In article ,
says...

In article ,
says...

On Wed, 18 May 2011 00:47:54 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 17 May 2011 19:55:16 -0700, wrote:

On Tue, 17 May 2011 21:16:54 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 17 May 2011 16:04:16 -0700, wrote:

On Tue, 17 May 2011 15:46:05 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 17 May 2011 10:34:15 -0700, wrote:


In regard to the industries I listed in this thread (this note and
others), what is the difference?
Obama brought GW Bush's economic team and his financial policy over
virtually unchanged. The Democratic Senate gave us a health care bill
that was little more than a gift to the insurance and health care
provider corporations. The military industrial complex is still
chugging along unchecked.
All you have to do is look who gave the dems their money in 2008 to
see why.

You're going to claim it was the Dems fault that the less than perfect
healthcare bill was passed? It was fought tooth and nail by the
Republicans, who received the lion's share of the lobbying money.

Two wrong statements does not make it right

The Dems got more of the health care money in 2008
From the top 100 Amount Dem Rep
Blue Cross/Blue Shield $3,847,104 49% 51%
American Hospital Assn $2,797,733 61% 39%
American Dental Assn $2,562,690 53% 47%
Pfizer Inc $2,338,950 51% 49%
American Medical Assn $1,921,047 56% 44%

and the GOP was not even in the room when Baucus wrote the bill that
was passed by the senate. The dems knew they were going to pass it
without any GOP votes so I am not sure how they were relevant.

Firstly, it seems pretty evenly divided in 2008.
Then the GOP didn't get "the lion's share" did it? They didn't even
get half.

In 2008. How about all the other years?

This is the cycle that brought you the health care bill.

It started way before that. The Senate's bill was modified by the
House and agreed to by both. Sorry for your confusion.


Secondly, the
Republicans "not in the room" is load of hogwash. They got lots of
input and many of their suggestions were incorporated.

Maybe you should explain that to Howard Dean. He was head of your
party when he said the bill was written in Max Baucus' office by two
WellPoint lobbyists.
You are thinking about the house bill that was thrown away.

It was not "thrown away." Another nonsense statement from someone bent
on supporting extremist points of view?

I agree it wasn't "thrown away", it is still around somewhere but it
had nothing to do with the bill that did pass.
The Senate said it was DOA because they couldn't even find enough
Democrats to pass it with a filibuster proof Senate.

See previous. You're only semi-correct.

Obama replaced many of the senior people at Treasury and in his
cabinet. Too bad reality hurts. Obama continued what Bush started re
not letting the US/World economies collapse, sure.

The top guys are still Wall Street insiders.
You are just parroting Paulson about the world collapsing if we did
not bail out Goldman Sachs. There were plenty of other ways we could
have spent 3/4ths of a trillion dollars and not making those rich
people you hate richer. Most millionaires are in finance and they are
really the only ones who made out in the bail out.

Yet, being a WS insider is not the same thing as keeping the same
people. So, you just made it up. Paulson, despite his poor
performance, was right, and Bush was right to listen to him.

Yeah, everyone is dumb and/or corrupt except you.

This has been a "no recovery" recovery for most of the people and the
only thing we have to prove Paulson was right is him saying so.


Untrue as usual. We would have been much worse off. I know that
doesn't play in lots of places because people are still hurting, but
the economy is getting better.

You can argue that out with Bob. He will tell you,The only people who
are doing well are the fat cats and most of them are in the financial
industry.

Show me where I said the middle-class is "doing well". Do try to read
for content.

Wall street firms are getting record bonuses but real unemployment and
underemployment is 16-17%. Foreclosures are still moving along at
record rates and the banks are still not loaning out any of that money
the government gave them unless it is to credit card holders at 29.9%.


Yes, that's regrettable, but we would have been in even worse shape. I
know it's a bitter pill for you to swallow.

Gates has struggled to end many of the military industrial complex
projects, e.g., the new air force fighter.

Yet he still defends 3 bad wars

Nope. He didn't. Which 3? Oh, you must mean Libya. Another right wing
fantasy that we're going in next week. Never mind.

How do you think Libya is going to end?

No idea.

Yet you have an opinion.

And my "opinion" is actually that we don't know.

Clinton was the best "big business" president since Herbert Hoover but
Obama is catching up to him pretty fast. That leaves the GOP with
nothing but a few emotional issues to run on.

Pretty different situation though isn't it. The economy was actually
doing pretty well under Clinton. Obama is definitely pro business or
is he a Marxist? It's hard to tell when you listen to your right wing
friends. So, either he's so pro business that he's ruining the economy
or he's such a leftist that he's ruining the economy. Basically,
that's your argument.

The economy looked pretty vibrant but it was based on corporate
"profits" that turned out to actually be because of downsizing,
selling off capital assets and a huge amount of simple fraud.
During that time Clinton was overseeing the gutting of financial
regulations and the exporting of our industry and our jobs.
Herbert Hoover would be proud.

Sure. Except employment was up, business was booming, everything was
going smoothly. Therefore, it's all Clinton's fault because he got a
blow job.

That sounds great but you are ignoring the fact that we were losing
high tech jobs at a record rate to downsizing. IBM laid off 50,000
people from the technical staff between 1992 and 1996. The RBOCs
(telephone companies if you are unfamiliar with the term) laid off
more than that.

So, the economy is doing fine. The debt is zero or nearly so, but
Clinton failed. Got it.

Debt was zero? Bull****. Debt accrued almost $2T during the Clinton
administration. (about the same as Reagan)

My apologies... deficit. As I said, Clinton must have failed.

http://tinyurl.com/655whv6


Unemployment was low because so many people took buyouts and went into
early retirement.
Part of those deals made it impossible to collect unemployment.
Instead of "employees" they got "contractors" (no benefits, no job
security and the contractor pays his own FICA). Sweet for the
corporation. It is no wonder there were record profits.
That was reflected in great stock prices, but it turns out some of
those "profits" were fraud.
The stock market looked great but we had a crash in 2000 that took
half of the value away from the NASDAQ. when the investors figured out
the profits were not real.
If we had not created all of those Wall Street tricks, borrowing to
fund the real estate bubble we would have been in recession in most of
the 2000s.
You seem obsessed with the blowjobs (I won't make that joke)
The thing that got screwed was US industrial capacity.

Again, Clinton's fault. You seem obsessed with trashing one of the
best presidents we've had in a long time.

He was great if you like big business. If you were a middle class
worker with a good job that you lost, not so much

We were better off under Clinton that Bush. Feel free to argue that
point.


The 90s was when US corporations figured out all the money was to be
made by dismantling factories and shipping them offshore. GHWB and
Clinton assured they had trade agreements to make it largely tariff
free when the products came back.
We are paying for that now as money is flying out of the country and
we have to borrow it back.

Yeah, I guess Reagan had no hand in our problems. Sure.

NAFTA was GHWB and Clinton, GATT was all Clinton. What did Reagan do
to ship jobs offshore?

I guess you're really Google clueless?

http://tinyurl.com/623khqs


I am not running from anything. There were plenty of neocon democrats
who were eager to have a war with Iraq.
\
how many were president?

oh. zero.

Congress has to pay for those wars and there are some war resolutions
I can go look up if you really need the votes.

and how many would have done so if bush hadn't LIED??

Clinton, Schumer and Lieberman were right behind him cheering him on.
You have plenty of neocons on your side.

Total BS.

Do you want me to go get the Iraq war resolution vote? I could get the
congressional record transcripts of the debate.
I won't even charge you $350
I just bet you would change the subject.

After being lied to by Bush/Cheney.... interesting how you forget that
part when it's convenient.

Hillary and Chuck were on the Senate intelligence committee. They saw
the same reports as Bush did.
Did they lie too?

Yep, right after Cheney's 5000 visit to Langley.

So now you agree H. Clinton and Schumer lied too. OK

No. They were mislead, as I said. Keep trying to change what I said if
it makes you feel better.

They were misled with the same intelligence that Bush saw.
Are you just saying they are as stupid as Bush? I would agree with
that.

I'm saying that Cheney and Bush colluded to cherry pick the
intelligence.


Yeah the technical detain is OBL was in Pakistan and it was not a
150,000 man army that got him., It was a small team of special ops
people. That is what we should have been doing all along.

and obama has been moving in that direction as well, which is why the
number of these operations has increased, along with increased drone
strikes. but you dont just cut and run

How many GIs have to die before you decide it is a waste of capital.

how many new yorkers have to die before you decide it wasnt?

You are waging a war on people who had nothing to do with it.
Bin Laden was in Afghanistan but he left almost 10 years ago.
As far as we know Karzai was covering for him too and we are backing
Karzai.

So, you're claiming the Taliban didn't harbor OBL and was never
involved in terrorism... wow.

No I am saying the same government we are currently propping up
probably had as much to do with OBL being there as this nebulous
concept of the taliban.
If harboring OBL is a crime worth us spending $400 billion and a 10
year occupation why are we letting Pakistan off the hook?


Feel free to give Sec. Clinton a call and let her know. I'm sure she'd
appreciate your advice.

I suppose she is the one who released the report that is on CNN as we
speak. It says the Al Qaeda people OBL was talking to are in Yemen,
not Afghanistan.
We have 150,000 people chasing terrorists who are 1500 miles away.

I guess you never heard that AQ is not a centrally located
organization.

Yet we have 150,000 soldiers chasing them in one country where their
presence is minimal to non-existent. That is a good use of a couple
hundred billion isn't it?

No. They're not chasing AQ. They're fighting the Taliban for the most
part, who would let AQ back in in an instant. Re-read Gate's
commentary, this time for meaning.

And why are we fighting the Taliban?
It certainly is not because they supported OBL 10 years ago. We killed
or captured everyone who knew OBL, everyone who knew someone who knew
him and everyone who knew them. Now we are down to killing people who
were not even old enough in 2001 to know about 9-11
We are fighting the Taliban because we don't muslims and the way they
want to live their religion. That is racist.



Good grief. Read the news.

Can you qualify your demand by telling us exactly what "news" source you
wish for us to read? Because if it's the Huffington Hoax, or Media
Matters, well...

I would suggest you read multiple news sources if you truly want to know
the truth, and NOT watch a "news" show that is nothing but a political
outpost for one party or the other.