time is passed for placing blame

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The only problem is...they are raising the cigarette tax to $.61 a pack. According to Glenn Beck, we will need 21,000,000 NEW smokers to cover the program. Kinda ironic....use something that is unhealthy to give coverage to keep the kids healthy.

I don't know what they are thinking. I think the government has their heads in the sand. Every time they tie a new program to smokers, more smokers quit. How are they ever going to cover all these children if another couple thousand people quit smoking?

I absolutely think this program will not work like they think and in a couple years, if not next year, they will be raising taxes on everyone because of the shortfall in the planned coverage.

Now it's on to the House-Senate negotioations. I just hope we can stand this as a nation.

The budget funds Volunteer America, and includes a provision to set up a commission to STUDY whether or not "mandatory volunteerism" should be established. My prediction is that it won't happen.

Democrats have apparently reached an agreement to move forward with a House vote on the huge cap-and-trade energy tax known as Waxman-Markey this week.

The monstrous bill has already grown from the 946-page version passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee to an even-heftier 1201-page version released by House Democratic leadership last night.

And they aren't done yet. Negotiations continue between Pelosi and her ally, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (both D-Calif.) on one side and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) on the other.

The apparent breakthrough, which paves the way for a floor vote on Friday or Saturday, is a big giveaway for rural electric co-ops -- a big Peterson priority. Peterson may also extract other big-ticket concessions before a vote happens on the House floor. And why not? What's a few billion dollars between friends when you have a multi-trillion-dollar energy tax hike to divvy up?

That's what's so outrageous about this whole process. Cap-and-trade imposes massive new hidden energy taxes on American consumers. The taxes are hidden in higher prices for gasoline, electricity, and every product in the economy that's grown, shipped, or manufactured. All the revenue, the last estimate from the Congressional Budget Office has the pot at $846 billion over just the first 8 years, so it will clearly be many trillions over the 38-year duration of the program goes into a big pot that politicians can use to buy off opposition and advance other big-government objectives.

Senator Barbara Boxer, the biggest Senate proponent of cap-and-trade and the one who will dole out the billions of dollars on the Senate side if the bill makes it through the House, candidly explained how this works a couple of weeks ago:

There's so much revenue that comes in from a cap-and-trade system that you can really go to a person in a congressional district and get enough votes there by saying, "What do you need? What do you want? You can really help them."

This disastrous bill, which will send energy prices skyrocketing while having no discernible impact on global average temperature will only get worse as even more special interests are bought off at the expense of taxpayers. It's a scam, an enormous tax-and-spend bill concealed in a cloak of green political correctness. The real purpose of the plan is to dramatically enhance the power of Washington politicians by giving them control over vast swaths of the U.S. economy.

Think of this as the death blow for our already teetering rule of law and free market economy. Just as we've seen politicians make arbitrary decisions in banking and the automobile industry, this new central planning of energy will let them exercise similar control over all aspects of the U.S. economy. This type of control, while perhaps well-intentioned, we saw in the 20th century inevitably fails and often leads to despotism.

The outcome in the House is still in doubt. House Blue Dog chairwoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) said in an interview with Energy and Environment Daily last week that Blue Dogs will not vote for the bill if it's brought up this week. She said:

"Many will insist that we have a number of days to review the language ourselves, to have back and forth with our constituencies and stakeholder groups, to understand how the system with a significant manager's amendment will work. Yes, absolutely, we need to chew on this awhile."

Obviously, Nancy Pelosi is ignoring the concerns of the Blue Dogs, and of all the Democrats from Middle America whose constituents will be slammed with vastly higher energy prices under the plan. Constituents who don't share the smug self-satisfaction that coastal elites will enjoy, that warm, green feeling that's supposed to make it all worthwhile.

If these so-called moderate Democrats fall in line behind the radical leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman, if they vote for a cap-and-trade tax that President Obama famously said will cause energy prices to necessarily skyrocket, they will expose themselves as radical leftists and out of touch with their districts.

Every American who cares about affordable energy and economic freedom needs to contact his or her member of Congress before this vote and demand a no vote on cap-and-trade. The House switchboard is 202-225-3121 or you can use this form on the AFP web site. If they vote for this, they deserve the full political consequences.

They had the votes before they started. They hoped to use the Rs to help this disaster, who got shut out at the end of this thanks to Pelosi, who has no control over her caucus, anyway. The drivebys won't report this.

Second, many Dems are scared ** about not getting elected again. Other Dems waited until the very end of voting to cast their vote to play the game to win both ways. Mine, for ex., is all for this mess, but has been saying how he'll vote it down. That's b/c he's got a strong opponent and he can't afford something this risky.

Think of it this way. You have surgery to repair your left leg and the doc cuts off your right one instead. So you go back to the same doc who screwed it up to fix it. That's exactly what you have here. You wouldn't do this in your private life, so why would it be okay for those on The Hill to behave in the same way?

As terrible as it is, this attack could be miniscule if, in fact, God
continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to
give us probably what we deserve. The ACLU's got to take a lot of the
blame for this�The abortionists have got to bear some of the burden for
this because God will not be mocked�I really believe that the pagans,
and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the
lesbians�all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the
finger in their face and say, 'you helped this happen.'
- Rev. Jerry Falwell, September 13, 2001

Who can forget Jerry Falwell's infamous post-9/11 indictment of
America? 'You helped this happen,' Falwell said to the majority of
Americans, who disagree with him on a majority of issues.

Now, a conservative group called Columbia Christians for Life has
proclaimed that Hurricane Katrina was another one of God's punishments,
citing as evidence the supposed resemblance between the hurricane's
image on a weather map, and a fetus.

Trying to refute such claims from these zealots is truly an exercise in
futility. But searching for explanations after a disaster of Katrina's
magnitude is not. And if you do in fact search for those explanations,
you'll reach an unavoidable conclusion:

Hurricane Katrina may have been an act of God. But the level of death
and destruction it caused was not. That was an act of conservatism.

It is conservative policies that made this natural disaster unnaturally
catastrophic. I say to conservatives, you have blood on your hands
today. I point the finger in your face and say, You helped this
happen.

Conservative policies have led to an increase in poverty across the
nation, especially in New Orleans, one of the poorest major cities in
America. About 150,000 people in New Orleans lived below the poverty
line before Katrina, 100,000 of them in abject poverty, making less
than $8,000 a year. Their poverty left them with nowhere to go, and no
means of escape, as the hurricane bore down on their homes.

Conservative policies have led to more global warming, which scientists
agree has already begun producing more intense hurricanes and storms.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, a former Republican Party Chairman
and longtime GOP operative, has seen his own state ravaged by Katrina.
But he was vital in helping to convince the Bush administration to
squash the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, and pushed Bush to go
back on his campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide. Governor
Barbour would dare express grief over the deaths that he himself
enabled.

Conservative policies have led to a war in Iraq based on lies, and tax
cuts for the rich, both of which, we know for a fact, took money
directly away from vital hurricane preparedness work in New Orleans.
On nine occasions in 2004 and 2005, The New Orleans Times-Picayune
specifically cited the cost of the Iraq War as a reason for the
shortfall in hurricane- and flood-control funds. The levees that gave
way under Katrina's pressure were supposed to be upgraded with money
that ended up in Halliburton�s coffers.

Conservative policies have also led to the National Guard's misuse and
abuse, leaving the Gulf Coast without the personnel and equipment
vital to a recovery effort of this magnitude. More people will die on
the Gulf Coast as they await their would-be saviors, who are in Iraq,
victims themselves of conservative policies.

There can be no doubt that while Hurricane Katrina was not preventable,
much of the death and destruction left in its wake was. I say to
conservatives, you have blood on your hands today. I point the finger
in your face and say, You helped this happen.

to both government and the automakers. For them to pay skilled trades a buttload of money and allow them to sit and do nothing and then retire at age 50 and live off of GM isn't right. That is GM's fault for allowing that happen. As for making big trucks and SUVs....it was what the people wanted at that time. That really wasn't a huge concern until gas prices started to skyrocket. They were making what they thought people wanted. They couldn't predict that gas would skyrocket like it did and the economy would collapse like it has.

on the past 8 years. Granted, the past 8 years weren't the greatest and some major mistakes were made, but there were some things that were going on during prior presidencies that lead to this. The problem was that no one stopped it once it got started and it just snowballed. Now we have Obama in the office and we are still snowballing. If you want to place blame, you need to go back further than Bush and include some others as well. Now it is Obama's turn and we need to keep our eye on him because he continues to spend spend spend!!!!! Yeah....that worked out so well in the past 8 years huh......

including natural disasters and including the fact that people built a city below sea level with water on all sides and was told that anything over a Cat 3 storm would wipe out the city. The city failed in adequately planning to evacuate the people in case of such an emergency. While I'm absolutely heartbroken to what is happening to people there, especially those who couldn't evacuate themselves the city has been told this would happen for years. Even if Bush had not cut some funds to the area adequate plans would have still not been in place. Everyone has said at one time or another that New Orleans was a disaster waiting for a Cat 4 or higher storm to happen. You can pin this on Bush like you do everything else that happens in this world, but Bush is hardly to blame for the devastation. Finger pointing does no good at this point. We all must dig deep and do what we can do for those in New Orleans. Arguing the political aspects of this disaster will not hydrate one dehydrated baby or feed one hungry person or build one adequate shelter.

My advice to everyone is to step away from your computer, go buy some non-perishable items and get it to a relief point tomorrow.

I think registered voters should have to prove their knowledge on the matters at hand prior to voting. Just a 5 or 10-question test to make sure they know their candidate's policies.

Do we really want our "welfare" society to determine our next President? That's what ACORN is making sure will happen.