Did they mention these?

First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.
First President to violate the War Powers Act.
First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
First President to defy a Federal Judge's court order to cease implementing the Health Care Reform Law.
First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.
First President to spend a trillion dollars on 'shovel-ready' jobs when there was no such thing as 'shovel-ready' jobs.
First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.
First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.
First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.
First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.
First President to terminate America's ability to put a man in space.
First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.
First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.
First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke-out on the reasons for their rate increases.
First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.
First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).
First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.
First President to fire an inspector general of Ameri-Corps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.
First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.
First President to golf 73 separate times in his first two and a half years in office, 90 to date.
First President to hide his medical, educational and travel records.
First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.
First President to go on multiple global 'apology tours'.
First President to go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayer.
First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.
First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.
First President to repeat the Holy Quran tells us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.
First President to take a 17 day vacation.

Commodity backed currency solves nothing when the elites own all of it. In fact it makes it even easier for them to manipulate the volume of currency, which has been the big problem with the fiat money we have today. So long as it cannot be counterfeited and it is issued by representatives of the people at no debt, fiat money is the ideal medium of exchange.

Some sort of spending policy was needed, but the bailout as it was put forth was pretty dismal in it's results. The companies that received it were the ones who created the mess for the most part (banks), and we really still haven't addressed punishing them OR putting laws in place to either:
A) Punish them if it happens again, really the laws now should be sufficient.
B) Make it impossible to happen again....all those acts, they repealed over the last 20-30 years.
C) Prevent some of the more insanity driven investing, such as over abundant speculation and similar cost creating but non-value creating (Call it a Private Tax, if you will) things.

Really the more I look back on the bailout, and look at the attitudes of most of the politicians at that time...they were saying let the auto industry fail. But the bailouts to the auto industries have at least halfway been paid back. Chrysler is likely going to short the government 1.3 billion last I read. GM gave the government stock and 22 billion. Stock is worth about 13.5 billion. They borrowed 50 billion. So 28 billion is what we have to get out of that stock to recover fully. And as far as I know there is no interest accumulated, so losing money in those deals is a kick to the crotch considering.

I think the auto industries might have been able to enter bankruptcy and come back out of it with some lessons learned. But vehicles like the "Volt" show that......they don't really know who they are selling to. Chrysler ended up being taken over by Fiat. And Ford handled it's own business. The one in the worst shape was GM, and I can't say that they probably didn't have it coming. And they still ended up pretty much killing the economy dead in my area despite the bailout when they shut their plants down that they really hadn't "kept up" in DECADES...place was really dumpy looking. No one would take it over because it was just utter trash when they left. I'm more against than for the bailout of the auto industries, but I can see that they were probably beneficial there although GM seemingly learned nothing of note from it.

Banks on the other hand......they took in 1.2 trillion. And a bunch of the borrowed money went to European firms. Along with other financial institutions. And many kept taking loans into 2010.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/that_federal_bank_bailout_in_2008_was_bigger_than_we_knew_a_lot_bigger.html

Has lots of info on it. I haven't taken the time to confirm every last portion of it, but we know the bailout/loans of 2008 that were announced ended up being MUCH larger than they told us. So the information is kind of hit and miss since they kept it hush hush for awhile.

But, the money was to help keep the banks off people's backs about foreclosures. It hasn't, in fact they took the money and foreclosed anyway to get both the cash to make it possible to allow the person to keep the house AND the house. That should be criminal.

The bailout of those institutions probably did stop a economic meltdown, but I think that bailout still should be criticized. The people who caused it suffered no punishment by law, financially, or by failure. And they have been fighting have regulations and such put in place to stop it from happening again and from practices like speculation being allowed in such quantities. It's affecting the oil prices and they are using it as a argument for "foreign oil" ALL the time.

Sure the bailout saved us from financial meltdown, but we aren't safe from it happening again. In fact we're probably even more precariously perched at the edge than we were before, and people are making money off that instability. If they could have made money during the total collapse, I don't think they would have gotten bailout to all those institutions.

So, we should criticize the bailout, simply because it has made it possible for the people who control the money to continue making money, and no one has corrected the conditions that caused the collapse in the first place. The people who caused it keep on keeping on, the politicians get some money stuffed in their pockets, and the people who got hurt most by the crash whether you lost your house, job, savings, pension, etc are just lined up to be knocked down again and no one is trying to fix it. The people who had money to weather the crash, are recovering and the people who didn't are still hurt by the crash they had no way of avoiding.

Too big to fail institutions are still too big to fail. Now they know that they can leech all the money from the government whenever they start to lean a little as a collective. Nothing was learned by anyone there, because nothing ended up happening to them besides some bad press...when they should have gotten a major investigation that was more like a full cavity search to determine wrongdoing.

Fiats suck...it's all about Lancia

>> ^Enzoblue:

The burping of the engine when he downshifts is called a heel and toe downshift and it's used to keep the engine rev's equal to the speed of the wheels when shifting. His toe is on the brake and he moves his heel over and gooses the gas as he shifts. If you don't do this, the engine goes to idle when you clutch. When you let the clutch out, the engine then has to suddenly go from idle back to rev's that match your speed. This causes your car will lurch and make all kinds of trouble. This guy is a master and probably isn't even conscious that he does it anymore.


invented alegedly by Walter Röhrl. demonstration via inboard camera:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGIiarIrUCI

Less Fiat X19, more four-wheeled Hayabusa.

I followed the Obama campaign pretty closely, and I gotta say that I entirely missed him saying anything about transforming our minimum wage into a living wage indexed to inflation.

I also remember that raising the minimum wage to $7.25 was something that Nancy Pelosi pushed through in the 2007-2008 congress, with the help of one Senator Obama.

And not to beat a dead horse, but this is something Congress needs to pass, not something Obama can do by fiat, and I suspect in this crazy 60-votes-for-everything world we've suddenly entered into, there weren't 60 votes for raising minimum wage even when we had 60 Democrats in the Senate (but I bet there were 55!).

Oh, and on the economics of the matter, I think Cenk is doing a massive disservice to his viewers by telling people that the idea that minimum wage increases lead to increased unemployment is flatly false. Studies have actually shown that to be true, but the right exaggerates the effect far out of proportion with reality. The real left-wing answer isn't to lie and tell people it's not true, it's to then rejoin with "this is why providing unemployment benefits is important, because capitalism can't provide everyone a job that allows them to make a decent living."

all of those bills are just ones the GOP themselves say are jobs bills, not anything having to actually do with jobs

And Obama's bill is just one that he says is a job bill, not anything having to do with jobs.

UCwhutididthere? From a fiscally conservative position, the GOP bills are about jobs. To a hard-left prog-lib-dyte, they aren't. To a fiscal conservative, Obama's bill is an absolute joke, but to a proglib-dyte it looks wonderful.

The truth is that both approaches are "methods" for creating jobs, but take different approaches. The GOP is using free markets, natural resource development, and small business tax breaks as a means of spurring job growth. The Democrats approach is taxes and deficit spending on temporary jobs and unions. But the past 3 years has shown us that Obama's approach is crap, and the GOP is saying "here's a viable alternative - let's try it". The Democrats in the Senate are saying, "Oh no you ain't going there!" Meanwhile the Democrats and President are saying, "Let's keep going what we've been doing for the past 3 years..." and the GOP in the House are saying, "Oh no you ain't going there!" It's a philosophical debate, and the nation as a whole prefers the GOP approach - not the President's. So he's trying to get the stupid and the suckers to buy into this moronic "do nothing" congress line. He's got nothing else because poll after poll shows both him and his plan are cratering.

the second thing you cite to is a bill basically eliminating the EPA

No - it is a bill to reduce the EPA to a less stupid level. EPA regulation of Co2 is not something the people voted for. It was rammed through by legislative fiat by Obama as a means of stifling energy production and imposing regulations on businesses which (in turn) hurt jobs. Obama's administration is rife with such bullcrap. He bans drilling in the Gulf which COSTS jobs. He blocks the Canada pipeline - which COSTS jobs. He blocks Ohio natural gas drilling - which COSTS jobs. Meanwhile he is literally dumping billions into failed projects like Fisker, Solyndra, and others which they KNOW are bad investments and are going bankrupt left and right. The GOP effort to halt that would almost immediately create over a MILLION jobs. The result will be more energy production, which will lower costs and create work. THAT is a job plan. Obama's plan kills jobs and raises energy costs.

"Without suggesting an alternative bill focused on improving the plight of struggling American's, RIP-ublicans clearly have their heads up their @%%&%"

Let's put this particular peice of stupididty to rest, shall we?

http://www.gop.gov/policy-news/11/11/10/updated-summary-of-22-jobs

The GOP has !!22!! alternative bills focused on improving the plight of struggling Americans. It is Barak Obama, Harry Reid, and the Democrats who are lovingly french-kissing their own duodenums.

I know it is really REALLY hard for people on the left to process facts that are rooted in fundamental truth and reality - but just for once give it a shot? This whole "do-nothing Congress" line is nothing but prog-lib propoganda that leftists are desperately repeating on thier blogs and on the news in order to get the inattentive and stupid to beleive the GOP is the problem. It is something the left is REALLY pushing hard right now because they've got nothing else to go on this election cycle - what with Obama being such a dismal failure.

Case in point - Obama has by himself using what can only be described as tyrannical executive fiat - has within the past 13 days PERSONALLY killed 600,000 jobs. The Canadian oil pipeline, and natural gas drilling in Ohio. Both projects would have immediately created hundreds of thousands of jobs. If Obama wanted to goose jobs, he'd allow both projects to proceed. But because he's a leftist moron, he blocks them. And it is the REPUBLICANS who are stopping job creation by not agreeing with Obummer's idiotic tax & union slush bill? Sometimes I wonder if the prog-lib left has any clue about real life.

@NetRunner

How bout you just admit that "democrat" and "republican" are both bullshit titles that don't convey any real meaning.

Obama ordered the assassination of a U.S. Citizen WITHOUT A TRIAL OR CHARGES, even.

Doesn't that strike at the very core of all your democratic rule of law, Dems are marginally, if not unequivocally, better than Repubs malarkey?

You've already lost this disagreement.
When Obama failed to close Gitmo and expanded rendition, you lost.
When Obama continued and expanded warrant-less wiretapping, you lost.
When Obama extended the Trillion Bush Tax Cuts for the 1%, you lost.

The individuals who assume the title "Democrat" might have more liberal leaning mindsets, might have flexible acceptance of different groups, might have a more progressive focus for the future of their communities.

That doesn't change the fact that the system in which they work.. is rigged.
The outcome is predetermined.

Chris Hedges said it best. "There's no way to vote against the banks."

Bankers, speculators and usurers rule the modern world.

Their fiat currency, derivative trading, two-party election rigging world will be the only with any relevance as long as pig-monkeys like @NetRunner and @quantumushroom buy into their wholesale bullshit and let it be.

Cut free. Establish your own voluntary hive-mind. Occupy the Universe.
[there's enough space for all of us. trust me]

Ah yes---own property, as opposed to it owning you. I don't believe one can own property, but I believe it can be claimed by someone.

And as goes the example of positive liberty, of course they can impose it with violence. They can also craft multiple ways around the whole argument by policies that hold down black individuals in other ways (Which they have done so a thousand different ways.) So instead of being out in the open, they are now cloak-and-dagger, which still is better than the old days I suppose.

A good example of negative liberty is found in the movie industry. American History X probably slashed into racism these days more (Since our young have the attention span of gnats and wouldn't listen to a long speech) than anything else (Warning, that was a very unverifiable statement.) Positive liberty would disdain such a video, one that is full of violence and racism and it's universal motivation is greed--to acquire property from the movie's sale. Of course, since it has a good "message" it would not be prohibited, of course...

But no, I read it right then.


>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^Lawdeedaw:
As far as positive liberty, it seems just a state of mind more so than the actual concept of liberty.
...
Negative liberty is the vastly closer-to-freedom expression. That's not to say positive "liberty" is a bad thing--but like I said, it is more state-of-mind than actual freedom (I guess you could argue that freedom of thought is the only freedom that matters. Or that freedom to agree as a society is still freedom...)
Of course, I could be reading the whole thing wrong...in which case, ah, it happens--we are human after all.
I think you're reading it wrong.
Let's set property aside for a minute. My favorite positive vs. negative liberty example comes from the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Specifically Title VII, which both Rand and Ron Paul said they oppose as being a limit on (negative) liberty.
Title VII basically bans discrimination in privately owned public spaces, like stores, restaurants, theatres, etc. It gives all people the positive liberty of being able to participate in the economy, no matter their race, gender, or creed. They can shop in any shop, apply for any job, and purchase services freely. They've been empowered to fulfill their own potential.
From the negative liberty (and absolutist property) point of view, this is a decrease in liberty -- it involves the state placing a constraint on people's ability to do as they wish with their property. They can no longer put a "Whites Only" sign in the window, and they cannot enforce that policy with violence anymore because an external constraint has been placed on them that limits their "freedom" to do so.
Thing is, "property" is also an external constraint inconsistent with negative liberty. If I want to drive a car, but have no money to buy, rent, or lease one, it's illegal for me to do so, even if there's thousands of idle ones available for me to use in the parking lot. That's an external constraint being imposed on me too.
The only real way to consider property compatible with liberty is by fiat (as libertarians/objectivists do), or to think of it as a sort of positive liberty. You are empowered to acquire objects, and become their master. You are empowered to bequeath that right to whomever you choose. You are entitled to fair compensation if someone damages or steals your property. You are entitled to fair compensation for your labor. And so on.
That's why I get so frustrated with people who have the gall to tell me that I don't understand liberty. Usually they're saying that because they haven't ever been exposed to the other side of the philosophical debate.

@GenjiKilpatrick that is why the idea of bitcoins was pretty awesome to me. It doesn't have the failure of a gold standard (not being able to inflate fast enough to avoid a deflationary spiral), or pure fiat (that can be manipulated behind closed doors to finance all sorts of evils by inflation). All valuation is inevitably fiat, which is why a gold standard actually makes LESS sense than a fiat, so in that, to devise a fiat that can't be manipulated by the inscrutable would be a very good currency indeed! The things you DO with money should be evil or good, not the supply itself! Money controlled by a computer system/formula, just makes sense. But it will never happen, bankers will make sure of that. Cheap money, great for bankers bad for Americans

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

As far as positive liberty, it seems just a state of mind more so than the actual concept of liberty.
...
Negative liberty is the vastly closer-to-freedom expression. That's not to say positive "liberty" is a bad thing--but like I said, it is more state-of-mind than actual freedom (I guess you could argue that freedom of thought is the only freedom that matters. Or that freedom to agree as a society is still freedom...)
Of course, I could be reading the whole thing wrong...in which case, ah, it happens--we are human after all.

I think you're reading it wrong.

Let's set property aside for a minute. My favorite positive vs. negative liberty example comes from the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Specifically Title VII, which both Rand and Ron Paul said they oppose as being a limit on (negative) liberty.

Title VII basically bans discrimination in privately owned public spaces, like stores, restaurants, theatres, etc. It gives all people the positive liberty of being able to participate in the economy, no matter their race, gender, or creed. They can shop in any shop, apply for any job, and purchase services freely. They've been empowered to fulfill their own potential.

From the negative liberty (and absolutist property) point of view, this is a decrease in liberty -- it involves the state placing a constraint on people's ability to do as they wish with their property. They can no longer put a "Whites Only" sign in the window, and they cannot enforce that policy with violence anymore because an external constraint has been placed on them that limits their "freedom" to do so.

Thing is, "property" is also an external constraint inconsistent with negative liberty. If I want to drive a car, but have no money to buy, rent, or lease one, it's illegal for me to do so, even if there's thousands of idle ones available for me to use in the parking lot. That's an external constraint being imposed on me too.

The only real way to consider property compatible with liberty is by fiat (as libertarians/objectivists do), or to think of it as a sort of positive liberty. You are empowered to acquire objects, and become their master. You are empowered to bequeath that right to whomever you choose. You are entitled to fair compensation if someone damages or steals your property. You are entitled to fair compensation for your labor. And so on.

That's why I get so frustrated with people who have the gall to tell me that I don't understand liberty. Usually they're saying that because they haven't ever been exposed to the other side of the philosophical debate.

Did you miss the part where I said I'm against assassination by presidential fiat?

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you must have.

"ring of hate and evil"? Seriously?


You insinuated that partisanship is affecting my ability to reason, then link to a video that has jack shit to do with anything I said about the hypocrisy in news coverage. I point out how way off you are, and you call me a shithead.

You're the one who down voted me, douche, and clearly without even reading what I wrote.

"I guarantee you watch more Fox News than I do"

"so stop being a judgmental douche"

Jesus Christ, do you even read what you write?

Everything you accuse me of is exactly what you're doing. You're going to guarantee how much Fox News I watch?

I don't need the fucking Nielsen ratings to your house to see what you're typing.

"Also, this is a local affiliate which has no real connection to the bullshit politics of the network"

Hey, one last defense of the hard hitting local news team!

Your side of this conversation is a parody of itself.




>> ^blankfist:

>> ^Taint:
Who are you referring to with "we"?
Since you didn't comment on the video you linked, nor did you post it, I assume by "we" you mean Arlen Spector and the republican party?
Is that the "we" you're a part of?
Since that would mean you're identifying yourself with the Republican party while accusing me of partisanship?
Is that the "we" you were referring to? You and Arlen? Or you and your fellow republicans? Or perhaps you and the organization of News Corp who you seem intent on defending for some reason.
I pointed out the obvious selective outrage of Fox News and its affiliates because it's relevant to this video in particular, and is beyond evident to anyone not under a rock during the Bush Administration.
You respond with a link from C-Span.
So you either think that my comment was directed toward you and your buddy Arlen Spector, or you have your head so far up Rupert Murdoch's ass that you don't even realize that you're defending Fox News, declaring yourself a Republican, and missing the point entirely.


>> ^blankfist:
>> ^Taint:
Smell the hypocrisy.
Don't even fool yourself and think that Fox news and its local affiliates would have said a word if this guy was assassinated by a President Bush or Romney...
Nor would they raise their voice with even a hint of protest at any previous presidential assassinations, or the lack of due process in confining any one of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay like José Padilla, another American citizen.
But now that President Obama is in charge, this douche bag Anwar Al-Awlaki becomes one of Sarah Palin's "real Americans" deserving his day in a civilian court defended by Gregory fuckin Peck.
I don't like that our president can assassinate at will either, but this selective outrage is so phony it's retarded.
The president assassinated someone and violated the constitution? Oh my god, welcome to fifty fucking years ago!

That's what you think this is about? Partisanship? Man, I'm so sick of this two party system. It's a cancer to reason. I wish both of them would rot on the vine of tyranny.
We complained about this under Bush too. http://videosift.com/video/Americans-have-no-right-to-Habeas-Corpus




No need to be a shithead. I'm anti anyone being assassinated. If you can't agree with that, then fine, go on being someone in favor of murder and assassinations, and stop looping the rest of us into your ring of hate and evil. I guarantee you watch more Fox News than I do. I watch zero of it unless it comes across the occasional internet video here and there, so stop being a judgmental douche, thanks.
Also, this is a local affiliate which has no real connection to the bullshit politics of the network.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^SDGundamX:
I know it is being nitpicky, but the reason Padilla could challenge was because he was an American citizen who had been designated by the president as an enemy combatant. You're right, they don't have to try every enemy combatant. I'm trying to find the actual court decision, but I could have sworn that it wasn't just a one-off thing for Padilla--the courts decided that any American has the right to challenge being put on the list in court.
As a fellow nitpicker, I don't mind when someone picks a nit. I don't contest any of what you say here. I actually thought that it went without saying that it hinged on Padilla's citizenship, and wasn't some sort of one-off decision.
>> ^SDGundamX:
As the video notes, al-Awlaki's family was indeed in the process of challenging it when the killing took place. I think that places the President in an awkward position from a legal standpoint. It'll be interesting to see where this goes if the family pursues this (sues for wrongful death or something), though I agree with you it seems like the odds are stacked in favor of the courts supporting the Presidential powers.
I don't see how they thought they might win such a challenge. All Al-Alwaki had to do was provide aid and comfort to the enemy, and it's over. And, well, his big thing was putting Al Qaeda recruitment videos on YouTube, so I'm thinking the government just plays one of those, and the case is over.
But in any case, his status when he was killed was still that of an enemy combatant. Now that he's dead, I suspect his legal status is no longer that of an enemy combatant, so there's nothing to challenge. And I suspect there's some Latin name for this, but I don't think courts are allowed to render something a crime by retroactively changing the legal status of things.
For example, say two people are getting a divorce, and the husband takes some jointly owned property with him when he moves out. Now suppose that when the divorce gets finalized, the court awards that property to the wife. The courts can't say "and it always was hers to begin with, so now we're charging you with larceny for taking it when you moved out".
You'd need to do something like that in order to make this killing a criminal act.
A wrongful death suit might fly though. But that's a civil suit, not a criminal charge.
But seriously, all this stuff is wrong. The President shouldn't have unilateral authority to declare people combatants and non-combatants. It should be uniformed members of the military of the nation we've declared war on. Everything else should be law enforcement, including chasing after terrorists.
The courts aren't going to make all that happen by fiat. That has to be a legislative effort, or it's just going to keep on going like this.


The trouble is it doesn't quite work to lump things as either law enforcement or uniformed soldiers at war. That works only in as far as it makes sense to pursue criminals through domestic and foreign law enforcement, or to make war on foreign nations refusing to enforce the rule of law. Due to myriad political bramble bushes, there are many nations like Pakistan and Yemen who claim much broader borders than those in which their actual loyal police officers can safely operate. When criminals hide in the tribal regions of Yemen and Pakistan, even willing and co-operative governments in Pakistan and Yemen are unable to enforce the law on the criminals we want prosecuted. Do we just leave those criminals be then? Do we declare uniformed soldier on soldier war against the governments in Pakistan and Yemen? Do we demand they restart the aborted civil wars that have left their tribal regions effectively autonomous independent nations?

In my opinion the tribal regions in places like Yemen and Pakistan are effectively not sovereign parts of those nations. It's not politically expedient to declare that, but it is the way Pakistani and Yemeni governments have been handling and treating the regions all along. They are for all intents and purposes independent nations, which merely pay lip service to being a part of Pakistan or Yemen while jockeying internally for a stronger position for themselves. I see American policy as effectively stepping in and treating those tribal regions as independent nations, rather than as Yemeni or Pakistani territory. Thus America is at open war with these tribal regions for their support of Al-Qaida jihadists.