Kerry: The horse has left the stable. - Page 3

This is true for:

1. YOU.
2. Rich people.
3. Rich corporations.
4. Those who think the strength of the economy depends on rich corporations.

This is not true for:

1. The growing poor population.
2. The middle class, who are all enduring longer hours for less pay and less job security.

The middle class are the bread and butter of America.

Prior to Bush, the last president to have been called "terrible" by both sides was Carter, and that was mainly due to the oil crisis and his handling of the Iran hostage crisis.

But after Carter's term was over, the average middle class American had:

1. Full health coverage for their whole family.
2. A very good pension system for retirment.
3. A working week of about 40 hours.
4. Time and a half for overtime, even for executives.
5. Not so much credit card debt.
6. A fair opportunity to better themselves.
7. 6% sales tax.
8. Up to 5% annual return on savings.

Sure, urban crime might have been higher. That's the only thing that seems worse in my eyes.

Now what do the middle class have. We're lucky if we have ANY medical coverage without having to shell out for private insurtance ourselves.

1. Our working hours are horrible.
2. Our pay is going down.
3. In general, our families are no longer covered by our employment benefits.
4. Our taxes are going up.
5. We are in debt to our necks.
6. The country is in debt to our children's necks.
7. Middle class kids are dying in Iraq.
8. We are at a greater threat from terrorism than ever before.
9. AK47s will be sold freely from next week (are we really safer?)

Jesus man, you really can't see the woods (the health of America's economy) for the trees (the health of YOUR economy).

Yes, he does seem to be very well educated, and he seems to be very good at doing research and arriving at well thought out, intelligent conclusions, doesn't he.

There's a reason academics are Liberals.

Go ahead. Stay in your "compound" hoarding your weapons for Bush's eventual downfall, be it a loss in November or his eventual impeachment.

That's the problem. There is no common sense at all in your posts. You can't look at economic numbers like we have and conclude things are bad. It's either stupid or intellectually dishonest. Take your pick

But wait, I am not special. I'm a middle class teacher. I make $40,000 a year. I have a family, etc, etc. I am certainly better off than I was four years ago. I got lots of my own money back that I've fed my family with. The tax cuts have benefited more than just the rich. To say otherwise is an outright lie.

MAny of the changes in employment you are speaking of have nothing to do with the government. Privateindustry has changed, especially with health care. Some of this effect is due to skyrocketing premiums for healthcare, which is usually caused by two factors increased usage and lawsuits. You want to see businesses provide health care? Fine...let them be able to afford it. If anyone has a good idea, it's Bush's people with their small, business healthcare proposal. He also wants more tort reform. This is the place to start.

Taxes are going up? Which taxes? Has Bush supported tax increases of any type? I don't think he has.

The national debt is always a concern, but it's still completely managable froma debt service standpoint. Consumer debt may be a problem, but again, I don't see how you can blame Bush for this. That problem has a lot to do with low interest rates and the abundance of consumer credit, coupled with the willingness of the general population to take on more debt.

Iraq and Terror: You obviously don't think we should be there, but I do. It's sad to see our military members die, but put simply, their job is to defend us, the civilians. That's the choice my friend: Fight them here, or fight them there. It's not a false dilemma. That's the choice we have.

You can't support your statement about us being a greater risk. You simply can't. We're safer domestically. We're attacking terorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. You can't prove or even support your suppostions that we've aided AQ recruitment either.

The assualt weapons ban should have been renewed. I agree. However, we're blaming Bush for this? Really, aren't we running out of things we can blame him for? Shouldn't Kerry be arrested, since we was previously photographed holding an assault weapon that was illegal until today?

Are you really 'better off'?

You get a little personal check back and everything is great for YOU.

What about the cost to our infrastructure? To our civil structure? our Institutions that need funding and are crumbling?

Defend us by Invading Iraq?
Give up the ghost will you!!
You were lied to but refuse to acknowledge the profound difference between what was said to us, and the real motivations for INVADING . . . the Sudatenland was not . . . er . . . I mean Iraq was not a threat!

Safer?
Rumor has it that there are a total of two federal marshalls in charge of patroling the whole coastline of Oregon . . .
Safer?
Rumor has it (as well as recent findings) that for some reason the ranks of AQ recruits and sympathisers has swelled since our invasion.
And moderate support for the US has all but dissappeared.

I know . . . we can blame Clinton for the Assault Weapons ban going by the wayside during Bush's term . . . yeah, a decades old law not renewed bu Bush . . . it must be Clinton's fault!!

The supposed growth in AQ recruitment could just as easily or more easily be attributed the invasion of Afghanistan since we attacked them straight on.

Unless Iraq was actually more important to them then we (you) thought...

Na... Bush Lied... end of story.

I noticed that this comment got ignored. But it strikes straight to the heart of liberal rage.

I just wish that ONE conservative would just admit that we have earned the right to scrutinize their president with the same intensity as they did Clinton. But I apparently live in a parallel universe or something.

I wish this episode of the Twilight Zone would end.

Is there supposed to be thought in those words?

The Invasion of Iraq: word for word, EXACTLY what Osama Bin Laden said the United States would do in their 'Crusading Imperialist attacks against good Muslims'
He offered what many are finding to be the only real alternative for Muslims, a unified front and a vision of a greater "Islamistan"

Bush did EXACTLY what OBL wanted him to do: and even teh reasons as stated in the NeoCon manifesto, known as the Pax Americana Doctrine are very similar . . with the exeption of the thin veneer of 'democratization'.

and anyway . . . the lies or incredibly profound incompetence are certainly NOT the end of the story

Maybe he knew something you are not yet willing to accept. Or maybe he knew that the reaction to his "interpretation" of religion would be severe. You remember the one that says to ram packed airplanes into civilian targets, the one that tells you to strap on some c4 and fill your pockets with nails and walk into a pizza parlor. We all know what a threat to everyone those places are.

Is he Bin Laden now a prophet, according to you?

Scary and revealing answer.

So, NaplesX, if I told you that someone is very likely to bitch slap you for putting words in someone else's mouth like you obviously did in the post above, and it happens...

Would that make me a prophete ?

It won't be you. I SEE THE FUTURE.

Please.

The tax cuts benefitted the rich more than anybody else. To say otherwise is an outright lie.

Bush gives you a couple hundred dollars to keep quiet and you're a giddy little schoolgirl.

Just a quick question: Is the horse back in the stable? Why have they not kept up the sustained and organized attacks?

To say this is a distortion of the facts.

Who pay the most taxes? The rich if you want to call almost every small business owner that.

So of you give everyone a 10% cut you get $100 if you paid $1000 in taxes and the rich guys gets $1000 if he paid $10,000 in taxes.

If you want more back volunteer to pay more in. It's still 10%

Hoo boy.

Never mind.

You really never did any research on the tax cuts. Your daddy was happy with his check and didn't care what anyone else got. The fact is that the rich got a bigger PERCENTAGE cut. PER FUCKING CENTAGE. And that's at the expense of the national debt, which means we or our kids will have to pay for it all.

Them's the FACTS. Now open your eyes.

You have class oozing from your post...

Once again, tell me if you can what the PERCENTAGE of total number of taxpayers are deemed rich by the tax code?

Then tell me, what is the PERCENTAGE of the total tax burden that they (the rich) pay?

Tell me then, what is their (the rich) tax rate vs the middle class and then the poor?

Can you? Will you?

EDIT: You talk as if your/our kids would otherwise not pay taxes or even face tax increases. I hope you really don't believe anything like that.

What the hell are you saying?!?! . . . have you devolved into a bafoon?!?

Just tell me what the hell these two sentences are supposed to mean: "Maybe he knew something you are not yet willing to accept. Or maybe he knew that the reaction to his "interpretation" of religion would be severe."
I mean this is either schizo or just plain senseless?

What is obvious is that Bush did the stupid thing . . . you know the kind of thing that OBL said Americans wanted to do . . . OBL thinks we are on some sort of Christian crusade against Muslims as well as wanting to take oil

He is right about the latter part (apparently) . . . except it doesn't take a 'prophet' to look at America's contreemporary leadership and figure out where their head is . . .

Read the report for yourself.

Some gems:

"Effective tax rates in 2004 are lower than those under 2000 law by 1.5 percentage points for the lowest quintile, 3.9 percentage points for the highest quintile, and 6.8 percentage points for the top 1 percent of taxpayers (see Table 4)."

No... the rich aren't favored.

"...drops from 21.5 percent in 2001 to 19.6 percent in 2004 before reversing course and climbing over the next decade (see the top panel in Table 2). From the 2004 low of 19.6 percent, the overall effective tax rate jumps to 21.4 percent in 2005..."

Yeah... Bush really "cut" our taxes, didn't he? At least long enough to get him through the election and then... whoosh!

"...under current law, the effective federal tax rate will increase from 21.5 percent in 2001 to 24.1 percent in 2014..."

Nice.

Remember, that after Bush threw all our money at the war, we HAVE to pay for it some how. We really cannot expect anything but tax increases until we start cleaning up the mess, exactly like Clinton was able to do after 12 years of Republican debt.

Democrats are tax and spend? More like tax and manage.

Republicans are borrow and spend... and spend... and spend...

For what? For social programs? No. For the environment? No. For War. For Defense. For something that affects only the smallest minority of Americans, while poverty and quality of life is of concern to almost all of us, be it personal wealth or increased urban crime rate.

Current Republican policies are the most IRRESPONSIBLE fiscal policies ever witnessed. There can be no doubt about that.

You know what is funny? In the time that I have been here debating with you guys, I have come to know what just about everyone here will say, almost to the letter, in reply to any that I post. I pretty much know where you stand and have observed your debating skills and know what to expect.

What seems funny is that you haven't picked up on what is said and seem to be talking "at" me as if this is your first interaction with me.

You guys put it out there that you have these great analytical minds yet nothing is ever clear to you unless it is spelled out to you. You get stuck on words rather than thoughts. You dismiss credible and reasonable lines of reasoning simply because they conflict with your own politics. A good percentage of what you put forth is out of context. And it seems that you would just as soon kill the messenger as actually hear the message.

Anyway... to clerify what I was saying a bit. "Maybe he knew something you are not yet willing to accept" I was implying that there was a tie betwixt SH and Bin Laden and that it was important to AQ, of which there is plenty of evidence, IMO.

"Or maybe he knew that the reaction to his "interpretation" of religion would be severe." Bin Laden knew the reaction to his philosophy would be severe. So he preemptively justified his current action with what he knew would be a future reaction. In other words, his statements were an excuse.

Please let me know if I need to use simpler words, or try yet another way od saying it that is even more clear. I would be happy to.

There is no tie and there is no evidence. But it's been repeated as a talking point so many times, you believe it is true.

Congratulations, you are falling right into the delusions that BushCo wants to sell you.

Naples: tell me about this tie. Explain it to me!

Show me.

Condescended to by a 'moran' . . . haha!!

You should realize that when you write things they need to be clearly expressed, what you are capable of saying is what you are capable of thinking.
So, when you write obscure generalized sentences, where key words, such as 'he' are left vague, even in context, then you are not making kudos for your arguments about clarity.

BTW, if you were aware of the videos of OBL, he said that we would try to take over more of the ME . . . he was not specific.
OBL believes this is a culture war against all of Islam and the Secular West . . . I do not believe that.
But unfortunately, Bush played right into OBL's hands by not only pre-emptively invading a country in the ME, and under what appears to almost everybody to be false pretenses, he did so after saying that we have begun " a new Crusade" . . . . you do remember when Bus said that don't you?

Sure, Bush apologized, but the damage was allready done: we in the West, think of the Crusades as some dstant and almost mythical past, while the more right-wing Muslims hold onto their past with a vengence. Anouncing a Crusade, and then following that with a pre-emptive invasion that appears to have been based on false reasons is what I would call dumb . . ..

we are fighting a WOT where intelligence is absolutely important; where 'sensitivity' to cultural issues as tools in the war should be weighed and measured with the same concern that we take when handling nukes . . .

The cultural/diplomatic war should be seen as a weapon that is just as dangerous as our most dangerous weapons, except that failure to use that weapon properly will not just explode in an isolated area, it will turn huge swaths of people against us . . . or for us:
'winning hearts and minds' should not be an after-thought to carpet bombing

He can't. You see, you just have to trust that our God-annointed President knows what these important ties were between Al Qaeda and Iraq, you must simply know and believe that Bush wouldn't have lead us wrong and that if he can't now reveal these supersensitive secrets ties, even to the 9/11 Commission, even now with Hussein in jail and Iraq occupied, then Bush must have good reasons for doing so.

That Bush had it in for Iraq no matter what and that 9/11 was merely a useful pretext to invade Iraq and that Bush would stretch the most feeble AQ/Iraq connection, a connection even weaker than the one between, say, Rumsfeld and Hussein because it suited Bush's purposes -- perish the thought!

Hey, thanks for speaking for me. But NO THANKS.

To Hassan i Sabbah:

I can show you a clear tie between the two (AQ and SH/Iraq) that goes back decades if you actually want to hear it. However this thread is about how Kerry is bustin' out and pulling ahead and taking the gloves off and that kinds of stuff. However it seems to have drifted far off that mark. I am not sure there is any relevance to this current thread unless you buy into the "bush lied" lie. In which case, I can post words here that say otherwise. Does that mean you will believe it or even consider it?

Probably not.

Yes please!

PM me- let's not derail the thread!

You send me everything you've got on these decades-long links between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Can't wait. I'll start a new thread and we can discuss it.

I'll be reminding you regularly for the next, ooh, however long it takes, in case you forget.

Start another thread, I will post as I get the time as I usually do.

"I have a truly marvelous demonstration of the connections between Al Qaeda and Iraq which this margin is too narrow to contain."

Brilliant.

Now where did I put my cold fusion apparatus?

[dmz]
*******Bangs head repeatedly against corner of table until brains leak on to floorboards******[/dmz]

I swear to god.

Remember when this thread was about Kerry's campaign seeming to get under way? And then the right-wingers came in and distracted everyone.

Just like the Kerry campaign.

People are busy acting like CBS is the Kerry campaign . . . they are not

meanwhile Kerry is doing some serious launching into Bush on real issues . . . ans saying them well:

Bush's presidency is the 'excuse presidency'

he says some good things:

It's too bad that he is getting virtually no coverage because of Rathergate and the flurry of hurricanes.

yep

Goes to show the possibility of what I said earlier . . . someone besides Dem-sympathizers planted those memos . . . IF they are in fact forgeries

I really think you are stretching.

Maybe it was God.

I thought God was a Republican...