With the help of a whole bunch of dems...Pelosi, Reid, Franks, Dodds, Obama...

• thought I would share and see the disputes on this... - Emily Ayn
  • If I ever receive an email like that from my employer... - Marmann
  • The poor are making out like bandits! - sm
    • That must be why they're still poor....Geezzz! - nm
    • Dont worry. Obama is going to make this a welfare - country. USA not founded on O's principles!.nm
      • A Prophet! - sm
  • And that hurricane is GWB - sm
    • What a shame for someone's whole - life and world to be
      • How can you presume to know.... - sm
      • Sorry, but I see true patriotism being smothered - by liberalism every day.nm
        • How? - -nm
        • Smothered by ignorance...... - sm
          • Just spewing the same worn out talking - points that don't amount
            • Squat in this context being - none other than the truth. nm
          • You got that right. - nm
    • Umm.. the economy was booming until dems took - over Congress. -fact, I know you hate those.nm
      • Booms aren't made of bubbles. - At least, not on planet earth. jj
        • anf they sure ain't made of bull manure either.. - woofer
      • Booming on paper and speculation.... - sm
      • Dems had hands tied........ - sm
        • Baloney. But, not surprised... hope you like - socialism. Our country will be weaker than ever.nm
          • GW started socialism with the bank bailout.. - sm
            • With the help of a whole bunch of dems...Pelosi, Reid, Franks, Dodds, Obama... - the list of dems..never accountable though
              • I absolutely blame the Democrats... - Marmann
              • If you don't think libs hold the dems accountable - you are delusional.
                • Really? Then why are they all still in charge of the purse strings? - geez
                  • Because they are better than the alternative - option.
                    • Really? Pubs in charge of the purse strings? What planet - have you been on
                      • Where were you for the first 6 years - of the Bush administration?
                        • Where were you when Franks and Dodds and the dem controlled finance committee - caused the housing crisis, and then...
                          • They did not cause the housing crisis. They did, however, fail acknowledge the problem - soon enough
              • You forgot Paulsen the-sky-is-falling - man-cried-wolf sm
                • Lest we forget accountability, how-dare you ask? - nm
  • This is true to a certain extent (sm) - Zville MT
    • Sounds just like our current administration.... - sm
      • It's not just our current administration and that's the problem. - Zville MT
        • Nixon = Carter; Bush = Obama - sm
  • I agree 100% with this ......sm - ms
    • Failure to realize the truth...... - sm
    • I agree, too. Unfortunately, Robin Hood Obama - and his blind voters do not. nm

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both say they demand a PLAN from all three before they will agree to give them any money, that they wanted full accountability and transparency.  (I had to DOUBLE-CHECK to make sure it WAS Pelosi and Reid I was hearing.)

I think this is a good idea.  Maybe if those conditions had been applied to Paulson, the Wall Street crooks would have had to toe the line a bit.  Instead, sadly, Wall Street gets a blank check, NO oversight, NO transparency, and Paulson keeps changing his mind about what to do with the money.

I don't want to see America lose GM, Ford or Chrysler.  They have the technology available to them to manufacture cars that can get 50 miles per gallon.  (I bought one in the mid 1980s.)  Maybe they need to spruce up the old ཽ Mustangs, or even the beloved ཱུ Chevies with that kind of gas mileage for those of us who can't afford the expensive hybrids they want to offer. 

The main problem, though, seems to be the arrogance of the CEOs of these companies (particularly with the private jet issues).  One of these CEOs (I can't remember his name now) was asked if he would resign if it was for the good of the company, and he flatly refused and indicated there was nothing wrong with his performance.  In my opinion, the cockier their attitude, the less they may be likely to get.

The other option of bankruptcy would force restructuring, and I believe would force out the incompetent CEOs and managers, developing a viable plan and starting from scratch, while still operating and not needing to lay off so many workers.

I've known for well over a year now that we were in a recession.  I used to watch the Dow every day, did a happy dance and sang a little song (with apologies to Neil Sadaka):  "Dow, doobie do, Dow down.  Come on, Come on, Dow, doobie do, Dow down.  Goin' broke is hard to do."

I think those of us with the least noticed this trend a long, long time ago.  I realized then that until and unless the richest of the rich started to feel the "pinch," people like us would never have a chance because we were the invisible Americans.  (I guess this is the "bottom-up theory.")

In a convoluted sort of way, this might help some Americans.  I know it's going to hurt a lot of people, as well, but the less money people can spend, the more prices will be forced to go down.  That old "what the market will bear" kind of thing.  So working from the "bottom up," as Obama has mentioned, seems to go along with the way I've been thinking this for a long time now.

Regulations must be put back in place regarding Wall Street.   They all will be getting their Christmas bonuses this year -- quite hefty ones -- and you and I are paying for them.  Meanwhile, Christmas in my home is looking very bleak this year.

I read somewhere that the CEO of any company, by law, shouldn't be allowed to earn more than the President of the United States earns.

Sounds like a good place to start.

My wishes for a great evening to you all. 

but read Lurker and Imagine! Just IMAGINE!

Could this mean some things are back on the table? 

Democrats defy Pelosi, elect Hoyer House leader
Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:01 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A week after winning back control of the U.S. Congress, divided Democrats in the House defied incoming speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday and elected Steny Hoyer to be majority leader, a Democratic Party aide said.

Pelosi, a California liberal, had endorsed Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, who helped lead the charge against the Iraq war that was a key factor in races for the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The aide said the vote behind closed doors was 149-86.

But Democrats embraced Hoyer, a Maryland moderate who has been Pelosi's deputy while she served the past three years as minority leader. The two have had a somewhat strained relationship.

Pelosi, as expected, was officially nominated to be the first woman speaker of the House.

Only 2 excerpts posted here. Read the whole article. Interesting. This may have been posted before and if so, I'm sorry to repeat it.

"...Pelosi has also embraced—even encouraged—her role as Republican enemy No. 1. GOP leaders know better than to go after Obama, whose approval ratings still float around 70 percent. According to Rasmussen, Pelosi is at about 35 percent. "She believes in the president and is willing to take any punches she needs to for him," says a Democratic leadership aide.

But Pelosi isn't taking those shots without getting something in return. In ways that have not always pleased the White House, the Speaker has made it clear to the president that when it comes to House business, he has to go through her. "We are an independent branch of government," she has said repeatedly. Though Pelosi's office denies it, an administration official tells NEWSWEEK that the Speaker asked to be informed whenever the White House contacts a Democratic House member. She also wants to know what the conversation was about...."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/186961

Such a jerk! I truly hope the O can out manuever him. He's worse than Pelosi and Barney Fife put together.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123206643514588079.html

FLASHBACK: Dem Senate Leader Harry Reid: 'Our Federal Wallet Stretched To Limit By Illegal Aliens Getting Welfare'

'Even worse, Americans have seen heinous crimes committed by individuals who are here illegally'

August 5, 1993

The Office of Sen. Harry Reid issued the following:

In response to increased terrorism and abuse of social programs by aliens, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today introduced the first and only comprehensive immigration reform bill in Congress.

Currently, an alien living illegally in the United States often pays no taxes but receives unemployment, welfare, free medical care and other federal benefits. Recent terrorist acts, including the World Trade Center bombing, have underscored the need to keep violent criminals out of the country.

Reid's bill, the Immigration Stabilization Act of 1993, overhauls the nation's immigration laws and calls for a massive scale-down of immigrants allowed into the country from approximately 800,000 to 300,000.

The bill also changes asylum laws to prevent phony asylum seekers. Reid said the U.S. open door policy is being abused at the expense of honest, working citizens.

We are a country founded upon fairness and justice, Reid said. An individual in real threat of torture or long-term incarceration because of his or her political beliefs can still seek asylum. But this bill closes the door to those who want to abuse America's inherent generosity and legal system.

Reid's bill also cracks down on illegal immigration. The 1990 census reported 3.3 million illegal aliens in America. Recent estimates indicate about 2.5 million immigrants illegally entered the United States last year.

Our borders have overflowed with illegal immigrants placing tremendous burdens on our criminal justice system, schools and social programs, Reid said. The Immigration and Naturalization Service needs the ability to step up enforcement.

Our federal wallet is stretched to the limit by illegal aliens getting welfare, food stamps, medical care and other benefits often without paying any taxes.

Safeguards like welfare and free medical care are in place to boost Americans in need of short-term assistance. These programs were not meant to entice freeloaders and scam artists from around the world. Even worse, Americans have seen heinous crimes committed by individuals who are here illegally, Reid said.

Specific provisions of Reid's Immigration Stabilization Act include the following:

-- Reduces annual legal immigration levels from approximately 800,000 admissions per year to about 300,000. Relatives other than spouse or minor children will be admitted only if already on immigration waiting lists and their admission does not raise annual immigration levels above 300,000.

-- Reforms asylum rules to prevent aliens from entering the United States illegally under phony asylum claims.

-- Expands list of felonies considered aggravated felonies requiring exclusion and deportation of criminal aliens. Allows courts to order deportation at time of sentencing.

-- Increases penalties for failing to depart or re-entering the United States after a final order of deportation order. Increases maximum penalties for visa fraud from five years to 10 years.

-- Curtails alien smuggling by authorizing interdiction and repatriation of aliens seeking to enter the United States unlawfully by sea. Increases penalties for alien smuggling.

-- Adds alien smuggling to the list of crimes subject to sanctions under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Expands the categories of property that are forfeited when used to facilitate the smuggling or harboring of illegal aliens.

-- Clarifies that a person born in the United States to an alien mother who is not a lawful resident is not a U.S. citizen. This will eliminate incentive for pregnant alien women to enter the United States illegally, often at risk to mother and child, for the purpose of acquiring citizenship for the child and accompanying federal financial benefits.

-- Mandates that aliens who cannot demonstrably support themselves without public or private assistance are excludable. This will prevent admission of aliens likely to be dependent on public financial support. This requirement extends to the sponsor of any family sponsored immigrant.

-- Increases border security and patrol officers to 9,900 full-time positions.

END

I don't know how they can stand up there and lie through their teeth like that...blaming the White House and Republicans for this financial debacle.  They know that is a lie.  They know, especially Chris Dodd, was central to this.  Also mentioned Barney Frank.  Good grief.  The hypocrisy is staggering.  They should be talking about getting us out of this mess....just yesterday they were saying don't play the blame game.  Telling McCain not to politicize it while they are politicizing it.  That man makes my skin crawl. 

And saying there was a "deal" and McCain blew it up.  The only "deal" was among senators...the only house person present could not negotiate.  He just had to listen.  If they had the plan and had gone to the house with it, then the house would have blocked it there and hours if not days would have been wasted.  Amazing the gall of some folks.  Ridiculous!!!

Why can't they all stop the political posturing and just fix this mess.  The House is only reacting to the onslaught of emails from their constituents saying protect us here, we don't like this carte blanche 700 billion.  I for one am GLAD at least the Republicans in the house said whoa wait just a minute here. 

comments.  nit pickers unite!!

nellies.  Why even bother getting up in the morning with that burden of resentment on your shoulders?

banks by tens of billions of dollars.

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20090206/Bailout.Oversight/

    Friday 30 September 2005

Voters are notoriously slow in voting out politicians accused of corruption, but they may reach the tipping point with the latest revelations.

    To be an honest Republican these days must be to wonder what awful revelation is coming next - and how the Grand Old Party, which once claimed to represent political reform, became a front for sleaze, corruption and cynical criminality. Across the country, from the Capitol to statehouses, Republican officials are under indictment, under investigation or under suspicion.

    This week's headlines featured the indictment of Rep. Tom DeLay and the probe of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, but the infection of venality among their fellow partisans is now reaching epidemic proportions. So widespread is the plague that keeping track of all the individual cases, and their increasingly baroque variations, has become a distinct challenge.

    Consider Jack Abramoff, once the prince of K Street lobbyists and a dedicated right-wing ideologue who boasted of his powerful connections to DeLay, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist and the entire Republican apparatus in Washington. Already under investigation by the Justice Department for his influence peddling among House members, including DeLay, and his swindling of Indian tribes, Abramoff was indicted last month for bank fraud in a separate South Florida case involving a casino boat company that he partly owned.

    The fraud allegedly committed by Abramoff and his business partner Adam Kidan involved a phony wire transfer they used to purchase a controlling interest in SunCruz from the company's founder, Konstantinos Gus Boulis, in 2001.

    Abramoff and Kidan later fell out with Boulis in a bitter business dispute that turned violent. In February 2001, gunmen ambushed Boulis on a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., highway and shot him repeatedly. On Tuesday, Florida authorities arrested three New York men with mob connections for the Boulis killing. Two of the men - Anthony Moscatiello and Tony Ferrari - had received payments totaling more than $240,000 from Kidan and Abramoff. Moscatiello, a longtime associate of the Gambino Mafia family, and Ferrari were supposedly providing food and consulting services to SunCruz - or so Kidan claimed when questioned by prosecutors. There is no evidence, however, that Moscatiello and Ferrari provided any services to the company.

    Connecting the dots isn't difficult here: Kidan and Abramoff want to get rid of Boulis, who won't go away. Kidan and Abramoff hire Moscatiello and Ferrari with SunCruz money. Moscatiello and Ferrari allegedly whack Boulis, without any motive of their own. If the Broward County state's attorney has sufficient evidence to win convictions for a capital crime, some people will probably be talking soon in hope of avoiding the hot shot.

    The stunning fall of Abramoff, who has yet to hit bottom, is certainly the most colorful tale of Republican depravity. The corporate money laundering to Texas politicians that led to DeLay's conspiracy indictment, and the suspicious insider stock transaction that spurred investigations of Frist by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, seem mundane by comparison. Outrage will be warranted if their misconduct is proved, but everyone sadly knows that these felonies are now common practice in our political and corporate culture.

    Corporate misbehavior has also brought down right-wing publisher Conrad Black, neoconservative strategist and former Bush advisor Richard Perle and the entire corporate board of Hollinger Inc., the Republican-friendly media conglomerate formerly controlled by Lord Black - and that he and others are plausibly accused of illicitly looting for their own benefit. Furious shareholders forced Black to relinquish control of the company and are suing him, as well as Perle and former Black deputy David Radler, for $500 million. The SEC is also suing Black and Radler, and the Justice Department is investigating the former Hollinger directors.

    Last month, US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who also happens to be the special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame case, accepted Radler's guilty plea to mail fraud and wire fraud. Radler is now believed to be cooperating in the prosecution of what former SEC chairman Richard Breeden, a Republican who investigated Hollinger on behalf of shareholders, termed a corporate kleptocracy.

    Kleptocratic morality evidently ruled at least two Republican statehouses in the Midwest as well. Currently under indictment are former Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, whose trial on bribery charges began last week, and Gov. Robert Taft of Ohio, who pleaded no contest last month to charges of accepting illegal gifts from a state contractor.

    That contractor is Thomas Noe, a coin dealer who received lucrative investment deals with the state's Workers Compensation Fund and is now at the center of a gigantic scandal known as Coingate. More than $12 million has disappeared from the fund, and former GOP official Noe stands accused of laundering money to various Republican politicians, including the Bush-Cheney campaign. Like Abramoff, Noe is a Bush Pioneer, responsible for raising at least $100,000 for the president last year.

    Still another Pioneer is currently under criminal investigation in a celebrated corruption case involving Randy Duke Cunningham, a prominent Republican representative from San Diego with a senior position on the House defense appropriations subcommittee. On Aug. 18, FBI and IRS agents raided the offices of defense contractor and Bush fundraiser Brent Wilkes.

    Wilkes is reportedly a former business associate of Mitchell J. Wade, the head of a defense contracting firm called MZM Inc. who is under investigation in San Diego for alleged bribery of Cunningham. According to newspaper reports, Wade purchased a home owned by Cunningham at a price inflated by at least $700,000, and also permitted the congressman to use his 42-foot yacht free of charge. Federal agents searched Wade's offices in July.

    Although prosecutors have brought no criminal charges in the case yet, they have filed civil court documents describing the home sale as a violation of federal bribery laws - and Cunningham, who has served in Congress for decades, has already announced that he will not seek another term next year.

    The Republican National Committee's new treasurer, Robert Kjellander, is under investigation too. (Naturally, he is also a Bush Pioneer.) Not long after he assumed his new post at the party's Washington headquarters, Kjellander received a federal subpoena for records of his dealings with the Illinois Teachers' Retirement System, a state pension fund, and the Carlyle Group. Federal prosecutors are reportedly looking into alleged corruption at the fund, and have asked Kjellander to provide information about a $4.5 million fee he received from Carlyle for his role in arranging investments by the fund with the huge private equity fund. Carlyle, of course, is closely connected to the Bush administration, including the president's father, George H.W. Bush, who has worked for the firm as a rainmaker and advisor.

    In fairness, it should be said that all these pols and parasites may be innocent (except for those already convicted), or at least not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It is also true that voters have historically been slow to evict politicians from office because of corruption charges.

    But public opinion of congressional Republicans is hitting new lows, and Americans are growing furious about the war in Iraq, the government response to Hurricane Katrina and rising energy prices. The natural impulse to throw the rascals out can only be encouraged by the Gilded Age spectacles now unfolding in Washington and in cities across the country as the indictments continue to come down between now and November 2006.

hmmmmm....?  Just because everyone is voting for Barack doesn't make any of it right - they all are bad candidates to some of us......

blechhhhhhhhhhhhh

JMO.........no flames required......

of questions. Some are inappropriate as:"Why does your wife look so miserable all the time." This has nothing to do with serious questions. There was also one on there about somebody losing their labradoodle and what was he going to do about it. Others are down right nasty. I call that abuse.  

Some people are just plain nuts. There are over 11,700 questions listed on there and I think I only got to read around 300. Most that I read were appropriate and relate to questions on what he was planning to do.

Now, before you scream at me, I didn't vote for him, I'm definitely not a fan of his, but I'm willing to watch and see what happens and give an opinion or two once in a while....and that's all it is, an opinion, like everyone else on this board are allowed.

I'm a liberal and I have to say, I really resent it when people say the libs this or the dem's that and refer to all of us in one great big bunch that worships Obama and thinks he's the messiah.   It really bugs the crap out of me.  He's a man.  He's not my Savior. 

I have seen condescension and name calling from BOTH sides of the fence, none of which is appropriate coming from anyone who calls themself an adult.  I do find it interesting that it seems to be much more accepted in this election cycle than in years before.  I don't know if it's because of the proliferation of message boards and the complete lack of humanity that tends to go with posting on them, or if it's this particular year and set of candidates/winners.

Let's give the man a chance.  Yes, he's a man.  I believe he is a very smart man and I have high hopes for him.  Let's avoid name calling, liberal bashing, conservative hate, etc.  That just does everyone a disservice.