Is the name of a fast-food burger chain in the U.S.
"Karls Jr." is my name for the spawn of Karl Rove.
According to this TPM Muckracker article, the Republican National Committee sent this letter to an 83-year old Missouri man.
The letter states, "A recent audit of your party affiliation turned up some irregularities," and "I am writing to find out where you stand. For example, we have no record of your support for President George W. Bush."
The old man was scared, and understandably so. Audit? Irregularities? Writing to find out where you stand? I think most reasonable people would agree that this is authoritarian, intimidating language. It's reminiscent of direct mail and e-mail techniques used by fly-by-night scam artists to prey on the elderly.
I guess when you're trying to use democratic processes to create a corporatist plutocracy, a trompe l'oeil is required. But man, if they're hitting this low so early in the campaign, it makes you wonder how far they'll go when the race really heats up . . .
But that's paranoid thinking, right? Thank goodness, the sensitive decisions on who the government spies on are now made in the secure, undisclosed bunker of Alberto Gonzales' mind.
What, you want HILLARY CLINTON AS PRESIDENT WITH BILL CLINTON SEATED NEXT TO HER ON THE THRONE? I thought you were opposed to GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACY and HIGH TAXES, Widespread. I am disappointed.
As much as I cant stand Hillary's vote to authorize the chimp to go to war, I would be thrilled to have her on the throne with the greatest President of my lifetime sitting next to her - Bill Clinton!
I dont get why the republicans dont get that the money has to come from somewhere. You want abstinence programs and BS wars to subsidize your corporate pals, and yet dont want to finance them? You want all the benefits of living in a society, but dont think you should pay for them? I work with a republican who brags that her autistic child is in a program that wouldnt exist if the republicans had their way - how hypocritical!
I do agree that NYC should stop paying more tax than it gets back in benefits from the United States. I'm sick of subsiding wars and abstinence programs. How much money are we about to give Mexico for the "war on drugs?" Billions.
At some point in the distant past the republicans really were about limited government spending. Maybe during the Hoover administration. Since then they play lip service to it in every election and never follow through with it. Its become sort of a wink and a nod to the idea that "we'll quit spending money on stuff liberals favor" but they have absolutely no intention of shrinking the size of government and have no interest in reforming pork barreling. Its just amazing how much life the myth still has. So much of republican political arguments rest on the idea that you can just repeat stuff over and over again and there's no need for it to have any basis in fact.
The whole argument that people like Clinton and Kerry are bad because they initially gave authorization to invade Iraq is pretty simpleminded. It was conditional with the idea that if WMDs were found the president would cooperate with other countries to get rid of Hussein and set up a competent government to replace him. You can't expect them to have known what we know now; that intelligence gathering was biased in ways totally unheard of before, that Bush had absolutely no real strategy for setting up a provisional government, that Bush would completely antagonize the international community and go on some insane smear job of people like Hans Blix, that Bush would surround himself with incompetent idiots and hand out important posts solely based on loyalty. I'm not a big fan of Bush 1.0 or Reagan but its hard to imagine they'd abuse their power to the extent that Dubya did.
We should vote for candidates who can analyze the situation clearly and adjust policy accordingly (the antithesis of the Bush administration). Not for candidates who say "Nyah nyah I was right and you were wrong".
I agree with most of what you say. But I think it's important to remember that many of the people who voted for the war had serious doubts about Administration spin, both on the urgent need to invade and on the ease with which Iraq would flower into a democracy.
(Hell, in 1994, Cheney himself correctly stated that removing Saddam would create a huge vacuum and bog us down in a quagmire.)
Both Congress and the media also let the Administration get away with conflating Saddam and 9/11 until AFTER we invaded and things started to go badly.
For the conflicted who voted for it, I think the main reason was fear -- fear of what would happen to them politically if the war went well. Well, that's putting politics above statesmanship, and with many lives, both American and Iraqi, at stake. So, if they would have been penalized for voting against it and being wrong, why shouldn't they be penalized politically for voting FOR it and being wrong?
I agree, especially after the pre-recess FISA law "update" that flagrantly violates the 4th amendment probable cause requirement by leaving it up to Alberto Gonzales to decide who to spy on.
But we're stuck with the two parties for now, so voting out everyone who voted for the war, the Patriot Act or for the FISA abomination is a start.
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