Fox News on McClellan book

[sobo]

I just wanna jump in here so I can claim the

 

Nothing to add. Move along, now. Move along...

[mtn_mouse]

What a Polyana view of politics fw. For your info, the repubs have become a crazy bunch of neocons or religious fanatics, quite different from the republicans of years ago. What a dick.

[RuMR]

sounds like fairyweather would fit in nicely...

[Bug]

I didn't say they were pure.

I just said they beleived in those things.

GW/Dick beleive in the big club.

 

And it is not just the Exec branch.

Hillary too voted to "Kick Ass" in Iraq.

Obama did not.

He did however vote to clean up Afganistan and sid we should have gone into Pakistan after Obama.

If we had done that before we illegally invaded Iraq, nobody would have batted an eye except for the Taliban in Pakistan.

But since Obama said it after we invaded Iraq, he was labeled "irresponsible".

Never mind that Bush lied again when he said we would pursue the perps of 911 without regard to borders or gov.

That was just more propoganda.

[Bug]

The Republicans have drifted no farther to the right than the Democrats have left. Less so, IMO. I believe McCain is much closer to the center than Obama. In any event, American politics is really not much different now than it has been throughout our history. I'm still willing to bet McCain will clean up in November--if he picks a strong VP.

Kennedy will soon be dead.

He held fast to no changes to the public welfare system and I think we will see some big changes when his infuence has diminished. He is the albatross for the Dems that GW is for the Republicans. Clinton's crimes were exposed through pure political motivation. Nobody inside the beltway really cares who does who. If they did, both sides of the alley would be decimated. Clinton's impeachment was payback for Reagan's cabinet being indicted to a man.

Oh but I dare not scratch the Republican Icon. That rat bastard had the best propoganda machine this world has EVER seen. He had family farmer paying into the United Farmers Association and the money was going to pay lobbiests who sheparded in laws that gave the corporate farmers huge advantages. The family farmer all but died out under Reagan. An dthat is barely scratching the surface.

 

 

[Fairweather]

I'm not talking only about contemporary politics, I'm talking about the entire history of the United States from Adams and Hamilton versus Jefferson, to the murderous Andrew Jackson, to the bogus "creation" of William Henry Harrison, to Lincoln's minority victory in 1860, to the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, to Gilded Age politics, to the multiple defeats of William Jennings Bryan and beyond. It has always been pretty much like this. Populism, state's rights movements, left, right, Federalist, Whig, Democrat-Republican, Free Soil, Free silver, USG incompetence, monopolistic corruption, TR quasi-dictatorship, WW arrogance, FDR socialism, just wars, unjust wars. The era we are living in now only looks scary to those who don't understand our history. About the only glaring difference I see between now and our past is a staggering national debt and an unhealthy reliance on foreign oil.

[kevbone]

About the only glaring difference I see between now and our past is a staggering national debt and an unhealthy reliance on foreign oil.

 

 

Thats because republican's are blind. Spoke like a true neo con.....

 

[mattp]

Fairweather, I agree with some of what you say here. For sure, the current era's problems DO appear more scary if one doesn't know about the serious challenges we have faced in the past, but a look at the last 200 years of American history is not really as helpful as a more focussed look at American politics for the last few decades in evaluating whether the Republicans have moved more to the center while the Democrats have moved way to the right in recent years. That was your assertion, wasn't it?

 

I just looked at a website that listed the Democratic and Republican platforms for the last 100 years and did some other spot checking on various issues. For the last 50 years, I see an evolving trend where, interestingly, the Democrats started out complaining that the Republicans were weak on defense but by 1980 that had reversed. Anyway, both parties say the US can and should remain the top military power in the world but they both agreed that negotiation with our enemies was a key to national security in 1960 while the Republicans have almost completely abandoned that idea as a sign of weakness.

 

50 years ago, the Republicans supported the UN. Now they do not.

 

On Social issues? The Democrats have been supporting welfare while the Republicans have been attacking it forever. But it was Clinton who made "welfare to work" our National policy, not a Republican administration.

 

Public Education? The Republicans still maintain stated support for public education but their policies and proposals have steadily eroded that support in favor of charter schools and faith based initiatives, etc.

 

The Democrats have been pushing handgun control for at least 30 years. Nixon said "Guns are an abomination," and favored a ban on hanguns in 1969, President George Bush, Sr., banned the import of "assault weapons" in 1989, and promoted the view that Americans should only be allowed to own weapons suitable for "sporting purposes." Governor Ronald Reagan of California who signed the Mulford Act in 1967, "prohibiting the carrying of firearms on one's person or in a vehicle, in any public place or on any public street."

 

Roe v. Wade happened in 1973.

 

On the issue of gay rights, the Democrats have moved more to the left and some Republicans have nudged toward a more centrist view but I'm not sure the party as a whole has. On what other issue does your characterization apply?

 

Oh yes: that list of political party platforms makes interest reading, but there is a lot of material there and, as you might expect, much of it is blah blah blah BS try to sound good and snipe at the other party. website

[Fairweather]

Fairweather, I agree with some of what you say here. For sure, the current era's problems DO appear more scary if one doesn't know about the serious challenges we have faced in the past, but a look at the last 200 years of American history is not really as helpful in evaluating whether the Republicans have moved more to the center while the Democrats have moved way to the right in recent years. That was your assertion, wasn't it?

 

 

Huh? No. My assertion was/is that if Republicans have moved farther right, it is only because Democrats have moved farther and farther left.

[mattp]

The Republicans have drifted no farther to the right than the Democrats have left. Less so, IMO.

 

Ah yes, you don't state the Republicans are moving toward the center.

 

My brief research doesn't find much support for the notion that the Democrats are moving significantly left, however.

[olyclimber]

this thread is making the sixties look like the fifties.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

this thread is making the sixties look like the fifties.

let's party like it's nineteen ninety nine

[glassgowkiss]

this thread is making the sixties look like the fifties.

let's party like it's nineteen ninety nine

i think your type of party is 69-with fairweather. also heard that you like ATM.

[Fairweather]

Your ба́бушка is calling, Glassgow. She says it's time for bath now.

[STP]

Another liberal mischaracterization of Republicans ...and state of our nation?

 

muNmpI-4yOI

[KaskadskyjKozak]

this thread is making the sixties look like the fifties.

let's party like it's nineteen ninety nine

i think your type of party is 69-with fairweather. also heard that you like ATM.

 

fuck off "Bob". I'm not interested in engaging in any discussions with a worthless piece of shit like you.

 

[dougd]

McClellan will be on Meet The Press tomorrow. Think I'll tune in to see what he has to say for himself.

 

Russert can be a tough questioner.

 

d

[Bug]

I'm not talking only about contemporary politics, I'm talking about the entire history of the United States from Adams and Hamilton versus Jefferson, to the murderous Andrew Jackson, to the bogus "creation" of William Henry Harrison, to Lincoln's minority victory in 1860, to the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, to Gilded Age politics, to the multiple defeats of William Jennings Bryan and beyond. It has always been pretty much like this. Populism, state's rights movements, left, right, Federalist, Whig, Democrat-Republican, Free Soil, Free silver, USG incompetence, monopolistic corruption, TR quasi-dictatorship, WW arrogance, FDR socialism, just wars, unjust wars. The era we are living in now only looks scary to those who don't understand our history. About the only glaring difference I see between now and our past is a staggering national debt and an unhealthy reliance on foreign oil.

There are major differences.

We are at a crossroads im several ways.

Population growth is hitting the steep part of the exponential curve.

Oil supply/demand is forcing us to change our economic structure.

The economy is now global as apposed to regional.

At the same time, we are alienating ourselves from the bulk of the world AND going deep into debt to other countries.

While you do not beleive in global warming, the scientific community does and believes it will bring about massive climate changes.

Fisheries have and are dying out.

Species extinction is the highest it has been since the asteroid that took out the dinosours.

So only post WWII presidents and congresses count in this tally.

They are the only ones who face a global or soon to be global economy.

Out of those we have Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford as the only Republicans who truely beleived in Diplomacy.

Reagan, Bush and Bush beleived in the big stick although Bush senior was the least hawkish and manipulative of the three.

On the Democratic side we have Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton who use diplomacy as a major tool international relations.

GW is a huge step toward clubbing people we do not agree with at a time when we are depending on their good will more and more and stomping on their toes.

And at the same time, lying profusely in the name of short term profits for international corporations.

 

[mattp]

I think you are basically right about the general approaches these presidents too, Bug, though my father who is a professor specializing in American foreign relations and has served on a committee reviewing classified material under consideration for release to scholars and knows quite bit about this says that Reagan undertook a surprising amount of negotiation with Russia and in arms control talks actually compromised quite a bit though he didn't talk that way in his speeches.

 

Nixon went to China. It was more or less our first diplomatic effort with "Red China" and other presidents have followed his lead. In the current atmosphere, no Republican president would do that. They'd be called appeasers with copious reference made to Chamberlain in the 1939's.

 

But there are subject areas to consider, and as I noted above, the Republicans are veering right on issues like protecting the Constitution, Federal intervention into States rights, public education, welfare, healthcare, and the environment. Immigration too. Meanwhile, the Democrats have fallen apart but their platform hasn't moved nearly so much as far as I can tell from looking at a few websites including the one I linked above.

 

 

[STP]

Seriously, I believe much of the partisan divide is a smokescreen. Social issues like gay marriage and abortion, talk about a constitutional amendment to end flag burning, crap like that which evokes a visceral response as opposed to cerebral dominate talk radio, tv, etc,.

 

These side issues take front and center while more significant issues are bypassed by the political process to be quietly introduced and propagated by the business/economic syndicate.

 

You've heard of the military-industrial complex? How about the prison-industrial complex, the media-industrial complex...?

 

Media matters:

 

kd6P8obJmjo

 

BWZMOQcDnyk

[Fairweather]

 

 

But there are subject areas to consider, and as I noted above, the Republicans are veering right on issues like protecting the Constitution, Federal intervention into States rights, public education, welfare, healthcare, and the environment. Immigration too. Meanwhile, the Democrats have fallen apart but their platform hasn't moved nearly so much as far as I can tell from looking at a few websites including the one I linked above.

 

 

It's funny that you mention Federal intervention in state's rights, only to immediately bring up public education--which is supposed to be a state's matter. You can't have it both ways.

 

Environment? Other than refusing to jump on the Kyoto ship-to-nowhere, what has Bush done so differently than past administrations, Democrat or Republican? (Actually, I guess even Clinton wouldn't board that leaking bucket!) I know he's signed some pretty tough diesel sulfur reductions. He may be slowing the 30-year movement toward more environmental regulation, but he certainly hasn't "gutted" existing law. Saying that he has is just histrionics.

 

Also - I do not support a ban on Gay Marriage, but I think the fact that state courts are legislating a national issue is regrettable. I never have, and never would support a "flag-burning" ban. Immigration? Exactly what have Republicans done? I think Dems and Republicans are both pandering to the immigrant vote. If anybody is angry about immigration, its union member Democrats.

 

STP - I don't know of anyone who thinks RFK Jr is anything but a complete LOON. Posting his spew doesn't make you look moderate at all.

Edited June 1, 2008 by Fairweather

[Bug]

 

 

But there are subject areas to consider, and as I noted above, the Republicans are veering right on issues like protecting the Constitution, Federal intervention into States rights, public education, welfare, healthcare, and the environment. Immigration too. Meanwhile, the Democrats have fallen apart but their platform hasn't moved nearly so much as far as I can tell from looking at a few websites including the one I linked above.

 

 

It's funny that you mention Federal intervention in state's rights, only to immediately bring up public education--which is supposed to be a state's matter. You can't have it both ways.

 

Environment? Other than refusing to jump on the Kyoto ship-to-nowhere, what has Bush done so differently than past administrations, Democrat or Republican? (Actually, I guess even Clinton wouldn't board that leaking bucket!) I know he's signed some pretty tough diesel sulfur reductions. He may be slowing the 30-year movement toward more environmental regulation, but he certainly hasn't "gutted" existing law. Saying that he has is just histrionics.

 

Also - I do not support a ban on Gay Marriage, but I think the fact that state courts are legislating a national issue is regrettable. I never have, and never would support a "flag-burning" ban. Immigration? Exactly what have Republicans done? I think Dems and Republicans are both pandering to the immigrant vote. If anybody is angry about immigration, its union member Democrats.

 

STP - I don't know of anyone who thinks RFK Jr is anything but a complete LOON. Posting his spew doesn't make you look moderate at all.

Are you feeling OK?

That actually made sense.

Maybe I better open a window.......

[STP]

STP - I don't know of anyone who thinks RFK Jr is anything but a complete LOON. Posting his spew doesn't make you look moderate at all.

 

Hahaha, yeah he's a bit over the top. I think it's a joke that he presents the Democrats as the better pick over their opponent party. I just don't see it as such. There's some good Democrats and there's some good Republicans. I did think some of his ideas were interesting and maybe valid criticisms of the current state of the Republican Party, regardless of whether the guy's a loon or a former heroin user. It's the ideas I'm interested in and I don't have to be mutually exclusive from a partisan POV.

 

Here's some ideas (and maybe they're wacky but nonetheless food for thought):

 

This brings us to the issue of collateral. We've borrowed so much money the lenders are getting nervous. Back during the Johnson administration Charles DeGaulle demanded the United States collateralize the loans owed to France in gold and started carting out the bullion from the treasury. This caused several other nations to demand the same and President Nixon had to slam the gold window closed or the treasury would have been emptied, since the United States was even then in debt for more money than the treasury could cover in gold.

 

But Nixon had to collateralize that debt somehow, and he hit upon the plan of quietly setting aside huge tracts of American land with their mineral rights in reserve to cover the outstanding debts. But since the American people were already angered over the war in Vietnam, Nixon couldn't very well admit that he was apportioning off chunks of the United States to the holders of foreign debt. So, Nixon invented the Environmental Protection Agency and passed draconian environmental laws which served to grab land with vast natural resources away from the owners and lock it away, and even more, prove to the holders of the foreign debt that US citizens were not drilling. mining, or otherwise developing those resources. From that day to this, as the government sinks deeper into debt, the government grabs more and more land, declares it a wilderness or "roadless area" or "heritage river" or "wetlands" or any one of over a dozen other such obfuscated labels, but in the end the result is the same. We The People may not use the land, in many cases are not even allowed to enter the land.

 

This is not about conservation, it is about collateral. YOUR land is being stolen by the government and used to secure loans the government really had no business taking out in the first place. Given that the government cannot get out of debt, and is collateralizing more and more land to avoid foreclosure, the day is not long off when the people of the United States will one day wake up and discover they are no longer citizens, but tenants.

 

-- source

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mattp]

Fairweather, I am no supporter of all childlren left behind, are you? I didn't say anything about how education should be Federally controlled -- I said that Republicans don't support public education. Many of my Democrat friends send their kids to private schools, but virtually all of them vote for school levy's and at least SAY that public education is important.

 

Environment? Are you kidding? Clinton promoted the salvage rider but Bush, with a Republican Congress behind him, has gutted the EPA and cut enforcement of environmental laws dramatically. I have a friend who used to run one of the EPA district offices and he says the agency has become a joke. Talk to those environmental groups that you hate and they will tell you what he's done for public lands. 25 years ago, the Republicans were for handgun control.

 

Gay Marriage? Why would this be a national issue when education is not?

 

On immigration, I think you are closer to the mark. Both parties are pandering. The Republicans have to a much greater extent used it as a scare issue, though, as far as I can tell. And fifty years ago they were saying that place of origin should not be a factor in deciding who can come to the US and we should be open to all. They have backed WAY away from this position now.

 

Close the borders, screw public education, the biggest tax cuts for the rich in modern times, logging in designated roadless areas, lets drill ANWAR, negotiating with anybody who doesn't already agree with us is pandering to Hitler, searches without warrants are OK as long as the government simply says that a terrorist might be involved?

 

You may support most these things but that doesn't mean they don't represent a shift to the right.

 

[Fairweather]

Fairweather, I am no supporter of all childlren left behind, are you? I didn't say anything about how education should be Federally controlled -- I said that Republicans don't support public education. Many of my Democrat friends send their kids to private schools, but virtually all of them vote for school levy's and at least SAY that public education is important.

 

Not supporting NEA/WEA does not equate to "not supporting education". The fact that many of your liberal friends opt out of a system they deem fit for the children of others speaks volumes. I think you just made the Republican case for vouchers.

 

Environment? Are you kidding? Clinton promoted the salvage rider but Bush, with a Republican Congress behind him, has gutted the EPA and cut enforcement of environmental laws dramatically. I have a friend who used to run one of the EPA district offices and he says the agency has become a joke. Talk to those environmental groups that you hate and they will tell you what he's done for public lands.

Some numbers would be nice. More than just anecdote, maybe? I suspect that EPA's budget has grown just like the rest of the government under Bush. i could be wrong. Maybe it's flat? In any event, it hasn't been "gutted".

25 years ago, the Republicans were for handgun control.

I guess I don't understand. Twenty five years ago Reagan was in office, and he certainly did not support handgun restrictions. Besides; I thought you said you supported the constitution. Huh?? BTW: One hundred fifty years ago Democrats supported slavery. How far back shall we go?

 

Gay Marriage? Why would this be a national issue when education is not?

Because of the Good Faith and Credit clause in the US constitution.

 

On immigration, I think you are closer to the mark. Both parties are pandering. The Republicans have to a much greater extent used it as a scare issue, though, as far as I can tell. And fifty years ago they were saying that place of origin should not be a factor in deciding who can come to the US and we should be open to all. They have backed WAY away from this position now.

Again; I disagree. Union Democrat workers seem to make this a big issue each election. Most Republicans I know support LEGAL immigration wholeheartedly. Reagan signed off on amnesty for illegals, for God's sake. Hard right?

 

searches without warrants are OK as long as the government simply says that a terrorist might be involved?

You bring this one up regularly--but never seem to have facts. The "secret searches" you allude to are not done without warrant.

 

 

 

Now; let's see...in Bill Clinton's first 100 days he tried to nationalize/socialize 17% of the nation's GDP and made gays in the military his second priority. Hard left, I'd say. Cost him congress in 1994 too.

Edited June 2, 2008 by Fairweather