Billboard compares president to suspected Colo. gunman
CALDWELL, Idaho -- A Caldwell billboard is raising questions in the Treasure Valley as it compares the president to accused Colorado killer James Holmes.
The billboard on Franklin Road equates the actions of the president's foreign trade policies to the acts of Holmes, who is suspected of killing 12 people in the theater shooting.
The group that owns the board, The Ralph Smeed Foundation, said its aim was to draw attention to military men and women dying overseas.
A spokesman for the group said everyone has the right to their own opinion.
The billboard on Franklin Road equates the actions of the president's foreign trade policies to the acts of Holmes, who is suspected of killing 12 people in the theater shooting.
The group that owns the board, The Ralph Smeed Foundation, said its aim was to draw attention to military men and women dying overseas.
A spokesman for the group said everyone has the right to their own opinion.
Don't give this AH from Colorado a billboard. It just glorifies him by making him "famous."
I don't like Obama but this isn't right. It cheapens what Holmes did to those 12 victims. I hate political season because both sides do this immature crap and we have to teach our children about our political system and look what they get a bunch of stupid politicians acting immature.
 @justsayin Both sides? The guy who created the image doesn't care about either party.
The truth hurts. The last time Obama sent one of his drones to get a so called terrorist how many innocents died to get one bad guy. The guy is a killer like Bush. Nothing changes but the presidential face.
@Telman@
A question:
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If a terrorist holds the remote that will set off nukes in the centers of the 5 largest cities in the world.
You know where he is.One single drone strike can take him out, save the lives of 30 million people.
The hitch is, he and his people are holding an orphanage hostage, an estimated 178 children and 23 nuns are his shield.
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The red dot is on his forehead.
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What do you do?
@OrcasThunder @Telman@ Ask: "why isn't he dead, already!? Use a GBU-28 if you have to!"
 @k2wannab Hardly - you are the one who seems to be saying that the deaths of innocents completely nullifies any attempt to capture or kill a known and dangerous terrorist. I'm simply asking you to clarify just how hard and fast that rule of yours is. Because it's a question that I am sure comes to mind every time one of our drones locates and identifies one of the really bad terrorist leadership.
And it's really a simple question - while ideas are wonderful, at what point does reality step in and say that there is a situation with 2 bad results...which is the least bad path to take. Would you let such a person escape, knowing what power he has in his hands, or would you take him out and express your deep regrets to the families for the innocents who died? It's not really an improbable situation - it has been faced many times in the past in many ways, and for sure if they can put it together, the terrorists would relish such a scenario - because they expect that we are too weak to actually open fire.
There are decisions in war that most people will never face - and hopefully the people in the military who might face them are prepared to make the right tactical - and moral - decision.
There was a fighter jet that was chasing one of the airliners that crashed into the twin towers on 9/11. If he had been able to get into range, and it was known what the target was, would it have been the more moral thing to shoot the plane down - killing the innocent passengers, AND perhaps people on the ground - or would the moral decision have been to let it fly into the tower?
More to the point, the passengers of flight 93 died in PA because someone decided that such a path was more moral that to let the plane hit it's target - perhaps the White House. It is doubtful that there was a vote among the 40 innocents aboard the plane...so someone seems to have made that decision for them. Was THAT a moral choice?
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You cannot simply say that all situations where innocents are involved are off limits - that is too simplistic and dogma driven for events in the real world.
 @OrcasThunder As usual, people making up implausible "what if" situations to justify atrocities.
 @RN1  @OrcasThunder As usual, you missed the point.
Too bad Will Rogers isn't around anymore to help us see and laugh at our own absurdities.
US service men death rates in Afghanistan have increased 5x since Bush left office. THE AD IS ACCURATE, AND YOU ARE AN IDIOT.
 @David Date "have increased 5x since Bush left office"
Might have something to do with the fact that we put many more troops there under Obama than when Bush pulled them out to invade Iraq...as in, we are finally actually doing the job that SHOULD have been done in 2002!
Don't blame Obama for Bush's short attention span.
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 @OrcasThunder  @David Date "doing the job." We hear this a log, but what does it look like when "the job" is finished? How many innocent civilians and soldiers have to die before the job is no longer worth "doing"?Â
 @k2wannab That depends on the job, the reasons for it being needed, and how vital it is.
You still have not answered MY question. Is it really that hard for you to state how you would react to such a situation?
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What of an innocent forced to wear a body bomb, or his family will be killed> If there is no other way to stop him, does your POV allow him to be killed in an open area instead of waiting for him to get into a crowded shopping area, and the bomb detonated? And THAT HAS HAPPENED! Many of the suicide bombers HAVE been like this man.
Can you offer an answer to that, or just more high-minded but illogical slogans?
Ah Idaho, we should just fence you off from he rest of civilization.Â
This billboard might be accurate if it had ex-President Bush's photo up there. He is the one responsible for starting two unfunded wars while he was in office, as I recall. And, I'm pretty sure President Obama has ended one war and disposed of the guy we were supposed to be looking for in the first place. Wisely, Bush has chosen to stay out of the public eye since his two term failure, this group would be wise to follow the only smart choice he has made.
Not really surprised this is in Idaho. Home of the white surpremisists and survivalists and who knows what other fringe movements. Â
A little over the line? Sure, I agree with that.
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But let me remind you how radical liberals, currently, keep comparing conservatives to NAZIS. And let me remind you of the past when liberals walked around carrying signs comparing Bush to HITLER. So don't sit there and complain about this when people went around chanting "free speech" for the right to do the same thing to Hitler, who clearly was far worse then this guy from Colorado. Don't give me that crap
BSABSVR?
 @>T H I S< It appears that English is not you're primary form of communication.
 @>T H I S< http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=proper+english
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=BSABSVR
Ok, maybe there is a point in there somewhere. And for the conservatives whining about the free speech of those who are criticizing the billboards free speech, I don't remember a whole lot of conservatives whining about Bush's attempt, very disrespectful lame attempt at humor when he bounced around the oval office feigning looking for those elusive WMD, while the press corps stood there 'laughing'.
Good grief. Name calling, mass condemnation, simplistic generalizations, reckless hyperbole, willful ignorance, partisan blindness, foolish statements, misunderstanding...this thread has it all! And says a lot more about the current state of the citizenry than that sign ever could. As strange and unreal as it is, maybe the sign serves a purpose in helping us, as Americans, to better understand who we are. It's all a bit frightening.
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 @kybhotbsÂ
What was it, 6 minutes ago and you posted something completely made up?
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If he gets elected again... I'm moving to the Philippines! NOT MY PRESIDENT!!!
 @Jack60 Good luck to you, don't let the constitution hit you on the backside on your way out!
 @Jack60Â
.If what you say is true, then you're not really an American citizen right? Have a nice trip, because paly, no matter whether the "sitting President" is one you voted for or not, they are President of the US, and that includes all of us.
You had better start planning and packing. It's a long trip.
 @Jack60 See ya.
 @Jack60 I wish there wasa law that required every person to who actually said something like to be foreced to carry out their threats.
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 @ulquiorra Take off your partisan glasses for a minute. There are a lot of us out here that hated Bush as much as we hate Obama. Some of us are disgusted by the atrocities our government is committing, and it doesn't matter to us which letter is next to the President's name.
if it were Bush, it would be FREE SPEECH, get over it liberal media whiners.
The sign compares the Obama Admin's foreign policy (not trade policy!), which systematically murders thousands every year, with a small time murder. Fair enough... and makes it's point!
Send hate mail to adam@adamvstheman.comÂ
 @Kris Custer You have a problem with the truth?
 @Kris Custer Adam loves hate mail.
 @k2wannabÂ
So in other words.. he is just trolling, but in real life..... Geee... Let me act all shocked here.
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I'm not a fan of Obama (or any politician I can think of), but this is truly disgusting and disrespectful to the families of the shooting victims. I can't imagine how sick someone would have to be to think this up. HOWEVER, this is the U.S.A., where they have the freedom to say it and the rest of us have the freedom to find it disgusting and in poor taste.
 @chuckh0308 What's truly disgusting is how you are more offended by a billboard than by our government slaughtering innocent civilians overseas. But so long as our benevolent overlords are killing brown people over there, it's ok, right?
 @k2wannab Yeah, it is almost as disgusting as comparing killing innocent people in a theater to killing terrorists.Â
Are you saying the people in Colorado were terrorists?   Because that is pretty disgusting.Â
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Stay classy man, stay classy.
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 @>T H I S< Nice straw man. I have no problem with us killing terrorists. I have a problem with killing dozens of innocent civilians in an attempt to kill one *suspected* terrorist. And then bombing the people who go out to collect the dead.
 @chuckh0308 I have seen worse, like obama making a big show of coming out to Colorado to visit on this issue. in my opinion because he is looking for an election boost. i might have thought other wise, but can you name any other shootings that he has visited? there has been others in the last three years with higher body counts.Â
Re: "can you name any other shootings that he has visited? there has been others in the last three years". ummmâ¦.. In the last three years what other mass shootings have there been? ummm⦠Oh yeah. One was the tragedy at the Gabrielle Giffords, town square meeting. And of course he never came out after that one. nahâ¦.Of course not. But I guess extreme amnesia is even another right winger failing. Whoâda thunk it. But they absolutely have to have that or they would just go completely nuts. ummmâ¦. Oh yeah. Never mind.
I am sure that he would like to have Coloradoâs nine electoral votes but wow. About anyplace he visits is not going to be "low key" just because of the media. Well also because of the populace. Plus his security. But I am sure that to Coloradans it does seem like a lot of people descending on them. But boy! You ask, "can you name any other shootings that he has visited". I go ahead and name one and then you say that he "did not go to AZ so far as" you can find. Well son. You need to learn how to use Google, Bing, go to the library, or at least figure out something that might work for the likes of you (smoke signals?, tin cans and a string?) because the story is all over the place. Furthermore it was fairly major news when he did visit. I.e. "a little re cap should be on order" given that "he visited victims and relatives of Saturday's shooting rampage north of Tucson, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords". Your reliability has been proven to be next to zero. And yeah I am more than sure that you "have yet to run into anyone that is" there "in Colorado who would not support the understanding that his visit was politically motivated" as I am sure that you have a very narrow (right winger) circle of acquaintances.In closing I would just like to restate that "I guess extreme amnesia is even another right winger failing. Whoâda thunk it. But" you absolutely have to have that or you "would just go completely nuts. ummmâ¦. Oh yeah. Never mind."
 @flyskiwindsurf first off here in Colorado where the votes were needed for him. let me tell you, the visit was not that low key. also a little re cap should be on order. lets start with the first one of any real note in his term. :  April 3, 2009: A 41-year-old man opened fire at an immigrant community center in Binghamton, N.Y., killing 11 immigrants and two workers. Jiverly Wong, a Vietnamese immigrant and a former student at the center, killed himself as police rushed to the scene. ... obama did not speak on this one at all.
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Nov. 5, 2009: The Army says 13 people were killed and 30 wounded in a shooting rampage at its Fort Hood base in Texas. The suspected lone gunman has been identified as Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan, one of the 30 injured. ...... he spoke on it from the white house but here is a quick quote for you."The president's words on the deadly rampage came two minutes after he gave a "shout out" to an audience member and stressed the need to pass health care reform." . needless to say people were not happy about that.Â
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A total of nine people were shot as part of an apparent drive-by incident on the evening of March 30, 2010. no obama
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At the University of Alabama in Huntsville in Huntsville, Alabama, three people were killed and three others wounded in a shooting on February 12, 2010. During the course of a routine meeting of the biology department attended by approximately 12... no obama
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On January 8, 2011, U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen other people were shot during a public meeting held in a supermarket parking lot in Casas Adobes, near Tucson, Arizona. Six of those shot died, including Arizona District Court Chief Judge John Roll;... obama made a statement, but did not go to AZ so far as i can find.
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in closing i have yet to run into anyone that is here in Colorado who would not support the understanding that his visit was politically motivated.
@lookatthewholething I usually never defend Obama on anything (I don't think I ever have on these boards)...but I was glad he seemed to keep the Colorado visit lowkey. Aside from a couple of pictures of him there that I saw online, I didn't hear much else about it. I was expecting him to turn it into a big media event, where he would make some big televised speech in front of a packed arena of people like he did in Arizona after Gabrielle Giffords was shot...but I'm glad he didn't try to use this tragedy as a way to boost his ratings like he did after the Arizona shooting.
 @lookatthewholething Good grief! If he HADN'T gone there you would be criticizing him as "not caring about regular people"...He went low key, to offer the support, prayers and caring of the people to the victims and their families. He simply went there as the representative of this nation.
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Try to live up to your name.
I see this is doing just exactly what they wanted....
No worse that your average PETA billboard. It is meant to make you think, and that it does.