One of the other things that really pisses me off about the Democrats and their specious charges regarding the pricetsg of the inauguration is that the ceremonies and celebrations are designed to bring unity to Washington. Instead, the Democrats try to fracture the divide farther.
Probably so in 4 months they can wryly note that Bush wanted to be a uniter, not divider, but golly jee, all the Democrats hate him.
Mikey
The whining we’re going to hear for the next four years is going to be sooo enjoyable.
(rolls eyes)
Bob
Jews whined in Germany in the 1930s. I imagine some numbnuts there took pleasure in others’ troubles.
My guess is that Mikey isn’t thinking about Social Security in his future, so fuck it. Mikey doesn’t ever expect to get thrown into a jail for an indeterminate time, so he’s going to enjoy the shrinkage of his right to a speedy trial, not whine about it. As long as someone else gets stuck.
People who enjoy other people’s pain used to be called sadists. It used to be a sign of mental illness. Now it’s a badge of honor among a certain group of people. Self-identify, Mikey. What do you call yourselves?
sabinal
That’s right, Bob. Better to criticize Mikey than actually come up with ideas for saving social security.
Mikey
Come up with some real criticisms Bob, you know – ideas, suggestions, what we should do and why? That’s what I would like to hear, but I don’t. Comparisons of 2005 America with 1930’s Germany? That’s not serious, that’s light years from serious. That remark doesn’t deserve anymore dignified response than that. I hear claims that rights are being taken away. Which right? How is it being taken away?
Instead all I’ve heard are complaints about the cost of the inauguration. I’ve seen protestors show their wit and deep wisdom by turning their backs on a parade route. I’ve seen childish, immature, petulant behavior, behavior that can only be classified as whining.
Self-identify? I’m an American citizen. Pretty low-key for the most part, don’t cut loose too often. Mostly read, write, listen to music. Only watch a little tv. I’m pretty boringly normal, to tell the truth.
Oliver
“Fracture the divide further”
HAHAHAHAHA. News flash: George W. Bush has contempt for anyone who isn’t a Republican. He doesn’t care about half of this country. He’s made that QUITE clear.
Mikey
Projecting again, Oliver?
Could someone please tell me of a time when we haven’t been politcally divided? A time when there were no political squabbles? A time when there were no disagreements over policy? A time when everybody agreed with whoever had been elected president on everything?
I would really like to know when that magical time was.
Ricky
As evidenced by the appointment of Norm Mineta to the cabinet, of Max Cleland to some cushing 130K a year job that he rarely shows up to and the invitation of the entire Kennedy clan to view 13 days @ the WH.
Other than the facts, the analysis is spot on, though.
Bryan C
Mikey is right. There was never a time like that, except in our imagainations. The difference between then and now is that the loyal opposition cared more about the well being of the country than simply winning at all costs. (Which is, of course, why they actually had a chance of winning, unlike today.)
Josh
So is the left-wing a persecuted “race” now? Is liberalism the new black/jew of the 21st century?
This sounds like a good example of the government’s mind scrambling moon beam rays in effect on the enemies of freedom (and of the president, by sheer coincidence).
Mikey
This low level carping, in my opinion, signifies the utter political defeat of the carpers. Politically, it is a kamikaze tactic. If you are viable, if you believe that you have a chance to win, you don’t send pilots and aircraft out on one way missions. That’s the tactic of a lost cause.
Similarly, politically speaking, you don’t waste your time and energy complaining about the cost of the Inaugural Ball, you don’t waste your time and energy complaining about the fact that the president wore a flight suit and did a tailhook on a carrier (which I myself would love to do). You may make a snide comment, but you don’t make yourself look utterly ridiculous by screaming about nothings; nothings that your political opponents can grab and use to label you as unserious and idealess, a label which will stick because it was self-inflicted.
Or, maybe I shouldn’t say this. Come on Democrats! Go more bat-spastic! Pout some more! Throw all dignity out the window, continue to, metaphorically speaking, act out like a tired toddler in a grocery store. Guarantee Republican victories in 2006 and 2008. We know you have it in you to snatch catastrophe from the jaws of defeat.
Kimmitt
Better to criticize Mikey than actually come up with ideas for saving social security.
Push the retirement age to 67.5 and maybe increase the cap to 100k. But we can wait a decade or so and see if we really need to do that.
Can we talk about Medicare now? There really is a crisis there.
HH
Might I pipe in that, even without inflation, the Clinton ’96 inaugural cost more and had more balls than this one?
Bob
My comment was about Mikey enjoying other people’s pain.
I have no complaints about the cost of the inaugural balls, I wish the Demos in the Senate had as many balls. Everyone should be concerned as to who pays for them, just as people should have been concerned during inaugural festivities of the past. Who owns your politician?
Complaints about the inauguration? Who are you listening to? The only complaints I’ve heard are about who got sworn in.
Solving Social Security? Remove the tax ceiling so all wages are taxed. Then, in forty years or so there won’t be a deficit. There’s no crisis in Social Security like there was no crisis in Iraq before we invaded it.
By the way, Mikey, that’s how the Nazis controlled the people, by a series of manufactured crises that don’t allow some people to think clearly.
Mikey
Gee Bob, you’re amazing. You can psycho-analyze me all the way from over there. I never knew I enjoyed other’s pain so much. Thanks for the information, I owe you one, buddy.
Sure they used manufactured crises, but I think the SS, the Gestapo, and total government control of the news media had a lot more to do with it. Oh, and being totally ruthless and killing opponents (and allies who were no longer useful).
I look back at the history of Nazi Germany and look out here at this America and note exactly ZERO parallels.
Good-day sir, you are a troll and I think your bridge is calling for you.
Terry
Who let Bob out of the booby hatch? He’s back again doing his lame-brained best to conjure up out of his fervid imagination an image of 1930’s Germany. What a loser!!
Joe Schmoe
Ah, Bob says it —
RAISE TAXES.
That’s his solution.
Of course, he doesn’t come out and say it — he says “remove the tax ceiling” instead — but that’s what he means.
No doubt Bob would contend that he is raising taxes ON THE RICH.
“The Rich” used to mean millionaires, and that was back in the days when a “millionaire” had a silk top hat and a diamond-tipped cane.
Now “the rich” menas someone who makes more than $87,500 per year.
Ah, the Democrats.
Paul
“No crisis in Iraq before we invaded it”.
Are you fuckin’ NUTS!!!????
Let me get this right, America circa 2005 is like Nazi Germany, but Iraq was a healthy, stable, prosperous society before evil capitalist Amerika invaded it in order rape, pillage and steal the oil?
And your precious socialist ponzi scheme must be saved by further punishing the people with higher taxes so we can be saved from keeping and investing our own hard earned money?
And you assholes wonder why your party is circling the bowl on it’s way to obsurity and oblivion?
Bob
Mikey, I’m not psychoanalyzing you. You said you enjoy other people’s pain. Okay, you said “whining,” but from the context I would say that the whining over the next four years to which you refer is not what you enjoy, but rather the people hurting from Bush’s policies.
Then again, maybe you really do enjoy “whining.”
Parallels aren’t exact replicas, but the Nazis were controlled by the industrialists who put them into power, both German and foreign (most foreign investment into Germany during the Nazi build-up to WWII was American and British). You really should do some reading. It’ll help you understand things.
Speaking of eliminating allies that are no longer useful, where do you want to start? How about Saddam Hussein? Noriega? Again, though, you would have to do a little reading.
By the way, both Nazi Germany and 2005 America have delusional, out-of-touch-with-reality leaders who have messianic visions for the world. And both were financially supported by the Bush family.
Terry again offers nothing, but then that’s all he has. But thanks.
Joe Schmoe has problems with taxes. Consider them user fees. You want to drive on highways? You’ve got to pay taxes. User fees. You want the fire department to come when the house is on fire? User fees. You want schools for your kids? You want cops?
That’s part of the social contract. Social Security is part of the social contract in the U.S. as equivalents are across the world. If it’s going to need more money in 2045, then you figure out how to give it money. Maybe stop waging wars against broken-down countries. I hear that the bill is going up another $100 billion next week.
Joe also says I’m raising taxes on the rich by removing the ceiling on Social Security taxes. No, I am not saying that. I’m saying to tax everyone at the same level, whether you make five thousand or five million a year. I thought you guys liked flat taxes.
Besides, Bush is using Social Security funds to make his deficit look like it’s less than $500 billion a year.
Paul says I am “fuckin’ nuts” that there was no crisis in Iraq before we invaded it (this is 2003). Well, let’s see. No WMDs or programs in place. No fly zones over the north and south of the country. No military force whatsoever that was a threat to the U.S. or any of its neighbors. Torture? Hey, Alberto Gonzales’ guidelines would have allowed most of Saddam’s torturing to be legal, but I wouldn’t define other countries mistreating its citizens as a crisis requiring a full-scale invasion. If you want to bring out the straw man of 9/11, you’ll have to ignore all the findings that there was no connection between Saddam’s regime and al Qaeda. The U.S., by supporting the Afghan guerrillas and their Islamic allies (including Osama) have a stronger “operational link” than Iraq.
Of course, that’s only revealed to you if you can remember anything prior to 2000.
If the invasion of Iraq was not for oil, then what? Bad intelligence? The Plame case shows that the Administration really wanted to take over Iraq all along. Can’t wait until the documents from that secret energy task force that Cheney chaired are opened up for review. They wanted Iraq back in 2000.
Socialist ponzi scheme? Then how about the national socialist use of tax money and American lives to seize oil fields for private oil companies. Social Security has been the most popular, most successful federal program of the last 100 years. Iraq is approaching the position of being the least popular federal program.
Paul
This whole no WMD “gotcha” business really infuriates me. On a PRACTICAL NATIONAL SECURITY LEVEL who is stupid enough to believe that, even if Saddam didn’t have stockpiles of WMDs, after the US military slunk back home and sanctions were lifted (which is what the Donks and leftys the world over were pushing for) he wouldn’t have resumed his WMD programs with total impunity? More importantly pulling that scumbag out of the spider hole led to the voluntary dismantling of Libya’s surprisingly advanced nuclear program AND the discovery of the A.Q. Khan nuclear “supermarket”. So taking out Saddam needs to be seen in a broader context than “no WMDs were found, therefore OIF was a mistake”. It needs to be juxtaposed against the real world consequences of leaving him in power and the resulting chain of events that would have left three extremely dangerous forces in the ME unchecked.
Bob you’re clearly insane. Go back to DU with the rest of the paranoid wackos. You’ll get no more wasted time from me.
Kimmitt
(which is what the Donks and leftys the world over were pushing for)
Find me one quote from a Democratic elected official which endorses the unilateral lifting of the sanctions, please.
Paul
All those people suggesting that the sanctions were killing
innocent Iraqis and needed to be lifted weren’t, um, Republicans now were they?
Saddam was bribing the shit out of the French, Russian, and Germans to apply pressure through the UN Security Council to end sanctions and the left in this country would be clamoring for them to be abolished too.
But of course you miss the big picture, don’t you? A.Q. Khan, Quadaffi, and nukes.
You lefties never talk about this. If this doesn’t qualify as “finding WMDs” nothing does. Gone. Thanks too George Bush, OIF, and Saddam’s subsequent capture.
Without these events Saddam would be in power and, sanctions or no, would have plenty of money from the oil for palaces debacle to purchase the necessary materials to assemble nuclear weapons from the Khan network, maybe not by today, but soon enough. Guaranteed.
A nuclear Libya, Iraq, Iran, and a black-market nuclear supermarket…that
wild bird
They in the left-wing news media were covoring the idiot protesters showing just what a bunch of ungreatful wretches they are and calling bush our worse president just show what little these idiots realy know we got through eight years of clinton and we had to put up with four years of carter so why dont these dweebs wake up and stop living in their weirdsville settings
CadillaqJaq
I’m wondering if any of the regular posters actually believe that supplying facts for their leftist friends will actually change any minds? Seems doubtful to me (not to mention a complete waste of time).
I’d also add: screw ’em! Let ’em stew in the crap their own ineptness has created (and yet to create if Howard Dean is selected to head the DNC. It couldn’t happen to a “nicer” group).
just saying
“I’m wondering if any of the regular posters actually believe that supplying facts for their leftist friends will actually change any minds? ”
Well…as soon as the righties come up with some facts the lefties minds might start to consider those.
Problem is…the righties haven’t had a fact in 4 years…..just hyperbole.
Terry
CadillaqJag questions whether supplying facts for the lefties that post comments here is anything more than a waste of time. I suspect that he’s onto something. Clearly a complete fruitcake like “Bob,” whose grasp of reality is so slight as to be virtually nonexistent, will never be moved by “facts.” If he didn’t read it on DU or in The Nation, or pick it up at his latest cell meeting, then it couldn’t be true.
Bob
Paul’s curious “WMD gotcha” is infuriating to him? Is he upset because the reasoning the Administration gave him to invade another country is a lie? No, he’s upset because his political opponents keep pointing out the lie. Sounds a little like whining to me. Somehow I think that Mikey isn’t enjoying your particular whining.
Your whole riff on Dr. Khan and his nuclear supermarket misses a couple of key points, the most important being he’s been doing this in Pakistan, our “best” Islamic ally that’s been pocketing billions in our taxpayer dollars every year. How’s Bush’s dream of democracy doing there? Our good buddy in power in Pakistan immediately set aside Khan’s conviction, by the way. So Bush and the U.S. are supporting the regime which is most responsible for spreading nuclear technology throughout the world. Funny that you didn’t mention that, Paul.
GOTCHA!
Libya’s Khadafy got help from the WESTERN intelligence agencies in getting his dirty business lo those many years ago, going with the likes of Hitler’s Otto Skorzeny. American intelligence just loves those Nazis. You may want to seek out information about Edwin Wilson and Frank Terpil before you start whining your horsehit about Libya and the misery left by liberals.
And I am constantly amazed at how Paul and his ilk can predict the future (all the bad things that would have happened if the U.S. hadn’t invaded Iraq) but seem to have no clue as to the past. Like: “I know if we didn’t go down this road that something bad would happen. I just don’t know where we came from.”
I find it absolutely stunning that someone who apparently supports Bush’s war can blame apostates for the mess we are currently enduring. He says, “You cannot admit relationship to disaster and folly, because your entire world view revolves around your imagined intellectual and moral superiority.” Moral superiority? Death squads, torture squads, violating the Constitution and international treaties, the looting of the national treasury for the further fattening of the President’s political cronies. Yeah, I feel morally superior to that, and to those who support it.
Intellectually superior, well, if you did some reading of history maybe you’d have a better understanding of the present.
Paul cannot admit his relationship to disaster and folly. Too bad. We’re all the worse for his ignorance and pride.
The President’s speechwriter may make Bush sound like an Old Testament prophet but you and yours are never going to reach the Promised Land by following someone who worships the Golden Calf.
To CadillacJag (a worhipper of the Golden Cad): You wouldn’t know a fact if it bit you on the ass. And wild bird probably couldn’t spell it.
It’s been fun.
George Saras
It’s my understanding, Bob, that a room has been reserved for you in the newly expanded and improved Guantanamo Hotel and Resort. I hope you enjoy the rest; it is obvious that you need to get away from the stresses of daily living in this free country.
Mikey
I enjoy whining?
Bob, it seems from that comment that you’ve never spent any time around a cranky child, in a car, in a traffic jam.
I’d rather take a Black & Decker to my ears than hear whining.
Mikey
It also appears that sarcasm is beyond your grasp.
Hellooo? What do you think (rolls eyes) means?
Sarcasm, buddy, sarcasm.
Bob
Ah, George Saras threatens me with imprisonment and torture because I am a dissident. George, is that your free country? It’s a free, but only if you agree. Well I guess I better get with the program, Heil Bush.
We can argue about how similar the current situation here is to past totalitarian regimes, but it’s clear you’ve already made the change, George. You’re already living in your own private Auschwitz, and you’re a prison guard.
Kimmitt
The acid test will come when Bush would be forced to give up power of some sort.
TJ Jackson
Bob:
Take your lithium. Its amazing that the trolls don’t just borrow down to Havanna or some other people’s paradise. Its amazing when you see the Leftists demonstrate their respect for others rights.
Bob
Your point, TJ?
You insult me because, uh, I disagree? You mention Havanna [sic] although I don’t think anyone here has mentioned it. Why not call me a comsymp or a fellow traveler?
It hasn’t been about left and right since heads were rolling during the French Revolution. It’s top versue bottom. I’m doing okay, but I know that my country and I will do better when wealth is shared and decisions are made for the betterment of all.
You? Maybe you’re a trickle down kind of guy. Maybe you’re just punching your timecard until the End Time. My guess is that you have a crush on the Bully Boy, and when he pushes around someone you join the cheers on the playground.
I’ve wondered why the first defense against dissent around here is to accuse the dissenter of insanity. It must all those references to things they’ve never heard of. I’ve never heard of the Terpil-Wilson affair in Libya, and I know enough to form an opinion, so this guy Bob must be crazy. I don’t know anything about the Bush family history of collaborating with Nazis, so this guy must be nuts. After all, if there was anything to it then the free press would have said something. Or the slanted liberal media would have said something.
None of you here seem to want to find out about anything. You’re content in your own loathing of the real world and willing to put your money on Bully Boy. You’ll never sit at Bully Boy’s table. And he’s going to spend all your money on himself.
By the way, TJ, where’s Havanna? In Cubba?
George Saras
Bob, listen up! You recite a few conspiratorial-type words and names; this degree of information does NOT make you knowledgeable or a particularly well informed citizen. In fact, your rather selective choices in these matters leads one to conclude that you are very likely little more than a fucking moron.
Your recitations sound a lot like the musings of a teenage girl who has absorbed more than her little brain can handle. And your CHILDISH attempts at demonstrating intellectual superiority by making fun of typos and other such trifling matters truly serves to illustrate just how extraordinarily immature you really are. Go play with the kids in the playground…you clearly aren’t up to interacting with adults.
Bob
George Saras writes that I recite a few “conspiratorial words and names”. You mean Edwin Wilson and Frank Terpil? What, if anything, do you know about them? How about some of you folks reading about them? Maybe it would give you a better understanding of current events by understanding a little bit of the history of American involvement in the Arab world.
You know, there’s a picture of Rumsfield and Saddam smiling and gladhanding back in the 1980s when Hussein was our man. It was one of those very days when Iraq used poison gas. What do you think that was about, Saras? Got a clue, Simpleton?
A “fucking moron,” says Saras. Okay, let’s have a nice long conversation about Iraq. You first.
By the way, don’t you find it a little hypocritical for you to criticize me for pointing out that TJ misspelled Havana in his attempt to intimate that I’m a Commie right after you call me a “fucking moron”? Oh, something else lost on you.
As for “conspiratorial words”, are you saying that there are no such things as conspiracies, or is it that you aren’t able to string together the words in your feeble attempt to understand them, or that the words are conspiring to take over your debilitated intellect?
Come on, Mr. Saras, you want to spar? I’m sure you can get that brain of yours to do more in defense of the murder and mayhem of Iraq than just recite those words Michael Powell won’t let on TV.
Go ahead, try to wrap it around a thought:
Bush lying to me about the reason for invading Iraq was good because…
It’s good to give rich people more money because…
It’s good to pollute because…
There’s a couple of essay questions you can work on while you’re waiting for all those books you’ve ordered from Amazon to arrive.
Kimmitt
Its amazing that the trolls don’t just borrow down to Havanna or some other people’s paradise.
And it’s also not particularly startling when the righties don’t head over to the capitalist paradise of Myanmar.
George Saras
Bob, your verbosity is exceeded only by your total stupidity. Let me hasten to add that I certainly don’t mind you writing so much, consuming all those countless pixels, but I assume you don’t mind if I ignore what you have written. As sombody observed, “What Bob lacks in intelligence, he makes up for in ignorance.” To which I would add, “He does so at interminable length!”
Bob, if only you’d use your brains a little more you could at least call yourself, with some measure of honesty, a half-wit. I guess I’d like to see things from your warped point of view, but I seriously doubt that I could get my head that far up your ass. As I scanned the comments you have posted in this thread, I was left wondering if you are always this asinine, or were you making a special effort today?
In short, my question to you is: Don’t you realize that there are enough people to hate in the world already, without your putting in so much effort to give us another?
Aaron
Kimmit,
Burma is rated very, very low on economic freedom – it’s not a capitalist paradise at all.
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.cfm
You should suggest we move to Hong Kong, Singapore, or Luxembourg.
RW
Bob,
removing the tax ceiling means that Bill Gates would then be eligible for 6 figure social security checks upon his retirement.
There is a formula & the credits are based on your income/how much you pay.
Andrew | BB
I see a lot of opinion and different versions of reality here – but no facts at all.