I'm disconcerted that our democratic president -bragged- about his economic policies making him a Republican.

I think that gives Obama the moral advantage no matter what he happens to say on the campaign trail. As MADdem pointed out on another thread, to mistake vote-pandering for reality is a willful blindness.

Before EW went into politics & got involved in 1995, she voted for both sides depending. She was independent. And she NEVER said she voted for Reagan or Bush. Never. No one knows except for her. And if she did, maybe that's what has motivated her to jump in & make changes & not just b*tch about it on political forums....

And now she's older, much wiser & is a real Democrat. Unlike the guy in the oval office. He said it.

That's centrism. Obama didn't say anything close to that. He said in an interview on FOX news that some policy or other was more conservative than Nixon's, and Nixon did after all hire Moynihan, who rolled out a modified work-fare program known as negative income tax, for reasons I can only speculate on. But Obama was scoring a point on a TV show, not making an actual policy.

it's a politician being political

Every time he makes some reassuring remark to some Chamber of Commerce soirée the haters act like he's selling the freakin' country down the river. Well he hasn't in six years, and he's had every opportunity, so you'd think they'd get the picture by now.

and, in so doing, also showed how unhinged his critics on the left can be.

Sid

from the Reaganomics bullshit she supported. She was a Republican. They are an anti choice, anti gay, racist Party. The economic policies she says she was attracted to in that Party were destructive to the middle class, unions and the poor, not to mention the years of neglect and inaction in the face of AIDS, a stupid policy that was produced by hate and bigotry.
The idea that Republicans had good economic policy prior to 1995 is absurd. I reject that premise entirely.

many others currently in office.

http://www.warren.senate.gov/?p=sponsored_legislation

After watching the reaction to that one single man who died of Ebola in the US, I started reflecting on the early days of the AIDS crisis and how the Republican Party and most of America did not care at all while thousands and thousands died. One guy, two nurses, the end of the world. Thousands dead, let's vote for Reagan again, because of the markets.
Whatever. She won't talk about it because she is the same socially conservative person she always was, and she'd trade lives and civil rights for a few dollars like she always has in her Republican past. That's what I think. She could persuade me otherwise. But so far she does not bother and is very dismissive of the entire subject. She was anti gay and anti choice because the markets were making her rich. Whatever.

The ebola coverage also further prompted me to recall the early Aids crisis, didn't realize this was doing it at first. Pain as we lost dear little brother NYC Oct. 1992. He was joyous, bright, and brave. And an artist, activist, founder of national gay mag. Worked with the best doctors and recd. treatment in France. I'm more conscious of ugly RR and others delay now and how his life could have been different. A film I saw on Basquiat in Sept. also was significant reminder of him, '80s NY. Sorry to disturb.

why people go into bankruptcy. Her preconceptions, that middle class people fail and have to declare bankruptcy because they don't want to work, etc. -- the very preconceptions that cause so many people to vote Republican like "they" are just lazy -- were wrong, and her research showed her they were wrong.

So there is a very good reason why Elizabeth Warren switched from the Republican to the Democratic Party. Se was raised a Republican. Her brother was a Republican. But she educated herself about economic issues and realized that the Republican meme that we have an even playing field and people can "make it" if they try was false, that in fact many people are left out and do not have a fair, fighting chance in our economy.

Read her book and then if you don't like her, please state what you disagree with her about. But there are many on DU who diss Warren about her Republican background without understanding that she became a Democrat not because she was born one but because she learned that the Republican alternative is wrong. I think her background as a Republican will make her a stronger candidate.

Remember. Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater Republican.

I can tell you that my parents were Democrats and I was raised a Democrat. I'm happy that Elizabeth Warren has seen the light and become a Democrat. I hope she can inspire lots of people to vote Democratic and leave the Republican Party.

see how vile the group is she was supporting. People wake up and see the corruption. You nailed it on the history and the repugs were total pigs(and still are) on how they handled things. Over 25,000 young men died before Reagan uttered the word AIDS publicly. He could have stopped the carnage so much sooner.

And Obama comparing himself to republicans in Nixon's day? Nixon wanted national healthcare. LOL, a very different era.
The years Warren was a card carrying republican- well, her piss poor judgement is an issue for me.

Granted, he did it kicking and screaming, but he was really the nation's first "environmental" president. Earth Day, and all that, came to the fore on his watch.

I think people can and do change. Warren was a registered Republican in PA as late as 1996. She has thought about her attitudes and positions and changed them--as people do. She's not as liberal as people think she is, but she's got the backs of middle class and working class people -- and so long as she advocates for that sector, she's OK with me.

Linc Chaffee, who came from a GOP family going back generations, finally saw the light and made the transition away from his historical roots, as well. He's probably, in many ways, more liberal than Warren, but it took him longer (owing to his famous father and the family heritage, no doubt) to walk away.

As for Obama, he'll get his credit in the history books even if internet gadflies refuse to acknowledge his profound influence. He has been a fine president, he's navigated minefields with aplomb that his own countrymen--the opposition party, specifically--have viciously put in his way, and he's made some serious changes to the American scene with the ACA and immigration and repeal of DADT and expansion of equality at the federal level. People who carp and crab about him will have very different memories of their attitudes as time passes and his influence begins to be appreciated. There will come a day when some of his most unkind detractors here will be claiming that they were always with him.

I was born into a family of FDR Democrats. Some people are not as lucky as I was. Hillary Clinton is a good example. She was a Goldwater Republican when she was young.

If you read Elizabeth Warren's book, you will understand that she was like so many Republicans, a person whose interests were represented by the Democratic Party but who did not understand the extent to which the Republicans are two-faced, reciting great slogans and working against the interests of ordinary working people.

Elizabeth Warren's childhood, education and background should have made her entire family Democrats.

Unlike Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren's parents were working people, not business owners.

In her book, A Fighting Chance, Elizabeth Warren explains why and how she became a Democrat. She is trusted by the leadership in the Democratic Party because her research on economic issues as they affect the middle class is so solid and so in tune with the philosophy of the Democratic Party.

Social and economic issues cannot be separated. Behind every social issue there are economic issues.

Remember the slogan that got Bill Clinton elected? "It's the economy, stupid."

No insult meant to you. I you weren't active in politics in the 1990s, the "stupid" is Bill Clinton's choice of word, not mine.

idea what Obama has Accomplished while in WH. Like you have to tear him down to build up EW because she use to be republican.

I admire Elizabeth Warren and I say so what she use to be a republican?.. people can change. I feel the same about Charlie Crist.

In Defense of Obama

The Nobel Prize-winning economist, once one of the president’s most notable critics, on why Obama is a historic success

end snip//

Am I damning with faint praise? Not at all. This is what a successful presidency looks like. No president gets to do everything his supporters expected him to. FDR left behind a reformed nation, but one in which the wealthy retained a lot of power and privilege. On the other side, for all his anti-government rhetoric, Reagan left the core institutions of the New Deal and the Great Society in place. I don't care about the fact that Obama hasn't lived up to the golden dreams of 2008, and I care even less about his approval rating. I do care that he has, when all is said and done, achieved a lot. That is, as Joe Biden didn't quite say, a big deal.

The Rest of Paul Krugman's analysis of the Obama Presidency So Far..
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/in-defense-of-obama-20141008

You can't make this stuff up.

and it's not of a republican president. Do republicans support Gay Marriage, a Woman's Right to choose, Obama's Supreme Court Choices?

And he's just talking economically.

If we look at all the civilian deaths by his drones (which btw REALLY helps the fight ag terrorists) and his NSA spying, and this Trans-Pacific Partnership of his, he's full on Rethug.

He's done good things. Sure. But you can't honestly NOT see the dichotomy of his actions with Democratic principles??

And don't try to pretend she isn't. That's how she keeps her face in the news 24/7 and it's kind of annoying.

confusing.

That's about as right as it gets. You can Colbert that all you want but she's a winger in Dem clothing and about as far "left" of Obama as Glen Greenwald:

http://thehill.com/policy/international/216559-warren-destroying-isis-should-be-our-no-1-priority

ISIS is a very dangerous movement for the world.

Have we so quickly forgotten the many wars of religion that lead to our own First Amendment's separation of church and state.

Religious fanaticism combined with violence and conquering armies is the most dangerous threat in international affairs right now.

We can differ on how to destroy ISIS, but the destroying ISIS and other similar groups of armed and dangerous religious fanatics is a # 1 priority.

We should be fighting to establish religious tolerance everywhere. That is one of the principle tenets of our democracy. ISIS is the opposite of religious tolerance.

What do you think is the No. 1 priority in terms of US foreign policy?

You need stop accusing other people of pretending when they post facts and buy yourself a fact or two. Or ten. Then come in handy when you post on a political board.

And keep hunting for a fact! I'm sure they're all over the internet, though probably rarer, even on the net than bloviating, unsupported opinions.

you should at least be specific. Because so far, despite all your smears on this thread, the only lack of credibility you've managed to expose is your own.

can continue dissecting every word.. hang on to that... we'll see who's won in 2016.

"Folks are talking about how I supposedly said how wonderful Ronald Reagan was. (Laughter) Now let me tell you what I said just in case you're getting it third-hand. (More laughter) What I said was that Ronald Reagan, back in 1980, was able to tap into the discontent of the American people and he was able to get Democrats to vote Republican. They were called Reagan Democrats. Remember that? And what I say it is that we as Democrats right now should tap into the discontent of Republicans. (Applause) I want some Obama Republicans. (More applause) I say Obamacons. (Laughter) So I didn't say I liked Ronald Reagan's policies. What I said was that it is the kind of working majority that we need to form in order to move a progressive agenda forward. (Applause)"

http://spectator.org/articles/38223/does-obama-really-admire-reagan

hadn't seen that!

because I'm 100% sure it isn't true, based on what I remember of the 80s anyway!

Or that you understand Obama's own politic better than he does?

Or, is it that you will just say anything you think might fly, no matter how ludicrous it is?

Jesus h. Christ.

That doesn't mean the source itself is lionized, it was simply convenient. Cut Cha some slack.

That post was very revealing.

It's a quote that is well known and can be found in lots of publications, and even on the internet in video form.

So what's so "revealing," pray tell?

They're both superb public servants.

You need to study your history. Before the Southern Strategy became institutionalized, Republicans were not crazed, racist hatemongers. In fact, they cast some of the key votes for Civil Rights.

They had differences with Democrats but they also had comity. That's why Elizabeth Warren could be one and still keep her humanity. By 1996, though, she'd had enough. She saw what they were, and that they weren't getting better.

It's entirely unsurprising, that comment. The liberal Linc Chaffee was a loyal Republican in the eighties, too (and for much longer, until he finally became disgusted with them).

See, what can be "made up" is an agenda. We see you.

When I knocked on doors in African-American neighborhoods, I talked to a surprising number of voters who identified as Republicans. I guess they were thinking Republicans were pro-civil rights. I never understood it. Maybe they thought that because I was white they couldn't trust me. But I think they were telling the truth.

I have guessed that they were not very political and did not realize that the Republican Party was no longer the liberal party that represented their interests.

I think a lot of people vote Republican because they don't understand just how the Republican Party's policies will hurt them.

The Republicans like to boast that MLK was a registered Republican, though that remains a bit murky, there's no real proof that he was anything, either a D or R. But it's one of those things that sounds entirely plausible because the GOP rolls were heavily populated by black Americans as a consequence of history. Lincoln was a Republican, after all, and for people who moved up from the south, it was the Democrats, not the Republicans, who stopped them from voting below the Mason Dixon. And in the north, the Republicans were champions of the abolition movement going back to the days of slavery. There's a lot of history there, and loyalty, and familial customs at play.

Many of those black "registered GOP" voters were crossing the line to the Democrats long before they bothered to change their party registration. The flight began in earnest in the sixties, but a lot of folks didn't get around to it until much later. See this piece from NPR for more background:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/07/14/331298996/why-did-black-voters-flee-the-republican-party-in-the-1960s

I agree with you that a lot of people vote GOP because they don't see the big picture. They hear BS about how the Republicans won't let anyone "take their jerbs" and how they won't let the government "take their guns" or "take their money" in taxes...they hear that nonsense from the red lipsticked, decolletaged ladies of Fauxsnooze and they take it as gospel. And of course, the GOP are a bunch of chickenhawk-cynical-tough guys, and there's a subset of people who like that "tough talk" attitude, for reasons I've never quite figured out.

...big difference.

Many on the right consider him a Muslim, does that make him a Muslim? Many consider him foreign-born, does that make him foreign-born? Etc.

He's correct, in the 1980s he could have been considered a moderate republican, just as he could have been considered a moderate DEMOCRAT!

He never SAID that he was a Republican, he never "said it....on video".

I wonder why the Republicans don't skewer her so much for being a "closet Democrat" the way so many here are obsessed for skewering Warren for her past record with the Republicans? Bachmann was more of a Democrat in those days than I was, when I voted for John Anderson when he ran as an independent.

We need to study what each politician stands for today and what they are working to achieve and measure them on issues not "identities". That is another reason I support Warren if we have a nomination battle with Hillary Clinton. Then since both of them are women, it will be less focused on one of them being a woman, but what stances they take and how they stand on issues as a Democrat should. Warren and the 99% of us will win those battles then.

Can I eat it? Will it keep me warm on cold nights? Will it prevent me from being foreclosed upon?

Politicians are not the end, they are merely the means to an end.

There have several federal programs, including Hope for Homeowners, Making Homes Affordable, and the Mortgage Relief Plan, in various annual incarnations:

The Obama Mortgage Relief Plan In 2013 , Best Beneficial Program For All Under Water Homeowners
http://patch.com/california/fairoaks-carmichael/the-obama-mortgage-relief-plan-in-2013--best-beneficial-program-for-all-under-water-homeowners_77194038

The Obama Mortgage.
There has been a lot of press on what many people call the Obama Mortgage. But what IS an Obama Mortgage and who is eligible?
In early 2009, the Obama administration announced a program called Making Home Affordable. This program is expected to help nine million homeowners keep their homes and avoid foreclosure through refinancing and modified loans designed to lower monthly mortgage payments.

The Obama mortgage is not part of the Hope for Homeowners program started in 2008. Making Home Affordable does offer hope for homeowners in need of mortgage rescue, but there are specific conditions for the program. Do you wish to apply for refinancing under Making Home Affordable?

http://www.fha.com/obama_mortgage


Making Home Affordable
An official program of the Departments of the Treasury & Housing and Urban Development
http://www.makinghomeaffordable.gov/pages/default.aspx

I'm aware of those programs, but I don't see where 'moral advantage' comes in.

So I told you how it will.

Not how 'moral advantage' will.

Nor why you assume Elizabeth Warren wouldn't be in agreement with those same policy items, since she doesn't have 'moral advantage'.

Helping people keep their homes is one of those goals and the federal legislation shows that he supports it. Warren on the other hand has a long history or voting for the party that takes people's homes. So Obama has the moral advantage.

What did okaying the second half of TARP show? What did appointing a Republican head of the NY Fed as his first Secretary of Treasury show, or re-appointing Bush's Ben Bernanke as head of the Fed. Sorry, dude, but the Jamie Dimons of the world got one hell of a lot more from this administration than those whose whose homes were foreclosed on, often illegally.

Maybe you can sell your story to people who don't know any of the facts.

And we have been sold it constantly for years, and they still think it works.

board bullied and banned and cowed into silence or nothing buy mealy mouth while they stuck together and worked together. Reminds me of the Emperor's New Clothes. The con men worked together and cowed the majority of the population.

To a great extent we still do, but at least many of us is now speak up for ourselves and occasionally for each other. your post is one of the latter instances--and I thank you for it.

And you are welcome.

I won't fake one , but if I see something I agree with, I'll speak up.

Too many good people, people who posted facts, sans personal insults, and really knew their stuff have been driven off or swarmed into a ban. People who posted here years before I did Some of my faves. And the board is poorer--and more boring-- while those who insult the left without having to bother themselves about posting anything substantive abound. Enough is enough. Our folks were wrong. Ignoring bullies doesn't make them go away. It only makes them worse and more bold.

I have been here from the beginning and seen it.
Some of our best posters are no longer here...they just got tired of it.

And I have been through long sub threads like you have on this one, and they can swarm and run you around in circles and try to make you mad enough to say something they can alert on...I don't think you will fall for it but some do.

But there are still some great people here, and as long as they can take it I will stay.

Still, they will hide me for nothing if they are on the jury. Two jurors--or was it three--explained their hide vote on my last hide by saying I should have used the sarcasm emote--so they knew it was only sarcasm--and a third said the alert was a good thing because I should get that everyone doesn't think the same way I do. So, the vote was based on my political posts and not because of the post alerted on. (As if all the abuse I get daily on the board hasn't been a clue that not one everyone thinks the way I do. Besides, since when is being a juror a license to throw anonymous digs at a poster, instead of commenting on the post content?) If that kind of shit isn't board bullying, I don't know what is.

The post? I said elementary school children had a hell of a nerve taking it easy every day at the expense of taxpayers, when they should be job creators. I honestly thought about adding a sarcasm emote and decided it would be too insulting to the intelligence of DU.

One or two poor souls actually did not get it was sarcasm and I cannot be mad a them. However, that one or two was not enough for a hide. The ones who knew full well it was sarcasm gave me the hide--and not because of that post but because of my political positions in other posts.

So, I get it.

I think they see it as a game to play, see if you can misinterpret things and get a hide.
Or provoke someone to angry response.
They want to lay a mind field and have you step on one.

But hang in there...they expose themselves when they do it.

Me: Saying otherwise would violate the TOS.

Questioner: Oh, don't worry. You won't get banned for it.

I've had that one at least half a dozen times. I am not saying it was a trap every time. I am saying why do I have to give a loyalty oath two years before a primary--and before she even announces? And why does no one ever ask, "But will you vote for Sanders if he is the nominee? Or Warren? and if you did ask, don't expect a straight yes or no answer, either. You'll just get "That's never going to happen."

I am close to packing it in her for tonight because I still have some stuff to do and I am on East Coast time. Thanks for the interchanges though.

Have a good night.

Warren has, in all her interactions with the public as an official, whether appointed or elected, worked for 'Democratic goals'. While what she did in the past is not completely irrelevant, it's incredibly minor in terms of actual impact on American lives. She voted for people. And unless one or more of those people won office by exactly one vote, her votes really didn't actually changed ANYTHING. So whoop de frigging do. Her votes (and her words) now in Congress matter a hell of a lot more than how she voted decades ago. So her 'long history' of voting for Republicans doesn't matter to me, or many folks like me, even if somehow it matters so much to you.

And my original point, which I was too oblique in making was that your proclaimed 'moral advantage' is important to you, and maybe some tiny fraction of a percent of potential voters, but isn't going to matter to virtually anyone else. They're going to look at what she's doing NOW, not what she did 20-40 years ago, when Republicans were less insane than today.

on national TV after his re-election.

Besides, if anyone thinks any candidate for national office is not engaged in "vote pandering," I hope they pm me soon about buying a bridge. The one between Boston and Charlestown is a real beaut and nowhere near as old as dem decaying NY bridges.

He should know where his own political positions fall, even better than you apparently think you do.

As Hillary very famously said in 2008, when asked if she, too, thought Obama was actually a secret Muslim, "I take him at his word."

So, I think you post about saying just about anything on the internet describes itself a lot better than it describes any of my posts, which tend to be more factual than ad hom.

Please tell me you know better.

You can go ad hom as much as you want, Dude It only makes it worse for your heroes because it shows you got nothing else.

now too.

Obama says he'd be seen as moderate Republican in 1980s
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/272957-obama-says-his-economic-policies-so-mainstream-hed-be-seen-as-moderate-republican-in-1980s

And the same for Hillary.

got me. Big Deal he said he would be considered a repub in the 80s.. especially on some issues. Do repubs support Gay Marriage, A Woman's Right to Choose.. ? The Supreme Court Justices Obama Nominated?

Krugman's analysis is not of a republican president..

In Defense of Obama

The Nobel Prize-winning economist, once one of the president’s most notable critics, on why Obama is a historic success

end snip//

Am I damning with faint praise? Not at all. This is what a successful presidency looks like. No president gets to do everything his supporters expected him to. FDR left behind a reformed nation, but one in which the wealthy retained a lot of power and privilege. On the other side, for all his anti-government rhetoric, Reagan left the core institutions of the New Deal and the Great Society in place. I don't care about the fact that Obama hasn't lived up to the golden dreams of 2008, and I care even less about his approval rating. I do care that he has, when all is said and done, achieved a lot. That is, as Joe Biden didn't quite say, a big deal.

The Rest of Paul Krugman's analysis of the Obama Presidency So Far..
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/in-defense-of-obama-20141008

Neither is blaming me for what Hillary said.

There is a difference between those two, Cha. I can't recall a time when I attacked anyone personally for supporting Obama, unless they attacked me personally. If someone is going to attack me personally for posting facts, they should be prepared for more facts and, yes, maybe for a personal comment, too.

You, of all people, should know that. You are a strong supporter of Obama and I have never quarreled with you personally because you post facts and never tried to make it about me personally. To the contrary, I enjoy your posts.

As for the Krugman, Krugman can say what he wants about Obama's politics, but Obama said what Obama said about Obama's own politics. You have a right to quote Krugman on Obama's politics and I have as much right to quote Obama on Obama's politics.

What statement of fact did I make that you claim is pretense and why do you claim the statement is false? And what in hell does a Fox show have to do with your claim that my posts today are pretense?

If you can't prove it, the only thing you prove is your own false nature, not mine. As it is, you've proven that you think your only strong suit is ad hom because you've got nothing else. Or if you have anything of substance at all, you've been great at keeping it secret. Long on personal opinions and ad hom, desperately short on everything else, like facts.

Not that it matters with regard to your false claim that I am pretending, but your Reply 4 refers only to a post of MADem's. It says nothing about a Fox show.

him a republican.

Anyway, I'm tired of all of this.. I wish President Obama the best going forward these last two years.

both he and Hillary put Reagan, the Republican President of the 1980s, on their respective lists of best Presidents ever. I don't care if people claim Warren was a Reaganite. She may well have been. She was a Republican, we know that. But let's not pretend no one else was, or that every other Democrat is so very different from Reagan. I only wish they were more different.

to be a republican.

Hillary quit sooner. Maybe Elizabeth would have quit sooner too if she had fallen in love with Bill Clinton.) What I do care about is whether they are going to be Democrats if either of them ever sit behind the desk in the Oval Office.

That would be . . . un-American.




You're arguing with idiots, you know that, don'tcha?

Presidents ever."

With that quote, Cha, it is BEYOND apparent that you are talking with someone that is either clueless or is deliberately not telling the truth. How anyone can read:

I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/16/obama-compares-himself-to_n_81835.html

Reagan..

"Folks are talking about how I supposedly said how wonderful Ronald Reagan was. (Laughter) Now let me tell you what I said just in case you're getting it third-hand. (More laughter) What I said was that Ronald Reagan, back in 1980, was able to tap into the discontent of the American people and he was able to get Democrats to vote Republican. They were called Reagan Democrats. Remember that? And what I say it is that we as Democrats right now should tap into the discontent of Republicans. (Applause) I want some Obama Republicans. (More applause) I say Obamacons. (Laughter) So I didn't say I liked Ronald Reagan's policies. What I said was that it is the kind of working majority that we need to form in order to move a progressive agenda forward. (Applause)"

http://spectator.org/articles/38223/does-obama-really-admire-reagan

Mahalo for the link, 23..

what Pres.Obama said. You of all people, being an enlightened Liberal (supposedly) should be smart enough, and decent enough to know and make the distinction of what Pres.Obama said on that interview. To claim that Pres.Obama considers himself a Republican is a fucking disingenuous and really a lame desperate attempt from the fanatical fans of Sen.Warren.

Get a freaking clue, she will never be the next President of this country. She will be mercilessly pummeled from her past and most recent affiliation with the Republican party and it's destructive policies, that have wrought sufferings and bringer of inequalities to the many people of the U.S. It does show to me though, that Liberals are can be just easily misled as the conservatives. Pres.Obama has done what is the best for the country, not what is the best for his party; for that, I have a greatest appreciation of his presidency and his legacy will be remembered favorably in the history books, as a strong Democratic President.

If you can prove otherwise, go ahead. If not, don't lie about it.

Never claimed to be a liberal either, just a traditional Democrat.

And your implication that quoting something Obama said on national TV during an interview for which he was prepared means I am a less than decent person sucks scissors, as does most of your post. It doesn't even merit this much of a response

BTW, read my sig line. After all, it is my sig line precisely because the fact free leap to conclusions when I try to inject actual factual info into a post, rather than limiting myself solely to fact free judgments and ad homs, strange and unacceptable as facts may seem to some DUers.

on purpose. That was explained way upthread.