due respect Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Feeding Frenzy

When you place the phrase “feeding frenzy” into Google you get over 28,000,000 references. The first several references apply to an online game in which you play a fish and you eat other fish to become the “big fish”. Once you scroll past the games, you come to a video in which a diver is caught in the middle of a shark feeding frenzy. This is kind of what we watched on Friday. The IRS was caught in the middle of a conservative feeding frenzy. When you think about it, there are few things that conservatives love more than beating up the IRS. If you can’t actually cut taxes, the next best thing has to be pummeling the IRS.

Representative Dave Camp, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and a Republican from Michigan, is in conservative nirvana. He had a relatively long set-up in which he talked about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and then he got to his main point, “Mr. Miller, with all due respect, this systemic abuse cannot be fixed with just one resignation, or two. And as much as I expect more people need to go, the reality is this is not a personnel problem. This is a problem that the IRS being too large, too powerful, too intrusive, and too abusive of honest, hard-working taxpayers.” He continues, “There isn’t a person I come into contact with at home or anyone in this country, frankly, who does not fear the IRS. They fear getting something wrong in their tax filings. And they fear the IRS’ ability to audit them and wreak havoc in their lives, especially when all they are trying to do is improve their lives, let alone, God forbid, try to make America a better place to live, which is what the IRS targeted them for.” (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2013-05-22T21:12:23-04:00May 20th, 2013|Obama administration, Party Politics, Taxes|Comments Off

Close Guantanamo. It's over.

A long-time reader, Jeff, wanted me to post this. Jeff seems to be a reasonable guy, so –

George Bush dragged America’s name through the mud long enough. Let’s close Bush’s “terrorist prison” at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, immediately. Send those people home.

“The War On Terror,” (T.W.O.T.) like “The War On Drugs,” has been a fraud. A wealth-transfer scam. From taxpayers to Cheney’s Halliburton and Erik Prince’s Blackwater International. And Dyncorp and umpteen other creepy enterprises more suited to Pinochet’s Chile than America.

I say that because the FBI doesn’t buy the TWOT tale either. Remember when FBI Director Robert Mueller told us, “FBI has no hard evidence connecting [Osama] bin Laden to 9/11?” I remember. Go see FBI’s website right now. Not a word will you find there saying FBI wants bin Laden for 9/11.

Ask yourself why, then, did George Bush tell us 100% for certain that bin Laden was responsible for 9/11?

9/11 was Bush’s original excuse for shoving this whole fear-based way of life down our throats, wasn’t it? Did bin Laden do 9/11 or didn’t he? What the hell’s going on?

With due respect to people who disagree with me, do you really believe “al Qaeda,” those guys in rags toting small arms, threaten America’s existence? That those raggedy guys can do to the U.S. what the Soviet Union with thousands of missiles and H-bombs and planes couldn’t do?

Have you wondered how it is that since 2001 “the terrorists” haven’t managed to bust a window or slash a tire here? Isn’t that odd? After 9/11 George Bush told us there were “hundreds if not thousands of al-Qaeda sleeper cells” in the U.S.

I guess like Rip Van Winkle, all those “terrorists” just kept snoring.

Either they did that, or we got lied to daily for 8 long, very expensive years. Meanwhile, our fellow Americans stole trillions of dollars from us. We got ripped off like nobody has in all of history.

Politicians yell “Terrorists!” and the American people shake in their shoes. Works every time. According to this goofy formula, being afraid makes you a good American.

Fear is patriotic!

Aren’t you sick of it? I am. We’ve lived 8 years in a Bruce Willis movie. Now the country is broke. Enough, already.

George Bush’s Crawford, Texas, ranch is being taken apart. Literally, like a movie set. Because the show is over. Close Guantanamo too. Send those people home.

It’s over.

By ecthompsonmd|2009-01-27T18:47:30-04:00January 27th, 2009|Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, Military, Torture|Comments Off

McCain Talks up his POW Experience Again

As I have mentioned before, Senator John McCain will drop the topic of his military service or experience of being held captive by the Vietnamese into any conversation so that he can get the advantage. He was on “This Week” today and talking about health care. I colored the important parts in red.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What’s wrong with government — what’s wrong with government-run health care?

MCCAIN: And we continue to have these debates — what’s wrong with it? Go to Canada. Go to England and you can find out what’s wrong with it. Governments don’t make the right decisions. Families make the right decisions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the points Mrs. Edwards made in the Wall Street Journal, she said that your whole life, you had government health care. You were the son of a Naval officer, a Naval officer, now a member of Congress. And her point is, why shouldn’t every American be able to get the kind of health care that members of Congress get or members of the military get?

MCCAIN: It’s a cheap shot, but I did have a period of time where I didn’t have very good government health care. I had it from another government. (LAUGHTER) So, look, I know what it’s like in America not to have health care. We know that Americans are hurting there as well. We’ve got to make health care affordable and available. The difference, again, between myself and the Democrats, and with all due respect, Mrs. Edwards, I want the families to make the choices. They want the government to make the choices. That’s a fundamental difference, and we will continue to debate that issue.

It is a skill that you have to watch. McCain is great at it. There is no need to mention that he was a prisoner of war in a conversation about American health care. The point is that he never just answers the question. It isn’t about choice, it’s about accessibility. He has it and we don’t. Why aren’t we good enough for his health care plan? Or is this an elitist thing?

Here’s the video:

By ecthompsonmd|2008-04-20T18:34:40-04:00April 20th, 2008|Election 2008, Healthcare|Comments Off