Do ya feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

Dirty Harry

The backbone will come when a vote is actually taken. The question is; will Reid show it then.

What happens when the unstoppable farce meets the immovable objection?

A Dirty Harry reference!! All day I've been thinking "Go ahead, make my day" :)

They never really lost it. The stuff the House passed in the previous session all got strangled to death by the Repubs in the Senate. Now that THEY are in the driver's seat in the House... all their ideas will be summarily executed in record time in the Senate. Executed meaning DOA, send it back, try again, idiots.

While this will at times be painful to watch, it will be ... enjoyable watching them squirm. Much like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

Unfortunately, we're on the train as well.

Well that is until 2012 when the Republicans take the Senate too. I mean, after four years maybe finally the President will own up to the problems we're facing and stop blaming Bush. Oh wait, Democrats don't believe in personal responsibility, they're always a victim!

Noooo........they are actually realists and facts oriented, as well as humane and unselfish, and usually intellectually very bright.

The only reason they blame Bush is obvious. He left his filthy laundry for the next President to wash. IOW, he was a poor statesman who lacked "personal responsibility".

Do some homework, and compare Bush's positive accomplishments in 8 years against Obama's in only 2 years.

What exactly has Obama accomplished? Enlighten me.

Prevented us from going into a second depression, saved GM and the auto industry, repealed DADT, passed the equal pay act, expanded medicare to children, health care reform, financial reform, immigration reform....I could continue, you know

Has he saved GM and the auto industry? GM's stock is tanking. Ford, who didn't take the bail out, is doing great. Has he saved us from a depression? Because he "saved us from losing more jobs?" Those are made up numbers. Even if he has, he's only carried on doing what Bush was already doing. So that means that Bush's polices both created and got us out of this mess?

Bush added more to education spending than he did. Universal healthcare is already on the verge of repeal. No immigration reform yet...

Please continue. You pretty much didn't say anything.

EAP1: If you don't acknowledge that Obama saved us from the brink of economic collapse, then you are truly blind. Here is my list of what Obama and the Democrats have accomplished, and it is growing:

Saved America from economic collapse. Set new emissions standards. Protected two million acres of national forest. Passed legislation to help unemployed Americans to afford COBRA health insurance. Passed affordable health insurance for all Americans, including no restrictions on pre-existing conditions for children. Passed historic hate crimes legislation.

All of this despite a record number of Republican filibusters.

Mimi: Please enlighten me. How did he "save us from the brink of economic collapse?

Those on the right (e.g., the trolls here) typically ignore or deny the validity of anything that does not fit with their precious Ideological Soundness. Spending a substantial amount of time trying to give them reasoned arguments or evidence is a waste of time.

So Bush destroyed the economy w/ the policies that Obama decided to continue? Good to know. You are the only person saying GM's stock is tanking or that Ford's is skyrocketing. I think you may want to look at an economic analysis of each company before you start blathering on. Between the two of them the WORST you could say is that GM's profitability is at a 4.6% ratio while Ford's is at 5.1%. I guess there's a difference. GM made a profit this year and did not have to lay anyone off. Ford was the opposite. Ford's stock, in fact, tanked when people heard that they had to do massive layoffs and that they did not receive the amount of income this year that they expected. GM's exchange between it's 52 week lowest and it's 52 week highest was roughly 9 points. Ford's was roughly 11 points. Again not sure where you're getting the word "tanking." But it's fun to make up lies to make yourself seem smarter than what you actually are, which is why I believe in unicorns! Now if we're talking about where the stock market happened to close on the 18th? Well then you've got me there. Ford and GM both saw a drop w/ GM seeing it of .6 and Ford .2. So I guess there's that. Please enlighten anyone here what are "fake" numbers? That's a new one. The economy has grown between the last year of the Bush admin. and the first 2 of Obama's. Do we need to pull out the bikini chart? Rachel has went over this again and again on her show. If you aren't a person who actually watches the show and reads up on the information she provides, then why the hell are you blogging here to begin w/. Can you provide any evidence that jobs have been lost? We aren't seen a boom in job growth, I will give you that, but we have been moving in the right direction. AND the CBO has stated numerous times that the recession would've cost several more million jobs had the Obama administration not put the policies in place that they did. We were losing 700,000 jobs a month when Bush left office. Then suddenly that stopped and turned around. Not exactly sure how much harder that is to figure out.

I'm not asking for an argument, I'm asking for an answer. If it's so apparent, then it should be easy to answer.

Edgar, you sound a little upset that someone would challenge your beliefs. I though that liberals were supposed to be open minded. By the way I'm not "on the right." It sounds like that's where you position anyone who may not agree with you.

Mickey Mouse, wow that name fits. First off, Ford is up from $2.46 in Jan 09 to $14.61 today. I'd say that's pretty good considering they didn't take any bail out money. GM is down five points in the last six months while at the same time taking billions from the federal government. So, I'll make this easy for you, Ford is profitable and GM is not.

Would have lost more jobs? Ok, that's a statistic that doesn't even exist in real life. It's completely meaningless. And as far as the "turn around," there's only been one month of job growth. I hardly call that a turnaround.

PS I do watch the show. Just because she says it, doesn't make it so. Do some of your own research.

There's only been one month of job growth? Apparently since you started paying attention, is all.

I am not interested in coming back to old threads. The conversation has moved forward, so I will merely end w/ evidence (something which you, despite your claims, have been unwilling and unable to provide):

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/trading/deep-stock-analysis-fords-comeback-is-not-big-enough-for-these-reasons.html

http://finapps.forbes.com/finapps/jsp/finance/compinfo/CIAtAGlance.jsp?tkr=F

http://finapps.forbes.com/finapps/jsp/finance/compinfo/CIAtAGlance.jsp?tkr=GM

Just to be clear here both Ford and GM made a profit this year, however one company had to lay off more workers (Ford) while another hired workers (GM). To also be fair, please compare and contrast those two companies' stock w/ that of WalMart:

http://finapps.forbes.com/finapps/jsp/finance/compinfo/CIAtAGlance.jsp?tkr=WMT

As you can see WalMart's stock jumps around more than GM's or Fords. This doesn't mean that WalMart is on the edge of going bankrupt, as any idiot w/ even a slight amount of business knowledge would know.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/01/29/20110129us-economy-growing-jobs-need.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/01/07/obama-more-jobs-bush/

http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?series_id=CES0000000001&output_view=net_1mth

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-jobs-lost-in-the-bush-and-obama-administration-2010-2

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-change-in-us-employment-2010-2

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20021907-503544.html

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/economy/unemployment-drops-to-9-these-awesome-job-charts-show-what-you-must-know.html

Before you move on. Once again, GM has 100 billion dollars of taxpayer money keeping it afloat. No wonder it's posting a "profit." And please don't cherry pick the news. If you believe everything that you read you're sure to be wrong most of the time. Maybe you can articulate an answer instead of regurgitating headlines from people who make a living making news.

Ah yes because the BLS is in the business of making news. So in other words you literally don't care what the facts are, you just want to see things from your realm. If that's the case then please feel free to exercise your right to do so. However just because you want to ignore reality doesn't mean everyone else is going to. I pretty much posted that information so that people could see the information for themselves and know it's not a lie. Like I said I'm not interested in kicking around this thread when it's clear you have no interest in actual debate.

I believe you've created an accurate phrase we can use over, and over and over again like they use "obamacare"

RyanDon'tCare.

Yeah!

Ryancare-Good for the rich, everybody else? Not so much.

It should be ryan-careless

Wow, I hope to be rich one of these days. Are you people going to hate me just because I was successful?

A more apt moniker....Ryanomics

Or, as I've seen elsewhere (and not always offered as sarcastically as it should be):

"Wealthcare"... e.g.
www .billionairesforwealthcare.com/

Sounds good in theory but I don't want any respect shown this monster.

suggested "gift": enough rope to hang themselves?

The Rape-Public-CON's lords & masters on Wall Street won't permit them to get anywhere close to allowing the country to reach a credit default. Any claim to the contrary on their part is just yet another (in this case, unconvincingly weak) attempt at fiscal terrorism. For once, we can "relax" a bit about this.

Yes, the Republicans seem to see the average American as sub-human and threfore un-American.

How could you possibly know that? Are you a mind reader? That's like me saying that Democrats hate everyone that's successful because they think it's not fair for people to work harder than them and get paid for it. Or that they're lazy and just want handouts from the government. Or that they love the security blanket of handouts so much that they're willing to steal from people that have actually made something out of their lives. How could I possibly know that?

Obvious Troll is Obvious.

Unlike the Repub how believe the rich need welfare, Dem believe anyone need to pay.

Nope, not a troll. I just wonder what makes you people think you know what the intentions of other people are? Isn't it possible that they have convictions?

@ eap1- When the "other people" are the ones writing legislation, it is quite obvious what their intentions are. They've been pretty open about their desire to screw the majority of Americans. They've got convictions, all right. They ought to be convicted for subverting the Constitution, the Tax Code, and lying to their constituents.

@ Chandra - So you agree with what I'm saying then. That means that I can say whatever I want about when the Democrats had both houses and the Presidency. Maybe like they're trying to redistribute the wealth in this country from the rich and middle class to the poor? That's just my opinion and you're saying it's it's right?

@eap1

Um, no. As far as this "redistribution" thing goes, it's a word specifically chosen because it sounds scary "oh no, they're trying to reward lazy people like, Robin Hood... but evil!!" Which, however, is not the case. I don't see how anyone that is not rich-now would support something that ONLY benefits the rich-now in hopes that they (the un-rich) will magically become rich one day. What actually happens though, is that these tax cuts for those that make more money in one year then I will probably ever see, ever (because I'm going into teaching) gets taken from your grandmother and grandfather, from the kid with downs syndrome just up the road, from a person with such severe deformity/injury they literally cannot wipe their own behinds let alone work. If some one works harder than me, fine I really don't mind that they are paid accordingly, however, I do have a problem with robbing old people for a living and so as far as "convictions" go, that sounds like it should be a long conviction to a real prison.

Trolling like this makes you look like an a$$ and it certainly sounds just like the braying from the donkey up the street... I hope the next time you see somebody's grandmother you can look them in the eye and tell them you hope they enjoy paying an extra 6,000 dollars a year just because maybe one day you (not them) will be rich.

@ Super Bat -What are you talking about? It's their money! They're not taking it from anyone! They're just keeping more of what they already earned. And I bet they're paying more to the government (percentage wise) than you are.
You're doing the same thing as you're accusing me. I bet you hope that these entitlement programs are around just in case you need them one day. What's the difference? Whatever wage I earn is mine, not the governments. By the way I see that everyone on this page just wants to congratulate each other on how smart and enlightened each of you are instead of having spirited debates about the issues. I'm sorry you can't stand someone having a different opinion. So much for liberals being understanding.

@eap1

It's not a difficult concept: the 2% of people that hold most of the wealth pay less, but some one has to pick up the slack there, so the people with the least money and the biggest vulnerabilities pay more.

Would it not make sense that some one who makes a lot more money than me would pay a lot more money than me in taxes? As a full-time student I really don't see how it would be any other way.

Entitlement is an ugly word, especially as it is used today - are old people not worth anything? Once some one is to old to work are they suddenly useless? Should we promote/perform euthanization for the elderly? Should my 81 yr old grandma pay more taxes than GE? Should we be akin to Sparta and throw all babies with disabilities off of cliffs? Should somebody whom already has $1,000,000 + dollars of DISPOSABLE income pay a smaller percentage of what they earn than a single mom working a crappy job to take care of her only autistic child? Should some one that develops cancer just die because they can't work, so they lose their insurance, so they can't get better and be able to work again? Should veterans/people in accidents die because they don't have the correct # of limbs to work in a proper work environment anymore?

These "entitlement" programs aren't entitlement, they're ASSISTANCE programs, omg. One day you will be old and unable to work, chances are you won't be as rich as you hope, or, you'll end up paying a crap-ton of medical bills because you opposed any healthcare legislation, but there will not be social security income for you to use because that program is gone - it was an entitlement after all... I don't know, maybe you'll like, stop being dumb before it's no longer possible to change. So, you have a different opinion, I can't change that - but, it's really hard to understand how you could just, not give a crap about anyone else...

@ Bat fish

First off, I find it rude that you would call be dumb. Second, I find it interesting that you're a full time student (a choice that you made) and you feel like you should get some special benefit from it. You should feel lucky and you sound greedy, which I find ironic since you seem to oppose greed. I assure you that when you grow up, get a job, and start paying taxes your tune will change.

Entitlement is the precise word because people in this country feel entitled to something. And no, GE should pay taxes, I think everyone will agree with that. And as far as DISPOSABLE income. I bet you have disposable income that you spend on alcohol and videogames. But I bet you don't consider it DISPOSABLE because it's your money.

Of course once people are old they aren't useless. Once again, I think that very few people have a problem with that type of entitlement. The problem is the millions of people taking advantage of your charitable nature. Doesn't that bother you that you're trying to help people and they think you're a sucker?

I don't expect social security to be around for me anyway. If you do, you're a fool. All that money is as good as gone. And if you were concerned about keeping it you'd let the government let us invest our own money.

And I care plenty about other people. I give money to charity and I give my time to charity. Do you?

@eap1

bat FLASH.

Well I find it rude that you're so presumptuous and I didn't say you as a person were dumb, but that the things you're saying sound like you're ACTING dumb. I'm a full time student so that I CAN get a good job - gah, dude. I'm not greedy, I don't want more than I deserve but as a human I deserve a few things. Also, before I got around to going back to school I worked in fast food for minimum wage a crap-ton of hours a week. I know about paying taxes.

That's not true. Not in all cases at least, why don't you actually get out and talk to some of these people you judge so harshly before knowing? You can't figure how somebody got where they are, and you can't know their story without asking. Also, f**k you. I don't have to justify what I do with any money I have, but I don't f**king drink and I haven't bought a new video game since last fall, and that was mostly a present.

Well then, call your republican rep and tell them not to support Paul Ryan's budget because it screws over the old people (and then some). No, I don't mind that people try and take advantage of my charitable nature. That's their crap to deal with in the end, it's merely my responsibility to help out where and when I can.

Honestly, I don't expect to be around when I would be old enough to collect anyway. Yes, when I have the opportunity I most certainly do.

If you think being called dumb was offensive, I'm sorry, but 2 wrongs don't make a right and insulting my character that way makes me feel like you're just a presumptuous as s monkey. I won't respond again.

@ Bat fish,

I commend you on your inability to finish a post without losing your temper and resorting to foul language. It must be liberating to live life without the burden of intelligent discourse.

Now calm down and listen. You don't have to justify what you do with your money. But since you've chosen to be a leach on society, I don't think I have to justify why I don't want to give you my money while you go back to school.

Paul Ryan's plan is one of the only one's that don't lead to fiscal destruction. Who do you think is going to pay for all these programs when the well dries up?

I don't know, but I bet the 4 Republicans voted against this budget because it didn't go far enough.

Yeah, no heart and definitely no soul. Just not enough $$ cut from the poor and elderly and disabled.

We don't hate them because they are millionaires. We kind-a-don't like them because they are wealthy (fully loaded $$$) and we are a little less fortunate. Also they like raw fish eggs. also they talk like they have a platano stuck between their front teeth and the top part of the jaw, among other so called perfections. You wanna fix them? Show them who's boss? Take their Social Security, T-Par tiers and GOP, take their Medicare, take their Medicaid. Start with that and see what happens.

Theocratizing America - while the rest of the world becomes a democracy - priceless!

How about a Trump/Ryan ticket!

Maybe instead of donkey and elephant we should change their symbols to:

Dems - Wiz. Oz Lion needing courage

Repuke: Wiz. Oz Tin man - without a heart. Well, now that I think about it the Tin man WANTED a heart. Maybe evil witch with evil monkeys is better symbol for them.

I am 51 yo and I am listening to "idiot boy" tell me that since I am under 55 yo I get a voucher when I am 65 instead of medicare. Company I work for has no pension and no benefits after retirement. So it is up to me to live off my 401K that took a serious hit in the economic downturn AND now I also have to get health insurance on my own. WTF??

I bet if you look at all the purchase orders they got multiple "new" machines every year from all their buddies. They just took them with them when they left and brought out the old machines from storage. I "know" they're crazy like a FOX ;)