ATV Florida Forum

President Bush says that the installation of the new Iraqi government was a "watershed event," but at the same time warns Americans of the challenges and loss as we continue to prosecute the war against Iraqi insurgents. Sen. Harry Reid declares that legislation that would render English the national language is racist.

Thirty-seven Democrats vote for full amnesty for all illegal aliens in this country, even though nobody really knows whether the number is 11 million, 12 million or 20 million. The Senate Republican leadership demands that a "comprehensive immigration reform" plan must be passed before this Memorial Day weekend. And the president signs into law a tax cut that raises taxes on the educational funds of teenagers saving for college.

Never before in our country's history have both the president and Congress been so out of touch with most Americans. Never before have so few of our elected officials and corporate leaders been less willing to commit to the national interest. And never before has our nation's largest constituent group -- some 200 million middle-class Americans -- been without representation in our nation's capital.

George W. Bush's approval ratings have slumped to the lowest of his presidency. The approval rating for Congress is even lower, and nearly three-quarters of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.

But what is our government doing about that? The president is staying the course in Iraq and apparently demanding little of his generals to create a new, far more effective strategy for urgent success. Of course, he also wants a guest-worker program and amnesty of millions of illegal aliens. And Congress, faced with midterm elections in just over five months, is intent on giving the president what he wants and telling working men and women and their families, American citizens all, to go to hell.

Illegal aliens are more important to this Congress than securing our borders and our ports, more important than those legal immigrants who have waited in line and who follow the law. The Senate has added to the litany of lunacy that makes up what it calls reform: Illegal aliens would only have to pay back taxes on three of the past five years, they will not be prosecuted for felonies such as identity theft or purchasing or using fraudulent Social Security cards, and unlike millions of visa holders who have to leave the country to have them renewed, they may simply remain in the United States while this Congress and this president give away all the benefits and privileges of American citizenship.

This is an outright assault in the elitist war on the middle class. And working men and women who've already borne the pain of losing good-paying manufacturing jobs and having middle-class jobs outsourced to cheap foreign labor markets are faced with the onslaught of more illegal immigration and cheap labor into the American economy. This president and Congress talk about bringing illegal aliens out of the shadows while they turn out the lights on our middle class.

President Bush and his most trusted advisers tell us how well our economy is doing, how many jobs have been created and how so-called free trade will enrich the lives of the same people whose livelihoods these policies are destroying.

It's hard not to think of the trusted adviser to Catherine the Great who sought to hide from her the embarrassing and shoddy condition of Ukrainian and Crimean villages by having elaborate facades built to divert her attention and to mask an uncomfortable reality. I don't know whether Karl Rove is President Bush's Grigori Potemkin or whether George Bush has created Potemkin villages all by himself. But the facades are cracking, and phony fronts of failed policies are quickly crumbling.

Six thousand unarmed National Guardsmen working as adjunct rear support to our undermanned, under-equipped Border Patrol is not border security. Three million illegal aliens continue to cross our borders and depress wages by hundreds of billions of dollars every year. The millions of manufacturing and middle-class jobs lost over the last five years have been replaced by lower-wage employment.

The president's faith-based commitment to so-called free trade will likely lead to a $1 trillion U.S. current account deficit this year and a trade debt of $4.5 trillion after 30 years of trade deficits. And while the president and Congress point to No Child Left Behind as a solution to our educational crisis, we're failing an entire generation of Americans whose test scores continue to fall and whose high school dropout rates would be embarrassing to a third-world country.

And a third-world country is what we will be if our elected officials don't soon come to their senses.

George W. Bush's approval ratings have slumped to the lowest of his presidency. The approval rating for Congress is even lower, and nearly three-quarters of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.



I would like to know if any member on here got to vote on these approval ratings. I have never known anyone that has said they have or seen any polls online so where do they get these numbers. These things are just the press coming up with news and people beleiving it. I am a registered voter and would like to be part of this poll.

agreed,,,,I got a poll question way back in late 2000 from Zogby(however it's spelled) and that was the last time I got a polling question.

Id@

its a clusterf@ck!- gunny hiway ;D

LOVE that movie.

Id@

    Just my .02.   I am gainfully employed, because I choose to adjust to the economic environment now present.   I earn more than I ever did during the Clinton years. (even adjusted for inflation)   I support our President, our liberation of Iraq, the economic prosperity of our country, and our congress.   Are they without fault or perfect? nope. Sure is better than anywhere else I've traveled though.
    Integrity and forthrightness don't exist without animosity from the opposing side, as we all love to be pandered to.
   
 

What he said.

 Doesn't this look like one of the dumb faces that President Bush gives everytime he's on T.V.  :S  or how about this one  :tsktsk.gif

"he also wants a guest-worker program and amnesty of millions of illegal aliens"  He always said from the get go that he doesn't want to give illegal aliens amnesty.  He wants a temporary guest-worker program so he can have a list of these people and keep tabs on them.  As soon as this guest-worker permit expires they have to leave.  Weather the illegals join this program is the question, but the government wants a larger fine for the companies using the illegal workers in hopes to get more to join so they can make money.  He and a lot of other government officials said they can't kick everybody out, but this is a start find out how many, who they are, and where they are at, when your work visa's up it's time for you to leave.

Agreed, well said

If your not earning more now than you did over 6 yrs ago (adjusted for inflation) then your doing something wrong.  Hell, I'm making more than I did 6 yrs ago also, but I bet your 401K (if you have one) is not making more than it was 6yrs ago (adjusted for inflation).

As far as you making more money under GW goes, that has more to do with Alan Greenspan than GW or  Clinton.  He controls the economy so he is the guy you can thank, not GW.

It's kind of sad that all the republicans can say about GW is that he is better than Clinton. 

I like democrats,
Whose ever heard of a good peace of elephant  ;D

Yea the president always makes weird faces.......I dont get it it's like someone is telling him what to say when he doesnt want to say it ???

the president is doing his best to help this country . you couldnt imagine the faces you would make when you step in front of a camera and are asked 100 questions about totally different things. bill clinton and his wife a.k.a the president was a joke . and it just shows me how many stupid people are in new york to vote her back in office . just remember he cant fix the problem alone . do you realize more people vote for american idol than they do for government how stupid is that..Iam sorry I dont have all the answers either but I am behind the president while he is in office because I am an american.................

I never said I was NOT behind the president.  I agree with a few things he has done including going into Iraq and wire taps of our phone calls.  However he still will go down as the worse president since Nixon, and the guys dumb as a box of rocks. And talk about someone running the white house have you ever heard of thingy Cheney?

I'm not one to judge anyone ,but  considering the events that have taken place GW has done about as good as humanly possible . Just think about this ,less than a year of his being in office our nation experienced the most horrific multiple attacks on our soil . I remember and will never forget the morning of 911 and watching the towers  come down , the pentagon attack and all the chaos that followed.
 As I was watching this, i felt numb and all the while wondering how this historic event has changed America and everybodies lives for ever and what would be the appropriate response to this.
If you think our lives can get hecktic and stressful at times put yourself in GW's shoes .
How would you react to this ,knowing the whole world is anticipating your response.

On the illegal immigration and  lack of border security .
Nothing new there, thats been an unsecured  problem for over a 100 years. We need to secure our borders now more than ever , not because of crop pickers , worst case they might be a financial burden on us but for the unknown threats that may enter .

On the economy , I'll agree with a members post , Greenspan is the man and has been since Reagan appointed him . Economic cycles come and go with peaks and valleys in between . The dot coms during the 90's contributed to much of the overvalued boom we had. Most of those were overvalued , earnings on many didnt match their value. Eventually all this comes down and towards the end of the 1990's there were signs of this. This was one of the many  problems facing the president when he took office , an economy that was slowing down and as if that wasnt bad enough 911.

No one's perfect and  he has many flaws but considering  we did not collapse in the aftermath of that we are overall doing relatively fine .
My$ .02 +. :)

lets remember our service men and women today

That was well put foreman 1 and I'm not a GW fan (as you can tell) but I agree with what you said.  :ThumbsUp.gif

The damage that the president Bush is doing won't be felt for a couple of years, doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Wait and see.   Alba450,  Ronald Reagon had a ear piece for information and we know he was stupid. Maybe Bush has one too, but he's not as good as an actor as Reagon, thats why all the stupid faces. :-\ :Wacko.gif :oo :SternSmile.gif :S :tsktsk.gif and the best :H

I don't know about that, I feel it every time I fill up at the pump. 

Simple economics...when you start a war in an oil producing region, it tends to disrupt supply... and when demand remains the same or increases, costs rise which are then past along to the consumer. (And I didn't even need any presidential advisers to come up with this brilliant notion)


I think history might tell that he may be the worst president ever by the time this is all said and done.

He's certainly going to go down in history as the president who spent the most money.

And I believe the current body count of innocent civilians killed is approaching 40,000 according to iraqibodycount.com.  So he might also have that legacy to live with.

But what do I know, I voted for myself last time out.


- Uncle Rico

Yunt- from the ones you see on the 6 o' clock news those are done at the media's/tv stations websites.  So yes, they may be skewed but it gives you an estimate.

In my eyes they unemployement may be at an all time low but from all my peers and friends in many different types of industries/markets, money is tight. Whoever says the economy is doing good, I beg to differ. My sister in-law has a BS and a Masters and after 5 months of looking she finally landed a job, part time at that and the pay is ok. Which to me is a bit ridiculous. 

Is GW the main reason of all the unhappy us citizens? Who knows. Time will only tell. Once his term is over I believe we will see a change in the economy. Whether it's good or bad.......... is uncertain. -Mark

I didn't use the Clinton analogy as a guidepost of President Bush's accomplishments or the state of the economy.  I always hear we had it so much better economically during the 8 years of economic decadence under President Clinton.  I just take the time every day to Thank God we have a President with moral principles and a staunch backbone in the Whitehouse.   As far as my personal situation, after leaving police work after over 15 years,  stepped outside of my comfort zone to areas of economic growth potential as dictated by a changing business environment.   I'm not a posterboy for the Republican Party, politics on the national level in the beltway arena tend to repulse me.

As for me and my house we will serve the Lord. :)

Hey, if heavyhandness and bullying tactics and lies are your idea of moral principles than I feel sorry for you.  It's funny that he won't even tell you who where in the meeting for his energy policy and know we have sky high oil prices and record profits (that are beyond imagination) for the oil companies, and all that coming from a oil man.  The leaks from the White House and now some of his  cronnies starting to go down in scandals.

I wish you guys on the far right would just admit you like him because you think he is a holly roller and you want your kind in office.  I personally don't like him because of the previous statements and the fact that he is dumb as dirt and arrogant.   He is leaving  burden of debt that your and my kids will be paying for the rest of their lives, but I quess that because he is "YOUR KIND" that is ok.  Good luck!

If you want to listen to the talking points of the far left, your choice, just remember John Kerry stated we should be paying the same for gas as our European friends $6-8 dollars per gallon.   HMMMM and we think GW is in the oil companies back pocket.      We all like to see like minded individuals in power, holey rollers (ie: Bennie Hinn/Jimmie Swaggart) not for me.   People of faith, Christians, Jews, followers of Islam, Buddists that stand for absolutes and the grace of God, I'll stand with them.   Again national politics in general is not my cup of tea, just politicians pandering to special interest groups from both sides of the aisle.          Let's ride, rains are coming, MUD is imminent, much more interesting, much more fun, no politics involved. ;D ;D ;D

Leblanc, I agree with this statement " Again national politics in general is not my cup of tea, just politicians pandering to special interest groups from both sides of the aisle.   I'm not real happy with anyone on the far left or far right,  I'm just a little left of center myself, heck my favorite president was Ronald Reagan.

 " Let's ride, rains are coming, MUD is imminent, much more interesting, much more fun, no politics involved."  Now, this mud thing is ok as long as there is not too much cause it will get my Raptor all dirty  8),  j/k I would like to see some rain to keep the dust down.   :ThumbsUp.gif         

OK Fishahallic, sounds like we're a lot alike except I'm 50 and ride a big bore 4x4.  I will admit when we get some of the new 350 sport Redcats this summer I might just have to demo one for awhile to check out some sport riding.   See you on the trails.
Jeff

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Thats a 4x4?  Redcats, is that a new line of quads?  Nice looking quad whatever it is. :ThumbsUp.gif

Nope thats our new 350 sport bike, I ride a Polaris 700, Redcats largest 4x4 is 400cc.

Personally, I don't understand his resoning on the immigrant issues. That really angers me.