For me change. Bush had experience and look what he did...run our economy down to the ground..nm

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I was listening to a focus group on C-Span and this was a question given to the group:

Bush says rebates going out Monday will boost economy

By TOM RAUM,
AP
Posted: 2008-04-25 13:36:26
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said tax rebates will start going out Monday, earlier than previously announced, and should help Americans cope with rising gasoline and food prices, as well as aid a slumping economy.

Democrats said they were glad the rebate checks were about to go out, but suggested that multinational oil companies were not among the businesses the stimulus package was originally designed to help.

"Starting Monday, the effects of the stimulus will begin to reach millions of households across our country," Bush said Friday in remarks on the South Lawn of the White House.

Those first rebates will be directly deposited into people's bank accounts. The Internal Revenue Service had been saying direct deposits wouldn't start until next Friday. Bush said paper checks would begin going out on May 9, a week earlier than previously announced.

"The money is going to help Americans offset the high prices we're seeing at the gas pump, the grocery store, and also give our economy a boost to help us pull out of this economic slowdown," Bush said.

Bush's emphasis on fuel and food prices differed from other comments he's made since signing the economic stimulus legislation, intended to aid the economy by boosting overall consumer spending - which accounts for roughly two-thirds of the nation's economic activity.

Bush has suggested the rebates could trigger a spending spree. "When the money reaches the American people, we expect they will use it to boost consumer spending," he said last month.

By saying expressly that people could use these one-time checks to pay for such necessities as food and gas, Bush underscored the deepening challenges facing the economy.

Democrats were quick to pick up on the change of focus.

"It's galling to think that taxpayers' stimulus checks will be lining the pockets of OPEC. The sad truth is that the average American family will spend almost their entire stimulus check on higher gas prices this year," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress.

OPEC is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

"Unless the administration gets OPEC to increase oil supply, American consumers are going to be in for a scorching summer of $4 gasoline with no relief in sight," Schumer said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., agreed that people "need this rebate to cope with the rising cost of gas and groceries." She said that, while the rebates would help to get the economy moving, there was a need for a second stimulus package "and we have begun some conversation with the administration and Republicans."

As he had earlier in the week, Bush used the word "slowdown" to describe the state of the economy. He has denied that the nation is in a recession, although many economists say it is.

"It's obvious our economy is in a slowdown. But, fortunately, we recognized the signs early and took action," Bush said.

The rebates - up to $600 for an individual, $1,200 for a couple and an additional $300 for each dependent child - are the centerpiece of the government's $168 billion stimulus package, enacted in February. Roughly 130 million households are expected to get them.

Bush made the comments before boarding his helicopter at the start of a day trip to Connecticut.

People must file a tax return for their 2007 income to be eligible for a rebate check.

The IRS now says all checks for those who filed tax returns on time are scheduled to be deposited or mailed by July 11.

The economy - burdened by the collapse of home prices, a financial and credit crisis, and now rising energy and food prices - grew at an anemic 0.6 percent in the final three months of last year and is believed to have gotten even weaker in the first three months of this year.

The government will report on the first quarter's performance next week.

With the economy faltering, the nation's unemployment rate has climbed to 5.1 percent, the highest since September 2005, when it suffered from the devastating blows of the Gulf Coast hurricanes. Job losses in the first three months of this year neared the quarter-million mark.

Foreclosures have surged to record highs and financial companies have taken multibillion losses on mortgage investments that soured. The situation has sent a tremor through Wall Street and has sent the administration, Congress and presidential contenders looking for ways to provide relief.

AP Economics Writer Jeannine Aversa contributed to this report.

Retroactive Laws Invoked to Protect Administration Officials from War Crimes Prosecution

Bush Turns His Terror War on the Homeland

When I was a kid John Wayne war movies gave us the message that America was the good guy, the white hat that fought the villain.
Alas, today the US and its last remaining non-coerced ally, Israel, are almost universally regarded as the bad guys over whom John Wayne would triumph. Today the US and Israel are seen throughout the world as war criminal states.

On August 23 the BBC reported that Amnesty International has brought war crimes charges against Israel for deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure as an integral part of Israel's strategy in its recent invasion of Lebanon.

Israel claims that its aggression was self-defense to dislodge Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. Yet, Israel bombed residential communities all over Lebanon, even Christian communities in the north in which no Hezbollah could possibly have been present.

United Nations spokesman Jean Fabre reported that Israel's attack on civilian infrastructure annihilated Lebanon's development: Fifteen years of work have been wiped out in a month.

Israel maintains that this massive destruction was unintended collateral damage.

President Bush maintains that Israel has a right to protect itself by destroying Lebanon.

Bush blocked the attempt to stop Israel's aggression and is, thereby, equally responsible for the war crimes. Indeed, a number of reports claim that Bush instigated the Israeli aggression against Lebanon.

Bush has other war crime problems. Benjamin Ferenccz, a chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg, recently said that President Bush should be tried as a war criminal side by side with Saddam Hussein for starting aggressive wars, Hussein for his 1990 invasion of Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Under the Nuremberg standard, Bush is definitely a war criminal. The US Supreme Court also exposed Bush to war crime charges under both the US War Crimes Act of 1996 and the Geneva Conventions when the Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld against the Bush administration's military tribunals and inhumane treatment of detainees.

President Bush and his Attorney General agree that under existing laws and treaties Bush is a war criminal together with many members of his government. To make his war crimes legal after the fact, Bush has instructed the Justice (sic) Department to draft changes to the War Crimes Act and to US treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions.

One of Bush's changes would deny protection of the Geneva Conventions to anyone in any American court.

Bush's other change would protect from prosecution any US government official or military personnel guilty of violating Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Article 3 prohibits at any time and in any place whatsoever outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment. As civil libertarian Nat Hentoff observes, this change would also undo Senator John McCain's amendment against torture.

Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice says that Bush's changes immunize past crimes.

Under the US Constitution and US legal tradition, retroactive law is impermissible. What do Americans think of their President's attempts to immunize himself, his government, CIA operatives, military personnel and civilian contractors from war crimes?

Apparently, the self-righteous morally superior American Christian public could care less. The Republican controlled House and Senate, which long ago traded integrity for power, are working to pass Bush's changes prior to the mid-term elections in the event the Republicans fail to steal three elections in a row and Democrats win control of the House or Senate.

Meanwhile, the illegal war in Iraq, based entirely on Bush administration lies, grinds on, murdering and maiming ever more people. According to the latest administration estimate, the pointless killing will go on for another 10-15 years.

Trouble is, there are no US troops to carry on the war. The lack of cannon fodder forces the Bush administration to resort to ever more desperate measures. The latest is the involuntary recall of thousands of Marines from the inactive reserves to active duty. Many attentive people regard this desperate measure as a sign that the military draft will be reinstated.

According to President Bush, the US will lose the war on terror unless the US succeeds in defeating the Iraqi terrorists by establishing democracy in Iraq. Of course, insurgents resisting occupation are not terrorists, and there were no insurgents or terrorists in Iraq until Bush invaded.

Bush's unjustified invasion of Iraq and his support for Israeli aggression have done more to create terrorism in the Muslim world than Osama bin Laden could hope for. The longer Bush occupies Iraq and the more he tries to extend US/Israeli hegemony in the Middle East, the more terrorism the world will suffer.

Bush and the Zionist/neocon ideology that holds him captive are the greatest 21st century threats to peace and stability. The neoconized Bush regime invented the war on terror, lost it, and now is bringing terror home to the American people.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com

Our jobs have been offshored until now because of greed. Under Obama and his taxation of small businesses, they will be offshored not because of greed but because of survival.

You could make a difference for our country by not voting for Obama, but instead, if you vote for him, you are selling out to deception. You are embracing a socialist, a communist, a Marxist, a liar, a cheat, and someone who legally cannot run as President of the U.S., much less the Illinois senate. But, you make your choice. You believe the consumate liar and his lies who sat for 20 years under the teachings of a black racist preacher filled with hatred for the U.S., whose association with Bill Ayers is recent and documented down to the fact that Ayers himself wrote Obama's best-selling book (best-selling in the eyes of far left liberals that is), who is a documented member of the socialist party, whose friends and close allies are extremists who not only bomb innocent people and are unrepenetent but who intend to eliminate (kill) 25 million Americans who they cannot "re-educate" in communist ideaology (gosh dog it, those dreadful capitalists), who refuses to hand over a certified copy of his birth certificate and educational records (my goodness, don't you have to provide your birth certificate to any number of entities who want to know if you are legal, i.e., social security, DMVs, etc., and your educational records would show if you had received aid as a foreigner and in 1963 would have shown you were a negro instead of an African-American which Obama's falsified record shows, please speck up on history), and who thinks Joe the Plumber is so stupid not to realize that if he wants to achieve the American dream, he is going to achieve it only if he lets Obama take what he makes to give to those WHO WILL NOT WORK. I'd like to see you, liberals, give a share of your 7.5 cpl to those who don't work as hard as you, but then with Obama, that's what you will have to do. Don't be fooled by his rhetoric that only those making over $250,00 will be taxed. We will all be taxed, and there will be no incentive to work for any of us because we will all have to give up a piece of our pie so those who do not work can have a piece of our pie.

Here is the dividing line, folks. We are at a crossroads in our history. The Lord Jesus puts it this way, "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction; and there are many who go in by it."

Choose which gate you enter, the wide or the narrow. It not only determines your eternal destination, but it determines the destination of this country. If anyone here calls themself a Christian and can vote for Osambo, I daresay you are a liar and cheat just as he. One cannot be a Christian and vote for a party and a political candidate who is in total rebellion to God's Word. That is a fact, and if you think any differently, then you, too, like the Obamanation, call God a liar. May He have mercy upon your soul. As He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust because He is no respector of persons, we will all suffer as this country is destroyed and our Constitution that guarantees our freedoms is trampled just as Bill Ayers is pictured standing upon our flag in total disrespect, and we will thank you liberals that we are all in bondage, reduced to third world status, just as the Israelites were in Egypt. Only Obama ain't no Moses but a Muslim and has no favor with God, and there will be no one to lead us to the Promised Land coming from the Democratic party.

I agree 100%. When it's all said and done, there won't only be more of them, but they will have gained a lot of training and experience due to the extensive "practice" they've had in Iraq. I'm just afraid they will take all that and bring it here to the US. I'm also afraid this is going to continue for years and years. I thought this whole thing was described as being swift when Bush declared war.

I also wonder which life was better for Iraqis: Saddam Hussein's regime or George W. Bush's regime.

The videos that gt posted really hit me hard. One of them gave a glimpse of what life was like before we got there and what it was like once we invaded and occupied their country.

I would feel much more secure if steps were taken in this country to protect us, but I feel that another terror attack is inevitable, and I'm afraid the next one is going to be much worse than 9/11. I really fear for my daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. Even if a miracle occurs and we aren't all obliterated under Bush's regime, my grandchildren will be paying for his war for decades to come.

This whole thing was just wrong, wrong, wrong, and I, too, wish we would just get it over with, kick some serious *s* and get out of there.

Keith Olbermann's Special Comments on Bush: Who has left this hold in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr. President. You have. May this country forgive you.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/09/11/keith-olbermanns-special-commnet-on-bush-who-has-left-this-hole-in-the-ground-we-have-not-forgotten-mr-president-you-have-may-this-country-forgive-you/

Notice the number of civilian casualties already. I guess the US is going to ignore that as well.

Subject: Fwd: Fw: ISRAELI'S ASSESMENT OF OUR SECURITY

Juval Aviv was the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie ' Munich ' was based. He was Golda Meir's bodyguard -- she appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games.

In a lecture in New York City a few weeks ago, he shared information that EVERY American needs to know -- but that our government has not yet shared with us.

He predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News stating publicly that it would happen within a week. At the time, O'Reilly laughed and mocked him saying that in a week he wanted him back on the show. But, unfortunately, within a week the terrorist attack had occurred.

Juval Aviv gave intelligence (via what he had gathered in Israel and the Middle East ) to the Bush Administration about 9/11 a month before it occurred. His report specifically said they would use planes as bombs and target high profile buildings and monuments. Congress has since hired him as a security consultant.

Now for his future predictions. He predicts the next terrorist attack on the U.S. will occur within the next few months.

Forget hijacking airplanes, because he says terrorists will NEVER try and hijack a plane again as they know the people onboard will never go down quietly again. Aviv believes our airport security is a joke -- that we have been reactionary rather than proactive in developing strategies that are truly effective.

For example:

1) Our airport technology is outdated. We look for metal, and the new explosives are made of plastic.

2) He talked about how some idjit tried to light his shoe on fire. Because of that, now everyone has to take off their shoes. A group of idiots tried to bring aboard liquid explosives. Now we can't bring liquids on board. He says he's waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on his underwear; at which point, security wil l have us all traveling naked! Every strategy we have is 'reactionary.'

3) We only focus on security when people are heading to the gates.

Aviv says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will target busy times on the front end of the airport when/where people are checking in. It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they run to the restroom or get a drink, and then detonate the bags BEFORE security even gets involved. In Israel , security checks bags BEFORE people can even ENTER the airport.

Aviv says the next terrorist attack here in America is imminent and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places where large groups of people congregate. (i. e., Disneyland, Las Vegas casinos, big cities (New York, San Francisco, Chicago, etc.) and that it will also include shopping malls, subways i n rush hour, train stations, etc., as well as rural America this time (Wyoming, Montana, etc.).

The attack will be characterized by simultaneous detonations around the country (terrorists like big impact), involving at least 5-8 cities, including rural areas.

Aviv says terrorists won't need to use suicide bombers in many of the larger cities, because at places like the MGM Grand in Las Vegas , they can simply valet park a car loaded with explosives and walk away.

Aviv says all of the above is well known in intelligence circles, but that our U. S. government does not want to 'alarm American citizens' with the facts.

The world is quickly going to become 'a different place', and issues like 'global warming' and political correctness will become totally irrelevant.

On an encouraging note, he says that Americans don't have to be concerned about being nuked. Aviv says the terrorists who want to destroy America will not use sophisticated weapons. They like to use suicide as a front-line approach. It's cheap, it's easy, it's effective; and they have an infinite abundance of young militants more than willing to 'meet their destiny'.

He also says the next level of terrorists, over which America should be most concerned, will not be coming from abroad. But will be, instead, 'homegrown' -- having attended and been educated in our own schools and universities right here in the U. S. He says to look for 'students' who frequently travel back and forth to the Middle East . These young terrorists will be most dangerous because they will know our language and will fully understand the habits of Americans; but that we Americans won't know/understand a thing about them.

Aviv says that, as a people, Americans are unaware and uneducated about the terroristic threats we w ill, inevitably, face. America still has only have a handful of Arabic and Farsi speaking people in our intelligence networks, and Aviv says it is critical that we change that fact SOON.

So, what can America do to protect itself?

From an intelligence perspective, Aviv says the U.S. needs to stop relying on satellites and technology for intelligence. We need to, instead, follow Israel 's, Ireland 's and England 's hands-on examples of human intelligence, both from an infiltration perspective as well as to trust 'aware' citizens to help. We need to engage and educate ourselves as citizens; however, our U. S. government continues to treat us, its citizens, 'like babies'. Our government thinks we 'can't handle the truth' and are concerned that we'll panic if we understand the realities of terrorism. Aviv says this is a deadly mistake.& nbsp;

Aviv recently created/executed a security test for our Congress, by placing an empty briefcase in five well-traveled spots in five major cities. The results? Not one person called 911 or sought a policeman to check it out. In fact, in Chicago , someone tried to steal the briefcase!

In comparison, Aviv says that citizens of Israel are so well 'trained' that an unattended bag or package would be reported in seconds by citizen(s) who know to publicly shout, 'Unattended Bag!' The area would be quickly & calmly cleared by the citizens themselves. But, unfortunately, America hasn't been yet 'hurt enough' by terrorism for their government to fully understand the need to educate its citizens or for the government to understand that it's their citizens who are, inevitably, the best first-line of defense against terrorism.

Aviv also was concerned about the high number of children here in America who were in preschool and kindergarten after 9/11, who were 'lost' without parents being able to pick them up, and about ours schools that had no plan in place to best care for the students until parents could get there. (In New York City , this was days, in some cases!)

He stresses the importance of having a plan, that's agreed upon within your family, to respond to in the event of a terroristic emergency. He urges parents to contact their children's schools and demand that the schools, too, develop plans of actions, as they do in Israel .

Does your family know what to do if you can't contact one another by phone? Where would you gather in an emergency? He says we should all have a plan that is easy enough for even our youngest children to remember and follow.
  & nbsp;
Aviv says that the U. S. government has in force a plan that, in the event of another terrorist attack, will immediately cut-off EVERYONE's ability to use cell phones, blackberries, etc., as this is the preferred communication source used by terrorists and is often the WA y that their bombs are detonated.

How will you communicate with your loved ones in the event you cannot speak? You need to have a plan.