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Daily open thread

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The Seattle Weekly has joined the blogosphere, and I love the name, “The Daily Weekly.” Now that you’re a blog, does this mean you no longer pay any of your writers?

Comments

  1. Hey Wingnuts:

    Some “moonbat” company called UPS is rolling out a hybrid delivery vehicle to cut fuel costs. This delivery truck was designed by another “moonbat” company called Eaton.

    I think this was all motivated by some “moonbat” who said we were addicted to oil.

    Read all about it.

  6. Moonbat energy quiz:

    The process of producing biodiesel consumes more energy than is contained in the output and is therefore a net energy loss.

    True or False?

  7. Moonbat quiz #2:

    Explain in real simple terms how a hydrostatic drive works.

    No googling allowed…

    LMAO…

  8. Lobbyist’s Brother Guided House Bill
    A family member’s ties to special interests raise questions in the case of Democrat John Murtha.
    By Ken Silverstein and Richard Simon
    Times Staff Writers

    June 13, 2005

    WASHINGTON — When Congress passed the $417-billion Pentagon spending bill last year, Rep. John P. Murtha, the top Democrat on the House defense appropriations subcommittee, boasted about the money he secured to create jobs in his Pennsylvania district.

    But the bill Murtha helped write also benefited at least 10 companies represented by a lobbying firm where his brother, Robert “Kit” Murtha, is a senior partner, according to disclosure records, interviews and an analysis of the bill by The Times.

    Clients of the lobbying firm KSA Consulting — whose top officials also include former congressional aide Carmen V. Scialabba, who worked for Rep. Murtha for 27 years — received a total of $20.8 million from the bill.

    One of the clients, a small Arkansas maker of military vehicles, received $1.7 million, triple its total sales for 2004. Several other clients received money that represented more than half of their annual sales from last year.

    KSA directly lobbied the congressman’s office on behalf of seven companies that received money from the bill, records and interviews show. Among those clients, a firm based in Maryland received one of the larger individual awards, $4.2 million.

    And a defense contractor based in Pennsylvania said he hired KSA on the recommendation of a top aide of the congressman.

    Disclosure of Kit Murtha’s ties to the lobbying firm prompted criticism from Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan Washington watchdog group that tracks government spending.

    “Family members lobbying family members is becoming an all-too-common phenomenon on Capitol Hill,” he said. “What’s even more troubling is that decisions about defense dollars are being made at family reunions rather than the halls of Congress.”
    http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/103785.html

  9. Geez Mike, there sure is a “culture of corruption” with democrats. Have they no shame?

  10. Sorry

    Commentby For the Clueless— 6/21/06@ 5:21 pm

    Yes, you are Clueless. Purer words have not come from your tow index fingers before.

  11. Wow, look at this liberals:

    “The real Jack Murtha
    TODAY’S EDITORIAL
    June 21, 2006

    Rep. John Murtha is thinking big thoughts. Since coming out for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq last year, he has accused Marines of murder “in cold blood” before a preliminary investigation is even complete; accused the military of a cover up over the same incident; declared his candidacy for the House majority leadership post; and, most recently, refined his cut-and-run strategy in Iraq to mean “redeployment” to Okinawa, Japan.
    That’s quite a splash for such a veteran congressman, who a year ago had zero name recognition outside Washington. That he’s made a name for himself now by slandering our troops and their mission deserves a brief recital of some other activities associated with Mr. Murtha.
    Last June, the Los Angeles Times (conservative paper? NOT) reported how the ranking member on the defense appropriations subcommittee has a brother, Robert Murtha, whose lobbying firm represents 10 companies that received more than $20 million from last year’s defense spending bill. “Clients of the lobbying firm KSA Consulting — whose top officials also include former congressional aide Carmen V. Scialabba, who worked for Rep. Murtha as a congressional aide for 27 years — received a total of $20.8 million from the bill,” the L.A. Times reported.
    In early 2004, according to Roll Call, Mr. Murtha “reportedly leaned on U.S. Navy officials to sign a contract to transfer the Hunters Point Shipyard to the city of San Francisco.” Laurence Pelosi, nephew of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, at the time was an executive of the company which owned the rights to the land. The same article also reported how Mr. Murtha has been behind millions of dollars worth of earmarks in defense appropriations bills that went to companies owned by the children of fellow Pennsylvania Democrat, Rep. Paul Kanjorski. Meanwhile, the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign-finance watchdog group, lists Mr. Murtha as the top recipient of defense industry dollars in the current 2006 election cycle.
    As Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, has said, “If there is a potential pattern where Congressman Murtha has helped other Democrats secure appropriations that also benefited relatives of those members, I believe this would be something that merits further review by the ethics committee.”
    It’s odd that the media, which has been fairly unbiased in going after corrupt politicians recently, has gone silent on Mr. Murtha’s questionable actions. Or maybe it isn’t. Since December, Mr. Murtha has become the darling of the antiwar crowd, and, as we’ve seen with other such darlings, scrutinizing their behavior is considered disrespectful. But as we’re on the subject, few might recall that after the massive 1980 Abscam scandal, Mr. Murtha was named by the FBI as an “unindicted co-conspirator.”
    Maybe the next time the new Jack Murtha thinks up another big idea someone can ask him about the old Jack Murtha. “

  12. Liberals: I have a question for you.

    What if the two soldiers brutally tortured by your good friends didn’t shoot the insurgents that surrounded their humvee because they were dressed as women and then threw off the burqas?

    What if the two soldiers brutally tortured by your good friends didn’t shoot the insurgents that surrounded their humvee because they were dressed as civilians?

    What if the two soldiers brutally tortured by your good friends didn’t shoot the insurgents that surrounded their humvee because they had kids run to the humvee first to distract the driver and then the adults killed him.

    You see these are all well documented methods your good friends kill our troops. You all have tied their hands such that they hesitate. In war he whom hesitates dies!

    Do you comprende?

  14. MWS – You suck! Wanna know why?

    You’re boring. ZZZZZZZzzzzzz…. Same old winger crap..

  15. For the Cluesless:

    MWS has written perfection. You can’t refute it so you use the old donko playbook; “Attack the Messenger” MoveOn.Org 2004 web site!

    Personally I want to see your answer to #12. This is from the military as how the democratic party of Iraq, oops… the islamofascists masquerade as women or civilians and attack our troops. Waiting Cluesless…

  18. Lookie here from Daily Kurse:

    Rasmussen. 6/13. MoE 4.5% Likely voters. (5/8 restuls)

    Cantwell (D) 44 (46)
    McGavick (R) 40 (41)

    This is probably our most endangered Senate seat after the Minnesota open seat, since I don’t buy that New Jersey is in serious trouble.

    Why ain’t Goldy printing the truth?

  19. Puddybud:

    Rep. John Murtha is thinking big thoughts…

    LA Times full of crap? At times maybe..

    But the Moonie Times sure is..

    Now tell me Puddybud. Is the Rev Moon a righteous man of God? The second coming? What is he Puddybud?

  24. MWS: One is never soiled when I use their web sites to point out the hypocrisy of Goldy! In the earlier blog entry McGavick stepped in it. Well let him keep stepping in it as he edges closer to Cantvotetoowell.

  28. About #12 – I thought everything was gonna be sweetness and light after Zarqawi was dead. Or was it after Saddam was caught? Or was it after Ooday and Qsay were killed?

    Or have we just turned a corner???? What’s Ken Mehlman telling you guys to say today?

    Over 2500 dead. How many thousands of limbs, eyeballs and other body parts lost? You guys feel any safer?

  29. Guys. I’m in the wrong business. Moon’s sunk a billion dollars in that worthless bird cage liner and it was no sweat off his back..

    And you all dance to his tune…

  31. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) announced Wednesday the finding of over 500 munitions or weapons of mass destruction, specifically “sarin- and mustard-filled projectiles,” in Iraq. Reading from unclassified portions of a document developed by the U.S. intelligence community, Santorum said, “Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. [………………………..Bush lied! Bush lied! Bush lied!! Oh, he didn’t? Never mind!! Rosanne Rosannadana]

  32. Clueless: Just refute it! That’s your challenge!!! Can you step into the batter’s box and face a Johnson slider? A Clemens fastball?

  33. MWS the moonie: Stack up all the earmarks that benefitted Republican politicians and their districts against those for Democrats.

    Whose stack is higher? How much higher?

    How many earmarks were there? 7 thousand or so?

    And what asshole out there bought hookers for what politicians?

    Nice try Moonies.

  34. Hey MWS and CluelessTheCocksucker: Notice how his karma will not answer to Murtha’s actions but he enters they all do it mode.

    Cluesless: Murtha’s your boy not ours. We already answered Cunningham. Your karma keeps shining through!

  35. Ahhhh Dan Rather is being let go from see B.S. I guess they’re trying to repair their tarnished rep. after the memogate lie. It doesn’t matter though because Dan is not the exception but represents the rule that has been the MSM for the last 20 years. He is just one of the many dying dinosaurs who will drop one by one like the lying gnats they are from the American conscience. Thank god for the alternative media and that truth has prevailed. It truely is great to see some of these lying flakes finally get their long over due “come-up-ins”. Hehe

  37. Will @ 22:
    I’m not surprised by the lack of comments. Even if they didn’t have some technical problems, it takes time for a “community” to develop.

    At any rate, the quality of the postings is decidedly unimpressive. I’d rather read the Seattle Times’ Postman — at least he’s a journalistic agenda setter (for good or ill). In addition, if you feel the need to challenge right-wing bullshit, you get a much more visible platform with Postman than pretty much anywhere else among this state’s media outlets (sorry, this includes HA).

    Added bonus with Postman: The JCH-type trash is filtered out. Hey, life is short; why bother hassling with that crap?

  39. Remember Cluesless: I am the ONLY one one record here at ASSes against pork barrel politics. You NEVER took an against stand!

    ww.horsesass.org/wp-trackback.php/1020 – There are others but one will do.

  42. ATJ, I bought Coulter’s book. I know the hard bound color! She has 354 citations in it. It is funny. Her chapter on William Horton is priceless!

  44. If I wasn’t happily married I’d take #41 out on a date. She thinks circles around the Imbecile Called Cluesless!

  47. 46 – Nice find. Hey Puddybud – Santorum and Hoekstra! Talk about dull knives – the hookers must have spiked their Kool-Aid.

    But we all know you’d vote for ’em in a flat second. Right Puddybud?

  49. Just like you’d vote for Robert 3K Sheets Byrd Cluesess!
    Just like you’d vote for Cut-and-Run Kerry; he was in Vietnam!
    Just like you’d vote for Ray Wher’s them buses again Nagin!
    Just like you’d vote for Teddy No Windmill Farms Kennedy!

    All those dull knives. But wait there’s more: Kennedy cheated at Harvard and then tried to cover it up. Kerry scored lower than Bush at Yale.

  50. howcanyoubePROUDtobeanASS: Libruls have two things, they envy the black man’s package and they hate the fact that Hitler was a Darwinist, just like they are.

  52. howcanyoubePROUDtobeanASS: You mean the battery operated dildo in cluesless mouth or the one stuck in his ass?

    Cluesless said: “Or was it after Ooday and Qsay were killed?”

    It’s Uday and Qusay. You can’t even spell your heroes names correctly!!!! Uday the rapist and Qusay the thief!

  53. Wow, someone finally figured out Clueless. Battery operated too? I am surprised a liberal could afford fancy gadgetry!

  54. 52 – LMAO at you! You’re too stupid to know when someone’s having fun with spelling!!

    So tell me wingnut! Is the insurgency in its “last throes”? Have we “turned the corner” yet?

    When are you going to enlist? Oh like never?

    And who’s your hero, wingfly? Is it Dubya who’s about as popular as the turd under the blossom?

  55. Feeling safer? Not while Murtha bad mouths our troops.

    Little voice of MWS: Oh I feel so safe when Dear Leader Dubya feeds more bodies into the meat grinder in Iraq! I feel so safe when our soldiers go out on another deployment – as many as it takes to keep me safe at home. I feel so safe when Dear Leader hides the soldier’s coffins from the MSM. I can’t serve because I have a pimple on my ass..

  56. Hillary Clinton /Willie Horton 2008!! The best the “progressive” Democrats have to offer!!!!!

  57. War hero John Murtha supports the troops. Coward, draft-dodger and AWOL cocksucker George Bush, cuts Veteran’s benefits, stops body armor from reaching our troops and sends young men to die for oil. Bush is a coward and a traitor. Period!

  58. Little voice of MWS: Oh I feel so safe when Dear Leader Dubya feeds more bodies into the meat grinder in Iraq!

    Commentby For the Clueless— 6/21/06@ 9:11 pm

    Hey it could be worse. It could be as bloody as the murder rate of the top three liberal cities. Hopefully it never gets that bad.

  59. Where is the outrage at the terrorists, you guys?

    Meantime, we will find these terrorists who gouged out the eyes of our best (gee, I thought these terrorists were good guys who always followed Geneva conventions, unlike that eeeeevil America) and help them to go meet Allah and the 72 virgins.

  60. How can you claim that Murtha supports the troops? He was the first one out there claiming a slaughter at Haditha. This was before any investigation. You’d think a Marine would have at least some respect for the men on the ground. But, no. He is more concerned about getting his name in the paper.

    What happens when Haditha turns out to be a fraud, and the guys on the ground acted as they were trained to do? Will Murtha resign in shame for having trashed his fellow Marines? I doubt he has an ounce of honor left in his system. He sold it all so his brother can cash in.

  61. How can you claim that those who sent the troops in under false pretenses (no WMD, no 9/11 nexus), without proper equipment (inadequate body armor, inadequately armored vehicles), and qith poor planning (too many examples to list, but clearly no occupation strategy, inadequate security over weapons depots, which are now killing our troops via IED)are their supporters?

    Murtha has spent time with the wounded and has been known as an expert, at least until he turned on Bush and they turned the attack dogs on him.

  62. Janet S-

    While George W Bush and Bill Clinton were getting their balls teased and rolling joints, Jack Murtha was already a Veteran of Two Wars.

    Go take your swftboat chickenhawk bullshit elsewhere, I’m getting so fucking sick of it.

  63. 62 – It’s her job Will. She just trots out the latest right-wing smear or talking point.

  64. I am sorry people, but I sincerely hope that NOT ONE of our troops is reading this website….. This is almost too much. I know that HA has been a place to freely express yourself, but with the horrific slaughter of the two servicemen just these past few days, I would hope that some would refrain from the graphic details displayed here.

    If for no one else, keep it (at least) somewhat honorable for the soldiers who are fighting over there…..(you dont have to agree/disagree WHY they are there)

  65. It is always hilarious listening to donks pretend they care about the military. These are the same people who voted in a draft dodger Clinton. Yeah right. Hahaha

  66. 62 -That’s what is so disappointing about Murtha, same as Cunningham. Something has happened to both of these men as they got to the national platform.

    Murtha is so excited with the attention he is getting that he doesn’t mind trashing the Marines. What is honorable about his behavior? He has accused them of war crimes before any facts are known. He could have called for a full investigation, but no – he had to condemn them in the press.

    The only reason the s%^& hasn’t hit the fan about the money he has been shoveling to his brother is ths MSM afraid to attack a dem Marine.

  68. 62 – It’s her job Will. She just trots out the latest right-wing smear or talking point.

    Commentby For the Clueless— 6/21/06@ 9:57 pm

    Puddy to thief a line from you: Clueless you get your Karma every day from Daily Kos. Sure liked how Puddy showed Kos is worried about Cantvoteatall!

  69. To a liberal, you are guilty until proven innocent.

    Commentby Mike Webb Sucks— 6/21/06@ 10:12 pm

    Well unless you are the KCRE. Hehehe

  72. Puddy to thief a line from you

    MWS – I pronounce you guilty of being dumb,unoriginal and boooring…

    ZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZzzzzzz….

  73. Then leave Clueless. Your pronouncements are worthless, just like you. It’s amazing you call that a personality.

  74. 70 – I have told the truth wingfly but either way you’ve lost – when you attack an opponent’s spelling it signals you have nothing left.

    No WMD, no ties to Al-Qaeda, no connection to 9/11, no corner turned, no insurgency in its “last throes” but over a trillion dollars more in debt, over 2500 souls lost, thousands of bodies and minds shattered and all so very much avoidable.

    So if doing the same thing expecting a different result is insanity then what is “staying the course” to you wingfly?

  75. Clueless: Be sure to read those liberal web sites as soon as you wake up. Next see what enn bee see has. Then jump to see BS. Finally a dose of eh, bee see will set you on your way, you won’t need coffee!

  76. 70 – I have told the truth wingfly but either way you’ve lost – when you attack an opponent’s spelling it signals you have nothing left.

    Commentby For the Clueless— 6/21/06@ 10:49 pm

    No shit. No wonder rabbit and other lefties harp on spelling to much.

  77. The problem with the left-wing nut such as clueless is when he’s caught in a lie he trips on his knuckles.

    “You’re too stupid to know when someone’s having fun with spelling!!” – You are too stupid to spell their names right so you at least look intelligent!

  78. There should be a 45% tax rate on corporations and all laws restraining labor unions should be “deregulated”.

    You want deregulation, don’t you?

  79. 73 Sorry MWS. I’m here for the long haul. The people are getting sick and tired of the Republican bull. I’ve been barely tolerating it myself since the Death Valley days of Ronzo Reagan.

    The pendulum will swing back and I’m going to be there cheer it on.

  80. No wonder rabbit and other lefties harp on spelling to much.

    We marvel at your spelling DOOFUS. It demonstrates the excellence of your private education at the wingnut madrassa.

  82. 26 years ago… Jack Murtha, cut and run hero to the clueless…unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam scandal.

    In 1980, Murtha was a lieutenant of Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill and was moving to the top in the House when the FBI named him as one of eight members of Congress videotaped being offered bribes by a phony Arab sheik.

    Seven congressional targets took cash and were convicted in federal court. The videotape showed Murtha declining to take cash but expressing interest in further negotiations, while bragging about his political influence.

  84. I like Janet S ,

    I think you might be wasting your time here with these vulgarians, love. Perfect illustrations of what has become of my former beloved left champions of freedom, haters of dictators no longer; they have succumed to an insane drive for purity and thus share with the jihadists a vision of mankind purged of simple human foibles like shiopping and TV (these are its big bad enemies nowadays); too bad, it would be nice to have them in the fight against world wide terrorism.

  85. my former beloved left champions

    So what were you back in the day, das? An authoritarian radical like David Horwitz?

    Like Horowitz you were wrong then and you’re wrong now. Do us all a favor and crawl back to LGF.

  86. Put it this way clueless,

    All the thoughts that roll around in your head once rolled around in my head. But I pushed ideology aside and took a fresh look at things and reaized how wrong I was. That is why conservatives can understand liberals but liberals cannot understand conservatives; there remains an extra step of intellection that liberals have not yet made…

  87. das @ 86

    “All the thoughts that roll around in your head once rolled around in my head. But I pushed ideology aside and took a fresh look at things and reaized how wrong I was. That is why conservatives can understand liberals but liberals cannot understand conservatives; there remains an extra step of intellection that liberals have not yet made…”

    …or maybe it is because you were eating lead paint chips….

  88. those who don’t want the details of what happened to our soldiers are the lefties who don’t want America to know the truth. If they soft-peddle the disgrace, then the sleeping giant will not awaken. That’s also why networks don’t show 9-11 footage as much, even on the anniversary. Because they want the terrorists they support to be seen as nicer than they actually are! They want sympathy for the terrorists because “America had it coming” (at least in liberals’ eyes).

  89. Just like a bunch of chickenshit chickenhawks to attack a war hero like Murtha. Look at Janet S – she says she supports the war but won’t send her kids to fight in it;. The right needs a villian for their ploy to work – so they attack Murtha, constantly lying about what he said, what he did, what he didn’t do. All the while repeating the talking points they hear on Lush Flimbaugh, all the while pretending they know something of war while in fact they are all draft dodging cowards. Murtha should keep sticking it to the righties and we should keep listing all the chickenhawks, exposing their cowardice and calling them traitors for they are. They out CIA agents, support a republican regime that cuts veterans benefits and they won’t fight the war they say they support. They are the proof that Osama has already won. Their rise to power shows America has lost.

  90. http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....age22.html

    Three things to note about the minimum wage bill.

    1) The GOP derailed it because they know it primarily benefits working poor and African Americans
    2) The working man will be reminded who fucked them when election time comes
    3) The GOP is always screaming they want an up or down vote – yet they wouldn’t allow one on this issue since they were afraid it would pass

    Is anyone surprised that the GOP is anti-African American, against the working man and hypocrites on the up or down vote issue? Not me.

  91. Das, I’d agree that folks like you and Janet are “wasting your time here.” Please go away.

    This is not because I wish to avoid a good, robust debate with those who think very differently. To the contrary, if American democracy is going to survive we MUST create more ways to learn how to talk across differences.

    What I object is the dishonest way so many of you engage the discussion, e.g., by viewing HA as a dumping ground for your unoriginal Republican talking points. As a case in point, the global warming discussion was a veritable Mad Hatter’s tea party. What a bunch of crap piled high, and yet even after a few weeks of pretty intense debate virtually all of you wingers haven’t backed off one inch from continuing to spew information that is patently untrue.

    Das, I must admit that your writing is a bit more interesting than the crass batherings of Mr. Cynical or — the king of trailer park arrogance — MTR. However, i wouldn’ t be surprised if you’re some paid hack. Your talking points are too smoothly presented, and your alleged former progressivism sounds too . . . synthetic. You throw a lot of rhetoric around but you don’t say a whole lot of substance. I guess in your world it’s enough to bash, bash, bash (and then blame the left for doing exactly what you’re doing).

    Nice try, though.

  92. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) and Rick Santorum (R-PA) assert what the Iraq Survey Group has already dismissed, that the 500 shells containing degraded mustard and sarin gas are proof that Saddam Hussein had WMD.

    These weapons are generally regarded as left-overs from the pre-sanction era before the 1991 Gulf War which were not destroyed by the Iraqi regime. These weapons, made over ten years years prior to the Iraq attack, were unusable, having long since passed their stable shelf-life

    Sarin has a shelf life of five years. Scott Ritter wrote in 2002 that any Sarin that hadn’t been found would have been “useless, harmless, goo”.

    Mustard gas is somewhat more stable than the nerve agents, but the weaponized form in shells provided by the Reagan Administration would have been useless as a weapon in 2003.

    The crap that Santorum and Hoekstra are spreading is the same stuff that shows up here in the HA comment threads from time-to-time.

    Proof that Kevin Carns lurks here.

  94. 91

    das boot is a hoot! He knows us but we don’t know his “advanced” outlook. This seems like kind of an evolutionary argument, doesn’t it? The fundies won’t like that.

    It’s really easy to become a conservative. Just lose empathy and decide that piling up cash is the end-all of one’s life. The easiest thing to do of all is to say, fuck it and vote against all taxes.

    Hey, I don’t have any kids in school, anymore. But I don’t want my grandkids living in our version of Calcutta.

    I grew up in a much more liberal environment, and it was a better world. Not at all perfect, but a better society than exists now. And the tipping point was the Reagan administraion.

    Anyone who went through that era and says it was a reason to abandon liberalism has a screw loose.

  95. …or maybe it is because you were eating lead paint chips….

    Commentby dj— 6/22/06@ 12:10 am

    We always wondered what your academic credential were. “Statistical Analysis of Paint Chip Eaters” – Now there’s a Chi^2’d analysis we all need!

  96. I love how Roger Wascally Wabbit Pellet likes to call YO Yahoo. If you are associated with Yahoo you have some good stock!!! Then to claim to be a Rabbit and have people suck his tail is grotesquely disgusting… Wait a minute… Rabbit’s politics are disgusting… Carry on!

  98. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) announced Wednesday the finding of over 500 munitions or weapons of mass destruction, specifically “sarin- and mustard-filled projectiles,” in Iraq. Reading from unclassified portions of a document developed by the U.S. intelligence community, Santorum said, “Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. [………………………..Bush lied! Bush lied! Bush lied!! Oh, he didn’t? Never mind!! Rosanne Rosannadana]

    Commentby REP Pat Kennedy [D-Bitchslap the Black Security Guard At LAX]— 6/21/06@ 8:01 pm

    If you follow some of the coments it seems to me that some people overlook the facts and continue with the talking points fed to them or just ignore any truths.

  99. That is why conservatives can understand liberals but liberals cannot understand conservatives; there remains an extra step of intellection that liberals have not yet made…

    Oh I get it. You were brainwashed then and you’re brainwashed now!

    das boot: born again brainwash! Or is it born again brain shred? Never mind…

  100. Mike Webb sucks

    What if the two soldiers shot by friendly fire from our buddies the Iraqis were in your family and you were not told THE TRUTH about the circumstances of their deaths for more than a year?

  101. Republicans want more soldiers to die in Iraq so they can acuse the Democrats of being weak. It’s all about political advantage for THEM. Join the MAJORITY, bring ’em home!

  103. 94. Harry

    I used to think that too, that all conservatives lacked empathy, etc. But that is not true, in America at least. Maybe in Latin America you are right, the rich there don’t give a rip about their poor;

    The fact is, I work with poor kids (young teens) and like all things in life it is a two way street. In your version of things all we need is for rich people to throw money at poor people, let’s say poor kids I work with, and then everything would be hunky dory right? Sorry, not right. The thing we know about human nature is that the direct approach to things always becomes problematic. Human wiring is not direct and all of you here know this; all of you have a passion in life – I bet – that you would not sacrifice for a ball of gold set beside you; the kids I work with are poor and troubled and the state lavishes resources on them to stay in school, for counseling, for outings, for sports, for room and board, for all the things that might make life decent for them. Many take advantage of it but some don’t. They make the choice, they’d rather be out hanging out on a streetcorner – with no allowance or clean clothes with basically nothing…they make choice;

    Let’s take a look at those evil corporations leftoids love to rail against. At one mostly black south seattle high school with a graduating class of 200 I counted 40 scholarships given and taken by students. My sense was that no performing student at this high school would have been denied a scholarship had he attained the marks for it; America’s corporations are among the most giving in taxes and charity in the world.

    You HA guys must stop reacting to all the agitprop and take a fresh look at things; I’m not saying America has got it all together, not by any stretch, but you need a rich country to solve all the problems that excercise you and make you want to take up bone-head leftoid solutions to things….

  104. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. June 14-19, 2006. N=1,501 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3. RV = registered voters

    “Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq?”
    6/14-19/06
    Approve 35%
    Disapprove 57%
    Unsure 8%

    CNN Poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation. June 14-15, 2006. N=1,017 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).

    “Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq?”
    6/14-15/06
    Approve 39%
    Disapprove 54%
    Unsure 8%

    “Do you favor or oppose the U.S. war with Iraq?” Half sample, MoE ± 4.5
    6/14-15/06
    Favor 38%
    Oppose 54%
    Unsure 8%

    NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll conducted by the polling organizations of Peter Hart (D) and Bill McInturff (R). June 9-12, 2006. N=1,002 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.1 (for all adults). RV = registered voters.

    Would you bee more likely to vote for a candidate for Congress who avors pulling all American troops out of Iraq within the next twelve months, less likely to vote for this candidate, or would it not make a difference to you either way?
    Registered voters 6/9-12/06
    More Likely 54%
    Less Likely 32%
    No Difference 10%
    Unsure 4%

    Doesn’t that make you guys “lossers?”

  105. Dear RightWingNuts,

    I guess we won’t have to worry about burning in hell in the afterlife after all. Apparently we are going to burn right here, where we stand.

    MSNBC staff and news service reports

    June 22, 2006

    WASHINGTON – Weighing in on the highest profile debate about global warming, the nation’s premier science policy body on Thursday threw its weight behind controversial data and voiced a “high level of confidence” that Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, possibly even longer.

    A panel convened by the National Research Council reached that conclusion in a broad review of scientific studies, reporting that the evidence indicates “recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years.”

    The panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that “human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming.” Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.

    Carl Grossman
    Liberal and Proud

  106. das.
    “America’s corporations are among the most giving in taxes and charity in the world. ”

    Maybe if every penny of spending for the Iraq war were NOT borrowed money, and maybe if our annual borrowing were NOT 300-400 billion dollars annually, and maybe if federal spending were NOT growing at 8% anually, our corporations could be less “generous” with their taxes.

    Throw ’em out! Balance the budget! Democrats are the party of fiscal discipline and balanaced budgets!

  107. das

    “bone-head leftoid solutions”
    Yeah, what could we be thinking when we advocate for universal public education, a universal health care system that is NOT employer-based and employer-paid, energy independence, higher wages, clean water and air, peace, a balanced budget, reducing the middle class tax burden, safeguarding nuclear materials, protecting Amreicans’ privacy…Hoo boy! Are crazy or what?

  109. The FACT is the American people want a new direction in Iraq, and the Democrats offer several. The Republicans, on the other hand, offer nothing more than a four-word strategy: more of the same. Had enough?

    Republicans have a faith-based Iraq policy. They have faith in Donald Rumsfeld, they have faith in Dick Cheney, they have faith in George W. Bush. We don’t. They are liars and nincompoops – and the lives of tens of thousands of our best are in their hands. Had enough?

    Real strength is standing up to your president and your party when American lives are on the line. The Republican Congress has blindly backed a failed strategy that has left 2,500 Americans dead, 20,000 wounded, and put us $2 trillion in the hole. Had enough?

    Being part of a party that has three or four different new approaches to Iraq beats the hell out of being part of a party that marches in lockstep off a cliff.

    paraphrased in parts and thanks to Paul Begala and TPMCafe

  111. Democratic State Treasurer Robert Casey Jr. a 52 – 34 percent lead over incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, with 12 percent undecided, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Is the Senate within reach? Will it be Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader who sets the agenda? Democratic committee chairmanships? Senate Armed Services committee investigation of Iraq procurement corruption?

  112. 104.

    No, I merely believe that there should be a floor, below which no citizen should fall. Low wages, structural unemployment and absence of health care are evils in our society that are causing us to fall behind other countries. The “Great Society” approach has been absent in the Democratic Party for over thirty years. The thing I am fighting for is the continuance of the “New Deal” programs that have proven to be beneficial to the United States for over seventy years, though under constant attack from the right — Social Security, minimum wage, regulation of industry. Universal health care was an unaccomplished goal of the Roosevelt administration.

    With notable exceptions, like David Packard, Bill Hewlett and Bill Gates, corporations are skinflints. Even my examples are individual wealth bequeathed through foun dation. But HP once was, and Microsoft is a notable exception to the tightness of big business. In terms of charitable donations, Target’s 2.1% of earnings for cash contributions is tops, most “generous” companies come in around 1.2%. Chevron, a major polluter, runs ads focusing on snail darters around one of its plants, while causing major headaches in California.

    Corporations want us to believe that they are concerned, moral “corporate citizens” — whatever that means. So businesses pump millions of dollars into charities and nonprofit organizations to deceive us into thinking that they care and are making things better. On top of that, corporate charity can buy the tacit cooperation of organizations that might otherwise be expected to criticize corporate policies. Maybe you, das are from one of them, stranger things have happened here. Some PR firms specialize in helping corporations to defeat activists by co-opting them.

    One PR exec outlined his firm’s basic divide-and-conquer strategy for defeating any social-change movement. Activists, he explained, fall into three basic categories: radicals, idealists and realists. The first step in his strategy is to isolate and marginalize the radicals. They’re the ones who see the inherent structural problems that need remedying if indeed a particular change is to occur. To isolate them, PR firms will try to create a perception in the public mind that people advocating fundamental solutions are terrorists, extremists, fear-mongers, outsiders, communists or whatever. After marginalizing the radicals, the PR firm then identifies and “educates” the idealists — concerned and sympathetic members of the public — by convincing them that the changes advocated by the radicals would hurt people. The goal is to sour the idealists on the idea of working with the radicals and instead get them working with the realists.

    Realists are people who want reform but don’t really want to upset the status quo; big public-interest organizations that rely on foundation grants and corporate contributions. They can be counted on to cut a deal with industry that can be touted as a “win-win” solution, but that is actually an industry victory.
    This crap works because we don’t have a watchdog press that aggressively investigates and exposes PR lies and deceptions, just like they don’t report on the lies and deceptions of Bush. Its success is also a reflection of the sorry state of democracy in our society. All politicians suck up to wealthy contributors. Bringing lobbyists in to write the bills is a fairly recent innovation, so the Republicans have revealed the extent of their deep love of bribes, but the Democrats don’t want to change campaign funding or limits on lobbyists much, either. On a deeper level, we all want to believe these lies. Wouldn’t it be great to wake up and find ourselves living in a functioning democracy? To be truly represented by our so-called Representatives? Not to have to worry about the destruction of the biosphere or the safety of the water we drink and the food we eat? I think we all buy in because we want to believe things aren’t as bad as they really are.

    Your claim makes you a prime example. You haven’t experienced an epiphany, you just gave up.

  113. Harry it is not in corporations’ interest to go around blowing their horns and engaging in polecmics with uninformed leftoids; therefore the field is all yours to construct fantasies about the great octopus called corporate America; and this you do to a fare ye well. But if you look at the facts you’ll see that American corporations are incredibly giving and generous entities. I’ve been both an artist and a businessman in my life and I can tell you that the business community was far more indulgent of me than the arts community ever was. Whever I hear leftoids railing against corporations I know that that lefty has never worked for one; there is nothing given about business, it is harsh and competitive and not very forgiving.

    As to health care, how can you say our government is not addressing it? Have your ever heard of SeaMar (to take one example)?

  114. 113.

    Wrong,again. Burroughs (now Unisys) 12 years, Hewlett-Packard 15 years.

    What God-awful assumptions you righties make.

    Your completely self-centered outlook on corporate giving shows you were never a liberal. Life’s all about what you get.

  115. 113.

    You mean this one?

    With approximately $300,000 in funding from the federal government, Sea Mar purchases a clinic in the South Park neighborhood of Seattle [in 1978], from a retiring private-practice physician. The Seattle Medical Clinic offers primary medical care, as well as X-ray, laboratory, WIC, and nutrition services. Sea Mar continues to care for the retiring doctor’s clients, many of whom are elderly, and the need for long-term care becomes evident.

    Let’s see, 1978 — who was president then? Speaker-of-the house? Senate majoiry leader?

    Of course, even such noble efforts as that don’t stem the rise in uninsured Americans lacking preventative care.

  116. @92 Your information on “degraded” sarin, etc. is dated.

    EFFORTS TO LENGTHEN SHELF LIFE
    IRAQ HAS TRIED TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM IN TWO WAYS. FIRST, IT ATTEMPTED, WITH FOREIGN ASSISTANCE, TO IMPROVE THE SHELF-LIFE OF ITS UNITARY SARIN BY INCREASING, THE PURITY OF THE PRECURSOR AND
    INTERMEDIATE CHEMICALS AND-REFINING PRODUCTION PROCESSES.
    SECOND, IT BEGAN TO DEVELOP BINARY CHEMICAL WEAPONS. IN A BINARY MUNITION, THE TWO PRECURSOR CHEMICALS ARE STORED SEPARATELY AND ONLY MIXED TO FORM THE CHEMICAL AGENT IMMEDIATELY BEFORE OR
    WHEN THE ROUND IS IN FLIGHT. THUS, THE SHELF LIFE OF THE AGENT BECOMES IRRELEVANT; MOREOVER, THE MUNITION IS SAFER TO HANDLE AND STORE. BY 1990 IRAQ HAD SUCCESSFULLY TESTED 155-MM ARTILLERY SHELLS AND OTHER BINARY MUNITIONS AND LAUNCHED A BALLISTIC MISSILE WITH A BINARY WARHEAD AS WELL.

    CIA HOLDS THAT THE STOCKS OF SARIN MAY REMAIN VIABLE WELL BEYOND MARCH. CIA ANALYSTS BELIEVE THAT THE SHELF LIFE PROBLEM WAS ONLY TEMPORARY AND THAT THE IRAQIS CAN NOW PRODUCE UNITARY AGENTS OF SUFFICIENT QUALITY BY ADDING A STABILIZER OR IMPROVING THE PRODUCTION PROCESS.

    CIA ALSO BELIEVES THAT A SUBSTANTIAL PORTION OF IRAQ’S NERVE AGENT STOCKPILE NOW CONSISTS OF BINARY CHEMICAL WEAPONS WHICH WOULD NOT BE SUBJECT TO DEGRADATION
    –CIA document
    http://www.fas.org/irp/gulf/cia/960715/72569.htm

    Sorry about the caps, but that is the original format.

  117. 3

    Republicans blow their noses into the American flag every day, and use the Constitution for toilet paper.

  119. 59

    “Where is the outrage at the terrorists, you guys?” Commentby Bunny— 6/21/06@ 9:32 pm

    Of course we’re outraged that Ann Coulter said Rep. John Murtha should be murdered.

  121. 67

    “To a liberal, you are guilty until proven innocent.” Commentby Mike Webb Sucks— 6/21/06@ 10:12 pm

    In your case, you’re stupid until proven smart, which won’t ever happen.

  126. 116.

    Information has a shelf life, too. From the link you supplied, what you quote appears to come from a document from 1996.

    A $1 Billion study of Iraqi weapons capability has been done since then.

  128. The woman who claimed Michael Jackson molested her son, leading to the sensational trial a year ago at which the singer was acquitted, was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on a charge of welfare fraud.

    The attorney for the 37-year-old woman, whose name by marriage is Janet Jackson, entered a not guilty plea on her behalf. She did not speak during the arraignment.

    She is accused of one charge related to accepting $8,000 in fraudulently obtained assistance and four charges of committing perjury on welfare applications.

    Prosecutors say she hid the fact that she received a substantial settlement in a lawsuit against J.C. Penney before she filed for welfare […………..Hehe, More black “progressive” Democrats at play. Remember, all “cultures” are equal!!]

  129. Michael the Gullible and Easily Led
    Duelfer Report:
    “While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible Indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered. ”
    http://www.globalsecurity.org/.....ndings.htm

    Dear Leader Bush commenting on the Duelfer Report:
    “The chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, has now issued a comprehensive report that confirms the earlier conclusion of David Kay that Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there.”
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....ge=printer

  131. Ah, JCH, you best us all…
    One black woman of undetermined political affiliation is accused of fraud (what happened to the “DeLay” presumption of innocence?) and the conclusion is inescapable: “progressive” Democrats are corrupt.

  132. 112.

    Harry your statement here works fine as stand up comedy but not as analysis. PR firms don’t give a rip about adolescent minded radicals; they are not even on the map; a bunch of snot nosed kids who have not raised a blade of grass in their lives are not the people who see the structural problems of the system; they are twerps shooting off their mouths, spoiled, childish, petulant, important-men-wannabees without the drive or stamina to do great things in life.

    Next, what’s wrong with the status quo? I’d hesitate to have to turn it over to the purists like you who would purify it unleashing power-mad drives to punish and destroy and deliver favors according to your arbitrary mind loops. I know you’d have me on the nasty end of a firing squad (and I’m poor!)

    O Yes, those Bush flavored newspapers The Times and the P-I.

    I’m not worried about what we drink or eat or the bio-sphere; we’ve got more than enough to eat and drink and life thrives in the bio-sphere; but O, I forgot, it is a requirement of the left to sit around and louse up America where the good is the enemy of the perfect. You need your resentment the way a child needs his chewing blanky. Cheers…

  133. p.s. Harry

    How could you work for a couple of good American companies and walk away with the impression that corporations are corrupt? I was a service provider for HP and their standards were the highest in every area of service. Of course I don’t know the inner politics of the company but everyone I dealt with seemed pleased to be there…so how do you go from working at HP to calling thw whole system corrupt…? just curious…

  134. “das” boot or the sinking boat of right-wing resentment – a case study in Horowitzian guilt-resentment transference paranoia.

    Substitutes the “purity” of authoritarian radicalism for “not so pure” authoritarian wingnuttery.

    Slathers his resentment with the tar of Marxism, Maoism, Stalinism, Patherism or whatever ism he himself used to subscribe to.

  136. 113

    Yes, I will say that our government is not addressing health are. Why? Let me count the reasons.

    1) When Bush took office, 43 million Americans had no health coverage, now 47 million Americans have no health coverage.

    2) Our system of employer-provided health care is collapsing, and there is nothing on the horizon to replace it.

    3) Arbitrary and outrageous billing charges and consumer gouging by health care providers.

    4) Double-digit inflation in the health care industry.

    5) Total absence of competition in the industry.

    6) Bottom-line: The U.S. has the highest per capita health care costs in the world, yet we’re the only industrialized nation that doesn’t provide health coverage for all of its citizens, and the quality of our health care ranks far down the list of countries and is on a par with the third world.

    It’s not working, dude. And the GOP, which has been in power for 5 years now, is doing absolutely NOTHING about it — and never will.

  137. Republicans think it’s more important to keep 2 or 3 people a year from burning the flag, than to provide affordable health care for 300 million Americans.

  138. Down in Florida, Republicans repealed that state’s helmet law (in the name of “freedom”), and motorcycle deaths are up by 1,000%. And guess who pays when some yahoo on a bike hits a pole and has to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair? The taxpayers do.

  140. 133

    You miss the point. Corporations are not inherently good or evil; they are what the people who lead them make them into. They are businesses that exist to make a profit for their owners. The American business model is based on pursuit of self-interest, and businesses are no good at self-regulation. They are no good at making public policy, or looking out for the public interest, or protecting the consumer. We need government for those functions. The problem is the extent to which corporations have influenced, taken over, and co-opted government. When corporations run government regulation of corporations, the system doesn’t work. The market isn’t everything. Markets, left unregulated, destroy themselves and their societies.

  141. “Markets, left unregulated, destroy themselves and their societies.” Karl Marx

  142. You know,rr, freedom means free to be stupid too. Why, why, why do you folks want mommy government involved in everything? Mommy government can’t protect your from your own stupidity (see any post by clueless for proof); Mommy government can’t protect your from nature and/or natural disasters; Mommy government can’t/shouldn’t micromanage every aspect of life so that you aren’t offended, can’t make mistakes or learn from your own stupidity.

  143. see any post by clueless for proof

    I’d include you in that as well ASS. Anyone who wallows in the right-wing swill that you do certainly has all the freedom in the world to be stupid.

    Give a tip of the hat to Goldy who lets you (for the most part) spew that swill in these comment threads.

  145. Today’s system of regulatory government evolved in response to the abuses of unregulated capitalism in the 19th century.

    One of the first areas where government stepped in to regulate business practices was the enactment of food and drug laws, because unscrupulous businesses were selling tainted food products and dangerous “drug” formularies to an unsuspecting public.

    Another early example of government regulation was worker safety laws, because in the absence of government intervention, businesses engaged in dangerous practices and many workers were unnecessarily killed and injured.

    We have consumer protection laws because businesses proved they can’t be trusted to not cheat consumers, and individual consumers did not have the knowledge or means to protect themselves from false advertising, deceptive marketing practices, and outright fraud.

    The SEC and securities laws grew out of accounting frauds, insider trading, and stock market manipulation that left investors so vulnerable to fraud that the equity markets would have collapsed if government did not create and enforce “rules of the game.”

    A rational business does not strive to compete, it tries to eliminate competition. John D. Rockefeller built the Standard Oil Trust in part by going into the territories of competitors and giving product (in those days, mostly heating fuel) to his competitors’ customers for free. This completely destroyed his competitors’ income streams, forcing them out of business, and he then acquired their assets for next to nothing. Then raised prices sky-high.

    The unregulated railroads of the late 1800’s were virtually the only way for farmers to get their crops and livestock to markets. The railroads were monopolies that charged arbitrary prices for transportation. In sum, they extorted every penny from the farmers they could go, to the point of provoking near-revolution. Government stepped in to regulate the railroads because there was no “free market” in transportation.

    A rational business will maximize its profit by avoiding costs and externalizing costs as much as possible. For example, without government regulation and intervention, a mining company will spend $50 million to extract $75 million worth of ore, leaving it to taxpayers to pay for the environmental cleanup costing $200 million. That is not a profitable operation and should never have occurred in the first place because the real cost of extracting $75 million of ore is $250 million. Laws are necessary to prevent companies from causing public harm (pollution of air, drinking water, and soils) and externalizing their costs to neighboring landowners, taxpayers, or other entities.

    The earliest government regulation of all was weights and measures laws, which existed in the American colonies of the 1600s. Without government enforcement of honest weights and measures, you would go to a gas station and pay for 10 gallons of gas but get only 8 gallons. We’re all familiar with the stereotype of the old-time butcher putting his thumb on the scale when weighing meat. In the absence of weights and measures laws, it would be irrational for businesses to not cheat their customers, because they maximize their profits by cheating.

    You call it “mommy government,” but human society can’t function without it. Without laws to override self-interest, where self-interest is inimical to society’s interests, people acting in their self-interest would destroy society.

    If people can’t trust financial reports or believe the stock market is not a level playing field, they will not take the risk of buying stocks, and companies will not be able to raise capital by selling stock. That would result in a smaller, less efficient, slower growing, capital-starved economy. That’s not good for anyone.

    Your mocking deprecation of “mommy government” is truly self-destructive. As an individual, you can’t protect yourself against a giant corporation that pollutes your drinking water, sells you a dangerous product, or cheats you at the gas pump or meat scale. You don’t even know your health is being damaged or you’re being ripped off. Your anti-government attitudes are nonsensical. A modern society and a modern economy can’t exist without government. A free-for-all is not civilization, it is a jungle, and we would all still be living in caves. Without government, there can be no property rights, little or no commerce and trade, and only a very primitive economy.

  146. 141

    Cite please? Show me where Marx said that. Provide a link. You can’t, because he didn’t, and you’re a fucking liar.

  147. Of course, there’s nothing new about a wingnut lying. The constant theme of Republican propaganda is that it’s based all based on lies. That approach may fool the voters for a while, but the age-old problem with lying is that truth eventually catches up with you. A liar can say all he wants that science is bunk and gravity isn’t real, but when he steps off a cliff he’s going to splatter no matter what he believes.

  149. A quick response to Will … the Seattle Weekly’s comments are back up. It was a stupid technical mistake (made by yours truely) and it has been remedied.

  150. 145,

    I like Roger in his reasonable mode;

    You’re a good writer and more than decent polemicist which makes, to me, all the more baffling your descent into vulgarian cloaca maxima; anyway, I tend to agree with this post about the regulatory agency of government; good examples. Interesting that government has evolved into a court of appeals for business/corporations as well; for example when close competitors engage in bad practice the government can be appealed to on a number of levels; I’m not quite sure I buy that free-wheeling business is incapable of regulating itself or that it is always out to pummel the consumer though.

    As I concede to you your main points, would you concede to me that the reformist impulse in America did a pretty good job over the 20th century – and do we yet need more and more regulatory statutes over business today in 2006? Over to you…

  152. A rational business will maximize its profit by avoiding costs and externalizing costs

    The essence of regulation is to prohibit corporations (which are chartered by the state by the way) from externalizing costs. Wingnuts, “the cheap labor conservatives”, are the ultimate products of this philosophy of externalizing costs. Instead of the liberal “we’re all in this together”, degenerate conservatives will stop at nothing to make sure someone else pays – for environmental clean-up, for health care, for veterans health care, for national defense, etc. – it’s all “me, me, me..”

    Here is the ultimate big picture for our friend das.

  153. Clueless,

    Don’t believe everything you see on Frontline. Documentaries by their nature are manipulative instuments.

    And I find charming your faith in government to right all the wrongs of the evil corporations you detest. The fact is that American corporations pay huge sums in taxes – depsite their armies of tax loophole lawyers. And the American rich do re-invest in infrastructure, plants and equipment (while paying hearty taxes). Yes, there are greedy conniving corporations but the majority are not. And doesn’t the consumer have powers of discrimination – brains? Don’t consumers have the power of boycott? Your views of companies are so childish and can only proceed from a life lived completely outside of business cultures. This is not to say that I underestimate the chicanery implicit in competitive business culture; but you impute overwhelming powers to business that it does not possess. Like most things in a free society like ours – there is a two way street in operation here.

    But you’ve got all the answers and I find that scary. Ours is not a perfect system but it is better than anything you can come up with on your own. Would you favor white-collar worker re-education camps? Gulags, perhaps, for unreformed capitalists? Evil capitalist America absorbs millions of immigrants every generation while your former model, equality-for-all, Soviet Communism murdered millions of people each generation. Our fat-fingered greedy capitalists are like boy scouts next to your savage refrom-minded socialists.

    But there is no getting through to you because you do not want to take the time to research the charitable practices of corporate America. Why do that when Intl A.N.S.W.E.R. & MoveOn can do your thinking for you?

  154. Funny, if you want multi-milionaires and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, you’re a communist.

    If companies extracting oil from offshore oil wells in public territory don’t want to pay the royalties (a very large source of federal revenue) that’s just good business on their part.

  155. das,

    Ultimately Americans get the kind of government they deserve. Did you look at the chart I linked to? I don’t think you did because the big picture clearly shows that corporations have supported less and less a portion of the federal budget while individuals have shouldered more and more mainly through the highly regressive payroll tax. I highly doubt the charitable giving practices of corporations have made up for this shortfall. I’m sure the McWane Corporation has supported the odd little league team or two or maybe supported the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – but this is little consolation to the workers who have been maimed and killed in their plants because the company was too miserly to pay for rudimentary safety guards and training.

    And yes, corporations pay billions in taxes but I submit it is again more commonly small and medium sized enterprises who cannot yet afford fancy accountants and tax lawyers or manage to offshore their workforce. Like Leona Helmsley famously quipped it is only the little people who pay taxes.

    I’m generally in agreement with Roger Rabbit about corporations whose remarks you regarded favorably so why do you harvest resentment by tarring people here with brush of Marxism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc.? I’ve never read any Marx, never donated a dime to Moveon.org or marched in some event organized by ANSWER. I can’t say I can agree with anyone like the ANSWER people who write such turgid prose so why do you hang this on this people who comment here? You don’t know any of us. Who’s acting like a child here?

    Yes, I’ve been in business and worked in corporations. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth like Presidente Jorge. And NO I don’t have all the answers but you seem to know all about the people you disagree with here and I find THAT not scary but laughable. All that crap you spew about re-education camps, etc. is just that – crap.

    I’m a liberal. I believe in fairness. I believe we’re all in this together. I believe in an even playing field. If the U.S. Navy keeps oil transport lanes safe and sound, I think it’s only fair that oil companies pay some tax to support that along with all the other enterprises and individuals who use that oil. Yet every time we turn around the oil and other industries are getting some breaks throught lobbying Congress ostensibly to keep it flowing and growing and as a result the rest of us have to shoulder the burden. That’s unfair. That has to stop.

  156. 155.

    Well, Clueless, you’re right to nail me for believing you, wrongly I now see, in the intl ANSWER and MoveOn camp – but in your previous posts you didn’t sound as measured and thoughtful about corporations as you do in the last post. I guess have a quick trigger finger when I hear my leftist brethren talking about corporations. I really think it is a false target to raise some monolithic entity called corporations and heap all the evils of our system upon it (them).

    And I can say the same about you as I said about Roger: you can commnicate quite nicely when you want to. This is effectively your field here; why don’t you guys set the tone with good writing and sharp argument? All the vagina, arsehole stuff just deflates your main points…

    Why don’t we set aside one “no profanity day” of the week. Nothing but good writing and no personal attacks (they are usually wrong as you point out to me here);

    But finally, to address your point, I do think that our corporations are human institutions with all the flaws thereof – and short of angelic perfection they are workable and improveable institutions within our system; I just don’t see that they deserve the flat-out calumny that the left heaps on. Nobody on this blog addressed my real life example of the 40 student grant awards bestowed by local corporations on a graduating class of 200 mostely inner city black students. Is that for nothing? I just wonder if the left doesn’t go for the easy mark sometimes in picking its enemies. How convenient to pile on corporations when they can’t defend themselves – ideologically, that is.

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