[Mulderator]

Man, this is fantastic. Larry Elder (a black man) really nails it--make the liberals look about as stupid as you can get--not hard mind you, but he does it with such flair!

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/colu...02/184893.html

The (blue) State of the Union address
Feb 2, 2006
by Larry Elder

My fellow Americans, I am evil.

I only care about rich people, and rich people only care about other rich people -- unless, of course, your name is Kennedy. In fact, it is misleading to say that I only care about the rich. I truly only care about Republican, white, Christian males who are rich.

I would say that I am truly the president of Halliburton, except I'm having the darndest time spelling the word "Halliburton." I'm corrupt, incompetent and racist. Oh, sure, in order to help deal with the problem of illegal aliens, I have offered a guest worker program, but "guest worker program" spelled backwards means "shoot to kill." Or at least I think it does.

The black Democratic congressman from New York, Charlie Rangel, nailed it when he called me "our Bull Connor." Donna Brazile, the black lady who ran the presidential campaign for Al Gore, also got it right. I am the titular head of the Republican Party, the party of the "white boys."

I stole the election in 2000. I conspired with the governor of Florida to steal votes. The governor of Florida just happens to be my brother. I stole the election in Ohio in 2004 by conspiring with my buddies at Diebold, who make the voting machines, which they rigged in my favor. When you think about it, those white boys at Diebold, well, they're my brothers, too.

Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation is Islam is right. I ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to blow up the levee in New Orleans in order to flood and kill black people. Oh, sure, we snagged a lot of whites -- that's why they came up with the term "collateral damage."

I'm pretty stupid. Martin Sheen, the man who played a real president on "West Wing," got it right -- I am a "moron." Aaron McGruder, who illustrates the comic strip "The Boondocks," also got it right when he called me "functionally illiterate." Maybe someday I'll wake up from this dream in which I make an SAT verbal score higher than Rhodes Scholar Bill Bradley, get better college grades than Al Gore, graduate from Yale, and get an MBA from Harvard.

I've been a lousy economic steward. I came into office with an economy headed towards recession, and shortly thereafter we endured the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We then invaded two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan. And, most recently, our economy endured hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Since I've been in office, our productivity growth has averaged over 3.5 percent per year, with inflation remaining low. Unemployment stands at 4.9 percent, 400,000 new jobs were created in the last two months, and homeownership is at an all-time high. But, I agree with nearly half of Americans who believe we are already in a recession. And I expect to go down in history -- as I should -- as presiding over the worst economy since Herbert Hoover.

I agree with Harry Belafonte and Cindy Sheehan that I am the world's greatest terrorist. I'd have to go some to emulate my idols -- Joe, Mao and Adolf -- but a fella's gotta start somewhere.

Sen. Ted Kennedy is right. I lied us into the war. Repeatedly. I intentionally sent men and women in harm's way, so that I could be a wartime president, because -- unlike Michael Dukakis -- I sure look spiffy in a flight suit. As Sen. John Kerry puts it, our military terrorizes Iraqi civilians. Meanwhile, I should tell you the real reasons for going into the war: to steer defense contracts to my buddies; to get the SOBs who tried to kill my daddy; to engage in torture; to find a justification to spy on American citizens who have no connection to terrorism whatsoever; and to send soldiers into the field with no body armor and no exit strategy.

How our military managed to topple two governments and free 55 million people just beats the dickens out of me. How Iraq and Afghanistan managed to hold free elections -- well, that's a head-scratcher. And how about that Oxford Research International poll showing almost 71 percent of Iraqis say their own life is "good"? Boy, I could use numbers like that. And even though I'm a warmonger, polls show support for terrorism is falling in the Arab world.

Yep, I not only lied, I got the British to lie. I also got the worldwide intelligence community -- the United Nations, the French, the Germans, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, and the Russians -- all to deceive the world by agreeing that Saddam possessed WMD. And who says I can't bring the world together?

I would recommend impeachment, but then you'd just get Cheney. I would go to my White House bedroom and kill myself, but then you'd just get Cheney. Oh, if only I hadn't been born. But then, as my daddy used to say, if a dog's butt were square, he'd poop bricks.

Thank you, and God bless.

[LANMaster]

Elder Rocks!

[Fidelista]

I am willing to give a Cheney a try under these circumstances! --its a deal! >f

[poochee]

The State of the Union today is....

[Mulderator]

Originally Posted by poochee

The State of the Union today is....

Depends--if you're a liberal its lousy--for everyone else its great. Are you one of the Moore-Ons who thinks we are in a recession?

[Ciberblade]

Originally Posted by poochee

The State of the Union today is....

It's funny -- people are asked how things are going and they say that personally they are doing well. But they think others are not. Where are these others? Have you checked the economic growth lately?

[Wino]

Reads like a SOU that Bush, if he had any morals, conscience or ethics at all, would make...........finally come clean...............confession is good for the soul............if only he had one.

[cristobal03]

It'd be interesting to know your income brackets. I won't ask, of course, but it'd be interesting. The economy looks awfully poor at the bottom, when a full-time job doesn't cover the cost of purchasing petroleum, groceries, and heat for a one-bedroom apartment. A full-time white collar job, mind.

It's a good thing there has been job growth, though; it'll help when I get my second one so I can scrape by.

chris.

[Mulderator]

Originally Posted by cristobal03

It'd be interesting to know your income brackets. I won't ask, of course, but it'd be interesting. The economy looks awfully poor at the bottom, when a full-time job doesn't cover the cost of purchasing petroleum, groceries, and heat for a one-bedroom apartment. A full-time white collar job, mind.

It's a good thing there has been job growth, though; it'll help when I get my second one so I can scrape by.

chris.

And when was the last time a "job at the bottom" allowed anyone to live comfortably? It has nothing to do with Bush. Get your arse out and get some job skills so you can make more money. Or do you expect the government to hand you a $50,000 a year job just for being born!

[cristobal03]

Save your condescention for someone else please. I didn't say my job was at the bottom, I said my pay rate was at the bottom. If you would like to know I have two degrees and a very diverse spread of job skills. I work in a position that normally averages about $25 an hour, but the manufacturing industry can't afford such high rates anymore. I used to make triple that when I was doing technical writing and enterprise systems development.

It really is a shame that you're so dismissive, Mulder. You have the potential to be really intelligent and thoughtful.

chris.

[Mulderator]

Originally Posted by cristobal03

Save your condescention for someone else please. I didn't say my job was at the bottom, I said my pay rate was at the bottom. If you would like to know I have two degrees and a very diverse spread of job skills. I work in a position that normally averages about $25 an hour, but the manufacturing industry can't afford such high rates anymore. I used to make triple that when I was doing technical writing and enterprise systems development.

And why do you think the manufactruing industry can't afford higher rates? Do you think its because of Bush and the Republicans or Democrats and the unions? We've lost tons of manufacturing jobs in California because of stupid liberal policies that allow unions to gouge and extort these companies to the point where they up and leave (that's on top of the high taxes and absurd worker's comp laws). Many have simply up and left the country.

Point is the economy is booming, yet the press and the liberals distort it--they point to a problem that has always existed--long before Bush--and that is that jobs at the lower end of the pay scale don't pay enough. Bush has done nothing to cause that nor can he do anything to correct it. When Clinton had the booming economy (which he did nothing to cause), you never heard about all the low paying jobs--Walmart existed then--becaue the press is slanted and biased and you're not hearing the true state of the country, you are hearing liberal spin.

[Mulderator]

Originally Posted by cristobal03

I used to make triple that when I was doing technical writing and enterprise systems development.

You sound smart--go get some other job skills or another job if you're not happy with your pay.

[cristobal03]

Did I blame Bush? Point it out if I did.

I said it would be interesting to know the pay brackets of those who think the economy is doing well. Manufacturing isn't the only industry suffering from outsourcing. America is losing virtually all its industrial commodity--save agriculture and entertainment--and when the upswing cycles down it's going to be simply devastating.

That's what I mean about being dismissive. All you see is blue, man. I didn't make any partisan comment whatsoever. I'm talking about socio-economic status. I'm not naive enough to think that everybody should get a chicken in his pot and a lollipop to boot. But the current situation is much more fragile than you allow, in my opinion.

I do not believe unionization and liberal policy are the chief impetus for outsourcing, by the way. Global economic factors are much more pertinent. After all, if the cost of labor in America was a dollar a day per worker, we'd have all the jobs in the world. It could be that way if we could just get around those nagging liberal policies you so eviscerate, like safety standards, minimum wage, and health care. There are some social endeavors worth maintaining; can't you allow that?

chris.

[Mulderator]

Originally Posted by cristobal03

There are some social endeavors worth maintaining; can't you allow that?

chris.

Yes, but they have to be based on the free enterprise system and equal bargaining. As an example, unions employees in most cases get full healthcare benefits while most everyone else pays a portion of it. This may seem fair to the socialist liberal, but in reality it doesn't do anyone any good except for the very small minority of union employees. When healthcare is completely free, people abuse it (go see Canada).

The point is they want an arm and a leg--they don't want fairness. They want absurdly high wages with a full line of benefits when most white collar professionals aren't doing that well. In short, they've been pigs when if they had been more reasonable, we could have kept a lot more jobs.

Folllow the money trail. 9 of the top 10 organizations donating political parties are unions and they give it virtually all to Democrats. Democrats claim they support the little guy--what a crock--the only "little guy" the support is the little union guy--the vast majority of workers are getting screwed because it it!

[cristobal03]

Originally posted by Mulder:

You sound smart--go get some other job skills or another job if you're not happy with your pay.

It's not that simple. My pay (with benefits) is considered fair wages where I live, which is one of the fastest-growing areas in the country. There are more jobs here, but the per capita income hasn't moved positively against inflated cost of living. Which means jobs are paying less, and people are working more than one job.

The alternative? Take out loans against more votech training/secondary education, and incur more debt. Risk relocation. Liquify long-standing assets to diversify my prospects. All that is high-risk, and one of the chief indicators of a strong economy is low risk. Where's consumer confidence? Creeping back up from a long-time low, last I heard. Spending's up, but so is cost of living. There's much more to economies than these snapshots. And I agree that we compare favorably to some other economies. But this is by no means strong for America. It's simply impossible to have a strong economy in a culture of fear.

chris.

[edit]
I do believe we're recovering, but I'm not going to attribute that to any policy-maker. I think Americans on their own are beginning to overcome the enfeebling effects of 9/11 and the uncertainty that Iraq has caused. But I think the situation could turn at any moment; it's too bad Greenspan's such an old guy. Oh well.
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