Condescension, Flaming, Politics (in that order) Here

by **Werthless** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 16:02:11

CalvinBall wrote:I don't understand these tea party things. Are they being run by Fox News? How come it was fine to have deficit spending the past 8 years but not now?

Colbert did a funny bit showing how Glenn Beck was going to run a tea party in the only place in America that made sense. The place he chose was the Alamo.

It was a grassroots thing of Ron Paul-supporter types, until Fox News got wind of it and packaged it up to all the "reformed" Republicans.

by **TenuredVulture** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 16:02:30

drsmooth wrote:
TenuredVulture wrote:
....a mid-day and week day protest. (Why schedule it then? I dunno.)...

yes you do - April 15 was a wednesday.

No need to tune into blowhard radio to imagine that the events are being trumpeted there as a big deal.

I'd at least schedule for after work.

by **Werthless** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 16:04:14

allentown wrote:
Werthless wrote:
Woody wrote:I can't watch the video now but what's the big deal about the bowing/shaking?

I'm going to guess the conservatives are really pissed because he's SHOWING WEAKNESS TO THE INFERIOR ARABS, but I really don't know what the issue is. Can someone explain?

It's not a huge deal. The video was Gibbs denying that Obama actually bowed, but that Obama bent his knees and lowered his head as a handshake, because he's so tall. The denial was amusing. I edited my post, and the video should work.

Conservatives and their approach to Saudis and royalty are quite amusing. Michelle arm around QE II is awfully presumptuous and a breach of protocol that the should have been aware of and that shamed the Obama administration, while the bow or non-bow is awful since it shows weakness. Then again, no problem when both Bushes and Cheney were totally in the bag for the Saudi royals and pretty much ignored their near sponsorship of AQ. Then again, the nascent AQ was pretty much a CIA invention under Reagan administration. But then they weren't xenophobic, backward, Muslim extremist terrorists, they were freedom fighters opposing the Soviet Union.

My video wasn't about the bow, which I view as a trivially minor negative thing. I thought everyone would be amused at Gibbs denying that it happened, that the knee bend was how Obama shakes hands were shorter people.

by **jerseyhoya** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 16:09:00

lethal wrote:
jerseyhoya wrote:Also, the magnitude of the deficits we're running going forward isn't really comparable to the deficits from the last eight years. Not saying that is entirely Obama's fault, as it obviously isn't. But this graph is pretty frightening.

[img]Scary%20Chart[/img]

Does that chart take into account the Obama truth in deficit disclosure or do they use the Bush hidden Social Security number contrasted to the Obama number?

I imagine those Bush numbers are less bad because the Social Security revenues/expenditures were included with the federal receipts. I would think that the CBO and White House projections going forward do the same. Why wouldn't they?

by **swishnicholson** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 16:16:52

Werthless wrote:My video wasn't about the bow, which I view as a trivially minor negative thing. I thought everyone would be amused at Gibbs denying that it happened, that the knee bend was how Obama shakes hands were shorter people.

I thought it was an appropriate response to a trivially minor negative thing. (I actually just considered it awkward, not a bow or standard hand shake or even a hearty terrorist fist jab).

by **lethal** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 16:18:31

jerseyhoya wrote:I imagine those Bush numbers are less bad because the Social Security revenues/expenditures were included with the federal receipts. I would think that the CBO and White House projections going forward do the same. Why wouldn't they?

I remember reading that Obama was changing the way the deficit was calculated, showing more of a true deficit number by excluding the Social Security component. I could be wrong though.

by **jerseyhoya** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 16:45:29

The following is from Marc Ambinder, which certainly gives the impression that Obama's numbers going forward include Social Security and Medicare. It's just that surpluses are disappearing due to demographic shifts, so it starts to hurt the overall budget pictures.

President Obama's FY 2010 budget outline includes ten years' worth of deficit projections. As Obama noted two nights ago, he intends to cut the federal budget deficit from $1.75 trillion in 2009 to $533 billion by the end of his first term.

But what's projected for 2014? A slightly higher deficit -- $570b. For 2015? $583b. By 2016, the deficit exceeds $636b again; by 2019, it's up to about $712b.

The budget projects that the national debt will increase nearly two-fold over 10 years, from $8.3 trillion in 2009 to $15.3 trillion in 2019.

So why does the deficit go up? Largely, it's because the baby boom generation is retiring and taking Social Security checks. Social Security spending rises fairly dramatically over the next ten years.

by **TenuredVulture** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 16:46:38

Baby Boomers should start smoking heavily, and ride motorcycles with no helmet.

by **drsmooth** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 16:54:38

TenuredVulture wrote:
drsmooth wrote:
TenuredVulture wrote:
....a mid-day and week day protest. (Why schedule it then? I dunno.)...

yes you do - April 15 was a wednesday.

No need to tune into blowhard radio to imagine that the events are being trumpeted there as a big deal.

I'd at least schedule for after work.

that would make sense if payroll taxes had been a centerpiece of the teabuggery. I don't know, but my guess is they weren't.

by **Woody** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 16:56:04

by **Woody** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 16:57:09

wtf

by **VoxOrion** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 16:58:04

Woody wrote:

I like how the moonbats said that about Bush, and now the teabaggers are saying it about Obama. I swear at least 45% of all criticism directed at a president doesn't change except for the name.

by **Bakestar** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 17:08:14

In their "defense" lots of these teabaggers seem like Lyndon LaRouche/Ron Paul types who will always be the ones speaking truth to power, maaaaaaaaan!, regardless of Party affiliation.

by **Werthless** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 17:13:44

I think the bank bailout is missing a few zeroes.

by **jerseyhoya** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 17:13:53

Bakestar wrote:In their "defense" lots of these teabaggers seem like Lyndon LaRouche/Ron Paul types who will always be the ones speaking truth to power, maaaaaaaaan!, regardless of Party affiliation.

One of the things about the political spectrum that always amazes me is how similar at times the far left and far right can sound. If you had ten quotes from Ralph Nader and ten from Pat Buchanan, I'm sure some would stick out as being from one or the other, but I'd guess at least half of them would be really difficult to differentiate.

by **VoxOrion** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 17:18:40

Werthless wrote:

I think the bank bailout is missing a few zeroes.

THEY SPELLED WERTHLESS WRONG LOL OMG

by **VoxOrion** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 17:21:23

Bakestar wrote:In their "defense" lots of these teabaggers seem like Lyndon LaRouche/Ron Paul types who will always be the ones speaking truth to power, maaaaaaaaan!, regardless of Party affiliation.

And, sadly, Jews always seem to play some part in their "truth".

by **Werthless** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 17:24:33

VoxOrion wrote:THEY SPELLED WERTHLESS WRONG LOL OMG

by **CalvinBall** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 17:24:52

TenuredVulture wrote:So, the word is, across the country, some hundreds of thousands participated in these tea parties. Nate at 538, basing his totals on official police estimates or news reports has the number at 265k, while over at redstate, the number that is being thrown around is 300k.

OK, so is that a lot or not very many? What are we comparing it to? It was a mid-day and week day protest. (Why schedule it then? I dunno.) But still. That seems really thin. If you consider Rush Limbaugh, according to the ever reliable wikipedia has 13.5 million listeners, well, I'd say the tea parties really didn't attract a big turnout.

I went to the last concert of this band Dispatch in Boston and there were 120,000 people there. At the Phils parade there were over a million. So I don't really think 265k is all that much.

by **Werthless** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 17:27:03

CalvinBall wrote:
TenuredVulture wrote:So, the word is, across the country, some hundreds of thousands participated in these tea parties. Nate at 538, basing his totals on official police estimates or news reports has the number at 265k, while over at redstate, the number that is being thrown around is 300k.

OK, so is that a lot or not very many? What are we comparing it to? It was a mid-day and week day protest. (Why schedule it then? I dunno.) But still. That seems really thin. If you consider Rush Limbaugh, according to the ever reliable wikipedia has 13.5 million listeners, well, I'd say the tea parties really didn't attract a big turnout.

I went to the last concert of this band Dispatch in Boston and there were 120,000 people there. At the Phils parade there were over a million. So I don't really think 265k is all that much.

That's because all Republicans are rich people with important jobs, supporting everyone else through their taxes. The tea parties were ironic, in that all the supporters to the movement were too busy being productive members of society to attend them.

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