But it's interesting that you only noticed it coming from one side.

Hmmm...so his inexperience is why nobody on the R side of the aisle wants to help? I guess if he had 20 years of executive experience, he could get these idiots who don't believe what he believes to vote for a bill they write?? I'll be honest, I expected some obstructionism, after all, republicans are all for small government and reduced spending when they aren't in charge, but this is a level that I didn't expect (stopping votes so you can get your earmarks??).

And Democrats are all for ending the Iraq and Afghanistan wars when they aren't in charge. This really isn't just a Republican issue...it's politics. The problem with many young people today is that they don't realize that both sides are doing whatever they can to make the other side look bad. Jon Stewart only talks bad about Republicans after all.

lol

Sorry, I might be off base, here. Jon Stewart did replace Michael Moore as the leader of the Democratic Party right?

yep, way off base. He took over from Walter Cronkite as 'Most Trusted Newscaster in America'

Poll Results - Now that Walter Cronkite has passed on, who is America's most trusted newscaster? | TIME

Head over to the Stewart/Colbert thread for plenty of examples of him skewering both sides.

I'm young? Thanks. I guess the problem with old people is that they are so set in their ways they can't adapt to anything. Rush Limbaugh only talks bad about Liberals after all.

I think I'm old enough and smart enough to know that 95% of these people are liars. I'm certainly no Obama kool-aid drinker and couldn't stand Kerry either, I just think these "I'm in the middle...really...I am" people could stand to just step back for a second. I mean, we're in the first year of a 4-year run and both sides are merely concerned with doing nothing but blaming the others. I guess my expectations changed from "something" to "not much" in the last few months.

And I was for never starting the resource consuming, endless, pointless wars.

Anyone that thinks Jon Stewart doesn't also make fun of Democrats, I lay down this challenge.

I'll post as many examples of him doing this as I can find. If I can't come up with 50 examples, I owe you $100. Otherwise, you give me $1 for each example.

Eh, that might be misplaced resentment.

Just as it would indeed be hard to rape the truly willing, I think it's probably tough to actually dupe the chronically/terminally stupid. In this subject they have a tendency to do that for/to themselves.



I'd also say partial credit, definitely not the sole reason. He could have run as a mute & gotten votes from several blocs, wouldn't have to do much to gather up the rest.

50 examples is a bold bet. Obviously my thoughts weren't fully thought through here. For a show that has run daily since 1999 (except when his writers were on strike), you would have to find over 5 examples per season.

So it looks like the President is going to try to rahm his version of health care through where they only need 51 votes.

Next we will see opponents complaining about him ramming through legislation after they criticized him for not getting legislation passed with clear majorities.

You could probably find 50 examples of Stewart making fun of Democrats in the last month. Two months, easy.

I bet I could find examples of Rush and Glenn Beck making fun of Bush. Are they fair and balanced too?

Nope, and I would never think to call Stewart fair and balanced. I didn't think that was the discussion.

Bingo.

Fox News - slant right
Rush - slant right
AM Radio in general - slant right
WSJ - slant right

What's slanted left?

Nothing.

Ugh.

That's just what the liberal media wants you to think!

No one said Stewart is fair and balanced. The comment made was that Stewart only talks bad about Republicans. Every once in a while someone makes that claim or something similar. So I figured I'd throw down the challenge. I think the people that criticize Stewart in such a manner would be surprised at how often he makes fun of Democrats.

John Stewart makes fun of everything that doesn't work within the confines of common sense.

Be it idiotic Democrats or idiotic Republicans.

I'd agree with that at some level. But even Stewart himself in his recent interview with O'Reilly openly admitted that his show had a liberal slant. He certainly doesn't hide that fact.

With partisians on each side, if you make one minor criticism of them, you're automatically on the other side. The Chicago Tribune has leaned to the right forever and has endorsed every Republican candidate in their 161 year history. They endorsed Obama in 2008 and were lambasted for it. Called liberals, left-wing, and all the other catchphrases. When they wrote a negative review on O'Reilly's book, he called them a liberal paper. You are automatically on the other team if you ever criticize someone.

As for Stewart, I'd call him a populist more than anything. Basically goes after the low hanging fruit. His audience is more progressive so he obviously plays to that. But watching his show the last couple months, he's torn Democrats apart much more than Republicans. I don't think his attacks are politically motivated, just what he thinks will be funny and get a good reaction. He's more a common sense guy who points out absurdities in our political culture.

I thought the CPAC straw poll was really surprising. Ron Paul won rather easily. Palin only finished with 7%. The odd thing was they booed the results when they were announced. I get the feeling a lot of people there like to call themselves conservatives but have no fucking idea what it means. Paul is the most conservative guy out there.

One of the biggest gripes I've had about O'Reilly was that he always pretends to be an "independent". Seriously? So if Stewart said that, good for him...these guys need to do more of that.

Stewart is a Liberal, but he badmouths the democrats all the time. That was the framework of the discussion earlier.

BTW, anyone who has HBO should make the Bill Maher show a must watch this week (premiered on Friday). They presented exactly what Obama and the Democrats should be doing. I'm not sure I disagreed with anything on that show outside of Wanda's implication that people just hate Obama's ideas because he's black. Plus, Seth MacFarlane made for a lot of really funny observations. Really good episode.

Summary of a couple things I remember:

-Stop the ridiculous 'intent to filibuster' and do it the way it's supposed to be done.
-Obama should start acting more like Bush.
-It's ridiculous that DADT hasn't been repealed yet.

Mahar doesn't understand the rules of the Senate. There isn't any way to force a filibuster the way it's supposed to be done. The filibuster agreement in the seventies made it much more difficult for the majority party to force a real filibuster and it takes 67 votes to change those Senate rules.

The Dems have done a shitty job of publicizing the GOP obstruction(can one of them say up or down vote?), but the GOP has discovered that the Senate rules make filibustering everything nearly pain free.

Wow, you watched that show awfully fast.

Bingo. There are a bunch of conservative sites claiming that Paul supporters are like sheep and just stuff the ballot box and rig the online polls. (They said 10,000 people attended CPAC and only 2,000 voted. Whose fault is that exactly?) They also say there is no way a 77-year old guy with such strong anti-government views (end the federal reserve, end middle East wars, end the war on drugs, end the IRS, etc) will ever be elected. But their conclusion is to mock Paul, mock his supporters, and then talk about Mit Romney (who came in second with like 10% less than Paul).

What? Paul has such rabid support lately because a lot of people are fed up with both Democrats and Republicans. Unelectable? IMO Sarah Palin is unelectable. Believe it or not there are actually some people who don't want to bomb Iran, who don't think spending is OK if the Republicans do it, and who don't want more Jesus in our lives. How about accepting some of his views into the mix or turning to a guy like Gary Johnson from New Mexico who actually has some executive experience with limited government ideals? No, instead they will drudge up some bullshit and try and discredit Paul, will try to keep Paul out the debates, will have someone like Palin try and adopt Paul’s ideals (even though in the 2008 debates she shared very few of them) and will act like there aren't any conservatives that actually believe in limiting government not only economically but also socially and militarily. (one conservative blogger said "Who will bring freedom to the world? China? Russia?" Do they really think that is what is happening in the Middle East? Seriously?)

If this does happen I hope Paul runs as a Libertarian and either awakens a shitload of Americans about the reality of a third party (highly unlikely) or at least fucks over the Republicans and makes them (and possibly Democrats as well) change their mind on the military industrial complex. You have the power Republicans and a guy that has some pretty intense followers. Are you going to fuck this up? My guess is yes.

I used to be a huge fan. (Love Maher's views on religion and drug policy) But during the election he kept claiming how he is a Libertarian but shilled for every single Obama view including those that fly right in the face of Libertarians. He is more than welcome to do this but I wish he would quit with the Libertarian angle.

Triple Post (I am fired up about Paul)

I think a lot of people back in 2006 and even 2007 laughed at the idea of Obama being elected president and focused instead on Clinton, Edwards, even Richardson. The tea party movement is Ron Paul's supporters creation. Palin and Glenn Beck have certainly hijacked it and there are people at these rallies who don't share Paul's views but it was him and Judge Andrew Napolitano who actually began the follow the Constitution movement. I think Paul has more strength than ever.

Of course that means more disinformation... more trying to associate him to 9-11 truthers, calling him racist for a newsletter than he didn't write from the 70's, calling him a wacko. Never a policy debate though. Because that would expose that they really don't care about the $1 trillion we spend policing the world that is a huge part of what is bankrupting this country. Take on his ideas and I will at least listen, discredit him and you are really missing a huge opportunity.

Paul can't win a Republican primary not to mention the general election. Love him or hate him, I don't understand why people can't see his base of support is relatively small. 30% of 2000 self avowed conservatives isn't the springboard to the White House.

I tend to agree that under the current system he is unelectable but how do you wish to measure support? Online polls? He wins. Straw Polls? He wins. Campaign contributions? He was actually right up there with Giuliani and in front of McCain in 2008 ($4.2 million in one day). Readership? Two New York Times best selling books. He just doesn't have corporate support because he will destroy the system that they know and love to exploit.

39% of the country opposes even the war in Afghanistan and neither party has a candidate willing to listen to this message and act on it. I think you would be surprised how well somebody like Gary Johnson or even a Democrat would do running on the anti-war message. It is a very popular message. I would argue that the more peaceful of the two candidates generally wins the election. (No doubt Obama was more peaceful than McCain, and Bush was anti-war in 2000) And Paul is one of the few who always bashes the job Congress does. What is their approval rating? 15%?

I just don't think his support is as small as you might think. Fox News, WSJ, Drudge, etc might say he is a "fringe" candidate but why would they try to promote a campaign that flies in the face of their divisive agenda? (Fox News more than the other two) He has a populist explosion written all over him. Look at his son in Kentucky or Peter Schiff in CT. Four years ago these guys would be getting 1-2% of the vote. They are winning in some polls! Hard is discount, even if you don’t like the message.

Paul's support is extremely significant for who he is, off the charts really, but he's not a serious presidential candidate.

The support definitely shows some discontent and a specific opinion about the federal government though, something that one of the parties needs to address eventually, or a real third-party threat could eventually emerge.

I wish Paul would have run once as an independent. He most likely wouldn't have won a state, but I think the total popular vote would have gotten some attention.

I think he did run once back in the 80's as a Libertarian but I get your point about doing it in 2008. I think he wants to try and push the Republican party towards some of his views knowing full well that he couldn't win on his own but if they keep attempting to discredit him there may be a 2012 third party run that will make the presidential debates very entertaining and throw a huge wrench in the Republican's ability to win back the White House. I think he doesn't have the business background of Perot but definitely knows his history and will make both mainstream candidates look really foolish. Ultimately he won't win as people will stick with the "lesser of two evils" approach to voting while at the same time standing around the water cooler saying how they agree with a lot of what Paul stands for. (Of course I didn't expect Perot to get millions of votes either so anything could happen!)

We don't need to speculate how well Paul might do, he just ran for President. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I don't think he broke double digits in any primary.

It's easy to mistake popularity online or even donations for enough mass appeal to win a general election. Paul may have thirty million ardent supporters and he'd still lose by a two to one margin to his opponent.

your shtick is predictable and just amusing at this point

Touche. Go make some out of character post about how great health care reform is or some other policy that Obama people have told you is good. Bush war bad, Obama war good. Bahhhh.... bahhhh....

So you would never vote for a candidate that had ideals you beleive in but instead will go with whatever the mainstream media throws out there? Interesting.

Like i said I don't think he will win but I think the Republicans are foolish to boo him and try and discredit his message. (Nobody has ever accused the Republicans of being all that in touch though :) )

I think he was always at like the 10% mark, sometimes a lot higher and sometimes lower. Pulling up results I see 20%+ in the Western states and around 10% on Eastern states. (16% in Pennslyvania)

Things have changed though since the election. TARP and the stimulus bills aren't doing much and while the Republicans can't say much (since they voted for a lot of this junk also) Paul can show that he hasn't. Seems like that would be a good thing? No?

I'd say I'm not alone in being more than willing to marginalize anyone who thinks legalization & isolationism are worthwhile policies. I'd prefer to see them eliminated from the population entirely but I'll settle for labeling them accurately as fucking nuts.

I have to say that him not getting your endorsement isn't much of a shock, though I did think you claimed to be a conservative. Maybe Romney will win and he can bring his state-run healthcare system to the entire country.

huh?

you've got me wrong. i don't think "obama war good." I think "wars bad."

i'd agree with you on isolationism, and maybe to some degree on legalization (depending on if we're talking just pot, or all drugs)

I'm a social conservative far more than a fiscal conservative (although I don't lack for numerous components of the latter). That whackjob could promise a foolproof method to end all taxation, magically fund the cure for cancer, and deliver perpetual motion engines but if he wants to legalize stoners & sit here waiting for various & sundry enemies to attack then I hope he takes the longest walk off the shortest pier asap. The gains on one aren't worth the losses on the other.

+1 because while I'm completely the opposite in almost every way, it perfectly illustrates why I could not tolerate a Paul presidency.

LOL. It's fun watching the neocons getting their panties in a bunch. All week it was about Romney and Palin and Cheney and who would be the darling of the CPAC straw poll. Then Paul wins and its meaningless. And its discredit Ron Paul 101.

Cure for cancer and no taxes? Not if we can't blow up dem Muslims and Russians and control what other Americans do to their own bodies!!! LOL. More bombs! More Jesus!

(for the record, if I could get a miracle cure for cancer and no taxes, I'd vote for that guy if all I had to do was legalize pot and stop our foreign wars and I'm not exactly libertarian)

SI

Bottom of screen: "Ice Dancing in 17 minutes", flip over to MSNBC: "15:35 to go in the first period"

Damn you, NBC!

SI

here comes bode's run...that's about all you need to see for downhill. prolly they will only show us 2-3 runs anyways

Does that mean I'm not a neocon anymore? Because I wasn't even aware they were having a straw poll much less going on about it all week.

Reality check: nothing that happens this week was going to mean much Presidentially, short of one or more players being caught in flagrante delicto with a farm animal.

I honestly don't know if you are a neocon or not. I thought you weren't a huge fan of Bush and he is a prototypical neocon. And I agree completely that everything will change by 2010, I just am having a fun day going around the net and realizing how meaningless this event is now to conservatives. (when just two days ago the CPAC was a "Great stand against Obama and his socialist agenda")

You know what would be the ultimate Ron Paul ticket? (Designed especially to make Jon's head spin :) ) Paul/Kucinich. They have very little in common economically but would be great for debate within the White House on all kinds of issues. Unlike Obama or Bush I would at least know what I am getting from these guys. I have never seen two more honest politicians than these two. I think those two could put together a very serious third party campaign. Though I am sure neither sets of their supporters would agree on who should headline the ticket. Can I get at least one of the liberal posters to agree that this one would be interesting? :)

Political buzzwords and labels are so misused today it's sad. Conservatives, liberals, neocons, socialists, etc.

Jon is not so much a conservative, he's more authoritarian. He has the same viewpoints as social/cultural conservatives on some issues, but I believe the reasoning as to why they reach that opinion is different.

And part of the problem with conferences like CPAC is that most of the people there aren't true conservatives. They hate gay people or something and just label themselves conservative because that's the trendy thing to do. Paul has been more conservative then anyone we've had in Congress in 80 years but gets booed because he's not a couch potatoe General.

See, I'd say he lost his claim to that when he tried to snuggle illegal immigrants.


You know that's not an original suggestion, right? I'm virtually certain that it's been mentioned here on more than one occasion.

I'm not claiming to have created it either. Not sure I saw it on here or not but I am sure I have seen it somewhere. I remember watching the Democrats debate (I was pretty certain at the time that we would be getting one of them so I at least wanted to see what they stood for) and I can remember Clinton and Edwards talking about how Bush misled them on the Iraq war and Obama spouting off his change rhetoric but I can also remember how Kucinich seemed to be honest and consistent on everything.

I remember Ron Paul saying on numerous occasions that he respects Kucinich's integrity, just not always his policies.

Kucinich had so much integrity that he conveniently abandoned his pro-life position when he decided to run for President.

Why is it that we only get to hear the stupid arguments when it comes to politics?

Glenn Beck makes a stupid statement? Show it.

Palin says something stupid? It's on.

Biden has another brain fart? Top of the news headlines.

Harry Reid with another questionable assertion. It'll be there.

I listened to the linked 30 minute speech from George Will at the CPAC convention. While I certainly understand that some won't agree with some of his points, the wit and clarity with which he delivers his points is refreshing. I wish that we saw more of speeches like this instead of the tabloid coverage that we seem to get on most days. Plus, it was one of the few speeches where I didn't hear any form of religion taking a major or even minor role in his points.

It's well worth a listen if you have the time. He speaks mainly about the current state of entitlement in our society.

George Will, George Will Townhall on USTREAM. Politics

Im so glad you agree that the fringes get too much attention and thereby too much Pub, and therefore have too much sway over the flocks in this country. Thats different than some pages back where you said that it didnt matter what XY or Z lied about (to wit Palin Re: Death Panels).

I have little doubt you've twisted any argument I made, but feel free to link it and I'll respond.

im sure...

The recently released OPR report on the Yoo/Bybee torture memos is a must-read: http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/...ading_this.php

Can we allow the President to destroy a village of civilians?

Yes we can!

NYC terrorism suspect cites subway attack plan - Yahoo! News

Success in the Civilian courts.

Umm ... kind of depends upon whose civilians those are I would think.

Success? He pled guilty and committed 100% of the crime in the U.S.

Show me a jury verdict against a foreign terrorist who has never been to the U.S., and who had been tortured for years in custody before being charged with anything (like KSM). If we convict that guy under civilian rules (or only subject civilian rules to those willing to plead guilty), we're wiping our collective ass with the constitution.

If we're going to do civilian trials, KSM must be released. (Unless there's some little-known SCOTUS precedent that allows you to imprison and torture someone for years and then try him). If that shit happened to Joe from Cleveland, there's no way any conviction against him would stand.

yes. Success in the Civilian courts.

Not according to John Yoo.

That's a pretty weighty clause.

True - but you could even throw out the torture part of that clause. Under the U.S. constitution, you're not allowed to lock someone up indefinitely without charges. If we're playing by civilian rules, we have to set all those terrorists free anyway.

Or, we can just give the terrorists special rules, in which case it's just a military tribunal disguised as a civilian court. Which is what we'll end up with. I just don't think the anyone deserves political points for doing that.

This guy in Colorado though - just a regular domestic criminal. Not any kind of proof or support that for the proposition that we should rape the constitution where necessary for KSM et al.

Will is articulate and intelligent. That unfortunately doesn't drive ratings. He's part of an old guard that while partisian, did not step over the bounds into the hate speech we see today from most pundits.

My bad, I thought (for whatever reason) that you were speaking practically instead of theoretically.

Evidently there's a lot of unemployed wife abusers in Nevada.........

Reid: 'Men, when they're out of work, tend to become abusive' - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

evidently

Are you arguing his point? Evidence shows that unemployed individuals are much more likely to be abusive. In fact, he probably got it from a Republican-led DOJ report from 2004.

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/208346.pdf

Swing and a miss on the daily talking point.

So he's got all of these important things to be doing and he's talking about points made by a Republican Congress that got blown out of the majority position? If he wants to play family counselor, that's his business. Either pass a Wife Beater Stimulus package or get on to more important matters.

No, he's talking about a statistic that states a negative of high unemployment while trying to pass a jobs bill to curb that.

Did you even read the article you posted?

Seriously? This is your rant for the day? I'm guessing that you didn't read the "article" (I'd paraphrase it for you, but it is only a couple hundred words, so I doubt that I could cut it down a whole lot). If you aren't interested in reading about a small quote about a positive byproduct of a bill about jobs, you really have no business reading a site like the Hill.

Go back to your blogs and I'm sure you can find a dozen headlines that are far, far more infuriating than this one.

So are we passing a bill to create jobs or are we passing a bill to quell the tempers of men who should have enough self control to do that regardless of whether or not they have a job? I guess we've set a lower standard of what is required of people and how they behave. Who knew that Congress could pass bills to limit the use of females as punching bags?

You see positives. I see $15B more in needlessly wasted money.

Did you read the article that you posted?

It is something he mentioned in support of the jobs bill. He did not hold a press conference, issue a press release, or call a special session of congress to talk about it.

Again, I have to wonder if you understand that websites and publications like the Hill are for people who actually care and hang on every word that politicians give. You should probably stick to the AP wire if you want to sift through headlines to get your daily news (although you probably still will not be able to discuss them in-depth, you won't look as silly to others).

Ah -- you are shifting things.

I didn't comment about whether or not the bill was positive. Whether it is or not (probably won't do much, in my opinion), less domestic violence is a good thing. Can we agree on that?

Kinda a 'duh' statement there. But this bill isn't going to stop any domestic violence situations. It's silly to even suggest that.

Somehow, I knew you wouldn't make any concessions -- even that less domestic violence is a good thing. If you don't even understand that conflicts about jobs and money can lead to problems in marriage and domestic abuse, then you should probably quit trying to read adult publications or watching adult programs.

The "duh" moment was taking the time to respond to something that you posted. :)

Have fun playing in your thread. :)

Man, sometimes it's really hard to fathom the retardedness of your act (I put that in there intentionally). When you are pushing for a bill that you would like to pass, it's quite typical to support your argument with this thing we normal people call facts. Now, we all know facts have no place in your tiny head unless they are spit out on to a blog about something they want you to find outrageous, but for most people, we want these facts to support arguments. Now, Harry Reid, while a toolbag, is doing what most people in congress SHOULD be doing, which is using real-life actual facts to support a position. Now sure, he's not telling them to vote for the bill to stop domestic violence. He's trying to tell them, in a fact-based manner, that there may be other positive effects of this bill outside of potential job creation.

Now congress is surely stupid and broken, and whether or not this bill has merits on its own is questionable, none of which you brought up in your original point. If you are going to do this over every bill (since the 15B is minuscule compared to what gets passed around), at least have the common sense and courtesy to put some real life, actual intelligent thought in to the partisan drivel you wish to push. You seem relatively not dumb, it shouldn't be hard.

It will be hard for me to weigh in on this until I know the state of Harry Reid's shirt sleeves.

Fair enough. You're buying what Uncle Harry is selling. We'll agree to disagree.

We simply disagree here. I find no merit in passing the bill on two levels.

1. I don't care whether it's 15B or 1.5T on the price tag. If it's wasted money, it's wasted money. Wasteful spending adds up.

2. Using the domestic abuse angle on this is silly at best. If we look in 6 months and find that domestic abuse numbers didn't go down in Nevada once the jobs were created (which they won't), will we use similarly flawed logic to pronounce the job bill a failure? I'm sure some will, but it's just as stupid an argument because it should have never been part of this discussion in the first place until Reid made it so. It's a good way to put mustard on a shit sandwich.

Surprisingly, I concur with most of what you said. It is most likely a poop sammich. However, it doesn't bring in to doubt the validity of the facts he is presenting. It is very hard to quantify job creation, as we can see by the widely varying numbers being thrown around by every single organization. Due to this, people are most likely looking for other metrics. If you see a correlation between unemployment and domestic violence (which their evidently is), and you deem domestic violence to be bad (which evidently most of us do), then would it make sense to support a bill from a broader perspective than just creating jobs, i.e. the general betterment of society. If jobs go up (this bill aside), then as a correlate, if the data are correct, domestic violence should go down. Domestic violence going down cuts healthcare costs, law enforcement/court costs, DFACs costs, etc. So I can see why one would want to promote this aspect. Also, we all know this bill most likely sucks and it's questionable how many (if any) jobs this will create. So if I can paint you as not only against job creation, but against the general betterment of society, that's probably a good strategy.

Now all this is fine and dandy, but you weren't talking about the actual merits of the bill (I actually haven't seen any details, or criticisms of those details). You are bashing a senator for using facts to justify why we should spend 15B on creating jobs in their state, in that it could extend to more than just simple job creation. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd be interested. I'm also not a fan of spending for spending, but once again the silliness of you jumping all over this when you've been silent for years is what everyone is up in arms about. Suddenly you care about spending. I know, I know, you were against the silly republican spending of the 2006-8 years, but you weren't copying and pasting from every blog about what Senator Brownback and company wanted to spend your money on.

Or if you see that there's a problem with domestic violence, you could target a bill to solve that rather than strap it on to the jobs bill like a Nevada hooker. Good strategy? Maybe. Best for our country? No


He's using this domestic abuse angle to dress up an otherwise worthless bill. That's my problem with it.


Once again, I certainly appreciate and welcome the higher standard of proof that I'm held to in these conversations. I've been very clear about my stance on most points. I'm not even remotely a fan of Sam Brownback, so you can probably cease with any comparison there.

It's a small point, but this isn't a 15bn spending bill, it's largely a tax cut bill.

Good point. Neither is good given the extremely high debt load.

Honestly, I think most of us would be happy if you even read the talking point articles you post before you post them.

This exchange is a good example. It took you three posts before you realized the article was more than just fodder for making fun of a seemingly-random Harry Reid soundbite, but was actually about a jobs bill.

You almost saved yourself, though, by quickly hewing to your usual topic of fiscal restraint (as long as we're talking about spending by Democrats, of course). But your inability to understand the connection between male unemployment and domestic abuse rather weakens your argument that the bill is completely without merit, not to mention that the point of a jobs bill isn't solely to prevent domestic abuse, as you seem to be suggesting.


In conclusion: quality work. I look forward to more incomprehensible hilarity from you tomorrow.

sad

No, I'm not a fan of Uncle Harry and he is not a senator from my state (or any state that I have ever lived in), nor one that I have or ever would vote for. Please do not use your substandard logic to characterize me.

Up until today, I really thought you were putting on an act and liked to do a little internet sparring during your down times at work. Now, I am certain that you are just a dipshit. Forgive me for engaging you.

I read the article, so your assumption is misguided at best. I realized from the start exactly what he was doing. He was trying to make a lousy bill seem somehow palatable, which it's not. My posts never made any indication otherwise, though you did try to spin it as such. I certainly never suggested anything remotely close to the bill being solely to present domestic abuse, as you have incorrectly assumed.

As for incomprehensible hilarity, you need look no further than the White House of late. Their direction of policy resembles an Iraqi SCUD missile at this point. Point and pray.

I never said you were a fan of Harry. I said you were buying what he was selling. That's a much different statement.

I'll ignore the rest. You're better than that.

I love this new act. Anyone who calls you out is lowering their previously high standards.

It's easy to cross the line between heated discusion and name calling. I'm sure I've done it before as well. It happens. Doesn't make him a bad guy.

This would be a more effective argument if you didn't already have a track record which indicates to the contrary.

I did read it and there was nothing in my comments that would indicate anything contrary. But you're allowed to believe whatever you want. I could have a certified letter stating that I read it and I'm not sure it would stand up to this crowd as proof. :)

But that would only be because the letter said something different than you claimed. :p

I don't think the article was that hard to decipher. They are trying to pass a jobs bill that he felt would lower unemployment. He stated a statistic that shows that lower unemployment leads to less domestic violence.

I don't understand what you think people in Congress should be discussing when they support or don't support a bill. When someone promotes a defense bill, they typically lay out some of the benefits (less terrorists, safer cities, etc). When someone promotes an education bill, they typically lay out some of the benefits (smarter kids, safer cities, less poverty).

A byproduct of lower unemployment is less domestic violence. If this bill happens to lower unemployment, it will also lower domestic violence. Now I've never read the bill, don't have any opinion on it at all. But you tried to poke fun at Harry Reid for using that correlation which happens to be 100% correct. You weren't discussing the bill.