The ONLY political and religious thread allowed on Chiefscrowd

[hermhater]

Clinton, McCain emerge as comeback winners in New Hampshire primary



WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Clinton pulled off an unexpected narrow victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday, dramatically rescuing her bid for the White House in a tense battle with Barack Obama.
Clinton, who's fighting to become the first woman in the Oval Office, mounted a surprisingly strong showing after bracing for a second defeat following her devastating third-place showing in Iowa.

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. greets a familiar face. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Elise Amendola

Republican John McCain also nabbed a major comeback victory, putting him solidly back in his party's nomination race.
While Obama, vying to make history as the first black U.S. president, scored big among independents and voters between 18 and 24, Clinton attracted lower-income voters and seniors and did best among voters citing the economy as their top concern.
But a big factor for Clinton was women voters, who had gone over to Obama in large numbers in Iowa. Nearly half in New Hampshire were once again supporting her, while Obama got only a third.






http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/080108/w0108115A.html

Crap.

[chief31]

Actually, you are rewriting history again (like you did with the bank bailout). Democrats controlled both the House and Senate for most of Bush's second term, well before the housing bubble (in part) caused the economy to crash. Coincidentally, Republicans took control of the House at just about the same time that the economy (very slightly) started to recover.

Instant politics?

Again... policy does not have instant impact. It takes years to feel the full effect and you are just looking for a way to spin the positive effects your way.

But there is no way to spin the fact that Republicans held power over Washington for over a decade leading up to the crash in '09. It had been building for a long time, and de-regulation (Repeal of Glass Steagal) ensured that the housing market was doomed.

Allowing lenders to sell off insured commodities, while keeping the insurance, guarantees that they will sabotage the commodity to collect the insurance pay-off (Bi-partisan effort).

Bush was a horrible public speaker when he didn't have a well written script. That doesn't mean he was 'dumb' or a bad President. (I'm know you're not saying that it does.) But you can't possibly tell me that Obama has been attacked by the media more than Bush was, and it's just because he is 'well-spoken."

Right... Because the term "tele-prompter" was so popular then.

And how many complaints about seeing W's birth certificate, "oh, that's the official birth certificate? That's not good enough. Show us the nonsense version so we can call it a fake" did we have to endure?

The fact is that Bush led the charge to get one of my best friends killed in Iraq for fictitious WMDs.

He earned a great deal of the wrath that was flung at him.

He was "blessed" with the support of all Americans after 9-11. And he worked his way from there to produce the lowest approval rating since Nixon.

[quote=TopekaRoy;258520]Iraq has benefited immensely from US involvement since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein (who actually used chemical WMDs for genocide against his own citizens to exterminate Kurds in northern Iraq). But the ends don't justify our going in there in the first place.

Bush had every reason to believe that Iraq had WMDs, given the fact I just mentioned and the fact that we had satellite surveillance of what appeared to be weapons manufacturing plants in the country. He had no way of knowing at the time that the information he received was inaccurate. He made the right decision based on the information he had. He just had the wrong information.

By the way, just because we never found WMDs does not mean they were never there or even aren't still there. They could have been buried or moved (probably into Syria). or they could just be well hidden. Iraq is a very large, mostly desert country and we haven't searched every inch of it.

Also, by the way, Obama was "for the war before he was against it."[QUOTE=TopekaRoy;258520]

So was I. That doesn't change that it was one of the worst presidential decisions of our lifetime.

But, regardless of WMDs, the US Constitution does not give our government the right to police foreign countries.

Surely you will admit that the biggest driving forces behind that were profit, and revenge for H.W. Bush?

I mean we gave Saddam a deadline, he refused, refused, then agreed, and he was told "too late", in favor of "Shock and Awe".

Really? Who?

That is not the same thing. That is not the healthcare provider denying treatment. It is the insurance provider restricting who they will pay for that treatment. The treatment is still available.

And forcing everybody to buy insurance will result in the poor (who can't afford it anyway and can now go anywhere for treatment) to be restricted to specific providers by the very same HMOs.

I agree that something had to be done, but this isn't it. I remember several Republican proposals (like allowing interstate competition, and tort reform to eliminate the dozens of unnecessary tests that Doctors perform to protect them from Malpractice lawsuits, for example) that the Democrats, who controlled the house and Senate at the time, refused to even consider. They made very few compromises. They didn't have to because they had enough votes to pass the bill without bipartisan support. It passed the house without a single republican vote and even 35 democrats voted against it. They wouldn't even allow enough time for congressmen to read the 1000+ page monstrosity, before they rammed it through. Maybe they feared they would lose too many democrat votes if they actually knew what was in it?

Tort reform is just horrible. The only place for that kind of thing is in the individuals courtrooms. You just can't allow a medical professional to cause a life-long problem for their patients, and try to put some cap on what the victim is entitled to.

"Oops. Sorry that you will never walk again, because you came in for an Appendectomy. Good thing I will be protected from your lawsuit. Whew!"

The first thing that US citizens are entitled to is "life". And healthcare is mandatory for it. We should cut through all the red tape and guarantee that we will provide healthcare.

Just making a law that says you can't be refused is nonsense. It does not close the door on treatment by class.

libraries aren't controlled by the Federal government. Although they receive a small percentage of their funds form the Fed govt, for things like increased broadband access, libraries are mostly funded at the county and local level.

Government.

Test scores have been steadily declining in public schools, especially in math and the sciences, despite steady increases in federal funds. And Private school students almost always outperform public school students despite the fact that per-student spending is much lower in private schools.

Private schools out-perform because they get to pick their students.

Try flooding the private schools with the full population, and, eventually, it will go right back to where it was before we figured out that we had to bring the whole nation along.

And the decline has started since "No Child Left Behind", which I think you will admit does exactly the opposite.

I believe in performance-based pay in most cases. But teachers are not on an even playing field. Their performance would be based on other peoples' performances, not their own.

The use of "snail mail" is in steady decline but private mail carriers like UPS and Fed-Ex are very profitable, even though they are at a competitive disadvantage because of higher prices. People are obviously willing to pay more for the far superior service a private company provides whether that be mail delivery or education.

The US mail service was built for a massive system, that is dying because of a lack of usefulness of that service. The private companies are able to specialize, because they don't have to compete on that level.

They are not playing on the same field. But the private companies were never even able to put a thought toward competing on the field that the US Postal service was designed for.

And, for those who can afford the private school, which again excludes most, good for them. But they will not be able to do it on a full-size level, just like the medical industry. It is crumbling because it is a privatized industry, forced to supply to all, regardless of the abilty to pay for their service.

If you have a service or product that the entire nation requires, you just aren't going to be able to keep it privatized.

I know, but this isn't the right bill. You seem to be of the mind that we have to do something even if it is something bad.

Continued in next post!

It is not a bad thing. It just isn't good. It's better than watching our medical industry die off because of rising prices, caused by the uninsured/non-paying.

And, even the way I think it needs to done, (socialized medicine) would cause a catostrophic economic catastrophe, as our insurance industry is just plain massive, and socializing the medical industry would decimate it, leaving millions out of work for the long term, as their profession will have been cut in half.

But the calls of "repeal and replace" are just plain wrong. It has to be just "replace", or silence.

The private medical industry is on the road to sure-fire economic ruin. We have to do better, and Obamacare is a strong patch, that will offer some relief for a while.

But, eventually, we will have to decide, do we want to live in a nation where we take care of those in need, or let them die.

[chief31]

Who? I don't know of any. You can't just say "lots of people" without backing up your argument. Well, you can, but it's not very effective.

Well, let's just take Ron Paul's following for now then.

Basically though, the entire Republican platform is to rewind the greatest nation on Earth. 70 years, or fifty years, we have built an incredible society, with some kinks that need to be ironed out, just as we have been doing since we started.

Did you just skip over the part where I mentioned "if we could couple that level of Federal involvement with the gains we have made in civil rights and fair labor laws? I countered that argument before you even made it!

Actually, I did. That's a whole lot of reading.

But my apologies.

However, there is a price to be paid for more than doubling the work force by giving women and minorities their rights.

Here we are, with a long-term job situation.

Speaking of which.... how long have women been counted in the UE numbers?

The "New Deal" was the 30s and FDR died in 1945! Maybe you are thinking of LBJ and the "Great Society?" No, that was the 60's.

And those "New Deal" policies had settled in quite nicely at that point, hadn't they?

Well, at least for a society that did not allow women into the workplace anywhere near as evenly as it did men.

Wow. It sure would be nice to be able to work for a living and not have to have a second income just to keep the household running right.

There is always some of that from the opposition party, but mostly Republicans just want to block his policies because they feel they are bad for the country. I would expect Democrats to do the same thing. Oh, wait ... They did with Bush.

No. This nation's government has never been this polarized. Democrats hopped on board for Bush. And he went off the deep end.

But even after sending our own to die in Iraq, we were still not as polarized as we have been since Democrats got back in power.

Republicans were in no position to compromise because they had no power until November 2010. Now they can't even produce a budget, because they can't get enough democrats to compromise for enough votes to override a presidential veto.

That have not been offering any concessions at all. They have their demands, and they will "shut it down" unless they get what they want.

Obama took a Republican healthcare bill, and invited them to take part in it, and they turned their backs.

A couple of Republicans have even called out their party for their obstructionism, and having Obama as their agenda.

Yeah, he can't do much to solve the problems, but he continues to blame Bush for creating them. I guess Bush was just far more powerful than he is.

He doesn't blame Bush. He blamed prior administrations. Again, twelve years of Republican power lead to economic collapse, just like it did almost 100 years ago.

I disagree that he has a very good record for the reasons I mentioned. Reagan inherited a much worse economy than Obama (higher unemployment, runaway inflation and sky high interest rates) and he had to take his case directly to the American people on TV, constantly, because he was fighting against a Democrat majority in Congress. But he didn't waste his time blaming Jimmy Carter. He got to work and by the end of his term, the economy was well on the way to recovery. He was reelected in a landslide (won 49 states IIRC). Obama is doing everything the opposite of what got us out of the last recession. Don't tell me he can't do anything about the economy, because his hands are tied.

It's been done before.

I'll be glad to address them, I'm not shy!

Reagan inherited the end result, and had lots of tax room to work with. Not to mention a society that was still relying on dads to be the sole bread-winners. So that UE stat that you like to play with was not even with today's. And was it during his Presidency when they changed the UE statistics to be more favorable?

[chief31]

My response to your last post was over 2400 characters and there's a 2000 character limit, so I had to divide it into two posts! But I really am enjoying this debate. Unfortunately, it has branched out into a number of different topics---Health care reform, free speech, the authority of the Supreme Court, the economy, foreign policy, the Constitution ...

We may have to narrow our focus and try to stick to one topic at a time. (But I'm willing to attack all of them )

I look forward to reading your response(s)!

That took forever, just to half-a** some of it.

[Chiefster]

nice one

Thanks! I thought so.

[TopekaRoy]

That's the thing... Is you take what is, in your opinion, inappropriate, and have twisted it into a threat. But a threat has, at the very least, an implied consequence. And there is none. You reached for one, as being that "they will be perceived as ..."

I think, if you were to be reasonable on this, you would come to the obvious conclusion that you exaggerated. Just like President Obama did with his "unprecedented" comment.

I don't think I am exaggerating at all. The "threat" isn't just implied, it's clearly stated. "There's a human element and, uh, I hope that's, uh, not forgotten."

What do you think he means by that? What does the "human element" have to do with whether or not the law is constitutional? Nothing. Why do you think he wants the court to remember that there is a human element? It's because he wants them to consider the cost of ruling correctly according to constitutional law. And if they don't (consider that), then they are being inhumane.

There is no way you can twist what he said to imply that he was showing support for the Supreme court to make the correct ruling (according to their own consciences) without regard to the political ramifications of that ruling. He is obviously trying to "influence" the court with his comments and that's not appropriate for any President. He doesn't care what the Constitution says and he thinks his judgment is superior to the justices'.

That just gives them a free run to do whatever they want. But this one really isn't even worth the argument, as it has already fallen under the category of pure opinion. Rather you think not having consequences is a good thing for people in power, or not.

I think not.

I like having three branches. But I just don't like the lifetime appointment feature. But then, I am in favor of more term limits.

I want justices to vote based on the law, not based on whatever satisfies their "constituency." Would you prefer that SC justices be appointed for, say, 10 years? That wouldn't be so bad, but if they had to be reappointed every 10 years, I could see Presidents (or Congress) abusing that by only reappointing conservative or liberal justices, depending on who was in power. Now you have introduced the element that if justices don't vote "the right way" they could lose their jobs.

Because justices are appointed for life, they can rule on the law according to their own consciences. They aren't influenced by politics (beyond their own political leanings) and Presidents usually can only replace one or two during a term, so there is less risk of a court leaning too liberal or too conservative.

You may not like the system, but it is the most apolitical, and works better than any alternative would.

continued ...

[TopekaRoy]

page 2 ...

Well, the mandate is the only thing that seems to be a problem. But I bet you wouldn't like it any more if they had worked it so that it would have been worded as a tax either.

They can't do that without eliminating private insurance and putting all of those people out of a job.

We already have a 'healthcare' tax. It's called medicare for the elderly/disabled, and medicaid for the poor. I have no problem with that.

You seem to think that as a conservative, I don't want to pay any taxes. That's not true. I think there are a lot of things that the Federal Govt can do for us and healthcare for the truly needy is one of them.

What I object to is the Govt telling the wealthy and the healthy that they have to buy a product from a private company or they are breaking the law. It's beyond the scope of authority granted to the Federal govt by the Constitution.

We all purchase schooling, rather we use it, or not. We all purchase military rather we use it, or not.

Had they worded it to be a tax, then all the arguments go by the wayside. Perhaps they should have done the right thing, and just gotten all of the Republican ideals out of it, by Socializing medicine. There would still be plenty of private sector medical facitlities, and the whole job would have been done.

And there it is. You favor socialism. I favor increased competition, medical savings accounts, personal responsibility, other measures that can be done to reduce costs and subsidies for the truly needy.

The US has the best medical care in the world. Anyone who is subjected to socialized medicine and the long waits, rationing of healthcare and requirement for govt approval can tell you how much better our health care is. The wealthy who can afford it (because they don't allow private insurance in countries with socialized medicine) always come to the US when they want or need the best care. And you want to eliminate that.

One of the goals of Obamacare is to run private insurance companies out of business. They know that the individual mandate won't cover the increased costs of covering people with pre-existing conditions, and eventually insurance companies will go broke --and you will get your inferior socialized medicine.

But they can force you to eat, and even make you pay for the food.

If you have an accident, and do not have insurance, you go to the hospital, they are forced to feed you, to keep you alive, and you will be billed for it. It is a matter of law.

There are plenty of loop-holes that could be argued here. But I am not a lawyer.

I assume you are being facetious here. They can't tell everybody what food to buy or even that they have to buy it.

Okay, if they are saving my life, I'll eat what they tell me to, but don't force me to buy a product I don't need!

continued ...

[TopekaRoy]

How far has that number gone up? How about the first indicator, the stock market?

And that little dig at what the numbers were when Obama took over is unfair, and you have to know it.

He inherited an economy that was in the process of a total collapse. UE had yet to feel the full impact, and everybody knew it.... then.

You just don't withstand the kind of crash we had in '07 and expect to not see an even bigger impact on the job market.

And yes, President Obama was full of it when he tried to tell us that it would not go over 8%. It was coming like a hurricane, and stimulus was to be spread out over seven, to twelve, years.

The problem is not so much that the economy is still bad (and it is), but that he is doing the wrong things to fix it. Reagan cut taxes and (at least initially) reduced federal spending to stimulate the economy. Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich and eliminate the middle class tax cut. The FICA tax cut is also set to expire at the end of the year. Conservatives are calling it 'taxageddon.' The press called Reagan's plan 'trickle down' or 'voodoo' economics, but it worked. Even JFK (a democrat) knew that you reduce taxes to stimulate the economy.

When San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) was facing bancrupcy, they saved public transportation by reducing fares. More people started riding, the cost per mile went down and overall revenues went up. Why do you think stores run sales? It's not just to be nice to their customers or to reduce overstock. It's because they make more money.

Again, you aren't being reasonable here.

A.) Democrats have fought feverishly against Republicans to extend the time limits of UE for those in need, thus inflating the numbers. All at the detriment of his own campaign.

This is to his credit. He has put the needs of the American people over his re-election campaign.

There is a percentage of people who will not look for work until the UE benefits run out. But Obama has supported those extended benefits, thereby increasing both the number of unemployed and the deficit.

B.) As for the "real UE numbers".... Pick a stat and stick with it. You can't just pick the stat with the bigger numbers whenever it looks worse for the guy you are against.

If you want to go with the jobless rate, then start there too. Saying that it was under 8% at one point, and then telling us that it is now over 14% is disingenuous.

You will have to show me where I am being inconsistent here because I don't see it. When Obama took office the difference between the reported UE rate and the real (U6) rate was less than 2% because the number of long term unemployed was much smaller as a percentage of the total. Now the difference is 6.4% (8.2% reported, 14.6% real U6 numbers).

C.) Bottom line, the job market is clearly improving. (Not that it has a chance at a real improvement, so long as we continue with "free trade" agreements.

Not here in Topeka. I have been unemployed for almost 29 months now, and it's not from lack of trying. You just think it is improving because more and more long term unemployed (like me) are no longer being counted.

And Free trade (like free enterprise) is a bad thing?

At $248.2 billion for Canada and $163.3 billion for Mexico, they were the top two purchasers of US exports in 2010.

US goods exports to NAFTA in 2010 were $411.5 billion, up 23.4% ($78 billion) from 2009 and 149% from 1994 (the year prior to Uruguay Round) and up 190% from 1993 (the year prior to NAFTA). US exports to NAFTA accounted for 32.2% of overall US exports in 2010.

The top export categories (2-digit HS) in 2010 were machinery ($63.3 billion), vehicles (parts) ($56.7 billion), electrical machinery ($56.2 billion), mineral fuel and oil ($26.7 billion), and plastic ($22.6 billion).

US exports of agricultural products to NAFTA countries totaled $31.4 billion in 2010. Leading categories included red meats, fresh/chilled/frozen ($2.7 billion); coarse grains ($2.2 million); fresh fruit ($1.9 billion); snack foods (excluding nuts) ($1.8 billion); and fresh vegetables ($1.7 billion).

US exports of private commercial services, excluding military and government, to NAFTA were $63.8 billion in 2009 (the latest data available), down 7% ($4.6 billion) from 2008, but up 125% since 1994 (source)

Yeah, it would be so much better to impose tariffs to artificially restrict trade. We don't want American companies making more money!

It's one month. No growth is ever 100% positive. Markets rise, and fall. And this one has been on an upswing for quite a while.

In the last 16 months the UE rate has dropped by nearly two full percentage points.

No it hasn't. it just appears that way because we have stopped counting people whose UE benefits have run out. As it turns out, many analysts believe that the reason more jobs were created in January and February was because of the unusually warm weather. More people were going out and spending money on entertainment and recreation. This led to an unrealistic expectation for March job figures and naturally those expectations weren't met.

In other words, warm weather may have helped create a bit of a rollercoaster effect on the jobs numbers. “Our read is that March is understating the underlying improvement in the labor market, while January and February overstated it,” explains Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight. (source)

And that's putting a positive spin on it.

Others have a more skeptical take on the weather theory. “The unusually mild weather may have helped boost payrolls this winter, but we do not think this was a major factor weighing on the March report,” says Daniel Silver, an economist at J.P. Morgan Chase, in a research note. He points out that the warm weather continued in March and that the number of people who stayed at home because of adverse weather remained low. (same source)

I will concede that the economy is slowly improving. It has nowhere to go but up! But I still contend that Obama and the democrats are impeding the recovery. There is much they could have done to accelerate it and they haven't.

So, are you implying that government controls the oil markets?

Gas prices will forever go up. They won't go back down, until The USA goes crazy with the drilling. And that is not going to happen for a long time, regardless of which party is in power.

The federal government is playing the oil market. When oil becomes scarce enough, The USA expects to take over as the world's leader in oil distribution. Republicans didn't cut into that, and Democrats won't either, not even for an election.

Actually, gas prices just went down by 10 cents a gallon, today, but I'm sure that's an anomaly, No the government doesn't control the oil markets but there are things they can do to influence it. Approving legislation for the Keystone pipeline would be a good start:

[Mitch McConnell said,] “The Democrat-controlled Senate just turned its back on job creation and energy independence in a single vote by rejecting the bipartisan Hoeven-Lugar amendment. They rejected legislation that would have led to construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and the thousands of private-sector jobs that come with it. At a moment when tensions are rising in the Middle East, millions of Americans are struggling to find work and millions more are struggling with the rising cost of gas, Democrat opposition to this legislation shows how deeply out of touch they are with the concerns of middle-class Americans. President Obama’s personal pleas to wavering Senators may have tipped the balance against this legislation. When it comes to delays over Keystone, anyone looking for a culprit should now look no further than the Oval Office.” (source: Gas Prices Be Damned… Obama & Senate Democrats Block Keystone Pipeline Again)

How would blocking offshore drilling and other increased drilling help the USA become the world leader in oil distribution? That makes no sense.

If you truly believe that the economy is not on a major upswing, then you don't know anything about national economics.

The first sign, up, or down, is the stock market. It crashed first, and it is recovering to almost full-strength.

The job market is generally second, because confidence in the stock market is what spurs hiring. And we have been gaining big for the last sixteen months. And with the stock market as strong as it is, there is every reason to believe that that trend will continue.

The stock market was overvalued and there is a lot of buying now because many investors believe it has bottomed out and stocks are a good buy (buy low; sell high). The market generally overreacts to other leading economic indicators. A run in the stock market always precedes a recovery, but a recovery doesn't always follow a run in the stock market. This is because in a real recovery the stock market will continue to go up, but sometimes the market improves in anticipation of a recovery that doesn't occur.

The market is highly speculative and it's not real money, anyway. Those gains are only realized if the stock holder sells and, of course, selling stock puts downward pressure on the market. It's an indicator of a potential economic recovery, but not a highly reliable one like reduced unemployment, increased industrial productivity and increased consumer spending are.

The housing market collapsed completely. It is not just going to rebound. It has to be pretty much rebuilt.

A big reason for that collapse was that banks were under pressure to approve home loans to people who couldn't afford it. The belief was that neighborhoods are improved when people own, instead of renting their homes. That's true but it doesn't justify extending loans to people who don't have the income to make their payments. It was thought the the value of the homes would continue to go up so there was little risk to the banks (because of the equity in the homes.) The banks screwed up and houses were artificially overvalued. That is not Obama's fault, but a lot of liberal programs were to blame. (see Community Reinvestment Act, Graham-Leach-Bliley Act, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and Barney Frank.)

But you aren't clueless. You are just playing politics on this, and seemingly rooting against the recovery.

Stop that!

As one of the long term unemployed, who is 21 months behind on my rent (my roommate has been very understanding!) the last thing I am doing is rooting against the recovery. I understand what helps the economy recover. I was 18 when Reagan took office and I well remember the worse recession of the late 70s. I also remember the minor recession that occurred when Bush, SR went back on his promise to not raise taxes. The Obama administration is NOT doing what it takes to improve the economy. The "food stamps" President and democrats in general need a populace who is dependent on govt support for votes. Their political base is people who want the govt to give them stuff.

Just out of curiosity, how old are you?

Continued ...

[TopekaRoy]

I'm afraid I have a very full plate today, so I may not be able to continue with my replies until Wednesday.

Hang in there and I will get to the rest of it.

[Chiefster]

I don't buy into the whole president, whomever he/she may be, inheriting all the problems supposedly created by the previous administration. These are problems that politicians, including the presidential nominees, help to create.

[chief31]

I don't think I am exaggerating at all. The "threat" isn't just implied, it's clearly stated. "There's a human element and, uh, I hope that's, uh, not forgotten."

What do you think he means by that? What does the "human element" have to do with whether or not the law is constitutional? Nothing. Why do you think he wants the court to remember that there is a human element? It's because he wants them to consider the cost of ruling correctly according to constitutional law. And if they don't (consider that), then they are being inhumane.

There is no way you can twist what he said to imply that he was showing support for the Supreme court to make the correct ruling (according to their own consciences) without regard to the political ramifications of that ruling. He is obviously trying to "influence" the court with his comments and that's not appropriate for any President. He doesn't care what the Constitution says and he thinks his judgment is superior to the justices'.



I want justices to vote based on the law, not based on whatever satisfies their "constituency." Would you prefer that SC justices be appointed for, say, 10 years? That wouldn't be so bad, but if they had to be reappointed every 10 years, I could see Presidents (or Congress) abusing that by only reappointing conservative or liberal justices, depending on who was in power. Now you have introduced the element that if justices don't vote "the right way" they could lose their jobs.

Because justices are appointed for life, they can rule on the law according to their own consciences. They aren't influenced by politics (beyond their own political leanings) and Presidents usually can only replace one or two during a term, so there is less risk of a court leaning too liberal or too conservative.

You may not like the system, but it is the most apolitical, and works better than any alternative would.

continued ...

I still don't see any threat. You are just going to spin around like mad and hope you can translate it into one.

The human element would be the effect of the law on human beings. And you act as if it President Obama specifically wants them to rule against the Constitution, because he knows it isn't constitutional, which is just ridiculous.

You abandon every single morsel of reasoning to invent a threat that was never made.

As for the argument for life terms, we are just flat out going to disagree. You seem to think that not having to answer to the people means that they will vote according to law, and not for personal reasons, or anything else. It's just way off base.