CE Volume 3

[Proud]

"(and skip the bodily harm part altogether, Proud)"

i thank you for your concern, but i can't understand how i'll deal with the aggression, pain, and bitterness i'll feel if and when bush is elected to a second term. i don't believe in physically harming others (... under normal circumstances), so i'll take it out on myself. expect four years of bitter depression, angriness, and pure angst from me (towards politics and that'll carry over to other fields, i'm sure).

[rockysigman]

I don't think the harrassment charges are at all considered to be less scandalous than being gay, Shin. I think what's going on is basically two things:
1) People are still just shocked about him being gay, and so that's the biggest thing they're talking about for now. Sexual scandals are not strange in politics, so the harrasment stuff isn't quite as shocking, at least initially.
2) We really don't know very much about the harrassment accusations yet. Once more information comes out, then I bet that, if it seems to be true, that it will actually become the bigger part of the scandal.

[shin]

Going back a bit, to answer one of Chrisfan's questions, I believe part of the way Kerry plans on enacting his health care plan is to use imported drugs from Canada, which are cheaper.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Wednesday that President George W. Bush is standing in the way of bipartisan efforts in Congress to allow drug imports from Canada.

He compared the prices of popular drugs in the United States and Canada, noting they are close to more than twice as expensive in the United States. "George Bush stood right there and said: 'Nope, we're not going to help people to have lower cost drugs in America, we're going to help the big drug companies get a great big windfall," Kerry said, campaigning in Henderson, Nev.

Bush's campaign accused Kerry of making false charges against the president. For instance, they said, Bush's opposes importation from Canada because of safety concerns. The White House has said it would be virtually impossible to ensure drugs being imported are approved by the Food and Drug Administration and not counterfeit.

www.canada.com/health/story.html?id=a216bf3f-2edf-4891-95cb-ad0534fab5ba

A controversial story to say the least. It would appear, at least in theory, that if imported Canadian drugs could be safeguarded from tampering, then health care could become remarkably more affordable to Americans. As with all similar ideas, though, looks great on paper, but it's applicability is unknown.

However...there's more to this story. Notice the citing of "safety concerns"...it's not just worrying about counterfeit drugs...it's also concern about Canadian drugs being the new front for...yes, that's right...[glow=red,2,300]TERROR[/glow].

"Cues from chatter" gathered around the world are raising concerns that terrorists might try to attack the domestic food and drug supply, particularly illegally imported prescription drugs, acting Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) Commissioner Lester M. Crawford says.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Crawford said Wednesday that he had been briefed about al-Qaida plans uncovered during recent arrests and raids, but declined further comment about any possible threats.

"While we must assume that such a threat exists generally, we have no specific information now about any al-Qaida threats to our food or drug supply," said Brian Roehrkasse, spokesman for the Homeland Security Department.

Crawford said the possibility of such an attack was the most serious of his concerns about the increase in states and municipalities trying to import drugs from Canada to save money.

"We get our cues from chatter that occurs around the world, which is related to us by the intelligence community, and also from past incidents and things that happened domestically," he said.

news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040812/ap_on_he_me/fda_crawford_interview_8


I believe, Chrisfan, your concerns about the cost of Kerry's health plan, while understandable, are missing the bigger picture, which is [glow=red,2,300]TERROR[/glow]. Now we all know that such concerns on Crawford's part couldn't possibly have any political motive whatsoever. Therefore, if this isn't proof that John Kerry is an operative of Al Queda, well...what is?

[shin]

Has glowing text been banned?

[stratman19]

But seriously though...I'm wondering why him being gay is what that article lists instead of why he even revealed being gay in the first place: he's going to apparently be charged with sexual harassment by the person believed to be his lover, an Israeli man he "met" on a trip and then controversially hired to be his homeland security advisor even though his wasn't cleared to be so.

Strange that that's less scandalous than him being gay...

I really don't think the over riding reason McGreevey quit was simply because he was gay. Granted, that was the 'bombshell revelation', but I don't think that was the reason. I think he just took the most politically expedient way out. Let's face facts. His administration was one rocked by scandal, including, but not limited to, those things of which shin mentioned. I don't for a minute pretend to know New Jersey politics, that's just how I see it.

Keep in mind: calling off the UN inspections before they were finished was not Kerry's idea.

Those UN inspections of your's had been going on for years! How long shall we wait shin? Hans Blix even stated that Hussein was not cooperating, and that they (the UN) were being denied access to many sites. Couple this with intelligence from every major intelligence gathering ageny on earth that believed that Hussein had all these weapons...and you would deny all that as president?! And refuse to act, given the realities of 9/11? I realize hindsight is 20/20, try looking forward?

[shin]

Rocky, here's the thing...

This is the link to where I first read about why McGreevey is resigning:

abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/wabc_081204_golan.html

Now the accuser in question is Golan Cipel...but you'll notice this link never mentions the name "Golan Cipel"...just "Cipel". The reason for that is that this link has been edited. The first time I read it, the name Golan Cipel was at the lead paragraph in which it initially listed the apparent motive for the resignation. In fact much of this link has been altered, because it now reflects more on the resigning than on the reasons. In fact at first I didn't even realize that "Golan" was a man's name. I figured it was just another Packwood situation. Then I found out it was a man and I wondered if perhaps it was some sort of political smear (I have never heard of anyone involved until today so it was certainly plausible), but now from how things are being presented it seems like he's resigning merely because he's gay. Talk about the accusations have been muted, understandably from a legal perspective, but I have no idea why it won't even get a passing mention anymore.

CNN.com's synopsis on its front page:

"Democratic New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey announced his resignation today after admitting, with his wife at his side, that he had an extramarital homosexual affair. "My truth is that I am a gay American," McGreevey said at a press conference. The married father of two said his resignation would be effective November 15."

Extramarital affair? What happened to sexual harassment charges? Isn't that the more serious reason to resign?

Hopefully I'm making sense here, it's feeling a bit jumbled now that it's been typed out.

[shin]

stratman19 said:

Those UN inspections of your's had been going on for years! How long shall we wait shin? Hans Blix even stated that Hussein was not cooperating, and that they (the UN) were being denied access to many sites. Couple this with intelligence from every major intelligence gathering ageny on earth that believed that Hussein had all these weapons...and you would deny all that as president?! And refuse to act, given the realities of 9/11? I realize hindsight is 20/20, try looking forward?

Of mine? I had no idea I was behind the whole thing. Also, your history is wrong. The inspections hadn't been going on for YEARS, they had been going on for MONTHS. They were also cut short before Blix had finished his work. I believe he only needed a few more months, so to answer your question, that is how long you should wait. Might I also mention that while Blix said Hussein was not cooperating *fully* (the devil's in the details, eh?) he also said progress was being made and that when he applied pressure on Hussein he relented? This isn't stuff we found out from hindsight, this was stuff that was there at the time.

Strat, you're the president. Hans Blix essentially tells you "Hussein is being stubborn and difficult but he's finally yielding. We've found a few illegal rockets and we've destroyed them. I'm searching all the places that you've told us to look in and I haven't found anything. What that means, I'm not sure yet but I'm going to find out soon enough. I need a few more months to finish this. Just keep the pressure of military threat on him and we can resolve this without bloodshed." Now, do you A) agree to wait a few months or B) declare war imminent and force Blix out before he's finished? I suppose the realities of 9/11 would have you choose B), huh...

[stratman19]

Of mine? I had no idea I was behind the whole thing. Also, your history is wrong. The inspections hadn't been going on for YEARS, they had been going on for MONTHS.

My mistake shin, i understood UN resolution 1441 (and countless others) had been in place for years, and flagrantly violated by Hussein. I'll check my history on that.

Strat, you're the president. Hans Blix essentially tells you "Hussein is being stubborn and difficult but he's finally yielding. We've found a few illegal rockets and we've destroyed them. I'm searching all the places that you've told us to look in and I haven't found anything. What that means, I'm not sure yet but I'm going to find out soon enough. I need a few more months to finish this. Just keep the pressure of military threat on him and we can resolve this without bloodshed." Now, do you A) agree to wait a few months or B) declare war imminent and force Blix out before he's finished? I suppose the realities of 9/11 would have you choose B), huh...

Given the years of violations, given the nature of the world's intelligence, yes, I would choose "B".

[shin]

stratman19 said:

My mistake shin, i understood UN resolution 1441 (and countless others) had been in place for years, and flagrantly violated by Hussein. I'll check my history on that.

Well the real point is how you worded it. Had you said the UN's resolutions had been there for years, then yes, that's essentially correct (last I checked anyways). You said "inspections" which means that the UN people are actually there checking for weapons. That didn't happen from 1998 to the later part of 2002.

And as far as you going with B) given that scenario...well, what can I say, you're more confident making such world-altering decisions without a smoking gun than most.

[rockysigman]

As far as all those quotes that Melon gave, I have a few comments.

First of all, other than President Clinton, everyone else you quoted there was making statements based on the intelligence that the Bush administration was touting. Although I didn't agree with invading Iraq personally, I definately also thought at the time that there were probably some WMDs there, basically based on the stuff that the administration was saying. I thought the war was started too hastily, but no one really knew anymore than what the executive branch was telling them. I think it's probably a good thing that senators such as Kerry and Levin (the senior senator from my home state) didn't let partisan issues get in the way of trusting what the President was telling them on a pretty important matter.

As for Clinton, yeah, he thought they had WMDs, but he apparently still had the good sense to recognize either that the intelligence wasn't strong enough or the threat big enough to warrent a full scale invasion.

The fact that people were willing to trust the President doesn't excuse the administration for making huge errors as far as I'm concerned.

[chrisfan]

RockySigman said:

As far as all those quotes that Melon gave, I have a few comments.

First of all, other than President Clinton, everyone else you quoted there was making statements based on the intelligence that the Bush administration was touting. Although I didn't agree with invading Iraq personally, I definately also thought at the time that there were probably some WMDs there, basically based on the stuff that the administration was saying. I thought the war was started too hastily, but no one really knew anymore than what the executive branch was telling them. I think it's probably a good thing that senators such as Kerry and Levin (the senior senator from my home state) didn't let partisan issues get in the way of trusting what the President was telling them on a pretty important matter.

As for Clinton, yeah, he thought they had WMDs, but he apparently still had the good sense to recognize either that the intelligence wasn't strong enough or the threat big enough to warrent a full scale invasion.

The fact that people were willing to trust the President doesn't excuse the administration for making huge errors as far as I'm concerned.

Rocky, that is the most partisain cop-out I've seen from you in a while. It's truly nothing but a cop out. The Senate Intelligence Committee was presented with the same intelligence info that the president was. If those senators see it and start thinking in terms of "This is what the president says it means, so it must be true" then our country has some big problems in that we're paying 100 men and women a lot of money to not do their jobs. If you read an article, and I read an article, we can and do interpret it differently, because we're both capable of coherent thought. The Senate (especially the members of the Intelligence committee) have that very same ability. If they did not use that ability to do their jobs, then they should not have those jobs to begin with. Checks and balances depends on that kind of thought ... "well he told me so" doesn't cut it.

Shin said:

And as far as you going with B) given that scenario...well, what can I say, you're more confident making such world-altering decisions without a smoking gun than most.

Then most? How do you determine that? And more importantly Shin, I have a very hard time believing that had Bush done nothing, and a WMD terrorist attack happened in this country on his watch, you'd be one of the first jumping up and down saying he should have done more to prevent it. The entire point of invading Iraq (from many if not most who support it) is that we're not going to be stupid enough to wait for the smoking gun anymore. You can either wait for someone else to rob your house,and call the police to arrest him, or you can invest in better locks and a security system to ensure that you're not robbed again. You choose to save your money and wait for the robber to be arrested. That's fine. But I choose to get the security system ... and if there's a way to arrest the robber as he enters my yard before he's ever robbed me, I'm going to act on that too.

[Proud]

on my governer, james mcgreevy: i don't mind the fact that he's gay and though i strongly dislike the fact that he had an affair, i don't think it should be enough for him to leave office. BUT it's pretty much well-known that he sexually harassed another man (probably the guy he had an affair with), and there's NO excuse for that, and he should be thrown out ASAP. all that said and done, i'd still vote him over whatever republican was thrown against him. if i HAD voted in the election vs. schundler or whoever else it was, even knowing what i do now, i'd still take mcgreevy, DESPITE his taxes, despite his vacations, despite everything else. that's how bitter i am about current republican control in this country.

as far as john kerry goes, i like most of what he has to say, but the man is indeed a "flipflopper", especially with his position on the war. but i don't think there's anything wrong with that. a large amount of americans ARE flipfloppers on this war, if you look at the approval numbers (the polls asking if we should've went into iraq, and the others asking if bush's administration has done a good job with it). all that said and done, it's my personal opinion that the middle class needs jobs (and NOT crappy minimum wage retail jobs, THANK YOU), the war must move in some sort of other direction, and we need to continue to keep america a free and progressively closer to equal society. in other words, with luck:

HELP IS ON THE WAY!

*gives cpr to a hamster*

[shin]

Chrisfan said:

Then most? How do you determine that? And more importantly Shin, I have a very hard time believing that had Bush done nothing, and a WMD terrorist attack happened in this country on his watch, you'd be one of the first jumping up and down saying he should have done more to prevent it. The entire point of invading Iraq (from many if not most who support it) is that we're not going to be stupid enough to wait for the smoking gun anymore.

Bush is doing nothing. The geopolitical realities dictated that Iraq was not the true threat to spread WMDs, therefore I don't see this move as preventing anything regardless of the WMD reality. Many many experts believed that Hussein having WMDs at all at that point was for reasons nothing more than bargaining chips, invasion preventers and leverage against his enemies such as Israel and Iran. Even if Hussein had WMDs, he's still not the first person you look toward in the "who could give a terrorist a deadly weapon" community.

But pretend for a moment that he was the first person. He's not the only person who would do so. Iran would do so, Kim Jong Il would do so. And by some accounts already are doing so, or want to do so, especially Iran. Both countries have nuclear capabilities and much stronger ties to terror. The nuclear black market via Pakistan's Abdul Qadeer Khan was open for quite some time if it's not still open. Are not these bigger threats than, say, a potential smallpox weapon, of which we have a cure? Your analogy only goes so far.

[shin]

Proud, guess what I found a while ago?

Sources in McGreevey's administration told the Associated Press Cipel threatened McGreevey several weeks ago that unless he was paid "millions of dollars," he would sue the governor, charging him with sexual harassment. That lawsuit may be filed as soon as today.

www.ny1.com/ny/TopStories/SubTopic/index.html?topicintid=1&subtopicintid=1&contentintid=42413

This was a blackmail threat. There's apparently no validity to the "harassment" charges. This link has been edited from it's original text which was much more clear.

[Galactus]

Chrisfan said:

You can either wait for someone else to rob your house,and call the police to arrest him, or you can invest in better locks and a security system to ensure that you're not robbed again. You choose to save your money and wait for the robber to be arrested. That's fine. But I choose to get the security system ... and if there's a way to arrest the robber as he enters my yard before he's ever robbed me, I'm going to act on that too.

I'd be all for better locks...fantastic, but what we're doing is dressing up like John Wayne and going to the robber's house (which turns out not to be the guy who actually robbed us) and beating the crap out of him...and his neighbors just for good measure. In the end all we've really done is made his neighbors more sympathetic to him and robberies have more then tripled since then...and they're still talking about trying to rob us again...