Are you using tepid water in your morning coffee or what?

What in the name of all that is holy is this?

So why should the GOP, and its vocal conservative supporters, continue to pretend that someone is going to magically appear that will reduce the size and cost of Federal government by 25% over the next ten years; eliminate agencies like the EPA, IRS, FCC, Department of Education, FDIC, Social Security, Amtrack, NAFTA/CAFTA; end our membership in such organizations as the UN, the OAS, NATO, ANZUS, the WHO, the IMF; and institute a policy of unrestricted, unregulated laissez faire capitalism as the national economic model?

Seriously Titus, who on God's brown earth (I live in Nevada) stated this as the "F.Ryan" or "conservative" agenda? Maybe you were being over the top for effect, but I want "bold differences", not an isolationist pre-20th century policy. Where did you get that such was the necessary platform to avoid being a "Dem-light?" This is unuseful hyperbole.

Look, I don't know why you suddenly have such visceral lead in your pencil today, but these statements of leaders that will "magically appear", and reduce government by "25%", all of this is just nonsensical banter meant to relieve you of either angst or comedic outlet but certainly not to further the conversation.

As you stated, we are no longer discussing within the Bund (or within this nation) the "traditional" Democrat vs Republican issues of tax levels, WWII or Great Society era social programs, etc. This president will with one stroke of the pen today socialize ALL student loans, making private college loans illegal. He is mandating policy at GM, down to their advertising budget. He is effecting a health care takeover that will see no less than 1/6th of the US economy federalized, and we haven't even gotten to cap & trade nor illegal immigration. Forget isolationist, classic conservative policy, I'd be relieved to be dealing with an actual centrist Dem in the oval at this point. And to get a bonified "conservative" we must espouse core conservative belief at every turn, and field a candidate with just such a record. But that doesn't mean leaping to the extremes you just did.

And to Jambo, I don't think Putin sees opposing America (for the sake of it or any other reason) as "stupid." I think he sees it as practical. He sees us going the way of European Social Democracies and smells blood in the water, and he sees Russia as the "new America" once our self devourment is complete. Now, he is gambling. I think he is gambling wrong, but I don't think his wager out of stupidity. I think he'll continue to bet this way as long as we demonstrate a propensity for weakness, be it our dollar, tone, direction, or foreign policy.