Bush Won Third Debate!!!!

He never answered anything.

Does anyone think he (Bush) was medicated last night? He had that same pharmaceutical gleen as his wife last night. I can't get over how this guy smirks in the most inappropriate pplaces.

Well i just logged on the net made a trip to MSNBC and voted for who won the debate on their online poll. With 1,828,573 responses to the poll Kerry has 62% of the votes while Bush has 38%. I thought Kerry did a better job. Bush's closing statement "i'm asking for your vote" ehhh

msnbc.msn.com...

One thing that is impressive, is that no matter the subject, Kerry can reach into the Kerry's Magic Hat and voila!...I have a plan. Lots of style and flash, but still a cheap parlor trick using smoke and mirrors. I get sick of hearing that word "plan". It would be nice for anyone to have a clue what his "plan" is on anything.

He does come across like a smarmy lawyer/car saleman though, which seems good for the masses who just want to be sold on anything it seems.

I guess my biggest peeve, was the fact that Kerry couldn't stay with the debate decorum.

2 minutes
90 seconds
30 more seconds each if granted

How many times in the various debates, did Kerry "carry over" a subject into a totally different question just to have the last word? He must like to hear himself speak. I just thought it was poor form. Seems he just can't get his message across. All that talking and still no specifics on any of his "plans".

Blackjackal my friend, what I find really interesting is that this is an election campaign where I've heard people on both sides manifest their willingness to move to Canada if the other side won. Two friends of mine, one in California and the other in Texas, have said they'd consider moving if Bush won (well, actually, the one in Texas is dating my nephew, so that makes it easier for her).

So I'm really asking the question in earnest, because it definitely piques my curiosity...

WHY?

Other than that, Blackjackal - if you want land in Western Quebec or Eastern Ontario, or even New Brunswick... I've been told by my American friends that it's cheaper than the real estate in the U.S.

Kerry didn't answer this question but the president did.

SCHIEFFER: Let me just stay on Social Security with a new question for Senator Kerry, because, Senator Kerry, you have just said you will not cut benefits.

Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, says there's no way that Social Security can pay retirees what we have promised them unless we recalibrate.

What he's suggesting, we're going to cut benefits or we're going to have to raise the retirement age. We may have to take some other reform. But if you've just said, you've promised no changes, does that mean you're just going to leave this as a problem, another problem for our children to solve?

KERRY: Not at all. Absolutely not, Bob. This is the same thing we heard � remember, I appeared on Meet the Press with Tim Russert in 1990-something. We heard the same thing. We fixed it.

In fact, we put together a $5.6 trillion surplus in the '90s that was for the purpose of saving Social Security. If you take the tax cut that the president of the United States has given � President Bush gave to Americans in the top 1 percent of America � just that tax cut that went to the top 1 percent of America would have saved Social Security until the year 2075.

The president decided to give it to the wealthiest Americans in a tax cut. Now, Alan Greenspan, who I think has done a terrific job in monetary policy, supports the president's tax cut. I don't. I support it for the middle class, not that part of it that goes to people earning more than $200,000 a year.

And when I roll it back and we invest in the things that I have talked about to move our economy, we're going to grow sufficiently, it would begin to cut the deficit in half, and we get back to where we were at the end of the 1990s when we balanced the budget and paid down the debt of this country.

Now, we can do that.

Now, if later on after a period of time we find that Social Security is in trouble, we'll pull together the top experts of the country. We'll do exactly what we did it he 1990s. And we'll make whatever adjustment is necessary.

But the first and most important thing is to start creating jobs in America. The jobs the president is creating pay $9,000 less than the jobs that we're losing. And this is the first president in 72 years to preside over an economy in America that has lost jobs, 1.6 million jobs.

Eleven other presidents � six Democrats and five Republicans � had wars, had recessions, had great difficulties; none of them lost jobs the way this president has.

I have a plan to put America back to work. And if we're fiscally responsible and put America back to work, we're going to fix Social Security.

SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?

BUSH: He forgot to tell you he voted to tax Social Security benefits more than one time. I didn't hear any plan to fix Social Security. I heard more of the same.

He talks about middle-class tax cuts. That's exactly where the tax cuts went. Most of the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income Americans. And now the tax code is more fair. Twenty percent of the upper-income people pay about 80 percent of the taxes in America today because of how we structured the tax cuts. People listening out there know the benefits of the tax cuts we passed. If you have a child, you got tax relief. If you're married, you got tax relief. If you pay any tax at all, you got tax relief. All of which was opposed by my opponent.

And the tax relief was important to spur consumption and investment to get us out of this recession.

People need to remember: Six months prior to my arrival, the stock market started to go down. And it was one of the largest declines in our history. And then we had a recession and we got attacked, which cost us 1 million jobs.

But we acted. I led the Congress. We passed tax relief. And now this economy is growing. We added 1.9 million new jobs over the last 13 months.

Sure, there's more work to do. But the way to make sure our economy grows is not to raise taxes on small-business owners. It's not to increase the scope of the federal government. It's to make sure we have fiscal sanity and keep taxes low.

Originally posted by Otts
WHY?

Quite simply put, If Kerry is elected I do not feel like we would be safe here in America. He doesn't know where he stands and I truly feel he will try so hard to appease everyone that he will open us up to another attack of a much larger magnitude than that of 9/11. I don't trust him.

Say what you want to about Bush but there has not been another attack on American soil since 9/11 and I feel safer with him in office. Thats why this election is such a big deal to me.

When I said earlier I was serious I was not kidding. I don't want my kids to die so I will do what I must to protect them, whether I want to or not. If that means moving to another country so be it.

www.badnarik.org...

economy

Excess regulation and government spending destroy jobs and increase unemployment. Every regulator we fire results in the creation of over 150 new jobs, enough to hire the ex-regulator, the unemployed, and the able-bodied poor.

Have you lost your job to downsizing or corporate mergers? Are you fearful that you might? If so, you won't want to vote for the Democrats or Republicans this November.

Establishment politicians think that larger, more elaborate government jobs programs are the solution to your problems. However, since these programs must be funded by taking money from the private sector, even more jobs are destroyed�more jobs than the government programs can ever create.

Establishment politicians don't have solutions that work in the real world because they aren't asking the tough question: "Why are jobs becoming scarce? Why do we have so much downsizing and so many corporate mergers?"

The answer is too much regulation and too much government spending. In the 1980s, the number of federal regulators fell from about 122,000 to barely 100,000. The private sector added 3,500,000 jobs as a consequence. The loss of each federal regulator resulted in the creation of more than 150 new jobs, enough to hire the ex-regulator, most of the unemployed, and some of the able-bodied poor. The nation prospered!

Health Care Scary
(poor doctors)


Health care and insurance costs will plummet if excess regulation is eliminated and malpractice awards are made only on the basis of real damages caused by real negligence. Lower costs, along with the savings from downsizing regulatory bureaucracy, will fund tax credits for those who establish Health Savings Accounts for themselves, their families, Medicare/Medicaid recipients, and the needy.

Health care costs are soaring. Health insurance premiums reflect these increases, making coverage unaffordable, for both individuals and businesses. If these trends continue, few people will have access to state-of-the-art health care.

Establishment politicians don't have a solution to the health care crisis. They simply propose a variety of cost-shifting measures which are doomed to fail. As the "baby boomers" age, their medical needs will dwarf the capacity of the next generation to pay for them. Health care rationing will be the inevitable result, as Canada, Britain, and other nations that have turned to tax-supported "universal care" are discovering. While these nations are turning toward market-based reforms to save themselves, our politicians seemed determined to repeat their mistakes.

Establishment politicians can't solve the health care crisis because they aren't asking the tough question: "Why are health care costs so high in the first place? What can be done to lower them without causing rationing or the loss of life-saving innovations? How can we make health care universally affordable?"

Costs are high because of the excessive regulation in virtually every aspect of health care. In the companion paper "How to Slash Pharmaceutical Prices Virtually Overnight," I explain how excess regulation has driven up the cost of new drugs. As a consequence, less than half of new pharmaceutical discoveries can be developed.

Fewer new drugs translate into higher health care costs. Even at the inflated prices that new drugs command, every dollar spent to buy them saves about $3 in hospitalizations and lost time. For example, people with ulcers used to pay $28,000 for surgery and were unable to work for weeks. The introduction of Tagametr allowed ulcer patients to stay on the job, while spending only $1,000-$3,000 on medication. One of the easiest ways to lower health care costs is to get rid of excess regulation of the pharmaceutical industry.

In addition, excess regulation drives up the cost of training physicians, who must then raise their fees accordingly. Just as the high cost of pharmaceutical regulation results in fewer medications, the high cost of gaining a medical license means fewer doctors, so patients must often wait weeks for an appointment. The regulations governing medical schools have resulted in homogenized training of physicians, which often neglects cost-saving approaches such as disease prevention, nutrition, and alternative therapies.

Government-mandated red tape increases the paperwork burden for physicians and their staff. Medicare and Medicaid come with an additional layer of busy work for over-extended physicians, with criminal penalties for clerical mistakes. More and more doctors are refusing to treat patients with government "insurance" to avoid the red tape, late payments, and poor compensation that have become a hallmark of these programs.

Courts today often impose malpractice penalties on physicians who have done nothing wrong so that patients can access the "deep pockets" of insurers. The result has been skyrocketing premiums for doctors, driving up prices and causing many practitioners to abandon high-risk specialties such as obstetrics.

If you elect me as your president, I will end excess regulation of pharmaceuticals, health care providers, and insurance companies. Physicians will be held liable for malpractice, but not for problems beyond their control. Health care costs will plummet.

Taxpayers will save as much as they are now spending on Medicare/Medicaid when they no longer have to fund this destructive bureaucracy. Tax credits can then be extended to any person or organization funding Health Savings Accounts for themselves or others. With such tax incentives to aid in charitable gifting, Medicare or Medicaid recipients can transition into their choice of private health insurance, allowing rapid privatization of these programs.

With such reforms, health care costs will be almost universally affordable. Generous tax credits, made possible by downsizing the regulatory bureaucracy, will spur charitable donors to take care of the medically needy.

[edit on 14-10-2004 by TrueLies]

Uh, I watch CBC, and it seems the liberals control Canada, so if leaving cause Kerry is liberal, then well, out of the frying pan, into the eletrical coil.(New oven) I swear, how would we be more at risk? Because we aren't buying new helicopters and medium armor tanks? Well, we all saw how eefctive they were on 9/11, didn't we?

Wow, wasn't an attack since 9/11, well, gow many have there been again? Shoe bomber, anthrax attacks, those sound like terrorists on American soil to me. Sure they didn't kill thousands, but still terrorist attacks, or failed cause the guy was trying to set his shoes on fire....

Also, first attack on the WTC was what? A week into the Clinton Administration, and guess who the republicans blame? Clinton. 9/11 was about what, 8 months isince Bush stole the election? And who do they blame? Clinton. Gee, when all goes to hell, blame Clinton. Sure it wasn't actually his fault, but hey, blame him anyways, it's the republican thing to do.

[edit on 14-10-2004 by James the Lesser]

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It was about a tie i would say.

Bush was so much better that if i didn't already know his record I might actually consider voting for him.

John F. Kerry cracked some jokes. will wonders never cease.
Good go Kerry.
John F. Kerry also closed with some real inspiration. Talked about the future like he believed in it.
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I don't think either of them won. I think they both made some points and I think they both dodged answering questions. I thought it was the most boring debate I've ever seen. I wasn't impressed with either of them. I think the second debate was the best for Bush, and he was better in last nights than in the first. I think Kerry started out the debates with a bang and went down hill with each debate.

Frankly I was sick of hearing Bush talk about education and I was sick of hearing Kerry rattle off inaccurate statistics. I thought the debate was a wash other than hearing Kerry make his inappropriate comment about Cheney's daughter being a lesbian. To me that just confirmed my belief that no level is too low for him to sink to and that he obviously didn't listen to his Mom's advice of 'integrity, integrity, integrity'.

Jemison

Originally posted by BlackJackal
Say what you want to about Bush but there has not been another attack on American soil since 9/11 and I feel safer with him in office.

Good for you, even if you resort to self deception to get this comfort. Bush squandered astronomical sums of money in Iraq that are badly needed to beef up security in the US.

There hasn't been another attack since 9/11 with Bush in office? There hasn't been attack like that BEFORE 9/11 either, before Bush came to office.

When I said earlier I was serious I was not kidding. I don't want my kids to die so I will do what I must to protect them, whether I want to or not. If that means moving to another country so be it.

I detect that your sense of patriotism is flagging. You abandon the ship?
Maybe you shouldn't vote at all.

Originally posted by slank
John F. Kerry also closed with some real inspiration. Talked about the future like he believed in it.

I love it when people jump on board with a politician because he made em feel all warm and fuzzy...

People forget politican's do a good job of talking out of their ass... It's part of being in the playing field... If you don't appear sincere people aren't going to want to jump on board with you... So my friend, he just got you by the balls and you didn't even notice...

Inspiration = perspiration..... It may not stink now, but it will later...

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BlackJackal, I feel just the inverse of you.
If Bush is re-elected i will definitely consider moving out of the city and possibly out of the country.

I personally will breathe much easier if Kerry is elected.
I will worry less so much about a police state.
He will intelligently and EFFECTIVELY fight the war on terrorism.
He killed for this nation when called upon and he will do so again if needed.
Most importantly He will get Russian nuclear material rounded up and keep it from the hands of terrorists.

Bush is creating more anti-American hostility in the world, Instead of effectively executing the war on terrorism.

Keep a low profile and fight like your life depends on it.
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Moving out of the country just because your candidate isn't elected is the equivelant of quitting a basketball game because you aren't winning. It is childish to even suggest.

It is an awfully spoiled attitude. So you are all good Americans, patriotic and true, until your candidate loses the election. Then America is the land of the opressed, home of the slave, and unsafe. WHat a crock.

Bush did much better, and at some points he had Kerry by the lapels, but overall I think Kerry came out on top. Sadly, there is no way Bush will ever compete with Kerry in creating sentances. Kerry doesn't do all that well himslef, but Bush just is not capable of starched language.

Which is quite sad, because Bush SHOULD be reelected. His chances are much slimmer after these debates.

Originally posted by Rain King
Moving out of the country just because your candidate isn't elected is the equivelant of quitting a basketball game because you aren't winning. It is childish to even suggest.

How long do you have to lose before you can give up?

Originally posted by Rain King
Which is quite sad, because Bush SHOULD be reelected. His chances are much slimmer after these debates.

Excellent, because under no circumstance should this excuse of a govt official be reelected. Break out the champagne, and vote him out!

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TrueLies, while I concur with many of your libertarian sentiments, I think you fail to realize people are motivated by hope.

The future IS the unknown country. The future has obstacles in it. People must be told about them. Peak Oil is a fact. The future will get dark probably even ugly, but what is the point of living with out hope? People survived before peak oil, albeit not so many of them, It may not be a total disaster.

We have to tell people the truth and leave them with both the fear (terror?) of the future and hope that scientific and technological advances will likely offer some kind of solutions. To be exclusively gloom and doom may be just as false as be Pollyannaish.

Get motivated. Get others motivated.

Make yourself as independent as possible.
Use your mind, intelligence and creativity.

The future is a challenge, revel in it.
Life has always been pathological.
Get excited that you might discover some new idea, create some new invention.
Don't cling to the past. It is like cotton candy and melts away quickly.
The future is scary. Enjoy the fear. Let it fire your ambitions.
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RainKing, while i do feel animosity towards George Bush, more importantly it says something about a large portion of my fellow Americans.
He and this congress have done virtually NOTHING but feed the corporate vampires.
Im gay. Maybe the bones he throws to the religious right keeps them happy.

Honestly he's stupid and many of his religious and war-hawk followers are stupid.

Iraq:
No WMDs
No connection to Al-Qaeda or 911
Abu Grabe disgusted the world and engraged muslims
Created santuary in Fallujah for terrorists
Killed 20,000 Iraqis, left it in a mess, as a breeding ground of anti-American terrorists
Has done virtually nothing to round up nuclear materials from the ex-Soviet Union
This all at a price tag of 1000 American lives and 120 BILLION and counting.

Domestic:
Appointed industry lobbyist to head SEC instead of protecting the small investor
Enron, criminal fraud corporation, helped craft our energy policy, Excuse me, get real
FCC rule rewrite to pander to big Media companies over the top of overwhelming protests of the American people.
Drug benefit? Barred from buying drugs from Canada and illegal for government to do group purchase, total sellout to pharmaceuticals
Corporate Tax Bill? reduced manufacturing rate, but then used fantasy definition of 'manufacturing' to include oil & gas among others. Loaded with corporate giveaways.
Putting more mercury in the air and water, now wants to pillage the national forests.
Corporate lobbyists are writing the legislation in this nation and Bush doesn't have the SPINE to stand up to them.

I am at a crossroads of my faith in my fellow Americans.
If they can't look at the FACTS of his record and find the obvious problems i have to wonder what are they paying attention to.
Frankly some of them sound like rock star groupies. They don't have a clue when it comes to subjects of substance.
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Accounts from parallel universes where Bush can win a debate are interesting creative fiction.

Debate statistics colected thus far:

Debate 1
ABC: Kerry won 45-36

CBS, uncommitted voters: Kerry won 44-26.

CNN/USA Today Gallup: Kerry won 53-37, 60-29 among independents

Democracy Corps: Kerry won 45-32

ARG: Kerry won 51-41

Debate 2

ABC: Kerry wins 44-41

CNN/USA Today Gallup: Kerry wins 47-45

Democracy Corps: Kerry wins 45-37

Debate 3

CBS, undecideds: Kerry wins 39-25. Before the debate, 29% said Kerry had clear positions on the issues, after, that number doubled to 60%.

ABC: Kerry won 42%-41% in a poll that surveyed 8% more Republicans than Democrats. Independen voters thought Kerry won: 42-35

CNN/USA Today Gallup: Kerry wins 52-39. Among independents, Kerry won: 54-34.

Democracy Corps: Kerry wins 41-36