George Bush: Worst American president in history

[Carlene 12]

Just so we are clear on whose team everyone is on....

The Wall Street Journal is a highly respected source of FINANCIAL information. It’s editorial policies, however, are about as far to the right as one can get.

“On our editorial page, we make no pretense of walking down the middle of the road. Our comments and interpretations are made from a definite point of view….People will say we are conservative or even reactionary. We are not much interested in labels but if we were to choose one, we would say we are radical.” (William H. Grimes, 1951) Mr. Grimes was with the Wall Street Journal for 38 years. He died in 1972. His legacy continues to this day.

And, in the interest of full disclosure, I would like to add that my oldest son works for Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.

Now as for the Heritage Foundation...

It is the best-known and most influential right-wing think tank. The Heritage Foundation owes much of its success to savvy marketing and PR and the generous donations of right-wing benefactors, foundations and wealthy corporations.

Heritage’s publications are distributed to many thousands of people, including Members of Congress, congressional aides and staff, journalists, and major donors.

It takes credit for much of President Bush’s policy, both domestic and foreign, referring to Bush’s policies as “straight out of the Heritage play book.”

Heritage supports faith-based initiatives, school vouchers, ban on abortion, overturning affirmative action programs.

Former Heritage Foundation employees who have served in the Bush Administration

• Elaine Chao: Department of Labor Secretary; formerly a Heritage Distinguished Fellow
  
• Kay Coles James: Director of the Office of Personnel Management; formerly Heritage’s Citizenship Project director
  
• Angela Antonelli: Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; formerly Heritage’s director for Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies
  
• Mark Wilson: Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor; formerly Heritage Foundation’s Research Fellow
  
• Alvin Felzenberg: a member of Rumsfeld’s “team” at the Department of Defense; formerly Heritage Foundation’s Visiting Fellow
  
• Gale Norton: Secretary of the Interior; Founder of the National Chair of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (heavily funded by Heritage Foundation).

Other Employees and Board Members of Note

• Famous Heritage staffers include: Ed Meese (President Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General), William Bennett (Reagan’s Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and Secretary of Education, and President Bush Sr.’s “drug czar”). Virginia Thomas (wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas) Heritage President Edward J. Feulner was a consultant for the Reagan administration, serving as chairman of the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.
  
• High profile right wing Heritage board members have included: Richard Scaife, Joseph Coors, Holland “Holly” Coors, Steve Forbes, Jay Van Andel (co-founder and senior chairman for Amway Corporation), and Barb Van Andel-Gaby (the vice president of corporate affairs for Amway Corporation), among others.

History and Background

• Prominent right-wing figure Paul Weyrich was Heritage’s first president. Heritage’s start was financially supported by co-founder Joseph Coors, of Colorado’s Coors Brewing Company.
  
• Right-wing financier Richard Scaife became a major funder of the Heritage Foundation after its first year, donating millions of dollars through the Sarah Scaife Foundation.
  
• Corporate sponsors of the organization have included: General Motors, Ford Motors, Proctor and Gamble, Chase Manhattan Bank, Dow Chemical, the Reader’s Digest Association, Mobil Oil, and Smith Kline Corporation.
  
• In 1980, Heritage published a 1,077-page book called Mandate for Leadership, which contained 2000 policy recommendations. It was presented to Attorney General Ed Meese a week after Reagan’s election. Meese was quoted as saying that “the Reagan Administration will rely heavily on the Heritage Foundation.” These recommendations included: rollback of minority programs, dramatic increase in military spending, and cutting taxes. In 1985 Heritage claimed that the Reagan administration’s policy reflected 60 to 65 percent of their policy measures. Heritage publishes a new edition every four years for subsequent administrations.

If THAT information doesn't scare the pants off you, nothing will!

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

Hasn't the Heritage Foundation been financed by the M&M Boys?

Sun Myung Moon and Rupert Murdoch?

[Carlene 12]

You dont even try to see my side, all I do is offer different ideas, which you do also, but I try not to argue those ideas. I just accept them, add my own, and when mine is attacked, i attack back.

Jodie...

I know you think we are picking on you because you're young, but we aren't. These discussions aren't personal attacks (or at least they shouldn't be). And chances are, people firmly entrenched in the left are NOT going to see your side - ever. Just as you aren't going to see theirs. It's not about winning souls (or arguments). It's about exchanging facts, opinions, ideas, etc.

I was on the debate team in college. I can argue either side of any issue, at the drop of a hat. I don't know if that's an advantage or a disadvantage here, but I suspect it's what drives me to attack sources and write long, laborious posts in support of my position....LOL.

If you don't win all the political arguments, it doesn't mean you don't know what you are talking about. You know that, and we know it, too. A debate is a lot like politics....if you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.

[BJean 16]

Jodie: I think you might take into consideration that the response to your posting of a right-wing propaganda web address here, is not very different from the pounding I took for posting the Presidential IQ test results, that were written by a left-wing propaganda group. I didn't think that the response to mine had anything to do with my age. Why do you think that the response you got (from me) had anything to do with your age?

Initially you're the one who brought up the age thing. You're the one who keeps saying you're a student. It is irrelevant to the issues we're discussing here. I don't think that the people who disagree with me here do it because of my age.

You may keep referring to your age because you think it is incumbent upon you to disclose that fact to be fair. That's all well and good and people here seem to respect you for it. But I don't think I need to disclose my age or why I believe the way I do.

I am stating opinion here, not trying to educate the masses. I respect the ones who do cite sources to back up the claims they make. I just don't feel it is necessary because I don't think it is my job to teach people how to look up stuff on the internet or provide titles of books or articles to back up my opinions. To each his own. Maybe people do not respect me because I don't cite lots of resources here. The fact is that I do not wish to devote the time for all that. I come here to see what everyone else has to say and to have an opportunity to spout off myself from time to time. That's the fun of it. I get to choose.

I do not get incensed or upset when people disagree with me. If I have pushed someone's buttons, then I feel I must have said something that communicated well enough for them to want to respond.

If I were to get upset or angry because I didn't like the way someone responded to my posts, I would not come here and participate. I don't want you to not participate. I think you bring an interesting viewpoint to this discussion and I enjoy reading your posts. But that's your decision. Only you know how reading and posting at this thread makes you feel.

The main thing I wanted to tell you is that if my reactions to your posts sound critical or condescending, believe me it has nothing whatsoever to do with your age. I do it because I disagree with your point of view or your opinion, pure and simple.

[BJean 16]

P.S. Articles do have bias, based on the author. Scientific studies can be skewed or biased based on how the study is constructed. As long as people are aware of that, articles and studies can be valuable tools.

If someone has political leanings to the right and all they read are opinions and articles written by the right winger authors, they are doing themselves a disservice. The best way to try to not be biased is to read all the information from both sides, and then form your opinions. Even then our personal history plays a role and can, and usually does, cause us to be swayed one way or the other.

In fact, there are recent studies that show that there are chemicals and reactions in our brains that make us more or less prone to believe in the concept of God as a supreme being and in the concept of life after death.

If that is true, why can't there be chemicals and reactions in our brains that cause us to be conservative or liberal?

[TommyO 5]

I bet the liberals did all the good chemicals in school, at least they did when I was there, maybe those are what created the liberal vs conservative brain chemicals. If there is a conservative brain chemical I bet it's is similar to lemon juice, execpt it not only makes your mouth pucker it also makes your ass do the same.

Just kidding, it's just that the right tends to get really upset when you tease them and it's funny to watch.

Thers no reaction like a chemical reaction, Gota go my walls are melting

Cheers

TommyO

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

Jodie:

I will trade you some of my "Wit & Wisdom" for some of your years (left to live).:faint:

That might make you a two time loser. :confused:

[green 6]

I bet the liberals did all the good chemicals in school, at least they did when I was there, maybe those are what created the liberal vs conservative brain chemicals. If there is a conservative brain chemical I bet it's is similar to lemon juice, execpt it not only makes your mouth pucker it also makes your ass do the same.

Just kidding, it's just that the right tends to get really upset when you tease them and it's funny to watch.

Thers no reaction like a chemical reaction, Gota go my walls are melting

Cheers

TommyO

Maybe the simple truth was that we did more chemicals in skule. :heh:

For what it's worth Green feels that it is incumbant on herself to admit to you that the only two Canadian national newspapers to which she subscribes are centre-right and far right. She reads 'em because she finds them to be the most literate, interesting and challenging. The Canadian newspaper which might be considered to adhere most closely to her personal political style is kinda knee jerk politically correct and awash in sentimentality. Unexamined thought, passion used in lieu of reason, and spin do not only belong to the forces of the right, you know.

[Betsyjane 2]

LOL TommyO. I certainly did the best ones, back in the day...lo those many decades ago.

In my heart, I believe there are major truths in both the conservative and liberal positions, on each topic. Gotta have a yin and a yang. I think which way we lean has less to do with who has more truths than it does with our individual circumstances and experiences. I lean to the left. And I'll engage in open discussion about anything until somebody argues in a personal attack format, and especially personal attacks coupled with outrageous overgeneralizations that imply prejudice. Nothing to do with age for me..... Nothing to do with which side of the fence a person is on. Just has to do with the sort of courtesy I'd like to see humans have with each other. The only way in which I see age coming into play is that with idealism comes fanaticism, and without that idealism of youth, there are lots of things that wouldn't have improved in this country. I WAS a know-it-all in college. Now I'm a pessimist by intellect and an optimist by spirit. (Can't remember who said that, but I take it to mean that despite evidence to the contrary, I will keep trying to make it better and hoping it will happen.)

[green 6]

The Heritage Foundation is very real, but it is also very, very biased.

I just glanced at your article, and one thing I noticed is that it doesn't talk about the military personnel themselves. It talks about "areas," as if a poor person can't live in a rich "area." Believe me, most rich kids would not enlist in the military. They would do what they do at your university and join the ROTC, or they would try to get into the military universities.

It is because their analysis was based on zip code type of information that I believe that their statistics concerning the breakdown of enlistment by state and by rural/urban areas are probably solid and have value for those of us who are engaged in this on-going and fascinating discussion. I was interested to note that Alaska had a proportionally very high rate of enlistees, as did Idaho. Both of these states sit outside of the south, the area as listed as providing more than its fair share of enlistees.

Stats are kinda fascinating and the anomalies leave even a bimbo blondie like myself curious. (Green's disclaimer: My degree was in literature; I am dumb when it comes to numbers.)

@Jodie: again, thanks for rooting out this article for us and do not get discouraged by the feedback. This is how we learn. This is how all of us learn. I know that I have learned a great deal from participating in these discussions.

You are 19 and I am 57 but neither of us wants to turn into old fossils who are frozen in our beliefs and attitudes. Youe voice is an interesting one. Feel free to keep on speaking your mind, eh.

[j_war06 0]

Jodie: I think you might take into consideration that the response to your posting of a right-wing propaganda web address here, is not very different from the pounding I took for posting the Presidential IQ test results, that were written by a left-wing propaganda group. I didn't think that the response to mine had anything to do with my age. Why do you think that the response you got (from me) had anything to do with your age?

Initially you're the one who brought up the age thing. You're the one who keeps saying you're a student. It is irrelevant to the issues we're discussing here. I don't think that the people who disagree with me here do it because of my age.

You may keep referring to your age because you think it is incumbent upon you to disclose that fact to be fair. That's all well and good and people here seem to respect you for it. But I don't think I need to disclose my age or why I believe the way I do.

I am stating opinion here, not trying to educate the masses. I respect the ones who do cite sources to back up the claims they make. I just don't feel it is necessary because I don't think it is my job to teach people how to look up stuff on the internet or provide titles of books or articles to back up my opinions. To each his own. Maybe people do not respect me because I don't cite lots of resources here. The fact is that I do not wish to devote the time for all that. I come here to see what everyone else has to say and to have an opportunity to spout off myself from time to time. That's the fun of it. I get to choose.

I do not get incensed or upset when people disagree with me. If I have pushed someone's buttons, then I feel I must have said something that communicated well enough for them to want to respond.

If I were to get upset or angry because I didn't like the way someone responded to my posts, I would not come here and participate. I don't want you to not participate. I think you bring an interesting viewpoint to this discussion and I enjoy reading your posts. But that's your decision. Only you know how reading and posting at this thread makes you feel.

The main thing I wanted to tell you is that if my reactions to your posts sound critical or condescending, believe me it has nothing whatsoever to do with your age. I do it because I disagree with your point of view or your opinion, pure and simple.

I dont think that you do, however I have been discredited here for my age before, many times...I feel like you guys think that because I am younger, I have no incite on politics....I get that vibe.....My age was brought up in very previous posts btw....Yes, I state that I am a student of PoliSci. I do that as to credit my knowledge of politics as my age is relevant to political experience. I cite my sources as best I can because I dont want people to think I make up information randomly, and that I have a credited source.....I didnt find that article to be so right wing, at all.....I guess I am right-winged????

P.S. I was in a PISSED TF offed mood yesterday, and highly emotional.....It just drives me nuts when I give information and people tell me its not good enough, or that I am wrong for doing that, when in reality I probably think that they are wrong

[j_war06 0]

Jodie:

I will trade you some of my "Wit & Wisdom" for some of your years (left to live).:faint:

That might make you a two time loser.

This seems rather offensive, although I dont know that you mean it that way.....

[Carlene 12]

This seems rather offensive, although I dont know that you mean it that way.....

Jodie....it was NOT an insult. He meant that he would trade some of his "experience" for your tender age. Meaning he would rather be young (like you) than old and "wise". TOM envies you your youth, as do the rest of us, I'm sure.

[anonemouse 1]

It just drives me nuts when I give information and people tell me its not good enough, or that I am wrong for doing that, when in reality I probably think that they are wrong

We didn't mean that you were wrong for posting sources. We just want you to be able to look at your sources carefully and realize that they may or may not be biased. When someone introduces that fact into a conversation, it isn't an attack on your intelligence or an attack on your age or implying that you are naive. The simple fact is that all sources are not created equal and being published does not automatically mean that everything said in an article is the complete truth. Every article has bits and pieced of the truth in it, but sometimes you have to read between the lines to get to it and sometimes you have to look carefully to see what the author isn't saying.

[Carlene 12]

It just drives me nuts when I give information and people tell me its not good enough, or that I am wrong for doing that, when in reality I probably think that they are wrong

Sweetheart, that's what makes it a DEBATE. You are NEVER going to log on and find a post that says, "OMG, Jodie....you are so right and I was WRONG" because there is no "right" and "wrong" to a political argument - just different points of view. So don't take it personally if you can't drag us left-wing Liberals over to the right. The fact that we disagree is NOT a reflection of the way we feel about you, or an indication of how intelligent we think you are.