USA Politics Thread - *No gun debate*

[Badgerboy 0]

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/db/2005/db050410.gif

^apparently this is what he actually said too. pretty scary.

Here's the complete transcript. Try reading all of it.

Nothing scary. He stumbled on explaining and he knows when he's spoken incoherrently.

He's not a very good speaker, and when he tries to bring over complex arguments he tends to get words mixed up. It's not the best way to get his ideas over to the general public, some of which have difficulty following a bus time table and just want the absolute basics laid out to them

He should either get some good practise in, script his speeches a little better, or try to dumb down the context in which he's speaking. He obvioulsy can't cope, even if he understands it, he can't speak it.

Not particulary good traits for a public servant.

(If the UK PM did that in Parliment, the opposition would accuse him of being drunk, and jeer him out. I would say being articulate helps in a public political setting. It's pretty much mandatory over here, as the press and MP's would tear you to pieces)

[Balschoiw 0]

Another TBA freak, who has learned how to get through with his way of interpreting facts, even if that means firing the people who conducted the studies...

Democrats Seek to Block Bolton as UN Ambassador

Quote[/b] ]WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats hope to block President Bush's pick to be the U.N. ambassador at a hearing on Monday expected to focus on allegations that nominee John Bolton sought to fire intelligence analysts who disagreed with him.

Bush's choice of a blunt-speaking, longtime detractor of the United Nations has been a lightning rod for criticism of the president from those who perceive he has forged a "go-it-alone" approach to U.S. foreign policy.

"When the country chooses an ambassador to the United Nations, it ought to avoid picking someone whose bullying style of leadership symbolizes everything that created the current estrangement between the United States and most of the world," the New York Times, said in an editorial last week.

Bolton is currently the top U.S. diplomat for nonproliferation. He said in 1994, "it wouldn't make a bit of difference" if the U.N. headquarters building lost 10 stories.

His supporters say Bolton will help shape a more effective United Nations which acts with strong U.S. leadership.

Democrats have denounced the choice as divisive and capable of jeopardizing Bush's attempts this year to repair diplomatic ties frayed in his first term over the Iraq war.

Leading up to the confirmation hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they have zeroed in on accusations Bolton pressed for two intelligence analysts to be fired after they appeared soft on Cuba with assessments that contradicted his position.

"There's very credible information that Mr. Bolton tried to have analysts -- intelligence analysts, in at least two cases -- removed from their jobs because he was going to state a position which was in contradiction to the information that the intelligence community believed was correct," Sen. Christopher Dodd (news, bio, voting record), a Democrat from Connecticut, told ABC.

Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), the committee's ranking Democrat from Delaware, said of Bolton's alleged pressure, "In the post-9/11 environment, that's a very bad idea."

Senators' aides have conducted interviews in recent days to try and confirm the allegations, but committee chairman Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, told CNN they had failed to produce evidence supporting the accusations.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher dismissed as "old stories" attacks on Bolton ahead of the hearing, which could stretch beyond Monday.

Democrats are trying to persuade at least one Republican on the committee to vote against Bolton in hopes of blocking the nomination, which would not advance on a committee tie.

Bolton's nomination sparked a flurry of lobbying.

A group made up mostly of former diplomats and arms control officials in a letter urged the committee to reject him, saying he "cannot be an effective promoter of U.S. interests at the U.N."

However, a group made up mostly of former defense officials countered with a letter that Bolton has Bush's confidence and would show "the sort of assertive representation of U.S. interests" that it said has been the hallmark of some of the most effective U.S. ambassadors to the world body.

Funny enough such guy gets nominated by the TBA, but not surprising. Powell pulled some funny stunts at the UN in the runup of GW2 but this guy will certainly top him.

Edit:

Some more details about his record:

Quote[/b] ]In spring 2002, while much of the Bush administration was focused on al Qaeda and Iraq, Bolton was drawing attention to Cuba. Using evidence described by three knowledgeable intelligence officials as ambiguous, Bolton planned to announce the existence of a secret bioweapons program in Cuba during a speech that May to the Heritage Foundation.

But he was blocked by Christian Westermann, the chief bioweapons analyst at the State Department, who refused to clear the speech unless the language more accurately reflected the intelligence assessments. Bolton summoned Westermann to his office and berated him, officials with knowledge of the encounter said, and then tried to have him fired.

When Ford backed up Westermann, Bolton refused to speak with him again, according to the officials, who are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Ford, Westermann and Thomas Fingar, who now runs the intelligence bureau, will be among those called to testify during Bolton's hearings.

The incident, much of which is described in a Senate intelligence report last July, is the only publicly known case of a senior Bush administration official being accused of pressuring and threatening an analyst who refused to change his assessments.

Former colleagues described Bolton as a voracious reader who begins work at 6:30 a.m. poring over voluminous intelligence feeds compiled from the CIA and the Pentagon -- including information that has not yet been fully vetted.

Admirers said that that habit enabled Bolton to find connections missed elsewhere, and that he has pressed effectively for public release of classified evidence in support of his policy goals. Others say he "cherry picked" the evidence, using or trying to use information that career analysts described as unreliable, out of context or simply wrong.

In July 2003, the CIA blocked Bolton from alleging in congressional testimony that Syria had a nuclear weapons program. "That just wasn't consistent with the intelligence we had," one former analyst said. The intelligence community believed that Bolton's assertions were exaggerated and that the speech was misleading. But the timing had been important -- there were reports then that Syria was aiding loyalists to Saddam Hussein, hiding former Iraqi regime money and possibly weapons of mass destruction. The speech would have shone another light on a country that was causing concern.

Really competent man

[EiZei 0]

I recall seeing bolton interviewed by a british journalist during the invasion of Afghanistan and after the interview ended (the journalist was asking some pretty tough questions about certain prisoner camps) he started calling the interviewer a commie.

[Colossus 2]

Nothing to do with politics but worth posting (maybe)

CNN News

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Well i heard an interesting analysis on the radio that noted that the music is particularly popular in the so called flyover states and for the most part is not music that has exported successfully to the rest of the world. Perhaps not really political, but an interesting observation nonetheless.

[billybob2002 0]

Well i heard an interesting analysis on the radio that noted that the music is particularly popular in the so called flyover states and for the most part is not music that has exported successfully to the rest of the world. Perhaps not really political, but an interesting observation nonetheless.

Because it's country...

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]Videos Challenge Accounts of Convention Unrest

By JIM DWYER

Published: April 12, 2005

Dennis Kyne put up such a fight at a political protest last summer, the arresting officer recalled, it took four police officers to haul him down the steps of the New York Public Library and across Fifth Avenue.

"We picked him up and we carried him while he squirmed and screamed," the officer, Matthew Wohl, testified in December. "I had one of his legs because he was kicking and refusing to walk on his own."

Advertisement

Accused of inciting a riot and resisting arrest, Mr. Kyne was the first of the 1,806 people arrested in New York last summer during the Republican National Convention to take his case to a jury. But one day after Officer Wohl testified, and before the defense called a single witness, the prosecutor abruptly dropped all charges.

During a recess, the defense had brought new information to the prosecutor. A videotape shot by a documentary filmmaker showed Mr. Kyne agitated but plainly walking under his own power down the library steps, contradicting the vivid account of Officer Wohl, who was nowhere to be seen in the pictures. Nor was the officer seen taking part in the arrests of four other people at the library against whom he signed complaints.

A sprawling body of visual evidence, made possible by inexpensive, lightweight cameras in the hands of private citizens, volunteer observers and the police themselves, has shifted the debate over precisely what happened on the streets during the week of the convention.

For Mr. Kyne and 400 others arrested that week, video recordings provided evidence that they had not committed a crime or that the charges against them could not be proved, according to defense lawyers and prosecutors.

Among them was Alexander Dunlop, who said he was arrested while going to pick up sushi.

Last week, he discovered that there were two versions of the same police tape: the one that was to be used as evidence in his trial had been edited at two spots, removing images that showed Mr. Dunlop behaving peacefully. When a volunteer film archivist found a more complete version of the tape and gave it to Mr. Dunlop's lawyer, prosecutors immediately dropped the charges and said that a technician had cut the material by mistake.

Seven months after the convention at Madison Square Garden, criminal charges have fallen against all but a handful of people arrested that week. Of the 1,670 cases that have run their full course, 91 percent ended with the charges dismissed or with a verdict of not guilty after trial. Many were dropped without any finding of wrongdoing, but also without any serious inquiry into the circumstances of the arrests, with the Manhattan district attorney's office agreeing that the cases should be "adjourned in contemplation of dismissal."

So far, 162 defendants have either pleaded guilty or were convicted after trial, and videotapes that bolstered the prosecution's case played a role in at least some of those cases, although prosecutors could not provide details.

Besides offering little support or actually undercutting the prosecution of most of the people arrested, the videotapes also highlight another substantial piece of the historical record: the Police Department's tactics in controlling the demonstrations, parades and rallies of hundreds of thousands of people were largely free of explicit violence.

Throughout the convention week and afterward, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that the police issued clear warnings about blocking streets or sidewalks, and that officers moved to arrest only those who defied them. In the view of many activists - and of many people who maintain that they were passers-by and were swept into dragnets indiscriminately thrown over large groups - the police strategy appeared to be designed to sweep them off the streets on technical grounds as a show of force.

"The police develop a narrative, the defendant has a different story, and the question becomes, how do you resolve it?" said Eileen Clancy, a member of I-Witness Video, a project that assembled hundreds of videotapes shot during the convention by volunteers for use by defense lawyers.

Full Article Here

I love a good police state!

[SFWanabe 0]

I dont have to worry about living in a police state because I aint islamic or anti-american. Just anti-bush......

[walker 0]

Hi all

The US economy continues the inevitable slide we all warned would happen due to the economic incompetance of the bunch NeoConMen and business failures that make up TBA.

The massive deficit leaving the USA in the hands of Chinese bankers and TBA's bankrupt economic policies along with its stupid war for oil in Iraq that has lead to soaring oil prices have cut nearly 200 points off the DOW in wall street in just 24 hours.

Quote[/b] ]Dow Sheds Nearly 200 Points

By Jerry Knight

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, April 15, 2005; 6:21 PM

Another deep decline today sank the stock market to its worst weekly loss in more than two years as Wall Street was swept by three more waves of negative news about the economy.

The output of the nation's factories fell for the first time in six months, manufacturing in bellwether New York state grew at the slowest pace in two years and consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in a year and a half, today's economic statistics showed. Those reports compounded the concerns raised earlier by weak retail sales and a growing crisis in the auto industry -- both blamed on high energy prices...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33759-2000Jun21.html

As you sow so shall you reap; vote TBA and that is what you get.

Sadly a worried Walker

[shinRaiden 0]

New York is represented by Democratic Senators Clinton and Schumer, and voted for Kerry. Their faults are fruits of their labors. Business is booming in the south where there's still a worth-ethic and pride in capitalism.

[Akira 0]

New York is represented by Democratic Senators Clinton and Schumer, and voted for Kerry. Their faults are fruits of their labors. Business is booming in the south where there's still a worth-ethic and pride in capitalism.

Oh really? Is that what the GOP from Washington state is telling you?

Well, we here in the Republican southern State Of Texas will tell you different.

EDIT:

And are you saying the Dow only represents New York?

[ralphwiggum 6]

note to shinraden: California is still the biggest state in terms of its own economy.

[shinRaiden 0]

Quote[/b] ]...manufacturing in bellwether New York state grew at the slowest pace in two years...

That's what I was referring to, Washington state is in a similar boat due to deliberately ambiguious elections casting 'managable uncertainty' as the deciding votes.

And here in Washington no things aren't going well with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, and the government looking to slap a phased in 15cent gas tax hike on $2.35 avg. prices, and a tax targeted specifically at spam (the canned meet), repeal of the death/estate tax, and more. As the state business association commented, which is better for the people, an unemployment check or a payroll check?

ELF just torched another couple homes in a new subdivision, including ironicly the home of a prominent environmental activist who was on the advisory board for the eggregious new county land use ordinance that kicks rural land owners off up to 65% of their property, but keeps 106% + "emergency raises" annual property taxes on the property.

And as for California, it was ready to be washed out to sea.

The deficit fear-mongering continues to be promulgated by those who blame Bush for nuking the Clinton "surplus". Well, it never was a legitimate surplus to begin with, and the severity of the 'recession' was the injured pride of those who refused to accept the blame for their pipe dreams and money laundering. Had it been someone like Al Gore in office he would have done everything to prop up the sham system to cover his political rear-end, or let it implode so the John Edwards' of the world could then bleed the carcass.

Here in Washington he actually have above-inflation and above-COLA growth. That's why the alleged governor hid her budget proposal for so long, so that those numbers would come in and prop up her extortion attempts for tax hikes beyond that. But the FUD machine won't tell you about the growth, they just point the the 'deficit' between the growth of reality and growth of pork, and call it a 'crisis'. It is a crisis, but one of logic and morals.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Its the Economy Stupid.

Simple matter of fact.

Check the date when stocks in US companies started to fall and what they have done ever since.

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs....sh.html

That is the stock exchange, that is your pension.

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs....sh.html

That is the tech stocks, that is your future disapearing down the drain; as TBA and the religious right are scaring off development by badmouthing science and for cutting science teaching is schools in favour of religious dogma.

Sadly Walker

[Balschoiw 0]

Another "great" US idea.

US attacks key UN anti-poverty goal

Quote[/b] ]UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States issued its strongest attack to date on Monday on a U.N. plea that rich countries likeAmerica meet a fixed global target every year for the development aid they give poor countries.

By pressing for more aid, developing nations have fallen into an "aid trap" they must escape through private investment and trade, notmore donations, said Sichan Siv, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Economic and Social Council.

While aid can help, "the world economy is driven by private finance and trade. It is time we all recognized this fact," he told a councilsession searching for strategies for meeting international development goals by 2015.

The United Nations has for a quarter of a century urged the world's fewer than two dozen rich nations to give 0.7 percent of their grossdomestic product every year in development aid for health, education and other anti-poverty programs.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has made the 0.7 percent target a centrepiece of his plan for U.N. reform, to be taken up by worldleaders at a summit in New York in September.

To date, just a few European nations, most of them in Scandinavia, meet that goal, while others including Britain and France haveagreed to set a timetable for doing so.

The United States, the world's largest economy as well as the world's largest aid donor, flatly rejects the idea of a percentage target andcurrently earmarks just 0.13 percent a year of its GDP for development aid. That figure excludes aid to Iraq and Afghanistan as well asfood aid, on which the United States says it refuses to place a monetary value.

'AID IS NOT SCARCE'

With Washington often accused of stinginess, Siv shot back, saying an aid target would add nothing to the international drive to meetdevelopment goals.

There was "plenty of evidence," he said, that a paucity of development aid was "not the most critical constraint on a nation'sdevelopment."

India and China were growing furiously while getting little aid, and even in Africa, "aid is not scarce," he said.

While development aid totals about $68 billion (42.6 billion pounds) a year, this is dwarfed by the $5.7 trillion in annual trade flows in andout of poor nations and the $92 billion a year sent back home by workers abroad, he said.

Instead of pressing for more aid, impoverished nations should foster outside investment, spur growth, build strong national institutionsand improve tax collection, he said.

What planet is he living on ? I´m sorry but I don´t know much private investors that go to a country with a civil war running to build up business there, except Halliburton maybe....

Trade ? What should they trade ? Magnok ? Starved bodies ?

Aids infected persons for medical research ?

It gets even better, when he talks of an "improved tax collection". People starve because they can´t get anything to eat as they lack money and food to buy and he talks about an "improved tax collection".

Again, what planet is he living on ?

[miles teg 1]

Its simple. In TBA world, people are poor because they are lazy. They are starving because they are sitting around waiting for a hand out. They need to get up off their asses and work. Capitalism is the only true savior. The only road to prosperity. They need to follow the example of rugged American individualism and entrepenurial spirit to come up with new forms of trade. They need to get educated like those Indians and embrace capitalism so American corporations can go find cheap labor there and help "develop" their countries with investment by building sweat shops and factories in those countries. In TBA world, it is the commie liberals who live in a fantasy land. They liberals need to get with the program and realize that America needs a cheap labor pool to fuel the growth of American corporations so that the profits will "trickle down" to hard working red blooded American patriots.

Why should Americans have to give their hard earned money to a bunch of lazy people? To make them more lazy?

If they starve its of their own making. Its population control.

It's God punishing these poor countries for being lazy by bringing AIDS upon them. That's the wrath of God on sinful lazy people committing adultry, homosexuality, and other sins before his eyes.

God bless America! We're a Christian nation and its pretty obvious because we have the world's biggest economy so God must truly favor America.

So if God's on our side, who's side are those who oppose us?

So you see, it's all very simple and stupid liberals just can't figure it out with all their naive peace and love commie athiest bullshit.

So its bleeding heart liberals who live in a fantasy world you see. THey just don't understand good Christian values but hopefully they'll open their hearts to Jesus and open their wallets to Walmart for their-in salvation lies.

Damn its fun pretending to be a self-righteous Christian conservative!

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

I can only answer with a serious comment from a different board  

Quote[/b] ]I feel sorry for such a poor diluded, confused neo-Trostskite or Neo-Maoist who claims to be an American. You view US Foreign Policy like Oliver Stone viewed SouthEast Asia or the JFK Assassination.

Your recent threat is filled with so much Trotskyite hyperbole and disinformation that You could become a propagandist like Michael Moore.

Michael Moore is the Paul Joesph Goebbels of the 21st Century.. In other words if you believe the big, chic-leftist -Anti-American lie -You will believe Your own Cable-Media and INTERNET disinformation. If you do not recognize it... We the warriors and guardians of freedom are fighting for Our national survival -it is not just OIL...

Thanks god these "poor diluded, confused neo-Trostskite or Neo-Maoist who claim to be an American" still exist in the US. They save my day!

[EiZei 0]

Thanks god these "poor diluded, confused neo-Trostskite or Neo-Maoist who claim to be an American" still exist in the US. They save my day!

Wonder if this guy even knows what maoist means, new yorkers for agarian revolution?

[miles teg 1]

AHhhhh URBAN AGRICULTURISTS!!! THE SCUM OF THE EARTH!!!

They are a bunch of tree huggers trying to waste the tax payer dollars of hard working American capitalists on stupid trees in a city.  Cities are called cities..not forests.  People can go live in the woods like hillbillys if they want to do their back to nature bullshit rather then trying to make communal gardens in inner cities that waste the time of lazy inner city people who could be working earning money (two jobs... no excuse for minimumwage workers...they need to work harder to be rich) and spending money to make America strong.  But Nooooo hippy liberals want poor people wasting their time playing with stupid fruit trees and flowers.  Bunch of commie fruits is what they are! They're just trying to undermine the American economy! That's the proof that they're commie traitors!  

I bet those Maoists New Yorker Agrarians would love to kill all the Wall Street people because they're just jealous of their success and they just hate the American way.  So ya see they are Maoists...just you wait...a liberal will shoot ya in the back..they're just waiting and planning their commie schemes in their little hippy gardens!

Damn its fun to pretend to be a hardcore American conservative capitalist.  When you view the world thru their eyes, liberals are such weak pathetic losers!

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Akira 0]

Don't think its been mentioned yet, but the Homeland Security Dept. just released its latest terrorist organization list and there are some interesting inclusions like the Earth Liberation Front and another militant animal rights group, yet the KKK and other right wing organizations failed to make that list, just left wing.

[billybob2002 0]

Don't think its been mentioned yet, but the Homeland Security Dept. just released its latest terrorist organization list and there are some interesting inclusions like the Earth Liberation Front and another militant animal rights group, yet the KKK and other right wing organizations failed to make that list, just left wing.

ELF is pretty active in destruction of property and they deny that their terrorist but they are. BTW, just because a internal memo only talks about left-wing groups does not mean right-wing groups are not being investigated. You see the groups like the KKK have been sued to death by groups like SPLC and are very weak. People who are right-wing/racists terrorist tend to be lone wolfs and hard to catch.

[Akira 0]

The memo in question addresses likely domestic terror groups and it mentions some Islamic groups and Al Queda groups in the same breath as Earth Liberation Front and animal rights activists. I found this quote relevant:

Quote[/b] ]"If your responsibility is to protect the homeland from these domestic terrorists, then you have an obligation to identify all of them -- not just some of them," Thompson said.

But I find their choice of certain enviromental and animal rights groups interesting. Are they really such a domestic threat to be listed with Al Queda? Are they more of a threat that they don't need to mention right-wing extremists? ELF may destroy construction sites that cut down trees, but is it a threat in the nature of car bombs or the like? None of ELF's or ALF's attacks have lead to deaths. Can you say that about the KKK, right wing militias and Al Queda?

[EiZei 0]

Coincidentally the 10th anniversary of oklahoma bombings was recently, wonder how much more damage right-wing/assault rifles for jesus groups have done when compared against some SUV vandalizing hippies.

[llauma 0]

The left wing groups have no political or financial power in USA so they can be listed as terrorists. The right wing groups are often strongly connected to religion so targeting them is not that easy, at least not openly. Attacking the left (enemy) has always been legitimate in USA but attacking the religious right wing groups is like attacking the foundation of USA.

[walker 0]

Hi all

The US economy continues to fall like a stone  

Quote[/b] ]Greenspan Renews Warning on Budget Deficits

By Jeannine Aversa

AP Economics Writer

Thursday, April 21, 2005; 10:52 AM

Bloated budget deficits pose a danger to the nation's long-term economic health, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned anew Thursday. He issued a fresh call to policy-makers to move swiftly to get the government's fiscal house in order.

Greenspan, in prepared testimony to the Senate Budget Committee, only very briefly touched on the economy's current performance, saying "activity appears to be expanding at a reasonably good pace," an assessment he has made repeatedly so far this year.

His comments come as some private economists are concerned about the extent to which high energy prices will crimp economic activity.

On the fiscal front, Greenspan said the persistence of swollen budget deficits in the years ahead "would cause the economy to stagnate or worse" unless the situation is reversed.

The budget deficit is a problem because it is projected to rise significantly as the first of 78 million baby boomers start to retire in 2008.

Last year, the government produced a budget deficit of $412 billion, a record in dollar terms. The deficit for this year is projected to shatter that record, coming in at an estimated $427 billion ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6620-2005Apr21.html

With US shares spending the whole of the time since TBA first gained power droping like a stone. http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs....sh.html

Peoples pensions and investments are declining as prices have begun to rocket on the increasing cost of fuel.

People need to realise the dammage that is being done to the US economy by this bunch business loosers that make up TBA.

<EDIT>

NEWS From WIKI !

Shocked and suprised to see that the USA droped to eighth this year in the list of countries of the world sorted by their Gross Domestic Product (nominal) per capita.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...._capita

This is just crazy the USA has dropped 5 places in 12 months normaly this takes decades of economic neglect.

<END EDIT>

Really worried walker