WE Blog

WE will see a week from today or I should say I will see a week from today!
Once before I clicked my heels and ended up declaring to Toto “We are not in the Kansas I once thought I knew!”. Next weekend I plan to once again knock my heels together and see how the sound will echo.

I dunno Phillip, maybe they are Kiwanis Club members as well. Better call the Sheriff, there could be a conspiracy. :)

Give em enough rope…

The Democrata are always trying to redistribute my wealth (tax the rich), Republicans are always trying to adjust my morals (abortion).
Dems have cost me money. The Reps have only pissed me off.
I vote the lesser of two evils.

I’m a conservative and proud of it.

Kris Kobach, the Ingrid Newkirk of the Kansas Republican Party.

“rfl” parrots Republic Party talking points, to wit:

“…we are all at a loss if Al Queada (sic) wins in Iraq….”

And just how is that, “rfl?”

Be specific.

Reveal to us all the readings from your crystal ball and let us know how “…we are all at a loss if Al Queada (sic) wins in Iraq….”

Reveal to us all the readings from your crystal ball and let us know how “…we are all at a loss if Al Queada (sic) wins in Iraq….”

HAHA. MH is joking.

“rfl” and “outlander” –

Iraq is a mess. And it’s gonna be a mess as long as we have American troops in the crossfire. And it’s gonna be a mess after American troops leave, whether it’s tomorrow or in (as McCain promises) a hundred years from now.

Just how many American lives are you willing to sacrifice ’til the inevitable happens? Just how many trillions of your tax dollars are you willing to spend ’til what will happen (and you know it will) happens?

And even if it’s al Qaeda who wins (and not the majority Shi’ites or minority ex-Baathists/Sunnis… what is the consequence that, to quote “rfl,” “…we are all at a loss if Al Queada (sic) wins in Iraq…?”

Tell me how many American bodies and how many trillion American dollars are worth your alleged “loss.”

Here and now:

Al-Qaeda whether we are there or not is not likely to win in Iraq, it was never about Al-Qaeda in Iraq in the first place. They certain do not stand any better chance in Iraq then they would in Iran. What is at stake in Iraq is our dignity that is all. The country that has the most powerful military in the world has been stalemated by a bunch of people with home-made bombs and small arms. If there is a quiet time it is solely because of the Sunnis and the Shiites deciding on their own to take a breather nothing we have really managed to do. The best we are doing there is what is called a “stalling war” we are not winning but neither are we being beaten. The truth is that Washington does not have a clue what to do so they are holding on till they get a clue. We pull out it is a spanking for being bad, if we stay then after the breather it will be business as usual.

Al-Qaeda can jump up and down by blowing things up and killing innocent people. But they can not win in Iraq. Them being there just puts them in the same place we are, in between the Sunnis and the Shiites.

Tell me how many American bodies and how many trillion American dollars are worth your alleged “loss.”
-Monkeyhawk

MH,

How many suicide attacks that kill innocent Americans, British, Spanish, Australian and Iraqis have to happen at the hands of Al Qaeda before you realize that right now we have a good chance of putting a serious blow to this murderous organization by at least rooting it out of Iraq?

“Terrorist Acts Suspected of or Inspired by al-Qaeda”
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0884893.html

We are using an enlisted volunteer military force who are there because they chose to be. All American’s desperately want this war to be over, but a sizeable amount reject the idea of accomplishing that feat at the cost of allowing Al Qaeda to take power.

So make it political statments and slander all you want but the ferocity of Al Qaeda, as clearly demonstrated on 9-11, and in Madrid, London, Iraq and elsewhere, has made this fight a must win.

That does not mean that that the decision to oust Sadaam was a wise move. In fact I opposed it back in 2003. But I think, and your Democratic Speaker of the House is in agreement (when the votes are made), that pulling out right now and stopping funding is not a good idea. So the idea that Republicans are the only ones funding this war is completety false.

“Pelosi Backs War Funds Only With Conditions”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021500876.html

State GOP went with what has not worked.

Ya can’t fix stupid

Opps . . . network delay.

Democrats - The party of perpetual pessimism. :)

Democrats - The party of perpetual pessimism.

Why be surprised, since “Mission Accomplished”, everything they were optimisitic about has been met with disappointment at every turn. After a while ya beat a dog enough — he gets used to it — doesn’t look forward to it ………………..

One of my favorite games is finding good canaries. You know, accurate leading indicators.

And I’ve found one. This canary died (i.e., predicted) the trend noted in the OP: the Republics, including the Kansas GOP, are turning hard right in response to their loss of political power in 2006. Kind of like the way the Democrats by nominating George McGovern in 1972 turned hard left in response to their losses of 1968-70. This isn’t anything new; David Frum has written a book about it.

The canary: The popular FOX television program 24 is no longer on the air. :D

This is most definitely a leading indicator of the GOP’s hard right turn, to be completed following their impending losses come November:

Against the real-life backdrop of global terrorist attacks, “24″ at its peak fulfilled the fantasies of an insecure nation. It became one of the most important franchises for News Corp.’s Fox Broadcasting Co., with 17 million viewers tuning in some weeks and millions returning to watch on DVD. (News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal.)

But those who ride the tide of the times can also get upended by them. As public opinion about the Iraq War turned south, the show’s depiction of torture came to be seen as glorifying the practice in the wake of real-world reports of waterboarding and other interrogation techniques used on detainees.

Ratings dropped by a third over the course of last year’s sixth season. Producers would later experience trouble casting roles, once some of the most desirable in television, because the actors disapproved of the show’s depiction of torture. “The fear and wish-fulfillment the show represented after 9/11 ended up boomeranging against us,” says the show’s head writer, Howard Gordon. “We were suddenly facing a blowback from current events.”

Last spring, Fox executives asked producers to come up with a plan for what to do with their onetime crown jewel. The producers decided to take the radical — and rarely attempted — step of reinventing the show. While some fans complained “24″ had grown too formulaic, the producers also grudgingly saw the importance of wrestling the show from its ties to an unpopular conflict.

The result: “24″ is nowhere to be found on the TV schedule. For weeks the show’s producers tried to reconcile the show’s premise with the new public mood. Should Jack atone for his sins? Is Jack bad? The script rewrites and philosophical crises left the show so far behind schedule that when the Hollywood writers went on strike in November, Fox had no choice but to delay its premiere date. The show could premiere this summer, next fall or as late as January 2009.

[Bold mine]

FOX is pulling the show because it’s no longer possible to honestly square the main character with changing American attitudes about torture. Jack Bauer’s “death” is the canary that predicts a hard right turn for those who can’t so easily yank their support for torture: the GOP. For the GOP, it’s either admit they were wrong or double down the bet (on torture and its use by Americans). The GOP will make a hard right turn and take option number two, no doubt.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120189888101136151.html?mod=hps_us_pageone

“Since the headquarters of al Qaeda is pretty much agreed to be in Pakistan along the Afghanistan border, “rooting al Qaeda out of Iraq” makes about as much sense as sacrificing an unlimited number of American lives and an unlimited trillions of American taxpayers’ dollars to “rooting out” al Qaeda from Moss Point, Mississippi.”
-Monkeyhawk

I really do not understand this ambiguous post so I must respond to both possible meanings. Are you saying that there are no Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq?

If so your are wrong. The HQ may be in Pakistant/Afganistan, but there is no dispute that the resistance to an Iraqi government is foreign born Al Qaeda fighters.

Or are you saying that if by chance there were Al Qaeda in Moss Point, MS, even then would it not be worth the lives of American soldiers and the expense of tax dollars to root them out?

If that is what you are saying, then you are completely off your rocker.

That fact that you are either so deluded as to deny the facts of Al Qaeda’s presence in Iraq or that you fail to understand the purpose of a military in defending its own soil, makes it difficult to dignify a response to you any further.

“How does the Democrat Party treat prolife Democrats?”

They give them the platform to run for office. That’s why we have a number of democrats who really SHOULD be labeled republicans.

“al Qaeda in Iraq” is an invention of the George WMD Bush propaganda machine.

It’s kinda like the wannabe “crips” or “bloods” in Tulsa, Oklahoma, or Muncie, Indiana. The locals may aspire to to the big time, and may have adopted the big league’s name. But “al Qaeda in Iraq” never was and isn’t affiliated with the outfit in Pakistans and Afghanistan that George WMD Bush has ignored since March, 2003.

It’s interesting to notice, yet again, that “rfl” and “outlander” refuse to share with us just how many American lives and how many trillions of American taxpayers’ dollars they are willing to sacrifice for the benefit of Iraq.

The Republic Party is dead-set on nominating a presidential candidate who’s promised American jobs aren’t coming back, illegal immigrants aren’t going home, and he’ll wage war in Iraq for a hundred years.

With Romney’s promiscuous pandering, and McCains out of touch views and policies, I have real confidence that Ron Paul will win the nomination. If you guys are going to hate on the GOP because it has turned into a quagmire, thats fine with me, but don’t hate on Ron Paul a Libertarian that had to choose the Republican Party just to have a chance, because a candidate running in a third party has no chance, even that the media has gone on smear campaigns and censorship to try and keep Paul a secret. If you still don’t know what a Libertarians views are, they have both conservative and liberal views. Known as classic liberalism. They champion personal freedoms, rights, and the constitution, and a belief that the government is to serve the people not the other way around. If you guys want your children to live in a future that resembles 1984, choose the Republican, if you want your children to live in a future that resembles the brave new world, choose Democrats. If you want your children to live in a future where freedom, individuality, and personal responsibility, and inalienable rights reign supreme, please choose moderates and libertarians.

About “24″

The new season would introduce a female character, someone like Jack but at an earlier point in her career. Jack’s made certain choices and is willing to pay the price, but this character’s soul is still in play. “We decided that Jack is Jack, and these questions [about torture] are more deftly handled through a character who hasn’t been defined yet,” Mr. Gordon says.

The writers decided to scrap the Counter Terrorist Unit, the government agency for which Jack worked for the first six seasons of the show. Instead Jack would go to Washington to address head-on the accusations that his tactics were out of line. He will make his case. He has nothing to apologize for.

“For five years, this was a wish fulfillment show,” Mr. Gordon said. “At the beginning, when everybody’s fear was more acute, people’s tolerance for violence, their own rage, seemed to make Jack’s tactics more acceptable. But in the wake of our own abuses in prosecuting this so-called War on Terror, we feel Jack is getting a bum rap. So instead of selling out the entire show and its history and its legacy and apologizing for it and ultimately invalidating it, we decided to defend it.”

——————

Should be an interesting season, Pedant. “24″ sucked last season. It had gotten preposterous. Now that Kiefer Sutherland has served his drunk driving time, I’ll be looking forward to the season.

I never could watch 24, I watched one full episode once, never could get into it. I guess it was supposed to be about how many American lives are saved everyday by unaccredited heros who do the dirty work behind the scenes. I’m sure if this happens in real life, the media would be all over foiled terrorists attacks and plots.

WE - he will not carry a single state Tuesday.

Ben
I know that we disagree on many things, but I would like your take on the Ron Paul, Libertarian, “Gold Standard” mentality.

While I do understand the “sound money” ooncept, I have always wondered why the “gold bugs” — who tend to want “no foreign entanglement” would want to base our currency on a product produced, primarily, in South Africa and in former Commununist dictatorships.

Beyond that, the price of oil and gold tend to move in concert — partly due to inflation, but also due to the fact that Moslem culture prefers gold over interest bearing accounts.

Gold bugs also tend to be very, very pessimistic people. I do not think that constant pessimism, and constant “bearishness” are emotions truly representative of the American spirit.

Gold mining stocks, or least mutual funds that own such stocks, might be appropriate for a portion of someones portfolio.

However, those who constantly push gold give me the willies. I think they are a little odd, they are almost wishing for a “Mad Max and Thunderdome” type existence, down the road, just so they can say “I told you so”.

Who is going to buy their darn gold, if it gets that bad?

Anyway, Ron Paul comes from the “gold bug” crowd.

It is a contradiction. Nationalism and Isolationism, but we let the world Gold market dictate our currency?

McCain does NOT have those endorsements now, by the way.
And He will not get them, unless and until he wins the primary.
I am still pulling for Romney!

Actually Ron Paul has a good chance of carrying Maine, but that’s about it. The most he can hope for is becoming a VP candidate if McCain wins since McCain will need his cash (or he may just choose Romney who provides his own).

McCain, a candidate nearly certain to get the NRA and Right to Life endorsements, is considered the liberal candidate”

Only by the Right-wing extremists. Not by anyone else.

As for gold standard - I agree with you Paul. Interesting that it was a reletive of mine who campaigned long ago to get the US OFF of the gold standard to get the economy moving again. Obviously that was long ago - and the original Wizard of Oz book related to that story. In the book Dorothy’s slippers were not ruby. Anyone know what they were?

Ben
RUN RALPH RUN!

Ben, in L Frank Baum’s novel Dorothy’s slippers were made of silver, not ruby.

By the way, in the original The Scarecrow represented US farmers, who wanted dollars denominated in silver instead of gold (the change would have reduced the balance of their loans to banks, since as gold appreciated in price so did the amount of their loans).

The Scarecrow needed brains because, according to some, farmers were too stupid to realize that non-fiat moneys, especially those backed by a promise of a precious metal like gold or silver, are subject to de facto inflation. That is, as more gold (or whatever) is discovered, the less current stocks are valued. So if today say a Troy ounce of gold is equivalent to $1,000, then tomorrow if a huge gold mine were opened it then tomorrow you could buy the same ounce for something less than $1,000.

This is the biggest reason any “return to the gold standard” candidate is called a screwball, btw. Rightfully so, too.

Yes Paul - Bryant; on my mother’s side. And on my father’s side is an author who was on Eisenhour’s enemies list (Execution of Private Slovak) and absolutely despised by the KKK (The Klansman). So, troublemaking runs deep in my family.

Hillary is an opportunist, who has given liberals what they want, when it is good for her.

Obama is a liberal, but an honest liberal.

The definition of stupid, if something doesn’t work, do even more of it.