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You might be a liberal if...View Messages“You might be a liberal if you believe that profit should take a back seat to anything. You might be a liberal if you are not christian. You might be a liberal if you believe a woman should be paid the same wage as a man for doing the same job. You might be a liberal if you believe the government exists for a purpose other than aggregating power in the hands of white men. You might be a liberal if you have studied history. You might be a liberal if you have sutdied. You might be a liberal if you believe that Rush Limbaugh is not God. You might be a liberal if you care to look past your own life and care about anyone else's.” 9:52:36 AM 8/31/02 “Bush Presidency is Advancing the Progressive Agenda By John Bender http://www.sierratimes.com/03/06/17/guestoped_jb.htm">www.sierratimes.com Democrats may be worried that George Bush is unbeatable in 2004, but President Bush’s strength is good news for progressives. No president since LBJ has been as successful in expanding government and increasing the size and scope of social programs as this president. Presidents Carter and Clinton didn’t even come close to matching President Bush’s accomplishments in expanding government social programs. George Bush increased government size and spending more in his first two years than Bill Clinton did in his first six years. By the end of this year, he will have expanded government more than Bill Clinton did in his entire eight-year administration. To be fair, Bill Clinton had to fight the conservatives in Congress who threw up every roadblock they could muster to thwart his progressive agenda. George Bush has not only silenced the conservative wing of the Republican Party, he has ground them into pulp and made them toothless tigers. There is no longer any serious talk about making government smaller or eliminating government departments or programs. Smaller government used to be the bedrock principal of the Republican Party. President Bush changed that and is pushing Republicans in Congress not just to accept bigger government, but to embrace it. Instead of eliminating the Education Department, George Bush almost doubled its size and pushed through the largest increase in funding the department ever enjoyed. He and Ted Kennedy worked closely together to make sure that the federal government also has more power over local schools than ever before. The testing mandated by the education bill, and the mandate that schools meet minimum standards is a brilliant maneuver that will demand the standards and the tests be controlled centrally from Washington. No one will be able to oppose national standards and a national testing system. Without national standards, testing is subjective and worthless. National standards and a standardized national test will require local schools teach to the test. That means Washington will be dictating the curriculum in every school in America. Bill Clinton and Al Gore couldn’t even dream of accomplishing this much progress. In other areas President Bush also out performed President Clinton. He expanded other programs the Contract With America targeted for elimination. He expanded Americorps, the Peace Corps, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Head Start. Working closely with progressive Republicans and Democrats, George Bush passed the farm bill that dismantled the Freedom to Farm Act that conservative Republicans pushed through Congress, and President Clinton signed, in 1996. This new legislation boosts farm spending to record levels. President Bush’s farm bill not only increased old subsidies, it created new subsidies our farmers never had before. No Democrat president could have pushed this legislation through a Republican controlled Congress. The conservative wing of the party still holds some powerful positions in Congress, especially in the House. They were proud of the Freedom to Farm Act and would have fought tooth and nail with a Democrat president to keep it in place. They caved in to President Bush without even a hint of a fight. President Bush effectively cut the conservatives in Congress off at the knees on this legislation and on most of their domestic agenda. He rules the Republican Party with an iron fist and conservatives are unable to out maneuver him. President Bush signed the Campaign Finance Reform bill into law. Conservative Republicans in Congress are still quietly seething about how he steamrollered them on this. President Bush is also leading the fight to expand Medicare, add prescription drug coverage and mandate mental health coverage. Conservatives kept Presidents Carter and Clinton from adding these entitlements to Medicare. With President Bush pushing the agenda, they aren’t even pretending to oppose these additions. The president is also leading the fight to extend the child tax credit to low income families excluded from the latest tax cut. He figuratively #&%!$-slapped Tom Delay and his conservative cohorts who threatened to derail the expanded credit, urging the Republicans to pass the bill quickly and send it to him for his signature. While progressive Republicans like to claim President Bush is following President Reagan’s vision for America, he is actually following President Nixon’s agenda to the letter. President Nixon never tried to eliminate any government program or agency. He expanded government as much as he could. Few people remember that it was President Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Endowment for the Arts. Fewer still remember that it was President Nixon who tied Social Security benefits to the cost of living. President Bush is surpassing President Nixon in advancing progressive social policy. President Bush is also making talk radio safe for progressives. Hosts who would have railed against President Clinton, or any Democrat, for pushing the progressive agenda President Bush is implementing, excuse this president for it. Many of them attack any conservative who calls to point out that President Bush is a progressive. Even Rush Limbaugh is leery of taking on this president. While he occasionally offers some mild criticism of the president, he always follows that criticism by offering excuses for the president’s actions and progressive domestic agenda. This is partially due to the attacks that come from the Bush cultists any time anyone is anything but worshipful of their guy. Like Democrats who refused to believe that President Clinton was capable of doing any wrong, there is a group of Republicans who would support President Bush no matter how far left he governs. They attack anyone and any group who points out that President Bush is not conservative. Many of these people are domestic progressives who like big government and benefit from government programs. They call themselves conservatives; many of them really think they are conservatives. In fact, they support progressive social programs and most benefit from them. They are critical of the poor who receive government help, but enjoy generous government subsidies of their own lifestyles. Many talk show hosts fall into this category themselves. The other reason even real conservatives are leery of voicing anything except the mildest criticism of President Bush is they fear retaliation from the administration. They fear being cut off from the information loop. They fear being dropped from the administration’s fax and E-mail grapevine. Their professional status is greatly enhanced by access to administration sources and President Bush is not shy about diminishing or eliminating that access for anyone who puts their principals ahead of support for his agenda. All things considered, progressives are much better off with President Bush in office than they would be with any of his Democrat challengers. No Democrat on the scene today can come close to matching President Bush’s ability to advance the progressive agenda and marginalize the conservatives in the Republican Party. Four more years of a Bush administration will produce progressive gains that are only matched by FDR’s accomplishments. Rather than being disappointed that they don’t have a Democrat in the presidency, progressives should be thankful they have an ideological soul mate in office. For progressives the cry should be “FOUR MORE YEARS!”” 3:42:14 PM 6/27/03 “it's a valid point. the republicans are moving in the same direction as the democrats, only at a slightly slower pace. i'm prolly gonna vote libertarian this time” 7:35:10 PM 6/28/03 “Waste away...” 1:57:03 PM 7/01/03 “Government resources help promote Bush re-election campaign By Nancy Benac The Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department analyzes Sen. John Kerry's tax proposals and the numbers quickly find their way to the Republican National Committee. The Health and Human Services Department spends millions on ads promoting President Bush's prescription-drug plan. The House Resources Committee posts a diatribe against Kerry's "absurd" energy ideas on its Web site. As past presidents have done, Bush is skillfully using the resources of the federal government to promote his re-election — at taxpayer expense. But some critics say the president is going far beyond his predecessors in using government means to accomplish political ends. "What this administration has done is taken trends from the past and then projected them into the stratosphere," said Allan Lichtman, a presidential scholar at American University. "We've never seen a political operation like this White House does, and that includes the maximum use of government resources." Bush is flying Air Force One to battleground states at a pace that eclipses even that of President Clinton, known as a particularly political president. Cabinet secretaries are covering additional ground to spread good news about the Bush administration. Even Secretary of State Colin Powell, who insists "I don't do politics," has chimed in. "This is the most say-anything, do-anything-to-get-re-elected administration in history," said Kerry campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. Rep. Robert Matsui of California, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has complained that House Republicans abused taxpayer resources to attack Kerry on an official congressional Web site. Other Democrats tried to get the Medicare prescription-drug ads yanked from TV, and asked the General Accounting Office to examine whether that was proper use of taxpayer dollars. Doug Sosnik, who was White House political director during Clinton's re-election campaign, says any incumbent president "would be crazy not to take advantage of all opportunities of incumbency to get re-elected, but these guys have gone off in areas that are way over the line. ... " You might be a liberal if you believe in USING government. George W. Bush, liberal. and hypocrite” 10:09:47 PM 4/06/04 “You are a real liberal when you private contract US military business with Tax money.” 1:47:06 PM 4/07/04 “I'm a liberal who likes the band ABBA Anyone But Bush Again” 2:07:14 PM 4/07/04 “You might be a liberal if: you are open-minded, believe in the free market, and the essential goodness of the human race. BWWWWWAAAAAAAP! That disqualifies most "liberals."” 3:32:50 PM 4/07/04 “You might be a liberal if you have become so desperate that you are willing to have someone killed. Nothing I like more than a nice, compassionate liberal… 'Kill Rumsfeld' ad withdrawn By Charles Hurt THE WASHINGTON TIMES A Florida Democratic club has taken out a newspaper advertisement urging the assassination of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and another partisan group is running a national television commercial with an actor impersonating President Bush's voice saying, "I used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq." The ad — a fund-raising appeal for Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign — was paid for by the St. Petersburg Democratic Club and appeared in a Gulfport, Fla., weekly. It criticizes the "Bush Bunch" and compared the Iraqi insurgents to American patriots during the Revolutionary War. The advertisement includes this passage: "They're Iraqi patriots who want us the hell out of their country, and we should get the hell out of their country now!" "And then there's Rumsfeld who said of Iraq, 'We have our good days and our bad days,' " the ad continues. "We should put this S.O.B. up against the wall and say 'This is one of our bad days,' and pull the trigger." Scott Maddox, the chairman of the Florida Democratic Party, described the newspaper advertisement as "reprehensible and in poor taste" and called for its immediate removal and a formal apology. Florida Republican Party spokesman Joseph Agostini called the ad "deplorable and shocking," and said "it cheapens the political dialogue America stands for." Florida Democratic officials said the ad was placed without their knowledge. "It is obvious that this is the work of a misguided individual in a small social club," a spokesman said. "It does not in any way convey the opinion or position of mainstream Democrats in the state of Florida." Numerous calls to phone numbers listed on the St. Petersburg Democratic Club Web site went unanswered. But club Vice President Edna McCall told the Drudge Report that the ad was not meant as a call for actual injury to Mr. Rumsfeld. " 'Pull the trigger' means let Rumsfeld know where we stand, not shoot him," she said. "We are getting raped, and they are planning to steal the election again." MoveOn.Org, a liberal advocacy group, is running the television ad featuring an actor purporting to be Mr. Bush testifying before the September 11 commission. "Before 9/11, I was obsessed with Iraq," says the actor in a voiceover as the screen displays a picture of Mr. Bush at a microphone. A disclaimer at the bottom of the screen says, "President Bush's voice is being imitated." "Then I used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq," says the actor in a compelling impersonation of the president's accent and voice inflections. "So now we're less safe than we were before." Republican spokeswoman Christine Iverson called it "highly misleading." MoveOn did not return a phone call and several e-mails seeking comment, although one person associated with the group said the ad is not misleading because it includes an on-screen disclaimer that the president's voice is merely an imitation. But Republicans said the disclaimer is slyly camouflaged as white lettering at the bottom of an overly bright screen and blends into the background. All the other lettering in the advertisement is black or colored. The ad airs even as the Federal Election Commission (FEC) meets today and tomorrow to clarify laws dealing with how directly political groups such as MoveOn can be involved in national campaigns. The Republican National Committee has filed formal complaints with the FEC against MoveOn, accusing it of paying for several blatantly anti-Bush ads out of its accounts of large, unregulated contributions. The current ad is not among those that were questionably funded. Republicans also accuse the group of working in concert with the campaign of Mr. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate. "They hurt themselves by running ads attacking the president on an issue that no American wants to see politicized," Ms. Iverson said. "They do more harm than good by running these ads. It's an attack ad, and people will see it for what it is."” 6:23:25 PM 4/16/04 LOL “Classic TT, well worth rereading. Especially considering the bird2tiny troll stiring the pot is one of violin's. Quite a few here are really confused as to their 'liberal' status or not. Very few will admit to being 'liberals'. Read and learn. LOL” 7:02:09 PM 3/14/05 “That is classic:-) Who said history does not repeat itself?” 8:40:52 PM 3/14/05 “No comments? I guess the bird2tiny troll as the author keeps people away. Pretty damn funny thread, and a masterfull job of trolling from violin. Have to give him credit on this one.” 9:05:19 AM 3/15/05 “Eat me Stovie.” 9:18:39 AM 3/15/05 “LOL Dude can't take a complement.” 9:43:37 AM 3/15/05 “i wouldnt take a left handed compliment from a right winging mississippian and im a libertarian, not a liberal” 4:47:34 PM 3/15/05 “What does being in Mississippi have to do with it?” 5:15:59 PM 3/15/05 “Anti-Mississippi-ite!” 7:34:03 AM 3/16/05 “Crash Bang responds to remarks directed at Violin! interesting. Is Crash bang another of Violins troll persona's ? or just a Butthead to Violin's Bevis "Yeh, yeh, yeh"” 8:30:03 AM 3/16/05 “Naw he's not Violin. He is funny because he says he's not a liberal but takes exception every single time anyone says something bad about liberals. LOL! Just pokin' at ya Crash!” 8:33:59 AM 3/16/05
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