The Town Hall Debate Thread...for comment

The above comments--I will not dignify them as "analysis"--are becoming more and more typical of President Obama's acolytes, and of the left in general.

They cannot simply debate the issues in a dignified and respectful manner.

Rather, they must set forth charges of "trickery," or--as some on the left have asserted, following the October 3 presidential debate--of one's "lying."

For those who cannot recognize the difference between a mere opponent and a genuine enemy, it would probably be useless for me to waste my time...

 

Obama did not claim the 5 trillion would come from tax cuts to the rich. He stated that Romney's 20% accross the board tax rate cut would cost 5 trillion dollars. Then he asked how Romney would make up that 5 trillion in lost revenue. Romney's plan to make up the 5 trillion by eliminating deductions for the rich is what is not mathematically possible.

He didn't say we've created 5.2 million jobs since he took office. He said "Now, we've seen 30 consecutive -- 31 consecutive months of job growth; 5.2 million new jobs created"

Read the transcripts from the debate.

Of couse the net change since he took office is a different number...his first year was negatively affected by the massive job losses that were occurring when he took office. That carried over into his first year.

 

One thing I found frustrating about last night's debate was how - because of political realities - they never really got to the real issues. Gun control comes up and no one brings up the drug war. Gas prices come up and everyone focuses on domestic production (which has no impact on the price at the pump) rather than the environment.

The biggest craw in my bonnet is on IP Law and China. Romney touched on it when he brought up the "Fake Mac Store" that he's magically going to close (okay, buddy!). Here's the issue as I see it, and I thought about it today when reading this interview with the VP of Dupont Chemical in the FP today: LINK .

Money quote:
"I started visiting Chinese universities 20 years ago and there wasn’t anything going on that had any commercial potential. I go back to some of those same universities today and I see enormous strides that they’ve made today. They have great faculty, many of whom were trained in western universities and who understand science and are capable of developing it."

One of the reason why China has become so much more capable in the R&D department over the past 2 decades is (obviously) the cheap labour, and cheap capital. But an under-rated reason is that their lax IP laws help promote aggregate productivity and innovation. In contrast, for Western companies (like Apple), most of them spend more on patent lawyers than they do on R&D at this point. It's bad news for the West, and rather than just posturing about China's copyright violations, I'd have been interested in a substantive discussion about IP law reform. Obviously the focus groups would've gotten lost though so yeah, we didn't get any of that...

 

I saw a good portion of the debate, and although I don't support either candidate, I can say with honesty, Romney wiped the floor with Obama. All Obama did was deflect and dodge and promote his "4more years". Romney was actually tackling the questions head on and answering the question, not talking around it lie Obama was doing. I can see clear now, Obama was not ready for the job of President the first time around, and he sure as hell ain't ready to take on 4 more years of ridicule. He might need to bow out and not show up to the 3rd debate.

 

Also, did anybody notice Aliester Crowley's granddaughter Candy Crowley was the Moderator?


wake up sheep! th

 

Yuk, yuk. You are somewhat lonesome in your viewpoint sir. It is pretty much accepted by all, partisan hacks notwithstanding, that Obama wiped the floor with Romney last night. I assume you have either heard the news and are in denial or that you slept late and haven't had the chance to catch up on today's news.

 

There was no floor wiping. Both did well and I only had three big issues here.

1. The moderator screwed up on the libya thing and that; no matter the truth, makes Romney look bad.
2. Romney never answered the question of women's wages.
3. Obama is clueless about how the Average fuel economy on vehicles is compounded.

 

That's not what I saw.

Judging by Obama's body language and the constant looking at his shoes, proved he was defeated and had nothing to fight with. He just took punches all night, just with a smile so you Obamabots would feel good.

I hate to say it but if Obama wins 4 more years, I will eat my hat.

 

[video=youtube;v7s4a424OAc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7s4a424OAc&feature=relmfu[/video]

.........................

 

Are you kidding me? The whackos have been calling me a liberal since I debunked their theory that the common cold was caused by anti-gun advocates. LOL!

 

Only the liberal media would agree with you and people here don't so that's a lie.

 

See, you just proved that this dispute about the word "terrorism" is just a political game by the right. In the debate Romney was not claiming that Obama didn't call it "a terrorist attack". He was claiming that Obama didn't say "act of terror" (Romney's phrasing). In fact, Romney said it three times:

ROMNEY: I — I think interesting the president just said something which — which is that on the day after the attack he went into the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror.

OBAMA: That’s what I said.

ROMNEY: You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack, it was an act of terror.

It was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you’re saying?

OBAMA: Please proceed governor.

ROMNEY: I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.


See, when Obama says "act of terror", the right freaks out and says "act of terror" and "terrorism" are COMPLETELY different. How dare he only say "act of terror". They clearly make a distinction between the two. Yet, when Romney said "act of terror" three times last night, the Right can't even tell the difference...they immediately start claiming that Obama "did not call Libya a terrorist attack". In the debate, Obama, Romney, and Crowley all phrased it as "act of terror" (which Obama did say in the speech), yet all the Right heard in the debate was "terrorist attack". All of the sudden, they can't tell the difference between the two phrases...its as if they are interchangeable when it helps their case.

Obama also said it again on Sept 13 in a speech in Colorado, while talking about the Benghazi attack...this time with no mention of 9/11/01.

 

If Obama took the debate(personally I think it was a draw) it was only due to Crowley cutting off Romney before he could respond to the comments from Obama that were not true and because of Crowley's comment backing up the lie of Obama on what the intent was of his speech in the rose garden the day after the attack on our Embassy. After following the reports on the attack the day of the attack and following days, the media was reporting that the Administration was blaming the attack on protestors that were against the "video" most of us never heard of or saw. And for days and days I heard nothing from the Administration regarding the attack being a terrorist threat. So Romney was correct, Obama was lying and Crowley was confused and spoke before she thought.

Obama lied through his teeth on many points. I don't hear the progressives or the liberal media fact checking his statements that were outright lies or at the very least questionable. Come on. Does the media really think we are all idiots? Does anyone really believe the lies and misrepresentations told on MSNBC? At the very least Fox News attempts to provide both sides the chance to respond to issues. I can't say the same of MSNBC who is associated with General Electric, the very big corporation they should be against for not paying their share of taxes.

You cannot corrupt the thoughts of fair minded and well informed voters, no matter how hard you try. Perhaps those voters are not the ones we need to worry about. Perhaps we need to worry about the "Obama Sheeple".

 

If domestic production is increased, that automatically increases the world supply of available oil; and that, in turn, tends to decrease prices.

But even that is a tangential issue.

The principal reason for increasing domestic production of oil is not the fact that it may decrease prices at the pump; rather, it is the fact that it would help America along the path of energy independence...

 

You have very eloquently explained the suttleties involved in attempting to explain the seemingly contradictory statements made by the president, his press secretary, his Secretary of State, his ambassador to the UN, the Vice President and all the others involved in his cabinet and campaign in the weeks after the Benghazi terrorist attack. Do you think it will fly?

What we have here is at least two scandals, the Benghazigate scandal, that is a terrorist attack on our embassy that killed 4 Americans including our embassador to Libya, and the cover up of the Benghazigate scandal, that is intended to deflect blame from terrorism to an internet video.

Despite Hillary's effort to fall on the sword for obama, the buck does in fact stop on the president's desk. Hillary's fake effort to take blame without consequence (ie resignation) while at the same time placing blame at the feet of career security specialists within the state department is really a synical ploy to salvage her run for president in 2016. It is slightly less synical than obama's "Johnny come lately" buck stops here, and oh by the way, HRC is a great secretary of state even though nobody from her department told me or Joe Biden about security requests from the late ambassador to Libya, ploy to salvage his reelection bid 2012.

obama's refusal to call the Benghazi attack a terrorist attack stems from his rather synical ploy to salvage his failing presidential reelection bid. He knows the buck stops on his desk, as did all the unread requests for additional security, the unread reports of escalating violence and prior attacks on our embassy leading up to the Benghazi attack. His legislative record of absenteeism is refective of his executive record of absenteeism. The empty chair at the presidents daily National Security Briefings did nothing to prevent an attack that was absolutely preventable had that chair been filled.

Desperate to find a reason why this perfectly predictable attack blindsided the smartest president ever, obama was hard pressed to find an excuse for why it occured. Spontanious demonstrations in Egypt, which coincidentally also occured on Sept. 11th, the 11th anniversary of the al Queda terrorist attack on America, was the quickest and most plausable explaination that his crack team of campaign advisors came up with. If, with the help of their friends in the media, they could just keep the truth away from the public until election day, they might just salvage his reelection bid. But they were outed almost from the start. Yet, they continued with the strategy, day after day. So, instead of holding the ball until the time ran out, they have stumbled and fumbled the ball.

Not even "I am not a potted plant" Candy Crowley could save this president from his own lies in the debate. Not even Candy Crowley could sustain the lie that he did call Benghazi an "act of terror" as you are still attempting to maintain. My question is, why are you trying to lie to yourself about this?

Do you liberals love this president or your idiology so much that you are willing to risk everything on a failed presidency? Do you really want to reelect obama knowing that the first year of his second term will be primarily involved in investigations and congressional and possibly impeachment hearings? Do you really want to risk having another wasted two years like Bill Clinton's years fighting impeachment when he was so overwhelmed by scandal that he really failed to accomplish anything during that time? We are on the verge or in the midst of the second great depression, do you really think we should be spending our time on this garbage?

 

I am... still trying to capture what is 'scandalous' about not knowing what happened 18 hours after a terrorist attack happened. Trying to play politics is foolish and make the Romney campaign look weak and desperate. Attacks happen, the middle east/ Africa are dangerous places, dangerous things happen there.

They epically failed during the debate trying to make the President look as if he was dodging the issue. The President has been front and center on handling terrorism almost to the point of alienating his base (The drone strikes are starting to become barbaric).

I would leave this be if I were Romney. His foreign policy platform is already pretty weak as is.

 

Benghazi is a gift to Romney as no other event demonstrates both the failure of the Obama policy and the administrations instinct to cover up disaster as well.

 

Well, I would assert that it is scandalous to have sent out Susan Rice, to five Sunday talk shows--just five days after the terrorist attack--to spout The Official White House Line that the murder of four Americans, on sovereign American soil in Libya, was all the mere result of an obscure Internet video.

And one might also recall the fact that, just two days ago--during the second presidential debate--President Obama asserted that he had labeled this an act of "terror" on September 12. Although this interpretation of his words in the Rose Garden, on September 12, is rather doubtful, in my opinion--he appears to have been speaking of terrorism more broadly--since the president's acolytes prefer to insist that the context demands the interpretation offered by the president on October 16, it does seem worth inquiring: Why was Susan Rice trotted out by the administration, to dutifully parrot the line that this was all the regrettable upshot from a YouTube movie trailer?

This question has never been addressed adequately by those who would prefer less elucidation and more obfuscation...

 

It bothers conservatives that no one has any idea what they're whining about, and that no one cares to find out what they're whining about.

It's your fault, conservatives. Boy who cried wolf. You've whined so consistently about everything for the past years, America just assumes that you're making crap up again.

 

Stop spending like Obama. Repeal Obamacare.

We have a net jobs loss since he took office.

 

Obama was talking about 9/11 when he said we will not tolerate acts of terror. He did not call the Libya attack a terrorist attack until almost two weeks passed by. Several people in his Administration were still calling it a spontaneous attack motivated by a video many days after the attack.

 

At this point I'm going to have to assume you are deliberately lying about this point. In his speech about Benghazi the day after, he DID say "acts of terror" in reference to the attack. What else would he be referrencing and why would he use that phrase in a speech about that attack if he was trying to disassociate it with terrorism? Now, if you want to claim he used the exact phrasing of "act of terror" as a less specific way to not scare the public about terrorism a month before the election, then fine...but stop saying he didn't call it an "act of terror", becaue he did.

He also said it two days after, on 9/13/12 while talking about this attack:

"So what I want all of you to know is that we are going to bring those who killed our fellow Americans to justice. I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished."

 

Technically you are correct (if you count all of the month of Jan 2009). Now, if you don't use logic, you end the statement where you did. But, if you think and look at the numbers, then you see that overall there has been a net loss of 325,000 since the beginning of Jan 2009. But, since he took office on Jan 20th, 2009, only 1/3 of the Jan numbers came while he was in office, so if you give him 1/3 of the 839,000 jobs lost that month, there has really been a net gain of 235,000 since he took office. The bigger point is that all of the negative months occurred in the first 12 months of his presidency...4.5 million jobs lost in those 12 months, and over half of those were in his first 3 and 1/3 months (2.5 million lost in that period of time). Those losses were clearly a continuation economy as it was when he took office, and not legislation that he did/or could have implemented could have changed anything that quickly. So, you eliminate those first few months (which I think is still hitting Obama with some of the losses caused by the previous economic climate) and there was been a net gain of 2.8 million jobs in the last 3 and 1/2 years.

Jobs Created
Jan-09 -839,000
Feb-09 -725,000
Mar-09 -787,000
Apr-09 -802,000
May-09 -312,000
Jun-09 -426,000
Jul-09 -296,000
Aug-09 -219,000
Sep-09 -184,000
Oct-09 -232,000
Nov-09 -42,000
Dec-09 -120,000
Jan-10 -40,000
Feb-10 -27,000
Mar-10 141,000
Apr-10 193,000
May-10 84,000
Jun-10 92,000
Jul-10 92,000
Aug-10 128,000
Sep-10 115,000
Oct-10 196,000
Nov-10 134,000
Dec-10 140,000
Jan-11 119,000
Feb-11 257,000
Mar-11 261,000
Apr-11 264,000
May-11 108,000
Jun-11 102,000
Jul-11 175,000
Aug-11 52,000
Sep-11 216,000
Oct-11 139,000
Nov-11 178,000
Dec-11 234,000
Jan-12 277,000
Feb-12 254,000
Mar-12 147,000
Apr-12 85,000
May-12 116,000
Jun-12 63,000
Jul-12 163,000
Aug-12 97,000
Sep-12 104,000

That is not a fact, it's your opinion (or hope). 95% of the speech was directly about the Benghazi attack. In the middle, he said one sentence about 9/11/01, then the next sentence was about the troops. Then he went back onto Benghazi, then a few sentences later he said "no acts of terror". Again, if he was not trying to associate this attack with terrorism (as is your claim), then why associate it with another terroist attack (9/11/01), or even mention them in the same speech, or even use the words "acts of terror" in a speech about that attack? I'd love to hear you answer that. What acts do you think he was referring to?

It would be like talking about a hurricane, and then mentioning Katrina in that speech, and then going on to say "no hurricanes will break our resolve". That means you are calling the recent storm a "hurricane".

 

Sure, if you want to eliminate some bad months and tailor the equation to give you the results you want. The fact is, when you seasonally adjust the numbers, which is only fair since selling Halloween costumes for a month should not count as a real job, then there is a net loss of jobs. Even if you use your math, Obama is still way off from what he is saying.

Most rational folks aren't seeing it your way. Why did it take two weeks for the Obama Administration to admit it was a terrorist attack that was not spontaneously caused by a video? There were Obama Admin officials still talking about it being related to a video and not calling it a terrorist attack on talk shows, press conferences, etc.

 

It's not tailoring the numbers, it's just the facts of life. Job numbers in Feb 2009 have NOTHING to do with any Obama policies...that is a fact. If you want to evaluate the jobs created/lost from Obama's four year term, it would be more accurate to start a certain number of months into his term and end the same number of months after the term ends. The affects of an administration's policies carry over into the next. I promise you that if Romney wins the election, and there are bad job numbers two months after he takes office, I will not pin that on Romney.

Now you are talking about the later responses by many people in the administration. The issue we were discussing was the accusation from Romney in the debate that Obama didn't say "act of terror" the day after. He did.