CLOSED!!Political Discussion - A Place to &quot;duke it out&quot; (7400+)

Top 994. Aug 7, 2003 5:41 PM

» Fred2000 - Re: The clowns

In response to message posted by Kirk:

"Davis was elected on the premise that CA was not spending itself into bankruptcy. He lied about the budget problems. He gave a huge pension increase to the unions that backed him. He allowed CA Utilities to go bankrupt rather than have the poor suffer a few days with no electricity which he could have done if he let rates float.

Kirk... Granted that all you say may be true and granted that he may deserve to be replaced. It's the process.

To have a recall that responds to 1.2 million signatures, in a population of approximately 35 million, is a bit off the mark. There were fewer signatures to recall him than there were votes to elect him.

Then there is the method of selecting the replacement. $3500 buys you a place on the ballot? Rediculous.

A legitimate recall would require as many or more votes as originally elected the candidate. Otherwise every candidate can be recalled by people who want to play dirty tricks. I'm sure the democrats can get 1.2 million signatures to oust the Davis replacement.

The parties should nominate the replacement candidates. The present system is simply a free for all game. Suppose you get Angeline as the next governor?

Look at the Bush election. Many question his legitimacy and are convinced his policies are wrong for the country in every way. Yet there is no movement to recall him. It's a matter of principle. The California recall law has not been use in the last 100 years or so.

-- posted by Fred2000

Top 995. Aug 8, 2003 5:32 AM

» Fred2000 - Bush administation split on N Korea

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Inside the Ring
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By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

North Korea split

Below the public facade of near unanimity on policy toward North Korea, the Bush administration's top national security officials are divided on the best way to deal with the North-created nuclear crisis.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz favor a policy of "regime change" as the ultimate solution. This view, we are told, is based on the almost unanimous intelligence assessment that Pyongyang's communist regime is not going to give up its nuclear arms, regardless of multiparty talks and diplomacy.

The State Department and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell favor the diplomatic approach — even at the expense of concessions to Pyongyang, such as holding bilateral talks.

One solution being considered is to try fomenting a military coup against North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. An idea floating in high-level circles within the administration is to get the Chinese military to lead the way by telling North Korean military leaders that their future is dark as long as Mr. Kim rules.

The coup plan calls for convincing Chinese military leaders to back the North Korean military in ousting Mr. Kim. In exchange, the new military regime in Pyongyang would be guaranteed its survival for 10 years or so if it gives up the nuclear weapons program.

-- posted by Fred2000

Top 996. Aug 8, 2003 5:38 AM

» Fred2000 - Rove fingerprints on Arnold run

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August 8, 2003, 7:29 AM EDT

CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush is leaving the door open to campaigning for California Republican gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger if it could help tip the balance in a close recall election, officials said Thursday.

Nearly a dozen people with ties to Bush emphasized he has no plans now to do so. But none would rule it out.

The White House took pains to publicly distance itself from the volatile campaign. Behind the scenes, though, administration officials and Bush re-election aides spent Thursday trying to discern the state of play in the tumultuous election.

They reached out to their network of lawmakers and other influential Republicans in the nation's most populous state on a day when Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who bankrolled the recall petition campaign against Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, tearfully dropped out.

Bush will spend two days in California next week, and officials said they saw no prospect of him campaigning with Schwarzenegger, who served as fitness czar in the White House for the president's father.

"The president believes that this is an issue for the people of California," White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan told reporters as Bush relaxed at his ranch.

Asked repeatedly whether she could rule out Bush helping Schwarzenegger, she wouldn't answer, repeating her insistence that the White House viewed the election as a state matter. Other officials said they could envision Bush campaigning for Schwarzenegger late in the campaign if it was clear Bush could help push him over the top.

Schwarzenegger, with his star power and history of GOP activism, is viewed by the White House as the Republican with the best shot at ousting Davis. It was unclear what Bush would do if another high-profile Republican, such as former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, entered the race. Riordan was the White House's pick to challenge Davis last year, but he lost in the Republican primary to businessman Bill Simon.

Bush has a strong track record in helping carry fellow Republicans to electoral victories. Of the 53 candidates Bush raised money for in last year's elections, 37 won.

The White House is also trying to calculate the impact on Bush's re-election campaign next year. California carries 55 electoral votes, the most of any state.

Duf Sundheim, chairman of the California Republican Party, said he had told White House officials the recall could give the president a major boost in a state Bush lost decisively in 2000.

"There's a lot of enthusiasm we're trying to capture for the president and other Republican candidates," he said. According to Sundheim, the recall has fueled a surge in GOP registrations.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, mentioned as a possible gubernatorial candidate in California, said she has trouble imagining herself in that role.

"I don't think I'm of the particular breed," Rice told the National Association of Black Journalists' annual convention in Dallas. "Those people are a kind of special breed, I think, who run for office. We put them through an awful lot. And it's a little difficult for me to imagine doing it.

"I'm not a very good long-term planner. I really don't say 'never' to anything," Rice said. "But it is not on my radar screen to run for elective office."

Schwarzenegger met in April with Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser. White House officials said at the time that Schwarzenegger simply dropped by to talk about an after-school program that California voters approved last year and to see what he could do to support U.S. troops overseas.

-- posted by Fred2000

Top 997. Aug 8, 2003 5:47 AM

» Fred2000 - AL GORE DELIVERS REMARKS.....

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AL GORE DELIVERS REMARKS AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY ON PRESIDENT BUSH'S IRAQ POLICY
Thu Aug 07 2003 11:48:22 ET

Some of you may remember that the last time I talked formally on the topics that we're here to talk about today was a little less than a year ago in San Francisco, when I argued that the president's case for urgent and unilateral preemptive war in Iraq was less than convincing and needed to be challenged more effectively by the Congress.

In light of developments since then, you might assume that my purpose today is to revisit the manner in which we were led into war, and to some extent that will be the case, but only as part of a larger theme that I feel very strongly needs to be explored on an urgent basis.

The direction in which our nation is being led now is deeply troubling to me, not only in Iraq, but also here at home, on economic policy, social policy and environmental policy.

Millions of Americans now share a feeling that something pretty basic has gone wrong in our country and that some important American values are being placed at risk. And they want to set it right.

The way we went to war in Iraq illustrates this larger problem. Normally, we Americans lay the facts on the table and talk through the choices before us and make a decision. But that didn't really happen with this war, not the way it should have.

And as a result, too many of our soldiers are paying the highest price for the strategic miscalculations, serious misjudgments and historic mistakes that have put them and our nation in harm's way.

I'm convinced that one of the reasons we did not have a better public debate before the Iraq war started is because so many of the impressions that the majority of the country had back then turned out to have been completely wrong.

Now, leaving aside for the moment the question of how these false impressions got into the public's mind, I think it might be healthy to take a hard look at the ones that we now know were wrong and clear the air so we can better see exactly where we are now and what changes might need to be made.

In any case, what we now know to have been false impressions before the war, include the following.

Number one, Saddam Hussein was partly responsible for the attack against us on September 11th, 2001, so a good way to respond to that attack would be to invade his country and forcibly remove him from power.

Number two, Saddam was working closely with Osama bin Laden and was actively supporting members of the Al Qaida terrorist group by giving them weapons and money and bases and training, so launching a war against Iraq would be a good way to stop Al Qaida from attacking us again.

Number three, Saddam was about to give the terrorists poison gas and deadly germs that he had made into weapons which they could use to kill lots of Americans. Therefore, common sense alone seemed to dictate that we should send our military into Iraq in order to protect our loved ones and ourselves against a grave threat.

Number four, Saddam was on the verge of building nuclear bombs and giving them to the terrorists, and since the only thing then preventing Saddam from acquiring a nuclear arsenal was access to enriched uranium, once our spies found out that he had bought the enrichment technology he needed and was actively trying to buy uranium from Africa, it seemed like we had very little time left.

Therefore, it seemed imperative during last fall's election campaign to set aside less urgent issues like the economy, and instead focus on the congressional resolution approving the war in Iraq.

Number five, our GIs would be welcomed with open arms by cheering Iraqis who would help them quickly establish public safety, free markets and representative democracy, so there wouldn't be that much of a risk that U.S. soldiers would get bogged down in a guerrilla war.

Number six, even though the rest of the world was mostly opposed to the war, they would quickly fall in line after we won, and then contribute lots of money and soldiers to help out, so there wouldn't be that much risk that U.S. taxpayers would get stuck with a huge bill.

Now, of course, everybody knows that every single one of these impressions was just dead wrong.

For example, according to the just-released congressional investigation, Saddam had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks of September 11th. Therefore, whatever other goals it served--and it did serve some other goals--the decision to invade Iraq made no sense as a way of exacting revenge for 9/11.

To the contrary, the U.S. pulled significant intelligence resources out of Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to get ready for the rushed invasion of Iraq, and that disrupted the search for Osama at a critical time. And the indifference that we showed to the rest of the world's opinion in the process undermined the global cooperation we need to win the war against terrorism.

In the same way, the evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all, much less give him weapons of mass destruction, so our invasion of Iraq had no effect on Al Qaida other than to boost their recruiting efforts.

And on the nuclear issue, of course, it turned out that those documents were actually forged by somebody, though we don't know who.

And as for the cheering Iraqi crowds that we anticipated, unfortunately--very unfortunately--that did not pan out either, so now our troops are in an ugly and dangerous situation.

Moreover, the rest of the world certainly is not jumping in to help out very much, the way we expected, so U.S. taxpayers are now having to spend $1 billion every week.

In other words, when you put it all together it was just one mistaken impression after another, lots of them.

And it's not just in foreign policy, because the same thing has been happening in economic policy, where we've also now got another huge and threatening mess on our hands.

I'm convinced one reason we've had so many nasty surprises in our economy is that the country somehow got lots of false impressions about what we could expect from the big tax cuts that were enacted, including: one, the tax cuts would unleash a lot of new investment that would create lots of new jobs; two, we wouldn't have to worry about a return to big budget deficits, because all the new growth in the economy caused by the tax cuts would lead to a lot of new revenue; three, most of the benefits would go to average middle-income families not to the wealthy, as some partisans claimed.

Unfortunately, here, too, every single one of these impressions turned out to be wrong. Instead of creating jobs, for example, we are losing millions of jobs: three years in a row of net losses. That hasn't happened since the Great Depression.

As I've noted before, I was the first one laid off.

And you never forget something like that.

And it turns out that most of the benefits of the tax cuts actually are going to the highest-income Americans, who, unfortunately, are the least likely group to spend money in ways that create jobs during times when the economy is weak and unemployment is rising.

And, of course, the budget deficits are already the biggest ever, with the worst still due to hit us. As a percentage of our economy, we have had bigger deficits, but these are by far the most dangerous we've ever had for two reasons. First, they're not temporary; they're structural and long-term. Second, they're going to get even bigger just at the time when the big baby boomer retirement surge starts. Moreover, the global capital markets have begun to recognize the unprecedented size of this emerging fiscal catastrophe.

In truth, the current executive branch of the U.S. government is radically different from any since the McKinley administration 100 years ago.

The 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, George Akerlof, went even further last week in Germany when he told Der Spiegel, and I quote, ``This is the worst government the U.S. has ever had in its more than 200 years of history.''

I didn't say that. That's the winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics.

He said, ``This is not normal policy.'' In describing the impact of the Bush policies on America's future, Akerlof added, quote, ``What we have here is a form of looting,'' end quote. Now again, that's the Nobel Prize winner in economics.

Ominously, the capital markets have just pushed U.S. long-term mortgage rates higher soon after the Federal Reserve Board once again reduced discount rates. Monetary policy loses some of its potency when fiscal policy just comes unglued, and after three years of rate cuts in a row, Alan Greenspan and his colleagues simply don't have much room left for further reductions.

This situation is particularly dangerous for our economy right now for several reasons. First, because home buying, fueled by low rates, along with car buying, also fueled by low rates, have been just about the only reliable engines that have been pulling the economy forward.

Secondly, so many Americans now have variable rate mortgages, so the increases hit people quickly and hard.

And third, it comes at a time when average personal debt is at an all-time record high. A lot of Americans are living on the economic edge.

It seems obvious to me that big and important issues, like the Bush economic policy and the first preemptive war in U.S. history, should have been debate more thoroughly in the Congress and covered more extensively in the news media and better presented to the American people before our nation made such fateful choices. But that didn't happen. And now in both cases, reality is turning out to be very different from the impressions that were given when the votes and the die were cast.

Since this curious mismatch between myth and reality has suddenly become commonplace and is causing such extreme difficulty for the nation's ability to make good sensible choices about our future, maybe it's time to focus on how in the world we could have gotten so many false impressions in such a short period of time.

At first, I thought maybe the president's advisers were a big part of the problem.

Last fall, in a speech on economic policy at the Brookings Institution, I called on the president to just get rid of his whole economic team and pick a new group. And a few weeks later, damned if he didn't do just that.

And at least one of the new advisers had written eloquently about the very problems in the Bush economic policy that I was calling upon the president to fix.

But now, a year later, we still have the same bad economic policies and the problems have, if anything, gotten worse. So obviously I was wrong: Changing all of the president's advisers didn't work as a way of changing the policy.

I remembered all that last month when everybody was looking for who ought to be held responsible for the false statements in the president's State of the Union Address. And I've just about concluded that the real problem may be the president himself and that next year we ought to fire him and get a new one.

But whether you agree with that conclusion or not--and I see some of you here, do--whether you're a Democrat or a Republican or an independent, a Libertarian, a Green or a Mugwump, you have got a stake in making sure that representative democracy works the way it is supposed to.

I wanted to speak to this Internet-based organization of people who become active in representative democracy because I think this methodology represents one way of trying to fix things.

-- posted by Fred2000

Top 998. Aug 8, 2003 6:01 AM

» Lawhawk - Re: Bush Ratings Drop

In response to message posted by Fred2000:

Fred,

The second half of that article is far more important to candidates and the parties. The Democratic party is showing signs of a schism, while the Republicans are in much better shape. When your 38% of your party's core constituency is saying that you're doing a good or excellent job, something is wrong. That's down significantly from 2001. Liberals are even more dissatisfied with the Democratic party.

Republicans are more satisfied with the party, which means that come election time, they're more likely to vote in a bloc. The Democratic vote is looking more fragmented, at least at this point.

The key will be finding a strong candidate who can actually win a presidential election, not just one who can win the nomination.

-- posted by Lawhawk

Top 999. Aug 8, 2003 6:07 AM

» Fred2000 - Bush Ratings Drop

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Bush Ratings Drop As Public Focus Shifts
By WILL LESTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

People want President Bush to focus most of his attention on the struggling economy, says a new poll that indicates his public support has fallen to about the level it was two years ago.

The president's job approval rating fell to 53 percent in a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, close to his level of support before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and down from 58 percent in July.

In a shift from January when the fight against terror had a higher priority than the economy, 57 percent said the economy is a more important presidential priority, while 27 percent said the war on terror.

Certain to give Democrats hope was Bush's hypothetical matchup with a generic Democrat; the president leads by 43 percent to 38 percent in that contest.

Women, especially older women, and Americans who are middle-income or lower-income, have moved away from Bush, the poll suggested.

Despite Bush's lagging poll numbers, Democratic candidates still must win over members of their own party before taking on the president next year.

Six in 10 Democrats are dissatisfied with the party's performance on core issues such as helping the poor and aiding the average worker, according to the poll. The survey also found Democrats noticing the presidential candidate who often rails against Washington - Howard Dean.

Just 38 percent of Democrats said their party is doing an excellent or good job in protecting the interests of minorities, aiding the needy and representing working Americans, down from 47 percent in May 2001, according to the poll released Thursday.

This Democratic frustration is even more pronounced among liberals, with only 31 percent saying the party is doing an excellent or good job on traditional issues. By contrast, 57 percent of Republicans gave their party high marks on issues such as cutting taxes and pushing social issues important to conservatives.

"Democratic voters don't feel the party leaders are talking about the things that the party stands for," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center

-- posted by Fred2000

Top 1000. Aug 8, 2003 6:21 AM

» Fred2000 - Conservative policies...

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The stern measures advocated by the conservatives remind many people of the failed policies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that led to creation of post-Great Depression entitlement programs and the emergence of the modern welfare structure. The proposals are also reminiscent of the early Reagan administration agenda, reviving ideas that were thought to have been put to rest during the 1980s. Given this history and the untested assumptions that current policy is based on, one might expect the truly conservative to be cautious about such drastic change. As it stands now, conservative policies involve a sizable leap into the unknown.

-- posted by Fred2000

Top 1001. Aug 8, 2003 7:01 AM

» Kirk - Taxes

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"Taxes are commonly a calamity for the people and a nightmare for the government. For the former they are always excessive; for the latter they are never enough, never too much."

-Juan de Mariana (1535–1624)

-- posted by Kirk

Top 1002. Aug 8, 2003 11:34 AM

» Fred2000 - CALIFORNIA

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"It's kind of like a circus, or maybe a freak show."

-- posted by Fred2000