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3K views 43 replies 14 participants last post by  kev74 
#1 ·
More thought for the politically inclined:

George Bush has been in office for 7 1/2 years. The first six the economy was fine.

1. Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2. Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3. The unemployment rate was 4.5%
4. The DOW JONES hit a record high --14,000+
5. American's were buying new cars, taking cruises and vacations overseas, living large!

But American's wanted 'CHANGE'!
So, in 2006 they voted in a Democratic Congress & yep--we got 'CHANGE'!

1. Consumer confidence has plummeted;
2. Gasoline is now over $ 3.5 a gallon & climbing;
3. Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase)
4. Americans have seen their home equity drop by $12 trillion dollars & prices are still dropping;
5. 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.
6. THE DOW is probing another low 11,300 -- $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS HAS EVAPORATED FROM THEIR STOCKS, BONDS & MUTUAL FUNDS INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS! YEP, IN 2006 AMERICA VOTED FOR CHANGE! AND WE GOT IT! A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS, NANCY PELOSI. HARRY REID.
Now the democrat' candidate for president -- and the polls say he's gonna be 'the man'--
Claims he's gonna really give us change! Just how much more 'change' do you think you can stand? :anim_lol:
 
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#2 ·
More thought for the politically inclined:

George Bush has been in office for 7 1/2 years. The first six the economy was fine.

1. Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2. Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3. The unemployment rate was 4.5%
4. The DOW JONES hit a record high --14,000+
5. American's were buying new cars, taking cruises and vacations overseas, living large!

But American's wanted 'CHANGE'!
So, in 2006 they voted in a Democratic Congress & yep--we got 'CHANGE'!

1. Consumer confidence has plummeted;
2. Gasoline is now over $ 3.5 a gallon & climbing;
3. Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase)
4. Americans have seen their home equity drop by $12 trillion dollars & prices are still dropping;
5. 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.
6. THE DOW is probing another low 11,300 -- $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS HAS EVAPORATED FROM THEIR STOCKS, BONDS & MUTUAL FUNDS INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS! YEP, IN 2006 AMERICA VOTED FOR CHANGE! AND WE GOT IT! A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS, NANCY PELOSI. HARRY REID.
Now the democrat' candidate for president -- and the polls say he's gonna be 'the man'--
Claims he's gonna really give us change! Just how much more 'change' do you think you can stand? :anim_lol:
This is kind of short sighted and inaccurate.

Dubbya took office in January 2001. When he took over the White House, he had a budget surplus (!), a strong economy and a Republican controled congress. And by that summer, we were in the middle of the Dot-Com bust and the first of our financial difficulties under Dubbya's watch.

Remember when Enron and World Com took a dump? I do. I was doing a lot of work for cell phone companies at the time and was shortly thereafter unemployed for the next 6 months. And when I finally did find a job, I was hired as an Engineer for less than $30k a year and had a 70 mile commute each way. Yeah, good times!

So by late summer, after Bush & Co. ignored intelligence briefings for several months we got 9/11, then the real fun started. From a Republican President and Congress, we got more new government expansion and spending since FDR. We got the Patriot Act, Patriot Act II, Homeland Security, etc.

Then for the first rational move of his administration, we went after those who attacked us in Afghanistan (we ignored the Saudis though). And almost as soon as we started making progress, we decided to divert resources from Afghanistan and instead attacked Iraq based on made up intelligence. But in Dubbya's defense, Saddam did say bad things about Poppa Bush, so I guess we really were justified.

From then until 2006, Bush & Co. spent more and more of our $$$ and got less and less in return until finally the American people got fed up enough to vote some incumbents out of office. We got a Democrat controlled congress and Bush got a scape goat.

Now, we've got a big mess to clean up, Dubbya's looking forward to playing cowboy on his ranch and making some Slick Willy $$$ doing speeches, his oil buddies are making money hand over fist, and we're trying to figure out how to keep our homes warm this winter.

Blame the Democrats if you want, but we've been getting the short end of the stick for longer than the last 2 years.
 
#6 ·
Nice post.

The truth hurts, doesn't it boys??

But once again, true to liberal bylaws, let's dismiss facts as irrelevant. Facts are powerless against liberal revisionism.

But you are right about one thing kev, the Sub-prime mess has been brewing and festering a long time. The Democrat's culpability for this does begin longer than two years ago. Fannie and Freddie's colossal collapse was nurtured by years of liberal expansion of entitlements. The American "Dream" of working to own a home wasn't enough for liberals. They insisted that everyone was entitled to a home, regardless of their income, down payment, or credit worthiness. Lending institution were forced to make ridiculous home loans to uncredit worthy citizens, or face government sanctions.

So with the home entitlement blueprint so successful, what's next? I know, let's make health care an entitlement. And then, how about a college education?

Don't you liberals get it? Barely half of our citizens currently pay any income tax. And yet Obama says that he will give 95% of Americans a tax cut. Doesn't any one wonder how that can work???

More and expanded entitlements is the answer to one and ONLY ONE question: "What can Democrat's do to get elected?"
 
#7 ·
This is kind of short sighted and inaccurate.

Dubbya took office in January 2001. When he took over the White House, he had a budget surplus (!), a strong economy and a Republican controled congress. And by that summer, we were in the middle of the Dot-Com bust and the first of our financial difficulties under Dubbya's watch.

Remember when Enron and World Com took a dump? I do. I was doing a lot of work for cell phone companies at the time and was shortly thereafter unemployed for the next 6 months. And when I finally did find a job, I was hired as an Engineer for less than $30k a year and had a 70 mile commute each way. Yeah, good times!

So by late summer, after Bush & Co. ignored intelligence briefings for several months we got 9/11, then the real fun started. From a Republican President and Congress, we got more new government expansion and spending since FDR. We got the Patriot Act, Patriot Act II, Homeland Security, etc.

Then for the first rational move of his administration, we went after those who attacked us in Afghanistan (we ignored the Saudis though). And almost as soon as we started making progress, we decided to divert resources from Afghanistan and instead attacked Iraq based on made up intelligence. But in Dubbya's defense, Saddam did say bad things about Poppa Bush, so I guess we really were justified.

From then until 2006, Bush & Co. spent more and more of our $$$ and got less and less in return until finally the American people got fed up enough to vote some incumbents out of office. We got a Democrat controlled congress and Bush got a scape goat.

Now, we've got a big mess to clean up, Dubbya's looking forward to playing cowboy on his ranch and making some Slick Willy $$$ doing speeches, his oil buddies are making money hand over fist, and we're trying to figure out how to keep our homes warm this winter.

Blame the Democrats if you want, but we've been getting the short end of the stick for longer than the last 2 years.
Someone who does their homework. A man after my own heart.
 
#8 ·
That shift from "ignored intelligence" to "made up intelligence" say's it all doesn't it.

If it happens to fit your wishes it is good intelligence if it doesnt fit your desired outcome it's bad intelligence.

Give me a break.

Hopefully a few more years under your belt will bring you to a bit more rational conclusion.

It may be too late by then however.
 
#9 ·
That shift from "ignored intelligence" to "made up intelligence" say's it all doesn't it.
Back after Dubbya was elected and before he took office, Clinton's national security team briefed Bush's national security advisors - including Condoleezza Rice - that there was a credible threat to the US from al-Qaeda. The briefings included meetings between Richard Clarke (remember him?) and Rice. This happened in December 2000. Bush's administration sat on the intelegence. They did nothing with it - they "ignored" it until April 2001, then played pass-the-buck with it until August 2001. This was after al-Qaeda blew up the USS Cole in October 2000, and after they had previously tried to knock down the World Trade Center.
The proposals Clarke developed in the winter of 2000-01 were not given another hearing by top decision makers until late April, and then spent another four months making their laborious way through the bureaucracy before they were readied for approval by President Bush.
This article from Time makes a pretty clear time line.

Next, when we were making the case for attacking Iraq, Colon Powell addressed the United Nations with charts and diagrams and said we had "proof" that Saddam had "weapons of mass destruction", mobile weapons laboratories, centrifuges for enriching uranium, and parts to make rockets. Bush addressed the nation on prime time TV and said the same thing. And Rumsfeld said the same thing. And all of this was based on information from one exiled Iraqi that the government - the CIA had deemed as "not credible". All these claims of Iraqi weapons programs were based on the claims of one man who didn't live in Iraq, who was trying to advance himself in the eyes of other exiled Iraqis, who our government didn't believe. And since none of these weapons were ever found, and since we said we knew where they were and what they looked like - but they weren't there - it means the intelligence was made up!

Just because you want to keep your head in the sand and refuse to believe that any Republican could do any wrong doesn't mean its true.

:watching:
 
#10 ·
The logic contained in the original post is flawed in my opinion. I seem to remember many Republicans saying that all the economic success this country saw during the Clinton years all had been "set up" by the former Republican administrations or that the economy goes up and down despite who is in office.

Also, according to the more right leaning members here the president is all powerful and can take our gun rights away. According to this post, however, the president all of a sudden has no control over anything and Congress made a mess of everything. I am really impressed with the Democrats and their ability to screw everything up so quickly with such a small majority.

Now which is it? If it is the past administration that dictates the economy of a sitting administration, then it is all Clinton’s fault, right? By that logic anything good that happened with the economy during the Reagan years was of course due to Jimmy Carter. We all know that this is not the case.

By the logic of this post the evil Democratic Congress would have already taken our guns away since the president has nothing to do with what happens anymore. But then again, the president is so powerful that Obama will personally show up at all our door and collect each and every gun we own.

Make up your mind. Who has the power and control? I know some will argue that Obama will have a Democratic Congress etc. and that will most likely happen. Keep this in mind: Bush stated from the beginning that he would sign the Assault Weapon Ban into law should it be passed by Congress. Congress, even in the past year and a half with a Democratic majority, has not passed the AWB even though they knew that Bush would sign it. What makes you think that they will when Obama becomes president?

It is fine to have your own opinions and fight for your side but some of this is getting pretty silly. Someone once said, or wrote, "There are lies, damned lies, and there are statistics." You can make stats support any argument you want, it does not always make it correct.

Right wingers, vote for McCain and earn the right to complain the next four years because you did not vote for the president in office. Left wingers, vote for Obama and earn the right to be blamed for everything that goes wrong the next four years by the people who voted for McCain.

As for me, I will continue to sit here on my fence and attempt to be objective.
 
#11 ·
The original "checks and balances" no longer exist.
Congress, whether Republican-dominated or Democrat-controlled, has ceded so much unrestrained and unsupervised power to the Executive Branch that the balanced government we once knew is no more.
One simple example: The regulatory excesses of the BATFE.
We are now more ruled by regulation (i.e., Executive-Branch fiat) than by law. Further, Congress does nothing to regain its power, but rather complacently sits back and watches its function erode into nothingness.
So, it is not that Obama, if elected, would personally show up at your door to collect your guns, but rather that an Executive-Branch agency would very likely be there to do so, under Obama's direction.

(I was tempted to joke that Obama wouldn't personally show up to collect them, but Pelosi, Schumer, Clinton, and Feinstein might.)
 
#12 · (Edited)
Change...?

Failing borders, Failing economy, Failing military, Nationalizing the banks, Skyrocketing foreclosures, Ex-Vice President calling for civil disobedience, Higher taxes coming, Tax payer bailouts...

Here's more of the change that's coming to America...


"You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process that they didn't care anything about. That's a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking."
 
#14 ·
Steve, based on the opinions in your post the original post is incorrect then. If the executive branch has all the power it cannot be Congress' fault that the economy went to crap but rather the fault of the president.

I personally do not agree that it is as bad as you described but I do agree that we have seen a shift in the last seven and a half years. Never in history have we had a vice preseident as involved and powerful as now.

With regards to Obama's views on guns, I do believe that his record shows that he is not pro gun but no one has provided any evidence to convince me that he is the most anti gun candidate in history or whatever it was Bill T would like us all to believe. "Because the NRA said so" is not valid nor convincing proof in my opinion.

I predict that we will see no changes in our gun laws when Obama is elected and both houses of Congress gain an even further Democratic majority. My hope is that the next president and the 111th Congress will focus on the economy when they start work in January.
 
#15 ·
Just wanted to make a few points here.

kev74 said:
Dubbya took office in January 2001. When he took over the White House, he had a budget surplus (!), a strong economy and a Republican controled congress. And by that summer, we were in the middle of the Dot-Com bust and the first of our financial difficulties under Dubbya's watch.
The dot-com crash was well underway under the Clinton administration. Lest we forget, Clinton had nothing to do with either the "internet" boom of 1992-1998, or its end in 1999-2001. We have a president, not a king, although you certainly wouldn't know that from the way people leap to assigning credit and blame for things entirely out of the president's control. And Clinton certainly benefited from the tax collected during the biggest capital spending binge since WWII. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

You make a good point that the dot com crash wasn't Clinton's fault, but the boom wasn't due to his efforts either.

Remember when Enron and World Com took a dump? (...)
And how was the the administration's fault? Greedy businesses have been around for a long time, and a lot of them go under. Enron, for example, was instrumental in the downfall of Grey Davis, but California had shot itself in both feet and a lung before Enron came along to finish the job. This was not the fault of the feds.

So by late summer, after Bush & Co. ignored intelligence briefings for several months we got 9/11, then the real fun started. From a Republican President and Congress, we got more new government expansion and spending since FDR. We got the Patriot Act, Patriot Act II, Homeland Security, etc.
You can't blame 9/11 on the administration, unless you are willing to accept unprecedented interference from the feds in our lives. The lack of terrorism in the US in the last seven years is a pretty good sign that 9/11 was the one that slipped through. Let's not forget that a Democrat was president during the first attempt to blow up the WTC. It wasn't his fault, either.

I'm with you all the way about the Patriot Act. Why hasn't the Democratic congress moved to repeal this legislation? I think it's because they are no different from the Republicans. It's a lot easier to whine about something you can't change than to take action to change it.

(...) attacked Iraq based on made up intelligence.
Invading Iraq was easily the dumbest move by an American president since Johnson ramped up the Vietnam War and Clinton played the sax and bombed pharmaceutical plants while a variety of "ethnic cleansing" was going on in east Africa and the Balkans. We didn't risk much, but we didn't do any good, either.

I have nothing but admiration for the courage, dedication and sacrifice of the sailors, soldiers, airmen, and marines who fight and have fought in Iraq, but it was a dumb war -- at the wrong time against the wrong people. Now that we're there, though, it would be immoral for us to walk out and stand by watching millions of civilians die.

From then until 2006, Bush & Co. spent more and more of our $$$ and got less and less in return until finally the American people got fed up enough to vote some incumbents out of office. We got a Democrat controlled congress and Bush got a scape goat.
I don't think there is anti-nausea medicine powerful enough to make me happy having Nancy Pelosi in a position of power. Has anyone noticed that Congress' approval rating is much lower than the president's? No one loves Pelosi, Reid and gang.

Blame the Democrats if you want, but we've been getting the short end of the stick for longer than the last 2 years.
Here's a crying towel and a pass to see the chaplin. The government is not your friend today, they weren't your friend in the past, and they won't be your friend in the future. They have the same goals that any large organization has: more money, more power, more perqs, and to enlarge their organization indefinitely. I'm way more of a fan of pre-FDR America in terms of politics. The best way to deal with governments is to cut off their money. Any volunteers?

I also wanted to add that the years we had a Republican congress with a Republican president, they spent money like drunken sailors on leave. It was a bad combination. The same was true in the 60s when Johnson and a heavily Democratic congressed wasted trillions on the Vietnam War and the incredibly stupid "War on Poverty." I'm a huge fan of having a president from one party and a congressional majority of the other. This may have moved me from "undecided" to McCain. Congress is going to be Democrat -- I want a Republican president.
 
#16 · (Edited)
Next, when we were making the case for attacking Iraq, Colon Powell addressed the United Nations with charts and diagrams and said we had "proof" that Saddam had "weapons of mass destruction", mobile weapons laboratories, centrifuges for enriching uranium, and parts to make rockets. Bush addressed the nation on prime time TV and said the same thing. And Rumsfeld said the same thing. And all of this was based on information from one exiled Iraqi that the government - the CIA had deemed as "not credible". All these claims of Iraqi weapons programs were based on the claims of one man who didn't live in Iraq, who was trying to advance himself in the eyes of other exiled Iraqis, who our government didn't believe. And since none of these weapons were ever found, and since we said we knew where they were and what they looked like - but they weren't there - it means the intelligence was made up!

:watching:
I honestly think that I'm one of the only people left on this planet who is informed and has any memory whatsoever... I mean come on...kev.

Here's a reminder for you.

follow the link, please

http://www.bercasio.com/movies/dems-wmd-before-iraq.wmv
 
#17 ·
Steve, based on the opinions in your post the original post is incorrect then. If the executive branch has all the power it cannot be Congress' fault that the economy went to crap but rather the fault of the president...
Ah, but which president?
The Executive Branch has been usurping power, and Congress has been allowing it, since F.D.R., although it was a less-serious matter until L.B.J. came along.
No, I say that it's Congress's fault, because they have been allowing the Executive to usurp the power and to rule by regulation.
If you need to place the blame on any particular president for the present financial mess, look at Carter and Clinton.
 
#18 ·
Steve, you are good. I must give you that. I do, however, not share your gloomy outlook and I feel that checks and balances are a live and fairly well in this country. I also think you are reaching a bit when you try to lay all this current mess on Carter and Clinton. But of course by the logic that it is never the sitting administration's doing when the economy goes to crap or is doing well, of course it is all Clinton's fault. But then you must accept that Carter was the reason for anything good doing the Reagan years. You can't have it both ways.

The current mess is caused by the administration (the one in office right now) and by Congress. It was also caused by private business and the consumer. As someone else wrote in another post, we are all at fault to some degree.

Of course if one wants to keeping going back the current problem is surely the fault of King George III somehow.
 
#19 ·
The mortgage-market meltdown we are presently experiencing is the result of legislation that Congress passed and Carter signed, exacerbated by a Clinton executive fiat requiring very lax controls on who should be granted a mortgage. This was then further exacerbated by the bundle-and-resell activities of the financial-derivatives market, which remained unregulated in any way by Congress. Further still, Congress is now continuing to wreak economic damage by passing its "Wall Street bailout" bill, which will inflate our money further, save the greedy brokers' hides, and burden the middle class with all of the costs.
Thus I lay the blame for the economic debacle we now face on the Carter administration, the Carter Congress, the Clinton administration, all members of Congress since Carter, and, finally, the Bush administration for promoting a stupid attempt at "fixing" the problem, and then signing the bill into law.
But I lay most of the blame on Congress for its lack of oversight, lack of control, and general laxity, political, economic, and intellectual.
(Of course, in the end the fault is all ours, because we voted the congresspeople into office, and we've kept them there.)
 
#20 ·
I honestly think that I'm one of the only people left on this planet who is informed and has any memory whatsoever... I mean come on...kev.

Here's a reminder for you.

follow the link, please

http://www.bercasio.com/movies/dems-wmd-before-iraq.wmv
I'm still waiting for kev's response to that clip JS. Another example of facts not agreeing with the fiction I guess...:anim_lol:
 
#22 ·
Meh... I'm so tired of the Democrats vs. Republicans game. Neither of them deserve to be commended for much recently. They are all corrupt and out for themselves. They care very little about what the American people actually want. And the old addage about congress is more true now than ever. "Congress is good at doing two things: Nothing, and over-reacting."
 
#23 ·
I'm still waiting for kev's response to that clip JS. Another example of facts not agreeing with the fiction I guess...:anim_lol:
Sorry to keep you waiting, but I've been at work and videos are a no-go on this computer.

I'll be sure to share my wisdom (BS! :mrgreen: ) when I get a chance to look at it from home. :smt023
 
#24 ·
Thus I lay the blame for the economic debacle we now face on the Carter administration, the Carter Congress, the Clinton administration, all members of Congress since Carter, and, finally, the Bush administration for promoting a stupid attempt at "fixing" the problem, and then signing the bill into law.
So, Carter and Clinton are to blame, but Reagan and HW Bush hold no responsibility for a problem that, according to you, sat around unacknowledged for the entirety of their administrations? And the Republican love of deregulation and open markets had nothing to do with this mess either? I stand by my previous statement - Just because you want to keep your head in the sand and refuse to believe that any Republican could do any wrong doesn't mean its true.
But I lay most of the blame on Congress for its lack of oversight, lack of control, and general laxity, political, economic, and intellectual.
(Of course, in the end the fault is all ours, because we voted the congresspeople into office, and we've kept them there.)
We are to blame not for electing our congressional representatives, but rather we are to blame because we were too lazy to pay attention while they let their power and influence corrupt them.
 
#26 ·
Steve, very informative post and I learned something. Based on your evidence I have to admit that you have convinced me to some degree and that I agree with your analysis.
OK. So now, please tell me why you name yourself after a boreal bird, while exhibiting the face of a tropical primate as your avatar. How do the two fit together?
 
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