Bitter ?

[John317]

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JOHN3:17-- Speaking of republicans selling people down the river, it is true that both parties have sold a lot of people down the river, but no party in recent memory did that to more people than the Democratic party. Bill Clinton made all kinds of promises to blacks but when he left office most of his promises had never been realized. For instance, he did next to nothing to help blacks in the area of education. It is a well-known fact that the democratic party simply takes blacks for granted.

Please cite your evidence supporting this conclusion which you say is "a well known fact," that Republicans "do nothing" to help blacks.

How do you mean by "help"? Help in what way?

Are you talking about the Federal government or state or local?

Why is it the role of the government to help in those ways you refer to?

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either when the oppertunities become available nor do they override the downward path that overtakes oppertunities...And Bill Clinton has a republican congress who just plain hated his ideas and shot down many of the ideas that would have helped blacks....ie universal health care.

Why was "universal health care" defeated? Did the majority of Americans favor it or did the majority of Americans dislike it?

Please show that the Republican-led congress was wrong to be opposed to some Clinton's ideas and policies.

What other plans that Clinton had to help blacks did the Republicans defeat?

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As it is, during his adminstration, the abortion rate dropped thru his policies of making them available AND used as little as possible thru some economic incentives to give hope to mothers with children.

So, according to you argument here, we have to conclude that the Republicans are going a good job, because the abortion rate is now the lowest it has ever been since it became legal. If you give credit in this way to Bill Clinton, you must certainly give it to Bush because the decline in Bush's administration has continued.

Read:

By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY

The abortion rate in the USA fell to its lowest point in more than 30 years, and the actual number of abortions also continues a steady decline, according to the first new comprehensive data in five years, released today.

The report, by the New York City-based Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit that has been tracking abortion since 1974, shows that medical abortions using the drug RU-486 are increasing as a percentage of all abortions. Guttmacher's periodic reports are based on surveys of abortion providers.

This report uses statistics from 2005, the most recent year available. It is being released just before Tuesday's 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

The report finds:

•Medical abortion, which uses RU-486, known as mifepristone and sold as Mifeprex to induce abortion, is rising. Medical abortions more than doubled since federal approval of the non-surgical method in 2000, from 6% of all abortions that year to 13% in 2005.

•The number of abortions, which peaked in 1990 with 1.6 million, dropped to an estimated 1.2 million in 2005. That's 8% fewer than 2000.

•The abortion rate, which is the proportion of pregnancies that end in abortion, dropped by 9% to 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44, in 2005. The peak — 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women — was in both 1980 and 1981. In 1974, a year after abortion became legal, the rate was 19.3.

•The number of abortion providers in the USA also dropped to 1,787, representing a 2% decline from 2000.

•Just over one in five pregnancies in 2005 (22%) resulted in abortion, down from one in four pregnancies (25%) in 2000.

Randall O'Bannon, director of education and research for the National Right to Life Committee based in Washington, DC., says the decline is a sign of progress but more needs to be done to reduce it further.

"I'm pleased that it's going down," he says. "We were at 1.6 million in 1990. So, for it to drop to 1.2 million is a significant decline."

[John317]

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JOHN3:17--

But Obama and Hillary Clinton think the government needs to be involved in practically everything, and so Obama thinks people are bitter because they feel the government is not involved in their lives enough. The only thing is, it's the other way around. The people he is talking about in those small towns want the federal government to butt out, not butt in. Those people don't need the federal government to do anything but get out of their lives. It's like Mrs. Clinton said the other day, the democratic party has for too long felt it had a right to tell Americans what they should think and how they should lead their lives. Apparently Obama doesn't want to protect Americans and protect and defend the U.S. Constitution so much he wants to give lectures to Americans about how they should be and how they should think.

The reason that these small towns continue in their bitterness is that evangelical politicos with their ultra conservative talking heads have reduced issues to just bumper sticker slogans and tie them to the political myths [ie all democrats want to do with government is raise taxes] that it is hard to think any other way. If I remember correctly, before Bill Clinton, the last time a president raised taxes was Bush senior. And there is a long line of REPUBLICAN politicians who raise taxes before the dem did.

Produce evidence that the small towns in Pennsylvania are bitter.

You seem to want us to believe that those people in the small town are being led around by their noses by "evangelical politicos," and they cannot decide for themselves what the truth is about these matters. Who are these "evangelical politicos"? Do you have evidence that these small town are more bitter now than they were 8 or 10 years ago? And do you have evidence that ties this "bitterness" to those "evangelical politicos" you refer to? Or is this merely your own opinion?

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JOHN3:17--

A lot can be said about a politician by the friends he keeps, by his associations, and by the people who are supporting him. So far I see a lot of people who hate America supporting him, and that makes me very uneasy, to say the least. People like Jane Fonda, Bill Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright, the New Black Panther Party. I wonder why. Bill Ayers knows Obama well, and what's more troubling, Obama is friendly with Bill Ayers-- a man who has said recently that he wishes he had bombed America more!!!

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You make it sound like these people are the inner circle of his friends...NOthing could be further from the truth. These are people who suppport Obama, but that is all. They have thier own agendas, sure, but they are not his inner circle. And if you want to talk about friends that politicans keep, I recently posted McCains pastor's personal viewpoint, where he wants to wipe out a whole culture....And the media is NOT picking up on that...Sounds like a bit of bias to me, don't you think?

Bill Ayers has been described as having a "friendly" relationship with Obama, has he not? Obama's own campaign have so described it. Obama has shared the speaking platform several times with Bill Ayers. He hates America. He says that he is sorry he did bomb America more often. Obama has yet to repudiate that. That is going to trouble Americans with the fact that Obama has a friendly relationship with a man who bombed the Capital Building, the police station, and the Pentagon. He also sat for 20 years listening to a man who hates America and told his congregation to pray for God to "damn America." Obama's middle-aged wife said that she was only recently "for the first time proud to be American." Obama won't sing the National Anthen or pledge allegience to the United States. Jane Fonda supports Obama. She was a traitor to the nation during the Vietnam conflict, going to North Vietnam and giving encouragement to the enemies of America. I was myself in the antiwar movement at the time, yet I knew that it was wrong for her to go there and do what she did. These are the things I am seeing and thinking about. Obama uses language that I recognize very easily as heavily influenced by Marxism in viewpoint and analysis. It is no wonder that he is rated as the most "liberal" of Senators.

If you do not believe that Obama is the most liberal of those in the United States Senate, please tell me why and give me the name of another Senator whom you believe is more liberal.

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As an American, I resent the fact that you are perpetuating myths as truths, and building upon your bias' as the ONLY solution.

You, my friend, are a sick puppy....

Making personal attacks like this is against the rules of CA, Neil D.

Please show evidence that I am perpetuating myths as truths. You have merely stated your opinion, which everyone is welcome to have.

What CA members are not welcome to do is make personal attacks and use name-calling. If you want say a certain argument or idea is sick, that is fine, but there is a good reason CA discourages members from making these kinds of personal attacks.

Where would we be on CA if people call each other names because of a difference of opinion or view?

[Neil D]

Bill Ayers has been described as having a "friendly" relationship with Obama, has he not? Obama's own campaign have so described it. Obama has shared the speaking platform several times with Bill Ayers. He hates America. He says that he is sorry he did bomb America more often. Obama has yet to repudiate that. That is going to trouble Americans with the fact that Obama has a friendly relationship with a man who bombed the Capital Building, the police station, and the Pentagon. He also sat for 20 years listening to a man who hates America and told his congregation to pray for God to "damn America." Obama's middle-aged wife said that she was only recently "for the first time proud to be American." Obama won't sing the National Anthen or pledge allegience to the United States. Jane Fonda supports Obama. She was a traitor to the nation during the Vietnam conflict, going to North Vietnam and giving encouragement to the enemies of America. I was myself in the antiwar movement at the time, yet I knew that it was wrong for her to go there and do what she did. These are the things I am seeing and thinking about. Obama uses language that I recognize very easily as heavily influenced by Marxism in viewpoint and analysis. It is no wonder that he is rated as the most "liberal" of Senators.

Please read this article from the Washington Post Fact Checker regarding the Ayers/Obama connection. Then tell me that you are NOT perpetuating a myth.

"William Ayers, in the age of terrorism, will be Barack Obama's Willie Horton."

--Former counterterrorism official Larry C. Johnson, The Huffington Post, Feb. 16, 2008.

There has been a sudden spate of blog items and newspaper articles, mainly in the British press, linking Barack Obama to a former member of the radical Weather Underground Organization that claimed responsibility for a dozen bombings between 1970 and 1974. The former Weatherman, William Ayers, now holds the position of distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Although never convicted of any crime, he told the New York Times in September 2001, "I don't regret setting bombs...I feel we didn't do enough."

Both Obama and Ayers were members of the board of an anti-poverty group, the Woods Fund of Chicago, between 1999 and 2002. In addition, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama's re-election fund to the Illinois State Senate in April 2001, as reported here. They lived within a few blocks of each other in the trendy Hyde Park section of Chicago, and moved in the same liberal-progressive circles.

Is there anything here that raises questions about Obama's judgment or is this just another example of guilt by association?

The Facts

The first article in the mainstream press linking Obama to Ayers appeared in the London Daily Mail on February 2. It was written by Peter Hitchens, the right-wing brother of the left-wing firebrand turned Iraq war supporter, Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens cited the Ayers connection to bolster his argument that Obama is "far more radical than he would like us to know."

The Hitchens piece was followed by a Bloomberg article last week pointing to the Ayers connection as support for Hillary Clinton's contention that Obama might not be able to withstand the "Republican attack machine." Larry Johnson, a former counterterrorism official at the CIA and the State Department, predicted that the Republicans would seize on the Ayers case, and other Chicago relationships, to "bludgeon Obama's presidential aspirations into the dust."

The London Sunday Times joined the chorus this weekend by reporting that Republicans were "out to crush Barack by painting him as a leftwinger with dubious support".

The only hard facts that have come out so far are the $200 contribution by Ayers to the Obama re-election fund, and their joint membership of the eight-person Woods Fund Board. Ayers did not respond to e-mails and telephone calls requesting clarification of the relationship. Obama spokesman Bill Burton noted in a statement that Ayers was a professor of education at the University of Illinois and a former aide to Mayor Richard M. Daley, and continued:

Senator Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does all acts of violence. But he was an eight-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost forty years ago is ridiculous.

In the short term, the person who has most to gain by speculation about Obama's acquaintance with a former terrorist is Hillary Clinton. The former First Lady likes to present herself as "tested and vetted" after years of exposure to Republican attacks, in contrast to Obama, a relative newcomer to hardscrabble presidential politics. Such arguments resonate with Johnson, the counterterrorism expert, who told me that he is a Clinton supporter, although not involved with the campaign.

But the Obama-Ayers link is a tenuous one. As Newsday pointed out, Clinton has her own, also tenuous, Weatherman connection. Her husband commuted the sentences of a couple of convicted Weather Underground members, Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans, shortly before leaving office in January 2001. Which is worse: pardoning a convicted terrorist or accepting a campaign contribution from a former Weatherman who was never convicted?

Whatever his past, Ayers is now a respected member of the Chicago intelligentsia, and still a member of the Woods Fund Board. The president of the Woods Fund, Deborah Harrington, said he had been selected for the board because of his solid academic credentials and "passion for social justice."

"This whole connection is a stretch," Harrington told me. "Barack was very well known in Chicago, and a highly respected legislator. It would be difficult to find people round here who never volunteered or contributed money to one of his campaigns."

[Neil D]

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So, according to you argument here, we have to conclude that the Republicans are going a good job, because the abortion rate is now the lowest it has ever been since it became legal. If you give credit in this way to Bill Clinton, you must certainly give it to Bush because the decline in Bush's administration has continued.

Read:

By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY

The abortion rate in the USA fell to its lowest point in more than 30 years, and the actual number of abortions also continues a steady decline, according to the first new comprehensive data in five years, released today.

Let's look at where Ms Jayson got those numbers- From the Guttmacher Institute

Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States

January 2008

INCIDENCE OF ABORTION

• Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion.[1] Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.[2]

• In 2005, 1.21 million abortions were performed, down from 1.31 million in 2000. From 1973 through 2005, more than 45 million legal abortions occurred.[2]

• Each year, about two out of every 100 women aged 15–44 have an abortion; 47% of them have had at least one previous abortion.[3]

Number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44, by year

• At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45[4], and, at current rates, about one-third will have had an abortion.[5,6]

WHO HAS ABORTIONS?

• Fifty percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are younger than 25: Women aged 20–24 obtain 33% of all abortions, and teenagers obtain 17%.[7]

• [color:#CC0000]Black women are 4.8 times as likely as non-Hispanic white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are 2.7 times as likely.[7]

• Forty-three percent of women obtaining abortions identify themselves as Protestant, and 27% as Catholic.[3]

• Women who have never married obtain two-thirds of all abortions.[7]

• About 60% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children.[7]

• The abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level ($9,570 for a single woman with no children) is more than four times that of women above 300% of the poverty level (44 vs. 10 abortions per 1,000 women).*[3]

• The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.[8]

How has a Republican congress helped these people? The answer is that they haven't....

[Neil D]

As for the rest of your arguement/mud slinging, John, I have neither the time nor the will to counter your advancing other political myths/assumptions. Take off your biased republican hate fill glasses, and look again at what you are posting here....

And BTW, what you have posted here IS sick....

[Woody]

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You, my friend, are a sick puppy....

Who are ya talkin to man? I just put up my puppy avatar and now my puppy dog and I get assaulted.

UnCool Man. :(

[John317]

Hey I like those big ears, Redwood.

[Woody]

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It is also a well known fact that republicans do nothing to help blacks

Personally ... I think this is a racist statement. I'm sure that Neil didn't realize what he was saying. I know Neil is not a racist. But, to isolate a group of people based on color and say they need help is racist.

Blacks do not need help. Try giving help to Rice or Powell. No. It is a generalization that is not needed in this country. WE need a color-blind society.

Who needs help?

I won't take the time to make a comprehensive list. But "blacks" are not on it.

Try ....

The Homeless

The Poor

Widows

Single Parents

The Disabled

The Sick

Those without Jesus

Yes, there will be some 'blacks' in each of the catagories. But lets not isolate color or lack of. No matter what color ... these groups need help. But all blacks do not need help.

[Woody]

Hey I like those big ears, Redwood.

Thanks John. I try to listen hard here on CA. I am all ears and some mouth.

Actually ... I used to have a Basset Hound that looked just like this with the same big ears. Great pet.

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: Redwood

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Did you hear how he recently told people that his wife was tired at night when she told her story about the danger she faced in Bosnia?

What happens if she gets that call at 2 or 3 in the morning?

Good point. Most likely she'll be too tired and pass the phone to Bill if he's not too busy doing something else.

In the debate tonight ... Hillary said that when she spoke about Bosnia ... she didn't have enough sleep and that in the future ... the solution would be that she WOULD get more sleep. Oh Boy .... that takes the 2 am. phone call out the window.

[Bravus]

Meh, the sooner Hillary drops out the better. The Dems need to spend their time and energy fighting the Repubs, not each other. And Hillary is tired in more ways than one.

[Woody]

Yeah ... you may be right about tired ol' Hillary ... although the other candidate is not any better.

Anyway ... Hillary in the debate just acknowledged that she has a "lot of baggage'. I never thought I would hear such a confession.

[John317]

Originally Posted By: John317

Good point. Most likely she'll be too tired and pass the phone to Bill if he's not too busy doing something else.

In the debate tonight ... Hillary said that when she spoke about Bosnia ... she didn't have enough sleep and that in the future ... the solution would be that she WOULD get more sleep. Oh Boy .... that takes the 2 am. phone call out the window.

Looks for sure like Bill better be ready to take the phone again. When Bill was president, she would always say, "Bill, it's for you." Now it will be, "Bill, it's for me, but could you get it? I'm so tired I'm afraid I might misspeak."

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: Redwood

In the debate tonight ... Hillary said that when she spoke about Bosnia ... she didn't have enough sleep and that in the future ... the solution would be that she WOULD get more sleep. Oh Boy .... that takes the 2 am. phone call out the window.

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Looks for sure like Bill better be ready to take the phone again. When Bill was president' date=' she would always say, "Bill, it's for you." Now it will be, "Bill, it's for me, but could you get it? I'm so tired I'm afraid I might misspeak."[/quote']

John317 I think you are very correct. I fear this WILL happen. Both Bill and Hillary have indicated that she doesn't do well with lack of sleep. So, the only one who could answer that emergency call WOULD be BILL. What a frightening thought. What happens when she is not ABLE to get enough sleep?

You KNOW what we would get ... EMOTIONS and POOR decisions. That is what we have witnessed so far. And that is what she has admitted to. Who would help us? BILL.

[John317]

Both Bill and Hillary have indicated that she doesn't do well with lack of sleep. So, the only one who could answer that emergency call WOULD be BILL. What a frightening thought. What happens when she is not ABLE to get enough sleep?

You KNOW what we would get ... EMOTIONS and POOR decisions. That is what we have witnessed so far. And that is what she has admitted to. Who would help us? BILL.

If this is the excuse on the campaign trail, where the pressure is nothing compared to being president, can you imagine the nation being told that big mistakes were made because President Hillary was tired and couldn't distinguish between reality and illusion?

[Bravus]

"It's not the mistake it's the cover-up that gets ya". You'd think the Clintons would know this one already. She should have just owned up to making the story a little more dramatic for effect and lived that down: making up a patently implausible excuse just makes the situation much worse.

[Woody]

I have to say that I am surprised at how this Demo race has turned out. The news is calling it 'bitter'. But since I am not allowed to use that word ... I had best stay clear of it.

[Bravus]

Hey, you're a part-Swiss American: don'tcha know they're saying 'Bitte'?

[David Koot]

Aha! Another comic! Who do we have now--Neil, Redwood and now BRAVUS??? He of the hot babe and the hot bike?

[John317]

"It's not the mistake it's the cover-up that gets ya". You'd think the Clintons would know this one already. She should have just owned up to making the story a little more dramatic for effect and lived that down: making up a patently implausible excuse just makes the situation much worse.

Exactly. Americans (I don't mean to exclude people of other nations) are pretty forgiving people once the error has been admitted, but to defend the error and even lie about it, is just about as inexcusable as anything a politician can do.

Speaking of which-- if Nixon had come right out and made a full confession from early on, there is a very good chance he could have got the people behind him (after all, he had just won a landslide victory!) and would have remained president through the end of his term, but the nation simply could not forgive his lying and covering it up. And that's even though most Americans knew he was (except for that terribly big blunder, plus one or two other, fairly minor ones) a very good president. His personal obsessions did him in, and his unwillingness to come clean with the American people.

[John317]

Hey, you're a part-Swiss American: don'tcha know they're saying 'Bitte'?

Yeah, it's like, "Bitte, bitte, can't we put an end to this? It's killing the party and the chances of winning in November." But no, it's not likely to go away until at least the convention, and it looks like it may even have ill effects well beyond August on whoever the Democratic nominee is. Which I expect will be Obama.

[Woody]

Have you heard the latest ?? Hillary now claims that she is 'comfortable in the kitchen'. Give me a break. Only a politician can claim both sides of each issue.

But it does seem like she is getting the big MO. Today she got 3 more superdelegates on her side. Two of them are former governors. Watch out Obama ... in the lead with super delegates.