Wednesday Open Thread
Chat away...
Comments (231) «
WooHOOOO
GO DEMS IN 08!!
Time to CLEAN OUT AND CLEAN UP the DIRTY White HOUSE!
The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush
When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.I can hear an irritated counterthrust already. The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. Well, fine. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.
Kristen,
Information clearing HOuse posts the REAL numbers every day. (If you don't subscribe to this publication, you should)
Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered In U.S. War On Iraq 1,118,846
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In U.S. War And Occupation Of Iraq 3,875
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cost of U.S. War and Occupation of Iraq
$471,373,473,484
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/.
(be careful though, when you publish Real, accurate numbers like this. the Repuggies will say you are anti-american because you DARE to print the truth, or else they will say 'so what, women and children and innocents are nothing but collateral damage'. They will not give a damn
THIS DESERVES ANOTHER POSTING:
Looks like it is going to be a Fun Tool for rebutting Republican Candidates!
FLIPPER TV>
http://www.democrats.org/page/content/FlipperTV/
Speaking of flippers, tonight at 8:00 is the Repug YouTube debate. I don't know if I can make myself watch or not ! all that smoke and mirrors gets in my eyes ! All that spin makes me dizzy. All the distortions and lies make me sick to my stomach !
(be careful though, when you publish Real, accurate numbers like this. the Repuggies will say you are anti-american because you DARE to print the truth, or else they will say 'so what, women and children and innocents are nothing but collateral damage'. They will not give a damn
Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 09:34 AM
Thanks for the warning Pam, I've been working on toughing my 'who gives a crud what you think' shell. :)
As I read through the Salon article I realized the 'anti-american' label would probably be thrown my way as well.
What I've learned over the last week is that those that scream these things are truly the minority. I know I've mentioned my Republican father on more than one occasion but over the holiday we had a very long family discussion about the war and the cost to our country. Many times before we had to agree to disagree for the sanity sake of mom, but this time he was right there agreeing with me that the cost of what we have done was too high and Bush has really screwed things up.
what a cool picture!!
dedicated to moi??? rut roh am I posting too much?
sowwy :-[
I have voted democrat in every election since I was 18. I was excited to cast my first vote for Bill Clinton. I am thirty now and my views of the party have been going through some changes as of late. I believe you have lost touch with the moderate democrat. I believe that all of the candidates and the overall message is weak. I will be voting a third party this coming election. Who knows, maybe even a moderate Republican. Thank you for the continued dissappointment, it will make my choices easier this coming election.
Good morning, ALL!
Dawn, you realize, of course, that since this thread is dedicated to YOU (probably due to your "demanding" nature J/K) the trolls will have a field day attacking YOU. That's what they do.
Michael, that 'Flipper-Vision' thing is GREAT! An instant "Rapid Response" tool at the tip of ones fingers.
Just click a mouse and chase the rats away.
Dear k_bar
thanks for visiting our blog, and making your views known.
You obviously are happy with the way things have gone in this country for the last 7 years, so you vote 3rd party spoiler, or vote for a Republican ! Another 4 or 8 years of this bull shit seems to be just what you would like.
Have a nice life !
"Who knows, maybe even a moderate Republican."
Posted by k_bar43 on November 28, 2007 at 09:48 AM
Good luck finding one of those, concern troll!!!
Dawn, you realize, of course, that since this thread is dedicated to YOU (probably due to your "demanding" nature J/K) the trolls will have a field day attacking YOU. That's what they do.
damn ! You mean I am going to lose my 'admirers'? Dawnie, take it as a compliment should they do so !
Kristen,
Your father is a big man. It is those Republicans who still cling to approving of Bush, of this illegal occupation because they are small people that make me sick !
bbl,
DUE BEE~~~~Trolls stink - P-U
(I still don't understand your fascination with them?) lol
Yep I'm demanding! Just ask the animals! (and the furry creatures) The Trees know it. The Birds know it too! Even the wind chimes ring at my command!
PAHHAHAHAHA! (poke)
If you just sit there and wait for things to happen they MAY - or they may NOT
If you MAKE things happen you can pretty much COUNT on things getting done. Not always the way you want but at least you are DOING something! Right?
:-P
So k bar #43 (hmmmm) thinks the Dems are too libburrell, and some others think the Dems are too moderate.
Can't please everybody I guess, but voting for a Pug or throwing away a vote based on what FAX "News" claims seems a little too contrived.
In the Primaries, the candidates jockey for field position against opponents within the Party, in the General election they jockey for the middle of BOTH parties.
What part of this is too difficult to understand?
It's the PRIMARY season, where the players try to articulate certain things to certain constituencies in order to be the nominee. After that they have to appeal to ALL the voters as best as they can.
Regardless, FAX SPEWS will call ANY Dem a "leftist" no matter who it is.
Posted by Make_the_Scary_Repukes_Go_Away on November 28, 2007 at 10:05 AM
Let them spend all of their money on that, better than on the candidates in the next election.
Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 10:00 AM
speaking of trolls {{Pammy}} that idiot last night threatened me by saying YOU would kick me off the blog for my opinion!
I was ROFLMAO then realized it REALLY doesn't understand friendship. IT's LOSS and I pity it.
Has anyone else been limiting their areas of reading and listening lately now that so many are picking their candidates and promoting MOSTLY them and letting the others get dissed at random?
I no longer visit KOS, DU or listen to Ed or Stephanie. Limiting my venues but I get tired of hearing their rants and their callers rants against Hillary. JMO.
I'm sure the haters love it. Anyway just noticing it's getting much worse.
Make_the_scary's link
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/oral-roberts-university-gets-a-lifeline/20071128081209990001?
good morning, just been reading the comments. those trolls are everywhere. i just hate to see all the democratic candidates fighting with each other, especially as bloody as its been getting. the repugs are going to use this against us in the general campaign. i sincerely hope we have not damaged ourselves to the point that the eventual nominee will have a harder time getting elected. i still don't believe obama has the experience fighting the repugs smut machine.they just haven't started on him yet. their still on hilliary. what about edwards, he certainly didn't do much to help out kerry. his speeches in 04' were mundane at best. it's nerve racking, we must get the white house or this country is down the drain
Morning Connie
Not many here would totally agree with you.
(I happen to) But most probably won't here. Anyway welcome to the DNCKA. :-)
Posted by connfloyd on November 28, 2007 at 10:14 AM
Don't worry too much about the infighting, politicians are like animals trapped in a corner, they fight for survival with vicious ferocity. I think it is good to muck it up in the primaries--it gives us a chance to see the strengths and weaknesses of candidates and as Nietzsche said "that which does not kill us makes us stronger"--it prepares them for the evil hate machine that is to come.
Anyone remember Oral Roberts in the 80s asking for 40mil or god was going to take him? That's when I realized just how much of a threat ignorant Bible thumpers can be.
FEDS HIDING TRILLIONS IN DEPT!
BETTER WATCH YOUR BANK ACCOUNTS!!!
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/News/FedsBudgetTricksHideTrillionsInDebt.aspx
speaking of trolls {{Pammy}} that idiot last night threatened me by saying YOU would kick me off the blog for my opinion!
oh, dawnie. Speaking of power, that trollie (sour grape Mark Lof who obviously got kicked out), and others, think I have the magic of blocking and erasing them. IF ONLY !
Posted by ranger995 on November 28, 2007 at 10:24 AM
wow 2 in a row! I agree ranger.
(ok add Atrios to the list of no longer reading, shees)
Hillary Clinton.
-Atrios 16:56
Posted by DawnTheOriginaL on November 28, 2007 at 10:10 AM
You know I didn't like Sen Clinton (we should start calling her that and correct any repug who does not show her respect) at first because she was too tied to the DLC and big corporations. However, I have grown to admire her a little because she is a good fighter and we need that in our party right now. I sort of abandoned the DNC after the last election ---I campaigned for Tammy Duckworth and it was bitter. I was really upset at the Democrat's refusal to fight back hard--but i think Sen Clinton may bring that to the table even if I don't agree with her 100% I am starving for some on to take the fight to them.
Well, ranger, if the leadership and the candidates will not take up the fight, count on the Democrats in this country who have had Enough and are not going to take it anymore ! We have seen 7 years of what Republican Destruction can do, and that is enough!
I will fight for Dem candidates for Congress and the WH. I will donate more than I can afford to make sure the message gets out. I will help with the 50 State strategy and bring Democratic candidates and offices where they never were before. I will carry Voter Reg cards with me and sign up voters where ever I find them. I will phone bank and go door to door. Whatever it takes !
Ranger me too
I really like Tammy!!
Is Tammy still planning to run in 08 for something? I hope so. She would be a stellar addition to our Party Leadership! Don't you think? What a true fighter!
were you airborne? 1st or 2nd/75th? Loved those guys!!
GMA is broadcasting from my favorite place in the Northwest Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 10:34 AM
I agree Pam, and I will be back in the fold soon enough, I just needed some time to regroup and focus on my own life a little.
Don't you worry I will be doing all of those things before too long.
I am glad that people like you are around. Is FADE still posting here?
Posted by DawnTheOriginaL on November 28, 2007 at 10:35 AM
Just a Paratrooper who went to Ranger school--nothing special.
I don't know about Tammy, except that the governor gave her a job in state Veteran's affairs. As I said, I have been out of it.
Well, I am going to get going. Talk to you all soon
Posted by ranger995 on November 28, 2007 at 10:40
BS nothing special? HA! very special!
I KNOW how HARD that school is - I wrote about it all the time for our paper and dated a few. woo - FOND memories indeed! ;-)
Some day I will upload some of my old photos and show some of you. They are pretty cool. I need to fix this scanner first.
I went up twice with the 1st/75th with plans on jumping with them to continue the story but both times chickened OUT! I'm such a chickenchit! hehe. But I have this bad memory of spraining my ankle a few times and really didn't want to go through that pain again.
yes I chickened out. I was such a girl. :-p
Posted by WallaceMcH on November 28, 2007 at 10:43 AM
when I read about her dad I knew we had a lot in common. Mine was also a republican AND very miserly (he never turned OFF the heat like hers used to) but was very stubborn.
She may INDEED have the fight in her. I hope her thyroid is ok.
Oh, great. The Bavarian burd is here with more B.S.
That Zogby poll is the one that the MSM have been touting for 2 days, and are ignoring ALL the others that basically show that Zogby's online polling relying on people who VOLUNTEER to take his polls is a flawed methodology.
Dawn, Tammy Duckworth wasn't just given a job with the State VA, she was appointed to be the DIRECTOR of the State Department of Veterans' Affairs.
ranger,
fade found another place to blog where she felt she was doing more good. Hopefully, she will come back from time to time during our 11 month fight.
Glad to hear you will too.
and well they should! This economy sucks!
home sales at 20 yr low. Stock market just playing merry go round. US dollar in tank. etc, etc.
Democrats Switch Tack, Seize on Economic Woes By Jonathan E. Kaplan
The Hill
Wednesday 28 November 2007
Congressional Democrats will focus on the economy next week in an effort to win political advantage from public fears about an approaching recession.
Military Progress Doesn't Make War More Popular
By Peter Baker
The Washington Post
Wednesday 28 November 2007
The debate at home over the Iraq war has shifted significantly in the two months since Gen. David H. Petraeus testified to Congress and President Bush ordered the first troop withdrawals, with more Americans now concluding that the situation on the ground is improving.
A new poll released yesterday underscored the changing political environment, finding the public more positive about the military effort in Iraq than at any point in 14 months as a surge of optimism follows the rapid decline in violence. Yet Bush remains as unpopular as ever in the survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, and the public remains just as committed to bringing U.S. troops home.
just hate to see all the democratic candidates fighting with each other,
but still, I'll promote my candidate by talking about the shortcomings of others...
i still don't believe obama has the experience fighting the repugs smut machine....what about edwards, he certainly didn't do much to help out kerry. his speeches in 04' were mundane at best.
Posted by connfloyd on November 28, 2007 at 10:14 AM
Hi All,
New guy here. Thought I'd stop by the DNC and see what was up.
I'm a lifelong Democrat, but my grandfather was a Republican state representative in a western state. I remember him taking me to the floor of the house chamber in our state capital when I was a kid. I'd characterize him as a centrist Repub, the kind who would probably get booted from the party today.
Anyway, I am very concerned about our frontrunner candidates. I respect Sen. Clinton, and I have no problem voting for a strong woman- I am married to one who is the main breadwinner in our household. But I think Hillary will serve as a lightning rod and motivate many Republicans who might otherwise switch parties or stay at home to come and vote against her. It is obvious that "likability" should not be a criterion by which we choose a president, but it is unfortunately a factor for many swing voters, and I do not find her particularly likable. I think the baggage she brings is a huge liability.
I also respect Sen. Obama, but I find it kind of arrogant and surprising that he thinks he should be president at this stage of his career. It is going to take a lot more than charisma to win this election, and to me that is about all he has going for him.
I think Edwards is a more viable candidate, as are Dodd and Biden. Don't get me wrong- I will vote for whoever the Dems field. But I think we are at serious risk of blowing an election that by all rights should be a shoo-in, given the appalling Bush presidency that even some blatant Republican partisans can't ignore.
Neither of the ostensible front runners is that strong of a candidate, IMO, and I think we risk snatching defeat from the jaws of victory next fall unless we seriously consider some others.
Well I'm sure this should provoke some discussion. Just wanted to see what others think...
I guess I'm bak - munching brunch
and I also surmise I am the gullible one here?
lol I seem to just fall for the "I'm new here" line more than anyone else
ok I'll bite
WELCOME New People to the DNC KickyourASS blog if you're BSing me!!
(french not included)\
have fun, don't be hating on each other and you'll be fine!
Posted by GregL on November 28, 2007 at 11:18 AM
for Xmas I'm buying you a BIG LONG POINTER stick with a light at the end so you can point all day!
(lol)
I know I've done it. Haven't you?
(poke)
they're forcing me to do this - lol kidding but what the hail
~a snip to spare you~ :-P~
AGAINST SURPRISES: Clinton, seen here campaigning for her husband in 1992, pushed aides hard for thorough preparation.
As first lady, the senator didn't win every battle. But she was known for showing up thoroughly, perhaps obsessively, prepared.
(that's what I want)
Posted by howdydude on November 28, 2007 at 11:40 AM
I think you made some valid points. We all have to make sure we are not simply ignoring the views of Everyday Joe/Joan Citizen who may be thinking the exact same thing. Sure, it's fun (for some of us) to dream about a female leader, but will those same dreamers actually vote for her? Or will they let their fears overcome their desires?
Posted by DawnTheOriginaL on November 28, 2007 at 11:57 AM
I bash all of them equally, Dawnie...well, ok, Gravel more than the rest, but he's friggin insane. :)
GregL are you talking about me?
The Trolls stole my name DAWN the other day when I was playing around in another name. Should have known better cuz the second I gave it up - the crooks stole it.
this is Dawnie
the original not the troll
I seem to just fall for the "I'm new here" line more than anyone elsePosted by DawnTheOriginaL on November 28, 2007 at 11:52 AM
Naw, it's the "lifelong Democrat" line that usually means "troll"...not always, but usually, and if I'm wrong about ya, howdydude, I'll say so.
(Hmmm, next words, "What's a troll"?)
Posted by GregL on November 28, 2007 at 12:04 PM
true but hey even Gravel is better than ANYthing PUG
I even like some of his more wild ideas even though he'd NEVER get anyone else to go along with it! ;-)
Posted by howdydude on November 28, 2007 at 11:40 AM
Howdy, dood!
Posted by GregL on November 28, 2007 at 12:07 PM
ahhhhh very good Sherlock! I'll start watching for that!
I can't say that line which is probably why I'll buy it from someone else HERE. (LIFELONG DEMOCRAT) I spent a few crazy years as an Independent you know. Crazy! :-/ (Mom and Daughter however can claim that line)
Gravel lost the vote of 'People for the Ethical Treatment of Rocks' with that commercial of his, IMO.
He can't afford to alienate the rock lovers like that. What's next?
He did pick up the vote of 'People Who Just Stare Into A Camera For Prolonged Amounts Of Time', though.
But I will bite on one thing...Obama has more experience in political office than Hillary Clinton or John Edwards. I cannot for the life of me understand where people get this "arrogance" thing from. There's no fucking queue for President. There's no "Take a number". There is only, "Who has the qualities needed for the job". And every one of our Democratic candidates has most, if not all, of the qualities we need in the person that is the chief executor of our laws.
Posted by DawnTheOriginaL on November 28, 2007 at 12:14 PM
S'ok, Dawn...I still AM an independent..one who votes Democratic, but I'm not registered under any party, nor have I taken any type of oath to any party...well, except the party of "Let's drink more Guinness" :)
Posted by GregL on November 28, 2007 at 12:17 PM
Laws, Greg?
Olbermann: “With or without this new law, suppose one of the anti-wiretapping civil lawsuits succeeds, what does that legal victory actually mean then in terms of stopping the government or punishing Alberto Gonzales or any other top officials who were responsible for this?”
Turley: “Well, it can mean a lot and that’s one of the reasons there’s a lot of people, both Democrats and Republicans, who don’t want to see it happen. They don’t want a court to say that the president did something that is a federal crime. That’s why they’re trying to get all these cases thrown out of court because it is rather clear that what the president ordered was a federal crime, clearly defined in federal law. But that causes a problem because many of the Democratic leaders and Republican leaders have promised each other that they would not start impeachment proceedings, but when a federal judge says the president committed a crime, it’s pretty darn hard to ignore that.”
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/11/28/turley-it-is-rather-clear-that-what-the-president-ordered-was-a-federal-crime/
doobie that was a "custom" commercial for him to put up........ it totally works for his character! LOL yea the po po wittle rocks
Posted by GregL on November 28, 2007 at 12:17 PM
you heathen!! ;-)
Posted by BlueinIdaho on November 28, 2007 at 12:29 PM
speaking of Turley (whom I really like) guess where I saw HIM the other day??? ON the History channel on a show about Roswell. He was about 20 yrs younger being interviewed about workers rights at a place that ON PAPER didn't exist!
It was WILD seeing him so much younger. Still a hottie today. (jmo)
Blue
Is this what they call a Quandary?
Ha more like a SNAFU
Posted by BlueinIdaho on November 28, 2007 at 12:29 PM
Blue? Point being? My rant was on the fact that our (and I can use "our" because it is the party I am supporting in this election) Democratic candidates WILL restore law and order and dignity to the White House no matter which of them is elected...but if we get Kucinich, do you think we could get Federal money for the UFO museum in Roswell? :)
Posted by DawnTheOriginaL on November 28, 2007 at 12:52 PM
Linky no worky. :(
Dang! Linky no worky
doesn't matter I was just ...... a n y w a y
What happens to campaign money that is not used? Are these accounts used for personal reasons? Does unspent money need to be given back or put back in the government? It seems one could get rich from these funds. If these funds are used for other reasons is the money then taxed and listed as income?
Posted by GregL on November 28, 2007 at 12:54 PM
My point is much the same as yours. The GOPers think that laws are for poor people, unless of course, they happen to be poor at the time.
I sure wish the aliens would help us out here and beam up Chainee. :)
bbl.
the link was to websters with a definition of
Main Entry: quan·da·ry
Pronunciation: 'kwän-d(&-)rE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ries
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: 1579
: a state of perplexity or doubt
and I still think SNAFU is better but had to explain...
I guess I'd better get ready for the tour.
any requests for any pictures?
Posted by BlueinIdaho on November 28, 2007 at 12:59 PM
Ok, so you wuz just bouncing off my rant...I do that myself sometimes. First time that it ever confused me, though :)
I sure wish the aliens would help us out here and beam up Chainee. :)
Posted by BlueinIdaho on November 28, 2007 at 12:59 PM
what self respecting alien would WANT tricky dicky ? A mutant of the Human race! No brain, no heart to observe.
I will be voting a third party this coming election. Who knows, maybe even a moderate Republican. Thank you for the continued dissappointment, it will make my choices easier this coming election.
Posted by k_bar43 on November 28, 2007
can you point out a moderate repub?
my new post
i have voted repub since i was eighteen, i voted that way because i thought the repub party was the party of jesus, i was so excited to cast my first vote for ronnie reagan. i thought his trickle down economic theory was really going to make poor peoples lives better (turns out it just made the rich richer). at least we were still the moral majority, then i started to compare the party of jesus to jesus. help the poor, not on GOP plank, help children, elderly, nope. turn the other cheek, forgive my brother 7x7 times? nope. while i never doubted and don't to this day that military force is sometimes necessary, i always thought it would be as a least resort. now with the number of repub congressman going to jail, run out for sex scandals... i guess i could vote 3rd party and with 3% of america make no difference at all other that to prove we can get 3%. nah i will vote dem this time and remove the false prophets from office.
Hi,all!
I have a question about one of the issues where the Dems (imho)seem to be out of touch with the populace.
This issue is ILLEGAL immigration. Not immigration following the law. From what I've seen on TV and read in different articles, it seems that there is a big disconnect between the words LEGAL IMMIGRATION and ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.
I have no problems with anyone from anywhere coming to live and become a US citizen. IMHO, they are welcome to make a better life for themselves and their families by coming here, so long as they follow the rules.
I do have a problem with people from anywhere, regardless of skin color, birthplace, etc, sneaking into the country. They show disrespect for the law and for those immigrants who have followed the rules and done what they were supposed to do to be here legally. They are criminals for coming here in contravention of the law.
These illegal immigrants (calling them undocumented is a mealy mouthed way to avoid calling them what they are, ILLEGAL immigrants) are here only because they broke the law. Why should criminals be given the right to become citizens?
They may never break another law in all their time here, but that doesn't seem logical or reasonable to me. Once one has committed one crime, it seems to me that breaking other laws would become easier.
Legal immigrants have documents proving who they are and that they have come here the right way, that's why they are called documented immigrants. They have had the background checks done, they are taking classes to learn our ways and our common language, and while some may indeed go on to commit crimes, at least they come to this country and start with a fresh slate, not criminals from the get-go.
Why should the Democratic party appear to be soft on ILLEGAL immigration? I don't understand this.
The "Comprehensive Reform" of the immigration laws put forward by Dems in Congress was nothing more than another amnesty for all those here illegally. The bill allowed criminals to become citizens simply by paying a fine. No going back to their country and following the entire process that legal immigrants follow. No real punishment for being here illegally in the first place, only a fine, no jail time. Illegal immigration is only a misdemeanor, but that is still good for up to a year in federal custody as punishment for being a criminal.
What does that say to LEGAL immigrants who may have spent a few years to go through the legal measures and to pay the processing costs to come here? It says that we disrespect them and their sacrifices to come here legally. It says we value their contributions to this country at the same value as those who are criminals for the way they came here - very low.
Illegal immigration benefits mainly the businesses & corporations, not the people in general. Illegal immigration drives wages downward for all. Illegal immigration puts a heavy strain on schools, hospitals, law enforcement, and other sectors of American life by demanding these services without contributing financially by paying taxes - how can one pay taxes if they have no legit Social Security card and aren't supposed to be here in the first place?
Yes, I know about FTID, the federal taxpayer ID number, which may take the place of a SSAN, but (if my info is correct) FTIDs are only supposed to go to people who employ others; and that's simply to pay federal taxes - and the IRS doesn't care if you are a legal or illegal, they just want the taxes.
These workers are often paid under the table, off the books, and so taxes and things like worker's compensation are not paid on those workers. If they get hurt they go to hospital, but often cannot or do not pay for the services - the illegal immigrant usually simply cannot afford to pay for the high price of medical services.
Because they are illegal and cannot complain, they work for less than the job is worth, probably pay no taxes on their income, but have kids in our schools, use hospital emergency departments for their healthcare (and don't pay for the services), and are not in the tax base to support police, fire, medical and other societal purposes.
Again, these are the perceptions I have about this issue. My mind is not closed, but rather open to discussion and persuasion. I am not a troll like some that post here, I believe I have a legit question that needs answering with more than empty rhetoric.
Swooper, according to Pew's Immigration poll done in June of this year 63% of those polled support providing a way for illegal immigrants already here to gain citizenship and a slim majority support 'amnesty'.
Mixed Views on Immigration Bill
Good Morning to All,
TOPIC: DUMPING OF INMATES AND CRIMINAL BY REPUBLICAN STATES.
The interesting aspect about Mitt Romney's Willie Horton escapade is it brings to light what East Coast and Southern politicians and judges have been doing for years. The repugnant x-tian reich have been exporting all their criminals and inmates on early release to Western States.
Years ago as Giuliani was claiming he reduced the crime in New York; secretly his courts appointed judges were shipping inmates to Washington, Oregon and California. He was overwhelming our police and mental institutions with his early release criminals.
Now the evidence show Daniel Tavares Jr. convicted murdered in the state of Massachusetts, who was denied parole and requested to be denied parole by the parole board for violence, was released by Mitt Romney’s court appointed judge given a one way ticket to Washington State. In Washington he murdered a couple, Brian (30) and Beverly (28) Mauck in their home, Graham Washington.
When you see some of the TV reality shows that roam the streets of Seattle, Portland and Hollywood California; one discovers the drug addicts and children-teens that roam the streets are disguarded republican state children.
On a visit to Hawaii recently and ran into an aggressive pan-handler dressed like a Rastafarian and smelling of pot; he spoke with a southern twang and stated came from South Carolina. These republicans are doing a poor job rehabilitating their inmate population then dumping them on other states!
Someone should investigate this issue; if this is how republicans fix their crime problems than we are going to be in a big mess when another one is elected president and appoint judges who enjoys writing one way tickets for criminals to other states!
Legal immigrants have documents proving who they are (or at least who they want us to think they are) and that they have come here the right way, that's why they are called documented immigrants. They have had the background checks done (except when they haven't), they are taking classes to learn our ways and how to fly commercial airliners and our common language (that would be Mangled-lish), and while some may indeed go on to commit crimes (at least 19 of them), at least they come to this country and start with a fresh slate, not criminals from the get-go (well, maybe some).Posted by Swooper420 on November 28, 2007 at 01:36 PM
Bold type are my comments...I'm in a "let's make fun of the immigration troll" mood today :)
Immigration of Problem Inmates and Criminals from Republican states is a bigger issue than Mexican Immigrants. Republican states have ranked the worst in criminal rehabilitation U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics; 50% to 60% recidivism rate The republican states have a higher rate of recidivism – return to crime - second time offenders. Now we have evidence republican appointed judges just dumping their problem criminals to other states.
The "Comprehensive Reform" of the immigration laws put forward by Dems in Congress was nothing more than another amnesty for all those here illegally. The bill allowed criminals to become citizens simply by paying a fine. No going back to their country and following the entire process that legal immigrants follow. No real punishment for being here illegally in the first place, only a fine, no jail time. Illegal immigration is only a misdemeanor, but that is still good for up to a year in federal custody as punishment for being a criminal.
well, Swoop, could you plese send me your name , address and SS number, so I can tell the US Government that YOU will be happy to pay MY share of the cost of rounding up, holding and feeding, and then transporting back to Mexico, Guatamala, Paraguay, China, and all the other countries they came from?
Thank you very much. I appreciate your help.
Hybrid, I'm sorry but you honestly are off base on the Tavares case.
I read the transcript for the bail hearing where the judge ruled to let him out and the prosecutors provided NO information regarding the threats to Romney or that he may flee the area...they were practically silent through the hearing.
Well, GregL, who is the real troll here? I have made a total of 2 posts here, yet you want to call me a troll for asking a serious question that i was hoping to get serious discussion about.
Too bad you decided to play the smart-ass and be flip about the question.
Why not grow up before inflicting yourself into the discussion again.
...oh excuse me; some states in the south have recidivism of 94%!!
Hybrid, here is the transcript. I agree with Blue, the judge in this case ruled according to the law and the information provided.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2007/11/26/2004036435.pdf
3 Canadian soldiers injured in Afghanistan
Three Canadian soldiers were injured in Afghanistan after their vehicle ran over a roadside bomb near Kandahar. The troops were on patrol when the light armoured vehicle they were riding in drove over an improvised explosive device at about 10 a.m. Wednesday morning, The Canadian Press reports.
Full Story:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071128/soldiers_injured_071128/20071128?hub=World
Iraq Female Suicide Bomber
A woman wearing an explosive belt blew herself up in Baquba, wounding seven American soldiers and five Iraqis, the U.S. military said Wednesday. Full Story:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/28/iraq.main/index.html
Afghan airstrike kills road crew
U.S.-led coalition troops killed 14 road construction workers in airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan because of mistaken intelligence reports, Afghan officials said Wednesday.
Full Story:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/11/28/afghanistan.airstrike.ap/index.html
you want to call me a troll for asking a serious question that i was hoping to get serious discussion about.
We have 'discussed' this subject for the last year. Been there, done that. doesn't amount to a hill of beans , those who want them beaten and thrown out, and those who want to coronate them !
Why don't you try starting with your senators and congressmen, then go on to the DSCC and the DCCC and make your pitch there?
from today's wj urinal:
Head of Rove Inquiry in Hot Seat Himself
Bloch Used Private Company,
Geeks on Call, to Delete Files
On His Office Computer
By JOHN R. WILKE
November 28, 2007; Page A6
WASHINGTON -- The head of the federal agency investigating Karl Rove's White House political operation is facing allegations that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a private computer-help company, Geeks on Call.
Scott Bloch runs the Office of Special Counsel, an agency charged with protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing a ban on federal employees engaging in partisan political activity. Mr. Bloch's agency is looking into whether Mr. Rove and other White House officials used government agencies to help re-elect Republicans in 2006.
At the same time, Mr. Bloch has himself been under investigation since 2005. At the direction of the White House, the federal Office of Personnel Management's inspector general is looking into claims that Mr. Bloch improperly retaliated against employees and dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination.
[Scott Bloch]
Recently, investigators learned that Mr. Bloch erased all the files on his office personal computer late last year. They are now trying to determine whether the deletions were improper or part of a cover-up, lawyers close to the case said.
Bypassing his agency's computer technicians, Mr. Bloch phoned 1-800-905-GEEKS for Geeks on Call, the mobile PC-help service. It dispatched a technician in one of its signature PT Cruiser wagons. In an interview, the 49-year-old former labor-law litigator from Lawrence, Kan., confirmed that he contacted Geeks on Call but said he was trying to eradicate a virus that had seized control of his computer...
brining new meaning to the expression "dumb mutha f_ _ _ _ _ s
I'm just a dummy, I don't have any answers, just questions. Why is it not important to first seal our borders to keep people from sneaking into this country, anyone of whom could be a terrorist and start blowing things (and us)up? How are we going to deport 12 million people? Do we have the time, the money, the the agents to do this? I don't know.
My mind is not closed, but rather open to discussion and persuasion.
Posted by Swooper420 on November 28, 2007
many of the issues you raised are true, and some are twists. the immigration reform bill was pushed by GW himself as boasted on the whitehouse site http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/immigration/
secondly the immigrants who come here "legally" have you ever been through the process of "legal" immigration? the process of bribing the locals in my opinion is anything but legal.
as for paying them under the table, who is to blame for that? more illegals pay into the system with no hope of ever drawing out than are paid under the table. as for driving down wages of no skill jobs, migrant work, how can you drive the wages below minimum unless the employer is breaking the law (see paid under the table) another thing is since they are paid such low wages, they will be forced to spend all their money in the local economy, thereby providing taxes and employment for everyone. now as for softness on illegals, if employers were given giant fines for hiring them, more fines for not complying with min wage, and prison time for employers who pay "under the table" in violation of the tax codes we as americans know. does this all sound tough enough? like kevin costner said "if you build it they will come." as long as jobs are avail and these people need to feed their families, they will come. i thank god i was born here, but if i wasn't and there was a way to feed my kids, i would do it. (providing i wasn't hurting people to make that money, i.e. selling drugs, killing...)
very lastly your post sounds more like push polling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll
than openmindeness
Now, haven't they said right along to Bush, nothing will be accomplished unless he included Iran and Hamas in the talks? Why does that idiot never ever listen????? There MIGHT be some real peace negotiated if he had invited all parties involved ! Whether he likes them or not, Iran and Hamas are part of the Middle East!
"As would-be peacemakers bask in the international limelight of the Annapolis conference, back in the Middle East two other parties are serving up notice that no deal will come to pass, if they can help it: Iran and its Palestinian ally, Hamas. "The Annapolis conference was already a failure," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told journalists after a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday. The U.S. could sponsor a hundred such meetings, he added, and the result would be the same. In Gaza, which is effectively ruled by the fundamentalist Hamas group, anti-Annapolis protesters filled the streets. "They can go to thousands of conferences and we will say in the name of the Palestinian people that we do not accept," Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar told the demonstrators.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20071128/wl_time/caniranandhamassinkannapolis
GregL: "But I will bite on one thing...Obama has more experience in political office than Hillary Clinton or John Edwards. I cannot for the life of me understand where people get this "arrogance" thing from. There's no fucking queue for President. There's no "Take a number". There is only, "Who has the qualities needed for the job". And every one of our Democratic candidates has most, if not all, of the qualities we need in the person that is the chief executor of our laws."
OK, point taken. I do need to familiarize myself more with Obama's record. And "arrogance" was a poor choice of words. In Edwards's case, simply being on the national stage for several years longer than Obama does not necessarily make him more experienced, I will admit that. I had the same question about him when he ran in 2004, but gradually warmed up to him and his message. I suppose I do need to be consistent.
RE Clinton- Technically your point is correct, although IMO 8 years as first lady, active in policy matters and confidant of Bill (as opposed to just being a decoration like most Repub 1st ladies) counts as very useful experience.
I think this experience with realities of the ups and downs of pushing both domestic and foreign policy agendas would make her more pragmatic and effective than Obama, who I think might be more subject to mis-steps and related lack of effectiveness at getting things done ala Carter.
My first choices would be Biden or Dodd. Intelligent, experienced, no need to get up to speed on how Washington works. There is no time for that. I'm surprised neither of them are on peoples' radar more, probably due to lack of money and charisma. Or being perceived as old-guard, insiders when some think we need "new blood".
RE being a "life-long" Democrat: Yes they do exist. I have voted, and voted a straight Democrat ticket, in every election since 1976 when I turned 18. I even voted for Dukakis fer Chrissake! I've been tempted to vote Green on occasion, and I strongly believe a multi-party or parliamentary system is badly needed. But in the end, I want my vote to count and getting rid of Republicans is more important than making a "statement", aka wasting my vote.
There have been Republicans that I respect for their intelligence and abilities, but I have fundamental differences with the Republican agenda and basic philosophy regarding the ability of "free" market capitalism to solve all of our problems. And then there are their positions on the environment, defense, womens' and minority rights, free speech and media conglomeration, etc, etc, etc. ad infinitum. These considerations prevent me from EVER voting Republican. And these distinctions have become much more stark over the past 15 years as the Repubs have swung ever farther to the right and jettisoned their centrist members.
On an unrelated matter, I know I'm a techno-luddite, but can someone fill me in on how to use the formatting buttons at the top right hand side of the comment box? Whenever I try to use one of them, it just shoots me to the top of this page. Thx.
GregL: "But I will bite on one thing...Obama has more experience in political office than Hillary Clinton or John Edwards. I cannot for the life of me understand where people get this "arrogance" thing from. There's no fucking queue for President. There's no "Take a number". There is only, "Who has the qualities needed for the job". And every one of our Democratic candidates has most, if not all, of the qualities we need in the person that is the chief executor of our laws."
OK, point taken. I do need to familiarize myself more with Obama's record. And "arrogance" was a poor choice of words. In Edwards's case, simply being on the national stage for several years longer than Obama does not necessarily make him more experienced, I will admit that. I had the same question about him when he ran in 2004, but gradually warmed up to him and his message. I suppose I do need to be consistent.
RE Clinton- Technically your point is correct, although IMO 8 years as first lady, active in policy matters and confidant of Bill (as opposed to just being a decoration like most Repub 1st ladies) counts as very useful experience.
I think this experience with realities of the ups and downs of pushing both domestic and foreign policy agendas would make her more pragmatic and effective than Obama, who I think might be more subject to mis-steps and related lack of effectiveness at getting things done ala Carter.
My first choices would be Biden or Dodd. Intelligent, experienced, no need to get up to speed on how Washington works. There is no time for that. I'm surprised neither of them are on peoples' radar more, probably due to lack of money and charisma. Or being perceived as old-guard, insiders when some think we need "new blood".
RE being a "life-long" Democrat: Yes they do exist. I have voted, and voted a straight Democrat ticket, in every election since 1976 when I turned 18. I even voted for Dukakis fer Chrissake! I've been tempted to vote Green on occasion, and I strongly believe a multi-party or parliamentary system is badly needed. But in the end, I want my vote to count and getting rid of Republicans is more important than making a "statement", aka wasting my vote.
There have been Republicans that I respect for their intelligence and abilities, but I have fundamental differences with the Republican agenda and basic philosophy regarding the ability of "free" market capitalism to solve all of our problems. And then there are their positions on the environment, defense, womens' and minority rights, free speech and media conglomeration, etc, etc, etc. ad infinitum. These considerations prevent me from EVER voting Republican. And these distinctions have become much more stark over the past 15 years as the Repubs have swung ever farther to the right and jettisoned their centrist members.
On an unrelated matter, I know I'm a techno-luddite, but can someone fill me in on how to use the formatting buttons at the top right hand side of the comment box? Whenever I try to use one of them, it just shoots me to the top of this page. Thx.
Kristen,
The bail hearing for his offense in Washington state is a different issue from Massachusetts parole hearing.
CNN and MSNBC reported the mass parole board had requested denying Travares parole.
1) "The prosecutors in Massachusetts tried to keep him in prison for alleged asaults on two prison guards."
2) "Massachusetts State Police suspected Tavares misht be living in Washington Sate and based on the earlier threat against Romney, waned him before his campaign apprearance last week in Seattle are, Fehrnstrom said." So how did Romney's people know where Tavares lived!!
3) A district court judge approved bail of $50,000, but in July, Tuttman overturned the decision and freed Tavares on personal recognizance.
4) During the hearing before Tuttman, prosecutors underscored Tavares' history of violence and asked than, if he were released, he be monitored with a GPS device. ...and he had volunteered for electronic monitoring. This did not happen!
The News Tribune.com, Nov. 28, 2007
Hi Alamo,
Hey, I have a picture of me taken in front of YOU! Nice to meet you !
I AGREE. WHEN is some one from the Dem party going to say his FIRST day in office, he will hire back the 2500 Border Agents fired under Bush, and get them on the Borders. IN fact that he/she will hire another couple thousand and FINALLY, stop the flow. THEN we can make decisions on those already here.
As far as the costs go, I think Mr. Swoop above is willing to pay all our share of the cost of this.
Sorry about the double post. Is there any way to delete one of them?
Howdydude, welcome. The reason your post was met with skeptism is because on a daily basis we get new names popping in here that start out claiming they are 'life long democrats' or something to that nature and within two posts start to bash the heck out of everything Democrat.
This is generally why people first assume a person is a 'troll' here.
Believe me, there are many life long Democrats here.
Welcome to the discussion. There was a recent column done regarding many of these you bring up on the strength of the candidates. If you are interested I'll post the link.
heeeheeeee, Remember when Republicans goose stepped and rubber stamped each other to the point you wanted to tell them to 'get a room'? Not so anymore .............
"ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidates headed into a CNN/YouTube debate on Wednesday bickering over illegal immigration and taxes while looking for ways to break out of the pack.
Plenty of fireworks were expected at the event, whose unusual format -- tech-savvy citizens sending in often-comical questions via video -- will likely play a prominent role.
The last CNN/YouTube debate, involving the Democrats, featured among the quirky questions a snowman asking about global warming. Republicans were initially reluctant to participate in one of their own.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, leading national polls, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, at the top of polls in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, in recent days have engaged in a withering cross-fire over such issues as illegal immigration and taxes and spending.
Each accused the other of either increasing taxes in their home regions or turning a blind eye to illegal immigration -- two hot-button issues for Republicans. They have also each declared the other a Republican version of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Some experts wonder if the bitter back-and-forth will drive voters away from them and toward another candidate, such as Arizona Sen. John McCain, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee or former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, all of whom are portraying themselves as the real conservative in the race.
"Challenging an opponent like that scores points, but it also drives voters away from both of you and builds up a third party," said Republican strategist Scott Reed.
Posted by howdydude on November 28, 2007
such a good post i didn't mind the double, unless it was a double negative which i never really understood. as for ms. clinton or mr. obama, or even mr edwards since dawns polls keeps saying i am an edwards fan, or biden or any of the dems i would take over the divide, seperate and "conquer" candidates i see from the other side. watch tonight and you will see them fight over who is the most conservative among them, then carefully listen to what they call conservative. if that is conservatism, i am glad to consider myself a lib.
Kristen,
..like you but you've go tooo little information from a single source. Check out the Boston Globe, CNN, MSNBC, the newstribune, etc. etc. etc...
I think I nailed it pretty!
Seattle Times is only reporting on the last event of Tuttman's rush to release Tavares. ...and that is what the transcript reads. But the file with all the history tells a different story!
Hybrid, again your are not tracking. The judge that ultimately released him in Massachusetts was ruling on BAIL for two assault charges that happened while he was in prison.
Why don't you read the link I actually provided instead of assuming that I haven't followed the story that literally happened in my community.
Another rat jumping from the sinking Lame duck ship!!!
Bush Economic Adviser Leaving, President Announcing His Choice for Replacement Wed.
President Bush will announce on Wednesday that Keith Hennessey is his pick to be chairman of the National Economic Council, replacing Al Hubbard, who is joining a growing line of top presidential advisers exiting the White House as the Bush administration heads into its final year.
Hennessey, who came to the White House in 2002, is Hubbard's deputy and also has been deputy to two previous directors of the National Economic Council. He served as a top budget aide to Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and he also worked for the Senate Budget Committee
http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Bush_economic_adviser_stepping_down_11282007.html
very lastly your post sounds more like push polling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_pollthan openmindenessPosted by jimmyc451 on November 28, 2007 at 02:16 PM
Or, as we like to call it around here "troll tactics" :)
On an unrelated matter, I know I'm a techno-luddite, but can someone fill me in on how to use the formatting buttons at the top right hand side of the comment box? Whenever I try to use one of them, it just shoots me to the top of this page. Thx.Posted by howdydude on November 28, 2007 at 02:21 PM
howdydude, you have to type your text in, highlight it, and then hit the formatting buttons.
So who says the Surge is working? Is it just another Bush/Military lie about violence to make Americans think it is going well?
Grim View of Iraq Dangers in Survey of Journalists
In a newly released survey, American journalists in Iraq give harrowing accounts of their work, with the great majority saying that colleagues have been kidnapped or killed and that most parts of Baghdad are too dangerous for them to visit.
The survey was conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an arm of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center in Washington. Of the 111 journalists who participated, half had spent at least nine months in Iraq, and three-quarters had experience reporting on other armed conflicts. Most of the journalists were surveyed in October, one of the least deadly months in Baghdad in recent years.
The Americans also voiced serious concerns about how effectively they were able to do their own jobs. Most respondents said that the media did not do a good job covering the lives of ordinary Iraqis or reconstruction efforts, simply because those lines of reporting could be deadly.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/business/media/28pew.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Again Kristen,
Please read a little more than the last story about Tuttman releasing Tavares. Read the story about his previous hearing by another district judge in July 2007 who set bail at $50,000 and there were testimony about his two violent acts on prison guards.
howdydude, you have to type your text in, highlight it, and then hit the formatting buttons.
Ah ha. That works. thanks.
At least I'm trainable, as my wife says...
howdydude, you have to type your text in, highlight it, and then hit the formatting buttons.
Ah ha. That worked, thanks.
At least I'm trainable, as my wife says...
Oh, Lordy, NOOOO ! You mean Global Warming is NOT a Liberal Conspiracy theory, just to raise taxes on those poor poor Republicans!? We will have some very sad Wallet voters out there today!
"The man whom the people elected in 2000 to be president was in the temporary residence of the man whom the Supreme Court anointed.
President George W. Bush hosted former Vice-President Al Gore, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and five other Nobel laureates, Nov. 26. This annual handshake photo-op has been an American tradition.
The Nobel committee had cited Gore, Oct. 12, as "probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted" to reduce global warming. Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN network of about 2,000 scientists, who have shown that global warming isn't a liberal conspiracy theory.
Believing that it is some kind of liberal conspiracy theory are the fringe right-wing who dominate Talk Radio and Pundit TV.
Why does that idiot never ever listen?????Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 02:19 PM
Why ask why? Try Bud Dry.
Posted by HybridFuel on November 28, 2007 at 02:43 PM
Hybrid, after all these years I've learned the best I can hope is that others will not take your rantings as fact and do a bit more reading on their own.
Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 02:24 PM I hope I didn't mess up your picture.
You're right, it is two separate issues and securing our borders should be of utmost importance to all politicians. If they want to stay in office.
Why does that idiot never ever listen?????
Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 02:19 PM
When you hear the voice of G'd in your head, who has time to notice anything else.
Illegal immigration benefits mainly the businesses & corporations, not the people in general. Illegal immigration drives wages downward for all. Illegal immigration puts a heavy strain on schools, hospitals, law enforcement, and other sectors of American life by demanding these services without contributing financially by paying taxes - how can one pay taxes if they have no legit Social Security card and aren't supposed to be here in the first place?
Posted by Swooper420 on November 28, 2007 at 01:36 PM
Nothing you have said is untrue, but if you want to place some of that frustrtion where it RIGHTLY belongs it's with Big Business/Corporate world. They are reason these folks are over here, period.
Want to blame someone??? Blame the Clinton and all the Bush Administrations that set up trade agreements that were purposefully done to devastate the economies of countries like Mexico forcing their population to either starve or leave. Wouldn't you leave a place that you couldn't eat or keep a roof over your head??? And whether it involved sneaking or not??? I understand the law perfectly and know very well why it exists, BUT I also know that something else out weighs it by a mile - and that's self-preservation.
The events were arranged so that the business world could prosper off the backs of the illegals. What they couldn't outsource away from this country to reduce labor costs they made up for with labor from the illegals.
The blame belongs squarely and solidly with the corporate world. They should be forced to place the millions of dollars at hand to solve the problem of returning illegals or a process of eventual documentation. The public needs to put their focus on the root of the problem instead of the extension of it which are the illigal immigrants.
Make these corporations that have made gajillion dollars or euros now clean up the mess they made.
Talk about stupid, Bush is looking for little 'sucesses', but McCain and Lieberman are calling VICTORY in Iraq!
"There is no denying that in recent months violence has declined in Iraq — weekly attacks have dropped “to the lowest level since January 2006” and “the death toll for American troops” in October fell to “the lowest level since March 2006.” But the situation is still grim. With more than a month left, 2007 is already “the deadliest year of the war for United States troops” yet.
“Unlike US estimates, Iraqi statistics do not show a drop in the level of violence in the Baghdad area.” In the past two days alone, at least 35 “people were killed or found dead” across the country, underlining Iraq’s fragile state and the still ever-present propensity for it to relapse into violence. (I SUSPECTED IT WAS MOSTLY LIES !)
But it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the potentially tenuous nature of Iraq’s lull in violence hasn’t stopped perma-hawks like McCain and Lieberman from declaring success. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time the two senators have done such a thing in four and a half years of war
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/28/iraq-violence-not-success/#comments
$250,000:Amount it has cost the RNC to recover missing e-mails sent by Karl Rove and other White House aides on political e-mail accounts. House investigators have charged the RNC with overseeing the “extensive destruction” of these e-mails, which may have violated the Presidential Records Act. The $250,000 has gone to former FBI agents hired to retrieve the lost e-mails and to lawyers hired to defend the RNC.
Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 03:03 PM
And the sheeple are falling for it, Pam. I believe I heard Rasmussen did a poll where 48% of the people polled thought the situation in Iraq was improving and 48% did not. That was up 15% from three months ago. Again, check me on the numbers. I think I saw this on PBS' News Hour last night, if memory serves.
The GOP spin machine will not try to say that we Democrats have predicated our entire election strategy on failure in Iraq. We have to be on guard for this. IMHO, the repsonse should be, "If violence is down 50% in Baghdad then that's great. We only have half a catastrophe on our hands instead of a full one."
The other retort I use comes from people stating, "Only 40 servicemen died in Iraq in October", is, "What do you mean ONLY 40? Go tell that to their families."
Bob,
I agree with your Framing of the issue. Dems MUST learn to use it as effectively as Repugs did for last 40 years.
And the other thing that must be stressed, which I see on all the analyzing of this, is that without a POLITICAL reconcilliation, there is NO WINNING! NO VICTORY, NO SUCESS for Iraq nor the US !
The Constitution protects individuals against unreasonable searches, but for this protection to have practical meaning, the courts must enforce it. This week, the Supreme Court let stand a disturbing ruling out of California that allows law enforcement to barge into people’s homes without a warrant. The case has not prompted much outrage, perhaps because the people whose privacy is being invaded are welfare recipients, but it is a serious setback for the privacy rights of all Americans.
IS Abstinence only education a form of child abuse???
Scientists to Congress: stop funding abstinence-only ed.
In a letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) last week, 10 leading scientists in the field of adolescent sexual and reproductive health “strongly” urged Congress to “reconsider federal support for abstinence-only education programs and policies.” From their letter:
By design, abstinence programs restrict information about condoms and contraception - information that may be critical to protecting the health of young people and to preventing unplanned pregnancy, HIV infection, and infection with other sexually transmitted organisms. They ignore the health needs of sexually active youth and youth who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning for counseling, health care services, and risk reduction education. Withholding lifesaving information from young people is contrary to the standards of medical ethics and to many international human rights conventions.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/28/scientists-to-congress-stop-funding-abstinence-only-ed/#comments
Pam, I recently read that some states are turning away federal money that requires Abstinence only education so that they can adopt more conprehensive education programs.
It's definitely a tricky situation for states/school systems that are already working on tight education budgets because they have to find new resources to replace the federal funds.
Posted by Kristen on November 28, 2007 at 01:47 PM
“…63% of those polled support providing a way…”
Thanks Kristen, I wasn’t aware of that poll. I find the numbers surprising, based on what I have seen from other polls, but I think the Pew poll you reference is a more recent one.
Thanks for the responses, or at least the serious and receptive ones. It seems that coming here for serious discussion is not a total waste of time. I just get tired when some want to be flip and a smart-ass with their comments; IMO that only happens when people have no LOGICAL response to make.
Sorry, jimmyc451, but my first post was not a “push poll,” lol, only (as I said) an honest question. Sure, I interposed my own opinion into it, but who doesn’t? At least I say what is opinion and what is supported by facts. Or were you referring to this: “The term is also sometimes used inaccurately to refer to legitimate polls which test political messages, some of which may be negative.”
Note that I am polling anything, I am asking a question that I feel is legitimate. It’s too bad that somepeople here feel so threatened by an honest question that they must respond with ad homonym attacks, name-calling, and other childish behavior.
But for PamB, I'll try to respond as if her statements were intended as serious discussion - which some most certainly wasn't.
Stripped of it’s childish and flip characteristics, I believe PamB was taking issue with the perceived costs of deporting illegal immigrants. A legitimate point, if one overlooks the empty rhetoric.
I have no idea how much it would cost, and whether there is a cost/benefit appraisal for this. I don’t know if the costs of supporting illegal immigrants is more, the same, or less than the cost of deportation. I am sure that someone somewhere can quote figures on that, but the cost is irrelevant. There is no positive cost/benefit to arresting, judging, and imprisoning murderers, rapists, drug dealers, white collar criminals, blue collar criminals, or any criminal …. All there is is costs. Never would the amount paid in taxes by those imprisoned begin to cover the expense of their incarceration for those crimes. Yet today the USA has more people totally and per capita in prison than any other country; obviously someone thinks incarcerating criminals is a good idea.
There are three things that can be done which would quickly reverse the exodus into the USA by illegal immigrants… make illegal immigration a felony, make employing an illegal immigrant a felony, and then simply enforcing the other laws already on the books.
Just from the recent and minor improvements to enforcement against illegal immigrants in some of the border states, one can see a reduction in the number of immigrants coming north over the border in those areas, and indeed, a number of illegal immigrants in those areas are “self-deporting” themselves and going home.
A stiffening of the penalties and enforcement of the existing laws would encourage this “self-deporting” trend, and every illegal immigrant who leaves on their own is one less that needs to be arrested and incarcerated, then deported. Enforcement of the current immigration laws would be a cost effective means to encourage this “self-deportation” and really doesn’t cost the taxpayer any money, especially compared to, say, the War in Iraq, or even the failed War on [Some] Drugs that has been going on for 70 years (but those are two separate issues, not really related to this).
Jimmyc451, you say: “more illegals pay into the system with no hope of ever drawing out than are paid under the table” … is this your opinion or do you have some article or study showing that? I would be interested in reading your source for this statement, thanks. I also question how these illegals are paying into the system. Illegal workers working for illegally low wages, for an employer who hires them illegally and pays them illegally under the table … how are they going contribute taxes? Who pays for their medical care in the emergency department of hospitals? Who pays for their children to attend public schools, receive publicly funded lunches, etc? I’ll tell you, it’s you and I and the legal citizens and residents of the country, not the illegal immigrants.
You say: “as for driving down wages of no skill jobs, migrant work, how can you drive the wages below minimum unless the employer is breaking the law.” Yes, the employers are breaking the law simply for hiring the illegal immigrants, that is part of the reason that existing laws need to be better enforced. Because that part of the labor force is illegal, and has no recourse for being paid unfairly, the employers can get away with not only breaking the law by hiring the illegals, but also with paying substandard wages.
When illegals are available in the workforce, wages go down. I have seen it happen in Northern California myself. Because there are illegals willing to work for less than minimum wage – remember, to these illegal immigrants $5.00 for an hours work could be a week’s wage where they come from – citizens are denied these same jobs at a decent wage. If a citizen takes one of these jobs, for the prevailing rate, it is only from abject need, because nothing else is available and welfare is not or cannot helping.
Lastly, you say, “as long as jobs are avail and these people need to feed their families, they will come.” They will come so long as there are negligible penalties for illegal immigration, illegal hiring of illegal immigrants, and the penalties for these crimes is next to irrelevant as they seem to be now.
Would it not be better for these people who come here illegally to work illegally so they can send their illegally-earned money back to their home country to stay in their country and fight for the improvement of things there? It does not seem reasonable that when these people leave – the ones hardy enough or desperate enough – their home country, that conditions will improve there; all the ones with gumption enough to stand up to the corruption are instead leaving the sinking ships and coming here.
Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 02:15 PM
“We have 'discussed' this subject for the last year. Been there, done that. doesn't amount to a hill of beans”
Excuse the piss outta me, Pammie, that I am only a recent reader of this blog. Too f-ing bad! Sue me if you don’t like it. And please, stop with the snide and childish comments, they do nothing for you except point out that you can be bitchy.
Judge: Feds Must Release Telecom Records
SAN FRANCISCO — An electronic privacy group challenging President Bush's domestic spying program scored a minor victory when a judge ordered the federal government to release information about lobbying efforts by telecommunications companies to protect them from prosecution.
moi? bitchy? Now most of the other bloggers call me Mary Poppins!
good luck, swoop. Knock em dead. I am sure you might find something to come up with that a hundred other Immigrant haters haven't!
Posted by BobVADemHawk-Biden2008 on November 28, 2007 at 03:14 PM
One American Death in Iraq is too many. If I hear one more re-thug -lican use the word 'only' in connection with violence levels and American Deaths in Iraq, I will scream. We have got to figure out a way to prevent the dubbya and company from starting WW III and then figure out a way to keep anyone else from starting it. This has to be out first priority in electing a new leader. That is why you and I support the person with the most SUCCESSFUL experience in that area, Sen. Joseph Biden (D. DE) - Hi Bob!
Posted by Swooper420 on November 28, 2007 at 03:35 PM
Illegal Immigrants are Paying a Lot More Taxes Than You Think
But, immigrants aren't flocking to the United States to mooch off the government. According to a study by the Urban Institute, the 1996 welfare reform effort dramatically reduced the use of welfare by undocumented immigrant households, exactly as intended. And another vital thing happened in 1996: the Internal Revenue Service began issuing identification numbers to enable illegal immigrants who don't have Social Security numbers to file taxes.One might have imagined that those fearing deportation or confronting the prospect of paying for their safety net through their own meager wages would take a pass on the IRS' scheme. Not so. Close to 8 million of the 12 million or so illegal aliens in the country today file personal income taxes using these numbers, contributing billions to federal coffers. No doubt they hope that this will one day help them acquire legal status — a plaintive expression of their desire to play by the rules and come out of the shadows.
What's more, aliens who are not self-employed have Social Security and Medicare taxes automatically withheld from their paychecks. Since undocumented workers have only fake numbers, they'll never be able to collect the benefits these taxes are meant to pay for. Last year, the revenues from these fake numbers — that the Social Security administration stashes in the “earnings suspense file” — added up to 10 percent of the Social Security surplus. The file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year.
Beyond federal taxes, all illegals automatically pay state sales taxes that contribute toward the upkeep of public facilities such as roads that they use, and property taxes through their rent that contribute toward the schooling of their children. The non-partisan National Research Council found that when the taxes paid by the children of low-skilled immigrant families — most of whom are illegal — are factored in, they contribute on average $80,000 more to federal coffers than they consume.
To Swooper 420. Pam isn't being 'bitchy', she's just angry and fed up with the inability of law makers on both sides of the isle to get enacted some meaningful and enforcable legislation that is reasonable, practical and humane. It is obvious that you feel the same, you are simply the opposite side of the same coin. And, for the record, cost is an issue - whether it should be or not - it is because any dollar used to hunt down and deport others is a dollar that could be spent providing for the citizens of the country. We are walking a fine line with cost effectiveness.
Posted by Swooper420 on November 28, 2007 at 03:35 PM
Are you comparing illegal immigrants to murderers? Interesting tactic. Yes, we all know that the border needs strengthening, so put away the GOP talking points that the Dems are weak in that area. And, when I say "border", I mean the whole freakin enchilada. North, South and throw in the shores as well. Unfortunately, the republicans talk a good game but end up only scaring people to line their own pockets and not actually secure anything.
This issue is not so high on my priorities though, because it seems to be led by some hatefilled xenophobes who do not realize the contributions to America that have been made by illegal and legal immigrants.
And, as far as "self-deporting", that is what the migrant worker used to do before we cracked down and built bigger fences. They would come over during the picking season and follow the harvests...and then leave. Turns out though, that the same fence that is supposed to keep them out also keeps them in. Go figure.
Maybe we can solve all our "problems" and just induct them and ship them over to Iraq. The GOP can have their bloody cake and eat it then.
Kristen, I was listening to NPR the other night, when there was a segment on where the guy was talking about the billions of dollars paid by illegals with either phoney SS cards, or even just cards, to Fed tax, state taxes, and Social Security and Medicare, ---ALL OF WHICH they will never be able to use.
Believe me, the witch hunt on them saying they are such a drain on our country is fable.
Here is one from NPR on the subject too.
Economy
U.S. Tax Program for Illegal Immigrants Under Fire
All Things Considered, March 5, 2007 · The hundreds of thousands of immigrants working in the United States illegally are still expected to pay income taxes. The program works by providing a special tax identification number instead of a Social Security number — and participants are guaranteed that the information can't be used to deport them.
But the program's critics say that it amounts to the Internal Revenue Service abetting illegal immigrants.
More than 1 million non-U.S. citizens will file their taxes this year. One of the reasons that those who are living and working illegally in the United States want to file taxes is that they see an opportunity to prove their economic contribution and document their residence.
Last year, 1.4 million people used the special numbers. The last time the government checked, more than half of the people using an individual taxpayer identification number, or ITIN, were illegal immigrants.
Federal tax law prohibits the IRS from sharing information with other government agencies, including immigration authorities. So it's the promise of confidentiality that allows immigrants to file their taxes without fear of being deported.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7718604
Posted by Kristen on November 28, 2007 at 01:47 PM
“…63% of those polled support providing a way…”
Thanks Kristen, I wasn’t aware of that poll. I find the numbers surprising, based on what I have seen from other polls, but I think the Pew poll you reference is a more recent one.
Thanks for the responses, or at least the serious and receptive ones. It seems that coming here for serious discussion is not a total waste of time. I just get tired when some want to be flip and a smart-ass with their comments; IMO that only happens when people have no LOGICAL response to make.
Sorry, jimmyc451, but my first post was not a “push poll,” lol, only (as I said) an honest question. Sure, I interposed my own opinion into it, but who doesn’t? At least I say what is opinion and what is supported by facts. Or were you referring to this: “The term is also sometimes used inaccurately to refer to legitimate polls which test political messages, some of which may be negative.”
Note that I am polling anything, I am asking a question that I feel is legitimate. It’s too bad that somepeople here feel so threatened by an honest question that they must respond with ad homonym attacks, name-calling, and other childish behavior.
But for PamB, I'll try to respond as if her statements were intended as serious discussion - which some most certainly wasn't.
Stripped of it’s childish and flip characteristics, I believe PamB was taking issue with the perceived costs of deporting illegal immigrants. A legitimate point, if one overlooks the empty rhetoric.
I have no idea how much it would cost, and whether there is a cost/benefit appraisal for this. I don’t know if the costs of supporting illegal immigrants is more, the same, or less than the cost of deportation. I am sure that someone somewhere can quote figures on that, but the cost is irrelevant. There is no positive cost/benefit to arresting, judging, and imprisoning murderers, rapists, drug dealers, white collar criminals, blue collar criminals, or any criminal …. All there is is costs. Never would the amount paid in taxes by those imprisoned begin to cover the expense of their incarceration for those crimes. Yet today the USA has more people totally and per capita in prison than any other country; obviously someone thinks incarcerating criminals is a good idea.
There are three things that can be done which would quickly reverse the exodus into the USA by illegal immigrants… make illegal immigration a felony, make employing an illegal immigrant a felony, and then simply enforcing the other laws already on the books.
Just from the recent and minor improvements to enforcement against illegal immigrants in some of the border states, one can see a reduction in the number of immigrants coming north over the border in those areas, and indeed, a number of illegal immigrants in those areas are “self-deporting” themselves and going home.
A stiffening of the penalties and enforcement of the existing laws would encourage this “self-deporting” trend, and every illegal immigrant who leaves on their own is one less that needs to be arrested and incarcerated, then deported. Enforcement of the current immigration laws would be a cost effective means to encourage this “self-deportation” and really doesn’t cost the taxpayer any money, especially compared to, say, the War in Iraq, or even the failed War on [Some] Drugs that has been going on for 70 years (but those are two separate issues, not really related to this).
Jimmyc451, you say: “more illegals pay into the system with no hope of ever drawing out than are paid under the table” … is this your opinion or do you have some article or study showing that? I would be interested in reading your source for this statement, thanks. I also question how these illegals are paying into the system. Illegal workers working for illegally low wages, for an employer who hires them illegally and pays them illegally under the table … how are they going contribute taxes? Who pays for their medical care in the emergency department of hospitals? Who pays for their children to attend public schools, receive publicly funded lunches, etc? I’ll tell you, it’s you and I and the legal citizens and residents of the country, not the illegal immigrants.
You say: “as for driving down wages of no skill jobs, migrant work, how can you drive the wages below minimum unless the employer is breaking the law.” Yes, the employers are breaking the law simply for hiring the illegal immigrants, that is part of the reason that existing laws need to be better enforced. Because that part of the labor force is illegal, and has no recourse for being paid unfairly, the employers can get away with not only breaking the law by hiring the illegals, but also with paying substandard wages.
When illegals are available in the workforce, wages go down. I have seen it happen in Northern California myself. Because there are illegals willing to work for less than minimum wage – remember, to these illegal immigrants $5.00 for an hours work could be a week’s wage where they come from – citizens are denied these same jobs at a decent wage. If a citizen takes one of these jobs, for the prevailing rate, it is only from abject need, because nothing else is available and welfare is not or cannot helping.
Lastly, you say, “as long as jobs are avail and these people need to feed their families, they will come.” They will come so long as there are negligible penalties for illegal immigration, illegal hiring of illegal immigrants, and the penalties for these crimes is next to irrelevant as they seem to be now.
Would it not be better for these people who come here illegally to work illegally so they can send their illegally-earned money back to their home country to stay in their country and fight for the improvement of things there? It does not seem reasonable that when these people leave – the ones hardy enough or desperate enough – their home country, that conditions will improve there; all the ones with gumption enough to stand up to the corruption are instead leaving the sinking ships and coming here.
Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 02:15 PM
“We have 'discussed' this subject for the last year. Been there, done that. doesn't amount to a hill of beans”
Excuse the piss outta me, Pammie, that I am only a recent reader of this blog. Too f-ing bad! Sue me if you don’t like it. And please, stop with the snide and childish comments, they do nothing for you except point out that you can be bitchy.
Sorry for the double post above ... I thought i was posting this:
Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 03:44 PM
"I am sure you might find something to come up with that a hundred other Immigrant haters haven't!"
Why do you call me an immigrant hater? NOTHING I have written in my posts here has been hateful in the least, and nothing negative was directed towards (get this!)LEGAL IMMIGRANTS.
Were I to stoop to your level of childish and irrelevant discourse, I would say, "I am sorry that the distinction between LEGAL and ILLEGAL is too big a stretch for your little mind." But I won't stoop that low; I'm a better person than that.
Unfortunately, the republicans talk a good game but end up only scaring people to line their own pockets and not actually secure anything
Blue,
Isn't it funny, how the Republicans find such offense with Illegals being here, Yet as much as they protect those Corporations with things like Global Warming Curbs, they forget those same corporations are Hiring these illegals in order to provide huge profits for themselves! You don't hear many Repugs screaming for Fines and Jails to CEOs hiring them though.
Can't make sense out of it !
Hey Kathy,
Long time no see ! (snark)
I am sure there will be LONG lines waiting to go through the George Bush, Junior Library when we finally get rid of him. Might there be a color book or two that he finished in his time in office? I understand he did a lovely job on a velvet paint by number picture of Elvis , too.
The republicans will not rest until every living thing is dead or dying....unless its a fetus.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday reversed seven rulings that denied endangered species increased protection, after an investigation found the actions were tainted by political pressure from a former senior Interior Department official.
In a letter to Rep. Nick Rahall, D-West Virginia., the agency acknowledged that the actions had been "inappropriately influenced" and that "revising the seven identified decisions is supported by scientific evidence and the proper legal standards." The reversal affects the protection for species including the white-tailed prairie dog, the Preble's meadow jumping mouse and the Canada lynx.
The rulings came under scrutiny last spring after an Interior Department inspector general concluded that agency scientists were being pressured to alter their findings on endangered species by Julie MacDonald, then a deputy assistant secretary overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service.
MacDonald resigned her position last May.
Rahall in a statement said that MacDonald, who was a civil engineer, "should never have been allowed near the endangered species program." He called MacDonald's involvement in species protection cases over her three-year tenure as an example of "this administration's penchant for torpedoing science."
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/11/28/endangered.species.ap/index.html
Posted by Kristen on November 28, 2007 at 03:18 PM
Huh? The 9th Circuit did that? WTF? Awww, geez, someone check under their benches for pods!
Hello,
Here is one report that will burn your nose hair and set your ears on fire when read aloud!!
GAO - Report to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate.
November 16, 2007
HURRICANE KATRINA - Ineffective FEMA Oversight of Housing Maintenance Contracts in Mississippi Resulted in Millions of Dollars of Waste and Potential Fraud.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08106.pdf
The first graph in the report show a Comparison of Projected Trailer Costs at Private and Group Sites.
$30,000 cost for lifecycle of a private site trailer.
$229,000 cost for lifesycle of a Bienville Park trailer funded by FEMA!
More fruad and mismanagement at FEMA that cost tax payers millions!
Lookey here! Turns out Rooody has more than one BFF. I wonder if they have a sweetheart agreement that KSM will do the terrorizing and Roody will send America's economy further in the toilet to "stop" it...
The contradictory and stunning reality is that Giuliani Partners, the consulting company that has made Giuliani rich, feasts at the Qatar trough, doing business with the ministry run by the very member of the royal family identified in news and government reports as having concealed KSM—the terrorist mastermind who wired funds from Qatar to his nephew Ramzi Yousef prior to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and who also sold the idea of a plane attack on the towers to Osama bin Laden—on his Qatar farm in the mid-1990s.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0748,barrett,78478,6.html/1
well, well, Blue. Too bad we did not know this till so late. We could have made up a GREAT youtube for tonight and sprung it on the american audience !
I was just thinking, since New Hampshire moved their primary election to Jan. 8th, why can't Florida's delegates count anymore? It's ridiculous because Florida is the largest swing state in the nation. Did the DNC just decided to paint FL red? And the biggest question of all, why aren't other Dems outside of FL just as upset as the Dems here in FL? It's our election to LOSE. Wake up people. I've already emailed whoever gets the commets/questions posted on the site. I thought this blog would be a good way to try to shore up support as well.
Posted by Michigan_Dave on November 28, 2007 at 04:29 PM
watch it Dave, Swoop will call you 'Bitchy' ! ;0
FLTEN
Who said they are no longer going to count? I figured once that N.H. is back to first place, all is back to normal with delegates, etc.
(Oh, and the RNC was doing the same exact thing, according to what I read,)
GAO – United States Government Accountability Office
Saving Our Future Requires Tough Choices Today
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, October 29, 2007
The Honorable David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States
http://www.gao.gov/cghome/d08241cg.pdf
Do you want to know how your tax money is spend or given away by president bush and the republicans? ...or how the republicans with bush increased our countries liabilities by increasing the total deficit and Major Fiscal Exposures ($Trillions) by 147% from 2000 to 2006.
In 6 years the republican idiots and bush increased our fiscal exposure to debt by 147%!!!
Don't read this report out loud or alone; it may set your hair on fire and cause spontaneous combustion!!
Posted by Michigan_Dave on November 28, 2007 at 04:46 PM
Dont' stay gone too long...who else will take up my call to border fence the Great Lakes!
Posted by Michigan_Dave on November 28, 2007 at 04:44 PM
LMAO ! I love you, too, Dave !
And I wouldn't trade you for 10 Mexicans (and I have a BIG yard ) :0
According to the GAO the total debt burden by the government per household in 2006 is
$440,000.00!!!!
http://www.gao.gov/cghome/d08241cg.pdf
Gee, why is the Comptroller General of the United States - Government Accountability Office number so different from the Bush administration and republican bull manure numbers on debt that being broadcasted!!! Well, actually it is the same, these are the numbers reported by Sec. Treasury Snow in the 2006 budget and signed by president bush and republican congress. They just keep lying about fiction numbers and refuse to acknowledge the signed documents!!!
Warning - Don't read this one by your self, it could cause heavy breathing though the nose and set fire to the nose hair. The fire can rise to set the hair on your head on fire and because the noise is connected to the ear by a tube and your ears may go up in flames too.
The GAO reports are real government reports based on audits. My warnings are political satire.
What the heck?
A fence boardering the Great Lakes? Is that the one to keep all those Canadian Swimmers from getting the best holiday season shopping done in USA?
My idea may be a bit less expensive...I think we should float the minutemen right out in the middle of Lake Michigan on those little inflatable air mattresses...you know the ones with the built in beer can holders.
I figure if we get enough of them up there they can create a matress boom.
...reminds me of a Jimmy Buffet tune,"...why don't we get drunk and screw?"
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ...
That is an image that will be stuck in my mind all day. A bunch of 1/2 naked drunken minutemen in a floatilla made of inflatable matttresses with beer holders forming a blockade against Canadian shoppers in 600 ft ferries!
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ...
Posted by Michigan_Dave on November 28, 2007 at 05:00 PM
But, how do we save the fetuses? Don't illegal immigrant fetuses count?
But you did stoop that low. You said that you wouldn't because you are a better person than that.That must mean that you are not the person you think you are but if you were that person, you would know who that is.
But you don't and you're not.
This may come as a surprise but PamB, does not have a little mind. In fact she minds quite a bit. She is particularly mindful when clever f**kwits appear at random on the blog with an agenda. They come...they go..and then, they come back again.
And here you are, but you are not who you think you are and you have already proved that.
Can we swap you for a mexican? You are of no value here or for that matter, in the United States.
Posted by Michigan_Dave on November 28, 2007 at 04:44 PM
Very clever of you MD, very clever with the words; too bad they are naught but empty rhetoric.
Too bad you cannot recognize sarcasm when you read it, but that's your lack of perception, not anyone else's. Trying to attack me is a waste of my time. It's also petty and small. Does that resemble your inner self at all?
Damn, Pam, just as I was writing a serious response to an article you posted, and you have to go and show your true colors with this:
watch it Dave, Swoop will call you 'Bitchy' ! ;0
Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 04:38 PM
I thought you had decided to finally be a grown up in this discussion. Guess I wasn’t wrong about you after all.
Last year, 1.4 million people used the special numbers. The last time the government checked, more than half of the people using an individual taxpayer identification number, or ITIN, were illegal immigrants.Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 03:54 PM
Thanks for the (finally) reasonable contribution, Pam. Too bad you cannot seem to stay reasonable.
Close to 8 million of the 12 million or so illegal aliens in the country today file personal income taxes using these numbers, contributing billions to federal coffers.
Posted by Kristen on November 28, 2007 at 03:46 PM
Well, which is it? 700,000 illegals paying federal taxes or 8 million? There seems to be a pretty big disagreement between your sources, Pam & Kristen. With such a big discrepancy, how can either estimate be trusted or seen as reliable?
Even if the number from Kristen’s post (not her writing, I know) is correct, there are still 4 million illegals NOT paying taxes …. That is a huge number of people, illegal or not, who are cheating the rest of us.
Notice too, that the NRC speaks of money from illegals into FEDERAL coffers, not the state coffers, where most of the expenses related to illegal immigration fall. If those illegals may contribute up to $4,000 per year over 20 years to the federal tax base, little of that comes back to the states in any form.
Also from Kristen’s post:
Beyond federal taxes, all illegals automatically pay state sales taxes that contribute toward the upkeep of public facilities such as roads that they use, and property taxes through their rent that contribute toward the schooling of their children. The non-partisan National Research Council found that when the taxes paid by the children of low-skilled immigrant families — most of whom are illegal — are factored in, they contribute on average $80,000 more to federal coffers than they consume.
This paragraph was carefully parsed to give a false impression and be misleading. States do not all have sales taxes, sales taxes often/usually do not go towards roads, and property taxes also vary from state to state insofar as the amount collected and the amount spent on schools.
The image shown in many newspapers, for instance, may be wrong - that illegal immigrants often live in the homes of Legal immigrants, who are often related by blood or other cultural bonds, and/or also often live in migrant camps as they follow crop work. But if these perceptions have any accuracy to them, then those illegals pay no property taxes.
I'll agree that if illegals are renting (and buying?) homes or apartments, on what they are able to make (without any criminal activity other than being here illegally), then these folks are quite amazing, to be able to support themselves here and often send money 'back home'.
Just think what changes these folks could make for the better back in their home countries if they put that energy towards improving things there (where ever there is) than coming here illegally.
As far as border enforcement, that should be done on all four sides of this country ... land and sea. Enforcement of the current laws would stop a percentage coming across by land or sea, and might even dissuade others from coming here illegally if there was jail time attached to a failed attempt to enter or stay illegally.
I'll tell them it was your idea. Maybe they will buy your debt too!!
Posted by Michigan_Dave on November 28, 2007 at 05:16 PM
Then I should start racking it up? Darn me for paying off all those bills!
Michigan-Dave,
It's more like this. In 2003 $1.00 USD = $1.56 CAD. Today it's $1.00 USD = $0.98 CAD.
In another word by 2003 standards the Canadians get a 58% discount when they come across the boarder to purchase items in USA.
Remember to be nice to Canada. They might build that fence to stop Americans from crossing the boarder looking for jobs!
Right after the 06 slaughter of the Pugs Howard Dean predicted that immigration would be the hot button wedge issue for the 08 election cycle. Sho 'nuff, shortly afterward, Senseless-brainer started making noise about it, and Tancredo jumped in with both left feet.
If it was so damn important, why didn't the Pugs do anything about it when they were in the majority?
Because it wasn't, and still isn't. It's WAY down on the list of Pug Eff ups we need to fix.
From C & J @ KOS:
Number of immigration measures introduced in state legislatures this year: 1,404
Number introduced during the previous 10 years: 1,300
(Source: Harper's Index)
The Pugs did NOTHING except ignore the situation and now the Pugs in Statehouses are trying to grasp on to any wedge issue, because NO Pug anywhere can run on any record of accomplishment.
Even if the number from Kristen’s post (not her writing, I know) is correct, there are still 4 million illegals NOT paying taxes …. That is a huge number of people, illegal or not, who are cheating the rest of us.
Posted by Swooper420 on November 28, 2007 at 05:20 PM
any count on the number of American's not paying taxes?
According to one count 44 million Americans qualify as 'no tax' filers.
In Washington state we only have a sales tax (no state income tax) and our gas tax which is pretty significant goes to road projects. We also pay additional fees for transit on our yearly car tab/registration and these costs go to roads and transit. These are costs that no one can avoid paying.
Anyway...I was really only trying to answer a few of your questions...not interested in the immigration debate.
Posted by HybridFuel on November 28, 2007 at 05:22 PM
Which makes me think...why don't the Iraqis declare Americans illegal immigrants and build a fence? Then they can deport the soldiers home where they should be and hire the minutemen to patrol the sand dunes. A two-fer!
Afternoon all good Dems,
Thom Hartman was saying that he was floored when he saw a picture of rice sitting behind the presidunce in the meeting room with all the arab world leaders facing her.
He said that she was wearing a mini skirt that came up to the middle of her thigh. Talk about insensitive boobs running our government. When Nancy Pelosi met with some arab leaders a few months ago she dressed conservatively and wore a head scarf.
What is wrong with rice. Doesn't she get it. Show a little respect lady.
Thanks for this post, Dooby
From C & J @ KOS:Number of immigration measures introduced in state legislatures this year: 1,404
Number introduced during the previous 10 years: 1,300
Source: Harper's Index)Posted by Doo-Bee-Doo-Bee-Doo on November 28, 2007 at 05:27 PM
There is a problem with illegal immigration to the USA, but this kind of response is crazy. There does need to be some kind of a solution to this situation, but at the federal level. Each state trying to enforce various aspects of immigration law will result in mass confusion.
That the lack of any accomplishment towards real, pragmatic immigration reform is a very sad commentary on the last ... 12? years, while the Repubs were in control of Congress. It's now up to the Dems to show some common sense and supply the means to reduce the number of illegal immigrants not only here but that are still coming.
Illegal immigration is something that will never be halted entirely, but there are better ways of dealing with illegal immigration than total surrender and giving amnesty to those illegals already here.
That was done about 20 years ago, and the promise then was that the amnesty was a "1-time affair" and that failed abjectly from the lack of follow-up enforcement.
Maybe the question got lost in my first post, so I ask again, Why is there such a big disconnect between understanding and discriminating between LEGAL immigration and ILLEGAL immigration?
All the snide comments, and even the sincere postings, have yet to address that question. All the other discussion is really dross.
OOPS! Did Rudy commit a felony?
As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.
The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.
At the time, the mayor’s office refused to explain the accounting to city auditors, citing “security.”
Giuliani criminally expenses his adultery
It's ALWAYS "security" when they don't want anyone snooping around into their dirty dealings. Chimpy uses the same lame excuse.
get ready for the evening's laff-riot! only 2 hours and 7 minutes to the you-tube grilling of the Repub candidates on CNN.
Get your popcorn ready, and tissue too! (Tissue is for the tears of laughter!)
The whole thing is easily solved.
JAIL the CEO of the companies who hire undocumented workers, regardless of which ethnicity they claim (around here there are THOUSANDS of Poles, Czechs, Romanians, etc., basically from all over the Commie bloc countries) and a SLEW of Irish who have overstayed their school or work visas and just stayed.
Also, ANYONE being paid less than the prevailing wage for the job performed gets ALL the money that is owed, and the Company pays a THOUSAND DOLLARS PER MAN HOUR fine.
Problem solved.
Do Insurance Companies really need more help raking in the dough?
I think that we need to ask ourselves this question when looking for a good Democratic candidate for President of the United States. We know how bad these insurance companies have been to the American People, in discriminating between conditions and treatments they will cover and those that they won't. In addition, most Americans have dealt with slow service, that many investigations suggest is simply a tactic of Insurance companies betting that you'll get tired of fighting and they won't have to pay.
So why make it mandatory for all Americans to pay into this corrupt system? Because candidates are more focused on winning than on doing good for the American People.
Sadly, Hillary Clinton has made this mistake.
Americans deserve a modern system of health care, not a primative system of coverage, that leaves it up to the Insurance Companies discretion to decide whether or not treatment is necessary.
Dooby,
I hope you aren't being sarcastic, 'cause otherwise I am in agreement with you. The heads of companies which hire illegals, and fine the snot out of the company.
The companies could also be charged with breaking worker's compensation laws and more, and should be. However, the $1,000 per man-hour fine would be found to be cruel and unusual punishment, not fitting the offense. I hope that this part of your post was sarcasm or empty rhetoric.
Remove the incentive to come here illegally, and the activity will decrease (never will it cease).
Posted by Johnedwrd on November 28, 2007 at 05:38
Nancy Pelosi is a traitor. She should go home and crawl under a rock. Look Johnnyweird, What the hell is wrong with you? Do you expect "Rice" to suck butt on a bunch of Arabs?
Where´s your so called liberal progressive thinking? Who cares what she had on. She has nice legs, or are you swimming on the other side of the river?
take your mutts for a walk and never come back.
BlueinIdaho,
A two-fer-one!
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ...
Now, how do we convince the 1/2 naked drunken minutemen floatilla in the Great Lakes that they are getting towed to a warm place? Hum?
Lose the insurance middleman, and watch the cost of health care plummet. That's how you help America.
I was just thinking, since New Hampshire moved their primary election to Jan. 8th, why can't Florida's delegates count anymore? It's ridiculous because Florida is the largest swing state in the nation. Did the DNC just decided to paint FL red? And the biggest question of all, why aren't other Dems outside of FL just as upset as the Dems here in FL? It's our election to LOSE. Wake up people. I've already emailed whoever gets the commets/questions posted on the site. I thought this blog would be a good way to try to shore up support as well.
Posted by FLTenBrink on November 28, 2007 at 04:37 PM
Thank God someone else thinks that FLorida is good for something other than slapping with punishment about "rules".
Once I had my say I left the issue alone, BUT I will say this: The punishments that the DNC handed down to Florida will come back to bite them. Just sittin' back watchin'.
I can say this also: It doesn't matter if there were rules written from whenever and whatever Florida may have agreed to at DNC meetings, there is an ENTIRE state mad as sh*t with the DNC. Watchin' to see how it plays out.
Remove the incentive to come here illegally, and the activity will decrease (never will it cease).
And lets all be honest about the illegal immigration problem we have. It was exacerbated by Ronald Reagon and his decision to give citizenship to millions here illegally.
This is a Republican con meant to provide cheap labor. Don't make it out to be something it's not.
*Updated*
Iraq Female Suicide Bomber
A woman wearing an explosive belt blew herself up in Baquba, wounding seven American soldiers and five Iraqis, the U.S. military said Wednesday.
Yesterday nine people were killed when a suicide bomber posing as a shepherd attacked the police headquarters in the city.
Full Story:
More fruad and mismanagement at FEMA that cost tax payers millions!
Posted by HybridFuel on November 28, 2007 at 04:22 PM
This agency needs to be shut down. It does absolutely nothing for folks during a disaster and I'm saying this from first hand experience.
It is a waste of taxpayers money. People would probably help themselve better than take something from these incompetent people.
I may be wrong, but I don't think Marine is calling for socialized medicine, say in the mold of some of the European Union countries, but I'm not sure people would want socialized medicine at the cost to the government - which gets passed on to the taxpayer anyway.
Has any country or even any states here in the US even experimented with a no-middleman approach to profit driven medicine? Something like a medical savings plan that is used by some companies and nonprofit agencies?
Posted by Johnedwrd on November 28, 2007 at 05:38 PM
I have to disagree with you. Why is it only the woman's duty to appease cultural norms? This meeting is in our country, and to be culturally fair, the visiting arabs should dress in levis and wife beaters to blend and not offend.
Iraq Female Suicide BomberA woman wearing an explosive belt blew herself up in Baquba, wounding seven American soldiers and five Iraqis, the U.S. military said Wednesday.
Yesterday nine people were killed when a suicide bomber posing as a shepherd attacked the police headquarters in the city.
It is important to point out here that this woman, along with most other Iraqis known to have committed acts of terrorism against American troops in the past 4 years, was not a member of a terrorist organization before 2003.
This is proof that our mission in Iraq has created more terrorists in the Middle East, and has not in fact made that place safer for Americans.
Marine,
How about this one! All the records confirmed that when states ran the healthcare system the overhead was only 4 to 4-1/2%. After getting the for-profit insurance companies to take over the overhead numbers jumped to 30-35% and the number of people covered dropped.
So much for private sector efficiency. It looks and smells more like rip-off.
socialized medicine at the cost to the government - which gets passed on to the taxpayer anyway.
Currently, hospitals pass costs on to the patient and the insurance companies they pay. So what would be different if Americans decided to use their tax money to pay for health care? They would definetly split the cost, as they do now. And they might just see a reduced cost, given the lack of influence from companies trying to turn a profit at their expense.
This meeting is in our country, and to be culturally fair, the visiting arabs should dress in levis and wife beaters to blend and not offend.Posted by BlueinIdaho on November 28, 2007 at 06:21 PM
WOOT! Yes, indeed, when in Rome do as Romans, that is supposed to be a universally recognized sign of respect for the culture one is in, just as removing one's shoes and washing the feet, head, and hands before entering a mosque is a sign of respect (though not agreement with) the culture of a Muslim.
However, giving a free beaver shot to the Saudis probably is probably not a good idea either. Ms. Rice could have and should have shown better sense and worn a longer skirt, unless she was being deliberately provocative.
How about this one! All the records confirmed that when states ran the healthcare system the overhead was only 4 to 4-1/2%. After getting the for-profit insurance companies to take over the overhead numbers jumped to 30-35% and the number of people covered dropped.So much for private sector efficiency. It looks and smells more like rip-off.
Posted by HybridFuel on November 28, 2007 at 06:26 PM
The same thing happened when Energy and Phone services were privatized. We all watched it happen, even paid the price, and yet someone out there is still able to convince us that it beats government run structures.
These they call socialized, in an attempt to convince people that it is communist or near enough. But, the never address the fact that we are not a communist nation, even if we do decide to use our tax dollars for this purpose, because it is ultimately our choice.
Posted by Marine on November 28, 2007 at 06:10 PM
Have to disagree with you. The costs of healthcare in the U.S. have been driven by technological advances and overuse of those technologies. So far, the insurance companies have been able to keep the costs down, not up. That is how they are able to make any money for the services.
As I like to point out, no one forces anyone (except in MA) to have health insurance. You can pay from under your mattress if you like....but you will pay more.
The discussion goes nowhere unless it is an honest one.
The phrase "socialized medicine" is simply an advertising ploy of those who wish to continue taking Americans for all that they are worth.
I can say this also: It doesn't matter if there were rules written from whenever and whatever Florida may have agreed to at DNC meetings, there is an ENTIRE state mad as sh*t with the DNC. Watchin' to see how it plays out.
Posted by J on November 28, 2007 at 06:12 PM
I thought you mentioned previously (or someone did) that the RNC was doing the same thing in the State of Fl ?????
Why just the DNC?
(And if that were say, TX or CA ignoring the rules they agreed to at DNC meeting, would FL people feel the same? i.e. let them do whatever they want?)
Remove the incentive to come here illegally, and the activity will decrease (never will it cease).
And lets all be honest about the illegal immigration problem we have. It was exacerbated by Ronald Reagon and his decision to give citizenship to millions here illegally.
This is a Republican con meant to provide cheap labor. Don't make it out to be something it's not.
Posted by Marine on November 28, 2007 at 06:14 PM
Oh yeah, when Reagan had the entire Orange Bowl filled to the rim with Cubans and had them all sworn in as citizens. But just to keep the equation on the equal side here, over the years Haitian refugees are routinely sent back to Haiti because to are not "political" refugees, but "economic" so says the Dept of Justice.
Now just for reference here, how in the hell can anyone not be a political refugee from Haiti when there have only been dictatorships up until 25 years ago and when stable governments were introduced they failed miserably because the US in many instances helped set the building blocks for them to fail.
Hmm.......................Haiti, a country with a black population and government/economic continuously decimated.
Africa, a continent with THE richest supply of natural resources in the world. Most countries continuously in political/economic upheaval. Hmm..........
Something to think about.
Have to disagree with you. The costs of healthcare in the U.S. have been driven by technological advances and overuse of those technologies. So far, the insurance companies have been able to keep the costs down, not up. That is how they are able to make any money for the services.
This doesn't jive with the findings of other modern nations who do provide universal health coverage. There costs are down and continue to stay down because they have not let a middleman into the mix.
Tell me what happens when you have another mouth to feed? Never mind, I'll tell you. The cost goes goes up, because it simply can't go down and still provide for all those involved.
ho, hum. just another photo op for Bush, according to those who will be affected by these meetings. 'Disinterested detachment ' for 7 years by Bush is what the word was yesterday. Now he is pledging to help make peace? too little, too late.
JERUSALEM -- Promises by the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to make a fresh attempt at serious peacemaking during the next year were met back at home today with broad doubt that the two sides can reach a lasting agreement that soon.
Though some people found hope for a new start, residents and commentators on both sides for the most part treated the outcome of the U.S.-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis, Md., with the world-weary air of those who have heard it all before.
To many, the gathering produced good speeches but little else to allay concerns that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas lack the public standing to make the politically risky concessions that will be needed to overcome decades of conflict through negotiations.
And people were reminded anew how many blown deadlines already litter this troubled landscape. The U.S.-backed "road map" to peace, unveiled in 2003, envisioned a Palestinian state by 2005, for example.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mood29nov29,1,3385221.story?coll=la-headlines-world
J,
Hope you had a fire extinguisher available when you read those reports by GAO? Those reports contain are real dollars misused, misappropriated and fraudulently laundered by FEMA!
I read those report and got so upset I started to challenge Kristen and talking in circles with her. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, …. That’s what I mean by spontaneous combustion after reading the Katrina Report and the Budget audit by the Comptroller General of USA GAO report!! I tried to use one of the mantras I taught my children to say something nice or funny to get over it. That’s how Blue and Dave helped me laugh out the afternoon.
Yup those reports are real and those numbers are real. They are real audits being conducted. After 6 years of no audits, it’s nice to see a light. It gets me so mad, upset and frustrated when I read the garbage propaganda put out by the repugnant x-tian reich.
Go visit both of those reports and there are more in the GAO archives. Please be careful. Those audits are very honest with the numbers and conflicts with the propaganda the repugnant talking heads have been dumping on us. It will get you mad, upset and frustrated.
…but now we know what we can do about it. We can tell our friends what have been occurring under the repugnant x-tian reich congress and bush administration. Then we can count every single voter we turn around and vote them out of office!!
Blue,
Overuse of the technology is a side issue, and an important one. Currently, hospitals and small practices trying to keep up with operating expenses can and often do make us of technologies that typically prove unsuccessful in treating or assessing many of the conditions they are used for. This is true when CT-scans are used to find cancer, when it is known that many cancers simply will not show up. Here a PET-scan is the best option, but because the instrument is not readily available, most doctors will use the former even though they know it isn't likely to tell them much.
Ms. Rice could have and should have shown better sense and worn a longer skirt, unless she was being deliberately provocative.
Posted by Swooper420 on November 28, 2007 at 06:29 PM
Rice being deliberately provacative? Ewww...now that may be a great incentive to the abstinence only debate.
I thought you mentioned previously (or someone did) that the RNC was doing the same thing in the State of Fl ?????
Why just the DNC?
(And if that were say, TX or CA ignoring the rules they agreed to at DNC meeting, would FL people feel the same? i.e. let them do whatever they want?)
Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 06:35 PM
Yeah, the RNC is doing the same. The only reason I can figure the state isn't upset with them is because the GOP is still in control and more importantly the DEMS have made it clear that they have a "working relationship" at this point with the REPS. I guess they consider this good since Jeb Bush and his crowd had the DEMs virtually locked out of Tallahhassee.
Would Florida feel the same? All I can say is that I have lived here off and on for 30 plus years and Florida is Florida. When they get their attitude up, the state is very difficult to work with on an issue. Plus I have to admit that the state DEM party made it their mission to publicize this issue with Florida being spit and pissed on by the Washington establishment along with the 4 state alliance. Not saying they were right, but it worked. Now all DEMS in the state view the DNC as the spawn of Satan.
The medical community at present, is often more concerned with making a good impression, than with being honest.
Marine,
If one is to reduce the overhead from 30-35% in the private for-profit sector of healthcare providers to the 4 to 4-1/2% when it was ran by the states; guess what everyone can be covered with health insurance.
It's a two-fer-one deal too because there will be less paperwork and beaurocracy therefore less trees will be cut down for the wasteful overhead and inefficient operations by for-profit insurance companies.
here's another view of Bush, Failure-in-chief !
"Cynical doesn’t even begin to describe my reaction to Bush finally noticing the Israeli-Palestine issue. Though Republican presidents tend to pay little attention to the process (partisanship aside, Clinton and Carter are the only ones who excelled at this), the current resident has exceeded the low expectations of Republican presidents in his disdain.
One of the cynical (yes, there’s that word again) reasons Bush has ignored the process is the evangelicals’ line about Israel needing to keep its land to fulfill their vision of Biblical destiny. I am so ready to believe that is true. I know some Jewish people appreciate the “support” from evangelicals, but it creeps me out. A group saying they believe in your cause in the short-term, but believe in your annihilation in the long-term.
But it raises the question: why now? Why is Bush getting involved (well, sort of) now?
Bush talks about his vision of a two-state solution, but won’t impose it. Of course, he won’t impose it because his base would have his hide. Yet he’s able to get away with saying “two-state solution” yet doing nothing about it.
Clinton got so close to a solution that if Gore hadn’t been denied his rightful place, we may have had a solution already.
And in case, Bush doesn’t get it: the animosity in that part of the world has been heightened by his refusal to get involved before now. And in even getting involved, his effort is not even half-hearted.
Posted by Marine on November 28, 2007 at 06:38 PM
The reason it doesn't jibe is that the national health systems in those countries prohibit the medical doctors from overbilling and using newer technologies to take the place of existing modalities. They simply do not have the option of purchasing the newest XJBILLUPTHEASS290 equipment that the American physicians do. Do you think those physicians eat the cost of the new equipment? Nope.
Have great nite Dems!
Rudy Giuliani
criminally expenses his adultery
by kos
Posted by HybridFuel on November 28, 2007 at 06:44 PM
To offset all the misappropriated funds, FEMA makes recepients pay back what they tell them is a grant from the government and to add insult to injury they have an entire department set aside for this collection activity. They routinely give out money knowing that applicants aren't qualified (?) or are they? I questioned this continuously when they sent me a little collection bill. I wanted to know what criteria they were using to say that an applicant was qualified and then a year later they aren't.
After my legal battle with them (I won!) and I saw what others have gone through, my conclusion: that agency if full of sh*t and incompetent!!!!
Now all DEMS in the state view the DNC as the spawn of Satan.
Posted by J on November 28, 2007 at 06:48 PM
well, let's pray that the Cuban/latino vote there this time for Democrats, offsets the pissed off Dems.
PamB,
I sincerely hope and pray that Bush gets exactly what he asked for during one interview. He wanted to go on the speaking tour after his presidency. I hope he gets laughed off the stage just like Delay in UK last month.
Delay was attempting to tell the UK conservatives," ...no-one in USA have been denied healthcare!!! Even the British heckled him off the stage!!!"
When a liar enters your house or community one must point out his sins as stated in Mathews. If he does not repent he must be shunned from the community, bannished or (as the bible requires in the old testiment,"taken to the outskirts of town and stoned to death"). The old testiment is a little primative for my liking by banishment and other punishment are more in-line with modern takes on the scriptures.
DKA at 6:54
this was being discussed on a local talk show this afternoon. The guy was laughing his head off at Giuliani!
"In a story that should shake up the GOP field in a major way, the Politico's Ben Smith nails Rudy for criminally expensing his affairs to the taxpayers of New York City.
As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.
The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.
At the time, the mayor’s office refused to explain the accounting to city auditors, citing “security.”
The Hamptons visits resulted in hotel, gas and other costs for Giuliani’s New York Police Department security detail.
Giuliani’s relationship with Nathan is old news now, and Giuliani regularly asks voters on the campaign trail to forgive his "mistakes."
It’s also impossible to know whether the purpose of all the Hamptons trips was to see Nathan. A Giuliani spokeswoman declined to discuss any aspect of this story, which was explained in detail to her earlier this week.
Rudy is lucky that the questions to tonight's debate are pre-determined already, because this is likely to become a hot topic in the coming days and weeks. And with Rudy quotes like this one:
I had to teach New York City how to use principles of fiscal conservatism.
The reason it doesn't jibe is that the national health systems in those countries prohibit the medical doctors from overbilling and using newer technologies to take the place of existing modalities. They simply do not have the option of purchasing the newest XJBILLUPTHEASS290 equipment that the American physicians do. Do you think those physicians eat the cost of the new equipment? Nope.
What you don't realize here is that they do purchase the equipment you speak of. They do not equip every facility with it, however. Instead, to keep costs down, they equip just enough hospitals in any given region with the devices, and then ask that patients travel for tests and treatment.
Blue,
You are right, I got to thinking about this and you make a lot of sense. Screw them/
It's all about being efficient, not building hospitals that compete with one another as is the case here in America. Hospitals in this efficient system of health care, share the burden and thus operate at a fraction of the cost.
Read this one, and weep !!
11/28/07 "ICH" -- --- Hubris and arrogance are too ensconced in Washington for policymakers to be aware of the economic policy trap in which they have placed the US economy. If the subprime mortgage meltdown is half as bad as predicted, low US interest rates will be required in order to contain the crisis. But if the dollar’s plight is half as bad as predicted, high US interest rates will be required if foreigners are to continue to hold dollars and to finance US budget and trade deficits.
Which will Washington sacrifice, the domestic financial system and over-extended homeowners or its ability to finance deficits?
The answer seems obvious. Everything will be sacrificed in order to protect Washington’s ability to borrow abroad. Without the ability to borrow abroad, Washington cannot conduct its wars of aggression, and Americans cannot continue to consume $800 billion dollars more each year than the economy produces.
A few years ago the euro was worth 85 cents. Today it is worth $1.48. This is an enormous decline in the exchange value of the US dollar. Foreigners who finance the US budget and trade deficits have experienced a huge drop in the value of their dollar holdings. The interest rate on US Treasury bonds does not come close to compensating foreigners for the decline in the value of the dollar against other traded currencies. Investment returns from real estate and equities do not offset the losses from the decline in the dollar’s value.
China holds over one trillion dollars, and Japan almost one trillion, in dollar-denominated assets. Other countries have lesser but still substantial amounts. As the US dollar is the reserve currency, the entire world’s investment portfolio is over-weighted in dollars
I imagine that, if we could actually call our health care industry a health care system, it too would operate efficiently to provide care for all Americans at a resonable cost, not compete for those Americans willing and able to keep up with price hikes.
I had to post this in its entirety due to the bazaar nature of the religious right.
Richard Roberts told students at Oral Roberts University Wednesday that he did not want to resign as president of the scandal-plagued evangelical school, but he did so because God insisted.
God told him on Thanksgiving that he should resign the next day, Roberts told students in the university's chapel.
"Every ounce of my flesh said 'no'" to the idea, Roberts said, but he prayed over the decision with his wife and his father, Oral Roberts, and decided to step down.
Roberts said he wanted to "strike out" against the people who were persecuting him, and considered countersuing, but "the Lord said, 'don't do that,'" he said.
After submitting his resignation, he said, for "first time in 60 days peace came into my heart."
Roberts spoke only for a few minutes and was applauded and cheered by students. He wiped away tears with a white handkerchief and his hands.
"This has nearly destroyed my family, and it's nearly destroyed ORU," Roberts said.
A lawsuit accuses Roberts of lavish spending at a time when the university faced more than $50 million in debt, including taking shopping sprees, buying a stable of horses and paying for a daughter to travel to the Bahamas aboard the university jet.
Roberts has previously said that God told him to deny the allegations. The week the lawsuit was filed, Richard Roberts said that God told him: "We live in a litigious society. Anyone can get mad and file a lawsuit against another person whether they have a legitimate case or not. This lawsuit ... is about intimidation, blackmail and extortion."
On Wednesday, Roberts said God told him he would "do something supernatural for the university," if he stepped down from the job he held at the 5,700-student school since 1993.
On Tuesday, the founder of a Christian office and education supply store chain pledged $70 million to help the university, provided it passed a 90-day review of the school's finances. Oklahoma City businessman Mart Green, founder of the Mardel chain, offered to donate $8 million immediately.
Roberts said he would return to the full-time evangelistic healing ministry, "which is where my heart has always been," and told students and faculty that he will be praying for them every day of his life.
"I believe with all my heart the best is yet to come for ORU," he said.
Roberts walked out of the chapel through a side door to more cheers. Regents Chairman George Pearsons followed, telling students the ORU administration is "endeavoring to do the right thing" during a very difficult time.
"This is a good university," Pearsons said. "ORU is a place where love is king."
Roberts remains the CEO of the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association and remains a "spiritual regent" who cannot vote on university matters.
On Tuesday, Pearsons announced a plan to separate the finances and leadership of the university from the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, a move welcomed by many students and faculty members.
The university has been under the ministry since its inception in 1963, an arrangement that critics say led to co-mingling of funds and a blurring of leadership roles.
Marine,
I agree with I think it was Kerry, who said to simply open and expand Medicare to all citizens of the US. Cost is currently $93.50 per month. If employers , who now would free up having to provide their second largest expense in their budgets, are made to contribute to the National system, that would be billions of dollars. You know, the insurance companies currently rely on the law of large numbers. There are a lot of people out there who do not use the health system, who pay into it now. That would hold true in a Medicare based system for all.
There are ways to do this, believe me, but Politicians are being paid too much by Insurance Companies, Drug companies who do not want to reduce their pricing, etc, to seriously work on a plan.
well, let's pray that the Cuban/latino vote there this time for Democrats, offsets the pissed off Dems.
Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 06:59 PM
Forget that!!! The Cuban-Americans know which side their bread is buttered on. Every break they have gotten has come from a REP administration and they let their appreciation be known at the polls.
J,
I told you not to read those reports; I linked to, at the GAO alone. Reading real audit numbers about the miss-management, fraud and poor accounting by FEMA and Bush administration is self combusting. Those real dollar numbers representing defrauding of Americans by $ Trillions (12 zeros) are shocking!
That's why I read those GAO audit reports; I go nuts for a while, talk to myself, and then share it with others! I have to talk about it because I feel so violated by the propaganda and fraud perpetrated by the repugnant x-tian reich and bush administration.
Hope you feel better soon.
Try to think about the blockade of ½ naked drunken minutemen on blow up flotilla in the Great Lakes being towed to Iraq!
For those interested in self combustion; here are the links to the GAO reports:
Katrina – Fraud FEMA
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08106.pdf
GAO Audit of USA Deficit and Financial Exposure to Liabilities
http://www.gao.gov/cghome/d08241cg.pdf
Please remember these reports contain real dollar that was wasted by the repugnant x-tian reich and bush administration. It can cause anyone reading these reports to get very mad, upset, frustrated, decieved, violated, and spontaniously combust.
Please becareful and share it with others with care.
Then take appropreate action, count each and every voter who is willing to vote these people out of office!
At any rate, if those nations were convinced that every hospital has to provide every service under the sun, rather that as a complex of hospitals providing every service under the sun within a reasonable travelling distance, then their health care costs would be what ours are. But, because they manage all facilities as a part of a regionally complex of health care, they are able to keep costs down.
Pam, thanks for your help on the health insurance.
Gotta run - our small village has just learned of a horrible tragedy. A 22 year old boy was killed in a construction accident at the Port of Albany. Both his mother and father's family are from our village.
BTW, ALL
Did you see Wolf Blitzer tonight, explaining the new DNC tool on it's website, the FLIPPER ??
Check it out if you haven't seen it.
http://www.democrats.org/page/content/FlipperTV/
"By crowdsourcing, the DNC is seeking to engage people by making data available for their own personal use, enabling users to sort through the video and expose the Republican frontrunners' flip-flops, contradictions, and policy positions that show how out of touch Republicans are with the American people. FlipperTV will allow activists and voters to download video to their computers, edit it to create new user-generated video, and judge the candidates' flip-flips and exaggerations for themselves."
Pam, you're right about that. Especially among Pharmaceutical companies, lobbying has become epidemic. Even doctors are the targets of intimate campaigns to get profitable drugs sold to patients. Literally thousands of salesmen and women that decend upon doctors and hospitals each and every day in an effort to sell their latest drug.
Marine,
1) If the overhead is reduced from 30% to 5% almost everyone can get medical coverage.
2) If the repugnant x-tian reich and bush administration did not rape the SS, Medicare, Medicaid Trust Fund and littered it leaving behind a bunch of republican worthless IOU's. The interest alone on the excess fund could have paid for all the medical expenses of everone in USA and all the schools with reduced taxes for everyone. But instead this de-evolving monkey class of fraudulant worshipper of masterbation and "declaration of not-gay" bastard people stole the money and left behind a Ponzi Caper, a pyramid scheme, a chain letter, a bull manure fiscal policy!!!
Go to the link for GAO report on USA Audit by the Comptroller General!
And did I mention the perks provided to those who buy into the pharmaceuticals claims? Too many doctors and hospitals accept them too, too many for any of us to be certain that they were not influenced by the perk, and not the benefits of the drugs themselves.
That's a point Hybrid, but it isn't to say that the system you speak of is the most cost effective.
A more cost effective system would do away with the Insurance middlemen altogether. Fewer mouths to feed equals less overhead.
Even doctors are the targets of intimate campaigns to get profitable drugs sold to patients. Literally thousands of salesmen and women that decend upon doctors and hospitals each and every day in an effort to sell their latest drug.
Posted by Marine on November 28, 2007 at 07:31 PM
I don't think I have ever visited a Dr. office, when there was not a salesman with his/her case on their lap waiting a turn.
And you know, if the Dr. gives my husband a few samples, and writes out a Rx for those drugs, they are ALWAYS on the Tier III, Non preferred Brand ones, where we need to pay an arm and leg and get the Dr. to write a letter that he must take that one !
If Rx companies would save their money from trips and gifts to Doctors, save all their ads on TV to the tune of millions of dollars for Viagra, etc, we would see the price on them all come down!
Hybrid, you don't have to tell me that these guys are crooks and liars. I've known that from the start. At the same time, you would be hard pressed to convince me that every one of our guys has fought them every step of the way, because this simply isn't the case.
I guess I'm stubborn in this way. I don't forget the decisions made by the professionals we employ as our representatives. Instead, I hold them accountable and do what I can to have them replaced when I find them to be either gullible, incompetent or simply two-faced.
To anyone who has not seen this, be SURE to read this article. It is one of the best Economics articles I have read to date. Hybrid, you will love this - except - it will make your head explode - just like it did mine!
The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush
When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.
I can hear an irritated counterthrust already. The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. Well, fine. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.
Posted by Kristen on November 28, 2007 at 09:31 AM
The fallout from that "Rudy charged his boinking in the Hamptons to the taxpayers" story is hitting the Pugs BIG TIME!
We're already seeing the beginning of the end. Rudy's friends are deserting him faster than he deserted Bernie Kerik (interestingly enough, another guy who expensed his adultery to hardworking New Yorkers). The story is topping Drudge. Fox News -- the network accused by rival GOP campaigns of being in the bag for Rudy -- has independently "confirmed" the news, and made it their top story on their web page. Christ, when Drudge and Roger Ailes have bailed on you, who's left?
I can see it now...
"Rudy, how many expensive tryst trips did you bill the taxpayers for"
(Rudy), "I dunno...9...11...could be more"
If Rx companies would save their money from trips and gifts to Doctors, save all their ads on TV to the tune of millions of dollars for Viagra, etc, we would see the price on them all come down!Posted by PamB on November 28, 2007 at 07:39 PM
I expect that we might also see a decline in cases of depression and some of these other less than "critical" conditions. (Here impotence comes to mind as well. As do a few more of the recently invented mental health disorders that do not show up in the historical records and yet are now epidemic. ADHD for instance?)
However, giving a free beaver shot to the Saudis probably is probably not a good idea either. Ms. Rice could have and should have shown better sense and worn a longer skirt, unless she was being deliberately provocative.Posted by Swooper420 on November 28, 2007 at 06:29 PM
i have to admit, this made me chuckle at that picture. Personally, I would think the object was to show her support for 'Bush' ! ;0
On that note, I am heading out. Have a good evening, Dems.
Don't forget the dreaded "Restless Leg Syndrome".
The HORRORS!
The things that doctors and pharmaceutical companies will say for the all mighty dollar. It's truly dispicable, not to metion damaging to America as a whole.
Imagine if, for instance, children were not diagnosed with learning disabilities in record numbers and were instead taught according to their own unique style of learning. Well then, we might find schools adjusting to the needs of the student population as whole and thus becoming more effective at teaching the kids we have. As a final result, we might find Americans, once again, becoming competative with the rest of the world in the area of technological advance.
Don't forget the dreaded "Restless Leg Syndrome".The HORRORS!
Posted by Doo-Bee-Doo-Bee-Doo on November 28, 2007 at 07:54 PM
That's exactly the kind of senseless garbage that I am talking about.
Oh, and the charge for this foolishness gets passed on to every American who makes us of the health care industry.
Michael put up a DEBATE Open Thread which won't be accessible until the LIE FEST starts. Let's try to keep it DEBATE oriented, OK?
I hope ALL the rest of the Pugs blast Rudy with these new boinking findings.
TEE HEE.
BBL
I won't call what we have a health care system anymore, not until it starts functioning like a system instead of competing interests.
Posted by Michigan_Dave on November 28, 2007 at 04:29 PM
ROFLOL seriously hysterical!
-----------------
DPD - what vault? I did manage to get one picture INSIDE before they told me NO PICTURES IN SIDE! LOL
(this is all I have uploaded so far)
some HUGE FIREPLACES (my only inside shot) :-(
The Grounds looking away from the entrance
and I caught a cool sunset while leaving the grounds
catching up
how goes the debate? I'm NOT watching, sorry.
Hi Dawn - I'm at work and I can't watch CNN lob softball questions to the liars either.
Hey Mary
I guess we're chatting over at the debate thread whether watching or not. Michael says it ok so come on OVER! LOL
hmm camera printed two different dates yet all were taken a few hours ago.
strrrrrrrrange! (not my camera)
Oh Hillary come on and fight with nails those vain Republicans are after you. You see if you want to be President; come down to street level. Do your homework on "We the people" not the Royal family green roots.
Where are those Democratic voices that fight for our workers, this Corporate Party has silenced you as their puppet leaded toys. Attack the issues that the Republican dare not answer. It is time to pull out the USS Constitution and give them redcoats a broadside on all patriots lines.
The Dubai Party, Mission Acomplished Recycled Party, and the Katrina Party. It seems the Royals of the Democratic Party have Kerry atitudes that give up "At Will" of a Royal highness Republican Party. If you fail your duty right now then I may have to get a passport to get out of the Corporate Republic and join the true patriots overseas.
Time to pull the Blackwater, DynCorp, and Halliburton string but just like in Congress you will sit on your asses. Show main street America on mainstream values seeing Katrina tears.
Where is the vote in Congress that we need to not have a base in Iraq? With the US in dire needs, why do we need a trillion dollar a year commitment to pay Bush contractors and there cowboy armies.
With Bush values you see how governments are holding the world citizens "At Will" putting them in prisons without trials and torturing citizens with Bush values. Yes, Bush has taken US back centuries, where Americans were imprisoned without due process, and no Red Cross visitation. Yes, you see a Bush value system with his Saudi Arabia Sunnies flogging a raped victim with 200 wiped marks on feminine flesh. A Shiite of a sub servant lower caste like a lynching or a whipping of our Negroes. (Sorry to not use black, but this showed our American division.)
What I do not understand is where is the guts of our Constitution, they are not in Congress nor it seems in the Republican and Democratic Party. So sad this Washington of Tories.
We need a GAO and EAO (Executive Accounting Organization) to certify that all funds are dispensed correctly according to budgets. That all accounting must be certified to the highest standard of concrete accountability.
Make the White House find the missing funds in Iraq before Congress authorizes any more mad money. As an emergency, Congress can give money in parcels to specific elements of Bush's budget like the specific military projects with them reporting back to Congress, and having records to support disbursements. Do not fund Blackwater, DynCorp, and others who cannot account for 100% of the funding. Congress have the White House parcel budgets with priorities and amounts. Have the White House certify receipts with that parcel. Congress do not give a blank check, not to a Savings and Loan Bush family.
Remember in Vietnam after being warned by the French to not go in, we invaded because they were slaughtering civilians, and thought we could take the French's bases "At Will" as cowboys. This scenario is the same as in Iraq right now, the French warning US there were no WMD's but Bush's Cowboys wanted bases there. So they blamed Saddam's slaughter of civilians to justify it. Guess what, after Mission Accomplished, we had a civil war civilian slaughter on Bush blunders. Blunders where we again had to invade with a surge, while watching Blackwater, DynCorp, and contract cowboy disasters trying to hinder it.
God, Bush is Vietnam recycled Nixon, only twenty times worse to our nation, especially with this "At Will" Congress, who does homework figuring out bridges to nowhere but their pocket profits.
I was watching the Republican debate on CNN an Moslem woman in the U.S. asks how do you repair the world's image because of Iraq. Then a CNN special report screen comes on on Cox Cable in Panama City (Bush Country). Guess what it was a Cranny Cantrell Restaurant add for Chanel 9. They then also had the local weather while the debate was on. But the time they got back to her question it was half of one candidate. Why is it that local channel can choose what to override on a debate?
Why is it that local channel can choose what to override on a debate?
Posted by dlesterpoet on November 28, 2007 at 09:38 PM
They need to make money. Weather forecasts are big audience pleasers and generate a lot of advertising revenue. I have a feeling folks would have been upset if they hadn't pulled the debate.
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