Why would anyone want to "waste their time" trying to topple two twin towers filled with civilians? For the exact same reason -- it's a symbolic strike against America and, if successful, would instantly make WORLD news and give immediate credibility and notoriety to any terrorist organization that successfully pulled off such a thing.

And, Jen, just as an FYI -- the Secret Service deals with constant threats to ex-Presidents on a DAILY basis...in fact, often to their immediate family members TOO, who potentially could be even easier targets...which is why they are also kept under watch and given protection for life. I mean, come on, let's be honest here. Regardless of whether it was a Republican or Democrat in office, the sheer act of BEING President of the United States... and of holding the most powerful office in the world... is literally THE most exclusive club that any person could ever be in.


Unfortunately, once you've sat in the Oval Office, you will also be a potential target for the rest of your life -- hence the reason that BOTH sides of the political aisle in Congress has ALWAYS approved the budget and provided constant security to not only the current sitting President, but former ones as well...with absolutely no questions asked. In short: this is simply one of those things that is NOT open for debate regarding the budgetary costs, and this is simply one of those very rare things where Congress (both sides of the aisle) will NEVER look to trim costs, out of sheer respect for whoever held that office.

I'm sure this pie chart is faulty, but you get an idea that the Secret Service payroll is peanuts compared to the bigger issues.
Count on Obama capturing Bin Laden about Oct 27, 2010.
Count on Obama secretly changing the way we do our Military Spending.
Don't count on Obama fixing the National Debt til like 2015.

I think Sean Hannity and Anne Coulter are like 1900 Europeans who looked to their leaders to be "Father Figures" and not "Civil Servants" I read about this in a Hermann Hesse book, set in a small German town, and the townsfolk had a Mayor they all trusted and obeyed like a Father, and in many cases I think a system like this is good. Clint Eastwood said being the Mayor of Carmel was the biggest headache of his life because the people really thought they had a role in running the town.

Anne Coulter's Dad was a Union-busting Commie Hunter, and was rumoured to be a real asshole. I think that explains alot about Daddy's little girl.

Because they want to attack the USA and make a point while doing it and Bin-Laddin never took a shoot at W when he was in office so why would he now? his new targets are still the USA and the current me in the office he can now careless about W.


And i wasn't saying to protect only certian former presidents i included all of them i wasn't playing favorites but i did say i can see an exception made for Clinton as Hillary is the current sec of state, And when has anyone ever tried to knock off a former president? Yeah they proably get hate mail and threats but so do Judges cops mayors governors and nothing ever comes out of it

My Sister worked for the State Department, she knew alot of Secret Service guys at one time, and yes, even though she was dumb as she could be, she earned $100,000/year, just by keeping her mouth shut and playing the game. The government bloated and corrupt???? Oh no!!! The Washington DC area is said to be recession proof just because of the Government jobs here. You really think the lawmakers are going to screw themselves over? Government is about the Law of the Jungle as much as the Law of the People.

Total

Saddam tried to kill Bush Sr. after he left office. In theory, any enemies a president makes while in office is in the course of defending the constitution and acting in the best interests of the USA (I mean, can you imagine a president doing something that most Americans oppose? Crazy I know). It's only right that tax payers return the favor by protecting the president, current or not, from those enemies.

Because the point is trimming the budget. It's silly to worry about a $1.5 billion expense when over $2 trillion was just thrown away. The problem is the mindset that blew that $2 trillion is still in Washington on the verge of blowing another several trillion on healthcare reform.

What your suggesting is like using a teaspoon to bail out water shooting up from a baseball-sized hole in the bottom of a boat.

BO's handling of airplane bomber
 

Janet Napolitano is another idiot that BO put into office. She's the head of Homeland Security. When talking about the failed bombing of the plane bound for Detroit on Christmas, it is her basic position that the "system worked" because the bureaucrats responded properly after the attack. That the attack was "foiled" by a bad detonator and some civilian passengers is proof, she claims, that her agency is doing everything right.

I wonder what color the skies are on her world? The terrorist's father warned the US state department 6 months ago about his son. Yet still he makes it on to the flight with explosives. In what possible fantasy does her claim even remotely make sense?

Monday she admitted the system failed. Uh, yeah... No shit Sherlock. She needs to be fired. Perhaps this will be a wake up call to BO.

Perhaps he should spend more time and effort helping the CIA stop terrorists abroad than pursuing investigations into CIA personnel who have kept us safe since 9/11.

Perhaps he should stop spending so much time and effort to remove terrorists from Gitmo and to arranging their trial in New York and their imprisonment in Illinois and spend much more time arranging for more terrorists to spend more time in Gitmo's secure confines.

Perhaps he should spend less time in Copenhagen seeking Olympic games and global warming fame and more time at home demanding more vigilance from his incompetent Homeland Security staff.

Perhaps he should spend more time encouraging and consulting with our allies like Great Britain and Israel than pleading with our enemies in Iran and North Korea for breakthroughs that will not come.

But hey, I'm just a ladyboy lover. What do I know?

Agreed, heads should roll. What about the idiots that gave him a visa?
Why didn't the warning from his father have any effect.
Also, apparently the attack was planned by guys released from Gitmo.
The radical Islamists seem to be making every effort to make this a religious war.
Scheduling the attack for Christmas day!
I would like to keep a moderate view toward Muslims but things like this make my blood boil.
:censored:

Psychology 101
 

19 guys armed with boxcutters- We killed about 100,000 Iraqi civilians.
Lets call it even and figure out what to do with Iran. Before Israel does.

But you failed to mention both bozos were releashed in 07 under your belove W so this is another fine mess created by W and left for others to clean up


:eek: Jerseygirl Jen

Yeah, those Iraqis had nothing to do with 9/11 and we wonder why Arabs hate us. Also, Israel (with our support) drives the Arabs insane with their arrogant continued expansion of settlements on Palestinian territory. Yet our leaders seem unable to face up to the reasons Arabs hate us and do something about it other than bomb the hell out of them.

Also, the Arab Shias and Sunnis hate each other why not let them fight each other, maybe then they would let us alone. :yes:

Go back and read Tracy's comment about how Saddam wanted to get former president George H Bush and then you see why W wanted the war in Iraq so badly and why our troops worked harded to capture Saddam then they did going after Bin-Laddin the course and master mind behind 9/11

:yes: Jerseygirl Jen

Wow, here's something I didn't miss, The thread that won't die.



Oh, and the only thing you can compare Ann Coulter to is an escapee from a secure mental hospital...

from Krugman

" December 29, 2009, 9:31 am
Part D, revisited

Associated Press did a good report on the trouble Republicans have been having as they try to explain why, if they consider the fully-funded, deficit-reducing Democratic health care reform unaffordable, they voted for the completely unfunded Medicare drug benefit 6 years ago. None of their explanations make a bit of sense.

But the AP dropped the ball, I think, by not pointing out just how irresponsible the bill really was. According to the Medicare trustees, Part D created a $9.4 trillion unfunded liability over the next 75 years. That's a big number, even for an economy as big as ours.

What were they thinking? Mostly, they probably weren't thinking at all. To the extent that there was a theory of the case, however, it went something like this: pass whatever legislation was needed to win the next election, then, once total conservative political dominance has been achieved, dismantle the whole welfare state.

The best laid plans ..."

Rovers plans didn't quite work out. There's little doubt that's what they wanted to do. That's probably why now they are so hysterical about any progressive social legislation.:censored:

Not to mention thousands of Al Qaeda & Taliban in Afghanistan. At what point does Al Qaeda realize they fucked up?

Which bozos do you speak of?

I'm not an expert on the history of Israel, the Arabs and the Palestinians, but didn't Israel expand into Arab territory after the 6-day war when Arabs decided Israel needed to go? And wasn't it the ancestors of the Palestinians, the Phoenicians, that first occupied Israelite territory?

Enlighten me, why do they hate us?

Jen, Saddam wasn't firing at our planes that patrolled the no-fly zone over Iraq was he? Saddam wasn't actively trying to block UN inspectors was he? Saddam wasn't diverting funds from the UN for food to weapons was he? These all violated conditions of the cease fire of Gulf War I. So to say that W attacked Iraq ONLY because of the assassination attempt of his father is a bit short sighted.

And Saddam had to be caught. Not because of anything to do with 9/11, but because of his violations of UN resolution 687, and acts of biological warfare. Yes we allowed Iraq to import bacteria cultures which they used for weapons. Even more reason why it's our responsibility to put an end to Saddam.

Yemen's foreign minister says hundreds of Al Qaeda militants are planning terror attacks from Yemen.

In other news, 34 of the Yemen nationals in Guantanamo Bay are set to be released back to Yemen.

Well Tracy, I am not a historian but my understanding of Israel is that Arabs and Jews lived there for centuries before WWII in relative harmony. After the war the Zionists wanted there own country (fed up with predjudice) and they wanted their homeland Israel. Britan controlled Israel and did not want a Jewish state. They knew it would cause trouble. With US encouragement the British pulled out and the Zionists took over and pushed out the Palestinians and created a Jewish dominated state. Source one of US hatred.

Source two, Iran created a socialist state that thumbed their nose at the US and heaven forbid, developed relations with Russia. We found that intolerable, created a coup and installed the Shaw as a "monarch". The Iranians finally got fed up and installed a radical Islamic state which further fostered hatred of the US to strengthen their power.

Source three, years ago we cut a deal with Ibn Saud, leader of a tribe in Saudi Arabia to set him and his family up as permanent leaders of Arabia in exchange for their oil (Aramco). Arab religious leaders deeply resent the control of Arabia by the US and teach Arab male youths to hate the US (Whabinism an extreme form of Islam).

Source four, British imperialism thoroughly fucked up the Middle East by arbitrarily dividing it up into militarily controllable states that did not consider tribal and ethnic differences in the area. Consequently, there has been constant turmoil there and we inherited it from the British.

Source five, our firm support of Israel at the expense of the rights and concerns of Arabic peoples in the region.

The list goes on and on.

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR!;)

Israelis vs. arabs
 

THE MID EAST
by Howard S. Katz
10-12-09

There are very few weeks that go by in this day and age without some news item about the turmoil in the Mid-East between Israelis and Arabs. In part this is due to the fact that the media have made a decision to feature and over-dramatize this area of the world. There are similar incidents of low-level violence (short of outright war) in many areas of the world. The Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, for example, have been waging a full scale war for over 30 years (until this past May), and it was almost never mentioned.

For another part, the troubles in the Mid-East are a perfect example of the philosophy of peace and the manner in which it leads to almost continual violence. And finally they are a very good example of the way in which the media today will report almost any event via a succession of lies. That is, first one lie is told. In the world of the "respectable" media this lie then becomes sacrosanct, and anyone who questions it is met with a campaign of vilification and hate. Then the lie becomes a basic "fact" in the narrow world of media figures, and soon another lie is laid on top of it, and then another lie and another lie, etc. I can deal with what I call this onion of lies (because they lay over each other like the layers of an onion) in the field of economics by simply making predictions of the future. Since my view of reality (in economics) is correct, I am able to make correct predictions about the future, and this past week's explosion in the price of gold and fall in the U.S. dollar (which is making my subscribers very happy) is one example. Events, however, are more confusing and difficult to predict in the field of human relations. Things are not as black and white, and often both sides of an issue will claim, after the fact, that their predictions have proven correct.

Be that as it may, I would like to explore the Arab-Israeli conflict and try to untangle the onion of lies which the media has created.

The first, and most important, point is that there are no Palestinians. And indeed, it is only via a severe twisting of history can there be said to have ever been a Palestine. If you read the Bible (Catholic, Protestant or Jewish), it provides us with our earliest history of that region, and the name by which it is known is not Palestine. It is Canaan. After the Israelite invasion circa 1250 B.C. the land is known as Israel or Samaria (in the north) and Judah or Judea (in the south) These names are used until the defeat of the Jews in their second revolt against Rome in 135 A.D. At that time, the Jewish population is forcibly removed from Judea and scattered through the Roman Empire. The Romans rename the territory Palestine, meaning land of the Philistines. The Philistines, as you know, are the people of Delilah and Goliath who fought the Israelites at the time of King David. They were Greeks, not Arabs, and had disappeared long before 135 A.D. (By the way, the Philistines are a very interesting people and not at all the bad guys we read about in the Bible. They were also known as the Sea People and were the first people known in history to use iron weapons, i.e., to enter the Iron Age. They fought their way down the coast of Asia Minor and attacked Egypt while Moses and the Israelites were wandering their 40 years in the wilderness. Egypt was the super power of the day, but the Philistines came within a hair's breath of defeating them, after which they settled down on the western coast of Canaan. The poor Canaanites were then caught between the Philistines (the coastal people) attacking from the west and the Israelites (the mountain people) attacking from the east, all leading up to the famous battles which are described in the Bible.

So the name "Palestine" was a fraud made up by the Romans, and it was never very much accepted by the (few) people who lived in the territory. For example, if you study the Crusades, you find the country being referred to as The Holy Land, not as "Palestine." When the Crusaders were driven out, by Saladin (1138-1193 A.D.), and the land reconquored for Islam, it was resettled But since Saladin was a Kurd and hated Arabs, he did not use any Arabs in the resettlement of The Holy Land. (And in fact the entire mid-East was Christian from the 4th century A.D. until the Muslim conquest. These people were conquered by the Arabs and converted to Islam, but they are not ethnically Arab. An Arab is a person who comes from Arabia. To call such people Arab today simply refers to the fact that they speak Arabic and has nothing to do with their ethnicity.)

The Turks conquered the land in 1517 A.D. and returned to the name Palestine. However, they were better at conquering than governing. The residents were driven off the land and the population reduced to a very low level. Karen Armstrong reports:

"Peasants began to leave their villages to escape from rapacious pashas....In 1660 the French traveler L. d'Arrieux noted that the countryside around Bethlehem was almost completely deserted, the peasants having fled the pashas of Jerusalem." [Karen Armstrong, Jerusalem, One City, Three Faiths, (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), p. 342.]

This set up the situation which led to the modern Zionist movement. An 1840 census recorded the population of Jerusalem as 10,750. [Karen Armstrong, p. 352.] The modern city is about ¾ million. I have seen an estimate for the total Arab population of the Turkish province of Palestine in the mid-to-late 19th century as 65,000.

Mark Twain visited The Holy Land in 1867. He reported:

"We never saw a human being on the whole route [meaning the section from the Sea of Galilee to Mount Tabor]....There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere....Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes...Jerusalem itself [whose population Twain put at 14,000] is become a pauper village." [Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, (New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1911), pp. 371, 397, 438, 439.]

In short, the basic assumption reported by the modern media when dealing with any Arab-Israeli issues - that there was a viable nation of ethnic Arabs who lived in a place called Palestine for a long period of time prior to the Zionist movement - is another lie.

In the late 19th century, Theodore Hertzl began a movement to urge European Jews to return to Zion. Zion was the mountain in Jerusalem on which the ancient Temple had been built, and Hertzl used the term to refer to the entire territory of Judah/Israel. This movement to return to Zion was called Zionism. It began slowly in 1880 when the country was still under Turkish rule. However, the Turks were defeated by the British, who took control in 1918.

One problem that most modern writers on the Mid-East have to face logically but try to bury is, since there were so few Arabs in the country in 1880, how come there are so many today? Where did they come from?

The answer is that;, when the British took over, they had greater respect for people's freedom. They allowed more Jewish immigration into the country. Many of these Jews then hired foreign (Arab) labor (at higher than prevailing wages for the Mid-East). Arabs flocked into "Palestine" to get these high-paying jobs, and these were the people who began to object when the Jews created the state of Israel in 1948. Basically they were transient labor with no real ties to the land. One of the real injustices of the situation (never mentioned by the media) was the refusal of the surrounding Arab countries to take back their own citizens after 1948 when they indicated a desire to return home. These were the people who later wound up in camps supported by the U.N. (which means by your tax money). The media blamed their plight on the Israelis and used it to stir up hate.

Israelis vs. arabs pt. 2
 

According to John Locke's labor theory of value property can only be owned by adding one's labor to a piece of land. No state, as such, owns land (with a few exceptions such as land purchased via its citizens tax money). Certainly no state owns the entire territory in which its citizens live. Land ownership is an individual, not a collective, concept. The only power that a given state has is if the people of a territory voluntarily choose it as their government. This gives it the right to govern (not to own) that territory.

The Jews of "Palestine" of 1948, being very much influenced by the British tradition declared the State of Israel along the lines set out by John Locke. It was very similar to what the 13 colonies did in 1776. This is the moral basis of the claim to legitimacy of the state of Israel. In general, any human being has the right to travel to any point on the surface of the earth (his right of liberty), and if a group of people chose to travel to the same spot, they have the right to form a government.

The Arabs, on the other hand, had an archaic, ethnic concept of government. One belonged to a government by virtue of one's ethnic group, and this was not a matter of choice. This was why the young state of Israel was attacked, not by any entity which could be called Palestinian by any stretch of the imagination, but by 6 Arab countries which had no conflict with Israel other than the fact that it existed.

This is the biggest of all the lies which are continually told about the Arab-Israel conflict. Israel has been attacked by people who consider themselves to be one entity, the Arab nation. They feel themselves offended not because they were attacked, not because they have been economically disadvantaged, not because they have any kind of practical conflict., but because people who are different from them want to live next to them. For example, Barack Obama recently made a comment about the "occupied territories" in the Mid-East. implying (but not saying explicitly) that Israel had committed aggression and conquered Arab territory. The facts are that in the process of their aggression against Israel, Jordon and Egypt conquered the West Bank and Gaza Strip respectively, and they were then thrown back from these territories. And the Israeli "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza is simply a result of their victory in a defensive war.

Having been defeated in their war of nation-states the Arab countries have resorted to subterfuge. They are pandering to the western media by pretending to be engaged in a war of national liberation. As noted, the war between the Arab peoples and the state of Israel broke out in 1948. Some 16 years later, after several defeats, the Arabs got the idea that they were Palestinians and had always lived in the country called Palestine. (1964 was the year of the formation of the PLO.) The Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us:

"the idea that Palestinians form a distinct people is relatively recent. The Arabs living in Palestine had never had a separate state. Until the establishment of Israel, the term Palestinian was used by Jews and foreigners to describe the inhabitants of Palestine, but it was rarely used by the Arabs themselves; mostly they saw themselves as part of the larger Arab or Muslim community." [Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition, Vol. 25, p. 421.]

And, of course, this is what has been going on since 1948, a war between the Israelis and the Arab community. In this sense, it is like 99% of the wars that go on in the world. There are two groups of people. They live next to each other. They don't like each other. So the stronger attacks the weaker. The Arabs thought that they were stronger because they have an enormous advantage in population, but they were whipped badly. Now they are whining, pretending to be victims and trying to get the major powers of the world to come into the conflict, destroy the state of Israel and give them a victory they cannot earn on their own. This is why a central Arab precondition for "peace" is that Israel cease to exist. Who would agree to such a condition and how sincere is such a desire for peace?

But on a deeper level the reason for the conflict is the left-wing media of the world. These are composed of people with a philosophy of love and peace, as per Jesus of Nazareth. As I have explained in previous blogs, such people talk loudly of peace, but there is an enormous amount of hate in their hearts. Always being careful not to put themselves at risk of physical violence, they work tirelessly behind the scenes to stir up hate and violence.

The first experience I had with this alliance between a love/peace faction and a hate/violence faction was at Harvard in the 1950s. The professors kept agitating to stir up violence among American union workers. "We are your friends. We are peaceniks and cannot engage in violence ourselves, but your cause is just, and we are on your side." The union workers, mostly average (or below average) guys fell for it hook, line and sinker. The peacenik professors were able to enjoy the vicarious violence but did not have to get their hair mussed or their faces bruised by angry workers whose jobs they were stealing. One sees this alliance between what seem on the surface to be two very opposite types of people. The professors' technique was to look for a group of people dumb enough to believe pretty much anything they were told and then to weave their web of lies and finally declare, "We are on your side." They then sit back, out of the range of whizzing bullets and swinging fists, and get the violence they want. It is a lot of fun.

You will find such people in various odd places where they can champion the cause of the "Palestinians" (and incite them with hatred) without themselves actually being at risk of violence. If the Angel of Death could walk through the Mid-East and strike down such people, then, lo and behold, the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza would suddenly be able to live in peace with their neighbors in Israel. (Remember that the two groups first came into contact because the latter offered attractive jobs to the former.

Dwight Eisenhower was a fairly decent person, but after the 1956 war he forced the Israelis to give up their conquest of the Sinai Peninsula. This was later formalized as the land-for-peace idea. However, when Eisenhower defeated Germany in 1945, there was no talk of American withdrawal. Germany was severely punished for her aggression. She gave up her thoughts of becoming the master race and concentrated on economic development. On the other hand, the Arabs were repeatedly rewarded for their aggressions. This is why there is no war in Central Europe, but war continues in the Middle East.

A portion of the blame lies with the Israelis. "Peace" became a greeting (substituting for "hello" and "goodbye" in the Hebrew language of the mid 20th century although it is not such in biblical Hebrew). Whenever, there is any kind of crisis or conflict in the region, all of the newspapers start to scream "peace." And so the war has continued for over 50 years.

The way to bring real peace in the Mid-East is for the world media to recognize the truth that every nation has the right to fight in its own self defense In the words of Patrick Henry, "Gentlemen may cry 'peace, peace' but there is no peace." That has been the case in the Mid-East since 1948, and that is why the war started in that year continues to this day.

This is absurd. Yes Americans supported Zionism, but what claim do the Arabs have to this land? Especially after reading what Angry Postman posted. Granted, his posting seems to be politically slanted, but the claims in the article seem to have the facts on their side.

I can see them getting perturbed at this.

Yes we negotiated an oil deal with the leadership in Saudi Arabia. You can say 'cut a deal' like it was some shady back-room deal but there's nothing really unusual about how that was done. And they may have been a "tribe" of Saudi Arabia, but apparently a tribe with significant political power otherwise the deal would have fallen through. Either way, any tribe has the right to accumulate enough power to become the ruling government. How many times in the history of the world has a 'tribe' risen to power?

This is just like the african americans. They blame us and only us for slavery. Sure we had our part of the blame, but so did Britain, and certainly their own people back in Africa who gathered them up to sell to us. You'll NEVER see them being blamed though. So if the people of Saudi Arabia have a gripe, they should take it up with the royal family there first.

No, the British divided up Arabia into countries all on their own, without out our help.

Probably because the Arabs have been acting like a bunch of barbarians, so we rightly come down on the side of the more civil Jews. I mean, honestly, what's up with 6 Arab countries attacking Israel? I think it's funny as shit that they got their asses handed to them in 6 days :lol: As a consequence they lost territory. That's how wars work.

The Arabs used to be very intelligent people. But civilizations have their ups and downs. I think now they are in Dark Ages like the western civilization once was. There isn't much scientific advancement there now, or works of art or literature. And religion has lobotomized the population.

I am amazed that Israel hasn't erased Hezbolah after they break cease fire after cease fire. Why should the Israelis tolerate rockets falling on their cities and suicide bombers? I say give Hezbolah what it hungers for. Treat them like barbaric klingons who wish to die in battle and oblige them.

And if that doesn't solve it, maybe it's time to irradiate the entire region so that it becomes uninhabitable for the next 50,000 years until the whole dispute is forgotten. The world is tired of their temper tantrums.

But anyway... Happy New Year to you, Postman and Jen too!! :coupling:

Tracy
True enough, but we eagerly took over the Middle East imperialism from Briton. Its the oil you know. Now we are the ones to deal with the situation. We could save a lot of American lives if we cut back on oil consumption and let the Arabs kill each other off. The Arabs potentially hate each other more than us, if we would just leave them alone.

Driving 60mph instead of 80mph can save 20% on gas consumption. The price would go down and the Arabs can go to hell.

Bumper stickers
"Enrich the Arabs drive 80mph"
"Its Ok to drive 60mph"
"Relax 60 mph is OK"
"Fuck the Arabs stay home"

I knew the Iraqi war was doomed when I found out Halliburton was charging our own Military forces $5.00/gallon for gas. We could has driven to Iran and gotten it for 25 cents a gallon.

There is no Security. Only Opportunity. -McArthur

Hey randolph! I like the last bumper sticker! :)

I agree. It would be great if we could get out of there and let them implode. But if they're pissed at us for engaging in business with their leaders they need to take it up with their leadership first.

I doubt it would save that much on gas consumption. I was driving 90-100mph for long stretches in New Mexico and increased my gas mileage by about 25% over my usual stop/start driving habit in town. If you want to increase gas mileage get rid of all those unnecessary stop signs & stop lights.

Ok, now we really have some areas of disagreement! 60 mph? That's crazy. I can't drive 55, and 60 isn't much better.

Good bye and good riddance to Chris Dodd (D-CT), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Gov Bill Ritter (D-CO). Don't let the door hit your butts on the way out.

Drag racing from stop lights is hard on gas mileage, I know from experience!

Oh! So you want to eliminate stop signs and lights and drive 90mph through town. The problem with that would be all the funeral processions clogging the streets!:lol:

Hey, I like your Mustang, I had one of the first ones back in 1964. The engine was crap but it got a lot of attention.:yes:

By the way, I just bought an electric bike. I love it. It goes up hills great and cruises at 20mph without pedaling!
Ill pull over if I see you coming.;)

Why is Al Asiri, the so called Underwear bomber who tried to bring down a plane on xmas being given a civilian trial? He is not a US citizen. And the indictment mentions nothing about terrorism or even Al Qaeda even though it's known Al Asiri was with Al Qaeda. Why?

The administration's response to this attempted bombing has been abysmal. First they allow a person who is actually on a terror watch list onto a plane, then we get lucky and subdue him, and Napalitano says the system works. What did National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter do when he heard of the news? Resumed his ski trip.

We are now told Americans will feel "a certain shock" when a report is released today detailing the intelligence failures that could have prevented the alleged Christmas Day airline bomber from ever boarding the plane. This should be interesting. So BO has 2 strikes before he's been in office even a year. The Ft Hood terrorist attack, and the attempted xmas jet bombing. Al Qaeda is certainly sensing weakness and are circling, testing their prey, and probing for weaknesses.

Then there was the CIA attack in Afghanistan on December 30th. Well BO has them investigating climate change now. Yes I'm serious. Instead of letting them do what they've done so well during most of Bush's terms, they're now investigating climate change.

The question the BO administration wants to know: If you ignore terrorists, will they go away?

The question I want to know: Why isn't Al Asiri being tried as an enemy combatant rather than as an American citizen, which he clearly is not?

Blame?
 

Hey, come on Tracy, blaming Obama for these security screw ups is ridiculous. We have had these problems in the last few administrations. It is the bureaucracy that is the problem. I have been to Washington and seen the incompetence and self centered administrators wallowing in politics. We spend billions on the CIA and they get conned by a Jordanian the same way Bush/CIA got conned by an Iraqi. What we need is a lean and mean security division that has its act together. Since Obama is releasing the report to the public, it sounds like he means business to get these jerks shaped up.:censored:

I agree with Randolph, this is a Washington problem not an Obama problem. Agencies don't talk to each which creates problems with intelligence. It sounds like we had a lot of good info on the dude and he still got onto a plane with a failed attempt at murder.

I'm kinda worried about the Yemen situation. This place is hot, but do we open up yet another front? I'd suggest not, but anyhing is possible.

Randolph was also pretty spot on with the reasons why they hate us. I believe Al Qaeda put out a document or something stating reasons why they attacked. I wish I could remember the book or website I read it from as its stuff everybody should read.


I disagree with the comment Tracy made about how Al Qaeda should realize they made a mistake with 9/11. If anyhing they are pleased with the results. They got a weakened United States which had to be a goal.

Yes, Bin Laden's stated goal is to weaken the US from the inside by draining its resources. He has an unlimited supply of suicide bombers that are far cheaper than drones, soldiers and vast amounts of military equipment.

Because the crime occured by an individual on American Soil.

What I want to know is if every criminal is given a lawyer, wht isn't every ill person given a doctor?

So Obama is not to blame for current security screwups, but Bush is to blame for previous security screwups? Do I have this right, randolph? After all that is what you just posted in the quote.

Nice car, I hate to say it but lools like we agree on something else
:yes:Jerseygirl Jen

OK, I guess I was not clear. Bush/Cheney "wanted" to believe Iraqi informers in order to justify invading Iraq. Also, Cheney was intimately involved with the Iraqi shenanigans. Also, Bush/Cheney avoided getting serious about Bin Laden because having him alive justified their continued "anti terrorist program" in Afghanistan. Certainly, as head of state, Obama is ultimately responsible for what goes on in his administration. I just think the two situations are very different. I think Obama is serious about getting Bin Laden and resolving the Afghanistan mess he inherited from Bush/Cheney. I don't think any president since FDR has the challenges Obama has. How to clean up the Middle East mess, the financial mess, the Palestine mess, the Iran problem, the N. Korea problem, the unemployment problem. All of these issues were escaberated by the Bush/Cheney administration.
As a new president I wish him well, for all of us sake. He needs all the help he can get. He doesn't need any more screwups in his administrations anti-terrorist efforts, that's for sure. :frown:

Questions
 

I just read an article by Tom Burghart on www.globalresearch.ca
Titled; "Who Would Benefit Politically from a Terrorist Incident on American Soil? The Strange Case of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab"
I am not into conspiracy theories but his article is interesting. Politically, the Republicans benefited enormously from 9/11. He presents the question who would now benefit politically from a successful terrorist attack on the US? Humm, it certainty isn't President Obama and the Democrats.

"Who benefits politically" seems to imply some kind of sneaky underhanded thing. Why does it benefit republicans? For no other reason other than because they handled the problem. They didn't ignore the problem and they went on the offensive. The Bush administration also kept terrorism out of America from 9/11/01 on to the end of his terms. That's no small feat, as BO is finding out. He's already got the Fort Hood attack and the nearly successful xmas jet bombing under his belt.

BTW, why is Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, aka Underwear Bomber, not being tried as an enemy combatant? He's not a US citizen. In his indictment there's no mention of terrorism or Al Qaeda even though we know that he is a part of Al Qaeda and he was caught with a bomb in is pants on a jet.

BO today claimed full responsibility for the security failings. Great. Let the heads start rolling. National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter was on a ski trip when the xmas bomber incident occurred. What did he do when he heard the news? Continued with his ski trip. Department of Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano says the system works. She's turning that department into a joke. But BO says he's not firing anyone.

Plus all the other stuff like inflating the deficit by over $2 trillion, pushing for national health care that no one but the far left wants.

I'm seeing fewer and fewer people on here defending him. Let's just call it like it is. Can we all agree that BO is a failure?

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/01...y6068237.shtml

So let me get this straight. National Health care is a liberal plan. So why is a representative government such as ours going full speed ahead for this plan when only 21% of the country is liberal?

They know they're doing something terribly wrong because they're putting this bill together behind closed doors. Here is Obama lying to us 8 times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMf6kW_1Nw

http://politiclolz.com/files/2009/09...09-You-Lie.jpg

In the last election, a majority of the voters voted for universal health care, we are a "democracy" right? The democratic majority was charged with coming up with a plan the people want. Instead, they came up with a plan the drug and insurance companies want. So the voters are frustrated and pissed off with good reason. It looks like we actually have a plutocracy rather than a democracy, greed rules!:censored:

* The Wall Street Journal www.wsj.com

* OPINION: DECLARATIONS
* JANUARY 7, 2010, 6:33 P.M. ET

The Risk of Catastrophic Victory
Obama is in the midst of one. Can the GOP avert one of their own?

*
By PEGGY NOONAN


This is an excellent article, well worth reading the rest of it.

OK, here's an answer to Peggy Noonan.
January 8, 2010, 12:11 pm
One health care reform, indivisible

Jonathan Chait reads Peggy Noonan, so I don?t have to:(Paul Krugman)

It's complicated, isn't it?

Wrong. We are a republic, not a democracy. Totally big difference there.

Main Entry: de?moc?ra?cy
Pronunciation: \di-ˈm?-krə-sē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural de?moc?ra?cies
Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek dēmokratia, from dēmos + -kratia -cracy
Date: 1576
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2 : a political unit that has a democratic government
3 capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the United States <from emancipation Republicanism to New Deal Democracy — C. M. Roberts>
4 : the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5 : the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges

Democracy=majority rule

Main Entry: re?pub?lic
Pronunciation: \ri-ˈpə-blik\
Function: noun
Etymology: French r?publique, from Middle French republique, from Latin respublica, from res thing, wealth + publica, feminine of publicus public — more at real, public
Date: 1604
1 a (1) : a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government b (1) : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government c : a usually specified republican government of a political unit <the French Fourth Republic>
2 : a body of persons freely engaged in a specified activity <the republic of letters>
3 : a constituent political and territorial unit of the former nations of Czechoslovakia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Yugoslavia


Read the part in italics. "Governing according to law". Democracy is a system based on the wants of the collective. If enough people get pissed off or want something for some reason, it becomes law no matter how irrational it may be. This is why there is no mention of the word "democracy" anywhere in the US Constitution.

The word "republic" is mentioned because it denotes a system governed by a predetermined set of laws, in our case, The US Constitution. The Constitution is a construct and all the laws and powers of the government that is beholden to it must fit within the construct.

A government mandate of "universal healthcare" is inherently unconstitutional because it does not fall within what the powers of the government are entitled to do according to the United States Constitution.

Some will try to use this quote from the Preamble to justify "UH": and they will be wrong. Why you ask? Let's ask what some of the guys who WROTE the Constitution had to say about the "General Welfare" clause:

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare.... [G]iving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one...."
-- James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, elaborated upon this limitation in a letter to James Robertson:
"With respect to the two words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. If the words obtained so readily a place in the "Articles of Confederation," and received so little notice in their admission into the present Constitution, and retained for so long a time a silent place in both, the fairest explanation is, that the words, in the alternative of meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken for granted."

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1817

Healthcare is an individual need and thus must be looked after by the individual himself, not by a government entity.

I remember during Iraq War II I would hear Tony Blair say something, and it would sound beautiful, then I would hear Bush II say the EXACT SAME THING and it would sound like horseshit!!! A reasonable person might say I was guilty of being unfairly prejudiced against Bush, until a reasonable person figured out Bush was full of shit!!! While he read his prepared speeches, written by highly paid academic speechwriters, truckloads of cash ran nightly from the pockets of hard working Americans straight to the vaults of the Military Industrial Complex. So while Bush and Cheney were definately HORRID leaders, they sure were smooth businessmen!!!
Bush and Obama are servants to the exact same Constitution. Word for Word. You can stand poised to pounce on everything Obama says if you want to, but in seven years, the fruits of his actions will be evident. The truckloads of cash will be running all night, but in the opposite direction. Back to the people who work for a living. Hey, Obama, show 'em what you can do! You Watch!!!

As Postman says, we're a republic, not a democracy. At least we're supposed to be. Our democratic representatives, which constitute a majority, are failing at representing us.

In the 2008 election the people did not vote for health care. There was a big mindless push for "change" where no one (especially the media) was asking what kind of change BO was talking about. The election was going McCain's way, until the financial problems showed up, and BO made it work for him.

The people voted for what they thought would fix the economy, and for what they thought would create more jobs. The administration insults the American people by passing enormous spending bills that will do neither, and only dumps obscene amounts of money into their pet projects. Then they concentrate all their efforts on health care, which no one was clamoring for.

Except you generally can't trust anything BO says. This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMf6kW_1Nw
is only the most obvious.

Niiiiice. But wait, he just printed over $2 trillion of money we don't have. Aren't we going to have to deal with that? Usually the feds have to raise interest rates to get that money back so they can destroy it. They haven't yet because they're trying to get the economy going, but make no mistake, they will have to. Those trucks of money will be going from people who work for a living to the US treasury and into the fire.

No, YOU can't trust anything BO says, I can.
As for the money that we don't have, relax, because the reality is it's going to take years to recoup what Bush blew, no matter who's in charge, (even Sarah Palin). The damage has been DONE. Obama's never going to tell you that because the childlike American voters don't want to hear it. EVERYBODY is going to have to pay for Bush. Party's over. My savings are earning 1.2% interest!!!!!!

My goodness! When I signed up for this tranny porn site, I had no idea I would be getting lessons in civics. Yes, there is no question the country has strayed away from the concepts of the founding fathers. But keep in mind the country in 1790 was very different from today. Boston had 18,000 population, Philadelphia 28,000 and New York 33,000. By today's standards they would be considered small towns. The rest of the country consisted mainly of self sufficient farmers. Very few people had "jobs" as we now know it. The concerns of the designers of the Constitution were very real, they wanted a small central government. My how times have changed, we are no longer an agrarian country of self sufficient farmers, we are citified and most people have "jobs", that is, we are beholden to a corporate entities, which did not exist in their present form in 1790. By design, corporations are only beholden to their stockholders, they have no legal responsibilities to their workers or the public or the environment. Consequently, it has been necessary for the government to enact laws to protect the workers and the environment that were not anticipated by the founding fathers. For the most part, government protection of workers from exploitation by corporations has been moderately successful. Unfortunately corruption and greed continue to put the worker at a disadvantage in the struggle for a decent standard of living.

Precampaign:
Now, it turns out, the Obama White House has cut a backroom deal with Tauzin: Drugmakers would ante up $80 billion in savings in return for a promise that Medicare wouldn't be allowed to negotiate drug prices. Imagine that.

He pledged to close Guantanamo Bay within one year. Thankfully this probably won't be kept... due to reality.

This was broken right at the beginning with the nomination of William Lynn as deputy defense secretary. 6 months earlier Lynn was a defense lobbyist for Raytheon Co., where he advocated for a range of military programs.

Huge lie. His first order of business was to increase the national debt another $2.7 trillion, and he's striving to go further. Plus the new programs he's spending money on are continuing programs that will continue to raise the debt each and every year.

I can't tell you how many times his call for openness has been squelched by himself.

And more... but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Bush with mixed congress: $11B deficit
Bush with republican congress: $339B deficit (republican bums thrown out)
Bush with democrat congress: $704B deficit (democratic bums granted a super majority)

Obama with democrat congress in one month: $2.7 Trillion deficit

Tell me what, specifically, Bush did that you're going to have to pay back? And keep BO's one month $2.7 trillion spending spree in mind as you do so, which was 2.5 times what Bush & congress overspent during his 8 years.

Hey, if people can argue and steal, amongst themselves, that's just about par for the last three thousand years. The U. S. owes it's world dominance primarily to the invention of the Atom Bomb, followed by a world class standard of living, and we're losing ground in both those areas.

Tracy Darling, fly over to Germany for a couple weeks (if you can afford it) The Seniors there get two free weeks in Health Spas. The minimum wage is like twenty bucks an hour or something. The bread and the beer put the US to shame! The cabs are Mercedes. When you get back to the US you'll see things with new eyes.

During WWII, we spent ONE THIRD of our gross national product on the development of the Atom Bomb. ONE THIRD! While at War! We should do the same thing again in the development of a car that runs on steam or corn or atoms. The only invention Wall St has come up with is a way to make a one dollar loaf of bread cost two dollars.

China is becoming more American than we are now. And with an extra billion people, that ain't good. No matter how you spin it.


What are we going to have to pay back from the Bush years? How about that trillion we still owe China so we wouldn't have to raise taxes! How about all the infrastructure that was completely ignored while Bush drove this economy into the tank! Who is going to save us, Rush Limbaugh? Haw haw haw. Fox news couldn't save itself without Homer Simpson.

WOW You are wacked out !!!! 7 YEARS? No way in the world will he be pres for 7 years. He'll be lucky to finish 1. There's truck loads of cash traveling every night right from the treasury printing presses to every Democrat whore willing to take it.

<link>
That's $7 - $11.50USD, but currently there is no required minimum wage there. Thanks for playing. Try again.

More like 1/10. It cost $2 billion, or $22 billion in today's dollars. Not all that much to bring an early end to WWII and save the lives of about 1 million Americans that would have died in an invasion of Japan than never had to happen. I see I'm going to have to double check all your facts for you.

How much did Germany's genocide of the Jews cost? Hmmm, maybe not that much since the Germans are efficient engineers and reused some body parts of the Jews for manufacturing of other goods. Sorry, but you did bring up Germany and WWII lol.

Awww, you didn't keep BO's one month $2.7 trillion spending spree in mind as you talked about Bush's overspending. Remember that's 2.5 times what Bush & congress overspent during his 8 years. See, now we're all still wondering how the money will be flowing back to hard working Americans since BO is doing so much WORSE than Bush.

Man, you delete my post for crude language on a tranny-porn site?

Clarification for all Forum members
 

This post is my personal opinion as a general Forum member, and does not necessarily reflect the views of any other Moderator.

It is unfortunate that jimnaseum chose to post this rather than respond to the PM he received. The moderators are considering whether there should be a new rule for the Forum regarding the use of certain terms that go beyond what here is called "crude language." Of course, people on the Forum use -- and are free to use -- all sorts of terms of a sexual nature that may be considered "crude" in so-called "polite society." But there is another class of language, which includes specific words that are widely considered racist or anti-gay.

Forum Rule #3 states, in part: "We strive to make this a friendly place." It cannot be a friendly place if the use of particular terms is allowed, in my opinion.

This is not about being politically correct. Were PC the motivation, imagine the issues we'd be dealing with simply over the use of terms to describe various states of transgenderism!

Loosing our feedom of speech
 

Today's uproar in Washington is about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's comments about Obama that came out in a book called Game Change coming out this week.

Reid is now undergoing all kinds of damage control today and the talk shows are all buzzing about it. He says "I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words. I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African-Americans for my improper comments." Michael Steel is of course calling for Reid's resignation. He does correctly bring up the hypocrisy, but I think comes up with the wrong conclusion.

Why? I don't get the problem, and I'm not just trying to be funny. Isn't he just stating a fact? The American public obviously was ready to embrace a black candidate, and I think he's correct in saying that Americans were more ready to accept a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect. And I don't think it's a secret that Obama brought out some of his ebonics when speaking to a black audience.

We're all adults here. Voters are technically adults. The people in the government are adults. Can't someone say what's on their mind, especially if it's fact without all the feigned outrage? American's attitude of freedom of speech was summed up with the quote "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." I'm sad to say this kind of freedom of speech is long dead, thanks to political correct bullshit.

Right on! This media "oh my" show is totaly ridiculous. :frown:

Yes, I viewed the video and yes the concerns are real. However, it is full of distorted rhetoric lies and nonsense. The Democrats are heading for a catastrophe next election. A return of Republicans? They are no more competent than the Democrats. California has failed and the Federal government is very close. So, what do we have to look forward to? Failed governments often lead to Fascism, is it just around the corner? Immersed in perpetual war the country would eventually go the way of all fascist countries. Our beautiful prosperous country is on the verge. :broken:

Failed governments can lead to anything, depending on why it failed and what's left over. Republicans have not given this country perpetual war. If you're whining that we were engaged in war after the 9/11 attacks I would tell you to get real. That is the obvious result after an attack like 9/11. If Bill Clinton was in office, we'd have the same war. I'd hate to see how BO would have handled it though. Hopefully we don't have to find out. Republicans are more likely to stand their ground rather than going around groveling, kissing hands and apologizing for anything and everything. This is a good thing. If a country shows weakness, other countries will be happy to trample over you. Now I am not advocating going to extremes and becoming a militaristic fascist state. There are ways to stand your ground via the moral highground, economically, diplomatically, and yes, a big stick (wasn't that a democrat who said that?).

I hope the republicans return to power after BO's BS. Competent or not they will be much better. I'm hoping for competence though because it can be a lot better, and this country can be put on the right track. What we need are real conservatives, not RINOS. We need replublicans who aren't afraid to stand their ground when their opposition is a black person. We need republicans who will deal with the illegal immigration problem - and not by making them US citizens. And among these awesome republicans, we need a leader who can connect with the American people. The problem is, I don't see those qualities in the republicans we have now. Maybe the teabaggers will find some, I don't know. But even a RINO is better than the dems we have now - a fact that would have saved this country if voters realized that last election.

BTW, the so called liberals in power now, are not really liberals. Liberal is closer to libertarian. The "liberals" we have now are the progressives (from the early 1900s) that have hijacked the party.

Hey Tracy, the Teabaggers are having a conference!

From Washington Monthly;

Sounds like a bunch of real winners.
So would you like these characters running the country?:eek:

America will disappear without a sound. Far too long the mentality of "Let someone else do it" and the notion of avoiding conflict have created a weak society that has become dependent on others rather than self sufficient. Our laziness and ungrateful attitudes as a whole is why Americans have thrown away their legacy and liberties so that they can take the easy way out in damn near every aspect of their lives.

5 Myths About The Great Depression.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122576077569495545.html

Sarah Palin, and Rick Scarborough... Hell no. Don't really know about the others. But sounds like the republicans that are driving the teabaggers to want to create their own party.

btw, the teabaggers take offense to the term teabaggers. I think they should embrace it. Like the yankees did. That was a derogatory term from the brits, but the yankees embraced it and it became a source of pride.

In order to have some balance in this country, we need a "good" Republican party. The likes of Ike, Earl warren and even Nixon(sort of) were good traditional Republicans. There adjenda was not to destroy the "new deal" but to make it better. Warren's "pay as you go" policy when he was governor of California was the best of times for the state. Ike's warning about the military/industrial complex are even more true today. Nixon's support of the EPA was a breakthrough policy.
Nowadays its who can be Californicated next. :coupling:
Its our country, we need to take it back.;)

Oh lovely. Our wonderful president has exempted union workers from paying tax for national health care. The rest of us will take up their share. You gotta hand it to him. He always remembers those who put him in office.

The fate of politicians is to pander to their base. Nothing new there. :frown:

enough is enough!

.

so much for Fox news
 

From LA Times.

.

Pathetic :(

Beyond stupid!

by Mark Silva, Washington tribune

Robertson is insane and Limbaugh is the biggest asshole in the world.:censored:

From Associated News

A Look at Some of the More "ugly" Quotes from the "voice" of the Republican Party
I wonder what he would have to say about transsexuals?

Try to remember this when thinking about the bashing of conservatives--they are the ones that are the owners of all these small companies that employ all the liberals that haven't found a job with the goverment or are on the dole. Those darm conservatives are also the ones that donate a shit load of money to all kinds of charities-not the democrat liberals-just check the record of your local democrat politicians-cheap bastards. Yeah Limbaugh can say some crazy things but most of it is really the truth. Alot of what he says is just sarcasim trying to make a point. And he does that well--by far the number 1 radio show. Now I have to sign off cause I have only worked 14 hours so far today in my own business--need to work more to provide for all the libs living off me. BYE

You've seen Michelle Malkin right? What's the mystery?

Roberts is insane, no doubt. It's unbelievable that a civilized person in 2010 in the US would seriously say what he says.

But what Rush was saying is that if you want to help out Haiti, donate to them directly. And that BO has really made the choice to help them out for you by using your tax dollars to help them. So in effect we already are donating money to help them out.

I do support BO's aid to Haiti though. People donating on their own would not get naval ships to Haiti within days to help out.

Most of these quotes are urban legend. Snopes says for most of them there is no source. Rather than trying to dig up some obscure quote that Rush may or may not have said, or 2nd hand left-wing journalists versions of what Rush said, just listen to him. He's on every day, and usually says exactly what he says ;)

Score one for CCC. Well said. :respect:

When are those rich guys going to start pulling their weight and paying taxes?

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

Obama-the Savior-heading To Boston
 

And that is why Obama is coming to Boston tomorrow afternoon to help Coakley. They need to draw out the bottom dwellers. All the urban welfare people who have that protected pie. Now people don't pic on me for being racist-far far from it- BUT they also need to get the black vote, the mulato vote, the spanish vote, the asian vote, etc You see the race is made up of two white people and Oakley being lilly white, blond and with no lips is a stark contrast from the vast majority of Boston's city dwellers. Here's hoping there are enough independant voters that can see thru all this BS. We are talking about the 41st seat-the regime breaker-the Obama nightmare--they are pulling out all the stops.

Vicky Kennedy came out to beg for you to vote for "Teddy's seat"--"don't let all of his life's work go for nothing". Brown says it is "the peoples seat" it belongs to no individual. Enough thinkers started saying-hey that isn't Teddy's -it does belong to me-the people. NOW Vicky is saying "vote for Oakley for the peoples seat". They can't even pump independantly.

Brown beat the tar out of her in the debate so immediately after the show-before midnight-the Dems started all thier prepared dirty commercials. Brown is staying clean :).

Absentee voting is up 4-6 times what it was in the primaries. People covering themselves in case we get one of our bad new England N'oreasters.

Remember that little itty piece of pie-the one that the bottom 50% of tax payers that only pay 3%---yeah well the 3%'ers have 50% or more of the votes. That is what Obama is going after- the less educated- the dependers of the dole.

Here's hoping he fails at this like he failed with the Olympics.

To Obama's Failures! :turnon:

Approval?
 

From Washington Monthly

Most people haven't forgotten that the mess we are in was caused by the lax regulation during the Bush administration.

While the Bush Administration did obviously nothing to help out the economic situation, alot of this stuff was set into motion way before he got into office. Also, Zero's spending of 2 trillion dollars while there is a massive deficit is counterproductive.

Most people would agree that we had to save the big banks. If we didn't, full economic collapse would have made the great depression look like a minor recession. Of course, many "conservatives" seem to think economic collapse with millions of people starving and dying might be a good thing, that the rich would survive without all those workers. Well, that kind of BS didn't quite work out that way in the French revolution and it wouldn't be that way here, heads would roll.
Actually, the real rich are far smarter than the so called "conservatives". They knew they were at risk and so did Obama and Congress, that's why the government bailed them out.

Randolph-Randolph -Randolph------I really feel for you if you thing that your data is accurate. Dems and Republicans are both politicians wich means they are liars, crocks and thieves BUT seeing that is what we have to run the goverment we are stuck with picking hopefully the lesser of two evils. In the present case the biggest crooks by far are the Dems headed by the all mighty hologram known as Obama. There is a great revolution starting in the this country. Republicans have wonin bluse staes of Virginia and New Jersey. In upper state NY and independant came within a few percentage points of beating the combines dem-republican candidate. And now in Massachusetts- I know how to spell it whereas Coakley doesn't.

Yesterday in Hyannis--Teddy's home town-Scott Brown had thousands of people show up at a rally at Tommy Doyle's Pub and surrounding area. Today Miss Screwed Up Coakley arrived at the same location (no originality at all) at 10 A.M. and no one was there to greet her--no one. You see the rally was scheduled for 11:30--so she waited at the bar. The rally had less than 100 people--they lined up to shake her hand and give her thier condolences just like family and friends at a wake. Literally many, many shook her hand while they told her that they were voting for Scott Brown because of her lies and her negative campaigning.

Did anyone see the article in the B oston Globe today about her highness? They originally backed her--now they can see the hand writing on the wall. The Blue Sate of Massachusetts will be changing to the color Brown.

Bullshit. Quit spreading the lies.

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

Alot of the banks failures was due to government intervention and the formation of things like the Community Reinvestment Act which forced banks to give out loans to people with spotty credit history and could not pay back the money. That was instituted when Carter was in office and the cumulative effects of that legislation have just recently emerged.

Alot of these types of problems can be traced back to big government rather than big business.

If Brown get's in all these dirty deeds will pass.

Hey Parr--I think you have it ass backwards. If Brown gets in -- it stops the health care package in it's tracks because they lose the 60-40 vote needed to ream it up our asses.

credit?
 

From Businessweek.

Community Reinvestment Act had nothing to do with subprime crisis

Posted by: Aaron Pressman on September 29

Lack of supervision fostered by the Bush administration was a major factor in the meltdown.

Polls show Brown ahead of Coakley 51% to 46%. I'm getting a :turnon:

Careful sweety, you might cum too soon. :turnoff::lol:

Haha! Good luck believing that!

http://mises.org/story/2963

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=94031

Looks like they have a biased adjenda. The meltdown demonstrates conclusively that government intervention is necessary to regulate capitalism.

Who's Behind WorldNetDaily?
WND's board of directors has been mostly comprised of California conservatives -- plus a man on the lam for tax evasion.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 3/1/2007
Updated 3/2/2007, 7/12/2008

So does this outfit have more credibility than Businessweek?

Actually, the Washington Monthly article is a typical puff piece that plays the numbers to reach an end conclusion that they WANTED to reach versus discussing an actual truth.

For example, the article initially states this (bold accent is mine): 55% approve of the president's handling of the terrorist threat, and 62% approve of his handling of the failed Christmas-day terror plot. Looks like the Cheneys' efforts to undermine the administration fell flat.

Yet then it turns around and states this: The bad news is the public remains in a deeply sour mood, and has grown increasingly impatient. Obama's numbers have dropped below the 50% threshold on the economy and health care, and the number of Americans who believe the country is on the right track is lower than it's been since February. Ouch.

Well, that's a perfect example of an illogical connection. The truth is that people like the Cheneys -- as well as many other commentators -- continually harping on Obama obviously HAS had an undermining effect and DIDN'T fall flat, hence his falling approval numbers.

And that's the problem here. The article is cherry picking its words and numbers VERY tightly, because if you actually read between the lines what the numbers DO reveal is that (1) people are willing to say they like Obama personally, in other words they basically think he'd be an "okay guy" if he was your neighbor...

...But that said, (2) they ALSO show that more and more people feel he's a shitty President and they'll be glad when he's out of office and IS only a neighbor who is out mowing his law, and NOT someone in office that has any kind of say over your life.

In fact, as of today, Obama's approval rating stands at 50%. Which means that literally HALF of the country thinks he's doing okay and HALF of the country wishes we had a election today or a do-over for November to boot his ass out.

Actually, here's another thing that makes me laugh about the news article you cited. It also states: But in keeping with the year-long trend, Republicans are simply not the beneficiary of public discontent. Only 24% of the public has confidence in congressional Republicans "to make the right decisions for the country's future." The number for congressional Democrats is at least a little better at 32%, while the president's number is nearly double that of the GOP at 47%.

See, there's a major problem with that. First of all, depending on which poll you look at, the Republican confidence number is actually higher -- in fact in most polls its only a mere point or so different than the Democrats. So the Washington Monthly... again to try and reach a predetermined conclusion about the Republicans... apparently decided to go with a low number.

That said, the far far far MORE TELLING thing that they DON'T bring up is that the Tea Party movement actually has a HIGHER approval rating than BOTH parties. So that's certainly not good news for the Dems or Obama. So, it was rather convenient of the Washington Monthly to leave THAT statistic out, basically because it wanted to run a few numbers to say "See! See! Obama has numbers twice as high as the Republicans!"

Which is only the more laughable when you consider that Sarah Palin now has an approval rating TIED with Obama, but I notice they conveniently left that number out TOO.

And finally, I find it hysterical that the article reached the conclusion that: when it comes to assigning blame for the nation's economic woes, about twice as many fault the George W. Bush administration as do Obama's...

...When in fact a poll taken at the start of the New Year ACTUALLY found that an EQUAL number of Americans right now (roughly 47%) would rather have BUSH back in office again, to guide the economy back, as opposed to trusting Obama with handling it anymore.

The meltdown was a result of government intervention, not capitalism. Using beauracracy to fix the mistakes brought on by the exact same bureaucracy is a losing strategy.


http://article.nationalreview.com/pr...zYwNzkzYjc1NDI

http://townhall.com/columnists/Thoma...down_economics

If you're a lender you risk losing FDIC and other government services if you don't lend in a way "serves the convenience and needs" of the broke-ass, low income people in "the community that you're chartered to do business."

Clinton's big change was that he opened the gates for Fannie and Freddie to buy mortgage backed securities. Originate the loan and sell it to a private investor or if the MBS is too shitty, Fannie or Freddie would have bought it. Read up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governm..._in_the_crisis

Can you really blame the banks for doing something that was profitable and given a gold stamp of approval by Uncle Sam? It became like a game of musical chairs, you knew it was going to all come crashing down at some point, but you always hoped it would be someone else who took the fall.

SEC. 802. (a) The Congress finds that--
(1) regulated financial institutions are required by law to demonstrate that their deposit facilities serve the convenience and needs of the communities in which they are chartered to do business;
(2) the convenience and needs of communities include the need for credit services as well as deposit services; and
(3) regulated financial institutions have continuing and affirmative obligation to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered.
(b) It is the purpose of this title to require each appropriate Federal financial supervisory agency to use its authority when examining financial institutions, to encourage such institutions to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered consistent with the safe and sound operation of such institutions.

Are the banks blameless?...Hell no, but the government holds more blame than any bank. Where did all of this start? Fannie and Freddie, the two most fucked "banks" there have ever been.

Oh yeah. Pageflip! :eek:

The Wall Street Journal would beg to differ with them...

Many monumental errors and misjudgments contributed to the acute financial turmoil in which we now find ourselves. Nevertheless, the vast accumulation of toxic mortgage debt that poisoned the global financial system was driven by the aggressive buying of subprime and Alt-A mortgages, and mortgage-backed securities, by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The poor choices of these two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) -- and their sponsors in Washington -- are largely to blame for our current mess.

How did we get here?
Let's review:

In order to curry congressional support after their accounting scandals in 2003 and 004, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac committed to increased financing of "affordable housing." They became the largest buyers of subprime and Alt-A mortgages between 2004 and 2007, with total exposure eventually exceeding $1 trillion.

In doing so, they stimulated the growth of the subpar mortgage market and substantially magnified the costs of its collapse.

It is important to understand that, as GSEs, Fannie and Freddie were viewed in the capital markets as government-backed buyers (a belief that has now been reduced to fact). Thus they were able to borrow as much as they wanted for the purpose of buying mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Their buying patterns and interests were followed closely in the markets. If Fannie and Freddie wanted subprime or Alt-A loans, the mortgage markets would produce them.

By late 2004, Fannie and Freddie very much wanted subprime and Alt-A loans. However, their accounting had just been revealed as fraudulent, and they were under pressure from Congress to demonstrate that they deserved their considerable privileges. Among other problems, economists at the Federal Reserve and Congressional Budget Office had begun to study them in detail, and found that -- despite their subsidized borrowing rates -- they did not significantly reduce mortgage interest rates.

In the wake of Freddie's 2003 accounting scandal, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan became a powerful opponent, and began to call for stricter regulation of the GSEs and limitations on the growth of their highly profitable, but risky, retained portfolios.

If they were not making mortgages cheaper and were creating risks for the taxpayers and the economy, what value were they providing?

The answer was their affordable-housing mission...

And a lack of supervision by the Obama administration -- or rather a willingness to look the other way, so these same bullshit low income ACORN type housing loans can continue -- is already poised to fuck the markets up even more, if not cause a complete repeat of history and set us up for yet another financial meldown, as once again Obama plays partisan politics and uses his power to inflate government and its role in home buying.

From the Wall Street Journal as well...

The government's move to ease the limits on the securities holdings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has ignited a debate among analysts about what the companies will do with their longer leash.

When the Treasury Department took over Fannie and Freddie last year, one of the requirements set for the companies required them to begin shrinking their portfolios of mortgages and related investments, which total a combined $1.5 trillion.

The idea was to rein in the companies' size and growth.

But last Thursday, the Obama Treasury Department quietly eased that restriction, meaning the companies now won't be forced to sell mortgages next year and instead can buy mortgages on the market, thus doing exactly the opposite of what they had been required to do. The Treasury also suspended for the next three years the $400 billion cap on the bailout subsidy that the government will offer. That could give them more flexibility to modify mortgages without worrying about taking losses.

Mahesh Swaminathan, senior mortgage analyst at Credit Suisse, said the firms could use their increased capacity to purchase delinquent loans from pools of mortgage-backed securities that they guarantee. Fannie and Freddie already purchase defaulted loans as they modify them under the administration's loan-modification program, but the additional breathing room means it is now a "slam-dunk for them to speed up" purchases of delinquent loans, Mr. Swaminathan said. New accounting rules that take effect next year also could make it more cost-effective for the companies to buy out bad loans and keep them in their investment portfolios.

"It's created a government-purchasing facility other than the Fed," said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, a research firm in Washington.

Meanwhile, a Freddie spokesman said the company will continue to use its investment portfolio as "an important tool" to "keep order in the housing and housing-finance markets." A Fannie spokesman declined to comment.

A Treasury official said the more generous portfolio limits were offered to avoid forcing the companies to actively sell their holdings, and they didn't intend for Fannie and Freddie to be active buyers of mortgages.

Ms. Petrou said that the recent moves "make sense in a short-term way because you avoid market volatility, but the prospect of limitless aid will make it harder to extricate Fannie and Freddie from the government."

"In a long-term way, it promotes nationalization of U.S. mortgage finance. We have increasingly gigantic, increasingly federal agencies eating up every mortgage out there," she said.

Putting Republicans back in charge is like giving Leno back the Tonight Show. There's no accounting for taste.

Republicans and Democrats are just two different sides of the same shit mountain.


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