Yeah, but they all count, no matter how petty the reason....

• What I LIKE about Palin .... flame away - nature of the beast! sm
  • me too -- being VP doesn't take a politician, - sm
  • Gee, with this way of thinking, I should - francie
    • thanks for calling me stupid ... - see inside
      • Sorry to offend you, but if the shoe fits... - francie
        • LOL ... if you read my whole post ... - sm
          • Are you sure your are not confusing arrogance with intelligence and sm - oldtimer
            • You make an important observation. - sm
            • No, I don't think it is. - nm
          • that would be - bounder
            • Thx & Sorry.... I should have looked it up! :P - LOL .... nm
      • you are right. Condescending attitudes only - turn me away from Obama. nm
        • Why do you say Obama has a condescending attitude? I think he is ...sm - oldtimer
          • It is just my opinion ... - sm
            • That's good that you are still deciding, but you didn't answer my question. nm - oldtimer
              • see inside - Myna Bird (thanks Francie) LOL
          • condescending attitudes - bounder
          • No, Francie has the attitude. SHE turns me away - from Obama! nm
            • How sad that you would let someone you don't even know...sm - oldtimer
              • Exactly what I am talking about. Think for yourself. - francie
              • If Obama has supporters like you, - something is wrong with him. nm
                • I don't follow you? nm - oldtimer
            • if you take voting so lightly - bounder
              • Yeah, but they all count, no matter how petty the reason.... - sam
              • Go McCAIN and PALIN! - Good luck against the wolves. nm
                • yes! - bounder
        • It's not condescending attitude that - francie
          • You have it the opposite, Francie - but, nice try. you sad person. nm
    • Are you governor of a state? sm - sam
      • If anyone cared about what I think, - francie
  • I agree - Tired MT

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

"I spent 19 years in the military."

It's not until someone thanked her for her service and asked what branch she was in that we found out that she was in a military FAMILY.  Was that a lie?  OF COURSE NOT AND DON'T ANYONE DARE SAY SHE LIED.

Another poster (maybe the same as the above) really displayed the extent of her intelligence when she responded to a poster by referring to their "vaucity." When asked what that meant, she responded by saying look it up.  When a poster responded that she tried BUT IT ISN'T IN THE DICTIONARY, she replied that it's a "combination of 2 words" that can be found on blogs all over the net.  (When asked WHICH 2 words, she couldn/didn't respond.)

Turns out, it was a typo and was supposed to read "vacuity."  The irony was that she was trying to tell the original poster that they were stupid, but who REALLY looked stupid during all this????  Can she say it's a typo?  NO.  And as far as a "blog" term that doesn't exist, SHE DID NOT LIE, SO DON'T CALL HER A LIAR.

Best part is if a little HONESTY could be employed by these people, there wouldn't be an argument.  It's absolutely honorable to be a member of a military family, and they, too make sacrifices and should be thanked for that.  But it is NOT the same as saying "I spent 19 years in the military."  I know people who actually DID spend 20 years in the military and retired at a very young age. Still, it is very honorable to be a member of a military family.  At least in my eyes it is.  Guess it wasn't in hers or she would have been honest about her role.

Also, instead of saying "I made a typo, and I meant to write vaucity," again, the invention of "facts" about a combination of two nonexitent words.

Another member of their gang... well, just go visit the Conservative board for yourself and read the entire thread about the activist judges/groups who are responsible for not letting the poster place a nativity scene in her own yard.  She was questioned by someone, and it's not until the fourth post that she begins by saying, "I'll be up front with you."  HOW NICE.  It's quite comical.  If you haven't read it, you should.  Turns out it had nothing to do with "activist judges/groups" at all.  BUT SHE DID NOT LIE!!!!!

When I come to these boards, I start out with the belief that everyone has credibility.  It's only after they prove to me THEMSELVES that they don't, by their very OWN ACTIONS AND WORDS that they can't be believed, that I begin to form negative opinions.

What you wrote is a perfect example of someone whose credibility is definitely ... uh.... challenged. (trying to be kind)

And yes, LOL, I'd bet a psychiatrist could make a mint from some of these people.

And riled?  Yeah, used to a little bit, but now I just find them more comical than anything.  But I'll grow out of it like I did with the OTHER Curly, Larry and Moe.

Obama isn't the one griping about Blair house, I am.  First off, he needed to move early so his kids could go ahead and start school.  He wasn't trying to move into the white house.  He was making a decision based on the needs of his kids.  Yeah, that was just terrible of him.

Secondly, Blair house is what, 70,000 sq feet, comprised of townhouses, with 110 rooms and 35 bathrooms. 

Third, the only guest there is the former prime minister of Australia, John Howard, who incidentally was kicked out of office for aligning with Bush. 

Let me guess, there just wasn't enough room?

This is simply Bush being a butt head.  Very childish, if you ask me, for someone who is supposed to be president.

And continually talking about Sarah Palin's daughter getting pregnant isn't petty?  That has nothing to do with Palin's ability to run her state.  Yet people continually bring that up and consider it a reason for Palin to fail politically. 

The whole point of this is the fact that Obama is spending more money wastefully during this crisis.  I'm sure he didn't foot the bill for that party.  If our country had money, fine.....but everyone has to cut back during this time and that includes politicians.  If they want to spend their own money....more power to them, but a majority of them are using taxpayer money.  Just like Pelosi using military planes.  Everyone is cutting back and they went after bank CEOs and auto CEOs and gave them crap for having private jets and here you have Pelosi using military planes costing taxpayers money.  Another example of do as I say and not as I do, huh?

As much as I do dislike the last admin, this isn't about getting revenge.  It's about standing up for what our nation is supposed to stand for.

If you want to go with just everyone who "knew" about it, then that would definitely wipe out a ton of people in the senate (probably both sides).  However, who gave the orders to carry out torture?  Who tried to rewrite the laws regarding torture?  I would simply go after the directly guilty...and that does not include, btw, military personell who were following orders.

If you want to fry a dem on something, then go for Clinton for rendition, but that guilty by association thing that you guys seem to love to use isn't going to float.

is my . . that's the law of the land, quite your botchin'.  Change it or live with it. Good greasy gravy, grow up.

There are so many of us out here struggling to make ends meet, put food on the table for our families and they are going out on a date at our expense?  I did not vote for O, I am neither a republican or a democrat, but I have encouraged every one I know to support him and give him a chance.  However, it seems that the more that I now try to encourage myself to support him, the more stupid things that he does.  Let's forget about the date and talk about the trip to Los Angeles to raise money for Harry Reid.  He took Air Force One, which by itself costs an unbelievable amount of money to just get ready to fly, hundreds of thousands of dollars, then you add in what it costs to get in the air.  I completely understand that this is something that has been done by both parties in the past but when you stand before the cameras and ask every last person in America to sacrifice and then you go out and do things that are costing these same people even more money, I believe that it is completely appropriate to be angry as heck.  Then I saw on CNN where the question was posed "is the $400,000 salary of the President of the United States adequate, should it be more."  Well let's see, he travels at our expense, he has a roof over his head with no expenses whatsoever, food is on the table at no expense to him, he has a beautiful place to escape to for long weekends, again at no expense to him, so do I think that $400,000 is appropriate?  You are dang right I think that it is appropriate.  

This is an administration who preached about transparency during the election and, in my opinion, so far, they have been far from transparent.  Even though I did not vote for him I truly hoped (and still hope) that he would make things better for all of us and so far I personally do not see that happening. 

xx

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.

I'm sorry if you are offended by my opinion that I don't want to pay more in taxes. You wouldn't either if the tables were turned.

I lived in River Oaks, (yes, it's possible), then west Houston for many years before moving to Sugar Land.  Married to HPD, so I do have a concern about Sharpstown.  He won't let his mother go there for Catholic Charities shopping, and quit working in that area long before we met. 

I, too, remember when Sharpstown was "the place to move."  A Radiologist friend of mine had a condo there and it went down the tubes literally overnight.  It's a shame that it happened over there. 

If you feel safe over there, God bless ya.  If you didn't, I imagine you'd move. 

But anyone stupid enough to think that someone in a little, bitty town can't get their head blown off by a nutjob is truly in need of an eye exam or something.

I feel safe in Sugar Land, but we have crime here, too.  But there are enough sharpshooters on our extremely quiet subdivision to really help matters.  Another plus is the master-planned community thing, which hopefully is catching on.  But people rob houses, drive drunk, and all that stuff even in River Oaks.

I love living here, and was so proud of our city when Katrina & Rita hit.  Greta certainly fell in love with our city, too while reporting from here.  While crime is everywhere, Houston has always been a very friendly, welcoming city.

An excellent post, I think you have set an example for your McCain supporters  here.  You can be sure that I will be right there with you holding Obama's (and the Congress's) feet to the fire

I'm going to back on out of here too.  I think we all have our work cut out for us holding the politician's ....all of them....feet to the fire and there is nothing to be gained by keephing hashing over the old stuff.  I think everyone "gets" it.

1. Behaving as if he had a mandate from day 1.

2. Iraq, Iraq, Iraq and Iraq (this includes everything from the phony  buildup to the quicksand of today).

3. Leaving Afghanistan to go to Iraq.

4. Tax cuts for the billionaires.

5. Restoring integrity to the WH??? Libby, Rove, Cunningham, Goss, DeLay, Cheney, Wilkes, Allen, Watergate redux (we are not only replaying Viet Nam, we are replaying freaking Watergate).

6. Staffing his cabinet with old fogies from his Dad and even Ford's time who see the world quite differently from what it has become in reality.  

7. Gross incompetence in domestic and foreign affairs.

8. Making the United States a laughingstock.

9. Turning us into a third world country with outsourcing, offshoring, hiring illegal immigrants, importing much more than we are exporting, the glorification of cheap Chinese stuff at Wal-Mart and on and on....

10. Medicare fiasco.

11. Education fiasco.

12. The reuniting of church and state.

13. Job losses.

14. Healthcare fiasco.

 

Text size – +

Obama, Huckabee on top in Iowa poll

Email|Link|Comments (0) By Scott Helman, Political Reporter December 2, 07 11:47 AM

There are polls, and then there are polls. Here's one that matters.

A new Des Moines Register survey of likely Democratic caucus-goers gives Barack Obama a narrow edge over rival Hillary Clinton, with John Edwards holding steady just below them. Obama is at 28 percent, compared with Clinton at 25 percent and Edwards at 23 percent. Obama's lead over Clinton is within the margin of error.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee, who has skyrocketed in recent Iowa polls, has overtaken Mitt Romney and now leads 29 percent to 24 percent. Rudy Giuliani is in third at 13 percent. Both parties' races in Iowa, which holds caucuses in a month, remain fluid, the poll suggests. And in Iowa time, a month is an eternity. Still, both current front-runners can find good omens in the results.

Obama leads Clinton among women 31 percent to 26 percent, the Register reports, a stark change from October, when 34 percent of women caucus-goers said they would vote for Clinton, and 21 percent preferred Obama. Women account for about 60 percent of likely caucus-goers, the poll indicates.

Huckabee leads Romney, 38 to 22 percent, among those who call themselves born-again Christians, who make up half of likely caucus-goers. Romney drew more support than Huckabee from that group in October.

...until they're hatched.

The timing of this whole Israeli mess is very interesting.  Don't count out martial law just yet, in case there's a "terror attack" on the USA or some other scheme going on in Washington. 

1.  Really poor choice of Republican presidential candidate (republican lite).

2.  George Soros's backing.

3.  Mainstream media gave him a complete pass as far as any close scrutiny.  Still are, although the honeymoon may be ending.

4.  He's gonna fill my gas tank and pay my mortgage.

5.  Political correctness.

6.  The teleprompter.

7.  Etc.

It never counts when they do it.

And the Conservative hypocrisy of the day:

They themselves posted this about Liberals: *If they dont' say it here, under a pseudonym, they say it THERE and then gather like little old ladies to chew the fat.*

Just take a look at the posts Nan... or should I say Brunson.. has posted over there today at the top of the board.