Scandals that are actions aimed at subverting the democratic process imo are different from your garden variety corruption. Nixon would be the former, Grant the latter.
Getting a BJ from an intern under your desk is garden variety corruption. The first item on this list by itself is huge. Imagine if one guy caused our current economic problems and your buddy W covered it up. You would be screaming bloody murder. Grant Administration Scandals and Corrupt Activities Description Date Black Friday Speculators corner the gold market and ruin the economy for several years. 1869 New York custom house ring Three investigations, two congressional and one Treasury, looked into alleged corruption ring set up at the New York Custom House under two of Grant's appointments, collectors Moses H. Grinnell and Thomas Murphy. 1872 Star Route Postal Ring Corrupt system of postal contractors, clerks, and brokers to obtain lucrative Star Route postal contracts. 1872 Salary Grab Congressmen receive a retroactive $5,000 bonus for previous term served. 1872 Sanborn Contract John Sanborn collected taxes at exorbitant fees and split the profits among associates. 1874 Delano Affair Secretary of Interior, Columbus Delano, allegedly took bribes to secure fraudulent land grants. 1875 Pratt & Boyd Attorney General George H. Williams allegedly received a bribe not to prosecute the Pratt & Boyd company. 1875 Whiskey Ring Corrupt government officials and whiskey makers steal millions of dollars in national tax evasion scam. 1875 Trading Post Ring Secretary of War William Belknap allegedly takes extortion money from trading contractor at Fort Sill. 1876 Cattelism Secretary of Navy George Robeson allegedly receives bribes from Cattell & Company for lucrative Naval contracts. 1876 Safe Burglary Conspiracy Private Secretary Orville Babcock indicted over framing a private citizen for uncovering corrupt Washington contractors. 1876
For the recond, my problems with W were mostly with his policies. What Nixon did in Watergate was literally in a class by itself. Take Watergate out, and Nixon was a much better president than W, although that crap about having a plan to defeat North Vietnam was total lies, too. Kind of like Iraq.
1. Extended rule by the Democrats - Obama will give citizenship to every illegal alien in this country. Not because it's the right thing to do, but because it will help his party. This could add another 22 million Democrats and basically doom the Republican party. See the Dream Act and the AGJobs bill. Plus all the uncovered communications in the Obama administration trying to find ways to use presidential powers to make illegal immigrants legal. 2. Huge tax increases - Obama already has proposed increasing the maximum take care by three to four percent. Of course that probably please many people, especially the approximately 90 million that pay no taxes whatsoever. Seriously, pay your own bills with your own fucking money, not mine. Obama wants to let the Bush tax cuts expire. If his tax plans go through the so-called wealthy will see huge tax increases. 3. Significant increases in utility bills - Obama wants to cap energy production to reduce global warming. What exactly do you think that going to do to your utility bills? Watch as they go through the roof. Obama wants new safe nuclear power plants, offshore drilling and clean coal. He mentioned these in an address to the nation. He also wants to limit CO2 emissions and while this is not a bad idea, he is trying to package his fight against global warming as a jobs bill, which is just not the case. His plans will reduce energy, income, and jobs. 4. Buy those guns now - Obama has implied he actually wants to change some of the principals on which the US constitution is based. Watch as the Democrats try to pass laws so that only the bad guys will get weapons off the black market. Obama voted to allow the prosecution of individuals who use a firearm to protect themselves in the home. He supported a law making self defense and use of handguns in the home illegal. He supported a huge increase in federal taxes on handguns. Obama voted to ban hundreds of rifles and shotguns commonly used for hunting. 5. Socialized medicine - Like going to a doctor of your choice? Better go see them now because if Obama has his way you're not going to have a choice. Ask the people in England how well socialized medicine works. Obamacare, need I say more? 6. Gay marriage - If you're gay, good for you. However, I don't want my children being taught about homosexuality in the second grade as has happened in Massachusetts. Hopefully, this wont happen, but with perhaps as many as four Supreme Court Justices due to be replaced with flaming liberals I wouldn't put it past anyone. In an effort to attract more gay voters he recently changed his stance on gay marriage alluding to the fact that he could come out in total support in the near future. 7. Support Israel? Well then if you voted for Obama, you're either uneducated or a fool, because if you think you have a strong ally in Obama you're delusional. Obama won't act on his own, he will try to build world consensus. You know where that's going to bring us. If you think he's been bad for Israel at this point, one could only imagine how terrible he'd be if somehow he were to win reelection. 8. Crime, terrorism, welfare, big government, etc. I could go on and on, but by now you've got the point. And that is, be careful what you ask for, you might just get it. Huge increases in welfare programs, huge increases in government spending, historic increases in the budget deficit, on the record a believing in the unconstitutional redistribution of wealth, etc. etc. etc. I could go on and on but it's pointless to try to educate people like you. Try opening a newspaper or viewing something intelligent on the internet before making ignorant comments like this. And with that I'm out again. The reason I haven't posted on this website in years is because of fools like you.
You know Obama has deported more people in two years than Bush did, right? Also, Obamacare isn't socialized medicine. Also, nothing has changed in terms of gay rights in the past two years; you're blowing one quote way out of proportion. I could go on, but you get the gist.
Umm the Cole bombing? was on Clintons watch, He did next to nothing about it. You cannot blame Bush for Al Qaeda when Clinton showed no resolve against them. They were allowed to think we would do nothing about their aggression and so they kept upping the anti. Bush did at least react when attacked something Clinton did not have the balls for. Obama added 30,000 troops to afganistan and has not caught Osama either. My guess is they catch him right before Obama is up for reelection. He needs momentum and that would be too perfect. I like the judges that Bush appointed. The court needs to be balanced both conservative and liberal. I am not going to defend the other points because we will never aggree. So why bother. If you think Obama or Clinton ran an honest campaign, I have a bridge to sell you in alaska.
I don't get involved with these discussions but I hope this is not the case. If so, that is sad. So you cannot shoot someone if they enter your home illegally?
Absolutely brilliantly, thanks. It's why the British healthcare system is less expensive and more effective than yours, but this has been done to death on this site already.
LMFBO!! Seeing people hide behind his "health care agenda" as if it's the worst thing on the planet! Give me a fukin break.
Alright, I'll bite one more time. Illegal immigration - You are correct about the deportations. However, these are totally motivated by the flack he's taken over the border issues and the fight against the Arizona law. Basically he is trying to get people off his back and still try to find ways to fulfill his campaign promise to help the 11 million illegal immigrants in this country. Basically he's between a rock and hard place in that he's trying appease all sides. Obamacare - Come on, really? Obamacare is essentially national health insurance, which is clearly on the path to socialized medicine. While it's not socialized medicine in the true sense, it certainly is heading in that direction. Gay marriage - As a true believer in the constitution and the principals upon which this country was founded I'm going to give you what many may view as an extreme stance on the whole gay marriage issue, but really it's just a constitutional view. There should be no gay marriage issue. Why? Because the government should play no role in marriage or the benefits thereof. Marriage is a Judeo Christian concept. It should be defined by a social contract between a man and a woman. There should be no government benefits for being married. No tax breaks, no government granted rights whatsoever. If that were the case gays would have no claim under the equal protection laws. If they wanted to sign a social contract granting them certain rights such as visitation in hospitals or power of attorney, that would be between them. However, marriage would be reserved for a man and a woman, because that's the way it was originally defined. Gays could have unions or whatever, with the rights granted in the contract. And the whole gay marriage thing would go away. What liberals in particular fail to see is the beauty in the constitution. It was pure genius. If we'd stayed on that path we wouldn't be in the mess in which we now find ourselves. People say times have changed. Well, that's why we have a process to amend the constitution. While that's a difficult process, it should be. If you're going to modify one of the principals upon which this country was founded you damn well better have a large majority in favor of the change.
I don't claim to be an expert. But I have studied it and read about it for years so I probably know more than the average Joe.
Illinois Senate, SB 2165, 3/25/04 Vote 20 and 5/25/04 Vote 3; ABC/WJLA TV, Washington, D.C., Interview, 2/11/08; Chicago Defender, 12/13/99, at 3 Illinois Senate SB 1195, 3/13/03 Look it up. :wink:
Actually, you do sound like you think you know more than everyone else, but I have a feeling its not true. Anyway, its good that you've read and studied it. What have you read that leads you to your conclusion that what you described about policies you disagree with means we've abandoned the constitution, and that your vision of of the correct policies would be consonant with it?
I don't believe he ever voted for such a bill. It might have been something that happen on a state or local level and I have no doubt he did or would have supported it, but as a US senator, he wouldn't have voted on it. Edit - or maybe it was before he was Senator.
Haha, you can not be serious posing that question... As a whole, America has arguably the WORST healthcare system out of the twenty-someodd first world countries. Sure, you can say those with benefits acquire good to great healthcare, but if a third of the population is shit outta luck it doesn't speak well towards the whole. It's like saying quality of life is great in North Korea because Kim Jong Il and the political elite live like kings.
I can't answer this. It's way too broad. If you want to discuss a particular issue that really concerns you fine, but I'm not going to do it as a test of knowledge.
