Brace yourself, bcspace, for 4 more Obama years

[_Droopy]

What's ironic here is that John McCain is known to have been dead wrong here. Waterboarding is physically harmless, had already been used thousands of times on large numbers of U.S. Airforce pilots as a matter of standard training, and was of immense value (especially with Khalid Sheik Mohammed) in getting intelligence form recalcirant terrorists.

Your deep concern for the moralityless, conscienceless, genocidal enemies of the United States are touching, Bluff - and so typically and traditionally left-wing.

[_Droopy]

John McCain was waterboarded, and he considered it torture.

John McCain is a doofus, and a statist liberal, which is why he lost what should have been an easy election against a black nationalist/Marxist ideologue.

I'm not sure what difference it makes who does the torturing.

Nothing even approaching "torture" ever occured at U.S. hands in the war on terrroism (well, OK, the Brittney Spears music pumped into the holding cells on a 24 hour basis probably qualify).

[_Buffalo]

John McCain was waterboarded, and he considered it torture.

John McCain is a doofus, and a statist liberal, which is why he lost what should have been an easy election against a black nationalist/Marxist ideologue.

I'm not sure what difference it makes who does the torturing.

Nothing even approaching "torture" ever occured at U.S. hands in the war on terrroism (well, OK, the Brittney Spears music pumped into the holding cells on a 24 hour basis probably qualify).

Your support for the methods of totalitarian regimes and your attack on a decorated war vet and POW survivor are noted, Comrade Droopy.

[_Brackite]

The Following is From the Washington Times:

CBO: Stimulus hurts economy in the long run

By Stephen Dinan
-
The Washington Times
Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday downgraded its estimate of the benefits of President Obama’s 2009 stimulus package, saying it may have sustained as few as 700,000 jobs at its peak last year and that over the long run it will actually be a net drag on the economy.

CBO said that while the Recovery Act boosted the economy in the short run, the extra debt that the stimulus piled up “crowds out” private investment and “will reduce output slightly in the long run — by between 0 and 0.2 percent after 2016.”

The analysis confirms what CBO predicted before the stimulus passed in February 2009, though the top-end decline of two-tenths of a percent is actually deeper than the agency predicted back then.

All told, the stimulus did boost jobs and the economy in the short run, according to CBO’s models. At the peak of spending from July through September 2010, it sustained anywhere from 700,000 to 3.6 million, which lowered the unemployment rate by between four-tenths of a percent to 2 percent.

The Obama administration had promised 3.5 million jobs would be produced at the peak of spending.

For this current quarter CBO said the stimulus is sustaining between 600,000 and 1.8 million jobs, which has improved the unemployment rate by as much as 1 percent versus what it otherwise would have been.

The White House did not return a message seeking comment Tuesday afternoon, but officials there previously have said the Recovery Act stopped the economy from falling into another Great Depression.

“The point is, what is uncontestable is that those infrastructure projects that were funded by the Recovery Act were very well managed, came in on budget or under budget and led to the creation of many, many jobs by an outside, independent analyst” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in September, as Mr. Obama was proposing another round of stimulus spending.

That new proposal called for $447 billion in expanded tax breaks, additional aid to states to hire teachers and emergency workers, and more infrastructure spending.

That broad effort has stalled, though on Monday Mr. Obama signed a slim portion of the package that offers tax breaks to businesses that hire veterans, and that repeals a 3 percent contract withholding requirement for government contractors.

On Tuesday, top House Democratic leaders sent a letter to House Speaker John A. Boehner urging support for the extension of unemployment benefits, last year’s payroll tax cut and higher payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients before they all expire at the end of this year.

“Independent economists from across the political spectrum estimate that failure to pass these essential pieces of legislation could reduce economic growth by much as 2 percentage points next year,” the leaders, including top House Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi and her two chief lieutenants, said.

CBO has re-evaluated the stimulus every three months, and its estimates for the total cost have varied. Initially the package was pegged at $787 billion, rose as high as $862 billion at one point, and is now projected to be $825 billion once all the money is paid out.

The nonpartisan agency also has changed its model for the spending’s impact on the economy, and the new calculations show the Recovery Act did less than originally projected.

...

Link: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... -long-run/


Edited to Add: I Never stated that the Stimulus Package didn't save a few jobs. However, I don't think that it was really worth it to spend over 800 billion dollars that didn't really help improve the unemployment rate hardly that much. President Barack Obama signed the Stimulus Package back in February of 2009 when the National unemployment rate was at 8.3%.


National Unemployment Rate:

Feb. 2009 - 8.3%
Mar. 2009 - 8.7%
Apr. 2009 - 8.9%
May 2009 - 9.4%
June 2009 - 9.5%
July 2009 - 9.5%
Aug. 2009 - 9.6%
Sept. 2009 - 9.8%
Oct. 2009 - 10.0%
Nov. 2009 - 9.9%
Dec. 2009 - 9.9%
Jan. 2009 - 9.7%
Feb. 2010 - 9.8%
Mar. 2010 - 9.8%
Apr. 2010 - 9.9%
May 2010 - 9.6%
June 2010 - 9.4%
July 2010 - 9.5%
Aug. 2010 - 9.6%
Sept. 2010 - 9.5%
Oct. 2010 - 9.5%
Nov. 2010 - 9.8%
Dec. 2010 - 9.4%

Link: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

[_Droopy]

Your support for the methods of totalitarian regimes and your attack on a decorated war vet and POW survivor are noted, Comrade Droopy.

How clear it becomes, with each futile attempt, why I gave up talking to you before.

I see I was on the right track in so doing.

[_Buffalo]

Your support for the methods of totalitarian regimes and your attack on a decorated war vet and POW survivor are noted, Comrade Droopy.

How clear it becomes, with each futile attempt, why I gave up talking to you before.

I see I was on the right track in so doing.

Because I make you look foolish. I'd stop talking to me, too. :)

[_EAllusion]

John McCain is a doofus, and a statist liberal, which is why he lost what should have been an easy election against a black nationalist/Marxist ideologue.

The incumbent president had the worst approval numbers in the history of them being recorded. That bodes horribly for the candidate running from the same party. It also doesn't help when the country is in an economic collapse that's worse than nearly anyone can remember.

In short, this statement is so far removed from reality it's baffling. The Republicans have almost no shot whatsoever at winning the presidency. It would've taken a dead hooker in the closet at the last moment to defeat whatever Democrat ran.

Nothing even approaching "torture" ever occured at U.S. hands in the war on terrroism

Also, the United states isn't located in North America! Yarhg! Fortunately for my point, it doesn't matter what sorts of torture you don't consider torture. Treaties the US has signed on and played a role in authoring that were pushed by the Reagan administration defined acts the US later engaged in as torture. That includes but is not limited to waterboarding (once known as "the water torture"). The US has a history of prosecuting under torture laws those who have engaged in it domestically and the US has tried members of other nations for warcrimes for having used it. Until it became clear that the US was systematically engaging it in, there was no controversy over whether it constituted torture. So you just don't consider torture what the Reagan administration did.

If anyone is curious what goes on in US waterboarding, this article is a good primer:

http://www.salon.com/2010/03/09/waterbo ... r_dummies/

Also, outsourcing torture through the use of extraordinary rendition (which we still do) should be considered torture at US hands. If I hire my friend to interrogate you specifically because I know he will torture you, I'm part of a torture regime and would be prosecuted for that role.

[_EAllusion]

As nothing remotely resembling what any intellectually reasonable human being would describe as "torture" ever occured at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib,

Outside of beatings, humiliation/degradation, sleep and sensory deprivation, waterboarding, extended forced positioning, prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures, sound blasting, simulated executions, etc. ? All of those are intended to produce excruciating mental and/or physical anguish, which is what torture is. Unfortunately, what you consider "intellectually reasonable human beings" doesn't include the treaties we signed onto that define torture. Also unfortunately, this is going to take away the teeth of your arguments when you attempt to criticize the barbarism of regimes like Iran and North Korea for their torture when their torture constitutes mostly this kind of thing.

[_EAllusion]

e US has tried members of other nations for warcrimes for having used it.

I probably should have worded this more forcefully. The US tried and executed members of other nations for having committed war crimes (torture specifically) on the basis of their waterboarding.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... rboarding/

[_Bond James Bond]

Picture: totally not torture at Abu Ghraib.