Best case scenario, 1 million evacuees.

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One case scenario that happens regarding employed people getting health insurance through their employers is this. Unfortunately recessions happen. A covered person is laid off. Yes, they can continue coverage through COBRA. Some recessions are long lasting, the laid off person cannot find employment for months or longer. The bills meanwhile are racking up, if there are any savings it not so slowly gets eaten up, and the COBRA coverage is not cheap, to the tune of $600.00 a month or more. That person may very well want to hold onto their coverage but simply cannot. They have to drop the coverage. Hopefully this person eventually is able to get another job that also has health insurance benefits. They then have to go through another pre-existing condition waiting period as they had to drop their insurance and therefore lost their continuous coverage provision. Maybe that person falls seriously ill during that period with some pre-existing condition, and ...financially ruined for the rest of their life as a result..through no fault of their own.

Yes, there are people who are able to afford health insurance but have a devil may care attitude...until they become ill, but there are many other scenarios that are occurring as well, and occurring more frequently.

Another problem is due to the high cost of health insurance fewer and fewer employers are even offering benefits, which leaves working people to attempt to secure individual policies, and in that market anyone can be denied coverage. It does not even have to be a "major" health condition. Heath insurance companies can, and do, deny people coverage due to "run of the mill" problems such as a little hypothyroidism, or that they broke a few bones as a kid while growing up.

I thought Rush might have learned something from his own bad judgments but I guess I was wrong. I actually felt sorry for him for awhile...I would not wish his situation on anyone. But it seems he is back to his Homeless Olympics-type comments - always blame whoever is on the other side of the fence. Now I know where all this rhetoric is coming from...straight from the mouths of the radio right reich.

Right-Wing Attacks American Evacuees: �Ingrates,� �Whining,� �Spoiled-Rotten Little Children�

The Bush administration�s evacuation of Americans in Lebanon has been disorganized and lagged behind the efforts of other countries. As of yesterday, only a few thousand had been able to evacuate, and they departed �two days after the first Europeans left on ships.� Denmark, for example, �evacuated more than 4,000 of its citizens� by Thursday.

Watch Fox & Friends (a Fox correspondent in Cyprus disputes Doocy�s account, describing the evacuation conditions as �really chaotic�):

See link.

'facts', not as it related to your post. Since we invaded Iraq, we have not had a terror attack on the United States. Do you see a correlation there or is this just a coincidence. Also, knowing the history of Islam, do you really think the fires needed stoking in that regard to hate us more? Exactly what led up to the escalating terror attacks against the United States? What was the final goal and would it have ended with 9/11. I think not. Those fires don't need stoking. They have been burning since 500 years after the birth of Christ. I don't for a moment believe that the invasion of Iraq all of a sudden made them hate us. Gaddafi said, during Reagan's presidency, that he would not rest until every American was dead in his bed. Haven't heard a peep out of him since Reagan bombed him.

using Hitler....Hitler was the terrorist. The Nazis were the terrorists. They were exterminating the Jews because of race. They had no other reason other than they didn't like them.

You cannot compare what we are doing to what Hitler did. The rendition and the assassination of key terrorist members saves innocent lives where Hitler did nothing but destroy innocent lives.

I do not see us lining up all Muslims and exterminating them, sending them to concentration camps, etc. We are going after extremists who would love nothing more than to exterminate us.

I highly doubt that if we were taken over by terrorists or you were in a building that they were planning on bombing....the fact that you disagree with our treatment towards terrorist prisoners will mean absolutely nothing to them. They will still blow you up or cut your head off. These are not people that you can talk to civilly or change their mind. They are on a mission to exterminate infidels....that includes you and me and our family and friends. So seriously....think about that the next time you want to set them free or be nice to them.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - Barack Obama partied with Hollywood celebrities Tuesday night and with the help of Oscar-winning singer and actress Barbra Streisand raised an eye-popping $9 million for his presidential campaign and the Democratic Party.

The night was split into two glitzy events, a reception and dinner costing $28,500 each at the Greystone Mansion, followed by entertainment by Streisand at the nearby Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. About 250 people were expected at the dinner and about 800 at the entertainment, which cost $2,500 a ticket.

It was a day of contrasts for Obama. Earlier in the day, the Democratic presidential candidate spoke about the public's deepening economic anxieties and portrayed Republican challenger John McCain as out of touch with the needs of hardworking people.

McCain groused about Obama mixing it up with celebrities. He told a rally in Vienna, Ohio on Tuesday that Obama "talks about siding with the people, siding with the people just before he flies off to Hollywood for a fundraiser with Barbra Streisand and his celebrity friends. Let me tell you my friends, there's no place I'd rather be than here with the working men and women of Ohio."

A night earlier, McCain was with deep-pocketed donors in Florida and raised $5 million, a fact noted by Obama's campaign.

"I don't know who showed up down in Florida where he raised $5 million but my guess is that it wasn't a lot of nurses, firefighters and police officers," Obama's senior strategist, David Axelrod, told reporters. "The whole corporate lobbying community is rallying to his side. We're going to have to struggle to keep pace. You can't challenge that group and not expect them to have a lot of money."

While the final total was not determined, Obama's campaign did not dispute estimates that the twin events would bring in $9 million for Obama and the Democratic Party. That would be his second-biggest, fundraising day. Obama received $10 million from online donors the day after McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, delivered her speech at the Republican convention.

On another big fundraising night in California, Obama raised $7 million in August in San Francisco.
Obama is financing his presidential race with private contributions after abandoning a pledge to take public financing capped at $84 million. His campaign announced Sunday it had collected $66 million in August, a fundraising record for any presidential candidate in a monthlong period.

By comparison, McCain raised $47 million in August, a personal best for his campaign as well. After claiming the GOP nomination, McCain accepted the $84 million in taxpayer funds allotted by the public financing system for the race.

All this controversy over the number in attendance af last week's tea parties, and who was there! I would think over a quarter-million participants would rank right up there as far as demonstration statistics go.

There was another demonstration in 1995 which planned to attact a million demonstators. Wikipedia has this:

......... Finally, within the first twenty-four hours following the March a conflict between March organizers and Park Service officials erupted over crowd size estimates. Initially, the National Park Service issued an estimate of about 400,000 attendees; a number significantly lower than March organizers had hoped for. After a heated exchange between leaders of the March and Park Services the estimate was raised to 850,000* but still fell short of the organizers� estimate of over 1 million. The controversy over the number of men who actually participated in the March has yet to be firmly resolved. *[guess they were getting the 2 for 1 special?]

Even back then, folks were hollering 'recount,' I don't recall seeing any female or white faces in that crowd, either. I think that was pretty sexist and racist. The point is, you hang with like-minded individuals. Nobody put out the 'whites only' sign at the tea parties. It was equal opportunity, and if you were a hard-working black business owner you might have been there.

He's talking about people that got schnuckered so they can keep their homes. Maybe they would reduce the principle, but that would also keep people in their homes and make the other homes in that neighborhood keep their value.

Do you understand the concept that if the homes around you go into foreclosure then that brings your home value down?

Check out this Canadian news article on this pitiful event -- this might answer your question about why no other news stations were giving this much air time -- NOT NEWSWORTHY!! Not even 10s of thousands, much less a million!! Where did you get your statistics? Is that what you heard on TRIX news?

What the Mousvi supporters are trying to do in Iran is to show the world that they can bring down the Ahmedinejad and hopefully also the leader of the theocray

There are also in the cleric council contradicting opinions regarding the legitimate outcome of the election and how to proceed in solving this massive protests.

This shows AGAIN the diplomatic excellence of Obama AND Biden when they held back their meddling and interfering, letting the people try it on their own!

If it were up to McCain and Cheney they would have made out of this conflict a 2nd-Iraq siituation, probaly invaded Iran!

U.S. owes Iraq $208 million, auditor says
Gouging, shoddy work by Halliburton blamed

An auditing board sponsored by the United Nations recommended Friday that the United States repay as much as $208 million to the Iraqi government for contracting work in 2003 and 2004 assigned to Kellogg, Brown & Root, the Halliburton Co. subsidiary.

The work was paid for with Iraqi oil proceeds, but the board says it was either carried out at inflated prices or done poorly. The board did not give examples of poor work.

Some of the work involved postwar fuel imports carried out by KBR that previous audits have criticized as grossly overpriced. But this is the first time that an international auditing group has suggested that the United States repay some of that money to Iraq.

The U.N. group, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board of the Development Fund for Iraq, compiled reports from an array of Pentagon, U.S. government and private auditors to carry out its analysis.

A spokeswoman for Halliburton, Cathy Mann, said the questions raised in the military audits, carried out in the Pentagon's Defense Contract Auditing Agency, had largely focused on issues of paperwork and documentation and alleged nothing about the quality of the work done by KBR. The monitoring board relied heavily on the Pentagon audits in drawing its conclusions.

Mann said, in an e-mail response to questions, that it would be completely wrong to say or imply that any of these costs that were incurred at the client's direction for its benefit are 'overcharges.'

The monitoring board, created by the United Nations specifically to oversee the Development Fund -- which includes Iraqi oil revenues and some money seized from Saddam Hussein's government -- said that because the audits were continuing, it was too early to say how much of the $208 million should ultimately be paid back.

The KBR contracts that have drawn fresh scrutiny also cover services other than fuel deliveries, like building and repairing oil pipelines and installing emergency power generators in Iraq. The documents released Friday by the monitoring board do not detail problems with specific tasks in those broad categories but instead summarize a series of newly disclosed audits that call into question $208,491,382 of the company's work in Iraq.

The monitoring board's authority extends only to making recommendations on any reimbursement. It would be up to the U.S. government to decide whether to make the payments, and who should make them.

Vice President Dick Cheney's former role as chief executive of Halliburton has led to repeated charges, uniformly dismissed by Cheney and the company, that it received preferential treatment in receiving Iraq-related contracts.

The Bush administration repeatedly gave Halliburton special treatment and allowed the company to gouge both U.S. taxpayers and the Iraqi people, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, the senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, said in a statement on the new audits.

In Iraq on Friday, insurgent attacks -- including one in which the attackers disguised themselves as women -- left at least 16 Iraqis dead.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, the leading insurgency group, said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site that two Moroccan Embassy employees had been condemned to death, the Associated Press reported. There was no indication Friday that they had been killed.

The U.S. military said Friday that two more soldiers had died the previous day, one in a noncombat incident and one when his convoy struck an explosive.

In the day's deadliest assault, insurgents dressed in women's clothing attacked a police checkpoint in Buhruz, 35 miles north of Baghdad, killing at least six Iraqi police and injuring at least 10 others, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

The gunmen were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, and pulled up in five cars, an Interior Ministry official said. The policemen managed to kill at least two of the gunmen, he added

The Senate is about to vote on a crucial bill, the revised H.R. 4437, that could give amnesty to 12-30 million illegal aliens and open the door for their relatives and a new flood of illegals to enter, which could mean 100-200 million new people coming into the country in 20 years according to expert analysis, virtually all poor, diminishing wages, increasing the crime rate, and bankrupting tax coffers. Now is the time to call any of the key Senators who could be persuaded into a NO vote, otherwise, there is a chance the House-Senate joint committee will approve for a likely vote in the House:

Lindsay Graham (SC): (202) 224-5972
Chuck Hagel (NE): (202) 224-4224
Richard Lugar (IN): (202) 224-4814
Mel Martinez (FL): (202) 224-3041
John McCain (AZ): (202) 224-2235
Richard Shelby (AL): (202) 224-5744
Olympia Snowe (ME): 202) 224-5344
Arlen Specter (PA): (202) 224-4254
Ted Stevens (AK): (202) 224-3004
George Voinovich (OH): (202) 224-3353
John Warner (VA): (202) 224-2023
Robert Bennett (UT): (202) 224-5444
Sam Brownback (KS): (202) 224-6521
Lincoln Chafee (RI): (202) 224-2921
Norm Coleman (MN): (202) 224-5641
Susan Collins (ME) (202) 224-2523
Larry Craig (ID): (202) 224-2752
Mike DeWine (OH): (202) 224-2315

I just caught the tail end of this info on Oprah and have been looking for verification of this. Haven't found it yet. They might keep this under wraps since the bail out still hasn't happened yet.

I was just thinking the other day: If I'm Obama, I'm saying to he!! with spending enough money to secure the borders. The main threat is that Jackson Hole airport.

I'm telling you, people, the government has gone positively insane. $6 million would go a VERY long way at the border. Oh, but wait - that wouldn't make good pork politics, now, would it?