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If, IF it is true that someone hacked into her personal email, that is IMO going to far. Other than that, any candidate should be open to the closest scrutiny (sp?). The American people have a right to know everything, good and bad, about all candidates. However, I think that if intelligent people listen to what they are saying and watch the body language, they'll learn all they need to know. Both candidates will do anything and everything to get elected. They lie. Personally I have no use for liars and I have absolutely no respect for people who get their way by lying and slinging mud. Maybe they should quit bad-mouthing each other and get down to the issues?
IF it is democracy they truly want.
Here's a prediction of what may happen in Cuba. Note how Cubans feel regarding healthcare and education in Cuba, something Americans are in no immediate danger of experiencing from our so-called free government.
so what is democracy to you...
you are in favor of letting money then run this country, to do freely anything it wants - not sure I get that at all in fact that sounds more like socialism to me - this attitude sent down from the rich that we should just be 'lucky to have jobs' and how only the poor and middleclass should suffer, you know, for the benefit of the country - we are the only ones sacrificing.
Not getting that at all...
What is in it for me, what have the rich corporations done for me, please tell me, how am I better off now.
I could sit here all day typing the problems I have right now financially, so please share how great things are now that only the poor and middle class are carrying the burdens for roadwork, childcare (you know, schools feeding kids breakfast, lunch, and even dinner most places because we dump our kids there and leave them), I could just go on and on and on...
This is the history of democracy:
Athens
450 - 500 BCE
"It is called a government of the people (demokratia) becaue we live in considertion of not the few, but of the majority." - Thucydides on Pericles' view of democracy
Evolution of Democracy
Democracy in Greece was first introduced in Athens in the 505 BCE by Cleisthenes. Previous to democracy Greek city-states were ruled by a an elite few, rich, powerful men, known as tyrants. This Oligarchy limited the power to very few people. Democracy was a government structured to serve the people. All white, male citizens had the right to vote under a democratic democracy. Unlike present democracy, citizens would convine and openly discuss and vote for elections. This type of democracy is called direct democracy. As a society it benefited the majority, which were the middle and lower classes. The middle and lower classes received a voice , giving them power. The upper class, aristrocrats, lost power through a democratic government. They no longer received more power because of thier social standing.
I try not to be nasty on this board, but I just can't believe how many people are wanting the demise of democracy and, with open arms, are accepting everything the democrats state as truth. The demise of the 2-party system will only lead to socialism or something worse. Are you ready for that?
After the town meeting in MO yesterday, I honestly believe O has blinders on. He still doesn't know why the tea parties were held. He is relying on someone to give him an accounting of why and he is going along with that. He doesn't realize that was not what the protest was about. Maybe he should have gone to one of the parties to see the truth. But no, he'll rely on others for the not-so-much-truth.
Same with the economy. How much has changed? Not much. Yet he thinks it's getting better. Well, I don't see it happening. Unemployment higher, Chrysler claiming bankruptcy, GM soon to follow. Banks still not lending. CEOs still taking their bonuses; i.e., business and politics as usual.
Sure, it's only 100 days, but for the debt we now have to shoulder, how does it get paid back when the government refuses to take payment from the banks that wanted to pay off their debt? This government WANTS to control and own all business and banking institutions, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Yesterday, DH applied for SS since he doesn't believe it will be there in a few years, so for the 40-some years he worked and paid into the system, he wants to get something back and, anyway, there is no work for him. So far this year, he worked 15 days. Son still can't find a job after a year. Yeah, there are jobs out there. NOT!
Bush was correct in saying Monday night that “Our nation is being tested in a way that we have not been since the start of the Cold War.” Unfortunately, it’s Bush’s administration that is testing us—with its relentless incompetence, attacks on our civil liberties and inability to acknowledge the bankruptcy of its policies.
If representative government were alive and well in America, President Bush would not have dared to give the speech he made Monday on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. In a blatantly partisan screed, the president ripped off a nation’s mourning for the 9/11 victims in order to justify his totally unrelated and disastrous invasion of Iraq.
The president’s shameless remarks on this solemn occasion were so rife with egregious distortions of fact and logic as to beg ridicule, let alone refutation by a free press, a sturdy political opposition party and an informed public. Sadly, those three essential pillars of a free society have been subverted by five years of willful presidential exploitation of our fears, mocking the Founding Fathers’ historic dream of a government accountable to the public.
The model for this administration is the opposite of Jeffersonian democracy, and instead increasingly invites comparison with the madness that destroyed Rome, Germany and the Soviet Union: Authoritarianism that thrives on stoking paralyzing fear of the barbarians at the gate. “We are in a war that will set the course for this new century and determine the destiny of millions across the world,” Bush said, justifying his Iraq quagmire while sidestepping the fact that Islamic extremism, as well as 15 of the 19 hijackers, was most clearly nurtured by Saudi Arabia, the bizarre oil theocracy with intimate ties to the Bush dynasty, but not former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
“Since the horror of 9/11, we’ve learned a great deal about the enemy,” continued the president. “We have learned that they form a global network of extremists who are driven by a perverted vision of Islam.” But if such a network exists, it now extends to Iraq only as a result of the U.S. invasion.
“We have learned that their goal is to build a radical Islamic empire where women are prisoners in their homes, men are beaten for missing prayer meetings and terrorists have a safe haven to plan and launch attacks on America and other civilized nations,” Bush said. Tragically, he is describing quite accurately the situation in most of post-invasion Iraq, where his great “shock-and-awe” attempt at nation-building has turned a stable secular dictatorship into a post-apocalyptic civil war, where only religious extremists and power-mad nihilists thrive.
In urging us to join him at the barricades of what he calls “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century and the calling of our generation,” Bush cynically conflates Hussein with that deposed dictator’s sworn enemy, the religious fanatics of Al Qaeda, mere days after the Republican-run Senate Select Committee on Intelligence established yet again that the two were fundamentally at odds.
Hussein, the Senate committee announced Friday, “did not trust Al Qaeda or any other radical Islamist group and did not want to cooperate with them.”
In fact, Hussein was exactly the kind of regional strongman the United States supported, trained and propped up throughout the Cold War. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then working for President Ronald Reagan, even infamously embraced Hussein in the ’80s because his Iraq was considered a bulwark against fundamentalist revolutionary Iran.
Now we have all but handed post-Hussein Iraq to Shiite fundamentalists trained by and allied with the Iran of the ayatollahs. On Monday, the prime minister of “liberated” Iraq, who spent years in exile under the tutelage of Iran’s ayatollahs, was back in Tehran concluding agreements on mutual security with the leader of that “rogue regime.” How bizarre that Bush’s invasion of Iraq, a country that did not have a functioning WMD program, has vastly increased the power of Iran, which, according to Bush, does. Sometimes, by accident, Bush gets it close to right. “Our nation is being tested in a way that we have not been since the start of the Cold War,” he said. Unfortunately, it is his administration that is testing us with its relentless incompetence, attacks on our civil liberties and inability to acknowledge the bankruptcy of its policies. The more his deadly failures have become evident, the shriller the rhetoric and the more his administration digs in its heels.
Peel back the lies and hyperbole from Bush’s speech and you are left with one pressing concern: If this “war on terror” is really so important to the worldwide battle for freedom, why have we allowed this democracy-mocking demagogue to lead us through it?
I don't think every American wants democracy. sm
In fact, I know they don't. There are more than a few Americans who think we deserved 9/11. Nancy Pelosi is one of them. Now look where she is.
My dear, you do know that the New Democracy is what - sm
The 'New Democracy' is what The Shining Path (Communist Party of Peru), New People's Army (Communisty Party of the Philippines), and the Maoists (Communist Party of India) are calling their cultural revolution, right?
You know, the revolution where they tried to impose a dictatorship of the proletariat through such 'democratic' things as terrorism against peasants and union workers and other 'dissidents' in their own countries?
And I'm sure you know that the goal of the 'New Democracy' is to induce a world-wide revolution as a path to what they call 'pure' communism?
You know all that, right?
Otherwise, your statement about dragging Americans 'kicking and screaming into the new democracy' would just sound uneducated and silly.
isn't democracy grand?
Yes, Chele, your comparison is kind of like how 50 million of us who voted for the other guys have had to put up with Bush for 8 years...that's democracy for you. Maybe you are the one who needs to wise up.
It is called Democracy.
Of course it is okay for the majority to elect whomever they want. Your post sounds like a case of Republican sour grapes to me.
It is the way of a democracy. I keep in touch with my senators and one...sm
lone representative. I pay attention to whether they vote in my best interest and are honest in their dealings and let them know if I disagree, and vote or not vote for them in the next election. You are naive if you think that democrats are solely responsible for this meltdown. Looking for the other party to blame is counterproductive and will help no one. Money hungry greed is what has led us to this and both parties are to blame.
When Iraq is set up as an independent democracy and we have withdrawn sm
how in the world can we dictate what they do with their prisoners? You have to take a wider view of this bill. It is nothing like what you have presented here. It's a bill about democracy and a democratic nation.
Average is 90.
Democracy Obama-style! Great post. Thanks.
.
For many reasons, the fact that Israel is a successful democracy
in the midst of tyrannical middle eastern governments. The fact that the U.S. supports Israel. The fact that Israel has turned their once arid country into a fertile landscape and have managed to become a wealthy nation despite it's geographical short-comings and to the dismay of their neighbors. Also because the palestinians have managed to paint themselves as the underdog in a battle that has long been a land dispute and not an "occupation." And I have even begun to touch on the religious and scriptural reasons for the hatred.
Special rights
I don't believe any group of people should have special rights, but I certainly believe they should have equal rights. I do believe homosexuals should be allowed to marry, be entitled to family health insurance coverage, etc. I am not sure what special rights homosexuals are looking for, other than fair treatment. If we continue to look at them as sinners, which I cannot believe God created a whole group of people and they are all sinners because they are homosexual, they will always be thought of as outcasts, as other races were (and still are) treated in this country.
Hopefully your children will never have to make the abortion decision, but I have learned to never say never. My best friend is the daughter of an Assembly of God minister, and she had an abortion at age 16. She has never told her parents to this day (24 years later).
People don't want oil drilling to disturb the caribou, but don't mind large wolf populations taking them out? As far as hard to watch videos, have you ever seen a wolf pack attack a carbiou and devour it while it is still kicking? Not pretty.
This aerial hunting practice has been used for years, and while I would not engage in it, sometimes it is necessary to control predator populations. Environmentalists sometimes make a mistake in going overboard to protect predators, then when other species are endangered by the overpopulation, things like this become necessary.
Special about Obama's Neighbors on now
Hannity's America, FNC. It's on now, but will be repeated at 11PM (CST, I think).
Flame all you want, but can you refute it? Seriously?
I saw (but didn't read) a post in passing about Alaska and its meth labs. Shoot, I grew up in Nebraska, and back in the 70s it was totally out of control. Rural areas seem to be magnets for them, regardless of who's in office, so in my opinion neither party who is in control at this time or another can't and won't stop it. It's sad, but true.
The author stated Lincoln suspended the right of habeus corpus and the constitution to justify his causes....so maybe this is why O is following along those lines.
Hope it's not on late. I can't stay awake past 8:30 anymore.
You said it alright, there is ignorance in some posters.
I am not offended by any of it. You want to call Bush retarded fine (sure he's one fry short of a happy meal), you want to call people kool-aid drinkers that's fine too because they are. But you don't see me up here asking people to please stop and be nice to only one specific side.
The Jonestown tragedy (and yes it was a tragedy, just like Waco and Heavens gate and all these other cults), and I have great compassion. But that happened in 1978 - 30 years ago. Would be nice if you could use some other excuse to not want to hear people being told they are drinking the kool-aid.
By the way "drinking the kool-aid is not just specific to Jonestown. The saying "Do not drink the kool-aid" does, but the phrase "Having drunk the kool-aid" or "kool-aid drinkers" also means being a strong believer in a particular philosophy or mission - wholeheartedly or blindly believing in its virtues.
From Wikipedia - The expression also refers to the activities of the Merry Pranksters, a group of people associated with novelist Ken Kesey who, in the early 1960s, traveled around the United States and held events called "Acid Tests", where LSD-laced Kool-Aid was passed out to the public (LSD was legal in the U.S. until 1966). Those who drank the "Kool-Aid" passed the "Acid Test". "Drinking the Kool-Aid" in that context meant accepting the LSD drug culture, and the Pranksters' "turned on" point of view. These events were described in Tom Wolfe's 1968 classic "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". However the expression is never used figuratively in the book, but only literally.
I do have to laugh at your last paragraph because you must realize that I too find myself "fortunate not to come into personal contact with people such as yourself" (whatever that means), but if it means you don't want to know me personally then I'd just say I feel the same way.
Compassion goes both ways.
My last suggestion then if you want to continue coming would be just to skip over the posts you don't like. I do that a lot and it saves on the frustrations. There are people of all cultures that come to this board and speak their minds (on both sides). Both sides insult the others and that's just the way life goes.
What about special rights for the 'morally confused?'
Talk about special privileges.
Thanks. Was going to mention there's a special "monitor" board for reports.
Hope it works!!
special assistant to reagan sees the picture clearly
Federal Failure in New Orleans by Doug Bandow _Doug Bandow_ (http://www.cato.org/people/bandow.html) , a former special assistant to president Ronald Reagan Is George W. Bush a serious person? It's not a question to ask lightly of a decent man who holds the US presidency, an office worthy of respect. But it must be asked. No one anticipated the breach of the levees due to Hurricane Katrina, he said, after being criticised for his administration's dilatory response to the suffering in the city of New Orleans. A day later he told his director of the Federal Emergency Management Administration, Michael Brown: Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. Is Bush a serious person? The most important duty at the moment obviously is to respond to the human calamity, not engage in endless recriminations. But it is not clear that this President and this administration are capable of doing what is necessary. They must not be allowed to avoid responsibility for the catastrophe that has occurred on their watch. Take the President's remarkable assessment of his Government's performance. As Katrina advanced on the Gulf coast, private analysts and government officials warned about possible destruction of the levees and damage to the pumps. A year ago, with Hurricane Ivan on the move - before veering away from the Big Easy - city officials warned that thousands could die if the levees gave way. Afterwards the Natural Hazards Centre noted that a direct strike would have caused the levees between the lake and city to overtop and fill the city 'bowl' with water. In 2001, Bush's FEMA cited a hurricane hit on New Orleans as one of the three top possible disasters facing the US. No wonder that the New Orleans Times-Picayune, its presses under water, editorialised: No one can say they didn't see it coming. Similarly, consider the President's belief that his appointee, Brown, has been doing a great job. Brown declared on Thursday - the fourth day of flooding in New Orleans - that the federal Government did not even know about the convention centre people until today. Apparently people around the world knew more than Brown. Does the head of FEMA not watch television, read a newspaper, talk to an aide, check a website, or have any contact with anyone in the real world? Which resident of New Orleans or Biloxi believes that Brown is doing a heck of a job? Which person, in the US or elsewhere, watching the horror on TV, is impressed with the administration's performance? Indeed, in the midst of the firestorm of criticism, including by members of his own party, the President allowed that the results are not acceptable. But no one has been held accountable for anything. The administration set this pattern long ago: it is constantly surprised and never accountable. The point is not that Bush is to blame for everything. The Kyoto accord has nothing to do with Katrina: Kyoto would have a negligible impact on global temperatures even if the Europeans complied with it. Nor have hurricanes become stronger and more frequent in recent decades. Whether extra funding for the Army Corps of Engineers would have preserved the levees is hardly certain and impossible to prove. Nor can the city and state escape responsibility for inaction if they believed the system to be unsafe. Excessive deployment of National Guard units in the administration's unnecessary Iraq war limited the flexibility of the hardest-hit states and imposed an extra burden on guard members who've recently returned from serving overseas. But sufficient numbers of troops remained available elsewhere across the US. The real question is: Why did Washington take so long to mobilise them? The administration underestimated the problem, failed to plan for the predictable aftermath and refused to accept responsibility for its actions. Just as when the President took the US and many of its allies into the Iraq war based on false and distorted intelligence. Then the administration failed to prepare for violent resistance in Iraq. The Pentagon did not provide American soldiers with adequate quantities of body armour, armoured vehicles and other equipment. Contrary to administration expectations, new terrorist affiliates sprang up, new terrorist recruits flooded Iraq and new terrorist attacks were launched across the world, including against several friends of the US. In none of these cases has anyone taken responsibility for anything. Now Hurricane Katrina surprised a woefully ill-prepared administration. President Bush and his officials failed in their most basic responsibility: to maintain the peaceful social framework within which Americans normally live and work together. Bush initially responded to 9/11 with personal empathy and political sensitivity. But his failures now overwhelm his successes. The administration's continuing lack of accountability leaves it ill-equipped to meet equally serious future challenges sure to face the US and the rest of the world. This article originally appeared in the Australian on Sept. 5, 2005 Not worried. O's request for a special prosecutor to investigate
DOJ regarding the pub party's umpteenth chapter in dogging this group will undoubtedly uncover both sides to this story...can you say voter suppression? How about election results challenges ala 2000 and 2004? Third time isn't always the charm.
Texas supreme court affirms special rights for religion
The Texas state supreme court ruled unanimously on Friday that a town which had altered its zoning to ban two church-sponsored halfway houses in a residential neighborhood was in violation of the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
That act, which was passed in 1999 and endorsed by then-Governor George W. Bush, affords greater legal protection to religious operations than to equivalent secular operations.
Under its provisions, cities have to prove that zoning regulations — like the one passed by the town of Sinton to ban jails and rehabs within 1000 feet of a home, school, or church — further a “compelling” interest, such as protecting public safety, and do not place a “substantial burden” on the free exercise of religion.
Town officials asserted that the zoning regulations placed no restrictions on worship or the practice of religion and were merely intended to protect the safety of residents. This position was upheld at the local and appeals court levels.
However, the all-Republican and generally conservative state supreme court agreed with Pastor Richard Barr’s claim that because the town of Sinton is so small, the regulation had the effect of excluding him from operating his “ministry” for parolees anywhere.
Barr’s case was argued by the conservative Liberty Legal Institute (LLI) and was also supported by the American Center for Law and Justice — founded by Pat Robertson — and by the ACLU.
LLI was involved several years ago in a widely-noted case against a Texas school district which its litigation director, Hiram Sasser, claimed had demonstrated “pervasive religious hostility” by banning the distribution at Christmas time of candy canes with a religious message.
According to Sasser, today’s decision “means that in zoning cases you have to give churches special treatment. … You have to have very special reasons for telling a church you can’t locate here and locate there. That’s going to be a touch burden for cities.”
“This is a home run,” Sasser proclaimed. ‘I think it will be a model for other states.”
For those among us who would be the first to decry an Obama administration that would "change our country as we know it," it might be helpful to remember just how much of that country we lost during W's reign of terror...writ of habeas corpus, presumed innocence, right to counsel and fair trial, burden or proof, not to mention even a modicum of acknowledgement of basic human rights and condemnation of torture. Sound familiar?
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