Wow, that image is such bullshit.

>>377752
That's the Onion's political cartoonist guy. You can tell from the crying liberty and the B^U cartoonist in the bottom right of every strip. They're parodies.

>>377754
Oh. Alrighty, then. It just wouldn't surprise me to see real homophobes actually making something like that.

So...
why is the IRS looking for people abusing the system by making shell accounts for the purposes of getting around finance laws a problem, again?
It sounds to me like they weren't just looking for conservative groups, but it's being made out to be that way.

>>377752
>>377760
>Not knowing the Onion, or the glory that is Kelly
My god man.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/bon-appetorture,32320/

>>377762

the (*potential*) scandal is that the IRS, with at least the complicit knowledge of (however high up this goes, possibly the White House) held up the approval of Tea Party/right wing groups in '11 for the purpose of hindering their ability to be active during the 2012 election. If true, and that's a big if, it is a gross abuse of government power.

And, at least from the sources I'm reading, they were pretty selective in their targeting.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/scandal-politics-sweep-capitol-hill-91297.html

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/irs-asked-political-views-tea-party-groups-claim/story?id=19171967#.UZJv3cq9IoM

http://news.yahoo.com/top-irs-official-didnt-reveal-tea-party-targeting-000016562.html


Oh, and now there's this AP mess.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130514/DA68UIS00.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/inside-the-ap-fear-determination-91338.html?hp=t1_3

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/13/183726960/associated-press-feds-secretly-obtained-reporter-phone-logs

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-justice-apbre94c0zw-20130513,0,2384590.story



>>377752
>>377760

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

>>377771
Toradora. It's the fucking Onion. It IS a parody.

>>377789

I think she knows.

>>377791

I do, I was invoking Poe's Law because well, that's what happened to the anon thinking the cartoon was for serious. And it's why Kelly's stuff is great; it straddles the line between something crazy people actually believe ridiculous and plain old ridiculous.

>>377791
I thought Toradora was a dude.
>>377792
Ah, fair enough then.

>>377793
pretty sure she identifies as female, yeah TD?

>Canada Contributes to Illegal Occupation of Palestine: Harper’s Conservatives Promote Military Ties to Israel

http://www.globalresearch.ca/canada-contributes-to-illegal-occupation-of-palestine-harpers-conservatives-promote-military-ties-to-israel/5335061

>>377796
I would just like to point out the Canadian people have not supported Stephen Harper on anything in a long ass time.

>>377797
>In the May 2011 federal election, Harper's Conservative Party won a majority government, the first since the 2000 federal election. His party won 166 seats, an increase of 23 seats from the October 2008 election.
Sure.

>>377800
We fucking hate Harper. Everyone does. Even the Conservatives. He was so terrible that he was the first Canadian prime minister to be found in contempt of parliament, but despite being hated, he managed to stay in office anyway somehow. My guess is because the public tended to like the Conservative MPs, so they voted for them even though the leader was shit, and that's what kept him in. Or he did some illegal things to fudge votes, which is totally possible, because it's Stephen Harper.

I'm a bit wary of Justin Trudeau because he seems to be using his status as Pierre Trudeau's son to win people over more than anything else, but I hope he crushes Harper in the next election anyway.

But yeah, no, ask any Canadian and they'll probably tell you Harper sucks donkey dick.

>>377800
No one voted for Harper, we all voted for the Conservative party which Harper has to lead, unlike American election we don't vote on a president per se but a part representative essentially, most representatives equals Harper.

And while no one liked Harper he was CLEARLY the lesser of two evil, given what a fuck Ignatqiff was.

I'm voting NDP, despite the great one being dead they still look like the best option.

>>377805
Yeah, he does use that but I mean, barring revelations of being a nazi I can't see him being worse than Harper, Frankly it's a miracle that Harper is still in office that can only be contributed to his local parties (which he has nothing to do with) being rad and him just generally being the lesser of two evils.

>>377771
Yeah, I was totally an example of Poe's Law in action there. Feel kinda stupid now.

>>377766
I'm only familiar with the Onion in passing.

>>377810
>No one voted for Harper, we all voted for the Conservative party which Harper has to lead
This is why I prefer voting for a person over a party. A person can transcend party politics if they're worthwhile, but voting a party will make a person always beholden to the party.

Plus, voting for a party just seems like it would be even easier for the rich to buy themselves a politician or even a position for themself.

Of course, all this is moot with first-past-the-pole voting in the U.S., which is why we need serious voting reform before we can fix other issues.

>>377795

Correct

>>377793

Technically also correct.

>>377810
I vote NDP too. The Liberal party has been shady and incompetent since I first learned about politics and I don't think that's going to be any different with Trudeau. But I do want Harper out of office real bad and I'm not sure the NDP can keep the same momentum without Jack Layton, and the Liberal party is definitely regaining some steam it lost. Thomas Mulcair seems like a good guy though, much better than Trudeau or Harper to be sure, and maybe that quality is enough to keep the NDP as the official opposition.

It probably won't happen, but I wonder what it'd be like with an NDP prime minister and Liberal opposition, or vice versa.

>>377819
I generally like the Canadian system better than the States', but Harper is a really good example of its problems. Making it worse is that there is no real limit for how long you can stay prime minister; you aren't in for a maximum of 8 years like the president of the US, you're in for as long as people keep voting for your party.

I don't know why the tories haven't just replaced Harper with someone less sketchy and dickish. Are they not allowed to call a leadership election when they're in power? Why haven't the people we actually elected kicked him out yet?

>>377823
>I generally like the Canadian system better than the States', but Harper is a really good example of its problems.

Both are inherently flaws because the concept of representative democracy allows for a small elected elite of privilege to rule over the rest of us.

Now in the USA corporate control over US politics is a hell of a lot stronger than say Canada which is why Obama is more right wing than any right wing politicians in Europe or Canada. What we need is real democracy, true direct democracy where every participates, and not just politics. We need democracy in the workforce, in universities, etc.

>>377843
>Both are inherently flaws because the concept of representative democracy allows for a small elected elite of privilege to rule over the rest of us.
In our current two party system, yes. The parties can collude to play their patrons off each other to ignore actual issues and third parties. With a better voting system, term limits, etc., it would be harder. The biggest problem is that political reform requires political interest, and those in power are, for the most part, only there because of our broken system, and so it's a catch 22 to fix it. You'd have to pull something out of a Tom Clancy book to really make it work.

It's still better than full democracy, though; I'd rather have a smaller group of smart, but selfish, people fucking with laws over the general stupid, and reckless, population.

I'm just going to dump some Kelly.

http://www.houstongovnewsroom.org/external/content/document/2155/1757947/1/Houston%20Headlines%204.24.13.pdf

>Consistently conservative in elections, Harris County residents have revealed themselves as surprisingly liberal on topics such as immigration, gun control and equal matrimonial rights for same-sex couples in a new opinion poll conducted by Rice University's Kinder Institute for Urban Research. The results, according to institute co-director Stephen Klineberg, may reflect the region's growing ethnic diversity, younger residents' acceptance of change and the emergence of live-and-let-live "tolerant traditionalists." Part of a larger survey of attitudes in the 10 -county Houston metropolitan region, the 32nd annual poll queried 991 county residents in February and March. The margin of error is plus - or minus three points per 1,000 respondents.

>83 percent of respondents favored offering illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, providing they speak English and have no criminal record. That is up 19 points from just four years ago. 68 percent supported admitting as many or more immigrants in the coming decade as were admitted in the last; 61 percent said immigration strengthens American culture; 51 percent said relations among Houston's ethnic groups are good or excellent.

>Respondents endorsed mandatory background checks for all firearms by an overwhelming 89 percent.

>They told pollsters they favored equal marriage rights for same-sex couples by 46 percent, up nine points from 2001.

http://bangordailynews.com/2013/05/16/news/augusta/workforce-development-bill-sails-through-maine-senate/

>dat feel when poor workers learn new, higher paying labor skills at the behest of the companies they work for. High wage paying skills now accessible to kids out of highschool.
So good. SO GOOD.

http://sourcefednews.com/cost-differences-between-hospitals-revealed/

>dat feel when society catches medicine's big fat manbaby hands in their cookie jar with fudge on their face, claiming they only take what they're owed.

Oh ho ho hooooo fat boy. Wait until you see what we do to you now that we know you're overcharging between 1:2 to 1:100.

Coke hits Detroit.
Pet Coke hits Detroit
Koch Brothers put the Pet Coke in Detroit

At this point I'm pretty sure there'll be a coca-cola spill in Detroit that will contaminate the whole place.

>>378289
>At this point I'm pretty sure there'll be a coca-cola spill in Detroit that will contaminate the whole place.
How would you be able to tell?

>>378289
Considering the acidic content of coke, it might actually improve Detroit.

Is there an inverse of the "One True Scotsman" argument? Essentially, someone saying they can identify with any group or ideal they want, even if they fit none of the criteria, because you can't be super limiting on what makes anything a "true" [insert group here]?

>>378312
The description you gave just sounds like "Empathy."

>>378313
Not like that. I'm thinking, for example, someone who identifies as a Democrat. They don't support abortion, lower taxes for the poor, a cleaner environment, gay marriage, legalization of weed, etc., but they still insist they're a Democrat, and nobody can tell them otherwise.

>>378317
Well, that's what other democrats might refer to as a DINO. Although, given the way the Republican party has alienated most of its moderate conservatives and forced them to join the Democratic party, Democrats rarely use that term--a pretty sizable minority of democrats are DINOs. Heck, the case has been made that our President is a DINO. But even the most liberal Democrats still more-or-less support him and the other moderate conservatives in the Democratic party, because....well, look at the alternative.

The ones who really make a big deal about that sort of thing are Republicans, who seem to hate RINOs more than they hate Democrats, which is really saying something.

You need look no further than the "Republican Civil War" that's going on right now to see the danger of factionalism.

>Boy Scouts approve plan to accept openly gay boys

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BOY_SCOUTS_GAYS?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-05-23-18-13-07

GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) -- In one of their most dramatic choices in a century, local leaders of the Boy Scouts of America voted Thursday to ease a divisive ban and allow openly gay boys to be accepted into the nation's leading youth organization.

Gay adults will remain barred from serving as Scout leaders.

Of the local Scout leaders voting at their annual meeting in Texas, more than 60 percent supported the proposal.

Casting ballots were about 1,400 voting members of BSA's National Council who were attending their annual meeting at a conference center not far from BSA headquarters in suburban Dallas.

The vote will not end the wrenching debate over the Scouts' membership policy, and it could trigger defections among those on the losing side.

Some conservative churches that sponsor Scout units wanted to continue excluding gay youths, and in some cases threatened to leave the BSA if the ban were lifted.

More liberal Scout leaders - while supporting the proposal to accept gay youth - wanted the ban on gay adults lifted as well.

The BSA could also take a hit financially. Many Scout units in conservative areas feared their local donors would stop giving if the ban on gay youth were lifted, while many major corporate donors were likely to withhold donations if the ban had remained.

In January, the BSA executive committee suggested a plan to give sponsors of local Scout units the option of admitting gays as both youth members and adult leaders or continuing to exclude them. However, the plan won little praise, and the BSA changed course after assessing responses to surveys sent out starting in February to members of the Scouting community.

The BSA's overall "traditional youth membership" - Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Venturers - is now about 2.6 million, compared with more than 4 million in peak years of the past. It also has about 1 million adult leaders and volunteers.

Of the more than 100,000 Scouting units in the U.S., 70 percent are chartered by religious institutions.

Those include liberal churches opposed to any ban on gays, but some of the largest sponsors are relatively conservative denominations that have previously supported the broad ban - notably the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Southern Baptist churches.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced in April that it was satisfied with new proposal, and the National Catholic Committee on Scouting did not oppose it.

The BSA, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2010, has long excluded both gays and atheists.

Protests over the no-gays policy gained momentum in 2000, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the BSA's right to exclude gays. Scout units lost sponsorships by public schools and other entities that adhered to nondiscrimination policies, and several local Scout councils made public their displeasure with the policy.

>>378342
I'll bet they only do this to turn the whole thing into a sexual correctional facility for gay scouts.

>>378342

The BSA kinda forced itself into a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation here. By fighting against the inclusion of gay Scouts (and Scoutmasters) for so long, it built up an enormous amount of animus from former BSA members and companies who fund the BSA. By considering lifting its ban on just gay Scouts, it built up animus from ‘family’ groups and religious conservatives (as well as the religious groups closely associated with the BSA) who had counted on that discrimination as one of the last bastions of ‘purity’ in America.

Companies had already pulled BSA funding over the ‘no gay people’ policy and threatened to continue pulling it unless the discrimination ended. Religious BSA supporters threatened to pull both funding and their children out of the BSA if it ended the discrimination.

No matter which way the vote went, the BSA would find itself up Shit Creek without a paddle or a raft. The whole ‘compromise’ of allowing gay Scouts while still banning gay Scoutmasters reeked of a weak attempt to keep either side from getting too pissed off, but even that might come back to bite the BSA on the ass. Opponents of BSA’s discrimination will get to point to the gay Scoutmaster ban as BSA continuing to discriminate against gay people, while proponents of the ban will point to the BSA’s decision to allow gay Scouts as ‘the end of the BSA as we know it’.

No matter which side lost, the BSA would receive more criticism and more threats of pulled funding. Now it gets to deal with both sides feeling as if they lost. I don’t envy anyone in the BSA’s top leadership roles right now, the poor bastards.

>>378342
>Founder of the Boy Scouts liked watching them skinny-dip
>Boy Scouts consists of a bunch of older dudes surrounded by boys
>Forever against homosexuality

Yep, traditional America: a whole herd of elephants in the room and we just throw a tarp over said herd. If anyone says anything we just shun them until they leave and laugh nervously afterward.

>In one of their most dramatic choices in a century, local leaders of the Boy Scouts of America voted Thursday to ease a divisive ban and allow openly gay boys to be accepted into the nation's leading youth organization.

Oh, yes. Now parents of gay boys will have a reason to force their kids into scouting, even if they do not want to do so. Take 1-2 homosexuals preteens/teens and put them in a secluded place; where they are surrounded by their peers, all of whom DO NOT LIKE said children, and whom are — courtesy of their age — basically the worst type of humans alive; where the only adult supervision is sporadic and, frankly, composed largely of people who also DO NOT LIKE said children; which are managed by an organization that very vocally does not want them in there. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!


GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) - July 23rd, 2013 - The parents of an 11-year old, openly gay boy scout are searching for answers after their son was found stripped naked, beaten to death, and hanging from the flagpole at the center of his camp. At this time, there are no suspects as all the other children deny having seen anything. The scoutmasters declined to comment.

I really don't wanna be Nostradamus up in this bitch, but sadly I'm usually fairly accurate when it comes to total cynicism.


>>378393

You DO realize that it is entirely possible for even homosexual men to have completely platonic mentorships with young boys, without there being any sexual component? You were probably being facetious, but it still continues to perpetuate the myth that homosexual men are pedophiles, which makes me a little bit angry.

>>378399
It's pretty funny that you of all people would get angry at that.

>>378401
I wasn't gonna say anything
but lol

>>378399
Or it could be that they themselves are trying to hide the pedophile accusations with their refusal to let in homosexuals as a distraction.

>>378399

For the record, the ban on gay Scouts remains in place until the 1st of January next year.

>>378407
I can see all of the anti-gay members of the Boy Scouts leaving the organization because of this. That way the ones who stay, will be find with openly gay boyscout leaders and than vote on it in the next one or two years from now.

Although I hate to say it corporations are the big pushers for LGBT equality and openness in America, even though I hate corporations and their attacks on workers.

>>378342
>In one of their most dramatic choices in a century, local leaders of the Boy Scouts of America voted Thursday to ease a divisive ban and allow openly gay boys to be accepted into the nation's leading youth organization.
I guess the scouters recognized that since they're already fucking the kids, they might as well be gay kids.

>>378399
>You DO realize that it is entirely possible for even homosexual men to have completely platonic mentorships with young boys, without there being any sexual component?
You do realize the opposite is possible as well, that gay men can be pedophiles? And that if they are, they may seek out and concentrate in an organization where they get to spend a lot of time with boys alone in the wilderness? Not exactly a stretch of the imagination.

Calm down he's not indicting the entire homosexual population, just a small cutout of it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/05/24/ted-cruz-vs-john-mccain-welcome-to-the-new-normal-in-the-senate/

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) feuded this week. Then they feuded some more. It wasn’t the first time tensions between the longtime senator and the freshman tea party favorite flared up. And it’s a pretty safe bet that it won’t be the last.

The dispute between McCain and his allies and Cruz and his cohort lays bare a new fault line in the Senate GOP Conference — one that threatens to further stall movement in a legislative chamber already seized by partisan gridlock.
(Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), pictured in center. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

At issue this week: the budget. The setting: the Senate floor. Cruz, along with Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Mike Lee of Utah called for Senate Republicans to block efforts to move the budget debate to a conference committee (both the House and Senate have separately passed budgets) without a guarantee Democrats won’t surreptitiously try to insert an automatic increase to the nation’s debt limit through a procedural tactic.

“We could go to conference right now, today, if the Democrats would simply say, we won’t raise the debt ceiling with just using 50 votes,” Cruz said on the Senate floor Thursday.

McCain, along with moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and others, have challenged their conservative colleagues, decrying the effort to delay, especially after Senate Democrats finally passed a budget for the first time in three years. The obstruction, McCain said Thursday, threatens to “paralyze the process.”

“How do we reconcile legislation that’s been passed by one body and the other body? That’s what we’ve been doing for a couple hundred years. Perhaps the senator from Utah doesn’t know about that,” McCain said in a dig against Lee, a tea party-backed senator who unseated incumbent Republican Robert Bennett in 2010.

In an effort to assuage concerns — or perhaps highlight his belief that they are unfounded — McCain pointed to the fact that the House GOP majority will also be a part of the conference process, protecting against the outcome feared by the conservative senators.

But none of it would sway Cruz, who has quickly established himself as the fiery voice of the right in the Senate.

“I will suggest to my friend from Arizona, there may be more wacko birds in the Senate than is suspected,” the Texas senator said Thursday, before wagering McCain could not secure the willingness of most Senate Republicans to allow the risk of Democrats raising the debt ceiling.

So confident was Cruz that he offered to wear an Arizona Diamondbacks hat at a Houston Astros home baseball game if he was proven incorrect.

The House GOP has been riven by discord since the 2010 wave election ushered in a new class of lawmakers with little regard for the “way things work” or loyalty to party leadership. In the more orderly Senate, we are starting to see something similar take place. It’s grown clear that the disputes between McCain and Cruz are not limited to a single issue. Budget fight? Check. Foreign policy spat? Done.

Cruz’s “wacko birds” remark was a reference to a pejorative label McCain gave him, Paul and Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) earlier this year. McCain and his close ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), objected strongly to Paul’s marathon filibuster over the Obama administration’s use of unmanned aerial drones. Joining Paul were Cruz, other conservatives, and notably, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has been mindful of his image on the right among as he seeks to avoid a primary threat in 2014.

With the departure of Jim DeMint, who for years was GOP antagonist No. 1 in the upper chamber, there was a gap on the political right of the Senate at the beginning of the 113th Congress. Cruz, with his staunch conservatism and outspoken style, is filling that space with his blistering criticism of Democrats, and as this week showed, Republicans too.

With the rise of Paul, Cruz, and to a lesser extent Lee, the effect of conservative Senate victories (all three defeated more moderate Republicans in contested intraparty fights) in recent years is becoming more and more obvious. McCain, given his seniority and political style, isn’t one to back down from a fight. Neither is Cruz.

And while that means more fireworks on the Senate floor, it could also slow a legislative process that has already been panned for moving at a snail’s pace during the past several years.

>>378421
I know most of you should think I should be a kee-jerk liberal and attack Ted Cruz, but I'm not. I think him because he speaks his mind and attacks both sides of the political parities, like when he filibustered John Brennan confirmation over drones, something I agreed with.

Code Pink Completely Destroys …

:)

>>378424
Fuck that guy, can't believe I voted for him twice. He's more corrupt than Bush he just covers it up well.

>>378425
i'm... baffled to say the least. disappointed and even horrified when it comes to issues of dealing with anything that resembles "enemy combatants". this is not the man i voted for. ...

thinking maybe the dems should have gone with Hillary after all.

>>378424
Isn't Code Pink the same organization that completely fumbled their protest about Gitmo the other day, right before Obama went in to his demand that Congress allow him to close it?

>>378426
> this is not the man i voted for. ...
Yeah it is, he just tricked us into thinking he was someone else. And Hillary? She's his secretary of state, in charge of all foreign affairs. I doubt she doesn't know what's going on.

I feel so fucking betrayed, never going to vote again because my judgement is obviously shit.

>>378425
>Fuck that guy, can't believe I voted for him twice. He's more corrupt than Bush he just covers it up well.

Good thing I didn't. I voted for Jill Stein/Green Party. Best vote I ever made and first time I voted.

If more people vote third party we can create a much stronger movement for the left, like Ralf Nader did.

>>378428
>I feel so fucking betrayed, never going to vote again because my judgement is obviously shit.
The next tea party candidate thanks you for your cynicism.

>>378428
>hillary still sec of state
check your current events.

>>378429
>Good thing I voted for the Green Party
Truly, your wisdom knows no bound.

>>378432
>Truly, your wisdom knows no bound.

Do I detect sarcasm? Because real stupidity is voting for the Goldman Sachs puppet who drops drones on innocent civilians.

Obama is doing the best he can, given what he has, where he is. It's not like he can just kick the lame duck congress out and get campaign finance reform passed by himself. If you haven't noticed, his study-buddy is spending the country's time and money trying to repeal the ACA FOR THE 37TH TIME IN A ROW and likely it'll be an even forty or more, before all is said and done. It's just the nature of the beast we're working with. We ARE making progress, and this gordion knot of corrupt motherfucking bullshit IS breaking apart. It's so erratic now that the Tea Party is like watching an ideological wounded animal flail and bleed everywhere as it realizes its own imminent death.

Hillary, Jill Stein, all of them would be dealing with the exact same den of disgusting cats and pigs Obama is dealing with now, and any difference is unlikely. The stuff put in motion just by the ACA alone

Meanwhile.. this is a thing.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/04/10/12479/release-offshore-records-draws-worldwide-response

And so is this
http://energy.gov/articles/moniz-tesla-repayment-shows-strength-energy-department-s-overall-loan-portfolio
>Tesla Motors repays entire government loan- 9 years early.

And so is this.
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_1_01_a

>>378433
Really? Because I would think real stupidity would be throwing your vote away on a candidate who will not possibly win, when your vote could mean the difference between being ruled by the Beast and being ruled by the Smiler.

>>378435
ahem. Pardon me.
The ACA alone was something I never would have imagined happening. I assumed in order for this chip in the pile to set into place, we'd have needed to fix gerrymandering, fix campaign finance reform, and fix politicians who just vote for stupid shit on behalf of the corporate welfare state.
But I was wrong. It was plotted, it was drawn up, it was turned to law. And the tools and new utility it's giving neutral parties to scrutinize, to question, to force the healthcare and insurance industry to justify its own expenses, is playing havoc on their unchallenged authority to do whatever they want. It's not a single payer federal form of healthcare, but it's the medication we needed in order to address the stupid shit impeding actual progress.

and I don't know if Hillary or Stein could've made this happen. I really do not believe they could.

>>378437
If Hillary ever comes into power then her focus isn't going to be domestic. There's a reason she was made Secretary of State in Obama's first term, and it's because she's a foreign policy ballbuster. Her main interest would probably be undercutting China and Russia at every imaginable turn and restoring a unified West as the absolute power in global affairs.

>>378435
>Obama is doing the best he can, given what he has,

Why didn't he give us a single payer healthcare system, and not crap like Obamacare which gives even more power to the insurance companies which is the reason the US has the highest cost of healthcare in the world?

He could have pushed for single payer or even a public opinion, but no. He didn't. If he had just called it "medicare for all" and not "single payer" he could have gotten it passed, with overwhelming majority of Americans supporting it.

Obama is a corporatist and opportunist. That' why he's always looking to "comprise" aka give Republicans whatever the fuck they want, be it cuts to social security, etc. Pure and simple. Chris Hedges sums it all up pretty well in his book the Death of the Liberal Class:

"profile of typical politicians: they’re either mediocre (Obama) or venal (Bush)" - Chris Hedges

>>378439
Okay first of all if you think Obamacare gives more power to insurance companies then you're either delusional or just a troll. Secondly, you do realize that being president doesn't make you all powerful right? You remember that Congress is free to do as they please and that republicans declared they would refuse to act bipartisanly when Obama was elected right? And thus in order to get ANYTHING past them he has to pander to them to an extent right?

You are both shockingly ignorant of how the political system works and accusing the man of a lot of things that have nothing to do with him.

>>378436
>Really? Because I would think real stupidity would be throwing your vote away on a candidate who will not possibly win, when your vote could mean the difference between being ruled by the Beast and being ruled by the Smiler.

I live a blue state (Pennsylvania). I'm not "throwing my vote" away, because of the electoral college doesn't consider popular vote, only electoral college votes given by the states. Pennsylvania was going to vote for Obama anyway so I voted for Jill Stein.

I know all to well the Green party wasn't going to win. You vote for who the best candidate is, and Obama and Romney was pretty much the same fucking candidate. Throwing your vote away is voting for the corporate controlled Democratic or Republican parties.

Plus Obama is a war criminal who has killed thousands of innocent civilians and signed the NDAA 2012 into law which allows the US government to detain US civilians without trail forever.

>>378441
>Obama and Romney was pretty much the same fucking candidate
The width and depth of your idiocy is truly shocking.

>>378441
>signed the NDAA 2012 into law which allows the US government to detain US civilians without trail forever
We've been doing this since Lincoln. Again, not something you can blame on Obama really.

RK is basically the liberal version of the Tea Party.

>>378440
>Okay first of all if you think Obamacare gives more power to insurance companies then you're either delusional or just a troll.

Obamacare is just a bailout for the big pharam companies. It forces us to buy PRIVATE insurance from the big pharama companies. This healthcare plan was implemented by Romney and created by the conservative Heritage Foundation. It's going to increase costs in healthcare, there are numerous exceptions from Obamacare. Big pharam companies are dropping people for all kind of conditions they don't feel like covering.

We could have gotten unvierseal single payer healthcare in 2009-2010, but instead we get shit like Obamacare. Even Richard Nixon wanted a more liberal healthcare reform.

> Secondly, you do realize that being president doesn't make you all powerful right?

Don't you start with this bullshit. Obama and his political party controlled BOTH houses in Congress, and still no universal healthcare. What we got was shit.

>You remember that Congress is free to do as they please

Obama said before he got elected he opposed single payer healthcare and would not push for it.

>that republicans declared they would refuse to act bipartisanly when Obama was elected right?

Democrats controlled both houses after Obama got elected.

>And thus in order to get ANYTHING past them he has to pander to them to an extent right?

But they still didn't vote for Obamacare, even though it's a conservative healthcare system. Every Republican voted against it. Every single one.

>>378444
>We could have gotten unvierseal single payer healthcare in 2009-2010
I forgot that when you get elected, you're given access to the presidential magic wand.

>>378442
>The width and depth of your idiocy is truly shocking.

You are an idiot for being and Obama apologist.

Both where sponsored by the big corporations, like Goldman Sachs.
Both implemented Obamacare/Romneycare where they govern.
Both support illegal drones strikes killing innocent civilians.
Both don't care a shit about the poor.
Both support NDAA, Patriot Act, FISA, etc.

Pic very related.

I'm the only one here arguing for us to return our civil liberties, stop the overseas wars, implement single payer healthcare for all, etc. and yet you think I'm an "idiot". Ok maybe in bizarro world.

>We've been doing this since Lincoln. Again, not something you can blame on Obama really.

Never US civilians. How would you feel if you didn't get a trail, taken to a secret prison, and weren't even told why you were being held there? That's what the people in Gitmo are dealing with, something Obama has also has flip flopped on and hasn't closed.

>>378443
>RK is basically the liberal version of the Tea Party.

Not really. Most of what I support the majority of American people support. I'm a populist.

>>378447
>I'm a populist.
No, no you aren't. You are a delusional utopian who doesn't understand how the world works.

>>378441
>RK is basically the liberal version of the Tea Party.
No, he's just the regular version of the Tea Party. The idea that both parties are essentially the same is classic Tea Party rhetoric, and the meme is part of a Republican strategy to dismantle the power of liberal/populist movements. By convincing young people that their vote doesn't matter because both parties are the same, Republicans have managed to control the country for the majority of the years since Reagan.

If young people actually thought their vote mattered, the Republicans would never get away with the shit they get away with. Whether he knows it or not, RainbowKid is a Republican.

>>378453
No I still vote. And I would never vote Republican, and if I had only two choices on a ballot I would choose the Democrat. I've called the Republican party Nazis, racist, homophobes, fascist, etc. so stop attacking like I'm a support of that party.

>the Republicans would never get away with the shit they get away with.

What about Democrats doing what Republicans want, like trying to cut social security or medicare? Are we apposed to just sit here and take it? We vote and keep voting them in, but the Democratic party keeps fucking us over, like the Mayor of Chicago fucking over the school teachers and poor kids in low income neighborhoods by closing the schools down.

Liberals are apposed to force politicians to enact progressive legislation, and yet liberals haven't done their job. Instead they say "Obama's done the best he can" and just go vote and go home and wonder why Obama keeps implementing stuff you think Republicans would push for.

Where did all of the anti-war protesters go when Obama became president, other than code pink? What we need is liberals protesting for Obama to stop the Keystone pipe line, end the wars, implement real healthcare reform, support federal legalized marriage equality, etc.

>>378448
And you're an Obamabot right along with Rametarin. You'd make excuses for him no matter what he did.

Like appointing a tax dodger, a criminal, as head of IRS. Or a known crony as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Or using executive privilege to burn the evidence of a murder and an act of war. Or how about using the IRS to bully opposing parties. Or leaking classified information meant to protect lives of service members in order to bolster appearance of strength. Or how about spying on and extorting journalists who want to report on his failures. A man who signed NDAA into existence and expanded the Patriot act.

Where do you get off making excuses for him? He's as bad as Bush, maybe worse. The Obama administration is full of scandals, one after another, not passing universal healthcare is the very smallest on a long list of failures and criminal acts for which any other president would be impeached.

>>378458
>He's as bad as Bush, maybe worse.

I agree. Obama is worse on civil liberties than Bush ever was that's for sure.

>>378456
> And I would never vote Republican
Voting Green is voting Republican.

>>378465
Just like voting tea party is voting Obama, right?

>>378467
If the Tea Party splits off into its own party, then yes, voting for the Tea Party will be voting for the Democrats. That's why the Republican Civil War is such a big deal.

>>378465
>Voting Green is voting Republican.

Not at all. In Arkansas, they elected their second member of the state legislature who is a member of the Green Party.

There are numerous mayors who are members of the Green Party. The Green Party is the 4th largest party in the USA behind the Libertarian party.

Voting for Obama is voting Republican, because Obama is pretty much a moderate Republican.

Fuck. This thread is reminding me why I hate politics, even if it's bad to be apathetic too.

>>378465
>Voting Green is
voting Green.

The vote doesn't go to the republicans and isn't subtracted from democrats either, it's a green vote.

What are you smoking.

>>378471
We were talking about national elections. The Green Party can (rarely) win elections in local and even State level positions. They can't win a presidential election.

>Voting for Obama is voting Republican, because Obama is pretty much a moderate Republican.
Yes, he is. he is pretty much a moderate Republican, in an age when there are no moderate Republicans anymore. Last election we had two choices: Center Right or Far Right. You chose to abstain, rather than help the rest of us fight for a better world. You will accept only a perfect solution, not "steps in the right direction." Just like the classic Republican argument against things like Background Checks or Gun Registration--"it wouldn't stop EVERY gun crime, so the fact that it would stop a few is meaningless."

>>378474
>They can't win a presidential election.

Ralph Nader won 2% of the vote n 2000. If we had kept pushing it would have been 5% and than he would have been allowed in the national debates, like third party candidate Ross Perot n 1992. Than we could win. Wake up you fool. You are being duped by the two party dictatorship.

In 2016 Hilliary Clinton is probably going to win and I'm going to vote third party again because I'm sick and tired of being fucked over, be it Bush or Obama, both tools of the corporate state.

>>378475
>Ralph Nader won 2% of the vote n 2000.
OH MY GOD YOU ARE A NADER SUPPORTER

YOU ARE LITERALLY THE WORST POSTER ON THIS BOARD

>>378475
I don't see how you expect 5% to become 34%. Especially given that, if a third party did get 5% of the vote, the debates would be changed to require 10%.

The game is rigged. You're never going to win the Terrance and Phillip dolls. You're stuck with the Bon Jovi toothpick. You've got to learn to deal with that.

>>378476
>I don't see how you expect 5% to become 34%.

Hello what part of being in the national debates don't you get? If Ross Perot hadn't of dropped out and than went back into the race which hurt him, he would be president right now and we won't have NAFTA steal our jobs.

Being in the national debates, gives the candidate a chance to show themselves to millions of Americans and allows them into the national polls.

>Especially given that, if a third party did get 5% of the vote, the debates would be changed to require 10%.

Than we work on getting to 10% or 20% or 30%. And if we eventually become a dictatorship,. which we are headed towards, I'll work to overthrow that.


Yes the system is rigged, very rigged, but still we can vote democratically, and if I do vote I'll vote third party every time. You deal with it.

>>378477
Oops, sorry, I forgot--34% wouldn't be enough anyway. They still need 51% of the vote even if it's a third party.

>>378479
>Yes the system is rigged, very rigged, but still we can vote democratically, and if I do vote I'll vote third party every time.
Well, whatever. Just get used to the fact that you are actively obstructing your own policies from being implemented, and that you're never really going to have any say in who the president is other than in the form of helping the person who is the most opposed to the value you hold dear to win.

>>378480
>They still need 51% of the vote even if it's a third party.

Electoral college doesn't found popular vote. You can win even if you don't get a majority of the vote, which is fucked up but it's our electoral system.

>>378483
Wrong. The candidate must win the absolute majority of the votes to win--you cannot win in an election with less than 270 votes in the electoral college. If no candidate has 270 electoral votes, it goes to contingency procedures.

>>378439
>Why didn't he give us a single payer healthcare system, and not crap like Obamacare which gives even more power to the insurance companies which is the reason the US has the highest cost of healthcare in the world?

Because if he'd tried to go down that road, we'd be sitting here moaning about how the republicans are voting down a healthcare reform bill for the 37th time in a row, the ACA wouldn't be the law of the land, and the spin would ignore the republicans wrongdoing wholesale. It'd instead be about Obama imposing socialism on everybody.

The ACA lays good groundwork and sets up research to bring into question why shit like surgery costs between 5000 and 100,000 depending on the county your in. It sets up transparency so facts can be acquired where we couldn't get it before. It primes the American people for that conversation they're skeptical of.

Trying to force anything passed the current people working on behalf of corporate American influences wold mean no progress whatsoever. And Obama would still see the rancor for that, because unless an issue is a certain % nondefensible through unambiguous facts, republicans trample democrats in the propaganda game. These bills get woefully compromised because while they're weak medicine tied to unhealthy drugs, they're necessary suppements. But that medicine is adding up, slowly but surely.

>>378497
There's also the point that he simply can't force shit like this through. He has zero legislative power, and the Republicans' entire platform is "Don't do anything Obama wants even if you want it to," and the Democrats have allowed the Republicans to get away with making even Senate votes require Republican approval to go through despite them being the minority party in the Senate by not enacting filibuster reform.

Blaming Obama for ACA shenanigans is simply stupid. Blame him for the drone policy, blame him for the way they're treating journalists, blame him for the how the DEA behaves--but legislative stuff you have to blame Congress. And mostly when I say "You have to blame Congress" in 2013, I mean "You have to blame Republicans."

>>378474
>Yes, he is. he is pretty much a moderate Republican, in an age when there are no moderate Republicans anymore.
Pic related, this guy is more left leaning than Obama.

>>378428
it's a figure of speech you knucklehead.

it means i was told i was going to get one thing and then i got another. jesus christ.

>>378511
Sorry I'm just really pissed at him.

>>378504
He's a conservative libertarian. Obama is a center-left authoritarian.

>>378523
Let me ask you this:
You're president. You were elected by a landslide in the popular vote, and through the electoral college. Despite many regions being gerryrigged, you did it. You're up there. You're the boss, the commander in chief. You want to make things change for the better.

You've a corrupt, influential financial sector that has stacked so many duckies in a row, if you try and spank them, suddenly many regions of the US lose their jobs, their houses, their communities, because they've dug their control and roots in deep.

You've a gerrymandered congress that usually tries to avoid making it obvious that local representation has been almost totally compromised. Usually they're more subtle about 'close elections', but with you, they see danger. They've pulled out all the stops. This congress will ensure if their benefactors don't get what they want, you and the actual people you represent will get *nothing* you want. And what they want contradicts what you're trying to do. You try and pass a bill to update something? They'll either add so many pro-business amendments to it that it can't possibly pass without hurting the poor, or they'll filibust it. You're forced to compromise on anything, if only to keep the crying babies at least partly reasonable. You're given the choice between sticking to principles of what should be right, and what right you can manage to slip passed them, or get absolutely nothing done. They will not cooperate on anything they don't want.

You've a population of scared, ignorant people that honestly believe that climate change is at best just the result of the earth being the earth, or the sun heating up, or everything BUT human interaction iinfluenced global warming. They WILL believe rumors that you're the anti-christ and that an armed revolution is necessary if you touch certain topics or /somebody/ gives them the wrong idea. These people will be tacitly involved in the election of corrupt representatives put there by financial and social-religious interests. If you shrunk the deficit faster than anybody was expecting, they won't notice, care or think it's more than propaganda. If you so much as take one vacation, they hate you so much they'll assume 1% of all the deficit is due to your presidential vacations and how many you've taken.

You've a financial sector that is free enough go and do things it wants and hide in certain holes that you, legally, are not allowed to peek in. If you do, or if anyone does, it's a violation of their rights. You could change the laws to allow you to see what they're plotting and where the money goes, but you have to go through the Congress and Senate and their representatives first. Which, we've already established, they won't.

What do you do, and how do you do it? How do you get what you want done?
Whatever you say, I'm pretty sure you'd be less effective at it than Obama.