To Bush, his speeches and policies are just words on paper. Just something prepared for him that he stumbles through. How could a C student who had rarely travelled be expected to run the United States? It was just another empty speech. I'm Canadian, but I still look forward to better days ahead for our great neighbour with new leadership. Who it will be, and how they will perform will be a whole other debate. They will certainly be left with some serious issues to address.
Yes but the Fed has no economic downside in this. They mandated that the states have to provide all these services and they never supply any money. California has lost 80 + hospitals because they closed due to being overrun by illegals with no money and the Fed "fiddled while California was burning". The states are going to have to just rebel entirely and cut off all the services, close the offices for the services, whatever it takes, demand citizenship for entry into the public schools, etc. Not likely that is going to happen in california, they debated the drivers license for illegals question in spanish in the california legislature!! The culture war is over in california basically, it's over and done with. There are a few states that are illegal-hostile, I am going to consider those if I relocate. My next door neighbors on both sides play their mexican music real loud all the time. One of them has a yard full of old cars and a trailer he is refurbishing. He had a relative stay there to work on the trailer and this moron played loud music all night for a few nights in a row. It did not bother me much, I am on pretty good terms with everybody, but my wife was suffering. The guy was stroking around in the front of the house like the rooster in charge of the hood in the mornings staring me down when I went to work. Crock of shit as far as I am concerned. The owner finally relocated the kook somewhere else because people complained. The whole experience with these illegals is a little negative in my mind. I got tired of the dirty looks I was getting everywhere so after awhile I would walk up to them and say real loud "quit giving me that dirty look". I did that everywhere, other Mexicans were embarrassed but what can I do, these people are here illegally, can't speak the language and they give me dirty looks all the time. If their kid would be messing with me nobody would own up as parents and if I got ahold of the kid and started to give him a lesson they would all want to beat on me. Their culture seems to be one big ongoing marxist style demonstration, if there are two families of them on your block they play their music so much and so loud that you think you are the only non-mexican in town. I do speak the language and I actually do like most mexicans, I work with a zillion of them, we get along fine but these illegals are just a tad too third worldish for me. I have pals that used to deal drugs for La Familia and like that but they are Christians now, not bad folks at all, not as tame as most people but not bad at all. We can all get together in my yard if I want to scare the neighbors, it's those tattoos Hee..hee. I do recall one little incident I saw with a Mexican road rage guy. Light is turned yellow, white woman wants to make her left turn and get out of the way, mexican rage guy is coming the opposite way in a pickup truck going about 20 over the speed limit, blowing his horn, waving the fist, yelling at her, and he's right through the light on the red.... and he does not notice a big van that turned into his path just past the light, smashes right into it, no seatbelts. bye bye sucka. Sort of makes up for the rest of it...
A democracy fails when the majority is ignored. The Executive and Judicial branches can do things in spite of us all, but the Legislative Branch is supposed to always represent the People.
Yes, I hear a lot of talk on the AM radio about getting people out of office if you don't like what they do but basically, the next crop will have seen what they can get away with and they will owe the same favors to the same donors. I like what this guy is doing, it would be a refreshing departure from the "usual business as usual". I heard him on the George Noory show last night, the guy has had an interesting life so far and he just might be the person to pull something big off, he is a real promoter. http://www.freedomtofascism.com/index.html
There has been talk, from both the left and the right, for a need to have the power of recall elections for all elected officials. I doubt that right now, it would be difficult to get the necessary signatures on a petition to have a recall election of Bush. I have mixed feelings on this, it would be a decent debate in my opinion. As one who never supported Bush, I am not at all surprised that he has torn our country apart. From the very beginning, Bush has said that he is a leader and that he has a vision. He has never spoken much about serving the will of the people, he has from the beginning spoken of leading America to his vision of America. It now seems that his vision of America is no longer resonating very well....
I think there is some truth to this. Bush certainly appears to follow his own mind and not get distracted too much by criticism. I suppose if you've had all the crap thrown at you that he has, you tend not to paymuch attention. However, there is leadership and there is leadership. Bush's brand of leadership has a large measure of arrogance and stubborness. True leadership requires the leader to energize his followers to support him. The Republican base never had much confidence in Bush and now they have totally lost patience with him. A lot of so-called paleo-conservatives, eg Patrick Buchanan, were very dubious of the Iraq adventure. National security conservatives were dismayed by the dubai ports deal and the immigration fiasco. Social conservatives don't understand why there isn't a full court press to confirm judges before the elections which could put Republicans in the minority and blow any chance of getting more conservatives on the bench. This immigration speech struck a very discordant note to most conservatives. It is amnesty, pure and simple. Bush did little to dress it up, just said its my way or the highway. It will be interesting to see if the House of Representatives will accept this or if they will hold firm.
Bush leads through isolationism, a real bunker mentality. Good leadership, is inclusive of others who have power. Reagan and Clinton did a masterful job of making the others in power feel included... Bush acts as if he is afraid of them. I think he has some Napoleonic complex issues, you know, small man stuff. On the immigration issue, I have yet to see any major politician willing to risk their political career to take a real stand. Most of them are trying to act out of fear of offending the Hispanic voters....
This one rule would have prevented all of this mess if it had been in effect a long time ago. The reason the politicians are even waffling about this matter is that they're afraid of the growing Latino voting bloc, and the Latino vote wouldn't have grown so rapidly if not for two major reasons: 1) children born here are automatically citizens 2) the Mexicans' strong Catholic faith and agricultural background, coupled with our welfare laws, encourage having lots of kids I figure that within about fifty years, as the Latinos begin to control the State of California, you'll begin to see an exodus of the wealthy and of businesses from the state as social services and taxes climb and as public services like education, emergency response, and even garbage collection decline. In some ways, the exodus has already begun--many manufacturing businesses moved to Nevada because of the insane workers' comp system, and many of my friends have moved to Arizona, Nevada and Texas, where they enjoy a standard of living far higher than here. For instance, one friend sold his $470K house in Los Angeles and moved to Dallas, where he bought a HUGE house with a monster lawn for only $250K. He earns around $90K/year--the same as what he earned here, but without the 9% state income tax and all the other taxes, PLUS the lower cost of goods, he's living like a king. Though Texas has its own illegal immigration problem, they simply aren't burdened by billions of dollars of social service programs like California. I'm getting ready to move out too; it really depends on what happens up in Sacramento. VOTE AGAINST PHIL ANGELIDES--He's bought and paid for by the public service unions and plans on increasing taxes on the so-called "wealthy" and on the "greedy corporations." But the truly wealthy are masters at tax avoidance, and you can bet that as traders we'll be hit by his shotgun-blast "eat the rich" policies instead.
An excellent idea that we can take a step further: AUTOMATIC SUNSET PROVISIONS IN ALL SPENDING BILLS. In other words, every spending bill, when created, has a built-in deadline and clearly-stated, objective goals. When the deadline is reached, the bill (now law), will automatically be shut down. It can only be reinstituted if: A) it met or exceeded its stated goals, and B) there are enough votes to reinstate it. For example, say the President wants to spend $100 billion dollars on an four-year education initiative. The stated goal: improve 55% of all entering-high-school-student's math skills by at least one grade level within four years. (So, a kid entering high school would take five years worth of math in the space of four, while maintaining the same scores as he/she typically makes.) This could be statistically measured and tracked, and at the end of the four years, the program's results would be assessed. (There would of course be plenty of incentive for teachers, politicians, school districts and kids to cheat, so some statistical allowance would have to be made to discount the effect these cheaters have.) If the program didn't meet or exceed its stated goals, it is shut down for good, with no chance of reenactment. If it did meet its goals, then it could be voted upon to be reinstated. That way, we wouldn't be suffering now for well-intentioned but very harmful laws and programs set up decades ago. We'd be applying a requirement for real, objectively-measured RESULTS, just as a free market would. (BTW, the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and criminal law are not "spending bills," and so would not be sunset.)