I didn't see it, can you tell me where I can find it.

• God's will has been done. - MT
  • This viewpoint - Hmmm
  • me too but - Horski
  • 1 Samuel - sbMT
    • He sure is going to take a 10th of our flocks - Scary
  • He sure needs prayer because anyone who - Scary
  • well I say NO - shelly
    • Exactly! It's man's will that O was elected, not God's. - Lu
      • Amen!!!! nm - Scary
  • Another viewpoint - Something to think about
    • Did you see the picture of O at his ceremony? - Scary
      • I didn't see it, can you tell me where I can find it. - Kaydie
  • What an odd statement - Kaydie
    • God's Will has been done. - MT
      • Don't lecture me on praying and you need - Kaydie
  • You honestly think Obama will pray to God before he... - sam
  • I think God is still working on that, which is why O - will probably be disqualified.nm
    • Yeah, now "where is that birth certificate anyway" - "Where did I leave it...Kenya"??nm
      • birth certificate - hownow
      • You got that one right. (no message) - Kaydie

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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.

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. 

you obviously have a problem already.  Sources I've used include a direct link to the US Senate, factcheck.org (an organization that even Fox uses), going to bills/legistation directly....etc. 

long, but until you actually look at McCain's voting record, posts like this (including the one below) are nothing but opinion.

http://vetsforobama.org/

trillion but if our government continues to spend the money, I fear we may find out the hard way.  All I've heard about is how Bush doubled our deficit in 8 years.  Well, Obama has been in office not even a full month and wants to add 1 trillion dollars to it....although he continues to say 800 billion in his charismatic speeches.  I'm also so tired of the blame game.  Obama himself made sure in his speech last night at the democratic retreat (which, BTW, taxpayers helped pay for, thanks O) to mention that government is a group of people throwing out ideas and it isn't one person dictating everything.  Yet he continues to blame one person, Bush, for our crisis.  This crisis has been a long time coming people and started before Bush, although he didn't help either.  I blame government as a whole and I intend to hold both dems and pubs feet to the fire and since the dems are currently in control......they are most definitely getting more criticism from me because they are in charge at this point.  Doesn't mean I'm not keeping an eye on the pubs too cuz Lord knows there are crooks in both parties.

interesting that Obama ridiculed McCann for taxing healthcare benefits during his campaign and yet that is now something on the table Obama is considering to help fund his healthcare reform. Funny how something that was once ridiculous to him is now something okay to do and how dare we question him. 

Once again.....why aren't democrats holding Obama's feet to the fire here?  Lie after lie and broken promise after broken promise.  If anyone from any other party flip flopped and lied like this....you guys would crucify him/her.  What gives?

All I could find on that board was complaining and whining about liberals and how they're all terrible and godless, etc., etc.  'Nuff said.  

Gay men from Barack Obama's Chicago church have been murdered and their murders go unsolved. These men were murdered in 40 days of each other around November 2007 to December 2007, when Obama was running for president. One was Obama's churches choir master, a man named Donald Young.

That is extremely disturbing that Barack Obama, a man running for president, has had murders in his church of gay males and their killings have gone unsolved.

That is unheard of for one church to have a couple of murders, especially during a time when a parishioner of the church is a person running for the highest office in the land, in over one month. Then the murders were of gay men in a church that was friendly to them because they knew the choir master was openly gay. This is a church Obama's children went to and Barack exchanged marriage vows with Michelle.

The choirmaster was killed execution style in December. This is a big story because imagine if that had happened to another presidential or vice-presidential candidate, that members of their follow church members were murdered in seperate killings.

Hopefully there will be justice and civil rights for these gay men.  

I know he didn't put his hand over his heart during the national anthem, but I haven't heard about him not saying the pledge, saluting the flag, or not shaking the hands of soldiers.

I do feel that Obama is someone that we need to question.  I think his followers are in for a big surprise if Obama gets elected.  But putting aside all of his associations, etc.......Obama will not help this economy.  He puts Bush down for the deficit going up and if you add up all of Obama's government plans and spending.....he will actually add more to the deficit.  To raise taxes on anyone during this kind of crisis isn't good for the economy.  There aren't enough "rich" people to tax to pay for all Obama wants to do.  It isn't feasible. 

I don't make enough money and I will be one of the supposed 95% that benefits from Obama's plan.  However, I still don't think him taxing only the rich is a feasible thing and I don't want a government handout.  Not all of that 95% are working people and they will basically get a welfare check with money they didn't earn.  Just let me have and keep the money I earn.  I don't want money taken from others who earned it.  That isn't right.  I want the American dream.  I want what I have because I earned it....not because it was given to me and taken from someone else. 

I've always been told by my parents that you will feel good about yourself if you work hard and achieve something.  Getting a monthly welfare check with money you didn't earn at the expense of hard working individuals isn't achieving anything.  It is doing nothing but penalizing hard work.  It is destroying the American dream.  Why strive to achieve something when the government is going to take it away from you and give it to someone who didn't strive to achieve anything?