Alright, Make up your F*#%ing Mind Already

Posted By Deebow

I have no doubt that based upon the following statement that the MoveOn.org retards will soon be using the Majority Leader as their newest punching bag... (h/t Drudge)

"...there are a lot of reasons the surge certainly hasn't hurt. It's helped. I recognize that."

Mr. Incompetent uttered this little nugget while on the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour on PBS.  I was truly taken aback by some of the statements that he made to Ray Suarez during this interview.  I am sure that you will recall that in April of this year, Mr. Incompetent said the war was lost and that the Surge had failed.

Some of the statements he makes just boggle the mind....

"...the ethnic cleansing has taken place all over Iraq. There is not the conflict because there is separation. There's segregation in effect.""How much longer are we going to be asked to spend $12 billion a month on this war, when we don't have money for health care? We tried to get 10,000 poor children health insurance. The president said there's not enough money to do that."

"We have to do a better job with health insurance. We have 50 million people with no health insurance. We have global warming that is here, and the president doesn't recognize there's a thing called global warming."

"It's not Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, talking now. It's any pundit that you talk to. We're going to pick up Senate seats. If the election were held today, we would pick up four seats. That would bring us up to 55."

So all the little children are suffering and the planet is going to melt because we went to Iraq.  None of those little nuggets compares to this one.  It is my favorite...

And we need to bring our troops home. I had a long planned trip to go to Walter Reed today. I didn't know I was going to be on this show. And I went there today for lunch and met with staff and some of the soldiers who are wounded and some who weren't wounded.

And without exception, when I said, "You know, we're doing everything we can to help you, appreciate your service, but I want to get the troops home." And without exception, they said, "Get them home as fast as you can."

Sure they did Harry.  I sure bet they told you they wanted to quit and come home without securing victory....

Five bucks says we keep the Presidency and pick up seats in the Congress.

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Comments

[Synova]

Okay, so someone says, "Do you want to meet with Harry Reid?" and there were people, wounded or not, who said "yes."

Of course they agreed with him, or were at least polite.

How many said no?

Probably all the ones that would have said, "Harry? Blow it out your *ss."

Then there's always "We'd like to get our troops home." And the brain dead obvious answer to that which is, "Yes, that'd be great."

[Mr.Sparkle]

Synova hit that on the head. The war is astonishingly expensive though, it does boggle the mind that were world relations not so depressingly reliant on security and power politics, where the military budgets could be spent, or not spent and returned to the tax payers.

[Mr.Sparkle]

Off Topic: As the torture debate is going to go on forever, I found this forum article on someone who tried to do it to themselves and didn't believe it was torture... result it's clearly torture:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=448717

"To determine whether waterboarding is an acceptable interrogation technique or torture I must research it an then undergo it myself. Once I have done this, Elucidator Diogenes Tomndeb and all the rest of those liberal scum (no offense intended) must accept my now accept my now expert opinion."

alittle later

"This is not too bad. with my diving experience, you would never break me this way. I can't beleive those AL Zarqawi guys were such pussies."

Next up is saran wrap method...

Next up is saran wrap. The idea is that you wrap saran wrap around the mouth in several layers, and poke a hole in the mouth area, and then waterboard away. I didn't reall see how this was an improvement on the rag technique, and so far I would categorize waterboarding as simply unpleasant rather than torture, but I've come this far so I might as well go on.

Now, those of you who know me will know that I am both enamored of my own toughness and prone to hyperbole. The former, I feel that I am justifiably proud of. The latter may be a truth in many cases, but this is the simple fact:

It took me ten minutes to recover my senses once I tried this. I was shuddering in a corner, convinced I narrowly escaped killing myself....

I have never been more panicked in my whole life. Once your lungs are empty and collapsed and they start to draw fluid it is simply all over. You know you are dead and it's too late. Involuntary and total panic.

There is absolutely nothing you can do about it. It would be like telling you not to blink while I stuck a hot needle in your eye.

At the time my lungs emptied and I began to draw water, I would have sold my children to escape. There was no choice, or chance, and willpower was not involved.

So, is it torture?

I'll put it this way. If I had the choice of being waterboarded by a third party or having my fingers smashed one at a time by a sledgehammer, I'd take the fingers, no question.

It's horrible, terrible, inhuman torture. I can hardly imagine worse. I'd prefer permanent damage and disability to experiencing it again. I'd give up anything, say anything, do anything."

I never knew it was so brutally effective.

[vet66]

Reid kept hammering away at his lame talking points: 12 billion in borrowed money, 62 filibusters, support the troops as they fight for Bush's folly, and the American people will give him more seats for his defeatist policy.

What a moron. He talks at the American people as if they were children incapapable of reasoned thought. He is now paying the price for sucking up to the losers in his party who will now savage him.

Sometimes what happens in Vegas doesn't stay there.

[flipflop]

Five bucks says we keep the Presidency and pick up seats in the Congress.

*sigh* I wish I had your confidence. I'm not even confident enough to pony up five bucks for that bet.

As for the $12B per month figure...when war costs are trotted out, does anyone know if that includes what would have been spent anyway? Y'know...things like personnel base pay plus allowances, etc.?

[Sudsy]

$5 is all you want?! Really...

I might take you up on that, however the Congressional approval ratings at the lowest ever, I'm going to save my money...

...somehow, unless third parties really get going in a big way, I suspect a high turn over in Congress this election. They'll try to deflect attention away from themselves though, after all, there is nothing like the distraction of a presidential race to deflect attention away from Congressional in-action!

[Cincinnati_Bob]

Sparkle. Have you ever said anything that represented reality one iota?

This war is expensive. A few hundred billion dollars?

The ECB just pumped 500 billion into the European banks because a bunch of stupid dumbasses and (more likely) Opportunists moved into 1/2 million dollar houses at the taxpayers expense and now cannot afford them and are in the process of destroying the financial systems around the free world...

That's half a TRILLION sparkly. The Iraq and Afghan war and it's results of putting 50 million people on the path to freedom cost about 5 cents in comparison to what is being accomplished...

Holy F you people are stupid. And obsessed. But for your F word enjoyment, since I know it's impossible to make you any smarter than a box of rocks...

The F Word

[Cincinnati_Bob]

PS. That's just the ECB. Guess how much Gentle Ben and Hank Paulson have pumped in? Not to mention the Stock the Fed is buying to buoy the stock market?

And how much they Will put in by the time this is anywhere near fixed if it's even fixable?

[Cincinnati_Bob]

Wowo. Man I can't get over this expensive comment.

The US Congress ADMITS to 20 billion of pork barrel stuff each and every year, now we hear about Earmarks. This is all money politicians GIVE to their friends.

Even if its 100 billion by the time Afghan and Iraq are complete Allies, it is Nothing. We spent 7 TRILLION playing nuklar submarine footsie with the soviet union during the cold war !!!

How much have we spent on the WAR on Drugs??? We've gotten nowhere.

How much on the War on Poverty??? Probably 10 Trillion! And we've gotten Nowhere. But you liberals just brush that nonsense aside and bitch about a few hundred billion to have a chance of making a chunk of the worl in the worst possible evil territory democratic and friends of the USA.

HOLY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! carp.

Unbelievable ignorance.
Nothing personal. I'm sure you can't help it.

[Cincinnati_Bob]

Make that 1,000 billion, since we already have multi hundred billions...

[Sudsy]

"The US Congress ADMITS to 20 billion of pork barrel stuff each and every year, now we hear about Earmarks. This is all money politicians GIVE to their friends.

Even if its 100 billion by the time Afghan and Iraq are complete Allies, it is Nothing. We spent 7 TRILLION playing nuklar submarine footsie with the soviet union during the cold war !!!

How much have we spent on the WAR on Drugs??? We've gotten nowhere.

How much on the War on Poverty??? Probably 10 Trillion! And we've gotten Nowhere. But you liberals just brush that nonsense aside and bitch about a few hundred billion to have a chance of making a chunk of the worl in the worst possible evil territory democratic and friends of the USA."

Well spoken! Especially about the 'war' on poverty. Got to love that one... Thank you President Johnson (aka Vietnam War and "Great Society" spender and tax the hell out of the rich...).

[Cincinnati_Bob]

..Danke..

[Cincinnati_Bob]

PS - Good point. Can you 'tax the rich' ??

To some small extent. You can tax Warren Buffet's investment gains personally with probably little effect on the outside world, but if you 'tax the rich' which by and large are either executives of companies or the companies themselves who provide goods and services to the public, you can bet that those additional costs (taxes) are going to make their way down to the general public in the form of prices on goods and services.
It's not just the decisions of the boards of directors or even that fat guy sitting at the top of the heap counting his millions, it is the very consumer themself as shareholders of these companies who, because they want their 401K's to increase in value, demand profit growth in said companies.

As a result, all cost increases, including tax increases, make their way to YOU. You pay the tax. So when the hildebeast says she is going to 'tax the rich', please view the comment in the light of this reality. Thank you for your time.

[Cincinnati_Bob]

PS - Merrill Lynch lost 10 billion to 'sub prime investments'.
the CEO said CYA and took a multi million severance package.
I think just about every broker/dealer got hit with 'sub prime investment' exposure hits outside of Goldman Sachs.
Yet, bonuses on wall street this year exceed all other years. Huh?
See it. Know it. Feel it.

[Cincinnati_Bob]

PPS - Have you noticed the large, (5 billion in most cases) investments/bailouts by countries like China in United States Financial and Mortgage companies? What's up with dat? It wouldn't have been allowed just a few short years ago... It's called desparation.

[Mr.Sparkle]

Nobel price winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimated a year ago the final cost to be over $2 trillion.

"Our estimates are very conservative, and it could be that the final costs will be much higher. And it should be noted they do not include the costs of the conflict to either Iraq or the UK."

For $100 billion you could have universal healthcare for everyone without it for a year in the USA.

On TAX: If you think rich people should pay less tax than poor people then you are well and truly brainwashed. Taxing the rich 2% at a reasonable fair rate (not Bush "friendship" rate) doesn't mean the same as taxing them, or for some strange reason companies into oblivion.

[jordan]

You think that's expensive, try losing this war.

[rick554]

I'd put 50 bucks on that DB

[Cincinnati_Bob]

I didn't say don't tax the rich. I said the rich don't pay taxes. Are you not able to comprehend the written word?

Tax Mr rich 100 clams, in a couple years, you pay Mr rich that 100 clams in the price of the goods or service he provides. You pay his tax for him.

2 Trillion? Cheap at twice the price.

It's pussy willows like yourself that create situations in the UK where bearded robots march down your streets wiht signs proclaiming they're going to chop your heads off. It is why 100 cars are burned every night in France. Every night, even today, not just during the 'riots'.

And if you want the government in charge of something as personal and critical as healthcare when they've already demonstrated they are incompetent at handling any such project you need to look in the mirror when you utter words like brainwashed.

It was pussy willows who perpetuated fear of a country that couldn't keep its citizenry in toilet paper. 7 trillion just on subs. How much on 24/7/365 B52 squadrons in the air ? And all the rest of it.

Well, I'm glad all this makes you afraid and angry. You're getting what you deserve.

Nigel, please at least try to respond to the points being made instead of making up your own.

[Cincinnati_Bob]

Anyone looking at national health care, please see what is happening in Canada eh?

They pay for it in taxes for decades. The Canadian government turns into dysfunctional and useless as people die waiting months for services.

Now they are allowing private clinics so people can pay and get the health care they need. So they pay the tax and get nothing for it, and now they pay again to get what they need.
And I doubt the US would even handle it as well as Canada did. Look at social security - a can't possibly lose program that is now in the shitter.

The ignorance brings tears to the eyes. Usually tears of laughter btw.

[Mr.Sparkle]

Stop accusing me of things I don't agree with and haven't said.

What are you saying about tax exactly? We pay Mr Rich CEO's company for goods and services at a market rate, they get taxed on their profits. He gets taxed on income like everybody else, but being rich has more options where to put/invest his money, inevitably he ends up being taxed less than someone working in his office. We give his company money for their goods or services, but this is not the same as paying his taxes for him.

I think people who march in the streets inciting violence should be arrested and receive a criminal record.

I think the system of healthcare in the USA is inadequate, 8.3 million American children were uninsured in 2005.

Nationalised healthcare has its disadvantages, but they are making changes to try and make it more like a private business but without the profit seeking. We also have private clinics.

What do poor people do in the USA if they get cancer or alzheimer's or whatever?

[Synova]

Profit in a competitive system isn't bad. It's what is the basis for "the customer is always right." Profit requires serving customers who are satisfied with the service they receive or else they go to a different provider.

Profit is what motivates pharmaceutical companies to undertake enormously expensive, decades long research. When they've done that they deserve to recoup their costs *and* make a profit.

Try for too much profit and too little service or value to customers and the customers go elsewhere.

[Mr.Sparkle]

That's right, but would pharmaceutical companies engage in costly research if the government paid for it? I'm not suggesting that's right, but profit-seeking companies are not the only method.

Private insurance companies have many clauses to keep Greenbacks flowing, my mother and friends of mine would not receive any healthcare in the US because whether or not they are "profitable" for the companies, they would not fill the stipulations required. When people get seriously ill do they not also have a budget where the insurance money runs out? I can't imagine getting something like cancer and having to suffer the financial burden on top.

[Deltabravo]

Mr. Sparkle, understand, please, sir, that one of the reasons our country lopped itself off of your country was over the issue of taxes. We have never been a people who likes to pay taxes. Because when taxes are handed to the government, they take them and build Hippie museums glorifying Woodstock and the Season of Love instead of something actually useful to the USA.

If our companies give too much $$ to their bosses for too little results, the shareholders can vote with their pocketbooks and stop that nonsense. It seems to be really difficult to do that with elected officials here, because they seem to continue to vote themselves pay raises long after they sensibly should have had some shame and gone home.

I personally would rather a CEO pay less taxes to Uncle Sam and take that money and buy a house or boat. Because that house and boat and all the fittings and trimmings is actually made by people who earn salaries and buy their own goods, unlike Congress, which has never made anything useful and shouldn't be given our hard-earned money to begin with.

As for health care, I don't want the government touching my health care. I see the way they lose my mail, and I long ago decided that if they can't be trusted with a 42-cent letter, I sure wasn't going to trust them with my heart and lungs.

Many of those uninsured children are that way because of poor choices their parents make. And states have the option to set up state-run programs. It seems rather unfair to take money out of my pocket to pay the medical care for someone whose deadbeat father is skipping on providing for his own children. I'm doing the best I can just to provide for my own family. I really don't have that much to spare.

And by the way... the cost of war... that isn't money lost for good. It's money that goes into salaries to pay rents, food purchases, child care, tuition... in all, it gets poured right back into the economy, and as a salary, part of it is retaxed to add back into the Fed's pocket. And then those businesses where the money is spent... well, they pay taxes too, so some of that...

Well... you probably get the picture.

But thank you for worrying about our national fiscal welfare. It's good to have friends like you, so caring and all.

Merry Christmas!

[Cincinnati_Bob]

Ok Sparkle, I'll give it a go here.

Let's say General Electric pays 45 million in taxes to the US Government. This is part of the cost of doing business. I'm going to have to trust you know what a corporate balance sheet is cause I'm not going to that level. Suffice for anyone's benefit that money going out in payroll, taxes or whatever is the cost of business and the money coming in from product or service sales is revenue.

Revenue minus cost = gross profit. Companies are fcused on profit because without it, they can not keep on doing the voodoo that they do. Public companies have the additional weight of satisfyng shareholders. For the price of General Electric's stock to move up, and thereby provide its shareholders value and a hedge against inflation, they need to grow profit.

If the hildebeast causes General Electric to pay 60 million in taxes versus the 45 million they currently pay, then in order for General Electric to maintain attractiveness to shareholders they must compensate for the increase in the cost of doing business due to the little commie troll in the White House.

Providing for competitive forces, et al, eventually the prices for General Electric's products and service must rise. Who pays the increase in prices? We do. GE jet engines go into commercial jets, and the increased cost will find its way to ticket prices as one example.
Afterall, realize the beast is hitting all of GE's competitors as well (in the US) with the same tax increases, so it's not that hard for GE to raise prices, since those competitors will be similarly motivated. If GE's competitors are outside the US, then we could see a situation where GE loses business or is otherwise negatively impacted because Rolls Royce can sell jet engines to Boeing for less than what GE can sell them for, and as a result, GE lays people off, creating a poor employment situation for Americans. You guessed it. We pay the price. Additionally, our 401K values go down because GE's stock price has fallen negatively impacting the myriad of mutual funds who include GE as a part. Probably most of them.

Any of this getting through?

Health Care. Yes, the evil George Bush did not want to increase the SCHIP insurance deal because the way the congress wrote it, American families making up to 80 Thousand per year could be eligible for taxpayer funded insurance for their kids. If you're not smart enough to put 2 and 2 together here it is.. Families with uninsured kids making 80k (and much less) are buying big screen TV's instead of insuring their kids. I don't want to pay that bill for them.
More importantly, almost Everyone with a family makes 80k or less in the US. I mean enough of them, that the result of that would have been that almost every company in America would have said to their employees "We will no longer be providing health coverage plans that include coverage for your kids, because the government has decided to pick up this tab. Pretty much All children in the US would be on taxpayer provided health care.

While I would hate to see one child refused health care in the United States, I don't believe one has ever been refused. I do know of people who ahve been refused in Canada and the UK. A dude in the UK had a broken leg and couldn't get care becuase he was a smoker. Yowsah, that's what the garbage programs you have will do to people. Stuff your national health care in your colon and light it as far as I'm concerned.

Here's what will happen int eh US with national health care. At first it will be great. Especially for those on the lower rungs, years and decades down the road though and gee, 'You're overweight according to our guidelines and an exceptional health risk, you will have to pay additional taxes based on that weight". "You're a smoker" "Whoa, dude you have too much sex that we can only assume is unprotected".. On and on and society in the US is not only polarized on Liberal veresus Intelligent, but Healthy versus unhealthy. Kill the unhealthy people because they are causing our taxes to go up. George Orwell was a very smart man. The book, 1984 if you don't know who George is.

Sparkle, I think you may actually Want to live your life like this. A nanny state that devolves into a friggin abyss of dysfunctionality and mediocreism (at best). Of course the UK IS a nanny state. Maybe it's just not possible for you folks to think like freedom loving Americans who enjoy the best of everything there is to offer if they just put some effort into it, and elevate their intelligence so as to avoid all this crap people like you are gravitated to. Snake oil. Free lunches. Communism.

Dude, if this doesn't get through to ya, I can only think you need massive private tutoring. It ain't me babe, I'm just gonna ignore ya if and when I can.

Finally, send me stories about people in the US being refused health care and I'll bet I can find more in the UK or Canada.

[Cincinnati_Bob]

DeltaBravo. You are smart. Merry Christmas.

Silent Night

[Mr.Sparkle]

I have always agreed with what you're saying about excessive tax on companies / corporations, just not on individuals private fortunes. Instead of wanting to make that tax fairer and equal with someone who does not work with money you'd rather talk about how the communists are trying to subvert America.

In the same light private healthcare is not bad as long as legal regulation (not complete freedom) mean that people who cannot genuinely afford comprehensive healthcare are able to receive preventative care if they fall ill.

In case you hadn't realised, I care about the result not the system.

As I said, my personal case against private care rests on their discrimination against people who might not be profitable, if no private companies will help you insure your family how are you able to work within a private system? Is there some legal regulations in the United States preventing this. It's funny you mentioned smoking, or obesity, because they are exactly the things I thought had more impact in a private system than our socialised version.

I know my country is a nanny state, but look at your own country, read some of your hilarious porky spending bills and then reconsider your arrogance.

[Mr.Sparkle]

Deltabravo, the UK is small so when you say a state can have a state insurance program, that's what we have! As I said, what we're trying to do in England now is make our health care systems run like public sector corporation and make them more efficient.

For however much you Americans want to blow off socialised medicine as crap (I remember Giuliani talking bullshit about it a few weeks ago), it's pretty heavily supported here (in principle). Can't be as bad as you all think can it?

[Mr.Sparkle]

Let me add too that "spending on administration in Finland is 2.1% of all health care costs, and in the UK the figure is 3.3%. The US spends 7.3% of all expenditures on adminstration."

"As it stands, the United States-- with a semi-socialized model-- spends more per capita on health than any other nation and more than twice as much as the country with the next highest level of spending, which has a different form of socialized health care. Administrative costs in the United States health care system are higher than in other countries and an important factor in United States spending, and administrative costs in the private sector are higher than in the public sector health care system [61]. One often-cited study by Harvard Medical School and the Canadian Institute for Health Information put the total administrative costs at 31 percent of U.S. health care spending."

N.B. "elective inpatient treatment (non-urgent hospital treatment in England at the end of August 2007, was just under 6 weeks, and 87.5 per cent of patients were admitted within 13 weeks."

Lets be fair. It's a mixed bag isn't it.

[Cincinnati_Bob]

Sparkle, I never used the word excessive. Small, Medium or Large, Corporations don't pay tax. Just as any other cost basis item, it goes into their profit model, and the customer pays.

Hey, I agree there is little difference between a health insurance based system and a government run system in the respect that all pay the total cost to run it. The main difference and the important one is that the money isn't channeled through the drug (money) addicts in Washington DC.

Finally, and I find it rather typical, is that the liberals who are always running around screaming about protecting evolution and the environemnt, et al, are the ones who are screaming about wanting to control it - as if they are smarter than mother nature. I'm sure they think they are.

Dude, we are not born with a certificate of guarantee on our butts.

Does the 13th child born to a crack addict (black, white or green) as a tool to get an increase in their check from the government (yes we pay people to abuse children, the worst ones we can find as well!) - have a chance to become CEO of General Motors??

No, extremely small. We are born into different life situations and from the point of view of our conversation, some people have a tough row to hoe compared to others.

Get over it.

[Skippysan]

Harry Reid may be poor excuse for a Senator, but I think the election this year is going to have a lot of suprises for both parties. The Republicans will have to work to win the White House and if the nominee is anyone other than McCain-I'm not voting. Particularly if Hillary is the Democratic nominee. There will be no choice available.

I disagree with Mc Cain ( and it would appear you) on the war-but he is the only real leader among the Republican crowd and the only person in that group I respect.

We will be in Iraq for years and years because at the end of the day, no matter how much progress American forces make-the Iraqis themselves will screw it away. It is what they do. After 5 years they have been remarkably consistent in their inability to do anything for themselves. Screw them and screw their worthless Arab culture.