2009.10.26
Monday open thread
Policies drive a nation
Don't tell you their roles
Clearly sees
Clearly thinks
It's gonna take you over
Gonna take you over
What's driving your nation today?
.....Advertisement.....
.....Advertisement.....
CHECK THIS OUT!
BREAKING NEWS
Upcoming Events
RSS feed 
Sample questionnaire for RTEB statewide public office endorsement:
1) Are you a Democrat? (if yes skip question 2)
2) Are you an independent?
3) Are you running against a republican?
4) Do you have any chance to win? (doesn’t really matter, we just like to know)
5) Are you really a Democrat?
6) Are you running against an incumbent republican? (doesn’t really matter, we just like to know)
7) Are you running against an incumbent independent of less than 40 years of service?
Congratulations! If you are a democrat and you are opposing a republican or an independent with less than 40 years of elected service the RTEB is happy to endorse you in your run for public statewide office!
Please ignore all other questions on the questionnaire and instead use that space to provide us with the justification of our endorsement of you.
And, have a great day.
Thank you, the RTEB
The above post is intended as TIC (tongue in cheek) despite its apparent accuracy.
Comment by Bob H — October 26, 2009 @ 8:45 am
Bob H,
I can't think of any Republican they endorsed for statewide office this time or in 2008. Not even window dressing. RTEB getting more extreme as time goes by.
Comment by Suzie — October 26, 2009 @ 9:08 am
The only thing the RTEB needs to know about a candidate for endorsement is are they willing to raise taxes.
Comment by John R — October 26, 2009 @ 9:14 am
Obama has only been in office for nine months, but he has already hit the links as much as President Bush did in two years.
No that's change we can believe in!
Comment by John R — October 26, 2009 @ 9:17 am
I can't think of a republican that the RTEB could endorse. The republicans need to quit pandering to the ultra right and start coming up with answers to the problems instead of just no, no, no, I'm against everything.
Comment by Richard — October 26, 2009 @ 9:27 am
#2,
They will cite that they endorsed Lacey Putney, and independent who caucauses with the republicans as support that they don't always endorse the democrat carte blanche. Endorsing a guy who has served for half a century vs. somebody who probably had trouble finding the RTEB offices is really no endorsement. Lacey embodies Bedford like few other people ever have. It is hardly a reach to endorse him. Of course they cited that Medlin didn't have a grasp for the legislative process (and Gwen Mason and Carter Turner do?). Like that means something or adds substance to it.
Dan, with his 10-18 editorial, tried to salvage the complete discounting that is now taking place for all RTEB endorsements by trying to establish some make believe authenticity of the process.
And the humorous aspect is that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Glen Beck get attacked on these blogs all the time for their partisanship.
If you don't feel your intelligence has been insulted by this, you probably aren't having a good day.
Comment by Bob H — October 26, 2009 @ 9:42 am
Richard #5
That'll happen about the same time your party quits pandering to the ultra left.
As far as coming up with the answers, they have come up with answers and President Obama won't even meet with Republicans to discuss those answers.
The fact is that the majority of Americans are against the healthcare reform that this congress and administration is proposing. The vast majority of polls prove it. If that isn't proof enough then consider the fact that both the house and senate have the votes to pass what ever they want and yet they haven't.
Republicans aren't against everyting, just the wrong things.
Comment by Richard S. — October 26, 2009 @ 10:46 am
"The fact is that the majority of Americans are against the healthcare reform that this congress and administration is proposing."
Oh please, Richard S., the majority of Americans haven't the slightest idea what's being proposed by EITHER side. Most just know what others -- usually those who oppose one thing or another --- have told them is being proposed. And of course that's always slanted or even just a packs of lies (think "death panels").
I'm fairly well read and I couldn't tell you exactly what's being proposed by anybody because it shifts all the time and because I don't have time to read 1,500-page bills. I'd bet that a fair portion of what YOU think is being proposed is either wrong, half-understood, or out-of-date.
Comment by gdad — October 26, 2009 @ 11:00 am
#4 - 24 rounds of golf since he took office. Meanwhile, troops are dying while he can't make up his mind about what to do. Sort of like all the times he voted "Present" as a state senator.
Obama wanted the job title...not the job.
Comment by Patrick — October 26, 2009 @ 11:14 am
Richard S. I bet what you believe and understand to be the health refirm bill comes from Rush or Fox. The majority of Americans want and need health care reform. They elected Obama to get it and inspite of all the money paid by the medical community to oppose it, the American people will get it. Thankfully there are some Democrats who aren't bought and sold by lobbyists like the Republicans have been and instead vote for what the Country needs. This is called Leadership.
Comment by Richard — October 26, 2009 @ 11:18 am
#9 Wow 24 whole rounds of golf since january. He must have stayed out on the course forever. I believe that just a few weeks ago the Republicans were compllaining that he was trying to do too much, now you are saying he is doing too little. Must be he is doing just right.
Comment by Richard — October 26, 2009 @ 11:21 am
#11 - Tell the parents of one of the soldiers who died this past weekend that Obama is doing "just right".
Comment by Patrick — October 26, 2009 @ 11:53 am
A bunch of liberal Dems are driving this nation. The best Halloween decoration I've seen yet is on Hwy 221 just before you go down Bent Mountain: a witch on a bicycle with a sign below that reads "Nancy Pelosi".
Comment by Jim — October 26, 2009 @ 1:59 pm
A bunch of liberal Dems are driving this nation.
Yes, I believe it was called an "election" The majority of Americans had quite enough of Bush and his Neocons.
Comment by Art Hill — October 26, 2009 @ 2:06 pm
@13 - hilarious. Need to make that drive.
Comment by Uptheriver — October 26, 2009 @ 2:21 pm
#14 - Art, to clarify a misconception...the "majority" of Americans did not elect Obama. 52% of the people who bothered to vote did.
Big difference.
Comment by Patrick — October 26, 2009 @ 2:28 pm
@16
Then perhaps you should be encouraging your Republican friends to vote.
IIRC, George Bush wasn't exactly elected in a landslide, either.
Regardless, you should respect the office if not the man.
Comment by Art Hill — October 26, 2009 @ 2:39 pm
#17 - You're 100% correct, we should respect the office. Unfortunately, the man currently making a mockery of it will never earn my respect.
Comment by Patrick — October 26, 2009 @ 2:58 pm
0bama's behavior was just reprehensible today. Speaking in Florida to servicemen, he took a swipe at Bush (as he does in nearly every speech) promising not to rush them out to a war that hasn't been thought out, as if that was ever the case with Iraq. Bush, as we recall got UN approval and Congressional approval before attacking Iraq.
Never mind the obvious point that 0bama has no clue, no plan, or no idea what he's doing with Afghanistan. He's got soldiers there dying while he's weighing his own political consequences as related to sending more troops or not. No thought at all of victory. The man is just a disgrace.
But it was his attack on the man who DID have a plan (one that was executed extremely well) that showed 0bama's total lack of class. Bush had no time for slamming past presidents. He was too busy seeing that America was safe.
Comment by Suzie — October 26, 2009 @ 10:46 pm
@Suzie #19: "Speaking in Florida to servicemen, he took a swipe at Bush (as he does in nearly every speech) promising not to rush them out to a war that hasn't been thought out, as if that was ever the case with Iraq."
No, never. We never went into Iraq thinking it would take "six days, six weeks, I doubt six months" to finish the job. We never went into Iraq thinking we knew exactly where the WMD were. No, never. We never went into Iraq thinking we'd be greeted as liberators. No, never. We never went into Iraq thinking a little "shock and awe" would do the job. No, never. We never went into Iraq with what experienced generals told us was about a third of the number of boots on the ground needed to do the job. No, never. We never went into Iraq with no plans to secure the nation after Saddam fell, much less the numerous ammo dumps, much less the nuclear facilities that international agencies had under seal.
No.
Never.
Comment by Dan Radmacher — October 26, 2009 @ 11:01 pm
@19
Bush had no time for slamming past presidents. He was too busy seeing that America was safe.
"Bin Laden Determined to Strike the U.S."
Comment by Art Hill — October 26, 2009 @ 11:15 pm
#20,
Dan, you seem to forget that the Clinton administration thought WMD were there also. Our best intelligence indicated it. And, congress authorized it.
Did I think it was a mistake? yes. Do I think it was a mustake? yes. But one with the best intentions in mind and based on the best intelligence we had at the time.
You liberals (oops, sorry, progressives) seem to forget that Clinton's intelligence said the WMD was there (and Hussein also threatened to use them).
Comment by Bob H — October 27, 2009 @ 7:27 am
#22 - Hussein did have WMD's...he used them on his own people. Or doesn't poison gas count?
And we need to stop reminding the Dems that their top leaders voted for the Iraq War...they're trying very hard to forget that fact.
Comment by Patrick — October 27, 2009 @ 8:08 am
What gets me is Bush's plan in Iraq worked. When he left office, there were just a trickle of casualties each month. Yet liberals are fixated on this success while totally ignoring the war in Afghanistan they said all along was the necessary one. 0bama is waffling and hesitant even though the generals laid out a clear case for him. Yet no questioning of 0bama's honesty, character, decisiveness, or fitness for office in the press.
Could some liberal explain why this is?
Comment by Suzie — October 27, 2009 @ 9:09 am