Jim Kelly at Republican Convention?

[Captain America]

Kelly has campaigned with Republicans on numerous occasions-great QB but nobody's perfect.

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You should know

[Guest Guest]

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On the flip side of the coin, John Kerry says he would go to war in Iraq even knowing what he knows now about WMD.

There has to be a better way.

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Kerry DID NOT SAY THIS AND HAS NEVER SAID THIS. Kerry has consistently said he would give the president AUTHORITY to go to war, but that whether or not we should go to war depended on the evidence for WMD, proof that Iraq was an IMMEDIATE threat to the U.S. and evidence that our objectives could not be reached by any method short of war (such as continued inspections, which were happening when Bush stopped them by starting the war, and which had turned up nothing by that time). Read what he said, not what moronic reporters and spinmasters from the Republican party say that he said.

 

I despair of the level of discourse in this country. Kerry has stated a dozen ways in which he, thoughtfully, would be different that Bush, from building international coallitions to rescinding the tax cuts on the top two percent to eliminating Bush's limitations on stem cell research.

 

Yet all we hear is spin lines like "he voted for it after he voted against it."

 

If you really think that Bush bears no responsibility for the bad decisions that took us into Iraq, that he was the innocent victim of bad intelligence, when he set up the Office of Special Plans to get around the intelligence agencies, then vote for him. If you think that it makes sense for Bush to restrict stem cell research to limited lines because of the sanctity of human life when thousands of embryos created in the process of in vitro fertilization (which somehow he DOESN'T oppose) are discarded every year, then vote for him. If you buy the idea that Bush's a better choice on keeping the U.S. safe from terrorism when his pentagon went into the war in Iraq DELIBERATELY DISCARDING the extensive plans for the postwar period that the State department had worked up, resulting in the mess we face today, then vote for Bush. If you think it makes sense to charge that Kerry will bust the budget when Bush, with a Republican congress, has taken us from a surplus to 450 billion dollar yearly deficits in four years, then vote for Bush. I can't imagine what you expect to happen in Bush's second term that is going to redeem the first.

[eventualchamps]

First of all, this might come as a surprise to you but Saddam had WMD's - that's right, he had them. He actually used them on the Kurd's in the north. This is a FACT. It is also a fact that he KILLED thousands of people during his reign. Heres a neat little equation for you:

Saddam + WMD's = Mass Death

Saddam - WMD's = Mass Death

 

Secondly, for all of you political science majors from ECC...If we were to flip the "magical switch" and pull all of our troops out tommorow it would create a vacuum. If this concept is foreign to you, watch the episode of Survivor where Rupert gets voted off - yes, the one you have on tape.

 

Third, while you may have thought that everything was honky-dory during Clinton's reign, he and his administration were responsible for the demise of our human intelligence gathering capabilities. This can be directly correlated to America's vulnerability to terrorists.

[bernielivsey_1]

People who make $200.000 + should be taxed more than me and my $30,000.

Gas should not be $2.00 +.

We should not have gone to war with Iraq. Its cost us 1000 American lives.

Al Gore should be the Incumbent. Floridians cant count.

I have more but thats enough for me to not vote for Bush.

[JimBob2232]

People who make $200.000 + should be taxed more than me and my $30,000.

They should. And they are. You pay 25% of your income, they pay 35%

 

 

Gas should not be $2.00 +.

Its called fair market value. BTW, gas prices in the US are very low compared to world prices. Perhaps if we drilled for our own oil in precious alaska we could have better control over our own oil. (And to think people were convinced this was a war for oil astounds me)

 

We should not have gone to war with Iraq. Its cost us 1000 American lives.

We did not want another Sept 11th to occur. We feared it would happen. We had intellegence showing it was a real possibility. We took action. Why we only did a half stevestojan job though, is beyond me.

 

Al Gore should be the Incumbent. Floridians cant count.

Show me one recount. ONE. That shows gore won florida.

 

 

I have more but thats enough for me to not vote for Bush.

I agree with your conclusion, but not your means of getting there.

[millbank]

Tonight the Arnold says,

 

There is another way you can tell you're a Republican. You have faith in free enterprise, faith in the resourcefulness of the American people ... and faith in the U.S. economy. To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: "Don't be economic girlie men!"

 

Arnold

[IDBillzFan]

Nice post. I couldn't agree more. The basic rule of thumb I use is as follows: Am I better off than I was 4 years ago? The answer: NO.

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Why is it the government's responsibility to make sure you are better off today than you were four years ago? They have certain responsibilities, to be sure. Safety for one, and I'm sure a hell of a lot safer than I was four years ago, I can promise you that. I certainly haven't seen any planes flying into buildings lately. I haven't seen people jumping from buildings lately.

 

What else? The economy? How's your job? Is it safe? Are you making more or less than last year and if so, why? Have you tried to marry another guy and get rejected? Do you have a family member in need of stem cell research? Are you from the middle east? Were you overtaxed in the past four years?

 

I'm just curious. What quality of life did you had four years ago that you don't have now because of our President?

[IDBillzFan]

Yet all we hear is spin lines like "he voted for it after he voted against it."

 

But isn't that what he did?

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

I think anyone with even half of a brain knows Saddam had and used WMD against the Kurds back in the days when the US generally supported him because he was at war with folks in Iran who we disliked even more than him.

 

I think the WMD question where as David Kay said we were wrong about everything is whether he was building a WMD stockpile today or whether the wild outlandish claims that he was prepared to fire them on England with 45 minutes of notice or that he was developing drone planes which could somehow reach America.

 

No one is arguing that Saddam didn;t and doesn't deserve to die a slow death, folks are aguing that with no immediate threat, he was not worth 1000 or so American lives and that his outmoded weapons threat could have been contained by the inspections of the UN whivh needed the US threat of war to get back in.

 

Outside of Ralph Nader, I don't think anyone advocates getting out immediately. Colin Powell was right when he asked Bush after he was informed we were going in that he realized of course that when we attack Iraq anf beat the crap out of Iraq, we own Iraq. We have finally turned over sovereignty to the Iraqi people (now that early US choice Ahmed Chalabi has been revealed to be a rat) and this is a good thing. However, it is clear from the need for us to lose American lives knocking down Muqtada El-Sadr that we still own it. Even worse we lose American lives on this necessity caused by us taking ownership, but have to sit there and simply lose lives when the new sovereign government cuts deals to bring peace that delivers amnesty to El-Sadr.

 

There was a reason why Bush 41 didn't send in Schwartzkopf to get Saddam after Operation Desert Storm and American troops are now paying the price for Bush 43 trying to out do his Dad.

 

Finally, i for one didn't think everything was hunky-dory under th leadership od Clinton who did not even have the self-discipline to keep it in his pants. Perhaps you mistake some folks feeling better about someone who screws an intern than someone who screws our troops.

 

I think its nice that Iraq is under new ownership, however, I wish that the US focus was instead on bringing terrorists to justice like Osana Bin Laden rather than wasting our time, money and most important our troops blood on Iraq.

 

 

First of all, this might come as a surprise to you but Saddam had WMD's - that's right, he had them.  He actually used them on the Kurd's in the north.  This is a FACT.  It is also a fact that he KILLED thousands of people during his reign.  Heres a neat little equation for you:

Saddam + WMD's = Mass Death

Saddam - WMD's = Mass Death

 

Secondly, for all of you political science majors from ECC...If we were to flip the "magical switch" and pull all of our troops out tommorow it would create a vacuum.  If this concept is foreign to you, watch the episode of Survivor where Rupert gets voted off - yes, the one you have on tape.

 

Third, while you may have thought that everything was honky-dory during Clinton's reign, he and his administration were responsible for the demise of our human intelligence gathering capabilities.  This can be directly correlated to America's vulnerability to terrorists.

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[Chilly]

First of all, this might come as a surprise to you but Saddam had WMD's - that's right, he had them.  He actually used them on the Kurd's in the north.  This is a FACT.  It is also a fact that he KILLED thousands of people during his reign.  Heres a neat little equation for you:

Saddam + WMD's = Mass Death

Saddam - WMD's = Mass Death

 

Secondly, for all of you political science majors from ECC...If we were to flip the "magical switch" and pull all of our troops out tommorow it would create a vacuum.  If this concept is foreign to you, watch the episode of Survivor where Rupert gets voted off - yes, the one you have on tape.

 

Third, while you may have thought that everything was honky-dory during Clinton's reign, he and his administration were responsible for the demise of our human intelligence gathering capabilities.  This can be directly correlated to America's vulnerability to terrorists.

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Talk about an extreme oversimplification of the issues at hand.

 

Would you support removing all of the current dictators that cause mass death throughout the world? I doubt Bush does, as we haven't even looked at anyone else besides Iraq, yet this is what you are arguing for. Logically, if we decided to secure every country and help every peoples by military might, we would have neither the resources nor manpower to do so, since the rest of the world has made it clear (besides Britain of course) that they will not support us.

 

There were other, more important countries in the war on terror that we should have been dealing with in the middle east, such as Pakistan, and we should have been working harder to secure Afghanistan. There is much more then just military might to fight the War on Terror, it will take aggressive allying with other countries so we have the resources to fight it, we will have to infiltrate the Islamic non-extremists and make sure that the extremists are considered outcasts in the community and in the religion. We will need to infiltrate each individual terror network and disband that as well. The use of just military might will not work, we need MORE then just that, and I don't think Bush is handling that correctly, nor do I think Bush making Iraq his #1 priority at that time was the correct way to handle the war on terror and Iraq.

 

I haven't read the entire thread, so I don't know who you are referring to when you are talking about pulling out troops. Kerry's platform however doesn't call for a complete removal of all troops from Iraq, but rather to attempt to have other nations realize that they need to help out in Iraq for their own good as well, and to internationalize the reconstruction and securing process. I think this is an important step that would allow us to allocate other resources to pursuing terrorists.

 

To call intelligence directly responsible for terrorist vulnerabilities again is extremely oversimplifying everything. The terrorists are smart individuals who can find vulerabilities and are always pressing onward and looking for new, better ways to attack something. If you look at what Bush did before Sept 11, he took no steps in attempting to fix any so-called intelligence problems. Yet, he knew about Osama Bin Laden and how much of an impact terrorism could make. Both Clinton and Bush are at fault for not taking care of this problem earlier. However, if you look at what Bush is currently doing with the new Goss bill, its rather alarming.

 

One of the things that has always worried me about the Bush administration is the extent to which his security acts have given them power. The Patriot Act could have been worded a lot better, and the administration could have chosen to not extend its use past its boundaries. Just six months after the Patriot Act, the Justice Department held seminars on how to stretch the new wiretapping provisions beyond terror cases. Another man was charged with "terrorism using a weapon of mass destruction" after he built a pipe bomb and injured himself with it. Other people have had files created on them by local police chiefs for just protesting the war.

 

But the most disturbing misuse of the law came after telemarketers ran a scam on the elderly, collecting $4.5 million dollars and placing it in banks in Jordan and Israel. Instead of working with these countries to obtain the money, the United States simply seized the assets under the act. The reckless cause that the Bush administration has to simply bully other countries around is alarmful at best, and isolating at worst.

 

Another bad choice Bush has made when trying to reform security is his nominee for the CIA and the Goss plan. While the country is changing, and I agree that some domestic levle iltelligence needs to catch up to our level of international intelligence, Goss and Bush (once again) take these powers too far.

 

Goss' proposal is to allow the CIA basically unlimited operations within the domestic United States at the president's order.

 

What does this mean? This is a very "out there" example, but the president would have the authority to wire tap any opponents in the race for president, and it would be legal. Yep, Nixon would have gotten away with it.

 

However, in more practical cases, look for more misuses of this law by the CIA, just like the rest of the Bush administration proved with the patriot act. Its not that what Bush is doing is entirely bad, its just that the extreme lack of limits he sets is causing the government to have more power than it should, and in America, that is a bad formula for success.

[Guest BBC]

Millionaires gotta stick together.

 

Keep the working people in their places - at the bottom!

 

Who do you think pays for the massive tax cuts given to the rich people and corporations?

 

Mr. and Mrs. Joe Chump pay. Don't be a chump. Impeach Bush.

[Guest Guest]

But isn't that what he did?

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Kerry supported one version of the funding bill, and opposed a different one. Just like Bush threatened to veto one version of the funding, and then signed a different one. Read the following, which deals with this and other distortions of Kerry's record:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2004Aug31.html

[Guest Guest]

Blue Collar jobs aren't coming back to this country. Bush can't bring them back, and despite what he tells you, Kerry can't bring them back. Bush inherited a recession from the previous administration and then our economy had to endure 9/11 and all the spending on protecting our country that the previous administration neglected. I was raised in a blue-collar Democratic family and was deeply disturbed the day Bush was declared winner of the 2000 election. However, he has done a very good job in an extremely difficult time. We came out of the recession in a fairly short period of time, have yet to be attacked again, and are rounding up terrorists all over the world. He has earned my vote and this will be the first time I ever vote for a Republican.

[Typical TBD Guy]

Well isnt this an american comment if I have ever heard one.  Every non-felon citizen above the age of 18 in this country is entiled to express his or her opinion at the polls in november.  My opinion is that the 2 party system is destroying this country.  Class warfare and political correctness in the name of a couple votes have overcome freedom, liberty, and the security of our homeland.

 

Illegal aliens should be deported, not given drivers licences.  But Mr. Bush is too worried about losing the mexican vote, so he cant do that.

 

The party not in the white house has no incentive to help improve america.  The current democrats, and the republicans before them, try to tear down the country, with the hopes of winning the white house, so they can regain power.  Its all a game in a very serious world.  And that scares me.  And it needs to change.

 

Until we have open dialogue in this country about real issues; until we can be one america, where there are no political parties, no republicans or democrats, just americans fighting for our survival as a nation, we will be losing the war on terror.  And neither major political party is ready to take that step.

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I'm with you all the way, JimBob. I love the Constitution and am extremely reluctant to want to make any changes to it, but the one thing I don't like about it is the winner-take-all electoral system. Our Founding Fathers were brilliant men, but they weren't exactly infallible. It was a bit of wishful thinking, for example, to believe that political parties wouldn't develop in any form of representative democracy.

 

(just curious, how come this thread hasn't been moved yet to the PPP?)

[Guest Guest_voice of reason_*]

This is why Bush should be impeached

 

[warning: these links may be hazardous to your closed minds]

 

http://impeachbush.pephost.org/site/PageSe...me=VTI_articles

 

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0402-16.htm

 

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_784.shtml

 

http://www.serendipity.li/impeachment.htm

[JinVA]

Nice post. I couldn't agree more. The basic rule of thumb I use is as follows: Am I better off than I was 4 years ago? The answer: NO.

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I am way way way better off than I was 4 years ago, and while I'm not ready to give all the credit to Dubbya I'm sure as hell not giving it to Clinton and I know damn well I wouldn't have been better off with Gore.