O is not the article topic.

• RNC: Partisan politics in times like this is unhealthy. - (sm)
  • gee, and it was okay for Bush to be the elusive target for the last 8 years??....s/m - sheesh...hypocrite
    • Give me a break. There was nothing elusive about W the target. - Sheesh yourself.
      • So sorry, mom...I meant "exclusive" --- - get used to it
        • O is not the article topic. - Still missing the point?
          • obviously no one wants to talk to you on this subject. - so what if someone changes the subject?
            • Of course there isn't. - (sm)
              • I find by far that the bitter, hateful, jealous type - people are on the left, NOT the right.nm
                • Agreed! - Cal
                • Yeah, right. Take a look at your own drive-by. - Do you have a mirror? sm
                • Bitter, hateful and jealous? (sm) - Just the big bad
                • I agree....the left on this board, and beyond...sm - .......
                  • see posts above - leftie
                  • Ridiculous. - (sm)
                  • I just hope he's given at least the chance to be inaugurated... - Marmann
                • That sure isn't evident on THIS board. (nm) - Marmann

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This is a better woman than I am, 16 kids, ranging from birth - 17.

Arkansas Mother Gives Birth to 16th Child

to discuss? I'm open to discussion.

I do believe that I stated below that I am not one of the irresponsible people who got us in this mess.  My husband and I pay our bills and our mortgage.  I know the government won't pay off my mortgage.  It was wishful thinking and playfulness.  That is why I encouraged others to think about what they could buy if they didn't have their mortgage to pay each month.  I'm sorry but you have taken it WAY out of context and blown it WAY out of proportion.  I don't expect any one to pay my bills but me and I certainly don't want my money going to irresponsible people either. 

Don't get me wrong, it would be nice if the government would reward responsible people for once instead of continually giving more money to crooked politicians and crooked rich people and constantly giving to irresponsible people.  What do honest, hard-working Americans get in return for their hard work......we are asked to give more of our money to the government so they can spend it well on Pelosi's mice and other porky things in a stimulous package that will not work.

BTW, you assumed that I'm a pub.  When it comes down to it....I'm a middle of the road kind of person.  I agree some with one side and some with another.  So don't stereotype me as a pub and call me a hypocrit.  It was wishful thinking and playfulness and you turned it into this huge issue when it should not have been. 

Try less caffeine and maybe some yoga for stress relief.

I pay my bills.  I pay my mortgage.  I expect no one to pay my bills for me.  I was suggesting the government paying off my mortgage for me in a playful manner.  That is why I encouraged others to think of things they could buy if they didn't have to pay their mortgage every month.   You assume that I am a pub obviously or you would not have attacked my playful topic and called me a hypocrit.  Well, I am not a pub.  I am a middle of the road kind of person who can see some points on both sides of the fence.  So stop stereotyping me and please reduce your caffeine intake and learn to take a playful topic as that....just for fun. 

It's me - the one who's been posting under all the gt alias joke monikers.  I just had to blow off steam after the conservative board debacle last night.  Don't know why I get involved in it.  My fall equinox resolution will be to inform, not condemn.

Thanks for tolerating my not-that-funny-ha-ha little joke.

McCain's cross in the dirt story he tells now -- history of:

how similar the McCain story is to that offered by Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsen and then later popularized by Christian leaders Chuck Colson and Billy Graham. Sullivan also points out other suspicious changes:

The story changed from the guard using a sandal to the guard using a stick.

At Saddleback, McCain talked about a single guard being the protagonist. The same guard loosened his ropes and then later sketchd the cross in the dirt. In McCain's 1999 book, these were two different guards at two different prison camps.

McCain's first writings about his time in captivity didn't mention the story at all, so he's asked his readers for evidence of McCain offering that story prior to his 1999 book (when he was gearing up for a presidential run).

Several contributors to the comment thread on my first post have pointed to this rather stunning New York Times piece from 2000 in which McCain tells the story but about someone else!

Many years ago a scared American prisoner of war in Vietnam was tied in torture ropes by his tormentors and left alone in an empty room to suffer through the night. Later in the evening a guard he had never spoken to entered the room and silently loosened the ropes to relieve his suffering. Just before morning, that same guard came back and re-tightened the ropes before his less humanitarian comrades returned. He never said a word to the grateful prisoner, but some months later, on a Christmas morning, as the prisoner stood alone in the prison courtyard, the same good Samaritan walked up to him and stood next to him for a few moments. Then with his sandal, the guard drew a cross in the dirt. Both prisoner and guard both stood wordlessly there for a minute or two, venerating the cross, until the guard rubbed it out and walked away.

There has always been scandal and there always will be because we're all human.  I think Obama wants us to think he's "not involved" and does not promote it, which I'm sure he doesn't, but you can't think that he's not liking the negative attention casted towards that party rather than his.  This has become something big (baby mama drama) in this country.  It's everywhere. I think Maury Povich does a show every day on it doesn't he?  Paternity testing and such...  It's in our world and there's no turning our backs on it. 

Leaving criminal penalties out of the equation:  Is it immoral to break the law? 

What if you consider the law immoral (such as, for example, segregation)?  What if you consider integration immoral?  How much does individual conscience have to do with this?  Easy to say someone else's conscience is in error, but they are saying the same about yours.

Some people try to short their taxes because the money goes to fund a war they do not believe in (there's usually one going on) or to fund abortions, or medical research they abhor, and now to bail out failed businesses and individual mortgages.  I think everyone could find something that's funded by our tax money objectionable.  How much are we morally required to render unto Caesar?

It's illegal to overstay a parking meter.  Is it also immoral if you did it intentionally, simply because you've violated a law?  How about sliding through a red light at 3 a.m. on a deserted country road when you could not possibly injure anyone? 

If it's legal to raise rent past a tenant's ability to pay, is it also moral?  What if this makes them homeless?

I  have heard so much about our education system and I'm sure some of it is true.  However, I would like to relay a recent experience I had......

Living in a small community that is loaded with history, I and a couple of other "older" ladies hosted the local 4th and 5th grades on a field trip regarding the history of a couple of landmarks.......anyone interested can visit my website http://www.ozarkmountainmemories.com and read about them. 

I was to do the historical presentation on the Cane Hill College Building.  My good friend was to do the presentation on the Old Mill.  Before I knew that there were 212 students plus teachers and parents, I opened my big mouth and said I would make cookies and Kool-Aid for the kid's field trip.  I ended up having a lot of help there!!!

Both my friend and I were very apprehensive about this field trip.  Well, I want to tell you that those were the best behaved kids I have seen in a long time.  This field trip was to prepare them to write an essay for the Arkansas Historical Society.  They were attentive and, asked very pertinent and intelligent questions.

One of the teachers called me yesterday and said that she was going to bring me some of the essays the kids had written.  She read one to me and it started out with "You may think the Cane Hill College is just a 2-story brick building...." and the student proceeded to write what  I would consider a very excellent essay.  I will post some of these on my website when I have them in hand.

I might also say that there were a good many parents present for the field trip.  I came away from that field trip with a whole different perspective on the local school, which is reputed to be one of the worst school districts in the state with the highest teen pregnancy rate.  I think if these 4th and 5th graders continue through high school with teachers such as I met and parents who are involved in their education, each and every one of them will be just A-okay.

This board has become quite ugly to come and visit.  Most folks know who they want to win and the arguments are becoming redundant.  So, on the lighter side, I'm wondering what's happening in other states.  Here in Michigan, McCain has pretty much stopped trying to advertise, and nearly all ads are Obama.  I think Michigan has been such a forgotten state, our own one-state recession has been going on for decades, and the majority of us are democrats.  Just wondering if other states are being overwhelmed with predominantly one candidate over the other...

This whole Rove thing is not about outing anyone, it is about the uranium and Wilson finding no evidence that Saddam was trying to buy it.  Great article.  Link is below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/opinion/17rich.html?incamp=article_popular

    Thursday 18 August 2005

    Cindy Sheehan is still waiting for Bush to answer her question: What noble cause did my son die for? Her protest started as a small gathering 13 days ago. It has mushroomed into a demonstration of hundreds in Crawford and tens of thousands more at 1,627 solidarity vigils throughout the country.

    Why didn't Bush simply invite Cindy in for tea when she arrived in Crawford? In a brief, personal meeting with Cindy, Bush could have defused a situation that has become a profound embarrassment for him, and could derail his political agenda.

    Bush didn't talk with Cindy because he can't answer her question. There is no answer to Cindy's question. There is no noble cause that Cindy's son died fighting for. And Bush knows it.

    The goals of this war are not hard to find. They were laid out in Paul Wolfowitz's draft Pentagon Defense Planning Guidance in 1992, and again in the neoconservative manifesto - The Project for a New American Century's Rebuilding America's Defenses - in September 2000.

    Long before 9/11, the neocons proclaimed that the United States should exercise its role as the world's only superpower by ensuring access to the massive Middle East petroleum reserves. To accomplish this goal, the US would need to invade Iraq and establish permanent military bases there.

    If Bush were to give an honest answer to Cindy Sheehan's question, it would be that her son died to help his country spread US hegemony throughout the Middle East.

    But that answer, while true, does not sound very noble. It would not satisfy Cindy Sheehan, nor would it satisfy the vast majority of the American people. So, for the past several years, Bush and his minions have concocted an ever-changing story line.

    First, it was weapons-of-mass-destruction and the mushroom cloud. In spite of the weapons inspectors' admonitions that Iraq had no such weapons, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, and Bolton lied about chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Bush even included the smoking gun claim in his state of the union address: that Iraq sought to purchase uranium from Niger. It was a lie, because people like Ambassador Joe Wilson, who traveled to Niger to investigate the allegation, had reported back to Cheney that it never happened.

    The Security Council didn't think Iraq was a threat to international peace and security. In spite of Bush's badgering and threats, the Council held firm and refused to sanction a war on Iraq. The UN weapons inspectors asked for more time to conduct their inspections. But Bush was impatient.

    He thumbed his nose at the United Nations and invaded anyway. After the "coalition forces" took over Iraq, they combed the country for the prohibited weapons. But they were nowhere to be found.

    Faced with the need to explain to the American people why our sons and daughters were dying in Iraq, Bush changed the subject to saving the Iraqis from Saddam's torture chambers.

    Then the grotesque photographs emerged from Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad. They contained images of US military personnel torturing Iraqis. Bush stopped talking about Saddam's torture.

    Most recently, Bush's excuse has been "bringing democracy to the Iraqi people." On June 28, 2004, he ceremoniously hailed the "transfer of sovereignty" back to the Iraqi people. (See Giving Iraqis What is Rightly Theirs). Yet 138,000 US troops remained in Iraq to protect US "interests."

    And Iraq's economy is still controlled by laws put in place before the "transfer of sovereignty." The US maintains a stranglehold on foreign access to Iraqi oil, private ownership of Iraq's resources, and control over the reconstruction of this decimated country.

    For months, Bush hyped the August 15, 2005 deadline for Iraqis to agree on a new constitution. But as the deadline came and went, the contradictions between the Shias, Sunnis and Kurds over federalism came into sharp focus. The Bush administration admitted that "we will have some form of Islamic republic," according to Sunday's Washington Post.

    So much for Bush's promise of a democratic Iraq.

    The constitutional negotiations are far removed from the lives of most Iraqis. When journalist Robert Fisk asked an Iraqi friend about the constitution, he replied, "Sure, it's important. But my family lives in fear of kidnapping, I'm too afraid to tell my father I work for journalists, and we only have one hour in six of electricity and we can't even keep our food from going bad in the fridge. Federalism? You can't eat federalism and you can't use it to fuel your car and it doesn't make my fridge work."

    Fisk reports that 1,100 civilian bodies were brought into the Baghdad morgue in July. The medical journal The Lancet concluded in October 2004 that at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians had died in the first 18 months after Bush invaded Iraq.

    Unfortunately, the picture in Iraq is not a pretty one.

    Bush knows that if he talked to Cindy Sheehan, she would demand that he withdraw from Iraq now.

    But Bush has no intention of ever pulling out of Iraq. The US is building the largest CIA station in the world in Baghdad. And Halliburton is busily constructing 14 permanent US military bases in Iraq.

    George Bush knows that he cannot answer Cindy Sheehan's question. There is no noble cause for his war on Iraq.

By John Yewell/City Editor

With Cindy Sheehan gone home to take care of her stroke-stricken mom, President Bush can enjoy the last week of his Texas vacation free of the distraction of her encampment outside his ranch. But a grieving liberal mom whose son died in Iraq demanding an audience may not be Bush’s biggest problem.

His biggest problem may be my mom.

My mother is a lifelong Republican. She got it from her father, a yellow-dog Republican if ever there was one. As unofficial GOP godfather of Fillmore, Calif., he collected absentee ballots every election for his large family and marked them himself. No sense in taking chances that someone might vote for a Democrat.

So when my mother called me the other day and told me she was considering registering as a Democrat, I was, well, stunned. Somewhere in a cemetery plot near Fillmore a body is spinning.

For the last year or more my mother has been gradually expressing ever greater exasperation with President Bush, the war, and the religious right. “Have you heard about this James Dobson guy?” she asked me on the phone, referring to the head of Focus on the Family. “If they overturn Roe vs. Wade, that’ll be it for me,” she said.

Then she mentioned Cindy Sheehan.

For all the efforts to discredit Ms. Sheehan, what she accomplished in drawing attention to the human cost of the war, if my mother’s opinion is any indication, crossed party lines. There’s a Mom Faction in American politics, and while it isn’t a monolithic Third Rail, it’s at least and second-and-a-half rail. When their children are dying on a battlefield of choice, you touch it at your peril.

My mother has her fingers on the pulse, and scalps, of many such women. She’s a hairdresser with a clientele that has been coming to her regularly for decades. Now grandmothers, these women were moms during Vietnam, in which over 50,000 American sons and daughters died. They worried then about their kids’ safety, now they’re worried about grandkids - theirs or someone else’s. Most are pretty mainstream, most Republican, and most, my mother tells me, pretty much fed up with George Bush.

There is other evidence of trouble on the Republican horizon. According to the latest compilation of state polls produced 10 days ago by surveyusa.com, of the 31 states Bush won in 2004, he now enjoys plurality job approval in only 10. This includes a 60 to 37 percent disapproval rate in the key state of Ohio, and a 53 to 44 disapproval rate in Florida.

A recent assessment from the influential and scrupulously nonpartisan Cook Political Report reads: “Opposition to and skepticism about the war in Iraq has reached its highest level, boosted by increased American casualties, a lack of political progress inside the country and growing signs of an imminent civil war. Given the centrality of the Iraq War to the Bush presidency and re-election, a cave-in of support for the president on the war would be devastating to his second-term credibility and influence.”

If Republicans are wondering where Cook is finding this “cave-in of support,” they could start looking in worse places than my mother’s one-chair salon, where Cindy Sheehan found sympathetic ears.

According to various reports, Bush and his team concluded that granting Sheehan an audience would only have encouraged other malcontents to demand similar attention from the president. Whatever the rationale, the decision alienated the clientele of Natalie’s Beauty Shoppe.

In the end my mother decided against changing her registration. Any criticism she might have of Bush, she decided, would be more credible if she stayed in the party, a sophisticated conclusion I admire and applaud.

Although Democrats can’t count on being the automatic beneficiaries of such dissatisfaction, Bush’s refusal to acknowledge fault, his “because I’m the Daddy and I say so” attitude, doesn’t work for a lot of women anymore. Women resent being patronized, and that’s how many view the president’s treatment of Cindy Sheehan.

The next election may be 14 months away, but when my mom and a lot of others like her walk into their voting booths, they may well be reflecting on their children and their choices, and which party is less likely to put either in harm’s way.

John Yewell is the city editor of the Hollister Free Lance. He can be reached at jyewell@freelancenews.com.

In a little-remembered debate from 1994, the Clinton administration argued that the president has inherent authority to order physical searches — including break-ins at the homes of U.S. citizens — for foreign intelligence purposes without any warrant or permission from any outside body. Even after the administration ultimately agreed with Congress's decision to place the authority to pre-approve such searches in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, President Clinton still maintained that he had sufficient authority to order such searches on his own.

It is important to understand, Gorelick continued, that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities.

Executive Order 12333, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981, provides for such warrantless searches directed against a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.

Reporting the day after Gorelick's testimony, the Washington Post's headline — on page A-19 — read, Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches. The story began, The Clinton administration, in a little-noticed facet of the debate on intelligence reforms, is seeking congressional authorization for U.S. spies to continue conducting clandestine searches at foreign embassies in Washington and other cities without a federal court order. The administration's quiet lobbying effort is aimed at modifying draft legislation that would require U.S. counterintelligence officials to get a court order before secretly snooping inside the homes or workplaces of suspected foreign agents or foreign powers.

In her testimony, Gorelick made clear that the president believed he had the power to order warrantless searches for the purpose of gathering intelligence, even if there was no reason to believe that the search might uncover evidence of a crime. Intelligence is often long range, its exact targets are more difficult to identify, and its focus is less precise, Gorelick said. Information gathering for policy making and prevention, rather than prosecution, are its primary focus.

The debate over warrantless searches came up after the case of CIA spy Aldrich Ames. Authorities had searched Ames's house without a warrant, and the Justice Department feared that Ames's lawyers would challenge the search in court. Meanwhile, Congress began discussing a measure under which the authorization for break-ins would be handled like the authorization for wiretaps, that is, by the FISA court. In her testimony, Gorelick signaled that the administration would go along a congressional decision to place such searches under the court — if, as she testified, it does not restrict the president's ability to collect foreign intelligence necessary for the national security. In the end, Congress placed the searches under the FISA court, but the Clinton administration did not back down from its contention that the president had the authority to act when necessary.

Byron York--NRO

Book Says Bush Aides Dismissed Christian Allies

allay any of my doubts about SP.  If she were an 18-year-od college student, this would be a flattering piece.  As a VP candidate, shallow, uninformed, asking polite questions, flashing some gam.  No thanks. If you think she is qualified -- let the press ask her some questions!!!  If not, put her in a wet T shirt poster and be done with it.

okay, in going to the site you posted, and going to the subheading of what you'll pay in taxes, with Obama, I will pay $1118 less and with McCain only $325 less -

Now for me, that is a no brainer!  Of course if I am worried about the economy in general, and my household in particular, I would have to choose Obama!

In your other post above, you wrote: This country has laws to protect people from being murdered, from having their lives taken from them by another person.

Those "people" are called "citizens" under the Constitution, and the "phrase" you refer to that defines citizens is found under article XIV reads as follows:

Amendment 14 - Citizenship Rights Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

As you can see, the words fetus, embryo, or twinkle in my daddy's eye are NOT included in the definition.  One must be born first in order to be a citizen and receive protective services.

IMHO, when life begins is mostly a matter of philosophical and/or religious belief and not something to be legislated.

What does this say for our future?  If what this writer is saying is true (or evenly remotely a little bit true) looks like a lot of hard times ahead.  What I found of particular interest is the paragraph that talks about unemployment (the last 3 lines are in all caps).  What would happen to this country if unemployment reaches 30-40 percent?  Would we be able to survive?  Are there any plans in the future that Obama had promised during his campaign that will turn things around.  He had a lot of plans/ideas during his campaign, but now all I hear him keep saying is "it's going to get worse" or "it's really bad", but not hearing of any of those plans.

Also, I didn't realize that there were so many people receiving welfare and food handouts in this country (11 million?).  There shouldn't be any reason for this.  Not well Wall Street execs, politicians, etc. are still flying on luxury private planes and certain politicians are staying in $9 million dollar ocean front homes.

I'm just wondering if people who read this are following along and believe a lot in this article may come true or could happen what are you doing to prepare? 

Anyway...just an interesting article.

http://caps.fool.com/blogs/viewpost.aspx?bpid=122176&t=01000619699519786208