Get out of Afghanistan, pass meaningful healthcare and if it fails, move on.
Regulate financial industries. Jobs, Jobs, and Jobs.
Stop building unwanted bridges and schools in Afghanistan. We need them at home.
The terrorist are not warriors. They have no army to blow up. We give them creditability calling their gang an army.
The FBI and CIA can chase them. Use the law to prosecute them, jails to hold them and the electric chair to kill them.
Stop spending our precious resources outside of the country and spend it at home.
Don't become "Bushed!"
Stand by the progressives, discipline the blue dogs and bring bills to the floor. If they don't pass it is OUR job (not yours alone) to fix it.
Oh, most important to you. You're not only slipping in the polls, you are losing your base. I love ya, but sometimes action is better than wimpy results!!
Stop enjoying yourself soo.... much. We are living hard lives and are trying to get through tough times.
Where is the "OLD" Barack? Bring him back and if bills go up or down, we will at least have a great time trying.
Good Luck, I am still in your camp for now. I don't think I can afford to give any more money. At least not until things change.
Thu Jul 30, 2009 11:05 PM CDT
WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands of unsafe or decaying bridges carrying 100 million drivers a day must wait for repairs because states are spending stimulus money on spans that are already in good shape or on easier projects like repaving roads, an Associated Press analysis shows.
A better story would be on the Federal Highway Trust Fund and that how, since it's inception in the 80s, only 17¢ of each $1 paid into it in taxes on fuel and vehicle registrations, gets spent on actual highway and road maintenance.
At least that was the amount determined in an audit back in 1994. And, I rather doubt it has changed much since than.
Congress takes 20% on each dollar paid into the fund and keeps it in the General Fund to offset the National Debt. Then, each government agency, through whom the money passes, keeps a percentage for their budgets, beginning with the FHTF Agency itself, through auditing, working it's way down to the states, who keep a portion for their General Fund, down to the counties, who take a cut.
If all the money from the FHTF was actually spent on the highways, there be no bad roads or bridges.
By Padmini Arhant
Special Election:
Sacramento is struggling with the fiscal budget crisis and dependent on California voters to help the legislators finalize on the tax hikes and spending cuts through ballot measures scheduled on Tuesday, May 19, 2009.
There are important issues on the ballot awaiting voters’ yah or nay... @
http://www.padminiarhant.com
Thank you.
Padmini Arhant
How do you deter an enemy who is willing to kill himself in order to kill you? You strike at something more important to him than his own life. Defining that will be easy for me. The next question is can America be as ruthless as our enemies?
The time has come to end the fruitless and unsustainable effort to search and destroy every cave in Afghanistan and bomb every campground in bordering Pakistan. It’s counterproductive anyway.
What will put the fear of America into terrorist masterminds and those who would follow their orders is simple and radical revenge. Masterminds have families: Cousins, brothers and fathers. Eliminate them. All at once, or one at a time, it works just as well. The ones who survive an initial “hunt” will go into hiding. Having some adult male relatives killed and the rest hiding out in caves will demoralize masterminds and their loved ones. You cannot work and support your women like that. You can’t make more baby masterminds that way. You cannot continue the blood line. The women and children will pressure them to stop their plotting and bombing.
People want to leave a familial legacy, and they can’t do that under those circumstances over the long term.
Should America do that? Yes. Do we have the “intestinal fortitude” and sustainable motivation? I don’t think so. But we should, and it shouldn’t take another terrorist attack to get us there.
For the last seven years the CIA has been kidnapping people from other nations and torturing them. Why not just go in there and quietly shoot them to death?
Frankly, by not killing women or children the way those terrorists routinely do, we can even claim the moral high ground.
BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
How Loyal is the Loyal Opposition?
From this point on I pledge to stop using the terms "conservative" and "Republican" interchangeably. I'm beginning to realize there's a big difference between the two. Conservatives are loyal and well-meaning Americans of good faith who just happen not to share my opinion of what's in the best interest of America. On the other hand, it has become clear that the Republican Party has crossed the line between the loyal opposition, and subversion.
We need to give credit where credit is deserved: NAME this economic crisis after the man most responsible for it's creation.
$10 trillion deficit is what we had at the end of the Bush administration. In eight years, Bush more than DOUBLED all the indebtedness America had accrued in more than 200 years.
This is more than a talking point, this is a necessary reminder that should be made every day, so that the notoriously SHORT memories of Americans shall be stimulated on a regular basis.
Senator Dodd went rogue and inserted some crazy stuff into the new law, so the President will need to be creative. Perhaps we are looking for HEROES to run our troubled banks. A lot of wealthy patriots have made great financial sacrifices to serve in the Obama Administration. Like-minded people who don’t want to go through the vetting process and insane pubic humiliation of being outed on every little tax related or other embarrassment can now serve their country without becoming federal employees but while still consenting to be paid wages not all that far above that.
I see nothing different Obama has said or done since 2004 and today -- perhaps Gregg's understanding of it morphed overnight between the time he was begging for the job and yesterday, when it came time to vote on the stimulus plan. Gregg seems to claim otherwise.
Obama should have known Gregg either hasn't the courage of his convictions or , far more likely, hasn't got any deeply held beliefs other than politics. We demand omniscience! How DARE the President not realize a man like Gregg would say anything to further his own personal ambitions?
There's something wrong with a vetting process that cannot discern that a politically savvy adult who somehow got himself repeatedly elected to the US Senate would claim to have turned his back on Petty Partisan Politics but actually lack the moral fortitude to stand by his decision.
I just finished watching the 2 videos and thought the information provided was too sparse. It sounded to me like they were both just pushing for our support without giving enough back. I understand that we need this package through quickly but I also hear all the negative comments about why it's being pushed so fast. Are there too many things attached to it that will negatively impact us?
Why didn't they spend more time and answer more of our 30 thousand questions? I know they coundn't get to them all but they only answered a few. Being a military family, I come with a lot of questions. Especially about spending and why our troops have to buy a lot of their own equipment. Also why aren't there better benefits and access to facilities for family members?
(Can I say 'circa' if it's in the future?)
Democrats won't be controlling the Senate after 2010.
They rushed like lemmings to declare they'd never accept Blago's appointee.
A little time and forethought should have enabled them to reason that in order to create the illusion of innocence Blagojevich would be likely to find someone eminently qualified, of stellar reputation and far removed from the (alleged) illegal activities.
That would only be in his own best interests. And if there is one thing we have learned about Blago, it is that his own best interests are his first and last consideration in decision-making.
Senate Democrats have now pitted themselves against the Chicago Democratic Machine. Despite that Dick Durbin has lost touch with reality and thrown in with them, this is a battle Senate Democrats cannot and will not win. In this, there is no winning, only degrees of losing.
Should he be denied, Burris can run against any Illinois Democrat, including Durbin, and win.
As for that silly mausoleum? All politicians are narcissists. He's just 'concrete' about it.
Remember Republican Senator Ted Stevens who actually looked jurors in the eyes and told them he didn't notice people stuffing hundreds of thousands of dollars into his pockets. I dare say Bill Gates would notice if you stuffed a few hundred thousand dollars into his pockets. Ted Stevens,... now THAT'S a big ego!
It is also necessary to remember that this is the same US Senate that gave a seven-time convicted federal felon -- Ted Stevens -- a two-minute standing ovation, and two hours of praise-filled testimonials. And they are claiming to be observing their PRINCIPLES???
Republican and Democratic Senators must think we are stupid, stupid, stupid.
Imagine what would happen if the immediate and long-term success, and even viability, of the Republican Party depended on Barack Obama failing to pull America back into PROSPERITY. Oh, wait, we don't have to IMAGINE that because it happens to be the current condition.
While refusing to offer any better ideas, Republicans stand in adamant opposition to everything the President-Elect suggests, even without knowing any details. I have to admit, he's been somewhat vague.
History suggests that America's realization of a sense of success by spring of 2012 will mean the GOP will be broadly out of power for one to two generations.
Every month that another 600,000 Americans lose their jobs is the direct result of Republicans acting on what they see is their own best political interests. While one of their many changing SLOGANS last year was "America First", in truth it is plain that they hold the Republican Party's interests above those of America and our people.
Every day that our children continue to suffer from a declining educational system in which mediocrity is celebrated; every day that more taxpayers lose high wage jobs only to go on welfare food stamps and unemployment; every day that more and more Americans are forced to sign up to work at the country's largest employer WalMart whose own accidentally leaked internally study said 43% of their full-time employees are on welfare and food stamps; every day that we lose what little remains of our manufacturing base so that when we next need to really go to war like in WW2 we won't have car factories to swiftly convert to making fighter jets and tanks so we'll have to order them from CHINA which the most likely enemy in a real war; remember that Republicans see that as MERELY another day closer to the time when they regain power over the White House, Senate and House -- which if not for the horrendous disaster they have created over the last eight years might not be so terrifying.
America stopped keeping up with the demands for maintenance of our infrastructure with the Reagan administration. We were told that things like that "the free market" would take care of things like that, but tell that now to New Orleans and their crumbling levees, or Minnesota with their collapsed interstate bridge, or Kentucky with their billion gallons of toxic sludge that spilled out of a mine containment area.
America's best defense against precisely the current financial system collapse, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, enacted not coincidentally in the wake of the financial collapse of 1929, was REPEALED on the demands of deregulating Republicans -- with help from Bill Clinton in 1999. That law alone prevented financial institutions from becoming "too big to fail". That is, it kept each of the insurance, banking and real estate conglomerates within their own area. They could still become behemoths, but it's when they get into all three of those industries and start making up new ones that are totally unregulated like 'derivatives' that the failure of one company can bring down the American economy, even the world economic system.
The only thing the President-Elect can do to get us out of this disaster is to go back the way we came in, by resurrecting modern-day Glass-Steagall style regulations and stimulating the middle class segment of the system while taking back the giveaway tax cuts from the wealthiest 1% that over the last eight years gave money to people who already had more money than they knew how to spend. They squirreled it away someplace, or bought yachts built in Greece. Republicans love to claim that tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy leads to the creation of small businesses. In reality, it's Steve Jobs and Bill Gates when they had nothing who created small businesses that became leading world companies. Billionaires DON'T start small businesses, they BUY huge corporations then fire 50,000 or 100,000 employees to increase productivity and thus profits for themselves and large bonuses for the three to five top executives of each company. Oh, and they CUT wages of the few employees they do have to keep on.
That doesn't grow anything but unemployment and declining wages. Less taxpayers and more people surviving on public assistance.
If we don't stand up to these self-serving Republicans very few of us will have jobs in 2012, and they will be at WalMart. There won't be any real taxpayers to support the public assistance people need to get back into good paying jobs.
I'll get to the CRAZY DEMOCRATS on another post. I'll give you a hint that after 2012 Democrats will no longer be in control of the Senate.
Where is the money going to come from for this economic package? I would like one person to answer this question for me. Like Carter, we can always print more. But if people think that this is a solution to the problem, you need to look away from the light.
Trillion is the new buzz word in politics for some reason. A trillion here, a trillion there.
“A President must be able to do more than one thing at a time,” said then-candidate and now President-Elect Barack Obama, a few months ago when McCain was trying to weasel out of the big debate.
Evidently, President-Elect Obama CAN do far more than one thing at a time. He and his family are MOVING three times in three weeks! This, the weekend of 4 January 2009, he moves from his Chicago home to DC’s Hay-Adams Hotel. On the 15th, they move to Blair House, then on the 20th, they move into the White House. Yes he can! For most of us, the dreaded process of a single relocation is more stressful than death and taxes. But Superman is tripling-down on it.
At the same time, the President-Elect Obama is interviewing and hiring a government, from cabinet members, agency administrators, secretaries and ambassadors. He’s working feverishly on the economic crisis, the transition and inauguration, as well as homeland security and two wars. Throw in taxes, healthcare, unemployment, social security, Medicare and the crisis of the Big 3 automakers, plus Iran, Cuba, Russia, China, the Palestinians and Israel, plus all those special interest groups here at home, such as the disabled, veterans, senior citizens and gays, and you’ve got an enormous inbox.
After those daily national security briefings in which the President-Elect Obama is beginning to learn just how badly Bush has screwed things up for us around the world, it’s a wonder the President-Elect Obama can sleep at night. He needs all the rest he can get.
Enjoy your vacation, sir, you need all the recharging your batteries can get.
There are only two reasonable choices.
To evoke the vision of the world economy rising from the ashes of the torched-earth strategy of the Bush-Cheney-Rove administration, BHO should open the Bible to the gospel account of Jesus’ rising from death. Not only will it give us hope, but it will reinforce our knowledge of BHO’s Christianity, helping put aside the invocation guy.
There are always those who make their fortunes playing to the fears and insecurities of people frustrated with their own lives who need someone to blame, someone to hate, and it's easy for them to agree on certain groups to focus on.
Obama is moving America toward the point where those people will realize that if they don't have a good job, they have too little money, too much debt, their kids are in and out of jail and/or on drugs, or failing in school, it's not the fault of some group of "OTHERS". Not the gays, the jews, the blacks, or even those pesky illegal aliens, to name just a few.
It's time for a new era of Personal Responsibility in which we all take charge of our own lives while working together for all of us to achieve the American dream while making government do what it can to enable us.
Rick Warren is just an updated version of the same old Ministry Of Hatred represented by Falwell and Robertson (and so many others).
The coming of that new era is a direct threat to Rick Warren, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and all the other leaders of the Ministry of Hate. Just like the Republicans did during the long two year campaign, they will go down kicking and screaming all the way.
The President who told at least a dozen lies to get us to go to war in Iraq has conjured up more than a dozen lies to set up President Obama for failure? The most miserable failure of an excuse for a President is leaving directions for the next President?
If it weren’t so serious, it would be funny! If your memory is longer than that of 99% of Americans you know that’s not a line I made up, and you may even know who did. Details.
I’m just saying, George Bush should be planning out where he’s going to hide to keep from being arrested and delivered to the Hague for trial in the World Court for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.
We didn’t let Hitler’s assistants off the hook, and neither can we afford to let Bush’s (the New Hitler’s) people go Scot-free.
We all know that all these recent attempts by Bush to rewrite history are mere hopes that America doesn’t do what’s right. If we intend to restore any sense of moral authority or regain any worldwide respect, we must follow our own laws and those international laws we largely wrote and have been demanding everyone else follow for decades until “W” took office.
If we don’t want our soldiers tortured when they in the future are captured, we must deliver to justice George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, their generals and other high officers who ordered torture and passed on those illegal and immoral orders.
America is a chief signatory to the Geneva Conventions. In fact, before 2001, we liked to claim we largely WROTE it. What good is international law if those who claim to have written it are the worst violators?
America has long had laws against torture of prisoners of war. We cannot allow one power-mad egomaniac (or moron, depending on who is providing the facts, and there are plenty on both sides) to cause us to abandon our Constitution, or it won’t be worth anything, ever.
To put it simply, we cannot defeat terrorism by becoming the worst terrorists on earth. Long before we got to that point, any real President would have caught himself and found a better way. Why? Because Bush’s route could be seen even by people as unworldly as me to be a fool’s plot.
It started with Bush’s WAR-PRAYER-MEETING, right after 9/11. That was disturbing to me THEN, because, as a Christian and an American I wondered if Jesus would say that we should “turn the other cheek”.
What? “Turn the other cheek”. I know. I certainly wasn’t in the mood for that. But that’s what Jesus would have us do – according to the Bible. Those so-called religious Republicans have still never mentioned that, and they would castrate me for mentioning it if they could. (They don’t have the balls for it, so they’ll try to get you to do it, just like the Romans, according to the Bible, were forced to murder Jesus. Just reading it objectively and making no assumptions. NO benefit to me which side you take).
Strange, but when you think about the things that really were surprises, you can’t find any that Bush created that much cohesion to in that short a time. Can you? I can’t.
Almost makes you wonder WHEN Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush KNEW 9/11 was going to happen, doesn’t it? Naaaaaaah. Certainly not. I don’t really know. Do I???
It WAS amazing that five seconds after the first jet crashed into the World Trade Center, Bush’s officials declared they knew it was Osama Bin Laden! Before the first tower collapsed, the Bush administration told us who to blame. I wondered why they didn’t PREVENT it since they obviously knew so much about it in advance.
Worse yet is the fact that for all of 2000, Bush campaigned claiming “America’s military is not ready!” Yet, during all of 2001, he did NOTHING to get our military ready. Why would you TELL our enemies that our military isn’t ready? Then, once in power, why would you fail to GET it ready/ Bush should spend the rest of his days in Guantanamo for that alone.
I always think you can know who caused something to happen by figuring out who BENEFITTED from whatever happened.
