<strong>Your Bush worship is getting tired.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You'll need a lot more than that. No matter how you slice it Bush is in no way, shape or form the "ethical train wreck" that Clinton was. It'll be entertaining to see you try though.
[quote]I'd say it's probable that someone was trying to hide something but that doesn't mean it had anything to do with the Bush administration. <hr></blockquote>
I'm going to agree with roger_ramjet on this one. Just because someone was destroying documents doesn't mean it's related to Bush. The thing that 'interests' me in this case is the unloading of stock by the high ranking officials of Enron while it's workers were losing their life savings due to the asset freeze.
<strong>I'm going to agree with roger_ramjet on this one...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Wow.
[quote]<strong>Just because someone was destroying documents doesn't mean it's related to Bush. The thing that 'interests' me in this case is the unloading of stock by the high ranking officials of Enron while it's workers were losing their life savings due to the asset freeze.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Agreed. That's two in one post! This is spooky.
What also interests me about this is the part that the SEC will probably cover - the ways Enron was cooking the books. Investors had no idea the risks they were taking with Enron because of a lack of "transparency".
<strong>A corrupt administration that is doing one helluva good job bringing new stability to a war torn nation and reforming our education system, while at the same time releaving some of the tax burden from this nation's citizens. Don't say anything about the economy, I don't want to hear it. It was going bad at the end of Clinton's term.</strong><hr></blockquote>
1.) we are war torn?
2.) what reformation of education?
3.) tax burden eased? sorry but 200-400 bucks is a joke. I would have rathered it go to a school.
That $300/$600 tax break was heavily pushed by Democrats such as Joe Lieberman into the Bush tax cut and was specifically designed to help the lower and middle classes to bolster the economy. The original massive Bush tax cut had no such intention or clause.
The real contention here are the other parts of the heavy trillion-dollar tax cut that benefitted primarily those in the top 5% income bracket.. The cut depleted the surplus and have done basically nothing for help the economy.
<strong>3.) tax burden eased? sorry but 200-400 bucks is a joke. I would have rathered it go to a school.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If that was all there was to the tax cut, you'd be right. Just do the math people. There are about 100 million taxpayers. The tax rebate checks were $300-600. Even if they were all $600 checks that only comes to $60 billion. CBO has scored the tax cut at $1.3 trillion. Guess what. There's more to come. Those rebate checks were only a down payment.
<strong>The real contention here are the other parts of the heavy trillion-dollar tax cut that benefitted primarily those in the top 5% income bracket.. The cut depleted the surplus and have done basically nothing for help the economy. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Those in the top brackets have to wait for their cuts. It's being phased in. The surplus went south because the economy went south. That's the way things work. The government doesn't get as much revenue when the private economy isn't generating as much.
We all know that nothing will come of the Enron thing, except maybe something entirely different.
That's why we should appoint a special prosecuter. So that we can waste an incredible amount of taxpayer money and hound Bush's every-move, past, present and planned, until we find something absolutely politically irrelevant that we can slobberingly publish online . . . kinda like Starr, no?
Anyway, I have to come down on the side of the conservatives as far as this book about the pipeline goes.. . . .I have just heard too much of this kind of rhetoric from my fellow libby cohorts to take it too seriously, and, unfortunately, it kinda invalidates all of my other well balanced and ultimately absolutely correct arguements to have to be on the same side as someone who is sounding like he should be published by the Libertarian Press of the Left.
If you're a democrat, Nostro, I'm going to wonder a little here about your grasp on politics. Right now in America we have two parties that say very-slightly different things and in the end do the same things.
Go ahead and belly-ache that Gore should have won. The country wouldn't have been any different, except that I think Gore would have held out a bit longer in regard to getting down to business, so to speak, in Afghanistan.
If you want to be different, make a statement, or both, find a 3rd party. If you're some sort of moderate democrat or whatnot, you have to understand that you don't really believe in anything. There is no backbone to the Democrat and Republican platforms. Republicans today are likely very similar in ideology to Democrats a few decades ago. To say that "Democrats are ahead of the time" in response is also a fallacy, since you're just reducing vision to the fact that people like handouts.
I just find it silly how Dems come in here and say "look at your man Bush. He's such a dirt bag, see? Your party is dumb." And of course Republicans just say the same thing with different names. Why don't you start discussing what you don't like about the Republican motive and why you think the Democratic alternative is more reasonable, because after all our country was founded on the reason of the enlightenment.
I see that this topic became to a reasonably interesting discussion, but next time you want to bring up such topics, maybe try addressing them directly. I fail to see how Bush's moral or immoral status has anything to do with the economics of his tax cut.
[quote]Republicans today are likely very similar in ideology to Democrats a few decades ago.<hr></blockquote>
Well, the reason that this is true is because the Democratic party was split in two. This was mainly because of the 'Dixiecrats' from the South who didn't want to be in 'Lincoln's party'. Eventually, however, they transitioned over to the Republican party because they held the same viewpoints any way.
<strong>If you're a democrat, Nostro, I'm going to wonder a little here about your grasp on politics. Right now in America we have two parties that say very-slightly different things and in the end do the same things.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sorry for butting in, but I don't think it's fair to say that if you're a Dem or Repub that you don't stand for anything or that you don't understand politics. Perhaps we understand politics better than you.
First, I think you underestimate the differences between the parties. Gore and Bush stood for and would have enacted vastly different economic plans. And they would have very different interactions with the rest of the world. It's hard to see the effects of these policies, because they're longer-term, but I believe they're there, and they have an effect.
Also, third parties are fine, as long as they stand for something. Many of the third parties we've seen in the US just exist for the sake of having another party. Perot is the best example - there was no ideology at all behind his movement (I can't even remember the name of his party right now). Nader was a candidate of the Greens, but he wasn't even a member of the party. I definitely don't agree with the positions that the Libertarians take on issues. And don't get me started on the Natural Law party.
So what's the alternative? To just check out, which is what most people in their 20s have done? No, politics is about making choices. I'm sick of hearing people say "I hate both parties, they're all crooks." That's just laziness.
And it's not at all clear to me that having lots of parties, even if they really do stand for legitimate philosophies, improves the political system. :cough: Israel :cough: I think the reason we have close parties right now is that we are reasonably successful as a country. We basically are doing things right, in the big picture. If things go bad, you'll see more well-defined alternative views.
I don't have any problem with someone supporting a third party, but don't give us this superiority about it. I haven't seen anything from you except for the standard "they're all the same" line that everyone uses.
BTW, you remind me of someone else from the old AI, but I can't think of the name now - true?
We have to face it. With a 2 party system, things run slower, one half of the government doesn't agree with the other half just because they are of different party and people just vote their party with out even checking out the issues. Tell me one thing if there were no parties as it stands today would the election have looked anything like 49/49/2 (bush/gore/nader)?
The above book, soon to be published, affirms that the Bush administration had secret deals with the Taliban right after the new administration took office. The goals of these talks was to acquire permission to build an oil pipeline through Afganistan. A quote says, "Give us the carpet of gold [oil] or we give you a carpet of bombs."
The book gives factual proof of all of this, included diplomatic archival materials, and includes interview material from former FBI agents who resigned prior to 9-11 due to the Bush administration's light handed tactics with the teroroists and the Taliban, and taking a weaker stance than Clinton.
In fact, the book asserts from official records, that as late as August 2001, the Bush administration officials met with Taliban officials in Pakistan and were given a chance at the coordinates and time of Osama Bin Laden.?then a wanted teroroist linked to the embassy bombings and the 1993 WTC bombings, plus a whole host Isreali terror attacks?but turned it down.
Some claim the current war on terorism in Afghanistan will be used as an excuse to build the central asia pipeline.
The Bush administration is currently denying all of it.
Look for a New York Times story on this shortly, and the mainstream media to pick it up.
Just imagine, if Al Gore were president, 9-11 might had never happened.
[ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: Nostradamus ]</strong><hr></blockquote>Your an idiot!!!!
[quote]So what's the alternative? To just check out, which is what most people in their 20s have done? No, politics is about making choices. I'm sick of hearing people say "I hate both parties, they're all crooks." That's just laziness.<hr></blockquote>
The alternative is not to settle for some half-aligned platform that doesn't have a common thread of values with your own. You are being lazy by settling for the establishment, rather than going out on a limb, supporting a 3rd party, and hopefully making a statement that you would like to make.
If I were forced to pick, I'd pick Republican, because they at least claim that an objective of theirs is to reduce government. But for me it's much more satisfying to vote for a Libertarian, even though I know that they have no chance of winning. I live in predominantly Democrat areas, and the major party ballots are mostly determined from the start. So there's little motive to vote for a major party even if I determined that I would vote for one of them.
Ask yourself why young folks aren't interested in governmental issues. It's because no mainline politician in the past 15 years has had the courage to go against the grain and start interesting discussion. Right now we're on an entropic cruise control.
And please. I understand politics. Perhaps you do to, though since I'm not a moderate I may seem way off base to you.
You were right on the second claim, I was previously registered here.
Comments
<strong>Your Bush worship is getting tired.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You'll need a lot more than that. No matter how you slice it Bush is in no way, shape or form the "ethical train wreck" that Clinton was. It'll be entertaining to see you try though.
<strong>No matter how you slice it Bush is in no way, shape or form the "ethical train wreck" that Clinton was.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You just keep telling yourself that.
[quote]It'll be entertaining to see you try though.<hr></blockquote>
It won't be very hard with this guy.
We Democrats must go by the facts and not the will of our emotions.
[ 01-11-2002: Message edited by: Nostradamus ]</p>
<strong>
It won't be very hard with this guy.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, sure. Whatever you say.
I'm going to agree with roger_ramjet on this one. Just because someone was destroying documents doesn't mean it's related to Bush. The thing that 'interests' me in this case is the unloading of stock by the high ranking officials of Enron while it's workers were losing their life savings due to the asset freeze.
<strong>I'm going to agree with roger_ramjet on this one...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Wow.
[quote]<strong>Just because someone was destroying documents doesn't mean it's related to Bush. The thing that 'interests' me in this case is the unloading of stock by the high ranking officials of Enron while it's workers were losing their life savings due to the asset freeze.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Agreed. That's two in one post! This is spooky.
What also interests me about this is the part that the SEC will probably cover - the ways Enron was cooking the books. Investors had no idea the risks they were taking with Enron because of a lack of "transparency".
<strong>A corrupt administration that is doing one helluva good job bringing new stability to a war torn nation and reforming our education system, while at the same time releaving some of the tax burden from this nation's citizens. Don't say anything about the economy, I don't want to hear it. It was going bad at the end of Clinton's term.</strong><hr></blockquote>
1.) we are war torn?
2.) what reformation of education?
3.) tax burden eased? sorry but 200-400 bucks is a joke. I would have rathered it go to a school.
The real contention here are the other parts of the heavy trillion-dollar tax cut that benefitted primarily those in the top 5% income bracket.. The cut depleted the surplus and have done basically nothing for help the economy.
Infact, it probably hurt it.
[ 01-11-2002: Message edited by: Nostradamus ]</p>
<strong>
Infact, it probably hurt it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
We're back in fantasy land now. How can money into the economy hurt a weak economy?
<strong>3.) tax burden eased? sorry but 200-400 bucks is a joke. I would have rathered it go to a school.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If that was all there was to the tax cut, you'd be right. Just do the math people. There are about 100 million taxpayers. The tax rebate checks were $300-600. Even if they were all $600 checks that only comes to $60 billion. CBO has scored the tax cut at $1.3 trillion. Guess what. There's more to come. Those rebate checks were only a down payment.
<strong>The real contention here are the other parts of the heavy trillion-dollar tax cut that benefitted primarily those in the top 5% income bracket.. The cut depleted the surplus and have done basically nothing for help the economy. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Those in the top brackets have to wait for their cuts. It's being phased in. The surplus went south because the economy went south. That's the way things work. The government doesn't get as much revenue when the private economy isn't generating as much.
That's why we should appoint a special prosecuter. So that we can waste an incredible amount of taxpayer money and hound Bush's every-move, past, present and planned, until we find something absolutely politically irrelevant that we can slobberingly publish online . . . kinda like Starr, no?
Anyway, I have to come down on the side of the conservatives as far as this book about the pipeline goes.. . . .I have just heard too much of this kind of rhetoric from my fellow libby cohorts to take it too seriously, and, unfortunately, it kinda invalidates all of my other well balanced and ultimately absolutely correct arguements to have to be on the same side as someone who is sounding like he should be published by the Libertarian Press of the Left.
Go ahead and belly-ache that Gore should have won. The country wouldn't have been any different, except that I think Gore would have held out a bit longer in regard to getting down to business, so to speak, in Afghanistan.
If you want to be different, make a statement, or both, find a 3rd party. If you're some sort of moderate democrat or whatnot, you have to understand that you don't really believe in anything. There is no backbone to the Democrat and Republican platforms. Republicans today are likely very similar in ideology to Democrats a few decades ago. To say that "Democrats are ahead of the time" in response is also a fallacy, since you're just reducing vision to the fact that people like handouts.
I just find it silly how Dems come in here and say "look at your man Bush. He's such a dirt bag, see? Your party is dumb." And of course Republicans just say the same thing with different names. Why don't you start discussing what you don't like about the Republican motive and why you think the Democratic alternative is more reasonable, because after all our country was founded on the reason of the enlightenment.
I see that this topic became to a reasonably interesting discussion, but next time you want to bring up such topics, maybe try addressing them directly. I fail to see how Bush's moral or immoral status has anything to do with the economics of his tax cut.
[ 01-14-2002: Message edited by: Splinemodel ]</p>
Well, the reason that this is true is because the Democratic party was split in two. This was mainly because of the 'Dixiecrats' from the South who didn't want to be in 'Lincoln's party'. Eventually, however, they transitioned over to the Republican party because they held the same viewpoints any way.
<strong>If you're a democrat, Nostro, I'm going to wonder a little here about your grasp on politics. Right now in America we have two parties that say very-slightly different things and in the end do the same things.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sorry for butting in, but I don't think it's fair to say that if you're a Dem or Repub that you don't stand for anything or that you don't understand politics. Perhaps we understand politics better than you.
First, I think you underestimate the differences between the parties. Gore and Bush stood for and would have enacted vastly different economic plans. And they would have very different interactions with the rest of the world. It's hard to see the effects of these policies, because they're longer-term, but I believe they're there, and they have an effect.
Also, third parties are fine, as long as they stand for something. Many of the third parties we've seen in the US just exist for the sake of having another party. Perot is the best example - there was no ideology at all behind his movement (I can't even remember the name of his party right now). Nader was a candidate of the Greens, but he wasn't even a member of the party. I definitely don't agree with the positions that the Libertarians take on issues. And don't get me started on the Natural Law party.
So what's the alternative? To just check out, which is what most people in their 20s have done? No, politics is about making choices. I'm sick of hearing people say "I hate both parties, they're all crooks." That's just laziness.
And it's not at all clear to me that having lots of parties, even if they really do stand for legitimate philosophies, improves the political system. :cough: Israel :cough: I think the reason we have close parties right now is that we are reasonably successful as a country. We basically are doing things right, in the big picture. If things go bad, you'll see more well-defined alternative views.
I don't have any problem with someone supporting a third party, but don't give us this superiority about it. I haven't seen anything from you except for the standard "they're all the same" line that everyone uses.
BTW, you remind me of someone else from the old AI, but I can't think of the name now - true?
<strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0822329913/qid=1010621197/sr=1-15/ref=sr_1_79_16/102-1788842-1036149"; target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/e xec/ obidos/ASIN/0822329913/qid=1010621197/sr=1-15/ref=sr_1_79_16/102-1788842-1036149</a>
The above book, soon to be published, affirms that the Bush administration had secret deals with the Taliban right after the new administration took office. The goals of these talks was to acquire permission to build an oil pipeline through Afganistan. A quote says, "Give us the carpet of gold [oil] or we give you a carpet of bombs."
The book gives factual proof of all of this, included diplomatic archival materials, and includes interview material from former FBI agents who resigned prior to 9-11 due to the Bush administration's light handed tactics with the teroroists and the Taliban, and taking a weaker stance than Clinton.
In fact, the book asserts from official records, that as late as August 2001, the Bush administration officials met with Taliban officials in Pakistan and were given a chance at the coordinates and time of Osama Bin Laden.?then a wanted teroroist linked to the embassy bombings and the 1993 WTC bombings, plus a whole host Isreali terror attacks?but turned it down.
Some claim the current war on terorism in Afghanistan will be used as an excuse to build the central asia pipeline.
The Bush administration is currently denying all of it.
Look for a New York Times story on this shortly, and the mainstream media to pick it up.
Just imagine, if Al Gore were president, 9-11 might had never happened.
[ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: Nostradamus ]</strong><hr></blockquote>Your an idiot!!!!
<strong>SNIP!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Amen!... to most of it.
The alternative is not to settle for some half-aligned platform that doesn't have a common thread of values with your own. You are being lazy by settling for the establishment, rather than going out on a limb, supporting a 3rd party, and hopefully making a statement that you would like to make.
If I were forced to pick, I'd pick Republican, because they at least claim that an objective of theirs is to reduce government. But for me it's much more satisfying to vote for a Libertarian, even though I know that they have no chance of winning. I live in predominantly Democrat areas, and the major party ballots are mostly determined from the start. So there's little motive to vote for a major party even if I determined that I would vote for one of them.
Ask yourself why young folks aren't interested in governmental issues. It's because no mainline politician in the past 15 years has had the courage to go against the grain and start interesting discussion. Right now we're on an entropic cruise control.
And please. I understand politics. Perhaps you do to, though since I'm not a moderate I may seem way off base to you.
You were right on the second claim, I was previously registered here.
[ 01-15-2002: Message edited by: Splinemodel ]</p>