Sorry, didn't mean you.....just in general

• Wow - sm
  • I've kind of wondered about this - sm
    • Racism works both ways - sm
      • Racism - Joanne
      • I never said it was all one sided. - sm
        • Sorry, didn't mean you.....just in general - should have clarified NM

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/25/AR2006062500764_pf.html

Democrats Cite Report On Troop Cuts in Iraq
Pentagon Plan Like Theirs, Senators Say

By Michael Abramowitz and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, June 26, 2006; A01

Senate Democrats reacted angrily yesterday to a report that the U.S. commander in Iraq had privately presented a plan for significant troop reductions in the same week they came under attack by Republicans for trying to set a timetable for withdrawal.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said that the plan attributed to Gen. George W. Casey resembles the thinking of many Democrats who voted for a nonbinding resolution to begin a troop drawdown in December. That resolution was defeated Thursday on a largely party-line vote in the Senate.

That means the only people who have fought us and fought us against the timetable, the only ones still saying there shouldn't be a timetable really are the Republicans in the United States Senate and in the Congress, Boxer said on CBS's Face the Nation. Now it turns out we're in sync with General Casey.

Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), one of the two sponsors of the nonbinding resolution, which offered no pace or completion date for a withdrawal, said the report is another sign of what he termed one of the worst-kept secrets in town -- that the administration intends to pull out troops before the midterm elections in November.

It shouldn't be a political decision, but it is going to be with this administration, Levin said on Fox News Sunday. It's as clear as your face, which is mighty clear, that before this election, this November, there's going to be troop reductions in Iraq, and the president will then claim some kind of progress or victory.

At issue was a report yesterday in the New York Times that Casey presented a private briefing at the Pentagon last week in which he projected that the number of U.S. combat brigades -- each with about 3,500 troops -- would decrease from 14 to five or six by the end of 2007. About 127,000 U.S. troops are now in Iraq, including many support troops beyond the combat brigades.

White House and Pentagon officials declined to confirm the projections, saying only that Casey met with President Bush on Friday to discuss how the military might proceed in Iraq after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki forms a new government. Bush has often said the U.S. military will stand down as Iraqi forces become adequately trained to handle security.

One White House official said there was no formal plan presented or signed off on in Casey's meeting with Bush, only a discussion of various scenarios to guide their talks with the new Iraqi government.

We are entering a phase where discussions with the Iraqis will begin to practically define what 'stand up, stand down' will look like over the next two years, said this official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal conversations.

This official dismissed the suggestion by some Democrats that Casey's approach resembles their approach. A conditions-based strategy outlined by our generals on the ground is a far cry from politicians in Washington setting an arbitrary date for withdrawal, the official said.

A Pentagon official said his impression is that Bush and Casey had no lengthy discussion about troop reductions, and that any projections of specific numbers remain speculative. This source noted that Casey had said that he hoped U.S. force levels would be substantially reduced this year but has decided against such a move because of the continuing violence in Iraq.

I think there will be a modest decrease between now and the end of the year, the official added. But, he concluded, Nobody really knows.

U.S. commanders have long wanted to cut the size of their force in Iraq. But plans to do so have proven difficult to realize.

Before the U.S. invasion in March 2003, the Pentagon's war plans called for a swift reduction, from about 150,000 to 30,000 by the early autumn of that year. Paul Wolfowitz, then the deputy defense secretary, told a congressional committee that the thinking behind this was that it is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam [Hussein] Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army -- hard to imagine.

That plan was shelved when a fierce insurgency broke out in the summer of 2003. That fall, top commanders hoped to cut the U.S. presence to about 100,000 by the next summer. But a major escalation in violence in the spring of 2004, along with the collapse of the new Iraqi police force and parts of the new army, forced that plan to be discarded as well.

The result is that the United States has kept about 135,000 soldiers in Iraq for the past three years, with occasional fluctuations to as high as 160,000.

The widespread expectation inside the Army is that the U.S. presence will be cut to about 100,000 by the end of this year, with further reductions in 2007 to perhaps 50,000 to 75,000. That size could be maintained almost indefinitely by the Army and the Marine Corps. But whether those new plans will be realized will depend on events in Iraq, which have proven difficult to predict.

Casey's meeting with Bush followed an eventful several weeks in Iraq that included the death of insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the completion of a new Iraqi government. It also followed particularly rancorous debates in the House and Senate, in which GOP lawmakers -- with the encouragement of the White House -- went after Democrats for being insufficiently supportive of the war effort and said decisions about issues such as troop deployments should remain with the president.

Coming so soon after the congressional debates, the report of Casey's briefing served to keep the debate going another day.

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who co-sponsored an unsuccessful resolution setting a July 1, 2007, deadline for the removal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, issued a statement saying the Casey plan looks an awful lot like what the Republicans spent the last week attacking. Will the partisan attack dogs now turn their venom and disinformation campaign on General Casey?

But Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, played down the significance of the reported briefing. The department's drawn up plans at all times, but I think it would be wrong now to say that this is the plan that we're going to operate under, he said on Fox News Sunday.

Warner counseled patience. We have struggled and made tremendous sacrifice to give this nation its sovereignty, he said. They are now beginning to exercise this sovereignty with a young government. Give them a chance to move out. We will consult with them. I'm confident our government will not let them make mistakes that would reflect adversely on troop withdrawals.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, voiced some skepticism that the administration can reach the conditions set for withdrawing troops.

Given current events in Baghdad, in particular, reported on every day quite apart from Anbar province, the violence is horrific, he said on Face the Nation. So getting to the plans either of General Casey or Maliki are a broad sweep. But it is good news to know that there are contingency plans.

People rarely speak of the majority you mentioned. Invading Iraq was a huge mistake since Iraq and Iran were basically enemies, working against each others interests.  Now, thanks to US, the area has been split wide open with positive Iranian influence now present in Iraq, something Saddam Hussein had fought.

I came here at first to debate. It took two posts of acting people to be reasonable in debating (all can be found on this board) before I was labeled by gt.  Since then, after multiple attempts at trying to debate, I have come to point out that while you may think you have taken the higher ground, you have indeed created a cesspool.   So proud that the conservative board is "quiet and peaceful" when those who made it otherwise are posting here daily.  Most of the posters on the convservative board afforded you the decency and honor of not posting here.  But that favor was never returned.  You (and I mean others, I have no idea who YOU are since everyone picks the name of the moment) bullied, brow-beat, denigrated and beat to a pulp any poster who dared to post on the Conservative board.  And it wasn't just AG and Nan and MT. It was anyone.  Well, you have your wish now. You are queens of everything  Masters of your domain.  Live in the land where NO ONE DARES TO DISAGREE with you.  Happy now?  As if.

No I did not watch the youtube link you posted.  That  is definitely not a credible source for such an important issue as this.  The CERTIFIED copy on Factcheck (and never mind discussing the credibility of Fact check) should be enough, it shows the fold marks and clearly the certification and signature.

Many, many years ago, I worked in a small hospital and in addition to my MT-ing, part of my job was to obtain birth certificate applications from new moms.  I know that my birth certificate has the AGE of my parents at my birth, not their birth dates.  It also lists the state in which they were born.  I do not know what Hawaii requirements for birth certificates are but when it is certified by the STATE I would assume it to be legitimate.  The hospital issued "birth certificate" is  not and never has been to my knowledge, a legal document.

With the furious campaining done by Hillary and McCain, do you not even stop to think that if they had not been absolutely certain that his birth certificate was legitimate they wouldn't have blown the lid off months and months ago, especially when it became obvious he was likely to win???  Saying otherwise is ridiculous.  They had no problem trashing him with  Ayers, etc. up until Day Last did they?  Anything to try to knock him out of the race.  So are you saying they are part of the conspiracy to "cover up" Obama's birth certificate?  Come on.....legitimate MTs are more intelligent than that.  Since I don't know you, I have no idea if you are an MT or not.

How many fat kids in school were popular?  Not many, eh?  This type of behavior stems from home.  How many of us talk bad about other people in front of our children?  I'm not just talking about homosexual bashing either.  How many of us gossip about what so and so wore, etc.?  How many of us bash others when we don't think our kids are paying attention? 

How many times do Christians post on here and are bashed horribly for their beliefs and called names?  How many Christians post on here bashing homosexuals and calling them sick freaks?  This type of behavior comes in all shapes and sizes and comes from all sides....black vs white, gay vs straight, believer vs nonbeliever. 

You cannot take on particular subject like homosexuality and us it soley to teach tolerance of people different than you.  There are many other things that children are picked on for than just that one subject. 

Oh look at 4 eyes over there or how about that dork with the braces, etc.  Look at the kid not wearing designer clothes.  Look at the freak with the emo makeup on. 

See what I mean.....tolerance is such a broad thing to teach children that you can't just use homosexuality to teach tolerance and I think it is unfair to people who do not agree with homosexuality that their kids are being taught ACCEPTANCE and not just tolerance on that issue anyway. 

Like I said before....I keep my God out of school.....keep your homosexuality out as well. 

Then came October. Sales plummeted an astounding 45% over the same period last year, a result of a slowing economy and a dearth of financing for would-be car buyers. Total U.S. car and light-truck sales this year could come in at 13.5 million, 2.6 million fewer than last year. "That's in nobody's business plan," says Kimberly Rodriguez, an automotive specialist with Grant Thornton. "The best planning in the world cannot survive that fluctuation." It's now clear that GM can't survive as an ongoing entity without massive federal assistance. The company is burning through more than $2 billion each month. It has $16 billion left. As if they were aboard a dirigible losing altitude, GM's bosses have been frantically throwing all manner of stuff overboard — retiree health-care benefits, people, assets, new car design — to conserve $5 billion. That will get it through the year. (See pictures of the 50 worst cars of all time.)

But 2009 is the year of reckoning for GM and the rest of the domestic auto industry, if not the economy as a whole. The GM crisis is raising once again the issue of how far the government should go in rescuing banks, insurance companies, mortgage holders, credit-card issuers and now carmakers. GM has no doubts about it. "Immediate federal funding is essential in order for the U.S. automotive industry to weather this downturn," GM president Fritz Henderson admitted to investors during a conference call in which GM announced a third-quarter loss of $2.5 billion.

No one is more aware of that need than Barack Obama, who carried Michigan by a huge margin. The President-elect is committed to helping the Detroit Three, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leading a rescue party that plans to get a bailout bill in front of President Bush before Thanksgiving. So far, the President has offered only to speed through Congress an already approved $25 billion loan to help Detroit create new fuel-efficient models. But GM needs an additional $10 billion simply to pay its bills next year and $15 billion more to close plants, compensate redundant workers and dump some of its lesser-performing brands.

The issue boils down to a historic proposition: Is what's good for GM still good for the country?

"If GM were to go into a free-fall bankruptcy and didn't pay its trade debts, then the entire domestic auto industry shuts down," says Rodriguez. The system — the domestic auto plants and their interconnected group of suppliers — is far bigger than GM. It includes 54 North American manufacturing plants and at least 4,000 so-called Tier 1 suppliers — firms that feed parts and subassemblies directly to those plants. That includes mom-and-pop outfits but also a dozen or so large companies such as Lear, Johnson Controls and GM's former captive Delphi. Beyond those are thousands of the suppliers' suppliers.

Although the Detroit Three directly employed about 240,000 people last year, according to the industry-allied Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Ann Arbor, Mich., the multiplier effect is large, which is typical in manufacturing. Throw in the partsmakers and other suppliers, and you have an additional 974,000 jobs. Together, says CAR, these 1.2 million workers spend enough to keep 1.7 million more people employed. That gets you to 2.9 million jobs tied to the Detroit Three, and even if you discount the figures because of CAR's allegiance, it's a big number. Shut down Detroit, and the national unemployment rate heads toward 10% in a hurry. (See Pictures of the Week.)

Even if just one of the Detroit Three — and GM is the most likely, as Ford is in better shape and Chrysler is much smaller — spiraled into a free-fall bankruptcy, the systemic effects, at least initially, would be huge. The whole industry would not be able to build cars in the U.S., because of the lack of parts. "Unlike the airlines or steel, when you look at the automobile industry and the fact that the whole supplier base is connected — to Ford, Chrysler, Toyota — it will have a ripple effect on the entire industry," says Nicole Y. Lamb-Hale, a bankruptcy expert at the Detroit office of Foley & Lardner, a law firm that represents some GM suppliers.

A carefully planned, prepackaged bankruptcy would still be troublesome, she says. Throwing 479,000 GM retirees onto the rolls of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., for instance, could overwhelm it. And GM's agreement to fund the United Auto Workers' voluntary employee beneficiary association (VEBA) — thus getting a $50 billion unfunded liability off its books — might then be in jeopardy, as would the union's health benefits. The VEBA has already saved GM nearly $5 billion in the past quarter, and still greater benefits lie ahead.

A bailout won't spare GM or its workers pain. Assuming the government bridges GM to the future — or provides debtor-in-possession financing in a bankruptcy — there is still a ton of restructuring to do. The company operates 21 plants in North America and has three more that are scheduled to close. But Grant Thornton's Rodriguez says that still leaves five to go to match demand. "They still need to take structural steps: reduce suppliers, reduce the number of plants, reduce the cost structure and get rid of excessive debt." Most analysts say GM has to dump underperforming brands too.

Shutting down plants and cutting labor are costly — it's one of the ironies of the auto business. Deutsche Bank estimates that GM would have to spend $12 billion to chop labor costs and compensate dealers who lose their franchises. That would lower GM's North American operating costs from the current $31 billion to $25 billion annually, says Deutsche Bank. (See pictures of the global financial crisis.)

None of this can happen without the cooperation of the UAW, which is probably feeling better knowing that Obama is on his way to Washington. Although it hasn't shown its hand, the UAW may try to mitigate job losses in the U.S. by pushing GM and Ford to build fewer vehicles in Mexico, according to Sean McAlinden, chief economist at CAR. Obama might be sympathetic to that argument; he said during the campaign that NAFTA needed to be re-examined. The carrot for GM is that any new workers it hires in the U.S. will make $13 to $14 an hour and collect limited benefits rather than work for $29 an hour and get full benefits — the old UAW wage.

There's also a legitimate question as to who would do the restructuring. GM CEO Rick Wagoner has made the case that his crew is best placed to run the turnaround since it knows where the cost buttons are. But critics like Jim Schrager at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business say the wrong people are in charge: "I think you would only put money in GM if you had a complete change in the board and the current management. They are diligent. They worked very hard, but it just hasn't worked." In Schrager's view, GM is a strategic failure. It can manufacture high-quality cars, but it neither makes the right kind nor markets them effectively. He'd bust the company up into three independent firms: Chevy, Buick-Pontiac-GMC and Cadillac-Saab-Saturn.

If that's ultimately where Detroit ends up, is it worth the price to get there? Put another way, does GM deserve to be bailed out or left at the mercy of the market and almost certain death? "The University of Chicago training in me says the market should prevail," says Schrager. "But the Chrysler bailout was a success, and, gosh, I'd love to save it." That sentiment is not shared by everyone, and it goes to the heart of the central economic debate facing the country — between hard-nosed capitalists, who believe the market should decide, and public-policy types who view the economy as something far more organic than a balance sheet. But ultimately, whether GM is dead or alive, the taxpayers are on the hook for billions, for everything from lost tax revenues to higher unemployment costs to taking over GM's pension obligations. The decision that Washington has to make is whether we pay for GM's survival or for its funeral.

— With reporting by Joseph R. Szczesny / Detroit

over the treaty with Taiwan?  This was reported on Fox News this week.

Anyone been following this?

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.

in AR's post that she was against it.  Instead, she acted as if the topic has no place on this board and shouldn't be discussed... like some kind of dirty little secret.

The *attack the messenger* technique has been used constantly in the last 5 years by the current administration (and his followers) when someone gets too close to the truth.  Don't believe me?  Ask Valerie Plame.

Same old.  Same old. 

But, it IS the RNC, so they are damned either way with socialists oops I mean democRATS like yourself. 

I received a call from an friend who was so upset and said Obama called Palin a pig in lipstick.  I responded, surely no, you must be mistaken.  Obama is running for office of the President of the United States.  Why would he ruin his chances of winning by calling this lady a pig.  That doesn't sound like rational behavior for a presidential candidate.  However, to my surprise I opened several different news sources (both liberal and conservative) and sure enough he did.  I'm thinking why, why in the world would you fall down that path of being so low that you would call Palin a pig saying "you can put lipstick on a pig and it will still be a pig".  If he was trying to make a joke in reference to her joke about the difference between a soccer mom and a pit bull is lipstick, this joke could not have come at a worse time for him.  How in the world is he going to explain that one.

Shame shame Barack Obama.  This has to be one of the lowest comments anyone can make about another candidate. - Not funny!  Why would you go and ruin any chance you had that people may have thought you had a little bit of "class" to you.

I haven't watched MSNBC but am curious as to how they are going to respond.  How can they support someone when this is his opinion of other people.

Talk about low class.  One more reason I will not be voting democrat this election. 

Subject: Bet Ya didn't hear about this on NBC Family with Down Syndrome Child Meets John McCain and Sarah Palin September 9, 2008 ((( BEGIN PHONE TRANSCRIPT WITH RUSH LIMBAUGH ))) RUSH:  Kurt in Pittsburgh, hello, sir.  Nice to have you on the EIB Network, and how about the Steelers defense? CALLER:  How about those Steelers, huh? RUSH:  How about that? CALLER:  Hey, listen, Rush, longtime listener, first-time caller, one of those Bible, family, gun clingers from western Pennsylvania. RUSH:  Thank you. CALLER:  And I wanted to share a story with you.  A week ago last Saturday we went to the Palin-McCain rally in Washington, Pennsylvania, was the day after he announced her, and we have a five-year-old daughter with Down syndrome, and we made a sign that said: "We Love Kids with Down Syndrome."  So when they pulled in their bus, the sign did catch their eye (McCain and Palin and the rest of their family) it caught their eye, we could tell, they gave us a thumbs-up from the bus, so we were all excited just by that -- RUSH:  Wait, wait, wait.  Who gave you the thumbs up, McCain and Palin? CALLER:  McCain, Palin, Cindy McCain, we could see them from the bus. We were in a position where we had eye contact with them -- RUSH:  Oh, cool! CALLER:  My wife was holding our daughter. RUSH:  Very, very, very cool. CALLER:  It was really cool, Rush. I was like, "Wow, that's awesome," because I love Governor Palin and so I thought that's really neat.  So then we moved around as the bus was getting ready to pull out, we kind of positioned ourselves so we could just wave them on and a Secret Service agent came up to us and said, "Hey, can you come with us?"  I was like, "Do we have a choice?" RUSH: (laughing) You shouldn't have worried.  It's not the Clinton administration. CALLER: Right. So we accompanied them up the hill, we went right to the bus, where it was, and Governor Palin, Senator McCain, Cindy, Todd Palin, they're all standing there. We're in this inner circle with just us and them, and the Secret Service agent, and they came right up to us and thanked us for coming out, said they loved our sign, and Governor Palin immediately said, "May I hold your daughter?" and our daughter Chloe, who's five, went right to her, and I have some pictures I'd love to send you maybe when I'm done here, but Governor Palin was hugging Chloe, and then her little daughter brought their baby Trig who has Down syndrome from the bus, he was napping, and Chloe went right over and kissed him on the cheek, and my son Nolan who's nine, he thanked her. RUSH: This is amazing. CALLER: I will send you all the stuff, Senator McCain was talking to my son, and we thanked him for his service, and he asked my son if he wanted to see the bus, and we were hanging out and it was very surreal. I felt like we could have had a pizza and a beer with them, they were so warm. RUSH: You know what? I want to put you on hold. I want Snerdley to give you our super-secret, known-only-to-three-people here, e-mail address. CALLER: I will send you everything, Rush. RUSH: And then could you send us these pictures? Would you mind if we put them on the website? CALLER: I would be honored, and my main thing is they are warm, kind, genuine people, and they represent the best of this country. RUSH:  That's right.  And when you send these pictures, make sure you identify them.  I mean, we'll know Palin and McCain, of course.  Identify yourselves. CALLER:  I will, I will identify everybody in the picture, Rush, and God bless you for being a beacon of hope and truth in this country. RUSH:  Oh, no, no.  It's nothing, it's nothing.  You're doing the Lord's work. CALLER:  Well, we're very blessed and I want people to know what a blessing it is to have a child with Down syndrome. These kids, they're angels. RUSH:  That's the thing.  There's always good to be found in everything that happens.  It may be a while before it reveals itself. CALLER:  Absolutely. RUSH:  Right, and when she hugged my daughter I said, here's the difference, this candidate embraces life and all its limitless possibilities. RUSH:  All right. CALLER:  That's what she is. RUSH:  Terrific, okay, I gotta run here, but I'm going to put you on hold. CALLER:  Thank you, Rush. RUSH:  Thank you, Kurt.  I really appreciate it. ((( END TRANSCRIPT )))

you didn't agree with everything in that propaganda.  Therein lies the problem.  Don't put stuff out there as fact if you don't agree with it.

Sorry the Dems didn't have enough votes to pass the bail-out without their Pub counterparts.  They are all a greedy bunch of vipers and I intend to vote AGAINST my Senator (Democrat) and Represent (Republican) when they come up for re-election and I have told them so!  Both have voted to support big business in their district and gone against the will of there constituents on every issue.

Obama told an evangelical church in South Carolina: "I am confident we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth."

hmmm.

"My job this morning is to be so persuasive....that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Barack."

- Barack Obama, January 8, 2008, speaking at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire

What in the heck?  He really does think he is the messiah!  Anyone else ever see or hear of this? I came across it somewhere, googled it and it's out there...

You are the one getting defensive because we don't see your point of view.  She asked for facts to back up your statement when it was just your opinion and not a fact at all. 

If that was your opinion...fine.  I do not agree but that is my opinion.  However, when people ask for facts...don't get all bent out of shape when you can't give them any.