And the surged worked. Ironic.grandjedi6 said:McCain bet his candidancy on the War over a year ago when he sponsored the surge
VictimOfGrief said:And the surged worked. Ironic.
John McCain is thumbing his nose at the public financing system -- ironically breaking the very law with his name on it (McCain/Feingold).
The DNC filed a complaint today with the FEC you can read here. But essentially, McCain signed a candidate agreement in August of 2007, seeking a certificate of eligibility for matching funds with the FEC. On December 20, the Commission announced it had certified McCain to receive federal matching funds. But checks for matching funds generally don't get written until February or March, and the cash strapped McCain campaign needed money before that.
So on January 31 2008, the McCain campaign disclosed that it had obtained a $4 million line of credit, and had already drawn $2,971,697 of that credit.
The laws covering public financing require that you can only spend $54 million during the primary, and McCain's reports say that as of January 31, 2008 he had spent $49,600,000 -- which means he's probably already over that limit. So to nobody's surprise, on February 6, he sent a letter to the Commission announcing that his campaign was withdrawing from participation in the federal primary election fund program.
Well that would all be fine and dandy except as McCain well knows, you can't just wave a magic wand and do that.
So the question is -- McCain, once the darling of the reform groups, is now openly gaming the system he helped to create. Fred Wertheimer and his friends at the Washington Post editorial board were all over Barack Obama for a perceived infraction that had absolutely no legal implications -- so why are they so silent about John McCain flipping them all the bird?
VictimOfGrief said:And the surged worked. Ironic.
ToxicAdam said:Maybe this will change in the coming months, but McCain can't just be the "stay the course" candidate for Iraq.
which, the one which posits that the entire region would eventually descend into a litany of tiny nation-states?siamesedreamer said:Scorcho, did you read the fracturing scenario in the Atlantic Monthly?
scorcho said:which, the one which posits that the entire region would eventually descend into a litany of tiny nation-states?
IIRC, it missed nearly every benchmark set for it.VictimOfGrief said:And the surged worked. Ironic.
GhaleonEB said:IIRC, it missed nearly every benchmark set for it.
Edit: 3 of 18 achieved after one year.
That's a low bar for success.
Oh. Well then.siamesedreamer said:I believe its actually 5/18 now.
Haunted One said:I swear, if you Americans vote another warmongering Republican into the White House after having suffered EIGHT FUCKING YEARS of George W. Bush.... *sigh*
Would be inconceivable.
Whoooa there Junior... ease up on the caffeine.Zedsdeadbaby said:Iraqi civilians still die by the hundreds, insurgents are still laying bombs, US soldiers are still dying, Iraq is still a war-torn country in deep turmoil. How exactly did it work? Lowering the violence? Just because we saw a reduction does not mean it has worked. The temporary cessation of violence by Moqtada Sadr was far more instrumental in the reduction of violence than the surge was. It's just been painted to look the other way around.
The US is in deep shit with Iraq, and it isn't going to go away anytime soon. No amount of troop surge will work, as the Iraqi people will just see it as a foreign invasion again. The US can't leave but it can't stay either. That's how much of a mess it's in.
there's a reason why we have a civilian leading the military - to marry military objectives to a stated political goal. how does staying there indefinitely help our grand strategy and further american interests? where is the movement on countless political objectives that the surge was supposed to provide the breathing room for? to what end are we there for?Here's who I trust. Our military commanders. May sound like a bush'ism on my part but I don't care about what a politician says or doesn't say about the troop levels as we need to make CERTAIN we do NOT loose any more troops from here on out. Are we going to? Yes sadly--- can we prevent hundreds or thousands from dying? You bet.
what does that mean? as a war vet he should understand the dangers in protracted, open-ended military campaigns untethered to a political grand strategy (see Vietnam). what strikes me more about his vaulted military experience is his continual insistence that 'we' must win just for the sake of winning.McCain has been a war vet. He knows what those men and women have faced.... are facing and will face for the next generations to come. I'd say ANY candidate not pinning their candidacy on the war is the candidate who will ultimately lose.
wrong. flat out wrong. the federal debt has very little to do with the economic issues we're seeing now.Our economy is tanking because the war is bankrupting our economy.
Desperado said:Why does Hillary get referred to as "Hillary Rodham Clinton" often, and not just "Hillary Clinton"?
scorcho said:wrong. flat out wrong. the federal debt has very little to do with the economic issues we're seeing now.
Never under-estimate the power of human stupidity.Haunted One said:I swear, if you Americans vote another warmongering Republican into the White House after having suffered EIGHT FUCKING YEARS of George W. Bush.... *sigh*
Would be inconceivable.
unless you want to call every macro economist a conservative, you're wrong.ToxicAdam said:I think you are the first liberal I have seen admit that.
Well if Oil prices keep rising, I'd say we need to take over OPEC and dictate what the price of Oil for us and the rest of the world should be. Should be fair... right?scorcho said:there's a reason why we have a civilian leading the military - to marry military objectives to a stated political goal. how does staying there indefinitely help our grand strategy and further american interests? where is the movement on countless political objectives that the surge was supposed to provide the breathing room for? to what end are we there for?
what does that mean? as a war vet he should understand the dangers in protracted, open-ended military campaigns untethered to a political grand strategy (see Vietnam). what strikes me more about his vaulted military experience is his continual insistence that 'we' must win just for the sake of winning.
wrong. flat out wrong. the federal debt has very little to do with the economic issues we're seeing now.
I would agree if the war wasn't in conjunction with those tax cuts. Greater unbudgeted expenses on top of decreased revenue is a recipe for disaster IMO. PEACE.scorcho said:wrong. flat out wrong. the federal debt has very little to do with the economic issues we're seeing now.
it's basic economics. you don't cut taxes and dive into a war at the same time.Pimpwerx said:I would agree if the war wasn't in conjunction with those tax cuts. Greater unbudgeted expenses on top of decreased revenue is a recipe for disaster IMO. PEACE.
hence why future Americans will have to swallow the debt-pill of this war.plagiarize said:it's basic economics. you don't cut taxes and dive into a war at the same time.
well unless it's a war that no-one is remotely ready to swallow the cost for and you're competely set on going into it irrespective of whatever the country thinks.
so people still insist on pretending that they haven't been told over and over again the full context of what McCain said about how long troops will be in Iraq for.scorcho said:to think we're printing money for the sake of printing money (or even doing that in general) shows you have a really really really really bad grasp on macroeconomic policy. really. further, your belief that a stable economy comes before a functioning government and the infrastructure it provides shows you have a really really really really bad grasp on development theory, or at least an anachronistic view of it.
as to your other responses -
if our stated goal is to take over OPEC, which i think is hysterically out of right field, that just isn't going to happen. you would do no worse than to pick Imperial McCain to try to see this happen, though.
McCain doesn't understand an open-ended war will ultimately fail if HE SAYS WE WILL BE IN IRAQ FOR 100 YEARS OR THAT WE COULD'VE WON VIETNAM. and no thank you, i won't refer to the Bible to dictate our country's grand strategy.
scorcho said:to think we're printing money for the sake of printing money (or even doing that in general) shows you have a really really really really bad grasp on macroeconomic policy. really. further, your belief that a stable economy comes before a functioning government and the infrastructure it provides shows you have a really really really really bad grasp on development theory, or at least an anachronistic view of it.
as to your other responses -
if our stated goal is to take over OPEC, which i think is hysterically out of right field, that just isn't going to happen. you would do no worse than to pick Imperial McCain to try to see this happen, though.
McCain doesn't understand an open-ended war will ultimately fail if HE SAYS WE WILL BE IN IRAQ FOR 100 YEARS OR THAT WE COULD'VE WON VIETNAM. and no thank you, i won't refer to the Bible to dictate our country's grand strategy.
printing money and borrowing money are two different things, wouldn't you agree? one incurs the wrath of creating massive inflationary pressure, the other props up budget deficits and creates quite a bit less inflation.VictimOfGrief said:Then enlighten me. I never said I was an expert on the matter. However the government is basically printing money for this war. IE Borrowing what we don't have. If I am mistaken, then tell me some pointers on how to "straighten up" my view on the economy.
Just so you know: Better to be a junior member than a proven dumbass.VictimOfGrief said:Whoooa there Junior... ease up on the caffeine.
Depends on who you talk to Jinx.-jinx- said:Just so you know: Better to be a junior member than a proven dumbass.