Mama said knock you out!

1. Too early for any candidate to really go postal on someone, and Heide knows he needs to cull some level of Republican support if in fact he’s going to have a shot. Not just the guys he runs into at the Country Club, but the rank & file..most of whom still like Rounds quite a bit.

   The current mood of the country, especially in this part of the world, is anger and pushback from the Left-wing social agenda that will easily bankrupt this country if fully implemented. Heidi would be better served to assure the voters he’s not on board with that mindset, kinda like Steffy is doing.

2. Sy- I call bullshit on you. NOW IS THE TIME to call, supposed ‘conservative’ SD Republicans out on their bullshit. They have ran this state into the ground, and now they want to blame Democrats. Fuck that. If I was SH I would speak truth to power, and when the public says he isn’t telling the truth he can ask the question, “Who has ran this state the past 30 years? Dems?” Nope. Republicans. Put blame where it needs to lie, in Republican’s laps. Working together, blah, blah, blah is for church groups. It is like I have said 9 million times, I separate my political views from my personal views. For instance, I like Bob Litz as a person, I think he is really funny, and he is always friendly to me, but as a councilor and lawmaker, he sucks, but it is nothing personal. Scott should call his fellow legislators out on their poor decisions, whether he is their friend or not – that is his job.

3. To the SD GOP “conservative” means banning abortion, keeping gays from getting married, and putting away drug users for petty crimes.

   You know, Prarie Values ™.

4. Since 1979, Republicans won control of the Governor’s office, the State Senate and the State House of Representatives. They maintained firm countrol of the Gov’s office, the House and the Senate for 30 years and how are things running now?

   What! We broke??? PP sez we need another four or eight more years of stupid? Are we that stupid to elect another Republican Gov and a Republican-controlled House and Senate?

   Make it 38 years of stupid? Shit. Wake up.

5. I actually thought SH’s campaign slogan last time around was pretty clever.

   It read: “Working. Together.”

   Note the specific use of punctuation. He didn’t say “Working Together” as one statement – instead he implied he would work, and that they would be together… but not necessarily working together.

   Time to step up to the plate and follow-through on that. I agree things have gone down the same road far too long and it is time for some real change. You cannot possibly blame any of the problems of our state upon the Democrats as they haven’t been in control for decades.

   Then again you can’t really give them credit for any of the good things happening in the state either. The problem is, we seem to have more things wrong than right in my view – and I don’t think the trend line is upward.

   If SH wants to step into power, he needs to differentiate himself on a larger scale and use specifics rather than generalities.

6. Heidepreim has no chance unless the GOP candidates all come out as gay or something.

7. “The current mood of the country, especially in this part of the world, is anger and pushback from the Left-wing social agenda that will easily bankrupt this country”

   Double bullshit. The nation was bankrupt BEFORE the election. The nation was in depression a year before the election, Dec 2007.

   The nation voted for change. We got Bush-lite. Same bankrupt policies, same cronies in charge, same bailouts, same wars. And now our representative and senior senator are supporting the failed bush policies of bailouts, prop-up the failed and the loan predators at the affront to the middle class, and the polluters-til-you-drop.

   We voted for, yes-we-can and got maybe.
   We voted for change and got a four-month-long first dog selection.
   Yet anyone who thinks that electing more obstructionists (republicans) will improve things is missing a RAM card.

8. “If I was SH I would speak truth to power, and when the public says he isn’t telling the truth he can ask the question, “Who has ran this state the past 30 years? Dems?” Nope. Republicans. Put blame where it needs to lie”

   DL, I couldn’t agree more. But I heard SH. He’s not interested. He struck me as he wanted to ‘out South Dakota nice’ opponents as opposed to drawing contrasts, or god-forbid, actually criticize anothers’ thought, vote, policy, or record. He struck me as if he wants folks to think for themselves – a nice thought, but in South Dakota they don’t – their idea of ‘thought’ is to parrot what’s said by the states’ milquetoast, superficial media.

9. Left wing social agenda. Ya right. Health care for everyone, keeping your kids safe and educated, jobs for everyone, heaven forbid. The right wingers would rather have hit and run repubs running the state.

10. John2:

    “Double bullshit. The nation was bankrupt BEFORE the election. The nation was in depression a year before the election, Dec 2007.”

    Serious charge. I’d say you better source that one with some backing data.

    If in fact in Dec. ’07 we were in a Depression (as defined by the last one that earned the title) since then we have seen unemployment double, foreclosures nearly triple, the dollar eroding to near all time lows, $3 trillion added to the public debt, and the poverty rate go from 11% to 13% despite the ceiling being raised.

    And as you can see by L3wis’ analysis, the blame lies squarely on who’s in power and they need to be called on it. Since Dec. 2007, the Congress has been squarely Democratic, and for 10 of those 22 months the White House has been as well.

    So if you’re right, we better put our heads together and come up with a new name for where we are that means: “Worse than a Depression”.

    How about “Obamanomics”?

11. Actually, L3wis I truly hope Heidi or any Democrat running takes your advice and goes ape shit over how the State has been run.

    As you can see from the maps in the link, we have the lowest deficit of any State (granted ND, WY & MT are in balance) and we also are at or near the bottom in unemployment & foreclosure numbers.

    In other words, we are better off than 92% of the rest of the Country. Anyone who wants to bash that as failure might want to first declare on which planet they spend most of their time.

    http://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/gapmap/

    http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/state-budget-deficit-map-2010-estima

12. I like how when the economy tanked and deficits exploded during Dubya’s reign, all the Republicans were quick to tell us that the economy trails policy by three to four years, therefore what we were experiencing was actually due to Clinton.

    Now here we are 11 months into the Obama Presidency, and everything is either his fault…or the fault of the Democratic Congress.

    Sure thing – but aside from the partisan, hypocritical talking points and faulty logic, I haven’t seen any dramatic policy or economic changes from Obama or Congress which would explain the current economy.

    You can’t blame the TARP bill because it seems people are saying that might have helped keep our economy from tanking even worse. You can’t blame the stimulus since most economists say it was also necessary and the bulk of that money hasn’t even been spent yet, not to mention the impact of it clearly won’t be witnessed in a few short months no matter how much we wish it could. You can’t blame the “social agenda” because the number one component (healthcare reform) hasn’t even been passed and thus hasn’t cost us a cent.

    So what do you blame? The wars we are fighting? The tax cuts enacted under the Bush Administration? Solar winds? Lime flavored Jello?

    Let’s be real for a second. We all knew before the election that economy was in the shitter and would remain so for at least a couple of years. We knew either Obama or McCain would get stuck with it even though they didn’t cause it, and we knew they would both take the hit if they failed to improve it within six months since their political opponents would give them no more time than that before whining about it.

    In Obama’s case he was given about six weeks before the right started blaming him for the economy, but the good news is over the past 30-45 days we have started seeing signs of improvement and things aren’t expected to get much worse. We aren’t out of the woods yet, and there will be bumps ahead, but I think all things considered a year from now we will be on a course for improvement.

    So then we need to ask ourselves – if 18 to 24 months from now the economy is dramatically improved, GDP is growing, unemployment is dropping, tax revenues are increasing… who gets the credit for it?

    I’d bet money on the fact you will find the Fox News and talk radio pundits doing everything in their power to somehow give credit to the Republican party or somehow suggesting the recovery is just cyclical and has nothing to do with the party in power.

    Just wait and see.

13. Oh pleasssssssssse this is why republicans are such assholes. Reality never enters the picture for them when they create the mess. They always blame it on others. George bankrupted his own 3 companies and then did the same to the gov’t. Took him 8 years but he did it, now it will take years to get us out of the hole he and the wing nuts created. But keep those fingers in your ears and sing LA LA LA all you want.

14. Sy, are you incapable of your own research? did you learn nothing from your school librarian?

    The governments tracker said the down turn (recession) began in December 2007. It’s indisputable. And of course employment, unemployment are lagging indicators.
    http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/01/news/economy/recession/index.htm
    http://wwwdev.nber.org/dec2008.html

    Amazingly there is no standard or accepted definition of an economic depression. So it is an issue as to how to define the current economic turmoil. For the reasons stated and analyzed by Shedlock, below, I agree we are in a depression, albeit one with a greater safety net than was available to my grandparents.

    http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/01/jobs-contract-12th-straight-month.html

    http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/09/depression-debate-is-this-depression.html

    http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/12/prepare-for-depression-level.html

    http://www.minyanville.com/articles/MSFT-UAUA-PFE-CAT-SLB-tm/index/a/20799

    http://www.prisonplanet.com/merrill-lynchs-chief-economist-were-already-in-a-depression.html

15. Sy, why does someone else always have to do your research for you? Did you learn nothing from librarians?

    The fact that the recessionary economic turmoil began in December 2007 is uncontested and not an issue.
    http://wwwdev.nber.org/dec2008.html
    http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/01/news/economy/recession/index.htm

    The fact that we in a depression maybe an issue since there is no accepted, standard definition of a depression. But for the reasons in the articles, below, I agree we are in a depression, albeit we have a greater social safety net than was available for my grandparents.

    http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/01/jobs-contract-12th-straight-month.html

    http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/09/depression-debate-is-this-depression.html

    http://www.prisonplanet.com/merrill-lynchs-chief-economist-were-already-in-a-depression.html

16. Obama had to do something drastic for the economy. McCain would have done better than Bush but the impact would have been tamed yet still downward. Printing and spending money seems to be a favored world governments’ trend for moving out of a slump. Money becomes devalued. It’s spent while it’s worth something. Commerce gets sparked and refreshed enough that the economy stabilizes and could inch up. Still, there’s a deficit burden that must later be addressed.

17. John2,

    You posted this:

    “The nation was in depression a year before the election, Dec 2007.”

    and followed up with articles stating the recession (not depression) started in Dec. 2007.

    A recession has always been defined as 2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. The Great Depression was marked by the stock market crash and subsequent bank failures of 1929. There was no Government response until FDR’s New Deal, the bulk of which actually wasn’t implemented until after 1934. By that point we had endured 5 YEARS of massive GDP retraction, not the -.8 % like we saw in Q1 2008, but 12%-16%-23% annually like we saw from 1930-33.

    You also have to remember, that the stock market crash of 1929 happened in under 1 week where 20% of it’s value disappeared. This was before the days of FDIC insurance, investment vs. retail banks and electronic trading in real time. It took the market slide of 2008 over 6 months to negate that same percentage, so unlike 1929, it wasn’t a crash as more of a downward slide with many more opportunites for people to get out.

    Moreover, we had 25% unemployment, 9000 banks fail, and a 60% decline in ag prices, coupled with the dust bowl. We haven’t seen anything remotely close to that during this recession.

    So, calling this recession a “Depression” is an outright lie.

    http://www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdpchg.xls

    http://buyingvalue.com/2009/07/2008-recession-great-depression/

18. John did also say “The fact that we in a depression maybe an issue since there is no accepted, standard definition of a depression”. I think you guys are arguing about semantics.

    I wouldn’t call it a depression either, but it is hard to compare our world today with that which existed in the 20s and 30s. Perhaps this is the modern equivalent to a depression, but it is clear in some areas where you have 29% unemployment rate (Detroit) and 1 out of every 20 homes in foreclosure (Las Vegas)…things are pretty damn depressed.

    Your term of choice probably has a lot to do with what side of the fence you find yourself on. I’m guessing if you took a drive around Flint you would find most people would choose the word “depression” to explain their situation… but then again if you take a drive around Flint you will probably get carjacked too so I wouldn’t recommend it.

19. John2:

    “The fact that we in a depression maybe an issue since there is no accepted, standard definition of a depression.”

    Nice try fellas, but the Economy has been called “the worst since the Great Depression” for the last 2 years by nearly every single Democrat running for office and about a bazillion times by our current CIC. The only logical reference point has been that period of history and it’s easily defined economically or socially.

    The reality is were are in a recession about as painful as the late ’70’s early 80’s. Many of those same shitholes costner referred to were shitholes back then. But the farmers are doing rather well, as are most of the small & mid sized banks. Whether that will continue remains to be seen.

20. Sy and Costner, you really need to have this out on the dance floor at Toppers. I’m just saying.

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