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Short attention span explains alliance with Bush.
Posted By: Libby on 2005-09-23
In Reply to: Short attention span? - no message
Now it's all starting to make sense. See article. Don't bother to read article. Form knee-jerk negative opinion based on prejudice against liberals rather than facts. Refuse to read/accepts facts (too time consuming). Ignore all gray areas in life; deal in only black and white. Vote for Bush. When things get worse, vote for him again because neocons are never wrong.
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Short attention span?
Short memory span?
Is there a reason why you repeat yourself over and over and over and over and over and over again? Rehashing the same ridiculous complaints over and over and over and over and over and over again?
Why don't you post the butt in a chair thing a few more times? You guys have called us more or less drugged out hippies with references to what we must be smoking, what we must have been doing in the 60s and our hookahs. You ain't exactly perfect. Now if I post this paragraph about ten more times you might get the idea, right?
If you had an attention span, you'd know.
Bush/Saakashvili alliance is not about democracy.
It's not rocket science. Even a 5-minute superficial read of the history of the pipeline and the below-the-radar placement of US troops in Georgia makes that abundantly clear.
This explains why Bush won't secure our *borders.*
![src=http://www.humaneventsonline.com/images/header-print.gif]()
The Plan to Replace the Dollar With the 'Amero'
by Jerome R. Corsi
Posted May 22, 2006
*If President Bush had run openly in 2004 on the proposition that a prime objective of his second term was to form the North American Union and to supplant the dollar with the “Amero,” we doubt very much that President Bush would have carried Ohio, let alone half of the Red State majority he needed to win re-election.*
The idea to form the North American Union as a super-NAFTA knitting together Canada, the United States and Mexico into a super-regional political and economic entity was a key agreement resulting from the March 2005 meeting held at Baylor University in Waco, Tex., between President Bush, President Fox and Prime Minister Martin.
A joint statement published by the three presidents following their Baylor University summit announced the formation of an initial entity called, “The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” (SPP). The joint statement termed the SPP a “trilateral partnership” that was aimed at producing a North American security plan as well as providing free market movement of people, capital, and trade across the borders between the three NAFTA partners:
We will establish a common approach to security to protect North America from external threats, prevent and respond to threats within North America, and further streamline the secure and efficient movement of legitimate, low-risk traffic across our borders.
A working agenda was established:
We will establish working parties led by our ministers and secretaries that will consult with stakeholders in our respective countries. These working parties will respond to the priorities of our people and our businesses, and will set specific, measurable, and achievable goals.
The U.S. Department of Commerce has produced a SPP website, which documents how the U.S. has implemented the SPP directive into an extensive working agenda.
Following the March 2005 meeting in Waco, Tex., the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) published in May 2005 a task force report titled “Building a North American Community.” We have already documented that this CFR task force report calls for a plan to create by 2010 a redefinition of boundaries such that the primary immigration control will be around the three countries of the North American Union, not between the three countries. We have argued that a likely reason President Bush has not secured our border with Mexico is that the administration is pushing for the establishment of the North American Union.
The North American Union is envisioned to create a super-regional political authority that could override the sovereignty of the United States on immigration policy and trade issues. In his June 2005 testimony to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Pastor, the Director of the Center for North American Studies at American University, stated clearly the view that the North American Union would need a super-regional governance board to make sure the United States does not dominate the proposed North American Union once it is formed:
NAFTA has failed to create a partnership because North American governments have not changed the way they deal with one another. Dual bilateralism, driven by U.S. power, continue to govern and irritate. Adding a third party to bilateral disputes vastly increases the chance that rules, not power, will resolve problems.
This trilateral approach should be institutionalized in a new North American Advisory Council. Unlike the sprawling and intrusive European Commission, the Commission or Council should be lean, independent, and advisory, composed of 15 distinguished individuals, 5 from each nation. Its principal purpose should be to prepare a North American agenda for leaders to consider at biannual summits and to monitor the implementation of the resulting agreements.
Pastor was a vice chairman of the CFR task force that produced the report “Building a North American Union.”
Pastor also proposed the creation of a Permanent Tribunal on Trade and Investment with the view that “a permanent court would permit the accumulation of precedent and lay the groundwork for North American business law.” The intent is for this North American Union Tribunal would have supremacy over the U.S. Supreme Court on issues affecting the North American Union, to prevent U.S. power from “irritating” and retarding the progress of uniting Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. into a new 21st century super-regional governing body.
Robert Pastor also advises the creation of a North American Parliamentary Group to make sure the U.S. Congress does not impede progress in the envisioned North American Union. He has also called for the creation of a North American Customs and Immigration Service which would have authority over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within the Department of Homeland Security.
Pastor’s 2001 book “Toward a North American Community” called for the creation of a North American Union that would perfect the defects Pastor believes limit the progress of the European Union. Much of Pastor’s thinking appears aimed at limiting the power and sovereignty of the United States as we enter this new super-regional entity. Pastor has also called for the creation of a new currency which he has coined the “Amero,” a currency that is proposed to replace the U.S. dollar, the Canadian dollar, and the Mexican peso.
If President Bush had run openly in 2004 on the proposition that a prime objective of his second term was to form the North American Union and to supplant the dollar with the “Amero,” we doubt very much that President Bush would have carried Ohio, let alone half of the Red State majority he needed to win re-election. Pursuing any plan that would legalize the conservatively estimated 12 million illegal aliens now in the United States could well spell election disaster for the Republican Party in 2006, especially for the House of Representative where every seat is up for grabs.
|
Bush's Iraq Speech: Long On Assertion, Short On Facts
Bush says "progress is uneven" in Iraq, but accentuates positive evidence and mostly ignores the negative.
June 30, 2005
Standing before a crowd of uniformed soldiers, President Bush addressed the nation on June 27 to reaffirm America's commitment to the global war on terrorism. But throughout the speech Bush continually stated his opinions and conclusions as though they were facts, and he offered little specific evidence to support his assertions.
Here we provide some additional context, both facts that support Bush's case that "we have made significant progress" in Iraq, as well as some of the negative evidence he omitted.
Analysis
Bush's prime-time speech at Fort Bragg, NC coincided with the one-year anniversary of the handover of soverignty to Iraqi authorities. It was designed to lay out America's role in Iraq amid sinking public support for the war and calls by some lawmakers to withdraw troops.
The Bloodshed
Bush acknowledged the high level of violence in Iraq as he sought to reassure the public.
Bush: The work in Iraq is difficult and dangerous. Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Every picture is horrifying and the suffering is real. Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it?
What Bush did not mention is that by most measures the violence is getting worse. Both April and May were record months in Iraq for car bombings, for example, with more than 135 of them being set off each month. And the bombings are getting more deadly. May was a record month for deaths from bombings, with 381 persons killed in "multiple casualty" bombings that took two or more lives, according to figures collected by the Brookings Institution in its "Iraq Index." The Brookings index is compiled from a variety of sources including official government statistics, where those are available, and other public sources such as news accounts and statements of Iraqi government officials.
The number of Iraqi police and military who have been killed is also rising, reaching 296 so far in June, nearly triple the 109 recorded in January and 103 in Febrary, according to a tally of public information by the website Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a private group that documents each fatality from public statements and news reports. Estimates of the total number of Iraqi civilians killed each month as a result of "acts of war" have been rising as well, according to the Brookings index.
The trend is also evident in year-to-year figures. In the past twelve months, there have been 25% more U.S. troop fatalities and nearly double the average number of insurgent attacks per day as there were in the preceeding 12 months.
Reconstruction Progress
In talking about Iraqi reconstruction, Bush highlighted the positive and omitted the negative:
Bush: We continued our efforts to help them rebuild their country. . . . Our progress has been uneven but progress is being made. We are improving roads and schools and health clinics and working to improve basic services like sanitation, electricity and water. And together with our allies, we will help the new Iraqi government deliver a better life for its citizens.
Indeed, the State Department's most recent Iraq Weekly Status Report shows progress is uneven. Education is a positive; official figures show 3,056 schools have been rehabilitated and millions of "student kits" have been distributed to primary and secondary schools. School enrollments are increasing. And there are also 145 new primary healthcare centers currently under construction. The official figures show 78 water treatment projects underway, nearly half of them completed, and water utility operators are regularly trained in two-week courses.
On the negative side, however, State Department figures show overall electricity production is barely above pre-war levels. Iraqis still have power only 12 hours daily on average.
Iraqis are almost universally unhappy about that. Fully 96 percent of urban Iraqis said they were dissatisfied when asked about "the availability of electricity in your neighborhood." That poll was conducted in February for the U.S. military, and results are reported in Brookings' "Iraq Index." The same poll also showed that 20 percent of Iraqi city-dwellers still report being without water to their homes.
Conclusions or Facts?
The President repeatedly stated his upbeat conclusions as though they were facts. For example, he said of "the terrorists:"
Bush: They failed to break our coalition and force a mass withdrawal by our allies. They failed to incite an Iraqi civil war.
In fact, there have been withdrawals by allies. Spain pulled out its 1,300 soldiers in April, and Honduras brought home its 370 troops at the same time. The Philippines withdrew its 51 troops last summer to save the life of a Filipino hostage held captive for eight months in Iraq. Ukraine has already begun a phased pullout of its 1,650-person contingent, which the Defense Ministry intends to complete by the end of the year. Both the Netherlands and Italy have announced plans to withdraw their troops, and the Bulgarian parliament recently granted approval to bring home its 450 soldiers. Poland, supplying the third-largest contingent in the coalition after Italy's departure, has backed off a plan for full withdrawal of troops due to the success of Iraqi elections and talks with Condoleezza Rice, but the Polish Press Agency announced in June that the next troop rotation will have 200 fewer soldiers.
Bush is of course entitled to argue that these withdrawals don't constitute a "mass" withdrawal, but an argument isn't equivalent to a fact.
The same goes for Bush's statement there's no "civil war" going on. In fact, some believe that what's commonly called the "insurgency" already is a "civil war" or something very close to it. For example, in an April 30 piece, the Times of London quotes Colonel Salem Zajay, a police commander in Southern Baghdad, as saying, "The war is not between the Iraqis and the Americans. It is between the Shia and the Sunni." Again, Bush is entitled to state his opinion to the contrary, but stating a thing doesn't make it so.
Terrorism
Similarly, Bush equated Iraqi insurgents with terrorists who would attack the US if they could.
Bush: There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home. . . . Our mission in Iraq is clear. We are hunting down the terrorists .
Despite a few public claims to the contrary, however, no solid evidence has surfaced linking Iraq to attacks on the United States, and Bush offered none in his speech. The 9/11 Commission issued a staff report more than a year ago saying "so far we have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." It said Osama bin Laden made a request in 1994 to establish training camps in Iraq, but "but Iraq apparently never responded." That was before bin Laden was ejected from Sudan and moved his operation to Afghanistan.
Bush laid stress on the "foreign" or non-Iraqi elements in the insurgency as evidence that fighting in Iraq might prevent future attacks on the US:
Bush: I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country . And tonight I will explain the reasons why.
Some of the violence you see in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom. Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and other nations.
But Bush didn't mention that the large majority of insurgents are Iraqis, not foreigners. The overall strength of the insurgency has been estimated at about 16,000 persons. The number of foreign fighters in Iraq is only about 1,000, according to estimates reported by the Brookings Institution. The exact number is of course impossible to know. However, over the course of one week during the major battle for Fallujah in November of 2004, a Marine official said that only about 2% of those detained were foreigners. To be sure, Brookings notes that "U.S. military believe foreign fighters are responsible for the majority of suicide bombings in Iraq," with perhaps as many as 70 percent of bombers coming from Saudi Arabia alone. It is anyone's guess how many of those Saudi suicide bombers might have attempted attacks on US soil, but a look at the map shows that a Saudi jihadist can drive across the border to Baghdad much more easily than getting nearly halfway around the world to to the US.
Osama bin Laden
Bush quoted a recent tape-recorded message by bin Laden as evidence that the Iraq conflict is "a central front in the war on terror":
Bush: Hear the words of Osama bin Laden: "This Third World War is raging" in Iraq..."The whole world is watching this war." He says it will end in "victory and glory or misery and humiliation."
However, Bush passed over the fact that the relationship between bin Laden and the Iraqi insurgents – to the extent one existed at all before – grew much closer after the US invaded Iraq. Insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi did not announce his formal allegiance with bin Laden until October, 2004. It was only then that Zarqawi changed the name of his group from "Unification and Holy War Group" to "al Qaeda in Iraq."
In summary, we found nothing false in what Bush said, only that his facts were few and selective.
--by Brooks Jackson & Jennifer L. Ernst
Researched by Matthew Barge, Kevin Collins & Jordan Grossman
Excuse us Mr. Bush, can FEMA have your attention?
Katrina & Recovery
Woes at Embattled FEMA Spur Employee Exits
 by Laura Sullivan
Tim Sloan The FEMA command center in Washington, D.C., Aug. 30, 2005, shortly after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. AFP/Getty Images
Mark Wolfe Bill Carwile, in an October 2005 photo taken before he retired from FEMA. Days after Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, the head of hurricane response in Mississippi e-mailed FEMA headquarters: System appears broken. FEMA
All Things Considered, January 13, 2006 · FEMA is having trouble holding on to its best people. Several FEMA staffers have told NPR that people are leaving because the agency is in trouble and no one appears to be addressing the problems. These departures are raising concerns about FEMA's ability to respond to the next disaster.
Leo Bosner, a union chief and manager of the emergency operations desk at FEMA, says morale was bad Katrina, but it's only gotten worse. He notes there have been several retirement parties at the agency in recent weeks.
They're getting out not because they're tired and want to work in the garden but because they're just sickened by the agency's failure -- very public failure -- and just sickened to see nobody doing anything to lift a finger to fix the problems, Bosner says of the departing employees.
According to half a dozen other current or former FEMA managers who did not want their name used for fear of retribution, more than 50 people have left FEMA in the past four months. One official inside FEMA who has seen the agency's attrition data says 56 people have left in the past five weeks alone.
But FEMA says only 20 people have left. FEMA spokesman Nicole Andrews says the information Bosner and other employees shared with NPR is either incomplete or imprecise. She says there's an influx of applications to work for the agency, adding, To suggest that there is any sort of a trend related to Katrina and attrition would be absolutely false.
One recent retiree is Bill Carwile, a 10-year veteran of FEMA and former Army colonel who left in November. Carwile led FEMA's hurricane response in Mississippi.
Katrina struck New Orleans and the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. Three days into Katrina recovery operations in Hancock County, Miss., Carwile couldn't get any food, water or even body bags. System appears broken, he wrote in an e-mail to FEMA headquarters. Carwile says it was the worst moment of his FEMA career.
The exhaustion frustration he felt in Mississippi wasn't the only thing pushing him to retire. Carwile says he was upset watching FEMA's training programs get cut year after year, leaving his teams unprepared.
I'd say Bush paid closer attention than did the Clinton administration!
Bin Laden was on the radar during the Clinton administration and yet the potential threat he posed was virtually ignored!
Supposedly, a latino alliance was
urging the illegals to write the president with their individual stories regarding the deportation surge in Gwinnett.
I don't get the paper. so can't tell you where to get the story but it was on the news yesterday.
It didn't mention anything about people who have already left.
When America's economy is hurting the entire world is so I get that and it is unfortunate.
I am not for mass deportation but for everybody having a paper trail so that we can know who is here and if you are here why not become a citizen? You can type in my name on the internet and find anything you want about me, my address, the places I have lived previously, etc., a paper trail. I feel we should know that about every single person living here regardless of the country they left. We do that for many but seem to be laxed when it comes to our borders.
A criminal/terrorist can also be a "sleeper" for many years in a bordering country all while learning the language culture, so can pass as someone from that area to enter this country when he gets his orders to do so. we have to know who is entering the country in order to be safe.
Skipped over the part about diplomacy, alliance, etc.
nm
I hold no real party alliance........ sm
and had Obama been running on the Republican ticket, I still would not have voted for him. I see corruption in all of politics, that is just the nature of the beast. I cast my vote for the person, not the party, and it was the person of Obama who caused to me vote on the Republican side.
I find it rather interesting that our "run away train" didn't start gaining speed until after Obama was chosen over Hillary and has started picking up amazing speed after the Nov. 4 election. Sure, the economy was not at its best prior, but Obama's rise to "glory" seems to be the touchstone for the whole nasty mess.
On C-Span, they just put on what McCain's
amendment would cost...$420B. It replaces the 600-some pages of the old bill but still includes tax cuts, entitlements, housing assistance, decreasing the tax rate from 35% to 25% so businesses can survive on their own, tax custs for us, and job creation. I still have not found it in writing. Maybe tomorrow.
Amendment 364 is McCain's amendment. They will be voting on it in a couple minutes....unless they get more objections and/or debates that, hopefully, they are all done.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) Georgia. "Here we are once again raising the debt ceiling raise by almost a trillion dollars (the package now up for a vote). When is the spending going to stop?"
I'm watching C-SPAN.(nm)
.
Are you saying C-Span is garbage now?
I don't think so. It's not a news channel, it's the house and senate bull sessions themselves. Maybe you don't like it because it's real and factual. Is that it?
From what I've seen on C-Span
the dems aren't much better. Take Dodd, Pelosi, Frank, Reid, and my favorite (not!)-Schumer. They don't give a dang about the people, either. Otherwise, they would have listened when the people spoke during the bailouts and stimulus packages.
They would have tried to work with the pubs to pass legislation and be bipartisan. But no, they wanted it their way and their way only.
I watched Schumer make state that the people don't care about the pork in all the packages they passed. Where has he been?
I've watched Dodd lie. I've watched Pelosi think she's the president and to heck with everyone. She wants this and she will get it no matter what she has to do. I've watched Frank sputter and try to fight his way out of lies he was caught in.
I could go on and on, but I'm hopeful that people wise up and when their term for re-election comes up, I hope the people in their state take them down. They have caused most of the problems for this country.
I, for one, will no longer vote of Spector and I told him so. To change in the middle of his term does not sit well with me. He could have waited until it was time to campaign. I feel like he betrayed his constiuents who voted for him. The worse part of the whole deal is that he figured he could not get re-elected without changing parties. Well, he may have just sealed his own fate come re-election.
What I learned today on C-span
(I hope the spacing comes out okay, apologies if not). From C-span here are a couple comments. One by a republican and one by a democrat. It’s good to know that there are people (democrats & republicans alike) who realize this is a bad deal and are looking out for our best interest and not their own.
Rep. Michael Burgess – R. Texas 26th district
Speaker, I come to the floor today to talk about this 700 billion dollar bill that is in front of us. I use the term bill advisedly because we have seen no bill. We are here debating talking points on perhaps one of the largest fundamental change in our nation’s financial system in its history. And house republicans have been cut out of the process. Not only have we been cut out of the process, we have also been derided by the leadership of the democratic party and called unpatriotic for not participating. Mr. Speaker I have been thrown out of more meetings in this capital in the past 24 hours than I ever thought possible as a duly elected representative of 820,000 citizens of North Texas. Mr. Speaker, politics is a full contact sport and I understand that, but it is a full contact sport in the light of day in the public arena. Since we didn’t have hearings, since we didn’t have markups, lets at least put this legislation up on the internet for 24 hours. That’s what Thomas was made for. Lets do that and let the American people see what we have done in the dark of night. After all, I have not gotten any more mail, any more emails on any other subject other than this one that is before us today. Mr. Speaker I understand we are under martial law as declared by the speaker last night. I think its ironic house republicans have not been needed for a single thing in this house to assure passage for the last 22 months. And today we are going to be asked to vote for a bill for political cover because democrats are too weak to stand up to their speaker. I yield back.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur – D. Ohio 9th District
Mr. Speaker, my message to the American people, don’t let congress seal this wall street deal. High financial crimes have been committed. Now congress is being asked to bail out the culprits and to do so at the expense of those who elected us to guard their interest the people of our country. The normal legislative process that should accompany review of a monumental proposal to bail out wall street has been shelved, yes shelved. Only a few insiders are doing the dealing. Sounds like insider trading to me. These criminals have so much political power they can shut down the normal legislative process of the highest law making body in this land. All the committees that should be scanning every word of what is being negotiated are benched, and that means the American people are benched too. We are constitutionally sworn to protect and defend this republic against ALL enemies foreign and domestic, and my friends there are enemies. We are told we will have a trillion dollar bill to review soon and have less than 24 hours with no regular hearings to try to vote on this tar baby. The people pushing this deal are the very same ones who are responsible for the implosion on wall street. They were fraudulent then and they are fraudelent now. We should say no to this deal. I ask my colleagues to join us at 2:00 at HC8 of the capital to meet with some real experts who have done financial resolutions without putting financial burdeon on the taxpayer. Please join us HC8 at 2 p.m.
94 democrats voted against this bill today. That is more than half the democrats, yet they get in front of the camera and give their little speeches about how all democrats are for this and its all the republicans fault this didn’t pass. Hello folks, do the math.
Pelosi has shown how truly inexperienced, divisive and uncaring she. She gets up there and her mouth just flaps with nothing of substance being said. She is incompetent and should be fired. All that came out of her flapping gums today was more bashing of the republicans and accusing them of what democrats have been doing for over 2 years now. Why in the world would you give a speech putting all the blame on people and bash the other political side before a vote is even held. Chalk it up to one more of the numerous reasons she is incompetent and needs to step down. And if she doesn’t step down she should be physically removed. Even the Deputy Minority Whip held up a copy of Pelosi’s floor speech at a press conference and said she had “failed to listen and lead” on the issue.
Then I heard Barney Frank talk. He should be renamed Barney Baloney. He stands and mocks the people who voted against the bill making fun of them. As someone said he may be a funny and clever guy, but there is nothing funny about this situation.
Did anyone even notice today that every time Pelosi and Franks spoke the market dived. When they stopped talking the market started going up. They’d get in front of the camera again and the market started tanking again big time. This happened about 3 or 4 times (I was watching it on a split screen). At that point you would have thought the President would have called over and told them to shut up because they were tanking the market.
Kucinich (democrat) said the ones who caused this are the one who are giving us a line (Pelosi, Franks, Kerry, Dodd).
Truth is this $700B is not enough. This is a small part of what is needed. Many people are saying it's more like close to a trillion. After this they’ll say well we need this much more, then that much more, and before we know it we’re going to be paying more than just $10,500.
There are economists and educated people who are asking for a decent bill. But do they consult them. They are the ones with the knowledge and ideas to get us out of the mess. No who do they get – Pelosi, Franks, Dodd, etc – the people who did this in the first place).
All I can see is both candidates are more interested in getting themselves elected than what is happening with the economy so don’t even try to say one is worse than the other. I cannot say what Obama is saying because I’m not hearing anything from him except that he keeps saying it needs to be fixed, but I’m not hearing his specific viewpoints on the bill itself (and I'm not hearing McCain's specifics either). Specifics would be good if I'm suppose to vote for one or the other in November.
Auto Bailout is on C-Span. If you
want to watch it tonight, it will be on at 8 p.m. In the meantime, the plans of GM and Ford are online.
I feel sorry for the Chryler guy. He seems to be the most honest and wants the least amount of money. Sen. Corker - TN told him right out he doubts Chrysler is going to make it even with the money and they should just be bought out by someone and leave the company go.
He was also tough on the UAW Gettlefinger (or whatever his name is). I don't blame him there. The guy was squirming but he kept talking about all the concessions hurting the workers; i.e., not willing to make concessions.
Hope the link works.
Right now on C-Span, they are holding hearings
for the auto bailout. It's just starting.
C-Span is airing the Geithner nomination now.
I am sure he is going to get the job. Some reps are not happy with his tax debaucle, but we cannot afford to drag this out for weeks to try and find someone who would be a better fit.
I'm not happy with this choice at all. Sure wish I would've known about his failure to pay taxes before he was nominated by O, then we could all use the excuse that we forgot to pay our taxes, too. I wonder how many people ARE going to use this excuse at tax time.
C-Span had a rerun of the senate yesterday on AIG
According to Schumer and Klobuchar, they are sending a letter to AIG Liddy (sp) to tell them to renegotiate the bonuses or give the bonus money back, or else they will draft a LAW and take immediate steps to impose a tax as high as 91% on these bonuses.
I don't know how they can do that, although I would like to see it happen. But if they can break the contracts for AIG, then they can break any contract at will. That's a bit scary.
Explains a lot.
God created homosexuals to offset the out of control breeding of religious fanatics who don't believe in contraception because they think it's against God's will. Maybe that's one of the meanings of God giveth and taketh away.
Considering our overpopulated planet, just as you said, seems to me God should think about creating a few more homosexuals!
Well, that explains it....
you find AL Franken witty and entertaining. You must enjoy comments like: "It's not preppies, cause I'm a preppie myself. I just don't like homosexuals. If you ask me, they're all homosexuals in the Pudding. Hey, I was glad when that Pudding homosexual got killed in Philadelphia."
Al Franken, joking about the 1975 gay-bashing murder of Knight-Ridder newspapers heir John Shivery Knight III to the Harvard Crimson in 1976. Bonus: Franken begs the reporter to put the quote in The Crimson...
Yeah, witty...joking about someone's murder. Yeah, witting and entertaining. Talk about a hate monger.
explains a WHOLE LOT
x
That explains a lot, thank you. I am
sure the network news is not nearly informative enouth and too editorial for you. However, since you know about *fair and balanced* and Sean Hannity, I take it you must break down and watch FOX news from time to time. Surely you are aware that Hannity has only 1 show a day and shares it with a left-wing Democrat to keep it fair and balanced. Maybe you would like to share where you find your more academic and intelligent information so I can better inform myself.
Just FYI, since you are only 60 years old, I have been around the block a couple of years longer than you. I have to admit, I have always kept up with the candidates and always voted, but I have never really gotten involved in an election like I have this year. I am truly concerned about my country this time.
I am not selling the Kool-Aid, Obama is giving it away. The people in McCain's audiences are not ignorant, they are frustrated, bitter, confused, and yes, mad. They have the all the same unanswered questions that no one can get answered. Questions about Obama's past, what he has done, what he believes in, what he stands for, what are his policies, how does he plan on accomplishing them, and the list goes on and on and on. Any question from his past that has ever come up has never been answered and yet people are blindly following him.
Please, if you pray for me, change your moniker before hand. Bye-Bye.
That explains a lot..
xx
That explains it. They used to be a
good union until they stole all the pension money.
That explains it well
That explains it.
My DIL is a steward in that union and she believes O can do no wrong. I haven't seen her since before the election because I posted different things about the coming election and she doesn't believe any of it.
It's called freedom of speech and freedom to believe in a candidate. That's fine with me, but she doesn't have to stay away because her candidate won. Although I don't believe O has the experience and/or the gumption to put the congress and senate in their place, I am still hoping...but so far, it's not looking good.
Well, that explains a lot....(sm)
I did know that he ran for president initially because as he said, "God told me to." Other than that, there have been several references to him being over the top when it comes to religion, but this is a new one for me.
Thanks for posting.
Yes - a bean-counter will decide that the cost-benefit ratio over the expected remaining life span..
...isn't worth it, and you'll be denied that hip replacement or whatever. So much less expensive to prop you up in a wheelchair and shove you in a corner. They'll poke you tomorrow morning to see if you're dead yet.
And, folks, I'm not kidding.
Here is an article that explains (sm)
The bold section is what I believe happened.
Here is a link to the actual article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/22/how-obama-ended-up-on-and_n_103132.html
It's an argument Sen. Hillary Clinton has made countless times. Asked why the unofficial results of the Michigan primary should be considered legitimate, even though Sen. Barack Obama's name wasn't on the ballot, the New York Democrat usually shoots back: "Well, that was his choice."
And it's true. Obama, in addition to three other Democratic candidates, made the decision in early October 2007 to not compete in a Michigan primary that the Democratic National Committee deemed in violation of the rules.
But there is another facet to the story that -- while it doesn't change the basic facts -- adds a ripple to the debate surrounding who is to blame for Michigan's quandary.
Obama never actually put his name on the ballot.
He didn't submit paper work or gather signatures so that he could compete. Rather his name, in addition to those of his primary opponents, was submitted by Michigan's Democratic Party in accordance with state law.
"This was a standard procedure," said an official with the state's Democratic Party, "all the Democratic nominees that had declared for the race were put on the ballot after we sent their names to the Secretary of State."
Ultimately, Obama chose to remove his name just prior to the deadline to do so. And his decision, political observers say, was likely driven by a desire to appeal to Iowa voters (who were angered that Michigan had moved its primary up in the calendar) as well as the conclusion that he simply could not beat Clinton.
But the argument over what role he played in undermining the Michigan primary -- and whether or not his motives were purely political self-interest or respect for the DNC -- is muddled by the fact that it wasn't technically his choice to participate in the first place.
Clinton, for instance, has argued that, "There was no rule or requirement that he take his name off the ballot." This statement, while true, glosses over the path that led Obama to ultimately remove his name. Indeed, when the Democratic candidates were submitted it was already well known that Michigan's accelerated primary would have difficultly getting sanctioned.
"Did Obama take overt action in the beginning to put his name on the ballot and then take it off? No," said Bill Ballenger, Editor and publisher of Inside Michigan Politics. "It was put on the ballot by the higher ups... At the time, everybody knew that what Michigan was doing [with its primary] was in defiance of DNC rules."
Weeks after his name was submitted without his consent or objection, Obama personally signed an affidavit removing him from the primary slate. According to Ballenger, the senator could not have done the same thing in Florida -- the other state whose primary was unofficial -- as there was no state law there that allowed a candidate to remove his or her name.
After that, there were still political options available to Michigan legislators for running a full and successful primary. In the weeks after Obama, John Edwards, Joseph Biden and Bill Richardson removed their names, state Democrats attempted amending a law in order to restore their candidacies on the ballot. That effort, however, died in the Republican-controlled state senate. Weeks later a November 15th deadline loomed for either or both state party chairman to go to the legislature and ask for the Michigan primary to be disregarded and rescheduled.
"There was a clause in the law that said that if both party leaders believed that the primary had become meaningless, and said look, this is ridiculous, this is a farce, they could have canceled it," said Ballenger. "There was a big crisis meeting among Democrats - there was a big rankle over whether the Democrats would throw in the towel. And they said, no, we are going to go ahead with it."
Fast forward half a year and Michigan and the Democratic Party as a whole still are unsure as to what to do about the primary results. On a conference call Thursday morning, Clinton's senior adviser Harold Ickes said that the campaign wanted the state's 55 "uncommitted" delegates -- which seemed likely to end up with Obama -- to go to the convention without commitments. It is a position reflective of the belief that because Obama did not participate in the primary it is impossible and unfair to determine his level of support.
But such a resolution, which will become clearer during the May 31 Rules and Bylaws Committee hearing, seems unlikely. As Debbie Dingell, a Michigan DNC member who has been heavily involved in finding a solution to the primary process, told the Huffington Post: "our group of four is not arguing for that."
MSNBC? Well, that explains it (nm)
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Sam explains it very well, see her explanation below....nm
Did you look at Kim's link? It explains
I never believe anything on WND without checking it out at a reliable source.
Here's another article that explains it better..(sm)
About Sotomayor's "firefighter" affirmative action case...
Wed May 27, 2009 at 08:58:07 PM PDT
The case of Ricci v. DeStefano is coming not only to the Supreme Court news reports over the next month, when they announce their decision in the appeal, but also to the now-underway argument over confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor.
You've probably heard about the case. It's a sympathetic fact pattern for the plaintiff, who was denied a position as a firefighter in New Haven, CT, despite having passed a test that should have earned him the position -- if the city of New Haven had not believed that the test would fail the "disparate impact" test for employment discrimination in Title VII because Blacks didn't do well enough on the test.
You may have has some sense of disquiet about the case. It sounds like such a strange verdict. Was it really the right decision?
Relax -- and arm yourself with this article from Slate. Sotomayor was right. Read it and learn how to explain why.
Again here is the link to the article that you'll want to read. It's by African-American Law Professor Richard Thompson Ford. It's one of the best explanations of employment discrimination law for laypeople I've seen. Thompson also reviews how the media coverage has been biased against the defendant (and against Sotomayor for her agreeing with the opinion), though I don't think Fair Use allows me to include that portion of the article here.)
I don't want to summarize the whole thing, but the idea is this. Title VII protects prospective employees against both intentional discrimination (which Ricci, the plaintiff, maintains occurred here) and "disparate impact" discrimination, in which an employer uses an unjustifiable -- key word there -- basis for choosing employees that leads to its hiring too few people from groups that have historically faced illegal discrimination. You can't do either one, otherwise, you get sued.
After having gotten a result where African-Americans did relatively poorly enough on the exam that none would have been given the available slots, New Haven asked itself whether it could defend the test as being actually sufficiently predictive of competence on the job. If it doesn't mean that criterion, you can't use the test; if it does, you can. Disparate impact law is supposed to make sure that employers any hiring criteria with a disparate impact are in fact job-related, so that any resulting discrimination is not pretextual. New Haven didn't think it could prove that the test was OK -- so New Haven threw out the test.
Still sound fishy to you? I'll let Thompson tell the next two paragraphs of the story.
Race discrimination has locked minorities into poor neighborhoods with failing schools for generations: As a result, blacks, as a group, continue to perform less well on written exams than other races. Perhaps New Haven's black candidates could overcome these disadvantages by studying harder, like Frank Ricci did. But Ricci took extraordinary steps to ace the test—six months off work to prepare and $1,000 on tutoring. An equal-opportunity law that's premised on everyone taking such steps isn't likely to do much good in the real world of scarce time and money. And would encouraging the equivalent of intense cramming for the final really help employers select the best firefighter for the job?
Prohibiting tests that needlessly screen out underrepresented groups is a sensible way to ensure that employers have both qualified and integrated work forces. That's why Sotomayor and the 2nd Circuit rejected Ricci's claim. The timing of New Haven's decision is what makes it look so bad: It was a cruel bait-and-switch to reject the results after Ricci and others had studied for the exam and done well. But Ricci isn't attacking the timing of New Haven's decision; he's attacking the city for considering the racial impact of the exam. And that's exactly what disparate impact requires an employer to consider. Ricci's position threatens to burn down one of the nation's most important civil rights laws. Even in the improved racial climate of the Obama era, that should set off alarms.
In other words, one good reason that New Haven had to reject this test is that it was possible for someone like Ricci to "game" it with lots of expensive extra practice and tutoring -- and the luxury of enough time off to do both. The test was no longer going to be predictive of the real job performance of people like Ricci, who would not be able to "cram" for all of the job responsibilities he would face in real time as a firefighter. And if the test doesn't really identify better performance on the job, and it has a disparate impact, then it can't be used.
That's a pretty good rule. There's a pretty good chance that the Supreme Court is going to overturn it within the next month -- which will mean a lovely and blistering Ginsburg dissent, most likely -- but that was the law when Sotomayor made her decision. And her decision was right. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. When they do, tell them "the test wasn't a good predictor of Ricci's capabilities, because he gamed the test."
http://watchingthewatchers.org/article/15142/sotomayors-firefighter-affirmative
Well, then.... that explains your lack thereof.
Why? This video explains it perfectly.
You and I and some others on this board already knew this, but Keith Olbermann did an excellent job of explaining this to anyone who doesn't get it. This is a great video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az7yl-UnsQQ
Explains what? That there are 2 sides to a story?
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so that explains it. Pubs can't even recognize
They can't come up with a single coherent sentence that describes John McCain's plan to fix the economy because they are so hung up on trashing Obama. ACORN is not an economic issue. Let me give you a clue. The subject of the economy would include such notions as the free falling stock market crash, the mortgage lending crisis, the bail out plan, record-high unemployment, job losses, job security, stagnant wages, outsourcing, free trade agreement and its impact on the US economy, the cost of gas, the cost of food, the out-of-control cost of health care, out-of-reach medical insurance coverage, the scarcity of affordable housing, the national debt, the devaluation of the US dollar, bank consolidation, deregulation....just to name a few. Can any of you pubs out there articlate for the rest of us how John McCain's policies on these issues differ from W's? It's a simple question. What is your candidate's policy on the economy? Anyone? Obama's policy has been laid out already today...all 40 points of it...on this board. We are now looking for the MCCAIN economic policy and how it will address these economic elements. Do I make myself clear? What part of defend your candidate do you not get?
So what do you thinks explains SP's incomprehension
and what does it say about the campaign management and her running mate that they have yet to equip her with even a rudimentary understanding of what they may expect from her?
This isn't new but it explains a lot about some of the ignorance found on these boards.
I think Bush has two kinds of supporters, from one extreme to the other. The ones who are quiet and don't resort to posting menacing messages on free message boards are usually oil company executives and other high-income people who are too busy counting their money and wouldn't embarrass themselves by publicly supporting this goofball in the White House.
The other kind, as we often see on these boards, is as described below.
The rest of the country seems to be sandwiched between these two extremes and is reasonable, sane, nonjudgmental and tolerant of others.
**********
Bush and the Christian Right: Going Backward to a Future Right out of the Middle Ages
Bush kicked off his campaign with his State of the Union Address, trying to use it to make the reality of the war in Iraq go away; and pretending, for the umpteenth time, that his tax cuts were about to lead to the creation of new jobs. And, of course, of course, of course, to talk about terrorism, posing as a defender of an America under siege.
The real force of his campaign -- although Bush didn't talk about it -- will come from the enormous campaign chest that he is accumulating; already it stands at 100 million dollars, which is more than any candidate ever collected in total before. It's clear he has the support of the biggest corporations in the country, and not just the oil and energy industries, but, what is more important, high finance.
But whatever else Bush will do in this campaign, his main concern will be to mobilize the voting block that put him in the White House in 2000, the so-called Christian Right. It was to that Christian Right that Bush was directly speaking at the conclusion of his State of the Union Address, when he hinted he might agree to their demands for a constitutional amendment preventing homosexuals from marrying, or when he proposed to campaign for teen-age abstinence, or when he promised to open more federal money to religious based charities.
Looking to the Faithful
Bush's re-election rests essentially on his ability to mobilize that section of the population which was the single most solid voting bloc in the last election, the so-called Christian Right, the home-grown version of the religious fundamentalism that has overtaken large parts of the world during these last few decades.
Vague though the term may be, Christian Right nonetheless carried enough meaning that almost 20% of the electorate in the last election identified themselves as such in exit polls. And 84% voted for Bush in 2000.
The difficulty in saying what the Christian Right is and what it stands for comes from its diversity. It is made up of literally thousands of little Protestant sects, each in its own particular corner, as well as a few bigger ones, like the Assemblies of God, the fundamentalist faction of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Church of Latter Day Saints, which is particularly strong in the Mountain West. Then there are all the radio and TV ministries -- the modern day equivalent of the old tent revival meetings with their huckster preachers touring the country, promising to heal the afflicted with a laying on of hands -- while the hands were in fact reaching into the pockets of the afflicted. The big difference today is the scale on which the huckstering is carried out, witness the wealth once collected by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker (before their fall from grace when it was discovered that Jim -- of all people! -- had had a tryst with his secretary, then used ministry funds to pay her off). Or witness the appeals for money by Pat Robertson on his TV show, the 700 Club, which were often helped along by his regular ventures into long distance faith-healing via TV signal, praying for an unnamed listener out there who had a back problem or hemorrhoids, for example, claiming his prayer had healed the affliction.
There are also all those organizations which have mobilized around particular political and social issues, but who use a religious rhetoric to justify their demands. The most active -- although not the only ones -- are the ones that have carried out a fight against abortion rights practically since the 1974 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. Close behind in their activity were all those defend the family organizations that pushed to block passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, arguing that equal rights for women would destroy God's design for the family.
Finally, there are political action groups like the Christian Coalition, headed in its heyday by Pat Robertson. The Christian Coalition, like Falwell's Moral Majority before it, in reality is a kind of electoral machine, using religious language and references to mobilize voters, whether for Robertson and other activists from the Christian Right or for Republican candidates.
There is no single person or group of persons who speak for this whole. And there are important differences between the fundamentalists, the evangelicals (or born-agains) and the pentecostals -- the three big categories, into which most of the churches fall. Nonetheless, there are certain ideological common denominators that tie this loose grouping together. The vast majority of its ministers claim to follow the Bible literally -- in many cases even in so far as explaining the universe, the solar system and where this planet fits into the scheme of things; as well as how all of this, plus the animals, plants and especially human beings, came into existence, six thousand or so years ago, depending on the sect. This view, known as creationism, has often expressed itself in activity to change the curriculum in the schools, opposing creationism to well-accepted scientific theories about evolution or plate tectonics or the formation of the universe, for example, while pushing the educational book publishers to include the Biblical creationist explanations in science texts. And many of the Christian Right leaders advocate that their followers leave the public schools. In 1979, Jerry Falwell declared, I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, there won't be any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. It's still a goal of most of the Christian Right organizations, which today push for public moneys to go to religious schools. As for the early days Falwell talks about, when there were no public schools, only religious schools, those were the days when the children of working people did not go to any school at all.
Not only do the leaders of the Christian Right espouse the most non-scientific ideas, they are also the fount of some of the most socially backward views of society and the relations between human beings. Witness a statement Jerry Falwell sent out in 1999 in a fund-raising letter: these perverted homosexuals ... absolutely hate everything that you and I and most decent, god-fearing citizens stand for.... Make no mistake. These deviants seek no less than total control and influence in society, politics, our schools and in our exercise of free speech and religious freedom.... If we do not act now, homosexuals will own America!
Literal though their Biblical references may be, the activists and ministers are also highly selective, digging out precisely those Biblical quotations that justify the most reactionary prejudices found in current day society, including racism, the relegation of women to an inferior role, the despising of homosexuals, the exacting of revenge by the death penalty, etc.
A belief that has been widely spread and carefully maintained throughout this disparate Christian Right is the assertion that religion generally and Christianity specifically is under attack. The growth of a secular society is said to be paving the way for a new Armageddon, that is, the colossal final battle between the godly and the ungodly. When Armageddon came along -- or at least September 11 -- one of the leaders of the Christian Right, Jerry Falwell, couldn't resist the temptation to develop this idea more specifically: The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.... throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million innocent little babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face, and say, `you helped this happen.' To which, Pat Robertson, on whose 700 Club show Falwell was appearing, replied, I totally concur.
Paying off Political Debts
George W. Bush may have won the vast majority of the Christian Right in his last election, but he won with only 48% of the total vote, and his camp knows that there is a part of the Christian Right that has become disappointed with the Republican party. Karl Rove, Bush's political handler, in discussing the 2000 election pointed out that four million fewer voters owing allegiance to the Christian Right went to the polls in 2000 than voted in 1994. A big part of Bush's activity over the last three years has been aimed at bringing these lost sheep back into the fold. On the one hand, he has worked to integrate the activists of the Christian Right much more thoroughly into the Republican Party apparatus; on the other hand, to convey, in the words of Tom DeLay, the second ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, that he has been put in the White House by God to promote a Biblical world view.
Among Bush's first appointees was an obstetrician/gynecologist who opposes prescribing contraceptives to single women. He made his name writing a book, Stress and the Woman's Body, which recommended the reading of specific scriptural passages as well as prayers for headache and premenstrual syndrome. This charlatan was appointed to chair the FDA's panel on women's health policy, which was scheduled to take up such issues as hormone replacement therapy and distribution of RU-486, a pill that can induce abortion in the first weeks of pregnancy. Two more of Bush's appointees to agencies dealing with abortion, family planning and reproductive rights of women were conservatives who opposed any federal funding for any kind of contraception, not to mention abortion.
A woman nominated to the National Advisory Committee on Violence against Women was the head of Independent Women's Forum, an organization that had opposed any investigation of violence against women. A nominee for the President's Advisory Committee on HIV and AIDS was a conservative evangelical who called AIDS, the gay plague.
A nominee for the NLRB was a board member for American Vision, which favored, among other things, putting the United States under biblical law, that is, turning it into a theocracy. It goes without saying that this organization opposed any rights for women.
Bush appointed a panel to write new guidelines to allow prayer in the public schools -- with a view toward sneaking in the backdoor, what the courts had already kicked out the front door.
And who could forget Bush's born again attorney general, John Ashcroft, who anointed himself with cooking oil before taking his oath of office, just as the Saul and David (of Old Testament fame) did when they assumed their administrative duties, -- as Ashcroft took great pains to explain.
Of course, Bush was doing what all winning politicians do: handing out posts to supporters. But, he was also using his appointments to legitimize the reactionary social attitudes of the Christian Right.
Pandering to a Reactionary Social Agenda
Whatever has been on Bush's real political agenda in support of the wealthy, he has made it a policy to appeal to and reinforce some of the most socially backward and vicious views, even if he often does so in a kind of coded language. It's enough for him to declare in the State of the Union Address, for example, that he pledges to defend the sanctity of marriage, for all those people who agree with Falwell's description of homosexuals to hear Bush talking to them, reinforcing their prejudices.
One of Bush's very first actions on taking office in 2001 was to cut off funding for international family planning organizations that even mention abortion. Among other things, he has since imposed severe restrictions on stem cell research -- stem cells come from aborted foetuses -- impeding research into Alzheimer's and other such degenerative diseases. He pushed to eliminate funding for sex education if it doesn't push abstinence, in place of birth control methods -- turning back the clock on the reduction of early teen-age pregnancy, accomplished over the last decades precisely because there was more ready information about, and access to, condoms and other birth control methods. His administration pushed through a bill recognizing an unborn foetus as a crime victim, if a pregnant woman is attacked. There are already laws that recognize such actions as crimes -- but this one was written so as to give implicit legal standing to the idea that a foetus is a person, opening the door to charge a doctor who performs an abortion with murder. The administration also introduced and pushed through bills making a late-term abortion procedure illegal -- without any exception for situations when a woman's life, health or well-being are endangered by continuation of the pregnancy. In fact, this is the only time that such late-term abortions are ordinarily legally available now. By closing down the exception, Bush was giving support to the most backward ideas about the role of women in society, that is, chattel, whose own life and health count for little.
Another of Bush's initiatives has been to call for the extension of vouchers -- the programs that force the public schools to give students money to attend private schools, almost 90% of which are religious-based schools. The federal government, however, is not in the position to impose this directly on school systems, which are locally controlled. Nonetheless Bush in 2002 proposed, but failed to get through a national system of vouchers. In 2003 he used his budget to do essentially the same thing: proposing a $2500 tax credit to parents of students in failing schools, which parents could collect on if they transferred their children to other schools, including private schools -- that is, religious schools -- or if the parents would home school their children.
Apart from the obvious support for religious schooling, this tax credit was a way to play to one of the pet projects of the Christian Right, which sees home schooling as a way to remove young children from the nefarious influences that they perceive percolating to their children via the public schools -- including no doubt, a scientific view of the world, not to mention the sex education that lurks in the background of health classes. To protect children from these influences, the Christian Right is ready to sacrifice their education, their socialization with other children, leaving them in the hands only of their own parents, who are not qualified to give them even the most basic grounding in mathematics, composition and the ability to communicate their ideas, as well as a scientific approach to studying the world, not to mention teaching them about the great literature of the world, history, advanced scientific studies, languages, art, music -- most of which the parents have never mastered themselves. It's a way to condemn children to backwardness.
At the same time, Bush has made a series of attempts to reduce the Head Start program, one of the most successful federal social programs, which provided support for early pre-school training for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. If this program has been so successful in improving the school performance of children from disadvantaged backgrounds, it's precisely because the children are brought together with their peers at an earlier age than ususal and are given training and education their parents aren't able to give them.
And although Bush has not gone so far -- yet -- as to propose that creationism be taught in the public schools, several of his appointees have required the National Park Service to sell a book in NPS stores that explains the creation of the Grand Canyon by linking it with the Old Testament flood of the Noah story. The author's introduction to the book includes the following sad passage: For years as a Colorado River guide I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time scale of millions of years. Then I met the Lord. Now I have a different view of the Canyon, which according to a biblical time scale can't possibly be more than a few thousand years old.
One of the most disgusting of Bush's campaigns has been carried out by cooking-oil-self-anointing Attorney General John Ashcroft: to reimpose the death penalty in all those states that have done away with it. George W. Bush in Texas had already made a name for himself by refusing to intervene when he was governor in any death penalty case, no matter how egregious the circumstances surrounding the case. This is particularly significant, given that Texas alone has accounted for 38% of all executions carried out in this country since the death penalty was reinstated. If there are a handful of other states that have also put quite a few people to death, including Florida where Brother Jeb Bush holds sway, most of the country is very hesitant about capital punishment. Ashcroft set out to change this by finding pretexts to file capital murder charges in cases that by rights should have been handled by the states. Significantly, every single one of the capital murder charges that Ashcroft has filed since taking office were in states (or Puerto Rico) that either practically or legally have foresworn capital punishment. Ashcroft's campaign hasn't been notably successful so far, with juries refusing in all but one of Ashcroft's 20 trials to return the death penalty. But this hasn't stopped Ashcroft, who currently has filed 25 new federal capital charges in cases that should fall under state jurisdictions, plus intervening in 12 cases where the Justice Department's own prosecutors had not asked for the death penalty.
It's nothing but a blood-soaked pandering to the oft-repeated call of the Christian Right for the Old Testament's vengeful demand: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Finally, there was Bush's so-called faith-based initiative, which he referred to in his State of the Union address. Using various pretexts, Bush has ordered federal funds for social programs to be dispersed through religious-based charities and churches. Of course, the problem with social program funds today is not a lack of places to disperse them, it's a lack of funds to be dispersed, thanks to the continuing attacks on social programs, an attack that Bush has carried out in particularly vicious fashion.
This is not a social program -- it is nothing but a barely veiled proposal to direct some money in the direction of all these little churches whose ministers supported Bush -- and at a significantly higher rate than even their parishioners did in the last election.
While visiting a church in Louisiana in January to push for his faith-based social programs, Bush declared: This country must not fear the influence of faith in the future of the country. We must welcome faith in order to make America a better place.
The future Bush is preparing for this country comes straight out of the 19th century, when there were no social programs -- other than the charities run by churches or benevolent associations -- only the poor house, which was nothing but a jail to which impoverished people were sent when their jobs disappeared. Bush's future is 19th century capitalism, its horrendous exploitation reinforced by cultivating backward ideas, prejudices and religious superstition from the Middle Ages.
George W. Bush Is Himself Anointed Leader of the Christian Right
In December 2001, Pat Robertson resigned as president of the Christian Coalition. Gary Bauer, a leader of the Christian Right who ran against Bush in the 2000 Republican primary, explained it this way to the Washington Post: I think Robertson stepped down because the position has already been filled. [The president] is that leader now. There was already a great deal of identification with the president before 9-11 in the world of the Christian Right, and the nature of this war is such that it has heightened the sense that a man of God is in the White House.
But George W. Bush had not always been such a man of God, and the milieu of evangelicals, Baptists, fundamentalists, etc., had not always voted Republican.
The milieu which produced the Christian Right had long been concentrated among poorer whites in the South and border states, especially in rural areas, and in those industrial states like Michigan and Illinois that had attracted migration from the South. If in a more distant past, this evangelical milieu had been part of the base of Southern populist movements, since the 1930s, it was a traditional support for the Democratic Party. At the same time, the Christian fundamentalists provided a milieu in which the Ku Klux Klan had to some degree sunk roots. For decades, the Democratic Party, while using a populist language to address the poor whites of the South, was the chief enforcer -- and politically the beneficiary -- of Southern segregation. But with the development of the Civil Rights Movement, the break-down of Jim Crow in the South, and the apparent support for civil rights by the Democrats in the North (more apparent than real), the Republicans began to play the race card to attract this milieu and resurrect the Republican party in the South. In fact, the resurrection of the Republican party depended in good measure on the defection of part of the Southern Democratic Party apparatus, which went over to the Republican Party as a way to maintain their positions in the face of a growing black mobilization. The Democrats-turned Republicans pulled after them much of the Democratic Party's voting base. It is probably that by 1960, the majority of Christian fundamentalists -- upset by changes in Northern segregation and appalled at the idea of a Catholic president -- had shifted from the Democrats to the Republicans. By 1972, with the newly constituted Republican Party making the coded racist appeals in which Southern Democrats had long excelled, Nixon got 80% of the Christian fundamentalist vote, even though he personally did almost nothing to reach out to them.
Racist appeal has been a stock in trade of the Republicans ever since then. We could recall Senior Bush's use of the black criminal's picture in his 1988 campaign or Trent Lott's statement last year in a private Republican affair (When Strom Thurmond ran for president [on a segregationist platform], we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all the years.) But racist appeal alone was not enough for the Republicans to maintain this Southern electorate.
This electorate, which the Republicans pulled from the Democrats in the 1950s and '60s, had a mixed social composition. If there has always been an important part of the evangelicals, etc., made up of small shopkeepers and farmers, there was a significant part who were laboring people, rural or small town, for the most part quite poor. The Democrats since the time of Roosevelt had used a language that appealed to the social interests of the poorer layers of the population (which didn't prevent the Democrats from serving the class interests of the bourgeoisie). The Republicans by contrast had never done so. If the racial issue was enough to pull poor Southern whites over to Nixon, it wasn't enough to keep them solidly in the Republican camp.
Jimmy Carter, a Southern governor and himself a Baptist, retook a sizeable chunk, even if not the majority of the fundamentalist/evangelical vote in 1976 for the Democrats. To get it back, the Republicans began to play the anti-abortion card. That certainly didn't explain everything about the 1980 election -- joblessness was high, and the economic situation seemed to be getting worse. But the abortion issue, along with the possibility that the Equal Rights Amendment would be passed, also played an important part in these elections. To be more exact, the Republicans played on these issues to the hilt, by pushing laws restricting abortion rights and helping to block the Equal Rights Amendment in states. Reagan drew 75% of the fundamentalist/evangelical vote in 1984, Bush Senior, 70% in 1988 and Robert Dole, 65% in 1996.
But as the figures themselves show, the Republican share after the 1983 spurt was declining. Moreover, when Ross Perot ran an independent candidacy in 1992, attacking Bush senior for raising taxes and exporting jobs with free trade agreements, he took 19% of the total vote, including a significant amount from the Christian Right, making it impossible for Bush Senior to be re-elected. The Republicans' stand on abortion and related issues wasn't enough to overcome the population's unease facing increasing joblessness. Even if Bush senior tried to stress his own religious credentials -- inviting both Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, as well as Billy Graham out to the ranch, he was hard-pressed to appeal directly to the Christian Right. Bush Senior, bred to a life of privilege, was part of that Eastern upper class elite whose very way of life, including its high-church religion, was a bone of contention to the Christian Right.
It was George W. Bush who found the way to line up the Christian Right behind the Republican Party again.
Shucking the image of privilege along with his Yale and Harvard blazers, which he replaced with jeans and cowboy boots; dumping his eastern-born and educated accent for a cow country twang; leaving behind the Episcopalianism of his Yankee forebears; presenting himself like a born-again, his religious conversion worn on his forehead like a tattoo, he stepped forward to enter politics. One of the first actions he took was to commission the ghostwriting of a small autobiography to demonstrate his upstanding morality, a book in which he explained that he had been saved by the personal ministrations of none other than Billy Graham. Graham, according to Bush, had convinced him in 1985 and 1986 to give up his previous attachment to alcohol, and perhaps some other sins. Graham had planted a mustard seed of salvation in his soul -- which mustard seed let him sweep under the rug a series of criminal misadventures with drugs and alcohol, not to mention the fraudulent way he got into the National Guard to avoid service in Viet Nam -- actions that otherwise would have been an embarrassment for a politician pretending to stand for morality and family values. Bush has never since missed a chance to testify about his salvation. In a debate before the 2000 Republican primaries, when the candidates were each asked to name their favorite political philosopher, Bush quickly answered,Christ because he changed my heart. In a recent visit to a black church in Louisiana, Bush told of his decision to stop drinking, adding I wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't ask for Christ's help in my heart.
To be more exact, he wouldn't be sitting in the White House if he had not managed to make such a play of religiosity.
It's exactly that religiosity which has helped Bush cobble together a kind of merger between the Republican party and the organizations of the Christian Right. And he did it long before the 2000 election. By all accounts, it was George W. Bush who delivered a big chunk of the Christian Right for his father's 1988 election -- gladhanding activists and ministers from this milieu day after day during the primaries, pulling them away from Pat Robertson who ran as a Republican, continuing on all the way up to November.
Long before the 2000 election, George W. Bush had convinced the Christian Right that he was a man of God and would use the White House in their interests. They gave him their vote, and, as we already said, at a higher rate than to any previous candidate. At the same time, many of the activists were being brought into the Republican Party apparatus. A study done in 2002, printed in the magazine Campaigns and Elections, found that Christian Right activists held a strong position in 18 state Republican parties, and a weak position in only 7 states, with the rest in the middle. This was a significant increase since 1994, when there were 20 states in which the Christian Right influence was weak. It's obvious by the terms used, that the study is not talking about control of the Republican party -- no more than the unions ever controlled the Democratic party in those states where they were perceived to be in a strong position. But the Christian Right was giving the Republican party large number of activists that to some extent could counter the role that the unions have long played in getting out the vote for the Democratic party.
You Can't Lie to People Forever -- Even if Bush Thinks He Can
The Republican Party generally, and George W. Bush specifically, has pandered to the reactionary social attitudes and prejudices that circulate in the population and worked to reinforce them, contributing in recent years to the perception that religion is increasingly dominant.
In fact, the country has been moving for decades in a secular direction. The number of people who are actively religious -- as measured by weekly attendance at religious services -- continues to decline. In 1972, for example, 38% of the population said they went to religious services every week, whereas only 11% said they never went. By 2000, the relative positions were reversed. The non-church-goers had tripled, hitting 33%, while the faithful had decreased to 25%. This is still an enormous weight of backwardness on the population. But it seems much greater only because the politicians continue to push religion to the fore, trying to reinforce the hold it has on the population.
And not only the politicians. The reactionary prejudices that exist in the Christian Right milieu are consciously fanned not only by the whole Christian broadcasting network, but equally by parts of the mainstream media. Fox News Channel, for example, pushed itself to the top of TV news shows in a few short years through an enormous expenditure of money. The transformation of Fox into a vehicle for radical right wing ideas was the creation of Rupert Murdoch, well known for a vast empire of exceedingly right wing and scandal mongering newspapers around the world. Using part of his many billions to buy up Fox, Murdoch dumped most of the news staff in 1996, then hired Roger Ailes, who had long been in charge of media relations for Republican presidential candidates, to direct Fox News.
It should come as no surprise that part of Fox's agenda has been to back the Republicans. It has done a masterful job as the mouthpiece for every lie that the virtuous George W. Bush ever told, whether about the weapons of mass destruction or his middle-class tax cut.
A recent study that set out to examine how people get false ideas about news events asked people to evaluate a series of statements: for example, the assertion that the U.S. invasion of Iraq had found weapons of mass destruction or the assertion that most people in other countries supported the U.S. war to remove Saddam Hussein. Their answers were correlated with the news source they watched. The more that people watched Fox, the more they believed such obviously false assertions.
But pushing George's lies is not the only game in town for Fox. Another integral part of its agenda has been to reinforce many of the ideas and claims that circulate in the milieu of the Christian Right. Taking advantage of the holiday spirit, for example, Fox devoted a whole week at the end of December that carried the rubric, Christianity Under Attack, asserting among other things that there is a secular conspiracy to prevent children from praying, or to destroy the family.
Pushing people toward religion is an old trick, and one used all the more frequently as the situation of working people becomes more desperate.
Bush's main job in this society is to defend the functioning of an economic system which puts profit before everything else, human life included. Bush flaunts his faith in order to hide this reality, using religion as a drug to anesthesize the population to the dreadful consequences of his own policies.
This is an old and vicious trap, one that bourgeois politicians have long used to keep working people from fighting for their own interests.
Maybe Bush can go on telling lies about weapons of mass destruction; maybe he can go on drugging people with reactionary attitudes and superstitions.
But maybe not. An important part of the Christian Right, even as deformed as it is by its immersion in reactionary ideas, is made up of people whose main social characteristic is the exploitation they suffer at the hands of the capitalist class that controls both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Most of the activists of the Christian Right, along with a part of its electorate may well be managers, small entrepreneurs, disappointed professionals, ministers, etc. -- as some studies have shown. But a significant part of the voting base is still situated among laboring people, whether in the working class or in farming situations. And no more than the Democratic Party has ever been able to answer the most basic fundamental needs of the laboring people who looked toward it, neither can the Republican Party answer the demands of these voters.
The working class can mobilize for its own needs. In so doing, it can at the same time start freeing itself from the prejudices, superstitions and reactionary ideas that people like George W. Bush and his ilk have pushed.
January 25, 2004
Well, then. That explains why calling them towel heads
do a pretty good "blend" themselves and many among us find them every bit as scary as Jihadist terrorists...does not justify calling all Christians Bible-thumping idiots, hate-mongering racists, bigoted boobs and the like, now does it?
your post explains why you didn't think it was funny
Crats just don't have a sense of humor like the rest of us. PS - I am a liberal. If there is one equally as funny about the conservatives I would post. But pretty much all of these are true - and funny.
This article explains Sen. Kennedy's Plan
Here's part of the article I was thinking of:
(Page 1) "Senate Democrats, led by Edward M. Kennedy , are developing health care overhaul legislation that would require most Americans to have insurance and most employers to help pay for it (my emphasis) and would also require insurers to provide a basic level of coverage and limit their profits..."
(Page 2) "Kennedy’s bill includes mandates for individuals, requiring them to be insured, and for employers, requiring them to provide insurance to their employees or help pay for it — a policy known as “pay or play.” Both individuals and employers would be subject to penalties if they do not comply, but the exact amounts are blank in the bill text obtained by CQ. The penalties for employers would be tied to inflation...."
Read the whole thing here:
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003136450
The suit explains mother's age part of the problem,
nm
Well said! Short and to the point! LOL
It's the best I could do on short notice. sm
Suffice it to say, I am not comfortable with portraying the US as the Great Satan and whatever role we have or have not played, everyone turns to us in time of need, now don't they. And I mean EVERYONE, every single country. So how bad are we really? Just as I do not believe the Islamofascists are jealous of us for what we have, and they aren't, I do not believe that portraying the US as the Great Satan is going to win us any brownie points with terrorists who already hate us. So if you and Chomsky are comfortable with putting every man, woman and child in this country at risk to satisfy whatever beef you have against freedom and democracy, fine. Your freedom of speech had a most terrible and high price tag. Something tells me that many of these fine men and women, if they could speak now, would not thank you for your thoughts.
Short answer would be
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040420-2.html
In 2004: **Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.**
short reply
So the success in Iraq apparently means nothing. Wow.
Actually is first name is D!ck (yes I know - short for Richard)
But, I've never heard him to be called Richard. But D!ck is a bad word and it wouldn't let me say it in the message. HA HA HA - I think thats too funny.
Did you see the short interview she did with ...sm
reporters where she was asked to comment on her censure by the Alaska legislature? She totally ignores the fact that she was censored for unethical behavior in the interference she allowed to occur trying to get the trooper fired. She just said she was grateful to the Alaska legislature for absolving her of unethical or criminal behavior in the firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, no mention of what she was actually censored for. Unbelievable!
"Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative panel concluded Friday".
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jOTk11gvqDAgD0cY3i4WjI_2YOxwD93O25DG0
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