CheesalaIsGood

That's not hyperbole. Just shitty writing. -=Mike Thanks for your opinion. But there is no disputing the respect that Thompson has in political and journalist circles. Journalistic circles involve a lack of actual work, thought, or writing skill. Not far removed from having respect from the readership of "Tiger Beat" -=Mike Minimise Minimise Minimise. The last tactic of someone who: A - Has no clue who or what they are talking about. B - Can't really debate w/ substance. C - Is talking out of their ass. Hey, maybe if you mention Tiger Beat again maybe they will give you a free subscription. It's all about the plugs dude. Bloviating

It was actually a borderline atrocious book and I will never forgive my poli. sci prof for making me read it. He was an overrated hack in the 70's. He's now a boring overrated hack. -=Mike Yes, yes, yes we know we know. Then again you hate anybody who writes about thihngs you don't want to hear. Sorry dude, but it doesn't mean they are shitty writers just because YOU happen to disaprooooooove! I wanna know more about that guy that Bush burned with the hot poker.

Oh I know. But I was looking to cut off any minimising that was forthcoming about the movie. Besides Johnny Depp is a good enough actor. Didn't see this in the other thread.

Here is some fun from that guy played by Johnny Depp Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004 Dr. Hunter S. Thompson sounds off on the fun-hogs in the passing lane By DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON Armageddon came early for George Bush this year, and he was not ready for it. His long-awaited showdowns with my man John Kerry turned into a series of horrible embarrassments that cracked his nerve and demoralized his closest campaign advisers. They knew he would never recover, no matter how many votes they could steal for him in Florida, where the presidential debates were closely watched and widely celebrated by millions of Kerry supporters who suddenly had reason to feel like winners. Kerry came into October as a five-point underdog with almost no chance of winning three out of three rigged confrontations with a treacherous little freak like George Bush. But the debates are over now, and the victor was clearly John Kerry every time. He steamrollered Bush and left him for roadkill. Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all. The tide turned early, in Coral Gables, when Bush went belly up less than halfway through his first bout with Kerry, who hammered poor George into jelly. It was pitiful. . . . I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him "Mister President," and then I felt ashamed. Karl Rove, the president's political wizard, felt even worse. There is angst in the heart of Texas today, and panic in the bowels of the White House. Rove has a nasty little problem, and its name is George Bush. The president failed miserably from the instant he got onstage with John Kerry. He looked weak and dumb. Kerry beat him like a gong in Coral Gables, then again in St. Louis and Tempe -- and that is Rove's problem: His candidate is a weak-minded frat boy who cracks under pressure in front of 60 million voters. That is an unacceptable failure for hardballers like Rove and Dick Cheney. On the undercard in Cleveland against John Edwards, Cheney came across as the cruel and sinister uberboss of Halliburton. In his only honest moment during the entire debate, he vowed, "We have to make America the best place in the world to do business." Bush signed his own death warrant in the opening round, when he finally had to speak without his TelePrompTer. It was a Cinderella story brought up to date in Florida that night -- except this time the false prince turned back into a frog. Immediately after the first debate ended I called Muhammad Ali at his home in Michigan, but whoever answered said the champ was laughing so hard that he couldn't come to the phone. "The debate really cracked him up," he chuckled. "The champ loves a good ass-whuppin'. He says Bush looked so scared to fight, he finally just quit and laid down." Ali has seen that look before. Almost three months to the day after John Fitzgerald Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, the "Louisville Lip" -- then Cassius Clay -- made a permanent enemy of every "boxing expert" in the Western world by beating World Heavyweight Champion Sonny Liston so badly that he refused to come out of his corner for the seventh round. This year's first presidential debate was such a disaster for George Bush that his handlers had to be crazy to let him get in the ring with John Kerry again. Yet Karl Rove let it happen, and we can only wonder why. But there is no doubt that the president has lost his nerve, and his career in the White House is finished. NO MAS. ***** Presidential politics is a vicious business, even for rich white men, and anybody who gets into it should be prepared to grapple with the meanest of the mean. The White House has never been seized by timid warriors. There are no rules, and the roadside is littered with wreckage. That is why they call it the passing lane. Just ask any candidate who ever ran against George Bush -- Al Gore, Ann Richards, John McCain -- all of them ambushed and vanquished by lies and dirty tricks. And all of them still whining about it. That is why George W. Bush is President of the United States, and Al Gore is not. Bush simply wanted it more, and he was willing to demolish anything that got in his way, including the U.S. Supreme Court. It is not by accident that the Bush White House (read: Dick Cheney & Halliburton Inc.) controls all three branches of our federal government today. They are powerful thugs who would far rather die than lose the election in November. The Republican establishment is haunted by painful memories of what happened to Old Man Bush in 1992. He peaked too early, and he had no response to "It's the economy, stupid." Which has always been the case. Every GOP administration since 1952 has let the Military-Industrial Complex loot the Treasury and plunge the nation into debt on the excuse of a wartime economic emergency. Richard Nixon comes quickly to mind, along with Ronald Reagan and his ridiculous "trickle-down" theory of U.S. economic policy. If the Rich get Richer, the theory goes, before long their pots will overflow and somehow "trickle down" to the poor, who would rather eat scraps off the Bush family plates than eat nothing at all. Republicans have never approved of democracy, and they never will. It goes back to preindustrial America, when only white male property owners could vote. Things haven't changed all that much where George W. Bush comes from. Houston is a cruel and crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It's a shabby sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and super-rich pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the West -- which can mean just about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch. Houston is also the unnatural home of two out of the last three presidents of the United States of America, for good or ill. The other one was a handsome, sex-crazed boy from next-door Arkansas, which has no laws against oral sex or any other deviant practice not specifically forbidden in the New Testament, including anal incest and public cunnilingus with farm animals. Back in 1948, during his first race for the U.S. Senate, Lyndon Johnson was running about ten points behind, with only nine days to go. He was sunk in despair. He was desperate. And it was just before noon on a Monday, they say, when he called his equally depressed campaign manager and instructed him to call a press conference for just before lunch on a slow news day and accuse his high-riding opponent, a pig farmer, of having routine carnal knowledge of his barnyard sows, despite the pleas of his wife and children. His campaign manager was shocked. "We can't say that, Lyndon," he supposedly said. "You know it's not true." "Of course it's not true!" Johnson barked at him. "But let's make the bastard deny it!" Johnson -- a Democrat, like Bill Clinton -- won that election by fewer than a hundred votes, and after that he was home free. He went on to rule Texas and the U.S. Senate for twenty years and to be the most powerful vice president in the history of the United States. Until now. ***** The genetically vicious nature of presidential campaigns in America is too obvious to argue with, but some people call it fun, and I am one of them. Election Day -- especially a presidential election -- is always a wild and terrifying time for politics junkies, and I am one of those, too. We look forward to major election days like sex addicts look forward to orgies. We are slaves to it. Which is not a bad thing, all in all, for the winners. They are not the ones who bitch and whine about slavery when the votes are finally counted and the losers are forced to get down on their knees. No. The slaves who emerge victorious from these drastic public decisions go crazy with joy and plunge each other into deep tubs of chilled Cristal champagne with naked strangers who want to be close to a winner. That is how it works in the victory business. You see it every time. The Weak will suck up to the Strong, for fear of losing their jobs and their money and all the fickle power they wielded only twenty-four hours ago. It is like suddenly losing your wife and your home in a vagrant poker game, then having to go on the road with whoremongers and beg for your dinner in public. Nobody wants to hire a loser. Right? They stink of doom and defeat. "What is that horrible smell in the office, Tex? It's making me sick." "That is the smell of a Loser, Senator. He came in to apply for a job, but we tossed him out immediately. Sgt. Sloat took him down to the parking lot and taught him a lesson he will never forget." "Good work, Tex. And how are you coming with my new Enemies List? I want them all locked up. They are scum." "We will punish them brutally. They are terrorist sympathizers, and most of them voted against you anyway. I hate those bastards." "Thank you, Sloat. You are a faithful servant. Come over here and kneel down. I want to reward you." That is the nature of high-risk politics. Veni Vidi Vici, especially among Republicans. It's like the ancient Bedouin saying: As the camel falls to its knees, more knives are drawn. ***** Indeed. the numbers are weird today, and so is this dangerous election. The time has come to rumble, to inject a bit of fun into politics. That's exactly what the debates did. John Kerry looked like a winner, and it energized his troops. Voting for Kerry is beginning to look like very serious fun for everybody except poor George, who now suddenly looks like a loser. That is fatal in a presidential election. I look at elections with the cool and dispassionate gaze of a professional gambler, especially when I'm betting real money on the outcome. Contrary to most conventional wisdom, I see Kerry with five points as a recommended risk. Kerry will win this election, if it happens, by a bigger margin than Bush finally gouged out of Florida in 2000. That was about forty-six percent, plus five points for owning the U.S. Supreme Court -- which seemed to equal fifty-one percent. Nobody really believed that, but George W. Bush moved into the White House anyway. It was the most brutal seizure of power since Hitler burned the German Reichstag in 1933 and declared himself the new Boss of Germany. Karl Rove is no stranger to Nazi strategy, if only because it worked, for a while, and it was sure as hell fun for Hitler. But not for long. He ran out of oil, the whole world hated him, and he liked to gobble pure crystal biphetamine and stay awake for eight or nine days in a row with his maps & his bombers & his dope-addled general staff. They all loved the whiff. It is the perfect drug for War -- as long as you are winning -- and Hitler thought he was King of the Hill forever. He had created a new master race, and every one of them worshipped him. The new Hitler youth loved to march and sing songs in unison and dance naked at night for the generals. They were fanatics. That was sixty-six years ago, far back in ancient history, and things are not much different today. We still love War. George Bush certainly does. In four short years he has turned our country from a prosperous nation at peace into a desperately indebted nation at war. But so what? He is the President of the United States, and you're not. Love it or leave it. ***** War is an option whose time has passed. Peace is the only option for the future. At present we occupy a treacherous no-man's-land between peace and war, a time of growing fear that our military might has expanded beyond our capacity to control it and our political differences widened beyond our ability to bridge them. . . . Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war. --RICHARD M. NIXON, "REAL PEACE" (1983) Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem like George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him? If Nixon were running for president today, he would be seen as a "liberal" candidate, and he would probably win. He was a crook and a bungler, but what the hell? Nixon was a barrel of laughs compared to this gang of thugs from the Halliburton petroleum organization who are running the White House today -- and who will be running it this time next year, if we (the once-proud, once-loved and widely respected "American people") don't rise up like wounded warriors and whack those lying petroleum pimps out of the White House on November 2nd. Nixon hated running for president during football season, but he did it anyway. Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for -- but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him. You bet. Richard Nixon would be my Man. He was a crook and a creep and a gin-sot, but on some nights, when he would get hammered and wander around in the streets, he was fun to hang out with. He would wear a silk sweat suit and pull a stocking down over his face so nobody could recognize him. Then we would get in a cab and cruise down to the Watergate Hotel, just for laughs. ***** Even the Fun-hog vote has started to swing for John Kerry, and that is a hard bloc to move. Only a fool would try to run for president without the enthusiastic support of the Fun-hog vote. It is huge, and always available, but they will never be lured into a voting booth unless voting carries a promise of Fun. At least thirty-three percent of all eligible voters in this country are confessed Fun-hogs, who will cave into any temptation they stumble on. They have always hated George Bush, but until now they had never made the connection between hating George Bush and voting for John Kerry. The Fun-hogs are starving for anything they can laugh with, instead of at. But George Bush is not funny. Nobody except fellow members of the Petroleum Club in Houston will laugh at his silly barnyard jokes unless it's for money. When young Bush was at Yale in the Sixties, he told the same joke over and over again for two years, according to some of his classmates. One of them still remembers it: There was a young man named Green Who invented a jack-off machine On the twenty-third stroke The damn thing broke And churned his nuts into cream. "It was horrible to hear him tell it," said the classmate, who spoke only on condition of anonymity. He lifted his shirt and showed me a scar on his back put there by young George. "He burned this into my flesh with a red-hot poker," he said solemnly, "and I have hated him ever since. That jackass was born cruel. He burned me in the back while I was blindfolded. This scar will be with me forever." There is nothing new or secret about that story. It ran on the front page of the Yale Daily News and caused a nasty scandal for a few weeks, but nobody was ever expelled for it. George did his first cover-up job. And he liked it. ***** I watch three or four frantic network-news bulletins about Iraq every day, and it is all just fraudulent Pentagon propaganda, the absolute opposite of what it says: u.s. transfers sovereignty to iraqi interim "government." Hot damn! Iraq is finally Free, and just in time for the election! It is a deliberate cowardly lie. We are no more giving power back to the Iraqi people than we are about to stop killing them. Your neighbor's grandchildren will be fighting this stupid, greed-crazed Bush-family "war" against the whole Islamic world for the rest of their lives, if John Kerry is not elected to be the new President of the United States in November. The question this year is not whether President Bush is acting more and more like the head of a fascist government but if the American people want it that way. That is what this election is all about. We are down to nut-cutting time, and millions of people are angry. They want a Regime Change. Some people say that George Bush should be run down and sacrificed to the Rat gods. But not me. No. I say it would be a lot easier to just vote the bastard out of office on November 2nd. ***** BULLETIN KERRY WINS GONZO ENDORSMENT; DR. THOMPSON JOINS DEMOCRAT IN CALLING BUSH "THE SYPHILLIS PRESIDENT" "Four more years of George Bush will be like four more years of syphilis," the famed author said yesterday at a hastily called press conference near his home in Woody Creek, Colorado. "Only a fool or a sucker would vote for a dangerous loser like Bush," Dr. Thompson warned. "He hates everything we stand for, and he knows we will vote against him in November." Thompson, long known for the eerie accuracy of his political instincts, went on to denounce Ralph Nader as "a worthless Judas Goat with no moral compass." "I endorsed John Kerry a long time ago," he said, "and I will do everything in my power, short of roaming the streets with a meat hammer, to help him be the next President of the United States." ***** Which is true. I said all those things, and I will say them again. Of course I will vote for John Kerry. I have known him for thirty years as a good man with a brave heart -- which is more than even the president's friends will tell you about George W. Bush, who is also an old acquaintance from the white-knuckle days of yesteryear. He is hated all over the world, including large parts of Texas, and he is taking us all down with him. Bush is a natural-born loser with a filthy-rich daddy who pimped his son out to rich oil-mongers. He hates music, football and sex, in no particular order, and he is no fun at all. I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, but I will not make that mistake again. The joke is over for Nader. He was funny once, but now he belongs to the dead. There is nothing funny about helping George Bush win Florida again. Nader is a fool, and so is anybody who votes for him in November -- with the obvious exception of professional Republicans who have paid big money to turn poor Ralph into a world-famous Judas Goat. Nader has become so desperate and crazed that he's stooped to paying homeless people to gather signatures to get him on the ballot. In Pennsylvania, the petitions he submitted contained tens of thousands of phony signatures, including Fred Flintstone, Mickey Mouse and John Kerry. A judge dumped Ralph from the ballot there, saying the forms were "rife with forgeries" and calling it "the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated upon this court." But they will keep his name on the ballot in the long-suffering Hurricane State, which is ruled by the President's younger brother, Jeb, who also wants to be the next President of the United States. In 2000, when they sent Jim Baker down to Florida, I knew it was all over. The fix was in. In that election, 97,488 people voted for Nader in Florida, and Gore lost the state by 537 votes. You don't have to be from Texas to understand the moral of that story. It's like being out-coached in the Super Bowl. There are no rules in the passing lane. Only losers play fair, and all winners have blood on their hands. ***** Back in June, when John Kerry was beginning to feel like a winner, I had a quick little rendezvous with him on a rain-soaked runway in Aspen, Colorado, where he was scheduled to meet with a harem of wealthy campaign contributors. As we rode to the event, I told him that Bush's vicious goons in the White House are perfectly capable of assassinating Nader and blaming it on him. His staff laughed, but the Secret Service men didn't. Kerry quickly suggested that I might make a good running mate, and we reminisced about trying to end the Vietnam War in 1972. That was the year I first met him, at a riot on that elegant little street in front of the White House. He was yelling into a bullhorn and I was trying to throw a dead, bleeding rat over a black-spike fence and onto the president's lawn. We were angry and righteous in those days, and there were millions of us. We kicked two chief executives out of the White House because they were stupid warmongers. We conquered Lyndon Johnson and we stomped on Richard Nixon -- which wise people said was impossible, but so what? It was fun. We were warriors then, and our tribe was strong like a river. That river is still running. All we have to do is get out and vote, while it's still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of the White House. Hunter S. Thompson's latest book is "Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness" (Posted Oct 20, 2004) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Things were going so well until the river metaphors.

Yanno, if GreatOne wasn't banned.... he'd be having a fit right now reading this.

Alot of folks would hear you say that and come with: "Oh but you are just WASTING your vote" by going 3rd party or joke vote. Which it true, but not true enough that it matters. If voting for the two leading candidates leaves you feeling like you'd have to hold your nose????? Don't do it. John Kerry is a dolt and Bush is a criminal so fuck em. Neither guy can produce a safer world at this point cuz they are never going to be able to kill all peoples who would be enemies of this country. Forget negotiations. Those days have passed. So therefore I cannot vote for either Bush (no surprise) OR Kerry. Fuck them.

I forgot that sarcasm is lost on people with a lack of wit. -=Mike ...Who was actually laying the sarcasm on kinda thick and is (not) amazed that you missed it... You are just mad cuz I didn't have time to read the whole thing. Stop being so sensitive. Then again, you missed the sarcasm as well so....

Or you just ran out of steam.

I stopped reading at the part where he said "Gas prices have plummeted".

100 Facts and 1 Opinion The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration by Judd Legum IRAQ 1. The Bush Administration has spent more than $140 billion on a war of choice in Iraq. Source: American Progress 2. The Bush Administration sent troops into battle without adequate body armor or armored Humvees. Sources: Fox News, The Boston Globe 3. The Bush Administration ignored estimates from Gen. Eric Shinseki that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure Iraq. Source: PBS 4. Vice President Cheney said Americans "will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" in Iraq. Source: The Washington Post 5. During the Bush Administration's war in Iraq, more than 1,000 US troops have lost their lives and more than 7,000 have been injured. Source: globalsecurity.org 6. In May 2003, President Bush landed on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit, stood under a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished," and triumphantly announced that major combat operations were over in Iraq. Asked if he had any regrets about the stunt, Bush said he would do it all over again. Source: Yahoo News 7. Vice President Cheney said that Iraq was "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11." The bipartisan 9/11 Commission found that Iraq had no involvement in the 9/11 attacks and no collaborative operational relationship with Al Qaeda. Source: MSNBC , 9-11 Commission 8. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said that high-strength aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," warning "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." The government's top nuclear scientists had told the Administration the tubes were "too narrow, too heavy, too long" to be of use in developing nuclear weapons and could be used for other purposes. Source: New York Times 9. The Bush Administration has spent just $1.1 billion of the $18.4 billion Congress approved for Iraqi reconstruction. Source: USA Today 10. According to the Administration's handpicked weapon's inspector, Charles Duelfer, there is "no evidence that Hussein had passed illicit weapons material to al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations, or had any intent to do so." After the release of the report, Bush continued to insist, "There was a risk--a real risk--that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons, or materials, or information to terrorist networks." Sources: New York Times, White House news release 11. According to Duelfer, the UN inspections regime put an "economic strangle hold" on Hussein that prevented him from developing a WMD program for more than twelve years. Source: Los Angeles Times TERRORISM 12. After receiving a memo from the CIA in August 2001 titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack America," President Bush continued his monthlong vacation. Source: CNN.com 13. The Bush Administration failed to commit enough troops to capture Osama bin Laden when US forces had him cornered in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in November 2001. Instead, they relied on local warlords. Source: csmonitor.com 14. The Bush Administration secured less nuclear material from sites around the world vulnerable to terrorists in the two years after 9/11 than were secured in the two years before 9/11. Source: nti.org 15. The Bush Administration underfunded Nunn-Lugar--the program intended to keep the former Soviet Union's nuclear legacy out of the hands of terrorists and rogue states--by $45.5 million. Source: armscontrol.org 16. The Bush Administration has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden's and Saddam Hussein's money. Source: sfgate.com 17. According to Congressional Research Service data, the Bush Administration has underfunded security at the nation's ports by more than $1 billion for fiscal year 2005. Source: American Progress 18. The Bush Administration did not devote the resources necessary to prevent a resurgence in the production of poppies, the raw material used to create heroin, in Afghanistan--creating a potent new source of financing for terrorists. Source: Pakistan Tribune 19. Vice President Cheney told voters that unless they elect George Bush in November, "we'll get hit again" by terrorists. Source: Washington Post 20. Even though an Al Qaeda training manual suggests terrorists come to the United States and buy assault weapons, the Bush Administration did nothing to prevent the expiration of the ban. Source: sfgate.com 21. Despite repeated calls for reinforcements, there are fewer experienced CIA agents assigned to the unit dealing with Osama bin Laden now than there were before 9/11. Source: New York Times 22. Before 9/11, John Ashcroft proposed slashing counterterrorism funding by 23 percent. Source: americanprogress.org 23. Between January 20, 2001, and September 10, 2001, the Bush Administration publicly mentioned Al Qaeda one time. Source: commondreams.org 24. The Bush Administration granted the 9/11 Commission $3 million to investigate the September 11 attacks and $50 million to the commission that investigated the Columbia space shuttle crash. Source: commondreams.org 25. More than three years after 9/11, just 5 percent of all cargo--including cargo transported on passenger planes--is screened. Source: commondreams.org NATIONAL SECURITY 26. During the Bush Administration, North Korea quadrupled its suspected nuclear arsenal from two to eight weapons. Source: New York Times 27. The Bush Administration has openly opposed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, undermining nuclear nonproliferation efforts. Source: commondreams.org 28. The Bush Administration has spent $7 billion this year--and plans to spend $10 billion next year--for a missile defense system that has never worked in a test that wasn't rigged. Sources: www.gao.gov/new.items/d04409.pdf, Los Angeles Times 29. The Bush Administration underfunded the needs of the nation's first responders by $98 billion, according to a Council on Foreign Relations study. Source: nationaldefensemagazine.org CRONYISM AND CORRUPTION 30. The Bush Administration awarded a multibillion-dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton--a company that still pays Vice President Cheney hundreds of thousands of dollars in deferred compensation each year (Cheney also has Halliburton stock options). The company then repeatedly overcharged the military for services, accepted kickbacks from subcontractors and served troops dirty food. Sources: The Washington Post, The Tapei Times, BBC News 31. The Bush Administration told Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan about plans to go to war with Iraq before telling Secretary of State Colin Powell. Source: detnews.com 32. The Bush Administration relentlessly pushed an energy bill containing $23.5 billion in corporate tax breaks, much of which would have benefited major campaign contributors. taxpayer.net, Washington Post 33. The Bush Administration paid Iraqi-exile and neocon darling Ahmad Chalabi $400,000 a month for intelligence, including fabricated claims about Iraqi WMD. It continued to pay him for months after discovering that he was providing inaccurate information. Source: MSNBC 34. The Bush Administration installed as top officials more than 100 former lobbyists, attorneys or spokespeople for the industries they oversee. Source: Source: commondreams.org 35. The Bush Administration let disgraced Enron CEO Ken Lay--a close friend of President Bush--help write its energy policy. Source: MSNBC 36. Top Bush Administration officials accepted $127,600 in jewelry and other presents from the Saudi royal family in 2003, including diamond-and-sapphire jewelry valued at $95,500 for First Lady Laura Bush. Source: Seattle Times 37. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge awarded lucrative contracts to several companies in which he is an investor, including Microsoft, GE, Sprint, Pfizer and Oracle. Source: cq.com 38. President Bush used images of firefighters carrying flag-draped coffins through the rubble of the World Trade Center to score political points in a campaign advertisement. Source: The Washington Post THE ECONOMY 39. President Bush's top economic adviser, Greg Mankiw, said the outsourcing of American jobs abroad was "a plus for the economy in the long run." Source: CBS News 40. The Bush Administration turned a $236 billion surplus into a $422 billion deficit. Sources: Fortune, dfw.com 41. The Bush Administration implemented regulations that made millions of workers ineligible for overtime pay. Source: epinet.org 42. The Bush Administration has crippled state budgets by underfunding federal mandates by $175 billion. Source: cbpp.org 43. President Bush is the first President since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs--around 800,000--over a four-year term. Source: The Guardian 44. The Bush Administration gave Accenture a multibillion-dollar border control contract even though the company moved its operations to Bermuda to avoid paying taxes. Sources: The New York Times, cantonrep.com 45. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush said "the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum." He passed the tax cuts, but the top 20 percent of earners received 68 percent of the benefits. Sources: cbpp.org, vote-smart.org 46. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to pay down the national debt to a historically low level. As of September 30, the national debt stood at $7,379,052,696,330.32, a record high. Sources: www.georgewbush.com , Bureau of the Public Debt 47. As major corporate scandals rocked the nation's economy, the Bush Administration reduced the enforcement of corporate tax law--conducting fewer audits, imposing fewer penalties, pursuing fewer prosecutions and making virtually no effort to prosecute corporate tax crimes. Source: iht.com 48. The Bush Administration increased tax audits for the working poor. Source: theolympian.com 49. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to protect the Social Security surplus. As President, he spent all of it. Sources: georgewbush.com, Congressional Budget Office 50. The Bush Administration proposed slashing funding for the largest federal public housing program, putting 2 million families in danger of losing their housing. Source: San Francisco Examiner 51. The Bush Administration did nothing to prevent the minimum wage from falling to an inflation-adjusted fifty-year low. Source: Los Angeles Times EDUCATION 52. The Bush Administration underfunded the No Child Left Behind Act by $9.4 billion. Source: nwitimes.com 53. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to increase the maximum federal scholarship, or Pell Grant, by 50 percent. Instead, each year he has been in office he has frozen or cut the maximum scholarship amount. Source: Source: edworkforce.house.gov x 54. The Bush Administration's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, called the National Education Association--a union of teachers--a "terrorist organization." Sources: CNN.com HEALTHCARE 55. The Bush Administration, in violation of the law, refused to allow Medicare actuary Richard Foster to tell members of Congress the actual cost of their Medicare bill. Instead, they repeated a figure they knew was $100 billion too low. Source: Washington Post, realcities.com 56. The nonpartisan GAO concluded the Bush Administration created illegal, covert propaganda--in the form of fake news reports--to promote its industry-backed Medicare bill. Source: General Accounting Office 57. The Bush Administration stunted research that could lead to new treatments for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, spinal injuries, heart disease and muscular dystrophy by placing severe restrictions on the use of federal dollars for embryonic stem-cell research. Source: CBS News 58. The Bush Administration reinstated the "global gag rule," which requires foreign NGOs to withhold information about legal abortion services or lose US funds for family planning. Source: healthsciences.columbia.edu 59. The Bush Administration authorized twenty companies that have been charged with fraud at the federal or state level to offer Medicare prescription drug cards to seniors. Source: American Progress 60. The Bush Administration created a prescription drug card for Medicare that locks seniors into one card for up to a year but allows the corporations offering the cards to change their prices once a week. Source: Washington Post 61. The Bush Administration blocked efforts to allow Medicare to negotiate cheaper prescription drug prices for seniors. Source: American Progress 62. At the behest of the french fry industry, the Bush Administration USDA changed their definition of fresh vegetables to include frozen french fries. Source: commondreams.org 63. In a case before the Supreme Court, the Bush Administrations sided with HMOs--arguing that patients shouldn't be allowed to sue HMOs when they are improperly denied treatment. With the Administration's help, the HMOs won. Source: ABC News 64. The Bush Administration went to court to block lawsuits by patients who were injured by defective prescription drugs and medical devices. Source: Washington Post 65. President Bush signed a Medicare law that allows companies that reduce healthcare benefits for retirees to receive substantial subsidies from the government. Source: Bloomberg News 66. Since President Bush took office, more than 5 million people have lost their health insurance. Source: CNN.com 67. The Bush Administration blocked a proposal to ban the use of arsenic-treated lumber in playground equipment, even though it conceded it posed a danger to children. Source: Miami Herald 68. One day after President Bush bragged about his efforts to help seniors afford healthcare, the Administration announced the largest dollar increase of Medicare premiums in history. Source: iht.com 69. The Bush Administration--at the behest of the tobacco industry--tried to water down a global treaty that aimed to help curb smoking. Source: tobaccofreekids.org 70. The Bush Administration has spent $270 million on abstinence-only education programs even though there is no scientific evidence demonstrating that they are effective in dissuading teenagers from having sex or reducing the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. Source: salon.com 71. The Bush Administration slashed funding for programs that suggested ways, other than abstinence, to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. Source: LA Weekly ENVIRONMENT 72. The Bush Administration gutted clean-air standards for aging power plants, resulting in at least 20,000 premature deaths each year. Source: cta.policy.net 73. The Bush Administration eliminated protections on more than 200 million acres of public lands. Source: calwild.org 74. President Bush broke his promise to place limits on carbon dioxide emissions, an essential step in combating global warming. Source: Washington Post 75. Days after 9/11, the Bush Administration told people living near Ground Zero that the air was safe--even though they knew it wasn't--subjecting hundreds of people to unnecessary, debilitating ailments. Sierra Club , EPA 76. The Bush Administration created a massive tax loophole for SUVs--allowing, for example, the write-off of the entire cost of a new Hummer. Source: Washington Post 77. The Bush Administration put former coal-industry big shots in the government and let them roll back safety regulations, putting miners at greater risk of black lung disease. Source: New York Times 78. The Bush Administration said that even though the weed killer atrazine was seeping into water supplies--creating, among other bizarre creatures, hermaphroditic frogs--there was no reason to regulate it. Source: Washington Post 79. The Bush Administration has proposed cutting the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency by $600 million next year. Source: ems.org 80. President Bush broke his campaign promise to end the maintenance backlog at national parks. He has provided just 7 percent of the funds needed, according to National Park Service estimates. Source: bushgreenwatch.org RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES 81. Since 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft has detained 5,000 foreign nationals in antiterrorism sweeps; none have been convicted of a terrorist crime. Source: hrwatch.org 82. The Bush Administration ignored pleas from the International Committee of the Red Cross to stop the abuse of prisoners in US custody. Source: Wall Street Journal 83. In violation of international law, the Bush Administration hid prisoners from the Red Cross so the organization couldn't monitor their treatment. Source: hrwatch.org 84. The Bush Administration, without ever charging him with a crime, arrested US citizen José Padilla at an airport in Chicago, held him on a naval brig in South Carolina for two years, denied him access to a lawyer and prohibited any contact with his friends and family. Source: news.findlaw.com 85. President Bush's top legal adviser wrote a memo to the President advising him that he can legally authorize torture. Source: news.findlaw.com 86. At the direction of Bush Administration officials, the FBI went door to door questioning people planning on protesting at the 2004 political conventions. Source: New York Times 87. The Bush Administration refuses to support the creation of an independent commission to investigate the abuse of foreign prisoners in American custody. Instead, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld selected the members of a commission to review the conduct of his own department. Source: humanrightsfirst.org FLIP FLOPS 88. President Bush opposed the creation of the 9/11 Commission before he supported it, delaying an essential inquiry into one of the greatest intelligence failure in American history. Source: americanprogressaction.org 89. President Bush said gay marriage was a state issue before he supported a constitutional amendment banning it. Sources: CNN.com, White House 90. President Bush said he was committed to capturing Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" before he said, "I truly am not that concerned about him." Source: americanprogressaction.org 91. President Bush said we had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, before he admitted we hadn't found them. Sources: White House, americanprogress.org 92. President Bush said, "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," before he admitted Saddam had no role in 9/11. Sources: White House, Washington Post BIOGRAPHY 93. George Bush didn't come close to meeting his commitments to the National Guard. Records show he performed no service in a six-month period in 1972 and a three-month period in 1973. Source: boston.com 94. In June 1990 George Bush violated federal securities law when he failed to inform the SEC that he had sold 200,000 shares of his company, Harken Energy. Two months later the company reported significant losses and by the end of that year the stock had dropped from $3 to $1. Source: The Guardian 95. When asked at an April 2004 press conference to name a mistake he made during his presidency, Bush couldn't think of one. Source: White House SECRECY 96. The Bush Administration refuses to release twenty-seven pages of a Congressional report that reportedly detail the Saudi Arabian government's connections to the 9/11 hijackers. Source: philly.com 97. Last year the Bush Administration spent $6.5 billion creating 14 million new classified documents and securing old secrets--the highest level of spending in ten years. Source: openthegovernment.org 98. The Bush Administration spent $120 classifying documents for every $1 it spent declassifying documents. Source: openthegovernment.org 99. The Bush Administration has spent millions of dollars and defied numerous court orders to conceal from the public who participated in Vice President Cheney's 2001 energy task force. Source: Washington Post 100. The Bush Administration--reversing years of bipartisan tradition--refuses to answer requests from Democratic members of Congress about how the White House is spending taxpayer money. Source: Washington Post OPINION If the past informs the future, four more years of the Bush Administration will be a tragic period in the history of the United States and the world. ------------------------------------------------------------ Therefore I endorse George W. Bush.

Feel free to do the research yourself. Nothing but lemmings over here remember?

Somewhere Scott Weiland is crying. I'd think the army was busy enough trying to secure the country and chasing some bad guy whose name escapes me at the moment. Then again, his name isn't the only thing that continues to escape. Hmmm.

So do I! Dirty politics???? In the good ole' U S A???? Never!!!!

Nice try at deflection of the topic. What is easily seen as a conflict of interest between Bush and co. with Haliburton could be the start of something real good. Cuz if Hailburton takes it in the ass more evidence would likely arise pointing to this war to be the money making venture it is. The rats won't stay aboard if the ship is sinking. Bush would most likely be the one to take the hit the hardest should the shit hit the fan. Sure Mike, WE can't prove anything. Isn't that what this investigation is all about? So we'll find out soon enough, unless everything ends up classified. Then its back to stalemate, stalemate, stalemate here on the boards. Fun. Trying to lump whatever the Dems do with the airlines into working something out about them as being bad.... pfft. NOBODY wants the airlines to to stop running. Like electric, water, and roads they must be maintained. Poor business practises or not. People want them to run and rely on them. Get a clue!

Which is why nobody takes your posts seriously here, or at least the posters that matter. I'm sure INXS loves you... Oh come, on the guy was only refering to an impression he had about Rather, not that he still believed it. Bitter conservatives. I guess Mike just wants the bitching about the FNC to go away cuz Dan Rather is dolt. Or maybe he just wants it to go away so their POV is the only one heard. Hey how bout that NBC eh? Owned by GE, who make WEAPONS!!! Hmmm. War President + Weapons INC. =... ... .... I'll have to get back to you on that one.

I will now use the word "groovy". I think these people are GROOVY baby! I wonder how off the handle the right types around here might go if there isn't some members of Kerrys distant family that don't come out about not voting for him. Boy I hope it turns out they are all fakes. I so love scandal. Must be that "Liberal Media". THEY are behind it! Is that the whole media is liberal or that there are just liberals IN the media. Not that it matters to the right. It's a swiss army knife arguement. Use it anytime, anywhere.

How anyone can say either smoked the other in the third debate when SCHIEFFER was the mod and the whole debate was the political equivalent of Iowa/Penn St (maybe that's being a little harsh Texas/OU maybe) is beyond me. But apparently, it's somehow NOT fanboyism to say Kerry trounced Bush in ANY of the debates, GOTCHA. Not when it is exactly what happened. Nothing fanboy about it. Which IS fine considering everyone KNEW before hand that Bush was not the stronger speaker. So the results, while not surprising, are what they are. Besides, the debates, like the constant barrage of poll results only give you an idea of whats going on. So relax about it. It WOULD be fanboyism if anyone here actually DID act the way you say they act with the whole LOLBUSHSUX2004!!! bit you do. Christ, MUST you and Mike minimize everything?

I heard that Iraq thing kinda bummed some folks out. Hey, is Afganistan still there or did we blow it off the map? Anyone?

Well THAT fun to read. Thank you very very much Rob. Well done.

Bush, idiotically, tried to avoid causing anger by vetoing bills. He wanted to make peace with the Dems and suffered for it. Again, when asked for his biggest mistake, I wish he mentioned not vetoing a bill, as his spending has been absolutely horrible. However, as bad as Bush has been, Kerry will be worse and I don't have faith in the GOP holding out should, somehow, Kerry make his ludicrous spending popular. -=Mike Mike why are you talking like you work in the White House next to the guy? I mean come on. Quit putting words in Bush's mouth. Peace with the Dems? Nice idea. Hope you're right too. Got a link to him saying so?

Well, he did decide to 'contribute'. Moreso than you have in this thread.

Yet for some reason you continue to comment on it.

So this topic is dead for another INXS bashfest? Yawn. Soldiers dying sucks of course. Still it seems the public is fairly attuned to accepting that. It does make one wonder (and I'm surprised no one has brought this up) is female solidiers coming home raped and/or pregnant via the enemy. THAT is what scares me. Women have this other "thing about them" that guys will never be able to understand. For minute try and imagine being a boyfriend or a husband or even just related to a girl who comes home in that kind of condition. For woman it just seems the stakes are so much higher as they have more to lose just by living through it. Which also makes the question of the worth of a mans life being less than a womans? Sigh. What I like and what I want are not always the same thing.

Yes, but you forget that this is the kind of race we have going here Mike. Where so many people feel that their choice for president is simply picking the least of two evils. I wonder how many people will vote impulsively while in the booth? Rhetorical of course.

I'd do it. Happily. -=Mike ...I'd even call them hippies in your honor... I'd love to see you get up and chase somebody.