TBD on Ning
Close your eyes...imagine the Republicans won the white house.
The bank bailout (TARP) never happened. Neither did the Recovery Act (stimulus bill).
President McCain vetoed them, calling them"big government" and "wasteful spending" in accordance with the new Republican party line.
The financial markets cascaded in collapse around the world. Suicide frequency skyrockets, as does violent crime. Credit vanishes. Marginal banks go under. People run on the remaining banks. Secure and sound banks either close or tighten credit drastically. Small businesses, already suffering from tight credit, go belly up as the dire economic reality cascades throughout the nation. Shelters are full and run out of supplies. Children are hungry. Parents, in an attempt to feed them, turn to crime.
General Motors and Chrysler have filed for bankruptcy and have laid off most of their work force immediately. The rest of the workers are hoping for a buyout from India or China and praying their jobs don't move overseas. The many small businesses and industries that supply these auto makers are decimated. Restaurants are empty and restaurant staff is halved at best. Well-to-do neighborhoods hire extra security guards to defend garbage dumpsters from the homeless, who flock to these neighborhoods under cloak of darkness to scavenge for food and items to sell for money.
Tent cities sprung up in temperate climates as people were evicted from their homes. The evictions slowed a bit after people began shooting back from their bedrooms. Southern cities are swamped with the influx of thousands homeless migrants seeking warmer temperatures in the winter months. National unemployment has reached 25%, so you can imagine what is happening in the African American and Native American communities.
Women still face pay inequity. Troops dig into Iraq for a ten to twelve year stay. The media blackout of war casualties is still in place. The cost of the wars remains off the federal budget. The Freedom of Information Act is largely ignored with national security cited most often as the reason.
Embryonic stem-cell lines are restricted and federal support for new biomedical research has dried up. State are forbidden to enact fuel efficiency standards above federal standards. Funds for new school construction are nonexistent.
More secret detention facilities in Eastern Europe and elsewhere are being opened. Climate change is dismissed as a hoax. Offshore tax havens provide ready caches for top financial and insurance company executives.
Pay and benefits for military personnel stagnates. Veteran benefits continue to deteriorate despite John McCain's POW history. Student loans are harder to get and smaller in size.
The FDA still does not regulate tobacco. No Child Left Behind is still an unfunded mandate.
John Boehner agrees to pay half the installation cost for Sarah Palin's tanning bed.
After all, we have to to "put country first."
President McCain vetoed them, calling them"big government" and "wasteful spending" in accordance with the new Republican party line.
The financial markets cascaded in collapse around the world. Suicide frequency skyrockets, as does violent crime. Credit vanishes. Marginal banks go under. People run on the remaining banks. Secure and sound banks either close or tighten credit drastically. Small businesses, already suffering from tight credit, go belly up as the dire economic reality cascades throughout the nation. Shelters are full and run out of supplies. Children are hungry. Parents, in an attempt to feed them, turn to crime.
General Motors and Chrysler have filed for bankruptcy and have laid off most of their work force immediately. The rest of the workers are hoping for a buyout from India or China and praying their jobs don't move overseas. The many small businesses and industries that supply these auto makers are decimated. Restaurants are empty and restaurant staff is halved at best. Well-to-do neighborhoods hire extra security guards to defend garbage dumpsters from the homeless, who flock to these neighborhoods under cloak of darkness to scavenge for food and items to sell for money.
Tent cities sprung up in temperate climates as people were evicted from their homes. The evictions slowed a bit after people began shooting back from their bedrooms. Southern cities are swamped with the influx of thousands homeless migrants seeking warmer temperatures in the winter months. National unemployment has reached 25%, so you can imagine what is happening in the African American and Native American communities.
Women still face pay inequity. Troops dig into Iraq for a ten to twelve year stay. The media blackout of war casualties is still in place. The cost of the wars remains off the federal budget. The Freedom of Information Act is largely ignored with national security cited most often as the reason.
Embryonic stem-cell lines are restricted and federal support for new biomedical research has dried up. State are forbidden to enact fuel efficiency standards above federal standards. Funds for new school construction are nonexistent.
More secret detention facilities in Eastern Europe and elsewhere are being opened. Climate change is dismissed as a hoax. Offshore tax havens provide ready caches for top financial and insurance company executives.
Pay and benefits for military personnel stagnates. Veteran benefits continue to deteriorate despite John McCain's POW history. Student loans are harder to get and smaller in size.
The FDA still does not regulate tobacco. No Child Left Behind is still an unfunded mandate.
John Boehner agrees to pay half the installation cost for Sarah Palin's tanning bed.
After all, we have to to "put country first."
Tags: America, alternate, politics, reality
Views: 5
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John Turberville on
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" but overall, Obama's domestic policy is sucking wind in my little corner of paradise. Am I alone?"
NO you aren't. And Obama needs to "grow a pair"! -
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Permalink Reply by James Worede on
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Obama tries to please everyone, and will end up pissing everyone. Republicans are not negotiating with a good faith, so if he is trying get them agree with him, well....., it is not gone happen. They will always change the goal post, there is no point of finding a common ground. Because there is none. They swore to make sure he fails at any costs, like their leader- Rush instructed them. Unless he wakes up, and do what is right for the country, he will have tough time accomplishing anything. He is getting into their traps, finding a common ground where there is none. Thats why Carter and Bush I failed, as a politician, being nice is not a winning formula, shrudness is- William J. Clinton.
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Permalink Reply by Just-a-Writer on
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It sucks that the guys that are tired of the partisanship are the ones leaving. What does that leave us with? The ones that are tired of it should be sticking with it and telling the partisan idiots to belly up or shut up.
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Permalink Reply by Vernon Windsor on
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When president Obama first took office and TARP was passed, a poll asked Americans how long they would give his administration to turn the economy around. The answer was two years. There was a reason I scoffed at that. We're seeing it here in these comments.
Yet who is working to expose hypocrisy and change the way Washington, DC does business? Let's count them, shall we? Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Barack Obama, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Alan Grayson, and sometimes Dennis Kucinich. I still have fingers left. Do you? Make your own list. How many do you come up with? Are you on that list?
The problem with being president of the United States is that, if you are to do it honestly, you must represent all the people while still advancing the interests of the nation. This often means that you are vilified by both the right and the left. Despite the names and labels people attempt to attach to you, it also means that overall, you are governing from the center. Nothing infuriates people more than trying to be reasonable.
Obama tried to tell you, both at his acceptance speech and at his inauguration, that none of this would be easy. He tried to explain that the work of his platform for hope and change could not be left up to one man or one party. He needed the people who voted for him to have his back (which I think meant more than just applauding nicely when things go their way).
Democrats flinched, lost a valued leader in the Senate, went in 50 different directions, and we let them. Republicans lost their minds, purged their party, found their inner bigot, voted against the American people by stopping the functioning of government, set a new low for open contempt and bald-faced hypocrisy, and we let them. Happy to watch in amazement as our friends and neighbors, manipulated by Republican lies and insurance industry funds, disrupted town hall meetings across the country with talking points that clearly indicated the speakers knew very little about what they were screaming about, we sat around, shook our heads, and let them drive the narrative.
We voted for change. Our responsibility was done. We knew that Chuck Grassley had his head up his butt when he used that "death panels pulling the plug on grandma" line. We let him get away with it. We knew that Max Baucus was slow-walking a discussion that he knew damn well wasn't going to amount to anything because his committee members were negotiating in bad faith. We let him get away with it. It was someone else's problem then. But now, well now, to use a well known phrase, those chickens are coming home to roost. Now things are getting ugly. Now hate groups are recruiting like crazy. The tea party movement is giving the Ku Klux Klan much appreciated cover. The tea party people seem ready to get off their couch and do something. Are the rest of us?
Maybe the culture of Washington, DC isn't the only one that needs to be changed. May it's time to shift from complaining about a lack of change to actually working for change. To those of you who think the Republicans are actually in charge, believe me, you have no frakking idea. And I, for one, hope you never have to find out how wrong you are. -
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What! No one is going to challenge my last post?
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We're all waiting. I just heard an opinion by Daniel Schorr on NPR suggesting that, in addition to new politicians, we may need a new electorate.
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