Quotes of the week.

"Things may come to those who wait...but only the things left by those who hustle.”-Abraham Lincoln


=>Absolutely. This is what I'd stay to people like Bernstein, Van Natta,Gerth etc who think Hillary Clinton's focus and determination are bad traits. Most people have to work for everything they hav or will have in life. Some may have to work harder than others, but nothing comes for free, least of all the presidency.



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“If you want something said, ask a man...if you want something done, ask a woman.” -Margaret Thatcher


=> FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt was a vocal supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. FDR could only on few occasions and in indirect ways voice support of the Civil Rights because he needed the support of Southern Democrats to advance other parts of the New Deal. Eleanor became the connection to the African-American population. She met with civil rights leaders, organizers many times to discuss issues and ways to advance the movement.

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“We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.” -Aristotle

=>This administration has not perofrmed just actions; allowing the bureaucracy to self destruct under the careful eye of its cronies (Wolfowtiz, Gonzales, Brown). This administration has not performed temperate actions, they have been an immoderate dividing force in American politics scorching critics like Kissinger, Carter, those extremely knowledgeable and experienced in foreign policy, with Iraq, and other issues. Brave actions? I'm not sure about this one, I suppose sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of freedom counts, or that could be forcing others to take brave actions.



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“ Frankly, I'm fed up... no, I'm weary of even having to express sympathy for Cindy Sheehan. Oh, she lost her son. Yes, yes, yes. But we all lose things.” -Rush Limbaugh



=>Rush is a big fat idiot. That's a lack of compassion for the thousands of mother, fathers, sisters, brothers and friends of Americans that have died in Iraq. Maybe he wouldn't care even if he did.

Bush reaffirms commitment to human rights.

President bush recently announced that the U.S. would impose new sanction on Sudan to pressure the government to stop the genocide. Honestly, it’s about time. The failures with the Iraq War, staff performance have made it difficult for any other important issues to surface in the news. Sure, on campus we have groups of students tell other students about innocent deaths in Israel and Darfur, but that is usually one or two people with a few pamphlets, and not very effective.

The sanction directs its efforts to companies, three individuals and the oil industry overall. All of the 31companies, except one, targeted are controlled by the government of Sudan. The other is thought to be involved in weapon sales to the government. President Bush tapped Secretary of State Rice for help to strengthen international pressure on President al- Bashir. The death toll to this date is in excess of 200,000 people.
Short of forceful military action, which is not a possibility because of the situation with the current foreign policy of the Administration, there is no solution. President al-Bashir has already indicated that he is not interested in peace talks. Sudan already asked the world to disregard the efforts of the US for being “unfair and untimely.” I’m not an extreme pacifist; force is necessary at times, especially for the US as a superpower. This is one of those times, but I doubt President Bush will use force as a means of dealing with the tragedy in Sudan. He doesn’t have enough political pull at the time.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18912290/

Two more books out to bring down Hillary Clinton

There are two new books about to hit the shelves of stores, aimed at destroying Senator Clinton’s campaign. The books drag us back behind the long-since closed doors of the Clinton presidency, and Bill Clinton tenure as Arkansas Governor. Senator Clinton may be unfairly forced to defend the strong images she has worked to build in her presidential campaign.

"A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton" was written by Carl Bernstein who shows Clinton as a woman trying to avoid facing prosecution. Bernstein also writes that during her time as the first lady of Arkansas, she held an interview with a woman suspected of sleeping with her husband, Bill Clinton, and thought about divorce…oh wow, she thought about getting divorced from her cheating husband, that dirty liberal! So, if that’s really such a bad thing, with all the affairs JFK had, Jackie Kennedy must have been contemplating divorce everyday as his wife. To this day she is among the most talked about former First Ladies, people love "Jackie O." Berstein really is a hypocrite, he had an affair with a British politican while married to his third wife, here he is blasting Senator Clinton for contemplating a divorce. Also a college drop out, Bernstein worked at Washington Post with Yale graduate Bob Woodward to break the Watergate story. Today, the difference is that Woodward’s books, unlike Bernstein's, actually sell so much they make multiple best seller lists and he’s invited to every news, tv, radio show as a result.


The second book is also a bunch of rubbish. "Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr shows Hillary Clinton as the leader of a team that made up a plan to investigate and socially damage Gennifer Flowers "until she is destroyed." Flowers publicly disclosed she had an affair with then- governor Bill Clinton. It’s the new way to get 15 minutes of fame! Any woman (or man) who publicly discloses having an affair with a politician near/during a campaign cycle has an agenda, she is looking for her 15 minutes of fame, and as a result is fair game to any campaign. Do not feel sorry for Gennifer Flower, Paula Jones or Monica Lewinsky, they all received millions of dollar from Republicans and maybe even FOX News. Monica even turned her 15 minutes into 16 minutes by designing (and not selling) a line of womens purses.

Gerth and Van Natta also show how the Clintons had a plan, even before getting married, to slowly rise to power. The book points out there was a letter written by Hillary, laying out their 20-year plan that began in the 1970's. Leon E. Panetta, the former White House chief of staff, also verifies speaking to the president once about the plan. Gerth’s source? A former Clinton WH intern and girlfriend! They are Pulitzer prize winners, and their source is an ex girlfriend?

So what if there was a 20 year plan? That’s smart planning in my opinion. I have a 20-30 year plan to maybe run for office, after law school, after years as an attorney and party activist. My involvement in the Democratic Party now, a lot of it, is about networking for this reason. I see no shame in admitting that. And if some idiot is going to say that’s cruel, cold and calculated, big deal.

Basically the news here is that it took these three guys (ok, reporters!) ten years to find no news. Bravo! “Is it possible to be quoted yawning?" asked Philippe Reines, her Senate spokesman when questioned by the media.

Cindy Sheehan bows out.

I like Cindy Sheehan, I don't agreee with everything she does..but overall I think she inspired a lot of women to really stay on top of what the government does. That's just as important. However, I don't know how much of an impact she had on Iraq War policy. I think that disappointed her too, she seems like a car that's running out of gas, and I know how tiring political involvement can be. While she's right to fault the Democrats for giving in yet again, she also needs to know the Democrats don't really have a lot of power right now, especially in the Senate. They have very slim majorities, and a lot of things I hoped they would be able to do, like getting troops out of Iraq, etc they haven't I think that's mainly because they don't have enough vote to override any bill that may end up getting a veto by George Bush. Democrats may want to end the war, I think many of the Dems in the Senate do but putting forward just a big fight wouldn't do any good, and would make the public think they are out destroy the Administration's agenda. Sad, but we have until Nov 2008, maybe then Democrats will be able to stop the Iraq War. They just have to be voted into office first!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18919775?GT1=9951

Political Cartoons for the week

Haha! Well, it's making everyone mad because it is a culturally divisive issue. I am also on the fence, but not out support for the elephants. That's still not an excuse to stop talking about it.

So does Cheney. Saudi Arabia has strings on Cheney and his suitcase, haha. The PM looks terrified, but I guess most people would be too if they were being played by Iran, Saudi Arabia and the US all at the same time.

Political cartoons for the week.

Haha! It's funny, and I actually first thought Bush would fire Gonzales soon after this story broke, but he hasn't...and now I don't think he ever will. Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling's testimony proved that. :(

For those of you that have not seen seen the Hamas Mickey Mouse commercial, see it on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZEGsnWZKh8.

You tube comment: if Islam is REALLY a RELIGION of PEACE, then why do Muslims need to or have to murder innocent non-believers? Muslims only force everyone to RESPECT them, out of fear. I for one would never piss on any Muslim (NEVER!!!), simply because I value life and I'm afraid to kill or be killed.Let's face it, no matter how they explain it, MUSLIM is synonymous to FEAR/TERROR/MURDER. don't you think?

My response is well this may or may not be true, but I can point out several instances where Christians persecuted millions of innocent people and also out of fear. Just about every religion does, because this person is too young or chooses not to know their history including the Roman Empire, Germanic pagans, etc doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Bar Stool Economics & the importance of taxes

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.Professor of EconomicsUniversity of Georgia

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I think this is an interesting parable, kind of funny actually, but very misleading. You can’t really talk about the distribution of tax policy changes without the total picture. Often conservatives implicitly deny that sales taxes (or employment tax) would have increased. Of course, when one falls for the “free lunch” fallacy, it's a myth that permeates conservative discussions of fiscal policy.What’s also fishy about this parable is the fact that the owner can cut 20% off the bill and still make a profit. Even when taxes increase like this, customers don’t face 100% of the burden; it’s shared between the owner and the customers. That’s clearly missing here.Also, what taxes pay for is missing. Using beer as the good, a good people could do without, then letting the same amount be purchased at a lower price isn’t a parable that has to do with government spending at all. Therefore we need to have taxes, otherwise my fellow classmates would not be getting Tier 1 education at UCI.