Political Debate

Obama has yet to make any concrete statements of what he stands for, or what he would do to fix anything. "I'm about change and hope" WTF is that about. He has no record, would negotiate with any and all terrorist organizations, huh? I just take that to mean he will pay them money not to attack us, or toss our overseas interests out the window.

Clintons are rumored to be going after the super delegates. That should be interesting to see if they can pull that off. Not done since Humphrey got the nod without winning a single primary. Just love to see how the demo party things they know better than the people that showed up and voted in all those primaries.

McCain just panders to the left, just a moderate that doesn't know what he stands for. Maybe of course he will continue the war, but forget closing the borders. The democrates won't pull out the troops either, just their wacky fringes don't know it yet.

I think the next few years are going to be awful, and none of those three make me feel any better, and there's no damn way they can 'feel my pain' shit. The US run under leftist rule, executive-house, is going to mean the unions that have propped them up will grow stronger by leaps and bounds, and I bet taxes and inflation will go through the roof.


Did you hear Obama's wifes statement yesterday? "I can finally be proud to be an American the first time in my adult life." They are portraying Obama as a messianic profit. Didn't she go to Harvard? Isn't that something to be proud of?? F'in assholes.

Ahh yesss. . . seems like old times!

lexx wrote:Obama has yet to make any concrete statements of what he stands for, or what he would do to fix anything. "I'm about change and hope" WTF is that about. He has no record, would negotiate with any and all terrorist organizations, huh? I just take that to mean he will pay them money not to attack us, or toss our overseas interests out the window.

Clintons are rumored to be going after the super delegates. That should be interesting to see if they can pull that off. Not done since Humphrey got the nod without winning a single primary. Just love to see how the demo party things they know better than the people that showed up and voted in all those primaries.

McCain just panders to the left, just a moderate that doesn't know what he stands for. Maybe of course he will continue the war, but forget closing the borders. The democrates won't pull out the troops either, just their wacky fringes don't know it yet.

I think the next few years are going to be awful, and none of those three make me feel any better, and there's no damn way they can 'feel my pain' shit. The US run under leftist rule, executive-house, is going to mean the unions that have propped them up will grow stronger by leaps and bounds, and I bet taxes and inflation will go through the roof.


Did you hear Obama's wifes statement yesterday? "I can finally be proud to be an American the first time in my adult life." They are portraying Obama as a messianic profit. Didn't she go to Harvard? Isn't that something to be proud of?? F'in assholes.

The fact that you can take the line "I'm about change and hope" and somehow gain "He has no record, would negotiate with any and all terrorist organizations, huh? I just take that to mean he will pay them money not to attack us, or toss our overseas interests out the window." scares me. God forbid what you might think if he said he "likes puppies and apple pie".

As for you fearing that the next few years are going to be bad, welcome to 1/10th of what the rest of us have felt for the last 8

This diverged from the topic at hand, so I split it.

Lexx, I'm kind of shocked. I knew you leaned right, but McCain is too left for you?

I agree, Obama's previous actions do not match his words. However, there is a lesson here. People want change in DC. People are turning out in droves to see and vote for these candidates. People want change and for the first time in a long time, people are getting involved.

I'm curious what you mean by closed borders? It's a farce fed to us by politicians who are not addressing the real problem, the terrible bureaucratic organization called Immigration.

Did you know that Immigration is a 100% paper based organization? This should be an outrage to everyone in this day and age that a government organization chooses to be inefficient and unorganized.

Of the three, Obama offers the most opportunity for "change" - whatever that means, as he is the least tied to special interests. W had the opportunity to do the same thing after 2000, but was unable to take advantage of being a "uniter" and change things. Circumstances changed around him so that didn't help, but he had the opportunity and chose to stick with the conservative base instead of going with (from what I understand) were his moderate leanings.

Having no record (just like W) is an advantage in these elections now because the only thing that your opponents can attack is that you have no experience. On the other hand, both Clinton and McCain have extensive voting and policy records that he can use against them - just like W did to Gore and to Kerry, although I doubt he would try and swiftboat McCain.

Like Lessig said, the system is broken. The people aren't evil they are just working within a bad system that lends itself to only solving issues if it benefits a special interest group to do so.

Despite what a President may want to do, they are captives of the circumstances of their time in office and of what Congress is willing and able to act on. Usually they face a hostile Congress that makes any sweeping policy changes exceedingly difficult and full of compromise. Not that compromise is bad per se, but when it guts a policy to appease a special interest, it is not in the interest of the people.

This week Limbaugh replayed a full 15 speech of Obama's. There was not ONE policy point in the entire thing. Fox news reported he said he would negotiate with terrorists and their sponsor states. Clinton did that with N Korea and he basically paid them money to develop the bomb.

Obama sez he will end the war. Thats bunk and everyone knows it. If he was stupid enough to pull troops out then the insurgents there would have a field day.

Other than that, he has said nothing about the issues. He and his wife are both ivy leagers, yet they go around acting like they were slaves in the south pulling a donkey plow. I dont' like or trust him. He's trying to hide his true intentions and the press is giving him his charismatic pass.

I'd rather have clinton. At least you know she's a lying corrupt sack of crap, but she is going to owe everyone on the left favors once the dust settles and that is going to be expensive to the rest of us, the tax payers.

Duh, McCain?? Who the heck doesn't know how left this guy is? There is no way he will carry half the south states with the backstabbing he's done in the republican party the last 8 years. He has an explosive temper and the conservative base can't stand him. The only chance he has *might come if he picks Romney for VP to carry the south.

I just lean right because I believe that way. I usually don't say much here because its just not worth the trouble to debate it with this group much. Your as set in your opinions as I am.

Since my guys, Rudy and Thomson are out, I hope clinton steals your super delegates. At least I could get one chuckle out of this whole mess of an election.

lexx wrote:Since my guys, Rudy and Thomson are out, I hope clinton steals your super delegates. At least I could get one chuckle out of this whole mess of an election.

I'm good with that 🙂

Well I gotta chime in cause I'm DVRing stuff and I'm bored. I'm a right leaner myself so take what I say in that respect.
Here is my problem with both Hillary and Obama, they are both junior members of congress. The only things that I know about Obama's voting record is he voted to give illegal aliens driver's liscenses. As someone who works in the public sector, lemme point something out...illegal aliens are killing America. I can not in good conscience vote for someone who believes in sanctuary states and such drivel. I'm not so sure McCain will do the right thing when it comes to immigration, but I may get up the gumption to call his office tomorrow about it.
Of all the candidates that are running, McCain is the only one who has earned the right to be running. He has served his country for the last 40+ years. I personally feel its mandatory for a president to have some military experience and McCain definatly has that.

I'm not so right leaning that I think a black man shouldn't be in the white house or even a woman, just not the two options the democratic party is trying to shove down America's throat.

Oh and Sarge I gotta disagree with you, W was a govenor of one of the largest states in the Union, thats a pretty good experience level to become President.

Megaron wrote:Oh and Sarge I gotta disagree with you, W was a govenor of one of the largest states in the Union, thats a pretty good experience level to become President.

Apparently he wasn't paying attention then because his experience there didn't seem to help him much in the White House, with the most critical missing element being anything to do with foreign policy. 🙄

McCain's time was 2000 and he should have won then - The country does better with Moderates in control and things are less divisive. Now he just looks old and worn out. It's funny that the republican party feels like he has betrayed them when he is more of a traditional republican than any of the neo-cons.

Anywho...here's Obama's voting record in the Senate if you are interested.
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congres...0167/key-votes/

You bring up a good point Megaron. Being Governor is a lot closer to being President than being a Congressman.

Lexx, you said McCain back stabbed the Republican party.... See, this is where you and I differ. I respect him because he had the balls to go against the party. If we had more Congressmen like that, maybe it wouldn't serve special interest so much. I'm tired of the old rhetoric about going against the party. The party is not the people and if you have to step on toes to do what the people want, then more power to you.

As for Vice-Presidential candidates, I'd love to see JC Watts added to McCain's ticket. He was a great Congressman, who wasn't afraid to go against the grade.

McCain earned my respect for the 5 1/2 years he endured in a POW camp.

Atomm wrote:You bring up a good point Megaron. Being Governor is a lot closer to being President than being a Congressman.

Lexx, you said McCain back stabbed the Republican party.... See, this is where you and I differ. I respect him because he had the balls to go against the party. If we had more Congressmen like that, maybe it wouldn't serve special interest so much. I'm tired of the old rhetoric about going against the party. The party is not the people and if you have to step on toes to do what the people want, then more power to you.

As for Vice-Presidential candidates, I'd love to see JC Watts added to McCain's ticket. He was a great Congressman, who wasn't afraid to go against the grade.

McCain earned my respect for the 5 1/2 years he endured in a POW camp.

I agree Atomm, this is the problem I have with the party system. In essence it's not far from the bloods and the crips. They are a gang and not many feel the ability to cross the "line" and vote for what they and their constituants believe in.

Wow on looking at that voting record no wonder nothing gets done. Obama's voting is almost exactly down the party line. I see nothing to set him apart from every other democrat in congress.
This is why Bush will go down as a bad president, not because of his initiatives but because of the crazy world we live in. Congress now opposes the president purely to oppose him. How many bills did the dems put forward knowing full well the president would have to veto them?
Our government is gonna bring even more ruin to this country.

Sarge wrote:McCain's time was 2000 and he should have won then - The country does better with Moderates in control and things are less divisive. Now he just looks old and worn out. It's funny that the republican party feels like he has betrayed them when he is more of a traditional republican than any of the neo-cons.

I feel that this statement is very true. I really think the Democrats could put a guy with a Sailor Moon costume up to run against the Republicans and still win...

If a Republican wins this time it would be a HUGE shock to me and I think the majority of the world. Bush really screwed the pooch [to say] for the Republican party and I think that the world wants to make sure there is some type of change in the US.

Honestly, this was the best time to ever put minorities up for the presidential race. [and no effers, I am not saying Obama and Clinton are equal to a man in a Sailor Moon costume]

Bush has vetoed only 8 bills during his terms with one of them being over-ridden and one being a pocket veto that couldn't be over-ridden. Most of those vetoes have occurred since the Dems took control of Congress. Bush will go down as a bad president because of his inability to get anything done even though the Republicans controlled Congress for 6 of the 8 years of his presidency. What I find more interesting is that during those 6 years Congress was spending like mad (as they always do) and he did nothing to stop them despite him being a "fiscal conservative".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unite...idential_vetoes


Getting nothing done has become the way Washington operates now. There are too many special interest groups influencing too many people on both sides of the table for anything of note to be accomplished. That is why I think what Larry Lessig is talking about makes so much sense for those of us that are disaffected by the system of bad government that has become standard operating procedure for Congress.

Sarge wrote:Bush will go down as a bad president because of his inability to get anything done even though the Republicans controlled Congress for 6 of the 8 years of his presidency.

I don't know bud... I think he will go down in history more for Iraq then anything else. Popular opinion of it is that we had no business going there. Going above the UN, WMD, thoughts that this was for financial reasons, etc... The world just doesn't have a high opinion of Bush due to that...

Yeah, that too. I just didn't want to get into the Iraq stuff 😄 Iraq was the turning point in my opinion. It was when many people who saw Bush as a great leader realized that he was making mistakes, and not just little ones.

Well I don't want to get into the Iraq debate too much, however I do want to point out that no matter the bullshit afterwards the invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do. We as Americans forget that there are places in the world like Iraq where whole populations live in abject terror. If we are to maintain our position of power in this world we have to commit to the War on Terror.
There has been no real finicial gain from the war in Iraq beyond what most wars have. People just need to take a real objective view of the war. I think really in history Bush will be known for leading this country in a just war, that unfortunatly became a war of occupation. But that stems from everyone in the wests view that we are the only ones who can run a country right.

Someone is wrong on the internet!!!!!! 😉

The fact is that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with the War on Terror. I fully support us going into Afghanistan to remove the Taliban who were direct supporters of Al Queda. Saddam Hussein was a bad guy there is no doubt about that and he did some really horrible things to the people of Iraq. Of course human rights issues have been something that we have selectively called upon in our past as we went into Kosovo for instance but have ignored Rhawanda and other central African atrocities that are just as bad or worse than what Sadam did.

Looking at this from a pragmatic foreign policy basis however, prior to our invasion, Iraq was one of the few secular governments in that region that wasn't kowtowing to the Islamic radicals. He was also the major counterbalance to a strong Iran and any terrorist activity in the country was extremely limited, at least from everything that I have read. Now it is just a mess. We've made progress and thankfully our troops seem to be dieing less recently, but Iraq has two big things going against it in terms of making it a successful democracy. The first is that democracy goes radically against many islamic tennets because (in theory at least) everyone is equal including women and "infidels". The second thing is that they have been under one sort of autocracy or another for thousands of years and have no real concept of anything else.

Instability in the middle east = high prices for oil = monster profits for Exxon and their like. You can't say that there hasn't been any financial gain from that. There haven't been any other wars (other than the very limited '91 war) that directly impact one of our major resources.

enough of a rant for now 😀

and yes I am avoiding work by debating politics.....

/me high fives Sarge

I wish I could add more to it, but you said everything I would have said. [that and I am am buried in work right now.]

I never said that Iraq should even be a democracy. Democracy is the lowest form of government, ask Aristotle. Iraq has tons to do with the war on Terror. Sadam was in fact funding terrorism, Sadam was persecuting a whole population of his country, the Kurds. As for Rowanda truly the reason I think we have not entered the fray there is because of the Somolia of the 90s. Clinton so screwed the pooch in his views of Somolia that now America and it's allies are afraid to enter those countries. When the UN sends troops into Rowanda...they send native african troops who don't have the best records for peacekeeping. I agree that perhaps we should not be the world's police, but I disagree that we should sit out and watch people be murdered wholesale.
Also just so you know Sarge, Sadam did in fact have stockpiles of illegal WMDs in Iraq. I've seen the lists of weapons that are now missing and at large in terrorist hands most likely.

I wasn't meaning that you said Iraq should be a democracy, but that it was part of the excuse to go in there to begin with. As far as WMDs go, if there is clear evidence of them missing, why hasn't the administration trumpeted that to say that we were justified in going in? A lot of people want to believe that we were justified and producing that evidence would go a long way to bringing support for the whole endevor. Bush has even said that t

You're probably right about the effect of Rwanda on our interest in getting involved in Africa. That and the tribal nature of much of the fighting which I would imagine would make determining friend from foe exceedingly difficult. Going all the way back to the Monroe Doctrine, we've always had an approach of taking out regimes that were unfriendly to us, and replacing them with those that are friendlier, but very rarely has actual concern for human rights ever been the reason we've done anything.

When we first went into Iraq, I wholely supported it. I thought it was the right thing to do. The longer we are there, the more I think it was not the right thing to do. We had no clue what we were doing once we got there.

Atomm wrote:When we first went into Iraq, I wholely supported it. I thought it was the right thing to do. The longer we are there, the more I think it was not the right thing to do. We had no clue what we were doing once we got there.

I agree wholeheartedly that since the initial invasion things have gone sourly. We were not prepared to go in and then leave. We allowed the new Iraq to rely too heavily on American soldiers to impose thier will. Now we are stuck in the second coming of Vietnam, just to a smaller scale. Luckily for us, there have been tremendous leaps in progress over the last year or so, hopefully we can be out of there soon.

As for the WMDs Sarge, the press jumped on the fact that there were no nukes in Iraq. But thats not the only kind of WMDS, we know there was chemical weapons thats gone missing. We know Sadam had stock piled more conventional WMDs like explosives. The problem with releasing public information like actual numbers, it's damn near impossible to prove. There isnt a master list of bombs, that I'm aware of. So it's impossible to tell how much is missing, and it's not worth causing the panic. The Bush administration has done a hell of alot better job with domestic secuity then any administration before it. Most of the public do not know how many terrorists are stopped before they get a chance in America, because the press does not want to report it. They only care about making the President look bad, and its a pretty shitty system we have.

what? No master list of bombs? I though everyone had one of those? (hehe)

I don't doubt he had some stuff - he proved it when he used gas against the Kurds. That was in the 1980's though so it's hard to say what he still had or didn't. We'll probably never know for sure. By pushing him out though, we destabilized the region opening up a much greater opportunity for those weapons to fall into the hands of terrorists - just like when the Soviet Union dissolved and huge amounts of military equipment just vanished - much likely eventually making it's way into the hands of terrorists.

I guess what I'm trying to say about Iraq is that we had a known, contained enemy in Saddam Hussein. Leaving him in power balanced out the Iranians and his desire to remain in power kept him from doing anything too stupid against us. Now we have chaos.

Although we've veered significantly away from the original post it's been a good discussion non-the-less. 😀

...and all of you are wrong 😉

You'd shit yourself if you knew how much radioactive isotopes were lost by the Russians. They had radioactive generators in Siberia...most of those are missing. The warheads from missles, missing....

I agree Sadam was a stable enemy, but he was still an enemy.

.

Sadam was a former friend, that turned to an enemy when we started supporting his enemy. The biggest mistake with Iraq was the rush to invade before there was a plan. Doing something rash with the plan of "we'll figure it out when we get there" almost never works in a governmental setting.

The worst result of this mistake was firing the Iraqi "Baathist" army once we were in control. So we in essence took a majority of training soldiers with weapons and the ability, training and health to attack and suddenly fired them for nothing more than we didn't like their former boss. So all of these trained men with weapons had to find
1.) someone to blame
2.) someway to feed their kids

Sarge, Atomm, what would you do if tomorrow I ordered that you have no job, while at the same time dismantling the infrasructure of your city. Even if you were glad I removed your former boss, you might still start hating me when you had to look into the eyes of your starving cold kid.

That is why we f'd up. The Baathist army weren't baathist people, they were people who needed jobs, and guess what being in the army is a pretty good deal especially in 2000 Iraq.

Ah come on, the plans to invade Iraq were worked on for months, if not years. Thousands of Iraqi refugee's testified in closed hearings to congress the time was right, the population would help the US secure the country from Saddam and his power hold on the country.

Before you guys judge Bush so harshly, why don't you think what Clinton would do to deal with it instead, or what the 3 candidates running for prez right now would have done. Clinton and his cronnies knew full well what was going on in Iraq years before Bush got on the scene.

Thank God none of us know what actually went into the decision to depose Saddam. Whatever you think of it, its a leadership decision made without regard to his personal legacy years afterwards, but there were several reasons, and Bush did convince the American people and congress it was necessary.

That aside, this wasn't about Bush, this was about Obama's lack of record, and his free pass to hide his intentions. Barring that, lets keep pointing fingers at Bush to sidestep the issue.

You guys may like McCain, but thats because he panders to your group. He has dropped from a 90% conservative record to well under 60% in the last 8 years. He took the 00' election defeat personally. Hell, he stuttered out in NC because he just wasn't conservative enough to carry that state and Bush rolled over him there and secured the nomination.

I respect his service to our country as much as anyone, but I don't like the way he kept having private meetings with the democrats to undercut half the things Bush was trying to promote. Everything the repubs tried to do afterwards, is what will make McCain/Kennedy happy. I started getting sour on McCain when he joined with the 8 dems to control judgeship nominations. Thereafter the press just loved this 'maverick' of a guy, and they win either way.

McCain will lose the south, no way he can win without those states as a republican.

ok Lexx, just trying to bring out some facts.

1.) Bush won the predidency in the south, so why exactly can't a republican win there?

2.) What are Obama's "true intentions"?

AND OMG not a 60% conservative record!!! That bastard lets, string him up! ;-)

Lexx, I don't care for Clinton at all, but posting that is side stepping the issue. Bush Sr was the one who did not get the job done in Iraq. You can't blame Clinton for that.

And McCain has been a Maverick his whole life. This is not something new.

And you are probably right about McCain not being conservative enough to carry the south. What I find really strange about that is McCain isn't conservative enough to win in the south, so the conservatives will swing even further left and vote for a Dem? That makes no sense to me....

Of course, if Obama is the candidate, he will carry the south. I'm not racist, but he gets a high percentage of the Black vote and enough of the rest of the vote to do well there.

I tell you what scares me. If Obama and Hillary figure out that together they bring out more voters than have voted in a long time. They both have similar policies and they both have strong support in their camps. I don't know if they could put up with each other, but an Obama/Hillary or Hillary/Obama ticket would be strong. He carries the Black vote and a high percentage of working class whites. She carries the hispanic vote and a high percentage of working class women. Man, I hope they don't read this post......

Bubba, on point number 1, Lexx is saying that McCain can't carry the south because he is not conservative enough. Bush was considered very conservative and he was rewarded in the south.

History, history!! Bush Sr. wanted to finish it there and then, but the coalition objected, Sauda Arabia, France, etc, etc, barred it. Of course any uprising in the north and the south there Saddam crushed. Thousands more died because the US and our allies were to war shy.

Obama's true intentions. Who the hell knows. I know it will be impossible to criticize anything he does as prez or the race cards will start flying. Perhaps he will give reparations to the blacks, increase the welfare state, double taxes to pay for his re-election votes. I only know the little record he has shown is he's very liberal. I think he will make Gore and Kerry look like choirboys.

Clinton/Obama? Don't count on it. There is a lot of grief between them. One or the other will still carry 90+% of the black vote, so neither one will be needed by the other. I did get a chuckle that clinton was getting the same poor black results Bush did 🙂

Oh God, I so hope she and her hubby can pull of a coup and rip off the super delegates that they have been grooming for years. That would make my day.

At least if clinton gets the nod, I will go vote 'against' her, not for McCain. Obama/McCain, I'm not going to bother voting what so ever. Since votes don't count and I live in a blue state, its just not worth the trouble sometimes. Hell, they are talking about Obama taking Texas. Blasphemy! 😱

Bush Senior and Clinton didn't take out Saddam because they were smarter than W and knew that it would cause massive destabilization of the region, which it has. Bush Senior neutered him and Clinton kept him that way which is one of the reasons it was so easy to plow through the country and take him down. Not that our military would have had any trouble with a full strength Iraqi army anyhow.

On the current election, it will certainly be an interesting event. Who will win, "the Maverick" moderate Republican who'se proven he can cross the isle and work with the Dems? Or the guy with a limited record but is proving to be pretty inspirational to many?

I don't think Clinton will win the Democratic nomination as she just has too much baggage.

So assuming that Obama wins, I don't think that we are in for any radical change. Reparations for slavery won't happen, and he won't be able to push an ultra liberal agenda any more than any president before him was able to push ultra conservative or ultra liberal policies. Reagan was probably the most successful and he wasn't really that much. The focus will be on solving the Iraqi issue first, getting the economy back on track, improving education and I hope (for my future employment) fixing our crumbling infrastructure.

Megaron wrote:I agree wholeheartedly that since the initial invasion things have gone sourly. We were not prepared to go in and then leave. We allowed the new Iraq to rely too heavily on American soldiers to impose thier will. Now we are stuck in the second coming of Vietnam, just to a smaller scale. Luckily for us, there have been tremendous leaps in progress over the last year or so, hopefully we can be out of there soon.

As for the WMDs Sarge, the press jumped on the fact that there were no nukes in Iraq. But thats not the only kind of WMDS, we know there was chemical weapons thats gone missing. We know Sadam had stock piled more conventional WMDs like explosives. The problem with releasing public information like actual numbers, it's damn near impossible to prove. There isnt a master list of bombs, that I'm aware of. So it's impossible to tell how much is missing, and it's not worth causing the panic. The Bush administration has done a hell of alot better job with domestic secuity then any administration before it. Most of the public do not know how many terrorists are stopped before they get a chance in America, because the press does not want to report it. They only care about making the President look bad, and its a pretty shitty system we have.

So many points to make but I will bypass them. Lets just say that for years these people were living under the meaning of life where might makes right. It takes time for someone to realize that everyone deserves a shot when a lifestyle of strength prevails for so long. Time is what is needed for change in that situation, time and faith. I digress from what I meant to post.

The stockpiles that were and still are available in Iraq of weapons and explosives are quite disturbing. Their methods of storage are worrisome just the same, the number of explosives and munitions that I found on the side of the road, or buried in some backyard just boggles the mind. Though I must admit I was responsible for a few nice little mushroom clouds myself as we demolished what we found in a prompt fashion. That was just my little 5 man detachment, nevermind the number of other groups that were running around finding crap and getting rid of it on an almost daily basis. That was just what was out on the ground so to speak. Then there were the actual munitions depots that were stacked 10-20 ft high multiple acres deep that were destroying stockpiles of munitions and high explosives that were left in country. When I say acres I mean acres, and when I say destroying I mean a couple hundred pounds of explosives going up every hour 24/7 non-stop with no end in sight, and that was still going on over a year after the 'end' of the assault.

In other words, thanks for the memories, those were some of the best sights I have seen IMO, nothing like the shockwave/mushroom of a couple dozen rockets packed with a few satchels of C-4 seen from a mile away after a bumpy trip of 'oh sh*t is the fuse long enough'.

As far as radioactive crap, it was there. I have enough friends that walked through radioactive dusts on factory/storage bunker floors to not believe. But I digress again.

As far as the candidates, the only person I liked so far was Romney, he had the right ideas for immigration and economy and has history turning bad things around. Not sweeping shit under the carpet like the Clinton's and their band-aid maneuvers that were fixes for then and not the future. It would be nice to see him as a VP under McCain, I would even vote then.

Silent,

I always forget you were there. Of all of us, you are probably the one who has a right to say what is going on in Iraq, having seen it first hand.

I think you are right about "Might Makes Right" being an issue. It will take a long time to turn that around.

Too bad you didn't get videos of that.... It would have been interesting to see.....

BTW, you going to make a FNF any time soon?

That's the first time I've heard a first hand account of someone finding that sort of stuff. Cheers to you Silent for getting rid of some of it 🍻

I think a McCain/Romney ticket would be pretty unlikely. Not that it is a prerequisite, but I don't think that they care for each other at all. You're more likely to see a McCain/Huckabee ticket I would think.

I think you are right about that Sarge. I think Huckabee is sticking it out for that exact reason.

Silent, I had no idea you were there. kudos guy!

How soon we forget the little footage of schoolhouses stuffed to the rafters with munitions or artillery shells stuffed with mustard gas buried just under the sand. The press did not put much coverage into anything positive there.

Don't forget, even our own revolution took waiting for deals and financing to be made to pay the french to come here and fight with Washington. If the colony's had not had guns for defense and hunting, with the minuteman detachments, we may never have been able to break away from England. We were that oppressed and ruled under an iron thumb.

Huckabee may be in for a shock. I dont' think McCain will pick him. Again, however, VP makes no difference in a ticket after the election is over.

Yeah, I would say that the VP selection is largely irrelevant after the election unless the President gives them power to do things (a la Cheney).

There is clearly an issue of press coverage in all things important. I think it comes down to two thing though.

The first is an issue of overload. There are so many people covering things and information comes so quickly that it is hard for me to filter the important stuff. Very few take the time to write comprehensive stories on subjects so your information is piecemeal and often outdated by new information as stories are rushed to "press". This makes it difficult to process and comprehend what is really going on.

The second issue is that as a country, we've allowed our news gathering to entertainment. I no longer watch network/cable news for the reason that they spend all of 30 seconds on a story that is critical and then 5 minutes discussing Britney Spears latest collapse. It's embarrassing.

I am still trying to find a source that gives me information without obvious bias one way or another. The BBC and CBC actually seem to be the best candidates in that regard.

BBC and CBC are two sources I use regularly

I second the BBC. On 9/11, it was the only place we could even get info from and I was really impressed. I've used them to get the straight dope before.

In most cases, VP may help with a voter segment you are weak in, ala McCain and Conservatives. However, I think it's important this time due to McCains age.

By staying in, Huckabee is running up McCains' campaign costs dramatically. He can pick anyone else to fill out the conservative side as VP.

clinton is starting to backoff on the super delegates this weekend. Chelsea wined and dined one of them last week, and the next day he said he was supporting Obama..... guess she should have slept with him 😉 Interesting. She and bill have been wanting this since they got out of college. I just don't see them folding up camp and leaving quietly. There is a new rumor she may settle for a supreme court nomination. Egads, she could do much more harm as a justice than ever as a prez.

lexx wrote:I just don't see them folding up camp and leaving quietly. There is a new rumor she may settle for a supreme court nomination. Egads, she could do much more harm as a justice than ever as a prez.

NOOOO!!!! My girl can't drop out now!!!! NOOOO!!!!

ephil wrote:NOOOO!!!! My girl can't drop out now!!!! NOOOO!!!!

Oh No You Din't!! (yes I left the D off on purpose)

How would you feel if someone needed your vote and sent their kid to see you instead of taking the time themselves? Yea, I'd flip too....

I heard a great quote from a Conservative today.....

I feel sorry for Clinton. She's running a job interview and Obama's on a Date.

That's classic and so true......