Sorry - Frederick Douglass was a regular visitor to the Lincoln White House.
I stand corrected ,Rick- i knew that Douglass had his differences with Lincoln but i never knew that he had the opportunity to lay them out in the WH before the President himself.
Well, there is a lot more American history that i need to learn then =)
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 13.02.2010 @ 10:47
Ahh.. Paul Ryan.. well, what can i say ..after Richard Bottoms hijacked this thread with his race rant, i forgot that there exists one politician in the House who must be feeling out of place.
Truth to be told, there are quite a few in the GOP who dont like Ryan or his plans.. ofcourse the establishment GOP WILL NEVER back his plans. They would be absolute fools to do so.
For a so called right of center country, America has actually accepted the basic tenets of liberalism rather blindly. Social Security and Medicare would never be in place in a truly conservative country.
Every one knows that these two programs are suicide bombs waiting to blow the younger generations away. And yet no one dares approach these two programs - Republicans are now taking delight in out-demagoguing Democrats on Medicare...what a total shame... surely Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan are spinning in their graves.
I do agree with Bruce Bartlett that the Tea Party has to come out openly against ending SS and Medicare in their present forms.. deficits are not going to reduce when the two costliest non defense Govt expenditures are not even discussed. And defense spending will go down with the winding down of Iraq and the abandoning of Afghanistan beginning 2011.
Something tells me that most tea partiers would readily agree to an opt out of SS or Medicare - they will not pay in any more into the system and will get zero benefits at the age of 65 or reduced benefits commensurate to what they have already paid in.
This would ofcourse raise the question - how are the current retirees going to be funded ? How much shortfalls would they have to face ? Afterall these people were mandated to pay into these two programs their whole lives and never had a chance to opt out of these two monsters ? What of them ?
I would say that Bush's plan in 2005 makes more and more sense - allow the youngest workers ( ie those under 40.)to opt out..umm sorry, invest half of their SS taxes into a private account - these are the people who are most likely to get zero dollars when they reach the retirement age, 25 to 40 years from now..
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 13.02.2010 @ 10:29
@Richard Bottoms,
You are a bitter black man - and you have showed why very few blacks are part of the GOP - not only are you ignorant of how this "Southern strategy" that you are talking about was originally a Democrat party strategy - afterall the Republican party was the natural home for blacks after Lincoln et al.The GOP gave the first progressive President in Teddy Roosevelt. Does the name Booker T Washington ring a bell ? the first black man to be invited in to the WH - by a Republican, mind you...
When Democrats needed the Southern vote when FDR was President, there was no complaining was there ? Its only when the evil GOP basically replicated the Democrat strategy, black people get ruffled.
Jim Crow laws came from Southern Democrats... George Wallace was a Southern Democrat - do you even know that ?
So you show a basic ignorance of your own country's history and whine and whine about GOP racism. You are so angry with WFB but barely mention George Wallace.
Buckley was definitely wrong when it comes to race issues- at the very least he was more open about his feelings - and trust me, no one looks up to WFB for his stance on race. It is one of his biggest flaws and even conservatives know that.
In short, race has been used by both parties when convenient.
The Democrat party today has made blacks more dependent on Government than ever before -and you whine about GOP ! Democrats truly think that you black folks cannot stand on your own two feet and constantly need support to live. I dont know of a more racist feeling than that.
For a thousand, angry bitter black men like you there is one Shelby Steele, one Thomas Sowell, one James McWhorter.. i am glad they exist.
Be a slave to the Democrat party and enjoy your time.
Sorry - Frederick Douglass was a regular visitor to the Lincoln White House.
ed.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 13.02.2010 @ 10:12
POST HOC CRITICISM OF OBAMA TRIP JUSTIFIED
Todd,
You blather too much. Your country WILL ALWAYS BE HATED no matter what.Americans like you show how weak minded and terribly ignorant people in this country are when it comes to the question of Anti Americanism.
Your entire post was pathetic. And your "rhetoric from the Right" whining does you no good. Of course we are happy that Obama FAILED. and made an absolute FOOL of himself.
Obama will get the same amount of respect from conservatives that liberals gave Bush.
WHERE THE HELL where you when the entire Democrat party with the exception of Lieberman were rooting for the US to fail in Iraq ?
Where the hell where you when Harry Reid said the Iraq war was lost ?
And you are now whining about the rhetoric ? you sow what you reap.
I feel happy for the Chicago tax payers - the Games would have been yet another giant corruption scheme for the Crook County minions and Shortshanks.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 2.10.2009 @ 21:02
MEANINGLESS PROGRESS WITH IRAN HAILED AS 'TRIUMPH OF DIPLOMACY'
When Iran finally gets its nukes, all this would look useless.
For a country that supposedly wants "peaceful" use of nuclear energy, the Iranians do seem to be taking the hard road... why the secrecy? after all that was only for "peaceful" purposes right ?
Economic sanctions wont do a damned thing. Iran basically played its cards to perfection. Now the Israelis have even lesser room than before to pre-emptively attack their facilities..
Who knows ? Obama may very well not mind a nuclear armed Iran to force Israel into even more concessions.
Well played Dinnerjacket.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 2.10.2009 @ 21:08
IMPRESSIVE TURNOUT IN DC FOR PROTEST
Sue,
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 12.09.2009 @ 23:35
Thanks for your insight.. No. seriously. I "learned a lot" from you today.
, getting corporations to pay $10,000 a POP to gather people together for “protests” that are CORPORATE-SPONSORED by Lyndon LaRouche, Dick Armey, the criminal organization, FreedomWorks, all who receive MILLIONS from the health insurance industry every year.
Mark,
Lyndon LaRouche is a lunatic from the far leftist fringe - and if you didnt know that and clubbed him with Dick Armey, i dont know what to tell you.If you say FreedomWorks is a criminal organization, IT MUST Be one !
Oh, you independent Mark, some where your country's founding fathers are smiling at your great intellect and "independence".
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 12.09.2009 @ 14:37
Rick,
Thanks for trying to keep the Democrat party-MSM complex honest - but you do realize that you may have a better chance straightening out a dog's tail, right :=)There was a time when journalism was my first love. I shudder at the open and crass bias of the liberal media and remind myself why there are very few honest journalists.
We are all biased in our own ways, left and right. And it surely gets in the way of how we view things - journalists are supposedly "trained/advised" NOT to be like that, but we are kidding ourselves if we expect them to be any better.
With respect to the DC protests,I went over to the comments section at Greg Sargent's PlumLine blog (he was with the Washington Post and TPM before) after seeing a link that showed that the DNC was sending out memos saying that they expected 2 million people !
The comments were almost uniformly vitriolic and condemned the grassroots protestors . Here is one actual comment from that thread
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/political-media/pelosi-dems-bracing-for-huge-turnout-at-glenn-becktea-party-gathering/
# roxsteady | September 11th, 2009 at 03:40 pm
Converse, I just said that to my sister. I don’t want to see anyone killed but, it would serve them right if someone got shot in the hand or their leg. The next tea party would likely draw even less out of fear!
The original comment was from "Converse" wishing that people would bring guns to the event.. and get this.. "accidentally" shoot themselves !
Converse's original comments have been removed - I sent a scathing reply back to "Converse" that he should be ashamed to call himself a human being let alone an American.
My response probably prompted them to do so - and it was filtered - but they didnt do a good job of scrubbing the comments from "roxsteady" who echoes the sentiment.
And all these comments were made on the 8th anniversary of 9/11 - comments made by one American wishing harm and ill will to other Americans.
Can you guys atleast officially change the name of this country to the Divided States of America ? At least it would be honest if somewhat ugly.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 12.09.2009 @ 12:36
MY PROBLEM WITH 'FALSE' EQUIVALENCE
The man clearly feels betrayed by all that he had been led to believe, and now its payback as far as he’s concerned. He may eventually find equivalence with the Democrats, but seeing the damage the GOP has inflicted on its core principals, I doubt that day will come soon.
Bullshit - Cole has always been a lefty - he never believed in anything that can be called conservative and no,he has not been "betrayed"!
He has been on anti-GOP for the last 7 years and will always be - he does have a lot of chutzpah to call Rick partisan, when he is a hyper partisan himself.
Rick, thanks for responding to his nonsense without silently taking it.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 8.09.2009 @ 21:06
A PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON TORTURE WOULD SATISFY NO ONE
As the timeline seems to stand, they decided to do it, did it, and then “sought” justification for it (I’m being generous here). That would belie the idea that they thought they were acting in a legally correct manner. Rather it suggests that they were well well aware they were in violation of the law and tried to get cover.
I feel sorry for those in the CIA in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the extent to which people went to defend their country. Preventing another attack seemed to be the primary concern at that time.
The CIA is now entirely out of the interrogation business - there is an article today in the WaPo how morale is down. who wouldnt be demoralized after being played in a game of political football ?
The enormous hubris of the anti torture absolutists is insufferable. Strike that.. it is tortuous.
And if another attack happens on this country, the CIA will once again be accused of not being good at its job.
Lose-Lose.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 30.08.2009 @ 21:19