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Doesn't the beloved Christopher Hitchens write for Vanity Fair.???

Posted By: Lurker on 2006-11-05
In Reply to:

 He was a liberal and now has become a conservative of immense proportions, so I guess he is a new conservative.


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Hardball - Christopher Hitchens

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/  Click on Marching Towards War with Iran (but a perfect appetizer for this clip is the interview with Katherine Harris).


I was struck by one comment by Hitchens, below.  I've placed blanks where I felt another name could have been used:


Well, it can be a mistake to take the rhetoric of a nut case like President, so-called President puppet leader _____ at face value but from his rhetoric which at least the _____ allow him to utter, it does look as if _____ does appear to want to fight and believes that it has God on its side.  Now that's actually a very dangerous combination of things.


I think the vanity fair cover was not a smart thing for her to do...sm
even though she wore a scar and big glasses.


Vanity Fair: NORAD tapes released sm
For anyone interested, here is the link to NORAD tapes.

http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/060801fege01
Hitchens asks "What Reason Do We Have to Trust the State

to Know Best?


What Reason Do we Have to Trust the State to Know Best?



 


Christopher Hitchens


 


Although I am named in this suit in my own behalf, I am motivated to join it by concerns well beyond my own. I have been frankly appalled by the discrepant and contradictory positions taken by the Administration in this matter. First, the entire existence of the NSA's monitoring was a secret, and its very disclosure denounced as a threat to national security.


 


Then it was argued that Congress had already implicitly granted the power to conduct warrantless surveillance on the territory of the United States, which seemed to make the reason for the original secrecy more rather than less mysterious. (I think we may take it for granted that our deadly enemies understand that their communications may be intercepted.)


It now appears that Congress may have granted this authority, but without quite knowing that it had, and certainly without knowing the extent of it.


This makes it critically important that we establish an understood line, and test the cases in which it may or may not be crossed.


Let me give a very direct instance of what I mean. We have recently learned that the NSA used law enforcement agencies to track members of a pacifist organisation in Baltimore. This is, first of all, an appalling abuse of state power and an unjustified invasion of privacy, uncovered by any definition of national security however expansive. It is, no less importantly, a stupid diversion of scarce resources from the real target. It is a certainty that if all the facts were known we would become aware of many more such cases of misconduct and waste.


We are, in essence, being asked to trust the state to know best. What reason do we have for such confidence? The agencies entrusted with our protection have repeatedly been shown, before and after the fall of 2001, to be conspicuous for their incompetence and venality. No serious reform of these institutions has been undertaken or even proposed: Mr George Tenet (whose underlings have generated leaks designed to sabotage the Administration's own policy of regime-change in Iraq, and whose immense and unconstitutionally secret budget could not finance the infiltration of a group which John Walker Lindh could join with ease) was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom.


I believe the President when he says that this will be a very long war, and insofar as a mere civilian may say so, I consider myself enlisted in it. But this consideration in itself makes it imperative that we not take panic or emergency measures in the short term, and then permit them to become institutionalised. I need hardly add that wire-tapping is only one of the many areas in which this holds true.


The better the ostensible justification for an infringement upon domestic liberty, the more suspicious one ought to be of it. We are hardly likely to be told that the government would feel less encumbered if it could dispense with the Bill of Rights. But a power or a right, once relinquished to one administration for one reason, will unfailingly be exploited by successor administrations, for quite other reasons. It is therefore of the first importance that we demarcate, clearly and immediately, the areas in which our government may or may not treat us as potential enemies.


 


My beloved skinheads? sm
You are not only ignorant, I think you are certifiable.  You choose to believe a newspaper that has put our nation at risk, has reporters who have been known to make up stories (yes, that really gives them credence). You post story after story about how horrible our military is and you have nothing but an insane hatred of all things good in America to back you up.  You cannot possibly back up what you are saying because it is not true. Oh, I forgot, it's true because the New York Crimes said it is true.  You are a joke. I am sure this will get deleted, but I feel a lot better having gotten all that out of my system.  You are a mean, crude, rude, ignorant bully.  You despise America, the troops and all they stand for and all your protestations won't do you any good because everything you post says otherwise.  Seek help.  You are in desparate need of help. 
even your beloved Faux

has Obama up 6.


 


Just wait until she gets her beloved
the other Dem congresspeople in office, see what kind of power they have then!
Maybe your beloved Hamas SHOULD put God in it.
Then they might stand a chance.

As it is, they're on the way to defeat. (And good riddance to 'em.)
Beloved Congresswoman McKinney
BELOVED CYNTHIA McKINNEY

A White Ex Cop Speaks Out About a Georgia Congresswoman

by
Michael C. Ruppert

April 11, 2006 1000 PST (FTW) - ASHLAND -Cynthia McKinney is a friend of mine. Until the day I die she will be a friend of mine. More than that, she will be a role model and an inspiration that I don’t ever expect to be equaled, let alone surpassed. Full disclosure.

Out of several dozen Op-Eds, news reports and commentaries on the now-infamous so-called “cop-slapping” event of March 29th, I haven’t seen a single one that, from my perspective, got it right. So right up front, let me say that if I am forced to look at this one snapshot incident, divorced from context and history, then yes, my very good friend messed up. It shouldn’t have become as big a deal as it has and she bears some responsibility for that. But if I look at the event as part of a continuum of the life of congress, or the life of this nation, and (no less importantly) of the life of this woman, things look and feel a whole lot different.

The virulent, spit-dripping, white, racist commentators from Boortz to DeLay and the oh-so-PC and dainty black Democratic pundits, columnists and pols who pick Cynthia McKinney apart—pretending to defend her while putting her black butt on the E-Bay auction block for November—are actually allies. They both want her to go away. They both want the issues that have come too close to public recognition in this case to go away. Leaders from left and right, black or white, cannot bear the thought of actually looking deeper at what happened with Cynthia McKinney and what it means.

Let me give you an historical hint. As a rule, wars are generally started over big events, (e.g. the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Pearl Harbor, North Korea’s Army Crossing the 38th parallel). Revolutions are generally started over less memorable things (e.g. “Let them eat cake,” a tea tax, some government troops opening fire on unarmed demonstrators). People of all colors and political persuasions understand that underlying both wars and revolutions are monstrous icebergs of unresolved inequity. So it is with Cynthia McKinney. And it is her hairdo (new or old, take your pick) that now sits atop an iceberg that both right-wing whites and bought-off blacks would like to go away.

I have walked the halls of Congress with Cynthia McKinney maybe eight to ten times. I have walked into and out of the Cannon and Longworth house office buildings with her. I have walked to hearings in the Rayburn house office building with her. I have walked the underground tunnels from one of those office buildings directly to the edge of the House floor and its anteroom with her. I can tell you one thing for certain because I have seen it and I have felt it. Cynthia McKinney and her staff get treated differently from just about anyone else on the Hill. It’s subtle, but so is the taste of dirt when it’s in your mouth.

ICEBERGS

Between 1974 and 1977, as I prowled the streets of “The Jungle” in South Central L.A. (in uniform and later as a detective and undercover narc) I knew little about being human. The Jungle is the place where “Boyz in the Hood” and Denzel Washington’s “Training Day” were filmed. I was a good cop, a very good cop. I didn’t have any sustained personnel complaints. My rating reports were always “outstanding.” The law-abiding citizens by and large trusted me when they saw me. My liberal education at UCLA had at least partially sensitized me to a world that seemed impossible to understand—a world that scared me just as much as it enticed me with its opportunities for heroism, peer recognition, and self-acceptance. My father had been a war hero and I wanted to know if I was cut from the same cloth.

I was known for being aggressive; eager to embrace danger; a budding, brilliant investigator; and an unmatched report writer. I was a “hard-charger” as they called it in those days. Perhaps the best role model I had as a cop was a black LAPD Captain by the name of Jesse A. Brewer who also taught me about leadership, friendship and loyalty.

I didn’t need to beat up innocent people because the streets where I worked were full of guilty people: robbers, burglars, heroin dealers, wife beaters, rapists, and car thieves. I was on the streets (and not far away) the night the Symbionese Liberation Army were roasted like marshmallows after making the mistake of trying to shoot it out with my brothers in blue. We were all men in those days, no women. I was on the streets for months before and after the time when every LA cop had a fear of making a routine traffic stop and facing an automatic weapon, a rocket launcher, a bomb, or a Molotov cocktail. Tense times.

For several years I averaged between 20 and 30 felony arrests per month—good arrests. Who had time to go after innocent people just because they were black? Also in those days, I also used the word “nigger” about 15 times a day. It was the culture. It was my ignorance. In the 1970s, LAPD reports used the official word Negro to describe African-Americans and before I joined LAPD in 1973 I had seen or talked to only around 20 black people in my whole life: maids, taxi drivers, bellmen—you know “colored people.” I talked like those around me talked. I thought it was cool.

As front-page stories in the Herald Examiner described me in 1981, I was “… a white kid from Orange County in a blue uniform sent to a black ghetto.”

The one thing I could not understand for about fifteen years after that was the maybe half-dozen different black men who had approached me in futility and rage, tearing open their shirts and looking at me with absolute sincerity as they said, “Shoot me. Go ahead, shoot me. I got nothing to lose.” They meant it, and it mattered not at all what the last incident was that had taken place before they snapped with that sublime mix of rage and complete despair. A lifetime of inequalities, social and economic; injustices, past and present; and frustrations, ever present; had pushed those men beyond their breaking point. It took me a while to get to that point, but I got there too, and now I understood something about being black.

Through two decades of 12-Step work, intense spiritual effort and personal therapy I have seen my errors, felt genuine remorse, and made my amends. One of those amends came in 1996 when—in a face-to-face confrontation with a CIA director—I challenged the same government I had once protected for smuggling hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States, where much of it was intentionally routed to the inner cities.

Since then, and on more than one occasion, Black America, and black individuals in America have saved my life. No one rushed to take a bullet for me. No, what was done for me was to give me acceptance, support, friendship, a meal and some soul. You can do a lot with a little bit of soul.

Among all of the African Americans I know—and there are many—Cynthia McKinney stands head and shoulders above the rest. Screw her hairdo; It’s the woman’s mind and heart that need to be considered here.

Flash forward a couple of decades from the late 1970s.

It’s now 2000 and my little newsletter From The Wilderness is steadily growing as we look at issues like US Government covert operations in Colombia, death squads, the global drug trade, the prison-industrial complex, drug money flowing into Al Gore’s presidential campaign, PROMIS software and a then little-known company named Halliburton. My friend Al Giordano of the Narco News Bulletin brought Cynthia McKinney to my attention. I emailed her and she responded almost immediately.

There was an immediate friendship. Cynthia McKinney was the first member of congress I had met (about 15 at the time) who actually seemed to be a human being who actually gave a hoot and who actually comprehended all the government criminality people were talking about. She responded to emails. She took phone calls. She actually cut checks from the Treasury to subscribe to FTW. She bought our videos and reports and…she read them. She handed them out.

She asked questions and didn’t pretend to know everything. She read. She listened. She understood.

And then came 9/11.

There are millions of Americans who still have major unanswered questions about the attacks of September 11th. Some are wives, husbands, and children of the victims. Some, like me, are investigative journalists. Many are just average people who could never swallow the galactic inconsistencies of the government account and who have refused to succumb to pressure for conformity. Cynthia McKinney was the one to ask “What did the Bush administration know and when did it know it?” about the scores of detailed warnings received by the administration in the months before the attacks. Contrary to one account from a black commentator recently, she has never retracted that question.

For that question, she was tarred and feathered in the press. From her long-standing support of Palestinian rights and objections to Israeli strong-arm tactics in the occupied territories emerged a new double-edged motive to remove her from congress at all costs. Cynthia McKinney was an un-American, anti-Semitic supporter of terrorists!

An Oreo black candidate named Denise Majette emerged as lots of money poured from the coffers of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) funded not only a hate campaign against McKinney, but in support of her opponent as well. Illegally, thousands of Republican voters crossed over to vote for the Oreo in the primary while the seat stayed safely Democratic, and all were quietly relieved when Cynthia didn’t even make it to the general election.

Cynthia McKinney will tell you that I and the entire 9/11 movement stayed with her loyally throughout her two-year imposed vacation. And I believe she will tell you that it was in part because we organized fundraisers for her and kept her name out there that she made it back—to everyone’s surprise except ours—in 2004.

Cynthia McKinney had been the only member of congress to ask real questions about 9/11. And she didn’t stop or forget when she got back either. More than that, she continued to do—no matter what—the things that her conscience bade her to do as an African-American woman who is anything but a racist (unless you want to refer to the human race). In hearings she questioned Donald Rumsfeld about the multitude of wargame exercises I had identified in my book Crossing the Rubicon. She asked repeated questions about 9/11 in repeated hearings and no one on the Democratic side backed her up when her questions were brushed aside, ignored and forgotten. She also kept up her support for the rights of the oppressed everywhere and she didn’t change one single note of her sheet music or its cadence.

She held the only hearing on Capitol Hill where investigators, authors, and families questioning the official version of 9/11 had a voice. She invited me, Wayne Madsen and Ray McGovern to act as questioners at that hearing, and she was the only member of congress to sit through that hearing.

She was there for the victims of Katrina and Rita who fled as refugees to Atlanta last fall. She was there to protect black culture and black history through her Tupac bill. She was there for her constituents and for all of the disenfranchised, battered, demoralized, and desperate Americans of all colors who had come to see her as “the politician of last resort.”

PLATE TECTONICS

Almost every armchair pundit (left or right) who has criticized Cynthia McKinney has told only part of her story.

When she was returned to congress, her party, overlooking well-documented procedure with a number of historical precedents, refused to give her back the seniority to which she was entitled. In terms of committee assignments, instead of being a six-term senior member of her committees, she was a freshman. This placed her last on the list of questioners, last in terms of pecking order, last in terms of recognition, and last in terms of agenda setting. She was denied her old spot on the House Foreign Relations committee. She was moved further and further away from the coveted and influential title of “ranking member” that she should have been approaching. Should the House revert back to Democratic control this year she might have even chaired a committee. God forbid!

They did throw the Negro woman McKinney a bone in the form of a nicer office than before (the only place where her true seniority was recognized). “Here bitch, drive this Cadillac and shut up!”

While House Democratic leadership under Nancy Pelosi of California has been brutal to Cynthia McKinney, the treatment afforded her by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) has been equally despicable. Not only did the CBC not fight for McKinney’s legitimate seniority, it also seems that they have taken pleasure in snubbing her. Solidarity my ass.

One anecdote paints the picture pretty clearly.

Last fall, after I had acted as a questioner for two panels sponsored by McKinney at the CBC’s annual convention, I was surprised as she handed me a ticket to the CBC formal banquet. This is a big annual event and I sat just a few tables away from John Kerry. Howard Dean was a few tables past Kerry. More than a thousand people, dressed to the nines, filled a crowded ballroom.

Cynthia was a no-show and it didn’t take long to figure out why. As every black member of Congress was introduced by seniority, starting with the Honorable John Conyers of Michigan, Cynthia McKinney’s name was saved for last. Even the Congressional Black Caucus could not recognize a sister’s seniority and service, not even when it wouldn’t have cost them a thing.

Where was Cynthia during that dinner? She wasn’t there. She was off violating a direct order from Nancy Pelosi not to attend a massive anti-war rally on the Mall. She was standing with Cindy Sheehan. She was giving a speech denouncing the war in Iraq and the Bush administration. She was doing her job. I sat at McKinney’s table next to my ad hoc dinner partner Kathleen Cleaver, weeping over the insult on McKinney. Not once since have I seen Cynthia McKinney even flinch over it.

I have watched Cynthia McKinney quietly and gracefully endure monstrous insults, sleights and provocations that I could never keep silent over. I have watched the world wait for a misplaced burp or worse from her and I have watched her refuse to take the bait on at least fifty occasions.

Are revolutions started because those in revolt rise to offered bait? I think not.

In the case of Cynthia McKinney and the Capitol Hill Police officer, I, like the rest of those reading this story, have not seen what happened. There may be a tape that will surface at some point as we wait to see whether a grand jury will indict her on idiotic charges of assault. I don’t know whether the Capitol Hill Cop was white or black, young or old, a rookie or a veteran. I wish it all hadn’t happened and I’d bet Cynthia feels the same way.

But then again…

THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT OF MY LIFE

In the spring of 2004 as I was arranging a speech and fundraiser for Cynthia McKinney in Los Angeles wherein we visited a small local museum of the civil rights movement. It was only about two miles from where I had once worked. Pictures of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy triggered painful memories for me. As I stood transfixed looking at a picture taken circa 1965 of an LAPD black and white with two helmeted officers wielding batons high above their heads in a street fight with blacks, Cynthia McKinney walked up and stood beside me. Quietly, so that only I could hear she said, “That’s what you used to do when you used to be white.”

Human being.

John Kennedy and even Dwight Eisenhower were forgiven for having affairs. Bill Clinton was forgiven for a dozen crimes. Ronald Reagan was forgiven for everything. Who will dare call it justice when and if Cynthia McKinney is not forgiven and approved of for being real? There is an easy way for most people to avoid reaching their limits and the risk of being embarrassed. The first rule is: don’t do anything risky. Don’t stretch the envelope.

With 2,400 American KIA in Iraq, with the US economy ever-shrinking for the poor and middle classes, with US government corruption reeking like a rotting Elephant in the African sun, with voting rights being violated in a gentrifying and whitening New Orleans, with the crimes of 9/11 not only unsolved but covered up by both Democrats and Republicans, there would seem to be many reasons why the envelope needs to be ripped apart a bit.

I have little hope for it now. All the “just get along” folks seem to be winning the day and my friend Cynthia McKinney has some big choices ahead for her. I and many others will be doing all we can from around the country to get her re-elected again this year if that’s what she asks.

But let me say this clearly: If Cynthia McKinney wants to start a revolution over a cop who touched her, or anything else, I’ll welcome it and I know damn well which side I’ll be on.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Guess he didn't have room for his beloved pie.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0ftD7Y7dCn1mI/340x.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.daylife.com/photo/0ftD7Y7dCn1mI&usg=__pkklKSLi37kzI-vyh3oHYNXbrzk=&h=425&w=340&sz=33&hl=en&start=6&tbnid=tiw8xBS9CFOXFM:&tbnh=126&tbnw=101&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dobama%2Blooks%2Bpie%2Bphoto%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den

LOVE this shot of him. A man, alone with his pie.
Fair enough....notice especially the word FAIR. nm
nm
fair and balanced . . . fair and

balanced . . . we're looking out for YOU . . . we're looking out for the FOLKs . . . fair and balanced . . .


 


whats fair is fair
Truth is, what is good for one is good for the other.  If Palin puts herself out there, she is a target.  But then so is Obama.  The problem is that when you say anything about O people go crazy.  When someone says something about Palin, its just true. 
How many did it take to write this note?
Just wondering.
I know you didn't write it. sm
Another obvious glaring error.  Bill Clinton.  Not on the list. 
They need to write a better bill
This is a mute point now, because the bill was vetoed by the Pres.and for good reason. Why do we have to accept bad bills? This was a poorly written bill, and that's the reason it was vetoed. Why all the vagueness? $83,000 per year is hardly poverty level. If this bill was truly going to help poor kids then write it that way. I don't understand why it has to be so vague. To me it reeks of dishonesty and pork.

Write a good understandable bill...what's the problem with that?
You need to write some more posts
on this board because you really seem to know what you are talking about. Maybe you can explain the popular vote versus the electorial vote to some of the people in posts further up that don't believe thier votes count.
Can't you still write in your vote for someone else?
because they don't like either candidate. Actually, I'm in that boat right now. I don't like either one of them. OTOH, I want to vote because it's my one chance to be "heard," even though I largely agree that the media and politicians have already chosen a president for us (look at Ron Paul--he was able to garner such a large following online where the media couldn't control the people that I think they were actually worried he'd throw a kink in their plan so he was basically shut out in the media). If they weren't trying to control our vote, why else do they shut out any coverage on certain candidates and cover every word said by others? Why wouldn't they just cover all equally and fairly? I'm looking into whether I can still write in a candidate other than the 2 yahoos the current media has chosen for us. Wouldn't it be wild if everyone wrote in someone else and that person won out over both of them? LOL I know, it's a dream, but still, it'd be really cool if that happened and showed the media and politicans of this country that USA is still run BY THE PEOPLE!
What possible write-in candidate has all the necessary
exists, then why were they not nominated?
Maybe he will just write a check... sm

That's what my son used to tell me to do when I told him I didn't have any money.  "Just write a check, Mommy,"     

Levity, people........... LEVITY!!!!


Interestingly, you write:

"Obama is flying on the premise that he is innocent until proven guilty..."


That's what the Constitution you claim to support so much demands:  Innocent until proven guilty (and not a word about "flying on the premise" of same).


I'm just curious.  Once this bogus b/c issue is "officially" revealed as such by the SC, you have promised to let this issue go.


What's next on your list to pound this man into the ground about?  Because it's obvious that you're never going to give him an honest, fair chance to be a good president.  (He hasn't even been sworn in yet.)


So what's the next bogus issue on the agenda that will be raised to continue to try to drag him (and the country) down?


My last question:  Did you complain as vigorously about George W. Bush's blatant contempt for the Constitution that you claim to love so much?


The one who is going to write a book
for our country and how he kept our country safe for the last 7 years from terrorists. He could not state it while he was in office, but now he can write a whole book about him being in office. I felt much more secure with Bush than I will with O as he still scares me.
I was just going to write that. No message
x
I did not the write the post, CNN did.
I am glad Obama succeeded in a human life. Hopefully Obama will succeed in the 2 wars of many and the economy, etc. I am glad the Captain was rescued by the SEALs.
If you do not like what I write, MOVE ON.
Your own words. Stick to it and do as you preach.
My goodness - you'd better write and tell someone
Hardly quite that simple or people way smarter than you or I would have solved it. The studies on the effectiveness of preventive measures, incidentally, study people who DO participate in prevention - not those who don't.
you can write to the network
I did and let them know they should be embarrassed for pimping themselves out for this biased promotion instead of two-sided reporting on an issue and told them one less viewer would be looking to them for any attempt at fair reporting. There is a link on their website to contact them.
Relax, I didn't write it.
It was simply for amusement and speculation, not of scientific value.
The Democrats did not write this book.

A man who calls himself a **Christian conservative** did. He was I believe the #2 man on the **faith-based initiative program.** His name is David Kuo. He is a Republican. I think he will be on 60 minutes tonight. I have seen a couple of recognizable names from the Christian right denounce the white house after hearing some of the things Kuo writes. I am anxious to hear what Kuo himself says.


I am a Christian and I do not feel stiffled at all about voting.


Exactly...well, they did manage to write and get passed...
one piece of legislation...the "reform" bill that was supposed to straighten out Fannie/Freddie...instead was the straw that broke the camel's back...forced them to offer those floating rate mortgages to low and moderate income people and the creditworthiness of said people was not to be an issue. The floating rates went UP, and a bazillion people went into foreclosure, and if the Bush admin had not stepped in and taken over, the economy could very well have collapsed. The "reform" bill, plus the crooked Dems at the top of Fannie/Freddie, just about did us in this time. Other than that piece of legislation, they have not done a blessed thing in the year they have been in charge. That is why their approval rating is in the tank.
Not voting for Obama either. Will write someone in instead. nm

//


Well, then explain to us how voting for a write-in
Nobody ever agrees completely with ANY candidates full agenda. You pretty much have to look for the main ideas that matter to you most, at that particular point in history. Sometimes you have to vote for those, and let other principles ride for a while. Not easy, and I HATE letting anything slide in order to vote for what is a more pressing issue to me. But the 'perfect candidate' has not, does not, and never will exist. So we've gotta do the best we can with what we've got to work with.
Boy, that never gets old. Never. You should write Osamabama's speeches.
nm
Don't worry, I'll still write. nm
x
I can't write too fast anymore, but here's what I did get

1. Fiscal Stimulus Plan: Before or after inauguration (sp). Wants to get it moving quickly, but if he has to wait until January 20, so be it, but states he will try during these couple months to push one through now.


2. Retooling assistance plan for automakers for fuel-effieicnt cars. He realizes that the auto industry employs thousands and other companies depend on the auto industry for their jobs. Wants this package done quickly.


3. Review implementaion of plans and not rewarding management for housing problems that are caused.


4. Grow middle class in the long term.


Reporters asked questions but couldn't get them all.


1. He wants to help the states financially.


2. As to going to other countries for conferences: He is developing a team and weighing all his options. Iran's nuclear weapons are unacceptable along with the militants. This has to cease. It's not something he can do in a knee-jerk fashion and wants to be careful (not to p--s them off).


3. Tax plan: 95% of WORKING Americans will get it. His first goal is tax relief for struggling families and to build the economy from the bottom up.


That's all I could get.


Hillary can write another book
And her debt will be wiped clean or pretty near to it. She just is greedy and wants everyone to pay for her expenses. Her and Bill make enough money to wipe out their (or her) debt.

This is ridiculous that the DNC is asking people to give for them. We're already going to be paying a ton for the bail outs they gave a few weeks ago.
M, did u write the post Vie is referring to?

just wondering


i didn't write that - shows what you don't know
x
Ayers doesn't regret the bombings, doesn't feel like they did enough sm

In a story that appeared in the Times on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Ayers told a reporter while promoting his memoir "Fugitive Days": "I don't regret setting bombs...I feel we didn't do enough."


Mr. Ayers, now a professor of education in Chicago, was a founder of the Weather Underground, which bombed government buildings in the early 1970s. He was indicted on conspiracy charges that were thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct.


He served with Mr. Obama on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a charitable organization, and, along with his wife, the former Weather Underground member Bernardine Dohrn, hosted Mr. Obama at his home in 1995 when he was running for state office.


Mr. Obama has called Mr. Ayers "somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old."...so because it was 40 years ago, and Ayers is still proud of what he did, how is it justifiable for a US presidential candidate to now be friends with this man?  Unless he has the same view of America.


Question: When repubs. speak (or write), why is every
.
So tired of reading you write McClain....nm
x
If Ron Paul endorses him I'll write him in - nm
.
Boy Wonder didn't READ the bill, let alone write it!
##
Huffington post? Not credible on anything they write
You should know better.
You write/fax/call your state senators over and over and over
--
Let me rephrase that. It doesn't *seem like* my vote doesn't count...sm
It does not count because its in the bag that our 3 electoral votes will go to the republican party.
um tara, she didn't write the article (piglet)...sm
what is up with you?  Take your nasty pill today?  As a newbie to this particular board (liberals) - I'm offended to read your waste-of-bandwidth attacks/reactions.  Hope the rest of the year 2008 is better for you than the first couple of days appear to be. 
David Ogden - please write or call your reps
Obama has picked a man called David Ogden to be deputy Attorney-General. Ogden has made his legal career from representing pornographers, trying to defeat child protection legislation and undermining family values.  As reported this week, he once represented a group of library directors arguing against the Children's Internet Protection Act, which ordered libraries and schools receiving funding for the Internet to restrict access to obscene sites. And on behalf of several media groups, he successfully argued against a child pornography law that required publishers to verify and document the age of their models, which would have ensured these models were at least 18. 

The Family Research Council has more examples of his contribution to upholding American and western values. In one such case, he expressed the view that abortion was less damaging to a woman than having children:



In sum, it is grossly misleading to tell a woman that abortion imposes possible detrimental psychological effects when the risks are negligible in most cases, when the evidence shows that she is more likely to experience feelings of relief and happiness, and when child-birth and child-rearing or adoption may pose concomitant (if not greater) risks or adverse psychological effects ...


In another, co-authored brief, he argued that it was an unconstitutional burden on 14-year old girls seeking an abortion for their parents to be notified -- because there was no difference between adults and mid-teens in their ability to grasp all the implications of such a decision:



There is no question that the right to secure an abortion is fundamental. By any objective standard, therefore, the decision to abort is one that a reasonable person, including a reasonable adolescent, could make. [E]mpirical studies have found few differences between minors aged 14-18 and adults in their understanding of information and their ability to think of options and consequences when asked to consider treatment-related decisions. These unvarying and highly significant findings indicate that with respect to the capacity to understand and reason logically, there is no qualitative or quantitative difference between minors in mid-adolescence, i.e., about 14-15 years of age, and adults.


But the President didn't write the stimulus bill.
So how is it meant to be him?
being fair?
What is fair when someone talks about aborting a whole race?  What has Maher to do with it?  I know for a fact if I had said something like Bennett said, I would not have my job or some friends and my family certainly would not be proud of me.  OMG, the thought of killing off a whole race to me is pretty serious and I equate it to Hitler wanting to kill off certain types of people.  To even try to defend Bennetts words makes me shake my head..Why would anyone want to defend his vile nasty comments?  The guy has proven he is a jerk. 
That's not fair...sm
I remember at least twice the topic of the Israel/Lebanon coming up, but I'll give you that it has not been discussed a lot.

See my post about WWIII. I also remember posting that I wanted to wait to see how our government reacts.