Hillary Clinton Leads In 2016 New Hampshire Presidential Primary Poll

61% of Dems in NH are still good with dynastic - nay aristocratic - ruling classes. Can only hope that rampant foolishness dissipates before the next election.



I simply can't fathom another Clinton vs. Bush (Jeb, this time) presidential election because it's the most glaring demonstration of our complete lack of understanding regarding what 30 years of wealth and power concentration has done to our nation.



It's like seeing a Marcos on the ballot in the Philippines or Putin in Russia - only somehow we think we're different in the USA... it's not! Our system is every bit the joke that these third-world nations are.



The ruling class is firmly entrenched in DC. We keep sending them back, election after election - and then we rage at the inability of progress or change for the 99%. (And no, Obama imported all the Clinton and Sachs cronies into his gang and kept on a number of Bush holdovers, so claiming the current President is an 'outsider' or more credible is a farce.)



Keep sending the same crew of shills - expect the same or worse misery. Simple as that.
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A Meaner (or Nicer) Obama Won't Change a Stubborn GOP

Yes. Of course. Got your point. Things are so great... obviously the answer is to keep doing it all the same way.



He could have taken a set of plans to Congress to help fix the economy and then focus his energy on battling its detractors while campaigning for Dems against republicans in midterms. Name the obstructionist names.... embarrass them, harass them. Nothing will get done - nothing IS getting done - but at least candidates will get a better chance of picking off republicans while the public gets a perspective/vision on the economy that differs from WSJ.



Instead, we get preached at about how we just have to deal with bus tire tracks on our backs because it's the way it is. We get a President singing from the republican hymnal who attacks social security. The only reason it's the way it is is because this President hasn't the stomach for a fight. He's not a leader, he's a negotiator - and undeserving of your blind adulation.
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Boston Bomber Suspects Had Attended Cambridge Mosque, Officials Say (UPDATE)

Clearly, you are terrified - filled with fear and dread and hate. It's a sickness. You have so much more in common with the terrorists - like McVeigh, Unabomber, the Boston Marathon bombers - than with anyone else.



You rage against "them" as if you know anything about anyone.



You are "them."
About Boston Marathon Bombing
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Confessions of a Twisted Gun Grabber

Your analysis suggests that fevered advocates of non-regulation of all things gun-related are basically terrified of the world and even other people in general. They are scared to the maximum that hoards of poor (dark-skinned?) people are plotting to invade their homes, assault and devour their pets, and savagely murder everyone. And their guns are the ONLY thing standing between that certain end and peaceful existence.



That [slightly exaggerated] depiction passes as reasoned logic.... not at all paranoid.



And I'm still waiting for someone to show me one single instance where a person who didn't break the law has had their lawfully-acquired gun seized by any governing body in the US - even though I hear over and over that, 'Obama's taking our guns!'



Rational and not in the least a demonstration of a deluded outlook.



I know people who like to go out to the range and squeeze off a few rounds at targets. They're not the people raging against the apparently scary concept of more pervasive background checks - it's the people you're describing with their panic rooms, secret ammo stashes, and bunkers.



That all said, I don't know where the background checks are being conducted and approvals/denials decided - but I think they should be done at the state level, not federal.
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Background Check Vote Set Even As Outlook Grows Dire

Your mental instability is conclusively demonstrated when your delusional and paranoid accusations (your first sentence) spill out.



The people laughing the hardest are the gun and ammo makers. Laughing at all your hard-earned money going into purchases to help prevent something with the equivalent likelihood of an invasion of Martian commandos.



They're laughing at YOU and your customers, not me. Because they know no one has any interest in taking your collection of phallyc-compensation devices (they won't say as much to you, though.... they're selling and aren't going to say anything to dampen your irrational but high enthusiasm...). Laughing. All the way to the bank.
About Joe Manchin
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Background Check Vote Set Even As Outlook Grows Dire

I don't care how bleak any vote is. I'm SICK of this grotesque practice where legislation is discarded before voting on it as if there's some sort of award for career bill approval average for the leaders in House and Senate. It's all a disgusting play to avoid accountability and avoid answering to your constituents on your RECORD - no votes, no record.



Bring the darn bill(s) to the floor and force everyone to cast a vote. Dodging these critical debates and ditching legislation is, as much as I hate ever using the phrase, anti-American. It's c0w@rdly. Stand up and be counted in DC. Reid, stop being a foil (or a complicit tool, whichever is most accurate) for these gamers.
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Why This Is the Worst Recovery on Record

The point of the first question was for you to name the specific places where they can get a better tax deal than here and live with the same safety and security while paying domestic help the same sub-poverty wages. The fact that you can't name any is the answer, though. There is no better deal around - unless you want to move to a 3rd world country and hire your own personal army and medical staff to relocate.



As far as your answer on the second one, I'm impressed. I'm rarely surprised by your crew's ability to be completely logic-averse in the course of showing your blind worship of your true lord and savior - the rich.



One minute you tell us how bad people are who don't work and take handouts. Then the next minute, someone who doesn't work (won't work, really) and has done nothing but live off of someone else's efforts for 50 years not only deserves a life of luxury, but "EARNED" it. It wasn't luck of birth - it was "earned."



Nonsense. All of your teenage flak is nonsense.



The rich have gotten rich due to many things - most include the protections and services made possible by this country and its tax-payers. They need to put their money into the economy in ways that contributes to the greater good (not donating money for a stadium to some private college) or their idle cash should be taxed. That's the deal. Now go finish homework.
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President Obama -- Dancing With Himself

The clinton family's DLC and xmas card list is a who's who of power-brokering economic predators who are no better (if not worse) than those behind the bush family and currently hoarding all our nation's wealth. Their greed and depravity has led to the loss of millions of US jobs, lower wages, worker abuses in foreign lands, loss of millions of US homes, and an immeasurable amount of misery. The 90s may have felt like good times for a while, but any objective, postmortem observation of the facts can't ignore the long-term impacts.



Against that backdrop of deep-seated anguish - and please don't take this as anything against you personally - the Benghazi event ranks in my book as a shrugging, 'yeah, so?'



I don't mean to sound coarse, but 3 lives in the balance of the devastation that NAFTA and, moreso, Glass-Steagall's repeal have wrought aren't anywhere near the same damage strata.



Next year when Jeb Bush comes out officially as a candidate for President and HRC does the same thing, don't you think we've hit the same banana republic status as so many other nations with their entrenched, profiteering aristocracies at which we've been taught to snicker and deride?
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President Obama -- Dancing With Himself

Three choices available to extend the Trust Fund's fully-funded status from beyond 2035:



1.) Wait until closer to 2035 to do something about it based on the economics of that time.

2.) Remove or increase the ceiling on FICA taxation.

3.) Do nothing and the retirees in 2036 won't have any increase in their payments.

4.) Start screwingover the retirees now.



Adjustments MAY NEED to be made - but certainly DO NOT need to be made right NOW - period.



I cried for joy on election night, 2008. Now I'm embarrassed about that and I can't wait until 2016 when we can finally get rid of this useless paper tiger.
About Budget Cuts
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Bi-Partisanship We Don't Need: The President Offers to Cut Social Security and Republicans Agree

"The Constituion took form with "compromise"..."



We're not re-writing the Constitution. We're trying to IMPROVE the nation. You do NOT improve things by making them worse. I simply can't understand how people can love this man of meager accomplishment so much as to buy into the "we have to destroy the village in order to save it" logic that he's bringing to the public. When dubya used that logic, everyone howled. When Obama uses it, 'well, sacrifices have to be made; it's only fair...'



Nonsense.



By the way, you do realize that Social Security doesn't (except for the 2 years when Obama used the trick of lowering FICA rates with the proviso that General Fund money would be used to make up the difference...) effect the budget deficit AT ALL, right??? And you realize it was Obama who created the simpson-bowles catfood commission, full-well knowing that the 'bipartisan' duo was going to attack Social Security - a program with zero impact on the federal budget, right?



How many kicks to the head does one need to see what's going on here?



You may not be my enemy, but please stop contending that your willingness to lie down on the railroad tracks is helping anyone. The Colonists' enemy in the late 1700s wasn't England, it was England's oppressive aristocracy - it's corporations. Being agreeable didn't bring about the separation.
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Bi-Partisanship We Don't Need: The President Offers to Cut Social Security and Republicans Agree

Your ancestor surely didn't live on his (I assume "his") own and was indeed blessed with amazing longevity. But I hope you will reflect on how someone who was ready to die than to give in to the oppression of the colonists at the hands of the British Crown would feel about his kin Tavon who shrugs his shoulders in the face of the same sort of abuse from aristocratic thugs in 2013. He made sacrifices so that his family would have a chance at a brighter future... your words seem to imply an indifference and resignation with which I suspect he'd be less than satisfied.
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Bi-Partisanship We Don't Need: The President Offers to Cut Social Security and Republicans Agree

How about I propose a compromise to you: I'll agree if with your contention that Obama is doing everything well - and in return, you drink a cup of drain0. Sound about fair? Of course not - but THAT is the type of "compromise" we're talking about here. Republican policy is poison and Obama's legacy of refusing to accept any of it would be vastly superior to his legacy of taking it.



Compromising like this accomplishes the republican's REAL goal - destroying the social fabric (SS, Medicare, Unemployment, worker's rights) of this society. They believe that only them and their rich friends deserve anything nicer than a painful death.



They DON'T CARE about President Obama - which is where you've unfortunately veered off the tracks. It could be Obama, Kerry, Clinton, Frank, X, etc. The specific person is irrelevant and their personal story has no place - the nation and it's future is what matters. They want everything from everyone [else].



You think the foxes are after your silverware and linens, but while you're worrying about those things, you're losing all your chickens.
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Bi-Partisanship We Don't Need: The President Offers to Cut Social Security and Republicans Agree

You missed the drops by ronnie raygun from 70% to 50% in 1982 and from 50% to 28% in 1986. Then Clinton boosted it to 39.5% before dubya dropped it again.



So the time to measure the impacts is from early 80s reagan years - where we saw deficits skyrocket and the birth of "smash-and-grab," "winner takes all" economics dramatically transfer wealth primarily from the bottom 99% of the population to the top 1%.



The other comments describe the general impact pretty well.
About Barack Obama
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Bi-Partisanship We Don't Need: The President Offers to Cut Social Security and Republicans Agree

YOU are exactly what the establishment wants. Someone from whom they can take, take again, and then take some more - and be dispassionate about it.



There is nothing broken in Social Security. Changing things now to hammer those who are coming in behind you isn't going to do much other than engender more poverty. If you haven't noticed, over the last 30 years, the pocketbooks of the 95% have become lighter while those at the top of grown to riches never seen since before you were born. Education costs skyrocket. Healthcare costs skyrocket. And when the 95%, with no money to invest in retirement, will have far less than you when they are 70. THESE are the problems at hand that MUST be dealt with, but you encourage this mal- and non-feasance by giving them a pass.



Compromise is a twoway street - if it's only one, like it is for the republicans, then it's NOT "compromise," it's "extortion." So no, it's NOT supposed to be "that way" when you elect a President and the other party are heretical madmen.



A President is supposed to LEAD. They are supposed to set the agenda and fight for that agenda. This President hasn't any courage in him because there is no promise, no policy, no group of people that matters enough for him to stage a true, honest policy debate. He LOVES closed-door meetings and "deals". This President is just terrible - but he's exactly what the powers that be want.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Budget Proposal Cuts Are 'Unconscionable,' Says AFL-CIO

(continued)



1. Obama makes a proposal that throws x million defenseless people under the bus as sacrificial offerings to the republicans.

2. The republicans rage against the inadequacy of the sacrifice.

3. Obama volunteers to throw another x million defenseless people into the volcano.

4. The republicans announce things are getting closer.

5. Obama finds another x million to set on fire.

6. The vast majority of the Dems in Congress dutifully vote for mess, stressing the silver linings and ignoring the bad impacts (it's apparently wrong to point it out when the emperor has no clothes). If a couple republicans go along, the Dem assault on the defenseless to the benefit of the 1% turns the page and starts the process all over again.



Place your bets... I bet no loopholes end up closed and chained CPI ends up in the 'final deal'.
About Barack Obama
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Obama Budget Proposal Cuts Are 'Unconscionable,' Says AFL-CIO

And who would have thought that this "trial balloon" would get such negative treatment?! No one could have guessed - so therefore, we need a trial balloon.... maybe a few people will get in a little huff.



Come on - get real. This is the man who bargained his way out of 100% assurance of expiration of tax cuts for the rich which he could have followed up with a proposal to cut taxes for the middle class. Instead, to get a tax cut for the middle class, it cost permanent exemption to federal estate tax for the massively wealthy and the permanence of tax loopholes for the rich.



So here's the process because it seems you've missed out on how things are getting done in DC:
About Barack Obama
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Obama: Proposed Budget Not His 'Ideal Plan'

Breezing thru the comments and I'm stunned that it appears the President has finally jumped the shark so badly that even his most ardent, blindly loyal cheerleader chorus has finally sunk into their chairs; in enough despair and confusion that they can't become motivated to clack out the standard, "republicans are forcing him...," "you can't get everything...," or "you have to build in small steps..." blahblah while telling people like me that I don't understand how the "game" works... Obama is a genius at it.



The faithful tell me I must wait - Obama's brilliance will be revealed on some blessed day and then progressive policies will descend from heaven.



Then the faithful see something like this (""It's a compromise I'm willing to accept in order to move beyond a cycle of short-term, crisis-driven decision-making, and focus on growing our economy and our middle class...,"") and they perhaps begin to realize how [opposite of genius] the man really is. Clearly, none of these policies addresses the crisis.



Maybe the faithful are finally seeing that Obama really has no vision nor values. Say one thing, do another.



The crisis is 30 years of redistribution of wealth from middle class and poor to the rich which has gutted the economy's ability to function. As we 99% know, pounding the middle class more in order to get republicans to accept deals only perpetuates the crisis - every "compromise" does more harm than good.
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Keystone XL: Obama the Pragmatist

One man's "pragmatist" is another man's back-stabbing, sellout.



I guess the President's beautiful daughters won't have to ever worry about the things that 95% of us have to deal with these days. Maybe if they did, the President's "pragmatism" would be less exercised.
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The Rising American Electorate: Sinking Together

We need a candidate for President in 2016 who doesn't hesitate to fight the status quo and who isn't one of the entrenched elite ruling class whose very existence screams status quo (i.e. Bushes and Clintons). Sadly, the party chose to genuflect to the current drum major for the status quo marching band and with every advanced item on the agenda, we take several steps backward on others.



To me, any candidate who can't publicly state in the most stark, honest, and glaring terms that the problem with the economy is the last 30 years of wealth transfer from the poor and middle class to the rich - isn't qualified for the job in Congress or White House. I'm thankful for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Alan Grayson, and their ilk. But we need many more - and certainly someone with their courage in the White House - to get anywhere.
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