An Illegal War and $800B?

Here is another installment of "when do you get mad?

You didn't get mad when we spent over 800 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.

-Don’t you get mad when Obama and Nancy spent more than that with the stroke of a pen, signing into law the quite possibly unconstitutional health care bill? (UPDATE: A federal Court in VA has deemed part of the bill unconstitutional)  This would be the first time in our history that the federal government has forced the American people to purchase something against their will.

-I love it when lefties state the war was illegal without any evidence to back up their charge. So far, all I have heard is how Bush used intelligence as justification for the war and because the intelligence was later found out to be faulty, that automatically makes the war illegal. In the minds of some, it also makes Bush a criminal. Based on that reasoning, the leaders of France, Great Britain, Germany, and Russia (just to name the major players) are all criminals since the intelligence apparatus in those countries also felt that Iraq was continuing to produce and stockpile WMDs. Bush had the authorization from Congress to invade, and Congress continues to fund the effort. Nothing illegal here, move along now and get a life.

-Going back to the $800M, Obama and his group seem to think that all we need to do is print more money and lo and behold, we can spend it anyway we want and on anything we want. $1T Health Care bill? Done. $800M on “shovel ready” projects that actually turned out to be the mother of all pork-barrel earmark spending. No shovel ready projects, but plenty of money for Chinese companies to build wind turbines in China, studying the habits of ants, watching bears mate in Northern Rockies, and other worthwhile, shovel ready projects. The only shovel ready about the $800B stimulus bill is all the bullcrap that needs to scooped up.

The Iraq War and Questions of Legality

You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

My response:

How did you come to the conclusion that we invaded a country illegally? Just because you disagree with the war in Iraq doesn’t make it illegal.  I disagree with dudes wearing pink collared shirts, but that doesn’t make it illegal. Congress gave President Bush the authorization to invade.  By the Constitution the President is the Commander in Chief, which means he commands the Armed Forces. Once Congress gave Bush the authority to wage war, the only way to stop it was to either defund the efforts or cancel the authorization, none of which happened.

If you are going to go down the road of making up the intelligence briefs then using those false intel briefs as justification for the invasion, keep in mind that there was not a dissenting opinion around the world or at the UN against the argument that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Even the French, who would at best be considered a flaky ally and stood a lot to lose, agreed that Iraq still had WMDs, and the capability to make WMD. Just because something turns out to be incorrect doesn’t mean it is lie.

As for Iraq being a threat to us I don’t think you can come up with a reasonable argument Saddam wasn’t some sort of threat. Maybe we didn’t have to worry about the Iraqi Republican Guard storming ashore in South Carolina, but they certainly were a threat to our interests. They proved that in 1990 by invading Kuwait. Why they didn’t turn south towards the Saudi oil fields is still a mystery but Saddam had intended to do just that eventually. Whether you like it or not, that region is VITAL to American interests. More than 40% of our oil comes from that region and having a mad man in control of the Persian Gulf would do us not good. Almost as soon as the Coalition forces pushed the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait, then he started his saber rattling. He constantly violated the “no-fly” areas. He had several 100,000 of his own citizens killed or injured. He continued to build up his Army.

So I guess the answer is no, I do not get mad that we invaded Iraq. The invasion, while based on faulty intelligence, was not done illegally or based on lies.

Blood for Oil?

You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate Energy policy and push us to invade Iraq.

-How come US Oil companies are not getting the contract to pump and explore for oil in Iraq?  So far, I have not seen any US company receiving any of these coveted “oil for blood” drilling contracts.  Correct me if I am wrong. And to think that Bush and Cheney would send young men and women to their deaths for some additional money goes beyond the pale.  I think you have been watching too many James Bond movies. While there is no question that evil people do exist, to put Bush and Cheney in the same group as Hitler and others does nothing to further the conversation.

-On the subject of oil policy, you might actually have a basis for an argument although probably not along the lines that you are trying to push. Bush and the other wanted to open up areas now closed area for drilling and exploration. I personally think this is a great idea. We need more oil, lots of it. Places like ANWR and deep drilling in the waters off the California and Florida coasts makes sense to me (yes, even after the BP disaster). But there does need to be a focus on what comes next, after oil. Research needs to continue on alternative means of generating the power we need to run the nation’s industries and homes. All of the alternative “green” power sources are still much too expensive to be useful.

--Solar power is 10X more costly for generating an equal amount of energy. There are other concerns. How many wind turbines does there need to be to replace a coal fired plant? 100’s?  1,000s? And while a coal fire plant might be pretty ugly, how ugly would thousands of wind turbines be? Just think about turbines all across the landscape that would be needed to replace the coal fired plants.

--Solar power presents the same dilemma. How large would the panel field have to be to generate the same amount of power as one coal fired plant? There is a huge solar field in the Mojave Desert right generating power, but I have not heard of any coal plants being torn down or dams being breached since it began operations.

--Bio-fuels are not the answer just yet. Right now farmers who are growing corn for bio-fuel production and the producers of bio-fuels are being subsidized with taxpayer money. A gallon of gas with bio-fuel additive is just too expensive to compete with the price of straight gas. With nearly 40% of corn grown in the USA going towards bio-fuel production the price of near everything associated with corn has gone up.

--While I think nuclear power is the way to go, it has its own problems, mainly what to do with the waste. Especially since Prince Harry shut down Yucca Mountain. Another point to consider with nuclear power is that we have come a long way since Three-Mile Island. Plus, we you get right down to it, the events at Three-Mile Island were actually a success. The fail-safe systems worked. The plant shut down, and it appears there was minimal damage to the surrounding area.

We still have a ways to go before we can replace fossil fuels with renewable energy unless we are willing to pay a steep price in how much we pay for the production and use of the power generated via renewable sources.

-Before you go off on how Cheney made Billions off of the Halliburton contracts I just want you to know this is a non-starter for me. While serving as Vice-President Cheney was required to put his interest in any business in some sort of stewardship/trust that he was unable to touch. I am not so naïve to think that he didn’t exercise some sort of influence but before you go all ape-$h!t over that, keep in mind that nearly all politicians have their hand in the cookie jar. Harry Ried was barely worth $1M when elected the Senate 12 years ago, now he has moved past $10M.  How did he do that on his salary? Even if he saved every penny form his paycheck ($174,000.00, 2010) for the past 12 years he’d have only $3.3M. He is getting that money from some place/someone. I will remind you that most of that money paid to Halliburton was spent on the troops. As someone who has deployed several times over the years, we are well taken care of in the deployed environment. Comfortable trailers to live in, good exercise facilities, outstanding food. All of this costs A LOT of money. And Halliburton is not a charitable organization. They have share holders to answer to. They need to make a profit just like every other private business. And those linked to the federal government make better profits than those not linked to the feds just do to the inherent nature of doing business with the government (massive waste).

-In my opinion we should continue to drill for oil where we know it located and let the free-markets develop these renewable sources. If there is money to be made in renewable energy you can bet there will be people willing to take the risk to develop these sources. Wind and solar farms can be successful once the costs are reduced to a level that doesn’t require taxpayer funding.  Nuclear power can be successful as it has been in the past. We just need to cut through the red-tape during development and have strict guidelines established and ENFORCED once the plant is in operation.

Bush Isn't the President

It’s been a while since I have posted a “you didn’t get mad” segment.  This post has to do with the 2000 elections and all the hub-bub about how Bush finally defeated Gore.

If you recall, a few weeks ago I posted some comments from a reader off of a Yahoo news post regarding issues between Sarah Palin and Alaska Sen Murkowski (aka; Sore Loser). There was a particular comment posted (titled: you didn’t get mad) and I thought I would respond to each of “line items” in his comment.  And as I have previously posted, if you are a liberal troll and make a comment, please refrain from attacking me personally. It doesn’t bother me all that much, I do have thick skin, but it really doesn’t further the conversation if all you can do is attack me personally and not try to refute my responses.

The comment:

You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

My response:

  Another area where you might want to do a little research since you most likely believe that Bush stole the election.  While it is true that Gore won the popular election (most votes nationwide) we don’t live in a straight democracy (thank God!!), but in a republic.  And because of this it is possible that an individual can be elected President without getting the most votes.  Blame how the electoral college “hands out” the delegates.  Winner take all, rather than base on a percentage of votes in each state.  But back on point:  Several studies done after the election found that in the counties that Gore requested a recount, Bush would have won anyway.  Some other studies point to other counties where there were confusing ballots and people might have punched the incorrect tab and those might have made the difference in the election.  It is possible those ballots might have made a difference, but how can someone account for the minds of people unless you speak to each and every person that casted a confused ballot.  Elections are not a raising of the hands, but counting of actual ballots.

When I think about the consequences if Gore had been elected President it really scares the snot out of me.  While it is quite true that President Obama has a very radical vision for our country, Gore might have actually done more harm to our country if he had been elected President.  When you think about Gore and all the Global Warming/Climate Change/Whatever you call it today, and without the subsequent reaction/conservative movement, the changes could have been quite catastrophic. We would be under all kinds of CO2 emission rules, industries would have been destroyed, and the economic growth experienced in the early part of the decade would not have happened.

If You Blame Bush for Katrina, Then Obama is at Fault for the BP Spill

From the comments:

you didn't get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown.

My response:

  You people must think that George Bush is omniscient. I guess you believe that if Obama or Kerry had be President that they could have made the storm turn and hit some place else. The head of NOAA told the mayor of New Orleans that Katrina was going hit the area at a level 4, possibly a level 5 and recommended that evacuations begin very soon. The dunderhead who is still that mayor (should be in jail) declined the advice and 1,500 people died in New Orleans. Unlike Governor Perry (TX - Rep) who ordered the implementation of existing evacuation plans of Houston and Galveston as Hurricane Rita approached, the New Orleans mayor and LA Governor Blanco (LA -Dem) didn't initiate the Congressionally ordered (and available) evacuation plan for New Orleans and southern LA as Katrina approached. I’d say the responsibility lies at the feet of the Mayor Nagin (Dem), much more so than the Bush Administration.

  And I have noted that none of you left-wingers ever really took Pres. Obama to task as the Gulf oil spill disaster was taking place. The Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, tried several times to get the Feds to act, to do something to help out, and was met with resistance at almost every turn. Where was the outrage in the MSM over this lack of inaction? It was only later, once the damage couldn't be ignored any longer, that the MSM finally started asking a few tough questions.

  Has Obama done anything to help those that he has put out of a job with his lack of action during the spill and the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf? I know the moratorium has been lifted by the courts a couple of times, but the damage was done with the drilling rigs moving to other parts of the world. At least the Bush administration tried to help out the folks who lost their jobs or were displaced due to Katrina. As someone who is currently looking for work I have submitted my resume to several locations. Almost every time I submit my resume I am asked if I am a Katrina refugee. But have never been asked if I am looking for work because I lost my job due to the events in the Gulf and the inaction of the current administration.

  And before any of you start blaming Bush for the lack of oversight of the Gulf rigs, please dig a little deeper. You will note this oversight problem extends back even before the Bush Administration. The issue of possible corruption or just plain laziness shouldn't just be laid on Bush. Could he be blamed for the lack of effort to make changes in the agency charged with oversight of this part of the economy? I would have to give a tepid “yes”. But so could previous administrations, and Obama’s administration.

  Lastly, you hardly ever hear about holding responsible the company that designed and built the blowout preventer value. I do recall (can’t find though) reading during the first few days of the event that there was little need to worry, this value was designed to shut off in case of an event just like what happened. It obviously did not work as intended. Was it a design flaw? Was it safety checked and passed when it shouldn’t have been? And since this piece was under 5,000 feet of water could it be the function testing systems were flawed, giving incorrect readings with no real way to check the accuracy of the function test system?

Chasing Bin Laden

The one liner from the commet
You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.

My response:
Do you really think Gore or Kerry could have done better? Pull your head out of the sand. Obama has made Afghanistan his focus and he has had two years and hasn’t even gotten a sniff.

And while we’re doing the blame game why don’t we take a short walk down memory lane. Former Pres Clinton had two shots at him. Once, we the government of Sudan had Bin Laden in custody, they asked if we wanted him and the Clinton White House said “no”. Then again, after Bin Laden had moved to Afghanistan, Clinton could have had the military send in a cruise missile to take out the camp where Bin Laden was living; again they passed that opportunity up. Twice Clinton had Bin Laden in his crosshairs and twice he didn’t take the shot.

Housing Market Collapse

One liner
You didn't get mad when lack of oversight and regulations from the Bush Administration caused US Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement, and home values.
My response:

Actually I get mad when I think that when the Bush Administration tried to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back in ‘05/’06 and Barney Frank told them to go pound sand. Bush actually tried to talk about how the policy of guaranteeing these loans was going to impact the economy and was going to come back and bite us in the backside. But Frank wouldn’t listen, feeling the pillars were secure.

I get mad when I think Clinton made it some sort of goal to try and get everyone to own their own home. I think the policy was called to Community Reinvestment Act.

And I get mad when I hear about the stories of people who shouldn’t have purchased a home (or more than they could afford) walking away from the mortgages. I get mad everyone month when I write my mortgage check on a loan that I probably owe more on then my house is worth. I get mad when I think about how much money was wasted on companies like AIG and General Motors through government bailouts. And before you go all gaga over the money they paid back you might want to do a little digging. Did you notice the commercial that GM put on the air a few months ago disappeared as quickly as it appeared? Did you every question why? They were using another pot of government loans to pay back the original loan. A little fishy. And when word got out about this little slight-of-hand, GM quickly pulled the commercial.

The whole economic downturn can be traced to the collapse in the housing market, which was over inflated by the very policies enacted by Bill Clinton, strengthened by Frank and his cronies, and enforced at the banks and loan institutions by the thugs from ACORN and NAACP (scare tactics to get the bankers to loan money to people they couldn’t like implying charges of racism). The collapse of Wall Street can also be tied to the housing market with the bad derivatives bundled together when the “bad” loans were bought and sold.

Does Bush deserve some of the blame for the collapse of the markets? He does to a degree. He should have been more forceful with Frank and his group by telling Congress to turn down the spigot a little bit. He should have told the Senate Republicans to fix this since they still have a majority at the time. But to put this squarely on his head is wrong and misguided and smells of partisan hackery.

Income Redistribution

Here is the original line item:
You didn't get mad when we gave people who had more money than they could spend, the filthy rich, over a trillion dollars in tax breaks.
My Response:
Here we go again with the class wars. What about all the tax breaks that now exist for not-so-rich? Do you know that almost 48% of Americans don’t pay anything in taxes? Yes, everyone pays out of each paycheck, but when these 48-ers file their tax returns, it all comes back. In fact, a very large percentage get back more than they paid in. I know someone who last year paid around $5,500.00 in taxes but their refund check came back at nearly $6,800.00. Where did that extra money come from? Why the “filthy rich” of course. The top 1% in income pays nearly 20% of the taxes. The top 40% pay almost the entire tax bill. How much more do you want? Based on your comments, I’d guess you’d like the Dems to take even more and give it to you in the form of income distribution. You basically want to receive something you did not earn.

Regardless what you might read or what you might see on TV, most of the wealth in this country is not what could be called old money (handed down through the generations). Think about some of the wealthiest people in recent years. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, George Steinbrenner, Phil Knight and many others started off with little or nothing. These people are self made. They had the ideas, they took the risks, they worked the LONG, LONG hours to get their products off the ground and into the people’s hands. As they were doing this, they were making other people wealthy. Bill Gates created approximately 10,000 millionaires. All of these people created jobs, many of them well-paying.

Why is it that other people they have some sort of right to the money these people earned through hard work? And who determine who has enough money? Most of these people are philanthropists or the first order. Gates has given more than $33B of his fortune to his foundation that assists education, health care and other charitable causes. Buffet has stated publically that he plans on giving his entire fortune to charity and he has already started with a huge $30B donation the Gates’ foundation. Knight gives his money to the University of Oregon.

Some people will say why they don’t give the money to government so bureaucrats can determine where the money should go. Do you really think that the government can do better with the money? If so, then you really are in love with government. I would be willing to bet that if you asked each of these people why they don’t give the money to government for spending determinations and they’d probably laugh at you. The government is no where nearly as efficient at spending money as private individuals are. Why would you want the government telling you how to spend you paycheck? Just think about that for minute. They would tell you what kind of car to buy, what to buy at the grocery store, the clothes you could purchase. Do you really think you’d have money left over? As someone who spent several years in the federal government, there was no incentive to spend money wisely. In fact, if you budgeted X-numbers of dollars to spend for the fiscal year and you could come in under that by finding items below what you originally budgeted, not only would your next’s budget be chopped, but it would be cut back below what you actually spent. In other words, if you saved 5%, the next year you’d actually be reduced by 10%. Spending money wisely and efficiently is not the federal governments DNA.

200,000 deaths due to lack of health care?

Here is the original line item.
You didn't get mad when over 200,000 US Citizens lost their lives because they had no health insurance.

My response:
200,000?

 If I had to take a guess the writer got these numbers from MoveOn.org.  Kind of like the 5M Iraqis who have been killed by US troops that has been thrown around by the MSM on occasion.

  Let’s look at the numbers.  According to the census there are approximately 47M people without health coverage of some sort.  If you read into the report a little you will discover this number is only a snapshot in time and includes the number of people who might go without health care for a period of time while they search for employment, or transition between jobs.  Based on the numbers provided, it looks like about 40% of the uninsured get health care coverage within four months  Bit we’ll stick with the 40M just for the sake of argument.  Of those number there are 9M illegal aliens (probably a conservative estimate).  Another 18-20M who are under the age of 35 and have not purchased insurance or are under-covered by choice (home purchase, buy that new car/truck, etc.).  So we’ll go with a number around 10M who are not insured (this number is also probably low).  That leaves about 2% of the population who are dying EACH YEAR from lack of insurance.  So basically what you are saying is since Clinton’s attempt failed 17 years ago 3.4M people have died due to lack of insurance.  I think a lot of people would consider that an epidemic.  Since Aids was statistically tracked from 1981 (30 years ago), just a shade under 600,000 have died from contracting aids and at that rate the CDC determined this was an epidemic.

  If the liberals would move beyond the truth stretching done at MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress and do a little independent research they’d find the 200,000 deaths is greatly exaggerated.  A recent Harvard study (certainly not a center of conservative thinking) puts the number somewhere near 45,000.  While this number is still a tragedy, it is not the 200,000 deaths the merchants of fear like to bandy about.

  Facts are stubborn things.

WHEN DO YOU GET MAD?

The other day I ran across an article on one of the major search engine home pages that discussed the chilly relationship between Sarah Palin and the sore loser of the Republican primary.  It was fairly one sided, only taking quotes from Murkowski.  I decided to read through some of the comment posted and ran across an interesting one that I thought deserved a response.  Below is a copy of what he posted in the comment section.  Over the next several days, I will post my responses to this guys line items.  I would imagine that no one will actually be reading this, but just in case, if you are troll, please minimize the personal attacks.  If you'd like to discuss these line items as I respond to them, I am more than willing to hear you out, but not if you are going to act like a lot of the liberal trolls out there by attacking me personally.  It doesn't necessarrily offend me, I have thick skin.  But when I go into a battle of wits, I like to know that I am not beating on an unarmed person.

Not sure who the author is since I can't find the article or who posted the comments below and as origianlly posted (did not edit):
You didn't get mad when over 200,000 US Citizens lost their lives because they had no health insurance.
You didn't get mad when we gave people who had more money than they could spend, the filthy rich, over a trillion dollars in tax breaks.
You didn't get mad when lack of oversight and regulations from the Bush Administration caused US Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement, and home values.
You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.
You didn't get mad when Bush rang up 10 trillion dollars in combined budget and current account deficits.
you didn't get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown.
You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate Energy policy and push us to invade Iraq.
You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn't get mad when we spent over 800 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn't get mad when Bush borrowed more money from foreign sources than the previous 42 Presidents combined.
You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars in cash just disappeared in Iraq.
You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people!!!!
You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
you didn't get mad when Bush embraced trade and outsourcing policies that shipped 6 million American jobs out of the country.
You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn't get mad when as a result of of the reckless BUSH administration massive harm to the country, we migth never be able to recover from this one.