Yes, some people have invested alot of belief, faith, emotional energy, into the saviour, camelot, rising star, agent of change, whatever, Barack Obama, but perhaps those people would be well served to step back a bit and actually re-evaluate what has happened behind all of this excitement and outright hysteria. Maybe now we can actually find out what the guy is really about? He came out of nowhere, politiically, and he could collapse just as fast, politically.
Emotion will take you a ways, but how far? It struck me a few weeks ago as I watched Obama work the crowd on an election night, that I had seen this style somewhere before, then it dawned on me it was at a pyramid marketing scheme meeting where the head salesman was doing the same thing, all of the talk was generalities, oh yes you can, blah blah blah, we will all get rich and live happily ever after, we love each other, the "product" (whatever it happens to be but nobody cares) is powerful and full of profit for you, for me, for everybody. But where are the details, lets not be bothered with that now, we have more important things to talk about.
Foxfyre wrote:Defense spending and defense budgets are two separate things. Remember that Clinton was actively engaged in various military excursion during his terms of office - Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, policing (and bombing Iraq and various other ME countries, etc.) but upgrading the military was not a high priority for him.
Somalia, Haiti and Kosovo were chickenfeed in terms of costs compared to the wars in Iraq under his predecessor and successor. So if you were to deduct spending on military actions from these budget figures, it would slice off a bigger length of the columns in the Bush I and Bush II years than in the Clinton years, leaving even less of a semblance of Clinton-era budget cuts.
old europe wrote:Foxfyre wrote:Defense spending and defense budgets
Yes? Explain.
Bush 43's defense spending, for instance, has far exceeded the defense budgets as he has returned to Congress again and again for more money to conduct the war in Iraq. Bush 41 did do some serious paring including closing some nonessential bases and making other adjustments in non-essential defense installations, etc., but he did not do it at the expense of troop pay, benefits, or readiness. My congressman at the time, Steve Schiff, a serious defense hawk, was a leader in that process and assured us that the military would emerge leaner but better equipped and more ready and effective as a result of the process.
One concern that some who are not supporting Barack Obama have is a concern that he will not make a strong, efficient, effective military a top priority.
nimh wrote:Foxfyre wrote:Defense spending and defense budgets are two separate things. Remember that Clinton was actively engaged in various military excursion during his terms of office - Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, policing (and bombing Iraq and various other ME countries, etc.) but upgrading the military was not a high priority for him.
Somalia, Haiti and Kosovo were chickenfeed in terms of costs compared to the wars in Iraq under his predecessor and successor. So if you were to deduct spending on military actions from these budget figures, it would slice off a bigger length of the columns in the Bush I and Bush II years than in the Clinton years, leaving even less of a semblance of Clinton-era budget cuts.
Maybe, but you'll be hard put to show that Bush 43 has submitted a single budget that reduced military pay, benefits, or troop readiness.
The republican congress rather than Bush 43 but today the House of Representatives will vote on a resolution that if passed will devastate the Veterans Administration's budget and severely reduce its medical, disability, and benefit programs. On the verge of war in Iraq, the Republican Paty has placed in its cross-hairs American veterans from earlier wars.
The Republican majority of the House Budget Committee is reducing President Bush's proposed budget by about $844 million in health care and an additional $463 million in benefit programs including disability compensation, vocational rehabilitation, education survivor's benefits, and pension programs from next year's budget. In addition to these cuts, the GOP is planning to cut $15 billion from the veteran programs over the next 10 years. The soldiers and sailors that are currently in harms way in the the Middle East, are about to have their future veterans' benefits and health care slashed. If, that is, the Republicans get their way.
According to the Veterans Administration, 28 million veterans are currently using VA benefits and another 70 million Americans are potentially eligible for such programs, a quarter of the county's population. With the economy in a downward spiral and unemployment rising quickly, an increased number of veterans will be turning to the Veterans Administration for assistance. Yet, the VA budget is about to shrink.
Foxfyre wrote:old europe wrote:Foxfyre wrote:Defense spending and defense budgets
Yes? Explain.
Bush 43's defense spending, for instance, has far exceeded the defense budgets as he has returned to Congress again and again for more money to conduct the war in Iraq.
Well, sure. The cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are at the moment estimated at about $3 trillion dollars.
However, it seems to be counterintuitive to lump that together with "defense spending" - especially as you seem to be unwilling to count the cost of the military interventions during Clinton's years as such.
Foxfyre wrote:My congressman at the time, Steve Schiff, a serious defense hawk, was a leader in that process and assured us that the military would emerge leaner but better equipped and more ready and effective as a result of the process.
That sounds familiar. Wasn't that what Rumsfeld assured us/you of, too?
Foxfyre wrote:One concern that some who are not supporting Barack Obama have is a concern that he will not make a strong, efficient, effective military a top priority.
What gives you reason for those concerns? Specifically?
old europe wrote:Foxfyre wrote:Both Carter and Clinton severely cut into the defense budget though leaving it to Republican presidents who followed them to go through the heavy expense of rebuilding the forces to A-1 status.
Wasn't it President George H.W. Bush who started making deep cuts in defense budgets - years before Clinton took office?
edit:
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source
This discussion comes up every couple of years, by the way...
This is
from April 2003:
nimh wrote:<snip>
These two graphs are from
http://www.missouri.edu/~polswww/papers/pp011106.pdf - "Determinants of U.S. Military Expenditure After the Cold War. The Reason for Increasing U.S. Military Expenditure".
After the end of the Cold War, military spending in the US stabilised - at two-three times the level it had been on in the seventies.
During the nuclear arms race in the eighties and then the Gulf War under Bush Sr., expenditure had boomed. When the Soviet Union had collapsed, the Cold War was over and the Gulf War was too, a lot of talk was about the "peace dividend". As you can see, Clinton didn't cash it. Budget reductions were only a fraction of the increases of the 1980s. After 1996 spending increased again in fact.
Let me use the second graph from that article to put this in perspective.
The boom in military expenditure under Reagan had at least been parallelled by that in the Soviet Union. But the latter was indeed almost "decimated", to use your term, in Russia in the 90s. That meant that the US military budget under Clinton was almost
four times that of its nearest rivals.
In fact,
world military spending, in 1995-1996, "was down 40% from the 1987 peak level" (same source). US military spending, in the same period, was down
six percent.
old europe wrote:Foxfyre wrote:old europe wrote:Foxfyre wrote:Defense spending and defense budgets
Yes? Explain.
Bush 43's defense spending, for instance, has far exceeded the defense budgets as he has returned to Congress again and again for more money to conduct the war in Iraq.
Well, sure. The cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are at the moment estimated at about $3 trillion dollars.
However, it seems to be counterintuitive to lump that together with "defense spending" - especially as you seem to be unwilling to count the cost of the military interventions during Clinton's years as such.
Foxfyre wrote:My congressman at the time, Steve Schiff, a serious defense hawk, was a leader in that process and assured us that the military would emerge leaner but better equipped and more ready and effective as a result of the process.
That sounds familiar. Wasn't that what Rumsfeld assured us/you of, too?
Foxfyre wrote:One concern that some who are not supporting Barack Obama have is a concern that he will not make a strong, efficient, effective military a top priority.
What gives you reason for those concerns? Specifically?
I dont' recall that Rumsfield ever commented on it. He may have, but I am unaware of him doing so.
My reasons for those concerns is I am not hearing any 'yes we can' from Obama re securing the borders or strengthening and improving national security or keeping a strong and effective military. I think somebody committed to those things would probably have mentioned them.
Foxfyre wrote:I dont' recall that Rumsfield ever commented on it. He may have, but I am unaware of him doing so.
Wasn't it even called the "Rumsfeld Doctrine"? The plan to remodel the army from "slow but massive" to "light but fast and precise"? Wasn't Iraq supposed to be the model showcase of how well it would work?
I seem to remember that.... A quick, easy and cheap war. The Rumsfeld Doctrine.
Foxfyre wrote:My reasons for those concerns is I am not hearing any 'yes we can' from Obama re securing the borders or strengthening and improving national security or keeping a strong and effective military. I think somebody committed to those things would probably have mentioned them.
I don't know what specifically you mean by "securing the borders". If you're talking about illegal immigration - it seems that there's not too much of a difference between the Democratic candidates and McCain.
Regarding the other points - what exactly are you referring to? I mean - "improving national security" can be lots of things. It's wiretapping American citizens without warrant to some, it's withdrawing the troops from Iraq to others...
old europe wrote:Foxfyre wrote:I dont' recall that Rumsfield ever commented on it. He may have, but I am unaware of him doing so.
Wasn't it even called the "Rumsfeld Doctrine"? The plan to remodel the army from "slow but massive" to "light but fast and precise"? Wasn't Iraq supposed to be the model showcase of how well it would work?
I seem to remember that.... A quick, easy and cheap war. The Rumsfeld Doctrine.
Foxfyre wrote:My reasons for those concerns is I am not hearing any 'yes we can' from Obama re securing the borders or strengthening and improving national security or keeping a strong and effective military. I think somebody committed to those things would probably have mentioned them.
I don't know what specifically you mean by "securing the borders". If you're talking about illegal immigration - it seems that there's not too much of a difference between the Democratic candidates and McCain.
Regarding the other points - what exactly are you referring to? I mean - "improving national security" can be lots of things. It's wiretapping American citizens without warrant to some, it's withdrawing the troops from Iraq to others...
I don't want to get into a detailed discussion of what each of the issues should include, OE, or who else does or does not support them. My point is, that Obama has given me no confidence that he is at all concerned with these things, much less that he feels any personal commitment to deal with them or support them. It is these and other reasons that make me pretty sure I won't be voting for Obama. I can like him very much, and I do, without having to think he would make a great president.
finn wrote:
Quote:I'm no longer a Christian, but I can't imagine, for a second, the pastor of my childhood talking to the congregation in this way.
I guess I'm just not hip enough.
Are you hip enough to sit in Hagee's congregation?
Quote:"Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews."
Quote: "Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist."
http://mediamatters.org/altercation/?f=h_column
dyslexia wrote:The republican congress rather than Bush 43 but today the House of Representatives will vote on a resolution that if passed will devastate the Veterans Administration's budget and severely reduce its medical, disability, and benefit programs. On the verge of war in Iraq, the Republican Paty has placed in its cross-hairs American veterans from earlier wars.
The Republican majority of the House Budget Committee is reducing President Bush's proposed budget by about $844 million in health care and an additional $463 million in benefit programs including disability compensation, vocational rehabilitation, education survivor's benefits, and pension programs from next year's budget. In addition to these cuts, the GOP is planning to cut $15 billion from the veteran programs over the next 10 years. The soldiers and sailors that are currently in harms way in the the Middle East, are about to have their future veterans' benefits and health care slashed. If, that is, the Republicans get their way.
According to the Veterans Administration, 28 million veterans are currently using VA benefits and another 70 million Americans are potentially eligible for such programs, a quarter of the county's population. With the economy in a downward spiral and unemployment rising quickly, an increased number of veterans will be turning to the Veterans Administration for assistance. Yet, the VA budget is about to shrink.
No link? That was written in 2003.
nappyheadedhohoho wrote:dyslexia wrote:The republican congress rather than Bush 43 but today the House of Representatives will vote on a resolution that if passed will devastate the Veterans Administration's budget and severely reduce its medical, disability, and benefit programs. On the verge of war in Iraq, the Republican Paty has placed in its cross-hairs American veterans from earlier wars.
The Republican majority of the House Budget Committee is reducing President Bush's proposed budget by about $844 million in health care and an additional $463 million in benefit programs including disability compensation, vocational rehabilitation, education survivor's benefits, and pension programs from next year's budget. In addition to these cuts, the GOP is planning to cut $15 billion from the veteran programs over the next 10 years. The soldiers and sailors that are currently in harms way in the the Middle East, are about to have their future veterans' benefits and health care slashed. If, that is, the Republicans get their way.
According to the Veterans Administration, 28 million veterans are currently using VA benefits and another 70 million Americans are potentially eligible for such programs, a quarter of the county's population. With the economy in a downward spiral and unemployment rising quickly, an increased number of veterans will be turning to the Veterans Administration for assistance. Yet, the VA budget is about to shrink.
No link? That was written in 2003.
Yup, and it was a lot of bull then too. Here's the real skinny:
http://veterans.house.gov/documents/Budget_rep110.pdf
The Veterans do want more than the 5.5% increase proposed for 2009, however:
http://veterans.house.gov/news/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=194
nimh wrote:nimh wrote:Rriiiiggghhtt...
So, the guy breathlessly waves his incense, spreading a speculative, padded mist of assertions of Obama's demise -- and then in the very last sentence chickens out, and quickly adds on a disclaimer that, well, the guy is still "the odds-on favorite", and surfing.
So he's not just a bloviator, but a cowardly one at that.
Piqued my interest though. Made me curious who got to publish such a piece of hot air in a regular newspaper like that. Who is this John Carlson?
Wikipedia to the rescue:
Quote:John Carlson (born June 3, 1959) is a popular American conservative talk radio host ...
His show formerly aired during the afternoon drive time. ... As of November 12, 2007, the show has been moved back to the 3-6 p.m. afternoon [slot] ...
He worked as the Communications Director for the state Republican Party under Jennifer Dunn ...
In 2000 he ran against former Governor of Washington Gary Locke and lost. ...
In 1998, ... Initiative 200, which attempted to prohibit affirmative action ... was soon handed over to Carlson, who took over. The initiative received enough signatures to earn a place on the ballot, and in November of 1998, voters approved it. ...
He unsuccessfully promoted a citizen's initiative in 2005 to roll back a nine-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax passed by the State Legislature.
So, a talk radio windbag cum former Republican Party hack cum populist hardass, whose star has waned. Well that explains that then.
Where would we be without Nappyheadedhohoho's continuing feed of insightful, reflective and fact-checked analyses?
Shouldn't your screed be directed at the Seattle Times? After all, by publishing this opinion, aren't they ultimately the ones who are leading the good citizens and patrons of that publication astray? Or maybe they are counting on their readers to be able to make up their own minds.
nappy noggin said:
Quote:Shouldn't your screed be directed at the Seattle Times? After all, by publishing this opinion, aren't they ultimately the ones who are leading the good citizens and patrons of that publication astray? Or maybe they are counting on their readers to be able to make up their own minds.
Good thinking.
Two months ago at a local farmer's market, I noticed a group of people standing around one fellow who was obviously doing the soapbox thing. I sauntered over for a listen. He was relating to his audience how jews were genetically inferior to caucasians except in the area of greed where they excelled and then he went on to speak of the proven instances where Davy Crockett had sex with farm animals.
I didn't bother interupting the conversation though because I knew he'd gotten this information from somewhere else and the only proper target would be those earlier sources.
Bernie quoted-
Quote:"Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist."
That's a bit tasteless old boy.
Are you suggesting we isolate them inside a circle of candles for a few days each month.
Foxfyre wrote:old europe wrote:Foxfyre wrote:old europe wrote:Foxfyre wrote:Defense spending and defense budgets
Yes? Explain.
Bush 43's defense spending, for instance, has far exceeded the defense budgets as he has returned to Congress again and again for more money to conduct the war in Iraq.
Well, sure. The cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are at the moment estimated at about $3 trillion dollars.
However, it seems to be counterintuitive to lump that together with "defense spending" - especially as you seem to be unwilling to count the cost of the military interventions during Clinton's years as such.
Foxfyre wrote:My congressman at the time, Steve Schiff, a serious defense hawk, was a leader in that process and assured us that the military would emerge leaner but better equipped and more ready and effective as a result of the process.
That sounds familiar. Wasn't that what Rumsfeld assured us/you of, too?
Foxfyre wrote:One concern that some who are not supporting Barack Obama have is a concern that he will not make a strong, efficient, effective military a top priority.
What gives you reason for those concerns? Specifically?
I dont' recall that Rumsfield ever commented on it. He may have, but I am unaware of him doing so.
My reasons for those concerns is I am not hearing any 'yes we can' from Obama re securing the borders or strengthening and improving national security or keeping a strong and effective military. I think somebody committed to those things would probably have mentioned them.
Amazing!!!!!!!! Are you really claiming that Obama has not discussed national security and military and other strategy on the so-called war on terrorism. Are you REALLY claiming that????????????????????
Sure I've heard him discuss them, but so far he hasn't said a single thing that I found reassuring. Go back to my previous post on this theme a page or two or three back. That's what I'm looking for.
Bernie wrote-
Quote:I didn't bother interupting the conversation though because I knew he'd gotten this information from somewhere else and the only proper target would be those earlier sources.
I often think that about your posts Bernie.
Foxfyre wrote:Sure I've heard him discuss them, but so far he hasn't said a single thing that I found reassuring. Go back to my previous post on this theme a page or two or three back. That's what I'm looking for.
Of course not. You want to hear racist buzzwords like "securing our borders." Obama's positions are not very assuring to those with a racist mindset.
Maybe Lou Dobbs will run and you can vote for him. After reading hundreds of your rants, I doubt that I would be re-assured by much of anything that a presidential candidate you would support said.
