Actually, it takes a wee bit more than a debate to change a zip code. It takes an election, and the electoral college is Obama's 269 to 181 thus far with five of the remaining toss-up states favoring Obama.

Tick, tick, tick...

Uhhhhhh no. The Electoral college is only giving Obama 218 this year:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2012/aug/22/university-colorado-predicts-romney-win-november/

Pendragon,

Based on your list of friends on NewsVine, I see why I have you on Ignore.

Nice avatar, though.

Tick, tick, tick...

Check some real polls

Rasmussen 237 for Obama

538 Blog 319 for Obama

Pew Research Obama 53 Romney 39

To Jefferson: Glad you like the avatar. I thought it was pretty cool too. As for my friends list, it's a pity you judge the quality of a person's argument by your personal opinion of the friends they keep.

To SayWhat: Haven't seen you in awhile. How you been? As for your Rasmussen poll, I assume you're aware that you need 270 votes to win? So your 237 still leaves Obama 33 short.

see jefferson?

I told you on the previous page you were lying. So how shall we judge you? I'll use the Obama scale for you.

A liar and inept.

I'm not going to ignore you, I think you are hilarious.

There have been few debates which mattered. Last night was one of them. The contrast was so stark, Obama so weak and incompetent, 75% of the undecided went to Romney last night.

The rest will go when the Romney campaign reveals how completely inept Obama's foreign policy has been for America.

Obama was awestruck by the biggest whoppers to come out of romneys mouth that have ever been told in a live debate. He could not believe someone would lie and distort all the facts and put on a straight face. It amazes me Obama was not rolling on the floor with laughter. If you really think the debate changed anyones mind you are as bad off as Romneys and his lies. Romneys tax plan ;take away 20% then add 20 % so taxes stay the same. take away 20 then add 20 and that creates jobs, lol . take away 20 then add 20 and middle class will have more, lol. In my world take away 20 then add 20 equals ZERO.

Obama was the one stumped. For the first time since the last election ..he was in front of a microphone debating instead of giving a speech. He has enjoyed the Left's Political analysts backing him for four years after his speeches, and the aftermath of the first debate had his supporters in the Media scratching their heads and wondering why Obama didnt go into attack mode. When Ed schultz has that " glazed eyeball-think i'm having a stroke look"..then you know it didnt go over well. Of course rev al could only think of racism..go figure..

Wow!

I'll admit that President Obama sounded a lot like Paul Ryan.

We'll see about that when Ryan destroys Plugs Biden. By the way, why does Plugs need to go to debate school, isn't he the Vice President of the United States? Shouldn't he already be familiar with the issues? Seems strange.....

Wowee,

Uh, I'm not quaking in my boots.

Besides, Joe is an old-school Irish street brawler. My guess is that Biden will attack Ryan, as Joe has nothing to lose and no professorial bearing to protect.

Only his dignity, if there is any left of it.

Biden been's campaigning for Romney lately.

Ryan will make him look more foolish than Romney made Obama look.

I know, almost impossible, but it is Biden. He makes himself look foolish with no help.

Joe still thinks the Arab Spring is some kind of bathsoap from the Middle East.

Joseph:

And I read that incarcerated felon Blago, admitted communist Van Jones, bomber Bill Ayers, radical Jeremiah Wright, scary-dude George Soros, and the entire corrupt Jesse Jackson family all support Obama.

Do you ever watch PBS, or are you fixated with FOX and Rush Limpballs?? hahahaha

Dude...Romney wants to kill Big Bird!!

Master Bater - Wasn't Obama in Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright's church for 20 years? And didn't Obama defend him for several months before finally denouncing him? Obama threw him under the bus for votes, as usual.

Elway was CEO of the Denver Broncos, on the field at least.

My guess is that weak minds think alike.

Well, is it true that Romney believes in the beliefs of the Mormon Church into which hw was born?

Ever read about those beliefs??????

hahahahahaha

Yes, Actually I have studied christianity, taoism, budism, judaism, confucianism, and Islam, and actually they all aren't much different in their central themes. Why don't you tell me what it is about Mormanism that you find offensive.

I find all religions offensive, not just Mormonism. (SEE BELOW) :)

Human beings even screwed up the teaching of Siddhartha Gautama by making Buddhism into a religion...but you can read the teachings without the religious BS attached.

You have no idea what you are babbling about.

Isn't leftist indoctrination the latest religion?

I guess that explains your hatred for people of faith. You're voting for the right guy then - Obama threw his faith under the bus.

Conservative....youNEED to BELIEVE I am a leftist because your small mind cannot fathom anything more! :)

Just like you NEED to believe in the Sky Spirit!! hahahaha

WOW...I don't "hate" :)

YOU need to believe I'm religious because that's all your small idiot mind can comprehend.

Face it guy, you're quite a few spokes short of a wheel.

Master Joseph

That's funny...I heard that all those people in the United States that weren't supporting Romney are definitely brain damaged or without brains.

We're more concerned with the statists who occupy our white house and the useful idiot leftists who support him. They've done far more damage than the Mormons.

But maybe we'll take a hard look at Mormonism after we remove him.

In your dreams dreamboy! In your WORLD OF OPPOSITES, you NEED to BELIEVE in satan, because you BELIEVE in "god".

hahahaha

master...i can tolerate gays, democrats, republicans, paying taxes, stupid people to an extent, but bashing someone for their religeous beliefs is pretty pathetic

The only thing you have to fear, is fear itself! hahahahaha

All religions are scary, but I don't fear them, I just feel sorry for the sheeple who believe in them, since they have stopped searching for the infinite truth...which we will never find, since we are finite beings....but WALK ON!!

Unfortunaely....to run for political office in the USA, any candidate HAS TO (at least) say they are religious.

But...John Adams
The second president of the United States

“God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of,
there will never be any liberal science in the world."

"This would be the best of all
possible worlds, if there were no
religion in it."

Thomas Jefferson The third president of the United States

"It has been fifty and sixty years since I read the Apocalypse, and
then I considered it merely the ravings of a maniac."

"I have recently been examining all the
known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular
superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and
mythology."

"We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible,
of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication ."

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with
the despot.... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man
into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer
engine for their purpose." -
to Horatio Spafford, March 17, 1814

Benjamin Franklin

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches." -in Poor Richard's Almanac

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." -in Poor Richard's Almanac

"I looked around for God's judgments, but saw no signs of
them."

"In the affairs of the world, men are saved not by faith, but by the
lack of it."

Thomas Paine

"The New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the prophecies of
the Old; if so, it must follow the fate of its foundation.'' .

"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."

"Whenever we read the obscene
stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the
unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled,
it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word
of God. It is a history of wickedness
that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.

"What is it the New Testament teaches us? To believe that the Almighty committed
debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this
debauchery is called faith."

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or
Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and
enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."

The cerebrally neutered philosopher has spoken! Everyone, pay attention.

There is an "infinite truth". LOFL

Tell us, O Stoned One, what is this truth?

The left is so f'ing hilarious. It's why I come here.

Conservative....you are too fearful of the unknown!

Certainly truth is infinite. People like you used to BELIEVE the world was flat!!

Guess what? Science has shown it to be spherical

SCIENCE continues to search for the infinite truth...it's like your god...it never ends, it just changes as new facts become known.

hahahahahaha

BTW weirdo

Here's Adams complete quote which was in a letter to Jefferson dated April 19, 1817

Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, “This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion at all!!!” But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell.

The uneducated and arrogant loons of the left are the most hilarious. Now, please, SD&STFU.

Jefferson...

If you are, you KNOW why. He turned his back on America in favor of the Mormons in the days of Vietnam...what would stop him from doing it again? His honesty? Integrity? He has neither...

And people like you used to believe the world was crimson and clover. over and over.

Now I've got that f'ing song in my head.

SCIENCE would no doubt say you're quite possibly inbred and prone to addictive behavior and violence.

Certainly not very well read and easily led.

Master?

Awwwww, another loon done run off after being shown how poorly educated he is.

Bye bye

BREAKING NEWS!

Barack Obama issues waivers of sanctions for aid to countries who force children to fight in wars! Decides they're never too young to be mercilessly slaughtered!

And that's the facts loon.

Prove it buffoon....give us a link....

Waiting for that link, Conservative Lying Rebel

Conservative Rebellion is the weak link in the chain! hahahaha

SNAP!

Washingtontimes.com August 8, 2012

As the junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama co-sponsored a bill to restrict the U.S. government’s military support of countries that use children as soldiers. But President Obama has waived those very same sanctions in the name of “national interest,” bypassing the findings of a State Department report and allowing millions of dollars in military aid to flow to countries where children as young as 11 have been conscripted to fight — many of whom have died in one bloody conflict after another.
Mr. Obama’s actions have inflamed an army of critics, who say the waivers have put at-risk children in even greater danger.

“The implementation of the law by President Obama has been a big disappointment,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. She said countries won’t get serious about ending the use of child soldiers until they think the United States is serious about withholding aid. “U.S. tax dollars should not go to governments that use child soldiers.”

Mr. Obama, however, has an opportunity to silence his critics as he decides over the next two months whether to withhold aid or give waivers to seven countries named in a new State Department report as using children — both boys and girls — as armed combatants.

The original legislation, a strongly worded bipartisan law known as the Child Soldier Prevention Act, prohibits the U.S. government from giving military financing and training funds to countries identified by the State Department in its annual “Trafficking in Persons” report as having recruited and used children younger than 15 as soldiers in their armed forces or government-supported militias. The bill passed unanimously in both the Senate and the House, and was signed into law by President Bush on Dec. 23, 2008.

Amnesty International has said that more than 250,000 children worldwide, about 45 percent of them girls, are fighting in active conflicts.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, Nebraska Republican, who authored the House version of the law, said that national security “must not be an excuse to allow us to be complicit with countries using child soldiers.” He called Mr. Obama’s decision in October to grant waivers on the 2011 trafficking report “an assault on human dignity.”

Mr. Fortenberry has introduced legislation that would require the president to report to Congress 15 days before issuing another waiver what credible and verifiable steps are being undertaken in countries cited for child-soldiers violations to implement a plan of action to end the recruitment of child soldiers. It also would prohibit the use of peacekeeping funds for those countries.

“In 2008, Congress did something very courageous: We passed a law saying it was the policy of our nation that children — all children, no matter where they are from — belong on playgrounds, not battlegrounds,” he said. “This is the law of the land. We are obligated to stop underwriting this form of human trafficking, child conscription.”

Mr. Obama will decide by early October whether to withhold aid or give waivers to seven countries named in the State Department’s 2012 Trafficking in Persons list as using children as armed combatants. The countries are Congo, Libya, Myanmar (also known as Burma), Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen. Burma, Congo, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen are repeat offenders, named on the 2011 list.

In October, responding to the State Department’s 2011 report, Mr. Obama said it was in the “national interest of the United States” that Yemen be granted a full waiver, meaning it was entitled to receive $20 million in military financing aid and $1.2 million in training funds for fiscal 2012. He called Yemen“a key partner in counterterrorism operations against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” and said that cutting military aid would harm the U.S. relationship with the country and “have a negative impact on U.S. national security.”

The president granted a partial waiver to Congo, saying that government had “taken some steps to reduce child soldiers,” but acknowledged that the progress made by Congo “does not yet represent the kind of institutional change required to make real progress toward eliminating child soldiers.”

Chad received a waiver for efforts to come into compliance with the law. Burma, Somalia and Sudan did not receive U.S. aid subject to the act, although the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia, which has child soldiers, is scheduled to receive $50 million in separate peacekeeping aid not subject to the Child Soldier Prevention Act.

In 2010, the first year the law was in effect, Mr. Obama gave full national-interest waivers to Chad, Congo, Sudan and Yemen.

On its Web page, Human Rights Watch said governments using children as soldiers in armed conflicts are due to receive $200 million in U.S. military assistance in fiscal 2012 — only a portion of which are prohibited under the act.

“The Obama administration has been unwilling to make even small cuts to military assistance to governments exploiting children as soldiers,” said Ms. Becker. “Children are paying the price for its poor leadership.”

The White House referred questions about the waivers to the State Department, whose spokesman, Evan Owen, said the U.S. “is deeply committed to ending the abhorrent practice of unlawfully recruiting or using child soldiers.” Mr. Owen said the U.S. has made “a concerted effort to eliminate such practices around the world in a variety of ways,” including formal diplomatic messages to offending governments.

Mr. Bush never issued any waivers because provisions of the Child Soldier Prevention Act took effect after he left office.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, authored the original act. It prohibited, with a national-interest waiver, funds being used for military aid to countries identified by the State Department as having used or recruited child soldiers. Mr. Durbin argued during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing considering the bill that enforcement was going to be difficult because many of the countries identified as using child soldiers were considered friends of the United States.

“We have to be very blunt with them, that cooperation will mean that they also forswear the use of child soldiers in their own countries. And if they fail to do so, they will pay a price, that the military assistance will be relegated to efforts to remedy this problem; and if they do not remedy it, then military assistance may be reduced or cut off,” he said at the time.

Durbin spokesman Max Gleischman said the senator is “not pleased” with the number of waivers issued by the Obama administration, but added that the White House has been “initially successful using the law as leverage to push countries, like Chad, to clean up their acts.”

Ms. Becker said that when countries are on the list for the third time and not making progress, “There is no excuse for a blanket waiver.”

Jesse Eaves, a policy adviser for children in crisis at World Vision, said every waiver “is basically saying we are going to use taxpayer money to support countries that use child soldiers.”

World Vision has said that children forced to fight in wars around the world have been used as front-line combatants, suicide bombers, minesweepers, sex slaves and spies. The organization said that more than 2 million children have been killed in conflict situations and 6 million have been seriously injured or permanently disabled.

“It is shameful that a portion of federal funding continues to help support governments who are abusing children,” Mr. Eaves said. “The worst part is that thousands of children around the world — not the politicians in the White House, on Capitol Hill or in the State Department — are the ones who will suffer.”

FP Foreign Policy October 1, 2012

U.S. President Barack Obama issued a new executive order last week to fight human trafficking, touting his administration's handling of the issue.

"When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a child soldier, forced to kill or be killed -- that's slavery," Obama said in a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative. "It is barbaric, and it is evil, and it has no place in a civilized world. Now, as a nation, we've long rejected such cruelty."

But for the third year in a row, Obama has waived almost all U.S. sanctions that would punish certain countries that use child soldiers, upsetting many in the human rights community.

Late Friday afternoon, Obama issued a presidential memorandum waiving penalties under the Child Soldiers Protection Act of 2008 for Libya, South Sudan, and Yemen, penalties that Congress put in place to prevent U.S. arms sales to countries determined by the State Department to be the worst abusers of child soldiers in their militaries. The president also partially waived sanctions against the Democratic Republic of the Congo to allow some military training and arms sales to that country.

Human rights advocates saw the waivers as harmful to the goal of using U.S. influence to urge countries that receive military assistance to move away from using child soldiers and contradictory to the rhetoric Obama used in his speech.

"After such a strong statement against the exploitation of children, it seems bizarre that Obama would give a pass to countries using children in their armed forces and using U.S. tax money to do that," said Jesse Eaves, the senior policy advisor for child protection at World Vision.

The Obama administration doesn't want to upset its relationships with countries that it needs for security cooperation, but the blanket use of waivers is allowing the administration to avoid the law's intent, which was to use force the U.S. government to put a greater priority on human rights and child protection when doling out military aid, he said.

"The intent in this law was to use this waiver authority only in extreme circumstances, yet this has become an annual thing and this has become the default of this administration," Eaves said.

The Romney campaign has made Obama's record on human rights a feature of its foreign-policy critique, with top advisors accusing the president of deprioritizing the issue, often in sweeping terms.

"Barack Obama has broken with a tradition that goes back to Woodrow Wilson about human rights and values animating our foreign policy. This administration has not been an effective voice for human rights," said Romney campaign senior advisor for foreign policy Rich Williamson, who also served as George W. Bush's special envoy to Sudan, toldThe Cable in July.

Bush signed the child-soldiers law in 2008. It prohibits U.S. military education and training, foreign military financing, and other defense-related assistance to countries that actively recruit troops under the age of 18. Countries are designated as violators if the State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons report identifies them as recruiting child soldiers. The original bill was sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL).

Obama first waived the sanctions in 2010, the first year they were to go into effect. At that time, the White House failed to inform Congress or the NGO community of its decision in advance, setting off a fierce backlash. A justification memo obtained by The Cable at the time made several security-related arguments for the waivers. Sudan was going through a fragile transition, for example. Yemen was crucial to counterterrorism cooperation, the administration argued.

But NSC Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs Samantha Powertold NGO leaders at the time that the waivers would not become a recurring event.

"Our judgment was: Brand them, name them, shame them, and then try to leverage assistance in a fashion to make this work," Power said, saying the administration wanted to give the violator countries one more year to show progress. "Our judgment is we'll work from inside the tent."

But the next year, in 2011, Obama waived almost all the sanctions once again, using largely the same justifications, except that the administration argued that the law didn't apply to South Sudan because it wasn't a country until July 2011. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) tried to pass new legislation to force Obama to notify Congress before issuing the waivers.

Fortenberry called the decision an "assault on human dignity," and said, "Good citizens of this country who do not want to be complicit in this grave human rights abuse must challenge this administration."

This year, the State Department held a briefing for NGO leaders and human rights activists to answer questions about the waivers and try to ally their concerns.

"They are addressing the concerns of the legislation in a more pragmatic and useful way than in the past, but they still have a ways to go and this was a clear missed opportunity," Rachel Stohl, a senior associate at the Stimson Center who attended the briefing, told The Cable. "You want the waivers to be used very sparingly but some of these countries get the waiver every year."

Stohl rejects the administration's argument that countries like Libya and South Sudan are so fragile that they can't be leaned on to do better on human rights.

"I would argue that this is exactly the right time to make clear to Libya what the parameters are," she said.

Jo Becker, advocacy director for the children's rights division at Human Rights Watch, told The Cable that where the United States has used some pressure, such as in the DRC, where there was a partial cutoff of military aid last year, there was a positive effect.

"After years of foot-dragging, Congo is close to signing a U.N. action plan to end its use of child soldiers," she said. "But in other countries with child soldiers, including South Sudan, Libya, and Yemen, the U.S. continues to squander its leverage by giving military aid with no conditions."

Obama has been doing this for 3 years. There were several different links to choose from so you might want to use google to look it up.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/10/01/obama_waives_sanctions_on_countries_that_use_child_soldiers

BTW. It's spelled G-O-O-G-L-E

so you need to be pissed at the clintons and the obamas too they both have accounts in the caymens

and all those rich democrats are secretly hiding their bank books. does anyone really fall for that middle class crap? everyone cheats on their taxes in some form or another, to say differently is complete BS. If we bring our troops home, stop sending millions to prop up third world dictaors..we may solve a budget..maybe

Bill,

Prove your claim, or shut up

not everything what obama is saying about Romney is true. Actually very little. First debate showed at least so far, that he does not know what he is talking about at all. Surprising. Notice that obama does not talk about his policies and program nearly at all! His policies are not scrutinized by media to the same extend as Romney. I find it peculiar.

How do the people who run this site rank?

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/

I agree the “his Marxism truth” comes out.

does

does obama lies too in your opinion? or becouse he lied on all promises it does not qualify?

I didn't know you guys tied Marxism with Ayn Rand. And check out politifact.com. They give you the whole scoop on promises made, compromises, broken promises etc. That is if you like truth over Fox News. I just saw R and R at Virginia with fireworks behind them. Do they think they have won with the last big lie??Surprise!! to them. Or do they thing this is the only win they will get and better celebrate! Aren't fireworks just a little premature. Kinda reminds me of Mission Accomplished - what 8 years later. And not very well then. So if you go by that they will let the other guy handle the real fireworks. As usual. It amazes me how those two can get up and lie in front of America. Remember Clinton was impeached for that. And they are making him look like a saint with wings! Republicans beward. They aren't even trying to hide their lies. they just think you are stupid and dumb and something to wipe their feet with. ARe you going let them? WE sure ain't!

You obviously miss the whole point while still making everyone's elses. He needs the "pre-loaded" words in the teleprompter becasue he cannot form an intelligent thought on his own which was apparent while he looked like a 1st grader being lectured too by a professor. He (obama) was in way over his head and had no idea what to say. He needed the teleprompter and the pre-written bull$hit he spews to keep him in the conversation. It proved than the empty suit has no brain but lots of strings.

And BTW" ktlin-2021409", your butchering of the English language is embarrassing.

The thing with the teleprompter is that you are held responsible for what the teleprompter says. And oh wouldn't it be so much better if 1. Romney used the teleprompter and 2. If he could READ what it says. He introduced Ryan as the next president with a teleprompter. Is that why they whine about Obama using one. I seriously do not know how anyone would criticize someone who gives speech after speech for using a teleprompter. It keeps them from going off message and lying like Romney has to when he can't remember what he is supposed to be for that day. He tried singing. Maybe he should try the teleprompter. Wait he did and it didn't work out either. But the etch a sketch now that is doing pretty good at least with his base . Makes you wonder if they can hear and see doesn't it. Definitely most of them have amnesia. I wish they had just alittle curiosity. Come on guys wise up. Romney and Ryan arejust not good for America in any shape for form no matter what they say today, not good for the republican party and are not going to be elected. America is smarter than that!

And Obama is dumb so that is why he takes out AlQueda leaders including Osama Bin Laden and Romney wants to take out Big Bird! Obama wants to rescue the car industry and Romney doesn't know you get benefits from taking jobs overseas and wants to let the car industry go bankrupt. Shouldn't Romney at least wonder why his company moved jobs overseas? Too dumb? All the Democrats need to do is let Romney talk. I don't care if he has a teleprompter or not. Democrats biggest benefit is when Romney is being himself and talking. What were we talking about after the REp convention. Lies? What are we talking about now? Lies? Romney is not even smart enough to know he shouldn't be worried about a teleprompter he should be worried about the videos. They record what he says. Yesterday, today and tomorrow. And when you are running for president they should match. With Romney a video is not a etch a sketch. I don't think he realizes that yet and you think obama is dumb? Not even close to Romney and Ryan. And have you asked for Romneys grades and behavior records at college to see just how smart and well behave he is? What do you think?

Is corporate welfare "socialism"???

How about welfare in general?

What is democracy?

ktlin - tell us what Obama did to get 23M back to work the first two years when he could have anything he wanted? How about nothing. He's a fraud. Deal with it.

You mean alah is on his side. If I were you I would stay inside during any thunderstorms.