Happy Thanksgiving!! nm

• Happy Thanksgiving. - Marmann
  • I wish you and yours......sm - m
    • Thank you, m. (sm) - Marmann
  • Happy Thanksgiving right back atcha, Marmann - gourdpainter
    • Thank, GP. (sm) - Marmann
    • Happy Thanksgiving GP! sm - m
      • You too along with everyone else - gourdpainter
        • Happy Thanksgiving!! nm - Amanda

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I know we often don't agree on this board and sometimes don't get along.

However, I hope each and every poster has a wonderful, happy, healthy Thanksgiving.

At this point in time, we have much to be concerned about, but we also have much to be thankful for.  I personally am thankful for the mere fact that I'm still here and breathing and will enjoy another Thanksgiving with my family.

I hope in the year ahead that we can learn to get along with each other a little more, that respect and politeness will trump contempt and anger.  If we can manage that, then I will have that as an additional thing to be grateful for next Thanksgiving, if I'm fortunate enough to still be here a year from now. 

As I look back on the last few weeks that I have been posting on this board, it becomes even more apparent to me from the opinions expressed here that we live in a country of such diversity, politically, culturally, economically and religiously and probably more so than at any time in our short history.  While we may not agree at times and may even argue heatedly at times over certain issues, we still have the freedom to hold our own opinions and express them freely and for that I am truly thankful.  As we move into unchartered waters, as we do with every presidential election, I hope that our ability to be able to express our opinions will continue to remain intact and that we are able to come here and enjoy a good natured debate as doing so has forced me to  really examine my opinions and what they are based on and to learn to listen to the opinions of others and how their opinions are formulated. 

I love my country and I love the people who make up this great nation, even though I may not agree with everyone's opinions all of the time.  It is my prayer that America can go forth another 232 years as a great nation comprised of great people who, like me, love our country.  I pray that none of us, regardless of our personal opinions or political leanings, will ever take our freedoms for granted, for it is then that we are at our most vunerable and at risk of losing those freedoms that we all hold so dear. 

So it is with these thoughts that I sincerely wish each and every person reading and/or posting here a very happy and safe Thanksgiving. 

Actually, it was really Barney Frank dressed like a turkey that GW pardoned...

George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation
(1789)

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted' for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3rd day of October, A.D. 1789.

 

Sunday, Oct. 02, 2005 Power Outage House leader Tom DeLay's indictment upends the Republicans' to-do list and their outlook for next year's elections. Can they recover in time? By KAREN TUMULTY AND MIKE ALLEN The news that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay had been dreading for months was brought by an aide, who interrupted DeLay's weekly lunch with Dennis Hastert in the House Speaker's office. DeLay absorbed it, and then the man widely called the Hammer on Capitol Hill (though rarely to his face) did what he does best: he hit back. All right, DeLay replied. Let's go. Let's go fight. Less than three hours later, before a roomful of reporters, DeLay addressed a Texas grand jury's charge that he and two political associates conspired to funnel $155,000 in illegal corporate campaign contributions into Texas legislative races. He called it one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history and the prosecutor who brought the case a partisan fanatic. That night, anxious to show he's not a recluse, he introduced Rudy Giuliani at a Friends of Israel banquet. DeLay even made an uncharacteristic round of the cable shows, hinting darkly on cnn that he would soon produce very good evidence that his nemesis, Travis County district attorney Ronnie Earle, had engaged in a conspiracy of his own--with the Democratic leadership here in Washington. Combativeness has seen Tom DeLay through near-death experiences before, but on the Hill late last week, it was hard to miss the signs that his foot soldiers and allies had begun positioning themselves in anticipation of his demise. G.O.P. rules require that DeLay, 58, majority leader since 2003, relinquish his post while he fights the conspiracy charge, and speculation is rife that even if he is acquitted his days as one of the most powerful men in the House could be over. You leave a job like this, there is no coming back, says a top Republican official who likes DeLay and thinks he will be cleared. Politics abhors a vacuum more than anything else, and it's going to move past him too quickly. Almost immediately, it did. A plan engineered by DeLay and Hastert to install complaisant Rules Committee chairman David Dreier as temporary majority leader was nixed by conservatives who dislike Dreier's moderate positions on stem-cell research and gay marriage. Instead the brain trust installed ambitious whip Roy Blunt, who will share some of the majority leader's duties with Dreier. The setup is so shaky that some House Republicans are pressing for the election of a new leadership team as early as January. Meanwhile, lobbying shops that had traded on the access to DeLay were desperately dialing House aides to forge new relationships. Those not tied to DeLay were calling the same staff members to gloat. There's millions of dollars on the table, said an aide who had heard from both camps. These guys are going to slaughter each other. What's left of the G.O.P. leadership, already beset by a raft of other political problems, was trying to figure out how to salvage the ambitious legislative agenda of more tax cuts, hurricane help and gas-price relief that they want to carry them to next year's midterm elections--a more difficult challenge with the sidelining of the man who had so determinedly pulled off many of their close victories. DeLay may not have seen the worst of it yet. Sources tell TIME that while Earle was closing in on DeLay from Austin, Texas, a federal investigation into the spreading scandal around disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, accused with Michael Scanlon (a former press secretary of DeLay's) of bilking their Indian-tribe clients out of $66 million, has begun lapping at the edges of the former majority leader's operation. A former Abramoff associate who was questioned by the FBI in August says, They had a lot of e-mails, a lot of traffic between our office and DeLay's office. Many of those exchanges involved lavish travel by DeLay arranged by the lobbyist but requested, the e-mails suggest, by aides in DeLay's office. (House members are allowed to accept gifts under limited circumstances but not to solicit them.) Says the source: There was nothing I saw that hit DeLay personally, but there was a lot of questionable stuff that was going on with his staff. 'Tom wants this. Tom wants that.' Was it really him or just the staff that was being aggressive? DeLay's office wouldn't comment on the Justice Department investigation, and neither would the FBI. Republicans had plenty of problems even before the latest blow to DeLay. Voters are angry about gas prices, the war in Iraq and the botched response to Hurricane Katrina. Polls show President George W. Bush at or near the lowest public-approval ratings of his presidency. On the other side of the Capitol, Senate majority leader Bill Frist faces an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into the circumstances surrounding his decision to sell all of his stock in the hospital chain founded by his family, Hospital Corporation of America, in June, just before the share price dropped following a bad earnings report. So dispirited are Republicans that some worry about losing control of the House--a danger that once seemed remote. We're looking in the crystal ball. We're moving into an area where we don't know what will happen, says deputy whip Tom Cole, a conservative from Oklahoma. With a switch of only 15 seats required to end their majority, Cole is anxious that the party may have to contest as many as 100 tight races if the winds arraying against it turn into a national backlash like the one that ended the Democrats' 40-year reign in 1994. Having seen how the Democrats failed to galvanize their voters in that campaign, Republicans say the chief goal in rewriting their strategy for the fall will be to re-energize their base. The plan taking shape calls for a robust conservative agenda through next spring, including a tax-reform package. That move would allow Republicans to pivot back to issues like education tax credits that would appeal more to moderates as the elections approach. As for DeLay, his struggles appear likely to consume him for many months. He has launched what amounts to a major political campaign to convince supporters that the indictment is flimsy and he is a victim of a political smear. DeLay pointed to Democrats' vow to use G.O.P. ethics as a campaign issue, and supporters noted criticism of Earle in Texas for speaking in May to a $100,000 fund raiser for a Democratic political action committee (PAC). But DeLay has produced no evidence Earle conspired with Democrats in Washington. While it's true that Earle and DeLay have been locked in a complicated war of Texas-size egos for years, the charges against DeLay are fairly simple. During the 2002 elections, a committee DeLay founded to support conservative politicians--Texans for a Republican Majority, or TRMPAC--allegedly accepted $155,000 in corporate donations and then included that in a check for $190,000 to the Republican National Committee, which then routed a similar amount to seven Texas legislative candidates. DeLay's lawyers say the transactions were separate and that the PAC accepted money from both individuals and corporations. The contribution helped produce six wins that were crucial to DeLay's political ambitions in Washington because they resulted in a Republican majority in the state legislature, which redrew congressional district lines and helped add five more Republicans to the state's congressional delegation. If convicted, DeLay faces up to two years in prison and a maximum fine of $100,000. DeLay has done his best to paint the D.A. as a Democratic loose cannon. But Earle, 63, points out that of the 15 public officials he has prosecuted, 12 have been fellow Democrats. Texas law makes it a felony for corporations and labor unions to contribute money to political campaigns, Earle tells TIME. My job is to prosecute felonies. I'm doing my job. The grand jury foreman, William Gibson, 76, insists that this was not one of those rubber-stamp deals. Ronnie Earle did not indict Mr. DeLay. Twelve people on that grand jury voted to indict. If DeLay has cause for hope, it may be that Earle has been more successful convicting minor figures than major ones. The majority leader has put together a legal team headed by Dick DeGuerin, who handed Earle the most spectacular failure of his career: a 1994 misconduct case against former state treasurer Kay Bailey Hutchison that Earle was forced to drop on the first day of trial. Hutchison is now the state's senior Senator. There are those who predict that DeLay will be able to balance mounting a defense with pulling strings behind the scenes in the House. But whereas he had been accustomed to just stepping downstairs to the majority leader's spacious suite of Capitol offices after a House vote, dusk last Thursday afternoon found DeLay outside on the Capitol Plaza, waiting at a traffic light to return to his office in the Cannon House Office Building across the street. Just like any other Congressman.

I hope we never forget that brave American soldiers fought and died for our freedom to post on this very board!  Here's hoping that we all still have the same freedoms in the USA next year this time as we have today. 

My flag is hanging proudly.  I hope you all have a wonderful day.

To see that a couple of people will stand up with me.  This nation was founded on the principals of Christianity.  We kicked God out of our schools, courthouses and everywhere else a few thought He should go and look where we are now.  Kids killing each other in the schools, etc. etc. Now I hear they want to take "In God We trust" off of our money.  And my further opinion.........these radical evangelicals who think that anyone who says, "Lord, Lord" must be a Bible thumping Christian, have done more to turn people away from God than the other way around.   No wonder we're in such a mess. 

For anyone who wants to jump on this as "religion"....well don't.  I don't propose that anyone who doesn't want to turn to God be forced to do so but I do believe that it is high time that Christians.....or those who follow Christ (or try to)... stand up and be heard.  AND I believe when enough of us do that, God will lead us.  Again....this is my opinion and I'm not talking about "religion," I'm talking about those of us who have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savoir.  He gave us a choice to accept Him or reject Him and I don't believe he would want us to cram him down anyone's throat who does not want to be a believer.

I'm off my stump now.

I must admit that I am not happy about Barrack Obama winning.  I do still have some fear because it seems like there is so much about him that we do not know.  I still worry about his inexperience as well.

However, I hope he is successful as president.  I don't wish him to fail because if he fails.....we all fail.  I hope he is a wonderful president who can bring us out of our crisis.  We will just have to wait and see. 

Just because I'm worried and scared of what is to come....doesn't mean I won't give him a chance.  I will give him a chance and hope and pray that I was wrong about him all along, but until he proves to me that I am wrong....I'm still naturally going to be worried, nervous, scared, etc.  That doesn't make me unpatriotic or a radical republican.  It makes me human.

"To be sure, Obama and his staff have long insisted that they are not measuring their progress on the whims of the markets. One day's gains can be tomorrow's losses. But for those in the commentariat who are down on what has happened under the current president's watch, it's worthwhile putting recent developments in historical context." Your input, not mine.

At lunch time, it was down, but by the end of the day, it was up. The market is not "ready" to rebound yet. Too much still up in the air. I don't get where you think 1 or 2 days gain is the greatest thing that happend since apple pie.  If I had a bunch of money to throw away, I might be throwing some into the stock market now and taking it out tomorrow, but I don't, so I won't. Those that do have the money are doing just that, putting in and taking out the same day. That's not a very reliable way to judge the stock market.

Granted, if it would keep going up, I might move my 401K into a more aggressive portfolio, but after losing more than $7K, I'd rather wait. I only had triple that in a pension plan, so I would rather be safe than sorry.

This does not mean the plan is working yet and I'd rather be safe with what's left of my piddling 401K than sorry.

Don't jump on the bandwagon  yet. There's still a lot left to be desired in the plans and/or laws that they are trying to put in place.

a president who spends more in a few months than Bush did in 8 years?  How can you be happy with a man who said he would sign no bill with pork in it and then turn around and not even read a bill and sign it loaded with pork?  How can a man who campaigns on pulling troops out of Iraq be praised for what he is doing when he has extended the time line to keep troops in Iraq and is sending more to Afgan?  How can you praise a man for giving rights to people who wish to have an abortion but at the same time take away the rights of those who might refuse to perform it because they don't believe in it?  How about the fact that he would appoint no lobbyists and turned around and did just that?  A man who obviously bows to the Saudi King and then lies about it when it is on video tape!! 

This isn't prejudging someone.  It is seeing a politician for what he is.....a liar. 

It never ceases to amaze me that just because someone doesn't agree with Obama that they are instantly categorized as racist or prejudice.  Doesn't it occur to you people that maybe I don't like Obama because he is a liar and it has nothing to do with his race.  A liar is a liar no matter what race or sex a person is.

I'm so sick and tired of the race card.  Obama is the president and each president deals with criticism.  It isn't like this is a new fad of criticizing the president just because he is of mixed race.  If McCain had won, he would have been criticized for every little thing he did too.  Deal with it!

Most, if not all, of YOUR posts are incredibly tasteless, in addition to being rude, crude, offensive and frequently untrue.  Yet, NO liberal has accused you of saying they aren't allowed to speak.

Incredibly tasteless = Not permitted to speak IN WHAT WAY?

Are you agreeing that the poster lied in saying that Army Mom was told she wasn't allowed to speak?

No, of course you're not doing that.

Never mind.

Gregory for Meet the Press.  I think the team at NBC and MSNBC have put together in the last year is exceptional.  Its a good feeling to have faith in our new president, his cabinet appointees and even the media covering him.  I think maybe we had to hit Bush-rock bottom to be able to get our act together.  Did anyone hear that Rev Wright called Eliz Hasselback a dumb blonde or such other phrase.

No evictions or sale of foreclosed homes November 26 through January 9th.

That is really sad.

is knowing that someone who actually has a viable plan will be in charge for a while. 

There's that and the fact that you guys have such an aversion to this countdown that it's getting downright hilarious.  The usual poster for the countdown must be off today, so I posted in thier stead.  I didn't want you guys to go a whole day without something to gripe about.  ROFL.