Re: Palestinians Under Attack

Stephen Bishop added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

See one of my other replies. In the beginning, I doubt many
hated George W. Bush. After all, his handling of the post-9/11
situation was widely lauded and his approval ratings soared for
a time. He fell out of favor in starting a war in Iraq that not
only killed and maimed our military people but also led to the
massive deficits.

As unpopular as that war was within some sectors of the
population, let's remember that it was fought by troops who were
volunteers and overwhelmingly believed in the mission
themselves; and the war was also approved by a huge majority in
Congress who had access to the same intelligence information
that Bush had.

In the interest of balanced reporting, I'd like to disagree with
you to a degree about Iraq being an all-volunteer effort. For a
number of reasons, Bush knew that reinstituting the draft would be
so instantly unpopular that it would've derailed the entire War on
Terror initiative plus it would have taken time to build a large
standing armed force. So, he chose to use an obscure section of his
powers as CinC to call up National Guard units and send them into
war. Those people hardly volunteered for that, especially those now
on their 3rd or 4th tours. This was a real sore point during
Katrina when Louisiana found itself with over 60% of it's Guard
unavailable to help because they were in Iraq.

However, once the precedent had been set, it IS true that our
soldiers, Marines, airmen, and sailors continued to re-up even in
the NG although they were fairly certain they have to go to war
again and again.

John Kerry's amazing line says it all: "I voted for it before I
voted against it."

Yes, it's interesting NOW that if one looks at the vote in both
houses of Congress, it was overwhelmingly in favor of going to war
and staying at war. President Obama, when he was Sen. Obama,
insisted that he was always against the war, but we'll never know
since he was not in the Senate back then. But, chances are HIGH
that he would have gone along. And, he DID vote in favor of much of
the war's realities including funding, FISA, USA PATRIOT Act, etc.,
but the Liberal spin prevented him from ever admitting that the
2007 Iraq surge worked.

It was NOT the tax cuts that caused the deficits, it was
the War On Terror. And, it was NOT a tax cut for the rich. Easy
example: since 80%+ of ALL Americans own market securities
directly or indirectly through their pension plans, cutting cap
gains to 15% helped 80%+ of ALL taxpayers. Don't hear the
Liberals talk about that either.

BINGO !

If one looks back to some successful Democratic Administrations,
JFK, LBJ, and even Clinton CUT taxes in order to spur both business
investment and JOBS because they KNEW that this Keynesian crap is
just that - crap. But, so far at least, President Obama seems not
to have gotten the message and even those in Congress who SHOULD
remember that it was Clinton's tax CUTS that fueled both the
dot.com economy AND increased revenues that allowed him to balance
the budget and NOT gross social spending or "soak the rich"
nonsense.

It truly saddans me that the Democrats always seem to forget when
even THEIR presidents have succeeded by cutting taxes. Each and
every time, a rookie Liberal TRIES to do the tax and spend gig,
sees it fall flat, and then moves to the center to govern
successfully and usually win a 2nd term. This time, maybe the
president is trying to get all the bad news out of the way early.
But, for those who wrongly believe in the New Deal, even the CMO
and OMB stated during their analysis of the stimulus package that
in today's dollars, the ENTIRE price of the New Deal was "just"
$550B, barely half what even ONE bill will cost taxpayers!

Isn't truth and transparency a healthy thing? Yes.

I'm FAR from rich and the tax cuts helped me substantially. To
keep this thread somewhat on the topic of photography, Bush's
tax cuts enabled me to buy my D200 and some nice lenses for it.

DITTO!

O'Reilly had Ted Turner, a certifiable Loon, on his show before
Christmas. Turner ADMITTED he never watched the Factor nor ever
watches Fox. O'Reilly correctly said "then, Mr. Turner, I
suggest that you watch our show before you make incorrect
critical statements about us." or words to that effect. Says it
all, I think.

One thing I *DO* like about Ted Turner is that he owns an
AWESOME chain of restaurants named "Ted's Montana Grill." I
don't think there are any in Michigan, but there are several
I've been to in Ohio and Kentucky. They specialize in bison
steaks and burgers, some of the best eating I've had anywhere.

http://www.tedsmontanagrill.com/

Seriously, whenever I bite into one of those amazing bison
ribeye steaks I forgive Ted for his loonie far left views. :-)

Never heard of those, I guess we don't have any in Michigan. But,
what do you think of Turner's politics and his revisionist view of
both history and economics?

The elections' popular vote was a little over 52% for Obama and
a little over 46% for McCain. The Electoral College tally,
though, was 365 to 165, a "landslide" showing the foolishness
of continuing that system.

There is still some merit in keeping the Electroral College, as
it is designed to give the states more of a say in the federal
government. After all, this is the United *States* of America,
not just one big country with all the power concentrated in
Washington, DC. Many still argue that the federal government
has far too much power over the states. Constitutionally, they
are quite right in that there are very few powers specifically
granted the federal government in the Constitution. The
Electoral College is still very much in line with the ideals of
the Framers.

Well, .... no, I don't agree. The plan LOOKS like it gives states
greater control much like the initial idea for the Senate was to
give the smaller states some say, but in reality, instead of
presidential candidates talking to the entire country - as they
should - they instead play Electoral math and create yet another
bullshit euphemism, that of "battleground states." Why should ANY
state be a battleground for anything?!

I do agree that the Federal government has WAY too much control
over the states, but they STILL have the 10th Amendment. And,
absent realistic federal control, we have nonsense like 16 states
wanting individual auto emissions, carbon, and safety laws!

So, my take on this election is that unlike Obama's current
rhetoric, he really did NOT get a mandate to throw out the entire
notion of the Bush White House, but especially NOT tax policy or
even spending. His margin across the country was actually quite low
considering that for him to go up 1% required McCain to drop by 1%
so another way to look at the election is that it was really only
two points apart and NOT a 2X landslide margin as depicted in the
EC.

But, I think what really keeps the EC is that neither major party
has EVER dared to fiddle with it for fear of losing an election.
e.g., in 2000, it was widely charged that Bush had "stolen" the
election from Gore by only 150 hanging chads in Florida giving him
the required 270, but he WAS a minority president in the popular
vote. I'm hardly rooting for Gore here, just pointing out why
NOBODY will even propose adjusting the EC because it is just as
much a political 3rd rail as is Social Security.

Personally, I think senators should still be appointed by the
state legislatures, as they originally were until the
Constitution was ammended to elect senators by popular vote.
The House was to be the representatives of the people, while the
Senate was to be the representatives of the states. The
Electoral College provides a balance between the two by giving
the citizens the right to vote for the President, but those
votes are moderated by the relative population of the individual
states. Remember, we are a Representative Republic, not a
democracy controlled by the whims of the mob.

Sorry, I have to disagree again, mainly because that removes the
people in the states from directly electing those who sit in the
more powerful of the two houses of Congress by virtue of the
Senate's "advise and consent" powers.

What I think I'd like to see is to have presidents restricted to
ONE term of SIX years, the House restricted to term limits 4 12
years at THREE years each, and the Senate stay as it is but be
term-limited to two. My notion is that if they haven't accomplished
anything by then, they deserve to leave. Besides which, super
incumbents lead to the nasty problem where even though a
Representative or Senator may be ineffective or even corrupt, their
seat is "safe." I'd extend House seats from 2 years to 3 mainly to
STOP Representatives from immediately begining their next campaign
before even being swown in to the one they just won.

I'd be more ameneble to the EC if it were proportional and not
winner-take-all which leads to skewing of results based on campaign
spending and state vs. state vs. state warfare.

But, I am certainly OPEN to discussion and compromise if you or
others have some better ideas than either the status quo or mine
for IMPROVING the quality of our elected officials and REDUCING the
very obvious abuses in today's scheme.

Cheers!

--
HP, aka Jerry

"The government that governs least, governs best" - Thomas
Jefferson
"Government is NOT the solution to our problems, it IS our
problem!" - Ronald Reagan
.

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