He also doesn't spew hate and bitterness the way Nascar1966 does, which was the first premise.

It is completely false. We spend half as much on illegals as on keeping Israel as an ally, for example.

In the current administation? Most likely Chavez!

You've been listening to that gadfly, Bill O'Reilly, too much. What a windbag he is.

But who are we trying to make blink? Counterterrorism efforts do not require big military, I think the fact that 9 years after 9/11 and over 8 years into our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven that. We are no safer than we were on Sept 10th, 2001.

lol
i served in then navy when reagan was commander in chief. as for military spending, you need to look up how many billions more we spend than the next closest guy. considering our allies, such as where we stand with nato, etc, there's no need to spend quite as much as what we do. i'm a military fan, my husband, oldest son, and myself are vets. my youngest son leaves for bootcamp in january. however, we spend astronomical amounts compared to our enemies-and we could certainly scale back. am i saying not have the largest, or most advanced? not at all. we could still have that, maybe just not ten times over.

Bill doesn't spew hate and bitterness in any way. Let's get that straight right now.

Where did I say we spend as much on illegals as we do for Israel. I said that I'd rather see money spent or sent to Israel than supporting illegal alliens.

I don't know what the numbers are as to the cost of supporting illegal alliens - taking into consideration the money they make, if they are working, that doesn't get spent in this country.

exactly. things have changed-everyone knows they can't stand toe to toe with us in a conventional war....but here we are, eight-nine years after we went to afganistan, and there we still are. reminds me of when england spent centuries trying to take over wales. a huge military power, but couldn't cow their much smaller neighbor who resorted to guerrilla tactics. it took eight castles and edward the first to finally do the deed...but i digress. lessons to be learned from that, as well as from the ussr making the attempt back in the day..

And the mighty Russia had to abandon Afganistan in defeat. The French has to leave Indo-China in defeat. America had to leave Viet Nam in defeat. But, we didn't have to leave Iraq in defeat. We did manage to get that genocide maniac hanged by the rafters and took out his maniac sons and virtually all of his henchmen. Good show, USA!

Afganistan is Obama's war. Take it up with him if you think he'll listen. That was one of the issue on his platform. Now he's stuck with it.

Get the heck out of that rock heap. Keep drones flying over and take out poppy fields when they're found. The country is a lost cause. Fred and Wilma Flintstone would turn their nose up at living there.

Perhaps if the USA resorted to terrorism, we wouldn't have to spend somuch money.

Kidding aside, every two bit nation in the world is looking to unseat the top dog - us. That's why we have to have the biggest and the mightiest. I do, however, think you missed what I said about cleaning up waste, graft, corruption, and overspending. But, even if we did that - we couldn't cut the budget in half - not with the escalation of prices and the cost of new technology needed to keep up and current.

My father (Navy) died at Pearl Habor. My husband's father (Marine) died at Iwo Jima. My brother (Army) died in Nam. My husband served two tours of duty as a US Marine in Nam as a tank commander and was seriously wounded. Not bragging - just letting you know where my family and loved ones came from and went to.

Thank you, your husband, and your sons for your military service. There is nothing more honorable than serving one's country.

It's definitely Bush's war, as he had planned on invading prior to 9/11. Obama campaigned to move troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan, which I thought was simply a ploy to gain votes from war apologists. I agree the right move would be to get the heck out of there because it's like Vietnam, we can't win.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4587368/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550366.stm
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul.../na-campaign16


The cost to the federal government was estimated at $10.4 billion according to the Center for Immigration Studies' (a group that advocates tougher immigration rules) report in 2004. Even if we grow that number by (an absurd) 50% for the 5 fiscal years since, that's $16 billion. We spent $28 billion on Israel last year.

I'd rather all the money like this be spent right here in the USA.

Well, obviously BO was dead on serious about Afganistan. Wonder why Cindy Sheehan isn't beating her gums about it. She's off preaching to 100 people audiences about the bad Catholics who won't let her talk in their churches. Despicable woman.

But, I digress.

That's a plan, philcski - keep all our money at home. The USA becomes isolationist. Pull all the troops from every country in the world. Do away with aid to any country. Screw 'em. If they have a tsunami, an earthquake, a volcano eruption, flood, famine, whatever, let them work out their problems - 99 chances out of 100 they don't appreciate us for anything we do. We're the rich old, ugly, aunt who can afford it, and we don't give enough away or do enough anyway.

Build up the military. Close the borders. Point a nuclear missile at any country that so much as looks at us crosseyed.

That's what we'd have to do if we start pulling money away and stopped supporting and defending the few allies we have left.

I commend your family for the years they have given in protecting this great country of ours.

That's an extreme, and rather silly view of what I'm suggesting.

We spent much of the 1800's in a moderate isolationist period (re: the Monroe Doctrine.) The USA established itself as the premier country in the world during this period and maintained that without a lot of work or money; it allowed the country to grow organically from basically the 13 original states to almost where it is now stretching from coast to coast (before the advent of easy travel!)

Let's be realistic here. No country we couldn't squash like a bug has looked at us crosseyed since Japan/Germany in 1941. The wars we have fought since then in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have been on foreign soil to protect political interests, not in any way self defense (even though the last two have been masked as anti-terrorist, they haven't exactly succeeded at that), against opponents that if we did want to pull the nuclear trigger they would be eradicated like fruit flies. Our military/defense budget at over $1.1 trillion, or almost $4,000 per person, has spiraled out of control. You could send EVERY college student to school for free for HALF that amount. We spend 7.5X the amount of the next country in gross dollars, and as a percent of GDP there's only one developed nation that spends more (Greece at 4.5% versus the USA's 4.06%- I have no good explanation for Greece's military budget other than their GDP is minuscule.)

Providing help to our neighbors such as Haiti or Chile in times of need is obviously goodwill we can continue- but you overestimate the actual cost of this. The federal government spent $170 million on relief efforts in Haiti, a far cry from what private sources such as the Red Cross contributed. I'd love to think they appreciate our help... sometimes I'm not so sure, but I'll err on the side of humanism and say they do.

Our borders are now, for all intensive purposes, closed. A passport is required to get to Canada. CANADA, our best friends and one of the few countries that matches America's quality! I grew up on the border. We could enter and exit with a simple "what's up, eh?" and an "yo man, I'm back". That freedom will never return, ever.

Im not crazy enough to kill a person like you make me out to be. Where is your evidence to support that statement you made? Has the thought come to your feeble mind that im not the only who dislikes our fearless leader? O'Dumbass is too big of a chicked **** to come to Texas. I would hope by now he has figured out by now that Texas is pretty much a Republican state. No I dont think less of you because you went to college. The military isn't for everybody. Your lies about me make think your pathetic and senile. At least im not a racist like you are.

OK, I'm sorry for saying you're crazy enough to kill someone. That's unfair of me. However, the hate you spew for him scares me, quite honestly. You still haven't told me WHY you hate him so much, though, for any reason that hasn't been proven to be false.

Just to be clear, because I don't think you know this, I didn't vote for him either. But I've accepted him as our President and hope he can do the best job possible. The conservative right just will not give him a chance and that really, really bothers me. I didn't like Bush II, either, and despite his shortfalls I accepted him as our President, too, because the people said they wanted him the same way the people said they wanted Obama. I hoped that others would do the same but clearly the bitterness of losing will never go away for many.

By the way, he was in Texas 6 months ago, with HW Bush. He's not a chickensh1t that you make him out to be. http://ochairball.blogspot.com/2009/...-of-light.html


Just for sh1ts and giggles, have you EVER voted for anyone other than a Republican? Would you ever consider voting for anyone but a Republican?

I have voted for a Democrat numerous times. He has been in office since Jan 2009 and our economy is still in shambles. One year and three months in office should be enough time to try to make some fixes to our struggling economy. I am fully aware that he inherited a mess from Bush. I wanted him to succeed, but he hasn't shown me anything that makes me think he wants to be a successful President. Which do you think should be of a higher priority: Health care reform or fixing the economy. He has gone against the majority of Americans who didn't want the health care bill passed. Instead of thinking about his fellow Americans he thinks about himself. He has put his own political party under the table with this health care reform bill and could care less about it. What has he done about securing our borders from these thug drug cartels? Governor Perry has taken the initiative to try to protect the borders of Texas. Would I consider voting for someone other than a Republican? Absolutely I would. I want to vote for the candidate who is going to do the best for the people and not go against thier will.

I disagree completely. I think it is often a good thing for elected officials to go against the will of the people.
The majority is often ill-informed and wrong.

this and your previous post were right on. well done.

??? Embarassing Rush quotes are everywhere in the media, on a fairly regular basis. He's constantly spillin' with the hate and racism. Media Matters, etc....

Went to the Doctor today and as he was writing out prescriptions for me, I mentioned to him that in June I would become a Medicare subscriber. He assured me that this was no problem, but he told me that Medicare had cut 30% of their payments to him in Dec 09 and just this month reduced their payments to him by 21%. So, if he was receiving 100 dollars a visit in Dec, in May 2010 he'd be getting 49 dollars.
If this is the solution to Medicare costs rising, the Doctors will be run out of business, and the new generations of Docs will be burned out,underpaid, and overworked before they've been an MD for 10 yrs. Does anybody see a problem here??

No, calling out someone who is racist for being so is all about not tolerating their hate.