Iamon lyme: True. Biden doesn't stick his foot in his mouth. It's permanently planted there.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  That generally the constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you. It says what the federal government can’t do to you but it doesn’t say what the state government or the federal government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted and one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power about which you bring redistributive change.

He said what?! Obama's most outrageous statements – Glenn Beck
www.glennbeck.com/.../he-said-what-obama’s-most-outrageous-state...2 hours ago – PRESIDENT OBAMA: That generally the constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you. It says what the federal government can't do to you but it doesn't say what the state government or the federal government must do on your behalf. And that hasn't shifted and one of ...

What was Obama's point? It sounds like he's saying the civil rights movement took the focus off what he did as a community organizer.

????????????... ?

The civil rights movement wasn't doing that to you on purpose, Mr President. They didn't know who you were back then... no one did.

Iamon lyme: I'm quite sure Obama wasn't born in the USA or if he was, he's not a US citizen. He may not even be from earth.

Artful Dodger: I'm still trying to figure out if The Col was agreeing with you, or attempting to shift attention to Glen Beck.

With less than 3 months to go before the election, I'm pretty sure the birth place issue has been replaced by other concerns... things like "Where the %$#@ are all these new jobs you created? Send me a list so I'll know where to apply, you goofy &^%*$#@!"

Iamon lyme: The left have an unhealthy attraction to Beck. I'm sure they want to be him instead of their boring selves.

Artful Dodger: By the way, what did blabbermouth mean when she said republicans stole the 2012 election?

It sounds to me like she knows the republicans will win, but forgot to wait until after the election to start snarling about it.

Artful Dodger: "The left have an unhealthy attraction to Beck."

Okay, I didn't really think he would agree with you. It's funny how the left focuses on the message when they like the message, but will focus on the source when they don't like the message... any 10 year old is savy to that game.

Or when a five year old says "That's not fair!", you know it doesn't mean "I've looked at this from other points of view, and it's obvious to me that standards meant to insure fairness are not being equally applied."

Iamon lyme: No one really knows what DWS means except her shrink.

Illegal Immigrants Line Up by Thousands for Deportation Deferrals http://nyti.ms/PdDkrC

Iamon lyme: "...but will focus on the source when they don't like the message"

I should correct myself here. Obama is the source of the Obama quote. Beck isn't the source, he's the messenger.

But I'm supposed to forget it was Obama that said it, and only focus on who reported it, thereby fooling myself into thinking the point is not that Obama said it, but that Beck reported it...

Seriously, who believes anyone's attention can be that easily diverted?

Iamon lyme: libs believe it. And simple people perhaps.

I'm baffled why anyone would vote for Ocrapa. I'm baffled how anyone can defend his lies. His broken promises.

I wasn't a fan of Bush, but I have ZERO respect for this current waste we have in the white house.

rod03801: "I'm baffled why anyone would vote for Ocrapa."

It's because liberals don't think in terms of ideology, they think in terms of party identity and party loyalty.

They don't want Biden on the ticket this time around, but they are stuck with him. Dropping him would make them look bad, not because Biden makes them look good, but because dropping him would be the same as admitting Obama had made a mistake.

Making a mistake is not the worse thing a liberal can do, but admitting to it is a grievous sin. Believe me, I am surrounded by and related to far more liberals than I am conservatives, so when I say they believe "It is better to cover thine ass than to admit iniquity", I am not kidding you. They freely admit this, as though they were quoting scripture.

The Col: It's supposed to be outrageous... why?

Is it because....

http://www.bagofnothing.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/CapturePaintingOneNationUnderGod.JPG

???

Iamon lyme: In a recent interview, Obama said that he is trying to bring the country together to fix the mess we're in. When asked if he's running a negative campaign he said no. He actually said no! When asked about Biden's "chains" comment, he said that substantively Biden was correct but that his reference to chains was unfortunate and distracted from the message. He must have missed the part where Biden was talking to blacks in the audience and claimed that the Republicans were going to put the blacks "back in chains." That's been the message of Debbie Blabbermouth Shultz too. And oddly enough, even with all this obvious race baiting, a tanking economy and record debt, AND the fact that a huge majority of voters think the country is heading in the wrong direction, the race is tied! Yeah, I think we're heading in the wrong direction and I'm dissatisfied with Obama's policies and wild spending but I think I'll vote for him anyway. When it comes to liberals, you can't fix stupid.

(V): I'm telling ya , I wonder when the next civil war will start in the USA. The hate between the left and right is at a level I have never seen before.I blame the media on both sides for amping up the discourse to a large degree , but the politicians have done nothing to calm things down.I used to be able to watch the cable shows from both sides of the fence , but now both make me ill with their childish "gotcha" garbage.I long for the days when journalists just report the facts , and their was a degree of respect from both sides.Issues can be discussed in a calm mature bipartisan manner , but it's so rare these days.

Artful Dodger: "...a huge majority of voters think the country is heading in the wrong direction, the race is tied!"

I'm not so sure the race IS tied. I'm just speculating, because there is no way to definitively tie this down, but I think a lot of people who know how they will vote aren't saying anything.

One black conservative said the percentage of black voters who will vote for Obama has been grossly over estimated. I saw a number that was so high I didn't think it could right... 98%. According to the black conservative, who is obviously closer to the black community than I am (so would hear things I wouldn't hear) believes the actually number is 2 to 3. That number could be off too. But his estimate of 2 out of 3 blacks either voting republican or not voting at all makes a lot more sense.

But that's just one example of how far off the numbers could be, because the same situation exists among white voters too. As well as other groups that have been divided into racial catagories, and are assumed to automatically throw their support to the democrats. Many of them are just as offended as I am that anyone would pander to them on the basis of their racial background.

The democrats have no idea how much resentment they have stirred up for themselves, and they still think of themselves as the champions of the oppressed. These various groups of people are not stupid, they know who has been oppressing them. And they are none too happy to see the same clowns who have been oppressing them coming back to act as their saviors.

Iamon lyme: "...his estimate of 2 out of 3 blacks either voting republican or not voting at all makes a lot more sense."

Correction: I meant to say 1 out of 3, not 2 out of 3. He believes 2 out 3 blacks will throw their support to Obama.

Artful Dodger: Something just occurred to me. No, I don't mean the toilet in the kitchen idea, I meant something else...

We have a large Mexican community in our area, documented and undocumented. Pandering to the Mexicans can backfire on democrats when they offer to take care of them via food stamps and other services that make it easier to avoid work.

Machismo is a big deal for many of them, and it's the kind of machismo that feminists will get their panties all twisted into a knot over. It's very ingrained in their culture, so to suggest to any Mexican male that we will help them to become dependant is huge put down. "Here, let us help your men become like a dependant woman". Like it or not, this is how many of them react to that kind of "help".

But that isn't the idea that just now occurred to me. It occurs to me that I have never seen or even heard of a feminist who is also a conservative republican. I know Mexicans who are more conservative than I am, but not once have I ever talked to (or seen anything written by) a conservative feminist.

The Col: America seems to be unique I guess, as having fought a cold war while living a cold civil war at the same time. It's crazy. If it doesn't change then it could end up with another civil war or at the least some major riots.

The media is just one of the interested groups, and you are right.. the politicians are not stopping it. The money involved and as such 'liquid assets' is too big.

"but now both make me ill with their childish "gotcha" garbage.I long for the days when journalists just report the facts"

Reading between the lines seems to be a needed skill these days I go to the Independent or Guardian if I need more in depth.. less bull

(V): I really think the media is the main reason behind it.It started on the right, but the left have decided to hit back just as hard , which is fair of course, but both sides should really bring it down to a dull roar for the sake of the country.Of course here in Canada there is division between the left and right(I always vote conservative, can't stand our Libs) but the discourse is nothing close between our divisions.A new station started a few years ago (dubbed Fox News North) It's even too extreme for most Canadian conservatives such as myself, and has many guest from Fox News , but it's audience is very small http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/

The Col: We are lucky in the UK, the extremes have to act responsibly regarding what they say or find themselves in court. The UK practices responsible free speech

We also have laws that require those who spin bull to apologise.

Up to 30 people including dairy farmers have blockaded a Muller factory in Shropshire. The Market Drayton protest, organised by Farmers for Action, is part of a campaign to get a better deal on the price they are paid for their milk.

Tractors and trailers blocked two entrances on Friday evening.

A Farmers for Action spokesman said it expected to blockade the site until 02:00 or 03:00 BST on Saturday depending on negotiations with Muller.

About 20 or 30 people were estimated to be involved, BBC reporter Kate Tebby said. Farmer Paul Rowbottom, from Farmers for Action, described the action as a "gentle reminder".

He said: "People are going to go bust. They're getting paid about 25p a litre and it's costing 31p a litre to produce it. "All the supermarkets and dairies have got to get the price back to the farmer. There would be a 24-hour shutdown in the future if they don't come and give us the money.

"We'll just keep going one by one [with protests] until they get the message."

(V): This campaign to suppress the vote is a real head shaker.Not only do so few vote already, but even those putting the new laws in place admit the cases of fraud a miniscule, like 10 cases in the last decade.In fact , this Republican admits it is intended to block Democrats from voting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o32tF-S6K60

how do they get away with this crap?

According to Wikipedia...

In Canada, political conservatism is generally considered to be primarily represented by the Conservative Party of Canada at the federal level, and by various right-leaning parties at the provincial level. The first party calling itself "Conservative" in what would become Canada was elected in the Province of Canada election of 1854.

Canadian conservatism has always been rooted in a preference for the traditional and established ways of doing things, even as it has shifted in economic, foreign and social policy. Like Edmund Burke, they rejected the sense of both ideology and revolution, preferring pragmatism and evolution. It is for that reason that unlike in the conservatives in the United States, Canadian conservatives are generally not republicans, preferring the monarchy and Westminster system of government.

(Note: The United States of America is a federal republic, while Canada is a constitutional monarchy, a distinction resulting from the American Revolution and its aftermath.)

The Col: Party endorsed vote rigging... We have had times when some MP constituencies have been 'resized' or split because of population increases, but that has been pretty much it. N' it's been agreed by the parties and voted on... Then their is the public view.. Guess our liberalism pays in a good state education system... Even Catholic/N' other 'faith' schools are obliged to teach the national curriculum.

I guess we're just more 'awake' over here to what is a con... having a free press also helps ... and some who work in government who still have a conscience

In practice, Roman society was hierarchical.[2][3] The evolution of the Constitution of the Roman Republic was heavily influenced by the struggle between Rome's land-holding aristocracy (the patricians), who traced their ancestry back to the early history of the Roman kingdom, and the far more numerous citizen-commoners, the plebeians. Over time, the laws that gave Patricians exclusive rights to Rome's highest offices were repealed or weakened, and a new aristocracy emerged from among the plebeian class. The leaders of the Republic developed a strong tradition and morality requiring public service and patronage in peace and war, meaning that military and political success were inextricably linked. During the first two centuries of its existence the Republic expanded through a combination of conquest and alliance, from central Italy to the entire Italian peninsula. By the following century it included North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, Greece, and what is now southern France. Two centuries after that, towards the end of the 1st century BC, it included the rest of modern France, and much of the east. By this time, despite the Republic's traditional and lawful constraints against any individual's acquisition of permanent political powers, Roman politics was dominated by a small number of Roman leaders, their uneasy alliances punctuated by a series of civil wars.

The final victor in these civil wars, Octavian (later Augustus), reformed the Republic as a Principate, with himself as Rome's "first citizen" (princeps). The Senate continued to sit and debate. Annual magistrates were elected as before, but final decisions on matters of policy, warfare, diplomacy and appointments were privileged to the princeps as "first among equals" (or imperator due to the holding of imperium, from which the term emperor is derived). His powers were monarchic in all but name, and he held them for his lifetime, on behalf of the Senate and people of Rome. The Roman Republic was never restored, but neither was it abolished, so the event that signaled its transition to Roman Empire is a matter of interpretation. Historians have variously proposed the appointment of Julius Caesar as perpetual dictator in 44 BC, the defeat of Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the Roman Senate's grant of extraordinary powers to Octavian (Augustus) under the first settlement in 27 BC, as candidates for the defining pivotal event ending the Republic.

I Claudius for those who've never heard of it

The BBC won awards for their TV version

(V): It's kind of ironic that American soldiers fought(fight) wars to allow democracy and free elections , but somehow that right is compromised in the USA,. That's pretty sad, vets must shake their heads

The Col: ... Big Lies, ideology and an encouraged system of limited education. Ahhh... Evolution supposedly being an affront to God as a perfect excuse.

... Fear of God was supposed to be the first of things, not the last.

The Col: HOGWASH. Libs crack me up the way they foolishly spin things.

No one can ever give me a good reason why I.D. SHOULDN'T be required to vote. Most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. It's just logical. It's one of the most important things we do. One of the biggest responsibilities, and people SHOULD have to prove who they are to do it. God it sickens me when people are stupid about this.

And let's see some proof that the "Right media" started anything : " I really think the media is the main reason behind it.It started on the right, but the left have decided to hit back just as hard , which is fair of course," It would be just yet another distraction to everything. Then someone shows something that the "Left" did earlier. and so on and so on.

Mama! He started it!

Please.

UK voter ID... Voting card sent to address of person as registered on the electoral roll. It is an offence not register under an 1918 act.

rod03801: No kidding. I guess liberals (and Canadian conservatives) see nothing wrong with allowing anyone to vote, especially the ones who can't (or won't) follow the rules. (V) made the point that it's not about logic or morality, but it's all about survival. He makes this admission, and then tries to appeal to our logic and sense of morality... I honestly don't think he pays much attention to his own rhetoric.

Here the left leaning news media had their way for a long time until the right started to hit back. At first I thought The Col was talking about Canadian media... I don't know anything about that, I just know what has been going on with the American media. Sometimes I don't know if these guys are talking about their own countries, or about Mars, or the lost City of Atlantis, but then I remind myself that these are liberals who are talking.

If everyone is forced into following the rules, but this only blocks Democrats from voting, then what does that tell you? LOL

Iamon lyme: Maybe The Col is right... maybe all republicans are law abiding citizens and all democrats are criminals. I don't think that is his point, but what other (logical) conclusion am I supposed to gather from this?

If you're going to complain that obeying the law is giving your opponent an unfair advantage, then we need to change the rules of chess as well... because as it is, it gives unfair advantage to those who actually play well. LOL

rod03801: guess they never heard of richard m. daily.
a lot of dead people were voting in chicago for a lot of years! lol

T G I F

rod03801: Those on the left need a whambulance!

Voter fraud is well documented and the left knows it. And if a person is too stupid to figure out how to get a voter ID then they shouldn't vote. I'm tired of the voter fraud. Do the left wing nuts only believe those on the right are intelligent enough to obtain a proper ID?

When George W. Bush’s narrowly won reelection in 2004, not a single American state had a law requiring voters to present photographic identification at the polls. Today about 10 states, with 134 electoral votes among them, have enacted such laws—all at the prompting of Republicans.

Republicans are not responding to a newly discovered crisis in voter impersonation at the polls, but to a partisan crisis brought on by their party’s declining base of white Protestant voters. If the GOP can’t grow its own voter base, it can at least hope to shrink the Democrats’ base.

Photo-identification laws are targeted heavily at Democratic minority voters, who are significantly less likely than whites to possess the required identifications. A reduction in the votes of racial minorities relative to the votes of reliably Republican white Protestants benefits the GOP. In an unguarded moment, Pennsylvania’s state House majority leader, Republican Mike Turzai, said that his state’s newly enacted photo-identification law “is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” In a response to a lawsuit challenging the law, the state’s attorneys admitted that they were “not aware of any incidents of in-person voter fraud.” Impartial studies have reached similar conclusions about voter impersonation across the nation.

In contrast to voter fraud, the decline of the Republican’s base vote is real and pervasive. America is no longer a white Protestant nation. Until the late-20th century, white Protestants had composed the majority of Americans and the overwhelmingly majority of voters. That white Protestant majority has since disappeared. Fewer than 40 percent of all Americans today are white and Protestant, though the group, which tends to be older and more likely to vote, is usually overrepresented at the polls.

The percentage of white Protestants among voters will continue to slide as America becomes increasingly non-white. The big states of Texas and California are already majority non-white and all of America is likely to follow suit before mid-century according to US Census projections. Hispanics, the nation’s largest minority group, are increasingly gaining citizenship and voting. African American voter turnout now closely approximates that of whites.

The dependence of the Republican Party on white Protestant voters is deeply rooted in the party’s history. The modern Republican Party took shape in the 1920s out of a widespread concern that secular, pluralistic, and cosmopolitan forces threatened America’s national identity as a white Protestant nation. At the core of conservative politics both in the 1920s and today is the ideal of America as a unified nation that upholds traditional white Protestant values.

White Protestant voters overwhelmingly backed Republican candidates in the early 20th century, with the exception of the South, which was solidly opposed to the party of Lincoln until later in the 20th century. Racial and religious divisions in voting remain pervasive today, far overshadowing divisions of gender or class. And white Protestants are still overwhelmingly Republican. In 2004, according to exit polls, George W. Bush won two thirds of the white Protestant vote, but only about 11 percent of the African-American vote, 44 percent of the Hispanic vote, and 25 percent of the Jewish vote. In 2008, John McCain won 65 percent of the white Protestant vote, but only about 5 percent of the African-American vote, 31 percent of the Hispanic vote, and 21 percent of the Jewish vote. Republican support among evangelical, white Protestants has been especially impressive, with Bush winning 79 percent and McCain 73 percent.

The irony of the GOP-sponsored voter I.D. laws to address phony, non-existent "voter fraud" is that the GOP completely ignores the ballot box frauds of 2000 (Florida, which allowed G.W. Bush to take the White House--with a little help from the extreme right-wing judicial activists on the Supreme Court) and of 2004 (the state of Ohio which had some districts reporting voter results for Bush five times that actual registered voters)--all occurring under Republican state attorneys-general.

In the final analysis, we must simply acknowledge the sad truth of the GOP: it is not just the diminishing of white Protestant voters that is reducing the GOP to permanent minority-party status. It is the utter lack of reasonable, sane, sensible public officials as candidates for public office in the GOP. What the GOP now offers are rabid, irrational ideologues serving gerrymandered voting districts who have no sane, sensible, rational policy proposals to address the serious problems that face our nation--much of those problems having been caused by the GOP in the first place.

What is the solution for the GOP? There is none, really. It is the last bastion of a dying, evangelical, Protestant, religious extremism that has interfered in American politics like wing-nut gadflys since the New Deal but only gaining influence and a guarded "respectability" with the rise of Ronald Reagan and his insincere pandering to what is now regarded as the GOP's "base".

It is irrelevant that this "base" now controls The House. Its control is temporary.

Such ideology as currently expounded by the Republican Party adherents cannot be sustained if the GOP wishes to be a majority party that wins elections based on the quality of its candidates' characters and/or the policy proposals that would address all Americans' concerns for our country and its future.

Short of a coup d'etat or a second civil war--which the current GOP's leadership and rank-and-file have insidiously courted as "alternatives" to the election of Democratic Party candidates to the White House and Congress--the GOP will slowly whither away.

What must be guarded against is that in the GOP's death throws that it does not do more harm than it has already done to our democratic-republican form of government or our national institutions.

(V):
Blah blah blah. Nothing to do with race. Nothing to do with party.
I don't care if you are black, white, yellow, purple, Democrat, Republican,Communist,Socialist.

Get a stupid ID and vote. It's only logical.

All the rest of the distractions are just that, distractions. Nothing to do with race. Nothing to do with partisanship.

Voting is important. It's important that only people who can legally vote should vote.

It's really quite simple.

The people who say the poor minorities aren't bright enough to follow the law and have an ID sound like the racists to me.

rod03801: I never said it was racist.. it's about loss of power by a certain group of people.

Like those in Northern Ireland who were against the Peace talks. They were white fighting white. Peace meant less power.

It is THAT simple, so why complicate it!!

In 1978 the Mormons changed their official position of the mark of Cain... Why??

Power, loss of members, loss of position.

rod03801: It's funny that we have "phony, non-existent "voter fraud"" and in the same breath voter fraud from the GOP. Is it non-existent or does it happen?

It's clear from evidence that the Democrats in Minnesota "found" the needed votes for Al Frankin to defeat Norm Coleman. Coleman was up by nearly a thousand votes but the Democrats kept finding uncounted votes until
Frankin was up by over 300. Then they were satisfied.

Acorn has officials in jail for "phony, non-existent voter fraud." Maybe those officials are in a phony, non-existent jail.

You are right that it's a simple concept. Get an ID, vote. Prove you are a legal voter. The GOP is purging dead people, felons, illegal aliens, and other non eligible persons from voter rolls. The Dems wants those people left alone.

The liberals are fighting hard to keep voter ID OUT of elections. It gets in the way of their stealing elections. Now they'll have to create fake IDs. They will do it too and some will get caught and some will go to jail.

But some will still say it's non-existent. (interesting how, according to the Democrats, only poor blacks can't figure out how to get a voter ID - if a conservative held that position the libs would cry racist!)

In 2007, a report prepared by the staff of the federal Election Assistance Commission found that, among experts, "there is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud".[22] The report was based on research conducted by Job Serebov, Republican elections lawyer, and Tova Wang, voting expert from the Century Foundation.[22]

The final version released to the public, however, stated that there was "a great deal of debate on the pervasiveness of fraud."[22] Democrats charged that the commission, with a Republican majority, had altered the conclusion for political reasons, which the commission denied.[22] During the George W. Bush administration, "The [Department of Justice] devoted unprecedented resources to ferreting out polling-place fraud over five years and appears to have found not a single prosecutable case across the country," Slate reported.[23]

The Democratic Party fought the voter identification laws, calling them the GOP war on Voting and a return of Jim Crow disenfranchisement. Civil rights groups were vocal about the laws, saying they disproportionately hurt blacks and Latinos.[24] According to another report commissioned by the Election Assistance Commission, one effect of voter identification laws is lower turnout, especially among members of minorities.[22]

On June 23, 2012, Pennsylvania's Speaker of the House, Republican Mike Turzai stated that Pennsylvania's recent voter identification law would "allow Governor [Mitt] Romney to win Pennsylvania"[25] in the 2012 U.S. Presidential election.[26][27]
Studies

(V): Even if they were to implement these new photo ids, you would think it would be done in a non election year as not to put things on such a short schedule leading to the federal election.I don't think both sides intent is maximum turnout though

It's all gobbledy-gook playing with words. There is NO good reason to not require ID. Implemented the sooner the better.

Bill Maher? . What a numbskull HE is! Has NOTHING to do with literacy. Get a grip

It's all background noise. Who cares what either side has to say against it?

Regardless of what party, it should only be people who can legally vote, voting.

And shouldn't make a difference if it's an election year, or a leap year, or a blue moon. Sooner the better.

rod03801: Bill Maher. Let me quote Alex jones or limbaugh.