2012 Election Thread

[aphineday]

Ryan will wipe the floor with Biden.

I spent some of the best years of my life working for Joe Biden, he and his entire family are pretty close to my heart.
For integrity's sake that needed to be clear, but I assure you that personal relationships have nothing to do with what I'm going to say here.
Joe Biden has more integrity in his pinky finger than Paul Ryan does in his entire family. Paul Ryan has absolutely zero idea of how to do anything other than propose budget cuts that scare most of his own party away from him.
While Paul Ryan had his head buried in Ayn Rand novels, Joe Biden spent a week in the Balkans brokering a deal with Slobodan Milosevic. In the face of one of most feared men at the time, Joe Biden looked him in the eyes and said "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one.". This is just one of many monumental accomplishments of then Senator Biden. I could go on and talk about the Violence Against Women Act, and his other work as chairman of the Foreign Relations, and Judiciary Committee, but there is no need.
In politics there are few honest, straightforward, down right good people. Joe Biden is one of them.
He will not just "beat" Paul Ryan. He will politically cut his fucking throat open, and watch him squeal like the piece of fucking garbage that he is.

[rowjimmy]

Paul Ryan has voted the misogynist ticket so many times that Biden can mop him up with that alone.

Ryan is the asshat who proposed a budget without any numbers in it.

[runawayjimbo]

Ryan will wipe the floor with Biden.

I spent some of the best years of my life working for Joe Biden, he and his entire family are pretty close to my heart.
For integrity's sake that needed to be clear, but I assure you that personal relationships have nothing to do with what I'm going to say here.
Joe Biden has more integrity in his pinky finger than Paul Ryan does in his entire family. Paul Ryan has absolutely zero idea of how to do anything other than propose budget cuts that scare most of his own party away from him.
While Paul Ryan had his head buried in Ayn Rand novels, Joe Biden spent a week in the Balkans brokering a deal with Slobodan Milosevic. In the face of one of most feared men at the time, Joe Biden looked him in the eyes and said "I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one.". This is just one of many monumental accomplishments of then Senator Biden. I could go on and talk about the Violence Against Women Act, and his other work as chairman of the Foreign Relations, and Judiciary Committee, but there is no need.
In politics there are few honest, straightforward, down right good people. Joe Biden is one of them.

I think it's pretty clear that your personal affinity for Biden is influencing your objective political analysis so I guess there's no point debating this. Let me say that as a person, I don't doubt Biden is a good dude; he is a Phillies fan after all and his wife is smoking hot. But there's simply no way he can hang with Ryan in a debate, especially one in which foreign policy is gonna be a footnote compared to the economy, jobs, the budget, unemployment, and of course, the economy.

He will not just "beat" Paul Ryan. He will politically cut his fucking throat open, and watch him squeal like the piece of fucking garbage that he is.

Classy

Paul Ryan has voted the misogynist ticket so many times that Biden can mop him up with that alone.

I agree wholeheartedly: Patriot Act, both wars, No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, TARP, auto bailout, Bush tax cuts. Virtually every budget busting measure implemented over the Bush years he voted for. But this is exactly why I find it so strange that the left is attacking him as a radical fiscal hawk. I think your tactic - he's full of shit - would be much more effective and more aligned with reality (which I guess is not always a prerequisite in a campaign).
 
BTW, Ryan is also terrible on civil liberties - indefinite detention, spying, drones, drug war, border fence - pretty much anything I oppose he supports. He is the poster child for someone who talks a good game (depending on your perspective) but whose record betrays him as just another cog in the status quo machine. In that sense, he reminds me a lot of another well spoken politician I once supported who is long on platitudes but short on action.

[aphineday]

He will not just "beat" Paul Ryan. He will politically cut his fucking throat open, and watch him squeal like the piece of fucking garbage that he is.

Classy

Just like Paul Ryan. It's not about shaking hands and putting on a front. This is will affect the every day quality of life for many Americans; it's a war. Mudslinging, negative ads? Definitely. If they are true, we should expose them for the vile pieces of shit that they are. They way that Ryan wants to just blatantly shove his dick in the mouth of the middle class should make everyone want to puke. His budget would cut every single assistance program we have out there, and leave this country to the "job creators".

Paul Ryan has voted the misogynist ticket so many times that Biden can mop him up with that alone.

Ryan is the asshat who proposed a budget without any numbers in it.

Truth bombs.


I get so guttural about this shit even though I don't work around it anymore, and I really shouldn't. At the end of the day, I'm glad he selected Ryan - he just sealed the victory for Obama.
Game. Set. Match.

[runawayjimbo]

He will not just "beat" Paul Ryan. He will politically cut his fucking throat open, and watch him squeal like the piece of fucking garbage that he is.

Classy

Just like Paul Ryan. It's not about shaking hands and putting on a front. This is will affect the every day quality of life for many Americans; it's a war. Mudslinging, negative ads? Definitely. If they are true, we should expose them for the vile pieces of shit that they are. They way that Ryan wants to just blatantly shove his dick in the mouth of the middle class should make everyone want to puke. His budget would cut every single assistance program we have out there, and leave this country to the "job creators".

Does it bother you at all how detached your rhetoric is from reality? "Cut every single assistance program." Is that what he'd do? C'mon. I'm pretty sure we can have a more intelligent conversation by staying away from gross distortions of the other side's policies. I get that you don't like him (or any Republican, probably), but what I don't get is why you feel the need to use misinformation in your critique of the opposition's positions. Leave that to the president.
 
Here's what I do know: federal spending goes up 35% over 10 yrs under Ryan's plan (in nominal dollars). That's a hell of a gimmick to make spending go up that much while "slashing" the budget. But it pales in comparison to the over 50% spending spree called for in Obama's plan. So while Ryan's plan is a marked improvement compared to Obama's, it still isn't very good for a country running a deficit over a trillion dollars for the past couple of years. Medicare/aid would be cut but that's the entire point if you are looking to balance a budget that is ballooning due to unrestrained healthcare spending (note SS is unchanged in Ryan's budget). Finally, defense spending over 10 yrs would be identical in both budgets, so if Ryan is a war monger, what does that make Obama?
 
Newsflash: they're the same goddamned thing.
 
I don't care who wins because I honestly see no difference between them. Still, I am insanely curious to see what would happen to all the pleas for bipartisanship and cooperation coming from the left if Romney would win (I know, I know, it'll never happen). Something tells me the "obstructionist House" would become the "virtuous Senate" pretty quickly.
 
Again, in case it's not clear, I think Paul Ryan is a fraud. However, I do at least give him credit for being the only one with the stones to begin the conversation on the structural reforms that are necessary to ensure these programs will be around when it is time for our generation to start collecting (I can hear bvaz chuckling now).
 
Also, here's the great free market champion begging Congress to pass TARP. What a tool.
 

[aphineday]

He will not just "beat" Paul Ryan. He will politically cut his fucking throat open, and watch him squeal like the piece of fucking garbage that he is.

Classy

Just like Paul Ryan. It's not about shaking hands and putting on a front. This is will affect the every day quality of life for many Americans; it's a war. Mudslinging, negative ads? Definitely. If they are true, we should expose them for the vile pieces of shit that they are. They way that Ryan wants to just blatantly shove his dick in the mouth of the middle class should make everyone want to puke. His budget would cut every single assistance program we have out there, and leave this country to the "job creators".

Does it bother you at all how detached your rhetoric is from reality? "Cut every single assistance program." Is that what he'd do? C'mon. I'm pretty sure we can have a more intelligent conversation by staying away from gross distortions of the other side's policies. I get that you don't like him (or any Republican, probably), but what I don't get is why you feel the need to use misinformation in your critique of the opposition's positions. Leave that to the president.

Not if that's what you consider "detached from reality". Read the pile of garbage that he calls a budget. It slashes funds for every federal assistance program I can think of, but I do apologize for the VAST oversimplification of an otherwise truly wonderful budget.

"Is this what he'd do?" -Yes, that's why I said it.

It's not a "gross distortion" when that's truly what they want to come at us with.

I get that you don't like him (or any Republican, probably) - Incorrect. There are several Republicans I completely respect and even agree with. Paul Ryan is part of the neo-con hijacking of the ever popular "Tea Party" movement of a few years back.

I don't get is why you feel the need to use misinformation in your critique of the opposition's positions - Again, I did not do this. I simply stated what Ryan preaches. He does not believe in government backed assistance program, he wants to privatize it.

Leave that to the president - He's been trying to tell the entire country, but every body turns a blind eye because "he's going to take our guns away", and every other half-assed, ill-conceived, whack job  conspiracy theory out there.

[PIE-GUY]

Perhaps this is obvious... But it seems to me Ryan was the Koch Brothers' decision more than literally anything else.

"Mitt, if you want a PAC money bonanza behind your campaign, then this will be your running mate."

"yessir. Thank you, sir."

[twatts]

Perhaps this is obvious... But it seems to me Ryan was the Koch Brothers' decision more than literally anything else.

"Mitt, if you want a PAC money bonanza behind your campaign, then this will be your running mate."

"yessir. Thank you, sir."

I'm sure there is plenty of Church money behind Mittens too...  They have to spend their Vegas money somewhere...   :-P

Terry

[runawayjimbo]

aphineday - hey, if that's what you believe, ok. I couldn't help but notice you didn't name one of the many programs being slashed or any of the many Rs you respect/agree with, but that doesn't really matter. Here's my point:

would spend 23.3% of GDP in FY2013. You might say we need sustain such high levels of federal spending as we continue to deal with the post-war worst recession and that's fine. But by 2022 spending is down just 0.5%, to 22.8% of GDP. Federal debt held by the public swells to nearly $20 trillionwithaT in 10 yrs (which excludes the $6.5T that Treasury "borrows" from the SS accounting gimmick trust fund). On the other hand, since 1950 revenues as a percentage of GDP has reached 20% only once (yes we know, Hicks, under Clinton :wink:) but the historical average is around 18%. So until Obama/Dems tell me how they want to at least pretend (which is all a budget is since future Congress' will do whatever the fuck they want anyway) to bring federal spending down to at least a fifth of the economy, I have no choice but to conclude that Paul Ryan is the only adult in the room even though, as I think I made clear, I think his plan is a farce too. Because we will never escape this debt-ridden zombie economy until we bring spending down to more sustainable levels (shit even Canada only spends about 16% of GDP).

Perhaps this is obvious... But it seems to me Ryan was the Koch Brothers' decision more than literally anything else.

Damn, I got crushed on my "how long till the first Koch Bros picked him" poll. I had Monday afternoon.  :-P

[rowjimmy]

I love how people look at ten-year budget projections as a means to criticize the current administration as if some other asshole isn't going to come along and change the entire picture in 4 or 8 years.

[runawayjimbo]

I love how people look at ten-year budget projections as a means to criticize the current administration as if some other asshole isn't going to come along and change the entire picture in 4 or 8 years.

I agree with you that out year projections in any budget are meaningless, especially for the gov't who is unbound by prior budgets. But no one cares about the projections because everyone knows those numbers will be wrong anyway (for example, had the 2012 deficit at $557 billion, roughly half of what we'll come in at). What's important in a budget is the overall strategic vision of the organization in question, and that is where my criticism lies.
 
Ryan's plan may be unpalatable for Dems and I fully understand that (I think it's garbage too albeit for somewhat different reasons). But Obama doesn't have a plan (see Geithner, Tim). We've added $10T to the debt over the past 12 years. Obama's fault, Bush's fault, I truly don't care. All I care is that someone presents a serious solution for fixing it.
 
We can't have a debate on this issue until the Dems present a plan. Obama's budget says that the status quo is cool. That is completely unacceptable to me and I wish it was to more people. Because once interest rates start to rise (and it is an absolute certainty that they will as the debt exceed 100% of GDP), the vig on the $16T we already owe is gonna get pretty steep.

[VDB]

It's a little funny/puzzling to me how so few people (meaning, politicians and mainstream press) give any attention during budget debates to defense spending. Is it really such a sacred cow across the board that no one (except Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich) points out we could save a lot of money here?


via

Defense is bigger than social security, medicare or medicaid. And yet these are the things that budget hawks always howl are going to bankrupt our country. (Also, a strong undercurrent to the conservative viewpoint is that these programs are inherently undesirable because they "redistribute wealth" or they give (poor) people something for nothing.) Shouldn't it be viewed as being inherently more noble to spend money on your own citizens than on defense contractors and war? Guess not.

[runawayjimbo]

While I wholeheartedly agree with you that defense needs to be drastically reined in (one of my principal reasons for calling nans on the Ryan plan which, BTW, has defense spending exactly equal to Obama's), the reason for the focus on SS/Medicare is that the rates of growth for these programs in the coming years will dramatically outpace defense spending increases. Under the CBO baseline (i.e., no changes to current laws), both SS spending and combined Medicare/aid will exceed defense this year and each will more than double it in 10 yrs. It's the demographics (aging population, less current workers paying for more retirees, increased life expectancy, etc.) that make SS/Medicare far more unsustainable over the medium- to long-term than defense. That doesn't mean we shouldn't overhaul defense spending as well, it just means that entitlements are the true driver of the longer term debt crisis.
 
Plus, if you cut defense spending you obviously hate our troops, and no one wants to do that - except for the obstructionist Dems who tried to end Iraq War by refusing to fund it under Bush.

[PIE-GUY]

Why Ayn Rand would have hated Ryan:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/ayn-rand-wouldnt-approve-of-paul-ryan.html

Atlas Spurned

    by JENNIFER BURNS
    Aug. 14, 2012

EARLY in his Congressional career, Paul D. Ryan, the Wisconsin representative and presumptive Republican vice-presidential nominee, would give out copies of Ayn Rand's book "Atlas Shrugged" as Christmas presents. He described the novelist of heroic capitalism as "the reason I got into public service." But what would Rand think of Mr. Ryan?

While Rand, an atheist, did enjoy a good Christmas celebration for its cheerful commercialism, she would have scoffed at the idea of public service. And though Mr. Ryan's advocacy of steep cuts in government spending would have pleased her, she would have vehemently opposed his social conservatism and hawkish foreign policy. She would have denounced Mr. Ryan as she denounced Ronald Reagan, for trying "to take us back to the Middle Ages, via the unconstitutional union of religion and politics."

Mr. Ryan's youthful, feverish embrace of Rand and his clumsy attempts to distance himself from her is more than the flip-flopping of an ambitious politician: it is a window into the ideological fissures at the heart of modern conservatism.

Rand's atheism and social libertarianism have long placed her in an uneasy position in the pantheon of conservative heroes, but she has proved irresistible to those who came of age in the baby boom and after. They found her iconoclasm thrilling, and her admirers poured into Barry M. Goldwater's doomed 1964 presidential campaign, the Libertarian Party and the Cato Institute. After her death, in 1982, it became even easier for her admirers to ignore the parts of her message they didn't like and focus on her advocacy of unfettered capitalism and her celebration of the individual.

Mr. Ryan is particularly taken by Rand's black-and-white worldview. "The fight we are in here," he once told a group of her adherents, "is a fight of individualism versus collectivism." If she were alive, he said, Rand would do "a great job in showing us just how wrong what government is doing is."

Rand's anti-government argument rested on another binary opposition, between "producers" who create wealth and "moochers" who feed off them. This theme has endeared Rand, and Mr. Ryan, to the Tea Party, whose members believe they are the only ones who deserve government aid.

Yet when his embrace of Rand drew fire from Catholic leaders, Mr. Ryan reversed course with a speed that would make his running mate, Mitt Romney, proud. "Don't give me Ayn Rand," he told National Review earlier this year. "Give me Thomas Aquinas." He claimed that his austere budget was motivated by the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which holds that issues should be handled at the most local level possible, rather than Rand's anti-government views.

This retreat to religion would have infuriated Rand, who believed it was impossible to separate government policies from their moral and philosophical underpinnings. Policies motivated by Christian values, which she called "the best kindergarten of communism possible," were inherently corrupt.

Free-market capitalism, she said, needed a new, secular morality of selfishness, one she promoted in her novels, nonfiction and newsletters. Conservative contemporaries would have none of it: William F. Buckley Jr. criticized her "desiccated philosophy" and Whittaker Chambers dubbed her "Big Sister."

Mr. Ryan's rise is a telling index of how far conservatism has evolved from its founding principles. The creators of the movement embraced the free market, but shied from Rand's promotion of capitalism as a moral system. They emphasized the practical benefits of capitalism, not its ethics. Their fidelity to Christianity grew into a staunch social conservatism that Rand fought against in vain.

Mr. Ryan has attempted a similar pirouette, but it is too late: driven by the fever of the Tea Party and drawing upon a wellspring of enthusiasm for Rand, politicians like Mr. Ryan have set the philosophy of "Atlas Shrugged" at the core of modern Republicanism.

In so doing, modern conservatives ignore the fundamental principles that animated Rand: personal as well as economic freedom. Her philosophy sprang from her deep belief in the autonomy and independence of each individual. This meant that individuals could not depend on government for retirement savings or medical care. But it also meant that individuals must be free from government interference in their personal lives.

Years before Roe v. Wade, Rand called abortion "a moral right which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved." She condemned the military draft and American involvement in Vietnam. She warned against recreational drugs but thought government had no right to ban them. These aspects of Rand do not fit with a political view that weds fiscal and social conservatism.

Mr. Ryan's selection as Mr. Romney's running mate is the kind of stinging rebuke of the welfare state that Rand hoped to see during her lifetime. But Mr. Ryan is also what she called "a conservative in the worst sense of the word." As a woman in a man's world, a Jewish atheist in a country dominated by Christianity and a refugee from a totalitarian state, Rand knew it was not enough to promote individual freedom in the economic realm alone. If Mr. Ryan becomes the next vice president, it wouldn't be her dream come true, but her nightmare.

[runawayjimbo]

Why Ayn Rand would have hated Ryan:

So we can stop pretending that Ryan is a faithful Rand disciple hellbent on implementing her objectivist atheist worldview on the unsuspecting downtrodden? Well that's a relief.

Also, tell me you didn't laugh at this.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/admit-it-i-scare-the-everloving-shit-out-of-you-do,29160/

Admit It, I Scare The Ever-Loving Shit Out Of You, Don't I?
BY PAUL RYAN 
CANDIDATE FOR VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

When Mitt Romney selected me as his running mate, I knew the Democratic attack dogs would come out in full force. They would say I'm a right-wing ideologue. They would say my views on entitlement programs are far too radical. They would say putting me on the ticket immediately kills Mitt Romney's chances of becoming president because I'm a liability. But if we're being honest with each other—if we're able to put aside the talking points for a few minutes and say what we're all actually thinking and feeling—I believe we can acknowledge the real truth here.

I'm young, I'm handsome, I'm smart, and I'm articulate. And that scares the ever-loving shit out of you. You can pretend like you have this thing in the bag, but you know good goddamn well that this race just got real interesting, real fast.

It's okay to admit it. You're frightened to death of me. It might actually be healthy for you to face your fears now rather than later, when Mitt and I are leading by a few points in the polls and it looks like this thing might end badly for you. Face it: I'm not some catastrophe waiting to happen, like a Sarah Palin or a Dan Quayle. On the contrary, you have the exact opposite fear. I'm a solid, competent, some might say exceptional, politician.

Did you get nervous when you read that last sentence? Is it because you know in your heart of hearts that it's 100 percent true? Is it because, even if you strongly disagree with my beliefs on Medicare, Social Security, women's rights, and marriage equality, you know my talent as a speaker and my well-thought-out approach to these issues—no matter how radical and convoluted you find them—might just be enough to win over independent voters?

Do you get chills just thinking about how strong my appeal actually is?

I have another question for you: How scared are you that I can convince people I'm right? Because I'm good at it. No, I'm really good at it. You see, I know how to turn up the charm and charisma without putting people off. Then I back up what I'm saying with arguments that, when they come out of my mouth, sound completely accurate and well-reasoned. And I do it with such passion that people automatically recognize me as a man with deep convictions he will stand up for, no matter what.

The American people love that shit. They love it.

Passion, intellect, and a magnetic personality. Pretty damn intimidating combo, if I say so myself. You want to talk about polish? Man, I've got polish for miles. Oh, and by the way, I'll go ahead and say this next thing because, if we're being honest, why the hell not, right? In case you haven't noticed, I'm white. Hoo, brother, am I white.

Yup, you should be scared shitless of me, because guess who isn't? The people of Wisconsin. They love me. Republicans and Democrats there love me. Hell, I get Democrats to vote for me even if my policies make zero sense when it comes to their livelihoods. Do you know why? Because they like me. They like my story. Young, good-looking kid who pulled himself up by his bootstraps to make something of himself. Christ, I'm a storybook candidate. I balance out this ticket so well it's almost too perfect. The people of Ohio are going to think that. And seniors in Florida—the state we supposedly lost when Mitt picked me—won't be so scared as soon they know that my mother lives in Florida, and that all I want to do is reform the health care system so she can receive care that makes good fiscal sense.

Boy, I'm going to sell the shit out of that talking point. And I'm going to do a great job of it. Why? Because I'm Paul Ryan. That's what I do.

And if we're having trouble getting Pennsylvania on board, just wait until I absolutely wipe the floor with Joe Biden in the vice presidential debates. Don't think for a second that I don't know you're terrified of us facing off, because in the back of your mind you know it could be a bloodbath up there.

Well, that's 77 electoral votes, and by my math that means you can kiss your golden boy goodbye after four short years. All that promise. All that energy. All that potential. Gone in one November night.

I'm your worst fucking nightmare.

Oh, and by the way, don't even try to pretend you haven't imagined me being elected president one day.