Hayden? We’re actually considering Haydon to head our secret intelligence service? No way!
Sure, there was none better at humint, and we need that sort of thing these days. But what is that beside the fact that we’ve known ever since the ’70s that Haydon was the mole Gerald, the most
famous double-crossing traitor in spy literature?
Are we to supposed to think it’s someone else because of a slight change in the spelling of his name?
George Smiley, sure. Toby Esterhase, maybe. Even that pipe-smoking Alleline would be more trustworthy, though he’s an idiot. Peter Guillam probably has the seniority by now.
But Hayden? What kind of Circus are we running around here?
Related Posts
I thought he had a masterful turn as Red Foreman on That 70’s Show, and until now, I had wondered what would be his future employ after the recent end run of that series.
It’s interesting to read the “spin” the
ranking Republican senator on the Intelligence Committee (Wayne Allard, Colorado) put out to try and minimize the invasiveness of the telephone record data mining project.
“Telephone customers’ names, addresses and other personal information have not been handed over to NSA as part of this program,” Allard said.
That may be technically true, but wouldn’t you assume the NSA would have access to other databases, for instance, the CD’s you can buy at Best Buy that have 100,000,000 telephone numbers and associated names, where they could link the data from ATT and others to the names and locations of the callers?
The question the press should be asking is:
“Does the NSA link the results of its telephone call data mining analysis to phone numbers of U.S. citizens without their knowledge?”
It just keeps getting worse and worse for
Bush.
Okay, so let me get this straight: You, Doug, are comfortable with large corporations maintaining your call records, but not okay with the NSA running those records against a database to make sure that you aren’t calling Osama and Iran every Tuesday. Where is all of this fear coming from? This isn’t big brother. Why do people suddenly feel like anything that they don’t do in the middle of an intersection is somehow legally privileged? Maybe we can stop the hysteria, and allow the government to try to do something to stop terrorists. Wouldn’t that be nice? Maybe Howard Dean, the Kennedy’s and Doug can put political disagreements aside long enough to allow the government to do something. Doug, I have a question for you: What do you propose we do to stop terrorists? If everything that Bush does is bad, I assume that you would have an alternate plan.
Nathan,
I propose the government be truthful about the programs they have in place to mine large amounts of private data. Are you that naive to believe that terrorists are calling Osama on their cellphones? The problem with these types of programs is that the data can be used for ANY purpose. Once the database exists, all sorts of “applications” unrelated to terrorist activity could be implemented. It’s the slippery slope of giving up our civil liberties inch by inch that concerns me. If you’re comfortable with it, great.
Pretty sad that you think you have to somehow link me with Howard Dean, Kennedy, etc. in order to try and make your case.
What does my thinking Bush is a lousy president have to do with them?
Let’s see — an alternate plan. Hey, how about we take about 50,000 of our troops out
of Iraq and put them on the ground in Afghanistan or Pakistan searching for Bin Laden. Maybe that might have a better chance than waiting for Muhammad to call Osama on his cell saying “Wassupppp!!!”.
Or maybe you think we should try and intercept a terrorist text messaging Bin laden: “OMG, OSAMA! U R D BOMB! ROTFL!
G2G — CIA COMING! BRB!”
Keep those blinders on, Nathan. You’ve still got 29% of the country that still agrees with you that Bush is awesome.
The reality is that the phone records have been available to the government since 1970, when every call record was kept for 24 hours, in case the police needed to know who called whom, which was legal information without any warrant.
The only diffence today is that computers are more powerful, with unlimited storage, allowing them to store years of phone call records.
Under this administration, the focus has been on legal records and on terrorists. Under Clinton, the focus was on tracking gun owners, bank transactions, and political opponents, which were illegal spying activities. John Ashcroft put a stop to all that.
Below is a poignant essay by Mike Avey on the Fourth Amendment. Mike is now deceased.
ON THE 4TH AMENDMENT :
30 years ago the government was regularly being required to show that it had good reason to suspect a person of a crime in order to search or stop him or her. Police could not search cars they pulled over for traffic stops. They could not go through people’s stuff unless those people had abandoned it or they had evidence of a crime that may be solved by invading a person’s space.
The concept was simple. The 4th amendment was written to prevent ‘General Searches’.
General searches are searches in which a particular criminal event is not suspected, but rather the police search and surveil people to catch them committing crimes. Crimes they have no evidence ever happened are the matter being hunted.
In a free society (in which liberty is respected and privacy recognized) the government hunts for the criminal that committed a crime. In an authoritarian society the police target people and try to catch them committing crimes.
The 4th amendment is the key amendment in the prevention of governmental tyranny. The 4th was put in the Bill of Rights to prevent the kind of behavior the British troops were doing to prevent smuggling. They conducted general searches, searching any house they wanted to without having any evidence of a crime. This way the colonists could be instilled with fear of being caught with smuggled merchandise, allowing the British to take steps against smuggling without having the ability to stop or catch ships actually engaged in the act of smuggling. By disregarding the requirement of evidence of a crime the British were using the fear of personal invasion by the government as their social policy.
The people writing the Bill of Rights wanted to prevent the government from using the intimidation of the population as an alternative to capturing the person suspected of committing a crime. Now the drug war has virtually destroyed the protection of our liberty. I think that it has become impossible to even teach schoolchildren what living in a free country is like, certainly impossible to teach them of the meaning of the 4th amendment. Their space can be and is regularly violated without any reasonable suspicion. They are subject to constant police surveillance, they are searched by dogs, their territory (lockers) are always open to the totalitarian governmental school system in its police (state) function.
You could not create a more direct or blatant method to train people to accept a police state. Start in elementary school and show them by daily action that the Bill of Rights does not really mean what it says. Instead it means that the government gets access to everything, targets people it does not like and uses police state tactics to produce the end desired by the small group with power.
I talk to young people regularly and each year it gets worse. Now almost every one of them has directly experienced a general search, they have been treated as a suspect without any evidence that a crime has even been committed. In my experience most of the people under 30 years old do not have any idea what living in a free country entails. In another two generations there will be no one to even notice, 1984 was just a few generations off.
As to specific cases, Nixon put a bunch of judges on the Supreme Court whose task was to relax restrictions on police power. These were reinforced by others appointed by Reagan, Bush and Clinton. It is not just one case that destroys the 4th amendment. Almost every 4th amendment case of the last 30 years has reduced our freedom and empowered a growing police state.
As to the issue of arrests for traffic violations, several times now the Supreme Court has looked at this issue and completely ignored the thousands of people across the country are being arrested each year just to conduct a legal search of people’s property. The courts allow search after arrest so the baby police state begins unnecessarily arresting people so they can search their cars without having the evidence thrown out of court. This is just the extra boost on top of the universal use of intimidation to pretend that people have voluntarily given up their 4th amendment rights.
Mike Avey
Professor of Political Science
Lander University
Let’s not forget another trait of a corporate state. Do you see the relationship?
The Welfare Kings
Dean Baker
May 10, 2006
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer.
“At a time when tens of millions of workers are struggling to pay for gas for their car, electricity for their home, and medical care for their families, the Republicans have stepped forward with a plan to help. They want to give another $20 to $30 billion in tax cuts to the rich.
This temporary assistance to the needy rich (TANR) takes the form of a 2-year extension of a tax cut that made the maximum tax rate on stock dividends and capital gain income 15 percent. While tens of millions of ordinary workers pay income tax rates of 25 percent on their wages, the Republicans argue that Bill Gates and his billionaire friends shouldn’t have to pay taxes at more than a 15 percent rate. Most of this tax break goes to the richest 1 percent of the population. This is because they hold most of the country’s stock—and even when middle income people hold stock, it is usually in retirement accounts, which are not affected by this tax cut.”
Doug, by including your fellow left-wingers, I aim to point out that I haven’t heard a solution from any of you. But, if I understand your “plan” right, we are going to turn over Iraq to the terrorists (plural) so that we can find the terrorist leader (singular). I’m sure that if we kill Osama that the rest of Al Queda will probably just pack up and go home. Or maybe not.
Osama has to be caught, there is no doubt about that. But, if you think that killing him is going to end terrorism, well, we have a problem here. For whatever reason the left has been fixated on killing Osama while Bush has been taking a more complete view of terrorism. (And then they call HIM simple-minded.) Osama isn’t the only terrorist in the world and when we kill him someone else will step up to take his place. Unless we also fight those who aid and abet terrorist (you know, like Sadaam), then we are going to lose this war against terrorism.
One more point, I would be described by my friends as distrustful of government. I don’t want secret police searching my stuff any more than the next guy. The program in place no more violates your privacy than Cingular analyzing your calls to figure out which plan they should offer you. If anyone comes out and shows that Bush has been using this program to find out how often Cindy Sheehan and Howard Dean talk, then I will be on your side. Until then, this is a war against people who want to kill all of us. Maybe we should let the military and intelligence agencies do thier job.
Everyone on the right seems obsessed over the whole terrorist issue. Let’s put this into perspective. In 2001 about 90,000 persons died as the result of careless medical practices, 40,000 died in car crashes, nearly half of which were alcohol related. There were about 15,000 people murdered and 25,000 committed suicide. And of course we have the hundreds of thousands who died from diseases of all sorts. And then there were the 3,000 tragic deaths at the hands of the terrorists on 9-11. Aside from that tragic day very few Americans have died as the result of terrorism. Nearly as many Americans have died in Iraq and Afghanistan trying to prevent another attack.
Without a doubt terrorism is a serious problem in the world today. But the stark reality is that we are much more likely to die from something else. Yet we pour enormous resources into the fight against terrorism all out of proportion to the actual threat. Hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of lives, endless discussions on political talk shows. And above all else we are now being asked to give up our constitutional freedoms!
Enough is enough. Lets use our resources to improve our intelligence capabilities and go after terrorists when necessary, but we need to remember there are other, critical problems that need to be addressed. Imagine if a politician suggested we build a database from telephone records in order to identify and apprehend drunk drivers. Phone calls to the liquor store or the local bar would be subject to intense scrutiny. Links to known drunk drivers would suddenly become a source of great interest to the authorities. People would be outraged, because at one time they may have had a bit too much to drink, and would suddenly see a threat to their privacy.
We will probably never end terrorism but we can make a real difference without giving up our important, hard-earned rights as Americans. This was demonstrated during the Clinton years when the millineum attacks were prevented. This was done with hard work within the intelligence community along with cooperation with other nations. Yes, we need to go after the terrorists but lets not forget the other serious problems we have. And let us never give up our rights.
Nathan,
By lumping me in with “fellow leftists” you lose all credibility. My politics would best be described as Libertarian. I believe in the smallest possible government. I believe the problems of this country are the result of people on both sides using the government as either a tool or a crutch.
I choose to use a term coined by Mario Cuoumo (yeah, I know he’s a Democrat
to describe my politics: progressive pragmatist. I don’t have to check with my party leaders to decide if something is right or wrong. I can determine George Bush’s competency based on facts, not by waiting for Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity to tell me what to think.
I’ve voted for and donated money to politicians from both parties when I’ve
felt they had a chance to bring positive change to this country… I’ve donated to
McCain, Steve Forbes, John Edwards (read his book “Four Trials” sometime), Wes Clark. I’m desperately hoping for a third party candidate to emerge in 2008. Maybe Colin Powell will follow his conscience and repudiate the Bush debacle of the past six years.
You ought to try objectivity some time – it’s very refreshing.
I am interested to see how the right will respond to the phone call database should a democrat win in 2008. Imagine being able to track all the times Ralph Reed and Tom DeLay called Jack Abramhoff. Sweet! Now that will serve the country well.
Doug,
You nailed it. Pragmatism should guide us always. If the government can do something best, let them do it. It’s hard to imagine fighting the nazis without a hands-on approach by the Federal Government. If not, let the free market forces work. I believe the market can largely guide our energy decisions. Some minor government tweeking may be necessary, but let’s allow the oil companies large latitude to set prices as they see fit and use the profits accordingly. All this whining about high gasoline prices. It’s been coming for at least 30 years. Cope with it. Of course we shouldn’t be subsidizing the oil companies.
That sounds pretty conservative/libertarian and I’m usually accused of being a flaming liberal. On national security issues I think the government should have a large roll, but not at the expense of our liberties. And certainly not by starting and then continuing a very expensive war that is probably not adding much to our security.
As for a third party, how about the American Pragmatists for People believing in Libertarian Egalitarianism. The APPLE party. Just so long as we don’t try to sell music I think we’ll be ok.
The last post should been from Bud, not Doug.
What else can the left disclose to terrorists to weaken the defense of our nation and make all of us as citizens more vulnerable? If the liberal media could tip off Zarqawi to US troop movements, they would put it on the front page. Wasn’t it the late Peter Jennings who said journalists should not take either side in a war. The enemy within.
Dave,
Do you really believe what you just posted (concerning the “liberal” media) or are you trying to make some type of point? Let’s turn this around and discuss a liberal issue, drunk driving. Let’s suppose we’re debating a bill that would allow police to confiscate the vehicle of any driver convicted of drunk driving. Further, let’s say a conservative lawmaker objects for reasons related to limiting the governments intrusion into personal affairs, suggesting the measure would not make our highways safer. Would it be fair to accuse the right in this way: “What else can the right do to weaken our defence against the highway terrorists who are slaughtering innocent Americans by the thousands every year?” It’s clear to me that both sides are acting in good faith yet the left accuses the right of codling “terrorists”.
Bud, Reporters are going to find out about classified information intentionally or inadvertently. A reporter, and then on up the media chain to the leadership of the paper, have a decision to make. If the information is published will it hurt national security or put soldier’s into undue risk? When the answer is yes to either one and they publish anyway, it is traitorous behavior. Several of the “legacy” papers have routinely made the decision to expose top secret information. The question is why? The only answer I see is to damage the adminstration regardless of the impact on the war effort or troops. Do you remember Newsweek printing the false story of the Koran being flushed down the toilet at Guantanamo? Complete falsehood yet a number of people were killed over the reporting of that hoax. What we are seeing now is leftist sympathizers who work in the CIA and NSA sneaking secret information out to a willing media to score more hits on the administration. The recent traitor Mary McCarthy is a case in point. This didn’t happen in WW2 because the leaker would have faced death. Now the anti-American media celebrates the leakers. Papers make decisions every day on what to print or not print. Remember recently when The State would not print the Islamic cartoons? That was their choice just like the choice to expose top secret information.
Bud, first I’ll just mention that if you look at the actual history of the millineum bomber rather than the revisionist history that former Clinton officials like to tout, you’ll find that the attach was basically thwarted due to pure luck. Follow this link: (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4864792/). It tells about how the border agent who stopped Ahmed Ressam and even she says that it was really just her gut instincts. So this idea that Clinton helped stop this is laughable. You get luck sometimes. Sometimes you don’t. (By the way, I would say the same thing if the 19 9/11 hijackers had been stopped by airport security due to the boxcutters.) Second, I’m not saying this because Rush says it. I don’t even like Rush. I am an O’Reilly guy myself.
As for all of your comments on drunk driving and disease, I can only hope that you don’t really believe that. Let me walk you through this. We have laws against all of those things. And we have police who enforce those laws. If a doctor makes a mistake he gets sued into oblivion. And we spend an enormous amount of money on public safety and healthcare to ensure that those things don’t happen. Terrorism is different. You see, those terrorists don’t want to kill 3,000 one September day. They want to kill ALL OF US. You see, we aren’t trying to prevent another 3,000 one time while in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are trying to prevent a nuke going off in LA or a dirty bomb in Chicago. We are trying to prevent ricin in NY and a nuclear plant attack at SRS. Terrorists want more American blood and we are trying to make sure they don’t get it. Reasonable people can disagree on how the war on terror is being run (I happen to think that Iraq has been a disaster, though I supported the decision to go in there. We needed more troops in there to keep it from becoming a terror haven, and the CIA should have had better intelligence.). However, you can’t just say that we should sit at home and hope that if we are nice enough to the terrorist that maybe they will decide they really don’t want to kill us. We had that passive policy under Clinton, and now 3,000 Americans are dead. What if we had responded to the attacks of the US embassies in Africa? What if we had responded to the attack on the USS Cole? If we fold again, then it will just embolden the terrorists to come back and hit harder, because we clearly don’t have the cojones to fight back.
Nathan,
There is an old saying that luck is where preparation meets opportunity. By that standard Bill Clinton was the luckiest man alive and G.W. Bush the unluckiest. I’m not a huge fan of Clinton but the man deserves some credit. Even the MSNBC article suggests a heightened state of alert. Given the choice to protect us I’ll take Lucky Bill over clueless George every time. After all, we had tremendous prosperity and very few soldiers killed overseas during Clinton years.
You mentioned the Cole incident. That occurred late in his administration and, in hind-sight, he probably should have been more aggressive going after the perpetrators. He’s admitted as much. His biggest mistake was relying on the next president to pursue terrorists in earnest. Given the hostile republic congress he had to deal with perhaps he felt the next president would have more support. Bigggg mistake. As it turned out Bush was not interested in pursuing Osama Bin-Laden or any other terrorists. No, the Bush administration concentrated their energy on gold plated weapon systems such as the so-called star wars anti-missle system. They ignored warnings from anti-terrorist experts from the Clinton administration. And worst of all Bush went on vaction after receiving a warning! Now that was truly discraceful. (Perhaps the problem was not poor intelligence from the CIA but low intelligenc from our commander in chief).
My previous comments stand. We are simply not devoting sufficient resources to address important social issues. Americans have this knack for worrying too much about things that are really not that much of a threat at the expense of those things that are. I simply refuse to buy into the scare tactics of the right. That’s what gets us into these hopeless quagmires abroad that only embolden the terrorists and get still more Americans killed. Pursue terrorists, yes. But let’s be smart about it.
Bud, the Bush admin. has arrested or killed more terrorists than Clinton ever knew existed. And no, we dont need more social programs for terrorist sympathizers, we need to kill more of them. Bush is not relying on luck to protect us and that is the main reason we have not had a terrorist attack in the US since 9-11.
Professor Mike Avey needs to learn that the Fourth Amendment is not violated by the telephone company keeping a record of your phone calls.
Nor is it violated by the telephone company voluntarily giving copies of those lawful records to the NSA.
This is not a “search”, nor is it a “seizure”, nor “wiretap” or “eavesdropping”.
Dave,
We actually have had at least 2 terrorist attacks in the US since 9-11. The antrax killer (never apprehended) and the DC snipers, Malvo and Muhamid. In addition, many Americans have died in overseas terrorist attacks. The right has simply decided to define success in fighting terrorism in the narrowist possible sense. In reality the Bush adminstration is making things worse.
Thanks for reminding us that the DC serial killers were products of Islamic teachings of hate.
Anthrax is one of the WMD that liberals claim Saddam didn’t have. Surely they can’t now claim that Muslim terrorists smuggled it into America!
Asking even one soldier to give his or her life in Iraq to supposedly help provide them with “democracy,” while an alarming majority in this country seems to be willing to casually cede civil liberties, is hypocrisy of the most obscene kind.
1) History shows that civil liberties, once ceded from the people to a central government, are rarely returned to the people by the same government. There will never be a guaranteed end to possible terror acts—that is impossible. Therefore, the War on Terror can never really end. Therefore, this surveillance is permanent and will likely increase.
2) Americans are famous for their short memories and ignorance of history, even recent history. One reason so many young people (those under 40) are willing to trust the government on this is because they do not remember that in the 1960’s and 70’s, our government used wiretapping and snooping techniques to monitor and harass political opponents. If you naively believe that cannot happen again, you are forgetting that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
3) The object of terrorists is to terrify. It seems clear that have succeeded to a large extent, in that a majority of Americans may be willing to trade off civil liberties for “security.” No, I don’t want to blow up in a terrorist attack, but I believe that in a free open democracy it is impossible to have 100% guaranteed security from terrorist acts. The only way to have guaranteed “security” is to establish an authoritarian police state. If that is what we prefer in this nation in order to feel “safe,” we need to have that discussion now.
4) Profile in courage: Qwest. That guy evidently has done some shady financial stuff, but his understanding of the Constitution and the law is impeccable.
5) Hi NSA!
The news media timed this announcement of an NSA activity that has been going on since 1970, to coincide with hearings on Hayden’s appointment. Big Media is scaring ignorant liberals with non-news, in order to assist the CIA moles in sabotaging our war on the terrorists.
If the Democrats get back in power, the real abuses to liberty will resume, with very little news coverage.
Dave says: “The Bush admin. has arrested or killed more terrorists than Clinton ever knew existed.” That’s because they probably didn’t exist while Clinton was president! A good slogan for the Bush administration’s fight against the terrorists would be – 50,000 dead, 500,000 bred, ‘nuf said.
Phillip – I agree with some of what you posted. Nothing can guarantee 100% safety from terrorists. But since “we” really are the government, dont you think it makes sense to work together to intercept the evildoers by sharing certain information that is essential for a terrorist. Look at what we submit as personal information on our tax returns. Some of that is truly intrusive and ridiculous. How many miles do you drive each vehicle for example. How much money you have in the bank, in stocks, real estate, etc. It should be none of their business. But that is the IRS.
I know the Kennedy brothers spyed on Martin Luther King but have you ever heard that brought up on our “mainstream” media? I haven’t and probably never will. As Lee says, the media is very complacent about privacy invasion if a leftist democrat is doing it. C’est la vi!!!!!!!!
Bud, you are right. Clinton didnt call them terrorists so they didnt exist. He considered Bin Laden a potential criminal instead of a terrorist and let him walk because ” we dont have a legal case on him”. That silliness gave us 9-11.
Bud,
I posted the link to the article because the woman who stopped the terrorist (the only person who matters in this case) says “I don’t recall any specific threats;I don’t recall anybody saying watch for terrorists.”
To say that this was due to Clinton’s prep is like saying that Bush helped me win the lottery.
I am still not getting an answer though. How do we stop terrorists? I think that Bud is saying do nothing so that we don’t “breed” more terrorists. Great, and maybe if we send Osama a postcard at Christmas he will be saved. The people want to kill us! We can’t sit by and watch like we did in the 90’s. You act like Bush created the terrorists, but 9/11 was planned during the Clinton years. They didn’t like us better then. They were just building up and getting bolder with each unanswered attack.
This NSA program “controversy” is a bunch of garbage. The left-wing media is pumping it up, and the Democrats and Libertarians are running around in short pants talking about the loss of our liberties. Typical. Let me know when we have some sort of proof that ANY American has lost his liberty by the phone company turning over already maintained records to the government to data-mine. Until then, I will accept this for what it is, a pitiful attempt by the left to “get Bush”.
Dave,
So its not enough to bring up the Clinton years to defend the failures of the Bush administration. Now we have to go after the dead Kennedys. Why stop there? Let’s go after Truman, FDR and Woodrow Wilson. It must be tough for the diehard right to watch chickenhawk leader collapse in the polls. I ask all those on the right this: What would it take for you to abandon your loyalty to Bush? He’s clearly the worst president in the the last 50 years, if not in American history. Yet many still blindly support him. Why? Any answer that mentions the so-called liberal media, Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy or Michael Moore is simply an effort to change the subject. Facts are facts. Bush has failed us over and over and over again. 9-11, skyrocketing gasoline prices, increasing poverty, lies leading to war, a disasterous health care system, a growing gap between rich and poor, lost prestige around the world, growing debt owed mostly to Asian nations, a growing assault on the constitution. And the list goes on. All on Chickenhawk leader’s watch.
One thing the right may be right about though and that’s the press. They have certainly done their best to make things worse. But not by any liberal bias, but by failing to report accurately the many failures of this man. Really guys, what would it take to vote for the democrats. If nothing else a democratic controlled house and/or senate would nuetralize some of the damage caused by Mr. Bush.
Bud, you don’t live in a dreamworld, rather in a nightmare world, and that is strange. On your points, Bush himself has zero to do with gas prices, people are getting richer, not poorer under his watch, Asian debt is silliness (we can wipe that out by a currency revaluation at any time), 9-11 was not caused by Bush any more than FDR caused Pearl Harbor, and lost prestige in the world (also silliness as tens of millions in the world would flock into this nation in one second if they could, and the US remains the military, cultural, economical leader of the world). You need to start reading some positive news or at least neutral factual news: Here is a start:
Besth health care in the world, best food in the world, most freedom in the world, safest country in the world, best universities in the world, 6 year high stock market, more housing than ever before, strongest military the world has ever seen, most innovative inventive country in the world, and the most generous people in the world. Reflect on those facts and come out of your depression.
All the positive things about America mean nothing to liberals and socialists, because they lack the ability or ambition to enjoy these things by participating. They are depressed because they sit of the sidelines and watch others create the world which they can only inhabit or degrade.
Some of the posts are getting more and more surrealistic: Dave’s comment about “best health care in the world”. Did he read the reports last week about British men having a longer life expectancy than American men? “Asian debt is silliness”. Do you really want to see what a debt repudiation would do to the world economy (currency revaluation alone wouldn’t cut it)? We’ve known for some time that W lives in a dream world. I guess it’s infected some of his disciples with the same virus.
And no, I’m not a liberal or a socialist. I’m a small businessman who is wondering what’s going to have to change over the next few years to keep us from major upsets in our way of life.
BLS,
I’m not a liberal on many issues either. I think market forces will work well to transform our economy from fossil fuel based to renewable sources such as ethanol, biodiesel and wind power. I also believe strongly in the conservative notion of hiring and school admissions based on merit rather than quotas. And fiscal discipline is important to me. These are bedrock conservative issues that have been largely abandoned by the president and congress over the past 5 years. Instead what we have is a huge corporate welfare policy for the oil companies; cronyism that is rampant in the Bush administration and the debt spirals upward. But for some reason Lee and Dave simply refuse to acknowledge any problems, even those core value issues espoused by old-style conservatives such as Barry Goldwater. There really is nothing Mr. Bush could ever do wrong to alienate the 29% who continue to support him.
Since I support a Constitutional amendment to prohibit government borrowing, an end to the social spending which requires high taxes and borrowing, an end to government spending on to subsidize ethanol, solar, wind, and nuclear power, an end to subsidizes for suburban expansion and downtown revitalization… exactly what problem do I not see?
Okay Bud, let me tell you what Bush has done right and wrong: First, we’ll go over the stuff that you like to hear. Bush has done a terrible job on immigration. Spending has been out of control and Bush has not vetoed a single pork barrel bill. His appointment of Harriet Miers was ridiculous, though he saved himself by swapping her out with Alito. Iraq should have been better managed, though it was right to do what he did given the intel that the CIA and OTHER FORIEGN GOVERNMENTS had at the time. Oil prices are too high and he should force the oil companies to de-consolidate (though this is a problem that really carried over from the 90’s when Clinton let them merge like crazy). The Medicare prescription plan, No Child Left Behind, and the McCain-Feingold anti-1st Amendment bill are all completely against conservative principles. I am a CPA and can tell you that Sarbanes-Oxley was an awful idea. I don’t know how he could appoint that dunderhead to FEMA, though in his defense, Mayor Ray Nagin should have 90% of the blame for the disaster in N.O.
So there.
As for the good things he has done, we can start by his tax cuts for taxpayers. You want tax cuts for the poor who don’t pay taxes instead of the middle class and rich. The IRS shouldn’t be a welfare agency. He responded to 9/11 swiftly and strongly and has crippled the Al Queda infrastructure, freed two nations for terrorist regimes, and made this nation safer. He appointed two outstanding jurists to the Supreme Court. He appointed some outstanding people to high positions (Dr. Condi Rice, for example). He kept the country out of a Depression-like recession after the worst terror attack in our history. He has overseen a Justice Dept. that has aggressively pursued the corporate thieves who broke the law in the 90’s (while your boy Bill Clinton was Pres) and are sitting behind bars now. He started the faith-based initiative to get rid of this ridiculous notion that the government can’t support a religous organization doing work for that the government needs because of a line in the Bill of Rights that prohibits the nation from establishing a national church. The Dow is nearing all-time highs.
Now, I am pleased with the performance of Bush? In a word, no. He, and the rest of the Republicans in Washington (and Columbia for that matter) have not given us the conservative government that we thought we were voting for. I would be more pleased by someone like Newt Gingrich. But, I say that very thankful that we aren’t talking about President Gore. After all, he said that Arabs in the United States had been “indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable” while in Saudi Arabia earlier this year. Of course, the press swept that under the rug by making a big deal about the Cheney hunting accident from the same weekend. So, you ask, what can Bush do to get me to vote for a Democrat? Well, I can tell you that nothing he does will get me to vote for the party of San Francisco and Dean. I may have to vote for a third party guy in the mold of a Ross Perot, but never for a party that has no solutions for anything.
BLS – I am not a banker but if the Federal Reserve tells me Asian debt is not a problem, then I can believe that. I do know that foreign capital flowing into this nation is representative of a strong confidence vote about the future of the American economy. We are living an economic miracle in this nation and it befuddles me when I see all the doom and gloom about how bad things are here. Remember too, American poor people are like the upper middle class in some poorer nations. WIS TV ran a segment this past Sunday that should be required viewing for all S. Carolinians. Anyway, they interviewed the homeless in Columbia, SC. Guess what, nearly every one had a cellphone. Yes, even the announcer/reporter was amazed at that. No apt, no home, no wheels, but a cellphone. Some admitted to working under the table. A bunch of them ate a scrumptious “free” meal at the Oliver Gospel Mission and 3, I repeat, 3 hours later were shown on camera eating another hearty meal at another “free” shelter. Some were asked what it would take to get them off the streets, one living under a bridge, and guess what, they said they LIKED it under the bridge. Will the do gooders PLEASE watch this segment? The sad thing is the little kids in homeless shelters, no fault of their own, abandoned by daddy, who is now out with other young minority females creating ever more babies to be abandoned. Anyway, take a minute and read this report by the FED. It is actually very readable for economists.
Visit How Worrisome is Foreign Debt?!
Nathan – Right on! I agree, and on the immigration too.
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