Who will be the next president?

Until we actually get someone worth voting for, I'll just keep writing in the person who really deserves being President...Howard Stern.

To actually think that it makes no difference you must have been living in a cave for the last 6 years. If Bush as Prez has taught us anything it's that is does make a difference. About 2 trillion dollars of our tax money and 3500 US lives and counting. Not to mention I'd like the Constitution back, please.

Do you think that a Gore presidency would have been like this. Tell that to the people in New Orleans.

They may all be crooked but they are not all the same. It does matter.

You'd get 80,000 vote anyway.

I'm not talking about the last 6 years, I'm talking about the next 4, or 8. If he were to be elected into office in 2008, why should I or anyone else believe he wouldn't go back to the same old Al Gore that he was for a quarter of a century when he held a seat of power within the US government?

All I really want is for a 3rd party candidate to make a serious run at the presidency next year. He doesn't even have to win, just get enough votes to scare the crap out of the two major parties enough to get them to realize that they have to get it together and come up with some new ideas.

OK panic, I'll drop the politics but I can't let your questions go unanswered. Want facts, here we go:

Why had there been no terrorrist attack in US? - Despite the bad logic (no demonstarted correlation), the US has experienced a terrorist attack on our soil on average every 6 years so Bush's "lull" is just average (or Clinton did a hell of a job w/o a war.) Overseas attacks on US citizens is at an all time high.

War for oil equals low oil prices? - Where did you get this connection? Why would they lower prices instead of just make more money? Oil prices are do to lack of refinery which is due to oil companies shutting down 75% of their refineries since 1985. Actually the war was a payback to Bush's 2 biggests comtributors (Halliburton and Bechtel) who got most of the contracts, have done little work and whose stock has gone up 400%. Not to mention Chney's stock options that are still in effect. Some actually beleived it wouldbe easy and create democracy (no generals though) but it actually destabilzed the entire region and is destroying the one chance at true democracy we had, Afghanistan.

Help UK stop plane bombing? - UK stopped these with very little US help. They said so. We said so.

Why is the economy better than its ever been? - Wages are at an generational low, job creation for Bush lowest in 50 years, (Clinton created 10 times as many jobs, actually). Unemployment is so low (not as low as Clinton's 3.7%) )because we've stopped counting long term unemployed,. If you've been unemployed more than 6 months, you don't get counted anymore. 12% increase in people living in poverty, 40 million more w/o health insurance. If our economy is so strong why has the US dollar dropped to close to half its 2000 value against the Euro? The country is flirting with bankruptcy.

Stock market at an all time high? - and it only took 6 years to get higher than the day he took office. My IRA, which is diversified into 8 mutual funds, is just now getting close to where it was in 2000. The market is up less than 8% in 6 years. That's nothing to brag about.

War = death - exactly why we should go only as a last resort. Iraq war has destabilize the region. will ensure Iraq is the dominant power, has worn out the military, and has no forseeable end. No good will come from it. We had our chance to set up a stable democracy in Afghanistan and show arab people we could be good and helpful friends. Now Iraqis and Afghans both want us out. And the long term costs will be around $2 trillion dollars.

If all smart people think we should stay, why are numerous generals retiring to now say the war is unwinnable. Murtha , 30 yr marine vet, has it right. We need to withdraw to area bases and let the Iraqis fight their own civil war. If terrorists try and establish bases, bomb the hell out of them. We can't win someone elses civil war.

Why are you not concerned about a balance budget? As wages drop, the middle class shrinks and the taxable base shrinks, We are attacking our fiscal stability from both sides. Why are you not concerned that even our own State Dept says we are creating more terrorists than we are killing? and we are cutting the Veteran's Affairs budget while thousands of wounded are coming home needing lifelong care? and billions go missing in Iraq?, and US citizens get imprisoned and tortured w/o charges, trials, access to attorneys?.

We could go on, back and forth, all day. I look forward to your response but neither of us will convince the other so I'm done. Just had to answer your questions. I'm all done on this topic.

No hard feelings. Though I cannot understand your position, you have every right to it. If you want to discuss further at Roo, I'm always up for political talk.

See ya at Roo!!!

Everyone took a big hit after the net bubble burst and again after 9/11. The Dow lost 30% or more and took 4 - 5 years to get back to where it started after those hits.

I like you keeping the discussion civil. Karma for that.

I agree that the system is broken and owned by corporate money. I also have voted for 3rd party candidates (Libertarian in '84 and Green in '96). I'm just stating that there are differences in candidates and to never vote for person in the top 2 parties is no better than never voting 3rd party. At times, and I would say the 2000 election was one of these, it is necessary to vote for the lesser evil as the greater evil is SO much greater. As it is shaking out, I believe 2008 may be one of these also. I believe a Repub victory would be seen as a justification the war and all the decadent policies of the previous 8 years. A Dem victory is a repudiation of them. Now I would rather have rioting in the streets (anyone with me) but this apparently will have to do.

I disagree that they cater toward the middle. 63% want us out of Iraq now. That's the middle. They cater toward the corporate money and try not to piss anyone off too bad in the process. The system is geared toward discouraging us from voting so we can be disregarded, and it works. Only the LOUD and rich get attention.

We need to remind them that we vote them in and out. But with less than 50% voter turn out that's not be possible. Once again we need rioting in the street (but that might mean people have to miss Grey's Anatomy or American Idol so not likely.)

In democracy you get the government you deserve.

run awaaaaay, run awaaaay

good job troo.

Alyroo,

Not running away at all. If READ the whole thing I said I would respond tonight, and I will. Unlike some of us I can't sit and write drawn out comments on political issues at work.
Using lunch time right now.

Stay tuned... please

Troo pretty much said it all but didn't cover the one thing you said that caught my eye. When you say "A lot of people smarter than you and I who are in the business of intelligence think if we pull out now Iraq will fall to terrorist and the middle east may erupt and cause a World War III", are you talking about the same intelligence people who said there were WMD's and mobile chemical weapons labs, or are you talking about the intelligence types who said invading Iraq and deposing Saddam would lead to destabilization in the region and a possible wider conflict but were ignored by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld? I would argue with the entire premise of your sentence due to the overwhelming evidence that Bush obviously values "loyalty to him" over "competence in your job" i.e. Mike Brown, Harriet Myers, Alberto Gonzales, et. al.

Yeah-Reagan was really something !

Unless you were an American hostage held in Iran during the Carter administration who had to wait months for Reagan to be inaugurated in order to be released, just because ol' Ronnie needed some political capital.

Unless you were an air traffic controller.

Unless you were poor, and had to wait for the incentives given to big business to "trickle down" as crumbs.

"Ollie North, why I don't remember..... I'm about to get Alzheimer's you know.

Reagan was a shmuck too. 241 US servicemen get killed one October morning, and what does he do? Talks tough for a few months, then tucks his tail between his legs and runs away.

I am agaisnt the war, but also against socialism, so none of the candidates suit me but one...... Ron Paul from Texas is agaisnt the war. he's a republican, but what he's really about is getting rid of the money powers that control America. Don't know if anyone here knew this, but with one swipe of the pen, we could end this entire debt based, slave labor economy. JFK tried to do it and Ron Paul would do it too if he was elected. I'm talking about the simple fact that if we had our own gov. issued money, there would be no debt attached to it. The dollar would be worht much more than it is and the poor could better aford to live. As it is now, the privately owned federal reserve prints the money and we pay them on the debt.....DID YOU NOT KNOW.....that's right kidz....the fed is a private cartel of int'l bankers and we pay them hundreds of billions from labor tax........you see, back in '82, ron reagan put this group together called the Grace Commission and told these dudes to go and find out where this tax money is actually going.....they came back to ronnie and said, it's all going to pay the debt....in the words of ron reagan himself "not one penny goes to..... gov. services".......
The gov. is funded by gas tax, import and export tax and a ton of other taxes besides our labor. If Ron Paul got in, he would eliminate the fed, the debt with a stroke of the pen to make the us treasury print the money instead of the fed and eliminate our labor being taxed.
He would make the overblown fed gov. much smaller.......but the money powerrs are censoring him in the media......the main stream media is controlled by the corporate money powers as well.......it's all the same....the media, corporations, gov. cia, fbi, the army fighting to exploit resources (oil), etc......anyone who comes agaisnt any part of the machine is censored......to bad.....google video Ron Paul and listen to his speach in congress......he tells it like it needs to be.
Really, that's more like a Libertarian plan......