A very interesting NY Times article

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Great article in opinion section of LA Times (you can get it online). Dated 06/24/2005, "Hustling on K Street" by Jonathan Chait, concerning Bush paying back the lobbyists and big business.

Reps. John Conyers and Maxine Waters are trying to get a meeting going in Congress tomorrow with Republicans joining in this time to debate and discuss the Downing Street Memos. Dont know if it will be covered on C-Span, sure hope so.

A little long but worth the read - Written by D Morris who used to work for the Clintons and were friends with them.

Bill and Hillary Clinton have always believed that they�re very different than the rest of us. Over their more than 30 years in politics together, they�ve learned one important and consistent lesson: that rules don�t matter. Rules don�t apply to them. Rules are for other people. Rules can be bent, changed, manipulated.

So it�s particularly ironic that they are now turning to the Democratic Party Rules Committee to try and steal the presidential nomination that Hillary has already definitively lost to Barack Obama in the popular vote, the delegate count, and the total number of states.

Now she�ll try to get the Democratic bosses to rig it for her. If the rules don�t work, change them.

Under the guise of justice and fair play, Hillary Clinton is, in effect, asking the Rules Committee to rule that the party�s rules should be ignored � the same rules that the Rules Committee enacted and that Hillary and all of the other democrats supported without dissent. But that was then and now is now.

Hillary wants the Florida and Michigan votes to be seated, even though it would still make no difference in the outcome. She can�t win. After her embarrassing near loss in Indiana and her sound trouncing in North Carolina, Hillary Clinton is a fatally wounded candidate. She�s out of money, out of votes, and out of options.

But she won�t give up. She�ll never go home until the day that Obama actually reached the magic number of delegates.

Because she and her husband both believe that she is entitled to the nomination, entitled to the presidency. So they�re waiting for the inevitable signal that it will, in fact, be hers.

No matter that neither the voters nor the party leaders want her. No matter that she has to spend more than $11 million of her own money to keep her campaign afloat.

According to the Clintons, the nomination should be hers. She�s earned it. She�s ready. She wants it. She and Bill are sure that she�d be a great candidate.

So that�s why they�re waiting. Because there�s one other lesson they�ve both learned � that over time, anything can change. And they�re waiting for any break that time might bring.

They�ve see it before. When they were worried about her criminal liability in the Whitewater mess, they held their ground. Eventually, as the years went on, Jim McDougal, the chief witness against them, died of a heart attack in prison. When the special prosecutor was after her for perjury, she learned how to delay and then get by off on a technicality. Lost in the dust were the allegations of Hillary�s perjury. Once more, time was kind to her.

It was the same story during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. At first it seemed that Bill would be quickly thrown out of the White House, but two years later, although impeached, he was still incredibly popular. Time and patience had brought control of events back to the Clintons.

When they left the White House in utter disgrace over their ethical lapses and greed, they were under attack from even the friendliest of liberal media. But years of keeping their heads low, working hard at getting along with people in the Senate, turning to charitable works (with a little help from George W. Bush) and helping the party regulars erased the sordid images. Memories of pardons sold for campaign and library contributions, their scoundrel lobbyist brothers, and the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of �gifts� that were solicited from people who wanted favors from the White House disappeared. Once again, time healed all.

Now, although seemingly out of time, they are still waiting. Something could happen to change things in just a minute.

But beyond their belief in Hillary�s inalienable right to the nomination and Hillary�s inevitability, there are two more factors that are keeping her in.

One is a combination of Hillary�s incredible stubbornness and Bill�s growing arrogance. They both believe that no one, absolutely no one tells them what to do. No one is going to force them � a former president and a senator � to do anything. So the more people tell them that Hillary should quit the race, the more determined they are that she should stay in.

And finally, there seems to be an uncharacteristic absence of a reality base in Hillary�s thinking. Normally, she is a no-nonsense pragmatic politician who understand when she�s up and when she�s not. But lately she seems to ignore everything that�s in front of her except the supportive cheering of the partisan crowds and the certitude of Bill Clinton.

The proof of this is that she has lent a total of $11.6 million to her campaign. The Clintons are not people who part with a dime very easily. For them to fork over that much money to a failing campaign already in deep debt is the clearest statement that they are out of touch. Even after she won Pennsylvania � by only 12 delegates � there was no mathematical way for her to win the nomination. But she then poured another $6.4 million into the campaign coffers.

The Clintons are still waiting for a miracle that isn�t going to happen. They�re hoping that over time something big will derail Obama (no doubt they�re still frantically looking for that something).

And they�re stubbornly refusing to go home. And they�re desperately hoping to make sure the rules don�t count for them.

When the reality becomes unavoidable and it is clear that Hillary has to concede the nomination in 2008. Well, there�s always 2012 or 2016 or 2020 or �

And before you even cry racist, this article was written by a black man. And if we're talking about racists you should listen to my brother and his friends talk about the white boy or rednecks, and I've heard them call white people crackers, among all the other racial slurs that are too bad to write. I see it here in my own neighborhood where I can't even say anything or the attacks will start in on me. Here is a very interesting article. Really an eye opener, but then again most independents and conservatives already have their eyes open.

And before you say it belongs on the religious board it doesn't because it is talking about Obama and where he stands on issues. But because it does make some reference to religion I will post there too.

This was written by a man named David Icke. I have a couple of his books. He is not American, so the article is not written by liberal or conservative. This is how some in the world see Obama. And the more and more I read other countries are saying we were "duped" and also they say now that the "novelty" has worn off we need to face reality of what is about to hit us. - Just not good.

I believe the title of it was Sarah Palin's Alaskanomics, but not sure. Here is the link for it anyway.

Excerpts from article Scripps Howard News. Can't link to it, could not find it on line.

It's a new president, a new era, but maybe we can salvage something from the Bush-bashing days gone by, namely some of the political catchphrases that have updated meanings in our altered circumstances. You begin to see their utility when you look at how critics worried (including most all Democrats and of course, our new president...my words, not article words) that President Bush was *sacrificing our liberty for security,* and then ask whether President Obama and the Democrats aren't aiming to sacrifice liberty (and free speech I might add) for different kinds of security. They are. The most obvious example is the eagerness to sacrifice free speech ont eh radio by reimposing the so-called Fairness Doctrine (fair...yeah right...Democrat version of fair...you are entitled to free speech ONLY if we like what you say, you always agree with us and never say negative things about us..lol). Then there's the effort for enhanced electoral security. Obama and the Democrats are in synch with a scheme to sacrifice the liberty of workers to use secret ballots in elections whether to have a union. All kinds of commercial liberties might be denied as Obama surveys his options on keeping the market in tow, revising energy policies and combating greenhouse gases. There's been talk of nationalizing banks. And to give us security from dependence on foreign oil, Obama plans to deprive the auto industry of building the kind of cars consumers want. It's a move that could do severe hurt to an alread damaged industry to no sure-fire avail.

Another catchphrase employed against Bush was that he had no *exit strategy* to get us out of the war in Iraq. A genuine fear is that Obama administration and the Federal Reserve have no *exit strategy* to get us out of a spending and money-printing spree that could help stick us with a 1.7 trillion deficit in 2009, leading to a collapsed dollar, cause a doubling of taxes and, down the road, lead to runaway inflation and even worse, interminable economic crisis and devastating decline as a prosperous world power. Especially considering that we are faced with trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities for Medicare and Social Security and that the bill starts coming due in relatively few years. It's hard to see how we are going extract ourselves from the consequences of this. We need a plan, or at the very least, an explanation of how we avoid disaster. I have not heard any (me either!!).

Finally, it was repeatedly said of Bush that he made up the well-founded if finally incorrect stories about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and thereby *lied us into a war.* Now there are people who are contending that Obama is using the moment's high anxiety to "lie us into socialism" (BINGO!). It's said, for example, the stimulus package will do more to create a welfare state than to arouse the economy (so far the billions thrown at it have done little), and when you put this together with regulatory overkill now being plotted, we'll have a centralized, government-controlled economic system that routinely robs from Peter to pay Paul. The recently passed House bill is loaded with evidence for this thesis...billions upon billions of wealth-transferring programs that address this crisis about as much as a sneeze.

No one wants, or should want, to subject Obama to what Bush faced, criticism that was sometimes unfair to the point of calumny. But there is too much at risk for us to all hold hands and sing kumbaya. We need to vigorously debate, and some of the phrases used ad infinitum in the Bush years can help us put some very real issues into sharper focus.

All that being said in the article....why are Democrats not asking Obama the tough questions like they asked Bush? Why are the people on this board not asking Obama the tough questions? Oh...wait....what AM I thinking??? The great O has spoken...and that's all they need.

Looks like the feminists are supporting Palin. Very interesting article and it explains why they are supporting her.

http://www.bizzyblog.com/2008/09/06/palin-punditry-you-wont-see-in-the-papers-or-on-the-tv-news/

http://www.pennypresslv.com/Obama%27s_Use_of_Hidden_Hypnosis_techniques_in_His_Speeches.pdf

These articles were very interesting. GM states they may stop producing Hummer, Saab, Saturn, and PONTIAC. Geez, what will be left? They dropped my favorite car and now I drive a Buick.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/17/news/companies/sachs_carmakers.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009021711

http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/16/news/companies/what_to_look_for/index.htm?postversion=2009021615

Martin Garbus

Wed Dec 28, 1:41 PM ET

An hour after the New York Times described Bush�s illegal surveillance program, I wrote on the Huffington Post that Bush had committed a crime, a �High Crime,� and should be impeached.

Was there then enough evidence to justify the beginning of an attempt to impeach the President?

No.

Did the President have a good defense that he relied on Gonzalez, Ashcroft and the best lawyers in the country (in the Solicitor General�s and Department of Justice�s offices)?

Yes.

Would any significant number of Americans of Congressmen then support such a process?

No.

Given all that, would the turmoil and consequential turmoil have justified the start of that brutal process?

No.

But that has all changed.

Because we shall soon see the consequences of those warrantless searches, the consequences of the government�s five years of secrecy, and even the citizens of the �Red States� will be outraged. Firstly, the warrantless taps will infect hundreds of �terrorist� and criminal cases throughout the country. Not only future cases, but past and present cases, even if there were convictions or plea bargains after the survellance started.

The defendants in �terrorist� and other infected criminal cases, the Court must find, must get access to everything, or very close to everything to make sure they were never improperly surveilled.

The Bush Administration, in these cases will refuse, as did the Nixon administration, to divulge information on national security grounds. Many alleged critical cases must then be dismissed. It will include Organized Crime and drug cases.

The entire criminal process will be brought to a standstill. Cases that should take six months to a year, will take three times as long, as motions go up and down the appellate ladder � as federal judges trial disagree with each other. Appellate Courts will disagree on issues so novel and so important that the Supreme Court will look at them.

Secondly, there will be an endless amounts of civil suits, that we can see will result in substantial damage awards. Commentators claimed there cannot be suits because no one has standing to challenge the surveillance. They are wrong. They do not remember the history of the Palmer Raids in the 1920�s, the surveillance in the Sixties and Seventies. The future will show both the enormous information the new technology has gathered but also the dishonest minimization of the extent of the surveillance.

That minimization is standard operating procedure for governments, whether they be run by Democrats or Republicans.

Thirdly, and most importantly, it is safe to preduct there will be coverups. This administration is not known for its candor.

The coverup starts by trying to get away with the vauge and meaningless defenses. Both Nixon and Clinton tried that.

When that doesn�t work, the coverup will be based on a foundation of small lies. Both Nixon and Clinton tried that.

We do not yet know what the FISA judges already fear � that they have been not just ignored by the executive but misused. The public shall also learn about the FISA judges� misuse of the FISA courts and their warrants. The courts were created to permit eavesdropping and electronic surveillance, not physical break-ins.

But the facts will show that the Bush administration, with the knowledge, and at times, the consent of, the FISA judges, conducted illegal physical break-ins - break-ins that to this day, the involved person, is unaware of.

Were the results of these �terrorist� break-ins then given to criminal authorities to start unrelated prosecutions? Of course.

The American public will also learn what this Administration has thus far successfully hidden. When Bush came into office, he signed an Exeutive Order making all of his, and his father�s, papers privileged. The order, extending 12 years out, also says if the President is incapacitated, then a third person can execute the privilege. This means anybody � a wife, a family lawyer, a child. The order also says the Vice President�s papers are privileged. It is an extraordinary Executive Order � this has never been anything like this. No one ever suggested a Vice President has executive privilege. If we do not find out what they are hiding, we will see witholding on a scale never before seen. He will no longer be able to use 9/11 and the war on terror as an excuse. It will confirm the fact that illegality and secrecy existed long before 9/11, that it started as soon as Bush-Cheney-Rumsfield got into office. It will show deliberate attempts to avoid any judicial or legislative oversight of the illegal use of executive privilege.

Impeachment procedures will come not because of wrongdoing but because of the discovery of lies.

Both Nixon and Cliton faced impeachments because they lied.

It was inconceivable before the Nixon and Clinton impeachment procedures began that there could be, or would be a country or Senate that would be responsive to it.

In the Nixon case, it spiraled from a petty break-in � in Clinton�s case from a petty sexual act.

But what Bush has done, and will do, to protect himself is not petty. It goes to the heart of the government. He already has a history of misleading the public on the searches conducted thus far. As he and his colleagues seek to minimize the vast amount of data collection, the lies will necessarily expand to cover the wrongdoing. Bush can be brought down.

This is really getting out of hand on this board. All you CONS do is lie. This is crazy.

Okay, so please cite the 100 times I have accused someone of lying. This is your chance to squash us libs once and for all. I am waiting.

reporting that there is nothing to report...over...and over...and over, and repeating the information they DO have over, and over, and over? Going to the suspect's neighborhood, place of worship, high school, etc. trying to interview the ex-wife, parents, other people he knew, speculating like crazy just to fill air time and keep a big story alive? Or investigating the victim of the crime, going to his neighborhood, interview family, etc., to make the victim seem either a saint or a stinker?

The press never takes no for an answer. Denied hard facts from court or cops, they generally just make pests of themselves messing around in the suspect's personal life to find nuggets to report, then blather on and on. But they apparently do not consider this a big story. That they are not following their usual pattern in itself is a big story.

And if you cannot see the obvious differences in writing, well, you appear to be quite ignorant or unobservant or else you are not telling the truth. But that is your problem and I am not going to make it mine!!!

Notice what affilitation the top 6 are! - N wonder they don't care if we're in a recession.