CE, Vol 6

[Nepenthe]

www.house.gov/budget/FY01budget/welfare.pdf

Here is another source where the EIC is listed as a welfare program.

[melon1]

Conventional wisdom seems to be that about 20-30 minutes into the debate, Bush checked out. Could this have been a strategic move? Could it have been a way to allow Kerry to sink into a very comfortable mode, to start making comments, such as the passing a global test comment, that Bush would let sit there last night, in order to rip them apart today? An approach of "let the flip flopper flop some more"? Becaue Kerry does not take the risks to show what IMO is the true Kerry when he's on the defensive, and he did show it last night. Could it have been intentional?


I don't think so, Chrisfan. Not to be pessimistic, I honestly don't think the President is smart enough to strategize such an idea on the spur of the moment like that. I do agree that he seemed to check out, but it appeared to me to be too painfully realistic. Have I mentioned how painful it is for me to watch Bush debate. I'm hoping I don't need Maalox during or after the next debate.

[chrisfan]

strat-0 said:

...Such as the passing a global test comment

Yes, much hay will be made of that, but taken in the context in which it was delivered, it made perfect sense. Of course, he's not saying that the US would have to pass some "test" before defending herself.

The US must simply act responsibly.

Strat-O, I disagree. Applying the comment to the entire debate, I have big problems with it. I went back and re-watched that question, and I disagree with it. I interpret that answer to say that if the majority of countries in the world don't approve of our taking action, then we cannot take action. Wihout question, in the ideal situation, we would havethe rest of the world on board. But the standard, IMO, should be US security ... not consensus of the world. Perhaps out of context the comment sounds WORSE than it does in the entire 90 second answer, but the 90 second answer shows a standard that Kerry endorses that I do not agree with.

[chrisfan]

shin said:

This is the second time you've mentioned this so you must think there's some mileage to it. I hate to tell ya, visiting a battleground state that singlehandedly decided the last election and where your brother is governor is not something to be trumpeted as admirable. Not to say it's despicable, but what exactly would you expect of Bush? For him to ignore Florida? There's no other political option.

Nor do I consider a "you try debating after visiting a hurricane destroyed area" argument. He handled himself considerably well after 9/11 (ie at the rubble of Ground Zero) and that's a much more emotionally taxing scenario. What's more, the man's taken so much vacation time, he should have spent more time prepping.

He "misunderestimated" Kerry and it backfired. It's just a simple as that. Kerry's well known as a master debater (hee hee) while Bush is known to only be good at debating when he's the challenger. It was in the stars.

"Hard work" indeed...perhaps he should give someone who can handle the job a chance.

Couple of things Shin ...

First, Florida did not "decide" the 2000 election. Yes, it was the last state where the electoral votes wree determined. But it takes 270 votes in the electoral college to win. As a result, NO single state "decides" a presidential election. EVERY state Bush won decided the presidential election.

Next, the accusation that you appear to be making (perhaps I'm wrong, in which case I will willingly stand corrected) that Bush's only reason for visiting the hurricane victims is for their votes hits a level of cynicism so huge I actually feel sorry for you. There are a lot of things that presidents do for political gain, but there are also things they do that are done simply because they're human and can recognize the right thing to do. With the stories I've heard from people who've just gone through ONE of those hurricanes, I can assure you that it's an absolutely devestating experience for them. I know of people who've been medicated since Ivan blew through, because they can't handle the way that their lives have been completely destroyed ... My parents were working with one of the releif efforts yesterday. While helping with the clean up outside, they'd periodically find a picture, or a stuffed animal, or some other personal item. When they took them to the woman whose yard working in, she'd get all excited saying "Oh, that belongs to the girl down the street, she'll be so excited". These people have been completely wiped out ... and the people in Stuart, where Bush was, haven't just bene through it once! Imagine being totally devestated, and just as you begin to organize your life to move forward, it's destroyed all over again. Yes Shin, Bush wasn't visiting voters in Stuart ... he was visiting Americans.

Finally, the vacation time BS. It surprises me that Kerry supporters are still obsessed with the vacation time issue, ignoring that vacation for BUsh is actually a working thing ... his house is equipped with the secure lines, staff, etc so that he's working while he's there. More importantly, it surprises me that they're obsessingover it given that Kerry has shown up for how many votes in the Senate this year? One? Two?

[chrisfan]

NymphoFantasia said:

And the term welfare program isn't my description chris, its the encyclopedia's. It is afterall a handout. Yes you do have to earn income in order to receive it. So by your definition food stamps wouldn't be considered a welfare program if some low income person was on the food stamp program?

NF, it's time you learn that ifyou don't attributea source to a post, it's assumed you wrote it. You don't want to be challenged on what you say? Attribute your source.

As for food stamps not being welfare based on my defintion ... your argument makes no sense to me. But if you could make it a little mroe clear, I'd be happy to respond.

[chrisfan]

Melon1 said:

Conventional wisdom seems to be that about 20-30 minutes into the debate, Bush checked out. Could this have been a strategic move? Could it have been a way to allow Kerry to sink into a very comfortable mode, to start making comments, such as the passing a global test comment, that Bush would let sit there last night, in order to rip them apart today? An approach of "let the flip flopper flop some more"? Becaue Kerry does not take the risks to show what IMO is the true Kerry when he's on the defensive, and he did show it last night. Could it have been intentional?


I don't think so, Chrisfan. Not to be pessimistic, I honestly don't think the President is smart enough to strategize such an idea on the spur of the moment like that. I do agree that he seemed to check out, but it appeared to me to be too painfully realistic. Have I mentioned how painful it is for me to watch Bush debate. I'm hoping I don't need Maalox during or after the next debate.

IF it were a strategy Melon, I'm notsaying he came up wit the idea standing on the platfrom. I'm saying that in the pre-debate strategizing that the Bush campaign did, they would have recognized that Kerry tends to show the "real Kerry" rather than the "Kerry people want to hear" when he gets comfortable and relaxed, and planned Bushs' approach accordingly.

[ModernDeathTrend]

Chrisfan said:

NF, it's time you learn that ifyou don't attributea source to a post, it's assumed you wrote it. You don't want to be challenged on what you say? Attribute your source.

As for food stamps not being welfare based on my defintion ... your argument makes no sense to me. But if you could make it a little mroe clear, I'd be happy to respond.

Attribute your source? Are you fucking blind ? She put the webpage that supports what she says on here.

And on the food stamp route, you said that since you have to earn an income to earn the EIC, that EIC then wouldn't be a welfare program. However, since you are required to work a certain amount of hours for welfare and food stamps, you know earning what you gain, then ,according to what you said about EIC, that wouldn't be welfare either since you have to work to get the benefits. Pretty rediculous of an argument, since all of these are involved with welfare programs.

[ModernDeathTrend]

NymphoFantasia said:

www.house.gov/budget/FY01budget/welfare.pdf

Here is another source where the EIC is listed as a welfare program.

Here Chrisfan, put your granny glasses on and maybe then you could see this.

[chrisfan]

CoffinFodder said:

Here Chrisfan, put your granny glasses on and maybe then you could see this.

Sorry buddy, but the post you just referred to was posted AFTER my response. NF said in one of her earlier posts last night that the EITC was the biggest welfare program we have ... with no attribution. THAT is the post I disagreed with. AFTER that, she posted the one you referred to as ANOTHER source that said it was a welfare program. No granny glasses needed ... but you may benefit from a calendar. :-)

[Nepenthe]

Chrisfan said:

NF, it's time you learn that ifyou don't attributea source to a post, it's assumed you wrote it. You don't want to be challenged on what you say? Attribute your source.

As for food stamps not being welfare based on my defintion ... your argument makes no sense to me. But if you could make it a little mroe clear, I'd be happy to respond.

Chris, if we all have to attribute our sources to everything we say on here that would get a little old wouldn't it. This coming from someone that use to have in their profile "everything I know I learned from watching T.V."

The EIC has always been considered a welfare program, because it is for the welfare of certain families that put out an effort to work. I am not sure what the cut off is for it but I believe it is around $30,000 per year with 2 children, something like that. This program was indeed designed for working parents, and then it was extended to include single individuals with or without a qualifying child. The credit can either reduce the income taxes owed and the rest be refunded, or it can be entirely refunded whether or not the person paid taxes or not. Same goes for the child tax credit, which some workers benifit from both the credits. The child tax credit, if I am not mistaken usually helps the families near or above the $30,000 per year cut off for the EIC more so than it does the lower income families. I don't know the specifics, but I could look it up. I do know the child tax credit was at one time not a refundable credit, it was used strickly to offset any taxes that might be owed but then was changed to be refundable as well.

The same goes for the low cost medical coverage for children, although every state has its own rules. I believe the family of 4 can make up to $36,000 per year and get low cost health insurance for their children, I am not sure if this is consdered a welfare program but I am guessing it is. I am guessing it falls in line with whatever category medicaid and medicare fall under.

The welfare reform laws require anyone recieving "actual welfare", as we know the term, are required to work 40 hours a week. The state decides where these 40 hours will take place. So technically people that are on typical welfare do work indeed, for far less than the minimum wage. This method is used to encourage them to go to work.

Your argument, or statement, was that because the EIC is given to only those that work it isn't considered a welfare program. So I countered you with the new welfare reform laws, that require people to work 40 hours per week, unless they are of course disabled or what not then they are required to apply for SSI or disability. SSI is a welfare program as well. Oh and the fact that foodstamps are given to people that work.

[chrisfan]

Right War, Right Place, Right Time
Kerry is wrong: Iraq is central to defeating al Qaeda.

BY DEBRA BURLINGAME
Saturday, October 2, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

Last month five 9/11 widows held an emotional press conference and--one by one--stood before a microphone to talk about fear. They invoked the tragic loss of their loved ones three years ago and declared that concern for their children's future has moved them to endorse the candidacy of John F. Kerry. These are the very same women who just six months ago angrily denounced the use of fleeting images of Ground Zero in a Bush campaign ad, saying it was a form of exploitation that was "unconscionable" and "disgusting." They asserted that neither candidate should use 9/11 for personal political gain, calling the use of 9/11 "a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people."

Though these same widows participated in an anti-Bush demonstration sponsored by MoveOn.org demanding that the president pull his television ads off the air, they maintained then, as they do now, that they are nonpartisan, that they are moved solely by their conscience and by a sense of civic duty. At the close of their press conference, Kerry handlers distributed press releases declaring that "9/11 Families Endorse John Kerry for President" and announced that the widows might be used in television ads in swing states.

Sen. Kerry begins many stump speeches these days by introducing these 9/11 widows to kind applause. As we enter the final leg of the presidential race, the Kerry campaign appears to have calculated that the war in Vietnam is not the war the American people want to talk about. And so, trading on their status as 9/11 family members associated with the 9/11 Commission, the Kerry campaign is deploying these September 11 widows on a nationwide tour to tell the American people that there is no connection between Iraq and the war on terrorism. This declaration will come as a surprise to the folks who actually wrote the 9/11 Commission report. These widows may be speaking from the heart, but the Kerry campaign is not telling you the truth.

Anyone who has actually read the report would know that the 9/11 Commission had plenty to say about the connections between al Qaeda and Iraq, but because much of its findings were beyond the scope of its charter, important details went unstated in public hearings or were buried in the minutiae of the published narrative. Virtually every reporter I have spoken to has failed to answer this basic question satisfactorily: "Have you actually read the report?" The answer is almost always a sheepish "No." Those who have only given it a cursory scan may have missed the fine-print chapter notes where explosive information about names, dates, places, and conversations concerning the Iraq-al Qaeda connection are outlined in chilling detail.

To cite but one of many examples, it states that Saddam Hussein--wanting to curry favor with other Arab governments wary of Osama bin Laden--was not responsive to a 1996 request by bin Laden for safe haven in Iraq when the Sudanese government was poised to give him the boot. After bin Laden declared war against the U.S. in 1998, two al Qaeda operatives went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. Later, a delegation of Iraqi officials traveled to Afghanistan and offered to set bin Laden up. Taliban leaders, concerned with the increasing possibility of retaliatory strikes by the U.S., urged bin Laden to go. During heated discussions with other Clinton administration policy makers about the effect of launching missile strikes on bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan, then-NSC Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke worried that bin Laden would "boogie to Baghdad" where he would put his network at Saddam's service and be all the harder to root out, given Saddam's formidable security apparatus.

The commission further reported that terrorist training camps, now eliminated by the coalition forces of Operation Iraqi Freedom, were set up in Northern Iraq with bin Laden's help. Al Qaeda associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was given safe haven by Saddam Hussein after he fled Afghanistan. It is Zarqawi, a chemical weapons expert, who is believed to be the leading force behind Ansar al-Islam, the terrorist organization bin Laden assisted in founding several years ago and which is carrying out beheadings and suicide bombings in Iraq today.

As one of 150 9/11 family members who have signed an open letter strongly supporting the president's decision to prosecute the war on terror in Iraq, I would remind Americans who think the presence of weapons of mass destruction are the sine qua non for any pre-emptive war that the 19 terrorists who slaughtered 3,000 innocent men, women and children in a matter of minutes were sponsored by the Taliban, a backward regime that had neither WMD nor the technology to produce them. Saddam may not have had a hand in the plot that killed our loved ones, but American troops found ample evidence that he wishes he had, including the murals he commissioned for public display depicting airplanes exploding into the World Trade Center towers, but with this added conceit: One shows the planes painted in the colors of Iraqi airlines while Saddam's grinning portrait looms in the foreground in yet another.

For many 9/11 family members, the most compelling reason for putting an end to Saddam's dangerous regime can be found in the 9/11 Commission's pointed analysis on the subject of "imminent threats." As we forced ourselves to read through the voluminous material which explains in excruciating detail the disparate threads of the 9/11 plot, we were constantly mindful of the seemingly innocuous events which would ultimately prove critical to the cruel and brutal deaths of our loved ones. We understand the commission's dire warning and wish that our fellow Americans would listen closely: "Once the danger has fully materialized, evident to all, mobilizing action is easier--but it then may be too late."

Rather than waiting until it was too late to prevent a fully materialized threat, President Bush acted. We believe history will support his courageous decision. We believe the president has demonstrated strength, consistency and a laser-like focus, sending a clear message to America's friends and foes that he will not waver in his resolve as the winds of political fortune change.

Last month, on the third anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I had the privilege of visiting with some of our brave and dedicated military men and women who are recuperating from their wounds at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. These young Americans and their families remain staunchly committed to the mission of protecting us and our children and bringing freedom to Iraq. They do not understand why the media refuse to tell the American people about the good work they have accomplished and the progress they are making. These valiant soldiers believe, as one Iraqi blogger put it, that "their river of blood is our river of hope," and that the pessimism of the media is a betrayal that our troops and the Iraqi people do not deserve.
It was these young people whom I thought of when Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi stood before a joint session of Congress last week and paid tribute to the sacrifices of his countrymen and the coalition forces fighting for us all. For political partisans to call the hope of so many a cynical calculation or a foolish dream risks, with a few cheap words, energizing our enemies who measure their success by the blood and tears of these brave hearts. Optimism in the face of obstacles is not living in "fantasyland." It's courage.

The 9/11 widows traveling with John Kerry talk about their fear of a war with no end, but there are many of us 9/11 families who fear that John Kerry would turn this crucial historic opportunity into a losing war with no hope. We think George W. Bush got it right. We believe this is the right war, in the right place, at the right time. We think the good guys are winning.

Ms. Burlingame, a lifelong Democrat, is co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America (www.911familiesforamerica.org). Her brother, Chic Burlingame, was the pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which was crashed at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

[Nepenthe]

Chris where did you find that article? I would like to have the link so I can send it to someone.

[RocDoc]

Nice revelations from the Burlingame article...separate them out a bit and they make just a bit more impact...

To cite but one of many examples,

it states that Saddam Hussein--wanting to curry favor with other Arab governments wary of Osama bin Laden--was not responsive to a 1996 request by bin Laden for safe haven in Iraq when the Sudanese government was poised to give him the boot.

After bin Laden declared war against the U.S. in 1998, two al Qaeda operatives went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence.

Later, a delegation of Iraqi officials traveled to Afghanistan and offered to set bin Laden up. Taliban leaders, concerned with the increasing possibility of retaliatory strikes by the U.S., urged bin Laden to go.

During heated discussions with other Clinton administration policy makers about the effect of launching missile strikes on bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan, then-NSC Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke worried that bin Laden would "boogie to Baghdad" where he would put his network at Saddam's service and be all the harder to root out, given Saddam's formidable security apparatus.

The commission further reported that terrorist training camps, now eliminated by the coalition forces of Operation Iraqi Freedom, were set up in Northern Iraq with bin Laden's help.

Al Qaeda associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was given safe haven by Saddam Hussein after he fled Afghanistan. It is Zarqawi, a chemical weapons expert, who is believed to be the leading force behind Ansar al-Islam, the terrorist organization bin Laden assisted in founding several years ago and which is carrying out beheadings and suicide bombings in Iraq today.

Lies, lies, nothing but DAMN lies from the non-partisan 9/11 Commission, right?

Nothing for Bush (and Blair and Franks and Rumsfeld and Cheney...et al) to have hung their hats on??

~

What REALLY pisses me off about the Democrats/Liberals is the ARROGANT certainty with which their 'anger' with the Bush(and Blair)administration's supposed presumptuousness and preoccupation with cavalierly sacrificing young men's(and women's)lives in some sort of an evil greed-driven enterprise.

It
is
BULLshit.

Invoking oil, the assassination of GHW Bush and Haliburton as some sort of fucking mantra.

With arms crossed, trying to stare the others down as though their(huuugely debateable)points are now givens.

For that alone, for their presumption that Bush(AND Blair and all their support) should have been stone cold letter-PERFECT, they will NEVER deserve even a BIT of my support.
Fuck them and this 'war of personalities' they are engaging in with the swaggering Texas cowboy....

[chrisfan]

Just for you Strat-o, a better argument on why Bush won the debate.

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/02/EDG8E92FVG1.DTL

[ModernDeathTrend]

Chrisfan said:

Just for you Strat-o, a new strap-on!!

Now that isn't nice to say. LMFAO