quote:

Originally posted by SIG_Sour:
i think it's safe to say most people who hate FOX news do so because its anchors are conservatives who can't stand a crappy liberal president who keeps giving away money we don't have to people who don't deserve it.

Obama is actually pretty moderate.
This can be confirmed by the Liberal left in the House who cannot get him to do their bidding.
DEMOCRAT does not mean Liberal.
Also the money that was borrowed and Given to most of these companies especially in automotive was to keep a couple of million people working.
Regarding that $780 Billion, They have only put out about 20% of it because the money is staged over a length of time. Also the banks have all pretty much paid back what they were given.
So that is money that your kids won't have to pay for.

It just sounds like you wanted to put in an uninformed response. Just like all of the people who act like Obama is the founder and CEO of Acorn.
Actually, ACORN has been around for 40 years and is made up of about 100 different groups.
None of them involving Obama.
FOX would have you think he is calling their shots though.

quote:

Originally posted by dropK1CK_ninJA:

I guess you missed it when Democrats booed Bush during the 2005 State of the Union Address.

Hardly the same thing at all. The democrats didn't applaud at the end of his speech. They waited for luls in the president's speech. Nobody yelled over the president. Nobody charged him of "Lying" they simply didn't agree. Nobody made that breach in decorum on either account. No, this is not a case of do as I say not as I do. And comparing it to this is a failing attempt to make it seem so. This was far tamer.

As for the article, a very interesting read. I knew about the cane incident from before the civil war but now this is something:

"The attack was not an aberration. Since the founding of the republic, congressional altercations were common. In 1798, for instance, Connecticut Federalist Roger Griswold had spoken badly about Republican Matthew Lyon's war record. Lyon spat in his face. Griswold hit Lyon more than 20 times with a hickory cane as their colleagues watched. Lyon then grabbed a pair of fire tongs and beat on Griswold."

FOX news has always sucked...along with CNN.

lolz at politics... the way I see it they are all idiots, even if they are necessary idiots.

quote:

Originally posted by CrimsoniteX:
lolz at politics... the way I see it they are all idiots, even if they are necessary idiots.

I second that. All politicians, even presidents are great liars, making you believe anything, much like the news organizations. All with hidden agendas, who need to be voted out.

quote:

Originally posted by DrGroove01:

quote:

Originally posted by CrimsoniteX:
lolz at politics... the way I see it they are all idiots, even if they are necessary idiots.

I second that. All politicians, even presidents are great liars, making you believe anything, much like the news organizations. All with hidden agendas, who need to be voted out.

And that is the big secret that most people cannot seem to figure out.

So true! I don't even think that politicians even care about their platforms. I think most politicians look at their constituents and pick the 'values' most likely to get them elected by the people they represent.

quote:

Originally posted by zeeEVIL1:
Also the banks have all pretty much paid back what they were given.

you better call Michael Moore and tell him to nix his new film, then.

also, a Democrat may call himself a moderate, but his constituents are still liberal and he will behave in such a way the majority of the time - but that's enough with the hair-splitting.

quote:

Originally posted by zeeEVIL1:
It just sounds like you wanted to put in an uninformed response.

let's see here. one of Obama's major bullet points during his campaign was less government spending (ohnoesthewaris'spensiveandweareindebt), and the first thing he does when he gets into office is spend a ****ton of money. how's that for an uninformed response?

Michael Moore is the Democratic version of Bill O'Reilly. Poo on him.

As for the spending, I'm pretty sure the economy is looking much better, and that the spending you are referring to is the money put back into the USA so Americans could keep their jobs and not have them outsourced...

BUT...
I could debate all day, but I don't want to p*$$ anyone off anymore (i.e. get into the war, how much that cost, the 9/11 Iraq stuff, global warming, etc. ) so maybe we'll agree to disagree? Sig, you and whoever else, can enjoy watching FOX, and I'll watch BBC with whoever, and other people can watch CNN. Ultimately it's all news. The people who watch FOX will not be swayed by any other news group and vice versa. My parents won't watch anything BUT FOX news. I throw up everytime I hear/see anything related to Bill O'Reilly... No matter what either one tries to say, we always stick to our guns.

I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope that the limits the former administration put on NIH research grants will be lifted, more money will go back in, and I can continue my medical research and hopefully improve life for a bunch of people.

Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck and Michael Moore can all go have a peeing contest and try and compensate for what they never ever had. They don't matter.

EDIT: fixed typo

quote:

Originally posted by SIG_Sour:

quote:

Originally posted by zeeEVIL1:
Also the banks have all pretty much paid back what they were given.

AIG is not a bank. Bear/Sterns is not a bank. They are major financial lenders who back up bank loans and Mortgage loans. Bank of America and Wachovia are examples of banks. Those institutions have in fact paid back a vast majority of the money given by the government. This was so they could return to Independant operations.

you better call Michael Moore and tell him to nix his new film, then.

also, a Democrat may call himself a moderate, but his constituents are still liberal and he will behave in such a way the majority of the time - but that's enough with the hair-splitting.
Just because you think that some risk is good if it will help to improve lives or if you feel that decisions regarding the country and not personal religious beliefs or party partisanship are necessary does not make you a Liberal. It just means you put common sense at the forefront of decision making.
Liberals range from Moderate to extreme within their own classification of the left wing. they mainly think that America should do more for its citizens and not as much as it currently is doing for the top 5%

quote:

Originally posted by zeeEVIL1:
It just sounds like you wanted to put in an uninformed response.

let's see here. one of Obama's major bullet points during his campaign was less government spending (ohnoesthewaris'spensiveandweareindebt), and the first thing he does when he gets into office is spend a ****ton of money. how's that for an uninformed response?

It is uninformed, because this recession actually started about 13 1/2 months before Obama was elected. This put it firmly in the Bush Administration. Additionally it takes years to get into a situation like our current one. How does it happen? Well lets see. How about deregulation of the financial institutions? It only allowed them far greater leeway in making risky investments all in an effort to make a profit for shareholders. Or how about allowing Corporate Giants who have their home offices in the US to move all of their production factories overseas where labor is cheap and they can avoid Taxation by the US and usually by the countries they put the factories in. This doesn't help America at all. Sure these companies pay less in wages meaning they make more profit which allows their Board of directors to take bigger and bigger bonuses. What about all of the skilled Americans who could do those jobs but sadly those jobs are not available to them. How about allowing Hedge fund groups which actually make money when other institutions fail. How about Deregulating test trial time periods for the Pharma companies so they could be allowed to put poorly tested meds on the public market? I could continue to go on with this one, but the point is this...All of the stuff that got us to where we were in January took years to come into being. President Bush Put together the bailout. Obama when he came into office and Inherited all of this mess put the bailout forth in an effort to save jobs and keep the country alive. We are 10 months from there and we are coming out of our recession. Something that would not have happened without the bailout.
Look, I do not like paying tax's any more than you do. But you have to use common sense and realize that we live in a Democratic Country where the Government is chosen by the people to act as caretakers for the country and for the people. The government is not a business nor are they backed by Philanthropic investors so when things need to be fixed or improved or instituted, the money has to come from somewhere. That somewhere is and always will be the people.

Republicans always run on not raising tax's which honestly is a complete impossibility. They know it but hope you won't realize it beyond the rhetoric. Reagan(the Republican poster boy) lowered tax's FOR THE UPPER 5% three times causing a massive deficit. He created the -Trickle down effect- where the Rich as they got richer would end up making the rest of the country richer. What was he smoking? lol. Bush Senior swore he would not raise tax's but actually did because he had to offset the deficits created by the Reagan tax cuts. It wasn't until Clinton got in office that everything was able to be fixed. The country does not support itself Its support comes from Corporations (who would rather keep the money for themselves and from industrial production which this country barely does anymore. For the last three decades, Industrial production in the US has declined so much that we actually import over 70% of our products from outside of the country. We only produce about 30% of what we consume.
Bottom line, yes your response was uninformed.

quote:

Originally posted by tibbsy07:
As for the spending, I'm pretty sure the economy is looking much better, and that the spending you are referring to is the money put back into the USA so Americans could keep their jobs and not have them outsourced...

Well, okay, in all fairness the estimation is that the proposed 2010 budget could actually hurt us in the long run due to us not, you know, having that amount of money to spend.

BUT, I do want to point out that the President only proposes the budget. Who approves it and is ultimately responsible for ensuring it's fiscally viable? That's right, the same bunch of jack-asses that have been in office for the past 15 years (give or take 40!)

Yeeah, Congress.

Which brings me to my next point:

quote:

It is uninformed, because this recession actually started about 13 1/2 months before Obama was elected. This put it firmly in the Bush Administration. Additionally it takes years to get into a situation like our current one.

I've seen some estimates date back to Reagan or Carter as when regulations started cropping up that promoted the poor lending practices, and deregulation that allowed them to get away with it even more easily. And while I don't know that much about the regulations, I'll wager a bet that Congress (or congressional committee) had a lot to do with those regulations/deregulations.

So, yeah, basically both parties are caught with their pants down dipping into the pie--so to speak--and people like Sig are trying to blame Obama, people like... um, I guess the liberal form of Sig are trying to blame Bush W. And the best part is, as Zee pointed out, it took many years to get us in such a poor situation, which means it took waaaay more ****s up than a single president can do.

I love American politics, mainly because the president has a lot less power than most people give him credit for, but damn he makes for a good scapegoat so most everyone else responsible doesn't have to get blamed.

The President sets policy. Congress takes care of getting the middle management stuff moving. He can still veto them though. We were already in a declining fiscal situation for the last 5 years.
Two Wars will do that to a country. Especially when one was not approved by Congress.
Still I will repeat something I said back last year. They need to shorten the amount of time that Congress and the Senate can serve.

quote:

The President sets policy. Congress takes care of getting the middle management stuff moving. He can still veto them though.

Yes, he can veto them, but Congress has ways of attempting to push things through w/o having to get a 2/3rd majority to overturn the veto. Namely piggy-backing items onto other bills. And besides, as far as the budget is concerned, the various House and Senate budget committees are the ones to set the actual dollar limitations starting... iirc October of this year for the following fiscal year. There really is a lot more cooperation between the legislative and executive branches than each will have you believe.

quote:

We were already in a declining fiscal situation for the last 5 years.
Two Wars will do that to a country. Especially when one was not approved by Congress.

To clarify, I wasn't trying to say the problem was evenly spread back past Bush Jr., only that some of the issues that are causing a lot of the current instability with the markets and certain industries started back in the Carter-Reagan years and built up over time so that when they came to a head, the worsening fiscal situation Bush kicked off met up with it and they had a good old fashion recession.

Jeeze, rereading that last part, that makes more sense to me than it made when I wrote it.

quote:

Still I will repeat something I said back last year. They need to shorten the amount of time that Congress and the Senate can serve.

YES!

quote:

Originally posted by zeeEVIL1:
Still I will repeat something I said back last year. They need to make Tibbs the King of the world forever and ever. OMG he'd be so awesome!!!1!11

Fixed

quote:

Originally posted by tibbsy07:

quote:

Originally posted by zeeEVIL1:
Still I will repeat something I said back last year. They need to make Tibbs the King of the world forever and ever. OMG he'd be so awesome!!!1!11

Fixed

Lol thanks for fixing that grievous error on my part Tibbs.

No problem Zee, I knew that's what you really meant.

So I rediscovered another big problem with American news outlets, and commentators like Bill O'Reilly specifically. I was reading through comments on the Health Care bill, and remembered back to some info I had seen on it that my grandpa sent me, which was something Fox News had originally run:

Anecdotal evidence is not valid research. In this particular case, everyone has an example of a friend that was burned because he didn't have insurance, or someone that got state assistance and doesn't need insurance... or both.

Perfect example: My brother and his family don't have insurance. They get medical coupons from the state, though (we all live in WA,) and it's cheaper for them to use medical coupons than it is to get insurance (probably something to do with preexisting conditions.) As far as I understand it, their two kids are covered for most everything they need. My brother and sister-in-law, not so much, but they are still able to see the doctor when needed.

Now, I have a friend whom I used to work with. He started getting a horrible toothache. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I *think* the insurance offered through our employer didn't cover dental, so he had to search around for a week of what he described as pretty freaking bad tooth pain before he finally found a dentist he could afford. That, imo, is unacceptable that someone would have to suffer through a week *before even finding a place to make an appointment for.*

ANYWAY, I'm about to get off topic. This example shows why anecdotal evidence is useless. Just in my life, I have two conflicting stories that indicate our healthcare system needs very little reform, or a complete overhaul to how it works and is offered. And believe me, the internet is ripe with stories in both directions.

Which leads me to my main point: has any news network actually done studies to support or deny the claims the Obama administration is making about uninsured rates, uninsured citizens vs. uninsured aliens, etc? Have any of them, and here's a big one for me, done research into state assistance on a per-state basis? I don't want some "on a national average..." No, I want to see, "this state offers medical coupons, and only 1% of its population goes without insurance," and "this state offers little to now medical assistance, and 50% of its population goes without insurance," etc. I also want to see one of them actually read through the ****ing bills they commentate on. It actually doesn't look as hard as one would originally think. Sure, it's somewhere along the lines of ~1,100 pages, but it's very large print.

In fact, due to all the "he said, she said," b.s. surrounding every major bill, I'm going to make it a point to read them.

Hrm, hopefully my point didn't get lost in all that.

I have read two of them so far. Very dry legalese. But lucky for me I can understand a lot of it.

Its amazing how much BS that did not exist in either version I read that was passed off as fact.

And why am I not surprised to hear that.