Funny how quiet the right wing is about all this "trashing" that's being done by the outgoing president. They were all "screechy and shitty" when the false story about the missing W's from the white house computer keyboard meme was floating around and yelling about how unpatriotic, yadda yadda yadda the outgoing dems were. But now, in the face of ethically challenged hatred of workers, of our freedom, of our environment being shown by the outgoing GOP putridity, they're not saying a word. I guess it really is true that if you're republican, your shit don't stink.

And other than boost his image as a first class doucebag, what does he accomplish by denying these workers collective bargining rights for a month and a half? Is there some major purge about to take place the workers would rebel against? Lots and lots of overtime? What? Why?

This man deserves to be shunned by decent society.

I predicted to my husband on 11/5 that this was the way he could go out. Rather than, as you point out, make some grand gestures and movements that would show what a swell guy he could be when unencumbered by politics, he decides to thumb his nose at us and the world. I'm beginning to really hate the guy. . .

Bush doesn't have to do anything right now that he doesn't want to do.

Nor did he in the days and weeks that followed 9/11. With the country and the world united behind him, there's no telling what an honest human being and a real leader might have been able to accomplish. We had neither of those, and we've seen the result. (For starters, the world being united behind us was actually viewed as a bad thing.) The real Bush has been painfully apparent for a long time.

Bush is a Republican. Republicans break things. That's all they know. That's all he knows. He has seven weeks left to break as much as possible. And he knows Republicans aren't going to have a chance to break very many things for some time to come. So he's going to make every last minute count.

Why does anyone harbor the delusion that Boy George II is not a anti-government (i.e., anti-government employees) conservative? Why would you suppose he would blow off Grover Norquist rather than the National Treasury Employees Union.

In the Boy George II Bubble World, the very idea of Government (or any) Employees having a Union is just wrong. All Unions are bad, and thus they are the reason that the Big 3 Auto Companies are failing and a bailout of the Big 3 would be wrong.

I mean guys, catch a clue already.

Just want to take this opportunity to thank Pelosi and Reid for not even trying to impeach this record asshole.

"The first is to point out the obviously awful development itself, which Bush easily could have avoided."

Oh sure, it's such an awful development, because collective bargaining is so much more important than national security. At least to liberals. Why is it that liberals act like flat-earth conservatives in regards to unions whose time has long passed?

Michigoose said:

"I'm beginning to really hate the guy. . ."

Somehow, I think you've always hated Bush.

Look, George W. Bush is a spoiled little boy who's always been and always will be jealous of kids smarter than him. Not wanting to impact his self confidence his parents stupidly never told him that he was a worthless ne'er do well. The scumball has never earned a dollar. I am pretty sure the scumball has never not had benefits that have not been from the big bad gubment. At the same time he feels that everybody else should work their fingers to the bone for every dime that they make. I hope only bad stuff for this guy going forward. What I really want for him, because I think that's what will affect him the most is to have Americans have a real total revulsion of him a la OJ Simpson. Ofcourse I don't want him to be able to make any money off his presidency either.

SteveIL wrote: "... collective bargaining is so much more important than national security. At least to liberals."

Not only is Bush is the same old, same old white collar crook as he ever was, but SteveIL is the same old, same old Bush-bootlicking, drivel-regurgitating, weak-minded, ignorant, brain-dead dittohead that he ever was.

SteveIL wrote: "Somehow, I think you've always hated Bush."

Somehow, I think you've always been a mental slave of scripted, programmed, inane right-wing talking points, incapable of independent thought, capable only of slavishly regurgitating Rush Limbaugh's vomit, and you always will be.

I'm reminded of a comment I heard Bill Maher make recently: "It seems like Bush won't be happy untill he leaves office with the White House smoldering behind him."

I'm not surprised by his behavior, because I expected it. He's clearly humiliated and hurting big time, knowing full well that his party suffered a massive defeat because of hatred and disgust over him. And given that he's shown time and time again to be at heart an emotionally regressive, egotistical bully, he's striking out at the best target he has...us. His thinking seems to be, "You don't want me, well, f__k you, I'll make you pay."

If eliminating collective bargaining rights is essential for U.S. security, isn't Bush a coward and/or a traitor for waiting until now to take action?

I think you're all giving him too much credit. More likely, the processes that he let Cheney & Co. put in place years ago, by which the worst corporations get the agencies to fulfill their wishes, is ramping up more or less automatically as it nears its end.

SecularAnimist said:

"Not only is Bush is the same old, same old white collar crook as he ever was, but SteveIL is the same old, same old Bush-bootlicking, drivel-regurgitating, weak-minded, ignorant, brain-dead dittohead that he ever was."

"Somehow, I think you've always been a mental slave of scripted, programmed, inane right-wing talking points, incapable of independent thought, capable only of slavishly regurgitating Rush Limbaugh's vomit, and you always will be."

Coming from a slave of Marxism/Stalinism, capable of only vomiting up the tripe from Michael Moore and The One's heroes Saul Alinsky and terrorist Bill Ayers, that is high praise indeed.

MMM, smell the legacy.

And, SteveIL, you illogical ignoramus. Who says national security and the rights of workers are incompatible?

Of course, too many Dems have bought into the idea that private communication and national security are incompatible.

That said, we have four years to promote real, third-party alternatives.

SteveIL wrote: "Coming from a slave of Marxism/Stalinism, capable of only vomiting up the tripe from Michael Moore and The One's heroes Saul Alinsky and terrorist Bill Ayers ..."

Thanks for acknowledging that you have nothing to offer but the "Right Wing Talking Points For Dummies" that Rush Limbaugh spoon-feeds you every day.

The reality is that you are going to LOVE having Obama as president -- just think of it, you can spend the next four (maybe eight!) years in an ecstatic orgy of HATE.

After all, the only real content of your fake, phony, so-called "conservative" pseudo-ideology is hatred of "liberals" -- just as the only real content of the pseudo-ideology of mid-1930s German brownshirts was hatred of "Jews".

Face it: bootlicking hero-worship of George W. Bush was just never as much fun as wallowing in hatred of a "liberal" president. Especially once it became unavoidably obvious to even the brownest-nosed Bush-worshipper that the man was an incompetent, corrupt, miserable failure.

But now, even more than in the glory days of the Cult Of Clinton Hatred in the 1990s, you can once again joyfully indulge yourself in what all right-wingers love the most: hate, hate, hate, hate, all the time.

In all of this, where are responsible journalists to report this to the American people and the world? I am serious, not being sarcastic. If, indeed, what Bush is doing is detrimental to the operation of the government, our global prestige and the well-being of all of us, how can it be ignored, for any reason? Are the corporations and executives that control the dipersion of news and information so blind to the consequences of Bush's actions as to put the country in jeopardy so they can avoid losing money and power for a few more days?

I would hope that the incoming administration points out the obstruction that has been put in place, not as a vengeful act but as a recognition of how this preceding administration created the mess that they are inheriting and asking for the assistance of all Americans to right the floundering ship of state. What Obama has demonstrated so far is that he wants to bring us together as a nation and heal the wounds of the past. People who denounce Obama and question his motives, yet continue to praise Bush and his actions, are suffering from miopic vision and an unwillingness to objectively examine what is happening and what will result from these final acts of reactive vengeance.

I trust that this will eventually be exposed; I only wish it could happen sooner so that Bush could be stopped. The consequences of his actions are not isolated to a few unionists and environmentalists and social activists. They have farreaching consequences for all of us.

I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation
peace,
st john

Would it be terribly improper to adopt an old Islamic custom, and declare a "fatwah" against Dubya---calling on all real Americans to rise up against this rotten little rug-rat of a president with an unrestricted rejection of his very existence?

Don't kill him; he's not worth the wholesale price of a pre-Khrushchev Bulgarian rifle bullet---but no one would have to do anything for him ever again. Put Air Force One, the helicopters, and the limo into "extended maintenance." Stop making deliveries to the WH. Put a solid wall of pickets around every inch of the perimeter in Crawford.

Come January 20, make him leave town on a bus---and don't invite him to anything after that.

Get universities and local communities to declare him "persona non gratae."

Let him know---and loudly so---that he's just not welcome anymore.

This man deserves to be shunned by decent society.

Can't we just send him hunting with Dick Cheney?

Socratic Gadfly said:

"Who says national security and the rights of workers are incompatible?"

Nobody would say that, not even me. But we aren't talking about the rights of workers, but about public employee unions being irresponsible, and putting national security in jeopardy in order to increase their own revenues. It's happened before (the illegal PATCO strike).

Besides, Bush didn't write the Executive Order allowing for exclusions, Carter did link: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode05/usc_sec_05_00007103----000-notes.html; page down until you find Ex. Ord. No. 12171). How many of you liberals knew that? Bush just added to the list.

SecularAnimist said:

"The reality is that you are going to LOVE having Obama as president -- just think of it, you can spend the next four (maybe eight!) years in an ecstatic orgy of HATE."

Hate is something liberals do, which is what I've seen from them for 8 years. I don't hate Obama; I just don't believe he will do anything right. I've set my standards low with Obama because he hasn't shown me any quality indicating a higher ranking. Plus, it keeps me from being disappointed (and all you Obama worshipers will be disappointed with him).

Even conservatives who hated Clinton never sounded like this:

"Would it be terribly improper to adopt an old Islamic custom, and declare a "fatwah" against Dubya---calling on all real Americans to rise up against this rotten little rug-rat of a president with an unrestricted rejection of his very existence?"

It is amazing that a liberal would be so hateful as to act like Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, a member of Al Qaeda, a member of the Taliban, a member of Hamas, a member of Hezbollah, and an Iranian theocrat. I'll bet this Steve W. doesn't even hate bin Laden this much.

This is what today's liberalism has been reduced to.

The next time somebody says, "Public Service calls to the best of us, and strikes a resonant chord in those who would give the best of their talents to serve their fellow man", I'm going to laugh myself into any one of several unpleasant involuntary reactions.

If he had not miraculously (and not in a good way) succeeded to the nation's highest office, George W. Bush would have been unable to run Customer Relations at Piggly Wiggly. Never has the phrase, "willfully ignorant" been so aptly applied. The only ones to be surprised are those who thought they couldn't be more disappointed. Surprise, folks!!!!

If Bush thinks he can enact all this bad legislation, I sure wonder at the number of pardons he will issue to keep he and his henchmen out of trouble.

I know the CW is that Bush doesn't care to really help anyone but himself, but I do think he'll go "pardon-happy" and make Bill Clinton's last days in office look like a kindergarten.

That's right, SteveIL - we liberals are all secretly bin Laden admirers: I personally consult with him before posting. I have his SatPhone number, but I'm not telling you because you'd probably torture him, or cut off his pension benefits. Thank Allah we don't have to hide it anymore, now that the U.S. has a secret Muslim president.

Before you fire that on up to Captain's Quarters and the Drudge Report, I'm being sarcastic.

"And what do we see from this Bush, unencumbered by expectations and campaign politics?"

Nothing different really.

Bush's actions during the past eight years wreaked of(Sacre bleu! dubya, a frog!?)French King Louis XIV's apocryphal boast:"l'etat, c'est moi."

SteveIL

PATCO? Come on, you gotta do better than that. Perhaps you can tell us exactly what demands these 8600 Federal employees have made that irresponsibly threatened our security? Can you name one? Any actions they've taken? Anything?

I don't know why people hate employees who have good unions working for them. The American worker has only received a 1% (after inflation) increase in wages since 2000 (maybe longer)although productivity has gone up 15%. Yeah, go ahead and hate the employees of the Big 3 car companies because they were smart enough to take the risk of belonging to a union. Do you think that employers gave the rest of us insurance and retirement and health benefits out of the goodness of their hearts? No, it was because a union somewhere fought for that benefit and it trickled down. With NO unions, I'm sure we will do much worse.

Henry Ford had it right. In order for his cars to sell, his employees had to be able to afford them. That's what Republicans don't get and it is one of the major causes of this depression we are going into.

Maureen Dowd had an editorial about a Pasadena newsman who outsourced his news to India. When all the newspapers and other companies do that where do you think we will be? Those outsourced factories are making products for US not some third world country to buy. What happens when no one can afford them. The U.S. is going third world, just so the "haves" can have more.

Wake up and stop dissing unions.

You are absolutely correct, this is the true Bush ethos. And not just Duhbya, this is the Bush Dynasty creed.

The act of denying bargaining rights, as with so many of Bush’s acts, is not necessary on any level. It is sheer meanness. He knows no one has the power to stop him.

It is consistent with his need to personally plan tortures and to sit and watch the destruction, death and suffering of pointless wars, to condemn poor and middle class to using the ER as the equivalent of a family physician.

It is consistent with stories of the young Duhyba torturing animals.

At a guess within a few years of leaving office former President Bush will descend into total alcoholism and or show the true depth of his sadistic insanity. What purpose can his life have after January?

Hopefully most of his criminal cabal will eventually be picked off by police of other nations, tried and appropriately punished by the standards set by the US in the Nuremberg trials.

Duhyba will have life time SS protection and will probably get the pleasure of watching his supporters suffer at his behest, knowing that he is untouchable. All the more proof, to his mind, of his royalty. That is assuming he is cogent enough to notice or whether there is enough decency left in him to care.

The Bible has a wonderful allusion of what happens when a person turns their heart to stone, and there are countless parables, lore, and libraries full fiction and historical illustrations of that truth.

What a pity that the Bush's don't read and cannot comprehend even the simplest of these morality stories.

Uh, folks? It's not just sheer meanness at work here. It's also the fact that George W. Bush doesn't want to be treated for the rest of his life the way he was treated during the GOP convention this year. Doing anything he can to please the Moneycons on his way out the White House door if Bush's best ticket to getting more than the back of its hand from the Republican Party in the years to come.

Mike

tomeck said:

"Perhaps you can tell us exactly what demands these 8600 Federal employees have made that irresponsibly threatened our security? Can you name one? Any actions they've taken? Anything?"

Again, it's not about the employees, but the public employee unions. As far as any actions, I gave you one, the illegal PATCO strike. The union irresponsibly called for a strike it had no business calling. It happened once, it could happen again. That's why the E.O. is in place.

Shorter SteveIL:

"Damn...only 7 more weeks to lick Bush's ass!"

call me a cynic...but i have to assume that even beyond the sheer idology of doing this sh!t, bush must be expecting a big payday from somebody for this kind of activity...

maybe he thinks the folks he's benefiting will offer him speaking gigs as the prid quo pro...

SteveIL, do you condone Bush's actions?

MMMM, tasty!

Again, it's not about the employees, but the public employee unions. As far as any actions, I gave you one, the illegal PATCO strike.

So a strike that happened 30 years ago proves that federal employee unions are bad today?

bush's reign of terror is characterized by his 'F-U, I'm King' attitude to everything. He is a completely self-absorbed A-hole; a puerile soulless doltish sadistic brute; bush is the very definition of a "prick". You couldn't dream up a worse person in your awfullest moments.

It would be ridiculous to think for an instant that bush would use the "liberation" of his waning days to do anything reasonable, helpful, or respectful. Just hold your breath he is sated with being a regular old prick and doesn't get really fancy and start hurling nukes around the globe just for spite.

Wow, this SteveIl guy is a regular George Will for the blogosphere!

Please. It would be one thing if your arguments had some sort of credence, but alas, as Bu$h has hopefully finally proven, conservatism is a dying ideology that has no place in this changing 21st century world.

You people had your chance. You had a 3 branch majority from 2000 to 2006. A conservative wet dream, where almost every single plank of the 30+ year old conservative platform was implemented. Except under Bu$h, it was more like a multiple orgasm.

Well, now we see the results. And, as usual, the culprits, the plutocracy that you so readily embrace, are blaming your average Joe.

The union worker for Detroit's plight.

Risky borrowers for the housing collapse.

Clinton for Al-Queada.

Liberalism for everything else.

Are we starting to see a pattern here?

Face it SteveIL, your people had their chance and they failed miserably. Step up and be a man, have some accountability.

If you want to look at character for a minute:

Republican Gov. George Ryan of Illinois was prosecuted for a major bribery operation that he participated in while he was Illinois Secretary of State and went to jail. His last act as governor was to commute the death sentences of everyone on Illinois' Death Row to life without parole because he'd freed a dozen Death Row inmates who were wrongly convicted and became convinced that the death penalty process in Illinois was broken to the point that he could not in good conscience allow anyone else to be executed while he was governor. He was raked over the coals, but there was nothing anyone could do. It's not like Ryan had anything to lose at that point.

What does George Bush do? He tries to bust unions.

It's pretty bad when your moral sense is worse than a guy who went to prison for political corruption.

I'm just waiting for him to flip the bird to all of us as he struts of into the sunset

Winkandanod@7:38 All during this administration I saw the Statue of Liberty flipping the bird with the right hand to all those entering the NY Harbor and embracing the Patriot Act in the left. Would that it could be pulled down like the statue of Sadaam was in Iraq, and replaced with the true Lady Liberty.
What Bush gave to us is a demonstration of what happens when we don't take responsibility for our own governance. As has been said of Hitler, and I use him in this context intentionally, is that he did not build the ovens, round up the Jews and others, drive the trains or any of the other atrocities for which he was credited. Bush will go down in history as a symbol of apathy and denial of what is in plain sight. His lack of curiosity was condoned and enabled by all of us. Had we been diligent and vigilant in our observations, and spoken out(street demonstrations were not reported effectively) to the powers of media, things could have been different. We now have a chance to do it differently. The Bailout is not complete. What can we do to channel the vast wealth of this nation into its resurrection? It is beyond politics and Wall Street and the Big 3. I don't have THE ANSWER, but I bet we could come up with some pretty original ideas if we just allowed our minds to wander, like the imaginations of children, to whom nothing is impossible.

I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation
peace,
st john

Mnemosyne said:

"So a strike that happened 30 years ago proves that federal employee unions are bad today?"

Not by itself. But when you add up how much union pensions, based on lousy contracts by irresponsible unions and equally irresponsible politicians and bureaucrats (who do not base those contracts on attaining a profit), are bankrupting state after state, yeah government employee unions, at all levels of government, are bad today. What do we get? Governors going to Washington with tincups like bums asking for a handout because they are too cowardly to raise taxes on their own state's residents and risk getting thrown out of office. So you and I get to not only pay for federal employees and pensioners, we get to pay every other states' government employees and pensioners.

"It's pretty bad when your moral sense is worse than a guy who went to prison for political corruption."

Oh, really? Ryan's corruption led to the deaths of 6 children in one family, all burned to death, killed by a driver who paid a bribe to the Sec. of State's office to get a trucker's license. Then-Sec. of State Ryan killed the investigation.

His last act as Governor to commute those death sentences was to garner sympathy. He didn't give a rat's ass about those on death row. And if he says he did, I don't believe him for a minute. He's never owned up to his own criminality, so who would believe Ryan cared about other criminals? Only a fool would.

citizen_pain said:

"You people had your chance. You had a 3 branch majority from 2000 to 2006."

Democrats had a majority in the Senate from July, 2001 until January, 2003. Get your facts straight. By the way, these are the same Democrats who passed both the 2001 AUMF (following 9/11) and the 2002 AUMF (Iraq).

"Well, now we see the results. And, as usual, the culprits, the plutocracy that you so readily embrace, are blaming your average Joe."

Bull. The unions are not made of "your average Joe". They used to, but that was decades ago. They're nothing more than businesses like the corporations they demonize.

"Please. It would be one thing if your arguments had some sort of credence, but alas, as Bu$h has hopefully finally proven, conservatism is a dying ideology that has no place in this changing 21st century world."

Bush is a social conservative, but is very much a fiscal liberal. Medicare Part D and all these bailouts prove it. Conservatism isn't a dying ideology since it wasn't practiced.

What you all call liberalism (I call it something else) is a massive failure, and can only exist and expand by lies. Now that liberals have the White House and the Congress, what they do to this country will bear that out. I've seen how liberalism is bankrupting Illinois.

The worst is yet to come! Wait 'til we see that pardons and the truly last minute deals. One the positive side, that should end the debate about whether the Obama Administration and the Congress would serve the nation by seeking to prosecute and investigate the Bush/Cheney crimes.

For St. John and other like minded souls

http://www.thevenusproject.com/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912

But when you add up how much union pensions, based on lousy contracts by irresponsible unions and equally irresponsible politicians and bureaucrats (who do not base those contracts on attaining a profit), are bankrupting state after state, yeah government employee unions, at all levels of government, are bad today.

Dude, if you think the problems that the states are facing today are solely due to state employees' unions, then there's no help for you. You essentially believe the Illuminati are coming to get you, because that's about as rational as believing that states are being bankrupted by employee unions.

Oh, really? Ryan's corruption led to the deaths of 6 children in one family, all burned to death, killed by a driver who paid a bribe to the Sec. of State's office to get a trucker's license. Then-Sec. of State Ryan killed the investigation.

Bush's corruption has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and that doesn't seem to bother you much. Forgive me if I doubt you're shedding many tears for those kids.

His last act as Governor to commute those death sentences was to garner sympathy. He didn't give a rat's ass about those on death row. And if he says he did, I don't believe him for a minute. He's never owned up to his own criminality, so who would believe Ryan cared about other criminals? Only a fool would.

Again, as you seem to not give a damn about your fellow Americans fighting and dying overseas in a pointless war, or about the thousands of civilians we've killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, or about the thousands of Americans who will go hungry because all of our money is going to prop up AIG, I'm not quite sure where your contempt for Ryan is coming from. He at least decided that the process was corrupt (and who would know better?) and tried to do something to stop it. You can't admit that Bush screwed up the war in Iraq, even after he's admitted it himself.

steveIL Says:
"...Democrats had a majority in the Senate from July, 2001 until January, 2003. Get your facts straight. By the way, these are the same Democrats who passed both the 2001 AUMF (following 9/11) and the 2002 AUMF (Iraq)..."

Cherry picking democratic votes in immediate, post 9-11 circumstances is hardly an indictment.

And this majority in the senate of which you speak is meaningless, since the Tom DeLay sponsored K-Street gang was so notorious in excluding democrats from many a midnight vote among other things. They turned gaming senatorial rules and procedures into an art form.

SteveIL says..."Bull. The unions are not made of "your average Joe". They used to, but that was decades ago. They're nothing more than businesses like the corporations they demonize..."

Is this something you came up with by yourself? On what basis do you make these claims? Are you a business owner? So you are equating humans to a corporate bottom line?

Again with SteveIL: "...Bush is a social conservative, but is very much a fiscal liberal. Medicare Part D and all these bailouts prove it. Conservatism isn't a dying ideology since it wasn't practiced..."

No, Bu$h is the puppet who was chosen to represent the conservative movement. Compassionate conservative as well. As I said before, you people had your chance and failed miserably.

Ok, so DeLay wasn't in the Senate. Doesn't change a thing. The GOP practically changed the rules in both houses to ramrod down the throat of the American people their unpopular and ultimately ruinous agenda.

Always was.

wow,all this talk about Boy George, I don't see how no one seen it coming. Think about it, usually people that aren't very smart, or even a little smart, like to bully people - or pretty much hold grudges against those that are smarter, remember, the high school bully.

I also don't see how no one seen it coming. This boy (I say because of his mentality), was a 'c' student. Heck, you almost picked Palin, who claims she has a journalism degree, yet not even know the 3 branches of government, nor the functions of each. In essence, this shows, she probably failed government class in high school. She went to 4 different junior colleges. Why? Was she put on academic probation? Throughout her campaign, she kept quoting excerpts from Ronald Reagan's innagaural speech without giving credit (journalists know they must credit authors). She said Dick Cheney was duck hunting, when in fact, in was hunting quail.

Palin puts on like she is smart, but, behind her trying to control every interview, she's really saying I will talk about what I want to talk about.

She probably doesn't know that Libya is an African Nation - she'd probably say oh, the Middle East.

You people need to stop thinking about who you'd like to have a beer with, or who you like to shop with or sit with at a hockey game, because once they become pres. you can't get anywhere near them. Stop thinking they are just like you, because when you do, you make yourself look bad.

And for all the male republicans putting Palin on a pedestal, stop and think, that's one woman you'll never have. Todd will make sure of that. Besides, she's not all that, Pam Anderson, Diane Lane, actually, there's a lot of women who look better than her - why don't you stop trying to act like a christian and lusting after this married woman with a house full of kids, THAT'S NOT CHRISTIAN-LIKE, lusting after another man's wife. Oh, I forgot, you guys are trying to show you don't just like underage boys, and that you do like the opposite sex! LOL-LOL

BTW, Boy George is not bad, only a bad leader. Hugo Chavez has said and did everything to BG short of kicking his A**. Vladamir Putin called him out.

I'm willing to bet BG has never had a physical fight in his entire life, well, probably with the exception of Jeb.

Yeah, he may have been able to bully his school mates by saying, "do you know who my dad is?"
If he said,"do you know who my dad is?" in the hood (ghetto), he would have been told, "Hell, I don't know who my dad is," before getting the S*** kicked out of him.

He has probably never stepped foot in a ghetto, just like he was afraid to step off the plane in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. Yes, he had to wait until most of the people were gone.

This boy is so vile, I am starting to wondering if the 9-11 conspiracy has any validity to it.

Mnemosyne said:

Dude, if you think the problems that the states are facing today are solely due to state employees' unions, then there's no help for you.

Nope, but they are one of the largest problems states and local governments face. I live in Illinois, one of those states running on a perpetual deficit. And you know what one of the biggest items killing the state budget? That's right, funding the pension system.

Bush's corruption has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and that doesn't seem to bother you much. Forgive me if I doubt you're shedding many tears for those kids.

Hundreds of thousands? Still trotting out that ridiculous "report" that has no basis in fact? The war wasn't caused as a result of any kind of "corruption" from the Bush administration, as anyone who has taken an honest reading of the events understands.

As far as the kids killed as a result of Ryan's actual corruption, it was very upsetting. You have no idea how glad I was that Ryan was finally charged, tried, convicted, and sent to jail for what he did to this state. My guess I'm more upset about all this than you are about the war, since liberals still attempt to rewrite the history of how it came about.

Again, as you seem to not give a damn about your fellow Americans fighting and dying overseas in a pointless war, or about the thousands of civilians we've killed in Afghanistan and Iraq,...

And you don't seem to give a damn for all the Americans murdered by terrorists; the civilians murdered by terrorists; the maniacal dictators from the past Afghani and Iraqi regimes who were in bed with the terrorists committing this murder, or murdering their own people; and you seem to look backwards with an antiwar Vietnam-era outlook that sees the defenders of our freedoms, our soldiers, only as murderers. Do you call our soldiers baby killers to their faces if you see any of them?

...or about the thousands of Americans who will go hungry because all of our money is going to prop up AIG,

Gee, our money wouldn't be going to companies like AIG if the Democrats running Congress didn't give the administration the money to do so, or did something to stop it, which they don't.

I'm not quite sure where your contempt for Ryan is coming from. He at least decided that the process was corrupt (and who would know better?) and tried to do something to stop it.

As I've already mentioned (and if you hadn't guessed from my name here, SteveIL), I'm from Illinois, and I live with the result of Ryan's corruption, which includes living under the thoroughly corrupt Blagojevich. Ryan was simply trying to gain sympathy votes to avoid going to prison. Considering how corrupt Ryan was, his opinion of how corrupt the Illinois death penalty process was should be taken with a grain of salt. Needless to say, thankfully, it didn't work. The underlying feature of both ex-Governor Ryan and current Governor Blagojevich? They're both liberals, even if from different parties. And if you say I should move out of state, I will be within the next couple of months.

citizen_pain said:

Cherry picking democratic votes in immediate, post 9-11 circumstances is hardly an indictment.

Cherry picking Democratic votes? The 2001 AUMF was passed with one NAY Democratic vote in the House, and unanimously in the Senate. Democrats had all the chairmanships of all the Senate committees and subcommittees. Nearly 40% of House Democrats and 59% of Senate Democrats voted for the 2002 AUMF, and didn't bother considering it in any of the committees chaired by the Democrats. There wasn't even an attempt at a filibuster.

Is this something you came up with by yourself? On what basis do you make these claims? Are you a business owner? So you are equating humans to a corporate bottom line?

What a ridiculous argument. What do you think makes up a corporate bottom line, satyrs walking around the forest playing the flute? Or maybe leprechauns looking for the "pot of gold"? Unions and corporations and governments are made up of the same thing, people. And as far as the bottom line of corporations, how do you think unions keep operating? Maybe like a business who have to maintain a bottom line, otherwise they don't operate? As I've mentioned, the big unions, and especially government employee unions, have become like the corporations they demonize.

God Bush America.

(And he did!)

Oh boy another mindless douche bag(SteveIl)to rail on. So Steve tell us all. What exactly is it that your heros the republicans have done in the last 30 years that has been of any benefit to us the americans.

Gandalf said:

What exactly is it that your heros the republicans have done in the last 30 years that has been of any benefit to us the americans.

See, this is the kind of hatred liberals won't show to America's enemies. President Bush, like every other President of any political party, has sought consensus with Congress regardless of which party's members had a majority there (uniter, not a divider). But since Day 1 of the Bush Presidency, Democrats have been the ones being divisive, all the while blaming the divisiveness on President Bush.

Now, Obama will be President, and he's doing all the same things Bush did in order to be a new uniter. Even now, however, liberals like the history revisionist Thomas Friedman care only about how events could positively affect Democrats, not America. In fact, a liar like Friedman doesn't care one bit about America or his fellow Americans, typical of today's liberals. Again, liberals are more concerned about Democrats, while hating other Americans more than they hate America's enemies.

To answer Gandalf's question, Reagan did stand up to the Soviet Union which helped lead to their demise, something Carter didn't do. This freed millions upon millions of people from the murderous tyranny of the Communists. This also allowed the U.S. to expand trade to nations no longer under the Soviet umbrella, something that benefits everyone. And as a result, our defense spending, as a percentage of the federal budget, had been steadily decreasing over the last 20 years. Even with the wars the U.S. is waging, defense spending isn't close to the levels it was back in the day.

Reagan and congressional Republicans began the unprecedented 25 years of economic growth for everybody (with a couple of hiccups) that only recently has turned sour.

How's that?

Anybody want to place a bet on which federal government building(s) Bush will have burned or blown up before he leaves office?