President Obama Re-Elected - Page 798

On October 15 2012 22:39 Poltergeist- wrote:

Well, I dunno where you get that information from but that isn't really important in this case. I guess the issue I have is the scientists claiming that we as humans are causing this global warming. As far as I know, there isn't any solid evidence saying that we are causing it.

On October 15 2012 22:47 DarK[A] wrote:
Whatever you guys do, PLEASE watch the debates, and be sure to fact-check them.

I missed the first Presidential debate and just finished watching / reading the transcript from the VP debate last night.

From what I heard, Obama got demolished at the first Presidential debate. In my opinion, Biden started the VP debate very strong, but didn't keep pace and ended up falling behind after the first 30 minutes or so. Ryan won that debate, but by a closer margin than Romney allegedly won the first Presidential debate. While I believe he won through actual debate, others might say it was from Biden looking childish by laughing and cutting Ryan off with mockery literally somewhere between 80 and 90 times instead of offering an actual argument.

Fun Fact: Despite VP Biden painting the Romney/Ryan ticket in a negative light with regards to abortion (which is a non issue anyway, no politician will ever actually act on it - it's political suicide), Biden voted to overturn Roe v. Wade when he served as a Senator.

On October 15 2012 21:41 paralleluniverse wrote:

WTF.

You know like 95% or probably higher of climate scientist believe in global warming?

It's not like 50%.

On October 15 2012 22:47 DarK[A] wrote:
Whatever you guys do, PLEASE watch the debates, and be sure to fact-check them.

I missed the first Presidential debate and just finished watching / reading the transcript from the VP debate last night.

From what I heard, Obama got demolished at the first Presidential debate. In my opinion, Biden started the VP debate very strong, but didn't keep pace and ended up falling behind after the first 30 minutes or so. Ryan won that debate, but by a closer margin than Romney allegedly won the first Presidential debate. While I believe he won through actual debate, others might say it was from Biden looking childish by laughing and cutting Ryan off with mockery literally somewhere between 80 and 90 times instead of offering an actual argument.

Fun Fact: Despite VP Biden painting the Romney/Ryan ticket in a negative light with regards to abortion (which is a non issue anyway, no politician will ever actually act on it - it's political suicide), Biden voted to overturn Roe v. Wade when he served as a Senator.

On October 15 2012 22:56 turdburgler wrote:


winning and losing a debate is a completely personal response. i find it repulsive some of the things that romney lies about but others dont. even if ryan was the nicest guy in the world i find him slimey and unlikeable, i guess lucky for you my opinion doesnt count but thats just how i see it, just dont take others words on who won and who lost.

its misleading to say biden wants to overturn roe v wade. its true but thats not because he is against abortion, he is against state intervention in abortion. he thinks its a personal issue for the mother to discuss with her doctor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Joe_Biden#Abortion.2C_stem_cell_research.2C_cloning

On October 15 2012 23:03 paralleluniverse wrote:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=330491&currentpage=793#15849

Also, Ryan got absolutely demolished in that debate, he couldn't respond to any of the attacks made on him and Romney. The part on foreign policy, particularly on Iran and Afghanistan made Ryan look like he had no idea what's going on.

On October 15 2012 23:42 DarK[A] wrote:


I guess that's your personal opinion and you're entitled to it.

Most of Biden's "attacks" on the Romney/Ryan ticket were gross misrepresentations of policies and quotes taken out of context. I would have liked to hear why after 4 years (2 of which with a Democratic majority so Obama could pass essentially anything he wanted to) we don't have the things we were promised, while we're spending trillions of dollars over our revenue. Taxing those 120,000 families making an average of $8 million annually at, say, a ridiculous 48% in this case would erase a mere 30% of our 2011 deficit ALONE. Or, in other terms, would run the federal government from 1/1/2011 to 2/15/2011.

On October 15 2012 23:59 TheTenthDoc wrote:


If you don't think Ryan came off as incompetent regarding foreign policy when he was speaking nonsense about never using timelines because "they help our enemies" when they are an accepted fact of modern troop withdrawal in handover situations, being unable to present a single thing he and Romney would have done to stabilize the Middle East/Iran beyond "not what you guys did," not realizing virtually all our international allies including Afghans are on board with the withdrawal timetable, thinking it's bad to pull troops out of the most dangerous area in the world because it will put our troops in danger (this logic mandates total immediate withdrawal in reality), and not realizing that Iran is suffering under crippling sanctions, then you are in a strange place.

These weren't misrepresentations, these were things Ryan actually said live on national television during the debate.

Domestically everything is going to be pretty subjective because there are huge numbers of studies skewing things both ways (though I'd point out Ryan came off as a huge idiot for bashing the stimulus while requesting stimulus funds), but foreign policy? I'd have loved to see Huntsman in the chair instead, then we might have seen a competent discussion of foreign policy.

Edit: I mean, if you compare Ryan's thoughts on foreign policy to the foreign policy debate between Huntsman and Gingrich in the primaries, it's honestly depressing how little he knows and understands.

On October 15 2012 22:15 paralleluniverse wrote:

Except it's not worse if you look at the private sector. It's a lot better.



Yes, it's worthwhile separating private from public, because private is mostly entirely driven by the state of the economy. Public is determined by constraints such as state governments being required to run balanced budgets and not enough stimulus aid or revenue.

So private employment is a reflection of the state of the economy, public employment is a reflection of government budget constraints.

On October 15 2012 22:31 paralleluniverse wrote:

But Obama wants to increase spending in the short term. For example his Jobs Act will create 1.9 to 2.6 million jobs, reports linked here: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/09/07/812251/republicans-blocked-jobs-act-one-year/

And I take his talk about increasing investments in education, manufacturing, research, or whatever, as stimulus, without using that dirty word, of course.

In contrast, Romney supports a balanced budget amendment. But, I wish him good luck balancing the budget with his massive increase to defense spending and a $5 tax cut.

On October 16 2012 00:45 DarK[A] wrote:


These Afghans on board with our withdrawal are the same ones turning rifles on foreign allies, right? Regardless of whether you think timelines help our enemies or not, do you think the Afghan forces are ready to completely take over security on their own? Ryan's point during that diatribe was to secure our gains. That is, NOT letting those thousands of military deaths be for absolutely nothing.

I admit that Ryan didn't put himself in a great place with the previous requests for aid and later bashing of the stimulus, but really if you knew the government was going ahead with $x of spending towards helping the economy, you wouldn't request any for your state? Not to mention Biden looking like an absolute fool for bashing Ryan voting to "put two wars on a credit card" when he himself voted for them as well.

On October 16 2012 02:03 TheTenthDoc wrote:


Disclaimer: I hate Ryan because he's a career politician that likes Ayn Rand (who loathed career politicians) and spent 12 years doing nothing out of the ordinary in the house then had the gall to let the media paint him as an ultra-intelligent policy wonk that could save the Republican party. I can respect Romney, but Ryan? No way.

Good thing we're talking in 2014 with the withdrawal. Two years to a year and a half before our Iraq draw-down things were worse there than they are now in Afghanistan in Iraq. Note that Ryan never once mentioned concerns about the region, and even tacitly admitted he'd withdraw by 2014, so obviously he thinks they will be by then. Just admit he's a foreign policy simpleton and looked like it in this debate.

And yes, that would have made Biden look like a fool if Ryan were intelligent enough to call him on it in the debate. Too bad he couldn't think on his feet and deviate from prepared stories and talking points.

On October 16 2012 02:13 DarK[A] wrote:


Ryan's other point criticized the administration for withdrawing those troops this past summer leaving less of our forces there to deal with the same presence. So, as Ryan said, you're leaving them to do the same job with less people. It doesn't matter that much that those Americans were replaced with Afghan forces. Sure it helps a little bit but those remaining American forces are still in much greater danger than before.

It *did* make Biden look like a fool - Ryan called him out on it, but it didn't have as much of an impact as it could have because the moderator started to talk over him to change the subject. I definitely wasn't a big fan of that moderator.

On October 16 2012 00:45 DarK[A] wrote:


These Afghans on board with our withdrawal are the same ones turning rifles on foreign allies, right? Regardless of whether you think timelines help our enemies or not, do you think the Afghan forces are ready to completely take over security on their own? Ryan's point during that diatribe was to secure our gains. That is, NOT letting those thousands of military deaths be for absolutely nothing.

On October 16 2012 04:30 Jormundr wrote:

No, I don't think they will be ready to enforce our policies on their land in the next 5 years, the next 10 years, or even the next 25 years. I don't give a shit. We invaded a sovereign nation, shot a bunch of terrorists/extremists (as well as a bunch of civilians) and we are now somehow confused as to why there are still more and more people fighting against us.
PROTIP: When you invade someone's country and kill a bunch of people there will always be people who want to kill you in return.
I'm not making an argument for whether or not we can 'better' the country in 25 or 50 years. I'm not making an argument over whether or not the afghan government will have Taliban influences in it when we leave (I actually assume these influences never left). I'm saying that we never had any logical reason to go in and fight a guerrilla war alongside a frail and corrupt government against an enemy that bears no flag. The point is that our service men and women haven't been tasked with doing anything of a significant enough value to the United States or Afghanistan to justify the death toll. We are responsible for (by the lowest casualty count) 6 Afghan civilian deaths for every single person who died on 9/11. Explain to me what throwing away the lives of our soldiers is going to accomplish for us as a nation. Explain to me what this war on foreign soil is about, because I apparently don't understand the modern definition of defense and how it is so deeply intertwined with nation-building.

On October 16 2012 04:30 Jormundr wrote:

No, I don't think they will be ready to enforce our policies on their land in the next 5 years, the next 10 years, or even the next 25 years. I don't give a shit. We invaded a sovereign nation, shot a bunch of terrorists/extremists (as well as a bunch of civilians) and we are now somehow confused as to why there are still more and more people fighting against us.
PROTIP: When you invade someone's country and kill a bunch of people there will always be people who want to kill you in return.
I'm not making an argument for whether or not we can 'better' the country in 25 or 50 years. I'm not making an argument over whether or not the afghan government will have Taliban influences in it when we leave (I actually assume these influences never left). I'm saying that we never had any logical reason to go in and fight a guerrilla war alongside a frail and corrupt government against an enemy that bears no flag. The point is that our service men and women haven't been tasked with doing anything of a significant enough value to the United States or Afghanistan to justify the death toll. We are responsible for (by the lowest casualty count) 6 Afghan civilian deaths for every single person who died on 9/11. Explain to me what throwing away the lives of our soldiers is going to accomplish for us as a nation. Explain to me what this war on foreign soil is about, because I apparently don't understand the modern definition of defense and how it is so deeply intertwined with nation-building.

On October 16 2012 05:22 coverpunch wrote:

Let me take a swing at this. What you're missing is what 9/11 represented to US foreign policy. The attack was planned from the dark and neglected corners of the world, so that these obscure conflicts that you would say America should not care are precisely the areas where terrorism has fomented most actively. There is large agreement that the best way to stop terrorism is to have a prosperous, stable, strong government that encourages democratic and free market values. Hence the active nation-building started by Bush and continued and expanded by Obama.

You seem unaware that it was last Friday that the Obama administration announced it was expanding the War on Terror to Mali (hunting down the terrorists who attacked the embassy in Benghazi). The US isn't committing ground forces, but we will be arming and funding a militia of mixed African countries to occupy the country. Not that Romney would do anything very different, at least he isn't saying so.

What I'm trying to say is that the people who are really lost on foreign policy right now are liberal isolationists who think America should disengage from the world and only expand our influence if people want it. You don't have a leg to stand on in this election. Obama isn't that at all, he's been arguably more interventionist than Bush, it's just that people stopped bitching and moaning about it because he's a Democrat and they've been so traditionally reluctant that we broadly assume that if he says someone needs to be harshly interrogated or killed by a drone or invaded, then he probably means it.

On October 16 2012 05:22 coverpunch wrote:

Let me take a swing at this. What you're missing is what 9/11 represented to US foreign policy. The attack was planned from the dark and neglected corners of the world, so that these obscure conflicts that you would say America should not care are precisely the areas where terrorism has fomented most actively. There is large agreement that the best way to stop terrorism is to have a prosperous, stable, strong government that encourages democratic and free market values. Hence the active nation-building started by Bush and continued and expanded by Obama.

You seem unaware that it was last Friday that the Obama administration announced it was expanding the War on Terror to Mali (hunting down the terrorists who attacked the embassy in Benghazi). The US isn't committing ground forces, but we will be arming and funding a militia of mixed African countries to occupy the country. Not that Romney would do anything very different, at least he isn't saying so.

What I'm trying to say is that the people who are really lost on foreign policy right now are liberal isolationists who think America should disengage from the world and only expand our influence if people want it. You don't have a leg to stand on in this election. Obama isn't that at all, he's been arguably more interventionist than Bush, it's just that people stopped bitching and moaning about it because he's a Democrat and they've been so traditionally reluctant that we broadly assume that if he says someone needs to be harshly interrogated or killed by a drone or invaded, then he probably means it.