The true right don't care Tartarin! First thing to be realized - they simple do not care!
You're right, Bill. And they wonder why we think they've gone nuts! I loved that moment when the bush pulled out the phrase "compassionate conservative." That's when we knew that they knew that we knew that they don't have an ounce of compassion and find it a rather disgusting concept, if they were to tell the truth.
To hell with compassion -- I'll stick with justice. These neo-con-artists seem to think that only those with money really invest in this nation. Many lessons to be learned. Many progressives yearning to teach the lessons!
Read the full article, it shows what kinda scrooges and cutthroats the Right really are when it comes to the lower class!
Here's the latest on the Patriot Act: "Government has no business reading over our shouldersGood news: The Republicans in the U.S. Senate recently came to their senses. Remarkably, against the wishes of President Bush and Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the committee decided not to extend the extraordinary surveillance and secrecy powers of the USA-Patriot Act (USAPA). Those powers, granted to Justice Department agencies, should expire in 2005, as originally planned - unless Sen. Hatch succeeds in giving the FBI or the CIA even broader domestic powers...
The full article will be available on the Web for a limited time:
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/5932190.htm
c.i.
I wonder how much granola we could buy if we stopped defending our nation. I bet we even buy birkenstocks for every Iraqi woman and subscriptions to the PETA newsletter for every child. Then, when the US has been weakened so much that every minor terror group that wants to blows up one of our cities or landmarks that we can send some hemp sweaters to the few survivors.
See? We care.
McGentrix
Welcome to A2K.
You've begun, I see, with a granola joke. Of course, the Buddha loved granola and attributed his Awakening to the salutary effects of it on the liver and kidneys.
In the second sentence, you make another humorous allusion to birkenstocks, and also toss in PETA for good measure - a double whammy, sort of. But you missed the wonderful opportunity to conflate the two...you could have put cows in Birkenstocks! It would have been a wonderful image, the cow walking along in Birks. She would have had the same gait (this is the image I get, and it's a hoot) of Trent Lott.
Then in sentence three, we see that you don't miss a trick, slipping hemp into the post just as slick as you please.
Let's see if we can put them ALL together!
We now get...hold onto your hat, this is good...Trent the milkcow in dashing (but practical) footwear sublimly assuming the Lotus Position somewhere in Texas while the Bush girls are in Hollywood at an actor's party sublimly assuming the very same position but sucking on a hookah. Isn't that a yuk?!
PDiddie, where did you get this:
Quote:Quote:
The Pentagon is advocating a massive covert action program to overthrow Iran's ruling ayatollahs as the only way to stop the country's nuclear weapons ambitions, senior State Department and Pentagon officials told ABCNEWS.
The proposal, which would include covert sponsorship of a group currently deemed terrorist by the U.S. government, is not new, and has not won favor with enough top officials to be acted upon.
But sources say it is a viable option that is getting a new look as the administration ramps up its rhetoric against Iran, and it is likely to be one of the top items on the agenda as high-level U.S. policymakers meet today to discuss how to deal with the Islamic republic.
The Pentagon's proposal includes using all available points of pressure on the Iranian regime, including backing armed Iranian dissidents and employing the services of the Mujahedeen e Khalq, a group currently branded as terrorist by the United States.
I'll go back and see if you left a link. I have read interview after interview, in recent days, from Iranians and about Iran. Do we really want to be doing what we are about to do? Iran was muddling along, with the populace trying to support the reformers. This mix would find its way through the labyrinth, and a democratic government with Islamic leanings would emerge. Do we really think we are smart enough (read <powerful enough>) to run the world? We could, of course, fund democratic leanings in Iran, but it looks as if we will not stop there.
Blatham,
(And I just saw your photo from the western gathering, so I am replying to a personage not a nomenclature. :wink: )
Compassionate Conservative is an oxymoron on the order of Liberal Democrat--in this country, there is no left, the Democrats are the right wing, and the Republicans are the reactionary fringe . . .
Granola sucks, and Birkenstocks kill my back, i never wear anything but cotton, and i'm a Veteran who volunteered and served honorably--i believe in a strong and effective military. I believe that Bush and company are a collective loose cannon who are careening down the primrose path because of venality, arrogance and incompetence, and they're dragging the rest of the country with them.
If anyone wants to pull out any more sophomoric stereotypes, i'll happily play with those, as well.
Set. Bush and company are doing it for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. c.i.
Bill -- I just read the NYTimes report on the tax mess and though them seem to carefully report how it affects the bottom end, it doesn't say where the top cut-off is for an increase in tax credit per kid. Did you see where that cut-off was? Wouldn't you think they could leave it in for the poorest and take it out for the upper-middles?
It depends on whose oxymoron is being gored, Setanta... I wear only cotton (well, Polartec in cold weather), not Birkenstocks, granola's too fattening, would deal with the military quite differently from you(!), believe capitalism is out of control and hope to to witness Bush & Co., along with selected members of Congress, experiencing extreme embarrassment and distress very publicly very soon. Oh, and UDI sold to the highest bidder and the profits from the sale used to pay down the debt.
Dude, Where's My Tax Cut?
By Farai Chideya, AlterNet
May 29, 2003
Dude, I'm feeling majorly shafted. Like, I was reading the newspaper - well, not really reading it, I was, like, watching "Fantasy Island" (Mr. Roarke is SO boss) and dropped my pepperoni slice right on top of my roommate's paper. Oops.
Anyway, I ate this 'roni off of this headline about "A Tax Cut Without End." The government is giving away all this money, see? And it might be, let me look at the paper again, $320 billion over 10 years. Or it might be, like $800 billion, 'cause, y'know, once you're gettin' all the free loochie, why stop?
I was doin' my end-zone dance cause I figured I'm a millionaire now, right? That's mucho zeroes to split - $800,000,000,000!!!!! Then my roommate came home.
I call him Dr. Doom because to him, everything sucks. He sucks. He's always bugging me to take out the empties and saying if I don't recycle the world's going to end.
So told him I'm a millionaire! Uh huh, uh huh!
Dr. Doom totally harshed my high. He was, like, you're not gettin' any of this money, dude. First off, he said, you're on unemployment, remember? I told him it wasn't my fault I got fired from the copy shop... and he said, no, listen, that even if I got back on the 9-to-5 groove, I wouldn't be seeing any serious cash.
Why not? I said.
'Cause, he said. 'Cause it's not for people who work, it's for people who make all this money off of stocks. Take the Doomster, for example. He's making good loot for a patchouli-smelling guy, almost fifty G's for writing stupid articles. And he's going to get back, like, $300 a year.
He got all bitter, see. Three hundred bucks a year! He pays three hundred bucks a month for health insurance. And then he went off on how he had to live with a pig like me so he could save money for his own place, but he didn't want to be home it stinks so bad, and why was the kitchen full of empties?
I said, dude, calm down, don't get all personal and stuff. But I really wanted to know where my million dollars was going.
Dr. Doom said that that heart attack guy, the Vice President, is the kind of guy who gets the cash. The Vice Prez was the tiebreaker vote on this tax cut, and he was gonna get 85 extra G's just the first year, even more the next. The Prez was getting back $33,000.
So, like, the Prez and Heart Attack Dude are getting my money? I said. Whoa.
Dr. Doom said they were getting back his money. He got all pissed again, saying how he was working and my parents were paying my rent. For him to get back the four grand he paid for health insurance each year as a tax cut, he'd need to make over 250 grand. And then, y'know, he wouldn't care if he had to pay for insurance. Plus, 25 percent of people who aren't geezers on Social Security don't have insurance at least part of the year. If only we had nationalized health care, Doom said. That would be a friggin' tax cut.
I said, what was nationalized health care?
The Doomster just sighed. He pulled up this site on the internet, the Freelancer's Union. It's this thing he just joined so his healthcare would cost less. He said that 30 percent of the people who work in NYC are freelancers like he is. But unless you make over a hundred grand a year, you can't afford decent insurance. So these guys, the union, are trying to make a stink about it. They call working and not having insurance "middle class poverty."
My roommate said a lot of other stuff too, about how the schools are screwed up now but just wait 'til there's even less money 'cause of the tax cut, and raising the cost of the subway was like taxes too, and, y'know - when was I going to take out the empties?
Fine! I can take a hint. Is raising the cost of beer like taxes, too? If so, I was thinking - and I hate to say it - Dr. Doom might be right.
Farai Chideya is the founder of PopandPolitics.com.
Gels, Hey, man, sorry you're not get'n that million bucks from Bushies tax cut. ;( c.i.
Blatham - conflate? What a wonderful word.
The granola and the Birkenstocks date one; this is no with-it guy we're dealing with here. And I also wear cotton, am married to a vet, and when was the last time anyone heard the word "compassionate" mentioned? The compassionate one looked deep into Putin's eyes and saw his soul.
Setanta - I would add willful ignorance to that list. These are people who know nothing, don't care if they know nothing, and don't care if we know that they know nothing.
x
S'cool dude ..... it would just put me in a higher bracket
No, Boss, I'm not po'ed at you . . . settle down, that was directed at that silly post by McGentrix, 'k?
They have miscalculated here. Eliminating the child relief for those in the lower bracket will not lose many votes, not will it produce many for their opposition, the lower economic levels do not produce many votes for either side. What they have failed to apprehend is that it is more likely that millions of $400.oo checks being spent at the nation's retail outlets would invigorate this economy sooner than hundreds of $80,000.oo checks being placed in trust funds, but perhaps it is not the object of this administration to invigorate the economy, but merely to continue to shift the tax burden away from those who can more easily afford to pay for the privilege of living free to those whose object it is just to get by. They could have had both, the shift and the brightened economy, but that would entail thinking about persons outside of their own power structure, so they didn't.
Joe
