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[Punchy4486]

How could he respect the office when he is never there? He is always at the golf course or using taxpayer's dollars to go on a luxury vacation!

This one always infuriates me for being so short-sighted. Just like when they say he's mad with power despite having issued less executive orders than all of his predecessors since Teddy Roosevelt.

 

[Aylinato]

Well, yeah. Plus even worse stuff like overt racism and throwing slavery protesters in jail.

Coolidge put in place everything that caused the Great Depression, GWB is the 2nd worst president after him(both deregulators), and then third worst is Reagan(on paper he is an awful president, he just gets praise for being a celebrity.).



Some of the best for own country were actually Wilson, GBush senior, LBJ(minus Vietnam), Nixon(minus being paranoid and having huge scandals obviously), and FDR(I must say he did imprison Americans who were Japanese decent for no good reason).

 

[Blader]

Oh, I missed this part:

But this is the result of the V.A. on top of the initial health care web site debacle

So the website being broken for 1-2 months is more important than the end result of 9 million people now having health insurance?

Some of the best for own country were actually Wilson, GBush senior, LBJ(minus Vietnam), Nixon(minus being paranoid and having huge scandals obviously), and FDR(I must say he did imprison Americans who were Japanese decent for no good reason).

Those are some pretty big omissions. :lol

 

[benjipwns]

Coolidge didn't do anything to cause or prevent the Great Depression, if any President did it was Hoover who reacted to a downturn by eliminating jobs and starting a tariff war.

W. Bush didn't deregulate shit, his administration oversaw the largest increase in regulations since Nixon. The "great deregulator" was Carter, and then Clinton is probably second post-WW2.

Wilson, Hoover, FDR, LBJ and Nixon are all easily five of the worst Presidents in American history, three if not four of the five effectively defaulted, four of them did horrible things with wartime as the excuse. Buchanan, Pierce, the Adamses and Fillmore were weak and lousy but they weren't as actively and seemingly endlessly terrible like those five. W. Bush is in the mix somewhere between those two groups along with Roosevelt and Harrison.

Reagan is just middling like Truman or H.W. Bush or Ford or McKinley.

The greatest is Washington hands down for the simple fact that he stepped down. The other not bads are Cleveland, Coolidge, Harding, Jefferson, Tyler and then on the outside Hayes, Polk and Monroe. With Arthur and Eisenhower fighting over a top ten placing.

All of this is indisputable objective fact and cannot be debated against. Period.

 

[ginger ninja]

My main concern is, his Foreign Policy in the second term so far has been a complete disaster and its gonna get worse, i think the word is indifference.

 

[RustyNails]

Coolidge put in place everything that caused the Great Depression, GWB is the 2nd worst president after him(both deregulators), and then third worst is Reagan(on paper he is an awful president, he just gets praise for being a celebrity.).



Some of the best for own country were actually Wilson, GBush senior, LBJ(minus Vietnam), Nixon(minus being paranoid and having huge scandals obviously), and FDR(I must say he did imprison Americans who were Japanese decent for no good reason).

You forgot the bestest: Teddy Roosevelt.

 

[Lkr]

Coolidge put in place everything that caused the Great Depression, GWB is the 2nd worst president after him(both deregulators), and then third worst is Reagan(on paper he is an awful president, he just gets praise for being a celebrity.).



Some of the best for own country were actually Wilson, GBush senior, LBJ(minus Vietnam), Nixon(minus being paranoid and having huge scandals obviously), and FDR(I must say he did imprison Americans who were Japanese decent for no good reason).

Reagan was a puppet. A bunch of businessmen paid him to be a puppet president because he is likeable and speaks well. Guy was an actor for crying out loud

 

[KingK]

So Americans don't want to get involved in any more wars or send any more troops anywhere, but still expect the President to be able to completely control events in every foreign country in the world. Reminds me of how Americans want more social security, medicare, universal healthcare, better roads/infrastructure, etc. but also want to cut taxes to 0. I guess, more specifically, that defines the American centrist/swing voters.

Of course, these numbers don't really matter. If Congress miraculously goes to the Democrat's this fall, a lot will get done, and Obama's numbers will probably improve. If Congress stays the same, then about the same will get done, and Obama's number will stay flat until he leaves office. If Congress goes fully Republican, absolutely nothing gets done and his numbers drop even more, but probably don't effect Hillary all that much.

Sure, this is a bad poll for Obama, but if his numbers are dropping 'cause he got a POW rescued, Iraq is falling apart because of Republican incompetence in the first place, and IRS scandals that aren't actually scandals, then the problem is the populace, not the President.

.

 

[whytemyke]

If Obama ran his presidency based on popular sentiment, we'd have no taxes, no health care, school shootings everywhere (lul) and we'd be at war with Russia, Syria, and probably China. The Big 3 would have failed, the rust belt would be a wasteland of 20% unemployment, and so on, and so on.

The problem with having corporations control politics and politics letting schools fail, unfortunately, is most Americans are no longer intelligent enough to have an opinion on the presidency.

 

[RustyNails]

So Americans don't want to get involved in any more wars or send any more troops anywhere, but still expect the President to be able to completely control events in every foreign country in the world. Reminds me of how Americans want more social security, medicare, universal healthcare, better roads/infrastructure, etc. but also want to cut taxes to 0. I guess, more specifically, that defines the American centrist/swing voters.

Completely agree. I posted very same feelings earlier with regards to the polling in poligaf

I dont understand Americans. Do they want us to be non interventionist AND be tough on people like Assad and ISIS? If you are a non interventionist, you shouldnt care if middle east is going to hell in a handbasket. You cant have your cake and eat it. Not engaging with other countries problems is a big trade off.

Although I think Obama does wishes he could have quickly taken out Assad thereby not giving ISIS time to develop and evolve out of the civil war.

It's similar to how most americans want universal healthcare, tight gun laws, more social security and medicare and also a SMALL GUMMINT

 

[Ninja Of Chaos]

Coolidge didn't do anything to cause or prevent the Great Depression, if any President did it was Hoover who reacted to a downturn by eliminating jobs and starting a tariff war.

W. Bush didn't deregulate shit, his administration oversaw the largest increase in regulations since Nixon. The "great deregulator" was Carter, and then Clinton is probably second post-WW2.

Wilson, Hoover, FDR, LBJ and Nixon are all easily five of the worst Presidents in American history, three if not four of the five effectively defaulted, four of them did horrible things with wartime as the excuse. Buchanan, Pierce, the Adamses and Fillmore were weak and lousy but they weren't as actively and seemingly endlessly terrible like those five. W. Bush is in the mix somewhere between those two groups along with Roosevelt and Harrison.

Reagan is just middling like Truman or H.W. Bush or Ford or McKinley.

The greatest is Washington hands down for the simple fact that he stepped down. The other not bads are Cleveland, Coolidge, Harding, Jefferson, Tyler and then on the outside Hayes, Polk and Monroe. With Arthur and Eisenhower fighting over a top ten placing.

All of this is indisputable objective fact and cannot be debated against. Period.

This post reminds me of this one time I wondered into a small Zelda forum where people thought OOT was the worst of the series. Bravo, this is truly odd.

 

[Vermillion]

Until he has been found guilty in a court of law, that is just hearsay, as is your other assertions, which the media has been gobbling up without any actual proof. The public, unfortunately, has been completely played by the Republicans.... and Bergdahl, has had his reputation absolutely destroyed without ever stepping foot in a court, all because anything Obama does is apparently bad, and unamerican.

See, now *this* seems partisan to me.

 

[Aylinato]

Oh, I missed this part:



So the website being broken for 1-2 months is more important than the end result of 9 million people now having health insurance?



Those are some pretty big omissions. :lol

I did say good for America

Coolidge didn't do anything to cause or prevent the Great Depression, if any President did it was Hoover who reacted to a downturn by eliminating jobs and starting a tariff war.

W. Bush didn't deregulate shit, his administration oversaw the largest increase in regulations since Nixon. The "great deregulator" was Carter, and then Clinton is probably second post-WW2.

Wilson, Hoover, FDR, LBJ and Nixon are all easily five of the worst Presidents in American history, three if not four of the five effectively defaulted, four of them did horrible things with wartime as the excuse. Buchanan, Pierce, the Adamses and Fillmore were weak and lousy but they weren't as actively and seemingly endlessly terrible like those five. W. Bush is in the mix somewhere between those two groups along with Roosevelt and Harrison.

Reagan is just middling like Truman or H.W. Bush or Ford or McKinley.

The greatest is Washington hands down for the simple fact that he stepped down. The other not bads are Cleveland, Coolidge, Harding, Jefferson, Tyler and then on the outside Hayes, Polk and Monroe. With Arthur and Eisenhower fighting over a top ten placing.

All of this is indisputable objective fact and cannot be debated against. Period.

You need to actually read up on what Coolidge did, he deregulated bank regulations, and lending practices that allowed many people to make huge loans they could never pay back(which they invested into the stock market which lead to its collapse because they were putting money in that they didn't actually own)


Nixon is an amazing President, FDR got us out of Great Depression and won WW2, LBJ with the civil rights act and The Great Society programs and pell grants and education reforms which made the US leaders in education until they got dismantled by Reagan and Carter, Wilson made what would become the United Nations.

GWB did deregulate everything, I dunno what you are even saying that he didn't, you've got some major revisionist history going on. Carter being the great deregulator? No, that would be Reagan or Coolidge. (And GWB)

Again Reagan is one of the worst Presidents ever. Negotiated with terrorists to win an election, crashed the economy 3 times(a democrat that was appointed under carter got us out of them), funded terrorist organizations that would attack America during his administration, funding military coops with illegally spent money that Congress made illegal to do, funneled drugs into inner cities to destroy opposition strongholds while using the money to fund terrorism(and making law enforcement not able to do anything by using the CIA to protect drug lords), set this path of government cannot do anything(clearly governments can do many things), honestly I'm not even half way through every scandal he had yet you have the arrogance to say he is a mild president, shame on you man.

And lastly nothing you've said was objective, or indisputable as I just proved you wrong.

You forgot the bestest: Teddy Roosevelt.

He's my favorite but I always list him. So I tried changing it up

Reagan was a puppet. A bunch of businessmen paid him to be a puppet president because he is likeable and speaks well. Guy was an actor for crying out loud

Eh idc if someone is a puppet, you are still held accountable for your actions

 

[watershed]

On top of his positive actions/achievements, one thing I appreciate about Obama is that he understands he is merely a steward of the federal government and not some all powerful leader of the country. Although he entered office full of naivety, he has since grown to understand the limits of what the executive can do without the legislative branch and what kind of lasting impact presidents actually have.

 

[Particle Physicist]

See, now *this* seems partisan to me.

How so? The guys name has been absolutely destroyed. You aren't labeled a deserter by the Army until there is a court case. When have you ever seen a POW being so openly destroyed by our media and one political party? It seems incredibly unprecedented to me. Did you know that desertion can be punishable by death? The guy was tried by the media and politicians before he was barely back in the US.

How to you expect Bergdahl to ever get a job even if he is found innocent of desertion?

 

[KingK]

If Obama ran his presidency based on popular sentiment, we'd have no taxes, no health care, school shootings everywhere (lul) and we'd be at war with Russia, Syria, and probably China. The Big 3 would have failed, the rust belt would be a wasteland of 20% unemployment, and so on, and so on.

The problem with having corporations control politics and politics letting schools fail, unfortunately, is most Americans are no longer intelligent enough to have an opinion on the presidency.

To be fair to the public, it's not like the news media has done anything even close to fulfilling their duty of properly informing the public. The media is largely dog shit (though I feel that I may be a little harsh on dog shit with that comparison). The media doesn't report on shit or even try to find facts or inform people. They just regurgitate the talking points, and then work to build a narrative that will sell. I mean, the fact that Daily Show/Colbert Report viewers are consistently found to be more informed on current events than viewers of any other news media (with the exception of PBS/NPR) is absolutely embarrassing for the country.

 

[whytemyke]

To be fair to the public, it's not like the news media has done anything even close to fulfilling their duty of properly informing the public. The media is largely dog shit (though I feel that I may be a little harsh on dog shit with that comparison). The media doesn't report on shit or even try to find facts or inform people. They just regurgitate the talking points, and then work to build a narrative that will sell. I mean, the fact that Daily Show/Colbert Report viewers are consistently found to be more informed on current events than viewers of any other news media (with the exception of PBS/NPR) is absolutely embarrassing for the country.

100% agree. Both kinda different sides of the same coin, too. No education and no media make for a pretty terrible democracy/republic.

 

[JB1981]

What political advantage? Part of the reason Obama is viewed so negatively is because his administration can barely get anything done. The primary reason for that is because the GOP obstructs him at every turn without fail. And the reason for the obstructionism is because of Republican disarray. What you're citing as Obama's chief advantage over the right is actually the main reason for the ineffectiveness and negative perceptions on both sides.

also, let's think about this part for a second:



The straw that broke the camel's back here was bringing home an American POW. What exactly does that say about where these negative perceptions of the Obama White House are coming from in the first place?

He's seen as a deserter who was not worth the people we gave him up for. Not as black and white as you describe

 

[~Devil Trigger~]

Polls: Lazy Journalism

 

[RustyNails]

Again Reagan is one of the worst Presidents ever. Negotiated with terrorists to win an election, crashed the economy 3 times(a democrat that was appointed under carter got us out of them), funded terrorist organizations that would attack America during his administration, funding military coops with illegally spent money that Congress made illegal to do, funneled drugs into inner cities to destroy opposition strongholds while using the money to fund terrorism(and making law enforcement not able to do anything by using the CIA to protect drug lords), set this path of government cannot do anything(clearly governments can do many things), honestly I'm not even half way through every scandal he had yet you have the arrogance to say he is a mild president, shame on you man.

Reagan is easily the worst President of 20th century. He also slashed taxes on the rich from 80% or something to 35%, cut corporate taxes and deregulated the fuck out of financial regulations in place, which brought back the age of boom bust economy from the roaring 20's.

 

[Vermillion]

How so? The guys name has been absolutely destroyed. You aren't labeled a deserter by the Army until there is a court case. When have you ever seen a POW being so openly destroyed by our media and one political party? It seems incredibly unprecedented to me. The guy was tried by the media and politicians before he was barely back in the US.

How to you expect Bergdahl to ever get a job even if he is found innocent of desertion?

I know how it works legally, but since when has that *ever* happened with public opinion? People decide for themselves with the facts that they have all the time. "Innocent until proven guilty" is how it works for our legal system, not the people.

"Unprecedented?" Absolutely not.

 

[Owzers]

My main concern is, his Foreign Policy in the second term so far has been a complete disaster and its gonna get worse, i think the word is indifference.

That stupid red line crap with Syria and then kicking it back to Congress after Kerry and him built up vague bombing talk was ridiculous and amateur. That set the tone for all of his critics and the image Obama has.

 

[Particle Physicist]

I know how it works legally, but since when has that *ever* happened with public opinion? People decide for themselves with the facts that they have all the time. "Innocent until proven guilty" is how it works for our legal system, not the people.

Yes, but what Republicans have been doing has been teetering on the edge of 'opinion.' They have labeled him as a deserter as if it was fact. I don't see how it is not libel.

Are you also stating that the Republicans attacking Bergdahl and the President over this are doing so in a non-partisan fashion?

"Unprecedented?" Absolutely not.

Please point out another example of the media labeling a POW as a deserter as soon as they have been rescued. Hell, under Bush, you wouldn't dare ever talk ill about a soldier... unless that soldier was named Kerry :/

 

[Vermillion]

Reagan is easily the worst President of 20th century. He also slashed taxes on the rich from 80% or something to 35%, cut corporate taxes and deregulated the fuck out of financial regulations in place, which brought back the age of boom bust economy from the roaring 20's.

Oh, can I get links describing all of this? Not because I don't believe you guys (I'm aware that Reagan did a lot of shit), but in the event of future discussion regarding Reagan, I should be informed.

Thanks in advance.

 

[gutter_trash]

Right wing propaganda and center right mainstream news journalism has won.

aren't Democrats Center-Right anyway? especially Obama and the Clintons

 

[Vermillion]

Yes, but what Republicans have been doing has been teetering on the edge of 'opinion.' They have labeled him as a deserter as if it was fact. I don't see how it is not libel.


Please point out another example of the media labeling a POW as a deserter as soon as they have been rescued.

What I *specifically said* is this:

"I know how it works legally, but since when has that *ever* happened with public opinion? People decide for themselves with the facts that they have all the time. "Innocent until proven guilty" is how it works for our legal system, not the people."

This is what happens with pretty much every major court case in recent memory. This is what will continue to happen. No, I don't have an example of another situation like this with a POW (and I never said that I did). I said that the public does not wait to form their opinions based on a court decision.

 

[speculawyer]

So Americans don't want to get involved in any more wars or send any more troops anywhere, but still expect the President to be able to completely control events in every foreign country in the world. Reminds me of how Americans want more social security, medicare, universal healthcare, better roads/infrastructure, etc. but also want to cut taxes to 0. I guess, more specifically, that defines the American centrist/swing voters.

Exactly. People want a massive military, social security, medicare, better roads . . . and they don't want to pay anything for it.

And right now one of these issues is coming up . . . the highway trust fund is going broke because the gas tax has not been raised since 1993. That's right . . . back when we were paying $1.20 per gallon the tax was 18.4 cents gallon. And now that we pay around $4/gallon the tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. Effectively, the gas tax has been dropping for decades. Our roads and bridges are falling apart.

But can we raise that tax? I doubt it. Freedom! Liberty!

Gas taxes are something we really should raise . . . it pollutes the air, it worsens climate change, and we still import nearly half the crude oil run through our refineries. But heavens no . . . we can't raise it.

 

[benjipwns]

EDIT: Sorry, didn't mean to make this a fisk, but thought I should address each President separately. Apologies to the entire planet and also to Omicron Perseus IV.

You need to actually read up on what Coolidge did, he deregulated bank regulations, and lending practices that allowed many people to make huge loans they could never pay back(which they invested into the stock market which lead to its collapse because they were putting money in that they didn't actually own)

The stock market collapse was a side effect of the economic collapse, not the cause.

Nixon is an amazing President

Wage and price controls? Expanding the War on Drugs? Enacting the EPA and CPSC? Watergate? Killing Bretton Woods? One could go on...

FDR got us out of Great Depression and won WW2

FDR prolonged the Great Depression. He was right when he campaigned in 1932 blasting Hoover's policies of intervention, but then after he won the election he continued and built on Hoover's failed fascist economic policies. Then he went further and did shit like setting prices based on lucky numbers, destroying food as people starved and arresting people for charging too low of prices during a Depression.

LBJ with ...The Great Society programs

aka LBJ with the massive decrease in the standard of living for future generations because of those along with moving the Social Security "fund" into the general fund.

Wilson made what would become the United Nations.

Oh wow, pushing the League of Nations huh, that really makes up for the hundreds of thousands dead unnecessarily, the millions who suffered under his wartime regime, imprisoning political dissenters, agreeing to the Federal Reserve, etc.

GWB did deregulate everything, I dunno what you are even saying that he didn't

Like what? Why did the number of regulations increase if he was deregulating everything?

Carter being the great deregulator? No, that would be Reagan or Coolidge. (And GWB)

Hardly, those guys didn't touch shit compared to Carter. He deregulated the airlines, gas prices, trucking, transportation, BEER, etc. (With Ted Kennedy's help on many of those!)

Most of Coolidge and Harding's "deregulation" was rolling back the totalitarian state that Wilson setup during the war and even that was only slightly successful.

honestly I'm not even half way through every scandal he had yet you have the arrogance to say he is a mild president, shame on you man.

No, I said he was middling. Which is a relative description. My tiers are Good (Washington only), Not Bad, Acceptable, Middling, Buchanan and Pierce, Destructive, Actively Destructive.

Reagan didn't do anything new for Presidents of the Cold War and Eisenhower was the only one who didn't live entirely in the moment and in fear.

And lastly nothing you've said was objective, or indisputable as I just proved you wrong.

Prove it, buster!

Reagan is easily the worst President of 20th century. He also slashed taxes on the rich from 80% or something to 35%, cut corporate taxes and deregulated the fuck out of financial regulations in place, which brought back the age of boom bust economy from the roaring 20's.

lmao, Reagan cut taxes and was a shithead Cold Warrior so he's the worst President of the 20th century, meanwhile Wilson butchered a hundred thousand Americans and imprisoned thousands more for opposing the butchering, slavery and simply being socialists and anarchists. But he was great because he came up with Fourteen Points and kicked off our fascist economic future.

 

[Particle Physicist]

What I *specifically said* is this:

"I know how it works legally, but since when has that *ever* happened with public opinion? People decide for themselves with the facts that they have all the time. "Innocent until proven guilty" is how it works for our legal system, not the people."

This is what happens with pretty much every major court case in recent memory. This is what will continue to happen. No, I don't have an example of another situation like this with a POW (and I never said that I did). I said that the public does not wait to form their opinions based on a court decision.

There isn't even a court case over this at the moment. You said it was not unprecedented, but I specifically was speaking about POWs. Bergdahl is being trashed by Republicans without evidence at all. He has already been labeled a deserter and there hasn't even been a case brought up against him. How is this not defamation? How is it not partisan bullshit destroying this man's life?

 

[KingK]

100% agree. Both kinda different sides of the same coin, too. No education and no media make for a pretty terrible democracy/republic.

Agreed. Effective, universal education and a functioning news media are both absolute requirements for a successful democracy. And we've been letting both deteriorate for years and years.

Reagan is easily the worst President of 20th century. He also slashed taxes on the rich from 80% or something to 35%, cut corporate taxes and deregulated the fuck out of financial regulations in place, which brought back the age of boom bust economy from the roaring 20's.

He also supercharged America's hard swing to the far right, that caused the Democrats to shift right, and allowed idiots like Bush 2 to even be elected. Now, I wasn't born until the last year of the first Bush's term, so I don't really have much perspective of how much the rise of the right was a result of Reagan, or if Reagan was more just a product of the rise of the right. But either way, having a charismatic and well-liked spokesman for the far right couldn't have hurt.

 

[gutter_trash]

Reagan is easily the worst President of 20th century. He also slashed taxes on the rich from 80% or something to 35%, cut corporate taxes and deregulated the fuck out of financial regulations in place, which brought back the age of boom bust economy from the roaring 20's.

yes he is, but it was a Democrat President named Bill Clinton who repealed the Glass-Stegal Act that ended up de-regulating of your financial institutions w no checks n balances that ultimately caused the 2008 Crash

by the way, I'm not a lefty. I'm a true centrist.

 

[Blader]

He's seen as a deserter who was not worth the people we gave him up for. Not as black and white as you describe

He's an American soldier who was held captive and tortured by the Taliban for a year. It doesn't matter what his politics are, it doesn't matter if "he's seen as a deserter" (which is hardly a proven judgment either), when given the chance, you bring him home. Everyone should be pro-bring our troops home, not pro-bring our troops home but only the ones we like and agree with.

That people are trying to inject shades of grey into the situation proves just how fucked a lot of people are.

 

[RustyNails]

Oh, can I get links describing all of this? Not because I don't believe you guys (I'm aware that Reagan did a lot of shit), but in the event of future discussion regarding Reagan, I should be informed.

Thanks in advance.

Reagan cutting the taxes for top income rate

As for Reagan ushering in the boom bust cycles from the roaring 20's, I heart it on Thom Hartmann radio show, but quick googling brings up:

But what has 33 years of failed Reaganomics brought us?

It's brought us record levels of financial instability. It's brought us trade policies that have destroyed the working class, and union policies that have destroyed labor in America.

But most importantly, it's brought us tax policies that have exacerbated inequality, wrecked our economy, and put us at the mercy of boom and bust cycles.

And due to reaganomics

Finally, there is the sequence of boom, bubble and crash. The first of these was in 1929. The collapse that followed was called the Great Depression. The others were 1990, 2001, and 2007, the one we're in now, starting to be called the Great Recession.

More to the point, when top income bracket sees tax rates going below 50%, we get into the boom followed by busts. From the first link:

More specifically, when top marginal tax rates are below 50%, they cause cycles of boom, bubble, and bust.

America has witnessed four of these cycles, and the common denominator for all of them were tax cuts.

As Beinart notes, "coming out of World War One we had a top marginal tax rate over 70%."

But between 1921 and 1925, the top marginal tax rate was slashed down to 25%. And as we all know, what followed was the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.

 

[Vermillion]

There isn't even a court case over this at the moment. You said it was not unprecedented, but I specifically was speaking about POWs. Bergdahl is being trashed by Republicans without evidence at all. He has already been labeled a deserter and there hasn't even been a case brought up against him. How is this not defamation?

According to my understanding (and Wikipedia), if the person believes that what they're saying is true (and they do) and the subject is a public figure (Bergdahl could be argued to be one at this point, if it means anything like celebrity), you can't really prove that it's defamation. Being that it would require malice. Oh, and the information would have to be proven false (waiting on that court case).

Oh, and much of what I've seen from quick Google searches does suggest that he's a deserter more often than not. Even articles in defense of him (a thinkprogress piece) says that perhaps he had mental health issues. But of course, that's not evidence.

But that very same Google search ("did bergdahl desert" by the way) does show me a lot of the reasons I've been explaining for the American public's reticence to welcome Bergdahl back ("was it worth it"). Which puts earlier comments in a bad light - I shouldn't have had to explain any of that. You guys know damn well it wasn't just "they rescued a POW, people should be happy!" It wasn't nearly that simple and you all knew that.

 

[kirby_fox]

And this will continue until something drastic changes. The problem is that the competent people without money are smart enough to know politics is a shit game to get into.

Which is sad to say, as I continuously contemplate whether or not I should get into politics.

 

[Netherscourge]

Independents have a decent shot next time around.

Republicans are having a massive identity crisis and Democrats are about to climb back on the Clinton Bandwagon.










We are so freaking DOOMED.

 

[benjipwns]

And due to reaganomics

More to the point, when top income bracket sees tax rates going below 50%, we get into the boom followed by busts. From the first link:

The problem with the "tax cuts cause the boom and bust cycles theory" is that it doesn't explain all the boom and busts between 1929 and 1990.

 

[ModBot]

Congrats on the derail, benjipwns.