This morning on CNN, Kasich stated that McCain shouldn't even have to run for the Senate given his love of the country and record of leadership. Kasich, referred to him as a hero with which I agree. McCain is an American hero and although I don't always agree with him, I certainly respect him. And yes Kasich may have been using those statements to demonstrate the admiration he has for the man. Nonetheless, we are not a monarchy and this smacks in the face of a representative democracy. It's just a very strange thing for a government official to profess and it's just as strange that the interviewer didn't even ask him to clarify/defend this comment.
By the way, before any of you on the Right begin ranting hypocrisy, I am clearly aware of, and fully understand the bullshit pulled by the former Left. I chose to use the word "former" because I don't view the Dem party as left or even moderate for that matter. Therein lies their hypocrisy. Someone on the board recently stated that the Dems have been better covering their actions with bullshit messages and with that I agree to a significant point. But, in my opinion, the Dems were actually pulled way to the Right by the Neo-Liberal values that were successfully sold to the American public in the Reagan years. Big monied interests have kidnapped our government and were led by extreme right wingers. The Republican Party has spent the past 50 years alienating virtually every group in the country, leaving itself with very few options to get to the White House based on popular vote. In a twist of historic political irony, the Koch backed billionaire boys club did such a good job propagandizing the remnants of the Republican base that it actually resulted in the disembowelment of the party. Consequently, all the Democrats had to do was continue to show just modest signs of liberalism in order to capture the middle. The reality is, the Dems have been far, far from liberally based on historic political standards. And this explains the lack of a balance of power in this country among the populace, the government and big business.
Yep, the Reps have made it easy for the Dems to look more normal because they went completely off the rails. And it's quite easy to see what I'm talking about just by reading many of the comments on boards like this one. Over-simplification abounds and that's exactly what political demagogues & propagandists pray for. "Build a wall", "they're coming for my guns", "it's the liberal media's fault", "big government is evil", 'voter fraud" and so on. These messages are merely intended to distract public attention from what's really going on. For instance, if you're big corporations lobbying like mad mother fuckers to construct trade agreements, behind closed doors, taking zero social concerns into account, you pull this off by calling them "FREE" trade agreements and simultaneously feeding the public with a PR campaign stating that we have to leave to compete because of the "Big Bad Government". Now keep in mind that these same busineses who rail on big government are the same ones who received multi-billion dollar bailouts from said government. Furthermore, you'll never hear a PR campaign launched by big business suggesting that the only reason much of "Big Government" exists is due to monsterous behavior by said big business. Most regulation is reactive and a result of anti-social, criminal behavior. Yet no one goes to jail. And most proactive legislation is done behind closed doors, far from view of the public and often even the Congress. Ever hear of "Fast Track" legislation? How about George W. and Obama implementing policy without Congressional consent? Most of what we see is political slight-of-hand.
I also believe that the Dems are at the end of their rope politically because they have done nothing to truly help the middle class or small business. It's just that their message has been more moderate and most people are not attracted to leadership that appears unhinged such as Trump or detached like Romney, when he showed his disdain for the average person with his "47 percent" gaff. The Dem's actions have not been so moderate, however. We have a very, very socialized big business culture that has now wrestled control of our government through vehicles such as, "Citizens United". Disaffection and change only occur during times of pain, particularly when that pain affects the pocketbook. A huge percentage of Americans are now feeling the pain and whether they understand it or not, it's economic pain driven by a rigged system that doesn't offer a sense of fairness or hope.There are ways to create balance and for the average citizen to regain some control in our government. But rest assured, it will not happen if we're focusing on the wrong messages that are continually fed to us through "corporate controlled media."
The bigger the gap that develops between the have's and have nots, the more likelihood the current dissaffection will end in crisis. History has proven this. Capitalism and Democracy make strange bedfellows and the way I see it, we have two choices --- increase equality via opportunity or decrease Democracy. In the last 45 years we have clearly chosen the latter.
SORRY FOR THE LONG COMMENTARY BUT I THINK THAT ONE OF THE REASONS NOTHING GETS DONE IN THIS COUNTRY IS THAT WE'VE BECOME A NATION OF SOUNDBITES. Most people want one sentence answers to very elaborate problems. As citizens, we don't think things through and we are disengaged from the process. Furthermore, there's an overwhelming tendency to rely on conventional media sources for quality information.Unfortunately, reality suggests that our news is filtered to soundbites and sanitized beyond recognition. There is no true free press in this country and it's certainly not liberal, but is definitely corporate controlled. All of this is in plain site but most Americans(educated Americans included) live under the illusion that since we are a free society, public relations doesn't form our opinions and we are beyond manipulation. Of course it does and of course we are. Otherwise billions wouldn't be spent by major corporations and think tanks, to flood the airwaves with mindless soundbites. For god's sake, most people don't even realize that Senators were appointed by their respective State Legislatures until just over a hundred years ago. You're not gonna find that in the mainstream media. Hell you can't even find that in a High School history text books.
Heck, a significant percentage of them are outright Marxists and Socialists. Today JFK would be a right wing Republican. Even Bill Clinton was moderate. Most Dems would have put Bernie Sanders up as the nominee if the Dem leadership were not corrupt.
believe. What the people believe in either party doesn't even matter. The Dems are far right of center based on actions (rhetoric means nothing to me) and the Reps have gone far right of right (aka. off the rails). Sanders is not as far left as you might think. In fact he's conservative when it comes to military intervention, just like Ike Eisenhower. Remember Eisenhower's parting speech as President? He warned of the "Military Industrial (Congressional) Complex." He was advised to remove the word Congressional from his famous quote as it was considered dangerous by the political establishment. Furthermore, he also stated in a famous letter to his Brother, "that anyone who is against the Politics of the New Deal, simply isn't American."(paraphrased). So based on the current definition of conservative, there isn't much distinction between Sanders and Ike. Same holds true for Teddy Roosevelt who brought anti-trust legislation to the country and championed and won the first aniti-trust case against J.P. Morgan's railroad monopoly. He also instituted the first national parks and told both big oil and big lumber to go fuck themselves. He said he wouldn't let them rape the entire country of its natural majesty. Based on these actions, he would be called a tree hugging commie by the neo-liberals in the Republican Party.
I read a lot of history and when you do, it's easy to make these observations. My opinion and your opinion don't really matter. What matters are facts as presented by history. And based on these facts it's hard to understand how anyone could possibly think that both Parties haven't moved farther to the Right. Again, actions speak louder than political rhetoric or opinion.
process. He was merely giving his opinion that McCain was the obvious choice and that the election should be a landslide rather than seriously contested. He was not proposing that the election process be bypassed.
The Dem party goes further left every year. Driven by endorsements from Soros, DSA, and CPUSA. CPUSA has gone passed their history of endorsing every Dem candidate since 1988 and announced a partnership with the Dem party and that they have all of the same values and goals for the USA.
You can't get further left than that.
The reverse is actually true. The Rs have moved to the center, which is why no Conservative has won the POTUS nomination for a long time. The GOP establishment feels that it is necessary to run a moderate or left of center candidate to win, which is why they lost the last 2 elections against a radical leftist candidate. The GOP establishment attacks true Conservatives if they get too popular.
That is why Trump won so easily. Not that he is a true Conservative on all issues. However, he a is change from the RINO's that lost the last elections that should have been easy wins against a weak candidate. He had the courage to address issues that none of the other candidates had the balls to deal with.
Nutty fringe groups back both parties but they certainly don't typically command the platform or what actually takes place in Washington. For instance, Obama has expanded our military role throughout the world, is attempting to fast track TPP, was a big oil president, bailed out the financial sector but prosecuted no one, promised tougher gun legislation and a single payer medical plan. He did manage to jam through a clusterfuck medical plan that doesn't even come close to solving our run-away health care costs and at the same time guaranteed big Pharma that they would not be put them under duress of having to negotiate drug prices. I just don't see how any of this is liberal.
In my opinion, the term "moderate" and "Republican" can't even seriously be used in the same sentence. Under Reagan, with Lee Atwater at his side, it appears to me that the Republican Party began it's 3 decade slide off the rails. The party became a master manipulator of the mass media, big government deficit spenders, supporters of subsidized Capitalism, and deregulators of the financial system (Clinton had a major hand in the deregulation by the way). They also concocted a very effective scheme of polarizing and manipulating the base with silly social issues as the country was being robbed blind. And as they polarized the population, more and more moderates turned their back on the Republicans. Because of this, it became increasingly unlikely that they could win the popular vote or the electoral college. Remember the Reagan Democrats? You would be hard pressed to find such a coalition of support for the Republicans at this point in history.
Because of this massive shift to the Right, the party began to distill itself down into the nuttiest of the nutties....what one would call the fringe. This problem was exacerbated by the Koch coalition as they built a web of PR nonsense, funded by a cadre of billionaires. They even tried to pawn off the Tea Party as a grass roots movement. Furthermore, their twisted form of Libertarianism is a far cry from what true Libertarians believe. Throughout all of this, women, Hispanics, Pro-Choice factions, Gays and generally moderate people moved far away the party. The Republicans had essentially distilled its base to the Religious Right and uninformed, angry, somewhat racist, older, working class white men. Now when that's your base in a culturally diverse country like the USA, you have a problem. So since the base had shrunk to encompass such a small percentage and polarizing segment of the population, they had to resort to nonsense like restricting voter rights, gerrymandering and citizens united.
Having worked in both corporate America and having started and run several small businesses in my lifetime, when you see an implosion similar to what's happened to the Republican Party, you need to look in the mirror for a solution. The outside world didn't make this mess for the Republicans, they did it themselves. But as I've said before, I don't see the Dems as too far behind if they don't stop their practice of saying one thing yet doing another.
of the Dem Party. Together with Soros they own the Dem party. Soros has stated himself that owns the Dem party. However DSA and CPUSA own their share also. Soetoro has decimated our military. We have 5 aircraft carriers ready for action. The rest are in port waiting for long needed maintenance. The USMC is forced into going to air craft grave yards to put to put together CAS air craft.
Correct, Soetoro did manage to create a HC system that is unaffordable to most American to get quality HC.
Correct, the folks that were Reagan Dems are no so brainwashed by the LWM they are ignorant of the facts. Like Gruber said. The majority of the American public is politically illiterate; they will believe anything we tell them. So, with support of the LWRM, we ended up with the radical Muslim putative POTUS and the UCA.
You are mistaken. The R party went left after Reagan and the GOP establishment have stopped all Conservative POTUS nominees ever since. The radical left owns the media. The few exceptions are some of the FNC talking heads, not all but some, and a few radio talk shows.
These are the tenets of the Tea Party. There is nothing fringe or radical about their goals or beliefs. The radical left and the LWRM has been successful in portraying them that way. Please note that their core beliefs are common sense and not radical in any as opposed to DSA, Soros, and CPUSA. The difference them and the Kochs is they want to change the American way of life. Alternatively, the Kochs are Americans who want to make money.
1. Illegal aliens are here illegally.
2. Pro-domestic employment is indispensable.
3. A strong military is essential.
4. Special interests must be eliminated.
5. Gun ownership is sacred.
6. Government must be downsized.
7. The national budget must be balanced.
8. Deficit spending must end.
9. Bailout and stimulus plans are illegal.
10. Reducing personal income taxes is a must.
11. Reducing business income taxes is mandatory.
12. Political offices must be available to average citizens.
13. Intrusive government must be stopped.
14. English as our core language is required.
15. Traditional family values are encouraged.
Nothing radical in the Tea party tenets, just common sense American values.
Your analysis for the R movement to the right and the groups that you refer to is way out whack. I am not going to sit here and write a book why. It would be a waste of time anyway. In a sentence, the party has moved left, not right. The GOP establishment attacks the right.
You're just one of those who is easy to feed and willingly consumes propaganda. You really believe there's a difference between the two parties. And you obviously ignore actions over words. You live in a world of ideology, not reality.
are in close fight with TN and Basil for the most naive, uninformed posters on the board.
As an example. You all are too brainwashed to see the problems with being endorsed, owned by Soros and DSA, and being official partners with CPUSA. That is a huge distinction between the parties, but you 3 are too dense to see it.