Political YouTube Clips Thread

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I've said it before: No sitting president will ever do anything to reduce the powers of the presidency. They may state in the campaign the powers need to be further refined and defined, but when it come time for actual change nothing will be done to lessen those powers.

 

Judged purely on the way you phrased it, no, I wouldn't be comfortable. But then again, you know me and can address me directly if you think I'm saying something untrue. You can ask me where I got my information, and I'm sure you know I'd be more than happy to oblige. Therefore you would have no need to forward my posts to Karl Rove for clarification. The same doesn't apply to anonymous forwarded e-mails that are usually unsourced and unsubstantiated. Also, Karl Rove actually did vindictively go after people who opposed him and his agenda, so in this instance, you would indeed be selling me out and yes, I would be uncomfortable.

Not only is there no evidence to support the idea that the Obama administration is collecting names of "enemies," they've done nothing - so far - to suggest they are vindictive in that way. While someone looking for reasons to dislike the current administration can choose to interpret it otherwise, I believe they are sincere when they say they want people to send in actual questions and "myths" they are worried about. Considering how many myths are out there right now, any way they can go about setting the record straight, the better.

If the changes they're proposing are going to be bad for us, I want to know so that I can fairly judge them and, if necessary, oppose them. But I'd prefer they be judged as they actually are - not their "death panel" caricature. If I get an email telling me "the TRUTH!!" that Obama wants to drown babies, I'd like to think I, as a tax-paying citizen, could go directly to the source of the proposals and ask them if what I was just e-mailed has any truth to it or not.

 

Believe it or not, I'm not using this as an attack on Obama. I'm not saying that he has some sort of secret plan to use the information. What I'm saying is that the possibility exists and I and many others don't like it. I do not believe a precedent should be set to collect this type of information or to ask for it from us. This has the possibility to violate our rights of privacy, freedom of assembly, and freedom of speech. Those are to valuable to risk all for the purpose of trying to pass a healthcare bill. To expand on my situation, this time it is trying to be used for a healthcare bill, what will it be used for next time. It may be possible that next time it will be used for something that you don't really want and precedents are hard to kill. What T2 said is correct and we should be trying to reign in the power of the President and the Congress, not give them more.

 

I hardly see this as giving them more power. Any citizen, at any time, for any reason, can submit a question or forward an email directly to the White House. This has been in place as long as the internet has been around, and the last 3 White Houses all encouraged people to submit questions in one form or another. By law, those emails will be kept on record. The only difference now is that the White House is directing that email traffic toward a specific issue for a limited time. I do see where your concern is; I just think that, considering the issue, the info requested and the method it's being collected, the scenario you're worried about seems awfully distant to be concerned about.

And let's be honest - anyone actually receptive to the idea that Obama is actually euthanizing old ladies isn't going to trust anything his "goons" say on the subject, anyway. I'd bet good money that the vast majority of the emails generated are from people who already support the administration and the healthcare reform initiative. They'd be collecting information on people already on their side, and they already know how to reach them anyway. What would be the point.

 

Interesting update on the 'Obama Joker' posters:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/08/obama_joker_artist_revealed.html?sc=fb&cc=fp

Turns out the original artist created the image as a form of protest against what he viewed as Obama's 'hero worship' and how he didn't think his policy proposals would help (fair criticism). He never included the word 'socialism' beneath it. That was some other idiot, much to the confusion of the original artist, who personally sees nothing evil in socialism.

Kinda what I figured.

 

As an aside, anything that you forward on to other people, especially with the intent / hope or even just knowledge that it'll be forwarded on to others, well, you've gotta know that eventually it'll get into the hands of a government computer. That's just how the Net works. That's why people are told to be very careful about what they send via their e-mails.

 

Obama's there, rapture ready?

Sounds odd? Rachel Maddow interviews Left Behind authors Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye. They interpret Obama as someone who, if not the man himself, is preparing the way for the Antichrist with his socialism. Enjoy

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Wow, I had no idea that the announcers for MSNBC were so bad. I couldn't figure out if she was trying to be "hip" or "funny". It seemed like she was trying to tell jokes and didn't find them funny herself. I was also disappointed in the production qualities. It was like she was broadcasting from an isolation chamber. Shouldn't the producer have had a laugh track, or at least have someone else on the set who could laugh with her, maybe at least have a cameraman chuckle every once in a while.

 

Never mind the presentation, what do you make of LaHaye and Jenkins?

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Snook, totally unrelated, but your bottom line reminds me of Jimmy Durante's performance for the National Recovery Administration in promotion of FDR's New Deal. How the political orientation of slogans can change with context.

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Well I do believe that Obama believes that government is the solution to all of our troubles, and he doesn't seem to have a problem with taxing people with money to give it to people who don't have money. So I think their belief that he is a socialist and that Marx and Lenin would love him are accurate.

However, not being a Christian, I believe that all this "rapture" and anti-christ" stuff makes them look like a bunch of "nutters"

EDIT: My damn office is blocking Youtube so I can't see the video, so I can't respond. I can only guess the difference is that Reagan considered a job something created by the private sector, not the government.

 

Really, TGS? You didn't get YOUR TAX CUT, like the rest of us did a few months ago? No wonder you are pissed-off at him.

 

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally.

 

So just who are those taxpayers and who are they paying, "who don't have money?" Here's a short list:

AIG
Citigroup
Bank of America
JP Morgan Chase
Goldman Sachs and Company
General Motors
Chrysler

The bastions of capitalism being saved by the "Marxist," "Leninist," Obama. BTW, before you start any of your "government take-over" of these companies, consider that the combined payout to just the CEOS of the companies that we saved from bankruptcy was $2 billion "taxpayer" dollars. I don't think the people who run those companies are complaining too much, since a few billion beats the unemployment line. It's good to see capitalism so hard at work for the average American.

You can see a more complete list of "those without money that the taxpayers paid."

http://bailout.propublica.org/main/list/index

 

Jimmy Durante, in the name of FDR's program of 'state socialism', the NRA, called on private employers to put men into work.

People were pretty realistic after the Great Depression. I remember a nice line from the wonderful screw ball comedy My Man Godfrey, formulated by an inhabitant of a Hooverville at the bank of the Hudson River: 'The only difference between a derelict and man is a job.' Ending up as a derelict isn't necessarily the derelict's fault. **** happens when you lose your job. Some people get on their feet on their own, but not all do, and when unemployment is endemic appeals to initiative, pride and discipline turn, after a certain point has passed, into insults.

Helping people to get back into work in a time of economic crisis isn't socialism. In a socialist economy the means of production are owned by the government. Obama doesn't intent to do that. Yes, he put the banks back on the leash, but that's largely where they have been in the period of American ... socialism, from the New Deal, over Nixon and Reagan until Clinton deregulated them in the 1990s. Obama is simply re-regulating them. The closest thing to socialized medicine in the US is the VA. You don't want to abolish that ... uh, socialist abomination ... I presume?

Americans tend to have a very odd perception of socialism, and I consciously put that in very general terms. Go to East Germany and you'll met a lot of the real ones. I bet many of those Americans who are so afraid of Obama's so-called 'socialism' haven't ever had contact with socialism, and a vague idea of what it's about at best - which cumulatively results in near or beyond wilful ignorance on that matter.

There was this joke, where there is a communist demonstration in New York in the 1950s. New York police comes in, batons swinging. One cop gets a grip on one protester who shrieks: "Officer, don't beat me, I'm an anti communist!" The cop growls: "I don't care what sort of communist you are..." *Whack*

Not much about that the point of the joke has changed it seems. There is a segment of American population that ideological enough as to be utterly impervious to nuance.

 

I think maybe it has something to do with the job itself, and the division of powers. The President has the direct responsability do protect the public good, but not so much the rights of individuals. That's more the Supreme Court's job. While I don't think for a second that this gives a pres the right to trample on rights, or even to try, it does mean that 'errorring on the side of caution', for this job, means errorring on the side of public good and not individual rights.

Considering it's simply asking people to voluntarily give up things that they have every right to give up (information others have sent them, without any right to privacy or anything), I don't think there's anything legally questionable about this, and I don't really see it as a threat to any rights. I do understand your position, though, and share it to some degree. It's about the old addage: "Avoid even the appearance of evil." This act, while almost certainly innocent enough, has the appearance of something sinister. It's like a political gaffe, where someone says something that get's easily taken the wrong way. The person should appologize, clarify, and try to move on, even though they really neither said nor did anything wrong.

And you wonder why I say MSNBC is as bad as Fox. She blatantly misinterpreted at least one claim LaHaye made. Not that I agree with him, but it seems to me that she was the only one fuzzy on any details, which is surprising considering she can even pronounce 'theological', much less use it appropriately in a sentence. That denotes a certain level of intelligence, and that level shouldn't be confused by 'Rome wasn't built in a day.'

Being a devout Christian and a student of end-time prophecy, there's nothing in there about socialism at all. Sure, there's a strong suggestion of a one-world government (though that's far from certain), and a one-world religion, and probably a one-world currency (depending on your interpretation), but that can be done with socialism, democracy, theocracy (most likely in the end), monarchy, or anything else (well, anarchism may have trouble with that).

On top of that, in a real sense, everything going on now (and for the past all of existence) is leading up to the Anti-Christ and the End Times (from a Christian-belief standpoint). That doesn't mean any of it is evil. LaHaye even said as much, that he hopes it works out well (which means he believes it can work out well).

As an example to explain that a little better:
The Bible says that, in the Tribulation, the Beast will cause people to take a mark on either their foreheads or their hands. In the modern context, this is currently interpreted as an implanted credit chip, much like a credit card, that will be needed to buy and sell things. Now, such implanted credit chips are coming out already. They're very real. They're also very effective, not likely to be lost, and a great idea. Simply because someone uses something for evil doesn't mean that it itself is evil. Obama may very well strengthen the UN, it's ties with the European Union and NATO, and help forge the beginnings of a One-World Federal Government. That wouldn't be a bad thing, it'd likely be a very good thing, but it will be taken advantage of in the future.

 

Anyone with any "intelligence" wouldn't even bother with these two frauds and pretenders (Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye). They probably can't even spell "conservative" between them.

 

Chandos, there's a huge difference between demostrating intelligence and demonstrating sensibility. LaHaye and Jenkins are very intelligent people. They aren't necessarily very sensible people.

They're also not 'frauds' or 'pretenders' at all. They're both serious and genuine, scary as that may be.

 

Well, I'll take your word for it, but you wouldn't know it from the interview. They seemed pretty intellectually shallow. The reason I believe they are fakes, is that they couldn't speak to anything of substance, but instead filled the air with meaningless platitudes. A sure sign that they were trying to be manipulative instead of exploring the possibilities of the issues.

 

Stormy Daniels - Screwing People Honestly

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Thank you, Max Blumenthal.