Bash Obama Thread (1 Viewer)

[statsman]

A large number of dkinley's examples are votes to limit debate on issues. He does not go on to define Obama's vote on the ACTUAL ISSUE.
This, I will submit would determine his degree of liberality.

Example: Senator "A" votes in favour of limiting debate on increasing tax relief to the very rich. Looks like a Republican to me. However, when the vote on the actual bill comes up, Senator "A" votes NO. Looks like a Democrat. To dkinley he looks like someone who can't make up his mind. Please be consistent so we can pigeonhole you.

Like most people, on some issues I'm slightly to the left of Lenin. On other issues I'm slightly to the right of Attila the Hun.

 

[Alc]

Like most people, on some issues I'm slightly to the left of Lenin. On other issues I'm slightly to the right of Attila the Hun.

I think that pretty much sums up my philosophy, too.

 

[Alisa]

A large number of dkinley's examples are votes to limit debate on issues. He does not go on to define Obama's vote on the ACTUAL ISSUE.
This, I will submit would determine his degree of liberality.

Example: Senator "A" votes in favour of limiting debate on increasing tax relief to the very rich. Looks like a Republican to me. However, when the vote on the actual bill comes up, Senator "A" votes NO. Looks like a Democrat. To dkinley he looks like someone who can't make up his mind. Please be consistent so we can pigeonhole you.

Like most people, on some issues I'm slightly to the left of Lenin. On other issues I'm slightly to the right of Attila the Hun.

I agree with you in general. This problem is the reason that senators don't usually get elected - as a senator, you have to vote thousands of times, on mish mash bills, you have to compromise, you have to vote for things you don't necessarily like, and then later people rake over your record and call you "liberal", a word which has no real definition as far as I can tell. It is fine to criticize Obama as being "too" liberal, but first you have to define what that means.

As other people on this board have pointed out, Attila the Hun was actually a flaming liberal, according to some people's standards.

 

[dkinley]

Like most people, on some issues I'm slightly to the left of Lenin. On other issues I'm slightly to the right of Attila the Hun.

Like the quote!

I didn't go deep into his record because I honestly don't feel that it's my job to be answerable to Alisa and Rich to back up every letter I type when they move off the issue and have a double-standard that every thing a conservative says must be backed up by 10 gb of facts and if they claim something, it doesn't have to anything but automatically lawful. In this regard, I don't accept 'facts' as being from sources like the Huffington Post or a web site/think tank funded by George Soros.

To your post though, those votes - and I did not list them all are from a variety of sources that list their manner of judging candidates on their liberalism or conservatism. For all of those entries I posted, the sites listed votes that were either introduced by Democrat/Liberal politicians or had the majority vote by a Democrat/Liberal. To my understanding, this latter manner was 'did they vote along party lines?' This is why some sources claim that Obama is not the most liberal voter because he chose not to vote and those sources use that to make that claim.

I will further argue that a vote to limit a debate on the issue is to limit either (a) a speakers time or (b) cut off the remaining speakers that are waiting to speak. Since Pelosi is the one that has the ultimate decision, she can 'stack the deck' and have all the pro speakers for a bill go first. Due to Robert's Rules of Order, a vote can be cast in the middle of a vote - in these instances to limit the debate. The con speakers are not allowed to speak because they may have bomb to drop that might negatively effect the outcome of a bill. This does not mean that original vote ever made it to be voted on (Pelosi's discretion) or tabled for a 3 am vote, or tabled indefinitely until someone feels they have the majority. I will further opine that a vote to limit the debate is to not waste everyone's time and to just move on with the business because people want to speak just to hear themselves speak and the outcome is already known.

-dK

 

[Alisa]

Like the quote!

I didn't go deep into his record because I honestly don't feel that it's my job to be answerable to Alisa and Rich to back up every letter I type when they move off the issue and have a double-standard that every thing a conservative says must be backed up by 10 gb of facts and if they claim something, it doesn't have to anything but automatically lawful. In this regard, I don't accept 'facts' as being from sources like the Huffington Post or a web site/think tank funded by George Soros.

To your post though, those votes - and I did not list them all are from a variety of sources that list their manner of judging candidates on their liberalism or conservatism. For all of those entries I posted, the sites listed votes that were either introduced by Democrat/Liberal politicians or had the majority vote by a Democrat/Liberal. To my understanding, this latter manner was 'did they vote along party lines?' This is why some sources claim that Obama is not the most liberal voter because he chose not to vote and those sources use that to make that claim.

-dK

I thought you said that one of your problems with Obama is that he is too liberal?

I was just trying to find out exactly what makes him too liberal in your opinion.

Because he voted with his party? So what. Most senators, including John McCain, vote with their party the majority of the time. The question shouldn't be, did he vote with his party. The question should be, did he vote the right way given the entire context of the vote. You haven't brought up any specific votes that you have a problem with. So I just don't understand your criticism.

 

[dkinley]

Because he voted with his party?

Here is a blanket critism because I am not going to down bill by bill when they can be 100s of pages long.

The answer is YES! He hasn't shown he can be a unifier in politics and never went against his own party by voting (when he did vote) along his party lines.

The answer is YES! Because I do not agree with the Democrat's philosophy.

The answer is YES! All the Dem's want to do is spend and hand out money to people and create entitlement programs that can never be repealed.

The answer is YES! The Pay-Go system (instead of Pay-Went) drives up the deficit. This is why Social Security is in the state it is in.

The answer is YES! I don't believe the federal government should have as much power as it has. It should be a Republic not a Democracy.

The answer is YES! Because of everything they have done has been slowly bankrupting this country and they manufactured the housing crisis because of their entitlement programs and spending.

-dK

 

[Alisa]

Here is a blanket critism because I am not going to down bill by bill when they can be 100s of pages long.

The answer is YES! He hasn't shown he can be a unifier in politics and never went against his own party by voting (when he did vote) along his party lines.

The answer is YES! Because I do not agree with the Democrat's philosophy.

The answer is YES! All the Dem's want to do is spend and hand out money to people and create entitlement programs that can never be repealed.

The answer is YES! The Pay-Go system (instead of Pay-Went) drives up the deficit. This is why Social Security is in the state it is in.

The answer is YES! I don't believe the federal government should have as much power as it has. It should be a Republic not a Democracy.

The answer is YES! Because of everything they have done has been slowly bankrupting this country and they manufactured the housing crisis because of their entitlement programs and spending.

-dK

So even though the republicans have been in power for the last 8 years AND 22 of the last 30 years, everything is the democrats' fault?

That analysis seems to be a complete denial of reality, but what else is new?

 

[dkinley]

Define power.

-dK

 

[Alisa]

Define power.

-dK

Their party has the presidency and/or a majority in the house.

 

[Rich]

Define power hungry

-dK

In a word, Bush and the Republicans

 

[Alisa]

In a word, Bush and the Republicans

That's two words!

If you were to do it in one word, it would be McCain.
Another option would be Hillary.
Or Bill.

 

[dkinley]

Their party has the presidency and/or a majority in the house.

http://www.dflorig.com/partycontrol.htm

By your argument, then the Dems have had more power in terms either absolute across the board or in terms in general.

-dK

 

[Alisa]

http://www.dflorig.com/partycontrol.htm

By your argument, then the Dems have had more power in terms either absolute across the board or in terms in general.

-dK

So 22/30 ISN'T > 50%???

The republicans have had the presidency way more than the democrats, how is that not having more power?

 

[dkinley]

Out of the last 40 election cycles - meaning what party had the majority after an election was held (POTUS, Senate, etc)

For President: D - 20 | R - 20
For Senate: D - 26 | R - 14
For Reps: D - 30 | R - 10
For majority in all 3: D - 16 | R - 6

-dK

 

[georgedwilkinson]

Gee whiz, it sure does look like, according to Alisa's definition, that dK is right.

I know that most of the years of my life, Congress was controlled by the Democrats.

 

[dkinley]

Eh .. she changed her stastic to shore up her argument. You know, let's just look at this slice and not any other slice so it fits whatever point she is trying to make.

If anything, I would think it would come down to some lengthy study about filibustering, etc. And then another study to really see what the filibuster was about, who was on first, as opposed to what the politicians were saying about the opposition filibuster.

-dK

 

[Alisa]

Eh .. she changed her stastic to shore up her argument. You know, let's just look at this slice and not any other slice so it fits whatever point she is trying to make.

If anything, I would think it would come down to some lengthy study about filibustering, etc. And then another study to really see what the filibuster was about, who was on first, as opposed to what the politicians were saying about the opposition filibuster.

-dK

I guess I didn't really mean "or", and you are right, it would come down to a lengthy study to empirically determine who actually had more power at various points - I mean, the whole point of having the three branches is to make it so one branch doesn't have more power than the others, but that isn't really how it works. The president really *does* have more of some kinds of power than the congress does at this point. The president was originally intended to be an administrative role to oversee the congress, but now the president is like a king, issuing signing statements that directly contradict the constitution, appointing judges during congressional breaks to avoid oversight, etc, etc.

I don't see how you can assign more blame for the current financial crisis to the democrats than the republicans, given that they were all complicit in reducing regulation. I also don't see how you can assign blame for the Iraq debacle to the the democrats, given that a republican president and his lackeys are the ones who made the case for war.

 

[dkinley]

I don't see how you can assign more blame for the current financial crisis to the democrats than the republicans, given that they were all complicit in reducing regulation. I also don't see how you can assign blame for the Iraq debacle to the the democrats, given that a republican president and his lackeys are the ones who made the case for war.

I blame the Dems for manufacturing the crisis because (a) they introduced the regulation that forced banks by law to give the loans and did not provide oversight to this regulation and (b) when it came up what was going on, they opposed more regulation. Was there some Repubs that were to blame in that mix? Probably so. However, I contest that it was largely a liberal agenda that did it. I would further opine that they are following a Cloward-Piven Strategy that is moving us futher away from our Founding Fathers intent.

For the Iraq debacle, I blame both parties (unequally). Should the Repub's get more of this blame? Yes, just as the Dems get more of my blame in the economic situation. I think the Dems get to share blame in Iraq because they should have stood up and said No and not embraced the same intelligence and go on TV, spout it as truth and vote for it.

Regardless, moving forward, it is what it is. We have an economic situation and we are in Iraq. The question is - what do we do about it and who are we selecting as a figure head to do it?

I don't think either plan will be 100% successful, but which one has the best shot of working? Although they do not fully represent my ideal, I choose the side that I think is keeping us closer to our founding principles. It is those principles that made this a great nation, it is the principles attempting to be imposed on us that made other nations not so great because they are proven not to work.

A utopia can only be achieved in an unchanging system.

-dK

 

[Alisa]

I blame the Dems for manufacturing the crisis because (a) they introduced the regulation that forced banks by law to give the loans and did not provide oversight to this regulation and (b) when it came up what was going on, they opposed more regulation.

I completely disagree. First of all, nobody forced anybody to lend money to people that could not document their income, and that could not afford to pay back their loans. Second of all, the problem with mortgages would not have been such a body blow to the entire financial system if investors had not been doing all of these shady deals with credit default swaps and derivatives, etc etc. This is all a result of lack of regulation. Lack of regulation is one of the principles of the republicans, not the democrats. John McCain has staked his entire reputation on being a deregulator (up until the second debate that is).

 

[dkinley]

I completely disagree. First of all, nobody forced anybody to lend money to people that could not document their income, and that could not afford to pay back their loans. ).

I disagree ... Obama's name is on a case where he represented people who were denied a loan. You won't find this on a liberal site or buried deep on mass media site because it paints a negative picture on their darling and their darling party. The fact is - he was tied to it is enough for me.

It is easily searchable, I will post a couple of links for you to ignore:
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/12/the-quotes-that-explain-the-entire-financial-meltdown/
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/04/03/mortgage.settlement/

Per the Snopes article, it is referencing a different claim in the same case. It does not dispute that this lawsuit was one of a series of lawsuits that were filed by ACORN using Redlining and racism allegations to lower credit standards. It does not dispute that all of the ACORN CRA lawsuits claimed redlining and racism. It does not dispute that at other times ACORN used intimidation tactics against bank managers to try and make them give high risk loans.

Second of all, the problem with mortgages would not have been such a body blow to the entire financial system if investors had not been doing all of these shady deals with credit default swaps and derivatives, etc etc. This is all a result of lack of regulation. Lack of regulation is one of the principles of the republicans, not the democrats. John McCain has staked his entire reputation on being a deregulator (up until the second debate that is).

Agreed. And it was the Democrats who opposed the regulation. I know you've seen the videos from CSPAN where they argued that everything was fine blocked it. Here is another, with a slightly different take on it, for your ignoring enjoyment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EyKiOE78yU

Again, I state - if the banks were NEVER regulated to provide bad loans (use common sense, would you loan money to a risky investment?) then it was the fault of REGULATION. The Dems blocked REGULATING the original REGULATION.

Per the shady deals, Obama's senior advisor on economic issues, Penny Pritzker (former chairman of now defunct Superior Bank), pioneered the securitization of sub-prime/predatory loans. She made bonds available to nationwide, tax-payer's back pension funds that cause major losses of personal individual wealth across the nation.

To go further, Superior targeted African Americans 2-to-1 compared to other predatory lendors. After the fall, she negotiated with the FDIC. The Pritzkers got 31.5 million while the 1400 depositors are still owed 16 million.

Since the mainstream press won't run this, for your ignorership: http://amok.asianweek.com/2008/02/28/obamas-campaign-finance-chair-has-links-to-subprime-debacle/

-dK

EDIT: I will ignore Obama's advisors that ran GSMs into the ground and ran off with their golden parachutes.