Worst Dead Horse Thread Ever!
You mean the President has finally figured out that there are problems in the economy?
Now if knocking out Saddam would end 'the war on terrorism' and end the need for the 'Department of Home Defense' that would be a crowd pleaser and be a boost to the economy. However I suspect that ending Saddam will not end the 'war on terrorism' hence, then ending Saddam is some kind of a fakeroo and the economy is more likely to get worse than better.
Tax cuts will save this laggard economy. Bush and the Pubbies earned an historic election, which you predicted, now they better act like they're in charge.
If terrorist are waiting for equipment they won't have a problem having it delivered right to their front door by UPS. If they want to come across our borders, no sweat. If we are counting on the F.B.I.'s ability to track and catch them in the nick of time, oh brother. If we are counting on the I.N.S., saint's preserve us.
It is more than mildly curious that when the Democrats win by a slim majority they yell "MANDATE" at the tops of their lungs and push through their agendas. When Republicans win by the same margin they wimper that they must legislate from a left of center position, then move as far left as they dare.
Like you I pushed both non-voters and democrats at work to get out and vote Republican, I only managed five that actually did go to the polls that would not have. Unlike you I did it already knowing what would happen with Repubicans in charge of the Presidency, Congress, and the Senate....a swan dive off the left side of the diving board.
I only put forth the effort to ensure they win so a point would be made and the evidence glaring. The Republican Party is no place for a conservative unless they grit their teeth, hold these dummies feet to the fire, or punish the party by not voting for it, making it face immediate extinction, rather than the future extinction it fears for lack of minority votes that they have no intention of addressing by enforcing the laws of the land, and no chance of out pandering the Democrats to attain.
The price the party would have to pay in principle to move far enough left to attain these, at present, few squalled votes is just too high a cost as far as many conservatives are concerned.
So when do we get cracking with the "hold their feet to the fire" thing? Shouldn't we engage in some activism? Daylight is burning.
Worst Dead Horse Thread Ever!
U.S. to maintain N. Korean food aid
From combined dispatches The Bush administration plans to continue humanitarian food shipments to North Korea in the new year, U.S. officials said, despite Pyongyang's continued belligerence in pursuit of its nuclear ambitions.
"We expect to continue providing the same level of aid to the [United Nations] World Food Program in Korea as we have in the past," a senior administration official said in reply to questions from Reuters news agency. "We don't use food as a political weapon."
But North Korea appealed yesterday to widespread anti-American sentiment among South Koreans by seeking support in its confrontation with the United States over nuclear weapons.
"It can be said that there exists on the Korean peninsula at present only confrontation between the Koreans in the North and the South and the United States," the communist state said in its New Year's message.
It is North Korea's long-standing strategy to drive a wedge between Seoul and its chief ally, Washington. A senior South Korean diplomat arrived in Beijing yesterday to seek China's support in persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.
Lee Tae-sik, South Korea's deputy foreign minister, will meet Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing today, South Korean officials said.
South Korea also plans to send a vice foreign minister to Moscow later this week. China and Russia maintain friendly ties with the communist North, and they have urged a peaceful solution to the rising tension.
On the issue of food aid, the United States has argued in the past that such aid should be isolated from geo-strategic considerations — an idea summed up by former President Ronald Reagan's dictum that "a hungry child knows no politics."
But the timing of a U.S. food-aid announcement was up in the air while Washington pressed to reverse the North's recent steps toward restarting a nuclear program frozen in a 1994 nonproliferation deal with the United States.
The aid would come at a time when the reclusive communist state — long considered by Washington as one of its most dangerous enemies — is perhaps more vulnerable to outside pressure than ever. In the mid- to late 1990s, as many as 2.5 million North Koreans, or about 10 percent of the population, died in a famine.
North Korea, which can not feed its 22 million people without outside help, risked losing key sources of aid in the recent weeks by moving to restart its mothballed nuclear program, expelling U.N. inspectors and threatening to pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. One of the two nuclear inspectors expelled by North Korea, Missak Demirdjian, arrived yesterday in Vienna, Austria, on a flight from Beijing. He fended off all questions, saying only: "We, of course, hope to go back as soon as possible."
The United States has already cut off monthly fuel oil shipments it had been making since 1994, worth about $75 million annually.
In a Dec. 3 appeal, the U.N. agency urged donor nations to help feed 6.4 million "particularly vulnerable" North Koreans among a population of 22 million, as part of a $201 million emergency operation this year.
The main beneficiaries would be children from ages 6 months to 10 years, pregnant and nursing women, the elderly, and those particularly affected by natural disasters and the country's dire economic straits, said Rick Corsino, the group's country director for North Korea. The senior official who responded to Reuters' queries said the administration would not know how much it will contribute until the fiscal 2004 budget was completed. It is due to be sent to Congress next month.
Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, an Illinois Republican who toured North Korea in the 1990s as a House International Relations Committee staffer, said North Korea's behavior had already cost it food aid from Japan and Europe. "No matter how incompetent the regime may be, it's critical that we step in to save the next generation," Mr. Kirk said, adding that the administration was loath to make a food-aid announcement in the same week that Pyongyang was expelling the last two U.N. nuclear monitors.
North Korea's emphasis on "cooperation" with South Korea comes at a time when Seoul is criticizing a U.S. push to isolate North Korea in the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program. North Korea's overtures are also driven by economic needs, analysts said.
Under President Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine policy" of engaging the North, South Korea has begun a series of unfinished inter-Korean projects, including a cross-border rail link, and tourist and industrial parks, that would bring the impoverished North badly needed cash. Although North Korea's recent decision to reactivate its nuclear program angered much of the world, it provoked little reaction among most South Koreans. Both Mr. Kim and President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, who will take office in late February, insist that North Korea not develop nuclear weapons.
But they have vowed to press on with an engagement policy toward the North and have expressed concern that Washington might impose heavy economic pressure on Pyongyang.
Nearly 2 million troops are massed on both sides of the Korean border. About 37,000 U.S. soldiers back the South Koreans. Anti-U.S. sentiment is evident on the streets of Seoul. Thousands of South Koreans have joined street rallies to protest the deaths of two teenage girls accidentally killed in June by a U.S. military vehicle.
Example:
1. Trent Lott YOU are a RACIST and the entire Republican Party as well!
2. No. It's not so. NO NO NO I never have been. blah blah...
3. Here, I'll prove it to you - I am FOR affirmative action. I will CREATE a race relations committee. I will tour the South with my liberal black accuser!
And so the left edges incrementally forward. BEWARE Conservatives!Beware this tactic!