What do you think?

[Doug S.]

...had his administration been involved in such egregious acts, he could be defined as a lying two-faced SOB who's in a neck and neck race with Nixon for all-time President Slimebucket status...

One of the most interesting quotes I've ever heard was "To call Richard Nixon's administration the most corrupt since Willard Filmore does one hell of a disservice to Willard Filmore."

Ya gotta wonder what kind of slimeball Willard Filmore was to be worse than Tricky Dick.....:idea:

As for Romney...with all due respect, he did fail to make a connection with the average American on SO MANY fronts...his refusal to divulge his income in the manner with which so many presidential candidates had done so willingly just widened that gap between doubt and trust. If you believe that BO is much worse during his second term than he was during his first (and you would not get any argument from me about that), it's just natural...when you're in your first term, you want to make sure you're elected to a second...but when you're a "lame duck" what do you have to lose, you just go balls to the wall to get your way. BO's not the only one to do so, by far, it's common practice in both parties. Now....amplify that by the exponential manner in which Romney demonstrated his disdain for what the American public wanted and you can see why I believe his first administration would have been bad and his second....?????....unbelievable comes to mind.

Would he have eclipsed Nixon? Hard to imagine even Romney could have as much disdain for the general public as did Nixon....but, and again this is just IMHO....I think he'd have given Nixon a run for his money.

Now, having said all that, I must admit I kinda liked Bob Dole for his "Nixonesque" personna....ya gotta sorta like someone who is SO convinced that he's right that he doesn't care what anyone else thinks. There might not be much difference between BO and Romney in that respect...but I doubt we'll ever know, Romney's wife won't let him run again :stunned: .

Cheers!

Doug

 

[Bob Fechter]

Mr Fechter should avoid making judgments about people's intelligence, after all, he believes that:

The Founding Fathers ended slavery.

They wrote the document that paved the way for the end of slavery in the Western World. It takes time, but it happened.

That Saddam Hussein attacked us on 9-11

Can't ever recall saying that. Prove it.

That Joe McCarthy was a great American patriot.

He spoke the truth. Read the Congressional Records. "Blacklisted by History" is an excellent source for the open minded. The only rebuttal the American Communists could come up with was to smear him personally. Kinda like crack tries continually doing to those who disagree with his views.

That Fox News is a reliable source of information.

Mr. crack seems to have a problem distinguishing between the editorial and the news sections of his criticisms. He then goes on to quote Huffington Post, fatbuddha.com, MSNBC, politico, salon, and many more. That's where he gets those skewed charts and graphs.

That Alan West was the new leader of the Republican Party

This just shows what a liar this boy is. I said he was the leader of Conservatism. I wrote the RINOs off a long time ago, just as they have defunded Conservatism.

That Mitt Romney would win in a landslide.

It certainly looked that way. And remember I offered a bet to crack that if Romney lost I would never post here again and visa versa. He didn't have the courage to take that bet and therefore has to put up with me yet.


That Republicans would take back the Senate

They will.
..........

Face it, he's a liberal liar. Redundant, I know.

 

[Jim Craik]

So Now you are saying that you never said that Iraq was responsible for 9-11?

Really?

This was posted by Mr Fechter in the "Exporting our Money" thread, Post #27, in a discussion about why we invaded Iraq!

(Quote)Oh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Jim,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Dear, that's one of the things the Federal government is actually allowed to do, defend the nation.

You know, like take the fight to them and keep them from attacking us like they did in 911. (Quote)


**********************

Does anyone else besides Mr Fechter and Mrs Bachmann believe that the Founding Fathers, who were slave holders, freed the slaves?

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

You know what fellas I started this thread because I was genuinely interested in your views. But once again some of you have descended into name calling and insults. You know who you are. I suggest if you cannot add anything to this thread other than insulting behaviour then STFU.

BTW, IMHO it is nobody's business (other than the IRS) what is on your tax return, even if you are running for public office.

 

[Doug S.]

Deleted per Pete's request!

BTW, IMHO it is nobody's business (other than the IRS) what is on your tax return, even if you are running for public office.

True....however, once a precedent of disclosure is set, anyone who fails to honor the precedent has to look like they are hiding something. It's just human nature to be suspicious....regardless of who does or doesn't have the right to know what's on your tax return, the question is always "Why"....I'm not the only one, Pete, and obviously the majority of the nation's voters had enough reservations that it made a difference.

As you say, though...that's just MHO.

Cheers!

Doug

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

I read it before you deleted it. Tell why do you believe differently?

 

[Doug S.]

I added a bit more, Pete...hope it answers the question.

The question here, as I recall from reading the thread from the beginning, is how much "?????" should we be able to expect from our political leaders...honesty, integrity, transparency....hard to pick the right word. We should be able to hold them to a "higher standard" and things have gone so to hell that we're looking at things in the "which will be the least of the bad choices" light over here...sounds like AU is in much the same boat. When you cannot look at an election in any light other than stemming the loss of your country's life-blood, suspicion becomes a very realistic and appropriate approach, and as Romney (who really should have been able to run away with the election given that so many people who voted for BO were SO dissatisfied) found out, a deal-killer for more voters than many expected.

It was a very unsettling political season here....and, as becomes obvious when the discussions involve politics, things haven't healed yet, either...doesn't bode well for the future, IMHO.

[Edit---in Romney's defense, he did disclose what our law requires, so in that respect it is our business what is on the candidates' tax returns...but only what the law requires and his (and his wife's) refusal to honor the precedents set by candidates from both parties was remarkable, to say the least, and difficult to ignore. ]

Cheers!

Doug

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

Well, it may have cost him the election because of the suspicion highlighted by his opposition and the popular press that he was hiding something.
But surely if there was something dodgy in the returns the IRS would have prosecuted him?
Maybe he felt as I do it was no ones business and stood by his principles.

Personally I think the problem both here and in the U.S. is that neither left or right will concede that the opposition may have a point or even be correct.
In that situation nothing gets done to help the Nation and it come down to just bloody minded they said it, so its wrong.
That applies to both party's in Oz.
I know that it is seen as the job of the opposition to oppose, but not to the degree it is at now surely.

 

[Jack]

deleted, thought better of it.

 

[Doug S.]

But surely if there was something dodgy in the returns the IRS would have prosecuted him?

Pete, I don't really think there was anything dodgy in the returns...I fully believe that the man would have used every conceivable deduction to reduce his tax load, as do we all, and would have paid his taxes...all that brouhaha about not paying any taxes was just BS!

What I think he wanted to hide was the sources of his income, as well as perhaps the nature of some of the deductions he and his wife took. When such a large portion of a nation's population has come on hard times, it's difficult to develop appreciation for a candidate who seems to have alliances only with the few who seemed to be doing so well, and particularly difficult for lower income families to identify with a candidate whose wife spends such large sums on frivoloties like dancing horses and then gets to claim tax deductions for them.

There was a lot wrong with Romney's nonimation...and you are right, it hilighted the polarization that has left not only us Americans and you Aussies in gridlock, but seems to be spreading. The large middle class, which historically has had so much to do with our country's success, was ignored by the lunatic fringe...can you say "TEA Party"? Perhaps Romney's mistake was to believe that he could hitch his wagon to the "rising" star that the Republicans all (mistakenly, obviously) believed would bring them success...it was a hard lesson for the GOP and it has left us in the U.S. with a bad taste for politics in general.

Cheers!

Doug

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

Well the BS about not paying taxes sure cost a lot of votes from the Sheeple.

With respect when you say "a candidate who seems to have alliances with only the few who seem to be doing well". You are using the old leftist he is rich, therefore he is bad cliche.
I am sure you remember when parents used to point out successful people to their children and say " if you work really hard you can make it too".
It's sad is it not that those times seem to be gone? A reflection on what ails the World maybe.

As for Mrs Romney's Frivolous dancing horse, it is an Olympic medal contender
Calling it frivolous is indicative of how little you know of the time, hard work and money involved in getting a horse to Olympic standard.
I understand the Romney's have a large amount invested in the animal and the tax deduction is legitimate, if indeed they got one. Anyway I thought you yanks love Olympic medals:stunned:

As for the Tea Party I can't comment I know nothing about their policy's .
I do agree that there seems to be a bad taste for all politicians across the globe.
Maybe because today they all seem to be chasing power and not caring what is best for their countries.
Anyway you are better off with Obama than we are with Juliar..... But not much:lipsrsealed:

 

[Jack]

I try not to think, makes my head hurt...

 

[Jim Craik]

Pete,

It was alot of things that cost Romney the election. I think the tax thing by itself only cost him a small percentage of votes.

Rightly or wrongly he was perceived as being the candidate of the rich, fighting for the rich at the expence of the middle class and poor.

At a time when the economy had tanked and high unemployment was prevalent, his steadfast refusal to even consider a tax increase for the 1% coupled with the refusal to release his taxes led many to believe he had something to hide.

This also lead many to believe that he represented only the interests of the rich. His stupid comments, recorded at that fundraiser only confirmed this belief.

Couple that with the Right Wing attacks on immigrants, teachers, unions, the poor and women......................

That is how they lost an election that should not have been lost!

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

Back to the question, what do you think of big brother having all you data communication without having to get a warrant?

How long before Snowdon has an err unfortunate accident?

 

[Jim Craik]

Pete,

I'm waiting to hear the whole story.................

So far we have only heard the Headline News versions of this. We have heard various versions of "The Government is illegally recording all our phone calls and all our emails"...... Followed by several indignant talking heads.

Now if it turns out that they have been listening in to all our calls (not just the numbers called, but the conversations) which in reality is unlikely, then I'm very very pissed.

But if it turns out that they were really only keeping track of certain phone numbers, used by certain people who are security concerns.....

If they are keeping track of people on the watch list and who they call, looking for trends and matches with other folks with security concerns and who they call, then I have no problem.

From what I have heard, Congress knew all about this program and approved it. Now if they have over stepped the limits of what was approved, they will need to explain, but so far we have not heard the whole story.

Does anyone else think it wrong for the Government to keep track of trends among folks with security concerns?

This is nothing new, certainally the BushII administration did it:

The NSA warrantless surveillance controversy (AKA "Warrantless Wiretapping") concerns surveillance of persons within the United States during the collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the war on terror. Under this program, referred to by the Bush administration as the "terrorist surveillance program",[1] part of the broader President's Surveillance Program, the NSA was authorized by executive order to monitor, without search warrants, the phone calls, Internet activity (Web, e-mail, etc.), text messaging, and other forms of communication, even if both ends of the communication were in the US.

 

[Jim Craik]

On Warrantless Wiretapping: 97 percent of the House GOP voted for FISA, 93 percent of the GOP Senate

June 7, 2013
By Anomaly
While it’s easy for Republicans to blame President Obama for whatever ails them, it’s the GOP mainly and some Democrats whose love for warrantless wiretapping, or their complete ineptness allow the same thing to happen over and over again.

Let’s break it down.
The US Senate passed a 5 year extension to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The US House passed FISA last year, and it made its way to President Obama in December and a five year extension was signed into law.

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

I've stood by and read all these posts, saying nothing, but at this point I can't hold it in any longer, I must speak the truth. I MUST!!!

The reason Governor Romney lost the election for president is that he put his dog on the roof of his car in a travel kennel and drove to New Hampshire, or wherever he drove to.

That is IT, plain and simple. The American people will tolerate a lot of abuse, but putting your dog on the roof of your station wagon violates two cardinal principles of American decency:

1) mistreating your dog.
2) driving a station wagon.

Now- does anyone have any questions?

I didn't think so. Thank you for the opportunity to enlighten all of you.

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

I forgot to mention for our English brethren that a station wagon is an estate wagon. We don't have a lot of stations left, but the term endures.

No applause, please.

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

Come on Jim he built a windscreen for the dog and he was quite safe, no different to riding in the back of a pick up truck.
I do agree about the station wagon though.:laugh:
Back to the subject.

 

[Jim Craik]

Jimbo, you may be right on that dog thing.