USA Politics Thread - *No gun debate*

[joltan 0]

The Raelian Revolution, the world's largest Atheist, non-profit UFO related organisation - over 60,000 members in 90 countries - working towards the first embassy to welcome people from space... destroying the myth of god and sweeping the world with the most politically incorrect and fearlessly individualistic philosophy of non-conformism

What's so different from believing some aliens created us to believing god did? Do they have more prove than religion? Pffft... They're not even atheists as they just believe in some other kind of 'higher entity' that created us.

[billybob2002 0]

Butt pirates against Bush... I think Bush would be happy that butt pirates are against him..

[SpongeBob 0]

From the Raelian site: (www.rael.org)

The Raëlian Movement answers this need through values which are perfectly in tune with the 21st century; accepting divorce, contraception, abortion, assisted suicide for the terminally ill, acceptance of personal sexuality and relationship choices, and marriages for male and female priests.

Hmmm, if they're "athiests", why do they care about if male and female priests get married?

[DracoPaladore 0]

 The president only gives the order for war.  People shouldn't be angry at him.  They should be angry at the strategist behind the war.  The head of Central Intelligence.  Those are the ones that Canada should be angry at.  They act like they don't even know how American government is run.  The president only gives the order to do something about it, he doesn't say how to operate.  They told him there were nukes, notice the word they.  They told him it was the end to major combat operations.  I feel that it was democratic party sympathisers trying to make Bush look bad or something.

The Canadians feel a need to protest, as do many other nations Bush has visited. It is more than war, actually. Beef, lumber, a couple other trades have been halted at the border.

Bush gave the order to attack, he told the people that there were things there. If I remember, the President is the one who makes the final decision to attack a country.

And they're not all Democratic party members. There are Liberals, Quebecois, New Democratic, Progressive Conservative, and Alliance members there. Not to mention the ones without seats in the Parliment (Green party, Western Canada Concept, Natural Law, Canada Action Party, Christian Heritage Party, Communist part of Canada(2 different ones, actually), Libertarian Party, and Canadian National alliance)

I know because a few coworkers, friends, and family friends of different cultures and parties were there to protest. And while I'm sure most of the members of different parties listed above were there, wether or not you're angry at the President isn't dictated by what party you follow. Not to mention its the President coming up to your country, so this will be really their only chance to protest the war. Otherwise, stomping around on Parliment is useless if we're not in it.

[Donnervogel 0]

What I find amusing is that the page where these pictures are on does exactly the same kind of one sided propaganda it accuses the people on the pics of ;)

[DracoPaladore 0]

What I find amusing is that the page where these pictures are on does exactly the same kind of one sided propaganda it accuses the people on the pics of  ;)

Tis' the way the world works.

[theavonlady 2]

What I find amusing is that the page where these pictures are on does exactly the same kind of one sided propaganda it accuses the people on the pics of  ;)

Go ahead and point it out.

[Tovarish 0]

What I find amusing is that the page where these pictures are on does exactly the same kind of one sided propaganda it accuses the people on the pics of  ;)

Go ahead and point it out.

-"Animal Abuse"

-"Pro-Americans, finally some normal people"

-Linking depictions of George as a monkey to excerps from the Koran....and then going on about the conspiracy theorists in the crowd....bit of pot and kettle there.

-"More America supporters. With 2000 idiots in the background"

-his "50% of the signs had nazi imagery" statement is crap

-Even feels the need to dismiss Communists as Stalinists, when most communists denounced Stalin after his death

[billybob2002 0]

Does mein furhor have to request the Alabama's Wilcox County Gun Club to invade and successfully take over Canada? Seriously, every nation has its retarded people (i.e. Bush=Hitler folks)....Canada is included!

[DracoPaladore 0]

Quote[/b] ]Even feels the need to dismiss Communists as Stalinists

There are actually two Communist parties. One that I really don't remember anything about, and the other that follows Marxism. But I wouldn't be surprised if one was Stalinist.

[EiZei 0]

Quote[/b] ]Even feels the need to dismiss Communists as Stalinists

There are actually two Communist parties. One that I really don't remember anything about, and the other that follows Marxism. But I wouldn't be surprised if one was Stalinist.

There were trotskyists and marxists and eventually the trotskyists started called marxists stalinists because they thought the things going in the soviet union was not genuine communism.

[ralphwiggum 6]

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/3966010/detail.html

Quote[/b] ]LOS ANGELES -- Kenneth Starr says he never should have led the investigation that resulted in the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.

The former independent counsel, now dean of the Pepperdine University law school, says "the most fundamental thing that could have been done differently" was for somebody else to have investigated Clinton's statements under oath denying he had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Starr said his role in a yearslong investigation of Clinton should have focused instead on Clinton's role in the failed Arkansas land deal known as Whitewater.

"There was a sense on the part of the country that my (Lewinsky) effort was an effort somehow to expand the (Whitewater) investigation, when it was separate," he told the Santa Barbara News-Press following a speech on Wednesday.

Clinton has accused Starr of running a partisan, Republican effort to ruin his presidency. Starr, however, defended the integrity of the investigation.

"It reinforced the proposition that all of us are subject to the law, no matter how high our station," he said. "The facts are the facts."

At his 1999 impeachment trial, Clinton was acquitted by the Senate of perjury and obstruction of justice. The Whitewater case ended with the conviction of Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and two of Clinton's former business partners for fraud and conspiracy. Clinton was never charged.

gee, isn't it a little late to say that?

goes to show that indeed they were more interested in hurting

Clintont than investigation.

[billybob2002 0]

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/3966010/detail.html

Quote[/b] ]LOS ANGELES -- Kenneth Starr says he never should have led the investigation that resulted in the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.

The former independent counsel, now dean of the Pepperdine University law school, says "the most fundamental thing that could have been done differently" was for somebody else to have investigated Clinton's statements under oath denying he had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Starr said his role in a yearslong investigation of Clinton should have focused instead on Clinton's role in the failed Arkansas land deal known as Whitewater.

"There was a sense on the part of the country that my (Lewinsky) effort was an effort somehow to expand the (Whitewater) investigation, when it was separate," he told the Santa Barbara News-Press following a speech on Wednesday.

Clinton has accused Starr of running a partisan, Republican effort to ruin his presidency. Starr, however, defended the integrity of the investigation.

"It reinforced the proposition that all of us are subject to the law, no matter how high our station," he said. "The facts are the facts."

At his 1999 impeachment trial, Clinton was acquitted by the Senate of perjury and obstruction of justice. The Whitewater case ended with the conviction of Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and two of Clinton's former business partners for fraud and conspiracy. Clinton was never charged.

gee, isn't it a little late to say that?

goes to show that indeed they were more interested in hurting

Clintont than investigation.

Repubs. should of looked at the Marc Rich pardon...

[BoweryBaker 0]

No, what I'm saying is I think Bush was manipulated, possibly by the democratic party. Granted the threat was real though, so they're off the hook. Now the argument lies in how much of a threat it was.

[theavonlady 2]

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/3966010/detail.html

Quote[/b] ]LOS ANGELES -- Kenneth Starr says he never should have led the investigation that resulted in the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.

The former independent counsel, now dean of the Pepperdine University law school, says "the most fundamental thing that could have been done differently" was for somebody else to have investigated Clinton's statements under oath denying he had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Starr said his role in a yearslong investigation of Clinton should have focused instead on Clinton's role in the failed Arkansas land deal known as Whitewater.

"There was a sense on the part of the country that my (Lewinsky) effort was an effort somehow to expand the (Whitewater) investigation, when it was separate," he told the Santa Barbara News-Press following a speech on Wednesday.

Clinton has accused Starr of running a partisan, Republican effort to ruin his presidency. Starr, however, defended the integrity of the investigation.

"It reinforced the proposition that all of us are subject to the law, no matter how high our station," he said. "The facts are the facts."

At his 1999 impeachment trial, Clinton was acquitted by the Senate of perjury and obstruction of justice. The Whitewater case ended with the conviction of Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and two of Clinton's former business partners for fraud and conspiracy. Clinton was never charged.

gee, isn't it a little late to say that?

goes to show that indeed they were more interested in hurting

Clintont than investigation.

Repubs. should of looked at the Marc Rich pardon...

Funny you should mention Rich. Actually, it's not.

Quote[/b] ]Americans' Role Eyed in U.N. Oil Scandal

Were American Oil Brokers Involved in Iraq Oil Kickback Schemes?

By BRIAN ROSS and RHONDA SCHWARTZ

Dec. 1, 2004 - Former American fugitive Marc Rich was a middleman for several of Iraq's suspect oil deals in February 2001, just one month after his pardon from President Clinton, according to oil industry shipping records obtained by ABC News.

And a U.S. criminal investigation is looking into whether Rich, as well as several other prominent oil traders, made illegal payments to Iraq in order to obtain the lucrative oil contracts.

"Without that kind of middleman, the system would not work because the major oil companies did not want to deal with Iraq because there was a mandated kickback," said human rights investigator John Fawcett.

Another broker was New York oil trader Ben Pollner, head of Taurus Oil, who investigators say handled several billion dollars worth of the transactions now under investigation.

Pollner told ABC News he paid no bribes or kickbacks to the Iraqi regime.

Rich is still living in Switzerland and unavailable for comment.

The roles of several American oil companies, including ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil, are also under investigation. ChevronTexaco received subpoenas requesting information for two separate grand jury proceedings, and said they were cooperating fully with both investigations.

The U.N. oil-for-food corruption scandal only continues to grow in scope. Today, Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who is leading the congressional investigation into the program, said that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan should resign because the scandal occurred on his watch.

"I think there's a terrible stain on the credibility and the reputation of the United Nations, there's no doubt about that," said Coleman. "If we're ever to get to the bottom, how can you get there if the guy who was in charge during the course of this fraud and corruption is the guy now who is supposed to be ferreting it out?"

Top officials of the United Nations, including Annan, are accused of looking the other way as some $21 billion meant for humanitarian aid was stolen by the Saddam Hussein regime.

Uncovered in the federal criminal investigation were previously undisclosed payments to Annan's son, Kojo, from his employer Cotecna. The Swiss company had been specifically hired to monitor the oil-for-food program.

Annan's son left the company in 1998 but received payments until this year.

Secretary-general since 1997, Annan said this week he was unaware of the payments. "Naturally I was very disappointed and surprised, yes," he said.

Also under criminal investigation is the U.N. official Annan put in charge of the program, Benon Sevan.

Documents discovered by U.S. forces in Iraq suggest Sevan received payments in the form of oil contacts from the Hussein regime, although Sevan has denied any wrongdoing.

[denoir 0]

US rules out joining Kyoto treaty [bBC]

Quote[/b] ]

The US has told a UN conference on global warming that it has no intention of re-joining international efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The chief American negotiator at the conference in Argentina's capital Buenos Aires ruled out any move to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol for years.

He told reporters that efforts to cut emissions were based on bad science.

The US was focused instead, he said, on implementing President George W Bush's plans to promote energy efficiency.

At the beginning of this year's conference on global warming, the head of the Climate Change Convention had seemed to be offering an opening to the US.

Olive Branch

It was suggested that in the next phase of action after 2012, countries might be able to pursue different routes towards a similar end.

The US mantra has been that it is committed to addressing climate change but has simply chosen a different path. But if it was an olive branch, the US has brushed it aside. Harlan Watson, who is leading the American delegation, told a news conference that this was not the moment for the US to reassess its policies.

Scathing judgement

He said US President George W Bush had a 10-year programme to reduce the carbon intensity of the US economy by 18% by 2012.

The government was totally committed to carrying out the programme and wanted to wait to see the results, he said. But Mr Watson admitted that even if the US achieved its target, it would still be producing 15-16% more greenhouse gases while the rest of the industrialised world was committed to an absolute reduction. He was scathing about the way the rest of the world was approaching climate change, arguing that the Kyoto agreement was a political document and not based on sound science.

Mr Watson said the protocol was more about being seen to agree than about actual action. He challenged any of the Kyoto parties to match the US in the practical steps it was undertaking.

The really sad part about this isn't the US refusal, but the rest of the world's inability of doing anything about the refusal.

Ideally in international context it would be quite simple: An overwhelming majority of the world's nations agree that the Kyoto agreement is a global necessity. The response to America should simply be: Fine, we can't force you to join. Instead we'll impose tarrifs on US goods equivalent to the amount it costs to elsewhere reduce the amount of green house gases that the US was supposed to.

Unfortunately the WTO is more or less completely decoupled from the UN so there is no single international institution that has the authority or interest of dealing with environmentally motivated trade restrictions. Furthermore, as long as we have the security council with veto-empowered members, the whole thing can be at least stalled indefinitely.

What we need is to radically reform the UN. Today it reflects a post-WW2 political and military balance that is seriously outdated. We need to get rid of the security council and replace it with a political organ where all the countries are represented, weighted by their population size (or possibly by size of their contributions to the global economy - at least to start with until we get a more homogenous wealth distribution in the world). The UN needs to merge with the WTO. Today power is much more an issue of trade and economics than of politics and military power.

[billybob2002 0]

US rules out joining Kyoto treaty [bBC]

Quote[/b] ]

The US has told a UN conference on global warming that it has no intention of re-joining international efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The chief American negotiator at the conference in Argentina's capital Buenos Aires ruled out any move to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol for years.

He told reporters that efforts to cut emissions were based on bad science.

The US was focused instead, he said, on implementing President George W Bush's plans to promote energy efficiency.

At the beginning of this year's conference on global warming, the head of the Climate Change Convention had seemed to be offering an opening to the US.

Olive Branch

It was suggested that in the next phase of action after 2012, countries might be able to pursue different routes towards a similar end.

The US mantra has been that it is committed to addressing climate change but has simply chosen a different path. But if it was an olive branch, the US has brushed it aside. Harlan Watson, who is leading the American delegation, told a news conference that this was not the moment for the US to reassess its policies.

Scathing judgement

He said US President George W Bush had a 10-year programme to reduce the carbon intensity of the US economy by 18% by 2012.

The government was totally committed to carrying out the programme and wanted to wait to see the results, he said. But Mr Watson admitted that even if the US achieved its target, it would still be producing 15-16% more greenhouse gases while the rest of the industrialised world was committed to an absolute reduction. He was scathing about the way the rest of the world was approaching climate change, arguing that the Kyoto agreement was a political document and not based on sound science.

Mr Watson said the protocol was more about being seen to agree than about actual action. He challenged any of the Kyoto parties to match the US in the practical steps it was undertaking.

The really sad part about this isn't the US refusal, but the rest of the world's inability of doing anything about the refusal.

Ideally in international context it would be quite simple: An overwhelming majority of the world's nations agree that the Kyoto agreement is a global necessity. The response to America should simply be: Fine, we can't force you to join. Instead we'll impose tarrifs on US goods equivalent to the amount it costs to elsewhere reduce the amount of green house gases that the US was supposed to.

Unfortunately the WTO is more or less completely decoupled from the UN so there is no single international institution that has the authority or interest of dealing with environmentally motivated trade restrictions. Furthermore, as long as we have the security council with veto-empowered members, the whole thing can be at least stalled indefinitely.

What we need is to radically reform the UN. Today it reflects a post-WW2 political and military balance that is seriously outdated. We need to get rid of the security council and replace it with a political organ where all the countries are represented, weighted by their population size (or possibly by size of their contributions to the global economy - at least to start with until we get a more homogenous wealth distribution in the world). The UN needs to merge with the WTO. Today power is much more an issue of trade and economics than of politics and military power.

I was shocked that my environmental ecology professor and TA (working on a PhD) were against Kyoto. I totally forgot about the reasons why but they did make sense (it was a few weeks ago)....something about being too much political BS and complicated (with examples)...

BTW, you are a poster boy on why people voted for Bush or somebody else and not Kerry dealing with foreign politics. Get over it, America will never become socialist (or the whole world for that matter). Anyway, US products will soon flood the European market like Chinese did to American...

[EiZei 0]

Anyway, US products will soon flood the European market like Chinese did to American...

Hooray for cheap labour?

[billybob2002 0]

Anyway, US products will soon flood the European market like Chinese did to American...

Hooray for cheap labour?

Weak dollar means that it would help kill Europe's export market and in turn, create more profits from the Euro for American exports to Europe.... you are going to be flooded with "cheap" made in the US products..

[EiZei 0]

Anyway, US products will soon flood the European market like Chinese did to American...

Hooray for cheap labour?

Weak dollar means that it would help kill Europe's export market and in turn, create more profits from the Euro for American exports to Europe.... you are going to be flooded with "cheap" made in the US products..

Considering that you are turning into a nation of uneducated burger flippers I find that hard to believe. You import more than you export.

What would you export? You seem to be outsourcing just about everything and we definetly dont have a need for oversized gasoline wasters.

[billybob2002 0]

Anyway, US products will soon flood the European market like Chinese did to American...

Hooray for cheap labour?

Weak dollar means that it would help kill Europe's export market and in turn, create more profits from the Euro for American exports to Europe.... you are going to be flooded with "cheap" made in the US products..  

Considering that you are turning into a nation of uneducated burger flippers I find that hard to believe. You import more than you export.

What would you export? You seem to be outsourcing just about everything and we definetly dont have a need for oversized gasoline wasters.

If you believe that, tell that to your EU leaders. They are the ones that seem worried about EU export industry...not you. US companies (cannot name off the top of my head) that do business in Europe have seen profit increases. It seems Europe has its share of the uneducated...

Weak dollar=bad for EU export industry

Strong Euro=good for US companies that do business in EU

Saying that, I do not believe in a very strong euro....

[EiZei 0]

If you believe that, tell that to your EU leaders. They are the ones that seem worried about EU export industry...not you.

And where does it say so? Or are you equaling "please stop raping your own economy" with "we are fucked"?

Like I said before, you import more than export, we are talking about a >500 billion dollar difference here.

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]I totally forgot about the reasons why but they did make sense (it was a few weeks ago)....something about being too much political BS and complicated (with examples)...

Quote[/b] ]US companies (cannot name off the top of my head) that do business ...

Tell me. Do these things just happen in your head? What is the point of posting "I forgot but trust me on this" type posts? Maybe you should come back when you actually do have something concrete and provable (or in the case of your teacher just what he said) so that we can have a little more to talk about other than what you think you might have at some point in the past heard?

Quote[/b] ]The really sad part about this isn't the US refusal...

Can't really be a surprise with George "Ain't No Global Warming" Bush still in office.

Quote[/b] ]Get over it, America will never become socialist

Whats socialism have to do with it? If socialism is being more responsible in the world we share (not own) than maybe the US needs a hefty dose of socialism.

Quote[/b] ]Saying that, I do not believe in a very strong euro....

So what. What ever you may "believe" the fact is the dollar continues to slide against the Euro and has been for the last few years.

It appears that everything you have to say has absolutely no basis in reality (or at least any reality that you can but quantitative proof to).

[red oct 2]

a weak dollar isn't (from what i understood at least) all benifitting, sure it might have some perks here and there, but i wouldn't hold my breath on it being the solution to our problems. the only country that really seems to benifit from a weak dollar is China apparently. the E.U. won't benifit from it. though i figure they might have a plan to somehow get around this obstical.

Why the weak dollar might not be good for the EU

this is a aljazeera site so i dunno how credible this is. we'll have to get are self appointed economist Denior in on this.

Why a weak dollar wouldn't be good for the U.S.

heres a little quote for you Billybob

Quote[/b] ]"The day will come when foreign investors simply say no" to buying U.S. investments without getting a better return, said Stephen Roach, economist with the Morgan Stanley investment firm. "That's when the dollar collapses, U.S. interest rates soar and the stock market plunges. Under such a crisis scenario, a U.S. recession would be all but inevitable."

Ed Keon, chief investment strategist at Prudential Equity Group, said that, although such a worst-case scenario is unlikely in today's global economy, it remains possible. He noted that over the past 30 years, inflation has picked up each time the dollar was weak, sometimes by a substantial amount.

"There are a lot more things to be worried about than to get excited about," Keon said. "This unlikely but distinct possibility of the sudden decline of the dollar is one of the things I worry about."

Some U.S. companies are cheering the decline, saying it could make their goods seem cheaper in foreign markets, which theoretically would help boost exports.

But economists say that, for the average consumer, the decline could mean lower values for their investments, higher prices on imported goods and greater costs for foreign travel. And some warn about worst-case scenarios, in which a sharp decline in the dollar leads to an equally sharp spike in inflation, which would boost interest rates and erode home values.

"Foreign investors are going to start saying that, if the value of the dollar is so low, they have to be compensated by having higher interest rates on their investments here," said Keitaro Matsuda, economist for Union Bank in San Francisco. "As the long-term interest rate rises, it will knock the air out of the housing market. And if people start to lose the equity in their homes, you can't imagine the devastating impact it might have."

[denoir 0]

I was shocked that my environmental ecology professor and TA (working on a PhD) were against Kyoto. I totally forgot about the reasons why but they did make sense (it was a few weeks ago)....something about being too much political BS and complicated (with examples)...

Oh, well, gee... that makes all the difference, a professor without a PhD in bumfuck Alabama thinks it is bad because of reasons you can't remember. How foolish of me to believe the world's top climatologists could be right on this one.

Of course it's a huge political dimension to it. It is a formal declaration that the environment is a global problem and not a national one.

Quote[/b] ]BTW, you are a poster boy on why people voted for Bush or somebody else and not Kerry dealing with foreign politics.

Probabliy yes, but you have to realize that there are two sides of it. Your fuck-all attitude towards the world is the reason why you got people flying planes into your buildings and why America is an object of hate around the world.

And it's not going to get better. The nation state is dying - globalization is taking over both economically and politically. As long as you refuse to accept it, the more it will cost you.

The reason why you have been allowed to for so long practice 100% American-centric relations with other countries was because of your military and economic strenght. With the fall of the Soviet union, the military factor became more or less irrelevant. And you're no longer the biggest economy in the world - the EU is (with China rapidly catching up).

Bottom line is that unless you wish to be decimated economically and politically, you have to play ball with the world. It will hurt your national ego, but that's a fairly small price to pay - compared to the alternative.

These are not dramatic or radical changes that are needed - and as I saw during your elections this year, a large part of America gets it.

Quote[/b] ]Get over it, America will never become socialist (or the whole world for that matter).

Socialist? Who said anything about Socialism? On the contrary, I'm saying that we're going away from ideology driven politics to a much more pragmatic trade driven.

Quote[/b] ]Weak dollar means that it would help kill Europe's export market and in turn, create more profits from the Euro for American exports to Europe.... you are going to be flooded with "cheap" made in the US products.

Perhaps, but you have to admit that it's kind of a self-defeating economic concept to turn your country into a third-world economy so that you can increase your exports. It's kind of the same logic as to jump off a cliff so that you can take advantage of your medical insurance.

The reason for this development is because the US thinks, as the US Treasury Secretary John Snow said - that the US deficit is as much a European problem as it is American (funny, don't you think - now we're suddenly all in it together).

This is nothing short of blackmail, but a very unusal form of it. Basically the US is threatening to commit economic suicide, unless Europe comes and bails it out. This poses a dilemma for Europe. In one way, the blackmail certainly works as the US is EU's primary trading partner while at the same time the whole concept of us payning for your irresponsible spending is fairly absurd.

Basically, America is looking for some form of global-level wellfare. That the world (specifically Europe) solves your deficit problems. Which again brings us back to your other international comittments. While if we were on better terms, we might have even done it without hesitation. Given however that you'll most likely spend the money we give you on stuff we don't like and that you'll continue ignoring your international responsibilities, chances are we won't be giving you any money any time soon.

Quote[/b] ]Saying that, I do not believe in a very strong euro....

That's one of the few things we agree on.

I think that ultimately a very weak US economy is not good for Europe in the long run. I'd ideally like to see a 1:1 ratio between the dollar and the euro.

Unfortunately right now it seams that a 2:1 ratio is more likely, given the current trends.