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Anytime you sell anything, be it a home, car, truck, or anything at all that appreciates in value, do you realize the capital gains tax will affect your bottom line?

Say you buy a car for $200 and know it's worth $1200. If you turn around and sell that car for $1200, you're paying capital gains on the difference.

If the O raises the capital gains tax to 24-25% like he wants to, it will be your loss. Do you really want to pay another $250 in taxes on something you paid $200 for?

Must have been on O'Reilly show. Was there a large screen behind him showing various closeup videos of both Hillary's and SP's chests to illustrate the point?

It's one thing when former high-ranking members of your own Administration come out against your war. It's another thing when two-thirds of the country calls the invasion and occupation a mistake. It's really something when your own church issues a statement urging you to pull out the troops now.

Last week, the United Methodist Church Board of Church and Society--the social action committee of the church that both President Bush and Vice President Cheney belong to--resoundingly passed a resolution calling for withdrawal with only two 'no' votes and one abstention.

As people of faith, we raise our voice in protest against the tragedy of the unjust war in Iraq, the statement read. Thousands of lives have been lost and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted in a war the United States initiated and should never have fought.... We grieve for all those whose lives have been lost or destroyed in this needless and avoidable tragedy. Military families have suffered undue hardship from prolonged troop rotations in Iraq and loss of loved ones. It is time to bring them home.

The board also issued a strong statement against torture, urging Congress to create an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate detention and interrogation practices at Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is my hope and prayer that our statement against the war in Iraq will be heard loud and clear by our fellow United Methodists, President Bush and Vice President Cheney, said Jim Winkler, General Secretary of the UMC's Board of Church and Society. Conservative and liberal board members worked together to craft a strong statement calling for the troops to come home and for those responsible for leading us into this disastrous war to be held accountable.

With its bold stands against the Administration, the UMC is fulfilling the words of Martin Luther King Jr., who called for the church to be not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion but a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.

Bush has asserted that he entered Iraq on a direct order from God. Now, he has a direct order from his own church to leave. Is he listening?

Obama Calls on Bush To Admit Iraq Errors

'Limited' Troop Reduction Urged

By Peter Slevin

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 23, 2005; Page A03

CHICAGO, Nov. 22 -- Sen. Barack Obama said President Bush should admit mistakes in waging the Iraq war and reduce the number of troops stationed there in the next year. But the Illinois Democrat, a longtime opponent of the war, said U.S. forces remain part of a solution in the bitterly divided country and should not be withdrawn immediately.

Without citing specific numbers, Obama called for a limited drawdown of U.S. troops that would push the fragile Iraqi government to take more responsibility while deploying enough American soldiers to prevent the country from exploding into civil war or ethnic cleansing or a haven for terrorism.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) greets well-wishers at the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations after he said the administration has not given straight answers to critical questions on Iraq. (By Jeff Roberson -- Associated Press)

Obama also faulted the administration for tarring its critics as unpatriotic naysayers and said it launched the war to topple Saddam Hussein in March 2003 without giving either Congress or the American people the full story.

Straight answers to critical questions. That's what we don't have right now, the high-profile freshman senator told the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. Members of both parties and the American people have now made clear that it is simply not enough for the president to simply say 'We know best' and 'Stay the course.'

As other Democrats are finding their voice against Iraq policy, Obama took an approach closer to one taken by Senate Foreign Relations Committee colleague Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) than to that of Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). Murtha, a former Marine, called last week for an immediate pullout of nearly 160,000 U.S. troops.

Four prospective Democratic presidential candidates -- Biden, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and former North Carolina senator John Edwards -- have advocated a more gradual approach, with no sudden steps. Biden called Monday for the withdrawal of 50,000 troops by the end of next year and all but 20,000 to 40,000 out by January 2008.

Obama told the audience of about 500 people that the war has siphoned assets from homeland security and the global anti-terrorism fight. He said the administration's attempt to equate the defeat of the Iraqi insurgency with the defeat of international terrorism is overly narrow and dangerously short-sighted.

In a 35-minute speech scheduled just days ago, Obama argued that public opinion has raced ahead of politicians in seeking a clearly etched policy that helps produce stability in Iraq and the Middle East without exposing the United States to a war without end -- a war where our goals and our strategies drift aimlessly, regardless of the cost in lives or dollars spent.

Those of us in Washington have fallen behind the debate that is taking place across America on Iraq. We are failing to provide leadership on this issue, Obama said.

He maintained that Bush could take politics out of the Iraq discussion once and for all if he would simply go on television and say to the American people: 'Yes, we made mistakes. Yes, there are things I would have done differently. But now that I'm here, I'm willing to work with both Republicans and Democrats to find the most responsible way out.'

Tammy Bruce, guest host for Laura Ingram's radio show, had some harsh words for First Lady Michelle Obama.

Discussing the first lady's visit to a Washington D.C. classroom last week, Bruce incredulously recalled Obama's story about wanting to get A's in school and called out her use of a "weird, fake accent."

"That's what he's married to," Bruce said. "...You know what we've got? We've got trash in the White House. Trash is a thing that is colorblind, it can cross all eco-socionomic...categories. You can work on Wall Street, or you can work at the Wal-Mart. Trash, are people who use other people to get things, who patronize others, who consider you bitter and clingy..."

Tammy Bruce, guest host for Laura Ingram's radio show, had some harsh words for First Lady Michelle Obama.

Capital hill is being flooded with calls

Obama Calls on Bush To Admit Iraq Errors

'Limited' Troop Reduction Urged