I'm worried that we didn't allocate enough to find out

• Say what? - sm
  • I don't suppose...(sm) - Just the big bad
    • You asked.... - link inside
      • No link available...nm - Just the big bad
        • Here is a link. - sm
  • It's a good thing Obama promised - Trigger Happy
  • Only $473,000? Whoever submitted that bit of pork - was an amateur.
    • What was it I just read recently... - CrankyBeach
      • I'm worried that we didn't allocate enough to find out - why pigs stink and cows pass gas.
  • Why isn't anyone saying NO - Former soldier and proud of it
    • That word isn't in the goverment vocabulary. LOL (nm) - Backwards typist
      • That sure is an understatment BT - ha ha - Former soldier and proud of it

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what all they put into this bailout bill?  I'm half scared to know what all kind of crap they put in there to entice some of these politicians to vote for it.  What was in it for them that they finally said "yea" to?

When Dodd gave a speech about the bill last night, I wanted to throw something at the TV.  He was all praising the people who are to blame for this and saying that they were such great help during these proceedings.  He is lucky I couldn't reach through the TV and choke him.

If necessary we will heat our home totally with fireplaces.  Plenty of wood and a good outdoor kitchen of Dutch ovens so we can feast without a speck of energy.  Might not like it too much but we could survive with kerosene lamps for light of which we have a number.  No internet but oh well......

Has anyone thought that just eating may be a problem?  Someone mentioned $10 loaf of bread.  We are among the fortunate who live on a farm.  We have farm animals and an abundance of wildlife.  We know how to raise a garden and how to roam over the hills and gather wild food that is etable.  If we enter the next GREAT DEPRESSION, we'll be fine....provided we can keep those who don't have a clue of how to survive from stealing from us.  Might be a good time to read up on the Foxfire series of books instead of spending so much time squabbling about who will be the best (WORST) president.

 Am worried about Roe v Wade, but not about Rove. He is not worry-worthy - way too much effort. I AM concerned that nothing will happen to any of them that are involved in Plamegate unless it is some third-string low-on-the-totem-pole flunkie who will be completely blindsided when he gets blamed/fired/arrested. This shadow administration is far more evolved than the Nixon guys. I predict nothing will happen to them but what is worse, we have been lied to so often for the last 4+ years that most of us  won't even care. They are going to do what they are going to do...the end.  Here in Florida we voted last election for smaller class sizes and not to build a bullet-train between Tampa and Orlando. Jeb just changed both of those things. We are building the train set up and class sizes stay the same. I wonder why we vote on these amendments at all. What difference does it make? And so it is with D.C. It has not mattered for so long what a great number of us have felt about Iraq and all the lies surrounding it. They just do what they want. And before anyone says "we elected him" as a plausible argument, 51% is not a mandate. One half of this country is on the other side. Our country does not deserve the autocratic theocratic government that has been forced upon us.  When the shoe is inevitably on the other foot I suspect you won't like it either.

I wonder who is transcribing the medical notes of Senators Clinton and Obama.

I'm only saying this because a few years ago, I worked for a company that (I believe) didn't offshore, and on one of my jobs, the patient had the very same name as a prominent Washington politician who was considering running for President.

I kind of giggled and thought the patient must get teased a lot for having the same name.  I realized that, as lawmakers, certainly their medical information would be very secure.  I stopped giggling when I got to the "Social History" where the patient's occupation was revealed, and I realized that the patient was indeed that politician.

Fortunately, that politician's note was transcribed by an American transcriptionist, but it seemed to be by the luck of the draw, rather than by rule.

After 9/11, I can't believe this country is still so careless. 

I do not mean to sound churchy, but I have been brought up that it states in the Bible that Russia (known as another name in Bible, but shows it on a map where Russia is) to be very worried.  When the country Russia comes into play, need to worry about Amargeddon, The End Times.  Not the countries of Iran, North Korea, etc., but Russia.   Yes, I am concerned about Russia.

With Recession Looming, Bush Tells America To ‘Go Shopping More’

Today, President Bush held a news conference where he discussed the “way forward” for the economy in 2007. Renowned Morgan Stanley economist Steven Roach says the the “odds of the U.S. economy tipping into recession are about 40 to 45 per cent.” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman notes that “the odds are very good — maybe 2 to 1,” that the U.S. will teeter toward a recession in 2007. Bush’s solution? “Go shopping more.”

S.Amdt.4170: To protect families, family farms and small businessees by extending the income tax rate structure, raising the death tax exemption to $5 million and reducing the maximum death tax rate to no more than 35%; to keep education affordable extending the college tuition deduction; and to protect senior citizens from higher taxes on their retirement income, maintain U.S. financial market competitiveness, and promote economic growth by extending the lower tax rates on dividents and capital gains.

NAY: Biden and Obama   YEA: McCalin

I.E., this is in the voting record in the public records. There are not too many voting records there for the O since he started his campaign and most of those he voted NAY or say Not Voting.

/

being lost, then why hasn't he enforced E-Verify and stop letting illegals take American jobs?  Why hasn't he enforced closing the borders and deporting all the illegals locked up in our prisons right now, the ones I feed, clothe, and shelter while they sit in gangs and run the prisons.  Why hasn't he stopped all outsiders from entering this country to work and take ANY American jobs, even on a work visa?   Why isn't E-Verify being enforced?  He doesn't seem to worried about all the real issues, which is allowing illegals and foreigners on work visas to come and take the jobs.    Strange, no democrat is talking about that.  NO ONE is talking about that.   There is currently a bill on the Senate floor that will allow 300,000 illegals to take construction jobs in OUR country.....you know what bill that is?  The stimulus package..    funny how no one is talking about what few jobs will be developed will be given to illegals.  There will be absolutely no enforcement that will see that ONLY Americans get those jobs.

How come no O lovers are concerned about that?

his own personal reasons.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050620/why_george_went_to_war.php

The Downing Street memos have brought into focus an essential question: on what basis did President George W. Bush decide to invade Iraq? The memos are a government-level confirmation of what has been long believed by so many: that the administration was hell-bent on invading Iraq and was simply looking for justification, valid or not.

Despite such mounting evidence, Bush resolutely maintains total denial. In fact, when a British reporter asked the president recently about the Downing Street documents, Bush painted himself as a reluctant warrior. "Both of us didn't want to use our military," he said, answering for himself and British Prime Minister Blair. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

Yet there's evidence that Bush not only deliberately relied on false intelligence to justify an attack, but that he would have willingly used any excuse at all to invade Iraq. And that he was obsessed with the notion well before 9/11—indeed, even before he became president in early 2001.

In interviews I conducted last fall, a well-known journalist, biographer and Bush family friend who worked for a time with Bush on a ghostwritten memoir said that an Iraq war was always on Bush's brain.

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and Houston Chronicle journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said, 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He went on, 'If I have a chance to invade…, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.'"

Bush apparently accepted a view that Herskowitz, with his long experience of writing books with top Republicans, says was a common sentiment: that no president could be considered truly successful without one military "win" under his belt. Leading Republicans had long been enthralled by the effect of the minuscule Falklands War on British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's popularity, and ridiculed Democrats such as Jimmy Carter who were reluctant to use American force. Indeed, both Reagan and Bush's father successfully prosecuted limited invasions (Grenada, Panama and the Gulf War) without miring the United States in endless conflicts.

Herskowitz's revelations illuminate Bush's personal motivation for invading Iraq and, more importantly, his general inclination to use war to advance his domestic political ends. Furthermore, they establish that this thinking predated 9/11, predated his election to the presidency and predated his appointment of leading neoconservatives who had their own, separate, more complex geopolitical rationale for supporting an invasion.

Conversations With Bush The Candidate

Herskowitz—a longtime Houston newspaper columnist—has ghostwritten or co-authored autobiographies of a broad spectrum of famous people, including Reagan adviser Michael Deaver, Mickey Mantle, Dan Rather and Nixon cabinet secretary John B. Connally. Bush's 1999 comments to Herskowitz were made over the course of as many as 20 sessions together. Eventually, campaign staffers—expressing concern about things Bush had told the author that were included in the manuscript—pulled the project, and Bush campaign officials came to Herskowitz's house and took his original tapes and notes. Bush communications director Karen Hughes then assumed responsibility for the project, which was published in highly sanitized form as A Charge to Keep.

The revelations about Bush's attitude toward Iraq emerged during two taped sessions I held with Herskowitz. These conversations covered a variety of matters, including the journalist's continued closeness with the Bush family and fondness for Bush Senior—who clearly trusted Herskowitz enough to arrange for him to pen a subsequent authorized biography of Bush's grandfather, written and published in 2003.

I conducted those interviews last fall and published an article based on them during the final heated days of the 2004 campaign. Herskowitz's taped insights were verified to the satisfaction of editors at the Houston Chronicle, yet the story failed to gain broad mainstream coverage, primarily because news organization executives expressed concern about introducing such potent news so close to the election. Editors told me they worried about a huge backlash from the White House and charges of an "October Surprise."

Debating The Timeline For War

But today, as public doubts over the Iraq invasion grow, and with the Downing Street papers adding substance to those doubts, the Herskowitz interviews assume singular importance by providing profound insight into what motivated Bush—personally—in the days and weeks following 9/11. Those interviews introduce us to a George W. Bush, who, until 9/11, had no means for becoming "a great president"—because he had no easy path to war. Once handed the national tragedy of 9/11, Bush realized that the Afghanistan campaign and the covert war against terrorist organizations would not satisfy his ambitions for greatness. Thus, Bush shifted focus from Al Qaeda, perpetrator of the attacks on New York and Washington. Instead, he concentrated on ensuring his place in American history by going after a globally reviled and easily targeted state run by a ruthless dictator.

The Herskowitz interviews add an important dimension to our understanding of this presidency, especially in combination with further evidence that Bush's focus on Iraq was motivated by something other than credible intelligence. In their published accounts of the period between 9/11 and the March 2003 invasion, former White House Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke and journalist Bob Woodward both describe a president single-mindedly obsessed with Iraq. The first anecdote takes place the day after the World Trade Center collapsed, in the Situation Room of the White House. The witness is Richard Clarke, and the situation is captured in his book, Against All Enemies.

On September 12th, I left the Video Conferencing Center and there, wandering alone around the Situation Room, was the President. He looked like he wanted something to do. He grabbed a few of us and closed the door to the conference room. "Look," he told us, "I know you have a lot to do and all…but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way…"

I was once again taken aback, incredulous, and it showed. "But, Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this."

"I know, I know, but…see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred…" …

"Look into Iraq, Saddam," the President said testily and left us. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty stared after him with her mouth hanging open.

Similarly, Bob Woodward, in a CBS News 60 Minutes interview about his book, Bush At War, captures a moment, on November 21, 2001, where the president expresses an acute sense of urgency that it is time to secretly plan the war with Iraq. Again, we know there was nothing in the way of credible intelligence to precipitate the president's actions.

Woodward: "President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, 'What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.'"

Wallace (voiceover): Woodward says immediately after that, Rumsfeld told Gen. Tommy Franks to develop a war plan to invade Iraq and remove Saddam—and that Rumsfeld gave Franks a blank check.

Woodward: "Rumsfeld and Franks work out a deal essentially where Franks can spend any money he needs. And so he starts building runways and pipelines and doing all the necessary preparations in Kuwait specifically to make war possible."

Bush wanted a war so that he could build the political capital necessary to achieve his domestic agenda and become, in his mind, "a great president." Blair and the members of his cabinet, unaware of the Herskowitz conversations, placed Bush's decision to mount an invasion in or about July of 2002. But for Bush, the question that summer was not whether, it was only how and when. The most important question, why, was left for later.

Eventually, there would be a succession of answers to that question: weapons of mass destruction, links to Al Qaeda, the promotion of democracy, the domino theory of the Middle East. But none of them have been as convincing as the reason George W. Bush gave way back in the summer of 1999.

And Clinton is a serial rapist. So what is your point? sm

Posted By: Brunson on 2006-05-03,
In Reply to: Hitchens is a public and private severe alcoholic - Mind

Everyone knows that Hitchens is an alcoholic.  You are adding nothing to this conversation.  Act like an adult or leave.