Responding to a Loud Mouth

A friend of mine sent me an email she had received from a loud mouth complaining that immigrants and Democrats are ruining the country. I just spent the last hour responding to the idiot...that response follows....


In the misinformed and intellectually challenged diatribe below we are led to believe by the author that among other things "immigrants" are the problem in this country. We are also led to believe that Democrats are the basis for much of what is wrong in this country as well. All of this goes on while the diatribe's author conveniently forgets to point out that for the last very long six years a man-child in the White House who happens to be a Repugnican has masqueraded as "president" and it was that man-child's political party (the REpugnicans) who had control of both chambers of the Congress since 1995 (12 years) who have put in place many if not all of the policies about which the author whines.

The first topic, "immigrants" is particularly laughable. Unless the author or anyone of those in his cc list are native american, then EVERY ONE OF US is the product of an "immigrant"

You cant escape that fact. We are all immigrants in this country or the product of immigrants. Would you suggest that all of us be "sent back" to where our genes originated? Who will be the first among you to volunteer? I hear that Serbia and Croatia are beautiful this time of year. Who goes back first?

There was a large immigrant march in DC in 2006 that I attended. One of the best signs I saw there read "If You Send Us Back Who Will Build Your Wall?" If immigrants are such a bane on our existence, who is going to pick your vegetables? Who will run your convenience stores? Who will do your lawn maintenance? Who will be the nanny for your children? Who will pass out fat-laden burgers at McDonalds for you? Do you think white skinned Americans are going to leap up and accept those jobs that keep the country running?? if they would take them, there would be no reason for the immigrants to want to come here...there would be no jobs. I suggest that each and everyone of you who complains about immigrants quit your jobs in factories or as sales reps or working for a government agency and take a job picking peaches in Georgia or working for a lawn care service so we dont have an abundance of jobs to attract immigrants in the first place. Its either that or keep your mouths shut about the issue. Be part of the solution not a continuation of the problem.

In a recent poll published in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/25/us/25poll.html?pagewanted=print 66 percent of Repugnicans favored the current immigration bill that provides amnesty for illegals. Those of you, the author included are in the minority of your minority view if you resist immigration reform. But again, the solution is up to you. Give up your citizenship and move back to where your ancestors came from - or shut up.

The author also rants and raves about how "Democrats" are ruining the country. I think you need to be aware of a few pertinent points on that issue.

When he first took office in 1993, Bill Clinton was faced with a huge budget deficit - a deficit created by out of control spending by two Repugnican presidents, Ronald Raygun and Daddy Bush. Yet by fiscal year 2000 the united states had a budget surplus of $230 BILLION dollars. This topped the previous year budget surplus of $122.7 BILLION dollars

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/25/us/25poll.html?pagewanted=print

George W. Bush immediately reversed Clinton’s policy in order to revive Reagan’s, once again showering an embarrassment of riches on the already most embarrassingly rich, his “base” as he calls them. He ladled out some $630 billion in tax cuts to the top 1% of income earners. In true Republican fashion, they returned the favor by investing over $200 million to ensure Bush’s re-election. Do the math. A $630 billion return on a $200 million investment: $3,160 for $1. I’ll give you $3,160. All I ask is that you give me $1 back so I can keep the goodness flowing. Do we have a deal? Republicans know return on investment.

But the cost to the public has been a return to the exploding deficits of the Reagan years. Bush blew through Clinton’s surplus in his first year. The 2004 deficit reached $415 billion, a record. Still, its real size is masked by the fact that Bush has shifted $150 billion from the Social Security trust fund in order to make the shortfall look smaller. It’s like pretending you’re richer when you move money from one pocket to another. Both sums have to be repaid, so the real amount borrowed is the $415 billion “nominal” deficit plus the $150 billion from Social Security or $565 billion http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1022-26.htm

Who is ruining what?

Under Bill Clinton, the nation had the lowest crime rate in decades http://clinton5.nara.gov/WH/Accomplishments/eightyears-06.html

Under George W Bush the crime rate in America has sky-rocketed
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/137/urbanneglect.html

Who is ruining what?

The trade deficit under Bill Clinton was under control. Under George Bush its out of control

http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=107&subsecID=295&contentID=252964

Do any of you loyal Bushies like the fact that 30 percent of all the debt that Bush has run up is owned by China? Where is the money going to come from when Bush pisses off China and they demand payment on the spot?

Who is ruining what?

What political party was in office on August 6, 2001, when a Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States" was handed to George Bush? After the briefing Bush told his briefer "there, now you've covered your ass" and he promptly went fishing.

Just over 30 days after that briefing, 3 jets slammed into three buildings killing nearly 3,000 people. What did George Bush do? He sat in a Florida class room reading a book about a goat while the towers fell.

Who is ruining what?

What political party lied to the American public about the threats to America posed by Saddam Hussein and then invaded a sovereign nation who had nothing to do with 9/11?

what political party made these statements

“Major combat operations are over.” (George Bush, USS Abraham Lincoln, May 1, 2003)

“There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”
(Dick Cheney, August 26, 2002).

There is a “sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network.”
(Colin Powell, UN Security Council, February 5, 2003)

“We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.” (Dick Cheney, March 16, 2003).

“We know where [the WMDs] are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.”
(Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003)

“I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.”
(Dick Cheney, June 20, 2005)

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me... you can’t get fooled again.” (George W. Bush).

Iraq has 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 1,000,000 pounds of sarin, mustard and VX gas, 30,000 munitions to deliver these agents. (“Disarm Saddam Hussein,” whitehouse.gov)

What political party has pissed away more than $400 BILLION dollars (thats more than 2 billion a week) fighting in an intractable war in Iraq that the United States had no business gettingi into? http://costofwar.com/index-public-education.html

What political party and its mouthpieces at Faux Noise Network and Rush LImbaugh demonize any and all who question the intelligence of the moves to begin the war in Iraq?

Who is ruining what?

What political party is responsible for 3,455 confirmed American deaths in Iraq?
http://icasualties.org/oif/

Who is ruining what?

What political party said they were going to "smoke out and git" Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks?? And then what political party made these statements about OBL?

The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."
- G.W. Bush, 9/13/01

"I want justice...There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive,'"
- G.W. Bush, 9/17/01, UPI

"...Secondly, he is not escaping us. This is a guy, who, three months ago, was in control of a county [sic]. Now he's maybe in control of a cave. He's on the run. Listen, a while ago I said to the American people, our objective is more than bin Laden. But one of the things for certain is we're going to get him running and keep him running, and bring him to justice. And that's what's happening. He's on the run, if he's running at all. So we don't know whether he's in cave with the door shut, or a cave with the door open -- we just don't know...."
- Bush, in remarks in a Press Availablity with the Press Travel Pool,
The Prairie Chapel Ranch, Crawford TX, 12/28/01, as reported on
official White House site

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

"I am truly not that concerned about him."
- G.W. Bush, repsonding to a question about bin Laden's whereabouts,
3/13/02 (The New American, 4/8/02)

Who is ruining what?

What was the nationality of 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11?? Saudi Arabian ...and what political party and political family has been in bed financially with the Saudis and the bin Laden family? Salem bin Laden, Osama’s brother, has conducted all his American affairs through James Bath, a Houston crony of the Bush family. Bath’s former business partner Bill White testified in court that Bath had been a liaison for the C.I.A. In 1979 Bath invested $50,000 in Arbusto, George W. Bush’s first business venture. Rumor had it that Bath was acting as Salem bin Laden’s representative. "In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests."http://www.hermes-press.com/BushSaud.htm

Who is ruining what?

What political party sat on its thumbs as one large American city drowned in the aftermath of a hurricane ?? http://thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline And what political party was responsible for cutting the funds needed to reinforce the levees around New Orleans in the years before Katrina struck?

Blumenthal's much-quoted article in salon.com carried the headline: "No one can say they didn't see it coming." And it said the Bush administration cut flood-control funding "to pay for the Iraq war."

He continues:

Blumenthal: With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico . But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature.

…By 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year…forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze.

We can confirm that funding was cut. The project most closely associated with preventing flooding in New Orleans was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Hurricane Protection Project, which was “designed to protect residents between Lake Pontchartrain and the Missisippi River levee from surges in Lake Pontchartrain,” according to a fact sheet from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (The fact sheet is dated May 23, long before Katrina). The multi-decade project involved building new levees, enlarging existing levees, and updating other protections like floodwalls. It was scheduled to be completed in 2015.

Over at least the past several budget cycles, the Corps has received substantially less money than it requested for the Lake Pontchartrain project, even though Congress restored much of the money the President cut from the amount the Corps requested.

In fiscal year 2004, the Corps requested $11 million for the project. The President’s budget allocated $3 million, and Congress furnished $5.5 million. Similarly, in fiscal 2005 the Corps requested $22.5 million, which the President cut to $3.9 million in his budget. Congress increased that to $5.5 million. “This was insufficient to fund new construction contracts,” according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ project fact sheet. The Corps reported that “seven new contracts are being delayed due to lack funds” [sic].

Who is ruining what?

I could go on and on with other examples of how the Repugnican Party has been negligent in its repsonbilities to the American public ever since it first took over the reins of the Congress in 1995, but to do so would be counter productive. Each of you who believes the tripe in the diatribe below has to find that out on your own.

To that end I suggest that you 1) stop listening to Faux News as your source of "news". 2) stop listening to Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh who, by their own admissions, are entertainment not news.

I would also suggest that you start frequenting news sources like the New York Times, and news blogs such as http://thinkprogress.org, http://www.huffingtonpost.com, www.dailykos.com, www.michaelmoore.com, www.salon.com http://mediamatters.org
Get your facts and get them verified and like Martin Luther King once said "the truth shall set you free."

And unlike the diatribe writer below i will not end this with "God Bless America." I prefer that God bless everyone, no exceptions.