Why we need a Republican Congress
With the election now weeks away, people in Illinois and throughout the country have to make an important choice. The choices are very clear as long as you are able to see through the fog of media madness of congressional pages and the anti-Bush news stories that fill the pages of newspapers and lead newscasts of TV and radio.
Every person who votes must think about a handful of very important issues. National security is No. 1 because nothing else matters if we and our families are not safe. With nukes in North Korea, perhaps Iran, and the war on terror, President Bush and Republicans have shown they have a plan and have executed the plan. We have been able to keep terrorist attacks overseas and not in our country. We have attacked terrorist leaders where they are.
The aggressive attack on terror and fighting them in Iraq as opposed to in New York or here in Chicago has been a success by any critical standard. It was Democrats who wanted to prevent the National Security Agency from monitoring overseas phones calls despite the success of the program in preventing attacks in the U.S.It was Democrats who wanted to kill the Patriot Act, which has given law-enforcement officers the powers they need to protect us from those who want to kill us.
It was Democrats who wanted an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, which would embolden terrorists to continue their attacks against us all over the world and bring it back home to us. Americans have to realize the consequences of paralyzing a presidency by sending to Washington a Congress that will go to war with the president instead of our enemies. It would be at the peril of our national security to do so.
The fact is we have an outstanding economic recovery since the recession that started in the last year of Bill Clinton and the downturn after Sept. 11, 2001. The stock market is now at record highs. Unemployment is low. Budget deficits are shrinking with the outstanding economic recovery that has been brought about by Bush's pro-growth economic policies. If you vote for a Democrat, you are voting for high taxes on everyone, not just the rich.
But even more important than that, by voting for a Democrat, you are voting to make our nation less safe. We live in a dangerous world. President Bush and his supporters in Congress are best able to continue to keep us safe.
And Matt, save a stool and a hat for Rick Pickren of River Forest, Illinois. Rick complains that the Tribune has not adequately covered Congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth's "total lack of support for the 2nd Amendment." Psst, Rick, ya think maybe she understands WELL-SETTLED LAW here in the 7th Circuit? That the 2nd conveys no individual right of ownership and is not a "fundamental right" for purposes of 14th Amendment incorporation? (I can explain that if anyone cares).
Rick. say hi to Matt and
11 comments:
Pete, you beat me to the punch (as usual). The breathless dunderheaded dittoism of McCann's letter reads like a GOP talking point memo. Picking them apart point by point isn't worth the time, but again, I'll ask the question: How do we know when we've won the GOP "War on Turr(tm)?"
RR is right that these talking points are old and easy to take down.
The talking point that the Repubes are putting more noise to is the economy and the DJIA setting a new record high. I just want to make sure everyone knows that this is NOT something to be proud of. What it means is that our 30 biggest companies took 6 years to achieve ZERO growth! The Dow is back to the peaks of six years ago and that does not include inflation.
While our economy isn't terrible, going six years with nothing to show for it isn't something to be trumpeting.
Actually, the DJIA as a measure of the state of the American stock market is horseshit. It's 30 stocks, all big manufacturing.
The S&P500 is a far broader and more representative index: 500 companies of all sizes and shapes and sorts. And guess what: it's down about 13% since January 2000.
Looking at the DJIA as a measure of the health of the economy is like looking at hair length as a measure of the health of a person.
And people's hair length increases after they die.
But Schmidlap, the headlines all shout "Stocks hit record high!". In general people don't know what these "stocks" are or what it means to them and the economy. They just know it sounds good and the Repubes are in office taking credit for it as a sign of a strong economy.
You're right that the DJIA is pretty meaningless. Too few people know that. So when you tell them that the Dow hit a record, or that 30 of our biggest companies hit a record, or that the "stock market" (or a small part of the market) hit a record, people are going to think the economy is doing great! Where are the people who know better to tell them what it really means? I haven't heard one analyst talk about the lack of importance or significance of these "records".
Again, this "record" really means 6 years of zero progress for 30 of the biggest companies in the US. The Repubes are proud of that?
Frustrating.
Here's the thing I've noticed. If the stock market goes up, does that benefit me? Yes. Not for 32+ years, when I can access my retirement money, but sure. How it helps me today, I have no idea. We're solidly middle-class people, and it's largely irrelevant to us. The number of people for whom the stock market directly impacts their daily lives is tiny.
The idiocy of the "fighting them there" and "we haven't been attacked" is self-evident. The "fuzzy math" is particularly ridiculous and galling. First of all, cutting the "deficit" just means they didn't charge quite so much to the maxed-out credit card as expected-the debt continues to increase. They have cut their "projected" deficits by 1) starting out with grotesquely large estimates to begin with and 2) doing Enron-style off-book accounting to hide the real costs of the war.
Unrelated other than it deals with Letters to the Editor:
This letter expresses why I may break my vow and vote for Bean. Every day, I get home and have message(s) which state how horrible Bean is but contain nothing at all about McSleazy (that's his name right ;) ).
http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2006/10/22/opinion/letters/doc453c429148024273680740.txt
Rousing rabble: How do we know when we've won the GOP "War on Turr(tm)?
Like you'll ever get an answer to that! *rolls eyes* It's like asking "Specifically WHAT should the president NOT be allowed to do to 'protect the nation' - where is the line?"
Jimbow8, I think a good starting point is that the President should not be allowed to violate the Constitution. He should not be able to violate the law. He should not be able to violate established treaties.
That's just a start. Without getting to specific how far over the line are we so far?
See, the problem is simple: Everyone in the media seems (with apologies to B&B) to be in agreeance that we're fighting a war. The problem is that this war either is: A) amorphous; or B) a fallacy. If the answer is A, you can't win the "war" unless you know the identities of every turrist in the world and have the wherewithal to neutralize ALL of them. And if the answer is "B" (far more likely), then all of this is being done to keep idiots like McCann so petrified that they'll gladly sign away 225 years of constitutional precedent to feel as if the boogieman can be kept at bay.
I just can't believe that people can be so stupid as to be believe that we can be free of the possibility of being on the receiving end of someone else's bad intentions.
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