Category: News and Views
So, the Grand Old Party (GOP/Republican Party) is back in business now, once again. who else likes that? does anyone think it's for the better? for the worse? why is that?
Rachel, states the GOP took back I wish I could live there instead of here. I live in the ultimate liberal mess and let me tell you I have NEVER seen such financial waste. People up here greatly fear loss of revenue thru state taxes (most voted to keep it), yet there is very little to show for all the taxes working people pay up here. I have also never seen such a welfare entitled people in my entire life, and some conservative, like Mitt Romney did when he was governor, needs to get in office and say "We can no longer afford all of these social programs and need to pull the plug or at least set some limits." Mr. Romney had a free school breakfast program audited and found most of the recipients well above the income limit, so their eligibility was cancelled. There are just too many government programs for what should be private initiative. I'm happy for those who got the Republican Party back in business!
Let's just hope it's not going to be politics as usual, but somebody needs to rein in the president ya'll voted into office. He's a ruthless socialist without a clue how America's supposed to work, and probably never has read the constitution. I don't trust either party though, so it's down to individuals.
Thank you Jesse, but I didn't vote Obummer into office. I despise the man and can't wait to see him into obscurity! Instead of focusing on the economy & giving employers more incentive to hire, he's forcing a health reform relatively few want & even trying to federalize education when education has always been the responsibility of each state. Our governor is sucking up to him by eliminating standardized English, math, and science tests. I think it's a shame the U S hasn't had a credible third party since H. Ross Perot ran as an Independent.
well, his words exactly. He said I got a Shellacking’ last night! lol.
Of course republicans will block all democrat suggestions and vice versa so nothing will get done to help the American people over the next 2 years.
I was skeptical in the very beginning with Obama, too many grand statements and cliches, then I thought he might have a shot but when he bungled the healthcare program so badly that the healthcare reform he has is useless I kind of lost faith in him again .. but this country is in seriously terrible mess if Palin makes it to be president.
I think that unfortunately, it will be politics as usual. Having said that, though, I am very happy that Republicans took back as much as they did. I certainly do not agree with everything the GOP does or stands for, but overall I do, and I am therefore a registered Republican. Both sides have their corruptions, both sides often lose touch with voters. However, I do think it was important that the message got sent to Obama that he had gone too far, and that many were not happy with the job he is doing. We took back the House, which will help, but not the Senate. So, while that means Republicans will slow Obama, it's not like it has become totally unbalanced in our favor.
Of course, on the other hand, republicans got themselves popularity by spending money they didn't have and lowering taxes so they had to borrow even more money they did not have .. and someone has to pay this money back, with interest, that is how money works. Therefore, whoever is in charge, has to clean up the mess and taxes will have to be raised because the American people have spent way more than they could afford, and that is a fact any party in charge must come to terms with and communicate to the public.
Also, of course, the quality of this awesome private healthcare ranks somewhere between 30 and 40 in the world and the so-called horrible socialist countries are all in the top 10. Denmark, which is an example of an awful socialist country has a much higher credit rating than the U.S.
I find the "socialism" phrase very funny and that Americans want to be gun touting republicans until they fall on bad luck but then they´re the first to want the government to step in. But you can´t have it both ways, not pay taxes when you do well but receive help when you are down on your luck, life doesn´t work that way. We all wish it did, definitely, but it doesn´t.
Now it would be nice to have these billions of dollars that got lost in Iraq and Afghanistan .. you just have to ask the militants in their new private villas to give it back, or the weapon dealers who sold them the latest rocket technology.
Sadly, I find many comments from the American public very short sighted and childish and I think they don´t understand the first thing about socialism.
Sure they do...that's why they don't want it.
My husband comes from a socialist country. They are not communist don't try to indoctrinate anyone into any belief or disbelief, but if you talk to young people from there, they will tell you they believe nationalizing properties & businesses was a mistake. My BIL came right out and told me, "Spongebob much as we bitch about George Bush & American foreign policy in the middle east, if you offered 30000 of us American residence visas, 28000 of us would accept."
As far as Denmark Mr Sponge toured Europe when he was a teenager, and spoke to Danes while he was there. The benefits of living in that country come with, and this was 20+ years ago, 60% of your income being taken in taxes. They have immigrant groups that make up 3% of the national population, but over 20% of the population on the Dole.
Even more liberal sources like CNN cite longer waiting periods for badly needed services, like chemotherapy for breast cancer, in countries with a national health system, like the U K & France. I worked in a socialized medicine facility...a Veterans Administration facility...and I can tell you the level of care I saw there isn't something I'd want for myself or my family.
Now personally I think the operations in Afghanistan & Iraq are a waste of resources that could be better used to fight the drug cartels of Mexico or seal our porous border with that nation, but having lived in both conservative, or Republican, majority states vs the liberal, close to socialist state I live in now, I'll take the former over the latter any day.
Well written and certainly a good viewpoint.
I do not want to socialize everything either, that is communism, and it is a beautiful concept, but it does not work because people are selfish by nature and competitive and lazy (not in a negative way, it is a trait given to us for survival).
If I get the same amount of money working 2 hours or 30, I'd work 2.
What happens to a person with breast cancer in the U.S. who has not got health insurance (which, let's face it, can run from 200 to 600 dollars a month, they advertize 120 to 150, but that is for someone who, for instance, has not had a chemo therapy) .. what are the chances he or she will get any treatment, let alone priority treatment.
Here I have hesitated to go to the E.R. and the one time I did, regretted it for a year because it cost me $1500, and it was a deductable so not coverred by my insurance.
That is not right, any way you put it.
In Iceland, and I can also say this for Norway and Sweden, there are little to no delays in cancer treatments and such. The downside is that there are options that are not coverred by the programs. I had Hodgkin's lymphoma and wanted a PET scan, but it was not on offer because it was too pricy, but CT scans were available, no problem.
But I lived in a "socialist" country and had a bunch of friends from others, and the health system was excellent.
My problem with these countries are the encouragement to living off society and the lack of incentive for a lot of education and hard work, due to the tax issues specified above, but if correctly managed those would not be a bad thing.
If you make $10 million a year, why shouldn't you pay $6 million and only keep 4 .. can you imagine how much 4 million dollars is .. more than your average office person earns in a lifetime, a good house will cost you a million, so why should you whine about making 10 times its price rather than 4 times, and allowing executives to make 20 or 30 million, even when they put tens of thousands of people out of jobs, and award them bonuses is a crime, and the government should step in and stop it.
This rampant corruption is what has reallyturned m off the current political system.
Again, I live here, on a non-immigrant visa, I really like the country and I work and pay taxes here and have no complaints, but some things I would like to see done better and more fairly.
I concur with Wildebrew.
And on this site, plus some of my relations on Facebook, what I find funny is a bunch of so-called conservatives who collect government benefits (Spongebob and others excluded), who have Medicaid, while the rest of us struggle to get what insurance and care we can, complaining about health care reform, and proclaiming themselves to be conservatives.
Good. Let the conservatives take away all blindness-related benefits, which has come up every term republicans have been in office: no SSDI blind exceptions, no SSI blind exceptions, no NLS, no state blind rehab programs - roll it all in to Vocational Rehab, that's what Gingrich wanted.. Maybe then some of you will read up on what's really going on.
I could never bee called a leftie, the academic elitists wouldn't have it and neither would i ... but the great swath between reality and what you all claim you want - a conservative government, when you are on benefits, complaining about a health care system you don't even use: you use Medicaid which we pay for and we use whatever's left.
If the shoe fits ...
What?! We've been taking public transportation lately, and I certainly don't object to blind riders going free with i d. What's NLS? Since when are the blind the same as others using voc rehab? Really even the right can get ridiculous, and as I told my fellow conservative friend, I will deal with Barack Obama's illegal alien Aunt Zeytouni before I deal with Sarah Palin & some of those on the right.
I was just reading last night Mona Charen's "Do Gooders How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help (And the Rest of Us)", the "Welfare" chapter. These programs were started during periods, like the Dust Bowl, when families were living in squalor...kids going to bed hungry & missing school because they literally didn't have clothes or shoes. Before about 1960, welfare workers distinguished between "deserving poor" and "undeserving poor". These programs were NEVER intended to help women keep babies they had outside of wedlock, and before that piece of trash Ted Kennedy and his "immigration reform", immigrants needed a sponsor who would sign a promise to keep them off welfare should they not be able or willing to pay their own way. The sponsor had to support 'em in those circumstances. I guess I see so many "undeserving poor" paying for those groceries with vouchers with tattooed arms & scores of piercings it's been easy to get jaded, also many non US citizens whose wives sit at home & who spend months at a time overseas while if nothing else they get Medicaid from me. Again, it's a shame we can't get another serious Independent, but barring that I'll hold my nose & take the cons over the libs.
Oh I agree the libs are about useless.
NLS is the National Library Service and they have a library where American blind people can check out books in alternative formats, since we basically can't go to the public library and check out print books.
I definitely agree that benefits need to be merited somehow: when I lost my business about six years ago, I had to go to Social Security to get Disability.
Now, my only disability is blindness, however, I can't just walk into a store and get a cash register job much as I would have wanted to. Nor can I go drive a cab much as I would have wanted to.
There is a program - albeit not very profitable - where blind people can take ownership (by contract) of food service facilities in government establishments. However, said program is run by the Department of Education via the rehab agencies.
So, I busted my ass six days a week plus accounting time doing my own books on my PDA and computer, and all the agency people ever wanted to talk about is some fuzzy words. All I was interested in was increasing the bottom line and running an efficient facility.
They handled most conflicts by whatthey called nonbinding arbitration: uh, excuse me, but all my contracts were binding ... so ...
A bit of a digression yes, but it proves you're right ... about the softfooted lefties. However the rightist types just said it was all of my own choosing. Well, many of us software people lost out in the mid-2000s and I had to get something. Friends of mine who could see were grabbing jobs where they could. But where agency turds don't get it is who gives a flying fuck about 'goals', 'career objectives', and the like when you have a kid to support? It's about landing something and earning money.
I and friends couldn't land jobs at help desks because according to the corporate mindset, we were 'overqualified'.
So while I agree with you about the lefties, the whining sounds a bit like a table saw working its way through an ice block, the right is just as bad. Hell they even cry now on TV just like Clinton did in the 90s ... Glen Beck squallin' and cryin' like a little girl just to make peple think that 'he cares' ... never mind the incredible leaps in logic and reasoning relapses.
But the new kids in town are gonna find out as easy as they came, they can go, unless they do what they claim: *innovate*. Innovate solutions, don't belly-ache and blame the apocolypse or the other side, or gays, or whoever. Last time I checked, when called upon to show up on a job, my job is to fix the problems first, explain later ... not go belly-aching around complaining about what the 'other side' doesn't do. That's the job of the incompetent.