"distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers"

[WashingtonBay]

"We're not gonna be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers." (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/27/6542440-on-birth-certificate-obama-derides-carnival-barkers)

Oh Mr. President... it's too late for that. That's all we care about any more...

Important stuff bores us.


Political forums are all in a tiz this morning.... FR has declared it a fake of course, DU has declared the birthers racists.

And that settles it. Anyone hear how Charlie Sheen is doing? I'm bored... :popcorn:

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Heh... in a country where a thing called "Snookie" can inexplicably attain celebrity status... clearly no low, is too low.

Of course, nothing will dissuade the birthers. Now they're so emotionally invested in the conspiracy there is no proof that could ever be good enough. I really hate to see people get all twisted up on bizarre conspiracies. It really does damage a person after a while. Eventually it just consumes them.

[Remali]

Sounds like some Repub politicians have too much time on their hands if all they want to investigate is birth certificates.... :rolleyes: Maybe they should check out McCain's birth certificate, I hear he was born in Panama... Our politicians, hard at work as usual....

What is poor Donald Trump going to talk about now?!

[WashingtonBay]

The fuel behind this has never been politicians... it's been the "blogosphere", where conspiracy theories are born and grow and morph.

To their credit, most politicians and most news agencies ignored and suppressed it as looney rumor. Until this last week. They lost their better judgment because of Trump.

Gotta give credit to Obama's speech writer... Carnival barker is a perfect word for it.

Believe me, the birthers are not fans of McCain.

[gabhainn]

What is poor Donald Trump going to talk about now?!
whatever he wants apparently;), seriously tho the sideshow statement didnt bother me as much as the "making our grandchildren proud", yeah they are going to be wayyy proud to inherit the debt that he wants to give them.................Kevin

[Tiz]

I found the President's remarks and tone condescending and dismissive. The birther issue is of his making remember. My question was always "Why doesn't he just release the document? The issue would disappear.".

Until Donald Trump started talking about this, just about the only people I heard discussing it were on MSNBC, or in the White House. It's been a useful tool for both to paint conservatives as wacky, and for that matter, a useful distraction from what was really happening at any given time.

Don't include me in the us you think are bored by important things. There are plenty of people who are paying attention, and you can thank them for the big, new freshman class in the House of Representatives.

[WashingtonBay]

I found the President's remarks and tone condescending and dismissive.

He's always condescending and dismissive. This is probably the first time it was actually appropriate ;)


The birther issue is of his making remember. My question was always "Why doesn't he just release the document? The issue would disappear.".

We'll see if it disappears. Apparently whether the media drops it depends on what Trump says next. I know it's not disappearing any time soon from the internet dialogue. It's just morphing into something else.


Me, I just think people are funny. :)

[Tiz]

Sounds like some Repub politicians have too much time on their hands if all they want to investigate is birth certificates.... :rolleyes: Maybe they should check out McCain's birth certificate, I hear he was born in Panama... Our politicians, hard at work as usual....

What is poor Donald Trump going to talk about now?!

Democrats did make an issue of McCain's birthplace in the last election. That's why you know about it.

Donald Trump will continue to talk about what he's been talking about all the while. China, OPEC, the United States becoming the laughingstock of the world for it's weakness. That kind of thing.

[Tiz]

Just a couple of thoughts.

The birther issue actually was started by the Hillary Clinton campaign, and was kept alive by Obama and the MSM.

And, while Obama dismissed the issue, and the people asking about it, and called it "distracting" from the important issues of our time, when he finished his statement on the subject, he flew to Chicago to do the Oprah show, and then had a few fundraisers to attend.

So...anyway, so much for those pressing problems.

[natisha]

I think he'll use the release of the certificate to his advantage. The next time those that disagree with him or point out why something he proposes is out of line all he has to say is "Remember the birth certificate, they were wrong about that too"
Good chance to make his nay sayers seem far fetched. Great political timing on his part.
I would think he would have had to show that BC to someone before he got his current job.
I like that Trump has a mouth no one can stop.

[mare]

My friends and family who supported Obama, after he got the nomination HATE to be reminded it was a Hilary thing. Makes me laugh.

I'm more concerned that too many voters in the U.S. watch the popular media, believe what they hear, get wrapped up in celebreties/politicians, and do no research on their own before voting.

[Remali]

The debt "he" wants to give them? Really? As I recall we had enormous debt with Pres Bush as well.... it all started before Obama came along. ;)

[mare]

The debt our country is saddled with started 50+ years ago. And, IMO, we're all guilty of slopping at the trough.

[gabhainn]

I was actually referring to Obama's 1.3 trillion dollar debt last year..........Kevin

[natisha]

I was actually referring to Obama's 1.3 trillion dollar debt last year..........KevinIsn't that about 4 x what Bush left us with? 4 more x in 2 years. Obama (;))raised the dept ceiling 3 times already, it has only been raised 10 times & he's trying to do it again. It has to stop somewhere.

After almost 3 years it's time to stop blaming it all on Bush. There's a new driver in the seat now.

[Remali]

True mare, the debt started a long time ago, and it's stupid to think only one person/president is responsible.

[mare]

True mare, the debt started a long time ago, and it's stupid to think only one person/president is responsible.

Yes. But to be fair, it's like the country had a cold - even a cold with a sinus infection. And now we suddenly have pneumonia!

He (Obama) has been a doozy of a spender!

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

True mare, the debt started a long time ago, and it's stupid to think only one person/president is responsible.

Actually... the term is deficit. Debt is the long-term borrowing done by the government. The deficit is the annual shortfall of the budget. Yes, the deficit contributes to the accumulated debt, but it's still a little bit different animal.

We have FDR to thank for deficit spending. Before that, other than wartime, the U.S. tended to live within its means.

But Obama has done his deficit spending on a scale that no previous President or Congress has ever contemplated. Bush had gotten the deficit down to a mere 350 billion, from over 500 when he took office. We were well on the way to a balanced budget in only a couple of years, when everything blew up with Fannie and Freddie.

Obama took that deficit and ballooned it up to 1.3 Trillion. That ALL him. He can't put that on anybody else. And he did it for no good reason.

[Remali]

Debt... deficit... I've heard them use both terms.... I'm just referring to the previous posters and keeping with their terminology, wanna keep the flow going, ya know, lol.

At any rate, the country has been in a mess for a good long time now, it's never going to change.

[natisha]

Debt is easier to type.

[Remali]

LOL, yes, debt is far easier to type... :)

[natisha]

Debt... deficit... I've heard them use both terms.... I'm just referring to the previous posters and keeping with their terminology.

At any rate, the country has been in a mess for a good long time now, it's never going to change.It could change for the better, it's not hopeless yet.

[Remali]

I hope it does.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

[...] it's never going to change.

It better. If we don't get ahead of it soon... we're looking at a total collapse.

One of the biggest underreported stories lately has been the talk just last week at Standard & Poors about a possible downgrade in the U.S. bond rating. U.S. treasury bonds have always, always, been AAA quality. That is... they're the safest thing out there. But a 1.3T deficit, and no end in sight to just off-the-charts spending... and a Treasury that's just printing money like it's going out of style... you can't do that stuff forever. In fact, you can't even do it for very long.

A downgrade in U.S. debt instruments would be catastrophic. Any loss of confidence at this point would have a cascading series of bad effects... ending ultimately in it suddenly becoming very hard for the Congress and the President to borrow any more money. If they can't borrow more money... then the checks stop coming.

When the checks stop coming the zombies come out.

[mare]

The bond rating and losing the U.S. dollar as the default global currency... Most people have no idea what that would do to our daily lives, and I'm sure my understanding is only fundamental. But, those two things... I don't want to see.

[FredRock]

What is poor Donald Trump going to talk about now?!

Now he apparently wants Obama to release his elementary school records and other academic records, because there is no way that a "bad student" can go to Harvard. :rolleyes:

I honestly thought the Trump thing was a joke because I heard about it on The Daily Show and Comedy Central's Roast, but then I realized he was serious.

[Remali]

Either way, Trump IS a joke. It's hard to respect a guy who comes up with such nonsense, Trump looks like a buffoon now.

But, then, back when Clinton was elected the far right did the same thing to him back then too, they're all just trying to discredit the pres.

[WashingtonBay]

Either way, Trump IS a joke. It's hard to respect a guy who comes up with such nonsense, Trump looks like a buffoon now.

But, then, back when Clinton was elected the far right did the same thing to him back then too, they're all just trying to discredit the pres.

uhhhh..... we're not the ones who soiled Clinton's dirty laundry. ;) He did that hisself :p

I can agree on Trump, especially after the press conference yesterday, rolling up in his helicopter like he's still trying to impress his high school class with how much of a big shot he is. Small man.


But this kind of investigative work is done on any candidate. More now than ever, but that's because we have more tools than ever and more outlet for sharing. Double edged sword. Every detail of Bush's past was gone over too, which makes it no special treatment at all that people would like to find Obama's transcripts. It's strange they've stayed undercover this long.

Grist for the mill... or the carnival barkers... :popcorn:

[natisha]

Maybe Obama(;)) is hoping some will see Trump as a man who gets things done & want him to run for Prez. That way Obama(;)) is sure to win. We'll have to see if the media starts talking Trump up, like they did McCain.
I don't know anyone, on the left or right, who believed he was not born in the USA. Polls showed most people didn't believe it either but some more were saying no but maybe.
Obama ( ;)) could have prevented all this a long time ago. Why didn't he?

Trump is not conservative.

[Tiz]

You can't deny that the people who wanted to see his birth certificate were depicted as knuckle dragging hillbillies, just as the TEA party people were. I didn't see anyone in the mainstream press ask the White House why Obama didn't just provide it, until Trump got involved. I don't have a problem giving him credit for it finally being settled.

I read an interesting new theory that asked what if Trump and the White House were in cohoots, but I can't remember what the cohoots was supposed to produce. Oh well...

No, Trump isn't a conservative, I don't believe. He's been rich so long, I worry he would have a different attitude about spending money than what the country needs right now.

[WashingtonBay]

I won't deny that's how they were portrayed.

And I tried to read what they were saying on many occasions. All these supposed differences between the long form birth cert. and the short form. and a lot of other stuff that was just made up and repeated till everyone believed it was true, they'd heard it so many times.

IMHO, Obama released his birth certificate... released what everyone else would have thought passed as a birth certificate, the 'short form'... a long long time ago. I think he probably thought he'd done his part.

It's not 'settled'. The birthers are starting a whole new batch of untruths they are repeating... untruths that move the goal posts... now, it's still not the long long long form that would have footprints... where's that one???? Do they even know if Hawaii did footprints on a BC? Not all do? Doesn't matter... they want the baby footprints. They say the name on the hospital is wrong (it's not) that the document was created in photoshop because it has layers. I looked into that. It has layers because photoshop is a smart program that recognizes text in documents, and layers them when you open it. No matter what question gets answered, they just move on to new ones. I spent all day yesterday reading... with my traditionally open mind ;) wondering if they'd come up with anything credible. And much of what they say sounds credible, it all sounds suspicious.... suspicious enough to get passed around. Even though it's not true.

Doesn't matter which side they're on... that's the behavior of nutty conspiracy theorists... it's diseased thinking.

[Tiz]

I just can't slog through much of the spew I read on comments pages, and such, so I'm willfully somewhat uninformed on the number of people still being critical of the document.

The left has certainly found it's angle on this story though, and viola, more of the same! Racist! Racist! Racist! How dare anyone question Barack Obama! You are a racist for doing so!

He's the President. He is not the King. He is accountable to the American people.

[WashingtonBay]

Oh I agree with you on that.

[Remali]

uhhhh..... we're not the ones who soiled Clinton's dirty laundry. ;) He did that hisself :p

I can agree on Trump, especially after the press conference yesterday, rolling up in his helicopter like he's still trying to impress his high school class with how much of a big shot he is. Small man.


But this kind of investigative work is done on any candidate. More now than ever, but that's because we have more tools than ever and more outlet for sharing. Double edged sword. Every detail of Bush's past was gone over too, which makes it no special treatment at all that people would like to find Obama's transcripts. It's strange they've stayed undercover this long.

Grist for the mill... or the carnival barkers... :popcorn:

Actually I was referring to the time BEFORE Clinton got his knickers in trouble with "that woman".... I was talking about what happened before all that even occured. ;)

As for Trump, who knows about him.... he seems to just say anything that flies into his head at the time.... He actually was the one who said he was a Conservative.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Well... with Clinton the press was acquainted early on with the "bimbo eruptions". But they didn't care. They liked him. He played a saxophone on a late-night show. That's all they needed to know.

Bush... they gave him a rectal exam of all his records going back to gradeschool. His high school transcripts, his Harvard transcripts, endless re-runs of his decades-old DUI. And Lord knows... all those records in the Air National Guard (excepting the fakes that Dan Rather put out, ending his career).

Obama... was the most un-researched President in my memory. The press really fell down on the job. He was totally un-vetted. Nobody got curious about his college records (still sealed). Nobody got curious about his activities in Chicago with his socialist buddies. Nobody got curious about his birth certificate, before the election. There was a priceless moment when Brokaw was talking after the election returns came in... Obama had been elected, and Brokaw says: "We actually know so little about this man. What does he believe in? What are his favorite books? What his favorite movies? There's just so much we don't know..."

I could only sit slackjawed at such an admission.

[Tiz]

What are his favorite movies?

I've never heard that Brokaw quote. I'm speechless.

[FlapJack]

.
Okay, my curiousity is bad enough I have to actually post in this area of the forum :p. Why do you put a ;) every time you write Obama? I must have missed it if you already said the reason.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

[...]Why do you put a ;) every time you write Obama? I must have missed it if you already said the reason.

Well... who wouldn't?

:)

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

I would follow up my own post above by saying that, in fact, I really don't care about Obama's transcripts from his college years. Nobody's college transcripts really matter. Least of all, mine... but in the real world, how you did in college is simply irrelevant. I honestly don't care if he were a "C" student or an "A" student.

[Tiz]

His grades are a curiosity only because we've been led to believe that Obama is BRILLIANT, yet he makes such unbrilliant remarks. 57 states? Corpse men? Iran doesn't represent a problem to us because of it's tiny defense budget? You begin to wonder if he's nothing more than a cardboard cut out.

[mare]

I wouldn't like Obama even if we were twins.

I've heard that some want his college records because of the possibility that he attended on a Fullbright scholarship, which is for non-citizens. That kind of follows the birther thinking. I would have a problem with it if he cheated/lied to get that.

On this racist nonsense, Herman Cain, whom I like quite a bit, who is conservative, is a successful business man, and (I found out yesterday when I was near a TV) is black, said he gets called, "Racist" by some when he disagrees with Obama. What an easy out for Obama's supporters. No thinking required.

Trump is no conservative.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

I think Trump ended his campaign today. Comedians with late-nite cable shows can be vulgar, but Presidents should not be. Ronald Reagan did not say "Mister Gorbachev, tear down this M__F__ing wall..." There is a deportment and class that should be present in the Oval Office. This is not it.

That... and I fundamentally disagree with his whole point. Taxes on imported goods are just taxes on Americans. It's the ~buyer~ that pays the tax, nimrod. If the only way to make American shirts competitive with Chinese shirts is to artifiically raise the price of Chinese shirts... then we've got no bidness being in the shirt bidness.

[WashingtonBay]

I didn't hear what he said today... We were away from news all day and we've been watching the wedding stuff since we got home.

[Tiz]

A couple of f-bombs, with a mother f-bomb thrown in for good measure, while making a speech in Las Vegas.

What the...? I have no idea.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

I didn't hear what he said today... We were away from news all day and we've been watching the wedding stuff since we got home.

Yah... it was a speech to some group in Las Vegas. He was F'n this and F'n that and MF'n chinese...

That, and I fundamentally disagree with the core of his speech, which was just pure protectionism. I don't do protectionism.

[WashingtonBay]

Aw geeze... Agreed.

On edit... did some searching around and found it.


I hope we get a real candidate soon.

[Remali]

I saw Trump's foul-mouthed rant on TV last night.... geez, he sure has lost all credibility now (if he ever had any), he looks like a total fool (as compared to a borderline fool before). I think he's lost his mind, lol. I also saw that one company pulled their ad from his TV show.

[WashingtonBay]

Oh - don't say that! If you say bad things about him, you'll just make us have to like him ;) :D

He hasn't lost his mind... he's just promoting Trump. I think that's all he ever had a chance at achieving in the first place...

[Tiz]

I know he likes being a tough New Yorker, and all. He does get things done. It's still surprising that he would do the potty mouth in public that way. Bad form.

[natisha]

Okay, my curiousity is bad enough I have to actually post in this area of the forum :p. Why do you put a ;) every time you write Obama? I must have missed it if you already said the reason.I do that out of respect for JackieB so he won't have to wince when I use something more colorful in referring to Obama(;)).
The ;) also helps me to not wince so much.
You should come here more often, it's not so scary.

[cowgirlup@idaho]

You begin to wonder if he's nothing more than a cardboard cut out.

:rolleyes: :p :hysterical:

[FlapJack]

I do that out of respect for JackieB so he won't have to wince when I use something more colorful in referring to Obama(;)).
The ;) also helps me to not wince so much.
You should come here more often, it's not so scary.
Haha okay, just had to ask :)