These are the 16 countries in the Middle East...s/m

• Obama sends more troops to the middle east - icytoes
  • are we getting enough war in our diet? - mk
  • Iraq is a Middle Eastern country, Afghanistan NOT..sm - van
    • Obama on his decision to deploy additional 17,000 troops in Afghanistan..sm - van
    • Thank you van - and thank you for being civil - icytoes
      • Every one makes mistakes, it is enough - van
  • Please try to keep the facts straight...(sm) - Just the big bad
    • Don't waste your time, JBB - Reality Check
    • It's deceiving - icytoes
      • Obama/Afghanistan - they say will stay in America instead
      • And Africa is a Continent! nm - sm
        • What are you talking about - what does Africa have to do with any of this - icytoes
          • I think what 'sm' meant when she said... - van
      • Despite your attempt at spin - Afghan and Iraq are 2 different wars.....nm - sm
        • Actually, it was my understanding that both arenas represent the - SM
          • Afghanistan - war on Al Quaeda and Taliban; Iraqi FREEDOM - kill Saddam Hussein - sm
        • What spin - these are my thoughts - icytoes
          • Trying to lump the 2 wars into one and call Obama a liar is S-P-I-N - sm
            • Right, Obama said already during his campaign that - van
              • Correct - icytoes
            • Jeez - is JTBB the only civil person on this board - icytoes
              • No worries, icytoes. - Zville MT
                • Thanks Zville MT - icytoes
              • These are the 16 countries in the Middle East...s/m - van
              • Well..........your comments speak for themselves........ - sm
      • I think maybe the word you were looking for...(sm) - Just the big bad
        • You are correct - confusing - icytoes
          • And where do these "fresh" soldiers exist? Appalachia? - sm
            • Stop attacking me!!!!! - and JTBB answered my question - icytoes
              • No one is attacking you, they are correcting you. - Miss Take
                • No, they are attacking - icytoes
                  • and you know lots of people DID NOT vote for him because he's black - - Amanda Howard
                  • Apparently... - Miss Take
                  • LOL! and they vote! nm - talking to the wall
                    • Thanks - I needed a laugh (no message) - icytoes
          • From what I understand....(sm) - Just the big bad
            • Ha Ha Ha on the Maddow reporter - icytoes
      • It looks as though you weren't really paying attention... - sm

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Did Bush campaign promising a freedom agenda in the Middle East?  I must have missed that during the debates.  In fact, he specifically said he was against nation building when he debated Gore, although in all fairness, he didn't say he was against nation wrecking.

I guess he doesn't understand that the decider created more suiciders than he got rid of.

I can't wait to see how his base spins the long awaited truth from Bush's own lips that there were no WMDs and that Iraq had no ties to 9/11.

May God help us all.

Has anyone else noticed what's going on in the middle east with elections?  I don't think I would credit all this to just Obama's speech in Cairo, but my guess is that his example (and ours by electing him) has been noticed around the world.

The "pro-Western coalition" won in Lebanon, beating out Hezbollah.

"The leader of the largest bloc in the pro-Western coalition, Saad Hariri, said early Monday in a televised speech that he extends his hand to the losing side "to work together and seriously for the sake of Lebanon." He urged supporters to celebrate without provoking opponents."  (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/07/lebanon-election-results-_n_212359.html)

And how about Iran?  Check this out.  This looks familiar.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/31210578#31210578

Maybe there's something to be said for extending a hand of peace instead of pointing a rifle. 

Israel needs the help of no one.  They will always prevail because they are backed by God -- the one true God.  All those who come against the people of Israel will suffer loss.  It is not out of fear that Israel arms itself, it is out of a deep understanding of their past, present, and future revealed to them by God.  Israel is loved by God and hated by their muslim neighbors because of that fact. 

There is no Palestine.  As I said before, the palestinians are squatters.  Claiming a land that never belong to them and never will be promised to them.  Their name is not on the lease! 

Article Launched: 6/16/2006 12:00 AM

Bush declines to meet with border officials

Sara A. Carter, Staff Writer

San Bernardino County Sun

President Bush has refused to meet with border law-enforcement officials from Texas for a second time. His response to their request came in the form of a letter Monday, angering both lawmakers and sheriffs.

In fact, some Republican members of the House, upset by what they call the administration's seeming lack of concern for border security, are preparing to hold investigative hearings in San Diego and Laredo, Texas, early next month.

Members of the House Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation hope to expose serious security flaws that could potentially lead to terrorist attacks in the country, said Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, who is a member of the panel and has pushed for the hearings.

The next terrorist is not going to come in through (Transportation Security Administration) screening at Kennedy airport, Poe said. We already have information that people from the Middle East have come through the border from Mexico. They assimilate in Mexico learning to speak Spanish and adopt customs and then they cross the border into the United States.

Poe requested the meeting for members of the Southwestern Sheriffs' Border Coalition a group that includes all 26 border-county sheriffs from California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. The sheriffs wanted to speak to the president about the increasing dangers in their communities and along the border.

The president is the busiest man in the world but he needs to take the time to talk to the border sheriffs and learn what's happening in the real world from them, Poe said. We can't understand why he refuses to meet with them.

In May, all of the Republican House members from Texas traveled to Washington to meet the president regarding border security. Bush did not meet with them, however, and former White House spokesman Scott McClellan was sent in his stead.

Poe said the White House letter dated Monday showed the disconnect between the administration and the American people who want the border secured.

The president would appreciate the opportunity to visit with border sheriffs, said the White House letter written by La Rhonda M. Houston, deputy director of the Office of Appointments and Scheduling. Regrettably, it will not be possible for us to arrange such a meeting. I know that you understand with the tremendous demands of the president's time, he must often miss special opportunities, as is the case this time.

Rick Glancey, spokesman for the sheriffs coalition, said its members are angry and disappointed in the president's response. Glancey said Bush's recent tour of the border with Border Patrol spokesmen did not reflect the reality of what locals live with every day.

It's a slap in the face to the hardworking men and women on the front lines of rural America who every day engage in border-security issues, Glancey said. He missed the opportunity to take off his White House cowboy boots and put some real cowboy boots on and walk in our shoes for a few minutes.

The border hearings will expose the truth to the American public and force the administration to take a serious look at the border, said Allan Knapp, Poe's legislative director.

Knapp and Poe have traveled twice to the border this year, spending time along barren stretches where they witnessed no security and numerous migrants crossing into the United States, they said.

We need to expose the lack of border security before it is too late, Poe said. We're fighting a war on terror in Iraq and we're winning, but we're losing our own border war. These hearings will be a necessary step in the right direction.

Andy Ramirez, chairman of the Chino-based Friends of the Border Patrol, said he has been called to testify before the panel in San Diego. Ramirez said he has turned in two years of Border Patrol documents and memos, which he will discuss before the committee.

The president has basically pushed his whole administration's agenda toward the war on terror, yet he can't find the time to meet with law-enforcement leaders responsible for border security, Ramirez said. It is appalling and outrageous that the war on terror and border security does not extend to the U.S. border.

have worse torture methods....that makes it okay for us to torture?  Yeah....that almost made sense.  So much for morality, holding ourselves to higher standards, being civilized....but hey, we're Americans, so it must be okay for US to do it. 

Communist, socialist, fascist?  No.....more like honest and a realist.  I love my country, but I am not so blinded by patriotism that I can't see our faults.

taking in the "safe" detainees...the ones that charges were dropped, etc. What is left will be the dangerous ones and guess who's country is going to be stuck with them?

O better get a good plan for the dangerous ones and he better NOT bring them into our country. I don't care what anyone says, they don't deserve to be in our country and having the same rights as citizens at trial.

They starve, cut off fingers, hands, pull nails out, burn private parts, and decapitate prisoners in other countries.  Why do you call other people with their comments "nimrods?"

If you want to torture to stop, why don't you go to those countries and fight against their torture? No...you'd rather call the American people nimrods. What is it with you? You used to have thoughtful posts, but now all you do is spew hate for Americans that do not support your views.

You are becoming anti-American IMHO and its sad that you could let the present government blind you to everything. You're either a socialist, facist, or a communist without announcing it up front. You have absolutely made me furious with your one-sided posts since the election. I try not to read them, but sometimes I do get a good laugh at your outrageous statements.

I'm not voting for Hillary but....

know that it scares the heck outta me and others, Obama.......his middle name is hussein.....

one of the bibles say something to the effect of when the *stuff* happens (the bad stuff) - it's going to happen from the *inside out* -

but glad you are ALL so trusting.......i trust nobody 100%. 

i cannot stand ALL of these candidates this time around......

JMHO - no flames please

Then my income will just push us into that bracket.  I wonder if that will negate my entire income?  If so, I guess we may be better off if I just quit? Right now I work because I can't afford to quit.  I won't be able to afford it then either so what will I do?  I wonder how many others will be in my situation? 

FYI, we live in a small older home that we are trying to pay off so that when our two children are college-age, maybe we can afford it. We don't live extravagently by any means.  What will happen to people like us?

Just call it something besides a tax.

Who Pays for Cap and Trade?

Hint: They were promised a tax cut during the Obama campaign.Article

Cap and trade is the tax that dare not speak its name, and Democrats are hoping in particular that no one notices who would pay for their climate ambitions. With President Obama depending on vast new carbon revenues in his budget and Congress promising a bill by May, perhaps Americans would like to know the deeply unequal ways that climate costs would be distributed across regions and income groups.

Politicians love cap and trade because they can claim to be taxing "polluters," not workers. Hardly. Once the government creates a scarce new commodity -- in this case the right to emit carbon -- and then mandates that businesses buy it, the costs would inevitably be passed on to all consumers in the form of higher prices. Stating the obvious, Peter Orszag -- now Mr. Obama's budget director -- told Congress last year that "Those price increases are essential to the success of a cap-and-trade program."

Hit hardest would be the "95% of working families" Mr. Obama keeps mentioning, usually omitting that his no-new-taxes pledge comes with the caveat "unless you use energy." Putting a price on carbon is regressive by definition because poor and middle-income households spend more of their paychecks on things like gas to drive to work, groceries or home heating.

The Congressional Budget Office -- Mr. Orszag's former roost -- estimates that the price hikes from a 15% cut in emissions would cost the average household in the bottom-income quintile about 3.3% of its after-tax income every year. That's about $680, not including the costs of reduced employment and output. The three middle quintiles would see their paychecks cut between $880 and $1,500, or 2.9% to 2.7% of income. The rich would pay 1.7%. Cap and trade is the ideal policy for every Beltway analyst who thinks the tax code is too progressive (all five of them).

But the greatest inequities are geographic and would be imposed on the parts of the U.S. that rely most on manufacturing or fossil fuels -- particularly coal, which generates most power in the Midwest, Southern and Plains states. It's no coincidence that the liberals most invested in cap and trade -- Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman, Ed Markey -- come from California or the Northeast.

Coal provides more than half of U.S. electricity, and 25 states get more than 50% of their electricity from conventional coal-fired generation. In Ohio, it totals 86%, according to the Energy Information Administration. Ratepayers in Indiana (94%), Missouri (85%), New Mexico (80%), Pennsylvania (56%), West Virginia (98%) and Wyoming (95%) are going to get soaked.

Another way to think about it is in terms of per capita greenhouse-gas emissions. California is the No. 2 carbon emitter in the country but also has a large economy and population. So the average Californian only had a carbon footprint of about 12 tons of CO2-equivalent in 2005, according to the World Resource Institute's Climate Analysis Indicators, which integrates all government data. The situation is very different in Wyoming and North Dakota -- paging Senators Mike Enzi and Kent Conrad -- where every person was responsible for 154 and 95 tons, respectively. See the nearby chart for cap and trade's biggest state winners and losers.

Democrats say they'll allow some of this ocean of new cap-and-trade revenue to trickle back down to the public. In his budget, Mr. Obama wants to recycle $525 billion through the "making work pay" tax credit that goes to many people who don't pay income taxes. But $400 for individuals and $800 for families still doesn't offset carbon's income raid, especially in states with higher carbon use.

All the more so because the Administration is lowballing its cap-and-trade tax estimates. Its stated goal is to reduce emissions 14% below 2005 levels by 2020, which assuming that four-fifths of emissions are covered (excluding agriculture, for instance), works out to about $13 or $14 per ton of CO2. When CBO scored a similar bill last year, it expected prices to start at $23 and rise to $44 by 2018. CBO also projected the total value of the allowances at $902 billion over the first decade, which is some $256 billion more than the Administration's estimate.

We asked the White House budget office for the assumptions behind its revenue estimates, but a spokesman said the Administration doesn't have a formal proposal and will work with Congress and "stakeholders" to shape one. We were also pointed to recent comments by Mr. Orszag that he was "sure there will be enough there to finance the things that we have identified" and maybe "additional money" too. In other words, Mr. Obama expects a much larger tax increase than even he is willing to admit.

Those "stakeholders" are going to need some very large bribes, starting with the regions that stand to lose the most. Led by Michigan's Debbie Stabenow, 15 Senate Democrats have already formed a "gang" demanding that "consumers and workers in all regions of the U.S. are protected from undue hardship." In practice, this would mean corporate welfare for carbon-heavy businesses.

And of course Congress is its own "stakeholder." An economy-wide tax under the cover of saving the environment is the best political moneymaker since the income tax. Obama officials are already telling the press, sotto voce, that climate revenues might fund universal health care and other new social spending. No doubt they would, and when they did Mr. Obama's cap-and-trade rebates would become even smaller.

Cap and trade, in other words, is a scheme to redistribute income and wealth -- but in a very curious way. It takes from the working class and gives to the affluent; takes from Miami, Ohio, and gives to Miami, Florida; and takes from an industrial America that is already struggling and gives to rich Silicon Valley and Wall Street "green tech" investors who know how to leverage the political class.