I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
BYOB - Bring your own bullets.
Daaammn. Give him hell!
Uff da. Strong language, and I am glad this guy is on our side.
More of this please, Senator.
So, I understand that Kerry wants to 'keep' the tax cuts for the middle class, but I also understand that there wasn't a tax cut for the middle class. Why doesn't anyone point out that if there wasn't really a cut, sure the middle class can keep what they think they go, but we sunset the cuts for anyone over 200k (or even 500k!), reduce the (frame with me now) 'unfair' payroll tax (under 80K?), and drastically reduce federal taxes for anyone under 200k (or even 500K!).
Turn the payroll tax into the "family rape tax" and scream about tax cuts for anyone under 200K. That's a lot of voters, most people know how much they make, anyone that can object to the 200K or 500K number will seem aloof to the VAST MAJORITY of Americans.
In this upside down world the democrats have taken on the traditionally conservative qualities of fiscal responsibility, small govt., et. al, add to that 'tax cutters'. Democrats should say "you liked the bush tax cuts, wait till we cut taxes in half for anyone making under 500K". The provision, of course, being the expiration of the bush cut.
I like it. Go Kerry Go!
That's it John. Kick 'em in the 'nads. Kick 'em again. Kick 'em harder.
And when they fall down to the ground writing in pain... kick 'em even harder.
Blech. My ears glaze over when these guys starting playing army. Just giving my opinion.
writhing...
Democrats: The party of fiscal responsibility, mainstream values and national security.
Keep repeating it.
Bullshit "Kerry didn't earn his medals" myth debunked.
That really takes some guts to criticize the President like that at a time when soldiers are getting killed. Kerry's got the credibility to make that kind of charge. Good for him!
Imagine Kerry and Clark blasting Bush on national security at the same time.
Good. Glad to see Kerry plunging into Bush's area of "strength".
Suppose Howard Dean had survived. (Stop laughing!) Suppose it was Howard Dean who took up the "weakened military" line of attack (assuming he wanted to). Would people be saying, "What do you know about it, Doc Aspen?" Or would they be saying, "If it's obvious to a creampuff like Dean, then it must be bad!"
I don't know why I entertain thoughts like this. Maybe it was his victory in Vermont. Dean could still surprise ya!
Imagine Kerry and Clark blasting Bush on national security at the same time.
"And now, in stereo..."
ummm...I hope Kerry has an answer for not funding the troops once he sent them to Iraq. Part of the money that Kerry chose not to give the troops once they were already in the warzone is now being used to save the lives and limbs of GI's - like the Warlock IED-jamming devices for humvees.
My partner's nephew is in the group of Gaurdsmen that came from Mo. We will be sending body armor to as many of his troop as we can afford to. A real tax cut for families making less than 100k would make our ability to protect him and his troop that much more likely...
They emailed instructions on how to make homemade door armor. They sound like demented home ec instructors. "Now here is a handy dandy pattern for knitting your own tank! And you can use the left-over scraps to fashion door and body armor AND a sweet little hat."
Kerry said this????
Damn.
Then again, Kerry could say this, 'cause he was over in the 'Nam.
Unlike every chickenhawk ever misbegotten.
Peter,
Ouch. Didn't see that one coming.
Let Commander Codpiece go without the body armor - he's nothing but a fake soldier anyway.
Let Commander Codpiece go without the body armor - he's nothing but a fake soldier anyway.
When you combine this with his UCLA speech on terrorism, Kerry's clearly planning on running to the right of Bush on terror. Sweet Lord Jesus, if the CREEPs like Lileks, Steyn and Instadumbshit can't claim Kerry "just doesn't get" the "lesson of 9/11" (ooooh, WE'RE AT WAR, thanks, Obi-Wan), what will they do for 8 months?
Socially permissive, fiscally rational, and a harder terror-fighter than GWB. Why should any non-theocrat vote for Bush, again?
"They emailed instructions on how to make homemade door armor. They sound like demented home ec instructors. "Now here is a handy dandy pattern for knitting your own tank! And you can use the left-over scraps to fashion door and body armor AND a sweet little hat."
Sounds like something Martha could do from the big house.
That's it John. Kick 'em in the 'nads. Kick 'em again. Kick 'em harder.
And when they fall down to the ground writing in pain... kick 'em even harder.
renato | Email | Homepage | 03.05.04 - 6:23 pm | #
writhing...
renato | Email | Homepage | 03.05.04 - 6:23 pm | #
Naw, stick with "writing". Makes me think of a confession. Or a plea bargain.
Why should any non-theocrat vote for Bush, again?
Clancy Wiggum
Tax cuts?
I think I need a cigarette.
*clears throat*
*makes inarticulate happy sound*
Guh.
A.
Hopefully, Kerry will get this forum for some time.
While I'm sure it might only get cursory mention on the evening news that night or in the Sunday papers, it allows a head-to-head.
Hell, even if the only ones who listen to it are in middle America, this is a good thing.
Good. Glad to see Kerry plunging into Bush's area of "strength".
--Glenn
Ok, but Kerry then needs to come up with a response for Peter:
(posted above)
Part of the money that Kerry chose not to give the troops once they were already in the warzone is now being used to save the lives and limbs of GI's
This is a good thing simply because Kerry is setting the terms of the debate.
Bush wanted to wrap himself in 9/11. That blew up. (He may continue to do so, but it won't be the Teflon he was counting on).
Kerry sets terms by exposing Bush's major weakness: lots of $$$ spent, all of it seems to go to Halliburton. Or rising oil prices.
Wasn't an oil man in the Oval Office supposed to be good for gasoline prices?
So long as Kerry pounds on stuff like this, it hurts Bush, helps the Democrats, and gives me one more reason to look forward to November.
And yes, I think this is a lesson taught by Dr. Dean. About time the opposition party starting acting like the opposition....
Yuck.
Off topic, so bear with me.
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Amen, renato, but only if you're planning on dying in the next few years!
Hell of a campaign slogan. "You're going to die soon. Keep your money. Bush/Cheney '04...
...I'm George W. Bush and I approved this ad!"
Go Big John. I hope he keeps hitting this administration as hard as he can on the treatment of our troops. This administration has treated the military like shit and people who keep flying those flags need to get their heads out of their asses and see that. All this administration does is talk about patriotism, while they act like anything but patriots.
Also, it is a good thing that Kerry brought up the door armor. That story has been flying under the big media radar for several weeks now. It gets local coverage because police have been donating their used body armor to the troops. But, the national media has been more interested in Martha Stewart and the Oscars and the end of "Friends".
wow. imagine what happens when this race starts heating up. Bush and Kerry are in a statistically tie in the latest poll now -- can't wait for November.
Yeah, but this is preaching to the choir. The people Kerry would prefer to convince on this, are going to ask a question like Peter's upthread.
yeah, and we know that $87 billion all went directly to the troops.
Daaammn. Give him hell!
He doesn't give them hell. He gives them the truth, and they think it's hell.
Peter:
ummm...I hope Kerry has an answer for not funding the troops once he sent them to Iraq. Part of the money that Kerry chose not to give the troops once they were already in the warzone is now being used to save the lives and limbs of GI's - like the Warlock IED-jamming devices for humvees.
Peter | Email | Homepage | 03.05.04 - 6:29 pm | #
Lessee, that's the $87 extra billion that isn't part of the budget, on top of the other money that isn't part of the budget, above and beyond the "$1-2 billion" the neos originally said this whole adventure would cost.
We're bleeding money. Kerry didn't approve that $87B because there was no indication where it was coming from, or going to. Authorizing it would've been irresponsible -- as irresponsible as Dubya merely earmarking it "for our troops" with no specifics.
To mangle a metaphor from Vincent Bugliosi, just one more thread in the rope that will tie BushCo to its crimes....
factory - exactly. As if the money that the administration asked Congress for was earmarked for the military's use for the troops only. As I understand it, that isn't necessarily so. And it's been made very obvious that the administration has paid Halliburton millions to provide for the military in Iraq and the money keeps disappearing or is used for things like overpaying to bring in oil and gas from Kuwait.
Meanwhile, Italian helicopter pilots mutinied about being sent to Iraq with MORE protection than out National Guard helicopters have.
But, the national media has been more interested in Martha Stewart and the Oscars and the end of "Friends".
Yup. The media excuse is "nobody's talking about door armor."
Kerry needs to keep taking those excuses away.
Gee, though the rethugs are a little vulnerable on this issue, it would be nice to have a candidate who's not afraid to raise the real question - why the hell are we over there in the first place?
Chimpy lied, thousands died.
And it's been made very obvious that the administration has paid Halliburton millions to provide for the military in Iraq and the money keeps disappearing or is used for things like overpaying to bring in oil and gas from Kuwait.
And then there were the stories about lousy condition in Baghdad. Cafeterias run by Halliburton that were filthy; serving spoiled food; improper food storage; school buildings that went unrepaired, w/o textbooks, etc.
All of which Halliburton is taking money to provide, you understand....
...that's where that $87 billion is going. And it's going to run out in, oh, December or so.
But then, you knew Bush knows how to burn through money. Just ask the stockholders of any company he's run....
One can't expect a chicken-livered deserter to understand warfare. Or maybe it's because he just doesn't give a shit. Either way, our troops deserve better.
Kerry should remind folks that Bush was allowed to skip his drug test and avoid service completely, while
young Iowa Servicemenwho just returned home FAILED their drug test, yet may be dishonorably discharged???
This is rich. In what world is this right? < a href="http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-213101-2394774.php">Definitely NOT a good thing. Bush Sucks!
Go Big John.
::sniff:: ::sniff::
I smell a meme approaching.
Considering a tidbit I heard not very long ago, something along the lines that for x number of previous presidential elections the taller candidate won (and just as oddly the tallest Dem got the nomination too), and combined with the GOP's Angry White Male's propensity to gravitate to the biggest [metaphorical] dick, (it's an Alpha thing) I say we need to put "Big John" into play as a standard reference to Kerry. It also has the added benefit of simultaneously slighting Bush in a not so subtle way.
No more John Kerry. Say hello to Big John now. Thanks Tena.
And don't forget that it was revealed that Halliburton was serving dirty, unsanitary food to American troops in Iraq.
Kerry blasts Bush on jobs.
In a speech to a boisterous rally on the New Orleans waterfront, Kerry ridiculed Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion earlier this week that if the Massachusetts senator had been president, America would not have had job growth.
"You're darn right, Mr Vice President," Kerry said. "We would have had real job growth."
At the mere mention of Cheney's name, hundreds of people broke into spontaneous and prolonged boos and hisses.
"Just promise me you'll Mkeep that primal instinct alive all the way through November," Kerry said to thunderous applause.
Problem is, between now and November, you know that the Pentagon is going to buy at least a little bit of kevlar with that $87 billion. Unless Kerry can come up with a good rebuttal that fits into a soundbite, Bush can smoke him on this issue in a debate.
We know the truth, but Kerry doesn't even need "to go there" for us.
A pseudonymous contributor to alt.books.george-orwell who wrote that he was the father of a soldier in Iraq suggested early in the war that well-wishers might want to send Arabic instruction materials. He wrote that later those in contact with the local population did begin to get some instruction. See .
Sorry, let me try again to give the link:
http://groups.google.com/groups?
...y03.gnilink.net
Kerry cares about soldiers? Since when? Since he backstabbed them in his Hanoi Long John period? Any Democrat that think they can win wwith Kerry on national defence has officially enters LALA-land.
Thumb - you are welcome, and I've heard that before too - that the tallest candidate has a statistcally better chance of winning.
I likes it - Big John.
Finally, a meme of my own *sniff* ...I'd like to thank the Academy, and my agent...
A plan for protecting our troops:
Bring them home now!
Kerry did vote to allow Bush to send them in the first place, did he not?
Id be much more comfortable with Kerry if he, and the democratic party as a whole, would constantly explain why we went into Iraq based upon a myriad of lies and thus we need to extricate ourselves posthaste.
Ricky Stalker sez:
Any Democrat that think they can win wwith Kerry on national defence has officially enters LALA-land.
Ricky Stalker's website sez:
My brother, my cousin and I were sleeping on the ground in my grandfather's room. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling thirsty. I went to the courtyard. My grandfather lived out in the desert. The water came from a well a few miles away. In the courtyard was a fig tree. Next to it were the containers with water.
I heard a woman's voice calling "Fandel, Fandel". I was shocked to say the least when I saw her, the Amazone Warrior. She had long black hair, dark blue eyes. She was wearing a white goatskin battle dress. She was leaning on a huge sword. She laughed. "All you Fandel's look alike": she said. I didn't understand why the Amazone called me Fandel since that was neither my first nor my last name. She told me to sit down. I did.
"Do you know who I am?". I had no idea. "I'm your Guardian", she said. "Do you know who God is?". "Yes". "Do you know Fandel?". No, I didn't know. She told me he was my forefather. He was the founder of what the Romans later called the Vandal tribe. I was his heir.
Who's in Lalaland, Ricky?
Problem is, between now and November, you know that the Pentagon is going to buy at least a little bit of kevlar with that $87 billion. Unless Kerry can come up with a good rebuttal that fits into a soundbite, Bush can smoke him on this issue in a debate.
After Bush gets through explaining how pictures of the smoking ruins/gravesite of REAL American Heroes is appropriate for purely partisan use in campaign ads, he can explain why it took so long to provide body armor and door armor from that $87 billion, when he made sure Halliburton got overpaid first.
I'd pay to watch that answer.
Big John. Yep, that'll work.
Ricky - are you talking about Kerry's backstabbing of soldiers in Vietnam by saving their lives a couple of times and getting medals for it? I suppose that just can't measure up to your idiotic cokehead, Bush, who went AWOL from a plum position his dad got him in the TANG to keep him out of the war.
I heard a Vietnam vet who called in to a local show on our NPR station here in the Dallas area the other day. He was absolutely livid about Bush's getting that nice cushy berth in the TANG. Keep whistling up a stump, Ricky, but lay in some liquor, 'cause you are in for a long cold time out of power after Kerry obliterates your stuffed monkey.
Problem is, between now and November, you know that the Pentagon is going to buy at least a little bit of kevlar with that $87 billion. Unless Kerry can come up with a good rebuttal that fits into a soundbite, Bush can smoke him on this issue in a debate.
Bush is also going to have to explain why his budget doesn't include any money for the Excellent Adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond September.
how much of 87B went to produce those
ridiculous new halliburton tv ads?
Shoulda said after Big John obliterates your stuffed monkey.
in football and chess, the best way to destroy an opposing defense is to run right at the opponent's self-styled strength. since no one does that, the opponent is prepared for anything but that. turn that strength into a weakness and the defense will collapse completely.
wandering by, i don't know, but a good portion (a few million) of it went to prepare miami for the crackdown on the ftaa protests. saving lives, indeed.
Ricky, if you're not too busy masterbating in your own feces and listening to your dog tell you to kill your landlady like the whacked out schizophrenic nutter you are, whatever you do, don't look at this cartoon.
Tena and Thumb are on to something
"Big John" it is.
(Despite the "Large Bathroom" connotation.)
turn that strength into a weakness and the defense will collapse completely.
Frankly, Bush is busy turning his strengths into weaknesses.
The campaign has started. What has Bush done right since January? December?
Now it's up to Kerry ('scuse me, "Big John") to finish the job. And you are right: go for the jugular. Hit what your opponent thinks is his greatest strength.
"The best defense is a good offense."
Memo to Kerry: be offensive! 
I sorry, but this Kerry speech just don't cut it with me. First, every little complaint he has can be rectified in short order, and the media will be flooded with troops getting even more than he is asking for here. Second, he has no plans to stop the war, just says he can get the supplies flowing better. Next he'll charge Bush with not putting the draft in place soon enough!
What is he saying- that Bush is not making the war big enough?
The fact that the war is BS in the first place is never mentioned.
He's going to win by "out-machoing"
Bush?
Now the soldiers are just pawns for Kerry's ambitions?
Is more body armor and humvee armor really going to make a difference? I am all in favor of body armor (got my own set for biking), but getting your legs, arms, and eyes blown off is still no fun.
I can't beleive we are going to fall for this.
He's headed right where Bush wants him. He's taking the easy way out, and if he can't articulate a better choice than "we will get them them more body armor" He is playing right into the Rethugs hands.
All Bush has to do is expand the war to a point where body armor or the lack of it, is really irrelavant.
For God's sake- if the welfare of our soldiers was such a crucial concern we wouldn't be there in the first place.
Of course, he's right, the troops do deserve the right equipment, but this is Lame!
Bush will come up with an explanation and put in a rush order for body armor, etc. Maybe even thank Kerry for reminding him.
He needs to tell me how he is going to end or at least minimise the war, not how he will be a better quartermaster.
"Just promise me you'll keep that primal instinct alive all the way through November," Kerry said to thunderous applause.
Goddamn, that felt good, Old Hat. Thanks. Big John is going to send all of those chickenhawks back to some undisclosed location for good come November. You can smell the blood in the water already.
Kerry, if you're listening, there's more: My brother-in-law is a pilot in the Navy. He's stationed in Spain. He told me that they've had all kinds of wounded from Iraq come to their base as a staging area. When the wounded showed up, they didn't have any basics: no toothpaste, no underwear, no shaving kits, no toilet paper. Most of them arrived with just the clothes they had on. From the sound of things, military personnel on the base like my brother-in-law were instructed to raise money for these items, so conveniently forgotten or not able to be purchased by the Pentagon. How's about that, Command-in-Thief? You can ask these guys to take a bullet but you can't fund their toilet paper and toothpaste?
we had to send our kid to Baghdad with his own armour. Ive been screaming at every congressperson I know for months about the Humvees and the lack of equipment for the troops. So many died because of this , and they will come back to NO health care or overtime for vets on top of this. In the meantime, we should have never gone in there, not one drop of anyones blood should have been shed on either side.
If Kerry promises to "end the war," Bush crucifies him.
If Kerry points out Bush is doing a poor job at what Bush says he alone can do (leadership; protect the country; prosecute the "wah on terrah"), Kerry gains traction.
Nobody wants to cut and run from Iraq (where, I agree, we shouldn't be in the first place). For Kerry to argue that way now would let the GOP ask him his famous question about telling the last man he died for a mistake.
I don't completely like it, but I like the tone. Half a loaf, after all, is better than none. And opponents of Bush have been living on "none" for a long time, now....
Mooser,
RIGHT ON!
What "Mrs. Brown" said.
But, as I say, now the media can't say "But no one is talking about body armor and lack of toiletries in Iraq." I've heard about both, from news reports.
But if Kerry makes it the stuff of nightly news...
Not a bad speach by Kerry, but I really think he has to concentrate more on the broader issues like how Bush's inability to work with allies has weakened our military position vis a vis Al Qaeda.
Kerry has to start to explain to all of us exactly why security vis a vis Al Qaeda isn't identical with air-power and heavy armor. And he has to explain how Bush and the Republicans are psychologically fighting Al Qaeda as though Al Qaeda were the Soviets.
You really get a sense of this listening to the extreme right. Look at some of the things they:
1.) Terrorists can exterminate America. No. That's the Soviets.
2.) France and Germany have nothing to offer. No. They have a lot to offer. The USA is indisputably the most powerful nation in terms of air and sea power and heavy armor, but, just as during the Cold War, our intelligence is mediocre at best. The Soviets ate our lunch in the spy business and, if we can't hire enough Arabic speakers to infiltrate terrorist groups, then all the M1 Tanks in the world are just so many gas guzzling paperweights.
3.) We're safer now that Saddam is jailed: Well, no. And I was going to say that at least the Shia can practice their religion but (since we can't even protect people in the country we supposedly liberated) that isn't true either. We simply don't know if taking out Saddam has made us safer. A country run by pissed off Shiites who are getting slaughtered at their religious festivals might just be more dangerous.
4.) The body armor issue is good. And, to answer "Peter," if the military can't sufficiently equip our troops without that 87 billion, then they have to demand it or leave. Congress has the absolute right to determine whether or not we go to war and no amount of trolling's going to change that.
5.) Answering Peter. How much of that 87 billion Kerry didn't want to send to Iraq might have gone to lock down Port Newark or the San Franciso airport. YOU have to answer that one.
Hit Cheney hard and often for his multi-deferment cheese-walk. His scary high school principal persona looks silly if everyone is reminded he was a yellow weasel when it was time to fight the red scourge in Asia.
Tena and Thumb are on to something
"Big John" it is.
(Despite the "Large Bathroom" connotation.)
Please...please...please stop blaming the MEDIA. It's just so yesterday. Everyone knows the media sucks. If you have a candidate that can not push the media to cover him/her fairly than that candidate will get stomped. Anyway, you are the media now!
factory
thank you - I was trying to think of
what I had recently seen on TV in
that vein - miami police chief timoney
is major psycho
I don't think the answer to Peter's question is that $87B was too much money; I think the answer is that it was earmarked for all the wrong things (i.e., too much for Halliburton, too little for body armor), with too little accountability (IIRC, the reptilicans eliminated an oversight provision of some kind). Again, it's all about the priorities.
I'm one of those Boomers who has been going around the last few years saying "I want Ike back". Not gonna happen, of course, but, yeah, this'll do nicely. Turn up the heat, John.
Way OT, but here's a poll that desperately needs to be unfreeped. The question is, "how do you rate Bush's performance as President?"
Select 6 (the worst grade) then click "Abstimmen." If you don't, the terrorists will have won!
Mooser - America likes someone who stands up for our boys in uniform and America needs to hear that Big John cares about them and cares about our safety. This was a great beginning. He isn't going to get elected taking a pacifist stance - that has just never happened in this country, and it surely isn't going to happen this time when Bush has spent 3 solid years scaring people to death.
The military is there - at the very least we can try to protect them from harm better than the current bunch of callous fuck-ups are doing. And for heaven's sake, someone needs to get ahold of the money that has been going down the Halliburton-Chalabi rathole.
I don't think the answer to Peter's question is that $87B was too much money
Body armor is all well and good but I don't think a lot of people are looking at just how dangerous the massacre of the Shia is going to make it for the troops in Iraq.
Before it happened, you could always say that, in spite of how fucked up Bush's priorities were, at the very least the Shia were now free to practice their brand of Islam. Well, that's obviously not the case now that they've had their own 9/11 in the middle of the most important religious festival in their tradition.
That's going to piss the majority population in Iraq off beyond belief and it's going to increase the number of potshots being taken at Americans.
Sorry for the off-topic post, but I've got a question that I don't know the answer to but i'm pretty sure you guys would.
I've seen the following sentence a hundred times....
"Kerry saw everything Bush did."
....when talking about WMDs and the intel leading up to the war with Iraq.
My question...is this true?
Considering a tidbit I heard not very long ago, something along the lines that for x number of previous presidential elections the taller candidate won
Never heard that one. But I did hear once that the best looking candidate tends to win, in which case Kerry's in trouble.
Despite his size, I find him vaguely womanly. He has child-bearing hips and a face that evokes Margaret Hamilton.
No.
Bush was doctoring intelligence.
Gaard,
I think it might be true that Bush and Kerry saw the same intel, but the difference is Bush knew it (the "intel") was all lies.
LARGE BATHROOM 04
Considering a tidbit I heard not very long ago, something along the lines that for x number of previous presidential elections the taller candidate won
Actually, Gore is taller than Bush. Ohh ... Right ...
Bushrove is backpedaling this week, after their lovely little multi-million dollar 9-11 ad blew up in their faces. Keep at 'em. Shape the discussion.
It takes time for media buys to be produced and aired. Keep moving the terms of the debate - make them waste their money on yesterday's story. Today underfunded active duty, tomorrow shortchanged vets, the next day the jobless recovery, on and on to November. Repeat as necessary for full relief.
But - most importantly - always, always suggest solutions. Criticism without a solution is too easily dismissed as whining. I'm sick of hearing that Democrats come up short in the "marketplace of ideas" (whatever the hell that is).
We can do this. But we can't take our eyes off the foe for a moment. He's powerful, unpredictable, and has many allies.
Why are Kerry's remarks being distributed now? Bush doesn't give his radio address until tomorrow, so what sense does it make to give Bush's speechwriters advanced knowledge of the attack lines in Kerry's rebuttal?
Is there something in the rules that says we have to do our best to help the other side?
Actually, Gore is taller than Bush. Ohh ... Right ...
Ford was much taller than Carter.
Mystery Date... I'm ready for my Mystery Date...
I just ran across a great Julian Bonds quote: "When the shameless compete against the spineless, the shameless always win."
Kerry is showing some spine.
Bush's speechwriters advanced knowledge of the attack lines in Kerry's rebuttal?
The Bushies don't do that. All you'll hear tomorrow is "steady leadership in a time of change, steady leadership in a time of change, steady leadership in a time of change, optimism, optimism, optimism."
The Bushies are talking points robots. Once they've been programmed for the week, they're programmed for the week. You think they're capable of thought?
That's good stuff. About time someone besides us said this stuff. And he's not going to run out of stuff to say between now and November.
Drip, drip, drip. Keep the bastards on the defensive.
Ford was much taller than Carter.
Yes, but Ford was a mental midget. Although he was more ethical than the current crop of Republicans by a long shot. And Ford, being an appointed President, is a special case. Wait a sec ... Oh Crap!
I wonder what they are doing with the money they saved by canceling the Comanche helicopter program. I'll bet one of those suckers could buy a butt-load of body armor.
America likes someone who stands up for our boys in uniform
Actually, polls are showing that Americans like candidates who stand up for jobs.
Kerry's appeal to war lovers is misplaced. War lovers don't sweat the details. They want war and Bush delivers. What folks don't understand is that Bush's appeal is totally irrational. It's about losers identifying with an uber-loser, who, no matter how much he fucks up, remains on top.
And for all the mawkish sentimentality aimed at the troops by all and sundry, Americans care more about their own sweet asses. Therefore, Kerry should probably be talking about jobs and affordable health care (areas where he genuinely differs from Bush). And if he insists on talking about the War on Terror his emphasis should not be on body armor, but on how the Bushies have repeatedly attempted to block the 9/11 investigation, run interference for the Saudis and in so very many ways increased the likelihood of terrorism not reduced it.
Old Hat,
But what if the week starts on Saturday morning and the robots are being reprogrammed now?
That was a very good speech (if the anecdotes were honest, and not just exceptions - always check) until he veered off the road and crashed into the tired old Internet smears about Halliburton.
Old Hat - Good point. They could hardly "re-program" Bush only one day ahead of schedule. I'm sure it takes him at least a week to learn the simplistic phrases he mouths (and mangles horribly).
Main thing is the symbolism. Who's showing the best leadership? He can't get near anything that resembles an anti-war stance...at least, not explicitly.
Wow. Ya know, one of my first posts on this board was about the Jefferson City area Nat'l guard outfitting their vehicles with custom-fitted armor.
Glad to see Big John noticed the issue also 
Listen, obviously Kos is fast becoming an insider in the Democratic party, thus he was the recipient of a draft of the speech. This is a trial balloon by the Kerry campaign. Their people are reading the DKos thread and maybe this one and seeing that people like this aggressive speech. It's "polling well." Hence, more aggressive speeches in the future.
I'll bet you dollars to donuts Bush won't say a word about Kerry and the body armor. Air Force One phone records were supeonaed this week. The jobs report is a disaster. 200 people were blown up in Iraq. And his 9/11 ads flopped. He'll be on damage control, repeating his talking points.
"Nobody wants to cut and run from Iraq..."
Except me apparently.
"Main thing is the symbolism. Who's showing the best leadership? He can't get near anything that resembles an anti-war stance...at least, not explicitly.
Hippy Weirdo"
And that's the part that makes me want to puke.
Nickname - true enough about jobs, but Bush and Cheney have been doing a bang-up job of campaigning for Big John on that score. Plus I think someone up thread posted some Kerry comments on the godawful jobs record of this administration.
This is a good statement. It's forceful. And the Military Family Bill of Rights is a good idea. Families left back here by national guardsmen who never expected to be gone so long are really hurting. They vote, too.
quote: I sorry, but this Kerry speech just don't cut it with me. First, every little complaint he has can be rectified in short order, and the media will be flooded with troops getting even more than he is asking for here.endquote
How, exactly, is that a BAD thing? The idea is to support the troops.
John Kerry FOUGHT on the ground in 'Nam. He knows whereof he speaks. We all know where aWol spent the war -- or at least, where he didn't spend any of it. For Big John (tm Tena) to point out Shrubco's failure to do anything but lip service to support our GIs, or our returning wounded, or our veterans ... well, somebody upthread said it emphasizes how naked the chimperor really looks.
Quote: Second, he has no plans to stop the war, just says he can get the supplies flowing better. Next he'll charge Bush with not putting the draft in place soon enough! endquote
I call bullshit.
Quote: What is he saying- that Bush is not making the war big enough?
The fact that the war is BS in the first place is never mentioned.
He's going to win by "out-machoing"
Bush?Now the soldiers are just pawns for Kerry's ambitions?Is more body armor and humvee armor really going to make a difference? endquote
what's going to make a difference is that Shrubco is busily f*cking over the soldiers as well as the taxpayers, and Big John here points out a dual instance of this -- which just happens to be one of the so-called high points of Shrubco's reign.
Quote I am all in favor of body armor (got my own set for biking), endquote
And you don't think combat soldiers are in more danger than you are on a bike? Excuse me all to hell, but that's just frelling WRONG.
Quote: but getting your legs, arms, and eyes blown off is still no fun.
I can't beleive we are going to fall for this. He's headed right where Bush wants him. He's taking the easy way out, and if he can't articulate a better choice than "we will get them them more body armor" He is playing right into the Rethugs hands. endquote
No, he's calling them out on their crap.
Quote: All Bush has to do is expand the war to a point where body armor or the lack of it, is really irrelavant. endquote
Sounds like a GOP wet dream to me. Where, though, would Bush get the troops, money, etc., to do this?
Quote: For God's sake- if the welfare of our soldiers was such a crucial concern we wouldn't be there in the first place. endquote
Well unfortunately the USSC f*cked the country over and put Shrubco in office, and from day one after that the war in Iraq was inevitable, so what would be your point here?
Quote: Of course, he's right, the troops do deserve the right equipment, but this is Lame!
Bush will come up with an explanation and put in a rush order for body armor, etc. Maybe even thank Kerry for reminding him. He needs to tell me how he is going to end or at least minimise the war, not how he will be a better quartermaster. endquote
It's like eating any eleph
There's also the issue of Osama. When's he's escorted from the warehouse, Kerry's in for some very bad karma, in re his odious "What were ya thinkin', Howard" post-Sadam salvo at Dean. Keeping the nation's eyes affixed to the war is only gonna make it worse.
Big John
Big John
Every morning at the mine you could see him arrive
He stood six-foot-six and weighed two-forty-five
Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip
Everybody knew you didn't give no lip to Big John
Big John
Big John
Big Bad John
Big John
Nobody seemed to know where John called home
He just drifted into town and stayed all alone
He didn't say much, kinda quiet and shy
If ya spoke at all, ya just said hi to Big John
a song by Jimmy Dean
"I'll bet you dollars to donuts Bush won't say a word about Kerry and the body armor."
No way...I can't afford to lose anymore donuts...But you're right Bush will stay away from this.
FRELL HaloScan....
Quote: Of course, he's right, the troops do deserve the right equipment, but this is Lame!
Bush will come up with an explanation and put in a rush order for body armor, etc. Maybe even thank Kerry for reminding him. He needs to tell me how he is going to end or at least minimise the war, not how he will be a better quartermaster. endquote
It's like eating any elephant: do it one bite at a time. Start by getting the troops what they need. Get help in there -- TRAINED PEACEKEEPERS and POLICE -- and get our GIs out. Do it responsibly but rapidly, instead of the way Shrubco does everything.
Quote Mooser endquote
Well at least the name is apt.
Got here late, but I too want to thank Tena for coming up with "Big John." You are truly one of the cornerstones of Eschatonia, Tena!
"Nobody wants to cut and run from Iraq..."
Except me apparently.
~A~
ME Too.
I think a US presence in the form of either soldiers or Ahmed Chalabi and his thugs is a hinderance to their self determination and forming a democratic government that works for Iraq.
I think "cutting and running" is a poor way to characterize the withdrawal, however. Because, of course, the US should offer them support, financially and in international influence, to ensure that NO foreign government tries to manipulate the outcome, to favor their country's interests over that of the Iraqis: say the US itself, Iran, or Turkey.
the pentegon gets so many billions and CAN'T ARM THEIR PEOPLE PROPERLY???
what the hell is tax money spent on? paper clip and tiolet seats?
Keeping the nation's eyes affixed to the war is only gonna make it worse.
The "war" and national security are supposedly Bush's strong points. Iraq is quickly becoming messier and messier. Kerry is wise to hit Bush on this early, to cut his legs out from under him. Then he can start pummelling him on jobs, healthcare, social security and everything else Bush has screwed up.
Tena for Press Secretary of Eschatonia?!?
I think it's a very smart speech. There are so many voters out there who will vote for Bush for one reason only: the war on terror. Or: he'll keep us safe.
This is all Bush has. If Big John chips away at it, and even succeeds somewhat, he then has the LUXURY of talking about jobs, health care, the economy, etc. But for the foreseeable future, keeping us safe is the dealbreaker. If a candidate can't do that, all the rest is just talk.
That said, I think Big John is going to have to balance this with something to mobilize his base.
That's it John. Kick 'em in the 'nads. Kick 'em again. Kick 'em harder.
And when they fall down to the ground writing in pain... kick 'em even harder.
renato
a man after my own heart, if you can't kick a man when he's down, when can you kick him?
I guess the writing in pain refers to the mighty 101st keyboard battalion?
"The "war" and national security are supposedly Bush's strong points. Iraq is quickly becoming messier and messier. Kerry is wise to hit Bush on this early,..."
Right, but what he's not sayin' is that Iraq was a bad idea in the first place and getting our troops out pronto would safe a whole hellofalot more lives than flack jackets...
And on a professional side not...both Law enforcement and military body armor will only stop small calibur arms (.45 or smaller). Anything bigger than a pistol will cut through them like paper.
The fratboy coward and his pack of PNAC thugs knew the intelligence presented to the Senate was a shitload of lies.
Impeach the son of a literal bitch, remove him from office, deport him to the Netherlands for war crimes, kidnap him from the Hague after he's only sentenced to life for his crimes against the peace, specifically the crime of planning and waging a war of conquest, strap him to a gurney in Texas and then we'll all laugh in his chimp face when he whimpers "don't kill me."
jzpetersen - I'm sorry, but if Big John's base isn't sufficiently mobilized by the unbelievably criminal administration he is trying to unseat, then I don't know what is up with his base. And I'm not sure who you mean, actually.
Keepin' us safe from the imaginery attack of third world dictators. Phhhfft!
sorry
safe=save
not=note
The "war" and national security are supposedly Bush's strong points. Iraq is quickly becoming messier and messier. Kerry is wise to hit Bush on this early, to cut his legs out from under him. Then he can start pummelling him on jobs, healthcare, social security and everything else Bush has screwed up.
Plus, there's a chance there will be a minor uptick in economic statistics in the summer and fall. Bush's economic performance will still be, on balance, worse than any president since Hoover, but the press will spin the slight uptick as the second coming of Jesus, and the first three years of decay and decline as all Clinton's fault. Whatever happens is going to be fueled with borrowed money. I believe that Bush will literally mortgage our children's futures to give him and his buddies 4 more years to plunder the treasury and pillage the Constitution.
I don't know how many people will be fooled by this, but I think it's a smart idea to attack Bush on the war front. Everybody knows by now that Bush lied to start the Iraq war. Six months by now, a few more people may have temporarily found employment, but Bush will still be a liar with the blood of 10s of thousands of innocent Iraqis on his hands, and over 500 American soldiers. Probably over 1,000 by fall.
and then we'll all laugh in his chimp face when he whimpers "don't kill me
Before the movement chaperones arrive to tell you how awful that was, let me just say I think it's lovely.
Right, but what he's not sayin' is that Iraq was a bad idea in the first place and getting our troops out pronto would safe a whole hellofalot more lives than flack jackets...
But this goes to the heart of another one of Tipsy McFuckup's weaknesses. Why did people vote for the Iraq war resolution? Bush's doctored intelligence. Hell, I was shaken up by Powell's UN address. I remember thinking "OK, there's no way in hell they would lie about this." But, they did.
I see your point, I just disagree with you, A.
Tena for Press Secretary of Eschatonia?!?
~A~
I think Holden already holds the title, but it may open up when Scooter gets the preznit gig
A, I really hoped Clark would get the nod, so he could have had a candidate who could have said "I thought this Iraq war stuff was bullshit from the start." But it's too late for could haves.
Tena for Press Secretary of Eschatonia?!?
And let's make Gary Frazier head of covert ops.
ummm...I hope Kerry has an answer for not funding the troops once he sent them to Iraq. Part of the money that Kerry chose not to give the troops once they were already in the warzone is now being used to save the lives and limbs of GI's - like the Warlock IED-jamming devices for humvees.
Hmm. I think I would have to stop and think for a few minutes about whether there isn't a better way to fight homemade bombs than $360,000 jammers.
Who is Tipsy McFuckup?
vaara - I did as you asked. Good thing you laid out how to vote, because I wouldn't have known, unfortunately. I'm one of those damned Americans who isn't multi-lingual. Some French, a little Spanish, but not much of either anymore. Shame on me. Interesting to me that Spiegal online is running the poll; the picture alone is worth following the link.
So Bush is going back to the IX/XI site. Isn't that the same site his administration instructed the EPA to lie about? The site where he intentionally allowed first responders and clean up crews to be exposed to toxic chemicals?
From Rep. Jerrold Nadler:
"Two months ago, the EPA's Inspector General released a report documenting what I and thousands of New Yorkers have known for two years now: that the EPA gave false assurances to the people of New York regarding the air we were breathing and that the EPA refused to take responsibility to decontaminate indoor spaces, such as apartments, offices, and schools, despite the fact that they are federally mandated to do so. The only thing the IG report revealed that we didn't already know was that the White House instructed the EPA to issue these false assurances. As stated in the IG's report, the White House instructed EPA officials to downplay air quality concerns because of "competing considerations," such as national security and a desire to re-open Wall Street. These considerations are legitimate, and of course the White House was correct in wanting to revive our economy. But they cannot justify putting at risk the health and lives of thousands of Americans.
"We know that several hazardous substances were present in the World Trade Center and were released into the environment when the towers collapsed. Clearly, that presented a hazard for rescue workers on "the pile." However, those hazardous substances were also present in World Trade Center dust that was blasted into surrounding buildings and settled in people's homes, schools and workspaces. Although the EPA's declaration that the outdoor air was safe was premature, enough time has passed that it is probably no longer a problem today. All we can do is look back and try to correct any wrongs of the past. On the other hand, the problem of indoor environments and exposure to hazardous World Trade Center dust that settled inside buildings persists to this day."
But this goes to the heart of another one of Tipsy McFuckup's weaknesses. Why did people vote for the Iraq war resolution? Bush's doctored intelligence. Hell, I was shaken up by Powell's UN address. I remember thinking "OK, there's no way in hell they would lie about this." But, they did.
I see your point, I just disagree with you, A.
Old Hat
yeah, and I think Kerry is on record as saying he didn't expect the POTUS to come out and lie about going to war. might be worth running some of those aWol "honor and integrity to the WH" quotes
at 6:59 thumb said: ...Considering a tidbit I heard not very long ago, something along the lines that for x number of previous presidential elections the taller candidate won (and just as oddly the tallest Dem got the nomination too), and combined with the GOP's Angry White Male's propensity to gravitate to the biggest [metaphorical] dick, (it's an Alpha thing)...
This brings up an interesting historical issue...Did Kennedy win the 1960 election because of his debate performance, or because of his 6'3" Johnson???
I have been waiting for a Democrat to talk like this for months..check that, years. About time. Probably the reason this "Massachusetts Liberal" is the most electable.
I have been waiting for a Democrat to talk like this for months..check that, years. About time. Probably the reason this "Massachusetts Liberal" is the most electable.
"I see your point, I just disagree with you, A.
Old Hat"
And I see yours as well and I agree that politically Kerry's probably taking the smart course.
As the UN address...I only thought one thing when Powell held up that vial of "suppossed" chemical agent. That this man is a liar or he's insane. He either had a prop...which makes it a lie, or purposefully brought in a vile of a chemical agent that, if accidently released, would wipe out everyone in the room, if not the building.
I meant that thus far Nader's polling as well as he was in 2000, despite that it's an obvious kamikaze vote.
And by "base" I meant, say, those without health care?
Who is Tipsy McFuckup?
It's one of many amusing nicknames for el Presidente based on his alcoholism and tendency to fuck things up. Smirky McCokespoon is one of many variants.
personally speaking, and i think someone else said it too, kerry *really* has to emphasize the lies and bullshit bush spewed about iraq, and the corresponding stick in the spokes it will be for this country's credibility. It is possible to make this very simple for people.
"We are now a country that cannot seriously expect *any* other nation to believe us when we make the claim that our security is genuinely threatened. they will laugh at us and tell us 'fool us once, shame on us... fool us twice...' If president bush really believed in this country's security, he would not go around engaging in wars on his personal whim with no concern for what anybody else belives, feels or wants. because he would realize that once it went wrong, our word is worth nothing to anybody. and that is what it is worth now. nothing"
recycle, repeat, tweak slightly, do it twenty more times.
Aren't those roadside bombs often made with super high tech things like timers from washing machines and parts from remote control toy cars? More porky spending on high tech nonsense from the DoD.
If these people want Americans dead, they'll find a way to kill Americans.
preznit giv me turkee - I have been waiting for the candidate to start on the "bringing integrity back to the WH," and "uniter not divider" that Tipsy campaigned on last time. I really want those thrown back in his smug face over and over and over. Fucking criminal from a family that is just a crime syndicate.
Hell, I was shaken up by Powell's UN address.
Oh, come on. The computer animated "mobile weapons labs" were so lame. On that day, I was embarrassed to be an American. That the US Secretary of State would appear in front of the world and call what he presented to them "evidence".
"Aren't those roadside bombs often made with super high tech things like..."
They use car-key phops to detonate the devices...that's what the jammer interferes with.
So Bush is going back to the IX/XI site. Isn't that the same site his administration instructed the EPA to lie about? The site where he intentionally allowed first responders and clean up crews to be exposed to toxic chemicals?
hmm, I wonder how hard it would be to feed some of the same chemicals into the air at the RNC? good for the goose, eh? give them a real IX/XI experience
I'm curious, does anyone find this speech appealing in its own right, or is everyone second-guessing how it plays to the rubes?
This election is so meta I can hardly stand it.
"Bush's appeal is totally irrational. It's about losers identifying with an uber-loser, who, no matter how much he fucks up, remains on top."
Irrational yes. But it's more like some weird bargain that tells feeble-minded Americans that they're protected from elites, minorities, foreigners, gays...provided they give unconditional support to the local country club.
Oh, come on. The computer animated "mobile weapons labs" were so lame. On that day, I was embarrassed to be an American. That the US Secretary of State would appear in front of the world and call what he presented to them "evidence".
I heard it on the radio. No teevee in my old apartment. Maybe it sounded worse that it looked.
re: Tipsy McFuckup
Is this some backhanded smear of the Irish? I don't think Bush is Irish...Neither is Kerry?
Who is Tipsy McFuckup?
"Is this some backhanded smear of the Irish?"
No, that would be "Smirky O'Hammerhead"
This election is so meta I can hardly stand it.
Agreed.
Cruise through the threads over at DailyKos. Everybody triple and quadruple guesses everything. It makes me crazy. People come up with really nutso Karl Rove machinations that start to sound like superomnipotent Rube Goldberg causality strings. People give that guy too much credit.
Hell, I was shaken up by Powell's UN address.
Or put another way, I'm a very gullible person who knows very little of my country's foreign policy tendencies or the life-long mendacity of Colin Powell.
Kerry, however, was not gullible. He was well-placed to know exactly what the deal was. Hard to say which is worse: voting for mass slaughter because you're stupid or voting for it to further your career aims.
In any case, he should change the subject.
Aren't those roadside bombs often made with super high tech things like..."
They use car-key phops to detonate the devices...that's what the jammer interferes with.
~A~
"damn the infidel dogs, now we must bury the wires again" -random Iraqi freedom fighter
Good post Nickname.
I thought this was a discussion about "mad dogging" it.
Damn.
Is this some backhanded smear of the Irish? I don't think Bush is Irish...Neither is Kerry?
Ha ha. No, the joke originally comes from the Simpsons where there's a spoof on "Johnny Walker" whiske. Homer is visited by a representative of "Tipsy McStagger" whiskey. People around here started to refer to Bush as "Tipsy McStagger." Then it became "Chimpy McStagger" and endless variations thereof.
Whether or not Bush responds to Kerry's criticism of the lack of body armor, Humvee armor, etc. The fact that Bush is responding to Kerry's criticisms is the point.
In the debate when Shrub says: "I authorized the purchase of excess body armor, armoring of humvees"
Kerry can truthly fully respond: "Remember on Saturday March 6th of this year? I addressed the nation on the radio demanding that this be done. And you did it, at my insistence. Who cares more about the soldiers?"
It is a win for Kerry whether or not Bush does something in response. If Bush acts on it, it is also a win for the soldiers.
"In any case, he should change the subject."
I think Old Hats right...as much as I agree with the sentiment, no candidate can win in our present political climate as a pascifist or even being perceived as one. This is gonna be a hard balancing act for Kerry but it's one he has to perform.
They use car-key phops to detonate the devices...that's what the jammer interferes with.
Ok, so we hook one up to a five-watt PA feeding a directional antenna, and drive the switch with a square-wave oscillator feeding a reed relay.
Now we have a detonator with ten times the range of the one used by the clown who built the bomb. For about $20 worth of parts.
oh, and yes, I am an EW engineer. why do you ask?
re: Tipsy McFuckup
Is this some backhanded smear of the Irish? I don't think Bush is Irish...Neither is Kerry?
Who is Tipsy McFuckup?
Anonymous |
actually, it's a play on a Simpson's episode with the Flaming Moe's. Tipsy McStagger's was the name of the bar chain that was trying to buy the secret recipe
So far as the question Peter raised way upthread, the answer is that they should have had armor from the get-go. Bush et al made one of the most stupid mistakes when they believed Chalabi etc saying it would all be sunshine and puppydogs once Saddam was out. "faith-based intelligence"- what a crock.
A Vandal sticking up for the Romans. Ancestral blood must be screaming for mercy.
BTW if Kerry's handlers really are lurking to see how this stuff plays let me just say I find it both personally unappealling and also strategically stupid.
But then, all depends on what the press thinks of it, again not in terms of its innate appeal but in how savvy it is or isn't from the standpoint of such like as the "Red States" "The Base" "Nascar Dads" and "Soccer Moms". Whereupon, the Base, the Red States, the Nascar Dads and Soccer Moms will vote for the candidate anointed as the savviest panderer.
It's truly sick.
""damn the infidel dogs, now we must bury the wires again" -random Iraqi freedom fighter
preznit giv me turkee"
Exactly...they set up a relatively obvious bomb beside the road...as the convoy approaches, they see the pseudo-bomb and stop....right in the kill zone of the well concealed REAL bomb. Hardwired for sound and no way around it...
Boo-Fucking-Ya!!!
Bring it on, assholes!
"oh, and yes, I am an EW engineer. why do you ask?
dogs for christ!"
Don't tell Bush...he'll e-mail all the commanders with instructions and ask the families back home to foot the bill for the parts and shipping.
Either way...you're obviously not a good stooge for the MIC or you'd have figured out away to spend 20 Million on R&D before selling it to the Pentagon for $200,000 a shot.
Is this going to devolve into a techy/jargon exchange?
as much as I agree with the sentiment, no candidate can win in our present political climate as a pascifist
Oh that I had a dollar for every liberal who thought he and a small klatch of right-thinkers were unique in their love of peace.
Americans tend generally not to want war. That's why they must be lied to and horse-whipped into it. Polls are showing they're growing increasingly disenchanted with this one. Certainly it would be risk for Kerry to challenge the war outright. But there are alternatives to that besides attacking Bush on the prosecution of the war.
Nickname - what is it about trying to do the best by the troops that are over in Iraq getting killed and maimed that bothers you? I just don't understand. I hate the war, I was against it from the start, I want the whole thing over with. But there are young men and women over there with families back here. I truly believe that since they were sent over there, they need all the equipment they are entitled to. I'm sick of seeing the numbers of dead people from this war continue to go up. For both sides - but this country's tax money goes to American soldiers. Or it's supposed to - so far it seems to have been going to Halliburton and Chalabi.
USNDemVet has the the best ones: Preznit C+, Preznit Numb-Nutz, Commander Codpiece, Preznit On-vacation, Simp Chimp, Preznit dummer'n'dogshit, there's a new one every day.....
What's a car key phop?
Kerry can truthly fully respond: "Remember on Saturday March 6th of this year? I addressed the nation on the radio demanding that this be done. And you did it, at my insistence. Who cares more about the soldiers?"
very good point. if he wanted to take another road, he could just let bush buy the fucking body armour, let it go without saying anything, and then next week go on to another issue of neglect. god knows there are tons of 'em. just start moving on down the line. and the media will pick up on it eventually, because it's sensational and relatively simple. and for the public, just being hit over the head with bush's fuck ups in this way over and over and over again can't be a bad thing. i mean, yeah, people should already realize how horrible bush is if they're smart, but we can't all be. you just have to have faith that what you believe is right. i certainly do.
"Is this going to devolve into a techy/jargon exchange?
Anonymous"
Sorry...
...resuming normal mental format now.
Old Hat: I think he meant fob.
I was/still am opposed to the war in Iraq. However, reality is soldiers are there. They must be protected adequately. End of story.
Anything less than providing what the soldiers need to protect themselves is irresponsible. With this speech, Kerry is saying just that.
"What's a car key phop?
Old Hat"
Little black or gray electronic gadget on the end of your car key that allows you to lock or unlock/start your car remotely.
"Sorry...
...resuming normal mental format now."
Much appreciated. I spent too many years surrounded by engineers. Bad flashbacks and all that.
Bush: I'm not a war president, but I play one on TV.
"Old Hat: I think he meant fob."
Thanks...you are correct.
preznit giv me turkee - I have been waiting for the candidate to start on the "bringing integrity back to the WH," and "uniter not divider" that Tipsy campaigned on last time. I really want those thrown back in his smug face over and over and over. Fucking criminal from a family that is just a crime syndicate.
Tena
did you see Toles the other day
what is it about trying to do the best by the troops that are over in Iraq getting killed and maimed that bothers you?
Nothing really. It's just not where I would place my emphasis. I happen to think there are other things that are more important AND more inately appealling to the voters. There is a lot more wrong with this war than that it has been prosecuted poorly.
Don't intend to get into a discussion about the relative importance of volunteer participants in an invasion vs. non-combatant working folks.
"I spent too many years surrounded by engineers. Bad flashbacks and all that.
Anonymous"
I'm not an engineer...I'm more on the "user" end if ya knowwhatImean.
This is the same John Kerry who must accept responsibilty for every death due to this war in Iraq?
puke.
I talked to my little brother who just returned from his tour in Iraq and he confirmed the body armor thing. His comment: "Yes. It's sad."
Unfortunately, he thinks kerry's just posturing and will only support the troops until he gets into office.
Is this going to devolve into a techy/jargon exchange?
Yes. Make no mistake, you must give me millions of dollars so that I can protect you from the evil WMD program related activities.
Seriously, though, BBC ran essentially the story atrios cites here about a month ago. In that version, Blair's government (and, in particular, Minister of Defence Geoff Hoon) was pilloried for sending troops to Iraq without body armor, and they had to go begging for it to the Americans, who were characterized as having plenty of everything.
I'm with Old Hat here, not so much about Powell specifically (I'd wised up by then) but the overall MARCH TO WAR.
I could tell — hell, all of us could tell — that the evidence they trotted out for us was bullshit. But Fall 2002, in the run-up to the mid-terms, the BushCo presentation was so relentless, so absolute, so unqualified that I started thinking that they must have some super-duper secret intel they couldn't share. (Or then they'd have to kill us.) I had serious doubts about BushCo running the war but I'd pretty much accepted that a war might be appropriate. Plus, I live in downtown Manhattan so I was a bit predisposed to believe in random cataclysm.
So after all that terror-mongering, all that spittle-flecked ranting about the danger we faced and how we had to ACT RIGHT NOW or we'd all DIE DIE DIE, Bush got his war resolution. Then he immediately buckled down to thwart the mustachioed menace that threatened us all. No, actually he spent a week flying around the country harvesting big fat campaign contributions.
That's when I knew I'd been had.
Yes, Kerry, kick his prancing cowardly ass.
"I'm not an engineer...I'm more on the "user" end if ya knowwhatImean."
Either way, "gear geekisms", and their variants "military blow-em-upisms", just make my eyes glaze over, as I'm sure it does others.
Then again, I'm sure the same thing happens when I start tearing apart a budget etc.
You ever been in one of those discussions where two guys try to out-Seargeant-tough-guy each other? My M-16 tomcat flamethrowing x64511 etc etc and what unti were you in... I was Delta Meercat etc etc -- that sort of thing? It's like, "Save it for the VFW, please."
Aren't those roadside bombs often made with super high tech things like timers from washing machines and parts from remote control toy cars?
Old Hat | Email | Homepage | 03.05.04 - 8:13 pm | #
And garage door openers. Isn't that what saved Musharraf's ass? I guess the poor SS guys in the car behind him didn't get the shiney new toy. It is good to know we are spending so much money to protect the leader of the country that really is sharing nuclear weapons with bad guys.
Nickname - Ok, point taken and understood. There are a lot of important issue and I'm hoping that Big John gets around to hammering Chimpy with every one of them multiple times.
I like the way this speech sounds and I think it is as good a starting place as any. The left has been portrayed as unpatriotic and not caring about the troops. Might as well start here and go on from here into everything else. Just MHO.
"Nobody wants to cut and run from Iraq..."
"Except me apparently."
Me too. Bring the Roman army home, along with Big John and his body armor. The world, including the US of A, will be a better place for it.
Sorry for the joviality here, but here is the funniest story I've seen all week. I needed a laugh, and so do you.
http://tinyurl.com/3cgul
Nothing really. It's just not where I would place my emphasis. I happen to think there are other things that are more important AND more inately appealling to the voters. There is a lot more wrong with this war than that it has been prosecuted poorly....
Nickname
I think what Kerry is doing here is: 1)pointing out the craptastic job aWol did in preparation for this war, which was run on our schedule
2)pointing out that he'll be better at supporting and protecting our troops than aWol
3)reminding folks of the real reasons we went to war, to help line Chenron and Carlyle's pockets
I just wish that he'd thrown in something about how it's more important to have body/HumVee armor in a war zone than shark repellant when you're flying F102s in the fANG
Don't intend to get into a discussion about the relative importance of volunteer participants in an invasion vs. non-combatant working folks.
I will.
Institute of Medicine
National Academy Press
May 21, 2002
"... the overall mortality risk for uninsured adults, estimated here to be on the order of 18,000 excess deaths among uninsured adults annually, is comprised of elevated mortality rates across many disease categories. All of these excess deaths among uninsured adults occur among relatively young Americans, those under the age of 65."
You might not think Single Payer Healthcare is such an imporant issue, but your
physician does...
Sorry for the bad link
http://tinyurl.com/3bjrm
nice. big john. also; jfk.
i guess it'll be useful to push the media to keep a spotlight on big john
(we might stay away from 'bj')
for all that free advertising like snarky mcsnort will get.
when he won his last senate race, big john had to go toe to toe with a popular and competent wm. weld, and really got down.
i'd say president cheetah will find this is not the massachusetts liberal he expects, but why warn him.
on second thought, it doesn't fit their thinking, so can't be true.
it'll be nice to have a man in the white house again.
preznit - well put - this is just a teaser, according to Atrios, so I assume there is more.
For the record - I want us out of Iraq, too, but I'm still on the fence as to whether we can just leave - we have totally fucked up these peoples' country. I want a multi-national peacekeeping force in place so that real honest to god rebuilding can begin. Halliburton hasn't just screwed us taxpayers, it's screwed the Iraqis too. The construction it has done on schools is substandard.
The Children's Hospital of Baghdad is the stuff of nightmares. There is no local law enforcement - women in Baghdad are having their babies at home because the streets are too dangerous for them to try to get to hospital.
We so owe these people at least some help. I know they hate us now - for good reason. But if Big John gets elected, there needs to be a change in our approach to Iraq and the entire middle east.
The left has been portrayed as unpatriotic and not caring about the troops.
The best way we can show we care is to:
BRING THEM HOME, NOW!
The left has been portrayed as unpatriotic and not caring about the troops.
On the flimsiest of evidence, as it was and shall ever be. God, can we ever oppose a war again?
As with so much else, there's no proof that anti-war feeling is a turn-off for voters. But in the election of 2002, we learned who wins when the choices are two pro-war parties.
I'm so fucking sick of the politics of appearances. It's like Kerry's most fervent admirers don't give a fuck whether he believes a word of this stuff or not. I'd love to see a candidate who would just gamble and fucking tell the truth and see where it got him.
I didn't quite finish that - there needs to be a change in our approach to Iraq and the entire middle east - and maybe if we are sufficiently sorry about this, they won't hate us so much.
BRING THEM HOME, NOW!
And let Iraq descend into hopeless civil war, resulting in three seperate theocratic dictatorships, with Turkey and Iran completely destabilized? No, we broke it, we fix it.
it's been a continually astonishing feature of the war effort to me, the reluctance of the Bush Administration to use the essentially blank check of patriotism to boost pay for the soldiers; justify upgrades in armor and equipment; do damn near anything they want. There's huge support for doing right by the soldiers no matter where you stand on the war: no one wants to see those kids die or suffer. Yet, they don't; in fact, they treat soliders with the back of their hand with lousy pay, lousy equipment, cuts in health care, etc. Truly, the inexcapable conclusion is that they honestly see the humans as intrinsically less important than the bombs and bullets they buy. It's more cost-effective to spend money on better explosives and guidance systms than people.
But if Big John gets elected, there needs to be a change in our approach to Iraq and the entire middle east.
But BJ isn't really campaigning on 'change', is he?
Oh well, maybe in 2012.
It's the economy, stupid. Look at every poll; it's the #1 issue.
But I do so hate that these people who are concerned about their wallets are not very concerned about the troops who are stuck in a country that they supposedly insisted we had to invade. And they dying. And they're being horribly wounded. Who cares?
Embarrassing.
Truly, the inexcapable conclusion is that they honestly see the humans as intrinsically less important than the bombs and bullets they buy. It's more cost-effective to spend money on better explosives and guidance systms than people.
You said it much better, secularhuman.
Nickname - I know I know - this is the same argument all of us here always have about Democrats, from Clinton to Big John. Some of you guys really want them to throw caution to the winds and stand up and say all the things we'd love to hear. I don't blame you - it would be lovely. But right now I think Big John is making America see the movie. Bush has been making the Americans see his movie for about 3 years. Another person here laid out this idea awhile back and I thought it was brilliant - that Americans have liked Bush up to now because he made a movie for them out of everything - all bright lines, black and white, guaranteed outcome (this is where he really fucked up - he guaranteed things, and they haven't happened). I think Kerry is making his own movie for Americans right now - it's just getting started.
We so owe these people at least some help. I know they hate us now - for good reason. But if Big John gets elected, there needs to be a change in our approach to Iraq and the entire middle east.
Agreed, but not bloody likely. Tena, read up on how this country has worked assiduously at subverting democracy around the world since the end of World War 2 and you will soon learn that it's not about building democracy or friendships. This is one area where the two parties have been very much alike. The Democrats just lay on a bit more window-dressing.
DISCLAIMER: the above should not be construed as an endorsement of Nader or an assertion that the two major parties are identical. On the matter of foreign policy, however, both parties are up to their eyeballs in the blood of innocents seeking a better life.
"My M-16 tomcat flamethrowing x64511 etc..."
LOL
Yea I've seen plenty of those...I like to counter with Illudium Q36 explosive space modulator!
anonymous 8:02,
I don't see how you arrive at this conclusion. There are many examples in history where it wasn't until the imperialists left, that a country was able to form, yes, an independent democracy.
We shouldn't be so arrogant to think the Iraqis are incapable of acheiving on their own what the founding fathers in the 13 colonies acheived. In fact, I am sure they are particularly motived at this point to prove to the West that they can do it without foreign intervention.
Tena - Good analogy, from someone who normally finds analogies tedious.
Some of you guys really want them to throw caution to the winds and stand up and say all the things we'd love to hear.
Um, not exactly. I don't think Clinton and Kerry believe the same things about the world that I do.
"...I'd love to see a candidate who would just gamble and fucking tell the truth and see where it got him.
Nickname"
Got Nadir less'n 5%
Oh, OK, a serious response; I would too, but when you're trying to convince 51% of American Voters to bet the farm on YOU, you need to say (truthfully, it is to be hoped) those things, to those audiences, that will get you the best results. Unless you can just buy or cheat your way in like Prezident Bag O'Hammers over there.
It's called Politics. It sucks, and it always will, world without end, Amen.
Nickname, I'm wondering if you think that it's possible that the US could ensure that no *innocent blood* would ever again be spilled.
Having worn flack jackets et. al. we have the money to pay for this stuff in the first place. Why so long? You don't plan a war, get people killed and then come up with the technology to protect them. I know. I did a little war planning in my day. Dodged a few bullets too. I'm still pissed about McCain and Cleland. They deserved better for what they suffered. As for nick names, my favorite is still Chimpy McFuckstick.
Goober - "Preznit Bag O'Hammers."
ROFLMAO
Ummmmm, Car Key...FOBS? Ya think?
pie,
But many economic issues are life and death, and on a grand scale...
I think that many people that place importance on the economy are still very concerned about the welfare of the troops, but either conciously or subconciously realize that when people go jobless for long periods of time it has catastrophic effects on their families and their health.
Got Nadir less'n 5%
As a third-party candidate. I actually think Nader, minus the baggage, as a Democrat would have done well. On the big issues -- for example, health care, economy, trade, environment, foreign policy -- Americans consistently poll to the left of both parties.
And Nader is far from a dream left candidate. (Obviously)
I'm wondering if you think that it's possible that the US could ensure that no *innocent blood* would ever again be spilled.
Read the history of the CIA before you even attempt this conversation. The blood was not shed for any good higher than access to markets and the suppression of social democracy.
...Truly, the inexcapable conclusion is that they honestly see the humans as intrinsically less important than the bombs and bullets they buy. It's more cost-effective to spend money on better explosives and guidance systms than people.
secularhuman
well, if the Carlyle Group was making major bank on the human resources they'd probably care a little more.
And a good Irish Preznit he *hic!* is, too! Or Scotch, whatever. Definitely on the rocks, though. Shaken
BRING THEM HOME, NOW!
And let Iraq descend into hopeless civil war, resulting in three seperate theocratic dictatorships, with Turkey and Iran completely destabilized? No, we broke it, we fix it."
Hey, we're the worst fixers in the world. We fixed Haiti so many times that it fell apart, Kermit Roosevevelt and the CIA fixed Iraq when they put Saddam's Bathists in power, Iran was fixed when we put the Shah in power and on and on and on. Yes we broke it but please let's not fix it. It's like asking Michael Jackson to babysit your kid. Sheeesh
DRK - Word!
Nickname;
I wrote something last night to the effect that I wouldn't mind having Nader in Congress. And I find myself wondering why the hell he never ran. Just an ego thing? Had to start at the top? Way too late now, though.
Either way, "gear geekisms", and their variants "military blow-em-upisms", just make my eyes glaze over, as I'm sure it does others.
ok, let me see if I can express this without jargon.
We (along with every other first world country) have weapons systems engineered for Cold War conflict with technologically sophisticated enemies. If we continue to try to fight Arab terrorists with weapons designed with the Russians in mind, we may win in the field but will surely lose at the bank.
We need to convincingly tell CECOM to quit slathering Southern California in lard to solve problems that can be handled with a trip to the Radio Shack. There are far too many people in Washington who are willing to say, "OK, OK, you can have your half-million-dollar jammers, just don't make me listen to any more jargon", and far too many Beltway bandits willing to bamboozle them into submission.
Go back and look at the top of this thread. All it took to get people to tuck their tails and whimper was one guy coming in saying "blah blah blah Warlock Green."
Nickname:You're comparing apples and oranges.
While the Republicans do it through a wanting to just blow stuff up, Democrats do it so they don't appear to be weak on (Terrorism, communism, crime, take your pick).
If there's someone to blame, blame the public at large. They need education, and lots of it.
The bigger problem, is a lack of positive thinking among candidates, so everything comes down to a "lowest common denominator" mentality. You pander to the uneducated masses, knowing that a good portion of the voters who are paying attention are worried to death about the GOP...this includes 3rd party candidates.
As well, people tend to get offended when you tell them "We can do better". They're like...so you're saying that we're not perfect? Why do you hate America?
Change is coming, but I don't expect it coming from our candidates. Sure, it may be mirrored in Kerry, but never forget where that spark comes from.
Right here.
But many economic issues are life and death, and on a grand scale...
Of course that's true! Look, I know people are having a hard time. But were they willing to think about the troops and the hardships they and their families were going to suffer when this was all going down?
Too many people care only about what happens in their lives. Rich, poor, or in the middle. If it doesn't directly affect them, they don't care.
Human nature? Yes. *Nickname* complains about politicians?
They're a product of the environment.
And I find myself wondering why the hell he never ran.
We'll never know. One thing's sure, however; we really shouldn't go there on this site.
Haloscan ate the last part, which it will now regurgitate;
...shaken and stirred.
Damn, now I owe an apology to either the irish or Scottish. Which one?
*Nickname* complains about politicians?
They're a product of the environment.
Oops I forgot. It's the poor slobs' fault a bunch of rich white guys are such corrupt swine when they become public officials.
If only I was a better person, we'd have a better preznit.
First truly puke-worthy comment of the thread. Took longer than usual.
Read the history of the CIA before you even attempt this conversation.
That is not what I asked you.
Bitch about it all you want. Is it going to change? Can it change?
Job Growth? The last group of peope who provided job growth are named Bill Gates, Scott Nealy sp? (Sun), Steve Jobs, Andy Grove and their kin. No scum politician ever provided a job for anyone other than himself/herself. You guys should learn some economics.
Job Growth? The last group of peope who provided job growth are named Bill Gates, Scott Nealy sp? (Sun), Steve Jobs, Andy Grove and their kin. No scum politician ever provided a job for anyone other than himself/herself. You guys should learn some economics.
Job Growth? The last group of peope who provided job growth are named Bill Gates, Scott Nealy sp? (Sun), Steve Jobs, Andy Grove and their kin. No scum politician ever provided a job for anyone other than himself/herself. You guys should learn some economics.
Job Growth? The last group of peope who provided job growth are named Bill Gates, Scott Nealy sp? (Sun), Steve Jobs, Andy Grove and their kin. No scum politician ever provided a job for anyone other than himself/herself. You guys should learn some economics.
While the Republicans do it through a wanting to just blow stuff up, Democrats do it so they don't appear to be weak on (Terrorism, communism, crime, take your pick).
The old alibi and complete bullshit. But I haven't the patience to argue. Just read up. Start with Harry Truman.
It's the poor slobs' fault a bunch of rich white guys are such corrupt swine when they become public officials.
Why don't you deliberately misread another comment?
Rich, poor, and in between, sweetheart.
And are you excusing the poor? They don't vote? Can't vote? Too tired to vote?
Which is it?
I wrote something last night to the effect that I wouldn't mind having Nader in Congress. And I find myself wondering why the hell he never ran. Just an ego thing? Had to start at the top? Way too late now, though.
Had Nader managed to get himself elected to Congress (unlikely), he would have been a complete washout. Legislation is all about compromise; someone like Nader whose first priority is his own righteousness would never get anywhere.
And as I've said before, if Nader through some freakish course of events manages to get himself elected president, we're in for four years of absolute deadlock between the White House and the Capitol.
politicians... ...They're a product of the environment.
Sorta like spotted owls and cuddly wuddly puppy dogs.
There's a joke in there, someplace. One day, I'll find it.
You guys should learn some economics.
You should too. Start with Keynes. Then proceed to JK Galbraith's New Industrial State. Then read up on the New Deal.
Then look up the definitions of the following:
Dimwit.
Blowhard.
Know-nothing.
Goober | Email | Homepage | 03.05.04 - 9:25 pm | #
Did you have the same critique of Clark? Sharpton?
How about Eisenhower?
"we're in for four years of absolute deadlock between the White House and the Capitol."
That's a bad thing at this point?
Ray, You can use the Mc part of Scott McNealy's name.
Could we all just not talk about Nader?
That's a bad thing at this point?
Yes.
"Yes."
Really? You prefer how things are now to deadlock?
That's interesting.
Rich, poor, and in between, sweetheart.
I can take inanity and incoherence. But lease, please, please don't call me sweetheart.
Rich, poor, and in between, sweetheart.
I can take inanity and incoherence. But please, please, please don't call me sweetheart.
I have seen no stitistics, but wouild the NASCAR Dads (and Moms) be one of the largest groups of Parents of Iraq War Soldiers? And would the speech excerpts we read above be likely to turn a few heads in Kerry's direction?
Oh, and as to "ITES!", that was hardly the whole address, now was it? I would be very surprised if the yeecccchonomy didn't rear its butt-ugly head tomorrow. Also plenty of time to beat that horse to death by November.
"Could we all just not talk about Nader?"
Fat chance. When's the last time you saw a thread here go "Nader-free"? It's like Catnip for Democats.
They don't vote? Can't vote? Too tired to vote?
For many, some or all of the above.
Answer the question. If everyone in this country voted that could vote, things would be very different.
No one gets a pass. No one has an excuse.
If you don't vote, STFU.
At least Clinton didn't invade Iraq, nor Carter Iran. That's a distinction that tens of thousands of people could have lived with.
The only question we should be asking about Kerry's speech is whether it will help or harm his candidacy. No matter how we feel about the war, or what is the right policy for Iraq, we don't want more of our soldiers killed for lack of armor.
Anything Big John can do to underscore the incompetence of Little George is good.
And as I've said before, if Nader through some freakish course of events manages to get himself elected president, we're in for four years of absolute deadlock between the White House and the Capitol.
--dogs
That's just nonsense. You think well enough of the Democrats to vote for them, but think they would shut out good legislation out of spite towards Nader?
Besides, if elected, he would then be the President of the United States. Every saturday morning he would give a radio address, every day he could hold a press conference. He could schedule periodic prime time speeches in the Oval Office. The people would become very well informed that their representatives in Congress were working against the people's interests.
NO EXCUSES. Get an absentee ballot.
Concerning non-voters: has everyone seen the Urban Outfitters t-shirts that read "Voting is for old people"?
Julia of Sisyphus Shrugged has some alternatives.
Nader:
I think it was a mistake the way the dems. responded to him entering. It only fuels his message. That being said, I don't think there is cause to worry as the importance of this election is too easy to see. That being said it wouldn't hurt to throw the Nader supporters a bone (esp. one that that applies to the actual subject of third parties- to say we are trying to become more democratic- anti-nader). For example, get together with Mccain(to defuse criticism) and support IRV.
Money:
It's importance can't be questioned, but I think the degree of importance is less so this year. I think the number of mistakes is crucial, avoiding de-motivation. Look at the way the Bush ads are being picked apart. Even defense of the ads sounds wobbly(for example, "I can't believe they are picking on the Bush ads over the ruins of 9/11"). It just doesn't fly. Kerry needs to sit back and make really calculated moves.
VP-
Clark- I'm not going to list all of the obvious positives(general/iraq...), but I want to point out that he won a state after being in politics for months.
Bleh.
Nader will never be president, as much as I like him. His "My way or the highway" style just doesn't work in politics. He might be be good in a cabinet post, or awful, depending on the cabinet position.
Of course, four years of gridlock might be better than Sir Chimp-a-lot's rule, but that isn't saying much.
No scum politician ever provided a job for anyone other than himself/herself
ummm...
Where to start? The military? The new Buro des Heimat Sekuritaet? Senate Internships? Workfare? Civil service? The jobs they create indirectly through their influence on the economy?
On the one hand these idiots say (we had one who reduced Hobbes' Leviathan solely to this one point)-Government has no incentive to ever do anything but make more government. Leaving aside the presupposition of animal immorality coming from people who are usually crossworshippers (as well as history), how can cancerously growing government grow...and not provide any jobs?
sorry
it's not about logic, it's about telling the peasants to get back in their huts and shut up and pray.
Bitch about it all you want. Is it going to change? Can it change?
Sorry, I thought it was a rhetorical question. This site is full of sages who consider such simple reforms as Instant Runoff Voting the stuff of silly dreamers.
Yeah, I think things can change. If people knew in gory detail what this country gets up to while it's allegedly pursuing democracy they would be horrified and attempt to end it. Every day I'm struck by how nice and helpful just about everyone I meet on an average day in Manhattan is. They live in a country which foreign policy reflects not them, but an extremely influential layer of rich, racist sociopaths. This will not stand forever. The trend of history, despite the impediments thrown up by the sociopaths, is more democracy, more justice.
Had to scroll down. And how.
"I'm so fucking sick of the politics of appearances. It's like Kerry's most fervent admirers don't give a fuck whether he believes a word of this stuff or not. I'd love to see a candidate who would just gamble and fucking tell the truth and see where it got him.
Nickname "
We had him and his name was mothafuckin' DEAN.
and no man has put his name asunder, unless you count many no-count men.
Job Growth? The last group of peope who provided job growth are named Bill Gates, Scott Nealy sp? (Sun), Steve Jobs, Andy Grove and their kin. No scum politician ever provided a job for anyone other than himself/herself. You guys should learn some economics.
Actually, hospital administrators have been creating a lot more jobs lately than any of the men you cited (my personal take is that Scott McNealy is a complete assclown who doesn't belong in that kind of company, but anyway...)
One simple thing that W COULD do, but apparently won't, to create a lot of jobs for people with my skills is to fund the Defense Investigative Service and commission them to get out there and process some security clearances. There are literally thousands of currently advertised job vacancies going unfilled because they require a secret clearance, which in turn entails a cursory investigation for which DoD is not currently funded.
But you're lecturing the wrong people on this subject. We're not the War President who promised us 300,000 or so jobs over the last six months.
Oh, and you should go learn a little bit about how the Internet works, so you can quit hammering the submit button while your browser is reloading the page.
If you don't vote, STFU.
As someone used to say (way to often)
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Re: Clark as VP
Talk about baggage. That guy will be answering questions every day about the Chinese Embassy in Sarajevo, dead civilians at the tv station, the KLA, firing rockets at passenger trains, his comments about the SOA, General Shelton's comments about him, his lobbying work for a company the ACLU isn't so fond of... The list is long...
He would hurt the Democratic ticket more than help it. I hope Clark just decides to stay out of politics and go back to working for Stephens in Arkansas. We'll be better off.
I'm going to say this again, loud and clear, so even those in the nosebleeds can hear and get it straight (so excuse the all caps):
* NADER IS RUNNING AN "ISSUES CANDIDCAY", JUST LIKE SHARPTON AND KUCINICH AND LA ROUCHE.
* NADER HAS NO INTENTION OR BELIEF THAT HE WILL WIN, NOR DID THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR HIM IN THE PAST, OR WILL VOTE FOR HIM IN 2004
So, please, for the love of God, stop it with the idiotic strawman arguments and get in touch with what's really going on. Can we do that?
Again, my apologies for the ALL CAPS, but I'm getting tired of hearing the same fact-free smears over and over again. Let's stick together and put our energy into ousting the Bush machine, then let's work together to make this country a real democracy.
Can we agree on that?
That's just nonsense. You think well enough of the Democrats to vote for them, but think they would shut out good legislation out of spite towards Nader?
No. I think Nader would veto anything that didn't serve the myth of his personal righteousness.
And if he didn't, he would be a hypocrite.
If people knew in gory detail what this country gets up to while it's allegedly pursuing democracy they would be horrified and attempt to end it.
If...
I'd apologize for calling you sweetheart, but would you rather I called you a dumb fuckhead?
Anyway, I don't know what to do about the madness. I remain hopeful that things can change.
'Night.
OK folks, let's keep that energy level up!
"No. I think Nader would veto anything that didn't serve the myth of his personal righteousness.
And if he didn't, he would be a hypocrite."
Damned if you do...
The best trick the corporate devils pulled was...convincing people that economics is "the dismal science", incomprehensibly numerical and wallishly boring. Check out Adam Smith's, Thomas Jefferson's, et al's feelings about "joint-stock companies"...and later, "trusts"...and later "corporations".
Check out Joseph Steiglitz. Or Greg Palast's WTO chapters in Best Democracy. Today some Friedman acolyte we school with decided to attack anti-WTO protestors as irrational cultists and, instead of analyzing and trying to refute their their position (besides calling them "crazy"), he segued into this story about a vetrinarian getting murdered by PETA, which just goes to show that no one has ever criticized the WTO successfully because...look at PETA murdering people...sort of...
and of course the sole benefit he mentioned for NAFTA was an increase in GDP and an insistance (without even apocryphal examples) that there must be more jobs and the people who are unemployed (wait for it, econ-savvy readers) want to starve to death.
yeah, and also he's econ prof to one of us, and caring more about grades than causing disturbances we'll probably shut up and go along with it. Maybe after we do well on a few tests, get some credibility with the other kids she'll sneak in some truth-but it won't help anything to be a known flunky and also antagonizing everybody.
also, see "homepage" for a great beginning to economic issue comprehension, Dollars and Sense Magazine.
'nonnie;
Clark, no.
Ike, no.
Sharpton, no.
But for different reasons in each case. Clark and Ike are not equivalent merely by virtue of being Generals. Clark was a war hero, small letters, while Ike was THE war hero, and got his ass drafted into office-albeit willingly. Clark has not Ike's politiocal skills, which served him so well in WW2, and for his 2 terms. Clark should run for Congress, get some OTJT. Ike didn't have to. Clark had a go at both parties, and went Democrat. Ike was wooed by both parties, and went Republican. He was, almost inarguably, the Last Good Republican.
Sharpton....can we talk about something pleasant? Like Slime Mold?
At least Clinton didn't invade Iraq
No he just starved it.
nor Carter Iran.
He was too busy fighting liberation theology (killing nuns) in Central America and providing the Moujahedeen with their big break.
Really, if there's going to be any kind of alliance between lefts and libs, let's at least all learn the history.
If you say Dem and Repugs differ on gays, abortion and the environment, you'll get no argument. And these differences are sufficient to support them over a spoiler candidacy.
But you'd be wise to stay off of foreign policy where the differences in terms of dead dark people is very small.
everybody go to www.weeklystandard.com and vote for Kerry on their election poll ...
I hope we can make the country more democratic because the genius of our flexibility and inefficiency is seemingly beginning to fail, that is why people vote for libertarians and Nader/greens. If the democrats can't make basic steps in that direction they will eat themselves. Not by losing out to one of these parties but by making there own existence useless. As such, I hope this doesn't eat our country, we are already losing out culturally in more subtle ways than losing jobs. In addition, Kerry can't do much worse in chosen his VP as gore did, ONE of the reasons I didn't vote for him. I'm going to vote democratic but if nothing comes of it I will be back to a third party(this is only a testament to chimpy's inability to stop using outdated binary thought).
DfC;
I guess I was thinking more of a younger Ralph. Back when he wasn't so much of a bitter old man. 'course, maybe he was a bitter young man....Might have been some good training in Playing Well With Others
the problem with the $87B was exactly how Lieberman described it (and I'm paraphrasing, dammit, because i can't find the EXACT quote): ``The President has presented us with a bill, not a plan.'' Bush refused to cough up details of where the money would go and many senators (unfortunately, Joe caved, as usual) voted against the $87 billion for precisely that very sound reason.
economics is no doubt important but unfortunately instead of being an important factor it is the last 20th century utopian ideal.See how often the Marx/Smith binary comes up despite the obvious fact that everyone- even clinton clearly favor Smith/Ricardo. In this utopia caring about anything human is , of course, Marxist.
I'd love to see a candidate who would just gamble and fucking tell the truth and see where it got him.
See Mondale, Walter - 'He won't tell you, I just did.'
Lost in a landslide.
See Mondale, Walter - 'He won't tell you, I just did.'
Lost in a landslide.
Yeah. And all because he told the truth.
Better example, please.
1> continued aggressive comments like this will be effective if each time kerry says 'i propose this legislation' or 'i call on bush to support that legislation'. shows that he's working towards SOLUTIONS and keeps bush on the spot.
3> i'm not totally up on the pakistani situation, but if musharrof (sp?) ends up assassinated in the next few months, who takes over, and what does that do to the osama hunt?
2> oops!
oh jesus why are we talking about nader again?
Another poll- the martha stewart thread has more comments than the Kerry thread
oh jesus why are we talking about nader again?
shhhh
"* NADER IS RUNNING AN "ISSUES CANDIDCAY", JUST LIKE SHARPTON AND KUCINICH AND LA ROUCHE."
Ralph ran an Issue Candidacy back in '00.
The issue turned out to be our Dear Leader.
Larouche is running a fever.
Sharpton....nah
Don't blame me, I voted for Dean.
Hey,
Nader is done.
He needs 700,000 votes to get on the ballot in all 50 states.
Aint' gonna happen.
Let's prioritize, please.
Lesser of 2 evils, and all that.
Read the 100% unvarnished truth again:
it's been a continually astonishing feature of the war effort to me, the reluctance of the Bush Administration to use the essentially blank check of patriotism to boost pay for the soldiers; justify upgrades in armor and equipment; do damn near anything they want. There's huge support for doing right by the soldiers no matter where you stand on the war: no one wants to see those kids die or suffer. Yet, they don't; in fact, they treat soliders with the back of their hand with lousy pay, lousy equipment, cuts in health care, etc. Truly, the inexcapable conclusion is that they honestly see the humans as intrinsically less important than the bombs and bullets they buy. It's more cost-effective to spend money on better explosives and guidance systms than people.
secularhuman
Let's prioritize, please.
Lesser of 2 evils, and all that.
Um, I think everyone gets it.
yah know, as a person of color, I'm tired of hearing all this complaining from all sides. I sat on a straw mat of a dirt floor in another country. These people had little or nothing. I was treated as an honored guest. I couldn't refuse their hospitality because it would have been an insult. Having lived in more than one country overseas I have one thing to say to americans - get over yourselves! Do you have food, shelter, clothing, transportation? Guess what? Most of the people on the planet have none or very little of these things. You bitch about free speech zones. How about a bullet in the head for doing the same elsewhere? At least you're alive to complain. Move to a really poor country or a war zone and then tell me about Bush, Nader, Kerry or any of your white rich politicians. Malcolm X was right - there's nothing more dangerous than a white liberal.
"Irrational yes. But it's more like some weird bargain that tells feeble-minded Americans that they're protected from elites, minorities, foreigners, gays...provided they give unconditional support to the local country club."
Defense Secretary Seinfeld
Sec. Seinfeld that is the best one sentence explanation of the Bush phenomena I have ever seen.
Sarah:
The "body armor" I wear for sport motorcycling is completely different from that which should be supplied to soldiers. It would do them no good if I sent it to them. (See picture at moosehall.com)
However, your points are well taken.
Perhaps Kerry's speech seems lame to me cause having spent the last year reading everything on the internet I could about the war, it's all old news to me now. What he has to say about body armor, Halliburton, etc may be as shocking to others as it was to me when I first read it.
And I might be guilty of expecting too much. Just have to listen to the speech and see what comes of it.
At any rate, unless Dean pulls off a Lazarus type thing, I'll be pulling the Kerry lever.
And we are not, not going to "fix" Iraq- Iraq splitting into 3 or more pieces would suit us just fine. If Iraq gets "fixed" it will be in spite of us.
And of course my name fits-that's why they call me Mooser.
Seeing as how the U.S. armed forces are currently "strong" enough to maintain imperial garrisons in half the countries of the world, and intervene in all kinds of bad causes (e.g., Iraq and Haiti), I'd say it's well past time to weaken the hell out of them. They need to be brought home, and reduced to the size necessary to defend the territory of the U.S. Period.
This is especially urgent, considering the fact that maintaining the "strongest armed forces in the world" is costing taxpayers $400 billion a year--mostly pumped into the coffers of Big Business.
Sixty years of a garrison state and a permanent war economy is TOO DAMNED LONG. Down with neocon internationalism, and down with "progressive" internationalism.
hmmm...
tiny = large, overweight, talk-radio saturated WHITE guy?
hmmm...
Boy, am I coming LATE to this one...
I'm curious, does anyone find this speech appealing in its own right, or is everyone second-guessing how it plays to the rubes?
This election is so meta I can hardly stand it.
Nickname
ROTFL, I didn't think too many people used the term 'meta'...you don't happen to be an RPG player do ya?
People come up with really nutso Karl Rove machinations that start to sound like superomnipotent Rube Goldberg causality strings. People give that guy too much credit.
Old Hat
Agreed...I mean, just LOOK at the gaffes lately...Rove is either incompetant, or expected that pulling the wool over the media's eyes would hold them until Nov.
But you can't HIDE the joblessness...the lack of healthcare (a group I am unhappily a part of)...education misdeeds...underfunding the vets and military and first responders...eventually, that stuff sneaks by in a place as messy as America. Maybe in North Korea, a model I'm sure Bush admires under all that rhetoric, the public wouldn't know about that stuff, but we're not North Korea...yet.
Unfortunately, he thinks kerry's just posturing and will only support the troops until he gets into office.
emjaycue
I doubt that...very much. Seeing as he's a friggin' vet. He's got a record of supporting vets and military personnel, FWIK.
I could tell — hell, all of us could tell — that the evidence they trotted out for us was bullshit. But Fall 2002, in the run-up to the mid-terms, the BushCo presentation was so relentless, so absolute, so unqualified that I started thinking that they must have some super-duper secret intel they couldn't share.
--dix
I have to admit, I felt the same way...confused just long enough to blink, and by then, it was too late. *sighs* But I always go back to Krugman's intro to his book "The Great Unravelling" where he talks about revolutionary powers...that in the face of the revolutionary power, which possesses the power of its own convictions, people who see what's coming are like Cassandra - doomed to be unheard until it's too late...and even, to some extent, to doubt themselves as well.
No, tiny IS and was BORN a person of color. Tiny has both native american and slave ancestry. Tiny lost a loved one to lynching. Tiny has been called a nigger more than once, refused service at more than one public place (after civil rights and affirmative action), and almost run off the road (and nearly killed) in the good ole USA. Tiny speaks from personal experience. That's why tiny has no time for whiners. We've lived with it for hundreds of years. Welcome to our world. Funny how it's worse when them chickens come home to roost.
tiny | Email | Homepage | 03.05.04 - 11:31 pm | #
Smells like... troll.
[ignore]
I hate to tell everyone that adding armor to vehicles works only if your foe is stupid. It only escalates into increases in the size of the bomb used.
I was part of a team sent to Viet Nam to work on this very problem on M113 APC's.
We added 1" of armor to these vehicle and tested them with standard US anti tank mines. One of our mines would blow an M113 into the air and it would do a 1-1/2 gainer before hitting the ground. It also put one hell of a dent into the 1" armor.
The Viet Cong knew exactly how much explosive to place in a mine to defeat any of our vehicles be they APC's, tanks or trucks. The famous M113, 007, was blown up with a 500 lb arial bomb, one of ours that did not explode and which was recovered by the Cong. BTW the driver survived!! A very wasteful use of explosives.
The troopers did not ride inside the M113's, they rode on top of the vechicle so as to get as far away from the explosion as possible. The drivers did not have that option.
The poor bastards who have to tool around Irak in anything less than an M1 Abrams tank have my sympathy.
Mr Kerry hopefully won't have to deal with our troops lack of proper equipment as our "cut and run" strategy will be implimented before November.
Tiny,
A question -
What does color have to do with an under-funded military?
And how does complaining about the military being under-funded make any of us bad people?
I know I don't have to remind you that your brothers as well as mine are going without armor in Iraq.
dilbert dogbert | Email | Homepage | 03.05.04 - 11:36 pm | #
One pseudonym, troll. Just one, OK? What's wrong with your anime-geek/cross-dresser one?
[ignore]
note to tiny:
I think the idea is to try to put a president into office who will not spend our money trying to kill nice kind people sleeping on mats overseas.
I think they just want to left alone and not shocked and awed everytime a president wants to be re-elected.
Is your last name "brained"?
No, I'm not a troll. But if it makes you feel better to think so, go ahead. Remember the saying, they came for... and I did nothing. Then they came for me and there was no one left to defend me? I've always stood up for the down trodden regardless of circumstance. I've even stood up for racists when they were unfairly treated. That's the kind of person I was raised to be. Guess what? It worked. It changed hearts and minds. Think about it.
"Smells like... troll."
The large econo-size troll, with the supersize smell.........
Go back to your discussion of Kerry. All I've heard here proves one thing. Malcolm was right. What I'm trying to show you guys is insults, and put downs don't work. As my grandma used to say "kill 'em with kindness".
Read the speech excerpt several times and liked it more.
It's hard to accept the fact that Bush and his cronies will take a long time to get rid of. I want them gone NOW ! And you can't get around the fact that Kerry is a skilled politician, and knows far better than I where to start and how much to say.
Will we ever recover from Bush and his cronies? Jeez, what a mess they've made!
Um, does anyone have any idea at all what Tiny is getting at, if he's not simply trolling? I can't find a clear point of contention here, except possibly that people who have all of life's necessities have no right to "whine" about their basic civil rights being threatened. I've been in and out of here tonight and it's abundantly clear that there's a full moon upon us.
I'd love to see a candidate who would just gamble and fucking tell the truth and see where it got him.
Nick, I'm afraid the Kucinich ship has already sailed. I don't know what to tell you.
should be exciting to see the Blogs4Bush response to Kerry's speech tomorrow. All they ever post about is how Kerry is going to destroy the US because he doesn't care about our national security.
"Malcolm was right."
Which Malcolm?
"as my grandma used to say "kill 'em with kindness"
Your grandmother was a wise woman.
Mooser,
Saw the link. Nice bike. Armor's evolved some since my day (79 Honda Hawk -- black).
Thing is ... I'm from Texas. Bush is not. I'm an Air Force vet. Bush is not.
This matters to me. "restore honor and dignity to the white house ..." yeah, right; compared to what, I'd like to know? What Bush and his cohort of vermin are doing to my country -- and to the world in the name of my country and my people -- is fulsomely vile. The sheer gall of the man is breathtaking.
Those 9-11 ads he's running? Yeah, he's claiming his credit -- and you tell me how his claim is different than if he were phoning in a claim from Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or Hezbollah after a bomb destroys a bus in Jerusalem.
I'd give nearly anything if the media smear on Dr. Dean hadn't worked so damnably well and heartbreakingly fast, but it did. The Commander in Thief doesn't belong in President Gore's white house, but he's there.
I remember saying out loud on the night of the 2000 election, when it went all over that chimplike visage that Florida had been called for Gore and you could SEE Bush's fury, that we (as in the country) were screwed.
I underestimated by several orders of magnitude.
Ride long and hard and fast and well.
the best variation of tipsy mcstagger is Chimpy McFlightsuit
Great thread guys... lots of things to think about. I love this place.
FYI, a Google search for Tipsy McFuckup doesn't return any results at all, tee hee.
About time.Keep this up (don't be cowed by the resulting "negative" label)and we may win this election! Damn it's good to hear about Bush,Inc.'s trashy hijinks somewhere outside of the blogosphere!
OT, but if he's good enough for Beatle John...
No, I'm not a troll.
Ha! That's a good one... the only question is, which troll is it?
OT, but --
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
in football and chess, the best way to destroy an opposing defense is to run right at the opponent's self-styled strength. since no one does that, the opponent is prepared for anything but that
I was thinking something along the same lines. I am dying to see Big John tie this to Bush's leadership style. Along the lines of "Bush is a leader but he only knows one way to lead: shrink and privatize government. Regardless of the situation the answer is always the same. Whether we have a budget surplus or budget deficit, whether it's social security or health care or the millitary, it's the same answer. But that's the problem, because when you have different problems you need different answers. I can understand that George thinks the Army should be run like a corporation because that's all George has ever done. But the millitary isn't a corporation and shouldn't be run like one. The focus should be on the balance sheet of soldiers lives, not the profit and loss of the operation. When it comes to American lives we don't want to squeeze out every last dollar but rather save every soldiers life."
Daaammn. Give him hell!
He doesn't give them hell. He gives them the truth, and they think it's hell.
Frood | Email | Homepage | 03.05.04 - 6:51 pm | #
Rock on!
.....
OT, but if he's good enough for Beatle John...
dave
Indeed, dave, indeed!
Imagine Kerry and Clark blasting Bush on national security at the same time.
Old Hat | Email | Homepage | 03.05.04 - 6:25 pm | #
No kidding, the Rethugs ***are*** imagining it and it is giving them the skitters .
.....
And just BTW I really can’t imagine how Brokaw suggested that people in the communities should now start buying generators for Afghanistan and sending them there.
Is somebody under the impression that folks in the community have too few responsibilities?
How many generators has he sent to Afghanistan?
.....
If Bush had invested in our communities like our side told him to and sent money back to our States and Cities, instead of whooshing all the money out for his tax cuts, we would be seeing at least some of the job growth we need.
.....
Hey, job growth is where you look for it, MinnieB9. Like, say, in the Armed Forces sector. Lots of room for expansion there.
Three-headed frog.
Nick, I'm afraid the Kucinich ship has already sailed. I don't know what to tell you.
You have a point. He didn't fail, however, because he told the truth and it offended the people. It offended others with greater influence.
Look, as a "former" special forces officer, currently stationed oversees, I have a unique perspective on what people in the military are thinking about our pom-pom boy-in-chief, namely, we hate him. Given the chance to select between a warrior who went to Vietnam and fought for his country or a male cheerleadering wimp who passed out towels to naked football players, for the men in my unit at least, the choice is easy.
Big John... Big bad John.
Ok, now we need someone to do a kick-ass cover of that Jimmy Dean song.
Changing the lame lyrics of course.
FYI, a Google search for Tipsy McFuckup doesn't return any results at all, tee hee.
So, you wants us ta Google Bomb Shrimpcakes?
Big Sweet John
First of all, I do not believe the US needs a military force the size of the one we currently have. It's a huge drain on the GDP, for one thing, and it leads Presidents into places that they should not go, simply because they can.
As many of you are no doubt aware, the US spends more on "Defense" ($390B) than the rest of the world combined ($360B). That's ridiculous! Our defense expenditures should be in line with the rest of the world.
Unless we want to conquer the rest of the world. And I do not.
Count me in on wanting to cut and run from Iraq. We should not have invaded in the first place. I'm with Kucinich. Pay reparations and get the UN in there.
Bush is 100% responsible for this fiasco. The Rusmsfeld was allocated what amounts to a < a href="http://slate.msn.com/id/2089674/">$9 billion slush fund.
So, since Bush ALREADY has the authorization to both purchase body armor and humvee armor and reimburse families, Kerry should be asking why he needs another law to do the right thing.
"Congress shouldn't have to beg the President to give our soldiers body armor."
Chocolate Proton. I agree completly. There is one problem I can see with completly cutting and running from Iraq though. It makes us appear weak, and that might incurage attacks. Maybe.
You know, as people have been pointing out, we can criticize Kerry for many things -- his performance in the Senate during the Bush presidency has been largely invisible, at best -- but this really is a nice start, I don't see how anyone could argue against that. All those other issues we're talking about, those need addressing too, but never underestimate the value of taking the fight to the opponent, instead of the other way around.
If this is a sign of how the campaign will play, it will serve Kerry well. Rove and the rest at the White House aren't nearly as good playing defense as they are playing offense, as we have seen in the last few weeks. If Kerry can frame the topics, and ignore efforts by the White House to reframe things in terms of flag burning, or the immigrant menace, or those mean gay people who are going to give you gay cooties, he may get through these first few months intact.
It makes us appear weak, and that might incurage attacks. Maybe.
You mean, might encourage more simultaneous attacks that kill hundreds of people in a half hour?
No offense, but at this point I can't see us doing anything to increase or decrease the appetite for these sorts of attacks.
No matter what we do now in Iraq, there will be a lot of terrorism there for a long time. And elsewhere.
Isn't religion wonderful?
Wasn't John Kerry one of the ones who voted against funding the war in Iraq?
Isn't John Kerry the one who voted against most of the major weapon systems we have in use today?
And now John Kerry sits there in his rich ass mortgaged mansion in MA (have you donated so he can pay off that mortgage yet?) and tells us that he will now do something for the American military.
Get real. Kerry sounds like a guy with 5 beer courage. Bring it on!!! he says with a cutesy smile on his botoxed face. LOL. What a Forbesing joke. And people fall for this cheap, worthless BS hook line and sinker.
I hope the Republicans rip him to shreds on this. Kerry needs to get some adult campaign advice.
What Kerry really needs to worry about is this: Nader 6%
or maybe one of the fires in his 6 fireplaces going out while he is making his fireside chat on the radio.
Isn't religion wonderful?
No. Hardly anyone reads the manual.
Move to a really poor country or a war zone and then tell me about Bush, Nader, Kerry or any of your white rich politicians. Malcolm X was right - there's nothing more dangerous than a white liberal.
All these limousine liberals do not know what poor is. To see what poor really is watch what is going on in Haiti. Rioters in Haiti do not grab televisions, expensive Nikes, or VCRs, they grab food. Those people aren't just poor they are desperate. They can't eat Nikes. While the poor in our country are more than likely overweight and have to use the electric shopping carts to roll up to the grocery counters to use their food stamps.
Does anyone know what is going on with Kerry's website? I go on to it and it goes nuts. I think it must be collecting data about me from my computer without telling me because the site tailors its message to my address. I have also started getting lots of spam, er, emails from what looks like his site too so they must have hacked my real only for nice people email address from somewhere. This is strange. Very invasive and creepy.
This contract award was just announced on March 2--almost a year after the war began. Interesting timing.
Radian Inc. (Radian), a subsidiary of Engineered Support Systems, Inc., has been awarded a $16.3 million, firm-fixed-price redetermination contract to provide 272 armor protection kits for the U.S. Army's Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV). The U.S. Army Program Executive Office, Combat Support and Combat Services Support (PEO, CS&CSS) awarded the contract through the Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) in Warren, Michigan, for Operational Unit Force Protection.
These armor kits will immediately be transferred to Army units operating in Iraq.
Job growth. Heard a report on NPR tonight about the admin.'s not achieving their projected job numbers, and the mention was that most of the 21,000 new jobs were in government. Wait a minute, aren't the Repubs all about making government smaller? Or maybe these numbers reflect the growth of the military? I do like this approach that Kerry is taking, but there needs to be reminders of the 2000 campaign promises that Bush has failed miserably on. "Not a nation builder" etc....
Everyone keeps mentioning the $87 billion supplemental ($9 billion of which is discretionary). You all are forgetting the April supplemental of another $74.7 billion ($62.6 billion for military spending). These are sums above and beyond the Defense appropriations bill.
Plus, the US seized and transferred an additional $2.43 billion in Iraqi assets to the NY Federal Reserve bank. Funds found within Iraq ($600 million at least) have also been used for funding local reconstruction projects. Additional revenue is also flowing into Iraq from oil sales (or not according to one aid group who said $4-5 billion may have been missing) Plus another $13-40 billion in aid/loans/goods from the donor nations for reconstruction.
There's no excuse for not having provided troops with adequate protection. This war was being planned at least two years in advance.
An intelligent administration and Defense Dept would have at the very least been well stocked and supplied even if the war never moved beyond paper. That they chose not to equip troops shows how little they cared about manpower and really only cared about firepower--which is useless without troops.
SHUT UP!
Don't make so much noise.
See, I know the score
Your decibels won't match.
You fools, the bottom floor
is the answer. Wait,
that's the wrong question
Don't make me soil anymore
Double the frequency
Encounter an Octave.
But don't try to harmonize.
Uggghhhh! I should have said nothing!
What Thersites said. Blair's latest speech is right, in a sense, but the approach needs to be a different one to match the differing environment in which everyone is acting.
Jesus: I thought the problem was that people who read the manual sometimes misinterpret it...
It was more than four decades ago that Malcom X said that. The context of it is all important to understanding it. His, admittedly well earned, dislike of white people in general at the time was certainly part of it. And his dislike extended to people who were active in the civil rights movement. Liberals in other words. As I recall he was offended by their presence. His belief that black nationalism was the only way certainly is part of it too. He would have seen them as enemies of his cause.
At the risk of getting some people upset, Malcom X wasn't a fixed value, his views changed quite a bit during his public life. Look at his attitude towards women. He wasn't stupid, he would certainly come to see that allies of good will are essential for progress in the civil rights of any oppressed minority. Something lots of gay people still have not figured out, by the way. No minority anywhere will ever achieve full rights without friends in the majority. It's almost a mathmatical law and certainly borne out by experience.
If he hadn't been murdered he would be a lot different today, it's not possible to know how he would be but I'm guessing that he would have been practical about it.
Who would you rather trust, white liberals or white conservatives?
I am a truck driver working for KBR in Iraq right now. Kerry is right on the money. This should be a HUGE story. Even for civilian contractors, the armor being provided is a joke. There is much superior and lighter armor, yet it is not being provided because of the cost. Everyone has known about this for a long time. Please keep spreading the truth.
So, you run into Jesus in the elevator, bus, checkout line... What would you say/ask?
So, you run into George Bush in the elevator, bus, checkout line... What would you say/ask?
...
This is good. The only way to counteract the Bush money is to keep them answering to the charges - and there are so many charges to answer.
For a given oil field, production starts low, increases to a peak, and then descends to a low level. Think a normal curve.
In the 1950s, a geologist named Dr. M. King Hubbert predicted a peak for oil production in the lower 48 states of the U.S. in 1970. He was riduculed, but turned out to be correct. This is obviously true because we import oil now.
There are a number of geologists who predict a worldwide "Hubberts Peak" will occur sometime around 2010. After this occurs, oil production will steadily decrease, never to rise again.
Meanwhile, the demand for oil constantly increases as China industrializes, etc.
The implications are a 1970s style oil crisis, except permanent and constantly getting worse. Think carefully about the uses for oil and the implications of this problem.
References:
www.peakoil.net
Also pick up a copy of the New York Times dated February 24, 2004. A front page story on Saudi Oil fields. Saudi Arabia has the largest oil reserves in the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/2...pagewanted=1&
hp
cheers,
Pete in NC
3000 innocent men, women and children died when terrorists destroyed the Twin Towers on 9-11. For the past 4 years Bush has been doing what Clinton never did. Defend the homelandby destroying the terrorists where ever they may be. That is why he destroyed the Taliban, Al Qaida and Saddam. Clinton pretty much invited these attacks by being week. Hanoi Long John sold his own country to the Viet Cong. Is he going to defend us? He didn't defend us when he was young ans strong, what makes you think he will now? What makes you think he won't cut and run like he did in the 70's? I'm not taking any chances with my or my family's security or this country's security. I feel safe in Georgie the Tyrant Killer's hands. Terrorists and all our other enemies hate him. They want him gone. They want Kerry, they see him as another Clinton. If our enemies want Kerry, I want Bush.
Pete in NC: right. It goes way further than the US, and the whole developed world has some serious thinking to do about what happens when the oil runs out, or even when the supply of fossil fuels of all sorts is strangled for political or economic reasons: See here
How about a national fund-raising campaign to compensate the badly wounded? i.e those condemned to crutches, alcoholism, Prosac, spousal abuse, self-pity, divorce?
Wow, Ricky is real interesting. It is always interesting to see what passes for thought from the wingers. Facts apparently have no influnce on whatever happens in their minds. No matter how many times it is pointed out that Iraq had nothing at all to do with 9-11, they point to our invasion as attacking the terrorists. No mater often it is pointed out that we simply stopped trying to find Bin Laden they don't care. They can't allow any facts to interrupt their point of view.
They will keep backing preznit run away, run away.
So Tiny, how are the liberals, who were the ones getting their heads cracked alongside their black brothers on those civil rights marches, responsible for poverty in another country? Are they supposed to starve themselves so you can feel smug? Are they supposed to give up what ever material influence they have to lead to your imagined African renaissance, as if the powerful pay attention to anyone who ends up living in a cardboard box?
What ever your true color, black or white or other, you are a racist idiot if you believe the crap you've just written. It offers no hope for those who are already downtrodden, it just want's to increase the amount of suffering to satisfy your own prejudices.
As for Dennis Slater; Yes, Kerry's website is watching you through the fillings in your teeth. And the Haitan's have access to easy credit, they just don't have a culture of showing the things they buy on it off, like American's do. And Haitan food is full of as much fat as Americans too, but they have super-efficient negroid bodies to process it all. Idiot.
Randy, oh Randy... where to even begin with you? Perhaps by calling the Secret Service? 'Yes, I want to report a threat to the daughter of the President. Have you seen this stalkers website?'
Ricky, you are one wacky dude.
lawguy, I think we need a new term for these people: Anti-Fact.
You're standing 'em on the railroad tracks and the engine's about to run over their ass, and they're stroking themselves and muttering "trains are from fairy tales, trains are from fairy tales ..."
A.
Way too many comments, way too little time. Just want to say that I've gained some measure of respect for John Kerry with these words. I hope he keeps it up and doesn't turn back into Lurch the Waffleman. These strong appeals to responsible national security, without idiotically pulling out of Iraq prematurely, and dropping the anti-trade rhetoric that he picked up from Edwards, will bring independents and Republicans to the fold.
OT:
Ann Coulter is... hmmm... well, I don't know. Nutso? She attacks the evil New York Times because it wasn't as enthralled with The Passion of the Christ as all rapturous Christians should be. Those evil liberals like William Safire have no shame!!
http://tinyurl.com/2583g
Pre Sept. 11:
While all the Bushies focused on their pet projects, Clarke was blowing a gasket. He had a plan, and no one was paying attention. It didn't help that the plan had been hatched under Clinton. Clinton-hating was to the Bush White House what counter-terrorism was to the Clinton White House.
Meanwhile, on Februart 15, 2001, a commission led by former senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman issued its third and final report on national security. The Hart-Rudman report warned that "mass-casualty terrorism directed against the U.S. homeland was of serious and growing concern" and that America was woefully unprepared for a "catastrophic" domestic terrorist attack...
[...]
The report generated great deal of media attention and even a bill in Congress to establish a National Homeland Security Agency. But over at the White House, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon, President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Attorney General Ashcroft, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld decided the best course of action was not to implement the recommendations of the Hart-Rudman report, but instead to launch a sweepping initiative dubbed "Operation Ignore."
Thanks for the link, Adam, but I just don't read that Coulter bitch. Everyone has a line beyond which they won't travel, and she's well to the other side of mine.
The public face of Operation Ignore would be an antiterrorism task force led by Vice-President Cheney. Its mandate: to pretend to develop a plan to counter domestic terrorist attacks. Bush announced the task force on May 8, 2001, and said he himself would "periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts." Bush never chaired such a meeting, though. Probably because Cheney's task force never actually met. Operation Ignore was in full swing.
Franken, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, from Chapter 16
I understand, TO. That's why I provided a warning of who I was linking to.
But sometimes you have to read the words of evil itself, just to understand them (as best as you could). So you can defeat it.
Malcolm X was right - there's nothing more dangerous than a white liberal. tiny
What's your point? I don't think what you are talking about is the same as what Malcolm X was talking about in 1962. I'm not a person of color, but I was alive back then, and it's a very, very, very different world today.
***************
read up on how this country has worked assiduously at subverting democracy around the world since the end of World War 2 and you will soon learn that it's not about building democracy or friendships. This is one area where the two parties have been very much alike ....
I totally agree with the first part of your sentence, but I assume you have failed to note the differences, for example, in the way Clinton and bush approached the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Everything points to bush's listening to the Christian Right and their 'strategies' for Jerusalem, the 'Holy Land' -- someone did a program on it recently with shots of Janet Parshall (WashTimes, Moonie,CR -- all around wingnut), and others, including a Christian U.S. couple who moved to Jerusalem 10 years ago to help 'bring about the fulfillment', etc. This is why he is not moving on anything there, including his vaunted 'call' for Palestinian statehood. Words are cheap, cheap, cheap! Clinton invested and risked himself personally there. He wasn't perfect by any means, but to not see the difference ... sheesh! I think that area of the world would breathe a sigh of relief with the election of John Kerry.
Ann Coulter is... hmmm... well, I don't know. Nutso?
Does anyone else think she is coming off as weaker, whinier, etc.? I think she's nervous because our side is starting to fight back.
This is getting good. Better go out and get some more popcorn:
CRAWFORD, Tex., March 5 -- Aides to President Bush agreed to turn over a log of a week's worth of telephone calls from Air Force One and other records to satisfy subpoenas from a federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity, White House officials said Friday.
The grand jurors also asked the White House to surrender two years of records of any conversations about the case with reporters, including approximately 25 who were specified by name.
Hanoi Long John sold his own country to the Viet Cong.
Ha-ha-haaaaahahahha! He 'cut and run'? Two tours of duty is what you call 'cut and run'? Only demented wingnut thinking could say that.
Maybe you're reading some misinformed textbooks, but the U.S. was never 'sold' to the Viet Cong.
More:
The grand jury subpoenas, first reported by Newsday, also ask for the text of a White House briefing that referred to the controversy but was missing from the White House Web site. Officials posted it Friday and said it had been omitted inadvertently.
"omitted inadvertently"? *giggle*
Wasn't John Kerry one of the ones who voted against funding the war in Iraq?
You know, that line is so funny for so many reasons... esp. when you read things like this.
The peaceniks were right - the chickenhawks were wrong. Choke on it, moronic brownshirt fucks...
Keep up the attack Sen. Kerry. Please, please run right at Bush's faux support for the military. He wants them to fight for oil, but won't help them protect themselves or help them when they return home mained.
You should be on Saturday radio for the next month. and the month after that. If Bush wants to talk on Saturday, so should you. And do not back down. If they accuse you of something (well, considering who they are, everything) attack back.
I will donate everything I can to see that happen. A couple more Saturday radio addresses like that and you have my money.
Speaking of peaceniks, did you see Bill Moyers' NOW and their report on the infiltration of peace demonstrations before Iraq War II by the FBI and local police departments? Old news, we've heard it before, but it just sounds so sad to me.
Does anyone know what is going on with Kerry's website? . . . This is strange. Very invasive and creepy.
Dennis Slater | Email | Homepage | 03.06.04 - 3:48 am | #
that's odd, i just went there and it was fine. Maybe the site's been troll-proofed.
maybe Dennis was confused by the "Big John" penis enlargement spam. If you don't respond the first time, Dennis, they'll leave you alone.
Bush, Kerry, whoever... American leaders are morons. They bully minor irritants like Iraq and Haiti, but do not dare take on real threats like Pakistan (biggest proliferator of nuclear stuff), Saudi Arabia (biggest proliferator of jihad), or China (biggest proliferator of all deadly stuff).
These numbfuck leaders have turned a once proud, safe nation into a vain, unsafe nation which does not want to see and deal with its real enemies.
... As my grandma used to say "kill 'em with kindness".
tiny
mine used to say "kill them with kindness, but kill them"
preznit, your grandma and mine would have played a hellova poker game together. She called Bush a "nancy-boy" the other day. Hee.
And Sammy, I previously have said that Kerry would have my vote but not my money, but you're right, a little more of this and I might fall back in love and beg to be forgiven for straying from him.
I'm such a fickle political girlfriend.
A.
Dennis Slater is the troll they call when the others have already made asses of themselves. He's a Republican ratfucker. He probably kisses his G. G. Liddy doll's ass before opening his computer.
G.G. Liddy. Never thought of that before, does it reveal something about his personality. Maybe we should call him Gigi from now on.
For the past 4 years Bush has been doing what Clinton never did. Defend the homelandby destroying the terrorists where ever they may be.
Bush/Cheney 2004: Attacking Terrorism Wherever It Isn't.
"People come up with really nutso Karl Rove machinations that start to sound like superomnipotent Rube Goldberg causality strings. People give that guy too much credit.
Old Hat
Agreed...I mean, just LOOK at the gaffes lately...Rove is either incompetant, or expected that pulling the wool over the media's eyes would hold them until Nov."
I used to quaver in fear of the mighty Rove and the RNC having/getting more money than God.
Events of the last 3 years have shown me that the Republican Borg are not that frightful - the Dems are that weak, that stupid. They started rolling over way before 9/11 and are now whirling dervishes. If the Democrats have half a brain and one nut they can win this election away from the Mayberry Machiavellis, but . . . . . .
ummm...(more or less just got here)
it sounds like Anonymous is still obsessed with us (really confirms this as a kick-ass pseudonym: poor brownshirt Young Republicans can't help visualizing...). Anonymous, we are NOT all these people you think we are. This is not a "promise": you can check things like IPs and shit. We are not these other people. Observe:
we're not "Dogbert", who sounds like he knows what he's talking about (neither of us were in EOD or tankers or old enough to have been in Vietnam). Nor is anything Dogbert said...really, what was anonymous thinking? There are plenty of other cartoon names unrelated to us (Kanti, Zim, Rorschach, etc); what the hell was the point or the suspicion of linking us to him?!
we're not tiny either, nor is tiny necessarily a troll. Stupid, yes-his illogical declaration that he dun ben ahl ova, so white fo'k bess shut up, because the violent supression of freedom of speech is... better than the violent supression of freedom of speech [no, we're not misreading it{!!}] was typical of say Starr Jones. Which is the point: like the African Kings enslaving people and selling them whites, to the Plutocrats of the Polish Seym dealing with would-be invaders, there has never been a shortage of people willing to Fuck their own. He's trollish in his intelligence, but he could very well be sincere.
(That is, except for this just too-blackface bullshit where tiny refers to tiny in the third person like Golem or something, holy fucking al jolson...)
Ricky Vandal, ya gotta remember, Clinton was constantly under attack from the hordes on the right, and when he did something vis a vis Bosnia, etc., he was pilloried, again, by the hordes on the right, for trying to take the focus off of his supposed, yet never proven, travails. He couldn't win with shitbags like you, so your opinion means shit to me. There is only one good thing to be said about our dickless leader, he has reminded us of what happens if we let our guard down, even for a minute. You just keep dreamin about shrubbie, and the world will pass you by, as it should.
P.S. Great thread, except for the obvious wingnuts, which does not include tiny, say what you will, but he doesn't sound like a troll in the least. Again, apologies for the offensive language, but after the last three years, my only response to some of these wingnut losers is to tell them to suck my d**k!
Pete,
The term "peak oil" has filtered down to the voting populace. Governments and the controlled media will not publish or broadcast such stuff. (too tinfoil-ish they'll say), but the push for the control of the last remain fossil fuel reserves on the planet by the BushCo Fief is telling, along with other geopolitical maneuvers from other nations on the planet.
Peak oil? Is that gonna give me better fuel economy for my Lincoln Navigator or my Ford Expedition? Few people are going to want to hear it ... the unthinkable! No gasoline? No natural gas? How will we live? Chances are, yes? that we've already hit peak.
It's going to be a different world in the near future because there is no way to get around it. They diddled away the alternative energy time. I'll be sad to die knowing what's to come.
Pete, I meant it has NOT filtered down to the voting populace....
Here's your choice, America.
War in Iraq, Republican-style
OR
War in Iraq, Democrat-style
what a choice. Isn't it wonderful living in the "world's greatest democracy"?
Here's your choice, America.
War in Iraq, Republican-style
OR
War in Iraq, Democrat-style
what a choice. Isn't it wonderful living in the "world's greatest democracy"?
Glad to see a few Kucinich folks here! The Iraq War didn't have to be accepted by anyone in Congress. It was NOT inevitable.
Kucinich would be the perfect prez at this point in our national journey.
Kerry on the other hand is unacceptable to me. I've tried giving the benefit of the doubt. I've tried weighing the "badness" scenarios of a Kerry of Bush Administration. But on LGBTQ rights, on health care, on international "free" trade, on curtailing corporate ascendancy, and on the militarization of America, I see no substantive differance.
What I don't understand is that everyone is sooooo excited about Kerry because, well, um...
he's tall. I never hear praise for his health-care plan, or his stance on gay marriage, or anyone giving him mad props for having the chutzpah to challenge the private sector.
Why is everyone so excited?
I support Dennis 'til the end. I'm a delegate here in MN, so maybe I'll make it Boston. Of course, the Democratic Party has hired Miami police chief Timoney to head security, so perhaps I ought to bring body armor of my own. No funny anti-corporate agitation allowed...
Those of us on the left are not wanted in the party. The party line will win, and this country is doomed.
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