to your nom de plume, Nonsensical. Anger? Perhaps, but it's mostly fatigue that so many Americans formulate their stances utterly devoid of any effort to understand the issues they purport to feel so strongly about.

The reason, Nonsensical, that I knew that you had (have) absolutely no clue about what you're chiming in on is that the whole exchange between Obama and the GOP was a plea to put the good of the country before partisan politics. It may have even opened your eyes if you could have put your partisan bent aside enough to attempt understand the underlying issues (health care, jobs, deficit spending) that so affect our nation.

By the way the Huff link merely linked the network, NSNBC, that broadcast (among others) the Q and A (although FOX cut away 20 minutes early for reasons that will be apparent to those who deign the check it out).

Wow. So much anger. You are very correct I did not watch the video. I have found that it is best to avoid the extremes of both parties. Education by reading or watching opinions of the Huffingtons or Glenn Becks or any media with an agenda just warps the intellegent mind into a goop of blame and anger.

While it was nice that the Repubs invited President O'Bama to the Baltimore retreat and very Presidential that he accepted - do you really believe that any of it was any more than a publicity stunt by both parties?

Have a wonderfully relaxing weekend.

It's obvious from your post, Nonsensical, that you didn't watch the clip. But maybe that's the real problem in American politics: people choose their opinions, and shoot off their mouth, before they attempt to educate themselves on the issues. So before you post again on this subject, watch the exchange between your Commander-in-Chief and the party of no.

I guess school was on vacation in Mass when Scott Brown won Sen. Kennedys seat.

It is statements like the one below and the overused teabaggers name-calling that will swing the pendulum back to the far right when our country really needs a centrist populace.

How can we hope and pray that our national leaders will not continue to fail us when the local Dems and Repub leaders at the county level lack the values, character and knowledge to bring about true change.

When county and State leaders of both parties behave like children, name call, lie, steal and cheat they set the tone for national elections. A weak foundation (as we have in San Miguel County involving both Dems and Repub party leaders) only perpetuates the belief that there can never be a compromise on any issue.

As the 2010 and 2012 elections come around, please consider registering as an Independent and vote for he best individual, not party. The day of having two ruling parties who drain resources and work actively to divide us needs to end. Look for the candidate that is smart enough to seek out the ties that bind and builds from there. Ignore those that seek dissention, partisiansip and division.

Watch Obama school the hapless Republicans. Like shooting a fish in a barrel. What were they thinking by allowing live TV?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/obama-goes-to-the-gop-lio_n_442331.html

You will get no argument from me on the lack of intellect of G.W. yet I am unsure how you rank President Obama as such a wise great leader.

We are still in two wars with Yemen becoming a new front on the "war on terror". The exact same economic wizards which brought us into the second Great Depression are now advising President Obama. Still no health care reform or health tort reform. Unemployment is still rampant. Wall Street reform is all talk, no action. Tibet is still under siege from our biggest debt holder.

President Obama still has a chance to be a great American President, but please do not simply throw accolades at someone simply because you voted for them. So far, I have not seen one thing accomplished even with a majority in both Houses.

I think it is time to acknowledge that both parties have failed America and until both Dems and Repubs demand that the people they vote for actually do what they promise, America will continue to swing back and forth from left to right to left.

Not everyone who is dissapointed in President Obama's performance so far wishes him to fail. But wanting someone to succeed and true success in bettering the lives of Americans are two very different things. In other words, if we do not hold our leaders accountable and we all continue to vote based on party affiliation, we are screwed.

I think it is best to focus on what we all have in common first and build from there - Partisians look for our differences and by dividing us, they conquer.

A conquered people are not free. Agreed?

understand? Most democracies have socialist elements. For the U.S., that means propping up industry on the taxpayer dime. Since nuclear is almost entirely supported by gov't pork it's one of our most egregious examples of socialist gov't dole (Any profit it's ever made from selling power pales compared to the billions it's received in gov't gifts). And yes, AIG and GM are also absolutely recipients of socialist largesse--the only way they could have possibly stayed afloat.

Do I agree with Obama's choice to pander to the filthy nuclear and so-called clean coal industries? No, but I'm relieved that he obviously has about twice the brain power than the last Commander-in-Chief.

That statement below actually makes no sense what-so-ever. Industry cannot be Socialist without a willing and Socialist government. Are you saying that Neal Blue was able to buy Obama? Are you saying Neal Blue is a Socialist? Is AIG and GM Socialist too? Are you supporting Obamas "clean energy" agenda that includes nukes? Since Obama says nuke power is important to our national security are the anti Paradox uranium bunch working with terrorists?

I smell partisianship.

Simply more evidence that the nuclear industry is a socialist industry functioning almost entirely on the tax-payer dime. But hey that's what lobbyist are for--just ask Neal Blue.

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, acting on a pledge to support nuclear power, will propose tripling loan guarantees for new reactors to more than $54 billion, two people familiar with the plan said.

The additional loan guarantees in Obama’s budget, which will be released on Feb. 1, are part of an effort to bolster nuclear-power production after Obama called for doing so in his State of the Union address Jan. 27. Today, the Energy Department plans to announce creation of a panel to find a solution to storing the waste generated by nuclear plants.

How are you going to blame Bush for this one?

Enough with the gobbly-gook and sidesteps, Ray. Just explain why you cheerlead for nuclear power, with its total inability to anything without billions from the public dole. Besides threatening our nation's security, the nuclear industry is the epitome of industrial socialism.

Could Ray, or any of you tea baggers explain how an industry totally dependent on the public dole fits into your small-government world view?

Not perhaps, and certainly not made up. You've unequivocally comprised the principle of unalienability.

Yes, I get it. In fact, I'm the one who told you that.

And who says that I must be compelled by the state to be my brother's keeper?

Actually, no. I believe children without health insurance should receive subsidized health care.

"Yes, I know you do. That is one of the many reasons you believe in taking money from one group and giving it to another. And because you believe this, you've compromised the principle."

I've compromised your made-up principle perhaps, but my principle is the we are our brother's keeper. No compromise--get it?

It's nice to see the same garden-variety talking points still being parroted by leftwingers, despite being bunked a billion times for decades now. I never get tired of hearing the same cliches rehashed.

"Actually, no. I believe children without health insurance should receive subsidized health care."

Yes, I know you do. That is one of the many reasons you believe in taking money from one group and giving it to another. And because you believe this, you've compromised the principle. Thus you can never defend that government does NOT possess the right to take money from one group to subsidize another -- be it AIG, corporate farms, or children without healthcare -- because you have given up the only possible grounds from which to defend that government does not possess such authority. Such is the nature of principles and the nature of compromise.

As it turns out that there is a foolproof method for demonstrating the falsity of this position, and that method is by simply asking: Says who? Who says that government may take my money without my permission and give it to someone else? By what right or authority? Who or what gives government the rightful power to expropriate the property of one and transfer it to another?

No good answer has ever been given to that question because no good answer for it exists.

Property expropriation and the initiation of ANY kind of force or fraud is the diametric opposite of capitalistic. Full recognition of each and every individual's unalienable right to her own life and property -- and ONLY her own life and property -- is the only possible way to achieve justice.

Regarding George Bush, I told you that -- long ago. You just didn't want to listen:

http://rayharvey.org/index.php/2010/01/george-w-bush/

No, ????, actually I was incensed by the massive bailout for AIG and other corporations that was passed in the waning months of the Bush administration. Yes, don't forget the bailout was passed under Bush's tenure, just as the worst terrorist attack ever carried out on Americans--9-11-- happened under the Republicans' watch. And, no, I don't party much, but even if I was a blathering drunk, I wouldn't have been stupid enough to vote for the "socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor" Republicans and their Wall Street cronies (don't forget it's primarily Republicans who are blocking Wall Street reform).

does your "moral belief" justify the billions to aig and other fat cats? do the math and compare. at least nuke power betters lives while obamamama's and his dem buddies get millions in bonuses and special loans for bailing out wall street AND while millions are out of work. i thinks your moral belief is "pick and choose" with numbers you are not really sure about but sounds neat at parties.

"Of course, those who, like me, call for nuclear to NOT be subsidized, must in order to be consistent campaign just as adamantly that no other industry is subsidized, like the wind industry, or wave, or solar. Corollarily, if you ARE for the subsidization of these industries, you must then include nuclear"

Actually, no. For example, I believe children without health insurance should receive subsidized health care. On the other hand, I don't believe bloated fat cat industry like nuclear, which endangers American security, or factory farms, which put family farms out of business, should receive the billions from the public tit they now suckle. This is perfectly consistent with my moral beliefs.

This may be due in part to my lack of fetishizing "private property rights" which of course in the U.S.A. were initially stolen by a genocidal campaign with the help of human chattel. Hardly the level playing field that "free enterprise" wrongly presumes.

You're forgetting, among a litany of other things, that government does possess a legitimate function -- in Thomas Jefferson's words: "The legitimate functions of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others."

And in the words of the polymathic Wilhelm von Humboldt, who was writing around the same time as Thomas Jefferson:

"Any State interference in private affairs, where there is no reference to violence done to individual rights, should be absolutely condemned. To provide for the security of its citizens, the state must prohibit or restrict such actions, relating directly to the agents only, as imply in their consequences the infringement of others’ rights, or encroach on their freedom of property without their consent or against their will.... Beyond this every limitation of personal freedom lies outside the limits of state action."

For this reason (and others), it is incorrect to conflate, as so many people do, police with, for example, schools, public libraries, roads, et cetera.

Government's legitimate function is to protect the rights of each -- i.e. a national defense, police, and courts to adjudicate. Nuclear power came to fruition through national defense.

Which of course is not to say that private industry isn't capable of developing it -- and developing it more efficiently -- any more than, say, private industry is capable of developing a space program:

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-12/space-inc

It's only to say, get the government out and let the free market be; ultimately, every industry must live or die on it's own, and not be propped up by subsidies, which do not in and of themselves constitute socialism.

Of course, those who, like me, call for nuclear to NOT be subsidized, must in order to be consistent campaign just as adamantly that no other industry is subsidized, like the wind industry, or wave, or solar. Corollarily, if you ARE for the subsidization of these industries, you must then include nuclear, which is the cleanest, most efficient energy source yet discovered -- by light years:

http://mises.org/story/3536

Roads, canals, bridges, schools, libraries, and many, many other industries were not always run by the government in this country. That happened through the insidious process of incrementalism, which insidious process we still see happening today.

The road and highway system, like public education, is an unmitigated and incontrovertible disaster and would particularly benefit from privatization. (I refer you to this recent and excellent book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/Privatization-Roads-Highways-Walter-Block/dp/193355004X

And this one:

http://home.earthlink.net/~roths/StreetSmart_summary.pdf )

"Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor."

You're out of your mind if you think the poor in this country are living under a capitalist system, while the rich alone are being subsidized. They BOTH are. Abolish welfare! corporate and otherwise.

For the record, I disagree with the right almost as much as I disagree with the left, and for the identical reason: they're two sides of the same penny.

there is the public infrastructure - such as roads, bridges, schools, police, fire, etc. - which serves as a platform for private industry to effectively establish itself & operate.

Yet, many so-called conservatives seem to purport that private enterprise somehow manifests itself via some sort of "free market immaculate conception".

the state controls the MEANS of production simply because in the U.S., no nuclear power has ever been produced without billions of taxpayer dollars; a clear case of socialist industry.