Politics

bush and cheney remind me of pinky and the brain... same plot and everything

we saw a van with bush cheney stickers at roo it was covered in mud and had lots of supportive comments written into the mud.... funny thing is that it was probably someones parents vehicle or something.... be kinda hard to explain to mom why her minivan has anti bush remarks scratched into the paint

the worst one is the jesus fish.... how the hell did that start?

i dont know.. i think cheney is pretty smart... hes the most powerful man in the world.. startin wars and bush gets all the heat, bush is far too dumb to have pulled all of this off.....cheney shoots dudes in the face and they apologize to him for what he must have went through... and im bettin his pockets arent get any skinnier now or after hes done in politics and starts getting the kickbacks from haliburton and others in the form of getting paid a million to give an hour long speech... i dont like them but ya gotta hand it to them they are running shiit...and gettin richer

oh ya i hear ya man... they are horrible people doing horrible things but somebody in there is smart enough to fool the masses.... i think it is just because jesus has his back.... if it wasnt for him gettin in the way we might get rid of the conservatives... it sucks that god will only talk to bush... the liberals are no better though... fuck it i figure the shiits gonna hit the fan soon.. i know of a farm in tennessee where we can all hide out if it gets too crazy

yya but they are making enugh cash they could have all fo the bonnaroo acts play their bbq... ill take the honesty over the money anyday though..

man if you look into the bushs they are making money off of everything...its ridiculous... all of this other crap is just smoke and mirrors.... theyve got everyone focused on abortion and gay marriage and the massive threat that iraqs weapons of mass destruction pose, and this battle agianst terrorism that would end if we would just leave these cats alone and quit propping up these horrible regimes around the world so that we can control the worlds resources and fix prices to make loot.... it disgusting... and then something as tragic as katrina happens and they find a way to fix that into oney making

First of all, high levels of politcal office are notorious for having underhanded and sometimes illegal benefits. This is not a new thing to politics, we should not act quite so shocked and appauled. If you want to get technical about it, Mama Bush didn't do anything wrong; when donating to a charitable orginization you have the right to dictate how it is spent (they can refuse the money if they wish). Babs could have very well just invested the money in the company directly, but she chose to make it look like a "donation" for political (and tax) purposes. That being said, I'm not trying to defend her, but clarify a bit; this was a legal proceeding and is done by people in political office as well as ordinary civilians.
Don't get the wrong impression, I'm not a conservative (not a democrat either). I don't support the Bush administration; I have never and will never vote for a Bush. I'm just a politics major in college who felt the need to interject.

BTW, If you knew the number of companies who have investors from the UAE, it would make your head spin. If we avoided using companies the UAE invested in we'd be giving up half the stuff in our house.

i think we're all pretty clear on things. we obviously realize that what babs did was not illegal, since she's not, you know, being charged with a crime. i think the general tone of the thread is the disgust at the apparent fact that these folks will take every chance to profit or get power. she may not have done anything legally wrong, but in people's eyes, she did something that was not morally right.

for me, the morality sometimes lies not as much in what someone did do, but what they could have done. babs could have really researched and studied what would best help the people affected by katrina, rallied a bunch of her wealthy friends behind it, and donated millions. seems the christian thing to do to me. now maybe she did do that, but i think we would have heard about it.

and i don't think anyone called for a boycott of uae investments. more a general despair at the seedy intersection of money and access that is this administration. this kos diary gives a good rundown of the neil bush/ignite/uae/carlyle connections:
www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/26/155512/234

you seem like you're trying to be a balanced guy, and i respect that, but the repubs are playing people like you for chumps. they don't want balance. they ARE trying to meld politics with religion in a number of ways. many examples, but one that springs to mind was last election, the debate about kerry and communion - many repubs on tv implying that you can't be a good catholic and a democrat. unbelieveable. politics and religion will always be mixed, but the republican party is exploiting religion for political gain. that's wrong.

anyway, yeah, the moderate churches lean to the left b/c moderate to liberal beliefs are not accepted at evangelical (and the like) churches. witness the pastor in n.c. who excommunicated some of his church members b/c they voted for kerry!

and i would never ever put one of those "support the troop" ribbons on my car because we've been browbeaten by the notion that criticizing bush equals criticizing the troops. and what the hell does it mean anyway? it has turned into some kind of litmus test. who doesn't support the troops? i live in wicked and liberal nyc and i haven't met anyone who doesn't "support the troops." it's like putting a support ice cream ribbon on your car.

here's my support for the troops: i support them not dying. i want them back here. i don't want their housing, health care, hazzard pay, va, and schools on bases cut like it's been by this administration. i don't want their tours extended multiple times - i want them here protecting our homeland. i vote for politicians that support the troops in those ways. real concrete things, not rhetoric.

sorry not trying to piss you off or pick a fight despite appearences. just very passionate about politics and music!!

folks like you and keith that don't like bush and the repubs: why hostile to dems? and please be specific and avoid the label crap that the right uses to avoid substanative debate about any specific idea or policy (such as commie, pinko, leftist, wimpy, etc. etc. etc.)

Im not saying all republican have all three stickers, but when you see al three on one car, you know they are a republican, and i see a lot of it around Delaware. Even though we are, thankfully, a blue state .. .. haha

on a note about the stickers.. i saw a thing about them and walmart has sold more of them then anyone(no surprise) but they have two yellow ribbon stickers, one set is made in america by service mens families and all of the profits go for programs to send stuff to the soldiers and help out their famalies it costs 5 bucks,, there is another sticker made in china and all the profits go to some chinese company and they are a dollar... the dollar one outsold the 5 dollar one like 50 to 1.... these people are so retarded... supporing the troops by supporting china? these uninformed masses are truly the scurge of the earth....they fuel that which they say they are against... oh well this society has no place for me and i have no place for them... i wish roo could exist year round

ya.. but i can tell the stickers apart as they look different i love to give poeple crap when i see the chinese ones...moronic hipocrits...(and anyone who knows that can tell they arent supporting troops... just poseurs.. they are supporting the chinese not our troops)uninformed consumers are almost as bad as uninformed voters, although voting for any of these jackasses is a vote for the same evil..thatswhy i dont even vote anymore...not until they put somoeone worth voting for up there...phish for president!!!!!except trey might put bo bice and matisyahu in his administration, that would be a bad as ashcroft and good old donnie

I don't really know where to start here. I suppose I'll start with thanking Kai for saying about half of what I already wanted to say. "but the repubs are playing people like you for chumps." - I'll just pretend you didn't say that, I'm in a good mood. I will say this . . . I am by no means under the manipulation of the republican party, nor am I oblivious to their seemingly immoral political actions. First and foremost I wanted to try to bring balance to the conversation (not in a fox news way or anything). I'm tired of watching a bunch of people rant and rave about how terrible Bush is. This is a known fact in the political community, and for everyone to sit around and yell about it accounts to no more than political masturbation.
Is it immoral to use public office for personal gain? Yes probably, it depends on your conception of morality. Many Care Ethicists would argue the opposite however. Either way, you must admit it is a practice of many politicians (republican, democrat, or otherwise) in many different countries since the early days of Social Contract Theory.
I didn't accuse anyone of calling for a boycott of UAE investments, my point was merely to illustrate how many companies they are involved with, and that the connection could be incidental.

"and i would never ever put one of those "support the troop" ribbons on my car because we've been browbeaten by the notion that criticizing bush equals criticizing the troops. and what the hell does it mean anyway? it has turned into some kind of litmus test. who doesn't support the troops? i live in wicked and liberal nyc and i haven't met anyone who doesn't "support the troops." it's like putting a support ice cream ribbon on your car. "

Pete, I don't know how old you are, but I'm guessing you might be too young to remember a little incident called Vietnam? We sent tens of thousands of kids over there for what was arguably an even worse cause than Iraq. Way more Americans died in Vietnam than will ever die in Iraq. A few years in people began to turn aginst the war, realizing its awful consequences and futile efforts. Many people turned their backs on not just the President and the War, but also the troops. They wern't necessarily rude or angry with the troops (although many people were), but the whole concept of "supporting the troops" went out the window. People stopped paying attention, stopped acting like they cared, and it deflated a lot of them emotionally. Not only did it hinder our performance in the war overall, but it left many men in that generation mentally scared. Vietnam was likely the most psychologically damaging war of all time. Few things are worse than the feeling that no one supports the fact that you are risking your life everyday. Take a 20th century poli-sci course and you'll see, Vietnam taught us that we need to make a visible distinction between supporting the troops and supporting the war.
And Keith, I see your point about Wal-Mart. However, I think you need to consider whose fault it is. Wal-Mart customers are the cheap bastards who opted for the $1 ribbon versus the $5 one which clearly benefits some kind of charity. Wal-Mart provided two options:
one ribbon which not only showed support for the troops, but also in its purchase made one feel good about supporting troops families
and another ribbon which was cheap and did not benefit any Americans, but still indicated support
The customers decided from there. Furthermore, I would certainly say that it is an American ideal to participate in Capitalism and global free market economy (god I hope that statement doesn't start a debate), which Wal-Mart is doing in trading with China.

OK, i'm tired. I hate talking politics, probably because I hear it for like 5 hours a day as it is.

i actually liked matisyahu at treys show...thats the first i had heard of him too..but when i looked into his own albums it is religious and anti drug..not really my bag, althoguh nothing wrong with it... but as this is the politics thread i was comparing some of his outdated belief, mainly his beliefe that women cant perorm music and other extremist religous views are the same as john ashcrofts belief that dancing is a sin....they are both religious fanantics was my point...bo bice i was just bustin his balls...he may have some talent but if so he should have earned it instead of making a pact with the devil to get there...imo