John Smith

BS had a stretch of fiive albums and then everythinng became quite spotty after that.

I got my gutiar player magazins the other day and there was a calendar in the package. At first glance I saw it was for First Act guitars (First Act is what they sell at Wal-Mart) and was ready to toss it. I had to look inside first though and was surprised to see Paul Westerberg as the January Pinup. They also had Shona Tucker and Jason isbell of the DBT's.

The Fearless freaks - Flaming Lips.

Oddly enough, that's exactly when they were active.

I agree with you, more or less -- that sentence just struck me as funny.

I know it reads funny but there is certain amount of music where it sound like it belongs to a certain time period and other music that is timeless. Examples for ME are

You know I have a hard time getting excited about the Police reuniting. All in all I liked the music just fine when they were together. They were never my favorite band, but I still enjoyed them. I have many fond memories of listening to them and other newer bands like the Cars and Dire Straits at college parties back when they all first began to appear. They were part of my awakening to the notion that rock music did not have to involve all the stadium rock crap and technical expertise that was considered imperative way back then. They sort of help lead me to the Clash, The Damned, The Pistols and Ramones. Which led to the blasters, X, DK

It's only been a couple of weeks and the Democrats are still as stupid as ever.

 

The Murtha / Pelosi controversy

Rangel's draft idea

 

Democrats, you have two years to demonstrate you are smarter and more efficient than the Republicans. Otherwise, '08 is not going to be a good year for you. I'm rooting for you. Please make our country a better nation.

 

So far, in terms of your major headlines, you are 0-2.

Really? 0 - 2, I find that interesting. 1) the Rangel Draft idea has been floating around since ssometime in 2003. It comes and goes fromt he news. His point about it has beeen discussed here nicely.

2) way back in 1994 when the republicans took over there were few, if any negative headlines when nnew speaker Gingrich's hannd picked Majority leader lost to Tom DeLay. Actually the headlines made little mention of the loss to Gingrich. But today the so called "liberal Media" is reporting this as a major loss for Pelosi and signs of infighting wiith the dems. Very interesting.

From a blog...

Apropos of the midterm Congressional elections circa November 2007, President Thomas Jefferson had it right over 200 years ago about the resiliency of American democracy when he wrote the following words apropos of the 1798 Alien and Sedition Act that, like the Patriot Act, threatened the liberties of the American people:

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

No, it won't make a difference. But I feel better today. And its a moral victory (no pun intended).

To me it's not as much about how much will actually change, but the symbolic act of leaving a job after you f-ed it up. If someone consistently performs poorly at work, they should either quit (or 'resign,' as politicians do) or be fired.

I do think that the resignation will make a difference. Now with Rumsfeld gone the Vice President is the sole remaining PNAC member in the administration. Rumsfeld and dirty dick are quite close and I think they led and formulated US Foreign policy more than the president

 

Bush: If you only knew how many snipers are surrounding your house right now.

Who farted?

hehe I did.

John, I agree with about 99% of what you same most of the time, but this seems naive. It's like you really believe that democrats are generally better? Don't confuse your agreeing with democrats on most issues with some kind of moral superiority. I just think wholeheartedly believing one party is better than the other is ignoring human nature. Both parties have had their share of transgressions and on the large part democrats haven't achieved enough in my mind to convince me that they really care about poor people, education, world peace. They are not agents of change and have done pretty well being in second place in Washington for the last 12 years.

 

With that being said, I am in no way saying that Republicans are good. I've always maintained that putting all of your eggs in either basket will only achieve that status quo.

Please, viewing the last six years as Rpublican rule and the impression that they leave me with is that they, until now, have been almost cult-like clannish in their behavior. I'm talking elected officials and rank and file, the punditry, the hard core 30%. Nearly everytime something came up the response was yes, but Bill Clinton... Instead of sayign yes, we need to fix, they habitually had to shift the blame. Are the dems perfect? Hell no, neither party is. But in my life time, and especially the past few years, the republicans have been mroe willign to over look their ugly stains than the dems have or more than they have allowed the dems. All one has to do is listen to the pundits Limbaugh, O-Riely, Hannity etc... and they set the tone. I have not heard one offical come clean until forced to do so by court order and even then the punditry defends the actions saying it is being brought forth due to sour grapes. etc... Theh take responsibilty for your actions party, which I believ in whole heartedly, has few , if any memebers, who will actually stand up and take responsibility for their actions. And I see none who will hold the others acocutnable for their actions. If Jefferson were a republican he would have kept his position under the premise of innocent until proven guilty, which I also believe in 100%. However the dems stripped him of his power which is the right thing to do. Strip him and then when the outcome is clear either re-instate or dispose.

Nope, I stand by what I am asserting and until their behavior changes I will not. Back up claims of them not being willing to cover up with facts. Don't use Foley because he only got hammers after news came out and prior to that news coming out they did everything they could to keep it quiet. There may or may not be unknown situations going on right now withh the dems and if it turns there are and they have apparently covered them up, then I will re-evaluate my position on them.

and the Dems don't do that at all?

I think the dems would be more willing to eat their own than republicans would. Remeber the republicans totally revamped the ethic committee when it appeared that people might start finding out how un-ethical they were acting. Remeber republicans, when they founnd out about Foley (Way back several years ago) kept quiet on the issue. Remeber Republicans tried to keep the Duke Cunningham sotry under wraps. The dems? Some hopped ont he Beat and strangle bill clinton band wagon. They stripped Jefferson of his positions.

Will they always do it? Who knows if they don't act ethical, I will be more than willign to admit as much. But to date I can not think of a single period in history after Watergate (Which was bi-partisan, not a democratic withchunt) where the republicans have been willing to expose their own lapses. Time may prove me worng, but at this juncture I have no faith and notrust for the republican party. I fully believe that they put party over principles, party over country and loyalty to the party above all. Is that all republicans? Nope, but the lead4ership sets the tine and that is the tone I have heard for the past 25 years or more.

All i'm saying that there are plenty of legitimate issues to bag the republicans and the current administration...getting bogged down in these individual scandals makes you look as petty as the goofs you are trying to oust. rise above.

For me it is not any individual issue but the sum total of a mass of issues that are alomost too numerous to keep track of. Including one I forgot to mention yesterday...the total defanging of the ethic committee by Hastert and Delay. These things add up and eventually top the levee and you have a flood of crap innundating the republican party. It is patently obvious to me that the hardcore republicans can live with sexual misconduct, graft, influence peddling etc... as long as it is their guy. If it is the other guy, get out of the way because they are commign to get him both guns blazing and they will paint every oneein their way with tht e same issues.

I wasn't going to admit that I knew that.

 

(Kit is actually my favorite American Girl. She's the Depression Era AG, and she's what I picture my Great-Auntie Kay must have looked like in the 1930s.)

We have Kit, Josefina and a bitty baby along witha lot of clothes and accessories, several trips to the store for lunch and shows...Those American Girl people know how to market that stuff.

By the way...what happened to the rampant voter fraud and voting machine hacking that was predicted?

 

Built in excuse wasn't needed I guess.

There has been some mostly minor stuff, but in one district, Katherine Harris old district in Florida, there is a problem with the undervote. The Undervote for Representative is way off from the undervote for Sentate and other big races. That is the one area where I have heard that there may be a bad case of voting machines not getting it right. I hesitate to say fraud because you need proof to alledge fraud, but this is a problem. I believe the undervote for Senate and other races is around 4,000 while for the house seat it is closer to 19,000. Undervote for those who do not know is when there is no vote cast on a ballot. Typically the undervote is much higher for judges and school boards etc... than it is for national aor state wide offices. In this district the dem is behind.

Pe4rsonally i can not gloat about Rumsfeld leaving. At one point on 911 when he was out there at the pentagon being a regular guy helping with the wounded & such I had a bit of respect for him. Since then it has been all down hill. He and his think tank have, along with dirty dick and dumb george have lead America into a war on false pretenses. Face it, no matter how you slice it they wanted war with Iraq. Both Bush and dirty dick have said many times that even knowing today what they know they would have invaded, so we can drop the pretense of being surprised about no wmd being found. Anyhow the war was made for politcal and economic reasons. He did not listen to his generals and has not since day one. Remeber the crusader artillery piece that many generals wanted and he killed? Now I think he may have been correct on that one, but still he was not listening to his generals. He did not listen to them when they made the original plans and troop requests for Iraq. And quite frankly I don't think he has listened to them since.

The whole point of Iraq, according to the PNAC was to invade with a minimal force, or rather enough force to over throw what was viewed as the regions power and do so quickly with minimal US casulaties. This was in turn supposed to lead to 1) A government friendly to the US (democracy is a side issue, but will do) 2) cow the other countries in the region (by seeing this display of force) into a) leaving Israel alone and meetingthe US economic demands for oil. At least Wolfowitz was honest when he talked about Iraq and that terrorism and WMD were simply a selling point.

If they had actually had plans for after the war and set up a provisional governemnt back in 2003 and pulled out shortly thereafter I think the president would nto be stuck int he 30's for populartiy and I think the republicans may not have lost so badly yesterday.

But I can not really gloat, there has been too much destruction brought about by this man, this administration and the think tank that powers their policy. Too much destruction of human life, of US prestige, our military, soverign nations. Gloating would be inappropriate. Now they really need to take this man and probe the hell out of him investiage his office and all they have done. Perhaps some good will come of it and perhaps those who have died will have died in order to teach us that we can not allow this sort of thing to happen in a democracy. I've said it before but I see a little girl every day at my kids school whose father died and it breaks my heart every time. because he thought he was going after osama and his AMTRAC was destroyed by a hellfire missile. She will grow up never knowing him. She was five when he died and he is already only a distant memory. BTW he died on March 23 2003 the same day that the Jessica Lynch convoy was ambushed.

could you do the same complete list for the dems? i really don't care either way, but it'd just be fun to see they're that less crooked than the republicans. every politician is slightly crafty in my book, that wasn't my point at all.

Implying that the dems have the same issues as the republicans does nto make it so. Right now of the currently sitting congress I can think of Jefferson from Louisiana who is being investigated for bribery and for his deplorable Katrina behavior. I'm not sure of any other real scandals. Sure there is the phony Reid Land Deal muked up by the press, but the correct story got very little play. Outside of that I can't think of any real scandals. That does nto mean they exist, I just have not heard of them...got another the Kennedy (not Ted, the other one) drunk driving issue

On the republican side, congress only, we have Cunningham, Ney, Abrahamoff buying influence throughout congress. The Hastert land/legislation deal. The Foley Scandal & the even bigger coverup scandal. Santorum and his man./dog issue. There is Curt Weldon and his problems. The ice President shot a man in the face. The vice president told a senator to fuck off on the sennate floor. The president has told the world that if the dems win the terrorists win, and then says it was just campaign rhetoric in the same taklk whre he tells the terrorists nto to rejoice at the dems win. Jean Schmidt callig a decorated Marine a coward fromt he floor of the house of representatives. Jean Schmidt lying to congress about a letter she read on the floor of congress when she called a decorated marine veteran a coward. Don't forget chokign congressional girlfriends/payoff for silence because hhe is married. Passing legislation effectivel ending Habeus Corpus. The allowing of torture. etc...etc...etc... It goes on and on.

Outside of congress we have all that shit in Ohio with the coin guy., Blackwell trying to re-write election laws at the last minute Taft/graft. We have the situation in nevada with the candiadte moleting a woman.

I don't know what's funnier: George Michael Bluth or that the doll has the same dress as the girl.

Have to iinterject here, the doll is an American Girls Doll named Kit. My Daughter has the same one. You can buy clothes to dress yourself (actually your kid I hope) like the doll.

One of the most difficult things for me to get my head around is how supporting a federal (or local, for that matter) ban on gay marriage can be touted as a "conservative" value. That's up there with some of the most private things a government could stick its nose into...

I find it interesting that Republicans look at preferences and say no special rights or preferences for anyone based on race sex etc... But for Gay marriage they say no special privledges for gays. Umm, giving them the same privledge is not a special privledge. The Republican stance carves out a separate set of privledges for straights and gays. Different issues, same principles, different stances.

I shut down a conversation with my brother once when he started to go off about gays getting special privledges. My wife asked what special privedges and I responded that some people think giving gay people the same rights as you and I somehow is giving them special rights and is somehow a degredation of our rights. It's not that way at all, iit is simply recognizing that there is not supposed to be a system where there are two classes of people and two classes of rights in our country. I have no problem with a church not allowing gays to marry if it is part of their doctrine. But the government should nto be involved.

I think if this election said anything, it said that Americans are most comfortable in the center. Pelosi shut her mouth about impeachment in the last days leading up to the election and I would be surprised if there was a serious push now. Bush is now the lamest of lame ducks.

Has Pelosi talkeed Impeachmemnt before? I mostly hear it from the pundits, more from the right actually, with their "you need to vote or these people will impeach George Bush" rhetoric.

Exactly why i can't understand why anybody who finds that disgusting and silly would turn around and do the same thing. That's my only point.

I agree, that's why I looked at ALL the corruption, bribery, influence buying, bullying, and covering up of sexual misconduct as being what the republican party has going for it and leading to it's downfall this election. With Foley the big problem for me is nto so much his actions, but rather the apparent actions of thsoe around him who seemed perfectly content to cover it up. I recognize that all republicans are not corrupt, but enough misdeads have painted them as they appear. There has been a pattern of misbehavior going on unabatted, till now of course. While with the dems the press took Wild Bill and projected him on all democrats. One guy was used to paint the whole party, while with the republicans scores of wrongdoers are not supposed to paint an image for the whole party? If it was one guy, be it Bush or Hastert or Ney or anyone else, it would have been one thing, but with a virtual plethora of crap to choose from it is very hard not to paint the whole party. For quiote soemtime I've been saying that perhaps the RICO statutes need to be invoked and the current party leadership be investigated. At least the dem criminals (Rostenkowski) dealt with pennny ante crap compared to republicans. Of course we will find out what happens with Jefferson who appears to be as corrupt as any republican.

Touche.

 

No argument here that the modern American Republican party is an embarassment.

I feel that the current republican party brought this on by their actions. It's not all Bush either. Bush has his problems, but the rubber samping of those problems by congress is one issue while the drunken cr4ack whore in a liquor store way they ran congress is as big of an issue as anything. Hopefully once the impeachments are over we can get the country back to normal.

Ruling as if the other party does not exist is un-American and that is how the republicans have been for the last six years.

If you loathe conservatives then I apologize for the spell-check remark, I haven't had much sleep, and there's much work to be done.

 

Partisanship can be a good thing, as long as what you're fighting for is noble.

Who determines what is noble? Bipartisanship is the only thing that works, it is what ends up benefitting the majority of the people.

Believe it or not I am very conservative personally. I don't hate me at all either. What I can't stand is the current incarnation of the republican party. It is about as far from conservative as youc an get. Or at least about as far from what I used to know as conservatism. Conservatives used to be for fisccal responsibility, now all they are for is low taxes. Conservatives used to be agaiisnt government intrusion in private lives, nnow they seem to want to legislate my morality for me. Conservatives used to preach original intent of the constituion (ignoring that one original intent as laid out by the framers in the federalist and other writing was that new rigths might be discovered and that the document shoudl grow and change) Consevatives used to be for personal responsibility, but when was the last time you ever heard one of them take responsibility for anything? Conservatives used to be agiinst uynnecessary foreign entanglements, now look... Conservatives used to be for smaller governemnt, the last three republican presidents have grown the government. What is a conservative today is a far cry from what one wwas twenty or thirty years ago. Face it the current republican party has used a very radical agenda to hikack conservatism and morph it into the ugly beast we see today.

There's no "middle" in "Pelosi," Mr. Centrist. And why don't you find yourself a spell-checker while you're cuddling with your bipartisan goodwill?

 

(bush broke up britney and k-fed)

Currently what we have is Hasstert and previously Delay and they are not fringe dwellers? They lead from the fringe only and pulled their party towards the fringe hence the voting went the way it did for the last six years. They lead fromt he fringe and failed, and they had the support of a radical right wing administration, AND a radicalized supreme court, which has been legislating fromt he bench while ignoring the orignial intent on an ever increasing basis. Talk about radical agendas and extremists.

If Pelosi leads from the fringe she will fail. You are also assuming that Pelosi will be the one. The media is specualting but who knows until it actually happens. As to her leadership I would assume that no matter how she leads, even if it is right down the center (and the past congress has given the dems no reason to do so) she will be painted as being an extremist. There could be an issue that 75% of the country believes in and she could follow it and she will be painted as an extreamist by the right wing media machine. Nothing she will do will soothe the Limbaughs of the world or theiir minions.

Now the I keep hearing that she is an extremist, could someone please explain how she is an extremist? And while doing so you need to give examples of how her lawmaking mirrors her personal beliefs and how they are extreme? I simply view what has happend as a way to add balance back to our government and hopefully end the extremism that has been going on. (Along witht he corruption and lack of accountability)

One last hing. A couple of weeks ago I went to a seminar in DC. We had lobbiest speak (the seminar was tax audit issues) Anyhow, someone asked him what he was hearing about the elections from the people on the hill. He thought dems woudl end up with 20 seat lead in the house and lose the senate. He also said that republicans were going to stretch out the Virginia race as along as possible. Why? Because an early Dem win there could influence voters out west so they wanted to win that race or have results delayed so they would not influennce the rest of the country. Look what has heppened in Virginia. And he was wrong about botht he House and Senate races.

Go ahaead and keep insulting me too, It helpdd drive your point home more when you attack the messenger rather than the message.

I'm upset about this one. O'Malley is a piece of crap. Erhlich was an unfortunate casualty of the democratic backlash. As far as everything else goes I'm glad we'll finally have checks and balances back on the Federal level.

I have no clue as to what the various candidates in MD were all about, but I do find it interesting that Ehrlich and Steele bussed in homeless blacks from Philly to hand out flyers on election day.

By the Way I think republicans have benefitted more from people who vote for the initial behind the name than democrats have. Over the last 14 years or so the media has continually painted the dems as aout of touch weak etc... Usually ignoring their true positions in the process, while they paint the republicans as haivng firm ideas and as being strong. Well. there is a whole lot mroe to governing than having ideas. Bad ideas are ideas, true, but they are bad none the less and the last six years have shown how bad things can get when one party rules without input from the minority. I have always been of the opinion that the house and Senate shoudl be opposite parties and that whhen that does nto occur the president shoudl be of the opposite party. Thsi brings moderation into the equation and they end up ruling frm the middle, not the fringes. Whent he dems last had power the demms and republicans ruled jointly in congress, there were very few striaght party line votes, which to me indicated that they were reachiing compromise desgined to rule fromt he middle (Note to republicans compromise is not defeat, it is compromise). Hopefully the Dems will nto act like the republicans have for the last six years. After they run rougshod over the republicans to fix all the crap that has been fucked up over the last six years I hoep they actually work from the middle like they used to.

See, but you are getting back into that area of what some considers issues of 'morality' and what's not. They are still considered more 'moral' on the abortion, gay marriage, etc. items important to a lot of people and mentioned earlier a couple of posts back.

 

Also, by your rationale, you can't count Haggard...that's like saying that the party is accountable for anybody who isn't an official, but still a republican constiutent or backer. Then, somebody needs to answer how they address those 'log cabin' republicans today...how do they account for those cats?

 

At the end of the day, i'll still vote Democrat...but these type of conversations amaze me.

Each individual is responsible for their own morality that much is certain. For years the Republicans have been running on being morally superior, with abortion being one of their main issues. Over the last few years the gay marriage issue has probably supplanted abortion a little. If Republicans were truly serious about ending abortion they could have done something about it over the last two years. They had the majority on both houses. They were able to pass a law that effectively ended Habeus Corpus and gave the president the authority to determine who get Habeus Corpus thus effectively allowing one person to determine who is outside the law (and thus can be tortured). If they can pass a law of this nature, surely they could have passed something on abortion to reinforce their moral high ground. However, some things can never be passed, and a law on abortion is one of them, because they will always need to have it around as an election issue.

But with the Haggard issue, true he is not a party official, but he was a party operative who was used to motivate people to vote their values, which he shared with them and the party etc

[quote name='JUDE

ANN COULTER:

John kerry Apologized this Mornign on MSNBC.

later here is Tony Snow's comments...

All you have to do is say, I apologize. I said something, it came out wrong, I