So Karl Rove is coming to my town tomorrow....

[Eyebrowsbv31]

Like LBJ and Vietnam? What you anti-war types don't understand is that there is no "pro" war. To be anti there has to be a pro. no one in their right mind enjoys a war. I'd like to point out, as I have before:

The president does not run the country. We have a system of checks and balances; school house rock One Zero One: THREE RING CIRCUS. Bush merely proposed war, congress approved it with a bipartisan vote including a fair share of democrats and republicans.

That being said, the blame is still 60/40 at his feet and the people that advised him. What I'm trying to get out of your head is this foolish notion that the president "runs" the whole show like a dictator.

I want a concrete list of things the bush administration "did" to this country. I also want a list of what Clinton "did" for this country as well.


HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLQg7G3h ... re=related

 

[LinksOcarina]

To be fair, two of those rings are pretty corrupt....

 

[schimmel]

What Bush did:
Spent more time on vacation than any other president in his first six months
Started two wars, one was approved internationally, the other was not approved by as many, in fact there were a lot of countries who refused to follow us into Iraq
Exploded the national deficit
Raised unemployment to a level it has never reached (yes, I know that the last two have to do with Wall Street a little too)
Made our country an embarrassment in the global eye
Gave us some of the best jokes any president has ever had told at his expense.

What Clinton did
Lowered unemployment to a level so low most people had never seen
Lowered the national deficit
Started a war but then never really finished it
Got sucked off under his desk (scandalous!!!!)
Tried to implement a shoddy healthcare program (but at least it was a healthcare program)
Jammed on his sax with different late night talk show bands
Is so well respected people still gather around the TV to hear what he has to say when he is speaking.

 

[Green_Lantern]

^The word you're looking for is debt...Not deficit...And your last two Clinton points are pointless - I bet pretty much every ex president "is so well respected people still gather around the TV to hear what he has to say when he is speaking." Including Bush.

And I'm not too sure how a president can raise unemployment levels by himself....


I think what a lot of people don't realize on the whole Bush front, is a lot of the things he did, he actually didn't do...He was one of the CEO types - just sit back and let everyone below you take care of things. Which is why Cheney was probably the most powerful vice president in the history of the United States, just due to the amount of say and pull he had in the White House...

 

[GRColin]

Anyone interested in quibbling about the purpose of this anti-war rally would do well to back up their words by doing one thing: go enlist.

.

That's as juvenile as saying "you think Michael Bay movies suck? Go direct a better one yourself." And no one here is saying war is awesome. Eyebrows hit the nail on the head. Some were just questioning how deeply involved Karl Rove really was. And to attack Eyebrows for his viewpoints is a little harsh as well. Yes, he seems to attack the liberal side more than the conservative but at least he does check other news sources and come up with his own conclusion, which is I why I asked him what he read. Too many of us read ONLY CNN or NPR and think we know the entire side.

Here's a thought - War sucks. Democrats and Republicans mostly suck. You are not the party you are associated with. Political divides are as lame as a mule with two legs.

 

[NickKmet]

Karl Rove is old news. He's done politically. He's no longer relevant. Go protest against your state governors/legislatures for trying to strip unions of the ability to collectively bargain.

 

[Eyebrowsbv31]

Karl Rove is old news. He's done politically. He's no longer relevant. Go protest against your state governors/legislatures for trying to strip unions of the ability to collectively bargain.

This is wrong. They're trying to strip public unions of collective bargaining (and only for medical and pensions) not all unions. HUGE difference. FDR himself said that giving collective bargaining rights to public employees would be incredibly dumb. Case in point would be California, the most heavily public'd unioned state in the country, and it's going down the shitter fast.

You should research the difference between public and pvt. sector unions. My state has no collective bargaining rights for public unions, and there isn't an issue with it, we don't have a balanced budget, but we lack the cheese industry.

Think of it like this: Public unions are paid by the government (taxpayers) Unions collect dues, which they then take and get friendly politicians, who control the taxes, in office (Obama received a 400+million donation from the SEIU, for example). These union friendly politicians, like the ones in Win. that got voted out, got some pretty sweet deals for the unions, which in turn destroyed the budget. You don't have that in the pvt. sector. It's a big difference between the two. Please, look at California, look at the teachers unions and the prison unions, keeping people locked up is in their benefit, keeping kids dumb is the same.

@schimmel. Obviously you should have no problems at all with the first and third things Bush did in your list, because President obama quickly smashed those records.

Clinton had power for less than two years; he lost the house in 1994, so the deficit and the unemployment, again the three ring circus, was a compromise between him and house republicans. The computer boom certainly helped too. Anyone, democrat or republican, could have been in power in the 1990's and came out great.

You forgot about the Innocents Clinton killed in Iraq and the soldiers he got killed in Somalia.

I'll say it again, hasn't been a good president for 50 years or a good congress...ever.

@lethean, thank you buddy for not being so partisan and blind like schimmel, far too many people don't read information from both sides of the isle. I tend to let the hammer fall on liberals here because just about everyone is plugged in to only one side. I'm fairly left wing on a number of things (mostly social) but financially I'm fairly conservative. I believe in small government because when you look at things the government runs like the post office, or you see how awful "free" healthcare is in countries like England that have less than an 8th or so of our population tend to not want the government to run things. Defense, police, fire, utility/food regulation and roads should be the things the government does. Example of one of my beliefs... but I also think gay folk should have every right to marry and adopt, as I think they'll make better parents than some of the yahoos today.

I also forgot to mention politifact.com, which is somewhat left-biased, but still fairly good.

 

[NickKmet]

Except public workers in the states in question are already under compensated in comparison to private sector workers. Public sector unions do not destroy budgets. Both of my parents work for the state here, and I know for a fact my dad could earn 4 times in salary what he does now plus health benefits and a retirement plan if he were to switch to the private sector.

It must be noted that the public unions in Wisconsin agreed to all of the cuts Governor Walker wanted - the only reason they balked on his bill was that he then wanted to cut away at their ability to collectively bargain. I find it tough for anyone to argue that public sector employees for some reason should have less rights than those in the private sector. It is appalling to me that Republicans and the far right continue to demonize Unions and state workers as though they are somehow responsible for the current fiscal crisis, when all you have to do is look at the lagging economy caused by greed in the private sector. It's disgusting. Why are they the ones that have to pay financially, while corporations get tax breaks? How does that make any sense?

And really eyebrows? 400+ million? A union with 2.2 million members single handedly funded nearly half of Obama's election campaign? I think we would have heard about that. Either you missed a zero or you're full of shit.

It also should be noted that Wisconsin actually had a budget surplus of $120 million heading into the next few years. Their current budget crisis was the result of Walker passing an enormous reduction in the state corporate tax - which was completely unnecessary, and definitely not offset by anything else. Suddenly there's a huge crisis financially, and who do republicans target? The unions. They're doing this for political reasons, not because the budget is somehow harmed by unions Eyebrows. If you claim to not be a Fox News/Glen Beck worshiper, this enough you should know and be able to see.

Please, look at California, look at the teachers unions and the prison unions, keeping people locked up is in their benefit, keeping kids dumb is the same.

Yeah, I don't think you comprehend what the state of the California education system is. I go to a college with quite a fair number of students who went to school in California, and many of them are studying to become teachers. And a lot of them don't want to return to California to teach. Schools are extremely underfunded throughout much of the state, classes are much too large, and they now put kids with disabilities into normal classrooms because they can't afford to keep them separate. There's a reason the teacher burnout rate at 3 years is almost 1 in 3. At 5 years it's nearly 50%. I don't think they have cushy, high paying jobs. The average teacher salary hovers around $50,000. That's not what I would call great pay. The California state budget sits around $200 Billion. about 1/20th of that goes to employee salaries and benefits. Their budget problems are not a result of overpaid public employees.

Now, I don't have a problem with fiscal conservatism. But the government should not actively target its own employees at the behest of corporations when the financial crisis was caused in other sectors. Sure, governments need to make cuts. But focusing on unions is really not the way to go. State governments overextended themselves - sure. But the thing is, if the private financial sector had been adequately regulated and carefully watched for signs of trouble, then the current crisis most likely would not have originated. We're today facing the worst receipts by national, state, and local governments since the great depression. Of course there's going to be budget problems. We today have tax rates that are at their lowest levels since 1950. 1950. And we need more tax cuts? How are we going to balance budgets, especially when accounting for inflation, but only cutting budgets? How? Taxes have to be raised. Plain and simple. Cutting budgets and making public employees suffer only hurts the economy because not only are you not investing into the economy with various governmental programs, but you're also cutting the wages of a large portion of your population. It's ridiculous.


I would also like to remind everyone that union members are voters. They have a right to support and help elect politicians that are sympathetic to their causes. Frankly, unions and corporations should be able to spend equal amounts of money to guard their interests, because neither labor nor private companies should have more power than the other. When you have an imbalance, somebody will get screwed.

 

[Eyebrowsbv31]

Big post, I can't cover everything, but firstly you're wrong on the..first one:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... fits-prop/

I'll say it again as FDR, the hero of most left wing types, said, public unions shouldn't be allowed to collectively bargain, for reasons I stated above. It sucks your Dad isn't getting paid as well as he should, but guess what? he can quit and find a new job, no one is keeping him there.

And, if you'd please go to politifact.com everything else you said has been rated and disproved and such. here's the one on the budget surplus: http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/sta ... udget-sur/

And I was mistaken about the SEIU, I meant all unions contributed 400 million to obama, sorry, still a freaking lot.

And yes, they are targeting unions, just as democrats target corporations. Quick, I want to remove everything from your room that was ever touched by a massive corporation. Done? Course not, easier to stand outside. yes they are evil and motivated by profits, but what happens when you start to majorly tax a corporation? They fire people, or move to another country. It's naive to think you can "win" against them. Taxes are passed down, not up. the best and only thing to do is to try to get the best deal until globalization takes over and the robots rule the earth.

It's childish to continue to look at "corporations" as the big bad boogeyman. Grow up. The world doesn't work at all under any situation, and frankly all of us including you have no idea how any of this stuff actually works. No one does. Yes corporate tax rates and taxes in general are at there lowest, but so is other stuff too. A TV in 1955 (or whenever they came about) was probably about 5 thousand bucks adjusted for inflation, now you can grab a 40 inch flat for 300 if you shop around. Taxes are lower, everything is cheaper, and our lives are pretty fuckin' good.

Besides, teachers only have to work 30 years and they can retire, least in this state

EDIT: You also mentioned glen beck/fox, why do you all guys seem to think the only place for news you don't agree with is fox? Read more sites....

politifact
NYT
NPR
orange.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
realclearpolitics
National Review
American Spectator
Huff. post
etc!!!

 

[NickKmet]

Oh, you're right. State workers pay a smaller percentage into benefits. But they also get paid less. The article you point to points that out at the bottom.

"Now, we'd like to drop one big disclaimer into this whole analysis. Many experts contend that while state workers get better benefits, they get paid less than folks in the private sector."

They then look at that in a subsequent article, and while the point out that the union leader is wrong on his percentage, the studies they look at show that yes, when you combine benefits with pay, state workers earn less overall.

And yeah, it does suck that my dad doesn't get paid the $400,000 salary his highly specialized skill set demands in the private sector. But hey, I'm not complaining, and neither is he. He keeps his public job because it allows him to have the time to pursue his other job - being the mayor of the city I grew up in. I wasn't try to pull a sob story about how terrible my parents pay is - I was just pointing out that they don't make fair market value for their skill sets.

And you are right about the budget. I'm a few days behind on my reading about stuff in Wisconsin. Though it is interesting to note that the current budget crisis in Wisconsin isn't actually bad enough to warrant the legislative tool that Gov. Walker is using.

And yeah, you're still wrong about the unions contributing $400 million. According to the following link, "In 2008, unions spent $74.5 million in campaign contributions, with $68.3 million going to the Democratic Party." They've only spent $667 million since 1990. I don't know where you're getting this $400 million number for 2008 alone from.

http://www.aier.org/research/briefs/155 ... on-support

I get your point on the corporate tax. But I still want to point out that US corporate taxes are only 1% higher than the average for the 30 member OECD.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing ... tional.cfm

But I'm not arguing that corporate taxes in the US need to be drastically higher. If you look at overall tax rates, the US has the 4th lowest in the OECD. The problem isn't because corporations aren't taxed enough. It's because the individual income tax is too low (most especially on the very wealthy). I'm not trying to demonize corporations specifically and state that they should bear the brunt of the burden - just that they really don't need more breaks. Taxes in general need to go up. 35% on the top tax bracket isn't enough, especially when that realistically translates to the 17% Warren Buffet claims he pays (and he definitely fits into the 35% range). The tax code needs to be reworked and some taxes need to go up.

I really wouldn't call my arguments childish though. In terms of money, corporations are taxed in general about the average here as they are in other industrialized countries. But in terms of regulations, I personally feel that many industries are under-regulated here in the US. Finances is definitely so. The current financial crisis should not have happened, plain and simple.

I'm pretty sure state employees in my state have a similar retirement threshold. Though, neither of my parents can retire until they're 62 without suffering retirement penalties. Teachers here though do not have contracts with the state. The state regulates a lot of things teacher related, but as far as I understand it, each school district negotiates with the teacher unions and is responsible for their own contracts. That's why schools here are mostly funded through property taxes and levees.

 

[Eyebrowsbv31]

We agree to disagree, but this is not about the protests, it's about Rove. But I'm not concerned about either, it's all political dick wiggling. I'm more focused on the Middle East and North Africa right now.

But if you want to read some stuff on economics and stuff, try Walter E. Williams or Thomas Sowell, interesting reads although i don't always agree with them.


<3

 

[NickKmet]

lol Eyebrows. I like you man. Even though we disagree. Disagreement is good in a Democracy. I think we should be more focused on those areas of the globe too. What's going on there could have repercussions for the rest of the world for a long time depending on how things go.

 

[blobbohen]

For the sake of completeness I wanted to finish up this topic and let anyone still concerned with protesting the Iraq War know that this demonstration was a success. A war criminal and the war he helped birth showed up to my town championing the bloodshed of the Bush administration and was properly responded to: by being protested. It is just that simple.

To the smirking fools in this thread that crapped themselves screaming that this rally was pointless and without merit I'll reiterate what I said earlier: go enlist. You don't pay attention to the Iraq War not because you're more concerned with uprisings in other parts of the world but because you don't have to serve in the Iraq War. No draft, no problem. Right?


So that's it. Here's a brief article on the event if you want an account of it.


This war is very much a thing not to be ignored. Anyone championing the wars of this country, Obama included, needs to be dissented against. Such is the purpose of a protest. To object.

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.â€

 

[Eyebrowsbv31]

Blob: You're an idiot.

Second: It was a government thing, not a bush thing. Get that into your thick skull. GO back and watch the school house rock video.

And why don't you enlist, here's the idea; enlist, then shoot your entire squad in the back, that'll get the anti-war crowd riled up.

Protesting small fish is totally unimportant. Flies are annoying, but not annoying enough to mobilize the entire neighborhood to crush flies. I've learned something new recently, that there are three ways to look at people and how they look at you

The first is to treat everyone as a enemy until they can prove to be your friend.
The second is to treat everyone as a friend until they become an enemy.
The third is to realize that everyone doesn't give a shit about you.


EDIT: "The protesters attempted to disrupt Rove’s speech and get inside the auditorium, but eventually left."
See, you failed.

 

[Green_Lantern]

Blob: You're an idiot.

+1

EDIT: "The protesters attempted to disrupt Rove’s speech and get inside the auditorium, but eventually left."
See, you failed.

LOL