the real mitt romney: deceptive and misleading.

That's utterly ridiculous. The states can't do it, and private companies sure can't do it. Mitt Romney didn't say "if the states can't afford it, the federal gov't should step in to help"; he said "we cannot afford to do those things". "those things" being DISASTER RELIEF.

I'm not commenting on how realistic it is, which I don't know, but Romney never said that disaster relief was immoral. Romney did his entire "the debt is immoral" spiel and from actually watching the video, the part you emphasized was Romney just finishing his statement, not answering King's question.

With respect to disaster relief, this is what Romney responded to this:
The entire "immoral" spiel was just his standard anti-debt rhetoric. If you assume that the role can successfully be moved to states, there is nothing wrong with that statement. I just don't know if it is realistic or not.

Who should I believe, Obama - or my "lying" eyes? Obama or the CBO data? Obama, or the labor stats?

It's an easy decision - I'm sticking with the facts, and leaving my belief in Obama's policies, in the garbage where they belong.

My argument is that cutting the number of ships, has left us unable to respond quickly, to hotspots and other naval duties (like combined fleet training and maneuvers with other nations).

Do you remember when we started air operations in support of the rebels in Libya? We needed an aircraft carrier over there, off the Libyan coast, but because we HAD NO aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea (which had been our policy for many years), we had to wait for several days while one was brought up through the Suez Canal. :mad:

With the help of the French and the Brits, we came out alright in stopping the armor "slaughter" groups headed for Benghazi, but other targets simply had to wait. Undoubtedly that cost lives in Misrata, etc. which were under attack at that time.

Now is not the time to cut down the number of our Naval ships.

Romney will have no problems at all, because the Congress will be controlled by the Republicans, imo. I agree completely that a President can't do much, if he's blocked at every turn, by a Congress that is polarized along party lines, and is controlled by the other party.

That's why you need to vote a straight Republican ticket, obviously! :D

The deficits will destroy us far far worse than any natural disaster in our history, if we don't stop them. You have no idea of how bad it gets when you have a real monetary crisis in a country.

In any budget, you can point out SOMETHING that appears cruel. Any budget. In fact, when Obama was asked about something similar in regards to Obamacare, he said "maybe you just send some folk home with a pain pill or something. Not everyone needs an operation." (the operation was an expensive one).

Romney is correct however - the federal gov't can't afford to be a replacement for insurance on your home. Why should it be? That's why we have insurance companies, and I don't know anyone who doesn't have insurance on their home. Maybe a few Democrats don't, but they're always hard to figure out. :rolleyes: Paying for the National Guard to be brought in is fine, but paying people for their losses - no. The federal gov't is NOT our insurance company. Which is good, because the fed's could never run as efficiently as any insurance company.

The help that you are appealing for, should come from the State, but most immediately, from the nearby and affected communities, friends, and various charity groups like the Red Cross, etc. Katrina is a lesson in this. The people went to the Superbowl for shelter, expecting the gov't to take care of them. But the gov't had told them to bring their own provisions, etc. Many did not however. So the Superbowl was completely overwhelmed, both in numbers, and in what they needed. They simply weren't set up to handle THAT many people.

And it took days for FEMA to get even bottled water in to those inside. :eek:

This last hurricane that hit New Orleans, the city was clear - The Superbowl is CLOSED, and no one will be admitted. So what happened? The people made their own arrangements, and everything worked out much better. Of course, there was much less flooding, but the idea is that YOU are the one responsible for your own safety, and YOU will do a LOT better job than some FEMA director in Washington can do for you. (The director's previous job was as an officer in an Arabian horse club, btw Oh! I hate Crony Politicians!)

Do you REALLY want to put your safety in the hands of these nitwits? Why? Please discuss!

Does not matter how massive our military is. 13 times larger than any nation is still too small. Adak is Romney's baggage. Same baggage was so destructive under George Jr. Limbaugh disciples (also called the Tea Party) are so easily brainwashed as to not even know they are brainwashed. Extremists say we need more military and more wars. Same brainwashing made same claims in 1930s Germany.

Romney once said in a debate with Ted Kennedy that he was was more liberal than Kennedy. A good politician knows who to lie to. Locate the most easily brainwashed. Ie Limbaugh disciples. Then claim to be an extremists just like Limbaugh. The most brainwashed will conveniently forget that Romney said he was more liberal than Kennedy. Brainwashing the least educated is that easy.

We need a president who can lie even more then Nixon and George Jr. So wackos extremists need Romney. Liars clearly make the best leaders. Liars can even massacre 5000 American servicemen for no purpose. So that Tea Party extremists will know that was good.

We need more military to massacre more Americans in useless wars. Adak said so. He can deny with the best of them. So it must be true.

That may well be your argument. But that's not what you said. Here's what you said:

I have challenged you repeatedly to support this statement of yours, and you can't or won't. You have a different argument, what you were trying to say was, a ship can't be in two places, look at the video of the debate, etc etc etc. Whatever.

I ask you directly, do you reaffirm or reject this statement of yours?

...and the Romney campaign is doubling down on FEMA.



I think this guy is thinking of the Bush-era 'Brownie' FEMA. Most of the time FEMA does it's job quite well. And having one national emergency agency, which will be constantly training and gaining field experience is a good idea in addition to the existing state agencies, which are victims to states ongoing budget crises and a certain forgetfulness when the last major disaster in a state can be years ago.

Privatizing FEMA would be even worse. Can you imagine putting the profit motive and someone like Halliburton/KBR into this - kickbacks to state legislators, horrendous markups on disaster supplies and services? All the graft and corruption we encountered in Iraq brought here to our own desperate citizens in their worst time of need.

I'd rather they just fucked with Big Bird.

... like runaway spending on more military might that we do not need?

Ridiculous.

He contradicts himself in his first sentence saying that he'll match our military to our interests. But his whole plan is to make sure this all happens above a *FLOOR* (his italics, not mine) of 4% of GDP. If all you have are military dollars, everything looks like a military threat. He doesn't say how he will pay for it, what with reducing everyone's taxes, dramatically increasing our defense budget, typical Romney, say anything that will stampede the voters, facts be damned.


Jesus, you are obdurate. Please provide a citation for this. (ps, I'm just gonna ask nicely this once, and if you don't give a cite, I'm going to chalk this up to more defamation by you.)


I agree with you, the federal government can't afford to be a replacement for insurance on your home.

But no one is suggesting that. You are melodramatically exaggerating the role of FEMA.


Money from the state, collected in the state, distributed to the state? No interstate/federal help?


My god, you sound like Romney, that you believe that people, some 47% of us, won't take responsibility for our lives, that we, some 47% of us, believe it is the federal government's responsibility to take care of us in every way, including our safety. Unbelievable.

Yet.

You would blindly put our national safety in the hands of the same "nitwits", with an even bigger military budget. Gotcha. I doubt you can explain that one away, but you probably meant to say something else.

The US is not in danger of losing its global power status through not having enough ships in its Navy. You have more navy than the rest of the world combined.
You are in danger of losing your superpower status through going bloody bankrupt. Maintaining that enormous military is a significant factor in your fiscal problems.
Sure, it took several days to get a carrier into position for the Libya operation. That was OKAY. Things worked. It was quick enough.

I support it, of course. I try and re-write it so you can grasp it, but maybe one more time, and this IS the last time:

Cutting the number of ships in our Navy, reduces our ability to get the ships we need to move to a hotspot - to that hotspot, in a short amount of time.

Of course, we want to save $$$ by not over-spending on our Navy, but we have been cutting down the number of ships, quite a bit. We need to stop cutting down the number of ships in our Navy.

Think about this: The US Navy escorts almost all of the worlds oil tankers, as they leave the Gulf of Persia, loaded with oil. Not the French, not the UK, not anybody else. The Iranians have threatened on several occasions to attack those tankers (that's why they've all been reregistered as US ships, so they have US Naval protection).

Oh, and btw., the South Korean dissidents HAVE released a bunch of helium balloons with leaflets attached, into North Korea. These ARE the leaflets that the North Koreans said they would begin merciless artillery fire on the South, if they were sent. No one is sure what may happen as a result, but I'm sure the Navy will want to keep a couple Carrier groups nearby, just in case.

In light of this, do you REALLY believe this is the best time to continue cutting Navy ships?

Well, we've got a great liar in Obama, but let's not compare lying politicians - that's like asking which elephant is bigger than a flea. :rolleyes: All politicians lie, and all of them say stupid stuff, from time to time. You can't talk that much, and not go wrong, from time to time. Just watch Obama give a non-campaign speech, when the teleprompter doesn't work -- he hems and haws and stammers like you wouldn't believe.

Ted Kennedy? Please- a sad case of a sad drunk who crashed his car while driving drunk, and left his date to die, while he sobered up for several hours before reporting the accident. A truly despicable man. He could give a good speech, however. Fine speaker when he was sober.

I don't believe we can do any more good in Afghanistan, and yes, I believe we've handled it badly. Wars like Afghanistan and Iraq, should be REALLY avoided. These places are not like Europe after WWII, or Japan. Their culture is VERY Islamic, and mostly tribal in large parts of the country. Many don't WANT to move into the 21st Century, and we don't need to drag them into it, kicking and screaming. Let them stay where they want to be. If Al Qaeda from country X attacks us, or tries to, we attack them - but we don't build up/rebuild their country for them at a cost of 100's of Billions of dollars. They can rebuild their own country, if needed.

I'm not in favor of privatizing FEMA, and yes, I was clearly referring to Brown era FEMA. The big idea here though, is that WE take care of OURSELVES, and help our neighbors and friends. DON'T rely on the gov't to take care of us.

DO NOT become dependent on the gov't, for your survival and recovery, in an emergency. You will be quite sorry if you do, because FEMA can be overwhelmed in any big emergency, and YOU could be totally ignored. You probably will be found after you're dead, however. I'll give them that much credit.

You might think differently if your family was a victim in Misrata that died during that period.

Fact is, we are going bankrupt from our over-spending. We need to cut back, clearly, and some cuts in the military, may be needed and OK. Further cuts in Navy ships is not smart at this time, however.

We have taken on the extra task of escorting nearly ALL the world's oil tankers, leaving through the Persian Gulf, which Iran has threatened to attack. This is a substantial amount of extra work to take on, AND the Korean peninsula is heating up, as well. Also, we still need one carrier at least, to support Afghanistan, while ops are on-going there.

YOU do not have the kinds of resources that the gov't has. YOU can do everything in your power to prepare and survive, but if the levies fail and the wave comes, that may not be enough. Because YOU only have domestic responses. Unless you happen to have helicopters, fully trained medics, hydraulic rescue equipment etc etc.

If FEMA can be overwhelmed, then so can ordinary people. Your post implies blame towards those who relied on the gov't for their survival, when their own resources failed them in the wake of Katrina.