the effectiveness of public education, and President Obama himself has contributed to the problem. The public schools in Dillon Co., SC, are controlled by the county’s Democratic Party machine: this county is the ONLY county in SC with not one single solitary elected school board member, in spite of two “non-binding” referenda since 1990 calling for elections of board members. All local school board members are appointed to office by the three Democratic state legislators (two state senators and one state rep., himself an employee of one of the school districts). Barely one month into office, President Obama directed over $35 million in stimulus funds to this county boasting (only) unelected school board members, insuring further that no public accountability in the management and oversight of the public schools would be forthcoming. Student performance is poor overall, and the public’s disaffection with its public schools is fed directly by the machine’s willingness to run affairs without public participation. Obama himself has thus contributed to anti-democratic (lower-case “d”) practice, and he did so without any Republican participation.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  WOW!! ONE county school system, out of how many?
  I am NOT saying this was the right thing to be done, if reported acccurately, but, can we match one for one, of Democrat or Republican problems to ACTUAL problems to education for the populace?
  - Greyman
    
    I think you have to ask yourself whether public education itself is not opposed institutionally to fostering actual education. learning, scholarship, and training. I am no longer persuaded that it is so dedicated, since its practice is overwhelmingly devoted to institutional self-preservation, even or especially when educational outcomes are at stake. Reluctantly have I come to call for the outright abolition of public education, seeing how institutionally public education wars against the poor, especially.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      Abolish public education?
         So the poor will STAY un-educated?�
         Replace it with Charter schools, that only the RICH, and a few token scholarships for the poor, will be educated?
         THAT’s NOT a war on the poor?
    - Greyman
      
      Have you seen the numbers for drop-out rates lately? The poor themselves are rejecting public education, so maybe they intuit things that well-educated folk don’t.
    - Guest
      
      Maybe they can’t READ. Number ONE reason for dropping out. Then, take math or Algebra and they can’t or won’t do the work. Just take those 2 subjects and see if they can be taught!
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      NO! Like past decades, some just want to quit!
      The standing attitude, for decades, or hundreds of years, is it is jail. Those that maintain that attitude usually find out it is FAR BETTER than jail, AFTER they get a true comparision!
William

The Democrats own the education system and it’s failure.
- TFRX
  
  And you’re* use of apostrophe’s* is the gummint’s fault too.
  
  (*That I have to point out I’m using this wrongly on purpose is needed for righties on this board.)
  - Guest
    
    Thanks for the laughs.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    Just wait, Boston College educated ‘Warren’ will correct you, with his POOOR punctuation, and phrasing?

feettothefire

Questioner: Mr. Romney, if elected, will you repeal President Obama’s recent action on illegal aliens? Romney: Yes I will. or Romney: No I will Not. ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Terry Tree Tree

Covers BOTH ends? Which does he MEAN? YES?
Roy Mac

It doesn’t really matter what he says today, or any day. He will say something else when he thinks the time to same something else is right. The man has no morals and no sense of morality. No wonder he likes Paul “Ayn Rand” Ryan.

feettothefire

For Gregg: Calling something unconstitutional doesn’t make it so. The rules of the Senate are the rules of the Senate. As twisted and arcane as they are, they apply to EVERYONE. The filibuster has been used ad infinitum by both parties for as long as it has existed as a procedural tactic. Believe it or not, Republicans in the Senate have filibustered the judicial nominees of Democratic Presidents. What a surprise. What the Republicans in the Senate did in 2005 concerning the nuclear option was as blatantly political as the Democrats filibuster. And I’ll ask for the third time today. If Republican Senators believe the tactic of filibustering a judicial nominee is so bad that it should be suspended, why do they engage in the very activity they found so obstructionist when used by Democrats?

Terry Tree Tree

HYPOCRICY? POLITICIANS?
Gregg

The nuclear option would have applied only to the Senate rules regarding Federal judges. The filibuster of other legislation is a different ball game. The Constitution specifically states which types of legislation require a super majority and also specifically states anything else requires a simple majority. The Constitution requires only 51 votes for the confirmation of a federal judge. A filibuster means the confirmation requires 60 votes. That’s unconstitutional.
- Gregg
  
  To clarify: The Constitution specifically states which functions of the legislature require a
  super majority and also specifically states anything else requires a
  simple majority.
- feettothefire
  
  A filibuster means no such thing. A filibuster means 60 votes are required for cloture and to allow the bill to come to a vote. Confirmation of federal judges always requires 51 votes, with or without a filibuster. Calling use of the filibuster, a favorite practice of both parties, unconstitutional when used by the minority party to gum up the works makes no sense. The whole purpose of the filibuster is to gum up the works. If the Senate doesn’t like it’s own rules, it should change them. THAT would be Constitutional. But every majority party complains endlessly about the minorities use of the filibuster, until that party becomes the minority party. Then the filibuster is just Dandy.
  - Gregg
    
    Again, I am talking about the filibuster of federal judges. The nomination and confirmation of the Judiciary is a Constitutional requirement. It’s spelled out. It is a function of the Legislative and Executive Branches. Passing a jobs bill or a regulation is not. I tried to clarify my clumsy wording below. As you know, the filibuster does not come from the Constitution, it’s a rule created in the Senate. They can be unseemly depending on your perspective on any given issue but they are legit and entirely Constitutional in the arena of Legislation.
    
    I get your point on cloture but it is distinction without a difference. You are technically correct and that is why it was a longstanding gentleman’s agreement that the best way to avoid a Constitutional crisis was to avoid filibustering federal judges. The reason was precisely because the rule came from the Senate long after the Constitution was ratified. It was in conflict. There is no way around the fact that a filibuster meant it took more than 51 votes to confirm a judge. This is hardly an obscure opinion.
    - Gregg
      
      Again to clarify clumsy wording:
      
      Passing a jobs bill or a regulation is not a Constitutional requirement.
      
      It is a function of the Legislature. Sorry, just trying to be precise on this nuanced issue.
    - feettothefire
      
      It may not be an obscure opinion, but far greater minds than mine have debated it, without any clear consensus. Personally, I think rules is rules. To make up a procedural rule and then whine later (the Senate, not you) about the unintended consequences, especially when no one has the stones to definitively correct it because of the possible “political” fallout, is pathetic. And let’s be clear on one thing. The blocking of a president’s judicial nominees with the filibuster is what they do. All of them. It’s become standard operating procedure, despite the agreement of 2005. When something is done over and over and over, by everyone concerned, it can no longer be called an aberration or an outrage. It becomes the norm. That’s politics, and it has nothing to do with the Constitution.
    - Gregg
      
      Rules may be rules but the Constitution is the Constitution. It requires only 51 votes. Let them bicker over the rest of it. I guess we disagree on this one.

Terry Tree Tree

‘Job Creators’, that claim to be ‘Risk Takers’, are AFRAID of the risk of using money they would NOT have had, if they weren’t supposed to be ‘Job Creators’?
WHINING, COWARDLY, HYPOCRITES?

Dee

If the Feds don’t act….

If the feds don’t act to stimulate the sagging economy –I pre-dict people will not accept a Romney Presidency if he wins the election –as it will seem rigged to benefit corporate America.�
This will be viewed as buying the Presidency and making a mockery of democracy. Romney will be rejected outright.

William

The Fed admitted defeat yesterday.
VinceD2

Either way, the American PEOPLE are going to lose in thois election. BOTH parties are bought by big money. Wall St has done quite well under Obama, he’s sold out to them.

Terry Tree Tree

My condolences to the family of, and my ADMIRATION of the fellow Rescuer, for helping to rescue those people on that mountain.�
    Risking your life, with a 3,000 foot fall, to save others? What CEO does that?
    I hope his/her family has income to get through this loss!
   Perhaps the Kardashians, that are famous for being famous, could help? Warren Buffet? Walton heirs, that can’t reasonably spend the money they have? Bill Gates?
    Most likely, any money given to the family will come from fellow rescuers, especially Volunteers, that take the same types of risks for others!

Terry Tree Tree

Congratulations to China’s Tychonauts! Their first woman in space!

Terry Tree Tree

Larry Ellison bought Hawaiian Island Lanai, which has had a profitable Wind-Turbine business, for how many years?
I hope Mr. Ellison does GOOD, with the island!

notafeminista

It’s none of our business what he does with HIS island.
- Roy Mac
  
  Not to mention what he decides to do with YOUR town.

Gregg

NJ, It’s time you saw your name evoked up top but I won’t hate on you, that’s your MO. Instead I’ll just civilly shred your argument with the facts.

You wrote: “Greggg first posts a “editorial” with no author noted, and no references given for any of the claims of ‘lies’ that it makes.”

False, the third paragraph of the editorial reads: “In fact, none of it is true, according to Washington Post editor and
biographer David Maraniss, who traveled to Kenya to investigate the
tale.”

The quotes are from his book, the same book I linked to at Amazon. Th editorial is about the book. The writer of the editorial is irrelevant. It is merely quoting Maraniss. He is a Pulitzer winning journalist of high regard especially in Liberal circles. The 13 lies espoused in the article are just a start, the book documents 39.

I have no idea how you got it so wrong, it’s really quite simple.

Dee

People around the world should stand with the Egyptian people today and refuse to accept military rule and its puppet Presid-ent in Egypt.

This makes a mockery out of the freedom the Egyptian came out of their doors to demand from the Egyptian leadership�
last year.

And it speaks volume once again to what the Zionist /US officials are trying to im-
posed on the Egyptian people.

And it speaks volumes to the US/Zionist entity which has�
deprived the Egyptian people of their freedom and other�
groups of people throughout the Middle East for the last�
60 years with the creation of Israel.

Here is the Israeli historian Avi Schlaim in his NYT Op-Ed�
noting a memo to the British Foreign Secretary from Sir�
john Troutback in the British Middle East –Cairo office in
1948 accusing American officials of creating “a gangster”
state in Israel..

“To the historian of the Arab-Israeli conflict, outrageous behavior by Israel’s leaders, and American complicity in such behavior, are nothing new. British resentment toward the United States still smolders in the files of the Public Record Office. In a memo-randum to Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin dated June 2, 1948, Sir John Troutbeck held the Americans responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by “an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders.”http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/24/opinion/24iht-edshlaim_ed3_.htmlJust as this US/ Zionist entity destoyed the Iranian peoples’ hopes for democracy in the early in the early 70s with the instillation of the Shah of Iran…. Read the URL Accusing Iran, Ignoring history, Ted Snider ZCommunicationshttp://www.zcommunications.org/accusing-iran-ignoring-history-by-ted-sniderNow, this evil alliance is out to break up Syrian also and destroy the Syrian peoples’ hope for freedom also …Read the column….Hidden US-Israeli Military Agenda , “Break Syria into Pieces” http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31454

It is beyond time to say “No More ” to this US/ Zionist entity depriving the people of the Middle East their freedom & basic Human Rights today. Dee

William

The only hope Egypt has is if their military keeps power and eliminates the radical MB.
- potter
  
  What Egypt are you talking about? Certainly not Egypt a democracy.
potter

Dee- This is a very distorted view of the current reality because of your “Zionist/US” crusade.

Where do you get this information what Zionist/US officials are doing now? This is plain nonsense.

Dee

addendum:

Here’s the URL to Zionist/US efforts preventing democracy in Iran http://www.zcommunications.org/accusing-iran-ignoring-history-by-ted-snider

potter

You appear to be on a crusade.
Guest

Poor DEE. I see DEE and SKIP

Azra

Just heard President Obama speaking to the same group that Mitt lied to yesterday. Mitt got some polite applause after his lies. The President WOWED ‘em! He was in top form, and it sounded to me, that he got the most applause where Mitt got the least; when he explained how, (two months after he moved into the White House), Republicans voted against the children of immigrants. He brought the house down!



VinceD2

Yeah, the Panderer In Chief put on quite a show. The headlines should read that Obama stole 2 million jobs from legal workers and gave them to illegal aliens in exchange for th e”Latino Vote”. Obama should move to Mexico and run for office there.
- Guest
  
  You are wrong and very sad in your lack of understanding or maybe education.
  - VinceD2
    
    Wrong “Guest”. I understand perfectly.
    
    Obama just took 2 million jobs from Americans, and legal immigrants, and gave them to these “Dreamers”. This, in exchange for the “Latino Vote”. (And maybe to subvert Rubio.) It’s all about Obama keeping HIS job come November.
    
    Keep in mind that we gave a huge amnesty in 1986. These “Dreamers” should stop blaming our laws and put the blame on their situation where it belongs: ON THEIR PARENTS!
    
    Now if someone crafted a bill to allow illegal students to get a student visa, and required the criminal trespassing parents to return, there might be some common ground.
    
    This “DREAM Act” inspired action is a surrender, a pander, and a direct affront to our democratic process. Congress turned down the “DREAM Act”, it’s a nightmare. Obama can’t override that decision.
    - Guest
      
      What THIS is is a two year break from any deportations which gives Congress time to pass some legislation. It’s nothing more than a 2 year time frame. Please don’t make it something it’s not.
    - VinceD2
      
      It’s 2 years of work visas for 2 million “Dreamers”. That is 2 million jobs that Americans won’t have. It will cause more illegals to want to head here for their amnesty. (Deja Vu 1986!)
      
      Congress needs to pass the Legal Workforce Act and force enforcement of our laws. Obama needs to go, he has no interest in doing his job, just keeping it at the expense of American workers.
- Azra
  
  Actually it was Romney who stole American jobs, and gave them to China and India, from whence they shall never return.
  
  

Azra

At last, a Catholic child molester has been convicted, for child endangerment; a bishop, I think. Two more charges were dropped, but it’s a start.

Terry Tree Tree

Hundreds, or Thousands to go?
- Azra
  
  They’ll never get them all, or even find them all.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    Sad fact about ‘Men of God’?

potter

The Romney quote about immigration was a good example of how slippery he is, or better, how much of a deceiver he is. He says he will put in place HiS OWN LONG TERM SOLUTION in place of Obama’s now only temporary measure. Obama’s was a gesture, all he could do with obstructionist Republicans in the legislature. Romney cannot as president pass the Dream act. Of course people who care about this issue and who don’t catch this misrepresentation of what a president can do, will believe Romney.�
Obama can lose with enough of Romney’s believable lies going unchallenged. And what a job to keep after them!

Roy Mac

Willard is deluded; he thinks he’s running for king. Probably best for all if he just remains in his priveleged dream world.

Terry Tree Tree

Michigan State Representative Lisa Brown got a performance of “The Vagina Monologues”, to inform other Michigan Legislators what she was talking about?�
   THEY want to CONTROL vaginas, but NOT provide Healthcare, OR trust women to know what to do with them?
   WHY do men, that didn’t even want to hear the word ‘vagina’, insist that women should NOT be in charge of their own?
    Will ALL these state Legislators go get checked for colorectal cancer, and prostate problems by the SAME equipment, and proceedure, to show women what JOY they are convinced is available?
   Wouldn’t Rush Limbaugh want to watch that? Since he wants to watch others?

Roy Mac

Rush demanded a video!
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  Think he ‘imported’ enough Viagra, snuck in from Canada, for his ‘friend’, to enjoy it?
  Does Viagra counteract Oxycontin? I’ve NOT used either, so I haven’t read all the warnings, or ads?
  - Roy Mac
    
    Can’t really speculate on the Viagra, but I also can’t help but wonder about the opportunities for income enhancement from those excessive amounts of oxy.

Terry Tree Tree

Mount Ranier National Park Ranger Richard Hall (?), paid the ultimate price, while helping rescue injured climbers!
The Ranger slid 3,000 feet to his death, down a glacier, during the rescue.

Terry Tree Tree

ONE Catholic clergy convicted of ‘Child-Endangerment’, how many thousands to go?

Roy Mac

Ed will be along soon, to moan about how it is so unfair to the notion of religious freedom for any priest to be convicted of molesting children; and–of course–he’ll insist on some sort of persecution against pederasts that is CLEARLY against the constitution.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  You expect it too?

Dee

Potter,

The only crusade I maybe on is for the truth on how the US/
Zionist entity has corrupted the American system of govern-ment today and has involves the American people in endless conflict and war in the Middle East and into the Horn of�
Africa today.

You should read the scholarly column on The Israel Lobby
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby

Michael Chossudovsky, Syria, “The Next Humanitarian War”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29234

Plushkin

Another week another load of venom by far left wing loon and dotard Dee. New profile same old same old crap only Hidan would like.

Lobby link: is just Americanized or more precisely “Harvard-ized” version or “Protocols”. Been reposted here by Dee at least a hundred times, just like the next one.

gobalresearch: is an outfit set up by a left wing hack Chossudovsky that no one in a right mind would take seriously. He is, btw, also a notorious Holocaust denier, as if it wasn’t evident even from the link provided.
- potter
  
  She misrepresents Mearsheimer and Walt- uses them to bolster her crusade. Do they talk about the “US/Zionist officials”? This is garbage.
William

How many rockets have the terrorists shot at Israel this week?

Azra

Has anyone seen the photo of Boehner kissing Debbie Wasserman Schultz?

(nationaljournal.com)

Zing

No, and your link is useless…but I’ll bet she was moist
Still Here

What crimes does the photo suggest he is guilty of?
- Azra
  
  Kissing a Democrat.
  - Still Here
    
    I bet you could divine more, use your powers to read his mind!

Azra

Heard President Obama’s most recent speech, at a community college in Tampa, which concluded a few minutes ago. It was just as terrific as the one before it, and equally well received.

Loved the music, too; Bruce Springsteen’s “We Take Care of Each Other”.

Greyman

You mean the Bruce Springsteen whose net worth of c. $200 million is in these days and times the virtual equivalent of Mitt Romney’s wealth? No, I hadn’t heard about that. –Also haven’t heard a whole lot of talk about David Maraniss’s new and apparently factual biography of Barack H. Obama, in which Maraniss uncovers literally dozens of lies and departures from factual accuracy that grace the pages of Obama’s gripping accounts of his own and his family’s history. Too bad our industrious leagues of enterprising and intrepid journalists didn’t challenge Obama’s accounts years ago and point out the many discrepencies in his accounts that Maraniss has only lately come to point out. (N. B., On Point producers: a one-hour interview with Maraniss would make for a compelling program.)
- Guest
  
  How about Romney’s escapades? Those beat all the rest. His father who was born in Mexico running for the Presidency is one that should be addressed. Too funny.
  - JGC
    
    Yes, this is puzzling to me. Romney let himself get boxed into this anti-immigrant mold, but as a businessman he knows how much our economy relies on immigrant labor. Here, Romney would have had a possibly compelling family narrative of “We are all NAFTAmericans!”, but he relinquished or chose to ignore his Mexican family roots.
- JGC
  
  I am waiting for Mr. Maraniss to do a biography of Mitt Romney. The chapter on his Cranbrook Academy prep school days should be quite enlightening.
  
  Do I prefer a president who organized the Choom Gang, or one who organized the forcible hair rape of a suspected gay “outsider”?
  
  Aahhh, these are the choices we as Americans must make…
  - Greyman
    
    I don’t rebuke either one for adolescent excess. I do question whether a former editor of the Harvard Law Review can play so fast and so loose with reality and fact as to misrepresent both just so he can conform to standards of odious “narrative journalism”. Apparently, Obama did not merely conflate persons and events for narrative compression in Dreams from My Father: he seems to have misrepresented facts outright (much beyond “family oral history” a la Warren, at the very least Obama can be slammed for failure to conduct research or for conducting it poorly, in spite of his HLR editorship). (No, I haven’t read Maraniss’s work yet, either, it was only released Tuesday. Toby Hernden with the Daily Mail has already offered a scathing review; an editorial from Investors Business Daily also is not complimentary, and both raise questions about Obama’s ability to tell convenient untruths.) Also, Maraniss has a supplementary volume on Obama in the works, which may likely not be published until after November, so you may have to wait even longer for him to tackle Romney as a subject.
  - Azra
    
    How about a guy who bullies his dog? Would we let a guy like that anywhere near the White House? Akward, socially inadequate, out-of-touch, uninformed bullies, who are cruel to animals, (and working class Americans), are not Presidential.
    
    MITT IS MEAN!
    
    Seamus
    
    Dogs Against Romney
    - Azra
      
      People who don’t like animals are no good. It’s a serious charachter flaw.
      
      Please remember that A VOTE FOR ROMNEY IS A VOTE AGAINST ANIMALS! (Also a vote against all middle-class Americans.)
    - Azra
      
      … CHARACTER flaw. Wasn’t finished – posted inadvertently.
      
      DOGS UNITE. DOG OWNERS UNITE.
      
      *Woof!
      
      Seamus
      
      *Thanks
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  HOW MUCH of Springstein’s $MILLIONS, came from EXPORTING JOBS? DESTROYING JOBS? DESTROYING COMPANIES?
  - Greyman
    
    I’m sure I don’t know, as I’ve never purchased a Springsteen album, tape, CD, or concert ticket. You may pardon me: I’m naturally dismissive of any populist entertainer with a net worth of more than $2 million.
    - JGC
      
      How can you put a dollar value on art?
    - Greyman
      
      Happens every day. Although I guess van Gogh and Munch might argue with the timing, Springsteen certainly seems in no position to.
    - JGC
      
      Springsteen made his fortune through his creativity; Romney made his fortune through his creative destruction.
      
      Pros and cons. Discuss.
    - Greyman
      
      I’d argue that the Boss (Springsteen, that is) has comported himself as an arch-capitalist, according to how little I understand Schumpeter’s notion of “creative destruction” as intrinsic to capitalism. Art is not utterly a zero-sum game, but in spite of contemporary notions of multi-tasking, it is still next to impossible to enjoy hearing two discrete musical compositions performed simultaneously: my point being, BS did his part in displacing the popular music styles of both earlier generations (I’m guessing that sales of Fats Waller and Vaughn Monroe recordings did not go up during the advent of BS’s career) and those of his contemporaries (BS launched just as disco emerged, he kept at it through the punk era, and came out the other side: did BS help displace both disco and punk? Not single-handedly [sorry, guitarists don't perform single-handedly], but his style did help eclipse those of other artists of the period). I don’t rebuke him for making oodles of money doing so, either, but I am interested to put his fortune in the same ballpark as Romney’s. Romney is not even worth as much as Mick Jagger. And I do mean also to undermine rock ‘n’ roll’s pretensions towards the populism it continues to preach, when transparently, it’s just another vehicle by which a fortune can be made. The winning formula is thus NOT “sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll”: it is “sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and money”, and not necessarily in that order.

Zing

This whole notion of pay being commensurate with contribution is just another retread commie notion, carried by idiots like occupiers, as an example. The corporation’s money is private, and they can do with it as they wish…if you don’t like the pay scales, quit your job if you work in such a place, or boycott their goods or services…but don’t tell a private entity how to spend their money.

Still Here

Better yet, “work” in the public sector, guaranteed raises and crazy great benefits. Merit no matter.
Terry Tree Tree

CEOs DESERVE $MILLIONS to BANKRUPT companies? �
Multi-Million Dollar BONE-USes?
In your corrupt world?
Guest

I totally agree. In private companies, the contract between the employer & employee is mutual; either one can walk away if the pay is unfair. If you can’t find anyone who will pay more for your skills, then chances are you weren’t being underpaid to begin with. The latest obsession with the liberals is paying what they think is “fair,” as decided by President Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and raft of other liberals, or their constant worry that some company is sitting on a pile of money. To the left, capitalism and profits are bad, and they have forgotten that capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any government program they could possibly devise.

JGC

Job posting alert for unemployed in Philadelphia area:

Opening for Monsignor of Philadelphia diocese, available immediately. (No females need apply.)

Azra

Thanks for filling in the details missed when I heard about it.

HOORAY!
- JGC
  
  Just waiting to hear the verdict on my fellow Penn Stater, Jerry Sanduski. Pennsylvania has a bumper crop of child abusers this season. Must be something in the fracking water.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    ZOWIE! WHAT A ZINGER!
Roy Mac

Must be certifiable pederast.
Greyman

Jerry Sandusky won’t be applying . . . .
- JGC
  
  Just saw: guilty on 45 out of 48 counts.
  - JGC
    
    For the local reporting on Sandusky, see the Centre Daily Times link:
    
    http://www.centredaily.com/2012/06/22/3237131/jury-finds-jerry-sandusky-guilty.html
Ed

Sandusky no doubt gets the sentence he deserves, though it can be noted that pedophiles often don’t believe they are harming children. But down the street they kill 100 children a month in the abortion clinic, and the doctors and aids (if you want to call them that) walk away with no sentence at all.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  STILL distracting from Catholic clergy Molesting and Abuse? �
  Catholic clergy worrying about LESS VICTIMS to Molest and Abuse? The most logical reason you worry about abortion?
  ARE YOU one of the Molesting and Abusing clergy? Is THAT why you KEEP defending and distracting from them?
- jimino
  
  And what really pisses me off is that none of the way-more numerous instances of women who miscarry are not being investigated by homicide detectives to determine if they played a role in their child’s (by your definition) death. You certainly must advocate such investigations, right? Or do you advocate just letting these deaths go uninvestigated? Where do you draw the line in your world?

nj_v2

This week in Rethuglican turpitude:

http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/sites/default/files/image_uploads/Report_AntiEnv_06.18.12.pdf

The Anti-Environment Record of the U.S. House of Representatives 112th Congress

•77 votes to undermine Clean Air Act protections, including votes to repeal the health- based standards that are the heart of the Clean Air Act and to block EPA regulation of toxic mercury and other harmful emissions from power plants, incinerators, industrial boilers, cement plants, and mining operations.

•39 votes to weaken protection of public lands and wildlife, including votes to halt reviews of public lands for possible wilderness designations and to remove protections for salmon, wolves, sea turtles, and other species.

•37 votes to block action to address climate change, including votes to overturn EPA’s scientific findings that climate change endangers human health and welfare; to block EPA from regulating carbon pollution from power plants, oil refineries, and vehicles; to prevent the United States from participating in international climate negotiations; and even to cut funding for basic climate science.

[excerpt]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/why-are-republicans-waging-war-on-food-stamps-now/258794/

Why Are Republicans Waging War on Food Stamps Now

This past week, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama proposed a handful of amendments to the farm bill that would tighten food stamp eligibility and end payments to states that increase the size of their rolls. They were relatively modest, reaping up to $20 billion in savings from a program expected to cost $770 billion over the next ten years, and were rejected by Senate Democrats as well as a handful of GOP moderates. But the cuts were part of a growing Republican animosity to the food stamp program. Libertarian hero Rand Paul had previously proposed cutting it by more than 40 percent. The Republican-led House, where Oversight Committee chair Darryl Issa has been rampaging about alleged fraud in the program, has passed a bill that would nix $34 billion from its budget.

http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/2012/06/21/incredible-nearly-two-thirds-of-republicans-still-believe-iraq-had-wmds-when-we-invaded-nine-years-ago/

Incredible! Nearly two-thirds of Republicans still believe Iraq had WMDs when we invaded nine years ago!

How misinformed are Republicans about world affairs? If presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s assertion that Russia is “without question our number one geopolitical foe” is any indication, then the answer would appear to be very.

A new poll supports that theory.

The poll, constructed by Dartmouth government professor Benjamin Valentino and conducted by YouGov from April 26 to May 2, found that fully 63 percent of Republican respondents still believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded in 2003. By contrast, 27 percent of independents and 15 percent of Democrats shared that view.

Gregg

Nobody cares.
Azra

How misinformed? A U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE thinks that Russia is our enemy, and doesn’t even know that the cold war ended decades ago. (Can he see Russia from his house, I wonder?) He’s like the people seen on “Jaywalking”!

Talk about being out of touch . . .


William

Bill Clinton said Iraq had WMD’s and got his Iraq Liberation Act passed.
Warren

Spare Us

at

Why settle for putting the fox in charge of the hen house? Vote for Romney and put the foxes in charge of the whole damn farm.

Least we forget the cause of our problems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onhieyMNAb0

The solution to the financial crisis is not to intensify the very actions that caused the crash in the first place. Although this fact does not seem to have yet occurred to Fox News or the American’s who are now thinking that Romney will fix the economy. Romney will be more of a disaster than George Bush.�
How stupid can Americans be?

You know Keynes? (The guy who said that the peace treaty after WW1 would only postpone the rest of the war.) He is right about how to get out of a depression too.

Look, Obama is no great deal, especially with the compulsive obstructionists trying to bring him down, but Romney would be a disaster. He will be the final nail in the coffin of the American Dream. The final conclusion that someone making 2.5 million dollars an hour and paying 15% tax on it is somehow sane and just.

Perhaps you are one of the people who thinks that the economy can just expand into infinity, that the whole pie can expand — it can’t — not without viable and cheap travel within the solar system (don’t hold your breath).

As it is now, the pie is finite, and as my wise old Jewish Grandfather once told me, (which is especially good of him since I am quite waspish and a great great great great great grandson of a fifteen year old German immigrant who fought the British at the tender age of 17 and had the good fortune to not die in one of their hellish and barbaric prison ships.)

He told me, “Little at, every time somebody make something for nothing: somebody else makes nothing for something.”

Who is making something for nothing? Hedge fund managers, and the likes of Romney and his ilk. Who is making nothing for something? Almost everyone else.

They will both destroy this county and it’s heritage, but Romney will do it in record time. And since you all are too brainwashed and stupid to vote for someone who is actually a statesman and would be good for America, at least vote for the lesser of the evils — Obama.

That is my plea. Ignore it at the risk of everything you value.

William

Our economic problems have little to do with Hedge fund mangers. The idea that we can continue with more of the same run away spending is foolish at best.
- Conner44
  
  ROTFLMFAO
  
  because that response is so ill-informed and stupid
  - William
    
    Economics is a beast that seeks out failed ideas and failed leaders. Obama and his fellow Liberals are being eaten alive by their failed economic ideas.
    - DippityDo
      
      Don’t consider this a response because your rhetoric is not worthy of a response.
    - William
      
      Defeat and failure are hard to admit.
    - William
      
      I would know
    - Still Here
      
      And everyone pays for their failures, even those yet to be born. What a curse on this great country!
    - Still Here
      
      Once again you are 180 degrees from the truth, it is the Bankster that have put every man woman and child in this country 58,000 in debt, not the socialists, you can go on with your stupid, rhetoric, but merely contradicting people is all you ever do.
    - Still Here
      
      More unfounded criticism of what you don’t understand. Take ownership of your own failures, stop looking for excuses. Turn your back on your parasitic tendencies, you’ll feel better about yourself! I only have pity for you.
    - CumOn777
      
      Why are you sending yourself messages? Nobody else stupid enough to converse with? And how do you know these people that you are always accusing of being parasites? Or do you just accuse anyone with an opinion that is beyond your intelligence a parasite?
    - Still Here
      
      The later
    - DippityDo
      
      Good point, hard to argue with. The facts are on your side.
    - Fredlinskip
      
      #1 greatest failed economic idea of last 100 years- “trickle-down”- which is the theory that postulates that the more $ accumulates at the top the better our system works.
      
      #2 greatest failed idea- Austerity during tough economic times will improve Economy.
      
      #1 failed leader last 100 years- W Bush- who even in great economic times propped up by enormous Bubble, not seen since the Roaring ’20′s, managed to not only not pay down national debt but raise it more than all previous admins combined.
      
      Ahh, but who actually cares about the facts anyhow- not when they’ve got Fox “News”.
    - Fredlinskip
      
      #3 greatest failed economic idea: deregulation, allowing corps to “regulate themselves”, and allow “free market to rule”- as espoused by Greenspan & friends will lead to economic stability to benefit of all.
  - Conner44
    
    My bad I meant to reply to DippityDo.
    - Conner44
      
      No I didn’t
    - Conner44
      
      Yes I did.
- Still Here
  
  Exactly, Romney wasn’t a hedge fund manager which is where at’s analysis goes wrong and then only gets worse. She/he is looking for a scapegoat and decides on what they understand the least. You only confuse them by bringing up economic realities. His/her type would have us all making buggy whips again.
  - Yardview12
    
    Liberal MO – find a human failing, look for a scapegoat, go after their money
    - Still Here
      
      They’re too lazy to make it themselves and have no skills of any value. To make themselves feel better, they want to grow the legions of government dependents. These parasites won’t stop.
    - Still Here
      
      More lies and just rhetoric from my stunted brain.
  - Conner44
    
    As one of the biggest idiots to post here it should be expected that you can’t read. at never said Romney was a hedge fund manager you idiot. YOu know nothing of economic realities. It is a study in futility to watch those who do, attempt to educate you over and over, never realizing that you and the other few clowns here are strictly partisan and have no interest in facts at all, only you own demented and stupid rationalizations and spin. With the wealth of real facts that have come out about the the economic disaster even the like of you could understand how diametrically opposed to the truth your view is, IF you wanted to – Moda — all your posts are partisan and nonsense. I have watched at over the years finally admit that he was forced to Obama — who he dislikes, because of the real threat that Romney embodies. NOw go play with yourself.
    - Still Here
      
      Your are correct – I am a friggin idiot – but the big boys pay me to post so screw America. It’s money I care about
    - Still Here
      
      LOL, identity theft, it’s all you losers have; how pathetic.
    - Still Here
      
      It’s the least they could do since you are pretending to be three people.
    - Still Here
      
      Please, I don’t need 3 people to school you partisan losers; I’m barely paying attention as it is.
    - CumOn777
      
      I am so glad I am not you. To live in such dimness I could not bear. This is the level you inevitably bring all discussions to. What’s the matter? Can’t you get out of bed with out hating and inspiring hatred with your truely ignorant remarks?
      
      Braggadocio does not an argument make.
    - Conner44
      
      Your remarks truly reflect this attention deficit.
    - Still Here
      
      If identity theft is the sign of a loser, what is copying identity theft a sign of? A stupid loser who can’t even come up with something himself.
    - Still Here
      
      Looks like I touched a nerve, perhaps because you know you have nothing to stand on. You have no concept of the truth and can only find excuses for your own incredible inadequacies. You’re a failure, don’t blame those who succeed. Educate yourself. Excuse making is for parasitic sheep, I think you could be better than that.
    - Modavations
      
      You are saying Conner is a failure? Do you know him? I didn’t think so. That is about how valid every thing you write is moda. Just inept expired fantasies that have be inculcated into that partisan head of yours.
    - Gregg
      
      You are a sick puppy.
    - Modavations
      
      The more I read Conner, the more I have to agree with you. You make some great points. Thanks for your contribution. Gotta go.
  - Conner44
    
    Rereading his post I can see why you would say that now. In that context I guess I wold have to concede the point. Sorry.
    - CumOn777
      
      Still no point
    - Conner44
      
      Read it again. I can’t help you with the obvious.
- Conner44
  
  I reconsider, you’re right. The facts are on your side and I can’t argue with you. Thanks for the enlightenment.
  - CumOn777
    
    What facts?
    - Conner44
      
      How dim can you be?
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  Hedge Fund Managers, Banksters, ‘Rating Agencies’, and others that just move money around for illegitimate PROFIT, using BOGUS ‘financial instruments’, and deceptive or fraudulent marketing, HAVE created the basis for the economic crash!
CumMon777

I see your “Great Minds” and raise you one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmAY_R9ZaOE
Terry Tree Tree

Apt and concise!

CarltonStrauss139

All IN:

American Psychosis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMSpEfkvpZA

at

Conner:

Please do not defend my posts. I understand why you feel you have to do this, but I do not respond to certain persons ever (total waste of time) and most others pretty rarely. I just say what I have to say, and realize I have no control over how any particular person feels about it, and really don’t care much about those who disagree. It is fine with me if they disagree, or engage in any response they may wish — really.

Nobody’s mind has ever been changed by just contradicting each other and denigrating them. This is not the first time you have done this, and you certainly have the right to write anything you want to, but please do not attack people who disagree with me. What’s the point? If their arguments are flimsy nobody with enough intelligence to understand mine will be concerned with them. Or maybe they are correct? But before you do this again consider this:

I do not like Obama in the least (about this you are absolutely correct).

I believe totally in the right to bear arms and bare them too. Including some of what are now outlawed as destructive devises and fully automatic weapons.

I do not believe that “public servants” should have the right to unionize, including firemen, police, prison guards, the military, doctors, nurses, or air traffic controllers — to name just a few.

In fact like George Washington I do not believe we should have, or even need a standing army, especially now, all we need is The Atomic Energy Commission and the will to let loose a clean little devise is someone thinks they can step on our toes.

I believe that abortion is murder.

I do not think that sexual deviants should be acceptable in society.

I believe that our Judges and political officials should be publicly disgraced and executed if convicted of ANY impropriety or crime.

I believe that the persons who profited by bringing about the economic collapse should be executed.

I believe that any cop who lies on the witness stand should have to do the time or stand in at the execution of the perp he is lying about. This will get rid of most of the police in about a half year.

I obviously believe in capital punishment.

I think that illegals should be treated as criminals and their children should be exported with them, and that if they return after that, they should be sentenced to hard labor — perhaps building a wall.

I think that every person who was instrumental in dismantling the banking safe guards over the last four decades should be exposed and banished without their money or posssessions. These are the real enemies of our Republic and have done more harm to each and every American than Osama.

And while I making up my wish list, I think that the guardsmen and their commander who fired on American civilians at Kent State killing students who were uninvolved in the demonstrations should be ordered to shoot each other in a firing squad.

Other than that, we probably mostly agree, but you may want to consider these factors before you jump in and defend my posts. I am not a conservative, but I sure as hell do not go along with what liberal has come to mean, unless you are talking about the great liberals that founder our country (what — you thought they were conservatives just because of the old-fashioned threads?)

Thank you for any consideration.

PS I bet this post doesn’t get 17 likes.

jefe68

The manifesto of an extremist.
Are you for real?
Azra

What is your deviation of a sexual deviant? Is it anyone who deviates from the missionary position? Please clarify.
- Azra
  
  CORRECTION: . . . DEFINITION of . . .

Terry Tree Tree

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALAN TURING!! One of the MOST significant people, that helped the Allies WIN WWII! ‘Conservatives’ would have put him to death, or jailed him, which might have cost us the War!

Warren

Typical Terry Hysterics.Laissez Faires don’t think about Homosexuals,or race.We are businessmen.Democrats are Social Workers and thses are their exclusive Purviews.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  Your self-induced ‘chemical’ delusions, and hallucinations are showing!
- Azra
  
  Thank God for social workers, I say.

Terry Tree Tree

Ladies, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TITLE IX! (TITLE 9, if you can’t read Roman Numerals!)
    Lady Lawyers, Lady Auto Techs, Lady Vols, Lady Engineers, Competent Ladies everywhere!�
   You’re no longer confined to the ‘conservative’ barefoot and pregnant!
   MANY of you have proven that you can do MORE than cook, clean, and sew!   (Actually, Rosies The Riveters, Womens’ Auxillary Service Pilots, and other ladies, PROVED it, to help the Allies win WWII!)

Gregg

You act surprised. It comes off as condescending.
Warren

Patronizing piffle.I’ve asked you a million times to plaese quit with the Capitallizing.It’s yelling,it’s nothing but a temper tantrum.I’ll donate $100.00 to the Fire Station if you give us a break for 6 months.Many have asked you to desist.Show your fellow posters respect
- Azra
  
  Those comments weren’t directed at you, and you aren’t being forced to read them. In other words, free speech is alive and well in America.

Gregg

The first “sentence” at the top of the page reads “Contempt for Holder”. Maybe I’m being picky but I think the implication is no accident. It’s as if On Point wants to frame the entire sordid episode as nothing more than a partisan witch hunt, as if it’s all rooted in nothing more than contempt for Holder. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Worried for the country(MA)

Excellent pickup. Was it intentional by On Point?
- Gregg
  
  I tend to think so.
feettothefire

You’re being picky. Thursday ONPOINT did an entire hour on Fast and Furious. It featured three guest commentators and several opinions from callers. It also provides an on line forum for every opinion possible to be presented. This is not the way radio shows that want to frame the conversation go about doing so. I know you’re smart enough to realize the use of “contempt” was a play on words indicating the possibility of contempt charges and the contempt many feel for Holder, Fast and Furious, and Obama’s claim of executive privelege. These things sound like the kind of stuff conservative pundits would love to imply. In fact they do. Why is it a conspiracy if done by ONPOINT?
- Gregg
  
  Yea, I’m being picky but you are projecting thoughts, making assumptions as well as accusations, over generalizing and then asking a question based on a premise you pulled out of thin air when you write:
  
  “These things sound like the kind of stuff conservative pundits would
  love to imply. In fact they do. Why is it a conspiracy if done by
  ONPOINT?”
  
  At least I pointed to a specific example. I’m not claiming a conspiracy but I do think the “play on words” was intentional. I also believe Tom Ashbrook thinks this is all just a partisan witch hunt. I get the impression you do too, maybe not.
  - feettothefire
    
    A nice case of “projecting thoughts and making assumptions as well as accusations” appears three comments above. And of course the play on words was intentional, as they usually are. But how does a play on words which acknowledges the sentiment of a large part of the population play any kind of role in trying to frame the episode in any way whatsoever, especially in the way you suspect?
    - feettothefire
      
      Excuse the double comments. I hit the button too soon. I’ve seen you complain often about the mainstream media’s failure to give ample coverage to topics which you think deserve more. Now ONPOINT does a one hour show on the topic, and you’ve decide your displeased with what you believe to be the hosts bias. Frankly, I think you’re imagining things when you ascribe a particular sentiment to Ashbrook. You have a particular fondness for Rush Limbaugh, who wears his beliefs on his sleeve, which is his right. It’s that kind of show. It’s the audio equivalent of an Op Ed. Ashbrook has a show with THREE guests and a number of callers discussing the issue, and you’re critical. Exactly what do people have to do in order to give issues what you consider to be fair coverage?
    - Gregg
      
      “Exactly what do people have to do in order to give issues what you consider to be fair coverage?”
      
      I believe the deviousness of liberal bias is in its subtlety. I really don’t have much trouble with Olbermann, Maddow or Matthews because they don’t hide it. My problem is with those who claim the high ground but don’t occupy it. It is not always overt. Many times its not what is said, its what is not said. NPR doesn’t say a lot. Another indication of bias are false premises. I am happy to give chapter and verse but I must be careful or I’ll end up debating tax policy or geopolitics. That’s not my intent.
      
      Holder lied in a letter to Issa Feb. 16, 2011. That’s a fact. Brain Terry was killed over a year and a half ago. I have called on “On Point” to give this subject some air for quite some time. At one point I asked if they would do a show before Holder was held in Contempt. This is a big deal that should have been at least mentioned long ago. So while I appreciate the show, it’s too little too late. Ashbrook had no trouble saying Sarah Palin’s harmless words resulted in a “bullet in the brain” of Gabby Giffords. And he did it within days. He had no trouble doing a show on the “new Jim Crow” era the minute Trayvon Martin was murdered.
      
      Again, I appreciate the show but given the gravity of the inevitable Contempt charge and Executive privilege, he had no choice.
    - feettothefire
      
      Once again, of course, I must disagree. All one need do is go to the “past shows” section to see the vast number of topics covered by Onpoint since 2001. Issues favorable or detrimental to either side of the political spectrum have been covered, in depth, since the shows inception. But it has always covered the big stories of the day. Two weeks ago, even one week ago, if you asked the average American what Fast and Furious was, they’d have told you it was a Nicholas Cage adventure flick. When it became a story more generally known by the public, they did a show on it. Contrary to your claim about the Martin case, the first show about the incident was aired 23 days after Martin was killed. The “‘New Jim Crow” show was aired 36 days after Martin died. Neither of these were aired “the minute Trayvon Martin was murdered,” They were aired when it became a story well known to the general public. It’s what Onpoint does. Analysis, not investigative journalism. It isn’t even news. It’s discussion of the news. When Fast and Furious became big news, it was discussed, just as the Martin case was. Blaming Onpoint for not covering a story most people know nothing about makes no sense if that’s not what they do.
    - Gregg
      
      “Two weeks ago, even one week ago, if you asked the average American what
      Fast and Furious was, they’d have told you it was a Nicholas Cage
      adventure flick.”
      
      If that assumption is true, it’s shameful. The job of the press is to inform the public about things like this. When Brian Terry was killed only ABC did a story. Compare that to Trayvon Martin.
    - Gregg
      
      Fair point about the timing but I was speaking metaphorically. The On point headline on March 30 was “The shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida, and the price of “walking while black.” That is obnoxiou
      s.
      
      1 month compared with 2 years is a huge difference.
    - feettothefire
      
      Once again, as soon as Martin became a big story, On point covered it. Whn F+F became a big story, Onpoint covered it.
    - feettothefire
      
      The media isn’t a monolith. Onpoint doesn’t “break” news, it analyzes news. Fast and furious wasn’t a big story until recently. Blame the media if you wish. You’re probably right. But Onpoint has a purpose different from what you expect of it. Watergate and Iran/Contra took weeks, even months before they became big news , well known to the country at large. That’s how it almost always works.
    - Gregg
      
      The media has control over which stories become big.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      I heard segments on the killing of the Border Agent, on NPR, MONTHS ago!
    - Gregg
      
      I gave an opinion of what was actually written. I did not suppose what anyone “would love to imply”. My opinion is just that, I did not frame it as fact. You said, “in fact they do” and you may be right but it was a blanket accusation without evidence. As you know from our last debate, I am not a fan of the logic that says, if this would have happened then this would have been said. I would rather discuss what happened and what was said about it. That’s just me.
      
      As to your question, I’m afraid I have to make the same accusation. It’s built on a false premise. I do not believe it is fair to assume “a large part of the population” believes this is a partisan matter. At least I hope not. There are facts on the ground, they speak for themselves.
    - feettothefire
      
      You missed my point entirely. The large part of the population to which I was referring was the people who have contempt for Holder and the whole F+F affair. At no time did I imply or even think that their opinions indicated partisanship. Onpoint used a play on words explicitly acknowledging this widely held sentiment, and somehow you’ve decided that acknowledgement of public sentiment equals a hidden bias. I just can’t wrap my head around that.
    - Gregg
      
      Your opinion is, “Onpoint used a play on words explicitly acknowledging this widely held sentiment”.
      Mine is, Onpoint used a play on words to reenforce the notion that Fast and Furious is no big deal. If it is not a big deal then they (and liberal Republicans like David Brooks) can be forgiven for waiting 2 years.
    - feettothefire
      
      Once again, I fail to see how the words “contempt for Holder” can be read as anything but what it says. I guess your just convinced it’s an agenda thing. What words would you have had them use, if the words stating what I know are your own feelings about the case aren’t good enough?
    - Gregg
      
      “The House will vote on whether to hold AG Holder in Contempt of Congress. ” Or even, “Committee holds Holder in Contempt on a party line vote”. “Contempt for Holder” doesn’t even refer to a committee, a vote or for Congress. It means Holder is hated unless you interpolate, does it not? It’s not even a sentence.
    - feettothefire
      
      Please see reply above.
    - feettothefire
      
      By the way, I’ve heard plenty of conservative pundits imply all of the things I mentioned above. I don’t know what other radio you’ve been listening to or newspapers you read. Try Michael Graham, Pat Buchannan, the Boston Herald Editorial page. Even David Brooks chimed in on PBS last night. I’d call those evidence of the feelings of conservative pundits. I just don’t know why you seem to think I have a problem with it.
  - Azra
    
    You must admit that Republicans, in recent years, have always spent most of their time, and energy, (and OUR MONEY!!!), on trumped-up charges, taking everyone possible to Court, and “INVESTIGATING”. We’ve all been ready for “investigations” to begin, since November of 2008. We’ve been making bets, but just couldn’t predict what they would focus on.
    
    Bogus investigations . . . it’s what Republicans do. It’s who they are, and always have been, at least in my lifetime. Investigations are a lot more fun than doing something meaningful for their country.
Azra

It meant contempt of Court, because Holder originally lied under oath. Nothing more, I’m sure.

Gregg

The hacking troll imposter is back.

Warren

Ultrax Attacks

Worried for the country(MA)

Obama demands photo ID to enter campaign rally.

Someone call Eric Holder.

Worried for the country(MA)

I had to show my photo ID (or passport) to tour the USS Constitution in the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston a few weeks ago.
- TFRX
  
  So what? Prove something, anything about voting rights.
  
  Show anything about how Florida isn’t just scrubbing voters off as recklessly and haphazardly as they can.
  
  Would you give a shit if middle-class white voters were being screwed this way?
  
  (Don’t bother answering. Your reply isn’t worth reading.)
  - Warren
    
    They had hearings and absolutely nothing was shown or proven.You wanna blame someone for Florida.Blame the Dems.who ran the election,or blame Ralph Nader and
    - Azra
      
      Of couse nothing was proven. Florida is a RED state. Red = Republican. Republican = shifty, unscrupulous, corrupt. They’ll do whatever it takes to get what they want.
Warren

Every Mexican shows a Photo I.D. to vote.In 40 years I’ve never seen a Mexican without a photo I.D..Even the country boys know better then to venture forth without his Photo I.D.
- Azra
  
  That’s all well and good, in Mexico. It’s nothing to do with us.
  
  Right now, we’re concerned with American elections. Americans aren’t required to have I.D. cards, and never have been, in order to cast their votes. To suddenly try to change all that, just months before an election, is unconstitutional, illegal, and we won’t stand for it.
TFRX

Sod off. The life of the president may be under threat, no?

And voting is a right.
Terry Tree Tree

‘W’ had SEVERAL rings of ‘Security’, especially buses, while CAMPAIGNING for the office of President the FIRST time! ANYONE that wasn’t PROVEN Supporter, was kept BLOCKS away from the ‘brave pilot’, that A’W'OL DRUNK!
HOW MUCH EXTRA ‘Security’ was added for the White House, when he and Cheney were ‘Selected’ by the Supreme Court, to occupy it?
- Warren
  
  TERRY TAN TRUMS GRAVE STONE WILL READ…..”BUSH DID IT”
- Warren
  
  I NOTICED THE GUY ON MSNBC(O’Donnel?) CALLING PRESIDENT ROMNEY A DRAFT DODGER.YOU DID THE SAME THE NEXT DAY.DO YOU HAVE PROOF OR IS THIS A TERRY TANTRUM
Azra

No one was admitted to Dubya’s functions without an invitation.

feettothefire

People on this page should try to familiarize themselves with the term “economic cycle.” One need only the common sense of a first year economics student to understand that the type of economic cycle created by the most devastating blow to our economic well being in seventy years could only be much longer and much more difficult to dig out of than is typical. Having nothing to do with President Obama, since presidents have very little to do with the state of an economy as large as that of the U.S., despite all the foolish insistence that they do, it would seem intelligent people would understand this. Anyone who believes John McCain, Mitt Romney, or Jesus Christ would have done a better job is wrong. There’s one word that most aptly describes the U.S. economy. IRRATIONAL. The irrational beliefs of people across the spectrum are what either bolster or devastate an economy. Not presidents. Not Congress. Not the Fed. Not big Business. It was the irrational beliefs of both unprincipled speculators on Wall Street and countless dopes, too stupid to know they couldn’t afford the houses they just bought who brought down the economy. Fundamentals didn’t bring down our economy in 2008. Neither did President Bush. Stupid, irrational people did. And, our economy won’t turn around until rational people realize that a bar of soap, an automobile, or a house still has the same intrinsic value it had in 2007.

Clements Ion

With this caveat: it was not a matter of incompetence with the aura of
competence (Green Span
et al.), but the conglomerate effect of those in positions of advantage,
privilege, power and trust, exerting a continual pressure on society
and government to maximize their own wealth, power, and privilege, above
all other motives, and believing that in doing this they are following
both God’s and natural law – or simply being honest in their criminal
(in a Gurdjieffian sense) selfishness. This was able to work as long as
the public was largely ignorant of the compulsive egoist entelechy of
their leaders, and (and this is most important) were themselves of a
higher ethical character then the jaded 1% who live off them as surely
as if they were a herd of goats. Now due to the general moral decline,
lack of lived ethics and inherited wisdom the 99% are themselves coming
to resemble their leaders internally and as such are more and more able
to see the truth of the situation, which is absurdity, cloaked in
endless volumes of incremental intrusions and theft and coercion they
have encoded in law, though a legislature that is more willing to be
seen to kiss their butts in public than to be thought ill of by these
huge fish. The legislature has moved from the sphere of the pathetic to
the bathetic due to the falsely imposed financial necessities of their
office. Carlin says the only way this will change is by the spilling of
much blood. I say he is wrong that the core of America is still there
and will rise to the occasion, even if it takes extreme hardship for the
former middle class to motivate them to pay attention.
- Magnetar
  
  Forget it Clements, the Stasi I meam NSA and Homeland Security is the
  new middle class, and they are here to make sure you go down without
  sullying the spats of their criminal bankster masters.
  
  I think a good general strike would go far to remind them who it is that creates the wealth they steal.
Worried for the country(MA)

Au contraire, Mr. feet.

President Obama could have done much better. Usually, the deeper the recession; the larger the recovery. This has been the most tepid recovery since WWII despite an unprecidented $5T in stimulus — yes, deficit spending is stimulus (I know you learned this in your 1st year economics class).

The uncertainty on tax policy has dampened economic growth. Also, the US now has the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. This puts the US at a disadvantage, for the first time, for capital formation.

IF Mr. Obama had led on the passage of Simpson-Bowles, I believe the economy would have improved.

There are many other examples of uncertainty looming in the government regulatory environment. EPA, Obamacare, Dodd-Frank . For instance, Dodd-Frank was over 2000 pages of legislature. For every page of legislation, the bureaucrats created 20 pages of of regulations — and they aren’t done. After all of this effort, they still have not addressed “too big to fail”.

Presidential leadership can make a difference.

—-
- Worried for the country(MA)
  
  Mr. Obama did show leadership with his green jobs agenda. He signaled a favorable regulatory environment for green investments. He also used the stimulus to fund numerous green investments.
  
  The result of this Presidential leadership resulted in huge private investments into green industries.
  
  Unfortunately, those investments have yet to result in jobs or competitive energy products. Perhaps some of these investments will payoff someday but it doesn’t look promising.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    NO jobs to build, or renovate the manufacturing facilities?�
    How does THAT happen?
    NONE of those plants have hired management? NONE hired future manufacturing employees, for training?
    Should we ‘worry’ about your accuracy?
    - Warren
      
      GERMANY PAYS 300 to 500% MORE FOR IT”S ALTERNATIVE ENERGY.GERMANY HAS CEASED SUBSIDIZING ALL GREEN PROJECTS.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      Did Germany take down the 25,000 Wind-Turbines you said it didn’t have, until a link was given to a German Official Site telling about them!
- feettothefire
  
  Everything you just wrote could easily be translated as “Blah, blah, blah.” For the forty years I’ve been paying attention to things other than G.I. Joes and comic books, Ive been listening to the endless yammering of Democrats blaming Republicans and Republicans blaming Democrats. We’ve had presidents through all those years. Yet despite all the stellar “leadership” you claim they’re capable of, Recessions come and go. Angst over the economy fills our lives decade after decade. Inflation rears it’s ugly head now and then. People will be screaming about the economy and blaming presidents long after you and I are dead. The final years of George W. Bush’s presidency fell during the most precipitous decline our economy has seen in either of our lifetimes. Three and half years of Obama’s presidency and we all know how badly things are going. That’s two presidents in a row who failed to make the type of economic difference you claim their leadership should be capable of. Boy, that sure is two dumb presidents. Now, if you claim that Obama is responsible for his economic debacle, but Bush wasn’t responsible for his, I won’t bother to reply. I’ll just have a real good laugh.
  - Worried for the country(MA)
    
    I take your point that the ‘blame’ game is overplayed — on both sides.
    
    I only claim that Obama could have done better. Much better. Could Bush have done better? Absolutely.
    
    Good leaders use crisis to clean up the years of government regulatory bloat. The fact that the US tax code is over 70K pages is criminal.
    
    The fact that he hasn’t led congress to pass a single budget in the last 4 years is malfeasance and a contributor to our problems.
    - feettothefire
      
      You and I both know that the only way a president can lead Congress, especially in the type of political climate we’ve had in the last twenty years, is if he has a majority in both houses. Blaming Obama for failing to lead a congress which refuses to be lead makes no sense at all. Even Congresses sympathetic to a president don’t like to be lead. They are a co-equal branch of government, after all. Here’s the best illustration of my point. Since the Nixon administration, every president has had a period during his presidency when gas prices went through the roof, except, perhaps for Ford. He may not have been in office long enough. But pundits and much of the public blamed each of those presidents for their gas crises. That means Nixon, Carter, Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, W. Bush, and Obama were a bunch of buffoons who, at some point in their presidencies, couldn’t satisfy our thirst for cheap gas. Do you think that’s the case? Because every time it happens, people blame the president. We just had several shows about it on this very station. This time it’s Obama’s fault. No, I stand by my belief that expecting presidents to have any meaningful effect on the economy is as ridiculous as expecting them to control the price of gas.
    - Worried for the country(MA)
      
      Again, we can agree the blame game is overplayed. There are things Presidents can do on energy but most of them are not short term.
      
      For instance, Mr. Obama missed an opportunity to utilize the gift he was handed with new natural gas technology and resources. He could have issued an executive order to mandate all new federal vehicle purchases ( a very large number) to be bi-fuel (CNG + gasoline) with the next year. This wouldn’t have cost the taxpayers a dime and wouldn’t require congress. This would have the effect of creating market for a CNG fueling infrastructure – the only barrier for the CNG vehicle market. Just the announcement of this would have forced OPEC to aggressively increase oil supplies in an attempt to kill the potential competition.
      
      I also believe that Mr. Obama could have led a compromise deal with Congress on Simpson-Bowles. He started the effort by creating the commission but he never followed through.
      
      Leadership isn’t easy but we need it during times like this.
    - feettothefire
      
      You simply have a far greater belief in the power of the presidency than me. I’ve never blamed any president for a bad economy, or given any of them credit for a good one. At best, they may be able to make a very small difference on the margins. While I know the stock market isn’t the economy, they work in much the same way. Huge rises or declines in the Dow on a daily basis make no sense. Procter and Gambles products are as useful today as they were last week, despite the irrational fears that cause their stock price to rise and fall. It’s the same with the economy. Too many decisions made by individuals, government, and business are based on fear, rather than fundamentals. There’s nothing a president can do about that, especially when, as is usually the case, half the country thinks he’s full of crap.
    - Gregg
      
      I’ll have to admit I don’t recall having seen you blame Bush for our current economic woes… but you’re the only one.
      
      I don’t know how you can’t blame Obama for $5T in new debt, imposing $46B/year in new regulations, passing on the pipeline, an offshore drilling moratorium and Obamacare but I do. Those policies have ruined us.
    - feettothefire
      
      Sleep easy, my friend. I promise you. We’re not ruined.
    - TFRX
      
      Your scare numbers are context free. Good job. Percentages are for eggheads.
      
      And why is it every righty who said they could spell “deficit” when Shrub was in office is on this board?
    - Gregg
      
      I would add America’s leadership was sorely missed in Libya. Gadaffi was on the ropes and Obama fiddled. Bless France but with all due respect ceding the leadership to them cost many many lives. Meanwhile he showed the power of his leadership by calling for Mubarek to step down. Bad move. He also, IMHO, could have solved the Iran situation in 2009 with a dose of leadership. Opportunity lost, now war is all but inevitable.
    - feettothefire
      
      I’ll give you fifty cents and a doughnut if we go to war with Iran.
    - Gregg
      
      I’d rather be wrong.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      A mandate for ALL vehicles to be Flex-Fuel, would have been FAR less expensive to implement, AND much smarter!
      Even the gas-drillers did NOT know there would be a Natural Gas Boom, of the magnitude it is, or they would have drawn it out, to keep prices UP! Natural Gas Producers are already WHINING about NO PROFITS, from their SUBSIDIZED INDUSTRY.�
      YOU evidently DON’T know much about Natural Gas conversion of vehicles, OR the expenses of it!
    - Warren
      
      THAT WOULD BE ILLEGAL.IT’S CALLED PRICE FIXING.IF YOU”RE A DEMOCRAT LIKE IMMELT OR SOLYENDRA THIS DOES NOT APPLY
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      Flex-Fuel conversion costs $100 per vehicle. Natural Gas conversion COSTS $4,000, to $10,000 per vehicle!
      Flex-Fuel vehicles can STILL be also converted to Natural GAs.
      Natural Gas has FAR LESS range!
    - Gregg
      
      There hasn’t been a budget since Obama was sworn in. The House has done their job but not the Senate. Obama’s proposed budgets have not garnered a single vote from either party. Not one, the last House vote went down 414-0 and the last Senate attempt went down 97-0. That’s not leadership. That is a failure to give an inch to political realities and the will of the people.
    - feettothefire
      
      The Federal budget isn’t the economy. It’s a different issue entirely. No one ever bought a house, or chose not to, on the basis of the Federal budget status.
    - Gregg
      
      The subject was leadership or lack thereof. He didn’t lead on the economy or the budget.
    - feettothefire
      
      No, the subject was whether a president, any president, had enough power to meaningfully effect the economy. I must say, Gregg, you really wear your contempt for Obama on your sleeve. In the midst of a discussion about the power of any president to have meaningful effect on the economy, or not, you veer off onto Iran, Egypt, and Libya. How does a thread, which starts out with one person positing the idea that presidents in general can have only a minor effect on the economy, morph into a discussion on the merits of foreign intervention?
    - Gregg
      
      Leadership matters and certainly affects the economy.
    - TFRX
      
      Your comment has been put on anonymous hold and won’t be shown until 60 is no longer the new 51.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      Teach President Obama how to lead a two-year-old, that ONLY knows how to say “NO!!”, except when placated with great bribes?
- Gregg
  
  “The uncertainty on tax policy has dampened economic growth.”
  
  That is such a good point. I agree completely. President Obama kept ALL taxpayers in the dark until 3 weeks before the fiscal year. Imagine that! He had 2 years and small businesses (or anyone else) did not know what their tax liability would be a month before taxes were levied. There was never a chance the tax cuts would not be extended, why wait two years and kill all those jobs? The market works on confidence and there is none. Were’ right back in the same boat. Jan 1. is taxmegeddon. I absolutely agree “leadership can make a difference”.
- Azra
  
  Indeed. How ‘ bout these gas prices? Pretty impressive, huh?

Gregg

With the Obamacare verdict likely coming on Monday it’s very tempting to make a prediction. Personally, I cannot see how the mandate is Constitutional. The conventional wisdom is it will be struck down. Conventional wisdom cannot be trusted. I can go only this far: I predict the decision will not be 5-4 and I also think there will be no middle ground, it all survives or it all goes down. We’ll see.

Worried for the country(MA)

The ruling against SEIU was 7-2 so you might be right.

The dissenters were Kagan and Breyer.
- Gregg
  
  I’m biting my fingernails.
Azra

All we can do now is hope that any decisions made will, at least, benefit the least fortunate among us, and will be what’s best for the Country. We are our brothers’ keepers.

Ed

Many on the list seem troubled, rightfully so, about the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. (It should be noted that the media follows this scandal, not so much elsewhere.) But they make incorrect conclusions.

Let’s say that you have someone in your family who has done suffered or done something disgraceful, let’s say alcoholism, or criminality. Every family can point to someone. Would it be fair to say ‘This family is a family full of alcoholics’? Or ‘This family supports and encourages alcoholism’? Or even ‘This is a bad family since it has an alcoholic’?

No, each of those conclusions would be untrue, and unfair.

But this is what’s being said about the family of the Catholic Church.

Warren

Terry will be by soon to speel you with the Greeeeeeeeeedy Priest routine.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  YOU defend the Child-Molesters and Child-Abusers, TOO?
  - Warren
    
    YOU”VE ASKED ME THIS 1000 TIMES.I REJECT YOUR INCESSANT DAILY SPEEL
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      AMAZING! ANOTHER diversion from ‘Warren’, that has accused me of this, and other crimes, with NO proof, because I’m NOT guilty!
TFRX

The coverup in The Church is so execrable and wide-ranging that I don’t even need to go into it here.

If your family is enabling an alcoholic, it’s your family’s problem. The RCC is enabling their black sheep, and it’s everyone’s problem.

I hope you left a trail of hosts to follow when you wish to come back to reality.
Terry Tree Tree

Ed gives a lukewarm, sort of, maybe, comment ‘against’ a kind-of ‘scandal’, that might be a little bad?
THAT is WHY Catholic clergy is SOOOO Disgusting!
You have a CRIMINAL EPIDEMIC, and you try to infer that a band-aid will cure ALL?
- Warren
  
  100% PERCENT OF THE PRIESTS IN BOSTON WERE LIBERALS
  - Azra
    
    Who asked?
  - J__o__h__n
    
    What percent of the bishops were conservatives?
  - Azra
    
    Whether factual or not, who cares? Criminals are criminals, regardless of race, creed, color, or political leaning. There’s no place for them in our society. We must remove them from it at all costs. Sick individuals should be receiving treatment, not preying on those who cannot defend themselves. Castration is too good for them.
    
    Protecting and nourishing all children should be America’s top priority. Sadly, it isn’t.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    What MATTERS most , is HOW MANY were CRIMINAL CHILD-MOLESTERS AND CHILD-ABUSERS, OR HELPED THESE CRIMINALS?
    YOU, like Ed and William, KEEP trying to deflect attention from these CRIMES!�
    ARE YOU one of the Child-Molesters and/or Child-Abusers?
Roy Mac

Oh, so it’s just “a few bad apples,” huh? When something distasteful comes along, you disassociate?

We are to overlook the fact that the King Bee in Rome refuses to acknowledge that his hieracrchy not only hires, but hides child rapers? And he condones his American acolytes on their crusade against the American population with their assinine crusade about 1st Amendment “freedom?” Freedom to continue enslaving women and raping children? And the Catholic church expects me to continue to susidize this obscene crowd?

You don’t even deserve the protections of freedom of speech, you miserable prosoletyzer. Just go to confession and stay the hell out of civilized society.
Azra

Seminaries are breeding grounds for gay pedophiles. The ones who have been ratted out are but a handful of the many shameless criminals who are pretending to do God’s work.
- J__o__h__n
  
  There were girl victims too.
  - Azra
    
    Hadn’t heard about any girls. Even sadder, since little girls worship their fathers, (father figures), so blindly.
    
    Such a revelation. My heart goes out to all victims, everywhere. Can’t believe, in the tewenty-first century, that children are still being mistreated in this way, robbed of their innocence, and a happy childhood. Sandusky, certain members of the clergy, and all other men who prey on innocent, frightened, children, should all be drawn and quartered. They contribute nothing, and only manage to ruin countless lives.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      THAT has been my message for quite a while!�
      Yes, girls have been Molested and Abused by these ‘Men of God’, and the VICTIMS harassed, and the CRIMINALS HELPED!�
      Money from Catholic Charities has been used to hide, or otherwise help these SCUM of ‘God’, instead of helping the poor and needy, OR the VICTIMS of Catholic clergy!�
      THAT’S why I keep saying the Catholic clergy, ALL the way to the TOP, are part of these CRIMES.
J__o__h__n

Families of alcoholics don’t have a policy to move the alcoholic from town to town after drunk driving accidents and repeatedly give the alcoholic a new car.
Azra

The conclusions are correct, to anyone with common sense. Don’t even try to defend the indefensible. There is no excuse, no justification.

The Catholic church is rife with scandal. It’s unthinkable that anyone would even try to make excuses for these scumbags. We don’t care about their issues, or their lame excuses, we care only about their victims.

Since you try to justify their atrocious behavior, we can only assume that you are a molester yourself, or, at the very least, that you condone what has been done to our children by these very twisted, sick, individuals, which makes you just as dangerou as they are. This whole business is utterly disgusting, and I suggest that you get treatment ASAP!

Gregg

“It’s not enough to simply have a catchy ad on a Monday and only do it on
a Monday. We need to do this everyday of the week and just really
brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.” Eric Holder 1995

He has been thinking about this for a while now. What better way than to let guns (without tracking devises as Bush had) walk across the border (without telling Mexican authorities as Bush did) and reek havoc killing hundreds? But the story was virtually ignored by the MSM for 2 years. Those who usually hate guns and gun violence are tacitly defending him by framing it as a witch hunt. Tom Ashbrook said “a bullet in the brain” was a “consequence” of Sarah Palin’s words. He said it twice in the show at the time. “Consequence”? It’s a lie and was shown to be a lie. The tragedy was a consequence of an apolitical nutcase. The “consequence” of “Fast and Furious” was hundreds of bullets through hundreds of metaphorical brains. No problem.

Gregg

To my liberal friends and NJ,
This video sums up my feelings on Fast and Furious very well. It pulls no punches and I would be interested in your opinions. It made me realize exactly what I am suggesting when I say FnF was an attempt to circumvent the 2nd amendment. I did not truly realize the gravity until just now after watching it. I am saying whoever did this not only knew but counted on hundreds of Mexicans dying. It was a reckless disregard for life.

Warren

The Supreme court voted 7-2 that GREEEEEDY SEIU Unions can no longer spend workers hard earned money for politics,without their permission.In Wisconsin,as soon as the warden dropped the gun,the PRISONERS escaped.50% of the Union members bolted.What type of regime needs a gun to it’s members heads,to gain acquiescence?.

Warren

Mr Holder,this is why we need to purge the Voter’s lists……
My father was a staunch conservative and voted straight Republican until the day he died,now he votes Democrat.Don’t worry my friends from Acorn,where there’s a will,the Democrats will find a way.

Gregg

Now that’s funny!
TFRX

No matter how many times you type it, it doesn’t get any funnier.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  You don’t think it’s funny, how a self-admitted, non-voter ‘worries’ about voters? About votes?
- Azra
  
  . . . or more sensible.

feettothefire

Gregg: If you look at the header above, you will also see the phrases, “Life and death in Egypt,” “Clemens walks,” and “The Fed twists.” On last Friday’s Week in the news show you will see in the intro the phrases, “Romney-Obama head-to-head on the economy,” “Civil war in Syria,” “Sandusky,” and “Colorado burns.” And, not to beat a dead horse, on other Friday shows we see “Bloody Syria,” “Romney Clinches,” “Bad job numbers,” “Elections in Egypt,” Facebook backlash,” and ” Euro Fear.” In other words , we see truncated descriptions of the big stories in the news. That’s how they always do it on Friday’s roundtable. The term “Contempt for Holder” was no less legitimate than the terms “Romney Clinches” or “Bad job numbers,” unless you’re going to claim Onpoint had a hidden agenda in citing bad job numbers during Obama’s presidency or Romney’s success in becoming the GOP nominee. Here are a couple more from April. “Romney Sweeps” and “A secret service prostitution scandal.” I wonder what Ashbrook’s agenda was with those descriptions?

Gregg

It was an aside and I’m not the only one who has pointed out the use of non-sentences. But I don’t care, it’s fine. And really, I did not intend to make a big deal about “Holder in Contempt”. I said I was being picky, it’s not a big deal. But I would ask you to look at each of your examples and tell me which one(s) convey anything other than the facts? Which one(s) cannot be taken at face value and have to be interpolated to mean what they don’t actually say? Which one(s) use a play on words? It’s worth mentioning, that’s what I do. That’s all.
- feettothefire
  
  “Holder in contempt” conveyed the possibility that he might be found in contempt, and it conveyed the fact that many hold him personally in contempt. That is exactly what they say. No interpolation necessary. Even if I stand on my head I can’t figure a way for those words to imply a “‘Witch hunt” is under way by anyone.
  - Gregg
    
    You wrote below: “Gregg, you really wear your contempt for Obama on your sleeve.”
    
    Were you talking about Congress or a vote? Or should I just take your comment for what it actually says? Google “Fast and Furious witch hunt” (without the quotes) and look at the multitude of results from those who are claiming just that. Jack Beatty said as much. It’s feeding the talking point. I know you disagree On Point is capable of that but I’m not budging. I will however quit beating a dead horse. We’re getting nowhere. I respectfully and completely disagree.
    - Gregg
      
      I lied, I’m going to swat the horse one more time. I’m not sure which one of us did it first (maybe me) but it was “Contempt for Holder”.
      “Holder in Contempt” would have at least been easier to interpret as a Contempt of Congress issue. And with no more words. “Contempt for Holder’, not so much. The meaning is clear.
    - feettothefire
      
      I’m talking about your inability to have a conversation about a general principal, such as how much power does a president have to effect things like the economy without launching into another Obama critique having nothing to do with the question. This time it was his foreign policy. I wasn’t talking about Obama, Bush, or any specific president. I was discussing with Worried FTC any president’s ability to effect economic matters. Suddenly you’re talking about Egypt, Iran, and Libya and Obama’s performance in those matters. Now you mention Fast and Furious, another matter not the least bit pertinent to a discussion on presidential power over the economy. Pointing out what you consider to be Obama’s failing in those countries has nothing to do with the matter being discussed. If a discussion begins about Obama and Gay rights, where will you veer off to then, illegal immigrants? Focusing on one issue at a time is usually the best way to have a meaningful discourse.
    - Gregg
      
      If that one issue is leadership (I thought is was) then the general principal is the President can lead Congress to pass a budget, extend tax cuts and show fiscal responsibility to prevent a downgrade of credit. It affects the economy. He can lead NATO to enforce a no-fly Zone over Libya and end carnage before it starts or prop up an imperfect but better than the alternative ruler in Egypt. A leader doesn’t pass blame or make excuses. A leader gets results.
      
      But you do have a point. I disagree that Obama is failing. I believe he is getting what he wants, a fundamentally transformed America. Exhibit one, Obamacare. In that sense he may be a leader. He is leading America to ruin. He is a disaster. An utter and complete disaster. I almost took knee-jerk offense to you accusation that I hold him in contempt but it’s fair. I do and it has nothing to do with anything but his disastrous divisive policies. It’s just awful.
Worried for the country(MA)

Hopefully, Mr. Feet you understand the difference between “contempt for Holder” and “Holder in contempt”.

“Contempt for Holder” is an editorial comment about Holder’s accusers.

“Bad jobs numbers”, “clemens walks” etc. is not an editorial comment.
- feettothefire
  
  I don’t know what you guys are after here. If on point doesn’t acknowledge popular sentiment, you’ll jump down their throat. If they do acknowledge popular sentiment, you’ll jump down their throat and decide there simply MUST be a hidden agenda. Being a play on words, the term was also asking the question, “Will Holder be held in contempt?” That’s how a play on words works. I guess the term “Sandusky” must also have some secret hidden purpose. “Clemens walks” must certainly tell us all that Ashbrook is upset with that verdict. Gleaning someone’s opinion from a two word intro which follows the protocol used in hundreds of other intros over the years is sure some mean feat. I’ve just decided that “The fed twists” means they’re a bunch of real good dancers.
  - Gregg
    
    It’s MANUFACTURED POPULAR SENTIMENT if that is indeed the prevailing sentiment. Sorry to yell, it’s frustrating.
    - feettothefire
      
      I’m too stupid to even know what that means. Do you mean that this is an Obama lovin’ country that just can’t get worked up by the misdeeds of his administration? Do you mean shows like on point are trying to make people feel contempt for the whole Fast and Furious issue. Don’t you want people to be upset with the whole thing? I thought conservative contributors to this page were convinced that most of the public disapproved of Obama and almost all of his policies. Now it looks like your claiming that any contempt felt over Fast and Furious is “manufactured.”
    - Gregg
      
      I am saying On point and others want people to believe there is little
      substance to Fast and Furious and it’s all motivated by contempt. They
      just hate Holder (and Obama) so they’ll go to any length to cause him
      trouble. No need to take it serious. If that is the prevailing
      sentiment, it is manufactured through the bias of omission. I strongly
      believe any sane informed person could not believe this was all about
      partisanship. But it’s easy to believe if you listen the MSM.
      
      When
      Terry was killed it should have been news. When Holder was subpeonad it
      should have been news. When his letter was shown to be a lie, it should
      have been news. When hundreds of Mexicans were killed it should have
      been news. There should have never been any confusion between Wide
      Receiver and Fast and Furious. People should know Bush shut down the
      very limited program when the GPS tracking devices were discovered. They
      should know Obama didn’t use them nor attempt to surveil them as Bush
      did. They should know the Mexican authorities were appalled to learn
      about it. They should ask why. They should know Holder has said he was “working under the
      radar” to change gun control laws. They should know the difference
      between Deliberative process Executive privilege and
      Presidential Communications Executive privilege.
      Obama claim was weak because it was the former. There is no rational way
      to excuse this travesty by the party line of “Bush started it” or “Bush
      claimed Executive privilege”. I even saw one commenter parrot Pelosi’s
      “voter suppression” bilge. The MSM (and On Point) buried the story for a
      year and a half. The only way to save face is to imply to the
      uninformed it is a partisan witch hunt.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      It’s frustrating that you are so confusing? To you, too? I AGREE! It IS!
    - Warren
      
      Stop CAPITALIZING.I”LL DONATE $100.00 TO THE C HARITY OF YOUR CHOICE.PLEASE SHOW SOME RESPECT
    - J__o__h__n
      
      And while you are at it, please space after a period.
    - Azra
      
      (To be absolutely correct, two spaces are required after typing a period. Of course here, anything goes, pretty much.)
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      Like Gregg paid me the $300, to listen to a speech? I’d trust YOU as far as I can throw ALL the firetrucks in my county!
- Gregg
  
  People don’t want to believe they have been hoodwinked by bias. I can’t say that about FTTF but he doesn’t seem to think it even exist at On Point… IMO. It’s not a battle I’m very concerned with. I am more concerned about Holder being removed, Obama being defeated and the Terry’s finding some peace.
- feettothefire
  
  “Contempt for Holder” is no more of an editorial comment than “Democrats unhappy with Obama’s failure to take up immigration reform,” or “Republican’s tepid in support of Romney’s primary run.” These weren’t editorial comments. They were statements of fact. That was how people felt. We all know that. Let’s not pretend we don’t. “The public unhappy with Obama’s handling of economy” is the type of story many here would “link” to in an effort to bolster a comment unfavorable to Obama. You can’t swing a dead cat around here without hitting a link used to support someones stance. I guess using an “editorial comment” like that would make them as biased as Tom Ashbrook.
  - Worried for the country(MA)
    
    Let’s try one more time.
    
    The news headline is ‘Holder found in contempt of Congress by committee’. ‘contempt for holder’ is at best a double entendre. The story is Holder’s contempt for congress — in the view of GOP committee members; not that congress has “contempt for Holder”.
    
    I am not certain that OnPoint was intentionally guilty of editorial bias. It might be a simple mistake.
    
    I agree with Gregg that this is not a big deal. However, I’m surprised at your staunch defense of the wording.
    - feettothefire
      
      Seeing that Gregg was the one who brought the wording up in the first place, and you responded almost immediately in a favorable manner, I’d say you guys made a bit more of it than I did. I didn’t even have an issue with it. And for two guys who consider it no big deal, you’ve certainly spent quite a bit of time debating the issue with me. I defend the wording because I’m the one who truly believes it’s no big deal, and I still can’t figure out why you guys even found it worthy of comment.
Azra

Contempt, meaning here, in contempt if court, for lying.
- Azra
  
  Contempt OF Court.

Terry Tree Tree

WHINING ‘Job Creators’ use EVERY EXCUSE to NOT create jobs, so they can KEEP the money they DEFRAUDED the taxpayers out of!

Warren

So many of us have asked you to stop the infantile Capitalizaion.You afford us no respect.You tell us to collerctively,”Screw”.MAY I SUGGEST A NAME CHANGE To TERRY TAN=TRUM
- JGC
  
  Look it as a form of creative expression. We aren’t here to be graded by an English teacher, after all, but just to trade on ideas. Think of it as a literary form like Gertrude Stein or t.s. eliot.
  - Azra
    
    I second tha.
  - J__o__h__n
    
    Using caps isn’t exactly literary artistry.
    - Azra
      
      It’s free expression.
- AwwGeezNotThisS**tAgain
  
  Suggest changing your name to useless troll. The Modavations zombie is back.
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  Some of you, that admit to ‘chemically’ altering your brain, brag about going to Boston College (evidently on a quick day-visit), show a lousy command of spelling, and punctuation, and other faults, object to my method of emphasizing?

FarkusDulsun

You old farts that hang around her all weekend in some kind of meaningless circle jerk are delusional. Even the Republicans I know that voted for Bush twice are going to vote against Romney. He is gonna get creamed because of his position of taxing the rich.
And he should. Now if only someone who wasn’t a sell-out was running against him. . . .

Worried for the country(MA)

They said the same thing about Reagan in 1980.

See you in November.
Warren

Sounds liike “Whistling by the Graveyard”to me.I predict President Romney in a landslide.By the way,your nose grew three inches after that whopper
- AwwGeezNotThisS**tAgain
  
  Modatroll reborn. Belch.

Warren

Mayor Bloomberg suffers a Napoleonic Complex.He buys the legislature,and (like Hugo Chavez) changes the law, allowing him to remain in power.Now he patronizes all with his Nanny Statism.Soon his hand will reach into our showers to turn down the “Hot Water”.
Remember Zuccotti Park.It turns out the park is privately owned by Brookfield Office Properties(worth 20 Billion).This co.received a partial loan gaurantee from the Energy Dept ,for a 135 million.They are involved in a phoney baloney wind farm in N.H..Ms.Taylor,the mayor’s sweety,sits on the Broofield’s Board.Joe Bidens son works for a law firm that handles Bloomfield’s account.
Who said,”We are Socialists,we are enemies of todays capitalistic system for the exploitation of the economically weak,with it’s unfair salaries”…..While one might think this could be the ramblings of any OWS type ,you’d be remiss.It was said by Adolph Hitler in 1927

Worried for the country(MA)

Unfortunately, I saw Mike Bloomberg on CNN today and watched him justify his endless intrusion into people’s private lives. I too was wondering if the man suffers a Napoleon complex. Maybe he’s just a bored multi -billionaire who thinks the American people are his personal play things.

feettothefire

To Worried for the Country(MA) and Gregg: I’m very proud of the three of us. Today we engaged in lengthy debates about two subjects, OnPoint’s use of words and the power of the presidency to effect the economy. No one called anyone stupid. No names were flung about. Some points were well made. There was no “Oh yeah, sez you” bullshit, the like of which fills this forum on a daily basis. Despite the fact that the two of you and I probably agree on very few political issues, I’ve enjoyed today’s conversation enormously. I think our conversations today should be gathered together and doled out in some fashion to the dozens of contributors to this site who think angry confrontation is a substitute for civil discussion. Maybe we could send a copy to Congress, too.

Gregg

Back atcha FTTF but I did yell a little.
- feettothefire
  
  Nah, you were just clearing your throat.
Worried for the country(MA)

Keep calling for civility — sometimes it’ll stick.
Azra

BRAVO!!! WELL DONE!

Warren

Here’s a happy end to the week.Last night we were driving back to Boston from Hanover,N.H.and had the new “Smashing Pumpkins” on.I had to pull over a few times,get out of the car and howl.Grab the C.D. toute de suite

AwwwGeezNotThisS**tAgain

Modatroll reborn. Sort of. New handle. S.O.S.
- Warren
  
  Look at my profile.I am Warren.When I look at yours I find NJ..I take it Pres.Kennedy was not describing you in Profiles In Courage
JGC

Do you think Merida was modelled after Melissa Auf der Maur?

Azra

Can anyone here tell me why low gas prices are not good news please?

nj_v2

Is this a trick question?
- Azra
  
  Sounds like it, I guess, and I love to have a laugh.
  
  In earlier comments, (Friday? Saturday?), I mentioned the great news of lower gas prices. Someone left a cryptic reply, but wouldn’t explain why it wasn’t good news. Gregg has kindly explained it for me.
  
  According to earlier predictions, and what I kept seeing and hearing, many Americans were complaining about the escalating gas prices, and wrongly blamed the President for the situation. Pundits said that if prices went down, President Obama would be reelected. To me, it was good news for motorists, Barack Obama, therefore fabulous news for America.
  
  I can understand why you were bemused.
  - nj_v2
    
    Greggg doesn’t ever explain anything. He cherry picks fact-y sounding things and spins and whirls things to suit his hyper-partisanship.
    
    My straight answer to your question is that, 1) lower prices = more consumption = more global warming = more costs to humanity as a whole while oil companies continue to be among the most profitable businesses on the planet, and, 2) it delays the inevitable reckoning which will (soon, relatively) occur when fossil fuel prices will inexorably rise.
    - Gregg
      
      Many want high gas prices, as I said. And for the reasons you cite. Did I get anything wrong? Smarty pants.
    - Azra
      
      Earlier, posted a lengthy reply, but it still hasn’t shown up here. Guess it won’t appear. I’ve had a cocktail or two this evening, so probably messed it up. Sorry!
      
      The jist is that I agree with you, and the rest of the world, completely. The environment is my main concern, over jobs, abortions, our economy, or anything else. Without safe food, air, and water, how can anyone stay aliive? Without clean air, food, and water, nothing can exist, so a healthy environment must be everyone’s top priority. After we’ve accomplished that, we’ll be able to tackle other problems.
      
      First and foremost, we have to somehow get away from fossil fuels and chemicals, also animals in our diet. Once we’re all eating healthy, organic foods, we will eventually detoxify our systems, and clear our heads, balance hormones, etc.. When we’re finally able to think clearly, we’ll be ready to take on all other challenges.
      
      Without a healthy planet, we won’t have anything to eat or drink. Then, all we can do is watch our children and grandchildren, (our spouses, and ourselves), slowly, and agonizingly, starve to death. Common sense tells us that we must get rid of pollution and toxins. Before anything else, we have to clean up our home. Once we’ve trashed Earth, there’s nowhere else for us to go. I’m with you, first things first. We must detoxify, respect, and cherish our planet. It’s all we’ve got, and everything we need, as long as we take care of it.
Gregg

The major reason for the drop in prices is a horrible economy across the world. There just isn’t much production going on, plants are closed and people don’t have jobs. Demand is down. A lessor reason is we are producing more because of the expansions made under Clinton and Bush. Clinton increase drilling permits by 58% and Bush doubled it to 116%. Supply is up. Obama has decreased permits by 36% and in 2010 2/3rds of permitted wells sat idle. There is no confidence low gas prices can be sustained and many (Obama included) want high gas prices. Also $3.41/gal. (National average) is still very high by historical standards.
- Azra
  
  Thank you for that.
Fredlinskip

The days of under $1 gas price we had before W was elected are long gone.

That was when oil corps decided that record annual profits would become standard practice.
- Azra
  
  Yes, those days are long gone. They might never return.

nj_v2

Is this a trick question?

Azra

Good for them! They’re doing great things. In days gone by, this was the norm. People were generous then, doing everything they could possibly do to bring a bit of happiness to those who could not find it for themselves. They were much more caring in the twentieth century, doing whatever they could to help their felliow man. They were all much more secure than young, modern Americans. These days, it’s every man for himself. We can’t be sure of anything. EVER? We can’t trust anybody, some people are believing the lies being told to them by Republicans, because they are too lazy, or are unable to check the facts FOR THEMSELVES? It is the duty of every American to make sure that their neighbors are being taken care of. If they are bed-ridden, we must be sure that we are there for them, to fluff their pillows, to read to them, and just to be there, providing every comfort we posibly can, in their hour of need. Most of all, we must all be ready to give, to everyone who needs it, the most loving, caring bearhug of their lives.

It’s not at all difficult, and is what we have all been put on this earth to do; to help our fellow man in every possible way; to do for others whatever they could

Please forgive me for being so emotional. I have just lost one of my best friends.
- Azra
  
  Sorry for the numerous errors, and empty spaces. Unable to fill them in right now. Must go.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    Lady, Anyone that cannot understand, has NO soul, compassion, nor purpose on Earth.
- Azra
  
  Sorry. There are question marks in places where I wanted to leave a full stop. Am typing this on Nook, a gift from a very special person, and a gift I will always treasure. Still finding my way around this alien keyboard, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I love my fabulous Nook Color almost as much as I love the person who gave it to me. She was my dearest friend, and I will never forget her. May she rest in peace until I join her in the hereafter, whatever & whenever that may be, because once I get there, we will have only more good times together; no time to rest.
  
  As you know, my friend, I’ve raised a glass in your memory, often tonight
  - Azra
    
    We miss you terribly, and we love you, Lucy. Thank you for enriching the lives of all who knew you, and thank you, especially, for sharing your last days on earth with ME; I couldn’t feel more honored, or more proud to have known you. Don’t know why I was chosen to fulfill the final request on your “bucket list”, but I’m forever grateful. We always had such a great time together, I can’t believe it has so suddenly come to an end.
    Once again tonight, we are all raising our glasses. To quote the lyrics of your favorite song, “this one’s for you”.
- Azra
  
  Sent prematurely. Sentence, and paragraph, not completed. Oh, well. These things happen. So easy to make mistakes nowadays, even your cat rubbing the keyboard can completely change the dynamics. Then she looks at you so innocently, with those loving eyes, and you melt.
  - nj_v2
    
    If one registers with Disqus, one can edit one’s posts. Just sayin’…
- Warren
  
  My condolences,but this is not the spot for this.Last weekend only 30 were shot in Pres.Obamas Chicago.Is The President’s Chicago more perilous then Baghdad?
  - Ray in VT
    
    How many car bombs are going off in Chicago these days?
    
    http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=161486
    
    As usual, you are full of it and so blinded by your ideology that you can’t even see it. Also, please don’t chastise Azra for “this is not the spot for this.” Why don’t you tell me about what you were beeboping down hall to this morning? Because that’s totally appropriate for this forum.
  - JGC
    
    Good Lord, Warren, remind me to never request you give the words of comfort at the passing of any of the beloved folks in my circle…
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    Your depth of compassion is GROSSLY evident!!
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  My heartfelt condolences! You were THERE for her/him, I’m sure.
  Check out what your local Volunteer Fire-Fighters, Volunteer Rescue Squad members, Volunteer Medical First-Responders, Court-Appointed Special Advocates, and other Volunteers, that put themselves in harm’s way for others, do.
  There are STILL people that help!

JGC

Hatch wins Utah’s primary, Rangel wins New York’s. Triumph of the Incumbent!

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don’t think many of us care about Egypt.

Guests

C-Segment: Aung San Suu Kyi’s Speech at the British Parliament

From Tom’s Reading List

Video: George Zimmerman’s Reenactment