I gotta wonder how long that "right of conscience..."

• Bush approves auto bailout........ sm - m
  • I didn't see his speech - gourdpainter
    • What I heard was ....(sm) - Just the big bad
      • I gotta wonder how long that "right of conscience..." - Marmann
      • Where did you "haer" that? sm - m
        • Answer...(sm) - Just the big bad
          • I'll look at your links a little later..... sm - m
    • Don't be so quick to bash Bush.... sm - m
      • Thank you. I am sick of the Bush bashing too. Oh, - and UNIONS do need to take a cut!.nm
        • By all means give the union workers a pay cut S/M - gourdpainter
          • I probably am a "lucky one" who makes more... - Kendra
            • Okay, let''s be fair about it s/m - gourdpainter
              • I doubt it... - Kendra
                • Why no, I''m not having a bad day - gourdpainter
                  • I'm sure it's obscene... - Kendra
                    • It sounds like you've found an - gourdpainter
                      • we pick up new accounts all the time... - Kendra
          • There is a huge difference.......... sm - m
            • I'm sorry - gourdpainter
          • what does BDD mean? nm - cj
    • Bush's Speech - Gimme A Break

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    Friday 18 November 2005

    Washington - The Republican-controlled Congress helped itself to a $3,100 pay raise on Friday, then postponed work on bills to curb spending on social programs and cut taxes in favor of a two-week vacation.

    In the final hours of a tumultuous week in the Capitol, Democrats erupted in fury when House GOP leaders maneuvered toward a politically-charged vote - and swift rejection - of one war critic's call for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. You guys are pathetic, pathetic, Massachusetts Rep. Martin Meehan yelled across a noisy hall at Republicans.

    On another major issue, a renewal of the Patriot Act remained in limbo as an unlikely coalition of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans sought curbs on the powers given law enforcement in the troubled first days after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

    Both the House and Senate were in session after midnight Thursday, working on the tax and deficit-cutting bills at the heart of the GOP agenda, before returning to work a few hours later.

    What it does is start to turn down the escalating costs ... for our children and our grandchildren. One of the things that we cannot leave to that next generation is a huge deficit that they can't afford, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said after enactment of a $50 billion deficit-reduction bill.

    Democrats dissented, with one eye on the 2006 elections.

    The Republicans are taking food out of the mouths of children to give tax cuts to America's wealthiest. This is not a statement of America's values, said the Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California. Democrats believe that together, America can do better, she said, invoking the party's new campaign slogan.

    The cost-of-living increase for members of Congress - which will put pay for the rank and file at an estimated $165,200 a year - marked a brief truce in the pitched political battles that have flared in recent weeks on the war and domestic issues.

    So much so that the issue was not mentioned on the floor of either the House or Senate as lawmakers worked on legislation whose passage will assure bigger paychecks.

    Lawmakers automatically receive a cost of living increase each year, unless Congress votes to block it. By tradition, critics have tried to block increases by attaching a provision to the legislation that provides funding for the Treasury Department. One such attempt succeeded in the Senate earlier in the year, but the provision was omitted from the compromise measure moved toward final approval.

    The overall bill provided $140 billion for transportation, housing and other programs. It cleared the House on a vote of 392-31. Senate passage was by voice vote.

    Pay raise harmony aside, Republicans spent the day celebrating a party-line, post-midnight vote in which the House cleared legislation to reduce deficits by $50 billion over five years. The vote was 217-215, with all the Democrats who voted in opposition, along with 14 GOP rebels.

    Acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt of Missouri said Republicans would make their tax cut bill the top item on the agenda when lawmakers return to the Capitol in December.

    The House-passed measure attacks deficits by limiting spending for the first time in a decade on Medicaid, food stamps, student loans and other benefit programs that normally rise with inflation and eligibility.

    The House GOP leadership had hoped to clear the measure a week ago. It was forced to retreat when Republican moderates rebelled, even after Hastert agreed to strip out a controversial proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

    The Senate-passed companion measure calls for less deficit reduction, $35 billion over five years, but includes the ANWR provision.

    The differences are expected to make it difficult for the House and Senate to reach a compromise by year's end, particularly since Republicans can't count on any Democratic support.

    The tax bill presents difficulties of its own for a GOP majority struggling to translate last fall's election gains into this year's legislative achievements.

    The Senate cleared a measure after 1:30 a.m. that calls for $60 billion in cuts over five years.

    The measure drew bipartisan support, passing on a vote of 64-33. Its provisions would continue a series of existing tax breaks that otherwise will expire, and shelters 14 million upper middle-income families from higher taxes.

    The White House has threatened a veto, citing a provision that raises taxes on oil companies.

    The House has yet to pass a companion measure. When it does, the tax on oil companies is unlikely to be included, and it is likely to be jettisoned before a compromise measure reaches the White House.

    Hastert said Republicans want to make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan ... a lot of people say: Look, this is a tough time, we just ought to pull out and leave. We pull out and leave, we strand an effort to make sure that we can tamp down terrorism, to tamp down a dictatorship, that we can stabilize an area in the Middle East, he added.

    GOP aides conceded the last-minute maneuver was designed to put Democrats in a political squeeze - voting for withdrawal and exposing themselves to attacks from the White House, or voting against it and risk angering the voters that polls show want an end to the conflict.

    Democrats angrily attacked the GOP move, then lined up with Republicans to vote against a troop withdrawal in hopes of draining the issue of its political significance. The vote was 403-3 against the measure.

    Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., called the measure a piece of garbage and an attack on Rep. John Murtha. The Pennsylvania Democrat, a decorated veteran and respected congressional voice on military matters, said Thursday it was time for the troops to come home.

    House and Senate negotiators announced a tentative agreement earlier in the week to pass a seven-year extension of the Patriot Act. Key senators lawmakers involved in the talks balked at the terms, and officials said they would resume compromise efforts when Congress returns to work in December.

  -------

we should have stayed out of Irag and minded our own business.I think we need to work on cleaning up America before we start on other countries.   I don't like the fact that innocent men, wome and children were and are being killed.  I stated that he is the lesser of 2 evils and I am following my conscience. 

....what happens if millions of us default on our mortgates?  Will the lenders foreclose on all of us?  Foreclosure is a lengthy and expensive process, potentially ending in an eviction of you refuse to go quietly.  What  will they then do with all the houses and nobody to buy them?  We all know how quickly vacant buildings deteriorate. Will we have suburban ghost towns? 

Same with car payments.  If we have mass defaults on car loans, how with the lenders handle all the repo's that will generate?  What will they do with millions of repossessed cars?

What happens if millions of us can't pay our taxes?  Doesn't have to be a formal tax strike.  A lot of us who are ICs don't have taxes withheld.  What if the self-employed cannot afford to send the quarterly payments?  How many audits and prosecutions can the IRS handle?  What  will they do with those who are convicted of tax evasion?  Will they have to let thousands of murderers and rapists out of the overcrowded prisons in order to put us in, to send a message?  Will they be fighting with the banks over who gets first dibs on any assets left over after the house, the car and the big-screen TV are taken? 

grow a humor gland.  In many people, this is located next to the smart gland.)

...wasting our breath on these people.  When journalists give one another awards for agreeing with each other, is that really the measure of journalistic integrity?  Or just one hand washing the other?  That a conservative journalist occasionally gets such an award is probably just to avoid the perception that the liberals are rigging the game. 

'Killing our boys was aggression.'   I guess you're just supposed to pay them the money and let them keep pirating.  Nobody was ever supposed to fight back. 

And, as they have threatened to 'deal harshly' with any US or French sailors they capture in the future, is there any reason why now we should not simply hunt down and blast each and every one of them out of the water?  None that I can think of.  I think they just declared war on us. 

He questions "whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good," and then he turns around and marries a LAWYER!

This isn't surprising to me at all.  Bush's is doing nothing but taking us backwards in time, whether it regards science or civil rights.  The only area that is moving forward by leaps and bounds and progressing at an alarming rate is the price of gasoline.

for picking an appropriate name for herself.

would you have been as angry and demanding that the will of the people be ignored if McCain had won the election?

And where is your outrage over Bush's complete lack of regard and respect for the Constitution over the last eight years?

This whole thing about Obama is ridiculous.  If it were true, don't you think the Republicans would have had a field day with that as an issue?

This is the highest office in the land.  Of course, Obama was vetted and found to be eligible to hold that office.

This is getting ridiculous.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iVg2jiaBA1jwVfCdsisXI0FbZD0AD965BKCG0

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29030191/