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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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 Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| I mean in the old days you would have had so many people out in the streets rather than simply being angry at home. |
Hey, in the old days people didn't have the internet. These days dedicated citizen activists show their anger by ragespamming internet message boards. |
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mack4289
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:27 am Post subject: |
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Protests are overrated. People should be more worried about voting than protesting. You know all those protestors you see in movies and documentaries about the '60s in America? What that doesn't show you is that voter turnout actually went down from 1964-1968-1972 in the USA. (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html). Even in 1972, when the choice was between a guy who had no immediate plans to end the war (Nixon) and a guy who wanted an immediate withdrawal (McGovern), only 50% of 18-24 year olds in the US voted (http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ksgpress/bulletin/spring2000/american_vote.html).
Forget protests. Get off your lazy as* and vote (I'll admit I've missed out twice- once because of laziness and once because I didn't get the absentee ballot registered in time). |
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mack4289
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 4:30 am Post subject: |
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| About the DOJ scandal, can anyone tell me what law the administration might've broke? I'm not defending what they did, I just haven't heard anyone say that what they did was anything besides seriously unethical (which I agree with, but if it wasn't illegal, what can Congress really do?). |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 5:51 am Post subject: |
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| No one has alleged any law was broken, though now one woman being subpoenad says she will take the Fifth. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:20 am Post subject: |
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Wasn't the OP asking what the Yanks thought of the situation? As in, people who are actually from the United States of America?
My take is that it will just reinforce how bad this administration sucks. Nonetheless, Americans are forward-looking people, so there will probably be no major repercussions for the current administration.
Bush and Co. are already politically dead in the water. The American populace is looking towards the next administration. This cycle seems to be a defining aspect of the American political landscape. This system leads to short-sightedness (unfortunately), but also allows for an ability to correct shit that has gone horribly wrong (fortunately).
My take: Bush and his crew will get out relatively unscathed. That sucks (in my opinion), but that's what I will predict at this point. |
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wannago
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 11:18 am Post subject: |
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| caniff wrote: |
Wasn't the OP asking what the Yanks thought of the situation? As in, people who are actually from the United States of America?
My take is that it will just reinforce how bad this administration sucks. Nonetheless, Americans are forward-looking people, so there will probably be no major repercussions for the current administration.
Bush and Co. are already politically dead in the water. The American populace is looking towards the next administration. This cycle seems to be a defining aspect of the American political landscape. This system leads to short-sightedness (unfortunately), but also allows for an ability to correct *beep* that has gone horribly wrong (fortunately).
My take: Bush and his crew will get out relatively unscathed. That sucks (in my opinion), but that's what I will predict at this point. |
This pretty much sums it up. The Bush administration will come out of this unscathed because nothing illegal was done. While you may think it sucks, I happen to think if nothing illegal were done, why would it suck that Bush & Co. come out unscathed? The Democrats are simply trying to make as much hay as they can to justify their "victory" in November. You are spot on about Americans wanting to look forward to the next administration. The presidential race is heating up (already!) and the little non-stories out of that will keep Americans entertained for the next 18 months. The Democratic Congress is only trying to shape voters' opinions now for '08. |
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jodemas2
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 11:42 am Post subject: Re: what do the yanks on dave's think about this DOJ scandal |
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| freethought wrote: |
| I'm just curious what all the Americans on this board think and feel about the DOJ scandal. I'm watching the news, reading the papers and websites and if I was an American I would be outraged. I would be even more outrage at Bush's declaration that he will fight the swearing in of officials. To me, that is unacceptable. |
Why should I be more outraged by this than by the fact that Bush's father and bin Laden's fathers are or were business partners in the Carlyle Group (a private investment consortium which buys bankrupt defense contractors and then profit from war)?
Or about the fact that Bush's brother in Florida wrongly purged 90,000 names from voter rolls, 90% of whom were likely Democrats, and then that state's presidential election was decided by a mere 527 votes?
I could go on and on. And I haven't even begun on 9/11. |
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wannago
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:27 pm Post subject: Re: what do the yanks on dave's think about this DOJ scandal |
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| jodemas2 wrote: |
| Why should I be more outraged by this than by the fact that Bush's father blah, blah, Bush is bad, blah, blah, blah. And I haven't even begun on 9/11. |
Oh, please. Do begin. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:42 pm Post subject: |
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This is pretty typical of second terms. Nearly all of them, starting with Washington, are preoccupied with defending actions taken in the first term.
It appears to me that the new Democratic majority is using a shady action from the past to frustrate the administration's current agenda. It's something like 'death by a thousand cuts'. No one cut is fatal; the purpose is to distract the administration and dissipate its energy, thereby weakening it, so they can't accomplish whatever they would like. It's very much like the Clinton sex scandal in that way.
In addition to stymieing the current agenda, it helps establish the mind-set of GOP = scandal, which will contribute to voters' choices come '08.
On an earlier page, a poster said if one of Clinton's nominees had been accepted by Congress, the Justice Department would have been run much worse than the current one. That's often a successful diversion for a time, but sooner or later, the public seems to stop falling for it and says, "I don't want to hear any imaginary 'what if's' that didn't happen in the last administration. I only care about what did happen in the real world in this administration on your watch and hold you responsible for it."
I highly doubt there will be demonstrations in the streets over the firing of these prosecutors. Most people feel this administration is winding down and will be out of power 'soon'. This is one of the results of regularly scheduled elections. You don't need to toss Molotov *ocktails in the streets when you believe the bums are going to be thrown out in a matter of months. |
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Octavius Hite
Joined: 28 Jan 2004
Location: Househunting, looking for a new bunker from which to convert the world to homosexuality.
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| Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 7:15 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17844046/
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WASHINGTON - Eight federal prosecutors were fired last year because they did not sufficiently support President Bush's priorities, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff says in remarks prepared for delivery Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"The distinction between 'political' and 'performance-related' reasons for removing a United States attorney is, in my view, largely artificial," Kyle Sampson, who quit during the furor over the firings, said in testimony for his appearance Thursday, obtained by The Associated Press.
"A U.S. attorney who is unsuccessful from a political perspective ... is unsuccessful," he added.
Democrats have described the firings as an "intimidation by purge" and a warning to remaining U.S. attorneys to fall in line with Bush's priorities. Political pressure, Democrats say, can skew the judgment of prosecutors when deciding whom to investigate and which indictments to pursue.
Sampson maintained that adherence to the president's and attorney general's priorities is a legitimate standard. He strongly denied Democrats' allegations that some of the prosecutors were dismissed for pursuing Republicans too much and Democrats not enough in corruption cases.
"To my knowledge, nothing of the sort occurred here," Sampson said in the document. "As presidential appointees, U.S. attorneys serve at the 'pleasure of the president' and may be asked to resign for almost any reason, with no public or private explanation."
Inconsistencies 'benign'
Sampson said inconsistencies in the department's account of the firings were innocent mistakes.
"The decisions to seek the resignations of a handful of U.S. attorneys were properly made but poorly explained," Sampson said in the conclusion of his statement. "This is a benign, rather than sinister story, and I know that some may be indisposed to accept it."
Democrats confirmed that, saying that putting political pressure on federal prosecutors corrupts their decision-making.
Sampson's testimony Thursday is voluntary, although the committee's Democratic chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, told reporters he has kept a signed subpoena under lock and key in case Gonzales' chief of staff should back out.
There was no indication of that happening. In his remarks, Sampson said he was pleased to appear and pledged to stay as long as necessary.
Nothing, not even Gonzales' resignation, will stop the investigation, Leahy said Wednesday.
"In case anybody's thinking of shortchanging it that way, I have a message for them: We'll finish this investigation before we'll have any confirmation hearings for a new attorney general," said Leahy. "I want to know what the facts were." |
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Milwaukiedave
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Location: Goseong
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| Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 10:09 pm Post subject: |
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I tend to agree that nothing will probably come of it. I do disagree with those who claim Bush did nothing wrong.
This whole ordeal is going to make it very difficult for the Republican nominees who will have to distance themselves from Bush.
Sounds very familar to another situation...anyone want to take a guess what I'm thinking? |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2007 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/30/rush-limbaugh-2/
| Rush wrote: |
| USA Today�s got a poll: �Do you think something�s wrong about the firing of eight US attorneys?� 72% said yes. 72% of the American people, a bunch of blithering idiots who have no idea what they�re talking about, but yet they voted, so these polls matter. |
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