BS: The Republicans (US)

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 04:53 PM

wELL, If you're gonna get all huffy let's compare. Bush's deficit was largely expended on invading two foreign countries and doing so in the most expensive and least efficient way possible.

Obama's was spent on rescuing the country from the chaos of Bush's leavings and restoring some hope and sanity to the nation's economic engines.

Hmmmm. Seems about 180 out, to me...


A

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 06:27 PM

echoing Amos...
It very often DOES cost more to undo a mess than to make one in the first place. Now we have not only two wars to try to find a way out of, but the other economic mess brought on by Republican deregulation of banks and Wall Street!

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 06:36 PM

I feel amazed that anyone, esp. seemingly intelligent people, still defend the GOP, esp. the shrub and what he did.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 06:56 PM

I'm not amazed... they paint themselves into a corner by defining anything Democrats do as misguided and dangerous......then they (the Republicans) have to defend all the total nonsense with bad reasoning and selective memories.

Sometimes it's not exactly 'defending', but just obfuscating and ignoring and distracting with accusatory finger pointing about irrelevant topics. "Never mind Bush... look, the Democrats are trying to sneakily promote abortion!" ...or a dozen other things.

This is called 'make enough noise and tell enough falsehoods and plant enough false rumors that your opponents are lured into spending most of their time responding to crap!'.

It is highly effective.....

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: ichMael
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 07:10 PM

http://www.black-and-right.com/the-democrat-race-lie/

I'm neither a Democrat or a Republican (hated Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama), but I find this site interesting.

Says, "Democrats are unwavering in our support of equal opportunity for all Americans. That's why we've worked to pass every one of our nation's Civil Rights laws… On every civil rights issue, Democrats have led the fight." And then it offers a timeline that shows some interesting things.

Didn't know if anyone here had seen it.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 08:07 PM

"I'm neither a Democrat or a Republican.."

But you post like a conservative on nearly everything

You care to tell us what you LIKE?

and that site...http://www.black-and-right.com/the-democrat-race-lie/...repeats the crap about Lincoln being a **Republican**, ignoring the 180° turn the parties have done in 120 years.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 08:31 PM

Lets keep on thing in perspective when it comes to debt... First of all, the '09 deficits were all on Bush... It was his budget... The incoming administartion is not involved in that budget...

Second, the way alot of Bush's spending bills were written were going to guaarnetee that no matter who had been elcted they were going to get stuck with a lot of Bush's "back-end" debt... In ohter words, Bush kinda boobie-trapped the next president...

Third, Bush left such a mess in terms of stability of the economy that the private sector wasn't going to spend to maintain it which meant that the governemnt was going to have to do it...

Bottom line??? Bush set the next presdient up to take the weight for his own failings...

This ain't about dems and repubs... This is all about Bush's folk's failings...

Now, yeah... There will come a time when this is all on the Obama administartion but given the hand he was delt I would think that he get's more than a 1 year pass before having to face the wolves... It took 30 years to fuck up the economy as badly as the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush administration have done and it ain't gonna get fixed over night...

Might of fact, it's gonna take a couple terms to get this thing fixed, if it can be fixed... And that is another question... With Congress so messed up in parlimentary trickery and infighting, it may not be fixable... I mean, we may be the next Greece... Or worse, Haiti...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: ichMael
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 08:50 PM

Bill D. --

I don't even think of liberal/conservative. There's individualism and collectivism.

But I'm confused. Wasn't Lincoln a Republican? Are you saying the Dems and Reps have reversed positions over the years? On things like race?

Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 09:22 PM

The Dems took a big U-Turn in the 60s when Lyndon Johnson pushed thru the Civil Rights Act... Johnson candidly said that it was going to change the Democratic Party forever and set it back decades... He was right... That took balls... I mean, folks voted for something that was totally foriegn to the way they were broguth up thinking... Ya' gotta give the Dems of the 60's alot of credit for the courage to pass a bill that meant that their party would suffer for decades to come... And when we look around, the Dems are still paying the price for that vote...

b~

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: ichMael
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 09:31 PM

I still don't understand. A U-turn? So, today's Democrats used to be Republicans, right? Back in Lincoln's time, he was a Republican, but the stances of that party are now represented by the Democrats? Is that what I'm reading? If Lincoln were alive today he'd be a Democrat?

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 10:18 PM

Yes... "...today's Democrats used to be Republicans, right? Back in Lincoln's time, he was a Republican, but the stances of that party are now represented by the Democrats? Is that what I'm reading? If Lincoln were alive today he'd be a Democrat."!!

It's not exactly a one-to-one flip by doing a "hey, I know what! Let's change names!" but the essential position of the parties as 'liberal' and 'conservative' has reversed. Lincoln ran against Stephen Douglas, who was a defender of the Dred Scott slavery act. The issues were aligned differently back then, but Lincoln better represented the values that 'Democrats' would espouse later. Some of the reversal was actually begun with Lincoln's election.
There were awkward periods when Southern Democrats..(Dixiecrats).. fought civil rights in the 50s & 60s, but they did it as 'southerners', and when Kennedy & Johnson pushed thru school desegragation, the shift was largely completed....except for the usual 'conservative' element who felt they needed the democratic label... but the conservative voting pattern... to get elected. And we still see a lot of that today.

It's not a simplistic division...but it is not fair to simply say "Lincoln was a Republican" and assert that proves 'Republicans' did a lot for civil rights.... "liberals" did a lot for civil rights, no matter what label/name was being used.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 10:20 PM

"Because we never face up to how much we need government to do, there is a pathetic quality to our discussion of big deficits.

THIS STORY
Smart debt, dumb debt
It's not our debt that's unsustainable, it's our politics
Ryan's lonely challenge
View All Items in This Story
It's a debate also characterized by a politically convenient amnesia. Just a decade ago, we were running surpluses so big that Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, worried about what would happen once our national debt was liquidated. We had this problem well in hand until we started waging wars and cutting taxes at the same time.

What would a rational approach to the budget look like? It would begin by accepting that running deficits at a time of high unemployment is a good thing. We would celebrate the fact that the world's governments were far wiser in this downturn than their counterparts were during the Great Depression.

It is a hugely underrated achievement of international cooperation that the world's 20 leading economic powers pumped trillions of dollars into the global economy to prevent collapse. Catastrophe was averted, and growth, although sluggish, has resumed.

True, unemployment in our country is still too high. But the lesson here is not that President Obama's economic stimulus failed but that it was too small to do all that was needed. Those who would repeal stimulus spending -- the bright idea of the House Republican Study Committee -- would take us backward.



Yet no one should doubt that we must put our long-term fiscal house in order. The discussion should not be confined to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. We need to ask a basic question: What do we want government to do, and, yes, how much will taxes have to go up so we can pay our bills?

Like it or not, government must grow in the coming decades because the private economy will not offer the same security it once did through employer-provided health and pension plans.

On health care, the status quo means that more Americans will find themselves without insurance because an ever-growing number of employers simply won't be able to afford the expense. This is unsustainable. Enacting health reform now will allow us to plan how government can take on these costs gradually.
..." (WaPo)

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 10:26 PM

Here's a better analysis & history of the Democratic party, showing how the political system was in flux for many years. It may be a lot to absorb and would take a LOT of reading to flesh out, but it does show that simple labels don't cover everything.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Mar 10 - 06:18 PM

Best bumper I've seen in a long while has a portrait of Abe Lincoln and the text "Its my party - and I'll cry if I want to".

Which about sums up the difference between the 1860's and the 21st century.

If Lincoln had to witness what has become of the principles of the party he helped found and the current shenanigans these fools are perpetrating, he'd puke.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: ichMael
Date: 12 Mar 10 - 11:03 PM

Lincoln better represented the values that 'Democrats' would espouse later.

Okay. This is a good illustration of why I'm having trouble with the label making.

Lincoln was no saint. Especially on racial issues.

In his debate with Steven Douglas in 1858 he said, "I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

Lincoln was also a proponent of resettlement--returning American blacks to Africa. In 1860 he said, "In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, 'It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation, and deportation, peaceably..."

And then there's the Corwin Amendment. It was on track to become the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and it said, "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." In other words, states that wanted to could keep slavery. Lincoln mentioned the proposed amendment in his first inaugural address in 1861. He said that he had "no objection to its being made express and irrevocable." So Lincoln would have allowed slavery to continue, if that would have averted the Civil War.

And then later, when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, it didn't free all slaves. Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and parts of other slave states were exempted--he allowed slavery to continue there.

Finally, in 1865, shortly before his death, Lincoln met with Gen. Benjamin F Butler, who said that Lincoln talked to him about "exporting" blacks, using the U.S. navy, to export them to some "fertile" place.

Lincoln was a Republican, but now the Democrats want to claim him as one of their own. I don't see where having Lincoln on your side isn't a plus.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Amos
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 12:51 AM

Maybe you should review his EMancipation Proclamation?


A

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 11:25 AM

Lincoln was also a proponent of resettlement--returning American blacks to Africa

So was Marcus Garvey.

In his debate with Steven Douglas in 1858 he said...

Actually, there were a SERIES of debates- instead of cherry-picking a single line, read them all & you'll come away with a somewhat different conclusion.

Then read the rest of Lincoln's works - many available on line- and maybe Goodwin's TEAM OF RIVALS- then we'll talk, ich.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 11:52 AM

On the other hand, the clever Republicans have subsidized their current 'policy' with a new buisness venture

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: ichMael
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 01:13 PM

Oh, I have no desire to "talk" about this, Greg. If Democrats want to claim Lincoln, fine. Claim him. He was a raging racist. You want me to post some of his quotes comparing whites and blacks? And he wasn't a man of "great complexity," as historians try to claim when his political shenanigans are pointed out. He was a huckster trying to get elected and re-elected. He would have continued the institution of slavery if it would have secured his political future.

Lincoln was also a fascist dictator who suspended habeas corpus, and that's the reason I don't care for him. Racists are a dime a dozen, but fascist dictators don't come along very often.

On the positive side, Lincoln did defeat Lord Palmerston's efforts to divide and conquer the U.S. in the name of Empire, so that's to Lincoln's credit. He did what he had to do when his ass was on the line.

What I find interesting about the Democrat/Republican divide nowadays is that Democrats are much more racist than Republicans. And I don't mean "racist" in a derogatory or mean sense. I believe Democrats want to do good things in the area of race. But, Democrats tend to view all issues through the filter of race first. The habit has become especially pronounced now that we have Obama in the presidency. If a person criticizes Obama, Democrats must first examine the criticism for signs of racism. And that's absurd. Obama's a wannabe fascist. He demonstrated that by saying he would disregard the Cap and Trade defeat and implement EPA restrictions through executive fiat. Fascist behavior. Oh, my...did I say that because I'm a racist?

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Amos
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 01:59 PM

Actually I know a lot of Democrats who do not fit that generalization--they think in terms of human beings, progress, bertterment in general. Race issues are specific tot he particular scenarios where they are a factor.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 02:33 PM

Oh, I have no desire to "talk" about this...Lincoln was also a fascist dictator ...

Whoo, boy...... and I have no desire to try and reach a reasoned accommodation with a fu$king moron & lunatic.

Piss off, ich.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 02:55 PM

Itch is trolling or is mentally deranged. No point in answering his posts.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: ichMael
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 06:45 PM

Whoo, boy...... and I have no desire to try and reach a reasoned accommodation with a fu$king moron & lunatic.

Piss off, ich.

Thank you for that splendid example of freedom of speech, Greg. Wasn't Lincoln a strong supporter of freedom of speech? I mean, before he began incarcerating people for speaking out against his government.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 01:09 PM

Go for it , ich! - each new absurdity of yours just digs that moron hole a little bit deeper.

Never said I didn't support freedom of speech for morons - I most certainly DO - but that don't change the fact that they're morons.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 08:28 PM

Frank Rich tackles the Rove Axis of Revised History:
"...Could any of this non-reality-based shtick stick? So far the answer is No. RoveÕs book and Keep America Safe could be the best political news for the White House in some time. This new eruption of misinformation and rancor vividly reminds Americans why they couldnÕt wait for Bush and Cheney to leave Washington.

But the old regimeÕs attack squads are relentless and shameless. The Obama administration, which put the brakes on any new investigations into Bush-Cheney national security malfeasance upon taking office, will sooner or later have to strike back. Once the Bush-Cheney failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran again come home to roost, as they undoubtedly and explosively will, someone will have to remind our amnesia-prone nation who really enabled AmericaÕs enemies in the run-up to 9/11 and in its aftermath.

ThereÕs a good reason why RoveÕs memoir is titled ÒCourage and Consequence,Ó not ÒTruth or Consequences.Ó Its spin is so uninhibited that even ÒBrownie, youÕre doing a heck of a job!Ó is repackaged with an alibi. The bookÕs apolitical asides are as untrustworthy as its major events. For all RoveÕs self-proclaimed expertise as a student of history, he writes that eight American presidents assumed office Òas a result of the assassination or resignation of their predecessor.Ó (HeÕs off by only three.) After a peculiar early narrative detour to combat reports of his late adoptive fatherÕs homosexuality, Rove burnishes his family values cred with repeated references to his own happy heterosexual domesticity. This, too, is a smoke screen: Readers learned months before the book was published that his marriage ended in divorce.

RoveÕs overall thesis on the misbegotten birth of the Iraq war is a stretch even by his standards. ÒWould the Iraq war have occurred without W.M.D.?Ó he writes. ÒI doubt it.Ó He claims that Bush would have looked for other ways Òto constrainÓ Saddam Hussein had the intelligence not revealed IraqÕs Òunique threatÓ to AmericaÕs security. Even if you buy RoveÕs predictable (and easily refuted) claims that the White House neither hyped, manipulated nor cherry-picked the intelligence, his portrait of Bush as an apostle of containment is absurd. And morally offensive in light of the carnage that followed. As Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin PowellÕs former chief of staff, said on MSNBC, itÕs Ònot a very comforting thingÓ to tell the families of the American fallen Òthat if the intelligence community in the United States, on which we spend about $60 billion a year, hadnÕt made this colossal failure, we probably wouldnÕt have gone to war.Ó

Rove and his book are yesterday. Keep America Safe is on the march. Liz CheneyÕs crackpot hit squad achieved instant notoriety with its viral video demanding the names of Obama Justice Department officials who had served as pro bono defense lawyers for Guant‡namo Bay detainees. The video branded these government lawyers as Òthe Al Qaeda SevenÓ and juxtaposed their supposed un-American activities with a photo of Osama bin Laden. As if to underline the McCarthyism implicit in this smear campaign, the Cheney ally Marc Thiessen (one of the two former Bush speechwriters now serving as Washington Post columnists) started spreading these charges on television with a giggly, repressed hysteria uncannily reminiscent of the snide Joe McCarthy henchman Roy Cohn.

This McCarthyism has not advanced nearly so far as the original brand. Among those who have called out Keep America Safe for its indecent impugning of honorable AmericansÕ patriotism are Kenneth Starr, Lindsey Graham and former Bush administration lawyers in the conservative Federalist Society. When even the relentless pursuer of Monicagate is moved to call a right-wing jihad Òout of bounds,Ó as Starr did in this case, thatÕs a fairly good indicator that itÕs way off in crazyland.

This is hardly the only recent example of RepublicansÕ distancing themselves from the Cheney mob. The new conservative populist insurgency regards the Bush administration as a skunk at its Tea Parties and has no use for its costly foreign adventures. One principal Tea Party forum, the Freedom Works Web site presided over by Dick Armey, doesnÕt even mention national security in a voluminous manifesto on Òkey issuesÓ as far-flung as Internet taxes and asbestos lawsuit reform. Ron Paul won the straw poll at last monthÕs Conservative Political Action Conference after giving a speech calling the Bush doctrine of Òpreventive warÓ a euphemism for ÒaggressiveÓ and ÒunconstitutionalÓ war. PaulÕs son, Rand, who has said he would not have voted for the Iraq invasion, is leading the polls in KentuckyÕs G.O.P. Senate primary and has been endorsed by Sarah Palin.

In this spectrum, the Keep America Safe crowd is a fringe. But it still must be challenged. As weÕve learned the hard way, little fictions, whether about Òdeath panelsÓ or Òuranium from Africa,Ó can grow mighty fast in the 24/7 media echo chamber. Liz CheneyÕs unsupportable charges are not quarantined in the Murdoch empire. Her chummy off-camera relationship with a trio of network news stars, reported last week by Joe Hagan in New York magazine, helps explain her rise in the so-called mainstream media. For that matter, Thiessen was challenged more thoroughly in an interview by Jon Stewart on ÒThe Daily ShowÓ on Tuesday than he has been by any representative of non-fake television news...."

---

Making claims that the nation was not attacked during Bush's watch is like saying Mussolini was a farmer and Stalin raised orchids...



A

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 08:44 PM

Õ ?
Ó ?
Ò ?

I don't think much attention will be paid to Rove's book. ZZZZZZ....
Neither help nor hinder the Republicans. Not even Fox of CNN had much to say about it.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Amos
Date: 15 Mar 10 - 10:30 AM

SOrry--those weird "O"'s are an artifact of pasting from the NYT.

That no-one will pay attention does make his rampant revisionism and self-interested lying about things any less repulsive.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Amos
Date: 15 Mar 10 - 11:07 AM

==does NOT... Doh!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Mar 10 - 01:57 PM

Yep, I make those little mistakes too.

Digression-
My wife is a sucker for books by politicians, regardless of stripe. We once offered some in a batch of books to a used dealer. He grinned, and told us just to put them in the recycle bin- they never sell from his shelves.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 16 Mar 10 - 01:48 AM

The Republicans???? Isn't that the other ganf of corrupt pieces of shit that pretend to be different than the Democraps??

Waving,
GfS

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 16 Mar 10 - 01:50 AM

ooops typo..fixed it!

The Republicans???? Isn't that the other gang of corrupt pieces of shit that pretend to be different than the Democraps??

Waving,
GfS

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Amos
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 05:26 PM

How to Speak Republican

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Amos
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 06:02 PM

One part of right-wing pundit Ann Coulter's three-part Canadian tour has been canceled after protesters made the environment unsafe. Coulter was scheduled to speak at the University of Ottawa on Tuesday night as part of a tour organized by the International Free Press Society and student conservative groups at each campus. Before her arrival, Frances Houle, the vice president and provost of the university, sent Coulter a letter warning that "Canadian laws for freedom of speech differ from those in the United States," Macleans reported. "He advised that before arriving at the University of Ottawa campus Coulter should 'educate [her]self as to what is acceptable in Canada' and to 'weigh [her] words with respect and civility in mind.' " Coulter doesn't do well with respect and civility. The pundit is famous for her writing, which many equate with hate speech. More than 200 students gathered outside of Coulter's speaking location in protest; at least one sign read: "Free speech stops at hate speech." When the event was canceled because security deemed the toxic environment unsafe for both Coulter and audience members, protesters broke into chants of: "Whose campus? Our campus!" The day before, at the first stop on her tour, Coulter addressed hundreds at the University of Western Ontario. Coulter "told the crowd that Muslims should be banned from airplanes and instead use 'flying carpets,' " Macleans reported. When one Muslim student asked how she should travel, as she didn't own a flying carpet, Coulter told her to "take a camel."

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: olddude
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 07:23 PM

Rove, why isn't his book in the fiction section, can someone explain to me what fiction is ... I read some excerpts .... it is up there with star trek ... Good grief does the lie ever stop ...?? At least star trek had hot women in it ...

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 08:26 PM

Coulter speaks here in Calgary tomorrow. She makes good money with her shock talks; but, like Limbaugh, I wouldn't tie her in to the Republicans, she has no real philosophy but speaks to stir up the crowd.

Calgary is about 20% "visible" immigrant, including a large number of Muslims, so she might be able to garner the attention that her shock talk profession demands in order to be worthy of press attention.

It is dark and dreary, cold and windy in Calgary today. If it is like that tomorrow, she might not attract a big enough demonstration to generate much coverage.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Amos
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 09:20 PM

I hope she gets the Cold Shoulder.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 10:19 PM

I wouldn't tie [coulter] in to the Republicans...

Why ever not? The Republicans fall over esch other tying themselves to her!

And when was the last (first?) time you heard a Republican repudiating - or even mildly criticising - her?

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Amos
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 10:27 PM

Indeed, the lady stands as the loudmouth piece of the Right WIng. She single-handedly perverted the adjective liberal and turned it into a cuss word in the minds of the not-quite-bright. If the Republican party owns Bush and his activated demagogue base, they own Ann Coulter and her hate campaigns.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: ichMael
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 11:00 PM

Coulter is a gatekeeper for the right, same as Amy Goodman is a gatekeeper for the left. Together, they help to keep the mass of voters focused on "the other party."

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: DougR
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 06:09 PM

I wish you folks would stop attacking a friend of mine, Ann Coulter. It's not nice.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 06:13 PM

Well, you can usually tell a lot about a person by who they have - or claim- as friends.

Brainless Bloviators of a feather...

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Amos
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 08:07 PM

DougR:

If she is in fact a friend of yours, I would be interested to hear from you what she thinks the value of her highly acidic prose is, what she believes the definition of the word liberal is, and why she never seems to be able to take the same kind of medicine she likes to dish out. Even her titles are hateful.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Sawzaw
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 12:53 AM

Hey Poppa Amos, how and when did President Reagan eradicate the Glass Steagall act???

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 05:57 PM

""Well, you can usually tell a lot about a person by who they have - or claim- as friends.""

It was early last December,
As far as I remember,
I was stumbling down the street in sodden pride,
When I fell into the gutter,
Thinking thoughts I dared not utter,
And a pig come up and lay down by my side.

Two old ladies passing by,
Cast on me a jaundiced eye,
And I thought I overheard one of them say,
"You can tell a man who boozes,
By the company he chooses."
And the pig got up and slowly walked away!

Works for other things than booze, too.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Sawzaw
Date: 27 Mar 10 - 05:14 PM

Amos get all tight lipped when you ask him questions.

Is he holding out on us or is he just to proud and stubborn to admit when he is wrong?

I make misteaks. It ain't no sin. It is human to err. Only gods never make mistakes.

Even Obama admits to some mistakes.

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Amos
Date: 27 Mar 10 - 07:33 PM

Yap, yap, Sawz. Find something interesting to say.

IF I blamed it on Reagan, I was mistaken. It was repealed by the bill pushed through the Senate by Phil Gramm (Republican of Texas) and in the House of Representatives by Jim Leach (R-Iowa) in 1999, back when Bill Clinton was President. Despite the fact that he was bucking a rightie majority, I think Clinton should have vetoed the Gramm-Leach bill. The arguments against Glass Steagal proved to be completely self-serving, specious and wrong, as witnessed by the current state of affairs.

Although it should also be said, Sawz, to offset your supercilious gloatery, that the movement that deregulated the banks so they could ruin the economy was very much a piece of the Reagonomic movement. Remember trickle down? Right? Still waiting for that trickle?

"July 1983, Treasury Secretary presents to the President the proposed bank industry deregulation that includes Òboth bank and thrift holding companies to engage in a wide range of securities, insurance, and other financial activities.Ó Rosenstein, Jay. "Reagan hears Treasury's dereg plan; growing opposition causes delay action." American Banker (July 8, 1983)

July 11, 1983, President sends to Congress the Financial Institutions Deregulation Act. ÒDeregulation bill is sent to Congress: proposal would expand bank, thrift activities." American Banker (July 11, 1983)

January 17, 1984, Treasury Secretary feels that competitors to the banking industry are "Échipping away at [the system]. If that continues and banks aren't given the identical opportunities to other financial services companies, the banking system's base will simply erode and could collapse.Ó Ringer, Richard. "Regan says Bush panel to finish report this week. (Donald T. Regan; George Bush)." American Banker (Jan 17, 1984)
In February 1985, acting general counsel Margery Waxman Òrecommends that Treasury Secretary James Baker add provisions empowering banks to underwrite mutual funds, and to allow bank holding companies to own securities brokerage houses, items missing from last year's [1984] Senate bill.Ó Naylor, Bartlett. "Will Baker, former bank attorney, fight hard for new banking laws?." American Banker (June 3, 1985)

November 5, 1985, ÒGeorge Gould, nominated to be Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance, seeks additional powers for banks to underwrite commercial paper and mutual funds.Ó Naylor, Bartlett. "Treasury to limit new bank powers quest, nominee says." American Banker (Nov 8, 1985)

ÒBanking lawyer Peter Wallison, former general counsel at the Treasury Dept, is promoting the same ideas for bank reform he touted in the early days of the Reagan administration. Wallison believes that restrictions on capital should be relaxed and banks allowed to diversify into markets more lucrative than loans. He says Congress is too focused on capital and has weakened good deregulation legislation promoted by the Bush Administration.ÓCummins, Claudia. "Former Reagan official still fighting for banks." American Banker (August 14, 1992)"

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 02:08 AM

Personally, I think both the extremes have fallen off their rockers, both right and left.....and both have the power of persuasion, to lead their lemming followers off the cliff. It's been perfectly obvious, even in here....matter of fact, I think their contrived dialogues, have divided not only the country, UNNECESSARILY, but have compromised sound and rational thinking. Not only that, I'm persuaded that it has now, and for some time, been nothing but street theater to perform psychological warfare on America!
Sweet Dreams!

SINCERELY,

GfS!

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Sawzaw
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 04:30 PM

Thank you Amos for your desperate, herculean eforts to tie repeal of the Glass Steagall act to Reagan in an effort to salvage your non existent credibility.

Now tell us who was promoting the repeal of the Glass Steagall act [aka GLBA] in 1999? Summers convinced President Bill Clinton to sign several Republican bills into law which opened the floodgates for banks to abuse their powers.

And when McCain and Democrat Maria Cantwell tried to introduce a bill to reinstate the act in 2009, Who shot it down?

Hint, he was a friend of Angelo and big recipient of campaign donations from the companies who benefited from repeal of the act and he had a big D in front of his title.

He said "I think going back to Glass-Steagall would be like going back to the Walkman."

He also voted for the repeal as well as 77% of Democrats which included Boxer, Biden, Byrd, Kennedy, Kerry, etc, many of the indignant Democrats that want to blame it on Republicans.

He also had the multimillion dollar Wall Street fat cat Boss Hogg bonuses that the Dems howled about written into TARP and later claimed his staff did it without his knowledge.

Do you think the banks got their money's worth?


C********** J. D*** (D)
Top Contributors

SAC Capital Partners............$248,200
Citigroup Inc...................$155,594
Royal Bank of Scotland..........$142,600
United Technologies.............$141,500
Bear Stearns....................$118,550
Goldman Sachs...................$105,400
Travelers Companies..............$98,900
American International Group.....$98,100
The Hartford.....................$92,250
JPMorgan Chase & Co..............$72,250
Ernst & Young....................$70,750
Merrill Lynch....................$68,300
Morgan Stanley...................$67,100
General Electric.................$60,850
KPMG LLP.........................$59,900
Pricewaterhouse Coopers..........$59,800
Apollo Advisors..................$57,900
Bank of America..................$57,850
UBS AG...........................$54,200
Liberty Mutual Insurance.........$52,800

        Total                      $11,532,096

Whaddaya think Bobert? That would feed a lot of hungry kids wouldn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Greg F.
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 05:38 PM

Personally, I think both the extremes have fallen off their rockers, both right and left...

Really quite amusing, since the "Extreme Left" in the United States probably numbers a couple of thousand individuals at most.

Unless you're one of the brain-dead who characherizes our slightly right-of-center President Obama as a "radical leftist"...

Subject: RE: BS: The republicans (US)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 06:14 PM

""Unless you're one of the brain-dead who characherizes our slightly right-of-center President Obama as a "radical leftist"...""

You have to remember Greg, that you are dealing with people who think Jenghis Khan, and Attila the Hun were Left Wing Pink-Os.

What tickles me is that the majority of them make a big thing of being Christians.

If Christ came down to Earth today, he would be thought of as a bit of a Commie.

Go figure!

Don T.