Disqus - Latest Comments for macsurf

Re: REPORT: Trump Considering Replacing Reince Priebus » Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

macsurf — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 17:36:50 -0000

THIS administration is inept and very dangerous

Re: Bernie Sanders Proposes Bipartisan Primary Debates

macsurf — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 16:31:48 -0000

The internet brought on the Arab Spring - there is no reason we can't use it in this country as a tool to educate about the issues and ithe mportance of everybody voting

A progressive/liberal tide is rising and it is up to us to organize, get involved, and ride that tide to victory in November 2016.

Re: Bernie Sanders Proposes Bipartisan Primary Debates

macsurf — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 16:27:59 -0000

There is nothing in the articel that says he wouldn't welcome third party candidates. It was one, time limited interview, for God's sake

Re: Bernie Sanders Proposes Bipartisan Primary Debates

macsurf — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 16:26:05 -0000

Golwater would be appalled by what has happened to the party he loved. Just as Eisenhower warned the nation about the dangers of the military industrial complex, Goldwater spoke out forecefully about the dangers the Chrustian fundamentalists posed to the GOP and its traditions. I read his autobiography last summer. He remained very right wing, but in a very intelligent way

Re: Bernie Sanders Proposes Bipartisan Primary Debates

macsurf — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 14:06:36 -0000

Lets take a look at Hillary's LONG term record. She started out as a college Republican, even a supporter of Goldwater. To her credit, she moved to the left as she matured. She was an impressive congressional staff attorney during the Watergate hearings. But once she tied her wagon to Bubba, she seemed all to willing to tack in any direction their handlers decided was in Bubba's best career interests. Hence, the emergence of the centrist, even right of center, Democratic Leadership Council that so backed the Clinton in the 1990's.

On April 29, of this year, in a speech she gave at Columbia University, Hillary denounced the policy of "mass incarceration" of young, poor men of color that has so decimated urban neighborhoods and made us a nation that incarcerates more people than any other industrialized democracy. Yet in that speech she neglected to mention it was the crime bill her husband collaborated on with Newt Gingrich while she and Bubba were in the White House that put the policy of "mass incarceration" into action. Why wasn't she denouncing it back then? Many sociologists, civil rights activists, and urban community organizers were warning the Clinton/Gingrich crime bill would woud have disproportionately heavy and damaging impact on people of color and the poor.

Hillary is now concerned about wealth and income inequality in the US. But where was she when her husband and his treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, at the request of Rubin's former and current employer, CitiBank and other big Wall Street banks and interests, began to roll back and dismantle more than a few of the regulations FDR put into place after the Crash of 29 to prevent the kinds of excesses and greed that led to the Great Depression? Now, GOP actions and policies, especially "supply side economic", have fueled the growth in wealth and income inequality, but there is no denying the role Bill Clinton and Bob Rubin's action in the 1990's played in setting the stage for the recent Great Recession and the growing welth and income inequality in the States. But I have yet to hear Hillary get honest about that and what she would do about it.

In the same vain, Hillary is concerned about poverty. But she was First lady when, again, her husband working with Newt Gingrich, passed a welfare reform that allowed Bubba to claim he'd "ended welfare as we know it", but it did nothing to address the underlying causes of poverty. It simply set arbitrary time limits on how long someone could get benefits. Once that time limit was reached, those people were booted off the rolls, whether they were still mired in poverty or not. The Clinton/Gingrich reforms did reduce the technical number of people on welfare, but they actually added to the number of people driven deeper into poverty. Where was the First Lady? Where was her voice?

Just a year ago, Hillary said the issue of marriage equality was one best left to the individual states to decide. About a month ago in a brief interview with PBS, she said the Supreme Court should make marriage equality the law of the land.

Then there is her oft repeated claim her vote to allow GW to invade Iraq was a "mistake". It was nothing of the kind. It was a conscious decision based on the widely held belief among cowardly and ambitious pols in 2002 that appearing "soft on terror" was a likely career killer. Hillary condciously put her political and career interests ahead of the best interests of the nation and the world. She behaved, unlike Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, then GOP Senator Lincoln Chafee, Democratic Congressmen Bernie sanders and Barney Frank, GOP Reps Ron paul and Connie Morella, like a profile in political expediency as opposed to a profile in political courage - despite there being ample evidence the intelligence the Bushies were using to justify the Iraq invasion was, at best, incomplete and questionable and, at worst, patently false. But Hillary didn't care. She decided to look "soft on terror" was too big a threat to her presidential ambitions to behave like a profile in political courage.

I am a lifelong Democrat, but I just can't see myself voting for a candidate, regardless of their gender, who is so obvously more converned about her own financial and career intersts than she is just about anything or anybody else. I just can't

Re: Bernie Sanders Proposes Bipartisan Primary Debates

macsurf — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 11:21:24 -0000

I agree with you shortyboy

Re: Bernie Sanders Proposes Bipartisan Primary Debates

macsurf — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 11:19:28 -0000

The "conventional wisdom" says Bernie has no chance of becoming the Dem nominee, and Hillary is "inevitable". I don't buy it. If Bernie wins in Iowa, which is a distinct possibility, given Democratic caucus goers in Iowa are very liberal and they rejected Hillary in 2008, and then comes "home" to NH where an army of Massachusetts and Vermont boots for Bernie will be on the ground in the Granite State helping his NH supporters get out the vote, and wins there, all the talk of Hillary being "inevitable" goes right out the window - and fast. I can only speak for myself, but I just don't trust either one of the Clintons anymore They are political chameleons who say whatver it thiks they need to say to advance their careers at any given moment in time. There is nothing genuine about them. Bernie's record, however, is long, it is consistent, and it is credible. We all need to d what we can to help move his campaign forward

Re: ‘She Was Able To Put On A Happy Face': Big Personality Masked Pain That Led To Suicide

macsurf — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 08:08:31 -0000

The likelihood for anti-depressant meds to trigger a suicide is most common in children and adolescents. There is undeniably some risk. But for the vast majority of adults, the meds are a Godsend, but not the only component of treatment. Through personally experience, I found that counseling and a commitment to good nutrition and physical fitness were also essential in combatting my own bouts of the big D.

Re: Chris Christie: No, The Polls Are Not Skewed

macsurf — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 16:01:53 -0000

Romney is going down, probably in a significant way

Re: Sexual Healing: Evangelicals Update Their Message for Gays

macsurf — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:22:10 -0000

Sam, if you read the Bible closely, especially the Old Testament, you will fing its is very bit as oppressive, intolerant, judgmental, and, yes, violent, as some of the theological assertions in the Koran

Re: An American Gulag: Descending into Madness at Supermax

macsurf — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 20:46:47 -0000

I had to laugh today after reading a story in the NYT in which Hilary, aka Evita, Clinton scolded the young leader of N Korea for starving his people, running gulags, and being more interested in acquiring the weapons of war than in helping his people advance economically and culturally.

Now, don't get me wrong, overall, I have long admired "Hillita", especially in terms of domestic issues. But for her to be souding so self righteous when our country incarcerates more people than any other industrialized nation on the planet, mostly for minor, non violent, drug related offenses,when one in six people in the US faces, if not outright hunger nutrition insecurity, and we loot the Treasury constantly on behalf of the military industrial complex, she really comes off looking not only foolish, but downright hypocritical scolding the new "Boy Wonder" leader of North Korea

Re: Want to Thank Someone for Obama's Immigration Move? Thank Marco Rubio

macsurf — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 09:44:18 -0000

And in Richard Nixon's proposal for health care reform way back in the early 1970's - a dproposal liberals like Ted Kennedy rejected because it did not result in a universal, single payer system. The mandate is as Republican a concept as a concept can get. It only became "unconstitutional" when Obama incorporated into his proposal, at Mitt Romney's urging and intense lobbying by the health insurance industry, in order to get his proposal enacted

Re: Want to Thank Someone for Obama's Immigration Move? Thank Marco Rubio

macsurf — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 09:39:08 -0000

Roy, Obama policies regarding Venezuela and Cuba are carbon copies of GW's. The Obama administration continues to work closely with the right wing Santos government in Colombia to check Chavez's attempts to expand his influence in the region - just as the Bush admin did with Santos's predecessor, Alvaro Uribe. And our Cuban policy hasn't changed a bit. Obama, foolishly in my opinion, continues to maintain the fifty year old embrago.

And in terms of Latin America, it was efficient, often muderous, right wing dictatorships the US, regardless of whether it was Dem or Repub in the White House, embraced and supported - do the names Pinochet, Somoza, D'Aubisson, or Rios Montt ring any bells?

Re: Want to Thank Someone for Obama's Immigration Move? Thank Marco Rubio

macsurf — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 08:59:09 -0000

jaaaa, where have you been? Anyone paying attention has known that US whites of European descent will be just one of another "minority" group in the country within a generation.

And you obvioulsy know little immigration history. Americans of northern Anglo- European descent rang many of the same alarm bells you are now ringing about Latinos - except they were ringing those bells in fear of southern and eastern Europeans, like the the Italians in the Poles. Southern European immigrants were disparaged as lazy, dirty, and even more feroiciously, Papists looking to impose Catholicism on the US.

Don't also forget regions of Nort America that are now the states of Florida, Arizona, Texas, Nevada, and California, were orginally colonized by the SPANISH empire, not the British empire. We took that land from both the Spaniards and the indigenous by brute force.

Re: Video of the Day: Daily Caller Reporter Interrupts Obama Press Conference

macsurf — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 19:04:31 -0000

You, sir or madame, are too ignorant and stupid to be given the time of day

Re: Video of the Day: Daily Caller Reporter Interrupts Obama Press Conference

macsurf — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 11:02:01 -0000

heatseeker, I am a left of center liberal and I found the Iraqi citizen's action offensive - not because I supported much of anything Bush did. I found it offensive because because it was an affront to the office of the presidency. I may not have agreed with Bush on much, but that didn't diminish my respect for the office he held. The Daily Caller demeaned the office of the presidency with his behavior. He deserves to be held accountable and criticized for that

Re: International - Robert Wright - Obama's Drift Toward War with Iran - The Atlantic

macsurf — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 09:55:11 -0000

War with Iran will be a disaster for EVERYONE. Stock up on those canned goods, you're gonna need them

Re: National - Robert Wright - David Brooks vs. Twitter - The Atlantic

macsurf — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 11:42:49 -0000

I generally do not agree with Brooks on much of anything, but I admire and respect his genuinely civil and respectful articulation of his conservative views. It is refreshing in this era of overheated rhetoric and ugly polemics. Many of the twitter posts could have disagreed with Brooks without all the nast and snarky comments.

Re: Gay Marriage Won't Sever the Institution from Procreation

macsurf — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 11:38:14 -0000

I have two straight friends who have been married for 30 + years. They were high school sweethearts. They both knew they did not want kids before they married. They both came from large families - 8 kids each or more- and they wanted to be free to travel and explore the world as a couple. She was Catholic , he was Protestant. The catholic Church required they attend pre-marital counseling before her local parish priest would perform the marriage. If the opponents of gay marriage believe gays should not have the right to marry because they cannot procreate and marriage is all about procreation, should my two straight friends not been denied the right to marry in the Church or civilly if they had revealed to the priest or the tiwn clerk that they were clear on not wanting children?

Re: Will Your Future Is Full of Robot Assassins and Spy Aircraft?

macsurf — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 11:34:31 -0000

Jeremy Scahill, the national security and military correspondent for "The Nation", as well as the author of the great book about Blackwater, came out today and called Obama's use of drone strikes in Yemen "mass murder". I forget what program he was on, but it was a pretty powerful and damning commentary - thats for sure

Re: Hog Wild: Hunting Boars With Congress' Most Conservative Member

macsurf — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 09:44:38 -0000

I have no problem with the guy being a hunter. I just abhor his right wing, quasi-fascist politics

Re: Islam Is a Religion, and Therefore Protected by the Constitution

macsurf — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 11:08:54 -0000

Hey, Mitt Romney's dad George was born to a man with multiple wives living under the same roofs - in Mexico no less! What's your point?

Re: Islam Is a Religion, and Therefore Protected by the Constitution

macsurf — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 11:06:54 -0000

pamela Geller is a racist, right wing, bigoted troll who hides behind her faux Judaism

Re: Islam Is a Religion, and Therefore Protected by the Constitution

macsurf — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 11:05:48 -0000

That's the most convoluted and contradictory logic I have ever heard. If that is xase, than some fundamentalist Christian sects should be denied First Amendment protections as well, given that more than a few of them would impose strict Bible Law upon us all if they could get away with it.

Re: Islam Is a Religion, and Therefore Protected by the Constitution

macsurf — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 11:03:32 -0000

Neither have the vast majority of Muslim Americans.