one of my coworkers who is apparently a die hard fox news fan told me the deficit exploded under Obama. i told him i'm not listening, it's okay to put two wars on the credit card but gawd forbid there should be a democrat in the white house.

i really wish i could think faster on my feet. he on the other hand probably stores up these little hit and run talking points just to make my life a little bit more miserable.

it keeps me on my toes and I am able to reduce my coworkers to blubbering messes. Our Christmas party is Sunday and I've already been warned by one of them that &quot his) wife is looking forward to destroying me in a political argument." I told him I'd rather enjoy the party, but if he wants me to humiliate his wife in a group of people I suppose I can accommodate him. I won't pull punches if someone wants to ruin a party with political nonsense like that.

i get frustrated listening to bullshit on NPR.

But I try to remind myself it's basically oppo research, and boy does it pay off so well when I can successfully fend off a multitude of mendacious morons. I live in TN, so there is no shortage.

or ask "tough" questions?

occasionally they'll allow fake liberals, or liberals who cannot argue against their bs propaganda, speak with the intention of making a mockery of them. Don't believe me? I don't listen to him anymore, but Sean Hannity used to have some idiotic democrats on his radio and TV shows. He had some allegedly liberal woman who was nicknamed "Flipper" on his radio show and he would always make fun of her and remind us all that she tried to save a lobster from being eaten by grabbing it and putting it in a fresh water bathtub. He would insinuate that she was a dumb, PETA supporting, liberal because she didn't know that a lobster which lived in salt water would be killed by putting it in fresh water. Another thing they do is invite on liberals/democrats who poorly defend their points, have funny voices, or both in order to show their viewers how "dumb" democrats/liberals are. Some examples of these liberals/democrats include Susan Estrich, Bob Beckel, and Congressman Charlie Rangel -- there are many others, but these are the ones that come to mind.

to keep things stirring, and to make it entertaining. That is, the shows are phony, the "facts" are made up, and the callers are mostly, if not entirely, paid voice actors.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Limbaugh-Hannity-Parent-Co-by-Gustav-Wynn-110305-942.html

I never argue with someone who has a mute button. Sucker's game.

THis one guy got into Rush's show and had Rush stumbling and mumbling. He spent the next half hour preaching about the call.

I have been thinking about doing it. The point is to get in a factoid that will obliterate what he is saying before he can mute you. Then hang up before he can respond.

But as another poster says, if youre not quick on your feet or articulate he can use you for a pinata and make "libs" seem foolish.

but i would have felt better if i just had some handy dandy facts to throw at him.

with another co-worker who offered that "some people" are saying that the economy is in for a huge collapse, i just smiled and said, "who's saying that?" and he just walked away. i have a sneaking feeling that he was too embarrassed to admit that it was glen beck.

They believe in a lot of bullshit. You can see it in action every single day in the conservative entertainment complex. Every day there is some new scandal, or several of them, and their goal is to get some of them to stick and become their focus of obsession for that day, week, month, or year. Of the ones that stick, they'll go off and make mountains out of mole hills i.e Benghazi, Obama from Kenya, Obama not born in U.S., Obama a muslim, Obama a terrorist, Obama anti-American, Obama wants to give up U.S. sovereignty to the United Nations, etc. The people who believe in this crap are being told what they want to hear -- to them it's already the truth regardless of whether it's a fact or not i.e Romney's going to win in a land slide, Romney's ahead in all the battle ground states, the unemployment numbers were fabricated, Obama stole the election, Obama is an arab, Obama is the anti-Christ, Obama is a muslim, Obama is anti-American, Obama hates Israel, Obama wants to destroy America, Obama is a communist, etc.... You could tell them, and you'd be factually correct, that they are wrong on all of the aforementioned accusations they make, but it wouldn't matter because they already believed it to begin with and the "Conservative Entertainment Complex" is just confirming their preconceived notions.

it really hit me when romney lost and clearly people were actually surprised. they apparently spend 100% of their time in an echo chamber of lies.

has been making one hell of a lot of money doing it--for decades.

Very poignant post.

it has nothing to do with on the books or off the books. The trouble was the economy, which collapsed under Bush.

I put that fact in my journal for easy reference http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021295174

"Duh. This report appeared in the Washington Post two weeks before Obama took office. The reporter was Lori Montgomery:

MONTGOMERY (1/8/09): The nation's budget deficit will soar to an unprecedented $1.2 trillion this year, congressional budget analysts said yesterday, a startling tide of red ink that could dampen enthusiasm on Capitol Hill for some of President-elect Barack Obama's most ambitious priorities.""


I credit the Daily Howler for bringing that to my attention.

Fiscal year 2009 went from October 2008 to September 2009.

It started before Obama even won the election, and the deficit for that fiscal year was projected to be $1.2 trillion BEFORE Obama TOOK OFFICE.

That is, it had nothing to do with the stimulus, which still had not passed Congress, nor been signed into law. In fact, the stimulus was a great help, because it greatly reduced the PANIC, and it slowed the loss of jobs and shortened the recovery time.

that you could have construed as "wrong" unless you're saying that my co-worker would be just as upset under a republican administration as he is with Obama being president.

but if i was going to discuss the deficit - well when i do, i will always bring up all the wasteful spending done by the gwbush admin that i do still believe was most influential in bumping it up. not just the wars: the tax cuts, the pharma deal. etc.

to your point, if it is mostly due to the 2008 collapse, well my point is still valid. we all know who was in charge back then.

my point to him was IOKIYAR. and he calls himself a libertarian.

That seems kind of messed up.

Hence why everyone here was laughing at the teabaggers protesting taxes and spending in 2009...they were actually protesting Bush's policies, passed in 2008.

The 2009 fiscal year started in July 2008. It was more than half over when Obama was sworn in, and was already completely budgeted. It would be damn silly to assign him responsibility for it in a spending analysis.

That seems kind of messed up.

Here's a great article from Daily Kos that pretty much spells out the truth of the matter.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/02/1127055/-Which-party-is-best-for-the-economy-It-s-not-even-close

Their policies are extremely damaging to the nation, especially affecting those who are not well off, and this is for what reason? To benefit the wealthiest? To put the ideology of a few before the interests of people?

The fact that there is such a disconnect between the facts and perception, shows we need to do more to defend the reality.

It's appalling that rMoney was anywhere close to 50% in the general election. On the other hand, even with the misinformation campaign, citizens united and an entire TV station acting as a branch of the republican party, they lost.

Things are changing.

We all know Faux, but let's not forget good ol' CNBC, a full-fledged and unabashed Republican propaganda arm with more CEO guests than you can shake a Chateaubriand at.

plus voter suppression and election fraud- and still, We won.

Just remind these jerks that their hero, Dick Cheney, said deficits don't matter.

I suppose he meant that this is the case when a Republican is in the White House.

"Our Republican friends are deeply, deeply concerned, as you know, about the deficit," Sen. Bernie Sanders said, with a hint of sarcasm, during an interview Wednesday with radio host Ed Schultz. "If that's the case, you might want to ask them why it was that when Clinton left office in January 2001, before Bush took office, we had a $236 billion surplus. And what was Paul Ryan's concern about the deficit when he voted for the war in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan? He forgot to pay for it. I didn't hear any concerns about the deficit. Did you? And then he gave a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top 2 percent over 10 years - didn't worry about the deficit there. He voted for the Medicare Part D prescription drug program written by the insurance companies and the drug companies - not paid for. So I find it somewhat hypocritical that these guys like Ryan, who are so worried about the deficit now that you've got to cut Medicare... destroy Medicare, make massive cuts in Medicaid, in education, force elderly people to pay more for prescription drugs because they are so worried about the deficit. But when it came to voting for tax breaks for the rich and wars, they weren't worried about the deficit.
"I think you've got just an enormous level of hypocrisy there," Sanders said.

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9511a1c4-17a3-4b2c-b3a2-180706e1e3e7

The Republicans have never really cared about the deficit, it is used as a tool to blame Democrats with when the blame is almost all on the Republicans.

Out of that six Trillion Dollars, Obama is only responsible for one and George W. is responsible for five. Social Security is paid for through the Trust fund and pay roll taxes. Medicare is also paid for through pay roll taxes. They are both part of the budget.

The problem that Congress cites with Social Security and Medicare are from projections years away. What they are really talking about is the funding drying up years from now, basically because of the economy and the growth of benefits paid out, due to the oncoming Baby Boom retirees. This report changes from time to time based on projections about economic growth. They give three assessments that are optimistic, neutral or pessimistic.

This is not an accurate science when predicting the future of the economy or living rates. They don't account for Death rates either when they add in 41 million Baby Boomers from 1945. For, example, The Social Security Agency, paid out benefits to people that were deceased and stopped paying benefits to people that were not deceased. So there is waste in mismanagement in the system, which cost it millions of dollars. Their projection is based on 30-75 years out and how many people that they think will be working versus retired. I do not expect all baby boomers to be living 75 years from now and I do know many that have passed on since 1945. I know a lot of my friends have passed away, even some kids that died in school from accidents or violence. Even some famous ones like Michael Jackson. And if his kids are getting Social Security, I don't think they are after 18 years old? When my father died, I certainly didn't get his Social Security either and he was killed in his forties. My mother died when I was three years old, but I never saw any Social Security either. My grandmother and grandfather died in their early 60s.

they claim they're "keeping up on enemy thinking", but you can do that by reading MediaMatters. The propaganda is effective.

and it becomes fact.

Your outrage is misplaced. This is a case of a broken clock (ie., pukes) being right twice a day. Deficits have increased and it is a problem. Below is data from the Congressional Budget Office. See report at http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/01-31-2012_Outlook.pdf





I happen to agree with the President's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (often called Bowles-Simpson/Simpson-Bowles) that BOTH revenue increases and reduction in spending are necessary.

Lots of people forget that so much of the spending the R's did was so-called "emergency" spending that wasn't even counted toward the deficit. Their official deficit numbers were always much less than the actual difference between spending and revenue.

most Americans will believe it.

Of all the terrible things Clinton did, the Telecommunications Act was probably the worst.

Tax cuts for the rich and the problems brought on by deregulation of banks caused our deficits to swell. President Obama has not made that problem worse; in fact, he has attempted several times to withdraw those tax cuts (Republicans in the House stopped him) and to pass new regulations for the financial sector (Republicans in the House stopped him).

help if the Obama Administration would choose to stop the elective wars in the Middle-East.

Just because a Republican Administration started this, and Obama is a "Centrist," does not mean that he has to continue squandering money on the military-industrial complex.

Wouldn't you rather use the money to reduce homelessness and hunger in this country?

First there is the "pretty much" which indicates they may sometimes vote (R) which means conservative (of course the pretty much might mean an occasional Green, labor, or socialist too which means something very different).

Then there is the voting (D) which also doesn't mean liberal either. One could faithfully vote Democratic cycle after cycle and never vote for a single liberal.

400 billion dollars. Think about that.

He's the worst thing that ever happened to this country since WWII. I was there. Even someone like me who was not political could see how his Presidency f*cked this country royal and got us on a wrong track that has taken us decades to even begin to right. The worm is turning, though. I think this is why liberals are unapologetic and not guilty about gloating over the last election. It's OUR time again. Finally!

on edit: I don't even know how to begin to fix the grammar. My apologies. Long week, little sleep.