If Re-Elected Bush plans to initiate draft in 2k5??

[LevitraKid]

I guess there will always be sheep that believe everything they read in the distorted liberal media. Too bad some folks can't think for themselves and/or read ALL the information, before they blindly follow the pied piper at the head of the liberal party.

 

[bigbutnottoo]

Bush's economic plans are irresponsible, b/c in the end, all the growth is at the expense of cutting social programs, larger tax cuts for citizens at the higher end of the wealth spectrum, and Huge Federal Deficits.

Even though I am a heartless libertarian, It is actually my belief that many social programs could be spared if government waste and beauracracy
were cut significantly. I am also not a fan of deficit spending.

 

[goodbutnotgreat]

I understand that a topic change is known as 'hijacking a thread,' but LevitraKid, show me a shred of evidence that the media has a liberal bias. I am aware of the Bernard Goldberg book. Frankly that's not very convincing, and he has been busted for using inaccurate and skewed statistics and leaving out key information in certain scenarios to emphasize his thesis. He offers mainly anecdotal griping and precious few hard facts to back up hhis claims. I might add that it is well documented that he holds a serious grudge towards his former employer as he his career more or less stalled out there.

And economics - Bush's economic s are horrible. I've only got a rough grasp of true economic principles and realities outside of the daily news rhetoric we all hear, but I know enough to read that most respected and compitent analysts are horrified by Bush's methods. It's what happens when we pick a failed and irresponsible businessman to take the lead for us.

BBNTB - I agree about government waste, it's a plague. It's also nearly iimpossible to stop as things operate right now. It's more or less buil tinto the system. Ideally political accountability and voting is supposed to be the cehck point for our insane decadence, but then we see how well that works.

 

[penguinsfan]

Swank, we disagree on a lot, but you make for a fun discussion. It'd be fun to drink with you.

1. A draft is highly, highly unlikely.

I completely agree.

2. We do take our freedoms for granted, but this doesn't justify a draft. Supra, for instance, enjoys his job by all description and is not made to do anything for our benefit. Firefighters and policeman keep you safe within your own country, free from the despotism of fire and crime. Do you feel service in those organizations should be manditory?

No. I don't think mandatory military service should be required, except in the most dire of circumstances. Police and firefighters do have a rough job at many times, but I would still argue it's not a fair comparison of the life of a soldier. We're talking about guys that get paid 20K to dig a hole in the middle of the desert to sleep in, eat MREs for weeks on end, get four hours of sleep and no showers for god knows how long, and do it all again. Police and firefighters get a higher degree of compensation and are not asked to endure the same level of stress and hardship for the same number of hours. At any rate, if we had a drastic shortage, we would simply do the free market thing and offer a higher compensation to police and firefighters. More people would elect for military service if the compensation was higher, for that matter.

Bush is a terrible president. He's a mediocre man with very, very limited intellectual abilities.

This is entirely opinion. It's obvious that you think he is a terrible President and there is no point in my saying he is not (I think he's mediocre), other than arguing the issues individually. As for his limited intellectual abilities, he's another James Stockdale, being a very poor, nervous speaker and not able to articulate his thoughts as well as many past Presidents. He has had good moments in the past. His speech to Congress about 10 days or so after 9/11 was one of the greatest speeches ever delivered by a President and I don't recall any nervous or stuttering delivery. Anyhow, I'll concede that point, but that doesn't carry over to intellectual ability. His academic history is more impressive than his previous opponent Al Gore, who I'd bet dollars to donuts you voted for. These criticisms of his intelligence could easily be summed up like you summed up the issue of liberal military weakness--as childish liberal propaganda.

He also dodged Vietnam in a very cowardly fashion for those of you so enthused about all things martial.

Swank, you disappointed me on this one. That moveon.org/democraticunderground.com, Michael Moore garbage has been thoroughly debunked by pay records. Look, one could make a weak argument that joining the Guard is avoiding service, but Guard units routinely get called up for duty in the time of war. Then we find out Bush volunteered for missions in Vietnam.

One could blast Gore's Vietnam service. He had the audacity to say he served because if he didn't some other kid from Carthage, TN who have had to have gone. That's a joke, because he had his own little security force watching his head, due to being a Senator's son (which would happen with any Senator from any party). Because Al Gore served, another dozen kids had to go. Now, I'm not making a big issue of this. I've always felt, if you served, you served. It's relatively few that actually see the hardcore action on the frontline, but everyone plays a role. And to even make an issue of this, being that you praise Clinton so much is laughable, as his Vietnam record was disgraceful.

Somebody commented that the last democrat in office dismantled the military. Hmmm, this same military that we used to invade Iraq and Afghanistan so effectively? The army that allowed us to conquer a region in a few weeks that the Russians couldn't control in a decade of bloody combat?

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is distorted in your argument. The Soviets were whipping the shit out of Afghanistan until we aided them.

Yes, you could argue that it is Clinton's military. It also has some Bush/Reagan carryover. It's not as if because Clinton cut the military budget we melted down the M-16s and the tanks. However, there were cuts in development, which will likely hurt us down the road. An incredible amount of technology came out of the money Reagan poured into research, compared to what we saw in the 90s.

The concept that liberals are militarily weak and won't protect their country is just childish conservative propaganda.

World Trade Center 1993.
U.S.S. Cole.
Iraq in 1998.
African embassy bombings.

I'm done on this point. I can't continue to reflect on history and keep a straight face while reading your above statement.

For the last time, Iraq was not a major center of international terrorism and Hussein's government was not a terrorist booster. By all accounts it has some of the lowest concentrations of terrorists in that entire region of the world.

It did have a low concentration of terrorist compared to some other countries, but an uncooperative government, whereas the Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians, etc. are supposedly trying to aide our campaign to find these individuals. Russian President Putin said Russian intelligence had knowledge of planned Iraqi attacks against the U.S. The Czechs stand by their account of Mohammed Atta meeting in Praque with a high-ranking official in Saddam's intelligence. All the major networks reported on this story in the days right after 9/11 then it was not heard from again, because our intelligence didn't take it seriously and missed it.

So far as the outsourced terrorists, I haven't even heard of this yet, but it's no secret Iraq had a full scale weapons program for years. Did they recently? After turning the country upside down searching, conducting tens of thousands of interviews, and confiscating nearly every available government PC, we can't find a shred of evidence to credibly support the claim. Open your eyes people . . .

The outsourced nuke program was intercepted phone conversation between Khadafi and the North Koreans, where Khadafi commented that he was not going to bankrole Saddam's program, since Saddam had been captured. As for WMD, it is not hard to believe that we'll never find most of it, as it's easy to hide such things, in the grand scheme of things. There was one nuclear centrifuge that was only found because an Iraqi scientist disclosed that it was buried under a rosebush in his backyard. How much can we expect to find at that rate? In all likelihood, the WMD were moved to Syria. Am I seriously to believe that Hussein dismantled his program after there were no inspectors since 1998? Open your eyes people...

Boiling down the politics and horrors of the Balkans to a just a few thousand bodies of mixed ethnicities in holes (inaccurate statement by the way) is wrong for a lot of reasons, and it completely factors out the international and domestic political climates of the time.

The political climate of the time, versus today, is that it was in France and Germany's backyard and they were not illegally taking oil bribes. The statement of the few thousand mixed ethnicity casualties is absolutely accurate specific of the Kosovo region. I am much less familiar with the details of Bosnia.

Do yourself a favor and pick up a book on the history fo the Balkans and see how you feel.

I know the short history is that they've been fewding forever. I have a reasonable knowledge of the situation, though I'm not an expert. I have a close friend with many Serbian relatives and an aunt with a Croatian family that have informed me of their accounts of history. As for a book, I'd find it interesting, but I don't consider someone that has read more than I have to necessarily be an expert. We've got historians like Schlessenger and wannabes like Zinn offering opinions. Hell, even Michael Moore writes books, so the connection between writing and truth telling is hardly an absolute.

Additionally, we contributed to UN operations in the area and conducted a bombing campaign to depose a dictator. We didn't fly our flags under some kind of bizarre and constantly shifting 'manifest destiny' style agenda and invade the country.

There was NOT a UN mandate. We didn't have one because Russia vowed to veto it. Even today, Putin (no friend to our Iraq campaign) blasts the American left for its hypocrisy on the Iraq issue. It was authorized by NATO. I find "manifest destiny" to be an interesting choice of words, given that we're giving partial control of Iraq to the interim government on June 30th. It took five years for us to turn over control of Germany after WWII and Nazi loyalists killed 5,000 of our soldiers AFTER Germany surrendered, and we didn't even have Islamic fundamentalism to deal with. No one questions the legitimacy of our post WWII actions.

Totally different scenarios, not valid for comparison in the slightest.

Very similar. Quite valid for comparison.

Comparing Bush's foreign policy to Clinton's is like holding a candle next to a spotting light. One is far-reaching, practical, and effective; the other is old-fashioned, a bit dim, and if you take it too far out of it's prescribed element it's disappears and you're left in the dark.

I'll give you that Bush has been a domestic disappointment, though we'd disagree on what grounds. However, his foreign policy has been remarkable. His "failure" to secure a coalition centered around two alleged allies, France and Germany, which were later found to be making illegal oil purchases at give-away prices. And I'm supposed to listen to people telling me that OUR actions were all for oil? It would be funny, but when I think about the fact that their votes count the same as mine, I find it sad.

Clinton's foreign policy was not the disaster of, say, Jimmy Carter, but it was appeasement based. Clinton bent-over and lubed too many times for my tastes. Look, this is a world of 200+ nations with a variety of personal interests. If you're liked by everyone, you're probably not doing things right.

 

[penguinsfan]

For the record, on the occasion the I have the time, I find it fun to argue with opposing viewpoints such as that of Swank. I take all politics with a shaker of salt, not merely a grain. In my day-to-day optimistic life, I am a Republican because I see it as the lesser of two evils. However, I am hardly a Bush cheerleader. I think they're mostly all serving sinister motives. I am not in total agreement with, but most impressed by the political commentary of Alex Jones at www.infowars.com.

 

[penguinsfan]

Oh yeah, your right, millionaires shouldnt pay any taxes. Its those fuckin middle income scHydromaxucks that are dragging the heels of America.

Gee there's a reason why they pay more taxes, They're fuckin MILLIONAIRES.

I wouldn't suggest they should pay less, though I wouldn't mind a flat-tax system. I personally think corporate taxes should be virtually eliminated entirely, but would not have so much of a problem with a higher level of personal income tax on the wealthy, purely from an economic point of view. This way, millionaires could pool money into corporations which would create jobs. And, ultimately, it is millionaires that create jobs. To be blunt, hiring and layoff decisions are made in the boardroom, not in the trailer parks and ghettos. No one has the ability to open a business and hire anyone unless he has lots of money in his pocket.

 

[penguinsfan]

If anybody is interested, over the last two decades the GOP has wildy outspend democrats and Bush has NEVER vetoed a spending bill. Financially Bush is reckless to the point of absurdity.

I pretty much agree. Bush is basically a pro-war liberal with some belief in supply-side economics. His spending has been inexcusable, in my opinion. No serious political critic could make a convincing argument the guy even deserves the title "moderate". Those that consider him a right-wing radical conservative have just been filled with nonsense from the neo-communist, anti-American element and are really out in left field.

 

[penguinsfan]

To the fellow who insists that government subsidation of corporations ought to spur them into giving their employees higher salaries, I'll just take it for granted you don't work in the corporate world my friend. The goal is to make money, not balance society by giving back what fair regulation has endowed your firm with . . . I would love to hear somebody sit in a board room and say "you know lads, let's take the profits we'll report this quarter, that we've recieved from massive kickbacks and deregulation, and just up teh salary of all our lower tiered employees a bit eh?"

I actually work for a large corporation that doesn't pay its lower-tiered employees all that well. Actually, the entry-level pay is as good as anything on the market, but the promotions take an eternity. There is no room to move up. Anyhow, while they don't pay their employees exhorbatant salaries, I was flabberglasted to find out how much they donated to charity last year (over one billion dollars total).

Anyhow, your argument on the goal of making money is true. That is the ultimate goal. However, in a healthy and competitive economy, if I'm the man at the top I want the best people working for me. I'll do whatever I can to lure away talent from my competitors, and some of them will raise salaries to keep their talent. There is a human element here you cannot account for.

 

[penguinsfan]

CEO's and etc. salaries should be capped. Fuck them and their million dollar Christmas bonuses and hiding all their money in the Caymen Islands just to fuck Unky Sam. True patriots pay US taxes.

That would fly in the face of our Constitution. We have implied law and this nation was founded on the right to earn a buck. We do not need limits to earnings. The average CEO (this stat is a few years old) earns around $400,000, probably a little more right now. The $20 million guys are the exception to the rule. What does the law of averages tell us? There are a hell of a lot of CEOs making less than $400,000 out there.

I don't favor limiting income, as I view it an unAmerican. However, voice your displeasure with your wallet. I convinced my parents to switch their phone from AT&T a few years ago, because I read where the CEO gave himself a raise that pushed his salary to over $20M, while 20,000 workers had been laid-off. Take your business elsewhere and expose such things. It's easier than ever to do today with the internet.

Also, the CEO income versus workers income thing is often overexaggerated on the whole. Let's use the AT&T example. My greatest objection is that it sets a poor example company-wide for work ethic and morale. However $20,000,000 divided by $20,000 figures out to $1,000. So, if the CEO worked for free that year, he could have kept those workers on the payroll for about one more week. What I'm illustrating is that with companies that large, even the CEO's salary is a drop in the bucket. They could work for free and it wouldn't even begin to make a dying company profitable.

Sometimes there are circumstances outside anyone's control too. Recently, at a local steel mill, workers were laid-off and an executive was given a one million dollar raise in salary. The union had a field-day selling their union propaganda to the simpleton masses. Here is the reality: that executive had a more lucrative offer from a prospering company and it took one million dollars to retain him. The steel mill had filed for bankruptcy and the creditors made it a condition that they retain certain executive to keep from foreclosing. In other words, they would have foreclosed had this guy been lured away. Another example of how the unions often don't serve the "working man".

Thats a fact, and you can bitch all you want about consumer prices, b/c I'd rather pay 5 cents more for shit at Wal-Mart if it means the rich dont just get richer and poor get poorer.

I could give a shit what the rich make, as long as there is opportunity for me. The rich have not been getting richer AND poor getting poorer. The gap has been growing during booming economies. Well, that is to be expected. Look, those people that spend their last bit of disposable income on canned beer and WWE pay-per-views, and bitch about having no gas to drive to work are losers in life. There are fundamental problems that start at, and never leave, home. Those people will live about the same both in boom and recession. However, the person that seizes opportunity will leave that person further behind during a period of great opportunity. However, it's not as if he actually did anything to make him "poorer".

 

[penguinsfan]

I read somewhere that the average CEO's salary w/o benefits is some 100+ million dollars.

That's just simply not true. My guess is that you read something about the top 10 or so CEOs and it probably counted all compensation including stock options, which we can thank Clinton for.

Why should companies who make billion dollar annual profits, be receiving Corporate Welfare?

I completely agree with you on this matter.

 

[penguinsfan]

Bush's economic plans are irresponsible, b/c in the end, all the growth is at the expense of cutting social programs, larger tax cuts for citizens at the higher end of the wealth spectrum, and Huge Federal Deficits.

Actually, the revenue the government is collecting has far exceeding CBO predictions and has even liberal economists puzzled by where the money could have possibly come from. Clearly, the supply-side tax cuts are working for the economy, but not enough to account for the spending done by this phony conservative President.

I'm sure I'm missing something here, but I haven't seen much in the way of cutting social programs. There is the massive Medicare prescription drug program. Don't think AARP is going to endorse Bush for it either. There was the $25 million increase to the National Endowment for the Arts, in a time of war. I guarantee you not one vote for Bush will come out of the artistic community, either. Bush is spending about 30x what Clinton did in sending aide to Africa to help combat AIDS and there was not one word of praise from the AIDS advocacy groups.

This gets me off track, but it does show that Bush is politically stupid. Besides the fiscal issue matter of the amount of spending, you don't give money to your enemies. Politically, these liberals groups view Bush like al-Qaida views the West. They don't want to make nice, but they want to kill Republicans, politically. Bush needs to learn that the way to deal with such enemies is to do everything is his power to exterminate them, politically.

 

[Super]

Worst president in history?
(The following appeared in the Durham, NC local paper as a letter to the editor.)


Please forward to all on your list so as to put things in perspective.

Liberals claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war.
They complain about his mismanagement of it.
One liberal recently claimed Bush was the worst president in U.S. history.


Let's clear up one point:

President Bush didn't start the war on terror.

Try to remember, it was started by terrorists BEFORE 9/11.
OK, let's look at the "worst" president nominees and "mismanagement"claims.


FDR led us into World War II.
Germany never attacked us, Japan did.
From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost,
an average of 112,500 per year.

Truman finished that war and started one in Korea.
North Korea never attacked us.
From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost,
an average of 18,333 per year.

John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962.
Vietnam never attacked us.

Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire.
From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost,
an average of 5,800 per year.

Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.
Bosnia never attacked us.
Clinton was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and he did nothing.
Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.
Over 2,900 lives were lost on 9/11.

In the two years since terrorists attacked us,
President Bush has
liberated two countries,
rushed the Taliban,
crippled al-Qaida,
put nuclear inspectors in Lybia, Iran, and North Korea
without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist
who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.

We have lost 600 soldiers, an average of 300 a year.

Bush did all this abroad while not allowing another terrorist attack at home.

Worst president in history?

Sure doesn't appear to be Bush!

The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but...

It took less time to take Iraq
than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound.
That was a 51 day operation.

We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons
in Iraq for less time
than it took Hillary Clinton to find
the Rose Law Firm billing records.


It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard
than it took Teddy Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick.

It took less time to take Iraq
than it took to count the votes in Florida!!!!

Our military is GREAT!

 

[goodbutnotgreat]

Penguinsfan, you've got a good handle on it all, and it seems your politics are based in what you find reasonable rather than emotion and personal opinions. I think my dislike of Bush casts me as a bit more liberal than I actually view myself, but then again that's the greatest bias of all. I didn't mean to be hostile over the Balkan issue, and I appreciate your mannered response. To some of your other points:

1. Bush's qualifications: I'd say the poor speaking ability is indicative of larger problems. He's not an intellectual, which isn't bad in and of itself. He does, however, talk about being a 'gut player' and it's widely reported the man just isn't versed in issues that our chief executive ought to have a full and thorough grip on. Academic pedigree as opposed to Gore, they're fairly of the same cast. They went to the best colleges because of who their parents were, plain and simple. Bush isn't a total retard, but I doubt he'll be teaching any classes at Columbia to recuperate his energies after his political career is over. Once again, I'm not saying devoted academics make better presidents (case in point: Carter), I'm just saying Bush doesn't have what it takes to do the job properly. But then again, his 'common fella' appeal is his greatest electoral strength. I find it scary that people favor that over mental ability.

2. Bush and the AWOL claims. There is a wealth of evidence out there, depending on the opinion of whoever's website you check, you'll get 'the real deal.' There isn't conclusive proof that he was around during the period in question, and the fact the administration doesn't discuss it or just offer up something solid is good enoguh for me, despite the seeming myriad of evidence that he was gone for a stretch. More alarming was the fairly lame nature of his entrance into the guard, in which his father had a sit-down with the base commander. George was accepted that day and skipped above something like 150 other kids on the list to get into flight school. Guess I just don't like the nepotism or something. Either way, the chances of Bush seeing any real combat, or his interest in this happening, aren't really chances at all. I never said Gore was any better on the matter, just that as far as I'm concerned Bush clearly sidestepped any real service, not that he
was alone, and there's a wealth of evidence suggesting he didn't even have the fortitude to stick the national guard business out. Hey, he was a young guy, it doesn't even matter that much to me, but it goes along with my general opinion that he's no friend of the military.

3. Afghanistan. You're right, I didn't point out we were fueling the Afghani military machine. Glad to see soembody knows the history and politics of the region. I persoanlly my point about the military is still valid. It's not a trendy liberal idea to say that the military of today is Clinton's brainchild, it's just how things work. Any military historian or anybody working in teh Pentagon will tell you that a first term president gets the military that their predecessor built and designed. We went into Afghanistan, and even Iraq realatively early in Bush's term, and the army was fairly unaltered. Despite arguments over proper amounts of troop numbers and strategic support, nobody can argue that our efficiency and military precision was unparaelled. People that study such things said it was the first truly modern combat action the world had seen. The sophisitcation of our communication and sensing technology, plus the precision bombing and deployment power of our military is amazing, and head and shoulders above the army we invaded Iraq with under Bush uno. This new military was engineered under Clinton's watch. I'm hardly articualte on the matter, but as always I can tell you there is plenty of good information out there, non-partisan in nature.

4. Liberals and the military. Well, see above, but on the issue of non-response to those terrorist actions I'll say these things. First, I don't recall anybody in mainstream politics, liberal or conservative, calling for war over each of those events. And Clinton did launch missiles at both Iraq and in response to terrorism in Sudan. I disagreed strongly against Sudan becaus I thought the targets were sketchy at best and it was largely a publicity stunt during the lewinksy business. Other western countries, like Italy, France, and Germany, had suffered some heavy casualties due to terrorist attacks as well, but they weren't rolling for war. That series you listed were sypmtoms of the festering trouble. The first WTC attack was a bungle to be sure, but if you sit back and look at the rhetoric from the time, nobody tenatiously hang onto the issue and demanded that Clinton gear up and go to war on terrorism. He happened to be president, but it was a fuck-up on many levels. The fact that Clinton was president doesn't really make the case that any Democrat is soft on terrorism anyways. By all accounts Clinton was fairly obsessed with capturing and killing Osama Bin Laden as he was causing him a good deal of grief, but just as our current boss is floundering, he was unsuccessful. I think many people, not necessarily you, think that Democrats and some kind of naive pacifism go hand in hand. That's just horseshit and spin, nothing more.

5. Iraq and Al Queda. The 9/11 panel recently found no links between Iraq and 9/11, which is basically a 'duh' statement. Frankly, if we were to go after every nation that had some association with the Al Queda and other terrorist networks we'd have to take out something like 30 countries. The fact is, the case for war in Iraq is shaky, and it's benefits questionable. I'm only against it because I do believe in the long run it has hurt our international position and created more problems than it solved. It has cost a ton of money and we have little to show for it except and old dictator in a cage and and red cheeks in the international community. Bush linked it to teh war on terrorism, but I believe there were far better ways to spend the money, resources, and effort than Iraq. I'm aware of the theories about the WMDs getting shuffled around, but I mean, well c'mon now. We confiscated thousands of PCs, interviewed thousands of workers and sceintists, and contrary to propaganda we've combed over a good portion of that whole region. This administration has proven it doesn't wait for a rock solid case to emerge before they'll take it to the public as proven fact; if there was the slightest evidence Iraq had some functional or viable WMDs stored or being developed, it would have been out long ago. And frankyl, states like Syria are scared shitless of us by many accounts, I doubt they would just be holding stockpiles of nukes and gas in the wake of our invasion. We have intelligence in places like Syria, and believe me they're looking. As ineffeicient as the intelligence community has proven with this stuff, they're still damn good, and if Syria or some other sympathizer just had this unbelieveable and threatening load of weapons dumped on them we'd have some scraps by now that say so.

6. Foreign Policy. It's not fair to hold Bush up to Clinton, and Clinton isn't truly great in my opinion either. I made the comparison in a responsive fashion to somebody else that said Bush was brilliant and Clinton a bungler. I'll chalk up my feelings to negative consequences of their policies for America. And that's not even entirely fair as we haven't seen how Bush has panned out yet, so I'll gladly concede that Bush's damage is largely my prediction.

I appreciated your comments though, I like your take on things. You seem more interested in alligning your opinons with what you judge to be the truth than simply being 'right.' Usually when people argue about politics they'll say or do anything to appear to have the answers or be on the correct side of things. Whether we disagree or not you've got the best kind of attitude and that's really all that counts.

 

[Casey]

Did you guys hear about Dick Cheney saying "Fuck You" or "Fuck Off" to Senator Leahy (D) of VT?

I guess Leahy has been critical about Cheney's office coordinating no-bid contracts with the Pentagon to Halliburton. Then Leahy brought up the fact when Cheney said Leahy was a "bad Catholic". Then Cheney swore at him in front of all 100 senators at the annual group pic.

 

[penguinsfan]

Penguinsfan, you've got a good handle on it all, and it seems your politics are based in what you find reasonable rather than emotion and personal opinions. I think my dislike of Bush casts me as a bit more liberal than I actually view myself, but then again that's the greatest bias of all. I didn't mean to be hostile over the Balkan issue, and I appreciate your mannered response.

Swank, I won't have time to reply to any of your points tonight. Perhaps I'll get to it this weekend.

There are no hard feelings here. To me, debate like this is fun. I don't get to do too much of it. Sometimes the debate itself gets a little heated and laced with sarcasm and the like. Even after I posted my posts on this thread, I began to hope that people wouldn't take them too personally. I have a way of making blunt, sometimes extreme statements for the purpose of pointing out my counterargument. It doesn't mean I'm trying to be a jackoff on a personal level.

At any rate, I can tell you are a thinking individual that gives an honest consideration to what I say. I can also tell that you don't blindly subscribe to the entire body of extreme left propanganda. What more can one ask for? So long as things don't resort to a thread full of "fuck you, asshole" posts then this is about trying to persuade, trying to learn something new and evaluate your beliefs, and having fun when it's all said and done, in my mind.

 

[penguinsfan]

Did you guys hear about Dick Cheney saying "Fuck You" or "Fuck Off" to Senator Leahy (D) of VT?

I heard about him using profanity, but I didn't know it was that blantant.

I guess Leahy has been critical about Cheney's office coordinating no-bid contracts with the Pentagon to Halliburton. Then Leahy brought up the fact when Cheney said Leahy was a "bad Catholic". Then Cheney swore at him in front of all 100 senators at the annual group pic.

This has gotten out of hand. The no-bid contracts were in place for quite some time, from my understanding. Some of the work that Halliburton does is, for lack of a better description, technologically extensive enough that only one other company can compete and that is a French company, which was simply not going to get the job, in light of things. The government has many no-bid contracts in place when they need work done right away, because the bidding process on government jobs takes months. You don't have months when insurgents are blowing up pipelines and similar shit. The work is supposed to be done at a rate reflective of current market rates. Cheney has no financial interest in Halliburton anymore. Even the hype about Halliburton overbilling was based on bad information and it was discovered that the amount was nothing like originally stated. Halliburton is truly one of the red herrings of this time in history. Because of Cheney's past in the oil/energy industry, it makes for propaganda for those that believe the war was simply about oil.

On the other end, Cheney was very foolish to make any public remark about Leahy being a bad Catholic. Everyone forms personal opinions about everyone they come in contact with. However, religious beliefs are of a particular sensitivity for most people and it is really considered a shot below the belt to attack such beliefs.

 

[Casey]

The Halliburton/Cheney connection is an issue. And he does receive stock options and money as a retirement package. Halliburton overcharged the federal government, and didnt supply meals to troops even though they had already been paid. It was also reported in a memo that no-bid contracts had been coordinated with the VP's office and the Pentagon. its not propaganda its just facts, you can sink your head in the sand if you want to. I hope this links works, its a piece from the Wash Post titled "the profitable connections of halliburton" http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/w...node=&contentId=A27286-2004Feb9&notFound=true

Cheney has been caught lying flat out. He said on "Meet the Press" that it was "pretty well confirmed" that Mohammed Atta had meet w/ an Iraqi offical in Czech. Now he flip flops and says that we've never been able to prove or dissapprove that. He also said that he never said that it was "pretty well confirmed" on Capitol Report. That is a complete 180 degree flip flop.

Another example of how Bush Admin misleads stupid people. In a new poll, 44% of Americans believe that Saddam WAS INVOLVED in 9/11. Also 44% of Americans believe the war was NOT a mistake. But the 9/11 commission has concluded that Saddam was NOT involved in 9/11. This is a prime example how Bush relies on the fact that people are fuckin stupid, and the less they know, they more he benefits.

 

[goodbutnotgreat]

I had no idea that figure was still as high as 44%, very frightening. How can people be so disinterested? In so many other nations politics and world events are a part of daily conversation.

 

[Casey]

yup, i just saw it today on CNN. What a coincidence that 44% of the public think Saddam was directly involved with 9/11, and Bush's approval and Iraq approval ratings are almost exactley 44%.

The public is fuckin stupid, and so is much of George Bush's base.

 

[bigbutnottoo]

You guys do know of course that both Bill Clinton and Al Gore believe/believed that Saddam has ties to Al-Queda/terrorism? In fact in 1992, Al Gore criticized George HW Bush for not removing Saddam because of his relation with terrorism. I saw the video on CNN exposing Gore. Not bad for the liberal media.

 

[goodbutnotgreat]

To hear exactly what Clinton has to say on the matter, as well as many other Bush-related topics, read his current interview on salon.com.

 

[LevitraKid]

You can't expect to believe ANYTHING that comes out of any Clinton's mouth. He has proven himself repeatedly to be a PROFESSIONAL liar. Even Monica has said his explanations of their affair are total fabrications to make himself out to be the poor innocent victim. Show me any guy getting oral sex that is a "victim".

 

[goodbutnotgreat]

That's actually inaccurate; she has simply expressed dismay over his assertion that we wasn't really emotionally involved. The critics are clenching on a case of 'he said she said' and rather halariously at that. In an example like this, I love that the right wing is still white-knuckle focused on the 'blowjob' portion of a 1,000 page memoir. Bush may have lied about war, but dammit all! Clinton told a lie about sex, a thing I'm sure no [words=http://www.mattersofsize.com/join-now.html]MOS[/words] members have ever been guilty of . . . So many defame Clinton for being immoral or a womanizer, at the best some kind of master of double speak who twists the truth at every angle. They blame the mistakes of the current adminstration on Clinton's legacy and credit all of his achievements to good luck and convenient timing. Anything that went poorly, however, is a result of Clinton's mishandling of the situation. It's partisan inflected logic, nothing more.

Read the interview anways LevtraKid, keep aprised of those you despise. You're doing yourself a disservice if you think somebody isn't worth lsitening to because you don't trust or don't like them. It's on you to sort through the BS and not believe everything you're told. Plus, who among us here has achieved anything comprable to Clinton during our lifetimes? Who here would be able to take Clinton to task if you ran into him at a coffee shop? Do any of us think we could outdebate him over his abilities and legacy, one on one? It's easy to sit back and call somebody a crass liar because you don't like their politics; hell I do it with Bush all the time. It's another to assert that you actually know enough to equal those you would dipose. It's a good interview, and clarifies a few things about foreign policy that some people seem to miss the gist of alltogether.

 

[Casey]

You guys do know of course that both Bill Clinton and Al Gore believe/believed that Saddam has ties to Al-Queda/terrorism? In fact in 1992, Al Gore criticized George HW Bush for not removing Saddam because of his relation with terrorism. I saw the video on CNN exposing Gore. Not bad for the liberal media.

I never said that Saddam had no links to Terrorism. I said he had no links to 9/11. That is fact. It seems that there was a few contacts between some Iraqi's and some Al-Qaeda at some point in time. But those contacts are almost irrelevant, b/c just about every single Arab government has had contact with Al-Qaeda at some point in history.

The extent and significance of those contacts are so marginal its funny that the Administration keeps insisting on them. Almost as funny as saying the media is entirely liberal.


And George H.W. Bush almost encouraged Saddam to use WMD (which some were given to him from the U.S.). He encouraged the Tsunni's (or Shiites, cant remember) to revolt against Saddam, and America would help. But Bush never sent help, and many of those people were killed by Saddam. Thats also one reason for Arab distrust and the insurgency in Iraq.