George Bush: Worst American president in history

[L8BloomR 1]

Oh Karen, I am so very sorry about your dad. Please know that I am sending good thoughts your way. I have been through cancer with my mother and sister and it is a tough road. My heart goes out to you and your entire family.

Thank you so much, BJean. Yes, it is a tough road. I had cancer 15 years ago and beat it...but my dad is refusing treatment and I do agree with him, as hard as it will be to watch this happen. Thanks for your good thoughts....

Karen

[green 6]

I agree! I read EVERYTHING I have the time for. I am a Conservative, but I want to know all sides to each issue, so I read the liberal blogs and the liberal news. But I do like Fox News for one main reason: They debate almost every issue, and the debates have an equal number of liberals and conservatives on each side. Oh, and they are the only news channel that lets the conservatives finish their sentences! :biggrin1:

I tend to dress to the left and yet I am suspicious of knee-jerk politically correct attitudes. It is for this reason (and because they are well-written) that the only two newspapers to which I subscribe are either centre-right or very right wing. As for Fox, I don't like their news coverage because it is Ameri-centric and I am used to a more globally based approach. This is undoubtedly because I don't live in America and thus my expectations of reportage are different.

[green 6]

I just read about your dad, L8. Please accept my sympathy.

[Carlene 12]

I believe The WSJ is a respected news source, while almost anything political reported on by the NBC group has become, in my estimation, an anti-Bush piece.

The Wall Street Journal is owned by Dow Jones, perhaps the most conservative, pro-Republican corporation in America. The company is publicly traded but privately controlled and is led by the Bancroft family.

PS....My oldest son works for WSJ.

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

Thank you, Terri and BJean, for your kinds words. I appreciate them so much, especially from you, BJean, since we are on opposite sides of a lot of these issues. It says a lot about you that you can be so gracious.

Unfortunately, I have to stop posting for a while; just an hour ago I found out my beloved 89-year old dad has lung cancer and I need to help out there for now.

Thanks again,

Karen

My heart goes out to you and yours.

I guess the 3 is a charm logic never ends. I just finished speaking to my minister and his wife. They found out yesterday that her 87 year old father also has cancer and the doctors are giving him 6 months to live.

Just prior to that I got off the phone with my wife, Tina. She was crying because she had just spent 5 hours at her mother's nursing home and during that time her mother opened her eyes 3 or 4 times for a total of less than a minute and then nodded off back to sleep. Tina feels so helpless. She is wondering why her brother has been calling her on the phone almost every day to come up to NY from Florida, if it is only to watch her mother sleeping. Tina was also very concerned that her mother was swollen with many bruises.

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

I have Jewish friends who are terribly frightened about the way Bush and his administration have made many decisions during their tenure, and how they continue to manipulate and use their power to get more power and make themselves richer than ever. My Jewish friends are some of the first to tell me that we shouldn't be so sure that what happened in Germany can't happen here. Perhaps not involving Jews specifically, but against people who do not share this administration's right-wing religious and political beliefs.

I used to belong to a "Codependents Anonymous " 12 step group. Half of the women in my group also belonged to a "Children of Holocaust Survivors" group. The stories they told of Hitler's rise to power and the parallels to BuSh's policies is scary to them (and to me).

Coming from Brooklyn, I had many Jewish friends and more of them are insulted by BuSh's tactics than by the comparison between BuSh and Hitler.

There used to be a website that had 10 quotes and the challenge was to identify who made each quote: Hitler or BuSh. Many are not aware that my sig is a quote, not from BuSh, but from Adolph Hitler. Many people got that one wrong on the website I mentioned, which is no longer available.

[Carlene 12]

My son was a Marine in the first Gulf War, and is now serving in a civilian capacity in Afghanistan and Iraq. So I should be one of the ones screaming for the war to be over, etc. But he tells me how important it is that we keep doing what we are doing, how much we are helping, how grateful most of the people he comes in contact with are. So when I never see news reports about anything good there, I am suspicious. I know that there is an anti-Bush, anti-war agenda and I guess I try to state the other side when I can.

Karen...

We have much in common, you and I. My son voluntarily deployed (twice) to Iraq in a civilian support capacity, and my daughter-in-law (his wife) returned from Afghanistan just a couple of months ago. My boy was primarily at Anaconda and Al Asad, although he was moved around for short periods to other bases. He works for KBR. Does your son work for them too?

The civilians Kelly and Becca came in contact with were mostly people who were on the US payroll, and they, of course, are very pro-American. The soldiers, according to my son, are increasingly less supportive of the Bush administration. He noticed a distinct difference in attitude/morale between his first tour and his second - the guys/girls in uniform are much less "gung ho" now.

Two of the things I am most bitter about in Bush's term (aside from the war in Iraq) is the decision to end open enrollment for veterans benefits and the Medicare Part D fiasco. Do you have any thoughts to share, from a conservative point of view, on these issues? Like TOM, I enjoy spirited, civilized debate and appreciate your ability to exchange ideas without resorting to character assignation. :clap2:

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

I find myself going to foreign sources for News so often though I never had to before.

Has the news media submitted to the attacks of the Right or has it been bought by the Right?

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

Maybe this is not a priority to you, but it is for me.....I worry about the drug trafficking coming across the wide open border, not that whites will be a minority, I think that is preposterous.

Drug trafficking is a problem, but like many of the problems that the USA faces, the real problem is that USA does not face the problem. The "War on Drugs" is a joke. All the "War on Drugs" actually does is keep many US military and law enforcement personal busy wasting their time that could be put to better use, wastes $12,000,000,000 per year that could be put to better use and most of all makes a lot of very rich drug dealers even richer.

No matter how secure they make the borders, drugs will come in as long as there is enough financial benefit in selling illegal drugs. Republican (tough on crime) Presidents have commission studies on the "War on Drugs" and even though both Nixon and Reagan packed their commissions with hand-picked people, the results always came back the same; treatment (on demand) and education are the only way to win the so-called "War on Drugs".

When I was living in NY, a family member of mine was an alcoholic and a crack addict. She was able after much fighting (with the bureaucracy) to get into a wonderful rehab center. The program was two months of in-patient aromatherapy followed by a 6 month halfway house placement with a gradual movement into normal society, but in a different environment than the patient came from. The rehab had a 67% success rate and my family member has been clean since 1993 and is raising a family while getting promotions to become head of her department on her job.

As soon as George Pataki became governor of NY State, being a strong “law and order” advocate, he slashed the budget for rehab centers and increased the budget for prison building. Another family member of mine had the same addiction problems and went to the same rehab about a year later, but after Pataki's budget cuts, the program was now only one month and my niece did not fare as well. She reverted to her drug and alcohol use, became a prostitute to finance her habit, contracted AIDS and dies leaving 6 children to the foster care system. Pataki sure saved NY State taxpayers a lot of money. The financial cost of prisons and foster care is much more than the cost of rehab.

The social cost is even greater. We complain about people not raising their children, but when we have one of every 100 men in the USA in prison, of course there are going to be many fathers who are not raising their families. With Black men the ratio is much worse. The "War on Drugs" is a failure socially and financially, but we will keep fighting it because politicians do not want to be thought of as weak on crime. They may be thought of as strong on “law and order” issues, but they are not increasing “order” with extra law enforcement, because they are trying to solve a social and medical problem with brute force. No matter how many commissions say that the solution is on demand rehab and education, the politicians will keep feeding the right-wing knee jerk attitudes and the Christian's puritanical attitudes, and another generation will be ruined.

If it were possible to shut down the drugs coming in from Mexico, they would increase from Canada, and from the Caribbean and from commercial airline flights from around the world. When I worked at JFK, my airline was handling flights for small airlines or airlines which had so few flights into JFK, that it wasn't worth it to hire their own mechanics. One day after repeated warnings, the DEA impounded a 757 from a well known airline because of the hundreds of pounds of drugs that were inboard.

Even if it were possible to shut down all imports of illegal drugs into the USA, then people would make synthetic versions of coke and heroin, etc. They are already doing it with drugs like Methamphetamines and Ecstasy.

Drugs come in from Canada, but there is not the big uproar about the Canadian border. If you do not see the racism in the Mexican border debate, then that probably is a sign of your lack of racism, but believe me, not all people are as benevolent as you are.

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

What is so wrong about wanting immigrants to be here legally??? Fine, let 'em come, but do it legally.

Our immigration laws are based on previous immigration, so Europeans, including British, Irish, Germans and Italians get first crack.

Believe it or not, but not that many European want to come to the USA anymore to live. They have better work rules, better medical care and a standard of living that is as good or not better than here where they are. I know of many people who have moved to Ireland, the home of their parents or went to other European countries to escape the problems of the USA.

We need people in this country according to many economists and other learned people. Should we ship out the 12 million (some estimate up to 40 million) illegal immigrants and them invite 12 million other people in? Maybe if we stropped the wasteful "War on Drugs", we would have some money to do that, or we could save the money and give it back to the Social Security fund.

By the way, if we can find a way to start the 12,000,000 or more illegal immigrants on a path to legal status, they could help bail out Social Security for the Baby Boomers.

[green 6]

It is true about the standard of living in western continental Europe. I lived in France for 3 years in the early '80s. Europe has everything that we have and it is much easier to travel - something I love to do - when you are living over there. Moreover, every worker has a minimum of five weeks of paid holidays as well as medicare and generous maternity leave. Moreover, Europe is very beautiful, both the landscape and the cities.

We, however, can justifiably pride ourselves on being less racist and less class conscious.

[missy4gordon 0]

OK TOM - I get it....You know everthing, I know nothing, you are right about everything, I am right about nothing. You win, I lose. Feel better now?

I grew up not even 2 miles from the Canadian border, I work in the Clerk of Courts office where we see all the criminal cases that come from drug smuggling across the border, but I guess I still don't know near as much as you. Sorry I ever even posted in this because clearly I am out of my league. I will go back to sticking my head in the sand, okay? Thanks for setting me straight. Rant on TOM, that's all you seem to do anyway....I hope it really makes you feel better all day everyday..

Peace out.

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

It is true about the standard of living in western continental Europe. I lived in France for 3 years in the early '80s. Europe has everything that we have and it is much easier to travel - something I love to do - when you are living over there. Moreover, every worker has a minimum of five weeks of paid holidays as well as medicare and generous maternity leave. Moreover, Europe is very beautiful, both the landscape and the cities.

We, however, can justifiably pride ourselves on being less racist and less class conscious.

When you said "We" in your last sentence, I assume you meant Canadians.

[green 6]

TOM is right about drugs coming into the States from over the Canadian border. Up here we have grow-ops all over the place; it seems like there are busts going on daily. People rent apartments/houses and turn them into grow operations for marijuana. The end result is that these domiciles are no longer fit for human habitation because of the dangerous amount of mould which also grows in these humid conditions.

Our previous government did try to decriminalize simple possession of pot but the American government put pressure on our government and so it dropped this initiative. Too bad! Why clog up the judicial system and waste money going after pot smokers? Why not save your ammo for the businessmen who work this illegal game?

Anyhow, it appears that the quality of Canadian pot is superb. We ship it Stateside and we receive artillery in return. As you may or may not know, our gun laws are very tough and it is exceedingly difficult to buy 'em north of the border.

[green 6]

When you said "We" in your last sentence, I assume you meant Canadians.

Nope, I was including Americans, too.