Defiantone.com

Its hard to measure how the economy has grown and there are many different measuring sticks. Most use the gross domestic product. I was curious to see if I could use the Dow Jones index as a measuring stick. Since Jan 20, 2001 when Bush took office the dow has lost 1140 points. The GDP was around 10.2 trillion in 2001 and 13.4 trillion in 2007. The dow was around 10280 in 2001 and 13400 in 2007. I know that the two aren’t tied together but the losses and gains we’ve seen here are almost the same. I’m curious to see what the GDP is at year end. Will we drop to 9.4 trillion?

According to the Washington Post the war in Iraq could be illegal without new legislation before the end of the year. Sure, we’ve got quite a while before that happens but I don’t have much faith in them getting the legislation passed in time. Odds are, those who are against the war will filibuster any pending legistlation to push it after the new year. GW, who doesn’t like to listen to reason, logic, or the law will continue the war unabated regardless of what our system of checks and balances says he can or can’t do. Maybe I’m being a tad bit cynical but time will tell

A crucial yet overlooked deadline looms over the Iraq debate: Unless further action is taken, the war will become illegal on Jan. 1, 2009.

Despite protestations to the contrary, Congress clearly understood that it was authorizing the president to intervene militarily when it passed its joint resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq in October 2002. But it did not give him a blank check. It allowed for the use of force only under two conditions.

The first has long since lapsed. It permitted the president to “defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.” This threat came to an end with the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s government. It makes no sense to say that it continues today, or that our “national security” is “threatened by” the Iraqi government headed by Nouri al-Maliki.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

I read a great article at the NY Times that details the last five years in Iraq. The journalist, who spent the last five years in that country, offers an interesting take on what is transpiring in the country. We claim what victories we can and some victories are not all they are cracked up to be - take the last vote for example.

With 12 million people casting ballots, a turnout of about 75 per cent, it was natural enough for President Bush to say Iraqis had embraced the American vision. In truth, what the majority produced was less a vote for democracy than a vote for a once-and-for-all, permanent transfer of power, from the Sunni minority that ruled in Iraq for centuries, to an impatient, and deeply wounded, if not outright vengeful, Shiite majority.

Read the article at the New York Times.

George Bush is the worst orator I have seen since I have been alive. Reagan could turn a phrase and Clinton was great with the people but Bush stumbles over everything. Gail Collins explains further at the NY Times.

Russia is supposed to be a democracy - from what I’ve been reading lately its more of an autocracy.

Our president speaks - too often at times - and we’ve had the joy of technology to record some of his most eloquent moments. Someone took the time to list the top 50 Bush quotes - I know that he has speech writers but he has a hard time speaking on his feet. The list is well worth it if you are a fan or a hater. Either way, its a good way to waste 5 minutes.

I wish I had something else but there is nothing else - damn, I am bored.

So the govt. wants to give me money - sure, I’ll take it. But, the one thing I can’t figure out is where they expect the money to come from and what good they actually expect it to do to the economy.

I’ve done a little reading and found out some interesting tidbits - the first is a quote from Bernanke, Head of the Federal Reserve, who said “Stimulus that comes too late will not help support economic activity in the short term, and it could be actively destabilizing”. Others have said that in order to avert a recession the stimulus must arrive before we actually start the recession. Unfortunately, we don’t know if its too late. They plan to get us the funds by May - thats almost 100 days from now. I have a feeling that this is nothing more than a political move.

No politician in their right mind would openly come out and denounce the plan because their constituents want that money. They would effectively be taking it out of their hands. Its a smart political move to fight for the money - only time will tell if its good for the economy.

The other thing I don’t understand is where the money is coming from. Last time I checked we had a Federal deficit and an unbalanced budget. Unless we found 1 trillion tons of gold under the capital building in the past few days I don’t think we’ve even begun to pay it off. The money simply isn’t there - the government needs to budget like the rest of us do. When the money runs out - you have nothing else to spend. Sure we have credit - but paying it off is a PITA - trust me, I know.

Here is a link to another editorial from a like minded person

As I’m sure you’re aware both houses of congress have passed a bill on a narrow margin that provides funding for the ongoing war, provides funding for some pork barrel projects, and sets a timeline for the US withdrawl of troops if certain conditions are not being met. I saw some clips the other day of Bush giving a timeline for Saddam and his sons to leave Iraq or the US would invade. He believed that certain conditions should be met at a certain time before we should invade. They obviouly didn’t heed his warnings and here we sit four years later.

The democratic party is doing two things with this legislation

1. They are playing politics - they want to send a message to the American people that they think the situation is unsatisfactory and that they want a change

2. They are setting conditions for withdrawl provided the Iraqi govt doesn’t meet certain conditions - they are trying to make us reach certain goals (I’ve been trying to find the bill text but have been unable so far)

The President has a choice

1. He can veto the bill and send it back for changes

2. Accept the bill “as is”

We’re all aware that the president is going to veto this bill and that he will quickly tell us how this funding is urgently needed to continue operations in the mid-east. We all should know that we have money until at least June or July so we do have some time left before the allocated budget is gone.

Ok, either way this situation plays out its one side is going to be wrong (obviously). I wonder what would happen if congress would filibuster the defense spending bill. I know that everyone on the ground would suffer as we depend on supplies to keep us going. Congress would want us to move out and would try to cut of funding to force us to do so. Unfortunately, I think those on the ground would be forced to tough it out.

The President wants us to try the surge method under yet another general in charge of combat operations.

Congress wants us to continue fighting if measurable benchmarks are met.

We all seem to want the same thing but we are fighting about the details.

The one thing that annoys me the most about the situation is that while many people are suffering on both sides of the war some people are making money off the war. People are growing rich while pawns in the middle are dying.

Its a raw shitty deal and I wish we could just all hug and be done with it. Its a shame our intolerance for eachother has driven us to this point.

Holy crap, the great Satan of the Bush administration… words can’t describe it… just watch

From the NY Times I found something that made me smile… you guessed it, I’m hanging out in left field. Lets see if they can make good on their goals

In the Capitol, Ms. Pelosi vowed to use the first 100 hours of the new Congress to push through what Democrats dubbed their “Six for ’06” agenda.

That program includes calls to raise the minimum wage, repeal subsidies for oil companies and incentives for companies to send jobs overseas, cut interest rates on student loans, give the government the authority to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prescription drug prices, and expand opportunities for embryonic stem cell research. On one of those issues, the minimum wage, Mr. Bush signaled there was room for a deal, as he also did on immigration.”

Free thought and liberty

All Americans are afforded the same protections under the constitution and the bill of rights regardless of what background they might come from. Our nation is great because we are a melting pot of people from many different nations with different backgrounds, opinions, and religions. Many Americans believe that no matter what, we should all be treated the same. Some people think that if I converted to Islam that I should have my security clearance revoked and that I should be put under a terror watch list. Americans are watching other Americans solely based upon the color of their skin and their religion.

In the mid-1800’s the United States was a divided nation as we fought in a brutal struggle for the rights of everyone despite their background or skin color. Hundreds of thousands died in this struggle in an effort to treat everyone equally. Despite the great loss of life America still did not treat everyone equally. America went through a large civil rights struggle for the equality of African Americans during the early to mid 20th century in an effort to even everything out. They wanted the right to be treated as an equal irregardless of how they might look. Today I think that we are still fighting the same battle but the participants are different. In the past month the president signed a law that allowed him and the secretary of defense to indefinitely hold anyone if they are suspected of terrorism. In a nutshell, they suspended the right of habeas corpus. The American civil liberties union immediately began to fight this new legislation as it was in violation of the rights spelled out in one of our nations greatest documents, the bill of rights.

Today I received an email from… someone that advocated the idea of spamming the ACLU with mail to adversely affect their mission: to protect the freedom of all Americans. First off, this is an illegal act. Second, this is one of the most foolish ideas I have heard of in a long time. Why in the world would we want to fight an organization that is fighting for all of our rights. Sure, the status quo in America is that we don’t care who we jail or whose rights we violate to stop terrorism but I know that I wouldn’t want to be one of those individuals who was illegally detained.

I mentioned this to someone yesterday and they mentioned that the ACLU is notorious for fighting only certain things and not all rights violations. In particular, they often fight not for the right to have religion but to remove it from a particular venue. In some cases, I can agree with this rational because we need to separate church from state. Why? Islam is nearly inseparable from most of the nations where the majority of people are of the Islamic faith. When this happens, only the faith of the majority is promoted and the others.. well, a Christian in Indonesia could get murdered and nobody would care. If the shoe was on the other foot and it was an individual of the Islamic faith the matter would be rigorously investigated.

Now that I’ve beat this to death… lets move on to the next topic today

Voting along party lines is foolish

Most politicians in America campaign on the party policy alone rather than their individual beliefs and ideas. We, as Americans, who live in greatest nation on earth, should elect people who think for themselves. When was the last time we voted on abortion in America? Do you think that the legislative body would subject themselves to a vote that would splinter the voting population in half. Lets face it, if there was a political climate change, as there is now, these people wouldn’t be elected the next time around. To make a campaign on polarizing material would be dangerous… the republican party joined together and supported GW’s decision to send Americans into Iraq. It will take years to figure out if the loss of life was worth setting them free. The crazy part is that they don’t care about what we’ve done over there… they just want us dead and gone.

Ok… whats the deal with this? well, I got an email yesterday telling people to vote on party lines citing the following reasons… time to tear them all apart

1. The economy. More than 6.6 million jobs have been created since 8/03. 4.1 annual growth is superior to all major industrialized nations. Dow hits new records. Productivity is up. Real after tax income has grown by 15% since 2001. Like VP Chaney would say…”What more do you want?” The tax cuts proposed by Bush and the R-Congress can take a bow.

More than anything else, the federal interest rates affect how our economy grows or shrinks. One man, who was put into that office by GW (and reagan before that), is responsible for that. Were you aware that 720,000 of the jobs created were government jobs? Creating a bigger government is not an effective way to reduce taxes and lower costs. Smaller governments are more efficient and cost less money.

Oh yeah, my data from Sept 06 says only 3 million jobs were created…. hmmm… fudging numbers somewhere?

Clinton took the jobless rate from 7.5% to 4% during his two terms in office. The GW took the jobless rate from 4% to 6.6% to 4.4%…. we’re almost back to where we started. He didn’t do anything legendary… he just got us back to where we started out in the first place.

You’ve also got to take into account that our nation now has over 300 million people… more people means more jobs.

want to know more check it out at senate.gov

2. The Patriot act. The much discussed civil liberty abuses have just not materialized. It has permitted the CIA and FBI to cooperate.

There has been no mention of civil rights abuses because all of the cases are handled in a seperate court that is out of the publics view. I am not aware of any… nor could I find any but the potential is just too great. Rewrite the legislation and give us something better. There IS a way to do it without infringing on citizens rights. The CIA and FBI have continually proven that although they can communicate they often do not communicate.

3. The ABM Treaty has been cancelled permitting us to work on missile defense. Is anyone but Nancy Pelosi sorry?

The fear mongers want us to spend billions on a missile defense system that does not work. They’ve already spent billions on the system and it doesn’t work… hey, I’ve got an idea. Give me your money and I’ll flush it down the toilet for you.

4. Immigration. The Republican Congress has gotten the first serious immigration restriction law passed in years.

If I was to look at the voting record I found that democrats and republicans worked on the reform together… you can’t take the credit for everything. Whats next? taking the credit for the sun rising every morning?

5. There has not been another terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11. Who would have predicted that on 9/12?

You got me here… there also haven’t been any more flying spaghetti monsters attacking our cities…. this is the most asinine statement out of all of them… yes, voting republican stopped the terrorists… oh wait 2819 americans died on 9/11 and 2828 american soldiers have died so far in Iraq… yep, we really showed them (I just want out troops back… soon)

6. Libya has surrendered its nuclear program.

Hmm… years of economic pressure or they saw republicans and gave up…. duh!

7. A. Q. Khan’s nuclear smuggling network has been rolled up.

Can you really attribute this to one party alone? No

8. John Roberts and Sam Alito sit on the Supreme Court.

I’ll give you this one…

9. The Demos that do not want to close Gitmo altogether want to give all its inmates the full panoply of rights Americans enjoy in criminal procedures.

Thats right, we don’t want to lock people up and throw away the key without trial because other nations watch what we do. If we abuse human rights why shouldn’t everyone else do it. We should at least give these guys and chance and if they are innocent… let em go, they didn’t do anything. It also doesn’t help that negativity is associated with the prison in the international community. One of the only reasons we have it is because its not located in America and we can pretty much do whatever we want to the prisoners.

10. Demos believe in immediate withdrawal from Iraq. If this happens the US will face a stinging defeat on the war against terror. According to Osama bin Laden, and those who share his views, we are militarily strong but psychologically and spiritually weak. Like it or not - and no one likes it - we cannot leave Iraq now without utterly and decisively validating this analysis.

Or maybe he says things like this to keep is embroiled in a war that we might not be able to win. He’s taunting us, this is what he does. I don’t want to loose either but if they outlook predicts no chance of winning… why stay? Lets get some guys together and find out what we need to win it… and win it. If we don’t change anything we don’t have a chance.

11. Demos would like to eliminate the terrorist surveillance program.

I can’t verify this one

12. If Demos achieve the majority in the House, Barney Frank will chair the Financial Services Committee, Henry Waxman the Government Reform Committee and Alcee Hastings the Intelligence Committee.

The three individuals are tools… but, we should get rid of them instead of voting for a republican… there have quite a few people in the past year that are involved in scandals, this time around most of them are republican…. lets keep the good people and get rid of the bad ones regardless of political party affiliation…

13. Demos believe the proper response to Kim Jong Il’s nuclear test isface-to-face talks. That’s what the Clinton Administration did for years.

For six years the bush administration has done no better… neither made any progress

What I’m trying to say is this, give me a list of facts and I can counter almost all of them as I’ve done here. Vote for the right person, don’t vote for someone based on party affiliation alone… its a bad idea.

Comments? please let me know your opinion