sorry, but I disagree, because current

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economic nightmare without also addressing those who are already suffering from it. If that is not addressed while we are setting up new jobs, then we go straight into a depression. It's a whole lot harder and longer to get out of a full-blown depression that what we have now....and right now we're on the edge.

NASA = The 50 million Obama allotted for NASA is for them to repair facilities in Houston from hurricaine Ike (which should have already been done, btw) and non-space activities. Again, job creation. NASA wants more, but I doubt they'll get it.

this. If homeowners were to get lump sums and they just payed off their mortgages it would go to the banks, like you said. However, the banks are currently not extending credit. Even after they passed the first bailout and payed out to banks, the banks that received the money actually tightened up on credit, which was the exact opposite of what they should have done. So, if we were all to just pay off our mortgages, the bank would get the money and just sit on it just like they did with the bailout money, and that doesn't stimulate the economy.

The main problem we have is that we've turned into a nation that relys on credit. The banks don't want you to pay off your principal -- they want you to keep paying interest because that's where the money is for them. Now that the credit has been frozen, people who live on credit don't have anything to spend -- thus creating the spending deficit.

And the destruction they have wreaked on our country.......keep the mindset. The republican party will have a wretched time climbing out of the sewer from whence they came.

So, if you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country (the decider), steamrolled the constitution (the decider), and will have changed its landscape forever (the decider). If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about... Yes, GW, you will be just FINE.

Where Would General Motors Be Without the United Automobile Workers Union?

This is a question that no one seems to be asking. And so I've asked it. And here, in essence, is what I think is the answer. (The answer, of course, applies to Ford and Chrysler, as well as to General Motors. I've singled out General Motors because it's still the largest of the three and its problems are the most pronounced.)

First, the company would be without so-called Monday-morning automobiles. That is, automobiles poorly made for no other reason than because they happened to be made on a day when too few workers showed up, or too few showed up sober, to do the jobs they were paid to do. Without the UAW, General Motors would simply have fired such workers and replaced them with ones who would do the jobs they were paid to do. And so, without the UAW, GM would have produced more reliable, higher quality cars, had a better reputation for quality, and correspondingly greater sales volume to go with it. Why didn't they do this? Because with the UAW, such action by GM would merely have provoked work stoppages and strikes, with no prospect that the UAW would be displaced or that anything would be better after the strikes. Federal Law, specifically, The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, long ago made it illegal for companies simply to get rid of unions.

Second, without the UAW, GM would have been free to produce in the most-efficient, lowest cost way and to introduce improvements in efficiency as rapidly as possible. Sometimes this would have meant simply having one or two workers on the spot do a variety of simple jobs that needed doing, without having to call in half a dozen different workers each belonging to a different union job classification and having to pay that much more to get the job done. At other times, it would have meant just going ahead and introducing an advance, such as the use of robots, without protracted negotiations with the UAW resulting in the need to create phony jobs for workers to do (and to be paid for doing) that were simply not necessary.

(Unbelievably, at its assembly plant in Oklahoma City, GM is actually obliged by its UAW contract to pay 2,300 workers full salary and benefits for doing absolutely nothing. As The New York Times describes it, "Each day, workers report for duty at the plant and pass their time reading, watching television, playing dominoes or chatting. Since G.M. shut down production there last month, these workers have entered the Jobs Bank, industry's best form of job insurance. It pays idled workers a full salary and benefits even when there is no work for them to do.")

Third, without the UAW, GM would have an average unit cost per automobile close to that of non-union Toyota. Toyota makes a profit of about $2,000 per vehicle, while GM suffers a loss of about $1,200 per vehicle, a difference of $3,200 per unit. And the far greater part of that difference is the result of nothing but GM's being forced to deal with the UAW. (Over a year ago, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that "the United Auto Workers contract costs GM $2,500 for each car sold.")

Fourth, without the UAW, the cost of employing a GM factory worker, including wages and fringes, would not be in excess of $72 per hour, which is where it is today, according to The Post-Crescent newspaper of Appleton, Wisconsin.

Fifth, as a result of UAW coercion and extortion, GM has lost billions upon billions of dollars. For 2005 alone, it reported a loss in excess of $10 billion. Its bonds are now rated as "junk," that is, below, investment grade. Without the UAW, GM would not have lost these billions.

Sixth, without the UAW, GM would not now be in process of attempting to pay a ransom to its UAW workers of up to $140,000 per man, just to get them to quit and take their hands out of its pockets. (It believes that $140,000 is less than what they will steal if they remain.)

Seventh, without the UAW, GM would not now have healthcare obligations that account for more than $1,600 of the cost of every vehicle it produces.

Eighth, without the UAW, GM would not now have pension obligations which, if entered on its balance sheet in accordance with the rule now being proposed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, will leave it with a net worth of minus $16 billion.

What the UAW has done, on the foundation of coercive, interventionist labor legislation, is bring a once-great company to its knees. It has done this by a process of forcing one obligation after another upon the company, while at the same time, through its work rules, featherbedding practices, hostility to labor-saving advances, and outlandish pay scales, doing practically everything in its power to make it impossible for the company to meet those obligations.

Ninth, without the UAW tens of thousands of workers � its own members � would not now be faced with the loss of pension and healthcare benefits that it is impossible for GM or any of the other auto companies to provide, and never was possible for them to provide. The UAW, the whole labor-union movement, and the left-"liberal" intellectual establishment, which is their father and mother, are responsible for foisting on the public and on the average working man and woman a fantasy land of imaginary Demons (big business and the rich) and of saintly Good Fairies (politicians, government officials, and union leaders). In this fantasy-land, the Good Fairies supposedly have the power to wring unlimited free benefits from the Demons.

Tenth, Without the UAW and its fantasy-land mentality, autoworkers would have been motivated to save out of wages actually paid to them, and to provide for their future by means of by and large reasonable investments of those savings � investments with some measure of diversification. Instead, like small children, lured by the prospect of free candy from a stranger, they have been led to a very bad end. They thought they would receive endless free golden eggs from a goose they were doing everything possible to maim and finally kill, and now they're about to learn that the eggs just aren't there.

Here is the link for the rest of the article: http://mises.org/story/2124

on the issues in politics is Media Matters America. As the name explains, they monitor all forms of media and report on the distortions and misinformation. They give factual rebuttals. They make it a lot easier to sort fact from fiction.

Seems Rick Davis was paid $30,000 a month - for five years - as president of "an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations," according to the International Herald Tribune.

Colter is a hatemonger, thats all. I heard every hour of AL Franken's program and he never said anything outrageous like she/it. Al Franken was quite witty and entertaining and merely give his listeners the facts that were suppressed elsewhere. He was on the story about Asian factory workers forced to have abortions by their American bosses way before other outlets were discussing it. Really!! Stop trying to pull the wool ....

I would like to note that all social reform to take place in the United States has been at the heels of a liberal movement. From our breaking off with Britain in the mid 1700s, to civil war in the mid 1800s, and the liberal movement of the mid 1960s. Liberalism as a belief has moved from Republican to Democrat and back again more than once. Taking your stance on pro-life and moving it to the time of mid 1800s would put you for all intents and purposes under the Democratic wing.

As the saying goes, complacency breeds contempt, and I believe that we are now in the beginnings of another liberal movement. A little quicker than our 100 year mark, but with the speed that the world is changing, so must we.

We as a people and government have to embrace change, that is the true nature of liberalism.

Realistically, your views/postings justify the label. You may not wish it, but by just expressing them promotes it. The fact that you have never mentioned the remote possibility of voting Democrat, which at this point in our history leans toward the liberal, and only looking at the Republican party is labeling. If you did not want to be labeled or wish not to be, you wouldn't be so quick to make your conservative opinions heard.

As I frequently tell my husband, if you get too caught up in the details, you will lose the bigger picture, which usually leads me to telling him that he gets in his own way more often than not.

I feel the reason New Orleans went under was because the National Guard, tanks, etc. were all in Iraq.

Doesn't it bother you that Palin actually said, her son was going to Iraq to fight the people that attacked us? Clueless.

I agree that McCain is a war hero, so is my dad, but he certainly is not qualified to be President.

Sam does research before posting an answer to some of the statements told here, then posts the links so we can all see what is the truth, not just a few. Anyone who cares anything about this country would do the same. It's not rocket science. The problem is some people on this board don't care to listen. They're right and everybody else is wrong.They think sam is attacking them personally, when he/she is not, just stating FACTS, not untruths.

Did you miss the part where he said, "I'm the decider."? His old buddy Richard (message says *ick is a bad word.........well, on that we can agree) is guilty right along with him. I do not think history will be kind to him. But then it WAS kind to FDR until the republicans came out with their "study" to excuse the fact that Hoover was, before Bush, acknowledged to be the worst president in history.

I say while you're putting Palin on her dogsled back to Alaska, hitch up a couple of longhorns and point Bush and Cheney back to Texas. Trouble is I don't think Texas wants them.

McCain is not throwing people off his bus because they don't report him in a good light.

McCain is not banning newspaper interviews because they ask him serious questions.

with one another. That is human nature. I can respect someone that can give point and counter point without getting nasty. There is no need for name calling or veiled side of the mouth comments. I would love a decent conversation with others whose opinions are or are not always the same as mine.