forrestkc

Because the president is biracial, his wife is black. His kids are black. Thus he would not have a white son. When the president stated that if he had a son, he would look like Trevon, he meant that if he had a son, his son would be black like Trevon. ??? Thats the problem. Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed youth that was simply walking through his community, and the police just let him go. When visiting family that live in gated communities, yes I do. The thing about gated communities is that because of their restricted access, they usually have very low crime rates. So there is even less reason to suspect someone walking down the sidewalk in them, than say in a high crime inner city area. He killed an unarmed youth. Those facts are not in dispute. At the very least its manslaughter. So condemning the vigilante actions of Zimmerman somehow means that I am inciting violence against him?? I want Zimmerman to actually get a trial. If they don't charge him and arrest him, he won't get a fair trial and will never be judged by a jury of his peers.

I don't normally post on here anymore, but as someone that regularly gets out and goes for runs at night, this is my point of view on it. Lets say I am out on a run at night, and some guy pulls up behind me idling along in his vehicle and following me. Now lets say he gets out of the car, and starts to come up behind me, I am not a fighter at all, but when he got up on me, I would fight because I would fear for my life, and I should fear for my life because I am unarmed, doing nothing wrong, just traveling through a neighborhood at night, and some guy stalks me, and he is armed. In such a case, I am defending myself. I am standing my ground. He is the aggressor even if I happen to be getting the upper hand, and if he shoots and kills me, then he is a murderer. I am white, and if that was a black man that did that to me, he would be arrested then, charged within hours, and by now would be facing first degree murder charges and looking at the death penalty if convicted. His best hope would be to plea and get life in prison without parole. That is why this is a racial issue. Because we all know that if Mr. Zimmerman were black, and he killed an unarmed 17 year old white kid, he would be looking at the death penalty right now. Instead he is still walking around a freeman, despite having shot and killed an unarmed kid. That is indefensible, and the fact that scum like Farrakhan has tried to get some publicity out of it does not mean that Mr. Zimmerman did not murder an unarmed kid. I would also point out that had Mr. Zimmerman been arrested, charged and were sitting in jail right now awaiting trial. He would be safe from hate groups like the black panthers.

Let me start off by saying that I am not sure that this is the right area for this discussion, so if it is not, the mods should please move to to the appropriate area. I don't get on here much anymore, but I wanted the opinion of others on here. My question is do miracles still happen? Anyone with even a basic understanding of scripture knows that there are many accounts of miracles in scripture. That said, I don't know that the accounts of miracles in scripture show that God commonly intervened in the lives of people back then, and to be honest, I don't see where he does very much at all today. I know people will commonly attribute surviving a harrowing experience to an intervening God, but it could also be that just by chance you happened to survive it. For example, when someone gets cancer they probably will do a lot of praying to be healed, all of their friends and families will pray for them to be healed, and their church (if not other churches as well) will pray for them to be healed. So then, if they do survive cancer, especially if it was stage 4 cancer, they will attribute that to God intervening and healing them. The question I have, if that were the case, then what about those that prayed just as they did, yet were not healed. I mean to look at God that way, it almost seems as though its like saying that God is above us saying "you are going to die a horrible, miserable death, but if you beg and plead with me enough, I might change my mind". The reason why I got to thinking about all of this is that my mother died a week ago from a rare form of uterine / ovarian cancer. She was just 56 years old, had always been active, never smoked, ate right and so on. When she was diagnosed last summer we just thought it was in the very early stages and everyone (including me) told her that she seemed perfectly healthy, it had to be very early on with the cancer, and that it would be ok. She went in for surgery in July and they found out that it was stage 4b. Just the same, she was still seemingly quite strong and healthy, and everyone told her that they were praying for her, and that they knew that she could beat it. She of course was praying as well. I think just about everyone in her town was praying for her as she was extremely well liked and helped a lot of people there over the years. Just a week after surgery, despite everyone praying for her, her house burned to the ground (electrical fire). Two weeks later she started chemo (the strongest chemo available / worst side effects), and though she got extremely sick after each treatment, she continued to work (self employed doing estate sales and had an antiques and vintage clothing store), and continued to pray along with everyone else. She was extremely sick after her 5th chemo treatment, and just after thanksgiving she went back to the hospital to find out that her chemo did not work, and the cancer had spread to her liver, stomach, bowels and lungs. She wanted to make it to Christmas, yet unfortunately died at home just 2 weeks later. Despite everyone praying for her, she spent the last few weeks of her life in extreme pain, throwing up dozens of times a day, and like most people that die of ovarian cancer, she slowly starved to death. It was about as horrible of a death as you can imagine. She donated her body to cancer research, so we had a memorial service for her rather than a funeral. At the memorial service many people spoke about what she had done for them, how accepting she was of everyone, how she would help anyone willing to work no matter how down they were (homeless, addicted to drugs, and so on), and how much she would be missed. What struck me, and what got me thinking about the topic of this thread, was that her best friend said that when she went into the hospital the last time, before she found out what the prognosis was they said a prayer over her. Instead of praying to be healed, my mom had prayed that no matter what happened, she wanted the Lord to give her the strength to accept it. That really struck me, because despite all the suffering at the end of her life, she was not bitter, angry, or even that depressed. She had simply accepted that at just 56 years old, she was dying, and dying a horrible death at that. So really what my question is, does God really intervene that much in our lives. Otherwise, should we be praying for wealth, health, all the things we want (even good parking spaces), or are these kinds of divine interventions actually quite rare, and thus what we really should be praying for is guidance, perseverance, strength, and acceptance? Thoughts? I am not really meaning this thread to be a debate, but rather just to hear what others think.

That is absolutely absurd. Conservatives today are well to the right of what American conservatives were even 20 years ago. Liberals today if anything are not nearly as liberal as they were prior to the Reagan era. Ronald Reagan would be a moderate in today's Republican Party. If American Liberals are communists, then what are Canadians being they are well to the left of American Liberals? What are Europeans, the Japanese, or Australians being they are all well to the left of American Liberals. The left wing of the Democratic Party argues that we should have a social contract in America more like they have in Canada, is Canada all of a sudden the Soviet Union? I am not arguing for such a system, I am just pointing out that the comparison you are making is completely divorced from reality.

No, of course not. His voting record would not be that of a moderate even though is rhetoric was at times. McCain would talk an "independent" game, but he would vote party line almost always. I would say that McCain if anything would be moderately conservative. Yes, of course Obama is a liberal. He is in no way the most liberal president we have ever had though. He is definitely no where near as liberal as LBJ or FDR were for example. McCain at the time was not deviating much at all in his campaign proposals from the Bush era economic and foreign policy. Given the state of the nation in 2008 (involved in 2 wars, very divided, worst financial crisis since the great depression, job losses of several hundred thousand jobs a month and an economy in free fall), it looked like we need a change. Obama has not done the job in terms of turning around the economy, so we need another change. Of course. If by some long-shot Huntsman was to get the nomination I know of a lot of liberals and Democrats that would vote for him as well. Huntsman has a pretty conservative record, but he talks like a moderate so he appeals to Democrats. On paper he looks like a solid Republican. However, to listen to him he sounds progressive. I think that's why he would have broad appeal in a general election but is not that appealing to Republican Primary voters. Just the same, even though I would support either of them, it should be of little consolation to you as I live in a very red state and it's electoral votes will go to the Republican candidate either way.

Why are you so angry? First off, Cain has dropped 11 points in the polls, so its not as though its "made him more popular". I think his drop in the polls is more attributable to performances like this on his part than the scandal though. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/14/herman-cain-libya-question_n_1093425.html Or maybe it was his not knowing that China was already a nuclear power. Possibly it was his 9-9-9 plan that would have amounted to a tax increase for most Americans. Possibly it was the scandal, I don't know. However I do know that he has no chance of being the nominee. Moreover, the reason why blacks vote for Democrats is that you have conservatives out there saying things like "Blacks need to get off the Obama Plantation", which is about as offensive to them as saying that Jews should get off the Obama Auschwitz. It's that kind of attitude on the right that does more to lose black and other minority votes than anything else. I don't intend to vote for Obama unless some clown like Cain is nominated. He is a nice guy, he has no business being president though. I would prefer Huntsman (even contributed to his campaign), but most likely he won't be the nominee. I am not a huge fan of Romney's flip flopping, but I think he has the skills and knowledge to help get the economy moving again, thus I will probably vote for him should he get the nomination. The country is a mess right now. We had 8 destructive years of Bush, and Obama is not doing the job either, so I want someone in the Whitehouse to fix things and get the country moving forward again. That is why I care. I know you guys must think I am some hardcore leftist, but thats probably because on here it seems like the ideological range is between far right wing and extreme right wing so you see someone thats fairly moderate on here and they look like a commie to you.

My point is that you have a double standard here. You are willing to accept ignorance out of Cain, but the problem is that in Obama's case, while he has not been a very good president, he did do well in the debates. He articulated clear policy positions and demonstrated a knowledge of foreign and domestic policy. That doesn't necessarily make him a good president, but being president is a very difficult job. There are thousands of people that have ran companies that had a few hundred million a year in revenue (like Godfathers Pizza). There are not thousands of people in this country that are capable of being president. Our presidents almost without exception, whether they were successful presidents or not, have almost all been very brilliant men. I would imagine that the average IQ for a president of the United States has been well over 120. A lot of people think they could be president, but its a hard job. It takes a brilliant mind and a gifted leader. I am not saying that necessarily means they will be a good president, I am saying that the job at minimum requires that. No reasonable individual would argue that Obama was not a very brilliant individual, that doesn't make him a good president though. A lot of people thought President Bush was stupid. The fact is he may have not of been our smartest president, but I would be willing to bet that he still has an IQ of over 120. Cain makes an absolute horses behind out of himself every time he gets asked difficult policy questions in an interview. He is simply not ready to be president, and probably isn't seriously running for the job anyway. I think he is just in this to sell books. Think about this. Cain ran Godfathers Pizza, a company with a few hundred million a year in revenue. Thats good, but compare that to Romney. Romney founded Bain Capital, a company with over 60 Billion dollars in assets. That is one of the reasons why Romney demonstrates such a strong knowledge of foreign and domestic policy. it takes a pretty stinkin smart guy to run something like that.

And its not some left wing conspiracy that this came to light being he is a major candidate. It would be a scandal for any candidate, regardless of their political party, to have been accused of sexual harassment by multiple women, especially if settlements were paid out. Moreover, I have worked in the professional world for 15 years now and have never been accused of sexual harassment. I would imagine that everyone on here that is defending him has never been accused of sexual harassment either. That all said, I don't think thats what has hurt Cain the most in the polls. Its his remarkable ignorance of domestic and foreign policy that has hurt him the most. Even Ann Coulter doesn't think he is ready. There's really no way to get 'ready' other than to jump in with both feet. Cain could do the job and he's a likable guy; what else does a candidate need? Clinton had no practical knowledge of foreign poliy issues either and he did a pretty good job. The difference is that Clinton, like Bush, Reagan, and the vast, vast majority of presidents, took steps to educate themselves on foreign, domestic, and economic policies before they decided to run for office. They did just take the flippant and intellectually lazy attitude that they did not need to know any of this because they would just surround themselves with people that did.

The right to bear arms of course is a 2nd Amendment Federal Issue. However, the supreme court has also ruled that states and municipalities can place reasonable qualifications on that. For example, most states do not allow convicted felons to own firearms. By the same type of logic of this legislation, if one state does not allow a convicted felon to carry a concealed gun, but another does, then that state has to accept that other states permit. Let me ask you this. Freedom of expression is a constitutional right as well. Now lets say Arkansas has some strong restrictions on the distribution of pornography, but California has much less strong restrictions. What if the federal government said that since freedom of expression is a constitutional right, and that since pornography falls under the purview of freedom of expression, if a smutt peddler is licensed in one state, all other states have to accept that license? My point is, this is not a clear black and white issue, there are a lot of gray areas here. When the federal government states mandating that one state must accept another states permit, then you are opening up a huge can of worms. Now, that all said, of course the federal government should step in, specifically the federal judiciary, when a state tries to deny an individual their constitutional rights. So while mandating that one state must accept another state's conceal carry permit is a very gray area constitutionally, it would be a black and white issue if a state tried to just out and out deny its citizens the right to bear arms.

Why don't you care when its a Republican running for office?

Isn't this a state's rights issue. States are already free to enter into agreements with other states regarding concealed carry permits, why should the federal government get involved and dictate this to all the states? It's not like a drivers license in that state's recognizing the validity of other state's driver's licenses is necessarily for interstate commerce, and thus mandating that is under the purview of the federal government. In this case, the federal government would be saying to a state like Missouri that it has to recognize a conceal and carry permit from say Texas, even though Missouri may have more stringent requirements for obtaining that permit than another state would.

And its not some left wing conspiracy that this came to light being he is a major candidate. It would be a scandal for any candidate, regardless of their political party, to have been accused of sexual harassment by multiple women, especially if settlements were paid out. Moreover, I have worked in the professional world for 15 years now and have never been accused of sexual harassment. I would imagine that everyone on here that is defending him has never been accused of sexual harassment either. That all said, I don't think thats what has hurt Cain the most in the polls. Its his remarkable ignorance of domestic and foreign policy that has hurt him the most. Even Ann Coulter doesn't think he is ready.

So when Jennifer Flowers came out and said that Clinton was had a long term affair with her, was that part of some conspiracy? After all, those charges from her only surfaced when he was the front runner, why did she not come out with those charges early in the nomination process? The reason of course is that the media typically does not scrutinize candidates until they actually start leading in the polls. This is not a phenomenon that is unique to this election, this party, or even this country.

Of course. Obama and his campaign team would never repeat the same exact tactics they used in the last election, right here in this state, would they? All the women who accused him were from Chicago. They were all from the National Restaurant Association. Uh, no. If he was a chronic harasser, women would be coming forward from every single place he worked. They would be stacking up like cordwood. 100% manufactered by the Left because Cain scares them stupid. They should be scared because they are still stuck with an Empty Suit who's approval level is in the basement. So you are saying that when the National Restaurant Association paid out settlements to two women back in the late 90s, it was all part of a conspiracy that would unfold today? Moreover, its not uncommon at all for men to only be accused of sexual harassment at one workplace rather than every where they worked. The reason for this is that many times guys don't engage in this kind of behavior their entire lives. A lot of times its part of a midlife crisis, or in the wake of some other event in their lives.

When you dissect the Cain smear campaign, it is obvious who put it together, and why, because he scares the Left to death. We already know that the party that preaches "tolerance" and "equality" is, in reality, completely intolerant, and tries to do everything they can to keep every ethnic group there is segregated and easier to control. They do this while preaching they are doing the opposite so they can garner votes. The Cain smear campaign was supposed to push all the right conservative buttons because it illustrates what bothers the Left. They figure what bothers and scares them would naturally get conservatives to drop Cain like a hot potato. Get some caucasian females to accuse a black man of sexual harassment, point the media at them and sit back while the fun ensues. Only all these touch-stone issues that were supposed to make conservatives cringe and take Cain out behind the woodshed had no effect. Because conservatives are not the narrow-minded bigots that the Left has continually tried to paint them as. Their ill-conceived smear campaign was a horrrible miscalculation on their part whether Cain gets the nomination or not. The smear campaign itself was a non-starter because conservatives could care less about Cain's skin color. Conservatives care about the country and the issues, just like we have said all along. It is race that the Left has a problem with, and they didn't think this one out. Now they can't paint every issue as being racially-motivated, not even with Obama because they have inadvertently displayed that the whole race card deck is now moot and useless. I love it. If Cain gets the nomination, he will get my vote. If not, I am shopping it out. Even the Cain camp has blamed the smear campaign against him on the Perry Campaign. Moreover, he was accused of sexual harassment over 10 years ago. I find it hard to believe that sexual harassment accusations were brought up against Cain in the late 90s (of which 2 were settled) simply out of some conspiracy against him running for president over 10 years later.

They are just hosting Nate Silver's models. If you don't want to trust the guy that in past campaigns has been spot on with is predictions then its up to you. In the interest of disclosure I am not on here campaigning for Obama. I actually contributed to the Huntsman campaign when he first announced last spring. The country is in a mess as we need someone capable of getting us out this. The way I see it, there are 2 candidates that might can do that, Romney and Huntsman.

Also if you don't believe me, then look at what Nate Silver is predicting. Nate Silver has shown himself over the last few elections to be the best statistician out there in terms of predicting election results. He correctly predicted the election results for 49 of 50 states in 2008. He has a really cool model you can play with at the Times website. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Silveris http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/11/03/magazine/538-gdp-election-calculator.html?ref=magazine According to his analysis, given what the CBO is predicting for economic growth in 2012, Huntsman and Romney have the best chance of beating Obama. In fact, unless we slide into another recession rather than just have poor economic growth, they are the only 2 candidates that will beat Obama.

Of the candidates at the time, prior to the nomination, McCain did have the best chance. If you remember, 2008 was a terrible year for Republicans, so no Republican had a very good chance of prevailing. However, the only 2 candidates at the time that had even a remote chance was McCain and Romney, and Romney's problem at the time (and the same problem today) was that he was seen as a flip flopper. Obama ran a stellar campaign in 2008 and won by a large margin. McCain ran a poor campaign in the fall, chose a running mate that had no appeal outside of the conservative base, and made some huge misstates in the wake of the financial crisis in October of 2008. That said, had everyone known ahead of time there would have been a worldwide financial crisis in the fall of 2008, Romney may have been a better choice then because he would have been seen as a stronger candidate on the economy than McCain. Just the same, most likely no Republican candidate could have won in 2008. For starters he is the joke of every late night comedy show. Real Clear Politics in their rolling poll average has him 8.9% behind Obama (and most of the polls were prior to Cain's latest pathetic performance in an interview being asked about whether he supported Obama's policies on Libya). http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/president_obama_vs_republican_candidates.html Cain has a favorability rating of just 32%. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57319580-503544/herman-cain-favorability-falls-behind-romney-after-scandal-poll-shows/ The guy is literally a joke. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7388265n He makes Sarah Palin look like William F. Buckley. Moreover, I don't think even he considers himself a serious candidate and is just in this to sell books. He doesn't have much a campaign on the ground in early primary states, what little campaign he does have does a terrible job responding to scandals, and he doesn't even campaign that much in the early primary states. The guy is just the latest "Anybody but Romney" to rise and fall.

Well it's good to see that you don't think I am some kind of a mole.

I joined the boards in 2005. I last posted here sometime in 2009, well after the election. I don't normally get that interested in politics other than in election years as usually I am more into what are kids have going on (baseball, soccer, upward bound basketball, scouts), work, running, and cycling. That's why I go for long periods without posting. Moreover, you guys sometimes are not very friendly to those that have differing opinions. Just the same, I don't really get why I am suppose to be some "liberal mole" as what would be the point. I am just saying that Cain, Perry, Bachmann, Paul, Santorum, and Gingrich are all unelectable in the general election. I don't think that any of them would get more than 40% of the vote, and that's in a year that the Republicans ought to win easily. I said the same thing about Palin in 2008, and I was right. The country is a mess right now. There is no doubt about that, and we need someone that is a serious, knowledgeable, pragmatic leader to get us out of it. There are some guys out there that are not running that fit that bill. Guys like Mitch Daniels or Chris Christie. However, of the candidates that are actually running, there are two that could actually win in 2012, and that might could help get us out of this mess we are in, Romney and Huntsman. Of those two, I think Huntsman is absolutely brilliant, principled, but not divisive, and would win in a landslide. However, if the Republican base doesn't want him, then that leaves Romney as their only electable candidate. The hardcore left figured out a long time ago that the majority of the country does not share their views and thus they cannot expect to win with a candidate that is a hardcore liberal. You don't see Democrats nominating Bernie Sanders or Dennis Kucinich as their parties nominee in presidential elections. The hardcore right needs to figure out the same thing. Most people are fairly moderate, they are not that ideological. They don't despise the current president, they don't believe he is a communist, they don't question his citizenship, or think he is some horrible person. In fact, most people out there on a personal level like him. However, they believe that he is not up to the task of getting our country out of the mess that its in. The people out there that believe the president is a communist, or not an American citizen, or a muslim, or whatever, are in the minority. So you are not going to get a candidate that can win that shares those views. If I am some kind of a liberal mole for pointing out the obvious here, then so be it.

My wife reads the boards every once in a while. She said you guys thought I was a mole or something. I don't see how pointing out that Romney and Huntsman are the most electable is "promoting the liberal campaign". Romney may be a flip flopper, but he is not a liberal, and Huntsman's record as governor of Utah was solidly conservative.

I have not posted on here in a while, but here is my 2 cents worth. The Obama camp would love to run against Cain. He would be the Republican's George McGovern. Everyone outside of the core Republican base believes that Cain is a clown and not in anyway presidential material. Gingrich is a walking negative ad, a narcissist that worships his own ideas, and would be lucky to get 25% of the women vote should he get the nomination. In my opinion, Huntsman is the strongest candidate for a general election, but the Republican Primary electorate doesn't seem to like the guy. That said, I think if he were somehow to end up with the nomination he would win by a landslide against Obama in 2012. Romney is the most likely candidate. His problem is that he is quite the flip flopper. However, given the state of the economy and how unlikely it is to improve that much over the next year, I would imagine that Romney will win in 2012 should he get the nomination. What most people want right now is a pragmatist that will get in there and fix things.

Me. He ran for the job. The man is distincly and culturally UnAmerican. He does not understand what America stands for, it's obvious. I think that anyone that sees those that disagree with them as "distinctly and culturally UnAmerican" are the ones that really don't get what America is and what it stands for.

You guys will take anything and try to attack the guy with it. When Obama says we are a superpower whether we like it or not, he is not saying he hates America or anything. As hard as this might be for you guys to believe, I am sure he loves America as much as you do. What he means by that statement is that regardless of what many isolationists and pacifists may want in terms of American foreign policy, the fact is, we are a superpower and that carries some responsibilities on the part of America. It is kind of like saying, hey, being king is a blessing and at times a hardship because it is. Obama just stated the obvious, being a superpower has a lot of benefits, but a lot of hard responsibilities as well. Who could possibly disagree with that.

1. Carter was one of the most openly Christian presidents we have ever had. Much more so than Reagan was. 2. The fiscal size of government was much larger under Reagan than under Carter. 3. Deficits were 4 times higher under Reagan than under Carter. Your brother paid such a high interest rate because the Fed Chairman at the time, Paul Volker, had interest rates through the roof in order to choke inflation out of the economy in the early 80s. Interest rates remained relatively high throughout the Reagan years. Interest rates are dictated by monetary policy, not fiscal policy.