Collins to sit national convention out

Collins actually does have a conscience? She was a first string Bush enabler for many years and only "reformed" after Allen announced he would run against her. So now, she FINALLY has the decency to recognize that no person with an actual functioning conscience would be seen associating with the architects of the Iraq debacle who also gave extremely expensive gifts (funded by middle class taxpayers) to oil companies, banks/mortgage companies and Enron.

... or maybe not. Is is possible that this move is just a political pander and she'll go back to her old ways once the election is over? Just because she's pulled this move over and over and over doesn't mean we should think she might do it again, right?

that the only failed rhetorical arguments the right can make on this site are ad hominem attacks on commenters and Jessica Alaimo.

Once you start making reasoned arguments on substance, without personal attacks, your comments might be taken with more than a grain of salt.

You know, just an FYI.

Holy Cow! Is that the real Laurie Dobson? Aging hippie nut job, who was going to run for the Senate? What happened? It's too bad..we couldv'e used the entertainment and it would be a good illustration for voters of what kind of lunatics are on the left....

Anonymous52, either you post in a lot of places and write letters to the papers, or the stupid talking points have gotten out widely.

I have seen in numerous places this line about how the economy has tanked, housing has collapsed, and gas prices have spiked because the Democrats have had a slim control of Congress for 2 years.

Either you and your cronies using these talking points are extremely stupid, or you think the rest of us are.

I remember when the economy was good around 1998 and the GOP was saying it was DESPITE Clinton and it was really because of policies of Reagan from 15 years prior.

The TRUTH is that Congress has little power over the economy, and even LESS in two years time!! And that is if Congress could have done anything at all! With Bush's veto power and only a one vote majority in the Senate, the Democrats have done nothing except EXTEND THE POLICIES OF THE GOP FROM THE PREVIOUS 6 YEARS!!!

So you have two choices.

Either admit that the GOP policies are to blame for the bad economy, or...

blame Clinton.

..ja

First of all, I was not making an ad hominem argument. I was arguing against the logic of her argument - that people who change their minds are lying. I did not attack her. I made fun of her argument, which is so easy as to hardly be worth doing.

Second of all, please cite facts and figures, A1, proving the following things:

A) that the economy in 2001 was the greatest ever;

B) that the economy now is the second-worst ever;

C) that the war in Iraq and the tax cuts cost more than anything else our country has ever done.

When you actually point out what that writer is alleging, they seem pretty ridiculous, don't they? You really think the Bush tax cuts cost more than Social Security, or World War II, or the Apollo program? Prove it. You don't get to just make stuff up. You need proof, and evidence.

You also need to do your job and report on things when they happen, not three months later. That's just laziness.

Congress, the President, The moon...none of it really have much to do with the economy. If anybody watches the market closely, or has taken intro courses in economics, it is the consumer that drives the American economy. It is the business practices of loan agents who have caused the housing collapse. The weak dollar has just as much to do with Bush as it does Clinton or the first president Bush. The Euro is increasing it's strength with sound fiscal while our Federal Reserve running around trying to stop the bleeding.

The economy is weak in the United States at a point where our ebbs and flows of economic history show we should be. The economy has natural downward trends, and it also has upward trends. Fiscal policy, including tax cuts and tax increases do shift the scale slightly, but as we have seen with consumers especially recently - you have to give them a better reason to not spend their money. Oil may have gone through the roof, but people are still driving and are paying more and more to use alternatives to heating, whether it be installing new styles of heating ie electric or wood burning stoves, or re insulating their homes with thicker/better insulation.

The people who are losing their homes have either defaulted on loans or have been caught in the misfortune of choosing the wrong mortgage lender one that has taken on very high risk, high reward clients. (people who have in the past proven to be a financial liability but because of that pay a higher rate of interest) People who have been paying their mortgages have the option of refinancing their homes to a better fixed rate, as opposed to the adjustable rate which many of the failed mortgages were, and keep their homes with only a minor inconvenience. The housing market has undoubtedly collapsed but you can't blame a republican without blaming a democrat...and if you were to do that you would be wrong, it is the industry itself that holds the blame.

The argument itself, I believes that Anon52 was TRYING to say. Is that you can't label one a rubber stamp without looking at her opponent who has voted party line significantly more to the point that he has rarely broken rank with his party. Economics aside, the numbers rarely lie. It is not a question of if, it simply is. Collins broke rank significantly more than Allen did. We are a state that continuously elects independents and one of the first states to elect a Green to the legislature. It is a bold move to run for an office in this state such as U.S. Senator, without a solid track record of some sort of independence.

It is going to be interesting to watch this election, as Maine has been trending Democrat for some time, and if Allen comes back to beat Collins, then it will have hit the final nail in the coffin of our State's famous independence, and that would be a shame.

I'm impressed. Good job rustling up some numbers. However, it doesn't matter what SS is funded by. All these things are funded by *something*. What matters, in terms of your argument, is what they cost.

Go figure out, adjusted for inflation, the 10 most expensive things this country has ever accomplished, the 10 worst years in the economy, and the 10 best. Then you'll prove to me that all of these things are "One of the....".

Until then, we'll assume you're a liberal reactionary.

We're talking about how good the economy is, not what the debt is. NIce distracting tangent, though. Now come back to the reservation.