[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6r1fHXI3xE[/youtube]


Ouch.

I actually thought her reply to the Israel question was even more bizarre than the foreign policy thing.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTJXtwJn050[/youtube]

why can't she just say "i actually meant [whatever]" instead of trying to defend her remark which she obviously didn't mean the way she originally said it?

$700 billion =

It's $2,300.00 per person in America.
It is the entire GDP of Florida - or of The Netherlands.
It's 12 Bill Gates's.
It's almost the amount we've spent on the war in Iraq so far.
It's the same percent of our GDP that we spent on the Marshall Plan after WWII.
It's 7% of our current national debt.

Woody wrote:$700 billion =

It's $2,300.00 per person in America.
It is the entire GDP of Florida - or of The Netherlands.
It's 12 Bill Gates's.
It's almost the amount we've spent on the war in Iraq so far.
It's the same percent of our GDP that we spent on the Marshall Plan after WWII.
It's 7% of our current national debt.

bear in mind the government should be able to collect a percentage of it back

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:The Democrats have 235 votes in the House. You need 218 to pass legislation. There's more bipartisan agreement in the Senate, which is needed to prevent a filibuster.

Some of these folks (Pelosi amongst them) have long enough memories to recall what happened when they passed the Clinton budget in 1993, with the tax increase explicitly intended to cut the Reagan deficit, by a vote of 218-217. If that wasn't literally all Democrats in the majority, it was close. The Republicans used that (among other things) to beat the hell out of them in the following election... which was seventeen months off at the time. The next election is less than six weeks away.

That isn't to say what they're doing is "right," but it is rational. From Pelosi's standpoint, why should she put her members (and speakership) at risk to clean up a mess she believes, with some (not full) justification, the Republicans (led by Gramm) created through reckless deregulation?

A truism of the polisci classes that I took, and I'm sure those that you took, is that whenever government does anything controversial, it must be done on a bipartisan basis. This thing isn't controversial; it's widely despised, on both the left and the right. I think either they all put their necks on the line, or the deal fails.

I want it to pass too. I want the House GOP to pony up the 80 votes or whatever the magic number is. But, there's plenty of blame to go around here.

It's not like Boehner came from out of nowhere saying his caucus couldn't support the bill. The White House sent Cheney to Capitol Hill Tuesday and they bit his head off. Paulson went to talk to them Wednesday, and at the end of his meeting, they asked for a show of hands to see how many people supported the bill. According to Tom Davis, four people raised their hands.

In steps the not at all blameless McCain (as he's yet to publicly take a stand on the issue). He's the only possible person left who might have leverage over the House GOP. At this point they owe Bush nothing, and have already rebuffed Paulson. McCain comes in and listens to their plan, still doesn't take a position. They go to the White House at which point Obama blasts McCain and the House GOP for blowing up a deal they didn't agree to.

So now the Democrats are running around blaming McCain for coming back and disrupting a deal that was never going to take place, if 100 House GOP votes were necessary for such a deal. Of course McCain has to dig in and get something of a compromise, and can't just accede to the current plan. But he also needs to get the House GOP caucus at least partially on board. At the same time Obama and his allies on the Hill should probably stop making shit up and antagonizing things further.

The Red Tornado wrote:

Woody wrote:$700 billion =

It's $2,300.00 per person in America.
It is the entire GDP of Florida - or of The Netherlands.
It's 12 Bill Gates's.
It's almost the amount we've spent on the war in Iraq so far.
It's the same percent of our GDP that we spent on the Marshall Plan after WWII.
It's 7% of our current national debt.

bear in mind the government should be able to collect a percentage of it back

Right. Where Bush and Paulson messed this up royally was in not getting this out there when they first proposed the plan. They also I think messed some of the politically sensitive details on things like CEO pay and Treasury Department accountability.

I also like how the right wing is trying to lay this at the feet of Jimmy Carter and the community reinvestment act. I mean, if it was such a bad idea, why didn't you all fix it when you had the chance? In the mean time, we've had 16 years of Republican control of the White House, and at least half that time with control of the the House and Senate.

All I know is this thing better end soon. A mattress with a load of cash under it is not easy to sleep on.

Bush might have spoke for a minute and fifteen seconds. Truly an epic stem winder from him.

jerseyhoya wrote:Bush might have spoke for a minute and fifteen seconds. Truly an epic stem winder from him.

Can you summarize?

All he said was everyone agrees that something needs to be done, the legislative process is messy, but something bipartisan is going to get done.

It was the Dow Plz Don't Go Down 1,000 points speech.

Nice, thanks

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtIuu-FEEoU[/youtube]
anderson's face after playing her clip... priceless.

Geez. I really hadn't even begun to try to decide yet, but this makes it easy. I know we're not voting for a veep, but who would pick somebody like that???

Stockdale > Palin

"As Putin rears his head"

This isn't new, but interesting



Found it in this article, which is scary, but not unexpected

These findings, if true, have worrying implications. Cognitive dissonance won't help people make rational decisions, but it also suggests that there's little point in arguing with someone who holds an opposing belief.

Most of us here realize that by now.

Shouldn't those numbers add up to less than 100%?

that was my initial thought, but i guess you can have multiple "primary news sources"

I'm sure it was a "which outlets do you get your news from" question. That makes sense; I'm sure most people change the channel now and then

No, I think that means that 33% of Fox viewers believe that WMDs were found, compared to 23% of CBS viewers, etc.