On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:16:08 -0500, DSK wrote:

Agreed... and funneling pharmaceutical lobbyists money into ???


John H wrote:
How? I keep hearing Kerry, et al, saying that Bush is giving all the
money to the HMO's and pharmaceutical companies, but haven't seen how
that's being done. If someone receives medical care or drugs, then the
payments go to the companies. But the payment was for services
rendered. I must have missed something along the way. Enlighten me.

You might find this bunch enlightening
http://www.campaignfinance.org/

The pharmaceutical lobby is the largest and richest. They donate great
heaping trainloads of money to various PACS which are mostly off the
public radar (despite the 'liberal biased media').

Another interesting (or revolting) development is the non-PAC campaign
fund. Apparently taking the place of 'soft money' is a group that
accepts political donations but cannot be directed by a specific
candidate, to publicize 'an issue.' Most of the infomercials spreading
all the horrible stories about Howard Dean last month and John Kerry
this month are funded this way... guess who is benefitting, wink wink?
This means that the big bucks contributors can still play and their
legal dollars direct to candidates don't have to pay for attack ads, so
the condidates dollar goes further.




Granting amnesty to illegal aliens, Mexican, Irish, or otherwise.

Actually, I don't think that was such a bad move. It is meaningless
really, since INS is so far behind; and it's a pretty blatant attempt to
drive low wage workers even lower. But letting people who want to come
here to work, do so, is IMHO a good idea.


I disagree. I think the idea that "only Mexicans will do the work" is
garbage. If the pay is so low, then removing the cheap labor will
cause the wages to increase. If farmers are forced to choose between
paying higher wages to get the cabbage picked or watching the cabbage
rot, they'll pay a better wage. Then normal folks can work. Here in DC
are thousands of people sitting on their porch steps, doing nothing,
and getting paid for it.

I didn't say 'only Mexicans will do the work' at all. How did you get
that, or was that just a general comment not directed at me? As for
people sitting around doing nothing, well that has always been with us.
People who are used to sitting around in a big city are not going to
move to the country and become migrant workers, not unless they are
forced at gunpoint.

OTOH farmers are in hoc to their buyers. Unless they are already assured
of a higher crop price, they will let it rot in the field instead of
paying higher wages to gamble they can get a higher price. I've seen
this first hand.

The idea of letting people who have already come here, who *want* to
become citizens and pay taxes and live legally, to do so in slightly
more streamlined fashion (which is part of what I took Bush's proposal
to mean) sounds good to me. They're already here. The other side of the
coin is to make the employment system simpler and more user friendly so
that it doesn't cost small companies so much to hire new workers.


Not having more substantial rationale for attacking Iraq.

Funny, you've defended Bushes Iraq policy here all along.


Before the attack, I had strong reservations. After the attack I spent
much time arguing against the lies and bull**** posted by lots of
folks here. No one ever asked me if I thought there was sufficient
justification for the attack initially. Now, I am glad we did it. It
would have been nice if the French, Germans, and Russians had bought
into it, but enough countries did that I consider it a multinational
effort.

I still think it would have been better to wait longer and hammer out a
bigger consensus among major nations... like the UN Security Council.
Bush's off-again, on-again treatment of the UN strikes me as among his
worst acts of hypocrisy.

Anyway it's a good thing Saddam is gone, now we have to concentrate on
cleaning up the mess without letting too many of our soldiers get
blasted... but it looks to me like that is a low priority for BushCo. It
will be interesting what they have to say as the election draws closer.

This is a close parallel to Nixon & Vietnam. He addressed the issue by
lying through his teeth, and of course everybody bought his lies
(actually, quite a vocal minority didn't buy a bit of it, but the votes
were overwhelmingly in his favor). So Bush has a blueprint...

oh one more thing... sorry to be so long winded


As to the rest, can't comment knowledgeably. Don't know about all the
unfunded mandates in the Patriot Act. Show me.

I can give you a very concrete and personal example... the Patriot Act
requires a federal certification of all stocks and all procedures
involving hazardous materials on a list... my company handled several
different types of industrial supplies, including compressed gasses, and
also contracted for HAZMAT services & training. We looked at the
certification procedure, and saw that we'd have to triple our prices and
settle for half the profit... so now most of that type of contracting in
this area is handled by a company based in Occupied Virginia... go
figure. BTW they hired a lot of the same people contracted with. In some
cases, our guys are still doing the same jobs on the same sites. But an
appreciable heap of money is being siphoned away.


We are still far apart on the spectrum.

Oh yes! But perhaps one thing we agree on (that seems to be so elusive
for other political participants on this board) is that one can disagree
and yet not be THE ENEMY.

... I have seen nothing in Kerry
that would have me voting for him. I may have considered Lieberman,
but he seems to rational for the *real* Bush haters out there.

At this point, I'd still prefer McCain, but Kerry sounds better than Bush.

Regards
Doug King

I'd go for McCain. I think his head is screwed on pretty well. I was
just using Mexican laborers as an example. Nothing against you.

I disagree about the UN. Too many dictators running the show. Whether
or not the UN concurs should not, in my opinion, have much bearing on
the decisions we make regarding our national interests.

You're correct. It *is* possible to have a disagreement without the
use of name-calling and other invectives. Why some persist in this is
beyond me, unless their capabilities would be stretched to far to do
otherwise.

John H

On the 'Poco Loco' out of Deale, MD
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!