They pay for it by cutting Medicad,Medicare,student loans,and anything else that might help US citizens.These people are pure scum.
Posted by JohnT at February 3, 2006 07:10 AMThose cuts don't even begin to pay for it. Not only that, they also raid social security cash to cover the true amount of the theft and plundering.
But they are evil lying scum, yes.
Posted by paradox at February 3, 2006 07:28 AMAwesome post Paradox!
Let's don't take care of the USA, let's spend to fix the fucking world. That will solve all our problems.
More like continue to make bu$hco rich, while the middle class and poor suffer. The rest of the bleeting sheep will idly sit on their hands saying, "Thank God for GW, what a wonderful protector".
I cannot understand how repukes think? It's not isolationism when we truly need to take care of our own problems.
The world is laughing at the canard created
Posted by bbtb at February 3, 2006 07:32 AMOnly the Constitution does not grant the Executive with check writing priveledges or, for that matter, war making powers. As the Treasury belongs to the People, elected representatives are meant to appropriate the available resources wisely and circumscribe the reach of an Executive who would spend recklessly. The failure of this critical apparatus of our government is reprehensible. However, I am more apt to point blame at Congress in this matter than the President. The House of Representatives is a body that can and must be held accountable by the real majority, wherever they are.
Posted by obelus at February 3, 2006 07:34 AMIt's only de ja vu all over again.
Posted by Anjha at February 3, 2006 07:37 AMThanks paradox, the catharsis was sorely needed here.
Posted by iamcoyote at February 3, 2006 07:56 AMAttaboy! Keep saying it.
I've been dropping "I'm not afraid of Al Qui'da" or "Bush is a bigger danger than terrorists" comments in every blog entry that it might conceivably be appropriate.
IMHO If the entire left would just keep repeating that, every chance we get, we will do more good than any other statement we can make.
Of course, calling the fearful neo-con right bedwetters won't hurt either.
Posted by Dilapidus at February 3, 2006 08:20 AMDon't worry, they'll raise the ceiling, that operation is so common now it's not even debated in the Congress anymore. Least of all by "conservatives".
The people have been bamboozled, and there is no machinery by which we can reform ourselves. Direct, truthful information, broadcast for the next 10 months might accomplish something, but we know that is absolutely not going to happen.
History unequivocally demonstrates that great powers come undone most often by military overstretch which their hubris does not allow them to correct before economic catastrophe envelopes them.
We are bankrupting our government with mountains of literally ridiculous spending on military operations which are wholly unnecessary and are bringing us no benefit whatever, other than transferring taxpayer funds to defense contractors. We do not have the sense to see that this "battle" or "war" cannot be won through military means, and our enormous national pride will not permit a "retreat" (Nero Jr's telling term) from the foolish position we have put ourselves in. A change of strategy is now being equated with "defeat" by Emperor AWOL.
Hence, like the Spanish Empire, economic failure and social chaos is our inevitable future.
Posted by euzoius at February 3, 2006 08:28 AMThe enemy is squatting in the White House.
I subscribe to this libertarian/conservative financial email (I like all opinions when it comes to money and economics); every so often they print feedback. Check some of these out:
CALL ME EXPAT! Arlene says: "Enjoyed recent A-Letters about the change in status of those of us who used to call ourselves "conservatives." I have been realizing, with astonishment, that because I oppose the current goings on I am a "liberal." Well, that's news to me! The liberals are now conservatives and the conservatives are now traitors. I too was once a Republican--used to be on the Republican Executive Committee in my area. But I quit calling myself a Republican several years ago. And now I guess I can't call myself a Conservative either. I have decided to reclassify myself. I think I'll call myself--EXPAT!"
KING GEORGE: J.K. notes "...every elected Federal official, and every member of the US military, swore the same oath. When will they wake up and realize that serving King George is not synonymous with serving the Constitution? We have the War on This, the War on That...each of which has stripped personal freedom away a layer at a time. Now we have the most open-ended, amorphous "war" ever. But our "protectors" refuse to guard chemical plants against sabotage, or ports against smuggled nukes...I am glad that I still have the freedom to speak my mind...for now."
And there's more:
THANKS: Wayne says: "I was very glad to get you views. I too was a life long Republican, but am not anymore. In my view, held prior to the disastrous action that has been taken by this Administration, has been that this (OUR) country is in terrible danger. I only hope that the American people wake up to the truth. Thank you for taking the initiative to speak out."
John M. in Ohio: "You said it very well...I am as conservative as you are, and for all the same reasons. Our Party has been hijacked - it is not the Party that I voted for, or expected to get. It is a government that is now bloated, corrupt, arrogant, spendthrift and totally out of control."
J.G writes: "ALL RIGHT BOB!!! That's tellin'em.Your "Strange Bedfellows" article was spot on target. The analogy was excellent. I personally like the analogy of "The emperor has no clothes."
M.C. chimes in: " You may be getting a lot of flak from so-called 'conservatives' but you are absolutely on target and tracking, as we say in the military."
Apparently all is not well in GOPtopia.
I've got a lot of friends and family who are lifelong GOP. I think most of them are in denial that their party is a rotting corpse, although most of them are beginning to sense the message of the maggots, that this GOP is not an aberration but rather a culmination. Hell, a GOP county chairman from Nebraska who I know maxed out contributions to John Edwards in 2004.
I wish we had two strong, principled political parties. As it stands, one of the parties is spineless and one has become such a rotten zombie that it must be effectively destroyed. Not a good state of the union.
Posted by God Of War at February 3, 2006 08:49 AMThat's what it's going to take, Republicans coming to their senses and pushing back against the so-called Republicans spending and growing government their way.
Posted by Cali4nian at February 3, 2006 10:39 AMWhile I'm on board with GOW analysis of the two parties, and find the views of these supposed GOOPer dissenters interesting, I'll believe predictions of "sensible" Republican defections ONLY when I see them in election results.
SS Rove & Ko. know these people are very, very easy to get back on the Kool Aid wagon with a little more "conservative" lying and a parade of horribles about government by "libruls". These are the folks who were supposedly unhappy with Nero Jr. in 2004, yet voted in droves for that piece of shit over a perfectly respectable Democratic alternative.
It's the independents or nothing. Dyed in the wool GOOPers won't give up that old tyme religion.
Sorry to be a naysayer.
Posted by euzoius at February 3, 2006 11:18 AMWe need t-shirts that say something like:
"George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld may be afraid".
"I am NOT afraid".
Posted by JB (not John Bolton) at February 3, 2006 11:25 AMSorry to be a naysayer.
Posted by euzoius at February 3, 2006 11:18 AM
*****
I agree with your analysis. Its the independents and Diebold or bust.
However, any GOPian who votes in protest for Libertarian or other fringe party candidates is one less vote the grown ups have to overcome.
Posted by God Of War at February 3, 2006 11:39 AMThe cuts to Medicare, student loans, etc. are not meant to balance the budget. They've given up on that. It's about massive wealth transfer from the middle class to the investor class. The national debt now stands at $8.4 Trillion. OK...trillion....thats a million million...times eight...and growing larger by the day. Since the government has decided to stop publishing M3 numbers, you can bet they will continue to add dollars to the money supply at an accelerated rate.
The government does Enron accounting. I wonder now many other large corporations do the same. It is almost a sure thing that most private pension funds are well underfunded. It would seem that the merry-go-round has to stop sometime. We really are in a box. Falling real incomes, tightening credit policies, increases in energy, insurance and health care costs. It's shaping up to be runaway inflation for as far as the eye can see.
Posted by brisa at February 3, 2006 05:15 PM"You’re telling me that after a civil, two world’s and a cold war we’re threatened by pipsqueeks who don’t even have a country? There are 300 million Americans totally committed to our way of life—we are not threatened. I am not scared".
I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at your idioitic naviaty. These "pipaqueeks" as you call them, are counting on exactly that kind of naive thinking at the top level of our government so they can hit us again.
No, they cannot defeat us in the conventional sense of invading or occupying our land, but they can bring our infrastructure to a screeching yalt.
How about a chemical attack? I guess if hundreds of thousands died, that wouldn't be a major blow to the country?
I must admit, of all the threads I've read on this site the last 6 months, this is the most incredible one I've seen. Talk about living in a bubble!
Posted by David at February 3, 2006 05:38 PMbrisa, exactly. Enron accounting. Molly Ivins predicted this many years ago; what the bushies did to Texas, they wanted to do to the country, and they've largely succeeded.
Posted by iamcoyote at February 3, 2006 06:40 PMAnd laughing all the way to the bank on the backs of our soldiers!
Posted by bbtb at February 3, 2006 08:02 PM"what the bushies did to Texas, they wanted to do to the country, and they've largely succeeded."
Texas had an unemployment rate at 4.7% when Bush was Governor. I had no idea their ecomony was that good.
BTW, it IS interesting that we're not hearing anything onthis site about the good economic news that came out today. Gosh, I wonder why?
Molly Ivins for you info? LOL.
Posted by David at February 3, 2006 09:07 PMYou didn't read the earlier posts on the open thread, now did you David? Your late for the party, I'm still up but fading fast. Heavy day fighting all the empathy I had to give to trolls today.
Posted by bbtb at February 3, 2006 09:23 PMThis is my first visit to the Left Coaster. Terrific blog, strong writing. Excellent post, Paradox. JB--love the T-shirt idea! I note troll David is here -- he pulls the same garbage everywhere. Don't even engage him.
Posted by Athenawise at February 4, 2006 07:46 AMYou said, "I’m more likely to be killed by e coli in a hamburger than getting chopped by some terrorist—hell".
I say, "You are less likely to die today in a car accident because of seatbelts than twenty years ago, and less likely to die from a terrorist act than prior to 9/11 because of Rumsfeld."