Would you mind proving that claim?

If you're going to argue that Clinton ran a surplus, I'm going to argue that under him we also had a huge bubble economy (the housing bubble certainly popped and that worked out well for everyone) which made the PUBLIC DEBT (debt we the people buy from the government in the form of bonds) have an incredible growth of something like +200B in 2000. Meanwhile the government debt continued to remain in the negative. (Psssst: Look up Alan Greenspan and others who were on the federal reserve for years).

RuneVillage really needs to realize that the effects of presidents are not felt only in their terms. The easiest examples I can think of off the top of my head: Obama's Health Care will not take full effect until 2014. (Well after his current term). We still have Social Security (Going on 70 years now) and Medicare/Medicaid (going on 50 years) and the Cold War which saw many presidents run and help turn our country into a military-industrial complex. It's truly sickening seeing the blame for all of our nations problems laid at the feet of one man when you can -EXTREMELY- easily trace them back -DECADES-

The bottomline is this: presidents come and go. Look at the people who are on the hill for decades: then cast blame equally to those who deserve it for their beliefs and policies they helped create and/or enforce over decades.

Have fun folks.

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"Civil disobedience is still disobience."

Blame the House and Senate as well. The President is only the face of the government and doesn't control everything like people think. He's not a dictator, only a pawn in the grand scheme.

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No, his daddy has business experience. Trump got lucky by birth.

I don't want another businessman in office.

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Bullwinkle: Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.
Rocky: But that trick never works!

He has lost and made his own fortune. I think his success speaks for itself. He took the Trump name, and made it a household/world name.

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As long as he provides his birth certificate first. Trump really knows how to focus on important issues while slapping himself on the back. I absolutely hope we are not stupid enough to vote for him as president, much less even a candidate. We do not need another businessman in office, especially one dumb enough to say on national television that he wants to go up to OPEC and say "no, you can't do this anymore," and get us even more caught up on oil. He has an extremely limited knowledge of politics; yes, you can say the same about Obama, but 1) that is an incomplete comparison, and 2) ex post facto arguments are fallacious.



I don't want someone who bankrupted his business several times, either.

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Bullwinkle: Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.
Rocky: But that trick never works!

You don't want someone with a proven track record in business? You know how difficult it is to reach and stay at the top it is right? It's a massively competitive field. Sounds perfect for a leader.

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Acumen in a certain field doesn't equal political acumen. Come on now. And no, he's not a good leader.

Watch his interview with Wolf Blitzer.

[youtube]kAnGBwjwpHI[/youtube]

Do you really want someone making those irrational claims running a country? With Blitzer catching him in almost every sentence and Trump avoiding the subject? I feel the main reason people want Trump is because they're not satisfied with Obama and are seeking any alternative, even a bad one.

__________________
Bullwinkle: Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.
Rocky: But that trick never works!

Kind of how most presidents end up getting elected.

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"Civil disobedience is still disobience."

I kind of figured Trump wouldn't run from the start. It would require Trump to take a massive pay cut.

The way I saw this ordeal with him was his goal was to discredit Obama's administration. Sure Trump could have just donated to some other campaign, but if that guy doesn't win it's wasted. So then instead Trump can just directly attack Obama.

The benefit of the birth certificate thing was what... anyone can reasonably assume the CIA and FBI could probably figure out if somebody's a US citizen. I think the true goal was to show how long it takes Obama to act on issues. Not only did it take months to get something as simple as a certificate, but in that time it hurt Obama's image and brought up questions people hadn't thought of.

And any crisis so far or urgency to act that's been the current administration's MO is to do nothing and delay.. With the BP spill there was no official reaction for over a month and then when there was it was the wrong one of "getting mad" instead of just taking an official stance that doesn't tick off our ally the UK.

Or then the reaction to the Fannymae thing was... delayed and then wrong with 800billion dollars in spending that had terrible oversight and control some of it's unaccounted for and after all that we still have higher unemployment than the promise of "less than 8 percent"

On the Egypt or Libya situation delays and then a weak reaction particularly so for Libya.
Granted I understand not getting in a land-war there. The leadership stance was still weak and docile,

__________________
"The good warrior knows when to fight, and when to withdraw."
- Sun Tzu

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I can definitely see your point and agree with you.


This and the bailout in general angered me immensely, which is why I don't consider myself an Obama supporter (I remain critical of either side). Bailouts are the exact opposite of what economies need to do. If a company is failing, it is operating inefficiently in the market and must die in order for entrepreneurs and new companies to take hold and progress. Supporting failing companies is only pushing back the inevitable, and at best holding back possible innovation.


Personally, I don't think we should have been active in Egypt/Middle East at all. We had no business there. If anything like we saw in the Middle East happened in America, it would instantly be brought down harshly and I highly doubt the press/government would laud it as peoples' rights.

__________________
Bullwinkle: Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.
Rocky: But that trick never works!

Agreed that we need to butt out of the Middle East (remind me why we're even there again...), but I would like to point out that American police don't shoot peaceful protesters, which means that protesters can carry on being peaceful and not have to resort to armed insurgencies. Also, given that we re-elect our government on a regular basis, we don't have to worry about autocrats, either. Really, what's happening in the Middle East isn't too different than the American Revolution, and we're being called upon to play France.
Libya is the one place I can agree to getting involved in, just because there's actual agreement there; it's not just America, it's NATO.

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Tahu 1000 - Former Member

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_Shootings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sun ... irst_march

... and those are just two, not to mention the thousands of tabs kept by the FBI/CIA during the Vietnam War demonstrations on activists. Our government can say they respect protest all the want, but I highly doubt they actually would in the event of a M.E.-scale demonstration.

On a slightly related note, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 . We are so great at not taking responsibility for bad stuff that happens in the M.E. and disassociating ourselves from leaders who no longer serve our interests.

__________________
Bullwinkle: Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.
Rocky: But that trick never works!

The reasoning against engaging in the middle east 'rebellions' or at least one big one is... it's a major slippery slope. Because at which point do you decide which ones to intervene on. There's Syria doing the same crap to a lesser degree, Tunisia's in big trouble, Sri Lanka has been in a civil war for decades,... And then East-Central Africa..

Personally I'd rather see a crack-down on the piracy problem than intervening in Libya.

The part that seems to make many Americans the most upset is the fact that on the Libya issue there was the tremendous delay in action... waited for the UN to fart around... and then when NATO and the UN looked to the US we threw our hands in the air and said... "I dunno you do it, we're not picking sides."

And even now, where we're pretending to not take sides.... we're basically helping to fund the resistance, saying "Qaddafi should leave" but... it's still not a war and we haven't picked sides and we "aren't trying to remove him from power". I don't see why it's so hard to take a stance, and follow it. And that's a big part of what's frustrating a lot of people about this.

__________________
"The good warrior knows when to fight, and when to withdraw."
- Sun Tzu

I'll smith anything up to 93 smithing if you have the material for me to make it with
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My issue is that Oboma broke the law by starting a war without a declaration of war (by congress) and he pretends that's okay as long as he doesn't call it a war.

Two wars actually.
You didn't know we're bombing both Libya AND Yemen?
Odd that the news wouldn't cover that.

__________________
"The good warrior knows when to fight, and when to withdraw."
- Sun Tzu

I'll smith anything up to 93 smithing if you have the material for me to make it with
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I havent Read the Whole thread But I am just going to post what I believe.

I Think Obama Has Good intentions and He is Not experienced enough Or even a Leader He Is More concerned about Getting Relected His Whole presidency has always been about Getting his 2nd term Thats why Nothing is getting Done .

People Got Change all Right The Goverment Took all our pocket change and than some..

I do not beleive he will get another try even though Bush Jr got bashed alot the one Thing that was amazing about him was no matter how unpopular the decision was he made he stuck to it and Tried Things For The better of the country not to win The Beauty pageant....

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As much as I'd like to see Obama get re-elected, I doubt it will happen.

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"What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..."- The last words of General John Sedgewick, killed by a sniper in the American civil war

As much as I'd hate to see him re-elected, I'm scared to death it will happen.

I'd like to warn anyone here who will vote in the Republican primaries, don't vote for Rick Perry I'm a Texan and believe me, he may be conservative, but he's also a lying corrupted crook.

You are scared of Obama getting re-elected? Honestly? REALLY?!

What's the worst thing that could happen?

Now let's talk about Bachmann. I am absolutely terrified that the American people might be stupid enough to elect her. The worst that could happen? Well, her campaign aides have been supporting "Kill the Gays" bills in Uganda. So yeah, the worst that could happen is I could be killed. But I'm sure that's nothing compared to what you'll have to live through with Obama's reign of tyranny.

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"Ambition is the last refuge of failure." ~Oscar Wilde

I like Obama. From the videos I've seen he is the only president with a real sense of humor.