The first night is over. And I thought the main two speakers, Castro and Mrs. Obama, were FANTASTIC.

My girl crush on Michelle Obama grows by the day. Best First Lady ever. And what a fabulous speech.

I'm just checking this.
Did I actually hear the speakers say that the middle class needs to support and sacrifice in order to pay for the education and tuition of the children of others?
As if the current recession and its impact on the middle class never happened.

And does that indicate a tax hike on the middle class in order to do so? I mean, wouldn't the statement otherwise be addressed to the support of education by the 1% and not the middle class?

And how can this be when taxes are paid by percentage?
In theory, the more people, the more tax revenue, so what happened?

Why wouldn't a tax hike instead go to cover the deficit?
Why are the Democrats still trying to plan the future of our society?
Why aren't they trying to do something about our current problems?
Maybe it's just me, but it sounds as if the dems are milking us while supporting new bastards.

Did I hear Castro state the matter of deportation of law-abiding immigrants as an injustice?
Have we ever deported law-abiding people?

Do you really expect anyone to answer all of those questions?

The bit where Michelle was talking about teachers working for free in a bankrupt school district made my skin crawl. I swear Rahm Emanuel pitched a tent in his pants when he heard that. Guy's as anti-union and pro-privatization as any Republican. Why do Democrats now spout rhetoric that would have made a Republican a pariah 20 years ago?

On the local news in Los Angeles just prior to the (delayed coverage),
they had reported on the violent upsurge in shootings in the city of San Bernadino.
San Bernadino has declared bankruptcy and they are laying off law enforcement officers as a result
of their financial problems.

How are we expected to pay more money for The Great Society at the loss of civil order?
We can't do it.

Yeah Chippy. I think it's their job to do it. Not you now. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, unless of course they take the responsibility for the tasks at hand.
I can only hope that Obama himself is holding those answers for The Big Finish.

Maybe you should write him a letter with your questions. You would probably get a response.

No I don't think so, and it's because I don't want my President to be clueless or arrogant.
These are obvious issues. The candidates volunteer their statements by their own volition,
as should be. They'll be doing the job behind closed doors and I want them to tell us what
they're thinking without being asked the questions. Giving them the clues during the campaign
is just too easy for what the job requires, though I do want representation while they are
on the job and not explanations why they ignore us and the issues.

And because I live in The Valley and I only need to shout across the yard I suppose.

Frankly imo a Pox on both thier houses..

Democrats and Republicans are both stupid in my eyes.

Republicans are just wacky and Democrats have thier head stuck up thier asses.


"Why do Democrats now spout rhetoric that would have made a Republican a pariah 20 years ago?"

It’s simple...
After the 1970's most Americans thinking shifted to the right.

You can call most Americans moderates but in comparison to the rest of the world, America is Centre Right.


About Unions and budgets...

Frankly, the situation is soo bad in certain areas that they would need to increase taxes a lot and that would just scare away business.

I think many people fail to see in today's world, money moves around very easily now. If one place massively increases taxes, money simply will move out and go somewhere else.
So govts are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They know from a political point of View, that it is easier to reduce the pay of unionized workers rather then forcing a big tax hike and imo it is the sensible thing to do.

What is the point of raising taxes to fund unsustainable expenses?

Obviously there are several problems in this country going back a long way. But the modern turning point for this country was when it elected George W. Bush as president instead of Al Gore. Was it because he was stupid? Was it because was funny? Was it because he was funny because he's stupid? Was it because Gore is too smart or too dull? When we decided against a smart president in favor of a stupid one, that's when it all really started going downhill. The horrible thing is, the characteristics that defined him as a poor president are evident in the presidential debates.

One term we might have been able to recover from in a decent amount of time. But then we gave him ANOTHER 4 years!

I don't care who was elected president in 2008, nobody was going to be able to turn around the loss of jobs and the collapse of the economy in a mere 4 years. Obama was screwed from the start.

Obama won because he spoke well about a new direction and everyone finally realized Bush led us in a bad direction. What he didn't mention and/or realize is that it's very difficult to get things done when the country is so evenly divided between Dem/Rep.

One thing I know for sure is that we are going to get a lot of half-truths from both sides for the next few months. And that's the thing I hate. Why can't they just present the facts with out deleting parts or sugar-coating things? It's really irritating.

What a speech by Clinton. That's just great.

Well, everything but the part about "Republicans removing those pesky regulations".
You see, Bill Clinton was the one who signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999
and this Act deregulated Wall St. mergers and the investments in junk bonds and derivative instruments which many believe led to the mortgage crisis, Fannie Mae and the recession.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act

Yeah I agree Bill Clinton is at fault but in comparison to Obama and Bush, he is miles ahead of them...

It is telling that the RNC pretended that Bush never existed, while Bill Clinton was center stage...

But you know, the specter of Reagan was evident.
If they could have dug up the body, he would have been there.

This is all that needs to play during the DNC to get votes

I just remembered!

No, Bush wasn't mentioned at all, unless his references were cut by MSM.
But Condoleeza Rice was definitely there, and she was sharp.

No, not really. The political *establishment* is center-right, no doubt. You're also underestimating the power of modern media as a propaganda model and think tanks creating their own alternative realities. But only about half of Americans are politically engaged and tend to strongly disagree, in theory, with the political practices of their representatives.



You do realize how much that encourages privatizing services, right? Disaster capitalism writ large. Ride the pony till it crashes, then instead of punishing the firms responsible, we bail them out and sell off our public goods to untouchable private interests because we "can't afford it".

Clinton's a slimy, disingenuous piece of shit? No kidding!

I hope the consensus opinion is he's found his swagger again

That's my president

I would prefer to hear that each and every one of us is responsible for ourselves as a nation, and not for others, because we are responsible for ourselves and our independence.
If we are responsible for others, then what is their responsibility for themselves?
Obama's statement should mean that others who are able-bodied are responsible for themselves, however, that is not always the way it works out in practice.

And who did the film tonight? Was that Spielberg?
I would shout across the yard to ask, but nobody's home...

I question the sanity of anyone who responded this way to a George W. Bush speech.

"because we "can't afford it"."



No need to put that in quotes, you guys CANT AFFORD IT.


Taxing the rich is not going to come close to fixing the problem.

It will require likley a sales tax or tax increases on everyone over 70 k or so and massive reductions in expenses.

Over time perhaps we will reach a reasonable level but remember this under Obama's watch he has added already 5-6 trillion dollars to the debt....

He has the European thinking that debt is not a big issue and we can see how that has worked out for our European cousins...

We faced a similar problem in Canada in the 90's and we faced a new 7% sales tax and a huge reduction in spending... It causes a lot of pain but in the Long Term, likley has kept us from becoming like Europe and the US...

Seriousily imagine this...
The debt problems stays as it does and in the future, there is a great natural disaster or more economic crisis...
What will happen to the US then?



As the saying goes God Helps those that help themselves, same should apply to govt.
Govt helps those that help themselves.