Captain Ed, loyal party flack.
I would take this as a sign that the GOP now feels threatened by Obama.
BTW- Is there anyone except the troglodyte right who thinks our Cuba policy has been a success and doesn’t need to be thought through? I mean, if you want to look at long-term failed policies, Cuba could be right up there at the top. What exactly has been accomplished?
*** Update ***
LOL- Ed responds:
John Cole doesn’t see anything wrong with a presidential campaign office featuring a Cuban flag with a picture of Che Guevara? Along with the ubiquitous personal insult towards anyone with whom he disagrees, John tries to cast it as a courageous statement that our policy towards Cuba needs to be rethought. And he calls me a flack?
Yeah, I was clearly trying to frame the sign as questioning a policy. I should have called you a moron. Seriously, the point of this is that you are now making a big deal out of nothing, and as a loyal GOP soldier, it is up to you to make a stink out of what is essentially nothing. But you know that, and we know what your role is- Dan Bartlett told us.
*** Update #2 ***
From the comments:
As I tried to point out in the comments at CQ (and for the record, Ed is a friend of mine) you need to listen to the AUDIO of the tape instead of just looking at the picture. The reporter at… yes – FOX… specifically says that these are VOLUNTEERS who are OPENING the office, and that the actual Obama staffers are expected to be there by the END OF THE WEEK. Hello?
Hyperbole anyone? I do like Ed and enjoy his blog, but this particular new media attack smells a tad of desperation to get some dirt on Obama. Ed didn’t originate it, but it will run across the e-mail lines just like the now long since debunked “Obama is a double secret Muslim who attended a AQ suicide bomber grade school” story. Unfortunate.
Get used to it, as it is going to be a long year. The party apparatchiks like Ed will have a busy schedule creating fake controversies like this, and we have not even had the “Hussein” Obama, fifth columnist, onslaught yet. But don’t you dare call them party flacks! Then you become unreadable!
John S.
A shitload of Cubans moved to South Florida, ensuring the Republicans have a solid base of red in what otherwise would be a sea of blue.
KCinDC
Come on, John, we have to give the Cuba policy a fair trial. It may appear that all we’ve done is kept Castro in power for decade upon decade, but just wait another 40 or 50 years. Then maybe we can judge it.
The same applies to Iraq, of course.
HumboldtBlue
I’ve always wondered just what the hell we accomplished in Cuba myself. In fact, I just caught ol’ Cap’n Ed’s rant and linked it to a comment at TBogg’s place.
For even more fun, and for those of you who already haven’t, please check out Sadly No for his precious photo of Cap’n Ed at CPAC.
demkat620
Well, I guess they are going to win the most significant election of our lifetime with a candidate they hate and a bag of tricks that didn’t work in the last election.
They are nothing if not predictable.
srv
I for one would be willing to sell Florida to Castro.
jcricket
Cuba’s provided endless fodder for the right-wing blowhards to prove their “anti-communist street cred”, especially post cold war.
Oh, and the continued existence of Castro and a communist regime has likely won Republicans Florida (with all that anti-castro ex-Cuban voting) a whole bunch.
Other than that? Negative results. Probably propped up Castro far longer than he would have otherwise been in charge had we normalized relations years ago.
Scotty
Are communists really that scary any more? If they can play baseball for the Yankees they’re damn well not.
Keith
I’m eagerly awaiting the end of the embargo so that I can enjoy easier access to their fine tobacco products.
AkaDad
Captain Ed hates black people.
Steven Taylor
Our Cuba policy has been an utter failure, without a doubt.
Indeed, one could blame the electoral college, in part, for its continuance (much like we can blame the privileged position of Iowa for ethanol subsidies). No presidential candidate is willing to risk losing the vote in Florida over the issue of Cuba, so we get to keep it.
Ain’t that special?
Steven Taylor
Looking at Ed’s post, I see that the brouhaha is over the Che flag. Now, the Cuban flag with Guevara’s picture on it isn’t probably isn’t a good PR move for Obama supporter.
Indeed, the Che symbology often gets people on the right rather worked up. Of course, as I tried to explain over at my place a while back, most people don’t understand the Che symbol anyway.
Carol
Cost us a ton of money too. How many billions did we spend in a futile attempt to isolate Cuba and overthrow Castro? If we had the same policy towards Cuba that we had towards say, Poland, the velvet revolution would have taken hold, and there would have been a nice social democratic Cuba there now. Folks would be going to Havana for weekend trips.
It’s just the embittered elites that want to keep the embargo going in the hope that a broke Cuba would give them back their estates. They should suffer the same fate as the Russian, German, and other overthrown elites before them-give up and live in exile.
Dennis - SGMM
I’m old enough to remember the black and white news footage of Castro and his entourage bringing live chickens on the plane when they came to the UN in 1959 or so. I was in my first year of high school when my parents worriedly stocked up on groceries at the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Our Cuba policy, if you can call it that, has been a continuing mystery to me in the years since. There have been, and continue to be, dictators who make Castro look like Mr. Rogers, nonetheless our Presidents, Vice Presidents, and various Cabinet Secretaries shake them by the hand.
I’m guessing that our Cuba policy is the result of the influence of the sugar monopoly, the fact that Cuba has no oil, and the frisson of solid Republican votes from Florida’s Cuban-Americans.
SpotWeld
The thing about the Cuba policy… it’s just be so stagnant. It seems to actually created a weird sort of stability around Castro that has allowed him to prepare for the secession of his regime now that he’s in his last decade of life. Imagine what it would be like over there if Cuba was getting pulled down by the US economic problems like the UK is at the moment.
Ron Beasley
Yes the Cuba policy has been a failure but it’s OK because it’s been a bi-partisan failure. Let’s here it for unity!
Scotty
And the Republicans have David Duke on their side. Do we really have to start this back and forth so long before the elections?
Jen
Well, if there are any impressionable Hillary fans who might be swayed by Cuba (ahem, jcricket, cough cough), food for thought…
SteveinSC
Let’s see:
Cuba Communist =Bad
China Communist=Walmart=Good!
That barack HUSSEIN obama is a terrorist-symp for sure.
Trips
For some reason, I find this comment from the ed-thread to be strangely soothing, even though it might just be the sound of the wurlitzer gearing up towards outrage mode:
The GOP outrage machine has fallen so far, so fast.
Jen
Well, I’m probably a touch older than the typical Obama fan, but I’m going to guess Captain Ed’s bombshell is about as incendiary to them as, well, those t-shirts with Che on them that they sell in head shops. Good grief, most of his voters were 20 years pre-born when Castro came to power.
wingnuts to iraq
communist suck unless they’re from China!
Paul A' Barge
Um, you nattering mutts do realize that the current Cuba policy has been going on for over 50 years and transcends both DHIMMIcRAT and Republican administrations, right?
I mean, I can understand the hot fetid desire to hyper-wad one’s panties, but don’t you save just a fraction of that brain space for the simple facts?
Hart Williams
Yeah. A photo from the Houston office (allegedly) who’ve probably never so much as been on a conference call with the candidate indicates what the candidate’s policies are going to be. Sure.
So, I presume Ted Bundy, as assistant to the Washington State Republican Party’s Chairman was indicative of how the GOP views population control issues?
Naturally! How wonderful the world of logick must be when you toss rationality to the four winds and skip naked through the daisy fields of your own brain.
No wonder they call him “Special” Ed.
Oberon
I’m not one to defend the right wing bloggers, but c’mon — flying a Cuban flag in a candidate’s office is pretty wrong.
That said, our Cuba policy is retarded.
ladonne
Sorry, but I have a really hard time taking someone who calls himself Captain (and has never been captain of anything as far as I know) and asks for a cool $3K to speak seriously.
If I were jobless like most of the wingnuts posting this pic (I’ve seen it on 3 blogs so far and have only just started looking), I guess I could drive over there tomorrow to confirm the story.
I’m adding this to the list of things to remember come the general election.
Xenos
“I don’t need proof to execute a man, I only need proof that it’s necessary to execute him.” “Certainly we execute,” boasted Che at the UN General Assembly in 1964, “and we will continue executing as long as it is necessary. Wikipedia
I can’t figure out why the GOP does not like Che. He sounds just like one of them.
pettyfog
Way to divert…
I’m onna those ‘Right-Wing’ nutjobs who think our Cuban policy stinks just as much as you do.
If we’d dumped the stupid sanctions a long time ago, Castro would have been long gone, too.
People sporting Che likenesses around has nothing to do with our stupid sanctions policy, it’s about what he did and what they think he stands for.
He was a thug, pure and simple and in it for the thrills
Jazz Shaw
As I tried to point out in the comments at CQ (and for the record, Ed is a friend of mine) you need to listen to the AUDIO of the tape instead of just looking at the picture. The reporter at… yes – FOX… specifically says that these are VOLUNTEERS who are OPENING the office, and that the actual Obama staffers are expected to be there by the END OF THE WEEK. Hello?
Hyperbole anyone? I do like Ed and enjoy his blog, but this particular new media attack smells a tad of desperation to get some dirt on Obama. Ed didn’t originate it, but it will run across the e-mail lines just like the now long since debunked “Obama is a double secret Muslim who attended a AQ suicide bomber grade school” story. Unfortunate.
Scott Free
So what you are all saying is that if a Republican candidates local office had a German flag with, say, a picture of Heinrich Himmler on it, you would have no objections? After all, the Versaille treaty was unfair, and American support for it was bad policy, etc., etc.?
Jen
Wow, got to Godwin fast on a Monday night!
I would find that hilarious. I would certainly want to learn more about the Doughy Pantload’s musings on that, too.
Xenos
Fairy!
Sorry, just feeling puckish tonight.
Tsulagi
You know, just as our courageous cowboy president is afraid of horses, my guess would be the valiant Captain Ed is afraid of water unless his mom is there to let the bathwater out. It would just fit in the Party of Bush.
Jake
Now, now. I’m sure that if China were to roll into Taiwan tomorrow and start breaking heads Bush would take firm steps against the Chinese government. Look at how he took on Saudi Arabia for its treatment of political dissidents. Look at how he cut relations with Pakistan when Musharraf declared le etat c’est moi. And how can you forget the way he rushed into action when North Korea tested a nuke?
Sorry, I just wanted to see if I could type all that without busting up.
jcricket
Is Dan Bartlett the retarted brother of Jed Bartlett, the Democratic President in that West Wing documentary series by Aaron Sorkin?
Seems about right to me :-)
Inneresting, although I honestly find her “political calculus” with this regard reasonably smart. Trying to break new ground on Cuba before the election seems needlessly sticking one’s neck out there, if you ask me. I’m just not worked up enough about Cuba for it to sway my vote.
Yes, yes, Clinton’s a triangulating political automaton and Obama speaks from the heart. Or he’s a empty-suit secular Joel Osteen-esque political cypher and she thinks things through. Those are the only options, btw.
More seriously, the only thing it will take to sway me is for Obama to win the nomination. Then I’m Mr. Obama, all day, all the time through the general. Don’t care who he picks as VP. But for right now I’m on Hillary’s side (b/c you are all so mean and spiteful, of course).
TR
I love that Special Ed, of all people, is complaining about how much bitterness there is here. Priceless.
And why is he getting his XXXXL panties in a wad over Che Guevara? Was their a lull in the pointless stream of Chappaquiddick jokes?
Laugh it up now, Special Ed. November is going to hurt like a bitch.
TR
Is it possible to be deemed unreadable by the functionally illiterate?
He considers “Highlights for Children” unreadable too.
ladonne
But Jake, China is halfway around the world, like Saudi Arabia and North Korea are. Cuba is right in our backyard and has been flipping the finger at us for years. Oh, and now Raul is really in charge. Very bad.
Captain Ed might have to get in a boat and go confront Raul. These are very serious times. Indeed.
D-Chance.
So if the Cuba policy was that bad… why wasn’t it changed in the 90s when the Dems had control of the White House for 8 years? Hell, Monica would have had a better quality cigar to work with…
Pug
Now I’m really confused. Che Guevara?
I thought it would be Osama bin Laden since . . . you know . . . he’s a Muslim and went to a madrassa and all. These are clearly some mixed up people in Houston, which is itself a hot bed of radical communists, as everyone knows.
Sven
Ernesto Guevera was a great man! If more of our leaders would show the courage to honor Che, this country would be a much different place. He understood that capitalism was a cancer that had to be aggressively excised. When will we stop pandering to Middle America and begin forcing the redistribution of wealth? LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD!
shunha7878
Well, libs, would it be alright to put up a Nazi flag? And as far as our cuba policy, it will change when cuba pays for all the property they stole. The ball has alway been in their court. Read a little history.
Jake
Apologies to those who do not like Blackadder, because the following will make no damn sense:
Jon H
‘shopped. I can tell from the pixels.
They changed the picture, which in reality is a blown-up photo of Bush and some Saudi in a muu-muu sweetly holding hands.
SteveinSC
“…the ubiquitous personal…”
I’ll take words that can’t replace “gratuitous” for fifty bucks, Alex.
William Teach
So, John, what is your idea for dealing with Cuba? Kinda missing that part?
Jon H
Speaking of stupid Republicans swallowing Obama smears, I ran into two cases today.
Some woman called into CSPAN on the GOP line this morning, and pretty much rattled them all off, ‘muslim’, the pledge, etc.
And at the BBC News website they have a photo feature of Baltimore voters and their opinions. The last is an early-20’s Republican girl who says she’s going to vote for McCain, and she mentions Obama’s ‘muslim background’. That’s not her only item of ignorance – she says she doesn’t like Bush’s stance on abortion; so why is she voting for McCain?
John Cole
I would normalize relations. If we an handle dealing and trading with the Chicoms, I think we can handle Cuba.
LiberalTarian
Huh. Well, that’s relatively interesting. Not.
William Teach
OK, that’s a start. Preciate the response
ladonne
Is there some sort of penalty for going when someone else has already?
Svensker
Hmmmm. The Republican position (judging from the winger posts here) is that since Clinton didn’t normalize relations with the Cubans, nyah nyah nyah nyah. Or something.
The whole Cuba thing is dumb. And how can we consider ourselves free citizens when our government tells us where we can travel? (Well, forget the free citizen thing…) Seriously. The Cubans in Florida/New Jersey who don’t want things normalized also travel to Cuba all the time — I know a bunch of them who do it.
Seriously, wing nuts, what’s the rationale for keeping up the “pressure” on Cuba?
Jake
I don’t get this. Are we to believe that she (or any other Republican voter) considered voting for Obama, but the “Muslim background” was a deal breaker?
Bryan
Read the update, moron. The flag was in the office before the Obama people set up shop.
But in any case, the Nazis were a fuckload worse than the Cubans. Sweet Jesus, get a grip.
Jake
Yep. You have to forfeit a chance to troll the next thread.
Jack Moss
Juan Cole. In a word, “Pathetic”.
GSD
Cuba is a horribly repressive communist dictatorship that must be marginalized by democratic free capitalist nations.
Unlike freedom loving China.
GOP-ers hate identity politics, unless of course they are courting Cuban-American votes then suddenly brown skinned immigrants are welcomed with open arms.
The modern day GOP is rotting off the bone corrupt.
-GSF
GSD
Why would a Republican office have pictures of such known leftists as Hitler and Himmler?
-The Doughy Pantload
The Other Steve
I think what Ed is really arguing here is…
“The Che Guervava flag was obviously sent to this office by the Barack Obama HQ out of Chicago. I don’t see how any thinking person could reasonably come to a conclusion otherwise.”
It’s not possible that Instapundit merely linked to a little green footballs post which noted this from the video, and thought they could play a little gotcha politics by taking something out of context and making it appear to be more than it really was. Simply not possible. Captain Ed argues in good faith. Everyone knows that.
Scott Free
“But in any case, the Nazis were a fuckload worse than the Cubans. Sweet Jesus, get a grip.”
I don’t object to Himmler because he was Bavarian, I object to him because he was a Nazi. Likewise, my objection to Guevara has nothing to do with his nationality (Argentinian, not Cuban btw.) but to his Marxist ideology. And yes, Marxists killed far more people than the Nazis ever did.
So to restate my question: How many of you liberals currently in high dudgeon over the Rights’ reaction to seeing a communist hero prominently displayed in a campaign office of a Democrat would have raised no objection to a similar display of a Nazi hero in a Republican office?
The Other Steve
So you are basically saying you are taking this whole thing out of context, expressing false outrage, to make a cheap political point?
Why would you do that?
Jymn
I`m so sick of stupid, idiot Dems doing this kind of moronic mistake. Captain is a foot soldier of unbridled allegiance to rascism, sexism and fascism, but he has a point that this is not a good sign for a presidendtial candidate. It shows someone who is not prepared, serious, or involved enough to manage an air-tight campaign. America is a fudged-up place, even among Dems.
Phil
Good god John, are you a hack or what? I know I stopped bothering pointing out your stupidity but this is just too dumb for you even.
Let’s flip the script: A Republican branch of John McCain’s re-election campaign proudly boasts a picture of Mussolini and puts it prominently on their wall.
Would John Cole respond “Seriously, the point of this is that you are now making a big deal out of nothing, and as a loyal GOP soldier, it is up to you to make a stink out of what is essentially nothing.”?
If you said, “I think John Cole is so full of shit at this point, he doesn’t even realize he’s full of shit”, then you’d be correct.
My respect for your integrity has now officially plummeted to zero. Good luck being a loyal party soldier though John! You’re still a hack, you’ve just changed sides.
Brainster
And let me point out as well that our policy towards Che Guevara needs to be adjusted as well. Is there anybody other than the Troglodyte Right who doesn’t recognize that he’s a hero and should be on the ten-dollar bill?
Scott Free
“So you are basically saying you are taking this whole thing out of context, expressing false outrage, to make a cheap political point?”
There is nothing false at my outrage at seeing a Marxist thug lionized in an office of a serious presidential contender. If Barak Obama is attracting the support of communists, I – and the majority of American moderates – cannot help but to wonder what his core beliefs are, and why they have so far been hidden under a vague and cozy layer of feel-good platitudes.
If anyone is going for cheap political points here, it is those on this thread that a) insist this is no big deal (when they know damn well that they would be shouting from the rooftops from now till November if a Republican office had a Nazi/KKK/Confederate flag prominently displayed, or b) attempt to change the subject to Americas relations with Cuba.
This is a serious and damaging political gaffe. If Obama is to emerge from this unscathed, lies, denial and obfuscation are not what he needs.
Joe
The post at issue actually noted the following about the flag:
“Does Obama know his Houston supporters honor a terrorist in his campaign office? I’m sure he doesn’t. However, it would behoove him to ensure that the flag gets taken down and that he renounces any affinity for Che and the Fidel Castro regime.”
There’s really nothing wrong with that statement—it doesn’t bash Obama for the flag. In fact, it specifically states that the author assumes Obama does not know about the flag and notes the obvious fact that having a Cuba/Che flag on your wall is not a good way to win a Presidential election in the United States.
Maybe a few of you could spend a little less time trying to figure out witty ways to insult “Rethuglicans” and actually read the post you are commenting on all the way through.
(And please don’t use the “well he didn’t criticize Obama but just by spreading the story he knew he was hurting him” because that is exactly what this site is doing as well).
The Other Steve
Yes, it was quite obvious to all right thinking Americans, that the flag was a gift from the Obama campaign.
We appreciate your concern, and shall remember it upon your second visit to balloon-juice.com
The Other Steve
Perhaps a $10 coin?
Phil
“And let me point out as well that our policy towards Che Guevara needs to be adjusted as well. Is there anybody other than the Troglodyte Right who doesn’t recognize that he’s a hero and should be on the ten-dollar bill?”
I don’t pretend to be a regular here so someone please tell me Brainster is a self-parody of some kind. Or are Democrats still so tripped up on acid that they don’t know what decade it is? Che is dead. He was nothing more than a political assassin and has joined his Commie friends in the ash heap of history. Good riddance.
ladonne
apologist
John S.
Cripes, who let all these deranged lunatics in here?
Actually, we’d all want to know what kind of counters they had in the office. And of course, who would need to bother going after McCain for a picture of a dead fascist when we can go after him for being a completely full of shit opportunist who will say anything to get elected?
The Other Steve
Did you type this while eating cheetohs?
I think it’s important that we all know the question to that. Are your fingers stained orange?
The Other Steve
So Che is pretty irrelevant then?
The Other Steve
This is an excellent point.
Jake
Well John, it looks like you’ve lost the respect of another drunk.
You have to stop that or you’ll be accused of hating on the practicing addicts.
Phil
The post at issue actually noted the following about the flag:
“Does Obama know his Houston supporters honor a terrorist in his campaign office? I’m sure he doesn’t. However, it would behoove him to ensure that the flag gets taken down and that he renounces any affinity for Che and the Fidel Castro regime.”
There’s really nothing wrong with that statement—-it doesn’t bash Obama for the flag. In fact, it specifically states that the author assumes Obama does not know about the flag and notes the obvious fact that having a Cuba/Che flag on your wall is not a good way to win a Presidential election in the United States.
Maybe a few of you could spend a little less time trying to figure out witty ways to insult “Rethuglicans” and actually read the post you are commenting on all the way through.
(And please don’t use the “well he didn’t criticize Obama but just by spreading the story he knew he was hurting him” because that is exactly what this site is doing as well).
Joe,
Your independence from liberal orthodoxy is duly noted. Congratulations on being a free thinker. I’m glad to see that overt support for Communist mass murderers does bother some on the Left, even if others still idolize the guy (although to be fair most of Che’s idolizers are actually ignorant high schoolers who think his beard looks cool). Interestingly, John Cole, the guy who used to be a conservative, is now shilling for the Democrats and repeats their talking points en masse. What an interesting election cycle this is going to be.
John Cole
This comment, in all of its glory, will be what I send people to when they ask what it means to “concern troll.”
Oh, and btw, Joe, of course fucking Obama doesn’t know what is decorating the walls of distant branch offices that have not yet opened. Christ.
ladonne
Unlike others, it seems that John will let them in.
Counters count.
John S.
Do you know what decade it is? Acid is so 1960s, man. It ceased to be relevant right around the same time Che did.
John S.
Nice double entendre!
The Other Steve
LOL! Glenn Reynolds is linking Fascism to Evolution. It’s pretty funny, in the link they talk about Descent of Man, and how it discussed eugenics and such.
Apparently the missed the whole part of the argument about how welfare was bad because it allowed the unfit in society to survive.
These guys are a hoot! They’re always trying to link something bad to Democrats, whether it be some bizarro discussion of Darwins to a Che flag in what was to become the Obama offices.
DougJ
John, when did you become so shrill?
Don’t you know that this kind of screaming turns off voters who live outside the vegan, soy latte-sipping enclaves of the east coast (and apparently parts of West Virgina)?
Back when you were a Republican, you still engaged in the kind of polite, serious dialog that wanted to hear. Now you’re like Howard Dean turned up to 11.
We’re gonna go to Daily Kos, then we’re gonna go to Obsidian Wings, then Balloon Juice….wheeeee!
Is it any wonder you idiots can’t win an election.
Phil
“Actually, we’d all want to know what kind of counters they had in the office. And of course, who would need to bother going after McCain for a picture of a dead fascist when we can go after him for being a completely full of shit opportunist who will say anything to get elected?”
Ah yes that John McCain, political opportunist. Toed the party line in supporting amnesty for illegals, opposing the Bush tax cuts and supporting the first amendment destroying McCain-Feingold Act. And boy did he lack courage when he supported the surge strategy in Iraq. I mean, it was initially supported by 30% of voters! Double that and you get a majority! This guy’s nothing but a damned opportunist!
Umm earth to John S., I believe you just used your Mitt Romney talking points. Don’t worry, your John McCain talking points (he’s too old, hot-headed, militaristic etc) are in the SECOND drawer.
Jake
I need someone regularly swabs Cap’n Ed’s poop deck. I want that person to reassure me that Cap’n was equally outraged when one of Guliani’s campaign chairs was busted for coke posession and one of McCain’s offered a cop $20 to receive a Monica Lewinsky special.
[sigh] ‘Nother IronyMeter blown to hellangone.
The Other Steve
SURRENDER DOROTHY!
Phil
“Do you know what decade it is? Acid is so 1960s, man. It ceased to be relevant right around the same time Che did.”
No shit Sherlock, that was the POINT of the joke. No one ever accused liberals of being intelligent people but this is pretty dumb, even for you.
The Other Steve
What the fuck does any of this have to do with John McCain’s countertops!?
The Other Steve
SURRENDER DOROTHY OR DIE!
John S.
And he’s all yours. Enjoy voting for him in November.
Jake
Huh wha? Darwin was a Democrat? Maybe he was a fascist. Which is the new Liberal. Or liberal is the new fascist. I forget. The Cheeto Dust is starting to eat my brain stem.
Anyway. Darwin would have a been a Democrat. Dr. King would have been a Republican. Keyes/Huckabee 2008!
The Other Steve
See, that’s the problem with John McCain. He wants to let illegal immigrants like Charles Darwin vote in American elections!
Why I even heard he had countertops made from Chilean granite.
The Other Steve
Maybe they could return him for a refund?
Seems kind of silly to have spent $200 million only to get John McCain as the nominee. $50 could have gotten them John McCain and a carton of smokes.
John S.
Ah, my mistake.
Your delivery sucks, and you may want to work on your punchline. Maybe something along the lines of, “Rectum, damn near killed him!”
The Other Steve
Damn, looks like Phil ran away. I didn’t even get to use my line about a fully operational deathstar. :-(
The Other Steve
Oh yeah! Well it sure was funny when he kicked your dog.
Phil
“And he’s all yours. Enjoy voting for him in November.”
Actually, I was supporting him well before he became the established nominee. Unlike you, I’m not a party hack and admire independence. Also on my plus side, I’m not an apologist for Communist mass murderers as you seem to be.
Tom in Texas
I like how in the World According to Phil, the Republicans are nominating Vietnam War Vets who couldn’t get elected a decade ago, but it’s the Dems that are stuck in the past.
Jake
Grab yer guns and hide the wimmin!
True. So far Phil has only defended guys who encourage prostitution.
SlaveNoMore
John – you’ve got to be kidding me. One can argue pro and con as to the merits of having the Cuban flag on the wall, but Che Guevera? That murderous thug? May as well put up a photo of Stalin.
BTW – subsequent photos have shown several, similar flags throughout the office. How cool!
The “these are volunteers” is a dumb argument at best. Presumably, the paid folks all did a walk-through prior to agreeing to assume the lease.
John S.
You’re a regular trendsetter! How did you make that decision with so many awesome candidates to choose from?
Are you sure you’re a Republican?
On my plus side, I eat live babies and partial-birth abortion fetuses. That’s when I’m not busy burning American flags, performing gay marriages and having bake sales for terrorists, of course.
Sam
If Obama really wants to be like JFK he should call for assassinating the Castros
Phil
I like ad hominems as much as the next guy, but at the end of the day, they’re used by people who’ve lost the argument. And I see a whole lot of them flying around by John’s “readers” (John, you must be very proud to have amassed such a brain trust). Still waiting for an actual defense of why pointing out that a major candidate’s HQ’s ode to a Communist mass murderer is “making a big deal out of nothing” and “making a stink out of what is essentially nothing” as John said above. Perhaps John or one of his comrades in the Politburo would care to try.
I’d say we’ve been having a battle of wits, but it looks like your side has come unarmed John Cole. Hell, your side can’t even understand a rather elementary joke and keep getting your opposing candidate talking points mixed up.
Phil
“If Obama really wants to be like JFK he should call for assassinating the Castros”
Good point. I’ve always wondered about modern liberal’s fascination with JFK. If he were alive today they would have hated him (tax cuts, Bay of Pigs, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty” speech etc). But I guess when your more recent heroes are Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, you tend to gloss over the inconsistencies.
John S.
Clearly.
Don’t give up yet, Phil. We were just beginning to enjoy your repartee (that’s terrorist for witty retorts)!
Jake
True.
Well, nice of you to concede defeat from the start. Looks like it will take a bit longer for McCain to follow your lead.
Zuzu
“That was central to my point!”
No one ever accused wingnuts of being able to write a real joke.
GSD
Phil, when your recent heroes are George. W. Bush, Tom Delay, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Bob Ney, Jack Abramoff and noted Anti-Semite Ann Coulter even a sad old tool like Ronald Reagan looks like a Hollywood star.
-GSD
Ben
I like ad hominems as much as the next guy, but at the end of the day, they’re used by people who’ve lost the argument.
So you basically confess that you regularly lose arguements?
And I see a whole lot of them flying around by John’s “readers”
What’s with the scare quotes? You think that we don’t really read John’s blog, we just have someone else recite it out loud to us?
Still waiting for an actual defense of why pointing out that a major candidate’s HQ’s ode to a Communist mass murderer
Once again you have it wrong. It’s a local office of volunteers. Mr. Obama does not control the decoration of every office for people who support him.
Good point. I’ve always wondered about modern liberal’s fascination with JFK. If he were alive today they would have hated him
First of all, you’re off-message. The talking points clearly state that JFK was an elitist Northeastern adulterer who only won the 1960 election due to vote rigging in Chicago. (At least that’s what they say at Free Republic )
But if you want to talk with normal people, you’d learn that JFK was at least moderately liberal for his time (civil rights, advocating for increasing the minimum wage, and all that stuff). So I don’t have much problem with him.
Now I say to you, you and your ilk would probably hate former Republicans like Eisenhower (“Military-industrial complex”) and Goldwater (“You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight.”)
John S.
Actually, Phil is one of their best.
He was the head writer for the The 1/2 Hour News Hour.
Joe
You wrote:
“This comment, in all of its glory, will be what I send people to when they ask what it means to “concern troll.””
That’s a bit bizarre. I just looked “concern troll” up on Wikipedia and it states this:
A concern troll is a pseudonym created by a user whose point of view is opposed to the one that the user’s sockpuppet claims to hold. The concern troll posts in web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the group’s actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals, but with professed “concerns”. The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt within the group.”
I thought at first you must be smarter than me because you knew what a “concern troll” was and I didn’t. But once I looked it up, I realized you don’t know what it means either.
I didn’t use a sockpuppet and I did not declare myself as supporting your point of view. I simply pointed out that the post in question was not the slam on Obama that it was being made out to be. I wasn’t even trying to be a troll of any kind–it was a honest point to make, and it had been ignored in your post and in the comments up to that time.
Your response to my post insulted me, but you did not refute my point. I assume that is because you could not, because you know my characterization of the post at issue was more accurate than yours.
Phil
“Once again you have it wrong. It’s a local office of volunteers. Mr. Obama does not control the decoration of every office for people who support him.”
Will Obama ask them to take this down? Somehow I doubt this. And why are unrepentent Marxists and Communist assasian sympathizers part of Barack Obama’s campaign? And going one further: why does it upset John Cole so much that this is being pointed out?
Since it’s clear no one here has a clue to any of these answers or are simply pretending that this event didn’t happen (cognitive dissonance can be quite a powerful effect on liberals), I’m calling it a night.
Good night John Cole. Still waiting for the day you hit bottom but you keep on digging.
Ben
Whoa, someone has a big opinion of himself!
Ben
I can’t read his mind, and I doubt other posters here can as well.
Because right-wingers tend to harass and take away their rights. Liberals and centrists tend to believe that radical principle of “I may disagree with you, but I defend your right to say it”, or however that quotation goes.
Um, you just asked these questions, and then leave before anyone even has a chance to answer them. That sure makes a lot of sense!
ladonne
Fred in summer of ’07.
Phil
“I didn’t use a sockpuppet and I did not declare myself as supporting your point of view. I simply pointed out that the post in question was not the slam on Obama that it was being made out to be. I wasn’t even trying to be a troll of any kind—it was a honest point to make, and it had been ignored in your post and in the comments up to that time.
Your response to my post insulted me, but you did not refute my point. I assume that is because you could not, because you know my characterization of the post at issue was more accurate than yours.”
Joe, it doesn’t matter. You opposed liberal group think, ergo you must be destroyed. From the sounds of your posts, it sounds like you’re a liberal, but one who doesn’t toe the party line. Welcome to my respected commenter list, since that definitely puts you in the minority on Balloon Juice. Perhaps you’ll consider a big tent like McCain later on.
Ben
Ok, so you pretend to think nicely of Joe, but you still consider him an “other”. Classy.
Phil
“Fred in summer of ‘07.”
That’s correct, Fred was my first choice early on, but once he dropped out, I sided with McCain. Not sure how you know this exactly since I never actually blogged about it, but I don’t toe the party line and never will. Unlike John Cole, who was a hack for the Republicans before he became a hack for the Democrats.
Ben
Unlike John Cole, who was a hack for the Republicans before he became a hack for the Democrats.
Just wondering, were you calling John a hack during his Republican days? I mean Phil, you’re a perfectly consistent poster, and certainly would never do anything inconsistent whatsoever, so I imagine you were regularly calling him “far-right” and other labels like that, right?
mishu
When Glenn Reynolds linked to Ed Dricoll’s idea about Darwin’s ideas inspiring racism, the other steve laughed derisively in a vain attempt to prove he’s somehow smart. Time to draw pictures for the other steve so he understands.
http://www.understandingrace.org/history/science/measuring_race.html
Joe
I respect Obama and think he is a good guy, but don’t worry, Phil, I am voting for McCain.
(I just wish he had won 8 years ago, before his face started looking so distractingly lumpy).
ladonne
You are predictable. Think about it.
mishu
“Because right-wingers tend to harass and take away their rights. Liberals and centrists tend to believe that radical principle of “I may disagree with you, but I defend your right to say it”, or however that quotation goes.”
That’s exactly what Russ Feingold was going for.
Ben
Nonetheless, Joe, Phil’s branded you as a “liberal” for daring to not outright hate Obama. To some people, even the center seems like the far left.
TenguPhule
Shorter Phil: I suck cocks, but that doesn’t make me gay.
Anyone who still calls themself a Republican toes the party line. You may deny it all you want, but in the voter’s booth you grab your ankles and bend over without even dinner and a movie.
smedly
I don’t get it. Cole says his reference to the Che picture was primarily about how our Cuba policy is a mess. Wtf? The first thing John wrote was that Ed was a flack and that this is a sign that the GOP is afraid of Obama.
Then he says oh by the way our Cuba policy is failed. I had to reread Cole’s post a few times to make sense of him calling Ed a moron, thinking, I thought his basic point was about Ed as a hack?
So I go to Ed’s, then Geraghty’s, then to Fox and watch the damn video. I had to chuckle because I thought Fox was trying to sneak in some jabs against Obama with the clip – mention Obama and have the happy volunteers mentioned in the foreground (and below in the box describing the clip) and then simultaneously in the background is Che’s melon head as proof of his true, covert socialist nastiness floating above the giddy chump volunteers who know not what evil they work for. They seem to jolly to be evil. Or maybe they do know?
My own response to seeing Che was the same as Ed’s, actually. I thought- take the damn thing down. It just looks bad. I know they’re in Texas and it’s power to Hispanics and all that, but shit, Che was a totalitarian bastard. Sure the clip says it was volunteers. So what? The public won’t give a damn.
About 80% of the time I agree with Cole’s nastiness. There came a point past which the only sane response to RedState’s cheerleading, the National Review’s sycophancy, and Capn Ed’s temperate, bland incapacity to be offended by ANYTHING Bush did was to say Fuck You!
It was a God Send to find Balloon Juice. Ed was the worst in a lot of ways, because the man just won’t get angry, no matter how obscenely Bush violates any core conservative principles. Cole’s rage comes through so clearly, and it’s a relief to me, for one. I don’t know how Kevin Drum of James Joyner stay so sedate.
At any rate, about 20% of the time I have to scratch my head and wonder what the hell the disconnect is between he and I. This is one of those times. I looked at the photo and thought: “Yeah, take the flag down, looks bad. Fox is being a sneaky shit, like when they put (D) next to disgraced Republicans like Mark Foley.” Ed wasn’t doing it out of helping Obama like I would want to do it,of course, but gauging Ed’s tone, I just think Ed thought it not kosher for a candidate. Even on those terms, I agree. Che was a shithead. Socialist prick.
I don’t know about the other commenters, but I certainly didn’t get the vibe Cole was trying to primarily make the point that our Cuba policy was fucked. That seemed an add-on. After the fact.
Ah well, here comes the infamous Juice Rage at me, I can feel it now, the world’s angriest commenters…
TenguPhule
Fixed.
100 year Iraq War McCoward. Doesn’t Know Jack Shit about Economics McCain. 300 Men Escort McShitty. Bush’s Bumboy McCocksucker.
All aboard the Straight Talking Shit Express!
TenguPhule
Against Torture before he was for it. Against Fillibusters before he was for it. Shit on his own campaign finance law to wiggle out of spending limits. Supported the Surge to Doubledown with his fellow Republican Assholes. Spoke out against Tax cuts before quietly going along with the gravy train and the pork express. Missed key votes on helping the very Americans he claimed to support. Against Bush who shit on him before bending over and inviting him on in.
Bomb Bomb Iran ring any bells?
TenguPhule
Do we really want to go into a history of who stole what from whom?
The old white men look very very bad if you do.
TenguPhule
Yes. SATSQ.
SGEW
Oi. Look, y’all. Young, “progressive” people are fond of Che because:
-He was good lookin’.
-He had the public relations insight to hang out with an excellent photographer.
-He’s now known as a “freedom fighter” and as an “enemy of tyranny.” Fight the power, and all that.
Beyond that, many young ‘uns just don’t know more about him. Tell them (and I’ve tried, I’ve tried!) that he was, um, actually kind of a cruel monster who relied on brutality and violence in the name of “social justice,” and they’ll just say: “No he wasn’t, what are you talking about?” Leads to some juicy discussions of nonviolent resistance vs. armed revolution (I call it the “streets run red with the blood of innocents” lecture – poor young radicals get really uncomfortable about halfway through).
They grow out of it eventually. But they still like the way he looks (face it, folks, the guy was HOT).
TenguPhule
No, you only apologize for Christian Mass Murderers who think laws don’t apply to them.
Iraq forever, bitches.
Mike
Volunteers they may be. But the flag speaks volumes about the historical ignorance of Obama’s Texas supporters. Of course, it’s a cheap shot. But just the same, isn’t it the least bit conercerning or meaningful to you?! Visit Miami some time and learn a bit more about Che from the sons and daughters of his victims.
Ben
So what’s your point? I can’t tell if you’re trying to insult Obama supporters, or Texans, or if you just want to praise Floridian right-wingers as deities.
dslak
The Obama campaign should require supporters to pass a history test first. Instead of the Nazi comparisons, a more relevant dynamic is, say, the Southern Baptist Convention and its position on slavery, and the fact that it’s a heavily Republican institution. Maybe we should make every young, Baptist Republican disavow their faith’s racist past so they can prove that they don’t suffer from “historical ignorance”?
Nobody even knows what they were thinking when they put up those flags. They could have just thought that they were part of the new “Revolution.” They should get educated, but the concern trolls can go Cheney themselves.
dslak
In case it’s not clear, my statement that Obama supporters should pass a history test first was snark. It should have been preceded with this:
Alice
I have no doubt that Obama is unaware that the “Che flag” is featured in this volunteer-manned office. However, one has to wonder why the same people who support Obama share an affinity with a ruthless mercenary who relished violence and murdered and tortured wantonly. Most of the people who mindlessly wear “Che T-shirts” and put up posters on their wall know little or nothing about Guevara and the scores of victims he left behind. Volunteers or not, the question needs to be asked AND answered: Why do the people who are campaigning to get Obama elected as president see fit to place on their wall the flag of a communist country embellished with the image of a mass murderer?
dslak
Alice, do you also consider the residents of South Carolina to be racist?
dslak
After we’ve finished investigating some Obama supporters’ choice in wall decorations, maybe we can investigate why Dick Cheney hangs out with people who have Confederate flags hanging up in their garage. This question needs to be asked AND answered, don’t you agree, Alice?
conumbdrum
Mexico called… they want their land back.
dslak
You’ll have to wait. I’ve got some Native Americans and Japanese interred during WWII on hold.
Person of Choler
As a wingnut, I’m happy that Obama’s supporters are allowed to show us who their heroes are and hope they are allowed to continue doing so.
I’m not sure how the image of Obama as a well tanned, airfoil- eared version of John Kennedy squares with the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Cuba / Che flags in the campaign office. But, being a wingnut, there is much I will never understand anyway.
dslak
So are you saying that Obama screwed up with the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, or that Kennedy had Cuban flags in his campaign offices?
You know as well as I do that, out of the two major parties, right-wing extremists are more likely to be drawn to the GOP, just as as left-wing ones are more likely to be drawn to the Democrats. In order to continually manufacture stories that play up political tensions and generate ratings, the press – or, in this case, a propaganda outlet – reacts breathlessly whenever somebody associated with either party does something “unserious,” thereby generating the buzz that will fill the airtime otherwise devoted missing white girls.
Tom in Texas
I’m sure Obama the IslamoCommieBlackPanther learned to love Guevara at an early age. Che is a well known hero of Indonesian madrassas after all.
dslak
David Horowitz was already there back in ’03. Just more proof that the modern GOP has killed irony, and with it, sarcasm.
Wilfred
Che was no saint, but he put his life where his mouth was. He’s a hero in South America to the class that has suffered the most at the hands of the oligarchy, those coffee pickers in Brazil and Columbia that work for 50 dollars a month so fat fucks like Captain Ed can sip lattes at 3 dollars a cup and talk about how much they love Jesus.
I’ll bet if you passed through those latifundias in SE Texas you’d find a few Mexicans who know who Che was and what he fought against. But the thought of what Che might actually mean to brown people is, as always, beyond comprehension.
Jake
[face palm]
I forgot the Republican Juke Box can only re-mix old tunes, it can’t create new ones.
This is a replay of the MoveOn.Org movie fiasco back in 2003. OMG SOMEONE WHO SUPPORTS KERRY IS AN ASSHOLE! RED ALERT! BREAK OUT THE PURPLE HEART BAND-AIDS1!
Of course it never occurred to me to suggest that John McCain supports bathroom sex, but I don’t make the rules, I just follows ’em.
Justin
I was at work the other day and a female co-worker (whose father is a preacher) said that her dad had told her that “Obama won’t salute our flag.” Obviously her dad is plugged in to the Republican Noise Machine – I tried to explain to her how nonsensical this is (and false) but she didn’t seem entirely convinced. Isn’t it just lovely how that meshes with the Muslim Smear E-mail Chain saying that Obama is teh Muslim?
Conservatively Liberal
Are you getting bored waiting for him at the bottom?
Fixed.
This non-story is a laugh! Obama’s staff have not moved in and he is already responsible for what was already there?
Responsible? The fucking fruitcakes on the right want to talk about responsible?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Hold it a second while I catch my breath. Ok.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
/wiping eyes
Oh that is just priceless! And these idiots want to be taken seriously?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Stop, please! You are killing me!
p.lukasiak
I’d like to welcome to Obama supporters to the “Clinton rules” — the rules that say that any accusation, regardless of how ridiculous, is fair game when it the Clintons are the object.
“Clinton rules” applied to Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004, and will apply to whoever the Dem nominees is this year.
One of the reasons I support Hillary is that the people who can be influenced by this kind of crap have already made up their minds — and everyone else turns it off. Obama, on the other hand, has never been subjected to ‘the Clinton rules’ — and this “Che Guevera flag” nonsense is just the tip of the iceberg.
dslak
Shorter p.luk: Like everything else, this can only help Hillary.
JohnnyT
You people don’t get it. It’s not about Cuba. Che Guevara symbolizes the worst of Communism in this hemisphere, i.e murders, summary executions and violent revolutions. If would be no different if some Republican candidate had pictures of David Duke up on his campaign office wall, something that I’m sure would send you Obama fans into conniption fits. But it’s OK for Obama, right?
The longer Obama remains silent on this issue, the less of a viable candidate he becomes in my eyes. How can I trust a candidate who has no qaulms about his campaign offices being draped with the images of a Commie butcher who shot countless innocent people in the head?
The Yell
Yes! Normalize relations with Cuba! Banana-republic economics got rid of Pinochet, after all. True, it got rid of him by building him up to the point he thought he could defeat a NATO power in a naval war, but still!
John S.
These ‘conservatives’ are freaking hysterical! They write nonsense like:
Never mind that not one single fucking person on this entire thread expressed an affinity for Che, excused his actions or stated that they thought he was a hero, and yet somehow we get an endless parade of comments to this effect.
Keep fighting the good fight against straw, kids. I guess that’s the only way for y’all to score a victory.
Jake
I love the way it doesn’t mesh with the super secret stealth tarrist crapola.
One the one hand we’re supposed to believe this guy was trained almost from infancy to Hate America, but conceal his America hatred so well that he gets into the White House so he can then let in the guys Who Want 2 Kill Us.
On the other hand we’re supposed to believe he keeps giving himself away or tipping obvious nods to his curvy sword wielding brethren.
Or Che Guavafruit.
Hard to keep track when you’re dealing with the residents of Pantswetterville.
Cheef
It’s a rather smart move by Obama to take advantage of the Che myth to get himself the hispanic vote.
The problem is, he doesn’t know who Che really was, as well as the other millions of people who idolize him don’t know who he really was.
He’s not called “The Butcher of La Cabaña” for no reason. Che stood for oppression (as we can see in Cuba today) and had no qualms of executing anyone (man, woman, child) who disagreed with him.
To say that the embargo is a “failed act of isolating Cuba” is to ignore history. It was Castro who swept away all foreign capital and business, it was Che who destroyed the economy, and it was they who began a regime that keeps people from leaving the country and from accessing the internet.
The idea that allowing American tourists into Cuba would change the government is flawed. Look at all the tourists that already get in from Canada and Europe. Has it done anything for the Cuban people? No. What about all the business that Castro does with Spain, China, and Venezuela? It hasn’t done a single thing for the Cuban people.
That’s why Obama’s not gonna earn himself any favors from the Cuban-American community.
Andrew
It’s bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S, in here!
That’s all I have to say at this point.
dslak
That’s right. Obama had some volunteers put up posters of Che in a building that his campaign hadn’t even occupied yet, just because he knows that Latinos are hawt for teh Che.
Unfortunately, Obama doesn’t know anything about Che. How do we know? Well, we just do.
cleek
this just in: Republicans are fucking stupid.
4tehlulz
facepalm.jpg
Is this the best that you trolls on the right can come up with? Really, at least the bullshit in ’04 was quality bullshit. This is just weak.
Plumb Bob
I do like Ed and enjoy his blog, but this particular new media attack smells a tad of desperation to get some dirt on Obama. Ed didn’t originate it, but it will run across the e-mail lines just like the now long since debunked “Obama is a double secret Muslim who attended a AQ suicide bomber grade school” story.
I suppose that there are some folks silly enough to react this way, while at the same time sophisticated enough to run a blog site. But I don’t know any.
Most of us observe simply that people who like Che and his philosophy also find Barack Obama appealing. That illustrates something about Obama that we’ve been pointing out for a while: his policy choices have more in common with wholehearted socialism than they do with American libertarianism, and that support for Obama is support for a socialist America.
(Unrelated to this topic, please visit my political blog, “Plumb Bob Blog: Squaring the Culture,” at http://www.plumbbobblog.com. Thanks.)
cleek
and Hitler was a vegetarian! Fascism rules at Whole Foods!
the logic is im-fucking-peccable.
p.lukasiak
Shorter p.luk: Like everything else, this can only help Hillary.
I don’t think this will help Hillary, because people who vote in Democratic primaries are highly unlikely to pay attention to this kind of crap.
My only point was that this is the kind of attack on Obama that we can expect to see as a theme throughout the campaign if Obama gets the nomination.
dslak
I did a news search on the Obama/Che angle, and all I turned up were a bunch of right-wing blogs or local conservative papers pushing the story, all saying how the blogs need to link to one another and push the story. Seems none of the big dogs have yet bitten.
I expect this means that Brit Hume will be talking about it on his show tonight, as usually happens with right-wing to-dos that don’t quite make the big time.
dslak
That wasn’t your point, actually. Your point was that Obama will be hurt by these kind of attacks, while Hillary won’t. Let’s see how this one plays out, and maybe you’ll have some evidence for your assumption.
Wilfred
yeah, but there is the Comrade Obamski line:
MusliMarxism!
Carol
The interesting part of this is that Che has simply become a symbol of rebellion by people too young to remember the Cold War, let alone the Cuban Revolution. I’m 51. Castro took over when I was three. Kids born in 1989, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, will be voting in their first Presidential election this year. So all of the fears about Communism are moot to them-they never had the fear-monger stuff. To them, it would be like to me, putting up a picture of the Kaiser on the wall-just a pretty picture. In a way, this reminds me of the 1980’s kerfluffle over the keffayeh that people wore over their coats in the winter. Worn by people who just liked the look and the print.
Yes, its a little boneheaded on the surface. But the kind of people who think Obama might be some sort of Marxist sympathizer were never going to vote for him anyway. In any event, next week the flags will be replaced by campaign posters, American flags and tons of big easel paper as the real work begins on the campaign.
Frankly, it’s time for Americans to stop being scared of symbols-whether they be a flag or a Che poster.
Other Ed
This is not an official Obama campaign office with staffers. These are volunteers and with all volunteers (i.e. take a look at the signs carried by some of the dignified Freepers at GOP events), you get some wackos. As I understand it, the Obama campaign has disavowed any connection and asked the volunteer to take it down.
Am I right in thinking this is very similar to holding a Blogger responsible for every opinion in the comment section?
The campaign’s responsibility, like a Blogger, extends only to their willingness to keep up reprehensible postings after their attention is brought to them. The Obama campaign took it down.
Kevin
What an echo chamber! It’s sad that most partisan blogs end up like this one, with people spouting off unsupportable statements, and then like lemmings, the rest adopt the statements as their own.
This statement implies we had open trade with Poland, and it was that unfettered trade which lead to the collapse of the Wojciech Jaruzelski government and the communist regime.
It didn’t.
The collapse of Poland’s communist regime was brought about by the inherent economic problems of communism… rationing and such. That rationing and other economic hardships in Poland deterministically lead to the creation of Solidarity and the eventual end of Wojciech Jaruzelski.
Kevin
So, is what you’re saying is there’s no reason to get feather’s ruffled over the confederate flag?
It’s just a symbol.
Yashmak
Who is scared of a Che poster? Certainly, no one who has complained about it fears Che Guevara; history’s least effective ‘revolutionary’.
It’s not about fear, it’s about the fundamental lack of seriousness of any Presidential campaign who would post a picture of Che Guevara in its office. It’s about the historical ignorance of Obama’s campaign workers.
Relatively speaking, it’s not a major deal. Were I running for President though, I’d have it taken down though, openly mocking anyone who thinks Che Guevara stands for anything noble or virtuous.
p.lukasiak
That wasn’t your point, actually. Your point was that Obama will be hurt by these kind of attacks, while Hillary won’t.
in the general election. But Hillary gains nothing from these kinds of attacks during the primaries — because its obvious that the people supporting Obama seem to think that he’ll continue to get the same kind of media treatment if he is the nominee that he’s enjoying now — and Obama himself seems to think that the mild criticism aimed at him by the Clinton campaign is as bad as it gets….
Ben
Be careful Kevin. That kind of talk might get you excommmunicated from the next Republican rally!
gary
You people don’t see anything wrong with this? Good! It’ll
make it easier to kick your ass in November. Most Americas do not love Communist murderers. He chose to remove his personal American flag lapel pin. He chose to not place his hand on his heart during *our* national anthem. And now this.
cleek
well, now that you bring it up… the confederate flag completely deflates the wingnut outrage here. you can’t swing a corpse in this country without finding some yahoo sporting a confederate flag, thinking it makes him all cool and rebellious.
rjschwarz
The issue is less the Cuban flag than the Che picture. Che killed a lot of people and his image and association with Marxism is easy ammo for the Republicans to use against Obama. This single office could easily cost Obama the builk of the independents that might otherwise hand him the election.
Frankly I think he needs his Sister Souljah moment here but I don’t see it coming.
Jen
Oh, gosh, and you were seriously considering voting for him until you learned about this “issue”, right? You were an undecided voter until you learned that B. Hussein Obama secretly wishes to shoot people in the head? Thank GOD for Cap’n Ed!
This thread is hilarious. Why are wingnuts only capable of unintentional hilarity, and is it more or less delicious for that fact? Does the fact that they have killed irony, wrapped it in chains, put its feet in cement, and sunk it into Lake Superior, change your analysis? Discuss.
Ben
He chose to remove his personal American flag lapel pin. He chose to not place his hand on his heart during our national anthem. And now this.
If you worship a lapel pin, you are not patriotic. You need to get out of this country and move to some place like North Korea where regulations like that are mandatory.
John S.
Most Americans don’t even know who Che is, let alone be aware of the red menace he represented. Remember, you guys have a new menace to push with Islamofascism. Stick to the Obama = Osama and madrassa/Islamist manchurian candidate memes. Communism is so 1980s. 9/11 changed everything.
Carol
The confederate flag, like the Nazi swastika, are used as symbols by people who are seeking to do active harm against minorities and anyone else they don’t like. Che doesn’t have any groups here that are hassling other Americans, or for that matter, anyone else. I thought of a parallel: the pirate flag. As long as pirates sailed the seven seas, the skull and crossbones was seen as a feared symbol. When pirates vanished, so did the power of that symbol. While the mass murder of the Nazis preclude such an approach, I can certainly see a time say the 2040’s-when the last Holocaust survivor (born as a child, and lived to be a century perhaps), when the swastika returns to its Buddhist origins. The confederate flag may not even last that long, as its revival was partly due to 1960’s tensions over integration and the skinheads.
In Eastern Europe, there were cultural exchanges where people could come and go and visit the countries, especially in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Television penetrated the Iron Curtain starting in the 1970’s. Not to mention the thousands of party officials who traveled westward and elsewhere and saw the differences.
Not so with Cuba. The artists have a hard time being allowed in, American scholars can’t go to Cuba easily and exchange ideas, and thanks to the gusanos, Cuban officials have a hard time coming here.
Ben
He he.
And actually I think this explains why there are those out there who have the Che regalia; they clearly don’t agree with everything the guy did, but when they go around wearing a Che T-shirt, it’s a quick way of finding out who the crazy people are; most Americans only vaguely know of him. Of the people who do, the sane ones know that Che is dead as a doornail and can’t kill people anymore. The crazies, though, have a fit whenever he’s mentioned.
Or, the people the regalia might just have it due to the kitsch factor.
Kevin
So, are you saying that if, say, John McCain volunteers had hung a NAZI flag in a McCain campaign office, the left wouldn’t raise a big stink about it?
Kevin
I’m not a republican. I’m an American.
Kevin
That doesn’t my answer question at all, and is not a very effect insult either.
Being a gay man who isn’t a democrat or republican, I’m not exactly a wingnut in either direction, but with all the democrats out there seeming to pretend there isn’t a threat to ME, as a homosexual, just makes me wanna vote for someone other than a democrat.
Jen
just a weeee bit late to the thread….
Ben
So Che Guevara is a threat to you? I’m not sure I’m following, so I just want to confirm whether or not that’s what you’re saying.
Innocent Bystander
I’m amazed by the amount of moral relativism that the Right can maintain and still think they are somehow more purer in their politics. Their own Che, George W. Bush, lied us into war and killed 100’s of thousands of innocent Iraqi’s for his warped ideals (or perhaps for Big Oil’s bottom line).
I hope Obama, if elected, puts an end to this ridiculous embargo on Cuba. It’s time to look forward and end the mini-Cold War we seem hellbent on maintaining in our own backyard.
Kevin
That doesn’t answer a thing. The closest thing to answer is this…
But that logic doesn’t stand up. The exact same arguments proffered for a Che flag could in fact apply to the Confederate Flag or the NAZI one.
Oh, and as far as the opinion that people who wear a shirt (or fly Cuban flag) with Ernesto Guevara’s face emblazened on it are embracing rebellion, that’s not the case. For if that were the case, then the stars and bars, with a bit of explanation, would be just as appropriate for making that statement. The baggage for either symbol wouldn’t mean a thing if the truth were that both were just symbols for rebellion.
No, those the Worship at the Church of Che aren’t about rebellion for rebellions’ sake, but are seeking to reorder American society more in line with what Che might have liked… a socialist America.
Ben
No, those the Worship at the Church of Che aren’t about rebellion for rebellions’ sake, but are seeking to reorder American society more in line with what Che might have liked… a socialist America.
Kevin
Oh, I apologize for any confusion, but I brought it up (the Middle East) because knew someone would bring it up eventually…
Right on queue…
The moral relativism is yours sir. The fact you even tried to draw some sort of comparison between George W Bush and Ernesto Guevara is proof positive of this. If I actually have to spell out the differences, I’ll then assume you’re beyond hope and move on.
As for warped ideals, Mr. Bush simply thinks that democracy in the Middle East is the cure for their ills and a preventative medicine against the rise of Islamists regimes. That’s been his argument from day one with respect to the Middle East in general.
Now, back to my point above… It’s really more about the general election. I don’t see any democrat at all addressing the issue of what happens to homosexuals in the Middle East. I’ll tell you what happens, we’re summarily rounded up, sentenced and then executed.
I really couldn’t care less about the crypto-delusional rants about republicans on this site. Every single complaint offered here about Bush can apply to ANY politician regardless of party affiliation. So, until a democrat candidates actually start addressing the REAL problems in the Middle East, and how those that created those problems are trying to export those problems elsewhere, a democrat will not get my vote.
Only after Castro’s Cuba allows all Cubans to travel freely should we consider lifting the embargo at all.
The first step is theirs.
chopper
i remember recently when it was pointed out that a hunting club cheney visited in upstate NY had a confederate flag hanging in a shed somewhere. i also remember finding it incredibly lame that some people made a big deal out of it, trying to connect it to cheney.
i’m wondering how this situation is different.
Dennis
Wow…such vitriol from both sides. I have often wondered what political party I really belong to and the answer is..none. I am 60 years old and I grow more disillusioned each day. I came to this site from a link and I feel like I fell into a slime pit. All of you should take a step back and think about who and what you are. It is the right of every American to vote for who they choose, just as there is a fundamental right to free speech. Being upset over seeing Che Guevara on a wall is, I think, a normal reaction from most of us who know what he was. However, I think that it is unlikely that Obama knew it was there. It is, however, a fundamentally fair question to ask about the motivations of those particular people. I, for one, would be concerned about a group who idolize Guevara supporting anyone I supported for President.
All that said, all of you need to back away and try to undertand that this nation is made up of people who have widely divergent views. Having a viewpoint different than your own does not make the other person a lunatic.
Keep it civil.
Carol
And when Castro dies, what will then be the excuse? Lower the embargo now, and let Americans travel freely to Cuba. We are now the only nation that has a travel policy that prevents us from even going for educational purposes. Castro is 90, his brother barely much younger. We should be looking towards the future, and demilitarizing that area and opening it to trade and travel. We have people going to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Communist China, Nigeria and other very repressive regimes every day. Why should Cuba now be any different?
Carol
Reordering society towards a socialist America? You must be over 50 if you think that way about Che t-shirt wearers. Communism is dead, and there’s no revival on the horizon. It’s kitsch, like Victorian furniture or old baseball cards. Nobody old enough to actually do something is in the least bit interested in going there, and there’s no public sentiment for going there even if you could find people who wanted to work towards such a goal. Even China has given up for the most part, and North Korea will as soon as the son of Dear Leader dies or whatever. Certainly nobody is looking for a world wide revolution on the basis of Marx. These days revolutionary sentiments are more likely closer to religious fundamentalism than pure political theory.
Jen
It did, yeah, because I remember how bizarre it was that upstate NY should have such a thing. Did they want us to secede? Do they want to secede? Do they just have solidarity with their Rebel brethren? Do they wish they had our weather?
A much better analogy than the non-existent “NAZI” flag. A stupid question deserves a stupid answer, and I already gave my flip answer, but GSD’s was better.
patrick
I don’t see too much defense of Che or the current Cuban regime here. Who doesn’t like a Marxist hero with a striking visage who has to execute a few here or there, or throw a few troubling dissidents in work camps to be re-educated. It is all for the proletariat, right?
Kevin
Meh…
Dictionary.com says socialism is …
I really get a kick out it when you guys do this stuff… First off, I have no delusions that any of that stuff you mentioned was a right at all, that any of it was owed me at all, nor do I think I’ll get any of it for free.
Rural Electification … it’s simply what it says… Rural Electification, not Nationalized Electrification, which is what it would be under a socialist system.
Public Schools … this is probably the best example of a socialization effect within the United States. As I understand, most people aren’t happy with it. Some advocate more socialism (more taxpayer funds) to fix it, while others favor a less socialist approach (private monies and private schools).
Public utilities … the problems with public utilities are well known, and have been so bad in the past it has provoked many to privatize their public utilities.
Public Roads, National Defense and Fire Stations … maintaining common use items such as the roads and providing for the defense of all Americans, is a mandate of the US Constitution. Roads are something we all use to carry out our daily lives and are something that governments from the time of ancient Rome on forward traditionally built and maintained. The same with the military and those that provide for the public safety. One person generally cannot afford their own military or fire fighters.
I can afford my own healthcare and don’t need an insurance company to provide for me. When I’m sick, I go to the doctor. The receptionist staff issue me a bill, ask me about my payment arrangements, and then I either pay in full or send in a few payments.
The Other Steve
Maybe John McCain will get lucky and they’ll find those WMDs in Iraq!
Jen
I know, he’s a troll, and a bad one, and has that complete and total lack of humor and insight that plague Republicans — O/T can I just say that I used to think “Hagar the Horrible” was the Worst Comic Evah and then my paper started carrying “Mallard Fillmore”? I just can’t resist, some of this stuff is so juicy. By the way, RON PAUL is still in the race and it sounds like you are both of one mind, and about 19 years old. Get on the Paultard (short) bus!
The reason the Rural Electrification Act was required in the first place was to provide places with electricity where the free market wasn’t going to get to them, because it wasn’t cost-effective. It provided federal funding to electrify rural areas unserved by capitalism. ZOMG SOCIALISM!
That’s cool. Where did you get the Immunity Cloak that protects you from cancer and accidents?
Not actually true, because when you poll people about their own schools, they are quite contented with them. Point two, I love how you excerpted a wikipedia definition of socialism, then contended that simply providing the schools with more money increases the “socialism”. I will refer you to your own excerpted definition. So when the military budget goes up as it does every year, the military is getting more and more socialized….interesting…
ENRON, baby! Yeah!
cleek
since i was neither trying to answer any question nor insult you, i guess i succeeded. hooray!
Gus
I love pie.
harkin
The amount of the hate here from the left and the reasoned response from the right seems about normal.
Hilarious but understandable when they consider someone making a valid point a ‘troglodyte’.
OxyCon
During the California primary I was watching CNN and all the Obama nuts were walking around with huge poster sized signs in their hands of Obama in the famous “Che Guevara” pose surrounded by red in all it’s glory.
It really gave me the creeps seeing these idiots holding these signs.
Kevin
The same… Castro is just the personality that put the communist regime in place. It was his creation, but his death will not mean the death of the regime he created.
Let me introduce you to one of the revivalists.
Jen
Cleek, you’re not running your own troll script today? What a waste!
Kevin
Ah, name calling… the first refuge of the hypocrite.
Jen
and the second refuge would be a point-by-point rebuttal of your absurdly simplistic, idiotic points, that you haven’t addressed…?
Kevin
Actually, Jen, if I were really trolling I wouldn’t be wasting my time at this no-name-brand blog, and would focus on the big boys. Kos, LGF, MyDD, Free Republic, Huffington Post, etc. That’s not to say I am not trolling, but it makes exceedingly more sense for a troll, by definition someone who stirs up trouble for the attention, top focus efforts where they will get the most psychological gratification.
I don’t come here to troll, I came here, because of Captian’s Quarters blog. I suppose if your site operator, John Cole, didn’t want people from that site coming here to comment, then Ed Morrissey shouldn’t be the subject of any of Mr. Cole’s commentary.
Kevin
More name calling, which by the way, there is not second refuge for the the hypocrite, because they generally never move past name calling.
Innocent Bystander
So you have no argument on your moral hypocrisy. Selling WMD in the 80’s to Iraq = Good! Lies to start an elective war, invading and killing the most progressive society in the ME = Good! I’m sure you’re onboard with McCain to “Bomb, Bomb Iran’, too. Don’t mind me if I don’t take your moral outrage on Che too seriously.
tBone
“Absurdly simplistic, idiotic points” is not name calling. This is name calling (for illustrative purposes only, you understand): You are an absurd, simplistic idiot.
Also, it’s sort of funny to see you bemoaning name calling while, in the same breath, calling people hypocrites.
Maybe you could stop calling Jen names long enough to address her rebuttal of your points? Just a thought.
Conservatively Liberal
One advantage of being a regular here is that whenever there is an influx of people, you can spot them right away. Boy John, you sure dragged a bunch of your former allies in here with this post! I see all of these new posters, and I know that they will only be here for the duration of the outrage of the day. Just like during the Beauchamp kerfluffle, damn you Scott!
Hey you dumb-as-a-stump wingnuts! Obama has not moved into the office space yet. What part of ‘Well, if he can’t see it then he can’t know about it‘ are you having a problem with? Oh, right, we are talking about the same people who KNEW WMDs existed in Iraq without anyone actually finding them, even though they all knew where they were. But they still could not find them, but they did find them according to Santorum. Still, they did not find them, but they know they are in Iran and Syria now. Whatever.
When the FSM was handing out stupid, you idiots must have gone back for seconds (and thirds for some of you). I love to meet people like these dorks face to face as I just love to decimate their understanding of the world as they see it. Every single time I do I never have to back down, they are the ones that lose it and storm off first. Every single time.
But while online, teh is teh masters of intellect and teh pwn 3v3ryb0dy. And for some reason, they are pasty-white from a lack of sun, they have orange stained fingers, keyboard and mouse, and they would have stains in the front and back of their pants if it wasn’t for the Depends they wear all day and night.
You morons need to point at a boogey man to make you happy? Castro?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Damn fraidy cats. Pussies, all of them.
Not a Yank
So Obama Volunteers think that Che is someone to be admired? Why not put up pictures of Mao and Stalin and Hitler and other “revolutionary” killers. Che was a thug and unstable thug. Why do you think that Castro send him off to be killed?
Don’t you think that hero worship of thugs like Che says something about the character of the Obama supporters? Does this hero worship not reflect the nature of the political pressures that will be brought to bear on Obama should he win? That is a rhetorical question. So it is appropriate to comment on the values and judgment of his supporters.
John Cole
No. I think it means some stupid kids, probably excited about volunteering for a candidate for the first time in their lives, decorated it with Che chic crap that is in damned near every dorm room in America.
Next stupid question from the right wing concern trolls, please?
Kevin
Really now, what weapons did we sell?
Was it the M60 105mm shells? Or maybe the M360 105mm shells. Better yet, was it the M104 155mm?
I don’t care which you name… M121/A1 155mm, M426 8-inch or M55 rocket… you will not find a single American chemical ordaniance in use by the Iraqi military at no time in the past. What the U.S. sold Iraq, as far as military equipment is concerned, was some used Egyptian tanks and helicopters.
The fact of the matter is, less than 5% of Iraq’s weapons were American. The vast majority of Iraq’s weapons were French and Russian.
Some much for the claim we sold Iraq WMD’s.
Another little sham the leftist position on the issues has foisted on the public is the idea that Iraq’s population was progessive and some shining example of a moderate, liberal, non-Islamists society before the evil Bush clan.
The fact of the matter is, just like the Shah of Iran in the previous decade(s), Saddam Hussein, dragged, kicking and screaming, the Muslim population of his country into modernity.
In fact, after the Ayatollah Khomeini was forced out of Iran for, get this, allowing women and non-Muslims to vote and hold office, among other things, he eventually settled in Najaf, Iraq.
On a side note, some of the other things that the Shah was trying to impliment, which the Ayatollah Khomeini opposed, was a literacy and land reform programs. Basically anything he considered western.
Now I am not drawing any comparisons between Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Saddam Hussein, but Iraq was trying to force through many of the same reforms in the name of modernity. Khomeini had to leave Iran, because he opposed those reforms. And in 1978, in a move that probably fore-shadowed his rise to power, a young Saddam Hussein stamped a rebellion in Najaf instigated by Ayatollah Khomeini and then kicked him out of the country. Khomeini then went to Paris for awhile, before heading back to Iran.
The main point being this, the majority of Iraqi’s were and are just as backwards as any other population in any other Middle Eastern Islamic country. Khomeini was just as easily able to instigate rebellion in Iraq as he had in Iran. Of course you can point to specific anecdotal stories about how modern Iraq was, which lead you to believe Iraq’s modernity, but that doesn’t change the facts on the ground… Baghdad and was fairly modern, but much of the rest of the nation was not.
So, while it is true that Saddam Hussein attempted to modernize Iraq at one time, so many forget the pivotal decision made by Saddam Hussein in 1990 that realigned his nation with the Palestinian cause, Hamas and Hezballah. They forget that it was Saddam that changed the secular Iraqi flag to the more Islamic version with the words “Allaahu Akbar” written between the three stars.
In a part of the world where the notion ‘the enemy of my enemy, is my friend’, Saddam did what he could to find new friends after Iraq become a pariah to so many.
What points of rebuttal? There were none, except simply snarky comments with no real retort to commment on.
But if you insist…
The REA wasn’t really the socialism the Jen believes it to be. The vast majority of the entities created by the REA were coops, which are member owned business, much like a credit union. Oh, and the principle point is that the REA wasn’t a give away, it was a loan.
OMG CAPITALISM AGAIN!
I can’t believe someone actually wants a response to this!?!?!
No, no immunity, but then I’m realistic and know that life is marked by a series of events that all lead in escapably to YOUR DEATH! I don’t need my fellow human beings to do for me what I won’t do for myself to prevent my own expiration. I will try to never be a drain on society. Even if I end up a blind, deaf, mute, quadraplegic, not want to be a drain. Death is preferable. But then, with the rationing that is necessary under a socialist system of medicine, death is about the only option available to a blind, deaf, mute, quadraplegic.
You’ll need to support your statement on polls and opinions on public schools.
I quoted dictionary.com, not wikipedia.org
The U.S. government is tasked with the creation and maintenance of military by constitutional mandate, so if you like socialism, join the military.
Morgan K Freeberg
I like it. I like it a lot. Run him on that platform.
Obama…the “Che” candidate.
Yashmak
“the confederate flag completely deflates the wingnut outrage here”
I only know two people who sport the stars & bars in their house or on their vehicles.
Both are registered Democrats. Anecdotal? Yes. True nonetheless.
tBone
Coops, you say? As in, community ownership of the means of production? Yeah, you’re right, no socialism here!
I just hope she can find something as convincing and air-tight as your own documentation:
jcricket
Wasn’t that a band back in the early 90s?
Timb
Hannity has the Che thing, so you know it’s official right wing bullshit….dear God, if he makes this part of the litany of talking points, my schadenfreude at his McCain ass-kicking may just dissolve into my typical disgust with the righties….
you know, sort of like the gentlemen visitors from Cappy’s place.
libarbarian
Yeah, every publicly traded corporation is “socialism”.
Timb
Forgot to note:
Leaving aside where Kevin thinks gays will be protected by the James Dobson’s of our country, I never thought of the issue as a positive until I read the dreck he’s posted. Kevin, I think we can start a campaign to get a ticket to Riyadh! I toss in a five spot.
P.S. There’s a fantastic article on the subject from the Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200705/gay-saudi-arabia
I know it adds dreaded nuance and reveals Kevin to me a person concerned more with making apparent rhetorical points than reflecting the truth, but it is a fine read.
Kevin
Um, no… learn to read… not community owned, it’s MEMBER OWNED. Do you get the difference?
Here’s the main point that needs to be taken away from the whole issue about the REA vis-a-vis socialism vs. capitalism. The solution to getting rural people electricity under a socialistic paradigm would be to have the state confiscate… err, nationalize the industry in question and then evenly distribute the electricity. No, this is not what happened with the REA. What happened here was the creation of a whole new electrical grid that could sustain longer runs than the electrical grid in a city could sustain. The REA crews installed the grid; they even wired houses, but the people in the rural communities who wanted the electricity ultimately paid for it. It was not provided them free of charge.
Frankly, I couldn’t care less what you think, but do you really want to challenge me on this?
Well, ok, here you go!
Let’s take just take the Gallup Poll from Aug. 13-16, 2007 from PollingReport.com. (This was a poll of 1,019 adults nationwide, with a margin of error ± 3.)
The question was, “Overall, how satisfied are you with the quality of education students receive in kindergarten through grade twelve in the U.S. today? Would you say you are completely satisfied, somewhat satisfied, somewhat dissatisfied or completely dissatisfied?”
Gallop provided the results of the current poll, plus the numbers from previous polls on the same topic.
The results?
Only 46% of the respondants were completely or somewhat satisfied, while 51% were somewhat or completely dissatisfied.
Looking at the historical information from the Gallop poll, we can see that the number of people who were overall dissatisfied out numbered those who were satisfied every year except one, August of 2004.
One the same section of the PollingReport.com link on education, they have another poll from Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll that seems to mirror another phenomena… people responding to polls who claim that their economic situation is just fine, but believe everyone else is doing bad. I don’t know which view is correct, and only the profoundly partisan will.
The real point is the trends. Look at the trends, people are become more dissatisfied with their local public schools, while remaining even more dissatisfied with public education nationally.
Kevin
You know what happens when you assume don’t you?
Well, in this case, you just made an a$$ out of yourself and just helped revalidate why I’d never support someone of your ilk, nor anyone of Mr. Dobson’s ilk either.
But then again, I’ve never had a Dobson-type ever try to convince me things aren’t so bad for gay people in Saudi Arabia, so I’m reconsidering Dobson now.
borehole
Henceforth, every time I worry about the myriad flaws of the two Democratic candidates, I’ll just reread this thread to remind myself that no matter which one wins (and one of them WILL win the general), a whole bunch of assholes will be utterly miserable.
Thank you, Ed fans, for the perspective check.
Kevin
So many delusions, so little time…
From a recent Washington Post article…
Enuf said.
jcricket
Poor Republicans operate under the delusion that continuing to vote Republican will eventually result in them being “trickled upon with magic fairy dust” and turned into Rich Republicans. So they’re deluded, but happy. Pretty simple explanation, and helps explain why poor Republicans keep pressing the “R” lever every election season, hoping to get a hit off the Republican bong that apparently never gets passed to them.
Poor Democrats know exactly what boat they’re in, and they’re not happy about it, nor should they be.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, why won’t this sonofabitch link properly?!
Summary of this thread
Kevin
Well, jcricket, I’m not a republican, so I can’t speak to their motivations.
jcricket
I on the other hand am a demographer with a background in sociology and statistics and political science, and two PhDs in ethnobiology (ok, I made that all up).
I do think there’s something to the fact that, not just for religious reasons, poor white people quite often vote against their economic self-interest and yet when polled actively articulate the idea that the Republican economic policies will somehow “help them”.
This doesn’t happen in other countries. Poor people generally vote for the party that promises them hand-outs (for good or bad).
Republican success would evaporate overnight, imho, if people voted their economic self-interest. Of course Dems aren’t anywhere near 100% right in their economic policies, but they at least make some sense and don’t actively hose everyone who makes less than $1m.
Kevin
It’s a loose nut behind the keyboard probably.
:)
So, why do think dissenting opinions create train wrecks?
You must enjoy the echo chamber.
The whole premise of this post by Mr. Cole is to flame his political opponents with derision, so why is there any surprise when some people who might consider themselves his opponent actually end up responding?
For the record, I’m not a republican, so don’t pull that old school, group-think bull#$@p. I am an individual. I’m a single person that’s not aligned with any specific ideology. But then again, that individualism, I’m certain, makes me suspect.
Grumpy Code Monkey
The problem is not that people disagree; the problem is that people use their disagreements as an excuse to insult each other, such as
What has me bummed about this thread is that nobody is actually listening to what other people have to say; they’re just projecting their own prejudices and assumptions on the people disagreeing with them (which you just did with me). I mean, Jesus, if we could find a way to harness the jackassery that permeates this thread as a power source, we could cut our carbon emissions to zero for the next two years.
There’s no dialog here; everybody’s making noise at each other, but there’s no actual communication happening.
That’s why this thread is a train wreck.
Kevin
jcricket, do you honestly want to know why me, a gay man from Kansas and who grew up and spent most of his life economically disadvantaged, would vote republican?
I have to ask myself before I even try to answer you, would you even begin to understand my reasons without going into a fit of invectives a mile long? From my past experiences, most people can’t actually see another’s point of view as it deals with political choices. Instead, most responses are reduced to idiotic stereotypes.
Anyways, if you could really sum up my experiences and my life, and why I make the political desisions I make, I’d sum it up with one word… Individualism.
I am an individual. I have a choice in life in what I do, regardless of the fact I grew up in a poor, white/black/hispanic slum-like neighborhood in Wichita, Kansas, called Planeview. I didn’t let a neighborhood like that determine my reality. I knew that every choice I made was my choice and no one elses. When I skipped school, it was my choice. When I smoked pot while skipping school, that was my choice too. When I got worse grades than people who had actually had a lower IQ than myself, that was my choice too, because I had chosen to skip school and smoke pot. And when I couldn’t afford to go to college, because I spent my money and time partying, I didn’t get mad at the man for my situation, because it was my choice in life that got to me to where I was.
The whole time I always recognized that what I did and do are my choices in life, and nothing George Bush, Bill Clinton, or any other politician can do that will ultimately change things for me unless it’s change I want and am willing to put the hard work toward in accomplishing.
I’m an individual and I support politicians who generally recognize that.
Kevin
Well, you could possibly blame John Cole for that with his derisive comments like “party flack” or “troglodyte right”.
jcricket
But see, my point is that actual Republican policies, as opposed to rhetoric, do nothing to support your rights as an individual.
They are against gay marriage, gay adoption, gay rights in general. They are against abortion, against birth control. These are all classic individual liberty issues.
And while I’m certainly impressed you apparently made something of your life (or maybe you didn’t), there’s a lot to be angry about regarding the way resources are spread in this country. There’s no reason in the “richest country in the world” (maybe outside of Dubai) for people to have to overcome structural wrongs like horrible neighborhoods, schools, etc. I don’t know how “individuals” are supposed to just collectively “will themselves” out of those situations.
Can you tell me?
David
Fact: Che Guevara was a ruthless murderer who imprisoned, tortured, and sent his political opponents to the firing squad without due process. This included individuals whose “crime” was nothing more than voicing dissenting opinions.
Regardless of whether you agree with Che’s philosophies on social justice, you must condemn his brutal methods.
theo
These photographs strongly suggest that, unlike current White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, even Obama’s lowest-level volunteer flunkies have heard of the Bay of Pigs. And they can probably find Cuba on a map.
(Geography = liberal plot to sap our precious national territorial waters)
Kevin
In your opinion. You’ve not done a thing to back up your assertions. But the fact is, republicans generally defend your right to self-defense, where as democrats don’t, and I’d say that’s an individual liberty. And there are multiple causes for opposing Roe vs. Wade that you’re dismissing entirely like the concept that the unborn is an individual too or that the interpretation of law was specious and not constitutional. So let’s not go through this nitpicking like that, because it’s a simple diversion from the point that in general, democrats favor statist solutions to problems and republicans favor individual solutions.
You see, this is the point I just don’t think you’ll get, and that is the bad neighborhoods, the bad schools, etc. are all products of individuals making bad decisions. People in bad neighborhoods have made the decision on their own to make the neigborhood what it is. Of course no one planned the neighborhood to be that way, but decisions by those who inhabited the neighborhood drove the it in that direction.
It seems no one wants to admit this on the left side of the political spectrum and simply reduce all the problems down to something having to do with capitalism versus people making bad decisions.
Let’s do a thought experiment here. Let us say, for one time we can take all the wealth of the world and evenly divide it amongst all the people in the world. Another stipulation is that there will be no law preventing the exchange of that wealth once acquired. In other words, I can take my money and buy land or other goods with it. I can invest it. I can do whatever I want.
Ok, in the end, some people, through their personal choices will end up wasting all their wealth, while others will use it to create more.
Once that occurs, do we recollect all the wealth and do it again?
Xenos
History hates America. Or at least it hates republicans. Or maybe republicans are unaware, or ignore, history when they make stupid, uninformed arguments that sound like something out of Ayn Rand.
Damn straight, pup.
I like Ike. I like the Eisenhower-era marginal tax rates. Men were men, and did not whine about paying for their country’s defense, or for its roads, or for paying off its debts. In time it came to realize that things like, say , 250 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow, left some people with little resources or capacity to compete for middle class status and success.
How about we cut off affirmative action in 350 years? What, you don’t like the long term racial injustice? HA!
Kevin
This constitutes a response?
Meh.
Johnny Coelacanth
Kevin (R-Pie) says:
“I will try to never be a drain on society.”
Too late.
Johnny Coelacanth
In response to this: “actual Republican policies, as opposed to rhetoric, do nothing to support your rights as an individual. They are against gay marriage, gay adoption, gay rights in general. They are against abortion, against birth control. These are all classic individual liberty issues.”
Kevin says this: “In your opinion. You’ve not done a thing to back up your assertions.”
Dear Republican Jesus, you are not that dense. It is not an “assertion” that Republicans oppose gay rights. You can’t even concede that much. You’re not here for honest debate, Kevin. That much is dreadfully clear.
4jkb4ia
In interest of shooting mouth off, the Mussolini poster would be the equivalent of Ron Paul and the racist newsletters.
TenguPhule
Shorter Kevin: I’ll ignore anything about gays because Republican Daddy luvs me some guns and fetal cells!
TenguPhule
Shorter Kevin: If you’re going to lie, lie big.
Kevin
I meant this to say, “In fact, after the Ayatollah Khomeini was forced out of Iran for, get this, not allowing women and non-Muslims to vote and hold office, among other things, he eventually settled in Najaf, Iraq.”
Fact: Khomeini opposed reforms that allowed women to vote.
Fact: Khomeini lived in Najaf while in exile.
Fact: Khomeini instigated a rebellion while he lived in Iraq.
The big lie is yours.
timb
Khomeini’s revolution was started and organized from Paris, non-Republican, Republican, not knowing Republicans don’t like gays, Kevin. The man was booted from Najaf quite some time before his revolution.
But, we can get to your idea of individual rights? You oppose the shooting of gays (and the invasion of countries which kill their gays), but don’t mind political parties which want to distort the Constitution so gay people cannot marry. Republican Florida has a law which prohibits gays from adopting. Republican Texas had, until the last five years when it was struck down, a law which declared gays could not have sex and the punishment for violating said law COULD be prison.
So, you support a party (although you say you do not, which is disingenuous, since you are a Captain Republican visitor) which would keep gays from getting married, keep them from adopting, and in some cases jail them for having sex and do not support the people who would kill them….
Is there a material difference, Kevin? Jail versus alleged execution (although actual visitors to Saudi Arabia note this is somewhat an unenforced law)? Where’s the distinction is how many of your human rights you are willing to surrender to (wait for the irony and cognitive dissonance) be an “individual”.
Help me understand your wonderfully nuanced individual prospective in where you surrender the rights guaranteed to you by your birth in a supposed free country!
Kevin
Khoneini was expelled from Iraq in 1978. Period.
I never said that Khomeini organized the over throw of the Shah from Iraq. What he did was organize a rebellion against the Iraqi government while he was an exile in Najaf.
Oh, btw, your gay comments are lame… I’m just considering the source tho.
There is no right to marry in the constitution, so you’re really out of step with reality, at least from a constitutional sense. So actually, it is you who is distorting the constitution. And I actually prefer that the state divest itself of the “institution of marriage”, and simply enact laws that allow anyone, regardless of gender or the status of their personal relationship, to enter into a civil contract that deliniates the rights of those co-habitating.
As for sodomy laws that have been steadily disappearing on state law books, I don’t expect intellectual honestly from you on this, but it should be noted that ALL the sodomy laws that existed also applied to heterosexual sodomy as well, and that was defined as anything other than missionary position, heterosexual sex. So, yes, oral sex, between a husband and wife was illegal under sodomy laws that once existed in most states.
Fred Phelps is a democrat.
Enough said.
You are truly a piece of work. You are standing up for a nation that routinely kills… executes gays and you’re saying it’s not that bad and try to draw some comparison to the republicans.
You sir, are a piece of crap.
What right am I missing here?
1st Amendment? 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th?
As a gay man, what right deliniated in the constitution have I surrendered?
Lisa
Kevin:
The constitution states covers ALL AMERICANS, even gay ones who want to get married.
Moron.
Kevin
Now, without name calling, what part of the constitution covers marriage and declares it a right?
Bryan
So Obama Volunteers think that Che is someone to be admired? Why not put up pictures of Mao and Stalin and Hitler and other “revolutionary” killers. Che was a thug and unstable thug. Why do you think that Castro send him off to be killed?
Why don’t people ask these questions about pictures of Ronald Reagan likely hanging in every Republican campaign office? He never met a dirty war in Latin America he wasn’t willing to support, legally or illegally. His actions in this area had far more negative effect on our neighbors to the south than Che Guevera ever did.
timb
Well, Kevin, I know you aren’t exactly the legal scholar you pretend to be. It may come as a shock to you that the Supreme Court recognizes rights inherent and fundamental to being a human being which, like most things, not specifically expressed in the Constitution. The Constitution is a framework and like most conservative lay people, you seem to be your rights, if not mentioned in the Constitution, do not exist. Actually, the Supreme Court recognizes every citizens right to marry. See Loving v Virginia. A State must have a “COMPELLING” reason to restrict said right. Public health used to be a reason, but has largely been eliminated.
By the way, if you can provide one name of any straight Texan since 1930 or so convicted of sodomy, I’d sure be entertained.
The fact that you apparently “believe” (and I do not think you do) that government has the ability and is right to exercise that ability to control the intimate interactions of consenting American citizens within their homes and lives, show what a dedicated individualist you are. Thoreau would be so proud of your rugged individual character as you advocate for the government’s ability to control who one marries! A totalitarian individualist! You are one entertaining dude.
So, show me where the difference is Kevin between the society that throws gays in jail (your silence re: Florida will be taken by me as stipulation) and societies which kill them. Seems a difference of degree and not a difference in kind to me, but I forgot, my advocation of the individual’s right to express his/her sexuality means I’m the collectivist and you are the individualist.
Fact it, “Kevin”, not only aren’t an individualist, you’re just a Muslim hating troll from Ed’s place, acting as someone you’re not.
Oh, dear Lord, I just took a breath! Nowhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights does it say I can breathe?!? Where do I get off?
“Kevin”, check with the Constitution and see where it mentions “federalism”, “separation of powers”, creates a Federal Court system, or allows the existence of a national bank…..then think slowly and carefully what the term “framework” means.
Kevin
First, off, you have no idea or clue what conservatives, republicans or I believe about that constitution. As far as I know, I’m aware of the 9th Amendment, but you need to get acquainted with the 10th.
Oh, you’re a moron. Read what the courts wrote in Loving v Virginia and you’ll see why it’s really not applicable. And every time the gay marriage advocates try to cite it, it’s shot down.
I never stipulated who was the focus of sodomy laws and who wasn’t. All I stipulated was that sodomy laws applied to sexual acts and not the participants.
Um, I can marry any person I choose. There’s no law saying I can’t. What you want is for the state to recognize said marriages.
Now this is odd… you impugn me because I don’t think there is a right for a government recognized marriage, but do believe that two individuals can choose to marry without the state recognition, and you believe that makes me less of an individualist? But then you think needing the state to ratify and recognize a marriage does make one more individualist.
There is no law in the United States that says I can’t be gay.
Try again.
Yawn.
Try again.
Yawn.
Your wit is as sharp as a rusty knife.
Yes, and there is a framework in place in the constitution for amending it. Why don’t you use it, instead of trying to do an end run around it?
seatofpants
Kevin’s add on Craigslist:
I’m a self-hating gay republican (redundant) who avidly seeks immolation at the altar of Republican values.
I love when my fellow uberRepublicans compare me to pedophiles and serial rapists…oh just hurt me some more big fella!
My favorite fantasy is when the Rapture dawns over our bad, bad, bad liberal free sex culture and the Christians stone me to death because their God hates me.
P.S. I love black and I wear my sister’s pants. Tootles!
Kevin
The worst gay basher in the world, in fact, the worst tyrant in the world, is a leftist with whom you disagree. Disagreeing with a leftist gets them worked up into a snit that puts to shame the worst tantrum you’ve ever seen in a 2 year old.
Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the other leftist dictators were all comparable to or worse than Hitler (But he’s way more left than right, because no self respecting conservative or republican would support socialized medicine, which was one of things Hitler promised and gave to the German people.).
In the end, this thread is a microcosm of what’s wrong with the left, and why, even if I have some left-of-center ideas, I loath organized leftism (Almost as much as I loath organized religion.).
Any disagreement is reduced to a tirade of insults and name calling. From the very opening thread to the post I’m responding, this whole exchange oozes with the insults, sometimes childish, sometimes vindictive and mean.
I do love seeing the internecine battle going on in the DNC right now, just because it exposes for all to see the way the left operates with those whom they disagree.
Timb
Uh, “kevin”, I do know what righties think. I used to be one, my family is entirely composed of right wing evangelicals, and I listen to 2 to 3 hours of talk radio per day (and read conservative blogs). I know that Republican conservative Rick Santorum compared gay marriage to bestiality. I know that you are neither gay nor independent.
Further, I know your reading comprehension is low, because I cited “Loving” as proof that rights not found in the Constitution are still rights (not as support for gay marriage). The argument has little to do with gay-ness and more your allegation that the right to marry is not in the Constitution. Surprisingly so, apparently to you, as you seem not to be aware the Bill of Rights is intended as a restraint on government power and not individual rights.
You keep going far afield and forgetting the question. The difference between Muslim criminalization of Homosexuality and Christian criminalization of the same is…..
Jesus had a great line we can apply to you: Before you point out the speck in another person’s eye, you should remove the plank in your own. If you want to protect the individual rights and freedoms of gay people, why don’t you start here in America, instead of using 2000 pound bombs in Iraq?
I hope you take this “gay Republican” sock puppet thing back to Captain Ed’s soon, as I am getting seriously tired of kicking your ass and then watching you respond with the clever “yawn.”
——Oh no! Could a person legally beat another up. There’s nothing in the Constitution about private citizens beating the hell out of each other! Is it allowed or not….since all law comes from the Constitution and the Constitution is silent on beatings? Come to think of it, the only crime mentioned in the Constitution is treason….our jails are filled with men and women who did things the Constitution is silent on. That must mean they did not commit a crime, because unless an action is specifically mentioned in the Constitution, it doesn’t even exist.
Take your troll ball and go back to Ed’s where you can read about the internecine battle in the Democratic party (which, you don’t care about it, since you are not a Republican!) and ignore the fact that Senator McCain is going to lose in the fall by 5-10 points.
Oh, and Kevin, your right to vote in that election is not expressly in the Constitution….I wonder where you got the idea it was?*
*Many legal scholars (and I accept their logic), find the right to vote inherent in Article One of the Constitution, when it refers to the election of Senators and the requirement that state governments be “republics.” Nonetheless, for Kevin, the word “vote” and citizen appears nowhere in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution.
I think that means he’ll stay home come November
Kevin
And I know, Fed Phelps, a democrat, wants all homosexuals killed. You have no point.
I’ll tell what I tell all the conservatives who choose to discount and dismiss me, “You dismiss me at your own political party’s peril, because YOU are not the majority of Americans. I am. The majority of Americans don’t want someone telling them what they can and cannot do with their bodies, whether it be sex, drugs, alcohol, or even abortion.”
Actually, my reading comprehension is off the charts. I used to amaze my teachers in school, that a stoner slacker actually read and understood The Prophet by Khalil Gibran.
That said, it is YOU that has a problem comprehending. See, you think that Loving vs. Virginia supports your claim, but it doesn’t and multiple courts hearing gay-marriage cases have concluded similarly. Read the majority opinion in New Jersey’s Lewis v. Harris…
Are you really as clueless as you seem?
I’m guessing not. You’re just being a hypocritical, hyper partisan.
If you don’t get it, you never will. You needed it explained, but I doubt you’ll understand, because your political proclivities prevent you from see another point of view.
But here goes.
First thing though, most all organized religions see something wrong with homosexuality. Given the level of practicing homosexuality from the time of antiquity and before, the prohibitions against homosexuality in most religions is likely due to a desire by religous elder to get people to breed, thus increasing the ranks of the faithful. The Abrahamic religions, Muslims, Christians and Jews don’t have a monopoly on sexually based prohibitions.
Now on the majority of Muslims in the Middle East specifically, the differnce isn’t in religous belief per se, but in ideology and the system of governance.
Muslim crinimalization of sexual habits is rooted in the belief that their religous ideology should reign unopposed and supreme across all the lands in which Muslims live. And since there is not a separation of church and state in Islamic countries (that separation is seen as secular and against God), whatever Muslims believe the Koran tells them will be made law, which is not to say that everything that individual Muslims believe is actually there.
Here in the United States, a Christain can believe whatever he or she wishes, but that does not mean they can get what they want made law. Now a Christain community in Georgia can enact laws consonant with the Christain beliefs of that community, but there are checks and balances against that if said law violates a person’s rights.
Because I was tired of watching our boys and girls in the military, doing circles for months on end in the Persian Gulf trying to enforce a set of sanctions that people like you were trying your damnedest to have torn down.
And so now I’m a sock puppet too? Ain’t that sweet, but I don’t know too many people who create sock puppets with such depth and breadth that they form an LLC, set up a myspace page with an extensive bio and everything, plus has hundreds of google links associated with his internet nickname. Yeah, if I’m a sock puppet, you’re Ronald Reagan.
Oh, as for you kicking my ass, in your dreams.
Based on past braggadocious claims from democrats, excuse me if I’m not that convinced if McCain’s loss in November. I believe that ultimately most people will vote for a divided government.
And as well, since I’m an American and not a political ideology, I am concerned with the habits and beliefs of both parties.
No, you don’t have the right to vote. It is a privilege earned by way of citizenship.
In your dreams.
Kevin
Oh wait, the case I cited about was not New Jersey’s Lewis v. Harris, but was actually New Yorks’ Hernandez v Robles.
Sorry for the confusion.
Kevin
Oh, and when I said, “And I know, Fed Phelps, a democrat, wants all homosexuals killed. You have no point,” I was talking about Fred Phelps… THIS Fred Phelps.
Kevin
Yeah, Saudi Arabia is a great place for women too!
Kevin
Why don’t I see the left protecting this gay-right, no, dare I say, human right?
Armando
Cole,
You’re a moron. The offensiveness of the Che flag has nothing to do with policy or the embargo. It has to do with the fact that Che was responsible for the assassinations of tens of thousands of political opponents as well as the creation or expansion of rebel militias throughout Central and South America that led to countless civilian deaths, instability, and failed countries.
And to make one thing clear, being an apologist for Che or anyone who is sympathetic to him, IS a big deal. You are morally and intellectually bankrupt.
Stone
Whadda bunch o dummies – the point is NOT about our Cuban policy, it is about the INAPPROPIATE display of a strident COMMUNIST symbol in the local campaign office of a contender for PRESIDENT! Am I the only one that sees the significance?
Misdirecting it into an argument about Cuban policy is the surest liberal method of deflecting criticism – however refocusing on the issue leads me to wonder what the liberals would say about a conservative candidate having a pic of say…Joseph McCarthy on the wall.
The end result is that the dems think its A.O.K. to support whatever garbage they want – without criticism, but let a republican like Trent Lott say a few words in honorarium to an old codger like Strom Thurmond, and they will scream bloody murder! Oh – They did!
WHAT A BUNCH OF HYPOCRITES!
tyree
Scotty said…
“Republicans have David Duke on their side…”
You might want to read up a little bit on David Dukes history. Wikipedia is a pretty good place to start. He ran as Democrat and a Republican, and almost always lost. The friends I have in Louisiana have told me that many Democrats worked hard to get him on the Republican ballot specifically so you could say uniformed stuff like that.
Commies are not cool
Leon McKinney
I can’t believe all the left-wing, communist-loving shitheads we STILL have running around in this country all these years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. I had thought it was universally admitted that communism has never “worked”, and will never “work”. Unless of course, one thinks that establishing ruthless, blood-soaked, kleptocratic regimes run by butchers who murder everyone who opposes them is a definition of “works” – but, obviously, that’s EXACTLY what our home-grown commies admire and would love to impose on us, except people like will shoot them right between their f-ing eyes, and so they never quite fess up to that. But, no, right here in America we still have budding little Stalin wannabes who are OUTRAGED that people like me are annoyed when Barack Hussein Obama supporters can barely have a campaign office open for a day before nothing will do but they must post up Cuban Commie flags and neat-n-trendy Che emblems all over the place. Oh, right, they were just “volunteers” and we can’t draw any inferences about their possible common ground with Obamarama’s PAID staff.
Give me a f-ing break. After reading all the commentary from the shitheads, all I can say is anytime ya’ll want to start that revo you keep yawping for, let’s go, Joe. Lots of us would love to put you out of our misery once and for all.
Kevin
Nah, I can’t condone any killing, but all of them moving to Canada seems fitting.
Sickofyourcrap
I get it I get it…
Bush lied people died…
My personal favorite is “Bush went to war for oil”… Bahahaha… What are gas prices now? You can thank Democrats for that, along with save the arctic 24 leaf clover hippies. Is that all you people do? Just sit around in your parents basements’ thinking of how some conspiracy is being plotted against you? Thankfully the public education you received failed you and millions of other Americans that call themselves patriotic? Sitting in your peace, love and harmony hippie circles lying about global warming (look it up biatches), or the rising polar bear population oops, I guess it was supposed to be declining population(once again look it up biatches), or how to FORCE honest hard working Americans to pay for your lazy ass health care. Because you lack the ability to get off your ass and take care of your own family. You expect the government to force me, by gun point (once again look it up biatches), to pay for you and your equally lazy family.
I can honestly say Both parties piss me off, and until a third party finally gets the idea of lying to the American public like Both parties do, and getting elected because of the uneducated Americans who will vote for anyone who will give them their handouts. Anything to make you feel like you matter. As long as underachievers like you, rely on the government to force achievers like me, to cradle to the grave take care of your lazy asses. People like you will not be happy until this is no longer America, but another socialist Europe. However If you were to actually succeed in life (Like you could ever succeed) on your own, and without forcing me to pay for it, I would bet you would have a different view on your heroes in the Democrat/Liberal Party. Until then I am forced to hold my nose and vote for the lesser of the three evils. Three until Nader throws his hat in, then it’s four. There’s your math lesson for the day. Until the day you can actually say I have succeeded in something other than being a dredge on society. Both parties will dominate America and simply turn American against American in the socialist playground the call OUR LIVES. This country was founded on fewer taxes, and less government (There’s your history lesson), and your liberal friends have taxed the businesses so much that outsourcing produces company gains. All so you can whine about it.