criddic3 wrote:I agree that the $100 relief isn't the best idea, but I wouldn't exactly call it a "bribe."
You would if it were the Democrats offering it during an election year. And you'd be right.
Forget what you think it is. What would giving money to all Americans (regardless of the pretence) during an election year LOOK LIKE it was, if not cottoning up to voters?.
I agree that it is politically motivated, but I wouldn't exactly call it a bribe. Politicians always promise things in election years that they think voters will like. This is no different. Bribe just seems a little uglier than the actual proposal really is.
Biden: Split Iraq Into 3 Different Regions
Actually, some of my (conservative) family members have come up with this idea before. I argued against it, because I think that such a break-up would make civil war more -- rather than less-- likely and might even make it easier for outside factions to take over. The Iraqis seem to be determined to create a unified gov't that represents all factions within. This should be supported by us, since it is the only way for Iraq to become a strong nation on its own.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
Here's a silly idea that proves Democrats don't necessarily know what to do either...Oh how well it has worked in Israel.
Biden: Split Iraq Into 3 Different Regions
By LIBBY QUAID, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 22 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The senior Democrat on the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee proposed Monday that
Iraq be divided into three separate regions — Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni — with a central government in Baghdad.
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In an op-ed essay in Monday's edition of The New York Times, Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record). D-Del., wrote that the idea "is to maintain a united Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group ... room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in charge of common interests."
The new Iraqi constitution allows for establishment of self-governing regions. But that was one of the reasons the Sunnis opposed the constitution and why they demanded and won an agreement to review it this year.
Biden and co-writer Leslie H. Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, acknowledged the opposition, and said the Sunnis "have to be given money to make their oil-poor region viable. The Constitution must be amended to guarantee Sunni areas 20 percent (approximately their proportion of the population) of all revenues."
Biden and Gelb also wrote that
President Bush "must direct the military to design a plan for withdrawing and redeploying our troops from Iraq by 2008 (while providing for a small but effective residual force to combat terrorists and keep the neighbors honest)."
The White House on Sunday defended its prewar planning against criticism from an unlikely source — former Secretary of State
Colin Powell.
In an interview broadcast Sunday in London, Powell revisited the question of whether the U.S. had a large enough force to oust
Saddam Hussein and then secure the peace.
Powell said he advised now-retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who developed and executed the 2003 Iraq invasion plan, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld "before the president that I was not sure we had enough troops. The case was made, it was listened to, it was considered. ... A judgment was made by those responsible that the troop strength was adequate."
Current Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, who was Bush's national security adviser at the time of the invasion, responded, "I don't remember specifically what Secretary Powell may be referring to, but I'm quite certain that there were lots of discussions about how best to fulfill the mission that we went into Iraq.
"And I have no doubt that all of this was taken into consideration. But that when it came down to it, the president listens to his military advisers who were to execute the plan," she told CNN's "Late Edition."
Rice said Bush "listened to the advice of his advisers and ultimately, he listened to the advice of his commanders, the people who actually had to execute the war plan. And he listened to them several times," she told ABC's "This Week."
"When the war plan was put together, it was put together, also, with consideration of what would happen after Saddam Hussein was actually overthrown," Rice said.
In their essay Monday, Biden and Gelb wrote: "It is increasingly clear that President Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq. Rather, he hopes to prevent defeat and pass the problem along to his successor."
Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991
Gulf War and is known for his belief in deploying decisive force with a clear exit strategy in any conflict.
"The president's military advisers felt that the size of the force was adequate; they may still feel that years later. Some of us don't. I don't," Powell said. "In my perspective, I would have preferred more troops, but you know, this conflict is not over."
"At the time, the president was listening to those who were supposed to be providing him with military advice," Powell said. "They were anticipating a different kind of immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad; it turned out to be not exactly as they had anticipated."
Rumsfeld has rejected criticism that he sent too few U.S. troops to Iraq, saying that Franks and generals who oversaw the campaign's planning had determined the overall number of troops, and that he and Bush agreed with them. The recommendation of senior military commanders at the time was about 145,000 troops.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
criddic3 wrote:I agree that the $100 relief isn't the best idea, but I wouldn't exactly call it a "bribe."
You would if it were the Democrats offering it during an election year. And you'd be right.
Forget what you think it is. What would giving money to all Americans (regardless of the pretence) during an election year LOOK LIKE it was, if not cottoning up to voters?
The Pentagon's cost for new weapons and equipment has risen sharply since U.S. troops entered Iraq, from about $8 billion in 2003 to more than $24 billion this year, according to statistics compiled by the Congressional Research Service. As a percentage, new equipment now accounts for 20 percent of military expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan; in 2003, new equipment purchases accounted for about 10 percent of spending.
Pentagon spending also has shot up for so-called operations and maintenance in Iraq, from $43 billion a year in 2003 to $64 billion in 2006, though it's impossible to know precisely how much of that increase is due to repairs on damaged equipment. Those figures also include such items as costs for health care and Iraqi troop training....
....The Army is requesting $13.5 billion this year to repair, replace or upgrade equipment lost or damaged in the war. And officials estimate that the Army will need $12 billion to $13 billion a year for these purposes until at least two years after most troops have left Iraq and Afghanistan.
The cost of replacing equipment is one of the factors likely to make Iraq one of the costliest military engagements in U.S. history.
If Congress passes the emergency spending request that's before the Senate, the cost of military operations since the 9-11 terrorist attacks will top $439 billion, with $320 billion of that for the Iraq war alone, according to a report this week by the Congressional Research Service.
Even with a significant reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next several years, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that total war spending could top $811 billion by 2016.
For comparison, the 1991 Persian Gulf War cost about $89 billion in today's dollars, while the Korean War cost $455 billion and the Vietnam War cost $655 billion, according to Steven Kosiak, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent policy research group in Washington.
Bush challenges hundreds of laws
By Charlie Savage The Boston Globe
SUNDAY, APRIL 30, 2006
WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed the authority <span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office</span>, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, "whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.
Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to "execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.
Former administration officials contend that just because Bush reserves the right to disobey a law does not mean he is not enforcing it: In many cases, he is simply asserting his belief that a certain requirement encroaches on presidential power.
But with the disclosure of Bush's domestic spying program, in which he ignored a law requiring warrants to tap the phones of Americans, many legal specialists say Bush is hardly reluctant to bypass laws he believes he has the constitutional authority to override.
Far more than any predecessor, Bush has been aggressive about declaring his right to ignore vast swaths of laws -- many of which he says infringe on power he believes the Constitution assigns to him alone as the head of the executive branch or the commander in chief of the military.
Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush's theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.
Phillip Cooper, a Portland State University law professor who has studied the executive power claims Bush made during his first term, said Bush and his legal team have spent the past five years quietly working to concentrate ever more governmental power into the White House.
"There is no question that this administration has been involved in a very carefully thought-out, systematic process of expanding presidential power at the expense of the other branches of government," Cooper said. "This is really big, very expansive, and very significant."
I agree that the $100 relief isn't the best idea, but I wouldn't exactly call it a "bribe."
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I found this in response to that poll that was posted a while back, I think by Damien.
Friday, April 28, 2006
The Problem with Lists of the Worst Presidents
You might have heard that Sean Wilentz has come out with a story in Rolling Stone arguing that George W. Bush may be the worst president ever. Jay Cost explains why Wilentz's method of arguing is specious and weak. Wilentz sets up three criteria for judging presidents.
This is why I was so aggrieved to read Wilentz's piece. He is a great historian who should know better than to devolve into the idle speculations of the history buff - but that is exactly what he does.
This becomes evident with a careful reading of his eighth paragraph. Wilentz gives three criteria for differentiating the good president from the bad. These are: (1) did they divide or unite the nation? (2) did they govern erratically or "brilliantly"? (3) did they leave the nation more or less secure? I shall take these as they are given - but I will say that I have serious objections to all three (particularly the second, which seems to present a false dichotomy and, with "brilliant," uses a word so hackneyed that it is almost bereft of meaning).
I'd just like to focus on the first question for a minute. The presidencies have left the country quite divided. We became bitterly divided during Washington's presidency, though he did his best to resist the emerging partisanship. Andrew Jackson was bitterly divisive and seemed to relish his fights with the newly-created Whig Party, a party that united groups who hated Jackson. Weak antebellum presidents sought to paper over the deep divisions that separated the country over the expansion of slavery into new territories. Both Pierce and Buchanan tried to appease Southerners on the slavery issue. Would that make the rate higher on trying to unite the country than Abraham Lincoln who would "accept war rather than let it perish?" Gee, what could be more divisive than that. Sure, he tried to bring the country together with a relatively soft Reconstruction plan and pleas to "bind up the nation's wounds," but let's not forget the anger with which the South had received Lincoln's offer of a lenient Reconstruction plan to welcome them back into the Union. They would find out how much worse Reconstruction could be under Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republicans, but at the time, during his presidency, I don't think you can describe the country as united. Even in the North, the Union was deeply divided between Republicans and Democrats. Would Wilentz dock Lincoln on that criteria? Or what about Harry Truman campaigning on the "do nothing Congress" and demagoguing the GOP? Was he uniting the country? Truman instituted loyalty checks in the federal government? Was that uniting us? Where does Wilentz put Truman on that criteria?
You know, it takes two to tango. The country can't be united if one group bitterly resists any attempt to bring the country together. That should not be the criteria on which to judge presidential greatness. Sure, we can come together in a crisis such as Pearl Harbor, but in the daily swing of things, we're a country that is divided ideologically because people believe different things. People have different views on the best way to attack the nation's problems. That is why they belong to different parties. Do we want a president who ignores these differences and just tries to pretend that everyone agrees on the best way to fight terrorism or strengthen the economy? Jay Cost is exactly right about what a silly exercise this was for Sean Wilentz, not to even get into judging a presidency while it is going on. Think of how our assessments of the presidencies of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan have changed in the last 20 years. We can wait a bit for time to tell us if the war in Iraq was a terrible misadventure that deepened the problems in the Middle East and heightened the threats from terrorism or whether it was the turning point that changed the situation that we were facing regarding terrorism and these rogue nations. Serious historians should recognize the need for that time to pass.
UPDATE: I didn't have time before to address Wilentz's second and third criteria, but Jay Cost has some thoughts on the silliness of evaulating a president's governance as erratic or brilliant. I have a few minutes to offer some more thoughts. Of course, these terms represent value judgments and, if one despises George W. Bush, chances are you are not going to be able to be able to even conceive of the idea of his being brilliant. Is that necessarily the term you think of for those presidents usually regarded as great? Did George Washington govern brilliantly? It's not the adverb I would have chosen although I have usually put him in second place when I have been asked to evaluate presidents.
And trying to evaluate if the president left the country more or less secure while he is still in office is fatuous. Just think of what we've learned about Clinton's presidency in terms of leaving the country less secure since he left office. Think of what we learned after Reagan's presidency afterwards when we could evaluate it in terms of knowing that the Cold War would end a year after he left office. Think of what historians might have thought of Truman and leaving the country more or less secure if they'd tried to evaluate his presidency in 1950 in the beginning of the Korean War? And did FDR leave the country more or less secure? Sometimes, it doesn't depend on what the president does but what others do. Pearl Harbor happened on his watch. I don't argue that he knew about it ahead of time, but was he taking a needlessly aggressive stance towards Japan when he placed an embargo on certain goods? Or was he guilty of not making it clear how the United States would respond if attacked? He died after Yalta - did that agreement do anything to exacerbate the Cold War? Did the decision to rein in Eisenhower and the troops as they approached Berlin have an impact on the situation in Europe after the war? These are all questions that can be debated. Would Wilentz then place FDR in the middle of presidents because the country was not necessarily more secure in terms of international relations than when he entered office? I somehow doubt that. And, of course, we could debate all day long if FDR's actions ameliorated the country's economic situation or exacerbated the problmes of the Depression. Historians have a more complex view of FDR today than they would have had in 1945 when FDR died. Wilentz's exercise in judging Bush's presidency is silly and not a serious task for a respected historian.
posted by Betsy 6:41 AM Comments from an AP history and government teacher in Raleigh, NC.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
I was afraid you'd respond "solar, wind etc." Solar and wind power may become viable energy forms sometime in the future, but as of now, that is not the case. Water power is a viable source of energy, but there probably isn't enough water power available to replace fossil fuels. Nuclear power is a genuine alternative, however.
I haven't heard anything good from wind power so far. My own home country, Finland, invested large sums on wind power, in the process ruining lots of fine coastal landscape and making life hellish for people living nearby, all for the benefit of a few investors and so that the Green Party could have something to boast about. If Finland had invested the same money on improving the technology at her fossil fuel plants, it would have reduced emissions sixteen times as much as the investments on bogus wind power did.
In Germany, Schroeder goverment's wind power plan was even more bogus. The goverment guaranteed to buy any wind power at some fixed (high) price. This was a boon for wealthy investors and landowners who can now literally harvest taxpayer money from air. (Again, making life hellish for those who live nearby.) This project also demonstrated the technical inferiority of wind power. Because wind is so unreliable, Germany has not been able to decrease at all its reliance on other sources of energy. On the other hand, when there is too much wind, the electric grid becomes overloaded and there is a threat that it will fail.
At times like this, it's fun to recall criddic's prediction that Bush would become a beloved figure in his second term.
I said I hoped his approvals would continue to rise. I didn't say he would become "beloved." However, I do think you guys are jumping the gun on this one. There are 3 years to go.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
What WSJ fails to take into account is that the Democrats who are opposed to foreign oil don't want to open up American oil reserve, they want to explore renewable fuels, thus decreasing our overall dependence on oil and not destroying pristine natural wildernesses since most of what we have left has already been destroyed.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
That reminds me. Right after Bush gave his State of The Union Address where he said America was addicted to oil, the Federal Government cut funding for the NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory).
