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Post by Tyab on Dec 17, 2005 12:51:46 GMT -5
If the stupid ass really gave a crap about our safety how come he does not close the borders. It is a proven fact that terrorists have already crossed into the US and I am sure many more will cross before this jackass decides to really protect us.
Do you idiots see the irony in what is going on. This jerk is trying to take over total control of this nation and you sheeple are falling for it. The truth and logic is right in front of your stupid faces. Wake up!
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Post by WaTcHeR on Dec 17, 2005 15:37:02 GMT -5
Mr. Bush please read the constitution, it's that GD piece of paper that a majority of Americans seem to value more than you. Didn't you not take a oath to uphold and protect the constitution or were your fingers crossed?
There was no excuse for your government to take away "freedom of press" because you felt it necessary. Just because you broke the law and got caught, gives you no right to withhold information.
What other surprises will there be in the next 3 years? You have 3 years to get your ratings up or do you really care, is there a bigger picture here were all missing out on?
Sorry Mr. Bush but your full of shit! You lie to the American public almost daily saying all of this is to protect American people. I will eat my words if anyone proves me wrong. Show me evidence that it's the government job to protect American citizens. There has never been a court ruling that has said that the police or even government have a constitutional duty to protect its citizens. There has been none! No Federal Judge who gets his paycheck form the government has ever ruled in favor of a citizen, saying that the government had to protect that citizen.
What rights of an American do I have for putting wire taps in the White House? I would like to wire tap the White House on the basis of terrorist plotting to take over the country. This would solely be for the protection of my country.
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Post by John P on Dec 18, 2005 1:03:39 GMT -5
I can't remember a Republican administration since Ike who hasn't criminally misused and abused the power to unleash the CIA or other spy agencies upon mostly law abiding and unsuspecting American citizens. The problem with this President and his misuse of this power is that it may be a just a tad more sinister than the way it currently appears.
We must never forget that our President's grandfather, Prescott Bush, was deeply involved with the group of men who invented the CIA and its spying and covert ops back during and after WWII. And, yes, even George Bush Sr. is elbow deep in all the old dirty CIA scandals which happened in the past including the overthrowing of elected Governments in Latin America, our backing of the Shah of Iran, helping old Quadafay get started, the murder of South Viet Nam President Diem and his brother to allow the CIA to take over the heroin trade from them and use CIA planes to transport the dope to our American Streets to finance other covert activities behind Congress's back INCLUDING GEORGE BUSH SR.'s INVOLVEMENT IN IRAN CONTRA. The trading of arms for cocaine to finance the covert war there and it was again our CIA flying the planes and the drugs ending up on our streets to kill our kids.
Now we have a new war and also a new takeover of the poppy fields of Afghanistan....and let me guess who will be flying the raw opium out of there to appease the local warlords to keep them loyal to the west...the CIA of course. We have been doing this stuff since 1956 in Laos and it continues unabated.
The lure of clandestine ops has corrupted many honest men in politics both Republican and Democrat alike and that is why we will never get an honest cleaning of house in our intelligence community because both sides have dirty hands. What we need is a third party and one who will sweep these diseased Washington politicians out with the morning trash.
To learn a lot about the CIA read PRELUDE TO TERROR - The Rouge CIA and the Legacy of America's Private Intelligence Network by Joseph J. Trento who is an excellent author and who once worked with Jack Anderson in Washington. The name Bush appears so many times in this book it is mind boggling.
Bush Sr. claims to have driven down to Texas in a station wagon to go into the oil business in Midland...he was sent here by Dresser Industries to set up a CIA front company for the Bay of Pigs Invasion!! That is how the Bushes wound up in Texas. Open your eyes my friends.
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Post by superjoerocknroll on Dec 18, 2005 12:28:14 GMT -5
The latest revelation of the Bush spying on us is an outrage, he cannot be trusted and it is time to impeach him and then give him the Nixon treatment and force him to resign before it is too late. He is in way over his head and his advise from Cheney is as flawed as his other advisors like Carl Rove and his horse race judge/FEMA man. He has lowered our status in the world as a power and made a complete fool out of all of us.
I just thought Clinton was a bozo until this guy made it up to Washington on the ill fated Republican sweep. I will now switch to the Democratic Party in support of freedom and U.S. values.
Just look at Bush and try to make sense out of his words, it's impossible and we need to support the Senators that are trying to sort his secrets out. Let's Roll, impeach Cheney and Bush now. They have not done one thing correctly but act as if they have......denial....SHAME< SHAME< SHAME.
Oh just imagine IF CLINTON HAD DONE THIS, forget IMPEACHMENT, they would have hung the guy at sunrise.
If Clinton or Reno would have done it the right-wing would go ballistic. Oh wait, they did. But now it's ok because it's Republicans. wink, wink.
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Post by KC on Dec 18, 2005 13:48:54 GMT -5
The America people need to wake up and realize that President Bush can't have a carte blanche because of 9/11.
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Post by sheilanoya on Dec 18, 2005 15:46:23 GMT -5
If Bush's spying worked so well than why have there not been any arrests made?
Bush claimed he was spying on "terrorists inside the United States who were plotting to attack this country".
OK Bush - Where are they now?
Did you let THEM escape too, like Osama and Zarqawi?
How many new terrorists have come across our wide-open border that you've been ignoring for 5 years?
"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator" - GW Bush [CNN 12/18/00]
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Post by drjerryfartwell on Dec 18, 2005 15:57:46 GMT -5
NOW,BUSH HAS COMMITTED A FELONY, WILL THE HOUSE ...NOW.....MOVE TO IMPEACH THIS TRAITOROUS BASTARD?
IF NOT WE MAY SEE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FORM A LYNCHING PARTY AND GO INTO THE WHITE HOUSE AFTER THIS SON OF A BITCH!
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Post by Harry H on Dec 18, 2005 17:41:55 GMT -5
Testing the limits of powers in an undeclared war Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said FISA "expressly made it a crime for government officials 'acting under color of law' to engage in electronic eavesdropping 'other than pursuant to statute.' " FISA described itself, along with the criminal wiretap statute, as "the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance . . . may be conducted." No president before Bush mounted a frontal challenge to Congress's authority to limit espionage against Americans. In a Sept. 25, 2002, brief signed by then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, the Justice Department asserted "the Constitution vests in the President inherent authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by statute extinguish that constitutional authority." The brief made no distinction between suspected agents who are U.S. citizens and those who are not. Other Bush administration legal arguments have said the "war on terror" is global and indefinite in scope, effectively removing traditional limits of wartime authority to the times and places of imminent or actual battle. "There is a lot of discussion out there that we shouldn't be dividing Americans and foreigners, but terrorists and non-terrorists," said Gordon Oehler, a former chief of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center who served on last year's special commission assessing U.S. intelligence. By law, according to University of Chicago scholar Geoffrey Stone, the differences are fundamental: Americans have constitutional protections that are enforceable in court whether their conversations are domestic or international. Bush's assertion that eavesdropping takes place only on U.S. calls to overseas phones, Stone said, "is no different, as far as the law is concerned, from saying we only do it on Tuesdays." Michael J. Woods, who was chief of the FBI's national security law unit when Bush signed the NSA directive, described the ongoing program as "very dangerous." From MSNBC, 12/18/05: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10509407/from/ET/Bush’s disclosure on domestic spying raises legal questions By Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer In his four-year campaign against al Qaeda, President Bush has turned the U.S. national security apparatus inward to secretly collect information on American citizens on a scale unmatched since the intelligence reforms of the 1970s. The president's emphatic defense yesterday of warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens and residents marked the third time in as many months that the White House has been obliged to defend a departure from previous restraints on domestic surveillance. In each case, the Bush administration concealed the program's dimensions or existence from the public and from most members of Congress. Since October, news accounts have disclosed a burgeoning Pentagon campaign for "detecting, identifying and engaging" internal enemies that included a database with information on peace protesters. A debate has roiled over the FBI's use of national security letters to obtain secret access to the personal records of tens of thousands of Americans. And now come revelations of the National Security Agency's interception of telephone calls and e-mails from the United States -- without notice to the federal court that has held jurisdiction over domestic spying since 1978. Waging an adamant defense Defiant in the face of criticism, the Bush administration has portrayed each surveillance initiative as a defense of American freedom. Bush said yesterday that his NSA eavesdropping directives were "critical to saving American lives" and "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution." After years of portraying an offensive waged largely overseas, Bush justified the internal surveillance with new emphasis on "the home front" and the need to hunt down "terrorists here at home." Bush's constitutional argument, in the eyes of some legal scholars and previous White House advisers, relies on extraordinary claims of presidential war-making power. Bush said yesterday that the lawfulness of his directives was affirmed by the attorney general and White House counsel, a list that omitted the legislative and judicial branches of government. On occasion the Bush administration has explicitly rejected the authority of courts and Congress to impose boundaries on the power of the commander in chief, describing the president's war-making powers in legal briefs as "plenary" -- a term defined is "full," "complete," and "absolute."
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Post by Kate on Dec 18, 2005 21:35:11 GMT -5
THERE'S NO EXCUSE FOR THIS ...
I can understand espcially in the days and weeks following 9-11 that the Bush Administration and NSA were deperate to get all the information they could as quickly as they could.
BUT - this is the kicker - its OVER 4 years since 9-11 and if you think anyone buys the line of shit that you didn't have the time to bother gettting a subpoena to listen in to a fellow American's telephone calls then Bush AND the NSA have rocks in their heads.
They have also finally confirmed that they truly disrespect america and that to Bush the American Constitution truly isn't anything but a 'G*d Damnn piece of paper'.
Let's be clear about this - until otherwise proved what Bush has done is illegal, unconstitutional and without merit. Forget the frigging scare tactics - Bush has to now state the statute and Constitutional Law that allows him to act with such disregard for the US Constitution for one day nevermind years.
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Post by Stumped on Dec 18, 2005 22:10:11 GMT -5
Condi Unable to Explain What Gave Bush Authority to Eavesdrop Without Warrant This morning on Meet the Press, Tim Russert asked Condoleezza Rice a simple question: what is the specific statute that gives President Bush the authority to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant? She had no answer: RUSSERT: What Democrats and Republicans in Congress are asking, what is the authority that you keep citing? What law? What statute? Where in the Constitution does it say that the President can eavesdrop, wiretap American citizens without a court order? RICE: Tim, the President has authorities under FISA which we are using and using actively. He also has authorities that derive from his role as Commander in Chief and his need to protect the country. He has acted within his constitutional authority and within statutory authority. Now, I am not a lawyer and I am quite certain that the Attorney General will address a lot of these questions. Rice said several times this morning that she’s “not a lawyer.” That is irrelevant. Rice was the National Security Advisor when President Bush authorized the NSA program, and said today that she was aware of Bush’s decision at the time. Shouldn’t she know why it was legal?
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Post by Chaos 'n Amerika on Dec 18, 2005 22:39:14 GMT -5
Were getting the shaft again America! Even I was wondering why all the sudden President Bush was doing a "180" and now going along with Senators McCain's bill against torture. First Bush was for torture and threatened to get his way with his veto power. Now it's like he's slept on it and now he feels like America should set an example and be a humane country and not stoop to a level of a terrorist. Did someone talk to him in a dream or some vision perhaps? Well a friend of mine says it's very simple to explain. What he knows or heard is that the "Pentagon" has gone and changed the definition of what torture is and what all can and can't be considered means of torture. So another words the government has gone and changed the wording in the military regulations! This means that the McCain's bill is pretty much a worthless piece of paper. Bush isn't a ignorant guy or maybe he has help being cunning. But it seems like whatever this guy wants, he's going to take it one way or another from us. Today, for two separate reasons, has been an incredible day in America. First, the United States has legitimized torture and secondly, the President has admitted to an impeachable offense. First, the media has been totally misled on the alleged Bush-McCain agreement on torture. McCain capitulated. It is not a defeat for Bush. It is a win for Cheney. Torture is not banned or in any way impeded. Under the compromise, anyone charged with torture can defend himself if a "reasonable" person could have concluded they were following a lawful order. That defense "loophole" totally corrodes the ban. It is the CIA, or the torturing agency, who will decide what a "reasonable" person could have concluded. Can you imagine those agencies in the interrogation business torturing on their own in trying to decide what is reasonable or what is not? What is not "reasonable" if the interrogator (wrongfully or rightfully) believes he has a ticking-bomb situation? Will a CIA or military officer issue a narrow order if he knows his interrogator believes, in this case, torture will work? The Bush-McCain torture compromise legitimizes torture. It is the first time that has happened in this country. Not in the two World Wars, Korea, the Cold War or Vietnam did the government ever seek or get the power this bill gives them. The worst part of it is that most of the media missed it and got it wrong. Secondly, the President in authorizing surveillance without seeking a court order has committed a crime. The Federal Communications Act criminalizes surveillance without a warrant. It is an impeachable offense. This was also totally missed by the media.
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Post by captain C on Dec 18, 2005 23:16:15 GMT -5
Not sure why this is such a big story.
The evil that spews out of Rumsfield Pentagon bi-weekly announces there plans for martial law, or to create more domestic spying.
Hell Able Danger was most likely spying on Americans also.
But its cool the fallout is landing on Bush. He is fucking disaster, thats why UBL never does shit. He just sits back, laughs and wants Bush and his Jesus Freak army of kooliaded idiots do the destruction for him.
If Bush really wanted to do damage to the middle east. He run for office over there. Rig the elections and fuck there shit up from the inside.
He is making Saddam look pretty tame now. Infact I'd trade Bush in for Saddam in a heart beat if I could. Most everything we've been told about Saddam and neocon myths, and Israeli talking points.
Saddam is only 1/4 the monster Bush is.
Who is more dangerous a thug in Iraq with limited weapons and power.
Or
A man who hears voices in his head, delusional, illiterate and armed with nuclear weapons.
Never forget Bush used chemical weapons on his own people. He had his neocon buddies in the US Army send Anthrax in the mail to democrats to assassinate them.
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Post by Holly on Dec 18, 2005 23:47:27 GMT -5
Condi Unable to Explain What Gave Bush Authority to Eavesdrop Without Warrant This morning on Meet the Press, Tim Russert asked Condoleezza Rice a simple question: what is the specific statute that gives President Bush the authority to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant? She had no answer: RUSSERT: What Democrats and Republicans in Congress are asking, what is the authority that you keep citing? What law? What statute? Where in the Constitution does it say that the President can eavesdrop, wiretap American citizens without a court order? RICE: Tim, the President has authorities under FISA which we are using and using actively. He also has authorities that derive from his role as Commander in Chief and his need to protect the country. He has acted within his constitutional authority and within statutory authority. Now, I am not a lawyer and I am quite certain that the Attorney General will address a lot of these questions. Rice said several times this morning that she’s “not a lawyer.” That is irrelevant. Rice was the National Security Advisor when President Bush authorized the NSA program, and said today that she was aware of Bush’s decision at the time. Shouldn’t she know why it was legal? "How can she say "it's within the laws and Constitution", implying she KNOWS it is, and then turn around and say "I don't know what laws, specifically" ?"
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Post by Russell on Dec 19, 2005 13:23:24 GMT -5
Where's the outrage you ask? I'll tell you where it is: it's not there. Why? Because Joe 6-pack can't wrap his mind around anybody else except himself. He can't fathom the government taking an interest in his boring little life since, in his mind, he always abides by the rules. Spying? That happens to other people.
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Post by Brent on Dec 19, 2005 21:35:38 GMT -5
The words "separation of powers" appear nowhere in the constitution. The framers meant for a powerful executive branch, one that had the capability to control the others during a time of war and other crises.
The framers quite specifically did not want "separation of powers," as any reading of both the Constitution and the Federalist Papers would quite clearly reveal. In fact, an unchecked or "imperial" presidency was the very thing those checks and balances were set up to avoid. You will find no text anywhere in the Constitution that supports what the Bush administration is trying to do and to assert.. And in this time of a "war" that will not end in my lifetime and is not, in any sense of the word, a genuine "war," you would be granting the president unlimited authority to do any damn thing he wants without any check or balance, without any review, indefinitely. You will find no text anywhere that states that this is what our founding fathers wanted.
Tell me this, do you always trust the government to tell you the truth?
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Post by rt on Dec 27, 2005 0:49:07 GMT -5
"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know ? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar." -- JULIUS CAESAR
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Post by DOA on Dec 28, 2005 22:09:15 GMT -5
Law enforcement always wants more power. That is natural and a given. Not only does it want more than is good and proper for our nation and Constitution, law enforcement wants more than is good for itself.
Like a kid in a candy shop, it is "I NEED this", "I NEED that". But it creates nothing more than a belly ache. Too much information is even more deadly than not enough. There is no Google for terrorists. Law enforcement will commit suicide by drowning in information if it is not stopped. It is an addiction, and overdose is always a threat.
I repeatedly point out that everyone admits that US agencies, the FBI in particular, had all the information they needed to uncover the 911 attacks. The so called 20th hijacker was in custody, the info was on his PC. The FBI chose not to explore that information against the specific requests of the field agent in charge. They had the ability to gain access, but the reviewer insisted on improperly leaving out the required details that the field agent, Crowley, had specified.
Allow the FBI, et al, more access to data and we will find even less functional capability.
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Post by Know the truth on Dec 29, 2005 15:01:03 GMT -5
Terrorists
Despite widespread fears to the contrary, there is no possibility that terrorists will conquer the United States, take over the government, and take away our freedoms. At most, they are able to kill thousands of people, with, say, suicide bombs but they lack the military forces to subjugate the entire nation or any part of it.
Equally important, while the troops claim that they are protecting us from “the terrorists,” it is the troops themselves – or, more precisely, the presidential orders they have loyally carried out – that have engendered the very terrorist threats against which the troops say they are now needed to protect us.
Think back to 1989 and the years following – when the Berlin Wall fell, East and West Germany were united, Soviet troops withdrew from Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union was dismantled. The Pentagon didn’t know what to do. Unexpectedly, its 50-year-old “official enemy” was gone. (The Soviet Union had previously been America’s “ally” that had “liberated” Eastern Europe from Nazi Germany.) With the fall of the Soviet empire (and, actually, before the fall), the obvious question arose: Why should the United States continue to have an enormous standing army and spend billions of dollars in taxpayer money to keep it in existence?
The Pentagon was in desperate search for a new mission. “We can be a big help in the war on drugs,” the Pentagon said. To prove it, U.S. military forces even shot to death 18-year-old American citizen Esequiel Hernandez in 1997, as he tended his goats along the U.S.-Mexican border. “We’ll help American businesses compete in the world.” “We’ll readjust NATO’s mission to protect Europe from non-Soviet threats.” “We’ll protect us from an unsafe world.”
Then along came the Pentagon’s old ally, Saddam Hussein, to whom the United States had even entrusted weapons of mass destruction to use against the Iranian people, and gave America’s standing army a new raison d’être. Invading Kuwait over an oil-drilling dispute, Saddam provided the Pentagon with a new official enemy, one that would last for more than 10 continuous years.
Obeying presidential orders to attack Iraq in 1991, without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war, the troops ended up killing tens of thousands of Iraqis. Obeying Pentagon orders to attack Iraq’s water and sewage facilities, the troops accomplished exactly what Pentagon planners had anticipated – spreading deadly infections and disease among the Iraqi people. Continuing to obey presidential orders in the years that followed, the troops enforced what was possibly the most brutal embargo in history, which ended up contributing to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, deaths that U.S. officials said were “worth it.” Obeying presidential orders, the troops enforced the illegal “no-fly zones” over Iraq, which killed even more Iraqis, including children. Obeying presidential orders, the troops established themselves on Islamic holy lands with full knowledge of the anger and resentment that that would produce among devout Muslims. Obeying presidential orders, the troops invaded and occupied Iraq without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war, killing and maiming tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis – that is, people whose worst “crime” was to resist the unlawful invasion of their homeland by a foreign power.
All that death and destruction – both pre-9/11 and post-9/11 – have given rise to terrible anger and hatred against the United States, which inspired the pre-9/11 attacks, such as the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the attack on the USS Cole, and the attacks on overseas U.S. embassies, the 9/11 attacks, and the terrorist threats our nation faces today.
Through it all, the Pentagon simply echoed the claims of the president – that all the death and destruction and humiliation that the U.S. government had wreaked on people in the Middle East, as well as its unconditional military and financial foreign aid to the Israeli government, had not engendered any adverse feelings in the Middle East against the United States. Instead, the president and the Pentagon claimed, the problem was that the terrorists simply hated America for its “freedom and values.”
If the American people had dismantled the nation’s standing army when the Soviet empire was dismantled, the federal government would have lacked the military means to meddle and intervene in the Middle East with unconstitutional military operations, sanctions, no-fly zones, bases, invasions, and occupations. Therefore, there never would have been the terrorists attacks against the United States and a “war on terrorism” for the troops to fight, not to mention the USA PATRIOT Act, secret search warrants and secret courts, the Padilla doctrine, and other federal infringements on our rights and freedoms.
Finally, but certainly important, despite being the most powerful standing army in the world, the U.S. troops were not even able to protect Americans from terrorist acts, as best evidenced by two terrorist attacks on the same target – the World Trade Center, first in 1993 and then again in 2001.
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Post by Lets Roll on Jan 27, 2006 17:22:44 GMT -5
President Bush has done so much to SEPARATE our countrymen and have them wage war against each other while they make back end deals with lobbyists like Abramoff.
This administration has done NOTHING but divide the people of this country further since 9/11 by trying to dictate who or who isn't American.
This is NOT ANY political party's country!!!!!!! This is the 'people's' country.
So stop with all of the lib this and that because whether you REALIZE it or not, YOU and most EVERYONE in this country is a liberal compared to the rest of the world. We are the 'the land of the FREE' and we have the right to "LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS"!!!! Jefferson didn't say, "Death, Restriction, and the Pursuit of Sadness"
Get over it..... your demi-god has FAILED badly. It's nobody's fault but yours for actually believing in and voting for a person that NEVER aspired to being a leader or actually caring for the well-being of his own country.
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Post by kimballmaster on Feb 2, 2006 14:59:44 GMT -5
I always wondered why people in Germany in the 1930's.stayed there. Even as a child I could see that nobody in their right mind would stay. Now I understand. I am ashamed to live under this fascist government. I'm not as smart as you guys, but it sure seems like this nasty bugger step by step followed the hitler plan.
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