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Austin, Texas... Politex's

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Dear Politex...

Doyle's letter sounds like the kind of comments that a Freeper would make. Lucianne, is that you? I will briefly address both "points":

1. "We have principles..." Oh, really? How does that square up with the Naderites knowingly using funds from a GOP organization toward the end of the campaign for the purposes of advertising in certain states in the Northwest and Midwest regions where the election was going to be very close? Do the Naderites really believe that these GOP operatives were just being "helpful"? Additionally, what Green Party "principles" does Doyle believe are being represented in Nader's statement just prior to the election that if he had to vote, he would vote for Bush, a man who has demonstrated throughout his "career" his diametric opposition to Green Party objectives.

2. "We have brain cells..."

In comparison to what...the average houseplant? Nader's campaign has set the conservation agenda back 50-100 years by allowing Bush to become a squatter in the White House. Take a good strong look at the people that Bush has appointed to various posts that impact the environment and then look at the decisions some of these people have made since being confirmed by Congress. Their actions will translate into a drop in Green Party membership, if not its outright destruction as a political force. Their actions will also cause a rise in Democratic Party membership, the move of swing voters to the Democratic Party side of the political spectrum, and starting with the 2002 elections, a move back to Democratic Party control of Congress. And that will translate into even MORE heat on Mr. Suliminable, and some REAL investigations into the GOP fraudulent "win" of the last Presidential election. It may even result in some investigations of the current GOP leadership of the House, and perhaps a move to recall five of the nine current Supreme Court Justices.

The Naderites have made their bed...I hope they enjoy it for as long as they are still in it. --Jim, 7/10/01

The naivete of the Nader voter is boundless. If having principles and brain cells means believing in the tooth fairy then I guess they have more of that than the Democrats. But the Democrats actually have an understanding of a Republic and what it takes to run one. Anyone who believes that Gore's principles on the environment and corporate greed are not pure is simply a dupe of the media. But at the same time the Democrats understand and even embrace the fact that not all Americans, nor even a majority, are going to have all of the same issues at heart. Therefore we strike a balance. We see the problems, we see how things should be, and we steer the nation in that direction, while at the same time understanding that there are those who do not agree with us, who will shut the government down rather than let us get what we want. And the other guys have a lot of money, and power, and at the present control the other two branches of government. We have to work within the real world, which means we have to compromise with the other side. If we do it well, as Clinton did, we make gains even when the enemy outnumbers us.

Contrast that to a supposed Nader victory. Day one: Nader is sworn in. Day two: Nader tells America how things are going to be from then on. Day three: Corporate America, the media, the Republicans, the Congress, the Supreme Court and every dumb yokel who believes Rush Limbaugh is a scholar turn against him. After that he just rides around in Air Force One watching his vetoes overridden and hoping that it really was Oswald who shot Kennedy. There's a real world out there, and Nader, nor the Democrats, nor thankfully the Republicans will ever control it entirely.

Now, onto Nader's character. He openly opposed and campaigned against the one person in Washington who not only supported but actively popularized ever major issue the Green Party and Nader claim to hold, and then openly supported and even accepted money from a party and a candidate who scoff at and mock his ideas, gaining the admiration along the way of such a left-winger as Rush Limbaugh. Now, why would he do this? Three possibilities, and no more, come to mind. One, he's as naive as his supporters. Two, money. He wanted those matching funds for getting five percent of the vote and knew that he would not get voters from the Republicans. Three, ego. I personally believe three, but the other two are possibilities. As far as having principles, or fighting for what he believed in, throw those out. Nader opposed what he spent a lifetime achieving. Even Bush has more principle. --Joseph, 7/9/01

We Nader supporters have two qualities that...Nader bashers do not have.

1. We have principles. Y'know, principles?...We will not support a presidential candidate who is pro-capital punishment, pro-welfare deform, pro-war on drugs, and a cheerleader for globalism. We will not surrender to the "lesser of two evils" non-logic. We will put relentless pressure on the progressive end of the political spectrum until they shape up and get rid of some of these indefensible, unconscionable stands. We realize that winning today means appropriating some of the middle and practicing some triangulation, but the above are not acceptable sacrifices.

2. We have brain cells....The Nader-basing is the most stupid, destructive, ridiculous, unproductive tantrum-throwing I've ever seen. The Democratic Party has a problem. The 2000 elections should not have been close, either for the presidency or for Congress. The Democratic Leadership, and apparently some of the more loudmouthed rank and file, are in denial. Shape up? Change? Get to the root of the problem and fix it? No, far easier to sling nasty names at Ralph Nader and lay problems at his feet. Why in the world should I cast my vote for such childish fools as that? 2000 wasn't the last loss. 2002 will be another setback for the Democrats, and 2004, and 2006, and 2008, until it rediscovers its principles. Personally, I think that will be never, because I think there always will be egos and tantrums and scapegoats in the way. I'm as left-wing as they come, and I regard the Democratic party as the enemy that needs to be put down, so that the Green Party can take over carrying the banner for people who won't accept the Republicans' lies and greed. --Doyle, 7/8/01

Nader broke his vow to many supporters and close friends when he contested swing states like Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and--most costly--Florida. Bush and the right wingers devoted time and superior resources attacking Gore in states like Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee, secure in the knowledge that Nader had forced Gore to spread resources thinly, defending against Nader in a 2 front campaign. During the last few days of the campaign, Al Gore and his running mate Joe Lieberman had to travel to states like Washington and Oregon which would have been securely in the Gore column, but for Nader's efforts to hurt Gore there. They should have and would have been free to focus more on Florida as well as a few other toss up states, but could not because of Nader's intent to beat Al Gore. This is how Ralph Nader helped elect W. Bush.

Sadly, Nader lied about his plans, lied about Al Gore, and still lies about all of this. While Nader had the right to run, and his voters the right to vote for him, there is no denying Nader elected Bush. All the damage done by W, Norton, AshKKKroft, and the rest should weigh heavily on Nader's shoulders. Apparently Nader is too sick to care. Yes, Nader had the legal right to behave as immorally as he did. He has the First Amendment right to lie about Al Gore and deceive others, but Nader cannot and should not escape the consequences of his immoral actions. Informed people knew what Nader was doing weeks if not months before election day. We warned that Nader was helping Bush, and to no good end. Nader and his dishonest worshippers lashed out at us, and we all know what happened after Al Gore won the election, but not by a margin wide enough to stop the right wing coup.

Nader's shameful silence and servile propagandizing for the right wing coup and Bush since those dark days merely compounds Nader's perfidy. Bush and the right wing Republicans on the Supreme Court stole our election, through racism and crimes. Nader drove the getaway car. People urge me to leave Nader alone. Some repeat Nader's lies that Al Gore was unworthy of liberal support. I will not yield. Even now, Nader is planning to undermine liberals and help right wing Republicans win US Senate and House seats. Nader is no liberal. He is not a progressive. He never really was. Nader in his long-past prime was a champion for a narrow range of important issues. Despite his brags and attempts to steal credit for others' work, Nader was never a leader on equal rights, civil rights, gay rights, gun safety, the poor, labor, public education and other critically important concerns. Concerns he hastily and cynically donned like a cheap suit during the past election to fool people in desperate need, only to cast aside these people and their vastly increasing needs to make common cause with Bush and the right wing. Nader today is an ego maniac and a fraud, turned pathological liar. I am not willing to make common cause with anyone like Nader who makes common cause with the right wing. --Mike, 7/7/01

Re your comment in "Ask Politex" that the law is the law, and not justice, my husband, who is a practicing attorney, often says that "there is no justice." ...and that if you're looking to go to court to find justice, you will be disappointed. --Sari, 6/29/01

I have read with interest some of the letter posted regarding Bush's locker room behavior and low class actions. I dont know if this has ever been reported before, but I saw something during the campaign that seems to indicate a lot about Shrub's character. If you will recall, just before the election Bush appeared on the Letterman Show. The day after Bush's appearance, Letterman showed a tape of Bush during an intermission. The tape was still running, but naturally it was not broadcast during the break. The tape showed several of Letterman's staff crowded around Letterman's desk. Bush was sitting in his chair next to the desk. The staff had their backs to Bush and Letterman couldn't see Bush because the staff was standing in front of him. Bush took off his glasses and then, very casually, lifted the jacket of a female staff member and used her jacket to clean his glasses. She, of course, had no idea what he was doing. Letterman showed the tape without comment but did say that it wasn't a joke or a set up -- it really happened just the way the tape showed. To me, this act showed incredible self-absorbtion. The nerve of someone using someone else's clothing to clean his glasses. It was shocking to me. I wrote a couple of the media outlets about it at the time, but no-one bothered to report it, naturally. --Cap, 6/28/01

Here's a letter I wrote to Robert Kuttner re his recent column in the Boston Globe, "Bad news for Mr. Bush".
You made the statement "Second, Bush's election was in some ways a fluke. It is increasingly clear that he won only because Al Gore waged a dismal campaign. Gore was personally unconvincing; he managed to get saddled with the awkward minuses of the Clinton era but seemed unable to take credit for the pluses." I strongly feel this is misrepresenting what happened. Vice President Gore received 530,000 more votes than Mr. Bush in the 2000 election. There are several questions you might ask yourself regarding Vice President Gore & whether or not he was popular enough to be elected. It is simply this - "Who would have won if there had not been a butterfly ballot?" "Who would have won if Ms. Harris had not purged tens of thousands of make-believe felons from the voter lists immediately prior to the election?" or even "If the roles had been reversed & it was Gore seeking the same redress regarding counting the ballots from the Supreme Court - how likely would they have been to have dreamed up the ruling they came up with?" I suggest that if you can answer these questions you will see that our President should be Al Gore, that he in fact did win the election; however, it was awarded to Mr. Bush, which has nothing to do with how popular Al Gore was or how he ran his campaign....You are blaming Vice President Gore for losing the election when in fact it was stolen right out from under our collective noses. --Linda, 6/27/01

I have searched through bushwatch.com and have not found reference to an incident I just learned of, as reported to me by an eyewitness who flew to Yale to attend his niece's graduation. Apparently, when Bush walked onstage, the entire front row of graduates stood, turned their chairs 90 degrees, and sat back down, giving Bush the 'cold shoulder'. Every graduate sitting behind the first row then put on white ('justice is blind') blindfolds. I commented that I'd not seen anything about it in the paper and the witness said he was not surprised. Had you heard anything about this? Can you possibly find out from 'reliable' sources if it is true? If it IS true, can we get this out to the rest of the world? I personally believe it makes a powerful statement and am quite proud of the Yale graduates for their actions. --Janet, 6/26/01

HIS FLATULENCY... It is a fact that the media has given GW a free pass on his disgusting public personal behavior, like picking his nose and goosing his wife. Remember during the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush promised to restore 'honor and dignity' to the Oval Office? But he didn't say when. Dignity appears to be a little slow in coming. A source tells UPI the president ended a recent energy policy meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney and others by jokingly offering his own personal stores of "natural gas" to help alleviate the energy crisis." (UPI) Even in jest, this is disgusting, something that transpires in a junior high locker room, not in the Oval Office. So we now have a new moniker to add to the list, HIS FLATULENCY. The man is a no-class buffoon. America deserves better. --FRankly, 6/15/01

We might take a lesson, as should he, from Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's recommendation that the B-1 bomber be dropped from Air Force inventory. The B-1 was a $100 Billion program that was the star of Reagan's defense build-up, after Carter had dropped the plane. Plagued by problems, the B-1 has spent almost all of its service life grounded - and not just individual planes, the entire 100 plane fleet. It has been used exactly once, a couple of years ago in the Balkans. Now Rumsfeld wants to scrap it. $100 Billion dollars down the drain. Ya know, $100 Billion there, $100 Billion here, pretty soon you're talking about real money. Which suggests the lesson Rumsfeld should learn here; the administration's missile defense system will probably cost at least this much, if not two or three times the amount. And as every test of the elementary technology of the system has so far failed or been rigged, we have every reason to expect the B-1 will seem like a paragon of reliability in contrast. More hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars cycling through the major GOP donor defense contractors, without adding an iota to the country's security and defense. But given the example of the B-1, maybe we can assume that's not the point. --Kent, 6/24/01

An intersting idea being floated in progressive and Democratic circles is to march on Washington, and collectively Moon the White House while Bush is home. Or, if you prefer, call it the "Million Moon March." Much thanks go out to our friends in Sweden for this idea. Even the corporate media will have to cover THIS. Get the word out. Someone should take the reigns and organize this event. And...letr's hope we can recruit the international piepfitters and plumbers unions into this crusade. They won't even have to, officially, pull down their pants! --PB, 6/23/01

Having just completed my MBA a couple years ago, I have to comment on Dubya's ability to coast through Harvard. Business schools that focus on "group work" have entered a pact with the Devil: many times the laziest and least talented among our work groups would simply fail to contribute, realizing that the group performance determined our individual grades.This means that an individual may make no contribution at all toward the final work product or group presentation and still receive full credit and a grade equal to that of the hardest working member of the group. More than once student work groups carried deadheads who should have been flunked out or expelled for bad faith.

Free riders know that since you succeed or fail as a group, individual nonperformance passes unnoticed by the course instructor, who remains ignorant of behavior within the group. Only candid evaluations of each student by group colleagues will ferret out the bastards who know all to well how to "work the system" rather then do the work itself. Even when students are forthcoming with reports of slovenly and dishonest colleagues, faculty avoid confronting the bad apples and give them good grades anyway. When my group complained to the instructor about the no-show/no-work colleague, he waffled by claiming he had reported grades to the registrar--before our group evaluations were due.

So, if anybody wonders why or how Bush could sleaze his way through Harvard's B-school, I'm betting that he schmoozed his colleagues and dodged the bullets whenever they were fired. I'm also betting that most of his colleagues figured it was easier just to ignore the lazy sod and get the work done without him. After all, they might figure it was good experience for the day they had to carry the boss's son in a real workplace. And Bush, of course, knew he would be the boss's son someday. It was his destiny.

And now he's our President, restoring dignity and integrity to the White House! --Jon, Springfield, Ohio, 6/22/01

I can give you the central tenets of an MBA degree anywhere, harvard, yale, wharton, anywhere! Remember these rules:
1) Buy low, sell high!
2) Never give a sucker an even break!
3) There's an ass for every seat (aka: "there's a fool born every minute!"
4) Three most important factors in business success: Location, location, and location.
5) It's not what you know, it's who your're related to!

Domine, domine, domine, and gaudeamus Igitur! Congratulations! Now you know everything about business that lil mr. bushie, the simpering, smirking, scampering simian in his cute lil cowboy suit, knows. --John, 6/22/01

The spin doctors of the illegal resident in the White House are now whining about "partisan politics." It's "unfair" to point out that the whole thief family squatting in the White House are liars and drunks who all have police records. It's "not an issue" that dumbya can't pronounce three words in a row. It's "the president's right" to fill his cabinet and the courts with nazis, bigots, and crooks, even though he not only does NOT have a mandate, but DID NOT WIN the election, and IS NOT the legal president. The illiterate hand-puppet's hard-drinking...law-breaking daughters are "off limits" and "a personal family matter." This from the same people who insulted Chelsea Clinton's haircut and questioned her parentage. Laura Bush's [accidental killing] of her boyfriend and the napping nose-picker's...wartime desertion -- which he blatantly lied about in his own book -- are "ancient history" and "youthful indiscretions." But eight years of hysterical screeching by the bought-and-paid-for right-wingnuts and their stupidest sheep about "dope smoking" was "all about character!" Winning a Rhodes scholarship was "draft dodging," whine the moronic supporters of two draft dodgers. Al Gore's Viet Nam tour "didn't really count because he didn't actually kill anyone," sneer the right wingnuts who never left America, who sputter and close their minds when faced with the truth that the two oil slicks illegally occupying the highest offices in this country, and most of their simple-minded but over-paid supporters stayed home in their warm ultra-wealthy beds. Look up the list of the chickenhawks who never touched any gun except their own personal manhood substitute. I dare you, right-wingnuts. Look at your heroes who never set foot in any place more dangerous than a bar. From Cheney to Limbaugh, cowards and draft dodgers and liars, all of them. No, this isn't about the hypocrisy being forced on what used to be a free country by our home-grown nazi goons. Everyone sane knows that the hypocrisy of the repukelican loyalists would make Satan blush. This is about "partisan politics," what the Clinton zipper-hunters of eight years had the absolute gall to call "the politics of personal destruction." This is about the lame excuses offered by the stupid sheep for the brain-dead nose-picker, who is (rightly) considered an idiot by [the world]. Ten thousand people recognized him as both worthless and dangerous in SWEDEN, for pity's sake.

It is not "partisan politics" to call a spade a spade. Karl and Ari, good students of Hitler's Goebbels, lied through their teeth from the day they walked into the White House where they Do Not Belong. The lies coming out of Washington are so many and so weird that they have already filled three books. But the soul-sold spinners continue desperately to try to hide criminal activity, incompetence, theft, and deadly intentions for the sake of short-term money behind the whine, "people are tired of partisan politics!" I was tired of partisan politics when Richard Mellon Scaife and Rupert Murdoch used their vast, billion-dollar media empire to further their racial hatred and gender bigotry by inventing and publicizing lies about Bill Clinton before he even took office. I was tired of partisan politics when a publicity-crazed bunch of incompetents, liars, and suckups to money...spent all their time panting with their hands down there than trying to get some real work done in a nation with huge resources and huge problems that could have been solved on a home computer, with the right impetus. I was tired of partisan politics when the timid democrats did not turn the tables on the thieves and liars who shut down the government just to get their pork barrels through, and failed to tell the scumbag illegitimate administration to put a sock on their nazi nominees. But investigating criminal activity is not partisan politics. The massive illegal insider trading and manipulation by the Bush team, from Rove's Intel stock to manipulation of Alcoa to theft from California energy companies, is a DAMN sight more important than who gave whom a rub in what hallway. I'll be officially tired of partisan politics when the dimwit chimp, all his handlers, and the felonious five who broke every law of the land to install him for their own personal profit, are all in jail. Not until then. --Dian, 6/20/01

This morning, after reading about the Mass Moon in Sweeden and then reading Corn on Eliot Abrams, I realized once again how important your site has become to me. Where else can you laugh so hard and gnash your teeth with rage in such quick succession (the combination of the two emotions seems to sum up the whole situation). You educate us, kick our political memory into gear, and, most of all, you never let us forget the reality of what's going on. One has to make an effort of will not to be pacified by the general hallucination of "normalcy." Your site is more than a companion in this effort. It's a guide, and a goad. --Susan, 6/15/01

Oops -- looks like the Dim Son's European "charm offensive" is turning out to be more offensive than charming. Bush totally dissed the big 3 by not visiting London, Paris or Berlin, then mispronounced the name of the Spanish P.M., then falsely claimed everybody's falling in line behind "Son of Star Wars" only to have Chirac publicly refute him, all while generally keeping up the usual tactic of pretending to be listening to people and compromising while actually sticking to "his my way or the highway" approach. If Bush keeps antagonizing the rest of the world like he has the last 6 months, we might need that missile shield after all. -- DK, 6/15/01

Given his academic track record it is remarkable that W. will be noted for his scientific obsessions. No president, even ones capable of rational thought, has expressed more concerns about good science and has been more worried about bad science than W. He seemed to have felt that Salmonella and Arsenic were falsely branded as bad for people. He senses that global warming isn't a problem. His scientific perceptions have all the earmarks of a truly independent thinker. He is gloriously unfettered by study or any academic knowledge. I am puzzled, however, that he needs far more study, and and far more research to arrive at an course of action for environmental and energy issues, but he doesn't see the need for the same study and research for the missile defense system. To a person not as perceptive as W, it would seem that the Star Wars program to date has been an unmitigated failure. Yet, this failure is to the basis of immediate implementation of the missile defense system. Perhaps if W were to apply the same scientific standards to the Star Wars program, or study Faith based charities to see if they actually were effective, he might be able to convince more people of his sincerity. --Bob, 6/13/01

You have to wonder what Karl Rove is thinking. Even their closest GOP allies are complaining, publicly, about how unknowledgeable Bush is on his tax cut, the crown jewel of his agenda. "The president's got to know what he's talking about," says one conservative Republican senator. And as for Bush's much vaunted charm, "Relationships can't be built on eating popcorn and talking baseball. If you don't develop relationships tied to substance, then you don't have very much." Yet Bush is going to Europe, to meet Europe's leaders on their own turf. Bush doesn't know policy, and the European leaders probably don't know much about baseball, so what are they going to talk about? Will Bush give them nicknames? Shootin' Putin? Schwing King Carlos? Will he suggest a game of T-Ball? What Bush and his advisors don't seem to appreciate or respect, as they've hardly ventured out of Texas their entire lives, is that Europeans generally value education and disciplined intellect far more than they. Bush and his crowd comes from that culture where every home has a little plaque that reads, 'The world is full of educated losers...' The European leaders would find such a sentiment as bizarre as they are likely to find Bush. Bush is doing untold damage to America's image and credibility that will take decades to repair. --Kent, 6/11/01

Funny how seemingly unrelated news items can surface together to shed light on something else entirely. There has been much in sentiment from George W. Bush and the Republicans in justifying their bitter conservatism that makes seeming war on much of the country, that the great mass of red real estate on the election map proves them the actual majority, never mind the vote count; and further, these counties of red are true-believing Christians, familiar with the will of God as the rest of us are not. Now, the news items of interest are these: first, that red land mass consisting of the Great Plains states has been revealed by the census to have fewer people than 100 years ago! Great swaths of it are now statistically 'frontier' again! Nobody's home! The second zinger was that the Bible Belt is producing a divorce rate 50% higher than the country's already high norm. Those who would claim divine authority to impose their will on every aspect of our political, economic, personal and moral lives are arguably the most screwed-up people on the planet! (Gee, who would've thought?) What's left then of the GOP 'mandate?' Apparently nothing but the curious and unfathomable resentments of the Old South, a region whose attitudes have left it behind the modern age, dependent on subsidies of defense dollars, oil company gouging, and outright welfare. Oh, that was the other news item - the red states are all Federal fund net importers, the blue states are the exporters. The rugged individualists don't even carry their own weight. As if you couldn't tell that just from looking at Bush. --Kent, 6/1/01
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Distorting message of Dorothy Day
"As the daughter and granddaughter of Dorothy Day, we feel compelled to speak about the use of her name and work in George Bush’s commencement speech at Notre Dame.
"Dorothy was an ardent believer in social justice, the rights of workers, and care of the disenfranchised. Her life’s work was dedicated to picking up the pieces of human wreckage, the result of policies that continue to be perpetuated by the Bush administration. It is shameful to have her efforts associated with an administration that gives priority to corporate profiteering over human needs. Dorothy understood that a just system was as equally important as her ideal of personalism, where each takes individual responsibility for the well-being of all. The speech writers for George Bush have distorted her message regarding the works of mercy by using her words in their arsenal of deceit." -- TAMAR and MARTHA HENNESSY, Weathersfield, Vermont, 5/23/01, Rutland Herald.
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Politex...
Bush recently said, "In America today, a teenager is more likely to die from a gunshot than from all natural causes of death combined." Under what circumstances can a teenager die of natural causes? I was under the impression that only the eldery passed away in such a manner. Teenagers are usually healthy and their deaths are almost never from natural causes. --Scott in Ohio, 5/16/01
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Some misunderstand the brilliance of W's intellectual approach to the world. At the core of his belief is the axiom that truth is faith-based. Real truth doesn't require factual back up. It doesn't require scientific verification. Several examples below illustrate this well.
1. Faith Based Fact: The Clinton years were a disaster for the United States. This is a fundamental understanding of W and the right wing nuts. Eight years of extraordinary prosperity and peace are statistical facts that seemingly would contradict this statement. In the same way, the elimination of deficit spending, the decline in the crime rate, the decline in the number of persons on welfare, and in the number of unwanted pregnancies all falsely indicate this was a good period for the nation. W realizes that the government must reverse the policies that created this false illusion of prosperity. He can see the need to recreate deficit spending, re invigorate the flagging crime rate and increase the rate of unwanted pregnancies. The tax cut combined with the potential for massive defense spending, reducing new spending for police and opposition to birth control all has the potential to revitalize the nation and return us to the idyllic state it was in Poppy's administration.
2. Faith Based Fact: We are in a period of unparalleled danger to the United States that requires massive defense spending. The end of the Soviet Union and the Clinton administrations efforts to work with Russia and China and integrate them into the world community only gave a false illusion that the world might be at the edge of peace. The Clinton administration efforts to bring peace to Korea, Israel, Northen Ireland are signs of weakness. Worst of all, Clinton's reversal of ethic cleansing and genocide in the Balkans was a disaster. By coordinating with our allies we brought a dictator to his knees and eventfully the dictator was overthrown by his own people. W knows that close coordination with our allies and working with international coalitions is the wrong way to go. We need a more macho approach to war. His Viet Nam war experience going to bars while serving in the Texas National Guard gives W the solid basis in personal experience needed to guide the nation. Poppy knows that you only go to war for oil, and you need to insure the dictator remains untouched.
3. Faith Based Fact: The Clinton administration was the most corrupt in American history. It is a great tragedy that in spite of multimillion dollar investigations that occupied most of the eight years of the administration, the multitude of special prosecutors were unable to find evidence to prove the corruption they knew was there. They did uncover, and perhaps stage, a single sexual peccadillo. W knows that the single blow job dwarfs in its horror the large scale selling of arms and paying of ransom of the Reagan years. Then we had a secret foreign policy was being run by the president's staff. Nixon's use of burglars to win an election is a similar minor infraction. The large number of presidential staff and cabinet members convicted of crimes or jailed as a result of the Watergate and Iran-Contra affair gives a false impression that these were serious events that could have compromised the constitution of the nation. Cynics might note that great American patriots, such as Oliver North, sold arms to Iran. This is the same Iran that requires us to develop the Star Wars defense. We need to remember that Poppy supplied arms to Saddam until the Iraqi began to lust after our oil. This is the best of both worlds. We get to both supply arms and defend ourselves against them. What more could a defense contractor want? W knows that sex acts are easier for the American public to understand that complicated affairs involving smuggling, money laundering and possible treason. W knows that Poppy has paid a lot to make sure that his youthful adventures don't make it public. W also says a prayer every night thanking God that he never came close to Linda Tripp.
4. Faith Based Fact: Pollution is good for business. W knows that environmental regulations are bad for business and make it impossible to profit. Curiously over the last 40 years with increased environmental regulation, corporate profits have soared as has the overall prosperity of the nation. W. Knows that polluted water and smog filled air are positive spurs to corporate profit. Arsenic is a food supplement and real men shoot animals and mount their heads in the den. They don't worry about endangered species. W will do what needs to be done to restore America to the polluted state that made it great. We have the polluted wastelands of former Communist nations to show us just how effective large scale pollution can be as an economic stimulus.
Some people say the W isn't as stupid as he looks. I think that pseudo-sophisticated intellectuals mistake W's faith-based approach as stupidity. After all, faith-based knowledge is what made the dark ages dark. Iran and Afganistan have faith-based systems and W's efforts might well alow us to emulate their combination of piety, poverty and oppression.
--Bob, 5/11/01

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I greatly appreciate the diligence you put forth in spotlighting facts and events regarding President (oh, it smarts having to say that!) George "Duh-bya" Bush. As a former writer for The Houston Post some years back, I witnessed the questionable rise of his father in politics, cringed when the elder Bush entered the White House, and can now only credit the son's election to machinations on the part of powerful, big interest backers, and either apathy of voters, lack of credible information, or a combination thereof. Much as I would like to see the current administration benefit the country, only a dismal forecast appears to loom on the horizon. Some instinct leads me to feel that before a full four years pass some explosive incident will bring this presidency crashing down. Nothing of a harmful nature to Duh-bya, of course, but one or more events that will force Congress, including Republicans, to rebel against him and his advisors. Virtually stripped of power, Duh-bya may well crack under the strain of the monumental task which he is far less equipped to handle than Snoopy. Legislators, fearing for their jobs under outraged protests from constituents, will be unable to support the self-serving goals of those who place power and money ahead of the welfare of not only Americans, but the rest of the world. Regards, Barbara, 5/10/01

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On April 24, 2001 I read an AP article that outlined the Bush administration's intention to entirely cut federal funding for the Reading is Fundamental (RIF) program for FY 2002. This funding cut of $23 million amounts to 70% of the RIF budget. This action, to me, is one of many last straws from this illegitimate "place keeper" (he's not a real President) of the highest office in this land. And I'll tell you why the Resident's cut of RIF is so deplorable.
About two weeks prior to reading of Bush's plan, my 6-year daughter Eileen, brought this year's RIF book home from school. Eileen was very happy and proud to have her new book. Eileen attends a Montessori in Milwaukee. Thanks to the school's staff and the commitment of parents, the school is considered by Milwaukee Magazine as one of the top 7 schools in the entire metropolitan area. We are very grateful to have the chance to send Eileen to such a great school in the Milwaukee Public School system, and we truly appreciate the efforts of all of Eileen's teachers and staff.
My wife Mary, is the school's PTA treasurer, and she told me that the PTA spends about $2,000 per year on RIF books for approximately 600 children, so it may be that our school does not use any of the federal funds that Bush is cutting. But the point is - the school's students do receive RIF books. And guess what? They are important, and here is why.
A couple nights ago I asked my daughter, "Eileen, what is your favorite kind of book: a library book, a RIF book, or a book you get as a gift?" Eileen though for a couple moments and said, "a RIF book." I then asked her why. She said, "a RIF book is new, it has my name in it (via a printed label with classroom number), and I get to pick it out."
Eileen goes to the main public library twice a month, and receives plenty of books as gifts, but even for a child who has access to so many books, a RIF book is still very important. And even if Bush's funding cut would not affect our school's RIF program because of an able and active PTA, I can easily look beyond our good fortune and see where others might need federal assistance to make this program work for them.
Apparently Resident Bush is completely incapable of looking beyond his own good fortune because on many issues seems determined to make the less fortunate pay for his extravagant and warped views on tax cutting and weapons systems. I am thoroughly disgusted with this administration's policies regarding worker's rights, health protection, education, defense, energy and the environment.
I look forward to my representatives vigorously fighting against the Resident's appalling corporate takeover of America, and the abandonment of the policies and programs (eg., RIF) that have served this country so well over the past many years. --Joe from Milwaukee, 5/9/01

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The following letters are responses to the Water Cooler story we posted May 4:
Are The Voters "F*#ki@g Morons" About Missile Defense?
Politex...
I agree 100%, but the fault also is with those other F*#ki@g morons, the media. If they could move beyond a 15 second story and so some analysis--for example like the BBC does--they could easily show why [the Bush missile defense] plan is just pissing money away. If I were the leader of a rogue state, trained at Georgetown university in the finer points of mutually assured destruction defense policy, would I spend a billion dollars to figure out a way to put a nuclear bomb on top of a ICBM that, I'll have to acknowlede, will be unlikely to come within 800 miles of the target--presumably Washington--or will I send $85 on a suitcase that I can put it in and smuggle it into the US? Hmmm. Or should I spend $10million on a decrepit Soviet era Juliet class submarine loaded with 20 cruise missles, any one of which the Russians will be glad to show me how to adapt to nuclear weapons and which, ironically, will be imune from a space based missle defense system?
Now, the real advantage of either of these systems is not that they are invulnerable to a trillion dollar missle defense system. The real advantage is that the U.S. won't know which rogue nation did the damage. So instead of having ten minutes to laugh my ass off before I am incinerated, I can laugh my ass off for years and even brag about it to other leaders of rogue nations. Of course this is all about making money for Bush's buddies in the defense industry. Not even Rumsfield is dumb enough to believe that this is going to protect us from a nuclear attack (though Bush probably is). It has nothing to do with defense, and they absolutely know it. --Tim, 5/4/01
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The Bush-Strangelove plan is not to "protect us against a nuclear warhead launched by a rogue state." It's to militarize space. The "protection from a rogue state" is a ruse. I hope you will hammer on this. --Alexandra, 5/4/01
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i can't believe that many people actually think we have such a missile defense system already in place! with all the news resources available in this age, it's just sad how americans completely tune out of the world. bush could sell anything to the american people if he wanted. --Jason, 5/4/01
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Any Republiclan position can be justified by one of two words GOD or MONEY. To most of them, the only difference is semantics. It keeps money from social programs that might help the Democrats help the poor and middle class. And it puts money into Ike's hated "military industrial complex". When will they ever learn - ultimately - without the prosperity of us (the "lowest" 99%) THEY ARE DOOMED Unless, of course they are expecting a Soylent Green econonomy. --John, 5/4/01
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Why is Bush pushing this system?Because Halliburton will build it.And what company retired Dick Cheney with a golden parchute of 20 million? --Eric, 5/4/01
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Thanks for your great piece on the vast majority of the public as morons. Sadly, I'd have to agree. It was just this week that one of your headline daily stories revealed that when all those folks giving Bush high approval ratings in the polls were quizzed on the specifics of his policies they either didn't know about them or didn't agree with them: Sorry I can't remember the correct number, but I believe it was well over 50 percent who HADN'T HEARD about the arsenic-in-the-water craziness. Okay, let me get this straight now, the people polled approve of what Bush is doing but they a) don't know or b) disagree with what he's doing in office? I think that would quality them for moronhood in my book. --Chris, 5/4/01
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IMPEACH BUSH- IT IS LIKE THE ANTI-MISSILE DEFENSE STRATEGY- EVEN IF IT DOESN'T WORK, WE'D BETTER START NOW. --JR, 5/4/01
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This is interesting..... but I must raise the point--not that I am a fan of ABM or anything!--that I find the idea rather bizarre, that Rusmfeld, Cheney, et al would support missile defense if they didn't genuinely believe it would work. After all, if profiteering is their motive, as you suggest....how much profit could they realistically expect to make if the entire f---king world is destroyed??? Let's face it--in the wake of a nuke war the dollar probably won't be worth very much, number one, and number two...it'll probably be the least of our problems! I am not a nuclear physicist but I do know that it isn't very good business to annihilate all your customers..... --Bush Watcher, 5/4/01
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When the minority candidate believes that the majority of the country thinks he's president this is what's going to happen. --Howard, 5/4/01
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Remember Dr. Strangelove, the guy who couldn't prevent his right arm for involuntarily giving the nazi salute? We had one ourselves in Dr Teller, from the Livermore Labs. Dr.Teller invented a missile defense system and sold the idea to our naive and gullible Reagan, The All-American Dunce. Cooler heads round filed the idea, but a guy named Frank Gaffney and two Lockheed guys named Charles Kupperman, and Bruce Jackson, scenting billions of taxpayer corporate welfare, invented an outfit called "Center for Security and Policy" and enlisted some other high 90 IQ people like Sen Kyl (Ariz) Chris Cox (Calif) and cold warrior heros like Caspar Weinberger,Richard Perle,towering intellects William Bennett and Ed Fuelner of the Heritage Foundation and Dick Armey, who thinks Gaffney is real smart.This Missle defense scheme is just another con game to dump billions into corporate welfare. Thanks for the 30 red-neck states and five fascist judges, we now have a half-wit in the White House doing what Pres Cheney wants. The rest of us can stand by for another ram. --Don Phelps, WCDR, San Francisco, 5/5/01
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Yes they are... Ignorance is bliss only to the blissed. Hurts the rest of us. I think if the AIDS virus was a 10x bigger problem and growing at 50% per year, GW would still cut funding for research there and throw all he could at "star wars" technology. As if some 3rd world terrorist such as Bin Laden would spend many tens of millions on an ICBM and lots of decoys rather than have some vile of nasty shit worth $5 dumped into a municipal water supply. What idiots. --Lars, 5/4/01
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The answer to the mental state of the voters--not all citizens--regarding the so-called missile defense is a resounding "YES,' that they are indeed morons. Not that I hadn't noticed. Thank you for your soundings of sanity! --Marion ,5/5/01
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I love this quote from the article: "Bush is the perfect leader for folks who are willing to base their decisions on their own ignorance." --Suzanne, 5/5/01

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