God Rigs Election: It's Bush In A "blowout"

[Colleen Thomas]

Good god, Colleen. You think employees in the Social Security Administration should periodically freak out and spray their offices with automatic weapons fire?

Would this be termed "going social?"

At any rate, you two are talking about Social Security like it's some kind of federal program. How many times (two, on record) does our President have to explain to you that that's not the case?

Don't worry, everyoneknows the Social Securioty department is chock full of liberals and we all know they can't handle guns. Maybe they will go crazy and throw tofu at one another

-Colly

 

[minsue]

You are still safe Comrade mindy

-Colly

Good god, Colleen. You think employees in the Social Security Administration should periodically freak out and spray their offices with automatic weapons fire?

Would this be termed "going social?"

At any rate, you two are talking about Social Security like it's some kind of federal program. How many times (two, on record) does our President have to explain to you that that's not the case?

Good Lord! Between the two of you & Couture on the Political Ass thread, I'm still sitting alone in the backyard laughing away. The neighbors will be calling the men with the white coats soon.

- Mindy

Edited to add: And that was before I saw the tofu fight!
they're coming to take me away, ha! ha!

 

[Couture]

G.W.'s plan gives 2/3s of the breaks to 10% of the population, but at least that 1/3 that is left does people a little good here and there. If the dems had had their way even that minor relief wouldn't have occured.

-Colly

Really, I don't think you are doing the math here Colly. It is a tax cut combined with increased spending, therefore sending the country deeply into deficit. It's like borrowing 10 grand in your name and then giving you back two hundred and giving some rich CEO somewhere a grand and then keeping the rest.

Colly, you didn't 'get' anything except deeper in the hole.

The rest of your ideas I tend to agree with. It is my position that democrats and republicans are equally as likely to spend. The difference being that Republicans prefer to pay interest on their spending.

Both are bad and will continue to be so until we can get meaningfull campaign finance reform. Until then, we must keep the damage they can do to a minimum by keeping either party from being in control.

 

[minsue]

Don't worry, everyoneknows the Social Securioty department is chock full of liberals and we all know they can't handle guns. Maybe they will go crazy and throw tofu at one another

-Colly

I've shot a number of assault rifles including an AK-47 and I have to say I absolutely loved it every time. Unfortunately, I don't think I should have been allowed to do so. I mean, really, do you want someone like me to have access to these things? It's bad enough that they let me drive!

 

[shereads]

Personal credibility means a lot to me

Didn't forget, but curious about how you evaluate the personal cred of public figures. As I see it, we are only able to evaluate the credibility of people we don't personally know by two means: the relationship of his/her public relations machine with the press (please read my post from salon.com about the press treatment of Howard Dean, particularly his treatment on Meet The Press versus Tim Russert's interview with George W. Bush); and the paper trail they've left in the public record - arrests, refuted misstatements (which if later repeated can be assumed to be deliberate lies), voting record if the person has been in the house or Senate, military record and/or lies about military record, mysteriously missing pix of the person as a cheerleader at Yale...

Also, there's the shifty-eye factor, which made Nixon look like the person he turned out to be. But you can't fully trust that, because there could just be a hyper-sensitivity to light.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Really, I don't think you are doing the math here Colly. It is a tax cut combined with increased spending, therefore sending the country deeply into deficit. It's like borrowing 10 grand in your name and then giving you back two hundred and giving some rich CEO somewhere a grand and then keeping the rest.

Colly, you didn't 'get' anything except deeper in the hole.

The rest of your ideas I tend to agree with. It is my position that democrats and republicans are equally as likely to spend. The difference being that Republicans prefer to pay interest on their spending.

Both are bad and will continue to be so until we can get meaningfull campaign finance reform. Until then, we must keep the damage they can do to a minimum by keeping either party from being in control.

I wasn't arguing it was a brilliant move, or even a good move. I was pointing out that republicans are at least WILLING to cut taxes once in a while. With Democrats once they get it through that money is thers to fritter away. (Don't misconstrue this to say the republicans don't fritter it away just as effectively).

It was a support of the Dems being richly deserving of their tax and spend tag, not a defense of republican spending themes.

-Colly


-Colly

 

[minsue]

From tax cuts to the economy...

===============================
THE DAILY MIS-LEAD
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1336237&l=14380
===============================

BUSH TWICE TRIES TO MISLEAD AMERICA ABOUT THE ECONOMY IN 24 HOURS

Within a span of 24 hours, President Bush twice attempted to mislead the
American people about the economy and his tax policies. On Friday, the
president said, "Unemployment dropped today to 5.7% [which] is a positive sign that the economy is getting better."

But the president didn't add that the unemployment drop occurred not because the economy was getting better, but because continued weak job growth led 309,000 people to stop looking for work. As one nonpartisan economist said, "Most of these dropouts would still be in the labor force working or trying to work if the economy were doing better," The president made no mention that only 1,000 total jobs were created in December - a "shockingly low number," where most economists had expected job growth to be around 100,000 to 150,000 for the month. 33 months after the beginning of the recession,
this recovery is distinguished from all previous cycles of job contraction and resumed growth since 1939, according to the Economic Policy Institute, for not having fully recovered job levels to those above the pre-recessionary peak within 31 months from its start.

The following day, the president touted the same economic policies that helped create the unemployment crisis. Despite the bad economic news, he said, "Tax relief has got this economy going again," and bragged, "every
American who pays income taxes got a tax cut." His use of the phrase "income
tax," however, was tailored to divert attention from the millions of low-income American taxpayers (who pay payroll tax but not income tax) who
received nothing. Bush's 2001 tax cut completely excluded 31% of all families in America. Similarly, Bush's 2003 tax cut completely excluded 31% of all taxpayers - including one million children of military families.

The part about the addition of only 1,000 jobs in December scares the holy hell out of me.

- Mindy

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I've shot a number of assault rifles including an AK-47 and I have to say I absolutely loved it every time. Unfortunately, I don't think I should have been allowed to do so. I mean, really, do you want someone like me to have access to these things? It's bad enough that they let me drive!

ROFL

I think you probably made a sexy comrade with your Ak and pinko commie leanings

Swoon!

-Colly

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Didn't forget, but curious about how you evaluate the personal cred of public figures. As I see it, we are only able to evaluate the credibility of people we don't personally know by two means: the relationship of his/her public relations machine with the press (please read my post from salon.com about the press treatment of Howard Dean, particularly his treatment on Meet The Press versus Tim Russert's interview with George W. Bush); and the paper trail they've left in the public record - arrests, refuted misstatements (which if later repeated can be assumed to be deliberate lies), voting record if the person has been in the house or Senate, military record and/or lies about military record, mysteriously missing pix of the person as a cheerleader at Yale...

Also, there's the shifty-eye factor, which made Nixon look like the person he turned out to be. But you can't fully trust that, because there could just be a hyper-sensitivity to light.

Lets see. I got fired. Stole or borrowed some incriminating documents. Wrote a tell all book. Raked my ex boss over the coals. Now I calim he's prepared and capable, more so than his opponents and that I never meant a personal attack.

I do think we have a winner in the split personality division.

No we don't

Yes we do, he's a weasle.

No, he's a good guy, I wasn't dising him.

If anyone has ever seen the movie heavy metal I think we have a Hanover Fist episode in the making

-Colly

 

[KenJames]

The main issue I have with the phrase "tax & spend" is the spend part. Yes, W did push through a massive tax cut and yes, a small part of it did relieve the middle class. In order to do so he pissed away an unprecedented THREE TRILLION dollar projected surplus and plunged us back into deficit spending. That is not, IMO, fiscally sound. Raising the spending by 39% in 3 years sure as hell isn't fiscally conservative. His father raised the budget at nearly the same rate. The only politician in recent history to actually balance the budget was Clinton. Damn "tax & spend" Democrat!

- Mindy

I'm middle class and I will see my federal taxes go down slightly. The only problem is, due to the budget-balancing magic of "unfunded mandates" (putting new requirements, such as security and education, on state and local governments without allocating any money to pay for them) the increases in my local taxes have more than wiped out my federal tax savings.

 

[minsue]

I'm middle class and I will see my federal taxes go down slightly. The only problem is, due to the budget-balancing magic of "unfunded mandates" (putting new requirements, such as security and education, on state and local governments without allocating any money to pay for them) the increases in my local taxes have more than wiped out my federal tax savings.

Sadly, I'm actually wishing my local taxes would wipe out my federal tax savings. The legislature cut all state departments to the bone & started keeping the money collected for city traffic fines instead of giving it back to the cities (I'm not sure why the state has it in the first place, but nothing in AZ ever makes sense) so the cities are also in an extreme budget crunch. Right now they are trying to convince the voters in my school district to allow a bond to repair my old high school since the walls are literally falling down under the weight of the ceilings. That school had it's 30th anniversary my freshman year so it's now well over 40 & pushing 50.

Our state legislature is actually pushing to CUT taxes even though we just finally moved up to 49th in the nation in spending per student in our schools and we are dangerously underfunding our Child Protective Services department with many heartbreaking results.

- Mindy

 

[KenJames]

I've shot a number of assault rifles including an AK-47 and I have to say I absolutely loved it every time. Unfortunately, I don't think I should have been allowed to do so. I mean, really, do you want someone like me to have access to these things? It's bad enough that they let me drive!

I agree. Heavy rifles are a trip and I had a lot of fun on the ROTC rifle team.

I don't have any guns now because I feel I can defend myself just fine without them.

It sounds like you take guns seriously, so I'd trust you with them a lot more than I would those morons who think they're toys.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Sadly, I'm actually wishing my local taxes would wipe out my federal tax savings. The legislature cut all state departments to the bone & started keeping the money collected for city traffic fines instead of giving it back to the cities (I'm not sure why the state has it in the first place, but nothing in AZ ever makes sense) so the cities are also in an extreme budget crunch. Right now they are trying to convince the voters in my school district to allow a bond to repair my old high school since the walls are literally falling down under the weight of the ceilings. That school had it's 30th anniversary my freshman year so it's now well over 40 & pushing 50.

Our state legislature is actually pushing to CUT taxes even though we just finally moved up to 49th in the nation in spending per student in our schools and we are dangerously underfunding our Child Protective Services department with many heartbreaking results.

- Mindy

CPS and APS are always undefunded, even here in NY. Mores the pity as the people these services watchout for are generally without any other reecourse

-Colly

 

[minsue]

It sounds like you take guns seriously, so I'd trust you with them a lot more than I would those morons who think they're toys.

You can only say that because I edited myself before I posted. The sentence originally read,"...someone like me to get to play with these things?" I changed it so as to not get a deserved lecture on gun safety.

I take guns seriously when it comes to my views on gun control. The times that I have played with guns, that is quite literally what I was doing. I was having fun and on at least one occasion falling over drunk. They'll let anyone shoot a gun in Arizona.

- Mindy

 

[KenJames]

Sadly, I'm actually wishing my local taxes would wipe out my federal tax savings. The legislature cut all state departments to the bone & started keeping the money collected for city traffic fines instead of giving it back to the cities (I'm not sure why the state has it in the first place, but nothing in AZ ever makes sense) so the cities are also in an extreme budget crunch. Right now they are trying to convince the voters in my school district to allow a bond to repair my old high school since the walls are literally falling down under the weight of the ceilings. That school had it's 30th anniversary my freshman year so it's now well over 40 & pushing 50.

Our state legislature is actually pushing to CUT taxes even though we just finally moved up to 49th in the nation in spending per student in our schools and we are dangerously underfunding our Child Protective Services department with many heartbreaking results.

- Mindy

There's an old saying that we get the government we deserve.

I keep wondering, "What did we do to deserve this?"

 

[Colleen Thomas]

You can only say that because I edited myself before I posted. The sentence originally read,"...someone like me to get to play with these things?" I changed it so as to not get a deserved lecture on gun safety.

I take guns seriously when it comes to my views on gun control. The times that I have played with guns, that is quite literally what I was doing. I was having fun and on at least one occasion falling over drunk. They'll let anyone shoot a gun in Arizona.

- Mindy

Gun control means hitting what you shoot at

-Colly

 

[minsue]

CPS and APS are always undefunded, even here in NY. Mores the pity as the people these services watchout for are generally without any other reecourse

-Colly

Yup. One of the other budget cuts this last session really broke my heart. They cut a program that provided child care subsidies to the working poor that were under the federal poverty line. The program still exists, but there is now a cap and at last estimate over 10,000 qualifing families on the waiting list. A lot of people had to quit their jobs because they couldn't afford child care and work and now they're getting more money from the state than they were to start with. There were also a few documented cases of parents calling CPS on themselves because for some odd logic, if there is an open CPS investigation then the family (more often single parent) will not have to sit on the waiting list for child care subsidies. I can't imagine being so desperate as to do that because we have also had multiple cases recently where children have been taken from their homes due to CPS investigations that were botched and then CPS wouldn't give them back because the parents were labeled as "uncooperative" because they wouldn't admit that they had done something that CPS had already admitted they HADN'T done. (if you think that was confusing, try reading about the cases in the paper as they drag on for months)

- Mindy

 

[shereads]

My ex-husband got tired of hearing me talk about how unsafe I felt having guns in the house. He took one out of the bedside table to give me a lecture on gun safety, and as he was preparing to demonstrate that he kept it unloaded, it went off and shot a hole through the bedroom wall. I had just sat down; thirty seconds before, I'd have been standing directly in front of it.

Gun nuts.

 

[KenJames]

You can only say that because I edited myself before I posted. The sentence originally read,"...someone like me to get to play with these things?" I changed it so as to not get a deserved lecture on gun safety.

I take guns seriously when it comes to my views on gun control. The times that I have played with guns, that is quite literally what I was doing. I was having fun and on at least one occasion falling over drunk. They'll let anyone shoot a gun in Arizona.

- Mindy

Fair enough. [Insert gun safety lecture here] I've never played with guns. From my first BB gun through the military weapons, I had it pounded into me that guns have to be treated with care and respect.

 

[shereads]

There's an old saying that we get the government we deserve.
\

Unfortunately, we often get the government someone else deserves.

Min, don't worry about underfunded child protective services. We've had a string of child deaths, disappearances etc. of kids in protective state custody or otherwise under the protection of the system; the social workers have caseloads of sometimes 60 kids each, for which they are supposed to do weekly home visits.

Last year, after the third death of a child under Dept. of Children and Families supervision in just under six months, Gov. Jeb Bush called them "isolated incidents." When he ran for Gov. a big part of his campaign rhetoric had to do with reorganizing that department to keep children safer. He fired the former dept. head and replaced him with a fundamentalist Christian, whose response to these isolated incidents has been -- are ya ready?

-- prayer. Churches have been asked to each "adopt a social worker" to pray for.

If Arizona follows Florida's example, you won't need to tax people to pay for child welfare services. Prayer is free.

 

[shereads]

Fair enough. [Insert gun safety lecture here] I've never played with guns. From my first BB gun through the military weapons, I had it pounded into me that guns have to be treated with care and respect.

Guns don't kill people. Children kill people.

There was an interesting episode about educating children in gun safety that ran on 20/20 or one of those TV news magazines not long after the Colombine massacre. A group of 5-and-6 year old kids were given a safety lecture of the kind recommended by the NRA for their age level. Pretty simple, really: You must never touch a gun, and if you see a gun you must go and tell an adult about it.

All of the kids enthusiastically agreed, and responded appropriately to the scary stories about the bad things that can happen if you or another child touch a gun...Then the adults left the room for a while...leaving the gun on a table. Within a few minutes, every child in the class had taken a turn holding the gun (a prop, mercifully) except for one little girl, who kept reminding the others they weren't supposed to touch it. They aimed it at each other, looked down the barrel, passed it around...And eventually, the one hold-out couldn't stand it anymore and she also held the gun and played with it.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Unfortunately, we often get the government someone else deserves.

Min, don't worry about underfunded child protective services. We've had a string of child deaths, disappearances etc. of kids in protective state custody or otherwise under the protection of the system; the social workers have caseloads of sometimes 60 kids each, for which they are supposed to do weekly home visits.

Last year, after the third death of a child under Dept. of Children and Families supervision in just under six months, Gov. Jeb Bush called them "isolated incidents." When he ran for Gov. a big part of his campaign rhetoric had to do with reorganizing that department to keep children safer. He fired the former dept. head and replaced him with a fundamentalist Christian, whose response to these isolated incidents has been -- are ya ready?

-- prayer. Churches have been asked to each "adopt a social worker" to pray for.

If Arizona follows Florida's example, you won't need to tax people to pay for child welfare services. Prayer is free.

Please, please, please tell me you are just making that up. Pretty please?

-Colly

 

[shereads]

Nope. Not making it up.

And Jeb is the smart one.

As Letterman said, "Osama isn't the issue; the real danger is Jeb Bin Laden, Osama's smarter brother."

 

[minsue]

Gun control means hitting what you shoot at

-Colly

Nope, my aim is truly shitty. Of course, an assault rifle helps to take care of that on it's own.

In all seriousness, it's a lot easier to be angry about gun control from New York. There IS gun control in New York. Here it's not only legal to for anyone of age to have a gun, but it doesn't take much to get a concealed carry permit either. I know many people with such permits, including the one who gave me the assault rifle to shoot about 20 minutes before I passed out drunk. They're not exactly discriminating here in the Wild West.

-Mindy

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Nope. Not making it up.

And Jeb is the smart one.

As Letterman said, "Osama isn't the issue; the real danger is Jeb Bin Laden, Osama's smarter brother."

Pardon me while I go to the corner and very quietly cry.

-Colly