I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view

Good post. I am looking into these issues on my blog.

I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view

Very interesting post. A little bit confusing, but still ok.

I found your site via Google while searching for %KEYWORD% and your post regarding %TITLE% looks very interesting to me.

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.

In a sense, everyone is. It is just a matter of where their individual doctrine comes from. Mine has been developed from The Sermon on the Mount, the Tao Te Ching and the 105 Universal Laws. If you read those, and read what it means to be a Shaman, you will understand better where I am coming from.

I agree…As is blind support of any ideology….As is reflexive opposition to any government.

Whereas I listed several areas of disagreement with the Bush administration, such as its runaway spending on social welfare programs, you wrote “I must admit I don’t think I can find anything Bush has done which I could support.”

Thus, I ask, which one of us is being doctrinaire in their thinking???

your reply echoes talking points I have heard, which does tend to show a great deal of where you are coming from.

Blind support of any government is foolish.

I don’t have the time for an in depth response, a few examples will have to suffice.

1) Convened in secret with energy company executives to develop the nation’s energy policies while excluding environmental groups?

1) I have no problem with the Vice President of the United States meeting with energy company officials to devise a national energy policy. As we know, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Cheney in June 2004 in the case of Cheney v. U.S. District Court

You addressed the executive privilege issue, but ignored the environmental issue. Profit at the expense of the environment is an unbalanced approach.

2) Allowed Enron to manipulate the energy market, sending one of the largest states in the union into chaos with rolling blackouts and brown outs, with no governmental oversight or investigation?

The administration did not “allow” Enron to do any such thing. As you know, it was this administration that investigated and ultimately obtained the conviction of Enron officials. Actually Enron became a powerhouse under the Clinton Admininstration.

Here’s one article that pulls together multiple sources.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/may2002/enro-m10.shtml

All the information is independently verifiable:

Enron defrauded California out of billions during energy crisis
By Jerry Isaacs
10 May 2002
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author

Documents released Monday by the Federal Energy Regulation Commission revealed Enron Corporation deliberately created real and imaginary shortages during the 2000-2001 California energy crisis, in order drive up prices and reap vast profits in the state’s newly deregulated energy market.

Internal memos from the now bankrupt company outline the various schemes Enron executives used to defraud officials running the state’s power grid, manipulate energy supplies and literally loot the state treasury of billions of dollars. Throughout this period Enron enjoyed the closest political ties with the Bush White House, which rejected appeals from California officials for federal intervention and the imposition of price caps.

***
[The author details how Enron manipulated the California energy market.]

Bush administration officials repeated Enron’s claims that California’s problems were caused by the state’s “flawed” deregulation plan—which was not “free market” enough—and strict environmental standards, which limited the construction of new power plants. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney publicly opposed price controls, insisting that any such moves would be a disincentive for power companies to operate in the state.

Several weeks after the memos were written outlining the company’s strategy to manipulate California’s market, Enron CEO Kenneth Lay—the largest single contributor to Bush’s political career—successfully prompted the Bush administration to appoint free-market advocate Pat Wood as the head of the Federal Energy Regulation Commission. Once in place, Wood resisted the implementation of price controls for months while the crisis spun out of control.

After FERC was finally pushed to restrict price hikes in late April 2001 Cheney denounced the move, telling the Los Angeles Times, “Price caps are not a help. They take us in exactly the wrong direction.” After reiterating that only free market policies could resolve California’s problems, Cheney added, “I’ve never seen price regulations that I’ve felt very good about. If I had been at FERC, I would never have voted for short-term price caps.”

At the time California’s Democratic governor and senators requested federal intervention to hold down the cost of electricity and charged that energy providers were manipulating the market to boost their profits. According to the New York Times, Senator Diane Feinstein said she tried “three or four times” to speak with Bush about the state’s crisis but the president refused to meet with her. Instead she held two brief meetings with Cheney as part of larger groups. “Their attitude was laissez-faire, let the market do what the market does, but it was a broken market,” she told the Times. At meetings with Cheney on March 27 and June 12, she said, the vice president spoke, “but did not listen much. When someone is looking at their watch, it gives you a pretty good idea they want to get out of the room,” Feinstein said.

Commenting on the fact that Enron’s chairman, Kenneth Lay, was given unrestricted access to the White House, Feinstein added, “Here is a company that was a ribald, as brash, as swashbuckling and as unethical as any company I can possibly conceive of. And they had major access to this administration. But the senior senator from California can’t get to see them.”

The Democratic senator has asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to “pursue a criminal investigation to determine whether in fact any federal fraud statutes or any other laws were violated.” But neither Feinstein nor any other Democrats have suggested that there should be a criminal investigation in the Bush administration’s efforts on behalf of the energy trader.

For its part, the US media, which spent the Clinton years giving credence to every right-wing campaign to destabilize the government—from Whitewater to the Monica Lewinsky affair—has also sought to downplay Bush’s ties to a company that wreaked havoc in California, defrauded its investors and threw thousands of workers out of work, while its executives made millions in compensation.

California officials are seeking to recover some of the $30 billion Governor Gray Davis says Enron “extorted from the state.” But that will be difficult because the company has filed for bankruptcy and sold off its energy-trading division. USB Warburg, the investment bank that bought the division in February, said it had no liability for any violations carried out by the former management. “We did not inherit the liabilities,” a spokesperson said.

Enron epitomizes the corruption that is so pervasive throughout corporate America and provides a glimpse of the anti-social methods used by the financial elite to accrue their vast personal fortunes during the stock market boom of the 1990s. It also shines further light on all the nostrums about deregulation and the “magic of the market.”

***

The lack of oversight and investigation I was refering to was during the time period of the energy crisis here in California, when something could have been done to save many small businesses who suffered as a result of the energy market manipulations.

and finally,

3) Allowed voting irregularities in national elections to go uninvestigated?

Do you have any evidence of this or is this just left-over bitterness from the fact that your side lost in 2000?

Here’s a rather comprehensive look at the evidence:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stole

I do take exception to the statement, “left-over bitterness from the fact that your side lost in 2000.” You are assuming I am bitter. I am not. I am concerned. You are also assuming I am on a ’side’ which ‘lost.’ I am not. I am a Shaman. I am not on a side, in the conventional sense.

Most of us view the world through only one lens. We only see what we want to see. Your response is indicative of your lens. I encourage you (and all who read this) to challenge your assumptions.

Remember, everyone believes his/her viewpoint is right. Since there are differing points of view, there are different ways of being right. If you cannot see where an opposing point of view may also be considered right, you cannot begin to resolve differences.

1) I have no problem with the Vice President of the United States meeting with energy company officials to devise a national energy policy. As we know, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Cheney in June 2004 in the case of Cheney v. U.S. District Court

2) The administration did not “allow” Enron to do any such thing. As you know, it was this administration that investigated and ultimately obtained the conviction of Enron officials. Actually Enron became a powerhouse under the Clinton Admininstration.

3) Do you have any evidence of this or is this just left-over bitterness from the fact that your side lost in 2000?

4) The 9/11 Commission did not find that the administration ignored evidence of an imminent attack. Indeed, if you read the report, you’ll see that the Bush Administration at the president’s behest began pre-9/11 formulating an anti-terrorism policy against Al Qaeda that was further stronger and pro-active than had been the Clinton adminisraion’s.

5) I too would have liked the Bin Ladens to have been held longer. BUT, do you know who it was who gave the “okay” to let them fly out of the country???? It was current-liberal hero Richard Clarke. He so testified before the 9/11 Commission hearing (Moreover, I am certain that if they had been held indefinitely as you seem to have wanted, you would then taken the opposite position and claim we were violating their civil and human rights). But regardless, you should take up this matter with Richard Clarke.

6) Do I support launching military action in response to a murderous atrocity that led to the deaths of 3,000 innocent Americans in an hour’s time? Yes, I do — 100%.

7) It is my understanding (in fact, it is indisputable) that military personnel who violate the law and mistreat prisoners are prosecuted and, if convicted, punished. So, your question is based on a faulty premise. The administration does not “allow” the torture of foreign nationals. It punishes such actions in accordance with the law.

8) I have no problem sending captured terrorists back to the nations from which they came. I find it very amusing that liberals decry detaining enemy combatants at the Guantanamo facility, but at the same time got apoplectic when we don’t send the terrorist to Guantanamo and instead send them back from where they came from…What would you suggest we do with our enemy cpatives?

9) Jose Padilla has his case reach all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the face of that fact, to claim that he has been derpived of due process in absurd.

10) As we have already discussed, the NSA anti-terrorism surveillance program is undoubtedly constitutional and legal. That matter has already been settled.

11) Actually, the Bush tax cuts have made the tax system far more fair, with the wealthiest paying a far larger share of the tax base than in the Clinton years. I favor greater and deeper tax cuts for all Americans.

12) Here we are in agreement…The Bush administration, by adopting liberal spending patterns and increase spending on wasteful social spending programs, has been a great disappointment to conservatives. I would dearly love to see the administration cut the budget drastically, reducing both the deficits and the size of the federal government. As I said, we are in agreemnt here — We both support drastic budget cuts.

13) I am not sure what “gender discrimination” you are talking about. If that is a euphemism for the constitutional amendment that would deprive unelected judges from unilaterally altering the definition of marriage as being anything other than a union between a man and a woman, I would say I support such an amendment, as do the vast majority of the American people. To oppose such an amendment shows a lack of faith and belief in democracy. Do you oppose democracy?

14) I tend to agree that the federal government’s role in education should be extremely limited. I have long favored eliminating the Depeartment of Education. I am glad to see you support this as well.

15) As we have learned since Hurricane Katrina, most of the horror stories that followed turned out to be false. Even the New Orleans Times-Picayune printed an article admitting that much of the coverage was exagerrated:
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_26.html#082732
Yes, there were missteps in the preparation for and aftermath of Katrina. But as we have subsequently learned those missteps were those of state and local officials.

16) You must have information the rest of us don’t have…As far as I know, the special prosecutor has not filed a single count against anyone for violating the IIPA. You liberals are going to have to get used to the fact that thus far the alleged “outing” of Valerie “Vanity Fair” Plame has turned out to be a big bust.

17) I believe you are referring to “intelligent design” and not “creationism.” And I have no problem with students being exposed to various theories from evolution to ID to creationism. I personally accept the theory of evolution. But I am puzzled why liberals are so frightened of a free and open debate on this topic.

18) Actually, it was the U.S. Senate in 1997 that UNANIMOUSLY rejected the Kyoto Accord. In 1997, the Senate voted 95-to-0 for the Byrd-Hagel Resolution which stated that “it is the sense of the Senate that … the United States should not be a signatory to [the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty].” Ninety-five Senators voted in favor of this resolution. Zero opposed it. means that every single Republican and Democrat who voted, voted for the resolution condemning the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty.

So, to blame the Bush administration, which did not take office until 2001, for the U.S. rejection of the Kyto Treaty is to ignore history.

This just in from Earth feed Think Progress. American senator Arlen Specter is a douche bag. I’m not sure these days why I bother to care anymore about Earth politics. Ever since I left Earth for my new home here…

The conservatives are circling the wagons prior to the mid-terms … end of discussion.

There is no concern about Constitutional issues .. only about protecting the King!

These people are fools, as in the long run, they lose right along with us. When the Constitution becomes “just a piece of paper” as our glorious leader stated … we are all in the same boat …. sinking!

Exley…No wonder he supports Bush. he likes the violence…

I am waiting to see his response to 252. That will give us a more complete picture of what it is Exley supports and where he is coming from.