I’ve posted here sporadically, received mixed reactions (because I’m a TEA Party Hobbit SOB, I guess), but I thought I’d chime in again.

Nothing this president/administration has done will ever reduce the costs of anything. You all know this, and you talk about it quite eloquently (well, sure it’s all Bush’s fault, the GOP’s fault–even when dems had supermajorities, but whatever, you know it’s not working).

As usual, I’m seeing calls, in the comments, not that actual post, for violence against and murder of TEA Party / GOP. This raises an interesting question. Is lynching bad? Is lynching wrong? Or is it only bad and wrong when black people (or people you like/approve of) are lynched? This, to me, is the bottom line. Murdering, raping, dismembering people because they are different from you, have different ideas/thoughts/values seems to be acceptable in this forum, this weird FDL world. Do none of you pause? Think? Understand that you are no better than the worst racist white southerner who strung up black people because they were different, thought different, looked different, whatever. Are you really the people who declare: Lynching is wrong . . . unless it’s someone of whom we disapprove. Are you those people? Because if you are, you have become, you are that which you hate.

Back to the OP, you all seem to think Obama isn’t doing enough to further your goals, but he’s doing what he can. What can’t be passed through Congress, even when it was in dem control, (net neutrality, cap and tax, the Dream Act) is all being done through various agencies in the executive branch. Don’t like the 2nd Amendment? No problem, this administration is running guns not only to Mexican drug cartels but to gangs here, in America. End justify the means, right? Everything you want done IS being done. It’s just being back-doored. No transparency, no vote, not public support. Just done. Lock, stock, and barrel (pun intended). There are already numerous reports surfacing that X percentage of employers are dropping health care coverage so that each of their employees can be forced onto the “care” of the “exchanges.” It’s happening, single-payer is on its way. You were promised it, and you’re getting your way. If you like it, if you like the tactics, the sneakiness, the underhanded, unethical tactics . . . rejoice.

Okay, I’ve been paging through FDL, but I can’t find a post on the Der Spiegel story about the horrific actions of certain American military men in Afghanistan. Is it possible that you don’t know about it? I would rather think that than that you condone the cold-blooded murder-for-sport of civilians (including children), replete with “trophy photos” of American military men posing with their dead victims as if they were wild game they’d just shot. Please tell me you don’t know about this story and not that you are ignoring it because the CIC this time (unlike with Abu Ghraib) is Obama.

One question: on what evidence are you basing your assumption that Loughner had anything to do with Palin? Or the Tea Party? He was a pot-smoking atheist who burned the American flag and ranted about the horrors of the Constitution. Sounds like one of yours to me, actually. That said, it’s quite clear (to most thinking people) that he is extremely disturbed. Mental illness is neither left nor right, and certainly not something to brush away while you frenzy-feed on Palin. He’s a very sick individual, where’s that famous progressive empathy?

Two things: the DLC map from ’04 also has a map with targets on it. The map is entitled “targeting strategy” (but I’m sure it’s just circles, right?).

The TLC program was not renewed for a second season because Sarah Palin declined to do it; they wanted her to because it was getting good ratings . . . for TLC.

It’s one thing to have a knee-jerk, Pavlovian response every time Palin’s name is mentioned, but there are plenty of real things to complain about, no? Why make them or pretend that what she did/said about targeting is any different than (and quite a bit tamer than) a democrat taking out an actual shotgun and shooting one of BO’s pet bills? You don’t like her hunting, so there’s something that is real to bang on about. You don’t like that she didn’t finish her term as governor, so yay! another thing to hammer on about. See? It’s really quite easy to find actual things to complain about when it comes to Palin.

Now you try it . . .

OMG, this is seriously laughable. Do you honestly believe that these men WANT children to go hungry? What an incredibly stupid thing to say. Does this really work on you people? The only way we can possibly manage to feed the poor and hungry in our neighborhoods is via Washington D. C.? Are you just lazy? Too busy pointing fingers at others to go out into your neighborhoods and help your neighbors? You can’t work with state agencies to help your state’s poor? Or is all that too pedestrian for you? So much better to sit back, pay your taxes, and let the feds deal with our and our community’s problems (problems by the way perpetuated by the very policies that you expect to fix them . . . decades after it’s been proven time and again that your nanny state policies does not lead people to get off welfare, find houses, get a job. They just stay there, and then their kids are there, waiting to be fed at school by the same government that ensured they never had a chance in life). Unreal. And look, Mom, nothing on my conscience, I paid my taxes, so I’m sleeping well and going to Heaven along with everyone else who pays their taxes. It’s right there in the Bible (the Book of Barack).

Who knows? Maybe he’s apologizing for dems having the locks changed on conference committee doors to ensure that no reps came in? Maybe he’s talking about ignoring and rebuffing all efforts (many repeated over months by numerous House reps) to take advantage of that wonderful “open door” policy? Maybe he’s apologizing for calling reps his “enemies” who must “be punished”? Maybe he’s apologizing for lording his win over crap-asshat McCain (“the election’s over, I won.”)? Maybe he’s talking about his studiously ignoring the thousands of concerned American citizens who marched on Washington to protest the healthcare monstrosity? Maybe he’s talking about how he tried to ban Fox News from the White House press pool? Maybe he’s talking about how he referred to a large segment of the population of the country he supposedly “leads” as “teabaggers” (btw, that’s expected from silly progs and lefties, but from the President of the United States of America?)? Maybe he’s talking about how he actually was lying about HCR (which he later admitted when he said that they always knew you couldn’t cover an additional 30 million people for free and that the tax on non-compliance was indeed a tax–sorry George Stephanopolous)? Maybe he was talking about telling reps to get in the back of the bus? Who knows? But there’s plenty to pick from . . . if you take the time to think about it, anyway.

Hee! fun, but totally unrealistic. No one on the right would ever accept an Obama conversion now. Let me put it this way, is there anything, anything at all, that Sarah Palin can say or do to make you accept HER? Dittos Obama. He’s done as far as conservatives are concerned, so he really may as well go with your sprog ideas unless there’s a chance he can win back indies (which he may, they’re well-known for buying a load of garbage and calling it manna from Heaven).

Russ Feingold’s name has been dropped more than once as a possible primary challenge from the left, as has Hillary Clinton’s (though that’s a long shot any way you cut it; whatever Obama had on her the first time around, he still has.).

As a Tea Partier, I’m tempted to tell you all to run Nancy Pelosi, but I’m not that mean.

Spot on. What I (as a lurking and occasionally commenting Tea Partier) can’t understand is why, if you all know how corrupt and inefficient and greedy (in terms of both financial gain and power) the federal government is . . . why do you want it to solve all our problems? Why do you want it to become still more bloated, take still more of our money, “manage” still more of our lives? Government doesn’t solve a darned thing–no matter who’s “in charge.” Government has gotten bigger, money is pouring in (and being printed), more and more bureaucracies are established with more and more power and our money, and to what avail? Have the welfare rolls shrunk? Nope. Has education improved? Nope. What has happened instead is that our K-12 education is all but a joke and the welfare rolls are bulging at the seams as more and more middle class people are forced out of the middle class. Government just gets bigger and bigger, and less and less concerned about real Americans. I simply don’t get how you can all see this but still insist that government is the answer. I’m not being facetious; I really don’t understand the logic in this.

Interesting. Any parallels to the (essentially) same bill’s failure in 1972?

Don’t you know they need that money to ship out more porn scanners in their ongoing efforts to enrich themselves? Stop spreading “bunk,” this freeze is patriotic and . . . erm, ugh, duuuh . . . somehow good for everyone. Or something.

Terrorists (of the Islamic breed, anyway) do not hate us because of any of our policies, that’s just silliness propagated by Islamic apologists. Indeed, Islamic terrorists are not attacking only America and Americans. They’ve attacked a number of European countries and have killed more Muslims than we have. This bizarre idea that we are creating terrorism is . . . well, bizarre. For all the calls to close Gitmo, for example, have any of you considered what the terrorists held there say about that? They want to stay in Gitmo if the alternative is to be shipped back to their own homeland or to some stateside facility. How can you think that Gitmo, or even waterboarding (which was done on only 3 detainees and is done on tens of thousands of our own special forces as part of their training), is some how less humane than what they and their home nations engage in as a matter of course?

You’re right about McCain being clueless about this (and much else, actually), but he’s also right about Obama not knowing what he was doing/being too inexperienced to understand that he couldn’t get DADT repeal passed (I’m not really sure Obama spent enough time in the Senate, actually there, I mean, to know how Congress even works–he darn sure never paid attention to it like we do, not even all last year, when you’d think he might be a tiny bit interested in the legislative branch).

Besides, it’s worth noting that Obama himself has said that there’s a difference between making a bunch of wild promises on the campaign trail and their practical application (I added the “wild” part, but you progs know better than many just how wildly he promised the sun and moon). He was talking, when he made that comment, about something else, maybe closing Gitmo, maybe ending illegal wiretaps, maybe not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250k, maybe your being able to keep your doctor if you like your doctor, maybe HCR not adding one dime (not one!) to the deficit, maybe not killing Americans without an arrest or trial, maybe getting out of Iraq . . . who knows? But the point is that he himself said he had no clue. Let’s go ahead and take him at his word.

Hi Palli, the “underdog” thing is by virtue of being victimized by the left. Unfairly demonized and marginalized by design (remember the sole and unified guiding purpose of the journolisters was to discredit her BECAUSE they saw her as the real deal and a threat. Americans were happy to line up to hate her for any number of lies: she doesn’t “believe” in AGW, evolution, or sex-ed. All patently false, but all lapped up and regurgitated by a frightened media who wanted only to instill fear in their gullible, zombie followers. It’s sad, of course, but a great people were “played,” including progressives.). Palin cannot open her mouth without being demonized by the Alinsky-squad. For every Alinsky loser, I’d venture 2 (maybe even 3) “normal” Americans run to her side. It’s a losing strategy, but one the left seems to revel in, long past its usefulness or effectiveness, but that’s something that actually works for the right. While lefties are busy playing the politics of the past, we’ve moved on to the truth of the future. It’s fun for us, but I’m sure frustrating to your side.

Wow, that’s some misreading you have here, but I’m glad you presented it, for it gives me a chance to explain. The idea that the conservative right (and I do NOT mean the GOP) seeks to regulate or control capital or people is (frankly) absurd. The point of it is just the opposite.

I am well-read in both German history and in the history of socialism/communism, so I can assure that what we are seeing unfold today is absolutely rooted in the agenda of both Germany and the Soviet Union (circa 1920′s-1940). Take a look at Lenin’s “electrification” campaign and Obama’s “greening of the economy” campaign, among a great many other things (including the use of tax payer monies to support a government-run media).

There is nothing on the right that leads to an imposition of strict controls via the law on the people. Nothing. We are against being told to wear seat belts or to buy this product (from light bulbs to health care) or that for goodness sake, do you really think that means we leave open the idea of a police state that mindlessly gropes and sexually assaults random individuals or of the shut down or complete state control of the news media? It’s the left who wants to control the media and the message, the left who seeks to dictate who eats what, buys what, uses what product. We on the right are firmly opposed to any such involvement in the daily course of our lives.

It’s not just corporate regulations (which by the way, you’d do well to research, find out just how so many dems are mult-millionaires . . . it couldn’t be through buying stock and writing laws for corporations and personal tax shelters could it?) that we reject but any attempt to legislate morality or health or fitness or anything else that the centralized, totalitarian regime we currently have wish to inflict upon us. You suggest I read about fascism, and I return the suggestion to you. Read about Lenin and the electrification of the Soviet Union, read about Hitler and how he was able, via the German constitution, to grab and amass power. Read about what exactly today’s American conservatism is and how it differs from any sense of national socialism (i.e. nazi’s). That’s a leftist movement, dear, always was.