Republicans and Democrats worked together on

So why do you keep trying to demonize the Democrats.  Both parties made compromises - I believe the Democrats initially wanted about $20 billion more for the program, but they negotiated with the Republicans to secure their votes.

You seem so worried about the cigarette tax not covering the program, and yet what we spend in Iraq in a day would cover the S-CHIP program for a year.  The money is there, but people don't want to make it a priority.

Why is it so hard for you to believe that Democrats that voted yes on the bill (and don't forgot some Republicans did too) actually CARE ABOUT THE CHILDREN?  Is it so hard to believe that they actually want to do something to help kids?  I'm glad they are getting headlines, not because they are against Bush, because really - could public opinion get any worse for him?  I am glad because this is an issue that needs TONS of attention drawn to it.  I don't really care if more people dislike Bush over this issue.  People who like him will continue to and people who don't will continue not to like him.  I see bad headlines about him every week, but that is not my concern.  My concern is affordable healthcare for all children, no matter how high or low their parents' income level is.

• Senate passes Children's Health Plan - Great news imo! (see msg) kam
  • Backers of vetoed SCHIP bill say it is - misunderstood. (kam) see msg
    • This does not tell the whole story either... - Observer
      • I want to correct myself on the above... - Observer
  • So now with my taxed insuring kids -- I can supervise their lifestyle, eating habits, etc. - Patti
    • To me $1000 health insurance premium is a lot - (sm) kam
      • Cheaper plans -- $107 to $220 - Patti
        • Great solution. Skip healthcare for the parents. - kam (sm)
      • So you are saying... - Observer
        • Yes, I think ALL kids deserve affordable healthcare. - kam (sm)
          • Okay....so where does it end? - Observer
            • It can end with affordable healthcare for kids. - kam (sm)
              • You did not answer the question... - Observer
                • Yes I did, and I never said I wanted free... - kam (nm)
                  • It would be wonderful if it was that simple.... - Observer
                    • Fair enough, but we need a more immediate - solution to a huge problem (sm) kam
    • You hit the nail on the head...YES! - Observer
      • Addendum to above post... - Observer
  • I'm sad but not surprised. Bill was vetoed by Bush. - (sm) kam
    • Wow, that is HARSH...... - Observer
      • We will never agree on this issue. - (sm) kam
        • I sleep very well at night, thank you. - Observer
          • I don't care how much the parents make per year... - kam (sm)
            • Okay, I finally get it... - Observer
              • No, you are not even close to getting it. - kam (nm)
                • I am not the only one not close to getting it.... - Observer
                • Also, do you acknowledge that the Iraq - war costs more than the healthcare would?
                  • Not thinking logically....you have room to talk.... - Observer
                    • It common sense - if we can afford one - we can afford the other (kam) nm
                      • Aha... - Observer
                  • Scaring them away? What, you can't hold debate with Republicans? - nm
                    • No, it is just annoying to me to come here - kam (sm)
                      • Hope you get to read this, as it is far down - DW
                        • I agree. - kam (see msg)
                      • With all due respect, and I am sincere in that.... - Observer
                        • No point in arguing with you though. So your - comments will be ignored by me from now on (kam)
                          • I got it...your way or the highway, (sm which I don't suppose I care if you read or not) - Observer
                      • Just an fyi...I am not a Republican. (nm) - Observer
                        • Same here, but the poster mentioned Republicans so that's why I - made that post. (sm)
                          • I really don't understand that, either.... - Observer
                    • You didn't answer MY question. - kam (nm)
                      • If you are talking to me... - Observer
        • Maybe the tobacco companies have - purchased the President's vote?
          • Sigghhhhhhhh.... - Observer
            • The cost of S-CHIP for an entire year equals - the amount we spend in Iraq daily. (sm) kam
              • You bet the government could come up... - Observer
                • So pretty much Jesus would be like, - sorry kids, you got crappy parents-ur on ur own!
                  • Let me try this one more time...sigh... - Observer
                    • Average family on S-CHIP makes around 40,000 - - not 80,000 - I believe 80,000 is just New York
                      • You are correct about the $40K.... - Observer
                        • This section of this article clarifies the - income issue somewhat (kam) sm
              • Correction: The cost to cover Montana kids. - kam (nm)
            • Republicans and Democrats worked together on - this bill (kam) sm
              • I didn't *demonize* anyone..... - Observer
              • You keep saying I don't want affordable health care for children... - Observer
      • Pardon the typo in the post above.... - Observer
  • More food for thought. Another - NY Times article (sm) kam
    • I would just like to know - DW
      • SCHIP program - Observer
        • Did Bush actually say he was against this bill - because of illegal immigrants? (sm) kam
          • SCHIP and Illegals - Observer
  • And pay for it with cigarettes? - Lifelong Democrat
    • How about knocking some of those able-bodied adults on welfare... - Observer
      • It's very difficult to qualify for welfare these days. It is the rich getting - richer and the poor poorer.
        • Not really sure what you mean by difficult... - Observer
      • Yet you are strongly pro-life - don't you care - what happens to the babies? They need healthcare!
        • Yes, I am strongly pro-life... - Observer
          • But while you are awaiting the perfect bill - children are suffering (sm)
            • They are looking at raising taxes on cigarettes... - Observer
              • Sounds like you have compassion for everyone! - nm
                • What is not compassionate about that? - Observer
    • I don't think most smoker's will quit just to - save money, so I think it's a great idea but...
      • If the cigarette tax would completely fund... - Observer
        • If we can find money for an expensive war - we can find money for healthcare (sm) kam
          • healthcare a problem prior to THIS war and they did - pretty much nothing for just about 4ever...n/m
          • I will try this one more time... - Observer
  • My big concern is what is attached to that - bill that we don't know about.....nm
    • Where's the concern for the dying US children? - No bill is perfect, but all kids need medical care
      • Sigh....Republicans are not against insuring children... - Observer
        • Agree illegal health care has got to go! - Lifelong Democrat
          • illegal health care - MTinIL
  • Many Republicans support the bill, but - Bush said in the past he will veto it. (sm)
    • Yes - Easily

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1.  My research on the black liberation movement of which Obama's church is a part tells me all I need to know about whether or not I want to see him in office.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_liberation_theology

2.  If McCain is elected I believe we will face a great depression which will make the depression of the 30s look like a Sunday School picnic.  People already losing homes, jobs, exploding deficit (and the piper will be paid sooner or later), cost-of-living getting so people can hardly afford to live.  McCain's judgement is questionable in his choice of a  running mate.  Totally reckless to name someone he has only met once but then there's oil in Alaska.

I will not support or vote for either of them as were doomed either way.

We aren't living high on the hog, and we've opened our home to those less fortunate. Over the past 25 years, we've had 10 people (friends not strangers) live with us until they could get back on their feet, rent-free, taking none of the money they could make, all meals provided.

Yes, welfare is very backwards, but if I knew of anyone abusing the system, I  would report them.  I don't know anyone on welfare or living in Section 8 housing since I now live in the country. If other people would do that, it would soon straighten out.

at the polling place yesterday.  Then we had a party.  There were only 4 present who voted for Obama and my husband and I were 2 of them.  We had an enjoyable time and on one thing all of us agreed.  ALL of us must get involved if we want to save this country.

I'm glad it's over.

who neatly solved that problem. 

He owned the company and he when quit smoking (or more accurately, he quit buying) any time he wanted a cigarette, he would 'bum' it from one of his employees.  Since O cannot nip out and get a pack of smokes now, maybe he gets by this way.  Would some secret service guy or Whitehouse domestic employee refuse him? 

My old boss should have run for Congress, so out of touch was he with his 'little people.'  Payday was Friday and the checks were locked in his desk until 4:30 Friday afternoon.  (This was to prevent someone from going to the bank at lunch and never returning, I guess.)  And I might add this was back when bankers hours were truly that, not open until 6 on Friday, and until noon Saturday. 

Trouble was, sometimes he would not return from lunch, or at all on Friday, so we did not get paid until Monday.  But he helpfully said that nobody should be living so hand-to-mouth that they absolutely needed their 2-week check before the weekend.  I mean, if you can't go to the grocery and therefore cannot feed your kids, you obviously are not budgeting properly.  Another neat solution, don't you think?  If only I had listened to this man, I would be wealthy today.

at McDonald's for 4 1/2 years? He couldn't get another job and wanted to know what O was going to do about it. I was absolutely shocked!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TptsP4ryido&feature=related

and collects SSD for his "mental illness." He checks himself into a state hospital when it comes close to the time when he has a review coming up. This is what I heard from my son, so I don't know how true it is, but I do know that he is healthy and doesn't seem to have any mental health issues.

His one brother is on disability because he was on the drugs so much, they fried his brain and another brother had cirrhosis. He couldn't get help and died.

that we have and WE should decide who to give it to, not Nobama. We are living the American Dream and will be penalized for it. If your child got all A's in school and the teacher told you that some kids got C's and B's and your child would have to give up some of their A's so the others would be on equal ground, would you object? Probably so. There is no incentive in socialism to work hard to acheive things when you can have the gov't provide everything for you. Don't you people know that you are playing right into the hand's of more gov't? You are being fed a bunch of lies and you won't even realize it until it is too late.

for 30 years at GM.  He was a salvage worker so he wasn't one of those guys who sat on his butt all day long making a ridiculous amount of money.  My dad retired in his 60s because his health didn't allow him to continue working or he would have.  I know how unions work and how they "protect" the employees.  I've also seen the proven statistics about how non-union states are more production and have higher job growth and as far as protecting your job.....no ones job is protected especially nowadays.  People are getting fired left and right so where is the protection.  What good was that auto bailout when all that money pretty much went to pay off the unions.  Unions are nothing but democratic pushed BS. 

Here is a tad bit on unions:

The truth is that unions are essentially parasitic organizations that thrive only by draining and ultimately destroying the companies and industries they control. The essential goal of the unions is to compel the payment of higher wages for the performance of less work and less productive work. Unions are notorious for their hostility to labor saving machinery and to any form of competition among workers, for featherbedding practices, indeed, for “making work” by deliberately and arbitrarily increasing the number of workers required to accomplish a given task and sometimes even by compelling the disassembly or destruction of products already produced.

It should be no wonder that the percentage of the labor force controlled by unions tends progressively to decline. Where the unions hold sway, companies cannot compete. Their market share falls and they ultimately go bankrupt. The only way that unions can maintain any given share of the labor force is by finding new victims to replace the ones they have sucked dry. The finding of new victims, by means of new government intervention is the unstated agenda of  Mr. Stern, Ms. Milkman, and The New York Times.

The actual effects of labor unions are arbitrary inequalities in wage rates, mass unemployment, and substantially lower real wages for the average worker. Labor unions are aptly described as a leading vehicle of what von Mises called “destructionism.”

Whenever a union succeeds in obtaining above market wage rates for its members, it also reduces  the number of workers who can be employed in its field. This is because of the operation of one of the best established principles of economics: Namely, the higher the price of anything, including the wage of any kind of labor, the smaller is the quantity demanded of that good or labor service.

Thus, workers who could have been employed in the lines controlled by labor unions are instead displaced and forced to seek work elsewhere. The added competition of these workers in other lines then serves either to depress wage rates in those other lines, thereby resulting in an arbitrary, union-imposed inequality in wage rates, or, if those other lines are also unionized or are forced to pay union wages in order to avoid becoming unionized (which is often the case), to cause still other workers to be displaced. It should be clear that to the extent that the effect of union activity is to depress wage rates in other fields, the union slogan “Live Better, Work Union” turns out to mean “Live Better by Forcing Other Workers to Live Worse.”

If wage rates in all lines of work are forced above the free-market level either because labor unions are able to impose their wage scales everywhere, or because upward union pressure on wage rates is joined by minimum-wage legislation, the effect is mass unemployment. In this case, there is simply no branch of the economic system that is allowed to pay wage rates low enough to make possible the absorption of workers displaced from elsewhere by the imposition of union wages. The result is the kind of situation presently existing in France and Germany, where unemployment is in excess of ten percent. And, of course, the cost of supporting the masses of unemployed falls mainly on the workers who manage to keep their jobs. Here higher taxes are their reward for “working union.”

For the full article:  http://mises.org/story/1861

Filipino Charged With Spying Worked in White House

Wednesday, October 05, 2005 STORIES BACKGROUND LINKS • FBI Analyst, Filipino Charged With Spying • Hurricane Relief Scams on Web • U.S. Indicts Russian U.N. Official • FBI Keeping Eye on Prisoners Who May Become Extremists • FBI Launches Probe of Alleged Islamic Radical • Ex-FBI Whistleblower to Join Cindy Sheehan NEWARK, N.J. — An FBI intelligence analyst charged last month for passing classified information about Filipino leaders (search) to current and former officials of that nation retrieved the information from the White House, FOX News has confirmed. Originally reported by ABC News, FBI and CIA officials are saying this is the first case of espionage from within the White House in modern times. The alleged spy, Leandro Aragoncillo (search), worked undetected for nearly three years. He was most recently assigned to work with Vice President Dick Cheney. Aragoncillo was a Marine for 21 years. On Sept. 12, it was reported that the former FBI analyst, who was stationed at Fort Monmouth (search) in New Jersey, has been sending classified information since January, according to an FBI complaint. Investigators found that between May and August Aragoncillo printed or downloaded 101 classified documents relating to the Philippines (search), of which 37 were classified Secret, the complaint said. The White House would not comment on the case and only said that it was cooperating, FOX News has learned. (Story continues below) At the time of the arrest in September, officials did not describe the nature of the documents. Court filings said the records included intelligence on a defense treaty and the U.S. assessment of the political situation in the Pacific Rim country. Aragoncillo was ordered held without bail last month following an appearance before U.S. Magistrate Patty Shwartz (search). Aragoncillo's family members attending the hearing declined to speak with reporters. The defendant was to face a charge of conspiracy and a charge of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, the latter of which carries a sentence of up to 10 years and a $250,000 fine. Aragoncillo also was charged with unauthorized use of a government computer, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years and a $250,000 fine. The Associated Press and The Newark Star-Ledger contributed to this report.