So I get this email from the Obama 2012 campaign telling me about a tax deduction that corporations get for outsourcing jobs overseas.
Jonn —
Here’s something that President Obama laid out in his State of the Union that I think deserves special attention:
Under current law, American companies can actually get a tax deduction for outsourcing jobs.
That’s the opposite of how it should work. President Obama is proposing to end tax deductions for outsourcing, create a new tax credit for bringing jobs home, and lower tax rates for companies that manufacture and create jobs in the United States.
If you think this should be a priority during this campaign, it’s up to you to speak out. Support the President and spread the word:
This could be a defining issue of 2012.
So why the f^ck are you telling me about it, douche nozzle? First of all, I don’t even know if there is such a thing, but assuming that there is, hasn’t Obama been president for more than three years already? Why hasn’t he done something about it? My guess is that if he had actually fixed it, he’d be short one more bloody shirt to wave at Democrat voters to get them to send him money so he can get four more years to make shit up about what he can’t do because of Bush.
One of our prospective opponents built his career in part on outsourcing jobs in the private sector — and then continued outsourcing jobs as a governor. Is that the kind of economic experience and mindset people want in a President?
Again, f^ckstick, if the president had fixed this like he said he was going to fix in the 2008 campaign, your “prospective opponent” wouldn’t have been able to outsource jobs. So who is really at fault here?
He’s a dumbshit. You’re exactly right, too. He had 4 years to do something about it, but instead spent that time suing states and going to rallys for the rights of baby sea lions and trying on wedding dresses. Oh, wait… at least one of those is true. Like you said, he just wants another thing to “fight for” so you’ll vote for him.
The tax deduction garbage has been de-bunked. There is no “tax deduction.” There are tax advantages to companies for out-sourcing, but the companies don’t get to claim any special write-off or anything.
Seeing as how the US has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world (a hair under 40%) that might have something to do with it also. Don’t tell that to a liberal though.
This whole issue of tax credits for moving jobs overseas is false. It goes back to how high the corporate tax rate is here that drives companies overseas so they don’t have to pay those corporate taxes. If the corporate taxes would be lower more companies would be willing to have their operations in the US.
http://news.investors.com/Article.aspx?id=598977&ibdbot=1&p=2
Oh, I guess President Obama was too busy saving the American automobile industry, finding and killing Bin Laden, fighting two wars that Bush started, preventing the Great Recession into turning into a Great Depression, getting unemployment down to 8.6%, changing the hemorraging of jobs by hundreds of thousands in Bush’s last year and a half which continued in the beginning of Obama’s term to 19 months of job growth, trying to prevent the banks and Wall Street from ruining our economy again, just to name a few off the top of my head. I think he’s been a little busy fixing everything else. This is one of the next things to fix.
And gee, I wonder why the President before him didn’t do anything in his EIGHT years of office – because George W Bush was totally for shipping American jobs overseas if it meant cheaper products. “George W. Bush actively supported tax breaks that rewarded companies more for shipping jobs overseas than for creating them here in the United States, and he strongly opposed efforts to reform these tax rules. These tax breaks cost the U.S. Treasury $7 billion each year and
made it significantly cheaper for American companies
to operate overseas than in this country.
The tax code subsidized job destruction and put
domestic producers and workers at a profound
disadvantage. The Bush administration refused to
support efforts to eliminate these tax giveaways,
and, in its 2004 and 2005 budgets, proposed creating
even more tax incentives for U.S. companies
to ship work overseas rather than keep good jobs
in America.
The Bush administration mounted a relentless
campaign against Buy American laws,
which ensure federal tax dollars are invested in
creating U.S. jobs and maintaining a strong industrial
base. The Bush administration routinely
waived Buy American laws and sought changes
to weaken them. The Bush administration
even threatened to veto the Defense Authorization
AFL-CIO 5 bill unless provisions to strengthen Buy American
laws were removed. Bush’s opposition to Buy
American laws is so strong he has even confronted
members of his own party, led by Rep. Duncan
Hunter (R-Calif.), on the issue.” (from an AFL-CIO Issue Brief)
If you’re going to engage in cut and paste plagiarism, at least have the decency to check your formatting…..
And there it is “George Bush, blah blah blah.”
Too long, didn’t read after that. Face it Mel, your boy is the worst thing that’s ever happened to this country, after Jimmy Carter that is. And since Obama found and killed Bin Laden, accordng to you, would you be so kind as to provide BHO’s BUD/S class number? K thanks. 😛
“…getting unemployment down to 8.6%…”
Yeah, it was 7% when Bush left office, so that’s a real funny direction for “down”.
Redacted, yeah, and maybe he can also provide Panetta’s BUD/S class number, after all, the other SEAL in the House chamber the other night told Panetta “Good job”. I was wondering, does anyone know whether Panetta was boots on the ground, or did he pilot one of the helicopters?
Oh, and Mel? 19 months of job growth? Would that be at Solyndra and Ener 1, the battery boondoggle? Or is that in the export of arms to Mexico?
@5
“These tax breaks cost the U.S. Treasury $7 billion each year”
Most telling sentence in your whole post, IMO.
If a tax break “costs” the Treasury, then that means that all income is the rightful property of the government. I reject that philosophy.
Besides, what’s $7 billion dollars a year when you’re talking about Obama’s spending?
So does all this mean we won’t have to buy anymore of those little curly Q light bulbs made in China? How hard will der Fuhrer Obama’s buddy, the head of GE cry? You know, the guy who bought all those Chevy Volts and shipped them to China, ’cause we Americans won’t buy the pieces of shit.
What is missing from Mel’s AFLCIO-spam is the acknowledgement that Progressives under then-Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Reid controlled the nation’s purse-strings from January of 2007 until today.
My reading of our Constitution lends the idea that the POTUS, the 2d branch of our Government, spends the money as directed by the Congress, which is the 1st branch of our Government.
So to say the economy and the spending is Bush’s fault is to say Bush-43 is guilty of following the Constitution. That he followed the law.
None of Bush’s budgets were as large as what was passed by the House and Senate. Ever. Yes, both parties participated in the pork-orgy. The Republican have removed most of their more egregious porkers, then Progressives have not.
Then there’s this little matter of getting out of a recession. Bush inherited a recession from Clinton – these things happen every 5-8 years. IIRC, one never heard Bush or his staff whining ‘it’s Clinton’s fault!’ No, they approached the problem maturely and carefully stewarded the Republican Congress’s spending plan and brought our great Nation out of a recession.
Straight into a for-real shooting war. These things happen. And we all heard and read and knew that Clinton dropped the ball on Bin Laden and terrorism repeatedly, but again the issue was addressed maturely, with every concession given to the peace-at-any-cost wing of Congress.
Side rant: I can’t speak to other’s experience, but many of the soldiers I served with mentioned at one time or another that their parents had been hippies and peaceniks. Today’s children know more than their parents think they do, which is why the education system is now about indoctrination. In 20 years, those kids will be in uniform upholding our values, not their parents’.
That’s a fairly incredible amound of bullshit you managed to put into just 7 paragraphs, DaveO. Most impressive. Is it opposite day in your part of the country?
DaveO Fantasy: “My reading of our Constitution lends the idea that the POTUS, the 2d branch of our Government, spends the money as directed by the Congress, which is the 1st branch of our Government.”
Apparently DaveO stopped reading when it got to the part about the President’s veto powers. See my reading of reality is that it was Bush, accompanied by a Republican Congress That Pushed through the two bush tax cuts, an unpaid for medicare part D, two unpaid for wars (one of which was unnecessary and the other of which was bungled badly)
DaveO Fantasy: None of Bush’s budgets were as large as what was passed by the House and Senate. Ever. Yes, both parties participated in the pork-orgy. The Republican have removed most of their more egregious porkers, then Progressives have not.”
Reality: Yeah, I’m sure Don Corleone’s Ginko Olive Oil always managed to balance his books too. Bush’s budgets were smaller than they should of been because he kept thinks like the war off of it, preferring to pay for those in emergency supplementals.
DaveO Fantasy: Then there’s this little matter of getting out of a recession. Bush inherited a recession from Clinton – these things happen every 5-8 years. IIRC, one never heard Bush or his staff whining ‘it’s Clinton’s fault!’ No, they approached the problem maturely and carefully stewarded the Republican Congress’s spending plan and brought our great Nation out of a recession.
Reality: Mmmm, no, these things don’t “happen” every 5 to 8 years. Bush inherited a very slight economic downturn brought upon by the internet bubble bursting. The standard definition of a recession- two straight quarters of economic decline- was never met, neither at the end of Clinton’s last term nor at the beginning of Bush’s first. If anything Bush inherited a downturn, not a recession. It was a relatively easy “storm” to weather which a competent President could of done easily. President Obama inherited the worst economic catastrophe since the LAST Republican Great Depression of 1932. Not only was our economy declining, it was declining at 9% and the economy was shedding almost a million jobs a month.
Also, i’m glad i wasn’t drinking when you got to the part about Bush not saying “It’s Clinton’s fault”. To hell they didn’t. They blamed Clinton like crazy for that AND 911 too.
Nevertheless, here’s bush blaming Clinton in 2004:
http://money.cnn.com/2002/08/07/news/economy/bush_cheney/
Here’s Bush blaming Clinton for the deficit in 2008!!!:
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/07/28/bush-administration-blames-bill-clinton-for-deficit/
DaveO’s fantasy: Straight into a for-real shooting war. These things happen. And we all heard and read and knew that Clinton dropped the ball on Bin Laden and terrorism repeatedly, but again the issue was addressed maturely, with every concession given to the peace-at-any-cost wing of Congress.
Reality: No, it didn’t just “happen” an awful lot of lying and manipulating intelligence had to occur before we got into that wasteful expensive unnecessary war in Iraq. If you consider lying, manipulating data and creating “free speech zones” handling things “maturely” then your definition is differnt then most people that speak English.
Not only did Clinton NOT “drop the ball on Bin Laden” (don’t bother with the bullshit conspiracy theory of the Sudanese ready to hand over Bin Laden).
The fact is that at the time people considered Clinton “obsessed” with getting Bin Laden and it was the Republican’s that were accusing him of “wagging the dog” in order to supposedly distract from the Lewinsky scandal. Clinton handed over to Bush plans on how to get Bin laden along with plans on going into Afghanistan. Arrogant Bush decided to do everything the opposite of Clinton and ignored Bin Laden up until September 12th 2001.
Make no mistake, if Gore were President we would not be in this horrible recession and, most likely, we’d of gotten Bin Laden before the towers fell. George Bush was the disaster Presidency and the worst thing to befall this country in the last 60 years. Repbublican’s LOVE to TALK about OTHERS accepting responsibility, but you’re pretty lax when it comes to accepting the responsiblity of the disasterous Bush administration.
“Clinton handed over to Bush plans on how to get Bin laden along with plans on going into Afghanistan.”
Care to expand on this nugget?
accompanied by a Republican Congress
IIRC, the Democrats had the majority in the Senate during the first two years of Bush’s first term.
After that, most of your points are regurgitated DNC bullshit.
Care to expand on this nugget?
Richard Clarke, the former head of the anti-terrorism task force already expanded on it nicely, as did Sandy Berger, Bush himself admits to receiving a memo entitle “Osama Bin Laden determined to attack in the United States one month before 911 and ignoring it.
“IIRC, the Democrats had the majority in the Senate during the first two years of Bush’s first term.”
While that’s true, the fillibuster was a rarely used thing back then and the Democrats had a ONE vote majority. He was able to push through his tax cuts, with the help of Ben Nelson, using reconciliation. And of course War spending was, before bush, something almost everyone deferred to the President on.
As far as the DNC bullshit, line. The truth has a liberal bias.
No, scooter. The MEDIA has a liberal bias. The truth has NO bias.
And seriously? Sandy Burglar? Credibility, meet shitter.
Again insipid proves himself to be a tool of the Republicans.
Prove your points shitbag. Show us where the Constitution says the POTUS does not have to follow the law. Show me.
You’ve never even heard of Senator James Jeffords, have you?
insipid, as a GOP tool, you don’t even understand why blaming Bush is anathematic to military men and women.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K-8WQ&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
the most cogent argument at how utterly Obama has failed. Insipid, I’m sorry dude but if you run the numbers your side eats pavement every time.
I love right-wing “logic”. Of course what that idiotic piece of shit propoganda video doesn’t tell you is that spending cuts won’t “solve” the problem either. But just because the rich can’t “solve” the problem doesn’t mean they shouldn’t contribute to the solution. The fact is that you can’t justify a billionaire paying 14% in taxes and a construction worker paying 35%. Here’s a better video:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2011/08/jon-stewart-has-had-it-how-fox-talks-about-class-warfare/41474/
The problem is that the bottom 50% don’t have the money to make it up. We’re going to HAVE to tax the wealthy unless if you want to gut your precious military or throw grandma off of SS. From the link:
But the idea of raising tax rates on the top 2 percent of earners was decried as socialism and class warfare on Fox News for, among other things, according to numbers Stewart quoted, raising a mere $700 billion in revenue over the next ten years. The Daily Show host then pointed to this chart that Business Insider posted showing that the bottom 50 percent of the country only controls 2.5 percent of U.S. wealth. Stewart quipped: “So raising the income tax rate on the top 2 percent of earners would raise $700 billion dollars, but taking half of everything the bottom 50 percent have in this country would do the same. I see the problem here: we need to take all of what the bottom 50 percent have.”
It’s your side that is “eating pavement” the numbers do not add up without the wealthy upping their contributions.
DaveO, you don’t speak for everyone who has worn the uniform. I did, and i have no problem at all blaming Bush. And yes, i have heard of James Jeffords, again, back then filibusters were rarely used (especially after 911), secondly he managed to get his tax cuts through with reconciliation, hence the 10 year time limit.
I’m not sure what his necessity of following the law has to do with the price of tea in china. Are you saying that Bush had nothing to do with the tax cuts? That he was some kind of innocent bystander or something? Are you saying that he had nothing to do with the trumped up Iraq war? That he didn’t push for Medicare Part D? Those four things I just listed were BY FAR our biggest budget busters. This graph lays it all out:
http://i894.photobucket.com/albums/ac143/ThisIsMyTime_2010/BushDeficitsVsObama.jpg
Barack Obama did not cause the problem, bush did. I don’t care if you’re in the military or not. If you don’t know the past you’re condemned to repeat it. Voting GOP is a disaster.
Al Franken – Operation Ignore
Here’s the real story of how the Clinton administration was focused on terrorism and the Bush administration dropped the ball. Don’t trust Franken? By all means, check the sources he cites here!
Excerpt from:
Al Franken’s book: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
Chapter Operation Ignore
Bill Clinton’s far-reaching plan to eliminate al Qaeda root and branch was completed only a few weeks before the inauguration of George W. Bush. If it had been implemented then, a former senior Clinton aide told Time, we would be handing [the Bush Administration] a war when they took office.” Instead, Clinton and company decided to turn over the plan to the Bush administration to carry out. Clinton trusted Bush to protect America. This proved, nine months later, to be a disastrous mistake – perhaps the biggest one Clinton ever made.
Clinton’s National Security Advisor Sandy Berger remembered how little help the previous Bush administration had provided to his team. Believing that the nation’s security should transcend political bitterness, Berger arranged ten briefings for his successor, Condoleezza Rice, and her deputy, Stephen Hadley. Berger made a special point of attending the briefing on terrorism. He told Dr. Rice, “I believe that the Bush administration will spend more time on terrorism in general, and on al Qaeda specifically, than any other subject.”
Which brings me to a lie. When Time asked about the conversation, Rice declined to comment, but through a spokeswoman said she recalled no briefing at which Berger was present” Perhaps so, Dr. Rice. But might I direct our mutual friends, my readers, to a certain December 30, 2001, New York Times article? Perhaps you know the one, Condi? Shall I quote it? “As he prepared to leave office last January, Mr. Berger met with his successor, Condoleezza Rice, and gave her a warning. According to both of them, he said that terrorism-and particularly Mr. bin Laden’s brand of it-would consume far more of her time than she had ever imagined.” (Italics mine.)
When I read this, my instinct was to shout for joy and dance around the room, naked, celebrating the finding of a lie. And I did. “Badda Bing!” I cried, as I ran around the house, my genitals flopping wildly, embarrassing my wife and her bridge group.
After the dressing down from my wife, who really read me the riot act, it occurred to me that all I had really found was a contradiction between Time and the Times. Maybe The New York Times had it wrong. Maybe Dr. Rice, considered a paragon of integrity, had told Time magazine the truth-that her predecessor had never warned her about the impending threat from al Qaeda and its evil mastermind. It was time for the Franken investigative juggernaut to assert itself. I called Dr. Rice’s office, prepared to pierce the infamous White House veil of secrecy with a lance of white-hot journalistic enterprise. I left a message, and they called me right back with the answer. A White House official told me that Dr. Rice had met with Berger at a briefing, and he had told her about the seriousness of the al Qaeda threat. Condi lied to Times! Badda Bing!
Anyway. After Berger left, Rice stayed around to listen to counterterrorism bulldog Richard Clarke, who laid out the whole anti-al Qaeda plan. Rice was so impressed with Clarke that she immediately asked him to stay on as head of counterterrorism. In early February, Clarke repeated the briefing for Vice President Dick Cheney. But, according to Time, there was some question about how seriously the Bush team took Clarke’s warnings. Outgoing Clinton officials felt that “the Bush team thought the Clintonites had become obsessed with terrorism.”
The Bushies had an entirely different set of obsessions. Missile defense, for example. The missile defense obsession proved prescient when terrorists fired a slow-moving intercontinental ballistic missile into the World Trade Center. If only Clarke had put his focus on missile defense instead of obsessing on Osama bin Laden.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was obsessed with a review of the military’s force structure, which had the potential of yielding tremendous national security dividends ten or fifteen years down the road. I, personally, am a longtime proponent of force structure review, as anyone who has had the misfortune to spend any time around me when I am drunk can attest. But I don’t think it should be to the exclusion of everything else. Let me give you one little example: I also believe in FIGHTING TERRORISM.
While all the Bushies focused on their pet projects, Clarke was blowing a gasket. He had a plan, and no one was paying attention. It didn’t help that the plan had been hatched under Clinton. Clinton-hating was to the Bush White House what terrorism- fighting was to the Clinton White House.
Meanwhile, on February 15, 2001, a commission led by former senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman issued its third and final report on national security. The Hart-Rudman report warned that “mass-casualty terrorism directed against the U.S. homeland was of serious and growing concern” and said that America was woefully unprepared for a “catastrophic” domestic terrorist attack and urged the creation of a new federal agency: “A National Homeland Security Agency with responsibility for planning, coordinating, and integrating various U.S. government activities involved in homeland security” that would include the Customs Service, the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, and more than a dozen other government departments and agencies.
The Hart-Rudman Commission had studied every aspect of national security over a period of years and had come to a unanimous conclusion: “This commission believes that the security of the American homeland from the threats of the new century should be the primary national security mission of the U.S. government.”
The report generated a great deal of media attention and even a bill in Congress to establish a National Homeland Security Agency. But over at the White House, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Attorney General Ashcroft, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld decided that the best course of action was not to implement the recommendations of the Hart-Rudman report, but instead to launch a sweeping initiative dubbed “Operation Ignore.”
The public face of Operation Ignore would be an antiterrorism task force led by Vice President Cheney. Its mandate: to pretend to develop a plan to counter domestic terrorist attacks. Bush announced the task force on May 8, 2001, and said that he himself would “periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts.” Bush never chaired such a meeting, though. Probably because Cheney’s task force never actually met. Operation Ignore was in full swing.
Unbeknownst to Bush and Cheney, Richard Clarke was doggedly pushing his plan to put boots on the ground in Afghanistan and kill Osama bin Laden. Thanks to Clarke’s relentless efforts, the plan was working its way back up the food chain, after having been moved to the bottom of the priority list, right below protecting the public from giant meteors.
On April 30, Clarke presented a new version of the plan to the deputies of the major national security principals: Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby; the State Department’s Richard Armitage; DOD’s Paul Wolfowitz; and the CIA’s John McLaughlin. They were so impressed, they decided to have three more meetings: one on al Qaeda, one on Pakistan, and a third on Indo-Pakistani relations. And then a fourth meeting to integrate the three meetings. Sure, scheduling these meetings would take months, and would delay the possibility of actually acting on the plan and eliminating al Qaeda, but, according to a senior White House official, the deputies wanted to review the issues “holistically” which as far as I can tell means ”slowly.”
On July 10, 2001, nearly five months after the Hart-Rudman report had warned of catastrophic, mass-casualty attacks on America’s homeland and called for better information sharing among all federal intelligence agencies, Operation Ignore faced a critical test. Phoenix FBI agent Kenneth Williams sent a memo to headquarters regarding concerns over some Middle Eastern students at an Arizona flight school. Al Qaeda operatives, Williams suggested, might be trying to infiltrate the U.S. civil aviation system. He urged FBI Headquarters to contact the other intelligence agencies to see if they had information relevant to his suspicions. Had Williams’s memo been acted upon, perhaps the CIA and FBI would have connected the dots. And had Hart-Rudman been acted upon, perhaps the memo would not have been dismissed. Operation Ignore, now in its 146th day, had proved its effectiveness once more.
The holdovers from the Clinton era – Clarke and CIA Director George Tenet-were going nuts. Bush administration insiders would later say they never felt that the two men had been fully on board with Operation Ignore. Tenet was getting reports of more and more chatter about possible terrorist activity. Through June and July, according to one source quoted in the Washington Post, Tenet worked himself nearly frantic” with concern. In mid-July, “George briefed Condi that there was going to be a major attack,” an official told Time.
Only Time would tell what happened next.
On July 16, the deputies finally held their long-overdue holistic integration meeting and approved Clarke’s plan. Next it would move to the Principals Committee, composed of Cheney, Rice, Tenet, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Rumsfeld–the last hurdle before the plan could reach the President. They tried to schedule the meeting for August, but too many of the principals were out of town. They had taken their cue from the President. August was a time to recharge the batteries, to take a well-deserved break from the pressures of protecting America. The meeting would have to wait till September 4.
No one understood better the importance of taking a break to spend a little special time with the wife and dog than President George W. Bush. Bush spent 42 percent of his first seven months in office either at Camp David, at the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, or at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. As he told a $1,000-a-plate crowd at a fund-raiser in June, Washington, D.C., is a great place to work, but Texas is a great place to relax.” That’s why on August 3, after signing off on a plan to cut funding for programs guarding unsecured or “loose” nukes in the former Soviet Union, he bade farewell to the Washington grind and headed to Crawford for the longest presidential vacation in thirty-two years.
On its 172nd day, Operation Ignore suffered a major blow. Already, the operation was becoming more and more difficult to sustain as the intensity of terror warnings crescendoed. Now, on August 6, CIA Director Tenet delivered a report to President Bush entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” The report warned that al Qaeda might be planning to hijack airplanes. But the President was resolute: Operation Ignore must proceed as planned. He did nothing to follow up on the memo.
Actually, that’s not entirely fair. The President did follow up, a little bit. Sitting in his golf cart the next day, Bush told some reporters, “I’m working on a lot of issues, national security matters.” Then, Bush rode off to hit the links, before dealing with a stubborn landscaping issue by clearing some brush on his property. The next day, he followed up again, telling the press, I’ve got a lot of national security concerns that we’re working on Iraq, Macedonia, very worrisome right now.”
But Iraq and Macedonia weren’t the only things on Bush’s mind. “One of the interesting things to do is drink coffee and watch Barney chase armadillos,” he told reporters on a tour of the ranch later in his vacation. “The armadillos are out, and they love to root in our flower bed. It’s good that Barney routs them out of their rooting.”
On August 16, the INS arrested Zacharias Moussaoui, a flight school student who seemed to have little interest in learning to take off or land a plane. The arresting agent wrote that Moussaoui seemed like “the type of person who could fly something into the World Trade Center.” Trying to pique the interest of FBI Headquarters in Washington, a Minneapolis FBI agent wrote that a 747 loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon. lf this information had been shared and analyzed, for example by a newly founded Homeland Security Agency, it might have sparked memories of the Clinton-thwarted 1996 al Qaeda plot to hijack an American commercial plane and crash it into CIA Headquarters.
On August 25, still on the ranch, Bush discussed with reporters the differences between his two dogs. “Spot’s a good runner. You know, Barney-terriers are bred to go into holes and pull out varmint. And Spotty chases birds. Spotty’s a great water dog. I’ll go fly-fishing this afternoon on my lake.” And you know something? He did just that.
Among those left to swelter in the D.C. heat that August was one Thomas J. Pickard. No fly-fishing for him. In his role as acting FBI director, Pickard had been privy to a top-secret, comprehensive review of counterterrorism programs in the FBI. The assessment called for a dramatic increase in funding. Alarmed by the report and by the mounting terrorist threat, Pickard met with Attorney General John Ashcroft to request $58 million from the Justice Department to hire hundreds of new field agents, translators, and intelligence analysts to improve the Bureau’s capacity to detect foreign terror threats. On September 10, he received the final Operation Ignore communique: an official letter from Ashcroft turning him down flat. (To give Pickard credit for adopting a professional attitude, he did not call Ashcroft the next day to say, “I told you so.”)
Clarke’s plan to take the fight to al Qaeda lurched forward once more on September 4, 2001. Eight months after he had first briefed Condi Rice about it, and nearly eleven months after Clinton had told him to create it, Clarke’s plan finally reached the Principals Committee that served as gatekeeper to the commander in chief. Bush was back from his trip, rested up, and ready for anything.
Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, and the other Principals debated the plan and decided to advise Bush to adopt it with a phased-in approach. Phase One, to demand cooperation from the Taliban and make fresh overtures to al Qaeda opponents such as the Northern Alliance, would begin the moment the President signed off on the plan. Phase Zero, however, came first: wait several days as the proposal made its way to the Bush’s desk.
On September 9, as the plan cooled its heels, Congress proposed a boost of $600 million for antiterror programs. The money was to come from Rumsfeld’s beloved missile defense program, the eventual price tag of which was estimated by the Congressional Budget Office at between $158 billion and $238 billion. Congress’s proposal to shift $0.6 billion over to counterterror programs incurred Rummy’s ire, and he threatened a presidential veto. Operation Ignore was in its 207th day.
On Operation Ignore Day 208, Ashcroft sent his Justice Department budget request to Bush. It included spending increases in sixty-eight different programs. Out of these sixty-eight programs, less than half dealt with terrorism. Way less than half. In fact, none of them dealt with terrorism. Ashcroft passed around a memo listing his seven top priorities. Again, terrorism didn’t make the list.
On that day, I left for Minneapolis to visit my mom and play some charity golf.
On the next day, the world shook.
The day after that, they started blaming Clinton, covering their tracks, and accusing liberals of blaming America.
Hart-Rudman Report – February 15, 2001
http://www.nssg.gov/PhaseIIIFR.pdf
http://www.avatara.com/operationignore0.html
Insipid- entitlements will have to be cut. The problem cannot be solved by simply “taxing the rich”, we’re spending way beyond our means. Of course, “fair share” gets thrown around alot by whinging crybabies like you, but how fair is it that 48% of this country’s citizens pay no federal taxes at all, yet still recieve money back on “tax returns”?
Constitutionally, the federal government is supposed to provide for national defense. It IS NOT supposed to provide bullshit safety nets, healthcare, or retirement programs for it’s citizens.
As for your Franken bullshit… no. What was Bush going to do? Shut down all immigration to the US, shut down all domestic and international flights, shut down shipping, or lock down the highways because there was a report that Al-Qaida was going to attack, somewhere, sometime soon? Perhaps you and your pal Franken should try that FBI agent who ignored agent Williams’ report for dereliction of duty? Naw, just blame Bush. He should have known something was amiss in a different state with his spider sense.
Also, your links are giving 404’s here.
Insipid a few things.
1). Yeah actually spending cuts in entitlements would pretty much solve everything. But if we took all the Wealth away from the Wealthy. Guess what, wouldn’t fix the problem. The numbers, sadly don’t like. To quote a great man “you could say the spend like drunken sailors but that’s not fair to Sailors, they spend their own money”
2). I think Its rich Franken calling anyone a liar.
3). On the face of it, Clinton’s own inter-service walls prevented an FBI agent embedded with the NSA from warning his own branch, of terrorists trying to get into the US. Worse CIA watch lists weren’t made available to customs, because of those same rules. We may never know what other balls Clinton dropped (i could mention that he could have killed Osama almost two decades before he was killed but really why split hairs). But as for Bush dropping the ball. . .
Gee he was president for a grand total of about 8 months and change, the only memo he got on the subject (yes the famous “bin Laden plans to attack the US” memo) would have had him deploy dogs to national parks and monuments looking for truck bombs, and drive bys. No one anywhere really thought they’d try the novel (and lethal) idea of turning Passenger Airliners into modern day Bacca Bombs.
It seems Clinton was more interested in fighting Rudy Giuliani, and making sure kids had after school programs then actually fighting, or defending this country from terrorism.
I would also cite OBL himself that he first conceived of this attack, or more specifically an attack on America itself when he saw Clinton’s reaction to Gothic Serpent. He folded to Al Shibab. No way around that. then the ’93 bombing, then the Embassies in Kenya and Nairobi. Then the Cole, and he didn’t do a God Damned thing. He wanted to take the “law enforcement approach”. That’s fine with a guy robing a bank. These were military strikes against soft targets and Clinton was too busy putting cigars up his interns vagina (while she blew him) to care.
I might also note that no one bothers to care that he soiled the Oval Office in such a way, but I guess the dignity of the Office doesn’t really matter when your “popularly” getting less than half the vote.
4). seeing as the White house had to spend about $20,000 to replace the damage from the “pranks” that Clinton Staffers loosed on the East Wing (to include removing all the “W” keys from every keyboard) and clinton put in an ungodly amount of last minuet regulations, that the media absolutely howled when Bush *naturally* repealed these nonsense regs, exactly what do you think he could have done in those 9 months?
Do you think he could have Created the Government Monstrosity that is the TSA (a Liberal Idea by the way) before 9/11? Even if he had, they’re so terrified of profiling they may have let Atta and his ilk walk, while frisking the Grannies behind him. Bush couldn’t even Sneeze without 50 commentators questioning his use of Hankey or Klinex. How exactly could he have whipped intelligence agencies into cooperating when Clintonian laws (and other sundry Liberal policy makers) said they would go to jail if they shared intel. In fact not till the Patriot act could they share intel (which is when a very loud much repeated face palm was heard as far as two states away)
So please Insipid, this refrain is old, tired, worn out, and wors thoroughly debunked. You may get others to buy what you’re selling, but that shit don’t fly here.
I love the conservative excuse machine:
1. If the economy is bad and it’s a Democrat we ONLY blame the current occupant and pretend that the Republican predecessor didn’t hand him over a steaming pile of fecal matter of an economy.
2. If a banking crises happens under a Republican’s watch we blame legislation passed during the CARTER administration! Not the deregulation passed under the Republicans
3. If the economy is good under Democrats it’s because of something a Republican did 8 years earlier and it has nothing to do with the Democrats.
4. If an attack happens on a Democrats watch it’s always his fault entirely, even if he’s only been President a month, as was the case with Bill Clinton and the first WTC attack.
5. If an attack happens under a Republican’s watch it’s entirely the last Democratic administrations fault, even if they’d been President for nearly 9 months
Of course the facts of the matter is that using just about any rubrik except perhaps taxes the economy ALWAYS does better under Democrats. Already, Obama’s job creation record beats Bush’s job creation record. Already Obama is showing more fiscal responsiblity then Bush ever has. And it is quite obvious that Obama and Clinton’s derided “law enforcement” policy is working ten times better at stopping terrorism then Bush’s idiotic “War” on terror ever has.
As far as the alleged vandalism of the White House, that’s a lie:
http://www.salon.com/2001/05/23/vandals/
So is the story of the Sudanese supposedly ready to hand over Bin Laden:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A63896-2002Jul12¬Found=true
What’s NOT a lie is Al Franken’s Operation Ignore.
So please, Doc Bailey, start accepting personal responsibility for what the Republicans have done. Stop with the thoroughly debunked lies. If the “shit don’t fly here” it’s because you’re stuck on stupid. Not because anything i write is innacurate.
Blah blah blah goes insipid spreading his fascist GOP agenda. How much is the RNC paying you? Obviously they’re not getting their money’s worth.
“Insipid- entitlements will have to be cut. The problem cannot be solved by simply “taxing the rich”, we’re spending way beyond our means. Of course, “fair share” gets thrown around alot by whinging crybabies like you, but how fair is it that 48% of this country’s citizens pay no federal taxes at all, yet still recieve money back on “tax returns”?”
I’m sorry, but everyone who has a job pays federal taxes in the form of payrole taxes. Furthermore we WERE spending way beyond our means under George W. Bush, now we are not as is evidenced by the fact that the deficit is going DOWN under PBO.
“Constitutionally, the federal government is supposed to provide for national defense. It IS NOT supposed to provide bullshit safety nets, healthcare, or retirement programs for it’s citizens.”
First off, i reject the entire notion that Conservatives get to keep the Constitution as their own personal binky, decidieng what the founders did and did not want. The fact is that promoting the general welfare is in the same preamble as providing for the common defense. Whether you like it of not these “bullshit” safety nets DO promote the general welfare. Medicare alone has cut elderly poverty in half.
There is no one answer to the debt problem, but the ones that are being unreasonable here are Republicans,not Democrats. A billionaire paying 15% in Federal Taxes is obscene, even billionaires say so. Paying 30% won’t alter his standard of living, hell paying 90% won’t. And as far as the mantra that it would kill jobs, well where are the jobs NOW? Right NOW taxation is as low as it has been at any time in 50 years and has been so for the past decade.
The problem is Republicans. I hate to break it to you but the military budget is going to get slashed LONG before Social security. These “bullshit” programs are popular, and people have been paying into them for their whole lives. The choice between spending more than the rest of the world combined in Military spending and seeing their SS and medicare go away is not a referendum you want to put to a vote.
The Republicans are the ones being unreasonable. Obama has shown a willingness to make changes in COLA to adjust Medicare in ways that will save Trillions. The Republicans tantrum like two year olds if Obama proposes raising taxes on people making a million a year (!) one dime or taking even a penny out of the military budget. The cold war is over, the iraq war- which we should never of gotten in in the first place is over. Cuts do need to be made, but EVERYONE has go feel it, not just the elderly.
the real facts are that the republicans and democrats are both crooks.. I thought this site was a mil blog but yet I am coming to realize that it is a blame Obama for everything site.. Obama is doing a shitty job but Bush did a pretty shitty job himself.. I find it laughable that some of you guys think either party cares more about anything except for lining their own pockets.
If you ask me who I would rather have Obama,Romney or Skunk Vomit (Newt Gingrich) I would have to pick Obama. Romney and Skunk Vomit wouldn’t think twice about fucking us vets over.
You… You realize that under Obama, the national debt has been raised over 5 trillion, insipid? To a total of 15 trillion and change? That is higher, not lower, than before. It took big spending Bushitler eight years to raise it 5T. Took Obama less than four. Also, how long has it been since the dems have passed a budget? The republicans put one up for a vote after they were elected. The senate still hasn’t approved one. It’s been well over three years. How many times has the debt cieling been raised under Obama as a result of the feds not having a fucking clue how much they get to spend per year?
You regressives abuse the hell out of two words in the preamble, ignore a few words in the second ammendment, completely disregard the tenth ammendment, and promote the hell out of a few words of the seventeenth, turning it into a handy blanket clause for federal power. So take that “binky” crap, and shove it right up your pretentious ass. “Promote the general welfare” does not mean “give money away to certain people so they vote for you”. Else you’d see gop idiots saying that “general welfare” applies to corporate tax rates, because it impacts the economy. The “elderly poverty rate” problem (like that was ever a crisis in this country worthy of destroying itself over) has been solved at the cost of future generations’ general welfare. Good job. Medicare is broke, and unsustainable. Social security is too. They need reform, even Bill Clinton says so (now. Everything was just peachy when he was in office, of course). But your big plan is to keep those two (at roughly 40% of our current spending) untouched, and focus solely on slashing the military budget, or, roughly 19% of our spending. How much can be taken out of that 19% without crippling our capability? I’d say we can comfortably lose a few points. Not enough to stop the hurt that’s coming down the line all by itself, though.
The hard truth is that everything must be slashed. There are better ways of doing that then the way it’s going to happen, though. You don’t just cut military personnel and naval fleet strength while leaving the broken and bloated procurement process in place. Unfortunately, politicians love them some GE, so that will never happen. We’ll still spend money on shiny things that congressman so and so wants, because it will be made in his district, instead of what the troops need. That’s a shame, because that alone is the cause of much of the budgetary waste. Neither party is big on touching that. The only ones I’ve heard say something about it are Allen West and Ron Paul.
Also, drop that tax rate bullshit. A select few rich people have made you lefties wet yourselves by saying they want to pay more taxes. Meanwhile, they aren’t even paying theirs currently. Buffet’s company owes hundreds of millions in back taxes. GE (run by Jeff immelt, Obama’s “job czar”) paid $0 in taxes last year. Higher rates won’t make a difference to them at all, because they’ll never see them anyway. They’ll use the same accounting tricks and write offs that are in place now to not pay anything. I’m one of those heartless bastards that thinks 40,000 pages of tax code is too much, and that it should be simplified down to a flat rate- everyone pays the same %. No loopholes, no write offs, no refunds, no exceptions. That way, everyone has skin in the game. The current way of doing things, again, is broken. I’ll leave the obviously false comparison you tried to make between someone’s total taxes paid compared to someone’s capital gains taxes paid alone. I will say this, though- that cap gains “lower rate” was taxed twice- once when it was earned, and again when it was invested.
I do realize that the debt went up 5 trillion dollars under Obama, but i also realize that it all but 1 trillion dollars of it is Bush’s fault. As I explained in another post, Obama stopped the accounting gimick of paying for the wars in emergency supplementals. Furthermore, because of the Bush caused massive recession there has been a massive outlay of food-stamps and unemployment benefits, plus less incoming revenue do to joblessness. I- and Obama- will cop to the 1 trillion dollars in stimulus, wich did create 3 million jobs. But the rest is all Bush’s fault.
I did not say the debt went down under Obama, i said the deficit has gone down under him. The debt is the amount of money we owe the deficit is the shortfall of revenue vs. expenses. While the debt has gone up under Obama, mostly because of the Bush recession, the deficit has gone down:
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/obamas-2011-budget-3834-trillion-deficit-slightly-2010/story?id=9717948
http://www.truth-out.org/three-charts-email-your-right-wing-brother-law/1314626142
As far as the Constitution goes, you guys have turned the common defense line into an excuse for a military industrial complex and a permanent empire, pretend that the militia clause does not exist, ignore completely the MASSIVE powers given to the federal government in the actual text of the Constitution in order to make your fantasy Constitution complete with a neutered federal government (except for reproduction rights and rights to protect millionaires). The fact is that the Founders HAD a weak federal government in the articles of confedederation. If that’s what they wanted they wouldn’t of bothered replacing it with the Constitution in the first place.
The hard truth is that you guys don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about and never did. You have no business talking to anyone else about what “must” be slashed when you passed Medicare Part D, two tax cuts, two wars and didn’t pay for a goddamn thing. Take your lectures as to what “must” be done and stick them up YOUR ass.
The fact is that if everyone pitches in a little bit, no one has to suffer. Austerity has been tried in Greece and England and it’s not working there, and it won’t work here. Whatever meager amount saved in spending is offset by the slow down in growth and employment. If you don’t think elderly poverty was a MASSIVE problem before SS and Medicare then i suggest you pick up a history book.
Warren Buffet has released his personal tax returns and it revealed that, yes, he is paying a lower tax rate than his Secretary. That’s a fact. Berkshire Hathaway has stated that they will reach a resolution with the IRS this year. As far as the tax code is concerned, you’re sounding EXACTLY like Obama on that one, he’s the one preaching to get rid of corporate loopholes. To be fair, you’re sounding like Reagan too.
As far as a flat rate goes: i’ll be for that when we all use the infrastructure in the same way. The fact is that millionaires and billionaires use the infrasture WAY more than the average guy who uses the same four roads to get to work each day. I’ll also be for it when wealth stratification is somewhere aproaching sanity. That means increasing the Paris Hilton tax so that rich lazy fucks actually have to WORK for a living unlike Romney the Waltons and the Koch brothers who were born on third base and think they hit a triple.
As far as the capital gains taxes being taxed twice. So the fuck what? Only conservatives would think up this kinnard and think this argument makes sense. God you guys have to work to get up to stupid. Sales tax is taxed twice, so is property tax. But i guess being taxed twice is ok when it hurts the poor and middle class, huh? Hell, any tax you pay after you get paid is taxed twice, so fuck you and the it’s taxed twice bullshit.
YAY FOR MINDLESS VITRIOLE! 🙂
Yeah, one constant argument from the racist, Insipid,”it’s Bush’s fault”.
Still waiting on your apology to those who aren’t Caucasian, for your unwarranted and racist characterization of people who drive Escalades and Expeditions, and use Bridge cards as all being minorities, Insipid.
How can anyone even measure a deficit, when the government has no budget? If you don’t know how much is coming in and how much is being spent, you can’t know how much your deficit is.
Oh, and here’s a fact you can stick up your ass, asshole. If your construction worker is paying taxes in the 35% range, his taxable income is north of $379,100. That’s after his deductions, numbnuts. And, if 49% of the people aren’t paying taxes, they aren’t paying taxes, what part of that is so hard for you to understand?
Oh, and numbnuts, it’s “canard”, not “kinnard”. Go back to your 10th grade English class.
There is no fucking way you can possibly be this goddamned stupid, but here goes: There can be no deficit reduction when there’s no fucking budget to compare spending to. That was my point. HOW DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH SURPLUS OR DEFICIT YOU’RE RUNNING WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE A BUDGET? Your links are shit. One is from 2010, touting “the President’s budget”. There’s no such thing. There’s a president’s budget proposal, but not a president’s budget. He’s not a king, he doesn’t set his own rules. Congress tells him how much there is to be spent, after both houses settle on a budget plan, with separate proposals submitted from the president, congress, and senate. There has not been a federal budget since 2009, though, because democrats either don’t understand what their job entails, or are intentionally not passing a budget so idiots like you can be fed the talking point of “we’re reducing the deficit” without actual numbers to back it up. Just like the “jobs created or saved” stat. At any rate, that link you posted from ABC news shows it’s age when it says that your precious deficit savings came when he let the “Bush tax cuts for the rich” expire. We all know that never happened. Obama extended those cuts. Since the president’s 2010 budget proposal depended on that revenue to show “savings”, well… you’re an idiot for not reading the link before pasting it.
I’m not even going to look at that other bullshit link. Truth-out is a progressive talking point generator, and I’ll dismiss that just as fast as you would dismiss a link to the CATO institute.
Oh, and your god-king Obama’s budget proposal failed 97-0 in 2011 in the Democrat-controlled senate, because it was almost as goddamned stupid as you are. Almost.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/163347-senate-votes-unanimously-against-obama-budget
Now, for your idiotic Elizabeth Warren bullshit about evil rich people using roads more than us working people: Gasoline taxes pay for road maintenance. As a result, shipping companies, and anyone else who use roads more than ordinary people, pour more into state and federal coffers. Use more gas, pay more tax. That’s how it works.
And, finally, your retarded bullshit about tax rates: You have compared Buffet’s CAPITAL GAINS rate (just one of many taxes he’s subject to) to his secretary’s combined tax rate. Buffet pays both the top tier rate on his corporations, and he pays the lower capital gains rate on his investments. So yes, he pays “lower rates” if you cherry pick the data to fit your talking point, as you, he, and the president have.
“WORK for a living unlike Romney the Waltons and the Koch brothers who were born on third base and think they hit a triple”. Thank you, Comrade Insipid. Just FYI, the Waltons did work, they were the ones who built Wal-Mart, I know, you’d be much happier if they were still cashiers, but guess what, they aren’t. Same for the Koch family, same for the Romney family. At least, not a single one of them confiscated belongings of their fellow citizens after they were carted off to the camps. And, I seemed to notice a decided lack of reference to Jawn F’ing Kerry, who married his money, or the Rockefellers, or the Kennedys, who seem to have been born halfway between home and third base and think they’re entitled to walk home.