Ron Paul!

I gotta say that none of the presidential candidates seem worth it. The truth is, unfortunately, that they're all wrapped up in the pockets of lobbyists.

I do not think Obama deserves it...he took what Bush had done and doubled it. Ron Paul & Mitt Romney seem like the best candidates right now.

obama has done almost every specific thing he has promised and the general promise of his presidency has been realized in the first term - i look forward to the second and, in the meantime, what has a good chance of being a rout for the democrats. speaker pelosi and electoral college landslide - yes please!

^Not to start an argument, but last week his approval rating dropped to like 35%. That probably won't be enough.

I've not been impressed with Obama at all, but most of the Republicans seem a bit scary. It's about time the Lizard Men came out of the shadows and fielded an independent candidate. They can't be much worse.

The view from across the pond is that Obama got handed the shitty end of the stick with the financial mess he inherited from the Republicans. That's made it very difficult to get anything good started. With the current world economic situation I think you guys and girls need to be thinking about who'd do the least harm, rather than who'd do the most good; and that would be Obama.

What he did get started was trillion dollar deficits and a national debt of over $15 trillion. Even if he did nothing else wrong (like, say, an illegal war in Libya or his recess appointments when the Senate wasn't in recess) that alone ought to be enough to vote him out. He took a dangerously high debt and made it almost unfixable.

debt is merely another word for credit

Invictus doesn't know what he's talking about. Obama's "additions" to the debt have to do with the recession, and the fact that he inherited an economy on the brink of collapse, contracting by a huge margin, hemorrhaging large amounts of jobs. What has been the GOP congress's solution to the economic issues facing our country? Obstructionism & anti-abortion bills. Raising payroll taxes on ordinary people while advocating mega cuts for the super rich. The affordable healthcare act is reducing the deficit, guess what the Repugs want to do? Not only implement another round of massive tax cuts, but repeal the affordable healthcare act. Yeah, and we're to trust these psychos on their bitching about the debt? These same people who supported the Perscription Drug Bill and got us into Iraq? The same people who brought us the Bush tax cuts and wanted to let over a million good paying auto manufacturing jobs disappear? The same people who oppose any regulation of the financial industry that got us into this mess?

"his recess appointments when the Senate wasn't in recess"

Seriously, your party hasn't even allowed the government to have a director of the ATF. The Republicans in the Senate have blocked more nominees than god. Yours is the same party who bitched and whined and wanted to get rid of the filibuster when Dems blocked a handful of appointments.

Shameless, absolutely shameless.

Shocker. Putin33 thinks the deficit doesn't matter. Apparently you and Dick Cheney have something in common. Obama has presided over an increase in an unprecedented increase in our national debt and deficit. It's dangerous for the future of the country and for the entire world economy. Republicans during the Bush administration started the plunge into the abyss, but Obama and the Democratic Congress which made it all the more worse. If you don't think it's an awful and unsustainable thing that the government to spend a trillion more dollars than it takes in and that it will have to keep doing that for the foreseeable future then there's no point having a conversation about this with you.

As for the appointments, yes the Senate shouldn't have blocked so many of his appointees. It's petty for them to do so, and since he won the election he gets to appoint who he wants. That simple. HOWEVER what Obama did was claim the power to make recess appointments when the Senate wasn't in recess. Should the office of the president be able to decide whether or not the Senate is actually in recess? That's a really dangerous precedent to set. Even if Obama is a saint it allows some future president to do the same thing for less altruistic purposes.

And it was a naked power grab since he made these unconstitutional appointments AFTER the Christmas recess. Why not just appoint the people then if the issue was just putting people into those positions? No one would have disputed that.

people seem to think that obama had to bail out banks to save the economy, or some such nonsense. all bailing out the banks did was pad the wallets of wall street, hate to break the illusions people have. iceland did not bail out the banks, they let them collapse and jailed bankers for fraud. guess how they're economy is doing now. if you're rich, you can control the media and convince people that giving you money will save the economy. doesn't make it true.

About the appointments, the Justice Dept. says that they agree with the White House on the legality of them and any challenges to them will not stand in court.

their economy i guess is what i meant.

"people seem to think that obama had to bail out banks to save the economy, or some such nonsense. "

The bank bailouts were led by the Bush and Boehner wept in front of Congress in order to pass them. Obama carried out the plan, and it undeniably worked. It has paid for itself. The fed is earning the government money from it. And check your facts, Iceland was given billions by the IMF. How is that not a bailout?

uh, no. iceland did not bail out the banks. maybe you should check your facts. the news just stopped reporting it. they were bailing out the banks but the people had a mass-revolt against it and refused to sign on to bailouts. and they undeniably worked? well i'm denying it. you're just talking out of your ass about things you don't understand.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17075011
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2011/SurveyartF.htm

Stop reading Ron Paul blogs. Key sentence is this:

The value of the Icelandic krona plunged, which made its exports more competitive. The new government of 2009 was allowed to carry on borrowing and spending for another year before spending cuts kicked in.

if you are throwing links around, read this one http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9550667.stm
if even the bbc which is owned by the elites admit it, you know it's true.

the value of the krona plunged, unlike the u.s. dollar, right? because the media tells you there is no inflation. you can come up with explanations for everything. so look at some standard measure of economic success, like gdp or jobs. don't give me this krona bs.

Right, and yet they still got billions from the IMF. They spent it in a classical Keynesian way, propping up consumer spending.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/kfqlcwsnidql/rss2/

the facts are the u.s. kept zombie banks alive, the same way the japanese did. and neither had any measurable recovery. iceland allowed its banks to fail, jailing bankers who committed fraud, and they are having a measurable recovery.

so if you want to continue to come up with excuses why this all happened, go ahead, i guess we won't agree on this. but for your own sake don't be a sheep that believes every single thing the media tells you. the banks own both the media and obama.

"About the appointments, the Justice Dept. says that they agree with the White House on the legality of them and any challenges to them will not stand in court."

The Justice Department run by Obama appointees like Eric Holder? Of course they would agree with the president. They're a part of his administration.

As a non american , i wont say anything about Obama yes or no. But i do want to make a point about the Iceland bank comments.

The Iceland banks didnt got a bailout from the Iceland Goverment. But they did maid sure the Iceland customers of the banks got paid first, and the huge amount of foreign customers got non from them. But a lot of goverments from other nations did gave them back all the money from there account till 100.000 euro's. And the reason for that solution instead of an big bailout plan was the small size of the bank. If it would have been a big bank, there would have been a bailout plan as you can see from Fortis and Dexia.

The Justice department issued a paper providing the legal justification for President Obama to make the appointments. That paper concluded that although the Senate was conducting pro forma sessions, the fact remained that the Senators were not in towm and not available for advice and consent. Special instructions on other matters supports this idea as items will not be addressed until the Senate returns from recess. The paper also concluded that pro forma sessions were simply rules and that the Senate could not by rule unilaterally prevent the President from exercising his authority to make temporary appointments by declaring itself in session when, in practice, it is not available to provide advice and consent, any more than the President could make a recess appointment when the Senate was in practice available to do so.  

The Justice Department agreed with him. Big surprise. But the Justice Department is not the Judicial Branch. They are the lawyers for the president, not the Judges of the Supreme Court.

I'll bet my five pennies that the appointments stand if challenged in court.

I'll take that bet.

Deal.

"Invictus doesn't know what he's talking about."

The Quotable Putin33.

Hahaha.

Look, everyone knows Romney/Santorum is a non-starter. This election is already over. Hate on Obama all day, fine. I won't stop you. Politicians are easy to hate.

But this is real world where we don't get to have good politicians. We just get to try to make sure we don't have the *worst* politicians.

Rick Santorum is one of the worst politicians I can name right now.

Well, American politicians anyway.