Let's make this topic a little less clear, shall we? Let's add honesty to the question. Are honesty and truthfulness the same thing? Can they be interchangeable, or is one different from the other?
Can I answer a question honestly, but not truthfully? I'm not really sure.
We could ask Bill Clinton and he would probably reply that "it all depends on what the definition of honesty/truthfulness is"!
Example: My mother finds me with money she believes I didn't have that morning and she knows she didn't give it to me. I answer her that I found it. I "did" "find" it, in a wallet. But I didn't add that there was some id in the wallet and that I could have turned the wallet into the authorities. So, I was being honest. I did find the money. But I wasn't being truthful because I didn't say where I found it.
Confusing? It is for me.
But, maybe I just have too much time on my hands nowadays. I enjoy looking at things from different angles -- makes life a little more exciting for me.
When you upset people on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum, odds are are that you are doing ok at your job.
The health care reform bill was a compromise effort that was the result of a tortuous process.
Those on the right would have you believe that the majority of American people are against it. Which, if you only look at that particular question, would be true. But, when you look at a separate question that addresses whether the bill went far enough in its reform efforts, a large majority say no, it didn't. If Obama had included a strong public option in the bill, the vast majority of American people would have been in support of the bill.
Those on the far left are upset with him primarily for not getting everything they wanted, both in the sense of not getting all they wanted in each legislative effort and victory, but also in not getting everything they wanted, done in the first two years. There are also many on the left who are upset that he refuses to take a firm stand on any issue just for the principle of the issue, even if he knows up front that he can't win. He is being too political, too concerned with being re-elected, just like all politicians.
And, finally, there are many on the left who are upset because he refuses to investigate and prosecute those individuals and/or companies responsible for torturing prisoners and for carrying out certain elements of the Patriot Act believed to be unconstitutional.
The state of the economy has put him the bad graces of those in the middle, politically -- the independents and moderates. They tend to believe that he should not have tackled any issue other than jobs.
Those on the right just plain don't like him, for any reason. Some don't like him because he is black, some because they say he is too liberal. Some who blame him for the deficit and the national debt. I tend to feel, IMHO, that most of the opinions of those on the right are bogus, that they just want to bring down his presidency, at any cost, whether they have to lie or do anything else, including fomenting unrest.
Been there. Done that. I believe only a tiny percentage of couples could survive the stresses of an open relationship. I know that it sounds good to some -- and it may even start out ok, but, after awhile distrust seeps in and from there on it is all downhill.
Yes, you see a lot of speech on the internet that can be classed as hate speech.
I am going to make a leap here and say that I believe that many people will post sarcastic and/or stupid remarks, just to appear cool to others of similar ability. I believe that most of these types of people are less mature than some others who really care about their responses to a thread or a blog or forum post.
I am old enough to try and post thoughtfully. But I am also old enough to speak my mind, with no care as to whether someone likes or dislikes my remarks.
I may or may not agree with what you post, but I will try to never lose my patience and post when I am upset by any particular comment.
I have faith that the vast majority of people on this site are among that group who post intelligently.
I think the old quote of "not being able to see the forest for the trees", applies here.
Obviously, we can't turn back the events of the past. It "is" over and done.
But, America cannot hold itself out to be a beacon of democracy when it does not lead by example.
Yes. We were lied to about getting into the war. Yes, Saddam was a bad man.
But beyond that, I take serious issues with your position. Obviously, you are either a current member of the military, or are a veteran. So your response and the way you feel are understood.
But, though Saddam was a bad person, it was not our job to take him down. That should have been the job of the Iraqi people -- and them only. It should not have been our position to stick our nose into their affairs. Our military responses to 9/11 should have been limited to action in Afghanistan.
Our leaders, who misled not only the American people, but people globally, should be held to account for their lies and deceptions. They should be prosecuted, preferably for mass murder.
We cannot be the policemen of the world. We can't even deal with our own problems, of which there are many, let alone trying to deal with the problems of other sovereign countries.
Further, the issue of the torture of people during these two conflicts, should be addressed and acted on.
Everyone, up to and including top generals, our President and Vice-President, should be investigated and prosecuted for advocating torture, in direct violation of not only our own laws, but also in direct violation of international treaties and conventions, which we were signatories to and ratification of the same. There is never any excuse for torture, no matter which individual(s) is/are involved, or which countries aided and abetted torture.
I think we would be terribly foolish to think that we are the only intelligent life in the universe. And terribly arrogant.
I also believe that many of our technological advances, through the years, came as a result of reverse engineering. Reverse engineering that came from a spacecraft that I really believe did crash in New Mexico in 1947.
There are too many reports from airline pilots (off the record) of the strange things they have seen. Of course, they never officially acknowledged their existence, as they wanted to keep their jobs.
So, yes, I believe there is an E.T. our there, somewhere. And maybe, just maybe, someday, as a civilization, we will have advanced enough to warrant a positive contact.
I agree totally. Torture is wrong, no matter who does it, or what country does it.
Speaking as an American, I am ashamed when my political leaders advocate and condone active violations of treaties and conventions we are signatories to.
This is not a left or right issue. It is a legal and moral one. Our use of torture, besides being illegal, prevents us from ever claiming the moral high ground on issues of torture. Until we investigate and prosecute all those who did these things, we will not get that moral high standard back.
I guess I am approaching this differently than others, but then, I am a different kind of guy.
Find a way to bring back the nuclear family -- a father and a mother, together raising their children;
Find a way to get back our outsourced jobs; especially our manufacturing jobs. We can use tariffs and other disincentives to force corporations to bring back the jobs. Could this create a trade war? Quite possibly. But the other side will hurt more from it than we will;
Rein in the unions. Unions, as they were first envisaged, served a noble purpose. They do not do that any longer. They got greedy, demanding more and more with each successive contract, until they priced themselves out of business and jobs. Drastic cutbacks are going to be required -- givebacks on wages, health benefits and pension benefits. When you have union people who have retired and are drawing pensions that are greater than what their wages were, there is something wrong;
Go to a flat tax, with no loopholes, no deductions -- and make them apply to everyone, individuals and all businesses;
Do away with all farm subsidies and other corporate welfare;
Stop making it so easy to get a divorce. Do away with no-fault divorces. It is too easy to just walk away from a marriage and the commitments that it contains. Make marriage partners accountable for their behaviors, both good and bad;
Stop being policemen to the world. We have our problems, they have their problems. We can't solve their problems for them, we have a damned hard enough time solving our own problems.
Severely cut back foreign aid. We are not the world's piggy bank. Why should we send Israel over $3 billion a year -- not a loan, but outright gifts. It makes no sense. They don't listen to us, they ignore us, so why pay them to ignore us?;
Pull back our military forces from several locations around the world. Why have forces in Germany still, when the cold war has supposedly ended? Our forces are worn out, strung out -- and need to come home for much needed rest and training;
Reinstitute the draft, so that all young Americans must fulfill a military obligation. We have problems with border security. Our troops could be diverted to that use, easily. Maybe our politicians would think twice about starting new wars if their sons and daughters were going to be involved;
I have often dreamed about that very question and here was my plan:
Get a good attorney and have him/her draw up an agreement with a bank to first pay all my bills (prior to getting the check or making my name known), then to have the bank arrange at the same time to get me 3 or 4 credit cards (bad credit due to divorce and bankruptcy).
Cash a check at the bank at the same time I deposit my check and pick up my credit cards and pay off the bank loan.
Temporarily rent a home while I look for a home to buy way out in some rural area difficult to find or get to.
Give my friend Tim some money to fix up and get his farm back working again, as well as to ensure he doesn't have to work again.
Buy a motorcoach home and tour all the "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" I can find across the country.
Then, invest the rest after furnishing my new home.
Vanish from the face of the earth as far as 90 percent of the people I know are concerned and live the rest of my days peacefully and quietly.
It's really sad that American values and ideals have sunk so low that a majority of them can be drugged (e.g. duped, hoodwinked, bamboozled, etc.) into believing the lies on the political right.
Taxes are the lowest they have been in decades, yet the right continues their lies, by hollering that taxes are too high, the highest ever. For corporations, their tax rate is the lowest it has been in years. Heck, last year IBM paid $0 in taxes. Warren Buffet even stated that his secretary paid more in taxes than he did.
GOP'rs claim to want to cut back on the massive amounts spent by "big" government. Yet, they want to exclude defense spending and any spending by the Department of Homeland Security.
They all praise Ronald Reagan. Look at what happened when Reagan came into office. He got massive tax cuts passed and increased spending. Common sense. What happens when spending totals are larger than the revenue coming in? Deficits. Which is what we got stuck with. His "trickle down" economics never worked.
The GOP's are still pushing this same line. Give us all the tax cuts we want and the economy will grow and we will have more jobs. It hasn't worked. It never will work. The only thing that is growing are the bottom lines of big businesses. The only people getting rich are those who were already rich. Certainly not the middle class, or the working/unemployed poor!
You get all these people who watch "Faux" news, and who either can't or don't care to take the time to check out the truth of what they are trying to sell. They just buy into it, hook, line and sinker.
Look at all of the politicians who are supposedly against what they call "Obamacare". They rail against it, yet turn around and demand that same health care plan for themselves. Hypocrites!
But don't get me wrong. I don't agree with everything that those on the left are trying to do, or refuse to do.
Obama should be investigating and prosecuting all those who were involved in the torture of prisoners we held/hold. That includes waterboarding! Why do you think Bush cancelled his trip to Switzerland? He found out that a criminal complaint was going to be filed against him for violating the international treaty on torture. There is no country he can safely go to. Neither him or Cheney or any of the others. And yet Obama refuses to do anything here.
Obama should have pushed for the public option when Congress was debating passage of health care reform. But he refused. He should have demanded that the public option be included, even if it meant that the bill wouldn't pass with it in it, on principle.
It's truly sad, knowing that there are millions of Americans out there who are stupid enough to believe the lies on the right.
There are some times when I say "yes", others when I say "no". It would have to be someone terribly special to get me to do so.
Like others, I am sure, I have been burned before, badly enough that I should have checked into a burn center.
In an ideal world, I would say it wouldn't be necessary. But we live in an imperfect world, where there are a whole lot of people who believe in the commitment that a formal marriage entails. They believe that a marriage license offers them a greater degree of security and certainty than just living together would bring.
We need to respect their beliefs as much as we would expect them to respect ours.
Nothing in life really worth having is going to be easy to reach. And I sometimes think that that is even more true when it comes to love. Even when you eventually succeed in meeting your special person (which I believe will happen, if you are patient), it will not be any easier. You will have to work even harder to nurture it and let it grow.
I am an old man, now, and have had and lost more than one love. So I speak from a little experience. And all I have learned is that I really didn't learn anything else. I didn't work hard enough to keep it growing.
Love isn't just a four letter word. I believe that love is a construct, a framework made up of many things, different things -- passion, patience, communication, trust, loyalty, fidelity, respect, and I am sure other things I have forgotten. But then you still have to learn how to fuse all these different things together, to make them into a relationship that is bound up by all these things. Kind of like a house, made up of many different things -- and then held together by a whole lot of nails!
We will always have recessions. Keynsian economics will not prevent a recession. What it does is tell you what to do to get out of a recession quicker than what those trickle down type of people believe in.
It's funny, though, how Keynesian economics has bailed out our economy more than once -- and will again if the GOP and blue dog dems would get out of the way and let the economics work as they were envisaged.
You also asked about the stimulative impact of spending on infrastructure projects. Although some increase in spending for infrastructure may be justified in terms of improved efficiency and productivity for the U.S. economy, a substantial portion of such spending generally occurs well after funding is provided for such projects. In the case of highways, for example, most federally funded highway infrastructure projects take years to plan and construct. Most projects require state governments to match a share of federal construction funds. Although the Congress can require states to obligate funds quickly, it cannot mandate the pace of construction or the rate at which the states spend federal funds.
A variety of factors outside of governmental control, such as the weather, environmental concerns, and the availability of construction supplies and personnel, influence the pace of project expenditures. Even the reconstruction of the I-35W bridge in Minnesota—on which crews are working around the clock—is estimated to take a year and a half to complete.
Currently, planning for the summer construction season— including road resurfacing—is already underway. Some smaller, routine road projects such as resurfacing might be able to proceed in the next few months, but on net it is unlikely that providing more highway funds in fiscal year 2008 would have a significant stimulative effect over the next 12 months.
Honorable John D. Rockefeller IV
Page 3 I hope this information is useful to you. If you have further questions, do not hesitate to call me.
Sincerely,
Peter R. Orszag Director
cc: Honorable Max Baucus, Chairman Committee on Finance Honorable Charles E. Grassley, Ranking Member Honorable Orrin G. Hatch, Ranking Member Subcommittee on Health Care
(A letter in support of the stimulus from the CBO)
April 17, 2008
Honorable John D. Rockefeller IV Chairman Subcommittee on Health Care Committee on Finance United States Senate Washington, DC 20510
Dear Mr. Chairman:
This letter responds to your request for an assessment of the economic stimulus that would result from providing fiscal relief to states through either an increase in federal Medicaid assistance and general grants to states, or through an increase in funding for infrastructure projects. (CBO discussed a variety of options aimed at economic stimulus in its recent paper, Options for Responding to Short-Term Economic Weakness.)
Fiscal Relief to States During economic downturns, state and local governments experience a reduction in revenues resulting from the effect of lower economic activity on sales, income, and other tax bases. Unlike the federal government, which faces no statutory or constitutional requirement to balance its annual budget, almost all states have some version of a balanced budget requirement, although the stringency varies. As a result, when state revenues decline sufficiently to create a budget deficit, most states reduce spending or increase taxes (or do some combination of both) to address the resulting fiscal problem.
Such reductions in spending or increases in taxes constrain aggregate demand in the economy, which tends to worsen the decline in economic activity.
Some proposals would provide financial assistance to certain states through higher federal Medicaid matching rates and through general grants outside of the Medicaid program. Under current law, Medicaid matching rates vary across states, but range from 50 percent to 76 percent, and average about 57 percent. You asked about the effect of a proposal that would target the financial assistance to states in greater economic stress—as determined by Honorable John D. Rockefeller IV
Page 2
formula that ranks states by recent increases in participation in the Food Stamp program, unemployment, and housing foreclosures.
In general, the extent to which additional federal aid to state and local governments would help stimulate demand depends on the degree to which those governments would alter their behavior.
If they were to cut spending less or raise taxes less as a result of federal aid, the federal assistance would help keep aggregate demand from falling as much. Targeting federal aid to states that are experiencing economic difficulties would increase the cost-effectiveness of that assistance because the states receiving the funds would be the ones most likely to be experiencing fiscal difficulties and thus the most likely to change their spending or tax policies as a result.
The above link will get you a letter, signed by many, many economists, who went on record supporting the need for a massive stimulus. These economists are from almost every state in the union -- and their position was supported by the Center for Economic Policy and Research. These are my facts, where are yours?
Most all economists have been on record as to what would have happened had there not been intervention. The only criticism that I have heard, again, from major, reputable economists, about the stimulus, was that it should have been more, not less. The stimulus, at the very least, kept a large number of states from massive budget cuts for a couple of years. No more stimulus dollars, and you are seeing what is happening now. States with massive budget deficits. And if you are going to claim that Obama wasted 1 trillion dollars, where are the facts to back up that assertion. If you don't have the facts, then you are just another ideologue shooting off his mouth.
Bush started the bailouts, but of course you knew that. The stimulus and other measures helped stop this country from entering into another depression, worse than the first. The unemployment rate is always the last thing to start dropping when coming out of a recession. Obama was the first President to successfully pass health care reform in decades. Granted, there are things in it that need to be either improved or corrected. But it will get done in time, as most large reforms do. He promised to get DADT repealed -- and it has been repealed. It was your republicans who got this country into the mess it is presently in -- and it took them over ten years to do it. So you can't expect everything to be hunky dory in just two years. Those who hate the President will always hate the President, no matter what he does. They don't know anything else. I switched parties from democrat to independent, because I don't like what either party has done, but that doesn't mean that I will not give credit where credit is due.
I think that scout must have had a bad experience recently. There is a lot of anger in his comment.
The responsibilities go hand in hand with rights -- and I believe that the vast majority of women understand that already.
There are many women I have known who made the first move, as far as asking the man out. They got tired of waiting for him to step up to the plate.
I guess I'm pretty old fashioned, coming from an older generation. If I ask a woman out, I always pay for all costs involved in the date. To me, that's a natural thing -- the way it should be.
As far as child support goes, that's one of the prices a man must pay for having a family. I faithfully paid child support for ten years and had an ex who was constantly violating court orders relating to the children. But that was not the child's fault. And even if you were never allowed to see the child, you are still required to pay the support. Child support is not only a legal requirement, it is also a moral one.
And, finally, it is not only the man who takes chances going on a date, so does the woman.
Well, I can't speak for women, but if you're a man, you're lucky to walk away from a divorce with the underwear on your rear end! Men pay from the time they first meet her until long after they have split up.
I do agree that the government should legalize marijuana, as it is non-addictive and no worse than drinking booze.
But there is where I draw the line. They should never legalize the hard core drugs (e.g. heroin, cocaine, lsd, mescaline, etc.)
And I have no sympathy for the problems of anyone who is addicted to the hard core drugs. If they are caught, they need to be jailed and severely fined.
It might seem fair for a little while. But I'm pretty sure you would feel pretty cruddy after awhile.
If you are referring to someone cheating on you, which I assume you are, then I would say there is a better way.
I have been there and done that in the past. As far as turn about.
My better way is to just firmly believe that what goes around, comes around.
My ex cheated on me and I held to that philosophy. The guy she preferred ended up dying from a bad heart -- and the last I heard was that she had part of her jaw that was now stainless steel and that she was dying from cancer.
Now, I know I'm a cad from drawing satisfaction from her dying. But her cancer did not result from any action on my part.
I do not feel sorry for her and I will not apologize for feeling satisfaction.
So there, that's my humble opinion and 2 cents on the question.
I imagine there are quite a few of us in WV. I live just outside of Elkins.
A get together is a great idea. But I cannot joint you all, as I gave up my Dodge Durango a few years back, as it was too expensive to keep for the few miles I was putting on it every month.
But I hope it succeeds for you and that you have a fantastic time.
omgamike Forum Posts (122)
RE: Peace Train... Cat Stevens?
Freddy,I have yet to see anything that you "do" like. Myself, I was and still am a Cat Stevens fan, from way back in the 60's.