New Blog

[The GOP Wiz]

Hi, folks, just wanted to invite you to my political blog THE ELEPHANT'S EAR. Hope you aren't sick and tired of discussing the politics of the day. This is a fascinating and strange election year. Please come and post your thoughts, ideas and start discussions on what we can all agree is a historic election.

Thanks for your time.

http://theelephantsear.blogspot.com/

[swampfox]

Warning: It may not mean anything, but the writing at the top of the elephant ear page is in Czech. Be extra careful what you post on foreign web pages and never answer ANY questions that involve personal information.

I don't know that there's anything wrong with the site, but I just say be careful.

[TAZ]

I'll say this, no matter who win the election, America is screwed. I think we need to go dig up Ronnie and clone him. I can take eight more years of that.

[swampfox]

Our biggest challenge will be cleaning up the mess that the Bush is leaving behind. He took NO steps toward getting us free from foreign oil (Could it be because he and his buddies are in the oil business?). Then there's the war, which will NOT be easy to get out of. Then there's everything else. The justice system is in a mess. Congress has a lower approval rating than the Bush. The experts are predicting that after this election the Democrats will have at least a 20 seat advantage (60-40) in the Senate (almost filibuster-proof) and maybe as many as 70 seats in the House of Reprehensibles. But even then there's got to be a major change in the way the government does business to save us from ourselves.

[Itsme2]

Why won't Pelosi allow a vote on drilling for oil?

And Congress IS a mess. It's Democrat controlled.

[cuebald]

Why won't Pelosi allow a vote on drilling for oil?

And Congress IS a mess. It's Democrat controlled.

Why won't the oil companies drill on the leases they have? They have 80% of the available oil properties under lease now, and are not using 68 million acres of them.

Better question:

Why do you want to give more money to the oil companies? Are you a stockholder?

[Captain Worley]

Well, Bush took no steps towards freeing us from foreign oil, but neiter did any President since Carter, so he hardly stands alone in blame.

Pelosi won't allow a vote on offshore drilling because she believes there'll be a Democratic President and an almost filibuster-proof Congress, so that the Democrats can pass some sweeping energy reform legislation.

[Itsme2]

Why do you want to give more money to the oil companies? Are you a stockholder?


No, but I AM a consumer. Supply and demand. Get the supply up so we can loosen the grip on the working man's pockets.


And the Dems want to TAX the oil companies???? Who do you think is REALLY gonna pay that tax? Not them.

[cuebald]

If the oil companies HAD more supply, what makes you think they would have any incentive to increase the flow to lower prices?

Get a grip, man. You're being screwed as you post, without benefit of oil.

[swampfox]

....Congress IS a mess. It's Democrat controlled.

And it wasn't a mess when the Republicans had it? When will you learn that both major parties are more or less necessary evils?

At the present time we're suffering from the actions of the Bush and his krewe. It's not just a Republican thing. It's a Bush thing. Our dependence on foreign oil has increased dramatically during the Bush administration with NO effort to help the situation. If the upcoming Democratic president and congress can do something to start to clean up Bush's mess, then GREAT!

[Captain Worley]

I have a sneaking suspicion they'll make it much worse.

[swampfox]

I wouldn't be surprised.

[TAZ]

You must all admit that we did have some good times when Ronnie was in office. Can't live in the past. I guess we need to get ready for the end of the world when the anti christ takes office. Oh, sorry I ment to say Obama.

[cuebald]

Ronnie is the reason you have four dollar gasoline.

Glad you enjoyed him. He was the gift that keeps on taking.

[TAZ]

Sorry, but I was young back then and didn't know much. All I can remember is that it seemed to be good livin when he was around.

[swampfox]

Reagan did one great historic thing. He made the commies back down. I don't know who else could have done it. I think the Soviets thought he was crazy enough to put more and more of our money into weapons. The important thing is, it worked, which has personally meant an awful lot to me. I will always be grateful.

Other than that he was not so great. Remember the Iran-Contra thing?

I don't know what I was doing on April 20, 1983 or whatever date it was. But if I had been selling some of our best short-range missiles to our declared mortal enemies, I think I would have remembered that.

Any further questions? Ask my attorney, I don't recall.

[Captain Worley]

You have to admire the Iran-Contra deal for its ingeniousness, though.

[swampfox]

It was the part about giving weapons in exchange for hostages, which were usually replaced within a few days with other hostages. Plus this was a few years after we got our hostages back from the US embassy in Teheran, so I think that Iran was certainly not our friend at that point. Plus we did not give them old weapons, but up-to-date state-of-the-art short-range missiles, which may yet be used against US personnel.

No, it was an inexplicably foolish thing to do. And then to lie about it. Lying so obviously a frog could see it. Even Ronnie himself.

[Captain Worley]

No, no, no. We had an arms embargo against Iran as a result of them taking hostages. After their return in 81, there were no more hostages taken.

The arms deal, and I'm surprised Iran went with it, since we still owed them 16 F-16 fighters they's already paid for, was cash money for weapons they could use against Iraq (who were buying arms legitimately from us since we were 'against' Iran). This was under the table cash and was funneled to the Contras for use in their war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, since Congress wasn't giving them much, if any, money.

Really, illegal weapons sales to illegally fund a war. I thought it was a brilliant plan.

[swampfox]

Brilliant sure, but not quite honest OR legal.

Iran under the Shah had paid for those planes, IIRC. Once the government changed to the fascist Ayatollahs I'd say the deal was off. And while the Iranian government may not have "officially" taken more hostages, many more were taken by the same factions as had taken the ones we traded weapons for, even though we got cash in the deal as well. I think the whole thing was that they could have bought similar weapons from the Soviets if we didn't sell them to them. That's not a good enough reason.

And it's significant that it was a completely illegal way to get around Congress's function and right under the constitution to approve such money being given to whoever. It was such a brazen disdain for the law it should have been impeachable. And the disgraceful Oliver North, remember, WAS convicted of a felony but never received any consequences in exchange for his testimony, which turned out to be another sham. And now HE is still the darling of neoconservative folks.

A personal note: Long ago (early 90s or thereabouts) I was tricked by a "friend" into going to an AMWAY meeting. They didn't even tell you that it was Amway until after about two hours of showing slides of expensive cars and houses and all of the wonderful things you could have if you were successful as an Amwayer. At the end of the meeting there was a regional rep telling about an upcoming Amway convention for which the featured speaker was Oliver North. It upset some people when I said, "What, was Charles Manson unavailable?"

People will get upset one way or another.

[Captain Worley]

HAHAHA!!! I alway love a good Amway story.

A childhood friend's mom called me out of the blue one day and she said she had an 'investment' I may be interested in, a website. Normally, I'd blow it off, but since she was an friend's mom, I checked it out. The webpage wouldn't load. I just figured I'd just drop it. She calls back in two hours and asked me what I though. I told her it wouldn't load. She said, "Really? So are you interested?"

[swampfox]

Oh, I got the manual back then from that friend who tricked me. It told how you should call a friend and say "I'll grab my wife and you grab yours [seriously] and let's meet at __________." Then you were supposed to pull up into the friend's driveway, leave the car running and the door open, and go to the front door to give him (it was always him, not her) some materials to look at, saying "I don't have time right now, but we'll talk about this at the meeting tonight." and then drive away. Of course the "materials" consisted of nothing but pictures of expensive stuff and basically asking "Don't you want to be rich?" all the way through. The world "Amway" was not mentioned. Now I notice that they're advertising on TV. What weirdness is this?

[bigfish]

Oh, I got the manual back then from that friend who tricked me. It told how you should call a friend and say "I'll grab my wife and you grab yours [seriously] and let's meet at __________." Then you were supposed to pull up into the friend's driveway, leave the car running and the door open, and go to the front door to give him (it was always him, not her) some materials to look at, saying "I don't have time right now, but we'll talk about this at the meeting tonight." and then drive away. Of course the "materials" consisted of nothing but pictures of expensive stuff and basically asking "Don't you want to be rich?" all the way through. The world "Amway" was not mentioned. Now I notice that they're advertising on TV. What weirdness is this?


I saw the same Amway commercial you mentioned. It threw me off that they were actually advertising. Someone tried, and failed, to bring me into the Amway cult society also. LOL

[swampfox]

I mean I'm all down wit da cult thang in general, nome sane? The candles, the robes, the dancing in a circle around a fire (no animal OR human sacrifice though), BUT I draw the line when the cult wants me to sell soap and toothpaste.

I mean, how lame is that, nome sane?