…from the Constitution of the United States.
Though keep in mind that because this comes from the liberal Newsweek, it is treated not as a point of complaint — evidently, “imperial presidencies” are only a concern when Republicans are in office, which is one of the great benefits of being an anti-foundationalist thinker, this freedom from consistency or charges of hypocrisy — but rather as a kind of non-judgmental study in executive problem solving that, in the end, will forever change the nature of the presidency.
— Instead of treating it as what it is: a set of rationalizations for tyranny.
Checks and balances. Separation of powers. A government designed to produce gridlock. All this goes away if you embrace progressivism and Barack Obama.
So it’s time to ask our liberal friends: is this the country you want? Or do you prefer the country you were brought up in?
And yes, I’m serious about that. Ask and then wait for the answer. Because then you’ll know who is merely an uninformed voter, and who is out to help “fundamentally transform” the US.
That latter person is not your political rival. That person is your enemy, because that person wishes to do away with the safeguard of your liberty.
(h/t Mark Levin)
Bwahahahahaha! Oh, that’s a good one! I got tears in my eyes! Wait — you’re serious? That’s how you really remember the Obama-Pelosi-Reid days?
Seek help, man.
Newsweek. The weekly news website that makes fun of bloggers because they are not real journalists. Snort!
I don’t know if the “Imagine” crowd could endure the logic. Paul Krugman just a few months ago dreamed for the New York of age past before recommending another alien invasion.
It’s hard to argue against a world run by solar power, where everyone gets richer regardless of action, and chocolate cake is diet food. It’s just even harder to believe in it.
The home maga…er..uh…website of contributing news editor Eleanor Clift, via the Daily Beast, tells us yet more about the wonders of the unobservable universe next door where socialism works and the Obama administration is transparent and free of cronyism.
Lost my shit, ngl.
@Bene Two words: Harry Reid.
From Jeff’s link, Newsweak:
Oh. Em. Eff. Gee!
From reality — in which the US is presently like $250T upside down — in a parallel:
As an aside, Romney is terribly compromised when and because he cannot discuss money. Like last night. But hey, he’s better than Obama. At running the same presses.
No. I refuse to play.
Obama’s plan for his second term is Central Planning, Soviet-style.
So it’s time to ask our liberal friends: is this the country you want?
Some of them are steadfastly in this camp, and the mask is starting to come off.
Definitely they are our enemies and we are theirs.
h/t David Thompson
He says otherwise. Will his actions match his rhetoric? I think we’re going to find out.
Romney didn’t become a wealthy man by being a dumbass about how money and markets work.
leigh, and just as importantly he didn’t get rich sucking on the public teat.
Here’s the vaunted Obama plan. As a graphical effort it’s…marginal. As an agenda, it kindergartenish.
Having first elected him, yes we will. Just like we will with Obamacare.
The thing about the preference cascade that’s voting Obama out is that it’s not necessarily all that keen on Jeff’s principle, which is owning the winner. Holding the winner to his word is probably a pipe dream.
It’s said that’s the way it works when you have cancer.
Wow, that’s bad Pablo. I see that the Wonce is on every single page, too.
Ah, the old “enlightened dictator” ploy.
A classic.
The way to beat cancer is to refuse to play it’s game. Everybody knows that.
That’s right, Lee. You just beat the big C with your mind.
That’s what they tell me, anyway.
I beat a dormant volcano once. With a bat. And I think it got the message because it is STILL dormant. Yeah. That’s right Mt. Capulin. I’m only twelve hours away so you’d better stay quiet. New Mexico has had enough of your $#@$ and so have I. Stay DOWN!
RRRRAAAAAGHHHHH !
MARC FABER: Reduce the Size of Government by 50 Percent
‘Conservatives‘ ??? by whose definition?
…ceding that this IS a weapon. And of course the answer to the worry is to ensure that no ‘conservative‘ (or anyone else) is ever around to pick it up.
Yeah, that’s an instance of conflating Republicans as a party with conservatism as an ideology.
There’s a lot of that going on these days.
Reduce the Size of Government by 50 Percent
It’s a start, anyway.
I’d be happy if they just made the government legally barred from spending (including a debt reduction schedule) more than they collect in revenue. The bastards would take an honest look at the Laffer Curve, and learn to prioritize a little better, I’ll betcha.
A more plausible start would be disarming the Department of Education…
Scale congressional salary and pensions and other benefits with GDP during their terms. Incentivize a good economy directly.
– In spite of all the LibTurd caterwalling about an Obama win in the final debate, there seems to be a spate of disconnects growing up like alien killer weeds in the WH rose garden.
– The generic Dem response always seems to be “Well maybe he lost that one but theres always x,y,z. Maybe there really are 57 states after all.
Everybody also knows collectivism is, you know, preventable. Except Pragmatists.
Cancer or Collectivism, leigh?
How about the money available in a given FY for the budget shall not exceed 80% of the revenue collected in the preceeding FY. The remaining 20% must be used to pay down the debt. Once the debt is paid, the budget limit could rise to 90% with the remianing 10% going into a federal “Rainy Day Fund” such as many states have, to finance emergencies, with qualifying emergencies well defined.
How about the money available in a given FY
would have been good in the ’90’s but i think the fiscal situation to far gone now
Pragmatism isn’t always a dirty word. Especially in conjunction with “preventable”.
Look, you are declaring some sort of moral high ground in your refusal to vote for Romney, and I contest the premise. Hell, I was in your position when it came to voting for the republican(snort!) Meg Whitman over Jerry Brown. I voted for a TEA Party candidate. In this election however, the stakes are much, much higher, the long term consequences much, much more profound, in an absolutely do or die situation.
I’ll spare you any more bad analogies, lets just say I can leave California and moonbeam any time I want, but when the stakes are my grand children’s enslavement with no hope of escape, I’ll be a little more pragmatic.
RTO, that’s pretty much what I had in mind, except I was thinking even 10% towards the debt (just to see it going the other direction would give a thrill up my leg), and I’m not a fan of rainy day funds for government. I have a visceral response to the idea of taking money from my pocket for “just in case”. I want every penny justified and necessary with an audited accounting. The individual states can have it if their citizens think it a good idea.
Cancer or Collectivism, leigh?
Collectivism. Cancer is a wily booger and will do whatever it wants.
Half? I’d be happy to restore the federal government to the level of spending in 2007. The budget deficit would be gone for starters. Then we could get serious about actually cutting government, instead of just stopping the borrowing of money they have no ability or intention of ever paying back.
Which means he’s aware that debt money goes broke and how. And his plan is, leigh? Because he’s yet to announce it.
Given that that collapse is the greatest threat to classical liberalism, I wish he would.
You’re just not contesting it well, LBascom, perhaps because you’re redefining what it is and why anyone would do it. The analogy failed, maybe try the direct approach and ask.
Which I can answer. It makes no rational sense to vote based on gaming yourself as to how the system collapses and under whose governance. Most here are convinced another Obama term will wreck the nation. I think another Obama term, as much as I fear the son of a bitch just for the pain, will be the short, direct route to facing ourselves in a nation already wrecked.
Let the chaos ensue, I say. Let’s get real with who we are and what to do after we’ve regained that clarity. See, I can leave California anytime I want too.
Moral high ground? Nah, that’s just, you know, real real pragmatism.
So. you’re saying you want Obama to win. For the chaos. Got it.
As you wish, LB, regardless that I said in that same post that it makes no rational sense to vote based on gaming yourself as to how the system collapses and under whose governance. I appreciate that you uniquely find me a seer anyway.
Which means he’s aware that debt money goes broke and how.
Yes. As far as his plan goes, he goes into some detail on his website. He has also often mentioned our indenture to the Chinese and how dangerous our borrowing has been. He’s articulated that we need to spend less and that he won’t raise taxes, in fact, he has skated close to the idea of a Fair Tax. Above, Pablo links to Romney slamming Bernanke’s helmsmanship of the Federal Reserve.
He’s not perfect (who is?) but he’s a damned sight better than Obama. I’m going to vote for him but I won’t try to persuade you to do so or give you a hard time about not voting.
That’s a coherent remark, leigh.
I take issue with the nation’s refusal to take seriously the grave, mortal threats to its existence as a constitutional Republic, that being not so much my direct criticism of Romney, but rather an open challenge to Republicans who presume him more comfortable to their denial of two issues.
The first is debt money and the second is foreign entanglement. Both are corporate capitalism as it’s practiced on the global scale and sadly, both are defended on the right simultaneous to their promoting conservatism.
Romney may, for example, replace Bernanke, but the problems of debt money, corporatism, and globalism are unaddressed. Not so much by a relatively powerless President, but by too many members of the right.
Romney has stated that he is going to fire Bernanke and he said it many months ago. What good is he? All he’s done is rubber stamp Greenspan’s worst ideas, which is to say, he’s at best polishing a turd. I have a great hatred of Greenspan and lay much of our current dilemma at his feet. That and poor planning and saving by Congress who are after all trying to keep their phoney-baloney jobs until they either cash out/get voted out/or start pushing up daisies.
Trimming the debt is job one. It’s going to be met with a great deal of wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. Tough. Change is hard and most people need a kick in the ass to get going.
Trade imbalances were addressed in the debate last night. Romney is the guy to attack this problem, (especially since Obama is happy to ignore it) since he has international business experience. That and he speaks French which is the international language of business. He is also not afraid to delegate either and, I have never heard Mitt referred to as a micro-manager.
In short, Romney has a solid vision and it is scaring the shit out of the Old Guard on both sides.
There is something to be said for chaos and economic collapse…
…the Russians seem to have emerged from the post-Soviet era marginally better off…kinda…sorta.
LBascom, I’m not a fan of slush funds either, and the rancor that they cause at the state level is onerous as well. But what it would do is help prevent Congress form tossing out the rule the first time that they have an “emergency” that they think they need extra money for. I’d hope it would, anyway.
@Purpav, It’s kinda strange, but though I had only a vague sense of how the average USSR citizen lived his life, I’m even more ignorant of what’s going on there now. I mean, I feel I know more about the Chinese mans lot better than the Russians, even the various Middle Easterners, which seems odd when I think about it. It’s odd the fall of the iron curtain didn’t bring our countries closer, but I don’t see where it has.
Yeah, I think I’m more cynical by degrees. Give’em a inch, they’ll take a yard…
You know, the most constructive way to frame this mess might be to start pointing out that for as long as we know the goal of mankind has been to build and save for the benefit of future generations, to focus on making things better for our heirs.
Only lately have we become so selfish that we expect our heirs to pay for a better life for us.
Calling it mere selfishness is being kind BMoe.
watching fox the ad has a work out chick “wanting the freeze pain” good luck @ $16 trillion
I don’t think that we are all selfish. Certainly some are, but they may also only be the loudest and leading us to the conclusion that all are as them.
Reuters rams Benghazi up Obama’s ass. I believe I mentioned that he was going under his media’s bus.
White House told of militant claim two hours after Libya attack: emails
For better or worse, get used to saying President Romney.
leigh, French is the international language of diplomacy. English is the international language of business.
I am speaking as a culture and a society, Leigh. Most of the folks on here are outliers, thats why we are here.
But we do have a major structural problem with this society. We are as much or more morally bankrupt than financial, and I don’t mean that in the traditional sense.
I don’t know that I have ever been accused of being kind on the internet.
I need to mark this date down, lol.
You’re correct, charles. Romney has both bases covered.
But we do have a major structural problem with this society. We are as much or more morally bankrupt than financial, and I don’t mean that in the traditional sense.
Agreed, Bmoe. I’ve been making a study of it for 20+ years.
I’ve seen this story before, only the daily b–s- left out the part of Woodward’s book that described Obama making the deal and then tyring to up the ante with
more revenuehigher taxes before Boehner bailed out.(Geoffb will prolly have it linked by the time I check this again tomorrow;)
“A Time for Choosing” by Ronald Reagan
It’s just I think selfish doesn’t quite cover the phenom.
More like malignant narcissism, you ask me…
It’s arrested development, Lee. Most of us quit thinking we are the center of the universe by the time we are seven or so.
The newest crop of kiddos is going to be the worst, what with constantly being told how awesome they are despite little to no evidence of ability.
I’m afraid you’re right leigh. What once were personal goals are now entitlements.
“leigh, French is the international language of diplomacy. English is the international language of business. ”
And aviation !
J-J Rousseau says differently.
The ownership of property has something to do with it.
Homework assignments? Ghaagh.
It’s odd the fall of the iron curtain didn’t bring our countries closer, but I don’t see where it has.
Mutual paranoia I suppose. There is more trade and some modest military cooperation in certain areas. When the old cold war hard liners have all died off things will probably change a bit. That’s kind of what it took with China. The Russians, from the time of the Czars have tended towards the xenophobic side though.
The Russians have huge unexploited natural resources, outstanding scientists and engineers, and should rightly be major players in the world markets.
– Gsme, set, and match.
– Finally, after three+ weeks of water acrrying it looks like the Pravda on the Hudson is running up the flag of better late than never.
– Will it be enough to save the drowning legacy media? When you lose CBS and Reuters you’re going in the tank.
To be fair, Atkisson has been one of the few willing to shine a bright light at Obama. In a reasonable universe, she’d be the head of CBS’ news operations by this point.
Not sure what the problem here is. Leftists/liberals assure us that they have the best intentions; ergo, they will of course only use their powers for good.
And that guy from Kenya who wants me to help him transfer millions of dollars out of the country, nothing shady about that deal, either.
Millions? The president wants to transfer more than that.
Oh, wait.
rjacobse, I have a new guy/girl from China now who wants me to help her/him transfer millions from a numbered account.
I guess Mr. Kenya gave up on me.
Thanks for the early assignment completion Geoff.
What was plan B? Crying?
He was going to send them a tersely worded letter.
There was a 1994 SCOTUS case about jury instructions which looked into what is “reasonable doubt” and how the meaning of words had changed over the years. They approved of this as one way of instructing a jury on reasonable doubt.
Another version is,
Darn wrong tab.