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Ron Paul: It Is Obama's War!

volumptuous says...

This video is awesome. It highlights so many reason why I dislike him and his utterly shit political philosophy. (and why I kick myself to this day for giving him money and a primary vote during his run for POTUS)


• "We're going to win in November"
We = GOP. Ron Paul wants the GOP to win big in November. Seriously? Say what you want about Libertarianism, but Republicans are the farthest thing I can think of from the tenets of Libertarianism.

• "We just fired our general"
Damn straight! Biggest redneck, never-ending-war dickhead in the military. Ask Pat Tilman's mother about that one.

• "I lived through it (Viet Nam)."
He was stationed at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

• Oil spill & Tar Balls
What a fucking crock of shit. He's downplaying the effects of the BP/DWH oil spill? What a fucking cuntface heap of shit.

• Rand Paul "needs to be a senator". Yeah, like I need a bout of bone cancer.

• "You're putting words out there". Uh, no, Ron. Your son put those words out there, then like a true asshole, did exactly the opposite.

James Carville Bashes Zakaria for Comments on Oil Spill

Lawdeedaw says...

>> ^HugeJerk:
"Well, for one, they can start using the agencies that regulate safety to actually, um, enforce those regulations to their fullest. If those regs are inadequate, then make new ones. But for Christ's sake, don't make new agencies! Use the ones we have!!! We have 30 billion regulatory entities that do nothing but sit on their own fingers and rotate..."
Regulating Agencies can't do anything to fix the situation now sadly... the non-enforcement or rather the lack of meaningful penalties is something that definitely needs addressed in several industries (Coal Mining has also shown their lack of adherence to safety requirements because the penalties are marginal). Breaking apart the agency to form two so they separate the enforcement from the collections will likely not fix the issue of people being corruptable and willing to look the other way.
"Something else the Federal Government can do--when help is offered, don't have red tape that prevents that help from arriving. I am not sure if the countries that made offers to help were doing so out of pro-bono expectations, or, sans that, reasonable expectations, however, that isn't the point. Let the public know why you turned down much needed help... "
From what I heard recently there are 12 countries actively assisting in the Gulf, 20 had offered to help and I agree that it's lame that we don't know why the other 8 weren't accepted. If their assistance means a quicker recovery, then they should be taken up on their offers.
"Next, don't apologize to BP for "having" to make a fund helping those that are affected by the horror of Oil-Cane BPer..."
I don't recall the actual Federal Government giving an apology to BP, just a politician or two who have contribution ties to the oil industry. If I'm wrong here, please correct me.
"Hrm, what else? Actually have a surplus of money instead of debt out the ass...this way you can actually afford to do something about catastrophes"
Unless we're going to shove dollar bills into the well to plug it, a surplus of Federal Funds isn't going to fix the spill at this point. The economic situation and the circumstances that lead to it, including two wars, are certainly things that the President needs to be working on.


First point--yes, regulating won't fix anything already messed up. But preventing future failures is more important... This would help if there was a BP2—so, in essence, if we would have started regulating, oh, before BP1, then it would have fixed the problem.

Point 2, glad we agree-ish.

Point 3, the federal government as a whole never answers something completely. However, we can generalize to a certain point in regards to certain things. Americans hate gay marriage. It is sad, but there are a lot, most in fact, of Americans who are intolerant. Does that mean we all are? No… but, what do we all do to curb this behavior? Do we truly try to change beliefs, or do we score cheap political points. Most are in for the points...

Slowly the views are dying off. However, those in inaction are nearly as responsible as those actively causing the harm. A man walks by a traffic accident and does not call for help; he is nearly as bad as the hit-and-run driver because both know that that action will result in harm.

My point is many federally employed republicans have made their support known for BP and refused the "shakedown" of BP. No one raised much of a stink until one republican apologized directly to BP's man... In other words, it was fine until that one guy did it...

4th point, I was meaning that infrastructure should have already been our focus and should start to be our future focus. We squander on two wars, as you say, and have barely any skimmers or science to stop this problem. Invest, invest, invest. We agree here, I am sure. It is all just a matter of whose fault things are.

James Carville Bashes Zakaria for Comments on Oil Spill

Lawdeedaw says...

>> ^kronosposeidon:
I can see where Carville is coming from, I really can. And if I were a Gulf Coast resident, right now I might feel the same way.
However, exactly how much should the President be doing about the oil spill? Should he be holding press conferences every day, saying, "I'm gonna get those motherfuckers!"? He's basically already done that, just without saying "motherfucker." Should he set up house in Louisiana and move his entire staff down there with him and stay until it's all cleaned up? I know those are both extreme examples, but I'm trying to make a point, which is the same one Fareed made: He can't spend so much time on just one major issue.
The last I heard, the U.S. is still at war in two countries, our economy is still shaky and 9.5% of our labor force is still out of work, Iran might be trying to make nuclear weapons, immigration is in desperate need of overhaul, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is perpetually at risk of getting much worse, among other major issues. Should he give less attention to all of those issues just to appear to be doing more about the oil spill?
Fareed's just asking us to be more sensible about this, while Carville is just making emotional appeals. Do you want the president to be sensible, or just emotional? That's what you have to ask yourself.
He's the President of the United States, not just the Gulf Coast.


Well, four or five states have a catastrophe they cannot recover from for years on end, and that is a mighty blow to the United States as a whole. I know you understand this, and I think you make great points. However, living on the Gulf, I can say this--anything Obama or the states do that do help us is a weakness to the entire country. Imagine another calamity somewhere else... Or imagine an invading force (I know, it could never happen...unlike Rome or England...) What would we do? Chickens head cut off? Probably...

The above scenarios are far-fetched, I know. However, they illustrate the point. 9/11 was our best response to a national emergency, but that was one day of pain and hell.

Now, as to two wars and the economy... Was Fareed saying we should handle stuff like that or go to other countries like Indo? And are those other countries directly related to solving our biggest woes?

All and all, well done. I respect your points more than most people's here on the sift. Very balanced.

James Carville Bashes Zakaria for Comments on Oil Spill

Lawdeedaw says...

>> ^HugeJerk:
Maybe I don't understand the whole situation... but what more can the federal government do at this point to help with the spill? Should they send troops to the shores to shout "INCOMING" and shoot at the blobs of oil?
The impression I get is the Gulf States governments are incapable of doing anything more than asking the Federal Government to help. Do these States not have any resources or capabilities of their own... are they in need of something? I never hear specifics of what the Fed can provide, just that they want the President to act emotionally and have his entire focus on the issue in the Gulf.


How can the federal government do more? Let me count the Ocean Waves...

Well, for one, they can start using the agencies that regulate safety to actually, um, enforce those regulations to their fullest. If those regs are inadequate, then make new ones. But for Christ's sake, don't make new agencies! Use the ones we have!!! We have 30 billion regulatory entities that do nothing but sit on their own fingers and rotate...

Oh, and the states themselves? Haha... Wait? You were serious? Sorry, anyways, no, the states suck. Look at Katrina...

Something else the Federal Government can do--when help is offered, don't have red tape that prevents that help from arriving. I am not sure if the countries that made offers to help were doing so out of pro-bono expectations, or, sans that, reasonable expectations, however, that isn't the point. Let the public know why you turned down much needed help...

Next, don't apologize to BP for "having" to make a fund helping those that are affected by the horror of Oil-Cane BPer...

Hrm, what else? Actually have a surplus of money instead of debt out the ass...this way you can actually afford to do something about catastrophes...

But like you, I can't think of anything the Federal Government can do... Beats me...

James Carville Bashes Zakaria for Comments on Oil Spill

kronosposeidon says...

Yes, it does impact our economy. I'm not trying to play down the seriousness of the issue. However our economy wasn't in good shape before the spill, and even if everything were cleaned up by tomorrow our economy would still be shaky, and we'd still have tons of people unemployed.

I also think that we should withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, but right now we're still there, and as long as our troops are still there then both wars are major issues facing the President - the Commander-In-Chief.

I also don't like our involvement with Israel, but if Israel escalates their aggression towards their neighbors, it would be naive to think that we wouldn't get involved. Israel bombed Iraq when they thought Iraq might be developing nuclear weapons. It's easily conceivable that they might do the same to Iran, and don't think the U.S. or other countries wouldn't get sucked into that.

As far as other important domestic issues are concerned, both sides of the aisle agree that immigration policy needs reform. We still have major trade deficits, and our national deficit is also ballooning. Millions of Americans are living in poverty, many of them homeless. Our public education system desperately needs fixing, though there are major disagreements about how to do it. College costs continue to spiral, making higher education less accessible to lower and middle class Americans. An undereducated nation could be a big problem down the road, couldn't it?

As I said, there are a host of major issues on the President's desk, both foreign and domestic. I can't see how he can focus like a laser beam on just one major issue without letting others slip through the cracks.

I want the Gulf cleaned up just as bad as anyone else. But I don't want the President to jump through all these hoops just for the sake of appearances. And I don't want a single issue to become the sole issue. We've seen it happen before with the healthcare issue dominating the political landscape to the virtual exclusion of almost all other issues. I don't want that to happen again.>> ^bmacs27:

>> ^kronosposeidon:
our economy is still shaky and 9.5% of our labor force is still out of work

You don't think that this oil spill is an immediate risk for a significant proportion of our economy?
Maybe it's time we let the world deal with the world.
He's the president of the US, not the president of the Middle East.

Ron Paul: Govt. may bill you for BP crimes

blankfist says...

>> ^volumptuous:
If he had his way, through massive deregulation, the Deepwater Horizon spill would be just a drop in the bucket.

Correct. The size of the oil spill would be the size of a drop in a bucket, because they wouldn't have a ridiculous 75 million dollar liability limit, and that kind of deregulation would make companies like BP very careful.

James Carville Bashes Zakaria for Comments on Oil Spill

bmacs27 says...

>> ^kronosposeidon:

our economy is still shaky and 9.5% of our labor force is still out of work


You don't think that this oil spill is an immediate risk for a significant proportion of our economy?

Maybe it's time we let the world deal with the world.

He's the president of the US, not the president of the Middle East.

James Carville Bashes Zakaria for Comments on Oil Spill

rougy says...

I think that Zakaria was trying to make the point that the media was more concerned about what the president appeared to be doing about the oil spill, and about how he appeared to feel about it, but maybe I'm wrong.

However, I pretty much agree with Carville on this one, and I can't claim to be a fan of his.

If we couldn't do more about the spill, I think that more could have been done to protect the shores, at the very least.

I hate to say it, because it gives the cons on the web very tight pants and palpitating heart rates, but Obama has not taken this seriously enough.

This thing has the potential to haunt us for generations, not just a few months.

This thing can create dead zones the size of a floating state of Texas in not only the gulf, but in the Atlantic as well.

This is a greater threat to our country and its welfare than 9/11.

marine biologist:corexit being sprayed on the gulf

bcglorf says...

>> ^Simple_Man:

>> ^bcglorf:
Took me awhile to articulate what bothered me about this. The entire context we get from the editing of the clip is purely a commentary from a scientist stating that spraying the chemical on the oil spill is bad. My problem is that the relevant question is importantly different, to spray or not to spray. I'm not aware of anyone saying spraying is good, but more simply that spraying is better than that much extra oil hitting the shore. Sadly we don't see him speaking to that, only the more friendly to public outrage details of how horrible the spraying is.
Dumping millions and millions of barrels of oil into the environment is very bad for it. We live in a world that is not required to have a good solution to the problem. It's not even required to have ANY solution. Simply demonstrating and knowing that spraying is a bad solution does not prove that it may not still be the best that we've got, or at any rate a piece of the best we can get.

There are less toxic alternatives to Corexit that are more effective. In fact, the EPA has pushed BP to adopt a new dispersant called "Sea Brat No. 4". However, BP refused, on the grounds of a certain ingredient contains “potential endocrine disruptors” that “may persist in the environment for a period of years". This has been proven false, as the threshold for the ingredient to be considered toxic is 10% by weight, whereas the percentage in the Sea Brat dispersant is at 1.91%. Another is that they cannot obtain the quantity of the dispersant needed. This is false as well. There are thousands of gallons of alternative dispersant waiting to be shipped, with a manufacturing plant with sufficient capacity to produce large quantities everyday should BP need it.
On the other hand, a former BP executive sits on the board of Nalco, the manufacturer of Corexit. Just some food for thought.


There, that is exactly what we need to be hearing from experts like this guy. I don't know if he never said it, or if it was just edited out. What matters though is that there is a very big problem that needs solutions. Poking holes in a solution without providing a better alternative though is NOT helping anyone. Even if the better alternative is simply to point out doing nothing is better than a proposal, at least it's helping.

marine biologist:corexit being sprayed on the gulf

Simple_Man says...

>> ^bcglorf:

Took me awhile to articulate what bothered me about this. The entire context we get from the editing of the clip is purely a commentary from a scientist stating that spraying the chemical on the oil spill is bad. My problem is that the relevant question is importantly different, to spray or not to spray. I'm not aware of anyone saying spraying is good, but more simply that spraying is better than that much extra oil hitting the shore. Sadly we don't see him speaking to that, only the more friendly to public outrage details of how horrible the spraying is.
Dumping millions and millions of barrels of oil into the environment is very bad for it. We live in a world that is not required to have a good solution to the problem. It's not even required to have ANY solution. Simply demonstrating and knowing that spraying is a bad solution does not prove that it may not still be the best that we've got, or at any rate a piece of the best we can get.


There are less toxic alternatives to Corexit that are more effective. In fact, the EPA has pushed BP to adopt a new dispersant called "Sea Brat No. 4". However, BP refused, on the grounds of a certain ingredient contains “potential endocrine disruptors” that “may persist in the environment for a period of years". This has been proven false, as the threshold for the ingredient to be considered toxic is 10% by weight, whereas the percentage in the Sea Brat dispersant is at 1.91%. Another is that they cannot obtain the quantity of the dispersant needed. This is false as well. There are thousands of gallons of alternative dispersant waiting to be shipped, with a manufacturing plant with sufficient capacity to produce large quantities everyday should BP need it.

On the other hand, a former BP executive sits on the board of Nalco, the manufacturer of Corexit. Just some food for thought.

James Carville Bashes Zakaria for Comments on Oil Spill

kronosposeidon says...

I can see where Carville is coming from, I really can. And if I were a Gulf Coast resident, right now I might feel the same way.

However, exactly how much should the President be doing about the oil spill? Should he be holding press conferences every day, saying, "I'm gonna get those motherfuckers!"? He's basically already done that, just without saying "motherfucker." Should he set up house in Louisiana and move his entire staff down there with him and stay until it's all cleaned up? I know those are both extreme examples, but I'm trying to make a point, which is the same one Fareed made: He can't spend so much time on just one major issue.

The last I heard, the U.S. is still at war in two countries, our economy is still shaky and 9.5% of our labor force is still out of work, Iran might be trying to make nuclear weapons, immigration is in desperate need of overhaul, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is perpetually at risk of getting much worse, among other major issues. Should he give less attention to all of those issues just to appear to be doing more about the oil spill?

Fareed's just asking us to be more sensible about this, while Carville is just making emotional appeals. Do you want the president to be sensible, or just emotional? That's what you have to ask yourself.

He's the President of the United States, not just the Gulf Coast.

marine biologist:corexit being sprayed on the gulf

bcglorf says...

Took me awhile to articulate what bothered me about this. The entire context we get from the editing of the clip is purely a commentary from a scientist stating that spraying the chemical on the oil spill is bad. My problem is that the relevant question is importantly different, to spray or not to spray. I'm not aware of anyone saying spraying is good, but more simply that spraying is better than that much extra oil hitting the shore. Sadly we don't see him speaking to that, only the more friendly to public outrage details of how horrible the spraying is.

Dumping millions and millions of barrels of oil into the environment is very bad for it. We live in a world that is not required to have a good solution to the problem. It's not even required to have ANY solution. Simply demonstrating and knowing that spraying is a bad solution does not prove that it may not still be the best that we've got, or at any rate a piece of the best we can get.

Anderson Cooper - Govt Bans Press From Filming BP Oil Spill

Porksandwich says...

My only thought on this is that if they admit it now, after months, when people get ill later....there will be proof to go back on and say they knew it was dangerous and didn't alert people soon enough. If they play the game you see all the CEOs playing "I don't recall" "I wasn't aware" "Im deaf dumb and blind" during Congressional hearings, they stand a chance of being able to blame it on the very people they are denying access to study the side effects and such of this. It almost sounds like a conspiracy nut explanation, but I can't see the point in not telling people that this stuff can give them cancer 10 years down the line and that they shouldn't be letting their kids play in the water where the oil may be present.


>> ^NordlichReiter:

>> ^Porksandwich:
And they still aren't telling people that exposure to this shit can make them sick, 65 foot rule sounds like a way to deny people treatment when they get sick from exposure. Because damn near everyone has a cell phone with a camera...so if you end up exposed, you had photographic equipment on you when it happened. So you broke the law, and since you became injured/ill because you broke the law...you can only blame yourself.

Now that's an argument I can get behind. The argument that the 65 foot rule is because there are hazardous chemicals, oil and or corexit, being used. Not because they arbitrarily need to create safe zones, and media personnel are simply hampering their efforts.
But, Proksandwich, that would require BP and Government officials admit that there are hazardous chemicals in use; which are a direct danger to living things.

demon_ix (Member Profile)

Anderson Cooper - Govt Bans Press From Filming BP Oil Spill

NordlichReiter says...

>> ^Porksandwich:

And they still aren't telling people that exposure to this shit can make them sick, 65 foot rule sounds like a way to deny people treatment when they get sick from exposure. Because damn near everyone has a cell phone with a camera...so if you end up exposed, you had photographic equipment on you when it happened. So you broke the law, and since you became injured/ill because you broke the law...you can only blame yourself.


Now that's an argument I can get behind. The argument that the 65 foot rule is because there are hazardous chemicals, oil and or corexit, being used. Not because they arbitrarily need to create safe zones, and media personnel are simply hampering their efforts.

But, Proksandwich, that would require BP and Government officials admit that there are hazardous chemicals in use; which are a direct danger to living things.



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