Warning: Rambling Political rant follows.
If this isn't something you can handle right now, enjoy the pictures and come back for the next topic in two days.
A friend asked me to post pictures of myself again. These came from February 20 doing one of those things I do for mental health (Ono Beach and Alsea Falls). Spring is here whether the calendar says it is or not. I know it's here when I can wade in the ocean again. Summer is just around the corner, and I am sooooo ready.
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A friend asked me to post pictures of myself again. These came from February 20 doing one of those things I do for mental health (Ono Beach and Alsea Falls). Spring is here whether the calendar says it is or not. I know it's here when I can wade in the ocean again. Summer is just around the corner, and I am sooooo ready.
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Politically speaking, I am angry. I don't like being angry and don't live my life that way-- very often. I am mad at the extremists on the right, mad at those who are Republicans but not extremists, but are letting this happen to their party. Did they watch the latest CPAC meetings and listen to those speakers? Did any of that seem like the right way for this country to go? How can they defend the people who seem to be speaking for their party? I understand that being angry makes it hard to write about politics. On the other hand, anger makes it hard not to write about it. My political hiatus is hereby over-- for awhile.
Since CPAC had the John Birch Society co-sponsoring their recent meeting, what does that say about the bigotry and racism Republicans have been denying? If you aren't a racist, do you want to be associated with the John Birch Society and its history? Is winning that important?
Yes, the left has its fringe loonies also but you don't see PETA paying for Democratic meetings... yet anyway. What were Romney and any other seemingly responsible Republicans doing there in giving credence to that set of nut jobs? Is that who Romney is? Never mind. I withdraw the question. He's an opportunist and nobody knows what they'd get with him-- including the self-named conservative Republicans.
In case you can't tell, I am not interested in being reasonable or tolerant. It's time for the moderate wing of the Republican party to speak up. Lots of luck on that. Besides being angry I am worried about where my beloved country is heading. I see a movement growing within it that is like a cancer even as they claim that it's me and people like me that are the cancer. Glenn Beck says it's a war. Maybe so. History says I should be concerned.
The other day I saw part of a program on the little ice age the world experienced from AD 1300 for almost two hundred years and again around 1850.
"There is substantial historical evidence for the Little Ice Age. The Baltic Sea froze over, as did many of the rivers and lakes in Europe. Pack ice expanded far south into the Atlantic making shipping to Iceland and Greenland impossible for months on end. Winters were bitterly cold and summers were often cool and wet. These conditions led to widespread crop failure, famine, and population decline. The tree line and snowline dropped and glaciers advanced, overrunning towns and farms in the process. There was a lot of social unrest as large portions of the population were reduced to starvation and poverty." .... from [Little Ice Age], an article well worth reading as part of being prepared for future climate shifts. It's not all about biology for how we could be impacted when things turn dire.Bad conditions bring out the worst in mankind. During that little ice age, came the burning of witches, whom some blamed for causing the cold weather, the disease, the failing crops. You think it's bad how these people are behaving today. If our climate turns drastically bad, you just wait. Some of them, like Pat Robertson, believe in the religious mumbo-jumbo of the Middle Ages.
The religious right says it gets its marching orders straight from god. It blames Satan and whoever isn't on their side for whatever goes wrong. It is religious often without knowing the actual teachings of the religion it espouses (and that means many religions, not just the main one in this country). It is patriotic but immediately shifts to attacking its own country when a fair vote doesn't go as they want. It is fundamentalist, potentially violent, and for the most part leaderless (unless that's hidden under the surface).
Watching speakers at CPAC should have scared anybody who wasn't of the teabagger* mentality. (I deliberately used that term that is so offensive to those who prefer to be called 'tea partiers'-- explanation at the end of my rant). I don't care if they like it. If I respected that group, I'd find another word less offensive to them, but I do NOT respect them at all. I see them as destructive and not loyal citizens at all.
There was a time where I hoped to communicate with extreme righties here as I thought we could have meaningful discourses, but it never worked. In the film, Ice Age-- Dawn of the Dinosaurs, there is a scene where Sid the Sloth argues with mommy dinosaur. He says, whatever I say, you go grrrr. That's what I get when I try to talk to christianists (not to be confused with Christians), birthers (not to be confused with giving birth to anything), and tea partiers (not to be confused with patriots).
When some of them not only defend but praise the guy who flew his plane into the IRS building in Texas, I ask so it's okay when Arab extremist do the same thing? No answer.
When I ask why it is okay to pay to fight two wars but not okay for their neighbor to have health insurance? No answer.
When I ask how come it's okay to torture when it doesn't work to get real evidence and is against the law and breaks all treaties between civilized peoples? No answer.
Their only answers are accusations that Obama is not a legitimate president. Obama won by millions of votes and a plurality in the Electoral College. Obama has shown his birth certificate to those who have declared it to be real. Birthers don't care about facts. They make them up as they go along.
What I am politically interested in doing is discussing real issues that face our country and looking at suggested solutions from the leadership on the right (no) and the left (maybe/ could be/ kind of/ be nice). Have you noticed that we only get government that can function when right wingers control it. Evidently Democrats don't have the ability to govern and look where right wingers take us.
When various issues confronting the world today arise, I will hope to hear from reasonable right wingers (and a few do comment here) who actually can look at facts bringing their side into the debate. We might not agree but we can agree to disagree.
You know, Europe has what some would call socialist ideas in place (so do we) and it's not as much a road to totalitarianism as the fascism practiced by so much of the right. If you are a rightie and made it this far, I don't want to shock you but government programs to serve the people don't have to be bad if the people are responsible and pay for what they want as they go. If they don't, they will send the culture into a destructive economic spiral. High taxes aren't always bad if they provide services (fire and police protection, schools, highway, health care, pensions) people would be paying for themselves anyway. Sometimes government is the most efficient way to do things.
It would be nice if there were simple solutions to our problems today, but I don't think there are. As an example, Ron Paul, who won the CPAC presidential poll is someone I consider to be a good person... many extreme righties are good people... but he's wrong on the gold standard. Money is an exchange of labor. It needs to be managed and treated responsibly which can help an economy or crush it. Currency is about barter. Theoretically I trade my labor for yours. Too bad we ended up with so many middle men doing nothing and trading their non-productive labor to receive even greater returns than those who actually 'do' something.
Gold as a basis for currency doesn't recognize the barter or world trade aspect. I don't know if Paul doesn't know that as a culture grows larger and more sophisticated, having a mandatory gold standard won't help it manage the ups and downs, or if he just sees it as a catch phrase that draws people to him.
Paul is still very popular in Oregon and the signs are up many places still supporting him. People want simple answers and it seems that no government provides that until you consider what the result would be. Paul is not a demagogue in my opinion but the ground is being seeded for one to rise.
Glenn Beck, who was chosen by CPAC to keynote their recent blowfest, said he learned what liberty meant to our forefathers when he read about it in our free libraries... Free? Obviously Beck doesn't get that when the Constitution was written, there were no public libraries. When public libraries began, the concept was to benefit all people and paid for by taxes. They are NOT free. They could qualify as a socialistic program, couldn't they?
I already knew Beck's ilk had no use for Teddy Roosevelt who pioneered the beginning of so many of our national parks which some consider the evil socialism. Those parks should belong to the richest, not the masses. Think of the money that could be made, the fancy homes built, keeping the rabble out!
The right wing is using the mentally ill (and yes, I mean Mr. Beck), the liars (Sarah, yes-to-the-bridge-to-nowhere-before-no Palin), the religious extremists (Tim, this-country-is-under-the-control-of-god Pawlenty), the power hungry (Dick not-giving-him-the-time-of-day Cheney) and hopes the American people will buy into eight more years of what they already had from 2000 to 2008. They might.
So more political blogs coming from here every so often with a warning at the top but no apologies. If someone reads who presents hard facts as to why my thinking is wrong, I am open to that, but this blog is not here to advertise positions I consider detrimental to the country. I recognize that sometimes good people can see the same facts and draw different conclusions from them. Facts are always welcome.
Finally that footnote--
* Teabaggers earned their nickname by beginning their movement with saying everyone should send tea bags to Congress in protest of taxes. They earned it by ignorance at what taxes pay for. They earned it by their abominable, racists signs and statements. They earned it by the stupid things they say like all government is bad but keep your hands off my Medicare. They earned it by their bigotry against anyone different from themselves. When they act respectfully, I'll use another term to describe them but for now I like one that infuriates them. I also like comment moderation.
Incidentally, they might keep in mind that tea party isn't a lot better. Yes, it doesn't have a prior meaning of a sex act, but it is about violence, destruction of property, and war. It's about a political event that was triggered by the wealthy in this land. When it is used, it is an implied threat of violence.
Violence might be what extremists want, but it's not what I want. I'd prefer the sex act part myself ;) (Yeah, I didn't know what it meant either until last spring, but since it describes a sexual act between two consenting adults, I have no problem with it. As usual, teabaggers do!)
45 comments:
Lovely pics Betty! I take my hat off to Senator Evan Bayh. He was right when he said that our politicians aren't doing enough to help solve some of our problems.
Great photos!!! And as you well know, I share your pain. I nearly collapsed from shock yesterday when I heard that Scott Brown defected to the Dems on the jobs bill but it did give me a ray of hope tht there are still some people who vote their conscience.
I just read in another blog that the Oregon Legislature gave teachers the go ahead to wear religious clothing in school. (If ain't money messin' up things, it's religious zealotry.)
It doesn't matter who is president. Any one person has to muck through Congress and the House, both of which are corporate puppets (the biggest corporate interests being the War Machine and the Insurance Lobby).
Also in times of turmoil, many folks hunker down in their little geographical spot and take care of one another, letting all the big stuff beat itself to a pulp on the perimeter. My hope lies in us.
Teabaggers continually blame Obama, Reid, and Pelosi for all that's wrong in America.
A Teabagger will scream for the government to leave their healthcare alone and we later find out the Teabagger has Medicare or charity care. The irony this group brings into politics is astounding.
The Teabagger will cry about their federal tax skyrocketing because of Obama and his *socialist agenda* but we know that only citizens making over $250k per year has had a tax increase since Obama took office. I doubt many Teabaggers make over $250k per year. The ones making the big bucks are the ones on stage at CPAC and on Fox News. The ones on stage and on Fox News are doing what they've always done. They are looking to cut tax and deregulate industry. They see our crippled country and want to keep it that way. When the corporation has picked America's carcass clean it will move on to the next willing victim.
Collected tax could be used to better America but Corporations are designed to make money and Teabaggers are the Corporation's tool.
There's no real difference between a Teabagger and a GOP-Republican. Both see a snow storm and use the weather to deny Climate Change.
Best to laugh at these buggers but make sure everyone sees the Teabagger for what they are, an extension of the failed GOP-Republican Party. Let's not let these pigs get away with re-branding themselves.
I read that the teabaggers think they are like the Boston Tea Party rebels. They are not! They are more like the Whiskey Rebellion. (Don't tax my booze).
You have taken no prisoners, Rain and I give you kudos for that. If the shoe fits the teabaggers, let them wear it. They are a motley crew of ignorant and angry people. They are so uneducated that they are directing their anger at the wrong people. They don't even know they are shooting themselves in the foot.
As always, my dear Rain...you are Eloquent! I love your passion nd I agree with everything you say.
I too am worried where we are going..It frightens me to think that these Teabagger people could be in "power" again....
To be honest---if that happens, I don't want to be here anymore.
BEAUTIFUL Pictures, my dear!
You go, Girl!
I am so disappointed and frustrated by the obstructionists and by the partisanship between the two major parties I can't even put it into words. I see the jockeying for position to speak for one party or the other, but I don't see a lot of representation of the will of the electorate. I think 100 years of a government limited to just two parties is at least ten years too long.
Good Morning Rain . . Can't resist. You were really on a roll with this, dare I say it, rant. We of the ignorant opposition do find it difficult to follow some of these things, but we try.
Evan Bayh. I like him and may even understand why he walked away. At the same time it bothers me that someone with his talent and ability choses to opt out rather than work to fix the system.
Ron Paul. I like him too but not without reservations. When he suggested that America caused 9/11 he lost me.
Scott Brown. Another potential winner. He is and always has been a middle of the road guy. I suspect he would be comfortable as either a moderate Democrat or a moderate Republican. He seems honest and principled but perhaps it is too soon to tell.
C-Pac and the Tea Baggers. Contrary to most Democratic critics I see the majority of these people as decent and patriotic citizens. I agree that there are a few extremists among them, but the Birch Society (if there is still such a thing), and the tin foil hats are both a very small percentage of the total.
Well then, what is C-Pac all about? The conservative political movement has been around forever. The idea of designing the smallest effective government possible is still a sensible way to go. It is not an EXTREMIST concept.
The conservative realist understands that we need federal, state, and local governments. They also understand that our national unity demands lawful and enforced controls.
So what is the argument between conservatives and liberals? This is more philosopical and complicated than many people think. It involves a question of government size, individual freedoms, how we pay for our government, and what should government be entrusted to do.
Sadly, the real questions have been hidden behind the arguably false facades of partisan political parties. Sometimes it seems that every function of government has been reduced to partisan political struggles.
Each political party gives the appearance of having two major goals:
1. Re-election
2. Gaining a partisan
advantage.
American citizens of either or any political persuasion are disgusted with both of these priorities. We all want political decisions based on common sense and the laws of the land.
Cool off Rain. The sky isn't falling. Yet!
Dixon
That all sounds good, Dixon, like a logical alternative to the left except it's not what I hear from the right. Want smaller government? Then why want the feds to be involved in banning gay marriage? Why want more wars? Has this group figured out that wars cost money? Their justification for these wars make no sense to someone like me. Protect us? how? It's not like we attacked the ones who attacked us when we went after Iraq and now here we go with warlike talk about what we should do about Iran. Does that sound like smaller government?
I think they want to go back to an idyllic period in the past that never existed. They do stay uninformed-- Obama has not raised their taxes and he should have as it is going to have to come to pay off the wastrel years when Republicans did have power but didn't want to pay for what they want.
I know many on the right are good people. I have some of them as friends but the far right is not logical and it is not willing to face consequences of actions. When the more moderate and sensible wing of the Republican party don't condemn the extremes, the end result will be more violence. Just as the left should speak out when some environmental group does something violent, and they do and have, the right should also when it's their own wackos, inspired by the rhetoric of their demagogues.
Incidentally my next blog will be about Ayn Rand and rational self-interest. I have said many times I am not an extreme leftie and I like a lot of Rand's opinions. They are deep though and like so many such ideas a certain group grabs onto them without going deep enough to get the full meaning.
Rain, we could say the same about the extreme left. The Democrat party has chosen to take their party leadership further to the left. I wish that we could get more people from the mainstream of both parties to have more control, but it does not seem to work. The Democrats could have put a moderate in as Speaker of the House but they chose Nancy Pelosi and her far left vision for America apparently worked because they won again in 2008. Now people are starting to see that maybe spending trillions of dollars on fluff may not be the right way to go. We will see.
Dion, calling all Republicans pigs and other names does nothing for your argument, but make you look like a fool.
Is someone squealing? Wait till Pelosi forces Obamacare down your throat. (insert evil laugh)
Ya I can't wait until Obamacare really costs over $3 trillion instead of only $850 billion and we have long wait times for routine procedures and worse quality than we have now. Oh and then China comes to collect on our stifling debt because the economy is still in the tank.
If Obamacare is such a panacea then why not pass it and make it effective immediately. Why have all the votes in the middle of the night when people are not watching and then have it not implemented until after Obama's first term is over?
The current Democrat "reform" bills have nothing to do with healthcare. They are all about more government control of our lives. If that is what you want then I guess that is what you will get with Pelosi and Obama. That is not what me or a majority of Americans want. All the polls show that and that is why Pelosi is trying to ram it down our throats as you say.
Most Americans want health care reform, ingineer. The majority still want a public option. Some still want single payer. So when they do a poll that says are you satisfied with health care proposal as it is, you find the majority don't like it-- but for different reasons.
So you want no government intervention in our personal lives or is it just say getting chemotherapy when you are among the working poor or high blood pressure meds that you don't want? And how would you feel if say you and your wife lost your jobs and insurance and she was facing a catastrophic illness? Then would it be okay? Or maybe more likely one of your kids where you couldn't afford their care either and they couldn't get insurance?
Most people who talk like you are okay with the government intervening in highways rather than all of that being private and toll roads. Most are okay with the government providing military, police, libraries, fire protection, maybe forest service if you aren't an extreme who wants all national forests sold to the lumber companies.
Part of your party wants Social Security eliminated totally. They don't remember how it was for the old when there was no such safety blanket. They don't care that the reason it's in trouble is because the government lied when Reagan upped the taxes to cover it and they used that money and now don't want to give it back. Had it been invested as a large group, there'd be no problem today with paying for it.
The issue with eliminating SS is what happens when there really isn't any? Do you really believe most elders can save enough money to take care of an independent old age?
There are perfectly good social programs provided for by the government right now and the idea that you want it not invading your personal rights seems to me you should consider a change of party ;)
Dion was using satire by the way...
oh and on the left wing having its fringe, sure it does, but it's not welcomed into the mainstream. When the CPAC met recently it had Rommey speaking with Glenn Beck as its keynoters. When the Democrats do something equally nutty, I'll agree with you. Right now I see the right as going more extreme. It is promoting, in the house and Senate leaders the kind of talk that is pure far right-- like your Coburn who would pray Byrd would die to prevent him voting on the health bill and some of the House guys who believe in the birther conspiracy talk. Other than saying government should do nothing, what positive things can you say Republicans today present as ideas to fix the serious problems in this country. I see the mainstream Republicans voting for things like more war or a prescription drug benefit but never paying for any of it. Higher taxes will have to come under a more responsible left wing or it won't happen at all and we will go deeper into debt! Republicans want this or that but do not want to pay for it. The eight years of Bush presidency are good examples. That doesn't work in your home and won't in your government. and you do want lots of things from government, like improved weapons, space flights, wars here and there, limitations on people's private sexual lives and the list goes on. Republicans talk the talk but you don't walk the walk.
Yes the Left Wing does have its fringe. The shooter at the Pentagon was a 9/11 Truther and a Bush hater. But it probably will not be played out like that on the mainstream media. But if he would have been a tea party attender that would be the top story for 2 weeks.
I agree with pretty much everything on your response Rain. And I would love to change parties. If there was a new party that fit me and most Americans. I think it should be called the Fiscal Party. We will be the Strong Defence, Secure Borders, Socially Moderate, Fiscally Conservative Party that is pro death penalty, pro choice and tough on crime except legalizing and taxing marijuana.
I am one of those that wants health care reform. Something does need to be done because it is going to bankrupt the treasury. And we cannot continue to have a large group of people using the Emergency Room as their primary care doctor. Having been married to an ER nurse for as long as I was and now having a doctor that is in hospital management as a brother in law I know a bit about how broke the healthcare system is. But what I want is nowhere close to what the House Bill does. Have you read it? I read a bunch of it when it was first passed.
And you are right the Congress has squandered the so called Social Security Trust Fund just like they have done with the Highway Trust Fund and any other pot of money they can get their hands on.
I do not want the eliminate Social Security. But it was meant to be a safety net. Not the primary retirement for people. Also we are paying out a lot of money from it for SSI people who are disabled and can't work because they are alcoholics or drug addicts. I was in favor of the Bush plan to allow people to control a small part of their contribution. We would have got a much larger return on our investment than SS currently provides and we would have controlled it and kept Congress from spending it.
The politicians here in California have been trying to get their hands on the PERS retirement money for years. They see a big pot of money they can blow on pet programs and then when it is broke and time to pay the retirees they will be long gone or deny they did anything wrong like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and the people would get screwed.
ER is no substitute for going to a primary care doctor and getting a prescription for say high bp. My brother would be dying now if he had had to depend on ER for his prostate cancer treatment. And right now there are death panels but they are on an insurance corporate board.
As for the democratic fringe, sure we have them but they are not side by side with our presidential candidate like it was with Romney at CPAC. Republicans are embracing their nutcases to get back power.
One question I heard raised last week was we have a strong military that goes around the world and it's why we cannot give our own people basic social services like other countries without that expense. It's something to think about. Why do we have that military and can we afford to be the world's mercenaries?
Personally I do not think that paying for the military keeps us from providing social services to our own people. We spend a ton of money on social services. How many trillions have been spent on the "War on Poverty" yet the poverty level is basically the same as it was in the 1960's.
I agree we should slow down on being the worlds policemen. We have many troops in Korea, Japan, Germany, Bosnia. For what? I guess we figured that it was cheaper to keep on eye on these folks in their own country than wait for them to build up and cause trouble like they did in WWII. We have drawn down the number of troops in most of those places and in Iraq. But remember after the Soviet Union fell and we gutted our intelligence community and cut back on the military and started spending the Peace dividend.
And then Al Qaida sprang up and attacked us. I still think it would have been better and cheaper to the economy to have a strong defense and fight them outside the country than have them attack us on our own soil.
I don't disagree with a lot of what you say either, ingineer, but how do you fight al Qaeda outside this country? Tell me you aren't one of those who thought Hussein was behind 9/11? *s*
And we actually weren't spending the so-called peace dividend. We were paying down our debt and having a surplus each year before we went to war someplace that had nothing to do with 9/11... and left us vulnerable to other places that might prove to be real future problems.
I don't really want to go into a lot of our foreign policy here, but it's a blog in its own eventually with a lot of very difficult choices to make with a military stretched to the limit-- according the military itself.
Our biggest problem for budgeting today is having 25% of our tax money going to pay interest. That leaves us still borrowing and in the situation some families get into where there is no getting out of it without stringent methods which nobody politically wants given we are a country who expects everything for nothing. We also are operating with a lot of lies about how tax cuts solve all financial problems, a deteriorating infrastructure, and the possibility of major climactic changes coming that will make our past problems seem minor.
I will keep it brief since it is off topic. I know Sadam had nothing to do with 9/11.
What I meant was if we would have kept the CIA and military funded at a higher level instead of cutting them drastically and if we would have treated all the Al Qaida attacks against us when Clinton was president like a military attack instead of sending the FBI to gather evidence for a criminal investigation like it was a bank robbery maybe we could have greatly reduced the Al Qaida threat before they were able to have such a massive attack on our soil.
You fight Al Qaida on foreign soil by infiltrating them and by paying sources close to them for intel and then killing them where they sleep. Not waiting for them to attack and then arresting them and putting them on trial in civilian courts where they have constitutional protections like a US citizen criminal.
Ingineer, you are reading too much right wing propaganda. What about when the Clinton administration warned the Bush incoming (Richard Clarke wrote a book on it) about al Qaeda and they ignored it? What about wag the dog accusations when Clinton tried to bomb a site he thought they were using? What about the summer before 9/11 when the president was given information while he was on vacation and he basically blew it off? What about the other trials in civilian courts that did prosecute terrorists? You act as though the only place you can get a fair trial is a military tribunal. You have no faith in our civilian courts for anything or just think they are incapable of figuring out a terrorist did a criminal act? What about fighting a war with someone who had nothing to do with 9/11 while ignoring going after the ones who did? You say you don't get the info from right wing radio, but you are getting it somewhere and it's ignoring a LOT of facts.
And the cuts in the budget were part of right and left wing ideas on cutting the size of government. Good or not good? Good when it's spies who spy on you? Where do you draw the line on that? But those cuts had nothing do do with what happened on 9/11 as there were plenty of warnings but somebody has to pay attention to them... Frankly the idea of blocking gays from important positions including translating might've had more impact.
Below is a link to an interesting article I read this morning after writing my comment. It is basically about the way investigative work is a key to dealing with al Qaeda. To put down police work as unimportant is to imply only armies can fix things and we know that isn't a factor in what led to 9/11 and will likely lead to another terrorist attack in this country. No president, despite their best efforts, can really stop that. CIA and FBI can't do it all either as if they really did lead the Bush people to thinking Hussein had WMD, they were wrong. In our country, to have any hope of stopping future attacks, it will take making neighborhoods and people who know these people to do something about it and then the authorities have to pay attention to the tips. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-07/could-us-have-halted-bomb-plot/?cid=hp:mainpromo5
We are going back and forth on this. I am not really arguing against your points, and I am not saying that there is no place for police work in dealing with terrorism. We all know the FBI botched clues from their field offices before 9/11. And it is the FBI responsibility to deal with these issues inside the United States.
I am saying the bombings of our embassies in Africa and the bombing of the USS Cole should have been dealt with more harshly than just an investigation and indictments. The NCIS people on the ground in Yemen knew who was behind the attacks on the Cole, but because of politics they were not able to do anything. Right after 9/11 when the gloves came off, a car carrying the masterminds to that attack was blown up by a missile from an unmanned drone in Yemen. That is how you deal with these people. The only thing they understand is overpowering force and crushing defeat. Being put on the wanted list by the FBI did not do much to stop them from continuing their behavior.
PS If I start making phone calls to terrorist groups in Pakistan, I hope the government is listening in. I am not a big privacy nut. They pretty much know anything about me already. They can just ask Visa or American Express about where I spend my money.
Also I do not have a problem with body scanners at airports. You do not want to go through one, take a boat or a train. You do not have a constitutional right to get on an airplane.
There is no place for police work in finding terrorists before they strike? You are kidding, I hope. If you aren't, it means you think the police and our courts are totally inept. Did the right wing go from thinking anybody who put our country down was a traitor to thinking it's traitorous to not find fault with everything it does???
Recently I read that under Obama we have killed more terrorist leaders overseas with such attacks than Bush. Furthermore, I even read right wingers complaining he is killing too many of them because then they can't interrogate them. You cannot win with such people and he should not try. I have no problem with killing such people and neither do most lefties. It saves on the right wing worrying about the trials later.
The concern about the Patriot Act wasn't so much phone calls as that they could arrest you, say you were a terrorist and you would have no right to a lawyer or to even a hearing. All it took was the president decreeing it. You could be held (some have been) years before they finally admitted they had nothing to hold you about. It also enabled torture which is not an effective way of getting info as we know due to so many false leads that the ones we had gave out.
Good police work whether by the FBI or CIA is the best way to prevent attacks before they happened. That isn't about military fighting wars somewhere but about guys who know the people, the language and those who put the safety of others ahead of their family and friends as they give a tip.
Maybe I didn't make that clear. I was NOT saying that. I agree there is room for police work. That is the FBI's main responsibility inside the US. I was referring to the response to attacks outside the US.
That is something that Obama has done correctly. He has continued and expanded the Bush policy of attacks against terrorists in Pakistan. That is why it seems that only a Democrat President can fight a war. Clinton and Obama bomb nations that we are not at war with and there is virtually no press and no bad press. A Republican President bombs a country and there is screaming all over the media.
Investigative work is the key to getting these people first and FBI and CIA are not exactly military groups. Our local police cannot go overseas to investigate anything which I know you know but it sounds like you are talking about it as though that's what Obama wants... honestly!!!!???
Good lord. Do we read the same papers. Clinton didn't take flak from the right and left for bombing an aspirin factory when he was trying to get al Qaeda? You guys really are too much and you feel soooooo abused. I think Obama probably feels abused about now as he's taken heat from left and right. At least the right does support their presidents no matter what they do although I think that is also part of their problem!
Obama is starting to feel the heat of being President. He was coddled as the first black president, but now people seem to be getting over that and are taking issue with his policies.
And it is interesting that the Democrats are starting to eat their own in Congress. Massa from New York that resigned yesterday seemed like a decent guy from what I have heard and he was a moderate Democrat, but since he voted no on the health care bill they came gunning for him. Totally ridiculous trumped up charges.
I was talking about Clinton bombing Kosovo.
Oh and like that is only happening to democrats. I think both parties are going to the extremes and moderates are being pushed out. It's a sign of the times, I guess.
And as for Obama, he has had the pressure since he got in office which is as it should be. It's not a fun job especially not if you take it seriously and actually re the one doing it instead of delegating the whole thing. People like me never did vote for him based on his race but on what he stood for and when he backed off on any of that, he should get heat and has.
I hadn't even read about Massa, not sure where you got your info but you might want to read this for the 'other' side of the story-- Democratic Trainwreck Sounds like good riddance :)
With Massa resigning to avoid ethics violations being brought forth, I'm reminded that during most of the GWBush years, congress didn't have an ethics committee. Not that a congressional ethics committee is a newfangled idea. The GOP-Republican led House just didn't see any need for any oversight.
I agree Rain that sadly both parties are going to the extremes and moderates on both sides are being marginalized. John McCain was a moderate and he got trashed by both sides.
This will help each party but will hurt America.
Dion the GOP has had the majority in Congress for how much of the last 60 years? Politics is politics, don't try to play the Obama game and blame everything on the people that used to be in power. Step up and start accepting responsibility for what is happening now.
Ingineer, it is impossible to discuss today without facing what happened the last 17 years. To pretend that it all began when obama was inaugurated is to ignore what got us here. You would not accept that in anything else in life, why would you this situation? The Bush years and yes, the Clinton years, where banks were deregulated to a disastrous results, must be part of any look at where we are. You can't seriously think you start over when a president takes office and all that went on before has no importance for where you are???
I know you have to look at the past. But after 13 months of everything being somebody else's fault it is starting to get old. Almost every speech Obama gives he talks about how the problems are not his fault. It is passed time to step up and be a leader and stop blaming everybody else.
I mean even Harry Reid is moving on. He said we only lost 36,000 jobs the other day and that is a good day to him. Personally that is not a good day to me and would not have been a good day in the previous administration either.
I am always amazed at how fast the talking points get around. Is it email? What the heck does it?
Bush was so worried about job loss that he did exactly what about it? Oh yeah the tax cuts for the richest; so they could afford to pay for more maids? The only thing he did at all was when he worried banks were going to lose money and that was TARP. Otherwise, he was out for the count on the subject and most of you Republicans resisted the stimulus that was intended to help the job losses.
At any rate, the right must pay a lot more attention to Obama's exact words than I do or probably any Democrat. Although I feel your pain. We are a little sick also of hearing how Bush kept us safe for his whole presidency--forgetting anything inconvenient along the way like 9/11 or the shoe bomber.
To assume that in one year, and it's been only one year, that anything Bush did is no longer a big deal is to ignore what got us here and is not helping get us out either.
I would have liked to see Obama do more to undo those Bush/clinton years like bank reform but republicans resist any of it. Why is that again?
I saw the Reid thing on another blog that I read regularly.
Did you see that the number of millionaires in the US went up in 2009 after going down in 2008. Obama must be looking out for his rich buddies, right?
From what I have seen republicans do not resist true bank reform. But kind of like health care the Democrats currently in power do not really want true reform, they want more federal control over it. They could easily just reverse the law they passed when Clinton was president that eliminated the Glass-Steagall act and that would be fine, but they want more bureaucracy that really won't do much for the citizens. I think Barney Frank and Chris Dodd have done enough already, they do not need more power over banks.
Your comment on the millionaires was funny. You do know what happened in 2008 with the stock market crash? That is why it went down but back up when the market recovered thanks to TARP. It likely won't last either and can you then blame that on Obama? lol
Ingineer66, My last comment didn't place blame on anyone or any political party. I was making an astute political observation. I'm not sure if you were referring back to an earlier posting of mine. I do tend to blame the Right for all that's wrong. If you care to bring up something specific that I've placed blame on, bring it on. I know Democrats are not innocent of all wrongdoing. Blame can be spread around but what galls me is the constant demagoguery Obama faces from the Right-wing. You, yourself bringing up 2008 and the drop in millionaires was a riot. The hits on Obama keep coming. Obama continues to capitulate to the Right because he's a moderate pragmatist.
My millionaire comment was meant as a joke to illustrate that you can blame the president for anything and everything. If we have a republican president and rich people are doing better then it is bad. If we have a democrat then rich people doing well is a good sign.
The market would have recovered with or without TARP.
Obama is a moderate? I do not think so. If he is your definition of a moderate, then what was Bill Clinton, a right-wing extremist?
Ingineer, and which economist are you quoting to think it would have recovered with out TARP and the Stimulus? The ones I have read think he should have gone farther with it and didn't do enough. They do not believe it would have recovered and think we would have gone into a full blown depression.. and the possibility for that is still out there.
Obama seems like a moderate to us on the left because he hasn't gone as far as we'd like, because he's tried too hard to please Republicans. He hasn't gone after the bank reform, a lot of things that I think he should have done but he knew he'd not get republican support in the Congress. He has to figure it out that he won't ever get voters or support from people like you. Anybody who would vote for a Palin ticket, will never support Obama. When he figures that out, maybe he'll do what the left elected him to do instead of trying to please those who see him as a satan.
That is funny. That is about the same thing we said about Bush 43.
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