U.S. Presidential Election page 39 (locked)

Originally posted by Jantonaitis:

AMERICA WAS ATTACKED BY THE TALIBAN.

No. AQ ≠ Taliban.

It doesn’t diminish Lock’s point that they got the wrong group, though. Tarring all members of an entire belief system as evil for the actions of a single extremist cell, is quite idiotic, and causes no end of problems in otherwise unrelated matters.

All that is needed to debunk this crap of YOURS is an intelligent mind.

Then maybe Karma, you shouldn’t attempt to debunk this, eh?

Originally posted by Jantonaitis:

No. AQ ≠ Taliban.

This is very embarrassing and a very serious case of ignorance. I have edited the post and now I’m going to educate myself on both so this doesn’t happen again.

Edit:
They seem to be two clearly distinct groups, though they have or had links. The Taliban seem to be an Afghan and possibly also Pakistani group that previously where a militia and then the government of at least part of Afghanistan. They are very bad for women’s civil rights, and where overthrown by the American army. They are still around though and recently shot a teenage girl activist. A lot of people are very mad about this including a lot of locals.

al-Qaeda seems to be much less defined. They are an international group dedicated to waging holy war and pushing Islam to extremism as far as I can tell.

do I have this right?

Yeah, it doesn’t diminish your point, I just dislike the idea that we’re in Afghanistan to stop terrorism – if we left right now, it’s not like the Taliban would come after us.

Both groups met during the soviet invasion of afghanistan, but neither one had established an identity yet. AQ earned some rep with them, so when they got booted out of the Sudan they went to the Taliban for refuge. The Taliban were too ignorant to realize how dangerous they were until after 9/11. I mean, they’re both crazy sunni groups, and they both use violence to achieve their ends, but that’s about as similar as they get. We have much more in common with AQ, ironically, than we do with the Taliban.

Live coverage of the vice-presidential debate starting in about 1 minute from when this post was posted.

So, how was the debate? I thought Biden did a good job. Ryan Got his act together near the end and rallied. Still I’m interested in how other people think. I don’t trust my ability to be objective here. I’m voting for Obama that means I just spent an hour and a half listening to a man I agree with argue with a man I disagree with. He probably would of had to show up without his pants for me to think he did a bad job.

Eh, I call a draw really. Biden was maybe over-aggressive and sounded super petty complaining about the time so much when he had spoken for longer amounts of time throughout the whole debate. Ryan did fine on foreign policy – Biden’s point that everything is okay because Iran doesn’t have a delivery vehicle for a nuke was super weak, but Ryan struggled when talking about the Romney tax plan.

What I dislike is how the media treats the debates. Right after the debate on ABC all they talked about was whether Biden smiling so much was good or not, and other such topics. Exactly the same as in the last debate, they do not focus on the contents of the debate or what is said.

Biden narrowly won that debate whilst having often been allotted less time to speak.

Biden ‘won,’ but the margin of victory would have been much greater had he not decided to smirk every time Ryan spoke.

I agree it was very close. I got tired of all of the smiling as I thought it was demeaning to the audience. That and he constantly interrupted Ryan. I think Biden got plenty of speaking time as he kept walking on Ryan. I didn’t like the moderator as she kept trying to pull an interview. She was only there to moderate and ask the basic questions, not pick one of the candidates and quiz him. She did it to both of them.

Yeah, if I had to give an edge I’d give it to Biden, but barely. I thought the moderator did a good job in that she actually asked them tough questions instead of just letting them spout all talking points (which they did mostly anyway).

Biden slightly on content that is. Biden seemed like an unpresidential jerk in appearance.

Yeah, I noticed they didn’t answer a couple of questions too. Overall I enjoyed it, but not as much as the presidential debate. Two more of them and I am anxious to watch them. I am not uncommitted, I will vote for Romney, but now I like him more because of his debate. He showed me some backbone and it impressed me. I think he will do a good job.

Originally posted by JaumeBG:

What I dislike is how the media treats the debates. Right after the debate on ABC all they talked about was whether Biden smiling so much was good or not, and other such topics. Exactly the same as in the last debate, they do not focus on the contents of the debate or what is said.

Biden narrowly won that debate whilst having often been allotted less time to speak.

There is news coverage with depth out there. The shallow end of the press pool is quite large though.

Originally posted by jhco50:

I agree it was very close. I got tired of all of the smiling as I thought it was demeaning to the audience. That and he constantly interrupted Ryan. I think Biden got plenty of speaking time as he kept walking on Ryan. I didn’t like the moderator as she kept trying to pull an interview. She was only there to moderate and ask the basic questions, not pick one of the candidates and quiz him. She did it to both of them.

I think the role of the moderator is on the open ended side of things. I agree with you that what you described is a valid description of moderator. I just don’t think it’s the only one. Well I liked her anyway.

The moderator was good. the only complaint I had were her extra questions.

Originally posted by JaumeBG:

Biden narrowly won that debate whilst having often been allotted less time to speak.

Not really :D If you watched on CNN, Biden ended up with an extra minute of talking time overall.

Originally posted by JaumeBG:

Biden narrowly won that debate whilst having often been allotted less time to speak.

If you count the time while he was interrupting Ryan, he probably actually had more.

Originally posted by issendorf:

Biden ‘won,’ but the margin of victory would have been much greater had he not decided to smirk every time Ryan spoke.

This I must, unfortunately “agree” with. I certainly feel Biden could have cemented a greater “win” had he been less haughtily condescending. In a somewhat “defense” of that, I would have also had a difficult time refraining from laughing at the utter bullshit coming out that man’s mouth. Biden quite often called him on “inacuratecies”.

Trickle down (supply economics) HAVE BEEN PROVEN to not work. Reducing tax dections for the middle class is nothing more than raising taxes on them to give that money to the rich, very upper class (less taxes). At the end of the day, the middle class has less money….very easy math to do. AND, Romeny won’t reveal the details of this plan….CLASSY.

It’ll be interesting to see how the fact-checkers rate the debate.

nice jhco. thanks :)

Originally posted by BobTheCoolGuy:

Originally posted by JaumeBG:

Biden narrowly won that debate whilst having often been allotted less time to speak.

Not really :D If you watched on CNN, Biden ended up with an extra minute of talking time overall.

A WHOLE MINUTE!!! NO WAY!!!

Originally posted by FlabbyWoofWoof:

Originally posted by BobTheCoolGuy:

Originally posted by JaumeBG:

Biden narrowly won that debate whilst having often been allotted less time to speak.

Not really :D If you watched on CNN, Biden ended up with an extra minute of talking time overall.

A WHOLE MINUTE!!! NO WAY!!!

I have to agree w/ FlabbyWW’s astonishment. Regardless of the time differential, Biden had to “bully” his way into the debate….OFTEN. While the time factor might have been equal, Biden didn’t have time needed to rebut much of the crap Ryan was spewing.

AND, I hope time wasn’t assessed to Biden for his quips of “It isn’t so//true” interjected into Ryan’s monologues. No the times Biden had to question the mod about his fair share of time.
Let’s not forget that Ryan couldn’t shut up when being “requested” to do so by the mod.

Originally posted by karmakoolkid:

Originally posted by FlabbyWoofWoof:

Originally posted by BobTheCoolGuy:

Originally posted by JaumeBG:

Biden narrowly won that debate whilst having often been allotted less time to speak.

Not really :D If you watched on CNN, Biden ended up with an extra minute of talking time overall.

A WHOLE MINUTE!!! NO WAY!!!

I have to agree w/ FlabbyWW’s astonishment. Regardless of the time differential, Biden had to “bully” his way into the debate….OFTEN. While the time factor might have been equal, Biden didn’t have time needed to rebut much of the crap Ryan was spewing.

AND, I hope time wasn’t assessed to Biden for his quips of “It isn’t so//true” interjected into Ryan’s monologues. No the times Biden had to question the mod about his fair share of time.
Let’s not forget that Ryan couldn’t shut up when being “requested” to do so by the mod.

The point is that Biden thought he was always getting less time, when he really was getting more time. He appeared petty and at times outright rude. Maybe Ryan was spewing crap, but then again, Biden was too.

Originally posted by BobTheCoolGuy:

The point is that Biden thought he was always getting less time, when he really was getting more time.

THAT remains to be “proven”. Unless someone has some info to show this to be true.
LOL, they needed to use one of those timers chess players use.

He appeared petty and at times outright rude.

I might even toss in a tad of arrogant. I feel that it might..MIGHT have hurt his position….of course, I’m talking about the opinions of those “undecideders”. Obviously, each camp will see it differently.

But, such is the “nature” of political rhetoric…esp today (as opposed to a couple of decades ago).

Maybe Ryan was spewing crap, but then again, Biden was too.

Not according to independent analysts.

Ya know, you’d feel “smug” and “arrogant”, too, if you were facing a debate opponent you knew was completely full of shit.

I’m a real policy wonk and math guy.
/Paul Ryan
The policy and math is too complicated to explain to you.

Fuckin LOL

Originally posted by softest_voice:

Ya know, you’d feel “smug” and “arrogant”, too, if you were facing a debate opponent you knew was completely full of shit.

I’m a real policy wonk and math guy.
/Paul Ryan
The policy and math is too complicated to explain to you.

Fuckin LOL

Holy crap! Paul Ryan refuses to explain how much the cut will cost! If you lower tax rates WITHOUT closing loop holes. Who’s going to trust the math exists if refuses to say how much they intend to regain by closing loop holes? I still don’t respect Fox, but I think I just became a fan of Paul Ryan.