Thanks for keeping the facts straight - NM

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That's one step in the right direction. I hope he doesn't mean CREATE some facts.  

If this is true though, it is cheap for the US to be involved with this company.  Same thing though with the United Arab Emirites and their child camel jockeys (see link).  

Obama said he would withdraw troops from IRAQ and add troops to AFGHANISTAN.  Those would be 2 different wars.  We aren't at war with "the middle east."

Obama said he would not punish his daughters if they made a mistake with "a baby".  He did not say a pregnancy, or a fetus.  I heard him say that. 

Also he voted to allow babies that survived an abortion to be left to die, not given any assistance after they were born alive. 

These are the facts.

isn't about any of the things you name.  It comes from inside, a peace of spirit and soul. It needs no outside influence except, in my case, my love for God and his for me.  My glass has always been half full.  And it always will be because He is with me always.

It’s something of a tradition– administrations using their final weeks in power to ram through a slew of federal regulations. With the election grabbing the headlines, outgoing federal bureaucrats quietly propose and finalize rules that can affect the health and safety of millions.

The Bush administration has followed this tradition and expanded it. Up to 90 proposed regulations could be finalized before President George W. Bush leaves office Jan. 20. If adopted, these rules could weaken workplace safety protections, allow local police to spy in the “war on terror” and make it easier for federal agencies to ignore the Endangered Species Act.

What’s more, the administration has accelerated the rule-making process to ensure that the changes it wants will be finalized by Nov. 22.

That’s a key date, Nov. 22. It is 60 days before the next administration takes control — and most federal rules go into effect 60 days after they have been finalized. It would be a major bureaucratic undertaking for the Obama administration to reverse federal rules already in effect.

“The Bush administration has thought through last-minute regulations much more than past administrations,” said Rick Melberth, director of OMB Watch, a nonprofit group that tracks federal regulations. “They’ve said, ‘Let’s not only get them finalized; let’s get them in effect.’”

So what are the new rules?

The Washington Independent has highlighted five regulations notable for their potential effect and the way they slipped through the regulatory process. Four could to be finalized by Nov. 22. One was already — on Election Day.

1) The Dept. of Labor proposed a regulation Aug. 30 that changes how workplace safety standards are met. Labor experts contend that the administration, which previously issued only one new workplace safety standard and that under court order, is trying to make it a bureaucratic nightmare for future administrations to make workplace safety rules.

Here’s what it would do:

Currently, if the Occupational Safety and Health Admin. or the Mine Health and Safety Admin. want to introduce a new safety standard on, say, the level of exposure to toxic chemicals, it issues what is called a notice of proposed rule-making. This notice is published in the Federal Register and then debated by labor, business and relevant federal agencies.

The new regulation would add an “advanced notice of proposed rule-making,” meaning OSHA and MSHA would have prove that, say, the said chemical was seriously harming workers.

This would open the door for industry to challenge the validity of the risk assessment and then, if necessary, the actual safety standard that may come from that risk assessment.

“The purpose of this sort of rule is to require agencies to spend more time on a regulation which gives them less of a chance to actually regulate,” said David Michaels, a professor of workplace safety at George Washington University, “You’re adding at least a year, maybe two years, to the process.”

The regulation has not been finalized.

2) The administration proposed a rule that changes the employer-employee relationship laid out in the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act.

Here’s what it would do:

The Family and Medical Leave Act says that employers must give their workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave if they are sick or need to take care of a family member or newborn. The employer’s health-care staff can check the legitimacy of the family or medical leave claim with the employee’s doctor or health-care provider.

The proposed regulation would allow the employer to directly speak with the employee’s doctor or health-care provider. The employer could also ask employees to provide more medical documentation of their conditions.

Why such a rule — which may threaten an employee’s privacy– is needed is unclear. The only study the Labor Dept. has done on the act was in 2000. The department collected comments from employers before issuing the proposed regulation, but a report analyzing the comments was never issued.

The regulation also would gives employees the right to waive their rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act, making it the first national labor law to be optional. A worker, for instance, cannot waive his right to earn a minimum wage or get paid more for overtime.

The regulation was finalized on Election Day.

3) The Dept. of Health and Human Services proposed a rule Sept. 26 that would expand the reasons that physicians or health care entities could decline to provide any procedure to include moral and religious grounds. The language of the regulation says the department hopes to correct “an attitude toward the health-care profession that health-care professionals and institutions should be required to provide or assist in the provision of medicine or procedures to which they object, or else risk being subjected to discrimination.”

Here’s what it would do:

The rule change seems to apply to abortion. But they are already several rules that say physicians or health-care entities can deny an abortion request. Some women’s health advocates contend that the proposed regulation’s broad language is meant to increase the number of physicians who not only don’t provide abortions but don’t provide contraception.

“Contraception is certainly the target of this rule,” contends Marylin Keefe, director for Reproductive Health at the National Partnership for Women and Families. “The moral and religious objections of health-care workers are now starting to take precedence over patients.”

The regulation is notable for another reason. A rule involving an employee’s religious rights must be referred to the Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission, yet the commission was never told of this proposed regulation.

A bureaucratic battled erupted when EEOC’s legal counsel, Reed Russell, wrote a regulation comment (pdf) blasting both the substance of the proposed rule and its disregard for the rule-making process.

The regulation has not been finalized.

4) On July 31, the Justice Dept. proposed a regulation that would allow state and local law enforcement agencies to collect “intelligence” information on individuals and organizations even if the information is unrelated to a criminal matter.

“This is a continuum that started back on 9/11 to reform law enforcement and the intelligence community to focus on the terrorism threat,” said Bush homeland security adviser Kenneth L. Wainstein in a statement.

Critics say it could infringe on civil liberties.

Here’s what it would do:

“It expands local law enforcement’s ability to investigate criminal activity that it deems suspicious,” said Melberth of OMB Watch. “But what’s suspicious to you may not be suspicious to me. They could be investigating community organizations they think are two or three steps away from a terrorist group.”

The regulation has not been finalized.

5) Before a federal agency approves any construction project– anything from building a dam to a post office — government officials must consult the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. These two agencies enforce the Endangered Species Act, and they can veto any project that adversely affects an animal on the endangered species list.

Here’s what it would do:

A regulation proposed by the Interior Dept. Aug. 12 would end this approval process. “It destroys a system of checks and balances that have been in place for two decades,” claimed Bob Davison, senior scientist at Defenders of the Wildlife. “[A federal agency] wants to go forward with a project that [it wants] to do. So you need an independent agency to look at the decision.”

Davison is not the only conservation advocate up in arms. The Interior Dept. has received 200,000 public comments, which may affect the final rule.

Or not — the department shortened the comment period from 60 to 30 days in its effort to get the regulation finalized.

In May, White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten vowed that the administration would propose no regulations after June 1. He and White House spokesman Tony Fratto have repeatedly stated their contempt for what they call “midnight regulations.”

Yet with the exception of the Family and Medical Leave changes, each of these regulations were proposed after June 1. And if finalized, they will effect worker’s safety, women’s health-care choices, local police powers and endangered species.

“It was a pretty resounding election,” said Keefe of the National Partnership for Women and Families. “But this administration acts like it still has a mandate.”

Nope, let's spend a few million and buy new furniture for homeland security and a few million more to buy hybrids for congress. 

Can they not deduce that keeping corporate America from offshoring jobs will actually create more jobs, thereby lower the unemployment rate, and put more money in American's pocket for them to spend?  Cut all tax cuts given to companies for offshoring and give the tax cuts to companies to strive to keep jobs in America?

And here's another V8 moment -- how about we buy American?  Maybe increase tariffs on imported goods to discourage American companies from importing so much crapy and thereby necessitating said crap be sold at higher prices in an effort to discourage Americans from buying imports? 

The ONLY way to help the American economy is to employ Americans and buy American!  It's that simple!

http://www.usflag.org/history/pledgeofallegiance.html

The original Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands- one nation indivisible-with liberty and justice for all.

If Bush changes his mind it's flip-flopping but if a Democrat and/or liberal does it he/she's just exercising his right to change their mind.

I just love pointing out blatant double standards which their seems to be a lot of in the liberal ideology.

What you fail to realize is that what is going on Washington right now is politics as usual on both sides.  Both sides are playing the game to some extent.  The liberals are just realllly bad at it.

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic,
different."
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers,  a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barrack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard Law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first
black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive
that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law
professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with more
than 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human
Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a
state of  13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the
Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs
committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl,  4 years on the city council
and 6 years as the mayor of a town with fewer than 7,000 people, 20 months as
the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to
become the country's second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2
beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real
Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your
disabled wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the
proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other
option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen
daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a
prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community,
then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
* If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude," with at least one DWI conviction
and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once
 was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the
USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, got it! It is sooo much clearer now

I'm a McCain supporter in this election and I will be voting for him.  Having said that, I don't think either candidates are perfect and I'm not sure McCain's economics plans will actually benefit this country right away, but I do know that Obama's economic plan will make our situation worse.  That is the main reason I'm not voting for him.  Taxing companies more will lose jobs...not create them.  Raising taxes during an economic crisis leads to worse economic crisis....just look at what Hoover did.  He raised taxes during a recession and it started the Great Depression.  FDR started several goverment assisted programs to help and they actually extended the duration of the great depression.  Obama wants to raise taxes and wants to institute new government assisted programs.

As for the allegations of him being born outside of the country....who knows.  He claims he was born in Hawaii and if that is the case, show your birth certificate and be done with it.  If you have nothing to hide, show it.  Ya know.  I feel that there have been many things that Obama has not been outright and honest about.  If any other politician had the associations and the history as Obama has had.....their political career would be in the gutter.  I do not understand this love affair the media has with Obama.

I do not trust Obama and let me reiterate that this is not a race thing.  I don't think John McCain is a saint and I do know that all politicians lie to get elected but I just feel like John McCain has served this country all of his life and I would feel more comfortable with him in the oval office than a man we hardly know, who won't answer questions honestly about himself or his associations, and has very little experience. 

into poverty, but you don't want the money it takes to care for these children to come out of your pocket????  Am I on the mark? 

I guess this is another so-called way to sling mud at Obama.  The rich republicans can't have it both ways.  You either care for the unborn (welfare for their mothers) or you allow the mother the choice...  Which is it?

Not all abortions are a form of birth control, ya' know.  I knew a very religious lady that aborted her child due to hydrocephalus.  The child would been born deformed/a vegetable.  This would have put this lady at high risk.  She prayed about it and soon after aborted the child.  She had to live with that. 

Not all situations are the same.  Furthermore, you can't force your child to have a baby or to have an abortion.  Either way, it's her body.

If the cartoon doesn't offend me, I am racist. If I didn't vote for Obama, I am racist. If I am not up in arms about something as silly as a political cartoon, I am racist. I have never dated or been married to a black man, does that make me racist? There are no black people who live in my community (it is very small), does that make us all racists? I do have several black friends, do I get a free pass for that? I go to movies that feature black actors, is that okay? I like to listen to the Motown channel on Sirius radio, is that okay? Oh, I like Whoopi Goldberg, Halle Berry, and I even think Michelle Obama is fairly attractive, do I get a free pass for that too? Oh, but I don't like Oprah, so that makes me a racist, right?

This argument is old as the hills and will never go away. To each his own, don't obsess about it.

You think I'm a hypocrit because you knew a flamboyant homosexual when you were growing up?  That almost made sense....

Tell me, if you meet a homosexual and you don't approve of his/her mannerisms, does that give you the right to attack him?  What happens if someone doesn't approve of your mannerisms?