Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

You are misinformed. America's credit and reputation were not ruined in that way.

Who do you prefer?

PeterS

So what was false?

PeterS

And yet our credit was down graded right after. On October 15, 2013 the credit agency Fitch warned that it may cut the U.S. credit rating, citing the political brinkmanship over raising the federal debt ceiling. It was cut two weeks later.

The political brinkmanship they were talking about was Cruz and his dog and pony show with green eggs and ham.

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

You're getting your news from Democrats. The economy was in the tank and the national debt was $2Trillion higher than projected thanks to bipartisan liberalism.

Loki Loc: Georgia

If our bills had been paid, why is the debt growing rather than shrinking? The only thing a government shutdown does is send non-essential personnel home for a while. Their checks might be a little late. The asswipes in congress might not get their outrageously inflated paychecks on time. Granny on SoSec or disability will not be affected.
During the Reagan Administration, Tip O'Neill and the Democrats shut down the government nine damn times and no one really noticed, except for a few "non-essential" paper shufflers whose checks were a little late. Stagin a filibuster to shine a light on outrageous government waste, pork and broken promises is kind of what an honest politician (I know, that's an oxymoron ), might do.

PeterS

Well somebody took notice as "political brinkmanship" was the reason cited for the credit rating downgrade.

>>snip<<

Without specifically mentioning Republicans, S&P senior director Joydeep Mukherji, with Standard and Poor's, said the stability and effectiveness of American political institutions were undermined by the fact that “people in the political arena were even talking about a potential default, Mukherji said.

“That a country even has such voices, albeit a minority, is something notable,” he added. “This kind of rhetoric is not common amongst AAA sovereigns.”

"The political brinksmanship of recent months, highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/8/13/1006358/-

>>end<<

It was Cruz grandstanding that was the impetus for the down grade. It was a careless act that for someone who fancies himself as presidential caliber cost jobs, increased the cost to borrow money, and left even Republican lawmakers devoid of a reasonable explanation for what he did.

>>snip<<

But Standard & Poor's disagreed, leading to a credit rating reduction that analysts dreaded.

"If they downgrade the U.S. Treasury, that will be the most significant downgrade in the history of rating agencies," Jim Kessler of Third Way, a non-partisan economic think tank in Washington, D.C., told ABC News last week.

Analysts predicted a downgrade might mean:

a 6 percent drop in the stock market, meaning the average 401(k) of $140,000 would lose $9,000.

mortgage rates rising at least a half point. That's a $19,000 hike on the average $172,000 home loan.

the overall economy getting hit with 1 percent drop in GNP, translating into 640,000 lost jobs.

And that's just the immediate damage.

"I would compare it to a marriage where one spouse cheats on the other," Kessler said last week. "The marriage may survive, but it will never be the same again. And if there is a downgrade on U.S. treasuries, our economy will survive but it will never be the same again, as well."

>>end<<

Cruz is a careless rookie as a senator and he will be a careless rookie as a president . It's sad when the top four contenders for president, 2 by each party, aren't fit to be president thus assuring our country up to 8 more years of contentious and incompetent leadership. You guys put nearly 20 candidates and your top two are the worst ones.

Democrats at least have scarcity for an excuse. You guys can only point to an empty headed political body as the reason for your failure to find compentent leadership. Both parties are sad but you guys take the cake...

PeterS

How was National Debt 2 trillion higher than projected? Projected by whom and where is the projection? And are you saying I should be getting my news from Fox and Newsmax? Even republicans slammed Cruz for his actions here. When it comes to Cruz the news source doesn't matter--both sides print pretty much the same stuff...

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

A different perspective~~~

Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected
Quote :

We’re in a funny moment. Those who do politics for a living, some of them quite brilliant, are struggling to comprehend the central fact Republican primary race, while regular people have already absorbed what has happened and is happening. Journalists and politicos have been sharing schemes for how Marco parlays a victory out of winning nowhere, or Ted roars back, or Kasich has to finish second in Ohio. But in my experience any nonpolitical person on the street, when asked who will win, not only knows but gets a look as if you’re teasing him. Trump, they say.

In America now only normal people are capable of seeing the obvious.

But actually that’s been true for a while, and is how we got in the position we’re in.

But I keep thinking of how Donald Trump got to be the very likely Republican nominee. There are many answers and reasons, but my thoughts keep revolving around the idea of protection.

There are the protected and the unprotected. The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it. The unprotected are starting to push back, powerfully.

The protected are the accomplished, the secure, the successful—those who have power or access to it. They are protected from much of the roughness of the world. More to the point, they are protected from the world they have created. Again, they make public policy and have for some time.

I want to call them the elite to load the rhetorical dice, but let’s stick with the protected.

They are figures in government, politics and media. They live in nice neighborhoods, safe ones. Their families function, their kids go to good schools, they’ve got some money. All of these things tend to isolate them, or provide buffers. Some of them—in Washington it is important officials in the executive branch or on the Hill; in Brussels, significant figures in the European Union—literally have their own security details.

Because they are protected they feel they can do pretty much anything, impose any reality. They’re insulated from many of the effects of their own decisions.

One issue obviously roiling the U.S. and western Europe is immigration. It is THE issue of the moment, a real and concrete one but also a symbolic one: It stands for all the distance between governments and their citizens.

It is of course the issue that made Donald Trump.

If you are an unprotected American—one with limited resources and negligible access to power—you have absorbed some lessons from the past 20 years’ experience of illegal immigration. You know the Democrats won’t protect you and the Republicans won’t help you. Both parties refused to control the border. The Republicans were afraid of being called illiberal, racist, of losing a demographic for a generation. The Democrats wanted to keep the issue alive to use it as a wedge against the Republicans and to establish themselves as owners of the Hispanic vote.

Many Americans suffered from illegal immigration—its impact on labor markets, financial costs, crime, the sense that the rule of law was collapsing. But the protected did fine—more workers at lower wages. No effect of illegal immigration was likely to hurt them personally.

It was good for the protected. But the unprotected watched and saw. They realized the protected were not looking out for them, and they inferred that they were not looking out for the country, either.

The unprotected came to think they owed the establishment—another word for the protected—nothing, no particular loyalty, no old allegiance.

Mr. Trump came from that.

This is a terrible feature of our age—that we are governed by protected people who don’t seem to care that much about their unprotected fellow citizens.

And a country really can’t continue this way.

In wise governments the top is attentive to the realities of the lives of normal people, and careful about their anxieties. That’s more or less how America used to be. There didn’t seem to be so much distance between the top and the bottom.

Now is seems the attitude of the top half is: You’re on your own. Get with the program, little racist.

Social philosophers are always saying the underclass must re-moralize. Maybe it is the overclass that must re-moralize.

I don’t know if the protected see how serious this moment is, or their role in it.

http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=296&mn=17577&pt=msg&mid=15791036


"Get with the program racist"........xenophobe......homophobe......Islamaphobe....... and all the other phobes...... Conform to our policies and ideology or be outed, shamed, and audited.
~~~~~~~~
I'll only add Peggy Noonan makes a pretty good point. Those who create the policies that set conditions in the real world never have to experience the reality of them.... They are protected.......

Is Trump the one to bring that reality front and center? Millions seem to think so........

At the moment - we have real problems - and it's not confined to a moment - it's been building for at least 40 years or more... America is not at a "tipping point".... We're at the breaking point.... No solutions from the Oligarchs, they take and take, and take... They don't represent those that put them there - not anymore... They're in it for all the free stuff and power that they can get....

Trump puts it out there, Cruz does too, but doesn't get as much traction as Trump because of the MSM decidedly created Trump's candidacy.... And now - as one article already put forth - they can't handle him or the truth.... Cruz had been attempting to put that message out there - but his efforts have been sabotaged by McConnell and the rest of the losers in Congress, as well as the MSM and yes, Trump.... So - it'll be a waiting game for Cruz to see whether he'll survive Texas....
Rubio needs to lose - and lose badly....I hope he does, the mealy mouth "establishment" is no better than those now throwing millions his way to take Trump out..Bush couldn't do it and I doubt Rubio can either....

Super Tuesday will be very interesting, if Trump takes the 11 states "projected", mathematically delegate wise he will have already "won"..The RINOS' will have to literally throw the election to win it... I put nothing past them either...

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

For you LindaJoy, in case you didn't see it on another thread.

I'm still pulling for Cruz, but will enthusiastically push Trump over a Democrat or Socialist. (Duhhhhhh...)

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

:lol: :lol: :lol: No, I had not seen it yet..You're a riot ya brat!!!
THank You, love it I do and snagged too~~

Like you I will support Cruz if it goes that way~~ Rubio is a weasel to the establishment and I can not vote for him....Trump, Cruz, either or both work for me... :thumbup: :thumbup:

grumpymarine Loc: Florida

Hard to explain how the left thinks. Sort of like being anti-war. The nature of mankind is war. Being weak is to die as a nation.

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

I'd vote Rubio over a Democrat or Socialist.

Hell.... I voted for McCain...

jer48 Loc: perris ca

personally I am not looking for an insider establishment candidate I would vote for him assuming Trump lost the election which I don't think he will sick and tired of all the PC and politics

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Well, hell, so would I but I'd be very upset with the whole party, as if I'm not not!!! :wink:

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

I actually think Rubio is not nearly as bad as some say.

He's not the complete package of conservatism, but he's much better than the typical RINO that was McCain.

He's a decent man and would do a fine job, I think.