Michael Moore badmouths Halliburton but.....

[benson11]

I don't own a single share of stock!" filmmaker Michael Moore proudly proclaimed.

He's right. He doesn't own a single share. He owns tens of thousands of shares – including nearly 2,000 shares of Boeing, nearly 1,000 of Sonoco, more than 4,000 of Best Foods, more than 3,000 of Eli Lilly, more than 8,000 of Bank One and more than 2,000 of Halliburton, the company most vilified by Moore in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

[MEck51]

Not realy sure what you are getting at here. But I think Michael Moore is a piece of garbage, so keep it up.

[KEEPBACK200FEET]

This thread is worthless without facts to back up your statements. If you have them, please share them, becuase I'd love to add them to my ammunition that I use to argue with liberals.

[benson11]

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47174



follow the link, it's all right there.

The man who made a film badmouthing Halliburton actually makes money off of them.

[mcaldwell]

The man who made a film badmouthing Halliburton actually makes money off of them.

I had to laugh at you unintentional entendre.

Even if he didn't own the stock, he made millions off of badmouthing Haliburton by making the movie in the first place.

But I don't like the Haliburton's of the world, so I could care less.

[doughesson]

Michael Moore is an Oliver Stone wannabe.They both hate their country yet partake of its Freedoms while showing their hatred in the movies that they make.

[nmfire]

That socialist weasel can rot.

http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/wp-content/teamamerica2.jpg

[DaSharkie]

400 pounds of fat and uselessness. Hypocrite socialist pig.

[benson11]

Halliburton gets the contracts for two easy simple and good reasons. They are the best at what they do and are the only American company that can do it.

[NYSmokey]

Halliburton gets the contracts for two easy simple and good reasons. They are the best at what they do and are the only American company that can do it.

I agree with the first part of your statement. They are the BEST at sticking it to the American taxpayer. Their fraudulent activity in Iraq knows no bounds. I disagree with the second part of your statement. Plenty of companies can screw us over....Enron, Worldcom, Exxon Mobil, and the rest of the energy gang. I don't know how the government contract watchdogs in Washington sleep at night.

Source: Boston Globe

Robbery, not reconstruction, in Iraq
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist | April 18, 2006

The great liberator of Iraq was actually the hyena that cleaned out the nation.

Halliburton over here, a corrupt company over there, we have heard various individual cases of overcharging and fraud by American firms in the reconstruction of Iraq. Last weekend, a Globe story connected some of the dots of corruption. Of $20.7 billion in Iraqi bank accounts and oil revenues seized by the Coalition Provisional Authority in the US-led invasion of Iraq, $14 billion was given out for reconstruction but tens of millions of dollars were unaccounted for. A year ago, an audit by the inspector general found no evidence of work done or goods delivered on 154 of 198 contracts. Sixty cases of potential swindles are under investigation.

Halliburton and its hundreds of millions of dollars of overcharges or baseless costs are well known. But millions more were taken by companies that promised to build or restore libraries or police facilities, or deliver trucks and construction equipment. Money was given to the puppet government with no follow-up. US government investigators can account for only a third of the $1.5 billion given by the CPA to the interim government and it appears that a substantial portion of the $8 billion given to Iraqi ministries went to ''ghost employees.''

Because of the way the United States set things up after the invasion, contractors are immune from prosecution by Iraqis. And even when firms are prosecuted, the millions of dollars in fines go to the US Treasury, not the Iraqi people. It amounts to two invasions. First the bombs. Then the banks.

This is robbery, not reconstruction.

It also amounts to yet another slow-motion lie by the Bush administration. The magnitude of the corruption brings into sharper relief the claims made by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz a month before the war.

The claims came from the same infamous testimony before the House Budget Committee where Wolfowitz said Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki was ''wildly off the mark'' for saying several hundred thousand troops would be needed to stabilize Iraq. Wolfowitz told the committee that the administration was ''doing everything possible in our planning now to make post-war recovery smoother and less expensive.''

Besides pooh-poohing Shinseki's estimates, Wolfowitz said a Washington Post story that quoted administration officials as saying the initial invasion would cost $60 billion to $95 billion was also way off the mark. Speaking about such administration officials, Wolfowitz said, ''I don't think he knows what he's talking - he or she knows what they're talking about. I mean, I think the idea that it's going to be eclipsed by these monstrous future costs ignores the nature of the country we're dealing with.''

''It's got already, I believe, on the order of $15 billion to $20 billion a year in oil exports, which can finally - might finally be turned to a good use instead of building Saddam's palaces. It has one of the most valuable undeveloped sources of natural resources in the world. And let me emphasize, if we liberate Iraq, those resources will belong to the Iraqi people, that they will be able to develop them and borrow against them.''

''It is a country that has somewhere between, I believe, over $10 billion -- let me not put a number on it - in an escrow account run by the United Nations. It's a country that has $10 billion to $20 billion in frozen assets from the Gulf War, and I don't know how many billions that are closeted away by Saddam and his henchmen. But there's a lot of money there and to assume that we're going to pay for it is just wrong.''

Wolfowitz was wrong on nearly every point, except for the idea that there was about $20 billion floating around Iraq to seize. It has been three years and all Iraq has become is a ''free-fraud zone,'' according to one of the attorneys for whistleblowers in Iraqi swindles. Recently, the Army found that Halliburton had $263 million of exaggerated or unexplainable costs on a $2.4 billion no-bid contract, yet still paid Halliburton $253 million of the $263 million.

Halliburton is in 103rd place in the Fortune 500 with $21 billion in revenues and just under $2.4 billion in profits. Halliburton gets its $2.4 billion no-bid contract nearly paid in full while the Iraqi people are out of much of their $21 billion. We liberated Iraq. The resources belong to American contractors.

[38ffems]

I don't know how the government contract watchdogs in Washington sleep at night.
They sleep soundly on large piles of money. Then they wake up and drive their fast cars to their plush offices, and then they go back to their huge homes where their private cook makes them a gourmet meal. They do that all week and then on the weekends they get in their helicopters and fly over to the airport and get in their private jets and go where ever they want. I guess with that kind of life style its very easy to live with the fact they are the scum of the earth. It's these people that make the world hate us. Can you imagine if they just helped the american people through charities, i mean even 10% of their annual income would probably fund thousands of charitable organizations.

[KEEPBACK200FEET]

I loathe Michael Moore. I've been forced to watch "Roger and Me" twice since I've been in college. He has a talent for being able to skew any fact into being favorable to him and his cause. It really pisses me off when he picks on Bush for continuing to read to the children on 9/11 instead of getting straight up and leaving. He's such an ass. Grrrrr. :mad:

[NYSmokey]

They sleep soundly on large piles of money. Then they wake up and drive their fast cars to their plush offices, and then they go back to their huge homes where their private cook makes them a gourmet meal. They do that all week and then on the weekends they get in their helicopters and fly over to the airport and get in their private jets and go where ever they want. I guess with that kind of life style its very easy to live with the fact they are the scum of the earth. It's these people that make the world hate us. Can you imagine if they just helped the american people through charities, i mean even 10% of their annual income would probably fund thousands of charitable organizations.

I agree with your statement but I was referring to the people in our government that should be investigating and PROSECUTING any individual or corporation who fradulently bills the government for services that were not provided. If an individual or company continuously submits bogus claims, they should be blacklisted from government work in my opinion.

[DaSharkie]

I agree with your statement but I was referring to the people in our government that should be investigating and PROSECUTING any individual or corporation who fradulently bills the government for services that were not provided. If an individual or company continuously submits bogus claims, they should be blacklisted from government work in my opinion.

Come on now, do you actually still have faith that ANYONE in an appointed or elected position in the Federal (or even a state) government actually gives a damn about the taxpayer in this country? (Beyond making sure that they pay more in taxes.)

The beaurocracy is full of scumbags that sleep well at night only because they are so used to doing it that their conscience is no longer bothered by it.

[NYSmokey]

Come on now, do you actually still have faith that ANYONE in an appointed or elected position in the Federal (or even a state) government actually gives a damn about the taxpayer in this country? (Beyond making sure that they pay more in taxes.)

The beaurocracy is full of scumbags that sleep well at night only because they are so used to doing it that their conscience is no longer bothered by it.

Short answer to your question...NO. Sad that the right thing to do is so far from reality.

[ChiefReason]

If Michael Moore and (insert your name here) were the only two left on a deserted island, he would kill you and eat you to survive.
He doesn't know politics and he doesn't know film making. He only knows how to go after the emotional topic at the moment and make money off of it. He is just like the people he criticizes. He is no better.
Money feeds his 400 pound ego.
CR

[JHR1985]

They sleep soundly on large piles of money. Then they wake up and drive their fast cars to their plush offices, and then they go back to their huge homes where their private cook makes them a gourmet meal. They do that all week and then on the weekends they get in their helicopters and fly over to the airport and get in their private jets and go where ever they want. I guess with that kind of life style its very easy to live with the fact they are the scum of the earth. It's these people that make the world hate us. Can you imagine if they just helped the american people through charities, i mean even 10% of their annual income would probably fund thousands of charitable organizations.


Welcome to the life of, not just American political figures..... but :Gasps: Political figures around the world. Thats why ALL politics are screwed up.

And, how come in his movies, Michael Moore walks everywhere but he is still makes Biz Markie from Celebrity Fit club look like calista flockhart

[38ffems]

Can you imagine a world without politics! you know actually democracies where the people you vote for win by the popular vote not the completely backwards electoral college. I am not making an anti bush statement but Vermonters do not mean jack when it comes to voting. It really doesn't matter who we vote for it just doesn't mean anything in the big scheme of things. Which is why we throw curveballs like when jeffords left the republican party, we gotta flex our muscles everyonce in awhile. As for Michael Moore, he is just as corrupt as he portrays everyone. He's not a hero, he has a couple good points and then a couple hours of his agenda in his movies.

[Dalmatian190]

you know actually democracies where the people you vote for win by the popular vote not the completely backwards electoral college. I am not making an anti bush statement but Vermonters do not mean jack when it comes to voting.

Hmmm, ok...

Let's reconcile the dislike of the electoral college...

With the belief Vermonters do not mean jack in elections.

Vermont, with the Electoral College...

With the Electoral College, Vermont had 3/538ths or 0.55% of the votes to elect the President.

Without the Electoral College...

Vermont cast 305,247 votes out of 121,056,394 cast nationally....or 0.25% of the votes.

So under a direct, popular vote...Vermont exerts less than half the influence on the outcome of the election than it does under the Electoral College.

We are not a direct democracy. There are very few that are. The U.S. and a few others use a predominantly geography based system to try and assure that multiple interests are reasonably listened too (the old big state / little state...commerce v. agriculture arguments). Most nations follow a Parliamentary system where numerous political parties each representing their member's own interests fight amongst themselves to form "coalition" governments achieve a similiar goal of diversity. Both have strengths, both have weaknesses. I kind of am partial to the American system since that's what I'm used to.

The Electoral College should be reformed...I'm in favor of the Maine-Nebraska style apportionment system where the Electors are appointed by the winner of each Congressional District, with the two "Senate" votes going to the overall popular vote of the state.

The Congressional Districts themselves shouldn't be set by the Legislature. Heck, I won't even support the "Retired Judiciary" proposals. You don't need to be a rocket scientist, or retired judge, to set the districts. You have precints, you their populations, you just need to make them add up to about the same from district to district. And the districts should be set by being compact, and following historical norms and current broad socio-economic makeup. IMHO, essentially select an anonymous 21 member Jury assembled from across the State, have the State Auditors provide a neutral "expert" to them to answer technical questions, and sequester them for a few days until the new map is done.

And Michael Moore is an idiot. But we have a lot of those, so I really don't care.

[MIKEYLIKESIT]

Dal, ANYONE forming an opinion of the ways of the world based on what Michael Moore, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly et al. dish out truly gets what they deserve. A blinding ideology that dosent take into account that sometimes the "other guy" is right.

[Dalmatian190]

Hehe Mickey...

You should hear some of the choice words I have for Rush if I'm stuck driving somewhere listening to AM radio :) I'm an equal opportunity imbecile denouncer.

I can't get much else for daytime talk where I normally am.

I have occassionally picked up Air America when out of my normal haunts...granted it's on very few experiences...but I just can't listen to them for long -- they're coming at issues from a position so bizarre I end trying to figure out if we're speaking the same language. At least the right wingers I can see where they're coming from even if I disagree strongly.

Actually just finished reading an ecology/natural history book with an incredibly heavy far-left wing bias -- it was kind of surreal because I think the author herself (a professor at Berkley of course) didn't even realize how bizarre she sounded at parts -- literally one sentence asked, "What about the stream? Did anyone consider the stream's right to flow freely?" I would question how much she knows about the philosophical history around "rights" except she quoted Locke and Voltaire in other parts of the book. Great, we're giving "rights" to non living objects...

The book did have some good information, if you could read through the biases. And oddly, it reminded me of another text I read a couple years back which was an agricultural text on soil health written around 1910. Got that from a website that had a bunch of out-of-copyright materials useful for organic and sustainable farming. That text had a fictional sub-plot which was as heavy on the "hide your white women because the virile black rapists are on the loose" that was in vogue in the first third of the 20th Century America.

Both of those had good, useful information. But both made you read through some pretty thick nonsense at the same time.

[ChiefReason]

Dal, ANYONE forming an opinion of the ways of the world based on what Michael Moore, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly et al. dish out truly gets what they deserve. A blinding ideology that dosent take into account that sometimes the "other guy" is right.
Mikey:
I can't begin to count the number of times that I have been the "other guy"! :cool:
Did you hear that Fox News Tony Snow is Bush's press secretary?
I was pullin' for Shepherd Smith.
Laura Dhue. Page Hopkins.
Fox has got it, man.
CR

[MIKEYLIKESIT]

I like the Sunday night Fox lineup... Hank Hill, The Simpsons, Family Guy.. :p

[DennisTheMenace]

Come on now, do you actually still have faith that ANYONE in an appointed or elected position in the Federal (or even a state) government actually gives a damn about the taxpayer in this country? (Beyond making sure that they pay more in taxes.)

The beaurocracy is full of scumbags that sleep well at night only because they are so used to doing it that their conscience is no longer bothered by it.
Watch out where you have recieved pay checks from. Did you waste money in the Marines? Did you think about where the fuel money was coming from when you floored it to get back to base a little early to start liberty? Did you turn of the sink while you brushed your teeth in the barricks? One person's government waste is someone elses reasonable way of doing business.

As a city employee can you say that you use all city resources to their absolute most effeciency? Can you say that you have never wasted any resources?

The vast majority of those in federal public service go to work everyday with the intention of making life easier for their fellow citizens and making America better for future generations. Don't paint the majority with the same brush as the few that deviate from the proper path.

[DaSharkie]

Watch out where you have recieved pay checks from. Did you waste money in the Marines? Did you think about where the fuel money was coming from when you floored it to get back to base a little early to start liberty? Did you turn of the sink while you brushed your teeth in the barricks? One person's government waste is someone elses reasonable way of doing business.

As a city employee can you say that you use all city resources to their absolute most effeciency? Can you say that you have never wasted any resources?

The vast majority of those in federal public service go to work everyday with the intention of making life easier for their fellow citizens and making America better for future generations. Don't paint the majority with the same brush as the few that deviate from the proper path.

Note that I said appointed or elected beaurocrats. Not the guy shleppin in the trenches. I am talking about the career political hack that would scre over their own mother to stay in their position for another term.

Waste in government (as in the private sector) is all over the place. But when you p!ss away BILLIONS of taxpayer money you are not reliable and are no better than a common crook. When you look the other way, as a beaurocrat does then you are just as much of a scumbag.

[DennisTheMenace]

Note that I said appointed or elected beaurocrats. Not the guy shleppin in the trenches. I am talking about the career political hack that would scre over their own mother to stay in their position for another term.

Waste in government (as in the private sector) is all over the place. But when you p!ss away BILLIONS of taxpayer money you are not reliable and are no better than a common crook. When you look the other way, as a beaurocrat does then you are just as much of a scumbag.Your use of the term bureaucrat is completely wrong. A politician is NOT a bureaucrat.

[DaSharkie]

Your use of the term bureaucrat is completely wrong. A politician is NOT a bureaucrat.

From Dictionary.com

bu·reau·crat ( P ) Pronunciation Key (byr-krt)n.

1. An official of a bureaucracy.

2. An official who is rigidly devoted to the details of administrative procedure.

Now tell me how they are not. If you create the bureaucracy then you are a bureaucrat. If you design the system and work to perpetuate it, then how are you not a bureaucrat?

That being said, the hacks that they appoint to run these agencies are. Politicians create the beaurocracy with the rediculous laws and ideas that they create.

Then they appoint their hack friends and family members, or political contributors to these positions thereby clouding the issue further.

[DennisTheMenace]

From Dictionary.com

bu·reau·crat ( P ) Pronunciation Key (byr-krt)n.

1. An official of a bureaucracy.

2. An official who is rigidly devoted to the details of administrative procedure.

Now tell me how they are not. If you create the bureaucracy then you are a bureaucrat. If you design the system and work to perpetuate it, then how are you not a bureaucrat?

That being said, the hacks that they appoint to run these agencies are. Politicians create the beaurocracy with the rediculous laws and ideas that they create.

Then they appoint their hack friends and family members, or political contributors to these positions thereby clouding the issue further.A bureaucrat is a professional employee within the bureaucracy that applies the rules they are presented with in an unbiased and uniform manner. They do not create the bureaucracy's rule's any more than you set the FDNY's policies. And in the rare cases where they might have the oppertunity to change the rules they still do it within the frame work set by elected officials, directly or indirectly. Go take a Public Administration class, you will learn it there better than I can explain it here.

[DaSharkie]

I have taken several public administration courses along my way in life.

To me they are one in the same, based upon my experience and education. We shall have to continue disagreeing I guess.

Either way, do you still trust the government, a politician, or a bureaucrat to give rats @$$ about you or your money?

[DennisTheMenace]

I have taken several public administration courses along my way in life.

To me they are one in the same, based upon my experience and education. We shall have to continue disagreeing I guess.

Either way, do you still trust the government, a politician, or a bureaucrat to give rats @$$ about you or your money?Yes, the same way I trust a firefighter employed by the government to come to the rescue, or a cop to show resonable compassion, or a street sweeper to try to make the road as clean as he can, or a Marine to do the right thing in battle. It is about honor and service, most in government understand that and do try to do the right thing, don't let a few bad apples spoil the entire crop for you.

[DaSharkie]

It is about honor and service, most in government understand that and do try to do the right thing, don't let a few bad apples spoil the entire crop for you.

Don't confuse the minions with the twits at the head levels of an agency or organization.

I understand that it is just the guys doing their job, but it is those morons at the top of the pyramid and who design the system that get everyone messed up.

Overall, I do not trust the government to give a damn about me or my needs. Nor do I plan on them to assist me.