Presidential Election (as a current event- watch the tone or it's gone)

Mitt Romney is going to run against Obama.  Mitt has the most delegates and Obama has the most delegates.  McCain is a fluke, he won’t carry enough delegates to get into the general election.

Anyway, he IS a liberal.  He SAYS he is pro-life, but every vote has been pro-abortion.  He is pro-sunsetting the tax cuts and pro-tax hikes, based on his voting.  He supports the Fairness Doctrine (which is basically a gag order on conservative radio, but no effect on liberal television.)  He is pro-Iraq, but so is Hillary, she always has been.

Take a look at just about any vote in the Senate.  If McCain voted Yes, so did Hillary.  iF Mccain voted no, so did Hillary.  And McCain’s spent more time in Ted Kennedy’s office then any other Republican Office yet.

Sure, he wears the red name tag, he is counted as a republican during the roll calls, but he isn’t.  Not really.  He is only in name.

So far, for Illinois, the forecasts for the Republicans out of 185 possible delegates (that’s almost the most of any state, California has 441 and New York 281) have:

Huckabee: 1 Delegate
McCain: 62 Delegates
Romney: 102 Delegates

Too Close Too Call: 20 Delegates

There are 70 Delegates possible for the Democrat Side (I assume this is calculated somehow, dunno why Republicans have 185 and Democrats only 70, but who cares.)

Hillary: 33 Delegates
Obama: 33 Delegates
Edwards: 4 Delegates

No too close too call races for them.

I am not yet prepared to call a winner on the R side.

On the D side…
If Hillary is even CLOSE in SC, Hillary runs away with Super Tuesday… and gets the Nomination.

Running mate…  Most likely Bill Richardson.

Nope, she made an under the table agreement with Edwards.  He’ll be her Running Mate on the condition that he attacks Obama with her in a tag team event.

And from what I hear, Mitt may only have WON a single state, but so far he’s collected a LARGE margin of delegates to put him in the lead.

I don’t think all of the delegates currently determined are equal to just Florida’s delegates.

And on Super Tuesday, there are over 1000 delegates up for grabs.  A lead of 10 delegates now means nothing once the polls close on Super Tuesday.

Kinda the point when I said that Illinois has the third most influence on who gets the nomination in the country.

States that waited until Feb 5 are getting Bonus delegates, so there’s a HUGE shift that can take place.

However, unbiased polling shows Mitt with a significant lead over McCain with Huckabee as barely a spoiler, mostly a comical figure to break up the monotony of a two person race.

Mitt seems to have 37%
McCain seems to have 31%
Huckabee seems to have 3%

With 29% too close to call.  And with a swing of +/- 4%.

@Amon:

you just forget Guantanamo Bay

it’s rented from Cuba, Castro just don’t cash the checks. the lease ends though at some point, i can’t remember when though.

@balungaloaf:

its called the gadsen purchase amon-sul.  it was a legit deal between sovereign governments.  and they cant have it back.  secondly, texas wasn’t part of america after their war, it was its own republic.  it decided to become part of america later.  its not america’s fault for texas.  same goes for california,…it was its own republic and then became part of america.  america never took anything over, they came to america.  but we did beat down the mexicans in the war in the 1840’s however.

The Gadsden purchase had nothing to do with Texas (Arizona & New Mexico), as Switch said.

Regarding Texas & Mexico:  Texas at the time was Mexican territory, i.e., Mexico.  There had been a boundary dispute between the US & Spain/Mexico concerning the Louisiana purchase that was never quite resolved.  When Mexico gained independence, it gained Texas as well, and granted a lucky few from the US permission to settle there.

The border dispute continued, and the US Texans, which had a considerable population due to increased immigration - some granted, but much of them not - started to throw their weight around concerning Mexican policies such as slavery being banned and US immigrants being disarmed.  Eventually, the US Texans revolted and created their own republic that was neither Mexico or the US.

Really, it was mostly a land grab, and the US Texans played it smart by claiming independence at a volatile time in Mexico’s history, when other states were revolting as well.  But it isn’t very honorable as we make it out to be…

As far as the race, I wouldn’t mind voting for McCain.  I don’t agree with him on many things, but I think he is admirable compared to his comrades, and I absolutely will not have another religious wacko like Huckabee or Romney.  Please please please, republicans, I know you don’t like Clinton, but he wasn’t that bad and was only here for 8 years.  We don’t deserve Huckabee or Romney after 8 years of Bush.

McCain is as bad as Bush, yes they have diffrent policies in diffrent areas like McCain is better on war, but worse on deffence (he is unwilling to do the tough interigation even if to prevent more terrorist activities in US), Bush likes his big government, McCain hates it. Bush likes tax cuts, McCain is against them. both talk the tough game on the boarder and illegal immigration but both support Amnisty for thouse already hear (there is proff from government reports that arn’t realy talked about by the media that posible terrorist are crossing the boarders via Mexico).
i see them both as having the same effect on our nation, i admit i supported McCain in 2000 untell he lost the nomination then i switched to Bush and supported Bush again in 2004, but these last few years have shown how wrong Bush was, and also shows that McCain is also IMHO the wrong man for the job.
as much as i hate to admit it, Jen may be right (from a conservative view point) that a demacrat would be better for the job then McCain as having two left leaning Republicans in a row will hurt the Republican party so bad that it won’t recover for some time and drasticly slow the R parties return to conservative views.

I’ve never been a big McCain Supporter.  But I think some of those statements are misaligned.  How can yo upossibly expect a man that was held in a torturous Prison camp to defend or condone torture.  I for one think he probably has a beter perspective on that issue than most people in this country.

I don’t agree with amnesty, but amnesty is NOT lack of border security.  A big part of the bill that McCain tried to push through last year included craking down on border security.

i know he was a POW, i don’t hold that against him, i respect him for it accually. what i have a problem with is that he is un willing to do tough interigation on terrorist (or atleast those with ties) to prevent more attacks on Amarican citizens. i’m no fan of tourture, but we are on hard times and he is un willing to use all in our power to fight the war on that front with in the guidelines of the law. it is his Achilies heal on the subject. the terorist are not protected under the Ganiva convention or by US law, so why extend that to them unless they extend it back to us… something they have shown time and time again that they have no intrest in doing.

amnisty is a lack of boarder sucurity as history has shown. in the early 1980’s under Regin there was Amnasty given to illigal immigrants and laws put into place to strengthen the boarder. guess what half didn’t go through… boarder strenghtning. this is the exact same thing being pushed now, and he is a part of that push.

@Pervavita:

McCain is as bad as Bush, yes they have diffrent policies in diffrent areas like McCain is better on war, but worse on deffence (he is unwilling to do the tough interigation even if to prevent more terrorist activities in US), Bush likes his big government, McCain hates it. Bush likes tax cuts, McCain is against them. both talk the tough game on the boarder and illegal immigration but both support Amnisty for thouse already hear (there is proff from government reports that arn’t realy talked about by the media that posible terrorist are crossing the boarders via Mexico).
i see them both as having the same effect on our nation, i admit i supported McCain in 2000 untell he lost the nomination then i switched to Bush and supported Bush again in 2004, but these last few years have shown how wrong Bush was, and also shows that McCain is also IMHO the wrong man for the job.
as much as i hate to admit it, Jen may be right (from a conservative view point) that a demacrat would be better for the job then McCain as having two left leaning Republicans in a row will hurt the Republican party so bad that it won’t recover for some time and drasticly slow the R parties return to conservative views.

Well, I think McCain has similar positions as Bush, but for different (and wiser) reasons.

The torture thing…it has been shown time and time again that you can not rely on claims derived from torture.  Every once in a while you may get a solid lead, but way more often than not it is bogus info.  Hey may have personal vendetta against this anyway, but either way his stance is the one that is most correct.
I don’t agree with his pro-aggression stance, but I think he might use the military more wisely and when necessary. 
Like DF says with Amnesty, it’s not just amnesty they are going for.  It’s completely unwise to try and ship out all illegals.  It would cost way too much, would impact our economy quite a bit, and the benefit is really not much.  You have to stop the bleeding first, and accept what has happened already can’t be reversed in any realistic sense.  I want to say McCain takes this position being from a border state and seeing it up close, but I think Bush may have the backing of Big Business or something for his standing on it.  Maybe not.

i didn’t say tourture was right, i just said that he is so against it that he won’t allow methouds that have already been proven to work that are not just “asking”.

it’s the deffence of thouse in favor of amnasty that say thouse against it are for out right deportation. i’m not, it is too much work and far to expesive. as Jen said a long time ago in this thread, you hit the buisnesses with heavy fines that you raid. you make it so undesireable to hire them that the illegals will stop comming and also go home as the buisness owners can save money by hiring legal workers. $2,000-$3,000 a mounth in fines per illegal worker will make them fire them, it also brings income to the government to pay for the increase in INS workers (ya i just said bigger government, but there are other areas like the IRS that i’m all for getting cut way down or going all together). you don’t have to go door to door to stop the illegal immigration, you just have to hit buissness in it’s wallet to make them stop, the the money drys up for the illegals and they go home.

@Pervavita:

@Amon:

you just forget Guantanamo Bay

it’s rented from Cuba, Castro just don’t cash the checks. the lease ends though at some point, i can’t remember when though.

Never, actually.  It is not leased.  It is American soil.  We got it as payment for freeing Cuba from Spain.

ugh,

first here’s his abortion voting record, so jen’s wrong statements can be corrected.  he’s always been against abortion.

http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=53270

the RECORD shows it.  If this gets personal the thread will be locked or deleted.df

second, McCain isnt for AMNESTY.  he wanted to secure the border IMMEDIATELY, and then for illegals already here, instead of doing the impossible and sending hit squads to find every illegal and send them home, to give them the chance of citizenship, ……at the back of the line.  and he never said to stop deporting illegals.

about torture, i’d disagree, as a history major,  there as been ample proof throughout time that torture works.  doesnt mean we should do it all the time, but it works.  when you try to break up a ring…say of freedom fighters, the soviets, germans, english, romans, greeks, just everyone if they caught someone would torture them enough to tell the truth.

and you should read the zebra conncection.  its all about cold war era interrogation techniques and how they are so effective.  works all the time.   havent you seen the colin ferrel movie with al pacino.  as the CIA instructor, he tells the recruits to never get caught, b/c you will always talk and give the correct information to the other people.  even if it takes months straight.

that is amnasty (a rose by any other name is still just as sweet/in this case your callin BS by another name and saying it don’t stink), you are giving them what they want after they broke the law. you are telling them that it’s ok to break this law because if you just fess up now then it’s all ok we will let it slide… same thing that was done in the early 80’s. it didn’t fix the problem one bit, it just said to thouse out side the US that it’s ok they don’t realy like that law, they will forgive and forget about it again.

McCain sponsored the dream act, which was amnesty.

It’s only THIS year he’s changed his stance.

And, for the record, it is NOT impossible to get the illegals out of this nation.

A)  Raid companies known to have large numbers of illegals working there.  Don’t give me that goofjuice you don’t know, because Immigration and Naturalization Services does know, they purposely avoid raiding those companies for political reasons.

B)  Let it be known that the full and complete assets of any board member of a company that purposely employs an illegal alien will be seized by the state and that those board members will be sentenced to no less then 7 years in jail, during which, they will work FOR the state in the effort to build a wall along the southern border.

C)  Require valid US Identification to open bank accounts, to attend schools, to get medical treatment outside of medical services to save life, limb or eye-sight.

D)  Watch the illegals export themselves.

This should be followed up by unrestricting the immigration quotas.  If you speak English fluently, you can pass a Constitution Test and Inter-Pol and the American Intelligence/Law Enforcement Agencies do not have a criminal record for you, and you are able bodied, then you can immigrate.  I don’t care WHAT nation you came from.

You want jobs to come back to the United States?  That’s easy enough to do as well.    All wages of employees who are US Citizens and working more then 90% of the time in the United States of America will be tax exempt at the corporate level.

Bingo, you can either pay millions of dollars + taxes, or you can pay millions of dollars tax free.

You want everyone to be covered with medical insurance?  Well, you can get darn close (because some will still opt OUT of insurance, even if you make it free) by just gathering the CEOs of all the major insurance carriers, getting them to set up a price tree and then passing legislation making it illegal for companies to provide any portion, or the total cost of insurance.

This will effectively put ALL citizens into a huge group plan and spread the risk over a huge population reducing the cost to the insurance companies and thus, reducing the premiums that need to be paid.

Stimulus package?!?!?  WTH.  Okay, if $800 per person is a good stimulus package, then maybe we should give each American Citizen over the age of 24 $1,000,000.  That’d be a friggin AWESOME stimulus package!  You could pay off your house, your car, your credit cards, your student loans, EVERYTHING!

Heck, you could limit it to individuals earning less then $65,000 or families earning less then $120,000 annually, just so it’s limited to the poor and middle classes.

Think of it!  Everyone’s a millionaire, there is no more poor!!!  Aren’t I just the best humanitarian in the world!  See, I care about the poor, minorities and women - who are always hardest hit!

Of course, maybe the best stimulus package is to do nothing, let the economy correct itself, tighten our belts, open up restrictions on energy companies so they can get more supply and thus lower the prices, let the banks go under (citizens are insured by FDIC anyway) so that only the strong banks survive, and basically let social darwinism restore order to the tumultuous world that President Bush inherited and Nancy Pelosi’s Congress inflamed.

After a couple rocky years, things will normalize.  It happened in 1987 when we left well enough alone.  It can happen in 2007.

Remember, Government is the Cause of, not the Solution too; all of life’s problems.  If you get rid of government, you get rid of life’s problems.

Quote used to highlight thoughts only.

hear i was sugesting such a more nice (but still effective) plan for the illigal immigratoin problem.
Jen is so nice, she wants to give me 1 Million Dollers. because i deserve that rich guys money  :-P

i think for the jobs thing, all you got to do is set up tarrifs for internatonal trade, this will drive the prices up as high or higher then products made in the US. also get rid of NAFTA, how can any US labor compair in price to mexican labor when they just got to truck it over the boarder for free. shoot because of NAFTA the shiping industry has gone south. countries ship goods to Mexico to unload (because mexican labor is cheaper then Californian labor just 30 miles away) and then truck the goods north tax free and wala our ports are less active and Mexico’s are more active and it saves money for the companies. this is relativly new, thats why shipping hasn’t shiftend a lot yet, but it is starting to, i think as of 2006 the ports in LA have lost 10-15% of there buisness from pre NAFTA.

ok, i agree that with completely ravaging any employer that hires illegals.  many would go away on their own.  but a lot would stay, and i’m sure crime would go up b/c of that.  that policy would have to be responsible for any raised crime rates.

also, it would really hurt the economy.  so we are stuck, thats the perfect word, stuck in a lose lose situation.

and we really cant get that draconian rounding people up to leave.  we could, if it comes down to the nitty gritty and its essential.  but man would that make us look like monsters.

i’m for, and mcCains for, ratcheting up our immigration task forces to find more illegals and deport them.  he’s still down for deportation.

and i’m for that to.  and find any one that has stolen a SS# from someone and ship 'em back.  but we have to be logical and go about this with reason.  not fervor.  its a shitty situation indeed.  the wall needs to go up now.

and for cutting corporate taxes.  The US have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world at 36%.  WTF!!! damn democrats and their silly  rage against corporations policy.  they had to know that companies would ship jobs oversees with that policy.  so maybe people have to rely on the government more……how sinister.    jen, thats why you need to still vote republican, or abstain, but not vote democratic.  their policies kill america.

Democrats believe that if they raise taxes, people will just work harder to make more money and make up for it.
Republicans believe that if they give tax breaks, people will spend more which will give companies more which means they can grow and pay more and hire more.

That’s the fundamental difference on fiscal policies.

As for McCain’s program, I have two major problems with it.

1)  It increases the size of government.  Government is the cause of all of life’s problems, so making it bigger and more powerful would just increase the number and scope of all of life’s problems.

2)  It’s a bad PR move to forcefully arrest and detain and export illegals.  It’s much better to make life so hard on illegals they decide to leave on their own.  It’s what the Mexican Government’s been doing and why we have this problem in the first place.  If we just arrest our own guys for committing felonies, and seize their assets to sell at auction, we get others not to commit those felonies and we can use the profits from the arrests to fund the government, it wins on both a foreign perspective in that we are not kicking out poor, hungry, hard working men and tearing apart families, like if we deported them - and we are persecuting the rich which makes the poor feel better.  Win/win.  And it’s completely funded with the seizures, so it does not require tax dollars.  And, since it requires less manpower and over head to arrest the board of directors (like what, 3-12 people?) then it does the illegals (like what, 5 million people?) it does not expand the size of government and thus, does not make more problems for life.

The trick is to look for ways to solve problems with using less money, less government agents and less government size.  The smaller the government, the freer the corporate world, the better for capitalism and Americans.

As for corporate taxes:

[(Average Pay for an American in America to do the job) - (Wages paid for foreigners to do the job)] *0.95 = taxes owed on payroll.

So if you would normally have to pay $10.00/hr for an American to do the job, but you hire someone to do it in China for $0.50/hr then you owe:  $10.00-$0.50 = $9.50 * the tax rate 95% = $9.03/hr.  You still save $0.47/hr by hiring foreigners to do the job, but the People of the United States get that money back to fund government and to fill the unemployment security and social security coffers.

or, you could just hire Americans.  Your choice.

@Cmdr:

@Pervavita:

@Amon:

you just forget Guantanamo Bay

it’s rented from Cuba, Castro just don’t cash the checks. the lease ends though at some point, i can’t remember when though.

Never, actually.  It is not leased.  It is American soil.  We got it as payment for freeing Cuba from Spain.

so US soil it is you say