SuperJerk

You know, its not like YOUR party's leader is a master orator or something. Geez.

The report from last October says he didn't even have a program in the months leading up to the war. He kicked the weapon's inspectors out so it'd look like he had them (so he wouldn't be attacked and could keep his people in line), when in fact he lacked the capability to make them. And, let me just say...MAN, DID THAT PLAN BACKFIRE!!!!!!

I'm sorry, but I don't see how being charged thousands of dollars for something demonstrates that I have a "right" to it. If I went to an emergency room without insurance, that's what would happen.

Okay... ...these are all good points, but... ...I have no fucking idea why we're talking about Cuba.... ...at all.

I have the right to go to an emergency room, but not the right to get an operation or get medicine. Why do we give lawyer's services for free to the public, but not doctors? You're not exactly the nation's only tax payer. The expense to you alone would be miniscule.

It makes more sense than saying a guy with a 40% approval rating could win a reelection campaign. Which is why they voted for Perot and not the Democrats. The Republicans had shunned them as well, though. Kerry carried almost 20 counties, though. Not bad. Beleive it or not, I searched forever trying to find out exactly how many lost. Good show, sir. My crack about the "only 12%" was kind of in jest, by the way. That's actually a pretty big shift. True. The fact that Dean wants to court Southerners proves he has more of a brain than the previous party heads.

That's certainly where the evidence points. Of course, the Republicans can't admit that he didn't have weapons because it would mean that Clinton was right about something. But Clinton said he had them when he decided to make regime change the official policy of the US gov't in 1998-9. -=Mike And Clinton said that he didn't have them and the sanctions were working back in 2002.

In a fair and just society, it should be. I disagree. Your rights should not cost me a dime. For example, your right to own arms doesn't cost me anything. Nor does your right to free speech. Health insurance would cost me money. -=Mike Maybe not health insurance, but a right to health care should be.

Akio vs. London???? FUCK! I can't believe I fucking forgot what time it was on tonight. I was looking forward to it all week. Must....find....download....

I'll blame STDs. I always wondered --- given her acting talent, can Torrie actually sell an orgasm? -=Mike

Is anyone SURPRISED by this? This is what happens when you leave your little "talent search" open to women already in the entertainment industry. On the other hand, some Michelle McCool porn would be awesome. Is she even still with the company?

Gwen has already been brought back to life; the Jackyl cloned her and she's still running around the Marvel Universe..... That's not the same thing. Nor is the adult child she had with Norman Osborne that looks exactly like her.

That's certainly where the evidence points. Of course, the Republicans can't admit that he didn't have weapons because it would mean that Clinton was right about something.

In a fair and just society, it should be.

And that's why you're a Nobody.

I did explain. No its not. I have real numbers and everything! Look at them! I even used a calculator. Not in the cities, its not. Those may have been the only two incumbents who did loose. Foley lost on gun control, and Tennessee's Sasser was facing a challenge from a doctor (Frist) at a time when the Congress was attempting health care reform. That's a pretty strong showing, but only a 12% change. We're not exactly talking New Deal-level landslides here. Which is a stupid strategy considering how well Democrats still do in southern cities.

^Yeah, what he said.^

Fucking cockroaches.

No, it wasn't that close. Bush lost by 6 points. Again: -Clinton lead by a good margin during the months before the election when Perot wasn't even running, from July-October. -Bush's approval rating was hovering around 40% for months before the election. -Perot had a platform that included huge tax increases, spending on social programs, and reduced military spending...hardly the kind of thing that would siphon great numbers of Republicans away from Bush. -Here a good article I found about it: http://www.fairvote.org/plurality/perot.htm Had Perot not been running, the final score would have given Clinton at least 51% of the vote, even if only 1/8th of Perot voters voted for Clinton and 7/8th voted for Dole. If Clinton and Dole been the only two candidate, and all the Perot voters sat home, Clinton would have gotten 54.7%. The Republicans only gained 4 seats in the House this year. Besides that, they've used their control of various state legislatures, particularly in the South, to gerrymander Democratic districts out of existence. The 10 years of control is also due in part to the fact that incumbents in general get reelected easily. Even in 1994, only one or two Democrats lost their seats. The Republicans owe a lot to the fact that so many Democrats decided to retire before that election. This is not to say that the Democrats don't have an uphill battle, or that they don't have some serious problems to fix. I just don't think that its as dire for them as you are claiming. Bush has adopted the one quality I hate most about the Democrats: the mindset that says the only way to fix a problem is to throw money at it. There's so many factors that'll play into the 2008 race, of course. With 8 years of complete control of the federal government, it will be difficult for the Republicans to claim problems aren't their fault (rightly or wrongly). Inversely, if the economy's good, the deficit is going down, and Iraq's rolling along just fine, the Republicans will get all of the credit.

Consider the irony of someone pretending to have WMDs to keep from being attack, only to end up being attack precisely because others thought he had WMDs. I'm still not in favor of the war, but that doesn't keep me from thinking Saddam Hussein was a fucktarded dickhead.

Yes, but do they visit as much as we did, and more importantly spend as much money, before the embargo? For some reason I'm thinking they don't. Of course, I realize that the fact that they have a communist dictatorship hurts tourism probably just as much or worse as the embargo does. My point isn't that the embargo is hurting them, but that their biggest industry can't sustain their economy. I argue that Castro's policies have killed their economy more than anything else. If Castro's dictatorship is preventing the tourism industry from maximizing its potential, then sure. I love the way communist governments always seem to pop up in countries where communism has absolutely no chance of working. Communism was designed for heavily industrialized societies, not agricultural ones. The theory already has enough things to keep it from working to begin with. Its like building a house of cards on a fault line. It was already doomed to fail, but by putting it where they did, the failure was just that much worse.

Since worldwide nuclear armageddon is within human ability, then your first claim is invalidated. Which I'm sure you already knew, since you included it. That seems to indicate that we can do enough damage to the environment to seriously damage the health of humans and animals within a given area (or farther if wind currents take the pollutants to other areas). While it is true that volcanoes release enourmous amounts of pollution, they can not be blamed for many of the health problems people acquire because of certain types of pollution. I think one of the ways that the environmental movement has failed is that it has emphasized long-term theoretical catestrophic effects of pollution, instead of the everyday health risks that common man-made sources of pollution pose. In short, while the long term effects of pollution to the Earth's overall ecosystem is debatable, immediate health risks from exposure to man made pollutants is not. The government must enforce pollution regulations as part of its duty to protect the public.

No, you're not wrong , because you DID add the part about the 14th Amendment. My mistake. While Gitlow's conviction was not overturned, the Court did establish that the 1st Amendment's protection of speech and press could not be impaired by the states, because of the 14th Amendment's due process clause. The Supreme Court has applied the Bill of Rights to state governments by holding that most of its protections apply against the states as part of the meaning of the 14th Amendment's Due Process clause. As you noted, the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth Amendments have been covered in other cases. The Second Amendment deals specifically with states' right to have a militia, so it is already applied to th states by design. To my knowledge, the 3rd Amendment has never been subjected to judicial review at the state or federal level, so your argument that it does not apply to the states is possibly accurate. However, the Amendment itself does not specify what level of government it is applying itself to. And I'm not touching the 7th Amendment with a ten foot poll.

Yes, but do they visit as much as we did, and more importantly spend as much money, before the embargo? For some reason I'm thinking they don't. Of course, I realize that the fact that they have a communist dictatorship hurts tourism probably just as much or worse as the embargo does. My point isn't that the embargo is hurting them, but that their biggest industry can't sustain their economy.

Robot, if a party finds winning majorities nearly impossible for over 40 years --- even with a politician everybody seems to think is the best ever (yet who could never churn out 50% of the vote) --- the problem they have with issues is the only explanation. It defies logic to assume that a party that only managed to gain a majority due to WaterGate since 1964 has just been besieged by horrible candidates that they happily CHOSE (I was saying Kerry was a horrid candidate way back in April). 1) I've revised my original statement to state what I really meant. 2) Clinton would have gotten over 50% if it hadn't been a 3-way race. Polls at the time showed Perot cut into both candidate's support. I honestly don't think he would have. I don't even think he would have won in 1992 without Perot cutting into Bush. Throughout that campaign, Perot slammed Bush incessantly, not really going after Clinton until the final weeks. And Perot was a decided non-entity in 1996, and Clinton still couldn't pull 50%. The DNC might need to face that there is a chance that they can't hit 50% in a popular vote without some major problem benefitting them. Let me explain why I think that, and then you can tell me why you still think I'm wrong. There was a period during the 1992 election cycle when Perot had dropped out, between the Democratic Convention and October. Clinton's numbers shot WAY up. When Perot reentered the race in October, he went after both candidates' plans in televised informericals. Bush job approval rating was also hovering around 40% at this time, a sure fire sign he wasn't going to be reelected under any circumstances. There were also exit polls that asked people who'd they have voted for if Perot hadn't been running which Clinton won. In 1996, Clinton got more votes than Perot and Dole combined. He was going to win no matter what. Even if every Perot voter cast their ballot for Dole, Clinton still would have won. I'm trying to go issue-by-issue. I don't really think the Dems have any traction with economic issues. National security is not a winner. Social issues they might --- but even then, I think Republicans are more capable of explaining their position than Dems are capable of doing. Economic issues is anyone's game, as people tend to like whichever party is in power during the good times. Bush's only edge is that he can blame a slow economy on 9/11. If you start talking about stuff like the deficit or trade, he's more vulnerable. He's very vulnerable on taxes, although many are still grateful for their break, if if they don't really think should be getting it. When the national security debate isn't decided on a careful cross-examination of people's positions, but who looks like less of a pussy, then it ceases to be a real issue and becomes a question of character. Why did Bush beat Kerry on the issue of national security? Because Kerry didn't seem to actually have an idea what to do. All he could say he'd do was "bring in our allies", while many people recognized that our allies wouldn't join regardless. The Dems wished to portray Bush going into Iraq "alone" as being caused by his personality, and that is not a terribly solid idea right there. Kerry's indecisiveness was made the issue, not the actual policy. In a close election, and this election WAS close, that's enough to give one guy the edge. Goldwater got slaughter by a 20-point spread. That's a little different than 3. And, let me point out, if you look at the more recent past, Democrats did get more votes than the Republicans in 3 of the last 4 elections. Here's my case for Frist: -Won't be a sitting Senator after January of 2007, giving him the freedom to campaign that sitting Senators won't. -Senate Democrats won't be able to set legislative landmines for him since he'll be out of office when he starts campaigning. -Close ties to Bush, who is still going to be popular within the party in 3 years. -As a former medical doctor, seems trustworthy. -As the Senate leader, he can justly argue he has the most experience to do the job. -Telegenic as hell. -Hasn't alienated the religious voters the way Pataki and Guiliani have. -I doubt Rice even wants the job, but its hard to argue that 4 years as Secretary of State makes you qualified to be president when you look at all of the domestic issues she's never had to deal with professionally (but she's a sure-shot as V.P. if they can talk her into it).