Obama: Rutherford B. Hayes Did Not Like Telephones

Let’s have a little mid-Lenten fun at the expense of His Excellency Obama, the Most-Exalted.

Can you imagine what would have happened had a Republican president said something this stupid?

See more ads here.

See also:

Obama Mangles U.S., World History In Energy Speech

Providence Journal Article On Rutherford B. Hayes And The Telephone, June 29, 1877

Comments

  1. What a ridiculous post, George. The only thing you’re showing is that you are a Republican – congratulations. Don’t you know the GOP has no shot at the Presidency in 2012 with no real candidates. Furthermore, the people of America are tired of the Republicans in Congress stalemating any progress for anything. The GOP has done a wonderful job in electing Obama for a 2nd term.

    • Yeah, all we need is Obama+Reid+Pulosy+Democrat Congress back in power to get us out of the financial mess they more than doubled in their two years of control.

      • Well then, the GOP should win easily in Nov – NOT! The Bush years are what created the financial mess we were in and NOW coming out of!

        • Well then, why did Obama and his administration make the mess intollerably worse in just 2 years rather than to begin to solve it? And the recovery begining now is happening (if indeed it is) in spite of him and Dems, not because of them. And your response is just another juvenile cry of yours “but Mommy, they started it.”

        • Geo Michalopulos says

          Diogenes, I had many complaints with the Bush Administration, but the deficits run up by Bush were miniscule compared to Obama. They were even less than the deficits of the Reagan years.

          The incessant blaming of Bush for everything wrong caused by Obama has long fallen on deaf ears. A President can’t do much to stimulate an economy, the best thing he can do oftentimes is simply get out of the way. According to secular trends, we should be in a recovery now with at least 7% growth. That’s always what happens after a recession. It’s a no-brainer. Keynes called these “animal spirits.” It’s the normal give-and-take of secular business cycles.

          Unfortunately, Obama is pursuing activist policies that are stifling growth and capital formation in much the same way that FDR took the recession of 1932 and made it into a Great Depression. Nobody in their right mind wants to hire or start businesses. The only countervailing trend that might be mitigating against this pessimism is the turmoil in places like Venezuala, Iran, the Mideast, etc. When things get going bad for the entrepeneurial classes there, you see capital and people leaving for more stable shores. Since the US still hasn’t had a societal collapse like what we’re seeing in Greece, Syria, Egypt, etc., then our assets look better in comparison.

          • Policy Changes under Two Presidents – New York Times July 24, 2011

            “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

            • Mike Myers says

              Believe me, B00mer, you should try not to be too surprised if facts, evidence and reason have next to no prestige with most of these good people. Too many here get their worldview from Faux, Limbaugh, Breitbart and Ann Coulter, to name just a few of their favorite fountains of wisdom.

              George evidently couldn’t care less whether anything he excretes here is true or not. He’s a partisan hack, and as we know, Republicans shamelessly lie through their teeth with pleasure and total abandon. Just doin’ what comes naturally. All in the “name of Christ,” as goes without saying. An old story.

              • MM sounds like he is a CNN/CNBC fan.

                • Ian James says

                  More like MSNBC. They call everyone who doesn’t think like them an extremist. They think this constitutes rational debate.

                  Any wonder no one listens to them anymore? Their viewership amounts to nothing.

                  Myers follows in lock-step: “George evidently couldn’t care less whether anything he excretes here is true or not”. Then he throws in some religious contempt for good measure: “All in the ‘name of Christ, as goes without saying.”

                  Mike thinks Jesus was a Progressive, but he hides this behind his scream that non-Progressives think that Jesus was a Republican. They don’t of course but Progressive ideas are attractive to the dim-witted and ideologically prone. It is easier to emote than it is to think.

                  Some guys wont be happy until new research discovers that Jesus lived on welfare in West Hollywood.

                  • Mike Myers says

                    A mild interest in replying to only one or two of these stupefyingly clueless cracks. This place is just clinical.

                    Myers follows in lock-step: “George evidently couldn’t care less whether anything he excretes here is true or not”. Then he throws in some religious contempt for good measure: “All in the ‘name of Christ, as goes without saying.”

                    “Follows in lock-step. . .” Follows whom? MSNBC? Your reasoning and its basis are less than lucid. FYI, I never watch any American TV “news” or cable channel expecting objective info, and when I do have a look, which is seldom enough, it’s usually with the most oblique and probably somewhat morbid anthropological interest. I certainly don’t do it expecting to be objectively informed! Does anyone actually still do that? How sad if so.

                    (I take it you’re a Limbaugh fan and Fox News viewer, defensive about your particular “news” sources and their partisan cliques? “Top-rated” for many years, ergo proved “Excellence in Broadcasting,” “Fair and Balanced,” and trustworthy? That’s pretty rich.)

                    Neither could I be forced into any political box, sorry. Much closer to a plague on both houses type myself, party-wise. ‘Two parties, one owner’ just about sums it up for me. I abandoned any hope for American politics a long time ago.

                    And trust me on this: it ain’t breaking news to any reasonably well-informed person how little George cares about facts, judging from the content of his excursions into punditry — or how reliable this site is as any sort of “journalism.” You’ve heard of vanity publishing? Well, George is the OCA’s Vanity Pundit. (Although I will admit his opinions about church politics and speculations about various behind-the-scenes machinations are often worth a read. Sometimes for a laugh, if nothing else. Even though nothing is more obvious about him than the array of axes he has to grind re: the GOAA. But then it seems to me that hierarchs and religious leaders everywhere are a reflection of the spiritual state of their flocks. Or packs, in some cases.)

                    The targeting awareness of too many far-right-leaning Christians is sorta skewed. I think these fiery darts of accusations of “religious contempt” would be more justly aimed at many of your good selves. I think you’re projecting. (A psychological must around here, apparently.) Too many American “Christians” evidently think that Jesus is a liar, a thief, and a warmonger, since the politicians and policies they support, allegedly in His name, are comfy and tucked up in bed with all three. I fear y’all are in for quite a nasty surprise on that score.

                    Finally, got a fine laugh reading that “easier to emote than think” charge leveled against me, here on this list! Thanks. It is true enough, however, that this joint is renowned for the quality of thought and sensibility on display here.

                    • ” …that this joint is renowned for the quality of thought and sensibility on display here.”

                      May I inquire, why are you here? A little bit of the masochist? If something offends me as much as obviously this side does you, I would rather spend my short life watching paint dry or pick my nose…. however, I would not post here.

                      But then I am Canadian and we live in igloos… ᐃᒡᓗ

              • o Hamartolos says

                Has it every occurred to you that ALL the mainstream media is incredibly biased towards the government? They are beholden to the FCC. The FCC has a monopoly of the airwaves and only licenses those news stations that fall in line with their definition of appropriateness. How else can you explain that 300+ million people from hundreds of different cultural, ethnic, political backgrounds are force fed only two world views: the republican and democrat. How convenient is it that those are exactly the same two parties that run our government (into the ground). It’s absurd to mock fox limbaugh, breigtart (all of whom I despise) while celebrating democrat leaning news outlets as some how more free and open, or even representative of the majority of Americans. They are not.
                I think if the news media really had freedom of speech we would see so many more parties, so many more competing ideas of government. Look at the publishing industry. Is there an FCC of book publishing? No, so publishing houses are pretty free to publish what they will, even if it is controversial. Why do we need an FCC to tell us what we is good and appropriate to watch on TV. Alas, we dupe ourselves into believing all our problems can be solved by only two historically inept political parties. wake up, guys.

                • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

                  1070 KNS News Radio, is CBS’s outlet in Los Angeles. It consistently supported the Bush administration and consistently snipes at and cracks and smirks and nudge-nudges about the Obama administration. It’s so blatantly biased, I don’t understand how it survives in traditionally lefty, liberal SoCal. But it does: in fact, it’s really the ONLY game in town when it comes to news coverage. 24 hours a day of purportedly straight news. As for American newspapers: they are all businesses and innately biased toward what is good for business. Same withe wire services. However a very, very, very few newspapers have consistently provided accurate news and balanced commentary: this has made them stand out from the mass of business-friendly, right wing mass of newspapers in the country. They are hated by the noisy “majority”,many of whom think the Readers Digest was the height of intelligent reading. Our “majority” is struggling now with how to own up to crumbling idols: Hero One: a famous football coach who can’t resist boys; Hero Two, a valiant soldier who shoots and burns up babies; Hero Three, a valiant neighborhood watch guy in a neighborhood with blacks in it who murders a teenager for not taking any (guff) from him. How, oh, how, can we make sure everybody says they ARE heroes and we were not fooled. And we Orthodox, too, make some our heroes: Those Greek hierarchs were valiant heroes for followers of a certain ecclesiological ideology. One of our OCA hierarchs of blessed memory was a valiant hero of Freedom to followers of another ecclesiological ideology, while a White Knight of Accountability and Transparency was (and still is) a valiant hero of another ecclesiogical ideology. And how about the persecuted hero, Fr. Michael Roshak? Even now, Melanie and Cappy can’t bear to add him to their Clergy Index. He was saved, apparently, by not being a celibate or monastic.

        • “The Bush years are what created the financial mess we were in and NOW coming out of!”

          prop·a·gan·da/ˌpräpəˈgandə/
          Noun:
          Information, esp. of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.
          The dissemination of such information as a political strategy.

      • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

        I’m not aware that there is a sane, accepted standard for measuring the quantity of messes, so I don’t understand how anyone can say a mess was “doubled” by anyone at all.

        • Your Grace, in the case of a financial mess, one would think monetary figures would suffice for a way to measure the size.

          • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

            OK. Tell me the measurements of the original mess in one amount: the amount which was allegedly doubled. You say it’s a monetary figure. OK. I had NO idea that the Pdn meant a monetary figure when he said the “mess” was doubled. I’ll remember the next time Obama is Bush is accused of making a mess and ask “how much in dollars?” Then, when someone says Bush’s mess was doubled by Obama, I’ll know exactly what that meant. The Pdn’s words were: “….get us out of the financial mess they more than doubled in their two years of control.”
            You tell me, Helga, what was the dollar amount of the financial mess that was doubled by Obama and company.? I mean, if that’s what “one would think” was meant by Pdn.

            • The National Debt has now increased more during President Obama’s three years and two months in office than it did during 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency.

              The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office.

              The latest posting from the Bureau of Public Debt at the Treasury Department shows the National Debt now stands at $15.566 trillion. It was $10.626 trillion on President Bush’s last day in office, which coincided with President Obama’s first day.

              The National Debt also now exceeds 100% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, the total value of goods and services.

              Mr. Obama has been quick to blame his predecessor for the soaring Debt, saying Mr. Bush paid for two wars and a Medicare prescription drug program with borrowed funds.

              The federal budget sent to Congress last month by Mr. Obama, projects the National Debt will continue to rise as far as the eye can see. The budget shows the Debt hitting $16.3 trillion in 2012, $17.5 trillion in 2013 and $25.9 trillion in 2022.

              Federal budget records show the National Debt once topped 121% of GDP at the end of World War II. The Debt that year, 1946, was, by today’s standards, a mere $270 billion dollars.

              Mr. Obama doesn’t mention the National Debt much, though he does want to be seen trying to reduce the annual budget deficit, though it’s topped a trillion dollars for four years now.

              As part of his “Win the Future” program, Mr. Obama called for “taking responsibility for our deficits, by cutting wasteful, excessive spending wherever we find it.”

              His latest budget projects a $1.3 trillion deficit this year declining to $901 billion in 2012, and then annual deficits in the range of $500 billion to $700 billion in the 10 years to come.

              If Mr. Obama wins re-election, and his budget projections prove accurate, the National Debt will top $20 trillion in 2016, the final year of his second term. That would mean the Debt increased by 87 percent, or $9.34 trillion, during his two terms.
              http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57400369-503544/national-debt-has-increased-more-under-obama-than-under-bush/

              • In the haste to tar Mr. Obama, did you not overlook the financial collapse and recession? The “my guy was bad, but your guy was worse” scenario may have some validity, but begs the real problem–we have two political parties that use the government treasury for their own ends, and to the long term detriment of all Americans.

                • Michael Bauman says

                  Logan46, that is the path of all statists: power obtained by spending the taxpayors money. The case for Ron Paul is real even if not particularly realistic at this point. All statists should be rejected. I really wish we had a ballot option for ‘none of the above’ that would win frequently I think.

                  Given the current state of the governing elite, a blind lottery system would work better just as long as the career bureaucrats don’t have life tenure either. The old spoils system had some merit to it because the old went out with the new and you really could throw the bums out. Now, not really possible.

    • Lola J. Lee Beno says

      I’ll vote for anyone who will be willing to work to bring gas prices under 2 dollars per gallon. Which is right where it was when Obama was elected. So far, he doesn’t seem inclined to enact policies that will return the prices to that level. So be it. I’ll for someone who will.

      • High and higher gasoline price is a big part of the “progressives” energy plan because it is the only way for alternative energy sources to become economically competitive.

        • Oh, those prices are a desperate attempt to make the American public DEMAND more drilling and fracking.
          As if supply and demand had any relation to gasoline prices!!!!

          • Sorry, Your Grace, I didn’t mean anything like that.
            I’m under the impression that OPEC controls the supply and therefore the price of oil.
            That’s incorrect?
            Are American oil Co.s part of that?

            • Perhaps i’m paranoid, but I do not think a serious study of OPEC’s machinations would fail to reveal our being the real major player therein. And by “our”, I am being very non-specific, not necessarily referencing the intelligence and subordinate official and unofficial agencies, American businesses, nor the President and Congress.

          • Michael Bauman says

            Your Grace, seen any black helicopters hovering over your residence lately?

          • Geo Michalopulos says

            On the other hand Your Grace, they could just as easily be seen as an attempt to subsidize spurious and/or controversial energy alternatives which cannot compete against oil.

        • Geo Michalopulos says

          Agreed, even here it’s failing miserably. I came to suspect that wind energy was a sham when I travelled in Great Britain last year and saw many windmills jarring the landscape. Few were moving. Upon return, I made the acquaintance of an energy magnate here in my hometown and he was engaged in building windmills. He complained to me about how low the margin was and finally he had to get out of it completely or else he would have been completely wiped out. Boondoggle.

          I have no problem with alternative energy sources in principle as one quantum of output from X should be no different from the same quantum from Y. However, my years in the oil patch constantly reinforce the belief that oil is the cheapest, most abundant, and most easily recoverable source of energy in history.

          Rudolf Diesel invented his internal combusion engine to run on biofuels (grease, lard, etc.) but in no time flat he came to realize that petroleum was much more cost-effective.

          Bottom line? markets work. If any of the other sources of energy were cheaper than oil they would have replaced it long ago.

          • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

            I think we should pay attention to the example of Germany, to its economy and success in weaning itself from dependence on oil and nuclear energy. A tremendous amount of Germany’s total electrical energy output is now coming from voltaic batteries. Their windmills are in the North Sea and they’ve become more unfriendly towards nuclear than Japan. Yet, they are the rock-solid foundation that keeps the EU afloat and Greece alive. And Germany’s coal interests take no back seat to ours in resisting all that.

        • o Hamartolos says

          The real problem is the poor performance of the dollar. Watch this explanation by Ben Swann.

          Here’s a rare instance of a News Outlet not touting the party line.

    • o Hamartolos says

      Ron Paul looks is the only one with ideas that attack the fundamental problems with our government: (not in this specific order)
      1. overspending,
      2. imperialist militarism,
      3. bloated bureaucracy,
      4. gradual erosion of civil liberties,
      5. a flawed foreign policy that funds, arms, supports both our enemies and our allies,
      6. domestic economic policies that make it virtually impossible for real market competition to jump start innovation and bring down prices
      7. hypocritical policies that try to legislate morality and always oppress the minority (not necessarily in terms of race, but in terms of certain moral positions) depending on which party is in power.
      8. Monetary policy that simply creates money out of thin air to finance bailouts and expensive bloody wars,
      9. the sustaining of a welfare state that creates dependent citizens, as opposed to productive ones.

      there are others, but I think those are the some of the main fundamentals. I don’t see how BO, MR, NG, and RS really want to change anything. They just want to play the same old game only with different people, especially in the case of the GOP.

      Ron Paul, if I understand him correctly is actually calling for “repentance” on a national scale, a couple 180 degree turn from our current trajectory. All the other candidates want to tweak a fraction of a degree here and another fraction there, but fundamentally no change in the current trajectory.

      • o Hamartolos says

        To number 8 I would add that the extra infusion of paper money in the system only serves to drive down the buying power of the dollars in our bill folds and increase the price of a gallon of milk along with everything else, thus creating inflation.

        This madness has got to stop. Only Ron Paul is challenging the fundamentals of our government. The rest want to make minor cosmetic changes, not to mention they flip flop, lie, pander, and are inconsistent.

        • Geo Michalopulos says

          Hamartolos, you are completely correct. This paper or “fiat” money will never be eradicated until we have a full audit of the Federal Reserve System, find out who owns it and who’s profited from it these past 99 years. My hunch is that once we get to the bottom of that, we will more fully understand foreign adventurism. (BTW, I have no qualms about the proper use of American power; our Navy should have ready access to all sea lanes in order to facillitate oceanic trade. Sometimes that will result in minor conflicts. Ditto with treaties with certain nations, but this incessant provocation of mighty nations like Russia which mean us no harm has got to stop.)

          My only complaint with Paul is that he doesn’t see the same sense of urgency regarding the sovereignty of our borders. They must be sealed: illegal immigration must be stopped and and legal immigration severely restricted.

          Only by overturning the present Warfare/Welfare State will we be able to return to some semblance of fiscal and moral sanity.

          • o Hamartolos says

            On the borders question, he has called for bringing back our troops from our oversees empire so they can man our borders, not just to keep people out, but to help people get in legally. Let’s face it, immigrants, in all generations, have done the jobs the majority population refuses to do. That’s not a bad thing. We can’t all occupy the higher echelons of American society. They generally do it for less, mainly because they have no “voice” with which to bargain. If they were aloud to come legally, they could have “market” power to demand higher wages, which would bring up the wages of American citizens in similar jobs. Cesar Chavez understood this, and even though he was of Mexican origen, he ardently opposed illegal immigration. Bring back the troops + Station them on our borders = Secure, Sovereign Borders = better for the economy.

            • George Michalopulos says

              Excellent point. Cesar Chavez was not only an American, but a third-generation American as well. Furthermore, he anticipated The Minuteman phenomenon. He and his union members regularly patrolled the border and prevented illegal aliens from entering the US. He knew that the illegals would depress the wages of his union. And nobody every accused him of being a racist.

      • Ron Paul, if I understand him correctly is actually calling for “repentance” on a national scale, a couple 180 degree turn from our current trajectory.

        In Canada, if you make a couple of 180º turns, you are still going in the same direction as before… But what do I know, being unfamiliar with US navigational advances.

        • o Hamartolos says

          Like all metaphors, this one, if taken completely literally, makes no sense. But, I think you get the gist: we’ve got to take a look and scrutinize the fundamentals of our way of government:
          Does the government have the right to take our hard earned income? why?
          Does the government have any right to tell me how I should or should not live my life? if so, why? and how do we know that?
          What is a “state”? and on what ground does it hold any claim on me and my property?

          Ron Paul is asking these questions. All the others take the state as a given necessity and do all they can to make sure power (liberty in the fullest sense of the word) stays as far away from the average person as possible and in the hands of a few incompetent elites.

          • As a Northerly neighbour to your declining empire, who seeks refuge here from the onslaught of the inanities that go for political debate and election cycles down South, I am greatly disturbed that it has now seeped into this otherwise pleasant web site.

            For that reason and to save this forum from becoming a casualty of said inanities, I have organised my fellow Canadians and we will invade you, conquer you, subdue you and then outlaw American politics until the ages of ages. Thus we will earn the gratitude of the whole world, can sell our oil and gas to to whom we please and withhold all that water we have in over-abundance from any unruly Americans. Any mention of politics and there will be no more showers, inside and out-side, South of us…

            Oh yes, before I forget, we would also turn your real estate into a monarchy…. eat that!

      • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

        When we are all gone, the real disappearance of “the state” will become much more visible. Politics as we now know politics will be completely sucked up in the world social network. The USSR didn’t imagine it was history because of the Internet revolution in information dispensing until it was too late: it was neither the Pope, nor Reagan, nor the US, nor Christianity that caused the USSR to come off the map. It was the Net. And Russia is now really only in the second stage of disintegration. They and we and the Chinese and the rest will see our states becoming attenuated and useless wrecks. Paul? Romney? Etcs? Well, there’s still some life in the old grey mares; Evangelicals, and Wahabis, and Libertarians and Arab springs and so forth think they are finally making headway, but they only seem to be doing so, and what they are making headway IN, is not the big deal it was for millennia.

    • Ronda Wintheiser says

      Um… We don’t actually have to imagine what would happen had a conservative or a Republican made a gaffe like the president did in his comments about Rutherford Hayes: Sarah Palin, George Bush, Michele Bachman — these are only a few who have been the brunt of a cacophany of contempt and ridicule for similar verbal missteps.

      Mr. Diogenes, your response — to change the subject as quickly as possible by mocking the post, and Mr. Michalopulos, and by disparaging Republicans — only shows that you’re a Democrat, and also, that (like so many of them), you have no sense of humour.

      Furthermore, your mudder wears Army boots!

      🙂

      • We buried her in her Army boots – she loved them so!

        • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

          That’s right, Diogenes; furthermore, she wore out those boots chasing troop trains, no?
          I liked Ronda’s “cacophany!” Is that, like, “the Appearance of Kaka?” La Palin, though, probably writes that too, and thinks of cacophony. Wadda ya goin t’do? With Palin and Bachmann in the “running”, Ma didn’t have a chance.

  2. Ronda Wintheiser says

    One more thing: I wholeheartedly concur with the comments made here about Ron Paul. He is the only candidate who is not running to preserve POWER for a particular party nor for himself personally. I was raised as a Goldwater Republican, but in the present I do not see a difference between big government social programs and big government military programs around the world that amount to nothing less than imperialism.

    I also concur with the comment that there is a note in Dr. Paul’s “voice” in this campaign that is, in effect, a call to repentance. I remember hearing the same sort of call articulated in the 80s by Randall Terry when he called for Christians to join him in repenting of our national sin of abortion.

    Last week, one of the lenten readings was from Isaiah 9:

    18 Surely wickedness burns like a fire;
    it consumes briers and thorns,
    it sets the forest thickets ablaze,
    so that it rolls upward in a column of smoke.
    19 By the wrath of the LORD Almighty
    the land will be scorched
    and the people will be fuel for the fire;
    they will not spare one another.
    20 On the right they will devour,
    but still be hungry;
    on the left they will eat,
    but not be satisfied.
    Each will gnaw on the flesh of their own arm…”

    The word “arm” is evidently also translated as “offspring”… There can be no doubt that we as Americans are guilty of gnawing on our own arms; our entire economy is drenched in the blood of our innocents; in effect we offer up our children as a sacrifice to Moloch…

    In my view, Dr. Paul is the only candidate far enough away from the precipice that Obama is seducing us and forcing us toward to be able to keep us from going over the edge. The other candidates are getting as close to that precipice as possible without actually hugging the president themselves…

    • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

      Speak for yourself, especially when you say Obama is seducing “us,” okay? Obama has done very little to change the course that was being followed at the time he was elected, although he had promised to do so. So if you feel Obama has seduced you, it may not be too late to wriggle out of his clutches.

  3. I can’t understand how a person can be in favor of having a completely unprepared person to run for presidency or the United States of America as Sarah Palin or Herman Cain or Michele Bachman, Ron Paul, etc. It is a sad state of affairs when we call ourselves Christians (Orthodox or any other denomination) and we turn our face away from the poor and the down cast of our society and become so blind to the suffering of others and believe in the survival of the fittest as a way of natural selection disguised on “let the market decided”.

    My problem with the GOP is that it defends the Neo-Liberal agenda without any concern for the consequences of it policies I grew up under a dictatorship that impose those policies and now we see it consequences and it is bad with no social mobility or middle class (Chile, Mexico, Egypt, etc.) I suggest a fascinating book titled “WINNER-TAKE-ALL POLITICS How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned its Back on the Middle Class.” Written by Political Science Professors: Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson to understand better what Public Policies favoring the top 1% of the population can cause. If you are one of those “Fox News” followers, I suggest also reading the book “PROPAGANDA” by Edward Bernays, it will help you understand what is behind the Fox Network intentions.

    We need to be careful as Christians to not let ourselves fall pray of movements that goes against the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ as many of the Germans back in the 1930’s considered themselves “Christians” but hated Jews, blacks, gays, gypsies, etc. We know very well the consequences……

    • Will Harrington says

      A completely unprepared person running for the presidency? Like a senator who didn’t even finish his first term before running for President? I agree. Its terrible that such unprepared people should run for President. Too bad one got elected.

    • o Hamartolos says

      Joseph, I mean this without any trace of sarcasm, but I think the stuff you are listening to on fox, cnn, etc, has biased you against the ideas of Ron Paul, by crudely presenting and often distorting them. I recommend you read his books: Liberty Defined, or The Revolution. Other works that can help you really understand classical liberalism are Murray Rothbard’s “For a New Liberty”, or if you want some hard hitting stuff, Ludwig von Mises’ “Human Action” or “Liberalism” or any by Mises. Like any reasonable person, I would ask you at least to do some in depth research on Ron Paul and his ideas before lumping him in with all the other GOP candidates and dismissing him. You might be quite surprised what you learn.

      I wish you a joyful Fast.

    • o Hamartolos says
      • George said:

        Let’s have a little mid-Lenten fun at the expense of His Excellency Obama, the Most-Exalted.

        Can you imagine what would have happened had a Republican president said something this stupid?

        Your link said Ronald Reagan used the same apocryphal anecdote–so I guess we can have some fun as well at the expense of His Excellency Reagan, the Most-Exalted?

        • George Michalopulos says

          Yeah, but everybody “knew” that Reagan was just a dumb cowboy. We were assured by our betters that Obama was the “smartest man ever to be president” (noted presidential historian Michael Beschloss).

    • George Michalopulos says

      Joseph, I challenge anybody too tell me how Sarah Paliln (or Charlie Sheen for that matter) could have done a worse job in the Presidency than Barack Obama. I’d even take Hillary Clinton over him. Neither she, nor John McCain, nor Sarah Palin would have been able to must the majorities necessary to pass Porkulus 1 & 2, the Chrysler/GM bailout, or Obamacare. Thanks to these monumental disasters, well over 4 trillion dollars was added to the debt. There’s simply no way we’re going to be able to crawl of this fiscal hole.

      • George, please preface your anti-Obama harangues with “My opinion is . . . .” A good chunk of your $4T comes from 2 wars started by some other President. I agree Obama doesn’t deserve re-election, but let’s keep it somewhat factual and downplay the Faux News demagoguery angle.

        • Geo Michalopulos says

          The wars cost $1.2 trillion. Still too much in my book but there you go. In the meantime, Obama has racked up an additional $4 trillion on new entitlement spending, bailouts, and entitlements. As much as I disapproved of a lot of the Bush’s domestic spending, the deficits were never above $300 billion per year. In fact, the deficit-to-GDP ratio was less than it was under Reagan.

    • Joseph I. the Magnificent says

      Okay, this Joseph who posted this is not the Joseph who is typing this…. I was here first….the other Joseph was second….

      Now since I am a traditionalist, reactionary and monarchistic Joseph, I will go for Joseph I, the Magnificent. The usurper can go by Joseph II.

      I also want to state that I Joseph I. the Magnificent do not agree with the political observations of Joseph II. the Usurper.

      …and I would DEFINITELY NOT invoke Godwin’s Law…

      • But Joseph I, I thought that I was Joseph II? Remember last summer? Precedence counts for much for us reactionaries! This Joseph come lately needs to queue up. 🙂

        I suppose that a lord only keeps his lands and title by tenaciously defending it . . .

        • Hello Joseph II. it seems the Joseph-Market gets crowded… We should call for a Great and Effective Joseph Council (Synod) to sort this out… Or we could delegate the problem to George and have ourselves a beer.

          My concern is mainly that my truly reactionary, traditionalist, monarchist, Canadian leanings are not be confused with the musings of new-coming Josephs… I think my concerns are reasonable, since there are, would you believe it, a lot of wishy-washy softy lefty Canadians all over the internet, never mind Josephs…;-)

  4. Michael Bauman says

    Well, George you just don’t see the glory of Obama because you are just a red-neck hick who clings to your fundamentalist religion and guns. The great one has told us so. In fact, none of the things you have mentioned have worked because we simply haven’t spent enough tax dollars yet and there’s just too many folks who still cling to the anachonistic notion of individual freedom. However, the death panels and unlimited abortion will soon take care of that won’t they?

    • Geo Michalopulos says

      yes they will.

    • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

      You don’t need “death panels” when you have Neighborhood Watch drunk on Stand Your Ground steroids!!!. All you have to do is mutter “f*ing coons” on 911 and shoot to kill—you won’t even be charged. “Death Panels?” Weak, impotent, lefty, liberal half-measures that have not killed anyone.

  5. cynthia curran says

    While I was thinking that Republicans also were getting into much of tax cuts on higher income well always equal growth, there are also other factors like Demographics. Anyways, wht brought me back to the Republican fold is what is happening in Greece. The state pays the clergy in Greece and now the state has less money, so clergy are being let go and there is less money to help the poor since the state has to cutback on the welfare state and the money it gives the church to help the poor. So, actually, orthodox churches who depend too much on the state lose clergy and the other duties they are supposed to perform. Orthodox think too much of the great church Hagia Sophia built by the state there was another great church built also in the 6th century by the wealthy Juliana Antica which was almost as large as Hagia Sophia but was destroyed in the 4th crusade and few orthodox know about it.

  6. cynthia curran says

    George is correct wind mills were a great source of energy in the 14th century in the east and west because of the great plague reduce man power so further development of wind mills and water mills was needed but are they that important in the modern world.

  7. cynthia curran says

    I agree with you George, Hillary you know where you are coming from, she probably would have spent less. Hillary Clinton didn’t get the nomination because she was a white woman running against a half-afro american. Too Dems who wanted to have the first minority president over a white woman she lost. Personality, the Repubicans who don’t like Romeny sometimes on policy have a allowed a religous minority since Willam Taft to have a shot at president. William Taft was a unitarian.

    • cynthia curran says

      I agree wth you George on e-verify. Paul believes in the libertarian view that businessmen can hire anyone they want even if they are here illegality. Romeny will allow e-verify even if some in his party are pushing him to comprise to get hispanic votes. He isn’t the strongest but neither was Gringrich and Santorim on the immirgaiton issue.

  8. cynthia curran says

    I was also reading that Obama brought the sterotype that people in Western Europe thought the Earth was flat at the time of Columbus. The problem with this even historians disagreed with this. The man is poor on history except unless its islam.