The Truth?? You're A Republican You Can't Handle the Truth!!!

[Clem D]

I know this goes against everything W and Cheney have led you to believe but read on if you are not a sheep and you are you're own person. Never mind you're Republican you are not allowed to think on your own. Well Just in case you want to read a little blasphemy, here goes nothing.
Iraq
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. No matter how many times Dick Cheney says so this will never change. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, they were not in the process of making nuclear weapons and they certainly were not an imminent threat to the United States. Now take a deep breath and let that sink in. If you can get past this the rest will be easy. Ok ready? Here we go.
The average Iraqi did not want to be liberated if it meant being occupied by the United States for a period of years. See the thing is to a Muslim we represent a vile culture to them. Perverse. Maybe vile is too strong of a word. I know, I know we were told by the President that they would welcome our soldiers with candy and flowers. While most Iraqi's wanted Sadaam ousted, it was not at the expense of their many friends and family that were killed by our bombs and missiles.
The fact that we have not rebuilt their infrastructure that we also destroyed has not won over their respect and loyalty either. So let's recap. Not a part of 9/11? No wmd? No imminent threat to us? Not happy to be liberated? What all does this mean? It means that the president lied or at least misled the nation into going to war. It also means that this Colossal blunder has turned even moderate Muslims into extremists and extremists into the next wave of terrorists, Not to mention gotten over 1000 of our soldiers killed.

 

[Clem D]

Bushenomics

Bushenomics

Bush's economic record

2,931,000
Number of jobs lost in the private sector since Bush took office.

135,000
Average number of jobs created monthly under every President since Truman.

-79,189
Average number of jobs created monthly under Bush.

2,447,000
Number of people who have become unemployed since Bush took office.

37 percent
Increase in the unemployment rate since Bush took office.

4.1 percent
Unemployment rate when Bush took office in January 2001.

5.6 percent
Unemployment rate in March 2004.

8,170,000
Total number of unemployed Americans.

675,000
Number of Americans experiencing long-term unemployment (27 weeks or more) when Bush took office in January 2001.

1,871,000
Number of Americans suffering long-term unemployment in March 2004.

177 percent
Increase in long-term unemployment under Bush.

11.8 percent
Percentage of consumers who believe jobs are plentiful.

760,000
Number of workers who have lost their unemployment insurance since December 2002.

Ballooning Deficits
$5.6 trillion
Baseline surplus for the 10-year period for FY 2002-2011, as projected by the Congressional Budget Office when Bush took office in January 2001.

$5.2 trillion
Budget deficit over next 10 years if Bush's 2005 budget proposal is enacted.

$2.4 trillion
Amount Bush's budget will raid from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds over the next 10 years.

$478 billion
Budget deficit for 2004 as predicted by CBO, if Bush' s proposals are enacted.

$188 billion
Amount Bush's budget deficit for 2004 exceeds the highest budget deficit in history, which was posted in 1992 by Bush's father.

Bush's 2003 "Jobs and Growth" Plan
$2.2 trillion
Ten-year cost of Bush's proposed tax cuts including additional costs for interest on the national debt.

32.4 percent
Percent of tax cut for the top 1 percent of wage earners under the Bush "growth" plan.

8.5 percent
Percent of tax cuts for the bottom 60 percent of wage earners under the Bush "growth" plan.

64 million
Number of taxpayers (48 percent) who receive $100 or less under the Bush "growth" plan.

$30,127
Average tax cut for the top 1 percent of taxpayers under the Bush "growth" plan.

$289
Average tax cut for the middle 20 percent of taxpayers under the Bush "growth" plan.

$4-5 billion
Amount Bush tax proposal would cost states.

1 million
Number of taxpayers the Alternative Minimum Tax affected in 1999.

36 million
Number of taxpayers the Alternative Minimum Tax will affect in 2010 because of Bush's tax cuts and his failure to address the AMT.

Lower Income, Rising Costs
1.1 percent
Decrease in real median household income in 2002.

10 percent
Increase in bankruptcies since Bush took office.

1,625,213
Number of consumers who filed for bankruptcy in 2003.

24 percent
Drop in consumer confidence since Bush took office.

50 percent
Increase in out-of-pocket health care costs for workers since Bush took office.

14 percent
Increase in the cost of job-based health insurance in 2003; highest rate in 13 years.

8.7 percent
Increase in the cost of the 10 most-used prescription drugs in 2003.

61 percent
Percent of employers who cited rising drug costs as a major cause of premium increases in 2003.

11.5 percent
Increase in gas prices since 2000.

49
Number of states that increased tuition at their public colleges and universities in 2003. State budget cuts fueled by the Bush recession have forced colleges to hike tuitions and fees-threatening access to higher education for low-income students.

35 percent
Increase in tuition and fees at four-year public institutions since Bush took office, adjusted for inflation

4 more years of that??

Can you afford it??

 

[RAYMOND]

I AM STILL A DEM VOTING FOR BUSH LOL

DID FILL OUT THE PAPER WORK FOR REPBLICAN AND WILL NEVER GO BACK , THAT PARTY IS NOT GOOD , SENTOR MILLER SAY IT BEST :142lmao:

 

[Clem D]

Now Raymond I just posted those 45 seconds ago. There is noway in hell you were able to wake up your wife or one of your kids to read it to you that fast.


Stop....

 

[Chanman]

Voices of Iraq

Voices of Iraq

By Joel Mowbray

Two former MTV producers have accomplished what the entire mainstream media thus far has not: they?ve captured the real life and times of the Iraqi people.


They didn?t do it alone, however. Producers Eric Manes and Martin Kunert sent 150 digital cameras into Iraq this April with very simple instructions: ?Videotape your neighborhood, shopping area, where you live and work, pray, relax, and play? and interview ?people who have the most meaning in your life.? (See the entire instructions here.)



The cameras were passed on to friends and family members, and the handheld devices eventually made their way to the Shia south and later to the Kurdish north. Thousands of Iraqis turned in over 450 hours of footage, and the results surprised even Manes and Kunert.



The finished product, Voices of Iraq, is a taut 75-minute documentary, opening today in limited release in ten cities. (For listings, click here.) Infused throughout with an Iraqi hip-hop soundtrack, the briskly edited film is hands-off in letting ordinary Iraqis drive the storyline. That it won?t realistically have much of an impact on the election is the only disappointing thing about this film.



Groundbreaking and instantly compelling, VOI is sort of the anti-Michael Moore film. There?s no narration, no heavy-handed editing. And whereas the man from Flint started with his premise and assembled his film to support it, the only goal when making VOI was to emulate the producers? trailblazing MTV show Fear, which gave cameras to everyday youths who filmed themselves at supposedly haunted locations. Defying expectations, the show was a hit.



Not knowing what to expect, the producers partnered with actor and Gulf War veteran Archie Drury, who personally distributed cameras in Iraq this April. When they started getting back initial footage not long after, the situation was less than ideal, yet nowhere near as bleak as the media portrayed.



Life in Iraq is normal. Maybe not normal by American or European standards, but certainly for a country barely out from under the thumb of a bloodthirsty tyrant.



Throughout VOI, kids are seen being kids: laughing, playing, teasing, roughhousing. Iraqis are seen being silly: an adolescent boy doing what could only be described as a strange solo dance, an actor who filmed himself taking a shower, and policemen making bizarre sound effects and goofy faces. And boys being boys: young men returning to college last month hitting on pretty girls with lame come ons, such as ?The most beautiful girl, come here? and ?Come here, I just want to talk to you.?



Interspersed with that were painful reminders of Iraq?s all-too-recent savage history, including former victims of Saddam?s torture having a conversation over dinner and video of Shia in the south recovering skeletal remains from mass graves. Though a few longed for the ?stability? and ?security? of Saddam?s regime, no one seen in VOI was under any delusions about the despot.



During Saddam?s pretrial hearing, Iraqis were shooting in celebration, and one man talked about how he danced when he heard the news of the tyrant?s capture.



Iraqis? elation at Saddam?s demise should not come as a surprise. The most chilling moments of the film were four brief clips from official Fedayeen (Saddam?s paramilitary) videotape footage: a blindfolded and handcuffed man thrown from the top of a building, falling to his death; a boy?s hand being chopped off; two blindfolded young men, boys really, sitting on a bomb as it detonates; and a beheading.



Lasting no more than 15 seconds and completely silent, those images will haunt even the most jaded for days.



This side of evil, the real enemy of VOI is the mainstream media. Armed with footage that somehow eluded the multimillion-dollar big news operations, the $500,000 film occasionally throws up newspaper headlines?only to show how woefully wrong they were.



From the movie:



?We can?t work on the street anymore...? quoting the Newsweek bureau chief, 4/13/04, which is placed over images of Iraqis casually strolling down the street.
?Fear of Militants Forces Ordinary Iraqis to Stay Home,? San Francisco Chronicle, 5/16/04?over video of Iraqis packed into an outdoor marketplace.
?Iraq may survive, but the dream is dead,? New York Times, 5/7/04, which is seen over footage of wedding celebrants jumping for joy, and followed by shots of exuberant youths rejoicing their college graduation.


Iraqis are nobody?s fools. They are far savvier and more sophisticated than most would realize, particularly the paternalistic, peacenik left, which thought Iraqis were better off under Saddam. VOI has ordinary Iraqis talking about Saddam?s commonly-known harboring of al Qaeda operatives and how foreign governments don?t want Iraq?s democracy to succeed and are thus helping funnel terrorists into the country.



The Iraqi people understand democracy, but more important, they want democracy. Who knows exactly what form or shape their eventual government will take, but if the ordinary folks featured in VOI have any say, it will be a free society. Throughout, Iraqis define freedom as having a secular government, freedom of speech, or the freedom to partake in technological pleasures like the Internet and cell phones.



For those who read the above and want to label the project a partisan hack job without ever seeing it, many in VOI?s team are Democrats. (What else would you expect from Hollywood types?) And there are several scenes where Iraqis express diametrically opposing views.



That politics was being openly discussed?on camera, no less?is perhaps the greatest indicator of how much times have changed.



One extended scene showed nuanced political disagreements within one family, spats not that unlike what one would find inside a typical American household. The clan?s pre-teen son, Hasooni, bright and smiling, lacked any confusion or inner conflict, though.



When asked what he ?wants to be in the future,? Hasooni exclaims, ?American.?



Joel Mowbray (mail@joelmowbray.com) is author of Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens America?s Security.

 

[pt1gard]

clem, now that was funny

wake the children, phone the neighbors

 

[danmurphy jr]

who does Hasooni like in tonight's game?

 

[pirate fan]

Clem, yeah, 20-20 vision is a beautiful thing isn't it? All those things you say in your first thread were complete opposite of what military evidence pointed to from different sources all over the world. Wasn't just our CIA or intelligence. You also give a misrepresentation of economic facts due to the direction of the economy was headed south 6 months before Bush even took office. Check out history of our country and show me any depression or recession where numbers improved throughout it. You call Bush and Cheney liars yet based on information they had at the time, they made a desicion to protect our country, something I don't think Kerry has the balls to do. He will be to worried about what France thinks.

 

[DoMyDermBest]

You truly are the democrat talking point. Do you begin the day by chanting your blue and red nursery rhyme?How do you have the time to type this political BS? I think if you had either a real life or a real job you might see the world a little differently

 

[Clem D]

I'm retired. Hopefully you get ther one day.

 

[DoMyDermBest]

That explains your job. You retired from real life too?

 

[danmurphy jr]

the day after tomorrow and your life will not have changed materially or internally one iota. you will be fodder no matter who you vote for. the future of you and yours has been collateralized for generations to come. your heroes will continue to die until you rise up and say "no more", enough death and maiming. then when it's all done, your government will turn it's back on those who served, died or are disabled. they always have and always will. your streets and shelters are their legacy

 

[ferdville]

Kerry has run his entire campaign on hindsight. I could do the same. He has made no specific proposal as to what he would do in Iraq other than complain about what Bush has done. He has made no specific proprosals on any other topic that wouldn't bankrupt the country. He wants to give everybody everything for free. Most of his attacks on Bush have been half truths based on half truths. Clem's litany of Bush negatives is rife with inaccuracies just as Michael Moore's diatribes have also been filled with the same half truths or lies that sound good. Personally, I am not sure it matters who is elected. I realize that is a very negative attitude. But having a billionaire replace a multi-millionaire is not likely to produce a great deal of change. In a way, I hope that Kerry wins because it will be great to be able to pummel him weekly in this forum. Regardless of the winner, he won't have an easy time making people happy. We are living in a very divided union.