Well, to begin with, he no longer "resides" In Crawford. The "ranch" (all hat and no cattle) was politically useful only during his presentation as an average guy who made his money the old fashioned way - by having Daddy's (Saudi Arabian) buds bail him out of his many failed adventures. He now lives in North Dallas where he rides his bike and watches as his library is being constructed on procured land around SMU.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/sports/baseball/14bush.html?th&emc=th

Too bad they don't mention his role as "managing partner" was confined to a small investment ($600k) in a failing club ushered in with borrowed money and the potential buyer's "need" for someone with the connections of someone like W. That small loan translated into a $15m return once he was elected Gov. of Texas - on his way to being appointed The Most Powerful Individual in The Known Universe. Or that he repaid his cronies with political appointments. So nowdays W sits in the luxury stands of The Ballpark in Arlington which have been named for his "contribution". As the legend goes, the land for the stadium was W's to procure through political favors and the use of shady emminent domain take overs from individual home owners who stood in the way of capitalism run amok. Tax payer monies funded the purchase of the land and the construction of the stadium - and still do today as they do with the new Cowboys Stadium down the street from The Ballpark. W existed in the Rangers management because he was politically connected to the then Vice President of the whole US of A. There is no evidence he had any other significant role to play with the team. Though, since the Rangers were never a winning team when W was onboard, I suppose you could say he "managed" the team the same way he "managed" two wars and No Child Left Behind.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/26/14515/8001

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/05/13/president.2000/jackson.bush/

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/vol17/issue19/pols.bush.html

http://www.chris-winter.com/Erudition/Reviews/M_Ivins/Shrub.html

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2000/00march/wheat.html

I believe the folks at Goldman think he and Paulson did a wonderful job managing those bailouts - no responsibility and no pay back scheduled. *POOF* $700 billion gone with the stroke of a pen. Add that to the $800 billion "misplaced" in Iraq back in 2003 and, as they say, a hundred billion here and a hundred billion there and suddenly you're talking real money.

So, who has seen any elected official from the previous administration campaigning this year for the Repubs? Yeah, yeah, I know Laura Bush is out hawking herself for cash at motivational yaya's in stadiums and convention centers. But that doesn't really count, does it?

Obama proved to be one man who could not change the system overnight. If that's what anyone wants - change in Washington - giving control to those who oppose Obama is ridiculous. They're the ones who trashed the place to begin with!

Consider it this way; if you move into a house and claim responsibility for it, aren't you going to have to undo many of the prior tennants' misdeeds? Particularly if now everyone agrees the place has been destroyed? If the occupant before you spent eight years trashing the place, tearing up the foundation, painting the walls red, digging up the landscaping and ripping the wires and plumbing out of the walls, aren't you going to have to undo all of that to make the home livable again? Haven't the neighbors seen what's been going on? But they only complain when you plant a tree they don't like?!

That's the point of this thread, where's W to defend his tearing down of our house? His cousins and buds in the House and Senate who helped him do the damage on borrowed money are running away from him, claiming they have learned their lesson. That's like the crook who says they're sorry - yep, sorry you got caught. Sharon Angle just denounced No Child Left Behind - a program which was (supposedly) the signature event of the Bush II presidency and was overwhelmingly suppported by Republicans at the time - though Bush and the Repubs never funded the mandates they forced upon the State's. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2001-145
http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&...ehind&type=

A stated goal of the Repubs during the Bush years was to tie the hands of any Democrat who took office after Bush. By doubling the debt and shrinking revenues, they accomplished their goal. Now they are stll being hypocrits about their fiscal policy which favors the rich and leaves the less well to do standing on the curbing. They created a service based economy as Reagan wanted thirty years ago and now they're in the process of destroying the services just as they did the manufacturing economy.

So where's W to defend all of this? We have no reason to believe the Repubs will act any differently than they did during Bush. They don't have the keys to the house now, so they can't continue to do damage - they can just complain about the new tree out front. But why believe they won't do just as they did before if we ahnd them back the keys? What have they done to change their ways other than make promises they can't keep? The question I'm asking is, are the current crop of Republicans so ashamed of Bush that he'll never campaign for a Repub again? Do they think the American public can just forget the guys who drove the bus for eight years and left us off in the crumby part of town without a transfer?

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Absolutely well stated.

Well, it might have been, if the ideas ME states were factually correct.

Let's make a rule here, if you say "W did this" or "O is doing that", try your best to back up your statement with proof. Not Limbaugh type proof, but reputable sources. If you must resort to a more partisan source - still no Rushbo, Hannity, Savage, Levin, etc - note the source as partisan in nature if you know it to be so. Newspapers and magazines or journals of record are accepted. The Drudge Report is not.

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But, if I move into that house and want to undo the prior occupants misdeeds, why then continue doing the prior occupants misdeeds if I want to undo it? Especially since I already know and have acknowledged that the prior occupants methods were wrong or as Obama puts it; "the status quo" which in this case is deficit spending that is systematically bankrupting the country.

Ok, let's begin with malfeasance on the part of W. When Clinton left office we had a projected budget surplus. There were some shell games being played with budgets but, if you remember, the economy was cooking along at a rate which projected balanced budegts and paying down of the debt. The projection was for balanced budgets to the extent that Alan Greenspan advised against paying down the US debt too fast; http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&...0fast&type=

Therefore, we can say we were headed in a fiscally responsbile direction when W took office. No?

W campaigned in 2000 on tax cuts because of the projected budget surpluses;

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As a presidential candidate in 2000, Bush cited then-robust economic growth and the federal budget's then-surpluses to justify tax cuts. After his election, he cited the economic slowdown and federal deficits to justify tax cuts. http://bush-lies.blogspot.com/

I hope you remember this process of reversing himself in his rationale for cutting taxes in '01 & '03. By his 2006 budget Bush was trying to circumvent the sunset provisions put in place by the Repub controlled Congress at the time the tax cuts passed; http://www.nzherald.co.nz/us-government/news/article.cfm?o_id=302&objectid=10006809 despite the CBO's projected $119 billion loss in revenue (sounds like peanuts now, doesn't it?).

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At the time, Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, said the cuts were "looting the Social Security trust fund of almost every single dime".

Remember when the Repubs mocked Al Gore during the 2000 campaign for wanting to put Social Security in a "lock box"? Do you know why Gore proposed this?

In 2004 Bush had made the promise (Remember promises? The Repubs keep saying O "promised" unempolyment wouldn't rise above 8.5% - which he did not promise.) to halve the budget deficit; http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000922.htm

The Repubs backed him on this while year after FY they passed deficit budgets until 2008 when the projection was pushed back to 2012 - three years after Bush left office. The promise was made at a time when Republicans did not control either House of Congress and were all but certain to loose the WH in the coming elections. Unfortunately, in 2008 McCain was forced to revise the promise of a projected balanced budget by 2012 once again - well, sort of ...

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Sadly, no one thought to first consult with the presidential nominee of their party. In April, just two months after promising to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term, John McCain gave up his pledge to erase the deficit by 2012.

Before abandoning his balanced budget pledge during his Pittburgh address yesterday, McCain had made it a feature on the campaign trail. For example, during a February 15th rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, "McCain promised he'd offer a balanced budget by the end of his first term." He told the audience that he could end the red ink by 2012:

"I've got to give you some straight talk: I doubt, given the deficits we're running, that I can propose a balanced budget in the first year. But that's my goal. It has to be our goal, because we're mortgaging these young people's future."
Alas, McCain's life as a deficit hawk was a short and unhappy one.

Even as Mr. Straight Talk was promising a 2012 end date for the budget deficit, his top economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin was reading from a different script, instead targeting the end of a McCain second term in 2017. And he should know. A month later, Holtz-Eakin, an architect of the McCain tax plan, admitted, "It will make deficits expand up front, no question." Just a day before McCain's April 15th economic address, Holtz-Eakin previewed the campaign's new position on balancing the budget:

"I would like the next president not to talk about deficit reduction."
http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/001068.htm

You can see the record for Bush's deficit spending through 2007 here; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/02/AR2008020202042.html

The 2008 FY budget would be the first approved by a Democratic Congress in 12 years.

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But even in the unlikely event that he were to get his way, the budget deficit would jump sharply, from $163 billion in 2007 to about $400 billion in 2008 and 2009 -- partly the result of the new economic stimulus plan. Such deficits would rival the record deficit of $412 billion of 2004, though administration allies argue that shortfalls of that size now represent a smaller share of the overall economy and are thus more manageable.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/02/AR2008020202042.html

What you do not see in the budgets as they stand are the costs of two unfunded wars. Bush never once put the cost of the Afghanistan or Iraq wars on the fiscal year budget - both were done as "emergency" supplementals each year for seven years. So add another $200-250 billion per year to the actual deficit figures.

As you can see one of the changes Obama has made is to keep the funny non-existent costs of war from being hidden. His FY budgets have and will include the actual cost of war; http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&...books&type=

Remember that when you start talking about O's spending.

Along the way the Repubs passed a Medicare D bill. Bush had promised (remember promises?) to keep the bill to no more than $400 billion over the first ten years. That quickly grew to $534 billion and then the figures began to top $1.2 trillion; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9328-2005Feb8.html

At the time the bill passed a whisteblower in the the chief actuary with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was threatened with termination should he speak out against the fruadulent numbers;

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WASHINGTON, March 16 (UPI) -- Democrats are urging President Bush not to retaliate against a whistleblower who spoke out on alleged White House efforts to suppress Medicare program.

A letter sent to Bush Monday by Sens. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., asked Bush to instruct staff to avoid taking action against Richard Foster for speaking out about alleged White House efforts aimed at keeping Congress in the dark about alternative higher cost estimates for the new Medicare prescription drug program.

Bush administration officials allegedly threatened to fire Foster, the chief actuary with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, if he told congress about estimates placing the cost of the plan at $551 billion, far higher than the $395 billion figure promoted by the White House during last year's debate.

House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Tuesday the alleged pressure was at best "misleading malfeasance" on the part of the Bush administration.

"If Mr. Foster has been allowed to tell the truth by the administration, the prescription drug bill would not have passed, period," Hoyer said.
http://www.democraticleader.house.gov/blog/blog.cfm?pressReleaseID=555

Here's another item left off the FY budgets; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23052292/ Remember your $3-600 you received courtesy of more deficit speanding and borowing from China? Do you remember what you spent your money on?

This, like most of Bush's "ever the frat boy" spending was all on borrowed money. As the loans from other countries grew, the value of the USD sank making repayment of the loan even more expensive.

I can go on if you like.

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Look at it this way.. Obama has outspent Bush in his 22 months as president than Bush spent on deficit spending in 8 years total.

That's very difficult to do. The reality of Bush's budgets - not the fantasies you are being told by the right wing - are he never had less than a real world $1/2 trillion deficit in any year of his Presidency. Some years were as high as $3/4 trillion. The projected costs of war, infrastructure rebuilding, Medicare, future vet care, etc. which are the result of the Bush years will keep us in deficit spending for the next decade, at a minimum, no matter what we do. The Republicans admitted they had no plan to do otherwise during the 2008 elections as you can read above. If a Republican were in the WH right now, they too would be facing deficit budgets until at least the third quarter of the next decade. That's a fact.

You also seem to forget Obama's first year in office was already spent money before he ever moved into the WH. He took over a FY 2009 budget which was drawn up by Bush and passed in bipartisan fashion by Democrats and Republicans alike. The first budget to which you can pin responsibility to Obama would be FY 2010. So it's very difficult to see how you come up with figures which in reality prove Obama has spent as you claim. Most of his spending is the result of the Two Santa Claus policy adopted by Bush and the Republicans when they controlled Congress and the WH; http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&...heory&type=

TARP monies are paying back to the government and the projected final cost to the taxpayer is now about $50-100 billion rather than giving away the whole enchillada as Bush and Paulson had proposed; http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-hptb5&p=TARP%20ends&type=

The stimulus is not, as the Repubs claim, a failure but instead has by most reputable estimates saved or created approximately 2 million jobs; http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/...nts-create-mo/.

Bailouts are being paid back by the automobile manufacturers and an estimated 300 million people have jobs that would have gone away if the Republicans/Tea Party of 2010 had had their way and the industry had been allowed to fail. The Repubs and TP's fail to remember that both the TARP and the bailouts were originally proposed under W; http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16740.html

They also forget the government came to Chrysler's rescue previously; http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97785604

Interestingly though, Repubs were shouting about socialism and fuedalism and all kinds of "isms" at the time; http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA00Aes.html

Thirty years later nothing has changed. But then the Repubs also famously claimed Medicare was the certain path to Socialism when it was passed in the 1960's; (left leaning website) http://www.politicalarticles.net/blog/tag/barry-goldwater/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Speaks_Out_Against_Socialized_Medicine

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But, if I move into that house and want to undo the prior occupants misdeeds, why then continue doing the prior occupants misdeeds if I want to undo it?

Let's look at the issue from another perspective. Let's now say we (as a country) are on a journey, a journey through time which requires a budget to manage. At the start of W's term we had a thriving economy with rising wage parity for most Americans. That means our trip begins there with a party to celebrate our success over that last decade of prosperity. If we now want to continue on our journey from, say, Miami and progress to, say, Seattle, we'll need two things to get to our destination in a reasonable fashion, a budget and a plan or a map if you will. Bush controls both in 2001. His first action is to set off on this trip by cutting taxes. OK, now instead of moving through Mobile and to the NorthWest, we're headed out into the Gulf of Mexico. Another tax cut in '03 sends us down adrift and towards Central America. Medicare D sends us careening to Brazil and the costs of two unfunded, unending and poorly managed wars and the collapse of the economy in 2008 gets us all the way to Patgonia at the Southern most tip of South America in a busted up dingy without fuel or a clear plan how to get back to the US. We're in unchartered territory. Most of the natives have no idea how to get from there back to Seattle.

What would you do if Seattle were your destination and only failure loomed if you did not manage to get to Washington state? Remember, you're now working on an exhausted supply of borrowed money and your options have been severely limted by that "funny" Santa Claus.

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This is not sustainable. This supercedes party affiliation. Whether Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green, or Libertarian etc; it shouldn't matter. This type of spending is not sustainable over time. It has to stop.

Actually, IMO it is distinctly within party affiliations. No one denies the current course of the US economy is "sustainable" though many feel it is not as dire as the talking heads and TP corporate backers would have you believe with their 24/7 blasting of everything Obama does or "might" do. Even Obama has flatly stated the deficits must come down; http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/1489-Senate-Reject-Deficit-Reduction-Commission

If the issue is spending and not the deficit, the government would take different actions. However, you cannot address spending without first adressing the deficit as a large per centage of our annual budgets are now consumed with paying down debt. To do this most effectively you must first raise revenues. As Reagan discovered when he had to raise taxes to refund the lagging revenue base after his first years in office, tax cuts do have consequences. If you believe Reagan "cut taxes and revenues went up" without any further actions to compensate for the lost income, I will show you more about the propoganda which the Republican machine has repeated often enough to a willing and forgetful audience to have it enter into the (incorrect) lore of Ronnie.

If you believe, as you have been told, that cutting spending is the answer to all of our fiscal problems, then you have once again been sadly misled;

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In short, there is no evidence that it is politically possible to cut spending enough to make more than a trivial difference in our nation's fiscal problems. The votes aren't there and never will be. Those who continue to insist otherwise are living in a dream world and deserve no attention from serious people.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/17/federal-budget-spending-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html

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Hayes retells myth that Reagan ended recession with tax cuts; http://mediamatters.org/research/201008020068

Quote:
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O

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But in all fairness Jan, don't you think a few of the links you just provided above may be biased too?
Such as:

bush-lies.blogspot
democraticleader (Steny Hoyer quote)
MSNBC

There are problems with partisan web sites due to their partisan nature. However, at times they are useful in resourcing out of the way information. I have no problem with checkable facts which are presented by such sites, I just have a problem with the most obviously over the top resources for half truths and outright lies.

The "bush-lies" information is not partisan as far as the quote which I used, it was just the first site that came up which provided the information I required. You do not remember W's campaign and his reversals?

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"There is money enough to take care of Social Security," he said in January 2000. "There is enough money to meet the basic needs of our government. And there is enough money to give the American people a substantial tax cut."

With the federal budget now in a record-level deficit, Bush said he made exceptions in the campaign for war, recession, and national emergency -- but there is no record of him mentioning such a caveat during the campaign ...

That was not the only instance of Bush reversing course from the policies he endorsed in the campaign. He dropped his opposition to campaign finance reform, nation building, and hybrid-powered cars. And he almost immediately dropped his pledge to put limits on carbon dioxide emissions; the White House said the original promise to do so had been a mistake.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54556-2004Sep1.html

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George W. Bush for President 2000 Campaign Brochure
This still leaves a quarter of the surplus for much needed, long-overdue tax relief. Governor Bush

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today's republican party is not the party of 2006

I see factual proofs just are not what I can expect from you guys. It's always what sounds good to you and not what's factually correct, isn't it? I thought as much, I've watched Glenn Beck. As I see it the R's motto this year is, "Trust me, baby, take me back. I've changed." If the R's have changed at all, they have moved further to the extreme right on social issues and deconstructing popular government programs; http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&...ights&type= and http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&...urity&type= and http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&...icare&type=

Didn't you guys notice when the Democrats wanted to regain power in '06 they moved to the center to find moderate candidates? The TP's have become the laughing stock of the country. That Charles "Lurch" Krauthammer thinks they're right should have been your first tip off. Check Politifact for how truthful the Repub/TP candidates have been; http://www.politifact.com/personalities/18-percent-american-public/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/sharron-angle/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/michele-bachmann/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/glenn-beck/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/blog-posting/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/eric-cantor/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/gretchen-carlson/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/tom-coburn/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/ann-coulter/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/jim-demint/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/carly-fiorina/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/newt-gingrich/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/rudy-giuliani/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/jd-hayworth/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/house-republicans/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/rick-lazio/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/rush-limbaugh/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/john-mccain/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/national-republican-congressional-committee/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/christine-odonnell/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/bill-oreilly/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/sarah-palin/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/rick-perry/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/pat-roberts/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/paul-ryan/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/michael-savage/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/pete-sessions/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/us-chamber-commerce/

Go ahead, check a few. It would do you some good to actually come face to face with a few facts.

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I'll go with that as long as you are willing to also reject anything from the lefts press...you know, the Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Boston Globe, Newsweek and Time magazines, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, MSNBC and CNN....

That leaves what? Fox News? Read what I posted; papers, magazines and journals of record. If the right has no one who has won a Pultizer or a Noble Award, that's not the fault of the left. If the WSJ now is just another hack tabloid under Murdoch, you should complain to him and not me. If all of the really funny comedians are Liberals, that explains why conservatives are always PO'd but not why you let Dennis Miller have a talk show. If you think Ann Coulter is funny and Maulkin is smart, that explains alot - like the witch thing.

Lesser, somtime partisan sites are welcome when they are reporting facts, not lies. If the facts can be and are checked or the fact is a matter of historical record, then I have no problem with most sites. Still, Limbaugh and the like and Drudge are not reliable sources under any circumstances.

The topic of the thread is, "Where's W", not what sources report stuff you don't want to hear. If you have facts and not the same old BS, support your statements with evidence. Otherwise, I have better things to do.

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Could it be remotely possible that politifact may have a liberal bias?

Could it be you have a clear bias that is against fact checking and hard evidence? Mark, please answer two questions. Did you research Politifact before you posted this question? What is the most "liberal" source you depend upon for your information?

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Then, what is his political ideology if not socialist?

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... I ask you for real proof of your assertions ...

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I would define President Obama's political ideology as Fabian socialism ...

Mark, I believe this is now the sixth or seventh time I have to remind you that simply repeating the same unsubstantiated claim alone does not make it a fact nor does it show evidence for your statement or your thinking. I understand you've been trained to do so by your handlers, but, if you can only do that little bit of unhinging your brain, there is no reason to believe you are anything other than a trained parrot. Parrots repeat what they are trained to repeat through a reward system. Repeat what is said and they get a treat. There's no thought proces involved, no reasoning of facts, other than receiving a tidbit for being a good parrot who obeys when asked to perform. Then, for however many years it takes, the parrot mindlessly jabbers away squawking, "Pretty Polly" whenever the cat passes by.

Goddamnit! ncdrawl, you're hiding behind another alias and that picture of Cash again! I hope he comes back to haunt your sorry ass until the day you go to your eternal punishment for being a stupid f'ing asshole.

Tell me this, shithead, doesn't it just curdle your coffee to see Clinton out there being respected as an elder statesman - still the consumate political mind of our time - while W spends his time riding his bike around Highland Park, Texas?

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health Care Reform - please show the exact paragraph in the Health Care Reform bill which, aside from the existing Medicare program, makes the US government a health care insurance provider? Hint: don't waste your time looking because it's not there.

Well, actually, aside from Medicare, the government administers the Medicaid program, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The US government also operates the largest socialist health plan system organized under the auspices of the US military and its many branches. Please note the US Constitution says nothing about the government of the United Staes operating or supplying health care to those who defend our Nation. Therefore, those who suggest we return to only those principles outlined in a strict reductionist interpretation of intent on the part of the Founding Fathers would also be suggesting we no longer provide health care to our military personell nor to those veterans who require life long assistance due to injuries sustained during their service to this Nation.

Along with the programs listed above, the US Government also operates theMedicineProgram.com ( http://www.themedicineprogram.com/home/article/Health_care_in_the_United_States) where you can find more information regarding US run health programs. The Medicine Program has been put in place to assist citizens who have expended their last resources on privatized helath care plans which supply medications. The program is open to citizens of all ages and backgrounds; http://www.goodsearch.com/search.aspx?source=goodshopbar&keywords=themedicineprogram.com

Of course each state also operates its own healthcare system for its employees and retirees who qualify for assistance under the rules and regulations established by each state. These services are extended to teachers, police, firefighters, nurses and doctors, etc. who are employed by State run hospitals and health care facilites, those who work in the field and those who work behind desks to mention just a few. While largely independent from the US government, many states have asked for additional funds from the US Government to help cover the costs of the increasing numbers who rely on outside assistance for their health care.

Of course, any such discussion of Government run health care systems brings up the polling data which suggests the majority of the TP'ers - most of whom are older citizens who have paid into the socialist programs run by the Government - feel both Social Security and Medicare are worth the cost to the Nation; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html and feel they "deserve" the monies allocated from such socialist programs. http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-hptb5&p=tea%20party%20polling&type=

All of these programs fall under "Entitlement" programs, which the Repubs hate for their sociaistic nature of "taking" from "me" and providing some meager protections to someone who may not look or think like "me". The R's promise to dismantle entitlements with each election year's more and more ridiculous rhetoric. Yet a simple glance at the US budget indicates nothing more than foot dragging when it comes to assisting the less fortunate (children, the elderly) has ever been accomplished by the R's. Entitlements have become one of, if not the single most, important aspects of our budget. They remain so simply because it has become politically dangerous to actually do anything about them. The programs the Democrats have put in place over the last century have become widely popular with the vast majority of Americans and anyone who actually touches them will likely die politically speaking.

Which brings us to; http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=97200&an=0&page=0#Post97200

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To answer your first question, Yes, I did check politifact out.

Then you should have realized your question was absurd. Politifact is no more "liberal" than is Charlie Crist just because he and Obama touched for one second.

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The answer to your second question: I don't depend totally on ANY source for my information in total.

That wasn't my question and you know it. What is the most "liberal" source you visit or listen to for another view on the topics of the day? Surely, you have the talking points of someone who visits contemporary information sites. What is the most liberal information site you employ for your view of the day to day? Hegel didn't know Obama but you do. So you must visit some "news" sites or shows and magazines. What is the most "liberal" in your estimation? It's a fairly simple question, Mark.

This is like asking for your priorities in audio gear, if you can't name three off the top of your head or you have to dance around the question, it's pretty likely you've never given the issue much thought.

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The German philosopher Hegel puts in perspective for me.

"World history is a court of judgement."

"What history and experience teaches us is that people and governments never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."

So you look to the past and not the present or the future? Is that what you're telling me? How absurd! The "history" of which Hegel speaks is littered with misguided individuals who made history by ignoring the facts coming towards them (the French in May, 1940) or the consequences of their actions (the Russian front). If that were not the case there would have been no Troy, no Brutus, no Napoleon, no Henry the Fifth or Eighth and on and on. There would be no wars and no religion. Hegel tells you that in his quote, "What history and experience teaches us is that people ... never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it." You think you're smarter than all the people who have gone before you?

I have to tell you, Mark, this idea that history alone will teach you and that facts-on-the-ground are unnecessary will be the death of you just as it has been the death of US manufacturing and the middle class.

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I refer you back to my answer to Jazzfan on my claims on the previous page.

What? where you repeat the same misinformation? You repeat the same misinformation all the while ignoring the factual evidence before you and thinking that repitition alone would substitute for providing proof of your claims? No, Mark, repeating what you repeated which was incorrect the first time doesn't work here. You think it does?!!! I refer you to my post above.

Mark, you've all but ignored every fact backed up with proof provided in this thread. Those "evidences" and "proofs" are what most intelligent people would call accepted "facts". They are for the most part history and history cannot be changed - only redirected to provide a happy ending to the other side. Did you watch "Inglorious Bastards" to see the Nazi propoganda film which portrayed the young Nazi Nationalist Hero? If we assume for the moment the premise of that scene is historically accurate - that propoganda myths, "lies" most of us would call them, were being presented to people on the wrong side of history, what then? History and the future were not what those in power wanted the foot soldiers' families to see. So they lied and they rewrote history - ignoring facts along the way - in order to make the vision of the future look much more inviting than reality would portray. Were they, in your opinion, attempting to install fear in the listeners regadring what "might be" should the soul-less opposition win? Was telling a story lacking factual evidence or proof, in your opinion, a useful tool or was it simply mindless propoganda without a factual basis?

Let's go ahead and say it was propogandistic lies pure and simple - no historical facts were presented in that portrayal of the Nazis. Why? Because truth is the enemy of lies. So here, in this thread alone, we have had innumerable instances of facts which have proven you to have been ... "wrong" about many of the claims you have made. That somewhere along the line you accepted a lie as what you preferred to believe. What's your opinion of those facts which have been presented here with proof for their validity and against your version of the truth? How do you feel about being so "factless" that it takes mere seconds to disprove what you claim? Do all of those facts also have a "liberal bias", Mark, or it is possible there are numerous facts about which you have been misled?

What's your opinion here?

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Right! I agree with you. Said lending practices were created through the Community Re-investment Act (CRA) under Democrat president Jimmy Carter which FORCED banks and lending institutions to give unqualified people loans that they could'nt pay back thus the housing market crash. BOTH parties enforced this Act, and both a culpable.

Mark, I know this is what you hear from Rushbo, Hannity, Savage, etc. all the time. The intent is to distort history with outright lies and half truths (empolying the logical fallacies of "appealing to beliefs", "appeal to consequences of a belief", "appeal to emotion", "appeal to fear", "appeal to ridicule", "confusing cause and effect", "division", "guilt by association", "hasty generalization", "ignoring a common cause", "misleading vividness", "poisoning the well", "red herring", "strawman argument" and failing the "burden of proof". In all, 16 of the possible 42 logical fallacies listed here; http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ Read them, Mark, maybe you will be better at seeing through the fallacies you are being told to believe) in a way that makes you find fault with others whom you are already most likely to resent and distrust due to the history of those telling the lies. The "unqualified people" in this retelling of history is, of course, code for "black people" and "immigrants" and poor white trash and even liberals. No? Are those not the groups you feel are largely responsible for accepting loans "they couldn't pay back"? It's easy to hate them and distrust them because they are not like you and "me". Right? You've been told so repeatedly by these "pundits". Right? The pundits are on your side, right? On the side of the little guy and personal freedom and personal liberty and personal responsibility, right? Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and all that crap. Let the house burn if the guy didn't pay his fire tag fee! http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&...watch&type=

They're not for continuing to make $30 mil a year, own personal jets and hobnob with the rich and powerful, they'd gladly give all that up if only you had your personal freedom and they didn't have to talk any more. They're just like you and "me".

Right?

And they're not for the corporatists who look to the bottom line before all else. Right? It's not that the CRA meant banks and lending institutions could no longer "redline" districts which were predominantly lower income? Right? It's not that redlining districts meant a specific portion of the US citizenry would be pushed back down everytime they reached for their share of The American Deam? It's not that tearing down Glass Steigel removed the barriers to banks engaging in faulty lending principles, is it? Or crossing the line into markets which were at one time off limits to their funds. It's not that Glass Steigel had placed barriers to many of those same actions which resulted in the Great Depression, is it?

And it's clearly not that in his first and second terms W touted home ownership as a sign the economy was healthy and growing? Was it? That never happened, did it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNqQx7sjoS8

http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&...rship&type=

Those are facts, Mark, caught on tape for history to view at any time.

Now let's take a view of larger realities. Did the entire industrialized world also suffer from the same recession and economic downturn which afflicted the US markets? Are England, France, Japan and Germany (to name a few) also suffering in this recession brought on by what you claim is the fault of "unqualified people" who accepted "loans that they could'nt pay back"? If those nations are also faltering - and they are (you can check those facts), then you need only ask yourself one simple question. Did England, France, Japan and Germany along with the rest of the industrialized markets worldwide also have their own Community Re-Investment Act? If they did, then there's no problem with the history you've accepted as believable. If they didn't -and they did not (you can check those facts also), then the blacks and the immigrants, the poor white trash and the liberals who purchased homes from predatory lenders were not to blame for the consequences of fraudulent lending and the CYA derivative creations swapped between markets. Cause and effect, Mark, don't let them fool you, don't accept their lies and propoganda just because it fits the story you would like to believe in.

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that's because you looked in the wrong place. It will be under the U.S. Tax code. If you willingly fail to buy government health insurance, the I.R.S. steps in with the penalties and or jail time.

But you forgot to mention the Federal Government will also allow stipends for those in need of assistance and will also allow exemptions under certain conditions. About the only reason it will not accept is someone flatly unwilling to follow a "socialist" program unlike any other administered by the US Federal Government. We've already covered that territory. Otherwise, you lost this argument several months ago by just repeating the same old crap over and over; http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showf...e=5&fpart=1

Is it that difficult for you to remember facts, Mark?

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you got the 'anti' part correct. I'm anti-statist and anti-bureaucrat. I'm pro freedom and liberty. I always default to freedom and liberty.

That means nothing. Even among the 33 trapped miners there was an order which prevented mayhem. To think otherwise is foolish and once again ignores all historical facts to the contrary.

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There's our problem communicating in a nutshell: I'm trying to separate fact from fiction and you're trying to separate present facts from historical facts.

If you've read my recent posts thoroughly, you should see Mark does not have such a problem. I would describe Mark's approach to this as trying to ignore present and historical facts while accepting half truths and outright lies. I'd also add that Mark is not at all good with showing proof of his assertions.

Here I thought all along you were about 180 years old and sat on the roof throwing empty gin bottles at the kids on your lawn. How'd you get to be such a huge hemmorhoid at such a young age? Oh, I get it - practice.

Yeah, I still got all my teeth. You still got any part of your brain?