Yeah, like anything he has to say is valuable. This is the guy who screamed out all those states - HEEEEE-YAWWWWWW?
Mr. Dean is a spiteful crat to the bone and did not do his job properly. He didn't stand on the side of the people, who stood with the big money people.
If he's going to call anyone a murderer he best go back to Billy boy himself with those wars he started that he had no place involving the US troops. Lots of innocent people were slaughtered because of him back then and no he did not follow the Geneva code.
Complete Discussion Below: marks the location of current message within thread
Did you not watch the video???? That is EXACTLY what Obama said. So now you are saying that Obama himself is not credible????
What I found even MORE ridiculous is what he said before having said "I am the change."
meant "through" the mouth of a horse
Typo....oops.
I'll wait to hear it from the horse's mouth. sm
Though it really makes no difference to me one way or the other. I never considered him a Republican. I think he is a fiscal conservative. He said on another link he is apolitical. Should be interesting.
Nice mouth. You kiss your mother with that mouth? sm
No, and please try and comprehend what I am saying, gt broke the truce when she attacked me. Can you comprehend that? I was staying off your board until I saw that gt actually attacked me in a thread that ended up in a truce with another poster. You are really really not a nice person. I will pray for you.
Howard Dean is also an MD
so he's just a stupid "crat?" Who's stupid?
James Dean? No way!
Did not know that
article from john dean Was Pat Robertson's Call for Assassination of a Foreign Leader a Crime? By John W. Dean FindLaw.com
Friday 26 August 2005
Had he been a Democrat, he'd probably be hiring a criminal attorney.
On Monday, August 22, the Chairman of the Christian Broadcast Network, Marion Pat Robertson, proclaimed, on his 700 Club television show, that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez should be murdered.
More specifically, Robertson said, You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, referring to the American policy since the Presidency of Gerald Ford against assassination of foreign leaders, but if he [Chavez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don't think any oil shipments will stop.
We have the ability to take him out, Robertson continued, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.
Robertson found himself in the middle of a media firestorm. He initially denied he'd called for Chavez to be killed, and claimed he'd been misinterpreted, but in an age of digital recording, Robertson could not flip-flop his way out of his own statement. He said what he said.
By Wednesday, Robertson was backing down: I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out,' Robertson claimed on his Wednesday show. 'Take him out' could be a number of things including kidnapping.
No one bought that explanation, either. So Robertson quietly posted a half apology on his website. It is only a half apology because it is clear he really does not mean to apologize, but rather, still seeks to rationalize and justify his dastardly comment.
From the moment I heard Robertson's remark, on the radio, I thought of the federal criminal statutes prohibiting such threats. Do they apply?
For me, the answer is yes. Indeed, had these comments been made by a Dan Rather, a Bill Moyers, or Jesse Jackson, it is not difficult to imagine some conservative prosecutor taking a passing look at these laws - as, say, Pat Robertson might read them - and saying, Let's prosecute.
The Broad Federal Threat Attempt Prohibition Vis-à-Vis Foreign Leaders
Examine first, if you will, the broad prohibition against threatening or intimidating foreign officials, which is a misdemeanor offense. This is found in Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 112(b), which states: Whoever willfully - (1) ... threatens ... a foreign official ..., [or] (2) attempts to... threaten ... a foreign official ... shall be fined under this titled or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
The text of this misdemeanor statute plainly applies: No one can doubt that Robertson attempted to threaten President Chavez.
Yet the statute was written to protect foreign officials visiting the United States - not those in their homelands. Does that make a difference?
It would likely be the precedent of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that would answer that question; the Fourth Circuit includes Virginia where Robertson made the statement. And typically, the Fourth Circuit, in interpreting statutes does not look to the intent of Congress; it focuses on statutory language instead.
And in a case involving Robertson, to focus on language would only be poetic justice:
Robertson, is the strictest of strict constructionists, a man who believes judges (and prosecutors) should enforce the law exactly as written. He said as much in his 2004 book, Courting Disaster: How the Supreme Court Is Usurping The Power of Congress and the People.
Still, since the applicability of this misdemeanor statute is debatable, I will focus on the felony statute instead.
The Federal Threat Statute: Fines and Prison for Threats to Kidnap or Injure
It is a federal felony to use instruments of interstate or foreign commerce to threaten other people. The statute is clear, and simple. Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 875(c), states: Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. (Emphases added.)
The interstate or foreign commerce element is plainly satisfied by Robertson's statements. Robertson's 700 Club is listed as broadcasting in thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia, not to mention ABC Family Channel satellites which cover not only the United States but several foreign countries as well. In addition, the program was sent around the world via the Internet.
But did Robertson's communication contain a threat to kidnap or injure Chavez?
First, Robertson said he wanted to assassinate President Chavez. His threat to take him out, especially when combined with the explanation that this would be cheaper than war, was clearly a threat to kill.
Then, Robertson said he was only talking about kidnapping Chavez. Under the federal statute, a threat to kidnap is expressly covered.
As simple and clear as this statute may be, the federal circuit courts have been divided when reading it. But the conservative Fourth Circuit, where Robertson made his statement, is rather clear on its reading of the law.
Does Robertson's Threat Count as a True Threat? The Applicable Fourth Circuit Precedents Suggest It Does
If Robertson himself were a judge (or prosecutor) reading this statue - based on my reading of his book about how judges and justice should interpret the law - he would be in a heap of trouble. But how would the statute likely be read in the Fourth Circuit, where a prosecution of Robertson would occur?
Under that Circuit's precedent, the question would be whether Robertson's threat was a true threat. Of course, on third reflection, Robertson said it was not. But others have been prosecuted notwithstanding retractions, and later reflections on intemperate threats.
Here is how the Fourth Circuit - as it explained in the Draby case - views threats under this statute: Whether a communication in fact contains a true threat is determined by the interpretation of a reasonable recipient [meaning, the person to whom the threat was directed] familiar with the context of the communication.
This is an objective standard, under which the court looks at the totality of the circumstances surrounding the communications, rather than simply looking to the subjective intent of the speaker, or the subjective feelings of the recipient. So even if Robertson did not mean to make a threat, and even if Chavez did not feel threatened, that is not the end of the story.
In one Fourth Circuit case, the defendant asked if [the person threatened] knew who Jeffrey Dahlmer [sic] was. Then the defendant added that, he didn't eat his victims, like Jeffrey Dahlmer; [sic] that he just killed them by blowing them up. This defendant's conviction for this threat was upheld.
In another Fourth Circuit ruling, the defendant, an unhappy taxpayer, was convicted for saying, to an IRS Agent, that in all honesty, I can smile at you and blow your brains out; that once I come through there, anybody that tries to stop me, I'm going to treat them just like they were a cockroach; and, that unless I can throw somebody through a damn window, I'm just not going to feel good.
Viewed in the context, and taking into account the totality of the circumstances, it was anything but clear that any of these threats were anything more than angry tough talk. The same could be said of Robertson's threats. Yet in both these cases, the Fourth Circuit upheld the defendant's conviction, deeming the true threat evidence sufficient to do so.
For me, this make Robertson's threats a very close question. President Chavez publicly brushed Robertson's threats off, for obvious diplomatic reasons, yet I suspect a little inquiry would uncover that the Venezuelan President privately he has taken extra precautions, and his security people have beefed up his protection. Robertson has Christian soldiers everywhere. Who knows what some misguided missionary might do?
If you have not seen the Robertson threat, view it yourself and decide. Robertson's manner, his choice to return to the subject repeatedly in his discourse, and the seriousness with which he stated the threat, all strike me as leading strongly to the conclusion that this was a true threat. Only media pressure partially backed him off. And his apology is anything but a retraction.
Will Robertson be investigated or prosecuted by federal authorities? Will he be called before Congress? Will the President, or the Secretary of State, publicly chastise Robertson? Are those three silly questions about a man who controls millions of Republican votes from Christian conservatives?
John Dean on MSNBC: Dik Cheney may be guilty of "murder"
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh’s bombshell earlier this week that Vice President Dik Cheney controlled an “executive assassination ring” continues to reverberate throughout Washington, with Nixon aide John Dean going so far as to accuse the former VP of murder if the charges are true.
Howard Dean was the Vermont Governor who ran in the 2004 election. JOHN Dean was Richard Nixon's Aide - get it?
John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) was White House Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. As White House Counsel, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover up, even referred to as "master manipulator of the cover up" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
It isn't just how she talks. s/m
Doggone it I talk just like her. LOL She doesn't put herself forward (IMO) as being a person of great substance. She is the "pit bull with lipstick." Aside from the fact that she doesn't seem to know a lot about Russia, she just doesn't come across (to me) as being very intelligent. Alaska has a pretty small population. I don't care about her inexperience. I do care about the "troopergate," which it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know she would do whatever was within her power to come to the aid of her sister, wouldn't you? I would. Especially if it involved a custody battle involving my nieces and nephews. She says she was cleared of any wrongdoing and that is just not exactly true. So I don't care if she DID try to get her ex-brother-in-law fired, just don't lie about it. All I hear her do is rail against Obama, nothing about what she and her running mate are going to do to improve this country. So if she has any level of intelligence I wish she would display it. I for one would still be willing to listen.
Jon Butler, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
HNN History News Network Because the Past is the Present, and the Future too.
12-20-04 An Interview with Jon Butler ... Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?
By Rick Shenkman
Mr. Butler, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at Yale University, is the author of Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People(Harvard University Press, 1990). This interview was conducted by HNN editor Rick Shenkman for The Learning Channel series, Myth America, which aired several years ago.
You hear it all the time from the right wing. The United States was founded as a Christian country. What do you make of that?
Well, first of all, it wasn't. The United States wasn't founded as a Christian country. Religion played very little role in the American Revolution and it played very little role in the making of the Constitution. That's largely because the Founding Fathers were on the whole deists who had a very abstract conception of God, whose view of God was not a God who acted in the world today and manipulated events in a way that actually changed the course of human history. Their view of religion was really a view that stressed ethics and morals rather than a direct divine intervention.
And when you use the term deists, define that. What does that mean?
A deist means someone who believes in the existence of God or a God, the God who sets the world into being, lays down moral and ethical principals and then charges men and women with living lives according to those principals but does not intervene in the world on a daily basis.
Let's go through some of them. George Washington?
George Washington was a man for whom if you were to look at his writings, you would be very hard pressed to find any deep, personal involvement with religion. Washington thought religion was important for the culture and he thought religion was important for soldiers largely because he hoped it would instill good discipline, though he was often bitterly disappointed by the discipline that it did or didn't instill.
And he thought that society needed religion. But he was not a pious man himself. That is, he wasn't someone who was given to daily Bible reading. He wasn't someone who was evangelical. He simply was a believer. It's fair, perfectly fair, to describe Washington as a believer but not as someone whose daily behavior, whose political life, whose principals are so deeply infected by religion that you would have felt it if you were talking to him.
Thomas Jefferson?
Well, Jefferson's interesting because recently evangelicals, some evangelicals, have tried to make Jefferson out as an evangelical. Jefferson actually was deeply interested in the question of religion and morals and it's why Jefferson, particularly in his later years, developed a notebook of Jesus' sayings that he found morally and ethically interesting. It's now long since been published and is sometimes called, The Jefferson Bible. But Jefferson had real trouble with the Divinity of Christ and he had real trouble with the description of various events mentioned in both the New and the Old Testament so that he was an enlightened skeptic who was profoundly interested in the figure of Christ as a human being and as an ethical teacher. But he was not religious in any modern meaning of that word or any eighteenth century meaning of that word. He wasn't a regular church goer and he never affiliated himself with a religious denomination--unlike Washington who actually did. He was an Episcopalian. Jefferson, however, was interested in morals and ethics and thought that morals and ethics were important but that's different than saying religion is important because morals and ethics can come from many sources other than religion and Jefferson knew that and understood that.
Where does he stand on Christ exactly?
Jefferson rejected the divinity of Christ, but he believed that Christ was a deeply interesting and profoundly important moral or ethical teacher and it was in Christ's moral and ethical teachings that Jefferson was particularly interested. And so that's what attracted him to the figure of Christ was the moral and ethical teachings as described in the New Testament. But he was not an evangelical and he was not a deeply pious individual.
Let's move on to Benjamin Franklin.
Benjamin Franklin was even less religious than Washington and Jefferson. Franklin was an egotist. Franklin was someone who believed far more in himself than he could possibly have believed have believed in the divinity of Christ, which he didn't. He believed in such things as the transmigration of souls. That is that human, that humans came into being in another existence and he may have had occult beliefs. He was a Mason who was deeply interested in Masonic secrets and there are some signs that Franklin believed in the mysteries of Occultism though he never really wrote much about it and never really said much about it. Franklin is another writer whom you can read all you want to read in the many published volumes of Franklin's writings and read very little about religion.
Where did the conservatives come up with this idea that the Founding Fathers were so religious?
Well, when they discuss the Founding Fathers or when individuals who are interested in stressing the role of religion in the period of the American Revolution discuss this subject, they often stress several characteristics. One is that it is absolutely true that many of the second level and third levels in the American Revolution were themselves church members and some of them were deeply involved in religion themselves.
It's also true that most Protestant clergymen at the time of the American Revolution, especially toward the end of the Revolution, very eagerly backed the Revolution. So there's a great deal of formal religious support for the American Revolution and that makes it appear as though this is a Christian nation or that religion had something to do with the coming of the Revolution, the texture of the Revolution, the making of the Revolution.
But I think that many historians will argue and I think quite correctly that the Revolution was a political event. It was centered in an understanding of what politics is and by that we mean secular politics, holding power. Who has authority? Why should they have authority? It wasn't centered in religious events. It wasn't centered in miracles. It wasn't centered in church disputes. There was some difficulty with the Anglican church but it was relatively minor and as an example all one needs to do is look at the Declaration of Independence. Neither in Jefferson's beautifully written opening statement in the Declaration nor in the long list of grievances against George the Third does religion figure in any important way anywhere.And the Declaration of Independence accurately summarizes the motivations of those who were back the American Revolution.
Some of the conservatives will say, well, but it does make a reference to nature's God and isn't that a bow to religion?
It is a bow to religion but it's hardly a bow to evangelicalism. Nature's God was the deist's God. Nature's God, When evangelicals discuss religion they mean to speak of the God of the Old and the New Testament not the God of nature. The God of nature is an almost secular God and in a certain way that actually makes the point that that's a deistical understanding of religion not a specifically Christian understanding of religion. To talk about nature's God is not to talk about the God of Christ.
John Patrick Diggins has advanced the argument that not only were the Founding Fathers not particularly religious but in fact they were deeply suspicious of religion because of the role that they saw religion played in old Europe, where they saw it not as cohesive but as divisive. Do you agree?
The answer is yes and the reason is very simple. The principal Founding Fathers--Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin--were in fact deeply suspicious of a European pattern of governmental involvement in religion. They were deeply concerned about an involvement in religion because they saw government as corrupting religion. Ministers who were paid by the state and paid by the government didn't pay any attention to their parishes. They didn't care about their parishioners. They could have, they sold their parishes. They sold their jobs and brought in a hireling to do it and they wandered off to live somewhere else and they didn't need to pay attention to their parishioners because the parishioners weren't paying them. The state was paying them.
In addition, it corrupts the state. That is, it brings into government elements of politics and elements of religion that are less than desirable. The most important being coercion. When government is involved with religion in a positive way, the history that these men saw was a history of coercion and a history of coercion meant a history of physical coercion and it meant ultimately warfare. Most of the wars from 1300 to 1800 had been religious wars and the wars that these men knew about in particular were the wars of religion that were fought over the Reformation in which Catholics and Protestants slaughtered each other, stuffed Bibles into the slit stomachs of dead soldiers so that they would eat, literally eat, their words, eat the words of an alien Bible and die with those words in their stomachs. This was the world of government involvement with religion that these men knew and a world they wanted to reject.
To create the United States meant to create a new nation free from those old attachments and that's what they created in 1776 and that's what they perfected in 1789 with the coming of the federal government. And thus it's not an accident that the First Amendment deals with religion. It doesn't just deal with Christianity. It deals with religion with a small r meaning all things religious.
What about the conservatives' belief that we need to go back to the religion of the Founding Fathers?
If we went back to the religion of the Founding Fathers we would go back to deism. If we picked up modern religion, it's not the religion of the Founding Fathers. Indeed, we are probably more religious than the society that created the American Revolution. There are a number of ways to think about that. Sixty percent of Americans belong to churches today , 20 percent belonged in 1776. And if we count slaves, for example, it probably reduces the figure to 10 percent of the society that belonged to any kind of religious organization.
Modern Americans probably know more about religious doctrine in general, Christianity, Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, than most Americans did in 1776. I would argue that America in the 1990s is a far more deeply religious society, whose politics is more driven by religion, than it was in 1776. So those who want to go back would be going back to a much more profoundly secular society.
What do you make of the politicians who take the opposite point of view. It must make you go crazy.
It doesn't make me go crazy. It makes me feel sad because it's inaccurate. It's not a historically accurate view of American society. It's a very useful view because many modern men and women are driven by a jeremiad, that is jeremiad lamenting the conditions in the wilderness. We tend to feel bad when we hear that we are not as religious as our fathers or our grandfathers or our great grandfathers and that spurs many of us on to greater religious activity. Unfortunately in this case the jeremiad simply isn't true. And I don't think that those who insist it is true would really want to go back to the kind of society that existed on thee eve of the American Revolution.
Americans do become religious in the nineteenth century, don't they? That's what you say in your book.
The American Revolution created the basis for new uses of religion in a new society and that was conveyed in the lesson taught by the First Amendment. If government was no longer going to be supporting religion how was religion going to support itself? It would have to support itself by its own means. Through its own measures. It would have to generate its measures. And this is what every one of the churches began to do. As soon as religion dropped out of the state and the state dropped out of religion, the churches began fending for themselves. And they discovered that in fending for themselves that their contributions were going up, they were producing more newspapers, more tracts, they were beginning to circulate those tracts, they created a national religious economy long before there was a secular economy. You could trade more actively in religious goods than you could in other kinds in the United States in 1805, 1810.
What happened in the United States is that the churches actually benefited from this separation of church and state that was dictated by the First Amendment. In addition to which America became kind of a spiritual hothouse in the nineteenth century. Not only did the quantity off religion go up but so did the proliferation of doctrine. There became new religions--the Mormons, the spiritualists--all created in the United States. New religious groups that no one had ever heard of before, that had never existed anywhere else in western society than in the United States.
According to the article linked below and others I have read, the two of the three auto makers who will be receiving these emergency loans will be required to either show a viable plan for their industries by March 31, 2009, or face repayment of the loans. While I agree with the premise of this requirement, I have to wonder if, given the amount of time that it took them to get into this situation in the first place, will 3 months, more or less, be enough time for them to find a way to save their dying companies? Is this bailout/loan just a temporary fix to a more permanent problem? What happens, if on 03/31/2009, the automakers have spent the money fronted them, are unable to come up with a plan to satisfy the stipulations, and can not repay the loan? Is it fair for taxpayers to bear the burden of this as well as the other bailouts that have been given and are likely yet to come?
Rush Limbaugh is the Obama Presidency place holder for Clinton's Iranian Asprin Factory, only this time the folks getting screwed are We the People, not the “woman in the blue dress.”
I can't help but think that the Bumbling Buffoon with the Teleprompter is laughing all the way to his goal of ruining America and setting himself up as our Dear Leader.If BO is a 'puppet' and an “empty suit,” who has his hand up his backside?
If the Birth Certificate is irrelevant, why is BO spending over $800,000 and countless lawyers having it “sealed” along with his school records?
If BO is so “eloquent,” why does he need a teleprompter for a news conference? Is he interested in filling in for Tom Brokaw?
The most honest thing to come from Obama: "I will stand with the Muslims.”
It appears that being President is also above Obama's pay grade.
You're like a talking doll - braaaaaak - Bush caused katrina. braaaaaaaak - Bush made unqualified losers default on their morgages. braaaaaaaa - Bush can't walk on water.
So boring listening to you Obots jabber the same worn out phrases over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amid record oil prices and soaring gasoline costs, Exxon Mobil's $400 million retirement package to its former CEO is a shameful display of greed that should be reviewed by Congress and investigated by federal regulators, Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record) said on Tuesday.
Dorgan said he wants Exxon Mobil officials to appear at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing to explain how the corporation justifies giving its former boss, Lee Raymond, such a huge retirement package.
There can be no more compelling evidence that the price gouging and market manipulation which has produced record oil prices is out of control, and is working to serve the forces of individual greed and corporate gluttony at the painful expense of millions of American consumers, Dorgan said.
Dorgan's criticism of Raymond's financial package came on the same day that U.S. crude oil prices hit a record high of more than $71 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Higher crude oil prices are helping to push of up gasoline costs. The Energy Department reported prices jumped 10 cents over the last week to a national average of $2.78 a gallon, up 55 cents from a year ago.
President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he was concerned about the impact high gasoline prices were having on families and businesses.
Exxon earned the wrath of many lawmakers when it reported more than $36 billion in profits last year as energy prices paid by consumers soared.
Dorgan said he will push to win passage of his legislation that would impose a windfall profits tax on big oil companies and rebate that money to consumers, unless the companies used their earnings to explore for and produce more energy.
I think a sensible public policy would insist that the big oil companies either invest those windfall profits in things that will increase our own domestic energy supplies, or we should return some of that money to consumers, Dorgan said.
Using them to drop $400 million dollars in the pocket of a big oil executive is simply unacceptable, he added.
Exxon Mobil has defended Raymond's retirement package, saying it was pegged to the rise in the company's profit and market capitalization that occurred during his tenure.
I'm also going to give those people who don't work for a living, or pay into the system, a $500 check too.
Oh, did I forget to mention.....
You're going to owe the govt. $10,000 in taxes, once I can get away with asking you all to foot the bill for my stimulus package.
Stimulus plan...the short version....no one talks about....
Obama: My trillion dollar stimulus package, very dire, we must do something NOW, right now, before it gets worse. Therefore I'm going to......
I'm going to give you a one-time $500 check.
I'm also going to give those people who don't work for a living, or pay into the system, a $500 check too.
Hmmm........seems to me she has been decrying her innocence on this issue since it was brought up. What struck me the most during the convention when giving her speech written by Dubya's speechwriter - was the fact that she paraded her poor pregnant daughter in front of the masses - the girl looked terrified - and then they passed that tiny 4-month-old baby around like he had something big and stinky in his diaper (evident by the pained expression on Cindy McCain's face). I think they should be ashamed of themselves for USING her children like circus freaks. And.....Lord have Mercy........people are falling all over themselves for this soap opera.
high horse?
nm
Oh, get off your high horse.... I'm sure you
have had nothing to say when McCain and Palin are being kicked about here. Your true colors are showing!
Horse feathers! sm
"This country was not founded on Christianity or any other religion." What cave have you been living in, JTBB?
The preamble to our constitution written by our nation's founders states that we are endowed with certain inalienable rights by our CREATOR. While it does not mention God by name, obviously the founders of this nation believed in a higher being who created this world and all that is in it. Washington and Franklin and Jefferson, as well as others, may have been deists rather than Christians of a particular religion such as Baptists or Methodists, but they did believe in a supreme God who created the universe. So please stop it with "we were not founded on Christian beliefs." It really is wearing thin.
A nation that trusts in God, as our currency says we do, enjoys the benefits of the protection of a benevolent and loving God. I don't think that we should trust in God just to be seen in any particular way by other nations but rather so that we may receive blessings of God so that we may be a prosperous and moral nation, something that we are ceasing to be as we are increasingly turning our back on God.
Stimulus plan...the short version (fine print)....no one talks about....
Obama: My trillion dollar stimulus package, very dire, we must do something NOW, right now, before it gets worse. (I can sell anything...just tell me what to say.....) Therefore I'm going to......
I'm going to give you a one-time $500 check.
I'm also going to give those people who don't work for a living, or pay into the system, a $500 check too.
Oh, did I forget to mention.....
Each one of you taxpayers are going to owe the U.S. govt. $10,000 in taxes, once I can get away with asking you all to foot the bill for my stimulus package. (2 years down the line or so.....when we have to become fiscally responsible)
Built into this plan, which is very complex, are social programs for schools, which are going down fast, health aid, food stamps for those who have lost their jobs and need to eat while looking for new jobs that Obama is tring to create, funds to build companies to work with alternative energy and green solutions to get us less dependent on foreign oil and stop poisoning our earth.....
There is no quick fix!!! Just like the Great Depression, it is going to take time to reap all the benefits from this package, but they are meant to be real, lasting jobs and benefits to our society, not a quick boo-boo bandaide,which is all that Bush could provide with his quickie tax rebates!!!! Take off the jaundiced glasses and blinders, forget party lines and affiliations, and just go to MSN or CNN and read the copious outlines there.
He's beating a dead horse.
Even Bush finally came clean and said there were none. That's when the *reason* for the war changed from WMDs to freeing the Iraqis (while ignoring bin Laden in Afghanistan).
I find it very, VERY interesting that his sudden *find* came less than 24 hours after PBS aired a very revealing show (*The Dark Side*) about the Iraq war, Bush, Tenet, Rumsfeld and Cheney, with the majority of the people interviewed being CIA agents, who generally had more than 20 years of service with the CIA, and they said some pretty shocking (but not too surprising) things about this whole war. (If you'd like to see this show, you can view it in its entirety on line by going to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/; I'd personally recommend it.)
When it's all said and done, though, regardless of how many facts are presented, Santorum could have declared to the world that there's evidence that Saddam had SLINGSHOTS, and some unfortunate souls on these boards would still say, *See? We told you he had WMDs.* It's really difficult to even be upset, frustrated or angry with them any more. I just mostly feel sorry for them.
Annan Urges U.S.-Iran Direct Talks in Atomic Dispute (Update3)
May 12 (Bloomberg) -- United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan today said the U.S. needs to follow up on Iranian offers of direct negotiations in order to resolve peacefully their dispute over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.
``I've asked all sides to lower their rhetoric and intensify their diplomatic efforts to find a solution,'' Annan said at a briefing in Vienna. ``I think it's important that the United States comes to the table.''
The U.S. has let French, German and U.K. diplomats lead talks with Iran over the atomic dispute. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a meeting of the Developing Eight group of Islamic countries in Indonesia, said Iran is ready for direct talks and will comply with any UN decision on its atomic program based on international rules. A U.S. State Department spokesman in Vienna declined to comment.
The U.K. and France, backed by the U.S., have proposed a resolution under Chapter 7 of the United Nations charter to compel Iran to stop its nuclear work. A Chapter 7 resolution can invoke economic sanctions or military force against ``any threat to the peace'' of other countries. Iran says it's developing nuclear technology to generate power, while the U.S. and European countries accuse Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons.
China and Russia, veto-wielding members of the Security Council, oppose a Chapter 7 resolution for Iran.
Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency said he didn't have any information about an Agence France-Presse report that inspectors found traces of highly enriched uranium in his country.
Uranium Particles
``I haven't been informed of any such findings,'' Aliasghar Soltanieh said in a telephone interview.
Particles of weapons-grade uranium came from sample swipes that International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors took at the Lavizan-Shian site in Tehran, where a physics research center was dismantled and topsoil removed in 2004 after suspicions were raised about activities there, AFP said.
The IAEA reported to the Security Council on April 28 that inspectors took environmental samples at suspected nuclear sites in their most recent visit to Iran. The samples were to undergo testing for uranium particles at IAEA laboratories. IAEA spokespeople declined to comment.
The Iranians won't ``put everything on the table'' until the U.S. joins the European-led negotiations, Annan said. Negotiations should be around a ``comprehensive package'' including economic and regional security concerns, he said.
`Engaged in Dialogue'
Annan's call for direct talks between Iran and the U.S. followed those of Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the IAEA. ``Once we get to security issues, the U.S. should be engaged in the dialogue,'' ElBaradei said March 8.
The Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany will meet in London May 19 to consider new incentives for Iran to renounce its atomic program, AFP reported, citing unidentified diplomats. The permanent five are the U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China.
The U.S. and Iran broke off diplomatic relations in 1979 after Islamic revolutionaries overthrew the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and kept 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Jonathan Tirone in Vienna at jtirone@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: May 12, 2006 10:33 EDT
Where's my dead horse beating stick???
The US went to war with Iraq for a number of reasons, including concern over Saddam's failure to account for WMDs, which put him in violation of the treaty that ended Gulf War I, and violation of several UN resolutions - I can never remember if it was 14 or 17.
If you really want an answer to this question, a search for the resolution permitting use of force in Iraq should be relatively easy. I'm not sure it's worthwhile, though, since the matter is essentially moot, since we are there now.
My question to you: There is a lot of discussion lately about possibly increasing troop levels in Iraq to try to bring the security situation under control. What are your thoughts on that? Do you support it? Would you support it if you could be persuaded that there was a reasonable possibility of success?
Personally, I'm a bit ambivalent. I don't have a problem supporting more troops, but I think it's as much a PC problem as a troop number problem in Iraq. In other words, I don't think US forces can do much to bring security to Iraq if they are forced to always act in the most P.C. manner possible so as not to risk offending any single faction or, heaven forbid, creating negative spin in the press.
I certainly think we could be effective there in securing the country, but only if we realize that we might have to leave a heavy footprint in Iraq in order to accomplish that goal. For example, I think we should have taken out al Sadr, even if it meant leveling significant portions of Sadr City, when he first became a major underming influence to the new Iraqi government. Some may think that makes me a flag-waving member of the Death Squad, but I have to wonder how many lives could have been spared in the long run had we stamped al Sadr out then, when we had a good tactical opportunity and could have done so fairly easily.
lips. DO NOT post the entire article. Post only excerpts from it with link to it.
Do you want the owners of this board in a legal battle? All it takes is someone reporting one of your posts for that to happen. I am warning you for your own good. If you don't care about the owners of this board, others of us do.
I appreciate that question because I, in the state of Texas, had heard a lot of discussion about a faith-based initiative eroding the important bridge between church and state.
I mean, there needs to be a wholesale effort against racial profiling, which is illiterate children.
See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.
The law I sign today directs new funds and new focus to the task of collecting vital intelligence on terrorist threats and on weapons of mass production.
marks the location of current message within thread
