Obama signs the stimulus in Colorado

• Obama signs the stimulus in Colorado - Sunflower

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http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/17/obama.ahead/index.html?iref=nextin

The founding pastor of a second Colorado church has resigned over gay sex allegations, just weeks after the evangelical community was shaken by the scandal surrounding megachurch leader Ted Haggard.

Haggard, a gay-marriage opponent, admitted to unspecified sexual immorality when he resigned last month as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs. A male prostitute had said he had had sex with Haggard for three years.

On Sunday, Paul Barnes, founding pastor of the 2,100-member Grace Chapel in this Denver suburb, told his evangelical congregation in a videotaped message he had had sexual relations with other men and was stepping down.

Dave Palmer, associate pastor of Grace Chapel, told The Denver Post that Barnes confessed to him after the church received a call last week.

The church board of elders accepted Barnes' resignation on Thursday.

On the videotape, which The Post was allowed to view, Barnes told church members: I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a 5-year-old boy. ... I can't tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away.

Barnes, 54, led Grace Chapel for 28 years. He and his wife have two adult children.

Palmer said in a written statement that While we cannot condone what he has done, we continue to support and love Paul.

Wonder who the farmers are?  Corporate, I bet.  They will get 60 cents a day.  Something else comes to mind - slaves. 

Who do they think they are, gathering and exercising their first amendment rights like that?  And  all those signs came from republican central planning, didn't they?  Maybe there could have been heavier attendance, but many of the potential supporters actually have jobs. 

The MMM was organized by Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.  It would have been soooooo politically incorrect before, during and after the million man march to characterize all the participants as nuts, sexist racist kooks with a single hateful agenda, trouble makers, disgruntled black men just looking to cause problems. 

Yet the reverse is excactly how tea party participants were portrayed, which is okey-dokey with most people. 

In the dish it out/take it department, the left has pretty a sweet deal because they can say the most prejudiced, outrageous things about the right and get by with it.  But when the right criticizes the left it is always claimed that we are selfish, racist, sexist, homophobic bigots.  It's not about your race, your gender, or your lifestyle.  It's about socialism versus capitalism, okay? 

All you Obama crucifiers had better quickly figure out a way to blame this on Obama!  LOL.

http://www.knowthelies.com/?q=node/55

President Has Issued 750 Statements That He May Revise or Disregard Measures.

WASHINGTON (June 27) -- The White House on Tuesday defended President Bush's prolific use of bill signing statements, saying There's this notion that the president is committing acts of civil disobedience, and he's not, said Bush's press secretary Tony Snow, speaking at the White House. It's important for the president at least to express reservations about the constitutionality of certain provisions.

Snow spoke as Senate Judiciary Committe Chairman Arlen Specter opened hearings on Bush's use of bill signing statements saying he reserves the right to revise, interpret or disregard a measure on national security and consitutional grounds. Such statements have accompanied some 750 statutes passed by Congress -- including a ban on the torture of detainees and the renewal of the Patriot Act.

There is a sense that the president has taken signing statements far beyond the customary purview, Specter, R-Pa., said.

It's a challenge to the plain language of the Constitution, he added. I'm interested to hear from the administration just what research they've done to lead them to the conclusion that they can cherry-pick.

A Justice Department lawyer defended Bush's statements.

Even if there is modest increase, let me just suggest that it be viewed in light of current events and Congress' response to those events, said Justice Department lawyer Michelle Boardman. The significance of legislation affecting national security has increased markedly since Sept. 11..

Congress has been more active, the president has been more active, she added. The separation of powers is working when we have this kind of dispute.

Specter's hearing is about more than the statements. He's been compiling a list of White House practices he bluntly says could amount to abuse of executive power -- from warrantless domestic wiretapping program to sending officials to hearings who refuse to answer lawmakers' questions.

But the session also concerns countering any influence Bush's signing statements may have on court decisions regarding the new laws. Courts can be expected to look to the legislature for intent, not the executive, said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas., a former state judge.

There's less here than meets the eye, Cornyn said. The president is entitled to express his opinion. It's the courts that determine what the law is.

But Specter and his allies maintain that Bush is doing an end-run around the veto process. In his presidency's sixth year, Bush has yet to issue a single veto that could be overridden with a two-thirds majority in each house.

The president is not required to (veto), Boardman said.

Of course he's not if he signs the bill, Specter snapped back.

Instead, Bush has issued hundreds of signing statements invoking his right to interpret or ignore laws on everything from whistleblower protections to how Congress oversees the Patriot Act.

It means that the administration does not feel bound to enforce many new laws which Congress has passed, said David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues. This raises profound rule of law concerns. Do we have a functioning code of federal laws?

Bush could bypass new torture ban Waiver right is reserved By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff  |  January 4, 2006 WASHINGTON -- When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief. After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ''signing statement -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said. ''The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief, Bush wrote, adding that this approach ''will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks. Some legal specialists said yesterday that the president's signing statement, which was posted on the White House website but had gone unnoticed over the New Year's weekend, raises serious questions about whether he intends to follow the law. A senior administration official, who spoke to a Globe reporter about the statement on condition of anonymity because he is not an official spokesman, said the president intended to reserve the right to use harsher methods in special situations involving national security. ''We are not going to ignore this law, the official said, noting that Bush, when signing laws, routinely issues signing statements saying he will construe them consistent with his own constitutional authority. ''We consider it a valid statute. We consider ourselves bound by the prohibition on cruel, unusual, and degrading treatment. But, the official said, a situation could arise in which Bush may have to waive the law's restrictions to carry out his responsibilities to protect national security. He cited as an example a ''ticking time bomb scenario, in which a detainee is believed to have information that could prevent a planned terrorist attack. ''Of course the president has the obligation to follow this law, [but] he also has the obligation to defend and protect the country as the commander in chief, and he will have to square those two responsibilities in each case, the official added. ''We are not expecting that those two responsibilities will come into conflict, but it's possible that they will. David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said that the signing statement means that Bush believes he can still authorize harsh interrogation tactics when he sees fit. ''The signing statement is saying 'I will only comply with this law when I want to, and if something arises in the war on terrorism where I think it's important to torture or engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading conduct, I have the authority to do so and nothing in this law is going to stop me,' he said. ''They don't want to come out and say it directly because it doesn't sound very nice, but it's unmistakable to anyone who has been following what's going on. Golove and other legal specialists compared the signing statement to Bush's decision, revealed last month, to bypass a 1978 law forbidding domestic wiretapping without a warrant. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without a court order starting after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The president and his aides argued that the Constitution gives the commander in chief the authority to bypass the 1978 law when necessary to protect national security. They also argued that Congress implicitly endorsed that power when it authorized the use of force against the perpetrators of the attacks. Legal academics and human rights organizations said Bush's signing statement and his stance on the wiretapping law are part of a larger agenda that claims exclusive control of war-related matters for the executive branch and holds that any involvement by Congress or the courts should be minimal. Vice President Dick Cheney recently told reporters, ''I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it. . . . I would argue that the actions that we've taken are totally appropriate and consistent with the constitutional authority of the president. Since the 2001 attacks, the administration has also asserted the power to bypass domestic and international laws in deciding how to detain prisoners captured in the Afghanistan war. It also has claimed the power to hold any US citizen Bush designates an ''enemy combatant without charges or access to an attorney. And in 2002, the administration drafted a secret legal memo holding that Bush could authorize interrogators to violate antitorture laws when necessary to protect national security. After the memo was leaked to the press, the administration eliminated the language from a subsequent version, but it never repudiated the idea that Bush could authorize officials to ignore a law. The issue heated up again in January 2005. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales disclosed during his confirmation hearing that the administration believed that antitorture laws and treaties did not restrict interrogators at overseas prisons because the Constitution does not apply abroad. In response, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, filed an amendment to a Defense Department bill explicitly saying that that the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees in US custody is illegal regardless of where they are held. McCain's office did not return calls seeking comment yesterday. The White House tried hard to kill the McCain amendment. Cheney lobbied Congress to exempt the CIA from any interrogation limits, and Bush threatened to veto the bill, arguing that the executive branch has exclusive authority over war policy. But after veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress approved it, Bush called a press conference with McCain, praised the measure, and said he would accept it. Legal specialists said the president's signing statement called into question his comments at the press conference. ''The whole point of the McCain Amendment was to close every loophole, said Marty Lederman, a Georgetown University law professor who served in the Justice Department from 1997 to 2002. ''The president has re-opened the loophole by asserting the constitutional authority to act in violation of the statute where it would assist in the war on terrorism. Elisa Massimino, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, called Bush's signing statement an ''in-your-face affront to both McCain and to Congress. ''The basic civics lesson that there are three co-equal branches of government that provide checks and balances on each other is being fundamentally rejected by this executive branch, she said. ''Congress is trying to flex its muscle to provide those checks [on detainee abuse], and it's being told through the signing statement that it's impotent. It's quite a radical view.

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
 

How many of you enjoyed your Stimulus Checks?  I for one loved mine.  Think back to what you did with that check?  Maybe you paid some bills, bought that CD you have been wanting, maybe a night out with your family to a nice restaurant or even Pizza Hut.  A lot of us were able to buy new clothes for our children.

Admit it, it was worth going to the mailbox for.  I looked forward to the mail for once.

Senator Obama has pushed for more Stimulus checks immediately for the American people.  But who do you think veto'd it?  President Bush did.  Senator McCain has sided with President Bush 90% of the time.  Believe me, you won't be going to the mailbox to find anymore Stimulus Checks in there if you elect John McCain on November 4, 2008.

I'm ill, have no health insurance, and if we get another stimulus check, I'll be able to go see the doctor again.  (I've been there twice:  When I received my income tax refund and when I received the first stimulus check.) 

The doctor is pretty far away, and I need to rent a car (with a $250.00 deposit) since my daughter's car is very old and probably wouldn't make the trip.  (My car was repossessed when I couldn't afford the payments any more due to being in the hospital so often.)

I hope we get another stimulus check so I can see the cystic fibrosis specialist again.  In the meantime, I'm fortunate to have found a good doctor for low-income people in my town.

I've read a lot about it on line and decided to get the info from the government itself.

Division B is where the so-called stimulus for us is located. A whole 5 pages or so. The rest is for millions and billions to go to:

Agricultural Research Services, buildings and facilities

Farm Bureau Salaries and Expenses

Natural Conservation Sevices Watershed and flood prevention operations, watershed rehab, fisheries

Rural Development Programs, rural housing services, utilities including distance learning, telemedicine,and broadband program

Bonneville Power Administration

Appropriations Transfer Authority: Department of Energy for `Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy', `Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability', and `Advanced Battery Loan Guarantee Program'

Financial Services: GSA, federal building fund,energy efficient government motor vehicle fleet procurement

Then we come to small businesses. Economic Stimulus LENDING for small businesses. 

Shall I keep going or does everybody get the jist of this so-called stimulus package?

Now this makes sense. 

It is the month of August, on the shores of the Black Sea . It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher. The Butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig grower.

The pig grower takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel.

The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the town’s prostitute that in these hard times, gave her “services” on credit.

The hooke*r runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything.

At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying that he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism….

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is doing business today.

And if that doesn’t scare the ____ out of you then you are brain dead!

Stimulus means SPENDING

Non-refundable tax rebates means every $1.00 spent creates $1.02 in economic activity. 2 freaking cents (makes sense to the pubs.....I guess)

Infrastructure - every dollar spent equals $1.59 in economic activity (bridges, roads, etc.)

Food stamps (which the pubs want to cut out of the bill) - every dollar spent equals $1.73 in economic activity. This is the single most productive stimulus we have. Food stamps will get SPENT, unlike tax rebates.

If the pubs have their way, the bill will be 42% tax cuts which will not benefit job creation or improve the economy. They want to fail. Why? And you all call your senators to support this? If it gets pushed through like this, you have only yourselves to blame when everything goes to helll. You can't blame Obama for this cluster.

health.  Take a look at this little hidden jewel.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned supporters Tuesday that the $828 billion stimulus package is “anti-religious.”

In an e-mail that was also posted on his blog ahead of the Senate’s passage, Huckabee wrote: “The dust is settling on the ‘bipartisan’ stimulus bill and one thing is clear: It is anti-religious.”

The former Republican presidential candidate pointed to a provision in both the House and Senate versions banning higher education funds in the bill from being used on a “school or department of divinity.”

“You would think the ACLU drafted this bill,” Huckabee said. “For all of the talk about bipartisanship, this Congress is blatantly liberal.”

“Emily’s List, radical environmental groups, etc. all have a seat at the decision making table in Washington these days,” he continued. “Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are in charge and they are working with an equally ‘progressive’ President Obama (remember his voting record is more liberal than Ted Kennedy!).”

In the e-mail, Huckabee concedes that there is little that conservatives can do in the near term, but advocated mobilization to defeat those “masquerading as ‘conservative Democrats.’”

“This is the opening round of the Democrats’ campaign for big government,” he wrote. “We cannot afford to sit round one out, because if we do, they will only become more emboldened and their grab for power more audacious and damaging to our country and our freedoms.”

and then saw this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulp_96DYiqg