The Politics Thread - please direct all related posts here..

[HarthorneWingo]

And while I'm on a roll, this story just never seems to go away. Another rethuglican goes to jail. Oh well. But hey, keep your chin up, at least he wasn't caught having gay sex with a page or in some public mens' bathroom off an interstate.



http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/48881.html

Former Tom DeLay aide Scanlon faces 2 years in prison
By JOHN BRESNAHAN | 2/4/11 3:46 PM EST

Federal prosecutors are seeking a two year prison sentence for Michael Scanlon, a one-time aide to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) who played a key role in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

In court papers files on Friday, Justice Department prosecutors are seeking a 24-month sentence for Scanlon, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery and honest services fraud.

Scanlon is scheduled to be sentenced next week by a federal judge in Washington, D.C.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/02 ... z1D1mz8Drz

[HarthorneWingo]

With the celebration this past weekend of what would have been The Gipper's 100th birthday, I didn't want to miss out on this opportunity to pay homage to his presidential legacy. Happy Birthday Gip!

"All over the country, prominent conservatives and Republican figures are celebrating the anniversary of Reagan's birthday, claiming that the former president was "guided by strong conservative principles" and that he truly made America a "shining city on a hill" -- "stronger and freer" thanks to his leadership. Yet what conservatives casually omit is that many of his policies sharply deviated from what is considered conservative orthodoxy today -- like his strong record of trade protectionism and granting residency to millions of undocumented immigrants -- and that other policies he pursued decimated the middle class, ignored pressing social crises, and stood by as tyranny fermented abroad. It was these facts that journalist Mike Stark presented to right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh that left the conservative icon speechless. Today, the Progress Report will serve to debunk the myths about one of America's most famous presidents and introduce you to the real Ronald Reagan.

THE REAL REAGONOMICS : Conservatives often praise Reagan for his "sweeping economic reforms," which included tax cuts, deregulation, and liberalized trade policies. Yet the truth is that, in the classical sense, Reagan wasn't an economic conservative at all, often radically expanding the size of government and the federal budget deficit -- just doing so in ways that did not benefit most Americans, especially the poor. In fact, many of Reagan's economic policies would be considered heretical today by the modern conservative movement for the way they deviated from what is considered right-wing orthodoxy. As President, Reagan "raised taxes 11 times in his administration." This is a stark departure from today's conservative ideology; hundreds of elected Republicans in Congress have even signed oaths pledging to never raise taxes under any circumstances. And while modern conservatives boast of their commitment to rein in the budget deficit, reduce the size of government, and pursue free trade, Reagan seriously deviated from those policies. He nearly tripled the size of the federal budget deficit and federal spending "ballooned" during his tenure. And he notably used tariffs and trade controls to protect domestic industry, at one point imposing a 100 percent tariff on some Japanese electronic products, enacting major quotas on sugar imports, and establishing the largest steel tariff in American history. And while the right may boast of Reagan's economic policies, the truth is that they helped hollow out the middle class and decimate America's social safety net. Reagan cut federal funds to cities and slashed the federal housing program which more than doubled the country's homeless population. He deregulated the savings & loan industry, which led to enormous taxpayer-funded bailouts and widespread financial industry failures, as even the Cato Institute admits was a failure. Per capita income for the bottom 90 percent of the population fell .3 percent during Reagan's presidency while the incomes of the top 1 percent increased by 55 percent. Even his famed tax cuts did little to alleviate strains on the middle class, with the bottom 40 percent of households paying "out more of their income in federal taxes in 1988 than they had in 1980." Rather than transforming America into a "shining city on a hill," Reagan turned America into a "tale of two cities," as former New York Governor Mario Cuomo (D) said, with the rich wildly prospering and everyone else fighting over table scraps.

THE REAL REAGAN FOREIGN POLICY: Today's modern conservative movement champions Reagan as a man who freely brandished America's military might and sought to "stand up for freedom" all over the world. Yet one has to wonder if today's right-wing hawks would endorse Reagan's "dream" of a "world free of nuclear weapons," as he wrote in his diary -- or if they would approve of him withdrawing the U.S. military from Lebanon following rebel attacks on Marines stationed there. And while Reagan did champion the cause of pro-democracy activists agitating against a geopolitical rival, the Soviet Union, he often sided with some of the world's worst tyrants and terrorists -- breaking with the modest human rights policies enacted by President Jimmy Carter. He called Apartheid South Africa in 1981 a country that "strategically, is essential to the free world in its production of minerals," and bitterly fought congressional efforts to place sanctions on the Apartheid government, eventually even vetoing Congress's anti-Apartheid act (which was later overridden thanks to a revolt of Senate Republicans). Meanwhile, his administration sold arms to Iran in order to fund a right-wing militant movement known as the Contras in Nicaragua; these Contras went on to massacre tens of thousands of people, many of them nonviolent labor unionists or Christian theology activists. Reagan funded right-wing terrorists and dictators across Central America; in El Salvador, the Reagan-funded right-wing regime even assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero, a priest working to organize workers and feed the poor. Additionally, Reagan funded and trained the right-wing Guatemalan military, which a United Nations commission later found was a "key factor" in the military committing "acts of genocide" that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of members of the indigenous Mayan community and many other nonviolent left-wing activists. These U.S.-subsidized human rights violations became so extreme that Congress had to eventually move to rebuke Reagan and cut off funding to countries like Nicaragua that he had allied himself with. Writing about Reagan's policies in Central America, Thomas Carothers, who was tasked with "democracy promotion" in the Reagan State Department, wrote that Reagan policies favored only "limited, top-down forms of democratic change that did not risk upsetting the traditional structures of power with which the United States has long been allied." It was under Reagan that the United States armed and backed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, bolstering his aggressive war against Iran, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and embittering both countries against the United States. And his administration helped lay the groundwork for Al Qaeda by financing and training an Islamist militant movement in Afghanistan and Pakistan aimed around fighting the Soviet Union.

THE REAL REAGAN SOCIAL POLICY : While leading conservative commentators have praised Reagan as having "classical virtues," defending what they believe to be a starkly traditionalist set of American conservative social principles, there are many elements of his agenda which they'd be hesitant to endorse. And of the great stains on Reagan's social policy legacy -- the way he ignored the AIDS crisis -- has all been written out of the conservative movement's history of their icon. He completely ignored the AIDS crisis, not even addressing it until his second term when he was directly asked about it. At that point, between 20,000-30,000 Americans had already died from the disease. His administration silenced its own surgeon general, who wanted to proactively tackle the issue, and battled against comprehensive sex education. When the surgeon general was asked about Reagan's thinking on the issue, he said that because AIDS was a disease primarily affecting homosexuals, Reagan's closest advisers took the view that "they are only getting what they justly deserve." And disturbingly, Reagan opposed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, saying that it was "humiliating to the South. He even gave one of his major speeches on "states' rights" while running for president in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town where three civil rights workers were murdered, an ominous "dog whistle" in support of racist elements. Yet not every item of Reagan's social agenda was so harmful. As president, he engaged in a raucous immigration debate that ended when he signed into law legislation that helped three million undocumented immigrants gain residency and millions of more family members.

THE REAL REAGAN ADMINISTRATION : One fact left unmentioned in conservative tributes to the former president is the widespread corruption and scandals within the Reagan administration due to the elevation of individuals to lead agencies who did not fundamentally believe in the public sector. More than a dozen administration officials had to resign following the revelation of the Iran-Contra scandal. Reagan's own HUD Secretary used the agency to give Republican donors favorable housing grants. Over 20 high-level EPA officials were forced to resign following revelations that they had allowed themselves to be influenced by polluters; and as CAP's Joe Romm points out, Reagan "gutted" all of the Carter administration's clean energy efforts. Another scandal involved Department of Justice officials both engaging in piracy and then being tasked to investigate those same acts of piracy. More "than fifty officials at the Defense Department and private contractors" were "convicted for rigging bids and falsifying results of quality-control tests," again the result of collusion between the administration and corporate power. As the New York Times's Gary Willis wrote about the HUD scandals, "for [HUD] administrator Deborah Gore Dean," running HUD for "the benefits of family, friends and fellow ideologues" would serve the ultimate cause of driving the agency "into disrepute or desuetude." In other words, Reagan's "conservatism" that believed that government is "the problem" spawned a network of government officials who freely used the government they viewed as illegitimate for their own benefit.

[HarthorneWingo]

hehehehehe

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGhR2VnVma0&feature=player_embedded#[/youtube]

[mugzi]

Only someone as deluded as you would look at whats happening economically in this country and believe the tripe that claims unemployment is down to 9%, as if thats true and even more importantly significant.
And I pointed out the gallup poll to refute your foolish assertion with an outfit that is respected by the left.

Now, to me you've become the Keith Olberrmann of this board, not only because of your radical leftist agenda, but also because I like most of your heroes audience have tuned you out. You can call me the Rush, Savage, Levin etc. of the board but don't forget those men have and had five to ten times more listeners than Olbermann ever had, for a reason. Because conservatives outnumber liberals in this country and will continue to do so as long as human beings continue to use logic and common sense.

I didn't think that you would use what would've been Reagan's 100th bday to disparage the man with more of your tripe. But considering the fact you tried to use the AZ shooting to link me with a violent mass murderer shows you have no scruples and are the epitome of the mental disorder known as liberalism.

And I find it simultaneously comical and appalling that the left and particularly your president using Reagan to bolster his own image but also to paint himself as a centrist when he is anything but.

Here's an excerpt from an article illustrating those sycophantic tactics your party is not only renown for but lives by. And another article which tells the TRUTH about one of the greatest president's ever to serve, a man who rescued the economy from Jimmuh Carter's ineptitude and stood unflinchingly in the face of communism and backed down Gorbachev and the soviets. But Im sure that's something you regret Comrade Wingo.


NPR: Reagan is "Patron Saint" of Obama
Pundit Press

National Public Radio, NPR for short, is a well-known supporter of liberal politics and news in the United States. Championed by liberals for compassion and support for left-wing causes, the organization is often chided by conservatives for its skewing of facts and numbers. Well, NPR is not listening, as evidenced by its new article "What Obama Is Learning From Reagan's Example."

According to NPR, one of the most liberal administrations in recent memory is, in fact, taking lessons from a conservative hero, Ronald Reagan. And no one is learning more than President Barack Obama himself.

NPR begins its article questionably and it doesn't get much better from there. The first paragraph states matter-of-factly:

"[T]he 40th president has more recently been adopted as a kind of patron saint by the country's leading Democrat. President Obama has immersed himself in Reaganalia."

The piece then refers to an op-ed that the President wrote, in which he tied himself to our 40th President. In it, the President makes several comparisons to himself and the late President Reagan. These include "confidence and optimism" and American dreams.


Here's the Real Reagan Wingo and other tolerant leftists don't want you to remember.

Thinking About Ronald Reagan: On 100th Birthday, He's Remembered for Good Reason
Politics Daily

On the eve of Ronald Reagan's election as president of the United States in 1980, a radio reporter asked him what it was that Americans saw in him. Reagan hesitated and then replied: "Would you laugh if I told you that I think maybe they see themselves and that I'm one of them?"

Forty years and four presidents later, Americans still see themselves in Reagan. In a Gallup poll in 2009 they ranked Reagan as the best president, just ahead of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.

This highly generous assessment is based on more than likeability. Reagan left the world safer and the United States more prosperous than he found it. Even some liberal scholars who disdained Reagan when he was in the White House now acknowledge his effectiveness as a leader, especially his role in ending the Cold War. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, his partner in that enterprise, said at Reagan's funeral that the U.S. president was "an extraordinary political leader" who had "decided to be a peacemaker."

On the eve of Ronald Reagan's election as president of the United States in 1980, a radio reporter asked him what it was that Americans saw in him. Reagan hesitated and then replied: "Would you laugh if I told you that I think maybe they see themselves and that I'm one of them?"

Forty years and four presidents later, Americans still see themselves in Reagan. In a Gallup poll in 2009 they ranked Reagan as the best president, just ahead of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.

This highly generous assessment is based on more than likeability. Reagan left the world safer and the United States more prosperous than he found it. Even some liberal scholars who disdained Reagan when he was in the White House now acknowledge his effectiveness as a leader, especially his role in ending the Cold War. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, his partner in that enterprise, said at Reagan's funeral that the U.S. president was "an extraordinary political leader" who had "decided to be a peacemaker."

FDR, Reagan's first (and enduring) political idol, was a patrician, which Reagan was not. But both of them connected with people at an everyday level. Stuart K. Spencer, the thoughtful California political strategist who helped manage Reagan's 1966 gubernatorial and 1980 presidential campaigns, compared Reagan to "Joe Sixpack," the emblematic guy at the bar who has his fingers on the pulse of the public.

Reagan didn't drink much beer, but he paid such careful attention to his audiences that he sometimes sensed their concerns before they were fully articulated. When Reagan was exploring a run for governor of California in 1965, polls showed that voters were most concerned about taxes and other economic issues. But as Reagan, who had never run for office before, roamed the state he became aware of an issue that had not yet shown up in the public opinion surveys. Demonstrations were then disrupting the University of California, and Reagan's audiences wanted to know what he would do about it as governor. Reagan quickly realized that middle-class and working-class parents who had sons and daughters in college saw these demonstrations as a threat to their children's education. Without prompting, Reagan made the "mess at Berkeley" a signature issue of his campaign.

I met Reagan in the summer of 1965, when I was a Sacramento-based reporter for the San Jose Mercury-News and he was speaking to a luncheon audience of reporters and lobbyists. The speech was part of a series of Reagan talks away from the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco that had been designed by Spencer and his partner Bill Roberts to show that Reagan was something more than an actor reading lines written for him by others. Reagan called the speeches "out-of-town tryouts" and wrote his own script.

On this day, when a questioner wondered how anyone could be governor without public experience, Reagan replied that it would be good to have someone who was inexperienced take a fresh look at government. I was stunned by the answer, but the audience clearly bought it. Reagan was then well known from his films and years as the host of General Electric Theater, and reporters and lobbyists crowded around him after the luncheon, eager to hear Reagan reminisce about Hollywood. At the time, the incumbent Democratic governor, Pat Brown, was hoping the GOP would nominate Reagan on the theory he'd be easier to beat than the putative Republican frontrunner, San Francisco Mayor George Christopher. I wasn't so sure. When my San Jose-based editor asked my opinion of Reagan after this lunch, I said I didn't know why anyone would want to run against someone who was so well known and well liked.

Over the course of the next four-plus decades, I covered Reagan as a political candidate and then, for The Washington Post, for the entire eight years of his presidency. I wrote five books about him, including "President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime," and interviewed him scores of times. He was always courteous, although my edgy coverage apparently tried his patience. He complained about it occasionally to his White House dairies, referring to me as "one of three journalists" at the paper "who regularly beat my brains out." In truth, I was struggling to understand Reagan and to keep my reporting on an even keel.

Reagan made it easier in one important way since he never tried to co-opt reporters as so many politicians do. Although there were occasional personal moments in our relationship -- he once suggested that my interest in him stemmed in part from the alcoholism of our fathers -- he never pretended that we were pals, and rarely commented on anything I wrote.

For me, the big exception regarding Reagan's usual diffidence occurred in 1976 when I wrote in advance of the Republican National Convention that Reagan's bid to wrest the nomination from President Gerald Ford had come up short and that members of his staff were seeking positions in the Ford campaign. The Post bannered the story, and Reagan denounced it on national television. (Concerned that I might be shaken, our great editor Ben Bradlee, always on your side in a storm, walked me through the newsroom with his arm on my shoulder to show he trusted my reporting.) Reagan's campaign manager never forgot this story and wouldn't talk to me again, but Reagan did talk to me and didn't mention it. He put negative stories and other disappointments behind him, and he didn't hold grudges, which made it easy to like him and easy for Reagan to like everyone.

On the other hand, he didn't pay all that much attention to what was happening around him. He had Nancy Reagan for that. Martin Anderson, an economist and political adviser who became White House domestic adviser in the early years of the Reagan presidency, was pushed out of the 1980 campaign in a staff shakeup. Later, Anderson was invited back and welcomed by Reagan after a staff counter-coup, but he suspected that Reagan hadn't even noticed that he had been gone.

Stu Spencer attributed Reagan's distancing to his Hollywood background, where the cast kept changing but the actor always had his job to do. Acting isn't an easy craft, and Reagan worked hard at mastering it. He was also an adept writer -- I learned early on that he wrote most of his own speeches and one-liners -- and an even better editor. The book "Reagan in His Own Hand," by Annelise and Martin Anderson, with Kiron Skinner, reproduces illustrations of presidential speech drafts and the edits Reagan made in them. My favorite, also reproduced in one of my books, is a passage from a historic speech to British parliamentarians in Westminster on June 8, 1982, in which Reagan took some mush that had been written for him about Soviet actions in Europe, crossed it out, and wrote in his distinctive, looping hand: "What I am describing now is a policy and a hope for the long term -- the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other totalitarian ideologies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the expression of citizens."

These are strong words from Joe Sixpack, but Reagan was at once a man of conviction who thought seriously about the great issues of his time and an ordinary American, never braggy, who treated his audiences -- all of us, really -- with consideration and respect. His greatest single quality was his self-deprecating humor, which came naturally to him and was honed into an effective political weapon. He made fun of his age, his work habits, his vanities, his ideology, his alleged lack of intelligence, and his supposed domination by his wife. When he was speaking to a political rally in Florida and a wind blew his speaking cards off a podium, Reagan picked them up, shuffled them together, and quipped that it really didn't matter what order they were in. When a reporter during the first gubernatorial campaign brought Reagan a studio picture showing him with the title chimpanzee in the movie "Bedtime for Bonzo," Reagan signed it and wrote, "I'm the one with the watch." On Air Force One he signed a picture of a sleeping Marlin Fitzwater, his press secretary, with the inscription, "Marlin, we're only supposed to do this at cabinet meetings."

Of all the silly things said about Reagan, the silliest (and I probably wrote it myself at some point) is the statement: "What you see is what you get." What people saw, as Reagan suspected, was that he was one of them, but what they got was a lot more than that. Reagan, for all the quips, was a serious person who had read about treaties and economic theories and the Soviet Union along with his share of science fiction and potboiler novels.

Reagan demonstrated his seriousness of purpose and much more in a dramatic speech to the Republican National Convention in 1976 after Ford had been nominated. Although he hadn't even known he would be called upon to speak, Reagan made the most of the moment by telling the delegates that they faced the dual challenge of preserving individual freedom and keeping the world safe from nuclear destruction. "We live in a world in which the great powers have poised and aimed at each other horrible missiles of destruction that can, in a matter of minutes, arrive in each other's country and destroy virtually the civilized world we live in."

Many mistook this speech as Reagan's curtain call. It was, in fact, a clarion declaration that he had no intention of leaving the world stage. After Ford lost to Jimmy Carter in November, Reagan became the Republican front-runner. The Republican establishment tried to stop this man they now idolize; all of the party nabobs lined up against him in 1980 although only George H.W. Bush stuck around as a genuine challenger. After Reagan won the nomination he united the GOP in a stroke by putting Bush on the ticket and then went on to defeat Carter -- "There you go again," Reagan said memorably in their debate -- in November.

When Reagan entered the White House he was convinced from his reading that Central Intelligence Agency estimates of Soviet prowess were exaggerated and that the Soviet Union was too destitute economically to compete with a U.S. military buildup. Even before he was nominated, he said in a meeting with editors and reporters at The Washington Post that a renewed arms race would bring the Soviet Union to the bargaining table. What made Reagan different from many of his fellow conservatives -- and different, too, from liberals who looked upon the Cold War as an eternal condition -- was that he really wanted to negotiate and thought he had learned the art of doing so by bargaining with movie producers when he was president of the Screen Actors Guild.

Soon after Reagan's first meeting with Gorbachev in Geneva in 1985, I interviewed him for a book and asked him what was the most neglected aspect of his biography. Negotiating for the Screen Actors Guild, he replied. What did he learn in these negotiations, I wanted to know. "That the purpose of a negotiation is to get an agreement," Reagan said.

And so it turned out in the fullness of time that this most conservative and anti-communist of all presidents sat down with Gorbachev and, after many ups and downs, on Dec. 8, 1987, signed the first treaty of the Cold War that actually reduced nuclear arsenals instead of stabilizing them at a higher level. It was an agreement by the way -- the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty -- that Reagan's ideological mentor William F. Buckley opposed and that columnist George Will called "moral disarmament."

Henry Kissinger, who retrospectively acclaims Reagan, said at the time that he had "grave reservations" about the INF Treaty, giving aid and comfort to the right in its campaign to prevent ratification. Reagan took his case to the people, and the Senate ratified the treaty.

It was a precursor to other agreements, the most recent signed by Barack Obama, which made deeper reductions in nuclear arsenals. Today, U.S. and Russian specialists inspect nuclear weapons on each other's soil, an action that would have been seen as unbelievably utopian when Reagan became president. Not bad for Joe Sixpack.

[mugzi]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6DmjBneGBc[/youtube]

[mugzi]

hehehehehe

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGhR2VnVma0&feature=player_embedded#[/youtube]

Wow that was some epic pwnage.


Pretty funny to pull up a video that only illustrates the futility of the left trying to vilify the man. Rush was overly patient and friendly to this wingbat and I thought it was funny when he said to the caller, ' Given everything you just said about the man, that he raised taxes, cut and ran, etc. why wouldnt someone like you love him?'

[HarthorneWingo]

I knew I could draw you out of your dungeon.

Rush is still thinking of how to put together an answer for Stark. And of course since he was getting his face bashed in by a liberal, he had to terminate the call to end the embarrassment. But even then, he still couldn't come up with anything factual to respond .... because it's all true! What a buffoon.

[mugzi]

I let alot of the nonsense you post go as the delusions of a sad, misinformed individual but when you try to denigrate the memory of a great man and a great president then I'll pop back in to drop a little truth into your circus of lies.


Well contrary to what hate mongerers on the left say is typical of him, Rush didn't respond in a hate filled diatribe. He actually let the useful idiot caller spew his warped revision of history and responded tactfully and accurately.

Oh and BTW enjoy the little image I copy and pasted for you, maybe thats why Obama's trying to reinvent himself as Reganesque.

[duetta]

I love polls that rank an actor over the Father of his country, a man who routinely put it all on the line under incredibly adverse conditions. It so confirms my faith in the criminal stupidity of the American people.

[richardhutnik]

I knew I could draw you out of your dungeon.

Rush is still thinking of how to put together an answer for Stark. And of course since he was getting his face bashed in by a liberal, he had to terminate the call to end the embarrassment. But even then, he still couldn't come up with anything factual to respond .... because it's all true! What a buffoon.

Can you leave Mugzi back in the dungeon? What I see here is that you won't get facts, but opinions. It is stuff from the gut and heart, rather than from facts. Of course Rush can't bridge the gap, because Rush doesn't care about facts. Rush, as an partisan person, cares not about what is, but how the world SHOULD be, and what will support their view of reality. Such individuals who are partisan, either live in the dream of some utopia that will never show up (if they are progressive) or glorying in a past that never was that will never return again, because there is to much built into the fabric of society now to make it so (if they are conservative).

What is the point of this political discussion thread anyhow? No one is going to change their mind, particularly when each side is so entrenched in their views. Do you SERIOUSLY think you can say ANYTHING to Mugzi and Mugzi will nod and agree? Of course it isn't going to happen. And Mugzi will end up still spinning here, either ignorant of the reality, or stubbornly insistent that repeatedly doing futility will somehow make a difference.

- Rich

[mugzi]

I love polls that rank an actor over the Father of his country, a man who routinely put it all on the line under incredibly adverse conditions. It so confirms my faith in the criminal stupidity of the American people.

People identify more with those they lived with. All Washington is to a lot of people is a name in a textbook or a face on a dollar bill. No one will argue that Washington isn't one of the architects of this country, but lets not act as if standing up to a communist regime with thousands of nukes in the midst of a thirty plus year Cold War was insignificant or some "adverse conditions."

I don't hide the fact that I dislike liberal policies and liberals as a whole. At least have the integrity to say you didn't like Reagan because he was a conservative and you dislike everything he stood for.

And Dicky, if you can read this stop being a coward and taking pot shots at me without addressing me. If I'm on your ignore list then ignore me, this passive aggressive tendency of yours to refer to me to Wingo is rather feminine.

[HarthorneWingo]

Once again, I give you the party of "family values" ...

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/02/09 ... id=webmail

New York Rep. Chris Lee Resigns Over Craigslist Dating Ad and Sexy Photo
Annie Groer
Correspondent
February 10, 2011

What started last month with an anonymous woman's Craigslist dating search for men who don't "look like toads" ended Wednesday with the resignation of two-term Rep. Christopher Lee, R-N.Y., a married father who passed himself off as a divorced lobbyist when he sent her a topless muscle photo of himself.

Gawker.com broke the story about the lying lawmaker under the headline "Married GOP Congressman Sent Sexy Pictures to Craigslist Babe."

Within hours, he had quit his $174,000-a-year job and issued this statement:

"I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents. I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. I have made profound mistakes and I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness. The challenges we face in Western New York and across the country are too serious for me to allow this distraction to continue, and so I am announcing that I have resigned my seat in Congress effective immediately."

Yeah, sure. He "regrets it." lol. That photo of him just oozes "regret," don't you think?

[HarthorneWingo]

Ding, ding, ding .... It's your lucky day. We have a 2 for 1 special going today shoppers! Looky here:

John Boehner's tenure as House Speaker is already in jeopardy. Apparently, he can't keep it in his pants either. What a shock!

http://my.firedoglake.com/rogershuler/2 ... n-boehner/

Sex Scandal Might Bring Down John Boehner
By: RogerShuler Tuesday February 8, 2011 10:15 am

Progressives could use some positive political news, and here is the best I’ve heard in some time: John Boehner’s speakership in the U.S. House of Representatives might be short lived.

Boehner has been involved in extramarital affairs with at least two women, according to a new report in the National Enquirer. We don’t normally cite supermarket tabloids as primary source material. But the Enquirer was first to write about the John Edwards’ infidelity, and the newspaper proved to be right on target. And back in the early ’90s, the mainstream press picked up on the Bill Clinton/Gennifer Flowers story after it broke in a tabloid.

In Boehner’s case, the Enquirer gets into specifics–and that gives the story a ring of truth:

Capitol Hill insiders and political bloggers have been buzzing about an upcoming New York Times probe–detailing an alleged affair that the 61-year-old married father of two had with pretty Washington lobbyist LISBETH LYONS.

And an ENQUIRER investigation has uncovered a bedroom encounter that Boehner–second in line of succession to the presidency–allegedly had with LEIGH LaMORA, a 46-year-old former press secretary to ex-Colorado Congressman JOEL HEFLEY.

-more-

[mugzi]

Wow talk about opportunistic. Yeah because the party of slavery, jim crow, and killing unborn children cough cough Democrats really has the high moral ground.

Lets see I dont remember a Republican president getting caught cheating on his wife. Unless JFK and Slick Willy were Republicans, no wait they were democrats.

Adultery isn't exclusive to one party, it's a human problem. Weak men from all walks of life do it. And have you gotten so desperate that you're quoting the NATIONAL ENQUIRER as a source?

I'd wait a little longer before slandering Boehner as a cheater.

And since you want to play the lets try to embarrass the other party game, here's some real funny news that paints you commies in the proper light.

Oh the Irony! Code Pink Medea Benjamin Rescued from Cairo Chaos By Pro-American Army Officer
by Kristinn Taylor & Andrea Shea King

Last week Big Peace reported on two Code Pink women who were rescued from the chaos in Egypt by Shell Oil.

This week we can report the humiliating irony of virulently anti-U.S. military activist Code Pink co-founder Susan "Medea" Benjamin who was rescued by a U.S. Army trained Egyptian Army officer. Benjamin writes at OpEdNews that she was kidnapped in Cairo by "pro-Mubarak thugs."

According to Benjamin, a taxi in which she was riding was stopped and commandeered by men who confiscated her and her two comrades' passports and ordered the taxi to take them to a government headquarters.

Benjamin said the taxi was stopped at a checkpoint manned by ten soldiers. The officer in charge smiled when he learned Benjamin and her comrades were American and told her, "I love America," as he ordered them freed.

...Three of us, all Americans, were in a taxi driving to the flower market when this fellow stopped our car at gunpoint. His hand on the trigger, he forced us to pull over. Soon we were surrounded by a dozen pro-Mubarak thugs who started yelling in Arabic and broken English that foreigners like us were causing all the trouble in Egypt.
They said they were policemen but none was wearing a uniform. They seized our passports and then four of these characters squeezed into our taxi to "take us to government headquarters." Frantic, we started calling everyone we knew--local lawyers and activists, friends back home, the U.S. Embassy.

Soon the car stopped at an intersection manned by about ten soldiers. The officer in charge peered into the car and asked us where we were from. "Americans," he smiled with approval. "I love America." He started chatting about his training in Ft. Eustis, Virginia, while we sat terrified. To our amazement, he ordered our kidnappers to get out of our taxi, return our passports and let us go. We sped off, not looking back. Our poor taxi driver was shaking. "No flowers," he said. "Hotel." (bold added)

Benjamin has made a career of working to get American soldiers killed by our enemies overseas, while working domestically to destroy the morale of soldiers and their families.
Benjamin and Code Pink have organized protests at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Armed Forces recruiting centers, the Marine Corps officer recruitment center in Berkeley, Ca., and even a White House Halloween party for children of service members where Code Pink has called our soldiers "murderers," "the terrorists," "baby killers," "assassins," and more.

In the wake of the Ft. Hood terrorist attack, Code Pink posted a fundraising appeal and justified the terrorist attack as dissent within the officer corps:

The recent shootings at Ft. Hood and the resignation of top Foreign Service officer Matthew Hoh demonstrate how even our military officers are opposed to US strategy in Afghanistan.
Benjamin has protested many times at the U.S. Army training center for foreign military at Fort Benning. She recently said that next year she'll be protesting again at Fort Benning.
While Benjamin is in Egypt allegedly protesting for democracy, her history shows her to be an activist for communist and Islamic state sponsors of terrorism including Cuba, Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq as well as terrorist groups like Hamas.

We will have more on Code Pink's 'flower power' adventures in Egypt in our next article.

[mugzi]

But wait there's more.....bowing to his comrades in mother Russia.

WikiLeaks cables: US agrees to tell Russia Britain's nuclear secrets
The Telegraph ^ | 9:25PM GMT 04 Feb 2011 | Matthew Moore, Gordon Rayner and Christopher Hope


The US secretly agreed to give the Russians sensitive information on Britain’s nuclear deterrent to persuade them to sign a key treaty, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Information about every Trident missile the US supplies to Britain will be given to Russia as part of an arms control deal signed by President Barack Obama next week.

Defence analysts claim the agreement risks undermining Britain’s policy of refusing to confirm the exact size of its nuclear arsenal.

[HarthorneWingo]

Wow talk about opportunistic. Yeah because the party of slavery, jim crow, and killing unborn children cough cough Democrats really has the high moral ground.

Lets see I dont remember a Republican president getting caught cheating on his wife. Unless JFK and Slick Willy were Republicans, no wait they were democrats.

Adultery isn't exclusive to one party, it's a human problem. Weak men from all walks of life do it. And have you gotten so desperate that you're quoting the NATIONAL ENQUIRER as a source?

I'd wait a little longer before slandering Boehner as a cheater.

And since you want to play the lets try to embarrass the other party game, here's some real funny news that paints you commies in the proper light.

Oh the Irony! Code Pink Medea Benjamin Rescued from Cairo Chaos By Pro-American Army Officer
by Kristinn Taylor & Andrea Shea King

Last week Big Peace reported on two Code Pink women who were rescued from the chaos in Egypt by Shell Oil.

This week we can report the humiliating irony of virulently anti-U.S. military activist Code Pink co-founder Susan "Medea" Benjamin who was rescued by a U.S. Army trained Egyptian Army officer. Benjamin writes at OpEdNews that she was kidnapped in Cairo by "pro-Mubarak thugs."

According to Benjamin, a taxi in which she was riding was stopped and commandeered by men who confiscated her and her two comrades' passports and ordered the taxi to take them to a government headquarters.

Benjamin said the taxi was stopped at a checkpoint manned by ten soldiers. The officer in charge smiled when he learned Benjamin and her comrades were American and told her, "I love America," as he ordered them freed.

...Three of us, all Americans, were in a taxi driving to the flower market when this fellow stopped our car at gunpoint. His hand on the trigger, he forced us to pull over. Soon we were surrounded by a dozen pro-Mubarak thugs who started yelling in Arabic and broken English that foreigners like us were causing all the trouble in Egypt.
They said they were policemen but none was wearing a uniform. They seized our passports and then four of these characters squeezed into our taxi to "take us to government headquarters." Frantic, we started calling everyone we knew--local lawyers and activists, friends back home, the U.S. Embassy.

Soon the car stopped at an intersection manned by about ten soldiers. The officer in charge peered into the car and asked us where we were from. "Americans," he smiled with approval. "I love America." He started chatting about his training in Ft. Eustis, Virginia, while we sat terrified. To our amazement, he ordered our kidnappers to get out of our taxi, return our passports and let us go. We sped off, not looking back. Our poor taxi driver was shaking. "No flowers," he said. "Hotel." (bold added)

Benjamin has made a career of working to get American soldiers killed by our enemies overseas, while working domestically to destroy the morale of soldiers and their families.
Benjamin and Code Pink have organized protests at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Armed Forces recruiting centers, the Marine Corps officer recruitment center in Berkeley, Ca., and even a White House Halloween party for children of service members where Code Pink has called our soldiers "murderers," "the terrorists," "baby killers," "assassins," and more.

In the wake of the Ft. Hood terrorist attack, Code Pink posted a fundraising appeal and justified the terrorist attack as dissent within the officer corps:

The recent shootings at Ft. Hood and the resignation of top Foreign Service officer Matthew Hoh demonstrate how even our military officers are opposed to US strategy in Afghanistan.
Benjamin has protested many times at the U.S. Army training center for foreign military at Fort Benning. She recently said that next year she'll be protesting again at Fort Benning.
While Benjamin is in Egypt allegedly protesting for democracy, her history shows her to be an activist for communist and Islamic state sponsors of terrorism including Cuba, Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq as well as terrorist groups like Hamas.

We will have more on Code Pink's 'flower power' adventures in Egypt in our next article.

Yes, I agree, Democrats do have their sex scandals and other scandals. And those officials are **** ... certainly John Edwards is a complete disgrace and I said so right when it happened. So I'm not hypocritical about it. If a dem is guilty of taking a bribe, off with his/her head.

But my point here, and all the other times I post sex scandal material involving repubs, is that they - THE REPUBLICANS, and not the democrats - have claimed the mantle of party of "family values." So, it's really the hypocrisy, as opposed to the underlying offense, that offends me. In other words, if the republicans dropped the "family values" mantra, then I could give a rat's behind about shyt like this.

Ya dig?

[mugzi]

That would then be analogous to me saying well the democrats should give up being the civil rights or minority party because of their past complicity with slavery and jim crow. You can't have it both ways. I'm glad this NY congressman resigned, he's not a reflection of the party as a whole and he recognized he'd be ostracized and vilified if he remained in office. And as far as Boehner if he indeed is guilty of infidelity I'd expect him to resign swiftly as well. If the GOP remains pro-life and returns more to it's conservative roots then I have no problem with them identifying themselves as the family values party.

I never liked him as speaker of the house anyway, I'd much prefer a true conservative like Michele Bachmann.

Oh BTW, I thought Obamacare was supposed to create jobs not eliminate 800k of them....what a joke

CBO Director Says Obamacare Would Reduce Employment by 800,000 Workers
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbo ... 47288.html ^ | 02/10/2011 | Jeffrey H Anderson


Testifying today before the House Budget Committee, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Doug Elmendorf confirmed that Obamacare is expected to reduce the number of jobs in the labor market by an estimated 800,000. Here are excerpts from the exchange:

Chairman [Paul] Ryan: “[I]t’s been argued...that the new health care law will create jobs and increase labor force participation. But if I recall from your analysis, it was quite the opposite. Is that not the case?”

Director [Douglas] Elmendorf : “Yes.”...

[…]

Rep. [John] Campbell: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, we'll -- and Dr. Elmendorf -- and we'll continue this conversation right now. First on health care, before I get to -- before I get to broader issues, you just mentioned that you believe -- or that in your estimate, that the health care law would reduce the labor used in the economy by about 1/2 of 1 percent, given that, I believe you say, there's 160 million full-time people working in '20-'21. That means that, in your estimation, the health care law would reduce employment by 800,000 in '20-'21. Is that correct?

Director Elmendorf: Yes. The way I would put it is that we do estimate, as you said, that...employment will be about 160 million by the end of the decade. Half a percent of that is 800,000.

[mugzi]

For those of you who read this thread and dont know what a treasonous pos Clinton was check this out, I know a staunch liberal like Wingo doesnt want to see or believe this but its the truth.

The Idiot's Guide to Chinagate
By Richard Poe
May 26, 2003

CHINA WILL LIKELY replace the USA as world leader, said Bill Clinton in a recent Washington Post interview. It is just a matter of time. Clinton should know. He has personally done more to build China’s military strength than any man on earth.

Most Americans have heard of the so-called "Chinagate " scandal. Few understand its deadly import, however. Web sites such as "Chinagate for Dummies" and its companion "More Chinagate for Dummies" offer some assistance. Unfortunately, with a combined total of nearly 8,000 words, these two sites – like so many others of the genre – offer more detail than most of us "dummies" can absorb.

For that reason, in the 600 words left in this column, I will try to craft my own "Idiot’s Guide to Chinagate," dedicated to all those busy folks like you and me whose attention span tends to peter out after about 750 words. Here goes.

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, China presented little threat to the United States. Chinese missiles "couldn’t hit the side of a barn," notes Timothy W. Maier of Insight magazine. Few could reach North America and those that made it would likely miss their targets.

Thanks to Bill Clinton, China can now hit any city in the USA, using state-of-the-art, solid-fueled missiles with dead-accurate, computerized guidance systems and multiple warheads.

China probably has suitcase nukes as well. These enable China to strike by proxy – equipping nuclear-armed terrorists to do their dirty work, while the Chinese play innocent. Some intelligence sources claim that China maintains secret stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons on U.S. soil, for just such contingencies.

In 1997, Clinton allowed China to take over the Panama Canal. The Chinese company Hutchison Whampoa leased the ports of Cristobal and Balboa, on the east and west openings of the canal respectively, thus controlling access both ways. A public outcry stopped Clinton in 1998 from leasing California’s Long Beach Naval Yard to the Chinese firm COSCO. Even so, China can now strike U.S. targets easily from their bases in Panama, Vancouver and the Bahamas.

How did China catch up so fast? Easy. We sold them all the technology they needed – or handed it over for free. Neither neglect nor carelessness are to blame. Bill Clinton did it on purpose.

As a globalist, Clinton promotes "multipolarity" – the doctrine that no country (such as the USA) should be allowed to gain decisive advantage over others.

To this end, Clinton appointed anti-nuclear activist Hazel O’Leary to head the Department of Energy. O’Leary set to work "leveling the playing field," as she put it, by giving away our nuclear secrets. She declassified 11 million pages of data on U.S. nuclear weapons and loosened up security at weapons labs.

Federal investigators [Cox Report] later concluded that China made off with the "crown jewels" of our nuclear weapons research under Clinton’s open-door policy – probably including design specifications for suitcase nukes. Meanwhile, Clinton and his corporate cronies raked in millions.

In his book The China Threat, Washington Times correspondent Bill Gertz describes how the system worked. Defense contractors eager to sell technology to China poured millions of dollars into Clinton’s campaign. In return, Clinton called off the dogs.

Janet Reno and other counterintelligence officials stood down while Lockheed Martin, Hughes Electronics, Loral Space & Communications and other U.S. companies helped China modernize its nuclear strike force.

"We like your president. We want to see him reelected," former Chinese intelligence chief General Ji Shengde told Chinagate bagman Johnny Chung. Indeed, Chinese intelligence organized a massive covert operation aimed at tilting the 1996 election Clinton’s way.

Clinton’s top campaign contributors for 1992 were Chinese agents; his top donors in 1996 were U.S. defense contractors selling missile technology to China.

Clinton recieved funding directly from known or suspected Chinese intelligence agents, among them James and Mochtar Riady who own the Indonesian Lippo Group; John Huang; Charlie Trie; Ted Sioeng; Maria Hsia; Wang Jun and others.

Commerce Secretary Ron Brown served as Clinton’s front man in many Chinagate deals. When investigators began probing Brown’s Lippo Group and Chinagate connections, Brown died suddenly in a suspicious April 1996 plane crash.

Needless to say, China does not share Clinton’s enthusiasm for globalism or multipolarity. The Chinese look out for Number One.

"War [with the United States] is inevitable; we cannot avoid it," said Chinese Defense Minister General Chi Haotian in 2000. "The issue is that the Chinese armed forces must control the initiative in this war." Bill Clinton has given them a good start.

The Idiot's Guide to Chinagate:
http://www.richardpoe.com/column.cgi?story=125

or,
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/article ... 4938.shtml
(this version hasn't the necessary hyperlinks, but the above doesn't seem to be available any longer)
_________________________________

Related Stories
Richard Poe, "Chinagate: The Third-Way Scandal" (June 3, 1999)
Christopher Ruddy, "Russia and China Prepare for War: Parts I - VIII," NewsMax.com (March 9 -18, 1999)
_____________________________________________________________

From the Sino-Russian Joint Statement of April 23, 1997:
"The two sides [China and Russia] shall, in the spirit of partnership, strive to promote the multipolarization of the world and the establishment of a new international order."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/HI29Ag01.html
_____________________________________________________________

"As a globalist, [Bill] Clinton promotes "multipolarity" – the doctrine that no country (such as the USA) should be allowed to gain decisive advantage over others."

From a 2003 Washington Post article:

"...a statement [Bill] Clinton made in February 2002, in which he told an audience in Australia, 'This is a unique moment in U.S. history, a brief moment in history, when the U.S. has preeminent military, economic and political power. It won't last forever. This is just a period, a few decades this will last.'

Clinton continued...

'In all probability, we won't be the premier political and economic power we are now' in a few decades, he said, pointing to the growth of China's economy and the growing economic strength of the European Union.

Whether the United States maintains its military supremacy, he said, depends in part on how much those other entities invest in their militaries, and Clinton said working cooperatively is essential to U.S. interests.

But he said he did not want to be misunderstood. 'I never advocated that we not have the strongest military in the world...I don't think a single soul has thought I was advocating scaling back our military.'

Source: Washington Post article from May 2003:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy ... Found=true

or find his remarks here (Talon News):
Clinton Predicts America's Decline:
http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/newswi ... 50503d.htm

[mugzi]

So my friends this is the difference between the verminous left and the right. For all the GOP's so called flaws, we have never sold out you and your families very existence to an existential threat such as nuclear war . At least the GOP still believes in American exceptionalism while communists like Clinton and Wingo want us to capitulate to those who want to overrun us.

I rest my case.

[duetta]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/opini ... ugman.html