training is wayyyyy better than funneling someone into a crappy $8/hr job, which is what most get coming out of TANF. this is much better for the recipient and for society. romney himself believes in it.

i thought everyone believes Obama was/is on the right side of the isle?

So they're not lying. They're attacking the president for making a policy change that may or may not make things better (and is supported by some GOP govs and Romney supported something different to weaken the requirements when he was governor) but is politically easy to whack at.

ugh, i guess your entire party can be obtuse to win some fake political point if you want.

pacino wrote:ugh, i guess your entire party can be obtuse to win some fake political point if you want.

Says pacino the same day Obama's SuperPAC released an ad where they imply Romney was responsible for the death of a woman who kicked it from cancer (even though she found out about the cancer in 2006, seven years after Romney left Bain, five years after her husband lost the job in the plant closing, four years after she lost her own insurance she had from her own job).

And when the leading Democrat on Capitol Hill continues going around shamelessly lying about Romney's taxes.

It's a good hit. Apparently it's a real ad buy from the Romney camp too, which is nice.

what does any of that have to do with what i stated? i'm a liberal, obama's not. why do i have to say 'i back obama!!!!" on everything?

reid is lying? maybe romney could show it. i know of a way he could that.

pacino wrote:reid is lying? maybe romney could show it. i know of a way he could that.

Was this the approach you took to the birthers who wanted to see Obama's long form birth certificate?

he showed about 75 birth certificates.

it's doubtful a man whose income is based on dividends paid taxes in 2009. fail to see how either relate to one another.

its doubtful a black guy was born in america

calvinballs,

nice diversion, jh.

pacino wrote:calvinballs,

nice diversion, jh.

I got the idea from today's Chicago Tribune editorial that calls Reid a birther

the tribune, lol. anyway, i applaud harry for pounding on mitt. just release your tax returns like is customary. the president released his bc like was NOT customary and people still didnt and still dont believe. theyre completely different.

edit: anywya, the head of your damned party says that the president of our country will end our country as we know it.

now im going to chill and watch the daily show.

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:calvinballs,

nice diversion, jh.

I got the idea from today's Chicago Tribune editorial that calls Reid a birther

I thought the preferred clever nickname for Reid and his followers was "worthers."

pacino wrote:the tribune, lol. anyway, i applaud harry for pounding on mitt. just release your tax returns like is customary. the president released his bc like was NOT customary and people still didnt and still dont believe. theyre completely different.

edit: anywya, the head of your damned party says that the president of our country will end our country as we know it.

now im going to chill and watch the daily show.

The Tribune endorsed Obama in 2008, didn't they? It's not the Washington Times.

And you're OK with people lying during campaigns, so long as they're Democrats lying about Republicans?

I, for one, am glad we cleared this up.

Gary Peters' primary win over Hansen Clarke in Michigan tonight means a second majority minority district will have a white representative and Detroit will have its first white congressman in a long damn time

I haven't been following this welfare issue closely. But from what I gather here and what I know about the policy and the labor market--which, not to be a schmuck, is basically what I thought about professionally for ten years, and avocationally when I wasn't on here or pp.com--I'm guessing it was a recognition that we have a structurally fucked up employment environment in which low-skilled people without work experience pretty much have zero chance of getting hired. (Actually, the only people who have a decent chance of getting hired right now are those already working. This is a problem, by the way, that tax policy won't solve.)

When faced with this problem--people having to do "work activities" to receive their public assistance when there's no chance of those work activities leading them to employment--a jurisdiction can make one of three choices: hire them to do presumably useful things, push them toward training and education that presumably will boost their employability if and when hiring picks up, or tell them to keep running on that treadmill of applying for jobs that they will never, ever get hired for. To be fair, Option 1 isn't "politically viable" because everyone knows that gummit employment is evil and useless. Option 2, the one I always liked as a believer that human capital is pretty much the best investment a society can make, is probably what the administration is holding out as a response to the fucked hiring environment. But Option 3, which maximizes the unpleasantness of the experience for public assistance recipients and communicates the pointlessness of their experience, is probably the most politically palatable.

My suspicion is that the Ayn Rand fetishists would prefer an Option 4, in which we kill the poor and sell their organs as spares to the "job creators." But we're probably a few years from anyone feeling comfortable enough to say that out loud.

Anyway, it seems pretty much everyone is okay with "their side" spinning like mad and stretching the truth beyond recognition. I'm not immune to this myself--I see Harry Reid talking about Romney's taxes and I simultaneously think he's a scumbag and feel some satisfaction that the Democrats now play more or less as rough as the Republicans. But mostly I ask myself how a system built on collaboration and compromise can function when the two parties are completely irreconcilable.

I'm pretty OK with both sides spinning like mad and stretching the truth beyond recognition. If you are going to lie, lie well and make sure it's worth the blowback.

I like to point it out when the other side is full of shit because folks here at Back She Kos love getting offended when the GOP throws questionable haymakers. And this Harry Reid stuff is almost uniquely remarkable in how full of shit it is.

With the economy as it is, the Obama camp is going to need to be more absurd in its attacks, and they're off to a great start. My fat gov would be a great veep pick because he'd be better at knifing back at this than anyone alive. I hope Pawlenty or Ryan or Portman come with brass knuckles.

jh, how do you know that what reid says is full of shit? Have you seen the returns?

I suspect he's exaggerating to put the screws to Mitt, but I don't see how you know that. Are you privy to his returns and, if so, can I get a peek? I'm sure he paid some taxes, but it was obviously very low or he's invested in some embarrassing stuff or something. Otherwise, there's no point to holding this stuff out.



Oh, and yet another example of Mitt accusing Obama of the very thing he's doing. Mitt and his cronies are trying to keep people from being able to vote, so of course they accuse Obama of doing the same thing, even though it's a ridiculous lie. When Obama talks about the voter suppression effort of the reps, now Mitt's followers can ignore it and say, "Obama did it first," or something sufficiently stupid to allow them to ignore what their own guy is doing.

btw, my favorite part of the political season so far is jh acting indignant about dem "lies." I imagine it's tough because he's used to the reps lying their asses off and the dems just taking it.

Of course, there's no proof that the dems are even lying about the returns. In fact, the lack of returns forthcoming from the Mittster makes it seem like maybe they aren't lyng. Maybe Mitt used creative accounting and some offshore tax havens to avoid income tax completely. When he says, "I've paid lots of money in taxes," maybe he means sales tax paid when buying elevators for his cars. Or maybe he means property tax from one of his many houses. Or maybe he means poll taxes -- oh wait, those are only for the poor.

If Switzerland was 6 hours behind us instead of 6 hours ahead of us the weird shit Monkeyboy posts in the politics thread would make more sense.