Veterans who don't get healthcare through the VA; if the Gov. is so unwilling to give them healthcare after they bravely serve their country, what makes you think that the same Gov. will give it to them through another Gov. instituted program?

Miss Fran is right about what she said.

The ER policy is to treat first, pay later.

Perhaps you both should reread the report.:frown:

I did read it and still it sounds bogus. Canada's Healthcare system. Sure...

Let's see what John Stossel says: Sick in America

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEXFUbSbg1I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsEA...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=refrY...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzhiG...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsp_J...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_KCLm9cekU&NR=1

[QUOTE=TheAngryPostman;116638]I did read it and still it sounds bogus. Canada's Healthcare system. Sure...

The study was done by doctors at Harvard, that would seem to provide it with considerable credibility.
I find it tragic that there are veterans that have fallen through the cracks and are not getting adequate health care.
Our so called "competitive" private health care system is the most expensive and inefficient in the world.
In Japan health care is paid for by the government. Hospitals, however are all private. A typical room is ten dollars a day and a luxury room is eighty a day. Hospitals here charge you five thousand dollars a day just to sit in the emergency room waiting for help. Until we get profit obsessed companies out of the health care system we will have nothing but endless escalation of health care costs.:frown:

John Stossel was very selective in his series on Canada's health care system. He wanted to prove a point and so he interviewed only people who would support his point of view. He never looked for anyone to provide a different view.

So now it's time to hear from someone who uses Canada's healthcare system. I am able to choose any doctor that I want. It doesn't cost me anything to see a doctor. If there is something that requires a specialist to look at then I will be referred to a specialist; no costs involved there. If I get a life threatening disease everything is paid for. I won't become homeless or destitute because I can't afford to pay my medical bills. I don't have long wait times to get medical tests or procedures. My hospital stays don't cost me anything.

So what do I have to pay for:

Prescription medications - but I have group health insurance to cover those costs
Hospital stays - if I want a private room I pay extra, but again I have group health insurance
Eyes - eye examinations and prescription lenses - group health insurance for that too
Dental - all dental expenses - group dental insurance for that.

Note that should I have a serious disease I will be guaranteed further medical treatment because there is no insurance company to cancel insurance. I won't lose my group health and dental insurance because it is group coverage.

HC Canada
 

Hey Ila,
Its always good to have someone come into these discussions who has first hand experience. The so called news media pundits are so often misinformed, uninformed, biased or just plain dimwits.
Personally, I have health care from a non-profit HMO (Kaiser Permanente). The care is excellent, I wish everybody had such a good plan. Yes, they saved my life (burst appendicitis).

The "Costs" of Medical Care by Thomas Sowell

We are incessantly being told that the cost of medical care is "too high" — either absolutely or as a growing percentage of our incomes. But nothing that is being proposed by the government is likely to lower those costs, and much that is being proposed is almost certain to increase the costs.


There is a fundamental difference between reducing costs and simply shifting costs around, like a pea in a shell game at a carnival. Costs are not reduced simply because you pay less at a doctor's office and more in taxes — or more in insurance premiums, or more in higher prices for other goods and services that you buy, because the government has put the costs on businesses that pass those costs on to you.


Costs are not reduced simply because you don't pay them. It would undoubtedly be cheaper for me to do without the medications that keep me alive and more vigorous in my old age than people of a similar age were in generations past.


Letting old people die would undoubtedly be cheaper than keeping them alive — but that does not mean that the costs have gone down. It just means that we refuse to pay the costs. Instead, we pay the consequences. There is no free lunch.


Providing free lunches to people who go to hospital emergency rooms is one of the reasons for the current high costs of medical care for others. Politicians mandating what insurance companies must cover is another free lunch that leads to higher premiums for medical insurance — and fewer people who can afford it.


Despite all the demonizing of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies or doctors for what they charge, the fundamental costs of goods and services are the costs of producing them.


If highly paid chief executives of insurance companies or pharmaceutical companies agreed to work free of charge, it would make very little difference in the cost of insurance or medications. If doctors' incomes were cut in half, that would not lower the cost of producing doctors through years of expensive training in medical schools and hospitals, nor the overhead costs of running doctors' offices.


What it would do is reduce the number of very able people who are willing to take on the high costs of a medical education when the return on that investment is greatly reduced and the aggravations of dealing with government bureaucrats are added to the burdens of the work.


Britain has had a government-run medical system for more than half a century and it has to import doctors, including some from Third World countries where the medical training may not be the best. In short, reducing doctors' income is not reducing the cost of medical care, it is refusing to pay those costs. Like other ways of refusing to pay costs, it has consequences.


Any one of us can reduce medical costs by refusing to pay them. In our own lives, we recognize the consequences. But when someone with a gift for rhetoric tells us that the government can reduce the costs without consequences, we are ready to believe in such political miracles.


There are some ways in which the real costs of medical care can be reduced but the people who are leading the charge for a government takeover of medical care are not the least bit interested in actually reducing those costs, as distinguished from shifting the costs around or just refusing to pay them.


The high costs of "defensive medicine" — expensive tests, medications and procedures required to protect doctors and hospitals from ruinous lawsuits, rather than to help the patients — could be reduced by not letting lawyers get away with filing frivolous lawsuits.


If a court of law determines that the claims made in such lawsuits are bogus, then those who filed those claims could be forced to reimburse those who have been sued for all their expenses, including their attorneys' fees and the lost time of people who have other things to do. But politicians who get huge campaign contributions from lawyers are not about to pass laws to do this.


Why should they, when it is so much easier just to start a political stampede with fiery rhetoric and glittering promises?


http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell110309.php3







Mr. Polar Bear. I am not saying you are wrong or anything, but the majority of Canadians I've met seem to dislike the system you guys have. Same with the majority of British I've met likewise. However, I think that your opinion is insightful and helps give a balanced view to this debate.

Uh, then I don't think you've met many Canadians in Canada. In the last year I was in Emergency twice in downtown Toronto. The first one I was in and out within 90 minutes (stitches on badly gashed hand) and the second time. The second time I was checked out for a very serious issue requiring an MRI and was out within 6 hours after seeing 1 doctor and 1 specialist. No hassle, no phone call to the bank to mortgage my home to pay the bill! Yes, there are issues, but we all have easy access to high quality health care.

The rabid hyperbole is VERY similar to the rants and threats of strikes by the doctors in Saskatchewan where this was first introduced in the 50s. NOw you would be hard pressed to find a doctor who would want to go back to what you have in the US. The only difference with what we have in Canada and what there is in the US is that the government here pays the bill, not the user. We still have the freedom to chose who treats us, where and how.

All of these arguments sound reasonable, but the truth of the matter is that good health care in many other countries is better, covers everybody and costs the government a lot.
There is a difference however, in most countries health care is not viewed as a profit making business. Look at the attitude of the bankers in this country in this country. They think its their right to make obscene incomes at our expense. The drug companies and the medical profession seem to have the same attitude. :frown:

So success should be punished rather than rewarded? If you don't like Company A, go buy from Company B. Vote with your dollar.

Hmmm. If memory is correct, it was the ineptitude of Wall street that was rewarded while John Q Public was left holding the bag.

Free markets and have their limits. Success is often masked as guys in suits robbing the public they claim to serve -- including HMOs!

But that does not pale in comparison to our benevolent Lord Zero and the multi TRILLION dollar bill that we are now stuck with. It ain't too hard to figure out the lesser of the two evils in this case. Private sector>Government.

I guarantee you that there are more than 1.4 million veterans enrolled in the VA system considering there are 26,549,704* vets in the US and Puerto Rico. Also, your study does not differentiate as to whether or not those that were part of those roughly 2300 vets have had their healthcare voided due to felony convictions or other dishonorable behavior. Beating your spouse, illegal substance possession or any other felony will revoke your privliges faster than you can say,"I just fucked myself in the ass" and get your ass sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas(federal prison).


*http://www1.va.gov/vetdata/page.cfm?pg=1

Stimulus?
 

I got this from a friend this morning. I LOVE it!

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.
Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China ?
A. Shut up.

Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the US economy by spending Your stimulus check wisely:

. If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart, the money will go to China .
. If you spend it on gasoline, your money will go to the Arabs.
. If you purchase a computer, it will go to India .
. If you purchase fruit or vegetables, it will go to Mexico , Honduras and Guatemala .
. If you buy a car, it will go to Japan .
. If you purchase useless stuff, it will go to Taiwan.
. If you pay off your credit cards, or buy stock, it will go to management bonuses, and they will hide it offshore.

Instead, keep the money in America by:
1. Spending it at yard sales, or
2. Going to ball games, or
3. Spending it on prostitutes, or
4. Beer, or
5. Tattoos.

(These are the only American businesses still operating in the US .)
It would be best if you went to a ball game with a tattooed prostitute that you met at a yard sale and drink American beer with all day. :lol::lol::lol:

As long as she's a tranny, it's all good. I love tatted trannies!:heart:

Yes, that is something we agree on!
A cold beer and a hot tranny! ;)

And this is why free trade is a load of horse crap it made it even easier for big bussiness to move production over seas and another load of horse crap is by cutting business tax rate they'll move back yeah right tell me another one, The high unemplotment is not due to the high debit rate it is do to over twenty years of out sourcing and NAFTA, CAFTA and all the other free trade aggreements these aggreements would have been allright if anything was still made in the USA but nothing is anymore so were are now starting to feel the effects


:eek: Jerseygirl Jen

We already knew the democrats were corrupt because of organizations like ACORN that they wholeheartedly supported, and still support despite being shown to be the corrupt organization they are.

And how they like to spend billions-trillions on projects no one wants, and how their social policies have resulted in the recent financial meltdown, and how they want to move the US census to the White House, thereby taking control of an important driver of election processes, etc etc...

We now know that some of the money from the stimulus package is going to districts to create jobs. Only these are fictional districts. It has been happening in many states and US territories as well. There are hundreds of millions of dollars going... somewhere.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jobs-...ory?id=9097853

Do you really trust the government to take over health care?

In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, George H.W. Bush congratulated his son on running a "clean operation." Bush apparently wasn't paying very close attention. Everyone remembers weapons of mass destruction, the US attorney firings. But historians will note that those are only the beginning of the Bush administration scandals...

The Bush administration will leave the annals of presidential disrepute several times thicker than it found them. There's Iraq, the hospital visit to John Ashcroft, the US attorney firings. But historians will note that those are only the beginning of the Bush administration scandals. Does the name Jeff Gannon ring a bell? Boxgate? What about the anti-prostitution AIDS tsar who purchased the services of-wait for it-the D.C. Madam? The Daily Beast has put together 20 of Bush's greatest forgotten scandals.

Interior Department officials "frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives."

Sex and Shoplifting

1) In March 2006, Claude Allen, Bush's top domestic policy aide, was arrested when he tried to return items he had shoplifted from Target for cash refunds. Allen, who made $161,000 a year, blamed stress from Hurricane Katrina.

2) In 2005, bloggers pricked up their ears when a reporter named Jeff Gannon asked a softball question at a Bush press conference. Some sleuthing turned up nude photos of Gannon-real name: James Guckert-on male escort websites.

3) Randall Tobias, Bush's AIDS tsar, mandated that organizations must oppose prostitution in order to receive American aid. It later emerged that Tobias purchased services through the notorious D.C. Madam, though Tobias maintained he only bought "massages."

4) The Interior Department's Minerals Management Service would not seem to be the sexiest government agency. But a departmental investigation last year found that officials had "frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives."

Where'd the Money Go?

5) When testifying before Congress in 2007, L. Paul Bremer, the former head of reconstruction in Iraq, was unable to account for as much as $12 billion-about half of his budget-as the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority between May 2003 and June 2004. According to a report by Rep. Henry Waxman, contractors brought bags to meetings in order to collect shrink-wrapped bundles of money.

6) In 2004, Pentagon auditors found that Halliburton had not adequately accounted for $1.8 billion of the bill it sent to the United States government for its work in Iraq and Kuwait.

7) Also that year, Bunnatine Greenhouse, the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting officer, charged that KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, unfairly received billions of dollars worth of no-bid contracts in Iraq. Greenhouse was demoted in 2005.

Disappearances

8) In 2002, Canadian citizen Maher Arar was detained at an airport in New York and spirited away to Syria, where he was tortured and held for 10 months by his captors before being returned home. Canadian officials investigated Arar's case, declared he was innocent, and paid him $9 million in compensation. American officials refused to admit the mistake and instead kept Arar on a terrorist watch list.

9) Army Captain James Yee, a Muslim chaplain in Guantanamo Bay, was hooded, shackled, and detained in solitary confinement for 76 days on charges of espionage. Within a year the case against Yee had collapsed and the Army tried to save face by charging him with hoarding pornography.

All the President's Wordsmiths

10) In an email to friends, Danielle Crittenden, the wife of White House speechwriter David Frum, bragged that her husband had written Bush's famous "Axis of Evil" line. The e-mail leaked to Slate, causing a minor scandal.

11) Part of the self-created mythology of White House speechwriter Michael Gerson was that he composed his speeches in longhand. But as fellow scribe Matthew Scully later noted: "At the precise moment when the State of the Union address was being drafted at the White House by John [McConnell] and me, Mike was off pretending to craft the State of the Union in longhand for the benefit of a reporter."

President Bush Ron Edmonds/AP No Administration Friend Left Behind

12) First there was Columnist Gate: In 2005, USA Today reported that conservative commentator Armstrong Williams received a $240,000 contract from the Department of Education to promote No Child Left Behind on his television show and to sell other African-American journalists on the legislation. Later, The Washington Post uncovered a similar deal with columnist Maggie Gallagher to promote a marriage initiative for the Department of Health.

13) A Defense Department report in 2006 urged the military to end its practice of paying Iraqi journalists to publish pro-American stories in their newspapers, arguing the tactic would "undermine the concept of a free press."

14) According to The New York Times, Karl Rove scored lobbyist Ralph Reed a lucrative contract with Enron in 1997 to gain his support in the 2000 presidential race.

15) David Safavian, the former chief of staff of the General Services Administration, was convicted of helping Jack Abramoff on a shady land deal as well as concealing a "lavish weeklong golf trip" paid for by Abramoff.

16) As head of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz was forced to resign in disgrace after he helped his "female companion," Shaha Riza, score a $60,000 pay raise and promotion-and then tried to cover it up.

Down the Memory Hole

17) Bush fundraiser Lurita Doan's gig as chair of the General Services Administration went down in flames when she was accused of asking agency staff to help Republican candidates win elections. Doan denied any wrongdoing. When witnesses said she asked her staff at a meeting, "How can we use GSA to help our candidates in the next election?" Doan claimed she had no memory of the presentation.

18) Though Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins, who committed suicide in 2008, was suspected of being the anthrax mailer, that didn't keep Bush and Cheney from openly speculating that Al Qaeda was behind the attacks and even going so far as to pressure FBI officials to come up with a bin Laden connection, according to the New York Daily News.

Mission Accomplished

19) In 2003, Bush went to a warehouse in St. Louis to give a speech titled "Strengthening America's Economy." But the boxes laid out before the presidential podium bore the label "Made in China." The labels were then obscured with white paper. The White House blamed an "overzealous advance volunteer."

The Last Word

20) The administration ethos was nicely summarized during the investigation in the firing of US attorneys, in a testy exchange between former White House Political Director Sara Taylor and Sen. Patrick Leahy. Taylor: "I took an oath to the president...And I believe that taking that oath means that I need to respect, and do respect, my service to the president." Leahy: "No, the oath says that you take an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States. That is your paramount duty. I know that the president refers to the government being his government-it's not."

Hi Tracy, just a little reminder of the wonderful Republican administration we just survived. Don't you think Republicans should clean up their own house before complaining about others?:yes:

I like how everyone thinks it's all about Democrat vs Repiblican and such nonsense. They are pretty much the same thing; just different labels.

Torn Between Left And Right-----
 

On the left or liberal side I only have one need SEX. On the right or conservative side I have the rest of my life, dollars and the idea that I earned it so it's mine--keep your damn hands off it. I don't want to share-equalize with any lazy S.O.B. If it wasn't for TS Ladies--I would be the biggest tight as conservative going.

Love this:
(These are the only American businesses still operating in the US .)
It would be best if you went to a ball game with a tattooed prostitute (TS Lady Preferred) that you met at a yard sale and drink American beer with all day.

Want me to stop talking ????? Feed me a nice TS cock :turnon::turnon::turnon::inlove:

Don't assume all trannies are "liberal". We have some real pistol packing mamas on this site;):yes::turnon::inlove:

Zardoz is right, it's always going to be Republicans for a while, then Democrats for a while. If Obama can pull it off, we can put extended Medicare on the list of things our taxes pay for, like Schools and Social Security. That would be a huge boon for the American Citizen. No matter who's in the White House, or who controls the House and Senate.

Insurance Companies don't want to cover sick people, they want to cover healthy people. That's a direct conflict to what they're needed for.

Drug companies don't want a cure for Diabetes, they want a patent for Viagra.

As for taxes, you don't even KNOW how much money you spend on taxes!
You buy gasoline, you pay taxes, you buy booze and cigarettes, you pay taxes, Cable TV, Cell phone, Property tax, sales tax, you buy a Coca-Cola, Coke doesn't pay a dime in taxes, the people who buy Cokes do. When someone steals something from Safeway, the average consumer makes up the loss. The Middle Class pays for EVERYTHING!! And we can't afford Universal Healthcare? BULLSHIT!

I haven't heard of many of those things, but some of the things I have heard of, like WMD cannot be blamed on Bush alone, no matter how hard libs try.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5p-qIq32m8

I didn't read most of that because I never said Bush was the solid example of small government. For some reason there's the automatic assumption that I'm a Bush fan. I will defend him against lies from the left, and I can see why he did a lot of what he did, but I wouldn't say I'm a fan. There's a lot I didn't like about him as well.

Actually there's debate within the republican party between moving towards the center (i.e. the left) or staying with tried & true conservatism. For the republicans, I say it's Small Government stupid.

Bottom line, making up districts to funnel money to who knows where is pretty crooked.

Tracy -- Small government?
I wonder if corruption and excess government regulation is correlated with government size. The more government you have, the worse it gets. This seems to be true at all levels. I know from personal experience it is true at the county level. :frown:

The bigger the government, the more power they have, and they like their power.

A Brief Ideological History Of American Politics Pt. 1
 

Democrats are liberals and progressives who believe in the expansion of government and more federal control. Republicans are the conservatives who stick up for individual rights, state rights, and smaller government... right?

WRONG!

While there has been truth to both of these statements at one time or another in our modern era... it just isn't that simple. Both sides have expanded freedom, and more often than not, reined it in. So I thought I'd try to provide everyone with a short ideological history of the modern era to show who the real heroes and villains really are.

It is best to start with Republican Herbert Hoover who took the presidency in 1929. While the government had been growing slightly for some years, it was the Hoover administration that started things down the wrong path. In an effort to deal the the Great Depression Hoover began to listen to Keynesian economists... he started make-work programs, raised taxes, and signed the disastrously protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that caused far more economic distress that it could ever have solved. A lot of conservatives like to blame FDR for our problems, but the really bad shit started under Hoover... FDR just took things much, much further.

FDR was a Democrat and an egotistical monster who wanted to be king. Yes, that is harsh, but I'm going to stick by my statement. He did more than anyone in American history to shit all over our Constitution. In a practical sense, we lost our balance of power and very nearly our democracy under FDR. We only gained it back because Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy were better men.

FDR ruled by executive order, declaring things law, and sending them to congress to pass the next day, often without finished text. When the Supreme Court struck down a number of his "New Deal" policies... he threatened to simply nominate a few new justices... the court backed down. FDR also broke President Washington's precedent of only running for two terms, which is essential for balance between the executive and the courts. FDR won four terms... this allowed him to pack the court with a bunch of his ideological cronies who were willing to sign on to any of his schemes.

I'm not done with FDR. His most offensive violation of our Constitution and of human rights was Executive Order 9066 in which he imprisoned over 100,000 Japanese nationals and American Citizens based purely on their race. They lost their homes and their businesses because of this tyrant's rule by fiat. Short of slavery, this was the most flagrant violation of the the wording of our Constitution ever committed. Fuck you FDR... fuck you!

Yup... still not done with FDR. He raised top marginal tax rates as high as 90%, and he ran the farm sector like a command economy with price controls and output quotas. Surprise... farm output went down disasterously. The government started paying large farming operations to destroy crops and livestock during a time of food shortages. FDR redistributed taxes to swing states and political cronies, and sold so much government debt he crowded out all sorts of private investment... making a proper recovery from the Great Depression that much more difficult.

Nobody in private industry could work around federal encroachment in most sectors of the economy, and as a result only large businesses with political ties succeeded while others failed. FDR claimed to be for "the little guy", but government control of the economy left thousands without their farms and businesses. I could go on, but I think I've made my point. FDR was more than a well meaning progressive pushing failed ideas, he was downright sinister.

Harry Truman took office on April, 12 1945 following the death of FDR. Humorously, FDR had left the nation and Truman with one more example of his egomania... Truman hadn't yet been briefed on many issues pertaining to the the war, and had zero knowledge of The Manhattan Project. Keeping Truman out of the loop was a dangerous decision, thankfully Truman didn't drop the ball, and pulled the fucking trigger when given the opportunity to nuke the Japanese... twice!

While Truman was a much more likable and humble man than FDR, he did share many of FDR's political ideas. Thankfully, Truman was not a popular president after the war, and the Republicans were able to do away with many of FDR's price controls, labor laws, and they passed tax cuts over Truman's veto. Truman's "Fair Deal", and his ideas of providing national health insurance never went anywhere. In the end I'm no fan of Harry Truman, but it's hard to argue that his Presidency set us back in any way. I might also add that Truman fought hard for civil rights, and it was Truman who desegregated the US Military. Good work Harry!

The Eisenhower administration was not filled with strict constitutionalists, but Ike was a huge improvement of the tyrant FDR. The Eisenhower administration kept income tax rates high, but they did undo many of the most offensive of FDR's policies. Ike also oversaw the passing of the 22nd Amendment, making George Washington's two term precident law. Eisenhower was also on the right side of the civil rights movement, and enthusiastically enforced the Brown v. Board of Education decision. By 1953, America was in a much better place.

Things start to get really confusing with John F. Kennedy. Kennedy really wasn't very liberal... at least not in the FDR mold. In Fact, Kennedy passed one of the the biggest tax cuts in American history. Top marginal rates fell from about 90% to around 60%. This was certainly a win for those who believe in freedom. Kennedy was also a hawk, though he entered office a bit naive, made some early mistakes, and began our Vietnam entanglement. Kennedy did abuse the FBI and the CIA with illegal wiretaps on political enemies and civil rights leaders... but the real tragedy of the Kennedy administration is his untimely death, which gave his Vice President Lyndon Johnson all the political capital he needed to tear up what was left of The Constitution.

A Brief Ideological History Of American Politics Pt.2
 

Lyndon Johnson was a miserable asshole racist intent on growing his political base by making more Americans dependent on the government. It was under Johnson that black Americans gained the remainder of their civil rights... and while this was clearly a positive development... black America was then saddled with LBJ's "Great Society". Federal welfare programs would go on to completely destroy black culture and the black family in America. Just as blacks were poised to enter American life on equal footing... they were crassly struck down by LBJ's political maneuvering to secure long-term majorities. I know, some of you will say that black Americans still had opportunities... and they did... but I'd like you to show me any culture that wouldn't be destroyed by getting everything for free. The catastrophic cultural failure of black America can be placed on the head of LBJ as far as I'm concerned.

LBJ's administration tried to deal with economic problems with a loads of unconstitutional federal price controls. He also escalated Vietnam and made that "war" the disaster we now see it as by micro-management and running the war from behind a desk. But as LBJ won his second term in a landslide, his opponent Barry Goldwater helped to change the entire political landscape for decades.

Barry Goldwater lost when he ran against LBJ, but Goldwater was a true believer in freedom and The Constitution. Even with Goldwater's example set, we would still have to suffer through two terrible Republican Presidents before seeing any real change. The Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations bleed together for me. They abused their power, and continued failed "Keynesian" economic policies. Price controls were used to "solve" food and gas price inflation, monetary inflation ran rampant destroying savings accounts, high interest rates made home ownership more difficult... and Americans were overall becoming less and less free. At best, our basic freedoms lay stagnant for most of the 60's and 70's... as did our economy.

Ronald Reagan was a Goldwater conservative. He entered office determined to lessen the power of the federal government, solve our economic problems, and stand up to the Soviet Union. On most accounts... he delivered. Top marginal tax rates fell from 75% down to 50%, then down to 28%, while government revenue went up.

New monetary policy from the fed managed to control inflation, enabling middle class citizens to save their money again. Interest rates came down. Entire industries were deregulated (some of which began under Carter), and the economy responded in a big way. Reagan may not have cut the size of the federal government, but he did succeed in minimizing its encroachment into our daily lives. Ronald Reagan wasn't perfect, but his administration was a huge plus for those of us who believe in freedom and the Constitution.

The best thing about the Reagan era, was that it continued for two more administrations. George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton both raised taxes before they left office. But Clinton's top marginal rate was never higher than 40%... and Clinton cut capital gains taxes as he raised income taxes. This was clearly a better situation than we had under Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Clinton also signed the massive federal welfare reform that has raised the living standards of many who were previously on federal aid, and who are now productive workers. I have my complaints about Clinton personally, but in hindsight, his administration was a huge improvement over the Democratic, and most of the Republican Presidents that came before him. The Reagan era lived on!

George W. Bush ran as a conservative against Al Gore, but Bush was no conservative. Bush expanded government entitlements with Medicare Part-D, ran up massive debt with pork-laden budgets, pandered to religious groups to consolidate power, and build a new and completely unnecessary cabinet level bureaucracy called The Department of Homeland Security. Now our airports are filled with fat depressed federal employees, just sucking up our hard earned tax dollars. Fuck you W!

All of this is bad, but the single worst thing about the Bush administration wasn't Bush's big government liberal policies... it was the fact that his failure was branded as conservatism in the media and the public's eye. The name of conservatism was tarnished... which leads us to Mr. Obama.

Mr. Obama is a power hungry statist who has been able to lead America to the left by falsely calling Bush's policies the failed ideas of the right. Right now the Obama administration is making Bush's already massive debt look like child's-play, and they are passing out federal dollars to all sorts of political interest groups in very much the same way as FDR.

The government now owns Chrysler and GM, and is dictating where they build their cars, where their front offices must be located, and what types of cars they make. Money from government managed bankruptcies (a bankruptcy through the courts would have been just fine) was illegally given to bankrupt union pension programs, while preferred lenders stood around contemplating the meaning of "the rule of law".

We may soon be saddled with federally managed health care, and a debt that will be impossible to pay off without massive tax increases and inflation. We are looking at an almost certain return to the stagflation of the 1970's. It seems Obama has learned nothing from the mistakes of the past. If the Democrats are smacked down in the mid-term elections we may be able to avoid disaster... but don't bet on it. Thanks a bunch George W. Bush!

There you have it... a modern ideological history of both parties. Some good, some bad, some presidents who fit our conventional wisdom, and some that break it...



The article can be found here: http://arthurshall.com/x_2009_presidents.shtml

purposed war tax
 

I'm surpised that no one has brought up the purposed war tax on the rich, Guess you're still waiting for Rush to give you talking points
:cool: Jerseygirl Jen

F--k wars
 

It sounds like a good idea to me, Jen. It is the rich that profit from all these wars, it seems reasonable that they should help pay for them. :yes:

I agree but i feel everyone should help foot the bill not just the rich,But the rich deserve to pay a higher part of the bill for the wars after all it was there beloved W who started these messes and they were fully in favor of these wars so the biggest parts of the bill should be paid by them


:yes: Jerseygirl Jen

Barrack is doing a good job in a tough sitation. He cant fix everything right away

Probably not gonna happen.

Why? Both wars added greatly to the debit yes the Iraq is pretty much over but it still left a hugh debit and it appears Obama will keep the Afgan war going with hugh support from the GOP so how are we going to pay for it?Cut spending on other projects? Get real not going to happen when has either party cut back on spending? answer never. Ever other time we were at war there was some kind of tax made to pay for the war so why should these two wars be any differnt? The easest way is a war tax added to income tax with the top paying 5% and have it go down as you reach the lower tax brackets yeah it sucks but to all those now crying about the debit time to stop crying and start ponying up crying about it won't make the debit go away and just cutting programs for the poor won't make it go away either so that means higher taxes
:yes: Jerserygirl Jen

You forgot to mention the $10 trillion debt that Lord Zero ran up.

If they do enact a tax, everyone will get hit by it, not just the "rich". Any tax will hurt the "working man" regardless of why it was formed and who it was originally aimed at.

The problem with a tax like that would be the standards of such legislation. If you allow them to tax someone who makes a certain amount of money, it will be a matter of time before they start taxing you because you are making a couple more bucks than your neighbor. If you give them an inch, they'll take a mile.

Are you talking about the ten trillon that a big part of which took in to account the war funding that the former president never put in the budget? Start adding up at the addintal fund the former kept going to congress for his debit level is a lot higher then he is credited for, Obama added the war funding to his budget notice he hasn't gone before congress asking more money for the wars like W kept doing 3x a year.


Since you don't want to pay tax to dry up the red ink then stop crying about the debit since it appears since you don't want to help pay it down then you must not be as worried about it, The upper tax brackets made out like bandits for 8 yrs so they can afford to start paying the tab that was rung up for all there perks, I say start hitting making them pony up and pay there fair share
:yes:Jerseygirl Jen

The amount that W spent on the war since it first kicked off to when he left was roughly 900 billion.

Zero just spent 10x that on handouts for his cronies, "stimulus spending" that was supposed to "jumpstart the economy" and pay increases for the politicians(professional bullshitters) who voted on the stimulus bill.


Oh I am quite concerned my dear. There is quite alot of pork that they are spending our money on and instead of cutting back on useless programs and other such nonsense, they are going to pass the products of their wasteful spending on us and hold us responsible for a debt they created.

The Gov. has been notorious for their wasteful spending such as $100,000 on an oak desk, $750 on a toilet seat, and $50 for a flathead screwdriver and you expect them to be fiscally responsible with money that they take from you?

Hahahahaha! Those with more money have more influence and will not write legislation to lose that money/influence. They are going to pass the buck onto you while they find a way to skirt around it. They always have and will continue to do so. Even if you do manage to get something like that passed, they will lose so much that they will just pull their investments out of the market and do business elsewhere. And once the major players in the American markets who keep the economy up leave, we will be fucked.

You are advocating for the same type of bureaucracy that got us into this financial mess in the first place. The less Gov. meddling there is, the quicker things can get fixed.

By Paul krugmen

November 27, 2009, 10:03 am
Deficits: the causes matter

"Jim Hamilton has a post challenging my optimistic view about current deficits. I won't go through it in detail, except to notice that Jim seems to be slightly rewriting history about his earlier analysis, which I critiqued back in August. What was then a seeming demonstration of the impossibility of servicing the debt - but in fact demonstrated no such thing - has now become just an effort to "personalize" the issue. OK, I guess.

But rather than get into a he-said-he-said, let me try to focus on what I think is the key point: the source of the current deficit matters when you try to figure out what kind of problem we have.

Broadly speaking, there are two ways you can get into severe deficits: fundamental irresponsibility, or temporary emergencies. There's a world of difference between the two.

Consider first the classic temporary emergency - a big war. It's normal and natural to respond to such an emergency by issuing a lot of debt, then gradually reducing that debt after the emergency is over. And the operative word is "gradually": it would have been incredibly difficult for the United States to pay off its World War II debt in ten years, which Jim apparently thinks is the right way to view debts incurred more recently; but it was no big deal to stabilize the nominal debt, which is roughly what happened, and as a result gradually reduce debt as a percentage of GDP.

Consider, on the other hand, a government that is running big deficits even though there isn't an emergency. That's much more worrisome, because you have to wonder what will change to stop the soaring debt. In such a situation, markets are much more likely to conclude that any given debt is so large that it creates a serious risk of default.

Now, back in 2003 I got very alarmed about the US deficit - wrongly, it turned out - not so much because of its size as because of its origin. We had an administration that was behaving in a deeply irresponsible way. Not only was it cutting taxes in the face of a war, which had never happened before, plus starting up a huge unfunded drug benefit, but it was also clearly following a starve-the-beast budget strategy: tax cuts to reduce the revenue base and force later spending cuts to be determined. In effect, it was a strategy designed to produce a fiscal crisis, so as to provide a reason to dismantle the welfare state. And so I thought the crisis would come.

In fact, it never did. Bond markets figured that America was still America, and that responsibility would eventually return; it's still not clear whether they were right, but the housing boom also led to a revenue boom, whittling down those Bush deficits.

Compare and contrast the current situation.

Most though not all of our current budget deficit can be viewed as the result of a temporary emergency. Revenue has plunged in the face of the crisis, while there has been an increase in spending largely due to stimulus and bailouts. None of this can be seen as a case of irresponsible policy, nor as a permanent change in policy. It's more like the financial equivalent of a war - which is why the WWII example is relevant.

So the debt question is what happens when things return to normal: will we be at a level of indebtedness that can't be handled once the crisis is past?

And the answer is that it depends on the politics. If we have a reasonably responsible government a decade from now, and the bond market believes that we have such a government, the debt burden will be well within the range that can be managed with only modest sacrifice.

OK, that's a big if. But it's not a matter of dollars and cents; it's about whether America is still America."

This is a very very big IF considering the behavior of our political parties.:frown:

Crasher
 

Biden with party crasher blonde babe. Hilarious! What ever happened to security! Heads will roll over this.:yes::lol:

He could fix something though...

Unfortunately, Obama cant fix things by himself. He needs a responsible Congress that is dedicated to the Countries interest rather their own selfish interests. It would also help if the Republicans backed off on their hysterical efforts to tear him down.
You know, what "benefit" does Washington provide to us, as citizens, anyway?
:frown::censored::turnoff::(

As if the Democrats are so innocent. Randolph, you will find that in any democratic country the opposition will always be trying to tear down the party in power. And then when the tables are turned and those that were in opposition are now in power will be pilloried by those that are now in opposition.

The first sentence in my post was referring to the Democratic controlled Congress. :frown:

I guarantee you Obama has an eight year plan, and all he is showing is the tip of the iceberg. And the name of the plan is "Look what a Black Man did, you simple cocksuckers"

Further thoughts, traditionally, this is true the opposition's job is opposing. However, the current situation is different, we are in a very critical situation, the survival of our way of life is at stake and Obama's opposition acts like it is business as usual. Obama offered to work jointly to stave off disaster but the opposition is unable to see beyond their ego centric political self interest.
As a professor in S. Calif is doing, many of us may be doing dumpster diving soon if Obama's/Congress.s/ Bernake's programs fail. Who will be blamed? Bush's irresponsible administration or Obama's administration. Obama inherited this mess from the people who are criticizing him. His opposition is doing everything they can to lay the blame on him, endless lies, distortions and just plain bullshit. Its disgusting. :censored:

You obviously have little to no understanding as to the political legality within the United States. Barack Obama's political agenda is in direct defiance of the US Constitution; as such, he is breaking the law. The issue is not now, nor has it ever been, whether you agree with his principles, but rather are such principles allowed to manifest themselves into action within said country...they are not.
*Several of Obama's ideas can be inacted quite legally on the state level, but as aforementioned, they are illegal on a federal premise.

*In any case, i do not even know why i am here, i just came to find pictures of hot girls with dicks

Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review.

Lol
 

" With all of the comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis, young people are beginning to think that the allied powers defeated Nazi Germany because Germany had too much health care."

- Jim Hansen
Proposed extensions of Godwin's Law

Obama Blabs On --telepromptered Of Course
 

Well at this minute Obama is doing his speech before his friends and allies listening intentlyand the poor cadets from West Point who must sit there and listen to this idiot. The independant thinking people have barf bags in hand. Hopefully there will be enough country to take back in three years.

Think I'm going to be sick---see ya

There are no Republican garbagemen. Republicans speak for half the country, the half with money and power. It shows your weakness as a human being and American to bend over for GOP Inc. while ignoring the real problems this nation has. If you're a Republican and make less than 200K/year, you're a complete fool. Huddle up with your guns and religion and stem cells. If you have a cardboard cut-out of Ronald Reagan in your shitty little trailer park home you have the Real Reagan.
You're too stupid to see anything except what you're spoon fed.

At least he can read which is more then can be said about W and Palin


:yes: Jerseygirl Jen

There are a lot of Independants that are garbagemen. The majority of voters in this country are independants. It's too bad that during the last election there were no string candidates at all. McCain is just a RINO. Look what happened in the last election. Republicans ousted Dems that were in power in 2 of the three major spots. In the other it took the RINO who pulled out of the race one day and threw her votes to the Dem to narrowly beast out an Indepent candidate. American is waking up and getting tired of both parties.

Yes he can read but have you ever seen what happens to him when the telepromter goes down? :lol::lol::lol:

What do you all think about Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan? :turnon: or :turnoff:?

Fishguts Cheney shood have gone toe to toe with Pakistan right after we blew killing Bin Laden in Tora Bora. That's what our Nuclear Arsenal is for. We could have cleaned up the entire 9-11 mess in six months by simply giving the American People the head of Osama Bin Laden, like they always wanted. For Obama, it's square One. If he's convinced Pakistan to attack Al Queda from the right, then our troops can smoke A-rabs this year, opium next year.

One- Cut a deal with the Taliban, money talks in Afghanistan.

Two- Clean out Al Qaida in Pakistan

Three- Support Pakistan's moderates.

Four- Get serious about energy.

Five- Stop eating beef (cow gas = 50% of global warming)

Obama's plan? :turnoff:

Business as usual
 

But while the president may be showing disloyalty to his political base, he's remaining faithful to the defense industry interests that so generously funded his campaign.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org database, the top recipient of defense industry money in the 2008 election cycle was Barack Obama, whose haul of $1,029,997 far surpassed Republican contender Sen. John McCain's $696,948.

During the 2008 cycle, the industry contributed a total of $23.7 million to federal candidates -- far more than the $17.4 million it invested during the 2006 cycle or the $18.1 million in the 2004 cycle.

The top five defense industry contributors during the 2008 elections were Lockheed Martin at $2.5 million, Boeing at $2.1 million, Northrop Grumman at $1.8 million, and Raytheon and General Dynamics at $1.7 million each.

And it appears their investment may be paying off: The Associated Press reports that analyst Howard A. Rubel of the global investment bank Jefferies & Co. sent out a client note today stating that the fiscal 2010 Defense Department Budget will likely boost demand for precision munitions, communications gear, helicopters, armor and surveillance systems.

Among the companies whose stock Rubel rated as "Buy"? General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman.

We have been fucked again. Guess who is going to pay for it! :censored:

Something else to think about
 

This is one of the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.


A German's View on Islam
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'
We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.
The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.
And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend fromGermany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts -- the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on - before it's too late. :eek:

Emanuel Tanay, M.D. 2980 Provincial St. Ann Arbor, MI 48104

Obama's War

by Jim Hightower

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to war we go! Pound the drums loudly, stand with your country proudly!

Wait, wait, wait - hold it right there. Cut the music, slow the rush, and let's all ponder what Barack Obama, Roberts Gates, Stanley McChrystal and Co. are getting us into ... and whether we really want to go there. After all, just because the White House and the Pentagon brass are waving the flag and insisting that a major escalation of America's military mission in Afghanistan is a "necessity" doesn't mean it is ... or that We the People must accept it.

Remember the wisdom of Mark Twain about war-whooping generals and politicians: "Loyalty to the country, always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it."

How many more dead and mangled American soldiers does the government's "new" Afghan policy deserve? How many more tens of billions of dollars should we let them siphon from our public treasury to fuel their war policy? How much more of our country's good name will they squander on what is essentially a civil war?

We've been lied to for nearly a decade about "success" in Iraq and Afghanistan - why do the hawks deserve our trust that this time will be different?

Their rationales for escalation are hardly confidence boosters. The goal, we're told, is to defeat the al-Qaida terrorist network that threatens our national security. Yes, but al-Qaida is not in Afghanistan! Nor is it one network. It has metastasized, with strongholds now in Pakistan, Indonesia, Morocco, Yemen and Somalia, plus even having enclaves in England and France.

Well, claims Obama himself, we must protect the democratic process in Afghanistan. Does he think we have suckerwrappers around our heads? America's chosen leader over there is President Hamid Karzai - a preening incompetent who was "elected" this year only through flagrant fraud and whose government is controlled by warlords, rife with corruption and opposed by the great majority of Afghans.

During the election campaign from July through October, 195 Americans were killed and more than 1,000 wounded to protect this guy's "democratic process." Why should even one more American die for Karzai?

Finally, Washington's war establishment asserts that adding some 30,000 more troops will let us greatly expand and train the Afghan army and police force during the next couple of years so they can secure their own country and we can leave.
Mission accomplished!

Nearly every independent military analyst, however, says this assertion is not just fantasy, it's delusional - it'll take at least 10 years to raise Afghanistan's largely illiterate and corrupt security forces to a level of barely adequate, costing us taxpayers more than $4 billion a year to train and support them.

Obama has been taken over by the military industrial hawks and national security theorists who play war games with other people's lives and money. I had hoped Obama might be a more forceful leader who would reject the same old interventionist mindset of those who profit from permanent war. But his newly announced Afghan policy shows he is not that leader.

So, we must look elsewhere, starting with ourselves. The first job of a citizen is to keep your mouth open. Obama is wrong on his policy - deadly wrong - and those of you who see this have both a moral and patriotic duty to reach out to others to inform, organize and mobilize our grassroots objections, taking common sense to high places.

Also, look to leaders in Congress who are standing up against Obama's war and finally beginning to reassert the legislative branch's constitutional responsibility to oversee and direct military policy. For example, Rep. Jim McGovern is pushing for a specific, congressionally mandated exit strategy; Rep. Barbara Lee wants to use Congress' control of the public purse strings to stop Obama's escalation; and Rep. David Obey is calling for a war tax on the richest Americans to put any escalation on-budget, rather than on a credit card for China to finance and future generations to pay.

This is no time to be deferential to executive authority. Stand up. Speak out. It's our country, not theirs. We are America - ultimately, we have the power and the responsibility.

I agree, Obama appears to be a weak President following the hawks. We need to resist.

Who woulda thunk it,,,,
 

Obamaman a war loving President,,, lol. This megolomaniac is into EVERYTHING. And he's not got 1 single policy issue right yet.... No wait, his very 1st call was I think a good 1 ---allowing more stem cell research. Other than that though, he's a Bushboy clone..... Anyone here feel 'stimulated' yet,,
ie from/by Obamaman and his 1,000 or more plans,,, ? lol

It's hard to get too serious about International Affairs when you're staring at pictures of Raging Shemale Schlongfests, and since I've missed all the Presidential briefings on the Middle East, I admit I have no idea what's going on over there. It's possible Obama could do a JFK and take us to the brink of Nuclear War, it's obvious we're not sending 100,000 troops over there to respond to 19 guys armed with box-cutters. We're sending 100,000 troops over there to respond to one imaginary guy armed with a nuclear suitcase.

One day there will be a most fascinating book written about what Time Magazine calls "The Decade from Hell." I can't wait to read it to find out what the hell happened these last ten years. It'll be a page turner.

There's about 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The rest are Taliban. I never really knew what Bush's beef was with the Taliban. Sure they suck, but we're not going to change that mentality over there, and they are entitled to it, as long as they don't interfere with us. Our war is not with the Taliban, it's with Al Qaeda. And right now it looks like they're in Pakistan. Pakistan should answer for that. We're giving them a lot of money to help us track Al Qaeda down. If they're allowing Al Qaeda to run around in their country, I say we do some air strikes, and renegotiate.

So what are we doing in Afghanistan? BO hasn't really said. Just that he's sending 30000 more troops there (finally), and then starting to bring them home before the 2012 elections. We have to have a goal there. Does he intend to completely wipe out the Taliban? Then he's in for something like Iraq. Maybe worse if he doesn't handle the Afghan war as well as Bush did.

Question... while BO is attacking the Taliban, is he apologizing too?

I will say Bush, or the military commanders or whoever, royally :censored: up Tora Bora. That could have been a clean victory.

Afganistan?
 

I found the part of his speech about the Afgan army needing more training really ludicrous. We already have more soldiers in Afghanistan than the Afghan army. Besides, the Afghans are some of the toughest fighters in the world. They don't need more training, they need to be on the "right" side. If they don't want the Taliban then let them work it out. We need to focus on Pakistan and keep those rockets and a-bombs secure. Obama seems to be going down the same path as Bush/Cheney. :censored::censored::censored:

Since August '45, the office of President only has one real job -preventing a nuclear war. The Government is so bereaucrocized that you could put a cardboard cut-out in the oval office and nobody would notice (Reagan)
In the summer of '45 we had our brand new B-29 bombers fly over Tokyo one night and drop incindiary bombs, the city was built largely of wood and we killed 100,000 "Jap" civilians. (More than the individual A-bombs killed.) That was a good policy back then. Today, you BOW to the Japanese leader. Because we're going to need the japanese, chinese, russians, and anybody else we can find to prevent Iran, Israel, N Korea, Pakistan, and India from selling Thermonuclear Missles on eBay.

Well here is a look at our national debt clock this is
how much the u.s. owes.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

I find it funny that from 01 thru 08 when W was spending quicker then the money could be printed most of the GOP didn't say word one but know it's there top concern and yet not one of them has said anything about ending the wars and ending W's tax cuts the biggest cause of this mess, So let's get real here people if you are truely worried about the sea of red ink end the wars and end every one of W's tax cuts and that will go a long way draining the bottomless sea of red ink

Oh, btw... have I mentioned that in 2 months BO has increased the debt 2.5 times more than all of Bush's 8 years in office?

Not only that but almost 90% of the $350 billion of Bush's portion of the Wall Street bailout has already been paid back. Of course the democrats think this is money to spend. NO! It goes towards paying back the debt!

And what's more? The fucking house has approved a $290 billion increase in the debt limit.

Joe Lieberman:
Skeptical of the health care plan.
A white male.
Doesn't seem to mind illegal immigrants taking over the country.
Believes US should accept responsibility for Global Warming

No longer considered a democrat.
Shut down by democrats in the middle of his speech.

Justice
 

"FRANKEN AMENDMENT BECOMES LAW.... In October, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) proposed a key amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill. Yesterday, it was signed into law.

Motivated by the harrowing violence Jamie Leigh Jones suffered in 2005 while working for Halliburton/KBR in Iraq, Franken pushed a measure to withhold defense contracts from companies that "restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court." Franken's measure passed, 68 to 30. The 30 opponents -- representing 75% of the entire GOP Senate caucus -- were Republican men.

There were some implantation questions from the Pentagon, but after some additional efforts, and overcoming a Republican filibuster, Franken's measure became law after President Obama signed the Department of Defense Appropriations Act over the weekend.

Digby had a good take on this.

The reason I think it's good news isn't just on the substance (which it certainly is) but on the politics. Franken's amendment is driving the Republicans crazy because they basically voted to protect rapists and are now paying a political price for that. And now they are whining that Franken was somehow "uncollegial" because the amendment put them in an embarrassing position (which makes me wonder how many other things issues are swept under the rug because it would make members of the opposition uncomfortable.)

That's the kind of thing the Democrats should do more of. Expose the Republicans' hypocrisy and cruelty by forcing these issues on to the agenda.

Remember, Republicans can barely contain their outrage over this -- Franken proposed a common-sense measure; it passed easily; and opponents of the amendment have faced some severe criticicism as a result. "The nerve of that guy," conservative senators keep saying.

For his part, this is Franken's first key legislative success. Here's to many more like it."

At least some things are done right.:yes:

I honestly hoped Obama would bring about change.. so powerful charismatic and motivating speaker in the campaign. but that seems to be gone.

* Health Care debacle - heard something got passed or almost passed?

* Afghanistan - 30k troops, after winning Nobel Peace Prize, and his explanation speech used identical language to Bush.

* Banks - had a meeting and 3 of the biggest just blew him off, after they were give 750 billion interest free loans which they then lent out on Credit Cards at 30%

I am not an Amrerican but terrifies me. Watching Bush get away with everything he did was sickening but Obama is no different.

JFK and Martin Luther were 2 of the biggest and best promoters of civil rights and transparency of government. They were both assasinated. JFKs brother picked it up and he was assinated. Ever since the President has towed the same corporate & military line.

Obama should have done what whether he promised or not people believed he would..

* Pull out of the unnecessary Wars
* Fix Health Care
* Regulate Wall Street

He should as Cheney did say stuff bi-partisan, this is the change people are screaming for and I am going to do it. Maybe his slow and steady approach might pay off in the long run.. but seeing him holding a useless 1 hour meeting with the banks and even then have 3 of the biggest blow him off I don't hold much 'hope'.

Senate Passes Health Insurance Overhaul

The Senate passed a health insurance overhaul on Thursday morning, 60-39, as both Democrats and Republicans held unified in their positions on the massive bill that mandates coverage for about 9 percent of the U.S. population now without insurance.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...h-care-reform/

Fuck you Senate. Fuck you very much.
You have violated your oath of office and passed a bill that is unconstitutional. What's more, you haven't represented your constituents. In EVERY poll over the past several months, US citizens DO NOT WANT HEALTH CARE REFORM! I don't need to wait for November 2010 for all you dipshits to be cleared out of congress because all the democrats in the senate should be thrown in jail.

He did say 'stuff bi-partisan'. They voted 60-39 along party lines. Only thing is he went against what the people were screaming for.

Damn Tytler, does he have to be so right?

Shit
 

Health industry lobbyists spent $600,000,000 on Congress to keep out the public option. They succeeded and Obama will sign it anyway. Corporate America owns the government, we are here just to pay the bills of the rich. How much longer are we going to put up with this shit? :censored:

You want the government to run health care? Give me an example of an efficient, well run government agency. You'll say corporations aren't well run or efficient, but many of them are. They have to be other wise they will not be competitive. Government agencies OTOH do not have to be competitive. They don't even have to be mediocre. They will receive their budgeted amount regardless of how well they are doing, and regardless of whether the country actually even has money to pay them! This guarantees that they will be inefficient because they don't need to be. It also guarantees that they will be filled with schmucks who can't make it in the real world where they are held accountable for their performance.

Damn skippy Tracy!

Geez relax girl the GOP is already planning to do away with it before it ever takes effect the Senator from Texas is planning to go to the unsupreme court claiming health care for everyone is unconstoutional and if that doesn't work they plan in the next two election to retake the house, senate and white house and by a partasain vote take healthcare away from the poor and give it back to the rich so relax and don't blow a gasket the GOP will restore everything back to big business and the rich

:yes: Jerseygirl Jen

Well if government is so inefficient why did the health industry spend six hundred million dollars to get the public option dropped? Sounds like the public option was a threat to their obscene profits screwing sick people.:censored:

Fixed it for you.

Growel
 

Hey man, If you want to quote me fine. just don't screw around with what I have to say. If you disagree, fine, say what you want, OK! :frown:

I doubt they have the votes to enforce the people's will.

Hopefully they'll take health care away from the illegal aliens too that will wind up with it.

Health care for everyone - of the quality that most Americans are used to, is just not possible. The government is broke and the quality of health care is going to go down if you provide blanket health care for everyone. You don't solve the problem for 15% of the population by crippling a system that 85% of the population is fine with. You don't provide health care for illegal aliens (we all know this is next, and they're practically getting it anyway). If the government is broke, which it is btw, you don't launch yet another $multi-trillion program. Is it just me or are these things not obvious?

Because the public option is a threat to the quality of health care in America, and they don't want government to move in and install a paralyzing bureaucracy.

It's a Christmas miracle we actualy aggree on something


:yes: Jerseygirl Jen

Tee hee hee... Where's the love ole chap?

Oh, please! You think the health care industry cares about quality? All they care about is profits. They are corporations and they are beholden to their stockholders for dividends and stock value growth. If they don't come through, their shareholders will sell their stock. As long as we have this kind of system running our health care we will see escalating costs until none of us can afford it. :frown:

Hey, hey Jen is that you in your avatar? :cool:

I wish, No it's the actress who played Buffy the vampire slayer


:yes: Jerseygirl Jen

Cool :hug:

Well that's the funny thing about capitalism. There's a relationship between quality and profits. If it's government run, they'll get paid either way. No incentive for profits. I keep bringing this up. Do you not agree with that?

You seem the think that "profits" are the sin qua non of human motivation. I belong to an HMO called Kaiser Permanente. It was set up during WWII to serve the workers at Kaiser steel mills. Since then it has expanded to become a major HMO in the far West. I have belonged to it for many years. The clinic service is excellent and the hospitals are first class and they will pay for emergency health costs outside of their territory. Also, they saved my life after a burst appendix. There is no quibbling over health services, if you need something done, you get it done.
Now is this HMO one of you beloved profiteering corporations?
NO! It is a NONPROFIT organization run by doctors!
It is very efficient and has a state of the art computer record and health maintenance system. There are no lines, no waiting when you have an appointment, they are ready.
I know of no for profit HMO that comes close to Kaiser and a friend who works for a private HMO confirms that view. :yes:

Sorry... above I meant to say "If it's government run, they'll get paid either way. No incentive for quality."

Awesome. Dedicated health practitioners can certainly provide great quality health care. I do not believe that profit is the only motivation. What I have said all along is that the government has never been, and never will be efficient. In some cases it may be state of the art, but certainly not in national health care.

Does this look efficient to you?

Yes, I will have to agree with you there. I was president of my own agricultural company for many years. I went to Washington several times to deal with Agricultural regulations. The "Washington" bureaucracy is appalling, consisting of mostly "administrators" supervising people that do nothing.
OK, I just shot down my own view of gov. run health care, well not really, Medicare is a fairly well run system. The value of a gov. run alternative to private insurance is that it provides a damper on excess profits that private companies strive for. Our goal is to hold down escalating costs of health care, right?

Yeah, let's put these guys in charge.

Ok, you tell me how pharmaceutical companies should be run. Are you a benevolent non-profit organization run by brilliant and giving chemists and microbiologists? Will your organization be able to map cancer genes? Run studies that will be safe for users and get an ok by the FDA?

Or will you grant that pharmaceutical companies have large expenses in research and trials, not to mention drug ingredients, processing, etc. If you do concede this, and you're the president of this pharmaceutical company, what do you do when the government mandates that the costs of your drugs go down? Does that magically erase your research and drug trial expenses? Probably not. So you have a choice. Do you continue developing drugs in the US, or do you go to some other country where they accept the realities of your business?

BTW, I bet of medical practitioners from clinics to insurance companies to pharmaceutical companies could lower a lot of their costs if Tort Reform were passed. Is that part of the health care bill? No! Why not? Aren't they interested in making health care affordable for everyone? Hmmm, maybe not. I think these lawmakers that you're depending on to provide you and everyone else in this country the health care we all need are on the take. Are those the people you want deciding what kind of health care you receive? No thanks!

I don't get the Hannity/Eddie comparison. They both have black hair? Is that it? And I think Coulter looks more like a hippie that grew up into one of your liberal congresswomen.

I still say Hannity looks like a grown up Eddie Monster and for Coulter growing up into a hippie liberal that would be her worst and scarest nightmare but funny to everyone else
:lol: Jerseygirl Jen

something to think about
 

Question- how much money does the goverment shell out on serect service to protect the Carters, Bushs, Clinton's, Bush's?
Ok Hillary being the sitting sec of state so i can see the need for secert service protection but if she wasn't why are we spending all this money? I mean really they are former presidents and not in danger like they were when they were in office, When has anyone ever took a shot at a former president? I just feel these are resources and money that could be better spent elsewhere if they feel they need secert service protection still then let them pick up the tab. Just something to think about
:yes: Jerseygirl Jen

$1.5 billion/year, or about .075% of the money Obama wasted on BS spending programs. Think about that.

Is that 1'5 billion the total for all the former presidents or is that 1.5 for each? but regauardless why should the tax payers keep them with secert service no one is going to waste there time trying to knock off a former president come on Carter left office in 81 Bush in 92 Clinton in 01 and W in 09 no terrorist will think or even try to knock one off them off only the sitting president is in any real danger the money wasted on the former presidents would be better spent elsewhere.


And how does Obama spending more money else where make spend the 1.5 billion guarding former presidents ok?The GOP keep yelling for the president to trim the bufget well here a 1.5 billion dollar trim