Here we go again: Susan Sarandon says she may leave the U.S. if McCain wins.
Yeah, she can move in with Babs Streisand, Alec Baldwin or any one of all those other nitwits who moved out the country when Bush won (just like they promised).
Oh, wait, that's right: none of them did.
notice that all three of them are washed up, they prolly like whomod blame the decline of their careers on Bush, instead of the fact that they are talentless hacks....
You don't want a Republican traffic lawyer as your enemy.
"Batman is only meaningful as an answer to a world which in its basics is chaotic and in the hands of the wrong people, where no justice can be found. I think it's very suitable to our perception of the world's condition today... Batman embodies the will to resist evil" -Frank Miller
"Conan, what's the meaning of life?" "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women!" -Conan the Barbarian
"Well, yeah." -Jason E. Perkins
"If I had a dime for every time Pariah was right about something I'd owe twenty cents." -Ultimate Jaburg53
"Fair enough. I defer to your expertise." -Prometheus
Please. If Susan Sarandon left, who will fill the gaping need Americans have for a formerly hot Sextagenarian with huge, sagging, boobs and a prominent waddle?
Ah, so you just don't care that the guy who's advising McCain on economic matters helped cause the current housing crisis.
After Gramm passed a law easing regulation of energy-commodity trading, California experienced a sharp run-up in energy costs. The energy-trading company Enron was blamed and soon collapsed.
The final UBS form listing Gramm’s work as a lobbyist says he was lobbying the Senate in the second half of 2007 regarding the Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act. The bill would have let bankruptcy judges rewrite mortgage terms for Americans facing foreclosure so they could repay their loans and keep their homes.
The banking industry opposed this measure. The bill failed.
And this is the guy McCain is thinking of making his Treasury Secretary.
Gotcha.
If I were you, I'd try to ignore this as well.
Conversely, Phil Gramm was the co-creator of the Gramm-Rudman bill during the Reagan years, the first serious attempt to balance the budget.
The Democrat congress undermined that attempt to balance the budget by inflaming senior citizens with fears that their social security benefits would be slashed. And being the largest and most vocal group of voters, Grammm-Rudman was quickly set aside.
Regarding the kind of ties to lobbyists you partisanly cite, you conveniently fail to mention that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and many others are equally culpable in similar associates, subordinates and direct connection to scandals, if not far worse Democrat scandals.
So you're an evasive lying cocksucker, just like always.
For those not familiar with the former Senator turned wealthy lobbyist and McCain for President co-chair, this is a must read article.
Phil Gramm has played an important role in a number of failed initiatives including the S&L failure, the energy deregulation fallout and Enron, and more recently the subprime mortgage meltdown. Remember, this is the guy who is shaping McCain economic policy. He's a highly paid lobbyist for one of the worst hit banks in the subprime crisis and yet he is still a co-chair of the McCain campaign.
Keep in mind that Phil Gramm and McCain are still unable to admit these policies were failures. Gramm says he "didn't intend this." Not the most comforting response from the architect. This is the same bullheadedness that we've experienced from Bush, who still can't admit any failures. More of the same is not what we need. Read through both links and get to know the man rumored to be McCain's choice as Treasury Secretary.
McCain has his facts wrong about Iraq (again). We're talking very basic facts. McCain said in Wisconsin that the surge is over, all the troops are home. ("I can look you in the eye and tell you... We have drawn down to pre-surge levels.") In fact, 2/3 of the surge troops are still in Iraq (we added 30,000 troops and have removed 10,000, leaving 20,000 still in Iraq). According to Ben Smith at Politico.com, the McCain's campaign response to the criticism of McCain's mistake is to not only invoke "verb tense," but to charge that we're "nitpicking." Wow. 20,000 troops are "nit-picking.
He's lost his mind. McCain's now trying to claim that he didn't tell voters yesterday that we have drawn down to pre-surge troop levels in Iraq. He's now trying to claim that he said we're DRAWING down, i.e., still in the process, not there yet. But of course, that's not what he said. It's on film. Everyone has seen it. ThinkProgress walks you through it again. It's just downright bizarre that McCain keeps denying that he said what he said. We have video. Bush and Cheney and company tried this for years, and got away with it. They constantly lied about the facts and figured no one would be the wiser. But people finally wisened up. And they don't accept blatant lies any longer. We have not gotten down to pre-surge troops levels - we're not even close. And now McCain is arguing "verb tenses" as an excuse - my, Grandpa, what Clintonian teeth you have. Whether McCain is lying or simply doesn't understand the facts in Iraq, for him to now deny that he said what he said, well, when we have the video, it's just kind of creepy and sad.
I sure hope McCain doesn't blow a gasket over this, otherwise he might try to choke another 90 year old man. Here is what Obama just said about McCain's latest weird statements about Iraq:
Quote:
He's been proposing a joint trip to Iraq that's nothing more than a political stunt. He's even been using it to raise a few dollars for his campaign. But it seems like Senator McCain's a lot more interested in my travel plans than the facts, because yesterday – in his continued effort to put the best light on a failed policy – he stood up in Wisconsin and said, "We have drawn down to pre-surge levels" in Iraq.
"That's not true, and anyone running for Commander-in-Chief should know better. As the saying goes, you're entitled to your own view, but not your own facts. We've got around 150,000 troops in Iraq – 20,000 more than we had before the surge. We have plans to get down to around 140,000 later this summer – that's still more troops than we had in Iraq before the surge. And today, Senator McCain refused to correct his mistake. Just like George Bush, when he was presented with the truth, he just dug in and refused to admit his mistake. His campaign said it amounts to "nitpicking."
"Well I don't think tens of thousands of American troops amounts to nitpicking. Tell that to the young men and women who are serving bravely and brilliantly under our flag. Tell that to the families who have seen their loved ones fight tour after tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.
"It's time for a debate that's based on the truth, and I can't think of anything more important than how many Americans are in harm's way. It's time for a debate that's based on how we're going to end this war – not a debate that's based on raising a few dollars for John McCain's campaign.
Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man love User Ultimate Final Justice 10000+ posts 05/31/08 10:36 AM Reading a post Forum: Politics and Current Events Thread: McCain in 08?
McCain has his facts wrong about Iraq (again). We're talking very basic facts. McCain said in Wisconsin that the surge is over, all the troops are home. ("I can look you in the eye and tell you... We have drawn down to pre-surge levels.") In fact, 2/3 of the surge troops are still in Iraq (we added 30,000 troops and have removed 10,000, leaving 20,000 still in Iraq). According to Ben Smith at Politico.com, the McCain's campaign response to the criticism of McCain's mistake is to not only invoke "verb tense," but to charge that we're "nitpicking." Wow. 20,000 troops are "nit-picking.
He's lost his mind. McCain's now trying to claim that he didn't tell voters yesterday that we have drawn down to pre-surge troop levels in Iraq. He's now trying to claim that he said we're DRAWING down, i.e., still in the process, not there yet. But of course, that's not what he said. It's on film. Everyone has seen it. ThinkProgress walks you through it again. It's just downright bizarre that McCain keeps denying that he said what he said. We have video. Bush and Cheney and company tried this for years, and got away with it. They constantly lied about the facts and figured no one would be the wiser. But people finally wisened up. And they don't accept blatant lies any longer. We have not gotten down to pre-surge troops levels - we're not even close. And now McCain is arguing "verb tenses" as an excuse - my, Grandpa, what Clintonian teeth you have. Whether McCain is lying or simply doesn't understand the facts in Iraq, for him to now deny that he said what he said, well, when we have the video, it's just kind of creepy and sad.
I sure hope McCain doesn't blow a gasket over this, otherwise he might try to choke another 90 year old man. Here is what Obama just said about McCain's latest weird statements about Iraq:
Quote:
He's been proposing a joint trip to Iraq that's nothing more than a political stunt. He's even been using it to raise a few dollars for his campaign. But it seems like Senator McCain's a lot more interested in my travel plans than the facts, because yesterday – in his continued effort to put the best light on a failed policy – he stood up in Wisconsin and said, "We have drawn down to pre-surge levels" in Iraq.
"That's not true, and anyone running for Commander-in-Chief should know better. As the saying goes, you're entitled to your own view, but not your own facts. We've got around 150,000 troops in Iraq – 20,000 more than we had before the surge. We have plans to get down to around 140,000 later this summer – that's still more troops than we had in Iraq before the surge. And today, Senator McCain refused to correct his mistake. Just like George Bush, when he was presented with the truth, he just dug in and refused to admit his mistake. His campaign said it amounts to "nitpicking."
"Well I don't think tens of thousands of American troops amounts to nitpicking. Tell that to the young men and women who are serving bravely and brilliantly under our flag. Tell that to the families who have seen their loved ones fight tour after tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.
"It's time for a debate that's based on the truth, and I can't think of anything more important than how many Americans are in harm's way. It's time for a debate that's based on how we're going to end this war – not a debate that's based on raising a few dollars for John McCain's campaign.
Well, Wonder Boy, even your hero Pat Buchanan said on TV the other day that all of McCain's almost weekly Iraq gaffes suggest not so much ignorance of foreign policy as they suggest his mental state on account of his advanced age.
This was no liberal Democrat. This was Pat Buchanan saying this. HE found it disturbing
Unlike you, Whomod, Pat Buchanan has unleashed strong criticism of all 3 candidates (and I've posted Buchanan's columns critical of McCain, Hillary and Obama).
So don't try to tell me what I clearly already know and have posted.
I have reservations about McCain. And unlike yourself, I seriously consider what the other party has to offer, despite being a self-identified Republican.
The bottom line is, while McCain is not my Republican of choice on many issues, he's still a more sane choice than what Obama has to offer, on fulfilling our commitment in Iraq, on reducing our deficit, on not raising taxes.
Conversely, you --in lying partisan fashion-- list McCain's gaffs, but constantly gloss over Obama's verbal gaffs, and Obama's larger lapses of good judgement.
So McCain summarized a few minor details of recent events with less than full accuracy. So what? He's not a news reporter. On Iraq as a whole, McCain is the ONLY candidate who correctly advocated the surge in Iraq, and the ONLY candidate who doesn't advocate immediate withdrawal, and reversing all the gains we've made in the last year.
You'd clearly rather have an ultraliberal who hangs out with anti-American fanatics, black racists, and advocates unilaterally invading Pakistan, in the same breath he criticizes invading Iraq.
Or are we talking about the months where Obama thought it was a good idea Bush invaded Iraq? Since Obama has been on both sides of the issue, you can choose whichever you think more conveniently represents "good judgement". I guess raising taxes and expanding social programs is "good judgement" too.
Now, it appears Gramm's association with the aging Republican senator's campaign is doing far more harm that previously known. UBS, a bank for which Gramm lobbied, is now under investigation for alleged use of overseas tax havens to hide assets of its wealthy clients from U.S. authorities while in office, Gramm also supported these tax havens after 9/11, which hampered the government's ability to track Osama bin Laden's financial network before 9/11.
Oh yes, the GOP is sooooo tough on terror.
I really don't know what MEM is so worried abut. McCain is neck deep in lobbyists. Some who support terrorists finances. Another campaign manager, Rick Davis has lobbying ties to Iran.
Not only that but McCain decided to ridicule Obama in a speech before APAC yesterday about talking with Iran and then unveils his own plan to enact sanctions.... a plan that Obama co-sponsored in the Senate a year ago. The Obama campaign notes that John McCain failed to support Iran sanctions legislation sponsored by Obama in 2007, a bill currently rumored to be “on hold” by Alabama Republican, Richard Shelby.
So much for consistency. If McCain can't even remember what bills he was against a year ago and thinks that finally coming around a year after Obama did and embracing his plan is considered having better judgement than Obama, I don't think the Democrats have a thing to be worried about.
BTW G-Man, since you're obviously going to discount this. Are you saying that Phil Gramm as well as many Republicans didn't oppose legislation, including the 1996 omnibus terror bill.
Are you saying now that Phil Gramm, then the chairman of the Banking Committee, didn't gut the portions of Clinton's bill prohibiting American companies from dealing with banks that supported Al queda, calling the legislation "totalitarian.
Which is why I still marvel at the talking point that Clinton did NOTHING about Al queda and that only Bush and the Republicans ever focused on Al queda and tried to do anything about them.
Phil Gramm's presence on this campaign may finally put this lie to a close.
Now, it appears Gramm's association with the aging Republican senator's campaign is doing far more harm that previously known. UBS, a bank for which Gramm lobbied, is now under investigation for alleged use of overseas tax havens to hide assets of its wealthy clients from U.S. authorities while in office, Gramm also supported these tax havens after 9/11, which hampered the government's ability to track Osama bin Laden's financial network before 9/11.
Oh yes, the GOP is sooooo tough on terror.
I really don't know what MEM is so worried abut. McCain is neck deep in lobbyists. Some who support terrorists finances. Another campaign manager, Rick Davis has lobbying ties to Iran.
Not only that but McCain decided to ridicule Obama in a speech before APAC yesterday about talking with Iran and then unveils his own plan to enact sanctions.... a plan that Obama co-sponsored in the Senate a year ago. The Obama campaign notes that John McCain failed to support Iran sanctions legislation sponsored by Obama in 2007, a bill currently rumored to be “on hold” by Alabama Republican, Richard Shelby.
So much for consistency. If McCain can't even remember what bills he was against a year ago and thinks that finally coming around a year after Obama did and embracing his plan is considered having better judgement than Obama, I don't think the Democrats have a thing to be worried about.
Originally Posted By: the G-man
The "quote" you gave us is an anonymous blogger posting at Newsweek, not an actual Newsweek article.
You want corroboration? You know I enjoy it, G-Man....
U.S. investigators believe some of these clients may have used offshore accounts at UBS to illegally hide as much as $20 billion from the Internal Revenue Service. Doing so may have enabled these people to dodge $300 million or more in U.S. taxes, according to a government official connected with the investigation....
Using offshore accounts is not illegal for U.S. taxpayers, but hiding income in so-called "undeclared" accounts is. At issue is whether the UBS clients disclosed securities and assets held offshore to the IRS, as required by law. Switzerland does not consider tax evasion a crime, and using undeclared accounts is perfectly legal there.
The case could turn into an embarrassment for Marcel Rohner, the chief executive at UBS and the former head of its private bank,as well as for Phil Gramm, the former Republican senator from Texas who is now the vice chairman of UBS Securities, the Swiss bank's investment-banking arm. It also comes at a difficult time for UBS, which is reeling from $37 billion in soured investments, many of them linked to risky U.S. subprime mortgages.....
The U.S. was all set to join a global crackdown on criminal and terrorist money havens earlier this year. Thirty industrial nations were ready to tighten the screws on offshore financial centers like Liechtenstein and Antigua, whose banks have the potential to hide and often help launder billions of dollars for drug cartels, global crime syndicates--and groups like Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization. Then the Bush Administration took office.....
Long before the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. government tried to declare war on tax havens and dirty money. After the 1998 attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa--attacks blamed on bin Laden's network--the Clinton Administration began drafting legislation designed to "strategically change the environment that allowed the money of criminals and terrorists to flow freely," says William Wechsler, a special adviser to Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. And the Administration began sounding out the banking industry......
Just days prior to Summers' announcement that he was cracking down on the OECD's tax havens, Dennis Nixon, chairman of the International Bank of Commerce in Laredo, gave $20,000 to the Republican National Committee. Already a Bush Pioneer, who had raised at least $100,000 for the primaries, Nixon gave the R.N.C. another $100,000 as the post-election contest for Florida ballots began. Summers' bill passed the House Banking Committee 31 to 1 in July 2000, but it got no further. Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, refused to let it come up for a vote in his committee.......
It took the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history to turn the Bush Administration around.
That would be the part where Richard Clark says "i told you so"
3)
Quote:
A NATION CHALLENGED: THE PAPER TRAIL; Roadblocks Cited In Efforts to Trace Bin Laden's Money
By TIM WEINER AND DAVID CAY JOHNSTON Published: September 20, 2001 The New York Times
Congress is now reviving a proposal killed last year by Senator Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican who was then chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. The bill, introduced by the Clinton administration, would give the Treasury secretary broad power to bar foreign countries and banks from access to the American financial market unless they cooperated with money-laundering investigations. It was strongly opposed by the banking industry and Mr. Gramm.
''I was right then and I am right now'' in opposing the bill, Mr. Gramm said yesterday. He called the bill ''totalitarian''
Measures taken by the Clinton administration to thwart international terrorism and bin Laden's network were historic, unprecedented and, sadly, not followed up on. Consider the steps offered by Clinton's 1996 omnibus anti-terror legislation, the pricetag for which stood at $1.097 billion. The following is a partial list of the initiatives offered by the Clinton anti-terrorism bill:
* Screen Checked Baggage: $91.1 million * Screen Carry-On Baggage: $37.8 million * Passenger Profiling: $10 million * Screener Training: $5.3 million * Screen Passengers (portals) and Document Scanners: $1 million * Deploying Existing Technology to Inspect International Air Cargo: $31.4 million * Provide Additional Air/Counterterrorism Security: $26.6 million * Explosives Detection Training: $1.8 million * Augment FAA Security Research: $20 million * Customs Service: Explosives and Radiation Detection Equipment at Ports: $2.2 million * Anti-Terrorism Assistance to Foreign Governments: $2 million * Capacity to Collect and Assemble Explosives Data: $2.1 million * Improve Domestic Intelligence: $38.9 million * Critical Incident Response Teams for Post-Blast Deployment: $7.2 million * Additional Security for Federal Facilities: $6.7 million * Firefighter/Emergency Services Financial Assistance: $2.7 million * Public Building and Museum Security: $7.3 million * Improve Technology to Prevent Nuclear Smuggling: $8 million * Critical Incident Response Facility: $2 million * Counter-Terrorism Fund: $35 million * Explosives Intelligence and Support Systems: $14.2 million * Office of Emergency Preparedness: $5.8 million
The Clinton administration poured more than a billion dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of the intelligence community, into the protection of critical infrastructure, into massive federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines to prepare for a possible bioterror attack, into a reorganization of the intelligence community itself. Within the National Security Council, "threat meetings" were held three times a week to assess looming conspiracies. His National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, prepared a voluminous dossier on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, actively tracking them across the planet. Clinton raised the issue of terrorism in virtually every important speech he gave in the last three years of his tenure.
Clinton's dire public warnings about the threat posed by terrorism, and the actions taken to thwart it, went completely unreported by the media, which was far more concerned with stained dresses and baseless Drudge Report rumors. When the administration did act militarily against bin Laden and his terrorist network, the actions were dismissed by partisans within the media and Congress as scandalous "wag the dog" tactics. The news networks actually broadcast clips of the movie "Wag the Dog" while reporting on his warnings, to accentuate the idea that everything the administration said was contrived fakery.
In Congress, Clinton was thwarted by the reactionary conservative majority in virtually every attempt he made to pass legislation that would attack al-Qaeda and terrorism. His 1996 omnibus terror bill, which included many of the anti-terror measures we now take for granted after September 11, was withered almost to the point of uselessness by attacks from the right; Senators Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were openly dismissive of the threats Clinton spoke of.
Specifically, Clinton wanted to attack the financial underpinnings of the al-Qaeda network by banning American companies and individuals from dealing with foreign banks and financial institutions that al-Qaeda was using for its money-laundering operations. Texas Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, gutted the portions of Clinton's bill dealing with this matter, calling them "totalitarian."
In fact, Gramm was compelled to kill the bill because his most devoted patrons, the Enron Corporation and its criminal executives in Houston, were using those same terrorist financial networks to launder their own dirty money and rip off the Enron stockholders. It should also be noted that Gramm's wife, Wendy, sat on the Enron Board of Directors.
Just before departing office, Clinton managed to make a deal with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to have some twenty nations close tax havens used by al-Qaeda. His term ended before the deal was sealed, and the incoming Bush administration acted immediately to destroy the agreement.
According to Time magazine, in an article entitled "Banking on Secrecy" published in October of 2001, Bush economic advisors Larry Lindsey and R. Glenn Hubbard were urged by think tanks like the Center for Freedom and Prosperity to opt out of the coalition Clinton had formed. The conservative Heritage Foundation lobbied Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, to do the same.
It's that kind of attitude that allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen in the 1st place and then tried to blame it on the people who were actually trying to do something to prevent them.
I give you concrete articles from the past to prove my point and that point pisses you off so you dismiss and ridicule it.
I made my point. The Republicans weakened us before 9/11 and people like you were more focused on Clinton's blow jobs to even know who the fuck Bin laden was.
[quote=whomod]"You're either with us or against us"
Quote:
Now, it appears Gramm's association with the aging Republican senator's campaign is doing far more harm that previously known. UBS, a bank for which Gramm lobbied, is now under investigation for alleged use of overseas tax havens to hide assets of its wealthy clients from U.S. authorities while in office, Gramm also supported these tax havens after 9/11, which hampered the government's ability to track Osama bin Laden's financial network before 9/11.
Oh yes, the GOP is sooooo tough on terror.
I really don't know what MEM is so worried abut. McCain is neck deep in lobbyists. Some who support terrorists finances. Another campaign manager, Rick Davis has lobbying ties to Iran.
Not only that but McCain decided to ridicule Obama in a speech before APAC yesterday about talking with Iran and then unveils his own plan to enact sanctions.... a plan that Obama co-sponsored in the Senate a year ago. The Obama campaign notes that John McCain failed to support Iran sanctions legislation sponsored by Obama in 2007, a bill currently rumored to be “on hold” by Alabama Republican, Richard Shelby.
So much for consistency. If McCain can't even remember what bills he was against a year ago and thinks that finally coming around a year after Obama did and embracing his plan is considered having better judgement than Obama, I don't think the Democrats have a thing to be worried about.
Originally Posted By: the G-man
The "quote" you gave us is an anonymous blogger posting at Newsweek, not an actual Newsweek article.
You want corroboration? You know I enjoy it, G-Man....
U.S. investigators believe some of these clients may have used offshore accounts at UBS to illegally hide as much as $20 billion from the Internal Revenue Service. Doing so may have enabled these people to dodge $300 million or more in U.S. taxes, according to a government official connected with the investigation....
Using offshore accounts is not illegal for U.S. taxpayers, but hiding income in so-called "undeclared" accounts is. At issue is whether the UBS clients disclosed securities and assets held offshore to the IRS, as required by law. Switzerland does not consider tax evasion a crime, and using undeclared accounts is perfectly legal there.
The case could turn into an embarrassment for Marcel Rohner, the chief executive at UBS and the former head of its private bank,as well as for Phil Gramm, the former Republican senator from Texas who is now the vice chairman of UBS Securities, the Swiss bank's investment-banking arm. It also comes at a difficult time for UBS, which is reeling from $37 billion in soured investments, many of them linked to risky U.S. subprime mortgages.....
The U.S. was all set to join a global crackdown on criminal and terrorist money havens earlier this year. Thirty industrial nations were ready to tighten the screws on offshore financial centers like Liechtenstein and Antigua, whose banks have the potential to hide and often help launder billions of dollars for drug cartels, global crime syndicates--and groups like Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization. Then the Bush Administration took office.....
Long before the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. government tried to declare war on tax havens and dirty money. After the 1998 attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa--attacks blamed on bin Laden's network--the Clinton Administration began drafting legislation designed to "strategically change the environment that allowed the money of criminals and terrorists to flow freely," says William Wechsler, a special adviser to Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. And the Administration began sounding out the banking industry......
Just days prior to Summers' announcement that he was cracking down on the OECD's tax havens, Dennis Nixon, chairman of the International Bank of Commerce in Laredo, gave $20,000 to the Republican National Committee. Already a Bush Pioneer, who had raised at least $100,000 for the primaries, Nixon gave the R.N.C. another $100,000 as the post-election contest for Florida ballots began. Summers' bill passed the House Banking Committee 31 to 1 in July 2000, but it got no further. Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, refused to let it come up for a vote in his committee.......
It took the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history to turn the Bush Administration around.
That would be the part where Richard Clark says "i told you so"
3)
Quote:
A NATION CHALLENGED: THE PAPER TRAIL; Roadblocks Cited In Efforts to Trace Bin Laden's Money
By TIM WEINER AND DAVID CAY JOHNSTON Published: September 20, 2001 The New York Times
Congress is now reviving a proposal killed last year by Senator Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican who was then chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. The bill, introduced by the Clinton administration, would give the Treasury secretary broad power to bar foreign countries and banks from access to the American financial market unless they cooperated with money-laundering investigations. It was strongly opposed by the banking industry and Mr. Gramm.
''I was right then and I am right now'' in opposing the bill, Mr. Gramm said yesterday. He called the bill ''totalitarian''
Measures taken by the Clinton administration to thwart international terrorism and bin Laden's network were historic, unprecedented and, sadly, not followed up on. Consider the steps offered by Clinton's 1996 omnibus anti-terror legislation, the pricetag for which stood at $1.097 billion. The following is a partial list of the initiatives offered by the Clinton anti-terrorism bill:
* Screen Checked Baggage: $91.1 million * Screen Carry-On Baggage: $37.8 million * Passenger Profiling: $10 million * Screener Training: $5.3 million * Screen Passengers (portals) and Document Scanners: $1 million * Deploying Existing Technology to Inspect International Air Cargo: $31.4 million * Provide Additional Air/Counterterrorism Security: $26.6 million * Explosives Detection Training: $1.8 million * Augment FAA Security Research: $20 million * Customs Service: Explosives and Radiation Detection Equipment at Ports: $2.2 million * Anti-Terrorism Assistance to Foreign Governments: $2 million * Capacity to Collect and Assemble Explosives Data: $2.1 million * Improve Domestic Intelligence: $38.9 million * Critical Incident Response Teams for Post-Blast Deployment: $7.2 million * Additional Security for Federal Facilities: $6.7 million * Firefighter/Emergency Services Financial Assistance: $2.7 million * Public Building and Museum Security: $7.3 million * Improve Technology to Prevent Nuclear Smuggling: $8 million * Critical Incident Response Facility: $2 million * Counter-Terrorism Fund: $35 million * Explosives Intelligence and Support Systems: $14.2 million * Office of Emergency Preparedness: $5.8 million
The Clinton administration poured more than a billion dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of the intelligence community, into the protection of critical infrastructure, into massive federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines to prepare for a possible bioterror attack, into a reorganization of the intelligence community itself. Within the National Security Council, "threat meetings" were held three times a week to assess looming conspiracies. His National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, prepared a voluminous dossier on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, actively tracking them across the planet. Clinton raised the issue of terrorism in virtually every important speech he gave in the last three years of his tenure.
Clinton's dire public warnings about the threat posed by terrorism, and the actions taken to thwart it, went completely unreported by the media, which was far more concerned with stained dresses and baseless Drudge Report rumors. When the administration did act militarily against bin Laden and his terrorist network, the actions were dismissed by partisans within the media and Congress as scandalous "wag the dog" tactics. The news networks actually broadcast clips of the movie "Wag the Dog" while reporting on his warnings, to accentuate the idea that everything the administration said was contrived fakery.
In Congress, Clinton was thwarted by the reactionary conservative majority in virtually every attempt he made to pass legislation that would attack al-Qaeda and terrorism. His 1996 omnibus terror bill, which included many of the anti-terror measures we now take for granted after September 11, was withered almost to the point of uselessness by attacks from the right; Senators Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were openly dismissive of the threats Clinton spoke of.
Specifically, Clinton wanted to attack the financial underpinnings of the al-Qaeda network by banning American companies and individuals from dealing with foreign banks and financial institutions that al-Qaeda was using for its money-laundering operations. Texas Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, gutted the portions of Clinton's bill dealing with this matter, calling them "totalitarian."
In fact, Gramm was compelled to kill the bill because his most devoted patrons, the Enron Corporation and its criminal executives in Houston, were using those same terrorist financial networks to launder their own dirty money and rip off the Enron stockholders. It should also be noted that Gramm's wife, Wendy, sat on the Enron Board of Directors.
Just before departing office, Clinton managed to make a deal with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to have some twenty nations close tax havens used by al-Qaeda. His term ended before the deal was sealed, and the incoming Bush administration acted immediately to destroy the agreement.
According to Time magazine, in an article entitled "Banking on Secrecy" published in October of 2001, Bush economic advisors Larry Lindsey and R. Glenn Hubbard were urged by think tanks like the Center for Freedom and Prosperity to opt out of the coalition Clinton had formed. The conservative Heritage Foundation lobbied Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, to do the same.
[quote=whomod]"You're either with us or against us"
Quote:
Now, it appears Gramm's association with the aging Republican senator's campaign is doing far more harm that previously known. UBS, a bank for which Gramm lobbied, is now under investigation for alleged use of overseas tax havens to hide assets of its wealthy clients from U.S. authorities while in office, Gramm also supported these tax havens after 9/11, which hampered the government's ability to track Osama bin Laden's financial network before 9/11.
Oh yes, the GOP is sooooo tough on terror.
I really don't know what MEM is so worried abut. McCain is neck deep in lobbyists. Some who support terrorists finances. Another campaign manager, Rick Davis has lobbying ties to Iran.
Not only that but McCain decided to ridicule Obama in a speech before APAC yesterday about talking with Iran and then unveils his own plan to enact sanctions.... a plan that Obama co-sponsored in the Senate a year ago. The Obama campaign notes that John McCain failed to support Iran sanctions legislation sponsored by Obama in 2007, a bill currently rumored to be “on hold” by Alabama Republican, Richard Shelby.
So much for consistency. If McCain can't even remember what bills he was against a year ago and thinks that finally coming around a year after Obama did and embracing his plan is considered having better judgement than Obama, I don't think the Democrats have a thing to be worried about.
Originally Posted By: the G-man
The "quote" you gave us is an anonymous blogger posting at Newsweek, not an actual Newsweek article.
You want corroboration? You know I enjoy it, G-Man....
U.S. investigators believe some of these clients may have used offshore accounts at UBS to illegally hide as much as $20 billion from the Internal Revenue Service. Doing so may have enabled these people to dodge $300 million or more in U.S. taxes, according to a government official connected with the investigation....
Using offshore accounts is not illegal for U.S. taxpayers, but hiding income in so-called "undeclared" accounts is. At issue is whether the UBS clients disclosed securities and assets held offshore to the IRS, as required by law. Switzerland does not consider tax evasion a crime, and using undeclared accounts is perfectly legal there.
The case could turn into an embarrassment for Marcel Rohner, the chief executive at UBS and the former head of its private bank,as well as for Phil Gramm, the former Republican senator from Texas who is now the vice chairman of UBS Securities, the Swiss bank's investment-banking arm. It also comes at a difficult time for UBS, which is reeling from $37 billion in soured investments, many of them linked to risky U.S. subprime mortgages.....
The U.S. was all set to join a global crackdown on criminal and terrorist money havens earlier this year. Thirty industrial nations were ready to tighten the screws on offshore financial centers like Liechtenstein and Antigua, whose banks have the potential to hide and often help launder billions of dollars for drug cartels, global crime syndicates--and groups like Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization. Then the Bush Administration took office.....
Long before the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. government tried to declare war on tax havens and dirty money. After the 1998 attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa--attacks blamed on bin Laden's network--the Clinton Administration began drafting legislation designed to "strategically change the environment that allowed the money of criminals and terrorists to flow freely," says William Wechsler, a special adviser to Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. And the Administration began sounding out the banking industry......
Just days prior to Summers' announcement that he was cracking down on the OECD's tax havens, Dennis Nixon, chairman of the International Bank of Commerce in Laredo, gave $20,000 to the Republican National Committee. Already a Bush Pioneer, who had raised at least $100,000 for the primaries, Nixon gave the R.N.C. another $100,000 as the post-election contest for Florida ballots began. Summers' bill passed the House Banking Committee 31 to 1 in July 2000, but it got no further. Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, refused to let it come up for a vote in his committee.......
It took the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history to turn the Bush Administration around.
That would be the part where Richard Clark says "i told you so"
3)
Quote:
A NATION CHALLENGED: THE PAPER TRAIL; Roadblocks Cited In Efforts to Trace Bin Laden's Money
By TIM WEINER AND DAVID CAY JOHNSTON Published: September 20, 2001 The New York Times
Congress is now reviving a proposal killed last year by Senator Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican who was then chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. The bill, introduced by the Clinton administration, would give the Treasury secretary broad power to bar foreign countries and banks from access to the American financial market unless they cooperated with money-laundering investigations. It was strongly opposed by the banking industry and Mr. Gramm.
''I was right then and I am right now'' in opposing the bill, Mr. Gramm said yesterday. He called the bill ''totalitarian''
Measures taken by the Clinton administration to thwart international terrorism and bin Laden's network were historic, unprecedented and, sadly, not followed up on. Consider the steps offered by Clinton's 1996 omnibus anti-terror legislation, the pricetag for which stood at $1.097 billion. The following is a partial list of the initiatives offered by the Clinton anti-terrorism bill:
* Screen Checked Baggage: $91.1 million * Screen Carry-On Baggage: $37.8 million * Passenger Profiling: $10 million * Screener Training: $5.3 million * Screen Passengers (portals) and Document Scanners: $1 million * Deploying Existing Technology to Inspect International Air Cargo: $31.4 million * Provide Additional Air/Counterterrorism Security: $26.6 million * Explosives Detection Training: $1.8 million * Augment FAA Security Research: $20 million * Customs Service: Explosives and Radiation Detection Equipment at Ports: $2.2 million * Anti-Terrorism Assistance to Foreign Governments: $2 million * Capacity to Collect and Assemble Explosives Data: $2.1 million * Improve Domestic Intelligence: $38.9 million * Critical Incident Response Teams for Post-Blast Deployment: $7.2 million * Additional Security for Federal Facilities: $6.7 million * Firefighter/Emergency Services Financial Assistance: $2.7 million * Public Building and Museum Security: $7.3 million * Improve Technology to Prevent Nuclear Smuggling: $8 million * Critical Incident Response Facility: $2 million * Counter-Terrorism Fund: $35 million * Explosives Intelligence and Support Systems: $14.2 million * Office of Emergency Preparedness: $5.8 million
The Clinton administration poured more than a billion dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of the intelligence community, into the protection of critical infrastructure, into massive federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines to prepare for a possible bioterror attack, into a reorganization of the intelligence community itself. Within the National Security Council, "threat meetings" were held three times a week to assess looming conspiracies. His National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, prepared a voluminous dossier on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, actively tracking them across the planet. Clinton raised the issue of terrorism in virtually every important speech he gave in the last three years of his tenure.
Clinton's dire public warnings about the threat posed by terrorism, and the actions taken to thwart it, went completely unreported by the media, which was far more concerned with stained dresses and baseless Drudge Report rumors. When the administration did act militarily against bin Laden and his terrorist network, the actions were dismissed by partisans within the media and Congress as scandalous "wag the dog" tactics. The news networks actually broadcast clips of the movie "Wag the Dog" while reporting on his warnings, to accentuate the idea that everything the administration said was contrived fakery.
In Congress, Clinton was thwarted by the reactionary conservative majority in virtually every attempt he made to pass legislation that would attack al-Qaeda and terrorism. His 1996 omnibus terror bill, which included many of the anti-terror measures we now take for granted after September 11, was withered almost to the point of uselessness by attacks from the right; Senators Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were openly dismissive of the threats Clinton spoke of.
Specifically, Clinton wanted to attack the financial underpinnings of the al-Qaeda network by banning American companies and individuals from dealing with foreign banks and financial institutions that al-Qaeda was using for its money-laundering operations. Texas Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, gutted the portions of Clinton's bill dealing with this matter, calling them "totalitarian."
In fact, Gramm was compelled to kill the bill because his most devoted patrons, the Enron Corporation and its criminal executives in Houston, were using those same terrorist financial networks to launder their own dirty money and rip off the Enron stockholders. It should also be noted that Gramm's wife, Wendy, sat on the Enron Board of Directors.
Just before departing office, Clinton managed to make a deal with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to have some twenty nations close tax havens used by al-Qaeda. His term ended before the deal was sealed, and the incoming Bush administration acted immediately to destroy the agreement.
According to Time magazine, in an article entitled "Banking on Secrecy" published in October of 2001, Bush economic advisors Larry Lindsey and R. Glenn Hubbard were urged by think tanks like the Center for Freedom and Prosperity to opt out of the coalition Clinton had formed. The conservative Heritage Foundation lobbied Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, to do the same.
It's that kind of attitude that allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen in the 1st place and then tried to blame it on the people who were actually trying to do something to prevent them.
I give you concrete articles from the past to prove my point and that point pisses you off so you dismiss and ridicule it.
I made my point. The Republicans weakened us before 9/11 and people like you were more focused on Clinton's blow jobs to even know who the fuck Bin laden was.
You ask for concrete evidence while you pull "facts" out of your ass? Maybe if clinton was less worried about chubbies giving him BJ's he would have gone after bin laden when he attacked the U.S.S. cole. Or did you forget about that? Maybe you should add that to your death toll in your signature you fucking retard.
November 6th, 2012: Americas new Independence Day.
It's that kind of attitude that allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen in the 1st place and then tried to blame it on the people who were actually trying to do something to prevent them.
I give you concrete articles from the past to prove my point and that point pisses you off so you dismiss and ridicule it.
I made my point. The Republicans weakened us before 9/11 and people like you were more focused on Clinton's blow jobs to even know who the fuck Bin laden was.
You ask for concrete evidence while you pull "facts" out of your ass? Maybe if clinton was less worried about chubbies giving him BJ's he would have gone after bin laden when he attacked the U.S.S. cole. Or did you forget about that? Maybe you should add that to your death toll in your signature you fucking retard.
I've already addressed all that time and again, maybe if you'd pay attention and stop listening to the people who most of the country already know as liars, you'd know that as well.
And as you can see from the linked articles if you'd actually stop to read instead of being a smarmy dumbass, you'd see that Clinton was doing plenty to try to thwart terrorism. All to fierce opposition from the Republican Congress who was more interested in the aforementioned blow jobs and land deal investigations.
Plus if you weren't such a dismissive dumbass, you could go to TIME magazine and read "9/11: The Secret History" where it details why exactly Clinton didn't attack after the Cole and why it ultimately was Bush who didn't respond to it.
Since you won't bother, I'll tell you. It was verified that Bin Laden attacked the Cole, in Dec 2000, with only weeks left in Clinton's Presidency. So he deferred it to Bush as to not embroil him in possible war coming into his Presidency without his agreement. And Richard Clark and everyone Clinton assembled to deal with Bin laden were demoted from Cabinet level positions and were derided as being "obsessed with Osama". The real threat you see was from ICBMS and thus the focus needed to be missile defense!
That pretty much gels with everything else I just posted. The Republicans belittled antiterrorism up until 9/11 and ten covered their asses by trying to blame Clinton. And it succeeded with the same dumbasses who thought Sadaam had WMD's and Al Queda ties.
I understand you guys are all right wing and Bush cock suckers, but you're entitled to your own beliefs, you aren't entitled to your own facts.
It's that kind of attitude that allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen in the 1st place and then tried to blame it on the people who were actually trying to do something to prevent them.
I give you concrete articles from the past to prove my point and that point pisses you off so you dismiss and ridicule it.
I made my point. The Republicans weakened us before 9/11 and people like you were more focused on Clinton's blow jobs to even know who the fuck Bin laden was.
You ask for concrete evidence while you pull "facts" out of your ass? Maybe if clinton was less worried about chubbies giving him BJ's he would have gone after bin laden when he attacked the U.S.S. cole. Or did you forget about that? Maybe you should add that to your death toll in your signature you fucking retard.
I've already addressed all that time and again, maybe if you'd pay attention and stop listening to the people who most of the country already know as liars, you'd know that as well.
And as you can see from the linked articles if you'd actually stop to read instead of being a smarmy dumbass, you'd see that Clinton was doing plenty to try to thwart terrorism. All to fierce opposition from the Republican Congress who was more interested in the aforementioned blow jobs and land deal investigations.
Plus if you weren't such a dismissive dumbass, you could go to TIME magazine and read "9/11: The Secret History" where it details why exactly Clinton didn't attack after the Cole and why it ultimately was Bush who didn't respond to it.
Since you won't bother, I'll tell you. It was verified that Bin Laden attacked the Cole, in Dec 2000, with only weeks left in Clinton's Presidency. So he deferred it to Bush as to not embroil him in possible war coming into his Presidency without his agreement. And Richard Clark and everyone Clinton assembled to deal with Bin laden were demoted from Cabinet level positions and were derided as being "obsessed with Osama". The real threat you see was from ICBMS and thus the focus needed to be missile defense!
That pretty much gels with everything else I just posted. The Republicans belittled antiterrorism up until 9/11 and ten covered their asses by trying to blame Clinton. And it succeeded with the same dumbasses who thought Sadaam had WMD's and Al Queda ties.
I understand you guys are all right wing and Bush cock suckers, but you're entitled to your own beliefs, you aren't entitled to your own facts.
And you guys are the ones who supposedly care sooooo much about 9/11.
And Rex is the one who cares soooo much about the honor of the troops.
I say
BULLSHIT!!
You're all more concerned with maintaining Bush Administration propaganda than actually seeing that everything I said is well documented and verifiable. And since it is, then it must be ridiculed and dismissed. Those responsible for not doing enough to thwart 9/11 must be protected and their candidates elected, Bin Laden must be allowed to continue live on unimpeded, And the troops must remain in harms way in the wrong theatre of operation.
And you wonder why no one likes Republicans anymore?
