Well, Dick didn't waste anytime did he? Less than two weeks after leaving office, f
ormer Vice President Cheney said that there is a "high probability" that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic attack on US soil and the policies of President Obama will make it easier for them to do so.
Dipping deeply into the "fear and shit your pants" bag of old tricks, Dick specififed that the closing of Guantanomo Bay will lead to a nuclear attack on this country. Protecting the country’s security is “a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business,” he said. “These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.” He went on to say that if these kind of policies continue, the United States will be at risk in more ways than we can possibly understand.
DUM DUM DA!!!
I don't mean to make light of something as serious as our national security but I'm sorry.....I laughed my fucking ass off when I read this. He sounds like a character from a cartoon for crying out loud. And highly simplistic and child like one at that. Thank God this fucker isn't in charge of anything anymore and we can finally get down to the business of stopping these guys.
Someone needs to ask the former vice president if he is so concerned about Al Qaeda, why are Osama bin Laden and Ayman El Zawahari, the men responsible for 9-11, still at large after SEVEN AND A HALF FUCKING YEARS! Why did he insist on invading Iraq and allow Al Qaeda to reconstitute itself as it has been fully proven
in this NIE report. In fact, Dick should
review this blog post and come back to reality.As for the rest of us, in light of Dick's outburst, why don't we review
what appeal to fear means.
8 comments:
It's no different than your guy claiming the economy will collapse unless we pass his pork bill. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Yeah, nice try there dude but that isn't even a comparison. The problem you have, rld, as with many others on the right is that you are under the mistaken impression that the left thinks like the right. They don't.
Criticize the stimulus package all you want--and with good cause--but even economists on the right are saying it has to be passed. There isn't any fear here. It's reality.
why don't you inform us how the left thinks, in detail please. youre on here criticizing the right all the time and now you take the word of economists on the right. keep jumping back and forth like that - nobody will notice it.
If I may, Sara, the left tends to think of the world as more grey and not as black and white as the right does. The left, sometimes to a fault, tends to look at all angles of a situation. The right has one angle: theirs. And if you don't like it then you are a traitor.
So when President Obama says the economy is going to collapse if we don't pass the stimulus bill he has taken into account a wide variety of opinions, on the left and the right, in making his case. And when I say right, I mean the intelligent right not dipshits like Hannity and Limbaugh.
When Dick Cheney says that America is going to perish if Gitmo closes, he has not taken into account any alternative points of view (he is ALWAYS right and to admit a mistake is to admit weakness) and is pursuing an agenda of fervent and counter productive paranoia.
Thanks Elizadelphia.
Folks I have to agree with rld here - when Cheney does it, it is fear mongering but when Obama does it, he is "taking into account a wide variety of opinions".
The government does not control the economy.
Can someone here tell me what part of the "stimulus" bill is going to "save" 4 million jobs? Be specific.
I think you need to look at the specifics of the bill regarding the weight the private sector is going to bear. In addition, companies will be forced to lay off more people and we will be at 10 percent unemployment if the bill does not pass. Is that a bad thing though?
Of course, that doesn't mean I am entirely on board with the bill. My children are going to be beholden to the people that guarantee the Fed forever? That is a bad thing.
And I don't think President Obama is fear mongering like Dick is clearly doing. Sara is right. The left doesn't think like the right. Obama just today said that there will be things in this bill that won't work and aren't perfect. When was the last time you heard a conservative say that?
BTW, nice to see both of you gals back. Been too long:)
Oh I have read the bill. Why you folks still call it "stimulus" is beyond me.
My favorite part of the bill is the little noticed provision that creates a fund for TANF [Temporary Assistance to Needy Families] which is labeled as "open-ended" — the same way Medicare and Social Security are. The authors inserted the bombshell phrase: "such sums as are necessary" when dealing with cash assistance to low income families. This basically reverses the welfare reform Clinton signed and creates a new template for future TANF reauthorizations. More welfare and nobody knows the cost. Brilliant!!!
We are going to spend $88 million to study whether we ought to buy a new ice breaker for the Coast Guard. You know what, the Coast Guard is going to come back and say they need a new ice breaker. Why do we need to spend money studying it and just spend the money on the new ship?
We are going to spend $448 million to build the Department of Homeland Security a new building. We have $1.3 trillion worth of empty buildings right now. We are going to spend another $248 million for new furniture for that building. What about the furniture the Department of Homeland Security has now? I thought you folks didn’t like deficits?
How about the buying of $600 million worth of hybrid vehicles for federal employees? What is wrong with the cars they already have? Dumping $600 million worth of used vehicles on the used vehicle market right now is certainly change I can believe in.
There is $400 million in here to prevent STDs. We don't need to spend $400 million on STDs. As Markadelphia would say - what we need to do is properly educate about the infection rates and the effectiveness of methods of prevention. The senate bill added a billion dollars to this. How does this stimulate the economy?
$2 billion for neighborhood stabilization programs (aka payback to ACORN, and we all know how much they drive our economy).
How about $150 million for a Smithsonian museum? Tell me how that helps get us out of a recession.
$200 million for public computer centers at community colleges? Is that taxpayer responsibility? College tuition isn’t exactly cheap nowadays, where does all the money they currently get go?
We have $75 million for smoking cessation activities, which probably is a great idea but how does that stimulate the economy?
We have $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas. Well, that will put 10 or 15 people to work. Is that a priority for us right now?
Next is $1.2 billion for youth activities. Who does that employ and what does that mean?
How about $88 million for renovating the public health service building? How will that stimulate the economy this year?
How about $850 million for Amtrak that hasn't made any money since 1976 and continues to have $2 billion or $3 billion a year in subsidies? That was in the house bill, now the senate version has $8 billion to construct high-speed rail lines. Harry Reid's office issued a statement noting that a proposed Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas rail might get a big chunk of the money. Who will pay for the ongoing use of such an expensive boondoggle? Amtrak cancelled train service between Los Angeles and Las Vegas over ten years ago due to low ridership. Now Harry wants a train, that’s change you can all believe in.
We are going to spend $524 million for information technology upgrades that the Appropriations Committee claims will create 388 jobs. If you do the math on that, that is $1.5 million a job. What efficiency!!!
We are going to bail out the States on Medicaid. Total all of the health programs together in this, and we are going to transfer $150 billion out of the private sector and we are going to move it to the Federal Government. Now there are absolutely no consequences for states spending themselves into deficits – big govt will be there to bail them out now. The senate just added $5 billion increase for the state fiscal stabilization fund (originally cut by Nelson-Collins), making it a grand total of $53.6 billion to bail out state governments that are in deficit spending. How many jobs does that create?
We are going to create a $79 billion slush fund for the States to spend on education costs. Once the State education programs get $79 billion over 2 years, do you think that will ever go away? Only thing that will stimulate is the silence of all you lefties claiming the problem with education is simply a lack of money. Once this bill passes there will be no more excuses folks.
In the senate bill, Money for highways and bridges was cut by $1 billion from the House-passed bill. I guess democrats want bridges to fall since the reason they fall now is lack of funding. Blk said so.
I think I may be typing too much for the one-line crew on here so here is the spending exclusively devoted to government employees.
•$5.5 billion for making federal buildings "green" (including $448 million for the Department of Homeland Security's headquarters)
•$198 million to design and furnish the DHS headquarters
•$200 million for workplace safety in Department of Agriculture facilities
•$75 million for the Smithsonian Institution
•$300 million more for hybrid and electric cars for federal employees (see below)
•$180 million for construction of Bureau of Land Management facilities
•$500 million for wildland fire management
•$110 million for construction for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
•$522 million for construction for the Bureau of Indian Affairs
•$412 million for Centers for Disease Control headquarters
•$500 million earmark for National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland
•$100 million for constructing U.S. Marshalls office buildings
•$300 million for constructing Federal Bureau of Investigation office buildings
•$800 million for constructing Federal Prison System buildings and facilities
•$307 million for constructing National Institute for Standards and Technology office buildings
•$1 billion for administrative costs and construction of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration office buildings
•$600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees
•$125 million for the Washington, D.C. sewer system
•$75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI
•$6 billion to turn federal buildings into “green” buildings
•$88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service
•$5.5 million for "energy efficiency initiatives" at the Veterans Administration's "National Cemetery Administration"
•$60 million for Arlington National Cemetery
•$75 million to construct a new "security training" facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies
•$110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems
•$200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.
Here is spending not directed at government employees but when the government funds something, the government controls it.
•a $1,500 tax credit to anyone that purchases “neighborhood electric vehicles”—also known as golf carts. The total estimated cost of that giveback is $300 million.
•$2 billion for manufacturing advanced batteries for hybrid cars
•$650 million for the digital TV (DTV) transition coupon program
•$1.2 billion for summer jobs for youth
•$200 million for public computer centers at community colleges and libraries
•$750 million earmark for the National Computer Center
•$10 million to fight Mexican gun-runners
•$850 million for Amtrak (on top of its regular subsidy)
•$100 million for lead paint hazard reduction
•$275 million for flood prevention
•$65 million for watershed rehabilitation
•$650 million for abandoned mine sites
•$1.3 billion for NASA (including $450 million for "science" at NASA)
•$100 million to clean up sites used in early U.S. atomic energy program
•$10 million for urban canals
But last in line!!! There are tax cuts too!!! Sure there are, let’s go over them.
•The "Making Work Pay" credit: This would provide a refundable tax credit of $500 to individuals making up to $75,000 and a credit of $1,000 for couples making up to $150,000. Even those with no tax liability would also qualify to receive a check from the government for the amount of the refundable credit. These are also known as welfare checks. Such tax credits are not likely to stimulate the economy because they provide no incentive for individuals to be more productive, but would simply pay them whether or not they were productive. This does nothing to create jobs. The total cost of this is expected to be $140 billion.
•Temporary Increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit or EITC: The EITC is a refundable tax credit available to low-income individuals, which increases with the number of children they have. EITC is essentially a welfare program, and while it may help shield its recipients from poverty, it is purely redistributive and will not spur economic growth.
•Build America Bonds: The stimulus creates an incentive to invest in municipal bonds that provide financing for public building projects. Like many of the other bonding provisions in the bill, this gives an incentive for private capital to flow toward public investment rather than private. Public investments are only going to promote economic growth if the government decides to use the funds more productively than they would otherwise be used in the private sector. There is no reason to think, however, that the government has suddenly become better at investing people’s money. Maybe I missed that recent deveopment, I dunno.
•Waiver of Requirement to Repay First-Time Homebuyer Credit: This proposal may stimulate the purchase of homes, but do we really need the government to push people toward home purchases? In a time when the housing market is contracting to correct the abuses already caused by govt intervention into lending markets, I guess additional interventions to spur home purchases are now the solution. Lovely.
Your "side" owns this bill and Obama can line-item veto anything you just read out of there if he wants to.
Can any of you tell me specifically which one of the above things will create 4 million jobs and bring our economy back?
Wow, LinL. Very impressive.
Oh, and as for what Cheney said, is it really all that different from Joe Biden talking about how some world crisis will test Obama early in the administration? [Not sure that Joe was speaking for or against his team there myself.]
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