RBnDFW wrote:
Hawke wrote:


It's Chicago. There are no regular law abiding people, they will shoot
you in the chest just to see the look on your face. As an example of
what normal in Chicago is, take a look at Chicago's finest citizens
who
we sent to Washington. The Chimp, the Ballerina, and thunder thighs in
the technicolor pantsuits.


Yeah, well, we saw what they sent to Washington from Texas and they
were ten times worse. The absolute worst bunch we've ever had just
went home in January 2009. How quickly you forget. You must still have
a job...and a house. Ask all the people without jobs and their houses
and you'll find out real quick that the damage done by the last
republican administration is monumental. So far Obama hasn't broken
anything and he's nearly half way through his first term. Count your
blessings. We could still have republicans at the helm.


Except nobody was mentioning anything about Texas, the subject was open
warfare in Chicago. The fact that Obama is half way through his only
term is because the country is holding its collective nose and waiting
him out.


I only brought up Texas as a comparison to what you think is so bad
that came out of Chicago. Between the Bush team and the Obama team
I'll take the Chicago bunch any day of the week. Nothing Obama has
done is close to the damage Bush did, so Chicago is way better than
Texas.

Oh yeah, GWB, Worst president ever:

Myths & Facts About the Real Bush Record
By Ed Gillespie

Myth 1: The last eight years were awful for most Americans economically
and President Bush's deregulatory policies caused the current financial
crisis.

Reality:

President Bush's time in office is ending as it began, with our economy
under stress. The recession President Bush inherited as he entered
office ran through the attacks of September 11, 2001, but during the
recovery that followed, and due in no small part to the tax relief
President Bush worked with Congress to provide, this country experienced
its longest run of uninterrupted job growth - 52 straight months, with
8.3 million jobs created.

This reflected six consecutive years of economic growth from the Fourth
Quarter of 2001 until the Fourth Quarter of 2007. From 2000 to 2007,
real GDP grew by more than 17 percent, a remarkable gain of nearly 2.1
trillion dollars. This growth was driven in part by increased labor
productivity gains that have averaged 2.5 percent annually since 2001, a
rate that exceeds the averages of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. In the same
period, real after-tax income per capita increased by more than 11
percent, and there was a 4.7 percent increase in the number of new
businesses formed. The current economic challenges, which the President
and his Administration have responded to aggressively, threaten to
reverse some of these gains - but the gains cannot be denied.

As for the current crisis, the President and his economic team have
taken unprecedented actions to stabilize the financial sector and avert
a collapse. While there are a number of causes of the housing and credit
crises that are at the root of our current economic troubles,
deregulation by the Bush Administration is simply not one of them. In
fact, one of the circumstances that contributed to the crisis was the
failure of the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac, which President Bush long tried to subject to greater
regulation. In April 2001, three months after taking office, the
President warned in his first budget that the size of the two GSEs were
a "potential problem" that "could cause strong repercussions in
financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic
activity." In 2003, the Administration began calling for a new GSE
regulator, and over the next five years, the Administration continued to
call for GSE reform only to be accused by Democrats in Congress of
creating artificial fears and advocating for ill-advised proposals. By
the time Congress finally acted in 2008 to provide the oversight the
President requested, it was too late to prevent systemic consequences.
Had the Administration's initial reform proposals been adopted, some of
today's turmoil in our financial markets may have been averted.

Myth 2: President Bush's tax cuts only benefitted the wealthy and were
paid for by sacrificing investments in health care and education.

Reality:

There are not 116 million "wealthy Americans," but that's how many
taxpayers benefited from the President's tax relief. The
across-the-board tax cuts provided tax relief to every American who pays
income taxes, created a new bottom 10 percent bracket rate, doubled the
child tax credit to $1,000, and actually increased the share of the
Federal income tax burden paid by the top 10 percent of individual
earners from 67 percent in 2000 to 70 percent in 2005. Furthermore, this
Administration removed 13 million low-income earners from the income tax
rolls completely.

The economic growth spurred by tax relief also spurred growth in Federal
tax receipts. In fact, the Federal Treasury realized the largest
three-year increase of revenue in 26 years, and tax receipts grew more
than $542 billion between 2000 and 2007. And yes, much of that money
went to investments in health care and education.

President Bush provided more than 40 million Americans with better
access to prescription drugs by creating the market-based Medicare
Prescription Drug Benefit. And it is one of the rare government programs
that actually costs less than expected. Projected overall program
spending between 2004 and 2013 is approximately $240 billion lower,
nearly 38 percent, than originally estimated, thanks to the
market-oriented principles included at President Bush's insistence.

Despite the heated rhetoric over children's health insurance (S-CHIP)
legislation last year, estimates from a 2007 Federal survey show that
the number of uninsured children under the age of 18 actually declined
by 800,000 from 2001 to 2007. From 2007 to 2008, the number of people
covered by affordable and portable Health Savings Account-eligible plans
increased 35 percent. Additionally, since President Bush took office,
more than 1,200 community health centers have opened or expanded
nationwide, which has helped provide treatment to nearly 17 million people.

Federal spending on education has increased nearly 40 percent under
President Bush. Additionally, Pell Grant funding nearly doubled during
the Administration, which is expected to help more than 5.5 million
students attend college in the 2008-09 school year, 1.2 million more
students than were assisted by Pell Grants in the 2001-02 school year.
This financial aid assistance also helps account for the fact that 66
percent of high school graduates from the class of 2006 enrolled in
colleges, compared to 63 percent in 2000.

Perhaps more importantly, the President's No Child Left Behind Act has
delivered tangible results to students. Since the law was enacted,
fourth-grade students have achieved their highest reading and math
scores on record, eighth-grade students have achieved their highest math
scores on record, and African-American and Hispanic students have posted
all-time high scores in a number of categories, narrowing the gap
between minority students and white students.

Myth 3: The President's "go it alone" foreign policy ruined America's
standing in the world.

Reality:

Rarely can one see revisionist history occurring in the present, but
this charge is nothing short of that. The United States acted with a
multilateral coalition of partner nations to remove Saddam Hussein from
power in Iraq after he failed to comply with the will of the
international community, including numerous United Nations Security
Council Resolutions. To ignore this fact is not only a distortion of
history, but it is also an insult to the service members of our
coalition partners who sacrificed their lives to contribute to the
success we are now witnessing in Iraq. And in Afghanistan, approximately
forty countries are currently deployed with American forces, including
every one of our NATO allies.

The President also created a worldwide coalition of more than 90 nations
to combat terrorist networks by sharing information, drying up their
financing, and bringing their leaders to justice. To date, we have
captured or killed hundreds of al-Qaeda leaders and operatives with the
help of partner nations. Furthermore, the Administration established the
Proliferation Security Initiative, which now includes more than 90
nations, and other multilateral coalitions to stop the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction.

The President successfully pushed for expanding NATO membership,
generated international pressure on Iran to stop it from developing
nuclear weapons, and organized the Six-Party Talks, which have resulted
in North Korea committing to give up its nuclear weapons and abandon its
nuclear programs. Verifying North Korea's commitment will be a
challenge, but at the most recent Six-Party Talks meeting, there was
strong consensus among the five parties that North Korea must submit to
a comprehensive verification regime that accords with international
standards.

U.S. ties in Asia have been strengthened over the past eight years, and
the Administration has built strong relationships with China, Japan, and
South Korea, among others. We have signed an historic civilian nuclear
power agreement with India, reflecting a fundamental change in our
relationship. Pro-American leaders have been elected in Germany, France,
and Italy. Eastern European countries such as Georgia, Ukraine, and
Kosovo treasure their relationships with the United States, and no
president has done more to improve health and security in the nations of
Africa. We have also strengthened cooperation with Latin America,
including initiatives with Brazil on biofuels and with Mexico and
Central America on fighting organized crime. Finally, when the President
took office, America had trade agreements in force with only three
countries, versus 14 today - with three additional agreements approved
by Congress but not yet in force and agreements with three countries
that are awaiting Congressional approval.

Myth 4: The war in Iraq caused us to "take our eye off the ball" in
Afghanistan and with al Qaeda.

Reality:

Iraq and Afghanistan are two fronts in the same war, and while the
success of the surge in Iraq has been visible, we have also had a quiet
surge in Afghanistan. The U.S. has continuously and aggressively fought
side-by-side with Afghans and our allies to defeat the Taliban and al
Qaeda in Afghanistan. The United States has provided nearly $32 billion
for security, political, and economic development assistance and the
international community has provided more than $55 billion to
Afghanistan since 2001.

An additional U.S. Marine battalion deployed to Afghanistan in November
and they will be followed by an Army combat brigade of about 3,400
troops in early 2009. U.S. forces now total approximately 31,000, and
are joined by nearly as many coalition troops. The United States and our
allies are working with Afghanistan to help it nearly double the size of
the Afghan National Army over the next five years, from 79,000 now
trained to 134,000 in 2014.

We have also deployed Provincial Reconstruction Teams to ensure security
gains are followed by real improvements in daily life, and we have
helped local communities strengthen their economies and create jobs,
deliver basic services, improve governance and fight corruption, and
build or repair key infrastructure such as roads, bridges, hospitals,
and schools. More than six million children, approximately two million
of them girls, are now in Afghan schools, compared to fewer than one
million in 2001.

In this Global War on Terror, we do not have the luxury to fight on one
battlefront at a time. To defeat the terrorists, we must fight them
overseas so we don't have to fight them here at home. Since 9/11, we
have successfully captured or killed dozens of al-Qaeda's senior
leadership and hundreds of al-Qaeda operatives in two dozen countries,
removed al-Qaeda's safe-haven in Afghanistan and crippled al-Qaeda in
Iraq, and disrupted numerous al Qaeda terrorist plots against the U.S.,
including a 2006 plot to blow up passenger planes traveling from London.

Myth 5: This Administration has been bad for the environment and ignored
the problem of global warming.

Reality:

Given the liberal media's failure to acknowledge this Administration's
true record on alternative energy, conservation, and climate change,
it's not surprising this charge has stuck. But here are some irrefutable
data points: From 2001 to 2007, air pollution decreased by 12 percent,
and fine particulate matter pollution is down 17 percent since 2001.
Ethanol production quadrupled from 1.6 billion gallons in 2000 to 6.5
billion gallons in 2007, wind energy production has increased by more
than 400 percent, and solar energy capacity has doubled. In 2007, solar
installations increased more than 32 percent and the U.S. produced 96
percent more biodiesel (490 million gallons) than in 2006. The
Administration also provided nearly $18 billion to research, develop,
and promote alternative and more efficient energy technologies such as
biofuels, solar, wind, clean coal, nuclear, and hydrogen.

This Administration has improved and protected the health of more than
27 million acres of Federal forest and grasslands, protected, restored,
and improved more than three million acres of wetlands, and established
the Papaha-naumokua-kea Marine National Monument, the world's largest
fully protected marine conservation area (nearly 140,000 square miles).

Much of the misperception about the President's environmental record is
born out of the President's withdrawing the United States from the Kyoto
Protocol, which did not include the effective participation of major
developing countries such as India and China. Instead, the President
worked to address climate change by launching the Major Economies
Process, which convened the leaders of the world's major economies, both
developed and developing, to work on ways to further reduce greenhouse
gas emissions and improve energy security without harming our economies
or giving any nation a free ride. Finally, the President set the country
on course to stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions below projected
levels by 2025 and invested more than $44 billion in climate
change-related programs.

Some other items that are infrequently mentioned about the real record
of the Bush Administration but are worth noting: Teenage drug use has
declined 25 percent; in 2007, the violent crime rate was 43 percent
lower than the rate in 1998; between 2005 and 2007, the chronically
homeless population decreased approximately 30 percent; funding for
veterans' medical care has increased more than 115 percent; and as of
2005, the most recent abortion rate is at its lowest since 1974.

And one last fact: Our homeland has not suffered another terrorist
attack since September 11, 2001. That, too, is part of the real Bush record.