The Obama war machine in full force
usamamasan1
Posts: 4,695
For those of you who voted for him, I'm sorry you have to live with being duped. For me, I'm glad he is at least trying to sell some good old weapons to protect our friends from the axis of evil!
I support this message (other than the 2nd term garbage).
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Booming Middle East purchases of U.S. fighter jets will be a bright spot in what is expected to be a sluggish economy in 2012, possibly paying dividends for President Barack Obama's bid for a second term.
Beneficiaries include Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, whose respective F-16 and F-15 production lines are being extended by U.S. government sales to Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Oman, among other rich arms deals announced in recent weeks.
The foreign sales will help offset expected cuts in big-ticket purchases by the Defense Department, which is set to lose at least $450 billion in previously projected funding through 2021 as part of a deficit-reduction push. Additional cuts totaling another $500 billion to $600 billion over the same period are scheduled to kick in next year unless a new deficit-reduction plan is adopted by Congress.
The sales of fighters, missiles and other advanced U.S. weapons will help provide jobs as the United States heads into an election campaign expected to focus on the domestic economy. It has been growing at only half the pace needed to get the jobless rate down from 8.6 percent, a problem for Obama as the incumbent.
The Obama administration announced last week it had finalized a record $29.4 billion Boeing F-15 sale to Saudi Arabia, dwarfing previous individual U.S. arms deals and supporting jobs by increasing exports.
Deliveries of 84 of the most advanced F-15 fighters are expected to start in 2015 with upgrades to 70 others expected to start in 2014, the administration said. Congress had cleared the sale in the fall of 2010, setting the stage for the freshly completed negotiations on the government-to-government contract.
Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, portrayed the deal as shoring up Saudi air defenses in a region rattled by Iran's disputed nuclear program as well as supporting more than 50,000 U.S. jobs at a time of high unemployment.
The deal was signed December 24 and unveiled by the White House on Thursday in Hawaii, where Obama has been vacationing.
(That's good, he is the 1% after all and deserves a break)
The program involves roughly 600 suppliers in 44 of the 50 U.S. states and give the economy a $3.5 billion annual boost, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro told reporters at a State Department briefing.
"This will support jobs not only in the aerospace sector but also in our manufacturing base and support chain, which are all crucial for sustaining our national defense," he said.
The deal is worth about three times more than any other single U.S. arms sale to date, according to a March 10 report on U.S.-Saudi ties by Christopher Blanchard of the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
It will extend Boeing's F-15 production line about five years to late in this decade, Dennis Muilenburg, head of the company's military, space and security business, said in a telephone interview with Reuters.
"Having that hot production line gives us the base to invest in technology advancements for that platform going forward, he said. "Obviously, that creates a lot of momentum for us on our international growth."
F-16 NEW ORDERS
Workers on the F-16 fighter production line at Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth, Texas plant also have received good news for their job prospects. The Defense Department awarded Lockheed a $600 million contract on December 14 to build 12 late-model F-16s for Oman, the second firm order in two weeks.
Lockheed received an $835 million Pentagon contract on December 5 to build 18 F-16C/Ds for Iraq. Only months earlier, the company, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier by sales, had warned it would have to start shutting down its supplier base by year end absent new F-16 orders.
On top of the contracts for Iraq and Oman, the Obama administration told the U.S. Congress on December 12 that it was proposing to sell Iraq another 18 F-16s, advanced munitions and related gear for an estimated $2.3 billion. Analysts have questioned whether adding U.S. arms into Iraq could heighten growing sectarian tensions there since the U.S. completed its troop withdrawal last month.
Fighter jets are not the only pricy arms deals, long in the works, to have been brought to a conclusion by the Obama administration as the president prepares to swing more into campaign mode. On Friday, the Defense Department said the United States had reached a $3.5 billion agreement to supply an advanced antimissile interception system to United Arab Emirates.
The U.S. Congress had been notified of the proposed sale of the Lockheed Martin system - known as Theater High Altitude Area Defense -- in September 2008 by former President George W. Bush's administration. woot
TAIWAN F-16 NO GO
Lockheed and its supporters had sought to play on the election calculus in pushing to meet Taiwan's request, over China's objections, for 66 new F-16C/Ds valued at more than $8 billion.
Pushing the sale in October, Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S. Taiwan Business Council, a trade group that includes Lockheed, wrote that F-16 associated jobs "could have an important positive impact on local communities around the country - particularly in California, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Ohio, Texas and Utah," possible electoral swing states.
But the Obama administration, apparently in an effort to placate Beijing, has been unwilling to meet that request. Instead, the president offered a $5.3 billion upgrade of Taiwan's 145 existing F-16A/Bs.
F-16s played a role in a previous U.S. election. George H.W. Bush announced during the 1992 presidential campaign that he would sell Taiwan 150 of the A/B models. He signaled an intent to do so during a campaign rally at the General Dynamics Corp plant then producing them in Texas where jobs had been in danger.
How long until we rightfully hit Irans nuclear facilities? I say less than a year.
I support this message (other than the 2nd term garbage).
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Booming Middle East purchases of U.S. fighter jets will be a bright spot in what is expected to be a sluggish economy in 2012, possibly paying dividends for President Barack Obama's bid for a second term.
Beneficiaries include Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, whose respective F-16 and F-15 production lines are being extended by U.S. government sales to Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Oman, among other rich arms deals announced in recent weeks.
The foreign sales will help offset expected cuts in big-ticket purchases by the Defense Department, which is set to lose at least $450 billion in previously projected funding through 2021 as part of a deficit-reduction push. Additional cuts totaling another $500 billion to $600 billion over the same period are scheduled to kick in next year unless a new deficit-reduction plan is adopted by Congress.
The sales of fighters, missiles and other advanced U.S. weapons will help provide jobs as the United States heads into an election campaign expected to focus on the domestic economy. It has been growing at only half the pace needed to get the jobless rate down from 8.6 percent, a problem for Obama as the incumbent.
The Obama administration announced last week it had finalized a record $29.4 billion Boeing F-15 sale to Saudi Arabia, dwarfing previous individual U.S. arms deals and supporting jobs by increasing exports.
Deliveries of 84 of the most advanced F-15 fighters are expected to start in 2015 with upgrades to 70 others expected to start in 2014, the administration said. Congress had cleared the sale in the fall of 2010, setting the stage for the freshly completed negotiations on the government-to-government contract.
Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, portrayed the deal as shoring up Saudi air defenses in a region rattled by Iran's disputed nuclear program as well as supporting more than 50,000 U.S. jobs at a time of high unemployment.
The deal was signed December 24 and unveiled by the White House on Thursday in Hawaii, where Obama has been vacationing.
(That's good, he is the 1% after all and deserves a break)
The program involves roughly 600 suppliers in 44 of the 50 U.S. states and give the economy a $3.5 billion annual boost, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro told reporters at a State Department briefing.
"This will support jobs not only in the aerospace sector but also in our manufacturing base and support chain, which are all crucial for sustaining our national defense," he said.
The deal is worth about three times more than any other single U.S. arms sale to date, according to a March 10 report on U.S.-Saudi ties by Christopher Blanchard of the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
It will extend Boeing's F-15 production line about five years to late in this decade, Dennis Muilenburg, head of the company's military, space and security business, said in a telephone interview with Reuters.
"Having that hot production line gives us the base to invest in technology advancements for that platform going forward, he said. "Obviously, that creates a lot of momentum for us on our international growth."
F-16 NEW ORDERS
Workers on the F-16 fighter production line at Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth, Texas plant also have received good news for their job prospects. The Defense Department awarded Lockheed a $600 million contract on December 14 to build 12 late-model F-16s for Oman, the second firm order in two weeks.
Lockheed received an $835 million Pentagon contract on December 5 to build 18 F-16C/Ds for Iraq. Only months earlier, the company, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier by sales, had warned it would have to start shutting down its supplier base by year end absent new F-16 orders.
On top of the contracts for Iraq and Oman, the Obama administration told the U.S. Congress on December 12 that it was proposing to sell Iraq another 18 F-16s, advanced munitions and related gear for an estimated $2.3 billion. Analysts have questioned whether adding U.S. arms into Iraq could heighten growing sectarian tensions there since the U.S. completed its troop withdrawal last month.
Fighter jets are not the only pricy arms deals, long in the works, to have been brought to a conclusion by the Obama administration as the president prepares to swing more into campaign mode. On Friday, the Defense Department said the United States had reached a $3.5 billion agreement to supply an advanced antimissile interception system to United Arab Emirates.
The U.S. Congress had been notified of the proposed sale of the Lockheed Martin system - known as Theater High Altitude Area Defense -- in September 2008 by former President George W. Bush's administration. woot
TAIWAN F-16 NO GO
Lockheed and its supporters had sought to play on the election calculus in pushing to meet Taiwan's request, over China's objections, for 66 new F-16C/Ds valued at more than $8 billion.
Pushing the sale in October, Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S. Taiwan Business Council, a trade group that includes Lockheed, wrote that F-16 associated jobs "could have an important positive impact on local communities around the country - particularly in California, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Ohio, Texas and Utah," possible electoral swing states.
But the Obama administration, apparently in an effort to placate Beijing, has been unwilling to meet that request. Instead, the president offered a $5.3 billion upgrade of Taiwan's 145 existing F-16A/Bs.
F-16s played a role in a previous U.S. election. George H.W. Bush announced during the 1992 presidential campaign that he would sell Taiwan 150 of the A/B models. He signaled an intent to do so during a campaign rally at the General Dynamics Corp plant then producing them in Texas where jobs had been in danger.
How long until we rightfully hit Irans nuclear facilities? I say less than a year.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Anyways, it's just perpetual war for perpetual peace... and it's not feasible to succeed.
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
We meaning you
Or we meaning somebody else whilst YOU sit at home
Bush
Rumsfeld
Cheney
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/ ... c-mccarthy
Obama Recruits Qaradawi
The surrender is complete now. The Hindu reports that the Obama administration has turned to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading jurist, to mediate secret negotiations between the United States and the Taliban.
I wrote about Qaradawi at length in The Grand Jihad and, here at NRO, have regularly catalogued his activities (see, e.g., here, here, here, here, and here; see also Andrew Bostom’s “Qaradawi’s Odious Vision”). For those who may be unfamiliar with him, he is the most influential Sunni Islamist in the world, thanks to such ventures as his al-Jazeera TV program (Sharia and Life) and website (IslamOnline.net). In 2003, he issued a fatwa calling for the killing of American troops in Iraq. As he put it,
Those killed fighting the American forces are martyrs given their good intentions since they consider these invading troops an enemy within their territories but without their will. . . . Although they are seen by some as being wrong, those defending against attempts to control Islamic countries have the intention of jihad and bear a spirit of the defense of their homeland.
Qaradawi urges that Islam must dominate the world, under a global caliphate governed by sharia. He maintains that Islam “will conquer Europe [and] will conquer America.” He sometimes qualifies that the conquering will be done “not through the sword but through da’wa,” but the qualification is a feint.
Da’wa sounds harmless — it refers to missionary work to spread Islam. Islam, however, is not like other religions. The idea is not to spread a set of spiritual principles but incrementally to impose a full-scale social system with its own authoritarian legal code, covering all aspects of life and instituting a caste system in which women and non-Muslims are subjugated. Nor is da’wa like other missionary work; it is the use of all available means of pressure — political campaigns, lawfare, infiltration of the media, control of the education system, etc. — to advance (a) the acceptance of Islamic principles and (b) the evisceration of principles (e.g., free speech, economic liberty) that undergird competitors, in particular, Western civilization. Moreover, the claim that da’wa is non-violent is frivolous. Much of the mission of da’wa is to rationalize terrorism as divinely mandated self-defense.
Thus does Sheikh Qaradawi champion Hamas, mass-murder attacks, and suicide bombings. “They are not suicide operations,” he brays. “These are heroic martyrdom operations.” Indeed, he elaborates, “The martyr operations is [sic] the greatest of all sorts of jihad in the cause of Allah.”
Thus does Qaradawi urge the destruction of Israel, rebuking clerics who dare counsel against killing civilians. “I am astonished,” he inveighs, “that some sheikhs deliver fatwas that betray the mujahideen, instead of supporting them and urging them to sacrifice and martyrdom.” As the Investigative Project on Terrorism recounts, when the imam of Mecca’s Grand Mosque issued guidance against the killing of civilians, Qaradawi upbraided him: “It is unfortunate to hear that the grand imam has said it was not permissible to kill civilians in any country or state, even in Israel.”
Not surprisingly, then, the sheikh is also wont to invoke what the West refuses to acknowledge: the Jew-hatred that is endemic in Islam because it is rooted in scripture — not in modern grievances that could be satisfied if only the West changed its policies and Israel had the good grace to disappear. As Qaradawi puts it, echoing the charter of Hamas (the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch):
This is what is told in the Hadith of Ibn-Omar and the Hadith of Abu-Hurairah: “You shall continue to fight the Jews and they will fight you, until the Muslims will kill them. And the Jew will hide behind the stone and the tree, and the stone and the tree will say: ‘Oh servant of Allah, Oh Muslim, this is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him!’ The resurrection will not come before this happens.” This is a text from the good omens in which we believe.
Qaradawi uses his al-Jazeera platform to preach this message to the Muslim masses. As the Middle East Media Research Institute and Robert Spencer document, in one memorable Friday “sermon” broadcast in 2009, he prayed that Allah would kill all Jews: “Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers and kill them, down to the very last one.” He added that throughout history, Allah had imposed upon Jews “people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Adolph Hitler.”
After thousands of young Americans have laid down their lives to protect the United States from jihadist terror, President Obama apparently seeks to end the war by asking Qaradawi, a jihad-stoking enemy of the United States, to help him strike a deal that will install our Taliban enemies as part of the sharia state we have been building in Afghanistan. If the Hindu report is accurate, the price tag will include the release of Taliban prisoners from Gitmo — an element of the deal Reuters has also reported. The administration will also agree to the lifting of U.N. sanctions against the Taliban, and recognition of the Taliban as a legitimate political party (yes, just like the Muslim Brotherhood!). In return, the Taliban will pretend to forswear violence, to sever ties with al-Qaeda, and to cooperate with the rival Karzai regime.
It would mark one of the most shameful chapters in American history.
If this is true AMT am it doesn't turn your stomach, wow.
Happy New Year!
Woot!
True, but it's important to point out that his administration has been as hawkish as previous ones despite a campaign built on the contrary.
it's a fragile place we live
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
we as a country will arm anyone with the means to pay for it.....
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
well yes of course... but its counter productive.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
and it will come back, time and again, to bite us all in the ass.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
Who armed alqueeda
That's right it was the regan administration
Reagan
And HE WAS THE SHIT!!!!!!!!
Check yo self!
Woot
Best President EVA!
http://www.ronaldreagan.com/
"Becoming a Bruce fan is like hitting puberty as a musical fan. It's inevitable." - dcfaithful
But regan is great
EVEN THOUGH HIS POLICY TO SUPPORT The mujahadeen help create alqueeda. And in the end September 11
I'm seeing a very republican blame here for this whole mess
Regan helps build osamas army
G bush snr with his Saudi mates pisses Osama off and he turns on the us
G bush junior asleep at the wheel allows the attack on September 11
And now your choosing another disaster
You forgot to mention that he sold weapons illegally to the Iranians and used the profits to fund death squads in Central America that resulted in mass rape, and genocide.
He then lied about it under oath. The criminal should have been impeached.
The Reagan Administration was so corrupt that it needs it's own separate page on Wiki with which to list all the crooks and scandals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_adm ... n_scandals
'The presidency of Ronald Reagan in the United States was marked by multiple scandals, resulting in the investigation, indictment, or conviction of over 138 administration officials, the largest number for any US president.
Iran Contra Affair
The most well-known and politically damaging of the scandals came to light in November 1986, when Ronald Reagan conceded that the United States had sold weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran, as part of a largely unsuccessful effort to secure the release of six US citizens being held hostage. It was also disclosed that some of the money from the arms deal with Iran had been covertly and illegally funneled into a fund to aid the right-wing Contras counter-revolutionary groups seeking to overthrow the socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The Iran-contra scandal as it became known, did serious damage to the Reagan presidency. The investigations were effectively halted when President George H. W. Bush (Reagan's vice president) pardoned Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger before his trial began.[2]
Caspar Weinberger, United States Secretary of Defense, was pardoned before trial by George H. W. Bush
Elliott Abrams agreed to cooperate with investigators and in return was allowed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges instead of facing possible felony indictments. He was sentenced to two years probation and one hundred hours of community service. He was also pardoned by Bush on December 24, 1992 along with five other former Reagan Administration officials who had been implicated in connection with Iran-Contra.[3]
National Security Advisor Robert C. McFarlane, pleaded guilty to four misdemeanors and was sentenced to two years probation and 200 hours of community service and was ordered to pay a $20,000 fine.[3] He was also pardoned by Bush.
Alan D. Fiers was the Chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Central American Task Force. He pleaded guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding information from Congress and was sentenced to one year of probation and one hundred hours of community service. He was also pardoned by Bush.[3][4]
Richard R. Miller - Partner with Oliver North in IBC, an Office of Public Diplomacy front group, convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States.[3][5]
Clair George was Chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Division of Covert Operations under President Reagan. George was convicted of lying to two congressional committees in 1986. He was pardoned by Bush.[3][4][6]
Richard Secord was indicted on nine felony counts of lying to Congress and pleaded guilty to a felony charge of lying to Congress.[3][7]
Thomas G. Clines was convicted of four counts of tax-related offenses for failing to report income from the Iran/Contra operations.[3][8]
Carl R. Channel - Office of Public Diplomacy, partner in International Business- first person convicted in the Iran/Contra scandal, pleaded guilty of one count of defrauding the United States[3][5]
John Poindexter, Reagan's national security advisor, was found guilty of five criminal accounts including lying to Congress, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. His conviction was later overturned on grounds that he did not receive a fair trial (the prosecution may have been influenced by his immunized testimony in front of Congress.)[3][9]
Oliver North was indicted on sixteen charges in the Iran/Contra affair and found guilty of three - aiding and abetting obstruction of Congress, shredding or altering official documents and accepting a gratuity. His convictions were later overturned on the grounds that his immunized testimony had tainted his trial.[3][10]
Duane R. Clarridge (US Republican Party) also pardoned before trial by Bush
Albert Hakim pleaded guilty to supplementing the salary of North
Joseph F. Fernandez indicted on four counts of obstruction and false statements; case dismissed when Attorney General Richard L. Thornburgh refused to declassify information needed for his defense
Department of Housing and Urban Development grant rigging
The HUD rigging scandal consisted of Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Samuel Pierce and his associates rigging low income housing bids to favor Republican contributors to Reagan's campaign as well as rewarding Republican lobbyists such as James G. Watt a former Secretary of the Interior.[11] Sixteen convictions were eventually handed down,[12] including the following:
James Watt, Reagan's Secretary of the Interior was indicted on 24 felony counts and pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor. He was sentenced to five years probation, and ordered to pay a $5000 fine.[13]
Phillip D. Winn - Assistant HUD Secretary. Pleaded guilty to one count of scheming to give illegal gratuities.;[14] pardoned by President Bill Clinton, Nov., 2000[15]
Thomas Demery - Assistant HUD Secretary - pleaded guilty to steering HUD subsidies to politically connected donors. Found guilty of bribery and obstruction of justice[14]
Deborah Gore Dean - executive assistant to Secretary Pierce - indicted on thirteen counts, three counts of conspiracy, one count of accepting an illegal gratuity, four counts of perjury, and five counts of concealing articles. She was convicted on twelve. She appealed and prevailed on several counts but the convictions for conspiracy remained.[14]
Joseph A. Strauss, (R) Special Assistant to the Secretary of HUD, convicted for accepting payments to favor Puerto Rican land developers in receiving HUD funding.[16]
Silvio D. DeBartolomeis convicted of perjury and bribery.[14]
Catalina Vasquez Villalpando, the Treasurer of the United States from 1989 to 1993[17]
Pierce, the Secretary, though the "central person" in the scandal, was not charged because he made "full and public written acceptance of responsibility."[17]
Retired Federal Judge Arlin M. Adams served as independent counsel in first five years of the prosecution, through 1995,[14] and Larry Thompson completed the work 1995-98.[17]
Lobbying scandal
When an administration staff member leaves office, federal law governs how quickly one can begin a lobbying career.
Michael Deaver, Reagan’s Chief of Staff, was convicted of lying to both a congressional committee and to a federal grand jury about his lobbying activities after he left the government. He received three years probation and was fined $100,000 after being convicted for lying to a congressional subcommittee.[18]
Lyn Nofziger Reagan's Press Secretary was convicted on charges of illegal lobbying after leaving government service in Wedtech scandal. His conviction was later overturned.[19]
EPA scandals
A number of scandals occurred at the Environmental Protection Agency during the Reagan Administration. Over twenty high-level EPA employees were removed from office during Reagan's first three years as president.[20] Additionally, several Agency officials resigned amidst a variety of charges, ranging from being unduly influenced by industry groups to rewarding or punishing employees based on their political beliefs.[21] Sewergate, the most prominent EPA scandal during this period, involved the targeted release of Superfund grants to enhance the election prospects of local officials aligned with the Republican Party.
Rita Lavelle, an administrator at the EPA, misused Superfund monies and was convicted of perjury. She served three months in prison, was fined $10,000 and given five years probation.[22]
Anne Gorsuch Burford, the controversial head of the EPA. Burford, citing "Executive Privilege," refused to turn over Superfund records to Congress.[23] She was found in Contempt, whereupon she resigned.
Inslaw Affair
Inslaw Affair (1985-1994+); a protracted legal case that alleged that top-level officials of President Ronald Reagan's (R) Department of Justice were involved in software piracy of the Promis program from Inslaw Inc. forcing it into bankruptcy and then failed to appoint an independent counsel to investigate it.[24]
D. Lowell Jensen, Deputy Attorney General was held in Contempt of Congress.[25]
C. Madison Brewer A high ranking Justice Department official was held in Contempt of Congress.[25]
Attorney General Edwin Meese (R) refused to investigate the matter. His successor Attorney General Dick Thornburgh (R) also refused to investigate.[26] They were succeeded by Attorney General William P. Barr (R) who also refused to investigate the matter. No charges were ever filed.[27]
Savings & loan crisis
Savings and loan crisis in which 747 institutions failed and had to be rescued with $160 billion of taxpayer monies.[28] Reagan's "elimination of loopholes" in the tax code included the elimination of the "passive loss" provisions that subsidized rental housing. Because this was removed retroactively, it bankrupted many real estate developments which used this tax break as a premise, which in turn bankrupted 747 Savings and Loans, many of whom were operating, moreorless, as banks, thus requiring the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to cover their debts and losses with tax payer money. This with some other "deregulation" policies, ultimately led to the largest political and financial scandal in U.S. history to that date. The savings and Loan crisis. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around USD $150 billion, about $125 billion of which was directly subsidized by the U.S. government, which further increased the large budget deficits of the early 1990s. See Keating Five.
As an indication of this scandal's size, Martin Mayer wrote at the time, "The theft from the taxpayer by the community that fattened on the growth of the savings and loan (S&L) industry in the 1980s is the worst public scandal in American history. Teapot Dome in the Harding administration and the Credit Mobilier in the times of Ulysses S. Grant have been taken as the ultimate horror stories of capitalist democracy gone to seed. Measuring by money, [or] by the misallocation of national resources... the S&L outrage makes Teapot Dome and Credit Mobilier seem minor episodes." [29]
Economist John Kenneth Galbraith called it "the largest and costliest venture in public misfeasance, malfeasance and larceny of all time."[30]
Debategate
Debategate refers to a scandal affecting the administration of Ronald Reagan; it involved the final days of the 1980 presidential election and briefing papers that were to have been used by President Jimmy Carter in preparation for the October 28, 1980, debate with Reagan had somehow been acquired by Reagan's team. This fact was not divulged to the public until late June 1983, after Laurence Barrett published Gambling With History: Reagan in the White House, an in-depth account of the Reagan administration's first two years.
James Baker swore under oath that he had received the briefing book from William Casey, Reagan's campaign manager, but Casey vehemently denied this. The matter was never resolved as both the FBI and a congressional subcommittee failed to determine how or through whom the briefing book came to the Reagan campaign.
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20 ... rsian-gulf
Obama 2008- "Hope & Change"
Obama 2012- "It's Not My Fault"
Obama signed off on the deal to supply 60 Billion dollars in weapons to our "friends and allies" the Saudis. Considering the fact that 15 of the 19 September 11, 2001 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia (a fact that doesn't seem to concern the administration when they make these "deals") and the fact that they conveniently turn a blind eye to the Saudis Human Rights violations, i'd say Obama has learnt well from Reagan.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... 191694701/
"The Islamic regime in Iran also counts on Russia and China, with which it has close relations, to come to its help and facilitate an end to war in time to save the regime. China, which holds billions of dollars in contracts and is said to have more than 11,000 contractors, mostly of a military nature, in Iran, has the most to lose in the downfall of the Islamic regime, and its officials already have stated openly that China will aid the Iranian regime in case of war.
Though the Islamic regime never should have been allowed to continue with its suppression of its people, its terrorist activities worldwide and its continuation of its missile and nuclear programs despite U.N. sanctions, one cannot imagine a world with nuclear arms in the hands of the jihadists in Iran.
With officials from both Israel and the U.S. calling a nuclear-armed Iran a red line, leaving the possibility of a military option on the table, we must realize that the only possible solution to this dilemma is a regime change in Iran, which a majority of Iranians support. The price we pay today to save world peace and security will be minuscule to what the world will pay in the not-so-distant future."
More of the same bullshit they used to sell the Iraq war to the gullible masses.
Not even 10 years has passed and here we are again being spoon-fed more of the same crap.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Would you have a problem with it if you knew that these same arms were going to be used to kill civilians?
Is the arms industry so financially hard-up in your opinion that the pity you feel for them means that you'll willingly turn a blind eye to them selling weapons to crazy volatile nations?
Seeing as you have so much concern for the financial welfare of these arms dealers, have you considered maybe sending them a personal donation?
Since all wars are fought either over resources or fanatical religious beliefs the answer should be obvious, catefrances, but the obvious doesn't seem to make sense to most of the world anymore. What a crazy species, huh?!
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/05/polit ... ?hpt=hp_t2
"Over the next 10 years, the growth in the defense budget will slow, but the fact of the matter is this: It will still grow, because we have global responsibilities that demand our leadership," Obama announced during a rare presidential visit to the Pentagon. "I firmly believe, and I think the American people understand, that we can keep our military strong -- and our nation secure -- with a defense budget that continues to be larger than roughly the next 10 countries combined."
"Republicans immediately blasted the plan, characterizing it as a retreat from the reality of America's global responsibilities."
Its always got to be a damned fight, R vs. D. :roll:
I would bet we will be fine...
Obama 2008- "Hope & Change"
Obama 2012- "It's Not My Fault"[/quote]
I heard the only reason he is using this slogan in 2012 is because Johnny Rotten wouldn't let him use the slogan, "ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08