to the treasonous efforts of Ted Kennedy, who reached out [to] the Soviet Union (via a liaison) with a plan to counter Reagan's foreign policies and derail Reagan's reelection.

I read about this over the weekend, Matt. Is this what you're referring to?

I have to confess, when I read this my initial reaction was, why am I not surprised? And yet the citizens of The Peoples' Republic of Massachusetts see fit to keep returning this guy to the Senate. Is it something in the water?

I suspect that many, if not most, of the Libs who post here wouldn't even think twice about committing treason if it meant getting power back and getting rid of Bush. I'm sure they'll all deny it, but all you have to do is go back and look at their words over the last few years.

“I suspect that many, if not most, of the Libs who post here wouldn't even think twice about committing treason if it meant getting power back and getting rid of Bush. I'm sure they'll all deny it, but all you have to do is go back and look at their words over the last few years.”

Spook, it’s very disturbing but does seem that way. What I’m unclear about is how is this senator is not on trial for treason? His dealing with the Soviet Union to DIRECTLY undermine the POTUS and his efforts to secure the US and her children sure sound like a treasonous act to me.

Mr. "Spook",
History, but still a topic of interest. Perhaps you can fill me in on why there was no response to Matts post about a second possible nuclear test by NK. In this instance we shall probably have this post to ourselves, so let's see what we can make of it.
First, to put this victory in perspective, it is important to look at how Russia, the center of Soviet power, is acting with its vast arsenal of WMD, which was the sole rerason for its importance in the first place.
It's arming Iran, and shows no sign of suspending its activity, further muddying things in that part of the world.
Second, we must look at how we are structuring our trade relations with them to end our dependence on Mid - East and South American oil who are becoming increasingly unfriendly.
Saudi Arabia is 3rd, and Chavez Venezuela is 4th. Russia is 10th.
How has US investment helped the Russians find an alternative to selling weapons to our enemies as a way to make money?
It hasn't.
Where do we stand economically in relation to the most populous "communist" country on earth, China?
China bankrolls us to the tune of 500 billion, and uses its industrial might to build record 200 billion a year trade deficits. Without China, we'd have no leverage on NK.
Where do we stand in relation to Iraq where Rummy went in 1984 to shake hands with Saddam in order thank him for standing up to Iran?
Bush spokeman Dan Bartlett is acting like Bush never used the phrase "stay the course." Instead using the phrase "continuous review".
Failures to introduce democracy in Iraq has resulted in a the upcoming elections being a referendum on Iraq.
Where are we in relation the Mujahadeen that we trained and armed to oppose the Soviets, and were lead by a freedom fighter then, terrorist now hiding out in Pakistan?
We all know the answer to that one.
What happened to our drive to make South America a capitalist democratic haven where all could live in safety and prosperity?
We have a record number of immigrants in his country fleeing from the prosperity in South America. And the leaders of Colombia, and Venezuela jockying to replace Castro as the leader of the socialist movement in this hemisphere.
Mr. Spook, if this is victory, I'd hate to see what defeat looks like.
Look forward to your response.

Interesting - I wonder what parallel we might find between Reagan's struggle against the Soviet Union and today's GWOT.

Wow, taxpayer, if my life were as depressing as yours, I'd jump off a cliff.

Maybe you ought to give it a try...

Mr. 1H8l1BS,

Sorry, but, if you recall, it was senator McCaine who said he'd do himself in if the dems won. It does not, however, matter who wins now as it did not matter who won back in 2004. Events are already spinning beyond the control of any leader from either party. We need a third party, one that will have the guts to tell the American people what they will have to sacrifice to prevail in the conflicts arising from this adminstrations incompetence, and the oppositions impotence, a party that is true to the conservative cause.
In any case, take the challenge. Are there any facts I've stated incorrectly? Is there victory in any war without telling the enemy what to do with their arsenal? Without re-aligning their economies? Without firing a shot?
Is there any victory in argument based only on lame insults. Certainly a person of your intelligence can do better.
I hope so.
Look forward to your response.

JATP, sorry to get back to this thread so belatedly. I checked it several times yesterday, and, seeing that no one else had commented, I sort of lost track of it.

Your comment was kind of hard to follow. It looked like you posted your raw notes from a college polysci course taught by a liberal professor.

I sort of agree with 1H8L1BS. It appears, from what you wrote, that all is lost. You might as well just bend over and kiss your a$$ goodby. The only alternative I can think of would be for you to be the founder of a viable 3rd party. That's been tried a dozen or so times in my lifetime without success, but there's always a first time for everything.

With regard to your question about the lack of responses to Matt's post about NK's 2nd nuclear test, I can only speak for myself. I subscribe to the Rush Limbaugh theory of geopolitics: "when you negotiate with evil, evil wins". If ever there was a lose-lose situation it's this one. I don't think there is a response that the Bush Administration could make that wouldn't meet with criticism from someone. The Dems would criticize ANY response, and, in the end, absent any reaction from Russia, South Korea, Japan and particularly China, the Norks are still going to do whatever they damn well please. I think STRONG economic sanctions, including a naval blockade would probably be effective, but China clearly doesn't want to support that, and, without China's support, it's a non-starter. I'd love to hear what you would do if you were in charge.

Spook,

Thank you for your response. I appreciate you wishing me success in my search for a third party. Perhaps we can discuss that more later.
But for right now, I'm not sure whether you were discussing the lack of thread responses to Matts post on a second NK nuke test or the lack of response by the Bush Adminstration. Either way, not good. If we weren't so beholden to the Chinese financially, as has been the Republican policy (with dems aquiescing), perhaps it would be a starter.
In any case, would you take up the challenge. Are any of my facts wrong? If none of my facts are wrong, what do you call "Reagan the Crusaders" victory? If it succeeded, in spite of the worst machinations of his opponents, republican or democrat, what direct benefit do we enjoy as a result of it?
As to what I would do were I in charge? First, I wouldn't campaign for a adulterer, or anyone whose financial dealings are questionable, as Bush has done while calling Clinton immoral. (Couldn't resist that dig. Sorry, you asked a serious question that demands a serious answer.)
First, I realize that no quarterbacking is more effective than monday mornings. However, when you put your future on the Chinese credit card, and industrial machine while calling Clinton a traitor for selling the Lincoln bedroom to them, or advocating turning over port security to our "friends" in the middle - East, or assuming that the road for improvement in New Orleans BEFORE the flooding goes somehow through Bagdad, or that calling Clintons bombing of an Al Queda compound in 1998 an attempt to distract us from the important buisiness of spending 60 million dollars to decide tht he shouldn't be removed from office when the 9-11 commission spent 15 million to investigate and put forward recommendations tht haven't been for the most part acted upon, that calling for smaller government while passing three seperate congressional acts to keep the likes of Terry Schiavo on her feeding tube, one can only assume no ones been minding the store for some time.
Sorry about that sentence, but more later about what I would do if I were in charge. In the meantime please respond to the issues I brought up.

Back to the treachery of Kennedy---no, I would not expect the fine citizens of the PRM to find fault with a representative of the United States government trying to align himself with an enemy of that government, to achieve personal and/or political goals.

Remember, this is the same state that found Kennedy's callous abandonment of a young woman to certain death, in yet another effort to gain political power, to be acceptable.

And remember, this is the same state that has repeatedly elected the man who is (I hope!) the only other U.S. Senator who can reasonably be described as a traitor, the infamous John F. Kerry. The same JFK who, while a Lt. in the United States Navy, secretly and illegally traveled to North Viet Nam to meet with the enemy, becoming, in so doing, a Hero Of North Viet Nam. As this selfsame Lt. Kerry was, at the same time, lying under oath to the United States Congress about invented atrocities committed in that conflict, and organizing groups of fake war veterans to undermine the American backing of the war, we would be safe in assuming his position in his meetings with North Vietnamese politicos and military men was not in the support of THIS country.

But then, Dems all over the country seem to love Uncle Teddy, drunkeness and drugs and sex scandals and murder and treachery notwithstanding. And they voted by the millions to put Comrade Kerry in the White House. So I guess we need to look a little farther than the borders of Massachussetts to find people who seem to accept things that decent people cannot tolerate.

JATP, you really have to get better at separating reality from the Airhead pap you seem to accept.

One case in point: There was an effort to make sure that Terri Schiavo received the rights and protections guaranteed to her by the Constitution of the United States of America. This was not about one woman. It was about the rights of Americans, in America, to have due process.

I found no rhyme nor reason in your rambling rant of disinformation, misinformation, and out-and-out falsehoods, but I have seen exactly the same confusion and muddling of fact, near-fact, half-fact, and outright lies regurgitated over and over again by people who get their "information" from propaganda machines like Air America and not from objective news sources. You get it all so mixed up, creating relationships where none exist, making links that simply do not make sense, tying things together that have nothing to do with each other, that no wonder you are so depressed, and so baffled, and so angry.

I'd be miserable, and filled with hate, and ruled by anger, too, if I got my "information" from the same people who are professionally invested in making you the sad, confused, and wrong person you are.

But it's a simple matter of GIGO.....

Almiranta,

You must enlighten me. I'm so lost without your insight, and wisdom. So you want to tell me
exactly where I have mistated or confused my facts?
I admit, my writing may not be of the Shakespearean caliber yours is. On top of that, it is rushed, with little or no time spent editing for grammatical errors or style. Please forgive me for my sins. No doubt the result of that airheaded pap you spoke of.
However, indulge me for a moment by going after the spirit of my arguments rather than the poorly structured letter. Offer your explanation, if you have one, for the facts I have stated.
Your lame insults mean to me as much as Tom Delays threat to impeach any of the judges who got in the way of the ugly, disgusting process that was the Schiavo episode. And while your asserting how sacred life is to you, why stop there. Let's go to Iraq.
Go after my facts. Prove me wrong.
Please. I look forward to being instructed by someone who knows more than I do.
Look forward to your response.

Mr. Spook,

Finally, as to your question of what I would do: I repeat my concession that there's no quarterbacking more effective than monday mornings. However, as the good book says, remove the beam from your own eye before you attempt removal of the beam from your brothers eye, so that you may see clearly to help your brother.
Taxes either need to be raised to pay for expenditures, or expenditures need to be reduced. One or the other.
Economy is morality. Whether you live within your means, or live off someone elses says more about you than all the things you condemn.
The Iraq war is immoral because we are not paying for it. The Chinese are. It is onerous enough to go to war while someone else foots the bill, moreso when the creditor is your enemy.
The 500 billion of our debt the Chinese own would cost $3,300 per taxpayer to buy back(Assuming 150 million taxpayers in this country.)Not to mention the 200 billion a year trade deficit that gets us everything we want from our enemy.
If this is such a paltry amount, fine then. Buy it back. Pay for the war, and any other expenditures, honestly. Let's not lay the burden on future generations.
A real conservative asks only 2 questions: How much does it cost? and) Whose gonna pay for it. The rest is just conversation.
Much of the discussion we're having right now would be setttled instantly if we had to pay for everything as we went. Think about it.
Support for the Iraq war would evaporate tommorow if its most vociferous supporters had to pay for it.
We haven't beeen paying for anything, and the bill will come due. Whose going to pay6 for all this when the Chinese finally decide to call in their paper. Who will we turn to then.

I’ll let Almiranta answer the policy misrepresentations you’ve made, I’ll address the fiscal, as that’s my area of expertise;
Russian oil; first the Soviet Union is no more; your “center of Soviet power” statement doesn’t make sense. Next, Russian oil production suffered a 40% drop during the 1990’s and is only beginning to pick up the slack. The Russian economy was predicated on $21.00/barrel and since the price skyrocketed over the past few years the Russian economy is awash in oil dollars, combined with heavy foreign borrowing by Russian investors, the neo-capitalist economy cannot handle the influx and the Russians are looking for foreign investors to help create the infrastructure necessary to accommodate oil exports at that level. Until then they are an unreliable source and subject to governmental whims and tantrums.

Next in your rambling screed is the “China bankrolls us to the tune of 500 billion” statement. China holds approx. $530.0 billion in US securities, like other investors China has become a business partner. This investment, although significant to China is less than 2% to our economy; not even a blip on the radar! They could sell of their entire investment and we wouldn’t even notice.

At less than half the investment made by Japan, China is selling off almost as fast as Great Briton is buying into our market. This investment has nothing whatever to do with the trade deficit; if it did China wouldn’t be holding the Yuan at artificially low levels to the Euro and the Dollar. Get yourself enrolled at the local Community College and learn why.

China is the single biggest exporter to North Korea for hundreds (perhaps millions) of reasons, none of which have any bearing on US trade.

As to the rest of your depressing life, I understand if you slit your wrists; you should do it along the tendon just below the palm, and cut horizontally with the wrist; not across. Good luck!

First Almiranta, and now Bane have diegned to respond to the likes of me. How fortunate I am to have such wisdom heaped upon me the way Bush lavished attention upon post Saddam war plans for Iraq or the way Reagan brilliantly planned what to do with the Russian arsenal of WMD after the Soviet Union.
The holes in your thinking are big enough to drive a truck through, and no one need look any further than your post to prove it.
"China has become a business partner!!!" Mr. Margolise in many other posts has called the Chinese governemnt a bloody dictatorship on its last legs.
If you agree with that statement, then why send them between 10 and 20 billion dollars a year (10 for 2 percent interest on the 530 billion or 20 for 4 percent interest). Would Crusader Reagan have sent the Ailing Soviet Government this kind of money to prop them up? For how long Bane? Thirty years. Forty.
As far as the Soviet Union being gone, it isn't. Its foremost contribution to world affairs still plagues us to this day: The Arsenal.
Remarkably, you said not a word about the Russians selling the vestiges of their arsenal to our enemies. And you talked of governmental whims and tantrums in reguards to obtaining oil from the Russians, like we have none with Venezuela and the Mid-East. These are the more stable countries you'd like us to be dealing with?
As far as the amount of money we owe the Chinese being small. Well fine, if it is, then lets find the guts to buy it back. Your fellow Bush supporters thought it was crime to sell the Lincoln bedroom to the Chinese. Let's not let them have 530 billion of anything from this country.
Remarkably, you spoke only of the the securities the Chinese own. And said not a word about the 200 billion a year trade deficit. Would Reagan have allowed the US(even if the Russians could) to have such an inbalance with the former Soviet Union?
Bane, I appreciate your response to my arguments, at least you took a specific point I had brought up. But your arguments are incomplete, to say the least.
Please address the other minor issues when you have the time.
And have a good day!

Almiranta and Bane

Still waiting for the scathing response to my airheaded pap Bane promised you send me.
Bane, I stand corrected: you did mention the trade defecit once in your post to me, but only in relation to how you thought I associated the 530 billion in US securities the Chinese own with said defecit. Obviously, putting 2 ideas so close together confused you. And, I suppose, having satisfied yourself in discovering my erroneous thinking, said not one word more about the subject.
I've got some news for you Bane: You missed the words "INDUSTRIAL MIGHT" in the sentence where I discussed the trade defecit. But that's typical of Bush supporters who view Wal Street financial gains as a measure of economic might. These are the same people who wanted industrial output to include McDonals and Burger Kings Hamburgers. The Dow isn't a measure of industrial might. It's a measure of financial manipulation.
You want proof. Walk through Wal Mart. Mr. Margolise favorite victim of leftwing conspiricies. (But don't walk through Wal mart in Germany where Wal Mart just plain couldn't compete. Wal Mart lost a billion dollars getting rid of 85 stores. Some people want more than low prices on goods imported from China, I guess.)
For that matter walk through any major retailer in the US and you will come across a dizzying array of products made in China. Few items you come across are made in the US. Go to any foreign country, American logos are everywhere. American manufactures are few and far between. The Chinese make everything, and we make commercials to promote their products.
Fords on pace to lose another 6 billion this year, GM may squeek out a tiny profit, and Toyota is slated to become the worlds number 1 car maker in the next 3 years. The Chinese are supposed to introduce their own car models to the US in 2008.
But Boeing may make things better for itself if AirBus can't make a go of the A380. Boeing, however, will be relying on AirBus mistakes rather than its own product line to maintain its 50% share of the commercial airline market. Once that share was 2/3. For the last 2 years Airbus edged out Boeing selling slightly more planes.
So where is our industrial might in relation to China? What do we import other than jobs, vague talk of democracy, and soldiers. Like most Americans, you'd be hard pressed to answer that question.
The US is the largest consumer economy in the world, and we maintain that economy through possession of the largest debt, public and private, and the smallest savings rate, public and private of any industrialized country, except Russia. And we're beginning to feel the pinch.
Record corporate earnings and a 4.6 unemployment rate can't mask dissapearing pensions, 47 miilion Americans with no health insurance, 20 million more with inadequate coverage that are a hospital stay from bankruptcy, stagnating wages, tax policy geared to benefit only the top 2% of income earners, mortgage forclosures moving to all time highs as adjustable rate mortgages move with the gyrations of interest rates, and a full 10% of national budget being blown to the wind on debt service. Two hundred and fifty billion dollars, and its going up each and every year.
The national debt doubled under Reagan, and doubled again under Bush. Clinton, whatever his other faults, managed to use some of the excess revenues from the 90's tech boom to pay down the debt.
I suppose the question is when this becomes a problem? When the debt service becomes 20% or 30% of the budget. Remember, as Cheney, the man who gets it says,"Defecits don't matter."
As for me, I made some wise investments in real estate which have left me fairly well off, as I had the good sense to get out of the market before it collapsed. While taking care of oneself is fine for Bush and his supporters as that is what they do best, its not enough.
We cannot continue spending senslessly to the edge of our credit, leaving our debts for our children to pay. While wildly popular, and politically effective, such behavior cannot be sustained indefinitley. The mountain of debt and its effects upon our society cannot be concealed forever. Either taxes have be raised or expenditures reduced. We cannot, as republicans would like to think, go on forever depending on our enemies for credit, consumer goods, and energy. When the bill comes due as one day it must, and people realize who lead them to bankruptcy, a third party will emerge.
The American Conservative party will have a slogan consisting of 2 questions: How much does it cost? And who pays?
Right now, no one here is asking. And our enemies are buying our real estate, our markets, and our will, bit by bit. Who knows how much of this country they will own when Americans finally decide they want to buy it back.
I'm confident we will, but what a huge amount of money we will have to come up with to pay for our spending spree.
Have a nice day. Sorry about the legnth of the post.
Look forward to your response.

Mr. Margolese,
I know you disagree strongly with my views on many of the subjects I post on.

Thank you for allowing my lengthy and sometimes difficult to follow posts.

Your time and effort and that of your associates is appreciated.
Hope you and yours are well. Have a good weekend.

JAT